ellenistic

Updated: May 12, 2025

The washing of garments and of the body, which were called baptisms by the Ellenistic Jews, were enjoined to the Jewish nation, as modes of purification from legal pollutions, symbolical of that inward cleansing of the heart, which was necessary to persons before they could hold sacred offices, or pay their religions homage in the temple, or become the true worshippers of God.

Thomas Clarkson - A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 : Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends

They believe he rejected water-baptism as a gospel ordinance, but that he considered it in itself as an harmless ceremony, and that, viewing it in this light, he used it out of condescension to those ellenistic Jews, whose prejudices, on account of the washings of Moses and their customs relative to proselytes, were so strong, that they could not separate purification by water from conversion to a new religion.

Thomas Clarkson - A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 : Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends