Chapter VII: Baptism Not a Human Invention

BY a certain class of modern writers Christianity is regarded as a product of natural evolution. According to these critics it is a syncretism, or growing together of ideas, doctrines, and rites which were held in solution in the Greco-Roman world during the early period of the Roman Empire. Christianity, they suppose, adopted certain elements of Judaism, and with wonderful genius mixed them with pagan doctrines and rites, took over various ideas from Roman administration and Roman law, and the Catholic Church of history finally emerged. As an instance of the theory of this process we may take the rite of Baptism. Dr. J. A. McCulloch writes: ‘ First let it be clearly understood that the ceremonial use of water in rites which are sometimes exceedingly simple, but at other times are profoundly symbolic and complex, though now inextricably connected with other opinions regarding its nature and power, has proceeded by a regular process of evolution from the simple use of water as a cleansing and purifying medium.” In such passages as this we see that evolution has become a universal dogma. Religion, like everything else, must be explained by its light; nothing remains to be done but to discover facts which illustrate the gradual process. With regard to the evolution of baptism illustrative facts are discovered in the various mystery religions of the early Christian centuries. These existed in great numbers, gradually overspreading the West from the East. There were mysteries of Isis, Osiris, Demeter, Cybele, Mithras, Attis, and many more. They had their secret doctrines and rites which were jealously guarded from the profane world. If anyone wished to become an adept he was required to submit to a process of preparation before reception. His reception was an initiation into the mysteries, and quite commonly lustration, sprinkling or bathing with water, formed part of the initiation rites. Christian baptism, then, is a rite of initiation, and one of the proofs of this assertion is that certain technical terms used in the pagan mysteries, such as illuminati, mystæ, mystagogus, were applied by some of the early Christian writers to the baptized and to the minister of the Sacrament. This theory breaks down as soon as we descend to particular details and begin to examine them in the light of history. A syncretism is a patchwork of varied and more or less discordant elements. The various parts lack cohesion and unity. They betray their different origins. In man-made religions like modernism this characteristic is conspicuous. Modernism retained certain features of Christianity, but mixed with them ideas taken from modern philosophy and modern science. As Pope Pius X said, it was a synthesis of all the heresies. On the other hand, the striking characteristic of Christianity is its wonderful harmony and unity. It is the revelation of a spiritual universe in which part fits in with part; amid infinite variety unity reigns supreme; law and order dominate the whole. This by itself is a strong argument for its divine origin.

The assertion that Christianity was gradually evolved during the first centuries of the Christian era is contrary to the facts of history. Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, and its foundation dates precisely from the year of his birth. It was not gradually evolved by impersonal agencies during a course of years. It was gradually unfolded by Jesus Christ during his lifetime on earth. But there was nothing tentative in his manner of proceeding. He showed that the divine plan was clearly mapped out in his mind from the very beginning of his life. We may illustrate this fact from the doctrine and rite of Christian baptism. Jesus Christ unfolded his plan in various ways. Sometimes he taught us by his own example, telling us implicitly what he wished us to do; he began to do and to _ teach, says the Evangelist. At other times he taught by signs like the prophets of old. A well-known example of this occurred on one occasion when the crowd pressed around him when he was teaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. There were two boats lying by the shore, “and going into one of the ships that was Simon’s, he desired him to draw back a little from the land. And sitting he taught the multitude out of the ship.” Catholic exegesis has always regarded that incident as typifying the Church and the perpetuity of Christ’s teaching in it. At other times he unfolded his plan by word of mouth. Let us bear in mind these different ways in which Jesus Christ preached the Gospel while we examine the passages about the rite of baptism.

The baptism administered by St John was a sign of repentance for past sin in preparation for the kingdom of God whose approach he announced. Our Lord was absolutely sinless, but God had laid our iniquities upon him; he was to be wounded for our iniquities and bruised for our sins. In his representative capacity, then, he willed to receive baptism at the hands of St John. Besides, it was part of the divine plan to make baptism by water the first of the Christian sacraments: it was to be the beginning of a Christian life, the door by which members were to be admitted into the Church and the kingdom of God. To teach us by his example, then, Christ willed to be baptized. It was part of his plan. He indicated this by what he said to St John. When he presented himself at the Jordan, St John at first refused to baptize him. ‘I ought rather to be baptized by thee,’ he said. “Suffer it now,” answered our Lord, “for so it becometh us to fulfil all justice.” Justice, righteousness is fulfilled by rendering obedience to the will of God. It was the will of God that at the beginning of his preaching and of the foundation of the Christian Church its Founder should teach by his example and receive baptism. It was part of the divine plan.

Baptism was to be a sacrament, a visible sign of invisible grace. By the divine grace which it infused into the soul sin was to be washed away, and a new spiritual life was to be communicated to it. It was to be a rebirth, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, as our Lord later on explained to Nicodemus. In baptism we become the adopted sons of God by grace; it is Christ himself who through baptism gives us power to be made sons of God; we are born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Christ merited the forgiveness of sin and the adoption of sins through his passion and death. He communicates this grace to members of his Church in and through baptism. Through his own divine Sonship he makes us the adopted sons of God. And so when, after being baptized, he came up out of the water, the voice of the heavenly Father was heard: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

By baptism we enter into the Church of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven, which is founded in this life, but which extends and endures to life everlasting. Through sin the kingdom of heaven was closed to us, but by baptism we are cleansed from sin and heaven is again opened for our reception. As sons of God and brethren of Jesus Christ we are heirs of the kingdom of heaven, coheirs with Jesus Christ, and with him and through him we have the right to enter our Father’s house. Not without deep significance, then, in the account of our Lord’s baptism, we read: ‘ And behold, the heavens were opened.”

After our Lord’s baptism the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape as a dove upon him, and remained on him. The dove is a type of reconciliation, peace, grace, and love, and the work of sanctification is attributed to him. Everything that God does outside his own divine essence is the joint work of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. According to the institution of Christ, baptism is administered under the invocation of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and so, fittingly, were all three divine Persons revealed at the baptism of our Lord.

Those who are best acquainted with the Gospels will be the least likely to imagine that there is anything far-fetched or fanciful in what I have been saying. Just before his Ascension into heaven our Lord commanded his Apostles to teach all nations all that he had commanded them, and to baptize those who believed the teaching in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Faith and baptism were to be necessary conditions of salvation: ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned.”

Christian baptism, then, was instituted by Jesus Christ. The spiritual effects which it produces in the soul are explicitly mentioned in the New Testament. They are foreshadowed in the Gospel account of the baptism of Jesus Christ himself. That a similar rite to which some analogous effects were ascribed belonged to several of the mystery religions of ancient paganism is interesting but not surprising. The sinfulness of man, the desire of purification, the natural effect of water in cleansing bodily stains, are universal facts which almost of themselves suggest a rite of lustration. The Christian rite is effective because it was instituted by God; man-made rites are not of avail to cleanse the soul. This is the answer which Tertullian gives to the difficulty in his treatise on Baptism. He mentions the fact that washings and sprinkling with water were used in the notorious cults of Isis and Mithras which were still in full vogue in his day. But he says those waters were barren, while Christian baptism produces children for God.

Some of the early Christian writers applied to baptism the technical terms used for initiation into the pagan mysteries. This is not surprising, the resemblance was obvious, and at that time there was no danger of the literary device being misunderstood. The wide gulf between the Christian religion and pagan cults was too profound and too obvious to be overlooked.