Thank you for giving me something that can actually be researched and evaluated.
Having read this in the KJV, I find myself wondering if this verse wasn't meant more as a general "you and all of your offspring will benefit" rather than a specific permission for infant baptism.
Their offspring can only benefit of the promises attached to Baptism with Baptism.
I also find myself wondering if perhaps this verse is not being taken from its intended context, one of "don't do anything that would keep children from knowing me"
I think that's precisely the point of Jesus' statement--and from a traditionalist perspective to deny our children Baptism would be denying them knowing Christ.
This being said, however, just because something is common does not make it proper. As an example of this, consider the issue of snake-handling; it was common enough in much of the United States at one point and had a (tenuous) Biblical basis, but it has since been rejected by most Christians as being needlessly dangerous and an effort to "tempt God" into acting. Given this, although the practice is widespread, I find myself wondering about the origins thereof
While the argument of
ad populum certainly is invalid; the argument here isn't the practice is right because it is popular or common, but that those in antiquity regarded it as standard and normative.
Do you have the specific work that this comes from?
Against Heresies 2.22.4
From the citation, the last line appears to be him speaking of youths specifically rather than "infants and youths", suggesting that there's some context I'm missing.
"Being thirty years old when He came to be baptized, and then possessing the full age of a Master, He came to Jerusalem, so that He might be properly acknowledged by all as a Master. For He did not seem one thing while He was another, as those affirm who describe Him as being man only in appearance; but what He was, that He also appeared to be. Being a Master, therefore, He also possessed the age of a Master, not despising or evading any condition of humanity, nor setting aside in Himself that law which He had appointed for the human race, but sanctifying every age, by that period corresponding to it which belonged to Himself. For He came to save all through means of Himself— all, I say, who through Him are born again to God — infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that He might be "the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence," the Prince of life, existing before all, and going before all."
The context is the Incarnation, it is firstly a denunciation of Docetic views and an affirmation of Christ's Incarnation, as one who has experienced the entire range of the human experience, from birth and infancy to adulthood and death; He has therefore consecrated and made holy the entire human creature. It is within this context that the bishop speaks of all through Him are born again to God--infants, children, etc. The new birth being baptism as is testified universally in the writings of the ancient Church vis-a-vis John 3:5, as Irenaeus himself also writes elsewhere,
"
It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [it served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: "Unless a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."" - Fragments of Irenaeus' writings, Fragment 34
This tells me that it was a common practice at the time he wrote (something that is not in dispute), but sadly does not tell me the theological justification behind it.
The significance of baptizing infants is the same as the baptism of an adult. These aren't two different sorts of baptism, or two different baptisms; it's just Baptism. The reason for including infants is as already mentioned:
1) Christ's command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.
2) The meaning and significance of Baptism itself.
3) Not rejecting or denying our infants or young children from coming to Christ in the waters of Baptism, not prohibiting them--since Scripture nor Christian teaching provides a justification for prohibiting children from Baptism.
Further: As Baptism evolved out of the Jewish practice of tevilah in the mikveh, it seems important to point out that, yes, young children also receive a ritual bath along with their parents when converting to Judaism, this point shouldn't be insignificant here, this article
here describes specifically converting an adopted child, though the child of a convert would involve both entering into the mikveh to receive tevilah.
The place of infants and small children in the community of faith is something early Christians almost certainly would have taken for granted, something which was a fundamental dimension of Jewish religious community life. Circumcision as the covenant sign, tevilah as part of the rite of conversion provide two key components for the way Christians understood Baptism.
-CryptoLutheran
