4. Introduction of Pouring or Sprinkling. Tertullian (ca 180) tells us "there is no difference whether a man is baptized in the sea or in a pool, in a river or in a fountain, in a lake or a canal; nor is there any difference between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber.(12) With the introduction of sprinkling water on the candidate instead of immersion as a matter of convenience, the one sprinkled was regarded as a second class citizen of the Kingdom of God: "In the case of illness, one was baptized by pouring. This was the case of Novatus, but one could not then, as a matter of principle become a priest."(13) The very early "Didache" indicates the practice was regarded as a possible alternative of last resort in case of the scarcity of water [quoted above].
The status of sprinkling baptism gradually became the preferred form. One Catholic historian gives the following development: The abbot Corlet sets forth the history thus . . . : "In the Orient in the first centuries, baptism was administered by means of a total submersion in the rivers and probably in the baptistries, and not excluding an immersion mixed with infusion (pouring), which has been preserved to the present day in almost all cases in the oriental region. In the Occident, from the fourth to the eighth century, there was a partial immersion in the baptisteries. . . . From the eighth to the ninth, vertical and complete immersion of children in fonts. During this period, and in the whole course of the Middle Ages, various procedures were used for the baptism of adults, when it was not possible to
submerge in the bottom of the fonts; from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, horizontal and complete immersion in fonts. In the thirteenth and fourteenth, sometimes partial immersion accompanied by infusion, rarely infusion alone. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, infusion alone was employed, and immersion was preserved until our time in the Mozarabic and Ambrosian rites; to be noted also the reestablishing of immersion in some religious sects. . . . Nevertheless, in the Latin Church ...along with baptism by immersion, there were employed, if only in exceptional cases, as in case of baptizing a sick or dying person, infusion or sprinkling, which was called baptism of the sick (baptimnus clinicomcm ). If indeed, in the Latin Church, immersion prevailed until the sixteenth century, infusion and sprinkling were adopted from the thirteenth century. The form in use today is infusion."(14)
but I may as well say it before I get falsely accused, and it isnt from Boettner either.)