THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

," we read in article 25: “. . . As far as holy baptism is concerned, we understand it to mean a dipping or submerging of the whole body in water (Rom. 6:4; Matt. 3:16; Acts 8:37, 38), or a generous sprinkling with the same (the latter mode we consider more appropriate in these northern regions since the same benefits are signified thereby) and this in the most solemn manner in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . . .” [In respect to sprinkling, quotations are lacking.] o) We see that the M.B. Church still remains within the Mennonite family with regard to its practice of immersion. For an evangelical Anabaptist fellowship, the introduction of scriptural apostolic teachings and practices is never an innovation, 100 but, having received the necessary insight, it becomes a sacred duty to discard old errors and that which is broken and buried, to search out again that which is primeval Baptism by Immersion 299 and to reestablish it according to the pattern of the original. This was always Menno’s sacred and unshakable principle as well as his practice within the bounds of his own understanding. If he erred in respect to the mode of baptism, we are duty-bound, according to God’s will and Menno’s own teachings, to correct his error. ‘‘One is your Master, even Christ!” This was the spirit of Menno and in this matter we happily concur with him. p) If next we ask concerning the symbolic meaning of the mode of baptism according to Holy Writ, we find that baptism is represented primarily as a bath of cleansing (or a washing off) and renewal, a burial and resurrection with Christ. Immersion is surely the most appropriate figure for a “bath” and applies equally as well to the concept of a complete washing, although pouring can also symbolize such a washing. Likewise, immersion symbolizes burial and resurrection with Christ (and that more fully than pouring) : stepping down into the water corresponds to dying; the submersion, to burial; the arising from the water, to the rising from the dead; the stepping forth and out, to walking according to a new life. Compare Romans 6 and parallel passages: Matt. 3:16, Acts 8:39. Heinrich Zeller remarks in his already-cited Biblisches Woerterbuch (Bible Dictionary), Volume II, p. 474: “Immersion in a stream means that the old Adam in us is to be drowned daily through repentance and penance; he who lives eternally before God in righteousness and purity, is to die with all of his sin and evil desire, yet daily to arise and come out as a new man.” (Zeller has taken this quotation from Luther’s Catechism.) q) The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This highly interesting document was found by the Greek Metropolitan-Bishop Bryennios of Nikomedia (since 1877) in the library of the Jerusalem Monastery in Constantinople (it was copied in 1056 AD by a certain Leontios), printed by Bryennios in 1883, and made known throughout the academic world by Professor Har