same point is made without noticeable use of circumcision language in Eph 4:22, and in 1 Peter itself in 2:1 (ἀποθέμενοι οὖν πᾶσαν κακίαν, “get rid of all malice, therefore”) and 2:11. It is unlikely that the present passage intends to say anything so banal as that baptism’s purpose is not to wash dirt off the body. What early Christian would have thought that it was? More probably Peter, like James, has moral defilement in view, i.e., the “impulses” that governed the lives of his readers before