John, Dipping
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ἐγένετο Ἰωάνης ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν.
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
The verse where the Latin translation set a thousand years of Western practice — and where Erasmus, and then Luther, objected.
<p>At this verse <span class="gk">μετανοίας</span> is a noun, and the version stack runs: Vulgate <em>baptismum pœnitentiæ</em> → Wycliffe <em>baptym of penaunce</em> → Douay-Rheims <em>baptism of penance</em>. The KJV's "repentance" is also the Latin-derived word, from <em>paenitentia</em>. Geneva 1560 alone reached past it: <em>the baptisme of amendment of life</em> — and that rendering did not survive into the KJV fifty-one years later.</p><p>The imperative arrives at 1:15, not here, and that is where the argument was fought. Luther's first thesis quotes Matthew 4:17, not Mark, but the objection is to the same Latin word. Erasmus' 1516 edition rendered the verb <em>pœniteat vos</em> and only in later revisions <em>resipiscite</em> — the restoration was progressive, not a single stroke.</p>
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