Truth Unites - How Did Infant Baptism Begin? A Story of Five Centuries of Church History

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Gavin Ortlund describes how infant baptism may have arisen in the early church from a credobapist perspective.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

This video is going to be a history of infant baptism in the early church. It will have four sections. First, a summary of the argument. Second, I'll explain the goal of this video. Third, we'll look at the New Testament. Fourth, we'll look at the early church data, century by century going forward. So first, let me summarize what I'm going to argue here. And I want to begin with a crucial clarification. I worry this will be missed, even though I'm saying it. And that is, this video is not addressing the question of the meaning of baptism. Questions of baptism Regeneration versus other views of baptismal efficacy. It will just be on the question of the subjects of baptism. Infant baptism versus credo-baptism or pido-baptism, which means infidivabstom versus creedobaptism, which means baptizing those who make a credible profession of faith. So you delay

baptism for the child of believers until that person can be willingly involved and aware of what's happening and articulate faith in Christ. So these are separate topics. They're related, but they're separate. The question of the subjects of baptism and the meaning of baptism, there are two separate issues. One concerns what baptism does, the other concerns to whom it should be administered. And on the second issue, these are the two views that you can see. I just define them already. I'm off script already. Cretal baptism, Pytobaptism, hopefully you know those terms. Cretobaptism is a different term than the term Baptist with a capital B. So Baptist is a denominational term. Cretobaptist is a theological term that encompasses a whole range of groups and individuals more than are often recognized than just the Baptist tradition.

You can be a Cretobaptist while recognizing that infant baptism is valid, though improper, like Carl Bart. You can be a Cretto Baptist while affirming baptismal regeneration, like the churches of Christ. I'll be drawing from some Church of Christ scholars in just a moment. So this is an important distinction because as we get into the early church data, we're going to look at figures who are affirm that you should delay baptism for the children of believers until they are able to articulate faith, sometimes until even adulthood, like age 30. A lot of church fathers were baptized around age 30. And then the response will come, well, they're not a Baptist. And that is completely true. That is true. The theological position we call credo-baptism is a broader category. And it is surprisingly

common in the early church, as we'll document in this video, even if it looks different from some expressions of creedobaptism today. I'm starting with this clarification, because I know that that will be a concern. Now, earlier in the 20th century, there was a famous dispute about the evidence for infant baptism in the early church between two German scholars, Joachim Jemayemias and Kurt Alland, or Alland. And that kind of set the table for the scholarship, but more recently, more recent scholarship has made progress on this point that I want to draw attention to in this video. And broadly, I'm going to argue that there are about five phases for the development of infant baptism in the early church. church. This will be my case. I know some will disagree, and I'll explain the conciliatory goals here in

just a second, but I'm summarizing my case right now. First, the first phase one is the apostolic practice into the second century, which I'm going to argue is suggestive of credobaptism. Phase two is the late second century, where you have the first explicit evidence of pito baptism beginning. Phase three is the third century where you see a significant expansion of pito baptism. Phase four, most interesting one, the fourth century where you see a reversion back to adult baptisms as more common. And then phase five is the fifth and sixth centuries and moving forward, where you have the post-Augustinian consensus, with just a few exceptions in places like Ireland and so forth.

And so my overall thesis for what's really going on here can be summarized in the words of Everett Ferguson. I've got to bend over and get this book. I should have put these on my desk earlier. Dramatic pause there. this is a 900-page book. He's a Church of Christ theologian, and it is truly a no stone left-un-un-turned kind of book. It's an amazing work of scholarship, widely well-received. And his conclusion at the very end of the book is there is general agreement that there is no firm evidence for infant baptism before the latter part of

the second century. This fact does not mean it did not occur, but it does mean that supporters of the practice have a considerable chronological gap to account for. And his basic explanation He gives various arguments against the originality of infant baptism as something the apostles themselves taught and practiced. And then intriguingly suggests the most plausible explanation for the origin of infant baptism is found in the emergency baptism of sick children expected so that they would be assured of entrance to the kingdom of heaven. There was a slow extension of the practice of baptizing babies as a precautionary measure. It was generally accepted, but questions continued to be raised about its propriety. into the fifth century, it became the usual practice in the fifth and six centuries. Ferguson argues that it was really the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius

and the triumph of Augustine's account of original sin that really cemented infant baptism as the church's regular practice. In other words, there's a lot more in flux in the third and fourth centuries. Since that summary of my case may have already annoyed and ruffled feathers, let me go into the second portion of this video and explain what I'm hoping to accomplish in this video and the goal of this video, because even up till this morning, I'm filming this very early in the morning, you could probably see my face looks tired. Even up till this morning, I was going back and forth on, do I even want to do this? At truth unites, I really want to focus on the gospel, but as I thought about this, one of my goals with that is to encourage

conciliatory work amidst theological differences in the church. Last night, we had our first discussion of the mere Christianity book. We were doing a book club discussion this morning, or this summer. And we talked about, you know, C.S. Lewis being called to address mere Christianity because he felt it was lacking in that day. And I was thinking, we actually have a lot of mere Christianity apologetics right now, but we don't have as much careful triaging of these other issues and careful historical work and so forth. And so I thought, you know, I really think actually this is part of what God's calling me to do is to try to work through some of the these secondary doctrines, but I'm trying to do it in a particular spirit. I want to address that here

just quickly, even though I fall short of this at times, this is my true goal, is that basically we can pursue clarity without condescension. That's a way to put it. In other words, that we can talk about these important secondary and tertiary doctrines without a dismissive or sensorious or arrogant attitude toward the people on the other side. I have to be honest with you and say, this may be the most important thing to talk through here right up front is that this dismissive attitude happens in both directions too often. So if no other result happens from this video, then that there's peaceable understanding without anyone changing their mind. That's a good thing. Nothing makes me happier than if you see like a Baptist and an Anglican praying together, you know, and having unity amidst their

differences. And so this, this thing where we take doctrine seriously, we argue clearly, we really value it. We don't have a dismissive attitude toward theology. We take it really seriously. We seek the truth. We argue about the truth. But we have love in our hearts for the people on the other side and humility to recognize how many godly Christians are on each side of this that are far better Christians than any of us today. You know, that kind of humility to recognize that. You know, if you've had uncles or grandparents who fought in war and were war heroes, you know, you might disagree with them, but you're going to do so in a spirit of humility. We should have that in our disagree. in the body of Christ on an issue like this, because there's godly Christians on both sides, and it is complicated. So just to explain this, let me just not to belabor this point too much, to Pytobaptist viewers, I will try not to be obnoxious. You are my betters. I am your servant. This video is an attempt to serve the discussion and seek peaceable understanding, not to shoot missiles at the other side or try to demolish it. And I'll try to sort of recognize. I'm even going to use that word suggestive. for that first period of church history to try to acknowledge where the evidence is not ironclad

in either direction. It's not ironclad. You can wrangle with it. There's an element of interpretation involved and so forth. Even though I'm going to argue for one side, I'm trying to leave allowance for sort of respecting each other's consciences on an issue like this. And I'm going to continue to advocate because I do see dismissiveness on the Credo-Baptist side. I've been a part of Baptist churches that just, it's not helpful. So I want to advocate for greater unity amidst differences. I'll continue to argue for, as I did in this video, embracing Pytobaptists at the level of church membership and participation in the Lord's

Supper. That's my position. I hold to, this is John Bunyan's view. It's a minority view in the Baptist tradition, though it's more common today. The Lord's Supper is not an expression of unity about baptismal conviction. It's an expression of unity in the gospel. And I just feel that we should come together at that basic level of Christian identity. even if those, I'm not arguing for that here, I did that in that video, even if you disagree with me on that, at least attitudeally, those of us on the Cretto-Baptist side, we need to recognize the weight of the tradition that stands against us. Our view was either non-existent or very scattered, like among the Waldensians, for example, for a millennium. We need to feel the weight of that and be humble to consider why so many have seen this issue differently. In the other direction, I think there can be condescension toward Cretobaptism.

as if Pytobaptism is the obvious historical view. Cretobaptism is this weird eccentricity thing. You know, Pytobaptism is this firm castle. Cretobaptism is this rickety little shack, you know, this way of thinking. And in this video, what I want to show is that the historical data really doesn't support that view either. It doesn't support triumphalism on either side, but actually, I want to show how complicated is the story of infant baptism.

There's three points in particular to belabor to make that point. Number one is the practice of infant baptism does have uncertain origins. That's going to come through as I talk about the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers and the early second century testimonies. Even if you think Christians were baptizing babies in the year 125 AD, I think you have to admit if you're honest, it's not a slam-dunk case. We don't have anything explicit. And I'm going to argue actually it just doesn't look like they were.

But we'll get there. I'll make that case. But second, and here's where it's more interesting, I think, is the decisive influence of Augustine. in sort of cementing and regularizing a particular understanding of infant baptism, particular theology, and it even changed the liturgy. Augustine is an absolute juggernaut of a figure on so many issues, including baptism. In one collection of patristic writings on baptism, the material from Augustine alone occupies 60 pages, while the material from all the other Christian writings of the first four centuries of the church occupies only 44.

So that's just one index of the massive output and influence of Augustine. He really set the table for a millennium. Prior to Augustine, baptismal practice is more diverse and colorful and surprising. You have these, you know, not everywhere. It's not uniform, but you have three-year catechetical preparation in many cases, nude baptisms, solemn renunciations of Satan, Eucharistic celebrations with milk and honey. absolutely fascinating to see the practice of the church. And then so many fourth century Christians

are baptized as adults, Augustine himself, Ambrose and his siblings, Basel, Gregory Amnesianz and his siblings, Ephraim the Syrian, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Rufinus, Paulinus, and his brother, and many others, and will name them all. So, you know, again, it really is in the wake of Augustine that you find a cementing and crystallizing or on one particular practice. It's not uniform until the fifth century. The third thing I want to point out is the diversity of theological rationales for infant baptism. Even where there is continuity of practice, there is often diversity of rationale for that practice. And appeals will often be made to a consensus without an appreciation of that complexity.

That's why it might look like a Pytobaptism might look like a solid castle, but actually if you look more closely, it's more ambiguous. and this is where, you know, I'll have Presbyterians who will say to the Baptist that your view is novel, but they won't realize that one of the architects of their views, Zvingley, explicitly said that everyone got baptism wrong from the time of the apostles on, right after the apostles, because Zvigley's argument for covenantal or reformed pietal baptism departed from precedent. It had a different rationale from the predominating practice leading up to the Reformation. Again, this is one of these complexities we want to work through. David Wright is another fantastic scholar of baptism in the early church.

He himself, if I understand, is a part of the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and this is a collection of his essays, which is just amazing. Here's how he puts it. The leaders of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century perpetuated a right which had first come into its own in the post-Augustinian era and was sustained for virtually all its centuries-long medieval life by doctrinal stipulations which they could no longer endorse. In other words, what Wright is talking about is the strange aspects of Augustine's theology

of baptism that nobody adheres to today or virtually nobody. It's relation to his doctrine of election, its role in propping up the doctrine of original sin in his anti-Palajian writings, his doctrine of the damnation of a unbaptized babies. Most people have departed from these aspects of Augustine's thought, but those aspects are what propped up as doctrine of infant baptism. And so, you know, combining these second and third points here, what I'm emphasizing is that you've got Augustine's influence, and then you've got the loss of major strands of Augustine's baptismal theology, and what emerges is a sort of irony in the history of infant baptism. Here's how Wright puts it.

It was Augustine who finally set the necessity of Pytobaptism. on an impregnable basis, but here lies the rub. For if at last the right had found its theological rationale, it was one that today's practitioners of infant baptism will scarcely be able to endorse, except perhaps to a very minor extent. We are left in the somewhat uncomfortable position of receiving the traditional observance from the early church, while at the same time rejecting the main planks of the theology in which the Church of the Father's found its conclusive justification. In other words, what I'm trying to draw attention to here is some of the ambiguities and complexities in the unfolding history of infant baptism that are often overlooked.

It might look like this solid castle that's always been there, but actually there's been incredible changes along the way in the theological understanding of it and even in the practice of it. So I'm trying to call both sides to less condescension and more recognition of the complexity of this so that we approach it with humility, but here I do want to make my case, hoping it won't annoy, hoping it will serve peaceable understanding for why I think Credo baptism is is most plausible as the apostolic practice, and you see infant baptism rather as kind of a slow accretion to use the word. Let's make my case here. Third section of the video, let's look at the New

Testament. And here, stepping back and looking at the big picture before we get into the details, we can observe that in general there does seem to be a pretty close link between baptism and repentance. And that comes not just from passages like the Great Commission and the language of make disciples. comma, baptizing them, or the New Testament epistles where baptism and union with Christ are simply coextensive categories, as many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. But it also draws from the background precedents that help us understand what is Christian baptism, like Jewish washing ceremonies and John the Baptist's baptism, and also the meaning of the term baptizo and the nature of the act as a submersion in water.

You can just put it simply by saying, in general, it looks like baptism is associated with repentance. Part of repenting, baptism is a part of the process of repentance and faith in Christ. Now, that does not rule out infant baptism, but it at least raises some questions and shows the need for a rationale for it. If infants are the proper recipients of this practice, which is associated with faith and repentance, then we would need a reason for that, and we need to know questions like, well, is it the same rationale for an infant as for an adult, and importantly, which infants are we talking about? Now, let me say one thing about this. As a Credo Baptist, I 100% affirm that God can regenerate infants. Sometimes Cretto Baptists are charged with sort of treating our children like pagans or not acknowledging

that God can work in our children from a very young age, not at all. Our children are not pagans. They're in a position of incredible blessing. They just may not be church members. from birth automatically, but they're still blessed to be raised within the church, and God can regenerate infants. It looks like God does this with John the Baptist. He's filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, from the Psalms and other portions of scripture. We recognize God can work in infants. God can do anything, and he's not restricted in any way by our age. But that does not necessarily resolve all the questions about infant baptism. We still need to know which infants does God, regenerate, how do we know, and at what point does that constitute a warrant for baptizing them?

In which cases, you know? So I'm just saying this doesn't, the fact that God can do that doesn't resolve all of these questions. Now, in this video, the goal is not to give a full theological treatment of Pytobaptism, but just to focus on the historical evidence. If you want a full theological argument against Pytobaptism, I've given a case in this article called Why Not grandchildren at Thameleos, that's really especially interacting with a reformed or covenantal argument, with the parallel with circumcision, and I'm trying to show infant circumcision, infant baptism are not continuous. One is intergenerational and national. The other is familial, and I make that case there. But that's a separate issue. The focus here is just what is the historical evidence for what actually

happened. Regardless of what the theological rationale is for infant baptism, when it's a it actually begin? Regardless of why it's beginning, when do we see it? Is this something the apostles did? And perhaps the most significant testimony from the first century is household baptisms. By my reckoning, there are five major examples where a household baptism in the New Testament occurs, and I'll put these up on the screen, and you can see them. And the first thing to observe, and what I want to point out is that in four of these five cases, the text indicates that the entire household believes. Sometimes that is explicitly stated, like with Crispus in Acts 18 in Corinth, where we're simply told that his household believed. Similarly in the baptism of the household of

Stephanus in 1st Corinthians 1, we're told that Paul baptized the household, but then in the last chapter of the book, he commends the Corinthians to be subject to them because the household of Stephanus were the first converts in Akiah. So it's just explicit household conversion in those two cases. In other cases, household conversion is implied. For example, in Acts chapter 10, Cornelius's household is baptized in verse 48, which you can see here in red, but this happens after they receive the spirit, speak in tongues, and worship God, which you can see here in green on the screen. So, and all of this comes in response, so the baptism comes in response to their hearing the gospel and Peter's question, you know, how can we not baptize these people? They have the spirit, just like we have the spirit.

So this also looks like a household conversion, because if there's infant baptism here, there must be infant speaking in tongues. The entire household receives the Holy Spirit, and it says they're all speaking in tongues. The text explicitly says, the Spirit fell on all who heard the word. Okay. And the rationality. there is, well, if they've got the spirit, they should get baptism. It's similar with the Philippian jailer's household in Acts 16. What you see in red here is that the entire household is invited to believe, verse 31. They have the word of God spoken to them, verse 32, and then they rejoice that salvation has come to them in verse 34. The whole household is rejoicing in verse 34 there.

You can see that in red on the screen. Now, it doesn't seem plausible that the family a member of the family would hear the word of God, hear the summons to believe, not respond to that, but then rejoice that salvation has come to them. If you're rejoicing at salvation having come to you, this implies that you responded and you experienced that salvation and so forth. So this looks like a household conversion as well. The only case where household conversion is not implied or explicitly stated would be Lydia, earlier in Acts chapter 16 in Philippi, where we're not told what happens in detail, because we have narrative compression here, which often happens in Acts. Luke tells us that the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to Paul, and then he just

skips ahead to what you see emboldened here in red, where after she had been baptized and her household as well, Paul and his companion stayed at her home. What's in red there, though, was the baptism. So we're just not told what her coming to faith looked like between the opening of her heart to hear and then the baptism. What did that response look like? There's narrative compression there. We don't know who's in her household, what her household looked like. Some people, by the way, have suggested that it would just have been female servants with her, potentially, because only women are present on this spot near the river outside the city gate, according to verse 13. So based on the context there in the location, some have said this would have been females only

and potentially female servants. So the households included servants as well. But we just don't know, and we can't put too much weight on a text where we're not given any sort of details. Household conversion would fit the pattern here that would correspond to the pattern we've already recognized, but we can't say for sure. And so this text is not the terminative. So let's just not wield this text to push real strongly in either direction. One of the things I'm going to try to do throughout this video is just weigh the evidence fairly as much as I can. I know people on the Pytobaptist side will certainly feel I'm not doing that at points. but I'm going to try to weigh the evidence as fairly as I can and not overspeak. Now, some people struggle with this idea of household conversion, but we have to remember that in the

first century world where it's far less individualistic than our culture, it's not hard to imagine that when the head of the household converts to a new religion, those others in the household, both children and servants, would also join in in embracing personally that new religion. And you see household conversions in the Gospels as well as in Acts. For example, in the healing of the royal official's son in John 4, we read that the father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, your son will live, and he himself believed and all his household. It's interesting that the father's recognition of the timing of Jesus' miracle leads not only to his conversion, but to the household's conversion. And this speaks not only to the influence that the head

of the household would have had over his family, but also the ability of the New Testament to tack on and his household as a kind of brief summary for what was probably a little bit more of a lengthy process. Again, narrative compression. So to sum up here, household baptisms in Acts look generally like household conversions in every case but one, and that one just doesn't give us enough information to know whether there were members of the household that were too young to articulate faith, and yet were still baptized nonetheless. But some point to Peter's assertion in Acts chapter two to his Jewish contemporaries at the day of Pentecost that God's promise is for you and your children as a warrant for including infants in baptism or young children in baptism. You can see

this passage on the screen here. But let me observe three things about this passage. First, to ask what is the promise here? It's not covenant membership per se or baptism, which would follow from that. It's the Holy Spirit who's just been poured out. This is what has been identified right in the preceding clause in verse 38. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that is what Jesus has promised. This is the fulfillment of Luke 2449 where the Holy Spirit has been promised and he's called the promise of the Father. So what is in view here? The promise is Holy Spirit reception. That's just what's been visible with all the speaking in tongues. Second, the recipients of that promise are not just you and your children, but also all who are far off in verse 39. So syntactically, both of these

classes of people are in the exact same position, your children and all who are far off. Both are equally capable of receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit. And third, the way we get the Holy Spirit, the conditions of this promise in this passage are repentance in verse 38 and calling in verse 39. Repent, and then everyone whom the Lord are God will call. And so the basic import of Peter's word seems to be basically everybody can receive the Holy Spirit, consequent upon repentance and faith. From the people under your roof to the people in distant lands, the Holy Spirit's now democratized, available for anyone who is faith in Christ. So there's three sort of wrong turns here if you want to try to get baptism, not Holy Spirit reception.

Can't assume those are the same. Of the children of believers, but not those who are far off, irrespective of any evidence of repentance or calling. So I think Peter's saying something that a credo Baptist would just totally agree with. then I can understand how if you're coming to this passage, again, I'm trying to be sympathetic here. I can understand, you know, you've got 3,000 people baptized. I can understand how those words just will stand out to you based upon background beliefs you might bring to the text. But it simply goes beyond what is in the text to insist upon that. All the text says,

verse 41, is those who received his word were baptized. Again, the people, I identified as baptized here, are those who respond. They receive his word. So, you know, if you want to get infant baptism here, respectfully, I think you need to put it into the text. It's certainly not explicit. It's certainly not clear. The text says those who received the word were baptized. Now another passage that is often brought up is Jesus' blessing of children. Think of Mark 10, for example, and the synoptic parallels and this statement of Christ that to such belongs the kingdom of God. Mark 1014, you can see on screen here. But note that Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, not to a particular

class of children like the children of believers or something like that. Jesus is commending childlikeness here with all that it entails as a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of God. And that is why he immediately follows by saying, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not. enter it. So with Matthew 18, 3 to 4, same thing, where anyone of any age can enter the kingdom of God if they become like little children. The point here is just entrance to God's kingdom requires child likeness. And if you wanted to try to say this reflects a theology of children,

then you'd need to find a way to specify that to which children. This is one of the challenges, I think with infant baptism arguments from the New Testament is they tend to prove too much. This could be a good argument for indiscriminate infant baptism, just baptize all infants, because Jesus is not speaking of a particular kind of infant or class of infants like the children of believers. A final passage that's worth engaging here from the New Testament data is 1st Corinthians 714, and particularly Paul's claim that the children of one or more believing parents are holy. Now, the question in context here is questions of marriage and divorce in the Corinthian Church. And in verses 12 to 16, Paul's burden is with the circumstance of a Christian who is married to an unbeliever.

And verse 14 is basically functioning as the rationale supporting his appeal to remain married. So that is the context. And what we can observe here is that the unbelieving spouse is said to be in the same position as the child. the children are holy hagiose because the unbelieving spouse is made holy hagiatso you sometimes don't see in english translation that's the cognate form of the same word so this raises the question is what does holiness mean here what kind of holiness are we talking about because in whatever sense the child is holy so is the unbelieving spouse well throughout the bible the term holy can be used in a variety of ways you can call the Sabbath holy, you can call priestly garments holy, you can call objects in the

tabernacle holy, those under a Nazarite vow are holy. In this context, holy here suggests the sanctity and legitimacy of the marriage and consequently of the resulting offspring. So therefore, this is fitting the context because the concern here is believers thinking they need to divorce their unbelieving spouse. Now, if that's wrong, and holy means in some way or another, worthy of baptism or a member of the new covenant or a member of the church or something like this, then by consistency, I think we need to say that the unbelieving spouse as well should be considered a member of the church and worthy recipient of baptism, even apart from any evidence of repentance and faith and so forth. I think it's just better to say it's a holy marriage and family in the sense

of a legitimate one set apart to the Lord, but not necessarily church membership. Now, I say more about all of these things in the article, the Why Not Grandchildren article. Suffice to say here, just to summarize, it looks like, from the standpoint of the New Testament, from everything it just kind of looks like people are not brought to baptism. People come to baptism. Baptism is something we're willingly involved in. Baptism is one part of repentance and faith. Now, we also don't have any explicit evidence of a couple coming to faith and then in the case of an infant delaying baptism. So that's why I say suggestive. You know, from everything we can tell, it looks like baptism is for those who believe. And my, my,

the reason I affirm that more definitively is simply because of my doctrine of the church. I think the New Testament defines the church as those who believe. And I don't think just baptizing someone just makes them a believer. I just don't see any reason to think that. But, you know, let's acknowledge, but I'm saying it's suggestive of that, because we don't have any explicit evidence, just looking at the historical data, we don't have any explicit evidence either way of an infant child of Christian parents, and then you're told to delay, or you're told to baptize. So I'm saying the New Testament data seems suggestive of credo baptism. What about church history? Fourth section of the video. As we've indicated, we could put the

development of infant baptism into five phases, and the one that I put in red here is the one that I want to alert us to, and we're going to come back to here, because I think this gets us into the fascinating rationale and how differing the rationales have been for infant baptism as it's developing. I want us to see the fluidity and change in these early times. Here's how David Wright puts it. The fourth century fascinates because almost for the first time in the story, we reach terra firma.

That means firm ground. Hard, factual evidence of the baptismal biographies of known and named individuals. who are the children of Christian parents. And surprise, surprise, Pytobaptism is scarcely discernible at all. Is that so? Is he right? Let's work through this. As you move forward outside of the New Testament in, say, the extra-biblical first-century

literature, you don't see, by my lights, any major changes. What's conveyed in the early sources like the didache and theologians like Justin Martyr sounds like Cretobaptism in the same way that the New Testament sounds like Cretobaptism. Basically, if you describe the baptismal experience as involving certain acts that infants cannot do, like fasting and then renouncing Satan and reciting liturgy and eating honey and so on and so forth, and you nowhere indicate any exceptions, then it sounds like you're presupposing that the person who is getting baptized is capable of expressing faith. It's not absolutely conclusive, but it seems suggestive of creedobaptism.

Because, again, you just expect, like, okay, if you give a right and it is something that only an adult or child could do, not an infant, and you never say, oh, but in the case of infants, here's what you do, then there sort of leaves you wondering, well, did they do this for infants at this time in history. So, for example, with the didache, we can start with this. This is a brief anonymous text, probably dating to the late. late 1st century, maybe early 2nd, and it gives us a lot of information about early church practice. Chapter 7 is called Concerning Baptism. It says, Concerning baptism, baptized this way.

Having first said all these things, baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 2819, in living water. But if you have not living water, baptized into other water, and if you cannot in cold and warm, but if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast and the baptized and whatever others can, but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before. So here, again, similar to the New Testament, what is specified for a baptizant, that's the person getting baptized, generally looks like what an infant wouldn't be capable

of doing at that point in their life. It looks like something that you would expect from a child or an adult, fasting prior to the event, and then the general practice being submersion in water with pouring as an acceptable alternative to that. And this is generally what you find in the literature from this time. I'm not going to be exhaustive like our friend Everett Ferguson. Thank you, Everett Ferguson, for the work you have done so that, I mean, he really covers every single text. By my awareness, he doesn't leave anything uncovered. So I'm going to give representative examples here in this video, try to paint the picture, but not.

make it a four-hour video. But this is what you generally find in the literature from this time among the Apostolic Father's early second century texts. Let me give another example from Justin Martyr. And the idea here is again that the baptismal practice of this early time seems to assume a more mature initiate. Martyr says this, as many as are persuaded and believe that which we teach and say is true and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past. We praying and fasting with them, then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated in the same manner in which we ourselves were regenerated. For in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe and of our Savior Jesus

Christ and of the Holy Spirit, they then received the washing with water. The question that arises again is If infant baptism were the apostolic norm, why don't we see some kind of mention of it, you know, like baptisms should fast and pray and renounce Satan and so forth. But in the case of infants, here's what you do. If infants are sort of exceptional, why don't we see some reference of exceptions? Why don't we get instruction? We're going to get that later. I'm going to give you an account of that from Hippolytists in a second,

but we don't see that at this time. some people say well this was more of a missionary context in the early church so you just would have more adult conversions maybe as a generalization but we definitely still have Christian parents at this time Andrew Keperski in his article on this points out that Justin did know people who were born to Christian parents Justin certainly knew people who were born to Christian parents it's not like you didn't have Christians having babies in the second century now I'm not going to work through all the texts but I would say I think what you give from Justin and the didarchy there is representative. These are not outlier texts. This is representative.

You know, another example would be Aristides. He's a second century apologist. Same kind of thing. It just the portrayal of baptism seems to assume the person getting baptized is capable of things like fasting, renouncing Satan, articulating faith, reciting liturgy, etc. And by the way, of course, Justin would have known about the general practice of the church in his day as well. Ferguson says he in a position to know general Christian practice and may be taken as representative of Christian baptism at the mid-second century, especially at Rome. So this is generally the picture. Some people try to find infant baptism in things like polycarb statement that he'd served Christ for 86 years, but that's really reading into the passage, you know, for multiple reasons. That doesn't prove

he was baptized as an infant. And you have to kind of assume certain things, but that's the very thing you need to prove. The simple fact is polycarp, number one, we don't know how old polycarp was exactly when he said that. Number two, we don't know whether that means he was baptized at that age. So for multiple reasons, that's not a clear or good proof text. We really don't have any explicit references to infant baptism in this earliest period. You know, I'm not trying to overstate the case, but I think that's true. The first explicit reference we have to infant baptism comes from Tertullian in the late 2nd century. Tertullian is writing the first treatise on baptism in all church history,

and he is opposing the baptism of infants and encouraging the delay of baptism. And you can see this on the passage ending with the words, let them become Christians, that means get baptized, when they have become able to know Christ. Now, I know how these discussions go and people will point out, and that is that Tertullian's rationale is totally different from modern day Baptists and most modern-day Cretobaptists, totally agreed. Tertullian has a very high view of baptismal efficacy, and he is quite the rigorous, okay? But his rationale is also different from later

Augustinian Pytobaptism, which is associated with original sin. A lot of these earlier testimonies have an emphasis on the innocence of children, which is interesting. So when people say, Tertullian's not a Baptist, the response is, yeah, agreed, but he's also not a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Presbyterian. He's different from every expression of modern-day Pidal baptism. The relevance of Tertullian is his value as a historical testimony. We don't have to agree with his theology, but just what does this tell us about what's going on in North Africa in the late second century? And I think here we have the first unambiguous testimony for infant baptism. Tertullian would not have opposed a practice that didn't exist. But it doesn't seem like the universal practice

either. What some scholars have suggested is that the nature of Tertullian's argument is unlikely if infant baptism was indeed a widely established and ancient practice going back 100 years to the apostles. Here's how Ferguson puts it. Tertullian refers to the baptism of small children as something already being done and for which a practical and scriptural rationale was advanced, but in view of Tertullian's respect for tradition at this period of his life, evidently not a practice of long standing, just as he would scarcely have made reference to an unknown practice, nor would he have rejected a generally accepted one. And later he puts it like this, Trotlion's opposition to infant baptism is an indication that the practice was neither long established nor generally accepted.

Now, I find that plausible, though other scholars disagree with that. To my mind, it's hard to think of Trotelian making this argument if this was just the general practice of the church, going back to the apostles at this time. It seems to be more something that's just cropping up, which would explain why we don't see infant baptism earlier. Having said that, as you go into the third century, we definitely see a rapid proliferation of Pytobaptism. We find perhaps the first testimony of the routine inclusion of very young children who cannot yet speak in a text called the apostolic tradition, which is presumed to have been written by Hippolytus of Rome, though that is contested and the date here is uncertain.

Somewhere, second century to fourth century. If it was written by Hippolytus, indeed, then that would make it early third century in Rome. But we can't be certain about the date. This is in the genre of a church manual. Here's what it describes. When they come to the water, the water shall be pure and flowing,

that is the water of a spring or a flowing body of water. Then they shall take off all their clothes. The children shall be baptized first. All of the children who can answer for themselves, them answer, if there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them or someone else from their family. After this, the men will be baptized, finally the women, et cetera, et cetera. You can read the rest of that on the screen there. So if indeed, this is from Hippolytists, then what you have here is the inclusion of very young children incapable of

speaking for themselves in baptisms here in Rome, perhaps somewhere around 2.15 at the latest, but probably giving testimony of earlier practices that have existed for some period of time before that. Though again, there are scholarly disputes about the date of this text and whether it was written by apologist. Moreover, as you push into the third century, you find infant baptism being affirmed by origin. For example, in his sermons throughout the two 30s and throughout the 240s, origin claiming it is apostolic tradition. Origin is massively influential. and infant baptism is also affirmed by Cyprian in the mid-third century, who interestingly also affirms infant communion,

and Cyprian's position on infant baptism is affirmed by 66 other bishops in the region, meeting in council in Carthage. So infant baptism is widely attested here in the third century. So the question is, if infant baptism doesn't go back to the apostles, how did it arise and spread like this? Ferguson's argument is that we get a clue in tomb inscriptions from around this time, especially early third century, because we have a lot of these, and they suggest in many cases of infant or child baptism that's an emergency procedure, kind of death-bred procedure.

So here's an example from the catacomb of Priscilla. Florentius made this monument for his well-deserving son, Apronianus, who lived one year, nine months and five days, since he was dearly loved by his grandmother, and she saw that he was going to die, she asked from the church that he might depart from the world a believer. So this means, that means being baptized. So the scenario is baby boy, almost two years old, sick and about to die, grandmother requests baptism. There's lots of other examples from tombstones around this time, and including with Christian parents. Do you find a lot of these examples that Ferguson is drawing attention to. Here's another one. Quote, her parents set this up for Julia Florentina, their dearest and

most innocent infant, who was made a believer. She was born a pagan on this day. I'm not going to give all the details here, skipping ahead. She lived 18 months and 22 days and was made a believer in the eighth hour of the night, almost drawing her last breath. She survived four more hours. So this is obviously different from many, this reflects a theology that's different from many contemporary views, both Cretobaptist and Pytobaptist, that don't conceive of baptism as making someone a believer. But it also is a challenge to infant baptism, because obviously a child who's getting baptized when they're 18 months old didn't get baptized right when they were born. And there's so many inscriptions like this. Ferguson says, the inscriptions I propose are the key to understanding

the origin of infant baptism. When we recall the high infant mortality rate of the ancient world, it is easy to understand how an emergency practice eventually became a normal practice. Now, this strikes me as a plausible theory, though we can't nail it down with certainty. I mean, I think we have to be honest. When we get to historical data, we just have to make our case, but acknowledge the limitations and the historical evidence is not absolutely conclusive for different views on this. But that's what it looks like to me. It looks like something that crops up there, late second century, and then it rapidly proliferates. Because so many of these tombstones, you have someone who just wasn't, was born to Christian parents, not baptized as an infant,

but baptized as like a two-year-old right before they die, this kind of thing. At any rate, baptismal practice is not settled by the time you move into the fourth century. Despite the proliferation of infant baptism, there's still variation. And so even despite the massive influence of origin, and so you do still find competing views for a while about whether to baptize infants born to Christian parents, and in fact, the practice of delaying in baptism swells up in the fourth century. Here's Wright's summary. If we move from precedent to practice, we encounter that widespread group of later fourth century churchmen and church women nurtured in Christian families, but not baptized until they were of independent years. It is extensive. Ambrose and his brother

Satyrus and probably also their sister, Marcellina, Augustine, Basel the Great, Ephraim Sierras, Gregory Nazianzin, and his sister, Makrina in all likelihood, Jerome and his friend Heliodorus, John Chrysostom, Pollinus of Nola and his brother, Rufinus of Aquilea, and quite possibly others, mentions two other examples. One of those is John Cassian. I think Wright, by the way, was mistaken there in mentioning Macrina as Gregory's sister. She was the sister of the other Gregory Gregory of Nisa. Gregory of Nazianz's sister was Gargonia, but she also was baptized as an adult, as was Gregory of Nazianzis's brother, Cesarius, as was their father, Gregory of Nazianzis, the elder. So all those names could be added to Wright's list. The point is, the people getting baptized

as adults during the 300s almost comprise a who's-who's-who of significant Christians, despite being born in many cases into devout Christian homes. And write notes that although several of these would subsequently become critical of baptismal delay, only in the case of Augustine is there any blame assigned to the parents. Most of them simply celebrate their baptism. A lot of times it'd be around age 30 without any suggestion that their parents had done anything wrong. Several like Gregory of Nazianzis go at great length praising their parents as giving them a godly and Christian upbringing. You also have cases of infant dedication during these time, among some of these.

And then you also see these hybrid views, like Gregory of Nazianzis' own suggestion, where he urges baptism for those in danger, but for others to wait till a child is somewhere around their fourth birthday. So around age three or four, turning four, that you would baptize sometime in that region so that they can take in something of the mystery. It really is only with Augustine that the picture begins to change, and not just Augustine generally, but Augustine in his later anti-Palagian writings starting around 410 AD. So in the early 5th century. And here Augustine draws upon infant baptism to help his argument in favor of original sin. And this has a massive influence, because starting with Augustine, you get this emphasis that baptism is necessary for salvation, and that includes infants.

Those infants who don't make it through the baptismal font and die, according to Augustine, are lost. They are damned. They are not saved. They do not experience the beatific vision. By the way, that view goes on for a long time. I'll document that in a second. And that view is less common prior to Augustine.

A lot of people believed in the relative innocence and or salvation of infants prior to Augustine. even apart from baptism. Augustine's emphasis that the unbaptized baby who dies is damned, in turn causes a shift in the regular liturgical practices. You have less kind of regular occasions for baptism throughout the calendar year celebrated by the whole church. And you get more just immediate baptism of babies from that individual family coming for baptism for obvious reasons of you don't want to wait around. You don't want to wait one more. second than you have to. You want to get that baby baptized, God forbid, something happens, right? So you don't want to wait. It's like, oh, the next baptismal celebration is three months from now.

You're not going to wait for that. You're going to get baptism immediately. And some have argued that this transition leads to a reduction of some of the pomp and circumstance that was associated with baptismal ceremony in the second and third and fourth centuries. But in terms of the theology of baptism, Augustine kind of regularizes and cements this practice in contrast to the earlier diversity. There's a few spots in Western Europe, like Ireland, where Credo baptism is retained for a while. It flares up again with like the Waldensians,

who have both practices for at least some portions of their history. But baptism really gets, infant baptism really comes into its own with Augustine. Here's how Wright puts it, when infant baptism finally became the Norman practice, which in the West may well not have happened until a century or more after the decisive contribution of Augustine, the history of Christian baptism started all over again. Although babies, some babies, especially dying babies, were baptized certainly from about the middle of the second century onwards, there is not too much in common between the baptism of the

first four centuries or so, basically a right of conversion, and the universalized Pidal Baptism of the post-Augustinian era. This is significant because of what we said at the beginning of this video, that people appeal to certain aspects of Augustine's legacy, but not realize other aspects that they're leaving off. For example, I'll often have people say this to me as a credo-baptist. They'll say, it's just incredible to think that an erroneous practice of baptism, like baptizing infants when you shouldn't, would come to be the universal church or nearly universal church practice for almost a millennium. In the wake of Augustine, up to the Reformation, this is just what happens. God would not allow that degree of error to persist for so long.

But the problem is, they may not realize that that's what everyone already believes about other aspects of Augustine's doctrine of baptism, like the damnation of unbaptized babies, which is precisely a theology of baptism that predominated in the church for a millennium because of Augustine's influence. There's just qualifications to it with the idea of limbo, but from Gregory the Great through Anselm, basically Fogentius, everybody thinks. that unbaptized babies who die do not get the beatific vision. That is the view for a millennium.

And that's a huge pillar in Augustine's defense of infant baptism is the necessity of baptism to wash away original sin, and thus the certain damnation of those who don't have it. And that's not just one incidental feature of his pital baptism. That's an intrinsic part. That's one of the pillars of it that remains there for a millennium. So you see what I'm trying to get at here? It's like people act like infant baptism is this solid castle that's just always been there,

and they don't realize how much variation there has been. If credobaptists are wrong to oppose a practice that came to predominate for a millennium, then we should just go the whole wafer with Augustine, and affirm like him, the damnation of unbaptized babies, even though hardly anyone believes that anymore, because that also predominated for a millennium. Hopefully the point I'm trying to make is clear there. Now, sometimes Eastern Christians say that this idea of the damnation of unbaptized babies who die is just a Western idea.

But listen to the confession of De Scythius from the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem, one of the most significant Eastern Orthodox councils of the last millennium. Quote, we believe Holy Baptism, which was instituted by the Lord, and is conferred in the name of the Holy Trinity to be of the highest necessity, for without it none is able to be saved, and therefore baptism is necessary, even for infants, since they also are subject to original sin and without baptism are not able to obtain its remission. It continues. And infants are men, and as such need salvation, and needing salvation, they need also baptism. And those that are not regenerated since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin are of necessity subject to eternal punishment and consequently cannot without baptism be saved so that even infants should, of necessity, be baptized.

Of course, many have softened on that point today. And so what emerges here is that there is often a selective appeal to tradition. People appeal to this part of the tradition, but leave off that part of the tradition. And the fact is that infant baptism is a very complicated story. It's very much a practice that has this kind of variation for its rationales. It takes a long time to become normal, and then what makes it normal is a particular theological rationale, which is no longer held to today. So that's what I'm trying to say here. This is, I'm trying to draw attention to that complexity. So I hope this will summarize as an

explanation as to why many of us are not persuaded that infant baptism is actually apostolic practice. At the very least, I hope you might consider Wright's conclusion. The true history of baptism of itself favors dogmatism on neither side of the traditional divide. In other words, whatever conclusion you come to about at what age a person should be baptized, there isn't grounds for a sense of exasperation with the other side as though they're departing from something obvious. The true history of baptism in the church is very complicated, and there's much variation in it, whatever view you take today. So I hope this video will serve peaceable understanding. I hope I have not offended or been unfair to Pytobaptists. I probably have been, to be honest,

I probably missed something. You know, I am not perfect. I'm sincerely making good faith effort to just put forward my argument. Here's why I think infant baptism is an accretion, something that's slowly coming on along the way. I will read the comments. And because I really respect, I hope, you know, that's why, again, I want my channel to serve unity in the gospel,

but that means we can talk about these things, but I'm trying to do it in a spirit of unity, broader, more broadly. So I will read the comments, because I hope you can feel that I really love respect, and admire Pytobaptists. I'm not, in my conscience, I'm not able to affirm that point of view. It just seems to me to be right, that we should just wait until someone knows what's going on,

and then you baptize them. But I feel in my heart toward the Pytobaptist tradition such that I'm trying to talk about this in a way that's not unduly provocative, and so I will really read the comments. If you think I've been unfair, read the, let me know in the comments, and I will read the comments, and I will really consider pushback on this. And if you make a response video, I'll watch the video, unless it's like four hours long. I'll watch the video and I'll listen to the pushback. Okay, I will listen to the pushback.

But this is my sincere good faith effort as to why I think Credo baptism is the apostolic position. I hope this serves peaceable understanding on this issue in the church. Thank you for watching. May the Lord bless you.