204 Dimensions of Baptism
Its earlier history reflects a period when infant candidates were being
accommodated within a pattern of initiation designed for responding believ-
ers, with baptism at Easter preceded by the Lenten weeks of catecheticalpreparation. The Gelasian Sacramentary in its various forms presents
practice in Rome in the seventh and even sixth century and elsewhere
later. The three scrutinies that took place on the third, fourth and fifth
Sundays in Lent in this type of baptismal order attracted to themselves,
first, it seems, outside of Rome, respectively the three lections Mt. 19.13-
14, Mk 10.13-16 and Lk. 18.15-16. This development had taken place by
the eighth century. Rome itself earlier used only Mt. 11.25-30 for these
scrutinies, but this passage also speaks of babies.^58 Elsewhere, for example
in Milan, only one of the three Synoptic versions was used, normally Mt.
19.13-14(15), with different lections on the two other scrutinies.^59 The
three lections are recorded also in lectionaries, that is, lists of the biblical
lections, for Rome and Wiirzburg in the seventh and eighth centuries.^60
It seems clear, then, that the Gospel story of the reception and blessing
of children by Jesus first came into liturgical focus in the setting of the
pre-paschal catechumenate as this was adapted to embrace children. This
development can be placed broadly in the sixth century. The inclusion of
these Gospel lections was one of the least incongruous aspects of this
process of adjustment. At the opposite, dissonant end of the spectrum lay
the requirement that infants too, like candidates answering for themselves,
should recite the creed and repeat the Lord's Prayer. This was met by the
priest placing his hand on their heads and doing the recitations on their
behalf.^61Society, 67; London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1931), p. 10 (Lk. 18.15-16); G. Kret-
schmar, 'Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der Alten Kirche', in Leiturgia:
Handbuch des Evangelischen Gottesdienstes, V, pp. 1-348, at pp. 306-307, 332.
- Pocknee, 'The Gospel Lection', p. 498. Fisher, Medieval West, pp. 4-5; H.A.
Wilson, The Gelasian Sacramentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1894), pp. 34, 38, 42
(without the lections); L.C. Mohlberg, Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aecclesiae
OrdinisAnni Circuli (Sacramentarium Gelasianum) (Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Docu-
menta, Series Maior, Fontes IV; Rome: Herder, 1960), pp. viii-ix, 36,39,53-54 (with-
out the lections). - A. Dondeyne,'La Discipline des Scrutins', Revue d 'histoire ecclesiastique 2 8
(1932), pp. 5-33, 751-87, at pp. 28-31, 776. - W.H. Frere, Studies in Early Roman Liturgy. II. The Roman Gospel-Lectionary
(ACC, 30; London: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 28; Dondeyne, 'La Discipline',
p. 773, with further literature. - See Antoine Chavasse, Le Sacramentaire Gelasien (Tournai: Desclee & Cie,