Baptism for the dead (Hastings' Dictionary)

The expression 01 QaiTTi^Auevot i/trfp rwf vfKpuf., ' tliose wlio are baptized for the dead,' has from early times been a perplexity to expositors, and with our present knowledge it is impossible to do more than determine the direction in which a correct solution may be found. It is possible to show what kind of interpretation the language of 1 Co 15-" requires ; and, when this is done, other kinds of interpretation are excluded as impossible. The interpretations are very numerous.

Horsley (see below) has collected thirty-six, and it would perhaps be possible to add to the number. It is well that such collections should be made for reference, but it is not necessary to multiply them. The thirty-six are classified under three heads : four explain the text by a reference to legal purifications; three of metaphorical baptism, e.g. being baptized in calamity ; twenty-nine of sacra- mental baptism. A more simjjle and useful classification is that into those which explain oi $a.

ifTt(6ixtvot vwip TttJK veKpwv as referring to ordinary Ckrhtian baptism, and those which make it refer to somethiiifi abnormal. 1. The ablest exposition of the first kind of explanation in its best form is probably that of T. S. Evans in the Siienk-er\'i Commentary (iii. pp. 372, .37.3). He contends that the view of the Greek expositors is unquestionably right, and that v-rtp Tuv Kvpiif means, ' with an interest in the resurrec- tion of the dead,' i.e. 'in expectation of the resurrection.'

The objections to this kind of interpretation are three. (1) ol Banr. iwip r. v. seem to be a special class, and not all Christians in general. (2) There is no instance in NT, if anywhere at all, of this use of {nrtp. (3) The ellipse of t^s ii-affrarrtais is very violent. If St. Paul had wanted to abbreviate ^^s avaffTiatut tUp ffHpuf, he would have omitted rHy vfKpCiv, which is superfluous, rather than t^s i.va<rTi(t(ws, which is vital. 2. The reference is clearly to something abnor- mal.

There was some baptismal rite known to the Corinthians which would be meaningless without a belief in the resurrection. The passage does not imply that St. Paul approves of this abnormal rile, but simply that it exists and implies the doctrine of the resurrection. And here all certainty ends. We cannot determine what this rite wa.s. The practice of vicarious baptism, i.e. of baptizing living proxies in place of those who had died unbaptized, un<nie.stionably existed in .

some (piarters in Tertullian's time (De Jiesur. 48 ; Atlv. Marcion, v. 10), but probably only among heretics. And the practice may easily have grown out of an ignorant ' wresting ' of this ■ hard to be understood ' (2 P 3'") saying of St. Paul. We have no know- ledge that this vicarious baptism was practised by any religious body in St. Paul's day. I.lTRRATtrRR. — For collections of InlerpretatloDB and for (be literature of the subject, see an orUcle on Necmlmptlrtm, by •• r,,pfirinhl. 1K9R. ;,!

/ i Kev. J. W. Horsley, in the Xtwhery House Jfaffaziite for June IHSy ; the notes in Mever, Alford, Stanley, and Wordsworth ; Suicer, Thesaurus. Mi). ' A. PLUM.MEU.