John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 6:2

"of the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." — Hebrews 6:2 (ASV)

Of the doctrine of baptisms, etc. Some read them separately as “of baptisms and of doctrine”; but I prefer to connect them, though I explain them differently from others. For I regard the words as being in apposition, as grammarians say, in this form: Not laying again the foundation of repentance, of faith in God, of the resurrection of the dead, which is the doctrine of baptisms and of the laying on of hands. Therefore, if these two clauses, “the doctrine of baptisms” and “the laying on of hands,” are included in parentheses, the passage would read more smoothly. For unless you read them as in apposition, there would be an absurd repetition. For what is the doctrine of baptism but what is mentioned here: faith in God, repentance, judgment, and the like?

Chrysostom thinks that the author of Hebrews uses “baptisms” in the plural because those who returned to first principles, to some extent, nullified their first baptism. But I cannot agree with him, for the doctrine had no reference to many baptisms; rather, “baptisms” refers to the solemn rites or the designated days for baptizing.

With baptism, the author of Hebrews connects the laying on of hands; for just as there were two kinds of catechumens, so there were two rites. There were heathens who did not come to baptism until they made a profession of their faith. Then, for these, catechizing usually preceded baptism. But the children of the faithful—since they were adopted from the womb and belonged to the body of the Church by right of the promise—were baptized in infancy. After infancy, having been instructed in the faith, they presented themselves as catechumens, a step which, for them, took place after baptism. Then another symbol was added: the laying on of hands.

This one passage strongly attests that this rite originated with the Apostles, which, however, was later turned into superstition, as the world almost always falls into corruption, even concerning the best institutions. They have indeed contrived the fiction that it is a sacrament by which the Spirit of regeneration is conferred—a dogma by which they have mutilated baptism, transferring to the imposition of hands what was unique to baptism itself.

Let us then understand that it was instituted by its original founders to be an appointed rite for prayer, as Augustine calls it. While they indeed intended this symbol to confirm the profession of faith that young people made after childhood, they had no intention at all of destroying the efficacy of baptism.

Therefore, the pure institution ought to be retained today, but the superstition should be removed. And this passage tends to confirm infant baptism (pedobaptism). For why should the same doctrine be called baptism for some, but the imposition of hands for others, unless it is because the latter, after receiving baptism, were taught in the faith, so that nothing remained for them but the laying on of hands?