Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

WRIGHT Out, In, Out: Jesus' Blessing 191

biblical grounds and significance of baptism: 'Also our Saviour Christ

admitteth children to his presence, imbrasing and blessinge them. Which

testimonies of the Holy Ghoste assure us...'^12 The guidance for the admini-

stration of baptism in the Westminster Assembly's Directory for the

Publick Worship of God (1645) made this summary a little more explicit:

'That the Son of God admitted little children into his presence, embracing

and blessing them, saying, For of such is the kingdome of God.'^13 It is

worth noting that this quotation is from the verse which the 1940 Common

Order omitted from its prescription of Mk 10.13-14,16. A possible reason

for this omission will soon become apparent.

Despite the centuries-long lack of a specific ordering of a baptismal

reading of the Synoptic blessing of the children in the Scottish Kirk

(parallel, that is, to the prescription in the Book of Common Prayer), it was

in Scotland in the mid-twentieth century that the hypothesis of a linguis-

tically-grounded connexion between these Synoptic texts and liturgical

usage in early Christian baptism received strong endorsement in influential

circles of Church theology. Joachim Jeremias and Oscar Cullmann in the

1940s and 1950s picked up and elaborated a suggestion of earlier German

scholars that the formulation of Mk 10.13-16 and parallels 'in several

places contains indirect references to baptism. This suggests the conclu-

sion that the narrative of the blessing of the children was important for the

early Church not only on other grounds, but because the Church took it as

authority for the practice of infant baptism.'^14 Cullmann, who leaned heav-

ily on the occurrence of the Greek verb KcoAue i v, 'prevent', not only in all

three Gospels but also in other references to baptisms in early Christian

sources, claimed that 'this story—without being related to Baptism—was

fixed in such a way that a baptismal formula of the first century gleams

through it'.^15

It may fairly be said that it was in these decades in the middle of the last

12. Fisher, Reformation Period, p. 120; W.D. Maxwell, The Liturgical Portions of
    the Genevan Service Book (1931; repr. Westminster: Faith Press, 1965), p. 106—
    Knox's 1556 Book, The Liturgy of John Knox Received by the Church of Scotland in
    1564 (Glasgow: University Press, 1886), p. 154.


13. The Confession of Faith... The Directory for Publick Worship... (Edinburgh:
    William Blackwood and Sons, 1963), p. 150.


14. J. Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (trans. David Cairns;
    London: SCM Press, 1960), pp. 54-55 (cf. 48-55).


15. O. Cullmann, Baptism in the New Testament (trans. J.K.S. Reid; London: SCM
    Press, 1950), p. 78 (cf. 71-80).