Overtaxed, In Debt

CLASSIC BAPTISM

10. They do not merse (baptize) the people by taxes.

[(Conant’s translation) “The second part the kings have received for public revenues;...and on account of the abundant supply from these, they do not WHELM (BAPTIZE) the common people with taxes. ex. 132, p 64. Diodorus, the Sicilian, Historical Library, I. ch. 73.]

P 291 Classic Baptism; The following exposition is given by Dr. Carson: “In this figure, the rulers are supposed to immerse the people through the instrumentality of oppressive taxes. Mr. Ewing very well translates, ‘on account of the abundant supply from these sources, they do not oppress the common people with taxes.’ The literal translation is; ‘They do not immerse the common people with taxes.’ The people, in the case of oppressive taxation, are not supposed in such figures either to have the taxes poured upon them, nor themselves to be immersed in the taxes; but to sink by being weighed down with taxes. The taxes are not the element in which they sink, but are the instrumental baptizers. They cause the people to sink by their weight...We say ourselves, dipped in debt, drowned in dept, sunk by debt, or sunk in dept. To sink in debt figures the debt as that in which we sink. It is a deep water in which we sink. To sink by debt figures the debt as a load on our shoulders, while we are in deep water ...” (Dale responds)...Is this the import of the phrase, “mersed by taxes”?... What do “taxes” have to do with water, shallow or deep?...Do taxes dip people, or sink people, or drown people, in water?...If anyone...has a fancy for tracing back the relations of baptizo, after passing through all watery depths, they can bring back nothing germane to the case in hand but the simple idea ruin. Dipping, plunging, sinking of the Egyptians in water is pure impertinence. The dipping, plunging, or sinking of anything else is equally so, in all respects, save only as to the one point of destructive influence. Hence proceeds...a flash of light which illumines the passage. But the passage needs no such help, it is self-luminous. It proclaims with its own tongue the ruinous character of excessive taxation...The dative is without a preposition...The mersion is purely one of influence, and the source whence that influence proceeds and which gives character to the mersion is stated. This completes the thought - mersion by taxes - such controlling influence as excessive taxation universally begets, changing the condition of those subject to it.

27. Mersed (baptized) by debts of fifty millions.

[(Conant’s translation) “Knowing him to be dissolute and prodigal, and WHELMED (BAPTIZED) with debts amounting to fifty millions. ex. 133, p 64. Plutarch, Life of Galba, XXI.]

P 307 Classic Baptism; “Whelmed with debt ...” (Conant). “Oppressed with a debt ...” (Carson). Conant figures the debts as a mass falling on the debtor, or as flowing waters rolling over him. It is entirely wrong according to Carson to expound baptizo as bringing the element over the object. The word demands that the object be put into the element. Hence the figure which he pictures out of these same materials is that of a man sinking in still water with a millstone around his neck. “This debt was not poured upon him, nor poured into him; but oppressed by it, as a load, he sunk, or became insolvent. The figure does not represent the mode of putting the debt on him, for in this there is no likeness. It represents the debt, when on him, as causing him to sink.” Carson forgets that he should make the debt to dip the man, not to sink him. But we get used to this slipping one word into the place of another in reading this writer. I would also call attention to the confusion and error arising from the use of “oppress” as the equivalent of press. To press and oppress are very different words. The same amount of pressure may cause oppression to one man and not to another. Debt or load may press on a man and his ability to bear the one or the other be entirely adequate. Debt or load which oppresses a man has reached a measure exhaustive of his ability. When, therefore, Dr. Carson translates by “oppress,” he vindicates (in like manner as Conant by his translation “whelm”) the point we advocate - namely, a secondary use expressive of controlling influence...It is not claimed that this mersion is in debts; the dative is instrumental, as elsewhere (baptized by debts). In every aspect the passage vindicates the idea of controlling influence.