TESTULL. Carin. contr. Marc. l. t.
Heracleon, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, says, that some applied a red-hot iron to the ears of the person baptized, as if to impress some mark upon him.
Baptism of the Dead, a custom which anciently prevailed among some people in Africa, of giving baptism to the dead. The third council of Carthage speaks of it as a thing that ignorant Christians were fond of. Gregory Nazianzen also takes notice of the same superstitious opinion prevailing among some who delayed to be baptized. In his address to this kind of men, he asks, whether they stayed to be baptized after death? Philastrius also notes it as the general error of the Montanists or Cataphrygians, that they baptized men after death. The practice seems to be grounded on a vain opinion, that, when men had neglected to receive baptism in their life-time, some compensation might be made for this default by receiving it after death.
Baptism of the Dead was also a sort of vicarious baptism, formerly in use, when a person dying without baptism, another was baptized in his stead.
St Chrysostom tells us, this was practised among the Marcionites with a great deal of ridiculous ceremony; which he thus describes: After any catechumen was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the dead man, they asked him, whether he would receive baptism; and he making no answer, the other answered for him, and said, he would be baptized in his stead: and so they baptized the living for the dead.
Epiphanius assures us, the like was also practised among the Corinthians. This practice they pretended to found on the Apostle's authority; alleging that text of St Paul for it, If the dead rise not at all, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? A text which has given occasion to a great variety of different systems and explications. Vadius enumerates no less than nine different opinions among learned divines concerning the sense of the phrase, being baptized for the dead.
St Ambrose and Walafred Strabo seem clearly of opinion, that the apostle had respect to such a custom then in being; and several moderns have given into the same opinion, as Baronius, Jos. Scaliger, Justellus, and Grotius.
Several among the Roman Catholics, as Bellarmin, Salmeron, Menochius, and a number of schoolmen, understand it of the baptism of tears, and penance, and prayers, which the living undergo for the dead; and thus allege it as a proof of the belief of purgatory in St Paul's days.
Hypothetical Baptism, that formerly administered in certain doubtful cases, with this formula: If thou art baptized, I do not rebaptize; if thou art not, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, &c. This sort of baptism, enjoined by some ancient constitutions of the English church, is now fallen into disuse.
Solemn Baptism, that conferred at stated seasons; such, in the ancient church, were the Paschal baptism,
and that at Whit-suntide. This is sometimes also called general baptism.
Lay Baptism, we find to have been permitted by both the Common-prayer Books of King Edward and that of Queen Elizabeth, when an infant is in immediate danger of death, and a lawful minister cannot be had. This was founded upon the mistaken notion of the impossibility of salvation without the sacrament of baptism: but afterwards, when they came to have clearer notions of the sacraments, it was unanimously resolved in a convocation, held in the year 1575, that even private baptism, in a case of necessity, was only to be administered by a lawful minister.
Baptism is also applied, abusively, to certain ceremonies used in giving names to things inanimate.
The ancients knew nothing of the custom of giving baptism to inanimate things, as bells, ships, and the like, by a superstitious consecration of them. The first notice we have of this is in the Capitulars of Charles the Great, where it is only mentioned to be censured; but, afterwards, it crept into the Roman offices by degrees. Baronius carries its antiquity no higher than the year 968, when the greatest bell of the church of Lateran was christened by Pope John III. At last it grew to that superstitious height, as to be thought proper to be complained of in the Centum Gravamina of the German nation, drawn up in the public diet of the empire held at Nuremberg anno 1581; where (after having described the ceremony of baptizing a bell, with godfathers, who make responses as in baptism, and give it a name, and clothe it with a new garment as Christians were used to be clothed, and all this to make it capable of driving away tempests and devils) they conclude against it, as not only a superstitious practice, but contrary to the Christian religion, and a mere seduction of the simple people.
Baptism, in the sea language, a ceremony in long voyages on board merchant ships, practised both on persons and vessels who pass the tropic or line for the first time. The baptizing the vessels is simple, and consists only in washing them throughout with sea-water; that of the passengers is more mysterious. The oldest of the crew, that has past the tropic or line, comes with his face blacked, a grotesque cap on his head, and some sea-book in his hand, followed by the rest of the seamen dressed like himself, each having some kitchen utensil in his hand, with drums beating; he places himself on a seat on the deck, at the foot of the mainmast. At the tribunal of this mock magistrate, each passenger not yet initiated, swears he will take care the same ceremony be observed, whenever he is in the like circumstances: Then, by giving a little money by way of gratification, he is discharged with a little sprinkling of water; otherwise he is heartily drenched with streams of water poured upon him; and the ship boys are enclosed in a cage, and ducked at discretion.—The seamen, on the baptizing a ship, pretend to a right of cutting off the beak-head unless redeemed by the captain.