Errata. Page 12, eight lines from bottom, for imposed read impressed 44, thirteen lines from bottom, for obedniac read obednia 47, note, for ἀνείλεσε read ἀνέπεσε 84, seven lines from top, for still read shall 295, note, for Lecture xiii. read Lecture xiv CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS. CHAPTER I. BAPTISM. Baptism in the Aposto WHAT was Baptism in the Apostolic age? It coincided with a vast religious change both of individuals and of nations. Multitudes of men and women were seized with one common impulse, and abandoned, lic age. by the irresistible conviction of a day, an hour, a moment, their former habits, friends, associates, to be enrolled in a new society under the banner of a new faith. That new society was intended to be a society of brothers'; bound by ties closer than any earthly brotherhood-filled with life and energy such as fall to the lot of none but the most ardent enthusiasts, yet tempered by a moderation and a wisdom such as enthusiasts have rarely possessed. It was moreover a society swayed by the presence of men whose words even now cause the heart to burn, and by the recent recollections of One whom 'not seeing they loved with love unspeakable.' Into this society they passed by an act as natural as it was expressive. The plunge into the bath of purification, long known among the Jewish nation as the symbol of a change of life, had been revived with a fresh energy by the Essenes, and it received a definite signification and impulse from the austere Prophet who derived his name B from the ordinance. This rite was retained as the pledge of entrance into a new and universal communion. In that early age the scene of the transaction was either some deep wayside spring or well, as for the Ethiopian, or some rushing river, as the Jordan, or some vast reservoir, as at Jericho 2 or Jerusalem, whither, as in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, the whole population resorted for swimming or washing. The earliest scene of the immersion was in the Jordan. That rushing river-the one river of Palestine-found at last its fit purpose. Although no details are given of the external parts of the ceremony, a lively notion may be formed of the transaction by the scene which now takes place at the bathing of the pilgrims at Easter. Their approach to the spot is by night. Above is the bright Paschal moon, before them moves a bright flare of torches, on each side huge watchfires break the darkness of the night, and act as beacons for the successive descents of the road. The sun breaks over the eastern hills as the head of the cavalcade reaches the brink of the Jordan. The Sacred River rushes through its thicket of tamarisk, poplar, willow, and agnus-castus, with rapid eddies, and of a turbid yellow colour, like the Tiber at Rome, and about as broad. They dismount, and set to work to perform their bathe; most on the open space, some further up amongst the thickets; some plunging in naked-most, however, with white dresses, which they bring with them, and which, having been so used, are kept for their winding-sheets. Most of the bathers keep within the shelter of the bank, where the water is about four feet in depth, though with a bottom of very deep mud. The Coptic pilgrims are curiously distinguished from the rest by the boldness with For John the Baptist, see Lectures on the Jewish Church, iii. 399. 2 Compare the account of the young courtiers of Herod plunging in the tank at Jericho. Joseph. Ant. xv. 33. The word Barri(w is used for it. This account is taken from Sinai and Palestine, chap. 7. I have hardly altered it, lest the original impression should be lost. which they dart into the main current, striking the water after their fashion alternately with their two arms, and playing with the eddies, which hurry them down and across as if they were in the cataracts of their own Nile; crashing through the thick boughs of the jungle which, on the eastern bank of the stream, intercepts their progress, and then recrossing the river higher up, where they can wade, assisted by long poles which they have cut from the opposite thickets. It is remarkable, considering the mixed assemblage of men and women in such a scene, that there is so little appearance of levity or indecorum. A primitive domestic character pervades in a singular form the whole transaction. The families which have come on their single mule or camel now bathe together, with the utmost gravity; the father receiving from the mother the infant, which has been brought to receive the one immersion which will suffice for the rest of its life, and thus, by a curious economy of resources, save it from the expense and danger of a future pilgrimage in afteryears. In about two hours the shores are cleared; with the same quiet they remount their camels and horses, and, before the noonday heat has set in, are again encamped on the upper plain of Jericho. Once more they may be At the dead of night, the drum again wakes them for their homeward march. The torches again go before; behind follows the vast multitude, mounted, passing in profound silence over that silent plain-so silent that, but for the tinkling of the drum, its departure would hardly be perceptible. The troops stay on the ground to the end, to guard the rear, and when the last roll of the drum announces that the last soldier is gone, the whole plain returns again to its perfect solitude. seen. Such, on the whole, was the first Baptism. We are able to track its history through the next three centuries. The rite was still in great measure what in its origin it had been almost universally, the change from darkness to light, from evil to good; the 'second birth' of men from the corrupt society of the dying Roman Empire into the purifying and for the most part elevating influence of the living Christian Church. In some respects the moral responsibility of the act must have been impressed upon the converts by the severe, sometimes the life-long, preparation for the final pledge, more deeply than by the sudden and almost instantaneous transition which characterised the Baptism of the Apostolic age. But gradually the consciousness of this questioning of the good conscience towards God' was lost in the stress laid with greater and greater emphasis on the 'putting away the filth of the flesh.' Let us conceive ourselves present at those extraordinary scenes, to which no existing ritual of any European Church Celebration in the Pa tristic age. offers any likeness. There was, as a general rule, 4 but one baptistery in each city, and such baptisteries were apart from the churches. There was but one time of the year when the rite was administered—namely, between Easter and Pentecost. There was but one personage who could administer it-the presiding officer of the community, the Bishop, as the Chief Presbyter was called after the first century. There was but one hour for the ceremony; it was midnight. The torches flared through the dark hall as the troops of converts flocked in. The baptistery 5 consisted of an inner and an outer chamber. In the outer chamber stood the candidates for baptism, stripped to their shirts; and, turning to the west as the region of sunset, they stretched forth their hands through the dimly lit chamber, as in a defiant attitude towards the Evil Spirit of Darkness, and speaking to him by name, said: "I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy works, and all thy pomp, and all thy service.' Then they turned, like a regiment, facing right round to the east, and repeated, in a form more or less long, the belief in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, which has grown up into the At Rome there was more than one. 5 In the most beautiful baptistery in the world, at Pisa, baptisms even in the Middle Ages only took place on the two days of the Nativity and the Decollation of John the Baptist, and the nobles stood in the galleries to witness the ceremony. See Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, i. pp. 160, 161. |