This conclusion is confirmed by the absence of vessels of any kind suited to the performance of such a rite. Neither in the Old Testament nor the New, neither in the Apocrypha, Philo, nor Josephus is there any mention of such facilities, or such a rite, nor allusion to them. In fact, with all the advantages and appliances of modern civilization, there is not, and there never was a people on the globe of whom one in a hundred could comply with the law of Moses, if interpreted in the Baptist sense. And it is certain that no primitive people ever adopted that mode of domestic bathing—a mode which implies a very great advance in luxury and its appliances. The Greeks themselves did not use it, except as they sometimes resorted to rivers and streams. In their arrangements for bathing, domestic and public, the immersion bath was unknown until introduced with the luxury of imperial Rome. In Homer’s description of the bath of Ulysses in the palace of Circe, the hero is described as seated in a vessel which contained no water, but was designed to receive that which was poured over him; and the bathing was performed in a manner identical with that which we have seen practiced in Egypt. In the remains of antique Greek art, the bath is frequently represented. But the mode is invariably the same. The bather is placed _beside_ the vessel containing the water, which is taken thence in a dipper or jar, and poured over him.[20] Footnote 19: Gen. xxiv, 13.—; Ex. ii, 15-19; Judges v, 11; Ruth ii, 1-4; 2 Sam. xxiii, 15; 1 Sam. ix, 11; John iv, 7; Matt. xx, 1-7. Footnote 20: See Wilkinson, above quoted, and Smith’s Greek and Roman Antiquities, _article_ “Balneæ;” and below pp. 200, 207. Homer’s description of the bath of Ulysses is thus rendered by Bryant: A nymph—“the fourth Brought water from the fountain, and beneath A massive tripod kindled a great fire, And warmed the water. When it boiled, within The shining brass, she led me to the bath, And washed me from the tripod. On my head And shoulders, pleasantly, she shed the streams That from my members took away the sense Of weariness, unmanning body and mind.”[21] Footnote 21: Bryant’s Odyssey, Book X, 429-437. SECTION XXXI.—_The Washings of the Priests._