A statute dating from the time of Henry III. runs as follows:--"If really from necessity the child shall be baptized at home, the water on account of the sanctity of baptism shall either be poured into the fire, or carried away to the church to be poured into the Baptistery and _the vessel shall be burnt at the same time, or shall be deputed to the use of the Church_." One of the most confessedly difficult passages in the New Testament is S. Paul's question, "What shall they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?" (1 Cor. XV. 29). Bingham discusses this text at some length. Two main lines of interpretation have been followed by the various commentators. The one is, that there was a custom among some of the early heretics, that when anyone died without baptism, another was baptized in his stead. S. Chrysostom says that this was practised among the Marcionites with a great deal of ridiculous ceremony, which he thus describes:--"After any catechumen was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased, then, coming to the dead man, they spake to him and asked him whether he would receive baptism? And he making no answer, the other answered for him, and said, 'He would be baptized in his stead.' And so they baptized the living for the dead, as if they were acting a comedy upon the stage; so great was the power of Satan in the minds of these vain men. Afterward, when anyone challenged them upon this practice, they had the confidence to plead the apostle's authority for it." Bingham proceeds to reject this interpretation on two grounds; 1st, that it was superstitious and delusive, "Any Jew or Gentile might easily be made a Christian by having another, after his death, baptized for him." This objection, however, is not conclusive, it does not follow that S. Paul approved of the practice, no doubt he would account it a superstition. But he is employing the _argumentum ad hominem_. "What do these people mean by their practice if they do not believe in a resurrection?" The second objection is more cogent, viz.: that the interpretation in question was not accepted by any early Christian writer.