Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

108 Dimensions in Baptism

One of the difficulties with the category of causality is that it seems to be

broad enough to include more than simply one type of usage of the middle

voice. In fact, each of the voices is often described in terms of how events

are caused. On the basis of the definitions offered by grammarians of the

semantics of voice, I would contend that the entire voice system of Greek

is concerned with causality, in particular, the relationship of the subject to

the action, whether as a direct cause or agent of it (active voice), as an

indirect recipient or patient of it caused by another agent (passive voice),

or the like.^81 If this is the case, then one is still left with how to define the

middle voice, and how to analyze this particular instance in Acts 22.16.

Such determinations should probably not rely upon theology as the major

criterion (that is, whether one thinks that self-administered baptism is or is

not desirable in the early Church or the Church of today), nor should

translation (or the ease of translation) be seen as determinative. Instead, it

appears that within the kinds of causality that the Greek voice system

grammaticalizes, there are different types, including the kind of direct cau-

sality associated with the active voice. As has been noted by some gram-

marians, there is similarity between the use of the passive and middle

voices, in that the action affects the subject, rather than the subject causing

it. With the use of the passive voice, the causality is grammaticalized as

being external to the process, whereas for the middle voice, the causahty is

seen in some way to come from within the process (though not necessarily

from the subject itself). In some ways, this means that the question of

causality as usually defined—in terms of direct or indirect (external) cau-

sation as grammaticalized by the active and passive voices—is bracketed

out of the semantics of the middle voice form.

Concerning Acts 22.16 and pdtTTiaai, to ask the question of who does

the baptizing is, I believe, to ask the wrong question in this particular

instance. On the basis of parallel passages, especially Acts 9.18, it appears

that Ananias was probably the one who baptized Paul. This makes more

sense than the alternative, especially when the alternative is so highly

disputed.^82 However, that issue is really beside the point. The formulation

81. I am indebted to my colleague, Matthew Brook O'Donnell, for thinking with
    me on these issues. Cf. S.E. Porter and M.B. O'Donnell, 'The Greek Verbal Network
    Viewed from a Probabilistic Perspective: An Exercise in Hallidayan Linguistics', FN
    (forthcoming).


82. Some of course will raise the question of whether there is an internal incon-
    sistency in the book of Acts, caused by the carelessness of the narrator, or by his
    reliance upon inconsistent sources. For my perspective on whether the Pauline material