Baptism in the early church; history, theology, and liturgy in the first five centuries.

9780802827487

Baptism in the early church; history, theology, and liturgy in the first five centuries.

Ferguson, Everett.

W.B. Eerdmans

2009

953 pages

$60.00

Hardcover

BV803

Veteran scholar of early Christianity Ferguson (Abilene Christian U., Texas) strives to present a comprehensive anthology of sources about baptism from the first three centuries, and a representative sample of the more voluminous sources from the fourth and fifth. His training is in literary sources, he says, but he has made an effort to educate himself about art and archaeological sources and incorporate them as well. After an introduction surveying the scholarship, he looks at antecedents to Christian baptism in Greco-Roman paganism and Jewish tradition, then at references in the New Testament and contemporary art and later Christian interpretations of them. Topics from later periods include the apostolic fathers, those called Gnostics and related groups, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Cyprian in Carthage, infant baptism, Origen, fourth-century Syriac writers, Cappadocia, sickbed baptism, Spain, Cyril of Alexandria and the Coptic rite, and Augustine of Hippo. A final section examines baptisteries from Israel to England.

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