OR AN INQUIRY INTO THE CONDITION OF CHILDREN
IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
BY CAESAR MALAN, DOCTOR IN THEOLOGY.
“For me and my house, we shall serve Jehovah.”—JOSHUA xxiv. 15.
(Translated for the first time from the French.)
(Continued from page 68.)
CHAPTER IX.—THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH FROM THE BEGINNING BAPTISED THE INFANT CHILDREN OF BELIEVERS.
The father of the family.—“What shall I answer you, Samuel? To say, as you say you have heard it said, that infant baptism was unknown to the Apostolic Church, and that the practice stole into the Church little by little at a later period, appears to me to deny what the history of the period affirms, or to mean that one is willingly ignorant of what history relates. That the Apostolic Church baptised the infant children of believers is to me so evident, that when I hear it said that the proof alleged is equivocal, or that it is not of much force, I feel bound to ask, Where is the simplicity or frankness of those who thus speak?”
Samuel.—“Nevertheless, dear brother, that proof—be its value what it may—is not in a direct sense the Word of God.”
The father of the family.—“No, without doubt, it is not, but it is the print which that word has made in the Church. The footprints which I discover on the ground are not, to be sure, the very man who left these footprints, but they are the unmistakable witnesses of his having been there. And I am quite sure that if you, dear Samuel, found yourself lost in the midst of a desert you would be glad to follow the track made by a caravan, if you discovered such a track on the sands. Would you, in a case like that, say that that track was of no consequence to you as long as you did not see the camels and merchants who made it? I think you would not. Now, the case is not different as regards Church history, when the question in debate concerns some usage or practice. When it is, indeed, a question of doctrine, we must ‘to the law and to the testimony’ as the alone voice to which we ought to hearken. But if the enquiry concerns a material fact which a certain doctrine was likely to result in, the material response which history gives is an unobjectionable means for arriving at a true conclusion, and to refuse this verdict is to declare that we are prejudiced against the truth which history substantiates.”
Samuel.—“I have no objection to offer to what you say, dear friend. On this account—although I hitherto thought it right to pay little heed to what Church history might furnish on the
subject of infant baptism, and even found fault with those who occupied themselves much with that aspect of the discussion—I am now your willing listener. Yes, I quite believe that such footprints as you have spoken of may here be met with, and they are the footprints which truth has made, and the nature of their verdict ought at least to be carefully examined.”
The father of the family.—”Ah well, my friend, you may meet with these fruits in the very days of the Apostles in the Church of Antioch in Syria (Acts xv. 1). That Church, planted as it was in the midst of the Gentiles, was quite a stranger to the forms and habits which belonged to the ceremonial law. Now, when things stood thus in Antioch, we are told that certain Jews, who had been converted to the Gospel but were at the same time zealous for the practice of the law of Moses, came to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas then were, and taught the brethren, ‘that if they were not circumcised after the custom of Moses they could not be saved.’ Paul and Barnabas opposed this view, and shortly afterwards the Synod in Jerusalem condemned it as an error. But even that error contains a positive declaration in the sense that those converted Jews knew that the Church among the Gentiles was constituted like their own in respect of little children. The custom of Moses was that the little child should be circumcised. They themselves still retained that practice, and it was that usage that they wished to impose on the Gentiles under the Gospel. They believed that as with themselves, who were converted Jews, so with the Gentile converts, the children appertained to the Church, seeing that they insisted on perpetuating an ordinance which concerned children more than any other. If, in the Christian Church, little children had been excluded from the sign of the covenant, would those Jews have had even the thought of conserving a seal which they had always seen put upon little children?”
Samuel.—”No, certainly not; and I am not without appreciating both the plainness and the force of that proof which even the history contained in the Acts of the Apostles furnishes.”
The father of the family.—”Ah well, any other testimony of an historical nature, if it is trustworthy, ought to be equally welcomed on our part. On this account I ask you to join to those first footprints, the following, the clearness and the depth of which are such that they will not leave you in any doubt. I shall point them out to you all the way from the days of the Apostles up to the time when every one recognises that infant baptism was the universal practice of the Church.*
“(1) Hermas, the contemporary of Clement of Rome, of whom [possibly] St. Paul makes mention (Phil. iv. 3), and who himself may possibly have been the same Hermas of whom the same Apostle makes mention (Romans xvi. 14),—Hermas, I say, taking
* See this proof in detail in Wall’s History of Infant Baptism.
up what seems to be a reference to the words of the Saviour, to wit, ‘that the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children,’ goes on to express himself characteristically thus: ‘All of you who, like to little children, will remain without doing evil will be more honoured than the martyrs and confessors themselves; for all infants are honourable before God, and are the first persons with Him’ (Pastor of Hermas iii. 9, 25). Would Hermas have spoken thus if he had thought that the infant children of believers belonged to the profane rabble, were excluded from the Church, and were deprived of their having the name of Jehovah invoked upon them?
“(2) Justin Martyr, who lived forty years after the days of the Apostles, a pious and learned man—the first to plead the Church’s cause before the Emperor, who was persecuting it—expresses himself, in a conversation which he had at Ephesus with the Jew, Trypho, an intelligent and even accomplished person, in the following manner: ‘We also, who have approached God through Christ, have received not carnal but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch and those like him observed. And, by God’s mercy, we have received it through baptism, since we were sinners; and all men may equally obtain it.’ And elsewhere, when asked by Trypho, ‘Wherefore, if circumcision was a good thing, do not you practice it, as do the Jews?’ Justin replied, ‘We Christians are circumcised through baptism with the circumcision of Christ’ (Col. ii. 11, 12). (Dialogue, chap. xliii.) Now, Samuel, can you think that Justin, a seriously pious man, profoundly versed in the Scriptures, would have compared Christian baptism with circumcision, or would have answered the Jew in the way in which we saw him do, and above all, have introduced the reference to original sin, if he had known that infants were neither baptised nor admitted as members into the Christian Church? For my part I cannot imagine that he would.”
Samuel.—”No more can I, and, indeed, I acknowledge that it never occurred to me that the historical proof was one of such weight.”
The father of the family.—”What has been set before you is but a small fraction of the whole proof thus derived. Consider this. That same servant of the Lord Jesus, in one of his Apologies for the Christians, uses these words: ‘Yea, among us there are not a few men and women, of sixty and seventy years of age, who were disciples of Christ from their infancy, and who have continued all the time living a pure life.’ Now, on that quotation from Justin Martyr I offer two remarks. First, he uses the very same words which the Lord Jesus had made use of when He gave commandment to His Apostles to make disciples of all nations (Matt. xxviii. 19), so that it is an error to say that the words, ‘make disciples,’ in the mouth of our Saviour are applicable only to adults, seeing that Justin Martyr, according to our present quotation, makes use of them in speaking of infants. Secondly,
it is clear that the men and women who were sixty and seventy years of age when Justin wrote this Apology, must have been born within the days of the Apostles, and that it must have been in the days of the Apostles that they were added to the Church. Is not that footmark as distinct as it is deep? Does it not tell us clearly that in the churches formed in the days of the Apostles and under the direction of the Apostles, infants were reputed disciples, that is to say, members of the Church?
“But let us pursue our research and see how Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria, some sixty or seventy years after the days of the Apostles, leave us footprints still more plain:
“(3) Irenæus, who was equally renowned with Justin as a Christian martyr, and who was taught by Polycarp (St. John’s disciple), in speaking of the Lord Jesus, expresses Himself thus: ‘Therefore as He was Master, He had also the age of a Master; not disdaining nor doing violence to human nature; nor breaking in His own Person the law which He had set for mankind: but sanctifying every several age by the likeness that it has to Him. For He came to save all persons by Himself; all, I mean, who by Him are regenerated unto God; infants and little ones, and children and youths, and elder persons. Therefore He went through the several ages: for infants being made an infant; to little ones He was made a little one, sanctifying those of that age’ (Ag. Her. ii. 39). Thus spake a doctor of the Church, a witness of Apostolic times, and of the discipline of the Church when the Church was yet pure. He declares that even children at the breast are in the Church, that they are made holy or sanctified by the Saviour, that for them He was a little child; and he declares also that little children in the Church have been regenerated unto God, that is to say, according to the way of speaking then in use, that they had been baptised with water.”
Samuel.—“Do you mean to say so? Does the word ‘regenerated’ signify ‘baptised with water’ in Irenæus?”
The father of the family.—“Yes; almost always. Thus, for example, this same Irenæus says: ‘When the Holy Spirit gave to the disciples the power of regeneration unto God, he said unto them: “Go ye, etc.”’ Now that can only mean, as you must see, that He gave them power to baptise; since no Apostle ever had the power of regenerating a soul unto God in the proper sense, as that belongs exclusively to the Omnipotence of God. And in another place Irenæus says: ‘When the Lord gave to His disciples a commission to regenerate unto God, he said unto them: “Go and make disciples of all nations, etc.”’ Now we know that it was a commission to baptise with water that the Apostles received from Him.”
Samuel.—“If that is so, my brother, it is evident that in the time of Irenæus infants were baptised with water. To deny it would be to resist facts, or to regard valid testimony as a thing of no weight.”
The father of the family.—“Other witnesses yet will tell you the same thing. Thus (4) Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus’s contemporary, who like him employs the terms baptism and regeneration indifferently, in giving direction to Christian men and women concerning the gravity and modesty to be used in their apparel and ornaments, among other things says: ‘Let your seal be a dove, or a fish or a ship under sail, or a harp, or an anchor. And if any one by trade be a fisherman, he will do well to think of an Apostle, and the children taken out of the water.’ Clement thus indicates that in his time it had not been forgotten that the Apostles had baptised little children, as he counselled Christians who by their calling lived in the very midst of the waters to make choice of this as an emblem.”
Samuel.—“That fact is interesting. It has, in its very simplicity, something very amiable in it.”
The father of the family.—“So I think too. But I go farther down the stream of history, and about one hundred years after the days of the Apostles I come upon the testimony of (5) Tertullian, which I produce with all the more satisfaction because it is not an uncommon thing for those who oppose infant baptism to appeal to him in their own support. Now here is the fact: In his books on Baptism and on the Soul, after having spoken of man’s natural depravity and of the need of regeneration, he advances the opinion that baptism with water takes away all the sins which have preceded baptism, and he from this supposed circumstance concludes that it would be much better if instead of baptising infant children people should put off their baptism until the age of discretion, ‘for example,’ as he says, ‘until after marriage, in order that the time in which the passions are strongest should have been passed, and thus baptised persons would run less danger of losing the fruit of their baptism.’ Such was the avowed opinion of Tertullian. But what light does the expression of this opinion in this form throw on the question of infant baptism? Does it imply that in Tertullian’s time the usage was unknown? On the contrary, it establishes the judgment that in Tertullian’s time infant baptism was the common practice of the Church. Finally, does Tertullian dissuade from infant baptism on the ground that infant baptism was contrary to the Scriptures, and that it was right to baptise only after one had believed? Not at all. Tertullian’s reason for his dissuasion was of a quite different kind. Tertullian therefore must be reckoned with Hermas, Justin Martyr, Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria as witnessing to the practice of the Apostolic Church in the sense of putting the seal of the covenant on infants born in the Church. Do you call it still in question, Samuel?”
Samuel.—“It does not seem to me that I could with good reason resist the testimony of the witnesses you have brought forward.”
(To be continued.)