House baptisms in the New Testament

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The New Testament reports about house baptisms tell of baptismal acts in which whole “houses” - meaning “household goods”, ie large families including those who live in this household - were baptized. These reports play a certain role in the discussion “ infant baptism versus believer baptism ”. The question is whether small children (especially infants) were also baptized in the so-called house baptisms. To what extent this historical question is relevant to the theological discussion is debatable.

New Testament reports of house baptisms

Ceiling painting in the parish church of Biberach: Baptism of Cornelius (Johannes Zick, 1746)

The New Testament reports house baptisms in five places; four of them can be found in the Acts of the Apostles (10.44–48; 16.10–92; 16.25–34 and 18.8), one in 1 Corinthians (1.16 f).

Acts 10: 44-48: The House of Cornelius

... While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all who listened to him. The Christians of Jewish origin who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God also gave his spirit to non-Jews. They heard the crowd talking in unknown tongues and praising God. But Peter said, “These people were filled with the Holy Spirit just like us. Then who can refuse them baptism? ”And commanded that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay a few more days.

It is said here that the Holy Spirit fell upon those who listened to Peter's words and then spoke in unknown tongues and praised God. Could this also have been the case with small children or even infants?

Acts 16:15: The house of Lydia

Place where Lydia is said to have been baptized by Paul
But when she was baptized with her house, she asked us and said, If you acknowledge that I believe in the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she compelled us.

Proponents of infant baptism view this report as follows: Here a woman acts as the head of the household and thus also the head of the Christian house church. Only the belief of Lydia is explicitly mentioned, not the belief of the members of the household. Here, slaves, children or infants may well have been baptized who, according to the ancient understanding, were considered underage and whose religion was probably the responsibility of the head of the household. However - as with all other house baptisms - this is not explicitly mentioned, since the ancient reader already knows what a house is and who belongs to it.

Critics of infant baptism consider the six previous baptismal accounts of the Acts of the Apostles (2.37–42; 8.12; 8.13; 8.26–39; 9.17.18; 10.44–48) and the sequence of events that can be recognized there: (1) The gospel is preached, (2) people come to believe, and (3) are baptized. This sequence of events and actions can also be assumed here. But quite apart from that: There is no evidence from this report that the Lydia house belonged to small children.

Acts 16: 25–34: The jailer's house

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and praising God. And the prisoners heard them. Suddenly, however, a great earthquake occurred, so that the foundations of the prison shook. And immediately all the doors opened, and the chains fell off all of them. But when the overseer woke up and saw the prison doors standing open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself; because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul called out loudly: Do nothing to yourself; because we are all here! The overseer asked for a light and rushed in and fell trembling at Paul and Silas' feet. And he brought them out and said: Gentlemen, what must I do to be saved? They said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you and your house will be saved. And they told him the word of the Lord and to all who were in his house. And he took them that hour of the night and washed their welts. And he was immediately baptized and all of his own and brought them into his house and set the table for them and rejoiced with all his house that he had come to believe in God .

The situation here is similar to most of the other baptismal accounts in Acts. The baptism of the house follows the, in this case extremely brief, nocturnal proclamation. Critics of infant baptism point out that the gospel was preached to “everyone” in his home and that “the whole house” rejoiced at his believing - both of which are unlikely to apply to infants (if any).

Proponents of infant baptism, on the other hand, see the baptism decision made by the jailer on the basis of his own faith, i.e. the host, who takes on religious responsibility for his family - and thus also for any existing children in infancy. Only the faith of the jailer is mentioned explicitly, the residents of the house only say that everyone heard the sermon. Paul and Silas put it like this: If you believe in Jesus the Lord, you and your house will be saved. And in the end only the joy of his faith is reported.

Acts 18,8: The house of Crispus

But Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house, and many of the Corinthians who listened believed and were baptized.

Listening and coming to faith precede baptism here. In contrast to the previous passage, it is explicitly stated that the “house” of Crispus also believes.

Critics of infant baptism see this as clear evidence against the baptism of minors - also with regard to the other house baptisms, which do not mention this fact in an impressive way.

Proponents of infant baptism, on the other hand, point out that the order necessary for this narrative does not necessarily imply a dogmatic requirement for every baptism. The text does not provide that, but is only a possible interpretation. In addition, this one passage from the Bible should not be transferred to the others and thus generalized without further evidence. Incidentally, it is not reported how the whole house actually came to believe.

1 Corinthians 1:16 f .: The house of Stephanas

(Paul writes :) But I also baptized Stephanas and his house; otherwise I don't know if I have baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel - not with wise words so that the cross of Christ would not be destroyed.

Infants could have been among the baptized of the Stephanas house - so the proponents of infant baptism.

On the other hand, the following remark is made about the house of Stephanas: I warn you, dear brothers: You know the house of Stephanas, that they are the firstfruits in Achaia and have made themselves available to serve the saints - 1 Corinthians 16:15. Infants find it difficult to make themselves available for service .

Proponents of infant baptism do not accept this argument, however, because the phrase does not make a statement about every single member of the house. Under no circumstances would Paul have written as carefully and meticulously as you know the house of Stephanas, that they are the firstfruits and the responsible adults among them have made themselves available for service . The facts were of course clear to all readers.

Historical context

Oikos

In antiquity, the center of life was the house (ancient Greek: oikos ; Latin: domus ), i.e. the entire household with family, servants and slaves. This house community was regarded as a social, economic and religious-cultic unit. The head of the house represented the house externally as a pater familias and determined the internal conduct of life, with more rights in the Roman area than in the Greek-speaking area.

This social order is already documented in the Old Testament , for example Joshua ( Jos 24.12  EU ) determines: "I and my house want to follow the Lord."

In Christianity, however, individuals ultimately acted on their own responsibility from a religious point of view, as Jesus himself pointed out in a harsh saying: He came to “divide the son with his father” , etc., so that “a person's housemates become his enemies . be " ( Mt 10.34 to 37  EU ) so here is not thought of uniform religious decisions as a family - just an individual decision for Jesus could lead to intra-family conflicts. For this reason, Jesus also expected a separation through the closest connections at the time of his return: "That night two will lie on one bed, one will be taken and the other left behind." ( Lk 17.34  EU )

It was therefore by no means a matter of course that the wife should follow her husband's decision for Jesus; for this case of religious marital difference, Paul gives advice: "If a brother has an unbelieving wife ..." ( 1 Cor 7:12  EU ) Paul's letter to Philemon shows a case in which the householder Philemon was already a Christian, but his slave Onesimus only later - and independently of his Lord - became a Christian. Even in the 2nd century AD, slaves were not expected to automatically follow their master's decision. Aristides wrote about Christians in his Apology (15.6) around 125 AD : “Out of love for them, they advise slaves and their children to become Christians; and when they have become so, they call them brothers indiscriminately. ” And Tertullian dealt (around 200 AD) with the case of what a Christian master should do when his pagan slaves (according to a pagan custom) the Have decorated the front door with wreaths ( De idololatria 15 ).

From the beginning of the spread of Christianity, the “house” was the center of the first churches, as Paul takes for granted in his letters. In these house churches the baptized from different social classes lived the unity and equality before God. The house church, however, was not identical to the residents of the house in which the church gathered, but rather corresponded to the ancient tradition of cult associations.

WHOLE and ALL in the Bible

The terms whole or all are not always to be understood in the sense of 100% - neither in the language used then nor in today's language. Here are a few examples.

In connection with John the Baptist it says:

“All Judea and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem went out to him; they confessed their sins and were baptized by him in the Jordan ” (Mk. 1,5)

But at the same time John was rejected by many (Matthew 11:18; 21.25 f.); so these were hardly baptized by John.

And Jesus said about the scribes:

“So do and obey everything they tell you, but don't be guided by what they do; because they only talk but do not themselves do what they say " (Mt. 23,3)

But Jesus reproached the same scribes for disobeying God's command for the sake of their tradition (Matthew 15: 3). So Jesus did not mean in an absolute sense that everything the scribes say should be done.

The OT once speaks of a "whole house" without including all family members:

"When Elkanah went up again with his whole house to offer the Lord the annual sacrifice and the gifts that he had vowed, Hannah did not go with her, but said to her husband: I will not take the boy until he is weaned. bring up ... " (1 Samuel 1:21 f.)

So Elkanah went up “with his whole house”, but one of his two wives and his youngest child, an infant, stayed at home.

State of research

The state of research on the reports on house baptisms in the NT and on further evidence in early Christianity can be summarized as follows:

“ Child baptism has never been explicitly considered anywhere ... One has to be content with the fact that the literature of early Christianity is silent about child and infant baptism and that all the indications speak against the introduction of this custom before the 3rd century ... Child baptism cannot be anchored historically in the NT ; it must be 'concluded' theologically. "

However, baptism in the NT is by no means necessarily tied to one's own, independent decision:

“ A certain factual justification, also with regard to the ecclesiastical practice of infant baptism, lies in the reference to the ntl. Oikos twists, however, insofar as they show a community relationship between faith and T. [aufe] that cannot be reduced to individual experience and decision-making. That in ntl. The Corinthian vicariate baptism 1 Cor 15:29 shows the time that T. [aufe] was actually carried out in substitute responsibility for people who were unable to make their own decisions. "

literature

  • Franz Stuhlhofer : Symbol or Reality? - Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Schwengeler, Berneck 1988, ISBN 3-85666-033-X , pp. 34–38: “Baptism of whole houses”.
  • Erich Dinkler: Baptism in early Christianity. in art .: baptism. in: RGG, Vol. VI, Tübingen 1962, Sp. 626-660.
  • Karl Barth : Baptism as the foundation of Christian life. (KD IV / 4). Zollikon-Zurich 1967, p. 198.
  • George R. Beasley-Murray: Christian Baptism. An investigation into their understanding in the past and present. Kassel 1968, pp. 407-421: "The baptism of the houses and the solidarity of the family".
  • George Beasley-Murray: Considerations for the Baptism Discussion Today. Kassel 1965
  • Markus Barth: Baptism - a sacrament? Zollikon-Zurich 1951
  • Karl Ferdinand Müller, Walter Blankenburg (ed.): LEITURGIA. Handbook of evangelical worship . Volume 5: The Baptism Service. Kassel 1970
  • Friedrich Sondheimer: The true baptism. A commitment to the baptism of believers. Kassel no year
  • Evangelical Church in the Rhineland: Child Baptism - Duty or Obligation? (Düsseldorf 1968)
  • Gerhard Delling : On the baptism of “houses” in early Christianity. In: Novum Testamentum 7 (1964/65) pp. 285-311.
  • Peter Weigandt: On the so-called "Oikos formula". In: Novum Testamentum 6 (1963/64) pp. 49-74.

Single receipts

  1. ↑ On the term Oikos see Herbert Stettberger: What the Bible tells me: current exegetical and religious didactic highlights on selected Bible texts. Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Franz Laub , Münster 2005, p. 126ff
  2. ↑ The documents listed here based on Franz Stuhlhofer: Symbol or Reality? - Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Berneck 1988, p. 34 f.
  3. ↑ Udo Schnelle : Paulus . Walter de Gruyter, 2003; Pp. 155-158
  4. ↑ Ulrich Mell : Christian house church and New Testament: the iconology of the Baptistery by Dura Europos and the Diatessaron Tatians . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010; Pp. 34-36 online
  5. ↑ Jesus' statement is more likely to be understood in the following sense: What the scribes say is good on the whole, but what they do, on the other hand, does not coincide by far with their words.
  6. ↑ For the meaning of whole and all see Stuhlhofer: Symbol , pp. 20 and 37 f.
  7. ↑ Erich Dinkler: Baptism in early Christianity. in art .: baptism. in: Religion in Past and Present , Vol. VI, Tübingen 1962, Col. 636.
  8. ↑ Friedrich Avemarie: baptism II New Testament. , Sp 58;. in Religion in Past and Present , 4th Edition, Tübingen 2005, Vol. 8, Sp. 50–92, Art .: Baptism .