3. The flesh is sealed (_i.e._ signed with the cross), that the soul also
may be protected.
4. The flesh is overshadowed with imposition of hands, that the soul also
may be illuminated by the Spirit.
5. The flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul also may
be filled and sated with God.
6. He also mentions elsewhere that the neophytes, after baptism, were given
a draught of milk and honey. (The candidate for baptism, we further learn
from his tract _On Baptism_, prepared himself by prayer, fasting and
keeping of vigils.)
Before stepping into the font, which both sexes did quite naked, the
neophytes had to renounce the devil, his pomps and angels. Baptisms were
usually conferred at Easter and in the season of Pentecost which ensued,
and by the bishop or by priests and deacons commissioned by him.
Such are the leading features of the rite in Tertullian, and they reappear
in the 4th century in the rites of all the orthodox churches of East and
West; Tertullian testifies that the Marcionites observed the particulars
numbered one to six, which must therefore go back at least to the year 150.
About the year 300, those desirous of being baptized were (a) admitted to
the catechumenate, giving in their names to the bishop. (b) They were
subjected to a scrutiny and prepared, as to-day in the western churches the
young are prepared for confirmation. The catechetic course included
instruction in monotheism, in the folly of polytheism, in the Christian
scheme of salvation, &c. (c) They were again and again exorcized, in order
to rid them of the lingering taint of the worship of demons. (d) Some days
or even weeks beforehand they had the creed recited to them. They might not
write it down, but learned it by heart and had to repeat it just before
baptism. This rite was called in the West the _traditio_ and _redditio_ of
the symbol. The Lord's Prayer was communicated with similar solemnity in
the West [v.03 p.0365] (_traditio precis_). The creed given in Rome was the
so-called Apostles' Creed, originally compiled as we now have it to exclude
Marcionites. In the East various other symbols were used. (e) There
followed an act of unction, made in the East with the oil of the
catechumens blessed only by the priest, in the West with the priest's
saliva applied to the lips and ears. The latter was accompanied by the
following formula: "Effeta, that is, be thou opened unto odour of
sweetness. But do thou flee, O Devil, for the judgment of God is at hand."
(f) Renunciation of Satan. The catechumens turned to the west in
pronouncing this; then turning to the east they recited the creed. (g) They
stepped into the font, but were not usually immersed, and the priest
recited the baptismal formula over them as he poured water, generally
thrice, over their heads. (h) They were anointed all over with chrism or
scented oil, the priest reciting an appropriate formula. Deacons anointed
the males, deaconesses the females. (i) They put on white garments and
often baptismal wreaths or chaplets as well. In some churches they had worn
cowls during the catechumenate, in sign of repentance of their sins. (j)
They received the sign of the cross on the brow; the bishop usually dipped
his thumb in the chrism and said: "In name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
peace be with thee." In laying his hands on their heads the bishop in many
places, especially in the West, called down upon them the sevenfold spirit.
(k) The first communion followed, with milk and honey added. (l) Usually
the water in the font was exorcized, blessed and chrism poured into it,
just before the catechumen entered it. (m) Easter was the usual season of
baptism, but in the East Epiphany was equally favoured. Pentecost was
sometimes chosen. We hear of all three feasts being habitually chosen in
Jerusalem early in the 4th century, but fifty years later baptisms seem to
have been almost confined to Easter. The preparatory fasts of the
catechumens must have helped to establish the Lenten fast, if indeed they
were not its origin.
Certain features of baptism as used during the earlier centuries must now
be noticed. They are the following:--(1) Use of fonts; (2) Status of
baptizer; (3) Immersion, submersion or aspersion; (4) Exorcism; (5)
Baptismal formula and trine immersion; (6) The age of baptism; (7)
Confirmation; (8) _Disciplina arcani_; (9) Regeneration; (10) Relation to
repentance; (11) Baptism for the dead; (12) Use of the name; (13) Origin of
the institution; (14) Analogous rites in other religions.
1. _Fonts._--The New Testament, the _Didach[=e]_, Justin, Tertullian and
other early sources do not enjoin the use of a font, and contemplate in
general the use of running or living water. It was a Jewish rule that in
ablutions the water should run over and away from the parts of the body
washed. In acts of martyrdom, as late as the age of Decius, we read of
baptisms in rivers, in lakes and in the sea. In exceptional cases it
sufficed for a martyr to be sprinkled with his own blood. But a martyr's
death in itself was enough. Nearchus (_c._ 250) quieted the scruples of his
unbaptized friend Polyeuctes, when on the scaffold he asked if it were
possible to attain salvation without baptism, with this answer: "Behold, we
see the Lord, when they brought to Him the blind that they might be healed,
had nothing to say to them about the holy mystery, nor did He ask them if
they had been baptized; but this only, whether they came to Him with true
faith. Wherefore He asked them, Do ye believe that I am able to do this
thing?"
Tertullian (_c._ 200) writes (_de Bapt._ iv.) thus: "It makes no difference
whether one is washed in the sea or in a pool, in a river or spring, in a
lake or a ditch. Nor can we distinguish between those whom John baptized
(_tinxit_) in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber." The
custom of baptizing in the rivers when they are annually blessed at
Epiphany, the feast of the Lord's baptism, still survives in Armenia and in
the East generally. Those of the Armenians and Syrians who have retained
adult baptism use rivers alone at any time of year.
The church of Tyre described by Eusebius (_H.E._ x. 4) seems to have had a
font, and the church order of Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem (_c._ 311-335),
orders the font to be placed in the same building as the altar, behind it
and on the right hand; but the same order lays down that a font is not
essential in cases of illness for "the Holy Spirit is not hindered by want
of a vessel."
2. _Status of Baptizer._--Ignatius (_Smyrn._ viii.) wrote that it is not
lawful to baptize or hold an _agap[=e]_ (Lord's Supper) without the bishop.
So Tertullian (_de Bapt._ xvii.) reserves the right of admitting to baptism
and of conferring it to the _summus sacerdos_ or bishop, Cyprian (_Epist._
lxxiii. 7) to bishops and priests. Later canons continued this restriction;
and although in outlying parts of Christendom deacons claimed the right,
the official churches accorded it to presbyters alone and none but bishops
could perform the confirmation or seal. In the Montanist churches women
baptized, and of this there are traces in the earliest church and in the
Caucasus. Thus St Thekla baptized herself in her own blood, and St Nino,
the female evangelist of Georgia, baptized king Mirian (see "Life of Nino,"
_Studia Biblica_, 1903). In cases of imminent death a layman or a woman
could baptize, and in the case of new-born children it is often necessary.
3. _Immersion or Aspersion._--The _Didach[=e]_ bids us "pour water on the
head," and Christian pictures and sculptures ranging from the 1st to the
10th century represent the baptizand as standing in the water, while the
baptizer pours water from his hand or from a bowl over his head. Even if we
allow for the difficulty of representing complete submersion in art, it is
nevertheless clear that it was not insisted on; nor were the earliest
fonts, to judge from the ruins of them, large and deep enough for such an
usage. The earliest literary notices of baptism are far from conclusive in
favour of submersion, and are often to be regarded as merely rhetorical.
The rubrics of the MSS., it is true, enjoin total immersion, but it only
came into general vogue in the 7th century, "when the growing rarity of
adult baptism made the Gr. word [Greek: baptizo]) patient of an
interpretation that suited that of infants only."[2] The _Key of Truth_,
the manual of the old Armenian Baptists, archaically prescribes that the
penitent admitted into the church shall advance on his knees into the
middle of the water and that the elect one or bishop shall then pour water
over his head.
4. _Exorcism._--The _Didach[=e]_ and Justin merely prescribe fasting, the
use of which was to hurry the exit of evil spirits who, in choosing a
_nidus_ or tenement, preferred a well-fed body to an emaciated one,
according to the belief embodied in the interpolated saying of Matt. xvii.
21: "This kind (of demon) goeth not forth except by prayer and fasting."
The exorcisms tended to become longer and longer, the later the rite. The
English prayer-book excludes them, as it also excludes the renunciation of
the devil and all his angels, his pomps and works. These elements were old,
but scarcely primitive; and the archaic rite of the _Key of Truth_ (see
PAULICIANS) is without them. Basil, in his work _On the Holy Spirit_,
confesses his ignorance of how these and other features of his baptismal
rite had originated. He instances the blessing of the water of baptism, of
the oil of anointing and of the baptizand himself, the use of anointing him
with oil, trine immersion, the formal renunciation of Satan and his angels.
All these features, he says, had been handed down in an unpublished and
unspoken teaching, in a silent and sacramental tradition.
5. _The Baptismal Formula._--The trinitarian formula and trine immersion
were not uniformly used from the beginning, nor did they always go
together. The _Teaching of the Apostles_, indeed, prescribes baptism in the
name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, but on the next page speaks of those
who have been baptized into the name of the Lord--the normal formula of the
New Testament. In the 3rd century baptism in the name of Christ was still
so widespread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to Cyprian of Carthage,
declared it to be valid. From Pope Zachariah (_Ep._ x.) we learn that the
Celtic missionaries in baptizing omitted one or more persons of the
Trinity, and this was one of the reasons why the church of Rome
anathematized [v.03 p.0366] them; Pope Nicholas, however (858-867), in the
_Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum_, allowed baptism to be valid _tantum in
nomine Christi_, as in the Acts. Basil, in his work _On the Holy Spirit_
just mentioned, condemns "baptism into the Lord alone" as insufficient.
Baptism "into the death of Christ" is often specified by the Armenian
fathers as that which alone was essential.
Ursinus, an African monk (in Gennad. _de Scr. Eccl._ xxvii.), Hilary (_de
Synodis_, lxxxv.), the synod of Nemours (A.D. 1284), also asserted that
baptism into the name of Christ alone was valid. The formula of Rome is, "I
baptize thee in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit." In the East,
"so-and-so, the servant of God, is baptized," &c. The Greeks add _Amen_
after each person, and conclude with the words, "Now and ever and to aeons
of aeons, amen."
We first find in Tertullian trine immersion explained from the triple
invocation, _Nam nec semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas
tinguimur_: "Not once, but thrice, for the several names, into the several
persons, are we dipped" (_adv. Prax._ xxvi.). And Jerome says: "We are
thrice plunged, that the one sacrament of the Trinity may be shown forth."
On the other hand, in numerous fathers of East and West, _e.g._ Leo of
Rome, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Theophylactus, Cyril of Jerusalem and
others, trine immersion was regarded as being symbolic of the three days'
entombment of Christ; and in the Armenian baptismal rubric this
interpretation is enjoined, as also in an epistle of Macarius of Jerusalem
addressed to the Armenians (_c._ 330). In Armenian writers this
interpretation is further associated with the idea of baptism into the
death of Christ.
Trine immersion then, as to the origin of which Basil confesses his
ignorance, must be older than either of the rival explanations. These are
clearly aetiological, and invented to explain an existing custom, which the
church had adopted from its pagan medium. For pagan lustrations were
normally threefold; thus Virgil writes (_Aen._ vi. 229): _Ter socios pura
circumtulit unda._ Ovid (_Met._ vii. 189 and _Fasti_, iv. 315), Persius
(ii. 16) and Horace (_Ep._ i. 1. 37) similarly speak of trine lustrations;
and on the last mentioned passage the scholiast Acro remarks: "He uses the
words _thrice purely_, because people in expiating their sins, plunge
themselves in thrice." Such examples of the ancient usage encounter us
everywhere in Greek and Latin antiquity.
6. _Age of Baptism._--In the oldest Greek, Armenian, Syrian and other rites
of baptism, a service of giving a Christian (_i.e._ non-pagan) name, or of
sealing a child on its eighth day, is found. According to it the priest,
either at the door of the church or at the home, blessed the infant, sealed
it (this not in Armenia) with the sign of the cross on its forehead, and
prayed that in due season ([Greek: en kairoi euthetoi]) or at the proper
time (Armenian) it may enter the holy Catholic church. This rite announces
itself as the analogue of Christ's circumcision.
On the fortieth day from birth another rite is prescribed, of _churching_
the child, which is now taken _into_ the church with its mother. Both are
blessed by the clergy, whose petition now is that God "may preserve this
child and cause him to grow up by the unseen grace of His power and made
him worthy _in due season_ of the washing of baptism." As the first rite
corresponds to the circumcision and naming of Jesus, so does the second to
His presentation in the temple. These two rites really begin the
catechumenate or period of instruction in the faith and discipline of the
church. It depended on the individual how long he would wait for
initiation. Whenever he felt inclined, he gave in his name as a candidate.
This was usually done at the beginning of Lent. The bishop and clergy next
examined the candidates one by one, and ascertained from their neighbours
whether they had led such exemplary lives as to be worthy of admission. In
case of strangers from another church certificates of character had to be
produced. If a man seemed unworthy, the bishop dismissed him until another
occasion, when he might be worthier; but if all was satisfactory he was
admitted, in the West as a _competens_ or _asker_, in the East as a [Greek:
photizomenos], _i.e._ one in course of being illumined. Usually two
sponsors made themselves responsible for the past life of the candidate and
for the sincerity of his faith and repentance. The essential thing was that
a man should come to baptism of his own free will and not under compulsion
or from hope of gain. Macarius of Jerusalem (_op. cit._) declares that the
grace of the spirit is given in answer to our prayers and entreaties for
it, and that even a font is not needful, but only the wish and desire for
grace. Tertullian, however, in his work _On Baptism_, holds that even that
is not always enough. Some girls and boys at Carthage had asked to be
baptized, and there were some who urged the granting of their request on
the score that Christ said: "Forbid them not to come unto Me" (Matt. xix.
14), and: "To each that asketh thee give" (Luke vi. 30). Tertullian replies
that "We must beware of giving the holy thing to dogs and of casting pearls
before swine." He cites 1 Tim. v. 22: "Lay not on thy hands hastily, lest
thou share in another's sins." He denies that the precedents of the eunuch
baptized by Philip or of Paul baptized _without hesitation_ by Simon (to
which the other party appealed) were relevant. He dwells on the risk run by
the sponsors, in case the candidates for whose purity they went bail should
fall into sin. It is more expedient, he concludes, to delay baptism. Why
should persons still in the age of innocence be in a hurry to be baptized
and win remission of sins? Let people first learn to feel their need of
salvation, so that we may be sure of giving it only to those who really
want it. Especially let the unmarried postpone it. The risks of the age of
puberty are extreme. Let people have married or be anyhow steeled in
continence before they are admitted to baptism. It would appear from the
homilies of Aphraates (_c._ 340) that in the Syriac church also it was
usual to renounce the married relation after baptism. Cyril of Jerusalem,
in his _Catecheses_, insists on "the longing for the heavenly polity, on
the goodly resolution and attendant hope" of the catechumen (_Pro. Cat._
ch. 1.). If the resolution be not genuine, the bodily washing, he says,
profits nothing. "God asks for nothing else except a goodly determination.
Say not: How can my sins be wiped out? I tell thee, by willing, by
believing" (ch. viii.). So again (_Cat._ 1. ch. iii.) "God gives not his
holy treasures to the dogs; but where he sees the goodly determination,
there he bestows the seed of salvation.... Those then who would receive the
spiritual saving seal have need of a determination and will of their
own.... Grace has need of faith on our part." In Jerusalem, therefore,
whither believers flocked from all over Christendom to be buried, the
official point of view as late as A.D. 350 was entirely that of Tertullian.
Tertullian's scruples were not long respected in Carthage, for in Cyprian's
works (_c._ 250.) we already hear of new-born infants being baptized. In
the same region of Africa, however, Monica would not let her son Augustine
be baptized in boyhood, though he clamoured to be. She was a conservative.
In the Greek world thirty was a usual age in the 4th century for persons to
be baptized, in imitation of Christ. It is still the age preferred by the
Baptists of Armenia. But it was often delayed until the deathbed, for the
primitive idea that mortal sins committed after baptism were sins against
the Holy Spirit and unforgivable, still influenced men, and survived among
the Cathars up to the 14th century. The fathers, however, of the 4th
century emphasized already the danger of deferring the rite until men fall
into mortal sickness, when they may be unconscious or paralysed or
otherwise unable to profess their faith and repentance, or to swallow the
viaticum. Gregory Theologus therefore (_c._ 340) suggests the age of three
years as suitable for baptism, because by then a child is old enough, if
not to understand the questions put to him, at any rate to speak and make
the necessary responses. Gregory sanctions the baptism of infants only
where there is imminent danger of death. "It is better that they should be
sanctified without their own sense of it than that they pass away unsealed
and uninitiated." And he justifies his view by this, that circumcision,
which foreshadowed the Christian seal ([Greek: sphragis]), was imposed on
the eighth day on those who as yet had no use of reason. He also urges the
analogue of "the anointing of the doorposts, which preserved the first-born
by things that have no sense." On such grounds was justified the transition
of a baptism which began as a spontaneous act of [v.03 p.0367]
self-consecration into an _opus operatum_. How long after this it was
before infant baptism became normal inside the Byzantine church, we do not
exactly know, but it was natural that mothers should insist on their
children being liberated from Satan and safeguarded from demons as soon as
might be. The change came more quickly in Latin than in Greek Christendom,
and very slowly indeed in the Armenian and Georgian churches. Augustine's
insistence on original sin, a doctrine never quite accepted in his sense in
the East, hurried on the change.
7. _Confirmation._--In the West, however, the sacrament has been saved from
becoming merely magical by the rite of confirmation or of reception of the
Spirit being separated from the baptism of regeneration and reserved for an
adult age. The English church confirms at fifteen or sixteen; the Roman
rather earlier. The catechetic course, which formerly preceded the complete
rite, now intervenes between its two halves; and the sponsors who formerly
attested the worthiness of the candidate and received him up as _anadochi_
out of the font, have become god-parents, who take the baptismal vows
vicariously for infants who cannot answer for themselves. In the East, on
the contrary, the complete rite is read over the child, who is thus
confirmed from the first. The Roman church already foreshadowed the change
and gave a peculiar salience to confirmation as early as the 3rd century,
when it decreed that persons already baptized by heretics, but reverting to
the church should not be baptized over again, but only have hands laid on
them. It was otherwise in Africa and the East. Here they insisted in such
cases on a repetition of the entire rite, baptism and confirmation
together. The Cathars (_q.v._) of the middle ages discarded water baptism
altogether as being a Jewish rite, but retained the laying on of hands with
the _traditio precis_ as sufficient initiation. This they called the
spiritual baptism, and interpreted Matt. xxviii. 19, as a command to
practise it, and not water baptism.
8. _Disciplina arcani._--The communication to the candidates of the Creed
and Lord's Prayer was a solemn rite. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his instruction
of the catechumens, urges them to learn the Creed by heart, but not write
it down. On no account must they divulge it to unbaptized persons. The same
rule already meets us in Clement of Alexandria before the year 200. In time
this rule gave rise to what is called the _Disciplina arcani._ Following
the fashion of the pagan mysteries in which men were only permitted to gaze
upon the sacred objects after minute lustrations and scrupulous
purifications, Christian teachers came to represent the Creed, Lord's
Prayer and Lord's Supper as mysteries to be guarded in silence and never
divulged either to the unbaptized or to the pagans. And yet Justin Martyr,
Tertullian and other apologists of the 2nd century had found nothing to
conceal from the eye and ear of pagan emperors and their ministers. In the
3rd century this love of mystification reached the pitch of hiding even the
gospels from the unclean eyes of pagans. Probably Mgr. Pierre Battifol is
correct in supposing that the _Disciplina arcani_ was more or less of a
make-believe, a bit of belletristic trifling on the part of the
over-rhetorical Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries.[3] It is in them that
the atmosphere of mystery attains a maximum of intensity. They clearly felt
themselves called upon to out-trump the pagan _Mystae_. Yet it is
inconceivable that men and women should spend years, even whole lives, as
catechumens within the pale of the church, and really remain ignorant all
the time of the Trinitarian Epiclesis used in baptism, of the Creed, and
above all of the Lord's Prayer. Wherever the _Disciplina arcani_, _i.e._
the obligation to keep secret the formula of the threefold name, the creed
based on it and the Lord's Prayer, was taken seriously, it was akin to the
scruple which exists everywhere among primitive religionists against
revealing to the profane the knowledge of a powerful name or magic formula.
The name of a deity was often kept secret and not allowed to be written
down, as among the Jews.
9. _Regeneration._--The idea of regeneration seldom occurs in the New
Testament, and perhaps not at all in connexion with baptism; for in the
conversation with Nicodemus, John iii. 3-8, the words "of water and" in v.
5 offend the context, spiritual re-birth alone being insisted upon in vv.
3, 6, 7 and 8; moreover, Justin Martyr, who cites v. 5, seems to omit them.
Nor is there any mention of water in ch. i. 13, where, according to the
oldest text, Christ is represented as having been born or begotten not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
In 1 Pet. i. 3, it is said of the saints that God the Father begat them
anew unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus, and in v. 23 that
they have been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible through the word of God. But here again it is not clear that
the writer has in view water baptism or any rite at all as the means and
occasion of regeneration. In the conversation with Nicodemus we seem to
overhear a protest against the growing tendency of the last years of the
1st century to substitute formal sacraments for the free afflatus of the
spirit, and to "crib, cabin and confine" the gift of prophecy.
The passage where re-birth is best put forward in connexion with baptism is
Luke iii. 22, where ancient texts, including the _Gospel of the Hebrews_,
read, "Thou art my beloved Son, this day have I begotten Thee." These words
were taken in the sense that Jesus was then re-born of the Spirit an
adoptive Son of God and Messiah; and with this reading is bound up the
entire adoptionist school of Christology. It apparently underlies the
symbolizing of Christ as a fish in the art of the catacombs, and in the
literature of the 2nd century. Tertullian prefaces with this idea his work
on baptism. _Nos pisciculi secundum_ [Greek: ICHTHUN] _nostrum Jesum
Christum in aqua nascimur_. "We little fishes, after the example of our
_Fish_ Jesus Christ, are _born_ in the water." So about the year 440 the
Gaulish poet Orientius wrote of Christ; _Piscis natus aquis, auctor
baptismatis ipse est_. "A fish born of the waters is himself originator of
baptism."
But before his time and within a hundred years of Tertullian this symbolism
in its original significance had become heretical, and the orthodox were
thrown back on another explanation of it. This was that the word [Greek:
ICHTHUS] is made up of the letters which begin the Greek words meaning
"Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." An entire mythology soon grew up
around the idea of re-birth. The font was viewed as the womb of the virgin
mother church, who was in some congregations, for example, in the early
churches of Gaul, no abstraction, but a divine aeon watching over and
sympathizing with the children of her womb, the recipient even of hymns of
praise and humble supplications. Other mythoplastic growths succeeded, one
of which must be noticed. The sponsors or _anadochi_, who, after the
introduction of infant baptism came to be called god-fathers and
god-mothers, were really in a spiritual relation to the children they took
up out of the font. This relation was soon by the canonists identified with
the blood-tie which connects real parents with their offspring, and the
corollary drawn that children, who in baptism had the same god-parent, were
real brothers and sisters, who might not marry either each the other or
real children of the said god-parent. The reformed churches have set aside
this fiction, but in the Latin and Eastern churches it has created a
distinct and very powerful marriage taboo.
10. _Relation to Repentance._--Baptism justified the believer, that is to
say, constituted him a saint whose past sins were abolished. Sin after
baptism excluded the sinner afresh from the divine grace and from the
sacraments. He fell back into the status of a catechumen, and it was much
discussed from the 2nd century onwards whether he could be restored to the
church at all, and, if so, how. A rite was devised, called _exhomologesis_,
by which, after a fresh term of repentance, marked by austerities more
strict than any Trappist monk imposes on himself to-day, the persons lapsed
from grace could re-enter the church. In effect this rite was a repetition
of baptism, the water of the font alone being omitted. Such restoration
could in the earlier church only be effected once. A second lapse from the
state of grace entailed perpetual exclusion from the sacraments, the means
of salvation. As has been remarked above, the terror of post-baptismal sin
and the fact that only one restoration was allowable influenced many as
late as the 4th century to remain catechumens all their lives, and, like
Constantine, to receive baptism on the [v.03 p.0368] deathbed alone. The
same scruples endured among the medieval Cathars. (See PENANCE and
NOVATIANUS.)
11. _Baptism for the Dead._--Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. 29, glances at this as an
established practice familiar to those whom he addresses. Three
explanations are possible: (1) The saints before they were quickened or
made alive together with Christ, were dead through their trespasses and
sins. In baptism they were buried with Christ and rose, like Him, from the
dead. We can, therefore, paraphrase v. 29 thus: "Else what shall they do
which are baptized for their dead selves?" &c. It is in behalf of his own
sinful, _i.e._ dead self, that the sinner is baptized and receives eternal
life. (2) Contact with the dead entailed a pollution which lasted at least
a day and must be washed away by ablutions, before a man is re-admitted to
religious cult. This was the rule among the Jews. Is it possible that the
words "for the dead" signify "because of contact with the dead"? (3) Both
these explanations are forced, and it is more probable that by a
make-believe common in all religions, and not unknown in the earliest
church, the sins of dead relatives, about whose salvation their survivors
were anxious, were transferred into living persons, who assumed for the
nonce their names and were baptized in their behalf, so in vicarious wise
rendering it possible for the sins of the dead to be washed away. The
Mormons have this rite. The idea of transferring sin into another man or
into an animal, and so getting it purged through him or it, was widespread
in the age of Paul and long afterwards. Chrysostom says that the
substitutes were put into the beds of the deceased, and assuming the voice
of the dead asked for baptism and remission of sins. Tertullian and others
attest this custom among the followers of Cerinthus and Marcion.
12. _Use of the Name._--In Acts iv. 7, the rulers and priests of the Jews
summon Peter and inquire by what power or in what name he has healed the
lame. Here a belief is assumed which pervades ancient magic and religion.
Only so far as we can get away from the modern view that a person's name is
a trifling accident, and breathe the atmosphere which broods over ancient
religions, can we understand the use of the name in baptisms, exorcisms,
prayers, purifications and consecrations. For a name carried with it, for
those who were so blessed as to be acquainted with it, whatever power and
influence its owner wielded in heaven or on earth or under the earth. A vow
or prayer formulated in or through a certain name was fraught with the
prestige of him whose name it was. Thus the psalmist addressing Jehovah
cries (Ps. liv. 1): "Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me in Thy
might." And in Acts iii. 16, it is the name itself which renders strong and
whole the man who believed therein. In Acts xviii. 15, the Jews assail Paul
because he has trusted and appealed to the name of a Messiah whom they
regard as an overthrower of the law; for Paul believed that God had
invested Jesus with a name above all names, potent to constrain and
overcome all lesser powers, good or evil, in heaven or earth or under
earth. Baptism then in the name or through the name or into the name of
Christ placed the believer under the influence and tutelage of Christ's
personality, as before he was in popular estimation under the influence of
stars and horoscope. Nay, more, it imported that personality into him,
making him a limb or member of Christ's body, and immortal as Christ was
immortal. Nearly all the passages in which the word _name_ is used in the
New Testament become more intelligible if it be rendered _personality_. In
Rev. xi. 13, the revisers are obliged to render it by _persons_, and should
equally have done so in iii. 4: "Thou hast a few _names_ (i.e. persons) in
Sardis which did not defile their garments." (See CONSECRATION.)
13. _Origin of Christian Baptism._--When it is asked, Was this a
continuance of the baptism of John or was it merely the baptism of
proselytes?--a distinction is implied between the two latter which was not
always real. In relation to the publicans and soldiers who, smitten with
remorse, sought out John in the wilderness, his baptism was a purification
from their past and so far identical with the proselyte's bath; but so far
as it raised them up to be children unto Abraham and filled them with the
Messianic hope, it advanced them further than that bath could do, and
assured them of a place in the kingdom of God, soon to be
established--this, without imposing circumcision on them; for the ordinary
proselyte was circumcised as well as baptized. For the Jews, however, who
came to John, his baptism could not have the significance of the
proselyte's baptism, but rather accorded with another baptism undergone by
Jews who wished to consecrate their lives by stricter study and practice of
the law. So Epictetus remarks that he only really understands Judaism who
knows "the baptized Jew" ([Greek: ton bebammenon]). We gather from Acts
xix. 4, that John had merely baptized in the name of the coming Messiah,
without identifying him with Jesus of Nazareth. The apostolic age supplied
this identification, and the normal use during it seems to have been "into
Christ Jesus," or "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," or "of Jesus
Christ" simply, or "of the Lord Jesus Christ." Paul explains these formulas
as being equivalent to "into the death of Christ Jesus," as if the faithful
were in the rite raised from death into everlasting life. The _likeness_ of
the baptismal ceremony with Christ's death and resurrection ensured a real
union with him of the believer who underwent the ceremony, according to the
well-known principle _in sacris simulata pro veris accipi_.
But opinion was still fluid about baptism in the apostolic age, especially
as to its connexion with the descent of the Spirit. The Spirit falls on the
disciples and others at Pentecost without any baptism at all, and Paul
alone of the apostles was baptized. So far was the afflatus of the Spirit
from being conditioned by the rite, that in Acts x. 44 ff., the gift of the
Spirit was first poured out upon the Gentiles who heard the word preached
so that they spoke with tongues, and it was only after these manifestations
that they were baptized with water in the name of Jesus Christ at the
instance of Peter. We can divine from this passage why Paul was so eager
himself to preach the word, and left it to others to baptize.
But as a rule the repentant underwent baptism in the name of Christ Jesus,
and washed away their sins before hands were laid upon them unto reception
of the Spirit. Apollos, who only knew the baptism of John (Acts xviii. 24),
needed only instruction in the prophetic _gnosis_ at the hands of Priscilla
and Aquila in order to become a full disciple. On the other hand, in Acts
xix. 1-7, twelve disciples, for such they were already accounted, who had
been baptized into John's baptism, _i.e._ into the name of him that should
follow John, but had not even heard of the Holy Spirit, are at Paul's
instance re-baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Paul himself
lays hands on them and the Holy Ghost comes upon them, so that they speak
with tongues and prophecy. Not only do we hear of these varieties of
practice, but also of the laying on of hands together with prayer as a
substantive rite unconnected with baptism. The seven deacons were so
ordained. And this rite of laying on hands, which was in antiquity a
recognized way of transmitting the occult power or virtue of one man into
another, is used in Acts ix. 17, by Ananias, in order that Paul may recover
his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Saul and Barnabas equally are
separated for a certain missionary work by imposition of hands with prayer
and fasting, and are so sent forth by the Holy Ghost. It was also a way of
healing the sick (Acts xxviii. 8), and as such accompanied by anointing
with oil (Jas. v. 14). The Roman church then had early precedents for
separating confirmation from baptism. It would also appear that in the
primitive age confirmation and ordination were one and the same rite; and
so they continued to be among the dissident believers of the middle ages,
who, however, often dropped the water rite altogether. (See CATHARS.) More
than one sect of the 2nd century rejected water baptism on the ground that
knowledge of the truth in itself makes us free, and that external material
washing of a perishable body cannot contribute to the illumination of the
inner man, complete without it. St Paul himself recognizes (1 Cor. vii. 14)
that children, one of whose parents only is a believer, are _ipso facto_
not unclean, but _holy_. Even an unbelieving husband or wife is
_sanctified_ by a believing partner. If we remember the force of the words
[Greek: hagios hagiazo] (cf. 1 Cor. [v.03 p.0369] i. 2), here used of
children and parents, we realize how far off was St Paul from the positions
of Augustine.
The question arises whether Jesus Himself instituted baptism as a condition
of entry into the Messianic kingdom. The fourth gospel (iii. 22, and iv. 1)
asserts that Jesus Himself baptized on a greater scale than the Baptist,
but immediately adds that Jesus Himself baptized not, but only His
disciples, as if the writer felt that he had too boldly contradicted the
older tradition of the other gospels. Nor in these is it recorded that the
disciples baptized during their Master's lifetime; indeed the very contrary
is implied. There remain two texts in which the injunction to baptize is
attributed to Jesus, namely, Mark xvi. 16 and Matt. xxviii. 18-20. Of these
the first is part of an appendix headed "of Ariston the elder" in an old
Armenian codex, and taken perhaps from the lost compilations of Papias; as
to the other text, it has been doubted by many critics, _e.g._ Neander,
Harnack, Dr Armitage Robinson and James Martineau, whether it represents a
real utterance of Christ and not rather the liturgical usage of the region
in which the first gospel was compiled. The circumstance, unknown to these
critics when they made their conjectures, that Eusebius Pamphili, in nearly
a score of citations, substitutes the words "in My Name" for the words
"baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost," renders their conjectures superfluous. Aphraates also in citing the
verse substitutes "and they shall believe in Me"--a paraphrase of "in My
Name." The first gospel thus falls into line with the rest of the New
Testament.
14. _Analogous Rites in other Religions_ (see also PURIFICATION).--The
Fathers themselves were the first to recognize that "the devil too had his
sacraments," and that the Eleusinian, Isiac, Mithraic and other _mystae_
used baptism in their rites of initiation. But it is not to be supposed
that the Christians borrowed from these or from any Gentile source any
essential features of their baptismal rites. Baptism was long before the
advent of Jesus imposed on proselytes, and existed inside Judaism itself.
It has been remarked that the developed ceremony of baptism, with its
threefold renunciation, resembles the ceremony of Roman law known as
_emancipatio_, by which the _patria potestas_ (or power of life and death
of the father over his son) was extinguished. Under the law of the XII.
Tables the father lost it, if he three times sold his child. This suggested
a regular procedure, according to which the father sold his son thrice into
_mancipium_, while after each sale the fictitious vendee enfranchized the
son, by _manumissio vindicta_, _i.e._ by laying his rod (_vindicta_) on the
slave and claiming him as free (_vindicatio in libertatem_). Then the owner
also laid his rod on the slave, declaring his intention to enfranchise him,
and the _praetor_ by his _addictor_ confirmed the owner's declaration. The
third _manumission_ thus gave to the son and slave his freedom. It is
possible that this common ceremony of Roman law suggested the triple
_abrenunciatio_ of Satan. Like the legal ceremony, baptism freed the
believer from one (Satan) who, by the mere fact of the believer's birth,
had power of death over him. And as the legal manumission dissolved a son's
previous agnatic relationships, so, too, the person baptized gave up father
and mother, &c., and became one of a society of brethren the bond between
whom was not physical but spiritual. The idea of adoption in baptism as a
son and heir of God was almost certainly taken by Paul from Roman law.
The ceremony of turning to the west three times with renunciation of the
Evil One, then to the east, is exactly paralleled in a rite of purification
by water common among the Malays and described by Skeat in his book on
Malay magic. If the Malay rite is not derived through Mahommedanism from
Christianity, it is a remarkable example of how similar psychological
conditions can produce almost identical rites.
The idea of spiritual re-birth, so soon associated with baptism, was of
wide currency in ancient religions. It is met with in Philo of Alexandria
and was familiar to the Jews. Thus the proselyte is said in the Talmud to
resemble a child and must bathe in the name of God. The Jordan is declared
in 2 Kings v. 10 to be a cleansing medium, and Naaman's cure was held to
pre-figure Christian baptism. Jerome relates that the Jew who taught him
Hebrew communicated to him a teaching of the Rabbi Baraciba, that the inner
man who rises up in us at the fourteenth year after puberty (_i.e._ at 29)
is better than the man who is born from the mother's womb.
In a Paris papyrus edited by Albr. Dieterich (Leipzig, 1903) under the
title of _Eine Mithrasliturgie_, an ancient mystic describes his re-birth
in impressive language. In a prayer addressed to "First birth of my birth,
first beginning (_or_ principle) of my beginning, first spirit of the
spirit in me," he prays "to be restored to his deathless birth (_genesis_),
albeit he is let and hindered by his underlying nature, to the end that
according to the pressing need and spur of his longing he may gaze upon the
deathless principle with deathless spirit, through the deathless water,
through the solid and the air; that he may be re-born through reason (_or_
idea), that he may be consecrated, and the holy spirit breathe in him, that
he may admire the holy fire, that he may behold the abyss of the Orient,
dread water, and that he may be heard of the quickening and circumambient
ether; for this day he is about to gaze on the revealed reality with
deathless eyes; a mortal born of mortal womb, he has been enhanced in
excellence by the might of the All-powerful and by the right hand of the
Deathless one," &c.
This is but one specimen of the pious ejaculations, which in the first
centuries were rising from the lips of thousands of _mystae_, in Egypt,
Asia Minor, Italy and elsewhere. The idea of re-birth was in the air; it
was the very keynote of all the solemn initiations and mysteries--Mythraic,
Orphic, Eleusinian--through which repentant pagans secured pardon and
eternal bliss. Yet there is not much evidence that the church directly
borrowed many of its ceremonies or interpretations from outside sources.
They for the most part originated among the believers, and not improbably
the outside cults borrowed as much from the church as it from them.
AUTHORITIES.--The following ancient works are recommended: Tertullian, _De
Baptismo_ (edition with introd. J. M. Lupton, 1909); Cyril of Jerusalem,
_Catecheses_; Basil, _De Spiritu Sancto; Constitutiones Apostolicae_;
Gregory Nazianzen, _Orat. 40_; Gregory Nyss., _Oratio in eos qui differunt
baptismum; Sacramentary_ of Serapion of Thmuis; Augustine, _De Baptismo
contra Donatistas_; Jac. Goar, _Rituale Graecorum_ (gives the current Greek
rites); F. C. Conybeare, _Rituale Armenorum_ (the oldest forms of Armenian
and Greek rites); Gerard G. Vossius, _De Baptismo_ (Amsterdam, 1648);
Edmond Martene, _De Ant. Ecclesiae Ritibus_ (gives Western rites) (Bassani,
1788). The modern literature is infinite; perhaps the most exhaustive works
are W. F. Hoefling, _Das Sacrament der Taufe_ (Erlangen, 1859): Jos.
Bingham's _Antiquities_ (London, 1834), and W. Wall, _On Infant Baptism_
(London, 1707); J. Anrich, _Das antike Mysterienwesen_ (Goettingen, 1894),
details the corresponding rites of the Greek mysteries, also A. Dieterich,
_Eine Mithras Liturgie_ (Leipzig, 1903); J. C. Suicer, _Thesaurus, sub voce
[Greek: baptisma]_; Ad. Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_ (Freiburg im Br. 1894);
L. Duchesne, _Origines du culte chretien_ (Paris, 1898); Mgr. P. Batiffol,
_Etudes historiques_ (Paris, 1904); J. C. W. Augusti, _Denkwuerdigkeiten_
(Leipzig, 1829-1831); _Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica_ by Dom Cabrol and Dom
Leclercq (Paris, 1902) (a summary of all liturgical passages given in the
early Fathers); Corblet, _Histoire du sacrement de bapteme_ (2 vols. Paris,
1881-1882).
(F. C. C.)
[1] James Darmesteter, in "Introd. to the Vendidad," in the _Sacred Books
of the East_.
[2] Rogers' essay on Baptism and Christian Archaeology in _Studia Biblica_,
vol. v.
[3] _Etudes historiques, Essai sur Disc. arc._ (Paris 1902).
BAPTISTE, NICOLAS ANSELME (1761-1835), French actor, was born in Bordeaux
on the 18th of June 1761, the elder son of Joseph Francois Anselme, a
popular actor. His mother played leading parts in tragedy, and both his
parents enjoyed the protection of Voltaire and the friendship of Lekain. It
was probably under the auspices of the latter that Nicolas Anselme made his
first appearance as de Belloy in _Gaston et Bayard_; and shortly
afterwards, under the name of Baptiste, he made a contract to play young
lover parts at Arras, where he also appeared in opera and even in
pantomime. From Rouen, where he had three successful years, his reputation
spread to Paris and he was summoned to the new theatre which the comedian
Langlois-Courcelles had just founded, and where he succeeded, not only in
making an engagement for himself, but in bringing all his family, father,
mother, wife and brother. They were thus distinguished in the playbills:
Baptiste, _aine_, Baptiste _pere_, Baptiste _cadet_, Madame Baptiste
_mere_, Madame Baptiste _bru_. This resulted in the pun of calling a play
in which they all appeared _une piece de baptistes_. Nicolas soon obtained
the public favour, specially in La Martelliere's mediocre _Robert, chef de
[v.03 p.0370] brigands_, and as Count Almaviva, in Beaumarchais' _La Mere
coupable_. His success in this was so great that the directors of the
Theatre de la Republique--who had already secured Talma, Dugazon and Madame
Vestris--hastened to obtain his services, and, in order to get him at once
(1793), paid the 20,000 francs forfeit which he was obliged to surrender on
breaking his contract. Later he, as well as his younger brother, became
_societaire_. Nicolas took all the leading parts in comedy and tragedy. As
he grew older his special _forte_ lay in noble fathers. After a brilliant
career of thirty-five years of uninterrupted service, he retired in 1828.
But, after the revolution of 1830, when the Theatre Francais was in great
straits, the brothers Baptiste came to the rescue, reappeared on the stage
and helped to bring back its prosperity. The elder died in Paris on the 1st
of December 1835. The younger brother, Paul Eustache Anselme, known as
BAPTISTE _cadet_ (1765-1839), was also a comedian of great talent, and had
a long and brilliant career at the Comedie Francaise, where he made his
_debut_ in 1792 in _L'Amour et l'interet_.
BAPTISTERY (_Baptisterium_, in the Greek Church [Greek: photisterion]), the
separate hall or chapel, connected with the early Christian Church, in
which the catechumens were instructed and the sacrament of baptism
administered. The name baptistery is also given to a kind of chapel in a
large church, which serves the same purpose. The baptistery proper was
commonly a circular building, although sometimes it had eight and sometimes
twelve sides, and consisted of an ante-room ([Greek: proaulios oikos])
where the catechumens were instructed, and where before baptism they made
their confession of faith, and an inner apartment where the sacrament was
administered. In the inner apartment the principal object was the baptismal
font ([Greek: kolumbethra], or _piscina_), in which those to be baptized
were immersed thrice. Three steps led down to the floor of the font, and
over it was suspended a gold or silver dove; while on the walls were
commonly pictures of the scenes in the life of John the Baptist. The font
was at first always of stone, but latterly metals were often used.
Baptisteries belong to a period of the church when great numbers of adult
catechumens were baptized, and when immersion was the rule. We find little
or no trace of them before Constantine made Christianity the state
religion, _i.e._ before the 4th century; and as early as the 6th century
the baptismal font was built in the porch of the church and then in the
church itself. After the 9th century few baptisteries were built, the most
noteworthy of later date being those at Pisa, Florence, Padua, Lucca and
Parma. Some of the older baptisteries were very large, so large that we
hear of councils and synods being held in them. It was necessary to make
them large, because in the early Church it was customary for the bishop to
baptize all the catechumens in his diocese (and so baptisteries are
commonly found attached to the cathedral and not to the parish churches),
and also because the rite was performed only thrice in the year. (See
BAPTISM.) During the months when there were no baptisms the baptistery
doors were sealed with the bishop's seal. Some baptisteries were divided
into two parts to separate the sexes; sometimes the church had two
baptisteries, one for each sex. A fireplace was often provided to warm the
neophytes after immersion. Though baptisteries were forbidden to be used as
burial-places by the council of Auxerre (578) they were not uncommonly used
as such. Many of the early archbishops of Canterbury were buried in the
baptistery there. Baptisteries, we find from the records of early councils,
were first built and used to correct the evils arising from the practice of
private baptism. As soon as Christianity made such progress that baptism
became the rule, and as soon as immersion gave place to sprinkling, the
ancient baptisteries were no longer necessary. They are still in general
use, however, in Florence and Pisa. The baptistery of the Lateran must be
the earliest ecclesiastical building still in use. A large part of it
remains as built by Constantine. The central area, where is the basin of
the font, is an octagon around which stand eight porphyry columns, with
marble capitals and entablature of classical form; outside these are an
ambulatory and outer walls forming a larger octagon. Attached to one side,
towards the Lateran basilica, is a fine porch with two noble porphyry
columns and richly carved capitals, bases and entablatures. The circular
church of Santa Costanza, also of the 4th century, served as a baptistery
and contained the tomb of the daughter of Constantine. This is a remarkably
perfect structure with a central dome, columns and mosaics of classical
fashion. Two side niches contain the earliest known mosaics of
distinctively Christian subjects. In one is represented Moses receiving the
Old Law, in the other Christ delivers to St Peter the New Law--a charter
sealed with the X P monogram.
Another baptistery of the earliest times has recently been excavated at
Aquileia. Ruins of an early baptistery have also been found at Salona. At
Ravenna exist two famous baptisteries encrusted with fine mosaics, one of
them built in the middle of the 5th century, and the other in the 6th. To
the latter date also belongs a large baptistery decorated with mosaics at
Naples.
In the East the metropolitan baptistery at Constantinople still stands at
the side of the mosque which was once the patriarchal church of St Sophia;
and many others, in Syria, have been made known to us by recent researches,
as also have some belonging to the churches of North Africa. In France the
most famous early baptistery is St Jean at Poitiers, and other early
examples exist at Riez, Frejus and Aix. In England, a detached baptistery
is known to have been associated with the cathedral of Canterbury.
See Hefele's _Concilien_, _passim_; Du Cange, _Glossary_, article
"Baptisterium"; Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ x. 4; Bingham's _Antiquities of the
Christian Church_, book xi.
(W. R. L.)
BAPTISTS, a body of Christians, distinguished, as their name imports, from
other denominations by the view they hold respecting the ordinance of
baptism (_q.v._). This distinctive view, common and peculiar to all
Baptists, is that baptism should be administered to believers only. The
mode of administration of the ordinance has not always been the same, and
some Baptists (_e.g._ the Mennonites) still practise baptism by pouring or
sprinkling, but among those who will here be styled _modern_ Baptists, the
mode of administration is also distinctive, to wit, immersion. It should,
however, be borne in mind that immersion is not peculiar to the modern
Baptists. It has always been recognized by Paedobaptists as a legitimate
mode, and is still practised to the exclusion of other modes by a very
large proportion of paedobaptist Christendom (_e.g._ the Orthodox Eastern
Church). We shall distinguish here between two main groups of Baptists in
Europe; the Anabaptists, now practically extinct, and the modern Baptists
whose churches are in nearly every European country and in all other
countries where white men reside.