Did Rome Add Infant Baptism?
- Thread starter YXU
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Whitefield
Puritan Board Junior
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
The problem is that in most discussions I've had on this subject, the dates of AR and BR depend on how early the person giving those dates thinks the earliest examples of infant baptism exists... No offense to my baptist brethren here, none of whom I've actually discussed this particular question with. I'm merely reporting what has occurred in the several discussions with others that I've had who have brought this claim up.
LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
Bingo! And we have a winner!
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
Blueridge Believer
Puritan Board Professor
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
I'd like to see one proving immersion.
the particular baptist
Puritan Board Freshman
caoclan
Puritan Board Freshman
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
Can you prove from the Scriptures they didn't?
Reluctantly Reforming
Puritan Board Freshman
Thanks, everybody, for taking all the popcorn. Now what am I gonna munch while I enjoy this?
Dragoon
Puritan Board Freshman
"Scholars disagree on the date when infant baptism was first practiced. Some believe that first-century Christians did not practice it . Others believe that they did, understanding biblical references to individuals "and [their] whole household" being baptized (Acts 16:15, Acts 16:31-33, 1 Corinthians 1:16) as including small children and infants.
While the earliest extra-biblical directions for baptism, which occurs in the Didache (c. 100), seems to envisage the baptism of adults, rather than young children, since it requires that the person to be baptised should fast, writings of the second and early third century indicate that Christians baptized infants too. Irenaeus (c. 130–202) speaks not only of children but even of infants being "born again to God" and three passages of Origen (185–c. 254) mention infant baptism as traditional and customary. Tertullian (c. 155–230) too, while advising postponement of baptism until after marriage, mentions that it was customary to baptise infants, with sponsors speaking on their behalf. The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (died 235), describes how to perform the ceremony of baptism; it states that children were baptised first, and if any of them could not answer for themselves, their parents or someone else from their family was to answer for them.
Some writers who believe that baptism of infants began to be practiced only after the first century - in the third century it was certainly the universal practice and was believed to be of apostolic origin - posit a link between it and the use of baptism by methods other than immersion, methods which, in spite of the evidence of the Didache, some claim did not at all exist in the first century.
From at least the third century onward Christians baptized infants as standard practice, although some preferred to postpone baptism until late in life, so as to ensure forgiveness for all their preceding sins."
While the earliest extra-biblical directions for baptism, which occurs in the Didache (c. 100), seems to envisage the baptism of adults, rather than young children, since it requires that the person to be baptised should fast, writings of the second and early third century indicate that Christians baptized infants too. Irenaeus (c. 130–202) speaks not only of children but even of infants being "born again to God" and three passages of Origen (185–c. 254) mention infant baptism as traditional and customary. Tertullian (c. 155–230) too, while advising postponement of baptism until after marriage, mentions that it was customary to baptise infants, with sponsors speaking on their behalf. The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (died 235), describes how to perform the ceremony of baptism; it states that children were baptised first, and if any of them could not answer for themselves, their parents or someone else from their family was to answer for them.
Some writers who believe that baptism of infants began to be practiced only after the first century - in the third century it was certainly the universal practice and was believed to be of apostolic origin - posit a link between it and the use of baptism by methods other than immersion, methods which, in spite of the evidence of the Didache, some claim did not at all exist in the first century.
From at least the third century onward Christians baptized infants as standard practice, although some preferred to postpone baptism until late in life, so as to ensure forgiveness for all their preceding sins."
WaywardNowHome
Puritan Board Freshman
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
Can you prove from the Scriptures they didn't?
This line of reasoning seems to conflict with the thought pattern behind the RPW. Are we going to be regulative regarding worship but normative regarding baptism? Or am I wrong in this observation?
Houston E.
Puritan Board Freshman
Now you've gone and done it!
And here I was thinking it was going to be a relaxing weekend...
Better look out, they're coming...I can hear the quiet rumbling of tapping fingers even as I speak (err, type)....
caoclan
Puritan Board Freshman
I think this fits into the RPW, as I believe Scripture teaches that baptism is the fulfillment of circumcision, circumcision was performed on children, etc...
PresbyDane
Puritanboard Doctor
Whitefield
Puritan Board Junior
Grabbing the wife and kids and heading into the storm shelter.
ExGentibus
Puritan Board Freshman
WaywardNowHome
Puritan Board Freshman
Now you've gone and done it!
And here I was thinking it was going to be a relaxing weekend...
Better look out, they're coming...I can hear the quiet rumbling of tapping fingers even as I speak (err, type)....
Yikes! I didn't realize my comment would be so volatile.
I'm bracing myself now.
Marrow Man
Drunk with Powder
The WCF (I.6) states:
The "by good and necessary consequence" phrase is generally understood (under the RPW rubric) to allow for infant baptism. I say "generally understood," since the LBC expresses this statement differently:
It would seem that the early Baptists understood the phrase in the WCF as entailing infant baptism and they desired to "close the loophole," so to speak.
Houston E.
Puritan Board Freshman
Yikes! I didn't realize my comment would be so volatile.
No prob...close to the weekend though, so you may be granted mercy.
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Michael Doyle
Puritan Board Junior
It would be incorrect in either case. The RPW, if applied in this case, would not be on basis of example but by command (i.e. Baptize only professors). We do not derive the basis for singing or prayer or the reading/preaching of the Word from narratives that describe these practices but from didactic teaching. The element of baptism is commanded. The baptism of disciples is commanded. The question is whether or not children of believers are disciples.
To the original point, YXU, the basis for asserting that the Church added infant baptism is an a priori commitment that they must have added it. There is certainly no historical evidence that includes any fervent objection to the practice when, if the credo-Baptist position was universal, it left no historical fingerprints in the writings of any ante-Nicene father. Iraneus was a disciple of Polycarp who claimed to be a disciple of John. At his death, he testified to being a Christian from birth.
Reluctantly Reforming
Puritan Board Freshman
I'm a little rusty on my Python. Is this the Psychiatric Dairy sketch?
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
I'd like to see one proving immersion.
Here we go again...
So are there any Baptists here who would assert that infant baptism originated in the Roman church?
If nobody is arguing it, why are we discussing it?
To quote what I'd said before: Any baptist worth his salt will acknowledge the existence of infant baptism before the Roman Catholic so-called church was formed as we know it.
If nobody is arguing it, why are we discussing it?
To quote what I'd said before: Any baptist worth his salt will acknowledge the existence of infant baptism before the Roman Catholic so-called church was formed as we know it.
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