Baptism

Front matter

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

Shelf J3ty..

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Introduction

Dr. T. O. Summers justly complains to Bishop Andrew of the many trashy works on baptism. Eev. J. D. Hudson, of Alabama, does the same, regretting the commonplace repetitions of the various compilations on this subject. While Drs. M. Stuart, Rice, Rosser, Chapman, Seiss, Hibbard, E. Beecher, Edwards, Bishop Merrell, and Summers have done excellent service, it can not be stated that they have thrown any new light on the subject, and it really stands where it was left by Lightfoot in the seventeenth century. We will have occasion to point out important facts on this subject on many occasions. As a sample of the carelessness of writers and their indifference to the progress of investigation, we feel it to be our duty to select one sample page from the work of Dr. Summers himself. We should not do this but for his repeating it in editions that ought to have corrected the blunders, especially when the bishops had honored his book as our standard on baptism. In the "New and Revised Edition" of 1878, from a revised edition of June 6, 1874, after we had published correct reports of those authors, Dr. Summers in one single page (222) thus copies some authorities:

BAPTIDZO.

"Gazes: brecho, pluno, louo, antlo." This is a mere scrap of Gazes's definition, yet the same may be found in a host of compilations. Turn now to our list of lexicons and see how defective is the above. He reports Scapula as saying it means " to dip." He does not say so. He reports him as saying that it means "to dye." This is preposterous. He says Stephanus gives "dip." He does not. He thus reports Schleusner : " To plunge, immerse ; to cleanse, wash, purify with water, etc." Turn to my list and see how defective is this as a citation of the great German.

He quotes Suidas as defining it, "To sink, plunge, immerse, wet, wash, cleanse, purify." Suidas does not define the word, and this is simply repeating the blunders of former compilations. These are only a part of the errors of a part of one page! Is not a text-book accurate at least in all citations and texts most desirable?

Gale, Booth, Carson, Cox, E. Beecher, Conant, Dale, Moses Stuart profess to treat the subject philologically , as also A. Campbell, Prof. Ripley, and Ingham of London. Conant being so favorably surrounded excelled all men in collecting classic occurrences of baptidzo. Dale stands next in point of merit there, and before all others in his research in patristic literature on Mode, though of little value; for after the third century, not to say the close of the first, small is the help we get philologically, save of the few whose work as translators compelled them to be philological and not so dogmatic, not to say superstitious. "While Dr. Dale did much in Latin and Greek literatures we think he failed as a philologist in toto, as will be abundantly shown when we come to the classics on bapto and baptidzo.

The utterly unscientific method always followed on this subject by both sides may well account for the unsettled state of the controversy. Long delay in the correct and complete solution of a disturbing question is not proof

INTRODUCTION. 7

that the friends of truth and Christian fraternity may not hope for a complete solution.

To the bishops, the many ministers of both the great wings of Methodism, many Presbyterian and Congregational ministers, who for ten years past have urged us to publish the result of our labors and researches on this question, we return our grateful thanks. Our delay has been unavoidable from 1869, but afforded opportunity to incorporate refutations of the most recent blunders of many authors, and to add the facts developed by Max Miiller confirming the views and methods always maintained by us on the science of language.

It has cost us much pains to adapt the work to both the learned and the unlearned. To do this we have kept the quotations that are in the languages in foot-notes as well as some more elaborate criticisms, so as not to impede the plain English scholar, and yet enable him to see the force of the most learned arguments if he choses to read the notes.

It will be seen that we give prominence to the ancient versions very far beyond other works on this subject, for most just reasons. Our opponents have attached the greatest importance to this field. It will be seen by comparison that as yet the field had not been touched, comparatively, by the one side — excessively misused by the other.

It will be seen how lexicons were almost totally misquoted, the original generally not given, and the great masters, as a rule, wholly ignored, or so indifferently cited as to leave the reader in total ignorance of what they said. Many samples will be presented. In Oriental languages we produce from their original works the great masters, Schindler, Buxtorf, Castell, Fiirst, Leigh, etc.; in Greek classics, Passow, Host, Palm, Pape, as the most accurate and learned and recent; Schneider, Gazes, Wahl, Schleusner, earlier; and among the older lexicons, classic and biblical, Stephanus, Suicer, Stokius, etc.

We flatter ourselves that we have exhibited the exact use of classic Greek. We have aimed to point out its abuses and cited authorities in abundance on such matters. In philology, in the science of languages, in the discovery of primary meanings, the classic Greek is of vast importance. The difference between baptidzo as a classic and religious word we have aimed to make so clear that only very willful stupidity can reject the evidences.

Since all my manuscripts were ready for the press (1872-1875) the Carrollton debate occurred between J.R. Graves, LL.D., and myself, and was published by the Baptist House in Memphis, Tenn., under the eye and in the same house where the doctor edits his paper, The Baptist. It is with regret that we have to expose the astounding conduct of our opponent in that debate. After I had written out my speeches, as agreed, and left them with the publisher, Dr. Mayfield, and left for Texas, Dr. Graves took out my speeches — on my return I saw him with them — and rewrote all of his. This was done after we both had our names, February 15, 1876, subscribed to the declaration that it was a correct report of the debate. As the phonographer failed utterly to get my speeches, speaking so rapidly, I had to write them out from my notes. All will see that much of minor importance and nearly all repartee would be lost — unavoidably so. After thus subscribing ourselves, and after he had professedly published his speeches on Mode in his paper, Dr. G. took my manuscripts and rewrote all of his, adding as many as six, eight, ten, and even twelve pages

INTRODUCTION. 9

of new matter at a time in single speeches, not a line of which was used during debate, and leaving out what he did say wherever exposed. Whatever he says of covenants is just the reverse of the facts in toto. As I returned from Texas through Memphis I examined parts of several of his speeches on Mode — the fourteenth and fifteenth, besides much already added from the eighth on. I sat down in their room and added a few pages to my twelfth and thirteenth speeches to meet some of his additions from the sixth to twelfth, and rewrote my fourteenth and fifteenth in reply to his, making them far longer than half-hour speeches can be made; added several pages to the sixteenth on Mode, and never was permitted to see his seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth speeches on Mode, nor any thereafter, not even the proof-sheets. Not a page after my seventeenth speech in the book was proofed by me. In these he makes his daring assertions he dared not make when I was there. He purposely delayed his manuscripts under various pretenses till a public debate at Stanford, Ky., April 2d to 9th, called me away. I wrote for the proofs of our speeches, but neither his nor mine were ever sent to me. One of my speeches of half hour I rewrote, making it a reply to three or four he had slipped in without my knowledge of the enormous changes. The seventeenth, though I never got his seventeenth as rewritten by himself, I prepared in McKenzie, Tenn., where I stopped on my way, and where I wrote for a return of my last two speeches to recast them, in view of what he might do in his seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth speeches; but they telegraphed they were nearly in print and would be next day. They were not for yet two weeks. Innumerable typographical errors blot the work, and in places where my own comments were made and carefully placed in brackets, the brackets are removed and I charged by Dr. G. with trying to impose the bracketed words on the people as my own ! We will attend to many of his bold and reckless assertions in this work.

In that debate we did all we could to force or draw him out on Baptist succession, on history, or on the ancient versions, and on them all he was dumb as an oyster. Yet in the published debate he fills whole speeches with a reckless mass of crudities, defies me, and challenges refutation. Well he knew there would be in the book no answer, because I would never see it till the book should be in print ! He was afflicted with a painful soreness of throat, spoke very slowly — on an average not over one word to my two. Hence his opening speech on Mode, on which he was one hour and ten minutes — extra time allowed to finish his points — makes but twelve pages and six lines. His next full half-hour speech fills four pages and a third solid. Compare these with those half-hour speeches that have eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-seven pages, much of it finer print, and all can see the truth. Again, let any one examine his first eight or even ten speeches on Mode and see how pointedly they are refuted; his fourteenth and fifteenth, that I caught him slipping in "on the sly" as I came from Texas; see their exposure, and he will see enough to prove that I never saw the remainder of his speeches.

BAPTISM — ADMINISTRATOR — DESIGN. 1 1

CHAPTER II. Baptism — Administrator — Design

In preparing a book on the mode of baptism, it is not deemed necessary to treat of the administrator* of baptism, because: First. All Protestant churches are practically agreed on this subject, whatever may be the abstract theories of some parties. As a rule only the ministers of all these bodies baptize. Second. So far as theory or practice goes, the New Testament does not throw any light upon it of a positive character. We know not who baptized the converts of Pentecost (Acts ii, 41) nor the first

v Gentile converts (Acts x, 44-47). We never will know i^ho did the baptizing among Christ's earlier disciples (John iii, 22-25; iv, 2) before he had selected his apostles. Compare Mark i, 14, 16-20; Luke iv and v entire, and vi, 13-16. There is no record where any one of the twelve apostles ever baptized any person ; and Paul, the one chosen out of the due order — the fourteenth one— really boasts of having baptized only the few named in 1 Corinthians i, 14-17, in person. Third. The fathers allowed of

. baptism by laymen as well as by ministers, yet mainly the

N ministers baptized.

As to the design of baptism, we will treat of that in a separate work, the errors in the design being too grave and numerous to be fully exposed and the true import of bap-

"tism set forth in a convenient volume. But the real, the scriptural design we propose to give, as it will shed light on the mode as well as on the subjects of the rite.

The immersionists hold that " immersion was the baptism commanded by Christ and practiced under the apostles." Of the most prominent writers of this class we may Dame in Europe and the United States, Drs. Gale, Carson, Cox, Hinton, Fuller, Booth, Conant, Mell, Ripley, Ingham,* A. Campbell, L. B. Wilkes, J. R. Graves, Brents (G. W., of Tennessee). These in substance rely on the following assumptions te sustain this hypothesis, namely, that

1. Baptism is an anglicized Greek word, baptisma (JlanTiff/ia), from the verb baptidzo, and it is derived from the root bapto, and has a specific meaning which is immerse, dip, plunge. They assert that,

2. This is sustained by the unanimous testimony of all ancient and modern Greek lexicons or dictionaries, which do always give immerse, dip, plunge as the meaning of baptidzo, and never sprinkle or pour.

3. The Greek literature of nearly two thousand years fully sustains this, and is the only real standard of appeal.

4. All translations, ancient and modern, support this position by rendering bapto and baptidzo by words that mean to immerse, never by words meaning to sprinkle or pour; that the ancient versions being made by the most competent of all witnesses, are decisive of this question.

5. Baptidzo and bapto, its root, are translations of the Hebrew words tabal and tzeba. that always mean to immerse, dip, or plunge.

6. That these facts are admitted also by all the eminent

pedobaptist critics and scholars; but they set up tradi-

* Ingham, 1865, a very exhaustive work, compiled merely, has it thus: 1. Lexicons; 2. Examples, especially in classic usage; 3. Versions, especially ancient — e. g. Syriac, etc.; ... 9. The word can not represent actions as distinct as pouring, sprinkling, and immersing or dipping. (Pages 27, 38, 575.)

BAPTISM — ADMINISTRATOR — DESIGN. 13

tions and the authority of the church as the grand reason for affusion, claiming the right to change the ordinances of the church.

7. That the practice of the early centuries of the church was altogether by immersion, and that no other practice was allowed till about the thirteenth century, save in case of sickness, and such cases were illegal, not " ecclesiastical."

8. That the prepositions used in connection with these words, such as en, eis, connecting them with the element — baptize "in;" went into the water; and eh, apo, out of, from, indicating emersion, " helping out of the water " — strengthen these arguments.

9. That the allusions to baptism in the New Testament, such as Romans vi, 3, 4; Colossians ii, 11, 12; 1 Corinthians x, 1, 2 ; Hebrews x, 22, clearly demonstrate immersion as the only apostolic practice, designed to symbolize the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

The places where baptism is represented as occurring — in Jordan, "in iEnon near to Salim, because there was much water there"; Philip and the eunuch, etc., additionally strengthen this view.

To give force and certainty to these assumptions all immersionists hold to certain theories as absolutely settled, undeniable; viz:

1. That in a given period and summary of literature, not at all commensurate with the actual literature of a language, and all dating centuries later than the origin of the language, and later than much of its best literature, the prevailing meaning of a word at any such later period is its primary meaning !

2. That if a word ever means, or implies, to dip, plunge, immerse, it can never mean, or apply to, sprinkle or pour; and if to sprinkle or pour, it can never mean dip, plunge, immerse.

3. That wash, purify, cleanse are meanings of baptidzo in the New Testament and Apocrypha because derived from immerse. Hence the New Testament often alludes to baptism as a washing, cleansing, etc. (Eph. v, 26 ; Titus iii. 5; Acts xxii, 16; Heb. x, 22, etc.), while all ancient versions render baptize by wash, cleanse, purify, etc., as well as more recent ones in the sixteenth century.*

4. That classic Greek is the same as the New Testament Greek, and that baptidzo is to be explained and its New Testament use determined by the classics !

5. The less critical also advance the following absurdities as canons of interpretation, viz : That to sprinkle an object is " to scatter it in drops." Hence baptidzo can not mean to sprinkle, to pour upon, unless the object is invariably "scattered in drops." A. Campbell, G. W. Brents, and J. R. Graves adhere to this.

6. A number of immersionists maintain that if baptidzo means to immerse, sprinkle, pour, then no one is baptized until all three of these acts are accomplished upon him! We may hope that this silly sophistry has ceased to be repeated, especially as A. Campbell renders baptidzo by some twenty or more different words, Conant by fourteen, etc. ; while drown, intoxicate, soak, make drunk figure in all immersion works as among the meanings.

7. They hold that dip, immerse, plunge are all synonymous in meaning. J. R. Graves, Alexander Campbell, Wilkes, etc.

We shall subject all these assumptions to a careful examination and test of facts.

* Syriac, amad, secho ; Arabic, amada, gasala ; Latin, lavo ; German, waschen.; etc.

CHAPTER III. Origin and Design of Baptism

If the origin and design of baptism has ever been explained, its real propriety presented, we have never met with it. Nor have we ever seen an explanation of the relation between the washing [baptism] with water and the cleansings effected by blood in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Tracing Christian baptism through proselyte baptism as Yossius, Witsius, Lightfoot, etc. do, does not bring us any nearer the matter. The real origin and design of baptism remains unexplained. The careless and excessively loose treatment it has received may well account for its horrid distortions.

Every rite must have some reason in it in the element used, if elements are used, and in the then current force of the word as used by the writers or speakers. Hence we must look for the origin of this rite in the religious import of the word wash (rachats in Hebrew), cleanse, and in the symbolism of water.

Among all nations, in every European language, Egyptian, and those of Asia Minor, water represented innocence and purity — cleansing. Cleansing made the party innocent. The outward symbolized and was declarative of his innocence, whether actually cleansed from actual guilt or really innocent.

In Homer's day, a thousand years before Christ, it was an old custom for parties before going to prayer to wash themselves at the hoary sea, or besprinkle themselves with clean water before praying to Minerva (Athene.)* They sprinkled with living water candidates for the Eleusis. In Ovid, Homer, Diogenes, Virgil, Porphyry, Herodotus, etc. these washings are often alluded to in connection with devotional exercises. Originally symbolic of innocence, purity, absence of guilt, it came to be corrupted in use as a real agency in purification, as an expiation of crime. To this base use of it Tertullian alludes at length.

In the earliest times, as Homer relates the earlier heathen customs, nearer the purer days of their religion, these washings and cleansings were symbolic of the object of their prayers and devotions — purity by which they became innocent. Hence they besprinkled themselves with water as the first step. It was not then initiatory into any body.

In the Bible water symbolizes innocence and purity — the one being implied in the other : " I will wash my hands in innocency; so will I compass thine altar, O Lord" (Ps. xxvi, 6; lxxiii, 13). f Here it anticipates the object of devotion — purity and innocence before God — symbolizes that object. Pilot, recognizing this Jewish use of water, washed his hands in token of innocence as to Christ's blood.

As religious innocence, implying purity, can be had only through the merit of " the blood of sprinkling " (1 Peter i, 2; Heb. x, 22; ix, 13-19; xii, 24; Num. xix, 9-13) applied by the Spirit, the water comes to represent the Spirit by

* In the full citation in Clemens Alexandrinus where the passage is given in full.

tin this Psalm, lxxiii, 13, "I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." We must not forget the constant fact 'that the water and Spirit are named or implied together throughout the Bible — one inward, the other outward.

which we are actually cleansed as to its mode or action, as well as its real design. Ps. li, 1-10; Is. i, 16; iv, 4; xliv, 3 ; Ezek. xvi, 9 ; xxxvi, 25-27 ; Eph. v, 25, 26 ; Titus iii, 5, 6; Heb. x, 22; with Matt, iii, 11, 12; Acts x, 41-44. " Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?" The constant association of the water in all these, as well as innumerable other passages, shows that the water was always symbolic of the innocence effected by the Spirit's application of Christ's blood, and of nothing but that. It was not initiatory into any thing. Baptism is symbol and nothing else.

In Moses's day the connection of the water and the blood — as blood was the groundwork of all religious innocence before God, the procuring cause — is striking. When Moses had led the people out of Egypt, he consecrated the priests and people with blood (Ex. xxviii, 41 ; xxix, 16-22), and sprinkled vessels, people, the book, and tabernacle with blood (Heb. ix, 17-22), and ordained that the priests and people wash or be cleansed with water. Ex. xxix, 4; xxx, 18-22; Lev. viii, 4-6; xv, xvi; Num. viii, 7 ; xix, 13-22. When David repented he alluded to water, to washing as a preliminary process (Ps. li, 2-10) as well as to the sprinkling with blood (verse 7, " Purge me with hyssop"), where it is a spiritual washing prayed for, as all will admit. The Greek, Syriac, and Latin read, " Sprinkle me with hyssop." Hebrews x, 22, unites the blood as the real work, the water as the symbol of cleansing — " having our hearts sprinkled — our bodies washed, etc." — i. e. symbolically cleansed, as Aaron's was (Lev. viii, 6).

When Moses washed Aaron and his sons with water (Lev. viii, 6) it was not initiatory but preliminary. He was first washed, and after this all that occurs throughout 2 the long chapter, for eight days, occurred before he was a priest (chapter ix, 1-12). If baptism was a door into the church, all this was strange. Stranger still, as they baptized themselves every day before performing their duty. Did they initiate themselves into the church every day?

When God called people to repent (Is. i, 16), washing as a preliminary process, symbolic of purity, is alluded to in the spiritual washing : " Wash you, make you clean" (Is. i, 16). In Exodus xxx, 18, a laver is made for Aaron and his sons to " wash with water" thereat — " out of it," in the Greek and Hebrew. But what was the import, the design, the symbolism of the cleansing with water when the party was sprinkled with blood, etc. for a purification ? In Leviticus xiv, 7, 8, 51-53, a person is sprinkled seven times with blood, and is pronounced clean when sprinkled. After this he is "to wash with water" \hudati\. The washing with water could only be declarative of the typical cleansing effected by the sprinkled blood, as Hebrews x, 22, also. The house was sprinkled seven times with blood and water, the water answering to that of the person cleansed, washed, sanctified (Num. viii, 7 ; Eph. v, 26). "And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them, sprinkle water of purifying upon them." "Sanctify and cleanse by the washing of water by the word." Some assert that this was with water mingled with ashes of a burnt heifer (Num. xix, 9-22). But that latter rite was not introduced till between nineteen and thirty- seven years after this. See Numbers, chapter xx, in this connection also. In the case of the water of separation, of Numbers xix, the defiled was to "purify himself with it." If he failed to do so he was unclean, defiled the tabernacle, and was therefore to be cut off. Why? "Because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean."

The Targum of Jonathan is very emphatic on Numbers xix, 13, where the words " shall not purify himself" (verse 13) read "shall not sprinkle himself" — "Since the waters \nioii\ of sprinkling were not sprinkled upon him, he is unclean ; as yet his pollution is upon him until he besprinkles himself" The Persic is very much the same. Paul (Heb. ix, 13) agrees perfectly with this view: " Sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth unto the purifying of the flesh." In this case again the water betokened the typical cleansing — was declarative of its work. But in Numbers xix, 18, a tent and vessels of the ministry are purified by only sprinkling; but the person, after being sprinkled "for a purification for sin," was to wash his garments and his person (hudati) with water, and be [thus declared] clean, and if unclean it was " because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him" (13, 20). The water in all these cases betokens the innocence secured by the blood of sprinkling — symbolic innocence- — made actually innocent by Christ's blood. In all this the clear understanding of the typical baptisms when first introduced will enable us to see the real design of baptism, as well as to understand who are proper subjects of the rite. It opens the way to rid the public mind of the awful abuses that confuse the mind and blind the judgment of men. Initiatory rite, door into the church, sign of death, burial, and resurrection, communicating grace, for remission of sins— all these horrid distortions of the beautiful symbol are soattered to the four winds by a clear historic insight into the rite.

Now these " divers baptisms, " as Paul calls them (Heb. ix, 10), different kinds of baptisms; some with mere blood ; some with mere water sprinkled on them ; some with blood and running water administered to men, houses, tents, vessels ; some with water mingled with the ashes, were all to effect, declare, typical purity. The person had to wash after he was purified to declare and symbolize the fact. The whole truth then was, Christ's blood — " blood of sprinkling" (Heb. x, 22; ix, 14; xii, 24; 1 Pet. 1, 2) — was the only real cleansing from sin. The blood of animals typically cleansed from guilt or sin, and the water symbolized to the person that he was cleansed.

We see in all this the origin and design of baptism. All these sprinklings Paul calls baptisms — "washings " in our version. But all parties agree that the (rachats, louo, nipto) washing also of persons was baptism. And it is the one we have most to do with. It was, like the rest, wholly symbolic. That was its entire religious meaning and design. Infants were subjects of baptism in its original institution. As they purified by sprinkling them, Joel ii, 15-17, sufficiently shows that infants, "those that suck the breasts" were a part of the " congregation " (Greek, eJcklesia, church) sanctified by being "sprinkled with water."

They are born innocent, free from guilt, however tainted by the transmission of that distemper, as Mr. A. Campbell calls it, that ruined our race. As the blood of Christ covers their condition, and they are innocent and in a saved condition — their condition, the status to which conversion brings aliens (Matt, xviii, 1-5; Eph. ii, 13- 19) — they of all persons are most properly entitled to baptism. Water does not primarily symbolize the Spirit, but innocence, then religious purity which makes innocence, because to an alien or sinner the Spirit applies the merit of Christ's blood to the actual washing away of actual sins. Therefore, water or baptism of water, symbolizes the means, the Spirit's application, to effect this innocence or purity. In 2 Maccabees i, 18, 21, 31, 33, we read that when the Jews got the opportunity to reform and attend to their religious duties they began by a general outward purification. " We proposed to keep the purifying of the temple." Hence, "Nehemiah commanded the priests to sprinkle the wood and the things laid thereon with water." They prayed that the sacrifices might be sanctified" (verse 26). The water was (verse 31) poured on the great stones; therewith "Nehemiah purified the sacrifices." It is not to be forgotten that as the Israelites passed the sea they were all baptized, infants and adults (1 Cor. x, 1, 2); to which David seems to allude most forcibly (Ps. lxviii, 9) when God "confirms" his church or "heritage" when he sent a "plentiful rain" on them.

It is not surprising therefore that John came baptizing that Christ, who was to thoroughly purge his floor, actually cleanse, purify, and save the people, might be made manifest to Israel. It had all these centuries of precedents in its favor, that when John called the people to baptism it involved and implied to them the need and desire to seek purity. Is it possible it could ever change its import? Never. Hence today it is in the name of the Trinity involved in the work of our purification, making us innocent.

CHAPTER IV. Baptism with Water

Washing with water was familiar to all people. Mode was not implied. Washing is most constantly the effect of affusion all around us. The rain washes houses, trees, plants, herbs, grass from the dust or whatever may soil that it can remove. People wash their hands where they dip one into the water to apply it to both, rubbing. One may pour it on the hands of another, as is often done, and as was the custom in the days of Elijah (2 Kings iii, 11). People wash their faces and bodies Avith water. Baths are had both where the body is partially put into the water and where water is showered from above, or, as in olden times, a servant pours water over the body. In all these ways persons and things are washed with water. Such a process the Greeks would express by lousetai en hudati (" wash with water ") ; nipsetai en hudati; or simply omitting the en ("with"), hudati, ("with water"). As the Jews had been used to these expressions in the Pentateuch, and for wash we have baptize in the later Greek writers, hence in the New Testament it is not surprising that there we have this form so constantly recurring.