How did Jesus arrive at the conviction that the Baptist was Elijah? It was through a necessary inference from his own messiahship. Because he knew himself to be the Messiah, the other must be Elijah. Between the two ideas there was a necessary correspondence. No one could know that the Baptist was Elijah except he derived this cognisance from the messiahship of Jesus. No one could arrive at the thought that John was Elijah without at the same time being obliged to see in Jesus the Messiah. For after the Forerunner there remained no place for a second manifestation of the kind. No one knew that Jesus took himself to be the Messiah. Therefore in the Baptist men perceived a prophet and raised the question whether Jesus were not Elijah. No one understood in their full bearing the mysterious concluding sentences of the eulogy over the Baptist. _Only for Jesus was John the promised Elijah._ 6. The Baptist and Jesus. What was the Baptist’s attitude to Jesus? If he had been conscious of being the Forerunner, he must have surmised that Jesus was the Messiah. One generally assumes this and supposes that he as the Forerunner [pg 148] put the question to Jesus whether he were the Messiah (Mt 11:2-6). This supposition seems to us perfectly natural because we always represent to ourselves the two characters in the relation of Forerunner-Messiah. In this connection, however, we forget a perfectly obvious question. Did the Baptist feel himself to be Elijah, the Forerunner? In no utterance before the people did he raise such a claim. They stubbornly recognised in him only a prophet. Also during his imprisonment he can have claimed no such thing, for in Jerusalem the people still held to the same opinion, that he was a prophet. If somehow or another the presentiment had prevailed that he represented the character of Elijah, how then could men generally get the notion that John was a prophet, Jesus the Elijah? That this was the general view even after the death of the Baptist, is proved by the reply of the Disciples at Cæsarea Philippi. To view the Baptist’s query under the presumption that the Forerunner is asking whether Jesus be the Messiah is to put the question in a light which is completely unjustified; for whether John took himself to be the Forerunner is not in the least to be proven. Therefore it is also by no means [pg 149] made out that his question referred to the messianic dignity. The people standing by, as they did not take John to be the Forerunner, must have interpreted it in a very different way,—namely, in the sense: Art thou Elias?