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Origins of Baptism

A

Anonymous

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Does anyone know whether the concept of baptism was "invented" by John the Baptist, or was it "borrowed" from a neighbouring culture? It isn`t mentioned in the Old Testament.
I can see the logic of its symbolism (i.e."washing away sins"), but am interested to know where the idea came from in the beginning.
Thanks,
MsT
 
Ritual washing was/is a standard Jewish practice. The concept of a one-time-only, life changing baptism only arose due to the significance attached to Jesus' experience.
 
According to Pagan Origins of Christianity, the origins of baptism go a lot further than Judiasm:
Purification with water -- a venerable Pagan sacrament Purification -- from unclean foods, or acts, or contacts -- is an idea so old it fades into pre-history. Pagans purified themselves with fire, incense, blood sacrifice, they even purified themselves with a winnowing fan or sea onions! But the most used, most widespread tool of pagan purification was...water.
Pagan water purification rituals were used in the archaic Near East and are written about in the Old Testament. Homer mentions the washing of hands before prayer, and the purification of an entire army with water [Iliad, 1.313]. The Greeks even has priests, kathartai, who specialized in purification with water. After the conspiracy of Cylon in Athens in 632 BC, a fellow named Epimenides of Crete purified the entire city -- with water [Diogines Laertius 1.10.3].
The ancient Church Father Tertullian, noting that Pagan baptism preceded the Christian sacrament, describes purifying water's several Pagan uses:
- initiation into the mystery religions -- i.e. baptism
- purifying temples and even cities
- washing away sin (!!)
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, therion and Annasdottir !

Now I`ll pick your brains again if I may :-

Where does the actual word "Baptise" come from? Is it Greek / Hebrew/ Aramaic, meaning, perhaps "cleanse" or "dip"?
I took Latin at school, but can`t remember any appropriate root verb there.(But then, it was an awfully long time ago!)

Thanks in advance,
MsT
 
baptize - c.1280, from O.Fr. baptizier, from L. baptizare, from Gk. baptizein "to immerse, baptize," from baptein "to dip." Baptist as member of a Protestant sect first recorded 1654
 
Ritual washing plays a much bigger part in Xtianity than just baptism. The aspergation (holy water sprinkling) of places and persons is common, there is even a specialised tool, the aspergillium, for the purpose.

I believe (I'll try and find references) that the Mithraeic religion used baptism as one of it's unaugaural rites. Which may be why Constantines conversion, if it happened, was so easily accepted by the late Roman army.
 
Xtianity, Christianity? It's like `He who must not be named,' `Voldemort' with you guys?!

Baptism represents the death from one life and the rebirth into another:- the new cult or society of the social group to which you you will now belong.

A right of passage, like ritual scarification, or tattooing.

Water is especially significant because it is like the birth waters of the Mother. A special lake, or river may have had real significance in semi-arid lands.

Read the first couple of `Dune' books to find out how crucial `water' is to those who have little, or none.

Edited, because it was a little bit impolite and not true.
 
Springs,wells, rivers, lakes etc. all have significance in early religions.We all come from the primordial ocean, we're told.. so no water - no life. Around my area there are many springs bearing a saint's name since the christianisation of pagan worship and local and visiting pagans leave strips of cloth (clouties) hanging from the branches of the trees and bushes by the well or spring today. This practice has been recorded from around the world in ancient times, in particular in India. Incidentally, St John the baptist is the patron saint of Penzance close to where i live.
 
Baptism as mystery school rite of passage

Although most modern day baptisms are merely symbolic, someone made a comment the other day that made it click for me.

The full submersion baptism makes a good simulation of breaking the threshold between on world and another.
Many mystery schools have a ceremony where the guest of honor is scared nearly to death. Depending on one's phobias and how long the priest holds you under, a baptism could be quite a trial.
 
i should maybe post this on the coincidence thread but -
Last night, I was watching a sci-fi film called "The Spring" Fairly rubbishy, it was about a small American town which had a spring, the waters of which cured all ills, kept you at the peak of youth forever and made you immortal. Over the years, the townspeople had decided that living forever wasn't such a good thing and that a hundred good years was enough for anyone. So they had a ceremony in which those who had reached that age were (willingly) killed; on the sunrise of their 100th birthday, after an all-night party, the person was plunged into the town fountain and held down, fully submerged, until they drowned. Even while I was watching it, I was reminded of full-body baptisms.
 
Wow! No 'Baptise' as such in Brewer (1894), but he gives this:

Baptes. Priests of the goddess Cotytto, whose midnight orgies were so obscene that they disgusted even Cotytto, the goddess of obscenity. They received their name from the Greek verb bapto, to wash, because they bathed themselves in the most effeminate manner. (Juvenal, ii. 91)


A goddess of obscenity - whatever next?! Does any have a copy of Juvenal to check this? (A previous note by Brewer that I tried to follow up led nowhere - perhaps he invented half of his stuff.)

PS: I read the story that film was based on, A-D, and not very long ago. Can't remember the author though.
 
In my early teens I used to go to a youth club run by the local baptist church and occasionally went to the church services, sometimes when there was a baptism. The minister at the time used to believe in holding the baptisee under the water until he/she was struggling for breath, because he believed that that was the point when the Holy Spirit entered the body. Don't know if this idea was common to all Baptist clergy or whether it was just the view of this particular man.

But man always gravitates towards water, in all aspects of his life – holidays by the sea, picnics by the river or lake, the local swimming pool, bathing in the sacred Ganges, ornamental fountains, etc, etc. Humans are not aquatic animals any more, but water is an essential part of their lives, quite apart from the fact that it is necessary to the human body.

Carole
 
rynner said:
PS: I read the story that film was based on, A-D, and not very long ago. Can't remember the author though.
Click to expand...
I'd guess it was written in the 50s or 60s - the storyline of a small town almost totally cut off from the world, has that sort of old-fashioned feel to it. It just wouldn't be believable to have a story like that set today, when records are kept of everything and everybody. It could have been a much more interesting film than it was - there was one scene when the question was raised as to whether it was possible to stay in love with the same person for 80 years, for instance (it was that sort of thing that made me feel that it could have been a 60s-written story). But the director kept things shallow, and skipped straight to some action before anything got too deep.
But this is way off-topic.
 
Thanks for all these interesting comments.

I was brought up as a Baptist myself, and was baptised by total immersion when I was 12 years old - though there was no holding under the water , in my case.

It`s only in these last few years that I`ve begun to wonder what put the idea into John the Baptist `s head. After all, he came from such an orthodox Jewish family (with his father Zachariah being a priest.) I know there are alot of rules in Deuteronomy about the washing of cups and vessels e.t.c., but this "baptism" thing was surely quite a new concept for an orthodox Jew. (The most important thing for a Jew, usually, was to be circumcised.)
If we go by the Bible - and what else would you go by in this particular instance ? - John was baptising people before Jesus had even started his ministry.

I do appreciate the significance of water and cleansing, as I said when I started this thread.But it doesn`t seem to have been
THAT important in O.T. Jewish times.

Thanks again for the comments

MsT
 
That Bastard Brewer has done it again!

I just googled on Juvenal, Cotytto, obscenity, and only got got 3 pages - all of which refer back to Brewer!

I think I may have found a topic for a book - or at least an FT article!
 
I humbly apologise to Brewer!

Another search (filtering out Brewer) did turn up this page, which does refer to Cotytto. (Out of half a dozen pages found, this was the only one in English!)

But since it occurs in Juvenal's Satires, I guess we shouldn't take it too literally!

Any further info from you Classical scholars out there?
 
I think purification with water is indeed part of the Mithraic tradition, which also means that it is possibly part of an older ritual based on root religions from India. Baptism/water is another link Jesus shares with Mithras.
 
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