192 Dimensions of Baptism
century, and in the writings of scholars such as Cullmann and Jeremias,
that the quest for historical verification of the apostolic origins of infant
baptism reached a maximalist peak. (As a student at Cambridge I remem-
ber Professor C.F.D. Moule commenting with a characteristic twinkle in
his eye that Jeremias's Infant Baptism contained at least all the evidence.)
The Church of Scotland's Special Commission on Baptism (1954-63)
espoused a similar maximalism in reading the biblical and patristic sources,
citing both Cullmann and Jeremias and concluding that 'the Evangelists
intend us to interpret that blessing [by Jesus] in terms of [the children's]
baptism'.^16 It was the thinking and writing of T.F. Torrance that lay beyond
the extensive reports of the Special Commission. The prominence of (most
of) Mk 10.13-16 in the 1940 Book of Common Order combined with the
influence of Torrance and other Scottish theologians (the books of
Cullmann and Jeremias were translated into English by Scottish theolo-
gians, not New Testament or patristic scholars) to give the Scottish Kirk a
particular attachment to the passage's baptismal interpretation. Had not
Calvin spoken of 'this shield against the Anabaptists' in commenting on
these verses?^17
Nevertheless, the revisers of baptismal liturgies in other traditions seem
more or less of a common mind as we enter the twenty-first century. The
reading of this Synoptic incident in baptizing babies, which has prevailed
since the Reformation, is being abandoned, in favour of other New Testa-
ment passages which speak explicitly of baptism without specific refer-
ence to young children—for no such baptismal references are found in the
New Testament. If Mk 10.13-16 and its parallels have an appropriate
place, it seems to belong, so recent revised service books are telling us, to
non-baptismal thanksgiving for a child's birth or adoption. In commenting
on this feature in the Anglican Alternative Service Book, Jasper and Brad-
shaw cite in support some words of Ian T. Ramsey in 1971, when he was
chairman of the Church of England's Doctrine Commission:In the first place Jesus showed a welcoming attitude towards children who
had no claim on him, and whose parents, it seems, entered into no obliga-
tions. Second, he rebuked his disciples who thought this inappropriate.- ' Interim Report', in Reports to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
1955 (Edinburgh: Constable, 1955), pp. 631-33; Special Commission, The Biblical
Doctrine of Baptism (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1958), pp. 48-49. - J. Calvin, Commentaries on a Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and
Luke, ad loc. (trans. T.H.L. Parker; Edinburgh: St Andrews Press, 1972), II, p. 252.