"How many persons did the baptizing?" asked Dorothy, as if she was trying to picture the scene.
"That is not stated."
"Let us have the pa.s.sage, Sterling. My curiosity is excited," said Mr.
Page.
Sterling read from Acts 2:41: "Then they that gladly received his Word were baptized and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
Dorothy read the verse over carefully and then remarked: "Why, that doesn"t say they were all baptized on the same day. Notice it says there were added to them on the same day about three thousand. Why may not some of the number have been baptized before that and during Christ"s life?"
"That is a fact," said the father, looking over the pa.s.sage. "The verse does not say that they were all baptized that day; but do you suppose, Sterling, that it would have taken a great deal longer to immerse them than it would to have sprinkled them? Not if the sprinkling ceremony that I saw was a sample of the way the three thousand were baptized. Do you not have a ceremony connected with sprinkling just as they have one connected with immersion?"
"Oh, yes, there is always a little ceremony connected with the sprinkling."
"Who did the baptizing that day?" asked Dorothy.
"Good for you, daughter," said the father. "That is a stunner. One man would have had quite a job on his hands whether he sprinkled or dipped that host of folks. But with several baptizers it was a different proposition."
"Oh, father, why do you speak so jokingly about these Bible matters?"
"You are right, Dorothy. Forgive me. I always make a muss of it when I tackle religion. I"d better call in my tongue before I get into trouble."
"I repeat my question," said Dorothy: "Who did the baptizing on that day?"
"I guess that Peter, one of the apostles, did it."
"Oh, yes," said Dorothy, "there were twelve apostles, were there not?
And if they all took part in the baptizing, that would have made it much easier. And I notice back here in the fifteenth verse of the preceding chapter it says there were one hundred and twenty disciples there when Peter preached his sermon and that three thousand were converted."
"h.e.l.lo," said the father with a smile, "you keep on and you will get more than enough people to baptize two or three times three thousand persons."
"You don"t imagine," said Sterling with a smile, "that the one hundred and twenty disciples all took a hand in putting the three thousand under water? That would have been a spectacle indeed."
"I think it would have been a spectacle no matter how it was done," said Dorothy.
"Another thing," said Sterling: "Supposing that they had enough administrators for the ordinance that day, where could they have performed the baptisms? Do you think they all marched off to the river Jordan? Of course not. But they did not need to go off anywhere in order to be sprinkled. Besides, what about a change of clothing for the three thousand persons if they were all put under water? Remember most of them--according to the account--were strangers from different countries visiting Jerusalem."
"I hope," said Dorothy, "that they had not come from their different countries without some change of clothing."
"Isn"t it true," asked the brother, "that over in these Eastern lands, with their loose garments and their sunny climate, they could have arranged for a dipping if they had so desired it? But that other point mentioned by Mr. Sterling has not been answered."
"What is that?" asked Dorothy.
"He asked where in Jerusalem could so many have been baptized?"
"Does it say they were baptized in Jerusalem?" asked Dorothy.
"No, it does not say so, but do you think they went off to a river?"
asked Sterling.
"The pa.s.sage does not state. But are you sure there were not places in Jerusalem where they could have been immersed?" asked Dorothy.
"Wait," said the brother, "let me get an encyclopedia." He went to the shelf and was soon examining the article on Jerusalem. "Here is a long article on Jerusalem," he said, running his eye down the pages. "h.e.l.lo, here is something about its water facilities. Here is a reference from Strabo in these words "Jerusalem a rocky, well-enclosed fortress; within, well watered; without, wholly dry"."
"Now you are making discoveries, son," said Mr. Page. "Give us some more about the water."
"Here is another statement. Dr. Robinson states there were six immense public pools in the city, the largest being five hundred and ninety-two feet long and two hundred and seventy-five feet broad."
"That is enough, son," exclaimed the father. "Sterling, history seems on the side of the immersionists there. I think that five hundred and ninety-two foot pool could have taken care of the whole three thousand."
"I think the important question," said the brother, "is the meaning of the Greek word originally used for baptism. In other words, does the word baptize mean to sprinkle or to immerse? When the people in Christ"s day used the word, what did they mean by it--sprinkle or immerse?"
"That hits the target exactly," said the father. "What does the word baptize mean? Let"s see, I think you said that the Bible was written in Greek."
"The New Testament was," said Sterling.
"The question is, then, what word did the people use in Christ"s day in talking about a baptism? When Christ told the people to be baptized, what word did he use and what did that word mean? Did the Greek word which he used for baptism mean for the people in that day "immerse" or "sprinkle"? When they heard the word from him, did they think of immersion or of sprinkling?"
""_Baptizo_", or baptize, is the word which he used," said Sterling.
"But baptize is our English word that we use. What was the Greek word which Christ used and which meant baptism?" asked Roland.
"That is the point," said Sterling. ""_Baptizo_" is the Greek word, and the people who translated our English from the Greek Bible did not translate the Greek word "_baptizo_" into any English word, but simply put the Greek word "_baptizo_" or baptize into our language as it was without translating it. You see, if they had translated it "immerse", that would have made the Presbyterians mad, and if they had translated it "sprinkle" that would have made others mad, and so they did not translate it at all, but simply put the Greek word "_baptizo_" in the English Bible, leaving each person to translate it as he thought proper."
"But why did they not translate it?" said Dorothy, as if vexed by their neglect. "It must mean something, and if they translated the other words, why did they not translate this word right, no matter who might have liked it?"
"They ought to have done so," said Sterling, "and they ought to have put the English word "sprinkle" instead of the Greek word "_baptizo_"."
"Oh, I see," said the father. "I guess the Presbyterians, when they came to translate the word into English, would put it "sprinkle", and those who believed in dipping would translate it "dipping"."
"That"s it exactly," said Sterling. "The translators, in order not to offend the different denominations, agreed not to translate the word at all, but simply to put the Greek word "_baptizo_" in the English Bible and let each one translate it for himself as he thought proper."
"Can"t we find out what that Greek word "_baptizo_" means?" asked Dorothy.
"Certainly, here is the Greek scholar," said Mr. Page turning to his son. "Tell us, Roland, what did the Greeks understand by that word "_baptizo_" when they used it?"
"I must get my Greek lexicon for that." And upstairs he hurried and soon returned with Liddell and Scott"s Greek and English Lexicon. He turned to the word "_baptizo_" and read its meaning as follows: "To dip repeatedly, to dip under."
"What is that?" exclaimed the father, almost bouncing out of his chair, ""to dip under"?"
"Here it is on page 130."
"It seems to me," said the father, "that would settle it. If the Greek word that Christ used meant to dip under, what right has anyone to say that baptism is to be done by sprinkling?"
"What do you do with a pa.s.sage like this in 1 Cor. 10:2?" said Mr.
Sterling--""were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea."
They were all baptized, but do you see any immersion in that? It refers, you know, to the time when the Israelites pa.s.sed through the sea dry shod with a cloud over them. They were baptized, but they were surely not immersed, for they would have been drowned."
"I did not know of such an event," said Dorothy. "What do you mean by saying that they went through the sea dry shod?"