except 1 Co 10^ which (according to the best read- ing) has the middle i^aiTT'KjavTo (cf. 1 Co 6", Ac 22'" ; above, 1) ; 1 Co 6" has ' in (iv) the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' Of these passages only Ac 8'® lO'"* 19^ are naiTa- tives of baptisms.
The Pauline references clearly do not refer to the formula used, though 1 Co P^- ^^ makes it prob- able that in some form the ' Name ' was mentioned in the words of l)aptism. Do the other passages refer to a formula? On this point there is much diversity of opinion, (a) It is maintained that the formula at first ran ' in the name of the Lord Jesus' or the like ; and that the First Evangelist introduced into his Gospel the Trinitarian formula which was in use towards the end of the 1st century (Robinson, EBi, art. ' Baptism '). It is not easy to see how, if the other formula was the original apostolic usage, this one could have been invented in the third or even in the last quarter of the 1st cent., unless indeed our Lord had really spoken such words as are found in Mt 28^^ ; and in that case it is hard to see why the apostles should have used a quite difi'erent formula. — {h) It is thouglit that the passages in Mt. and Acts alike refer to the formula used, but that baptism into Christ's name is necessarily the same as baptism into that of the Holy Trinity. The latter statement is quite true, but it does not meet the whole difficulty. — (c) It is said that none of the passages in Acts refers to a formula at all, but only to the theological import of baptism (see below, 8). This is quite probable ; at least the ditterences of wording show that if a formula is referred to at all in Acts, it was not stereotyped in the first age. — (rf)" Assuming that our Lord spoke, at any rate in substance, the words re- corded in Mt 28'^, many think that He did not here prescribe a formula, but unfolded the spiritual meaning of the rite (so Chase, JThSt vi. 506 ff., viii. 177 ; Swete, Holy Spirit in NT, p. 124 ; W. C. Allen, ICC, in loc). This view is extremely prob- able, whatever interpretation we put upon the passage, for which see below, 8. It was our Lord's habit not to make regulations but to establish principles ; so Socrates (HE v. 22), speaking of the keeping of Easter, contrasts the practice of Jesus with that of the Mosaic Law in the matter of the making of rules.
It is quite possible that no formula of baptism is given in the NT at all, and even that at first there were no fixed words. It is probable that all the NT passages refer primarily to the theological import of the rite, though they may have a remote allusion to the mode of baptizing. But though we cannot assert that there was in the Apostolic Age a fixed form of words, it was a sound instinct which induced the Church, at least from the 1st cent, onwards, to adopt the Trinitarian formula, and it would be rasii indeed to de])art from it. If our Lord's words did not prescribe a form of words, at least they suggested it. We find it in the Didnche (§ 7 : ' baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost'), though in describing Christians in § 9 the writer speaks of them as ' baptized into the name of the Lord.' So Justin i)arai)hrases : ' They then receive the washing with water in the name (iw 6v6/j,aTOi) of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, .and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit,' and says that ' he who is illuminated (see above, 1) is washed in the name of Jesus Christ . . . and in tlie name of the Holy Ghost' (Apol. i. 61). TertuUian says that the formula has been pre- scribed [by Ciirist], and (|Uotes Mt 28'^ exactly (de Bapt. 13; note especially tliat he translates eis rd bvofia by ' in nomeii ' though Migne, apparently by error, gives 'nomine'). In de Praescr. 20 he paraphrases the text : ' He bade them ... go and
EAPTISxM
BAPTISM
131
teach the nations wlio were to be baptized (intin- guendas) into the Father (in Patrem), and into the Son, and into the Holy Ghost ' ; and in adv. Prax. 26 thus : ' He commands them to baptize into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, non in unuvi ' — i.e. not into one Person. The Trinitarian formula is the only one found in the Church in ancient times. It is prescribed or referred to in Origen, Hom. in Lev. vii. §4, in the Church Orders {Can. of Hipp. xix. [ed. Achelis, § 133] ; Ap. Const. iii. 16, vii. 22 ; Ethiopia Didascalia, 16, ed. Piatt ; Test, of our Lord, ii. 7), in the Acts of Xanthippe twice (M. R. James, Apocr. Anecd. i. [ = TAS'ii. 3, Cambridge, 1893] p. 79), and in the Apostolic Canons [c. A.D. 400], can. 49 f. The fact that this last work forbids any other form probably shows that in some heretical circles other words were used.