Note 897 — Chapter IV

Although these in after times became vast buildings, with ample provision for baptismal immersion, in the earlier ages they were quite small; and, according to Smith’s Classical Dictionary, the baptisterium was “not a bath sufficiently large to immerse the whole body, but a vessel or labrum containing cold water for pouring on the head.”—Art., Baths. Eusebius speaks of baptisteries without the church “for those who require yet the purification and the sprinklings (περιῤῥαντήριον) of water and the Holy Spirit.”—E. H., x, 4.