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III.

CHAP. of the Jordan, unquestionably before he had displayed his powers, or openly asserted his title to the higher place, John should invariably retain his humbler relative position. Such was his uniform of John to language from the commencement of his career;

Avowed inferiority

Jesus.

such it continued to the end. Yet at this period the power and influence of John over the public mind were at their height; Jesus, humanly speaking, was but an unknown and undistinguished youth, whose qualifications to maintain the higher character were as yet untried. John, however, cedes at once the first place in the strongest language he declares himself immeasurably inferior to him, who stood among the crowd, unmarked and unregarded; whatever his own claims, whatever the effects of his initiatory rite, Jesus was at once to assume a higher function, to administer a more powerful and influential baptism.† This has always appeared to me one of the most striking incidental arguments for the truth of the Evangelic narrative, and consequently of the Christian faith. The recognition appears to have been instant and immediate. Hitherto, the Baptist had insisted on the purification of all who had assembled around him; and, with the

*The remarkable expression, "whose shoe's latchet I am notable to unloose," is illustrated by a passage in the Talmud. (Tract. Kidduschin, xxii. 2.) "Every office a servant will do for his master, a scholar should perform for his teacher, excepting loosing his sandal thong.”

Strauss (i. 396.) argues that this concession of the higher place by the ascetic John (and asceticism, he justly observes, is the most stern

and unyielding principle in the human character) is so contrary to the principles of human nature, and to all historical precedent, that the whole must be fictitious; a singular canon, that every thing extraordinary and unprecedented in history must be untrue. I suspect the common phrase, "truth is strangestranger than fiction," to be founded on deeper knowledge of human nature, and of the events of the world.

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commanding dignity of a Heaven-commissioned CHAP. teacher, had rebuked, without distinction, the sins of all classes and all sects. In Jesus alone, by his refusal to baptize him, he acknowledges the immaculate purity, while his deference assumes the tone of homage, almost of adoration. *

Jesus.

Jesus, however, perhaps to do honour to a rite, Baptism of which was hereafter to be that of initiation into the new religion, insists on submitting to the usual ablution. As he went up out of the water, which wound below in its deep channel, and was ascending the shelving shore, a light shone around with the rapid and undulating motion of a dove, typifying the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Son of Man; and a voice was heard from Heaven, which recognised him as the Son of God, well pleasing to the Almighty Father of the Universe. This light could scarcely have been seen, or the voice heard, by more than the Baptist and the Son of Mary himselft, as no immediate sensation appears to have been excited among the multitudes, such as must have

*The more distinct declarations of inferiority contained in several passages are supposed by most harmonists of the Gospels to have been made after the baptism of Jesus.

+ This appears from John, i. 32. Neander (Leben Jesu, p. 69.) represents it as a symbolic vision.

There is a very full and remarkable
passage in Origen cont. Celsum, i.
48., on this point. He is speaking
of the offence which may be given
to the simple, who from their great
simplicity are ready on every occa-
sion to shake the world, and cleave
the compact firmament of heaven.
Κἂν προσκόπτῃ τὸ τοιοῦτον τοῖς
ἀπλουστέροις, οἳ διὰ πολλὴν ἀπλό-
τητα κινοῦσι τὸν κόσμον, σχίζοντες
τὰ τηλικοῦτον σῶμα ἡνῶμενον τοῦ
Távroç ovpavou. See likewise in
Suicer's Thesaur. voc. óvn, the
passages from St. Basil and Gre-
gory of Nyssa.

It may be well to observe, that this explanation of voices from heaven, as a mental perception, not as real articulate sounds but as inward impressions, is by no means modern, or what passes under the unpopular name of rationalism.

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CHAP. followed this public and miraculous proclamation of his sacred character; and at a subsequent period, Jesus seems to have appeared among the followers of John, unrecognised, or at least unhonoured, until he was pointed out by the Baptist, and announced as having been proclaimed from Heaven at his baptism. The calmness and comparatively unimposing peacefulness of this scene, which may be described as the inauguration of this "greater than Moses," in his office as founder of a new religion, is strikingly contrasted with the terrific tempests and convulsions of nature, at the delivery of the law on Sinai, and harmonises with the general tone and character of the new faith. The image of the Dove, the universal symbol of innocence and peace *, even if purely illustrative, is beautifully in keeping with the gentler character of the whole transaction.

Temptation of Jesus.

The Temptation of Jesus is the next event in the history of his lifet; and here, at the opening, as it were, of his career, appears shadowed out the sort of complex character under which Christianity represents its Divine Author, as a kind of federal representative of mankind. On the interpretation of no incident in the Gospels, do those who insist on the literal acceptation of the Evangelists' language, and those who consider that, even in the New Testament much allowance is to be made for the essentially allegoric character of Oriental narrative, depart so

*Ennius apud Cic. de Div i 48 Tibull. i. 8, 9.

13

+ Matt, iv. 1. 11. Mark, iv. 12, Luke, iv. 1-13.

far asunder. While the former receive the whole as a real scene, the latter suppose that the truth lies deeper; and that some, not less real, though less preternatural transaction, is related, either from some secret motive, or, according to the genius of Eastern narrative, in this figurative style. As pretending to discover historical facts of much importance in the life of Christ, the latter exposition demands our examination. The Temptation, according to one view, is a parabolic description of an actual event; according to another, of a kind of inward mental trial, which continued during the public career of Jesus. In the first theory, the Tempter was nothing less than the high priest, or one of the Sanhedrin, delegated by their authority to discover the real pretensions of Jesus. Having received intelligence of the testimony borne to Jesus by John, this person was directed to follow him into the wilderness, where he first demanded, as the price of his acknowledgment by the public authorities, some display of miraculous power, such as should enable him, like Moses, to support the life of man by a preternatural supply of food in the

Some of the older writers, as Theodore of Mopsuestia, explained it as a vision: to this notion Le Clerc inclines. Schleiermacher treats it as a parable, p. 58. Those who are most scrupulous in departing from the literal sense, cannot but be embarrassed with this kind of personal conflict with a Being, whom the devil must have known, according to their own view, to have been divine. This is one of those

points which will be differently un-
derstood, according to the turn and
cast of mind of different individuals.
I would therefore deprecate the
making either interpretation an ar-
ticle of faith, or deciding with dog-
matic certainty on so perplexing a
passage.

This theory, differently modi-
fied, is embraced by Herman Von
der Hardt, by the elder Rosenmul-
ler (Schol. in loc.), and by Kuinoel.

CHAP.

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CHAP. wilderness. He then held out to him the splendid prospects of aggrandisement, if he should boldly place himself, as a divinely commissioned leader, at the head of the nation; and even led him in person to the pinnacle of the temple, and commanded him to cast himself down, as the condition, if he should be miraculously preserved, of his formal recognition by the Sanhedrin. To this view, ingenious as it is, some obvious objections occur; -the precise date apparently assigned to the transaction by the Evangelists, and the improbability that, at so early a period, he would be thought of so much importance by the ruling powers; the difficulty of supposing that, even if there might be prudential motives to induce St. Matthew, writing in Judæa, to disguise, under this allegoric veil, so remarkable an event in the history of Christ, St. Luke, influenced by no such motives, would adopt the same course. Though, indeed, it may be replied, that if the transaction had once assumed, it would be likely to retain, its parabolic dress; still, it must seem extraordinary that no clearer notice of so extraordinary a circumstance should transpire in any of the Christian records. Nor does it appear easily reconcileable with the cautious distance at which the authorities appear to have watched the conduct of Jesus, thus, as it were, at once to have committed themselves, and almost placed themselves within his power.

The second theory is embarrassed with fewer of these difficulties, though it is liable to the same objection, as to the precise date apparently assigned to

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