Note 4 — Chapter II · BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

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?4 and an heretical apocryphal work appears to have attributed to Jesus a confession of his own sins at his baptism.5