Thanks to Jason N. who gathered up all the references in a Facebook conversation. (I’m simply cutting and pasting what he wrote!)
From the beginning of New Testament Christianity at Pentecost to our time, unbroken and uninterrupted, the Church has baptized babies. Polycarp (69-155 AD), a disciple of the Apostle John, was baptized as an infant.
Justin Martyr (100-166 AD) of the next generation, about the year 150 AD, states in his Dialog with Trypho The Jew “that Baptism is the circumcision of the New Testament.”
Irenaeus (130-200 AD) writes in Against Heresies II 22:4 “that Jesus came to save all through means of Himself — all, I say, who through Him are born again to God – infants and children, boys and youth, and old men.”
Similar expressions are found in succeeding generations by Origen (185-254 AD) and Cyprian (215-258 AD), and at the Council of Carthage in 254 where the 66 bishops stated: “We ought not hinder any person from Baptism and the grace of God … especially infants … those newly born.”
Origen wrote in his Commentary on Romans 5:9: “For this also it was that the Church had from the Apostles a tradition to give baptism even to infants.” Origen also wrote in his Homily on Luke 14: “Infants are to be baptized for the remission of sins.”
Cyprian’s reply to a bishop who wrote to him regarding the baptism of infants stated: “Should we wait until the 8th day as did the Jews in the circumcision? No, the child should be baptized as soon as it is born.”
Augustine (354-430 AD) wrote in De Genesi Ad Literam, 10:39 declared, “The custom of our mother Church in baptizing infants must not be counted needless, nor believed to be other than a tradition of the Apostles.”
Augustine further states: “… the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they cannot possibly be vivified in Christ.”
In 517 AD, 10 rules of discipline were framed for the Church in Spain. The fifth rule states that “… in case infants were ill … if they were offered, to baptize them, even though it were the day that they were born…such was to be done.” (The History of Baptism by Robert Robinson, London, Thomas Knott, 1790, p.269)
This pattern of baptizing infants remained in Christianity through the Dark and Middle Ages until modern times. In the 1,500 years from the time of Christ to the Protestant Reformation, the only notable church father who expressed opposition to infant Baptism was Tertullian (160-215 AD). Tertullian held that in the case of “little children,” baptism ought to be delayed until they “know how to ask for salvation” (“On Baptism,” ch. 18).
Then in the 1520s the Christian Church experienced opposition specifically to infant Baptism under the influence of Thomas Muenzer and other fanatics who opposed both civil and religious authority, original sin and human concupiscence.
Thomas’ opposition was then embraced by a considerable number of Swiss, German and Dutch Anabaptists. This brought about strong warning and renunciation by the Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed alike.
It was considered a shameless affront to what had been practiced in each generation since Christ’s command in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) to baptize all nations irrespective of age.
Historical excerpts are from “Infant Baptism in Early Church History,” by Dr. Dennis Kastens in Issues Etc. Journal, Spring 1997, Vol. 2, No. 3.
