A curious usage existed
in Corinth and probably also in other Christian communities. When a catechumen
died before being so far advanced as to be baptized one for his relatives or
friends received for him the ceremonies of the sacraments. What precise signification
was attached to this act? It is difficult to say. St. Paul neither approves nor
blames it; he sees in it only a procession of faith in the resurrection of the
dead. In fact, baptism, symbolized by the tree of life, deposits in the body a
germ of immortality; it completes, by the external rite of incorporation into
Christ, the regeneration produced inwardly in the soul by invisible grace; it imprints
upon the Christian in indelible seal which will cause him to be recognized at
the last day as a member of Christ. That is the distinctive sign which the Corinthians
wanted to supply as far as possible in the catechumens who had died without
baptism. Their practice was not, in itself, superstitious; it was a solemn
protestation that the deceased belonged to Jesus Christ and that he had lacked
the requisite time, but not the desire, to become an effective member of the
visible Church. Nor were they mistaken in thinking that through the communion of
saints an act of faith and piety on their part could be profitable to the
deceased. But there was danger of believing that in having themselves baptized
for the dead (υπερ
των νεκρων)—that
is to say, for their advantage—they had had themselves baptized in the place of
the dead (αντι
των νεκρων),
so as to procure for them the effects of baptism; as if death were not the terminus
of the test, and as if the dead could be aided otherwise than by means of
prayers. Some heretics, the Cerinthians, Montanists, and Marcionites, fell subsequently
into this error and thereby came even to the point of baptizing corpses, though
not without incurring the general condemnation of the Church. (Fernand Prat, The
Theology of Saint Paul, 2 vols. [trans. John L. Stoddard; Westminster, Md.:
The Newman Bookshop, 1926], 1:136-37)