It is important to recall that this all occurred before baptism. The suggestion that he should be baptized for remission of sins, is met by Jesus as a challenge of his sinlessness. It is submitted to the test, and before he enters the water the “Undefiled” (the dove) enters him, and the deity announces him as then and there begotten. When “straightway a great light shone around the place”—ultimately the Star of Bethlehem. John the Baptist is here the shepherd: seeing the light, he asks, “Who art thou, Lord?” The heavenly voice replies, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Then John fell down before him and said, “I pray thee, Lord, baptize thou me.” But he prevented him, saying, “Let be; for thus it is becoming that all things should be fulfilled.” Then follows the baptism, and the account continues:
“And it came to pass, when the Lord had come up from the water, the entire fountain of the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him and said to him, ‘My Son, in all the prophets did I await thee, that thou mightest come and I might rest in thee; for thou art my rest; thou art my first-born Son that reignest forever.’”[2]
The phrase “entire fountain of the Holy Spirit” is Parsî. Anâhita is the Holy Spirit; her influence is always described as a fountain descending on the saints or heroes to whom she gives strength. It will be remembered that in this Gospel the Holy Spirit is also feminine. The use of the words “fountain” and “rest in thee” are interesting in connection with the account of John the Baptizer and Jesus in the fourth gospel, which differs so widely from the Synoptical narratives. It is in John (iii.) left doubtful whether Jesus accepted any baptismal rite at all. John was baptizing at a large pool called Ænon-by-Saleim,—probably allegorical, meaning “Fountain of Repose.” Jesus and his friends came there and plunged in (ἐβαπτίξοντο), but they seem to have been a distinct party from that of John.
After the supposed resurrection of Jesus everything he did, even taking a bath, became mystical. Jerome says that in his time there was a place called Salumias, and he maintained that it was there that Melchizedek refreshed Abraham. There are various readings of this Saleim in the New Testament, all, no doubt, variants of Solomon, all meaning “rest”; and the fourth Gospel supplies in ‘Αὶνῶν ἐγγυς Σαλημ’ the basis of the legend in the Aramaic Gospel of the “rest” which the Holy Spirit found in her son, on whom her “entire fountain” was poured. And with this legend may also be read the words of “Wisdom of Solomon,” vii. 27, 28: “She (Wisdom) maketh all things new; and in all ages entering into holy souls she maketh them friends of God and prophets. For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom.” The representation in this Aramaic Gospel of the Holy Spirit as “entering into” Jesus is especially interesting in connection with the use of the same phrase in “Wisdom of Solomon,”—into whose heart Wisdom was put by God (1 Kings x. 24).
It is only after Wisdom has entered into Jesus that the voice is heard, “This is my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.” This accords with Solomon’s words, “God loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom.” The angelic song at the birth (Luke ii. 14) preserves the heavenly voice at the baptism concerning “peace.” The “peace” is Solomon’s own name, associated with the “rest” given to his reign in order that he might build the temple (1 Kings v. 4, Ecclesiasticus xlvii. 13). “My Son,” says the spirit from within Jesus, “Thou art my rest.”
It is remarkable that the title preëminently belonging to Solomon, “Prince of Peace,” and unknown to the Gospels as a title of Jesus, should be traditionally given to one said to have declared that he had come on earth to bring not peace but a sword, and bids his disciples arm themselves. No doubt the religious instinct tells true in this; it is tolerably plain that the warlike words were ascribed to Jesus not because he said them, but to adapt him to the “Word” as described in the “Wisdom of Solomon”: “While all things were in quiet silence ... thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne as a fierce man of war ... and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword,” etc. The fierce metaphor was, as we have seen, caught up and spiritualized in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and passed on to be literalized for the risen Christ, so that the consecration of the sword by the Prince of Peace is writ large in the Christian wars of many centuries.
To the tests and proofs of Solomon’s wisdom recorded in 1 Kings iii. and x. many additions were made by rabbinical tradition, mostly derived from Parsî scriptures. The famous Ring of Solomon is the symbol of sovereignty over the part of the earth owned by God given by him to the first man King Yima—“Then I, Ahura Mazda, brought two implements unto him, a golden ring and a poniard inlaid with gold. Behold, here Yima bears the royal sway!” (Vendîdâd, Farg. ii. 5). When Yima pressed the earth with this ring, the genius of the Earth, Aramaîti, responded to his wish and order. The ring represented Yima’s “glory” (in Avestan phrase), his divine potency, lost when he yielded to a temptation of the devil, and Solomon also lost his ring with which, as we have seen (ante IV.) his “glory” and royal sway passed to the (Persian) devil Asmodeus. This occurred in a trial of wits, Asmodeus propounding hard questions, which Solomon was able to answer until, proudly thinking he could answer by his unaided intellect, he laid aside his ring, at the challenge of Asmodeus. These hard questions are found in an ancient legend of a similar contest between the devil and Zoroaster, and are alluded to as “malignant riddles.” Zoroaster met the devil “unshaken by the hardness of his malignant riddles,” and swinging “stones as big as a house,” which he had obtained from the Maker,—tables of the divine law, and possibly origin of the stones which the devil challenged Jesus to turn into bread.
There are Avestan elements in the legend of the temptation of Jesus that do not appear in the legends of Solomon. In Parsî belief the land of demons on earth is Mâzana. From that region they issue to inflict diseases, especially blindness and deafness. In that region is an “exceeding high mountain,” Damâvand, to which the great demon Azi Dahâka was bound by Feridun who overcame him. This demon was called “the murderer,”—the epithet mysteriously applied by Jesus to the devil (John viii. 44). After tempting and supplanting King Yima he ruled over the world for a millennium in great splendour, and the chief of devils tempts Zoroaster with that glory.
“Renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, and thou shalt gain such a boon as the Murderer gained, the ruler of nations.” Thus in answer to him said Zoroaster, “No, never will I renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, though my body, my life, my soul, should burst.” Again said the guileful one, the Maker of the evil world, “By whose word wilt thou strike, by whose word wilt thou repel, by whose weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel) my creation?” Thus, in answer, said Zoroaster, “The sacred mortar, the sacred cup, the Haoma [the sacramental juice] the Words taught by Mazda, these are my weapons.”[3]
After this, Zoroaster “on the mountain” conversed with Ahura Mazda, and invoked the beneficent beings who preside over the seven Karshvares of the earth. We thus have here the mountain, the stones, the Word from the mouth of God, the offer of the kingdoms of the world, and the ministering angels, which reappear in the temptation of Jesus.