23, he thus speaks: "Mr. Beecher's criticism on the word (negizλv1άoom) here (Tobit 6 : 2) employed for washing, is entirely false." I translated it to wash all around. He proceeds, "The simple word signifies to deluge, to overwhelm, to inundate, to flow over any thing." "Mr. Beecher criticises from imagination, not from knowledge of the language. Has he justified his criticism by a single example ?" He then remarks with great taste and refinement, "The word does not signify that the young man in bathing splashed about like a duck, or rubbed himself like a collier, but that he threw himself into the river, that the stream might flow over him." Again, "There is no friction nor hand-washing in this word. It performs its purpose by running over either gently or with violence." So much learned minuteness and such bold charges of inaccuracy on me would lead an incautious reader to suppose that Mr. Carson must have first made sure his facts before daring thus to commit himself before the learned world. Indeed, when I first read his remarks it produced a temporary impression that I must be wrong, or he would not dare to make such assertions. But the moment I looked at facts the illusion vanished. It is indeed true that xúc has in some cases the meaning that he assigns to it. But it is not true that it has not the meaning that I assign to it. The facts are these: 1. It is applied by Euripides to washing the body with sea water, where vizzo is applied to the same operation which Mr. Carson admits denotes hand-washing. 2. It is applied to the washing of children, by Aristotle-rò παιδίον ὕδατι περικλύζειν--to wash the child all around with water. 3. In Geoponica 17, 22, it is applied to washing an ulcer by a fluid, Elxos xhúÇew ougo. Here is no deluging, overwhelming, or inundation. 4. Epiphanius applies it to the purifications of the Jews, x2vLóuevo ovog, where deluging or overflowing is out of the question. 5. By Pollux it is applied to the washing of clothes, and also of cups, and is given as a synonyme of hure, and unter and καθαίρειν and their compounds with διά, ἀπὸ and ex. What can be more decisive? 6. It is applied to the washing of head, hands and body, after an unlucky dream. 7. It is used by Plutarch to denote the washing off blood from armor, αἷμα τῶν ὅπλων ἔτι θερμὸν ἀποκλύζεται. Plut. 7. 283. 11. 8. It is applied by Lucian to an object wet or sprinkled on all sides with spray by rapid motion through water at rest. άog negizkvṛóμevor. Lucian, V. H. 1. 31. Here surely is no flowing of water over an object. 9. Like xadaigo, it has a medical use to cleanse or purge— ἰατροὶ πικρὰν πικροῖς κλύζουσι φάρμακος χολήν. Plut.Physicians purge out bitter bile by bitter medicines. Indeed its medical use gave birth to our English word clyster. 10. All lexicographers of any note sustain my use of the word, e. g. Stephens, Scapula, Damm, Hedericus, Ernesti, Passow, Schneider, etc. etc. Hence it is plain that assertions more contrary to fact than Mr. Carson's criticism on me cannot be made, even if I were to say that Mr. Carson criticises from imagination, and not from a knowledge of the language in translating voog water or ve fire. And whatever Mr. Carson's talents, they cannot enable his character as an accurate scholar long to survive such criticisms as he has here given. In like manner when I say that Josephus uses púnrisis to denote the rite of baptism, Mr. Carson denies it, and says, “The ἡ βάπτισις is the immersing-βαπτισμός is the rite of immersion.” And yet it must be notorious to any one who has ever read the Fathers, that they do not hesitate to use Bazzinis to denote the rite, in opposition to xaráðvois, the act of immersing, as in Sozomen, μια καταδύσει ἐπτιελεῖν τὴν θείαν βάπτισιν. To perform the sacred baptism by one immersion.” Many of Mr. Carson's assertions as to tingo, Bánre, koów, and vinzo, are of the same kind. Indeed I do not remember that I ever read a writer so many of whose most positive assertions were so totally at war with facts. But success in such an assault on facts is hopeless. The highest talents are entirely unequal to such a war. § 63. General view of Patristic uses of Banzito. But enough has been said to show the entire incorrectness of Mr. Carson's theory of the Patristic uses of fanziṭw. I shall therefore conclude this part of the subject by a brief general view of what that usage is. 1. Of course I need not say that they sometimes use the word in the sense to immerse any thing in water, or to denote the state of any thing that sinks in the water or is overflowed by it. And also that from this are derived metaphorical uses to denote immersion in sorrow, ignorance, darkness, sin, pollution, afflictions, and misery. All this I have before noticed at large. See §§ 3 and 4, and 10 and 28. 2. To wash, implying an effort to cleanse, but not including the effect. In this sense they use it as a translation of the Heb. 77, just as they use Louw. In this case ßárrioμa is taken in connection with xá0agois or xaðagropòs; thus, commenting on Is. 1: 16, "Wash you, make you clean," Basil, to denote the idea of washing, uses Barrioμa, and to denote purification, he uses nádugais. So in the Apostolic Constitutions we find washings and purifications expressed in the same way. 3. To cleanse or purify by washing, i. e. to wash, including the effect. 4. To purify in the most generic sense, either by water, or by truth, or by atonement and expiation, or by trials, or by mourning and sorrow. After what has been said there is no need to offer any proof of the real existence of this sense. But here it is peculiarly important to bear in mind the distinction between sacrificial purification, or expiation, and moral purification, or sanctification, to which I have so often referred. For without a clear apprehension of it, much of the language of the Fathers cannot be understood. 5. βαπτισμός and βάπτισμα by synechdoche denote means of purification, e. g. water, blood, fire, oil, air, etc. 6. Barrioμa is also used to denote, comprehensively, a system designed to effect purification in various ways, e. g. fánrioμα Μωϋσέως, οι νομικόν or 'Ιουδαϊκόν which Chrysostom interchanges as synonymous with καθάρσιον 'Ιουδαϊκὸν, to denote not an act, nor one rite merely, but a complex system, involving and comprehending various kinds and modes of purification. So Basil says of the Jewish baptism, it recognised a difference of sins, not forgiving all; it required various sacrifices, it made minute regulations as to purity, it separated the polluted and unclean for a time, it observed times and seasons. In all this he is plainly illustrating a system of purification involving many parts, but having one great end, i. e. to purify, either by expiatory sacrifices, or in some other way. So too, the baptism of John or of Christ is often used in like manner to denote a system of purification. 7. They also used it to denote, comprehensively, the actual processes involved in conferring absolution; e. g. if exorcism, divesting of all clothing, immersion, unction, and robing in white, the pronunciation of certain words, and a benediction, were supposed to be involved in conferring a legal and valid absolution, then the term ẞanzioua was comprehensively used to include all these processes. Any part of the process that purified was also called by the same name. So Origen speaks of baptizing, i. e. purifying with oil. And the Apostolic Constitutions speak of unction as a type of spiritual baptism, i. e. spiritual purification. 8. The result or effect of these processes they also denote by the word baptism or purification, i. e. absolution, remission of sins. It is in this sense that Zonaras, in his Lexicon, defines baptism as being the remission of sins by water and the Spirit. This remission of sins was effected, in their view, not by any energy of the water in itself, but by some mysterious, sanctifying power given to it when the Spirit brooded upon it at the creation, or when Christ was baptized in it, or when the bishop or priest consecrated it, operating in concurrence with the energy of the Holy Spirit, who, according to a divine constitution, diffused and exerted his mighty energies in and through the water. In this way, in their view, was effected the baptism of the Holy Ghost; and the superiority of the baptism of Christ to that of John lay in the fact that John used the simple fluid water, but in that of Christ, a compound fluid, so to speak, was employed, composed of sanctified water, and the influence of the Holy Spirit. On no topic is the eloquence of Chrysostom so fervid, as when he unfolds the purifying, nay, regenerating powers of this semi-material, semi-spiritual compound. As quick as the ocean extinguishes a spark that falls into it, so soon does this mighty compound extinguish the sins of the sinner that falls into it, and makes him pure as the angels and brilliant as the sunbeams of heaven. To symbolize this spotless whiteness of the soul thus miraculously and suddenly obtained, the baptized person was robed in purest white His being stripped perfectly naked before was designed to give to the miraculous energies of the fluid full scope to penetrate every part of body and soul. And in the opinion of some of the Fathers, these waters also had a miraculous power even to heal bodily disease, of which they give us some examples, as true, no doubt, as all other of the lying wonders of that age of fraud and delusion. The word baptize, used in this sense, denoted not merely a transient act, but a permanent and abiding moral change effected by the rite. The soul was conceived of as invested in a robe of spotless purity. Hence baptism is likened to spiritual robes, and the Fa thers speak of putting on the baptism of Christ, and of preserving their baptism unspotted. Origen preferred the baptism of blood to that of water and the Spirit, because few keep this unspotted till death, but the purity gained by the baptism of a bloody death is polluted no more. The leading idea in this usage of the word is a permanent state or character of purity, and not the act of immersion at all. Indeed, what sense is there in such an expression as keeping the act of immersion unspotted till death? The act is soon over, and all possibility of polluting or making it pure is passed by. And yet Mr. Carson again and again asserts that baptism always denotes the mode of an act, and nothing else. 9. The word baptism is also used as the appropriated name of the rite of Christian Baptism. In this case it approximates in its use, towards a proper name, or a technical term, i. e. the attention of the mind is abstracted from the meaning of the word, though it is in fact significant and is fixed upon the rite for which it stands. So the words Fowler, Fisher, Coffin, White, Black, Green, etc. are in fact significant, and yet when appropriated as names of individuals and families, the attention of the mind is withdrawn from their meaning and fixed upon those whom they represent. In this case the things predicated of these persons have no reference to the meaning of their names, but to their own personal qualities and relations which these names recall. So in speaking of Baptism, though the word signifies purification, the object often is merely to call to mind a given Christian rite. And what would seem to be incongruous uses, if referred to the sense merely, are not so if referred to the rite; e. g. to speak of the blackness of Mr. White, or of the whiteness of Mr. Green, or of Mr. Fisher as a hunter, or Mr. Coffin as a physician, would be verbally incongruous, but not in the nature of things. So to speak of the purification of baptism would not be tautology, but would denote the purification effected by the rite bearing that name. 10. Finally, the Fathers gave the name baptism to any transaction regarded by them either as typifying baptism or producing similar effects; e. g. when Elisha raised the axe out of the water by throwing in a stick, Ambrose regards it as a baptism, because as the axe was immersed in the water, so was the sinner in sin-and as the stick raised the axe out of the water, so does baptism, i. e. remission of sins, raise a sinner out of his |