The following excerpts comes from:
Amalar
of Metz, On the Liturgy, Volume 1: Books 1-2 (trans. Eric Knibbs;
Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 35; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2014)
Book 1.24:
In a sense, the child is said to have faith because of
the sacrament of faith, and he is said to convert to God because of the
sacrament of conversion, for the likeness of faith and the likeness of
conversion are celebrated in that rite. Thus, the same author as above, in the
same letter: “For if the sacraments did not have some likeness to the things of
which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. And they often
take their names from their likeness to these things. Thus, just as the
sacrament of Christ’s body is, in some sense, Christ’s body, and the sacrament
of Christ’s blood is Christ’s blood, to the sacrament of faith is faith. Now
believing is nothing but having faith, and for this reason, when it is
responded that the children (who do not have the disposition of faith) believe,
it is responded that they have faith because of the sacrament of faith, and
that they are converted to God because of the sacrament of conversion—since this
response, too, pertains to the celebration of the sacrament. In the same way,
the Apostle says of baptism: ‘We are buried together with him by baptism into
death.’ He does not say, ‘We have signified the burial,’ but rather he says: ‘We
are buried together.’ Thus he called the sacrament of this thing by nothing
other than the word of the thing itself.” (Sacramentum ergo tantat rei non
nisi eiusdem rei vocabulo nuncupavit) Through this sacrament, which operates
through likeness, it is as if the child has faith through the mouth of those
offering their faith, as if he were responding himself. Just as we, after the
likeness of the Lord’s burial that we received in baptism, enact that event
(that is, the burial), so too is faith enacted in infants through the response
of their parents or others who offer the child and who perform a likeness of
the children’s faith. (pp. 235, 237)
Book 1.27:
I heard someone ask whether a neophyte can possess the kingdom of
heaven without the bishop’s laying on of hands. The thief who confessed the Lord
on the cross and heard from him: “This day you shalt be with me in paradise,”
did not receive the laying on of hands, although we believe that he was
baptized on the cross with his own blood. Gregory of Nazianzus speaks about
this baptism in his sermon On the Second Epiphany: “For I also know of a
fourth baptism, in which one is baptized through martyrdom by one’s own blood.
Christ was also baptized by means of this baptism”—so that also in this, as in
everything else, he might provide an example to believers and those who
followed him. Augustine speaks about this baptism in his letter to Seleucianus:
“We should not now ask when someone has been baptized, but we ought to understand
that whoever we gather into the body of Christ (which is the church) belongs to
the kingdom of heaven only if they have been baptized—unless perhaps the
hardship of suffering finds some who are unwilling to deny Christ and are
killed before being baptized. For these, this suffering is considered baptism.”
Even the words of Saint Sylvester—who, to remedy the difficulty of finding a
bishop before the soul’s departure, ordered that the neophyte be anointed by
the priest “with the chrism of salvation unto eternal life”—suggest that one
can be received into the kingdom of heaven without the imposition of the bishop’s
hand. For these are different mansions in my Father’s house.
As for those who, through negligence, do not bother with the bishop’s
presence, and do not receive his laying on of hands: We must wonder whether
they are damned for the just reason that they exercise justice negligently, for
they should have hastened to receive the laying on of hands. For just as Christ
says: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God,” he also says; “Unless your justice abound more than
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven.” It is true that in baptism our sins are forgiven and we are buried
with Christ. (pp. 255, 257)
Book 1.39:
Since the grace of the Holy Spirit is seven-fold, it is right that we
celebrate the solemnity of his coming with the requisite praise of hymns
together with the celebration of Masses. Since the church has been accustomed
to gather new people to God through the water of rebirth (per aquam
regenerationis) from throughout the whole world at the time of Pentecost,
and rightly rejoices together in their salvation until they are dressed in
white vestments and reveal the luster of their purified minds through the
splendor of their dress, we offer a hymn of devout praise o God, according to
the command of our most holy pastor and redeemer, who said: ‘Rejoice with me,
because I have found my sheep that was lost.’ (pp. 347, 349)
