I’m sure all here agree that patristic matters are secondary or even tertiary to those scriptural, though a careful consideration of them is often still a highly interesting and profitable exercise. Here are a few of my thoughts.
In the context of patristic history and their stated reasoning for infant baptism, I think the heart of the matter is the theology behind it, as you in fact mention in your article.
Many paedobaptists, specifically those who hold to reformed theology, would reject baptismal regeneration and hold to eternal security of believers. This would seem to clash with the church fathers who advocated for infant baptism, arguably on the grounds that it washes away original sin. The challenge for the reformed paedobaptist then, is that their view of baptism does not seem to be consistent with church history beyond the baptizing of children of believers.
This was indeed the specific rationale used by the earliest source you quote affirming infant baptism, Origen (mid-3rd Century).
[The] Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must by [sic] washed away through water and the Spirit.
This is essentially the same rationale, when expressed, as given by other patristic writers. The absence of any covenantal connection among them is quite significant. (As I noted in another recent thread, the several instances where early writers draw a loose analogy between the age of administering OT circumcision as a justification for Christians baptizing newborns, is not the same thing as basing the practice on a covenantal theology.*)
Zwingli was the first writer on record that put the practice on an appreciable covenantal foundation, and he expressly admitted he was taking a new approach over and against the historical basis of the practice.** As such, those claiming a NT basis for infant baptism must posits that while much of the early church was correct in practice, they were doing it for very much the wrong reason. This is a rather inauspicious and disconcerting proposition, and arguably poses a greater dilemma than one you associated with the Credo position.
If the credobaptist view of early church history is correct, it means that paedobaptism developed in many geographically diverse and important congregations over the first two centuries of the church…all of this without widespread controversy (Tertullian possibly being the sole exception), and early enough that there was likely little to no dissent in the congregations when they were visited by Origen.
You similarly comment:
After Tertullian, there was not a significance push back against infant baptism until the rise of the Anabaptists in the 16th century. If the early church was quick to refute and fight against heresies in the first few centuries, why is it that so few (if any) voices were raised against infant baptism?
First, I’m not sure comparing infant baptism with heresy is the best propositional context in which to consider any potential development of it in the early church, or that the patristics would have likely seen it in such stark terms, even by those who may have disagreed with it (like Tertullian). Indeed, there are many things attractive and appealing about paedobaptism, and it fits hand-in-glove with the general patristic theology of regeneration and original sin. Personally, I will even cede there is a certain plausibility to infant baptism, whether considered in terms of a regenerational or covenantal framework. I just don’t find either to stand up to a final scrutiny of all the relevant aspects of the topic, whether biblical or historical. In a similar vein you state,
It also is worth considering the question: why would God allow His church to falsely practice such an important ordinance for over 1000 years?
Frankly, any Reform-minded person must conclude that many theological and practical errors on matters just as significant as baptism variously proliferated and flourished from patristic to late medieval times, often for lengthy periods of time. Transubstantiation, for instance.
Overall, I enjoyed your article, and thought is was well-balanced and solicitous. I look forward to seeing what you may further present on the topic.
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*Seemingly the earliest as well as the most cited instance of comparing circumcision and infant baptism comes from Cyprian (mid 3rd Century). I've seen this passage also claimed as evidence of an early proto-covenantal connection between the two (by a Ph. D. nonetheless). But that is simply not the case. Cyprian not only says the council disagreed with the timing aspect of a claim they had considered, but he also makes clear that the only connection between the two as perceived by them was that baptism is the equivalent of spiritual circumcision, once again essentially relating it to baptismal regeneration and the remission of original sin. Adam is deemed to hold the key to relating the two, not Abraham.
As to what pertains to the case of [baptizing] infants: You [Fidus – another North African bishop] said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, that the old law of circumcision must be taken into consideration, and that you did not think that one should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day after his birth. In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judge that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born.
[…] 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 has 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. We bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. (Letters, 64 [58])
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**[Huldrick Zwingli] In the matter of baptism—if I may be excused for saying so—I must conclude that all teachers have been in error from the time of the apostles. This is a most serious and weighty allegation, and I make it with great reluctance, wishing I had not felt compelled to do so by contentious spirits [the Anabaptists], and I would have preferred to have kept silence and to simply proclaim the truth. But it will be seen that the allegation is true, for every teacher ascribed to the water an efficacy that it does not truly possess, and the holy apostles did not teach. They have also misappropriated the saying of Christ about water and the Holy Ghost, in John 3. So our current task is to look at what baptism truly is, though in many places we will have to travel a different path from the one taken by both ancient and more recent writers, or by our own contemporaries.
Im touff—verzych mir alle menschen—kan ich mit anderst finden, denn das alle lerer etwa vil geirret habend syd der apostlen zyten har. Das ist ein groß, treffenlich wort, und reden es so ungern, daß ich's verschwigen hette min lebtag, und darnebend aber die warheit gelert, wo nit die zengkischen mich gezwungen hettind also ze reden. Es wirt sich aber erfinden in der warheit; dann sy habend allsamen dem wasser züggeben, das es nit hat, ouch die: heligen apostel nit gelert haben, und das wort Christi Jo. 3. vom wasser und heligen geyst nit recht verstanden. Darumb wellend ouch wir sehen, was doch der touff sye, warlich an vil orten einen anderen wäg, weder die alten, nüwen unnd yetzigen gethon habend.
[Huldrich Zwingli, Von der Taufe, von der Wiedertaufe und von der Kindertaufe (May, 1525): Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke, (Leipzig: Verlag von M. Heinsius Nachfolger, 1927), IV:216.]
In this treatise Zwingli primarily tackled the prevailing historical notion of what would commonly be termed baptismal regeneration, but he also makes several basic comparisons between baptism and circumcision as covenantal signs. Shortly thereafter, Zwingli would go on to much more fully develop a covenantal basis for infant baptism, similar to the way modern Reformed paedobaptists do. (
Antwort über Balthasar Hubmaiers Taufbüchlein; Nov. 1525; Ibid, 577ff.)