TERTULL. Carm. contr. Marc. l. i.
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 speak 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 stayed to 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, when 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 among 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 systems and explications. Vossius enumerates no less than nine different opinions among learned divines concerning the sense of the phrase, being baptized for the dead.
St Ambrose and Walafrid 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.