SECTION I

determination of the dates

According to the statements of the Evangelist Luke, which appear to us well accredited, John was about half a year older than Jesus. To this difference in their ages, the difference in the time of their first public appearance most exactly corresponds. John had only for a short period entered on the exercise of his vocation, when Jesus arrived at the Jordan to prepare Himself by baptism for assuming His official functions.

It was not to be expected that these two champions of Heaven (Gotteshelden) would begin their ministry before the completion of their thirtieth year. Reverence for their national institutions would deter them from committing such a violation of law and custom, which required that mature age for entering on any public office.1 But as little could it be supposed that they would delay beyond this highest point of their manly development, past the limits assigned by the law, to enter upon their divine mission. As, on the one hand, they were kept back by the law up to a certain age, and on the other, impelled by the power of the Spirit to lose no time when they had reached that limit, we may believe that they would carefully observe the exact time of entering on their office; just as the racer starts for the goal at the given signal, or a volley is fired at the exact moment. John might perhaps, during the winter season, delay the administration of baptism, but not the commencement of his ministry.¹

Matthew does not state the exact time of John’s first public appearance. ‘In those days,’ he says, ‘came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea’ (3:1). He does not mean those days in which Jesus first took up His abode at Nazareth, but that later period in which, by having resided there, He was regarded as belonging to that city (2:23). Thus much we gather from this statement, that when the Baptist made his first appearance, Jesus was still residing at Nazareth. Luke informs us still more precisely that ‘in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness; and he came into all the country round about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins’ (3:1-3).

Luke seems to distinguish the early prophetic ministry of John in the wilderness, from his coming forward at the Jordan as the Baptist.² Even Matthew has in his eye a period of certain days, during which the preaching of John served as a preparation for the rite of baptism which he afterwards performed at the Jordan.³ Mark joins the two points of time in one; for the preaching of John was from the first an announcement that the people were to submit to a baptism of repentance; and John, as to his manner of life and position, was always in the wilderness; the region he occupied as the sphere of the preacher in the wilderness, formed a decided contrast to the region of the temple. Moreover, the wilderness of Judea, which lies between Kedron and the Dead Sea, and in which John first appeared as a preacher of repentance, is in the direction of the wilderness near Jericho, through which the Israelites travelled from Jerusalem to the Jordan, and not for from it.⁴ To the inhabitants of Jerusalem the two wildernesses might more easily seem to run into one another, because John probably had his proper residence still in the wilderness, even when he administered baptism. At all events, the greater number of the persons he baptized had to go through the wilderness in order to reach him. But a large district is always distinguished by its predominant character, and especially by the strong impression it makes by means of some one striking figure. And thus John was everywhere the Baptist in the wilderness, both in a symbolical and a literal sense.⁵

Now if John, as we must suppose from comparing his age with that of Jesus, was thirty years old in the autumn of the year 779, he probably began to preach about that time. Meanwhile the winter set in, and he could not enter on the administration of baptism before the mild spring-weather of 780; by that time a movement had commenced among the people, and the season suitable for their great lustration had arrived. Jesus also, having about this time completed His thirtieth year, presented Himself for baptism. After His baptism He passed forty days in the wilderness; subsequently, He spent short portions of time at Cana, Nazareth, and Capernaum, probably occupied in the first quiet beginnings of His ministry. Then came the spring of the year 781; and now He went up to the Passover at Jerusalem for the first time in the capacity of a prophet, discharged His office in the midst of the people, and effected the purification of the temple.

Two years before the death of Augustus, about the year 765, Tiberius was raised to share the imperial throne;⁶ but in the year 767 Augustus died. As John probably appeared as the Baptist at the Jordan in the summer of 780, after introducing the rite in the autumn and winter of 779, we must suppose that Luke has included in his reckoning the previous regency of Tiberius. On this supposition, the year 779 would be the fifteenth year of Tiberius.⁷

As great numbers had been baptized before Christ presented Himself at the Jordan, we may presume that He was not baptized till late in the summer of 780. But when He purified the temple at the Passover, in 781, the Jews asked Him by what sign He could accredit that act. On His answering, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,’ they rejoined, ‘Forty-six years was this temple in building, and wilt Thou rear it up in three days?’ The building of Herod’s temple was still in progress, though it was begun before the Passover of 735, and as 46 years had passed since that time, the conversation of Christ with the Jews occurred in the year 781.⁸

The ministry of John, who probably changed his first station on the banks of the Jordan for one higher up, lasted most likely to the winter of the year 781. While he was baptizing in Galilee, Christ was occupied in Judea. At the time of John’s imprisonment in Galilee, the supreme council at Jerusalem began to watch the rising reputation of Jesus with an unfriendly eye, in consequence of which He left Judea and retired into Galilee.⁹

In the spring of the next year, 782, John was still in prison, and it was then he sent the well-known deputation to Christ, which, according to Mat 11:1-2, appears to have been at the close of the first journeying of Christ through Galilee, and therefore before His visit to the feast of Purim, narrated by the Evangelist John. The beheading of John took place not long after, probably between the feast of Purim and the Passover of 782.¹⁰ Christ did not publicly attend the Passover of this year, but the following one, in 783. The first feast-day of this year, which began with eating the Passover the preceding night, was a Friday.¹¹

In addition to the chronological datum by which Luke fixes the time of John’s ministry, he has given other historical indications,¹² which are contained in the passage quoted above. Of these the first is, that Pontius Pilate was then governor of Judea: he filled that office ten years,—namely, from the end of 778 or the beginning of 779 to the year 789.

In Luke’s description, Herod appears as tetrarch of Galilee. This was the Herod Antipas who beheaded John the Baptist. He held this dignity from the death of his father, Herod the Great, till some years after the death of Christ, but lost it in the year 792. In the third place, Philip is named as being then tetrarch of Ituræa and Trachonitis. He reigned from the death of Herod, at the time of the return of the Holy Family from Egypt, to the year 786. Though all these specifications agree with the history of the times as gathered from other sources, yet some critics believe they have detected a great error in the account of the fourth of the Syrian princes, namely, that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. From Josephus (Antiq. xv. 4, § 1) and Dio Cassius (xlix. 32) we learn that, sixty years before the time in which the Lysanias of Luke must have lived, a Lysanias of Abilene was assassinated, and that Cleopatra obtained a part of his dominions; while Josephus says nothing of a Lysanias who reigned about the time of Christ. In this case, according to the demands of a noted critic, the silence of the Jewish historian is to be held decisive against the testimony of the Christian; the inference follows directly, that the latter made an error of sixty years in his account, or held the current designation of that province as the Abilene of Lysanias to be a sufficient ground for assuming that Abilene was then governed by a Lysanias.¹³ Those who regard the statement, as it stands, as incorrect, and yet think they can escape the consequence that Luke was mistaken, effect their object by reading the passage modified in one way or another. Dr Paulus thinks that the passage is to be read in connection with the preceding clause, thus: ‘At that time Philip was tetrarch over Iturזa and Trachonitis, and over the Abilene of the tetrarch Lysanias.’ This translation is obtained either by omitting τετραρχοῦντος after Abilene (with Codex L.); or by reading καὶ τῆς Λυσανιοῦ Ἀβιληνῆς τετραρχοῦντος, and construing τετραρχοῦντος with Φιλίππου; or, lastly, by a forced interpretation translating the text as it stands, in the manner specified. But not only the arbitrary liberty taken with the text and its obvious meaning tells against such an expedient, but likewise the circumstance that it is not only destitute of proof, but is in the highest degree improbable, that Philip, besides his own territory, should have obtained Abilene from the Roman power.¹⁴ It is therefore much simpler to leave the district of Abilene to Lysanias, though we know nothing further about him, than to make it over to Philip, to whom the history does not assign it-indeed, from whose tetrarchy it plainly distinguishes that of Lysanias.¹⁵ Moreover, positive considerations present themselves, as Wieseler in his often quoted work has shown,¹⁶ which justify Luke’s statement.¹⁷ First of all, it is worthy of notice that, according to Josephus (Antiq. xv. 6, § 4), Cleopatra obtained only a part of the possessions of Lysanias. Wieseler infers, that most probably the remainder was left to the heirs of Lysanias, from the circumstance that at a later period one Zenodorus appears as farming the inheritance of Lysanias (Antiq. xv. 10, § 1). Wieseler concludes that he probably entered into this engagement because the heirs of Lysanias, being minors, were under guardianship. Then, lastly, the territory of Lysanias is mentioned by Josephus as a tetrarchy, which in the year 790 was given with the tetrarchy of Philip, by the Emperor Caius Caligula, to Agrippa. From these several indications the critic just named concludes, that between the years 734-790 there must have been a younger Lysanias who governed Abilene as a tetrarch.¹⁸ As the earlier Lysanias is not designated a tetrarch, the fact is of importance, that Pococke describes a coin which names on its superscription a tetrarch Lysanias; and the same traveller discovered an inscription in a temple on the summit of the ancient Abila, 15 English miles from Damascus, which also speaks of the tetrarch Lysanias of Abilene. But the notices in Josephus already mentioned are quite sufficient to introduce the historic testimony of Luke.

To the preceding chronological data Luke adds the striking statement, that ‘Annas was high priest, and Caiaphas.’ It has been supposed that Annas is placed first because he was the Nasi or president of the Sanhedrim, while Caiaphas was the officiating high priest in the matter of sacrifices.¹⁹ But Caiaphas (according to John 18) evidently appears as the proper judge of Jesus; but he was His judge, not as high priest, but as president of the Sanhedrim.²⁰ Moreover, the Romans, who had less to do with the sacrificing priest than with the presidency of the Sanhedrim, would have thought it of no consequence to remove Annas from the high-priesthood, if that measure had not, in fact, mainly dealt with the presidency of the supreme civil tribunal. Luke seems to mark that degradation of the high-priesthood ironically, when he speaks of a high priest (αρχιερεως) Annas, and Caiaphas; the one, that is to say, had the influence, the other the office. In like manner Annas appears in John (18:4): not as president of the council, but as father-in-law of Caiaphas, he had the honour of having Jesus first sent to him. Caiaphas is the high priest ʻthat same yearʼ. At a period when the office of high priest changed hands so often, he figured as the high priest of the year ; but in the national feeling the real, permanent high priest was Annas. It was Caiaphas who uttered the official adage, that ‘it was expedient one man should die for the people’—an inconsiderate expression, which evinced neither great political wisdom nor a noble disposition, but which in a higher sense might be regarded as an unconscious prophecy of the atonement.²¹

According to the before-named chronological limits of the ministry of John the Baptist, he was probably engaged in it for half a year before he had fully aroused the people and called them to baptism. After that, he was about a year and a half occupied in baptizing them. Finally, his imprisonment appears to have lasted about half a year. A doubt has been expressed, whether it was possible for John, in the short space of time allowed him by the Evangelists, to make so great an impression on his nation. But if we bear in mind that the infinitely superior ministry of Christ was comprised in the space of two years and a half, we shall find it very conceivable that two years sufficed John for his vocation. Indeed, John must already in the first half-year have agitated his nation, in order to appear as the Baptist. But would it require more than half a year to set Israel in motion when the message resounded, ‘The kingdom of the Messiah is at hand! Come, purify yourselves, in order to enter it!’. The history of the false messiahs shows that the people were easily set in motion by an announcement of the Messiah’s advent.

1) Though we might give the Theocrat credit that for himself he would not hesitate to bathe in the Jordan when swelled by the wintry snow-water of Hermon, since as a Nazarite he had grown up in the desert in the full heroic energy of a life of nature, yet the multitude would hardly be induced to submit to baptism at that time of the year, the rainy season, See Wieseler, Chronol. Synops., p. 148.

2) See Neander, Life of Jesus Christ (Bohn’s Tr.), p. 50.

3) See chap. iii, 1-5.

4) [A description of the scene of John’s baptism is given in Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. 310.—ED.]

5) But how, the critic asks, can it be said that Jesus went from the wilderness (where John was), into the wilderness (where He Himself was tempted)? This supposed contradiction is nothing but an illusion to which inaccurate persons are liable from the very accuracy of the designations in the Gospel. He who resides only a few hours’ distance from the Rhine says, I am going to the Rhine, though he settles only in a place in the vicinity of the Rhine. From that position, he then goes, when he will, still again to the Rhine. So that one may go from the wilderness into the wilderness,—a marvellous thing, unless the critic has some skill in perspective.

6) See Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse, p. 172; Tacit. Annal. i, 8; Sueton. Tiber. 20, 21.—Kuinoel, Commentar. in Ev. Lue. edit. ii. p. 848. Lucas ad designandum Tiberii principatum non adhibuit vocabulum μοναρχία aut βασιλεία sed nomen ἡγεμονία, quod de quovis imperio, de quavis dignitate ac potestate usurpari solet, &c. Nulla idonea proferri potest ratio, cur non licuerit Luce initium principatus imperii ab eo tempore derivare, quo factus esset Augusti collega, quuin imprimis in proviuciis, qualis Judea fuit, pari dignitate haberetur, atque Augustus, Non improbabile est, Lucam seentum esse morem Scripture. In historia enim regum et in Jeremia anni Nabuchodonosoris reges Babylonie ab eo tempore numerantur, quo pater filium in societatem imperii recepit.

7) Wieseler advocates the view, that Luke (iii. 1) speaks not of John’s first appearance, but of a second stage of it, involving a course of action which led to his imprisonment, The mention of the fact, that Herod had ‘shut up John in prison’? (ver, 20), is in favour of it. But, on the other hand, in the same connection the appearance of Christ is represented as future (ver. 16), which it could only have been previous to Christ’s public ministry. That Luke should incidentally mention, by anticipation, John’s imprisonment, occasions no difficulty,

8) See Wieseler, p. 166. (Lichtenstein, however, who is a worthy rival of Wieseler in chronological investigations, shows (p. 75, Lebensgeschichte des Herrn Jesu Christi in chronologischer Uebersicht, Erlangen, 1856) that the 46th year is 780 ; and (p, 153) makes it appear probable that Jesus was baptized towards the end of December, 779 or beginning of January 780. So also Andrews, Life of our Lord upon the Earth in its Chronol. Relations, Lond. 1863. Tischendorf (Synops. Evang. xix.) prefers the close of 780.—ED.]

9) According to John iv, 1, Jesus probably returned to Galilee towards the end of autumn in 781, because the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, and because an extraordinary excitement of popular feeling on His behalf in Judea had begun to make Him an object of hostile observation to the Pharisees. We must consider this return of Jesus to Galilee as identical with that mentioned in the synoptic Gospels (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14; Luke iv. 14). When the synoptic Gospels allege as a motive for His return, that Jesus had heard of John’s imprisonment, this motive is not sufficient by itself to explain His conduct, since it was by the tetrarch of Galilee that John had been put in confinement. But that event reacted on the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem. The Pharisees might be stirred up to apprehend the second prophet, since Herod had apprehended the first, and since John, whom with his voice of thunder they feared more than Jesus, could no longer protect the latter by his high repnte. The reference of the passage in Luke iv. 43, 44, to one and the same event, is also in favour of this opinion. ‘The passage in John iv. 1 does not imply, as Wieseler thinks, that the Baptist was at that time still exercising his ministry. The comparison of the ministry of Jesus with that of John does not involve that they were contemporaneous,

10) Compare Matt. xiv. 10, 20 with John vi. 1-14. On the locality from which Herod Antipas issued his orders for the execution of the prisoner in the castle of Macherus, see Wieseler, p. 250: it was Julias or Livias, in that region of Perma, situated not far from Macheerus.

11) See Wieseler, p. 176.

12) [On the significance of these as indications of the political condition of the Jews, see some acute remarks by Lichtenstein, Lebensyeschichte, &c, Anm, 11 and 12.—ED.]

13) Strauss, Leben Jesu, p. 343.

14) Josephus, Antiq. xvii, 11, § 4; De Bello Jud. ii. 6, § 8. Compare Wieseler, Chron. Synops. p. 177.

15) See the passage from Josephus in Wieseler, p. 177.

16) With a reference to the treatise by Hug, Gutachten tiber das Leben Jesu, critically examined by Dr David Strauss. Freiburger Zeitschrift fiir Theologie, Bd. i, Heft 2.

17) Chronol. Synops, 179.

18) [Robinson comes to the same conclusion on similar grounds—Biblical Researches in Palestine, iii, 482-4; and compare Ebrard’s Gospel History (Clark, 1863), p. 143.—ED.]

19) See Wieseler, Chronol. Synops. p. 183.

20) [Lichtenstein supposes he may have been vice-president—ED.]

21) It appears from John xviii. 24, that there was no change of place, no sending from palace to palace. The temple guards follow the Jewish national instinct : they lead Jesus first before him who was really the high priest in the opinion of the Jews. He submits Jesus to a preliminary examination, and then sends Him bound to be disposed of by Caiaphas, who was the officiating, titular high priest—the official high priest in the opinion of the Romans, who by their arbitrary appointments converted the high-priesthood into an annual office. The ἀπέσγειλεν αὑτὸν δεδεμένον (ver. 24) may be explained according to the analogy of the passage Luke iv. 19, ἀποστεῖλaι ἐν ἀφέσει. Annas, as the proper deciding hierarch, sent the Lord bound to Caiaphas; by that His fate was already decided.

22) [ʻUsefulness and power are not measured by length of life. . . . Youth has originated all the great movements of the world.’—Young's Christ of History, p. 31.—ED.]

23) See Weisse, die evang. Geschichte, i. 253.