baptism is the rite which admits a candidate into the Christian Church, and is considered a sacrament by most denominations. The paradigmatic baptism is that of Jesus himself. As recounted in the Gospels, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan; after Jesus emerged from the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, in the form of a dove, and the voice of God spoke from heaven, declaring Jesus to be ‘my well-beloved son’. Hence the constituent elements of the baptismal rite are water and a Trinitarian formula: candidates are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to Matthew's gospel, Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize thus in his post-resurrection appearance to them in Galilee.

The origins of Christian baptism are probably found in the initiation rites of Jewish proselytes and, possibly, those of the mystery religions. Various baptismal rites were developed in the early Church, all designed to bring some or all of the body into contact with the baptismal waters. They generally involved immersion. This usually meant standing in water and having water poured on one's head and upper body. Such rites might involve triple immersion (in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as outlined in the late-first-century practical teaching document, The Didache, in which Christians were instructed to baptize the candidate three times in running water or by pouring water over the head three times. The Apostolic Tradition, describing rites and practices in third-century Rome, stated that the baptismal candidates should remove their clothes and enter the waters of the baptistry, where they would be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Having been anointed with chrism (see below), they would put their clothes back on and enter the church to participate in the Eucharist for the first time.

Baptism was quickly seen as necessary for salvation and as the initial moment of redemption; many passages in Acts teach that baptism must be preceded by faith and the confession and renunciation of sins. Paul developed a theology of baptism in which believers, being baptized, come to union with Christ, share in His death and resurrection, are cleansed of their sins, and incorporated into the body of Christ. The believer's sins are metaphorically washed away in the rite. The water is the visible sign of God's grace.

Preparation for baptism in the early Church was serious and lengthy — it could take up to three years. Many public officials in the early Church, and in early Christendom especially, postponed baptism until the end of their lives, knowing that they would be ‘sullied’ by the activities of their public life. Early creeds developed as simple formulae of Christian belief to be used in the baptismal rite. In the first two centuries, bishops, priests, and deacons (all of whom could be women or men) conferred baptism, but gradually, as the bishop's role was expanded, and women were squeezed out of all of these ministerial positions, it came to be the bishop who baptized. In cases of necessity, baptism could be conferred by anyone — and thus, right through the Middle Ages and into the modern period, it was often the midwife who performed the baptismal rite when a newly-born baby's life was in danger. Easter and Pentecost were the traditional times for baptism, though some churches began to hold baptisms on other feasts, such as Epiphany or Christmas. Baptismal candidates have traditionally had sponsors or godparents to support them in the faith (who, in the case of infants, would accept Christ as the infant's saviour on his or her behalf).

Chrism — holy oil which is a mixture of olive oil and balsam, and consecrated by a bishop — is used in baptismal rites in Eastern Orthodox. Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches. It was used in early baptismal rites. Tradition has it that it is placed on the baptismal candidate's forehead, hands, and feet, to seal the points at which the devil might enter, but there are also understandings of chrism representing — by the richness of the oil and the sweetness of the balsam — the fullness of sacramental grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as the sweetness of Christian virtue. John Chrysostom, in the fourth century, wrote of baptismal candidates being anointed with oil from the top of the hairs of the head down to the feet and thereby becoming sharers in the true olive tree, Jesus Christ, and being healed of every trace of sin. An old Roman Catholic baptismal rite involved the offering of blessed salt to the baptismal candidate; this was probably based on the pagan Roman custom of placing a few grains of salt on the lips of an infant, eight days after its birth, to chase away the demons. Salt, because of its preservative quality, represented purity and incorruptibility.

The early Church seems to have baptized both infants and adults (though there is debate amongst historians about this). Gradually, infant baptism came to be the norm in Christendom, especially as a doctrine of original sin developed. Thus baptism became one of the seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic church. At the Reformation, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin all retained infant baptism, though they interpreted the theology of it differently from the Roman Catholic Church. The Anabaptists rejected infant baptism, advocating believers' baptism, a response of faith by the individual to the gospel.

Today, some Christians — notably Baptists and many Eastern Orthodox — practise full immersion, that is the dipping of the whole body, including the face, into the water. In most Western churches, water is poured or splashed onto the head three times.

Jane Shaw

Baptism

For Christians, baptism is one of the three rites of initiation which incorporate an individual into the Body of Christ– that is, into membership in the Christian church (see 1 Cor.13). The others are confirmation and Eucharist. Baptism takes place when an individual is immersed or sprinkled with water while the baptizer recites this formula: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). As a sacrament, baptism removes the sins of the newly initiated, which is in itself an unmerited gift from God. Christian baptism may be traced back to the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. Most Christian denominations require infant baptism because of Jesus' injunction, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (John 3:5), as well as the authority of St. Peter (Acts 2:38-39).

By the third century, the early church began to administer baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist to infants immediately after birth. The church recognized the spiritual equality of all of its members, whether children or adults. Writing about 80 c.e., Irenaeus of Lyons underscored this point: "For he [the Lord] came to save all of them through himself; all of them, I say, who through him are born again in God, the infants, and the small children, and the boys, and the mature, and the older people" (Adversus Omnes Haereses, Book 5).

The Traditio Apostolica (c. 217), which is attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, provides a third-century description of the rite of baptism and implications for children. The document notes that children are to be baptized before adults and that parents or relatives are to answer the prescribed questions if the children are unable to do so. Origen, a third-century theologian in the East, mandated infant baptism in his Commentarii in Romanos. Moreover, the Nicene Creed, which was drafted in the fourth century, acknowledged "one baptism for the remission of sins" and continued to associate confirmation and the Eucharist with baptism. By the time of Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century, the baptism of infants was widespread in the West. He recommended that children were to be baptized as soon as possible because of the high rate of infant mortality. According to St. Augustine, baptism removed both the original sin of Adam and Eve as well as any other sins. But the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) rejected both the early tradition of administering Eucharist to infants after baptism and the fifth-century custom of delaying confirmation and Eucharist for several years after baptism, and forbade infants from receiving the Eucharist until they had reached the age of discretion (i.e., seven). They equated spiritual readiness with reason.

After 1525, Anabaptists shared the view that physically immature children were also spiritually innocent, but they became the only Christian sect to deny the efficacy of infant baptism. Anabaptists insisted that preadolescent children could not be admitted into the church because they lacked faith. At the same time the Anabaptists comforted distraught parents by maintaining the belief that unbaptized children who died before adolescence were assured salvation because they were incapable of deliberate sin.

In the 1960s, the second Vatican Council authorized a ritual for the baptism of children (Ordo Baptismi Parvulorum, 1969) that discourages private baptisms. It prescribes that baptism is to take place in the parish church either within the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist or at least preceded by the Liturgy of the Word. The members of the parish are enjoined to assist the parents and the godparents in the education of children in the truths of the faith. Finally, the new rite stresses the inherent link between the three sacraments of initiation, even though in practice they are administered over an extended period of time (age eight for Eucharist and sixteen for confirmation).

See also: Catholicism; Christian Thought, Early; Communion, First; Protestant Reformation.

bibliography

Cullmann, Oscar. 1978. Baptism in the New Testament. Trans. J. K. S. Reid. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.

DeMolen, Richard L. 1975. "Childhood and the Sacraments in the Sixteenth Century." Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 66: 49-71.

Nocent, Adrian. 1997. "Christian Initiation." In Sacraments and Sacramentals, ed. Anscar J. Chupungco. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.

Osborne, Kenan B. 1987. The Christian Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist. New York: Paulist Press.

Searle, Mark. 1980. Christening: The Making of Christians. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.

Richard L. DeMolen

Baptism. The sacramental rite, involving the use of water, by which a candidate is admitted to the Church. It is clear that it goes back to the earliest days from the many references in Acts and in the Epistles of St Paul. Traditionally it has been held that Christ Himself instituted the sacrament, but how far He made His intentions explicit, or indeed envisaged the Church as a continuing institution, is now disputed.

Baptism has been in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at least since the end of the 1st cent. In the early Church it was normally administered by immersion. The rite, at which the bishop usually presided, included the laying on of hands and anointing, and culminated in the Eucharist. (For the later division of these ceremonies in the W., see CONFIRMATION.) In the first four or five cents. it was common to defer Baptism until death was thought to be imminent because of the responsibilities attached to it.

The theology of Baptism was elucidated by the 3rd-cent. controversy over the validity of Baptism administered by heretics. Largely through the influence of St Augustine, it came to be accepted that the validity of sacraments depended on the use of the correct form, regardless of the faith or worthiness of the minister. Against the Pelagians Augustine maintained that one of the chief effects of Baptism was the removal of the stain of Original Sin on the soul which bars even the new-born child from Heaven. He also held that the Holy Spirit produced in Baptism an effect independent of sanctifying grace; it could not be destroyed and was not to be repeated. In the 16th cent. various aspects of Catholic teaching were rejected by the Reformers. M. Luther sought to combine belief in the necessity of Baptism with his doctrine of justification by faith alone; for him Baptism was a promise of Divine grace after which a man's sins are no longer imputed to him. U. Zwingli denied the necessity of Baptism, seeing in it only a sign admitting man to the Christian community. J. Calvin taught that it was efficacious only for the elect, since they alone had the faith without which it was worthless. The BCP preserved the traditional Catholic teaching. At the Council of Trent, the RC Church stressed that Baptism is not merely a sign of grace, but actually contains and confers it on those who put no obstacle in its way.

The forms of the rite used in the RC Church are the most elaborate found in the W. In the case of children it includes an undertaking from the parents that the child shall be brought up in the Christian faith, a prayer of exorcism, blessing of water, renunciation of evil by parents and godparents and a declaration of faith, Baptism by immersion or affusion with the Trinitarian formula, and anointing with chrism. The child's father, godfather, or someone else, holds a candle lit from the Paschal Candle. The Baptism of Adults is not very different, except for the omission of the chrismation; it is followed immediately by Confirmation. The C of E rite is similar but simpler. In CW, renunciation of evil is followed by the signing of each candidate with the cross, blessing of water, and Baptism by immersion or affusion, using the Trinitarian formula. A lighted candle may be given to the newly baptized. In the Orthodox Church, the rite for the admission to the catechumenate, consisting of exorcisms, the renunciation of Satan and profession of faith, is followed by the rite of Baptism proper, in which water and oil are blessed, the candidate is anointed with oil, immersed three times in water, and clothed with a white garment. Chrismation follows immediately and, if possible, Communion is given at the same time to the newly baptized.

baptism The Greek word for the rite of baptism means ‘to dip in’ or ‘to wash’ but the classical meaning of drowning or overwhelming is found in the LXX (Isa. 21: 4), and there is a suggestion of this sense in the NT when Jesus predicts his coming ‘baptism’ of death (Mark 10: 38–9) and perhaps when Paul refers to the Israelites being ‘baptized’ in the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10: 2). Both these passages are interpretations of Christian baptism; for Paul baptism is compared to Israel's Exodus through the sea; and in baptism Christians share symbolically in Jesus' death and resurrection; they are buried with him and rise to a new life. So baptism is also regarded as the beginning of a new life (John 3: 4–5).

The Christian rite was not without some partial precedents in Judaism and in other religions. Water is a natural and vivid source of purification, so Gentiles who wished to become Jews baptized themselves before circumcision. At Qumran there were elaborate rites of purification by water. John the Baptist the Baptist invited his hearers to repent and to be baptized in the River Jordan, and Jesus accepted baptism at his hands, not for remission of sins (Matt. 3: 13–15) but to identify himself with his people. It was the moment when he was commissioned to proclaim the kingdom, the moment when he was adopted as Son of God (Mark 1: 10–11).

Baptism immediately assumed the role of rite of initiation into the covenant which had been, and is, the purpose of circumcision in Judaism (Col. 2: 11–12). Peter exhorted his audience in Jerusalem to repent and accept baptism (Acts 2: 38). An Ethiopian eunuch was baptized, without an elaborate course of instruction, by Philip as soon as there was a handy pool of water (Acts 8: 38). It is not recorded that the Ethiopian became a member of a local Christian community ‘but he went on his way rejoicing’, a fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5: 22).

It was held that in baptism the gift of the Spirit was conferred, as it had been with Jesus (Mark 1: 10), and the prerequisite for baptism was faith (Gal. 3: 14). Whether the requirement of faith therefore excludes infants from the Christian sacrament is much debated; there is no explicit evidence either way in the NT. It is argued that households who were baptized (Acts 16: 15, 33) would have included infants; and the parallel with circumcision as a rite of infant initiation points in the same direction.

Archaeological evidence from the early centuries shows that baptism was administered sometimes by submersion or immersion, in which the rite symbolically re-enacted the process of burial and resurrection, but also by affusion from a vessel when water was poured on the candidate's head, just as earth was sprinkled over the corpse at a funeral. There is a similarity of symbolism in both forms of ritual. Paul mentions a practice in his time of baptism ‘on behalf of the dead’ (1 Cor. 15: 29). He is referring, perhaps, to those at Corinth who were baptized with a view to being united at the resurrection with their Christian friends who had died.

Baptism. The rite of admission into the Christian church, practised by all denominations. Its origin is probably to be sought in (i) the Jewish practice of baptizing proselytes; and (ii) the baptism administered by John the Baptist ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mark 1. 4).

The doctrine which attended baptism in the early church was variable. Baptism might be, for example, the washing away of sins (Acts 2. 38), a dying with Christ (Romans, 6. 4), a rebirth (John 3. 5), or the occasion of the gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12. 13).

The theology of baptism gained precision in the 3rd and 4th cents., notably in the West in the writings of Augustine. The Catholic view which emerged was of a rite which works ex opere operato, which confers a ‘character’ on the recipient (who thus can never be rebaptized, even after apostasy).

The 16th-cent. Reformers modified that theology: Luther, reconciling the necessity of baptism with his doctrine of justification by faith alone, regarded baptism as a promise of divine grace after which a person's sins are no longer imputed to him or her. Zwingli, on the other hand, saw baptism only as a sign of admission to the Christian community. Calvin taught that baptism can only be of effect for the elect, who have faith (without which the rite is vacuous). The radical Anabaptists understood baptism exclusively as a response of faith on the part of the individual to the gospel, and thus rejected infant baptism.

In the most usual form of early Christian baptism, the candidate stood in water, and water was poured over the upper part of the body. This is technically called ‘immersion’, but the word is now more often used to refer to the method (used e.g. by Baptists and Orthodox) of dipping the whole body under water.

35. Baptism

See also 80. CHRISTIANITY ; 349. RELIGION .

Abecedarian

a member of a 16th-century Anabaptist sect who refused to learn to read, arguing that the guidance of the Holy Spirit was sufficient for the understanding of the Bible.

Anabaptism

1. a belief in adult, as opposed to infant baptism.

2. membership in various Protestant sects advocating adult baptism. —Anabaptist, n., adj.

antipedobaptism, antipaedobaptism

the denial, on scriptural grounds, of the validity of infant baptism. —antipedobaptist, antipaedobaptist, n.

baptisaphily

an interest in collecting Christian baptismal names.

catabaptist

an opponent of baptism.

conditional baptism

Christian baptism administered when there is doubt whether a person has already been baptized or whether a former baptism is valid.

hemerobaptism

the practice of ancient Jewish and early Christian sects involving daily ceremonial baptisms or ablutions. —hemerobaptist, n.

holobaptism

a belief in baptism by immersion. Also called immersionism . —holobaptist, n.

palingenesis

a belief that baptism effects a new birth or regeneration. Also palingenesy . —palingenesist, n. —palingenesian, adj.

parabaptism

a baptism that is in some way irregular or unauthorized. —parabaptist, n.

pedobaptism, paedobaptism

the historic Christian practice of infant baptism. —pedobaptist, paedobaptist, n.

ubbenite

a member of a sect of Anabaptists founded in Germany in 1534 by Ubbe Phillips.

baptism [Gr., =dipping], in most Christian churches a sacrament . It is a rite of purification by water, a ceremony invoking the grace of God to regenerate the person, free him or her from sin, and make that person a part of the church. Thus, baptism is usually required for membership in the church. In Roman Catholic and Anglican theology baptism is also held to confer an indelible character on the person, requiring him or her to worship. Formal baptism is performed by immersion (as among the Baptists ) or by pouring or sprinkling water on the person to be baptized. This ceremony is accompanied, in churches that accept the dogma of the Trinity, by a formula asking the blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In some churches the child is baptized soon after birth and has sponsors (godfather and godmother) who make declarations of faith in his name. The rite is sometimes called christening, and this term is applied especially to the giving of a baptismal name. Other churches withhold baptism until the person is relatively mature. Some Protestant groups, such as the Religious Society of Friends , reject all outward baptismal rites. Similar customs are known in many non-Christian cultures. The baptism of Jesus himself can be considered part of the founding of the Christian Church.

bap·tism / ˈbapˌtizəm/ • n. (in the Christian Church) the religious rite of sprinkling water onto a person's forehead or of immersion in water, symbolizing purification or regeneration and admission to the Christian Church. In many denominations, baptism is performed on young children and is accompanied by name-giving. ∎  a ceremony or occasion at which this takes place. ∎  a religious experience likened to this: baptism in the Holy Spirit. ∎ fig. a person's initiation into a particular activity or role, typically one perceived as difficult: this event constituted his baptism as a politician. PHRASES: baptism of fire a difficult or painful new undertaking or experience. DERIVATIVES: bap·tis·mal / bapˈtizməl/ adj.

baptism in the Christian Church, the religious rite of sprinkling water on a person's head or of immersing them in water, symbolizing purification or regeneration and admission to the Christian Church. Recorded from Middle English, the word comes via Old French and ecclesiastical Latin from ecclesiastical Greek baptismos ‘ceremonial washing’, from baptizein ‘immerse, baptize’.
baptism of blood the death by violence of unbaptized martyrs, regarded as a form of baptism.
baptism of fire a difficult or painful new undertaking or experience, from the original sense of ‘a soldier's first battle’.

baptism Pouring of water on a person's forehead or the immersion of the body in water, used as a rite of initiation into the Christian Church. Baptism is one of the sacraments of the Christian Church. The water symbolizes regeneration. Total immersion is practised by the Baptists. In churches that practise infant baptism, the rite is usually referred to as christening and is the occasion when a child is named.

58. Baptism

1. Aenon where St. John performed rites. [N.T.: John 3:23]
2. Cornelius Roman centurion baptized by Peter. [N.T.: Acts 10, 11]
3. John the Baptist prophet who baptized crowds and preached Christ’s coming. [N.T.: Matthew 3:1–13]
4. scallop shell vessel used for conferral of sacrament. [Christian Symbolism: Appleton, 88]