Baptismal Fonts of the 4th Century

Dan left us in Split but we exchanged him for a couple of guys from Canada. They are our last charter for the season. Part of the fun of sailing is meeting new guys and sharing this journey with them. We will miss Dan but look forward to getting to know these two Canadians better. We sailed into one of the most beautiful bays in Croatia on the northern part of Miljet island. At the far end of the bay is an early Christian church that dates back to sometime between 300 A.D. to 400 A.D. One of our Canadian guests on board happens to have done a thesis on early Christian baptism customs. While exploring this early Christian church, he was thrilled to come across one of these very early baptismal pool that is almost as old as Christianity itself. He told us that the early Christians built these pools to baptize adults. The ceremony would begin with the adult that was willing to be baptized taking off all of their clothes and walking into the baptismal font. After being immersed completely they would step through the pool to the other side where they would be clothed in white. This ceremony clearly represented to them leaving their old life behind, going back into the womb and being born again naked, then coming out of the font and being clothed in white to remind them of their new pure life. The baptismal tradition began to change in about the 8th century when there were not enough bishops of the church to go around. Since it required the authority of a bishop to perform baptisms, the custom of baptizing only adults changed to baptizing everyone in the village at the same time regardless of age. The bishop would carry the infant into the baptismal pool and perform the ceremony. Since infants were now allowed to be baptized, the custom changed again to baptizing infants rather than waiting until reaching adulthood. The baptismal fonts also changed from being pools you would step into, to being large bowls where the infant was immersed. The baptismal pools began to disappear. Another change that occurred during the dark ages was the practice of putting covers on the baptismal pools. This happened because during the plague, Christians would steal the water in the baptismal font thinking that this now “holy” water would heal them of the plague. We have seen many of these large baptismal bowls with ornate covers on them at the old cathedrals. During the middle ages, over time, this immersing of infants evolved to sprinkling. The font changed again from the large bowls to just a small bowl. It is interesting to see how doctrine changed ever so slowly to become what is commonly practiced by most Christian churches today.