First off, and I'm being frank here (please forgive me if too much so), but this seems extremely unhelpful in any way:
Nobody needs to call anybody liars, but I don't see anybody proposing Anabaptist or Reformation era infallibility; on the other hand, I do regularly encounter from my several Orthodox friends (offline, mostly) such proposals to a varying degree. When clung to, it actually defeats the purpose of continuing dialogue, except for the one who refuses to release the idea of their denominational or interpretative superiority/infallibility, and it is why most discussions between Orthodox and Anabaptists either die off or end with a bang, even more than simply the difference in foundational sources (scripture or scripture and tradition).I can accept people from the Reformation era being mistaken- but not calling those who know better, 'liars'.
Having said all that, Paedobaptist advocates (not just Orthodox) generally claim that the practice of infant baptism dates back to the apostles, and therefore should be accepted. Anabaptists stepped out or were driven out of the organized churches for a couple reasons, one of the most specific being a lack of positive evidence for infant baptism and a host of negative experience for infant baptism. The big question in my mind comes to this: What evidence would you site for the existence of infant baptism prior to the third century? I recognize that there seems to be little record of controversy over infant baptism (at least until Origen, perhaps), if it truly was a later addition into the churches, and I could speculate about that, but my above question remains. Secondly, what is the Orthodox view of Tertullian (heretic, accepted Church father, etc?), considering he did speak out against infant baptism?
From studying various church fathers, several of them underwent catechesis but didn’t receive baptism until later in adulthood, even though they were born to Christian parents, if I recall correctly. I’ll try to dig up the paper I did on this, but off the top of my head, a couple would have been Athanasius, Basil, Clement (of Alexandria), Hippolytus, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Jerome, and actually Augustine himself. Therefore, it seems to me (and perhaps you have come across something I’m missing), that if paedobaptism was a custom since the time of the Apostles, these men would have been baptized before ever entering adulthood, rather than being products of the catechumen system…
But the question still remains, what proof do we have that baptism was administered only to believers and not to infants before the 3rd century? Second-century references to baptism reflect confession of faith as an essential qualification for baptism. I am assuming your familiarity with the Didache (please correctly me if I assume wrongly), but it gets fairly extensive on baptism. I can pull up a couple quotes if you’d like, but from what I recall it not only establishes some moral qualifications for the one to be baptized, but it requires the baptismal candidates to fast for a couple days also… It seems odd to me that through the centuries, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Prebyterians, etc. have insured the survival of paedobaptism, but the Didache fails to reference it.
Other 2nd century references to baptism generally yield similar results. Some try to use Justin Martyr to support infant baptism when he wrote about “men and women of sixty or seventy years old, who from children were disciples of Christ”, but if a child is mature enough to be a “disciple of Christ” then it follows that they are capable of a confession of faith and can be baptized.
Some use Irenaeus because he said something to the effect that people of all ages are reborn through Christ, including infants, but there’s not a baptism reference in that, only the idea that Jesus brought a second beginning to the whole human race. Every Anabaptist’s favorite heretic, Tertullian, wrote a treatise on baptism, De baptismo. He emphasized the catechumen system, he believed that people should delay baptism until they were well instructed, and promoted believers baptism.
When you get into the 3rd century and on, you find church fathers like Cyprian, Origen, and Augustine approving of infant baptism, but even Origen admitted it was not without protest among the brethren. Hence my question, and I regret putting you on the spot, but since you are the local Orthodox proponent here, can you point us to any particular evidence other that infant baptism was practiced in the first two centuries of the Christian church. I’m open to info, but I haven’t personally found anything compelling historically, and certainly no Scripture to support the idea of baptism without believer’s own confession of faith. Sorry if this is a bit much. Thank in advance for the reply.