Joachim Jeremias here makes his greatest contribution in a study of the early tradition of infant baptism. He offers exegesis of pertinent New Testament passages, and readers will be impressed with the extra-Biblical evidence he produces to support that there was virtually universal observance of the rite in the post-Apostolic generations. He states his purpose thus: to lay before the reader the historical material relating to the history of infant baptism in the first four centuries in as concrete and sober a manner as possible.