Contemporary catechisms of the Christian churches often present their teachings as unequivocal and universally held features of the orthodox consensus throughout the ages. Catechetical treatments of the three aspects of baptismal theology considered in this study are typical cases in point. Emblematic of this tendency is the statement on baptism by desire found in the most recent Roman Catholic catechism. While it affirms that the church “does not know any means other than baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude,”¹ the text goes on to acknowledge that this spiritual benefit can be gained through baptism by desire, and not just...

The doctrine of baptism by desire had a checkered career in the medieval west from the patristic period until its virtual disappearance from the scholastic agenda at the end of the thirteenth century. First proposed as a position defensible in its own right by Ambrose of Milan, it received fuller attention from early Christian thinkers who yoked it to a range of different, and often polemical, assignments. One concern was the relationship between Old Testament rites, and the salvation of Old Testament worthies, and the redemption available in the Christian dispensation. This issue drew attention from supersessionists and anti-supersessionists alike,...

Fictive baptism, and the conditions thought to define, validate, or invalidate it, was a topic widely discussed by patristic and medieval thinkers. Beyond exegetes and theologians, it was addressed by authors of saints’ lives and chronicles, and commentators on drama. Even leaving aside gaps between theory and practice, the theory itself drew diverse understandings. Few agreements had emerged by the end of our target period. Pastoral desiderata, polemical agendas, political objectives, legal considerations, and psychological presuppositions all informed participants in this debate. While some topics gained concurrence by the end of the twelfth century, and a handful of others in...

As we saw in chapter 2 of this book, some scholastics placed forced baptism under the same conceptual heading as fictive baptism, a practice which we will also encounter in chapter 3. At the same time, Christian attitudes toward these two baptismal issues have divergent medieval histories. Finding support for both forced baptism and opposition to it in the New Testament, Christian writers first addressed this topic in the age of the Latin apologists. Patristic theologians added contributions later cited as authoritative. In contrast with the other two baptismal debates treated it this book, there was virtually no time lag...

This afterword will not attempt to write a full-scale, post-medieval history of the three baptismal questions treated in this book. But the early modern address to these debates is of no small interest, reflecting as it does how the history of Christian thought has continued to be reconceived, and rewritten, as these themes have been reassessed in the light of current concerns. The very fact that these debates have a history has sometimes been acknowledged, but more usually ignored. This sketch of the post-medieval story begins with theCatechismus Romanuswritten after the close of the Council of Trent in...