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4 Hope of Israel Ministries BIBLE Correspondence Course Lesson 28

necessity of INFANT BAPTISM. About the
middle of the third century this theory was
generally admitted in the North AFRICAN
Church...but while in theory the necessity of
infant baptism was admitted, still in practice it
was very far from being generally prevailing."
(Vol. 1, pp. 313-14 -- Torrey’s Translation.)
MANY OF THE “FATHERS” OF THE
EARLY ROMAN CHURCH, who believed in
various pagan traditions and beliefs, PRO-
MOTED THIS PAGAN THEORY OF INFANT
BAPTISM! Among them were Origen, Chry-
sostom, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian,
Bishop of Carthage in North Africa, and
Augustine, who was its chief defender and
promoter. The Messiah and the apostles never
baptized infants. It is a pagan idea spawned by
carnal men!
Rheinwald, in The Christian Review,
says: “Though its (infant baptism) necessity was
asserted in Africa and Egypt in the beginning of
Mosaic of Emperor Justinian the Great of the
the 3rd century, it was, even to the end of the 4th
Eastern Roman Empire. He made infant baptism
century, by no means universally observed --
compulsory in the sixth century.
least of all in the Eastern Church. Notwith-
standing the recommendation of it by the fathers,
193).
it had never become a general ecclesiastical
It was not until the 6th CENTURY that
institution until the age of Augustine" (Vol. 3, p.
infant baptism became a universal
Stained-glass window of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. He practice.
was one of the many “fathers” of the early Roman Church “The administration of baptism
who promoted the doctrine of infant baptism. to infants was subsequently rendered
compulsory by an edict of Emperor
Justinian, who reigned over the
Eastern Roman Empire from A.D. 527
to A.D. 565. He enacted ‘that such
pagans as were yet unbaptized, should
present themselves, with their wives
and children, and all that appertained
to them, in the church; and THERE
THEY SHOULD CAUSE THEIR
LITTLE ONES IMMEDIATELY TO
BE BAPTIZED.’ “ (Cole’s Archaeol-
ogy of Baptism, p. 120.)
The evidence of recorded history
alone proves that infant baptism is
merely a doctrine of men which was

Avoid a Counterfeit Baptism!