Early Christian Baptism....Third Century Church
I have done some research on the history of Christianity and baptism wanting to understand what was taking place after Acts and the Epistles of Paul (third century church) : NOTE: Remember in the book of Acts, we read that converts were being baptized immediately. According to the History of Christianity written by Justo Gonzalez, many people who were converted at this time were either those who lived Judiasm all their life and had some basic framework of living for God, or others that were from the Gentile population that had some background in worshipping many gods. The Gentile population grew quickly in churches as they were starting across the land. It was vital that as people were converted, a period of preparation, instruction, and trial took place before baptism. Baptism took place once a year. It took place on Easter Sunday. The "catechumans" were the baptismal, newly converted, candidates that went through intensive training and shortly before their baptism they...