§ 92. BAPTISM. 481
Ketzertaufe, in the Ttlbingeu "Theol. Quartalsclirift," for 1849, pp. 571-637, and 1850, pp. 24-69 ; and G. E. Steitz, art. Ketzertaufe in Herzog's Theol. Encyclop. vol. vii. pp. 524-541 (partly in opposition tc Mattes). Concerning the form of baptism, on the Baptist side, T. J. Oonant: The Meaning and Use of Bnptizein philologically and Lislwically investigated. New York, 1861.
The views of the ante-Nicene fathers concerning baptism and baptismal regeneration were in this period more copiously embellished in rhetorical style by Basil the Great and the two Gregories, who wrote special treatises on this sacrament, and were more clearly and logically developed by Augustine. The patristic and Roman Catholic view on regeneration, however, differs considerably from the one which now prevails among most Protestant denominations, especially those of the more Puritanic type, in that it signifies not so much a subjective change of heart, which is more properly called conversion, but a change in the objective condition and relation of the sinner, namely, his translation from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of Christ. Some modern divines make a distinction between baptismal and moral regeneration, in order to reconcile the doctrine of the fathers with the fact that the evidences of a new life are wholly wanting in so many who are baptized. But we cannot enter here into a discussion of the difiiculties of this doctrine, and must confine ourselves to a historical statement.
Gregory Nazianzen sees in baptism all blessings of Christianity combined, especially the forgiveness of sins, the new birth, and the restoration of the divine image. To children it is a seal {a-cfipayL^) of grace and a consecration to the service of God. According to Gregory of Nyssa, the child by baptism is instated in the paradise from which Adam was thrust out. The Greek fathers had no clear conception of original sin. According to the Pelagian Julian of Eclanum, Chrysostora taught: We baptize children, though they are not stained with sin, in order that holiness, righteousness, sonship, inheritance, and brotherhood may be imparted to them through Christ.'
' The passage is not found in the writings of Chrysostom. Augustine, however, does not dispute the citation, but tries to explain it away (contra Julian. L c. 6, § 21).
4S2 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-500.
Auo^ustine brought the operation of baptism into connectioi: with his more complete doctrine of original sin. Baptism delivers from the guilt of original sin, and takes awaj the sinful character of the concupiscence of the flesh/ while for the adult it at the same time effects the forgiveness of all actual transgressions before baptism. Like Ambrose and other fathers, Augustine taught the necessity of baptism for entrance into the kingdom of heaven, on the ground of John iii. 5, and deduced therefrom, in logical consisten(!y, the terrible doctrine of the damnation of all unbaptized children, though he assigned them the mildest grade of perdition."
The council of Carthage, in 318, did the same, and in it? second canon rejected the notion of a liappj middle state for unbaptized children. It is remarkable, however, that this addition to the second canon does not aj^pear in all copies of the Acts of the council, and was perhaps out of some horror omitted."
In Augustine we ah-eady find all the gci-ms of the scholastic and Catholic doctrine of baptism, though they hardly agree properly with his doctrine of predestination, the absolute sovereignty of divine grace and the perseverance of saints. According to this view, baptism is the sacrament of regeneration, which is, negatively, the means of the forgiveness of sin, that is, botli of original sin and of actual sins committed before baptism (not after it), and positive!}", the foundation of the new spiritual life of faith through the impartation of the gratia operans and co-operans. The subjective condition of this effect is the worthy receiving, that is, penitent faith. Since in the child there
* De nupt. et concup. i. 28 : " Pimittitiir concupisccntia carnis in buptisino, non nt non sit, sccl ut in pcccatum nou inipiitetur."
' " Parvulos in damnationc omnium milissima futuros." Comp. De peccat. mer. L 20, 21, 28; Ep. 186, 27. To the heathen he also assigneii a milder and more tolerable condemnation, Contr. Julian, iv. 2.3.
• Comp. Neander, 1. c. i. p. 424, and especially Tlefele, Conciliengeschiohte, li. p. 103. The passage in question, which is lacking both in Isidore and in Dionysiiis, nms thus : " Whoever says that there is, in the kingdom of heaven or elsewhere, a certain middle place, where children who die without baptism live ha])py (beate vivant), while yet (hey cannot without baptism enter into the kingdom rf heaven, i c, into eternal life, let him be anathema."