by Joshua Shaw
A debate raged in the last century between two (Protestant and) German scholars by the names Kurt Aland and Joachim Jeremias.[i] There has since been at least one colossal undertaking on the evidence regarding baptism from 2nd Temple Judaism to the 4th and 5th centuries of the church.[ii] The contention was whether or not the early evidence allows us to say with confidence that the most ancient church practiced infant baptism. Aland said that it did not, adducing the incipient 4th century doctrine of original sin as the cause for the universal establishment of infant baptism; Jeremias said that it did, relying on scattered remarks in the New Testament about households (picking up here on the previous practice of baptising whole house of proselytes), inter-testamental literature, and on the occasional remarks of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others. But the evidence is slight, so slight, that we turn to incidental phrases such as Polycarp’s (at his martyrdom) that he had served the Lord some 86 years (implying service from birth). At any rate, by Origen’s time (c. 240’s AD) , it was simply a universal fact to be explained, not contended for.
Where did this universal practice come from? Is it really explained by the developing doctrine of original sin, however we understand it (viz. Irenaean or Augustinian)?
Laying to one side this very difficult fact (and thorny question) of the ancient church’s practice, I want to side-step all the central issues to look at a slighter one: the embarrassment of men about children.
(Matt’s previous post on I Cor. 1:26f. is quite relevant).
The reaction of the disciples to our Lord’s treatment of infants (very young children) can be observed in the society at large as well as Christian society in particular and is, for me, one indications that infant baptism has divine, rather than human, origins.
To get an interesting look outside the church (but within contemporary Judaism), a fragment of Philo’s Defense of the Jews preserved by Eusebius, gives us these fascinating statements about the Essenes:
Their (= the Essenes) choice of life (προαίρεσις) is not hereditary (for race has no standing in matters of choice), but comes of zeal for virtue and yearning after kindness to mankind. Among the Essenes of necessity no one is very young (νήπιος = infant, baby), nor a youth nor even a young man, since the character of such is uncertain and always suffering revolutions due to the imperfection of maturity. In other words: [Essenes are] mature men inclining already to old age, no longer tossed about by the influence of the body nor led by the passions, who are reaping the fruits of the only true freedom.[iii]
If we look ahead a century or so to Justin Martyr, we find a strikingly similar contention about the nature of Christian conversion or “choice of life.” In his First Apology, when he gives an account about the way in which Christians dedicate themselves to God, he writes,
As men are convinced and believe that these things are true, namely, the things taught and said by us, and promise to be able to live accordingly, … they are taught to ask forgiveness from God for previously committed sins. … Then they are led by us to where there is water and in the manner in which we also were reborn they are reborn. … For indeed the Messiah said: “Unless you be born again, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (And that it is impossible to re-enter one’s mother after being born is obvious to all.) … Since we are ignorant of our first birth and were born by necessity from a moistened seed in the mingling of our parents with one another and have been born amid flippant habits and worthless patterns of living, in order that we not remain children of necessity nor of ignorance, but of decided choice (προαίρεσις) and knowledge… the one who has chosen calls on God and is baptized by water.[iv]
In this fascinating passage we only have time to look closely at one curiosity, namely, the interesting conflation of John 3:3 with Matthew 18:3. The second half (“you will not enter….” etc.) comes from Matthew 18:3, the first from John 3:3 (“unless you be born again”).[v] Justin’s glib dismissal of Nicodemus’ question, taken with his omission of the first half of Matthew 18:3 (“unless you turn and become like little children…”) prepares us for the startling statement: our first birth was morally despicable and of necessity; the second of virtuous (manly!) choice.
In this connection one might also note that, for Justin, we may surmise, something like the taint of original sin (ἐν ἔθεσι φαύλοις καὶ πονηραῖς ἀναστροφαῖς) is a reason not to baptize infants, since this is connected with the lack of reasoned choice (προαίρεσις) to fast and ask for forgiveness. Their very defenceless sufferance of evil resulting from their parents sexual act is why, per Justin, the second birth is so much better than the first!
By now, it will not surprise us when we find a similarly dismissive account of children in Tertullian:
And so it is quite helpful (utilior) to delay baptism in accordance with the disposition and character of each person, and also their age, especially in the case of infants (parvulos). … The Lord certainly says: do not hinder them from coming to me. Let them come, therefore, when they get older; let them come, once they are in school (discunt), once they may be taught (docentur) whither they should go; let them become Christians, once they are able to know Christ. Why is this innocent age in a hurry to obtain the forgiveness of sins?[vi]
Tertullian’s reasoning is in some ways the opposite of Justin’s (he says children are innocentes) – the children are innocent; why baptism? And yet they are the same – let them come … when they get older. Though ostensibly Tertullian sees no need in “innocents” for baptism, yet the conditions for “coming to Jesus” (old enough to learn, to be taught, to “know” Christ) are much the same as Justin’s: oriented toward that self-aware, autonomous maturity we call adulthood. Agency, intellectual ability, and self-possession are made pre-requisites for “coming to Christ” and for baptism.
When we at last return to the New Testament, we find the same situation. The disciples were dismissive of children and likely embarrassed by Christ’s repeated welcome of them, his use of them in illustrations, and, indeed, as models of his kingdom.[vii] In the midst of their debates about greatness (τίς ἐστὶν μείζων), Jesus sets before them a child as a model of humility – as many like actions of Christ (such as receiving the prostitute who pours nard on his feet), this must have been discomfiting. He set before them, in other words, those whom they on other occasions thought unworthy of Christ’s attention.[viii] (Tertullian’s above reference to this passage, by the way, suggests that, at his time, this attitude of Jesus was used to justify paedobaptism: Mt. 19:13-14 [ix].)
This embarrassment about the non-agency of infancy and childhood comes from all quarters, even from our beloved Augustine, who wrote of his infancy, “It irritates me to reckon this a part of my life.”[x]
This cultural background – examples could be multiplied – puts a heavier burden of proof, I think, on those wanting to explain the universal practice of the early church (by the middle of the second century) as resting on the speculative reason and tendencies of men. A wide-spread practice so improbable, so counter to the adult male-driven world of antiquity, seems to have that “queer twist” C. S. Lewis associated with Christianity, with Reality, and, in fact, with the Divine.
[i] Kurt Aland. Die Säuglingstaufe im Neuen Testament und in der Alten Kirche. Eine Antwort an Joachim Jeremias. 1961. Joachim Jeremias. Die Kindertaufe in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten. V&R, 1958. These were followed by a number of replies. Simply googling their names will bring up English translations.
[ii] https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110247534/html. There have been of course many such undertakings, but this one is particularly large and collaborative. My modest collection of evidence in this post would need to be rounded off by a look at the earliest Talmudic evidence.
[iii] Praeparatio Evangelica VIII 11, 3 ἔστι δ’ αὐτοῖς ἡ προαίρεσις οὐ γένει (γένος γὰρ ἐφ’ ἑκουσίοις οὐ γράφεται), διὰ δὲ ζῆλον ἀρετῆς καὶ φιλανθρωπίας ἵμερον. Ἐσσαίων γοῦν κομιδῇ νήπιος οὐδεὶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ πρωτογένειος ἢ μειράκιον, ἐπεὶ τά γε τούτων ἀβέβαια ἤθη τῷ τῆς ἡλικίας ἀτελεῖ συννεωτερίζονται· τέλειο δ’ ἄνδρες καὶ πρὸς γῆρας ἀποκλίνοντες ἤδη, μηκέθ’ ὑπὸ τῆς τοῦ σώματος ἐπιρροῆς κατακλυζόμενοι μηδ’ ὑπὸ τῶν παθῶν ἀγόμενοι, τὴν ἀψευδῆ δὲ καὶ μόνην ὄντως ἐλευθερίαν καρπούμεοι.
[iv] Justin Martyr, First Apology 61 (here). My “perhaps” here is of course not to cast dirt on those parts of the practices, like fasting, which are appropriate for adults (see Didache 7) – only the attitude towards children. The attitude toward sexuality and children in Corinth shows evidence of the same (Pharisaical) tendency: “Is it good not to touch a woman,” they ask Paul; can the result of a mixed union really be “holy”? (To consider alongside this is the fact that they were willing to substitute the occasional prostitute for a steady relationship – prostitution is easier to reconcile with a low view of the sexual union). Because his audience is striving toward “perfection”, Paul dwells on the opportunity for sin as regards the marital union; yet he makes nevertheless the startling claim that “As it is, your children are holy” (I Cor. 7)
[v] The debate about whether Justin knew John’s Gospel is old and, well, rather silly, as the only explanation of the facts (of which we are aware) is that he had John 3 in front of him. That there is an older or other tradition with which he is somehow familiar is of course possible, but since we have no such evidence, we are required to assume that he had (at least part of) John’s Gospel.
[vi] Tertullian, de baptismo 18 itaque pro cuiusque personae condicione ac dispositione, etiam aetate, cunctatio baptismi utilior est, praecipue tamen circa paruulos. quid enim necesse, si non tam necesse est, sponsores etiam periculo ingeri, qui et ipsi per mortalitatem destituere promissiones suas possunt et prouentu malae indolis falli? ait quidem dominus: nolite illos prohibere ad me uenire. ueniant ergo, dum adolescunt; ueniant, dum discunt, dum quo ueniant docentur; fiant Christiani, cum Christum nosse potuerint. quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum?
[vii] So Matthew 18:1-10 but esp. v. 1 “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling a little child he put him in the midst of them and said: truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever will lower himself (ταπεινώσει) like this child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child as this in my name receives me.” Cf. Mark 9:33-37. The fact that children were just always there when Jesus was teaching – whether outside or in a house (οἰκία v. 33) – is shown by certain circumstantial facts (and he took a child; or, he called a child) and manners of speaking, e.g., “one of these children.”
[viii] Mt. 19:13 “Then little children were brought to him that he lay his hands on them and pray; but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus sad, let the little children be and do not forbid them to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
[ix] This is the argument of Jeremias (see n. 1).
[x] Augustine, Confessiones I.7.12. Though for Augustine, the shame (disgust, annoyance = piget), is more about the inability to remember than anything else : Hanc ergo aetatem, domine, quam me vixisse non menini, de qua qua aliis credidi et quam me egisse ex aliis infantibus conieci, quamquam ista multum fida coniectura sit, piget me adnumerare huic vitae meae quam vivo in hoc saeculo. quantum enim attinet ad oblivionis meae tenebras. In all the cases we have looked at the absence of certain adult or at least more mature faculties is painful (προαίρεσις, discere, docere, memorare, etc.). James O’Donnell adds the helpful comparison of de civitate Dei 16.43, quam profecto aetatem primam demergit oblivio, sicut aetas prima generis humani est deleta diluvio. quotus enim quisque est, qui suam recordetur infantiam?