sive in
favour of submersion, and are often to be regarded as merely rhetorical.
The rubrics of the MSS., it is true, enjoin total immersion, but it only
came into general vogue in the 7th century, "when the growing rarity of
adult baptism made the Gr. word [Greek: baptizo]) patient of an
interpretation that suited that of infants only."[2] The _Key of Truth_,
the manual of the old Armenian Baptists, archaically prescribes that the
penitent admitted into the church shall advance on his knees into the
middle of the water and that the elect one or bishop shall then pour water
over his head.

4. _Exorcism._--The _Didach[=e]_ and Justin merely prescribe fasting, the
use of which was to hurry the exit of evil spirits who, in choosing a
_nidus_ or tenement, preferred a well-fed body to an emaciated one,
according to the belief embodied in the interpolated saying of Matt. xvii.
21: "This kind (of demon) goeth not forth except by prayer and fasting."
The exorcisms tended to become longer and longer, the later the rite. The
English prayer-book excludes them, as it also excludes the renunciation of
the devil and all his angels, his pomps and works. These elements were old,
but scarcely primitive; and the archaic rite of the _Key of Truth_ (see
PAULICIANS) is without them. Basil, in his work _On the Holy Spirit_,
confesses his ignorance of how these and other features of his baptismal
rite had originated. He instances the blessing of the water of baptism, of
the oil of anointing and of the baptizand himself, the use of anointing him
with oil, trine immersion, the formal renunciation of Satan and his angels.
All these features, he says, had been handed down in an unpublished and
unspoken teaching, in a silent and sacramental tradition.

5. _The Baptismal Formula._--The trinitarian formula and trine immersion
were not uniformly used from the beginning, nor did they always go
together. The _Teaching of the Apostles_, indeed, prescribes baptism in the
name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, but on the next page speaks of those
who have been baptized into the name of the Lord--the normal formula of the
New Testament. In the 3rd century baptism in the name of Christ was still
so widespread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to Cyprian of Carthage,
declared it to be valid. From Pope Zachariah (_Ep._ x.) we learn that the
Celtic missionaries in baptizing omitted one or more persons of the
Trinity, and this was one of the reasons why the church