Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

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§ 44.

CHRONOLOGICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN JOHN AND JESUS.

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

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

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

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

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

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§ 45.

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

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

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

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§ 46.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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§ 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.

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.

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§ 48.

THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

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.

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