Venema’s second chapter, of this title, tries to demonstrate in 14 pages that paedocommunion (PC) didn’t occur very early (before the third century) and wasn’t widespread. All of this is aimed to answer the argument made by paedocommunionists (PCs) that it was the widespread practice of the church until trends culminating in the Fourth Lateran Council (AD1215) embraced transubstantiation and other errors.

One wonders if Venema’s treatment is so brief because his case is so thin. This is odd because lots of historical practices of the church are weird and don’t require us to deem them biblical. For example, Venema cites Justin Martyr:

Speaking of the sacrament, Justin notes in his First Apology that “this food is called among us the eucharitsia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these.

Venema concludes that this description “doesn’t expressly exclude the reception of children at the Table of the Lord, though this inference seems to be demanded.” Seems to be demanded? What is really demanded is that Venema not turn arguments from silence, or worse, arguments from silence as interpreted by his assumptions, into demands. The assumption here is that children cannot believe “the things which we teach are true” and “[live] as Christ enjoined”; they certainly do fulfill the other requirement Justin mentions of being baptized. This is the thing that anti PCs assume but rarely come out and say: children can’t believe, confess, or function as Christians. Then why baptize them? In his next paragraph, Venema says “Clement of Alexandria (ca. AD 150-219) also describes the practice of the church in a way that restricts the Table to active believers.” Somehow you become “active” when you are in early adolescence but before that are vegetably prohibitted from practicing faith.

Not only does Justin’s teaching not demand children be kept away from communion, he goes on to say “And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced.” Blake Purcell cites this passage as evidence for paedocommunion because we know children were there and they were not taken out; others were excluded, but not children, so if the argument from silence goes in anyone’s favor, it goes to PC  (for more church fathers speaking for themselves, see Purcell’s essay “The Testimony of the Ancient Church” in The Case for Covenant Communion, Athanasius Press, 2006). Although Venema is grasping and reading things into these passages, it’s helpful to those weighing these arguments because his assumptions are revealed along the way: whenever someone says communion is for believers, we can rule kids out since by definition they aren’t!

Other examples in this chapter are alike–reaching and misreading the fathers and then building other arguments upon this styrofoam foundation. For one who has already concluded children can’t exercise faith, it must be confirming. But that has to be assumed. Robert Rayburn comments on how this evidence is often handled:

It is admitted by everyone that from the mid-third century onward the practice of padeocommuion was commonplace in the church. Mention is made in the obiter dicta [something said in passing] of Cyprian and Agusutine, among others. Some have attemtped to argue that the lack fo evidence for the practice earlier than Cyprian is evidence that it was an innovation in his time, but their arugmnts are special pleading. In fact, the same case is precisely similar to that of the patristic evidence for infant baptism. (“A Presbyterian Defense of Paedocommunion”)

When Venema admits the widespread practice of PC in the fourth and fifth centuries, he accounts for it as incipient sacerdotalism. “Because baptism was veiwed as a regenerating ordinance, anticipating the more developed medieval teaching of the sacrament’s effectiveness ex opere operato…baptized children were presumed to be born again of the Spririt and therefore proper recipients of the nourishment provided through Communion.” Of course the Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 161) says the sacraments become effectual means of salvation only by the Holy Spirit and the blessing of Christ, and baptism is a sign of regeneration among things (Q. 165). Were the Divines on the way to a mechanical understanding of baptism? No, but they still used the word “regeneration” in its regard because this is how it’s referred to in Scripture. Rayburn notes that PC “gradually disappeared in the medieval church, apparently as a result of thes rise of superstitious views of the sacramental elements.” I’m afraid a different superstition is at work now.

Communion was withheld from children in the twelfth century and Venema doesn’t cite the variations at the Synod of Wenceslas or the opinion ofMartin Luther that 1 Corinthians 11:28 ought not to bar children from communion. He maintains that it’s not a sacrament of incorporation, but one of spiritual nourishment. Exactly. One has already been incorporated by baptism (by faith). What is the covenantal meal if not nourishing, and how do you starve immature (young) Christians but by keeping them away? Is it any wonder that we do this to people who for years think they know Jesus only to be told over and over that they don’t yet. Suddenly, in adolescence, it’s communion time but they don’t feel (or know, really) any different and so taking first communion feels artificial. That’s because it is. They should’ve been taking it a long time before.