CLINICIANS. - With this name (from κλίνη = bed), which in Latin referred both to physicians and to the sick confined to bed (notable examples of this second meaning are found in Christian writers: cf. Thesaurus linguae latinae, III, 1350, 15 ff.), from the 3rd century onward those were called who received Baptism while in danger of death.
Such Baptism was always regarded with little favor, especially because of the insufficient preparation of the one being baptized and because of its lesser solemnity (among other things, it was almost always administered by infusion rather than by immersion); and the disfavor necessarily had to be greater in those very numerous cases in which catechumens deliberately postponed their Baptism until the point of death, in order to be able to lead a free life longer, and out of fear (facilitated by the Novatian heresy: cf. St. Ambrose, De paenitentia, II, 11, 98 ff.; PL 16, 521 f.) of not being able to be absolved from the sins they might commit after receiving Baptism. A memory of this more serious abuse is found in the legendary Passio s. Genesii ex mimo martyris, n. 1 (BHL, 3315).
Certainly in a wholly different sense Tertullian had written that "according to the condition, the disposition and the age of each person, it may be useful to postpone Baptism" (De Baptismo, 18, 4), even though what follows (at n. 6) could provide a handle for justifying the clinici.
To give an idea of the great number of clinici, it is recalled that in the De rebaptismate, ch. 4 (anonymous, of 256 or shortly after) it is said that at that time it was a very frequent thing for many to die after Baptism without having had time to receive the imposition of hands from the bishop (PL 3, 1188); St. Augustine (Sermo de verbis excidio, 6, 7; PL 40, 722) recounts that at Constantinople, during the reign of Arcadius, a great panic having spread, everyone ran to be baptized; and in the Confessions (IX, 3) he tells of his friend Verecundus, who was baptized at the point of death; moreover, many funerary inscriptions of adult neophytes (among them Junius Bassus) suggest that at least some of them are persons baptized during their last illness (cf. E. Diehl, Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres, I, Berlin 1925, nos. 90, 965, 1478, 1480, 1482, 1483, 1484, 1485 B, 1488, 1488 B, 1489 DF, 1492, 1493, 1495, 1503, 1529, 1537, 2764, 3053 A, 3352, 3802 A, 4338 C, 4755, etc.). The most celebrated case was that of Constantine (cf. F. J. Dölger, Die Taufe Konstantins und ihre Probleme, in Konstantin der Grosse und seine Zeit, Freiburg im Br. 1913, p. 381 ff.); and it seems that it was precisely this fact that Julian the Apostate had in mind (in the work I Cesari, p. 336 of the ed. by C. J. Neumann, Leipzig 1880) in holding Constantine up to ridicule.
Hence the insistence of many Fathers, especially Greek, against this practice is no cause for wonder (cf. Pseudo-Basil, Homil., 13, especially n. 3 ff.; PG 31, 424 f.; St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orationes, 40, 11-14; PG 36, 373 f.; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Adversus eos qui differunt Baptismum: PG 46, 415 ff.; St. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Acta Apostolorum, 1, 6-8, and 23, 4; PG 60, 23 ff., 182 f.; id., Catechesis ad illuminandos, I, 1; PG 49, 224 f.).
There was also some doubt about the validity of these Baptisms. St. Cyprian, who does not approve of the designation clinici, used instead of Christians (Epist., 69, 13), maintains precisely, against those who had called it into doubt, the validity of their Baptism (ibid., nn. 12-13), and indeed defends the clinici against the accusation made against them, and which was often true, of having received Baptism without adequate doctrinal preparation and without the due dispositions; but at the same time as St. Cyprian, Pope Cornelius, in a letter of his to Fabius bishop of Antioch, of 252 (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 43, 5-22), speaking of the Baptism received by Novatian at the point of death, adds: "if indeed one must say that he received it" (ibid., n. 14), where however the doubt may be rhetorical, or founded on the lack of disposition. Later it is found that St. Basil evidently supposes the validity of such Baptisms (Epistolae, 269, 2: PG 32, 1001, which however concerns a case in which the delay had not been culpable).
Ecclesiastical legislation early laid down provisions concerning the clinici. It never forbade the conferral of Baptism on one who asked for it at the point of death; but it required a prior ascertainment of the dispositions of the one being baptized, although later there was great leniency especially in the case of Baptism for one who had lost consciousness (cf., with more or less close connection with this subject, can. 39 of the Council of Elvira, of c. 305; can. 34 of the Third Council of Carthage, of 397; can. 12 of the Council of Orange, of 441; St. Augustine, De coniugiis adulterinis, I, 26, 33; 28, 35; PL 40, 469 f.; Fulgentius of Ruspe, Epist., 12, 10, 21-23; PL 45, 389 f.).
Unknown is the origin of the norm that obliged the clinici, should they recover, to ask the bishop to supply the ceremonies possibly omitted in Baptism (among which perhaps also the consignatio or confirmation): this norm is recalled as already in force in the aforementioned epistle of Pope Cornelius (Eusebius, loc. cit., 15), and moreover, in a more generic way, by St. Cyprian (Epist., 73, 9), and by the anonymous author of the De rebaptismate (ch. 10). It was then sanctioned by the Council of Elvira (can. 38), and, as regards the necessity of completing religious instruction, by can. 47 of the Council of Laodicea (between 343 and 381).
Moreover, having received Baptism at the point of death was often considered as an impediment or irregularity for ordination (cf. the aforementioned letter of Pope Cornelius, n. 17, where there is mention of the derogation that had been made to this prohibition in ordaining Novatian priest). And can. 12 of the Council of Neocaesarea (between 314 and 325), also reported in the Decretum of Gratian (c. 1 D. 57), forbade ordaining as priests those who had been baptized while sick (at least, and this according to the most common interpretation, if their not having been baptized earlier was due to their own fault), unless they had given good proof of themselves and there was a scarcity of personnel; this canon is then found reproduced and reconfirmed in ch. 8 of the Council of Paris of 829 (MGH, Leges, III, II, p. 615), and was then usually extended to all ordinations and also to the first tonsure.
It should be noted finally that sometimes, as a canonical penance, the Church itself refused Baptism until the point of death (can. 68 of the Council of Elvira, for the female catechumens who had committed adultery and had become pregnant by it).
At the beginning of the Middle Ages the designation grabatarii is found, to indicate with a more Latin word those who were previously called clinici (cf. can. 18 of the Council of Auxerre of 573-603, in MGH, Leges, III, I, p. 181; and, even better, ch. 8 of the Council of Paris of 829, cited above).
With the spread of the practice of baptizing infants, the clinici too became ever rarer (but examples of them are found even in mass in mission lands as late as the 18th century: cf. Pastor XVI, I, p. 319); ecclesiastical legislation no longer spoke of them, limiting itself to laying down norms (which are found from the earliest centuries) on the administration of Baptism to the sick and the dying (v. BATTESIMO), and forbidding the ordination of neophytes.