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On Certain Points of Analogy Between Jewish and Christian Baptism in the Apostolic age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

I propose, with your kind permission to offer some observations upon the close analogy which existed between Jewish and Christian Baptism in the Apostolic Age, and in doing so I will consider this question in its purely historical aspect, without raising, certainly without desiring to raise, any of those issues which belong to the field of religious controversy, and which would necessarily be out of place in such a Society as ours.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1882

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References

page 249 note * Exod. xix. 10, 11.

page 249 note † Mickvaoth More Nebochim, pt. 3, c. 33; also Gemara Babyl. Jevamoth, fol. 46.

page 249 note ‡ Loc cit. Talm. Tract. Repud. also says:—“Israel does not enter into covenant but by these three things—by circumcision, baptism, and peace offering, and the proselytes in like manner.”

page 250 note* Numb. xv. 15.

page 250 note † Maimonides Issuri Bia., chaps. 13 and 14. Talm. Babyl. Mass. Jevamoth, fo. 47, is to the same effect, save that it insists on the presence of only two “wise men.” According to the Jerusalem Talmud, fo. 46, c. 2, however, a proselyte has need of three. All concur that the baptism should not be at night, and should take place by complete immersion in a confluence of waters.

page 250 note‡ Selden de Jure. Nat. et. Gent. lib. 2, chap. 2. Lightfoot, “Hora: Hebraiæ” (Matt. iii. 6).

page 251 note* Maimonides, Issuri Bia., chap. 13, “A heathen woman, if she is made a proselytess when big with child, he needs not baptism for the baptism of the mother serves him for baptism.” Jevamoth, fo. 78, 1.

page 251 note † Talm. Chetub. fol. 44, 1.

page 251 note ‡ Talm. Jerus. Jevamoth, fol. 8.

page 252 note * Talm. Bab. Erubhin, fol. 11, 1.

page 252 note † “A proselyte if of age made profession to the Court that he would keep Moses' law. But in the case of minors the Court itself did profess in their name the same thing, just as in the Christian Church the god-fathers do; at least if their parents were not there to do it for them.” Selden de Synedriis, lib. i, c. 3.

page 252 note ‡ J Hebrews ix. 10.

page 253 note* Talm. Bab. Erubhin, fol. 11, 1.

page 253 note † “The Gentile that is made a proselyte and the servant who is made free behold he is like a child new born. And all those relations he had whilst either Gentile or servant they now cease from being so. By the law it is lawful for a Gentile to marry his mother, or the sister of his mother, if they are proselyted to the Jewish religion. But the wise men have forbidden this lest it should be said we go downward from a greater degree of sanctity to a less, and that what was forbidden yesterday is allowable to-day. Maimonides, Iss. Bia., c. 14. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., John iii. 3. Jevamoth, fol. 22, 1, fol. 62, 1.

page 254 note* Maimonides, Iss. Bia., c. 13, sect. 14, 15.

page 255 note* Maimonides, Iss. Bia., c. 14, sect. 14.

page 255 note † Ephes. v. 26.

page 255 note ‡ The Council of Laodicea ordered that “none be admitted to baptism at Easter who does not give in his name before a fortnight, if Lent be out, and that they must all be able to say the Creed by the Thursday before Easter, and that if any be baptized in sickness when they recover they must learn and recite it.” Can. 45, 46, 47.

page 255 note § The law expressly forbade sacrifices except in the Temple at Jerusalem. Maimonides, referring to proselytes, wrote, “And at this time when there is no sacrificing they must be circumcised and baptized, and when the Temple shall be built they are to bring the sacrifice.” Issuri. Bia. c. 13.

page 256 note * Horæ Heb. Matt. iii. 6.

page 257 note * Acts xxi. 25.

page 257 note * St. John, iv. 2.

page 258 note * 1 Cor. vii.

page 260 note * A Gentile was incapable of marrying, and his children were considered filii nullius. In fact, those who stood outside the pale of Judaism were deemed by a somewhat strained construction of Ezek. xxiii. 20 similar to the beasts of the field. The children of an illicit or forced union between a Gentile and a Jewess were not considered memzer within the meaning of Deut. xxiii. 2, because, under such circumstances, marriage was impossible; but they were sanctified through their mother, and stood in no need of baptism (Jevamoth xlv., 2). Even in the extreme case of a womanenceinte being made a proselytess, and giving birth to twins, they were not bound by the law of Levirate, like ordinary brothers, because though they must have had the same father, the contrary (he being a Gentile) was conclusively presumed by the law. If, however, the twins were conceived as well as born in holiness, they were considered in every respect as Israelites, though the father was a Gentile. It will thus be seen that St. Paul simply gave expression to the received opinions of the Jewish doctors in respect to the religious status of the children of what might be termed mixed marriages. Jevamoth, fol. 97, 2; 98, 1. Maimonides, Hilchoth Yibum, sect. 1 Halachah, 1. Iss. Bia., sect. 14. Halachah, 13. Hershon, Genesis according to the Talmud, 360.

page 261 note * De Anima, c. 39.

page 261 note † Comment, t. 13, sect. 28. Benedict. Edition.

page 261 note ‡ Homil. 19, in I Corinthians, sect. 2.

page 261 note § Epist. 153.

page 262 note * De Sermone in Monte, c. 27.

page 262 note † “Unreasonableness of Separation,” Stillingfleet, pt. 3, sect. 36.

page 264 note * The whole body of Fathers, without a single exception, declared that all infants, born or unborn, who died unbaptized were excluded from heaven. The Fathers of the Eastern Church are, however, entitled to the credit of having imagined a “limbo” as distinct from hell and its torments, where such children were kept to all eternity, and this doctrine was never formally condemned by the Western Church. The Council of Trent categorically declared that unbaptized children were damned, and this doctrine will be found enunciated in its most repulsive form in the treatise De Fide, by St. Fulgentius, where eternal fire is declared to be the certain lot of such children. The Reformation effected no humanizing influence in this particular. In the Confession of Augsburg the teaching of Fulgentius was indorsed without qualification.

page 265 note * These devices were one and all pronounced vain and superstitious, and not only failed to benefit the children, but jeopardized the salvation of the mothers.—Thiers, “Traité des Superstitions.”