had sins to be remitted; and then he proceeds to

say:

"For this same thing the Church has received from the apostles the order to administer. baptism to infants. For they, to whom the divine mysteries were committed, well knew that there is a natural corruption of sin in all, which must be washed away by water and the Spirit. "7

This testimony of Origen to the practice of infant baptism, in his times and earlier, has the greater force, as it comes in the easy and natural way of allusions. He has no point to establish by proving that it was practised. He makes incidental referrence to it, as well known and common practice. He assumes that everybody knows the fact, and he alludes to it merely to use it.

He also says that the Church does this by an order or tradition from the apostles. This is direct, positive, and without the possibility of an ambiguity. Indeed, no quotation that we have made from him. is open to that verbal criticism and affected scepticism, by which the vitality and force are sometimes expelled from a well-cited passage. Origen, as quoted, is so explicit as to be beyond the power of misunderstanding and misapplication.

It remains only to speak, in a word, of the authenticity and genuineness of these quotations from Origen.

7" Pro hoc et ecclesia ab apostolis traditionem suscepit etiam parvulis baptismum dare. Sciebant enim illi quibus mysteriorum secreta commissa sunt divinorum, quia essent in omnibus genuinæ sordes peccati, quæ per aquam et Spirutum ablui deberent." - Com. in Epis. ad. Rom. Lib. v.

The works from which we have extracted them remain to us only in Latin translations, the original Greek having perished. The homily on Leviticus, and the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, were translated by Rufinus, and the homily on St. Luke by Jerome. Both these translators lived within one hundred years of the times of Origen; and, being learned men, they must have known whether he misstated the practice of the Church in this rite. If they suspected him of error, we cannot suppose they would have translated and given his erroneous teachings to the world without caveat or protest.

It is true, when the translated works of Origen were collected, some spurious writings were gathered with them, and attributed to him. But the homily on Luke could not have been one of them; since Jerome owns to the fact that he translated it, and no one questions but that Rufinus translated the other works quoted.

It is also true that Rufinus intentionally made omissions, in his translations, of passages in which he regarded Origen as unorthodox, though he is not accused of making interpolations. As Rufinus was an ardent admirer of Origen, we may presume the passages in question would have been omitted if they inculcated what the Church had not accepted, and so would endanger the reputation of their author. Besides, they are sustained fully in sentiment by the passage in the homily on St. Luke, over whose genuineness there hangs no doubt. It is to be considered, too, that these translations were made while their

Greek originals were common; and so any variations from the Greek would be liable to immediate discovery and exposure.

Neander, alluding to the statement of Origen, that the Church received the order from the apostles to baptize infants, makes this remark:

"An expression, by the way, which cannot be regarded as of much weight in this age, when the inclination was so strong to trace every institution, which was considered of special importance, to the apostles."8

This remark of the eminent historian savors not a little of the theorist; and it is a fair index to that unfortunate fact in his history, that all his historical evidences on infant baptism in the first four centuries are for the institution as apostolical, while his philosophizing on the facts is against it. There appears to be, throughout his great work, a purpose wrought out to neutralize the legitimate influence of the facts that he adduces on this subject.

8 Ch. His. i. 314.

CHAPTER XXX.

WE

TERTULLIAN.

E come next in order to take the testimony of Tertullian, a presbyter in the Church at Carthage. He was born there, of pagan parents, about A.D. 160. This brings us a quarter of a century nearer to the apostles than the times of Origen, and within a century of the time when the most of the New Testament was written. He was one of the most influential and learned of the authors of his times. Guericke esteems him as one of "the three leading and representative minds in the Church at the close of the second century."1

"In the Latin language," says Mosheim, "scarcely any writer of this century elucidated and defended the Christian religion, except Tertullian." "He had much learning, but lacked discretion and judgment." 2

He was erratic, and even heretical, in some of his religious views, being for years a Montanist. But these imperfections can in no manner impeach his ability or fidelity in making historical allusions to the ordinance and use of infant baptism, as then held and practised.

1 Ancient Church, 146; note 2.

2 Eccl. His. i. 122, 3.

He wrote a treatise on the subject of baptism. Holding to the doctrine that the stain of original sin attaches to every child of Adam, and that baptism is efficacious to wash it away, he says,

"Since it is agreed that no one can obtain salvation without baptism, according to that marked saying of the Lord, Except a man be born of water he cannot have salvation, scruples arise, and the rash dissertations of some, how, by that rule, any apostle could be saved, excepting St. Paul. For since Paul, only of them all, received the baptism of Christ, the others who failed of the water of Christ, must either be in great danger, that the rule may stand, or the rule is rescinded, if salvation is obtained without baptism."

"3

Tertullian here makes baptism a logical necessity for salvation. If, then, infants did not receive it, they must have incurred the great peril, as those "who failed of the water of Christ."

We

Of course we have now nothing to do with the truth or error of those notions about the taint of Adam's sin, and its supposed washing away in baptism and failure of salvation without the rite. are concerned only with the practice of the ancient Church in this ordinance. But so earnestly did Tertullian hold these views of the necessity of baptism,

3 Quum vero præscribitur nemini sine baptismo competere salutem, ex illa maxima pronunciatione Domini, qui ait; nisi natus ex aqua quis erit, non habet salutem; suboriuntur scrupuli, imo temerarii tractatus quorumdam, quo inodo exista præscriptione apostolis salus competat, quos tinctos non invenimus in Domino, præter Paulum: imo, cum Paulus solus ex illis baptismum Christi induerit, aut præjudicatum esse de cæterorum periculo, qui careant aqua Christi, ut præscriptio salva sit; aut rescindi præscriptionem, si etiam non tinctis salus statua est. — TERTULL., De Baptismo, c. 12.