Monday, July 25, 2022

First Apology 15 and Christians who "have preserved their purity" into old age: An Allusion to Infant Baptism?

In First Apology 15, Justin Martyr wrote about there being

 

many, both men and women, who have been Christ’s disciples from childhood, have preserved their purity at the age of sixty or seventy years; and I am proud that I could produce such from every race of men and women. (St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies [trans. Leslie William Barnard; New York: Paulist Press, 1997], 32)

 

In a note to the above, Leslie Barnard wrote the following concerning those who think this passage is evidence for infant baptism:

 

Justin’s statement is evidence for people’s having belonged to the Church for a long period of time; cf. Polycarp’s eighty-six years’ service of Christ (Mart. Polyc. 9.3; Eus. H. E. 4.15.20), Polycrates’s sixty-five years in the Lord (Eus. H. E. 5.24.7) and Papylus’ statement in the Acts of the Martyrs that he has served the Lord “from youth up” (H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 26–27). None of these texts, however, state explicitly that these Christians were baptized as children and Justin’s statement could mean no more than that these men and women had been instructed in the Christian faith from childhood and had grown up as members of a Christian family. J. Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (London, 1960), 72, 83, however, holds that the men and women mentioned by Justin were baptized “as children” between 80 and 95 c.e. Against this interpretation see K. Aland, Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? (London, 1963), 71, 73. “Preserved their purity” (aphthoroi diamenousi) could mean “remained virgins.” This is possible, as Justin has quoted the eunuch saying, Mt 19:11, 12, immediately after the saying on divorce, Mt 5:32. For the practice of lifelong virginity among Christians there is the second-century pagan account of Galen; cf. R. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949), 15, and Athen. Leg. 33.