Josiah Cook’s Reviews > Baptism in the Early Church > Status Update

So far Stander has made it clear that infant baptism is nowhere to be found until the third century. When it does appear then, it has nothing to do with covenant children and it is never linked to circumcision. It is understood to be regenerative and is almost exclusively applied to dying infants to secure their place in heaven.

This is the second early church history source I’ve read recently that points out that the normative practice in the early third century/late second century was to baptize completely nude. The several church fathers that record this claim it was an oral tradition passed down from the apostles. Taking off clothes at the baptismal symbolized leaving behind the old man. Wild.