And moving on to the archeological evidence that early Christians practiced infant baptism:
Generally, the infant was baptized during the first week of life, but in cases of illness this took place on the day of birth. An example of this already comes from
about 260 in North Africa in an inscription from Hadrumetum (I
nscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres II, 4429-A):
Arisus in pace
natus ora sexta
bixit supra scriptas VIIII
This Latin inscription indicates that a child who died nine hours after its birth was baptized. Such practice of Baptism within the first days of life, or on the day of birth in an emergency, remained for both Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
The witness of the literary texts of the early church fathers, councils and apologists for the practice of infant Baptism in the first Christian centuries receives valuable confirmation from the catacombs and cemeteries of the Middle East, Africa and southern Europe.
Below are epitaphs from the 200’s of small children who had been baptized. It is interesting to note that there are no Christian epitaphs in existence earlier than 200.
As soon as the era of Christian inscriptions begins, we find evidence for infant Baptism.
In that century there are attributes and symbols in tombstones inscriptions of little children which allows us to clearly infer
we are dealing with baptized children. The following is as early as 200 or shortly thereafter:
In the second last line is the phrase
Dei Serv(u)s which means slave of God followed by the
Chi Rho symbol for Christ. The last line is the Greek
ichtheos familiar as the “fish symbol” - an anagram for Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior.
These words and symbols mark the one-year, two months, and four-day-old child as a baptized Christian.
From the Lateran Museum, also from the 200’s, is a Greek inscription that gives information about the religious status of the parents. It reads,
"I, Zosimus, a believer from believers, lie here having lived 2 years, 1 month, 25 days."
Also from this era are headstones for children who received emergency baptism with ages ranging from 11 months to 12 years. Since the patristic sources of the third century, as those earlier, give us to understand that the children of Christian parents were baptized in infancy, we must conclude that these emergency baptisms were administered to children of non-Christians. The inscriptions themselves confirm this conclusion. **In the Roman catacomb of Priscilla is reference to a private emergency baptism that was administered to the one-and-three-quarter-year-old Apronianus **and enabled him to die as a believer. The inscription reads:
Dedicated to the departed.
Florentius made this inscription
for his worthy son Apronianus who
lived one year and nine months and five days.
As he was truly loved by his grandmother
and she knew that his death was imminent,
she asked the church that he might depart from the world as a believer.
The fact that it was the grandmother who urged the baptism makes it very probable that the father of the child, Florentius, was a pagan. This is confirmed by the formula in the first line which is pagan and not found on any other Christian epitaphs. We have thus in this inscription evidence for a missionary baptism administered to a dying non-Christian infant.
The catacombs were the “Cradle of Christian art” which depicted, among many other beliefs of the early Christians, baptism.
Here is an early Christian depiction of baptism from the St. Calixte Catacomb (3rd century):
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Baptism_-_Saint_Calixte.jpg
Notice the baptism is taking place not by immersion, but by pouring.
More images of the artwork in these Christian catacombs can be found here:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Christian_catacombs
