Mt 3:13. Then—namely, when John had already stirred all to repentance and, by baptizing in water, had sealed the remission of sins obtained through a living faith in Christ who was already about to come—Jesus came from Galilee, that is, as Mark says (1:9), from Nazareth of Galilee, where He had lived privately until then, to the Jordan, that is, to that place on the Jordan where John was baptizing.
Mt 3:14. He was hindering Him. Here a great difficulty arises: why did John try to prevent Christ from approaching his baptism, when he himself says of himself (John 1:33), “I did not know Him; but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” Chrysostom explains that before Christ’s coming to John’s baptism, John knew that Christ had come into the world and would baptize with the Holy Spirit, but he did not yet know that this particular man was the Christ, since he had not yet recognized Him by sight. At Christ’s actual approach to baptism, however, by a secret revelation of the Spirit it was indicated to John that this was the Christ who was now coming to his baptism; and therefore John tried to prevent Him. At the same time, as a sign leading to a fuller faith through revelation, an external sign was given for recognizing Christ: “Upon whom you see the Spirit…” so that through this John might bear high testimony about Him.
Others explain it differently. They judge that John already knew Christ personally, and that this sign was not given because he was ignorant of Him, but because he did not yet know this particular quality of Christ—that He Himself is the one who, through the hands of all ministers, baptizes in the Holy Spirit. John did not know, that is, that in baptism the minister who baptizes merely exercises a ministry, but that Christ Himself gives the Holy Spirit even in the ministry of His servants. In order that John might learn this, “He who sent me to baptize with water said to me: ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is He who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’” Thus Augustine teaches in Tractates 5 and 6 on John and in various other places. Hence that saying of the same Augustine: “This is He who baptizes. Let Paul baptize—this is He who baptizes. Let Judas baptize—this is He who baptizes.”
“I ought to be baptized by You”—that is, I need to be baptized by You, as is clear from the Greek text. John, however, needed the baptism of Christ in order to become a member of the Church of Christ, whose gate is baptism. See Blessed Jerome, the author of the Opus Imperfectum, Theophylact, and Euthymius.
Mt 3:15. “Allow it now.” By this word allow, Christ does not so much disapprove as approve John’s prohibition; but by adding now, He signifies that this must be done according to a certain temporal dispensation, as Blessed Gregory Nazianzen observes (Oration 39). Thus, by professing repentance. “It is fitting for us”—namely, for us who urge others to profess repentance—“to fulfill all righteousness.” That is, perfect righteousness. Thus Blessed James calls perfect joy “all joy”, and Blessed Paul calls perfect faith “all faith”, meaning faith most complete, fullest, and perfect. This, moreover, is perfect righteousness according to Blessed Ambrose (Book 2 on Luke): that what you wish another to do, you yourself begin first, and that you exhort others by your own example. Christ, therefore, having been made for us “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” approached a baptism of repentance, in order to teach us by His example that—so Augustine used to say in the fifth century after Christ’s birth—no one, even if conscious of no crime, should pass from this life without repentance.
“And having been baptized…” That Christ was naked when He was baptized by John is sufficiently indicated by the words of the Evangelists, who write this explicitly. Thus Epiphanius in the Ancoratus (ch. 117), and John of Damascus in his Oration against the Emperor Constantine Caballinus. This custom of baptizing naked, from apostolic times, persisted in the Church until the beginning of the twelfth century, as is clear from Hugh of St. Victor, Summa of Theological Instruction, Tract 5, ch. 7. The reason for this nakedness we learn from Facundus of Hermiane, bishop, in Book 4 addressed to the Emperor Justinian, ch. 4: namely, that not only by voice but also by the whole bearing of the body we may profess that we have put off the old man with his deeds.
Mt 3:16. “Immediately He came up.” The particle immediately does not refer to He came up, but to “behold, the heavens were opened,” as Mark 1:10 has: “Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opened.” The heavens were opened by a sensible division in the upper air or ether. Likewise the dove and the voice that was heard were sensible; and thus all these things occurred in such a way that they appeared to proceed from heaven—to Him, namely to Christ, and for Christ.
“Like a dove.” There are Fathers who hold that a real dove descended upon Christ. Thus Tertullian, in On the Flesh of Christ ch. 3, writes of the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ: “The dove was as truly a dove as the Spirit was the Spirit; nor had it destroyed or perhaps displaced its own substance by assuming an alien substance.” And Blessed Augustine, in De Agone Christiano ch. 22, comparing Christ’s body with this dove, says: “Nor do we say this as if we were to say that the Lord Jesus had a true body, but that the Holy Spirit deceitfully appeared to the eyes of men; rather, we believe that both were true bodies. For just as it was not fitting that the Son of God should deceive men, so it was not fitting that the Holy Spirit should deceive men. But for the omnipotent God, who made the whole creation out of nothing, it was not difficult to form a true body of a dove without the ministry of other doves, just as it was not difficult for Him to form a true body in the womb of Mary without male seed.” Blessed Thomas follows Augustine (ST III, q. 39, art. 7), and Sixtus of Siena in Book 6 of the Bibliotheca (Annotation 13) writes that nearly all scholastic theologians hold the same opinion.
Nevertheless, the four Evangelists do not say that a dove descended upon Christ, but “as a dove”; and Luke more explicitly says (3:22) that “the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove.” The Syriac and Arabic versions have “according to the likeness of the body of a dove,” and the Ethiopic has “in a body like that of a dove,” from which one might conclude, according to the Ethiopic reading, that it was a body that appeared, not the body of a true dove. Maldonatus holds that Augustine thought this, although the cited words of Augustine seem to oppose it. Others, on the contrary, appealing to Possidius’ Indiculum and denying that the book De Agone Christi is Augustine’s (despite Augustine himself acknowledging it as his in Retractations I, ch. 3), deny that it is Augustine’s work.
Yet the universal authority of tradition agrees with the Gospel text: Justin Martyr in the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew; Irenaeus (Book 3, ch. 19); Origen on Luke, Sermon 27; Epiphanius against the Sabellians (Heresy 62); Hilary on Matthew, canon 2; Chrysostom on Matthew, Homily 12; Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. 106); Cyril on John; the author of the book On the Wonders of Scripture under Augustine’s name (Book 3, ch. 5); the author of the book On the Sacraments under Ambrose’s name (Book 1, ch. 5); Procopius of Gaza on Genesis 18. Indeed, even in Tertullian’s book On Baptism ch. 8 it is read: “The Holy Spirit, having descended upon the Lord in the form of a dove.” And Blessed Augustine in Book 2 On the Trinity ch. 5 affirms the same, and more explicitly in Letter 102 to Evodius he says of this dove, under whose appearance the Holy Spirit descended, that it existed by bodily appearance alone, presented to the eyes, not expressed by the nature of a living animal.
Thus Juvenal of the Gospel History, Book 1: “And bearing a bodily form, the Spirit descended from on high, simulating a dove from the cloud.” And Sedulius, Poems Book 2: “Immediately the heavens appeared, and the Holy Spirit, as a dove, clothed Christ with honor in His form.”
It must be noted that Tertullian says certain things about the Holy Spirit which cannot be true unless one were to imagine that the Holy Spirit assumed the dove to Himself by a hypostatic union—as is clear from his cited words. From this another error arose, namely, that the Holy Spirit is as far inferior to Christ as a dove is inferior to a man. Thus Martial, comparing Stella’s dove with Catullus’ sparrow, contends that Stella is a poet so much better than Catullus as a dove is greater than a sparrow.
But Chrysostom refutes this error in his Homilies on Matthew (Hom. 12), saying: Ὁ μὲν ἐν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ φύσει, τὸ δὲ ἐν ὄψει περιστερᾶς ἐφάνη—“The one appeared in our nature, the other in the appearance of a dove.” And again: Ὁ μὲν Υἱὸς τὴν θείαν φύσιν ἀνθρώπῳ ἀνέλαβε, τὸ δὲ Πνεῦμα οὐ φύσιν ἀνέλαβε περιστερᾶς—“The Son assumed the divine nature to man; the Spirit did not assume the nature of a dove.” Therefore the Evangelist did not say that He descended in the nature of a dove, but in the form (εἶδος) of a dove. Nor did He afterward appear in that form, but only at that moment.
We grant, however, that even if the Holy Spirit had truly assumed the nature of a dove, it would be most wrongly concluded from this that the person of the Holy Spirit is less perfect than the person of the Son—unless this were understood according to the assumed nature. For He would have assumed the nature of a dove in such a way as not to abandon His own, since He is one with the Father and the Son; just as the Son is not less than the Father either according to person or according to His divine nature because He assumed our nature. For He assumed ours in such a way that He did not abandon His own.
It remains to resolve the argument of Blessed Augustine, by which in De Agone Christi he endeavors to prove that this dove, under whose appearance the Holy Spirit appeared at Christ’s baptism, was a true dove. “We believe,” he says, “that both bodies—namely, Christ’s and the Holy Spirit’s—were true bodies; for just as it was not fitting that the Son of God should deceive men, so it was not fitting that the Holy Spirit should deceive men.” But this argument has little force. For whom would this dove have deceived, when from Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, and John 1:32 it is clear that no one saw it except Christ Himself and John the Baptist? Indeed, Christ was baptized in the midst of the crowds (Luke 3:21), yet none of the Evangelists writes that the dove appeared to them; rather, that the dove was seen by no one except John is clearly taught by the words of John 1:32: “And John bore witness, saying: ‘I saw the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it remained upon Him.’” For what need would there have been of the testimony of so great a man to prove what others also had seen, and therefore all the crowds who were then standing around Christ and John?
Moreover, this appearance of a dove did not deceive Christ, who was free from error; nor did it deceive John, who had been forewarned by God that His Spirit would descend in a visible form and remain upon His Son. When John saw this appearance of a dove descend and rest upon Christ, he knew for certain that these things were taking place in vision, just as God had foretold. Hence he does not say that he saw a dove, but “as a dove.”
Furthermore, even if—granted but not conceded—this φάσμα (“apparition”), as Origen rightly calls it, had been seen by all and believed by many to be a true dove, the Holy Spirit would not thereby have deceived them. For he truly deceives who sets an image before the eyes with the intention of deceiving, not of teaching. But such was this vision, in which the appearance of a dove was set before the eyes, not that it might be believed to be a true dove, but that through it the presence of the Holy Spirit might be signified, and what His powers are.
If this were to be called deception, the use of all visions would be abolished, in which one thing is presented to the eyes and another to the mind. Nor would the Holy Spirit have been free from deception not only in the vision of the dove but also in that of the tongues of fire, since those tongues were not true tongues nor true fire. Accordingly, just as here He is said to have descended “as a dove,” so in Acts 2:3 tongues are said to have been seen “as of fire,” and a little earlier a sound is said to have been heard not of wind, but “as of wind,” or, as the Vulgate has it, “as of a mighty rushing spirit,” which Blessed Chrysostom also observes in his first sermon On Holy Pentecost, so that we may know that all these things took place in vision.
Mt 3:17. “This is…” Mark and Luke vary the words, but not the sense. “Does it not seem to you,” says Hilary (De Trinitate, Book 6), “that in what is said, ‘This is,’ it signifies not that others are called sons by Him, but that this one is my Son? I have given the name of adoption to many, but this one is my Son.”
“Beloved.” It is customary among Greek authors, both profane and sacred interpreters of Scripture, to use beloved (ἀγαπητός) in the sense of only or only-begotten. Thus in Homer, Astyanax is called beloved, for Hector had no other son. The same may be seen among the Greek interpreters at Genesis 22:12; Judges 11:34; Proverbs 4:3, and elsewhere, where the Hebrew יָחִיד (yāḥīd, “only one”) is rendered ἀγαπητός (“beloved”).
Therefore Christ is here called the beloved Son of God because He is the Only One. “One from One,” says Rufinus in the Creed, “is born, because the splendor of light is one and the word of the heart is one. An incorporeal generation does not flow into plurality, nor does it fall into division, where the one who is born is in no way separated from the one who begets. He is unique, as sense is to the mind, as wisdom to the wise, as the word to the heart, as power to the strong. For just as the Father alone is called wise by the Apostle, so also the Son alone is called Wisdom. Therefore He is the Only Son; and although He is glory, eternity, virtue, kingdom, and power—everything that the Father is—yet He has these not without an origin, as the Father does, but from the Father as Son. And although He is Himself the head of all things, yet the Father is His head.” Thus Rufinus.
Therefore Christ is called the beloved Son of God in the same sense in which the prince of philosophers called the eye of the one-eyed man ἀγαπητή (“beloved”).
“In whom I am well pleased.” That is, for whose sake and on account of whom I lay aside all indignation conceived against the human race.
CONTINUE
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