FEAST OF THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

 THOUGHTS ON THE PRACTICE OF INFANT BAPTISM 

Some Things to Remember

 

This is a photo of my sister, Brenda, holding me as a baby. I was born at home and delivered by my grandmother, a country "midwife." In danger of death, she baptized me right there in the bed in which I had just been born. The Church has always taught that "in an "emergency" anyone can baptize using water "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."  

INFANT BAPTISM AS A CONSISTENT TRADITION IN THE CHURCH

The practice of infant baptism has been a consistent tradition in the Church, both in the East and in the West, since the very beginning. It was seriously challenged during the Protestant Revolt of the 16^th century when the practice of adult or "believer baptism" only was adopted @400 years ago.

The Scriptures were written at a time when adult Jews and Gentiles were being converted to Christianity, but there are several passages where “whole households” were baptized: Stephanas, Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer stories are cases in point. The language of the New Testament is Greek and the word used when “whole households” were baptized is oikos which has traditionally included infants. There are no examples in secular or Biblical Greek of the words being used which would restrict its meaning only to adults.

Here are examples of what early Christian writers had to say on the subject of the infant baptism. Notice that the first example was 1,800 years ago and the last one 1,600 years ago:

Hippolytus

“Baptize first the children (then the men and then the women), and if they can speak for themselves let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them” (The Apostolic Tradition 21:16 [A.D. 215]).

“The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit” (Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248]).

Gregory of Nazianz

“Do you have an infant child? Allow sin no opportunity; rather, let the infant be sanctified from childhood. From his most tender age let him be consecrated by the Spirit. Do you fear the seal [of baptism] because of the weakness of nature? Oh, what a pusillanimous mother and of how little faith!” (Oration on Holy Baptism 40:7 [A.D. 388]).

“‘Well enough,’ some will say, ‘for those who ask for baptism, but what do you have to say about those who are still children, and aware neither of loss nor of grace? Shall we baptize them too?’ Certainly [I respond], if there is any pressing danger. Better that they be sanctified unaware, than that they depart unsealed and uninitiated” (ibid., 40:28).

John Chrysostom

“You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants, though they are not defiled by [personal] sins, so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be his [Christ’s] members” (Baptismal Catecheses in Augustine, Against Julian 1:6:21 [A.D. 388]).

Augustine

“The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23:39 [A.D. 408]).