Easter baptism

Tertullian wrote “The Passover provides the day of most solemnity for baptism, for then was accomplished our Lord’s baptism, and into it we are baptized . . . After that, Pentecost is a most auspicious period for arranging baptisms, for during it our Lord’s resurrection was several times made known among the disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit first given . . . . For all that, every day is a Lord’s day: any hour, any season, is suitable for baptism. If there is any difference of solemnity, it makes no difference to the grace.”

Maxwell Johnson comments that “the modern assumption that ‘the’ early Church regularly baptized at Easter finds support only in Tertullian’s marked preference for the practice and in Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel 13:15, both of which are Western sources.” And even Tertullian acknowledges that baptism may be done anytime.

Johnson also suggests that “third-century sourrces also show that infant baptism, including infant communion, was being practiced widely. When the question of infants is considered in this period of history, it is not simply their baptism but their complete initiation, including the reception of communion, that is implied.”