P
patrick457
Guest
I also need to point out that while pouring (or affusion) has become more common in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, some still perform immersion. Within the Western Church alone, you have for example the Ambrosian Rite practiced in the Archdiocese of Milan and a few other places - they take pride in the fact that their baptisms are done by triple total immersions, aka submersion (for infants, of the head “in crucis formam”). The Mozarabic Rite in Spain uses baptism by immersion (with infusion as an option) with the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that you may have eternal life, Amen.” The Eastern Catholic Churches, if I remember correctly, also have retained immersion as the main form of baptism.
So as we could see, the traditions of immersion and submersion are still pretty much alive and well in the Catholic Church!
For the record, in early Christianity, when we speak of ‘immersion’ it was not always meant to be a full-body immersion (submersion). Very often, the candidate merely stands or kneels in water and water is poured over the upper part of the body. Immersion in this sense has been employed in both West and East since at least the 2nd century and is the form in which baptism is generally depicted in early Christian art. This artistic trope has later been extended to depictions of the baptism of Jesus as well:
http://images-mediawiki-sites.thefullwiki.org/06/1/1/0/38733462392410221.jpg
http://www.the-goldenrule.name/Baptism-Cotytto/Bapt_Naked_Baptism_files/image003.jpg
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/312/catacombsbaptism.jpg
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/356/ravennabaptism.jpg
http://img857.imageshack.us/img857/6743/jesusbaptizedjohnthebap.jpg
BTW, if we’re going to be so keen on doing things the old-fashioned way, why not baptize people in the nude? Until the Middle Ages, most baptisms were performed with the candidates completely naked—as is evidenced by most of the early portrayals of baptism and the testimony of early Christian writers. Not to mention that the Jewish forerunner of Christian baptism - full body immersion (tevilah) in a ritual bath or mikveh) - presupposes nudity. It was really only recently when immersing people with their clothes still on (and portraying Jesus as being baptized with His clothes still on) became the vogue.
