Chapter VI.—On the Position Given to the Preaching of John the Baptist in All the Four Evangelists. 18. Now at this point commences the account of the preaching of John, which is presented by all the four. For after the words which I have placed last in the order of his narrative thus far,—the words with which he introduces the testimony from the prophet, namely, He shall be called a Nazarene,—Matthew proceeds immediately to give us this re- 113 cital: “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judæa,” 763 etc. And Mark, who has told us nothing of the nativity or infancy or youth of the Lord, has made his Gospel begin with the same event,—that is to say, with the preaching of John. For it is thus that he sets out: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophet Isaiah,764 Behold, I send a messenger765 before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. John was in the wilderness baptizing, and preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,766 etc. Luke, again, follows up the passage in which he says, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and age,767 and in favour with God and man,” by a section in which he speaks of the preaching of John in these terms: Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, 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, 768 etc. The Apostle John, too, the most eminent of the four evangelists, after discoursing of the Word of God, who is also the Son, antecedent to all the ages of creaturely existence, inasmuch as all things were made by Him, has introduced in the immediate context his account of the preaching and testimony of John, and proceeds thus: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.769 This will be enough at once to make it plain that the narratives concerning John the Baptist given by the four evangelists are not at variance with one another. And there will be no occasion for requiring or demanding that to be done in all detail in this in- stance which we have already done in the case of the genealogies of the Christ who was born of Mary, to the effect of proving how Matthew and Luke are in harmony with each other, of showing how we might construct one consistent narrative out of the two, and of 763 Matt. iii. 1. 764 In Isaia propheta. [So the Greek text, according to the best mss. Comp. Revised Version—R.] 765 Angelum. 766 Mark i. 1–4. 767 Ætate. 768 Luke iii. 1, 2. 769 John i. 6. On the Position Given to the Preaching of John the Baptist in All the Four Evangelists. 245 On the Position Given to the Preaching of John the Baptist in All the Four…