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Authors: George Eliot

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THE LIFE OP JESUS.
 
these instances that the second person (aov) is substituted for the
first {^}.
 
Another notable passage of the same prophet (iii. 23. LXX. iv. 4.:
 
Kal ISoi) eyu d’noareXwv^uv ‘HUav rov OEafS’iT-rjv, Trp’iv eX,9s1v rf]V T^pav K.vpiov, a. T. ^ : Behold, I will send you I^jah the Tishbite before the coming of the day of the J^ord, <-6c.) suggested to the evangelists the assimilation of John tlie Baptist to Ellas.
 
Tliat John, labouring for the reformation of tlic people, in tlie spirit and power of Elias, sliould prepare the way for tlie Divine visitation in the times of the Messiah, was, according to Luke i. 17, predicted before his birth. In John i. 21, when tlie emissaries of the Sanhedrim ask, “Art thou Elias?” the Baptist declines this dignity:
 
according to the usual explanation, he only extended his denial to the rude popular notion, that he was the ancient Seer corporeally resuscitated, whereas he would have admitted the view of tlie Synoptical Gospels, that he liad tlie spirit of Elias. Nevertheless, it appears improbable that if the fourth evangelist liad been familiar with the idea of the Baptist as a second Elias, lie would have put
into Ins mouth so direct a negative.
 
This scene, peculiar to tlie fourth Gospel, in which John rejects the title of Elias, with several others, demands a yet closer examination, and must be compared with a narrative in Luke (iii. 15.), to which it has a striking similarity. In Luke, the crowd assembled round the Baptist begin to think: Is not this the Christ ? ju^-n-oTe avrbc; eii] 6 XpioToc; in John the deputies of tlie Sanhedrim* ask him. Who art thou ? ov T(‘S- eZ; which we infer from the Baptist’s answer to mean: “Art thou, as is believed, the Messiah ?”f According to Luke, the Baptist answers, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mig Jitter than I cometh, the latchet of ‘whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. According to John he gives a similar reply: I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you whom ye know not; lie it is v:ho coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes^s 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.) tlie mention of the Messiah’s spiritual baptism, which Luke gives in immediate connexion with the above passage. In Luke, and still more decidedly in John, this whole scene is introduced with a design to establish the Messiahship of Jesus, by showing that tlie Baptist had renounced that dignity, and attributed it to one who should come after him. If at tlie foundation of two narratives so similar, there can scarcely be more than one fact,:j: the question is, which gives that fact tlie most faithfully? In Luke’s account there is no intrinsic improbability; on tlic contrary it is easy to imagine that the people, congregated round the man wlio announced the Messiah’s kingdom, and baptized with a view to it, should, in momenta
ct- Ipnpnpd exesretists.
 
EELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
 
of enthusiasm, believe him to be the Messiah. But that the Sanhedrim should send from Jerusalem to John on the banks of the Jordan, for tlie sake of asking him whether he were the Messiah, seems less natural. Their object could only be what, on a later occasion, it was with respect to Jesus, (Matt. xxi. 23 ff.), namely, to challenge the authority of John to baptize, as appears from v. 25.
Moreover, from the hostile position which John had taken towards the sects of tlie Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. iii. 7.), to whom the members of the Sanhedrim belonged, they must have prejudged that lie was not the Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that lie liad no right to undertake a ftd’nri.oy.a. Bat 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 lie had no prophetic authority: ev -roia e^ovala. rav-a TTOIS^ ; By what authority doest thou these things? but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they presupposed him to be the Messiah, and wli^n he, apparently to their consternation, lias denied this, they tender him successively the dignities of Elias, and of another prophetic forerunner, as if they earnestly wished him to accept one of these titles. Searching opponents will not thus thrust the highest honours on the man to whom they are inimical;-this is the representation of a narrator wlio wislies 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 tlie Messiah is attributed to tlie people.
 
Why then did not tlie 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 tlie latter. Had Jolin given his declaration concerning his relation to Jesus before tlie 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 tlie assertions of tlic Baptist were to have any diplomatic value, they must have resulted from the official inquiry of a magisterial deputation. Such a remodelling of the facts appears to have been aided, by the above-mentioned narrative from the synoptical traditions, wherein tlie high priests and scribes ask Jesus, by wliat authority lie does such things (as tlie casting out of the buyers and sellers). Here also Jesus refers to Jolin, asking for tlieir opinion as to tlie authority of his baptism, only, it is true, with the negative view of repressing their farther inquiries (Matt. xxi. 23. ff.
parall.); but ho\v easily might tills reference be made to take an affirmative sense, and instead of the argument, “If ye know not
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
what powers were entrusted to John, ye need not know whence mine are given,”-tlie following be substituted: “Since ye know what John has declared concerning me, ye must also know wliat power and dignity belong to me;” whereupon what was originally a question addressed to Jesus, transformed itself into a message to
the Baptist.*
 
Tlie judgment of Jesus on tlie character of Jolm is delivered on two occasions in the Synoptical Gospels; first, after the departure of John’s messengers (Matt. xi. 7 ff.); secondly, after tlie appearance of Elias at the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 12 ff’.), in reply to the question of a disciple. In the fourth Gospel, after an appeal to the Baptist’s testimony, Jesus pronounces an eulogium on him in the presence of the Jews (v. 35.), after referring, as above remarked, to their sending to Jolm. In this passage he calls tlie Baptist a burning and a shining light, in whose beams tlie fickle people were for a season willing to rejoice.
 
In one synoptical passage, lie declares John to be tlie promised Elias ; in tlie other, there are three points to be distinguished. First, witli respect to tlie character and agency of Jolm,-the severity and firmness of his mind, and tlie pre-eminence which as the messianic forerunner, wlio witli forcible hand had opened the kingdom of heaven, lie maintained even over tlie prophets, are extolled (v. 7-14.); secondly, in relation to Jesus and tlie citizens of the kingdom of heaven; tlie Baptist, though exalted above all the members of tlie Old Testament economy, is declared to be in tlie rear of every one on whom, through Jesus, the new light liad arisen (v. 11.). We see how Jesus understood this from what follows (v. 18.), when we compare it with Matt. ix. 16 f.
In tlie former passage Jesus describes Jolm as p?~e kaOiuv y,i\rs •n’ww, neither eating nor drinking ; and in the latter it is tins very asceticism which is said to liken him to the li.ia-ioK; and daitolc; TTO./laio;c, tlie old garments and old bottles, witli wliicli tlie new, introduced by, Jesus, will not agree. What else then could it be, in which tlie Baptist was beneath the children of tlie kingdom of Jesus, but (in connexion with his non-recognition or only qualified acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah,) the spirit of external observance, which still clung to fasting and similar works, and his gloomy asceticism ? And, in truth, freedom from these is tlie test. of transition from a religion of bondage, to one of liberty and spirituality.!
Thirdly, witli respect to the relation in which tlie agency of John and Jesus stood to their cotemporarics, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations of botii is complained of v. 16 ff., although in v. 12 it is observed, tliat the violent zeal of some ftiwJ-al liad, under
* Whether the dialogue between John and his complaining disciples (John iii. 25
fK) be likewise a transmutation of the corresponding scene, Matt. ix. 11 f., as Brctschnei
der seeks to show, must remain uncertain. Proliab. p. 6G ff.
 
f That, Jesus, as many suppose, assigns a low rank to the Baptist, because the latter thought of introducing the new order of things by external violence, is not to be detected in the Gospels,
RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
 
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 Jolm and Jesus. Thus much seems to be historical : that Jesus, attracted by the fame of tlie 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, tlie same work, never ceasing, even when he liad far surpassed his predecessor, to render him due homage.
 
Tlie first addition to tills in tlie Christian legend, was, that John had taken approving notice of Jesus. During his public ministry, it was known that lie 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 Mattliew’s narrative of the message from prison; the first modest attempt to make the Baptist a witness for Jesus, and hence clotlied in an interrogation, because a categorical testimony was too unprecedented.
 
But flits late and qualified testimony was not enough. It was a late one, for prior to it there was tlie baptism which Jesus received from John, and by which he, in a certain degree, placed liimself in subordination to the Baptist; hence those scenes in Luke, by which tlie Baptist was placed even before his birth in a subservient relation to Jesus.
 
Not oidy was it a late testimony, which that message contained;
 
it was but half a one: for the question implied uncertainty, and 6
Ep^ouevoi- 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 tlie eternal, divine nature of Jesus, and his character as tlie sufi’ering Messiah.
 
In a narrative aiming at unity, as does the fourth Gospel, tlicse very pointed declarations could not stand by the side of tlie dubious message, wliicli is therefore only found in this Gospel under a totally reorganized form. Neither does tills message accord with tliat wliicli in the synoptical gospels is made to occur at the baptism ot Jesus, and even earlier in his intercourse witli John ; but tlie first three evangelists, in their loose compositions, admitted, along with tlie more recent form of tlie tradition, the less complete one, because they attached less importance to the question of Jolin, than to the consequent discourse of Jesus.
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