Chapter II: Baptism and Temptation of Jesus (1)

§ 49.

WHY DID JESUS RECEIVE BAPTISM FROM JOHN?

In conformity with the evangelical view of the fact, the customary answer given by the orthodox to this question is, that Jesus, by his submission to John’s baptism, signified his consecration to the messianic office; an explanation which is supported by a passage in Justin, according to which it was the Jewish notion, that the Messiah would be unknown as such to himself and others, until Elias as his forerunner should anoint him, and thereby make him distinguishable by all. [605] The Baptist himself, however, as he is represented by the first Evangelist, could not have partaken of this design; for had he regarded his baptism as a consecration which the Messiah must necessarily undergo, he would not have hesitated to perform it on the person of Jesus (iii. 14).

Our former inquiries have shown that John’s baptism related partly εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, its recipients promising a believing preparation for the expected Messiah; how then could Jesus, if he was conscious of being himself the ἐρχόμενος, submit himself to this baptism? The usual answer from the orthodox point of view is, that Jesus, although conscious of his Messiahship, yet, so long as it was not publicly attested by God, spoke and acted, not as Messiah, but merely as an Israelite, who held himself bound to obey every divine ordinance relative to his nation. [606] But, here, there is a distinction to be made. Negatively, it became Jesus to refrain from performing any messianic deeds, or using any of the Messiah’s prerogatives, before his title was solemnly attested; even positively, it became him to submit himself to the ordinances which were incumbent on every Israelite; but to join in a new rite, which symbolized the expectation of another and a future Messiah, could never, without dissimulation, be the act of one who was conscious of being the actual Messiah himself. More recent theologians have therefore wisely admitted, that when Jesus came to John for baptism, he had not a decided conviction of his Messiahship. [607] They indeed regard this uncertainty as only the struggle of modesty. Paulus, for instance, observes that Jesus, notwithstanding he had heard from his parents of his messianic destination, and had felt this first intimation confirmed by many external incidents, as well as by his own spiritual development, was yet not over eager to appropriate the honour, which had been as it were thrust upon him. But, if the previous narratives concerning Jesus be regarded as a history, and therefore, of necessity, as a supernatural one; then must he, who was heralded by angels, miraculously conceived, welcomed into the world by the homage of magi and prophets, and who in his twelfth year knew the temple to be his Father’s house, have long held a conviction of his Messiahship, above all the scruples of a false modesty. If on the contrary it be thought possible, by criticism, to reduce the history of the childhood of Jesus to a merely natural one, there is no longer anything to account for his early belief that he was the Messiah; and the position which he adopted by the reception of John’s baptism becomes, instead of an affected diffidence, a real ignorance of his messianic destiny.—Too modest, continue these commentators, to declare himself Messiah on his own authority, Jesus fulfilled all that the strictest self-judgment could require, and wished to make the decisive experiment, whether the Deity would allow that he, as well as every other, should dedicate himself to the coming Messiah, or whether a sign would be granted, that he himself was the ἐρχόμενος. But to do something seen to be inappropriate, merely to try whether God will correct the mistake, is just such a challenging of the divine power as Jesus, shortly after his baptism, decidedly condemns. Thus it must be allowed that, the baptism of John being a baptism εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, if Jesus could submit himself to it without dissimulation or presumption, he could not at the time have held himself to be that ἐρχόμενος, and if he really uttered the words οὕτω πρέπον ἐστὶ, κ.τ.λ., Suffer it to be so now, etc. (which, however, could only be called forth by the refusal of the Baptist—a refusal that stands or falls with his previous conviction of the Messiahship of Jesus), he could only mean by them, that it became him, with every pious Israelite, to devote himself by anticipation to the expected Messiah, in baptism, although the Evangelist, instructed by the issue, put on them a different construction.

But the relation hitherto discussed is only one aspect of John’s baptism; the other, which is yet more strongly attested by history, shows it as a βάπτισμα μετανοίας, a baptism of repentance. The Israelites, we are told, Matt. iii. 6, were baptized of John, confessing their sins: shall we then suppose that Jesus made such a confession? They received the command to repent: did Jesus acknowledge such a command? This difficulty was felt even in the early church. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, adopted by the Nazarenes, Jesus asks his mother and brother, when invited by them to receive John’s baptism, wherein he had sinned, that this baptism was needful for him? [608] and an heretical apocryphal work appears to have attributed to Jesus a confession of his own sins at his baptism. [609]

The sum of what modern theologians have contributed towards the removal of this difficulty, consists in the application to Jesus of the distinction between what a man is as an individual, and what he is as a member of the community. He needed, say they, no repentance on his own behalf, but, aware of its necessity for all other men, the children of Abraham not excepted, he wished to demonstrate his approval of an institute which confirmed this truth, and hence he submitted to it. But let the reader only take a nearer view of the facts. According to Matt. iii. 6, John appears to have required a confession of sins previous to baptism; such a confession Jesus, presupposing his impeccability, could not deliver without falsehood; if he refused, John would hardly baptize him, for he did not yet believe him to be the Messiah, and from every other Israelite he must have considered a confession of sins indispensable. The non-compliance of Jesus might very probably originate the dispute to which Matthew gives a wholly different character; but certainly, if the refusal of John had such a cause, the matter could scarcely have been adjusted by a mere suffer it to be so now, for no confession being given, the Baptist would not have perceived that all righteousness was fulfilled. Even supposing that a confession was not required of every baptized person, John would not conclude the ceremony of baptism without addressing the neophyte on the subject of repentance. Could Jesus tacitly sanction such an address to himself, when conscious that he needed no regeneration? and would he not, in so doing, perplex the minds which were afterwards to believe in him as the sinless one? We will even abandon the position that John so addressed the neophytes, and only urge that the gestures of those who plunged into the purifying water must have been those of contrition; yet if Jesus conformed himself to these even in silence, without referring them to his own condition, he cannot be absolved from the charge of dissimulation.

There is then no alternative but to suppose, that as Jesus had not, up to the time of his baptism, thought of himself as the Messiah, so with regard to the μετάνοια (repentance), he may have justly ranked himself amongst the most excellent in Israel, without excluding himself from what is predicated in Job iv. 18, xv. 15. There is little historical ground for controverting this; for the words, which of you convinceth me of sin? (John viii. 46) could only refer to open delinquencies, and to a later period in the life of Jesus. The scene in his twelfth year, even if historical, could not by itself prove a sinless development of his powers.

§ 50.

THE SCENE AT THE BAPTISM OF JESUS CONSIDERED AS SUPERNATURAL AND AS NATURAL.

At the moment that John had completed his baptism of Jesus, the synoptical gospels tell us that the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven designated him the Son of God, in whom the Father was well pleased. The fourth Evangelist (i. 32 ff.) makes the Baptist narrate that he saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, and remain on Jesus; but as in the immediate context John says of his baptism, that it was destined for the manifestation of the Messiah, and as the description of the descending dove corresponds almost verbally with the synoptical accounts, it is not to be doubted that the same event is intended. The old and lost Gospels of Justin and the Ebionites give, as concomitants, a heavenly light, and a flame bursting out of the Jordan; [610] in the dove and heavenly voice also, they have alterations, hereafter to be noticed. For whose benefit the appearance was granted, remains doubtful on a comparison of the various narratives. In John, where the Baptist recites it to his followers, these seem not to have been eye-witnesses; and from his stating that he who sent him to baptize, promised the descent and repose of the Spirit as a mark of the Messiah, we gather that the appearance was designed specially for the Baptist. According to Mark it is Jesus, who, in ascending from the water, sees the heavens open and the Spirit descend. Even in Matthew it is the most natural to refer εἶδε, he saw, and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ, were opened to him, to ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Jesus, the subject immediately before; but as it is said, in continuation, that he saw the Holy Spirit ἐρχόμενον ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, not εφ’ αὑτὸν (Mark’s ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, which does not agree with his construction, is explained by his dependence on Matthew), the beholder seems not to be the same as he on whom the Spirit descended, and we are obliged to refer εἶδε and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ to the more remote antecedent, namely the Baptist, who, as the heavenly voice speaks of Jesus in the third person, is most naturally to be regarded as also a witness. Luke appears to give a much larger number of spectators to the scene, for according to him, Jesus was baptized ἐν τῷ βαπτισθῆναι ἅπαντα τὸν λαὸν, when all the people were baptized, and consequently he must have supposed that the scene described occurred in their presence. [611]

The narrations directly convey no other meaning, than that the whole scene was externally visible and audible, and thus they have been always understood by the majority of commentators. But in endeavouring to conceive the incident as a real one, a cultivated and reflecting mind must stumble at no insignificant difficulties. First, that for the appearance of a divine being on earth, the visible heavens must divide themselves, to allow of his descent from his accustomed seat, is an idea that can have no objective reality, but must be the entirely subjective creation of a time when the dwelling-place of Deity was imagined to be above the vault of heaven. Further, how is it reconcilable with the true idea of the Holy Spirit as the divine, all-pervading Power, that he should move from one place to another, like a finite being, and embody himself in the form of a dove? Finally, that God should utter articulate tones in a national idiom, has been justly held extravagant. [612]

Even in the early church, the more enlightened fathers adopted the opinion, that the heavenly voices spoken of in the biblical history were not external sounds, the effect of vibrations in the air, but inward impressions produced by God in the minds of those to whom he willed to impart himself: thus of the appearance at the baptism of Jesus, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia maintain that it was a vision, and not a reality, ὀπτασία, οὐ φύσις. [613] To the simple indeed, says Origen, in their simplicity, it is a light thing to set the universe in motion, and to sever a solid mass like the heavens; but those who search more deeply into such matters, will, he thinks, refer to those higher revelations, by means of which chosen persons, even waking, and still more frequently in their dreams, are led to suppose that they perceive something with their bodily senses, while their minds only are affected: so that consequently, the whole appearance in question should be understood, not as an external incident, but as an inward vision sent by God; an interpretation which has also met with much approbation among modern theologians.

In the first two Gospels and in the fourth, this interpretation is favoured by the expressions, were opened to him, ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ, he saw, εἶδε, and I beheld, τεθέαμαι, which seem to imply that the appearance was subjective, in the sense intended by Theodore, when he observes that the descent of the Holy Spirit was not seen by all present, but that, by a certain spiritual contemplation, it was visible to John alone, οὐ πᾶσιν ὤφθη τοῖς παροῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατά τινα πνευματικὴν θεωρίαν ὤφθη μόνῳ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ: to John however we must add Jesus, who, according to Mark, participated in the vision. But in opposition to this stands the statement of Luke: the expressions which he uses, ἐγένετο—ἀνεῳχθῆναι—καὶ καταβῆναι—καὶ φωνὴν—γενέσθαι, it came to pass—was opened—and descended—and a voice came, bear a character so totally objective and exterior, [614] especially if we add the words, in a bodily form, σωματικῷ εἴδει, that (abiding by the notion of the perfect truthfulness of all the evangelical records) the less explicit narratives must be interpreted by the unequivocal one of Luke, and the incident they recount must be understood as something more than an inward revelation to John and Jesus. Hence it is prudent in Olshausen to allow, in concession to Luke, that there was present on the occasion a crowd of persons, who saw and heard something, yet to maintain that this was nothing distinct or comprehensible. By this means, on the one hand, the occurrence is again transferred from the domain of subjective visions to that of objective phenomena; while on the other, the descending dove is supposed visible, not to the bodily eye, but only to the open spiritual one, and the words audible to the soul, not to the bodily ear. Our understanding fails us in this pneumatology of Olshausen, wherein there are sensible realities transcending the senses; and we hasten out of this misty atmosphere into the clearer one of those, who simply tell us, that the appearance was an external incident, but one purely natural.

This party appeals to the custom of antiquity, to regard natural occurrences as divine intimations, and in momentous crises, where a bold resolution was to be taken, to adopt them as guides. To Jesus, spiritually matured into the Messiah, and only awaiting an external divine sanction, and to the Baptist who had already ceded the superiority to the friend of his youth, in their solemn frame of mind at the baptism of the former by the latter, every natural phenomenon that happened at the time, must have been pregnant with meaning, and have appeared as a sign of the divine will. But what the natural appearance actually was, is a point on which the commentators are divided in opinion. Some, with the synoptical writers, include a sound as well as an appearance; others give, with John, an appearance only. They interpret the opening of the heavens, as a sudden parting of the clouds, or a flash of lightning; the dove they consider as a real bird of that species, which by chance hovered over the head of Jesus; or they assume that the lightning or some meteor was compared to a dove, from the manner of its descent. They who include a sound as a part of the machinery in the scene, suppose a clap of thunder, which was imagined by those present to be a Bath Kol, and interpreted into the words given by the first Evangelist. Others, on the contrary, understand what is said of audible words, merely as an explanation of the visible sign, which was regarded as an attestation that Jesus was the Son of God. This last opinion sacrifices the synoptical writers, who undeniably speak of an audible voice, to John, and thus contains a critical doubt as to the historical character of the narratives, which, consistently followed out, leads to quite other ground than that of the naturalistic interpretation. If the sound was mere thunder, and the words only an interpretation put upon it by the bystanders; then, as in the synoptical accounts, the words are evidently supposed to have been audibly articulated, we must allow that there is a traditional ingredient in these records. So far as the appearance is concerned, it is not to be denied that the sudden parting of clouds, or a flash of lightning, might be described as an opening of heaven; but in nowise could the form of a dove be ascribed to lightning or a meteor. The form is expressly the point of comparison in Luke only, but it is doubtless so intended by the other narrators; although Fritzsche contends that the words like a dove, ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, in Matthew refer only to the rapid motion. The flight of the dove has nothing so peculiar and distinctive, that, supposing this to be the point of comparison, there would not be in any of the parallel passages a variation, a substitution of some other bird, or an entirely new figure. As, instead of this, the mention of the dove is invariable through all the four gospels, the simile must turn upon something exclusively proper to the dove, and this can apparently be nothing but its form. Hence those commit the least violence on the text, who adopt the supposition of a real dove. Paulus, however, in so doing, incurred the hard task of showing by a multitude of facts from natural history and other sources, that the dove might be tame enough to fly towards a man; [615] how it could linger so long over one, that it might be said, ἔμεινεν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, it abode upon him, he has not succeeded in explaining, and he thus comes into collision with the narrative of John, by which he had sustained his supposition of the absence of a voice. [616]

§ 51.

AN ATTEMPT AT A CRITICISM AND MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE NARRATIVES.

If then a more intelligible representation of the scene at the baptism of Jesus is not to be given, without doing violence to the evangelical text, or without supposing it to be partially erroneous, we are necessarily driven to a critical treatment of the accounts; and indeed, according to De Wette and Schleiermacher, [617] this is the prevalent course in relation to the above point in the evangelical history. From the narrative of John, as the pure source, it is sought to derive the synoptical accounts, as turbid streams. In the former, it is said, there is no opening heaven, no heavenly voice; only the descent of the Spirit is, as had been promised, a divine witness to John that Jesus is the Messiah; but in what manner the Baptist perceived that the Spirit rested on Jesus, he does not tell us, and possibly the only sign may have been the discourse of Jesus.

One cannot but wonder at Schleiermacher’s assertion, that the manner in which the Baptist perceived the descending Spirit is not given in the fourth gospel, when here also the expression ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, like a dove, tells it plainly enough; and this particular marks the descent as a visible one, and not a mere inference from the discourse of Jesus. Usteri, indeed, thinks that the Baptist mentioned the dove, merely as a figure, to denote the gentle, mild spirit which he had observed in Jesus. But had this been all, he would rather have compared Jesus himself to a dove, as on another occasion he did to a lamb, than have suggested the idea of a sensible appearance by the picturesque description, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. It is therefore not true in relation to the dove, that first in the more remote tradition given by the synoptical writers, what was originally figurative, was received in a literal sense; for in this sense it is understood by John, and if he have the correct account, the Baptist himself must have spoken of a visible dove-like appearance, as Bleek, Neander, and others, acknowledge.

While the alleged distinction in relation to the dove, between the first three evangelists and the fourth, is not to be found; with respect to the voice, the difference is so wide, that it is inconceivable how the one account could be drawn from the other. For it is said that the testimony which John gave concerning Jesus, after the appearance: This is the Son of God (John i. 34), taken in connexion with the preceding words: He that sent me to baptize, the same said unto me, etc., became, in the process of tradition, an immediate heavenly declaration, such as we see in Matthew: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Supposing such a transformation admissible, some instigation to it must be shown. Now in Isaiah xlii. 1, Jehovah says of his servant: הֵן עַבְדִּי אֶתְמָךְ־בּוֹ בְּחִירִי רָצֲתָה נַפְשִׁי; words which, excepting those between the parentheses, are almost literally translated by the declaration of the heavenly voice in Matthew. We learn from Matt. xii. 17 ff. that this passage was applied to Jesus as the Messiah; and in it God himself is the speaker, as in the synoptical account of the baptism. Here then was what would much more readily prompt the fiction of a heavenly voice, than the expressions of John. Since, therefore, we do not need a misapprehension of the Baptist’s language to explain the story of the divine voice, and since we cannot use it for the derivation of the allusion to the dove; we must seek for the source of our narrative, not in one of the evangelical documents, but beyond the New Testament,—in the domain of cotemporary ideas, founded on the Old Testament, the total neglect of which has greatly diminished the value of Schleiermacher’s critique on the New Testament.

To regard declarations concerning the Messiah, put by poets into the mouth of Jehovah, as real, audible voices from heaven, was wholly in the spirit of the later Judaism, which not seldom supposed such vocal communications to fall to the lot of distinguished rabbins, [618] and of the messianic prejudices, which the early Christians both shared themselves, and were compelled, in confronting the Jews, to satisfy. In the passage quoted from Isaiah, there was a divine declaration, in which the present Messiah was pointed to as it were with the finger, and which was therefore specially adapted for a heavenly annunciation concerning him. How could the spirit of Christian legend be slow to imagine a scene, in which these words were audibly spoken from heaven of the Messiah. But we detect a farther motive for such a representation of the case by observing, that in Mark and Luke, the heavenly voice addresses Jesus in the second person, and by comparing the words which, according to the Fathers, were given in the old and lost gospels as those of the voice. Justin, following his Memoirs of the Apostles, ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων, thus reports them: υἱός μου εἶ σύ. ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκα σε; [619] Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius; [620] this declaration was combined with that which our Gospels contain. Clement of Alexandria [621] and Augustin [622] seem to have read the words even in some copies of the latter; and it is at least certain that some of our present manuscripts of Luke have this addition. [623] Here were words uttered by the heavenly voice, drawn, not from Isaiah, but from Psalm ii. 7, a passage considered messianic by Jewish interpreters; [624] in Heb. i. 5, applied to Christ; and, from their being couched in the form of a direct address, containing a yet stronger inducement to conceive it as a voice sent to the Messiah from heaven. If then the words of the psalm were originally attributed to the heavenly voice, or if they were only taken in connexion with the passage in Isaiah (as is probable from the use of the second person, σὺ εἶ, in Mark and Luke, since this form is presented in the psalm, and not in Isaiah), we have a sufficient indication that this text, long interpreted of the Messiah, and easily regarded as an address from heaven to the Messiah on earth, was the source of our narrative of the divine voice, heard at the baptism of Jesus. To unite it with the baptism, followed as a matter of course, when this was held to be a consecration of Jesus to his office.

We proceed to the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. In this examination we must separate the descent of the Spirit from the form of the dove, and consider the two particulars apart. That the Divine Spirit was to rest in a peculiar measure on the Messiah, was an expectation necessarily resulting from the notion, that the messianic times were to be those of the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh (Joel iii. 1 ff.); and in Isaiah xi. 1 f. it was expressly said of the stem of Jesse, that the spirit of the Lord would rest on it in all its fulness, as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of might, and of the fear of the Lord. The communication of the Spirit, considered as an individual act, coincident with the baptism, had a type in the history of David, on whom, when anointed by Samuel, the spirit of God came from that day forward (1 Sam. xvi. 13). Further, in the Old Testament phrases concerning the imparting of the Divine Spirit to men, especially in that expression of Isaiah, נוּחַ עִל־, which best corresponds to the μένειν ἐπὶ of John, there already lay the germ of a symbolical representation; for that Hebrew verb is applied also to the halting of armies, or, like the parallel Arabic word, even of animals. The imagination, once stimulated by such an expression, would be the more strongly impelled to complete the picture by the necessity for distinguishing the descent of the Spirit on the Messiah,—in the Jewish view, from the mode in which it was imparted to the prophets (e.g. Isaiah lxi. 1)—in the Christian view, from its ordinary communication to the baptized (e.g. Acts xix. 1 ff). [625] The position being once laid down that the Spirit was to descend on the Messiah, the question immediately occurred: How would it descend? This was necessarily decided according to the popular Jewish idea, which always represented the Divine Spirit under some form or other. In the Old Testament, and even in the New (Acts ii. 3), fire is the principal symbol of the Holy Spirit; but it by no means follows that other sensible objects were not similarly used. In an important passage of the Old Testament (Gen. i. 2), the Spirit of God is described as hovering (מְרַחֶפֶת), a word which suggests, as its sensible representation, the movement of a bird, rather than of fire. Thus the expression רָחַף, Deut. xxxii. 11, is used of the hovering of a bird over its young. But the imagination could not be satisfied with the general figure of a bird; it must have a specific image, and everything led to the choice of the dove.

In the East, and especially in Syria, the dove is a sacred bird, [626] and it is so for a reason which almost necessitated its association with the Spirit moving on the face of the primitive waters (Gen. i. 2). The brooding dove was a symbol of the quickening warmth of nature; [627] it thus perfectly represented the function which, in the Mosaic cosmogony, is ascribed to the Spirit of God,—the calling forth of the world of life from the chaos of the first creation. Moreover, when the earth was a second time covered with water, it is a dove, sent by Noah, which hovers over its waves, and which, by plucking an olive leaf, and at length finally disappearing, announces the renewed possibility of living on the earth. Who then can wonder that in Jewish writings, the Spirit hovering over the primeval waters is expressly compared to a dove, [628] and that, apart from the narrative under examination, the dove is taken as a symbol of the Holy Spirit? [629] How near to this lay the association of the hovering dove with the Messiah, on whom the dove-like spirit was to descend, is evident, without our having recourse to the Jewish writings, which designate the Spirit hovering over the waters, Gen. i. 2, as the Spirit of the Messiah, [630] and also connect with him its emblem, the Noachian dove. [631]

When, in this manner, the heavenly voice, and the Divine Spirit down-hovering like a dove, gathered from the cotemporary Jewish ideas, had become integral parts of the Christian legend concerning the circumstances of the baptism of Jesus; it followed, of course, that the heavens should open themselves, for the Spirit, once embodied, must have a road before it could descend through the vault of heaven. [632]

The result of the preceding inquiries, viz., that the alleged miraculous circumstances of the baptism of Jesus have merely a mythical value, might have been much more readily obtained, in the way of inference from the preceding chapter; for if, according to that, John had not acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah, there could have been no appearances at the baptism of Jesus, demonstrative to John of his Messiahship. We have, however, established the mythical character of the baptismal phenomena, without presupposing the result of the previous chapter; and thus the two independently obtained conclusions may serve to strengthen each other.

Supposing all the immediate circumstances of the baptism of Jesus unhistorical, the question occurs, whether the baptism itself be also a mere mythus. Fritzsche seems not disinclined to the affirmative, for he leaves it undecided whether the first Christians knew historically, or only supposed, in conformity with their messianic expectations, that Jesus was consecrated to his messianic office by John, as his forerunner. This view may be supported by the observation, that in the Jewish expectation, which originated in the history of David, combined with the prophecy of Malachi, there was adequate inducement to assume such a consecration of Jesus by the Baptist, even without historical warrant; and the mention of John’s baptism in relation to Jesus (Acts i. 22), in a narrative, itself traditional, proves nothing to the contrary. Yet, on the other hand, it is to be considered that the baptism of Jesus by John furnishes the most natural basis for an explanation of the messianic project of Jesus. When we have two cotemporaries, of whom one announces the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the other subsequently assumes the character of Messiah; the conjecture arises, even, without positive information, that they stood in a relation to each other—that the latter owed his idea to the former. If Jesus had the messianic idea excited in him by John, yet, as is natural, only so far that he also looked forward to the advent of the messianic individual, whom he did not, in the first instance, identify with himself; he would most likely submit himself to the baptism of John. This would probably take place without any striking occurrences; and Jesus, in no way announced by it as the Baptist’s superior, might, as above remarked, continue for some time to demean himself as his disciple.

If we take a comparative retrospect of our evangelical documents, the pre-eminence which has of late been sought for the fourth gospel appears totally unmerited. The single historical fact, the baptism of Jesus by John, is not mentioned by the fourth Evangelist, who is solicitous about the mythical adjuncts alone, and these he in reality gives no more simply than the synoptical writers, his omission of the opening heaven excepted; for the divine speech is not wanting in his narrative, if we read it impartially. In the words, i. 33: He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, we have not only substantially the same purport as that conveyed by the heavenly voice in the synoptical gospels, but also a divine declaration; the only difference being, that here John is addressed exclusively, and prior to the baptism of Jesus. This difference originated partly in the importance which the fourth Evangelist attached to the relation between the Baptist and Jesus, and which required that the criteria of the messianic individual, as well as the proximity of his kingdom, should have been revealed to John at his call to baptize; and it might be partly suggested by the narrative in 1 Sam. xvi., according to which Samuel, being sent by Jehovah to anoint a king selected from the sons of Jesse, is thus admonished by Jehovah on the entrance of David: Arise and anoint him, for this is he (v. 12). The descent of the Spirit, which in David’s case follows his consecration, is, by the fourth Evangelist, made an antecedent sign of the Messiahship of Jesus.

§ 52.

RELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL AT THE BAPTISM OF JESUS TO THE SUPERNATURAL IN HIS CONCEPTION.

At the commencement of this chapter, we enquired into the subjective views of Jesus in his reception of John’s baptism, or the idea which he entertained of its relation to his own character. We close this discussion with an inquiry into the objective purpose of the miracles at the baptism of Jesus, or the mode in which they were to subserve the manifestation of his messiahship.

The common answer to such an inquiry is, that Jesus was thereby inducted to his public office, and declared to be the Messiah, [633] i.e. that nothing was conferred on him, and that simply the character which he already possessed was manifested to others. But, it may be asked, is such an abstraction intended by our narrators? A consecration to an office, effected by divine co-operation, was ever considered by antiquity as a delegation of divine powers for its fulfilment; hence, in the Old Testament, the kings, as soon as they are anointed, are filled with the spirit of God (1 Sam. x. 6, 10, xvi. 13); and in the New Testament also, the apostles, before entering on their vocation, are furnished with supernatural gifts (Acts ii.). It may, therefore, be beforehand conjectured, that according to the original sense of the Gospels, the consecration of Jesus at his baptism was attended with a supply of higher powers; and this is confirmed by an examination of our narratives. For the synoptical writers all state, that after the baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, obviously marking this journey as the first effect of the higher principle infused at his baptism: and in John, the words μένειν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, applied to the descending Spirit, seem to intimate, that from the time of the baptism there was a relation not previously subsisting, between the πνεῦμα ἅγιον and Jesus.

This interpretation of the marvels at the baptism of Jesus seems in contradiction with the narratives of his conception. If Jesus, as Matthew and Luke state, was conceived by the Holy Ghost; or if, as John propounds, the divine λόγος, the word, was made flesh in him, from the beginning of his earthly existence; why did he yet need, at his baptism, a special intromission of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον? Several modern expositors have seen, and sought to solve, this difficulty. Olshausen’s explanation consists in the distinction between the potential and the actual; but it is self-contradictory. [634] For if the character of the Χριστὸς which was manifested actû, with the ripened manhood of Jesus, at his baptism, was already present potentiâ in the child and youth; there must have also been an inward principle of development, by means of which his powers would gradually unfold themselves from within, instead of being first awakened by a sudden illapse of the Spirit from without. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that the divine principle, existing in Jesus, as supernaturally conceived, from the moment of his birth, might need, owing to the human form of its development, some impulse from without; and Lücke [635] has more justly proceeded on this contrast between external impulse and inward development. The λόγος, present in Jesus from his birth, needed, he thinks, however strong might be the inward bent, some external stimulus and vivification, in order to arrive at full activity and manifestation in the world; and that which awakens and guides the divine life-germ in the world is, on apostolic showing, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Allowing this, yet the inward disposition and the requisite force of the outward stimulus stand in an inverse relation to each other; so that the stronger the outward stimulus required, the weaker is the inward disposition; but in a case where the inward disposition is consummate,—as it must be supposed in Jesus, engendered by the Spirit, or animated by the λόγος,—the exterior impulse ought to be a minimum, that is, every circumstance, even the most common, might serve as a determination of the inward tendency. But at the baptism of Jesus we see the maximum of exterior impulse, in the visible descent of the divine Spirit; and although we allow for the special nature of the messianic task, for the fulfilment of which he must be qualified, [636] yet the maximum of inward disposition, which fitted him to be the υἱὸς Θεοῦ, cannot at the same time be supposed as existing in him from his birth: a consequence which Lücke only escapes, by reducing the baptismal scene to a mere inauguration, thus, as has been already shown, contradicting the evangelical records.

We must here give a similar decision to that at which we arrived concerning the genealogies; viz., that in that circle of the early Christian church, in which the narrative of the descent of the πνεῦμα on Jesus at his baptism was formed, the idea that Jesus was generated by the same πνεῦμα cannot have prevailed; and while, at the present day, the communication of the divine nature to Jesus is thought of as cotemporary with his conception, those Christians must have regarded his baptism as the epoch of such communication. In fact, those primitive Christians whom, in a former discussion, we found to have known nothing, or to have believed nothing, of the supernatural conception of Jesus, were also those who connected the first communication of divine powers to Jesus with his baptism in the Jordan. For no other doctrine did the orthodox fathers of the church more fiercely persecute the ancient Ebionites, [637] with their gnostic fellow-believer Cerinthus, [638] than for this: that the Holy Spirit first united himself with Jesus at his baptism. In the Gospel of the Ebionites it was written that the πνεῦμα not only descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, but entered into him; [639] and according to Justin, it was the general expectation of the Jews, that higher powers would first be granted to the Messiah, when he should be anointed by his forerunner Elias. [640]

The development of these ideas seems to have been the following. When the messianic dignity of Jesus began to be acknowledged among the Jews, it was thought appropriate to connect his coming into possession of the requisite gifts, with the epoch from which he was in some degree known, and which, from the ceremony that marked it, was also best adapted to represent that anointing with the Holy Spirit, expected by the Jews for their Messiah: and from this point of view was formed the legend of the occurrences at the baptism. But as reverence for Jesus was heightened, and men appeared in the Christian church who were acquainted with more exalted messianic ideas, this tardy manifestation of messiahship was no longer sufficient; his relation with the Holy Spirit was referred to his conception: and from this point of view was formed the tradition of the supernatural conception of Jesus. Here too, perhaps, the words of the heavenly voice, which might originally be those of Ps. ii. 7, were altered after Isaiah xlii. 1. For the words, σήμερον γεγέννηκα σε, This day have I begotten thee, were consistent with the notion that Jesus was constituted the Son of God at his baptism; but they were no longer suitable to that occasion, when the opinion had arisen that the origin of his life was an immediate divine act. By this later representation, however, the earlier one was by no means supplanted, but, on the contrary, tradition and her recorders being large-hearted, both narratives—that of the miracles at the baptism, and that of the supernatural conception, or the indwelling of the λόγος in Jesus from the commencement of his life, although, strictly, they exclude each other, went forth peaceably side by side, and so were depicted by our Evangelists, not excepting even the fourth. Just as in the case of the genealogies: the narrative of the imparting of the Spirit at the baptism could not arise after the formation of the idea that Jesus was engendered by the Spirit; but it might be retained as a supplement, because tradition is ever unwilling to renounce any of its acquired treasures.

§ 53.

PLACE AND TIME OF THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. DIVERGENCIES OF THE EVANGELISTS ON THIS SUBJECT.

The transition from the baptism to the temptation of Jesus, as it is made by the synoptical writers, is attended with difficulty in relation both to place and time.

With respect to the former, it strikes us at once, that according to all the synoptical gospels, Jesus after his baptism was led into the wilderness to be tempted, implying that he was not previously in the wilderness, although, according to Matt. iii. 1, John, by whom he was baptized, exercised his ministry there. This apparent contradiction has been exposed by the most recent critic of Matthew’s gospel, for the sake of proving the statement that John baptized in the wilderness to be erroneous. [641] But they who cannot resolve to reject this statement on grounds previously laid down, may here avail themselves of the supposition, that John delivered his preliminary discourses in the wilderness of Judea, but resorted to the Jordan for the purpose of baptizing; or, if the banks of the Jordan be reckoned part of that wilderness, of the presumption that the Evangelists can only have intended that the Spirit led Jesus farther into the recesses of the wilderness, but have neglected to state this with precision, because their description of the scene at the baptism had obliterated from their imagination their former designation of the locality of John’s agency.

But there is, besides, a chronological difficulty: namely, that while, according to the synoptical writers, Jesus, in the plenitude of the Spirit, just communicated to him at the Jordan, betakes himself, in consequence of that communication, for forty days to the wilderness, where the temptation occurs, and then returns into Galilee; John, on the contrary, is silent concerning the temptation, and appears to suppose an interval of a few days only, between the baptism of Jesus and his journey into Galilee; thus allowing no space for a six weeks’ residence in the wilderness. The fourth Evangelist commences his narrative with the testimony which the Baptist delivers to the emissaries of the Sanhedrim (i. 19); the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he makes the Baptist recite the incident which in the synoptical gospels is followed by the baptism (v. 29): again, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he causes two of his disciples to follow Jesus (v. 35); farther, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον, v. 44), as Jesus is on the point of journeying into Galilee, Philip and Nathanael join him; and lastly, on the third day, τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ (ii. 1), Jesus is at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The most natural inference is, that the baptism took place immediately before John’s narrative of its attendant occurrences, and as according to the synoptical gospels the temptation followed close on the baptism, both these events must be inserted between v. 28 and 29, as Euthymius supposed. But between that which is narrated down to v. 28, and the sequel from v. 29 inclusive, there is only the interval of a morrow, ἐπαύριον, while the temptation requires a period of forty days; hence, expositors have thought it necessary to give ἐπαύριον the wider sense of ὕστερον afterwards; this however is inadmissible, because the expression τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ, the third day, follows in connexion with ἐπαύριον, and restricts its meaning to the morrow. We might therefore be inclined, with Kuinöl, to separate the baptism and the temptation, to place the baptism after v. 28, and to regard the next day’s interview between Jesus and John (v. 29) as a parting visit from the former to the latter: inserting after this the journey into the wilderness and the temptation. But without insisting that the first three Evangelists seem not to allow even of a day’s interval between the baptism and the departure of Jesus into the wilderness, yet even later we have the same difficulty in finding space for the forty days. For it is no more possible to place the residence in the wilderness between the supposed parting visit and the direction of the two disciples to Jesus, that is between v. 34 and 35, as Kuinöl attempts, than between v. 28 and 29, since the former as well as the latter passages are connected by τῇ ἐπαύριον, on the morrow. Hence we must descend to v. 43 and 44; but here also there is only the interval of a morrow, and even chap. ii. 1, we are shut out by an ἡμέρα τρίτη, third day, so that, proceeding in this way, the temptation would at last be carried to the residence of Jesus in Galilee, in direct opposition to the statement of the synoptical writers; while, in further contradiction to them, the temptation is placed at a farther and farther distance from the baptism. Thus neither at v. 29, nor below it, can the forty days’ residence of Jesus in the wilderness with the temptation be intercalated: and it must therefore be referred, according to the plan of Lücke and others, [642] to the period before v. 19, which seems to allow of as large an interpolation as can be desired, inasmuch as the fourth Evangelist there commences his history. Now it is true that what follows from v. 19 to 28 is not of a kind absolutely to exclude the baptism and temptation of Jesus as earlier occurrences; but from v. 29 to 34, the Evangelist is far from making the Baptist speak as if there had been an interval of six weeks between the baptism and his narrative of its circumstances. [643] That the fourth Evangelist should have omitted, by chance merely, the history of the temptation, important as it was in the view of the other Evangelists, seems improbable: it is rather to be concluded, either that it was dogmatically offensive to him, so that he omitted it designedly, or that it was not current in the circle of tradition from which he drew his materials.

The period of forty days is assigned by all three of the synoptical writers for the residence of Jesus in the wilderness; but to this agreement is annexed the not inconsiderable discrepancy, that, according to Matthew, the temptation by the devil commences after the lapse of the forty days, while, according to the others, it appears to have been going forward during this time; for the words of Mark (i. 13), he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ Σατανᾶ, and the similar ones of Luke i. 2, can have no other meaning. Added to this, there is a difference between the two latter evangelists; Mark only placing the temptation generally within the duration of forty days, without naming the particular acts of the tempter, which according to Matthew, were subsequent to the forty days; while Luke mentions both the prolonged temptation (πειράζεσθαι) of the forty days, and the three special temptations (πειρασμοὶ) which followed. [644] It has been thought possible to make the three accounts tally by supposing that the devil tempted Jesus during the forty days, as Mark states; that after the lapse of that time he approached him with the three temptations given by Matthew; and that Luke’s narrative includes the whole. [645] Further, the temptations have been distinguished into two kinds; that which is only generally mentioned, as continued through the forty days, being considered invisible, like the ordinary attempts of Satan against men; and the three particularized temptations being regarded as personal and visible assaults, resorted to on the failure of the first. [646] But this distinction is evidently built on the air; moreover, it is inconceivable why Luke should not specify one of the temptations of the forty days, and should only mention the three subsequent ones detailed by Matthew. We might conjecture that the three temptations narrated by Luke did not occur after the six weeks, but were given by way of specimen from among the many that took place during that time; and that Matthew misunderstood them to be a sequel to the forty days’ temptation. [647] But the challenge to make stones bread must in any case be placed at the end of that period, for it appealed to the hunger of Jesus, arising from a forty days’ fast (a cause omitted by Mark alone). Now in Luke also this is the first temptation, and if this occurred at the close of the forty days, the others could not have been earlier. For it is not to be admitted that the separate temptations being united in Luke merely by καὶ, and not by τότε and πάλιν as in Matthew, we are not bound to preserve the order of them, and that without violating the intention of the third Evangelist we may place the second and third temptation before the first. Thus Luke is convicted of a want of historical fact; for after representing Jesus as tempted by the devil forty days, he has no details to give concerning this long period, but narrates later temptations; hence we are not inclined, with the most recent critic of Matthew’s Gospel, to regard Luke’s as the original, and Matthew’s as the traditional and adulterated narrative. [648] Rather, as in Mark the temptation is noticed without farther details than that it lasted forty days, and in Matthew the particular cases of temptation are narrated, the hunger which induced the first rendering it necessary to place them after the forty days; Luke has evidently the secondary statement, for he unites the two previous ones in a manner scarcely tolerable, giving the forty days’ process of temptation, and then superfluously bringing forward particular instances as additional facts. It is not on this account to be concluded that Luke wrote after Mark, and in dependence on him; but supposing, on the contrary, that Mark here borrowed from Luke, he extracted only the first and general part of the latter Evangelist’s narrative, having ready, in lieu of the farther detail of single temptations, an addition peculiar to himself; namely, that Jesus, during his residence in the wilderness was μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, with the wild beasts.

What was Mark’s object in introducing the wild beasts, it is difficult to say. The majority of expositors are of opinion that he intended to complete the terrible picture of the wilderness; [649] but to this it is not without reason objected, that the clause would then have been in closer connexion with the words ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, he was in the wilderness, instead of being placed after πειραζόμενος, tempted. [650] Usteri has hazarded the conjecture that this particularity may be designed to mark Christ as the antitype of Adam, who, in Paradise, also stood in a peculiar relation to the animals, [651] and Olshausen has eagerly laid hold on this mystical notion; but it is an interpretation which finds little support in the context. Schleiermacher, in pronouncing this feature of Mark’s narrative extravagant, [652] doubtless means that this Evangelist here, as in other instances of exaggeration, borders on the style of the apocryphal gospels, for whose capricious fictions we are not seldom unable to suggest a cause or an object, and thus we must rest contented, for the present, to penetrate no farther into the sense of his statement.