Did Rome Add Infant Baptism?

[Dragoon]

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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.

nothing is really know about Iraneus's death so I think you are referring to Polycarp who said "Eighty and six years I have served him", but this may not be saying that he was a Christian from birth because many good historians basing their info on some secular evidence from that time points to him being in his late nineties when he was burned

 

[Houston E.]

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?

My, someone's touchy today....

 

[Dragoon]

To try to answer simply the main point of this thread, No Rome did not add infant Baptism, the practice was around well before the papacy, but Rome did put into effect that all infants were to be baptized as a rule, and therefore forced all to go along with this practice.

 

[JonathanHunt]

I'm a little rusty on my Python. Is this the Psychiatric Dairy sketch?

No, this is the 'argument' sketch where one pays by the minute for the privilege of having an argument.

Rather appropriate...

*backs quietly away from the thread avoiding trip-wires*

 

[R Harris]

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."

The problem of the baptistic position is that no one can come up with a definitive person and/or date that the practice began. Therefore, since the history of the first three centuries is not clear, any such assignment of date and/or person is purely speculative.

Sadly, people such as John MacArthur and John Piper continue to make such ignorant assertions - that it is a "man made tradition", but never point to a conclusive source. It gets quite old and tiring.

Conversely, other than the unbiblical response of Tertullian, one cannot find intense objection to what was a universal practice by the early church. Surely if infant baptism was a gross heresy introduced early in the second century, someone or some substantial group would have loudly objected to it and would have worked to put a stop to it before it became a universal practice. But we read of no such thing.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

nothing is really know about Iraneus's death so I think you are referring to Polycarp who said "Eighty and six years I have served him", but this may not be saying that he was a Christian from birth because many good historians basing their info on some secular evidence from that time points to him being in his late nineties when he was burned

My sentence construction may have been rough but I was referring to Polycarp.

 

[Javilo]

Infant Baptism

There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.

 

[smhbbag]

Sadly, people such as John MacArthur and John Piper continue to make such ignorant assertions - that it is a "man made tradition", but never point to a conclusive source. It gets quite old and tiring.

Why must something have a specific, traceable starting point or originator to be called a man-made tradition?

 

[YXU]

Thanks for all of your replies. To those baptists brothers who affirm this claim, can any writing be provided so that I may have some resources to look at.

I reason about this for a long time, if infant baptism is a practise added by the tradition of men later, then it had caused a big problem. For it will be an error persistently held by many people and has caused divisions among Christians and the majority of people have left the true Christian teaching of baptism by practising this. Therefore, infant baptism would be the greatest heresy and the greatest schism ever in the church history.

So this statement is of heavy weight, for I will be a heretic if such statement is true. Please provide evidences other than assessment.

-----Added 5/28/2009 at 04:40:01 EST-----

There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.

Please provide historical ground for the statement that infant baptism was added by Rome. This is the history forum, I think it is not allowed to discuss the doctrine itself.

Stay on the point, provide historical evidence for your claim.

 

[smhbbag]

Thanks for all of your replies. To those baptists brothers who affirm this claim, can any writing be provided so that I may have some resources to look at.

I've re-read the thread a few times, and I still have not seen a baptist affirm that the Roman 'church' originated infant baptism.

However, there have been many baptists who say it is not true. Have you seen this claim on the board before? I have not.

 

[LawrenceU]

YXU,
Just so you know, any sane Baptist will not call a paedobaptist an heretic. In error, yes. An heretic, no.

 

[Ivan]

yxu,
just so you know, any sane baptist will not call a paedobaptist an heretic. In error, yes. An heretic, no.

never!

 

[YXU]

Thanks for all of your replies. To those baptists brothers who affirm this claim, can any writing be provided so that I may have some resources to look at.

I've re-read the thread a few times, and I still have not seen a baptist affirm that the Roman 'church' originated infant baptism.

However, there have been many baptists who say it is not true. Have you seen this claim on the board before? I have not.

No, I have not seen such claim in the forum before, except you have claimed it in a different thread in one of your reply to Pastor Winzer where you said, we added the Roman infant baptism.

-----Added 5/28/2009 at 04:50:04 EST-----

yxu,
just so you know, any sane baptist will not call a paedobaptist an heretic. In error, yes. An heretic, no.

never!

A error persistently held by some, causing divisions among the holy and catholic church. What is it other than a heresy! it will not be deadly because infant baptism does not destroy your soul, but absolutely a heresy if it is a human tradition.

 

[smhbbag]

No, I have not seen such claim in the forum before, except you have claimed it in a different thread in one of your reply to Pastor Winzer where you said, we added the Roman infant baptism.

I posed a hypothetical about the escalation of rhetoric, showing that saying "Baptists reject Christian (infant) baptism" as he did is inappropriate. Even if the statement is factual, the escalation of rhetoric is simply not helpful to conversation. Likewise, I said it is analogous to me saying "You add Roman (infant) baptism" which would also not be helpful.

First, I didn't even necessarily assert that was true, given the conversation's context.

Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.

 

[toddpedlar]

Sadly, people such as John MacArthur and John Piper continue to make such ignorant assertions - that it is a "man made tradition", but never point to a conclusive source. It gets quite old and tiring.

Why must something have a specific, traceable starting point or originator to be called a man-made tradition?

It's claimed by them to be an innovation. If it's an innovation, then there is a starting point to find, and if it's an innovation contrary to the practice of "the early church", contrary to the commands of Christ, as many Baptists claim, then there ought to be found writing against the innovation. This too is lacking.

Something that is NOT an innovation, but represents the practice of the church from day 1 you would not necessarily expect to find much writing about, in an advocacy sense - since it's the practice the church already had, there isn't the need.

Do you not see that innovations and regular practices would have two different documentary histories? This is why the objection to the claims of Piper and MacArthur that infant baptism is a later "man-made" addition fall flat. The situation is the reverse of what you'd expect from a documentary-historical standpoint, if infant baptism is a later man-made addition.

 

[YXU]

Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.[/QUOTE]

You called infant baptism Roman baptism, implying that the Roman Church originated. As you also don't give credit to this statement, this case should be closed, that it was not Rome who added infant baptism but by some early churches.

 

[reformedminister]

Does anyone know about the ground for such claim that infant baptism was added by Rome and was not the practise of the early churches before Rome.

It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.

Acts 16:15, 33

 

[smhbbag]

Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.

You called infant baptism Roman baptism, implying that the Roman Church originated

When I speak of Roman candles, does that mean the Romans invented candles? When I speak of the Roman Army...does that mean Rome invented armies?
The same goes with baptism. One can call infant baptism Roman, and yet that has no meaning whatsoever about who originated it.

 

[toddpedlar]

Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.

You called infant baptism Roman baptism, implying that the Roman Church originated

When I speak of Roman candles, does that mean the Romans invented candles? When I speak of the Roman Army...does that mean Rome invented armies?
The same goes with baptism. One can call infant baptism Roman, and yet that has no meaning whatsoever about who originated it.

You may not like it, but when referring to infant baptism as Roman, you are doing more than just give it a name. It's not an arbitrary name that one can simply use without any implications. It is a choice which is patently unfair though it may certainly be ignorance of the facts that leads one do this rather than malice. However, to complete the original thought: to tar all infant baptism as "Roman" is to do many things, not least of which is to characterize the proper practice of infant baptism with the gross errors of Tridentine Romanism. The infant baptism of the early church cannot be so identified, nor can the infant baptism which faithful Presbyterians and Reformed practice.

 

[Confessor]

You may not like it, but when referring to infant baptism as Roman, you are doing more than just give it a name. It's not an arbitrary name that one can simply use without any implications. It is a choice which is patently unfair though it may certainly be ignorance of the facts that leads one do this rather than malice. However, to complete the original thought: to tar all infant baptism as "Roman" is to do many things, not least of which is to characterize the proper practice of infant baptism with the gross errors of Tridentine Romanism. The infant baptism of the early church cannot be so identified, nor can the infant baptism which faithful Presbyterians and Reformed practice.

He gave "Roman baptism" as an example of an unfair description in response to someone else who spoke of Baptists as denying "Christian baptism." He was aware of the unfairness as he was making his point.

 

[MW]

One can call infant baptism Roman, and yet that has no meaning whatsoever about who originated it.

From an historical point of view it would be more accurate to say that postponement of baptism was distinctively "Romish," as it followed from the teaching that baptism washes away all sin.

 

[smhbbag]

He gave "Roman baptism" as an example of an unfair description in response to someone else who spoke of Baptists as denying "Christian baptism." He was aware of the unfairness as he was making his point.

Boy, you defended my words better than I did, in half the time. I'll just ditto this

From an historical point of view it would be more accurate to say that postponement of baptism was distinctively "Romish," as it followed from the teaching that baptism washes away all sin.

This is also true. Just as not all infant baptism is Romish, in the same way not all delays of baptism are Baptist.

 

[Whitefield]

There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.

Be careful of resting this totally on the absence of a specific example in Scripture, it might come back on you in the other sacrament.

 

[MW]

There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.

Be careful of resting this totally on the absence of a specific example in Scripture, it might come back on you in the other sacrament.

It is problematic even for the Baptist practice of baptism, because the fact is there is not a single example of a child brought up in a believing household who was baptised when he could speak for himself.

 

[bug]

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.

But then I am not saying the scriptures prove immersion am I? I am asking those who claim that apsotles baptised infants to give me an example of it? I therefore fail to see the relevance of your post in regards to the question I asked.

-----Added 5/29/2009 at 06:48:40 EST-----

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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?

Nope, but I do not have to do I? For the assertion was that the apsotles did it, I just want someone to prove that very bold statement to me. Where in the bible do we read that, I am not asking where in the bible we necerssarily infer that they did it, for such inference is open to interpretation, I am simply asking were we read that they did it?

 

[galactic reformer]

Where are any ages given for recipients of baptism?

 

[R Harris]

yxu,
just so you know, any sane baptist will not call a paedobaptist an heretic. In error, yes. An heretic, no.

never!

Hmmmm . . . . have either one of you heard of "Landmarkism"? The Baptistic Landmarkians would beg to differ with you.

 

[Ivan]

yxu,
just so you know, any sane baptist will not call a paedobaptist an heretic. In error, yes. An heretic, no.

never!

Hmmmm . . . . have either one of you heard of "Landmarkism"? The Baptistic Landmarkians would beg to differ with you.

Of course I have. I am NOT a Landmark Baptist. I have never called a paedobaptist a heretic.

 

[DTK]

From an historical point of view it would be more accurate to say that postponement of baptism was distinctively "Romish," as it followed from the teaching that baptism washes away all sin.

Personally, I would be very cautious about suggesting this from an historical perspective. It seems to have been a widespread practice in the early church, and not particularly peculiar to Rome. I would, however, agree that the belief that baptism "washes away all sin" was, to be sure, a misguided incentive for many to postpone baptism.

This incentive for the postponement of baptism seems to have been all the more powerful in the 2nd century due to the "current thought" then "that no remission was possible for sins deliberately committed after baptism" (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 198), though at the same time period this view was offset by "a more lenient attitude" that "was widely adopted in practice" (p. 199), emphasizing God's mercy and His desire for repentance and confession.

DTK

 

[jogri17]

Sure, Paul was a Roman citizen and Pete had some rights being under Roman control.