How Diversely John 3:5 Was Interpreted Before The Reformation

The claim is often made that everybody agreed about the meaning of John 3:5 before the Reformation. Supposedly, there was universal agreement that the passage teaches baptismal regeneration.

Really, though, the passage was interpreted in at least a few different ways before the Reformation. Even among those who thought the passage referred to baptismal regeneration, there were substantial disagreements about other aspects of the passage. I've discussed such issues in other posts, like here. Even today, when two individuals agree that the passage is referring to baptismal regeneration, one will claim that baptismal regeneration was in effect at the time when John 3:5 was spoken, whereas the other will claim that it didn't go into effect until later. And if you ask three different people who hold the latter view when baptismal regeneration went into effect, you could easily get three different answers.

In the post linked above, one of the examples I cited regarding the various pre-Reformation understandings of John 3:5 was Cyprian. He thought the passage refers to two sacraments, baptism ("born of water") and the laying on of hands ("and the Spirit"). He thought the two were closely related, but distinct (e.g., Letter 71:1). In another letter, he wrote:

"And therefore it behoves those to be baptized who come from heresy to the Church, that so they who are prepared, in the lawful, and true, and only baptism of the holy Church, by divine regeneration, for the kingdom of God, may be born of both sacraments, because it is written, 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' [John 3:5] On which place some, as if by human reasoning they were able to make void the truth of the Gospel declaration, object to us the case of catechumens; asking if any one of these, before he is baptized in the Church, should be apprehended and slain on confession of the name, whether he would lose the hope of salvation and the reward of confession, because he had not previously been born again of water? Let men of this kind, who are aiders and favourers of heretics, know therefore, first, that those catechumens hold the sound faith and truth of the Church, and advance from the divine camp to do battle with the devil, with a full and sincere acknowledgment of God the Father, and of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost; then, that they certainly are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism who are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood, concerning which the Lord also said, that He had 'another baptism to be baptized with.' [Luke 12:50]" (Letter 72:21-22)

Notice that he doesn't dismiss these people he's disagreeing with as heretics. Rather, he objects that they're "aiders and favourers of heretics". They seem to be individuals who are, from Cyprian's perspective, otherwise orthodox, though he disagrees with them in the context in question. And though he doesn't give us much information about these people or some of the details of their view of John 3:5, he tells us enough to allow us to determine that they disagreed with Cyprian's view of the passage and that they didn't agree with what Cyprian went on to say about baptism of blood (being baptized by your blood if you died as a martyr without being baptized by water). The individuals Cyprian is responding to held a favorable view of martyrs and, in fact, brought them up as an example of unbaptized individuals who surely would be saved. But since Cyprian brings up baptism of blood as a counterargument, these individuals apparently didn't consider a baptism through blood the means by which these martyrs would be justified. So, it looks like these people disagreed with Cyprian's view of John 3:5 and disagreed with modern proponents of baptismal regeneration who believe in a baptism of blood. Whatever the other details of the interpretation of John 3:5 held by the people Cyprian was responding to, their view seems to have been something different than both Cyprian's interpretation and the popular modern interpretation that sees only one sacrament in John 3:5 (contrary to Cyprian) while also affirming a baptism of blood.

And it's not as though the two interpretations of John 3:5 reflected in this letter of Cyprian were the only ones that people held before the Reformation. See my post linked earlier and here, for example.