Note 39 — Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
George Eliot translation
Hence it has been attempted to give a different turn to the facts, and to show that John’s inquiry was not made on his own account, but for the sake of his disciples, to overcome in them the doubt with which he was himself untainted.39 Hereby it is true, the above-named difficulties are removed; in particular it is explained why the Baptist should contrive to send this message precisely on hearing of the miracles of Jesus; he plainly hoping that his disciples, who had not believed his testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, would be convinced of its truth by beholding the marvellous works of the latter. But how could John hope that his envoys would chance to find Jesus in the act of working miracles? According to Matthew, indeed, they did not so find him, and Jesus appeals (v. 4) only to his former works, many of which they had seen, and of which they might hear wherever he had presented himself. Luke alone, in giving his evidently second-hand narrative,40 misconstrues the words of Jesus to require that the disciples of John should have found him in the exercise of his supernatural power. Further, if it had been the object of the Baptist to persuade his disciples by a sight of the works of Jesus, he would not have charged them with a question which could be answered by the mere words, the authentic declaration of Jesus. For he could not hope by the assertion of the person whose Messiahship was the very point in debate, to convince the disciples whom his own declaration, in other cases authoritative, had failed to satisfy. On the whole, it would have been a singular course in the Baptist to lend his own words to the doubts of others, and thereby, as Schleiermacher well observes, to compromise his early and repeated testimony in favour of Jesus. It is clear that Jesus understood the question proposed to him by the messengers as proceeding from John himself; (ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰωάννῃ, Matt. xi. 4;) and he indirectly complained of the want of faith in the latter by pronouncing those blessed who were not offended in him (ver. 6).41