retrogression, only progression, in the Life of Jesus. And yet it was only on this occasion

that the rite was administered under His sanction. But the circumstances were

exceptional. It was John's last testimony to Jesus, and it was preceded by this testimony

of Jesus to John. Far divergent, almost opposite, as from the first their paths had been,

this practical sanction on the part of Jesus of John's Baptism, when the Baptist was about

to be forsaken, betrayed, and murdered, was Christ's highest testimony to him. Jesus

adopted his Baptism, ere its waters for ever ceased to flow, and thus He blessed and

consecrated them. He took up the work of His Forerunner, and continued it. The

baptismal rite of John administered with the sanction of Jesus, was the highest witness

that could be borne to it.

There is no necessity for supposing that John and the disciples of Jesus baptized at, or

quite close to, the same place. On the contrary, such immediate juxtaposition seems, for

obvious reasons, unlikely. Jes us was within the boundaries of the province of Judæa,

while John baptized at Ænon (the springs), near to Salim. The latter site has not been

identified. But the oldest tradition, which places it a few miles to the south of Bethshean

(Scythopolis), on the border of Samaria and Galilee, has this in its favour, that it locates

the scene of John's last public work close to the seat of Herod Antipas, into whose power

the Baptist was so soon to be delivered.12 But already there were causes at work to

remove both Jesus and His Forerunner from their present spheres of activity. As regards

Christ, we have the express statement,13 that the machinations of the Pharisaic party in

Jerusalem led Him to withdraw into Galilee. And, as we gather from the notice of St.

John, the Baptist was now involved in this hostility, as being so closely connected with

Jesus. Indeed, we venture the suggestion that the imprisonment of the Baptist, although

occasioned by his outspoken rebuke of Herod, was in great part due to the intrigues of the

Pharisees. Of such a connection between them and Herod Antipas, we have direct

evidence in a similar attempt to bring about the removal of Jesus from his territory.  14 It

would not have been difficult to rouse the suspicions of a nature so mean and jealous as

that of Antipas, and this may explain the account of Josephus,15 who attributes the

imprisonment and death of the Baptist simply to Herod's suspicious fear of John's

unbounded influence with the people.16

Hengstenberg , Wieseler, and Godet, seek it on the southern border of Judæa ( En-rimmon,