[Uriel1975]

It is fashionable, among Primitive Baptists (“calvinistic anabaptists”), knowing as they do the great antiquity of the Anabaptist Communion, to date the history of their Separation from the Hierarchical communions of Rome and Constantinople to the date of AD 253-254, the date of one of the early Councils of Carthage.

This date is not without some difficulties, as while the Anabaptist Communion is undoubtedly of very great antiquity ("The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never symbolized with Rome.” ~~ Sir Isaac Newton), precise dating of the “formation” of the Communion is rendered difficult by the fact that the Anabaptist Communion, wherever it has been found, has always upheld the doctrines of Independence and Separationism.

The doctrine of Local Independence has always ensured that the Elders of any particular AnaBaptist church are independent of any servitude to any “higher echelon” of Elders (though Biblically, even the local AnaBaptist church is rightly governed by a session of multiple Elders, not a single Elder – which is to say, that the proper practice of local congregational governance ought be “presbyterian”, not simply “pastoral”, in form, as much for Baptist congregations as for Presbyterian congregations); and the doctrine of Separationism has always required of AnaBaptist congregations that they “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5: 11), and accept no communion with those who pervert the Gospel.

So assigning a precise date to the formation of the AnaBaptist Communion is rendered difficult by the fact that this Communion has always been a loose, non-hierarchical grouping of independent congregations. But if Cardinal Hosius’ (president of the Council of Trent) estimate of “twelve centuries” of AnaBaptist Persecution be accepted as accurate…

"Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers." (Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pp. 112, 113.)

This would date the existence of the AnaBaptist Communion to at least AD 350.

Nonetheless, the date of AD 253-254, of the Council of Carthage, enjoys certain historical advantages to recommend it, as Baptism was certainly among the major issues pronounced upon by the Council.

Ah, but there’s the rub… the determination of this early Council of Carthage was not upon the question of “infant” Baptism and “believer’s” Baptism, but rather upon the question between two different modes of the Infant Baptism which was the ancient and established sacramental practice of the Church, even at that early date.

Augustine said of infant baptism: "This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end." Cyprian wrote that "From baptism and from grace . . . must not be kept the infant." The Council of Carthage, in 253, condemned the opinion that infants should be withheld from baptism until the eighth day after birth. -- (www.catholic.com/ANSWERS/tracts/infant.htm)

The judgment of the assembled 66 bishops at Carthage in AD 253-254 was simply this: that Baptism, which required no blood-letting, did not require a delay until the eighth day after birth for the Sacrament to be performed. The propriety of baptizing the infant children of Believers into the Covenant was assumed as fact; the only question was whether or not the Levitical necessity of delay until the eighth day continued as a sacramental regulation of the seal. As no blood was shed, and thus no danger to the infant was involved, the judgment of Carthage was that no continuation of the Levitical delay was required.

The development of the AnaBaptistic practice of with-holding Baptism from Infants was not even considered among the diverse modes of Baptism found among the Churches of that day.

The Covenant is Visible and One.

[Uriel1975]

The AnaBaptistic practice, of withholding Baptism from Infants, was not even formally anathematized by the Hierarchical communions until another Council of Carthage in AD 418, nearly two centuries later – although, I hasten to add, the position of ecumenical Presbyterians such as myself and Warfield, who would gladly extend the hand of fellowship to our Baptist brethren, is that the pronouncement of this “anathema” was a horrific mistake, an un-brotherly abomination which set the stage for the demonic persecution of the AnaBaptists by the Hierarchical churches for centuries to come.

In fact, a more plausible historical case (IMHO) was that the AnaBaptistic practice of withholding Baptism from Infants developed as a reaction against the promulgation of a pernicious heresy which began to develop in the Churches at that time – the heresy of Baptismal Regeneration, a heresy which endangered the Gospel itself, as it perverted the blessed Gospel from a Pauline doctrine of pure Monergism -- Salvation effected by God alone – to a satanic doctrine of Synergism -- Salvation accomplished by God in part, but only in co-operation with the Works of Men.

From the 250 A.D. time of Cyprian onward, however, the Church Universal degenerated -- by syncretizing with paganism. More and more water now got used at baptisms. This was because of the false and new theory that the greater the quantity of water at baptisms (and the more naked the candidate), the greater the quantity and quality of sins were thereby washed away. Enter baptismal regenerationism. So, too, from 350, baptism was often deferred till death.

Fortunately, however, there was no attack against infant baptism as such. For even the romanizing Church Universal rightly regarded babies too as sinners -- all stained with Adam's original sin. Thus, paedobaptism was clearly enunciated by: Lactantius; Asterius; Basil; Gregory of Nazianze; Gregory of Nyssa; Hilary; Ambrose; Chrysostom; Jerome; and Augustine. Yet Biblical sprinkling decreased, and magical submersion increased. -- The Anabaptists and their Stepchildren, F.N. Lee

We are now approaching the development of those corrupting influences which had been at work from the Apostolic age, silently sapping the foundations of personal piety. In adverting to the language employed by Justin Martyr and Irenæus, we endeavoured to clear those authors from the imputation of unevangelical sentiments, and to interpret their expressions in a sound and safe sense. But though it may be possible to hold them guiltless, it is feared that many of their cotemporaries were fairly open to the charge of holding unscriptural opinions. A notion had grown up, that baptism actually accomplished what was professed in it. As the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were often bestowed upon believers immediately after their baptism, men began to think that it was then first that the Spirit wrought on the soul. And as the act of obedience to the Saviour in the ordinance was commonly associated with spiritual enjoyments and manifestations, and happy converts, like the eunuch, “went on their way rejoicing,” there were some who came to the conclusion that what was connected with baptism was produced by it. If the convictions that led the candidate to the baptismal water, and impelled him to the act of dedication to the Savior’s service, were greatly strengthened at his baptism, so that he then experienced a more intensely satisfying consciousness of pardon and union with Christ, results were confounded with causes, and the new believer was taught to ascribe to baptism the blessings which he had in fact enjoyed before, but which he realized more vividly when he obeyed the Lord.

This step taken, the transition to yet more perilous errors and evils was easy. When baptism was thus invested with a kind of supernatural power, the outward act was soon substituted for the spiritual qualification. -- J. M. Cramp, Baptist History

In like manner, about this time, the heresy of the State Establishment of the Church began to invade the Hierarchical communions:

The Donatists stood for liberty of conscience, and they were opposed to the persecuting power of the State Church, They were, says Neander, "the most important and influential church division which we have to mention in this period" (Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, III. 258). Neander continues:
That which distinguishes the present case is, the reaction, proceeding out of the essence of the Christian church, and called forth, in this instance, by a peculiar occasion, against the confounding of the ecclesiastical end political elements; on which occasion, for the first time, the ideas which Christianity, as opposed to the papal religion of the state, had first made men distinctly conscious of, became an object of contention within the Christian church itself,—the ideas concerning universal, inalienable human rights; concerning liberty of conscience; concerning the rights of free religious conviction.

Thus the Bishop Donatus, of Carthage, in 347, rejected the imperial commissioners, Paulus and Marcarius, with the acclamation: "Quid est imperatori cum eccleaia?" (Optatus, Milev., De Schismati Donat. 1. iii. c. 3). And truly indeed the emperor should not have had anything to do with the control of the church. The Donatist Bishop Petilian, in Africa, against whom Augustine wrote, appealed to Christ and the apostles who never persecuted. "Think you," says he, "to serve God by killing us with your hand? Ye err, if ye, poor mortals, think this; God has not hangmen for priests. Christ teaches us to bear wrong, not to revenge it," The Donatist bishop Gaudentius says: "God appointed prophets and fishermen, not princes and soldiers, to spread the faith." -- A History of the Baptists, John T. Christian

Against these heretical inventions of men, the mysticism of Baptismal Regeneration and the totalitarianism of Establishmentarianism, a number of non-conformist congregations began to arise – including the AnaBaptistic communion:

The Donatists arose in Numidia, in the year 311, and they soon extended over Africa. They taught that the church should be a holy body. Crespin, a French historian, says that they held the following views:
First, for purity of church members, by asserting that none ought to be admitted into the church but such as are visibly true believers and true saints. Secondly, for purity of church discipline. Thirdly, for the independency of each church. Fourthly, they baptized again those whose first baptism they had reason to doubt. They were consequently termed rebaptizers and Anabaptists.

In his early historical writings David Benedict, the Baptist historian, wrote with much caution of the denominational character of the Donatists. He followed closely the statements of other writers in his history; but in his last days he went into the original sources and produced a remarkable book called a "History of the Donatists" (Pawtucket, 1875). In that book he recedes from his noncommittal position and classes them as Baptists. He quite freely shows from Augustine and Optatus, who were contemporaries, that the Donatists rejected infant baptism and were congregational in their form of government.

Dr. Heman Lincoln dissented from some of the conclusions of Dr. Benedict and called them fanciful. But that they held some Baptist principles he did not doubt. He says:

It is evident that the Donatists held, at some period of their history, many of the principles which are regarded as axioms by modern Baptists. In their later history, after a stern discipline of persecution, they maintained, as cardinal truths, absolute freedom of conscience, the divorce of church and state, and a regenerate church membership. These principles, in whose defense they endured martyrdom coupled with their uniform practice of immersion, bring them into close affinity with Baptists (Lincoln, The Donatists. In The Baptist Review, p. 358, July, 1880). -- A History of the Baptists, John T. Christian

As the Hierarchical communions began to impose upon the churches of Christ the twin heresies of Baptismal Regeneration and Establishmentarianism, the AnaBaptists renounced these “hangmen” with a double portion of rebuke!! They responded by withholding Baptism until after the Regeneration of the Believer was “proved” (thus demonstrating, by their sacramental practice, the distinction between Symbol and Grace), and breaking communion with all Hierarchical bishops (thus affirming, by their ecclesiological practice, the authority and independence of the local presbyters).

But in this, the AnaBaptists were hardly alone. In addition to a number of Non-Conformist paedobaptist congregations (of which the Culdee Presbyteries of Iona and Scotia were but one worthy example, deserving of an entirely separate post at another time), many of the Non-Conformist congregations commonly counted in later history as “anabaptistic” did continue the ancient and established practice of Infant Baptism amongst themselves, even as they refused communion with Rome. As merely one example, the medieval communion of the Waldensians, dating reliably back to the eleventh and twelfth century and likely before, did commonly practice the baptism of Infants – though not according to the Roman practice – in a great number of their congregations, and perhaps even as a majority practice:

Ritualistic Rome, with her rigid heresy of baptismal regenerationism, increasingly practised baptism specifically by submersion. Yet from about 1180 onward, we also encounter the protests of the proto-Protestant Waldensians.

While rejecting the various ritualistic additions to baptism, these disciples of Peter Waldo did not repudiate the validity of baptisms as such -- not even when performed in the Church of Rome. Indeed, when unable to avail themselves of the rather scarce services of their own mostly itinerant pastors -- some of them very questionably permitted their own children, rather than to remain unbaptized, to be baptized even by Romish priests. Still others, with reluctance, even delayed those baptisms (because not necessary for salvation) -- until their own Waldensian pastors were later available and able to officiate.

For "the Waldenses," as Rev. Prof. Dr. Samuel Miller rightly pointed out in his work Infant Baptism, "in their Confessions of Faith and other writings drawn up between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries...for several hundred years before the Reformation...have indeed written on the subject." However, the evidence leads to only one conclusion: "The great body of the Waldenses, were Paedobaptists."

Miller then cited from Waldensian historians themselves: "'Baptism,' say they, 'is administered in a full congregation of the faithful, to the end that he who is received into the church may be reputed and held by all as a Christian brother.... We present our children in baptism.... The things which are not necessary in baptism, are -- the exorcisms; the breathings; the sign of the cross upon the head or forehead of the infant'" and/or the adult. -- The Anabaptists and their Stepchildren - F.N. Lee

You may rest assured, my friends, that this statement most exactly illustrates the real fact with regard to the Waldenses as Paedobaptists. Twentynine parts, at least, out of thirty, of the whole of that body of witnesses for the truth, were undoubtedly Paedobaptists. The remaining thirtieth part departed from the faith of their fathers in regard to baptism, but departed on principles altogether unlike those of our modem Baptist brethren. -- INFANT BAPTISM, by Samuel Miller, D.D.

Nonetheless, while the AnaBaptistic reaction against the twin Roman heresies of Baptismal Regeneration and Establishmentarianism were understandable, and largely justifiable, renunciations of the errors and heresies of Roman doctrine, this does NOT establish AnaBaptistic sacramental practice as the original Covenantal practice of the early Jewish Church.

So the Reformers declared:

For, attending to the end for which it was instituted, we clearly perceive that it is not less applicable to children than to those of more advanced years and that therefore, they cannot be deprived of it without manifest fraud to the will of its divine Author. The assertion which they disseminate among the common people, that a long series of years elapsed after the resurrection at Christ, during which paedobaptism was unknown, is a shameful falsehood, since there is no writer, however ancient, who does not trace its origin to the days of the apostles. -- JOHN CALVIN, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Covenant is Visible and One.