Augustine’s Reflections on His Deferred Baptism
Augustine championed infant baptism, mostly influenced by his anti-pelagian polemics in which he determined baptism as the answer to original sin. It has been noted, however, that Augustine was himself not baptized as an infant. He bemoans that his baptism was withheld, but it is important to note that he does not express displeasure because [...]
4th Century Credo-baptisms
Wright notes a hall of fame lineup of churchmen who were raised in Christian homes and yet not baptized until they were of mature years,
If we move from precept to practice, we encounter that widespread group of later fourth-century churchmen and churchwomen nurtured in Christian families but not baptized until they were of independent years. [...]
Credo-Baptist Witnesses from The Apostolic Fathers
Wright weighs the testimony in favor of credo-baptism:
The directions for baptism in the Didache envisage responsible participants as its subjects. There is no provision for young children, but nor are they explicitly excluded. If we recall that only one small paragraph betrays the place for infants in the lengthy baptismal order in the Hippolytan [...]
There is little evidence from the Apostolic Fathers on the practice of infant baptism. If anything, the liturgies assume the baptism of a consenting convert. Though there are references to having served God for one’s life, as in the case of Polycarp, this is still inconclusive regarding the actual rite of baptism. The silence can [...]
Who Bears the Burden of Proof on Infant Baptism?
Many paedo-baptists would argue that credo-baptists bear the proof in articulating discontiuity in the Covenant administrations as it involves children and signs. Credo-baptists have argued that the burden of proof rests with paedo-baptists since we see no clear inclusion of infants, nor a theology attached to baptism that seems to conclusively include children. Wright suggests [...]
Augustine is the one who really cemented a doctrine of paedo-baptism with it’s practice. It is really from this point on that there is qualified consensus in the church. Wright notes, however, that modern paedo-baptists are somewhat in a quandary for they generally don’t accept all of Augustine’s theology, but modify it to varyiing degrees. It [...]
Wright suggests that the practice of infant baptism actually stregthened the doctrine of original sin as the church dealt with the Pelagius issue, baptismal efficacy in washing away sins, and the distinction between the nature of sin in infancy and childhood compared with rebellion in later years.
There is no doubt that the custom of infant [...]
According to Wright, the chasm today over the waters of baptism is wider than in the past. At the same time, it wasn’t like everyone was on the same page then.
Although Christian baptism was often surrounded by contention in the patristic centuries, especially in the western church, the period saw no significant disagreement about [...]
David F. Wright on the Baptism of Young Children
Wright concludes his first chapter, “The Origins of Infant Baptism – Child Believers’ Baptism?”, by stating:
In the year 381 Gregory Nazianzen advised that children should normally be baptized at about the age of three ‘when they can take in something of the mystery, and answer (the questions), and even if they do not yet [...]
The Evolution of Baptism in the First 4 Centuries
I have read Ferguson, who is here quoted by Wright, and concur that infant baptism was first given in emergency, and then became normal practice into the 3rd century as the church essentially adopted a view of baptismal regeneration. As debates about post-baptismal sin arose, baptism was then delayed until one was near death in [...]
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