The first mention of sprinkling in extant literature is in the Didache, which is usually dated approximately 150 A.D. It was first known as "clinical baptism." Beginning with this early uninspired writing, there are occasional mentions of sprinkling in the general literature of church history on down through the centuries. It was not, however, until the Council of Ravenna, held in 1311, under the direction of Pope Clement V, that sprinkling was officially accepted by the Roman Catholic Church instead of immersion. In fact, some church buildings still standing show the evidence of the previous practice of immersion.
Such is the case of the large baptistry building which stands near the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy. The building contains a large full-size baptistry in which possibly as many as 50 people could be immersed at one time. Obviously, it was built before 1311 and the change in doctrine.
1.    The Bible nowhere speaks of sprinkling as baptism. Rather the word baptizo is used which literally means "to dip, plunge, or immerse." The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "The most ancient form usually employed was unquestionably immersion. This is not only evident from the writings of the Fathers and the early rituals of both the Latin and Oriental churches, but it can also be gathered from the Epistles of St. Paul, who speaks of baptism as a bath (Eph. 5:26; Rom. 6:4; Titus 3:5). In the Latin Church, immersion seems to have prevailed until the 12th century. After that time it is found in some even as late as the 16th century. Infusion and aspersion, however, were growing common in the 13th century and gradually prevailed in the Western church. The Oriental churches have retained immersion, though not always in the sense of plunging the candidate's entire body below the water."3
2.    Everett Ferguson: "A period of instruction, especially pertaining to the moral implications for the Christian life, preceded the baptism . . .. Baptism was administered to those who believed Christian teaching and repented of their sins" (p. 37)4
"As the confession implies, faith was the necessary prerequisite to baptism. Baptism was administered to those who are persuaded and believe." Didache III.6 "Baptism was also viewed as an act of repentance" Didache III.3 (p. 37)
Substitutes for Baptism
"The precedent of Jewish washings, the secular usage of baptizein, circumstantial accounts of baptism in early Christian literature, and the symbolism of baptism as burial and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-11; Col. 2:12) indicate tht the normal practice in early Christian baptism was a dipping or plunging."5
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3 The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. II: 261,62.
4 Everett Ferguson, Early Christians Speak (Austin, Tex.: Sweet Publishing Co., 1971).
5 Everett Ferguson, "Baptism," in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988), 131-134.
"The Didache is the only indication before the middle of the third century of the use of anything but immersion, even in the case of emergency."
"The clinical baptism of Novation (Cyprian IV.9, 10) provided an interesting case. We know the circumstance from his opponent, Cornelius, who was elected bishop of Rome in A.D. 251 . . .. The opposition to the validity of Novation's ordination rested as much on the fact of his receiving sickbed baptism as on the way it was administered, but doubts about the latter were part of the misgivings about the former. There was a feeling that those who received baptism in these circumstances were not fully converted and submitted to baptism only as a safety protection in view of impending death." (pp. 51,52)
Infant Baptism
"The early Christian feeling about the innocence of infants finds clear expression in second century authors and in the writer who makes the first explicit reference to infant baptism in Christian history, Tertullian (On Baptism 18:1-10,12). Innocence here meant "sinlessness, or at least guiltlessness." (58)
"This feeling plus the stress on baptism for the remission of sins explains why there is no early reference to infant baptism. It was actually the growth of the practice of infant baptism which led to a changed view of the spiritual condition of the infant." (p. 59)
"The earliest likely reference to infant baptism is to be found in Irenaeus" (Against Heresies II.xxii.4). (p. 59) "The first unambiguous reference is to be found in Tertullian (V. 12), and he was opposed to the practice He seems to be stating, as elsewhere
in his treatise On Baptism, the common position of the church." (p. 60)
"Origen affords evidence that the practice preceded the theological justification (Homilies on Luke V.14, 15). The sequence was infant baptisms then the doctrine of infant sinfulness, and not a doctrine of original sin leading to the practice of infant baptism. The reasons for baptizing a child were being discussed. The child did not have sins of his own. Origen's answer was that a stain attaches to birth. This is not yet a doctrine of original sin (that is, the inheritance of the guilt of Adam's transgression)." (Pp. 60,61)
"The first ecclesiastical command to baptize infants is contained in the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions VI:15." (p. 64)
Other quotations:
1.   "It seems clear that up until about the end of the fifth century, adult believer's baptism was the normal practice of the church. This fact is demonstrated by the emphasis in the Early Fathers on careful preparation for baptism, and the necessity to live a sinless life after baptism."6
"The practice of infant baptism completes the early patristic developments. Infant baptism was practiced in the second century, but only with the aid of an adult sponsor. A full defense of this custom came to expression in the theology of Augustine in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. Only in the fifth century did the Syrian Church make infant baptism obligatory; prior to this time it was the exception rather than the rule."7
2.   William Barclay: "Commonly baptism was by total immersion and that practice lent itself to a symbolism to which sprinkling does not so readily lend itself. When a man descended into the water and the water closed over his head, it was like being buried. When he emerged from the water, it was like rising from the grave. Baptism was symbolically like dying and rising again. The man died to one kind of life and rose to another; he died to the old life of sin and rose to the new life of grace."8
Does baptidzo really mean "to immerse"?
After an exhaustive survey of more than 200 examples in Greek literature and ancient translations, Thomas J. Conant concluded: "The word baptizein, during the whole existence of the Greek as a spoken language, had a perfectly defined and unvarying import. In its literal use it meant, as has been shown, to put entirely into or under a liquid, or other penetrable substance,
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6 Donald M. Lake, "Baptism," in New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J.D. Douglas, revised (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1978), pp. 99-101.
7 Ibid.
8 William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, in the Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 84.
 generally water, so that the object was wholly covered by the inclosing element."9
G. R. Beasley-Murray in his treatise on baptism states: "Despite the frequent denials of exegetes, it is surely reasonable to believe that the reason for Paul's stating that the baptized is buried as dead, rather than he died (as in v. 6), is the nature of baptism as immersion. The symbolism of immersion representing burial is striking, and if baptism is at all to be compared with prophetic symbolism, the parallelism of act and event symbolized is not unimportant."10
Alexander Campbell said, "Greek lexicographers, with one consent, in their definitions, as well as Greek philosophers, historians, orators, and poets, in their use of this term baptizo, render it dip, plunge, immerse: never as indicating sprinkling, pouring, or scattering any thing."11
Gingrich & Danker's Revised Lexicon: "dip, immerse, mid. dip oneself, wash."12 In New Testament times, the word was employed in describing the dipping of a garment in dye. "Sprinkling, as a form of baptism took the place of immersion after a few centuries in the early Church, not from any established rule, but by common consent, and it has since been very generally practiced in all but the Greek and Baptist churches, which insist upon immersion."13 "In essence the action is an extremely simple one, though pregnant with meaning. It consists in a going in or under the baptismal water in the name of Christ (Acts 19:5) or more commonly the Trinity (Matt. 28:19). Immersion was fairly certainly the original practice and continued in general use up to the Middle Ages."14
Used by permission. " Evangelism Handbook of New Testament Christianity"