| 70. The Celebration of Baptism. | ||||
The Lit. see in vol. I. 54, p. 465 sq., especially Wall and Hoefling. On the archaeology of baptism see Bingham's Antiquities, Augusti's Denkwuerdigkeiten, the first vol. of Binterim, and the art. Baptism in Smith and Cheetham, I. 155-172. Also Schaff, on the Didache (1885), p. 29-56. For pictorial illustrations see the monumental works of Cav. de Rossi, Garrucci, Roller, on the catacombs, and Schaff, l.c. | ||||
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (ch. 7,) enjoins baptism, after catechetical instruction, in these words: Baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost in living (running) water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, then in warm. But if you have neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. | ||||
Justin Martyr gives the following account of baptism: Those who are convinced of the truth of our doctrine, and have promised to live according to it, are exhorted to prayer, fasting and repentance for past sins; we praying and fasting with them. Then they are led by its to a place where is water, and in this way they are regenerated, as we also have been regenerated; that is, they receive the water-bath in the name of God, the Father and Ruler of all, and of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost. For Christ says: Except ye be born again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. (John 3:5) Thus, from children of necessity and ignorance, we become children of choice and of wisdom, and partakers of the forgiveness of former sins.... The baptismal bath is called also illumination (fwtismov ) because those who receive it are enlightened in the understanding. | ||||
This account may be completed by the following particulars from Tertullian and later writers. | ||||
Before the act the candidate was required in a solemn vow to renounce the service of the devil, that is, all evil, give himself to Christ, and confess the sum of the apostolic faith in God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. The Apostles' Creed, therefore, is properly the baptismal symbol, as it grew, in fact, out of the baptismal formula. | ||||
This act of turning front sin and turning to God, or of repentance and faith, on the part of the candidate, was followed by an appropriate prayer of the minister, and then by the baptism itself into the triune name, with three successive immersions in which the deacons and deaconesses assisted. The immersion in thrice dipping the head of the candidate who stood nude in the water. Single immersion seems to have been introduced by Eunomius about 360, but was condemned on pain of degradation, yet it reappeared afterwards in Spain, and Pope Gregory I. declared both forms valid, the trine immersion as setting forth the Trinity, the single immersion the Unity of the Godhead. The Eastern church, however, still adheres strictly to the trine immersion. Baptism by pouring water from a shell or vessel or from the hand on the head of the candidate very early occurs also and was probably considered equivalent to immersion. The Didache allows pouring in cases of scarcity of water. But afterwards this mode was applied only to infirm or sick persons; hence called clinical baptism. The validity of this baptism was even doubted by many in the third century; and Cyprian wrote in its defence, taking the ground that the mode of application of water was a matter of minor importance, provided that faith was present in the recipient and ministrant. According to ecclesiastical law clinical baptism at least incapacitated for the clerical office. Yet the Roman bishop Fabian ordained Novatian a presbyter, though he had been baptized on a sickbed by aspersion. | ||||
Thanksgiving, benediction, and the brotherly kiss concluded the sacred ceremony. | ||||
Besides these essential elements of the baptismal rite, we find, so early as the third century, several other subordinate usages, which have indeed a beautiful symbolical meaning, but, like all redundancies, could easily obscure the original simplicity of this sacrament, as it appears in Justin Martyr's description. Among these appendages are the signing of the cross on the forehead and breast of the subject, as a soldier of Christ under the banner of the cross; giving him milk and honey (also salt) in token of sonship with God, and citizenship in the heavenly Canaan; also the unction of the head, the lighted taper, and the white robe. | ||||
Exorcism, or the expulsion of the devil, which is not to be confounded with the essential formula of renunciation, was probably practised at first only in special cases, as of demoniacal possession. But after the council of Carthage, a.d. 256, we find it a regular part of the ceremony of baptism, preceding the baptism proper, and in some eases, it would seem, several times repeated during the course of catechetical instruction. To understand fully this custom, we should remember that the early church derived the whole system of heathen idolatry, which it justly abhorred as one of the greatest crimes, from the agency of Satan. The heathen deities, although they had been eminent men during their lives, were, as to their animating principle, identified with demons either fallen angels or their progeny. These demons, as we may infer from many passages of Justin, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and others, were believed to traverse the air, to wander over the earth, to deceive and torment the race, to take possession of men, to encourage sacrifices, to lurk in statues, to speak through the oracles, to direct the flights of birds, to work the illusions of enchantment and necromancy, to delude the senses by false miracles, to incite persecution against Christianity, and, in fact, to sustain the whole fabric of heathenism with all its errors and vices. But even these evil spirits were Subject to the powerful name of Jesus. Tertullian openly challenges the pagan adversaries to bring demoniacs before the tribunals, and affirms that the spirits which possessed them, would bear witness to the truth of Christianity. | ||||
The institution of sponsors,, first mentioned by Tertullian, arose no doubt from infant baptism, and was designed to secure Christian training, without thereby excusing Christian parents from their duty. | ||||
Baptism might be administered at any time, but was commonly connected with Easter and Pentecost, and in the East with Epiphany also, to give it the greater solemnity. The favorite hour was midnight lit up by torches. The men were baptized first, the women afterwards. During the week following, the neophytes wore white garments as symbols of their purity. | ||||
Separate chapels for baptism, or baptisteries, occur first in the fourth century, and many of them still remain in Southern Europe. Baptism might be performed in any place, where, as Justin says, water was. Yet Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, and the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, require the element to be previously consecrated, that it may become the vehicle of the purifying energy of the Spirit. This corresponded to the consecration of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, and involved no transformation of the substance. | ||||