What the Early Church Believed: The Necessity of Baptism

The Church's teaching

Scripture teaches that baptism saves (1 Peter 3:21; cf. Acts 2:38; 22:16; Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:11-12), and the Nicene Creed (381) confesses "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." The Catechism teaches that the Lord affirms baptism is necessary for salvation (John 3:5) for those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed and who could ask for it (Mark 16:16; CCC 1257). Even Luther wrote that we must be baptized or we shall not be saved (Large Catechism).

But the necessity is normative, not absolute. One may be saved through baptism of blood (martyrdom) or baptism of desire, explicit or implicit. Those who die for the faith, catechumens, and all who, without knowing the Church but moved by grace, seek God sincerely and strive to do his will, are saved even if not baptized (CCC 1281); the salvation of unbaptized infants is also possible (see CCC 1260-1261, 1283).

The witness of the early Church

• Hermas (80): repentance came when we went down into the water.
• Justin Martyr (151): converts are regenerated in water, for unless you are born again you will not enter the kingdom (John 3:3).
• Tertullian (203): without baptism salvation is attainable by none; yet there is a second font of blood, of which the Lord spoke (Luke 12:50; 1 John 5:6), which replaces water baptism when it has not been received.
• Hippolytus (217): born again by water, we attain salvation, otherwise impossible.
• Origen (235): forgiveness of sins is impossible without baptism.
• Cyprian (253): catechumens who are martyred are baptized with the greatest baptism of blood (Luke 12:50), though it cannot profit a heretic outside the Church.
• Cyril of Jerusalem (350): without baptism no salvation, except martyrs, for the Savior calls martyrdom a baptism (Mark 10:38).
• Gregory Nazianzen (381) and John Chrysostom (387) call martyrdom a baptism that cleanses sins.
• Pope Siricius (385): refusing baptism to those who seek it would endanger their salvation.
• Ambrose (392) says the unbaptized Emperor Valentinian, who desired baptism, received the grace he sought.
• Augustine (395–419): God forgives sins only to the baptized, yet a loving catechumen is better than a wicked baptized person. Like the good thief (Luke 23:43), suffering and even faith and conversion of heart can supply for baptism when it is impossible. Martyrs are forgiven as if baptized, since Christ also said he will confess those who confess him (John 3:5; Matthew 10:32).
• Pope Leo I (445): none is freed from the old Adam except through Christ's baptism (Galatians 3:27-28).
• Fulgentius of Ruspe (524): since Christ's words in John 3:5, no one receives the kingdom without baptism except those who shed their blood for Christ in the Catholic Church.