BAPTISM (bAp'tiz'm), the application of water as a rite of cleansing, purification, or initiation; a Christian sacrament.
The word "baptism" is the English form of the Greek tlawrtaiu5s, bap-tis-mos' Th.. verb from which this is ticrieCil plarrtiv, bap tid'co—is held by some scholars to mean "to dip, immerse." But this meaning is held by others to be not the most exact or common, but rather a meaning that is secondary. Or derived, Ity the latter it is claimed that all that the term necessarily im plies is that the element employed in baptism is in close contact with the person or object The importance of this branch of the discussion has often been greatly overestimated as settling the proper inorle of the rite.
A conviction of the holiness of C;od excites in man the notion that he cannot possibly come into any amicable relation %vitli Him before he is cleansed of sin, which separates him from God.
This sentiment found a very widely extended sym bolic expression in the lustrations which formed an essential part of the ceremonial creeds of the ancient nations.
In the Septuagint the simple verb fidwreiv is frequent in the sense of 'dip' (Exod. xii:22; Lev. iv:6, 17; ix:9; xiv:6, 16, 5i), or 'immerse' (Job ix:30. The intensive flarrirav occurs four times: twice literally, of Naaman dipping in the Jordan (2 Kings v:14), and of Judith bathing (Judith xii:7); once metaphorically, 7) civoiLla 1.te Parrtrei (Is. xxi:4), and once of ceremonial washing after pollution, (bra veva (Sirach xxxl; xxxiv:25).
The usual verb for ceremonial washing is XaccOat (Lev. xiv:8, 9; xv:5-io, 13, 16-22; xvi:4, 24 28), the middle voice being used because the un clean person performed this cleansing for himself. The active is used of Moses washing Aaron and his sons before they exercised their ministry (Ex od. xxix:4; x1:12; Lev. viii:6), and of the Lord washing Jerusalem (Ezek. xvi:4). But parrl•ecy is never used in the Septuagint of any initiatory rite. (A. Plummer, Hastings' Bib. Did.) In the language of the prophets, cleansing with water is used as an emblem of the purification of the heart, which in the Messianic age is to glorify the soul in her innermost recesses, and embrace the whole of the theocratic nation (Ezek. xxxvi:
25, sq.; Zech. xiii :1). Such declarations gave rise to or nourished the expectation that the advent of the Messiah would manifest itself by a pre paratory lustration, by which Elijah or some other great prophet would pave the way for him. This supposition lies evidently at the bottom of the questions which the Jews put to John the Bap tist (John i :25; Comp. Matt. and Luke iii :7), whether he was the Messiah, or Elijah, or some other prophet. Thus we can completely clear up the historical derivation of the rite, as used by John and Christ, from the general and natural symbol of baptism, from the Jewish custom in particular, and from the expectation of a Mes sianic consecration. Danz, Ziegler and others have, nevertheless, supposed it to be derived from the Jewish ceremonial of baptizing proselytes; and Wetstein has traced that rite up to a date earlier than Christianity. But this opinion is not at all tenable: for, as an act which strictly gives validity to the admission of a proselyte, and is no mere accompaniment to his admission, baptism certainly is not alluded to in the New Testament ; while as to the passages quoted in proof from the classical (profane) writers of that period they are all open to the most fundamental objections. Nor is the utter silence of Josephus and Philo on the subject, notwithstanding their various opportuni ties of touching on it, a less weighty argument against this view. It is true that mention is made in the Talmud of that regulation as already ex isting in the first century A. D.; but such state ments belong only to the traditions of the Gemara and require careful investigation before they can serve as proper authority.
1. Jewish Rite. This Jewish rite was prob ably originally only a purifying ceremony; and it was raised to the character of an initiating and indispensable rite co-ordinate with that of sacri fice and circumcision, only after the destruction of the Temple, when sacrifices had ceased, and the circumcision of proselytes had, by reason and pub lic edicts, become more and more impracticable.