DID PAUL BAPTIZE HIMSELF?
A PROBLEM OF THE GREEK VOICE SYSTEM*Stanley E. Porter
I. Introduction
The history of the mode and means of baptism is a fascinating one that has
had continual interest in the Church. It has been an item of serious debate
between various Christian groups, as well as within them. The early Bap-
tists are no exception. In fact, major controversies surrounded the earliest
days of Baptist history. In particular, there was dispute over the means of
baptism. One of the early disputes between John Smyth and Thomas
Helwys, the two founders of the English General Baptists, was over the
means of baptism.^1 They agreed over the issue that baptism was to be for
believers only, a practice that was already engaged in by the Mennonites.
However, Smyth appears to have thought that the Mennonites were doctri-
nally in error, so he did not turn to them for baptism. John Robinson gives
the following account of how their baptisms came about, and began their
baptistic tradition:
Mr. Smyth, Mr. Helwisse and the rest, having utterly dissolved and dis-
claimed their former church state and ministry, came together to erect a
new church by baptism unto which they also ascribed so great virtue as that
they would not so much as pray together before they had it. And after some
straining of courtesy who should begin, and that of John Baptist Matt. 3,14
misalleged, Mr. Smyth baptized first himself and next Mr. Helwisse and so
the rest making their particular confessions.^2- I wish to thank my colleague and co-editor, Revd Dr Anthony R. Cross, for his
help with the subject of this essay, including providing some difficult-to-find historical
sources.
- See B.R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (A History of
the English Baptists, 1; Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, rev. edn, 1996), pp. 18-24. - J. Robinson, Works, III, p. 168, cited in W.H. Burgess, John Smith the Se-
Baptist, Thomas Helwys and the First Baptist Church in England with Fresh Light
upon the Pilgrim Fathers' Church (London: J. Clarke, 1911), p. 153.