BAR

7. The NT contains no explicit reference to the baptism ot infants or young children; but it does not follow that the Church of the 2nd cent, adopted an unauthorized innovation when it carried out the practice of infant baptism. There are good reasons for the silence of Scripture on the subject. The governing principle of St. Luke as the historian of the primitive Church is to narrate the advance of the Kingdom through the missionary preaching of the Apostles, and the conversion of adult men and women. The letters of the Apostles were similarly governed by the im-mediate occasion and purpose of their writing. We have neither a complete history, nor a complete account of the organization, of the primitive Church. But of one thing we may be sure: had the acceptance of Christianity involved anything so startling to the Jewish or the Gentile mind as a distinction between the religious standing of the father of a family and his children, the historian would have recorded it, or the Apostles would have found themselves called to explain and defend it. For such a distinction would have been in direct con-tradiction to the most deeply rooted convictions of Jew and of Gentile alike. From the time of Abraham onwards the Jew had felt it a solemn religious obligation to claim for his sons from their earliest infancy the same covenant relation with God as he himself stood in. There was sufficient parallelism between baptism and circumcision (of. Col 2") for the Jewish-Christian father to expect the baptism of his children to follow his own as a matter of course. The Apostle assumes as a fact beyond dispute that the children of believers are ' holy' (1 Co 7"), i.e. under the covenant with God, on the ground of their father's faith. And among Gentile converts a somewhat different but equally authoritative principle, that of patria potestas, would have the same result. In a home organized on this principle, which prevailed throughout the Roman Empire, it would be a thing inconceivable that the children could be severed from the father in their religious rights and duties, in the standing conferred by baptism. Thus it is because, to the mind of Jew and Gentile alike, the baptism of infants and children yet unable to supply the conditions for themselves was so natural, that St. Luke records so simply that when Lydia believed, she was baptized ' with her household'; when the Philippian jailor believed, he was baptized, and all those belonging to him. If there were children in these households, these children were baptized on the ground of the faith of their parents; if there were no children, then the principle took a still wider extension, which includes children; for it was the servants or slaves of the household who were 'added to the Church' by baptism on the ground of their master's faith.

8. Baptism was a ceremony of initiation by which the baptized not only were admitted members of the visible society of the disciples of Christ, but also received the solemn attestation of the consequences of their faith. Hence there are three parties to it. The part of the baptized is mainly his profession of faith in Christ, his confession 'with his heart' that he is the Lord's. The second is the Christian community or Church (rather than the person who administers baptism, and who studiously keeps in the background). Their part is to hear the profession and to grant the human attestation. The third is the Head of the Church Himself, by whose authority the rite is practised, and who gives the inward attestation, as the experience of being baptized opens in the believing soul new avenues for the arrival of the Holy Spirit. C. A. Scott.

BAB. — Aram, word for 'son'; used, especially in NT times, as the first component of personal names, such as Bar-abbas, Bar-jesus, Bar-jonah, etc.

BARABBAS (Mt 27«-23 = Mk 15»-" = Lk 23is-2' = Jn 18'"°). — A brigand, probably one of those who infested the Ascent of Blood (wh. see). He had taken

BAR-JESUS

part in one of the insurrections so frequent during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate; and, having been caught red-handed, was awaiting sentence when Jesus was arraigned. It was customary for the procurator, by way of gratifying the Jews, to release a prisoner at the Passover season, letting the people choose whom they would; and Pilate, reluctant to condemn an innocent man, yet afraid to withstand the clamour of the rulers, saw here a way to save Jesus. His artifice would probably have succeeded had not the malignant priests and elders incited the people to choose Barabbas.

Barabbas, like Bartholomew and BaHimceus, is a patro-nymic, possibly = ' the son of the father' (i.e. the Rabbi). According to an ancient reading of Mt 27", the brigand's name was Jesus. If so, there is a dramatic adroitness in Pilate's presentation of the alternative to the multi-tude: ' Which of the two do ye wish me to release to you — tlesus the bar-Abba or Jesus that is called Messiah? '

David Smith.

BAEACHEL.— Father ot Elihu, 'the Buzite' (Job 322- «).

BARACHIAH.— See Zachabiae.

BABAK ('lightning'). — The son of Abinoam; he lived at a time when the Canaanite kingdom of Hazor, having recovered from its overthrow by Joshua (Jos llio-i5)_ was taking vengeance by oppressing Israel. He is called from his home in Kedesh-naphtali by Deborah to deliver Israel. He gathers an army of 10,000 men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun. With this force, accompanied by Deborah, without whom he refuses to go forward, he encamps on Mt. Tabor, while the enemy under Sisera lies in the plain on the banks of the Kishon. At the word of Deborah, Barak leads his men down to battle, and completely defeats Sisera. The latter flees; Barak pursues him, but on reaching his hiding-place find^ that he has been already slain by Jael, the wife of Heber. The glory of the victory, therefore, does not lie with Barak, but with Deborah, who was his guiding spirit, and with Jael who slew the enemy's leader (Jg 4. 5).

W. O. E. Oestbrley.

BARBARIAN.— The Eng. word is used in Ac 28« ', Ro 1", 1 Co 14", Col 3" to translate a Gr. word which does not at all connote savagery, but means simply 'foreign,' 'speaking an unintelligible language.' The expression first arose among the Greeks in the days of their independence, and was applied by them to all who could not speak Greek. When Greece became subject to Rome, it was then extended to mean all except the Greeks and Romans. There may be a touch of con-tempt in St. Luke's use of it, but St. Paul uses it simply in the ordinary way; see esp. 1 Co 14". A. Souter.

BARBER.— See Haih.

BARCHUS.— 1 Es 532=Barkos of Ezr 2'3and Neh 7«.

BARHUUnTE.- See Bahubim.

BARIAH.— A son of Shemaiah (1 Ch 3»).

BAR-JESnS. — The name of ' a certain Magian, a false prophet, a Jew' (Ac 13°) whom St. Paul, on his visit to Cyprus, found in the retinue of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. The title Elymas (v.*) is equivalent to Magus (v.°), and is probably derived from an Arabic root signifying 'wise.' The knowledge of the Magians was half-mystical, half-scientific; amongst them were some devout seekers after truth, but many were mere tricksters. In the Apostolic age such men often acquired great influence, and Bar-jesus represents, as Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 79) says, 'the strongest in-fluence on the human will that existed in the Roman world, an influence which must destroy or be destroyed by Christianity, if the latter tried to conquer the Empire.' The narrative implies that the proconsul was too intelligent to be deceived by the Magian's pretensions, the motive of whose opposition to the Christian teachers is expressed in a Bezan addition to v.», which states that Sergius Paulus 'was listening with much pleasure to

84