I. RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST…

I. RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST

§ 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.

It being thus inadmissible to suppose between the appearance of John and the baptism of Jesus, that is, between verses 12 and 13 of the 3rd chapter of Matthew, the long interval which is in every case indispensable, nothing remains but to insert it between the close of the second and the beginning of the third chapter, namely, between the settlement of the parents of Jesus at Nazareth and the appearance of the Baptist. To this end we may presume, with Paulus, that Matthew has here introduced a fragment from a history of the Baptist, narrating many particulars of his life immediately preceding his public agency, and very properly proceeding with the words, in those days, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, which connecting phrase Matthew, although he omitted that to which it referred, has nevertheless retained [515]; or we may, with Süskind, apply the words, not to the settlement, but to the subsequent residence of Jesus at Nazareth; [516] or better still, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, like the corresponding Hebrew expression, ‏בַּיָמִים הַהֵם‎ e.g., Exod. ii. 11, is probably to be interpreted as relating indeed to the establishment at Nazareth, but so that an event happening thirty years afterwards may yet be said, speaking indefinitely, to occur in those days. [517] In neither case do we learn from Matthew concerning the time of John’s appearance more than the very vague information, that it took place in the interval between the infancy and manhood of Jesus.

Luke determines the date of John’s appearance by various synchronisms, placing it in the time of Pilate’s government in Judea; in the sovereignty of Herod (Antipas), of Philip and of Lysanias over the other divisions of Palestine; in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas; and, moreover, precisely in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, which, reckoning from the death of Augustus, corresponds with the year 28–29 of our era [518] (iii. 1, 2). With this last and closest demarcation of time all the foregoing less precise ones agree. Even that which makes Annas high priest together with Caiaphas appears correct, if we consider the peculiar influence which, according to John xviii. 13, Acts iv. 6, that ex-high priest retained, even when deposed, especially after the assumption of office by his son-in-law, Caiaphas.

A single exception occurs in the statement about Lysanias, whom Luke makes cotemporary with Antipas and Philip as tetrarch of Abilene. Josephus, it is true, speaks of an Ἀβίλα ἡ Λυσανίου, and mentions a Lysanias as governor of Chalcis in Lebanon, near to which lay the territory of Abila; so that the same Lysanias was probably master of the latter. But this Lysanias was, at the instigation of Cleopatra, put to death 34 years before the birth of Christ, and a second Lysanias is not mentioned either by Josephus or by any other writer on the period in question. [519] Thus, not only is the time of his government earlier by 60 years than the 15th year of Tiberius, but it is also at issue with the other dates associated with it by Luke. Hence it has been conjectured that Luke here speaks of a younger Lysanias, the descendant of the earlier one, who possessed Abilene under Tiberius, but who, being less famous, is not noticed by Josephus. [520] We cannot indeed prove what Süskind demands for the refutation of this hypothesis, namely, that had such a younger Lysanias existed, Josephus must have mentioned him; yet that he had more than one inducement to do so, Paulus has satisfactorily shown. Especially, when in relation to the times of the first and second Agrippa he designates Abila, ἡ Λυσανίου, he must have been reminded that he had only treated of the elder Lysanias, and not at all of the younger, from whom, as the later ruler, the country must at that time have derived its second appellation. [521] If, according to this, the younger Lysanias is but an historic fiction, the proposed alternative is but a philological one. [522] For when it is said in the first place: Φιλίππου — τετραρχοῦντος τῆς Ἰτουραίας, κ.τ.λ., and when it follows: καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετραρχοῦντος: we cannot possibly understand from this, that Philip reigned also over the Abilene of Lysanias. For in that case the word τετραρχοῦντος ought not to have been repeated, [523] and τῆς ought to have been placed before Lysanias, if the author wished to avoid misconstruction. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the writer himself erred, and, from the circumstance that Abilene, even in recent times, was called, after the last ruler of the former dynasty, ἡ Λυσανίου, drew the inference that a monarch of that name was still existing; while, in fact, Abilene either belonged to Philip, or was immediately subject to the Romans. [524]

The above chronological notation relates directly to John the Baptist alone; a similar one is wanting when Luke begins farther on (v. 21 ff.) to speak of Jesus. Of him it is merely said that he was about thirty years of age, ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, on his public appearance (ἀρχόμενος), but no date is given; while, in the case of John, there is a contrary omission. Thus even if John commenced his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius, we cannot thence gather anything as to the time when Jesus commenced his, as it is nowhere said how long John had been baptizing when Jesus came to him on the Jordan; while, on the other hand, although we know that Jesus, at his baptism, was about 30 years old, this does not help us to ascertain the age of John when he entered on his ministry as Baptist. Remembering, however, Luke i. 26, according to which John was just half a year older than Jesus, and calling to our aid the fact that Jewish usage would scarcely permit the exercise of public functions before the thirtieth year, we might infer that the Baptist could only have appeared half a year before the arrival of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, since he would only so much earlier have attained the requisite age. But no express law forbade a public appearance previous to the thirtieth year; and it has been justly questioned whether we can apply to the freer office of a Prophet a restriction which concerned the Priests and Levites, for whom the thirtieth year was fixed for their entrance on regular service [525] (Num. iv. 3, 47. Compare besides 2 Chron. xxxi. 17, where the 20th year is named). This then would not hinder us from placing the appearance of John considerably prior to that of Jesus, even presupposing the averred relation between their ages. Hardly, however, could this be the intention of the Evangelist. For to ascertain so carefully the date of the Forerunner’s appearance, and leave that of the Messiah himself undetermined, would be too great an oversight, [526] and we cannot but suppose that his design, in the particulars he gives concerning John, was to fix the time for the appearance of Jesus. To agree with this purpose, he must have understood that Jesus came to the banks of the Jordan and began to teach, shortly after the appearance of John. [527] For that the above chronological determination was originally merely the introduction to a document concerning John, quoted by Luke, is improbable, since its exactness corresponds with the style of him who had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς, and who sought to determine, in like manner, the epoch of the Messiah’s birth.

It is not easy, however, to imagine, in accordance with this statement, that John was by so little the predecessor of Jesus, nor is it without reason that the improbability of his having had so short an agency is maintained. For he had a considerable number of disciples, whom he not only baptized, but taught (Luke xi. 1), and he left behind a party of his peculiar followers (Acts xviii. 25, xix. 3), all which could hardly be the work of a few months. There needed time, it has been observed, for the Baptist to become so well known, that people would undertake a journey to him in the wilderness; there needed time for his doctrine to be comprehended, time for it to gain a footing and establish itself, especially as it clashed with the current Jewish ideas; in a word, the deep and lasting veneration in which John was held by his nation, according to Josephus [528] as well as the evangelists, could not have been so hastily won. [529]

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.

If, in addition to this, we accept the statement of Luke (i. 26 and iii. 23), that Jesus, being only half a year younger than John, was about in his thirtieth year at his appearance, we must suppose that John was in his twentieth year when he began his ministry. There is, as we have seen, no express law against so early an exercise of the prophetic office; neither do I, so decidedly as Cludius, [530] hold it improbable that so young a preacher of repentance should make an impression, or even that he should be taken for a prophet of the olden time—an Elias; I will only appeal to the ordinary course of things as a sanction for presuming, that one who entered so much earlier upon the scene of action was proportionately older, especially when the principles and spirit of his teaching tell so plainly of a mature age as do the discourses of John. There are exceptions to this rule; but the statement of Luke (i. 26), that John was only six months older than Jesus, is insufficient to establish one in this instance, as it accords with the interest of the poetical legend, and must therefore be renounced for the slightest improbability.

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.

§ 45.

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

John, a Nazarite, according to our authorities (Matt. iii. 4, ix. 14, xi. 18; Luke i. 15), and in the opinion of several theologians, [531] an Essene, is said by Luke (iii. 2) to have been summoned to his public work by the word of God ῥῆμα Θεοῦ, which came to him in the wilderness. Not possessing the Baptist’s own declaration, we cannot accept as complete the dilemma stated by Paulus, [532] when he says, that we know not whether John himself interpreted some external or internal fact as a divine call, or whether he received a summons from another individual; and we must add as a third possibility, that his followers sought to dignify the vocation of their Teacher by an expression which recalls to mind the ancient Prophets.

While from the account of Luke it appears that the divine call came to John in the wilderness, ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, but that for the purpose of teaching and baptizing he resorted to the country about Jordan, περίχωρος τοῦ Ἰορδάνου (ver. 3); Matthew (iii. ff.) makes the wilderness of Judea the scene of his labours, as if the Jordan in which he baptized flowed through that wilderness. It is true that, according to Josephus, the Jordan before emptying itself into the Dead Sea traverses a great wilderness, πολλὴν ἐρημίαν, [533] but this was not the wilderness of Judea, which lay farther south. [534] Hence it has been supposed that Matthew, misled by his application of the prophecy, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, to John, who issued from the wilderness of Judea, ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας, placed there his labours as a preacher of repentance and a baptizer, although their true scene was the blooming valley of the Jordan. [535] In the course of Luke’s narrative, however, this evangelist ceases to intimate that John forsook the wilderness after receiving his call, for on the occasion of John’s message to Jesus, he makes the latter ask, Whom went ye out into the wilderness to see? Τί ἐξεληλύθατε εἰς τὴν ἔρημον θεάσασθαι (vii. 24). Now as the valley of the Jordan in the vicinity of the Dead Sea was in fact a barren plain, the narrow margin of the river excepted, no greater mistake may belong to Matthew than that of specifying the wilderness as the ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας; and even that may be explained away by the supposition, either that John, as he alternately preached and baptized, passed from the wilderness of Judea to the borders of the Jordan, [536] or that the waste tract through which that river flowed, being a continuation of the wilderness of Judea, retained the same name. [537]

The baptism of John could scarcely have been derived from the baptism of proselytes, [538] for this rite was unquestionably posterior to the rise of Christianity. It was more analogous to the religious lustrations in practice amongst the Jews, especially the Essenes, and was apparently founded chiefly on certain expressions used by several of the prophets in a figurative sense, but afterwards understood literally. According to these expressions, God requires from the Israelitish people, as a condition of their restoration to his favour, a washing and purification from their iniquity, and he promises that he will himself cleanse them with water (Isaiah i. 16, Ez. xxxvi. 25, comp. Jer. ii. 22). Add to this the Jewish notion that the Messiah would not appear with his kingdom until the Israelites repented, [539] and we have the combination necessary for the belief that an ablution, symbolical of conversion and forgiveness of sins, must precede the advent of the Messiah.

Our accounts are not unanimous as to the signification of John’s baptism. They all, it is true, agree in stating repentance, μετάνοια, to be one of its essential requirements; for even what Josephus says of the Baptist, that he admonished the Jews, practising virtue, just towards each other, and devout towards God, to come to his baptism, ἀρετὴν ἐπασκοῦντας, καὶ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν εὐσεβεία χρωμένους βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι, [540] has the same sense under a Greek form. Mark and Luke, however, while designating the baptism of John, βάπτισμα μετανοίας, add, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (i. 4, iii. 3). Matthew has not the same addition; but he, with Mark, describes the baptized as confessing their sins, ἐξομολογοὺμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν (iii. 6). Josephus, on the other hand, appears in direct contradiction to them, when he gives it as the opinion of the Baptist, that baptism is pleasing to God, not when we ask pardon for some transgressions, but when we purify the body, after having first purified the mind by righteousness, οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὴν βάπτισιν ἀποδεκτὴν αὐτῷ (τῷ Θεῷ) φανεῖσθαι, μὴ ἐπί τίνων ἁμαρτάδων παραιτήσει χρωμένων, ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ ἁγνείᾳ τοῦ σώματος, ἄτε δὴ, καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς δικαιοσύνῃ προεκκεκαθαρμένης. We might here be led to the supposition that the words for the remission of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, as in Acts ii. 38, and other passages, was commonly used in relation to Christian baptism, and was thence transferred unhistorically to that of John; but as in the passages quoted from Ezekiel the washing typified not only reformation but forgiveness, the probabilities are in favour of the evangelical statement. Moreover, it is possible to reconcile Josephus and the Evangelists, by understanding the words of the former to mean that the baptism of John was intended to effect a purification, not from particular or merely Levitical transgressions, but of the entire man, not immediately and mysteriously through the agency of water, but by means of the moral acts of reformation. [541]

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.

According to the Evangelists, the coming of the kingdom of heaven, βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, was associated by John with a Messianic individual to whom he ascribed, in distinction from his own baptism with water, a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, βαπτίζειν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρὶ (Matt. iii. 11 parall.), the outpouring of the Holy Spirit being regarded as a leading feature of the Messianic times (Joel ii. 28; Acts ii. 16 ff.). Of this personage he farther predicted, in imagery akin to that used by the prophets on the same subject, that he would winnow the people as wheat (Mal. iii. 2, 3; Zech. xiii. 9). The Synoptical Gospels state the case as if John expressly understood this Messianic individual to be Jesus of Nazareth. According to Luke, indeed, the mothers of these two men were cousins, and aware of the destination of their sons. The Baptist while yet unborn acknowledged the divinity of Jesus, and all the circumstances imply that both were early acquainted with their relative position, predetermined by a heavenly communication. Matthew, it is true, says nothing of such a family connexion between John and Jesus; but when the latter presents himself for baptism, he puts into the mouth of John words which seem to presuppose an earlier acquaintance. His expression of astonishment that Jesus should come to him for baptism, when he had need to be baptized of Jesus, could only arise from a previous knowledge or instantaneous revelation of his character. Of the latter there is no intimation; for the first visible sign of the Messiahship of Jesus did not occur till afterwards. While in the first and third Gospels (in the second, the facts are so epitomized that the writer’s view on the subject is not evident), John and Jesus seem to have been no strangers to each other prior to the baptism; in the fourth, the Baptist pointedly asserts that he knew not Jesus before the heavenly appearance, which, according to the Synoptical Gospels, was coincident with his baptism (i. 31, 33). Simply considered, this looks like a contradiction. By Luke, the previous acquaintance of the two is stated objectively, as an external matter of fact; by Matthew, it is betrayed in the involuntary confession of the astonished Baptist; in the fourth Gospel, on the contrary, their previous unacquaintance is attested subjectively, by his premeditated assertion. It was not, therefore, a very far-fetched idea of the Wolfenbüttel fragmentist, to put down the contradiction to the account of John and Jesus, and to presume that they had in fact long known and consulted each other, but that in public (in order better to play into one another’s hands) they demeaned themselves as if they had hitherto been mutual strangers, and each delivered an unbiassed testimony to the other’s excellence. [542]

That such premeditated dissimulation might not be imputed to John, and indirectly to Jesus, it has been sought to disprove the existence of the contradiction in question exegetically. What John learned from the heavenly sign was the Messiahship of Jesus; to this therefore, and not to his person, refer the words, I knew him not, κᾀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτὸν. [543] But it may be questioned whether such an acquaintance as John must have had with Jesus, presupposing the narrative of Matthew and Luke, was separable from a knowledge of his Messiahship. The connection and intercourse of the two families, as described by Luke, would render it impossible for John not to be early informed how solemnly Jesus had been announced as the Messiah, before and at his birth; he could not therefore say at a later period that, prior to the sign from heaven, he had not known, but only that he had not believed, the story of former wonders, one of which relates to himself. [544] It being thus unavoidable to acknowledge that by the above declaration in the fourth Gospel, the Baptist is excluded, not only from a knowledge of the Messiahship of Jesus, but also from a personal acquaintance with him; it has been attempted to reconcile the first chapter of Luke with this ignorance, by appealing to the distance of residence between the two families, as a preventive to the continuance of their intercourse. [545] But if the journey from Nazareth to the hill country of Judea was not too formidable for the betrothed Mary, how could it be so for the two sons when ripening to maturity? What culpable indifference is hereby supposed in both families to the heavenly communications they had received! nay, what could be the object of those communications, if they had no influence on the early life and intercourse of the two sons? [546]

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. [547] 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!” [548]

The contradiction cannot be cleared away; we must therefore, if we would not lay the burthen of intentional deception on the agents, let the narrators bear the blame; and there will be the less hindrance to our doing so, the more obvious it is how one or both of them might be led into an erroneous statement. There is in the present case no obstacle to the reconciliation of Matthew with the fourth evangelist, farther than the words by which the Baptist seeks to deter Jesus from receiving baptism; words which, if uttered before the occurrence of anything supernatural, presuppose a knowledge of Jesus in his character of Messiah. Now the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius, places the entreaty of John that Jesus would baptize him, as a sequel to the sign from heaven; [549] and this account has been recently regarded as the original one, abridged by the writer of our first Gospel, who, for the sake of effect, made the refusal and confession of the Baptist coincident with the first approach of Jesus. [550] But that we have not in the Gospel of the Hebrews the original form of the narrative, is sufficiently proved by its very tedious repetition of the heavenly voice and the diffuse style of the whole. It is rather a very traditional record, and the insertion of John’s refusal after the sign and voice from heaven, was not made with the view of avoiding a contradiction of the fourth Gospel, which cannot be supposed to have been recognized in the circle of the Ebionite Christians, but from the very motive erroneously attributed to Matthew in his alleged transposition, namely, to give greater effect to the scene. A simple refusal on the part of the Baptist appeared too weak; he must at least fall at the feet of Jesus; and a more suitable occasion could not be given than that of the sign from heaven, which accordingly must be placed beforehand. This Hebrew Gospel, therefore, will not help us to understand how Matthew was led into contradiction with John; still less will it avail for the explanation of Luke’s narrative.

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.

§ 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.

The first impression from this is, that the question denoted an uncertainty on the part of the Baptist whether Jesus were really the Messiah; and so it was early understood. [551] But such a doubt is in direct contradiction with all the other circumstances reported by the Evangelists. It is justly regarded as psychologically impossible that he whose belief was originated or confirmed by the baptismal sign, which he held to be a divine revelation, and who afterwards pronounced so decidedly on the Messianic call and the superior nature of Jesus, should all at once have become unsteady in his conviction; he must then indeed have been like a reed shaken by the wind, a comparison which Jesus abnegates on this very occasion (Matt. xi. 7). A cause for such vacillation is in vain sought in the conduct or fortunes of Jesus at the time; for the rumour of the works of Christ, ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, which in Luke’s idea were miracles, could not awaken doubt in the Baptist, and it was on this rumour that he sent his message. Lastly, how could Jesus subsequently (John v. 33 ff.) so confidently appeal to the testimony of the Baptist concerning him, when it was known that John himself was at last perplexed about his Messiahship? [552]

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. [553] 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, [554] 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). [555]

If then it must be granted that John made his inquiry on his own behalf, and not on that of his disciples, and if nevertheless we cannot impute to him a sudden lapse into doubt after his previous confidence; nothing remains but to take the positive instead of the negative side of the question, and to consider its scepticism as the mere garb of substantial encouragement. [556] On this interpretation, the time which Jesus allowed to escape without publicly manifesting himself as the Messiah, seemed too tedious to John in his imprisonment; he sent therefore to inquire how long Jesus would allow himself to be waited for, how long he would delay winning to himself the better part of the people by a declaration of his Messiahship, and striking a decisive blow against the enemies of his cause—a blow that might even liberate the Baptist from his prison. But if the Baptist, on the strength of his belief that Jesus was the Messiah, hoped and sued for a deliverance, perhaps miraculous, by him from prison, he would not clothe in the language of doubt an entreaty which sprang out of his faith. Now the inquiry in our evangelical text is one of unmixed doubt, and encouragement must be foisted in, before it can be found there. How great a violence must be done to the words is seen by the way in which Schleiermacher handles them in accordance with this interpretation. The dubitative question, σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος; he changes into the positive assumption, thou art he who was to come; the other still more embarrassing interrogatory, ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; he completely transfigures thus: wherefore (seeing that thou performest so great works) do we yet await thee?—shall not John with all his authority command, through us, all those who have partaken of his baptism to obey thee as the Messiah, and be attentive to thy signs? Even if we allow, with Neander, the possibility of truth to this interpretation, a mere summons to action will not accord with the earlier representation of Jesus given by the Baptist. The two enunciations are at issue as to form; for if John doubted not the Messiahship of Jesus, neither could he doubt his better knowledge of the fitting time and manner of his appearance: still farther are they at issue as to matter; for the Baptist could not take offence at what is termed the delay of Jesus in manifesting himself as the Messiah, or wish to animate him to bolder conduct, if he retained his early view of the destination of Jesus. If he still, as formerly, conceived Jesus to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Τεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμοῦ, no thought could occur to him of a blow to be struck by Jesus against his enemies, or in general, of a violent procedure to be crowned by external conquest; rather, the quiet path which Jesus trod must appear to him the right one—the path befitting the destination of the Lamb of God. Thus if the question of John conveyed a mere summons to action, it contradicted his previous views.

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.

We come again to the difficulty arising from the statement of Matthew that John sent his two disciples on hearing of the works of Christ, ἀκούσας τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, or as Luke has it, because his disciples showed him of all these things, ἀπήγγειλαν περὶ πάντων τούτων. The latter evangelist has narrated, immediately before, the raising of the widow’s son, and the healing of the centurion’s servant. Could John, then, believe Jesus to be the Messiah before he had performed any messianic works, and be seized with doubt when he began to legitimatize his claim by miracles such as were expected from the Messiah [557]? This is so opposed to all psychological probability, that I wonder Dr. Paulus, or some other expositor versed in psychology and not timid in verbal criticism, has not started the conjecture that a negative has slipped out of Matt. xi. 2, and that its proper reading is, ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης οὐκ ἀκούσας ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, κ.τ.λ. It might then be conceived, that John had indeed been convinced, at a former period, of the Messiahship o£ Jesus; now, however, in his imprisonment, the works of Jesus came no longer to his ears, and imagining him inactive, he was assailed with doubt. But had John been previously satisfied of the Messiahship of Jesus, the mere want of acquaintance with his miracles could not have unhinged his faith. The actual cause of John’s doubt, however, was the report of these miracles;—a state of the case which is irreconcilable with any previous confidence.

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.

We have here, not a decaying, but a growing certainty, and this discrimination throws light on the whole purport of the passages in question. John knew nothing of Jesus before, but that he had, like many others, partaken of his baptism, and perhaps frequented the circle of his disciples; and not until after the imprisonment of the Baptist did Jesus appear as a teacher, and worker of miracles. Of this John heard, and then arose in his mind a conjecture, fraught with hope, that as he had announced the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, this Jesus might be he who would verify his idea. [558] So interpreted, this message of the Baptist excludes his previous testimony; if he had so spoken formerly, he could not have so inquired latterly, and vice versâ. It is our task, therefore, to compare the two contradictory statements, that we may ascertain which has more traces than the other, of truth or untruth.

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.

With respect to the former, the fourth Gospel makes the Baptist’s idea of the Messiah include the characteristics of expiatory suffering, and of a premundane, heavenly existence. It has been attempted, indeed, so to interpret the expressions with which he directs his disciples to Jesus, as to efface the notion of expiatory suffering. Jesus, we are told, is compared to a lamb on account of his meekness and patience; αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, is to be understood either of a patient endurance of the world’s malice, or of an endeavour to remove the sins of the world by reforming it; and the sense of the Baptist’s words is this: “How moving is it that this meek and gentle Jesus should have undertaken so difficult and painful an office [559]!” But the best critics have shown that even if αἴρειν by itself might bear this interpretation, still ἀμνὸς, not merely with the article but with the addition τοῦ Θεοῦ, must signify, not a lamb in general, but a special, holy Lamb; and if, as is most probable, this designation has reference to Isa. liii. 7., αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν can only be expounded by what is there predicated of the lamb-like servant of God, that he τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται (V. 4, LXX.), words which must signify vicarious suffering. [560] Now that the Baptist should have referred the above prophetic passage to the Messiah, and hence have thought of him as suffering, has been recently held more than doubtful. [561]

For so foreign to the current opinion, at least, was this notion of the Messiah, that the disciples of Jesus, during the whole period of their intercourse with him, could not reconcile themselves to it; and when his death had actually resulted, their trust in him as the Messiah was utterly confounded (Luke xxiv. 20 ff.). How, then, could the Baptist, who, according to the solemn declaration of Jesus, Matt. xi. 11, confirmed by the allusions in the Gospels to his strict ascetic life, ranked below the least in the kingdom of heaven, to which the apostles already belonged—how could this alien discern, long before the sufferings of Jesus, that they pertained to the character of the Messiah, when the denizens were only taught the same lesson by the issue? Or, if the Baptist really had such insight, and communicated it to his disciples, why did it not, by means of those who left his circle for that of Jesus, win an entrance into the latter—nay, why did it not, by means of the great credit which John enjoyed, mitigate the offence caused by the death of Jesus, in the public at large [562]? Add to this, that in none of our accounts of the Baptist, with the exception of the fourth Gospel, do we find that he entertained such views of the Messiah’s character; for, not to mention Josephus, the Synoptical Gospels confine his representation of the Messianic office to the spiritual baptism and winnowing of the people. Still it remains possible that a penetrating mind, like that of the Baptist, might, even before the death of Jesus, gather from Old Testament phrases and types the notion of a suffering Messiah, and that his obscure hints on the subject might not be comprehended by his disciples and cotemporaries.

Thus the above considerations are not decisive, and we therefore turn to the expressions concerning the premundane existence and heavenly origin of the Messiah, with the question: Could the Baptist have really held such tenets? That from the words, John i. 15, 27, 30: He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me, ὁ ὀπίσω μοῦ ἐρχόμενος ἔμπροσθέν μοῦ γέγονεν, ὄτι πρῶτος μου ἦν, nothing but dogmatical obstinacy can banish the notion of pre-existence, is seen by a mere glance at such expositions as this of Paulus: “He who in the course of time comes after me; has so appeared in my eyes, ἔμπροσθέν μοῦ, that he (ὅτι—ὥστε, premiss—conclusion!) deserves rather from his rank and character to be called the first.” [563] With preponderating arguments more unprejudiced commentators have maintained, that the reason here given why Jesus, who appeared after the Baptist in point of time, had the precedence of him in dignity, is the pre-existence of the former. [564] We have here obviously the favourite dogma of the fourth Evangelist, the eternal pre-existence of the λόγος, present indeed to the mind of that writer, who had just been inditing his proem, but that it was also present to the mind of the Baptist is another question. The most recent expositor allows that the sense in which the Evangelist intends πρῶτος μοῦ, must have been very remote from the Baptist’s point of view, at least so far as the λόγος is concerned. The Baptist, he thinks, held the popular Jewish notion of the pre-existence of the Messiah, as the subject of the Old Testament theophanies. [565] There are traces of this Jewish notion in the writings of Paul (e.g. 1 Cor. x. 4. Col. i. 15 f.) and the rabbins [566]; and allowing that it was of Alexandrian origin, as Bretschneider argues, [567] we may yet ask whether even before the time of Christ, the Alexandrian-judaic theology may not have modified the opinions of the mother country? [568] Even these expressions then, taken alone, are not conclusive, although it begins to appear suspicious that the Baptist, otherwise conspicuous for exhibiting the practical side of the idea of the Messiah’s kingdom, should have ascribed to him by the fourth Evangelist solely, two notions which at that time undoubtedly belonged only to the deepest messianic speculations; and that the form in which those notions are expressed is too peculiarly that of the writer, not to be put to his account.

We arrive at a more decisive result by taking into examination the passage John iii. 27–36, where John replies to the complaints of his disciples at the rival baptism of Jesus, in a way that reduces all commentators to perplexity. After showing how it lay at the foundation of their respective destinies, which he desired not to overstep, that he must decrease, while Jesus must increase, he proceeds (ver. 31) to use forms of expression precisely similar to those in which the Evangelist makes Jesus speak of himself, and in which he delivers his own thoughts concerning Jesus. Our most recent commentator [569] allows that this discourse of John seems the echo of the foregoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. [570] The expressions in the speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly those of the apostle John; for instance, σφραγίζω (to seal), μαρτυρία (testimony), the antithesis of ἄνωθεν and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (from above and of the earth), the phrase ἔχειν ζωὴν αἰώνιον (to have eternal life); and the question presents itself: Is it more probable that the Evangelist, as well as Jesus, in whose mouth these expressions are so often put, borrowed them from the Baptist, or that the Evangelist lent them (I will only at present say) to the latter? This must be decided by the fact that the ideas, to which the Baptist here gives utterance, lie entirely within the domain of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the Apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of ἄνω (from above), and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος (he that cometh from above), as ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς (he whom God hath sent), who consequently τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ λαλεῖ (speaketh the words of God), the relation of Jesus to God as the υἱὸς (son), whom ὁ πατὲρ ἀγαπᾷ (the Father loveth):—what can be characteristic of Christianity, and of the Apostle John’s mode of presenting it, if these ideas are not so? and could they belong to the Baptist? Christianismus ante Christum! And then, as Olshausen well observes, [571] is it consistent for John, who, even on the fourth Evangelist’s own showing, remained separate from Jesus, to speak of the blessedness of a believing union with him? (v. 33 and 36).

Thus much then is certain, and has been acknowledged by the majority of modern commentators: the words v. 31–36 cannot have been spoken by the Baptist. Hence theologians have concluded, that the Evangelist cannot have intended to ascribe them to him, but from v. 31 speaks in his own person. [572] This sounds plausible, if they can only point out any mark of division between the discourse of the Baptist and the addenda of the Evangelist. But none such is to be found. It is true that the speaker from v. 31 uses the third person, and not the first as in v. 30, when referring to the Baptist: but in the former passage the Baptist is no longer alluded to directly and individually, but as one of a class, in which case he must, though himself the speaker, choose the third person. Thus there is no definitive boundary, and the speech glides imperceptibly from those passages which might have been uttered by the Baptist, into those which are altogether incongruous with his position; moreover from v. 30 Jesus is spoken of in the present tense, as the Evangelist might represent the Baptist to speak during the lifetime of Jesus, but could not in his own person have written after the death of Jesus. In other passages, when presenting his own reflections concerning Jesus, he uses the preterite. [573] Thus, grammatically, the Baptist continues to speak from v. 31, and yet, historically, it is impossible that he should have uttered the sequel; a contradiction not to be solved, if it be added that, dogmatically, the Evangelist cannot have ascribed to the Baptist words which he never really pronounced. Now if we do not choose to defy the clear rules of grammar, and the sure data of history, for the sake of the visionary dogma of inspiration, we shall rather conclude from the given premises, with the author of the Probabilia, that the Evangelist falsely ascribes the language in question to the Baptist, putting into his mouth a Christology of his own, of which the latter could know nothing. This is no more than Lücke [574] confesses, though not quite so frankly, when he says that the reflections of the Evangelist are here more than equally mixed with the discourse of the Baptist, in such a way as to be undistinguishable. In point of fact, however, the reflections of the Evangelist are easily to be recognized; but of the fundamental ideas of the Baptist there is no trace, unless they are sought for with a good will which amounts to prejudice, and to which therefore we make no pretension. If then we have a proof in the passages just considered, that the fourth Evangelist did not hesitate to lend to the Baptist messianic and other ideas which were never his; we may hence conclude retrospectively concerning the passages on which we formerly suspended our decision, that the ideas expressed in them of a suffering and pre-existent Messiah belonged, not to the Baptist, but to the Evangelist.

In giving the above reply to our first question, we have, in strictness, answered the remaining one; for if the Baptist had no such messianic ideas, he could not refer them to the person of Jesus. But to strengthen the evidence for the result already obtained, we will make the second question the object of a special examination. According to the fourth Evangelist the Baptist ascribed to Jesus all the messianic attributes above discussed. If he did this so enthusiastically, publicly, and repeatedly, as we read in John, he could not have been excluded by Jesus from the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xi. 11), nor have been placed below the least of its citizens. For such a confession as that of the Baptist, when he calls Jesus the υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, who was before him,—such refined insight into the messianic economy, as is shown by his designating Jesus ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, Peter himself had not to produce, though Jesus not only receives him into the kingdom of heaven for his confession, Matt. xvi. 16, but constitutes him the rock on which that kingdom was to be founded. But we have something yet more incomprehensible. John, in the fourth gospel, gives it as the object of his baptism, ἵνα φανερωθῆ (Jesus as Messiah) τῷ Ἰσραὴλ (i. 31), and acknowledges it to be the divine ordinance, that by the side of the increasing Jesus, he must decrease (iii. 30); nevertheless after Jesus had begun to baptize by the instrumentality of his disciples, John continues to practise his baptism (iii. 32). Why so, if he knew the object of his baptism to be fulfilled by the introduction of Jesus, and if he directed his followers to him as the Messiah? (i. 36 f.). [575] The continuance of his baptism would be to no purpose; for Lücke’s supposition that John’s baptism was still of effect in those places where Jesus had not appeared, he himself overthrows by the observation, that at least at the period treated of in John iii. 22 ff., Jesus and John must have been baptizing near to each other, since the disciples of John were jealous of the concourse to the baptism of Jesus. But the continuance of John’s baptism appears even to counteract his aim, if that aim were merely to point out Jesus as the Messiah. He thereby detained a circle of individuals on the borders of the Messiah’s kingdom, and retarded or hindered their going over to Jesus (and that through his own fault, not theirs alone, [576] for he nullified his verbal direction to Jesus by his contradictory example). Accordingly we find the party of John’s disciples still existing in the time of the Apostle Paul (Acts xviii. 24 f., xix. 1 ff.); and, if the Sabæans are to be credited concerning their own history, the sect remains to this day. [577] Certainly, presupposing the averred conviction of the Baptist relative to Jesus, it would seem most natural for him to have attached himself to the latter; this, however, did not happen, and hence we conclude that he cannot have had that conviction. [578]

But chiefly the character and entire demeanour of the Baptist render it impossible to believe that he placed himself on that footing with Jesus, described by the fourth evangelist. How could the man of the wilderness, the stern ascetic, who fed on locusts and wild honey, and prescribed severe fasts to his disciples, the gloomy, threatening preacher of repentance, animated with the spirit of Elias—how could he form a friendship with Jesus, in every thing his opposite? He must assuredly, with his disciples, have stumbled at the liberal manners of Jesus, and have been hindered by them from recognizing him as the Messiah. Nothing is more unbending than ascetic prejudice; he who, like the Baptist, esteems it piety to fast and mortify the body, will never assign a high grade in things divine to him who disregards such asceticism. A mind with narrow views can never comprehend one whose vision takes a wider range, although the latter may know how to do justice to its inferior; hence Jesus could value and sanction John in his proper place, but the Baptist could never give the precedence to Jesus, as he is reported to have done in the fourth gospel. The declaration of the Baptist (John iii. 30), that he must decrease, but Jesus must increase, is frequently praised as an example of the noblest and sublimest resignation. [579] The beauty of this representation we grant; but not its truth. The instance would be a solitary one, if a man whose life had its influence on the world’s history, had so readily yielded the ascendant, in his own æra, to one who came to eclipse him and render him superfluous. Such a step is not less difficult for individuals than for nations, and that not from any vice, as egotism or ambition, so that an exception might be presumed (though not without prejudice) in the case of a man like the Baptist; it is a consequence of that blameless limitation which, as we have already remarked, is proper to a low point of view in relation to a higher, and which is all the more obstinately maintained if the inferior individual is, like John, of a coarse, rugged nature. Only from the divine point of view, or from that of an historian, bent on establishing religious doctrines, could such things be spoken, and the fourth Evangelist has in fact put into the mouth of the Baptist the very same thoughts concerning the relation between him and Jesus, that the compiler of the 2nd book of Samuel has communicated, as his own observation, on the corresponding relation between Saul and David. [580] Competent judges have recently acknowledged that there exists a discrepancy between the synoptical gospels and the fourth, the blame of which must be imputed to the latter: [581] and this opinion is confirmed and strengthened by the fact that the fourth Evangelist transforms the Baptist into a totally different character from that in which he appears in the Synoptical gospels and in Josephus; out of a practical preacher he makes a speculative christologist; out of a hard and unbending, a yielding and self-renunciating nature.

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, [582] 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.

From the foregoing considerations, it is inconceivable that John should ever have held and pronounced Jesus to be the Messiah: but it is easy to show how a belief that he did so might obtain, without historical foundation. According to Acts xix. 4, the Apostle Paul declares what seems sufficiently guaranteed by history, that John baptized εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, and this coming Messiah, adds Paul, to whom John pointed was Jesus (τουτέστιν εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν). This was an interpretation of the Baptist’s words by the issue; for Jesus had approved himself to a great number of his cotemporaries, as the Messiah announced by John. There was but a step to the notion that the Baptist himself had, under the ἐρχόμενος, understood the individual Jesus,—had himself the τουτέστιν, κ.τ.λ. in his mind; a view which, however unhistorical, would be inviting to the early Christians, in proportion to their wish to sustain the dignity of Jesus by the authority of the Baptist, then very influential in the Jewish world. [583] There was yet another reason, gathered from the Old Testament. The ancestor of the Messiah, David, had likewise in the old Hebrew legend a kind of forerunner in the person of Samuel, who by order from Jehovah anointed him to be king over Israel (1 Sam. xvi.), and afterwards stood in the relation of a witness to his claims. If then it behoved the Messiah to have a forerunner, who, besides, was more closely characterized in the prophecy of Malachi as a second Elias, and if, historically, Jesus was preceded by John, whose baptism as a consecration corresponded to an anointing; the idea was not remote of conforming the relation between John and Jesus to that between Samuel and David.

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.

According to Josephus, [584] Herod imprisoned John from fear of disturbances: allowing this to be merely a joint cause with that given by the Evangelist, it is yet difficult to believe that to a man, one motive of whose imprisonment was to seclude him from his followers, his disciples should have retained free access; although we cannot prove it an impossibility that circumstances might favour the admission of certain individuals. Now that the message was sent from prison we learn from Matthew alone; Luke says nothing of it, although he tells of the message. We might hence, with Schleiermacher, [585] consider Luke’s account the true one, and the δεσμωτηρίῳ of Matthew an unhistorical addition. But that critic has himself very convincingly shown, from the tedious amplifications, partly betraying even misunderstanding, which the narrative of Luke contains (vii. 20, 21, 29, 30), that Matthew gives the incident in its original, Luke in a revised form. [586] It would indeed be singular if Matthew had supplied the δεσμωτηρίῳ when it was originally wanting; it is far more natural to suppose that Luke, who in the whole paragraph appears as a reviser, expunged the original mention of the prison.

In judging of Luke’s motives for so doing, we are led to notice the difference in the dates given by the evangelists for the imprisonment of John. Matthew, with whom Mark agrees, places it before the public appearance of Jesus in Galilee; for he gives it as the motive for the return of Jesus into that province (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14). Luke assigns no precise date to the arrest of the Baptist (iii. 19 f.), yet it is to be inferred from his silence about the prison, in connexion with the sending of the two disciples, that he regarded it as a later occurrence; but John expressly says, that after the first passover attended by Jesus in his public character, John was not yet cast into prison (iii. 24). If it be asked, who is right? we answer that there is something on the face of the account of the first Evangelist, which has inclined many commentators to renounce it in favour of the two last. That Jesus, on the report of John’s imprisonment in Galilee by Herod Antipas, should have returned into the dominions of that prince for the sake of safety, is, as Schneckenburger well maintains, [587] highly improbable, since there, of all places, he was the least secure from a similar fate. But even if it be held impossible to dissociate the ἀνεχώρησεν (he withdrew) from the cognate idea of seeking security, we may still ask whether, disregarding the mistake in the motive, the fact itself may not be maintained. Matthew and Mark connect with this journey into Galilee after John’s imprisonment, the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus; and that this was consequent on the removal of the Baptist, I am quite inclined to believe. For it is in itself the most natural that the exit of the Baptist should incite Jesus to carry on in his stead the preaching of μετανοιεῖτἐ· ἦγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν; and the canon cited above is entirely in favour of Matthew. For if it be asked which fiction best accords with the aggrandising spirit of the Christian legend,—that of John’s removal before the appearance of Jesus, or that of their having long laboured in conjunction?—the answer must be, the latter. If he to whom the hero of a narrative is superior disappears from the scene before the entrance of the latter, the crowning opportunity for the hero to demonstrate his ascendancy is lost—the full splendour of the rising sun can only be appreciated, when the waning moon is seen above the horizon, growing paler and paler in the presence of the greater luminary. Such is the case in the Gospels of Luke and John, while Matthew and Mark rest satisfied with the less effective representation. Hence, as the least calculated to magnify Jesus, the account of Matthew has the advantage in historical probability.

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.

§ 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.

This scene, peculiar to the fourth gospel, in which John rejects the title of Elias, with several others, demands a yet closer examination, and must be compared with a narrative in Luke (iii. 15), to which it has a striking similarity. In Luke, the crowd assembled round the Baptist begin to think: Is not this the Christ? μήποτε αὐτὸς εἴη ὁ Χριστός· in John, the deputies of the Sanhedrim [588] ask him, Who art thou? σὺ τίς εἶ; which we infer from the Baptist’s answer to mean: “Art thou, as is believed, the Messiah?” [589] According to Luke, the Baptist answers, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. According to John he gives a similar reply: I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you whom ye know not; He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes’ latchet I am not worthy to unloose: the latter Evangelist adding his peculiar propositions concerning the pre-existence of Jesus, and deferring to another occasion (v. 33) the mention of the Messiah’s spiritual baptism, which Luke gives in immediate connexion with the above passage. In Luke, and still more decidedly in John, this whole scene is introduced with a design to establish the Messiahship of Jesus, by showing that the Baptist had renounced that dignity, and attributed it to one who should come after him. If at the foundation of two narratives so similar, there can scarcely be more than one fact, [590] the question is, which gives that fact the most faithfully? In Luke’s account there is no intrinsic improbability; on the contrary it is easy to imagine, that the people, congregated round the man who announced the Messiah’s kingdom, and baptized with a view to it, should, in moments of enthusiasm, believe him to be the Messiah. But that the Sanhedrim should send from Jerusalem to John on the banks of the Jordan, for the sake of asking him whether he were the Messiah, seems less natural. Their object could only be what, on a later occasion, it was with respect to Jesus (Matt. xxi. 23 ff.), namely, to challenge the authority of John to baptize, as appears from v. 25. Moreover, from the hostile position which John had taken towards the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. iii. 7), to whom the members of the Sanhedrim belonged, they must have prejudged that he was not the Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that he had no right to undertake a βάπτισμα. But in that case, they could not possibly have so put their questions as they are reported to have done in the fourth gospel. In the passage from Mathew above cited, they asked Jesus, quite consistently with their impression that he had no prophetic authority: ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς; By what authority doest thou these things? but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they pre-supposed him to be the Messiah, and when he, apparently to their consternation, has denied this, they tender him successively the dignities of Elias, and of another prophetic forerunner, as if they earnestly wished him to accept one of these titles. Searching opponents will not thus thrust the highest honours on the man to whom they are inimical;—this is the representation of a narrator who wishes to exhibit the modesty of the man, and his subordination to Jesus, by his rejection of those brilliant titles. To enable him to reject them, they must have been offered; but this could in reality only be done by well-wishers, as in Luke, where the conjecture that the Baptist was the Messiah is attributed to the people.

Why then did not the fourth Evangelist attribute those questions likewise to the people, from whom, with a slight alteration, they would have seemed quite natural? Jesus, when addressing the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, (John v. 33), appeals to their message to the Baptist, and to the faithful testimony then given by the latter. Had John given his declaration concerning his relation to Jesus before the common people merely, such an appeal would have been impossible; for if Jesus were to refer his enemies to the testimony of John, that testimony must have been delivered before his enemies; if the assertions of the Baptist were to have any diplomatic value, they must have resulted from the official inquiry of a magisterial deputation. Such a remodelling of the facts appears to have been aided by the above-mentioned narrative from the synoptical traditions, wherein the high priests and scribes ask Jesus, by what authority he does such things (as the casting out of the buyers and sellers). Here also Jesus refers to John, asking for their opinion as to the authority of his baptism, only, it is true, with the negative view of repressing their further inquiries (Matt. xxi. 23 ff. parall.); but how easily might this reference be made to take an affirmative sense, and instead of the argument, “If ye know not what powers were entrusted to John, ye need not know whence mine are given,”—the following be substituted: “Since ye know what John has declared concerning me, ye must also know what power and dignity belong to me;” whereupon what was originally a question addressed to Jesus, transformed itself into a message to the Baptist. [591]

The judgment of Jesus on the character of John is delivered on two occasions in the synoptical gospels; first after the departure of John’s messengers (Matt xi. 7 ff.); secondly, after the appearance of Elias at the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 12 ff.), in reply to the question of a disciple. In the fourth gospel, after an appeal to the Baptist’s testimony, Jesus pronounces an eulogium on him in the presence of the Jews (v. 35), after referring, as above remarked, to their sending to John. In this passage he calls the Baptist a burning and a shining light, in whose beams the fickle people were for a season willing to rejoice. In one synoptical passage, he declares John to be the promised Elias; in the other, there are three points to be distinguished. First, with respect to the character and agency of John,—the severity and firmness of his mind, and the pre-eminence which as the messianic forerunner, who with forcible hand had opened the kingdom of heaven, he maintained even over the prophets, are extolled (v. 7–14); secondly, in relation to Jesus and the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, the Baptist, though exalted above all the members of the Old Testament economy, is declared to be in the rear of every one on whom, through Jesus, the new light had arisen (v. 11). We see how Jesus understood this from what follows (v. 18), when we compare it with Matt. ix. 16 f. In the former passage Jesus describes John as μήτε ἐσθίων μήτε πίνων, neither eating nor drinking; and in the latter it is this very asceticism which is said to liken him to the ἱματίοις and ἀσκοῖς παλαιοῖς, the old garments and old bottles, with which the new, introduced by Jesus, will not agree. What else then could it be, in which the Baptist was beneath the children of the kingdom of Jesus, but (in connexion with his non-recognition or only qualified acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah) the spirit of external observance, which still clung to fasting and similar works, and his gloomy asceticism? And, in truth, freedom from these is the test of transition from a religion of bondage, to one of liberty and spirituality. [592] Thirdly, with respect to the relation in which the agency of John and Jesus stood to their cotemporaries, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations of both is complained of v. 16 ff., although in v. 12 it is observed, that the violent zeal of some βιασταὶ had, under the guidance of John, wrested for them an entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah. [593]

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.

§ 48.

THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

We here take under our examination, by way of appendix, all that has been transmitted to us concerning the tragic end of the Baptist. According to the unanimous testimony of the synoptical Evangelists and Josephus, [594] he was executed, after a protracted imprisonment, by order of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee; and in the New Testament accounts he is said to have been beheaded. (Matt. xiv. 3 ff.; Mark vi. 17 ff.; Luke ix. 9.)

But Josephus and the Evangelists are at variance as to the cause of his imprisonment and execution. According to the latter, the censure which John had pronounced on the marriage of Herod with his (half) brother’s [595] wife, was the cause of his imprisonment, and the revengeful cunning of Herodias, at a court festival, of his death: Josephus gives the fear of disturbances, which was awakened in Herod by the formidable train of the Baptist’s followers, as the cause at once of the imprisonment and the execution. [596] If these two accounts be considered as distinct and irreconcilable, it may be doubted which of the two deserves the preference. It is not here as in the case of Herod Agrippa’s death, Acts xii. 23, viz., that the New Testament narrative, by intermixing a supernatural cause where Josephus has only a natural one, enables us to prejudge it as unhistorical; on the contrary, we might here give the palm to the evangelical narrative, for the particularity of its details. But on the other hand, it must be considered that that very particularity, and especially the conversion of a political into a personal motive, corresponds fully to the development of the legendary spirit among the people, whose imagination is more at home in domestic than in political circles. [597] Meanwhile it is quite possible to reconcile the two narratives. This has been attempted by conjecturing, that the fear of insurrection was the proper cabinet motive for the imprisonment of the Baptist, while the irreverent censure passed on the ruler was thrust forward as the ostensible motive. [598] But I greatly doubt whether Herod would designedly expose the scandalous point touched on by John; it is more likely, if a distinction is to be here made between a private and ostensible cause, that the censure of the marriage was the secret reason, and the fear of insurrection disseminated as an excuse for extreme severity. [599] Such a distinction, however, is not needed; for Antipas might well fear, that John, by his strong censure of the marriage and the whole course of the tetrarch’s life, might stir up the people into rebellion against him.

But there is a diversity even between the evangelical narratives themselves, not only in this, that Mark gives the scene at the feast with the most graphic details, while Luke is satisfied with a concise statement (iii. 18–20, ix. 9), and Matthew takes a middle course; but Mark’s representation of the relation between Herod and the Baptist differs essentially from that of Matthew. While according to the latter, Herod wished to kill John, but was withheld by his dread of the people, who looked on the Baptist as a prophet (v. 5); according to Mark, it was Herodias who conspired against his life, but could not attain her object, because her husband was in awe of John as a holy man, sometimes heard him gladly, and not seldom followed his counsel (v. 19). [600] Here, again, the individualizing characteristic of Mark’s narrative has induced commentators to prefer it to that of Matthew. [601] But in the finishing touches and alterations of Mark we may detect the hand of tradition; especially as Josephus merely says of the people, that they gave ear to the sound of his words, ἤρθησαν τῇ ἀκροάσει τῶν λόγων, while he says of Herod, that having conceived fears of John, he judged it expedient to put him to death, δείσας κρεῖττον ἡγεῖται (τὸν Ἰωάννην) ἀναιρεῖν. How near lay the temptation to exalt the Baptist, by representing the prince against whom he had spoken, and by whom he was imprisoned, as feeling bound to venerate him, and only, to his remorse, seduced into giving his death-warrant, by his vindictive wife! It may be added, that the account of Matthew is not inconsistent with the character of Antipas, as gathered from other sources. [602]

The close of the evangelical narratives leaves the impression that the dissevered head of John was presented at table, and that the prison was consequently close at hand. But we learn from the passage in Josephus above cited, that the Baptist was confined in Machærus, a fortress on the southern border of Peræa, whereas the residence of Herod was in Tiberias, [603] a day’s journey distant from Machærus. Hence the head of John the Baptist could only be presented to Herod after two days’ journey, and not while he yet sat at table. The contradiction here apparent is not to be removed by the consideration, that it is not expressly said in the Gospels that John’s head was brought in during the meal, for this is necessarily inferred from the entire narrative. Not only are the commission of the executioner and his return with the head, detailed in immediate connexion with the incidents of the meal; but only thus has the whole dramatic scene its appropriate conclusion;—only thus is the contrast complete, which is formed by the death-warrant and the feast: in fine, the πίναξ, on which the dissevered head is presented, marks it as the costliest viand which the unnatural revenge of a woman could desire at table. But we have, as a probable solution, the information of Josephus, [604] that Herod Antipas was then at war with the Arabian king, Aretas, between whose kingdom and his own lay the fortress of Machærus; and there Herod might possibly have resided with his court at that period.

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.

II. BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS

§ 49.

WHY DID JESUS RECEIVE BAPTISM FROM JOHN?

In conformity with the evangelical view of the fact, the customary answer given by the orthodox to this question is, that Jesus, by his submission to John’s baptism, signified his consecration to the messianic office; an explanation which is supported by a passage in Justin, according to which it was the Jewish notion, that the Messiah would be unknown as such to himself and others, until Elias as his forerunner should anoint him, and thereby make him distinguishable by all. [605] The Baptist himself, however, as he is represented by the first Evangelist, could not have partaken of this design; for had he regarded his baptism as a consecration which the Messiah must necessarily undergo, he would not have hesitated to perform it on the person of Jesus (iii. 14).

Our former inquiries have shown that John’s baptism related partly εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, its recipients promising a believing preparation for the expected Messiah; how then could Jesus, if he was conscious of being himself the ἐρχόμενος, submit himself to this baptism? The usual answer from the orthodox point of view is, that Jesus, although conscious of his Messiahship, yet, so long as it was not publicly attested by God, spoke and acted, not as Messiah, but merely as an Israelite, who held himself bound to obey every divine ordinance relative to his nation. [606] But, here, there is a distinction to be made. Negatively, it became Jesus to refrain from performing any messianic deeds, or using any of the Messiah’s prerogatives, before his title was solemnly attested; even positively, it became him to submit himself to the ordinances which were incumbent on every Israelite; but to join in a new rite, which symbolized the expectation of another and a future Messiah, could never, without dissimulation, be the act of one who was conscious of being the actual Messiah himself. More recent theologians have therefore wisely admitted, that when Jesus came to John for baptism, he had not a decided conviction of his Messiahship. [607] They indeed regard this uncertainty as only the struggle of modesty. Paulus, for instance, observes that Jesus, notwithstanding he had heard from his parents of his messianic destination, and had felt this first intimation confirmed by many external incidents, as well as by his own spiritual development, was yet not over eager to appropriate the honour, which had been as it were thrust upon him. But, if the previous narratives concerning Jesus be regarded as a history, and therefore, of necessity, as a supernatural one; then must he, who was heralded by angels, miraculously conceived, welcomed into the world by the homage of magi and prophets, and who in his twelfth year knew the temple to be his Father’s house, have long held a conviction of his Messiahship, above all the scruples of a false modesty. If on the contrary it be thought possible, by criticism, to reduce the history of the childhood of Jesus to a merely natural one, there is no longer anything to account for his early belief that he was the Messiah; and the position which he adopted by the reception of John’s baptism becomes, instead of an affected diffidence, a real ignorance of his messianic destiny.—Too modest, continue these commentators, to declare himself Messiah on his own authority, Jesus fulfilled all that the strictest self-judgment could require, and wished to make the decisive experiment, whether the Deity would allow that he, as well as every other, should dedicate himself to the coming Messiah, or whether a sign would be granted, that he himself was the ἐρχόμενος. But to do something seen to be inappropriate, merely to try whether God will correct the mistake, is just such a challenging of the divine power as Jesus, shortly after his baptism, decidedly condemns. Thus it must be allowed that, the baptism of John being a baptism εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, if Jesus could submit himself to it without dissimulation or presumption, he could not at the time have held himself to be that ἐρχόμενος, and if he really uttered the words οὕτω πρέπον ἐστὶ, κ.τ.λ., Suffer it to be so now, etc. (which, however, could only be called forth by the refusal of the Baptist—a refusal that stands or falls with his previous conviction of the Messiahship of Jesus), he could only mean by them, that it became him, with every pious Israelite, to devote himself by anticipation to the expected Messiah, in baptism, although the Evangelist, instructed by the issue, put on them a different construction.

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? [608] and an heretical apocryphal work appears to have attributed to Jesus a confession of his own sins at his baptism. [609]

The sum of what modern theologians have contributed towards the removal of this difficulty, consists in the application to Jesus of the distinction between what a man is as an individual, and what he is as a member of the community. He needed, say they, no repentance on his own behalf, but, aware of its necessity for all other men, the children of Abraham not excepted, he wished to demonstrate his approval of an institute which confirmed this truth, and hence he submitted to it. But let the reader only take a nearer view of the facts. According to Matt. iii. 6, John appears to have required a confession of sins previous to baptism; such a confession Jesus, presupposing his impeccability, could not deliver without falsehood; if he refused, John would hardly baptize him, for he did not yet believe him to be the Messiah, and from every other Israelite he must have considered a confession of sins indispensable. The non-compliance of Jesus might very probably originate the dispute to which Matthew gives a wholly different character; but certainly, if the refusal of John had such a cause, the matter could scarcely have been adjusted by a mere suffer it to be so now, for no confession being given, the Baptist would not have perceived that all righteousness was fulfilled. Even supposing that a confession was not required of every baptized person, John would not conclude the ceremony of baptism without addressing the neophyte on the subject of repentance. Could Jesus tacitly sanction such an address to himself, when conscious that he needed no regeneration? and would he not, in so doing, perplex the minds which were afterwards to believe in him as the sinless one? We will even abandon the position that John so addressed the neophytes, and only urge that the gestures of those who plunged into the purifying water must have been those of contrition; yet if Jesus conformed himself to these even in silence, without referring them to his own condition, he cannot be absolved from the charge of dissimulation.

There is then no alternative but to suppose, that as Jesus had not, up to the time of his baptism, thought of himself as the Messiah, so with regard to the μετάνοια (repentance), he may have justly ranked himself amongst the most excellent in Israel, without excluding himself from what is predicated in Job iv. 18, xv. 15. There is little historical ground for controverting this; for the words, which of you convinceth me of sin? (John viii. 46) could only refer to open delinquencies, and to a later period in the life of Jesus. The scene in his twelfth year, even if historical, could not by itself prove a sinless development of his powers.

§ 50.

THE SCENE AT THE BAPTISM OF JESUS CONSIDERED AS SUPERNATURAL AND AS NATURAL.

At the moment that John had completed his baptism of Jesus, the synoptical gospels tell us that the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven designated him the Son of God, in whom the Father was well pleased. The fourth Evangelist (i. 32 ff.) makes the Baptist narrate that he saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, and remain on Jesus; but as in the immediate context John says of his baptism, that it was destined for the manifestation of the Messiah, and as the description of the descending dove corresponds almost verbally with the synoptical accounts, it is not to be doubted that the same event is intended. The old and lost Gospels of Justin and the Ebionites give, as concomitants, a heavenly light, and a flame bursting out of the Jordan; [610] in the dove and heavenly voice also, they have alterations, hereafter to be noticed. For whose benefit the appearance was granted, remains doubtful on a comparison of the various narratives. In John, where the Baptist recites it to his followers, these seem not to have been eye-witnesses; and from his stating that he who sent him to baptize, promised the descent and repose of the Spirit as a mark of the Messiah, we gather that the appearance was designed specially for the Baptist. According to Mark it is Jesus, who, in ascending from the water, sees the heavens open and the Spirit descend. Even in Matthew it is the most natural to refer εἶδε, he saw, and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ, were opened to him, to ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Jesus, the subject immediately before; but as it is said, in continuation, that he saw the Holy Spirit ἐρχόμενον ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, not εφ’ αὑτὸν (Mark’s ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, which does not agree with his construction, is explained by his dependence on Matthew), the beholder seems not to be the same as he on whom the Spirit descended, and we are obliged to refer εἶδε and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ to the more remote antecedent, namely the Baptist, who, as the heavenly voice speaks of Jesus in the third person, is most naturally to be regarded as also a witness. Luke appears to give a much larger number of spectators to the scene, for according to him, Jesus was baptized ἐν τῷ βαπτισθῆναι ἅπαντα τὸν λαὸν, when all the people were baptized, and consequently he must have supposed that the scene described occurred in their presence. [611]

The narrations directly convey no other meaning, than that the whole scene was externally visible and audible, and thus they have been always understood by the majority of commentators. But in endeavouring to conceive the incident as a real one, a cultivated and reflecting mind must stumble at no insignificant difficulties. First, that for the appearance of a divine being on earth, the visible heavens must divide themselves, to allow of his descent from his accustomed seat, is an idea that can have no objective reality, but must be the entirely subjective creation of a time when the dwelling-place of Deity was imagined to be above the vault of heaven. Further, how is it reconcilable with the true idea of the Holy Spirit as the divine, all-pervading Power, that he should move from one place to another, like a finite being, and embody himself in the form of a dove? Finally, that God should utter articulate tones in a national idiom, has been justly held extravagant. [612]

Even in the early church, the more enlightened fathers adopted the opinion, that the heavenly voices spoken of in the biblical history were not external sounds, the effect of vibrations in the air, but inward impressions produced by God in the minds of those to whom he willed to impart himself: thus of the appearance at the baptism of Jesus, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia maintain that it was a vision, and not a reality, ὀπτασία, οὐ φύσις. [613] To the simple indeed, says Origen, in their simplicity, it is a light thing to set the universe in motion, and to sever a solid mass like the heavens; but those who search more deeply into such matters, will, he thinks, refer to those higher revelations, by means of which chosen persons, even waking, and still more frequently in their dreams, are led to suppose that they perceive something with their bodily senses, while their minds only are affected: so that consequently, the whole appearance in question should be understood, not as an external incident, but as an inward vision sent by God; an interpretation which has also met with much approbation among modern theologians.

In the first two Gospels and in the fourth, this interpretation is favoured by the expressions, were opened to him, ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ, he saw, εἶδε, and I beheld, τεθέαμαι, which seem to imply that the appearance was subjective, in the sense intended by Theodore, when he observes that the descent of the Holy Spirit was not seen by all present, but that, by a certain spiritual contemplation, it was visible to John alone, οὐ πᾶσιν ὤφθη τοῖς παροῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατά τινα πνευματικὴν θεωρίαν ὤφθη μόνῳ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ: to John however we must add Jesus, who, according to Mark, participated in the vision. But in opposition to this stands the statement of Luke: the expressions which he uses, ἐγένετο—ἀνεῳχθῆναι—καὶ καταβῆναι—καὶ φωνὴν—γενέσθαι, it came to pass—was opened—and descended—and a voice came, bear a character so totally objective and exterior, [614] especially if we add the words, in a bodily form, σωματικῷ εἴδει, that (abiding by the notion of the perfect truthfulness of all the evangelical records) the less explicit narratives must be interpreted by the unequivocal one of Luke, and the incident they recount must be understood as something more than an inward revelation to John and Jesus. Hence it is prudent in Olshausen to allow, in concession to Luke, that there was present on the occasion a crowd of persons, who saw and heard something, yet to maintain that this was nothing distinct or comprehensible. By this means, on the one hand, the occurrence is again transferred from the domain of subjective visions to that of objective phenomena; while on the other, the descending dove is supposed visible, not to the bodily eye, but only to the open spiritual one, and the words audible to the soul, not to the bodily ear. Our understanding fails us in this pneumatology of Olshausen, wherein there are sensible realities transcending the senses; and we hasten out of this misty atmosphere into the clearer one of those, who simply tell us, that the appearance was an external incident, but one purely natural.

This party appeals to the custom of antiquity, to regard natural occurrences as divine intimations, and in momentous crises, where a bold resolution was to be taken, to adopt them as guides. To Jesus, spiritually matured into the Messiah, and only awaiting an external divine sanction, and to the Baptist who had already ceded the superiority to the friend of his youth, in their solemn frame of mind at the baptism of the former by the latter, every natural phenomenon that happened at the time, must have been pregnant with meaning, and have appeared as a sign of the divine will. But what the natural appearance actually was, is a point on which the commentators are divided in opinion. Some, with the synoptical writers, include a sound as well as an appearance; others give, with John, an appearance only. They interpret the opening of the heavens, as a sudden parting of the clouds, or a flash of lightning; the dove they consider as a real bird of that species, which by chance hovered over the head of Jesus; or they assume that the lightning or some meteor was compared to a dove, from the manner of its descent. They who include a sound as a part of the machinery in the scene, suppose a clap of thunder, which was imagined by those present to be a Bath Kol, and interpreted into the words given by the first Evangelist. Others, on the contrary, understand what is said of audible words, merely as an explanation of the visible sign, which was regarded as an attestation that Jesus was the Son of God. This last opinion sacrifices the synoptical writers, who undeniably speak of an audible voice, to John, and thus contains a critical doubt as to the historical character of the narratives, which, consistently followed out, leads to quite other ground than that of the naturalistic interpretation. If the sound was mere thunder, and the words only an interpretation put upon it by the bystanders; then, as in the synoptical accounts, the words are evidently supposed to have been audibly articulated, we must allow that there is a traditional ingredient in these records. So far as the appearance is concerned, it is not to be denied that the sudden parting of clouds, or a flash of lightning, might be described as an opening of heaven; but in nowise could the form of a dove be ascribed to lightning or a meteor. The form is expressly the point of comparison in Luke only, but it is doubtless so intended by the other narrators; although Fritzsche contends that the words like a dove, ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, in Matthew refer only to the rapid motion. The flight of the dove has nothing so peculiar and distinctive, that, supposing this to be the point of comparison, there would not be in any of the parallel passages a variation, a substitution of some other bird, or an entirely new figure. As, instead of this, the mention of the dove is invariable through all the four gospels, the simile must turn upon something exclusively proper to the dove, and this can apparently be nothing but its form. Hence those commit the least violence on the text, who adopt the supposition of a real dove. Paulus, however, in so doing, incurred the hard task of showing by a multitude of facts from natural history and other sources, that the dove might be tame enough to fly towards a man; [615] how it could linger so long over one, that it might be said, ἔμεινεν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, it abode upon him, he has not succeeded in explaining, and he thus comes into collision with the narrative of John, by which he had sustained his supposition of the absence of a voice. [616]

§ 51.

AN ATTEMPT AT A CRITICISM AND MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE NARRATIVES.

If then a more intelligible representation of the scene at the baptism of Jesus is not to be given, without doing violence to the evangelical text, or without supposing it to be partially erroneous, we are necessarily driven to a critical treatment of the accounts; and indeed, according to De Wette and Schleiermacher, [617] this is the prevalent course in relation to the above point in the evangelical history. From the narrative of John, as the pure source, it is sought to derive the synoptical accounts, as turbid streams. In the former, it is said, there is no opening heaven, no heavenly voice; only the descent of the Spirit is, as had been promised, a divine witness to John that Jesus is the Messiah; but in what manner the Baptist perceived that the Spirit rested on Jesus, he does not tell us, and possibly the only sign may have been the discourse of Jesus.

One cannot but wonder at Schleiermacher’s assertion, that the manner in which the Baptist perceived the descending Spirit is not given in the fourth gospel, when here also the expression ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, like a dove, tells it plainly enough; and this particular marks the descent as a visible one, and not a mere inference from the discourse of Jesus. Usteri, indeed, thinks that the Baptist mentioned the dove, merely as a figure, to denote the gentle, mild spirit which he had observed in Jesus. But had this been all, he would rather have compared Jesus himself to a dove, as on another occasion he did to a lamb, than have suggested the idea of a sensible appearance by the picturesque description, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. It is therefore not true in relation to the dove, that first in the more remote tradition given by the synoptical writers, what was originally figurative, was received in a literal sense; for in this sense it is understood by John, and if he have the correct account, the Baptist himself must have spoken of a visible dove-like appearance, as Bleek, Neander, and others, acknowledge.

While the alleged distinction in relation to the dove, between the first three evangelists and the fourth, is not to be found; with respect to the voice, the difference is so wide, that it is inconceivable how the one account could be drawn from the other. For it is said that the testimony which John gave concerning Jesus, after the appearance: This is the Son of God (John i. 34), taken in connexion with the preceding words: He that sent me to baptize, the same said unto me, etc., became, in the process of tradition, an immediate heavenly declaration, such as we see in Matthew: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Supposing such a transformation admissible, some instigation to it must be shown. Now in Isaiah xlii. 1, Jehovah says of his servant: ‏הֵן עַבְדִּי אֶתְמָךְ־בּוֹ בְּחִירִי רָצֲתָה נַפְשִׁי‎; words which, excepting those between the parentheses, are almost literally translated by the declaration of the heavenly voice in Matthew. We learn from Matt. xii. 17 ff. that this passage was applied to Jesus as the Messiah; and in it God himself is the speaker, as in the synoptical account of the baptism. Here then was what would much more readily prompt the fiction of a heavenly voice, than the expressions of John. Since, therefore, we do not need a misapprehension of the Baptist’s language to explain the story of the divine voice, and since we cannot use it for the derivation of the allusion to the dove; we must seek for the source of our narrative, not in one of the evangelical documents, but beyond the New Testament,—in the domain of cotemporary ideas, founded on the Old Testament, the total neglect of which has greatly diminished the value of Schleiermacher’s critique on the New Testament.

To regard declarations concerning the Messiah, put by poets into the mouth of Jehovah, as real, audible voices from heaven, was wholly in the spirit of the later Judaism, which not seldom supposed such vocal communications to fall to the lot of distinguished rabbins, [618] and of the messianic prejudices, which the early Christians both shared themselves, and were compelled, in confronting the Jews, to satisfy. In the passage quoted from Isaiah, there was a divine declaration, in which the present Messiah was pointed to as it were with the finger, and which was therefore specially adapted for a heavenly annunciation concerning him. How could the spirit of Christian legend be slow to imagine a scene, in which these words were audibly spoken from heaven of the Messiah. But we detect a farther motive for such a representation of the case by observing, that in Mark and Luke, the heavenly voice addresses Jesus in the second person, and by comparing the words which, according to the Fathers, were given in the old and lost gospels as those of the voice. Justin, following his Memoirs of the Apostles, ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων, thus reports them: υἱός μου εἶ σύ. ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκα σε; [619] Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius; [620] this declaration was combined with that which our Gospels contain. Clement of Alexandria [621] and Augustin [622] seem to have read the words even in some copies of the latter; and it is at least certain that some of our present manuscripts of Luke have this addition. [623] Here were words uttered by the heavenly voice, drawn, not from Isaiah, but from Psalm ii. 7, a passage considered messianic by Jewish interpreters; [624] in Heb. i. 5, applied to Christ; and, from their being couched in the form of a direct address, containing a yet stronger inducement to conceive it as a voice sent to the Messiah from heaven. If then the words of the psalm were originally attributed to the heavenly voice, or if they were only taken in connexion with the passage in Isaiah (as is probable from the use of the second person, σὺ εἶ, in Mark and Luke, since this form is presented in the psalm, and not in Isaiah), we have a sufficient indication that this text, long interpreted of the Messiah, and easily regarded as an address from heaven to the Messiah on earth, was the source of our narrative of the divine voice, heard at the baptism of Jesus. To unite it with the baptism, followed as a matter of course, when this was held to be a consecration of Jesus to his office.

We proceed to the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. In this examination we must separate the descent of the Spirit from the form of the dove, and consider the two particulars apart. That the Divine Spirit was to rest in a peculiar measure on the Messiah, was an expectation necessarily resulting from the notion, that the messianic times were to be those of the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh (Joel iii. 1 ff.); and in Isaiah xi. 1 f. it was expressly said of the stem of Jesse, that the spirit of the Lord would rest on it in all its fulness, as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of might, and of the fear of the Lord. The communication of the Spirit, considered as an individual act, coincident with the baptism, had a type in the history of David, on whom, when anointed by Samuel, the spirit of God came from that day forward (1 Sam. xvi. 13). Further, in the Old Testament phrases concerning the imparting of the Divine Spirit to men, especially in that expression of Isaiah, ‏נוּחַ עִל־‎, which best corresponds to the μένειν ἐπὶ of John, there already lay the germ of a symbolical representation; for that Hebrew verb is applied also to the halting of armies, or, like the parallel Arabic word, even of animals. The imagination, once stimulated by such an expression, would be the more strongly impelled to complete the picture by the necessity for distinguishing the descent of the Spirit on the Messiah,—in the Jewish view, from the mode in which it was imparted to the prophets (e.g. Isaiah lxi. 1)—in the Christian view, from its ordinary communication to the baptized (e.g. Acts xix. 1 ff). [625] The position being once laid down that the Spirit was to descend on the Messiah, the question immediately occurred: How would it descend? This was necessarily decided according to the popular Jewish idea, which always represented the Divine Spirit under some form or other. In the Old Testament, and even in the New (Acts ii. 3), fire is the principal symbol of the Holy Spirit; but it by no means follows that other sensible objects were not similarly used. In an important passage of the Old Testament (Gen. i. 2), the Spirit of God is described as hovering (‏מְרַחֶפֶת‎), a word which suggests, as its sensible representation, the movement of a bird, rather than of fire. Thus the expression ‏רָחַף‎, Deut. xxxii. 11, is used of the hovering of a bird over its young. But the imagination could not be satisfied with the general figure of a bird; it must have a specific image, and everything led to the choice of the dove.

In the East, and especially in Syria, the dove is a sacred bird, [626] and it is so for a reason which almost necessitated its association with the Spirit moving on the face of the primitive waters (Gen. i. 2). The brooding dove was a symbol of the quickening warmth of nature; [627] it thus perfectly represented the function which, in the Mosaic cosmogony, is ascribed to the Spirit of God,—the calling forth of the world of life from the chaos of the first creation. Moreover, when the earth was a second time covered with water, it is a dove, sent by Noah, which hovers over its waves, and which, by plucking an olive leaf, and at length finally disappearing, announces the renewed possibility of living on the earth. Who then can wonder that in Jewish writings, the Spirit hovering over the primeval waters is expressly compared to a dove, [628] and that, apart from the narrative under examination, the dove is taken as a symbol of the Holy Spirit? [629] How near to this lay the association of the hovering dove with the Messiah, on whom the dove-like spirit was to descend, is evident, without our having recourse to the Jewish writings, which designate the Spirit hovering over the waters, Gen. i. 2, as the Spirit of the Messiah, [630] and also connect with him its emblem, the Noachian dove. [631]

When, in this manner, the heavenly voice, and the Divine Spirit down-hovering like a dove, gathered from the cotemporary Jewish ideas, had become integral parts of the Christian legend concerning the circumstances of the baptism of Jesus; it followed, of course, that the heavens should open themselves, for the Spirit, once embodied, must have a road before it could descend through the vault of heaven. [632]

The result of the preceding inquiries, viz., that the alleged miraculous circumstances of the baptism of Jesus have merely a mythical value, might have been much more readily obtained, in the way of inference from the preceding chapter; for if, according to that, John had not acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah, there could have been no appearances at the baptism of Jesus, demonstrative to John of his Messiahship. We have, however, established the mythical character of the baptismal phenomena, without presupposing the result of the previous chapter; and thus the two independently obtained conclusions may serve to strengthen each other.

Supposing all the immediate circumstances of the baptism of Jesus unhistorical, the question occurs, whether the baptism itself be also a mere mythus. Fritzsche seems not disinclined to the affirmative, for he leaves it undecided whether the first Christians knew historically, or only supposed, in conformity with their messianic expectations, that Jesus was consecrated to his messianic office by John, as his forerunner. This view may be supported by the observation, that in the Jewish expectation, which originated in the history of David, combined with the prophecy of Malachi, there was adequate inducement to assume such a consecration of Jesus by the Baptist, even without historical warrant; and the mention of John’s baptism in relation to Jesus (Acts i. 22), in a narrative, itself traditional, proves nothing to the contrary. Yet, on the other hand, it is to be considered that the baptism of Jesus by John furnishes the most natural basis for an explanation of the messianic project of Jesus. When we have two cotemporaries, of whom one announces the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the other subsequently assumes the character of Messiah; the conjecture arises, even, without positive information, that they stood in a relation to each other—that the latter owed his idea to the former. If Jesus had the messianic idea excited in him by John, yet, as is natural, only so far that he also looked forward to the advent of the messianic individual, whom he did not, in the first instance, identify with himself; he would most likely submit himself to the baptism of John. This would probably take place without any striking occurrences; and Jesus, in no way announced by it as the Baptist’s superior, might, as above remarked, continue for some time to demean himself as his disciple.

If we take a comparative retrospect of our evangelical documents, the pre-eminence which has of late been sought for the fourth gospel appears totally unmerited. The single historical fact, the baptism of Jesus by John, is not mentioned by the fourth Evangelist, who is solicitous about the mythical adjuncts alone, and these he in reality gives no more simply than the synoptical writers, his omission of the opening heaven excepted; for the divine speech is not wanting in his narrative, if we read it impartially. In the words, i. 33: He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, we have not only substantially the same purport as that conveyed by the heavenly voice in the synoptical gospels, but also a divine declaration; the only difference being, that here John is addressed exclusively, and prior to the baptism of Jesus. This difference originated partly in the importance which the fourth Evangelist attached to the relation between the Baptist and Jesus, and which required that the criteria of the messianic individual, as well as the proximity of his kingdom, should have been revealed to John at his call to baptize; and it might be partly suggested by the narrative in 1 Sam. xvi., according to which Samuel, being sent by Jehovah to anoint a king selected from the sons of Jesse, is thus admonished by Jehovah on the entrance of David: Arise and anoint him, for this is he (v. 12). The descent of the Spirit, which in David’s case follows his consecration, is, by the fourth Evangelist, made an antecedent sign of the Messiahship of Jesus.

§ 52.

RELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL AT THE BAPTISM OF JESUS TO THE SUPERNATURAL IN HIS CONCEPTION.

At the commencement of this chapter, we enquired into the subjective views of Jesus in his reception of John’s baptism, or the idea which he entertained of its relation to his own character. We close this discussion with an inquiry into the objective purpose of the miracles at the baptism of Jesus, or the mode in which they were to subserve the manifestation of his messiahship.

The common answer to such an inquiry is, that Jesus was thereby inducted to his public office, and declared to be the Messiah, [633] i.e. that nothing was conferred on him, and that simply the character which he already possessed was manifested to others. But, it may be asked, is such an abstraction intended by our narrators? A consecration to an office, effected by divine co-operation, was ever considered by antiquity as a delegation of divine powers for its fulfilment; hence, in the Old Testament, the kings, as soon as they are anointed, are filled with the spirit of God (1 Sam. x. 6, 10, xvi. 13); and in the New Testament also, the apostles, before entering on their vocation, are furnished with supernatural gifts (Acts ii.). It may, therefore, be beforehand conjectured, that according to the original sense of the Gospels, the consecration of Jesus at his baptism was attended with a supply of higher powers; and this is confirmed by an examination of our narratives. For the synoptical writers all state, that after the baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, obviously marking this journey as the first effect of the higher principle infused at his baptism: and in John, the words μένειν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, applied to the descending Spirit, seem to intimate, that from the time of the baptism there was a relation not previously subsisting, between the πνεῦμα ἅγιον and Jesus.

This interpretation of the marvels at the baptism of Jesus seems in contradiction with the narratives of his conception. If Jesus, as Matthew and Luke state, was conceived by the Holy Ghost; or if, as John propounds, the divine λόγος, the word, was made flesh in him, from the beginning of his earthly existence; why did he yet need, at his baptism, a special intromission of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον? Several modern expositors have seen, and sought to solve, this difficulty. Olshausen’s explanation consists in the distinction between the potential and the actual; but it is self-contradictory. [634] For if the character of the Χριστὸς which was manifested actû, with the ripened manhood of Jesus, at his baptism, was already present potentiâ in the child and youth; there must have also been an inward principle of development, by means of which his powers would gradually unfold themselves from within, instead of being first awakened by a sudden illapse of the Spirit from without. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that the divine principle, existing in Jesus, as supernaturally conceived, from the moment of his birth, might need, owing to the human form of its development, some impulse from without; and Lücke [635] has more justly proceeded on this contrast between external impulse and inward development. The λόγος, present in Jesus from his birth, needed, he thinks, however strong might be the inward bent, some external stimulus and vivification, in order to arrive at full activity and manifestation in the world; and that which awakens and guides the divine life-germ in the world is, on apostolic showing, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Allowing this, yet the inward disposition and the requisite force of the outward stimulus stand in an inverse relation to each other; so that the stronger the outward stimulus required, the weaker is the inward disposition; but in a case where the inward disposition is consummate,—as it must be supposed in Jesus, engendered by the Spirit, or animated by the λόγος,—the exterior impulse ought to be a minimum, that is, every circumstance, even the most common, might serve as a determination of the inward tendency. But at the baptism of Jesus we see the maximum of exterior impulse, in the visible descent of the divine Spirit; and although we allow for the special nature of the messianic task, for the fulfilment of which he must be qualified, [636] yet the maximum of inward disposition, which fitted him to be the υἱὸς Θεοῦ, cannot at the same time be supposed as existing in him from his birth: a consequence which Lücke only escapes, by reducing the baptismal scene to a mere inauguration, thus, as has been already shown, contradicting the evangelical records.

We must here give a similar decision to that at which we arrived concerning the genealogies; viz., that in that circle of the early Christian church, in which the narrative of the descent of the πνεῦμα on Jesus at his baptism was formed, the idea that Jesus was generated by the same πνεῦμα cannot have prevailed; and while, at the present day, the communication of the divine nature to Jesus is thought of as cotemporary with his conception, those Christians must have regarded his baptism as the epoch of such communication. In fact, those primitive Christians whom, in a former discussion, we found to have known nothing, or to have believed nothing, of the supernatural conception of Jesus, were also those who connected the first communication of divine powers to Jesus with his baptism in the Jordan. For no other doctrine did the orthodox fathers of the church more fiercely persecute the ancient Ebionites, [637] with their gnostic fellow-believer Cerinthus, [638] than for this: that the Holy Spirit first united himself with Jesus at his baptism. In the Gospel of the Ebionites it was written that the πνεῦμα not only descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, but entered into him; [639] and according to Justin, it was the general expectation of the Jews, that higher powers would first be granted to the Messiah, when he should be anointed by his forerunner Elias. [640]

The development of these ideas seems to have been the following. When the messianic dignity of Jesus began to be acknowledged among the Jews, it was thought appropriate to connect his coming into possession of the requisite gifts, with the epoch from which he was in some degree known, and which, from the ceremony that marked it, was also best adapted to represent that anointing with the Holy Spirit, expected by the Jews for their Messiah: and from this point of view was formed the legend of the occurrences at the baptism. But as reverence for Jesus was heightened, and men appeared in the Christian church who were acquainted with more exalted messianic ideas, this tardy manifestation of messiahship was no longer sufficient; his relation with the Holy Spirit was referred to his conception: and from this point of view was formed the tradition of the supernatural conception of Jesus. Here too, perhaps, the words of the heavenly voice, which might originally be those of Ps. ii. 7, were altered after Isaiah xlii. 1. For the words, σήμερον γεγέννηκα σε, This day have I begotten thee, were consistent with the notion that Jesus was constituted the Son of God at his baptism; but they were no longer suitable to that occasion, when the opinion had arisen that the origin of his life was an immediate divine act. By this later representation, however, the earlier one was by no means supplanted, but, on the contrary, tradition and her recorders being large-hearted, both narratives—that of the miracles at the baptism, and that of the supernatural conception, or the indwelling of the λόγος in Jesus from the commencement of his life, although, strictly, they exclude each other, went forth peaceably side by side, and so were depicted by our Evangelists, not excepting even the fourth. Just as in the case of the genealogies: the narrative of the imparting of the Spirit at the baptism could not arise after the formation of the idea that Jesus was engendered by the Spirit; but it might be retained as a supplement, because tradition is ever unwilling to renounce any of its acquired treasures.

§ 53.

PLACE AND TIME OF THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. DIVERGENCIES OF THE EVANGELISTS ON THIS SUBJECT.

The transition from the baptism to the temptation of Jesus, as it is made by the synoptical writers, is attended with difficulty in relation both to place and time.

With respect to the former, it strikes us at once, that according to all the synoptical gospels, Jesus after his baptism was led into the wilderness to be tempted, implying that he was not previously in the wilderness, although, according to Matt. iii. 1, John, by whom he was baptized, exercised his ministry there. This apparent contradiction has been exposed by the most recent critic of Matthew’s gospel, for the sake of proving the statement that John baptized in the wilderness to be erroneous. [641] But they who cannot resolve to reject this statement on grounds previously laid down, may here avail themselves of the supposition, that John delivered his preliminary discourses in the wilderness of Judea, but resorted to the Jordan for the purpose of baptizing; or, if the banks of the Jordan be reckoned part of that wilderness, of the presumption that the Evangelists can only have intended that the Spirit led Jesus farther into the recesses of the wilderness, but have neglected to state this with precision, because their description of the scene at the baptism had obliterated from their imagination their former designation of the locality of John’s agency.

But there is, besides, a chronological difficulty: namely, that while, according to the synoptical writers, Jesus, in the plenitude of the Spirit, just communicated to him at the Jordan, betakes himself, in consequence of that communication, for forty days to the wilderness, where the temptation occurs, and then returns into Galilee; John, on the contrary, is silent concerning the temptation, and appears to suppose an interval of a few days only, between the baptism of Jesus and his journey into Galilee; thus allowing no space for a six weeks’ residence in the wilderness. The fourth Evangelist commences his narrative with the testimony which the Baptist delivers to the emissaries of the Sanhedrim (i. 19); the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he makes the Baptist recite the incident which in the synoptical gospels is followed by the baptism (v. 29): again, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he causes two of his disciples to follow Jesus (v. 35); farther, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον, v. 44), as Jesus is on the point of journeying into Galilee, Philip and Nathanael join him; and lastly, on the third day, τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ (ii. 1), Jesus is at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The most natural inference is, that the baptism took place immediately before John’s narrative of its attendant occurrences, and as according to the synoptical gospels the temptation followed close on the baptism, both these events must be inserted between v. 28 and 29, as Euthymius supposed. But between that which is narrated down to v. 28, and the sequel from v. 29 inclusive, there is only the interval of a morrow, ἐπαύριον, while the temptation requires a period of forty days; hence, expositors have thought it necessary to give ἐπαύριον the wider sense of ὕστερον afterwards; this however is inadmissible, because the expression τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ, the third day, follows in connexion with ἐπαύριον, and restricts its meaning to the morrow. We might therefore be inclined, with Kuinöl, to separate the baptism and the temptation, to place the baptism after v. 28, and to regard the next day’s interview between Jesus and John (v. 29) as a parting visit from the former to the latter: inserting after this the journey into the wilderness and the temptation. But without insisting that the first three Evangelists seem not to allow even of a day’s interval between the baptism and the departure of Jesus into the wilderness, yet even later we have the same difficulty in finding space for the forty days. For it is no more possible to place the residence in the wilderness between the supposed parting visit and the direction of the two disciples to Jesus, that is between v. 34 and 35, as Kuinöl attempts, than between v. 28 and 29, since the former as well as the latter passages are connected by τῇ ἐπαύριον, on the morrow. Hence we must descend to v. 43 and 44; but here also there is only the interval of a morrow, and even chap. ii. 1, we are shut out by an ἡμέρα τρίτη, third day, so that, proceeding in this way, the temptation would at last be carried to the residence of Jesus in Galilee, in direct opposition to the statement of the synoptical writers; while, in further contradiction to them, the temptation is placed at a farther and farther distance from the baptism. Thus neither at v. 29, nor below it, can the forty days’ residence of Jesus in the wilderness with the temptation be intercalated: and it must therefore be referred, according to the plan of Lücke and others, [642] to the period before v. 19, which seems to allow of as large an interpolation as can be desired, inasmuch as the fourth Evangelist there commences his history. Now it is true that what follows from v. 19 to 28 is not of a kind absolutely to exclude the baptism and temptation of Jesus as earlier occurrences; but from v. 29 to 34, the Evangelist is far from making the Baptist speak as if there had been an interval of six weeks between the baptism and his narrative of its circumstances. [643] That the fourth Evangelist should have omitted, by chance merely, the history of the temptation, important as it was in the view of the other Evangelists, seems improbable: it is rather to be concluded, either that it was dogmatically offensive to him, so that he omitted it designedly, or that it was not current in the circle of tradition from which he drew his materials.

The period of forty days is assigned by all three of the synoptical writers for the residence of Jesus in the wilderness; but to this agreement is annexed the not inconsiderable discrepancy, that, according to Matthew, the temptation by the devil commences after the lapse of the forty days, while, according to the others, it appears to have been going forward during this time; for the words of Mark (i. 13), he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ Σατανᾶ, and the similar ones of Luke i. 2, can have no other meaning. Added to this, there is a difference between the two latter evangelists; Mark only placing the temptation generally within the duration of forty days, without naming the particular acts of the tempter, which according to Matthew, were subsequent to the forty days; while Luke mentions both the prolonged temptation (πειράζεσθαι) of the forty days, and the three special temptations (πειρασμοὶ) which followed. [644] It has been thought possible to make the three accounts tally by supposing that the devil tempted Jesus during the forty days, as Mark states; that after the lapse of that time he approached him with the three temptations given by Matthew; and that Luke’s narrative includes the whole. [645] Further, the temptations have been distinguished into two kinds; that which is only generally mentioned, as continued through the forty days, being considered invisible, like the ordinary attempts of Satan against men; and the three particularized temptations being regarded as personal and visible assaults, resorted to on the failure of the first. [646] But this distinction is evidently built on the air; moreover, it is inconceivable why Luke should not specify one of the temptations of the forty days, and should only mention the three subsequent ones detailed by Matthew. We might conjecture that the three temptations narrated by Luke did not occur after the six weeks, but were given by way of specimen from among the many that took place during that time; and that Matthew misunderstood them to be a sequel to the forty days’ temptation. [647] But the challenge to make stones bread must in any case be placed at the end of that period, for it appealed to the hunger of Jesus, arising from a forty days’ fast (a cause omitted by Mark alone). Now in Luke also this is the first temptation, and if this occurred at the close of the forty days, the others could not have been earlier. For it is not to be admitted that the separate temptations being united in Luke merely by καὶ, and not by τότε and πάλιν as in Matthew, we are not bound to preserve the order of them, and that without violating the intention of the third Evangelist we may place the second and third temptation before the first. Thus Luke is convicted of a want of historical fact; for after representing Jesus as tempted by the devil forty days, he has no details to give concerning this long period, but narrates later temptations; hence we are not inclined, with the most recent critic of Matthew’s Gospel, to regard Luke’s as the original, and Matthew’s as the traditional and adulterated narrative. [648] Rather, as in Mark the temptation is noticed without farther details than that it lasted forty days, and in Matthew the particular cases of temptation are narrated, the hunger which induced the first rendering it necessary to place them after the forty days; Luke has evidently the secondary statement, for he unites the two previous ones in a manner scarcely tolerable, giving the forty days’ process of temptation, and then superfluously bringing forward particular instances as additional facts. It is not on this account to be concluded that Luke wrote after Mark, and in dependence on him; but supposing, on the contrary, that Mark here borrowed from Luke, he extracted only the first and general part of the latter Evangelist’s narrative, having ready, in lieu of the farther detail of single temptations, an addition peculiar to himself; namely, that Jesus, during his residence in the wilderness was μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, with the wild beasts.

What was Mark’s object in introducing the wild beasts, it is difficult to say. The majority of expositors are of opinion that he intended to complete the terrible picture of the wilderness; [649] but to this it is not without reason objected, that the clause would then have been in closer connexion with the words ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, he was in the wilderness, instead of being placed after πειραζόμενος, tempted. [650] Usteri has hazarded the conjecture that this particularity may be designed to mark Christ as the antitype of Adam, who, in Paradise, also stood in a peculiar relation to the animals, [651] and Olshausen has eagerly laid hold on this mystical notion; but it is an interpretation which finds little support in the context. Schleiermacher, in pronouncing this feature of Mark’s narrative extravagant, [652] doubtless means that this Evangelist here, as in other instances of exaggeration, borders on the style of the apocryphal gospels, for whose capricious fictions we are not seldom unable to suggest a cause or an object, and thus we must rest contented, for the present, to penetrate no farther into the sense of his statement.

With respect to the difference between Matthew and Luke in the arrangement of the several temptations, we must equally abide by Schleiermacher’s criticism and verdict, namely, that Matthew’s order seems to be the original, because it is founded on the relative importance of the temptations, which is the main consideration,—the invitation to worship Satan, which is the strongest temptation, being made the final one; whereas the arrangement of Luke looks like a later and not very happy transposition, proceeding from the consideration—alien to the original spirit of the narrative—that Jesus could more readily go with the devil from the wilderness to the adjacent mountain and from thence to Jerusalem, than out of the wilderness to the city and from thence back again to the mountain. [653] While the first two Evangelists close their narrative of the temptation with the ministering of angels to Jesus, Luke has a conclusion peculiar to himself, namely, that the devil left Jesus for a season, ἄχρι καιροῦ (v. 13), apparently intimating that the sufferings of Jesus were a farther assault of the devil; an idea not resumed by Luke, but alluded to in John xiv. 30.

§ 54.

THE HISTORY OF THE TEMPTATION CONCEIVED IN THE SENSE OF THE EVANGELISTS.

Few evangelical passages have undergone a more industrious criticism, or more completely run through the circle of all possible interpretations, than the history in question. For the personal appearance of the devil, which it seems to contain, was a thorn which would not allow commentators to repose on the most obvious interpretation, but incessantly urged them to new efforts. The series of explanations hence resulting, led to critical comparisons, among which those of Schmidt, [654] Fritzsche, [655] and Usteri, [656] seem to have carried the inquiry to its utmost limits.

The first interpretation that suggests itself on an unprejudiced consideration of the text is this; that Jesus was led by the Divine Spirit received at his baptism into the wilderness, there to undergo a temptation by the devil, who accordingly appeared to him visibly and personally, and in various ways, and at various places to which he was the conductor, prosecuted his purpose of temptation; but meeting with a victorious resistance, he withdrew from Jesus, and angels appeared to minister to him. Such is the simple exegesis of the narrative, but viewed as a history it is encumbered with difficulties.

To take the portions of the narrative in their proper order: if the Divine Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness with the design of exposing him to temptation, as Matthew expressly says, ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος, πειρασθῆναι (iv. 1), of what use was this temptation? That it had a vicarious and redeeming value will hardly be maintained, or that it was necessary for God to put Jesus to a trial; neither can it be consistently shown that by this temptation Jesus was to be made like us, and, according to Heb. iv. 15, tempted in all things like as we are; for the fullest measure of trial fell to his share in after life, and a temptation, effected by the devil in person, would rather make him unlike us, who are spared such appearances.

The forty days’ fast, too, is singular. One does not understand how Jesus could hunger after six weeks of abstinence from all food without having hungered long before; since in ordinary cases the human frame cannot sustain a week’s deprivation of nourishment. It is true, expositors [657] console themselves by calling the forty days a round number, and by supposing that the expression of Matthew, νηστεύσας, and even that of Luke, οὐκ ἔφαγεν οὐδὲν, are not to be taken strictly, and do not denote abstinence from all food, but only from that which is customary, so that the use of roots and herbs is not excluded. On no supposition, however, can so much be subtracted from the forty days as to leave only the duration of a conceivable fast; and that nothing short of entire abstinence from all nourishment was intended by the Evangelists Fritzsche has clearly shown, by pointing out the parallel between the fast of Jesus and that of Moses and Elias, the former of whom is said to have eaten no bread and drunk no water for forty days (Exod. xxxiv. 28; Deut. ix. 9, 18), and the latter to have gone for the same period in the strength of a meal taken before his journey (1 Kings xix. 8). But such a fast wants the credentials of utility, as well as of possibility. From the context it appears, that the fast of Jesus was prompted by the same Spirit which occasioned his journey to the wilderness, and which now moved him to a holy self-discipline, whereby men of God, under the old dispensation, purified themselves, and became worthy of divine visions. But it could not be hidden from that Spirit, that Satan, in attacking Jesus, would avail himself of this very fast, and make the hunger thence arising an accomplice in his temptation. And was not the fast, in this case, a kind of challenge to Satan, an act of presumption, ill becoming even the best warranted self-confidence? [658]

But the personal appearance of the devil is the great stumbling-block in the present narrative. If, it is said, there be a personal devil, he cannot take a visible form; and if that were possible, he would hardly demean himself as he is represented to have done in the gospels. It is with the existence of the devil as with that of angels—even the believers in a revelation are perplexed by it, because the idea did not spring up among the recipients of revelation, but was transplanted by them, during exile, from a profane soil. [659] Moreover, to those who have not quite shut out the lights of the present age, the existence of a devil is become in the highest degree doubtful.

On this subject, as well as on that of angels, Schleiermacher may serve as an interpreter of modern opinion. He shows that the idea of a being such as the devil, is an assemblage of contradictions: that as the idea of angels originated in a limited observation of nature, so that of the devil originated in a limited observation of self, and as our knowledge of human nature progresses, must recede farther into the background, and the appeal to the devil be henceforth regarded as the resource of ignorance and sloth. [660] Even admitting the existence of a devil, a visible and personal appearance on his part, such as is here supposed, has its peculiar difficulties. Olshausen himself observes, that there is no parallel to it either in the Old or New Testament. Farther, if the devil, that he might have some hope of deceiving Jesus, abandoned his own form, and took that of a man, or of a good angel; it may be reasonably asked whether the passage, 2 Cor. xi. 14, Satan is transformed into an angel of light, be intended literally, and if so, whether this fantastic conception can be substantially true? [661]

As to the temptations, it was early asked by Julian, how the devil could hope to deceive Jesus, knowing, as he must, his higher nature? [662] And Theodore’s answer that the divinity of Jesus was then unknown to the devil, is contradicted by the observation, that had he not then beheld a higher nature in Jesus, he would scarcely have taken the trouble to appear specially to him in person. In relation to the particular temptations, an assent cannot be withheld from the canon, that, to be credible, the narrative must ascribe nothing to the devil inconsistent with his established cunning. [663] Now the first temptation, appealing to hunger, we grant, is not ill-conceived; if this were ineffectual, the devil, as an artful tactician, should have had a yet more alluring temptation at hand; but instead of this, we find him, in Matthew, proposing to Jesus the neck-breaking feat of casting himself down from the pinnacle of the temple—a far less inviting experiment than the metamorphosis of the stones. This proposition finding no acceptance, there follows, as a crowning effort, a suggestion which, whatever might be the bribe, every true Israelite would instantly reject with abhorrence—to fall down and worship the devil. So indiscreet a choice and arrangement of temptations has thrown most modern commentators into perplexity. [664] As the three temptations took place in three different and distant places, the question occurs: how did Jesus pass with the devil from one to the other? Even the orthodox hold that this change of place was effected quite naturally, for they suppose that Jesus set out on a journey, and that the devil followed him. [665] But the expressions, the devil takes him—sets him, παραλαμβάνει—ἵστησιν αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος, in Matthew: taking, ἀναγαγών, brought, ἤγαγεν, set, ἔστησεν, in Luke, obviously imply that the transportation was effected by the devil, and moreover, the particular given in Luke, that the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, points to something magical; so that without doubt the Evangelists intended to convey the idea of magical transportations, as in Acts viii. 29, a power of carrying away, ἁρπάζειν, is attributed to the Spirit of the Lord. But it was early found irreconcilable with the dignity of Jesus that the devil should thus exercise a magical power over him, and carry him about in the air; [666] an idea which seemed extravagant even to those who tolerated the personal appearance of the devil. The incredibility is augmented, when we consider the sensation which the appearance of Jesus on the roof of the temple must have excited, even supposing it to be the roof of Solomon’s Porch only, in which case the gilded spears on the holy of holies, and the prohibition to laymen to tread its roof, would not be an obstacle. [667] The well-known question suggested by the last temptation, as to the situation of the mountain, from whose summit may be seen all the kingdoms of the world, has been met by the information that κόσμος here means no more than Palestine, and βασιλείας, its several kingdoms and tetrarchies; [668] but this is a scarcely less ludicrous explanation than the one that the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world on a map! No answer remains but that such a mountain existed only in the ancient idea of the earth as a plain, and in the popular imagination, which can easily stretch a mountain up to heaven, and sharpen an eye to penetrate infinity.

Lastly, the incident with which our narrative closes, namely, that angels came and ministered to Jesus, is not without difficulty, apart from the above-mentioned doubts as to the existence of such beings. For the expression διηκόνουν can signify no other kind of ministering than that of presenting food; and this is proved not only by the context, according to which Jesus had need of such tendance, but by a comparison of the circumstances with 1 Kings xix. 5, where an angel brings food to Elijah. But of the only two possible suppositions, both are equally incongruous: that ethereal beings like angels should convey earthly material food, or that the human body of Jesus should be nourished with heavenly substances, if any such exist.

§ 55.

THE TEMPTATION CONSIDERED AS A NATURAL OCCURRENCE EITHER INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL; AND ALSO AS A PARABLE.

The impossibility of conceiving the sudden removals of Jesus to the temple and the mountain, led some even of the ancient commentators to the opinion, that at least the locality of the second and third temptations was not present to Jesus corporeally and externally, but merely in a vision; [669] while some modern ones, to whom the personal appearance of the devil was especially offensive, have supposed that the whole transaction with him passed from beginning to end within the recesses of the soul of Jesus. Herewith they have regarded the forty days’ fast either as a mere internal representation [670] (which, however, is a most inadmissible perversion of the plainly historic text: νηστεύσας ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα ὕστερον ἐπείνασε, Matt. iv. 2), or as a real fact, in which case the formidable difficulties mentioned in the preceding section remain valid. The internal representation of the temptations is by some made to accompany a state of ecstatic vision, for which they retain a supernatural cause, deriving it either from God, or from the kingdom of darkness: [671] others ascribe to the vision more of the nature of a dream, and accordingly seek a natural cause for it, in the reflections with which Jesus was occupied during his waking moments. [672] According to this theory, Jesus, in the solemn mood which the baptismal scene was calculated to produce, reviews his messianic plan, and together with the true means for its execution, he recalls their possible abuses; an excessive use of miracles and a love of domination, by which man, in the Jewish mode of thinking, became, instead of an instrument of God, a promoter of the plans of the devil. While surrendering himself to such meditations, his finely organized body is overcome by their exciting influence; he sinks for some time into deep exhaustion, and then into a dream-like state, in which his mind unconsciously embodies his previous thoughts in speaking and acting forms.

To support this transference of the whole scene to the inward nature of Jesus, commentators think that they can produce some features of the evangelical narrative itself. The expression of Matthew (iv. 1), ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος, and still more that of Luke (iv. 1), ἤγετο ἐν τῷ Πνεύματι, correspond fully to the forms: ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι, Rev. i. 10, ἀπήνενκέ με εἰς ἔρημον ἐν πνεύματι, xvii. 3, and to similar ones in Ezekiel; and as in these passages inward intuition is alone referred to, neither in the evangelical ones, it is said, can any external occurrence be intended. But it has been with reason objected, [673] that the above forms may be adapted either to a real external abduction by the Divine Spirit (as in Acts viii. 39; 2 Kings ii. 16), or to one merely internal and visionary, as in the quotation from the Apocalypse, so that between these two possible significations the context must decide; that in works replete with visions, as are the Apocalypse and Ezekiel, the context indeed pronounces in favour of a merely spiritual occurrence; but in an historical work such as our gospels, of an external one. Dreams, and especially visions, are always expressly announced as such in the historical books of the New Testament: supposing, therefore, that the temptation was a vision, it should have been introduced by the words εἶδεν ἐν ὁράματι, ἐν ἔκστάσει, as in Acts ix. 12, x. 10; or ἐφάνη αὐτῷ κατ’ ὄναρ, as in Matt. i. 20, ii. 13. Besides, if a dream had been narrated, the transition to a continuation of the real history must have been marked by a διεγερθεὶς, being awaked, as in Matt. i. 24, ii. 14, 21; whereby, as Paulus truly says, much labour would have been spared to expositors.

It is further alleged against the above explanations, that Jesus does not seem to have been at any other time subject to ecstasies, and that he nowhere else attaches importance to a dream, or even recapitulates one. [674] To what end God should have excited such a vision in Jesus, it is difficult to conceive, or how the devil should have had power and permission to produce it; especially in Christ. The orthodox, too, should not forget that, admitting the temptation to be a dream, resulting from the thoughts of Jesus, the false messianic ideas which were a part of those thoughts, are supposed to have had a strong influence on his mind. [675]

If, then, the history of the temptation is not to be understood as confined to the soul of Jesus, and if we have before shown that it cannot be regarded as supernatural; nothing seems to remain but to view it as a real, yet thoroughly natural, event, and to reduce the tempter to a mere man. After John had drawn attention to Jesus as the Messiah (thinks the author of the Natural History of the Prophet of Nazareth), [676] the ruling party in Jerusalem commissioned an artful Pharisee to put Jesus to the test, and to ascertain whether he really possessed miraculous powers, or whether he might not be drawn into the interest of the priesthood, and be induced to give his countenance to an enterprise against the Romans. This conception of the διάβολος is in dignified consistency with that of the ἄγγελοι, who appeared after his departure, to refresh Jesus, as an approaching caravan with provisions, or as soft reviving breezes. [677] But this view, as Usteri says, has so long completed its phases in the theological world, that to refute it would be to waste words.

If the foregoing discussions have proved that the temptation, as narrated by the synoptical Evangelists, cannot be conceived as an external or internal, a supernatural or natural occurrence, the conclusion is inevitable, that it cannot have taken place in the manner represented.

The least invidious expedient is to suppose that the source of our histories of the temptation was some real event in the life of Jesus, so narrated by him to his disciples as to convey no accurate impression of the fact. Tempting thoughts, which intruded themselves into his soul during his residence in the wilderness, or at various seasons, and under various circumstances, but which were immediately quelled by the unimpaired force of his will, were, according to the oriental mode of thought and expression, represented by him as a temptation of the devil; and this figurative narrative was understood literally. [678] The most prominent objection to this view, that it compromises the impeccability of Jesus, [679] being founded on a dogma, has no existence for the critic: we can, however, gather from the tenor of the evangelical history, that the practical sense of Jesus was thoroughly clear and just; but this becomes questionable, if he could ever feel an inclination corresponding to the second temptation in Matthew, or even if he merely chose such a form for communicating a more reasonable temptation to his disciples. Further, in such a narrative Jesus would have presented a confused mixture of fiction and truth out of his life, not to be expected from an ingenuous teacher, as he otherwise appears to be, especially if it be supposed that the tempting thoughts did not really occur to him after his forty days’ sojourn in the wilderness, and that this particular is only a portion of the fictitious investiture; while if it be assumed, on the contrary, that the date is historical, there remains the forty days’ fast, one of the most insurmountable difficulties of the narrative. If Jesus wished simply to describe a mental exercise in the manner of the Jews, who, tracing the effect to the cause, ascribed evil thoughts to diabolical agency, nothing more was requisite than to say that Satan suggested such and such thoughts to his mind; and it was quite superfluous to depict a personal devil and a journey with him, unless, together with the purpose of narration, or in its stead, there existed a poetical and didactic intention.

Such an intention, indeed, is attributed to Jesus by those who hold that the history of the temptation was narrated by him as a parable, but understood literally by his disciples. This opinion is not encumbered with the difficulty of making some real inward experience of Jesus the basis of the history; [680] it does not suppose that Jesus himself underwent such temptations, but only that he sought to secure his disciples from them, by impressing on them, as a compendium of messianic and apostolic wisdom, the three following maxims: first to perform no miracle for their own advantage even in the greatest exigency; secondly, never to venture on a chimerical undertaking in the hope of extraordinary divine aid; thirdly, never to enter into fellowship with the wicked, however strong the enticement. [681] It was long ago observed, in opposition to this interpretation, that the narrative is not easily recognized as a parable, and that its moral is hard to discern. [682] With respect to the latter objection, it is true that the second temptation would be an ill-chosen image; but the former remark is the more important one. To prove that this narrative has not the characteristics of a parable, the following definition has been recently given: a parable, being essentially historical in its form, is only distinguishable from real history when its agents are of an obviously fictitious character. [683] This is the case where the subjects are mere generalizations, as in the parables of the sower, the king, and others of a like kind; or when they are, indeed, individualized, but so as to be at once recognized as unhistorical persons, as mere supports for the drapery of fiction, of which even Lazarus, in the parable of the rich man, is an example, though distinguished by a name. In neither species of parable is it admissible to introduce as a subject a person corporeally present, and necessarily determinate and historical. Thus Jesus could not make Peter or any other of his disciples the subject of a parable, still less himself, for the reciter of a parable is pre-eminently present to his auditors; and hence he cannot have delivered the history of the temptation, of which he is the subject, to his disciples as a parable. To assume that the history had originally another subject, for whom oral tradition substituted Jesus, is inadmissible, because the narrative, even as a parable, has no definite significance unless the Messiah be its subject. [684]

If such a parable concerning himself or any other person, could not have been delivered by Jesus, yet it is possible that it was made by some other individual concerning Jesus; and this is the view taken by Theile, who has recently explained the history of the temptation as a parabolic admonition, directed by some partisan of Jesus against the main features of the worldly messianic hope, with the purpose of establishing the spiritual and moral view of the new economy. [685] Here is the transition to the mythical point of view, which the above theologian shuns, partly because the narrative is not sufficiently picturesque (though it is so in a high degree); partly because it is too pure (though he thus imputes false ideas to the primitive Christians); and partly because the formation of the mythus was too near the time of Jesus (an objection which must be equally valid against the early misconstruction of the parable). If it can be shown, on the contrary, that the narrative in question is formed less out of instructive thoughts and their poetical clothing, as is the case with a parable, than out of Old Testament passages and types, we shall not hesitate to designate it a mythus.

§ 56.

THE HISTORY OF THE TEMPTATION AS A MYTHUS.

Satan, the evil being and enemy of mankind, borrowed from the Persian religion, was by the Jews, whose exclusiveness limited all that was good and truly human to the Israelitish people, viewed as the special adversary of their nation, and hence as the lord of the heathen states with whom they were in hostility. [686] The interests of the Jewish people being centred in the Messiah, it followed that Satan was emphatically his adversary; and thus throughout the New Testament we find the idea of Jesus as the Messiah associated with that of Satan as the enemy of his person and cause. Christ having appeared to destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8), the latter seizes every opportunity of sowing tares among the good seed (Matt. xiii. 39), and not only aims, though unsuccessfully, at obtaining the mastery over Jesus himself (John xiv. 30), but continually assails the faithful (Eph. vi. 11; 1 Pet. v. 8). As these attacks of the devil on the pious are nothing else than attempts to get them into his power, that is, to entice them to sin; and as this can only be done by the indirect suggestion or immediate insinuation of evil, seductive thoughts, Satan had the appellation of ὁ πειράζων, the tempter. In the prologue to the book of Job, he seeks to seduce the pious man from God, by the instrumentality of a succession of plagues and misfortunes: while the ensnaring counsel which the serpent gave to the woman was early considered an immediate diabolical suggestion. (Wisdom ii. 24; John viii. 44; Rev. xii. 9.)

In the more ancient Hebrew theology, the idea was current that temptation (‏נִסָּה‎, LXX. πειράζειν) was an act of God himself, who thus put his favourites, as Abraham (Gen. xxii. 1), and the people of Israel (Exod. xvi. 4, and elsewhere), to the test, or in just anger even instigated men to pernicious deeds. But as soon as the idea of Satan was formed, the office of temptation was transferred to him, and withdrawn from God, with whose absolute goodness it began to be viewed as incompatible (James i. 13). Hence it is Satan, who by his importunity obtains the divine permission to put Job to the severest trial through suffering; hence David’s culpable project of numbering the people, which in the second book of Samuel was traced to the anger of God, is in the later chronicles (1 Chron. xxii. 1) put directly to the account of the devil; and even the well-meant temptation with which, according to Genesis, God visited Abraham, in requiring from him the sacrifice of his son, was in the opinion of the later Jews, undertaken by God at the instigation of Satan. [687] Nor was this enough—scenes were imagined in which the devil personally encountered Abraham on his way to the place of sacrifice, and in which he tempted the people of Israel during the absence of Moses. [688]

If the most eminent men of piety in Hebrew antiquity were thus tempted, in the earlier view, by God, in the later one, by Satan, what was more natural than to suppose that the Messiah, the Head of all the righteous, the representative and champion of God’s people, would be the primary object of the assaults of Satan? [689] And we find this actually recorded as a rabbinical opinion, [690] in the material mode of representation of the later Judaism, under the form of a bodily appearance and a personal dialogue.

If a place were demanded where Satan might probably undertake such a temptation of the Messiah, the wilderness would present itself from more than one quarter. Not only had it been from Azazel (Lev. xvi. 8–10), and Asmodeus (Tobit viii. 3), to the demons ejected by Jesus (Matt. xii. 43), the fearful dwelling-place of the infernal powers: it was also the scene of temptation for the people of Israel, that filius Dei collectivus. [691] Added to this, it was the habit of Jesus to retire to solitary places for still meditation and prayer (Matt. xiv. 13; Mark i. 35; Luke vi. 12; John vi. 15); to which after his consecration to the messianic office he would feel more than usually disposed. It is hence possible that, as some theologians [692] have supposed, a residence of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism (though not one of precisely forty days’ duration) served as the historical foundation of our narrative; but even without this connecting thread, both the already noticed choice of place and that of time are to be explained by the consideration, that it seemed consonant with the destiny of the Messiah that, like a second Hercules, he should undergo such a trial on his entrance into mature age and the messianic office.

But what had the Messiah to do in the wilderness? That the Messiah, the second Saviour, should like his typical predecessor, Moses, on Mount Sinai, submit himself to the holy discipline of fasting, was an idea the more inviting, because it furnished a suitable introduction to the first temptation which presupposed extreme hunger. The type of Moses and that of Elias (1 Kings xix. 8), determined also the duration of this fast in the wilderness, for they too had fasted forty days; moreover, the number forty was held sacred in Hebrew antiquity. [693] Above all, the forty days of the temptation of Jesus seem, as Olshausen justly observes, a miniature image of the forty years’ trial in the wilderness, endured by the Israelitish people as a penal emblem of the forty days spent by the spies in the land of Canaan (Num. xiv. 34). For, that in the temptations of Jesus there was a special reference to the temptation of Israel in the wilderness, is shown by the circumstance that all the passages cited by Jesus in opposition to Satan are drawn from the recapitulatory description of the journeyings of the Israelites in Deut. vi. and viii. The apostle Paul too, 1 Cor. x. 6, enumerates a series of particulars from the behaviour of the Israelites in the wilderness, with the consequent judgments of God, and warns Christians against similar conduct, pronouncing, v. 6 and 11, the punishments inflicted on the ancients to be types for the admonition of the living, his cotemporaries, on whom the ends of the world were come; wherefore, he adds, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. It is not probable that this was merely the private opinion of the apostle—it seems rather to have been a current notion that the hard trials of the people led by Moses, as well as of Moses individually, were types of those which awaited the followers of the Messiah in the catastrophe which he was to usher in, and still more emphatically the Messiah himself, who here appears as the antitype of the people, gloriously overcoming all the temptations under which they had fallen.

The Israelites were principally tempted by hunger during their wanderings in the wilderness; [694] hence the first temptation of the Messiah was determined beforehand. The rabbins, too, among the various temptations of Abraham which they recount, generally reckon hunger. [695] That Satan, when prompting Jesus to seek relief from his hunger by an exertion of his own will instead of awaiting it in faith from God, should make use of the terms given in our Evangelists, cannot be matter of surprise if we consider, not only that the wilderness was stony, but that to produce a thing from stones was a proverbial expression, denoting the supply of an object altogether wanting (Matt. iii. 9; Luke xix. 40), and that stone and bread formed a common contrast (Matt. vii. 9). The reply of Jesus to this suggestion is in the same train of ideas on which the entire first act of temptation is constructed; for he quotes the lesson which, according to Deuteronomy viii. 3, the people of Israel tardily learned from the temptation of hunger (a temptation, however, under which they were not resigned, but were provoked to murmur): namely, that man shall not live by bread alone, etc.

But one temptation would not suffice. Of Abraham the rabbins enumerated ten; but this number was too large for a dramatic narrative like that in the gospels, and among lower numbers the sacred three must have the preference. Thrice during his spiritual contest in Gethsemane Jesus severed himself from his disciples (Matt. xxvi.); thrice Peter denied his Lord, and thrice Jesus subsequently questioned his love (John xxi.). In that rabbinical passage which represents Abraham as tempted by the devil in person, the patriarch parries three thrusts from him; in which particular, as well as in the manner in which Old Testament texts are bandied by the parties, the scene is allied to the evangelical one. [696]

The second temptation (in Matthew) was not determined by its relation to the preceding; hence its presentation seems abrupt, and the choice fortuitous or capricious. This may be true with respect to its form, but its substantial meaning is in close connexion with the foregoing temptation, since it also has reference to the conduct of the Jewish people in the wilderness. To them the warning was given in Deut vi. 16 to tempt God no more as they had tempted him at Massah; a warning which was reiterated 1 Cor. x. 9 to the members of the new covenant, though more in allusion to Num. xxi. 4. To this crying sin, therefore, under which the ancient people of God had fallen, must the Messiah be incited, that by resisting the incitement he might compensate, as it were, for the transgression of the people. Now the conduct which was condemned in them as a tempting of the Lord, ἐκπειράζειν Κύριον, was occasioned by a dearth of water, and consisted in their murmurs at this deprivation. This, to later tradition, did not seem fully to correspond to the terms; something more suitable was sought for, and from this point of view there could hardly be a more eligible choice than the one we actually find in our history of the temptation, for nothing can be more properly called a tempting of God than so audacious an appeal to his extraordinary succour, as that suggested by Satan in his second temptation. The reason why a leap from the pinnacle of the temple was named as an example of such presumption, is put into the mouth of Satan himself.

It occurred to the originator of this feature in the narrative, that the passage Ps. xci. 11 was capable of perversion into a motive for a rash act. It is there promised to one dwelling under the protection of Jehovah (a designation under which the Messiah was pre-eminently understood), that angels should bear him up in their hands, lest at any time he should dash his foot against a stone. Bearing up in their hands to prevent a fall, seemed to imply a precipitation from some eminence, and this might induce the idea that the divinely-protected Messiah might hurl himself from a height with impunity. But from what height? There could be no hesitation on this point. To the pious man, and therefore to the head of all the pious, is appropriated, according to Ps. xv. 1, xxiv. 3, the distinction of going up to Jehovah’s holy hill, and standing within his holy place: hence the pinnacle of the temple, in the presumptuous mode of inference supposed, might be regarded as the height whence the Messiah could precipitate himself unhurt.

The third temptation which Jesus underwent—to worship the devil—is not apparent among the temptations of God’s ancient people. But one of the most fatal seductions by which the Israelites were led astray in the wilderness was that of idolatry; and the apostle Paul adduces it as admonitory to Christians. Not only is this sin derived immediately from the devil in a passage above quoted; [697] but in the later Jewish idea, idolatry was identical with the worship of the devil (Baruch iv. 7; 1 Cor. x. 20). How, then, could the worship of the devil be suggested to the Messiah in the form of a temptation? The notion of the Messiah as he who, being the King of the Jewish people, was destined to be lord of all other nations, and that of Satan as the ruler of the heathen world [698] to be conquered by the Messiah, were here combined. That dominion over the world which, in the christianized imagination of the period, the Messiah was to obtain by a long and painful struggle, was offered him as an easy bargain if he would only pay Satan the tribute of worship. This temptation Jesus meets with the maxim inculcated on the Israelites, Deut. vi. 13, that God alone is to be worshipped, and thus gives the enemy a final dismissal.

Matthew and Mark crown their history of the temptation with the appearance of angels to Jesus, and their refreshing him with nourishment after his long fast and the fatigues of temptation. This incident was prefigured by a similar ministration to Elijah after his forty days’ fast, and was brought nearer to the imagination by the circumstance that the manna which appeased the hunger of the people in the wilderness was named, ἄρτος ἀγγέλων, angels’ food (Ps. lxxviii. 25, LXX.; Wisdom xvi. 20). [699]

III. LOCALITY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS

§ 57.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SYNOPTICAL WRITERS AND JOHN, AS TO THE CUSTOMARY SCENE OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS.

According to the synoptical writers, Jesus, born indeed at Bethlehem in Judea, but brought up at Nazareth in Galilee, only absented himself from Galilee during the short interval between his baptism and the imprisonment of the Baptist; immediately after which, he returned thither and began his ministry, teaching, healing, calling disciples, so as to traverse all Galilee; using as the centre of his agency, his previous dwelling-place, Nazareth, alternately with Capernaum, on the north-west border of the lake of Tiberias (Matt iv. 12–25 parall.). Mark and Luke have many particulars concerning this ministry in Galilee which are not found in Matthew, and those which they have in common with him are arranged in a different order; but as they all agree in the geographical circuit which they assign to Jesus, the account of the first Evangelist may serve as the basis of our criticism. According to him the incidents narrated took place in Galilee, and partly in Capernaum down to viii. 18, where Jesus crosses the Galilean sea, but is scarcely landed on the east side when he returns to Capernaum. Here follows a series of scenes connected by short transitions, such as παράγων ἐκεῖθεν (ix. 9, 27), passing from thence, τότε (v. 14), then, ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος (v. 18), while he spake these things; expressions which can imply no important change of place, that is, of one province for another, which it is the habit of the writer to mark much more carefully. The passage, ix. 35, περιῆγεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὰς πόλεις πάσας—διδάσκων ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς αὐτῶν, is evidently only a repetition of iv. 23, and is therefore to be understood merely of excursions in Galilee. The message of the Baptist (chap. xi.) is also received by Jesus in Galilee, at least such appears to be the opinion of the narrator, from his placing in immediate connexion the complaints of Jesus against the Galilean cities. When delivering the parable in chap. xiii. Jesus is by the sea, doubtless that of Galilee, and, as there is mention of his house, οἰκία (v. 1), probably in the vicinity of Capernaum. Next, after having visited his native city Nazareth (xiii. 53) he passes over the sea (xiv. 13), according to Luke (ix. 10), into the country of Bethsaida (Julias); whence, however, after the miracle of the loaves, he speedily returns to the western border (xiv. 34). Jesus then proceeds to the northern extremity of Palestine, on the frontiers of Phœnicia (xv. 21); soon, however, returned to the sea of Galilee (v. 29), he takes ship to the eastern side, in the coast of Magdala (v. 39), but again departs northward into the country of Cæsarea Philippi (xvi. 13), in the vicinity of Lebanon, among the lower ridges of which is to be sought the mount of the transfiguration (xvii. 1). After journeying in Galilee for some time longer with his disciples (xvii. 22), and once more visiting Capernaum (v. 24), he leaves Galilee (xix. 1) to travel (as it is most probably explained) [700] through Perea into Judea (a journey which, according to Luke ix. 52, he seems to have made through Samaria); xx. 17, he is on his way to Jerusalem; v. 29, he comes through Jericho; and xxi. 1, is in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which, v. 10, he enters.

Thus, according to the synoptical writers, Jesus, from his return after being baptized by John, to his final journey to Jerusalem, never goes beyond the limits of North Palestine, but traverses the countries west and east of the Galilean sea and the upper Jordan, in the dominions of Herod Antipas and Philip, without touching on Samaria to the south, still less Judea, or the country under the immediate administration of the Romans. And within those limits, to be still more precise, it is the land west of the Jordan, and the sea of Tiberias, and therefore Galilee, the province of Antipas, in which Jesus is especially active; only three short excursions on the eastern border of the sea, and two scarcely longer on the northern frontiers of the country, being recorded.

Quite otherwise is the theatre of the ministry of Jesus marked out in the fourth gospel. It is true that here also he goes after his baptism by John into Galilee, to the wedding at Cana (ii. 1), and from thence to Capernaum (v. 12); but in a few days the approaching passover calls him to Jerusalem (v. 13). From Jerusalem he proceeds into the country of Judea (iii. 22), and after some time exercising his ministry there (iv. 1) he returns through Samaria into Galilee (v. 43). Nothing is reported of his agency in this province but a single cure, and immediately on this a new feast summons him to Jerusalem (v. 1), where he is represented as performing a cure, being persecuted, and delivering long discourses, until he betakes himself (vi. 1) to the eastern shore of the sea of Tiberias, and from thence to Capernaum (v. 17, 59). He then itinerates for some time in Galilee (vii. 1), but again leaves it, on occasion of the feast of tabernacles, for Jerusalem (v. 2, 10). To this visit the Evangelist refers many discourses and vicissitudes of Jesus (vii. 10, x. 21), and moreover connects with it the commencement of his public ministry at the feast of dedication, without noticing any intermediate journey out of Jerusalem and Judea (x. 22). After this Jesus again retires into the country of Perea, where he had first been with the Baptist (x. 40), and there remains until the death of Lazarus recalls him to Bethany, near Jerusalem (xi. 1), whence he withdraws to Ephraim, in the vicinity of the wilderness of Judea, until the approach of the passover, which he visited as his last (xii. 1 ff.).

Thus, according to John, Jesus was present at four feasts in Jerusalem, before the final one: was besides once in Bethany, and had been active for a considerable time in Judea and on his journey through Samaria.

Why, it must be asked, have the synoptical writers been silent on this frequent presence of Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem? Why have they represented the matter, as if Jesus, before his last fatal journey to Jerusalem, had not overstepped the limits of Galilee and Perea? This discrepancy between the synoptical writers and John was long overlooked in the church, and of late it has been thought feasible to deny its existence. It has been said, that Matthew, at the commencement, lays the scene in Galilee and Capernaum, and pursues his narrative without noticing any journey into Judea until the last; but that we are not hence to conclude that Matthew was unacquainted with the earlier ministry of Jesus in Judea, for as with this Evangelist the local interest is subordinate to the effort at an appropriate arrangement of his events, many particulars in the former part of his history, which he narrates without indicating any place, may have been known, though not stated by him, to have occurred in the earlier journeys and residences in Judea. [701] But this alleged subordination of the local interest in Matthew, is nothing more than a fiction of the harmonist, as Schneckenburger has recently proved. [702] Matthew very carefully marks (chap. iv.) the beginning and (chap. xix.) the end of the almost exclusive residence of Jesus in Galilee; all the intervening narration must therefore be regarded as belonging to that residence, unless the contrary be expressed; and since the Evangelist is on the alert to notice the short excursions of Jesus across the lake and into the north of Galilee, he would hardly pass over in silence the more important, and sometimes prolonged visits to Judea, had they been known or credited by him. Thus much only is to be allowed, that Matthew frequently neglects the more precise statement of localities, as the designation of the spot or neighbourhood in which Jesus laboured from time to time: but in his more general biographical statements, such as the designation of the territories and provinces of Palestine, within the boundaries of which Jesus exercised his ministry, he is as accurate as any other Evangelist.

Expositors must therefore accommodate themselves to the admission of a difference between the synoptical writers and John, [703] and those who think it incumbent on them to harmonize the Gospels must take care lest this difference be found a contradiction; which can only be prevented by deducing the discrepancy, not from a disparity between the ideas of the Evangelists as to the sphere of the ministry of Jesus, but from the difference of mental bias under which they severally wrote. Some suppose that Matthew, being a Galilean, saw the most interest in Galilean occurrences, and hence confined his narrative to them, though aware of the agency of Jesus at Jerusalem. [704] But what biographer, who had himself accompanied his hero into various provinces, and beheld his labours there, would confine his narration to what he had performed in his (the biographer’s) native province? Such provincial exclusiveness would surely be quite unexampled. Hence others have preferred the supposition that Matthew, writing at Jerusalem, purposely selected from the mass of discourses and actions of Jesus with which he was acquainted, those of which Galilee was the theatre, because they were the least known at Jerusalem, and required narrating more than what had happened within the hearing, and was fresh in the memories of its inhabitants. [705] In opposition to this it has been already remarked, [706] that there is no proof of Matthew’s gospel being especially intended for the Christians of Judea and Jerusalem: that even assuming this, a reference to the events which had happened in the reader’s own country could not be superfluous: and that, lastly, the like limitation of the ministry of Jesus to Galilee by Mark and Luke cannot be thus accounted for, since these Evangelists obviously did not write for Judea (neither were they Galileans, so that this objection is equally valid against the first explanation); and were not in so servile a relation to Matthew as to have no access to independent information that might give them a more extended horizon. It is curious enough that these two attempts to solve the contradiction between the synoptical writers and John, are themselves in the same predicament of mutual contradiction. For if Matthew has been silent on the incidents in Judea, according to one, on account of his proximity, according to the other, on account of his remoteness, it follows that, two contrary hypotheses being made with equal ease to explain the same fact, both are alike inadequate.

No supposition founded on the local relations of the writers sufficing to explain the difference in question, higher ground must be taken, in a consideration of the spirit and tendency of the evangelical writings. From this point of view the following proposition has been given: The cause which determined the difference in the contents of the fourth gospel and that of the synoptical ones, accounts also for their divergency as to the limits they assign to the ministry of Jesus; in other words, the discourses delivered by Jesus in Jerusalem, and recorded by John, required for their comprehension a more mature development of Christianity than that presented in the first apostolic period; hence they were not retained in the primitive evangelical tradition, of which the synoptical writers were the organs, and were first restored to the church by John, who wrote when Christianity was in a more advanced stage. [707] But neither is this attempt at an explanation satisfactory, though it is less superficial than the preceding. For how could the popular and the esoteric in the teaching of Jesus be separated with such nicety, that the former should be confined to Galilee, and the latter to Jerusalem (the harsh discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum alone excepted)? It may be said: in Jerusalem he had a more enlightened public around him, and could be more readily understood than in Galilee. But the Galileans could scarcely have misunderstood Jesus more lamentably than did the Jews from first to last, according to John’s representation, and as in Galilee he had the most undisturbed communion with his disciples, we should rather have conjectured that here would be the scene of his more profound instruction. Besides, as the synoptical writers have given a plentiful gleaning of lucid and popular discourses from the final residence of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is no ground whatever for believing that his earlier visits were devoid of such, and that his converse on these occasions took throughout a higher tone. But even allowing that all the earlier discourses of Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem were beyond the range of the first apostolic tradition, deeds were performed there, such as the cure of the man who had had an infirmity thirty-eight years, the conferring of sight on the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, which, from their imposing rank among the evidences of Christianity, must also have necessitated the mention of those early visits of Jesus to Judea during which they occurred.

Thus it is impossible to explain why the synoptical writers, if they knew of the earlier visits of Jesus to Jerusalem, should not have mentioned them, and it must be concluded that if John be right, the first three Evangelists knew nothing of an essential part of the earlier ministry of Jesus; if, on the other hand, the latter be right, the author of the fourth gospel, or of the tradition by which he was guided, fabricated a large portion of what he has narrated concerning the ministry of Jesus, or at least assigned to it a false locality.

On a closer examination, however, the relation between John and the synoptical writers is not simply such, that the latter might not know what the former records, but such, that they must have proceeded from positively opposite data. For example, the synoptical writers, Matthew especially, as often as Jesus leaves Galilee, from the time that he takes up his abode there after the Baptist’s imprisonment, seldom neglect to give a particular reason; such as that he wished to escape from the crowd by a passage across the sea (Matt. viii. 18), or that he withdrew into the wilderness of Perea to avoid the snares of Herod (xiv. 13), or that he retired into the region of Tyre and Sidon on account of the offence taken by the scribes at his preaching (xv. 21): John, on the contrary, generally alleges a special reason why Jesus leaves Judea, and retires into Galilee. Not to contend that his very first journey thither appears to be occasioned solely by the invitation to Cana, his departure again into Galilee after the first passover attended by him in his public character, is expressly accounted for by the ominous attention which the increasing number of his disciples had excited among the Pharisees (iv. 1 ff.). His retirement after the second feast, also, into the country east of the Sea of Tiberias (vi. 1), must be viewed in relation to the ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι (v. 18), since immediately after, the Evangelist assigns as a reason for the continuance of Jesus in Galilee, the malignant designs of his enemies, which rendered his abode in Judea perilous to his life (vii. 1). The interval between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication seems to have been spent by Jesus in the capital, [708] no unpropitious circumstances compelling him to absent himself (x. 22); on the other hand, his journey into Perea (x. 40) and that into Ephraim (xi. 54) are presented as effects of his persecution by the Jews.

Thus precisely the same relation as that which exists between Matthew and Luke, with respect to the original dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus is found between the first three Evangelists and the fourth, with respect to the principal theatre of his ministry. As, in the former instance, Matthew pre-supposes Bethlehem to be the original place of abode, and Nazareth the one subsequently adopted through fortuitous circumstances, while Luke gives the contrary representation; so in the latter, the entire statement of the synoptical writers turns on the idea that, until his last journey, Galilee was the chosen field of the labours of Jesus, and that he only left it occasionally, from particular motives and for a short time; while that of John, on the contrary, turns on the supposition, that Jesus would have taught solely in Judea and Jerusalem had not prudence sometimes counselled him to retire into the more remote provinces. [709]

Of these two representations one only can be true. Before they were perceived to be contradictory, the narrative of John was incorporated with that of the synoptical writers; since they have been allowed to be irreconcilable, the verdict has always been in favour of the fourth Evangelist; and so prevalent is this custom, that even the author of the Probabilia does not use the difference to the disadvantage of the latter. De Wette numbers it among the objections to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel, that it erroneously limits the ministry of Jesus to Galilee, [710] and Schneckenburger has no more important ground of doubt to produce against the apostolic origin of the first canonical gospel, than the unacquaintance of its author with the extra-Galilean labours of Jesus. [711] If this decision be well founded, it must rest on a careful consideration of the question, which of the two incompatible narratives has the greater corroboration from external sources, and the more internal verisimilitude? We have shown in the introduction that the external evidence or testimony for the authenticity of the fourth gospel and of the synoptical ones, that of Matthew emphatically, is of about equal value: that is, it determines nothing in either case, but leaves the decision to the internal evidence. In relation to this, the following question must be considered: is it more probable that, although Jesus was actually often in Judea and Jerusalem previous to his last journey, yet at the time and place whence the synoptical gospels arose, all traces of the fact had disappeared: or that, on the contrary, although Jesus never entered Judea for the exercise of his public ministry before his last journey thither, yet at the time and place of the composition of the fourth gospel a tradition of several such visits had been formed?

The above critics seek to show that the first might be the case, in the following manner. The first gospel, they say, [712] and more or less the two middle ones, contain the tradition concerning the life of Jesus as it was formed in Galilee, where the memory of what Jesus did and said in that province would be preserved with a natural partiality—while, of that part of his life which was spent out of Galilee, only the most critical incidents, such as his birth, consecration, and especially his last journey, which issued in his death, would be retained; the remainder, including his early journeys to the various feasts, being either unknown or forgotten, so that any fragments of information concerning one or other of the previous residences of Jesus at Jerusalem would be referred to the last, no other being known.

But John himself, in whom our theologians rest all their confidence, expressly mentions (iv. 45) that at the first passover visited by Jesus after his baptism (and probably at others also) the Galileans were present, and apparently in great numbers, since as a consequence of their having witnessed his works in Jerusalem, Jesus found a favourable reception in Galilee. If we add to this, that most of the disciples who accompanied Jesus in his early journeys to the feasts were Galileans (John iv. 22, ix. 2), it is inconceivable that tidings of the ministry of Jesus at Jerusalem should not from the first reach Galilee. Once there, could time extinguish them? We grant that it is in the nature of tradition to fuse and remodel its materials, and as the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem was pre-eminently memorable, it might absorb the recollections of the previous ones. But tradition has also another impulse, and it is its strongest; namely to glorify. It may indeed be said that to circumscribe the early ministry of Jesus by the frontiers of Galilee would serve the purpose of glorifying that province, in which the synoptical tradition had its origin. But the aim of the synoptical legend was not to glorify Galilee, on which it pronounces severe judgments;—Jesus is the object round which it would cast a halo, and his greatness is proportionate to the sphere of his influence. Hence, to show that from the beginning of his ministry he made himself known beyond the Galilean angulus terræ, and that he often presented himself on the brilliant theatre of the capital, especially on occasions when it was crowded with spectators and hearers from all regions, was entirely according to the bent of the legend. If, therefore, there had historically been but one journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, tradition might be tempted to create more by degrees, since it would argue—how could so great a light as Jesus have remained so long under a bushel, and not rather have early and often placed himself on the lofty stand which Jerusalem presented? Opponents, too, might object, like the unbelieving brethren of Jesus (John vii. 3, 4), that he who is conscious of the power to perform something truly great, does not conceal himself, but seeks publicity, in order that his capabilities may be recognized; and to these opponents it was thought the best answer to show that Jesus actually did seek such publicity, and early obtained recognition in an extended sphere. Out of this representation would easily grow the idea which lies at the foundation of the fourth gospel, that not Galilee, but Judea, was the proper residence of Jesus.

Thus, viewed from the point of the possible formation of a legend, the balance inclines in favour of the synoptical writers. But is the result the same when we ascend to the relations and designs of Jesus, and from this point of view inquire, if it be more probable that Jesus visited Jerusalem once only or several times during his public life?

The alleged difficulty, that the various journeys to the feasts offer the principal means of accounting for the intellectual development of Jesus is easily removed. For those journeys alone would not suffice to explain the mental pre-eminence of Jesus and as the main stress must still be placed on his internal gifts, we cannot pronounce whether to a mind like his, even Galilee might not present enough aliment for their maturing; besides, an adherence to the synoptical writers would only oblige us to renounce those journeys to the feasts which Jesus took after his public appearance, so that he might still have been present at many feasts previous to his messianic career, without assuming a conspicuous character. It has been held inconceivable that Jesus, so long after his assumption of the messianic character, should confine himself to Galilee, instead of taking his stand in Judea and Jerusalem, which, from the higher culture and more extensive foreign intercourse of their population, were a much more suitable field for his labours; but it has been long remarked, on the other hand, that Jesus could find easier access to the simple and energetic minds of Galilee, less fettered by priestcraft and Pharisaism, and therefore acted judiciously in obtaining a firm footing there by a protracted ministry, before he ventured to Jerusalem, where, in the centre of priestly and Pharisaic domination, he must expect stronger opposition.

There is a graver difficulty in the synoptical statement, considered in relation to the Mosaic law and Jewish custom. The law rigorously required that every Israelite should appear before Jehovah yearly at the three principal feasts (Exod. xxiii. 14 ff.), and the reverence of Jesus for the Mosaic institutes (Matt. v. 17 ff.) renders it improbable that, during the whole course of his ministry, he should have undertaken but one journey of observance. [713] The Gospel of Matthew, however, be our judgment what it may as to the date and place of its composition, did certainly arise in a community of Jewish Christians, who well knew what the law prescribed to the devout Israelite, and must therefore be aware of the contradiction to the law in which the practice of Jesus was involved, when, during a public ministry of several years’ duration, only one attendance at Jerusalem was noticed, or (in case the synoptical writers supposed but a single year’s ministry, of which we shall speak below) when he was represented as neglecting two of the great annual feasts. If then, a circle in close proximity to Jewish usage found nothing offensive in the opinion that Jesus attended but one feast, may not this authority remove all hesitation on the subject from our minds? Besides, on a more careful weighing of the historical and geographical relations, the question suggests itself, whether between the distant, half Gentile Galilee, and Jerusalem, the ecclesiastical bond was so close that the observance of all the feasts could be expected from a Galilean? Even according to the fourth gospel, Jesus omitted attending one passover that occurred in the period of his public career (John vi. 4).

There is, however, one point unfavourable to the synoptical writers. That Jesus in his last visit to Jerusalem should, within the short space of the feast day, have brought himself into such decided hostility to the ruling party in the capital, that they contrived his arrest and death, is inexplicable, if we reject the statement of John, that this hostility originated and was gradually aggravated during his frequent previous visits. [714] If it be rejoined, that even in Galilean synagogues there were stationary scribes and Pharisees (Matt ix. 3, xii. 14), that such as were resident in the capital often visited the provinces (Matt. xv. 1), and that thus there existed a hierarchical nexus by means of which a deadly enmity against Jesus might be propagated in Jerusalem before he had ever publicly appeared there; we then have precisely that ecclesiastical bond between Galilee and Jerusalem which renders improbable on the part of Jesus the non-observance of a series of feasts. Moreover the synoptical writers have recorded an expression of Jesus which tells strongly against their own view. The words: Jerusalem, Jerusalem—how often would I have gathered thy children together—and ye would not, have no meaning whatever in Luke, who puts them into the mouth of Jesus before he had even seen Jerusalem during his public ministry (xiii. 34); and even from the better arrangement of Matthew (xxiii. 37) it is not to be understood how Jesus, after a single residence of a few days in Jerusalem, could found his reproaches on multiplied efforts to win over its inhabitants to his cause. This whole apostrophe of Jesus has so original a character, that it is difficult to believe it incorrectly assigned to him; hence to explain its existence, we must suppose a series of earlier residences in Jerusalem, such as those recorded by the fourth Evangelist. There is only one resource,—to pronounce the statement of the synoptical writers unhistorical in the particular of limiting the decisive visit of Jesus to Jerusalem to the few days of the feast, and to suppose that he made a more protracted stay in the capital. [715]

It will be seen from the foregoing discussion, whether, when so much is to be argued pro and contra, the unhesitating decision of the critics in favour of the fourth Evangelist’s statement is a just one. For our own part, we are far from being equally hasty in declaring for the synoptical writers, and are content to have submitted the actual state of the controversy, as to the comparative merits of John and the synoptical writers, to further consideration.

§ 58.

THE RESIDENCE OF JESUS AT CAPERNAUM.

During the time spent by Jesus in Judea, the capital and its environs recommended themselves as the most eligible theatre for his agency; and we might have conjectured that in like manner, when in Galilee, he would have chosen his native city, Nazareth, as the centre of his labours. Instead of this we find him, when not travelling, domesticated at Capernaum, as already mentioned; the synoptical writers designate this place the ἰδία πόλις of Jesus (Matt. ix. 1, comp. Mark ii. 1); here, according to them, was the οἴκος, which Jesus was accustomed to inhabit (Mark ii. 1, iii. 20; Matt. xiii. 1, 36) probably that of Peter (Mark i. 29; Matt. viii. 14, xvii. 25; Luke iv. 38). In the fourth gospel, which only mentions very transient visits of Jesus to Galilee, Capernaum is not given as his dwelling-place, and Cana is the place with which he is supposed to have the most connexion. After his baptism he proceeds first to Cana (ii. 1), on a special occasion, it is true; after this he makes a short stay at Capernaum (v. 12); and on his return from his first attendance at the passover, it is again Cana to which he resorts and in which the fourth Evangelist makes him effect a cure (iv. 46 ff.), according to the synoptical writers, performed at Capernaum, and after this we find him once again in the synagogue at Capernaum (vi. 59). The most eminent disciples, also, are said by the writer of the fourth gospel, not as by the synoptical writers, to come from Capernaum, but partly from Cana (xxi. 2) and partly from Bethsaida (i. 45). The latter place, even in the synoptical gospels, is mentioned, with Chorazin, as one in which Jesus had been pre-eminently active (Matt. xi. 21; Luke x. 13).

Why Jesus chose Capernaum as his central residence in Galilee, Mark does not attempt to show, but conducts him thither without comment after his return into Galilee, and the calling of the two pairs of fishermen (i. 21). Matthew (iv. 13 ff.) alleges as a motive, that an Old Testament prophecy (Isa. viii. 23, ix. 1), was thereby fulfilled; a dogmatical motive, and therefore of no historical value. Luke thinks he has found the reason in a fact, which is more worthy of notice. According to him, Jesus after his return from baptism does not immediately take up his residence in Capernaum, but makes an essay to teach in Nazareth, and after its failure first turns to Capernaum. This Evangelist tells us in the most graphic style how Jesus presented himself at the synagogue on the sabbath-day, and expounded a prophetic passage, so as to excite general admiration, but at the same time to provoke malicious reflections on the narrow circumstances of his family. Jesus, in reply, is made to refer the discontent of the Nazarenes, that he performed no miracles before them as at Capernaum, to the contempt which every prophet meets with in his own country, and to threaten them in Old Testament allusions, that the divine benefits would be withdrawn from them and conferred on strangers. Exasperated by this, they lead him to the brow of the hill, intending to cast him down; he, however, passes unhurt through the midst of them (iv. 16–30).

Both the other synoptical writers are acquainted with a visit of Jesus to Nazareth; but they transfer it to a much later period, when Jesus had been long labouring in Galilee, and resident in Capernaum (Matt. xiii. 54 ff.; Mark vi. 1 ff.). To reconcile their narrative with that of Luke, it has been customary to suppose that Jesus, notwithstanding his first rough reception, as described by Luke, wished to make one more experiment whether his long absence and subsequent fame might not have altered the opinion of the Nazarenes—an opinion worthy of a petty town: but the result was equally unfavourable. [716] The two scenes, however, are too similar to be prevented from mingling with each other. In both instances the teaching of Jesus in the synagogue makes the same impression on the Nazarenes,—that of amazement at the wisdom of the carpenter’s son (Luke only giving more details): in both instances there is a lack of miracles on the part of Jesus, the first two Evangelists presenting more prominently its cause, namely, the unbelief of the Nazarenes, and the third dwelling more on its unfavourable effect: lastly in both instances, Jesus delivers the maxim (the result of his experience), that a prophet is the least esteemed in his own country: and to this Luke appends a more ample discourse, which irritates the Nazarenes to attempt an act of violence, unnoticed by the other Evangelists. But the fact which most decisively shows that the two narratives cannot exist in each other’s presence, is that they both claim to relate the first incident of the kind; [717] for in both, the Nazarenes express their astonishment at the suddenly revealed intellectual gifts of Jesus, which they could not at once reconcile with his known condition. [718] The first supposition that presents itself is, that the scene described by Luke preceded that of Matthew and Mark; but if so, the Nazarenes could not wonder a second time and inquire, whence hath this man this wisdom? since they must have had proof on that point on the first occasion; if, on the contrary, we try to give the later date to Luke’s incident, it appears unnatural, for the same reason that they should wonder at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, neither could Jesus well say, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears, without severely reflecting on their former insensibility, which had retarded that fulfilment.

These considerations have led the majority of modern commentators to the opinion, that Luke and the other synoptical Evangelists have here given the same history, merely differing in the date, and in the colouring of the facts; [719] and the only question among them is, which of the two narrations deserves the preference. With respect to the date, that of Luke seems, at the first glance, to have the advantage; it gives the desiderated motive for the change of residence, and the wonder of the Nazarenes appears most natural on the supposition that then he first assumed the function of a public teacher; hence Matthew’s divergency from Luke has been recently made a serious reproach to him, as a chronological error. [720] But there is one particular in all the three narratives which is an obstacle to our referring the incident to so early a period. If Jesus presented himself thus at Nazareth before he had made Capernaum the principal theatre of his agency, the Nazarenes could not utter the words which Jesus imputes to them in Luke: Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country; nor could they, according to Matthew and Mark, be astonished at the mighty works of Jesus, [721] for as he performed few if any miracles at Nazareth, that expression, notwithstanding its perplexing connexion with the σοφία, the wisdom, manifested in that city, must refer to works performed elsewhere. If, then, the Nazarenes wondered at the deeds of Jesus at Capernaum, or were jealous of the distinction conferred on that city, Jesus must have previously resided there, and could not have proceeded thither for the first time in consequence of the scene at Nazareth. From this, it is plain that the later chronological position of the narrative is the original one, and that Luke, in placing it earlier, out of mere conjecture, was honest or careless enough to retain the mention of the wonders at Capernaum, though only consistent with the later position. [722] If, with regard to the date of the incident, the advantage is thus on the side of Matthew and Mark, we are left in darkness as to the motive which led Jesus to alter his abode from Nazareth to Capernaum; unless the circumstance that some of his most confidential disciples had their home there, and the more extensive traffic of the place, may be regarded as inducements to the measure.

The fulness and particularity of Luke’s description of the scene, contrasted with the summary style in which it is given by the other two Evangelists, has generally won for the former the praise of superior accuracy. [723] Let us look more closely, and we shall find that the greater particularity of Luke shows itself chiefly in this, that he is not satisfied with a merely general mention of the discourse delivered by Jesus in the synagogue, but cites the Old Testament passage on which he enlarged, and the commencement of its application. The passage is from Isa. lxi. 1, 2, where the prophet announces the return from exile, with the exception of the words to set at liberty them that are bruised, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει, which are from Isa. lviii. 6. To this passage Jesus gives a messianic interpretation, for he declares it to be fulfilled by his appearance. Why he selected this text from among all others has been variously conjectured. It is known that among the Jews at a later period, certain extracts from the Thorah and the Prophets were statedly read on particular sabbaths and feast days, and it has hence been suggested that the above passage was the selection appointed for the occasion in question. It is true that the chapter from which the words ἀποστεῖλαι κ.τ.λ. are taken, used to be read on the great Day of Atonement, and Bengel has made the supposition, that the scene we are considering occurred on that day, a main pillar of his evangelical chronology. [724] But if Jesus had adhered to the regular course of reading, he would not merely have extracted from the lesson appointed for this feast a few stray words, to insert them in a totally disconnected passage; and after all, it is impossible to demonstrate that, so early as the time of Jesus, there were prescribed readings, even from the prophets. [725] If then Jesus was not thus circumstantially directed to the passage cited, did he open upon it designedly or fortuitously? Many imagine him turning over the leaves until he found the text which was in his mind: [726] but Olshausen is right in saying that the words ἀναπτύξας τὸ βιβλίον εὗρε τὸν τόπον do not imply that he found the passage after searching for it, but that he alighted on it under the guidance of the Divine Spirit. [727] This, however, is but a poor contrivance, to hide the improbability, that Jesus should fortuitously open on a passage so well adapted to serve as a motto for his first messianic enterprize, behind an appeal to the Spirit, as deus ex machinâ. Jesus might very likely have quoted this text with reference to himself, and thus it would remain in the minds of the Evangelists as a prophecy fulfilled in Jesus; Matthew would probably have introduced it in his own person with his usual form, ἵνα πληρωθῇ, and would have said that Jesus had now begun his messianic annunciation, κήρυγμα, that the prophecy Isa. lxi. 1 ff. might be fulfilled; but Luke, who is less partial to this form, or the tradition whence he drew his materials, puts the words into the mouth of Jesus on his first messianic appearance, very judiciously, it is true, but, owing to the chances which it is necessary to suppose, less probably; so that I am more inclined to be satisfied with the indefinite statement of Matthew and Mark. The other point in which the description of Luke merits the praise of particularity, is his dramatic picture of the tumultuary closing scene; but this scene perplexes even those who on the whole give the preference to his narrative. It is not to be concealed that the extremely violent expulsion of Jesus by the Nazarenes, seems to have had no adequate provocation: [728] and we cannot with Schleiermacher, [729] expunge the notion that the life of Jesus was threatened, without imputing to the writer a false addition of the words εἰς τὸ κατακρημνίσαι αὐτὸν (v. 29), and thus materially affecting the credibility of his entire narration. But the still more remarkable clause, διελθὼν διὰ μέσου αὐτῶν ἐπορεύετο (v. 30), is the main difficulty. It is not to be explained (at least not in accordance with the Evangelist’s view) as an effect merely of the commanding glance of Jesus, as Hase supposes; and Olshausen is again right when he says, that the Evangelist intended to signify that Jesus passed unharmed through the midst of his furious enemies, because his divine power fettered their senses and limbs, because his hour was not yet come (John viii. 20), and because no man could take his life from him until he himself laid it down (John x. 18). [730] Here again we have a display of the glorifying tendency of tradition, which loved to represent Jesus as one defended from his enemies, like Lot (Gen. xix. 11), or Elisha (2 Kings vi. 18), by a heavenly hand, or better still, by the power of his own superior nature; unless there be supposed in this case, as in the two examples from the Old Testament, a temporary infliction of blindness, an illudere per caliginem, the idea of which Tertullian reprobates. [731] Thus in this instance also, the less imposing account of the first two Evangelists is to be preferred, namely that Jesus, impeded from further activity by the unbelief of the Nazarenes, voluntarily forsook his ungrateful paternal city.

§ 59.

DIVERGENCIES OF THE EVANGELISTS AS TO THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF JESUS. DURATION OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.

In considering the chronology of the public life of Jesus, we must distinguish the question of its total duration, from that of the arrangement of its particular events.

Not one of our Evangelists expressly tells us how long the public ministry of Jesus lasted; but while the synoptical writers give us no clue to a decision on the subject, we find in John certain data, which seem to warrant one. In the synoptical gospels there is no intimation how long after the baptism of Jesus his imprisonment and death occurred: nowhere are months and years distinguished; and though it is once or twice said: μεθ’ ἡμέρας ἓξ or δύο (Matt. xvii. 1, 2), these isolated fixed points furnish us with no guidance in a sea of general uncertainty. On the contrary, the many journeys to the feasts by which the narrative of the fourth Evangelist is distinguished from that of his predecessors, furnishes us, so to speak, with chronological abutments, as for each appearance of Jesus at one of these annual feasts, the Passover especially, we must, deducting the first, reckon a full year of his ministry. We have, in the fourth gospel, after the baptism of Jesus, and apparently at a short interval (comp. i. 29, 35, 44, ii. 1, 12), a passover attended by him (ii. 13). But the next feast visited by Jesus (v. 1) which is indefinitely designated a feast of the Jews, has been the perpetual crux of New Testament chronologists. It is only important in determining the duration of the public life of Jesus, on the supposition that it was a passover; for in this case it would mark the close of his first year’s ministry. We grant that ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, THE feast of the Jews, might very probably denote the Passover, which was pre-eminent among their institutions: [732] but it happens that the best manuscripts have in the present passage no article, and without it, the above expression can only signify indefinitely one of the Jewish feasts, which the author thought it immaterial to specify. [733] Thus intrinsically it might mean either the feast of Pentecost, [734] Purim, [735] the Passover, [736] or any other; [737] but in its actual connection it is evidently not intended by the narrator to imply the Passover, both because he would hardly have glanced thus slightly at the most important of all the feasts, and because, vi. 4, there comes another Passover, so that on the supposition we are contesting, he would have passed in silence over a whole year between v. 47, and vi. 1. For to give the words, ἦν δὲ ἐγγὺς τὸ πάσχα (vi. 4), a retrospective meaning, is too artificial an expedient of Paulus, since, as he himself confesses, [738] this phrase, elsewhere in John, is invariably used with reference to the immediately approaching feast (ii. 13, vii. 2, xi. 55), and must from its nature have a prospective meaning, unless the context indicate the contrary. Thus not until John vi. 4, do we meet with the second passover, and to this it is not mentioned that Jesus resorted. [739] Then follow the feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication, and afterwards, xi. 55, xii. 1, the last passover visited by Jesus. According to our view of John v. 1, and vi. 4, therefore, we obtain two years for the public ministry of Jesus, besides the interval between his baptism and the first Passover. The same result is found by those who, with Paulus, hold the feast mentioned, v. 1, to be a passover, but vi. 4, only a retrospective allusion; whereas the ancient Fathers of the Church, reckoning a separate Passover to each of the passages in question, made out three years. Meanwhile, by this calculation, we only get the minimum duration of the public ministry of Jesus possible according to the fourth gospel, for the writer nowhere intimates that he has been punctilious in naming every feast that fell within that ministry, including those not observed by Jesus, neither, unless we regard it as established that the writer was the apostle John, have we any guarantee that he knew the entire number.

It may be urged in opposition to the calculations, built on the representations of John, that the synoptical writers give no reasons for limiting the term of the public ministry of Jesus to a single year: [740] but this objection rests on a supposition borrowed from John himself, namely that Jesus, Galilean though he was, made it a rule to attend every Passover: a supposition, again, which is overturned by the same writer’s own representation. According to him, Jesus left unobserved the passover mentioned, vi. 4, for from vi. 1, where Jesus is on the east side of the sea of Tiberias, through vi. 17 and 59, where he goes to Capernaum, and vii. 1, where he frequents Galilee, in order to avoid the Jews, to vii. 2 and 10, where he proceeds to Jerusalem on occasion of the feast of Tabernacles, the Evangelist’s narrative is so closely consecutive that a journey to the Passover can nowhere be inserted. Out of the synoptical gospels, by themselves, we gather nothing as to the length of the public ministry of Jesus, for this representation admits of our assigning him either several years of activity, or only one; their restriction of his intercourse with Jerusalem to his final journey being the sole point in which they control our conclusion. It is true that several Fathers of the Church, [741] as well as some heretics, [742] speak of the ministry of Jesus as having lasted but a single year; but that the source of this opinion was not the absence of early journeys to the feasts in the synoptical gospels, but an entirely fortuitous association, we learn from those Fathers themselves, for they derive it from the prophetic passage Isa. lxi. 1 f. applied by Jesus (Luke iv.) to himself. In this passage there is mention of the acceptable year of the Lord, ἐνιαυτὸς Κυρίου δεκτὸς, which the prophet or, according to the Evangelical interpretation, the Messiah is sent to announce. Understanding this phrase in its strict chronological sense, they adopted from it the notion of a single messianic year, which was more easily reconcilable with the synoptical gospels than with that of John, after whose statement the calculation of the church soon came to be regulated.

In striking contrast with this lowest computation of time, is the tradition, also very ancient, that Jesus was baptized in his thirtieth year, but at the time of his crucifixion was not far from his fiftieth. [743] But this opinion is equally founded on a misunderstanding. The elders who had conversations with John the disciple of the Lord, in Asia, πρεσβύτεροι οἱ κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν Ἰωάννῃ τῷ τοῦ Κυρίου μαθητῇ συμβεβληκότες,—on whose testimony Irenæus relies when he says, such is the tradition of John, παραδεδωκέναι ταῦτα τὸν Ἰωάννην,—had given no information further than that Christ taught, ætatem seniorem habens. That this ætas senior was the age of from forty to fifty years is merely the inference of Irenæus, founded on what the Jews allege as an objection to the discourse of Jesus, John viii. 57: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? language which according to Irenæus could only be addressed to one, qui jam quadraginta annos excessit, quinquagesimum autem annum nondum attigit. But the Jews might very well say to a man a little more than thirty, that he was much too young to have seen Abraham, since he had not reached his fiftieth year, which, in the Jewish idea, completed the term of manhood. [744]

Thus we can obtain no precise information from our gospels as to how long the public labours of Jesus lasted; all we can gather is, that if we follow the fourth gospel we must not reckon less than two years and something over. But the repeated journeys to the feasts on which this calculation is founded are themselves not established beyond doubt.

Opposed to this minimum, we gain a maximum, if we understand, from Luke iii. 1 ff. and 23, that the baptism of Jesus took place in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and add to this that his crucifixion occurred under the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. For as Pilate was recalled from his post in the year of Tiberius’s death, [745] and as Tiberius reigned rather more than seven years after the fifteenth year of his reign, [746] it follows that seven years are the maximum of the possible duration of the ministry of Jesus after his baptism. But while one of these data, namely, that Jesus was crucified under Pilate, is well attested, the other is rendered suspicious by its association with a chronological error, so that in fact we cannot achieve here even a proximate, still less an accurate solution of our question.

§ 60.

THE ATTEMPTS AT A CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE PARTICULAR EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.

In attempting a chronological arrangement of the particular events occurring in the interval between the baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion, the peculiar relation of the synoptical writers to John, renders it necessary to give them both a separate and a comparative examination. As to the latter, if its result be a reconciliation of the two accounts, the journeys to the feasts in John must form the panels between which the materials of the synoptical writers must be so inserted, that between each pair of journeys with the incidents at Jerusalem to which they gave rise, would fall a portion of the Galilean history. For this incorporation to be effected with any certainty, two things would be essential; first, a notice of the departure of Jesus from Galilee by the first three Evangelists, as often as the fourth speaks of a residence in Jerusalem; and, secondly, on the part of John, an intimation, if not a narration, between his accounts of the several feasts, of the Galilean occurrences represented by the synoptical writers as an uninterrupted train. But we have seen that the synoptical writers fail in the required notice; while it is notorious that John, from the baptism of Jesus to the closing scenes of his life, is only in two or three instances in coincidence with the other Evangelists. John says (iii. 24) that when Jesus began his ministry, John was not yet cast into prison; Matthew makes the return of Jesus into Galilee subsequent to the imprisonment of the Baptist (iv. 12), hence it has been inferred that that return was from the first passover, and not from the baptism; [747] but it is undeniable that Matthew places the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus in Galilee, and presupposes no earlier ministry at the feast in Jerusalem, so that the two statements, instead of dovetailing, as has been imagined, are altogether incompatible. The next, but very dubious point of contact, occurs in the healing of the nobleman’s son, according to John iv. 46 ff., or the centurion’s servant, according to Matt. viii. 5 ff., and Luke vii. 1 ff., which John places (v. 47) immediately after the return of Jesus from his prolonged residence in Judea and Samaria, during and after the first passover. It was to be expected, then, that the corresponding narration of the synoptical writers would be preceded by some intimation of the first journey made by Jesus to a feast. Not only is such an intimation wanting—there is not a single aperture to be found for the insertion of this journey, since, according to the synoptical writers, the cure in question was an immediate sequel to the Sermon on the Mount, which Matthew and Luke represent as the culminating point, of an apparently uninterrupted course of teaching and miracles in Galilee. Thus neither at this point is the chronology of the first three Evangelists to be eked out by that of the fourth, since they nowhere present a joint on to which the statements of the latter can be articulated. Another more decided coincidence between the two parties exists in the associated narratives of the miracle of the loaves, and that of walking on the sea, John vi. 1–21, Matt. xiv. 14–36 parall., which John places in the interval immediately preceding the second passover, unvisited by Jesus; but he differs so completely from the synoptical writers in his account of these miracles, both in their introduction and termination, that either he or they must inevitably be wrong. For while, according to Matthew, Jesus retires from Nazareth probably, at all events from some part of Galilee, to the opposite side of the sea, where he effects the multiplication of the loaves; according to John he sets out from Jerusalem. Further, in the first two gospels Jesus proceeds after the miracle of the loaves into a district where he was less known (both Matt. v. 35 and Mark v. 54 expressly stating that the people knew him), whereas in John he goes directly to Capernaum, with which of all places he was the most familiar. We know not here whether to tax the synoptical writers or John with a mistake: and as we cannot pronounce whether he or they have placed this incident too early or too late, we are equally ignorant how much of the synoptical narratives we are to place before, and how much after, the second passover, which John makes nearly cotemporary with the feeding of the five thousand. Here, however, the points of contact between this Evangelist and his predecessors are at an end, until we come to the last journey of Jesus; and if they are too uncertain to promise even a simple division of the synoptical materials by the two Passovers, how can we hope, by the journeys of Jesus to the feast of the Jews, ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, to the feast of Tabernacles, or to the feast of Dedication, if that be a separate journey, to classify chronologically the uninterrupted series of Galilean occurrences in the first three gospels? Nevertheless this has been attempted by a succession of theologians down to the present time, with an expenditure of acumen and erudition, worthy of a more fertile subject; [748] but unprejudiced judges have decided, that as the narrative of the first three Evangelists has scarcely any elements that can give certitude to such a classification, not one of the harmonies of the gospels yet written has any claim to be considered anything more than a tissue of historical conjectures. [749]

It remains to estimate the chronological value of the synoptical writers, apart from John. They are so frequently at variance with each other in the order of events, and it is so seldom that one has all the probabilities on his side, that each of them may be convicted of numerous chronological errors, which must undermine our confidence in his accuracy. It has been maintained that, in the composition of their books, they meditated no precise chronological order, [750] and this is partially confirmed by their mode of narration. Throughout the interval between the baptism of Jesus and the history of the Passion, their narratives resemble a collection of anecdotes, strung together mostly on a thread of mere analogy and association of ideas. But there is a distinction to be made in reference to the above opinion. It is true that from the purport of their narratives, and the indecisiveness and uniformity of their connecting phrases, we can detect their want of insight into the more accurate chronological relations of what they record; but that the authors flattered themselves they were giving a chronological narration, is evident from those very connecting phrases, which, however indecisive, have almost always a chronological character, such as καταβάντι ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους, παράγων ἐκεῖθεν, ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος, ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ, τότε, καὶ ἰδοὺ, etc. [751]

The incidents and discourses detailed by John are, for the most part, peculiar to himself; he is therefore not liable to the same control in his chronology from independent authors, as are the synoptical writers from each other; neither is his narration wanting in connectedness and sequence. Hence our decision on the merits of his chronological order is dependent on the answer to the following question: Is the development and progress of the cause and plan of Jesus, as given by the fourth Evangelist, credible in itself and on comparison with available data, drawn from the other gospels? The solution to this question is involved in the succeeding inquiry.