Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

Was Tertullian the only early opponent of infant baptism?

I often see advocates of infant baptism referring to the history of credobaptism as if Tertullian is the only credobaptist source or the only source we know of who was somewhat close to credobaptism in the earliest centuries, the only prominent source early on, or some such thing. Sometimes they won't even mention Tertullian, as if nobody opposed infant baptism before the Reformation. But the evidence suggests that credobaptism was the only or dominant view during the earliest generations of church history. Many church fathers and other individuals other than Tertullian seem to have been closer to credopaptism than paedobaptism. For an overview, including patristic and medieval sources before and after Tertullian, see here. And here's one on Aristides, a pre-Tertullian source. They give a variety of reasons for waiting until after infancy for baptism, such as waiting until the person baptized has an understanding of and has professed the faith and the importance of having the person baptized choose to participate in baptism. The notion that everybody who delayed baptism did so only or primarily to have his baptism cover more sins later in life is demonstrably false.

An Important Point To Keep In Mind In Baptismal Discussions

Advocates of baptismal regeneration make their position seem more plausible and historically popular than it actually is by assuming the presence of baptism in passages (in the Bible or elsewhere) that don't mention it. Even if an entire document or everything we have that was written by a particular individual says nothing about baptism, it will be assumed that baptism is meant to be included in any reference to faith, repentance, justification, or whatever. Something similar is done by advocates of infant baptism. If baptism is discussed without any mention of baptizing infants, even if the comments on baptism seem to be of a highly credobaptist nature, it will be assumed that the author believed in infant baptism. Supposedly, there was no need for him to spell out his belief in infant baptism, since it's so obvious, was part of the background knowledge of his audience, etc.

One of the problems with that sort of approach, in the context of baptismal regeneration or in the context of infant baptism, is that some of the relevant documents were addressed to non-Christian audiences. I've discussed some examples in the past (e.g., The Epistle To Diognetus, Justin Martyr). See this post on Aristides, for example. The best explanation for why these authors don't mention baptism in the relevant contexts is that they didn't think baptism was involved. It would be problematic to conclude that Christian audiences assumed the inclusion of baptism without any mention of it in these contexts, and it's even more problematic to make that assumption about non-Christian audiences.

Credobaptism Before The Reformation

I discussed infant baptism at length in some posts here in 2006. I don't think I've addressed the subject much since then. I want to revisit it.

Evidence Against Infant Baptism In Aristides

I've written about how Aristides is a neglected source on baptismal issues. A passage I didn't bring up there was the following in section 15 of his Apology:

"Further, if one or other of them [Christians] have bondmen and bondwomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction."

If somebody considers infant baptism a means of making the baptized child a Christian, the testimony of Aristides is some early evidence to the contrary. You could add one or more qualifiers to Aristides' comments to reconcile what he said with the view of infant baptism under consideration (e.g., by "children", he only meant a particular subcategory of children), but that would be a less natural reading.

When Tertullian writes against infant baptism in section 18 of his treatise On Baptism, he's often thought to be making the first explicit reference to an actual practice of infant baptism in the historical record rather than to be merely responding to a hypothetical. And I agree. It's likely that infant baptism was being practiced at the time by some people, though only a minority, and that Tertullian was responding to actual people who advocated the practice. And one of the comments Tertullian makes when arguing against infant baptism is "let them [infants] become Christians when they have become able to know Christ". So, it seems that the opponents he has in mind considered infant baptism a means of making the infants Christians. If so, the contrast between their view and Aristides' comments about persuading the children of Christians to become Christians is striking. Aristides appears to be offering two contrasts to the advocates of infant baptism Tertullian is interacting with. Aristides doesn't mention making infants Christians through baptism, and he does mention persuading them to become Christians. Tertullian's comments provide a significant contextual factor in interpreting Aristides.

And a point I made in my earlier thread about Aristides should be reiterated. He was writing to a pagan audience. It's unlikely, accordingly, that he would have expected his audience to make certain unstated Christian assumptions relevant to infant baptism, would have expected them to recognize highly subtle allusions to infant baptism, etc. The best explanation for why he seems to say nothing of infant baptism when discussing relevant topics and seems to even contradict the concept of making infants Christians through baptism is that he didn't hold such a view of baptism.

Infant Baptism in the First-Century Presupposition Pool

https://www.academia.edu/34577884/Infant_Baptism_in_the_First-Century_Presupposition_Pool

Pedobatista

https://voltemosaoevangelho.com/blog/2019/02/preciso-ser-batizado-de-novo-visao-pedobatista/

INFANT BAPTISM DEBATE: Gregg Strawbridge vs. James White in Orlando (March 23, 2015)

http://www.paedobaptism.com/strawbridge-v-white-debate-orlando-march-23-2015/

The oikos formula

http://upper-register.typepad.com/blog/2014/11/2014-ets-annual-meeting-in-san-diego.html

Bibliography on baptism

To my knowledge, these are the best monographs on the credo/paedobaptism debate:

Credobaptism

K. Aland, Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? (Wipf & Stock 2004)

E. Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Eerdmans 2013) 

T. Schreiner & S. Wright, eds. Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (B&H 2007)

H. F. Stander & L. P. Louw, Baptism in the Early Church (EP Books 2004)

G. Welty, "A Critical Evaluation of Paedobaptism":

http://founders.org/library/welty/

D. F. Wright, Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies (Wipf & Stock 2007)

Paedobaptism

R. Beckwith, Calendar, Chronology And Worship: Studies in Ancient Judaism And Early Christianity (Brill 2005), chap. 13.

H. Hoeksema,  Believers and Their Seed: Children in the Covenant (RFPA 1997)

J. Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (Wipf & Stock 2004)

_____, The Origins of Infant Baptism: A Further Study in Reply to Kurt Aland (Wipf & Stock 2004)

M. Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of the Covenant Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Eerdmans 1968)

http://www.meredithkline.com/klines-works/by-oath-consigned/

J. Murray, Christian Baptism (P&R 1992)

V. Poythress, "Linking Small Children with Infants in the Theology of Baptizing," WTJ 59/2 (1997): 143-158:

http://www.frame-poythress.org/linking-small-children-with-infants-in-the-theology-of-baptizing/

_____, "Indifferentism and Rigorism in the Church: With Implications for Baptizing Small Children," WTJ 59/1 (1997) 13-29:

http://www.frame-poythress.org/indifferentism-and-rigorism/

B. B. Warfield, "The Polemics of Infant Baptism"

http://www.the-highway.com/InfantBaptism_Warfield.html

Proselyte baptism

As an Anglican, Roger Beckwith naturally supports infant baptism. However, he raises some interesting questions regarding the extent of infant baptism in the early church. If Christian baptism is a modification of John's baptism, which is, in turn, a modification of proselyte baptism, and Christians originally followed that paradigm, then paedobaptism may not have been a universal practice at first. The practice of postponing baptism was another drag factor. 

There are potential strategies for blocking his inferences, but Beckwith's argument is interesting because it concedes certain restrictions on the traditional scope of infant baptism even if you grant the apostolicity of infant baptism. 

The point of contact between the two pairs of ceremonies is that John's baptism, like proselyte baptism, is an initiation rite, performed once only, at the time of conversion. John reinterpreted proselyte baptism as a washing away of sin, and therefore applied it to Jews as much as Gentiles, but likewise in an initiatory fashion.  

Jeremias makes much of the fact of proselyte baptism, and also of Jewish household baptism, in establishing his case, since these present close parallels to the missionary methods used by the apostles. Peter's actions on the Day of Pentecost established a precedent, for it is clear that the apostles and their fellow-evangelists had their converts baptized (Acts 8:12-16,36-39; 19:5; Rom 6:3; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:27; Col 2:12) and that they often baptized them by households. Some of these converts were Jews, some were Gentiles, and some were that middle-category of God-fearers or God-worshippers–Gentiles who attended the synagogue but had not submitted to circumcision. They are mentioned a good number of times in the NT (Acts 10:2,22,35; 13:16,26,50; 16:14; 17:4,17; 18:7).  

The NT contains five individual examples of converts whose households or families were baptized with themselves. The first of these is apparently the God-fearer Cornelius at Caesarea (Acts 10:1f.,46-8; 11:14). Then there are various instances in Macedonia and Greece: the God-fearer Lydia (Acts 16:14f.), the Philippian jailor (Acts 16:33), the Jew Crispus (Acts 18:8) and Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16). It is hard to think that, in the case of Jews and God-fearers, when their households were baptized, this would not have included any children they had, in accordance with Jewish practice. In the cases of Gentiles converts, there might be more room for doubt, but in these cases too, the apostles supervising their baptism were of course Jews, even though they themselves were Gentiles. It is sometimes suggested that none of these five households need have included children, but if it was the practice of the apostles to baptize households, as it evidently was, many such households would have been bound to include children.  

We have more or less explicit evidence that circumcision and proselyte baptism were given to infants as well as adults. In the case of John's baptism and Christian baptism, the NT evidence is not explicit and we are dependent upon inference. But if John's baptism was an adaptation of proselyte baptism, one may assume that he too would probably have admitted the infant children of his converts, and the more so as he was baptizing in immediate expectation of divine judgment on those who did not respond to his message (Mt 3:7-12; Lk 3:7-17). A similar inference could be made in the case of Christian baptism, and here we have more to go on, because there are the records of household baptisms, at which we have just been looking, and which strongly imply baptism of infants as well as adults. 

There is one interesting difference between circumcision and proselyte baptism which may have affected early Christian practice. Circumcision was given in every generation. Proselyte baptism, however, was given only in the first generation, after which the proselyte and his family would observe the laws of ceremonial cleanness, and so would not need to repeat it. On this model, a Christian family might be baptized in every generation or only in the first generation, and it is possible that there was for a time a variety of practice, even among Jewish Christians.  

But though we may have confidence that infant baptism began in the apostolic age, we cannot be sure that it was at first universal. We have noted the possibility that in some Jewish families it was not practised except in the first generation, and in Gentile families there may have been less readiness for it than in Jewish. If this is so, there was probably a variety of practice until agreement was reached that every Christian needed to be baptized. This would still leave open the question, at what age he needed to be baptized. Infant baptism was, before very long, widely practiced, as the evidence from Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus (from the late second and early third centuries) indicates, but the numerous converts from paganism were still baptized as adults, which made it possible for Tertullian to raise the question of whether this was not a better age for baptism. He did not claim that infant baptism was a novelty, but he argued that the forgiveness of sins was less needed in infancy: it was more suitable at an age when there were actual sins to be repented of and washed away (On Baptism 18). Others thought similarly, to judge from 3C inscriptions which show baptism sometimes delayed until there was a danger of death. And after the conversion of the Empire in the fourth century, such delay became for a time, though only for a time, common. For as long as a delay was being practiced, a fruitless desire to avoid postbaptismal sin seems to have been the reason. 

At the conversion of the Empire there was naturally a flood of adult converts, but it was not long before almost all adults were at least nominal Christians, and were baptized as such, and the only remaining candidates for baptism were the children who might be born to them, in that or succeeding generations. As long as the practice of delaying baptism still existed, this did not make infant baptism universal, but it was largely a matter of time before it did. Only in missionary work in new lands or among new peoples would the situation be any different. R. Beckwith, Calendar, Chronology and Worship (Brill 2005), 220-225.

The in-group

I’m going to propose a modest little argument for infant baptism. Mind you, I don’t think there’s much riding on this issue one way or the other.

The usual arguments for and against infant baptism are theological. Mine is sociological. Let’s begin with some illustrations.

When I’m born, I’m born into a community. I have an individual identity, but I also have a social or familial identity. I have a built-in set of relationships. I’m born into a family. I’m related to my parents. I’m related to my siblings, if I have any. I’m related to aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

By “relation” I don’t mean a blood relation, per se. After all, some of my relatives are in-laws.

Rather, there’s a sense in which I belong to that social unit. I’m a member of that nuclear family or extended family. And there’s nothing I did to achieve that status. Rather, that’s an ascribed status.

Likewise, if I’m born to rich parents, that puts me in a differential social class than if I’m born to poor parents. And I did nothing to merit or demerit that social status. It’s a role I’m born into by virtue of second parties I’m related to.

Or take nationality. I was born in America to American parents. That automatically made me an American citizen. The United States claims me. I have certain rights and responsibilities as an American, in contrast to rights and responsibilities I’d have as an Italian or Scotsman or Frenchman.

Suppose your parents belong to a church. They belong to a religious community. If you’re born to your parents, you are thereby born into their religious community. Because they belong to that religious community, and you belong to your parents (“belong” in the sense of being a family member), you belong to that community. You acquire their preexisting social attachments. Their affiliation becomes your affiliation via your affiliation to them.

Infant baptism is a public acknowledgement that you’re a member of that religious community by virtue of your relationship to your parents, and their relationship to the religious community. It carries over. (This would also be true if your parents joined a church.) You are born into whatever in-group your parents belong to.

You’re not treated as an outsider. It’s not like you just walked in off the street.

To take another illustration, when I was a young kid, the principal of the school where my father taught held a summer picnic on school grounds for the faculty. But, of course, attendance wasn’t restricted to faculty. Spouses and children of faculty members were both allowed and expected to come. They were part of the in-group. Although they weren’t employed by the school, they were treated differently than a stranger who simply walked onto the campus to crash the party. The man on the street wasn’t invited to the picnic.

By the same token, it’s possible to lose your ascriptive membership. In principle, I could renounce my American citizenship. I could apply for citizenship in another country. That would be analogous to apostasy. Or I could be convicted of treason and deported. That would be analogous to excommunication.

Ascriptive membership is different from communicant membership. That’s not transmissible. Communicant membership requires a credible profession of faith. Kinship doesn’t cut it.

Genre and Early Church Evidence for Infant Baptism

A.N.S. Lane, commenting on patristic scholar David Wright's material, makes a good observation about interpreting the evidence for infant baptism in the early church:

One important contribution that David [Wright] has made is to remind us of the need to be critical of the early sources for infant baptism. In particular, we need to bear in mind the genre of our sources. There are sermons and other writings that contain exhortations either to baptise or not to baptise babies. These testify to the views of the authors and show what views were considered acceptable, but do not in themselves prove that anyone actually followed the advice given. Then there is evidence as to when specific individuals were baptised, either through literary biographical information or from inscriptions. In between these two types are church orders and other works regulating practice. These do not give hard statistical information but are clearly a far more reliable indicator as to what actually happened than are exhortatory sermons. So, for example, Cyprian’s account of the controversy over whether baptism should be delayed until the eighth day might lead one to suppose that the practice of infant baptism was universal, but other evidence indicates that it was not. On the other hand, the controversy would not have occurred were significant numbers of babies not being baptised. ["Baptism in the Thought of David Wright," Evangelical Quarterly 78, no. 2 (April 2006), 140.]

(For those who don't know, Steve Hays and Jason Engwer have written a good deal about infant baptism at Triablogue. One method of finding these articles is to browse the results of an advanced Google search. Also consider the posts here, here and here.)