An Account of the Holy Baptism in the Seventh Century

[Adrian is mentioned as the first one who in this century declared himself, not so much in words as in deed, against infant baptism; as to the manner in which the Romanists proceeded against him, however, this will be spoken of more fully elsewhere.

The Bracerensian papists, to prevent the decline of infant baptism, confirm it in a certain council.

The pious adhere to the true ordinance of the baptism of Christ, in spite of the power of the pope and the decree of the council mentioned above.

In the meantime these were baptized (that is, at adult age): Anastasius the Persian; Theodorus, or Theodus; many hundreds of Jews; some in Upper and Lower Saxony; some in England.

Probation, or examination in the faith, was practiced at this time by the orthodox, as Amandus, Birinus, and another teacher did, among others.

Those of the Jewish nation now became members of the Christian church; some of them, after confessing the faith, asked for baptism.

How Zeno of Verona used to address the candidates; an explanation of his address.

The example of the Egyptian divines, who preached the doctrine of faith to the candidates before baptism, is followed by others at this time.

The time for baptism, which had been fixed on Easter and Whitsuntide, is ordained for every day, on account of infant baptism. The pope also decrees that during the mass the kiss of peace be offered to the people, so that the mass, which, it appears, was held in little esteem by many, might be regarded more highly.

The believers were not turned away from their faith by this papal decree; indeed, it appears that even some of the Roman church declared themselves against the papal superstitions, namely: 1. Isidorus, 2. Cesarius, 3. Adelheymius, 4. Agatho, 5. Julian Pomorius. In the meantime, mention is also made of Isidorus of Spain, and of what he wrote about baptism, namely about the applicants for baptism and the fellow prayers.

The Christian parents Lutgerus and Libuga left their son Lutgerus unbaptized until he, having accepted the faith in France, was baptized upon it.

Finally, the difference between those of the Roman church and those who administered baptism upon faith.

Conclusion of the account for this century.]

Although in this century the seat of antichrist was raised to its greatest height, since the Emperor Phocas, in the year 606, conferred on the Roman Bishop the title of Papa, that is, pope, or supreme father, a name first taken by Boniface the Third, who wrote in the decrees he issued to enjoin obedience: [n315-1] "We will, we ordain, we decree, we command, and so on; thus I will, thus I ordain, thus I decree, thus I command;" by which many superstitions and human inventions were presented to the people as the Word of God, such as image worship, the salutation of the sacrament, the observance of infant baptism as necessary to salvation, and so on. Yet many pious people not only refused to obey all these things which the pope prescribed, but some even flatly opposed them, daring to censure, reject and revile the papal and Roman superstitions, some in this respect and some in that, as was done, among other points, with regard to infant baptism and all that belongs to it. Not only some of the common people, but also some eminent and learned men, were dissatisfied with it, so that they abandoned it altogether, and indeed showed by words and actions that they were opposed to it, which became plain even in Rome, as will be shown in the proper place.*

In the year 606. In this very year, in which the pope was accepted by Phocas as the head of the general Latin church, the celebrated teacher and Bishop Adrian publicly opposed infant baptism, willing neither to baptize the children himself nor to have them baptized, but refusing them baptism altogether. For this he was accused by Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, to John, Bishop of Larissa, as appears from a letter which Gregory sent to John, and which contains, among other things, the following: "The second article of the accusation against Bishop Adrian is this: that he refused baptism to infants, thus letting them die." Centur. Magd., Century 9, chapter 4, page 141, according to the account in Bapt. Hist., page 496, and H. Mont. Nietigh., page 80.

It does appear that this Adrian was punished as a criminal for his views against infant baptism, and because he let the infants die unbaptized, as the ancients state, and as will appear more fully in our account of the martyrs.*

In the year 610. Infant baptism was at this time, it appears, held in very little esteem by many, whether because of the teaching of the Adrian mentioned above or for some other reason, so that it was considered useless and not necessary to salvation. Those of the Roman church therefore publicly opposed this view, in order either to root it out or at least to excommunicate it by the anathema of the pope. And so, in the year 610, in the second Bracerensian Council, among other articles this was established, decreed and published: "That infants must be baptized, as necessary to their salvation." Seb. Franck, Chron., Rom., Kett., folio 74, column 2. P. J. Twisck, Chron., 7th book, page 213, column 2.

But how the true Christians, who rightly observed Christ's ordinance of baptism, conducted themselves in this matter, and whether they suffered any persecution because of it, is not clearly stated; if need be, it will be explained more fully in its proper place.

About the year 620. Although, through the authority of the Roman Pope, who had been chosen supreme head of the church, and through the decree of that Bracerensian council, infant baptism was now so firmly established that no one who wished to remain a member of the Roman church dared say a word against it; yet among those who loved Christ more than the pope, and valued the Gospel more highly than the decrees of popes and councils, the true faith and the true ordinances of Christ, and especially the article of baptism, were nevertheless rightly maintained. Much might be said about this, had the books and writings of the pious not been so grievously and tyrannously destroyed by those of the Roman church. [n315-2]

However, we have as much testimony from authentic writers as is necessary to establish this matter.

That baptism was at that time administered to adult persons by those who opposed the decree of the Roman church in the matter of infant baptism appears from three circumstances: 1. from the time of baptizing; 2. from the place of baptizing; 3. from the persons baptized.

As to the time of baptizing, Easter was expressly specified in the Antissiodorensian council, where it was established, against those who baptized newborn infants every day: That no one should be baptized at any other time than Easter, except in case of imminent death. In the decrees of [n315-3] Antis.; until that time instruction in the faith was usually given to the candidates, as has been sufficiently shown above.

As for the place of baptizing, it was not in a font or a basin, but out in the wilderness, here and there at the rivers, where, as anyone can easily judge, newborn infants cannot go; nor can they keep the manner then customary at baptism, namely, to kneel during baptism and to go into or under the water, of which there were many instances at this time in warm countries. Among others, Bede (book 2, chapter 16) writes: "That Paulianus baptized many persons at noon, close by the city of Trovulsinga, in the river Trehenda."

This manner of baptizing, which the ancients called immersion or submersion, has long been observed, even up to the present time, especially by the eastern and southern nations, who understood the Greek word baptisma (baptism), or baptizo (to baptize), to mean a total immersion or submersion in water; however, it is found that, according to the idiom of the Greek language, these words signify not only an immersion or submersion in water, but also a washing or sprinkling with water. For instance, baptism, baptismos, is translated sprinkling, washing, dipping, and so on. See Dictionar. Tetraglott., in quo voces Latine omnes cum Graeca, Gallica and Belgica interpretatione. Amsterodami, ex Typographia Ravesteniana, in the year 1634. [n315-4]

However, we leave the above mode of baptism to its own merits; it suffices us to have shown that it could not be administered to infants, and that those who were baptized in this manner must have been adult and intelligent persons.

As to the third point, namely, what persons were then baptized, this has been made clear enough by the two preceding circumstances of time and place; but over and above this, we will mention some persons. At this time Anastasius the Persian was baptized at Jerusalem; at Constantinople the celebrated Persian woman Caesarea was baptized, with her husband and many of her followers; in Bavaria, Theodorus, also called Theodo or Theodus, received baptism together with many people; in Spain many hundreds of Jews were baptized upon faith, a number which some writers reckon to have been several thousands, though, in order not to overstep the bounds of truth, we have not dared to give or follow that number; the same occurred in Upper and Lower Saxony, in England, and in other countries, where at this time, it is stated, countless numbers came to the faith and were baptized upon it. This is stated in Bapt. Hist., page 491, from John Magnus, Paul Diaconus, Bede, Hist. Gath, and so on, which should be compared together.

About the year 632. At this time probation and examination in the faith were practiced by the orthodox teachers. Those who presented themselves for baptism, whether of Jewish, heathen or Christian parentage, were first proved and examined in the faith, and this examination generally took place six or seven times in the week before Easter or Whitsuntide, so that the candidates, having made a good confession and having been confirmed in the faith, might be baptized at the approaching feast day. This custom is noticed by many writers; we will, however, present only this brief extract from Bapt. Hist., page 492: "The Bishop or teacher Amandus made the son of Dagobert a catechumen, before he baptized him." Regina, book 1. In Lower Saxony, Birinus kept it as a rule not to baptize people before he had catechized, that is, instructed, them. Bede, book 4, chapter 16. Another teacher, according to Metaphrastes, instructed a certain Jewish virgin before he baptized her. Vincent states of Arnulph that he baptized (that is, after previous instruction) a sick person, who shortly afterward got well. Book 23, chapter 76. By this we do not mean that baptism has any power to heal the body, but that it is administered to intelligent persons, and that upon faith, according to the ordinance of the Lord, Mark 16, verses 15 and 16.

About the year 646. As the doctrine of faith in Jesus Christ was now spreading greatly, and the believers increased in many places, so that the church, which at times, on account of persecution, had been accustomed to hide in dens and caverns, began to rise here and there, as herbs spring up from the earth in springtime, her growth was seen to come not only from those who, born of Christian parents, accepted the faith, nor only from heathen who were converted to the faith, but chiefly from the Jews, who had before been very bitter against the Christians, but who now came in multitudes, as happened not long ago, to be baptized in the name of Christ, upon faith; an example of which is given by Gregory of Turon (book 5, Chron. Franc., chapter 11). Some Jews who desired baptism said with one accord to the teacher: "We believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God, promised to us as a Prophet and Messiah; therefore we pray to be washed by baptism, that we may not remain in our sins." The teacher rejoiced at this confession, and in the night before Whitsuntide, when it was customary to watch and to pray, he went to the place of baptism, which lay outside the city walls, where the whole multitude fell down before him and begged to be baptized. Bapt. Hist., page 499.

About the year 658. D. Joseph Vicecomes quotes from Zeno of Verona an address which Zeno used to make to the candidates, saying, when they were about to be baptized: "Rejoice (beloved friends); it is true, in baptism you are stripped of your clothes, but, adorned with the heavenly robe, you will soon come up again, white as snow; whoever will not defile it will inherit the kingdom of heaven." Bapt. Hist., page 501, from Vicecom., book 4, chapter 10, from Zeno's second homily on baptism.

All these are certainly expressions that relate to intelligent persons, and not in the least applicable to infants; for, in the first place, when it says here: "Rejoice," this is the opposite of sorrow, the sorrow which the candidates used to feel over their many sins, over which they wept and mourned; but now, being washed in baptism, through faith and the blood of Christ, they had reason to rejoice, just as the jailer, who, having been baptized, rejoiced with all his house, Acts 16; and as the Ethiopian, who, after baptism, went on his way rejoicing, Acts 8, verse 39.

The putting off of the bodily clothes before baptism, and the putting on of the snow white robe of righteousness in baptism, as well as the care not to defile it with sin after baptism, spoken of in the address to the candidates above, is no work for infants, but only for adult persons; hence the baptism spoken of there is not infant baptism, but a baptism that belongs only to the adult and to those of reasonable minds.

About the year 670. At this time the holy baptismal ordinance of Christ was still rightly observed in Egypt; that is, the doctrines of the faith were preached to the candidates before baptism. Indeed, this practice was so highly regarded there that some in other countries, separating from the Roman church in this article, resolved to restore the Christian religion after the example of the Egyptian Christians, and so they were called beginners in the Christian religion. It is no doubt in allusion to this that Vicecomes (book 2, chapter 3) is quoted from Jacob Pamelius' book on Tertullian, saying that the beginners in the Christian religion (that is, those who, separating from the Roman church, set up the Christian religion on the original apostolic foundation) took the practice of catechizing (that is, teaching the doctrines of the faith) before baptism from the Egyptian divines. Bap. Hist., page 501.

About the year 682. As the believers who strictly observed the baptismal ordinance of Jesus Christ increased in no small degree, as can be gathered, in many countries, and even in the Roman church, so that, as to the time when baptism should be administered, they had here and there settled on a fixed time, namely, that it should take place on one of the two feasts, Easter or Whitsuntide, and that to this end the catechumens should be notified beforehand and, in the weeks before those feasts, instructed in the faith; those of the Roman church, as may easily be judged, were not well satisfied with this, since it was a means of setting infant baptism completely aside, and not only this, but of abolishing entirely all the other superstitions and human inventions which, with such great labor and cost, by councils and otherwise, had been brought into the Roman church, supposedly for the best. It was therefore, in order to prevent this, it seems, deemed expedient to renew and republish the substance of what had previously, in the year 610, been decreed in the second Bracerensian council, namely

"That infants should be baptized, as necessary to their salvation," that is, on pain of damnation. But what was really done in this matter is not stated in all its particulars; it has not, however, been passed by unnoticed, since Pope Leo the Second, the eighty-second according to the Roman reckoning, who then occupied the chair, ordained: That during mass the kiss of peace should be offered to the people, and that baptism might be administered on any day. P. J. Twisck, Chron., page 233, column 1, from Hist. Georg., book 4. Chron., S. F., folio 19.

From this it can be seen that the pope's principal concern was not to lose the mass and infant baptism, both of which were chief points on which the Roman church rested, as the temple of Dagon rested on two pillars; and these were threatened, now by this Samson and now by another, with the weapons of the Spirit and the Word of God, and were indeed in danger of being utterly pulled out and broken. Now, what does the pope do to prevent this? As regards the mass, he ordains that during mass the kiss of peace should be offered to the people. But how could he bind the common people to the superstition of the mass more ingratiatingly and pleasantly than by offering them the kiss of peace? But when the lion's skin will not reach, the fox's is brought into use.

As to infant baptism, what does he ordain to preserve it? This: that baptism might be administered on any day. But someone may think: This does not concern infant baptism, and so infant baptism is not confirmed by this decree. We answer that the pope certainly sought to establish it by this; for since infant baptism was weakened in no small degree by the practice of the believers, who baptized their candidates only on Easter and Whitsuntide, as already stated, there was hardly any other remedy for maintaining infant baptism than to ordain all times and days for baptism; for in this way it could be administered to newborn infants, who are born not only on Easter and Whitsuntide, but throughout the whole year, and who, according to his view, must then also be baptized.

In the year 699. The decree of Pope Leo the Second for the confirmation of infant baptism and the mass, as mentioned for the year 682, did not have the effect of making the believers who had separated from the Roman church, and maintained baptism upon faith, swerve in the least from their faith or from the practice of it. On the contrary, it appears that still more, and even learned men, separated from the Roman church in this article and joined the little flock of Christ, so that some of them who had formerly maintained infant baptism, the mass, the traditions, the meritoriousness of good works and the seven sacraments, now taught differently and opposed the pope in these points. Of these, five persons are mentioned in the Chronicles, whom P. J. Twisck notes in his seventh book, for the year 699, saying: "Isidorus, Cesarius, Adelheymius, Agatho, and Julian Pomorius taught in opposition to the pope concerning the holy Scriptures, justification, good works, that there are but two sacraments, and concerning the name of the church, which was not built upon Peter, but on Christ." Page 238, column 4, from Joh. Munst., folio 121.

But above all, other writers mention Isidorus of Spain, who, having at one time been a strenuous advocate of infant baptism, now taught and wrote such things as could, by any reason or judgment, in no way be applied to it. For, commenting on John's baptism, which even our opponents admit to have been administered only to adult, penitent sinners, he compares it to the baptism of his own time, saying: "I hold that all who were baptized by John for repentance were patterns of the catechumens." Bapt. Hist., page 498, from Vicecom., book 2, chapter 4, from Isidorus of Spain, in the book de Div. Officiis.

What kind of persons these catechumens were, and how they were instructed before baptism in the doctrine of the faith, called the catechism, has already been sufficiently explained, and there is no need to repeat it here; yet, over and above this, we will bring forward the man's own words, as I have found them translated in Bapt. Hist., page 499. "After the catechumens," he says, "there is the second grade, the applicants for baptism, or fellow prayers, that is, those who are striving for the doctrine of the faith and for soberness of life, in order to receive the grace of Christ in baptism, and who are therefore called fellow prayers, that is, such as pray for the grace of Christ." Book 2, de Div. Officiis, chapter 21.

What finally took place with these applicants for baptism in his time he indicates with these words: "On Palm Sunday (that is, the Sunday before Easter), the Symbolium (that is, the twelve articles of faith) is delivered to the applicants for baptism, on account of the approaching glorious Easter feast, in order that they, as striving to receive the grace of God (that is, baptism), should first learn the faith which we confess." Bap. Hist., page 499, from Isid., book 2, de Div. Officiis, chapter 27.

These words, compared with the preceding ones, clearly show what custom as regards baptism prevailed at that time in the church of which he speaks; namely, that the catechumens, or at least the novices, were first instructed in the catechism, that is, in the doctrine of the faith, until they were fit to be baptized; and that from that time on they were called applicants for baptism, and fellow prayers, because they desired baptism and prayed for it. This certainly could not be done by newborn infants.

As regards what is noted elsewhere from Isidorus (ex libro de summo bono), with reference to other views on baptism which he is said to have held, we do not accept it as having been written by him, and this for good reasons, which, however, it would take too much time to relate; unless it be said that he wrote it before he was converted and had obtained light on the matter; and here we will let the matter rest.

In the year 700. We come now to the last year of this century, in which we see that at that time not only those of Jewish or heathen parentage, but also those born of Christian parents, were instructed in the faith before they were admitted to baptism; so that the Christians who sought the salvation of their children left them unbaptized until they were able themselves to confess their sins, profess the faith, and then desire baptism as a sign of it. Among these, the two pious Christians Lutgerus and his wife Libuga are not counted among the least. It is stated of them that they left their son Lutgerus unbaptized until he, having learned and accepted the faith in Jesus Christ in France, was baptized upon it, in the year 700. P. J. Twisck, Chron., 7th book, page 239, column 1, from Grondig. Bewijs., letter B.

We now leave this account of baptism in the seventh century, in which, on the one side, the oppressed believers practiced the true ordinance of the baptism of Christ upon faith, while, on the other side, the oppressing Roman church departed further and further from it, so that they not only forsook, but also opposed, the command of Christ to baptize only upon faith.

On the other hand, infant baptism and many other superstitions were so firmly established that almost no one dared oppose these things except those who did not fear the anathema of the pope, and death. It is truly astonishing what P. J. Twisck writes about this, and writes truthfully, in his conclusion to the seventh century, with which we will also conclude this: "The Pope of Rome, having been declared head of all the churches by the Emperor Phocas, gradually set the bounds of his power, authority and jurisdiction, not only within Italy but also beyond it, and indeed beyond Europe, and this with exceeding haughtiness. The pomp and greatness became unendurable; indeed, the greed of the clergy in general was so great that they obtained ecclesiastical offices by gifts, in order to derive temporal gain from them, and would scarcely baptize an infant unless money was given them for it."

Enough has now been said regarding this matter, and we will therefore turn to the martyrs who suffered at this time for the truth of Christ their Saviour.