Ovid.
ὄσσε καθαιρήσουσι θανόντι πέρ.
Homer. Iliad. 11.
Secondly, they washed the body being dead. Tabitha died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper-chamber, Act. 9. 37. The baptization or washing at such a time was threefold. The first was βαπτισμὸς ἀπὸ νεκρῶν, Eccles. 34. 26. A washing from the pollution contracted by the touch of a dead carkass; that if haply any ignorantly and unawares became thus unclean, then was he by a kind of washing to be made clean again. The second was βαπτισμὸς τῶν νεκρῶν, a baptization or washing of the dead Corps it self. Thus Tabitha was washed: neither is the word βαπτισμὸς, unusually applied to common washings, as Mar. 7. 4. we read of the washing of cups, pots, vessels, tables, the Greek is βαπτισμὸς. The first of these washings was proper to the Jews: this second in use with Jews Christians,[694] and Heathens:[695] the third (which was βαπτισμὸς ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, a baptization for the dead, 1 Cor. 15. 9.) proper to some amiss-led Christians. It may be demanded, what manner of Baptism this was? with submission of my judgment, I understand this place with S. Ambrose[696] of a Sacramental washing, applied unto some living man in the name and behalf of his friend, dying without Baptism, out of a superstitious conceit, that the Sacrament thus conferred to one alive, in the name of the deceased, might be available for the other dying unbaptized. As if the Apostle did wound those superstitious Corinthians with their own quills, and prove the Resurrection of the dead from their own erroneous practice, telling them in effect, that their superstitious custome of baptizing the living for the dead, were vain and bootless, if there were no resurrection, and therefore the Apostle useth an emphatical distinction of the persons, in the next immediate verse, saying, why are we also in jeopardy every hour? he inferreth the resurrection by force of a double argument; the first drawn from their superstitious baptization for the dead: the second, from the hourly jeopardy and peril wherein we, that is, himself and other Christians are. So that as that Father noteth, the Apostle doth not hereby approve their doing, but evinceth their hope of the resurrection from their own practice, though erroneous. That there was Vicarium tale Baptisma (as Tertullian[697] calleth it) in use among the Marcionites, is evident, yea, and among the Corinthians[698] also: the manner thereof is thus described:[699] When any Catechumenist died, some living person placed under the bed of the deceased, they came unto the deceased party, and asked him whether he would be baptized: then he replying nothing, the party under the bed answered for him, saying that he would be baptized: and thus they baptized him for the dead, as if they acted a play upon the Stage.
[694] Tertullian. Apolog. c. 47. It. Euseb. hist. lib. 7. c. 17.
[695] Corpusque lavant frigentis & ungunt Virg. lib. 6. Æneid.
[696] Ambros. 1 Cor. 16. 29.
[697] Tertul. lib. de resur. carnis.
[698] Epiphan. de Corinthian. hæres. 28.
[699] Chrysost. 1 Cor. 15.