(1) Cleanliness per se may be set aside. It is possible to be cleanly with less elaborate apparatus ; and the majority in OT (or even NT) times would have ' neither privacy nor inclination ' for bathing. (2) Luxury in the classical world (diffused even among the people, under Koman influence, at least subsequently to NT times) included plunge-baths and much besides. When (ireek culture tried to in- vade Judaa under Antiochus Epiphanes (e. 168 B.C. ), it doubtless brought Greek batliing establishments with it. And when Western culture came in resist- lessly under Herod (B.C. 40-4), it must have intro- duced the practice in many places ; cf. an anecdote of Gamaliel II. in Schiirer, HJP II. i. 18, 53. (3) Religious observance, under OT law, according to Professor Kennedy (art. 'Bath, Bathing' in Hastings' DB i. 257''), required a partial washing, or a washing tvith water rather than bathing. ' The Heb. of the OT does not distinguish ' between bath- ing and a partial washing. ' Both are expressed by Y^l-' However, Schiirer insists that Talmudic usage codifies the custom which had long been in vogue ; and Kennedy grants that ' the bath became,' even ' for the laity ... an all-important factor in the religious life.' Nay, proselyte baptism must be earlier than the NT, and it requires a bath, tebilah (tubal is used in one unambiguous OT passage, the miracle of Naaman's cleansing, 2 K 5"). We hear also of daily bathing anion" the Essenes (Jos. BJ II. viii. 5). And, finally, John's baptism was by immersion (as was that also of the early Christian Chuich, Ac 8^8, Ro &■ % (4) The use of mineral baths for health's sake is always popular. There are remains of such baths near Tiberias ; those at Gadara and at Callirrhoe were very celebrated in ancient times. Jn S^'' gives us an example of such bathing, though Christ's miracle dispensed with the waters of Bethesda. In another passage (Jn 9') we have a partial washing (at the Pool of Siloam) as a stage towards completion of a miracle.
Thus bathing was well enough known in NT times. Our Lord's language in Jn 13'" turns on the distinction between bathing (the whole iier- son) and washing (the feet). Quite conceivably a Christian sacrament might have grown out of this incident. Nothing is more impressive at Oberam- mergau than the threefold journey of the Christus round the company — so it is represented — minister- ing to the disciples (1) the feet-wasliing, (2) the bread, (3) the cup. See, further, artt. Bason, Purification. Robert Mackintosh.
BATH KOL.— See Voice.
BEACH.— The KV tr. of aly^aU^, which the AV
176
BEAM AND ]\IOTE
renders ' shore.' In the Gospels the word occurs only in Mt 13"- •" and Jn 21^. In classical Greek alyia\6t usually, though not always, means that part of the seashore on wliich the tide ebbs and flows, and in the above passages in the Gospels it stands for the sandy or pebbly part of the shore of the Lake of Galilee waslied by the waves. The derivation is doubtful, but is probably from eiyirfij.i and fiXs, i.e. the place where the sea breaks. The greater part of the western margin of tlie Lake of Galilee is girdled with a belt of ' silver strand ' composed of pebbles and sand mingled witli delicate white shells. On such a beach, if the traditional scene be correct, tlie multitude was gathered listening as Jesus spoke from the l>oat; and on such a 'beach' He stood waiting for the disciples to come ashore in the morning, when for ' the third time he was manifested to them after that he was risen from the dead' (Jn 21"). J. Cromarty Smith.
BEAM AND MOTE The proverb of the ' beam '
and the 'mote' occurs in Mt 1^-^ and in the parallel passage Lk 6"- *-. It condemns the man who looks at the ' mote ' in another's eye while a ' beam ' unconsidered is in his own ; and it points out the futility and hypocrisy of the attempt to <ast out the mote from the eye of a brother while t he beam remains in one's own eye. The proverb appears to have been current in various forms among Jews and Arabs. Tlioluck, in his Com- mentary on'the Sermon on the Mount, gives several illustrations ; e.g. from the Bciba Bathra : ' In the days when the judges were judged themselves, said the judge to one of them. Take the .splinter out of thine eye ; whereat he made reply, "Take thou the beam out of thine eye'; and from Meidani {ap. Freytag) : ' How seest thou the splinter in thy brother's eye and seest not tlie cross-beam in thine eye?'
There is no obscurity in the terms used. The word 6ok6s is common in classical writers for a beam of wood, and is used in the LXX (Gn 19', 1 K 6", Ca 1") to translate n-iip, a beam used in the roof of a house. Grimm-Tliayer derives from SiKofxai Ion. for S4xofMi with the idea of bcarinrj , ,so that SoKos is that which supports a building. So Plummer ( ' St. Luke ' in Internat. Crit. Com. ) says : ' The Sok6^ is the bearing beam, the main beam, that which receives the other beams in a roof or floor.' A. B. Bruce ('St. Matthew' in Expositor's Greek Test.) says : ' 5ok6s, a wooden beam (' let in,' from SixofJ-ai) or joist.' Clearly a large piece of timber is suggested, such as could not literally be in the eye. The symbol has the touch of exaggera- tion familiar in Oriental proverbs, as, e.g., in the camel and the needle's eye.