Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies
Overview
These important and incisive essays, spanning more than two decades of research and engagement, probe facets and episodes of infant baptism’s fortunes over twenty centuries. The story of paedo baptism is traced from its shadowy beginnings as a variant of faith-baptism, through inflated Reformation defenses as it monopolized baptismal thought and practice, to biblical and ecumenical re-evaluations and hopeful contemporary rapprochements across divisive waters.
Top Highlights
“So infant baptism is first inescapably attested early in the third century both in Rome (baby as well as child baptism) and in Carthage, in texts which require us to believe that it had been observed in both centres for a generation or more. Can we move any further back towards the New Testament?” (Page 8)
“Thus in our earliest explicit text, the sharp lines between paedobaptism and credobaptism are blurred, for Hippolytus’ parvuli who answer for themselves are receiving child believers’ baptism.” (Page 6)
“Incidentally, it is noteworthy that in inscriptions even children of a few months or years are called fidelis or πιστός to attest their baptized status, which is further evidence that the baptism of infants has been accommodated to an observance designed for faith-professing candidates.” (Page 12)
“Thirdly, it may be the case that in one and the same church at any one time only some infants were baptized” (Page 4)
“The fearful prospect that governs Tertullian’s counsel is that of serious post-baptismal sin” (Page 26)
Praise for the Print Edition
Essential reading for infant Baptists and believer Baptists alike.
Product Details
- Title: Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies
- Author: David F. Wright
- Publisher: Paternoster Press
- Publication Date: 2007
- Pages: 300