where that the day, when John might enter on his ministry, A. U. 779. was probably October 5. the assumed date of his nativity, when he completed his thirtieth year. Nor is there any thing improbable in this conjecture, but rather quite the reverse. I will observe only that October 5. A. U. 779. when the fifteenth of Tisri coincided with September 15. would coincide with Marchesvan 6. About the second or third week of Marchesvan (in this instance October 12 or 19.) the autumnal rains commonly set in; the appositeness of which coincidence to the commencement of the ministry of John I need not mention. If it began at this time, it might last, as we shall see hereafter, until the day of his imprisonment, as nearly as possible seven months; but until April 5. the day of the commencement of our Saviour's, at the Passover, John ii. 13. A. U. 780. only exactly six. The scene of this ministry is laid by St. Matthew, and by St. Mark, at its commencement, in the wilderness of Judæa; which does not mean an absolute desert, but a plain and champaign country, devoted to pasturage, and, though comparatively remote from the more populous parts, yet not unoccupied by villages. Thus Josephus mentions Βηθαλαγάν, κώμην οὖσαν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. It would be absurd, indeed, to suppose that John was sent to preach among solitudes, and not among the haunts of men. The principal scene of his ministry, however, we learn from St. Luke was the Perichorus of Jordan, the proper name of which was the Aulon d—described by Josephuse as two hundred and thirty stades in length, one hundred and twenty in breadthintersected by the Jordan-enclosed on either side by mountains-desert and barren, and reaching from the southern extremity of the Lake of Tiberias, to the northern extremity of the Lake Asphaltites. The scene, thus chosen, seems to have been ever after the same-Bethabara, Ænon, or Salem-all contiguous places, or not very remote from each other; the former in Peræa, or on the eastern side of the b Vol. i. Diss. x. 353. Ant. Jud. xiii. i. 5. d Hieron. Oper. ii. De Situ et Nominibus. e B. iv. viii. 2. Ant. xvi. v. 2. Jordan, the latter in Galilee, or on the west. The locality of Bethabara continued to be still pointed out by tradition even in the time of Origen f; but whether correctly, or not, may be doubted. The preponderance of critical reasons makes rather in favour of Bethany beyond Jordan, than of Bethabara. Such a country was well adapted for the supply of John's peculiar food, åxpides xai μérı äygiov, as the desert had been previously for the materials of his dress. Clothes made of hair, in general, are alluded to by Josephus as characteristic of poverty, or a mean state of life. The Perichorus of Jordan, for a great part of its extent, bordered upon Judæa; hence, among those who resorted to the baptism of John, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of Judæa, as well as the people of the neighbourhood, are specified first. It is, however, a circumstance of resemblance between John's ministry and our Saviour's also, that both appear to have been almost confined to Galilee, or to the dominions of Herod Antipas, beyond the jurisdiction of the Jewish Sanhedrim. The resort to his baptism, in question, must be placed at no greater a distance of time from his first appearance, than would be necessary to make the fact of his appearance, and the nature of his preaching, generally known: and the manner, in which he received the people, on what seems to have been the first occasion of a mixed resort, is recorded by St. Lukeh. I say a mixed resort, because there were many Sadducees and Pharisees among the number. The address, as related by St. Luke, is the same with the address as related by St. Matthew; and if the parties addressed were, as we suppose, a mixed audience, the latter might justly describe it as directed to the Pharisees or Sadducees in particular, the former, to the people in general. St. Luke's τí oйv toinσoμev; shews that these last considered themselves concerned in it; while St. Matthew's Yεvvýμaτα éxidvæv, (an apostrophe contained in St. Luke also, and twice used hereafter by our Saviour, but in each instance solely of the Scribes and Pharisees,) as well as the f Comm. in Joh. ii. 131. i7-10. B. i. xxiv. 3. Ant. xvi. vii. 3. b iii. 7-9. strain of the denunciation in general, obviously levelled against the characteristic hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and carnal trust, of the principal sects, is a much stronger intimation that some of the Pharisees, in particular, must have been present, and singled out; or that, while all were addressed in common, these were reproved in particular. The sequel of the same discourse, as found in St. Matthew, I have already observed, was not delivered at the same time with the preceding part; and yet the Evangelist might attach it to that, both as an actual, though a later, discourse of the Baptist's, as well as that; and also because, as he proposed to conclude his account of the ministry of John, with the next event, the baptism of Christ, this was the only opportunity, prior to that event, for placing on record so important a fact as that of his personal testimony to Christ. The subject of each discourse is so far akin, as to admit of their being related in conjunction; and yet so far distinct, that they might have been delivered at different times; nor will it be denied, on a careful consideration of both together, that there would be a certain abruptness in the transition from the topic of the one, to the topic of the other, which would favour the supposition that they could not originally have been united. In this respect, then, St. Matthew and St. Mark, as we before observed, must be reduced to a harmony with St. Luke, and not St. Luke to one with St. Matthew or St. Mark: and as the commencement of John's testimonies to Christ, whether general or particular, is so far an epoch in his ministry, and as this is the only instance in the three first Gospels of any such testimony at all, it would manifestly be improbable to place it immediately after the beginning of his ministry, or long before the baptism of our Lord himself. After this account, if we except only the history of the baptism of Jesus Christ, no mention of any circumstance relating to John, but that of his imprisonment, is to be found in the same three Gospels; and even this fact is alluded to only by the way in St. Matthew and in St. Mark, and, for reasons stated elsewhere, anticipated by three or four mouths, in St. Luke. From the time of this baptism, then, the sequel of the ministry of John is to be collected entirely from the last Gospel; and this will be done hereafter, shewing that the baptism of our Saviour, which, from the importance of the event itself, and from the nature of the testimony which John was, thenceforward, enabled to bear to the Christ, compared with what he had been restricted to before it, was evidently qualified to become a cardinal point in the course of his ministry, actually was such; happening about the same time from its commencement, as before its termination. The first public testimony, after his baptism, borne to our Lord, was probably by the voice from heaven; and as he was immediately impelled into the wilderness, the first opportunity, after the same event, which John could have of bearing witness to him, would be the opportunity afforded by the deputation and the question of the Sanhedrim: and his answer to this question, as far as it conveys any such testimony, is no longer general and indefinite-speaking of some one, merely as to come-but particular and definite, so far as to speak of some one, who was already standing in the midst of them, and already known to the Baptist, though still unknown to them. This, then, is that instance of his testimony, to which, as understood to have been given to himself, though without any mention of himself, our Saviour referred abovek. The obligation to perpetual Nazaritism, from his mother's womb, which might have been daily endangered had he been brought up amidst the usual society of men1, seems to have been the true reason why John was educated, and lived, in the desert, until the day of his shewing to Israel. Not but that the existence of eremites, even in his time, might be no uncommon thingm. For the same reason, he would be excused from attendance at the feasts. Hence, if our Saviour's life also, until the same period, had been spent in a similar privacy at Nazareth", it would seem impossible to John v. 33. 1 Numb. vi. 2-21. m Vit. Jos. 2. Matt. xiii. 55. Mark vi. 3. John vi. 42. Justin. Martyr. Dial. 333. doubt that John asserted a matter of fact, when he asserted that he knew not the Christ-even though the assertion be restricted to the person of Christ-before, at least, his baptism : and, if it is implied by St. Matthew's account of what passed between them at the time of his baptism P, that he must have known him then, we have only to suppose that the knowledge in question was communicated to him, on the appearance of Christ-as the knowledge of Saul, and afterwards of David, was communicated to Samuel 9, and the knowledge of the wife of Jeroboam to Ahijah-by a direct inspiration from above-and both facts become consistent. For as to the recognition implied by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and, consequently, not until the baptism was over, however much commentators may have overlooked this truth, nothing is clearer than that this descent was intended to mark out not the person, but the office, of Christ. I, indeed, knew him not, but he who sent me to baptize in water, the same said to me, On whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, this is he who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. The object of such a recognition, then, was to ascertain our Lord, as him who should baptize in the Holy Ghost, in opposition to John who had merely baptized in water. It had nothing to do with the person of Christ; it opposed the Spirit-baptism of the Messias, to the water-baptism of his predecessor; and it was consistent with the knowledge of the person of this Messias, whether as previously possessed, or as now, for the first time, revealed. The conduct of the Baptist, therefore, when he would have declined the administration of his own baptism on our Lord, was founded in a genuine humility, and a sincere conviction of the superior dignity of Christ, such as this knowledge of his person would either convey, or imply; and our Lord's answer, by which he impresses on him the necessity of performing his part in that ceremony, rightly • John i. 33. xir. 6. Piii. 14. 1 Sam. ix. 16. 17. xvi. 12. ri Kings |
