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Authors: George Eliot

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ra ‘epya TOV Xpicn-ov, K. T. A,. 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, the works of Jesus --„ „„ i^^.^ +„ i,;a para. and imaErinina: him inactive, he was as
EELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.225
 
sailed 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 tlie 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 tlirows light on tlie 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 tlie 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 miglit be he wlio would verify his idea.*So interpreted, this message of the Baptist excludes his previous testimony ; if lie 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 tlie other, of truth or untruth.
 
The most definite expressions of John’s conviction that Jes.us was the Messiah are found in the fourth Gospel, and these suggest two distinct questions: first, whether it be conceivable that John had such a notion of the Messiah as is therein contained; and, secondly, whether it be probable that he believed it realized in the person of Jesus.
 
With respect to the former, the fourth Gospel makes the Baptist’s idea of the Messiah include the characteristics of expiatory suffering, and of a premundane, heavenly existence. It has been attempted, indeed, so to interpret the expressions with which he directs his disciples to Jesus, aa to efface tlie notion of expiatory suffering. Jesus, we are told, is compared to a lamb on account of his meekness and patience; alpeiv Tffv ayLapnav TOV nooy.ov, 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 reformins; it;
 
and tlie 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 !”f But the best critics have shown that even
* The gospel writers, after what they had narrated of the relations between Jesus and the Baptist, of coarse understood the question to express doubt, whence probably v.
6 (Matt.) and v. 23 (Luke) came in this connection. Supposing these passages authentic, they suggest another conjecture ; viz. that Jesus spoke in the foregoing verses of spiritual miracles, and that the Baptist was perplexed by the absence of corporeal ones. The UKOvaas TU Spya T, X, must then be set down to the writer’s misapprehension of the es
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
if alpeiv by itself might; bear this interpretation, still c/ivb?, not merely with the article but with the addition rov QEOV, must signify, not a Iamb in general, but a special, holy Lamb; and if, as is most probable, this designation has reference to Isai. liii. 7., a’ipsi-v rf]v djiaprlav can only be expounded by wliat is there predicated of tlie lamblike servant of God, that he Tag apapriac; •r\\iw> (pepsi, nal •n-Epi •qfJi&v oSwarai (V. 4, LXX.), words which must signify vicarious suffering.* Now that tlie Baptist should have referred the above prophetic passage to the Messiah, and hence liave thought of him as suffering, lias been recently held more than doubtful. +
 
For so foreign to the current opinion, at least, was this notion of tlie Messiah, that tlie disciples of Jesus, during the wliole period of their intercourse with him, could not reconcile them selves to it;
 
and. wlien his death had actually resulted, their trust in him as the Messiah was utterly confounded (Luke xxiv. 20 ff.). How, then, could the Baptist, who, according to tlie solemn declaration of Jesus, Matt. xi. 11., confirmed by the allusions in the Gospels to his strict ascetic life, ranked below the least in tlie kingdom of heaven, to which the apostles already belonged-how could this alien discern, long before tlie sufferings of Jesus, that they pertained to the character of the Messiah, when the denizens were only taught the same lesson by tlie issue ? Or, if the Baptist really had sucli insight, and communicated it to his disciples, wliy did it not, by means of those wlio left his circle for that of Jesus, win an entrance into the latter-nay, why did it not, by means of the great credit which John enjoyed, mitigate the offence caused by tlie death of Jesus, in tlie public at large ?f Add to this, that in none of our accounts of the Baptist, with the exception of the fourth Gospel, do we find that he entertained such views of the Messiah’s character; for, not to mention Josephus, the Synoptical Gospels confine his representation of the Messianic office to the spiritual baptism and winnowing of the people.
 
Still it remains possible that a penetrating mind, like that of the Baptist, might, even before tlie death of Jesus, gather from Old Testament- phrases and types tlie notion of a suffering Messiah, and that his obscure hints on the subject might not be comprehended by his disciples and cotemporaries.
 
Thus the above considerations are not decisive, and we therefore turn to tlie expressions concerning tlie pi-cmundane existence and heavenly origin of tlie Messiah, with the question: Could the Baptist have really held such tenets ? That from tlie words, John i. 15, 27, 30: He that cmneth after m£ is preferred before me.; for /ie was before me, 6 o-iau p.ov ep^opevot; ‘EpTTpoaOiv p.ov yeyovev, STI
vpuTog [tov iyVy notliing but dogmatical obstinacy can banish the notion of pre-existence, is seen by a mere glance at such expositions as this of Paulus: “He wlio in the course of time comes after me;
 
• De Wette, de morte Christi expiatoria, in his Opusc. theol, S. 77 ft. Lucke, Comm.
-”~ If.,,. .
LA. 1 s. .1.17 ff. Winar. liilil.
Kealworterbuch 1, S, 693, Anm,
 
•{• Gabler nail
RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.227
 
has so appeared in my eyes, ^irpoaQiv fwv, that he (Sri-uare, premiss-conclusion!) 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, wlio appeared after tlie Baptist in point of time, liad the precedence of him in dignity, is tlie pre-existence of tlie former. + We have here obviously the favourite dogma of the fourth evangelist, the eternal pre-existence of the /loyoc, present indeed to tlie mind of tliat writer, who liad just been inditing his proem, but that it was also present to tlie mind of tlie Baptist is another question. The most recent expositor allows that the sense in which the evangelist intends r^puToi; ^wv, must have been very remote from the Baptist’s point of view, at least so far as the ^.oyot; is concerned.
Tlie Baptist, he thinks, Iield tlie popular Jewish notion of the preexistence of tlie Mcssiali, as the subject of tlie Old Testament theoplianies.t There are traces of this Jewish notion in the writings of Paul (e. g. 1 Cor. x. 4. Col. i. 15 f.) and tlie rabbins ;§ and allowing tliat it was of Alexandrian origin, as Bretschneider argues, ||
we may yet ask whether even before tlie 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, altliougli it begins to appear suspicious that tlie Baptist, otherwise conspicuous for exhibiting the practical side of the idea of tlie Messiali’s kingdom, should have ascribed to him by the fourth evangelist solely, two notions which at tliat time undoubtedly belonged only to tlie deepest messianic speculations; and tliat tlie form in which tliose 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 Jolin 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, tliat he must decrease, while Jesus must increase, he proceeds (ver. 31) to use forms of expression precisely similar to those in which tlie evangelist makes Jesus speak of himself, and in winch he delivers his own thoughts concerning Jesus. Our most recent, commentator** allows that this discourse of John seems tlie eclio of tlie foregoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.ft
* Parlus, Leben Jesu, 2, a, die Uebers.
S. 29. 31.f Tholuck and Luke, in loc, ^ Lucke, ut sup. § See Bertholdt, Christologia Judaeorum Jesu apostolorumque sctate, §
‘23-26.[I Prol.aLilia, p.-11,^ See Gfrorer, Philo und die Alexandr. Theosophie, part ii. p. 180. ** Lucke, ut sup. p. 500.
ft Compare especially :
 
Job. iii, 11 (Jesu to Xicodemus): ufit/v, “W, ic.’yu O«M, on o a’tSa/.iev, ^.a?.ovftfv Kal o supu.it.a/.iev, ftaprvpovfisv- nal TT/V p.apTvplav
Joh. iii. 33 (the Baptist): Kal 6 tupanc aw.
i}Kovae, TOVTO /.taprvpcl
 
V. 36 : <5 mavcvuv ell; r&v olSv isyi !,wfv
Ctltiivusir A ^f i\’!rfi’f^i~m ‘rt”\ vil,~s
 
/ti’if wl.wfsi
ilfiiiv ov ‘^aftjuveTs.
 
V. 18 : 6 niffrsvuv elf; avrov ov KpiveTOt’
 
6 6e ^ TTifJTEVUV^ ^6?J K€Kl>iT(U OTf W 3T&
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
The expressions in the speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly
those of the apostle John; for instance, afpayi^m (to seal), papTVpia (testimony), the antithesis of dvwOev and EK. T^ •ygc (from above and of the earth), the phrase t’^etv ^wqv aluvwv (to have eternal life);
 
and. the question presents itself: Is it more probable tliat the evangelist, as well as Jesus, in whose mouth these expressions are so often put, borrowed them from tlie Baptist, or that the evangelist lent them (I will only at present say) to the latter ? This must be decided by the fact that the ideas, to which the Baptist here gives utterance, lie entirely within the domain of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of avu (from above), and EK -rg<- y^ (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as aruOev epXoftevo^ (lie that cometh from above), as ‘ov aveorei.Xs.v b Qeb(; (he -whom God had sent), who consequently TO. p^-tara rov QEOV XaXsl (speaketh the words of God), tlie relation of Jesus to God as the vwc; (son), whom 6 Tra-ffp dya-ro (the Father loveth):-what can be characteristic of Christianity, and of the Apostle John’s mode of presenting it, if these ideas are not so ? and could they belong to the Baptist ?
 
Christianismits ante Christum! And then, as Olshauscn 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.)
 
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