| But above all must be considered the baptism of St. John the Precursor. John baptized with water (Mark 1) and it was a baptism of penance for the remission of sins (Luke 3). While, then, the symbolism of the sacrament instituted by Christ was not new, the efficacy which He joined to the rite is that which differentiates it from all its types. John's baptism did not produce grace, as he himself testifies (Matthew 3) when he declares that he is not the Messias whose baptism is to confer the Holy Ghost. Moreover, it was not John's baptism that remitted sin, but the penance that accompanied it; and hence St. Augustine calls it (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book V) "a remission of sins in hope". As to the nature of the Precursor's baptism, St. Thomas (III.38.1) declares: The baptism of John was not a sacrament of itself, but a certain sacramental as it were, preparing the way (disponens) for the baptism of Christ." Durandus calls it a sacrament, indeed, but of the Old Law, and St. Bonaventure places it as a medium between the Old and New Dispensations. It is of Catholic faith that the Precursor's baptism was essentially different in its effects from the baptism of Christ, It is also to be noted that those who had previously received John's baptism had to receive later the Christian baptism (Acts 19). |
But do we know if infants were in those households?
