certainly overdue, although its starting-point is bound to be the celebrated exchange between Joachim Jeremias and Kurt Aland of two decades ago.4 Ecumenical discussion, and in some churches ecumenical reality, call on both paedobaptists and credobaptists to examine the others’ practice with a new seriousness. In such a context the beginnings of the dominant tradition cannot healthily be left unscrutinized or treated as inscrutable. Three preliminary points must be made. First, the word ‘infant’