24. The Pharisees were a sect among the Jews, so called according to some from their founder, Pharos, or more probably, perhaps, from the Hebrew verb “pharash” (פרשׂ) to separate, as though they were separated from and above ordinary men, owing to their strict observance of the Law. They held many erroneous tenets: thus—(1) They relied for God’s favour upon their carnal descent from Abraham. (2) They taught that no oath was binding in which the name of God or the gold of the temple was not expressly invoked. (3) That internal sins were not forbidden; and (4) some of their schools admitted the right of arbitrary divorce. See Matt. v. 33‐36; xix. 3; xxiii. 25. Et interrogaverunt eum, et 25. And they asked him, and dixerunt ei: Quid ergo said to him: Why then dost baptizas, si tu non es thou baptize, if thou be not Christus, neque Elias, neque Christ, nor Elias, nor the propheta? prophet? 26. Respondit eis Ioannes, 26. John answered them, dicens: Ego baptizo in aqua: saying: I baptize with water; medius autem vestrum stetit, but there hath stood one in quem vos nescitis. the midst of you, whom you know not. 25. Being Pharisees, and therefore versed in the Law, they knew from Ezech. xxxvi. 25, and Zach. xiii. 1, that in the time of the Messias there was to be a baptism unto the remission of sins. They concluded, then, that only the Messias, or some of those that were to accompany Him, could confer this baptism; and, not understanding the import of the Baptist’s answer, verse 23, in which he really declared himself the herald of Christ’s coming, they ask why he presumes to baptize. 26. The Baptist answers that his is not the baptism foretold by the Prophets, which was to cleanse the sinner, but as he had declared at the beginning of his preaching, a baptism unto penance (Matt. iii. 21). John’s baptism consisted in an ablution of the body, accompanied by the profession of a penitential spirit, preparatory to the coming of Him who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt. iii. 11). It could in no sense be said to remit sin; while the baptism of Christ really remits sin (Acts ii. 38). Hence the Council of Trent defined:—“Si quis dixerit baptismum Joannis habuisse eamdem vim cum baptismo Christi anathema sit.” (Sess. vii., Can. i.) _De Bapt._ *There hath stood* (ἕστηκεν); rather there *standeth*, the perfect of this verb having a present signification. Many authorities indeed read the later present στήκει. The meaning is not that our Lord was then actually present in the crowd, else St. John would probably have pointed him out, as he did on the following day (v. 29); but that He was already present among the Jewish people, was already living among them.