Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.
And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said unto him, “Why baptizest thou then, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” Those who sent from Jerusalem the priests and levites who asked John these questions, having learned who John was not, and who he was, preserve a decent silence, as if tacitly assenting and indicating that they accepted what was said, and saw that baptism was suited to a voice crying in the wilderness for the preparing of the way of the Lord. But the Pharisees being, as their name indicates, a divided and seditious set of people, show that they do not agree with the Jews of the metropolis and with the ministers of the service of God, the priests and levites. They send envoys who deal in rebukes, and so far as their power extends debar him from baptizing; their envoys ask, Why baptizest thou, then, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? And if we were to stitch together into one statement what is written in the various Gospels, we should say that at this time they spoke as is here reported, but that at a later time, when they wished to receive baptism, they heard the address of John: “Generations of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” This is what the Baptist says in Matthew, when he sees many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, without, it is clear, having the fruits of repentance, and pharisaically boasting in themselves that they had Abraham for their father. For this they are rebuked by John, who has the zeal of Elijah according to the communication of the Holy Spirit. For that is a rebuking word, “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father,” and that is the word of a teacher, when he speaks of those who for their stony hearts are called unbelieving stones, and says that by the power of God these stones may be changed into children of Abraham; for they were present to the eyes of the prophet and did not shrink from his divine glance. Hence his words: “I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” And since they came to his baptism without having done fruits meet for repentance, he says to them most appropriately, “Already is the axe laid to the root of the tree; every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”
This is as much as to say to them: Since you have come to baptism without having done fruits meet for repentance, you are a tree that does not bring forth good fruit and which has to be cut down by the most sharp and piercing axe of the Word which is living and powerful and sharper than every two-edged sword.
The estimation in which the Pharisees held themselves is also set forth by Luke in the passage: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. And the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” The result of this speech is that the publican goes down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee, and the lesson is drawn, that every one who exalts himself is abased. They came, then, in the character in which the Saviour’s reproving words described them, as hypocrites to John’s baptism, nor does it escape the Baptist’s observation that they have the poison of vipers under their tongue and the poison of asps, for “the poison of asps is under their tongue.” The figure of serpents rightly indicates their temper, and it is plainly revealed in their better question: “Why baptizest thou then, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
To these I would fain reply, if it be the case that the Christ and Elijah and the prophet baptize, but that the voice crying in the wilderness has no authority to do so, “Most harshly, my friends, do you question the messenger sent before the face of Christ to prepare His way before Him. The mysteries which belong to this point are all hidden to you; for Jesus being, whether you will or not, the Christ, did not Himself baptize but His disciples, He who was Himself the prophet. And how have you come to believe that Elijah who is to come will baptize?” He did not baptize the logs upon the altar in the times of Ahab, though they needed such a bath to be burned up, what time the Lord appeared in fire. No, he commands the priests to do this for him, and that not only once; for he says, “Do it a second time,” upon which they did it a second time, and “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. If, then, he did not at that time himself baptize but left the work to others, how was he to baptize at the time spoken of by Malachi?
Christ, then, does not baptize with water, but His disciples. He reserves for Himself to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now Heracleon accepts the speech of the Pharisees as distinctly implying that the office of baptizing belonged to the Christ and Elijah and to every prophet, for he uses these words, “Whose office alone it is to baptize.” He is refuted by what we have just said, and especially by the consideration that he takes the word “prophet” in a general sense; for he can not show that any of the prophets baptized. He adds, not incorrectly, that the Pharisees put the question from malice, and not from a desire to learn.
14. Comparison of the Statements of the Four Evangelists Respecting John the Baptist, the Prophecies Regarding Him, His Addresses to the Multitude and to the Pharisees, Etc.
We deem it necessary to compare with the expression of the passage we are considering the similar expressions found elsewhere in the Gospels. This we shall continue to do point by point to the end of this work, so that terms which appear to disagree may be shown to be in harmony, and that the peculiar meanings present in each may be explained. This we shall do in the present passage. The words, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord,” are placed by John, who was a disciple, in the mouth of the Baptist. In Mark, on the other hand, the same words are recorded at the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in accordance with the Scripture of Isaiah, as thus: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send My messenger before thy face, who 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.” Now the words, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” added by John, are not found in the prophet. Perhaps John was seeking to compress the “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God,” and so wrote, “Make straight the way of the Lord;” while Mark combined two prophecies spoken by two different prophets in different places, and made one prophecy out of them, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold I send My messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” The words, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” are written immediately after the narrative of Hezekiah’s recovery from his sickness, while the words, “Behold I send My messenger before thy face,” are written by Malachi.
What John does here, abbreviating the text he quotes, we find done by Mark also at another point. For while the words of the prophet are, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God,” Mark writes, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” And John practises a similar abbreviation in the text, “Behold I send My messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee,” when he does not add the words “before thee,” as in the original.
Coming now to the statement, “They were sent from the Pharisees and they asked Him,”
we have been led by our examination of the passage to prefix the enquiry of the Pharisees—which Matthew does not mention—to the occurrence recorded in Matthew, when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, and said to them, “Ye generations of vipers,” etc. For the natural sequence is that they should first enquire and then come. And we have to observe how, when Matthew reports that there went out to John Jerusalem and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan, to be baptized by him in Jordan, confessing their sins, it was not these people who heard from the Baptist any word of rebuke or refutation, but only those many Pharisees and Sadducees whom he saw coming. They it was who were greeted with the address, “Ye offspring of vipers,” etc. Mark, again, does not record any words of reproof as having been used by John to those who came to him, being all the country of Judæa and all of them of Jerusalem, who were baptized by him in the Jordan and confessed their sins. This is because Mark does not mention the Pharisees and Sadducees as having come to John. A further circumstance which we must mention is that both Matthew and Mark state that, in the one case, all Jerusalem and all Judæa, and the whole region round about Jordan, in the other, the whole land of Judæa and all they of Jerusalem, were baptized, confessing their sins; but when Matthew introduces the Pharisees and Sadducees as coming to the baptism, he does not say that they confessed their sins, and this might very likely and very naturally be the reason why they were addressed as “offspring of vipers.”
Do not suppose, reader, that there is anything improper in our adducing in our discussion of the question of those who were sent from the Pharisees and put questions to John, the parallel passages from the other Gospels too. For if we have indicated the proper connection between the enquiry of the Pharisees, recorded by the disciple John, and their baptism which is found in Matthew, we could scarcely avoid inquiring into the passages in question, nor recording the observations made on them.
Luke, like Mark, remembers the passage, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” but he for his part treats it as follows: “The word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the region round about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins;
as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” Luke, however, added the continuation of the prophecy: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” He writes, like Mark, “Make His ways straight;” curtailing, as we saw before, the text, “Make straight the ways of our God.” In the phrase, “And all the crooked shall become straight,” he leaves out the “all,” and the word “straight” he converts from a plural into a singular. Instead of the phrase, moreover, “The rough land into a plain,” he gives, “The rough ways into smooth ways,” and he leaves out “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,” and gives what follows, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” These observations are of use as showing how the evangelists are accustomed to abbreviate the sayings of the prophets.