I'm thinking about all of this and trying to tie it together with the epistemic argument I made above. I am discovering that the issue of baptism is going to be a key node here, and so what I am wondering about is something like 'baptismal authority'. At the moment, I cannot think of a better term, although I'm sure there is one that relates it to the ordinance of church office. But this is precisely what I mean to question.
Is there something in scripture that talks explicitly about a specific kind of power or authority that is granted only to the apostles, which from that moment forward means only they and their ordained successors have the power to baptize?
The question could also be phrased: what prevents someone who has proclaimed the truth of the faith, but who is not associated with any particular tradition, from baptizing anybody else?
Prior to the apostles, we had John the Baptist doing this, of course perhaps this was according to an older tradition. There was a cognate or analog of baptism in the old Jewish Halakha called tvilah which involved submersion in water that was sanctified, called mikvah. This was learned from the Babylonians, and it was a repeated ritual. For example, a person could be corrupted by touching a dead body and so require purification by the tvilah ritual. Christianity caused baptism to be viewed as something higher than simply a process of ritual purification, instead making it a singular and unique doorway for connecting a person's spirit to God.
The point is, whatever baptism John gave to the embodied Christ had to have either issued from the older Babylonian-Jewish tradition, or from the spirit of the new Christian one. This makes it an interesting question, as to what was in the mind of John and the mind of Christ when Christ was baptized. If John had been doing it within the new spirit of the rite, where did the ordinance come that revealed its new significance to John? It could not have been apostolic succession! Moreover, how did Christ understand his own baptism? In the Jewish way, or the newer Christian sense?
However, my emphasis is on the authority or commission conferring the power to conduct the rite. If John could do it without apostolic succession, does this mean that anyone holy enough and having belief in the one, true God can theoretically baptize a new believer? Or did scripture indicate explicitly that this authority to baptize was only to follow from the apostles?
At bottom, WHAT is it that would give ONLY those apostles the ability to baptize? For all men have access to the Spirit if they are together with it in Christ.
Ah, but maybe I've missed the point! Perhaps Christ's baptism by John was the first to establish the authentic Christian baptism. This would mean that if Christ went on to baptize the disciples, then a clear case could be made that, in order for any one person to baptize another, they must first be baptized themselves! If Christ baptized the apostles, then we have a clear succession for the authority to continue the tradition.
Here is the problem. I've done a bit of research and there doesn't seem to be any unequivocal indicator that Christ baptized anyone. I found two Catholic opinions which said that the Christian rite, which became sacrament, is performed to insert one into the mystery of the dying and risen Christ. There are scriptural references in John to the disciples of Jesus baptizing in his name, but at the same time, there is also reference to John the Baptist continuing his own baptizing elsewhere. John 4 says that Jesus went away from Jerusalem and back to Galilee upon hearing that the Pharisees had heard Jesus (his disciples) were baptizing more people than John was.
There is even a way that we could see this politically. Why did Christ leave when he heard this news about what the Pharisees knew, with respect to his baptizing activities? I mean, it could have been that Christ was having his disciples baptize almost as a means or a statement about his authority, and that these actions were supposed to inflame the Pharisees. It's very interesting. But it also makes the entire thing even more confusing where it concerns Christ being baptized by John, not baptizing anyone else before his crucifixion, but instructing his disciples to baptize? Hmmm.
The Church teaches that it is unlawful to receive baptism from anyone but a Catholic priest, but this is referring to Catholic parents looking to have their children baptized. If one accepts the Catholic faith, and therefore the ecclesial laws that state receiving baptism from non-priests is unlawful, then it is just most proper for them to receive this sacrament (which opens the door to the other sacraments, by bringing a person into the Church) from a priest.
However, the Church also teaches that anyone has the power to baptize - even unbaptized persons and unbelievers. And so in an emergency situation, where no priest is around, a cooperative nurse or neighbour could offer the sacrament. For it to be effective, they must simply use the correct formula: "[Name], I baptize you in the name (singular) of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (the form of the sacrament), and pour cleaning water over the person's head (or submerge them) while doing so (the matter of the sacrament).
So it is not the case that only the Apostles and their successors have the ability to baptize, according to the Church. Consecrating a host into the Eucharist, or offering Confession, is a different story.
Okay, well this is interesting and not at all what I was expecting.
(post is archived)