|
Shock, Amazement,
Rage, Grief CLASSIC BAPTISM CONTROLLING
INFLUENCE - GENERAL WITHOUT MERSION, IN
FACT OR IN FIGURE 1. Astounds
the soul, befalling it unawares, and de-merse
(de-baptized) it. [(Conant’s translation) “For that which, of a sudden,
comes all at once and unexpected, shocks the soul, falling on it unawares,
and WHELMS (BAPTIZES). ex. 162, p 79. Achilles Tatius,
Leucippe and Clitophon, P 286 Classic
Baptism; What is there, on the face of this statement, suggestive of water?
Certainly dipping, and plunging, and sinking, are out of all question. The
only thing that could be, with any consistency, introduced here, would be a
wave, and from that Baptists shrink, because it moves the element and not the
object. But to take “the soul” out to sea, and then conjure up a wave
“suddenly,” “all at once,” “unexpectedly,” “to fall upon” it, is a piece of
extravagance...of taste which will commend itself to but few. How simply,
clearly, and fully is the case met by attaching to baptizo the
secondary meaning, to exercise a controlling influence, changing the
condition. The notion that the soul is put under water, in any way, or
intended to be so represented is simply absurd. It is influence only which is
at issue. 2. As in a few days
to be mersed (baptized) by such a multitude of
evils. [(Conant’s translation) “What so great wrong have we
done, as in a few days to be WHELMED (BAPTIZED) with such a multitude of
evils? ex. 111, p 54. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon. III. ch. 10.] P 287 Classic
Baptism; It would require some ingenuity to work up “a few days,” and “a
multitude of evils,” and a mersion, so as to form a
billow, or a dipping, out of them. But supposing some imagination to be
sufficiently inventive and constructive, better save it for a better purpose
and take what is on the face of the record, the exercise of controlling
influence. The agency is expressed by the dative without a preposition. 3. But he, mersed (baptized) by anger, sinks. [(Conant’s translation) “And he, WHELMED (BAPTIZED) by
anger, sinks; and desiring to escape into his own realm is no longer free,
but is compelled to hate the object beloved. ex. 113, p 55. Achilles Tatius, book VI. ch. 19.] P 287 Classic
Baptism; “Speaking of love, contending with and subdued by anger, in the same
bosom” (Conant). I do not know how “love and anger”
are to be got into water...Until a better solution is found...we will accept
what every letter of the passage proclaims controlling influence. Anger exercises
a controlling influence over love; holds it in subjection; will not let it
escape. The agency is marked by the simple dative. 4. Misfortunes
befalling merse (baptize) us. [(Conant’s translation) “Misfortunes assailing WHELM
(BAPTIZE) us. ex. 112, p 54. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, VII. ch. 2.] P 287 Classic
Baptism; I take this to be a very direct and prosaic statement announcing the
homely truth - Misfortunes exercise a controlling influence over us. The
introduction of “falling” waves or wrecked ship going to the bottom is a
freak of the imagination not to be laid to the charge of Achilles Tatius. So Virgil - “Mersed by
these evils.” 6. My life
will be de-mersed (de-baptized). [(Conant’s translation) “Is it a great and wonderful
thing to see the beautiful P 289 Classic
Baptism; An invitation to visit Egypt, and see “the beautiful Nile,” was
declined on the ground that equal reason might be urged for visiting the
Euphrates, the Danube, the Tigris, &c., to do which would consume his
life and deprive of fellowship with Glycera. Is
there anything in this form of expression, or the nature of the sentiment,
which shadows forth water and a dipping? Is there not the clearest statement
that to enter the course indicated would exercise a controlling influence
over his life? 11. And mersed (baptized) by the calamity. [(Conant’s translation) “And
Cnemon, perceiving that he was wholly absorbed in
grief, and WHELMED (BAPTIZED) in the calamity, and fearing lest he may do
himself some harm, secretly takes away the sword. ex. 108, p 53. Heliodorus, AEthioptics (Story
of Theagenes and Chariclea),
II, ch. 3.] P 294 Classic Baptism; Is there anything here suggestive of a cold
bath? Is there not the clearest statement of controlling influence? Does not
the introduction of figure, “water floods, or inundations, swollen torrents
or shipwrecks,” dislocate everything? “Whelmed by (sic) the calamity” (Conant). Calamity is the agency, source of influence, and
is represented by the simple dative. 13. But let us
not be co-mersed (co-baptized) by this grief of
his. [(Conant’s translation) “For Charicles,
indeed, it shall be lawful to weep, both now and hereafter; but let not us be
WHELMED (BAPTIZED) with him in his grief, nor let us heedlessly be borne away
by his tears, as by floods, and throw away the favorable occasion. ex. 109, p
53. Heliodorus, AEthioptics
(Story of Theagenes and Chariclea),
IV. ch. 20.] P 298 Classic
Baptism; If anyone should think that the mention of “torrents” (floods) in
close connection with the mersion is indicative of
an allusion to primary use I would care but little to debate the matter. Such
rare references would rather strengthen the general position that where there
is nothing of the kind mentioned no allusion is intended. But in the present
case, “torrents” are not connected with the mersion
but with the “tears.” And in determining the relation between torrents we
must guard against the extravagance of supposing tears to be converted into
torrents. Such is not the point. The resemblance is between the moral effect
of tears and the physical effect of torrents. The influence of tears changes
our feelings and purposes, the influence of torrents changes the position of
objects encountered. The man who is influenced by tears is not to be thought
of as carried away by torrents; but is like (so far as change of moral
position is concerned) to one who is carried away by torrents, so far as
physical position is concerned. The mersion (of the
passage at hand) is by grief and is indicative of profound influence.
In this case and in all similar cases mersion, or
baptism, represents a complete change of condition. 14. Because
the events still mersed (baptized) you. [(Conant’s translation) “But for us your own wanderings,
if you were willing, would best forward the entertainment, being pleasanter
than any dancing and music; the relation of which having often deferred it,
as you know, because the occurrences still WHELMED (BAPTIZED) you, you could
not reserve for a better occasion than the present. ex. 110, p 54. Heliodorus, AEthioptics, (Story
of Theagenes and Chariclea),
V. ch. 16.] P 299 Classic
Baptism; Could any statement be farther removed from a dipping or plunging
into water? There cannot be a reference to an act, for the statement turns on
a continuous condition. How devoid of all reason would be the idea of a
long-continued mersion in water of a living man!
(On the other hand), that remarkable events and casualties of life should
exercise, for a long time, a controlling influence over our feelings, so that
we should feel a reluctance to speak of them, is a matter of daily
experience. This, and not plunging or lying drowned in water is the statement
made by Heliodorus. 19. Who
finding the unhappy Cimon mersed
(baptized). [(Conant’s translation) “For this is he who found the
wretched Cimon WHELMED (BAPTIZED), and did not
neglect him when abandoned. ex. 102, p 51. Libanius,
Epistle 962, to Gessius.] P 301 Classic
Baptism; Does the writer intend to picture Cimon as
found lying under the water, drowned and forsaken? (No) A man who is in
distress beyond what courage and hope can contend with is a mersed (baptized) man and would be so if there were not a
drop of water on our planet. 20. Grief mersing (baptizing) the soul and darkening the judgment. [(Conant’s translation) “For grief for him, WHELMING
(BAPTIZING) the soul, and clouding the understanding, brings as it were a
mist even upon the eyes, and we differ little from those who are now living
in darkness. ex. 114, p 55. Libanius, Funeral
discourse on the Emperor Julian, ch. 148.] P 302 Classic
Baptism; “Whelms the soul” (Conant). Against this
translation we must enter our protest. Not on the ground of merit, but as a
Baptist translation... Dr. Conant gives sixty-four
quotations under the head of “Tropical or Figurative Sense.” Fifty-one of
these he translates by “whelm”... This fact becomes the more remarkable when
it is added, that of the eighty-six passages under the caption, “Literal,
Physical Sense,” there is but a solitary case which receives this
translation. Dr. Conant’s work has been too laboriously, and too artistically constructed to permit us
to suppose that no strong reason underlies these facts. Let me suggest: 1. Whelm
does not answer Baptist views, because they have insisted upon an act, a
definite act, an act which moves the object into the water. But whelm does
not have these characteristics. It expresses a condition; the result of the
element coming over its object with uncontrollable power. Whelm is therefore
eschewed by Baptists as representing the “Literal, Physical Sense,” and im-merse, im-merge, sub-merge,
dip, plunge, are pressed into the service. 2. These terms which are made to
express, as far as possible, forms of action, will not answer for the
tropical or secondary use; because it exhibits merely controlling
influence...and resort is made to whelm, which does in like manner carry
into...secondary use the same idea of controlling influence. Dr. Conant, therefore, in rejecting im-merse,
im-merge, sub-merge, plunge, dip, in (his
“figurative”) use (since these words do not carry with them the idea of
controlling influence), and by adopting the before discarded term, whelm
(which does carry with it this idea), furnishes the most conclusive testimony
to the point, that baptizo, when turned from its primary use, does
carry with it and directly express the secondary meaning of controlling
influence. Thus, grief, is said in the passage
before us to exercise “a controlling influence over the soul, darkening the
understanding,” &c...Whelm in secondary use rejects, 1. All forms
of action; 2. All varieties of physical material; 3. All physical covering;
and adopts and carries with it into its new domain controlling influence,
which is always present in every case of physical whelming. It is because of
this truth that Dr. Conant abandons his
translations in the physical use and adopts another in what he terms
figurative use. In so far as controlling influence is concerned baptize and
whelm do very completely measure each other. The nature of this influence is
determined by its adjunct terms. It may be of joy or sorrow, virtue or vice,
life or death. Whatever can influence its object controllingly
- be it great or small, much or little...whelms,
baptizes, merses, changes completely, the
condition. 30. Both mersed (baptized) by grief. [(Conant’s translation) “But whenever she observed me
WHELMED (BAPTIZED) by grief, and moved to tears, she is angry, and threatens
to do me some fearful and incurable evil. ex. 117, p 57. Themistius,
Oration XX, (funeral discourse on the death of his father).] P 313 Classic
Baptism;...If “moved to tears” (in Conant’s
translation) is an everyday phrase, well understood as directly expressive of
a change in feeling under some powerful influence (which becomes an
impertinence to expound as figure denoting a change in locality) by what law
is it that “mersed by grief” is excluded from the
same just method of interpretation? “Mersed by
grief” was as familiar phraseology to the Greeks, expressive of the
controlling influence of sorrow, as is “moved to tears” familiar to us, as
expressive of a change of feeling under tender influences. While the origin
of both is obvious, frequent use has given to each a direct power of
expression which at once carries thought to the mind without any reversion to
primary use ... JUDAIC BAPTISM 3. As though
the reason were mersed (baptized) by the things coming upon it. [(Conant’s translation) “And one might show it also from
this, that those who live soberly, and content with little, excel in
understanding; but those, on the contrary, who are always glutted with drink
and food, are least intelligent, as though the reason were WHELMED (BAPTIZED)
by the things overlying it. ex. 136, pp 65-6. Philo, the Jew (an extract in
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book VIII. at the end).] P 83 Judaic
Baptism; Philo was a Jew, living in the first century. He contrasts in this
passage the intellectual manifestation of those who lead a frugal, with those
who lead a gluttonous life, - vigor characterizing the former and imbecility
the latter. It is a fact of universal experience that excessive eating and
drinking exerts an unfavorable influence over intellectual development...Dr. Conant translates by “whelm.” Whether “the natural and
expressive image” of water-floods is to be introduced here, as in the
previous case of “whelming,” he does not state. What light can be thrown upon
the meaning of baptizo by dipping, or sinking, or whelming this
glutton, in fact or figure, I have not enough imagination to conceive. If no
such picturing is to be done then we must look for the baptism either in a
literal envelopment, or give the word direct power to express hurtful
influence without envelopment. Some might plead in favor of the first
interpretation, that the meat and drink are represented as “coming upon” the
reason. In that case, the reason would have to lie at the bottom of the
stomach, while eatables and potables came down upon it. No doubt a baptism
could be so effected;...My preference, however, is
for the other baptism. I accept the statement as simple and direct in both
cases: “The reason is affected beneficially by temperance, while it is
baptized - influenced injuriously - by gluttony. |