Chapter XLII: Section XL: Judith’s Baptisms

Returning to the Apocrypha, the next example of baptism occurs in the book of Judith. The book dates from the period of the Maccabean kings of Judah, between one and two hundred years before Christ; is a historical fiction, and is designed to present, in the person of Judith, an ideal type of female piety, courage, and virtue, as conceived by the Jews of that age. According to the story, “Nabuchodonosor, the king of Nineveh,” being incensed against the Jews, had doomed them to destruction. He therefore sent Holofernes, with a large army to execute his vengeance. This army being re-enforced by the Ammonites and the sons of Esau, the mighty host, enters on the siege of Bethulia, a frontier city of Judah. Surrounding the city and filling the whole country, they seize “the water and the fountain of waters,” upon which Bethulia depended for its supply. Soon, “all the vessels of water failed all the inhabitants of Bethulia, and the cisterns were emptied, so that they had not water, to drink their fill, one day; for they gave them drink by measure.”—Judith vii, 12-21.

In this extremity, the elders of the city yield to the clamor of the famished populace, and promise that if succor should not come within five days they will surrender the city to the Assyrians. It is now that the young and beautiful widow, Judith, appears on the scene. Rebuking the elders, for their lack of faith and courage, she decks herself and goes forth to beguile Holofernes, whom, in the sequel, she slays, in his drunkenness, with his own sword, and so delivers her nation. When she came to the Assyrians, “the servants of Holofernes brought her into the tent, and she slept until midnight, and she arose at the morning watch, and sent to Holofernes, saying, Let my lord now command that thy handmaid be allowed to go out for prayer. And Holofernes commanded his body-guard not to hinder her; and she remained in the tent three days, and went out nightly into the valley of Bethulia and _baptized_ in the camp, at the fountain of water. And as she returned, she besought the Lord God of Israel to direct her way to the raising up the children of her people”—Jud. xii, 5-8.

Judith’s _baptism_, was evidently not one of those required by the law. It was performed statedly every night, as a preparation for prayer, and was, no doubt, one of those washings which Jewish tradition was, at that time, multiplying, and which were so rife in the days of our Savior. Judith’s maid was with her, and this baptism was no doubt performed in the ordinary mode of washing, with water poured on her hands. As to the place of her baptism, the language is explicit. It was (_en_) _in_ the camp, but (_epi_) _at_ and _not in_ the fountain. Not only does the language thus forbid the supposition that she was immersed in the fountain, but the circumstances were equally conclusive. She was a young and beautiful woman, in the midst of a host of rude and licentious soldiers and followers of the army. They held the fountain with jealous care, both for the convenience of their own supply, and as the sure means of bringing Bethulia to surrender. Judith could not there be private for a moment, even at midnight, and such exposure as is imagined would have been an invitation to certain violence, even though there had been no question of defiling the very fountain whence the camp drew its supply of water.

Baptist writers, to prove that Judith, nevertheless, immersed herself, cite the fact that “as she _went up_ (_anebē_), she besought the Lord God of Israel to direct her way to the raising up of the children of her people.” But Dr. Dale has pointed out the fact that the very same language occurs in a parallel place in the Septuagint Greek, where no one ever pretended to find an immersion. Rebekah “went down to the well, and filled her pitcher and _went up_ (_anebē_).”—Gen. xxiv, 15, 16. The fountain of Bethulia was in the valley, to which Judith had to go down from the head-quarters of Holofernes, which would be in an elevated position, so as to command a view of the situation. To suppose the _going up_ to be out of the water, would give her a time for prayer so brief and in circumstances so peculiar as to give the suggestion an air of ridicule.

It is well known that the impostor Mohammed was assisted in constructing his institutions by renegade Jews, who early became his proselytes. The following precept of the Koran will illustrate the practice of baptism before prayer: “O true believers, when ye prepare to pray, wash your faces and your hands unto the elbows; and rub your heads and your feet unto the ankles; and if ye be polluted ... wash yourselves (all over). But if ye be defiled, and ye find no water, take fine sand, and rub your faces and your hands therewith. God would not put a difficulty upon you. But he desireth to purify you, and to complete his favor upon you, that ye may give thanks.”[32] This regulation by Mohammed is remarkable in relation to that request of Peter,—“Lord not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”—John xiii, 9. Both he and the prophet of Mecca would seem to have had in view the same custom of the scribes.

Footnote 32:

Sale’s “Koran,” chapter v.

From the passages thus examined it appears that in Hellenistic Greek the word, _baptizo_ was employed to designate two classes of cleansings,—the sacramental sprinklings of the law, and the self-imposed washings of tradition, the mode of which, whether performed by affusion or sprinkling, is not clear. As to the former: the proverb of the son of Sirach is clearly a reference to the sprinkled water of separation. To the same class, the arguments adduced entitle us to refer the baptism of Naaman. To the rites of self-washing the case of Judith is to be assigned,—not to those appointed by the law, but those imitations of the scribes which obscured the meaning of the ordinance, as appointed of God.