went up from the water. Both Evangelists say, that the action of going up took place immediately or straightway (evðús, εúðéws) after the baptism. Now if the rite of baptism was completed, before John emerged from the water, (in case he was immerged,) i. e. if it was completed merely by the act of plunging him under the water, then indeed avaßaivov might possibly be supposed to apply to his emerging from the water. But who will venture to introduce such a conceit as this? (2) Yet if any one should wish to do so, the verb avaßaivo will hardly permit such an interpretation. This verb means to ascend, mount, go up, viz. a ship, a hill, an eminence, a chariot, a tree, a horse, a rostrum, to go up to the capital of a country, to heaven, etc. and as applied to trees and vegetables, to spring up, shoot up, grow up. But as to emerging from the water, I can find no such meaning attached to it. The Greeks have a proper word for this, and one continually employed by the ecclesiastical fathers, in order to designate emerging from the water; and this is avaduo, which means to come up out of the water, the ground, etc. or to emerge from below the horizon, as do the sun, stars, etc. But this verb is never commuted, to my knowledge, with avaßaivo. The usage of each seems to be perfectly distinct; yet I do not deny the possibility of employing avaßaivo in the sense of emerging. I know the want of accuracy in some writers too well to hazard the assertion, that no example of such usage can be found. But if there are such examples they must be very rare. The New Testament surely does not afford them. (3) The preposition and will not allow such a construction. I have found no example where it is applied to indicate a movement out of a liquid, into the air. 'Ex would of course be the proper word to indicate such a relation as this. 'Añó denotes either the relation of origin, as sprung from, descended from, etc. or removal in regard to distance, or the relation of cause to effect, the instrument, etc. To designate emerging from any thing that is liquid, I have not found it ever applied.

These concurrent reasons, both of circumstances and usus loquendi, make it a clear case, that Jesus retired from the water of the river, by going up its banks. Nothing more can properly be deduced from it.

As there appears to be nothing more of a circumstantial nature, in all the examples cited above where the baptism of John is mentioned, which can cast any light upon the point in question, (ex

cepting one case that stands connected with the mention of Christian baptism,) I proceed to make inquiry respecting this latter subject.

2. Christian Baptism, as practised by the primitive disciples of Jesus. This is mentioned or alluded to, in Matt. 3: 14. 28: 19. Mark 16: 11. John 3: 22. 4: 1, 2. Acts 2: 28, 41. 8: 12, 13, 16, 36, 38. 9: 18. 10: 47, 48. 16: 15, 33. 18: 8. 19: 3, 5. 22:16. Rom. 6: 3 bis. 1 Cor. 1: 14, 15, 16, 17. 12: 13. Gal. 3: 27. The example in Acts 19: 3 may be doubtful. The passages in Eph. 5: 26. Tit. 3: 5, and Heb. 10: 22, also refer to Christian baptism.

The examples in Matthew and Mark afford nothing pertinent to our present object. But in John 3: 22-24, a narration just alluded to above, occurs in connexion with mentioning that Jesus abode in Judea and baptized there, which deserves our special attention. The writer, after narrating what has just been stated, goes on to say: Now John was baptizing in (or at) Enon, near Salim, öti üdara ñolλà žv ¿xɛĩ, for there was MUCH WATER there, or (more literally), there were MANY WATERS there. The question is, Whether John baptized at Enon near Salim, because the waters were there abundant and deep, so as to afford convenient means of immersion; or whether the writer means merely to say, that John made choice of Enon, because there was an abundant supply of water there for the accommodation of those who visited him, for the sake of being baptized and of hearing the powerful addresses which he made to the Jews. The former statement makes the much water or many waters necessary, or at least convenient and desirable, for the purposes of the baptismal rite; the latter for supplying the wants of the multitudes who attended to the preaching of John.

It has always seemed to me a very singular mode of expression, if the sacred writer meant to designate the former idea, to say ὅτι ὕδατα πολλὰ ἦν ἐκεῖ. Why not say, because the water was deep, or abundant, simply? A single brook, of very small capacity, but still a living stream, might, with scooping out a small place in the sand, answer most abundantly all the purposes of baptism, in case it were performed by immersion; and answer them just as well as many waters could do. But on the other hand, a single brook would not suffice for the accommodation of the great multitudes who flocked to John. The sacred writer tells us, that "there went out to him, Jerusalem, and

all Judea, and all the neighbouring region of Jordan," Matt. 3:5; and that they were baptized by him. Of course there must have been a great multitude of people, Nothing could be more natural than for John to choose a place that was watered by many streams, where all could be accommodated.

The circumstances of the case, then, would seem to favour that interpretation, which refers the mention of many waters to the wants of the people who flocked to hear John.

But let us see, now, what the idiom of the language demands. The following passages serve to illustrate this idiom.

In Matt. 3: 16. Mark 1: 10, üdatos (water) designates the river Jordan; as we might very naturally suppose. In Acts 8: 36—39, it is left uncertain by the text, whether a stream or fountain of water is there meant; for doo may designate either. In Rev. 8: 11, toirov tov vdátov, a third part of the waters, refers both to the rivers and fountains of water that had just been mentioned; and so ἐκ τῶν ὑδάτων again in the same verse. In Rev. 17: 1, the angel says to John: "I will shew thee the punishment of the great harlot, who sitteth on many waters," i. e. many streams or rivers of water, not merely a large quantity of water. In 17: 15 the same phrase and idea is repeated. In Rev. 22: 1, we find the expression Tоraμov vdaros sons, river of the water of life, which in Rev. 22: 17 is referred to and called dog Sons, water of life. In Rev. 1: 15. 14: 2. 19: 6, we have the expression qový vdátov nollov, the voice of many waters; which, in two of the passages, is followed by the expression, as the voice of thunder, i. e. a noise exceedingly loud. Now it is the waves of the sea, probably, to which the writer here alludes; for there were no cataracts in Palestine that would have supplied him with an apposite idea. But these waves of the sea are successive, and (so to speak) different and broken masses of water; not one continuous mass, deep and abundant. The simple idea of depth and abundance would not give birth to the conception of roaring waters. It is the movement, the division, the succession, and the motion, which form the ground of this idea.

Of the Evangelists, only Matthew and Mark use dog in the plural. Matthew employs it four times; viz. 14: 28, 29. 8:32. 17: 15. In the three former instances it designates the waters (as we say) in the lake or sea of Tiberias; in the latter it probably means different or various streams or fountains of water. In this last sense, Mark employs it, in the only example in which the plural is used in his Gospel; viz. in 9: 22. No other example of the plural occurs until we come to the Apocalypse. Here, as we have seen, the waters or waves of the ocean are designated by the

plural in 1: 15. 14: 2. 19: 6. In Rev. 7: 17. 8:10, 11 bis. 11:6. 14: 7. 16: 4, 5. 17: 1, 15, fountains and streams (plural) of water are designated by ὕδατα.

No example then can be brought in the New Testament of the application of dara to designate merely quantity of water,. simply considered as deep and abounding. It is either the vast waters of a sea or lake, as agitated by the winds and broken. into waves, or the multiplied waters of numerous springs and fountains, which are here designated by the plural of the word in question.

That dog is sometimes employed to designate a stream or river, is clear, moreover, from the Septuagint use of the word.

E. g. Ex. 7: 15, “Behold he (Pharaoh) will go out ini rò vdwg, to the water, i. e. the river, for so the next clause explains it; and thou shalt meet him on the brink tой поταμой, of the river. In Ex. 8: 20, the same phrase, in the same sense, is again repeated. So in Lev. 14: 5, 6, 50-52, mention is made of a bird to be killed ¿qöðuti Sarri, over living water, i. e. over a running stream or brook; although the meaning of living water may be, that of a spring or fountain, which continually sends forth fresh water; as it is in Gen. 26: 19. Jer. 2: 13. The first, however, is what I should deem to be the most probable sense here. Num. 24: 6, cedars nag data, by the waters, i. e. rivers, or water-courses, which is here the most probable idea; comp. Ps. 1: 3, "He shall be as a tree planted by by the water-courses."-2 Chron. 32: 30, And he [Hezekiah] stopped up the issue rov vdaros Triov, of the WATER-COURSE or SLUICE Gihon. Is. 18: 2, Who sendest epistles of papyrus over the water, ¿náva tov üdatos, i. e. upon the face or surface of the river Nile.

As

Indeed, there can be no doubt of such a usage of the word dog, whenever occasion calls for it. The simple question then is, whether the occasion does call for it, in John 3: 22-24.

Grotius, and after him Kuinoel, thinks that ❝ðara лolλá designates such a copiousness of water, as was sufficient for the purposes of immersion. Beza, on the other hand, one of the most acute judges of Greek idiom, says that "by the appellation data is meant many rivulets (multi rivi);' and he appeals to üdaros in Matt. 3: 16, in confirmation of this. He might have carried the appeal much farther, if he had been at the pains of consulting his Concordance. Even in Homer, Od. XIII. 109, idara occurs as designating great or flowing streams.

I do not deny, that in the Septuagint, for example, dog and data are sometimes promiscuously used, without any percepti

ble difference of meaning. In most cases, however, this is not the fact; but the plural dara is used to designate great bodies of water or numerous bodies or streams of it; e. g. in Gen. 1: 10, 20, 21, 22. Ex. 2: 19. 8: 6. 15:27. 20: 4, and often so elsewhere. The promiscuous use, in some cases, of "dwo and data in the version of the Seventy, seems to be the result of imitating the Hebrew; for the Hebrew has only a plural form (2) to designate the element of water.

Why should the epithet rollά be added to "dara, in John 3: 22-24, if merely deep water, or a quantity of water sufficient for immersing was intended? The natural and primary meaning of nólus, is many in opposition to few. It has merely a secondary meaning, especially so when in the plural number, if at any time it designates largeness of quantity, intensity of degree, etc.

On the whole, I cannot divest myself of the impression, that there seems to be something extravagant in the supposition, that not only the plural data, which naturally designates a large quantity or many streams of water, but also noλά should be employed, in order to designate a quantity of water sufficient for baptizing by immersion; when any small rivulet would furnish abundant means for such a purpose. I cannot avoid the belief, therefore, that udara nolla is designed, as Beza says, to designate many streams or rivulets. John chose a place abounding in these, when he removed from the banks of the Jordan, in order that the multitudes who flocked to him might be accommodated.

The passage which my present purpose leads me next to examine, is in Acts 8: 36-39. Philip expounded to the Ethiopian eunuch the Scriptures respecting the Messiah, and he was moved to belief in that Saviour who was preached to him. As Philip and his new disciple journeyed on together, they came, says the sacred writer, ini te vdwo to a certain water. What kind of water? A rivulet, river, spring, pool, or what? If the answer be, a brook or river, then the sense put upon vðara Tollά in the paragraph above, is of course conceded; i. e. it is conceded that such a sense may be given to udara, as has here been assigned to it. If the answer be, to a spring, fountain, or pool of water, then again it is conceded, that dong designates something besides the mere element of water. The use of τὶ here of necessity implies, that "dwo must be either a stream, or a fountain, or a pool of water.