Ellicott’s Commentary, on Eph. v, 26. On the mode of baptism, circumstances detract greatly from the authority of divines of the English church. The doctrine of that body on the prerogative of the church to ordain rites and ceremonies has a double effect. On the one hand, it takes away the motive to a thorough study of the Scriptural evidence on the subject. On the other, it induces a sense of satisfaction in admitting that the apostolic mode of baptism was by immersion, and then pointing to the contrary form now in use, as an illustration of the exercise of the church’s authority over the matter. When to this is added the veneration cherished for “the primitive church” of the third and fourth centuries, in which immersion had gained extensive footing, and the recognition of that form in the rubric for baptism, hereafter quoted (below, p. 354), we will be justified in looking farther before accepting, as conclusive, the judgment, however pronounced, of divines of that church. Footnote 89: Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, _article_, “Balneæ.” The engravings referred to, will be found on pages 200, 207, above. Footnote 90: Βάψας ἀρύταιναν, αὐτος ἑαυτον καταχέασθαι, καὶ ειπεν ὃτι λέλουται. Theophrastus, Char. 16 (9). The word _loutron_ was used, (1) for the _water_ of the bath. In Athenæus, the question is asked, why _hot springs_ (_therma loutra_), appearing out of the ground, are by all declared sacred to Hercules, if warm bathing was an unmanly luxury, as some asserted.[91] To the same point, in Aristophanes, the question occurs,—“Where did you ever see cold Heracleian _baths_ (_loutra_)?”[92] In Sophocles, Œdipus directs his daughters “to bring a _bath_ (_loutra_) of running waters.”[93] Homer represents the curly headed Hecameda heating a warm _bath_ (_loetra_).[94] And Euripides describes Antigone pleading to be allowed “to pour _waters_ (_loutra_) over the corpse” of Polynices;[95] that is, to bathe it for burial. In this use of the word, together with the mode of bathing by the pouring of successive dippers, or waters, over the person, is explained the fact that the word is very rarely found in the singular number, and in Homer, the oldest of the classics, never; although in its plural form (_loetra_, contract, _loutra_), it frequently occurs in his poems. This fact is very strongly against the supposition that the word contained any allusion to the bathing vessel, which would demand the singular number. Footnote 91: Athenæus, Deipnosoph. xii, 6 (512). Footnote 92: Aristophanes, Nub. 1051. Footnote 93: Ἡνώγει ῥυτῶν ὑδάτων ἐνεγκεῖν λουτρὰ. Soph., Œd. Col. 1598. Footnote 94: Εἰσόκε θερμὰ λοετρὰ ἐϋπλόκαμος Ἑκαμήδη θερμήνη.—Iliad xiv, 6. Footnote 95: Σὺ δ’ ἀλλὰ νεκρῷ λουτρὰ περιβαλεῖν μ’ ἕα.—Eurip., Phoen. 1667.