TERTULL. Carm. contr. Marc. l. 1.
Heracleon, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, says, that some applied a red-hot iron to the ears of the person baptized, as if to impress some mark upon him.
Baptism of the Dead, a custom which anciently prevailed among some people in Africa, of giving baptism to the dead. The third council of Carthage speaks of it as a thing that ignorant Christians were fond of. Gregory Nazianzen also takes notice of the same superstitious opinion prevailing among some who delayed to be baptized. In his address to this kind of men, he asks, whether they should be baptized after death? Philastrius also notes it as the general error of the Montanists or Cataphrygians, that they baptized men after death. The practice seems to be grounded on a vain opinion, that, when men had neglected to receive baptism in their life-time, some compensation might be made for this default by receiving it after death.
Baptism of the Dead was also a sort of vicarious baptism, formerly in use, where a person dying without baptism, another was baptized in his stead.
St Chrysostom tells us, this was practised among the Marcionites with a great deal of ridiculous ceremony; which he thus describes: After any catechumen was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the dead man, they asked him, whether he would receive baptism? and he making no answer, the other answered for him, and said, he would be baptized in his stead: and so they baptized the living for the dead.
Epiphanius assures us, the like was also practised a-
VOL. II. Part II.
mong the Corinthians. This practice they pretended to found on the apostle's authority; alleging that text of St Paul for it, If the dead rise not at all, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? A text which has given occasion to a great variety of different syllabisms and explications. Boilius enumerates no less than nine different opinions among learned divines concerning the sense of the phrase being baptized for the dead.
St Ambrose and Walafred Strabo seem clearly of opinion, that the apostle had respect to such a custom then in being; and several moderns have given into the same opinion, as Baronius, Jos. Scaliger, Justellus, and Grotius.
Several among the Roman-catholics, as Bellarmin, Salmeron, Menochius, and a number of schoolmen, understand it of the baptism of tears, and penance, and prayers, which the living undergo for the dead; and thus allege it as a proof of the belief of purgatory in St Paul's days.
Hypothetical Baptism, that formerly administered in certain doubtful cases, with this formula: If thou art baptized, I do not rebaptize; if thou art not, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, &c. This sort of baptism, enjoined by some ancient constitutions of the English church, is now fallen into disuse.
Solemn Baptism, that conferred at stated seasons; such, in the ancient church, were the Paschal baptism, and that at Whit-sun-tide. This is sometimes also called general baptism.
Lay-Baptism, we find to have been permitted by both the Common-prayer Books of King Edward and that of Queen Elizabeth, when an infant is in immediate danger of death, and a lawful minister cannot be had. This was founded upon the mistaken notion of the impossibility of salvation without the sacrament of baptism: but afterwards, when they came to have clearer notions of the sacraments, it was unanimously resolved in a convocation, held in the year 1575, that even private baptism, in a case of necessity, was only to be administered by a lawful minister.