NUDE BAPTISM
There is not a topic which has caused more acrimony toward the Grail Church than the suggestion that nude baptism was practiced by the earliest Church. It demonstrates the profound ignorance of Christians about the history of their own religion and the complete incompetence of Christian leaders in general. To think that people trust their eternal destinies to the counsel of such leaders is truly amazing. We are more careful in purchasing the right car than we are in who we trust with our souls.
Typical Christians suffer from an unhealthy obsession with sex. Their dirty minds immediately assume nude baptism is an invitation to a sexual orgy of some kind. To relieve the reader of such an anxiety, let me cite a couple of reputable sources.
The first is Rev. Rousas J. Rushdoony, an ultra-conservative Reformed theologian:
Since baptism meant in part the believers' death and rebirth or resurrection in Christ, it was very early associated with the Easter season, although not exclusively so. This same aspect, rebirth, led to an interesting custom which survived for some centuries as basic to baptism, namely, baptism, usually by immersion, in the nude. Sprinkling and immersion were both used by the church, which recognized sprinkling, after Ezekiel 36:25, as the mark of the new covenant. Aspersion was also very early a common practice. The emphasis on death and rebirth led to a stress on immersion as symbolically representative of this fact. Men were born naked; hence, they were reborn naked in baptism. No works of the unregenerate man could be carried into heaven; therefore, the candidate symbolically stripped himself of all clothing to indicate that he had nothing save God's grace. There were two baptistries thus in churches for some generations, since men and women were baptized separately. Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12 were passages cited to confirm this practice of symbolic burial and resurrection. This practice of naked baptism indicates how seriously the Biblical symbolism was taken by the early church; nothing was avoided, and sometimes over-literal applications resulted.
An aspect of the symbolism of nakedness was the comparison to Adam:
St. Chrysostom, speaking of baptism, says, Men were naked as Adam in paradise; but with this difference; Adam was naked because he had sinned, but in baptism, a man was naked that he might be freed from sin; the one was divested of his glory which he once had, but the other put off the old man, which he did as easily as his clothes. St. Ambrose says, Men came as naked to the font, as they came into the world; and thence he draws an argument by way of illusion, to rich men, telling them, how absurd it was, that a man was born naked of his mother, and received naked by the church, should think of going rich into heaven. Cyril of Jerusalem takes notice of the circumstance, together with the reasons of it, when he thus addresses himself to persons newly baptized: As soon as ye came into the inner part of the baptistry, ye put off your clothes, which is an emblem of putting off the old man with his deeds; and being thus divested, ye stood naked, imitating Christ,, that was naked upon the cross, who by his nakedness spoiled principalities and powers, publicly triumphing over them in the cross. O wonderful thing! ye were naked, imitating the first Adam, that was naked in paradise, and was not ashamed. So also Amphilochius in the Life of St. Basil, speaking of his baptism, says, He arose with fear and put off his clothes, and with them the old man. . .
- Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 758, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing (1973)
Lest the Bible-thumpers among us think that the opinions and practices of the early Fathers are of no account, consider the washings of the Levitical priests, which foreshadowed, in part, the ordinance of baptism. They too had to divest themselves of their clothing and ceremonially cleanse themselves before they could enter the sanctuary.
In Aime Georges Martimort's historical study on Deaconesses, he cites the Didascalia and The Apostolic Constitutions - both early 3rd Century clergy manuals - on the use of deaconesses to assist the clergy in the baptism of women, since "baptism required total nudity" (Deaconesses, Ignatius Press, 1986 p. 43).
It should not be forgotten that fasting was required prior to baptism for one or two days. So says the Didache, a document from the Apostolic era. Anyone who has done a fast knows that it reduces feelings of sensuality. I cannot see how this practice of the Church can be viewed as lewd or lascivious.
In a generation which expects its young people to disrobe in front of each other to shower after a workout in the gym or to do the same in the military, it baffles me that people are horrified of nude baptism. Is it possible that their sinful natures and pride prevent them from embracing this custom?