at least one aspect of what to man is the miraculous: as in itself the higher Necessary, with casual and secondary manifestation to man.
We can understand how what he knew of Jesus, and what he now saw and heard, must have overwhelmed John with the sense of Christ's transcendentally higher dignity, and led him to hesitate about, if not to refuse, administering to Him the rite of Baptism. [2 The expression (St. Matt iii. 14: 'John forbade Him') implies earnest resistance (comp. Meyer ad locum).] Not because it was 'the baptism of repentance,' but because he stood in the presence of Him 'the latchet of Whose shoes' he was 'not worthy to loose'. Had he not so felt, the narrative would not have been psychologically true; and, had it not been recorded, there would have been serious difficulty to our reception of it. And yet, withal, in so 'forbidding' Him, and even suggesting his own baptism by Jesus, John forgot and misunderstood his mission. John himself was never to be baptized; he only held open the door of the new Kingdom; himself entered it not, and he that was least in that Kingdom was greater than he. Such lowliest place on earth seems ever conjoined with greatest work for God. Yet this misunderstanding and suggestion on the part of John might almost be regarded as a temptation to Christ. Not perhaps, His first, nor yet this His first victory, since the 'sorrow' of His Parents about His absence from them when in the Temple must to the absolute submissiveness of Jesus have been a temptation to turn aside from His path, all the more felt in the tenderness of His years, and the inexperience of a first public appearance. He then overcame by the clear consciousness of His Life-business, which could not be contravened by any apparent call of duty, however specious. And He now overcame by falling back upon the simple and clear principle which had brought him to Jordan: 'It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Thus, simply putting aside, without argument, the objection of the Baptist, He followed the Hand that pointed Him to the open door of'the Kingdom.'
Jesus stepped out of the baptismal waters 'praying.' [a 1 St. Luke iii. 21.] One prayer, the only one which He taught His disciples, recurs to our minds. [1 It seems to me that the prayer which the Lord taught His disciples must have had its root in, and taken its start from, His own inner Life. At the same time it is adapted to our wants. Much in that prayer has, of course, no application to Him, but is His application of the doctrine of the Kingdom to our state and wants.] We must here individualise and emphasise in their special application its opening sentences: 'Our Father Which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name! Thy Kingdom come! They will be done in
earth, as it is in heaven!' The first thought and the first petition had been the conscious outcome of the Temple-visit, ripened during the long years at Nazareth. The others were now the full expression of His submission to Baptism. He knew His Mission; He had consecrated Himself to it in His Baptism; 'Father Which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.' The unlimited petition for the doing of God's Will on earth with the same absoluteness as in heaven, was His self-consecration: the prayer of His Baptism, as the other was its confession. And the 'hallowed be Thy Name' was the eulogy, because the ripened and experimental principle of His Life. How this Will, connected with 'the Kingdom,' was to be done by Him, and when, He was to learn after His Baptism. But strange, that the petition which followed those which must have been on the lips of Jesus in that hour should have been the subject of the first temptation or assault by the Enemy; strange also, that the other two temptations should have rolled back the force of the assault upon the two great experiences He had gained, and which formed the burden of the petitions, 'Thy Kingdom come; Hallowed be Thy Name.' Was it then so, that all the assaults which Jesus bore only concerned and tested the reality of a past and already attained experience, save those last in the Garden and on the Cross, which were 'sufferings' by which He 'was made perfect'?
But, as we have already seen, such inward forth-bursting of Messianic consciousness could not be separated from objective qualification for, and testimony to it. As the prayer of Jesus winged heavenwards, His solemn response to the call of the Kingdom, 'Here am I;' 'Lo, I come to do Thy Will', the answer came, which at the same time was also the predicted sign to the Baptist. Heaven seemed cleft, and in bodily shape like a dove, the Holy Ghost descended on [1 Whether or not we adopt the reading in St. Mark i. 10, the remaining of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus is clearly expressed in St. John i. 32.] Jesus, remaining on him. It was as if, symbolically, in the words of St. Peter, [a 1 St. Pet. iii. 21.] that Baptism had been a new flood, and He Who now emerged from it, the Noah, or rest, and comfort-bringer, Who took into His Ark the dove bearing the olive-branch, indicative of a new life. Here, at these waters, was the Kingdom, into which Jesus had entered in the fulfilment of all righteousness; and from them he emerged as its Heaven-designated, Heaven-qualified, and Heaven-proclaimed King. As such he had received the fulness of the Spirit for His Messianic Work, a fulness abiding in Him, that out of it we might receive, and grace for grace. As such also the voice from Heaven proclaimed it, to Him and to John: 'Thou art ('this is') My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.' The ratification of the great Davidic promise, the announcement of the fulfilment of its predictive import in Psalm ii. [2 Here the Targum on Ps. ii. 7, which is evidently intended to weaken the Messianic interpretation, gives us welcome help. It paraphrases: 'Beloved as a son to his father art Thou to Me.' Keim regards the words, 'Thou art my beloved Son,' &c, as a mixture of Is. xlii. 1 and Ps. ii. 7.1 cannot agree with this view, though this history is the fulfilment of the prediction in Isaiah.] was God's solemn declaration of Jesus as the Messiah, His public proclamation of it, and the beginning of Jesus' Messianic work. And so the Baptist understood it, when he 'bare record' that He was 'the Son of God.' [a St. John i. 34.]
Quite intelligible as all this is, it is certainly miraculous; not, indeed, in the sense of contravention of the Laws of Nature (illogical as that phrase is), but in that of having nothing analogous in our present knowledge and experience. But would we not have expected the supra-empirical, the directly heavenly, to attend such an event, that is, if the narrative itself be true, and Jesus what the Gospels represent Him? To reject, therefore, the narrative because of its supra-empirical accompaniment seems, after all, a sad inversion of reasoning, and begging the question. But, to go a step further: if there be no reality in the narrative, whence the invention of the
legend? It certainly had no basis in contemporary Jewish teaching; and, equally certainly, it would not have spontaneously occurred to Jewish minds. Nowhere in Rabbinic writings do we find any hint of a Baptism of the Messiah, nor of a descent upon Him of the Spirit in the form of a dove. Rather would such views seem, a priori, repugnant to Jewish thinking. An attempt has, however, been made in the direction of identifying two traits in this narrative with Rabbinic notices. The 'Voice from heaven' has been represented as the 'Bath-Qol,' or 'Daughter- Voice,' of which we read in Rabbinic writings, as bringing heaven's testimony or decision to perplexed or hardly bestead Rabbis. And it has been further asserted, that among the Jews 'the dove' was regarded as the emblem of the Spirit. In taking notice of these assertions some warmth of language may be forgiven.
We make bold to maintain that no one, who has impartially examined the matter, [1 Dr. Winsche's Rabbinic notes on the Bath-Qol (Neue Beitr. pp. 22, 23) are taken from Hamburger's Real-Encykl. (Abth. ii. pp. 92 &c.).] could find any real analogy between the so-called Bath-Qol, and the 'Voice from heaven' of which record is made in the New Testament. However opinions might differ, on one thing all were agreed: the Bath-Qol had come after the voice of prophecy and the Holy Ghost had ceased in Israel, [b Jer. Sot. ix. 14; Yoma 9 b; Sotah 33 a; 48 b; Sanh lla.] and, so to speak, had taken, their place. [2 Hamburger, indeed maintains, on the ground of Mace. 23 b, that occasionally it was identified with the Holy Spirit. But carefully read, neither this passage, nor the other, in which the same mistranslation, and profane misinterpretation of the words 'She has been more righteous' (Gen. xxxviii. 26) occur (Jer. Sot. ix. 7), at all bears out this suggestion. It is quite untenable in view of the distinct statements (Jer. Sot. ix. 14; Sot. 48 b; and Sanh. 1 la), that after the cessation of the Holy Spirit the Bath-Qol took His place.] But at the Baptism of Jesus the descent of the Holy Ghost was accompanied by the Voice from Heaven. Even on this ground, therefore, it could not have been the Rabbinic Bath-Qol. But, further, this 'Daughter-Voice' was regarded rather as the echo of, than as the Voice of God itself [1 Comp. on the subject Pinner in his Introduction to the tractate Berakhoth.] (Toseph. Sanh. xi. 1). The occasions on which this 'Daughter-Voice' was supposed to have been heard are so various and sometimes so shocking, both to common and to moral sense, that a comparison with the Gospels is wholly out of the question. And here it also deserves notice, that references to this Bath-Qol increase the farther we remove from the age of Christ. [2 In the Targum Onkelos it is not at all mentioned. In the Targum PseudoJon. it occurs four times (Gen. xxxviii. 26; Numb. xxi. 6; Deut. xxviii. 15; xxxiv. 5), and four times in the Targum on the Hagiographa (twice in Ecclesiastes, once in Lamentations, and once in Esther). In Mechilta and Siphra it does not occur at all, and in Siphre only once, in the absurd lenged that the Bath-Qol was heard a distance of twelve times twelve miles proclaiming the death of Moses (ed. Friedmann, p. 149 b). In the Mishnah it is only twice mentioned (Yeb. xvi. 6, where the sound of a Bath-Qol is supposed to be sufficient attestation of a man's death to enable his wife to marry again; and in Abhoth vi. 2, where it is impossible to understand the language otherwise than figuratively). In the Jerusalem Talmud the Bath-Qol is referred to twenty times, and in the Babylon Talmud sixty-nine times. Sometimes the Bath-Qol gives sentence in favour of a popular Rabbi, sometimes it attempts to decide controversies, or bears witness; or else it is said every day to proclaim: Such an one's daughter is destined for such an one (Moed Kat. 18 b; Sot. 2a; Sanh. 22 a). Occasionally it utters curious or profane
