As a Pentecostal Christian, I have always espoused the idea of believer’s baptism. That is, I have believed that the only proper candidate for baptism was the person who was of such an age as to have of his or her own free will chosen to be baptized after their conversion experience.
The second part (after their conversion) was demolished by the Fathers when I realized that to them baptism was not some post-conversion testimony to a prior experience of salvation; rather, it was the experience of salvation itself. Not that the water or the act of dipping (even three times as they did in that day) saves a person. But the acceptance of this rite was the manner in which a person “accepted Christ.” There was no protracted “altar call”; there was only a straightforward “baptism call.”
This can be clearly seen in the New Testament itself. For instance in the first sermon of the New Testament church preached by the Apostle Peter, when the crowd inquires as to what they must do to be saved, the Apostle does not tell them to come forward to the altar and “pray through”, nor does he tell them to come forward, sign the card and shake his hand. Instead he says, “Repent and be baptized.”
The first part of my belief as to the proper candidates for baptism was also challenged by the writings of the Early Church. What do they say? Who has the right to receive the rite? Their answer surprised and shocked me.
The first witness we will adduce is Irenaeus of Lyon who wrote near the end of the Second Century. In his magnum opus, Against Heresies he writes:
Being a Master, therefore, He also possessed the age of a Master, not despising or evading any condition of humanity, nor setting aside in Himself that law which He had appointed for the human race, but sanctifying every age, by that period corresponding to it which belonged to Himself. For He came to save all through means of Himself—all, I say, who through Him are born again to God—infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. [ANF 1:391, Bk. 2 ch. XXII]
From our previous posts, one will immediately recognize that the language used here (“born again to God”) referred in the Patristic period to baptism. Thus, infants are here included as candidates and indeed as recipients of saving grace through baptism.
An even more explicit endorsement of this practice is found in St. Cyprian’s epistle To Fidus, On the Baptism of Infants.
But in respect of the case of the infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man….For in respect of the observance of the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, a sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage; but when Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us circumcision of the spirit, the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day, went before in the figure; which figure ceased when by and by the truth came, and spiritual circumcision was given to us. For which reason we think that no one is to be hindered from obtaining grace by that law which was already ordained, and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision, but that absolutely every man is to be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter also in the Acts of the Apostles speaks, and says, “The Lord hath said to me that I should call no man common or unclean.” But if anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted—and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace—how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins—that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another. And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in council, that by us no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all. Which, since it is to be observed and maintained in respect of all, we think is to be even more observed in respect of infants and newly-born persons, who on this very account deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy, that immediately, on the very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping, they do nothing else but entreat [ANF 5: 353-4, Epistle LVIII].
Of note in this passage is the fact that, not only did Cyprian feel this way, but also the 66 bishops gathered with him at the Council of Carthage in 254. If this had been some new doctrine lately sprung up, it is hardly conceivable that the bishops in this council would have been unanimous in their acceptance of it. In fact, it is implausible that this doctrine would have been so widely received without great uproar had it not been a part of the tradition received from Apostolic times.
We will look at some other passages next time but as you may have already guessed, there is almost unanimous assent on this subject in the Early Church. But that's next time.
