Did the Early Church Practice Infant Baptism? - David Bercot

Enjoy a short clip regarding infant baptism from David Bercot's episode earlier this week.

David's full episode: I Became an Anglican Priest. Here’s Why I Left.

Bercot’s series on the early church and believer’s baptism

The views expressed by our guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Anabaptist Perspectives or Wellspring Mennonite Church.

[AnabaptistTheology]

I totally agree! Thank you for addressing this subject.

[Jeff_Huston]

Infant and " Believers" baptisms have always existed and always will. As a convert to Eastern Orthodox, I'm an example of the latter. The important point here is that both must be done as an actual sacrament within The Church (which would include Chrismation), not merely as a "public testimony" officiated by anyone.

Even so, so long as a baptism is triune (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), the Orthodox Church will recognize that baptism and then complete the sacrament with Chrismation when a convert enters The Church.

[jessedutch]

It will remain an unsettled debate till our graves. Strange enough I don't hear ANY theologians arguing that both infant AND believers baptism were practiced from the beginning. I tend to think that Christianity from the start quickly practiced both ways in the first century already, like the church divided on so many points already under the governance of the apostles.

[GregSanders-mw]

Why did david leave out Hippolytus and Origen from his dictionary section on "the question of infant baptism"? They both say infant baptism is a doctrine the church received directly from the apostles. Interesting he left out those excerpts (two of the most important textual witnesses to the practice from Rome to Alexandria). Yet David quotes Origen as an authority in order to reject doctrines from the unified church of the first millenia. This is why many do not trust his carefully prooftexted portrayal of the early church. Not one single writer in the ante nicene fathers denies the viability of infant baptism. Not one. Tertullian says to wait *because* infant baptism is viable, and gives the same instruction to unmarried adults for the same reason. The notion that believers baptism was the norm in the 4th century is nonsense. The anabaptists that leave for the ancient churches are the ones that read the fathers for themselves. I suggest to the anabaptists listening to David's prooftexted lectures and dictionary that they read the holy fathers for themselves - you are all being misled and you don't even know it.

[TimMartinBlogger]

"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."
ORIGEN (C. AD 184–C. 253)

[ReluctantPost]

So change to apostolic teachings and practice was widely accepted by the early third century, then, and quite possibly the second? (Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who argues for carefulness in what he would otherwise forcefully deny as apostolic or show as being heretical if he thought that was true.) We are not given biblical guidance regarding believers' children and there is no indication that either approach was universal, as the Catholic or Anabaptist views would like. There was a natural, biblical association between baptism and the practice of circumcision, though. Anabaptists were completely right to reject the distorted "infant baptism" that was a political device of citizenship on earth.

[cleanerfloors]

Baptism was already being practiced by Jesus' disciples after John the baptizer had baptiized Jesus. So baptism was certainly being used by the disciples even before the Resurrection, but not yet to all the nations. Now what is interesting is that when infants/children were brought to Jesus, HE only laid hands on them and prayed. Baptism was available; his disciples were already baptizing, yet Jesus did not command it be used on the infants.

So lay hands on infants and pray is certainly following the example of the Lord, instead of baptizing them first and laying hands of confirmation on them later.

[RichPohlman]

We do not see anything prohibiting infant baptism in the New Testament.

[Anabaptista-ESTEBAN]

I want to join a anabaptista church ... Please help i stay in Veracruz México, i have a wife and 3 kids🙏

[ruthgoebel]

The Bible says in several places about whole households being baptized. Whole households would include children. The command to baptize all nations does not include a disclaimer of everyone of the 'age of accountability '. There is no biblical reference to age of accountability anywhere in Scripture.

[AlphaStudios-lhrz]

Sorry brother, I love your work, but they did. Study them closer. Not a single father opposed infant baptism

[AlexandarShmex]

Simple answer, no. Baptism is invalid if it's not done after full commitment to being a serious Christian, being observed for a period of couple years and then baptism can be done because of one's own will and determination to be a Christian, after studying the Holy Scriptures and talking with theologians.

[Benjamin-jorf]

1:35 infallible human writings not created for all humans to follow as gospel truth for the remainder of humankind. Exactly how Paul's Epistles should be read