The Baptismal Community

By David F. Wright

[David F. Wright is Professor of Patristic and Reformed Christianity, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

This is article one in a four-part series “The Making of the Early Christians,” delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 5-8, 2002.]

For whatever reason the last few years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the success of the early church. To describe the history of Christianity up to Constantine as a success story may sound triumphalist, but it seems to merit this recognition. The “Jesus movement” grew to about five percent of the population of the Roman Empire in less than three centuries. By some very broad-brush calculations it has recently been estimated that such expansion required growth, on average, of 40 percent per decade, or 3.42 percent every year. This is the finding of the sociologist Rodney Stark, whose little book The Rise of Christianity[1] has stimulated fresh debate about “How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries,” as his paperback publisher subtitled his work, without his knowledge.[2] Newsweek went one step further, calling the book an account of “how the West was won—for Jesus.”[3]

No less interesting from a present-day standpoint are the circumstances in which Christianity made its way in the Mediterranean world. For most of the period before Constantine Christians were liable to persecution, and many died for their faith as martyrs. Though pluralism and inclusiveness in religion were the order of the day, Christians maintained an exclusive stance and counted adherents of all other religions as fair game for evangelism. No philosophy or cult was off limits—and the older view that Greco-Roman paganism was withering away by the first century is no longer a consensus among scholars. The mores of Roman imperial society tolerated a fair degree of sexual license, not wholly unbridled but permissive enough, so long as certain traditional norms were observed. Christianity, however, steadfastly refused to smooth its path to success by accommodating to the prevailing attitude toward immorality.

As one reflects on the context within which the church of the early fathers attained sufficient strength (not solely in numerical terms) to attract the interest and then the favor of a Roman emperor, it is difficult not to observe uncanny parallels to the situation facing Christians in much of Western society today. The difference, of course—and it is a massive one—is that today’s religiously and culturally pluralist society, so inclusively tolerant and sexually besotted, has emerged out of Christendom. No return to the innocence of pre-Constantinian pre-Christendom is possible. Yet believers today can learn from earlier generations without drowning in nostalgia or painting the past in the hues of utopian idealism.

This series of lectures highlights certain features in the formation of the early Christians, in what was the decisive “making” of them. The subject addresses how Jesus’ followers in the first three centuries came to be the kind of people capable not only of surviving but also of multiplying in an alien environment.

Baptism as a Touchstone in the New Testament

For some time now it has been fashionable, especially in ecumenical circles, to describe the church as a eucharistic community. However, in the light of the New Testament it is more accurate to view it as a baptismal community. That may be no more congenial to some evangelical Christians today than the eucharistic characterization, especially to members of infant-baptizing churches. For whatever else one can say about the prevalence of infant baptism for most of Christian history, among biblical Christians it has been attended by a far-reaching baptismal reductionism. When most of a congregation has experienced baptism as unwitting babies, it goes against the grain to regard baptism as a major defining feature of its common Christian identity.

It is an instructive exercise to assemble the New Testament’s scattered mentions of baptism and to note how often it functions as a criterion, a touchstone, an agreed point of reference. The marks of Christian unity in the Holy Spirit include “one baptism,” but not “one eucharist” (Eph. 4:5). Not many today would challenge divisive groups lining up between this or that stellar preacher, “Were you baptized in the name of … Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:13). The Great Commission commands the making of disciples by baptizing and teaching (Matt. 28:19–20). On the Day of Pentecost those cut to the heart by Peter’s preaching were told to “repent and be baptized every one of you … so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). When Paul wrote against antinomianism (“Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Rom. 6:1), it is remarkable that he cited the significance of the baptismal experience (vv. 1–4). And the New Testament’s language about baptism is very often realist rather than symbolical.

In the congregations of patristic Christianity an unbaptized Christian was an anomaly, if not an impossibility. Catechumens, undergoing a thorough preparation for baptism, might be called Christians (so the question was answered when it was raised), but if they died unbaptized, except in martyrdom, it was assumed they would not enjoy salvation and eternal life. Martyrdom was universally seen as blood-baptism, substituting for water baptism not yet received. It is worth noting that the earliest known building adapted for permanent use as a church, at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates River, around A.D. 240, included a small room set apart as a baptistry.

Baptismal Screening

More significant by far was the extraordinary care with which the gate of baptism was guarded. In contrast to most church practice today, primitive Christianity apparently made baptism accessible only to the most serious and committed candidates. It seems as if the early church was more concerned to weed out and deter than to attract and welcome. Most of the patristic evidence shows that the church disallowed the prompt baptizing of converts, in contrast to the practice in the Book of Acts. The reasons for change must include the recruitment of largely Gentile rather than Jewish believers.

The most informative source by far is the Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, normally dated around 215.[4]

This text, however, is problematic, for it is reconstructed from later, derivative documents. Furthermore debate has not settled whether all the writings attributed to Hippolytus belong to him. More recent attention has shifted to the different strands or layers of material in the reconstituted text. A commentary soon to be published in the Hermeneia series by Paul Bradshaw and colleagues will argue for the composite character of the work, incorporating traditions later than the early third century. This should not be surprising in a church-order text. Like the Didache, the earliest writing in this genre, church-order manuals customarily claim earlier, preferably apostolic, origins for later developments in teaching and practice. However, Bradshaw and his fellow commentators are likely to conclude that the baptismal section in the Apostolic Tradition is no later than the time of Hippolytus in the early third century.

What, then, does the Apostolic Tradition prescribe for those desiring to be baptized? First, applicants and enquirers were sifted. “Those who come forward for the first time to hear the word shall first be brought to the teachers before all the people arrive, and shall be questioned about their reason for coming to the faith. And those who have brought them shall bear witness about them, whether they are capable of hearing the word. They shall be questioned about their state of life; has he a wife? Is he the slave of a believer? Does his master allow him? Let him hear the word. If his master does not bear witness about him that he is a good man, he shall be rejected.”[5]

Instruction follows on how these inquirers were to conduct their lives. “If any man is not living with a wife, he shall be instructed not to fornicate, but to take a wife lawfully or remain as he is. If anyone is possessed by a demon, he shall not hear the word of teaching until he is pure.”[6]

The questioning moved on to the petitioners’ occupations. Brothel-keepers were to cease or be rejected, and sculptors and painters must likewise give up making idols. A number of other rulings are similarly unsurprising, even though one wonders whether the church was in fact attracting such a variety of enquirers—people involved in any way in gladiatorial contests, prostitutes, astrologers, cutters of the fringes of clothing, and makers of phylacteries.[7]

Those who taught children were encouraged to give it up, but they could be accepted if they were no good at anything else.[8] A soldier under authority was to be rejected unless he promised never to kill, even if ordered to, and not to take the military oath. And if a Christian wanted to become a soldier, he could not be baptized. An official who wielded the power of the sword or a city councillor must lay down his office if he wanted to be baptized. In a differentiated ruling that reflects social distinctions, a man’s concubine—his mistress or partner—could become a catechumen if she were his slave, had reared her children, and had remained faithful to him alone. But the male in such a liaison must make the woman his lawful wife or be rejected.[9]

The rigor of this screening process is closely paralleled by the treatise on Idolatry, by Tertullian of Carthage, written a few years earlier.[10] He was even more inclined to exclude those whose qualifications were questionable. Underlying this fencing of the baptismal waters at the first hurdle was the urgency of breaking the bondage of the old order of idolatry,[11] which Tertullian found subtly pervasive throughout so much of daily life. The building up of the baptismal community in a potentially hostile society called for careful application of demanding standards.

Remaking Pagans into Christians

According to the Apostolic Tradition, “catechumens shall continue to hear the word for three years,” immediately conceding that progress, not lapse of time, is what matters.[12] It is not known, however, how many catechumens had to wait three years. Clement of Alexandria prescribed the same period, and another source said that some might have to remain catechumens for five years.[13] If persecution loomed, the catechumens would often be baptized speedily, not because to die in martyrdom unbaptized was to forfeit salvation but because it was believed that the gift of the Spirit received through baptism would strengthen them to stand fast under pressure and prevent them from lapsing. Though there was some adjustment to one’s circumstances, the catechumenal process was thorough and serious. The controlling purpose was “to re-form pagan people, to resocialize them, to deconstruct their old world, and reconstruct a new one, so that they would emerge as Christian people who would be at home in communities of freedom.”[14]

This would be accomplished by catechumens hearing the word both from teachers or catechists, such as Justin Martyr at Rome or Clement and Origen at Alexandria, and in homilies in congregational worship. The catechumens were allowed to remain in these services up to the ministering of the Lord’s Supper. Their withdrawal at that point ensured that while still unbaptized they would know nothing of the sacred mysteries of the Supper and of baptism itself. Some evidence, particularly from Origen’s ministry as a presbyter in Caesarea, indicates noneucharistic assemblies for daily instruction during the week, when catechumens were a recognizable element in the audience.[15]

The re-formation of pagans as Christian men and women required both doctrinal and ethical teaching. Kreider calls the latter the “folkways” of the community, and he stresses the importance of inculturating incomers in the history of the people of God.[16] A delightful little work by Augustine, Instructing the Untaught, begins, after establishing that his hearers are sitting comfortably, with a broad sweep of sacred history from Genesis through to the present situation of the church. Such an inculcation of the “big picture” might have much to commend it today in an age of postmodern fragmentation and concentration on the immediate and individual existence.

During their catechumenate, applicants for Christian baptism were not to pray with the faithful. They were to pray only on their own. Nor were they to give the kiss of peace, “for their kiss is not yet holy.”[17]

When at last the time for baptism approached—generally in the third century this was at Easter time—those who had persevered were again examined: Had they lived as befitted Christians-to-be? Had they honored the widows, visited the sick, performed good deeds? When their sponsors attested that they had, they were set apart, perhaps by a special recognition as the electi or competentes, chosen or designated for baptism. Now they would “hear the gospel,” which probably indicates a phase of concentrated teaching on the Rule of Faith (later, in the fourth century, on the creed). During this period they received a daily laying on of hands by the bishop in exorcism.[18] Even at this advanced stage the lurking presence of an alien power might be exposed by exorcizing and the candidate rejected. How was the demonic indwelling identified? Presumably by some uncontrolled bodily agitation as the bishop’s hands were laid on the applicant’s head.

Being Baptized, Body and Soul

The baptismal ceremonies involved bodily experiences: having a bath on Thursday, fasting on Friday, and on Saturday another and more climactic laying on of hands by the bishop to “exorcize all alien spirits, that they may flee out of them and never return into them,” followed by his breathing or blowing into their faces, and his signing or sealing their foreheads, ears, and noses with the sign of the cross.[19] Saturday night was spent wholly in vigil with the candidates being further read to and instructed. They were allowed to have nothing with them, except what they would offer during the eucharist.[20]

When a cock crowed on Easter Sunday morning, the water was prepared and prayed over. The bishop used a designated “oil of exorcism” to anoint each person after he or she had said, “I renounce you, Satan, and all your service and all your works.” Deacons and presbyters had roles to play as well as the bishop. The candidates were baptized naked, in three categories, the children first, then the men, and then the women. The women had to loosen their hair and take off all their jewelry. “Let no-one take any alien object down into the water.” Of the little ones, those who could speak for themselves should do so, and for the others parents or someone from their families would speak for them.[21]

A deacon went down into the water with each candidate, and the baptizer asked each one the three creedal questions one at a time, with the recipient responding “I believe” to each one, followed each time by baptism itself (immersion or affusion?) with the deacon’s hand on the head of the one being baptized. The first and third questions were brief, but the second was more extended. “Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born from the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary and was crucified under Pontius Pilate and died, and rose again on the third day alive from the dead, and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead?”[22]

Emerging from the water, the newly baptized were anointed with the “oil of thanksgiving” by the presbyter, and they dried themselves and put on their clothes. Then at last they could “enter the church.” The bishop prayed over them, anointed them again with “oil of thanksgiving,” signed them on the forehead, and kissed them. Then, and not until then, “they shall pray together with all the people … and they shall give the kiss of peace.”[23] The text of the Apostolic Tradition proceeds without a break into their first communion service.

By the late second century, in general though not necessarily in every detail, this is the way Christians were baptized. The elaborateness of the occasion had obviously not emerged overnight, even though the development cannot be traced point by point. The whole experience was powerfully meaningful. As Miles puts it, the actions “realize—make real—in a person’s body the strong experience that, together with the religious community’s interpretation of that experience, produced a counter-cultural religious self.”[24] That was what was needed in the Roman world at the time, and it helps explain the prominence of exorcisms in what Willimon has called a “detoxification” exercise.[25] It is not difficult to visualize such a baptismal experience, extending from the initial serious inquiry about becoming a Christian through to the full incorporation into the community—holy kiss and all—and participation in the Lord’s Supper, as definitively marking, shaping, making the baptized believers.

What about Infants?

Can infant baptism possibly carry this rich freight of meaning? The history of infant baptism, at least in the Protestant traditions since the Reformation, illustrates that the greatest challenges its practitioners and defenders face is simply how to treat it as (full and proper) Christian baptism in the New Testament sense.

As already noted, infants too young to speak for themselves were baptized according to the Hippolytus rite. This is not the occasion to discuss the early history of infant baptism, but it is worth pointing out that the inclusion of babies seems to have involved no special adjustment of the observance beyond what is minimally evident in the Apostolic Tradition. There is, for example, nothing in this text to lead its readers to suppose that the baptized children did not take part in the Lord’s Supper that immediately followed the baptism. The first detailed evidence of how infants were specially accommodated in the act of baptism itself emerged around A.D. 400. The baptizing minister asked the parent or other presenting person about the child, “Does he (or she) believe?” That is, the baby went through the whole service exactly as did adults—or older children able to answer for themselves—except that their believing was attested on their behalf by someone else who responded to the three questions posed in the third person, with the response, “He (or she) believes.”

Creativeness of Baptism

The baptism of believers, then, was strongly formative in the experience of pre-Constantinian Christianity. It became a fertile source of creative developments in the early churches. Baptism was described in a rich variety of imagery that spoke of the decisiveness of its experience: death and life, burial and resurrection; birth and new birth; darkness and light; unclothing, nakedness, reclothing (putting off, putting on); crossing over from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea to the Promised Land; from the seventh day (the Sabbath) to the eighth day (the Lord’s day); and so forth. So much of the dominant biblical images of salvation could be anchored in baptism, as seen in early Christian paintings, such as the catacomb frescoes.

The catechumenate was directed toward the act of baptism. As an intensive period of instruction and purification leading up to baptism at Easter, the catechumenate contributed to the formation of Lent. More importantly, in the fourth and fifth centuries the catechetical process resulted in major series of addresses by Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ambrose, Augustine, and others. Many of the most significant patristic expositions of essential Christian beliefs clustered around baptism.

Eventually those beliefs found fixed verbal expression in the Apostles’ Creed, and earlier in the looser Rule of Faith. Baptismal profession was the occasion for the development of creeds, first in question-and-answer form. The creed of the Council of Nicæa in 325 differed from all earlier creeds in not being a baptismal creed. Interestingly the Apostles’ Creed has retained its place in baptismal services today in many churches. The later Nicene Creed (381) was cited in connection with the observance of communion.

Also noteworthy is the bond between baptism and the blood-baptism of martyrdom, graphically evident in the Passion of Perpetua. The lines connecting baptism with death begin, of course, with Jesus’ own words about His forthcoming passion as a baptism (Mark 10:39), and continued through the center of New Testament baptism, according to Romans 6:1–4. The widespread practice of the baptism of the dying children of believers is another link.

The weight placed on baptism as the cleansing of all past sin meant that serious postbaptismal sins were to be dealt with by other means. Here lay the origins of one of baptism’s less happy progeny—the penitential discipline of medieval Christendom. But the heyday of penance and associated practices (to whose harsh elaboration the Celtic churches made a signal contribution) came only with the rise of infant baptism as the norm.

The baptismal making of the early Christians may seem to belong to a lost age. But the recovery of the catechumenate by the Roman Catholic Church and of discipling by a number of evangelical communities suggests that one may well benefit from revisiting the baptismal doctrine and practice of the first Christian centuries. As Tertullian wrote, “People are not born Christians, they have to be made into Christians.”[26]

Notes

1. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
2. See pages 6–7 of the paperback edition, published in San Francisco by HarperCollins in 1997. See also Rodney Stark, “E Contrario,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998): 262. Most of that issue is devoted to responses to Stark’s book. For a survey of recent discussion see Danny Praet, “Explaining the Christianization of the Roman Empire: Older Theories and Recent Developments,” Sacris Erudiri 33 (1992–93): 7-119.
3. “The Low to the Mighty,” Newsweek, April 9, 1996, 62.
4. Geoffrey J. Cuming, ed., Hippolytus: A Text for Students (Bramcote, UK: Grove, 1976).
5. Ibid., 15.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 15-16.
8. “He who teaches children had best cease; but if he has no craft, let him have permission” (ibid).
9. Ibid.
10. Tertullian, Idolatry, trans. Stanley L. Greenslade, in Early Latin Theology, Library of Christian Classics (London: SCM, 1956).
11. Alan Kreider, Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom (Cambridge: Grove, 1995), 21.
12. Cuming, Hippolytus: A Text for Students, 16.
13. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2:18, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh: Clark, 1869), 12:56. Canon 73 of the Council of Elvira (ca. 305) stated that a convert who had been an informer must remain a catechumen for five years.
14. Kreider, Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom, 23.
15. Ibid., 22-23, n. 1.
16. Ibid., 24-25.
17. Cuming, Hippolytus: A Text for Students, 16–17.
18. Ibid., 20.
19. Margaret R. Miles, “Christian Baptism in the Fourth Century: The Conversion of the Body,” in Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (Tunbridge Wells, UK: Burns & Oates, 1992), 24–52, 197–206.
20. Cuming, Hippolytus: A Text for Students, 17–18.
21. Ibid., 18.
22. Ibid., 19. No Greek text of this section is extant; by different prepositions a Latin version distinguishes Jesus’ birth from (de) the Spirit and from (ex) Mary.
23. Ibid., 19-21.
24. Miles, “Christian Baptism,” 24.
25. William Willimon, quoted in Kreider, Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom, 26.
26. Tertullian, Apology 18, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 11:88.