Are there any Christian texts before 600 CE which discuss the exorcism of infants or suggest that due to ancestral sin or for similar reasons infants are under the power of evil spirits?

In ancient church orders and other works on baptism in early centuries, exorcism of evil spirits seems like a key part of the baptismal ritual. I'm curious how this might have been understood in the case of infants.

I'm most interested in the earliest or the most thorough such explanations.

Additional info on baptism and exorcism:

Per DJClayworth's request, the following are some examples of the centrality of exorcism to baptism in the patristic era, all from a quick Google book search of Kelly, H. A. (2004). The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama. Wipf and Stock Publishers. That said, my knowledge of this topic isn't specifically from Kelly.

  1. In the Canons of Hippolytus, those being baptized are instructed to remove their jewelry and loose their hair in order to prevent alien spirits from descending with them into the water of the second birth. (p. 136)
  2. At the turn of the third century, there was a whole program of exorcisms preceding baptism (p. 106)
  3. On p. 141, Kelly does a good job of describing the thoroughness of the repeated exorcisms in the baptismal procedure.
  4. Chrysostom's description of the unbaptized as lacking the seal of Christ's protection from demons on pages 142f may be the beginning of an answer to my question.

For a work available online discussing exorcisms and baptism in this era, see eg. Adam Szabados (2010). Post-New Testament Early Christian Views of Baptismal Anointing.

  • Can you give us more details on this association of exorcism and baptism? There is a difference between exorcism and the more general 'freeing from the power of Satan' that might more normally be associated with baptism, and the link you included doesn't have anything. – DJClayworth Jan 3 at 18:31
  • It's going to be a bit of work to get something on this because the practice is dealing with things that are considered givens theological speaking (heresies and other controversies get the attention). One source to consider that I didn't see is Cyril of Jerusalems, Catechism lecturers. There is a Roman Catholic nun that did a interesting book on conversion in the early church that might have something on this (my best friend has that book). see the link amazon.com/Darkness-Light-Became-Christian-Church/dp/1888212063 – Pavel Mosko Jan 8 at 4:31
  • I know that you are asking for early pre 600 AD which discuss the exorcism of infants or suggest that due to ancestral sin or for similar reasons infants are under the power of evil spirits. Yet reading some Catholic missionaries testimonies of the early 1900s, shows that even in those days children where truly possessed by the demon. The demonic manifestations were all too clear. As one missionary in Tibet would say (1930ish): Once the saving waters touched the child, the demon would not come back. Ancestral sin would not be involved here. The demon simply does not want people to be baptized. – Ken Graham Jan 11 at 4:20

As I said in my comment this is tough to answer. Early Christians like emperor Constantine often put off their baptism: because, the issue of how sin was dealt with after baptism was not clearly dogmatically defined in the early Nicene era.


Catechism lecture Prologue, Cyril of Jerusalem


Sadly, I don't think any lengthy treatises were written on what your asking for. The quotes I've run across with multiple searches simply reveal statements of a paragraph or two that you probably already have read. But this should not be surprising ;because, the Church had bigger fish try as far with various dogmatic battles with heretics, defining Christology and so on. Besides this there is a reason that comes to mind from discussions and essays of iconography. Satan and the demons are generally only depicted in profile because while the iconographer wants to acknowledge their presence, it is best to contemplate the things that edify us (Philippians 4:8)


Post from Aquinas' Summa Theologica, where he quotes Pope Celestine circa 422 AD:

Article 2. Whether exorcism should precede Baptism? Objection 1. It seems that exorcism should not precede Baptism. For exorcism is ordained against energumens or those who are possessed. But not all are such like. Therefore exorcism should not precede Baptism.









Your Answer

