Does the Bible discuss the baptism of infants (or children young enough to not make the choice themselves)? If not, where did the tradition of baptizing infants come from
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The notion that all Christian traditions must revolve around the Bible ignores that the Hebrew Bible is relating to the customs, histories, and writings of a group of tribal peoples of Palestine and the Christian Bible is written in shoddy marketplace Greek. Hardly the foundation from which to derive all sources of Divine Revelation in the sense that the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Protestants do. That's why the Catholics and Orthodox quite sensibly embrace Tradition.
Infant Baptism arose from the idea that children died in carload lots in ancient times and since baptism cleansed of sin, people wanted each child baptized so that if they died before becoming a Confirmed member of the Church they would be accepted into Heaven.
I believe you are correct; to elaborate a bit, while some Christians suspected that unbaptized infants would go to heaven, they believed they'd be much better off baptized anyway; one analogy was that the unbaptized would be "blind" to some of the delights of heaven, while the baptized would "see" everything there. This is all tied into "baptism as illumination" which is a prominent theme throughout the life of the Church from the beginning.
Right. Those born into the Faith tended to be baptized early on, those who converted tended to get around the baptism cleanses of sin by being baptized on their deathbed, like the Emperor Constantine.
I believe Emperor Constantine did embrace the Faith. I believe he was also intelligent enough to realize that trying to outright obliterate paganism with the power of the state, like Emperor Theodosius did, was not permissible at the time. Hence why the Edict of Milan only made Christianity a religio licita instead of a religio res publica.
Infant Baptism arose from the idea that children died in carload lots in ancient times and since baptism cleansed of sin, people wanted each child baptized so that if they died before becoming a Confirmed member of the Church they would be accepted into Heaven.
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