Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1873-09-02
Letters from the Peopl
"ALTERA PARS AUDIATUR."

| Editor Spectator:
In late number of your charming
| paper there appears communication from Es-
culapius, in which he very succinctly attempts
to enuncia.e and establish two of the principal
dogmas OF his creed: that the Greek word bap-
t,zo means to sprinkle, to pour. to immerse,
| to wash, &C., aud that it was physically i'm
possible that the three thousand should have
| been baptized by immersion. Surely this arti-
Gle must have been written ''only for the laity,
who have not had the advantages of classical
education for Chrysostom and all the other
Fathers of the Greek church, as we'll as the
whole Creek nation. Person the greatest Greek
scholar of England. Hermann the greatest
Greek scholar OF Germany H. Stephens the
greatest Greek schola of France, and the ablest
Greek photographers and critics, take just the
| opposite view. The utmost that scholars, who
practice sprinkling for baptism, generally pre-
tend to say, is substantially what quote from
one of them: while the word baptaso in the
Greek classic authors is generally employed in
the sense Of to DIP, to ansnaerse anything in
whole or in part, yet there are instances enough
of departure from this Specification to war
rant its usage by the New Testament writer's in
it's kindred sense of ablution. either by INNER
sion, efusion. or sprinkling." Even if this
were so, the same would be true of the English
words to imn,erse, to dip, as ''dipt in dew, !"
&c. But neither the Greek nor the English
words lose their original shade of meaning
That the Greek word means to insaerse. both
in classic authors and in the New Testament,
and has 20 other meaning except what natu-
rally grows out of this, literally or fguratively,
is maintained by the great body of the German
critics, one of whom, Neander, said: ''This is
one f the few good results of rationalism, that
it took away the prejudice which had formerly
led men, 10 this and in other respects, to inter-
pref Scripture in conformity with the practices
of the church." Couy beare and Howson in
saying "the primitive baptism was by INNER
sion' only express ed the views of the great
majority of the Biblical critics of the present
age; and Luther and Wesley, and the older as
we'll as the more recent writers Of the English
church, assert the same thing.
The only real question with scholars at the
present day, is, therefore, as the National Cy-
copedia Of London afirms, mot whether en-
tire immersion were the practice 10 the primi-
tive church, but whether it was regarded as so
essentially part of the ordinance that there
could be no baptism without it.
turn to Yonge's English Greek Lexicon
the best in our anguage-to to the word immerse,
and find 10 the Greek definition the words bap-
to and en5dpto. Again, | turn to the word
sprinkle, and find it defined by ten Greek words,
among which neither bapto nor enabapto nor
any of its derivatives or cognates is found. 1t
is the same thing with dip and aoash
now examine Lddeil and Scotts Greek
English Lexicon, ard under the word bapto, l
fnd-l. to dip. dip under; 2-to dip IN dye,
color, steep; 3-to fill By dipping an, draD.--
Of ship to dip. to sink. But not word is
said about sprinkling. And under the word
baptiso fnd, to dip repeatedly; of ships, to
sink Passive, to battle; participle, soaked ouer
head and ears, drowned ITO dra,o s0ater.-
Hence boptisnaos, a dipping, bathing, q a0ash-
ing, droa0ing aoater, baptism, but here again
nothing is said of sprinkling.
Now this Lexicon is fair representative of
the best modern lexicography, for it is found
on Passon' s, and compared with the new Paris
edition of Stephens Thesaurus, with Pope S
Lexicon, with Rost aad Palms and with Jaco-
[ bitz and Sellers, and is moreover revised by
Drisler.
As to the baptism Of the three thousand, if
Esculapius will examine Chrysostom, or his
Life by Neander, he will learn that three thous-
and we're baptized at one time under similar
circumstances by himself and his associates.
and no one will pretend that Chrysostom did
not baptize by immersion. Otto, of Frisingen,
informs US that the same number of Saxons
were baptized in the river by immersion, with
in the same time as 10 Constautinople and Je-
rusalem. What has actually been done in two,
if not in three cases, cannot be physically i'm
possible"
There can be no doubt that Esculapius did
write for ''the laity, who have not had the ad-
vantages of a classical education"
SCRUTATOR.