ear, the same word Ephphatha, " be thou opened," which our Saviour made use of to the man born deaf and dumb. Lastly, they pull off its swaddling-clothes, or strip it below the shoulders, during which the priest prepares the oil. The sponsors then hold the child directly over the font, observing to turn it due east and west ; whereupon the priest asks the child whether he renounces the devil and all his works, and the godfather having answered in the affirmative, the priest anoints the child between the shoulders in the form of a cross ; then taking some of the consecrated water, he pours part of it thrice on the child s head, at each perfusion calling on one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. The priest concludes the ceremony of baptism with an exhortation. It may be added that the Roman Church allows midwives, in cases of danger, to baptize a child before the birth is completed. A still born child thus baptized may be buried in consecrated
ground.With regard to the form of baptism used in the Church of England, we shall only mention one or two of the more material differences between the form as it stood in the first liturgy of King Edward, and that in the English Common Prayer Book at present. First, the form of consecrating the water did not make a part of the office in King Edward s liturgy, as it does in the present, because the water in the font was changed and consecrated but once a month. The form itself likewise was something different from that now used, and was introduced with a short prayer that Jesus Christ, upon whom (when He was baptized) the Holy Ghost came down in the likeness of a dove, would send down the same Holy Spirit, to sanctify the fountain of baptism, which prayer was afterwards left out at the second revision. By King Edward s first book the minister was required to dip the child in the water thrice ; first the right side, secondly the left, and lastly the face toward the foot. This triple immersion was a very ancient practice in the Christian Church, and was used in honour of the Holy Trinity, though some later writers say it was done to represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, together with His three days con tinuance in the grave. But afterwards, the Arians per suading the people that the custom denoted a distinct substantiality of the three persons in the Trinity, the or thodox party discontinued it and used only one single immersion.
By the first Common Prayer Book of King Edward, after the child was baptized the godfathers and godmothers were to lay their hands upon him, and the minister was to put on him the white vestment, commonly called the chrysome, and to say, " Take this white vesture as a token of the innocency which, by God s grace, in this holy sacrament of baptism, is given unto thee, and for a sign whereby thou art admonished, so long as thou livest, to give thyself to innocence of living, that after this transitory life thou mayest be partaker of the life everlasting." As soon as he had pronounced these words, he was to anoint the infant on the head, saying, " Almighty God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Ghost, and hath given unto thee remission of all thy sins, may He vouchsafe to anoint thee with the unction of His Holy Spirit, and bring thee to the inherit ance of everlasting life."
Baptism of the dead seems to have been founded on the opinion that when men had neglected to receive baptism in their lifetime, some compensation might be made for this default by their receiving it after death, or by another being baptized for them. This practice was chiefly in use among various heretical sects.
Hypothetical Baptism was that administered in certain doubtful cases, with the formula, " If thou art baptized, I do not rebaptize; if thou art not, I baptize thee in tha name of the Father," &c.
Solemn Baptism was that conferred at stated seasons. Such in the ancient Church were the Paschal baptism and that at Whitsuntide. This is sometimes also called general baptism.
Lay Baptism we find to have been permitted both by the Common Prayer Book of King Edward, and by that of Queen Elizabeth, when an infant is in immediate danger of death, and a lawful minister cannot be had ; but after wards, in a convocation held in the year 1575, it was unanimously resolved, that even private baptism, in a case of necessity, was only to be administered by a lawful minister. The Scotch Reformed Church also prohibited private baptism by lay persons, but ordained that when any had been thus baptized, the rite was not to be repeated.
The name baptism has been applied to certain ceremonies used in giving names to things inanimate. The ancients knew nothing of the custom of giving baptism to inanimate things, such as bells, ships, and the like. The first notice we have of this is in the capitulars of Charles the Great, where it is mentioned with censure ; but afterwards it crept by degrees into the Roman offices. Baronius carries its antiquity no higher than the year 9G8, when the great bell of the church of Lateran was christened by Pope John III. At last it grew to such a height as to form a ground of complaint in the Centum Gravamina of the German nation, drawn up at the diet of Nuremberg in 1581, where the ceremony of baptizing a bell, with godfathers, &c., to make it capable of driving away tempests and devils, was declared to be a superstitious practice, contrary to the Christian religion, and a mere seduction of the simple people.
Authorities : Bingliam s Origines Ecdcsiasticce, bks. 10, 11 ; Grimm s Deutsche Eechtsalterthumer ; J. G. "NValch, Historia Fccdo- baptismi quatuor priorum sccculorum ; G. T. Vossins, Disput. Viginti de Baptismo.
were instructed and the sacrament of baptism administered. It was commonly a circular building, although sometimes it had eight and sometimes twelve sides, and consisted of an ante-room (-n-poavXios oikos} where the catechumens were instructed, and where before baptism they made their confession of faith, and an inner apartment where the sacrament was administered. In the inner apartment the principal object was the baptismal font (KoXv/j-ftrjOpa, or piscina), in which those to be baptized were immersed thrice. Three steps led down to the floor of the font, and over it was suspended a golden or silver dove ; while on the walls were commonly pictures of the scenes in the life of the Baptist. The font was at first always of stone, but latterly metals were often used. Baptisteries belong to a period of the church when great numbers of adult catechumens were baptized, and when immersion was the rule. We find little or no trace of them before Constantino made Christianity the state religion, i.e., before the 4th century; and as early as the 6th century the baptismal font was built in the porch of the church and then in the church itself. After the 9th century few baptisteries were built, the most noteworthy of later date being those at Pisa, Florence, Padua, Lucca, and Parma. Some of the older baptisteries were very large, so large that we hear of councils and synods being held in them. It was necessary to make them large, because in the early church it was customary for the bishop to baptize all the catechumens in his diocese (and so baptisteries are commonly found attached to the cathedral and not to the parish churches), and also because the rite was performed only thrice in the year.
(See Baptism.) During the months when there were no
