Everett Ferguson provides in this volume not just a survey of early baptismal practice, theology and history but a veritable encyclopedia. The scope is ambitious: in fifty-five chapters, beginning with the antecedents to Christian baptism in Graeco-roman and Jewish contexts, he turns to a thorough investigation of the relevant biblical texts and then to the well-known writers and textual sources from the second to the fifth century. A pleasing feature is the inclusion of artistic and archaeological material among the textual with a comprehensive regional study of baptismal fonts and one chapter discussing artistic representations of the baptism of Jesus; a set of carefully selected plates at the centre of the volume usefully accompanies these reflections. It is to the author's credit that he addresses the specialist and non-specialist audience: the texts of the chapters themselves are written in a clear and and straightforward manner, and it is by the footnotes that the reader is directed to the more complex issues.

There is extensive treatment in parts i and ii of the religious and social contexts of ritual washings which provide a backdrop for the New Testament accounts of Christian baptism. Ferguson discusses each New Testament reference to baptism separately, reflecting on what they might indicate about practice but also how these texts function in later theological and artistic interpretations. This lengthy coverage of the earliest evidence provides the reader with a useful starting point for the chronological study of patristic texts in parts iii–vi. This book is certainly comprehensive with no obvious omissions; what is less clear, though, is the method of approach. Each chapter presents either an author, or a genre (pseudepigrapha, church orders) or a type of baptism (Jewish, infant, rebaptism) or gathers together in several chapters the evidence from a particular region (Carthage, Syriac writers, etc). Of course each text, writer, region and period presents its own dominant issues, often due to conflicts with hererodox groups, and these in turn shape the scholarly debate. But as the author's intention is to present the ‘history, theology and liturgy’ of such an enormous body of material, it has not been possible for him to apply a consistent methodology throughout, so that comparisons between sources, regions, etc, and the developments in baptismal practice are difficult to draw from the conclusions to each chapter. The different treatment of each source is indicated clearly by chapters on the fourth and fifth centuries almost all having subsections entitled ‘Baptismal ceremony’ and ‘Baptismal theology’, whereas that on Clement of Alexandria contains separate sections on theological and social themes in addition to the liturgical. The chapter on Cyril of Jerusalem presents the evidence for the conduct of the liturgy from the Mystagogical catecheses, whose authorship (but not provenance) is in any case contested, but devotes much less attention to the rich theology of baptism which the authentic Cyril expresses in the Catechetical lectures; by contrast, John Chrysostom's liturgy and theology are both given extensive treatment.

The critical perspective is also unclear and this reviewer would have liked a more overt methodological statement in the introduction which set out some reasons for choices made throughout the book and the author's approach to his sources. However, it must be said that it is probably to the benefit of the non-specialist reader that a consistent structure and methodological approach is not applied in every chapter, for that would make for a tedious read; each writer and text presents different key issues and these are allowed to rise to the surface. For the specialist reader, though, it does mean that an uneven amount of information is extracted from each source.

Some chapters present us with the fruits of Ferguson's own detailed scholarship, on for example the Cappadocians, whereas others provide a summary introduction to the primary sources in light of the most recent critical perspectives. It is not always clear, though, whether these contemporary authors are cited because he agrees with them, or because they are the most recent. It is clear which scholars Ferguson prefers, mainly from the footnotes, although less clear in the text: for the Apostolic tradition he appears to favour Brent over Bradshaw; for the Jerusalem Mystagogicae he prefers those favouring Cyrilline authorship. That aside, one would not wish to express anything but gratitude for so comprehensive a study. It provides an excellent starting point for studies of individual authors and regions and usefully charts the main themes in current scholarship.

It is in the conclusion that the reader hopes to find how Ferguson places the evidence and its interpretation in an overarching narrative. For its brevity and clarity of expression this is a most accomplished chapter, as one might expect of a scholar in complete command of his material and it would function independently as an introduction to baptism in the early Church for the non-specialist. Eschewing the standard historical and theological narrative approach of so many baptismal studies, the author asks the fundamental question ‘How did they do it?’; what follows is a discussion of the practicalities of administering this Christian water ritual informed as it was and should be by theology and the biblical narratives.