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RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.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.), wliich is represented as a consequence of his imprisonment; but we gather from Matt. iv. 12.
Mark i. 14. tliat 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 Jolm as the cause of the appearance of Jesus in G-alilee, 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 Jolm was arrested so soon after the baptism of Jesus : for in cliap. iii. 24. it is expressly stated, that John was actively engaged in his ministry after tlie 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, tlie 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 tlie other, that which may be added to the agency of John after tlie appearance of Jesus, will not make amends for that which is subtracted from it before that epocli. For, apart from the tact implied by the fourth Evangelist (i. 35.) tliat the Baptist liad 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 scliool, if he liad 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 eitlier remained among tlie 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 Jolm.
But the idea of a long interim, between tlie baptism of Jesus and the commencement of Ills ministry, is utterly foreign to tlie ]Sew Testament writers. For tliat they regard tlie baptism of Jesus as his consecration to the Messianic office, is proved by tlie accompanying descent of tlie spirit and the voice from heaven; the only pause wliich they allow to intervene, is the six weeks’ last in the wilderness, immediately after wliich, according to Luke, or after tlie ap
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THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
and Mark, Jesus, appears in Galilee. Luke, in particular, by designating (iii. 23.) the baptism of Jesus as his dp^Ea6ai, his assumption of office, and by dating the intercourse of Jesus witli his disciples from the pdnriap.a ‘\wvvav (Acts i. 22.), evinces his persuasion that the baptism and public manifestation of Jesus were identical.
 
Tlius the gospel narrative is an obstacle to the adoption of tlie two most plausible expedients for tlie prolongation of John’s ministry, viz., that Jesus presented liimself 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 miglit have been led to their point of view even without historical grounds. A sufficient motive lies close at hand, and is implied in tlie 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 tlie mere Precursor, but would hasten forward to tlie object at which he pointed. Yet more obvious is tlie interest which primitive Christian tradition must have had in excluding, whatever might have beeii the fact, any interval between the baptism of Jeeus and the beginning of Ills public course. For to allow tliat 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 tlie new church, which desired a Founder instructed by God, and not by man: another turn, therefore, would soon be given to the facts, and tlie baptism of Jesus would be lield to signify, not his initiation into tlie school of Jolm, but a consecration to his independent office. Thus the diverging testimony of the evangelists does not preclude our adopting tlie conclusion to wliich the nature of tlie case leads us; viz., that tlie Baptist had been long labouring, anterior to the appearance of Jesus.
 
If, in addition to tills, we accept tlie statement of Luke (i. 26.
and iii. 23.), that Jesus, being only half a year younger tlian Jolin, •was about in his thirtieth year ht his appearance, we must suppose that Jolin was in his twentieth year wlien 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 Cludius*, hold it improbable that so young a preacher of repentance should make an impression, or even that lie should be taken for a propliet of the olden time-an Elias; I will only appeal to tlie ordinary course of tilings as a sanction for presuming, tliat one who entered so much earlier upon tlie scene of action was proportionately older, especially wlien tlie principles and spirit of his teaching tell so plainly of a mature age as do tlie discourses of John. There are exceptions to this rule; but the statement of Luke (i. 26.), tliat John was only six months older than Jesus, is insufficient to establish one in tins
DELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.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, tlie 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,*
an Essene, is said by Luke (iii. 2.) to have been summoned to his public work by the word of God p’^a Oeov, which came to him in the wilderness.Not possessing tlie Baptist’s own declaration, we cannot accept as complete the dilemma stated by Paulus,f when he says, that we know not whether Jolin 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 tlie account of Luke it appears that the divine call came to John in the wilderness, ev ry ep^y, but that for the purpose of teaching and baptizing he resorted to the country about Jordan, mpi^upog rov ‘lopSuvov (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 Joseplms, tlie Jordan before emptying itself into the Dead Sea traverses a great wilderness, VO\\T(V Kprifiiav,^ but this was not the wilderness of Judea, wliich lay farther south. § Hence it has been supposed that Matthew, misled by his application of the prophecy, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, (f>wvfj ftoGivTog ev ry ep^y, to John, who issued from the wilderness of Judea, epypog rf^ ‘lovSaiaS, placed there his labours as a preacher of repentance and a baptizer, although their true scene was tlie blooming valley of tlie 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 went ye out into the, wilderness to see ? 61 E^rftvOare EM- TT]V ep^ov OsdvaaOal (vii. 24.). Now as the
* Stiiudlin, Geschichte der Sittenlehre Jesu, 1, S. 580. Paulus, exeg. Handb. 1 a & 136. Comp. also Creuzer, Symbolik, 4, S. 413 ff.f Ut sup. p. 347.f Bril. jud’
iii. x. 7.§ See Winer, bibl. Kealworterbuch, A. Waste. Schneckenburger, uber den Ursprung des ersten kanonischen Evangeliums, S. 39.
-la c ‘
 
j| Schneckenburger, ut sup. S.
 
216 THE LIFE Of JESUS.
 
vallev 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 tlie eprifzoi; T’/JC ‘lov6aiai;; and even that may be explained away by the supposition, either that John, as lie 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.f
The baptism of John could scarcely have been derived from the baptism of proselytes, f 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 lie promises that he will himself cleanse them with water (Isa. i. 16. Ez. xxxvi. 25.
comp. Jer. ii. 22). Add to this tlie 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, iiETavoia, to be one of its essential requirements; for even what Josephus says of the Baptist, that lie admonished tlie Jews, practising virtue, just towards each other, and devout towards G-od, to come to his baptism, ^perfjv eTTaunovvrw;, ical ~y TTpog d.AA’qX,ov(; Sinaioavv-y nal npof rov Oeov evasQeia ^pufisvovi; paT!Tiap,w avvisvcn, [| lias the same sense under a Greek form. Mark and Luke, however, while designating the baptism of John ftdrrTiafia fieravoia^, add, £({• aeaiv dfiapTt.&v (i. 4.
in. 3). Matthew has not the same addition; but he, with Mark, describes the baptized as confessing their sins, ^o^oXo-yovfievoi. rag apapria^ avruv (iii. 6.) Joseplius, on tlie other hand, appears in direct contradiction to them, when he gives it as the opinion of the Baptist, that baptism is pleasing to G-od, not when we ask pardon for some transgressions, but when we pzirify the body, after having first purified the mind by righteousness, ovw yap not. TT]V
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