"The Baptismal fonts in our Protestant churches, and we can hardly say
more especially the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic
chapels, are not imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted
continuation of the same _aquaminaria_, or _amula_, which the learned
Montfaucon, in his 'Antiquities,' shows to have been _vases of holy
water, which were placed by the heathens at the entrance of their
temples, to sprinkle themselves with upon entering those sacred
edifices_" ("Diegesis," R. Taylor, p. 219). Among the Hindus, to bathe
in the Ganges is to be regenerated, and the water is holy because it
flows from Brahma's feet. Tertullian, arguing that water, as being God's
earliest and most favoured creation, and brooded over by the
spirit--Vishnu also is called Narayan, "moving on the waters"--was
sanctifying in its nature, says: "'Well, but the nations, who are
strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their
idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy.' So they do,
but these cheat themselves with waters which are widowed. For washing is
the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites of
some notorious Isis or Mithra; and the gods themselves likewise they
honour by washings.... At the Appollinarian and Eleusinian games they
are baptised; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is
the regeneration, and the remission of the penalties due to their
perjuries.... Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise here also the
zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him, too,
practising baptism in his subjects" ("On Baptism," chap. v.). As "the
devil" did it first, it seems scarcely fair to accuse _him_ of copying.

Closely allied to baptism is the idea of regeneration, being born again.
In baptism the purification is wrought by the male deity, typified in
the water flowing from the throne or the feet of the god. In
regeneration without water the purification is wrought by the female