RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Baptism
Church had an anointing after baptism is perhaps the only thing to be safely concluded from Hippolytus. Two centuries later, under Innocent I (402- 419), this anointing had been divided between the priest and the bishop, whether the latter was present at the time or not, and the bishop claimed the right of consecrating the chrism and imposition of hands. From Leo I (440-461) the following order may be worked out : renunciation, profession of faith in God, blessing of the water, threefold immersion, anointing with chrism, and signing with the cross. From the sixth century the rite known as the scrutinies developed in preparation for baptism, taking place in seven special masses in the last weeks before Easter, to which the catechumenate period had now been reduced. At this time the Sacramentary of Gelasius and the first Roman Ordo show no essential changes from the order under Leo I. After the last scrutinies have taken place in the vestibule of the baptistery, including renunciation and profession of faith, clergy and people enter the baptistery singing a litany, and the blessing of the water follows; the " symbol " is recited at the time of the actual baptism in the form of three questions and answers; then the presbyter anoints the candidate with chrism on the back; the procession moves to the consignatorium, where confirmation or consignation is administered by the bishop, consisting of signing with the cross on the forehead and imposition of hands; and another litany leads to the eucharistic celebration. This form may have been used until the ninth century; but finally a tendency sets in to fuse the acts belonging to catechumens and competentes, in a shortened form, with the baptism, while the confirmation is more completely separated from it. By the fusion of the Ordo ad catechumenum faciendum with the actual baptismal ceremony is formed the present Roman rite, which in its final form dates from Paul V (1614). It has two different rites, one for infants and one for adults. The latter, representing more closely the ancient system, has the following parts : preparation by the clergy in the church, the candidates waiting without, including reading of Psalm xli, perhaps a survival of the ancient reading of Scripture; at the church door, the giving of the name, renunciation and profession of faith, threefold blowing in the face, signing with the cross on forehead and breast, prayer, more signs of the cross, imposition of hands, blessing and administration of salt, another imposition of hands, and exorcism — distinct traces of the old catechumenate ceremonies; in the church, confession of faith, imposition of hands and exorcism, symbolic opening of the ears, renunciation, and anointing — the ancient redditio symboli with its consequent exorcism; in the baptistery, baptism proper and confirmation. Rome endeavored constantly to spread its baptismal liturgy and customs through the other provinces. The scrutiny-masses were introduced into Gaul and the Frankish kingdom in the seventh and eighth centuries. In Spain the Synod of Braga (561) made the Roman rite binding on a whole province; it probably, though not certainly, spread into Africa, and Milan showed a tendency to accept
it. The question as to what rites were used in these provinces before the Roman can not be answered completely, but some important points may be set down.
It would seem that the ancient customs survived longer in Spain than anywhere else in the West. The witnesses, however, are
5. Spain late, beginning with Isidorus Hisand paliensis (d. 636), whose De officiis
Africa. ecclesiasticis makes it possible to establish the following order: blessing of the water; renunciation, pronounced by the candidate standing in the water; confession of faith in three parts, probably in the form of question and answer; baptism in the threefold name, but probably by a single immersion; anointing with chrism and imposition of hands, performed only by the bishop. The rite is somewhat further developed as it appears in Toledo with the De cognitione baptismi of Ildefonsus (d. 667). Here the blessing of the water is more ceremonious (a wooden cross is used); the single immersion is clearly shown; and after the entire ceremony the Lord's Prayer is recited and thus delivered to the new-made Christian, as it was among the Syrian Jacobites. Another ancient rite preserved in Spain was the footwashing after baptism (attested by the Synod of Elvira, 306); and many of these old customs were retained in the missale mixtum of the Mozarabic liturgy. For Africa we get substantially the same account in the earliest witness, Tertullian, as in Cyprian, in Optatus of Mileve, and in Augustine, snowing that little change had come about in two centuries.
For Milan and North Italy, the principal source is the De mysteriis, still generally, though not certainly, ascribed to Ambrose. Here
6. Milan the order was: the symbolic opening and North of the ears and unction on ears and
Italy. nose, in the antechamber; in the baptistery, renunciation, blessing of the water, profession of faith by the candidate standing in the water, in the form of three questions and answers, one immersion following each answer, unction on the head, foot-washing, clothing in white garments, probably imposition of hands, and the Eucharist. With this in the main agree the four addresses of Maximus of Turin to the neophytes (fifth century; MPL, lvii, 771), and the pseudo-Ambrosian De sacramentis. The latter, however, has an additional unction before the renunciation, which is retained in the later Milanese usage, as mentioned by Archbishop Odilbert (d. 814). This ritual is characterized by the combination of the ceremonies belonging to catechumens and competentes into one service with the baptism proper, and in general is closely allied to that of the Frankish Church of the ninth century and to the later Roman ordo.
In Gaul, according to the sacramentaries which
are here the first definite authorities, the service
began with a solemn blessing of the
7. Gaul, water in the absence of the candidates;
in the antechamber followed the renunciation; in the baptistery, threefold confession and immersion; in another place, confirmation by
Baptism