then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet?" The baptism of John as to meaning, place, and mode agrees perfectly with what was known before; only it is filled with additional meaning as it pointed to the speedy coming, even through the Jordan, of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world; just as the washing the clothes and the bath for cleansing from uncleanness of the law of Moses was preceded by a similar custom (Gen. xxxv. 2) and filled with a deeper signification.

How the Jews of the Saviour's day understood this washing of clothes and bathing of the flesh we learn, not from the Mishna or Talmud, which were centuries later, but from the Targum on the Pentateuch. Onkelos translates

Lev. xiv. 15: "He shall immerse his clothes and bathe [using the Hebrew word signifying to swim] in water."

When we pass on to the Mishna (A.D. 200 (?)), we find the last twelve treatises are on the laws of purification. Every one unclean even for a day must immerse himself, no part of the body excepted, in living (spring) water, and the least quantity of water sufficing for this purpose was stated at forty seahs, equal to about eighty gallons (Mikvaoth, i. 8; ii. 1-3, 10; iii. 1; viii. 9, 10; Shabbath, vi. 1). According to the Mishna, from beginning to end, all these baths for cleansing from uncleanness were complete immersions (Comp. Berachoth, iii. 4, 5; Biccurim, ii. 1; Pesachim, viii. 8; Yoma, iii. 3-6; vii. 3, 4; Megillah, ii. 4; Chagigah, ii. 5, 6; iii. 1, 3; Tamid, i. 1, 2; Kelim, i. 5; Para, often; Toharoth, ii. 1; v. 3, 4). There is no exception in the Mishna, allowing sprinkling or pouring for the immersion.1

The Jewish baptism of proselytes at the present day is

1That the typically cleansing bath of the Jews was the same as that of Christians as to mode in the third and fourth centuries, see Tertullian, Baptism, 4 ff.

an exact reproduction of their ancient custom and of the prescriptions of the Mishna. The candidate enters the water sufficiently deep, and, after answering the questions of the rabbi, bows his head beneath the water until his whole body is covered.

"THE TEACHING" AND THE PICTURE.

Of one thing there can be no sane doubt: with two exceptions, the universal testimony of Greek and Latin and Syriac Christian writers of the first five centuries is that baptism was by immersion. From Tertullian (A.D. 220) onwards, the testimony of these writers and the prescriptions of the rituals for baptism, the canons of the Egyptian Church (A.D. 200-300), the Apostolic Constitutions (A.D. 350-400), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. Lect., A.D. 386), Ambrose of Milan (On the Sacraments and on the Mysteries, A.D. 397), Dionysius Areopagita (A.D. 450),—all prove that the only baptism taught by the churches of Western Asia, of Asia Minor, Egypt, the lands of the Greeks, Italy and North Africa, was not merely immersion but trine immersion. Trine immersion was prescribed in all cases by these rituals, and nothing less was held to be valid baptism. But in "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (A.D. 120-165),' there is the following prescription: "Thus baptize ye: having first said [taught] all these things [i.e. the preceding teachings], baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living [i.e. flowing] water. But if thou have not living water, baptize into other water; if thou canst not in cold, [then] in warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit." That is,

1 Philotheos Bryennios, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, etc. (Constantinople, 1883). Text and Commtr. in Greek. Often re-edited by German, English, and American scholars.

only in case of a lack of water is pouring thrice upon the head permitted. If there is plenty of water the pouring is excluded by this "Teaching." There is the first exception. But, by the proof of the numerous writers and rituals, this exceptional provision of this unknown and poorly instructed writer never had the least influence on others, and never modified a single ritual for at least six centuries. Where were the people who followed this exception? No monument or literature gives the least hint of them. Every church of the present day knows its men of exceptions, promising themselves and others great things, whose influence is in the inverse ratio to their wishes. To suppose

that this exception, probably born in the Egyptian desert, was acknowledged by Christians in general, is to make a supposition that is denied in positive terms by Christian writers all around the Mediterranean, east and west and north and south.

Wilpert and Parker1 have proved the folly of those who descant on the paintings in the catacombs of Rome without a personal inspection and a thorough knowledge of their history and of the writers upon them. Otherwise paintings, which no one can interpret so as to gain another's assent, are put in the list of the most simple, with an interpretation absolutely ridiculous when other similar paintings are studied. Paintings and mosaics of the ninth century are gaily made products of the second or third centuries. The mosaic representation of the baptism of Constantine by Sylvester, now in the Lateran Museum, is solemnly quoted as of the fourth century and a true picture. There are two things about that picture which might make the most heedless pause: the priests in the picture wear the beretta, which was unknown before the tenth century; and Constantine was not baptized by Sylvester, for Sylvester

1I. H. Parker. The Archæology of Rome. Part XII. The Catacombs. 1877. W. Wilpert. Die Katakombengemälde, etc., 1891.

died two years before that baptism; and Constantine was not baptized in Rome, but five hundred miles east of Rome, in Nicomedia in Asia Minor, by Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia. Then, too, the vase as the baptistery! All the theories founded on that deceptive basis are not worth the ink that printed them.

One of the most self-contradictory interpretations has been set forth by taking the exception of the writer of the "Teaching," and applying it to explain one of two precisely similar paintings of an early day, probably before A.D. 300, in the catacombs. There are two rooms in the cemetery of St. Callistus, commonly called the Chapel of the Sacraments. In both rooms there is the same very simple series of symbolical paintings representing the water of life, conversion, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. A man (Moses, Peter) strikes the Rock, Christ, from whence flow "the many waters" "like a river" and spread far over the scene. Another man is drawing from that river of the water of life a large fish, that would require a depth of two or three feet at least for its home. In both rooms a small boy, apparently about ten or twelve years old, stands in this river with the water covering his ankles; and a man on the bank has his hand on the head of the boy. Both of these pictures are shown in the accompanying plates, taken from the most authoritative work, De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea Christiana, Tomo 1, Tavole xv., xvi. These plates of De Rossi's are not from photographs, but are lithographs. We are therefore far from seeing the pictures just as they are; we see them as De Rossi's draughtsman saw and represented them. One has only to compare De Rossi's lithographs with the representations of Roller and others to feel sure that nothing less than a good photograph can tell us exactly what the pictures are.

On the basis of these lithographs of De Rossi, in both cases the hand of the man is firmly set on the head of the