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The earliest explicit reference to baptism by affusion occurs in the Didache (c. AD 100), the seventh chapter of which gives instructions on how to baptize, which include affusion: …But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm.
Emergency baptism of an infant in Finland, 1920. An emergency baptism is a baptism administered to a person in immediate danger of death. This can be a person of any age, but is often used in reference to the baptism of a newborn infant. The baptism can be performed by a person not normally authorized to administer the sacraments.
Though water baptism is extremely common among Christian denominations, some, such as Quakers and The Salvation Army, do not practice water baptism at all. [20] Among denominations that practice baptism, differences occur in the manner and mode of baptizing and in the understanding of the significance of the rite.
One of the earliest of the Church Fathers to enunciate clearly and unambiguously the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ("the idea that salvation happens at and by water baptism duly administered") was Cyprian (c. 200 – 258): "While he attributed all the saving energy to the grace of God, he considered the 'laver of saving water' the instrument of God that makes a person 'born again ...
By then, postponement of baptism had become general, and a large proportion of believers were merely catechumens (Constantine was not baptized until he was dying); but as baptisms of the children of Christians, using an adaptation of the rite intended for adults, became more common than baptisms of adult converts, the number of catechumens ...
Detail of The Seven Sacraments (1445) by Rogier van der Weyden showing the sacrament of Extreme Unction or Anointing of the Sick. Anointing of the sick, known also by other names such as unction, is a form of religious anointing or "unction" (an older term with the same meaning) for the benefit of a sick person.
In the West, baptism by aspersion and affusion slowly became the common practice in later centuries. In aspersion, an aspergillum may be used to place the water on the skin. The Roman Catholic Church regards baptism by aspersion as valid only if the water actually flows on the person's skin and is thus equivalent to pouring ("affusion"). [1]
In Reformed sacramental theology, the sign (in the case of baptism the external washing with water) may be described in terms of the thing signified (regeneration, remission of sin, etc.), because of the close connection between them. For example, baptism may be said to save, and baptism is often called the "laver of regeneration".