Acts 16:33

33. He took them From among the cells, as we conceive, into the court, where the well or fountain often was.

The same hour of the night Unseasonable as it may have seemed.

Washed their stripes The word ελουσεν probably signifies a plentiful application of water in successive parts to their entire persons. The vessels in the vestibules of the ancient churches for washing hands were called λουτηρες ; the water in pitchers for purifying brides by sprinkling was called λουτρον ; the boy who brought it was called λουτροφορος ? and a bath wash-basin is called a λουτηριον , pp. 208-211. In all these cases λουω signifies the application of water to the person.

Baptized It can hardly be supposed that so many persons should be successively immersed at midnight in the same well, fountain, or tank. Nor could they all have gone down to the river, for Paul’s message to the magistrates (Acts 16:37) clearly implies that he had not left the prison limits. Smith’s “Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.” p. 148, has the following words: “The word baptisterium is not a bath sufficiently large to immerse the whole body, but a vessel or labrum containing cold water for pouring over the head,” p. 336. As this present baptism was performed by one Roman citizen upon another, the passage is in point. There is the purifying of the body and the purifying of the soul reciprocally applied.