As we understand, the Christian ordinance here referred to by Tylor, is traceable through many modifications back to those carnal ordinances, those weak and beggarly elements, which Paul says were imposed until the time of reformation.[56] It has no authority from Christ and is therefore not Christian baptism.
As we read: Pagans of old baptized the face. Under the law of Moses the hands were baptized. John the Baptist baptized the whole body. Our Saviour baptized the feet.[57] Now Christians complete the cycle and again as of old baptize the face.
Some early Christians deferred water baptism to middle life or old age and many were never so baptized. Now Christians insist upon infant baptism.
Some early Christian said: If only one finger remains above water the baptism is not valid. Now Christians say: "A few drops of water are as good as a river."
What shall we say? Wisdom answers. Let us hold to what Christ says: "John indeed baptized with water but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."[58]
We learn from the Brahmins on the Ganges, and the dwellers by the Nile and from explorers all around the world that water baptism was administered as an ancient religious rite among many so called heathen nations when first discovered.
Some we read baptized to appease the wrath of the Gods and to expiate sin.
Some Christians now claim that by water baptism a child of wrath becomes a child of Grace and sins are washed away.
The similarity of these two ideas, one Pagan and the other Christian, suggests a common origin far back in the ages before man learned that God is love and that Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to little children without baptism.[59]
Augustine who, in the fifth century, formulated from previously conceived theories the dogma of original sin and baptismal regeneration, was himself educated a Pagan and was well versed in that culture, and it impressed itself upon his writings and the church which adopted them.[60]