2. Of the intercourse of John with Jesus, the Fourth Gospel gives an account which difl'ers widely from that presented in the Synoptics ; but apart from the f Johannine colouring of the later narrative, the difference is sufficiently explained on the ordinary view that the Synoptists describe the meeting between the two at the time of our Lord's baptism, while the Fourth Evangelist con- cerns himself only with John's subsequent testi- mony to the now recognized Messiah (cf. Jn !''•). There is no real discrepancy between John's ' I knew him not,' reported in the Fourth Gospel (P'), and the representation of Mt. (3'^"), that when the Man from Nazareth presented Himself at the Jordan, John declined at first to baptize Him, on the ground of his own unworthiness in comjiarison. Even if we suppose that in spite of their kinship and the friendsnip between their mothers the two had not met before, the fact that John's baptism was a baptism of repentance and confession seems to imply a personal interview with applicants previous to the performance of the rite — an inter- view which in the case of Jesus must have revealed to one with the Baptist's insight the beauty and glory of His character. On the other hand, the 'I knew him not' of the last Gospel, as the con- text shows, only means that John did not know- that Jesus was indeed the Messiah until he received the promised sign (P-'-).
It is true that in the Fourth Gospel John is made to bear a witness to Jesus by the banks of the Jordan {V^-^} which finds no parallel in the earlier narratives ; but if we follow the ordinary view of .students of the chronology of our Lord's life— that the narrative of the Fourth Evangelist comes in after the forty days of the Temptation have inter- vened, and that John now sees Jesus, in the light not only of the authenticating sign given at the baptism, but of his own reflexion ever since ujion tlie suliject of the (character of Jesus and the ful- filment of till- Messianic promise — the fulness and explicit)!-- 'f li- I -timony upon this later occasion a]] [ i !\ natural. The twice-
repeated ei— :fi' (vv.'^-*"), it is true,
oairnot be mill' 1 -I iul, -i lar as the Baptist himself
is concerned, as referring to pre-existence, though this was probably involved in the thought of the Evangelist. But the designation of Jesus as ' the Lamb of God ' (vv.^- ^), and especially the phrase 'which taketh away the sin of the world' (v.=®), repeals a conception of the Saviour's Messianic functions which is certainly profound, but which, in spite of the objections which have been taken to it, cannot surprise us in the case of one who had brooded like John over the utterances of OT prophecy (cf. especially Is 53).
The Fourth Evangelist records a further witness regarding Jesus which John bore to his own dis- ciples on a later occasion, when he was baptizing in -Hnon (wh. see), near to Salim (3-^*-)- Ii this passage tlie difficulty of discriminating between tlie ori;,'iiial words and facts of history and the Johannine setting and atmosphere is even greater than usual, but the figure of the Bridegroom ' that hath the bride ' and the Bridegroom's friend who rejoices in the other's joy (v.*), and the saying, ' He must increase, but I must decrease ' (v.™), are so thoroughly in keeping with other utterances of the Baptist recorded in the Synoptics as well as in the Fourth Gospel regarding the relations between the Messiah and himself (Mt3'-", Jn V'-'"), that it is difficult to resist the impression of historical reality which they make upon the reader.
V. John's Imprisonment and Death (Mt H^-", Mk 6"-=», Lk a^^'-o; cf. Jos. Ant. XVIII. v. 1, 2). —According to the Synoptists, the arrest and execution of John were due to the spiteful hatred of Herodias (wh. see), because he had rebuked Herod for making her his wife in flagrant defiance of the law of Israel (Lv 18'^ 20-'). Josephus, on the other hand, says that Herod put the prophet to death because he ' feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it in his power and inclination to raise a rebellion ; for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise.' The two statements, however, are not irreconcilable ; and certainly the evidence of Josephus, whose interests as a historian lay altogether in the political direc- tion, is not such as to cast any suspicion on the trustworthiness of the more detailed and more intimate Gospel narrative. It may veiy well have been the case that, while John's death was really due to the implacable hate of Herodias, Herod felt that this was hardly an adequate ground, or one that he would care to allege, for the execution of the Baptist, and so made political reasons his excu',e. Assuredly there was nothing of the politi- cal revolutionary about John ; yet his extraordinary influence over the people and the wild hopes raised among certain classes Tjy his preaching might make it easy for Herod to present a plausible justifica- tion of his base deed by representing John as a politically dangerous person.
There may seem to be a contradiction within the Evangelic narratives tln-iii~ilvi's, when we find Mt. saying that Hik,.! \\..uM have put .John to death but that he l.ar.a ih.. inultitude (14*), while Mk. alleges that IK-rud ■tcarcd John, knowin;- that he was a righteous man and an holy, and kept him safe . . . and heard him gladly ' (6™). But the contradiction lies in Herod's character rather than in the testimonies of the two writers, and the words iroXKa i/wdpu, 'he was much per- plexed' (Mk 6=" WH and RV), explain adequately enough a moral situation of which we have the final revelation in Herod's weakly vacillating be- haviour, 'letting I dare not Avait upon I would,' when Herodias through her daughter Salome (Mt 14«, Mk 6~; cf. Jos. Ant. xvill. v. 4) presented her horrible request. That Herod did not really regard John as a political fanatic is suggested by all that the Gospels tell us as to the way in which he treated him while he lay in prison; by the