(1.) The washing of an object by dipping it into water, or any other fluid, or quasi-fluid, for any purpose, what- ever: as fidizTitJov atavrbv tie QdXaoaav, "bathe yourself by going into the sea" (Plut. Mor. p. 166 A.) ; l3airTiZtti> rbv Aiuvvtrov irpbg ti)v QaXarrav (Ibid. p. 914).
(2.) The plunging or sinking of an object: as OvSt yap roic dKo\vp/3oig fiairrCCtaBai avfifiaivti ZvXtov Tpbirov iTrnroXa^ot'tri, where f3aTTTiX,to9ai, in the sense of "submerged," is contrasted with t7rnroXdc,ovot, in the sense of "float;" iv vSaai yivtaOcii t>)v noptiav ovvkj3n, iik%pi 6p<f>a\ov fiairnZopsvwv, being in water up to the navel (Strabo, Geogr. xiv, p. 667) ; poXtg 'itoc tojv patJTM> in ire%oi fiaTrnZofitvoi fiiefiaivov {Polyb. iii). So Pindar says (Pyth. ii, 145), dfldirTWTOQ tlpi, tptXXbg H>Q, where the cork of the fisherman is styled unbaptized, in contrast with the net which sinks into the water. From this, by metonomy of cause for ef- fect, is derived the sense to drown, as tfic'nrTia tig rbv olvov, "I whelmed him in the wine" (Julian iEgypt. Anacreont.').
(3.) The covering over of any object by the flowing or pouring of a fluid on it; and metaphorically (in the passive), the. being overwhelmed or oppressed: thus the Pseudo-Aristotle speaks of places full of bulrushes and sea-weeds, which, when the tide is at the ebb, are not baptized (i. e. covered by the water), but at full tide are flooded over (Mirabil. Auscult. § 137, p. 50, in Wester- man's edit, of the Script. Per. Mir. Gr.); Diodorus Siculus (bk. i) speaks of bind animals being destroyed by the river overtaking them {UiatpQtiptTai fianTt'Cv- /.ni'tt); Plato and Athenaaus describe men in a state of ebriety as baptized (Sympos. p. 176 B. ; and Deipnos. v.); and the former says the same of a youth over- whelmed with sophistry (Eulhyd. 277 D.); Plutarch denounces the forcing of knowledge on children be- yond what they can receive as a process by which the soul is baptized (De Lib.educ.'); and he speaks of men as baptized by debts (Galbce, v. 21); Diodorus Siculus speaks of baptizing people with tears (bk. i, c. 73) ; and Libanius says, " He who hardly bears what he now bears, would be baptized by a little addition" (Epist. 310). and " I am one of those baptized by that great wave" (Ep. 25).
(4.) The complete drenching of an object, whether by aspersion or immersion; as 'AcKvg /SoTrn^y, vbvca St
BAPTISM
640
BAPTISM
?oi ov Ot^uc tan, "As a bladder thou shaltbe washed ( i. e. by the waves breaking over thee), but thou canst HOI go down" (Oruc. Sibyll. de Athenis. ap. Plutarch,
From this it appears that in classical usage [iaTrri- _',,r is not fixed to any special mode of applying the baptizing element to the object baptized; all that is implied by the term is, that the former is closely in contact with the latter, or that the latter is wholly in the former.
2. By the Septuagint. — Here the word occurs only four times, viz. 2 Kings v, 14: "And Naaman went down and baptized himself (j-fSaTrrioaTd) seven times in the river .Ionian," where the original Hebrew is Vz-"", from "-, to dip, plunge, immerse; Isa. xxi, 4, " Iniquity baptizes me" (») avofxia jit fia~-iZti), where the word is plainly used in the sense of overwhelm, answering to the lleb. MS, to come upon suddenly, to terrify; Judith xii, 7, "She went out by night . . . and baptized herself (ijiairriZ.tTo) at the fountain;" and Ecclus. xxxi [xxxiv], 30, "He who is baptized from a corpse" (jicnrriZofikvog c'nrb vtKpov), etc. In these last two instances the word merely denotes w ished, without indicating any special mode by which this was done, though in the former the circumstances of the case make it improbable that the act described was that of bathing (camp. Num. xix, 19).
In the Greek, then, of the Sept., j3cnrri^ttv signifies to plunge, to bathe, or to overwhelm. It is never used to describe the act of one who dips another object into a fluid, or the case of one who is dipped by another.
3. In the New Testament. — Confining our notice here simply to the philology of the subject, the instances of this usage may be classified thus :
(1.) The. verb or noun alone, or with the object baptiz-d merely: as fiawrtaOrjvai, Matt, iii, 13, 14; jiaiTTiadtir, Mark xvi. 16; fiairriZuv, Mark i, 4; fiaTrriaiovTai, vii, 4; liaTTTt'ltic, John i, 25; ijic'nrT icy a, 1 Cor. i, 14, etc. ; /3<<7T7<cr/.<rt avrov, Matt, iii, 7 ; tv p>inrTia\\a, Eph. iv, 5 ; ilc'nrriapa, Col. ii, 12 ; 1 Pet. iii, 21, etc. ; j3aTr- riofioi'C 7TOTT)piwv, Mark vii, 4, 8; ija-rayf-iojv SiSa- XJIC, lleb. vi, 2 : Sia(p6poiQ pa— napoXc, ix, 10.
(2.) With addition of the element of baptism: as iv vdan, Mark i, 8, etc.; iv ■Kvivfian ayim icai irvpi, Matr. iii, 11, etc. ; 'vdan, Luke iii, 16, etc. The force of iv in such formulae has by some been pressed, as if it indicated that the object of baptism was in the ele- ment of baptism; but by most the iv is regarded a- mereh the nota dativi, so that iv vcan means no more than the simple JuSan, as the iv Ti\oiit> of Matt. xiv,13, means no more than the -\oii;j of Mark vi, 32. (See Matthias, sec. 401, ohs. 2 ; Kiihner, sec. 585, Anm. "-'. ) Only in one instance does the accusative appear in the X. T., Mark i, 9, where we have tic -iv 'lopcd- j)/r, and this can hardly lie regarded as a real excep- tion to the ordinary usage of the N. T., because tic here is loeal rather than instrumental. In connection with this may be noticed the phrases Kara)iaivuv tig . and airoftaivuv tic or euro roe vScitoq. Ac- cording to some, these decisively prove that the party baptized, ae "ell a- the baptizer, went down into the water, and came up out of ii. lint, on the other hand. it i- contended thai the phrases do not necessarily im- ply more than that they went to (i. e. to the margin ol") tin- water and returned thence.