Did the early church perform baptism in the open air?

Early in the apostolic era, great numbers of Jews and Gentiles were coming into the Christian faith from many parts of the world. They were baptized by immersion in water in the name of the Holy Trinity. At that time, it was not possible to build baptisteries in all cities to accommodate such numbers considering that most of them were adults and that the church was under persecution everywhere. Therefore, the Church performed baptism in the open air (i.e., in rivers,¹²⁵⁹ seas,¹²⁶⁰ springs, etc.) The Book of Acts refers to this type of open air baptism, for example, when Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch both went down into the water (river) and Philip baptized him. (Acts 8:38)

Evidence of such open air baptism can be found also from the Christian writings of the first and second centuries. Tertullian for example mentions that St. Peter baptized people in the Tiber River. Also, the Didache says, “Baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit in living [i.e., moving] water. But if you have not living water, baptize in other water and if you cannot in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”¹²⁶¹ We can understand how this rite was performed in the early Church in the Odes of Solomon:

“And speaking waters touched my lips

From the spring of the Lord generously.

And so I drank and became intoxicated,

From the living water that does not die.

And my intoxication was not with ignorance,

But I abandoned vanity;

And turned toward the Most High, my God,

And was enriched by His favors.”¹²⁶²

1259 Pseudo-Clement, The Recognitions of Clement 6.15 (ANF 8:156).

1260 Pseudo-Clement, The Recognitions of Clement 4.32, 7.38 (ANF 8:141, 165); Acts and Martyrdom of St. Matthew the Apostle (ANF 8:533).

1261 “The Didache” in Early Christian Writings , trans., Maxwell Staniforth and Andrew Louth (Penguin, 1987) 7: p. 194.

1262 James H Charlesworth, The Earliest Christian Hymnbook: The Odes of Solomon (The Lutterworth Press, 2009) 11.6–9: pp. 31–32.