[91] Cf. Nork, “Realwörterbuch,” i. 451 sqq. The Baptist John in the Gospels also appears as the “forerunner,” announcer, herald, and preparer of the way for Jesus, and it appears that the position of Aaron in regard to Moses, he being given the latter as a mouthpiece or herald, has helped in the invention of the Baptist’s figure. A similar position is taken in the Old Testament by the “Angel of the Countenance,” the messenger, mediator, ambassador, and “Beginning of the way of God,” the rabbinic Metatron, whom we saw earlier was identical with Joshua (see above, p. 56 sq.). In the Syro-Phœnician and the Greek Mysteries Cadmus, Kadmilos, or Kadmiel, a form of the divine messenger and mediator Hermes, also called Iasios (Joshua), corresponded to him, his name literally meaning “he who goes before God” or prophesies of him, the announcer, herald, or forerunner of the coming God (cf. Schelling, “Die Gottheiten von Samothrake Ww.,” i. 8, 358, 392 sqq.). [Ezra ii. 40, 39], and Nehem. vii. 43, call Kadmiel a Levite, he being always named together with the High Priest Joshua. It is probably only another name of the latter himself, and characterises him as servant and herald of God. Now Kadmiel is the discoverer of writing and the establisher of civilisation, and in so far identical with Oannes, the Babylonian “Water-man” and Baptism-God (Movers, op. cit., 518 sqq.). Can Oannes (Johannes) the Baptist in this way have become Kadmiel, the “forerunner” and preparer of the way of Jesus, who announced his near arrival, and the God Jesus, in consequence of this, have divided into two different figures, that of Joshua-Kadmiel (Johannes) and the Messiah Jesus? In this regard it is certainly not without significance that the figure of the High Priest Joshua in Zechariah wavers between the Messiah (Zemah) and a mere forerunner of the latter. John’s question to Jesus, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” ([Matt. xi. 3]) is exactly the question which strikes the reader in reading the corresponding passage of Zechariah. Possibly the presence of the dove at the baptism in the Jordan obtains in this way a still closer explanation, for Semiramis, the Dove Goddess, is the spouse of Oannes (Ninus); John and the dove accordingly are the parents, who are present at the “birth” of the divine son. But the violent death of John at Herod’s command and the head of the prophet upon the dish have prototypes in the myth of Cadmus. For the head of the latter is supposed to have been cut off by his brother and to have been buried upon a brazen shield, a cult story which plays a part especially in the Mysteries of the Cabiri Gods, to whom Cadmus belongs (cf. Creuzer, “Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker,” 1820, ii. 333). According to Josephus (op. cit.) John was put to death because Herod feared political disorders from his appearance, while Matthew makes him fall a victim to Herod’s revenge, the latter having been censured by John for his criminal marriage with the wife of his brother. Moreover, the prophet Elijah, who accuses Ahab of having yielded to his wife Jezebel and of having murdered Naboth ([1 Kings xxi].), as well as the prophet Nathan, who reproaches David for having killed Uriah and having married his wife ([2 Sam. xii]., cf. also [Esther v. 7, 2]), are also prototypes. According to this a religious movement or sect must, in the minds of posterity, have been condensed into the figure of John the Baptist. Its followers, who closely resembled the Essenes, in view of the imminent nearness of the kingdom of heaven, exhorted men to a conversion of mind, looked upon the Messiah in the sense of Daniel essentially as the God appointed (“awakened”) judge over the living and the dead, and sought by baptism to apply to the penitents the magic effects which should flow from the name of their Cult God Johannes (Oannes), the Babylonian-Mandaic Baptism and Water-God. The stern and gloomy character of this sect may have been reflected in the character sketch of the John in the Gospels, and between it and the sect of Jesus many collisions, disagreements, and conversions appear to have taken place ([Matt. xi. 1] sq.; [Luke vii. 18] sqq.; [John i. 37]). Possibly the sect of Jesus was originally only an excrescence from, and a development of, the conception which the disciples of John had of the Messiah, as is indicated by the supposed blood relationship between Jesus and John. At any rate, the adherents of the former in their belief in the sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Messiah felt that their point of view was higher and more perfect as compared with that of John’s disciples, who do not appear to have risen essentially above the general ideas of the Jewish Apocalyptics. According to [Matthew iii. 13] Jesus came out of Galilee, the “Galilee of the Heathens,” to the baptism of John. Herein the original heathenish origin of the faith of Jesus was pointed to. “The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light. To them which sat in the region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up” ([Matt. iv. 16]; cf. Smith, op. cit., 95). The opposition of the two different sects was, at any rate, so great that John’s disciples needed a further instruction and a new baptism “in the name of the Lord Jesus” to receive the Holy Ghost, in order to be received into the Christian community. For example, the twelve at Ephesus, who had simply received the baptism of John, as well as the eloquent and literary Alexandrian, Apollo, who none the less proclaimed the message of salvation (τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) ([Acts xviii. 24] sqq., xix. 1–7). [↑]
[92] Cf., Sepp, “Heidentum,” i. 170 sq., 190 sq.; Winckler, “Die babylonische Geisteskultur,” 89, 100 sq. By this reference of the Gospel story to the sun’s course it appears that the activity of Jesus from his baptism in the Jordan to his death, according to the account of the Synoptics, only covered a year. It is the mythological year of the sun’s course through the Watery Region in January and February until the complete exhaustion of its strength in December. [↑]
[94] The horns (crescent) which he also shares with Jahwe, as the Syrian Hadah shows (Winckler, “Gesch. Israels,” ii. 94), recalls to mind the Moon nature of Moses. Moses is, as regards his name, the “Water-drawer.” The moon is, however, according to antique views, merely the water-star, the dispenser of the dew and rain, and the root ma (mo), which, in the name of Moses, refers to water, is also contained in the various expressions for the moon. [↑]