Commenting
on Tertullian (c. 160-220) and his understanding of the spiritual nature of “infants,”
Adam Harwood (Southern Baptist; Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at
Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Georgia) wrote the following, showing
that Tertullian did not hold to the
later Augustinian understanding of “original sin,” let alone the Calvinistic understanding
of “Total Depravity” (as well as there being a basis for infant baptism):
On Baptism provides the first of three texts
in which Tertullian implied that infants are innocent before God. In this work,
Tertullian urged that baptism should be delayed, especially for “little
children.” This keeps sponsors from the danger of failing to keep a promise
before the Lord of raising the child in godliness and from the disappointment of
seeing the child develop a wicked character. Still, he noted, Jesus taught that
the children should not be forbidden from coming to Him. So, he wrote, “Let
them ‘come’, then, while they are growing up; let them become Christians when
they have become able to know Christ. Why does the innocent period of life
hasten to the ‘remission of sins?’” (On
Baptism 18).
In the above passage, Tertullian was not
encouraging infants to be baptized. Instead, he stated that infants should be
allowed to “become Christians” at a later time in their life, specifically when
they are “able to know Christ.” This means that Tertullian placed an individual’s
knowledge of Christ prior to his
baptism and since infants do not yet know Christ, that means they have not yet
become Christians. In the passage, he also asks a question which implies that
the infants do not have a need to be baptized because they are innocent. Bakke
agrees when he writes the following comment about this passage, “Although
Tertullian does not go into detail about the meaning of innocens [“innocent”], it is clear that he presupposes that infants
have not sinned” (Baake, When Children
Became People, 69).
In On
Baptism 18, Tertullian’s statement about the need to delay infant
baptism, suggests the following things about his view on the spiritual
condition of infants: they are not candidates for baptism because they do not
and are not able to know Christ. Although they are not yet Christians, they are
innocent and do not need to be baptized.
The second text to be considered is found in
his treatment of human souls. In A
Treatise on the Soul 56, he argued against the view that any souls remain
on the earth after a person’s “premature” death. Specifically, he imagined
scenarios in which an infant died “yet hanging on the breast” as did an “immature
boy” and a “youth arrived at puberty.” If all of them were to have reached the
age of eighty, Tertullian reasoned, then it is not possible for them to age after
they have died, because one can only age in a body. So, the soul of a person
remains unchanged after that person’s death. Further, there will be a judgment
in which the good souls are consigned to the region of the good and the bad
souls are consigned to the region of the bad. He ended that section with this
question: “If you mean the bad, even now the souls of the wicked deserve to be
consigned to those abodes; if you mean the good why should you judge to be
unworthy of such a resting place to the souls of infants of virgins, and those
which, by reason of their condition in life were pure and innocent” (A Treatise on the Soul 56). Although
Tertullian referred to infants in this passage as pure and innocent, he
referred to virgins in the same terms. It is still possible to claim that Tertullian
considered infants to have never sinned because even though he cited virgins in
the same sentence, he may have intended the term in a different sense. For
example, virgins are innocent because they have never committed a sexual act
and infants are pure because they have never committed a sinful act. Still, due
to the linking of virgins and infants in the sentence, I do not think this
passage leads to a conclusive judgment for this study.
The third passage to be considered is found
within one of Tertullian’s extended arguments in Against Marcion. In 4.23, Tertullian responded to Marcion’s false
distinction between the Old Testament Creator (who is characterized as unkind
to children) and the New Testament Christ (who is kind to infants). Marcion
charged that the Creator sent bears to attack the children who mocked Elisha,
but Christ upheld infants as an example to his disciples. Tertullian responded,
“This antithesis is imprudent enough, since it throws together things so
different as infants and children—an age still innocent and one already capable
of discretion—able to mock if not blaspheme” (Against Marcion 4.23).
In the above passage, Tertullian argued for
God’s justice by making a distinction between infants (parvulos) and children (pueros).
Infants, he wrote, are “still innocent.” Children, though, are “capable of
discretion.” Tertullian continued by noting that God demonstrated his love or
infants by protecting the Hebrew infants from Pharaoh in Egypt (Exod 2:15-21).
Tertullian’s distinction between infants and children is significant for the
present study. First, it is important to notice that he made a distinction,
rather than just stating that God treats all pre-adults in the same way.
Second, he claimed that infants are innocent but children are not. Rather than
stating that all people are guilty of the sin of the first man, Tertullian
noted in this passage that children can be held accountable to God for their
actions but that infants are innocent before him, presumably because they have
performed no actions for which they would need to give an account
The previous three texts support the view
that Tertullian understood infants to be innocent before God in the sense that
they have not yet committed acts for which they are accountable to God. In On Baptism 18, Tertullian suggested that
infants are not candidates for baptism because they do not and are unable to
know Christ. Although infants are not yet Christians, they are innocent and do
not have a need to be baptized. A
Treatise on the Soul 56 led to no firm conclusion because Tertullian
included virgins when he noted the purity and innocence of infants. In Against Marcion 4.23, Tertullian
distinguished between infants and children, calling children “capable of discretion”
but infants “still innocent.” (Adam
Harwood, The Spiritual Condition of
Infants: A Biblical-Historical Survey and Systematic Proposal [Eugene,
Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2011], 98-101; note that Harwood defines an “infant” in
his study as “a person who is one year old or younger (including the preborn)”
on p. 4)