Baptism in Early Church History
Introduction
Gavin Ortlund has published a video making the case that credo-baptism is more firmly rooted in church history than paedo-baptism. If you are unfamiliar with Ortlund, his many books include Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future and Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy. Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments about the history of baptism, you must contend with his historical interpretations, always ensconced in intellectual etiquette. Ortlund refreshingly avoids that odious vice in online discourse that is mysteriously hostile to healthy debate. That’s part of what makes his arguments worth contending with.
So, the goal of this essay is to provide an overview of the history of baptism in the first several hundred years of the early church. We’ll be quoting from and summarizing what the church fathers said on this issue, with an eye toward some of Ortlund’s claims about the history of baptism.
The goal is not to make a biblical argument for paedo-baptism. For more of that you can click here. The goal is to try and tell the story of the history of baptism in the early church using the primary sources. In doing so we see that Ortlund has overstated the historical case for credo-baptism.
This essay is broken into four sections.
First, the writings of the early church
Second, the paintings of the early church
Third, the claim that infant baptism originates with emergencies
Fourth, the claim that there is no reference to infant baptism until A.D. 200
Writings
The Didache
Didache #7 says, “And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”[1]
Notice it’s a descending ladder of preference. The Didache says that baptism should, in first order of preference, use flowing or living water. In a second order of preference, use other water. The third order of preference is for cold water before warm water. If there is insufficient water, pouring is permitted.
Why did they have this order of preference? The Credo-Baptists argument is that they got immersion from the New Testament. But is there another explanation?
During the inter-testamental period, the Rabbi’s began immersing Gentiles as part of the conversion process. The Rabbinical practice has a history. In the Old Testament, circumcision alone marked entry into the covenant. But sometime during the intertestamental period, Jewish practice came to require a ritual immersion of Gentile converts alongside it.[2]
Why did they start doing this? Two reasons. The first was the precedent of initiation. They saw that Israel received the covenant at Sinai via ritual washing (Ex. 19:10-14). If Israel was ritually washed before receiving the covenant at Sinai, then how much more does a Gentile need special washing before becoming a Jew? The second was the precedent of purity. Gentiles, cut off from God, were regarded as dwelling among the dead. According to Numbers 19:11-19, anyone defiled by contact with a corpse required ceremonial washing. Becoming a Jew meant leaving the fellowship of the dead for the living. Death had to be washed off. The Rabbis claimed that at the moment of emergence from the water, the Gentile was officially converted.[3]
This is an intertestamental development by the Rabbis. In some ways it is drawing on authentic Old Testament practice. For example, the Rabbi’s immersion of Gentile converts was extended to children, meaning that children would convert along with their father,[4] similar to how Abraham was justified by faith, so he and his children were circumcised (Gen. 15:6; 17:7). In other ways, immersing converts is an innovation. In the Old Testament, a Gentile convert’s conversion was marked by circumcision (Ex. 12:48), which was applied only to males. The Rabbi’s new immersion rite applied to male and female alike.[5]
So, back to the early church. Why do the Didache (and Justin Martyr) prioritize immersion as the mode of baptism? [6] Gavin Ortlund claims they get it from the New Testament, “What’s conveyed in the early sources like The Didache and theologians like Justin Martyr sounds like credo-baptism in the same way that the New Testament sounds like credo-baptism.”
But, there is another explanation. Could it be that the priority of immersion is inherited from the practice of the intertestamental Jewish Rabbis, who practiced immersion as the rite of covenant entry for converts? In which case, it would take the church some time to straighten this out and allow the force of biblical evidence and the New Covenant to emerge as the standard way of handling the issue.
Irenaeus
Ortlund argues that in early church history there is not even references to infant baptism as an exception. He asks, “If infants are sort of exceptional, why don’t we see some reference of exceptions?” He dismisses Hippolytus as a proper example. And he dismisses Irenaeus as evidence of an exception.
But, what does Irenaeus say about it?
In A.D. 180, Irenaeus, who was taught by Polycarp, the disciple of the apostle John, said this, “For He came to save all through means of Himself — all, I say, who through Him are born again to God — infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age.”[7]
Why is Irenaeus saying this? He is making an argument about the age of Jesus, contending that Jesus lived to be nearly fifty years old and that he passed through every stage of human life, sanctify each one. Irenaeus was wrong about the age of Jesus, but his logic is incarnational. Christ redeems infancy by being an infant, childhood by being a child, and so on. Christ’s incarnation sanctifies every stage of life for his people, even infants. Irenaeus says these infants and children are “born again to God…sanctifying them to the Lord.”
What do the concepts of “born again” and “sanctification” mean in the early church? In Scripture, the concept of regeneration, or being “born again,” is tied to baptism (Jn. 3:5; Eph. 5:26; 1 Cor. 6:11; Titus 3:5). Also in Scripture, the concept of sanctification is often tied to being cleaned, which connects to being washed. So it is that Paul says the child of at least one believing parent is “holy” (i.e. sanctified) and not unclean (1 Cor. 7:14).
So also in the early church, regeneration is connected with baptism, as Justin Martyr wrote, “Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated … they then receive the washing with water.”[8] Irenaeus himself writes of certain Gnostics that they have been moved “to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God.”[9]
Given the close association between regeneration, sanctification, and baptism in Irenaeus and other early Christian writers, Irenaeus saying that children are “born again to God…sanctifying them to the Lord” makes the most sense under the logic of paedo-baptism.
Not only does Ortlund dismiss Irenaeus’ argument, he also dismisses Hippolytus’ argument, saying credo-baptism is described in early church history and “nowhere indicate[s] any exceptions.” Is that claim accurate?
The Apostolic Tradition
The Apostolic Tradition is conventionally ascribed to Hippolytus in the year A.D. 215. Its date and unity are debated. It likely contains the work of several authors over many years. With these unknowns, the most honest dating would be somewhere between the mid-third to the mid-fourth century.[10]
Consider the baptismal ordo of chapter 21. It prescribes the whole baptismal rite, which includes immersion in water three times. But it also prescribes that little children be baptized first, with parents or family answering for those unable to speak. This is not an emergency exception for the child (see more below), but part of the normal baptismal rite. It shows that the process of adult catechesis and baptism can include baptism of the children too young to speak for themselves. Also, the Apostolic Tradition retains the rabbinical practice of immersion.[11]
Origen
Origen (A.D. 185-254) twice states that the church baptized infants and claims apostolic origin for the practice.
First in his Commentaries on Romans he writes, “The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit.”[12]
Second in a sermon he quotes Leviticus 12:8 and then says, “Every soul that is born into flesh is soiled by the filth of wickedness and sin. . . . In the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins, and, according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants. If there were nothing in infants which required the remission of sins and nothing in them pertinent to forgiveness, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous.”[13]
Cyprian
Cyprian’s letter to Fidus dates to A.D. 253. It addresses the question of infant baptism. The entire exchange assumes that infants are baptized. They are wanting a ruling on the exact timing. Should parents wait until the eighth day to baptize their child to mirror the practice of circumcision? The answer given was no, you don’t need to wait or delay, “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.”[14]
Cyprian’s answer comes from a synod of sixty-six African bishops who are keeping firmly the faith and practice of the church.
Then there is Cyprian’s letter “To Magnus, on Baptizing the Novatians, and Those Who Obtain Grace on a Sick-Bed.”[15] It dates to A.D. 255. The letter is about whether people baptized by the Novatian schismatics need to be baptized again on entering the church. The letter addresses issues related to baptism and its mode. Cyprian accepts baptism by pouring as a concession for the sick, revealing, similar to the Didache, that in the early church immersion was normal and pouring was valid.
Others
Early church history contains other similar indications that infant baptism was practiced.
Gregory of Nazianzus said, “Do you have an infant child? Allow sin no opportunity; rather, let the infant be sanctified from childhood. From his most tender age let him be consecrated by the Spirit. Do you fear the seal [of baptism] because of the weakness of nature? Oh, what a pusillanimous mother and of how little faith.” Elsewhere, he said, “‘Well enough,’ some will say, ‘for those who ask for baptism, but what do you have to say about those who are still children, and aware neither of loss nor of grace? Shall we baptize them too?’ Certainly [I respond], if there is any pressing danger. Better that they be sanctified unaware, than that they depart unsealed and uninitiated.”[16]
So, Gregory permits infant baptism if there is pressing danger. In the broader text he recommends waiting until about age three for healthy children so they can have some understanding of the words. Yet even Gregory, an advocate of delaying baptism, assumed infant baptism was valid and available.
John Chrysostom said, “You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants, though they are not defiled by [personal] sins, so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be his [Christ’s] members.” This is cited by Augustine as part of the Baptismal Catechesis.[17]
Paintings
The paintings of the early church give indications that immersion wasn’t the only mode of how the church fathers practiced baptism.
The painting known as Catacomb of Callixtus (A.D. 200-250) in Rome includes a figure standing in shallow water with another figure pouring water on his head. If this isn’t Christ’s baptism, then it is a painting of a generic Christian baptism.
The painting from the Catacomb of Ss. Marcellinus and Peter (A.D. 3rd-4th century) in Rome shows a baptism scene of someone standing in water, evoking the same process depicted at the Catacomb of Callixtus.
The baptismal room at Dura-Europos includes a baptistery fresco. The entire purpose was to perform Christian baptisms. It dates from A.D. 232-256 and is located in eastern Syria, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, close to the Iraq border. The room contains a font under a canopy that is surrounded by elaborate decorations. The font, which was about a meter deep, held the water. The design is that the person stands or kneels in the font while water is poured on them. Full submersion in water would have been difficult, especially for an adult.
The paintings surrounding the font reveal their understanding of the meaning of baptism. The Good Shepherd over the font casts baptism as entry into Christ’s flock. Adam and Eve beneath it set up the fall that baptism reverses. The healing of the paralytic and Christ walking on water are water-and-rescue scenes, Christ pulling Peter from drowning is a symbol of salvation through baptism. The Samaritan woman at the well signals the use of living water as the way to encounter Jesus. The procession of women moving toward a canopied structure mirrors the movement toward the font.
It’s hard to draw conclusions from these paintings. At the very least it reveals that one of the modes of baptism in the early church was pouring.
Did Infant Baptism Originate in Emergencies?
Ortlund, following Everett Ferguson, frames it this way, “The question is, if infant baptism doesn’t go back to the apostles, how did it arise and spread like this?” Then he points to Ferguson’s argument from tomb inscriptions and says this “suggest in many cases of infant or child baptism, that’s an emergency procedure, kind of deathbed procedure.”
What tomb inscriptions are they talking about? They are referring to tombs that say an infant or small child was baptized. One tomb, the one Florentius made for his son Apronianus, shows the family requested baptism specifically because death was imminent. There are several dozen of these kinds of tombs that date to the fourth century.
Ortlund tries to pass these emergency baptisms as evidence that infant baptism originated in emergencies. Such a claim raises a question.
Why administer an emergency baptism to a subject that is incapable of receiving it?[18] The baptism of the infant, whether in an emergency or not, assumes that baptizing an infant is valid. Emergency baptisms, therefore, do explain the occasion for that particular baptism. They do not explain the origin of paedo-baptism.
As we saw previously, in A.D. 253, sixty-six bishops ruled that healthy newborns should not wait even eighth days before being baptized. Are we supposed to classify the practice of baptizing all newborns as emergency baptisms?
For the sake of argument, if there was a deathbed rationale for baptizing infants in, say, A.D. 200, how then did it transform from an emergency practice to a normal practice in one generation?
Besides, the tomb inscriptions come from a small body of fourth-century examples. How then does emergency baptism become the raison d’être of infant baptism one hundred years after the bishops ruled on the matter?
The African practice in A.D. 253 appears to be infant baptism. So then, what explains these emergency baptisms? Could it be that these emergency baptisms were administered to children of non-Christians, which is why their baptism is specially noted on the tombstone? In the case of Apronianus, it was the grandmother who urged the baptism, suggesting that the father, Florentius, was a pagan.[19]
Ortlund argues that “It really is only with Augustine that the picture begins to change … in his later anti-Pelagian writings, starting around 410 A.D.” He claims Augustine’s doctrine of paedo-baptism was a departure from the earlier diversity of opinion, which had often held to the relative innocence of infants and that salvation was apart from baptism. Augustine’s views reshaped practice, Ortlund claims. Before, baptism had been part of the fixed church calendar. Augustine’s fear of infant damnation made delay intolerable. No family would wait months for the next appointed celebration when the child might die first. Thus, Ortlund continues, baptism migrated from a communal seasonal event to an immediate, private act performed on demand. This is how the elaborate catechumenate ceremony of the preceding centuries was jettisoned. Augustine thus regularized and cemented infant baptism as the Western norm, turning infant baptism into the urgent obligation of every Christian family.
What are we to make of Ortlund’s account?
Obviously, Augustine is one of those men who has made the church what it is. Yet Ortlund’s argument raises more questions than it answers. How could Augustine argue from infant baptism to Original Sin if his interlocutors disputed infant baptism? In fact, Pelagius did not deny infant baptism. How can we say Augustine normalized a practice that was the shared starting point of both sides? Can we really say Augustine normalized paedo-baptism in A.D. 410 when the synod of A.D. 253 affirmed it? Can we say Augustine invented the connection between paedo-baptism and Original Sin when Origen argued 160 years prior that the inherited guilt of infants needed remission?
Why no mentions of infant baptism from A.D. 30 - 200?
It is sometimes claimed that there are no infant baptisms mentioned in extra-biblical sources from A.D. 30 - 200. What are we to make of this? Consider five things.
First, this question erases Scripture from the discussion, even though Scripture is the primary source of early church history. Nowhere in the New Testament is a child of believers denied the covenant sign.
Second, there aren’t a lot of patristic works from the generation after the Apostles. We’ve seen Irenaeus, in A.D. 180, present a theology that suggests infant baptism. We’ve seen Hippolytus, possibly as early as A.D. 215 argue for infant baptism. And as the patristic evidence multiplies thereafter; there are references to infant baptism.
Third, for the apostles’ generation and after, the work of the church is to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). So, as they take the gospel out from Jerusalem, there are mainly adult converts to the New Covenant, which are powerful and noteworthy stories of the gospel that understandably make into the historical record.
Fourth, infant baptisms are multiplied when the church is established and aligns itself with God’s call to long-term generational faithfulness.
Fifth, the early church’s infant baptism references come in a context where it is the commonly accepted practice. For example, in the third century, Tertullian expresses skepticism about infant baptism. Should we be baptizing these babies? Should we hold off baptism until they are older and make a profession of faith?
Stop and think for a moment. Why would he be concerned about paedo-baptism unless the church was practicing paedo-baptism? Ortlund refers to Everett Ferguson saying, “Tertullian’s opposition to infant baptism is an indication that the practice was neither long-established nor generally accepted.” Then Ortlund says, “Now, I find that plausible … to my mind, it’s hard to think of Tertullian making this argument if this was just the general practice of the church.” Ortlund also references Ferguson saying that “Tertullian’s respect for tradition at this period of his life” means he wouldn’t oppose a long-standing church tradition.
But does Ortlund’s argument hold up? Is it really the case that Tertullian wouldn’t oppose a general practice of the church? Is it true that Tertullian would only criticize something if it was a newer invention?
Well, in the same passage where Tertullian counsels delaying infant baptism, he also counsels delaying baptism for the unmarried and for widows until they marry.[20] Is withholding baptism from single adult converts a long church tradition and a general practice in the church? No. Lydia was an unmarried woman who believed the gospel and was immediately baptized (Acts 16:14-15), which means Tertullian is promoting an unbiblical practice in the same section where he wishes to delay baptism. So, contra the claims of Ferguson and Ortlund, Tertullian is one who will argue against general practice and long-standing tradition.
Tertullian was a man who argued against established practice as a matter of principle. Tertullian held explicitly that the antiquity or prevalence of a custom proved nothing about its rightness.[21] He condemned remarriage after a spouse’s death, which Paul had expressly permitted, and the church allowed;[22] he attacked a bishop’s edict restoring penitent adulterers to communion, opposing not merely a custom but an ecclesiastical act;[23] he denounced the church’s fasting discipline as lax;[24] he forbade flight in persecution, though flight was common and had dominical warrant;[25] he defended a soldier’s refusal of the military, pressing against Christian service in the army, while conceding that Christians had been allowed to serve.[26]
Tertullian’s skepticism about baptizing infants introduces a crisis of paedo-baptism in the third century. The motivation for Tertullian’s question was from a flawed understanding of baptism. He believed that baptism was a one-time remission of sins. Given that belief, maybe baptism should be delayed until a more calculated moment. This would keep the child’s sponsor from endangering themselves and making promises the child may not keep. This was Tertullian’s thinking.
So, Tertullian’s understanding of baptism comes from a particular theological rationale which is no longer held to today by credo-Baptists.[27] He is concerned about the sin that comes after baptism. Since he saw baptism as a penitential practice, better to receive it once the sinful and dangerous years of youth are past. So, even for Tertullian’s concern to delay baptism, he assumes that infants are capable of covenant membership. His position is that baptism is too precious to administer to the child at too young an age.
Could it be that Tertullian’s anxiety about baptism is the engine that furthers the crisis in the fourth century? After Tertullian there developed a pattern of postponing baptism to adulthood, or the deathbed, even among people raised in Christian homes. For example, Constantine was baptized only as he was dying in 337. Ambrose was still an unbaptized catechumen when elected bishop of Milan in 374. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, and Jerome were all baptized as adults despite Christian parents, as was Augustine, whose mother deliberately deferred his baptism in childhood. But why? What was their concern? Why were they violating the bishop’s ruling of A.D. 253 that the infants of believers should be baptized?
They weren’t withholding baptism from the children because they doubted its efficacy. It was withheld because they viewed it as having great efficacy, namely, penitential power, and they didn’t want that used up on a small child who had a lot of sin still in his future.
In the fourth century crisis period of paedo-baptism, there is still much room for the words of Scripture to mature the church in their understanding of covenant baptism.
Conclusion
Church history offers insight into the doctrine and practices of the church over time. This historical disagreement should not obscure the catholic character of Christian baptism. The early evidence reflects diversity in timing, circumstance, and mode, while maintaining the central confession of one baptism into the triune name.
The goal isn’t to return the church to its earliest centuries. The goal is to be working toward the future where Christ will “present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). The history of the church is the story of Christ sanctifying his bride and washing her with the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26).
This is how Jesus said the kingdom would come. Not fully formed, but as seed (Mk. 4:26-29). The blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. We ought not be surprised to find the early church working out its baptismal practice by degrees, shedding the rabbinical inheritance, arguing over water, timing, and who may answer for a child, reforming itself as it went. That is not decline from an apostolic golden age. It is the Spirit’s combination of continuity and growth. Semper reformanda—always reforming—isn’t a practice that began at the Reformation. It began with the early church.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
[1] Peter Kirby, ed., “The Didache,” trans. M. B. Riddle, Early Christian Writings, https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html.
[2] On the practice generally, see Karen Pusey, “Jewish Proselyte Initiation and Its Possible Influence on Early Christian Initiation, with Special Reference to Baptism” (MPhil thesis, Open University, 1985), https://oro.open.ac.uk/63490.
[3] Babylonian Talmud, Yebamot 47b. Text at https://www.sefaria.org/Yevamot.47b.
[4] Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 11a. Text at https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.11a.
[5] B. Yebamot 47b (describing the separate procedure for female proselytes).
[6] "Didache 7.1 / Mishnah Mikvaot 1.8," Intertextual Bible, https://intertextual.bible/text/didache-7.1/mishnah-mikvaot-1.8.
[7] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, ch. 22, §4.
[8] Justin Martyr, First Apology 61 (ANF 1:183).
[9] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book I, ch. 21, §1.
[10] Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, preface to The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, ed. Harold W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002).
[11] Anthony N. S. Lane, "Did the Apostolic Church Baptise Babies? A Seismological Approach," Tyndale Bulletin 55, no. 1 (2004): 109–30.
[12] Origen, Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 244-248].
[13] Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 8:3 [A.D. 244-248]).
[14] Cyprian, Epistle 58 (Oxford ed. 64), to Fidus, in Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 5 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), 353–54.
[15] Cyprian, Epistle 75 (Oxford ed. 69), to Magnus, in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 5 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.iv.lxxv.html.
[16] Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.17, in Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, NPNF2 7 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 366.
[17] John Chrysostom, Baptismal Catecheses, quoted in Augustine, Against Julian 1.6.21, trans. Matthew A. Schumacher, FC 35 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1957), 31.
[18] Ortlund argues that baptism is only fit for those who are old enough to be aware of what is happening.
[19] Dennis Kastens, "Infant Baptism in Early Church History," Issues, Etc., https://www.issuesetcarchive.org/articles/aissar40.htm.
[20] Tertullian, On Baptism 18, in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885), 669-679.
[21] Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins 1 (ANF 4).
[22] On Monogamy (ANF 4); cf. 1 Cor. 7:39; 1 Tim. 5:14.
[23] On Modesty 1 (ANF 4).
[24] On Fasting, against the Psychics (ANF 4).
[25] On Flight in Persecution (ANF 4); cf. Matt. 10:23.
[26] The Chaplet 1 (ANF 3).
[27] I only raise this point because Ortlund says that the early church’s understanding of paedo-baptism comes from a theological rational no longer held by paedo-Baptists.
Gavin Ortlund has published a video making the case that credo-baptism is more firmly rooted in church history than paedo-baptism. If you are unfamiliar with Ortlund, his many books include Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future and Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy. Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments about the history of baptism, you must contend with his historical interpretations, always ensconced in intellectual etiquette. Ortlund refreshingly avoids that odious vice in online discourse that is mysteriously hostile to healthy debate. That’s part of what makes his arguments worth contending with.
So, the goal of this essay is to provide an overview of the history of baptism in the first several hundred years of the early church. We’ll be quoting from and summarizing what the church fathers said on this issue, with an eye toward some of Ortlund’s claims about the history of baptism.
The goal is not to make a biblical argument for paedo-baptism. For more of that you can click here. The goal is to try and tell the story of the history of baptism in the early church using the primary sources. In doing so we see that Ortlund has overstated the historical case for credo-baptism.
This essay is broken into four sections.
First, the writings of the early church
Second, the paintings of the early church
Third, the claim that infant baptism originates with emergencies
Fourth, the claim that there is no reference to infant baptism until A.D. 200
Writings
The Didache
Didache #7 says, “And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”[1]
Notice it’s a descending ladder of preference. The Didache says that baptism should, in first order of preference, use flowing or living water. In a second order of preference, use other water. The third order of preference is for cold water before warm water. If there is insufficient water, pouring is permitted.
Why did they have this order of preference? The Credo-Baptists argument is that they got immersion from the New Testament. But is there another explanation?
During the inter-testamental period, the Rabbi’s began immersing Gentiles as part of the conversion process. The Rabbinical practice has a history. In the Old Testament, circumcision alone marked entry into the covenant. But sometime during the intertestamental period, Jewish practice came to require a ritual immersion of Gentile converts alongside it.[2]
Why did they start doing this? Two reasons. The first was the precedent of initiation. They saw that Israel received the covenant at Sinai via ritual washing (Ex. 19:10-14). If Israel was ritually washed before receiving the covenant at Sinai, then how much more does a Gentile need special washing before becoming a Jew? The second was the precedent of purity. Gentiles, cut off from God, were regarded as dwelling among the dead. According to Numbers 19:11-19, anyone defiled by contact with a corpse required ceremonial washing. Becoming a Jew meant leaving the fellowship of the dead for the living. Death had to be washed off. The Rabbis claimed that at the moment of emergence from the water, the Gentile was officially converted.[3]
This is an intertestamental development by the Rabbis. In some ways it is drawing on authentic Old Testament practice. For example, the Rabbi’s immersion of Gentile converts was extended to children, meaning that children would convert along with their father,[4] similar to how Abraham was justified by faith, so he and his children were circumcised (Gen. 15:6; 17:7). In other ways, immersing converts is an innovation. In the Old Testament, a Gentile convert’s conversion was marked by circumcision (Ex. 12:48), which was applied only to males. The Rabbi’s new immersion rite applied to male and female alike.[5]
So, back to the early church. Why do the Didache (and Justin Martyr) prioritize immersion as the mode of baptism? [6] Gavin Ortlund claims they get it from the New Testament, “What’s conveyed in the early sources like The Didache and theologians like Justin Martyr sounds like credo-baptism in the same way that the New Testament sounds like credo-baptism.”
But, there is another explanation. Could it be that the priority of immersion is inherited from the practice of the intertestamental Jewish Rabbis, who practiced immersion as the rite of covenant entry for converts? In which case, it would take the church some time to straighten this out and allow the force of biblical evidence and the New Covenant to emerge as the standard way of handling the issue.
Irenaeus
Ortlund argues that in early church history there is not even references to infant baptism as an exception. He asks, “If infants are sort of exceptional, why don’t we see some reference of exceptions?” He dismisses Hippolytus as a proper example. And he dismisses Irenaeus as evidence of an exception.
But, what does Irenaeus say about it?
In A.D. 180, Irenaeus, who was taught by Polycarp, the disciple of the apostle John, said this, “For He came to save all through means of Himself — all, I say, who through Him are born again to God — infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age.”[7]
Why is Irenaeus saying this? He is making an argument about the age of Jesus, contending that Jesus lived to be nearly fifty years old and that he passed through every stage of human life, sanctify each one. Irenaeus was wrong about the age of Jesus, but his logic is incarnational. Christ redeems infancy by being an infant, childhood by being a child, and so on. Christ’s incarnation sanctifies every stage of life for his people, even infants. Irenaeus says these infants and children are “born again to God…sanctifying them to the Lord.”
What do the concepts of “born again” and “sanctification” mean in the early church? In Scripture, the concept of regeneration, or being “born again,” is tied to baptism (Jn. 3:5; Eph. 5:26; 1 Cor. 6:11; Titus 3:5). Also in Scripture, the concept of sanctification is often tied to being cleaned, which connects to being washed. So it is that Paul says the child of at least one believing parent is “holy” (i.e. sanctified) and not unclean (1 Cor. 7:14).
So also in the early church, regeneration is connected with baptism, as Justin Martyr wrote, “Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated … they then receive the washing with water.”[8] Irenaeus himself writes of certain Gnostics that they have been moved “to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God.”[9]
Given the close association between regeneration, sanctification, and baptism in Irenaeus and other early Christian writers, Irenaeus saying that children are “born again to God…sanctifying them to the Lord” makes the most sense under the logic of paedo-baptism.
Not only does Ortlund dismiss Irenaeus’ argument, he also dismisses Hippolytus’ argument, saying credo-baptism is described in early church history and “nowhere indicate[s] any exceptions.” Is that claim accurate?
The Apostolic Tradition
The Apostolic Tradition is conventionally ascribed to Hippolytus in the year A.D. 215. Its date and unity are debated. It likely contains the work of several authors over many years. With these unknowns, the most honest dating would be somewhere between the mid-third to the mid-fourth century.[10]
Consider the baptismal ordo of chapter 21. It prescribes the whole baptismal rite, which includes immersion in water three times. But it also prescribes that little children be baptized first, with parents or family answering for those unable to speak. This is not an emergency exception for the child (see more below), but part of the normal baptismal rite. It shows that the process of adult catechesis and baptism can include baptism of the children too young to speak for themselves. Also, the Apostolic Tradition retains the rabbinical practice of immersion.[11]
Origen
Origen (A.D. 185-254) twice states that the church baptized infants and claims apostolic origin for the practice.
First in his Commentaries on Romans he writes, “The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit.”[12]
Second in a sermon he quotes Leviticus 12:8 and then says, “Every soul that is born into flesh is soiled by the filth of wickedness and sin. . . . In the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins, and, according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants. If there were nothing in infants which required the remission of sins and nothing in them pertinent to forgiveness, the grace of baptism would seem superfluous.”[13]
Cyprian
Cyprian’s letter to Fidus dates to A.D. 253. It addresses the question of infant baptism. The entire exchange assumes that infants are baptized. They are wanting a ruling on the exact timing. Should parents wait until the eighth day to baptize their child to mirror the practice of circumcision? The answer given was no, you don’t need to wait or delay, “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.”[14]
Cyprian’s answer comes from a synod of sixty-six African bishops who are keeping firmly the faith and practice of the church.
Then there is Cyprian’s letter “To Magnus, on Baptizing the Novatians, and Those Who Obtain Grace on a Sick-Bed.”[15] It dates to A.D. 255. The letter is about whether people baptized by the Novatian schismatics need to be baptized again on entering the church. The letter addresses issues related to baptism and its mode. Cyprian accepts baptism by pouring as a concession for the sick, revealing, similar to the Didache, that in the early church immersion was normal and pouring was valid.
Others
Early church history contains other similar indications that infant baptism was practiced.
Gregory of Nazianzus said, “Do you have an infant child? Allow sin no opportunity; rather, let the infant be sanctified from childhood. From his most tender age let him be consecrated by the Spirit. Do you fear the seal [of baptism] because of the weakness of nature? Oh, what a pusillanimous mother and of how little faith.” Elsewhere, he said, “‘Well enough,’ some will say, ‘for those who ask for baptism, but what do you have to say about those who are still children, and aware neither of loss nor of grace? Shall we baptize them too?’ Certainly [I respond], if there is any pressing danger. Better that they be sanctified unaware, than that they depart unsealed and uninitiated.”[16]
So, Gregory permits infant baptism if there is pressing danger. In the broader text he recommends waiting until about age three for healthy children so they can have some understanding of the words. Yet even Gregory, an advocate of delaying baptism, assumed infant baptism was valid and available.
John Chrysostom said, “You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants, though they are not defiled by [personal] sins, so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be his [Christ’s] members.” This is cited by Augustine as part of the Baptismal Catechesis.[17]
Paintings
The paintings of the early church give indications that immersion wasn’t the only mode of how the church fathers practiced baptism.
The painting known as Catacomb of Callixtus (A.D. 200-250) in Rome includes a figure standing in shallow water with another figure pouring water on his head. If this isn’t Christ’s baptism, then it is a painting of a generic Christian baptism.
The painting from the Catacomb of Ss. Marcellinus and Peter (A.D. 3rd-4th century) in Rome shows a baptism scene of someone standing in water, evoking the same process depicted at the Catacomb of Callixtus.
The baptismal room at Dura-Europos includes a baptistery fresco. The entire purpose was to perform Christian baptisms. It dates from A.D. 232-256 and is located in eastern Syria, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, close to the Iraq border. The room contains a font under a canopy that is surrounded by elaborate decorations. The font, which was about a meter deep, held the water. The design is that the person stands or kneels in the font while water is poured on them. Full submersion in water would have been difficult, especially for an adult.
The paintings surrounding the font reveal their understanding of the meaning of baptism. The Good Shepherd over the font casts baptism as entry into Christ’s flock. Adam and Eve beneath it set up the fall that baptism reverses. The healing of the paralytic and Christ walking on water are water-and-rescue scenes, Christ pulling Peter from drowning is a symbol of salvation through baptism. The Samaritan woman at the well signals the use of living water as the way to encounter Jesus. The procession of women moving toward a canopied structure mirrors the movement toward the font.
It’s hard to draw conclusions from these paintings. At the very least it reveals that one of the modes of baptism in the early church was pouring.
Did Infant Baptism Originate in Emergencies?
Ortlund, following Everett Ferguson, frames it this way, “The question is, if infant baptism doesn’t go back to the apostles, how did it arise and spread like this?” Then he points to Ferguson’s argument from tomb inscriptions and says this “suggest in many cases of infant or child baptism, that’s an emergency procedure, kind of deathbed procedure.”
What tomb inscriptions are they talking about? They are referring to tombs that say an infant or small child was baptized. One tomb, the one Florentius made for his son Apronianus, shows the family requested baptism specifically because death was imminent. There are several dozen of these kinds of tombs that date to the fourth century.
Ortlund tries to pass these emergency baptisms as evidence that infant baptism originated in emergencies. Such a claim raises a question.
Why administer an emergency baptism to a subject that is incapable of receiving it?[18] The baptism of the infant, whether in an emergency or not, assumes that baptizing an infant is valid. Emergency baptisms, therefore, do explain the occasion for that particular baptism. They do not explain the origin of paedo-baptism.
As we saw previously, in A.D. 253, sixty-six bishops ruled that healthy newborns should not wait even eighth days before being baptized. Are we supposed to classify the practice of baptizing all newborns as emergency baptisms?
For the sake of argument, if there was a deathbed rationale for baptizing infants in, say, A.D. 200, how then did it transform from an emergency practice to a normal practice in one generation?
Besides, the tomb inscriptions come from a small body of fourth-century examples. How then does emergency baptism become the raison d’être of infant baptism one hundred years after the bishops ruled on the matter?
The African practice in A.D. 253 appears to be infant baptism. So then, what explains these emergency baptisms? Could it be that these emergency baptisms were administered to children of non-Christians, which is why their baptism is specially noted on the tombstone? In the case of Apronianus, it was the grandmother who urged the baptism, suggesting that the father, Florentius, was a pagan.[19]
Ortlund argues that “It really is only with Augustine that the picture begins to change … in his later anti-Pelagian writings, starting around 410 A.D.” He claims Augustine’s doctrine of paedo-baptism was a departure from the earlier diversity of opinion, which had often held to the relative innocence of infants and that salvation was apart from baptism. Augustine’s views reshaped practice, Ortlund claims. Before, baptism had been part of the fixed church calendar. Augustine’s fear of infant damnation made delay intolerable. No family would wait months for the next appointed celebration when the child might die first. Thus, Ortlund continues, baptism migrated from a communal seasonal event to an immediate, private act performed on demand. This is how the elaborate catechumenate ceremony of the preceding centuries was jettisoned. Augustine thus regularized and cemented infant baptism as the Western norm, turning infant baptism into the urgent obligation of every Christian family.
What are we to make of Ortlund’s account?
Obviously, Augustine is one of those men who has made the church what it is. Yet Ortlund’s argument raises more questions than it answers. How could Augustine argue from infant baptism to Original Sin if his interlocutors disputed infant baptism? In fact, Pelagius did not deny infant baptism. How can we say Augustine normalized a practice that was the shared starting point of both sides? Can we really say Augustine normalized paedo-baptism in A.D. 410 when the synod of A.D. 253 affirmed it? Can we say Augustine invented the connection between paedo-baptism and Original Sin when Origen argued 160 years prior that the inherited guilt of infants needed remission?
Why no mentions of infant baptism from A.D. 30 - 200?
It is sometimes claimed that there are no infant baptisms mentioned in extra-biblical sources from A.D. 30 - 200. What are we to make of this? Consider five things.
First, this question erases Scripture from the discussion, even though Scripture is the primary source of early church history. Nowhere in the New Testament is a child of believers denied the covenant sign.
Second, there aren’t a lot of patristic works from the generation after the Apostles. We’ve seen Irenaeus, in A.D. 180, present a theology that suggests infant baptism. We’ve seen Hippolytus, possibly as early as A.D. 215 argue for infant baptism. And as the patristic evidence multiplies thereafter; there are references to infant baptism.
Third, for the apostles’ generation and after, the work of the church is to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). So, as they take the gospel out from Jerusalem, there are mainly adult converts to the New Covenant, which are powerful and noteworthy stories of the gospel that understandably make into the historical record.
Fourth, infant baptisms are multiplied when the church is established and aligns itself with God’s call to long-term generational faithfulness.
Fifth, the early church’s infant baptism references come in a context where it is the commonly accepted practice. For example, in the third century, Tertullian expresses skepticism about infant baptism. Should we be baptizing these babies? Should we hold off baptism until they are older and make a profession of faith?
Stop and think for a moment. Why would he be concerned about paedo-baptism unless the church was practicing paedo-baptism? Ortlund refers to Everett Ferguson saying, “Tertullian’s opposition to infant baptism is an indication that the practice was neither long-established nor generally accepted.” Then Ortlund says, “Now, I find that plausible … to my mind, it’s hard to think of Tertullian making this argument if this was just the general practice of the church.” Ortlund also references Ferguson saying that “Tertullian’s respect for tradition at this period of his life” means he wouldn’t oppose a long-standing church tradition.
But does Ortlund’s argument hold up? Is it really the case that Tertullian wouldn’t oppose a general practice of the church? Is it true that Tertullian would only criticize something if it was a newer invention?
Well, in the same passage where Tertullian counsels delaying infant baptism, he also counsels delaying baptism for the unmarried and for widows until they marry.[20] Is withholding baptism from single adult converts a long church tradition and a general practice in the church? No. Lydia was an unmarried woman who believed the gospel and was immediately baptized (Acts 16:14-15), which means Tertullian is promoting an unbiblical practice in the same section where he wishes to delay baptism. So, contra the claims of Ferguson and Ortlund, Tertullian is one who will argue against general practice and long-standing tradition.
Tertullian was a man who argued against established practice as a matter of principle. Tertullian held explicitly that the antiquity or prevalence of a custom proved nothing about its rightness.[21] He condemned remarriage after a spouse’s death, which Paul had expressly permitted, and the church allowed;[22] he attacked a bishop’s edict restoring penitent adulterers to communion, opposing not merely a custom but an ecclesiastical act;[23] he denounced the church’s fasting discipline as lax;[24] he forbade flight in persecution, though flight was common and had dominical warrant;[25] he defended a soldier’s refusal of the military, pressing against Christian service in the army, while conceding that Christians had been allowed to serve.[26]
Tertullian’s skepticism about baptizing infants introduces a crisis of paedo-baptism in the third century. The motivation for Tertullian’s question was from a flawed understanding of baptism. He believed that baptism was a one-time remission of sins. Given that belief, maybe baptism should be delayed until a more calculated moment. This would keep the child’s sponsor from endangering themselves and making promises the child may not keep. This was Tertullian’s thinking.
So, Tertullian’s understanding of baptism comes from a particular theological rationale which is no longer held to today by credo-Baptists.[27] He is concerned about the sin that comes after baptism. Since he saw baptism as a penitential practice, better to receive it once the sinful and dangerous years of youth are past. So, even for Tertullian’s concern to delay baptism, he assumes that infants are capable of covenant membership. His position is that baptism is too precious to administer to the child at too young an age.
Could it be that Tertullian’s anxiety about baptism is the engine that furthers the crisis in the fourth century? After Tertullian there developed a pattern of postponing baptism to adulthood, or the deathbed, even among people raised in Christian homes. For example, Constantine was baptized only as he was dying in 337. Ambrose was still an unbaptized catechumen when elected bishop of Milan in 374. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, and Jerome were all baptized as adults despite Christian parents, as was Augustine, whose mother deliberately deferred his baptism in childhood. But why? What was their concern? Why were they violating the bishop’s ruling of A.D. 253 that the infants of believers should be baptized?
They weren’t withholding baptism from the children because they doubted its efficacy. It was withheld because they viewed it as having great efficacy, namely, penitential power, and they didn’t want that used up on a small child who had a lot of sin still in his future.
In the fourth century crisis period of paedo-baptism, there is still much room for the words of Scripture to mature the church in their understanding of covenant baptism.
Conclusion
Church history offers insight into the doctrine and practices of the church over time. This historical disagreement should not obscure the catholic character of Christian baptism. The early evidence reflects diversity in timing, circumstance, and mode, while maintaining the central confession of one baptism into the triune name.
The goal isn’t to return the church to its earliest centuries. The goal is to be working toward the future where Christ will “present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). The history of the church is the story of Christ sanctifying his bride and washing her with the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26).
This is how Jesus said the kingdom would come. Not fully formed, but as seed (Mk. 4:26-29). The blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. We ought not be surprised to find the early church working out its baptismal practice by degrees, shedding the rabbinical inheritance, arguing over water, timing, and who may answer for a child, reforming itself as it went. That is not decline from an apostolic golden age. It is the Spirit’s combination of continuity and growth. Semper reformanda—always reforming—isn’t a practice that began at the Reformation. It began with the early church.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
[1] Peter Kirby, ed., “The Didache,” trans. M. B. Riddle, Early Christian Writings, https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html.
[2] On the practice generally, see Karen Pusey, “Jewish Proselyte Initiation and Its Possible Influence on Early Christian Initiation, with Special Reference to Baptism” (MPhil thesis, Open University, 1985), https://oro.open.ac.uk/63490.
[3] Babylonian Talmud, Yebamot 47b. Text at https://www.sefaria.org/Yevamot.47b.
[4] Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 11a. Text at https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.11a.
[5] B. Yebamot 47b (describing the separate procedure for female proselytes).
[6] "Didache 7.1 / Mishnah Mikvaot 1.8," Intertextual Bible, https://intertextual.bible/text/didache-7.1/mishnah-mikvaot-1.8.
[7] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, ch. 22, §4.
[8] Justin Martyr, First Apology 61 (ANF 1:183).
[9] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book I, ch. 21, §1.
[10] Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, preface to The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, ed. Harold W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002).
[11] Anthony N. S. Lane, "Did the Apostolic Church Baptise Babies? A Seismological Approach," Tyndale Bulletin 55, no. 1 (2004): 109–30.
[12] Origen, Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 244-248].
[13] Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 8:3 [A.D. 244-248]).
[14] Cyprian, Epistle 58 (Oxford ed. 64), to Fidus, in Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 5 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), 353–54.
[15] Cyprian, Epistle 75 (Oxford ed. 69), to Magnus, in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 5 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.iv.lxxv.html.
[16] Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.17, in Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, NPNF2 7 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 366.
[17] John Chrysostom, Baptismal Catecheses, quoted in Augustine, Against Julian 1.6.21, trans. Matthew A. Schumacher, FC 35 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1957), 31.
[18] Ortlund argues that baptism is only fit for those who are old enough to be aware of what is happening.
[19] Dennis Kastens, "Infant Baptism in Early Church History," Issues, Etc., https://www.issuesetcarchive.org/articles/aissar40.htm.
[20] Tertullian, On Baptism 18, in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885), 669-679.
[21] Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins 1 (ANF 4).
[22] On Monogamy (ANF 4); cf. 1 Cor. 7:39; 1 Tim. 5:14.
[23] On Modesty 1 (ANF 4).
[24] On Fasting, against the Psychics (ANF 4).
[25] On Flight in Persecution (ANF 4); cf. Matt. 10:23.
[26] The Chaplet 1 (ANF 3).
[27] I only raise this point because Ortlund says that the early church’s understanding of paedo-baptism comes from a theological rational no longer held by paedo-Baptists.
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