And I knew him not:— "St. Matthew relates, Matthew 3:14." says Dr. Clarke, "that when Christ came to be baptized, John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? By the history, as given by St. Matthew, John seems to have known Christ before hehad baptized him: whereas in this gospel,
Christ seems to have been first made known to him by the descent of the Holy Ghost after his baptism. See John 1:33. It is most probable that God the Father, having before given John that token to know Christ, did, upon Christ's coming to be baptized, reveal to John that this was the person upon whom he should presently see the signal." Though this supposition be approved by several commentators, there does not appear any necessity for having recourse to it. When the Baptist says, he knew not Jesus, he may be understood to mean that he knew him not with certainty to be the Messiah, and consequently was not yet authorized to declare him such. As he was related to Christ, it is possible that he might personally have known him, and observed him from his infancy; and though we should suppose him not to have been informed by his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth, of the miraculous circumstances which attended Christ's birth, yet a character of such unparalleled sanctity might reasonably draw from so modest and humble a person as St. John, an acknowledgment of his own inferiority, and prompt him to say, "I have need to be baptized of thee, rather than perform this office to a person so far my superior in purity and holiness." A circumstance mentioned by St. Matthew himself in the same chapter, John 1:6 and by St. Mark 1:5 makes it still less surprising that the Baptist should thus express himself. Those evangelists inform us, that the people were baptized in Jordan, confessing their sins. If these words imply, as well they may, that every person who came to be baptized, confessed his sins; this circumstance alone might sufficiently distinguish the blessed Jesus from all others, as he alone had no sins to confess, and might lead the Baptist to conclude, that he was the Person appointed to take away the sins of the world. Conscious then as he was of his own imperfections, how naturally might he say to this sinless person, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? But however strongly he might thence presume him to be the Messiah, yet he could not be said to know him to be so, nor therefore, as yet, bear testimony to him under that character. In this sense then he might properly say, And I knew him not: that is, I knew him not to be the Messiah; for so the words whom ye know not, John 1:26 are probably to be understood; and the same expression is used in a like restrained sense by Christ himself, ch. John 14:9. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? where the words, Hast thou not known me, certainly did not imply that Philip had no personal knowledge of Christ: nor could Socrates (if Imay compare infinitely small things with great,) mean that his friend Apollodorus had no personal knowledge of him, when, as AElian relates, he said, "If Apollodorus imagines that the corpse, which you will soon see lying at your feet, is Socrates, it is plain that he does not know me."