Kitabı oku: «A Bible History of Baptism», sayfa 6
From these passages it appears: (1.) That the defilement of nidda was a figure representing the sins and apostasies of Israel, viewed as God’s covenant people, his married wife. (2.) That the sprinkling of water is the ordinance divinely chosen to represent the mode of the Spirit’s agency in cleansing from these offenses. (3.) That this defilement and the water of nidda were so intimately associated with each other in the usage of Israel as to serve the prophets for a familiar illustration of the gracious purposes of God, indicated in the texts. If the figure of speech used by the prophet is the proper one for illustrating his doctrine in words, the water of nidda sprinkled on the unclean was the appropriate form by which to express it in ritual action. When, therefore, in the light of these facts, we read the law that the ashes of the heifer “shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of nidda,” the conclusion is irresistible, that those defiled with nidda were to be purified with that water. And when to this we add the further declaration concerning “the man that is unclean,” and is not sprinkled with it, and see it illustrated by the case of the Midianite children, the further conclusion is equally evident that, except the peculiar case of the leper, the water of separation was designed for all classes of seven days’ defilement. To all others who were in a state of ritual separation from the communion of Israel, it was essential in order to being restored.
Section XVII. —The Baptism of Proselytes
Maimonides was a learned Spanish Jew of the twelfth century. He wrote large commentaries upon the institutions and laws of Israel. Concerning the reception of proselytes, he is quoted as saying: “Circumcision, baptism, and a free-will offering, were required of any Gentile who desired to enter into the covenant, to take refuge under the wings of the divine majesty, and assume the yoke of the law; but if it was a woman, baptism and an offering were required, as we read, ‘One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.’ – Num. xv, 16. But what was the law ‘for you’? The covenant was confirmed by circumcision and baptism and free-will offerings. So was it confirmed with the stranger, with these three. But now, that no oblations are made [the temple being destroyed], circumcision and baptism are required. But after the temple shall have been restored, then also it will be necessary that an offering be made. A stranger who is circumcised and not baptized, or baptized and not circumcised, is not called a proselyte till both are performed.”6 Various similar statements are frequently quoted from the same writer, and from the Talmud. Respecting them the following points are to be noticed:
1. The Hebrew word which is used by Maimonides and the Talmudic writers, and is here translated, to baptize, is tābal, a word which in the books of Moses is never used to designate rites of purifying of any kind.
2. The tābalings, or Talmudic baptisms, were self-performed, and not the act of an official administrator. The reception of the person must be sanctioned by the consistory or eldership of a synagogue, and attested by the presence of three witnesses. But it was performed by the person’s own act. Being disrobed, and standing in the water, he was instructed by a scribe in certain precepts of the law. Having heard these, he plunged himself under the water; and as he came up again, “Behold he is an Israelite in all things.” If it was a woman, she was attended by women, while the scribes stood apart and read the precepts: “And as she plungeth herself, they turn away their faces, and go out, when she comes out of the water.”7 It is perfectly evident that the rite thus described is wholly foreign to any thing to be found in the Mosaic law, and that it belonged to the category of self-washings, and not to that of the sacrament, in which an official administrator was essential to the validity of the rite.
3. This baptism is an invention of the scribes, of post Biblical origin. Our sources of information are (1) the Scriptures and Apocrypha; (2) the writings of Philo and Josephus, authors, the former of whom was contemporary with Christ, and the latter with the destruction of Jerusalem, both of whom wrote largely of the institutions and history of the Jews; (3) the Targums of Onkelos and of Jonathan; (4) the Mishna; (5) the Gemaras.
The Targums are Aramaic versions of the Old Testament. The Jews, at the return from the Babylonish captivity, had lost the knowledge of the Hebrew language. It was, therefore, necessary that the public reading of the Scriptures should be accompanied with a translation into the Aramaic dialect, which they now used. (Neh. viii, 2-8.) The translations thus given were, no doubt, at first extemporaneous and somewhat variable. But they gradually assumed fixed forms, more or less accurate, as they received the impress of different schools of interpreters. At first transmitted orally, they were at length committed to writing, the Targum of Onkelos soon after the end of the second century, and that of Jonathan a century later. The former, as a rule, keeps closely to the text. The Targum of Jonathan indulges more in paraphrase. The Mishna is the text of the Oral law, the traditions of the scribes. It was reduced to writing by Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, about the end of the first century, and is believed to be a faithful exhibit of the traditions of the Jews, as they stood at that time. The two Gemaras, with the Mishna, constitute the Talmud. They are collections of interpretations and commentaries on the Mishna, or oral law, by the most eminent scribes. The Jerusalem or Palestinian Gemara was compiled in the third and fourth centuries, and that of Babylonia one or two centuries later. The former represents the great rabbinic seminary at Tiberias, in Galilee; the latter that of Sora, on the Euphrates.8
From these sources of information, the indications are conclusive that Talmudic baptism came into use after the destruction of Jerusalem. We have seen already part of the evidence, which will be more fully developed in the following pages, that no such rite was ordained in the law, observed by Israel, or recognized in the Scriptures. The Apocrypha are equally silent on the subject. The writings of Philo and Josephus ignore such a rite; as do the Targums and Mishna. In the latter, the word, tābal, which is commonly translated, to dip, is used constantly to designate the self-washings of the law, which, as will presently appear, can not have been immersions. In fact, there is sufficient evidence that this word, in addition to its modal sense, was also used to express a washing or cleansing, irrespective of the manner. That it was so employed to describe the cleansing of Naaman, will hereafter appear. It is not until we come to the Gemara of Babylonia, dating at the close of the fifth century, long after the destruction of Jerusalem and cessation of the temple service, that we meet with any distinct account of proselyte immersion. After that it is found everywhere.
4. Whilst it is thus evident that the baptisms of the Talmud are wholly without divine warrant, they are nevertheless valuable as constituting an authentic rabbinic tradition that a purifying with water was requisite in the reception of proselytes. A key to the truth on this subject presents itself in a statement found in the Mishna. “As to a proselyte who becomes a proselyte on the eve of the passover” (that is the evening before the day of the passover), “the school of Shammai say, Let him receive the ritual bath” (tābal), “and let him eat the passover in the evening; but the disciples of Hillel say, He that separates himself from his uncircumcision is like one who separates himself from a sepulcher.”9 It thus appears that between the two schools of Jewish scribes there was a division on this subject. The one party taught that the uncleanness of the Gentiles was of such a nature as to require seven days of purifying with the water of nidda, according to the law for one defiled by the dead. The others held them subject to that minor uncleanness which ceased with the close of the day, upon the performance of the prescribed self-washing. We shall presently see that the former were correct, according to the explicit testimony of the Scriptures. But here we have a clue to the later history of Jewish practice on the subject. Upon the destruction of Jerusalem and the termination of the sacrificial services there, the rites for purifying with the water of nidda were of necessity pretermitted, as the ashes of the heifer were no longer obtainable. The rabbins were, therefore, induced to substitute the self-washing which the looser school of scribes had already espoused. At what precise time the self-washings of the law became the self-immersions of the Gemaras does not appear. But at the beginning of the Christian era, causes had been already for centuries at work which were abundantly sufficient to account for the change. From the times of the captivities, the vast multitude of Hebrews who never returned, dwelling in Babylonia and the farther east, had been exposed to the influences arising from the religions of the lands of their dispersion, as embodied in the Zend Avesta and the Shasters, the teachings of Zoroaster and of the Brahmins, and from the related manners and customs and religious rites which have their native seats upon the banks of the Indus and the Ganges. The profoundness of the operation of these influences is seen in the pantheism of the Kabala, traceable as it is to the kindred doctrines of the Zend Avesta and the Vedas.10 How conspicuous the place held by self-immersion in the religious customs of the people of the East, from the earliest ages, every one knows. The Hebrews dwelling among them were not restricted by the law to any defined mode of self-washing in fulfilling its requirements. It was, therefore, natural and inevitable for them to adopt the mode which was daily practiced before their eyes. The relations between the Jews of “the Dispersion,” and those of Palestine, were of the most intimate kind, sustained through attendance upon the annual feasts at Jerusalem (Acts ii, 9), and afterwards by continual correspondence and travel, and by the intercourse of the school at Tiberias with those of Sora and Pumbaditha. If to these facts be added the tendency by which the rabbins would seek to compensate for the absence of the water of nidda, by expanding and magnifying the self-washings which were still practicable, there remains no ground of surprise or perplexity in finding self-immersion installed among the imperative observances set forth in the Gemaras. Of the disposition to supply the place of the now impracticable rites by the enlargement of others, the Talmud affords more than one example.
I have said that the Scriptural mode of purifying for proselytes was by sprinkling with the water of nidda. Of its use there is a conspicuous example. On account of their licentious wiles against Israel, Midian was doomed to destruction. In the campaign which followed, none were spared, except the female children. These were reserved for bond servants. (Num. xxxi, 18; and compare Lev. xxv, 44-46; and Deut. xxi, 10-14.) But, from the days of Abraham, all bond servants had been by divine authority and command endowed with an equal right and share with their masters in God’s favor and covenant. And as Israel itself had been purified from the defilements and idolatries of Egypt, and ordained as the peculiar people of God by the baptism of blood and water at Sinai, so these children of licentious Midian, spared from the destruction incurred by their parents, and about to be joined with Israel as God’s people, must be cleansed and admitted in the same manner.
During the expedition, many of the army had become defiled by contact with the slain, and were therefore to be cleansed with the water of separation, according to the law. Moses, therefore, issued orders to the men of the army: “Do ye abide without the camp seven days; whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.” In these directions as to the third and seventh days, we recognize the exact requirements of the law, with respect to the water of separation for the purification of sin. But the narrative is still more specific. “Eleazer the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses. Only the gold and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead, every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless, it shall be purified with the water of separation, and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water. And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.” – Num. xxxi, 19-24. “The water of separation,” here, is, in the original, “the water of nidda,” – the water, that is, in which were mingled the ashes of the red heifer. With this, therefore, it was that these daughters of Midian were baptized and cleansed. There were thirty-two thousand of these captives, thus rescued from the destruction incurred by the licentiousness and crimes of their own people, purged from their uncleanness, engrafted into the family of Abraham, and endowed with the blessings of the covenant. All were “women children” (Num. xxxi, 18); and, undoubtedly, many were mere babes; the first recorded example of distinctive infant baptism.
Section XVIII. —The Baptism of Infants
We have seen that in the Abrahamic covenant, – the betrothal of the church, – the infant sons were expressly included on equal terms with their fathers; and that in the Sinai espousal the infants of both sexes were joined with their parents in the bonds of the covenant, and in the reception of its baptismal seal. We have seen the young daughters of Midian purified and admitted to the covenant and church of Israel by the same sacrament. By these unquestionable facts, the principle of infant membership in the church, and the mode of its certification by baptism, are both alike clearly established. The Scriptures contain conclusive evidence that the children of after generations of Israel were received to the covenant and the church in like manner, by baptism with the water of separation.
1. The law of God was explicit that “one ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance forever in your generations; as ye are so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.” – Num. xv, 14-16. From this law, it results as a necessary conclusion, that inasmuch as the Midianite children were baptized, the same must have been the rule for the infants of Israel.
2. Circumcision was the seal of the Abrahamic covenant, but not of that of Sinai. So long as the church was confined to the family of Israel after the flesh, this rite, as being the proof and seal of membership in that family was essential as a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the privileges of the church; but did not, of itself, seal or convey a right to them. Otherwise, every circumcised person would have been entitled to those privileges; whereas they were reserved exclusively for the clean.
3. While such was the case, it was a fundamental article of the faith from the beginning, that men are all natively unclean. Job, Eliphaz, and Bildad, each severally states it as an unquestionable proposition that man born of woman must be so. (Job xiv, 4; xv, 14; xxv, 4.) David cries: “Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me… Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” – Psalm li, 5-7. He not only recognizes the radical nature of his moral corruption as born in him, but indicates the remedy under the very figure of sprinkling with the water of nidda, to which the hyssop refers. The Lord Jesus, speaking at a time when the Old Testament ordinances and system were still in full force, testifies, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” – John iii, 6, 7.
4. To signalize this native corruption of man and the remedy, the ordinances concerning the defilement of nidda and its cleansing were appointed. In them the new born infant was regarded as the product of overflowing corruption, and as a fountain of defilement to the mother, who thus became unclean, until purified with the water of separation.
5. The child was identified with the mother in this uncleanness (1) as being its cause in her; (2) as being subject to her touch, which was defiling to the clean; and (3) as being bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, born of her body.
6. In accordance with the doctrine of man’s native defilement, above illustrated, it was characteristic of the law that it recognized none as clean, unless purged by water of sprinkling. The infants at Sinai were so purified and admitted to the covenant, as well as their parents. So it was with the daughters of Midian; and no other principle was known to the law, – no other practice tolerated by it. “The man” (the person) “that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.” – Num. xix, 20.
7. It is a very remarkable fact, that while we have in the Scriptures but one single example specifically mentioned of the purifying of an infant from this ritual defilement of birth, that example occurs in the person of Him respecting whom the angel said to Mary, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” – Luke i, 35. In the same gospel in which is this record, we read, respecting Mary, in the common version, that “when the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” – Ib. ii, 22. But it is agreed by critical editors that this is a corrupted reading, which is wholly without authority from any respectable manuscript. Instead of “the days (autēs) of her purification,” it should read (autōn), “the days of their purification;” that is, of both mother and child. Beside all the other authorities, the three oldest manuscripts, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus, unite in this reading. How the mothers were purified, we have seen; and, from these facts, we know the children to have shared with them in the baptism.
Section XIX. —The Baptism of the Levites
The case of the Levites, in their cleansing and consecration, was peculiar. They had already enjoyed with the rest of the congregation the purifying rites and sprinkled seal of the Sinai covenant; and were thus, in the ordinary sense of the Mosaic ritual, clean, and competent to the enjoyment of the ordinances and privileges of Israel. But when they were set apart to a special nearness to God, in the service of the sanctuary, they were required to undergo additional ceremonies of purifying. Moses was instructed to “take the Levites from among the children of Israel and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them. Sprinkle water of purifying upon them; and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean.” They were then to bring two bullocks; “and the Levites shall lay their hands upon the heads of the bullocks, and thou shalt offer the one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering, unto the Lord, to make an atonement for the Levites. And thou shalt set the Levites before Aaron and before his sons, and offer them for an offering unto the Lord. Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be mine.” – Num. viii, 6-14.
