23. Ait: Ego vox clamantis in deserto: Dirigite viam Domini, sicut dixit Isaias propheta.23. He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias.

23. The Baptist with striking humility replies that he is merely a voice, a passing sign—yet that voice spoken of by Isaias, which was to call upon men to prepare their hearts to receive Christ. The Hebrew of Isaias may be rendered: “The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord (Jehovah), make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Or, as is more probable from the Hebrew parallelism: “The voice of one that crieth: Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The Baptist, in applying to himself this prophetic passage, which is also applied to him by the three Synoptic Evangelists (Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4), gives merely the substance of the original. It is disputed whether Isaias refers in the literal sense to preparing the roads by which the people should return from the Babylonian Captivity, and only in the mystical sense to the preparation for the Messias, or directly and literally to the preparation for the Messias. The latter seems the more probable view. At any rate, the words as applied here mean that the Baptist is the voice to which Isaias referred (in some sense literal or mystical), and that the burden of his cry in the desert of Judea is, that men who heard him in the desert should prepare their hearts for Christ.

The language is metaphorical, and alludes to the custom prevalent in those days of sending forward couriers to get the roads ready for advancing princes.

24. Et qui missi fuerant, erant ex Pharisaeis.24. And they that were sent were of the Pharisees.

24. The Pharisees were a sect among the Jews, so called according to some from their founder, Pharos, or more probably, perhaps, from the Hebrew verb “pharash” (פרשׂ) to separate, as though they were separated from and above ordinary men, owing to their strict observance of the Law. They held many erroneous tenets: thus—(1) They relied for God's favour upon their carnal descent from Abraham. (2) They taught that no oath was binding in which the name of God or the gold of the temple was not expressly invoked. (3) That internal sins were not forbidden; and (4) some of their schools admitted the right of [pg 036] arbitrary divorce. See Matt. v. 33-36; xix. 3; xxiii.

25. Et interrogaverunt eum, et dixerunt ei: Quid ergo baptizas, si tu non es Christus, neque Elias, neque propheta?25. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?
26. Respondit eis Ioannes, dicens: Ego baptizo in aqua: medius autem vestrum stetit, quem vos nescitis.26. John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not.

25. Being Pharisees, and therefore versed in the Law, they knew from Ezech. xxxvi. 25, and Zach. xiii. 1, that in the time of the Messias there was to be a baptism unto the remission of sins. They concluded, then, that only the Messias, or some of those that were to accompany Him, could confer this baptism; and, not understanding the import of the Baptist's answer, verse 23, in which he really declared himself the herald of Christ's coming, they ask why he presumes to baptize.

26. The Baptist answers that his is not the baptism foretold by the Prophets, which was to cleanse the sinner, but as he had declared at the beginning of his preaching, a baptism unto penance (Matt. iii. 21). John's baptism consisted in an ablution of the body, accompanied by the profession of a penitential spirit, preparatory to the coming of Him who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt. iii. 11). It could in no sense be said to remit sin; while the baptism of Christ really remits sin (Acts ii. 38). Hence the Council of Trent defined:—“Si quis dixerit baptismum Joannis habuisse eamdem vim cum baptismo Christi anathema sit.” (Sess. vii., Can. i.) De Bapt.

There hath stood (ἕστηκεν); rather there standeth, the perfect of this verb having a present signification. Many authorities indeed read the later present στήκει. The meaning is not that our Lord was then actually present in the crowd, else St. John would probably have pointed him out, as he did on the following day (v. 29); but that He was already present among the Jewish people, was already living among them.

27. Ipse est qui post me venturus est, qui ante me factus est: cuius ego non sum dignus ut solvam eius corrigiam calceamenti.27. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.