BAPTISM (Gr. bapto, to dip or wash, or to stain with a liquid), one of the sacraments (q.v.) of the Christian church, deriving its name from the outward rite of washing with water, which forms an essential part of it. 13. is almost universally acknowledged among Christians as a sacrament, and is referred to the authority of Christ himself, whose express commandment is recorded in the gospels (Matt. xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 16). B. is fre quently mentioned in the New Testament as a divine ordinance.
The name and the rite were not, however. altogether new when the ordinance was instituted by Christ. Religious meanings were early attached to washings with water, both by heathens and Jews; they were among the ordinances of the Jewish law; and it is not necessary to go beyond that law to find the origin of the custom of washing or baptizing proselytes upon their admission into the .Jewish church. Washing with water was requisite for the removal of ceremonial uncleanness, and every proselyte must have been regarded as. prior to his admission into the Jewish church, ceremonially unclean. John the Baptist baptized not proselytes upon their renouncing heathenism and entering the Jewish church, but those who, by birth and descent, were members of it, to indicate the necessity of a purification of the soul from sin—a spiritual, and not a mere outward change.
One of the most important of the controversies which have agitated the Christian church as to B., is that concerning the proper subjects of B., whether adults only who profess faith in Christ are to be baptized, or if this ordinance is to be administered to their infants also. See BArrisrs, and Ilsrrism, INFANT. The B. of adults was certainly more frequent in the apostolic age than it has ordinarily been where the B. of infants has prevailed; for which an obvious cause presents itself in the fact, that the first mem bers of churches were converts from Judaism or from heathenism. It is, however, gen erally held by those who advocate the B. of infants, that it was the practice of the apos tles and of the church of the apostolic age to baptize the infants of Christians; which, on the other band, is as stoutly denied, and infant B. is alleged to have crept in along with other corruptions. For neither Opinion can any positive historical proof be
adduced, the uments on both sides being purely inferential.
It is admitted, on all hands, that at an early period in the history of the church, B. was administered to infants, although, according to Meander, even after " it had been set forth as an apostolic institution, its introduction into the general practice of the church was but slow." He finds "the first trace" of it in Ireureus. It was opposed by Tertullian about the end of the 2d c.; and was advocated by Cyprian, and acknowledged as an apostolic institution iu the North African church and in the Alexandrian and Syro-Persian churches in the 3d e. ; but it is not until the 5th c. that it became fully established as the general practice of the Christian church. It has unquestionably con tinued to be the general practice from that period to the present day; feebly opposed by, some of the sects of the middle ages, and more vigorously by sonic of those who have adopted the general principles of the reformation. See BAPTISTS.
Both the practice of infant B., and the neglect of it in the early ages of the church, were connected with particular views of religious doctrine, and of the nature and purpose of B. itself. The prevalence of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is gen erally regarded as a principal cause of the prevalence of infant B.; but Pelagius, whilst opposing that doctrine, maintained the necessity of infant B., apparently upon the ground that the kingdom of heaven can be attained by human beings only through God's grace. No little influence in favor of infant B. must be ascribed to the growing belief of the absolute necessity of B. to salvation, and of a sort of mysterious efficacy in the rite itself. It is certain, on the other hand, that the belief in the forgiveness of sins in B. led to a practice of deferring it as long as possible, that all sins might be blotted out at once; thus the emperor Constantine the great was baptized only a short time before his death. The approach of a war or pestilence caused many to rush forward in haste to be baptized, who had previously delayed.