1. See Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1975), 93–96, which discusses Egyptian ceremonies of ritual purification. See also Robert A. Wild, Water in the Cultic Worship of Isis and Sarapis (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 143–48.

2. Herbert Danby, The Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933; reprint, 1983), 172; italics in original.

3. See Thomas F. Torrance, “The Origins of Baptism,” Scottish Journal of Theology 11 (1958): 158–71.

4. Danby, Mishnah, 172; italics in original.

5. Quoted in “Baptism,” Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols. (London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1902), 2:499.

6. See William Sanford LaSor, “Jewish Miqva’ot and Christian Baptism,” Through Their Eyes (November 1986): 14–15.

7. See Torrance, “Origins of Baptism,” 167–71.

8. Tertullian, De Corona, 3, translation in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978–81), 3:94 (hereafter cited as ANF).

9. “Baptism,” Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland, 1990), 132.

10. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), 1:416.

11. Didache, 7:1–3, in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Kirsopp Lake, Loeb Classical Library Series, vols. 9–10 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1912), 9:319, 321.

12. I thank John Gee for this suggestion.

13. Tertullian, Apology, 23, translation in ANF 3:37-38.

14. Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatechesis, 9, translation in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978), 7:3; see also Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 279–83.

15. Tertullian, De Corona Militis, 15, translation in ANF 3:94.

16. Tertullian, On Baptism, 18, translation in ANF 3:678.

17. See Origen (about A.D. 250) in Commentary on Romans, 5.9.

18. Cyprian, Epistle, 58.5, translation in ANF 5:354.

19. “Baptism,” Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 133.

20. Joachim Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960); G. R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1963), 306–82; Paul K. Jewett, Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978).

21. Hermas, Similitudes, 9.29.1–3, translation in ANF 2:53; Epistle of Barnabas, 6, translation in ANF 1:144; Athenagoras, The Resurrection of the Dead, 14, translation in ANF 2:156.

M. Catherine Thomas

BYU Studies Publications