Additional examples are cited by De Rossi and others. The association of representations of affusion with the familiar objects of household life as well as with the diptych of the metropolitan church of Milan, with elaborately carved sarcophagi or other marbles, with church mosaics, the altar-piece of St. Ambrose, etc., would seem to indicate how accustomed the minds of men were to other conceptions of baptism than that of dipping or plunging.

Of mosaics, two in Ravenna are specially noteworthy. One, Figure 6, is usually referred to about A. D. 450. The original can still be seen in the Ursian Baptistery, "S. Giovanni in Fonte."

On the right of our Lord, who stands in the Jordan with the water up to the waist, is seen the Baptist standing on a rock projecting from the bank, and bending a little forward as he pours water upon the head of Christ from a shell which he holds in his right hand, while his left grasps a jeweled cross (crux gemmata). The dove is represented as in direct descent. On the left

is the river-god Jordan. Portions of the mosaic may have been changed by "restorations," but the original design is unchanged.1

The other mosaic to which we have referred is in the ancient Arian Baptistery, now called "S. Maria in Cosmedin," and is about a century later (c. A. D. 553). It treats of the same subject -the Baptism in the Jordan,- and in a similar way.

Richter calls attention to the youthful appearance of Christ in this mosaic, and says that it is almost boyish, and unlike any other kindred representation. But the general method of early Christian art in other departments-frescoes, bas-reliefs, etc. is the same. Sometimes, as in a marble of which Roller gives an engraving taken from a photograph,2 Jesus appears as a mere youth, a symbol for recipiency and humility. These two mosaics thus perpetuate the main elements of the representations given in the Catacombs centuries earlier.

We will not follow the history further down. The later repre1 Mosaiken von Ravenna, p. 11 (Wien, 1878). The meaning of the letters IX IN is not known; Garucci suggests Iesus Christus justificat nos, or justificatio nostra, or illuminatio nostra. 2 Op. cit. ii. 143, Pl. lxvii., 3.

3 In this bas-relief the water falls in two streams from an elevated rock. Jesus kneels in the larger stream, while the other falls upon his head, and also into a vase which the Baptist holds as if to complete the rite by affusion.

sentations are tolerably familiar by frequent reproductions, and enough has been adduced for the purpose of showing a steady tradition of Christian liberty as to the mode of baptism.

The fact offers several important suggestions in connection with present discussions.

It illustrates the naturalness, and so has a bearing upon the antiquity, of the recently discovered "Teaching of the Apostles."

We might expect that a tradition so established in Art would find literary expression. And we have seen that the absence of such evidence before the middle of the third century has in fact led one distinguished archæologist to do violence to the text of the mural decorations of the Catacombs, as traditional assumptions have led theologians to do violence to the text of Sacred Scripture. This, in our judgment, is pressing the argument from silence too far. But, however this may be, when a document now appears affirming, with a manifest consciousness of fidelity to apostolic principles, the gospel of the Lord, the admissibility of a baptism which is not dipping, but pouring, it is easy to see that we simply have appearing in literature what the testimony of Art prepares us to receive. In fact, there is a double advantage. The Teaching" helps to a natural interpretation of the pictures, and the pictures strengthen the impression of naturalness which is so marked a feature of the "Teaching." And if the representations in Art show a wider range of variation than does the "Teaching," this does not impair the force of what has been said. In both cases alike the fact is clear that baptism the rite, and not merely the word-did not mean to the early Christians exclusively sacramental submersion or dipping. Pouring, to Egyptian Christians, or wherever the "Teaching" was written, might also be baptism. Pouring, to Roman Christians, with partial immersion - perhaps without it was also baptism. The two testimonies concur at the point of Christian liberty. And this brings us to an exceedingly practical and important question.

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A large body of Christians devoted to our common Lord, zealous in good works, decline fellowship in sacraments and church membership with their fellow believers because of alleged defect in the mode of administering baptism. This position is taken under a conviction of obligation to adhere rigidly to what are deemed the instructions of our Lord and his apostles. These instructions, of course, are found in the New Testament. They rest on interpretation. And as this has to do with the usage of words and historic facts, Baptist scholars have studied with utmost painstaking the pa

tristic and other testimonies from the ancient Church. We think that the strength of their position in the historic field has not been duly appreciated by many of their opponents. The ordinary practice in the church, we cannot doubt, was in principle very much what the "Teaching" indicates; that is, the regular, ordinary mode, the full realization of the symbolism of the rite, required submersion or a complete covering with water. And Baptist scholars have fairly pressed this fact in support of their argument as to the apostolic practice. Words did not wholly change their meaning in passing from the first century to the second and third centuries. Neither did rites entirely lose their substance. It is right and proper to argue back, therefore, from language and usages in the later time to what was instituted in the apostolic age. If immersion was the only recognized mode in the time of Tertullian and his contemporaries, and there is no evidence of change in language or practice in the intervening years, we may fairly presume that it was the only mode in the apostolic age. If "baptize" means "dip" solely in church administration, it meant "dip" as uttered by our Lord, and, as we have said, looking at church usage and patristic testimony, the Baptists, in our judgment, have had the best of the argument, so far as historic fact merely is involved.

But the case, even within this narrow sphere of reasoning, is now much changed. Archæology is no longer a matter of guesswork. It has taken up the principles and methods of science. It has established facts pertinent to this question which are beyond reasonable doubt. And it shows a tradition of liberty, a consciousness of right of variation in mode, which makes it impossible to understand the historic fact any longer as before. Submersion was not the only recognized mode. Baptism did not mean sacramental dipping, plunging, or covering with water exclusively. A person affused or partially covered with water was baptized other conditions of the rite being duly regarded. So the monuments unmistakably testify. Now comes in the "Teaching," carrying the evidence of liberty of variation back close upon, if not into, the apostolic age itself. It will not do to repudiate such testimony and fall back simply on the New Testament. It is a question of the meaning of the New Testament. And if, as all Baptist scholars have done indefatigably, it was right to use sub-apostolic and later testimony when it favored immersion as the only mode, it cannot be wrong to use it when it disfavors immersion. If it was fair to press it before, it cannot be fair to ignore it now.

The question, as we have said, is a very serious and wide-reaching one. It affects the work of missions at home and abroad. It is a painful spectacle to see Christians separated from each other, disunited and in conflict over the very sacraments of their faith, in the face of heathenism in China and India, or at home in the face of indifference, doubt, and unbelief. Never was there greater opportunity for effective Christian work. Never, therefore, was everything that divides and hinders so much to be deprecated, so much to be searched out and destroyed. Nor will it be questioned, we presume, by any one that it is essentially schismatic for a church to set up, as a universal and indispensable condition of participation in the sacraments, an administration of them which is not plainly enjoined. It is not divisive to obey the New Testament. It is not failing in Christian coöperation to adhere to a divine command. But it is incumbent not to withhold divine sacraments from any to whom they belong, not to set up our own understanding of God's Word as a bar to Christian fellowship in ordinance and aggressive work, so long as there is a reasonable doubt whether our interpretation does not impose more than the Lord himself requires. And this, as we see the matter, is precisely the problem which the Providence of God in the discovery of this new document and in other ways, at this time when Christians are pressed and burdened with the painful sense of their divisions, brings to those who have insisted upon immersion as the only admissible form of baptism. With increased light comes augmented responsibility. We do not presume to judge as to their duty. We do not claim that the new evidence decides the question as to the mode actually practiced by the apostles. Still less that it determines what is the preferable mode, or the one that is most expressive and effective in its symbolism. We have no doubt ourselves that immersion has been practiced from the beginning. It may continue to be observed to the end. Our sole contentionor rather the question we would in all kindness and love of Christian unity and coöperation respectfully submit is simply this: Is it possible to justify the maintenance of the doctrine that baptism, in order to be baptism, must always and everywhere be administered by submersion without a "Thus saith the Lord," which, if ever spoken, would have made impossible the seventh chapter of the "Teaching" and the further revelation of the church's consciousness of liberty in the early representations of baptism in Christian art? Egbert C. Smyth.