It is, therefore, to the last degree improbable that the thou- sands mentioned in the early chapters of Acts were baptized by- immersion. The same improbability exists as to the case of the centurion in Caesarea and the jailer at Philippi. With regard to the former, Peter said, " Can any man forbid water ? " which nat- urally implies that water was to be brought to Cornelius, and not he be taken to the water. As to the jailer, it is said (Acts xvi. 33) that he and all his were baptized within the prison, as the narrative clearly implies, at midnight. There is the same improbability against the assumption that the eunuch, mentioned in Acts viii. 27-38, was baptized by immersion. He was travel- ling through a desert part of the country towards Gaza, when Philip joined him, " And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water (btfn vSwp, to some water)." There is no known stream in that region of sufficient depth to allow of the immersion of a man. It is possible, indeed, that there might have been a reservoir or tank in that neighbourhood. But that is a fact to be assumed without evidence and against probability. It is said they " went down both into the water," and came "up out of the water." But that might be said, if the water were not deep enough to cover their ankles.
The presumption is still stronger against immersion in the case mentioned in Mark vii. 4. It is there said of " the Pharisees and all the Jews," that "when they come from the market, except they baptize themselves (eav firj /?a7rrura)VTai) they eat not." Let it be here considered, (1.) That private baths were in Jerusalem very rare, from the necessity of the case. (2.) That what is said, is not said merely of men of wealth and rank who might be sup- posed to have conveniences and luxuries which the common peo- ple could not command. It is said of the " Pharisees," a large class, and not only of that class, but of " all the Jews." It is wellnigh incredible, under such circumstances, that "all the Jews" should immerse themselves every time they came from the dyopa, i.e., "a place of public resort in towns and cities ; any open place, where the people came together either for business or to sit and converse. In oriental cities such open places were at the inside of the gates ; and here public business was transacted, and tribunals held, as also markets." J That all the Jews im- mersed themselves every time they came from such a place of public resort, is very hard to believe, considering that the facil- ities for such immersion were not at their command. (3.) The
1 Robinson, sub voce.
536 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
words baptize and wash are interchanged in this whole connection in such a way as to show that, in the mind of the writer, they were synonymous expressions. The Pharisees complained that the disciples ate with unwashen (foCmis) hands ; for they eat not unless they wash (Vfyovrai) their hands ; and when they come from the market they do not eat unless they wash (j8a7rrtaa>n-ai) ; and they hold to the washing (^a7mo-/xovs) of cups, and pots, of brazen vessels, and of tables or couches. To baptize the hands was to wash the hands, and the usual mode of ablution in the east is by pouring water on the hands (see 2 Kings iii. 11).
It is notorious that the various ablutions prescribed by the Mosaic law were effected sometimes by immersion, sometimes by affusion, and sometimes by sprinkling. And it is no less true that all these modes of purification are called by the sacred writers &t.d<f>opoi fiairrLo-fxoi, as in Hebrews ix. 10, and Mark vii. 4.
So far, therefore, as the New Testament is concerned, there is not a single case where baptism necessarily implies immersion ; there are many cases in which that meaning is entirely inadmis- sible, and many more in which it is in the highest degree improb- able. If immersion were indispensable, why was not the word KaTa&vto used to express the command ? If sprinkling were exclu- sively intended, why was not p<uVa> or pavTifa used ? It is simply because the mode is nothing and the idea everything, that a word was chosen which includes all the modes in which water can be applied as the means of purification. Such a word is pairrLt,^ for which there is no legitimate substitute, and therefore that word has been retained by all the Churches of Christendom, even by the Baptists themselves.
The Patristic Usage.
This is a wide and densely wooded field, in which a man may find anything he chooses to look for, unless it be for proof that the fathers always used the word /Jcw-ti^o) in the sense of immer- sion. They speak of the waters of chaos as baptized by the Spirit of God brooding over them ; they were thereby sanctified and a sanctifying power was imparted to the waters. The only point of interest here is, that Tertullian, for example, regarded this as "baptismi figura," a figure of baptism. The point of resemblance assuredly was not immersion.
But besides this, Suicer gives and copiously illustrates, from the writing of the fathers, no less than eight " significations of the word baptism (vocis pdirrurixa significationes)." (1.) The