Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism - National ...

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some continuity with either the ritual washing or mikvah of second temple Judaism, Jewish
proselyte baptism as used from at least the first century B.C.E., or the more isolationist Essenestyle
baptism which was eschatological in character (cf. Serekh ha-Yahad or ―Community Rule
Scroll‖). However, it was John himself who would presage the baptism of Jesus by
distinguishing his own as merely a ―water‖ baptism versus the ―spirit‖ or ―fire‖ baptism to be
given by the promised one (Mt. 3.11 and Lk.3.16; Jn.1.33). Jesus would then use the term
―baptism‖ to describe either a sharing in his sufferings for those who would follow him (cf. Mt.
20.22-23 and Mk. 10.38) or as a name for his own rite of washing with water, but offered by his
disciples (Jn.4.1-2) at first only to Jews. Later, the apostles would adapt John‘s practices to the
injunctions of Jesus to baptize gentiles as well (cf. Matt. 28. 19-20), with Paul then developing
the term typologically by contrasting the Israelites‘ ―baptism into Moses‖ (1 Cor. 10.2) over and
against baptism into Christ Jesus. In sum, New Testament accounts provide several controlling
images for baptism, with two of these particularly important in the patristic era, only to reemerge
as central themes in recent reforms of baptism: (1) baptism as new birth through water
and the Spirit (John 3) and (2) baptism as union with Christ in his death and resurrection
(Romans 6).
New Testament texts are ambiguous about whether baptism was extended only to adults,
or may have included children, as well. When Paul and others are said to have baptized an entire
―household‖ (oikos), there is no doubt that it included men and women, married and widowed,
and those who were free (cf. 1 Cor.1.16; Acts 16.15;11.14;16.31). But did it also embrace slaves
and children ? Early Church figures such as Tertullian (c.160-c.240 C.E.) (cf. De spect. 4; De
corona mulites 3; De anima 35) speak warmly of the baptism of children, but there seems to be
no clear answer to the question of a universal understanding about the matter in the immediately
sub-apostolic period. The probability of other mixed practices in the performance of baptism are
also suggested in the New Testament. While it is clear, for example, that the Lord‘s injunction at
Mt. 28. 19-20 involves a declarative formula for baptism, it is equally clear in Acts. 2.38, 8.16,
10.48 and 19.5 that ―baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus‖ was commonplace in many early
Jewish-Christian communities 11 . The same practice is found in the baptismal sections of the
Didache 9.5 (c. 60 C.E.), where Christian praxis would emerge slowly from its home in apostolic
Judaism.
In the second and third centuries, sources reveal varying patterns of development in
baptismal practices. Justin Martyr‘s (100-165 C.E.) account of baptism in Rome, found in his
First Apology (61, 65), describes a water baptism whose language is built around Eastern
Christian notions of illumination.
In Syria (Didascalia apostolorum,9.12) (c.250 C.E.?), there was strong emphasis on prebaptismal
anointing associated with the assimilation of the baptized into the royal and priestly
offices of Christ. The baptism itself was accompanied by the Trinitarian formula and led directly
to Eucharist. In North Africa, Tertullian (c.160-c.240 C.E.) described a process that included
vigils and fasts, renunciation of Satan, threefold creedal profession of faith at baptism, postbaptismal
anointing, prayer with laying on of hands associated with the gift of the Spirit, and
participation in the eucharist (see De spect. 4; De corona mulites 3; De anima 35) . The
contested Apostolic Tradition, 21 (attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, ca. 215 C.E.) describes
three years of catechesis, including prayer, fasting, and exorcism, and a formal rite of admission
11 Though this term may have been the common expression for a fuller ritual expression of baptism (cf. fractio
panis).
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