Chapter I (1)

RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

§ 44.

CHRONOLOGICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN JOHN AND JESUS.

For the ministry of John the Baptist, mentioned in all the Gospels, the second and fourth evangelists fix no epoch; the first gives us an inexact one; the third, one apparently precise. According to Matt. iii. 1, John appeared as a preacher of repentance, in those days, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, that is, if we interpret strictly this reference to the previous narrative, about the time when the parents of Jesus settled at Nazareth, and when Jesus was yet a child. We are told, however, in the context, that Jesus came to John for baptism; hence between the first appearance of the Baptist, which was cotemporary with the childhood of Jesus, and the period at which the latter was baptized, we must intercalate a number of years, during which Jesus might have become sufficiently matured to partake of John’s baptism. But Matthew’s description of the person and work of the Baptist is so concise, the office attributed to him is so little independent, so entirely subservient to that of Jesus, that it was certainly not the intention of the evangelist to assign a long series of years to his single ministry. His meaning incontestably is, that John’s short career early attained its goal in the baptism of Jesus.

It being thus inadmissible to suppose between the appearance of John and the baptism of Jesus, that is, between verses 12 and 13 of the 3rd chapter of Matthew, the long interval which is in every case indispensable, nothing remains but to insert it between the close of the second and the beginning of the third chapter, namely, between the settlement of the parents of Jesus at Nazareth and the appearance of the Baptist. To this end we may presume, with Paulus, that Matthew has here introduced a fragment from a history of the Baptist, narrating many particulars of his life immediately preceding his public agency, and very properly proceeding with the words, in those days, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, which connecting phrase Matthew, although he omitted that to which it referred, has nevertheless retained [515]; or we may, with Süskind, apply the words, not to the settlement, but to the subsequent residence of Jesus at Nazareth; [516] or better still, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, like the corresponding Hebrew expression, בַּיָמִים הַהֵם e.g., Exod. ii. 11, is probably to be interpreted as relating indeed to the establishment at Nazareth, but so that an event happening thirty years afterwards may yet be said, speaking indefinitely, to occur in those days. [517] In neither case do we learn from Matthew concerning the time of John’s appearance more than the very vague information, that it took place in the interval between the infancy and manhood of Jesus.

Luke determines the date of John’s appearance by various synchronisms, placing it in the time of Pilate’s government in Judea; in the sovereignty of Herod (Antipas), of Philip and of Lysanias over the other divisions of Palestine; in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas; and, moreover, precisely in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, which, reckoning from the death of Augustus, corresponds with the year 28–29 of our era [518] (iii. 1, 2). With this last and closest demarcation of time all the foregoing less precise ones agree. Even that which makes Annas high priest together with Caiaphas appears correct, if we consider the peculiar influence which, according to John xviii. 13, Acts iv. 6, that ex-high priest retained, even when deposed, especially after the assumption of office by his son-in-law, Caiaphas.

A single exception occurs in the statement about Lysanias, whom Luke makes cotemporary with Antipas and Philip as tetrarch of Abilene. Josephus, it is true, speaks of an Ἀβίλα ἡ Λυσανίου, and mentions a Lysanias as governor of Chalcis in Lebanon, near to which lay the territory of Abila; so that the same Lysanias was probably master of the latter. But this Lysanias was, at the instigation of Cleopatra, put to death 34 years before the birth of Christ, and a second Lysanias is not mentioned either by Josephus or by any other writer on the period in question. [519] Thus, not only is the time of his government earlier by 60 years than the 15th year of Tiberius, but it is also at issue with the other dates associated with it by Luke. Hence it has been conjectured that Luke here speaks of a younger Lysanias, the descendant of the earlier one, who possessed Abilene under Tiberius, but who, being less famous, is not noticed by Josephus. [520] We cannot indeed prove what Süskind demands for the refutation of this hypothesis, namely, that had such a younger Lysanias existed, Josephus must have mentioned him; yet that he had more than one inducement to do so, Paulus has satisfactorily shown. Especially, when in relation to the times of the first and second Agrippa he designates Abila, ἡ Λυσανίου, he must have been reminded that he had only treated of the elder Lysanias, and not at all of the younger, from whom, as the later ruler, the country must at that time have derived its second appellation. [521] If, according to this, the younger Lysanias is but an historic fiction, the proposed alternative is but a philological one. [522] For when it is said in the first place: Φιλίππου — τετραρχοῦντος τῆς Ἰτουραίας, κ.τ.λ., and when it follows: καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετραρχοῦντος: we cannot possibly understand from this, that Philip reigned also over the Abilene of Lysanias. For in that case the word τετραρχοῦντος ought not to have been repeated, [523] and τῆς ought to have been placed before Lysanias, if the author wished to avoid misconstruction. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the writer himself erred, and, from the circumstance that Abilene, even in recent times, was called, after the last ruler of the former dynasty, ἡ Λυσανίου, drew the inference that a monarch of that name was still existing; while, in fact, Abilene either belonged to Philip, or was immediately subject to the Romans. [524]

The above chronological notation relates directly to John the Baptist alone; a similar one is wanting when Luke begins farther on (v. 21 ff.) to speak of Jesus. Of him it is merely said that he was about thirty years of age, ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, on his public appearance (ἀρχόμενος), but no date is given; while, in the case of John, there is a contrary omission. Thus even if John commenced his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius, we cannot thence gather anything as to the time when Jesus commenced his, as it is nowhere said how long John had been baptizing when Jesus came to him on the Jordan; while, on the other hand, although we know that Jesus, at his baptism, was about 30 years old, this does not help us to ascertain the age of John when he entered on his ministry as Baptist. Remembering, however, Luke i. 26, according to which John was just half a year older than Jesus, and calling to our aid the fact that Jewish usage would scarcely permit the exercise of public functions before the thirtieth year, we might infer that the Baptist could only have appeared half a year before the arrival of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, since he would only so much earlier have attained the requisite age. But no express law forbade a public appearance previous to the thirtieth year; and it has been justly questioned whether we can apply to the freer office of a Prophet a restriction which concerned the Priests and Levites, for whom the thirtieth year was fixed for their entrance on regular service [525] (Num. iv. 3, 47. Compare besides 2 Chron. xxxi. 17, where the 20th year is named). This then would not hinder us from placing the appearance of John considerably prior to that of Jesus, even presupposing the averred relation between their ages. Hardly, however, could this be the intention of the Evangelist. For to ascertain so carefully the date of the Forerunner’s appearance, and leave that of the Messiah himself undetermined, would be too great an oversight, [526] and we cannot but suppose that his design, in the particulars he gives concerning John, was to fix the time for the appearance of Jesus. To agree with this purpose, he must have understood that Jesus came to the banks of the Jordan and began to teach, shortly after the appearance of John. [527] For that the above chronological determination was originally merely the introduction to a document concerning John, quoted by Luke, is improbable, since its exactness corresponds with the style of him who had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς, and who sought to determine, in like manner, the epoch of the Messiah’s birth.

It is not easy, however, to imagine, in accordance with this statement, that John was by so little the predecessor of Jesus, nor is it without reason that the improbability of his having had so short an agency is maintained. For he had a considerable number of disciples, whom he not only baptized, but taught (Luke xi. 1), and he left behind a party of his peculiar followers (Acts xviii. 25, xix. 3), all which could hardly be the work of a few months. There needed time, it has been observed, for the Baptist to become so well known, that people would undertake a journey to him in the wilderness; there needed time for his doctrine to be comprehended, time for it to gain a footing and establish itself, especially as it clashed with the current Jewish ideas; in a word, the deep and lasting veneration in which John was held by his nation, according to Josephus [528] as well as the evangelists, could not have been so hastily won. [529]

But the foregoing considerations, although they demand, in general, a longer agency for the Baptist, do not prove that the evangelists err in placing the commencement of his ministry shortly before that of Jesus, since they might suppose the required prolongation as a sequel, instead of an introduction, to the appearance of Jesus. Such a prolongation of the Baptist’s ministry, however, is not to be found, at least in the first two Gospels; for not only do these contain no details concerning John, after the baptism of Jesus, except his sending two disciples (Matt. xi.), which is represented as a consequence of his imprisonment; but we gather from Matt. iv. 12, Mark i. 14, that during or shortly after the forty days’ abode of Jesus in the wilderness, the Baptist was arrested, and thereupon Jesus went into Galilee, and entered on his public career. Luke, it is true (iv. 14), does not mention the imprisonment of John as the cause of the appearance of Jesus in Galilee, and he seems to regard the commission of the two disciples as occurring while John was at large (vii. 18 ff.); and the fourth Evangelist testifies yet more decisively against the notion that John was arrested so soon after the baptism of Jesus; for in chap. iii. 24, it is expressly stated, that John was actively engaged in his ministry after the first passover, attended by Jesus during His public life. But on the one hand, as it appears from Luke ix. 9; Matt. xiv. 1 ff.; Mark xiv. 16, that John was put to death long before Jesus, the continuance of his agency after the rise of the latter could not be very protracted (Luke ix. 9; Matt. xiv. 1 ff.; Mark xiv. 16); and on the other, that which may be added to the agency of John after the appearance of Jesus, will not make amends for that which is subtracted from it before that epoch. For, apart from the fact implied by the fourth Evangelist (i. 35), that the Baptist had formed a definite circle of familiar disciples before the appearance of Jesus, it would be difficult to account for the firm footing acquired by his school, if he had laboured only a few months, to be, at their close, eclipsed by Jesus.

There is yet one resource, namely, to separate the baptism of Jesus from the commencement of his ministry, and to say: It was indeed after the first half-year of John’s agency that Jesus was so attracted by his fame, as to become a candidate for his baptism; but for some time subsequently, he either remained among the followers of the Baptist, or went again into retirement, and did not present himself independently until a considerable interval had elapsed. By this means we should obtain the requisite extension of John’s ministry prior to the more brilliant career of Jesus, without impugning the apparent statement of our evangelists that the baptism of Jesus followed close upon the public appearance of John. But the idea of a long interim, between the baptism of Jesus and the commencement of his ministry, is utterly foreign to the New Testament writers. For that they regard the baptism of Jesus as his consecration to the Messianic office, is proved by the accompanying descent of the spirit and the voice from heaven; the only pause which they allow to intervene, is the six weeks’ fast in the wilderness, immediately after which, according to Luke, or after the apparently cotemporary arrest of the Baptist, according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus appears in Galilee. Luke, in particular, by designating (iii. 23) the baptism of Jesus as his ἄρχεσθαι, his assumption of office, and by dating the intercourse of Jesus with his disciples from the βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου (Acts i. 22), evinces his persuasion that the baptism and public manifestation of Jesus were identical.

Thus the gospel narrative is an obstacle to the adoption of the two most plausible expedients for the prolongation of John’s ministry, viz., that Jesus presented himself for baptism later, or that his public appearance was retarded longer after his baptism, than has been generally inferred. We are not, however, compelled to renounce either of these suppositions, if we can show that the New Testament writers might have been led to their point of view even without historical grounds. A sufficient motive lies close at hand, and is implied in the foregoing observations. Let the Baptist once be considered, as was the case in the Christian Church (Acts xix. 4), not a person of independent significance, but simply a Forerunner of the Christ; and the imagination would not linger with the mere Precursor, but would hasten forward to the object at which he pointed. Yet more obvious is the interest which primitive Christian tradition must have had in excluding, whatever might have been the fact, any interval between the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his public course. For to allow that Jesus, by his submission to John’s baptism, declared himself his disciple, and remained in that relation for any length of time, was offensive to the religious sentiment of the new church, which desired a Founder instructed by God, and not by man: another turn, therefore, would soon be given to the facts, and the baptism of Jesus would be held to signify, not his initiation into the school of John, but a consecration to his independent office. Thus the diverging testimony of the evangelists does not preclude our adopting the conclusion to which the nature of the case leads us; viz., that the Baptist had been long labouring, anterior to the appearance of Jesus.

If, in addition to this, we accept the statement of Luke (i. 26 and iii. 23), that Jesus, being only half a year younger than John, was about in his thirtieth year at his appearance, we must suppose that John was in his twentieth year when he began his ministry. There is, as we have seen, no express law against so early an exercise of the prophetic office; neither do I, so decidedly as Cludius, [530] hold it improbable that so young a preacher of repentance should make an impression, or even that he should be taken for a prophet of the olden time—an Elias; I will only appeal to the ordinary course of things as a sanction for presuming, that one who entered so much earlier upon the scene of action was proportionately older, especially when the principles and spirit of his teaching tell so plainly of a mature age as do the discourses of John. There are exceptions to this rule; but the statement of Luke (i. 26), that John was only six months older than Jesus, is insufficient to establish one in this instance, as it accords with the interest of the poetical legend, and must therefore be renounced for the slightest improbability.

The result then of our critique on the chronological data Luke iii. 1, 2, comp. 23 and i. 26, is this: if Jesus, as Luke seems to understand, appeared in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the appearance of John occurred, not in the same year, but earlier; and if Jesus was in his thirtieth year when he began his ministry, the Baptist, so much his predecessor, could hardly be but six months his senior.

§ 45.

APPEARANCE AND DESIGN OF THE BAPTIST. HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH JESUS.

John, a Nazarite, according to our authorities (Matt. iii. 4, ix. 14, xi. 18; Luke i. 15), and in the opinion of several theologians, [531] an Essene, is said by Luke (iii. 2) to have been summoned to his public work by the word of God ῥῆμα Θεοῦ, which came to him in the wilderness. Not possessing the Baptist’s own declaration, we cannot accept as complete the dilemma stated by Paulus, [532] when he says, that we know not whether John himself interpreted some external or internal fact as a divine call, or whether he received a summons from another individual; and we must add as a third possibility, that his followers sought to dignify the vocation of their Teacher by an expression which recalls to mind the ancient Prophets.

While from the account of Luke it appears that the divine call came to John in the wilderness, ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, but that for the purpose of teaching and baptizing he resorted to the country about Jordan, περίχωρος τοῦ Ἰορδάνου (ver. 3); Matthew (iii. ff.) makes the wilderness of Judea the scene of his labours, as if the Jordan in which he baptized flowed through that wilderness. It is true that, according to Josephus, the Jordan before emptying itself into the Dead Sea traverses a great wilderness, πολλὴν ἐρημίαν, [533] but this was not the wilderness of Judea, which lay farther south. [534] Hence it has been supposed that Matthew, misled by his application of the prophecy, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, to John, who issued from the wilderness of Judea, ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας, placed there his labours as a preacher of repentance and a baptizer, although their true scene was the blooming valley of the Jordan. [535] In the course of Luke’s narrative, however, this evangelist ceases to intimate that John forsook the wilderness after receiving his call, for on the occasion of John’s message to Jesus, he makes the latter ask, Whom went ye out into the wilderness to see? Τί ἐξεληλύθατε εἰς τὴν ἔρημον θεάσασθαι (vii. 24). Now as the valley of the Jordan in the vicinity of the Dead Sea was in fact a barren plain, the narrow margin of the river excepted, no greater mistake may belong to Matthew than that of specifying the wilderness as the ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας; and even that may be explained away by the supposition, either that John, as he alternately preached and baptized, passed from the wilderness of Judea to the borders of the Jordan, [536] or that the waste tract through which that river flowed, being a continuation of the wilderness of Judea, retained the same name. [537]

The baptism of John could scarcely have been derived from the baptism of proselytes, [538] for this rite was unquestionably posterior to the rise of Christianity. It was more analogous to the religious lustrations in practice amongst the Jews, especially the Essenes, and was apparently founded chiefly on certain expressions used by several of the prophets in a figurative sense, but afterwards understood literally. According to these expressions, God requires from the Israelitish people, as a condition of their restoration to his favour, a washing and purification from their iniquity, and he promises that he will himself cleanse them with water (Isaiah i. 16, Ez. xxxvi. 25, comp. Jer. ii. 22). Add to this the Jewish notion that the Messiah would not appear with his kingdom until the Israelites repented, [539] and we have the combination necessary for the belief that an ablution, symbolical of conversion and forgiveness of sins, must precede the advent of the Messiah.

Our accounts are not unanimous as to the signification of John’s baptism. They all, it is true, agree in stating repentance, μετάνοια, to be one of its essential requirements; for even what Josephus says of the Baptist, that he admonished the Jews, practising virtue, just towards each other, and devout towards God, to come to his baptism, ἀρετὴν ἐπασκοῦντας, καὶ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν εὐσεβεία χρωμένους βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι, [540] has the same sense under a Greek form. Mark and Luke, however, while designating the baptism of John, βάπτισμα μετανοίας, add, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (i. 4, iii. 3). Matthew has not the same addition; but he, with Mark, describes the baptized as confessing their sins, ἐξομολογοὺμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν (iii. 6). Josephus, on the other hand, appears in direct contradiction to them, when he gives it as the opinion of the Baptist, that baptism is pleasing to God, not when we ask pardon for some transgressions, but when we purify the body, after having first purified the mind by righteousness, οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὴν βάπτισιν ἀποδεκτὴν αὐτῷ (τῷ Θεῷ) φανεῖσθαι, μὴ ἐπί τίνων ἁμαρτάδων παραιτήσει χρωμένων, ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ ἁγνείᾳ τοῦ σώματος, ἄτε δὴ, καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς δικαιοσύνῃ προεκκεκαθαρμένης. We might here be led to the supposition that the words for the remission of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, as in Acts ii. 38, and other passages, was commonly used in relation to Christian baptism, and was thence transferred unhistorically to that of John; but as in the passages quoted from Ezekiel the washing typified not only reformation but forgiveness, the probabilities are in favour of the evangelical statement. Moreover, it is possible to reconcile Josephus and the Evangelists, by understanding the words of the former to mean that the baptism of John was intended to effect a purification, not from particular or merely Levitical transgressions, but of the entire man, not immediately and mysteriously through the agency of water, but by means of the moral acts of reformation. [541]

The several accounts concerning John are farther at variance, as to the relation in which they place his baptism to the kingdom of heaven, βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. According to Matthew, the concise purport of the appeal with which he accompanied his baptism was, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, μετανοεῖτε’ ἤγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (iii. 2); according to Luke, the Baptist in the first instance mentions only repentance and remission of sins, but no kingdom of heaven; and it is the conjecture of the people, that he might be the Messiah, by which he is first led to direct them to one who was coming after him (iii. 15 ff.). In Josephus, there is no trace of a relation between the ministry of John and the Messianic idea. Yet we must not therefore conclude that the Baptist himself recognized no such relation, and that its only source was the Christian legend. For the baptism of John, waiving the opinion that it was derived from the baptism of proselytes, is not quite explicable without a reference to the above-mentioned expiatory lustrations of the people—lustrations which were to usher in the times of the Messiah; moreover, the appearance of Jesus is made more comprehensible by the supposition, that John had introduced the idea of the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom. That Josephus should keep back the Messianic aspect of the fact, is in accordance with his general practice, which is explained by the position of his people with respect to the Romans. Besides, in the expression, to assemble for baptism, βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι, in his mention of popular assemblages, συστρέφεσθαι, and in the fear of Antipas lest John should excite a revolt, ἀπόστασις there lies an intimation of precisely such a religious and political movement as the hope of the Messiah was calculated to produce. That the Baptist should so distinctly foretell the immediate appearance of the Messiah’s kingdom must create surprise, and (Luke’s reference to a divine call and revelation being held unsatisfactory) might lead to the supposition that the Christian narrator, believing that the true Messiah was actually manifested in the person of Jesus, the cotemporary of John, gave to the language of the latter a definiteness which did not belong to it originally; and while the Baptist merely said, consonantly with the Jewish notion already mentioned: Repent, that the kingdom of heaven may come, μετανοεῖτε, ἵνα ἔλθῃ ἡ βας. τ. οὐρ., a later edition of his words gave γὰρ (for) instead of ἵνα (that). But such a supposition is needless. In those times of commotion, John might easily believe that he discerned signs, which certified to him the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom; the exact degree of its proximity he left undecided.

According to the Evangelists, the coming of the kingdom of heaven, βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, was associated by John with a Messianic individual to whom he ascribed, in distinction from his own baptism with water, a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, βαπτίζειν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρὶ (Matt. iii. 11 parall.), the outpouring of the Holy Spirit being regarded as a leading feature of the Messianic times (Joel ii. 28; Acts ii. 16 ff.). Of this personage he farther predicted, in imagery akin to that used by the prophets on the same subject, that he would winnow the people as wheat (Mal. iii. 2, 3; Zech. xiii. 9). The Synoptical Gospels state the case as if John expressly understood this Messianic individual to be Jesus of Nazareth. According to Luke, indeed, the mothers of these two men were cousins, and aware of the destination of their sons. The Baptist while yet unborn acknowledged the divinity of Jesus, and all the circumstances imply that both were early acquainted with their relative position, predetermined by a heavenly communication. Matthew, it is true, says nothing of such a family connexion between John and Jesus; but when the latter presents himself for baptism, he puts into the mouth of John words which seem to presuppose an earlier acquaintance. His expression of astonishment that Jesus should come to him for baptism, when he had need to be baptized of Jesus, could only arise from a previous knowledge or instantaneous revelation of his character. Of the latter there is no intimation; for the first visible sign of the Messiahship of Jesus did not occur till afterwards. While in the first and third Gospels (in the second, the facts are so epitomized that the writer’s view on the subject is not evident), John and Jesus seem to have been no strangers to each other prior to the baptism; in the fourth, the Baptist pointedly asserts that he knew not Jesus before the heavenly appearance, which, according to the Synoptical Gospels, was coincident with his baptism (i. 31, 33). Simply considered, this looks like a contradiction. By Luke, the previous acquaintance of the two is stated objectively, as an external matter of fact; by Matthew, it is betrayed in the involuntary confession of the astonished Baptist; in the fourth Gospel, on the contrary, their previous unacquaintance is attested subjectively, by his premeditated assertion. It was not, therefore, a very far-fetched idea of the Wolfenbüttel fragmentist, to put down the contradiction to the account of John and Jesus, and to presume that they had in fact long known and consulted each other, but that in public (in order better to play into one another’s hands) they demeaned themselves as if they had hitherto been mutual strangers, and each delivered an unbiassed testimony to the other’s excellence. [542]

That such premeditated dissimulation might not be imputed to John, and indirectly to Jesus, it has been sought to disprove the existence of the contradiction in question exegetically. What John learned from the heavenly sign was the Messiahship of Jesus; to this therefore, and not to his person, refer the words, I knew him not, κᾀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτὸν. [543] But it may be questioned whether such an acquaintance as John must have had with Jesus, presupposing the narrative of Matthew and Luke, was separable from a knowledge of his Messiahship. The connection and intercourse of the two families, as described by Luke, would render it impossible for John not to be early informed how solemnly Jesus had been announced as the Messiah, before and at his birth; he could not therefore say at a later period that, prior to the sign from heaven, he had not known, but only that he had not believed, the story of former wonders, one of which relates to himself. [544] It being thus unavoidable to acknowledge that by the above declaration in the fourth Gospel, the Baptist is excluded, not only from a knowledge of the Messiahship of Jesus, but also from a personal acquaintance with him; it has been attempted to reconcile the first chapter of Luke with this ignorance, by appealing to the distance of residence between the two families, as a preventive to the continuance of their intercourse. [545] But if the journey from Nazareth to the hill country of Judea was not too formidable for the betrothed Mary, how could it be so for the two sons when ripening to maturity? What culpable indifference is hereby supposed in both families to the heavenly communications they had received! nay, what could be the object of those communications, if they had no influence on the early life and intercourse of the two sons? [546]

Let it be granted that the fourth Gospel excludes an acquaintance with the Messiahship only of Jesus, and that the third presupposes an acquaintance with his person only, on the part of John; still the contradiction is not removed. For in Matthew, John, when required to baptize Jesus, addresses him as if he knew him, not generally and personally alone, but specially, in his character of Messiah. It is true that the words: I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? (iii. 14), have been interpreted, in the true spirit of harmonizing, as referring to the general superior excellence of Jesus, and not to his Messiahship. [547] But the right to undertake the baptism which was to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, was not to be obtained by moral superiority in general, but was conferred by a special call, such as John himself had received, and such as could belong only to a prophet, or to the Messiah and his Forerunner (John i. 19 ff.). If then John attributed to Jesus authority to baptize, he must have regarded him not merely as an excellent man, but as indubitably a prophet, nay, since he held him worthy to baptize himself, as his own superior: that is, since John conceived himself to be the Messiah’s Forerunner, no other than the Messiah himself. Add to this, that Matthew had just cited a discourse of the Baptist, in which he ascribes to the coming Messiah a baptism more powerful than his own; how then can we understand his subsequent language towards Jesus otherwise than thus: “Of what use is my water baptism to thee, O Messiah? Far more do I need thy baptism of the Spirit!” [548]

The contradiction cannot be cleared away; we must therefore, if we would not lay the burthen of intentional deception on the agents, let the narrators bear the blame; and there will be the less hindrance to our doing so, the more obvious it is how one or both of them might be led into an erroneous statement. There is in the present case no obstacle to the reconciliation of Matthew with the fourth evangelist, farther than the words by which the Baptist seeks to deter Jesus from receiving baptism; words which, if uttered before the occurrence of anything supernatural, presuppose a knowledge of Jesus in his character of Messiah. Now the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius, places the entreaty of John that Jesus would baptize him, as a sequel to the sign from heaven; [549] and this account has been recently regarded as the original one, abridged by the writer of our first Gospel, who, for the sake of effect, made the refusal and confession of the Baptist coincident with the first approach of Jesus. [550] But that we have not in the Gospel of the Hebrews the original form of the narrative, is sufficiently proved by its very tedious repetition of the heavenly voice and the diffuse style of the whole. It is rather a very traditional record, and the insertion of John’s refusal after the sign and voice from heaven, was not made with the view of avoiding a contradiction of the fourth Gospel, which cannot be supposed to have been recognized in the circle of the Ebionite Christians, but from the very motive erroneously attributed to Matthew in his alleged transposition, namely, to give greater effect to the scene. A simple refusal on the part of the Baptist appeared too weak; he must at least fall at the feet of Jesus; and a more suitable occasion could not be given than that of the sign from heaven, which accordingly must be placed beforehand. This Hebrew Gospel, therefore, will not help us to understand how Matthew was led into contradiction with John; still less will it avail for the explanation of Luke’s narrative.

All is naturally explained by the consideration, that the important relation between John and Jesus must have been regarded as existing at all times, by reason of that ascription of pre-existence to the essential which is a characteristic of the popular mind. Just as the soul, when considered as an essence, is conceived more or less clearly as pre-existent; so in the popular mind, every relation pregnant with consequences is endowed with pre-existence. Hence the Baptist, who eventually held so significant a relation to Jesus, must have known him from the first, as is indistinctly intimated by Matthew, and more minutely detailed by Luke; according to whom, their mothers knew each other, and the sons themselves were brought together while yet unborn. All this is wanting in the fourth Gospel, the writer of which attributes an opposite assertion to John, simply because in his mind an opposite interest preponderated; for the less Jesus was known to John by whom he was afterwards so extolled, the more weight was thrown on the miraculous scene which arrested the regards of the Baptist—the more clearly was his whole position with respect to Jesus demonstrated to be the effect, not of the natural order of events, but of the immediate agency of God.

§ 46.

WAS JESUS ACKNOWLEDGED BY JOHN AS THE MESSIAH? AND IN WHAT SENSE?

To the foregoing question whether Jesus was known to John before the baptism, is attached another, namely, What did John think of Jesus and his Messiahship? The evangelical narratives are unanimous in stating, that before Jesus had presented himself for baptism, John had announced the immediate coming of One to whom he stood in a subordinate relation; and the scene at the baptism of Jesus marked him, beyond mistake, as the personage of whom John was the forerunner. According to Mark and Luke, we must presume that the Baptist gave credence to this sign; according to the fourth Gospel, he expressly attested his belief (i. 34), and moreover uttered words which evince the deepest insight into the higher nature and office of Jesus (i. 29 ff. 36; iii. 27 ff.); according to the first Gospel, he was already convinced of these before the baptism of Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew (xi. 2 ff.) and Luke (vii. 18 ff.) tell us that at a later period, the Baptist, on hearing of the ministry of Jesus, despatched some of his disciples to him with the inquiry, whether he (Jesus) was the promised Messiah, or whether another must be expected.

The first impression from this is, that the question denoted an uncertainty on the part of the Baptist whether Jesus were really the Messiah; and so it was early understood. [551] But such a doubt is in direct contradiction with all the other circumstances reported by the Evangelists. It is justly regarded as psychologically impossible that he whose belief was originated or confirmed by the baptismal sign, which he held to be a divine revelation, and who afterwards pronounced so decidedly on the Messianic call and the superior nature of Jesus, should all at once have become unsteady in his conviction; he must then indeed have been like a reed shaken by the wind, a comparison which Jesus abnegates on this very occasion (Matt. xi. 7). A cause for such vacillation is in vain sought in the conduct or fortunes of Jesus at the time; for the rumour of the works of Christ, ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, which in Luke’s idea were miracles, could not awaken doubt in the Baptist, and it was on this rumour that he sent his message. Lastly, how could Jesus subsequently (John v. 33 ff.) so confidently appeal to the testimony of the Baptist concerning him, when it was known that John himself was at last perplexed about his Messiahship? [552]

Hence it has been attempted to give a different turn to the facts, and to show that John’s inquiry was not made on his own account, but for the sake of his disciples, to overcome in them the doubt with which he was himself untainted. [553] Hereby it is true, the above-named difficulties are removed; in particular it is explained why the Baptist should contrive to send this message precisely on hearing of the miracles of Jesus; he plainly hoping that his disciples, who had not believed his testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, would be convinced of its truth by beholding the marvellous works of the latter. But how could John hope that his envoys would chance to find Jesus in the act of working miracles? According to Matthew, indeed, they did not so find him, and Jesus appeals (v. 4) only to his former works, many of which they had seen, and of which they might hear wherever he had presented himself. Luke alone, in giving his evidently second-hand narrative, [554] misconstrues the words of Jesus to require that the disciples of John should have found him in the exercise of his supernatural power. Further, if it had been the object of the Baptist to persuade his disciples by a sight of the works of Jesus, he would not have charged them with a question which could be answered by the mere words, the authentic declaration of Jesus. For he could not hope by the assertion of the person whose Messiahship was the very point in debate, to convince the disciples whom his own declaration, in other cases authoritative, had failed to satisfy. On the whole, it would have been a singular course in the Baptist to lend his own words to the doubts of others, and thereby, as Schleiermacher well observes, to compromise his early and repeated testimony in favour of Jesus. It is clear that Jesus understood the question proposed to him by the messengers as proceeding from John himself; (ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰωάννῃ, Matt. xi. 4;) and he indirectly complained of the want of faith in the latter by pronouncing those blessed who were not offended in him (ver. 6). [555]

If then it must be granted that John made his inquiry on his own behalf, and not on that of his disciples, and if nevertheless we cannot impute to him a sudden lapse into doubt after his previous confidence; nothing remains but to take the positive instead of the negative side of the question, and to consider its scepticism as the mere garb of substantial encouragement. [556] On this interpretation, the time which Jesus allowed to escape without publicly manifesting himself as the Messiah, seemed too tedious to John in his imprisonment; he sent therefore to inquire how long Jesus would allow himself to be waited for, how long he would delay winning to himself the better part of the people by a declaration of his Messiahship, and striking a decisive blow against the enemies of his cause—a blow that might even liberate the Baptist from his prison. But if the Baptist, on the strength of his belief that Jesus was the Messiah, hoped and sued for a deliverance, perhaps miraculous, by him from prison, he would not clothe in the language of doubt an entreaty which sprang out of his faith. Now the inquiry in our evangelical text is one of unmixed doubt, and encouragement must be foisted in, before it can be found there. How great a violence must be done to the words is seen by the way in which Schleiermacher handles them in accordance with this interpretation. The dubitative question, σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος; he changes into the positive assumption, thou art he who was to come; the other still more embarrassing interrogatory, ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; he completely transfigures thus: wherefore (seeing that thou performest so great works) do we yet await thee?—shall not John with all his authority command, through us, all those who have partaken of his baptism to obey thee as the Messiah, and be attentive to thy signs? Even if we allow, with Neander, the possibility of truth to this interpretation, a mere summons to action will not accord with the earlier representation of Jesus given by the Baptist. The two enunciations are at issue as to form; for if John doubted not the Messiahship of Jesus, neither could he doubt his better knowledge of the fitting time and manner of his appearance: still farther are they at issue as to matter; for the Baptist could not take offence at what is termed the delay of Jesus in manifesting himself as the Messiah, or wish to animate him to bolder conduct, if he retained his early view of the destination of Jesus. If he still, as formerly, conceived Jesus to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Τεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμοῦ, no thought could occur to him of a blow to be struck by Jesus against his enemies, or in general, of a violent procedure to be crowned by external conquest; rather, the quiet path which Jesus trod must appear to him the right one—the path befitting the destination of the Lamb of God. Thus if the question of John conveyed a mere summons to action, it contradicted his previous views.

These expedients failing, the original explanation returns upon us; namely, that the inquiry was an expression of uncertainty respecting the messianic dignity of Jesus, which had arisen in the Baptist’s own mind; an explanation which even Neander allows to be the most natural. This writer seeks to account for the transient apostacy of the Baptist from the strong faith in which he gave his earlier testimony, by the supposition that a dark hour of doubt had overtaken the man of God in his dismal prison; and he cites instances of men who, persecuted for their Christian faith or other convictions, after having long borne witness to the truth in the face of death, at length yielded to human weakness and recanted. But on a closer examination, he has given a false analogy. Persecuted Christians of the first centuries, and, later, a Berengarius or a Galileo, were false to the convictions for which they were imprisoned, and by abjuring which they hoped to save themselves: the Baptist, to be compared with them, should have retracted his censure of Herod, and not have shaken his testimony in favour of Christ, which had no relation to his imprisonment. However that may be, it is evident here that these doubts cannot have been preceded by a state of certainty.

We come again to the difficulty arising from the statement of Matthew that John sent his two disciples on hearing of the works of Christ, ἀκούσας τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, or as Luke has it, because his disciples showed him of all these things, ἀπήγγειλαν περὶ πάντων τούτων. The latter evangelist has narrated, immediately before, the raising of the widow’s son, and the healing of the centurion’s servant. Could John, then, believe Jesus to be the Messiah before he had performed any messianic works, and be seized with doubt when he began to legitimatize his claim by miracles such as were expected from the Messiah [557]? This is so opposed to all psychological probability, that I wonder Dr. Paulus, or some other expositor versed in psychology and not timid in verbal criticism, has not started the conjecture that a negative has slipped out of Matt. xi. 2, and that its proper reading is, ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης οὐκ ἀκούσας ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, κ.τ.λ. It might then be conceived, that John had indeed been convinced, at a former period, of the Messiahship o£ Jesus; now, however, in his imprisonment, the works of Jesus came no longer to his ears, and imagining him inactive, he was assailed with doubt. But had John been previously satisfied of the Messiahship of Jesus, the mere want of acquaintance with his miracles could not have unhinged his faith. The actual cause of John’s doubt, however, was the report of these miracles;—a state of the case which is irreconcilable with any previous confidence.

But how could he become uncertain about the Messiahship of Jesus, if he had never recognised it? Not indeed in the sense of beginning to suspect that Jesus was not the Messiah; but quite possibly in the sense of beginning to conjecture that a man of such deeds was the Messiah.

We have here, not a decaying, but a growing certainty, and this discrimination throws light on the whole purport of the passages in question. John knew nothing of Jesus before, but that he had, like many others, partaken of his baptism, and perhaps frequented the circle of his disciples; and not until after the imprisonment of the Baptist did Jesus appear as a teacher, and worker of miracles. Of this John heard, and then arose in his mind a conjecture, fraught with hope, that as he had announced the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, this Jesus might be he who would verify his idea. [558] So interpreted, this message of the Baptist excludes his previous testimony; if he had so spoken formerly, he could not have so inquired latterly, and vice versâ. It is our task, therefore, to compare the two contradictory statements, that we may ascertain which has more traces than the other, of truth or untruth.

The most definite expressions of John’s conviction that Jesus was the Messiah are found in the fourth Gospel, and these suggest two distinct questions: first, whether it be conceivable that John had such a notion of the Messiah as is therein contained; and, secondly, whether it be probable that he believed it realized in the person of Jesus.

With respect to the former, the fourth Gospel makes the Baptist’s idea of the Messiah include the characteristics of expiatory suffering, and of a premundane, heavenly existence. It has been attempted, indeed, so to interpret the expressions with which he directs his disciples to Jesus, as to efface the notion of expiatory suffering. Jesus, we are told, is compared to a lamb on account of his meekness and patience; αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, is to be understood either of a patient endurance of the world’s malice, or of an endeavour to remove the sins of the world by reforming it; and the sense of the Baptist’s words is this: “How moving is it that this meek and gentle Jesus should have undertaken so difficult and painful an office [559]!” But the best critics have shown that even if αἴρειν by itself might bear this interpretation, still ἀμνὸς, not merely with the article but with the addition τοῦ Θεοῦ, must signify, not a lamb in general, but a special, holy Lamb; and if, as is most probable, this designation has reference to Isa. liii. 7., αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν can only be expounded by what is there predicated of the lamb-like servant of God, that he τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται (V. 4, LXX.), words which must signify vicarious suffering. [560] Now that the Baptist should have referred the above prophetic passage to the Messiah, and hence have thought of him as suffering, has been recently held more than doubtful. [561]

For so foreign to the current opinion, at least, was this notion of the Messiah, that the disciples of Jesus, during the whole period of their intercourse with him, could not reconcile themselves to it; and when his death had actually resulted, their trust in him as the Messiah was utterly confounded (Luke xxiv. 20 ff.). How, then, could the Baptist, who, according to the solemn declaration of Jesus, Matt. xi. 11, confirmed by the allusions in the Gospels to his strict ascetic life, ranked below the least in the kingdom of heaven, to which the apostles already belonged—how could this alien discern, long before the sufferings of Jesus, that they pertained to the character of the Messiah, when the denizens were only taught the same lesson by the issue? Or, if the Baptist really had such insight, and communicated it to his disciples, why did it not, by means of those who left his circle for that of Jesus, win an entrance into the latter—nay, why did it not, by means of the great credit which John enjoyed, mitigate the offence caused by the death of Jesus, in the public at large [562]? Add to this, that in none of our accounts of the Baptist, with the exception of the fourth Gospel, do we find that he entertained such views of the Messiah’s character; for, not to mention Josephus, the Synoptical Gospels confine his representation of the Messianic office to the spiritual baptism and winnowing of the people. Still it remains possible that a penetrating mind, like that of the Baptist, might, even before the death of Jesus, gather from Old Testament phrases and types the notion of a suffering Messiah, and that his obscure hints on the subject might not be comprehended by his disciples and cotemporaries.

Thus the above considerations are not decisive, and we therefore turn to the expressions concerning the premundane existence and heavenly origin of the Messiah, with the question: Could the Baptist have really held such tenets? That from the words, John i. 15, 27, 30: He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me, ὁ ὀπίσω μοῦ ἐρχόμενος ἔμπροσθέν μοῦ γέγονεν, ὄτι πρῶτος μου ἦν, nothing but dogmatical obstinacy can banish the notion of pre-existence, is seen by a mere glance at such expositions as this of Paulus: “He who in the course of time comes after me; has so appeared in my eyes, ἔμπροσθέν μοῦ, that he (ὅτι—ὥστε, premiss—conclusion!) deserves rather from his rank and character to be called the first.” [563] With preponderating arguments more unprejudiced commentators have maintained, that the reason here given why Jesus, who appeared after the Baptist in point of time, had the precedence of him in dignity, is the pre-existence of the former. [564] We have here obviously the favourite dogma of the fourth Evangelist, the eternal pre-existence of the λόγος, present indeed to the mind of that writer, who had just been inditing his proem, but that it was also present to the mind of the Baptist is another question. The most recent expositor allows that the sense in which the Evangelist intends πρῶτος μοῦ, must have been very remote from the Baptist’s point of view, at least so far as the λόγος is concerned. The Baptist, he thinks, held the popular Jewish notion of the pre-existence of the Messiah, as the subject of the Old Testament theophanies. [565] There are traces of this Jewish notion in the writings of Paul (e.g. 1 Cor. x. 4. Col. i. 15 f.) and the rabbins [566]; and allowing that it was of Alexandrian origin, as Bretschneider argues, [567] we may yet ask whether even before the time of Christ, the Alexandrian-judaic theology may not have modified the opinions of the mother country? [568] Even these expressions then, taken alone, are not conclusive, although it begins to appear suspicious that the Baptist, otherwise conspicuous for exhibiting the practical side of the idea of the Messiah’s kingdom, should have ascribed to him by the fourth Evangelist solely, two notions which at that time undoubtedly belonged only to the deepest messianic speculations; and that the form in which those notions are expressed is too peculiarly that of the writer, not to be put to his account.