I. THE USAGE OF BY THE CLASSICAL WRITERS.—No instance occurs in these writers of the use of pciirricrAct, and only one in a very late author (Antyllus) of the use of its equivalent gcisr ; but the verb occurs frequently, especially in the later writers. It is used to designate The dipping of an object into water; or any other fluid, or quasi fluid, for any purpose whatever: as pci7rricrov cis dip yourself into the sea (for the purpose of bathing or washing), Plut. p. 166 A.; TOV Ailirvaciv srpds rip eciXarrav, p. 914. 2. The itnnzersing or sinking of an object : as 013,5e yap roil dicoXiWois cup.j aivec tiNcor where in the sense of `immersed,' is contrasted with i7reiroXcig'ovo-i, in the sense of `float;' iv Haat ri7v ropelav ktexpt 6/.40eXo13 being immersed up to the navel, Strabo, Geogr. xiv. p. 667 ; phlys 1ws 02 parrigAmpot SzOacvop, Polyb. iii. 72. So Pindar says (przh. ii. 146), elpu, s, where the cork of the fisherman is styled unbaptized, in contrast to the net which sinks into the water. In the same sense is the word used by the Anacreontic poet of Cupid, rue cis orpop, I immersed hint in the wine, Julian eEgypt. 5 (59)Anacreont, iv. 4, p. 52, ed. Lips. 1819. 3. The covering over of any object by the/lowing or pourzzeg of a fluid on it; and metaphorically (in the passive), the being overwhelmed or oppressed: thus, the Pseudo-Aristotle speaks ofplaces full of bulrushes and sea weeds, which, when the tide is at the ebb, are not baptized (i.e., covered by the water), but at
full tide are flooded over (Afirabil. Auscult., sec. 137, p. 50, in Westerman's edit. of the Script. her. Mir. Gr.); Diodonis Siculus (bk. i.) speaks of land animals being destroyed by the river ing them, and baptizing them (SzacpBelperaz ; Plato and A thenus describe men in a state of ebriety as baptized (Synzpos., p. 176 B.; and Deipnos. v.), and the former says the same of a youth overwhelmed with sophistry (Euthyd. 277 D. ); Plutarch denounces the forcing of knowledge on children beyond what they can receive as a cess by which the soul is baptized (De Lib. ea'uc.), and he speaks of men as baptized by debts (Galba', c. 21) ; Diodorus Sic. speaks of baptizing people with tears (bk. i. c. 73), and Libanius says, He who hardly bears what he now bears, would be baptized by a little addition' (Epist. 31o), and I am one of those baptized by that great wave' (Ep. 25). 4. The washing or wetting of an object, whether by aspersion or immersion ; as pair rirv, Heat Bb TOL et WILLS As a bladder thou art washed (1 e., by the waves breaking over thee), but thou canst not go down' (Orac. Sibyll. de Athenis, ap. Plutarch. Thesez; 24).
From this it appears, that in classical usage gar is not fixed to any special mode of applying the baptizing element to the object baptized ; all that is implied by the term is, that the former is closely in contact with the latter, or that the latter is wholly in the former.