Chapter I (2)

We arrive at a more decisive result by taking into examination the passage John iii. 27–36, where John replies to the complaints of his disciples at the rival baptism of Jesus, in a way that reduces all commentators to perplexity. After showing how it lay at the foundation of their respective destinies, which he desired not to overstep, that he must decrease, while Jesus must increase, he proceeds (ver. 31) to use forms of expression precisely similar to those in which the Evangelist makes Jesus speak of himself, and in which he delivers his own thoughts concerning Jesus. Our most recent commentator [569] allows that this discourse of John seems the echo of the foregoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. [570] The expressions in the speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly those of the apostle John; for instance, σφραγίζω (to seal), μαρτυρία (testimony), the antithesis of ἄνωθεν and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (from above and of the earth), the phrase ἔχειν ζωὴν αἰώνιον (to have eternal life); and the question presents itself: Is it more probable that the Evangelist, as well as Jesus, in whose mouth these expressions are so often put, borrowed them from the Baptist, or that the Evangelist lent them (I will only at present say) to the latter? This must be decided by the fact that the ideas, to which the Baptist here gives utterance, lie entirely within the domain of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the Apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of ἄνω (from above), and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος (he that cometh from above), as ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς (he whom God hath sent), who consequently τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ λαλεῖ (speaketh the words of God), the relation of Jesus to God as the υἱὸς (son), whom ὁ πατὲρ ἀγαπᾷ (the Father loveth):—what can be characteristic of Christianity, and of the Apostle John’s mode of presenting it, if these ideas are not so? and could they belong to the Baptist? Christianismus ante Christum! And then, as Olshausen well observes, [571] is it consistent for John, who, even on the fourth Evangelist’s own showing, remained separate from Jesus, to speak of the blessedness of a believing union with him? (v. 33 and 36).

Thus much then is certain, and has been acknowledged by the majority of modern commentators: the words v. 31–36 cannot have been spoken by the Baptist. Hence theologians have concluded, that the Evangelist cannot have intended to ascribe them to him, but from v. 31 speaks in his own person. [572] This sounds plausible, if they can only point out any mark of division between the discourse of the Baptist and the addenda of the Evangelist. But none such is to be found. It is true that the speaker from v. 31 uses the third person, and not the first as in v. 30, when referring to the Baptist: but in the former passage the Baptist is no longer alluded to directly and individually, but as one of a class, in which case he must, though himself the speaker, choose the third person. Thus there is no definitive boundary, and the speech glides imperceptibly from those passages which might have been uttered by the Baptist, into those which are altogether incongruous with his position; moreover from v. 30 Jesus is spoken of in the present tense, as the Evangelist might represent the Baptist to speak during the lifetime of Jesus, but could not in his own person have written after the death of Jesus. In other passages, when presenting his own reflections concerning Jesus, he uses the preterite. [573] Thus, grammatically, the Baptist continues to speak from v. 31, and yet, historically, it is impossible that he should have uttered the sequel; a contradiction not to be solved, if it be added that, dogmatically, the Evangelist cannot have ascribed to the Baptist words which he never really pronounced. Now if we do not choose to defy the clear rules of grammar, and the sure data of history, for the sake of the visionary dogma of inspiration, we shall rather conclude from the given premises, with the author of the Probabilia, that the Evangelist falsely ascribes the language in question to the Baptist, putting into his mouth a Christology of his own, of which the latter could know nothing. This is no more than Lücke [574] confesses, though not quite so frankly, when he says that the reflections of the Evangelist are here more than equally mixed with the discourse of the Baptist, in such a way as to be undistinguishable. In point of fact, however, the reflections of the Evangelist are easily to be recognized; but of the fundamental ideas of the Baptist there is no trace, unless they are sought for with a good will which amounts to prejudice, and to which therefore we make no pretension. If then we have a proof in the passages just considered, that the fourth Evangelist did not hesitate to lend to the Baptist messianic and other ideas which were never his; we may hence conclude retrospectively concerning the passages on which we formerly suspended our decision, that the ideas expressed in them of a suffering and pre-existent Messiah belonged, not to the Baptist, but to the Evangelist.

In giving the above reply to our first question, we have, in strictness, answered the remaining one; for if the Baptist had no such messianic ideas, he could not refer them to the person of Jesus. But to strengthen the evidence for the result already obtained, we will make the second question the object of a special examination. According to the fourth Evangelist the Baptist ascribed to Jesus all the messianic attributes above discussed. If he did this so enthusiastically, publicly, and repeatedly, as we read in John, he could not have been excluded by Jesus from the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xi. 11), nor have been placed below the least of its citizens. For such a confession as that of the Baptist, when he calls Jesus the υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, who was before him,—such refined insight into the messianic economy, as is shown by his designating Jesus ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, Peter himself had not to produce, though Jesus not only receives him into the kingdom of heaven for his confession, Matt. xvi. 16, but constitutes him the rock on which that kingdom was to be founded. But we have something yet more incomprehensible. John, in the fourth gospel, gives it as the object of his baptism, ἵνα φανερωθῆ (Jesus as Messiah) τῷ Ἰσραὴλ (i. 31), and acknowledges it to be the divine ordinance, that by the side of the increasing Jesus, he must decrease (iii. 30); nevertheless after Jesus had begun to baptize by the instrumentality of his disciples, John continues to practise his baptism (iii. 32). Why so, if he knew the object of his baptism to be fulfilled by the introduction of Jesus, and if he directed his followers to him as the Messiah? (i. 36 f.). [575] The continuance of his baptism would be to no purpose; for Lücke’s supposition that John’s baptism was still of effect in those places where Jesus had not appeared, he himself overthrows by the observation, that at least at the period treated of in John iii. 22 ff., Jesus and John must have been baptizing near to each other, since the disciples of John were jealous of the concourse to the baptism of Jesus. But the continuance of John’s baptism appears even to counteract his aim, if that aim were merely to point out Jesus as the Messiah. He thereby detained a circle of individuals on the borders of the Messiah’s kingdom, and retarded or hindered their going over to Jesus (and that through his own fault, not theirs alone, [576] for he nullified his verbal direction to Jesus by his contradictory example). Accordingly we find the party of John’s disciples still existing in the time of the Apostle Paul (Acts xviii. 24 f., xix. 1 ff.); and, if the Sabæans are to be credited concerning their own history, the sect remains to this day. [577] Certainly, presupposing the averred conviction of the Baptist relative to Jesus, it would seem most natural for him to have attached himself to the latter; this, however, did not happen, and hence we conclude that he cannot have had that conviction. [578]

But chiefly the character and entire demeanour of the Baptist render it impossible to believe that he placed himself on that footing with Jesus, described by the fourth evangelist. How could the man of the wilderness, the stern ascetic, who fed on locusts and wild honey, and prescribed severe fasts to his disciples, the gloomy, threatening preacher of repentance, animated with the spirit of Elias—how could he form a friendship with Jesus, in every thing his opposite? He must assuredly, with his disciples, have stumbled at the liberal manners of Jesus, and have been hindered by them from recognizing him as the Messiah. Nothing is more unbending than ascetic prejudice; he who, like the Baptist, esteems it piety to fast and mortify the body, will never assign a high grade in things divine to him who disregards such asceticism. A mind with narrow views can never comprehend one whose vision takes a wider range, although the latter may know how to do justice to its inferior; hence Jesus could value and sanction John in his proper place, but the Baptist could never give the precedence to Jesus, as he is reported to have done in the fourth gospel. The declaration of the Baptist (John iii. 30), that he must decrease, but Jesus must increase, is frequently praised as an example of the noblest and sublimest resignation. [579] The beauty of this representation we grant; but not its truth. The instance would be a solitary one, if a man whose life had its influence on the world’s history, had so readily yielded the ascendant, in his own æra, to one who came to eclipse him and render him superfluous. Such a step is not less difficult for individuals than for nations, and that not from any vice, as egotism or ambition, so that an exception might be presumed (though not without prejudice) in the case of a man like the Baptist; it is a consequence of that blameless limitation which, as we have already remarked, is proper to a low point of view in relation to a higher, and which is all the more obstinately maintained if the inferior individual is, like John, of a coarse, rugged nature. Only from the divine point of view, or from that of an historian, bent on establishing religious doctrines, could such things be spoken, and the fourth Evangelist has in fact put into the mouth of the Baptist the very same thoughts concerning the relation between him and Jesus, that the compiler of the 2nd book of Samuel has communicated, as his own observation, on the corresponding relation between Saul and David. [580] Competent judges have recently acknowledged that there exists a discrepancy between the synoptical gospels and the fourth, the blame of which must be imputed to the latter: [581] and this opinion is confirmed and strengthened by the fact that the fourth Evangelist transforms the Baptist into a totally different character from that in which he appears in the Synoptical gospels and in Josephus; out of a practical preacher he makes a speculative christologist; out of a hard and unbending, a yielding and self-renunciating nature.

The style in which the scenes between John and Jesus (John i. 29 ff. 35 ff.) are depicted, shows them to have originated partly in the free composition of the imagination, partly in a remodelling of the synoptical narratives with a view to the glorification of Jesus. With respect to the former: Jesus is walking, v. 35, near to John; in v. 29 he is said to come directly to him; yet on neither occasion is there any account of an interview between the two. Could Jesus really have avoided contact with the Baptist, that there might be no appearance of preconcerted action? This is Lampe’s conjecture; but it is the product of modern reflections, foreign to the time and circumstances of Jesus. Or shall we suppose that the narrator, whether fortuitously or purposely, omitted known details? But the meetings of Jesus and John must have furnished him with peculiarly interesting matter, so that, as Lücke allows, [582] his silence is enigmatical. From our point of view the enigma is solved. The Baptist had, in the Evangelist’s idea, pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. This, understood as a visible pointing, required that Jesus should pass by or approach John; hence this feature was inserted in the narrative; but the particulars of an actual meeting being unnecessary, were, though very awkwardly, omitted. The incident of some disciples attaching themselves to Jesus in consequence of the Baptist’s direction, seems to be a free version of the sending of two disciples by John from his prison. Thus, as in Matthew xi. 2, and Luke vii. 18, John despatches two disciples to Jesus with the dubitative question, “Art thou he that should come?” so in the fourth gospel he likewise sends two disciples to Jesus, but with the positive assertion that he (Jesus) is the Lamb of God, ἀμνὸς Θεοῦ; as Jesus in the former case gives to the disciples, after the delivery of their message, the direction: “Go and tell John the things ye have seen and heard,” ἂ εἴδετε καὶ ἠκοῦσατε: so in the latter, he gives to the inquiry concerning his abode, the answer: Come and see, ἔρχεσθε καὶ ἴδετε. But while in the synoptical gospels the two disciples return to John, in the fourth, they permanently attach themselves to Jesus.

From the foregoing considerations, it is inconceivable that John should ever have held and pronounced Jesus to be the Messiah: but it is easy to show how a belief that he did so might obtain, without historical foundation. According to Acts xix. 4, the Apostle Paul declares what seems sufficiently guaranteed by history, that John baptized εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, and this coming Messiah, adds Paul, to whom John pointed was Jesus (τουτέστιν εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν). This was an interpretation of the Baptist’s words by the issue; for Jesus had approved himself to a great number of his cotemporaries, as the Messiah announced by John. There was but a step to the notion that the Baptist himself had, under the ἐρχόμενος, understood the individual Jesus,—had himself the τουτέστιν, κ.τ.λ. in his mind; a view which, however unhistorical, would be inviting to the early Christians, in proportion to their wish to sustain the dignity of Jesus by the authority of the Baptist, then very influential in the Jewish world. [583] There was yet another reason, gathered from the Old Testament. The ancestor of the Messiah, David, had likewise in the old Hebrew legend a kind of forerunner in the person of Samuel, who by order from Jehovah anointed him to be king over Israel (1 Sam. xvi.), and afterwards stood in the relation of a witness to his claims. If then it behoved the Messiah to have a forerunner, who, besides, was more closely characterized in the prophecy of Malachi as a second Elias, and if, historically, Jesus was preceded by John, whose baptism as a consecration corresponded to an anointing; the idea was not remote of conforming the relation between John and Jesus to that between Samuel and David.

We might have decided with tolerable certainty which of the two incompatible statements concerning the relation between the Baptist and Jesus is to be renounced as unhistorical, by the universal canon of interpretation, that where, in narratives having a tendency to aggrandise a person or a fact (a tendency which the Gospels evince at every step), two contradictory statements are found, that which best corresponds to this aim is the least historical; because if, in accordance with it, the original fact had been so dazzling, it is inconceivable that the other less brilliant representation should afterwards arise; as here, if John so early acknowledged Jesus, it is inexplicable how a story could be fabricated, which reports him to have been in doubt on the same subject at a very late period. We have, however, by a separate examination of the narrative in the fourth gospel, ascertained that it is self-contradictory and contains its own solution; hence our result, found independently of the above canon, serves for its confirmation.

Meanwhile that result is only the negative, that all which turns upon the early acknowledgment of Jesus by John has no claim to be received as historical; of the positive we know nothing, unless the message out of prison may be regarded as a clue to the truth, and we must therefore subject this side of the matter to a separate examination. We will not extend our arguments against the probability of an early and decided conviction on the part of the Baptist, to a mere conjecture awakened in him at a later period that Jesus was the Messiah; and therefore we leave uncontested the proper contents of the narrative. But as regards the form, it is not to be conceived without difficulty. That the Baptist in prison, ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ, should have information of the proceedings of Jesus; that he should from that locality send his disciples to Jesus; and that these as we are led to infer, should bring him an answer in his imprisonment.

According to Josephus, [584] Herod imprisoned John from fear of disturbances: allowing this to be merely a joint cause with that given by the Evangelist, it is yet difficult to believe that to a man, one motive of whose imprisonment was to seclude him from his followers, his disciples should have retained free access; although we cannot prove it an impossibility that circumstances might favour the admission of certain individuals. Now that the message was sent from prison we learn from Matthew alone; Luke says nothing of it, although he tells of the message. We might hence, with Schleiermacher, [585] consider Luke’s account the true one, and the δεσμωτηρίῳ of Matthew an unhistorical addition. But that critic has himself very convincingly shown, from the tedious amplifications, partly betraying even misunderstanding, which the narrative of Luke contains (vii. 20, 21, 29, 30), that Matthew gives the incident in its original, Luke in a revised form. [586] It would indeed be singular if Matthew had supplied the δεσμωτηρίῳ when it was originally wanting; it is far more natural to suppose that Luke, who in the whole paragraph appears as a reviser, expunged the original mention of the prison.

In judging of Luke’s motives for so doing, we are led to notice the difference in the dates given by the evangelists for the imprisonment of John. Matthew, with whom Mark agrees, places it before the public appearance of Jesus in Galilee; for he gives it as the motive for the return of Jesus into that province (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14). Luke assigns no precise date to the arrest of the Baptist (iii. 19 f.), yet it is to be inferred from his silence about the prison, in connexion with the sending of the two disciples, that he regarded it as a later occurrence; but John expressly says, that after the first passover attended by Jesus in his public character, John was not yet cast into prison (iii. 24). If it be asked, who is right? we answer that there is something on the face of the account of the first Evangelist, which has inclined many commentators to renounce it in favour of the two last. That Jesus, on the report of John’s imprisonment in Galilee by Herod Antipas, should have returned into the dominions of that prince for the sake of safety, is, as Schneckenburger well maintains, [587] highly improbable, since there, of all places, he was the least secure from a similar fate. But even if it be held impossible to dissociate the ἀνεχώρησεν (he withdrew) from the cognate idea of seeking security, we may still ask whether, disregarding the mistake in the motive, the fact itself may not be maintained. Matthew and Mark connect with this journey into Galilee after John’s imprisonment, the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus; and that this was consequent on the removal of the Baptist, I am quite inclined to believe. For it is in itself the most natural that the exit of the Baptist should incite Jesus to carry on in his stead the preaching of μετανοιεῖτἐ· ἦγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν; and the canon cited above is entirely in favour of Matthew. For if it be asked which fiction best accords with the aggrandising spirit of the Christian legend,—that of John’s removal before the appearance of Jesus, or that of their having long laboured in conjunction?—the answer must be, the latter. If he to whom the hero of a narrative is superior disappears from the scene before the entrance of the latter, the crowning opportunity for the hero to demonstrate his ascendancy is lost—the full splendour of the rising sun can only be appreciated, when the waning moon is seen above the horizon, growing paler and paler in the presence of the greater luminary. Such is the case in the Gospels of Luke and John, while Matthew and Mark rest satisfied with the less effective representation. Hence, as the least calculated to magnify Jesus, the account of Matthew has the advantage in historical probability.

Thus at the time when the two disciples must have been sent to Jesus, the Baptist was already imprisoned, and we have remarked above, that he could hardly, so situated, transmit and receive messages. But popular legend might be prompted to fabricate such a message, that the Baptist might not depart without at least an incipient recognition of Jesus as the Messiah; so that neither the one nor the other of the two incompatible statements is to be regarded as historical.

§ 47.

OPINION OF THE EVANGELISTS AND JESUS CONCERNING THE BAPTIST, WITH HIS OWN JUDGMENT ON HIMSELF. RESULT OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THESE TWO INDIVIDUALS.

The Evangelists apply to John, as the preparer of the Messiah’s kingdom, several passages of the Old Testament.

The abode of the preacher of repentance in the wilderness, his activity in preparing the way for the Messiah, necessarily recalled the passage of Isaiah (xl. 3ff. LXX.): φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν ἐρήμῳ· ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίῳ κ.τ.λ. This passage, which in its original connection related not to the Messiah and his forerunner, but to Jehovah, for whom a way was to be prepared through the wilderness toward Judea, that he might return with his people from exile, is quoted by the first three Evangelists as a prophecy fulfilled by the appearance of the Baptist (Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4 ff.). This might be thought a later and Christian application, but there is nothing to controvert the statement of the fourth Evangelist, that the Baptist had himself characterized his destination by those prophetic words.

As the synoptical gospels have unanimously borrowed this passage from the Baptist himself, so Mark has borrowed the application of another prophetic passage to the Baptist from Jesus. Jesus had said (Matt. xi. 10; Luke vii. 27): οὗ τος γάρ ἐστι περὶ οὗ γέγραπται· ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου·. This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, to prepare thy way before thee; and Mark in the introduction to his Gospel, applies these words of Malachi (iii. 1), together with the above passage from Isaiah, without distinguishing their respective sources, to the forerunner, John. The text is a messianic one; Jehovah, however, does not therein speak of sending a messenger before the Messiah, but before himself: and it is only in the New Testament citations in all these instances that the second person (σου) is substituted for the first (לְפָנַי).

Another notable passage of the same prophet (iii. 23, LXX. iv. 4: καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστελῶ ὑμῖν Ἠλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν Κυρίου, κ.τ.λ.: Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite before the coming of the day of the Lord, etc.) suggested to the Evangelists the assimilation of John the Baptist to Elias. That John, labouring for the reformation of the people, in the spirit and power of Elias, should prepare the way for the Divine visitation in the times of the Messiah, was according to Luke i. 17, predicted before his birth. In John i. 21, when the emissaries of the Sanhedrim ask, “Art thou Elias?” the Baptist declines this dignity: according to the usual explanation, he only extended his denial to the rude popular notion, that he was the ancient seer corporeally resuscitated, whereas he would have admitted the view of the synoptical gospels, that he had the spirit of Elias. Nevertheless it appears improbable that if the fourth Evangelist had been familiar with the idea of the Baptist as a second Elias, he would have put into his mouth so direct a negative.

This scene, peculiar to the fourth gospel, in which John rejects the title of Elias, with several others, demands a yet closer examination, and must be compared with a narrative in Luke (iii. 15), to which it has a striking similarity. In Luke, the crowd assembled round the Baptist begin to think: Is not this the Christ? μήποτε αὐτὸς εἴη ὁ Χριστός· in John, the deputies of the Sanhedrim [588] ask him, Who art thou? σὺ τίς εἶ; which we infer from the Baptist’s answer to mean: “Art thou, as is believed, the Messiah?” [589] According to Luke, the Baptist answers, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. According to John he gives a similar reply: I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you whom ye know not; He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes’ latchet I am not worthy to unloose: the latter Evangelist adding his peculiar propositions concerning the pre-existence of Jesus, and deferring to another occasion (v. 33) the mention of the Messiah’s spiritual baptism, which Luke gives in immediate connexion with the above passage. In Luke, and still more decidedly in John, this whole scene is introduced with a design to establish the Messiahship of Jesus, by showing that the Baptist had renounced that dignity, and attributed it to one who should come after him. If at the foundation of two narratives so similar, there can scarcely be more than one fact, [590] the question is, which gives that fact the most faithfully? In Luke’s account there is no intrinsic improbability; on the contrary it is easy to imagine, that the people, congregated round the man who announced the Messiah’s kingdom, and baptized with a view to it, should, in moments of enthusiasm, believe him to be the Messiah. But that the Sanhedrim should send from Jerusalem to John on the banks of the Jordan, for the sake of asking him whether he were the Messiah, seems less natural. Their object could only be what, on a later occasion, it was with respect to Jesus (Matt. xxi. 23 ff.), namely, to challenge the authority of John to baptize, as appears from v. 25. Moreover, from the hostile position which John had taken towards the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. iii. 7), to whom the members of the Sanhedrim belonged, they must have prejudged that he was not the Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that he had no right to undertake a βάπτισμα. But in that case, they could not possibly have so put their questions as they are reported to have done in the fourth gospel. In the passage from Mathew above cited, they asked Jesus, quite consistently with their impression that he had no prophetic authority: ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς; By what authority doest thou these things? but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they pre-supposed him to be the Messiah, and when he, apparently to their consternation, has denied this, they tender him successively the dignities of Elias, and of another prophetic forerunner, as if they earnestly wished him to accept one of these titles. Searching opponents will not thus thrust the highest honours on the man to whom they are inimical;—this is the representation of a narrator who wishes to exhibit the modesty of the man, and his subordination to Jesus, by his rejection of those brilliant titles. To enable him to reject them, they must have been offered; but this could in reality only be done by well-wishers, as in Luke, where the conjecture that the Baptist was the Messiah is attributed to the people.

Why then did not the fourth Evangelist attribute those questions likewise to the people, from whom, with a slight alteration, they would have seemed quite natural? Jesus, when addressing the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, (John v. 33), appeals to their message to the Baptist, and to the faithful testimony then given by the latter. Had John given his declaration concerning his relation to Jesus before the common people merely, such an appeal would have been impossible; for if Jesus were to refer his enemies to the testimony of John, that testimony must have been delivered before his enemies; if the assertions of the Baptist were to have any diplomatic value, they must have resulted from the official inquiry of a magisterial deputation. Such a remodelling of the facts appears to have been aided by the above-mentioned narrative from the synoptical traditions, wherein the high priests and scribes ask Jesus, by what authority he does such things (as the casting out of the buyers and sellers). Here also Jesus refers to John, asking for their opinion as to the authority of his baptism, only, it is true, with the negative view of repressing their further inquiries (Matt. xxi. 23 ff. parall.); but how easily might this reference be made to take an affirmative sense, and instead of the argument, “If ye know not what powers were entrusted to John, ye need not know whence mine are given,”—the following be substituted: “Since ye know what John has declared concerning me, ye must also know what power and dignity belong to me;” whereupon what was originally a question addressed to Jesus, transformed itself into a message to the Baptist. [591]

The judgment of Jesus on the character of John is delivered on two occasions in the synoptical gospels; first after the departure of John’s messengers (Matt xi. 7 ff.); secondly, after the appearance of Elias at the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 12 ff.), in reply to the question of a disciple. In the fourth gospel, after an appeal to the Baptist’s testimony, Jesus pronounces an eulogium on him in the presence of the Jews (v. 35), after referring, as above remarked, to their sending to John. In this passage he calls the Baptist a burning and a shining light, in whose beams the fickle people were for a season willing to rejoice. In one synoptical passage, he declares John to be the promised Elias; in the other, there are three points to be distinguished. First, with respect to the character and agency of John,—the severity and firmness of his mind, and the pre-eminence which as the messianic forerunner, who with forcible hand had opened the kingdom of heaven, he maintained even over the prophets, are extolled (v. 7–14); secondly, in relation to Jesus and the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, the Baptist, though exalted above all the members of the Old Testament economy, is declared to be in the rear of every one on whom, through Jesus, the new light had arisen (v. 11). We see how Jesus understood this from what follows (v. 18), when we compare it with Matt. ix. 16 f. In the former passage Jesus describes John as μήτε ἐσθίων μήτε πίνων, neither eating nor drinking; and in the latter it is this very asceticism which is said to liken him to the ἱματίοις and ἀσκοῖς παλαιοῖς, the old garments and old bottles, with which the new, introduced by Jesus, will not agree. What else then could it be, in which the Baptist was beneath the children of the kingdom of Jesus, but (in connexion with his non-recognition or only qualified acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah) the spirit of external observance, which still clung to fasting and similar works, and his gloomy asceticism? And, in truth, freedom from these is the test of transition from a religion of bondage, to one of liberty and spirituality. [592] Thirdly, with respect to the relation in which the agency of John and Jesus stood to their cotemporaries, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations of both is complained of v. 16 ff., although in v. 12 it is observed, that the violent zeal of some βιασταὶ had, under the guidance of John, wrested for them an entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah. [593]

In conclusion, we must take a review of the steps by which tradition has gradually annexed itself to the simple historical traits of the relation between John and Jesus. Thus much seems to be historical: that Jesus, attracted by the fame of the Baptist, put himself under the tuition of that preacher, and that having remained some time among his followers, and been initiated into his ideas of the approaching messianic kingdom, he, after the imprisonment of John, carried on, under certain modifications, the same work, never ceasing, even when he had far surpassed his predecessor, to render him due homage.

The first addition to this in the Christian legend, was, that John had taken approving notice of Jesus. During his public ministry, it was known that he had only indefinitely referred to one coming after him; but it behoved him, at least in a conjectural way, to point out Jesus personally, as that successor. To this it was thought he might have been moved by the fame of the works of Jesus, which, loud as it was, might even penetrate the walls of his prison. Then was formed Matthew’s narrative of the message from prison; the first modest attempt to make the Baptist a witness for Jesus, and hence clothed in an interrogation, because a categorical testimony was too unprecedented.

But this late and qualified testimony was not enough. It was a late one, for prior to it there was the baptism which Jesus received from John, and by which he, in a certain degree, placed himself in subordination to the Baptist; hence those scenes in Luke, by which the Baptist was placed, even before his birth, in a subservient relation to Jesus.

Not only was it a late testimony which that message contained; it was but half a one; for the question implied uncertainty, and ὁ ἐρχόμενος conveyed indecision. Hence in the fourth gospel there is no longer a question about the Messiahship of Jesus, but the most solemn asseverations on that head, and we have the most pointed declarations of the eternal, divine nature of Jesus, and his character as the suffering Messiah.

In a narrative aiming at unity, as does the fourth gospel, these very pointed declarations could not stand by the side of the dubious message, which is therefore only found in this Gospel under a totally reorganized form. Neither does this message accord with that which in the synoptical gospels is made to occur at the baptism of Jesus, and even earlier in his intercourse with John; but the first three Evangelists, in their loose compositions, admitted, along with the more recent form of the tradition, the less complete one, because they attached less importance to the question of John than to the consequent discourse of Jesus.

§ 48.

THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

We here take under our examination, by way of appendix, all that has been transmitted to us concerning the tragic end of the Baptist. According to the unanimous testimony of the synoptical Evangelists and Josephus, [594] he was executed, after a protracted imprisonment, by order of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee; and in the New Testament accounts he is said to have been beheaded. (Matt. xiv. 3 ff.; Mark vi. 17 ff.; Luke ix. 9.)

But Josephus and the Evangelists are at variance as to the cause of his imprisonment and execution. According to the latter, the censure which John had pronounced on the marriage of Herod with his (half) brother’s [595] wife, was the cause of his imprisonment, and the revengeful cunning of Herodias, at a court festival, of his death: Josephus gives the fear of disturbances, which was awakened in Herod by the formidable train of the Baptist’s followers, as the cause at once of the imprisonment and the execution. [596] If these two accounts be considered as distinct and irreconcilable, it may be doubted which of the two deserves the preference. It is not here as in the case of Herod Agrippa’s death, Acts xii. 23, viz., that the New Testament narrative, by intermixing a supernatural cause where Josephus has only a natural one, enables us to prejudge it as unhistorical; on the contrary, we might here give the palm to the evangelical narrative, for the particularity of its details. But on the other hand, it must be considered that that very particularity, and especially the conversion of a political into a personal motive, corresponds fully to the development of the legendary spirit among the people, whose imagination is more at home in domestic than in political circles. [597] Meanwhile it is quite possible to reconcile the two narratives. This has been attempted by conjecturing, that the fear of insurrection was the proper cabinet motive for the imprisonment of the Baptist, while the irreverent censure passed on the ruler was thrust forward as the ostensible motive. [598] But I greatly doubt whether Herod would designedly expose the scandalous point touched on by John; it is more likely, if a distinction is to be here made between a private and ostensible cause, that the censure of the marriage was the secret reason, and the fear of insurrection disseminated as an excuse for extreme severity. [599] Such a distinction, however, is not needed; for Antipas might well fear, that John, by his strong censure of the marriage and the whole course of the tetrarch’s life, might stir up the people into rebellion against him.

But there is a diversity even between the evangelical narratives themselves, not only in this, that Mark gives the scene at the feast with the most graphic details, while Luke is satisfied with a concise statement (iii. 18–20, ix. 9), and Matthew takes a middle course; but Mark’s representation of the relation between Herod and the Baptist differs essentially from that of Matthew. While according to the latter, Herod wished to kill John, but was withheld by his dread of the people, who looked on the Baptist as a prophet (v. 5); according to Mark, it was Herodias who conspired against his life, but could not attain her object, because her husband was in awe of John as a holy man, sometimes heard him gladly, and not seldom followed his counsel (v. 19). [600] Here, again, the individualizing characteristic of Mark’s narrative has induced commentators to prefer it to that of Matthew. [601] But in the finishing touches and alterations of Mark we may detect the hand of tradition; especially as Josephus merely says of the people, that they gave ear to the sound of his words, ἤρθησαν τῇ ἀκροάσει τῶν λόγων, while he says of Herod, that having conceived fears of John, he judged it expedient to put him to death, δείσας κρεῖττον ἡγεῖται (τὸν Ἰωάννην) ἀναιρεῖν. How near lay the temptation to exalt the Baptist, by representing the prince against whom he had spoken, and by whom he was imprisoned, as feeling bound to venerate him, and only, to his remorse, seduced into giving his death-warrant, by his vindictive wife! It may be added, that the account of Matthew is not inconsistent with the character of Antipas, as gathered from other sources. [602]

The close of the evangelical narratives leaves the impression that the dissevered head of John was presented at table, and that the prison was consequently close at hand. But we learn from the passage in Josephus above cited, that the Baptist was confined in Machærus, a fortress on the southern border of Peræa, whereas the residence of Herod was in Tiberias, [603] a day’s journey distant from Machærus. Hence the head of John the Baptist could only be presented to Herod after two days’ journey, and not while he yet sat at table. The contradiction here apparent is not to be removed by the consideration, that it is not expressly said in the Gospels that John’s head was brought in during the meal, for this is necessarily inferred from the entire narrative. Not only are the commission of the executioner and his return with the head, detailed in immediate connexion with the incidents of the meal; but only thus has the whole dramatic scene its appropriate conclusion;—only thus is the contrast complete, which is formed by the death-warrant and the feast: in fine, the πίναξ, on which the dissevered head is presented, marks it as the costliest viand which the unnatural revenge of a woman could desire at table. But we have, as a probable solution, the information of Josephus, [604] that Herod Antipas was then at war with the Arabian king, Aretas, between whose kingdom and his own lay the fortress of Machærus; and there Herod might possibly have resided with his court at that period.

Thus we see that the life of John in the evangelical narratives is, from easily conceived reasons, overspread with mythical lustre on the side which is turned towards Jesus, while on the other its historical lineaments are more visible.