The common answer to such an inquiry is, that Jesus was thereby inducted to his public office, and declared to be the Messiah,[29] i.e. that nothing was conferred on him, and that simply the character which he already possessed was manifested to others. But, it may be asked, is such an abstraction intended by our narrators? A consecration to an office, effected by divine co-operation, was ever considered by antiquity as a delegation of divine powers for its fulfilment; hence, in the Old Testament, the kings, as soon as they are anointed, are filled with the spirit of God ([1 Sam. x. 6], [10], [xvi. 13]); and in the New Testament also, the apostles, before entering on their vocation, are furnished with supernatural gifts ([Acts ii.]). It may, therefore, be beforehand conjectured, that according to the original sense of the Gospels, the consecration of Jesus at his baptism was attended with a supply of higher powers; and this is confirmed by an examination of our narratives. For the synoptical writers all state, that after the baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, obviously marking this journey as the first effect of the higher principle infused at his baptism: and in John, the words μένειν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, applied to the descending Spirit, seem to intimate, that from the time of the baptism there was a relation not previously subsisting, between the πνεῦμα ἅγιον and Jesus.
This interpretation of the marvels at the baptism of Jesus seems in contradiction with the narratives of his conception. If Jesus, as Matthew and Luke state, was conceived by the Holy Ghost; or if, as John propounds, the divine λόγος, the word, was made flesh in him, from the beginning of his earthly existence; why did he yet need, at his baptism, a special intromission of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον? Several modern expositors have seen, and sought to solve, this difficulty. Olshausen’s explanation consists in the distinction between the potential and the actual; but it is self-contradictory.[30] For if the character of the Χριστὸς which was manifested actû, with the ripened manhood of Jesus, at his baptism, was already present potentiâ in the child and youth; there must have also been an inward principle of development, by means of which his powers would gradually unfold themselves from within, instead of being first awakened by a sudden illapse of the Spirit from without. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that the divine principle, existing in Jesus, as supernaturally conceived, from the moment of his birth, might need, owing to the human form of its development, some impulse from without; and Lücke[31] has more justly proceeded on this contrast between external impulse and inward development. The λόγος, present in Jesus from his birth, needed, he thinks, however strong might be the inward bent, some external stimulus and vivification, in order to arrive at full activity and manifestation [[248]]in the world; and that which awakens and guides the divine life-germ in the world is, on apostolic showing, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Allowing this, yet the inward disposition and the requisite force of the outward stimulus stand in an inverse relation to each other; so that the stronger the outward stimulus required, the weaker is the inward disposition; but in a case where the inward disposition is consummate,—as it must be supposed in Jesus, engendered by the Spirit, or animated by the λόγος,—the exterior impulse ought to be a minimum, that is, every circumstance, even the most common, might serve as a determination of the inward tendency. But at the baptism of Jesus we see the maximum of exterior impulse, in the visible descent of the divine Spirit; and although we allow for the special nature of the messianic task, for the fulfilment of which he must be qualified,[32] yet the maximum of inward disposition, which fitted him to be the υἱὸς Θεοῦ, cannot at the same time be supposed as existing in him from his birth: a consequence which Lücke only escapes, by reducing the baptismal scene to a mere inauguration, thus, as has been already shown, contradicting the evangelical records.
We must here give a similar decision to that at which we arrived concerning the genealogies; viz., that in that circle of the early Christian church, in which the narrative of the descent of the πνεῦμα on Jesus at his baptism was formed, the idea that Jesus was generated by the same πνεῦμα cannot have prevailed; and while, at the present day, the communication of the divine nature to Jesus is thought of as cotemporary with his conception, those Christians must have regarded his baptism as the epoch of such communication. In fact, those primitive Christians whom, in a former discussion, we found to have known nothing, or to have believed nothing, of the supernatural conception of Jesus, were also those who connected the first communication of divine powers to Jesus with his baptism in the Jordan. For no other doctrine did the orthodox fathers of the church more fiercely persecute the ancient Ebionites,[33] with their gnostic fellow-believer Cerinthus,[34] than for this: that the Holy Spirit first united himself with Jesus at his baptism. In the Gospel of the Ebionites it was written that the πνεῦμα not only descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, but entered into him;[35] and according to Justin, it was the general expectation of the Jews, that higher powers would first be granted to the Messiah, when he should be anointed by his forerunner Elias.[36]
The development of these ideas seems to have been the following. When the messianic dignity of Jesus began to be acknowledged among the Jews, it was thought appropriate to connect his coming into possession of the requisite gifts, with the epoch from which he was in some degree known, and which, from the ceremony that marked it, was also best adapted to represent that anointing with the Holy Spirit, expected by the Jews for their Messiah: and from this point of view was formed the legend of the occurrences at the baptism. But as reverence for Jesus was heightened, and men appeared in the Christian church who were acquainted with more exalted messianic ideas, [[249]]this tardy manifestation of messiahship was no longer sufficient; his relation with the Holy Spirit was referred to his conception: and from this point of view was formed the tradition of the supernatural conception of Jesus. Here too, perhaps, the words of the heavenly voice, which might originally be those of [Ps. ii. 7], were altered after [Isaiah xlii. 1]. For the words, σήμερον γεγέννηκα σε, This day have I begotten thee, were consistent with the notion that Jesus was constituted the Son of God at his baptism; but they were no longer suitable to that occasion, when the opinion had arisen that the origin of his life was an immediate divine act. By this later representation, however, the earlier one was by no means supplanted, but, on the contrary, tradition and her recorders being large-hearted, both narratives—that of the miracles at the baptism, and that of the supernatural conception, or the indwelling of the λόγος in Jesus from the commencement of his life, although, strictly, they exclude each other, went forth peaceably side by side, and so were depicted by our Evangelists, not excepting even the fourth. Just as in the case of the genealogies: the narrative of the imparting of the Spirit at the baptism could not arise after the formation of the idea that Jesus was engendered by the Spirit; but it might be retained as a supplement, because tradition is ever unwilling to renounce any of its acquired treasures.
§ 53.
PLACE AND TIME OF THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. DIVERGENCIES OF THE EVANGELISTS ON THIS SUBJECT.
The transition from the baptism to the temptation of Jesus, as it is made by the synoptical writers, is attended with difficulty in relation both to place and time.
With respect to the former, it strikes us at once, that according to all the synoptical gospels, Jesus after his baptism was led into the wilderness to be tempted, implying that he was not previously in the wilderness, although, according to [Matt. iii. 1], John, by whom he was baptized, exercised his ministry there. This apparent contradiction has been exposed by the most recent critic of Matthew’s gospel, for the sake of proving the statement that John baptized in the wilderness to be erroneous.[37] But they who cannot resolve to reject this statement on grounds previously laid down, may here avail themselves of the supposition, that John delivered his preliminary discourses in the wilderness of Judea, but resorted to the Jordan for the purpose of baptizing; or, if the banks of the Jordan be reckoned part of that wilderness, of the presumption that the Evangelists can only have intended that the Spirit led Jesus farther into the recesses of the wilderness, but have neglected to state this with precision, because their description of the scene at the baptism had obliterated from their imagination their former designation of the locality of John’s agency.
But there is, besides, a chronological difficulty: namely, that while, according to the synoptical writers, Jesus, in the plenitude of the Spirit, just communicated to him at the Jordan, betakes himself, in consequence of that communication, for forty days to the wilderness, where the temptation occurs, and then returns into Galilee; John, on the contrary, is silent concerning the temptation, and appears to suppose an interval of a few days only, between the baptism of Jesus and his journey into Galilee; thus allowing no space [[250]]for a six weeks’ residence in the wilderness. The fourth Evangelist commences his narrative with the testimony which the Baptist delivers to the emissaries of the Sanhedrim ([i. 19]); the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he makes the Baptist recite the incident which in the synoptical gospels is followed by the baptism ([v. 29]): again, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον) he causes two of his disciples to follow Jesus ([v. 35]); farther, the next day (τῇ ἐπαύριον, [v. 44]), as Jesus is on the point of journeying into Galilee, Philip and Nathanael join him; and lastly, on the third day, τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ([ii. 1]), Jesus is at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The most natural inference is, that the baptism took place immediately before John’s narrative of its attendant occurrences, and as according to the synoptical gospels the temptation followed close on the baptism, both these events must be inserted between [v. 28] and [29], as Euthymius supposed. But between that which is narrated down to [v. 28], and the sequel from [v. 29] inclusive, there is only the interval of a morrow, ἐπαύριον, while the temptation requires a period of forty days; hence, expositors have thought it necessary to give ἐπαύριον the wider sense of ὕστερον afterwards; this however is inadmissible, because the expression τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ, the third day, follows in connexion with ἐπαύριον, and restricts its meaning to the morrow. We might therefore be inclined, with Kuinöl, to separate the baptism and the temptation, to place the baptism after [v. 28], and to regard the next day’s interview between Jesus and John ([v. 29]) as a parting visit from the former to the latter: inserting after this the journey into the wilderness and the temptation. But without insisting that the first three Evangelists seem not to allow even of a day’s interval between the baptism and the departure of Jesus into the wilderness, yet even later we have the same difficulty in finding space for the forty days. For it is no more possible to place the residence in the wilderness between the supposed parting visit and the direction of the two disciples to Jesus, that is between [v. 34] and [35], as Kuinöl attempts, than between [v. 28] and [29], since the former as well as the latter passages are connected by τῇ ἐπαύριον, on the morrow. Hence we must descend to [v. 43] and [44]; but here also there is only the interval of a morrow, and even [chap. ii. 1], we are shut out by an ἡμέρα τρίτη, third day, so that, proceeding in this way, the temptation would at last be carried to the residence of Jesus in Galilee, in direct opposition to the statement of the synoptical writers; while, in further contradiction to them, the temptation is placed at a farther and farther distance from the baptism. Thus neither at [v. 29], nor below it, can the forty days’ residence of Jesus in the wilderness with the temptation be intercalated: and it must therefore be referred, according to the plan of Lücke and others,[38] to the period before [v. 19], which seems to allow of as large an interpolation as can be desired, inasmuch as the fourth Evangelist there commences his history. Now it is true that what follows from [v. 19] to [28] is not of a kind absolutely to exclude the baptism and temptation of Jesus as earlier occurrences; but from [v. 29] to [34], the Evangelist is far from making the Baptist speak as if there had been an interval of six weeks between the baptism and his narrative of its circumstances.[39] That the fourth Evangelist should have omitted, by chance merely, the history of the temptation, important as it was in the view of the other Evangelists, seems improbable: it is rather to be concluded, either that it was dogmatically offensive to him, so that he omitted it designedly, or that it was not current in the circle of tradition from which he drew his materials.