11.

A.D. 80-90, Matt. iii. 1-16:; Luke iii. 1-22, vii. 29, 30; Acts i. 22, x.
37, xiii. 24, xviii. 25, xix. 3, 4.

A.D. 90-100, John i. 25-33, iii. 23, x. 40.

It is best to defer the question of the origin of Christian baptism until
the history of the rite in the centuries which followed has been sketched,
for we know more clearly what baptism became after the year 100 than what
it was before. And that method on which a great scholar[1] insisted when
studying the old Persian religion is doubly to be insisted on in the study
of the history of baptism and the cognate institution, the eucharist,
namely, to avoid equally "the narrowness of mind which clings to matters of
fact without rising to their cause and connecting them with the series of
associated phenomena, and the wild and uncontrolled spirit of comparison,
which, by comparing everything, confounds everything."

Our earliest detailed accounts of baptism are in the _Teaching of the
Apostles_ (c. 90-120) and in Justin Martyr.

The _Teaching_ has the following:--

1. Now concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: having spoken beforehand all
these things, baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, in living water.

2. But if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water; if thou
canst not in cold, in warm.

3. But if thou hast not either, pour water upon the head thrice, in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

4. Now before the baptism, let him that is baptizing and him that is being
baptized fast, and any others who can; but thou biddest him who is being
baptized to fast one or two days before.

The "things spoken beforehand" are the moral precepts known as the two
ways, the one of life and the other of death, with which the tract begins.
This body of moral teaching is older than the rest of the tract, and may go
back to the year A.D. 80.

Justin thus describes the rite in ch. lxi. of his first _Apology_, (c.
140):--

"I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when
we had been made new through Christ. As many as are persuaded and believe
that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live
accordingly, are instructed to pray and entreat God with fasting, for the
remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them.
Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in
the same manner in which we were ourselves reg