not used with reference to the rite of Baptism, is "to wash, in the literal sense."*

The following passages are produced as illustrations of this meaning. “Mark 7: 3, 4, The Pharisees [returning] from the market eat not, except they WASH THEMSElves, Bantlлovται, Mid. voice."

"Luke 11: 38, But the Pharisee, seeing him, wondered that he had not first WASHED HIMSELF (αлtloon) before dinner."*

No comment is furnished on these passages in the ar ticle we are considering; and yet something more might have been justly expected, than the simple assertion, that the word here means to wash. I proceed to examine the passages.

Mark 7: 3, 4. It is to be regretted that the third verse was not produced by Prof. Stuart, as well as the part of the fourth which contains the word under examination. The whole passage, as expressed in the common version, is the following: For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders: And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. Here are mentioned two instances of washing (so called); the first, a matter of constant occurrence; the second, an observance performed after returning from the market. The inquiry is a very natural one, did these two washings differ from one another in any respect? To this inquiry, an affirmative answer can scarcely be avoided. For, in the first place, one was a washing which commonly occurred before a meal, without regard to the employment that had preceded it; so that even if a person had remained at home, still before taking his meal, he would wash his

* P. 309.

hands. The other was a ceremony, performed after having been exposed to the various occasions of defilement which would be connected with his attendance at market. Such was the variety of persons and things with which he might have come in contact, that a more formal and thorough ablution would naturally be performed.

In examining the whole passage, especially in the original, an attentive reader will perceive an advance in the thought. There is presented, at first, the general custom, and then a specific case, namely, after returning from the market. If in common, the hands were washed before eating, the reader is prepared to hear that, after returning from a mixed crowd of people, something different from, or additional to, this washing, was performed. An English reader might overlook this, on account of the repetition of the word wASH in the fourth verse; although I cannot but think he would, if attentive, be sensible of some deficiency in the representation, unless he should conclude from the repeated use of the same word wash, that his expectation of a more formal and thorough ceremony after returning from market, was an incorrect one. But to a careful reader of the Greek, no such sense of deficiency arises, and no such disappointment For, as further showing that there was a difference between the two instances of washing, I observe,

occurs.

In the second place, two different Greek words are employed to express the washing in the two different cases. In the third verse we read ἐὰν μὴ νίψωνται ; while in the fourth, we read ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται. These two words well correspond to the circumstances of the two cases; and rendered according to their proper meaning, clearly exhibit the advance in the thought. To make this matter plain to a mere English reader, I

observe, there is a difference between these two verses in the original, like what would be felt if they were thus translated: For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wASH their hands oft, eat not; And when they come from the market, except they BATHE, they eat not.

So

To. proceed. Since now there is a plain difference between these two cases of washing, as suggested both by the occasions and by the different verbs employed in the original, what was the precise difference between them? Was it that, on common occasions, they washed their hands only; while on the occasion of returning from the market, they immersed, or bathed, their whole persons? So thought Vatablus, a distinguished professor of Hebrew at Paris, for whom the Jews of his acquaintance, entertained a very high regard. "They bathed," he says, on Mark 7: 4, "their whole persons.' thought Grotius, who says on Mark 7: 4, "They cleansed themselves more carefully from defilement contracted at the market, to wit, by not only washing their hands, but even by immersing their body."+ In conformity with this, may the passage in Mark be rendered without the least violence to its language. In conformity with this, too, were the conveniencies among the Jews; accommodations for frequent ablution were every where ready. Nor with their mode of dress, would the practice be so cumbersome as it would be among us.

* Se totos abluebant.

+ Majori cura se purgabant a fori contactu, quippe non manus tantum lavando, sed et corpus mersando.

‡ Spencer de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus: p. 785. Ne quid itaque deesset quod purificationis tam frequentis ratio postulavit, Judaei fluvios, lacus, piscinas, et fontes passim obvios habebant, quibus munditiae operam daturi abluebantur.

That some of the stricter sort, that many, enough to justify the Evangelist's general expression, did practise total ablution on the occasion mentioned, is altogether credible.

Kuinoel, however, in his commentary, asserts that the existence of such a custom among the Pharisees, is not sustained by sufficient arguments.* In the absence of clear, satisfying proof, it is not becoming to make any positive assertions. However striking the language of Mark may, by some, be considered, as recognizing such a practice (and the language is certainly coincident with such a practice, especially when we look at it by the investigations respecting ßantico on the preceding pages), yet I am not disposed to urge it. But assuming the ground, that the evangelist did not intend to distinguish a total bathing from a partial washing, I again inquire, did he distinguish one sort of partial washing from another sort of partial washing, one of which sorts was performed by the dipping of the hands into water, and thus was properly expressed by the peculiar term (Baarlo) which he has employed? If so, this word is here used in its radical, proper meaning; and consequently, examined in its connexion, is so far from requiring, or justifying, Prof. Stuart's view of its meaning, that it is a decisive instance against his view.

I have already said, that the word (ẞantlowvτα) in this passage, may, without any violence, be considered as distinguishing a total immersion from a washing of the hands. I am by no means satisfied, however, that this is a necessary view of the passage. The verb is in the middle voice; and as there is no object expressed after it, it would be lawful in order to express the Greek, to employ, as Prof. Stuart has, the word themselves as

* On Mark 7: 4.

being contained in the verb itself; so that the translation would be, "except they immerse or bathe themselves." Still as the verb (vloviα) in the former part of the passage, has, in the middle voice, an object (xɛigas, hands) after it, it is certainly justifiable, though not necessary, to maintain that the verb in the latter part of the passage (Baлтlovτα) has the same word understood after it, for its object. The passage would then read, The Pharisees...except they wash their hands oft, eat not ..... and when they come from the market, except they IMMERSE, OF BATHE, their hands, they eat not. The ambiguity in the Greek is much the same as there is in the following English sentence; The Pharisees...except they wash their hands oft, eat not.... and when they come from the market, except they bathe, they eat not. The word hands may be considered as understood after the word bathe, or the word themselves may be understood. The illustration is not a complete one, because we are not in the habit of distinguishing between different modes of washing the hands.

I proceed now to the inquiry, whether there were two sorts of washing of the hands, and what was the distinction between them. The following quotations exhibit all that I have to offer; and I present them the more readily, as they are selected from Pedobaptist writers.

Jahn in his Biblical Archaeology, § 320, makes the following statement. "The washing of hands before meals (a custom, which originated from the practice of conveying food to the mouth in the fingers), was eventually made a religious duty; on the ground that, if any one, though unconscious of the circumstance at the time, had touched any thing, whatever it might be, which was unclean, and remained unwashed, when he ate, he thereby communicated the contamination to the food also.