Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries

by Joachim Jeremias

Publisher:

SCM Press

, 1960

Overview

This work by Joachim Jeremias is a profound study of infant baptism in the early church by one of the twentieth century’s leading New Testament scholars. In a concrete, accessible manner, Jeremias lays out the first four centuries of historical material on infant baptism.

Contents

Top Highlights

“For the first century we have no special evidence for the baptism of Christian children. In the second it was already taken for granted. We shall see how the unambiguous testimony of Origen, four times repeated, that it is the custom of the Church to baptize children in the very earliest days of their lives, is for two reasons especially important. First, it takes us a long way back from the time in which Origen writes (230–250) into the second century.” (Page 55)

“Delay of baptism in the case of Christian children was wholly unknown in the primitive Church” (Page 56)

“has had for the thinking of the Bible, and how great a part family solidarity played in the ancient world” (Page 22)

“At this point we need only to emphasize that in fact the amount of evidence is much large” (Page 55)

“trace in the sources, which begin to be more abundant at this time.” (Page 57)

Product Details

• Title: Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries
• Author: Joachim Jeremias
• Series: The Library of History and Doctrine
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Print Publication Date: 1960
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Infant baptism › History; Infant baptism
• Resource ID: LLS:SCMINFNTBPTSM
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-08-29T20:19:36Z

About Joachim Jeremias

Joachim Jeremias (1900–1979) was a German Lutheran theologian. He was a scholar in Near Eastern studies and professor of New Testament at the University of Goettingen, Germany. He is author of several books, including Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus.