Fundamental Corruption of Christian Baptism through Pagan Water-Worship--“Baptismal Regeneration,” the Product of Paganism--Spiritual Purity Sought through Pagan Baptism--Testimonies from Jamblicus, Virgil, Ovid, Herodotus, Juvenal, and others--Baptism and Serpent-Worship--Baptism and Egyptian Sun-Worship--The Sacred Nile--The Prevalence of Water-Worship in India--Sacred Wells--Sacred Rivers--Modern Buddhistic and Modern Hindu Baptism. Corrupting Influence of Pagan Water-Worship. The work of corrupting Christianity went forward systematically, as though an enemy planned to undermine its fundamental truths and ruin the Church through internal errors. When allegorical methods had shorn the Bible of authority, and pushed God, as represented in his word, far away from men, the next important step was to corrupt the developing Church by a false standard of membership, thus planting a sure seed of decay in its heart. In New Testament Christianity, baptism--submersion in water--was the outward symbol of a new spiritual life, beginning through faith and repentance. As such it had a specific meaning, and from the earliest times formed the door to membership in the Christian communities. He who accepted Christ as the Messiah, testified such acceptance by being “buried with him in baptism.” This was the sign of an inward purity which entitled the believer to a place in the community, and to the fellowship of “those who believed.” It was not the agent by which purity was produced, nor the source from which the new spiritual life sprung. All this was changed by introducing the pagan idea. The materials for such a corrupting process were fully developed in the pagan world. Various forms of baptism, and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, were common characteristics of pagan religion before the birth of Christ. The pagan water-worship cult is secondary only to sun-worship, in age and extent. Its native home was in the East, but it appears in all periods and on both hemispheres. It had two phases: water as an object of worship, and as a means of inspiration; and water used in religious ceremonies to produce spiritual purity. These phases often mingle with each other. This reverence for water, and faith in its cleansing efficacy, arose from the idea that it was permeated by the divine essence, from which it had supernatural power to enlighten and purify the soul, without regard to the spiritual state of the candidate. This doctrine of baptismal regeneration was transferred to Christianity before the close of the second century, and through it the Church was filled rapidly with baptized but unconverted pagans. Sun-worship and water-worship were closely united in the pagan _cultus_, as they were in the corrupted Christian baptism. For instance, one fountain noted by Jamblicus is described thus, by BRYANT: