Note 33 — Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Let it be granted that the fourth Gospel excludes an acquaintance with the Messiahship only of Jesus, and that the third presupposes an acquaintance with his person only, on the part of John; still the contradiction is not removed. For in Matthew, John, when required to baptize Jesus, addresses him as if he knew him, not generally and personally alone, but specially, in his character of Messiah. It is true that the words: I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? (iii. 14), have been interpreted, in the true spirit of harmonizing, as referring to the general superior excellence of Jesus, and not to his Messiahship.33 But the right to undertake the baptism which was to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, was not to be obtained by moral superiority in general, but was conferred by a special call, such as John himself had received, and such as could belong only to a prophet, or to the Messiah and his Forerunner (John i. 19 ff.). If then John attributed to Jesus authority to baptize, he must have regarded him not merely as an excellent man, but as indubitably a prophet, nay, since he held him worthy to baptize himself, as his own superior: that is, since John conceived himself to be the Messiah’s Forerunner, no other than the Messiah himself. Add to this, that Matthew had just cited a discourse of the Baptist, in which he ascribes to the coming Messiah a baptism more powerful than his own; how then can we understand his subsequent language towards Jesus otherwise than thus: “Of what use is my water baptism to thee, O Messiah? Far more do I need thy baptism of the Spirit!”34