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 An Introduction to
Signal Processing for
Non-Engineers
 An Introduction to
Signal Processing for
Non-Engineers

Afshin Samani
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Names: Samani, Afshin, author.
Title: An introduction to signal processing for non-engineers / by Afshin Samani.
Description: First edition. | Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2019. |
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Identifiers: LCCN 2019029229 (print) | LCCN 2019029230 (ebook) |
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Contents
Preface ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ix
Acknowledgments ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xi
Author ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1

1.1 Why Do We Need to Introduce the Theories of Signal
Processing to Non-Engineers? �������������������������������������������������� 1
1.2 What Is a Signal? ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 2
1.3 What Is Noise? ��������������������������������������������������������������������������2
Notes �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4
References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������4

Chapter 2 The Measurement Pipeline ������������������������������������������������������������������5

2.1 Sensors ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5
2.2 Amplification ����������������������������������������������������������������������������5
2.2.1 Common Mode Rejection Ratio ��������������������������������� 7
2.2.2 How Much Can the Signal Be Amplified? ����������������� 8
2.2.3 Input Impedance ���������������������������������������������������������9
2.3 Analog-to-Digital Conversion ������������������������������������������������ 10
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 12

Chapter 3 Time and Frequency Representation of Continuous

Time Signals �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
3.1 Periodic Signals ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
3.2 Fourier Series ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15
3.3 Fourier Transform ������������������������������������������������������������������ 19
3.4 Duality ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������24
3.5 Signal Energy �������������������������������������������������������������������������24
Note ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������26

Chapter 4 Sampling of Continuous Time Signals ���������������������������������������������� 27

4.1 Discrete Time Signals ������������������������������������������������������������ 27
4.2 Sampling in the Frequency Domain ���������������������������������������28
4.3 Nyquist Criterion �������������������������������������������������������������������� 32
4.4 Practical Considerations ��������������������������������������������������������� 32
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 33

v
vi Contents

Chapter 5 Discrete Fourier Transform ��������������������������������������������������������������� 35

5.1 Frequency Resolution ������������������������������������������������������������� 36
5.2 Fast Fourier Transform ����������������������������������������������������������� 37
5.3 Aliasing in the Time Domain ������������������������������������������������� 37
Reference �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38

Chapter 6 Power Spectrum �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 39

6.1 Stationarity �����������������������������������������������������������������������������40
6.2 Auto-Correlation Function ����������������������������������������������������� 42
6.3 Spectral Estimation ���������������������������������������������������������������� 43
6.3.1 Non-Parametric Methods ����������������������������������������� 43
6.3.2 Parametric Methods ������������������������������������������������� 51
6.4 Signal Characteristics Based on the Power Spectrum ������������ 51
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 52

Chapter 7 Systems and Their Properties ������������������������������������������������������������ 55

7.1 System Properties ������������������������������������������������������������������� 56
7.1.1 Linearity ������������������������������������������������������������������� 56
7.1.2 Time Invariance �������������������������������������������������������� 57
7.1.3 Causality ������������������������������������������������������������������� 58
7.1.4 Stability �������������������������������������������������������������������� 58
7.2 Linear Time-Invariant Systems ���������������������������������������������� 58
7.3 The System Response and Differential and Difference
Equations ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������60
7.4 Transfer Function and Differential and Difference
Equations �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 61
7.5 The System Response in the Frequency Domain ������������������� 63
7.6 Stability and the Transfer Function ����������������������������������������66
7.7 The Power Spectrum of System Input and Output ����������������� 68
7.8 The Transfer Function and Parametric Estimation of the
Power Spectrum ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 68
Note ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 70
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 70

Chapter 8 Filters ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 71

8.1 Ideal Frequency Response of Filters �������������������������������������� 71
8.2 Filter Order ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 73
8.3 Filter Design ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 74
8.4 Filter Phase Response ������������������������������������������������������������� 77
8.5 Implementation of Filters ������������������������������������������������������� 79
8.6 Spatial Filters �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 81
Note ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 83
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 83
Contents vii

Appendix A.1: A Brief Introduction to MATLAB ��������������������������������������������85

Appendix A.2: Complex Numbers ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 91
Appendix A.3: An Introduction to Convolution ������������������������������������������������93
Appendix A.4: Correlation �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������95
Index �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������97
Preface
I have a degree in biomedical engineering, but when I started my career as a teacher
at the Department of Health, Science and Technology in Aalborg University, I came
across many students who did not have an engineering or mathematical background
and therefore had difficulty following the basic principles of signal processing.
Despite this drawback, they had to go through all the steps of measuring biomechan-
ical or biological signals in the lab and interpreting their results. Later, I occasionally
came across researchers and PhD students in the field who still did not have a full
comprehension of the basic principles of signal processing.
I was not the only person at our department who was faced with this challenge.
Therefore, my colleagues established a new line of education for post-graduate
students in sport science entitled “sport technology” aimed at covering this gap in
knowledge and educating students so they are not only familiar with their respective
field of sport science but also have an acceptable understanding of basic technical
concepts and methods in their fields. The aim was to have students graduate who are
capable of performing technical projects and also working at companies and create
a bridge between the end users and developers of new technologies.
I am also part of the team that tries to fulfill this educational aim. My assignment
was to teach basic principles of measurement and signal processing. I realized that
I cannot simply adopt typical textbooks in this field and rely on students to follow all
the introduced concepts and methods. The students did not have the mathematical
background to fully comprehend those textbooks, and it was not within the scope of
the course to dig that deep into the field either. Therefore, I had to find a mediating
language and style to deliver the message but at the same time not scare the students
with the complexity of the topic. It took one or two semesters until I felt comfortable
with the approach I adopted to teach in that course.
I was rather happy, and students seemed to follow the course without major com-
plaints. After a few semesters, though, I had a complaint from one of the students
who was commenting about the lack of sources to prepare them for the exam. This
was quite surprising to me, because I had already introduced them to a book that
was rather light in terms of mathematical complexity, and this was in addition to the
notes, slides and exercises that we had during the course. The book did not cover
everything I taught them in the course, but I was hoping that a combination of their
own notes, slides and the book would be sufficient for them to prepare for the exam.
I was apparently incorrect.
Finding a book with a low degree of mathematical complexity and the same extent
of coverage that I used to teach in the course was not an easy task. This made me
think of my role as a teacher: What can I do to help them further? At first, I thought
maybe I had not thoroughly searched for a relevant textbook for this course or maybe
there is a new book that I had not the chance to see until then. I gave it another shot,
but I was right in the sense that the available books are either quite complex in terms
of math, quite bulky or may be discouraging for a beginner to start reading, as they
were merely theoretical books with very few practical examples.

ix
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x Preface

I thought of writing a book to fill this gap and provide a reference book intro-
ducing the basic concepts of signal processing for this targeted group of students
(and perhaps scientists) with minimum use of mathematical formulations and more
emphasis on visual illustrations. I talked with a few colleagues, and they encouraged
me to go down that path. They also had the same experience that many students, and
even occasionally researchers, do not have a basic understanding of the methods,
which compromises their ability to interpret experimental results.
Thus, I aimed at presenting an intuitive approach to understand the basics of sig-
nal processing such that readers achieve basic knowledge and skills in this topic. In
my view, this idea would work if I keep the verbosity of the book to a minimum and
let figures talk more than words. Wherever relevant, I also included MATLAB files
to generate the figures presented in the book. Thus, students get to know some tricks
in MATLAB to make their own figures. This book should not ever be regarded as a
thorough reference book of signal processing, and no mathematical proofs for any of
the theorems should be expected here. However, after reading this book, the reader
should have an informed view about the applied methods and interpretation of the
results. This may even encourage them to dig further in the field and deal with the
existing complexities.

MATLAB® is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc. For product informa-

tion, please contact:

The MathWorks, Inc.

3 Apple Hill Drive
Natick, MA, 01760-2098 USA
Tel: 508-647-7000
Fax: 508-647-7001
E-mail: info@mathworks.com
Web: www.mathworks.com
Acknowledgments
From the start, I had to take on this book project as a side activity in addition to my
daily job duties and my personal life. This book here is the result of spending hours
and hours of my spare time on the weekends and extra hours after the working day.
I was involved in every part of this book, from A to Z, and did not have much assis-
tance. However, there are still a few people and entities that I would like to acknowl-
edge. I would really like to thank CRC Press for seeing a potential in this book.
I would like to thank the students who were my focus when I thought about initiating
this project. I would like to acknowledge Aalborg University for providing an excit-
ing working environment, which was an important energy source when I wanted to
embark on such a journey. Further, my good colleagues who contribute to create a
constructive and inspiring atmosphere at work. I owe a debt to all of my teachers
during my own schooling for everything I learned about signal processing. I hope
I have been successful in passing on this knowledge to the next generation. I hope
that the students who read this book find it useful to achieve a good understanding of
the basic concepts in signal processing. Finally, yet importantly, I would very much
like to thank my family and my beloved wife, Shiva, for her kindness, patience and
support. I am sure that her kind heart excuses me for all the time I left her alone to
work on this project.

xi
Author
Afshin Samani e arned a PhD in biomedical engineering and science in 2010 at
Aalborg University, Denmark. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomed-
ical engineering at Shahid Beheshti Medical University and Polytechnic in Tehran,
Iran, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. He is currently an associate professor in sports
science and ergonomics at the Department of Health Science and Technology at
Aalborg University, Denmark. He is the director of the Laboratory for Ergonomics
and Work-Related Disorders. His specific research field is focused on methods of
quantification of work exposure, risk factors for the development of musculoskel-
etal disorders and interactions between fatigue and motor control in various func-
tional tasks, including computer work. The author has over 65 peer-reviewed journal
articles, mostly related to the application of novel data analysis methods in the field
of ergonomics and sport sciences. Dr. Samani serves as a reviewer in a number of
journals within his fields of expertise and acts as an associate editor for the journal
Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing. The author’s teaching activity is
focused on sport science and sport technology, as well as biomedical engineering
and medical students.

xiii
 1 Introduction

This book is not going to be a comprehensive reference for a signal processing course;
however, it does present basic concepts discussed in almost all signal processing books.
I put my emphasis on an intuitive understanding of what these concepts are about and
show some examples of how they are being used in the scientific literature. I try to
refrain from presenting mathematical formulations as much as possible; however, to
get a good grasp of the concepts, some understanding of the math behind the topic is
crucial; therefore, I have tried to keep it to a minimum level. I present some MATLAB1
sample codes to make a case for the application of the concepts. MATLAB is a licensed
software package, which may not be available for all readers of this book; in case read-
ers do not have access to a license for MATLAB, I suggest using Octave,2 whose syntax
is largely compatible with MATLAB. However, I test all my sample codes in MATLAB
and cannot guarantee that they are all translatable to Octave without any modification.
I briefly introduce MATLAB in Appendix A.1, but I also encourage the reader to take
advantage of the huge number of available online resources (mainly from MathWorks)
providing instruction in MATLAB programming.

1.1 WHY DO WE NEED TO INTRODUCE THE THEORIES

OF SIGNAL PROCESSING TO NON-ENGINEERS?
Like any field of science, signal processing and its rapid development are
intertwined with the developments of other fields of technology and science.
Modern signal processing technology emerged during the World Wars I and II,
when scientists and engineers were dealing with radar and sonar signals and
wanted to extract the signal from the background noise (Stillwell, 2013). The
development of computers and the introduction of the digital world to various
fields of technology, as well as the invention of new sensors enabling measure-
ments of a wide range of physical quantities, allows signal processing to appear
in various disciplines. It is obviously exciting to acquire objective measure-
ments of a phenomenon under investigation, but this comes at a price, in that
scientists have to deal with some sort of a signal and signal processing methods
in their work. Thus, today signal processing appears in many scientific articles
and in the methodological sections of the articles in one way or another. For
example, I simply searched for two keywords, “EMG” which stands for electro-
myography and “sport” in the web of science.3 The number of publications with
these two keywords has increased markedly since 1994 (Figure 1.1).
Although sport science is a very broad field and many scientists in this field may
have an engineering background, it is generally not known to be a branch of engi-
neering science, and many scientists in this field do not necessarily have any engi-
neering background. The EMG is a typical biological signal, and the aforementioned
articles must inevitably address how EMG signals have been sampled, filtered and

1
2 An Introduction to Signal Processing for Non-Engineers

FIGURE 1.1 The number of publications with the keywords EMG and sport over the years

analyzed. All of these points have close ties to the theory of signal processing. If
I repeat the same search with physiotherapy as the topic, a marked increase in publi-
cations from 1992 can be seen here too, but maybe not to the same extent as I could
see for sport science. Obviously, this simple search does not qualify a scientific sur-
vey; nevertheless, it may be an indication of the widespread use of signal processing
in various fields that are not necessarily known as branches of engineering science.
A lack of basic knowledge in this field may cause fallacious interpretation of the
results obtained in a scientific investigation. Therefore, gaining a basic knowledge of
signal processing for non-engineers turns out to be very important.

1.2 WHAT IS A SIGNAL?
If one looks up the word in the Merriam-Webster dictionary,4 there will be one defini-
tion that is very close to what is implied by a signal in the theory of signal processing,
“a detectable physical quantity or impulse (such as a voltage, current, or magnetic
field strength) by which messages or information can be transmitted”. There is one
very important keyword in this definition, and that is “information”. However, a sig-
nal does not necessarily need to be a physical quantity; for example, a financial time
series may contain the rating of a stock market over a certain period of time. Having
said that, most often we deal with some sort of physical quantity in signal processing.
As mentioned earlier, “information” is the key word, as it provides the content
of communication between humans or between humans and machines. Here, the
term “machine” is being used in a broad context in which even the human body is a
machine. For example, when we record biological signals (e.g., EMG) and process
them, we essentially extract desired information from the complex machine of the
human body.

1.3 WHAT IS NOISE?
When capturing signals in practical applications, what we acquire is not purely the
signal (what we are interested in). There will be an undesired part that contaminates
Introduction 3

our signal and therefore is undesirable. This undesirable part is called “noise”.
Knowing the relationship between what we acquire, signal and noise is crucial to
effectively remove the noise and keep the signal. For example, if one is interested in
studying the level of muscle activity during a specific physical activity, the interfer-
ence from the power line to the measured signal is not of interest, and therefore that
interference is a part of the noise.
In many applications, a simple additive relationship is not quite far from reality,
and very often this model is assumed to describe the relationship between what we
measured (m), signal (s) and noise (n).
Thus, we may have:

m=s+n

This is called a model of an “additive noise”, meaning that the noise is simply added
to the signal, and the measurement is simply the summation of the noise and the
signal. However, in a general case, the relationship between signal and noise can be
more complex, and the measurement can be an unknown function of the signal and
noise. In an experimental design, special precautions are taken such that the noise
is as minimal as possible, and an additive model of noise could be often assumed.
In certain cases, even though the noise model is not essentially additive, using a
little mathematical trickery, an equivalent additive noise model can be found. For
example, if m = s.n (m equals s times n), the noise is productive, but if we simply take
the logarithm of both sides of the equation, this case can be a transformed into an
additive noise model as logm = logs + logn.
The quality of the measurement refers to a question about how big the noise term
in the equation is with respect to the signal term. In technical documents and papers,
one may come across a term called signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which simply carries
this piece of information about the magnitude of a signal with respect to the noise.
In physics, this is expressed in terms of the ratio between the power of the signal and
noise, and because the range of signal and noise power can be quite wide, a logarith-
mic scale is used. The power of the signal and noise implies how much energy in a
unit of time is being transferred by the signal and noise.
Thus:

P 
SNR = 10. log10  sig nal 
 noise 
P

As the signal and noise are often measured in voltage or current, it may seem more
convenient to express the SNR in terms of the magnitude of voltage or current. If one
remembers the basic physics of electrical circuits—for example, for a resistor—the
power is proportional to the square of voltage across the resistor or the current pass-
ing through it. Thus, if the SNR is calculated in terms of voltage or current ampli-
tude, one can write:

 A2  A 
SNR = 10 . log10  si2g nal  = 20.log10  sig nal 
 Anoise   Anoise 
4 An Introduction to Signal Processing for Non-Engineers

This relative index is expressed in decibels (db) and because, in a general case, the
current or the voltage varies across time, the amplitude is calculated in terms of the
root mean square (RMS). RMS of a signal in a limited time window is calculated by
taking the average of the samples of the signal to the power of 2 and then taking the
square root of the average.

1
∑ x2
N
RMS =
N i =1 i

Where N is the number of signal samples in the limited time window and xi is the
i-th sample of the signal in that time window. The notation ∑ i =1 simply means a
N

summation when i changes from 1 to N. For example, a 20-db SNR implies that the
RMS of the signal is 10 times larger than that of the noise; similarly, a 0-db SNR
means that signal and noise have equal RMS, and negative values of SNR mean that
the noise is even greater than the signal. SNR in biological signals such as EMG can
be estimated based on a part of the signal spectrum (this concept will be introduced
in chapter 6), which is expected not to contain the signal power related to the signal
(Sinderby, Lindstrom, and Grassino, 1995).
Now, I established a very brief definition of what signal and noise are in general
terms. Throughout the rest of this book, first, I introduce the main building blocks for
recording signals, and then I continue with an introduction to the time and frequency
domains of the signals, and a brief introduction to the sampling theorem and power
spectrum of signals will follow. After touching on the most basic topics related to the
signals, discuss systems that include, for example, filters and any blocks acting on
input signals and that produce output signals. When I provide examples throughout
this book, I mostly refer to examples in the field of biological signals, kinesiology,
sport science, biomechanics and ergonomics. However, the main part of what I write
here encompasses general concepts of signal processing, which are to a large extent
applicable to other fields.

NOTES
1. These MATLAB files are available at https://www.crcpress.com/9780367207557.
2. www.gnu.org/software/octave/
3. http://apps.webofknowledge.com/WOS_AdvancedSearch_input.do?SID=C2Ykq83coa
AC4oJ92Ru&product=WOS&search_mode=AdvancedSearch, (TS=(EMG AND sport))
AND LANGUAGE: (English) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article)
4. www.merriam-webster.com/

REFERENCES
K. Bromley and H. J. Whitehouse, “Signal processing technology overview,” Real-Time
Signal Process. IV., vol. 298, pp. 102–107, 1982.
C. Sinderby, L. Lindstrom, and A. E. Grassino, “Automatic assessment of electromyogram
quality,” J. Appl. Physiol., vol. 79, no. 5, pp. 1803–1815, 1995.
 2 The Measurement
Pipeline

Working with signals involves some sort of measurement. Sometimes this measure-
ment does not require any complicated hardware—for example, if one wants to
record the worth of the stock market over a certain period, access to the registered
values of the stock prices may be sufficient to start the work. However, recording
biological signals (bio-potentials), such as electromyography (EMG), first requires
some hardware in order to capture the signal. Here, I am going to briefly describe
the basic blocks of the measurement systems that we often use in the lab to record
bio-potentials. If the reader is already familiar with these basic concepts, this chapter
can be skipped over.

2.1 SENSORS
Sensors are essentially some sort of a convertor of various energy forms to electri-
cal energy (Webster, 1998) (page 6 therein). Why are we even talking about energy
forms? Very often, the pieces of information lie in physical quantities, which are
produced by transforming energy from one form to another. For example, chang-
ing the velocity of an object requires that some source of energy be transformed
into mechanical energy. To measure the velocity, we generally prefer to convert the
mechanical energy to electrical energy because handling electrical energy is easier
for us. Given the widespread use of computers, it is easier for us to store the measured
values on the computers and process them (Areny and Webster, 2001). Therefore,
the development of sensors would depend on understanding the physics relating to
the variations of a “measurand” (what is to be measured) to an electrical quantity
(charge, current or voltage). For example, if the displacement of an object is what one
wants to measure, the displacement may be linked to the resistance, capacitance or
inductance of an element in an electrical circuit. Then, the circuit can be designed
such that the voltage across that element or the current which passes through it is
proportional to the amount of displacement. Thus, measuring the voltage or current
enables measuring the displacement. The sensor world is a very huge and exciting
world. Depending on their precision, linearity, range of work and other specifica-
tions, sensors can be quite cheap or very expensive and strategic.

2.2 AMPLIFICATION
Very often, the output of sensors is a weak electrical voltage (it could be an electrical
current too, but often we have to deal with voltage signals), so in order for us to be
able to process and store it on a computer, higher voltage is required. Therefore, ide-
ally speaking, an amplification block is a block to multiply the signal by a constant

5
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6 An Introduction to Signal Processing for Non-Engineers

factor. To be more precise, we may also have amplification with an automatic gain
control in which the gain can be changed depending on the voltage level of an input
signal, but in many experimental devices to record biological signals, we use an
amplifier with a constant “gain”. Figure 2.1 shows a typical symbol that is drawn
on the schematic of electrical circuits to show an amplifier with a constant gain of
“K”. Thus, if the input to the amplifier is x, then the output would simply be K.x (K
times x).
The amplifier used to record biological signals is a specific class of amplifier,
which is known as a “differential amplifier” (Figure 2.2). This type of amplifier has
two input leads, and the output is the amplification of the difference between the
two input leads. In this case, the output is simply K (x+ − x−) = K . Vd where Vd is the
differential input.
The input voltage on each of the input leads (i.e., x+, x−) can be reformulated as:

 x+ − x−   x+ + x− 
x+ =  +
 2   2 
 
Vd+ Vc

 x− − x+   x+ + x− 
x− =  +
 2   2 
 
Vd− Vc

( ) ( )
It is very straightforward to verify that x + − x − = Vd+ − Vd− = Vd . This is the dif-
ferential input to the amplifier, but as one can see, there is another term in the equa-
tion, that is Vc being a common term for x+ and x−. This term is called the “common

FIGURE 2.1 A typical symbol of an amplifier with a gain of K

on a schematic of electrical circuits

FIGURE 2.2 A typical symbol of a differential amplifier with

a gain of K on a schematic of electrical circuits
The Measurement Pipeline 7

mode” input. In an ideal scenario, this term is irrelevant because it does not affect the
difference between x+ and x−. However, in a practical case, this term is quite relevant,
as I explain next.

2.2.1 Common Mode Rejection Ratio

In a practical differential amplification, what one gets in the output is not only the
amplification of the difference between the two input leads but also some fraction
of the common mode that contributes to the output. Intuitively, one expects that the
common mode would be amplified to a much lesser extent compared with the dif-
ferential input so that the response of a practical amplifier would be close to its ideal
version. This is actually the case, and the differential gain is much greater than the
common mode gain—but how much greater? This is what is being represented by
the common mode rejection ratio (CMRR).
Imagine that the differential gain is Kd (the gain applied to the differential term)
and the common mode gain is Kc (the gain applied to the common mode), then the
output will be Kd . Vd + Kc . Vc. In a similar fashion, as one formulates for the signal-
to-noise ratio (SNR), the magnitude of Kd with respect to Kc is expressed in a loga-
rithmic scale. Thus,

K 
CMRR = 20 . log10  d 
 Kc 

The established guideline of data recording urges scientists to notice these techni-
cal characteristics of their experimental setup and report them in their publications
(Merletti and Torino, 1999). Often, the CMRR should be greater than 80 db.
A practical example of the relevance of the CMRR may be when one records
a bipolar surface EMG from the upper trunk (e.g., trapezius activity). Two EMG
electrodes are placed on the muscle, and they are supposed to capture the electrical
activity underlying the electrodes and then differentially amplify them. However,
because the site of recording is close to the heart, the electrical activity of the
heart also contributes to what each electrode captures. Part of this contribution
is common on both EMG electrodes, which can be seen as the common mode.
One expects that this common mode will be removed when the EMG is amplified
differentially; however, it is quite common for the heart’s electrical activity to be
seen on the recorded EMG, and this source of contamination should be specifically
removed (Marker and Maluf, 2014) (Figure 2.3). Note that what can be seen in
Figure 2.3 is not solely due to the amplification of the common mode, as the inter-
ference of the heart rate is not exactly the same across the EMG electrodes, and a
big fraction of the peaks seen in Figure 2.3 is simply due to the amplification of the
differential component.
Another example may be the interference of the power line on the measurement
of a biological signal (say EMG). When electrical circuits are fed by the power line,
an alternating current with 50 Hz (in North America 60 Hz) is flowing in cables
and wires, and this may cause electromagnetic interference with a measurement
8 An Introduction to Signal Processing for Non-Engineers

FIGURE 2.3 A typical recording of bipolar EMG on the lower trapezius at the resting state;
interfering heart activity on the EMG signal is quite visible

setup. Depending on the quality of isolation and the grounding of the measurement
devices, this interference can be considerable, and sometimes a notch filter (defined
in Chapter 8) is applied to the signal to reduce the effect of this interfering noise. The
interference effect on each of the electrodes is supposedly the same; thus, ideally, the
differential amplification should cancel this term, but in some experimental condi-
tions, the interference may still be seen.

2.2.2 How Much Can the Signal Be Amplified?

From the previous discussion, one may suppose that an amplifier simply multiplies
a constant to an input signal and provides an amplified version of the input in the
output. Is there any limit? Can the output voltage of an amplifier get any amplitude?
Of course, there is a limit. One of the main determinants of this limit is the supply
voltage of the amplifier. For the amplifier to work, it should be supplied to allow for
a change in the voltage level in the output. The output voltage of the amplifier cannot
be greater than its supply voltage. If the amplifier is battery powered, one may think
that the supply voltage of the amplifier equals the maximum voltage that one can get
from the battery at maximum. If the gain or the input voltage level is too high such
that the simple multiplication of the gain and the input voltage exceeds the supply
The Measurement Pipeline 9

voltage, output voltage cannot exceed a certain limit that is lower than the supply
voltage.

2.2.3 Input Impedance
I assume most readers of this book are familiar with the term of resistance in elec-
trical circuits from high school physics. Resistance refers to opposition against the
electrical current in an electrical circuit. Again from high school physics, one could
remember the relationship between resistance, current and voltage, known as “Ohm’s
law”, is voltage across a resistor (V) equals the multiplication of the electrical current
passing through it (I) and its resistance (V = R.I).
The term impedance is a generalized concept of resistance and can also refer
to electrical elements other than resistors, such as capacitors and inductors. Unlike
resistors, which consume active power, capacitors and inductors only store energy;
nevertheless, they can affect the relationship between voltage and current. For the
simplicity of the text in this chapter, whenever I refer to impedance, the reader may
assume that resistance and impedance are referring to the same concept, but to be
precise these two terms are not the same thing.
Now imagine that one has an electrical circuit shown in Figure 2.4 and wants to
measure the voltage across a resistance (R2). The voltmeter is placed parallel to R2.
In an ideal case, the measurement device should have no effect on the main circuit,
as if the measurement device is not connected. In practice, the measurement device
has an effect on the main circuit, but this effect should be minimized. What should
be done to reduce the effect of the measurement device on the main circuit? If the
resistance of the voltmeter against the electrical current is much higher than that of
R2, the current that passes through the voltmeter will be negligible in comparison
with the current flowing through R2, and one could assume with reasonable cer-
tainty that the measured voltage across R2 is very close to the voltage without the
presence of the measurement system. The resistance of the measurement system
against the electrical current is known as the input impedance.
Because biological signals are voltage signals in many cases, the story of their
measurement resembles the previously mentioned scenario. One does not want the
amplifier system to interfere with the recordings; therefore, the input impedance
should be high. Very often, the input impedance is greater than 1 megaohm.
There are other important properties of an amplifier, like linearity and the band-
width, which will be addressed when system properties are discussed in Chapter 7.

R1

DC
R2

FIGURE 2.4 Schematic of an electrical circuit. The setup

to measure voltage across a resistor (R2) must be parallel
to R2
10 An Introduction to Signal Processing for Non-Engineers

2.3 ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION
Let us imagine that one has amplified a signal properly and now needs to store it on a
computer or wants to do some real-time analysis of the signal on the computer. How
does one access the signal in a computer? These days many people are familiar with
analog-to-digital convertors (ADC), but let us assume that we did not know about
them. How would one intuitively store signals on a computer? Once I asked this
question of my students in a lecture, and one of them responded, “I touch the signal;
if it hurts, it is high. Otherwise, it is low”. I replied, “Well, I do not recommend doing
it like that, but conceptually you are essentially not horribly wrong”. Next, I outline
the function of an ADC, but what follows is not an exact description of what is actu-
ally implemented at the hardware level of an ADC.
The first step would be to have a bunch of voltage thresholds and compare the
input voltage level with those thresholds. Say one has 10 voltage thresholds sorted
ascendingly. Now imagine if one input voltage is higher than the third threshold and
lower than the fourth one. One could then infer that the input voltage is between the
third and fourth voltage thresholds. Now the question is this: How much is the differ-
ence between the third and fourth thresholds? If the difference is very low, we have
actually measured our input voltage with an acceptable level of uncertainty. A term
of uncertainty is an inherent part of any measurement, and the difference between
the two threshold levels in an ADC could also be counted towards the uncertainty of
measurement. Suppose that one is measuring an input voltage that is about 1 mV and
the difference between two successive thresholds is about 2 µV—for example, the
voltage of the third threshold is 999 µV and the fourth threshold is 1001 µV. Having
found that the input voltage is between the third and fourth thresholds means that
the input voltage is something between 999 and 1001 µV. Finding this information
is very important to us because we may not care about 2 µV of uncertainty when
working with a voltage of 1 mV. In other words, the resolution of the measurement
is sufficiently fine.
Now imagine that one knows that the input voltage is within a specified range.
For example, one may know that the amplified signal will never get an amplitude
outside the range of ±5 V. This piece of information is crucial to have when working
with a specific type of signal. Often, this information can be found in the scientific
literature investigating that specific type of signal. For example, surface EMG can
vary from ±5 mV (Konrad, 2005) (including extreme cases among athletes), and if
the applied amplification gain is 1000, one knows that the input range will be ±5 V.
If one works with another type of signal, this information should be retrieved from
the literature. If one starts working with a type of signal with no prior information,
one can start from a very conservative guess of the range and then modify this piece
of information with experience.
In the first step, the ADC applies a set of thresholds to the input range and finds
the two successive thresholds, which determine an interval containing the input volt-
age. Now the question is how many thresholds does an ADC apply to the input range?
The ADC datasheet contains information on how many “bits” this ADC uses for the
conversion. For example, one may use a 12-bit ADC or 16-bit ADC in a data recording
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The close of the evangelical narratives leaves the impression that the
dissevered head of John was presented at table, and that the prison
was consequently close at hand. But we learn from the passage in
Josephus above cited, that the Baptist was confined in Machærus, a
fortress on the southern border of Peræa, whereas the residence of
Herod was in Tiberias, 89 a day’s journey distant from Machærus.
Hence the head of John the Baptist [236]could only be presented to
Herod after two days’ journey, and not while he yet sat at table. The
contradiction here apparent is not to be removed by the
consideration, that it is not expressly said in the Gospels that John’s
head was brought in during the meal, for this is necessarily inferred
from the entire narrative. Not only are the commission of the
executioner and his return with the head, detailed in immediate
connexion with the incidents of the meal; but only thus has the
whole dramatic scene its appropriate conclusion;—only thus is the
contrast complete, which is formed by the death-warrant and the
feast: in fine, the πίναξ, on which the dissevered head is presented,
marks it as the costliest viand which the unnatural revenge of a
woman could desire at table. But we have, as a probable solution,
the information of Josephus, 90 that Herod Antipas was then at war
with the Arabian king, Aretas, between whose kingdom and his own
lay the fortress of Machærus; and there Herod might possibly have
resided with his court at that period.

Thus we see that the life of John in the evangelical narratives is,
from easily conceived reasons, overspread with mythical lustre on
the side which is turned towards Jesus, while on the other its
historical lineaments are more visible. [237]

Exeget. Handbuch. 1 a, s. 46. Schneckenburger agrees with him, über den

1
Ursprung des ersten kanon. Evang., s. 30. ↑
 Vermischte Aufsätze, s. 76 ff. Compare Schneckenburger, ut sup. ↑
2
De Wette and Fritzsche, in loc. ↑
3
See Paulus, ut sup., s. 336. ↑
4
I here collect all the passages in Josephus relative to Lysanias, with
5
the parallel passages in Dion Cassius. Antiq. xiii. xvi. 3, xiv. iii. 2, vii. 8.
—Antiq. xv. iv. 1. B. j. i. xiii. 1 (Dio Cassius xlix. 32). Antiq. xv. x. 1–3. B. j. i. xx. 4
(Dio Cass. liv. 9). Antiq. xvii. xi. 4. B. j. ii. vi. 3. Antiq. xviii. vi. 10. B. j. ii. ix. 6 (Dio
Cass. lix. 8). Antiq. xix. v. 1. B. j. ii. xi. 5. Antiq. xx. v. 2, vii. 1. B. j. ii. xii. 8. ↑
Süskind, vermischte Aufsätze, s. 15 ff. 93 ff. ↑
6
Tholuck thinks he has found a perfectly corresponding example in Tacitus.
7
When this historian, Annal. ii. 42 (a.d. 17), mentions the death of an
Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, and yet, Annal. vi. 41 (a.d. 36), cites an Archelaus,
also a Cappadocian, as ruler of the Clitæ, the same historical conjecture, says
Tholuck, is necessary, viz., that there were two Cappadocians named Archelaus.
But when the same historian, after noticing the death of a man, introduces
another of the same name, under different circumstances, it is no conjecture, but
a clear historic datum, that there were two such persons. It is quite otherwise
when, as in the case of Lysanias, two writers have each one of the same name,
but assign him distinct epochs. Here it is indeed a conjecture to admit two
successive persons; a conjecture so much the less historical, the more improbable
it is shown to be that one of the two writers would have been silent respecting the
second of the like-named men, had such an one existed. ↑
Michaelis, Paulus, in loc. Schneckenburger, in Ullmann’s und Umbreit’s Studien,
8
1833, 4 Heft, s. 1056 ff. Tholuck, s. 201 ff. ↑
For, on the authority of a single manuscript to erase, with Schneckenburger and
9
others, the second τετραρχοῦντος, is too evident violence. ↑
Compare with this view, Allgem. Lit. Ztg., 1803, No. 344, s. 552: De Wette,
10
exeg. Handbuch, in loc. ↑
See Paulus, s. 294. ↑
11
See Schleiermacher, über den Lukas, s. 62. ↑
12
Bengel was also of this opinion. Ordo temporum, s. 204 f. ed. 2. ↑
13
Antiq. xviii. v. 2. ↑
14
 So Cludius, über die Zeit und Lebensdauer Johannis und Jesu. In Henke’s
15
Museum, ii. iii. 502 ff. ↑
Cludius, ut sup. ↑
16
Stäudlin, Geschichte der Sittenlehre Jesu, 1, s. 580. Paulus, exeg. Handb. 1
17
a, s. 136. Comp. also Creuzer, Symbolik, 4, s. 413 ff. ↑
Ut sup. p. 347. ↑
18
Bell. jud. iii. x. 7. ↑
19
See Winer, bibl. Realwörterbuch, A. Wüste. Schneckenburger, über den
20
Ursprung des ersten kanonischen Evangeliums, s. 39. ↑
Schneckenburger, ut sup., s. 38 f. ↑
21
Winer, ut sup., s. 691. ↑
22
Paulus, ut sup., s. 301. ↑
23
Schneckenburger, über das Alter der Jüdischen Proselytentaufe. ↑
24
Sanhedr. f. xcvii. 2: R. Elieser dixit: si Israëlitæ pœnitentiam agunt,
25
tunc per Goëlem liberantur; sin vero, non liberantur. Schöttgen,
horæ, 2, p. 780 ff. ↑
Antiq. xviii. v. 2. ↑
26
Thus Paulus, ut sup., s. 314 and 361, Anm. ↑
27
Fragment von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger, herausgegeben von
28
Lessing, s. 133 ff. ↑
So thinks Semler in his answer to the above Fragments, in loc.; so think most
29
of the moderns; Plank, Geschichte des Christenthums in der Periode seiner
Einführung, 1, K. 7. Winer, bibl. Realwörterbuch, 1, s. 691. ↑
Let the reader judge for himself whether Neander’s arguments be not forced:
30
“Even if the Baptist could have expected” (say rather must necessarily have
known) “from the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, that he was the Messiah,
the divine witness in his own mind would eclipse all external testimony, and
compared with this divine illumination, all previous knowledge would seem
ignorance.” p. 68. ↑
Lücke, Commentar zum Evang. Johannis 1, s. 362. ↑
31
 Osiander, in despair, answers, that the heavenly communications themselves
32
might contain directions for—keeping the two youths apart! s. 127. ↑
Hess, Geschichte Jesu, 1, s. 117 f. Paulus, ut sup., s. 366. ↑
33
Comp. the Fragmentist, ut sup. ↑
34
Hæres, xxx. 13: Καὶ ὡς ἀνῆλθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος, ἡνοίγησαν οἱ οὐρανοὶ,
35
καὶ εἶδε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸ ἅγιον ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς κ.τ.λ. καὶ φωνὴ
ἐγένετο κ.τ.λ. καὶ εὐθὺς περιέλαμψε τὸν τόπον φῶς μέγα· ὃν ἰδών, φησὶν, ὁ
Ἰωάννης λέγει αὐτῷ· σύ τὶς εἶ, Κύριε; καὶ πάλιν φωνὴ κ.τ.λ. καὶ τότε, φησὶν, ὁ
Ἰωάννης παραπεσὼν αὐτῷ ἔλεγε· δέομαι σοῦ Κύριε, σύ με βάπτισον. And when he
came from the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the holy spirit of God
in the form of a dove, etc., and a voice was heard, etc., and immediately a great
light illuminated the place; seeing which, John said to him, Who art thou, Lord?
and again a voice, etc. And then, John falling at his feet, said to him, I beseech
thee, Lord, baptize me. ↑
Schneckenburger, über den Ursprung des ersten kanonischen Evangeliums, s.
36
121 f.; Lücke, Comm. z. Ev. Joh., 1, s. 361. Usteri, über den Täufer Johannes u.
s. w., Studien, 2, 3. s. 446. ↑
Tertull. adv. Marcion, iv. 18. Comp. Bengel, historico-exegetical remarks in Matt.
37
xi. 2–19 , in his Archiv. 1, iii. p. 754 ff. ↑
See Paulus, Kuinöl, in loc. Bengel, ut sup., p. 763. ↑
38
Calvin, Comm. in harm. ex. Matth., Marc. et Luc. in loc. ↑
39
We agree with Schleiermacher, (über den Lukas, s. 106 f.) in thus
40
designating the narrative of the third evangelist, first, on account of the
idle repetition of the Baptist’s words, ver. 20; secondly, on account of the mistake
in ver. 18 and 21, of which we shall presently treat, and to which ver. 29, 30, seem
to betray a similar one. ↑
Compare Calvin in loc. and Bengel ut sup., s. 753 ff. ↑
41
Thus most recent commentators: Paulus, Kuinöl, Bengel, Hase, Theile, and
42
even Fritzsche. ↑
This difficulty occurred to Bengel also, ut sup., p. 769. ↑
43
The gospel writers, after what they had narrated of the relations between
44
Jesus and the Baptist, of course understood the question to express doubt,
whence probably v. 6 (Matt.) and v. 23 (Luke) came in this connection.
Supposing these passages authentic, they suggest another conjecture; viz. that
Jesus spoke in the foregoing verses of spiritual miracles, and that the Baptist was
perplexed by the absence of corporeal ones. The ἀκούσας τὰ ἔργα τ. Χ. must then
be set down to the writer’s misapprehension of the expressions of Jesus. ↑
Gabler and Paulus. ↑
45
De Wette, de morte Christi expiatoria, in his Opusc. theol., s. 77 ff. Lücke,
46
Comm. zum Ev. Joh. 1, s. 347 ff. Winer, bibl. Realwörterb. 1, s. 693, Anm. ↑
Gabler and Paulus. De Wette. ↑
47
De Wette, ut sup., p. 76. ↑
48
Paulus, Leben Jesu, 2 a, die Übers., s. 29. 31. ↑
49
Tholuck and Lücke, in loc. ↑
50
Lücke, ut sup. ↑
51
See Bertholdt, Christologia Judæorum Jesu apostolorumque
52
ætate, § 23–25. ↑
Probabilia, p. 41. ↑
53
See Gfrörer, Philo und die Alexandr. Theosophie, part ii. p. 180. ↑
54
Lücke, ut sup., p. 500. ↑
55
Compare especially:
56
Joh. iii. 11 (Jesus to Nicodemus): Joh. iii. 32 (the Baptist): καὶ ὃ ἑώρακε
ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν, λέγω σοι, ὅτι ὃ οἴδαμεν, καὶ ἤκουσε, τοῦτο μαρτυρεῖ· καὶ τὴν
λαλοῦμεν, καὶ ὃ ἑωράκαμεν, μαρτυρίαν αὐτοῦ οὐδεὶς λαμβάνει.
μαρτυροῦμεν· καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἡμῶν
οὐ λαμβάνετε.
V. 18 : ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν οὐ V. 36 : ὁ πιστεύων εἰς τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει
κρίνεται· ὁ δὲ μὴ πιστεύων, ἤδη ζωὴν αἰώνιον· ὁ δὲ ἀπειθῶν τῷ υἱῷ, οὐκ
κέκριται, ὅτι μὴ πεπίστευκεν εἰς το ὄψεται ζωὴν, ἀλλ’ ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ
ὄνομα τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. μένει ἐπ’ αὐτόν.

Comp. also the words of the Baptist v. 31 , with Joh. iii. 6 . 12 f. viii. 23 ; v.
32 with viii. 26 ; v. 33 with vi. 27 ; v. 34 with xii. 49 , 50 ; v. 35 with v.
22 , 27 , x. 28 f. xvii. 2 . ↑
 Bibl. Comm. 2, p. 105. ↑
57
Paulus, Olshausen, in loc. ↑
58
E.g. here, v. 32 , it is said: τὴν μαρτυρίαν αὐτοῦ οὐδεὶς λαμβάνει, but in
59
the Prolog. v. 11 : καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον. Comp. Lücke, s.
501. ↑
Ut sup. ↑
60
De Wette, de morte Christi expiatoria, in s. Opusc. theol. p. 81; biblische
61
Dogmatik, § 209; Winer, bibl. Realwörterbuch 1, s. 692. ↑
Neander, p. 75. This author erroneously supposes that there is an indication of
62
the Baptist having directed his disciples to Jesus in Acts xviii. 25 , where it is
said of Apollos: ἐδίδασκεν ἀκριβῶς τὰ περὶ τοῦ Κυρίου, ἐπιστάμενος τὸ βάπτισμα
Ἰωάννου. For on comparing the following chapter, we find that Paul had to teach
the disciples of John, that by the ερχόμενος announced by their master, they were
to understand Jesus; whence it is clear that the things of the Lord expounded by
Apollos, consisted only in the messianic doctrine, purified by John into an
expectation of one who was to come, and that the more accurate instruction
which he received from the Christians, Aquila and Priscilla, was the doctrine of its
fulfilment in the person of Jesus. ↑
Gesenius, Probeheft der Ersch und Gruber’schen Encyclopädie, d. A. Zabier. ↑
63
Bretschneider, Probab., s. 46 f.; comp. Lücke, s. 493 f.; De Wette, Opusc a.
64
a. O. ↑
Greiling, Leben Jesu von Nazaret, s. 132 f. ↑
65

66
2 Sam. iii. 1 . John iii. 30 .
‫‏ְוָד ִוד ֹהֵלְך ְוָחֵזק‬‎ ἐκεῖνον δεῖ αὐξάνειν.
‫‏‬: ‫‏ּוֵבית ָׁשאּול ֹהְלִכם ְוַד ּלים‬‎ ἐμὲ δὲ ἐλαττοῦσθαι.

Schulz, die Lehre vom Abendmahl, s. 145. Winer, Realwörterbuch, 1, s. 693. ↑

67
Commentar, s. 380. ↑
68
The passage above quoted from the Acts gives us also some explanation,
69
why the fourth Evangelist of all others should be solicitous to place the
Baptist in a more favourable relation to Jesus, than history allows us to conceive.
According to v. 1 ff. there were persons in Ephesus who knew only of John’s
baptism, and were therefore rebaptized by the Apostle Paul in the name of Jesus.
Now an old tradition represents the fourth gospel to have been written in Ephesus
(Iræneus adv. hær. iii. 1). If we accept this (and it is certainly correct in assigning
a Greek locality for the composition of this Gospel), and presuppose, in accordance
with the intimation in the Acts, that Ephesus was the seat of a number of the
Baptist’s followers, all of whom Paul could hardly have converted; the endeavour
to draw them over to Jesus would explain the remarkable stress laid by the fourth
Evangelist on the μαρτυρία Ἰωάννου. Storr has very judiciously remarked and
discussed this, über den Zweck der Evangelischen Geschichte und der Briefe
Johannis, s. 5 ff. 24 f. Compare Hug, Einleitung in das N. T., s. 190 3te Ausg. ↑
Antiq. xviii. v. 2. ↑
70
Ueber den Lukas, s. 109. ↑
71
Ibid. p. 106. ↑
72
Ueber den Ursprung u. s. w. s. 79. ↑
73
The expression οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι is thus interpreted by the most learned
74
exegetists. Comp. Paulus, Lücke, Tholuck in loc. ↑
Lücke, Commentar, s. 327. ↑
75
Lücke, s. 339. ↑
76
Whether the dialogue between John and his complaining disciples (John
77
iii. 25 ff. ) be likewise a transmutation of the corresponding scene, Matt.
ix. 14 f. , as Bretschneider seeks to show, must remain uncertain. Probab., p. 66
ff. ↑
That Jesus, as many suppose, assigns a low rank to the Baptist, because the
78
latter thought of introducing the new order of things by external violence, is not
to be detected in the gospels. ↑
For a different explanation see Schneckenburger, Beiträge, s. 48 ff. ↑
79
Antiq. xviii. v. 2. ↑
80
This former husband of Herodias is named by the Evangelists, Philip, by
81
Josephus, Herod. He was the son of the high priest’s daughter, Mariamne,
and lived as a private person. V. Antiq. xv. ix. 3; xviii. v. 1. 4. B. j. i. xxix. 2, xxx.
7. ↑
Antiq. xviii. v. 4. ↑
82
Hase, Leben Jesu, s. 88. ↑
83
Fritzsche, Comm. in Matth. in loc. Winer, bibl. Realwörterb. 1, s. 694. ↑
84
Paulus, exeg. Handb. 1, a, s. 361; Schleiermacher, über den Lukas, s.
85
109. ↑
Vergl. Fritzsche, Comm. in Marc., p. 225. ↑
86
E.g. Schneckenburger, über den Ursprung des ersten kanonischen
87
Evangeliums, s. 86 f. That the ἐλυπήθη of Matthew, v. 9 , is not
contradictory to his own narrative, see Fritzsche, in loc. ↑
S. Winer, b. Realwörterb. d. A. Herodes Antipas. ↑
88
Fritzsche, Commentar. in Matt., p. 491. ↑
89
Antiq. xviii. v. 1. ↑
90
[Contents]
CHAPTER II.
 BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS.
[Contents]

§ 49.

WHY DID JESUS RECEIVE BAPTISM FROM JOHN?

In conformity with the evangelical view of the fact, the customary

answer given by the orthodox to this question is, that Jesus, by his
submission to John’s baptism, signified his consecration to the
messianic office; an explanation which is supported by a passage in
Justin, according to which it was the Jewish notion, that the Messiah
would be unknown as such to himself and others, until Elias as his
forerunner should anoint him, and thereby make him distinguishable
by all. 1 The Baptist himself, however, as he is represented by the
first Evangelist, could not have partaken of this design; for had he
regarded his baptism as a consecration which the Messiah must
necessarily undergo, he would not have hesitated to perform it on
the person of Jesus (iii. 14 ).

Our former inquiries have shown that John’s baptism related partly
εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, its recipients promising a believing preparation
for the expected Messiah; how then could Jesus, if he was conscious
of being himself the ἐρχόμενος, submit himself to this baptism? The
usual answer from the orthodox point of view is, that Jesus,
although conscious of his Messiahship, yet, so long as it was not
publicly attested by God, spoke and acted, not as Messiah, but
merely as an Israelite, who held himself bound to obey every divine
ordinance relative to his nation. 2 But, here, there is a distinction to
be made. Negatively, it became Jesus to refrain from performing any
messianic deeds, or using any of the Messiah’s prerogatives, before
his title was solemnly attested; even positively, it became him to
submit himself to the ordinances which were incumbent on every
Israelite; but to join in a new rite, which symbolized the expectation
of another and a future Messiah, could never, without dissimulation,
be the act of one who was conscious of being the actual Messiah
himself. More recent theologians have therefore wisely admitted,
that when Jesus came to John for baptism, he had not a decided
conviction of his Messiahship. 3 They indeed regard this uncertainty
as only the struggle of modesty. Paulus, for instance, observes that
Jesus, notwithstanding he had heard from his parents of his
messianic destination, and had felt this first intimation confirmed by
many external incidents, as well as by his own spiritual development,
was yet not over eager to appropriate [238]the honour, which had
been as it were thrust upon him. But, if the previous narratives
concerning Jesus be regarded as a history, and therefore, of
necessity, as a supernatural one; then must he, who was heralded
by angels, miraculously conceived, welcomed into the world by the
homage of magi and prophets, and who in his twelfth year knew the
temple to be his Father’s house, have long held a conviction of his
Messiahship, above all the scruples of a false modesty. If on the
contrary it be thought possible, by criticism, to reduce the history of
the childhood of Jesus to a merely natural one, there is no longer
anything to account for his early belief that he was the Messiah; and
the position which he adopted by the reception of John’s baptism
becomes, instead of an affected diffidence, a real ignorance of his
messianic destiny.—Too modest, continue these commentators, to
declare himself Messiah on his own authority, Jesus fulfilled all that
the strictest self-judgment could require, and wished to make the
decisive experiment, whether the Deity would allow that he, as well
as every other, should dedicate himself to the coming Messiah, or
whether a sign would be granted, that he himself was the
ἐρχόμενος. But to do something seen to be inappropriate, merely to
try whether God will correct the mistake, is just such a challenging
of the divine power as Jesus, shortly after his baptism, decidedly
condemns. Thus it must be allowed that, the baptism of John being
a baptism εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον, if Jesus could submit himself to it
without dissimulation or presumption, he could not at the time have
held himself to be that ἐρχόμενος, and if he really uttered the words
οὕτω πρέπον ἐστὶ, κ.τ.λ., Suffer it to be so now, etc. (which,
however, could only be called forth by the refusal of the Baptist—a
refusal that stands or falls with his previous conviction of the
Messiahship of Jesus), he could only mean by them, that it became
him, with every pious Israelite, to devote himself by anticipation to
the expected Messiah, in baptism, although the Evangelist,
instructed by the issue, put on them a different construction.

But the relation hitherto discussed is only one aspect of John’s

baptism; the other, which is yet more strongly attested by history,
shows it as a βάπτισμα μετανοίας, a baptism of repentance. The
Israelites, we are told, Matt. iii. 6 , were baptized of John,
confessing their sins: shall we then suppose that Jesus made such a
confession? They received the command to repent: did Jesus
acknowledge such a command? This difficulty was felt even in the
early church. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, adopted by the
Nazarenes, Jesus asks his mother and brother, when invited by them
to receive John’s baptism, wherein he had sinned, that this baptism
was needful for him? 4 and an heretical apocryphal work appears to
have attributed to Jesus a confession of his own sins at his baptism. 5
The sum of what modern theologians have contributed towards the
removal of this difficulty, consists in the application to Jesus of the
distinction between what a man is as an individual, and what he is
as a member of the community. He needed, say they, no repentance
on his own behalf, but, aware of its necessity for all other men, the
children of Abraham not [239]excepted, he wished to demonstrate his
approval of an institute which confirmed this truth, and hence he
submitted to it. But let the reader only take a nearer view of the
facts. According to Matt. iii. 6 , John appears to have required a
confession of sins previous to baptism; such a confession Jesus,
presupposing his impeccability, could not deliver without falsehood;
if he refused, John would hardly baptize him, for he did not yet
believe him to be the Messiah, and from every other Israelite he
must have considered a confession of sins indispensable. The non-
compliance of Jesus might very probably originate the dispute to
which Matthew gives a wholly different character; but certainly, if the
refusal of John had such a cause, the matter could scarcely have
been adjusted by a mere suffer it to be so now, for no confession
being given, the Baptist would not have perceived that all
righteousness was fulfilled. Even supposing that a confession was
not required of every baptized person, John would not conclude the
ceremony of baptism without addressing the neophyte on the
subject of repentance. Could Jesus tacitly sanction such an address
to himself, when conscious that he needed no regeneration? and
would he not, in so doing, perplex the minds which were afterwards
to believe in him as the sinless one? We will even abandon the
position that John so addressed the neophytes, and only urge that
the gestures of those who plunged into the purifying water must
have been those of contrition; yet if Jesus conformed himself to
these even in silence, without referring them to his own condition,
he cannot be absolved from the charge of dissimulation.

There is then no alternative but to suppose, that as Jesus had not,

up to the time of his baptism, thought of himself as the Messiah, so
with regard to the μετάνοια (repentance), he may have justly ranked
himself amongst the most excellent in Israel, without excluding
himself from what is predicated in Job iv. 18 , xv. 15 . There is little
historical ground for controverting this; for the words, which of you
convinceth me of sin? (John viii. 46 ) could only refer to open
delinquencies, and to a later period in the life of Jesus. The scene in
his twelfth year, even if historical, could not by itself prove a sinless
development of his powers.

[Contents]

§ 50.

THE SCENE AT THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

CONSIDERED AS SUPERNATURAL AND AS NATURAL.

At the moment that John had completed his baptism of Jesus, the
synoptical gospels tell us that the heavens were opened, the Holy
Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice from
heaven designated him the Son of God, in whom the Father was well
pleased. The fourth Evangelist (i. 32 ff. ) makes the Baptist narrate
that he saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, and remain on
Jesus; but as in the immediate context John says of his baptism,
that it was destined for the manifestation of the Messiah, and as the
description of the descending dove corresponds almost verbally with
the synoptical accounts, it is not to be doubted that the same event
is intended. The old and lost Gospels of Justin and the Ebionites
give, as concomitants, a heavenly light, and a flame bursting out of
the Jordan; 6 in the dove and heavenly voice also, they have
alterations, hereafter to be [240]noticed. For whose benefit the
appearance was granted, remains doubtful on a comparison of the
various narratives. In John, where the Baptist recites it to his
followers, these seem not to have been eye-witnesses; and from his
stating that he who sent him to baptize, promised the descent and
repose of the Spirit as a mark of the Messiah, we gather that the
appearance was designed specially for the Baptist. According to
Mark it is Jesus, who, in ascending from the water, sees the heavens
open and the Spirit descend. Even in Matthew it is the most natural
to refer εἶδε, he saw, and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ, were opened to him,
to ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Jesus, the subject immediately before; but as it is said,
in continuation, that he saw the Holy Spirit ἐρχόμενον ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, not
εφ’ αὑτὸν (Mark’s ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, which does not agree with his
construction, is explained by his dependence on Matthew), the
beholder seems not to be the same as he on whom the Spirit
descended, and we are obliged to refer εἶδε and ἀνεῴχθησαν αὐτῷ
to the more remote antecedent, namely the Baptist, who, as the
heavenly voice speaks of Jesus in the third person, is most naturally
to be regarded as also a witness. Luke appears to give a much larger
number of spectators to the scene, for according to him, Jesus was
baptized ἐν τῷ βαπτισθῆναι ἅπαντα τὸν λαὸν, when all the people
were baptized, and consequently he must have supposed that the
scene described occurred in their presence. 7
The narrations directly convey no other meaning, than that the
whole scene was externally visible and audible, and thus they have
been always understood by the majority of commentators. But in
endeavouring to conceive the incident as a real one, a cultivated and
reflecting mind must stumble at no insignificant difficulties. First,
that for the appearance of a divine being on earth, the visible
heavens must divide themselves, to allow of his descent from his
accustomed seat, is an idea that can have no objective reality, but
must be the entirely subjective creation of a time when the dwelling-
place of Deity was imagined to be above the vault of heaven.
Further, how is it reconcilable with the true idea of the Holy Spirit as
the divine, all-pervading Power, that he should move from one place
to another, like a finite being, and embody himself in the form of a
dove? Finally, that God should utter articulate tones in a national
idiom, has been justly held extravagant. 8

Even in the early church, the more enlightened fathers adopted the
opinion, that the heavenly voices spoken of in the biblical history
were not external sounds, the effect of vibrations in the air, but
inward impressions produced by God in the minds of those to whom
he willed to impart himself: thus of the appearance at the baptism of
Jesus, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia maintain that it was a
vision, and not a reality, ὀπτασία, οὐ φύσις. 9 To the simple indeed,
says Origen, in their simplicity, it is a light thing to set the universe
in motion, and to sever a solid mass like the heavens; but those who
search more deeply into such matters, will, he thinks, refer to those
higher revelations, by means of which chosen persons, even waking,
and still more frequently in their dreams, are led to suppose that
they perceive something with their bodily senses, while their minds
only are affected: so that consequently, the whole appearance in
question should [241]be understood, not as an external incident, but
as an inward vision sent by God; an interpretation which has also
met with much approbation among modern theologians.

In the first two Gospels and in the fourth, this interpretation is

favoured by the expressions, were opened to him, ἀνεῴχθησαν
αὐτῷ, he saw, εἶδε, and I beheld, τεθέαμαι, which seem to imply
that the appearance was subjective, in the sense intended by
Theodore, when he observes that the descent of the Holy Spirit was
not seen by all present, but that, by a certain spiritual
contemplation, it was visible to John alone, οὐ πᾶσιν ὤφθη τοῖς
παροῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατά τινα πνευματικὴν θεωρίαν ὤφθη μόνῳ τῷ
Ἰωάννῃ: to John however we must add Jesus, who, according to
Mark, participated in the vision. But in opposition to this stands the
statement of Luke: the expressions which he uses, ἐγένετο—
ἀνεῳχθῆναι—καὶ καταβῆναι—καὶ φωνὴν—γενέσθαι, it came to pass
—was opened—and descended—and a voice came, bear a character
so totally objective and exterior, 10 especially if we add the words, in
a bodily form, σωματικῷ εἴδει, that (abiding by the notion of the
perfect truthfulness of all the evangelical records) the less explicit
narratives must be interpreted by the unequivocal one of Luke, and
the incident they recount must be understood as something more
than an inward revelation to John and Jesus. Hence it is prudent in
Olshausen to allow, in concession to Luke, that there was present on
the occasion a crowd of persons, who saw and heard something, yet
to maintain that this was nothing distinct or comprehensible. By this
means, on the one hand, the occurrence is again transferred from
the domain of subjective visions to that of objective phenomena;
while on the other, the descending dove is supposed visible, not to
the bodily eye, but only to the open spiritual one, and the words
audible to the soul, not to the bodily ear. Our understanding fails us
in this pneumatology of Olshausen, wherein there are sensible
realities transcending the senses; and we hasten out of this misty
atmosphere into the clearer one of those, who simply tell us, that
the appearance was an external incident, but one purely natural.

This party appeals to the custom of antiquity, to regard natural

occurrences as divine intimations, and in momentous crises, where a
bold resolution was to be taken, to adopt them as guides. To Jesus,
spiritually matured into the Messiah, and only awaiting an external
divine sanction, and to the Baptist who had already ceded the
superiority to the friend of his youth, in their solemn frame of mind
at the baptism of the former by the latter, every natural
phenomenon that happened at the time, must have been pregnant
with meaning, and have appeared as a sign of the divine will. But
what the natural appearance actually was, is a point on which the
commentators are divided in opinion. Some, with the synoptical
writers, include a sound as well as an appearance; others give, with
John, an appearance only. They interpret the opening of the
heavens, as a sudden parting of the clouds, or a flash of lightning;
the dove they consider as a real bird of that species, which by
chance hovered over the head of Jesus; or they assume that the
lightning or some meteor was compared to a dove, from the manner
of its descent. They who include a sound as a part of the machinery
in the scene, suppose a clap of thunder, which was imagined by
those present to be a Bath Kol, and interpreted into the words given
by the first Evangelist. Others, on the contrary, understand what is
said of audible words, merely as an explanation of the visible sign,
which was regarded as an attestation that Jesus was the Son of
God. This last opinion sacrifices the synoptical writers, who
undeniably speak of an audible voice, to John, and thus contains a
critical [242]doubt as to the historical character of the narratives,
which, consistently followed out, leads to quite other ground than
that of the naturalistic interpretation. If the sound was mere thunder,
and the words only an interpretation put upon it by the bystanders;
then, as in the synoptical accounts, the words are evidently
supposed to have been audibly articulated, we must allow that there
is a traditional ingredient in these records. So far as the appearance
is concerned, it is not to be denied that the sudden parting of
clouds, or a flash of lightning, might be described as an opening of
heaven; but in nowise could the form of a dove be ascribed to
lightning or a meteor. The form is expressly the point of comparison
in Luke only, but it is doubtless so intended by the other narrators;
although Fritzsche contends that the words like a dove, ὡσεὶ
περιστερὰν, in Matthew refer only to the rapid motion. The flight of
the dove has nothing so peculiar and distinctive, that, supposing this
to be the point of comparison, there would not be in any of the
parallel passages a variation, a substitution of some other bird, or an
entirely new figure. As, instead of this, the mention of the dove is
invariable through all the four gospels, the simile must turn upon
something exclusively proper to the dove, and this can apparently be
nothing but its form. Hence those commit the least violence on the
text, who adopt the supposition of a real dove. Paulus, however, in
so doing, incurred the hard task of showing by a multitude of facts
from natural history and other sources, that the dove might be tame
enough to fly towards a man; 11 how it could linger so long over one,
that it might be said, ἔμεινεν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, it abode upon him, he has
not succeeded in explaining, and he thus comes into collision with
the narrative of John, by which he had sustained his supposition of
the absence of a voice. 12
[Contents]

§ 51.

AN ATTEMPT AT A CRITICISM AND MYTHICAL

INTERPRETATION OF THE NARRATIVES.

If then a more intelligible representation of the scene at the baptism

of Jesus is not to be given, without doing violence to the evangelical
text, or without supposing it to be partially erroneous, we are
necessarily driven to a critical treatment of the accounts; and
indeed, according to De Wette and Schleiermacher, 13 this is the
prevalent course in relation to the above point in the evangelical
history. From the narrative of John, as the pure source, it is sought
to derive the synoptical accounts, as turbid streams. In the former, it
is said, there is no opening heaven, no heavenly voice; only the
descent of the Spirit is, as had been promised, a divine witness to
John that Jesus is the Messiah; but in what manner the Baptist
perceived that the Spirit rested on Jesus, he does not tell us, and
possibly the only sign may have been the discourse of Jesus.

One cannot but wonder at Schleiermacher’s assertion, that the

manner in which the Baptist perceived the descending Spirit is not
given in the fourth gospel, when here also the expression ὡσεὶ
περιστερὰν, like a dove, tells it plainly enough; and this particular
marks the descent as a visible one, and not a mere inference from
the discourse of Jesus. Usteri, indeed, thinks [243]that the Baptist
mentioned the dove, merely as a figure, to denote the gentle, mild
spirit which he had observed in Jesus. But had this been all, he
would rather have compared Jesus himself to a dove, as on another
occasion he did to a lamb, than have suggested the idea of a
sensible appearance by the picturesque description, I saw the Spirit
descending from heaven like a dove. It is therefore not true in
relation to the dove, that first in the more remote tradition given by
the synoptical writers, what was originally figurative, was received in
a literal sense; for in this sense it is understood by John, and if he
have the correct account, the Baptist himself must have spoken of a
visible dove-like appearance, as Bleek, Neander, and others,
acknowledge.

While the alleged distinction in relation to the dove, between the

first three evangelists and the fourth, is not to be found; with
respect to the voice, the difference is so wide, that it is inconceivable
how the one account could be drawn from the other. For it is said
that the testimony which John gave concerning Jesus, after the
appearance: This is the Son of God (John i. 34 ), taken in connexion
with the preceding words: He that sent me to baptize, the same said
unto me, etc., became, in the process of tradition, an immediate
heavenly declaration, such as we see in Matthew: This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. Supposing such a transformation
admissible, some instigation to it must be shown. Now in Isaiah xlii.
1 , Jehovah says of his servant: ‫‏ֵהן ַעְבִּד י ֶאְת ָמְך־ּבֹו ְּבִחיִר י ָר ֲצָת ה‬
‫ַנְפִׁשי‬‎; words which, excepting those between the parentheses, are
almost literally translated by the declaration of the heavenly voice in
Matthew. We learn from Matt. xii. 17 ff. that this passage was
applied to Jesus as the Messiah; and in it God himself is the speaker,
as in the synoptical account of the baptism. Here then was what
would much more readily prompt the fiction of a heavenly voice,
than the expressions of John. Since, therefore, we do not need a
misapprehension of the Baptist’s language to explain the story of the
divine voice, and since we cannot use it for the derivation of the
allusion to the dove; we must seek for the source of our narrative,
not in one of the evangelical documents, but beyond the New
Testament,—in the domain of cotemporary ideas, founded on the
Old Testament, the total neglect of which has greatly diminished the
value of Schleiermacher’s critique on the New Testament.

To regard declarations concerning the Messiah, put by poets into the

mouth of Jehovah, as real, audible voices from heaven, was wholly
in the spirit of the later Judaism, which not seldom supposed such
vocal communications to fall to the lot of distinguished rabbins, 14
and of the messianic prejudices, which the early Christians both
shared themselves, and were compelled, in confronting the Jews, to
satisfy. In the passage quoted from Isaiah, there was a divine
declaration, in which the present Messiah was pointed to as it were
with the finger, and which was therefore specially adapted for a
heavenly annunciation concerning him. How could the spirit of
Christian legend be slow to imagine a scene, in which these words
were audibly spoken from heaven of the Messiah. But we detect a
farther motive for such a representation of the case by observing,
that in Mark and Luke, the heavenly voice addresses Jesus in the
second person, and by comparing the words which, according to the
Fathers, were given in the old and lost gospels as those of the voice.
Justin, following his Memoirs of the Apostles, ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν
ἀποστόλων, thus reports them: υἱός μου εἶ σύ. ἐγὼ σήμερον
γεγέννηκα σε; 15 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. In
[244]the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius; 16 this
declaration was combined with that which our Gospels contain.
Clement of Alexandria 17 and Augustin 18 seem to have read the words
even in some copies of the latter; and it is at least certain that some
of our present manuscripts of Luke have this addition. 19 Here were
words uttered by the heavenly voice, drawn, not from Isaiah, but
from Psalm ii. 7 , a passage considered messianic by Jewish
interpreters; 20 in Heb. i. 5 , applied to Christ; and, from their being
couched in the form of a direct address, containing a yet stronger
inducement to conceive it as a voice sent to the Messiah from
heaven. If then the words of the psalm were originally attributed to
the heavenly voice, or if they were only taken in connexion with the
passage in Isaiah (as is probable from the use of the second person,
σὺ εἶ, in Mark and Luke, since this form is presented in the psalm,
and not in Isaiah), we have a sufficient indication that this text, long
interpreted of the Messiah, and easily regarded as an address from
heaven to the Messiah on earth, was the source of our narrative of
the divine voice, heard at the baptism of Jesus. To unite it with the
baptism, followed as a matter of course, when this was held to be a
consecration of Jesus to his office.

We proceed to the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. In this

examination we must separate the descent of the Spirit from the
form of the dove, and consider the two particulars apart. That the
Divine Spirit was to rest in a peculiar measure on the Messiah, was
an expectation necessarily resulting from the notion, that the
messianic times were to be those of the outpouring of the Spirit
upon all flesh (Joel iii. 1 ff. ); and in Isaiah xi. 1 f. it was expressly
said of the stem of Jesse, that the spirit of the Lord would rest on it
in all its fulness, as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of
might, and of the fear of the Lord. The communication of the Spirit,
considered as an individual act, coincident with the baptism, had a
type in the history of David, on whom, when anointed by Samuel,
the spirit of God came from that day forward (1 Sam. xvi. 13 ).
Further, in the Old Testament phrases concerning the imparting of
the Divine Spirit to men, especially in that expression of Isaiah, ‫‏נּוַח‬
‫ִעל־‬‎, which best corresponds to the μένειν ἐπὶ of John, there already
lay the germ of a symbolical representation; for that Hebrew verb is
applied also to the halting of armies, or, like the parallel Arabic word,
even of animals. The imagination, once stimulated by such an
expression, would be the more strongly impelled to complete the
picture by the necessity for distinguishing the descent of the Spirit
on the Messiah,—in the Jewish view, from the mode in which it was
imparted to the prophets (e.g. Isaiah lxi. 1 )—in the Christian view,
from its ordinary communication to the baptized (e.g. Acts xix. 1
ff ). 21 The position being once laid down that the Spirit was to
descend on the Messiah, the question immediately occurred: How
would it descend? This was necessarily decided according to the
popular Jewish idea, which always represented the Divine Spirit
under some form or other. In the Old Testament, and even in the
New (Acts ii. 3 ), fire is the principal symbol of the Holy Spirit; but it
by no means follows that other sensible objects were not similarly
used. In an important passage of the Old Testament (Gen. i. 2 ),
the Spirit of God is described as hovering (‫‏ְמַר ֶחֶפת‬‎), a word which
suggests, as its sensible representation, the movement [245]of a bird,
rather than of fire. Thus the expression ‫‏ָר ַחף‬‎, Deut. xxxii. 11 , is
used of the hovering of a bird over its young. But the imagination
could not be satisfied with the general figure of a bird; it must have
a specific image, and everything led to the choice of the dove.

In the East, and especially in Syria, the dove is a sacred bird, 22 and it
is so for a reason which almost necessitated its association with the
Spirit moving on the face of the primitive waters (Gen. i. 2 ). The
brooding dove was a symbol of the quickening warmth of nature; 23 it
thus perfectly represented the function which, in the Mosaic
cosmogony, is ascribed to the Spirit of God,—the calling forth of the
world of life from the chaos of the first creation. Moreover, when the
earth was a second time covered with water, it is a dove, sent by
Noah, which hovers over its waves, and which, by plucking an olive
leaf, and at length finally disappearing, announces the renewed
possibility of living on the earth. Who then can wonder that in
Jewish writings, the Spirit hovering over the primeval waters is
expressly compared to a dove, 24 and that, apart from the narrative
under examination, the dove is taken as a symbol of the Holy Spirit?
25 How near to this lay the association of the hovering dove with the

Messiah, on whom the dove-like spirit was to descend, is evident,

without our having recourse to the Jewish writings, which designate
the Spirit hovering over the waters, Gen. i. 2 , as the Spirit of the
Messiah, 26 and also connect with him its emblem, the Noachian
dove. 27

When, in this manner, the heavenly voice, and the Divine Spirit
down-hovering like a dove, gathered from the cotemporary Jewish
ideas, had become integral parts of the Christian legend concerning
the circumstances of the baptism of Jesus; it followed, of course,
that the heavens should open themselves, for the Spirit, once
embodied, must have a road before it could descend through the
vault of heaven. 28

The result of the preceding inquiries, viz., that the alleged

miraculous circumstances of the baptism of Jesus have merely a
mythical value, might have been much more readily obtained, in the
way of inference from the preceding chapter; for if, according to
that, John had not acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah, there
could have been no appearances at the baptism of Jesus,
demonstrative to John of his Messiahship. We have, however,
established the mythical character of the baptismal phenomena,
without [246]presupposing the result of the previous chapter; and
thus the two independently obtained conclusions may serve to
strengthen each other.
Supposing all the immediate circumstances of the baptism of Jesus
unhistorical, the question occurs, whether the baptism itself be also
a mere mythus. Fritzsche seems not disinclined to the affirmative,
for he leaves it undecided whether the first Christians knew
historically, or only supposed, in conformity with their messianic
expectations, that Jesus was consecrated to his messianic office by
John, as his forerunner. This view may be supported by the
observation, that in the Jewish expectation, which originated in the
history of David, combined with the prophecy of Malachi, there was
adequate inducement to assume such a consecration of Jesus by the
Baptist, even without historical warrant; and the mention of John’s
baptism in relation to Jesus (Acts i. 22 ), in a narrative, itself
traditional, proves nothing to the contrary. Yet, on the other hand, it
is to be considered that the baptism of Jesus by John furnishes the
most natural basis for an explanation of the messianic project of
Jesus. When we have two cotemporaries, of whom one announces
the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the other subsequently
assumes the character of Messiah; the conjecture arises, even,
without positive information, that they stood in a relation to each
other—that the latter owed his idea to the former. If Jesus had the
messianic idea excited in him by John, yet, as is natural, only so far
that he also looked forward to the advent of the messianic
individual, whom he did not, in the first instance, identify with
himself; he would most likely submit himself to the baptism of John.
This would probably take place without any striking occurrences;
and Jesus, in no way announced by it as the Baptist’s superior,
might, as above remarked, continue for some time to demean
himself as his disciple.

If we take a comparative retrospect of our evangelical documents,

the pre-eminence which has of late been sought for the fourth
gospel appears totally unmerited. The single historical fact, the
baptism of Jesus by John, is not mentioned by the fourth Evangelist,
who is solicitous about the mythical adjuncts alone, and these he in
reality gives no more simply than the synoptical writers, his omission
of the opening heaven excepted; for the divine speech is not
wanting in his narrative, if we read it impartially. In the words, i.
33 : He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me,
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on
him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, we have
not only substantially the same purport as that conveyed by the
heavenly voice in the synoptical gospels, but also a divine
declaration; the only difference being, that here John is addressed
exclusively, and prior to the baptism of Jesus. This difference
originated partly in the importance which the fourth Evangelist
attached to the relation between the Baptist and Jesus, and which
required that the criteria of the messianic individual, as well as the
proximity of his kingdom, should have been revealed to John at his
call to baptize; and it might be partly suggested by the narrative in 1
Sam. xvi. , according to which Samuel, being sent by Jehovah to
anoint a king selected from the sons of Jesse, is thus admonished by
Jehovah on the entrance of David: Arise and anoint him, for this is
he (v. 12 ). The descent of the Spirit, which in David’s case follows
his consecration, is, by the fourth Evangelist, made an antecedent
sign of the Messiahship of Jesus. [247]

[Contents]

§ 52.
RELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL AT THE BAPTISM
OF JESUS TO THE SUPERNATURAL IN HIS
CONCEPTION.
At the commencement of this chapter, we enquired into the
subjective views of Jesus in his reception of John’s baptism, or the
idea which he entertained of its relation to his own character. We
close this discussion with an inquiry into the objective purpose of the
miracles at the baptism of Jesus, or the mode in which they were to
subserve the manifestation of his messiahship.

The common answer to such an inquiry is, that Jesus was thereby
inducted to his public office, and declared to be the Messiah, 29 i.e.
that nothing was conferred on him, and that simply the character
which he already possessed was manifested to others. But, it may
be asked, is such an abstraction intended by our narrators? A
consecration to an office, effected by divine co-operation, was ever
considered by antiquity as a delegation of divine powers for its
fulfilment; hence, in the Old Testament, the kings, as soon as they
are anointed, are filled with the spirit of God (1 Sam. x. 6 , 10 , xvi.
13 ); and in the New Testament also, the apostles, before entering
on their vocation, are furnished with supernatural gifts (Acts ii. ). It
may, therefore, be beforehand conjectured, that according to the
original sense of the Gospels, the consecration of Jesus at his
baptism was attended with a supply of higher powers; and this is
confirmed by an examination of our narratives. For the synoptical
writers all state, that after the baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the
wilderness, obviously marking this journey as the first effect of the
higher principle infused at his baptism: and in John, the words
μένειν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν, applied to the descending Spirit, seem to intimate,
that from the time of the baptism there was a relation not previously
subsisting, between the πνεῦμα ἅγιον and Jesus.

This interpretation of the marvels at the baptism of Jesus seems in

contradiction with the narratives of his conception. If Jesus, as
Matthew and Luke state, was conceived by the Holy Ghost; or if, as
John propounds, the divine λόγος, the word, was made flesh in him,
from the beginning of his earthly existence; why did he yet need, at
his baptism, a special intromission of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον? Several
modern expositors have seen, and sought to solve, this difficulty.
Olshausen’s explanation consists in the distinction between the
potential and the actual; but it is self-contradictory. 30 For if the
character of the Χριστὸς which was manifested actû, with the
ripened manhood of Jesus, at his baptism, was already present
potentiâ in the child and youth; there must have also been an
inward principle of development, by means of which his powers
would gradually unfold themselves from within, instead of being first
awakened by a sudden illapse of the Spirit from without. This,
however, does not preclude the possibility that the divine principle,
existing in Jesus, as supernaturally conceived, from the moment of
his birth, might need, owing to the human form of its development,
some impulse from without; and Lücke 31 has more justly proceeded
on this contrast between external impulse and inward development.
The λόγος, present in Jesus from his birth, needed, he thinks,
however strong might be the inward bent, some external stimulus
and vivification, in order to arrive at full activity and manifestation
[248]in the world; and that which awakens and guides the divine life-
germ in the world is, on apostolic showing, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον.
Allowing this, yet the inward disposition and the requisite force of
the outward stimulus stand in an inverse relation to each other; so
that the stronger the outward stimulus required, the weaker is the