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," 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 contemporary 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 ^{P.210} with the words, in those days, e)n taij h(meraij e)keinaij, which connecting phrase Matthew, although he omitted that to which it referred, has nevertheless retained; or we may, with Suskind, apply the words, not to the settlement, but to the subsequent residence of Jesus at Nazareth; or better still, e)n taij h(meraij e)keinaij like the corresponding Hebrew expression, Bayyamim hahem 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. 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 (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 contemporary with Antipas and Philip as tetrarch of Abilene. Josephus, it is true, mentions a Lysanias as governor of Chalcis in Lebanon, near to which lay the territory of Abilene; 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. Thus, not only is the time of his government earlier by 60 years than the loth 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. We cannot indeed prove what Suskind ^{P.211} 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 Abilene as belonging to Lysanias, h( Lusaniou, 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.

If, according to this, the younger Lysanias is but an historic fiction, the proposed alternative is but a philological one. For when it is said in the first place: "Philip being tetrarch of Iturea" etc., and when it follows: "and Lysanias being tetrarch of Abilene" we cannot possibly understand from this, that Philip reigned also over the Abilene of Lysanias. For in that case the word tetrarxountoj ought not to have been repeated, and thj 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, h( Lusaniou, 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.

The above chronological notation relates directly to John the Baptist alone; a similar one is wanting when Luke begins further on (v.21ff.) to speak of Jesus. of him it is merely said that he was about thirty years of age, on his public appearance, 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 ^{P.212} 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 (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, 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. 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 alt things from the very first, 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, as well as the evangelists, could not have been so hastily won.

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 beginning of his ministry shortly before ^{P.213} 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.18ff.); 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.1ff. 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.1ff. 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 beginning 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 beginning of his ministry, is utterly foreign to the )Sew 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 ^{P.214} and Mark, Jesus, appears in Galilee. Luke, in particular, by designating (iii. 23.) the baptism of Jesus as his dpEa6ai, his assumption of office, and by dating the intercourse of Jesus with his disciples from the baptism of John (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 ht his appearance, we must suppose that John was in his twentieth year when be 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 Claudius, 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 Elijah; 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 tins ^{P.215} 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.

JOHN, a Nazirite, according to our authorities (Matt. iii. 4. ix. 14. xi. 18. Luke i. 15), and in the opinion of several theologians, an Essene, is said by Luke (iii. 2.) to have been summoned to his public work by the word of God which came to him in the wilderness. Not possessing the Baptist's own declaration, we cannot accept as complete the dilemma stated by Paulus, 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, but that for the purpose of teaching and baptizing he resorted to the country about Jordan, (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, but this was not the wilderness of Judea, which lay further south.Hence it has been supposed that Matthew, misled by his application of the prophecy, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, (fwnh boountoj e)n th e)remw ) to John, who issued from the wilderness of Judea, placed there his labours as a preacher of repentance and a baptizer, although their true scene was the blooming valley of the Jordan. 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 did you go out into the wilderness to see?" (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 e)rhmoj thj Ioudaiaj 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, or that the waste tract through which that river flowed, being a continuation of the wilderness of Judea, retained the same name.

The baptism of John could scarcely have been derived from the baptism of proselytes, 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 people of Israel, 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 (Isa. 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, 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, metanoia , 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, has the same sense under a Greek form. Mark and Luke, however, while designating the baptism of John baptismoj metanoiaj (i. 4. in 3). Matthew has not the same addition; but he, with Mark, describes the baptized as "confessing their sins" (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. We might here be led to the supposition that the words for the remission of sins, as in Acts ii. 38. and other passages, was commonly used in relation ^{P.217} 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 Gospel 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.

The several accounts concerning John are further at variance, as to the relation in which they place his baptism to the kingdom of heaven, basileia twn ou)ranwn. 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," (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, in his mention of popular assemblages, and in the fear of Antipas lest John should excite a revolt, 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 contemporary 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," a later edition of bis words gave ^{P.218} gar (for) instead of i(na (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, ( basileia tou qeou,) 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,(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.16ff.) of this personage he further 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 Synoptic 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 connection 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 writers 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 Synoptic 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 unacquaintedness is attested subjectively, by his premeditated assertion. It was not, therefore, a very farfetched idea of the Wolfenb ttel 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.

^{P.219} 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." 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. 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. 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! indeed, what could be the object of those communications, if they had no influence on the early life and intercourse of the two sons?

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 baptised by you, and do you come 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. But the right to undertake the baptism which was to prepare the way for the Messiah's king- ^{P.220} dom, 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.19ff.) 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, indeed, 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 you, O Messiah? Far more do I need your baptism of the Spirit !"

The contradiction cannot be cleared away; we must therefore, if we would not lay the burden 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, further than the words by which the Baptist seeks to deter Jesus from receiving baptism; words which, if uttered before the occurrence of any thing 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; 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. 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 ^{P.221} 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.

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 Gospel 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.29ff. 36; iii.27ff.); according to the first Gospel, he was already convinced of these before the baptism of Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew (xi.2ff.) and Luke (vii. 18.) 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.

^{P.222} 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. 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 Jesu.?, 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 rumor of the works of Christ, 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?

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. 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, 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, ^{P.223} 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 (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).

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, 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 Gospel 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, "Are you the one who was to come?" he changes into the positive assumption, you are he who was to come; the other still more embarrassing interrogatory, "shall we look for another?" he completely transfigures thus: why, seeing that you perform so great works) do we yet await you? Shall not John with all his authority command, through us, all those who have partaken of his baptism to obey you as the Messiah, and be attentive to your 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 further 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 ^{P.224} of the destination of Jesus. If he still, as formerly, conceived Jesus to be the Lamb of God that 'takes away the sins of the world,' 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 apostasy 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 Galilee, 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 (a)kousaj ta e)rga tou Xristou), or as Luke has it, because "his disciples showed him of all these things." 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? 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, o( de Iwannhj, ou)k) a)kousaj e)n tw? desmwtheriw ta e)rga tou Xristou etc. It might then be conceived, that John had indeed been convinced, at a former period, of the Messiahship of Jesus; now, however, in his imprisonment, he was ^{P.225} 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 irreconcileable with any previous confidence.

Bat how could he become uncertain about the Messiahship of Jesus, if he had never recognized 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. 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 versa. 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 pre-earthly, 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; "to take away the sin of the world" 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!" But even if ^{P.226} ai(rein by itself might bear this interpretation, still a)mnoj not merely with the article but with the addition tou qeou, must signify, not a Iamb in general, but a special, holy Lamb; and if, as is most probable, this designation has reference to Isai. xlii. 7, which can only be expounded by what is there predicated of the lamblike servant of God, that he "takes away the sin of the world" (V. 4, LXX), words which must signify vicarious suffering. 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.

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 them selves to it; and when his death had actually resulted, their trust in him as the Messiah was utterly confounded (Luke xxiv.20ff.). 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; indeed, 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? 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 Synoptic 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 contemporaries.

Thus the above considerations are not decisive, and we therefore turn to the expressions concerning the pre-earthly 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 comes after me is preferred before me; for he was before me," 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; ^{P.227} has so appeared in my eyes, that he deserves rather from his rank and character to be called the-first." 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. We have here obviously the favourite dogma of the fourth evangelist, the eternal pre-existence of the logoj, 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 prwtoj mou, must have been very remote from the Baptist's point of view, at least so far as the logoj 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. There are traces of this Jewish notion in the writings of Paul (e. g. 1 Cor. x. 4. Col. i. 15 f.) and the rabbis; and allowing that it was of Alexandrian origin, as Bretschneider argues, 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? 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 allows that this discourse of John seems the echo of the foregoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. ^{P.228}

The expressions in the speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly those of the apostle John; for instance, sfragein (to seal), marturia (testimony), the antithesis of anwqen and e)k thj ghj (from above and of the earth), the phrase e)xein zwhn aiwnion (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, he entirely within the domain of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of a)nw (from above), and a)po thj ghj (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as a)nwqen e)rxomenoj (he that comes from above), as o(n e)pemyen o( qeoj (he whom God had sent), who consequently "speaks the words of God," the relation of Jesus to God as the ui(oj (son), whom the Father loves: 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? Christianus ante Christum! And then, as Olshausen well observes, 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."' 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 daring 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, ^{P.229} reflections concerning Jesus, he uses the preterite. 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 L cke 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 road 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 "ui(oj tou qeou, who was before him," such refined insight into the Messianic economy, as is shown by his designating Jesus "the Son of the living God" 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, that Jesus be revealed as the Messiah (i. 31), and acknowledges it to be the divine ordinance, that by the side of the increasing Jesus, he must be the rock on which that kingdom was to be founded. ^{P.230} (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.). The continuance of his baptism would be to no purpose; for Luke'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, 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 Sabeeans are to be credited concerning their own history, the sect remains to this day. 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.

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 Elijah, 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, ^{P.231} 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. 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 circle, 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, Competent judges have recently acknowledged that there exists a discrepancy between the Synoptic Gospels and the fourth, the blame of which must be imputed to the latter; 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 Synoptic Gospels and in Josephus; out of a practical preacher he makes a speculative Christologist; out of a hard and unbending, a yielding and self-renouncing nature.

The style in which the scenes between John and Jesus (John i.29ff. 35ff.) are depicted, shows them to have originated partly in the free composition of the imagination, partly in a remodelling of the synoptic 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 L cke'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, ^{P.232} 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 L cke allows, 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, "Are you 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, as Jesus in the former case gives to the disciples, after the delivery of their message, the direction: "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard," so in the latter, he gives to the inquiry concerning his abode, the answer: "come and see.." But while in the synoptic 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 ton e0rxomenon, and this coming Messiah, adds Paul, to whom John pointed was Jesus. This was an interpretation of the Baptist's words by the issue; for Jesus had approved himself to a great number of his contemporaries, as the Messiah announced by John. There was but a step to the notion that the Baptist himself had, under the e0rxomenon understood the individual Jesus, had himself the ton Kurion 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. ^{P.233} 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 the Lord 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 Elijah, 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 aggrandize 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, 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, 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 ^{P.234} 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, consider Luke's account the true one, and the story 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. It would indeed be singular if Matthew had supplied the desmwtherion 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 connection 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, 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 "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 beginning 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 repentance and the kingdom of heaven; and the canon cited above is entirely in favour of Matthew. And if it be asked which fiction best accords with the aggrandizing 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 ^{P.235} 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.

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) if this passage, which in its original connection related not to the Messiah and his forerunner, but, to the Lord, 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.4ff.).

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 synoptic 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) "This is he of whom it is written, .Behold, I send, my messenger before your face, to prepare your way before you"; 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; the Lord, however, does not therein speak of sending a messenger before the Messiah, but ^{P.236} these instances that the second person is substituted for the first.

Another notable passage of the same prophet (iii. 23. LXX. iv. 4.) "Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite before the coming of the day of the Lord," suggested to the evangelists the assimilation of John the Baptist to Ellas. That John, labouring for the reformation of the people, in the spirit and power of Elijah, 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 Sanhedrin ask, "Are you Elijah?" the Baptist declares this dignity: according to the usual explanation, he only extended his denial to the rude popular notion, that he was the ancient Seer bodily resuscitated, whereas he would have admitted the view of the Synoptic Gospels, that he had the spirit of Elijah. Nevertheless, it appears improbable that if the fourth evangelist had been familiar with the idea of the Baptist as a second Elijah, 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 Elijah, 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?" in John the deputies of the Sanhedrin ask him "Who are you?" which we infer from the Baptist's answer to mean: "Are you, as is believed, the Messiah?" According to Luke, the Baptist answers, "I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I comes, 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 stands one among you whom you 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 preexistence of Jesus, and deferring to another occasion (v. 33.) the mention of the Messiah's spiritual baptism, which Luke gives in immediate connection 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, 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 ^{P.237} of enthusiasm, believe him to be the Messiah. But that the Sanhedrin 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.23ff.), 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 Sanhedrin belonged, they must have prejudged that he was not the Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that he had no right to undertake a baptisma. 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 Matthew above cited, they ask Jesus, quite consistently with their impression that he had no prophetic authority: "By what authority are you doing these things?" but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they presupposed him to be the Messiah, and when he, apparently to their consternation, has denied this, they tender him successively the dignities of Elijah, 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 synoptic 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 you know not ^{P.238} what powers were entrusted to John, you need not know from whom mine are given," the following be substituted: "Since you know what John has declared concerning me, you 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.

The judgment of Jesus on the character of John is delivered on two occasions in the Synoptic Gospels; first, after the departure of John's messengers (Matt. xi.7ff.); secondly, after the appearance of Elijah 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 synoptic passage, he declares John to be the promised Elijah; 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 "neither eating nor drinking;" and in the latter it is this very asceticism which is said to liken him to the "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 connection 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.

Thirdly, with respect to the relation in which the agency of John and Jesus stood to their contemporaries, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations of both is complained of v.16ff., although in v. 12 it is observed, that the violent zeal of some had, under ^{P.239} the guidance of John, wrested for them an entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah.

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 o( e)rxomenoj 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 synoptic 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. ^{P.240}

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 synoptic evangelists and Josephus, 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.3ff.; Mark vi.17ff.; 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 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. If these two accounts be considered as distinct and irreconcileable, 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 Gospel 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. 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. 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. 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 Gospel narratives themselves, not only in this, that Mark gives the scene at the feast ^{P.241} 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). Here, again, the individualizing characteristic of Mark's narrative has induced commentators to prefer it to that of Matthew. 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, while he says of Herod, that having conceived fears of John, he judged it expedient to put him to death. 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.

The close of the Gospel narratives leaves the impression that the severed 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 Machaerus, a fortress on the southern border of Persia, whereas the residence of Herod was in Tiberias, a day's journey distant from Machaerus. Hence the head of John the Baptist could only be presented to Herod after two day's 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 connection 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 platter 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, that Herod Antipas was then at war with the Arabian king, Aretas, between whose kingdom and his own lay the fortress of Machaerus; and there Herod might possibly have resided with his court at that period.

Thus we see that the life of John in the Gospel narratives is, from easily conceived reasons, overspread with mythical lustre on the side which is turned toward Jesus, while on the other its historical lineaments, are more visible.