On the anointing of Jesus with the Holy Spirit see WeissLX I. 323-336; BeysLJ I. 230f. For the influence of the Spirit in the later life of Jesus see Mk. i. 12; Mt. iv. 1; Lk. iv. 1; iv. 14, 18, 21; Mk. iii. 29, 30; Mt. xii. 28; Jn. iii. 34; compare Ac. i. 2; x. 38. Clearly these refer not to the ethical and religious indwelling of the Divine Spirit (comp. Rom. i. 4), but to the special equipment for official duty. This is the OT sense, see Ex. xxxi. 2-5; Jud. iii. 10; I. Sam. xi. 6; Isa. xi. 1f.; xlii. 1; lxi. 1; and consult Schultz, Old Test. Theol. II. 202f. Jesus seems to have needed a like divine equipment, notwithstanding his divine nature. See GilbertLJ 121f.
How this Messianic anointing is to be related to the doctrine of Jesus' essential divine nature cannot be determined with certainty. It must not be forgotten, however, that it is a datum for Christology, and that it cannot be explained away. It indicates one of the particulars in which Jesus was made like unto his brethren. What was involved when the Son of God "emptied himself and was made in the likeness of men" (Phil. ii. 7) we can only vaguely conceive. Two views of early heretical sects seem rightly to have been rejected. The Docetic view, held by some Gnostics of the 2d cent., dates the incarnation from the baptism, but distinguishes Christ from the human Jesus, who only served as a vehicle for the manifestation of the Son of God; the Christ descended on Jesus at the baptism, ascending again to heaven from the cross, compare Mt. iii. 16 and xxvii. 50 in the Greek; see Schaff Hist. of Xn Church2, II. 455f. The recently discovered Gospel of Peter presents this view, Gosp. Pet. § 5. The Nestorian view represents that the baptism was, in a sense, Jesus' "birth from above" (Jn. iii. 3, 5); thus the incarnation was first complete at the baptism though the Logos had been associated with Jesus from the beginning. See Schaff, Hist, of Xn Church2, III. 717 ff.; Conybeare, History of Xmas, Amer. Jour. Theol. 1899, 1-21.
The traditional locality of the temptation is a mountain near Jericho called Quarantana, see AndLOL 155; the tradition seems to date no further back than the crusades. It is, however, probable that the "wilderness" (Mt. iv. 1, Mk. i. 12, Lk. iv. 1) is the same wilderness mentioned in connection with John's earlier life and work (Mt. iii. 1, Mk. i. 4), the region W and NW of the Dead Sea, see SmithHGHL 317. Others (Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 308; EdersLJM I. 300, 339 notes) hold that the temptation took place in the desert regions SE of the sea of Galilee; this is possibly correct, though the record in the gospels suggests the wilderness of Judea. On the source of the temptation story see WeissLX I. 339 ff.; BeysLJ I. 234; Bacon, Bib. Wld. 1900, I. 18-25.
VIII
The First Disciples
SandayHastBD II. 612f.; GilbertLJ 144-157; WeissLX I. 355-387; AndLOL 155-165; EdersLJM I. 336-363; BeysLJ II. 129-148 (assigns here a considerable part of the synoptic account of work in Capernaum).
The early confessions. On the genuineness of the Baptist's testimony to "the Lamb of God" see M. Dods in Expos. Gk. Test. I .695f.; Westcott, Comm. on John, 20; EdersLJM 1. 342 ff.; WeissLX 1. 362f. (thinks the evangelist added "who taketh away the sin of the world"); Holtzmann, Hand-comm. IV. 38f. holds that the evangelist has put in the mouth of the Baptist a conception which was first current after the death of Jesus. On the confessions of Nathanael and the others, see Jour. Bib. Lit. 1898, 21-30.
Cana is probably the modern Khirbet Kana, eight miles N of Nazareth. A rival site is Kefr Kenna, three and one-half miles NE from Nazareth. See EnBib and HastBD, also AndLOL 162-164.
The miracles of Jesus are challenged by modern thought. It is customary in reading other documents than the N.T. instantly to relegate the miraculous to the domain of legend. Miracles, however, are integral parts of the story of Jesus' life, and those who attempt to write that life eliminating the supernatural are constrained to recognize that he had marvellous power as an exorcist and healer of some forms of nervous disease. So E. A. Abbott, The Spirit on the Waters, 169-201. Our knowledge of nature does not warrant a dogmatic definition of the limits of the possible; see James, The Will to Believe, vii.-xiii., 299-327. The question is confessedly one of adequate evidence. The evidence for the supreme miracle--the transcendent character of Jesus--is clear, see Part III. chap. iv.; and the miraculous element in the story of his life must be considered in view of this supreme miracle. In association with him his miracles gain in credibility. In estimating the evidence for them their dignity and worthiness is important. What the devout imagination would do in embellishing the story of Jesus is exhibited in the apocryphal gospels; the miracles of the canonical gospels are of an entirely different type, which commends them as authentic. By definition a miracle is an event not explicable in terms of ordinary human experience. It is therefore futile to attempt to picture the miracles of Jesus in their occurrence, for the imagination has no material except that furnished by ordinary experience. For our day the miracles are of importance chiefly for the exhibition they give of the character of Jesus; they can be studied with this in view without regard to the curious question how they happened. Read SandayHastBD II. 624-628; and see Fisher, Grounds of Christian and Theistic Belief, chaps, iv.--vi., Supernatural Origin of Christianity3, chap, xi.; Bruce, Miraculous Element in the Gospels; Apologetics, 409 ff.; Illingworth, Divine Immanence; Rainy, Orr, and Dods, The Supernatural in Christianity.