HISTORY AND TRINE IMMERSION by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 23, 1878

HISTORY AND TRINE IMMERSION.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.

(Continued.)

EUNOMIUS.

The advocates of three immersions claim that Eunomius, Bishop of Cyzicum, was the originator of single immersion. No evidence to this effect exists. They profess to prove it by Sozomen and Theodoret. But Sozomen does not say what they ascribe to him. Theodoret, in his history, gives a quite full account of Eunomius, of his being condemned as a friend of Arius, of his taking the bishopric, but not one word of that which Chrystal places to his credit. He has also recorded a Synodical letter of a council held in Constantinople, A. D. 381, in which are the following words:—

“We have rejected the hypothesis of Sabellius which confounds the three persons by denying their characteristics; neither do we receive the blasphemy of the Eunomians, of the Arians, or of the Spiritualists, who divide the substance, the nature, and the divinity of the Godhead, and who, denying the uncreated and consubstantial and co-eternal Trinity, speak of a Trinity which they represent as having been created, or as consisting of diverse natures.”

What these persons really believed will never be known. A brief notice of the treatment of heretics in those times may not be out of place. Bower says:—

“We shall find very few, if any at all, who, upon their teaching doctrines not approved by the fathers, have not been immediately transformed by them, out of their great zeal for the purity of the faith, into monsters of wickedness, though they themselves had perhaps proposed them before for patterns of every Christian virtue. It behoves us, therefore, to be very cautious in giving credit to what they say of those whom they style heretics.”—Hist. of Popes, vol. 1, p. 150.

On reading the history of those times we have often been impressed with the idea that ambition, rather than Christianity, prompted the dominant party, and that the zeal of the orthodox was not so strongly roused against the lives, or even the doctrines, of those called heretics, as against their persons. The spirit and temper of the times seems to be well expressed by Gibbon: “Religion was the pretense; but in the judgment of a contemporary saint, ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfare.”

WEIGHT OF HISTORICAL QUOTATIONS.

Those who favor trine immersion seem to think that their argument is strong if they can quote many authors who agree that trine immersion prevailed among the early Christians. We admit that it did, and ten thousand witnesses to that effect do not at all increase the truthfulness, nor yet the importance, of the fact. But, while we know that many scandalous errors held to this day by some, but by most repudiated, prevailed at the same time, and were introduced fully as early, the bare fact that the practice existed at an early age proves nothing at all in its favor. The question is not, Did it exist? but, By what authority did it exist? Satan existed at a very early age, and assumed to take his place among the sons of God; but neither his age nor such association gives any sanctity to his character. If it could be shown that the church was exceedingly pure in the age of its first recognition by “the fathers,” and that no other error had yet obtained a footing among the bishops and presbyters, that would be a presumption in its favor. Yet only a presumption, if it cannot plainly be found in the Scriptures. History makes no authority. It is for this reason we did not pursue the historical argument at the first, because it has no weight in our minds. We should not have deviated from the course first marked out to notice the historical argument at all, had it not been for the request of brethren whom we highly respect, and whose judgment we honor. We said, and we repeat it, We care nothing for what people have done; our sole inquiry is respecting what they ought to have done. History may inform us what they did, but we look to the Bible alone for duty,—for what we ought to do. But in addition to this statement, we must record our most solemn conviction that history—early history—is not at all in favor of trine immersion. We trace it directly to Africa for its first adherents, and find them acknowledging tradition as its basis.

There are three points which we must examine: the weight of the testimony of the Greek Church; the light in which baptism was held among the ancient Christians; and the reasons which were early urged in favor of trine immersion. And first

THE GREEK CHURCH.

Though it is a matter of minor importance, yet Eld. Moore is not strictly correct in dating the age of the Greek Church prior to its separation from the communion of Rome in the latter part of the ninth century. Prior to that they were considered one body, after that, the Greek and Roman churches became distinct. So far, however, as their practice is concerned, it is not, probably, affected by this circumstance. The Greek Church is often referred to as an example on the subject of baptism. It is said they ought best to understand their own original tongue; therefore it is safe to follow them in their definition of baptism. We have said, We safely follow them in the definition of the word; but we dare not follow them in their construction of the ordinance. For this we can show a reason. In giving to baptizein the definition, to immerse, they follow the usage of the language in which the New Testament was written. But, having established the identity of baptism and immersion, if they follow tradition and practice three immersions, which is in truth three baptisms, they then depart from the Greek text of the New Testament, which plainly says one baptism. And here truth compels us to leave them. Eld. Moore quotes Alexander de Stourdza as declaring that the Greek Church “administer baptism after the similitude of that of Christ,” and as they practice trine immersion he infers that it is after that similitude. We here repeat other words of this author as follows:—

“The church of the West has, then, departed from the example of Jesus Christ; she has obliterated the whole sublimity of the exterior sign; in short, she commits an abuse of words and of ideas, in practicing baptism by aspersion, this very term being, in itself, a derisive contradiction. The verb baptizo, immergo, has in fact but one sole acceptation. It signifies literally and always to plunge. Baptism and immersion, therefore, are identical; and to say, baptism by aspersion, is as if one should say, immersion by aspersion, or any other absurdity of this nature.”

This is surely a strong presentation of the case; but if it be true, which we all admit, that immersion and baptism are identical, it will take a wiser than Alex. de Stourdza to show that three immersions and three baptisms are not identical! And, inasmuch as baptism and immersion are equal, if three baptisms and three immersions are not equal, it is because three are not equal to three! There remains no dispute about the equality of baptism and immersion; the whole matter turns on the question, Is the number three equal to itself? Here is the absurdity of the trine immersion theory reduced to a mathematical demonstration. For it is an axiom that if equals are added to equals the products are equal. Then, as three are equal to three, if they be added respectively to immersion and to baptism, which are also equals, the products are equal. Hence three immersions equal three baptisms. We would be pleased to see somebody try to establish the converse of this proposition. But three baptisms are contrary to the Scriptures; therefore three immersions are contrary to the Scriptures.

Mr. Moore quotes Dr. Carson to confirm the view that the three immersions (properly designated three baptisms by Dr. Carson) have respect to the action, while one baptism (properly one immersion) has respect to the rite. Dr. Carson said:—

“The three immersions are, in the estimation of those who used them, only one rite.”

Dr. Carson was a very conscientious man. He sacrificed everything that a man of the highest culture and best worldly prospects could sacrifice to introduce immersion into the practice of the church. But he never uttered one word in favor of three immersions, as we would expect him to do if he believed that to be the sense of the Scripture injunction.

There is, moreover, an error in distinguishing between the action and the rite. A rite is necessarily an action; the sense of one determines the sense of the other. The distinction assumed, “in the estimation of those who used them,” as Dr. Carson said, we assert is unjust. Mr. Moore says of Alexander Campbell’s advocacy of one baptism:—

“The one baptism, or one immersion, seen by Campbell, was not the action by which the rite was performed, but the rite itself. . . . The three immersions seen through his historical glasses were the same thing, only under a different appearance.”

And it is only by the magic power of “historical glasses” that anybody can see three immersions. The real value of the sight we have tried to lay before our readers. We have noticed for some time that historical spectacles are a panacea with a certain class given to theological squinting. We consider it a device of empirics, injurious to the moral vision, sometimes resulting in total Bible obscuration.

Constantinople was the central city of the Greek Church, as Rome was and is of the Latin. The present head of the Greek Church, so-called, is the Czar of Russia. They were of one communion till the ninth century; but it was decided by Pope Gregory the Great that a diversity of practice in regard to baptism did not invalidate the ordinance. We have seen that the Greek Church do not act consistently with the New Testament in practicing three baptisms; have we any other reasons for distrusting their testimony and their example? We have.

1. They practice infant baptism, which is plainly a corruption of the ordinance. They profess to found this also directly on the teachings of Christ; affirming that baptism is the birth spoken of in John 3:5, which only can secure their entrance into the kingdom of God. Thus we see that we cannot safely trust to their example, nor to their claim that they derive it from the Scriptures.

2. They practice infant communion, which is also a corruption of the gospel. But they profess to draw this also from Christ’s own words in John 6:53, 54. They affirm that in the communion is the flesh and blood of Christ, which infants also must eat and drink, or lose eternal life. This, another perversion of Scripture, proves that they are not safe guides in faith and practice.

3. They acknowledge the authority of tradition, holding it equal to the Scriptures. It is well known that the authority of tradition was placed beyond question in the whole Catholic Church, long before the separation of the Greek and Latin parts. But we need not argue the point on this occasion, for Eld. Moore himself says: “Indeed, the scriptural and traditional authority are with the Greeks equally binding.” This decides the question as to the value of their practice as example for us. The Scriptures are our only rule. We can harmonize with others as far as they harmonize with this rule; when they leave it, or corrupt it, or exalt tradition to an equality with it, we cheerfully take another direction and separate from their company.

(To be Continued.)