Water Baptism / A Pagan and Jewish Rite but not Christian, Proven by Scripture and History Confirmed by the Lives of Saints Who Were Never Baptized with Water

by James H. Moon

[196] Jon. 16.12

[197] Jon. 14.23, 26

[198] Jon. 16.12

[199] Mat. 11.25

---

WATER BAPTISM AFTER THE APOSTLES' TIME

By collateral evidence we are led to suppose that several of the apostles were martyred under the Roman Emperor, Nero, about A.D. 64.

The Jews rebelled against the Romans, A.D. 66. At the approach of war, Christians of Jerusalem and Judea removed to Pela, beyond the Jordan.[200] Eusebius says they fled in obedience to a Divine revelation.[201] These were all Jews, and in their new homes were called Nazarenes or Ebonites.[202]

Jerusalem and the temple were utterly destroyed and the Jews massacred by the Romans, A.D. 70.[203]

Dean Stanley says: "The fall of Jerusalem was the fall of the Jewish world; it was a reason for the close of the apostolic age; a death-blow of the influence of Jewish nationality for a long time to come."[204]