Neander, 1. c. i. p. 424, and especially Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, ii. \\ 103. The passage in question, which is lacking both in Isidore and in Dionysius, runs thus ; " Whoever says that there is, in the kingdom of heaven or elsewhere, a certain middle place, where children who die^afcliout baptism hve happy (beato vivant), while yet they cannot without baptisiq|Kter into the kingdom of heaven, L c, into eternal life, let him be anathema." I § 92. BAPTISM. 483 is no actual sin, the effect of baptism in this ease is limited to the remission of the guilt of original sin ; and since the child cannot yet itself believe, the Christian church (represented by the parents and the sponsors) here appears in its behalf, as Au- gustine likewise supposed, and assumes the responsibility of the education of the baptized child to Christian majority.' , As to infant bal^tism : there was in this period a general Vl conviction of its propriety and of its apostolic origin. Even / the Pelagians weretno exception ; though iufant baptism does not properly fit into their system ; for they denied original sin, and baptism, as a rite of purification, always has reference to the forgiveness of sins. They attributed to infant baptism an improving effect. Ccelestius maintained that children by baptism gained entrance to the higher stage of salvation, the kingdom of God, to which, with merely natural powers, they could not attain. He therefore supposed a middle condition of lower salvation for unbaptized children, which in the above- quoted second canon of the council of Carthage — if it be genu- ine— is condemned. Pelagius said more cautiously : Whither unbaptized children go, I know not ; whither they do not go, I know. But, notwithstanding this general admission of infant bap- tism, the practice of it was by no means universal. Forced baptism, which is contrary to the nature of Christianity and the sacrament, was as yet unknown. Many Christian parents post- poned the baptism of their children, sometimes from indiffer- ence, sometimes from fear that they might by their later life forfeit the grace of baptism, and thereby make their condition the worse. Thus Gregory Nazianzen and Augustine, though they had eminently pious mothers, were not baptized till their conversion in their manhood. But they afterward regretted this. Gregory admonishes a mother: "Let not sin gain the mastery in thy child ; let him be consecrated even in swaddling * The scholastics were not entirely agreed whether baptism imparts positive grace to all, or only to adults. Peter Lombard was of the latter opinion ; but most divines extended the positive effect of baptism even to children, though under various modifications. Comp. the full exposition of the scholastic doctrine of bap- tism (which does not belong here) in Hahn, 1. c. p. 333 ff. 484 THIKD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590. bands. Thou art afraid of the divine seal on account of the weakness of nature. What weakness of faith