of attaching opposite meanings to the same term, we must employ the verb to denote simply the process, without including the result, which is necessarily implied in purification. With this distinction, the usage of the Greek language appears to be strictly harmonious. Whether the baptizing element overwhelms its object, or simply opens to receive it, or presents any other variety of application, a certain process takes, which may issue in great diversity of result, the result to be collected from the context or the general circumstances of each occurrence. Now, the question arising on the passage before us is, What process did the writer design to indicate by the expression, baptism from a dead body? If we rest the answer on the historical basis furnished in the book of Numbers, we should say that sprinkling and bathing were combined in this ceremonial baptism. As this answer, however, may be misunderstood, it is requisite to add a word of explanation. The baptism, then, we observe, may include the entire cleansing process enjoined in the Mosaic law, without involving the false principle that the verb denotes the two distinct acts of sprinkling and bathing. Such a double sense would be utterly incompatible with the universally admitted laws of language. On the condition already specified, the verb must refer generically to the process of applying water for the purpose of cleansing, while the details of the process demand the use of other terms, by which they may be appropriately designated. The man is baptized from a dead body, that is, water is employed for his cleansing; but the mere baptism does not inform us of the manner of application. That information we derive from the law, in this case made and provided, which exhibits the process in detail. And that this ceremonial baptism includes all the use of water, which the law demanded, seems manifest from the conclusion of the verse, where the writer asks, " Of what avail is his washing?" The baptism and the washing are not indeed strictly synonymous, - still both comprehend, though under different aspects, the entire process of this ritual cleansing. This view is sustained by the judgment of Schleusner, in his Lexicon to the Septuagint, who renders the words-βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκρου, -qui abluit se a mortuo; and also by Robinson: and what is of more importance, the construction, and all the circumstances, historical and ceremonial, are favourable to it, while the opposing evidence consists in the pertinacious assertion of the exclusively modal sense of βαπτίζω.

CHAPTER TENTH.

JEWISH PROSELYTE BAPTISM.

ALLEGED RELATION OF PROSELYTE BAPTISM BY THE JEWS TO CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. - PRIORITY OF THE JEWISH RITE ADVOCATED BY DIFFERENT AUTHORS, PARTICULARLY BY SOME OF THE LEADING ORIENTALISTS.TESTIMONY OF THE TALMUD, AND OTHER RABBINICAL WRITINGS. - LATER ORIGIN OF THE BAPTISM OF PROSELYTES THE DOCTRINE OF CARPZOV, LARDNER, AND OTHERS.-AMOUNT OF SUPPORT IT DERIVES FROM THE STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. ESTIMATE OF THE COMPARATIVE SOUNDNESS OF THESE OPPOSING VIEWS, IN A SERIES OF CONNECTED OBSERVATIONS.1. THE PRIOR EXISTENCE OF THE RITE HAS NOT A CLEAR HISTORICAL BASIS.-2. YET ITS OBSERVANCE PRECEDED THE DATE OF THE EVIDENCE ON ITS BEHALF, BY SOME CONSIDERABLE PERIOD.-3. JEWISH WRITERS ASSERT THAT IT AROSE BEFORE THE DAYS OF OUR SAVIOUR.-4. THE SILENCE OF SOME ANCIENT AUTHORS HAS EXERCISED TOO MUCH INFLUENCE AGAINST THE IDEA OF ITS EARLY ORIGIN,--5, WHICH APPEARS TO BE IMPLIED IN VARIOUS PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.-6. REMARKS ON THE MODE OF JEWISH PROSELYTE BAPTISM.

HAVING reviewed the Septuagint and Apocryphal testimonies, it may be desirable, before we canvass the evidence supplied by the New Testament, to consider briefly the unsettled and somewhat intricate topic of Jewish proselyte baptism. Many have supposed this observance, whatever may have been the mode of its administration, to sustain a sort of parental relation to the ordinance of Christian baptism. This view is, of course, founded on the fact or assumption, that baptism formed part of the ritual imposed on a proselyte to Judaism, prior to the introduction of Christianity. "It is evident," observes Dr. Wall, "that the custom of the Jews before our Saviour's time (and, as they themselves affirm, from the beginning of their law) was to baptize, as well as circumcise, any proselyte that came over to them from the nations. This does fully appear both from the books of the Jews themselves, and also of others that understood the Jewish customs, and have written of them. They reckoned all mankind, beside themselves, to be in an unclean state, and not capable of being entered into the covenant of Israelites, without a washing or baptism, to denote their purification from their uncleanness. And this was called the baptizing of them unto Moses." - History of Infant Baptism, Vol. I., p. 4.

This extract may be regarded as conveying the sentiments entertained by the majority of critics and theologians, both the older and more recent. The antiquity of proselyte baptism can produce the suffrages of some of the most distinguished Orientalists and Rabbinical scholars, as Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Selden, Ainsworth, Danz, Buxtorf, Michaelis, Hammond, and many others. Among the numerous writers, of a more recent date, whose investigations have conducted them to a similar conclusion, may be mentioned the names of Kuinöl, E. G. Bengel, Neander, Gieseler, Matthies, Dr. Halley, and Dr. Alexander in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia. The direct evidence, in support of the antiquity of proselyte baptism, we derive chiefly, as may be anticipated, from the ecclesiastical literature of the Jews, on which industry has been unweariedly employed, though with incommensurate success. The ample tomes of the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds have been ransacked, the ceremonies to be observed by proselytes to the Jewish faith nicely scanned, and every particle of testimony, which learned and zealous research could lay hold of, turned to account. To understand the case clearly, it will be necessary to adduce some quotations from Rabbinical authors, though we have no intention, nor is it essential to our object, to enter minutely into details. The substance, indeed, of all the evidence bearing directly and intimately on the subject, might be intelligibly conveyed in a few sentences.

The Babylonian Talmud supplies full and indisputable testimony to proselyte baptism, as a veritable rite, imposed on converts to the Jewish faith. In the Gemara, Codex Jevamoth, fol. 46, 2, as cited by Lightfoot, on Mat. iii. 6, we read, -" As to a proselyte, who is circumcised, but not baptized, what of him? Rabbi Eliezer says: 'Behold he is a proselyte; for thus we find it concerning our fathers, that they were circumcised, but not baptized,' &c.. But the wise men say: 'Is he baptized, but not circumcised; or, is he circumcised, but not baptized; he is not a proselyte until he is circumcised and baptized." Were this the only evidence, it would establish incontestably the fact of the baptism in question; but that it does not touch the antiquity of the observance must be admitted, when we reflect that the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud is a