‘Trembling and groaning depart’

Abstract

Recent Church of England discussions have debated the appropriateness of mentioning the devil during baptism. Asking godparents to shun Satan and his works on behalf of the newly baptized may, it has been suggested, confuse members of the congregation. This article explores these issues, arguing that controversies surrounding the role of the devil at the font are not new. Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century were similarly wary of mentioning his name or misleading spectators. For early modern theologians, the issue was less about ‘putting off’ those sitting in pews and more about avoiding the implication that baptism was a magical seal that would protect the participant from the devil’s works without question. This article will consider contemporary and early modern disputes surrounding the devil and baptism.

Keywords

baptism devil early modern General Synod liturgy Reformation salvation

Discussions and controversies surrounding the Christian ceremony of baptism have, in recent months, featured fairly heavily in the British press. As the Church of England has debated changes to the ceremony, which have included attempts to simplify and ‘modernize’ the rite, reactions have ranged from welcoming approval to horrified remorse. As a religious historian of the Reformation period, I have followed these debates with interest. Indeed, without wanting to diminish the relevance or significance of contemporary discussion and amendments, it is nevertheless true that baptism has long attracted controversy about how it should be both practised and interpreted. It is these related themes, the practice and interpretation of baptism, both in the present day and in the early modern context, which this short article will seek to consider. One character who features strongly amid these two sets of related discussions, set apart by nearly five hundred years, is that long-standing enemy, the devil himself.

Christian baptism: the sacrament of the empty handed?

In recent General Synod discussions, the Bishop of Sodor and Man (The Rt Revd Robert Paterson) reflected on the words of sixteenth-century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, who once commented that baptism is the ‘sacrament of the empty handed’.¹ Indeed, when a child is brought to baptism, according to Christian teachings, they come with nothing; they do not yet have the faith to know God or his teachings, or understand actual sin, or how to ask for forgiveness. In terms of Christian understanding, and in particular the debates of the Reformation thinkers, this view was in fact only half of the story – especially when later Reformers like Jean Calvin began to postulate their own conceptions of baptism and infant salvation. For these Reformers, one of the more thorny aspects of discussion centred upon perceptions of infant sin. According to Christian belief, all humankind, including infants, are tainted by original sin. In the eyes of both early modern Catholics and Protestants, newborn babies, it was said, entered the world crying for their forgiveness and covered in red blood (the colour of sin). For Catholics baptism was the only way to cleanse infants of this sin: if they died without this blessing their souls would be confined to Limbus infantium (a limbo for the souls of the unbaptized).² Protestants, in contrast, introduced new dimensions into this set of beliefs. Yes, they argued, all infants were born in a lamentable and sinful state, weeping tears of remorse for the original sin they harboured; yet, for Protestants, salvation could not be won at the font. According to Protestant beliefs in predestination, the doctrine which told that God alone could decide whether or not to save a soul, good works and earthly actions could not affect salvation. Hence, the rite of baptism was not a straight path to salvation: a baptized child could effectively be damned and a child who died before baptism could potentially be saved. The decision rested with God.³

This set of beliefs, and the changes they ushered into the early modern soteriological landscape, led to many related debates. For Catholics, the transformative rite of baptism, which took a sinful child and transformed her or him into an innocent Christian worthy of a place in heaven, needed to be accompanied by various rituals: burning of incense, holy water, prayers, crossings and an exorcism of the devil.⁴ For Protestants, eager to emphasize that baptism was no more than a symbol of God’s grace, the ceremony needed simplification; thus, no spitting or incantations, and crossings were seen as controversial, as was any hint of exorcism. For those Protestants of a ‘hotter’ nature, the Puritans, these feelings were even truer. The result of all these tensions and different shades of opinion was an intense dispute, between different stripes of the Protestant faith especially, about how the baptism ceremony should be performed. I use the word ‘performed’ deliberately, as it was the aspects of performance that really mattered – for to exorcize the devil, or to gesture a sign of the cross over a child, was nothing if not a theatrical performance. Protestants worried about what baptismal performances could come to symbolize, and what expectant audiences would take away from, or perceive in, such spectacles. In this way in particular, these debates do not seem so far removed from those taking place within the contemporary Church, and these parallels, alongside the place of the devil in the baptismal rite, will provide the focus for the remainder of this article.

‘Don’t ditch the devil’:^* the devil, baptism and contemporary debate

In recent discussions which have attempted to revise the contemporary baptism rite, there have been calls to simplify the ceremony in ways which would make the words and gestures ‘clear and direct’ to congregations, and to enable the heavily symbolic rite to ‘communicate at a variety of levels’.⁵ One of the main difficulties has been the continued role played by the devil in the baptism ceremony. These considerations are not so dissimilar from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discussions, which saw the devil scaled back from his original medieval form to a mere reference within the text, when godparents were asked to renounce him on behalf of the infant. For modern day spectators and members of the Church, perhaps the mention of the malevolent devil and Christ’s conquering of him may seem out of place. This could be especially true when many families presenting their children for baptism, and their relatives sitting in the congregations, may not be regular church attendees, and therefore may well feel alienated, or put off, by mention of the Prince of Darkness: his presence within the ceremony could potentially seem at odds with a rite which is often seen as a celebration of new life.

Within Synod discussions and debates, other reasons have been cited for why the devil’s place at the font should no longer remain unquestioned. Most notably, according to the Bishop of Sodor and Man, the devil is no longer perceived as a mortal enemy of humankind: he has, rather, been turned into ‘a cartoon-like character of no particular malevolence’. This fact, Paterson argued, makes it difficult to communicate to audiences how the devil can possibly be seen as a defeated power in the eyes of Christian believers.⁶ Yet critics have argued that, although the notion of a devil-persona may not be especially apparent within contemporary culture, an understanding of evil, and even a fear of the personification of that evil, remains a real and ever present threat today. Such views provide some insight into why there has been much pressure from some corners of the Church not to ‘ditch the devil’?

Indeed, the revisions to the baptism ceremony have their vocal critics. Alison Ruoff, who attended 2013 Synod meetings, contended: ‘I want to beg the Reversion Committee when it is set up to bring back the word “devil”.’⁷ For her, and others of the same persuasion, the threat of evil within the world is no less now than it has ever been. Even though Christ may have been perceived to have won victory over the devil at the cross, this does not mean, many believe, that the devil does not wander the earth, testing believers and tempting people to sin. Other criticisms over removing mention of the devil from the rite have included the argument that modern audiences have the intelligence to understand why it may be important to mention the conquering of the devil at the baptism of every infant.

‘A solemn sprinkle’: baptism and the Reformation

The theologians and churchgoers involved in debates surrounding baptism during the Reformation period also had their attentions significantly focused on the devil, and the role he should or should not play in the ceremony. The English Reformers responsible for pulling together the first Book of Common Prayer, published in 1549 under the boy-king Edward VI, inherited a Catholic baptism ceremony which they found to be rich in theatrics and so-called ‘superstition’, and which drew heavily on the importance of removing the devil from the infant, which, it promised, would secure salvation for any child receiving the rite. We can read some of the words of the Catholic ceremony in the Sarum Manual, which is believed to be largely representative of the forms of worship used throughout England on the eve of the Reformation. The words of the Sarum Manual clearly state that the ceremony’s importance lay in its ability to ‘put … to flight the adversary’. Much to the horror of the Reformers, the rite involved many crossings and a drawn-out process of demonic exorcism, which could, they believed, potentially lead the audience to believe that baptism was in some way magical or mystical, and therefore that it would lead them to superstition:

And this sign of the holy cross (here let the priest make the sign of the cross on the forehead of the infant with his thumb, saying thus:) which we place upon his forehead, do thou, accursed devil, never dare to violate. Through him who is to come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire.⁸

The ceremony continued, talking directly to the Prince of Darkness:

Be not deceived, Satan, punishment threatens thee: torments threaten thee: the day of judgement threatens thee, that day of eternal punishment, that day which is about to come as a fiery furnace, in which eternal death will overtake thee and all thine angels. And therefore for thy wickedness, thou art damned and to be damned … Be thou put to flight, o devil, for the judgement of God is at hand.⁹

The Reformers felt that they had much to do in order to cleanse baptism of unnecessary complications: most especially they wanted to significantly reduce emphasis on the devil. Encouraging congregations to believe that once children had received the watery washing of baptism they would be saved was, Reformers believed, misleading, as it undermined God’s predestined plans for each individual soul. Even more significantly, for early modern Protestants it was positively ludicrous to imply that an act performed by a minister could possibly influence the soteriological status of any individual. Furthermore, the exorcism was not necessary, nor were any misleading crossings over the child, as it was not possible to remove original sin from a soul – sin was something each individual had to bear throughout their own lifetime. It was God’s choice, on the final day of judgement, to decide whether or not a soul would be forgiven for their trespasses.

Nevertheless, despite widespread Protestant agreement throughout Europe that the Catholic rite was wrong, there was much disagreement about how a new ceremony should be structured. These tensions were played out upon the stage of the English Church, as well as during each and every baptism to be performed in various parishes throughout the country. In Edward VI’s first Prayer Book of 1549 the reformers held back from removing the exorcism, although it was significantly shortened, and much less ‘spectacular’. In the words of the 1549 ceremony:

I commaunde thee, vncleane spirite, in the name of the father, of the sonne, and of the holy goste, that thou come oute, and departe from these infantes … Therefore though cursed spirit, remembre thy sentence, remembre thy iudgement, remembre the daie to be at hand, wherin thou shalt burne in fyre euerlasting, prepared for thee and thy Aungels. And presume not hereafter to exercise anye tirannye towarde these infantes.¹⁰

Yet, Edward VI’s second Prayer Book of 1552 saw the exorcism removed altogether. One of the most significant conceptual changes this move implied was that the role of the priest – now the minister – was much reduced: no longer could he single-handedly exorcize the devil, and assure a baptized child salvation. The 1552 Prayer Book also sought to remedy other Protestant grievances surrounding the traditional version of the rite which had not been resolved in 1549, such as removing the christening gown and ensuring that the ceremony took place entirely inside the church building (previously the rite began outside the church, thus implying that it was transformative). The newly revised ceremony also simplified the language to be used by the minister; as a result the once confident tone which actively promised salvation was replaced by a hopeful one, which did no more than imply it.¹¹

Both of Edward’s ceremonies did, however, retain the emergency baptism precautions, which enabled women, most likely midwives, to administer the rite if the life of a newborn was perceived to be in immediate danger, and also the act of crossing the infant was retained, much to the displeasure of the those more eager to radically reform the Church. In the words of the 1552 Prayer Book, the minister would ask godparents the name of the child, and then:

[T]he priest shal make a crosse vpon the childes forehead saying: ‘we receive this chylde into the congregacion of Christes flock, and do signe him with the signe of the crosse, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confesse the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight vnder his banner against sinne, the worlde and the Devil …¹²

Edward’s Prayer Books also emphasized that baptism was a public rite, which was to be performed in church, in front of the entire congregation:

Baptism shoulde not be ministred but vpon Sondayes and other holye Dayes, when the moste numbre of people maye come together. As well for that the congegacion there present maye testifie the receyuying of them …

This would ensure that baptism was a truly communal rite, which encouraged congregation members to reflect on their own baptisms, as well as their own spiritual journeys, and most certainly not on the power of the devil.¹³ This reflects the concerns of the Protestant Reformers to ensure that congregations took home the right messages from baptismal ceremonies, and confirms that they also recognized the powerful nature of the baptism as performance. They, like those who defend recent changes to baptism, saw the rite as a crucial part of Christian belief, and an essential initiation of children into the Church, but they also knew that it was a performance of faith, which was remembered by those who experienced it – and which, if done wrongly, or confusingly, could be detrimental to Church teachings. Indeed, to relate these ideas to the current debate, as recent Synod notes state: ‘feedback from families who have taken part in baptisms suggest that they remember the symbols and the actions of the service more than the words that were used’.¹⁴

Conclusions

This short article has attempted to draw parallels between discussions surrounding the ceremony of baptism in the Reformation period and now. During both these times of change for the rite, the issue of the devil, and whether he should or should not make an appearance at the font, was a crucial issue. Part of the reason for this is surely a question of how far it is necessary to dwell on evil during a ceremony which also marks the entering of a child into the Christian community, as well as questions surrounding how far we really feel ourselves able to deal with that evil. But also, as this paper has sought to argue, one of the key reasons why the devil at baptism has remained a fundamentally slippery topic revolves around the related themes of performance and reception of ideas, and Church fears over what congregations and audiences will take away from certain aspects of the rite.

Indeed, recent debates have centred on the potentially off-putting nature of mentioning the devil, and asking godparents to forsake him. Yet, as has been explored here, these debates are not entirely new. During the Reformation period English theologians argued about the role of the devil in the ceremony, and debated how far reference to him should be made or alluded to. This led to the exorcism being removed from the rite, together with a lessening of general emphasis on the devil. Early modern theologians and reformers also debated the signing of the cross over the baby, in case spectators may have thought it alluded to any form of exorcism, or in case it aroused thoughts of a superstitious nature. What remains striking here are the parallels between these forms of discussion and negotiation within the Church, and upon debates which centre not only on theological concerns or attempts to decipher the true meaning and implications of the baptism ceremony but also on concerns surrounding reception. In both cases, there is a great concern about what congregations – audiences – will take away from these performative rites, how these may reflect theological teaching correctly (or otherwise), and how these in turn reflect on the Church and its teachings.

Footnotes

Notes

Author Biography

Anna French is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Gloucestershire and Honorary Research Fellow in History at the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies, University of Birmingham.