disciples.  Without touching here the question of the precise journeys of Jesus (an insoluble question, seeing the contradictions of the documents and the little care the evangelists had in being exact in such matters), and without denying that Jesus might have made a journey to John when he had as yet no notoriety, we adopt the information furnished by the fourth Gospel (iii. 22, and following), namely, that Jesus, before beginning to baptize like John, had formed a school.  We must remember, besides, that the first pages of the fourth Gospel are notes tacked together without rigorous chronological arrangement.]

[Footnote 2:  Luke i., although indeed all the details of the narrative, especially those which refer to the relationship of John with Jesus, are legendary.]

It seems, in fact, that, notwithstanding his profound originality, Jesus, during some weeks at least, was the imitator of John.  His way as yet was not clear before him.  At all times, moreover, Jesus yielded much to opinion, and adopted many things which were not in exact accordance with his own ideas, or for which he cared little, merely because they were popular; but these accessories never injured his principal idea, and were always subordinate to it.  Baptism had been brought by John into very great favor; Jesus thought himself obliged to do like John; therefore he baptized, and his disciples baptized also.[1] No doubt he accompanied baptism with preaching, similar to that of John.  The Jordan was thus covered on all sides with Baptists, whose discourses were more or less successful.  The pupil soon equaled the master, and his baptism was much sought after.  There was on this subject some jealousy among the disciples;[2] the disciples of John came to complain to him of the growing success of the young Galilean, whose baptism would, they thought, soon supplant his own.  But the two teachers remained superior to this meanness.  The superiority of John was, besides, too indisputable for Jesus, still little known, to think of contesting it.  Jesus only wished to increase under John’s protection; and thought himself obliged, in order to gain the multitude, to employ the external means which had given John such astonishing success.  When he recommenced to preach after John’s arrest, the first words put into his mouth are but the repetition of one of the familiar phrases of the Baptist.[3] Many other of John’s expressions may be found repeated verbally in the discourses of Jesus.[4] The two schools appear to have lived long on good terms with each other;[5] and after the death of John, Jesus, as his trusty friend, was one of the first to be informed of the event.[6]

[Footnote 1:  John iii. 22-26, iv. 1, 2.  The parenthesis of ver. 2 appears to be an interpolation, or perhaps a tardy scruple of John correcting himself.]

[Footnote 2:  John iii. 26, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. iii. 2, iv. 17.]

[Footnote 4:  Matt. iii. 7, xii. 34, xxiii. 33.]