[693] _Elias Thisbit. It. Solom. Jarchi. Gen. 31. 15._
At the time of a mans death, before his Burial, many ceremonies were observed. _First_, the next of the kin closed the eyes of the deceased body. _Joseph shall put his hands upon thy eyes_, _Genes. 46. 4._ This was likewise practised both by the _Romans_ and the _Græcians_.
_Secondly_, they washed the body being dead. _Tabitha died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper-chamber_, _Act. 9. 37._ The _baptization_ or _washing_ at such a time was threefold. The first was βαπτισμὸς ἀπὸ νεκρῶν, _Eccles. 34. 26._ _A washing from the pollution contracted by the touch of a dead carkass_; that if haply any ignorantly and unawares became thus unclean, then was he by a kind of washing to be made clean again. The second was βαπτισμὸς τῶν νεκρῶν, _a baptization or washing of the dead Corps it self_. Thus _Tabitha_ was _washed_: neither is the word βαπτισμὸς, unusually applied to _common washings_, as _Mar. 7. 4._ we read of the _washing of cups, pots, vessels, tables_, the _Greek is_ βαπτισμὸς. The _first_ of these washings was proper to the _Jews_: this second in use with _Jews_ _Christians_,[694] and _Heathens_:[695] the _third_ (which was βαπτισμὸς ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, _a baptization for the dead_, _1 Cor. 15. 9._) proper to some _amiss-led Christians_. It may be demanded, what manner of _Baptism_ this was? with submission of my judgment, I understand this place with S. _Ambrose_[696] of a _Sacramental washing_, applied unto some living man in the name and behalf of his friend, dying without _Baptism_, out of a superstitious conceit, that the Sacrament thus conferred to one alive, in the name of the deceased, might be available for the other dying _unbaptized_. As if the Apostle did wound those superstitious _Corinthians_ with their own quills, and prove the Resurrection of the dead from their own erroneous practice, telling them in effect, that their superstitious custome of _baptizing_ the living for the dead, were vain and bootless, if there were no resurrection, and therefore the Apostle useth an emphatical _distinction of the persons_, in the next immediate verse, saying, why are we also in jeopardy every hour? he inferreth the resurrection by force of a _double_ argument; the _first_ drawn from their superstitious _baptization_ for the dead: the _second_, from the hourly jeopardy and peril wherein we, that is, himself and other _Christians_ are. So that as that _Father_ noteth, the Apostle doth not hereby _approve_ their doing, but evinceth their hope of the resurrection from their own practice, though erroneous. That there was _Vicarium tale Baptisma_ (as _Tertullian_[697] calleth it) in use among the _Marcionites_, is evident, yea, and among the _Corinthians_[698] also: the manner thereof is thus described:[699] _When any Catechumenist died, some living person placed under the bed of the deceased, they came unto the deceased party, and asked him whether he would be baptized: then he replying nothing, the party under the bed answered for him, saying that he would be baptized: and thus they baptized him for the dead, as if they acted a play upon the Stage_.