Re: BAPTISMOS

From: Stephen C. Carlson (scarlson@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Jan 14 1999 - 22:48:19 EST


At 09:23 AM 1/14/99 -0600, dd-1@juno.com wrote:
>Mark and Edward, Denny Diehl here
>
>Thanks for all the leg work on BAPTISMOS. As pointed out:
>
>>West Saxon I (c. 990) uses the term "baptista" of John the Baptist
>>(Matt. 3.1 and Luke 9.19); and at John 3.22 we have "baptizabat":
>>"...eius in iudeam terram. & ibi demorabatur cum eis & baptizabat".
>>But as Stephen pointed out, the word for baptism is fulluht, e.g.
>>Matt. 3.7: "SoÝlice ßa he geseh manega ß¾ra sunder-halgena &
>>ß¾ra riht-wisendra to his fulluhte cumende."
>>
>>So too West Saxon II (c. 1175), which does not even have John as
>>"baptista" in Matt. 3.1 but rather "fulluhtere"
>
>Any of the BAPT words would be transliterations from Greek
>BAPTISMOS (and other forms). But what about "fulluht"? Was
>that a translation of BAPTISMOS? And if a translation, what did
>it mean? Thanks again for the help.

I've done a little digging. Roger Lass, OLD ENGLISH: A Historical
Linguistic Companion (Cambridge: University Press, 1994), p.95
states that "fulluht" is a reduction of "ful-wiht", literally
"cup sanctification." This suggests to me that the Anglo-Saxons
thought of baptism more in terms of affusion than immersion.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson@mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35

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