BANUAS
C39
BAPTISM
they called the "first water" and the "last water" (B^ibiO d?B and CJ^SiltlSjl &??); but washing the feet seems to have been limited to the case of a guest who was also a traveller. See Ablution.
In religious banquets the wine was mixed, by rab- binical regulation, with three parts of water, and four short forms of benediction were pronounced over it. At the Passover four such cups were mixed, blessed, and passed round by the master of the feast (dpxirpi- kXivoq). It is probable that the character of this official varied with that of the entertainment ; if it were a religious one, his office would be quasi-prisstly ; if a revel, he would be the mere symposiarch (ti^itto- mdpxns) or arbiter blbendi. (See Smith's Diet, of Class. Ant. s. v. Symposium; Comissatio.) — Smith, s v. See Entertainment ; Eating ; Hospitality, etc.
Ban'uas (Bdvvog, Vulg. Bamis), a name of a Le^ vite occurring in the lists of those who returned from captivity (1 Esdr. v, 26) ; this, with the following name, answers to Hodaviah (q. v.) or Hodevah in the parallel lists of Ezra (ii, 40) and Nehemiah (vii, 43).
Baphomet (Batp)) MrjTSwg, baptism of Metis, or of fire, the Gnostic baptism), is the name given to cer- tain symbolic figures, half male and half female, carv- ed in stone, etc., which are said by some to have be- longed to the insignia of the Knight Templars. Speci- mens of them are to be found in the collections of an- tiquities of Weimar and Vienna. These figures have generally two heads or faces, one of which is bearded; they are surrounded by serpents, and bear various in- scriptions and representations of the sun, moon, trun- cated crosses (otherwise called Egyptian key of life and death), etc. Some have considered them as im- ages of the devil, others as representing Mete (Wis- dom), the Gnostic divinity, and others, seeing in them busts of Mohammed, considered them as proofs of the apostasy of the Templars. It seems more probable, however, that they were merely some alchemico-theo- sophical symbols. See Joseph von Hammer, Fund- gruben d. Orients (6 vols.); Von Nell, Baphometische Actenstiicke, etc. (Vienna, 1819); Same, Essay on a Cosmological Interpretation of ih: I'hanician Worship of the Cabiri, etc.
Baptism, a rite of purification or initiation, in which water is used; one of the sacraments (q. v.) of the Christian Church. The word baptism is simply an Anglicized form of the Greek fiairTiopoc, a verbal noun from liairri'^oj (likewise Anglicized "baptize"), and this, again, is a derivative from f3dirr<o, the pre- dominant signification of which latter is to whelm or "dye," Lat. tingo. Not being a verb implying mo- tion, j3airri^tit is property followed in Greek by the preposition tr, denoting the means or method (with the "instrumental dative"), which has unfortunately, in the Auth. Engl. Vers., often been rendered by the am- biguous particle "in," whereas it really (in this con- nection) signifies only with or by, or at most merely designates the locality where the act is performed. The derivative verb and noun are sometimes used with reference to ordinary lustration, and occasionally with respect to merely secular acts ; also in a figura- tive sense. In certain cases it is followed by the prep- osition tits, with the meaning "to," "for," or "unto," as pointing out the design of the act, especially in phrases (comp. moTtvtiv tic) expressive of the cove- nant or relation of which this rite was the seal. (In Mark i, 9, the tits depends upon rj\$ev preceding; and in Mark xiv, 20, there is a construct io prcegnans by which some other verb of motion is to be supplied be- fore the preposition.) On these and other applications of the Greek word, see Robinson's Lex. of the N. T. s. v. ; where, however (as in some other Lexicons), the statement that the primary force of the verb is "to dip, immerse," etc., is not sustained by its actual usage and grammatical construction. This would always
require tic, "into," after it; which occurs in 15 ex- amples only out of the exhaustive list (175) adduced by Dr. Conant {Meaning and Use of Bapliztin, N. Y. 1860) ; and a closer and more critical examination will show that it is only the context and association of the word that in any case put this signification upon it, and it is therefore a mere gloss or inference to as- sign this as the proper sense of the term. The signi- fications "plunge," "submerge," etc., are here strict- ly derived, as cognates, from the more general and primitive one of that complete envelopment with a liquid which a thorough wetting, saturation, or dyeing usually implies. In like manner, Dr. E. Beecher (in a series of articles first published in the Am. Bib. Jie- pos. during 1840 and 1841) has mistaken the allied or inferential signification of purification for the primitive sense of the word, whereas it is only the result expect- ed or attendant in the act of washing. See further below.
As preliminary to the theological discussion of this subject, it will be proper here to discuss, more fully than can be conveniently done elsewhere, the classical and Biblical uses of the word, and some subordinate topics. We here make use chiefly of Kitto's Cyclopa-- <ft«, s.v.'
I. Philological Usage of the Word flaw-i^ur. — 1. Bg Classical Writers. — No instance occurs in these writers of the use of /3dirrio-pa, and oitly one in a very late author (Antyllus) of the use of its equivalent fia-xTKJ- pog ; but the verb occurs frequently, especially in the later writers. It is used to designate :