Baptism: Reformed and Catholic
S. Joel GarverThe following essay was first presented as a lecture to a predominantly Roman Catholic audience and was intended to explain the theology and practice of baptism within the Reformed tradition. The focus is largely upon the reformation and development of the baptism rite itself within the Reformed churches in the 16th century, as undertaken by the Protestant Reformers in light of Scripture and their understanding of liturgical history.
Introduction:
In Kenan Osbourne's Sacramental Guidelines (Paulist, 1995) he outlines a number of important points in regard to the sacraments in general and baptism in particular, as can be found within the official teachings and guidelines of the Roman Catholic Church.
Regarding the sacraments in general he takes the teaching of the Catholic Church to emphasize the following:
Regarding baptism in particular he takes the Catholic Church to teach following points:
In light of these points, it is interesting to consider the work of the Protestant Reformers in reforming and developing their own baptismal rites in the 16th
century. In the following remarks I will sketch the shape of the baptismal rite at the time of the Reformation, the nature of the sacramental reforms introduced by the Protestant leaders, and the Protestant response to the Anabaptist challenge. I will limit my remarks to the events of the 16th century and, in particular, to developments within the Reformed churches of the Upper Rhineland. In this discussion I will be drawing heavily upon the important work of Hughes Old in his magisterial The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century (Eerdmans, 1992).It seems to me that the Protestant Reformers, far from rebelling against church authority and tradition, were instead attempting to retrieve an earlier Catholic tradition and more Augustinian theology of the sacraments. They did this in order to revise and reshape the late medieval baptismal rites in such a way that they would more clearly express what appear to be precisely the emphases that Osbourne has outlined as distinctive to Roman Catholic teaching. Thus, it is unclear to me that the teaching and practice of the Reformed churches regarding baptism, if they are faithful to their 16th century predecessors, should prove any impediment to ecumenical rapprochement between the Reformed and Roman Catholic communities. Thus study, then, should also function as a call for Reformed Christians to retrieve their own tradition.
The Development of the Baptismal Rite to the End of the Middle Ages:
If we consider the medieval baptismal rite with which the Protestant Reformers would have been familiar, several points are important to keep in mind.
First, it was a simplified rite that condensed into a short ceremony many rituals which in earlier centuries would have been celebrated at various times and over a number of weeks.
In the New Testament, baptism was no complicated affair. If someone expressed a wish to become a Christian, she would be baptized on the spot with water and a formula. Catechesis would come later. As Christianity developed, however, so did baptism. By the fourth and fifth centuries it had developed into an elaborate ritual, as an even more impressive challenge to the Hellenistic mystery cults. It began with the enrollment of the group of candidates into the formal catechumenate with its various rituals, prayers, and exorcisms at each meeting. This process climaxed in the Easter Vigil, involving the consecration of the baptismal waters, an anointing, an exorcism, a confession of faith, immersion, chrismation, laying on of hands, and clothing in white, all celebrated under the presidency of the bishop. The Easter Vigil was followed by the continuing photizimate (post-baptismal mystagogy) of the new Christians.
By the middle ages this entire elaborate process was condensed into what was often a mere half an hour ceremony. No longer were adult converts the focus, but infants. Nor were the baptisms celebrated en masse, but individually. And it was the parish priest who baptized, rather than the bishop. With the high birth rate, brevity was of the essence.
Second, there was no one uniform rite that was practiced throughout Europe or even in the Upper Rhineland of the Reformers. While many aspects of the basic ceremony, especially the prayers, were handed down from the old Roman sacramentaries, there was also a great deal of local variation, even with the advent of the printing press. Many of the rites, in fact, specifically alluded to the preference for local custom.
Third, the rites they did have were all adapted for infant baptism, at least in their rubrics, though they contained elements apparently retained from a time in which there were more adult converts.
While it was almost only infants being baptized at the end of the middle ages, the baptismal rites retained a number of prayers and rites that went back through the Gregorian Sacramentary to the Gelasian, and beyond that, to the Roman rites of the fourth and fifth centuries. Such prayers and rites often presupposed and made reference to practices such as the catechumenate. For instance, in the ancient practice, the catechumens to be baptized would recite the Creed as a completion of their instruction, a confession of their faith, and a qualification for baptism.
In the late middle ages, the rite of the diocese of Constance, for instance, still retained the Creed, but now it was recited by the priest and only after reading the story of Jesus blessing the little children and with the laying of hands upon the child to be baptized. Thus the Creed no longer functioned as a confession of faith, but as a benediction. Moreover, a word of explanation was added in the rubrics to the effect that the priest was to admonish the godparents to teach the child the Creed. Thus, the Creed also functioned to pass on the faith to the child, through the godparents. This additional feature of admonishment was probably added separately from the Bible story and the laying on of hands. Thus we find two kinds of adaptations in the late medieval rite at Constance that attempt to make an anachronistic element of the rite seem relevant to the situation of the late middle ages. Such adaptations were prevalent in all late medieval rites.
Fourth, all the baptismal rites contained multiple rites of exorcism: blowing on the infant, signing the child with the gesture of the cross, the use of exorcised salt, multiple prayers for exorcism, the application of the priest's spit, and the exorcism of the baptismal water.
Many of these exorcisms originally would have been spread out in various rites performed on various occasions. In the late middle ages they were condensed into one occasion. Originally, it seems from the New Testament, no exorcisms took place at all, and they only begin to appear in the third century with large numbers of converts from paganism. With the waning of paganism, exorcisms likewise waned, as seen in the eighth century Gallican sacramentaries. With liturgical reforms in the next century, however, they were reintroduced and there they remained until the Protestant Reformation.
Fifth, baptism was celebrated apart from any formalized system of catechesis, even though the rites seemed to assume there ought to be one. Catechesis began to disappear in the sixth century not only due to the preponderance of infant baptisms, but also due to a general drop in the educational levels of everyone, including the clergy, in the wake of the barbarian invasions. After all, children could certainly have been catechized after baptism as had been done in earlier times through the photizimate. But no such system developed in the middle ages.
Sixth, certain parts of the baptismal rites had already begun to be translated into the common language of the people, and in the case of the Upper Rhineland, that would mean German.
Seventh, baptism was permitted to be celebrated quolibet tempore (that is, at any time) and thus most baptisms were private. Also, quite often, infants were baptized by midwives and thus completely outside of the ordinary context of church.
While in the New Testament baptism seems to be administered at the drop of a hat, by the fourth century, it was reserved almost exclusively for the Vigil of Easter. Still, a number of church fathers had insisted upon the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation, even for the salvation of infants born to Christians (e.g., see Augustines De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione). In an age of high infant mortality this theological opinion would, of course, lead to frequent baptisms other than at Easter.
Eighth, baptism was ordinarily administered by the parish priest rather than the bishop. In the early church, it seems, the bishop was the local pastor of a particular church or relatively small group of churches and, thus, was the ordinary minister of baptism. As dioceses grew in geography and demographics, bishops grew relatively scarce. Thus it became a practical challenge for a bishop to be involved in every baptism.
Moreover, the rite of baptism had developed significantly by the fourth century. What had once been attributed to baptism itself (e.g., driving away the devil, anointing with the Spirit, enlightenment, clothing in Christ), came to be embodied in various explanatory rites (e.g., exorcism, chrismation, the giving of a candle, the investiture). Also, with large numbers of catechumens, many of the rites (such as immersion) were actually performed by deacons and deaconesses. The bishop alone, however, was responsible for the consecration of the water (that is, the epiclesis) and for the chrismation. Both of these rites were seen, in a special way, as granting the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As bishops grew scarce, the rite of chrismation was sheared off of baptism into a separate sacrament of confirmation to be administered by the bishop at a later time. The bishop was also expected to visit the parish occasionally to consecrate water for the font. This development, however, introduced an ambiguity into the understanding of baptism itself. Was the Spirit truly granted in baptism, or did the gift of the Spirit have to await the bishop? Furthermore, what if the font had not been blessed lately or had dried up since the last consecration?
Finally, among the theologians there was the rise of nominalism and voluntarism in light of which the late medieval rite was being interpreted. The later nominalists viewed salvation in terms of a covenant or contract (foedus or pactum) by which God had bound his absolute power, leaving it up to the individual to fulfill the terms of the covenant. The graciousness of God was seen in the unmerited establishment of the covenant, but the question for the individual was to decide to enter that covenant. If the individual did enter, then God was bound by his own covenant promises to regenerate and sanctify the person. From that point onward, the individual needed to remain in the covenant through obedience.
In the case of baptism, the question to the godparents ("Do you wish this child to be baptized?"), was often interpreted in terms of a decision to enroll the child in the covenant, a decision to which God had promised to respond. Thus the sacrament of baptism was a cause of grace in terms of "occasional causality."
While grace was not denied on such a view, it is difficult to see how such a voluntaristic nominalism could incorporate an Augustinian view of salvation as completely flowing from God's gracious initiative, even including the human response to grace. It is also clear how such a view, with the prevalence of infant baptism in the later middle ages, could bolster an already widespread tendency to see baptism almost as magic.
Thus we leave the late middle ages faced with a number of difficulties: an ambiguous and anachronistic baptismal rite not well suited to infants; the absence of any real catechesis in the life of the church; the preponderance of exorcism, implying that children of Christians were possessed by the devil; no clear sense of the gift of the Spirit in baptism to replace the exorcised devil; the almost complete privatization of baptism outside of the community of the church; and an eclipse of divine grace in the sacraments by both nominalist theology and common beliefs. Given these various factors, it is no wonder that, in an age of renewal and the retrieval of the history of ancient texts, the Protestant Reformers would insist on the reformation of the baptismal rite in accordance with Scripture and what they believed to be more genuine tradition. Moreover, it is also clear that the late medieval rite of baptism did more to obscure and distort, than it did to reveal and clarify, either the theology or the emphases that Osbourne attributes to the Roman Catholic tradition.
The Reformation of the Baptismal Rite
The earliest reforms of the medieval rites were not so much full-scale revisions as they were translations of the rites into the common language. Thus Luther's 1523 baptismal rite for Wittenberg was basically a translation of the local rite used in the diocese of Magdeburg. Still, there were some revisions. First, the exorcisms, while retained, were somewhat trimmed down. Second, the Creed was omitted. While Luther was quite interested in catechesis, the Creed was not understood as catechetical in his day, despite its origins, but rather functioned as a blessing. Since the Our Father functioned as a blessing as well, the Creed seemed redundant, so Luther was simply trimming down the rite. Third, Luther's main contribution was his so-called "Great Flood Prayer" which was based upon various medieval prayers and provided a brief summary of biblical baptismal typology and theology
From Luther's comments, it is clear that this translated rite was considered by him as only the first step in an ongoing process of reform. He notes that baptism could be effectively and rightly celebrated without the exorcisms, anointing, chrismation, investiture, or candle. The Scholastics were correct to see the essence of baptism as the application of water in the Triune name. From a pastoral perspective, however, Luther saw the importance of gradual reform. His main immediate pastoral concern was to celebrate baptism as a sacrament of faith, encouraging the faith of those present and leading them to pray for the baptized. That, however, required that it be celebrated in German.
Soon after Luther's translation, similar translations of local rites appeared elsewhere: Leo Jud's 1523 rite for Zurich, Matthis Zell and Diebold Schwartz's January 1524 rite for Strasbourg, and so on. More comprehensive reforms of the rites were soon to follow, beginning later the same year first in Strasbourg under the leadership of Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer. Further reforms were carried out during 1525 in Zurich under Ulrich Zwingli and during 1526 in Basel under Johann Oecolampadius.
These later reforms share a number of features in common. First, they all wished to reform the rite of baptism according to Scripture. The Christian Humanism of the Upper Rhineland focused on literary studies that attempted to retrieve the meaning of ancient texts, but not merely as a series of prooftexts to legitimate current practice, as was often the case with the medieval books of sentences. Rather, they wished to use grammatical-historical exegesis to better understand the original meaning of Scripture and the documents of Christian antiquity. Thus, in addition to Scripture itself, the Reformers came to be inspired by the doctrines of grace as found in the works of Augustine.
Thus the teaching of Scripture concerning baptism and New Testament examples of baptism, shaped their thinking and practice. They wanted a rite of baptism that was in accordance with Scripture, that was centrally focused upon the signs and symbols which God himself had given and about which he had made promises, and that stressed the gracious action of God.
In light of this, three central features were common to the reformed rites: [1] the application of water in the Triune Name, [2] the baptismal invocation or epiclesis, and [3] catechetical instruction of those baptized.
With regard to the baptismal washing, they trimmed away almost all of the accompanying rites: exorcisms, the use of salt, spit, candles, etc. They wanted the focus to rest upon precisely what Christ had instituted.
As for the baptismal invocation, they based this upon the teaching of 1 Peter 3:21, which presents baptism as "an appeal to God for a clear conscience." This appeal for inward renewal by the Spirit was emphasized by the Reformers through prayer, calling upon Christ to bring about through his Spirit the regeneration and sanctification that was symbolized by the rite itself. While this may emphasize too much a dichotomy between outward reality and inward grace, that would be corrected later in response to the Anabaptist challenge.
In terms of catechesis, the Reformers were very much impressed by the practice of the catechumenate of the early church and wished to restore such instruction in their day. They did not recognize, however, that the Our Father, the Creed, and the Gospel story in the late medieval rite were vestiges of this earlier catechumenate, though these elements had not, for quite some time, been connected to that function. Besides, such vestiges were ill-suited to a situation in which infant baptism was the norm and were clearly insufficient as catechetical instruction. Thus the Reformers began to establish genuine catechesis, including the writing of catechisms. This catechesis was to follow baptism as soon as the children were old enough to receive such instruction.
Through these various reforms, baptism was transformed into a rite that was more appropriate for the baptism of children. It avoided a magical view of the sacrament by emphasizing and praying for Gods work through his Spirit. And it did not see this as a one-time event, but as entrance into a new way of life among Gods people. Thus baptism entailed the necessity of catechesis.
The Anabaptist Challenge and the Reformed Response
In many ways the Anabaptist challenge to the Reformers was a natural outgrowth of the voluntarism and nominalism of the later medieval schools, coupled with certain strains of German mysticism and apocalyptic folk religion. Voluntarism and nominalism stood opposed to the Reformers' adoption of the Augustinian vision of grace, placing the emphasis, instead, upon the individuals decision to follow Christ. Thus, it finally led to a rejection of infant baptism altogether. The notion of the individual's decision was not informed so much by Luther's emphasis upon saving faith, but upon the German mystical traditions of inward illumination and imitation of Christ, which were seen by the Anabaptists as the true baptism of which the ritual was only an outward expression. And so, they insisted upon the re-baptism of all who were baptized as infants. The "Radical Reformation" of the Anabaptists, therefore, was not so much a radicalization of the developments introduced by the Reformers as it was a completely different kind of reformation, one that was, in fact, opposed to that of the Protestants.
As they continued to develop their baptismal rites and theology, the Reformers rejected the innovations of the Anabaptists. Nevertheless, the Anabaptist challenge proved a fruitful one insofar as it forced the Reformers to question and clarify the precise nature of their reforms. Their response involved several elements.
First, they argued from the example of Christ and the Apostles. Drawing on the linguistic tools developed by the Christian Humanists, they argued that if the New Testament is read in its historical context rather than through the medieval nominalist preoccupation with individual salvation, then we should expect children to be included in the Gospel call, even if they were not specifically mentioned. For the Reformers, the silence of Scripture on a particular matter such as the baptism of infants does not entail that such things are forbidden if they are otherwise in accordance with Scriptural usage and principles. The Anabaptists rejected such an approach to biblical hermeneutics.
Second, the Reformers defended infant baptism on the basis of the biblical typology, such as Paul's reference in 1 Corinthians to Israel crossing the Red Sea, an event he interprets as a baptism (1 Cor 10). Since all the men, women, and children of Israel were included in this type of baptism, why should any be excluded from the actual rite? Likewise, the epistle to the Colossians connects the New Testament rite of baptism to the Old Testament rite of circumcision, a ritual sign that was applied to infants.
Third, these considerations pointed to larger ones concerning the nature of God's gracious covenant in Scripture, leading the Reformers to develop a theology of the covenant that would challenge any prevailing nominalist interpretations. In particular, the Reformers emphasized the continuity of the covenant throughout Scripture. While there were differences in the administration of the covenant between the Old and New Testaments, there was a more basic unity. But in the Old Testament, the sign of covenant initiation--circumcision--was not so much a sign of a present faith, but of the gracious promise of God to be with his people and with their children. The primacy of God's action in creating a people for himself is underscored by the application of the covenant sign to infants. This was not, therefore, the covenant of nominalism and Anabaptist theology that was contracted through mutual consent. Since baptism was the New Testament sign of covenant initiation, it too ought to be applied to children of those already within the covenant as a sign of God's promise of salvation through faith. Children were not to be regarded as religious non-entities until they could make decisions for themselves. On the contrary, they were seen as proper objects of Christian nurture and inculturation.
Fourth, the Reformers more and more came to insist that baptism was an act of God rather than a choice of the individual. This is clear not only from the passive voice of the verb "baptize" but also from its institution by Christ and from the covenant promises of God. With this emphasis, the Reformers began to overcome their earlier dichotomy between outward sign and inward grace. Since baptism is a divinely given sign that contains a promise, there is no reason to doubt it. Nor is there any reason to re-baptize a person who has been validly baptized. Moreover, if baptism is a sign of Gods wholly unmerited and gracious initiative in salvation, the baptism of infants expresses this perfectly.
This perspective not only undermined the Anabaptist emphasis on baptism as a human act of publicly professing faith, but it also supported the Reformers' attempt to revise the baptismal rite in accordance with God's institution in Scripture. From this perspective, we can suggest that it was perhaps no accident that the elaborate rites of baptism in the fourth century, with their lengthy catechumenate and many rituals, had soon seen the rise of Pelagianism and Donatism.
These emphases of the Refomers in response to the Anabaptists did not merely fill the pages of tracts and treatises, but came to inform how they actually practiced baptism itself. From 1526-1542, in the wake of the Anabaptist challenge, we find various developments in the Reformed baptismal rites of the Upper Rhineland. Among these are: [1] the removal of the question of whether the sponsors wish the child to be baptized, [2] the incorporation of Scripture passages that emphasize Gods grace and covenant promises to believers and to their children, [3] admonitions to parents and to godparents to catechize the child in terms of these promises, [4] an increased insistence that baptism be celebrated among the covenant people of God on Sundays, and [5] prayers of thanksgiving for what God has already graciously done for the child through baptism.
As an example of this final development, we can note the post-baptismal thanksgiving of the 1537 Strasbourg rite and the theology and practice it presupposes. It reads in part,
Almighty God, heavenly Father, we give you eternal praise and thanks, that you have granted and bestowed upon this child your fellowship, that you have born him again to yourself through your holy baptism, that he has been incorporated into your beloved Son, our only Savior, and is now your child and heir. Grant, most loving and faithful Father, that we in the whole course of our lives might prove our thankfulness for your great grace, faithfully bring up this your child through all the situations of life, and that we with this child as well, might more and more die unto the world, and joined to the life of your Son, our Lord Jesus, daily grow in grace, that we might ever praise you and be a blessing to our neighbor, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Not only is this prayer a new addition to the Strasbourg rite, but it also evinces an absolute trust in the covenant promises of God to those baptized, an expectation that the child will be faithfully catechized, and a presupposition that baptism takes place in the midst of the Christian community.
In conclusion, then, we can see now how the emphases of the Protestant Reformers coincide with the sacramental concerns of Catholicism as they have been outlined for us by Osbourne. The 16th century reforms of the medieval baptismal rite were made in accordance with the institution of Christ, placing a central focus upon the application of water in the Triune Name of God. This was done in order to emphasize that baptism is an act of God that focuses centrally on the work of Christ being made present through the power and gift of the Spirit, in accordance with the covenant promises of God. The rite marks one's entrance into the Christian church, and as such it is a gracious act of God for the salvation of sinners. Since it is an act of God, baptism is also not to be repeated. Finally, as a sign of initiation into the covenant community, baptism ordinarily ought to occur in the context of the community of the church which itself acts in the sacramental rite, accepting the newly baptized into its midst and promising to catechize them in the faith.
Though not every question has been answered nor every issue pursued, I believe that these emphases and developments from within the Reformed tradition can, not only reinvigorate the Reformed tradition itself, but also prove a fruitful source for ecumenical reflection and convergence.
Bibliography:
Bromiley, Geoffrey W. Sacramental Teaching and Practice in the Reformation Churches. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957.
Fisher, J.D.C. Christian Initiation: the Reformation Period. London: S.P.C.K., 1970.
MacGregor, Geddes. Corpus Christi: the Nature of the Church According to the Reformed Tradition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1958.
Martos, Joseph. Doors to the Sacred. Liguori, MO: Liguori, 1991.
Old, Hughes Oliphant. The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992.
Osbourne, Kenan B., O.F.M. Sacramental Guidelines. New York: Paulist, 1995