Is Holy Water Apostolic - from the Didache

Water was used for purification before the church decided to start blessing water into a holy substance for lack of a better term. That making of holy water started between the 5th and 6th century. But they used water before that obviously, mostly in the natural. Look online for Catholic encyclopedia holy water, a nice article there on it. I'd link it but it might be illegal here lol.

Markie Boy said:

Thanks - I checked out I think that article at New Advent. It pretty much states the whole idea of blessed holy water really has no documentation in the first 300-400 years or so. It's absent where it should have been listed in the Didache if it was really Apostolic.

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Here's a pretty interesting read on the topic. I was looking around the internet as I was curious as well, and came across this article.

https://saintsergius.org/files/holywater.PDF

Holy Water isn't baptismal water.

but if you're looking for another clear biblical example, John 5:4.

Markie Boy said:

It sounds much more like they prefer a river over a lake, and a lake over a cup poured - but no mention of it be Holy Water. So my question is, how old is the teaching of Holy Water?

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The idea of Holy Water goes back to about the 2nd century BC where the concept of ritual bathing took root in judaism. For most things a vat of clean water where you can immerse yourself was enough, but certain impurities required you to immerse yourself into living water as water that flows purifies itself. In scripture we have allusions
Holy water is used in rites of the Church as is Rose water. This is not an extension of the sacrament of baptism although its loosely connected. In the early Church there were certain times of year of mass baptisms. One of these was for the feast of Theophany where the laity fasted along with the catecumens. The various open waters were consecrated and made holy before the mass baptisms. Some of this water was probably taken by the faithful being it was blessed.
You also have holy water from springs. The two I know of are the Life-Giving Spring of the Theotokos and the Holy Spring of St. Paraskevi both in Turkey. Both of these were associated with early traditions of healing a blind person echoing John 9:6-7