baptism of couches.—mark 7:4
IN Carson’s polemical enginery we find this canon: “When a
thing is proved by sufficient evidence, no objection from difficulties can be
admitted as decisive, except they involve an impossibility.” And he brings this
canon to bear against the idea of a supposed peculiar difficulty in the
immersing of couches (rendered in our version “washing of tables,” or “beds,”
as in the margin). Some have gone so far as to speak of the “impossibility” of
the thing; but this has never been and never can be proved. Professor Shedd
(quoting in Lange’s “Commentary,” from Professor J. A. Alexander) ventures only
to say that this passage affords, “if not conclusive evidence, at least a
strong presumption, that beds (to say’ no more) might be baptized without
immersion.” So, under the shelter of Carson’s canon, we need not, as yet, feel
greatly disturbed.
The word here used for couches sometimes refers to beds for
sleeping, &c., which—often being but mats, quilts, or very light
mattresses—could be easily carried about in one’s arms for quite a distance
(Matt. 9:2–6; also Luke 5:18; Acts 5:15). De Wette, in the passage before us,
regards these klinai as being beds in general.
In the latest edition of Tischendorf the word is omitted altogether, and it
will probably be omitted in our forthcoming revised version.1 We shall
here, however, treat it as genuine; and, since the other vessels mentioned in
the verse refer to eating utensils, we shall regard these klinai as
referring to the couches on which people reclined for eating. There were
generally three of them around a table (hence called triclinia);
and each of them commonly was large enough for the occupancy of two, three, or
more persons. These couches, according to Dr. John Lightfoot, the great
rabbinical scholar, were rendered unclean by persons affected with leprosy,
bloody issue, &c. The records do not state how often these were
baptized; but it would seem that the occasions for this thorough cleansing were
quite unfrequent. Heaton says, “It is incredible that the Jews should immerse
their couches before each meal; “and we agree with him. Nor is
any intimation of such frequency given in the gospel narrative. Still the
scrupulosity of excessive Pharisaism would doubtless lead them to perform
“incredibilities” and seeming impossibilities. In our ignorance of the
construction of these couches we may suppose that they consisted of a
frame-work, with its different coverings. Perhaps the klinē proper—consisting
of a light and easily portable mat or coverlet, on which, with the aid of
pillows, men were accustomed to recline for eating—itself
constituted the principal covering, and this alone may have been baptized. Dr.
Kitto goes so far as “to suggest that not the bed itself, but its covering, was
washed.” This, we think, would be hardly enough to satisfy Pharisaic
scrupulosity. According to the custom of the later Jews, even the whole
frame-work had to be taken in pieces and dipped. Mark has not told us how these
superstitious Pharisees accomplished their couch-dipping; he simply states that
they baptized their couches,—i.e., immersed them in water: and no fancied
difficulty connected with the operation should allow us to depart from the
usual and established import of that word. Certainly these coaches might have
been so constructed, that, if they could not be baptized whole, they might yet
be taken to pieces, and so baptized. The Rabbi Maimonides says that “every
vessel of wood which is made for the use of man, as a table or bed, receives
defilement.… And these were washed by covering them in water.” He further says,
“A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure. If he
dips the bed in the pool, although the feet are plunged in the thick clay at
the bottom of the pool, it is clean.’ ” Dr. Dale “declines the offered
intervention of a bedscrew to get them” (these couches) “to the dipping.”
Perhaps, however, this instrument was not needed; but, if it were, excessive
Pharisaism, so sternly rebuked by the Saviour, might gladly make use of it.
Clement of Alexandria, in his “Strōmata,” or Miscellanies
(bk. iv. chap. 22), has, by Dr. Dale and some others, been supposed to refer to
these couch-baptizings when he says, “This is a custom of the Jews that they
should be often baptized (epi koitē) upon bed,”—an example, we believe,
which is not noticed in Conant’s “Baptizein.” President Beecher renders this
latter phrase, “baptized often upon their couches”! This, I doubt
not, would be going far beyond any tradition ever received from the elders.
Knowing that water-baptism, to the mind of Clement, as of the church fathers in
general, involved an “intusposition” in water, we cannot believe that the Jews
were often baptized “on their couches,” or that Clement
intended to convey any such idea. They might thus be baptized upon “bed,” if
bed be regarded as used euphemistically for sexual commerce (as in Rom. 9:10),
or for “chambering,” or lewdness (as in Rom. 13:13). For such cases the
Levitical rites provided ablutions, and it is to these that Clement evidently
refers (see Lev. 15). Indeed, Clement interprets himself in another passage,
where he explicitly affirms that “divine providence, through the Lord, does not
now, as formerly, command to be baptized from the conjugal bed.” The phrase
“upon bed” would then mean either on account of or after bed
(post concubitum), as it is rendered in the Latin version of Clement’s
works by Archbishop Potter of England, author of the once well-known
“Antiquities of Greece.” With this accords the rendering which is given to this
passage (by Rev. William Wilson of Musselburgh) in Clark’s “Ante-Nicene
Christian Library;” to wit, “It was a custom of the Jews to wash frequently after
being in bed.” We do not read of any customary baptizing or quasi-baptizing
of persons on beds or couches, literally speaking, till we reach that period in
early Christian history when baptism came to be regarded as indispensable to
salvation (“Nemo adscendit in regnum cœlorum nisi per sacramentum baptismatis,”
Ambrose), and “clinic baptisms,” so called, came into vogue. Then the sick and
dying, if unbaptized, were frequently affused on their beds: and this “divine
compend” or abridgment of baptism would in such a case, of necessity, and
through special divine “indulgence,” answer for baptism, and insure their
eternal salvation; though, in case of recovery, they were precluded from the
office of the ministry.1
It would seem, however, that Athanasius, “the father of
orthodoxy,” did not think much of these “clinic baptisms;” for, when asked his
opinion on the common practice of death-bed baptisms, he replied, “An angel
once said to my great predecessor, ‘Peter’ (a former bishop of Alexandria),
‘why do you send me those sacks (wind-bags) carefully sealed up, with
nothing whatever inside?’ ” Yet not all the clinic or bed baptisms
were by pouring; for where immersion was possible, as Dr. Brenner says (p. 15),
“even clinics were immersed.” “For thirteen hundred years,” says this
Roman-Catholic writer (p. 306), “was baptism generally and regularly an
immersion of the person under water, and only in extraordinary cases a
sprinkling or pouring with water: the latter was, moreover, disputed as a mode
of baptism, nay, even: forbidden.” (See the German original in Conant’s
“Baptizein,” p. 141.) Similar also is the testimony of Dean Stanley in his.
“History of the Eastern Church” (p. 117): “There can be no question that the
original form of baptism—the very meaning of the word—was complete immersion in
the deep baptismal waters, and that, for at least four centuries, any other
form was either unknown, or regarded, unless in the case of dangerous
illness, as an exceptional, almost a monstrous case. To this form the
Eastern Church still rigidly adheres; and the most illustrious and venerable
portion of it, that of the Byzantine Empire, absolutely repudiates and ignores
any other mode of administration as essentially invalid.” We conclude,
therefore, that the customary baptizing of the Jews “upon bed,” spoken of by
Clement, has no reference to any thing like these necessitous
extraordinary Christian “clinic baptisms,” nor to the baptism of couches spoken
of by Mark, but to something of an entirely different nature from either. Yet
let us listen to President Beecher: “Our credulity has been sorely taxed by the
demand to believe that couches were habitually (?) immersed by
the Jews; yes, by all the Jews. Shall we go one step farther, and affirm that
it was their custom frequently to be immersed upon their couches? Shall
we believe that they had baptisteries below their couches, and an apparatus of
ropes and pulleys for elevating and depressing men, couches and all? and that
they were in the habit of doing this frequently in the course of one
meal?” What a piling-up of difficulties is here!—enough, surely, to tax anybody’s credulity;
and yet Beecher’s interpretation of Clement is followed by Dale and Stearns,
even as they followed his more wonderful interpretation of Cyril, “baptized by
the ashes of a heifer”!
Another false representation of Carson by Hutchings may here
be noticed. Carson remarks on Mark 7:4, “Though it were proved that the couches could
not be immersed” (so capitalized by Hutchings and Stearns), “I would not yield
an inch of the ground I have occupied.” But he goes on to say, “There is no
absolute necessity to suppose that the klinai were the couches
at table.” He says they might have been beds such as one could
take up from the street, and carry to his house (Matt. 9:6). And, on the fourth
page preceding this quotation, he lays down the canon which heads this chapter:
“No objection from difficulties can be admitted as decisive, except
they involve an impossibility.” Carson was nobody’s fool; and yet Hutchings
would make him say, “Such is the meaning of the word, even if it be
impossible”! (See “Mode of Baptism,” p. 204.) Should such aspersion as
this be cast upon the dead? and is this ad captandum style of
argument naturally promotive of that “Christian union” for which this author so
tenderly pleads?
Ford, D. B. (1879). Studies on the Baptismal Question (pp. 174–178). Boston; New York: H. A. Young & Co; Ward & Drummond.
1 “It is omitted,” says Professor Abbot, “by
Tischendorf in his last critical edition, and by Westcott and Hort; retained by
Lachmann, Tregelles, Alford, Weiss, and the commentators generally. They
suppose it to have been omitted by accident. On the other side, it is to be
said that the authorities which omit it—B. L., the Codex Sinaiticus, and the
Codex San Gallensis—are just those which generally preserve the true reading in
this Gospel. Volkmar adopts Hitzig’s conjecture of klibanōn, ‘earthen pans’ or ‘pots,’ for klinōn.” Professor George R. Noyes, who in his translation follows
the Greek text of Tischendorf, renders the baptizo
of Mark 7:4, “unless they bathe;” and
the baptismous, &c., of the same
verse, “the dipping of cups and
pitchers, and brazen vessels.” Professor Riddle, in Schaff’s Popular Commentary, likewise omits “couches” from his version.
1 We may well feel a little hurt that Dr. Dale should
speak of our “impoverished condition as without any baptism,” when we, just to save ourselves from drowning, adopt
the “compend” dipping for baptism. To
some one who said in Dr. Johnson’s hearing that he must live, the doctor
replied that he saw no necessity for
it. And perhaps Dr. Dale does not deem the preservation of our lives a thing of
necessity! But will Presbyterians hereafter admit us, though unbaptized, to
church-fellowship and communion?
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