A Bible History of Baptism

by Samuel J. Baird

Another point in Mark’s statement is, that, “When they come from the market, except they baptize, they eat not.” Here, it would seem that Mark means something different and more important than the ordinary washing of the hands, to which he has just before referred. It is an additional statement, of other rites employed on special occasions. The word, agora, which is translated “the market,” has a much more extensive signification than the English word. Its primary meaning is, a concourse, an assembly, of any kind. And while it was used among others, to designate the assemblies for traffic, and hence the places of such assemblies, it is not, in the text, to be understood in that limited sense; but as comprehensive of all promiscuous assemblages of the people, in which a person was liable unwittingly to come in contact with the unclean. It was upon occasion of our Savior’s coming from such an assembly, that the Pharisee of whom Luke informs us was surprised that he had not first baptized before dinner. He had been preaching in the midst of a multitude “gathered thick together” (Luke xi, 29), when he received and accepted the invitation to dine. He had thus been exposed to a contact which the Pharisees would have carefully avoided, as liable to involve them, unaware, in the extremest defilement, and to render necessary special rites of purifying. This was undoubtedly the cause of the surprise of the Pharisee at the conduct of Jesus.

As to the mode of the baptism here referred to, the gospels are silent. In favor of the supposition that it was immersion, there is nothing whatever in the Scriptures. It rests wholly upon the assumption that that is the meaning of baptizo. The circumstances all very strongly favor the conclusion, that as the major defilements of the Mosaic law were all purged by sprinkling, so this, the major defilement of Pharisaic tradition was cleansed in a kindred way. Among the indications in favor of this conclusion are, the fact that the provision made for purifying at the marriage feast excludes the idea of immersion;—the entire silence of the Scriptures as to any facilities for that purpose;—the incongruity of the supposition to the circumstances of Jesus, in the act of sitting down at the Pharisee’s table;—the absence from the narrative of any allusion to means provided by the Pharisee for the performance, in that mode, of a rite by him so highly esteemed, and for which special provision was necessary;—and the improbability of such a form gaining prevalence among “the Pharisees and all the Jews,” involving, of necessity, both expense and labor, to an intolerable extent. If, on the contrary, as we may reasonably suppose, the house of the Pharisee was provided with appliances, “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews,” they would consist of water pots set at the door, as at the marriage feast, out of which the guests, as they entered, could take water for pouring on their hands, or baptizing their persons by sprinkling, without inconvenience or delay.

We have formerly seen that the self-washings of the Mosaic law,—in which alone its advocates have ever pretended that immersion may be found in the Old Testament,—were of continual recurrence in every family. We find in the time of Christ the rites supplemented by those now in question, which were of even more frequent occasion. If they were performed by self-washing, by affusion, or by sprinkling, such provision of vessels as thus indicated was all-sufficient. But if they were immersions of the person, the almost daily necessities of every family would have required not only an extraordinary supply of water, but a capacious bath tub in every house. Without such a vessel and supply, at home, immersion of the person, with the frequency required, was not merely improbable; it was impossible. But such arrangements would have involved an amount of expense and of labor which no people could endure.

If we open the Scriptures to inquire what is their testimony on this point, on which, if the system of immersion was in operation, some hints could not fail to appear, we find that the one only statement or allusion is contained in the account of the six water pots at the marriage feast. They were set “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” This expression, alike in itself, and in the attendant circumstances, as already considered, is exclusive of the supposition that any purifying rite was observed among the Jews, for which the water pots were not a sufficient provision. In short, all the evidence concurs to determine that “the purifying of the Jews,” however performed, was not by immersion of the person.

Section L.—A Various Reading.

There is a various reading, in the Greek manuscripts, which is full of meaning with reference to our present inquiry. Whilst many manuscripts, including the Alexandrian, which is referred to the fifth century, read baptisōntai,—“except they baptize they eat not,” (Mark vii, 4); the two oldest and of the highest authority, the codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both dating from the fourth century, and with them numbers of a later date, read, rantisōntai, “except they sprinkle they eat not.” The presumption is very strong in favor of rantisōntai being the true reading. Its bearing on the logical connection of Mark’s statement is worthy of note. According to it, he describes three classes of rites. He specifies, first, self-washings of the hands, as always used before dinner; second, certain sprinklings, resorted to upon supposition of more serious defilements; and third, baptisms of pots and cups, etc., the modes of purifying, for which, prescribed in the law, were various. The relation of these purifyings to those appointed by Moses is apparent. They coincide with the self-washings, the sprinklings, and the purifying of things prescribed by him. The various readings here involve considerations of great importance. As before stated, rantisōntai is the reading of the two oldest and most highly esteemed manuscripts, dating back to within about two hundred and fifty years of the death of the apostle John. These manuscripts are recognized by critical scholars as being so far independent of each other that their various readings indicate the gradual divergence which would progress from copy to copy through several generations of manuscripts; so that the reading on which they unite must have originated, if not with the evangelist, at least very soon after the first publication of his gospel. On the other hand, the reading, baptisōntai, first found in the Alexandrian codex, of the fifth century, appears in the great majority of extant manuscripts. We may confidently conclude that there must have been earlier copies of high authority in which this reading was found. It thus appears that at a time but little if any removed from the age of the apostles, these two readings existed side by side in the received copies of the gospel.

This fact is the more significant in view of the jealous care with which the purity of the New Testament text was guarded. So long as the last of the apostles survived, his inspired authority was an available resort on all questions of controversy, arising in the churches. (2 Cor. xi, 28; 3 John 9, 10.) During this period, the importance of an absolutely pure text of the writings of the apostles and evangelists was not fully appreciated. The work of transcription was left to the zeal of private individuals, who were often wanting in the necessary qualifications; whilst there was no system of responsible revision. It was probably during this period, closing about fifty years after the death of the apostle John, that the most important variations and errors crept in. About that time, the importance of a pure text, as an authoritative standard of appeal on questions of controversy, began to be felt; and, thereafter, great vigilance was exercised by the officers of the church in securing correct copies. The transcriptions were made from the best and most accurate manuscripts. And when a copy was made, it appears to have been subjected to a critical revision, after having been first collated usually by the scribe himself, with the copy from which it was taken, for the purpose of correcting any clerical errors, that might have occurred in the transcription. The manuscript was then handed over to “the corrector,” whose business it was to revise the text by a comparison with other available manuscripts. In this office the services of the most learned and able men in the church were employed; and it was not until sanctioned by such revision that a manuscript was accepted as an authentic copy. Beside the process here described, the ancient manuscripts abound in changes made by subsequent critics. The codex Sinaiticus exhibits alterations “by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page, others occasional or limited to separate portions of the manuscript, many of them being cotemporaneous with the first writer; far the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh century, a few being as recent as the twelfth.”[^[68]]

In view of the diligence of the criticism thus systematically exercised, the fact is very remarkable that the two readings, baptisōntai, and rantisōntai should have been transmitted side by side, and traceable back nearly to the apostolic age. And it is further remarkable, that no one of the ten successive critics whose revisions are traceable on the codex Sinaiticus has corrected the place in question so as to read baptisōntai, although it is certain that reading did extensively prevail. Nor is the variation alluded to in the writings of the fathers. It is immaterial to the present argument which is the true reading. If it was rantisōntai, the language of Mark explains the meaning of Luke. What the Pharisee expected was that Jesus should have baptized himself by sprinkling. And, whichever is the true reading, this fact is patent that at an age so early as to be undistinguishable from that of the apostles and evangelists, so intimate was the relation between sprinkling and baptism that the one word was inadvertently substituted for the other, in transcription; and the alteration received by the ablest men in the church, without question or protest, then or afterward, or the betrayal even of a consciousness of change; despite the watchfulness of a criticism systematic in its exercise and jealous for the purity of the text. If the primitive church understood baptism to mean immersion, if the rite was administered in that, as the only Scriptural mode, the occurrence of the case here presented would have been plainly impossible. It could only happen where the two words were identified as designating the same rite. How easily the words might be confounded will appear by a comparison of them as written in the primitive Greek, known as uncials, or capital letters:—

ΒΑΠΤΙΖΩΝΤΑΙ.

ΡΑΝΤΙΖΩΝΤΑΙ