It did not. Jesus commissioned the disciples to go and mke more disciples from all nations, and baptize these disciples as they had been baptized. The fruit of a disciple is more disciples, not more babies.
Infant baptism was not performed by the early churches because baptism was by total immersion, as practiced by Jews for ritual cleansing in the mikvah; and only those sentient and accountable to God for their sins could exercise repentance and faith. Infant baptism divorces this whole requisite from the rite. It's a cheap and ineffective way to assuage a parent's demand to have his/her religion make the child Heaven-worthy.
Infant baptism was first initiated in the late second century, and the practice was strongly urged when Christianity became the state religion. No faith-mechanism needed.
Wasn't any real church council focusing on it til the Council of Carthage, 254 A.D.: There, the 66 bishops concluded:
"We ought not hinder ANY person from Baptism and the Grace of God...especially infants...those newly born."
Making adults & teens & pre-teens utter formulaic "decisions for Christ" phraseology is easily reduced to a 'cheap and ineffective way to assuage' the church's responsibility to disciple people in-depth as they try to make the target Heaven-bound minus a Lordship relationship with Christ and full assimilation into His Body, the Church.
#1...Christianity didn't become "state" ized til Constantine. And that was the fourth century. Therefore, your historical facts are way off! The Council of Nicae was 325 a.d.
#2 I know this is "hard" for individualistically minded Westerners to think that whole families were baptized "on the spot" -- minus an in-depth 16 week Inquirer's class -- but they were...
Now we don't know how much lead-up time for such families as Stephanus (1 Cor. 1:16)...but we know this oikos reality (oikos is Greek Biblical word for household) included the totality of these families...see Acts 11:14; 16:15,33; Acts 18:8).
You see the families in the Middle East rated see themselves as a unit, not as individuals. Both in the case of circumcisions -- which Paul ties to baptism in Col. 2:11ff -- and also proselyte baptism...the place of the WHOLE FAMILY was significantly high.
Credobaptists assume NONE of these above families had infants in them.
And for that matter, they basically have to assume these whole families were essentially childless. Why? Because the ages of the kids -- of ANY age -- are not given.
Therefore, if credobaptists say there is no warrant for infant baptism, then why stop at infants? There's no Biblical warrant for teen baptism, either! Or pre-teen baptism!
#3 Those who object to infant baptism tend to try to "substitute" baby "dedications."
Now there's something that's been introduced into the Church just in recent times!
Where's the Biblical precedent for that???
You are exactly right. Infant baptism was NOT practiced in the early church, but was introduced later.
Jesus did called the little to Him.