Note 100 — Chapter Four (continued 2)
Reading edition
The women claimed the right to baptize their own sex. But the bishops and presbyters did not care to be released from the pleasant duty of baptizing the female converts. Waite.—Hist. of Christian Religion to A.D. 200, p. 23.
The Constitution of the Church of Alexandria, which is thought to have been established about the year 200, required the applicant for baptism to be divested of clothing, and after the ordinance had been administered, to be anointed with oil.—Ibid, p. 384-5.
The converts were first exorcised of the evil spirits that were supposed to inhabit them; then, after undressing and being baptized, they were anointed with oil.—Bunsen’s Christianity of Mankind, Vol. VII, p. 386-393; 3d Vol. Analecta.
Women were baptized quite naked in the presence of these men.—Philosophical Dictionary.
Some learned men have enacted that in primitive churches the persons to be baptized, of whatever age or sex, should be quite naked. Pike.—History of Crime in England. See Joseph Vicecomes.—De Ritibus Baptismi. Varrius.—Thesibus de Baptisme.