Note 68 — Chapter I · RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.

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,68 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.