Notes sur quelques éléments distinctifs de l'ordo baptismal d'après les sources gallicanes

Abstract

The baptismal liturgy in pre-Carolingian Gaul, but also in pre-Norman Ireland, Northern Italy and Wisigothic Spain, was essentially the same. It draws heavily on the North-African liturgy witnessed by Tertullian and Cyprian with its characteristic sequence : signation, immersion, Christological unction, pneumatical laying of the hands. The complementarity of the chrismation and the confirmation has a parallel in the Antiochene Didascalia apostolorum. However the Johannine «pedi lauum» is a distinctive feature to be found only very marginally in the African sources. It goes back to an early stage of the Western rites development. As a matter of fact, all the elements of the Western baptismal rite seem to underline the tremendous conservatism of this liturgy.