Ablutions for sensual, civil, and medical purposes are omitted here; for they do not belong to an essay on religious rites. It is very probable that the ceremony of washing before worship was a patriarchal custom, and that all nations derived it originally from their common ancestors, in the most remote antiquity; but this conjecture is not necessary, for the purity of God is an idea so natural, the connexion between his purity and that of his worshippers so obvious and the signifying of these notions by washing the body with pure water so very consequential, that there is nothing wonderfu!, mysterious, or unaccountable, in a similarity of prac tice.

CHAP. XII.

OF BAPTISTERIES.

IT should seem then, the primitive Christians in the empire were under a necessity of baptizing in open waters, or, where they had not private baths of their own, of constructing baptisteries for the express purpose of administering baptism. Authors are not agreed about the time when the first baptisteries were built. All agree that the first were, like the manners and conditions of the people, very simple, and merely for use, and that in the end they rose to as high a degree of elegant superstition, as enthusiasm could invent. The catholicks affirm, that the Emperor Constantine built a most magnificent baptistery at Rome, and was himself with his son Crispus baptized there; and in evidence. they produce some ancient records, and shew a princely baptistery at the Lateran to this day (1). Protestants, influenced they think by better authority from authentick history, prove, that the emperor fell sick at Constan tinople, went to the hot baths at Helenopolis, and from thence to Nicomedia, and in the suburbs of that city was baptized by Eusebius. They say, he deferred his baptism, as many more did, till he found his constitution breaking up, and himself just going to the grave. Some think he was baptized twice, and departed an Unitarian Anabaptist.

(1) Anastasius....Baronius .-Durant, &c.

It is not impossible, it may be hoped, to reconcile the difference between learned writers concerning the time, when Christians erected publick edifices. Suicer, Vedelius, and others, affirm, that the primitive Christians had no distinct places of worship for the first three centuries (2). Bingham, Mede, and others deny this, and endeavour to prove that Christians had publick places of worship in the third, second, and even first century (3). Both sides appeal to the fathers, and for this very reason the dispute may be comfortably settled. Every body knows the style of those primitive writers is so full of tropes, figures, and allusions, that half the difficulty of understanding them lies in determining when they speak literally, and when they depart from this first law of all perspicuous and polished writers. In the present case they are charged with directly contradicting one another; for Origen, Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and others, affirm, Christians had no temples on the contrary, many of equal authority say they had, and what is more extraordinary, Lactantius, and some other fathers, contradict themselves, and say they had, and they had not. The most probable conjecture is, that when they speak of temples among primitive Christians, they mean Christians themselves, especially christian assemblies; for so they had figuratively temples, and they may be very well allowed to expatiate on the worth, and even the majesty of the materials. When they affirm they had no temples, they speak literally of such edifices as the Pagans had, for it is allowed on all hands that they assembled in their own houses, and if there be any faith in ancient monuments, often in obscure and remote places, and particularly in such subterranean caverns as the Italians call catacombs. These cavities are very numerous about three miles from Rome, and about Naples, and many other parts. It is supposed many of them were dug by the inhabitants for materials to build, for here they found both stone and a cement, which the Neapolitans call La pozzolane. They shew one at Naples, where S. Januarius is represented as preaching by the light of

(2) Suicer. Thesaur. Eccles. Nais..--Vedel. Exercitat. in Ignatii. Epist. ad Ephes. 4.

(3) Bingham. Origines Eccles. Book viii. chap. 1.

two lamps to some primitive Christians (4). There are now in the kingdom of Naples, not including Sicily, one hundred and twenty-three bishopricks, and the inhabitants of Naples are computed at three hundred and fifty thousand: but they are not ashamed to own this conventicler for their founder and patron. He was martyred at the latter end of the third century, and the liquefaction of his blood is famous all over Europe.

To return. Baptisteries are to be first sought for, where they were first wanted, in towns and cities; for writers of unquestionable authority affirm, that the primitive Christians continued to baptize in rivers, pools and baths, till about the middle of the third century (5). Justin Martyr (3) says, that they went with the catechumens to a place where there was water, and Tertullian (7) adds, that candidates for baptism made a profession of faith twice, once in the church, that is, before the congregation in the place where they assembled to worship, and then again when they came to the water; and it was quite indifferent whether it were the sea or a pool, a lake, a river, or a bath. About the middle. of the third century baptisteries began to be built but there were none within the churches till the sixth century; and it is remarkable that though there were many churches in one city, yet (with a few exceptions)! there was but one baptistery. This simple circumstance became in time a title to dominion, and the congregation nearest the baptistery, and to whom in some places it belonged, and by whom it was lent to the other churches, pretended that all the others ought to con

(4) Anton-Caraccioli. De sac. Eccles. Neap. monum. Neap. 1645. P. 189. Vue des Catacombs des Naples. Tom. i. l'art i. Page 80.

(5) Writers. Paulli M. Paciaudii Antiq Christian Diss. ii. Cap. 1, 2, &c. De Baptisteriis--- Roma 1755.... Walafridi Strabonis, De reb. Eccles. lib Cap. 26.---Joan. Steph. Durant De Rit Ecc es. Lib. i. Cap. xix. De Baptisterio. Parisis 1631 - Josephi Vicecomitis Observat Eccles Tom. i. Lib. i. Cap. 4. An baptisteria semper in eccles a fuerint? Et de more in fluminibus, fontibus, vis, ac carceribus baptizandi, Mediolani 1615 Joan. Ciampini Vetera Monimenta. Cap xxv. De Ecclesia S Joannis in fonte, &c. Rome 169) ----Wazocchi Diss Hist De Cathed Eccl Neapolitana semper unica. Neapoli 1751---- Du Cangii Glossar Baptisterium-Sulpicii Severi Dial. i 5 --Bingham's Antiquities. Book viii. Of the Baptistery. Cum multis aliis. De sacris christianorum.

(6) Justini Mart. Apol ii.

(7) Tertulliani De baptismo. Cap. 4. Stagno, Flamine, Fonte, Lace, Alveo.

sider themselves as dependent on them (8). When the fashion of dedication came up, the church that owned the baptistery was generally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and assumed the title of S. John in fonte, or S. John ad fontes, that is, the church near or at the baptistery. It is common now for Baptist congregations in large cities to avoid the expense of erecting baptisteries, and to borrow for the time of the congregation that has one but they would think the teacher of that congregation a bad reasoner, if he were to infer from this that he was bishop of all the people in the city, that the teachers of other congregations were his clergy, and that the congregations themselves were obliged to believe and practise what he ordered under pain of a fine, an imprisonment, or death, as he in his wisdom. should think most fit for the glory of God, and the good of the church of S. John in fonte. This, however, hath been done, and it hath been effected by proving what was very true, that the noble and splendid cities of Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Parma, Milan, and many others in Italy, had but one baptistery in each, and by inferring what was very false, that the incumbent of the baptismal church was therefore the parent and lord of all the rest. These baptismal churches were generally built near rivers, or waters, as those of Milan, Naples, Ravenna, Verona, and many more (9). In later times the bishop of the baptismal church, having obtained secular power, granted licenses for other churches to erect baptisteries, taking care, however, to maintain his own dominion over the people.

All

By a baptistery, which must not be confounded with a modern font, is to be understood an octagon building, with a cupola roof, resembling the dome of a cathedral, adjacent to a church, but no part of it (1). the middle part of this building was one large hall capable of containing a great multitude of people; the sides were parted off, and divided into rooms, and, in

(8) Greg. Nazianzeni Orat. xl.

Onuphrii Panvinii De preæcip. urb. Rom. Basilic. de Baptister. lateran, cap. - - - Muratorii Antiq. Ital. Tom. i. Part. 2. Pippini leges i.

(9) Paciaudius ut supra.

(1) Joan. Ciampini Vet Monimenta. Cap. xxv. Baptisterum Ravennatense octangulare. Olim enim baptisteria octogonali forma constructa fuisse, &c.

some, rooms were added without-side, in the fashion of cloisters. In the middle of the great hall was an octagon bath, which, strictly speaking, was the baptistery, and from which the whole building was denominated. This was called the pool, the pond, the place to swim in, besides a great number of other names (2) of a figurative nature, taken from the religious benefits which were supposed to be connected with baptism; such as the laver of regeneration, the luminary, and many more of the same parentage.

Some had been natural rivulets, before the buildings were erected over them, and the pool was contrived to` retain water sufficient for dipping, and to discharge the rest (3). Others were supplied by pipes, and the water was conveyed into one or more of the side rooms; for as they often (if not always) baptized naked, decency required that the baptism of the women should be performed apart from that of the men. Some of the sur. rounding rooms were vestries, others school-rooms, both for the instruction of youth, and for transacting the affairs of the church; and councils have been held in the great halls of these buildings (4). It was necessary they should be capacious, for as baptism was administered only twice a year, the candidates were numerous, and the spectators more numerous than they. Baronius relates an anecdote of a little boy falling through the pressure of the crowd into a baptistery in Rome, and being drowned (5). This is very credible: but that, after he had lain an hour at the bottom, he was restored to life by Damasus, is not quite so likely. It is an opinion generally received, and very probably, that these buildings took some of their names from the memorable pool of Bethesda, which was surrounded with porches, or cloistered walks. The Syriack and Persick versions call Bethesda, a place of baptistery, or, lying aside Eastern idioms, plainly a bath (6). The Greek name nové signifies a swimming place, a place to swim in; and the Latin name piscina simply signifies a dipping, or diving place. It is from the gram

(2) Paciaudius ut supra----Durant, &c. &c. (3) Paciaudius ut sup. (4) Suicer. Thesaur Eccl. voce alismprov. (5) Annales. Ann. 384. (6) M. Mich, Arnoldi sub Frischmutho dissert. de Piscina Bethes..... Wendeleri Dissert. de Piscina Bethes.