[9] and of the Jewish
spiritual teachers of this time, were derived from influences then but
recently received from the far East. The fundamental practice which
characterized the sect of John, and gave it its name, has always had
its centre in lower Chaldea, and constitutes a religion which is
perpetuated there to the present day.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.]

[Footnote 2: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. 17; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1
and 2.]

[Footnote 3: Josephus, _Vita_, 2.]

[Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.]

[Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. _Hist. Gener. des
Langues Semitiques_, III. iv. 1; _Journ. Asiat._, February-March,
1856.]

[Footnote 6: The Aramean word _seba_, origin of the name of _Sabians_,
is synonymous with [Greek: baptizo].]

[Footnote 7: I have treated of this at greater length in the _Journal
Asiatique_, Nov.-Dec., 1853, and August-Sept., 1855. It is remarkable
that the Elchasaites, a Sabian or Baptist sect, inhabited the same
district as the Essenes, (the eastern bank of the Dead Sea), and were
confounded with them (Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1, 2, 4, xxx. 16, 17,
liii. 1, 2; _Philosophumena_, IX. iii. 15, 16, X. xx. 29).]

[Footnote 8: See the remarks of Epiphanius on the Essenes,
Hemero-Baptists, Nazarites, Ossenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Samsonites
(_Adv. Haer._, books i. and ii.), and those of the author of the
_Philosophumena_ on the Elchasaites (books ix. and x).]

[Footnote 9: Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix., xxx., liii.]

This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Ablutions were already
familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions of the East.[1]
The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension.[2] Baptism had become
an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the bosom
of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite.[3] Never before
John the Baptist, however, had either this importance or this form
been given to immersion. John had fixed the scene of his activity in
that part of the desert of Judea which is in the neighborhood of the
Dead Sea.[4] At the periods when he administered baptism, he went to
the banks of the Jordan,[5] either to Bethany or Bethabara,[6] upon
the eastern shore, probably opposite to Jericho, or to a place called
_AEnon_, or "the Fountains,"[7] near Salim, where there was much
water.[8] Considerable crowds, especially of the tribe of Judah,
hastened to him to be baptized.[9] In a few months he thus became one
of the mo