The Thinker (Volume 6); A Review of World-Wide Christian Thought (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1894. Excerpt: ... the very beginning, that to give up the formal reference to it seems to have been considered equivalent to giving up the Christian name. It is distinctly attested by Justin Martyr. The Jewish-Christian Didache, written, perhaps, as early as A.d. 110, and not after A.d. 140, and emanating from a section of the Church which was by no means Trinitarian in its theology, nevertheless retains the Trinitarian formula as an inviolable treasure of ecclesiastical tradition: "Pour water three times on the head, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (vii. 3). The Ebionites were regenerated into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Some at least of the Gnostics baptized into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and the Gnostic book, Pisti$ Sophias, which never explicitly acknowledges the doctrine of the Trinity, represents Jesus as baptizing a woman three times. Even the Manichaeans, who wandered so far from evangelical truth, could not wholly get rid of the Trinitarian formula . "Come, 0 Holy Spirit," is a Manichaean prayer, "and cleanse their reins and hearts, and seal them into the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Trinitarian baptism was universal alike in the earliest Church and among the earliest heresies. The baptismal formula as given in Matt, xxviii. 19 must have been found in the original Gospel, the Ur-Evangelium, but it is probable that it has been abbreviated, perhaps at an early period, and for liturgical use. In the Apostolic Constitutions (v. 7) is a longer form, which Resch regards as very ancient. Christians are there commanded to baptize "into Christ's death, by the power of the God of all, who is His Father, and by the testimony of the Spirit, who is the Paraclete." The value of this testimony is indeed...