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.): φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν ἐρήμῳ· ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίῳ κ.τ.λ. This passage, which in its original connection related not to the Messiah and his forerunner, but to Jehovah, for whom a way was to be prepared through [[231]]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. 4 ff.]). 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 synoptical 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]): οὗ τος γάρ ἐστι περὶ οὗ γέγραπται· ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου·. This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, to prepare thy way before thee; 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; Jehovah, however, does not therein speak of sending a messenger before the Messiah, but before himself: and it is only in the New Testament citations in all these instances that the second person (σου) is substituted for the first (לְפָנַי).
Another notable passage of the same prophet ([iii. 23], LXX. [iv. 4]: καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστελῶ ὑμῖν Ἠλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν Κυρίου, κ.τ.λ.: Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite before the coming of the day of the Lord, etc.) suggested to the Evangelists the assimilation of John the Baptist to Elias. That John, labouring for the reformation of the people, in the spirit and power of Elias, 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 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 the synoptical gospels, that he had the spirit of Elias. Nevertheless it appears improbable that if the fourth Evangelist had been familiar with the idea of the Baptist as a second Elias, 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 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? μήποτε αὐτὸς εἴη ὁ Χριστός· in John, the deputies of the Sanhedrim[74] ask him, Who art thou? σὺ τίς εἶ; which we infer from the Baptist’s answer to mean: “Art thou, as is believed, the Messiah?”[75] According to Luke, the Baptist answers, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier 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; 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 pre-existence of Jesus, and deferring to another occasion ([v. 33]) the 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 [[232]]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,[76] 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 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 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. 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 the Pharisees and Sadducees ([Matt. iii. 7]), to whom the members of the Sanhedrim belonged, they must have prejudged that he was not the Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that he had no right to undertake a βάπτισμα. 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 Mathew above cited, they asked Jesus, quite consistently with their impression that he had no prophetic authority: ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς; By what authority doest thou these things? but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they pre-supposed him to be the Messiah, and when he, apparently to their consternation, has 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 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 synoptical 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 ye know not what powers were entrusted to John, ye need not know whence mine are given,”—the following be substituted: “Since ye know what John has declared concerning me, ye must also know what power and [[233]]dignity belong to me;” whereupon what was originally a question addressed to Jesus, transformed itself into a message to the Baptist.[77]
The judgment of Jesus on the character of John is delivered on two occasions in the synoptical gospels; first after the departure of John’s messengers ([Matt xi. 7 ff.]); secondly, after the 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 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 synoptical passage, he declares John to be the promised Elias; 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 μήτε ἐσθίων μήτε πίνων, neither eating nor drinking; and in the latter it is this very asceticism which is said to liken him to the ἱματίοις and ἀσκοῖς παλαιοῖς, 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 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 the test of transition from a religion of bondage, to one of liberty and spirituality.[78] Thirdly, with respect to the relation in which the agency of John and Jesus stood to their cotemporaries, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations of both is complained of [v. 16 ff.], although in [v. 12] it is observed, that the violent zeal of some βιασταὶ had, under the guidance of John, wrested for them an entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah.[79]
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, [[234]]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.