Maimonides was a learned Spanish Jew of the twelfth century. He wrote large commentaries upon the institutions and laws of Israel. Concerning the reception of proselytes, he is quoted as saying: “Circumcision, baptism, and a free-will offering, were required of any Gentile who desired to enter into the covenant, to take refuge under the wings of the divine majesty, and assume the yoke of the law; but if it was a woman, baptism and an offering were required, as we read, ‘One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.’—Num. xv, 16. But what was the law ‘for you’? The covenant was confirmed by circumcision and baptism and free-will offerings. So was it confirmed with the stranger, with these three. But now, that no oblations are made [the temple being destroyed], circumcision and baptism are required. But after the temple shall have been restored, then also it will be necessary that an offering be made. A stranger who is circumcised and not baptized, or baptized and not circumcised, is not called a proselyte till both are performed.”[6] Various similar statements are frequently quoted from the same writer, and from the Talmud. Respecting them the following points are to be noticed: Footnote 6: Maimonides, Issure Biah, Perek 13, in Lightfoot, Harmonia Evang. in Joan i, 25. 1. The Hebrew word which is used by Maimonides and the Talmudic writers, and is here translated, to baptize, is _tābal_, a word which in the books of Moses is never used to designate rites of purifying of any kind. 2. The _tābalings_, or Talmudic baptisms, were self-performed, and not the act of an official administrator. The reception of the person must be sanctioned by the consistory or eldership of a synagogue, and attested by the presence of three witnesses. But it was performed by the person’s own act. Being disrobed, and standing in the water, he was instructed by a scribe in certain precepts of the law. Having heard these, he plunged himself under the water; and as he came up again, “Behold he is an Israelite in all things.” If it was a woman, she was attended by women, while the scribes stood apart and read the precepts: “And as she plungeth herself, they turn away their faces, and go out, when she comes out of the water.”[7] It is perfectly evident that the rite thus described is wholly foreign to any thing to be found in the Mosaic law, and that it belonged to the category of self-washings, and not to that of the sacrament, in which an official administrator was essential to the validity of the rite. Footnote 7: Maimonides, as above, in Lightfoot, on John iii, 23.