The Sign of Jonah Professor Clayton R. Bowen of the Meadville Theological School has an interesting critical note in the July number of the American Journal of Theology on the question as to whether John the Baptist was the sign of Jonah to which Jesus referred. The chief reasons for this he finds as follows: "That John and Jonah are parallel as preachers of repentance, as prophets sent with a message from God, is of course true; but it is equally true that Jesus was the same. He too came with

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... he cry, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!' (Matt. 4: I7; Mark I: I5). His own prophetic consciousness is assuredly not less keen than his conviction that John is a prophet, and comes to frequent expression, as clearly distinguishable from his messianic consciousness. Or, rather, we cannot really speak of Jesus' messianic consciousness at all; he was never conscious of being Messiah, as in truth he was not Messiah, yet. He only believed himself called and appointed to the messiahship, which is a very different thing. But he was very distinctly and directly conscious of being a prophet, with a message of God to deliver. His first public words, according to Mark, imply this: 'Repent, and believe in the gospel,' of the divine message of which I am the spokesman. It is true that he called John more than a prophet and the greatest of men. We could hardly expect him to add 'except myself.' He thought more highly of John than any Christian since has done, yet we can see, from his own words, that his own prophetic consciousness rose above anything he said of John." Professor Bowen finds the argument in favor of this reference to be far-fetched, and reaches two general conclusions against the proposed interpretation. The first is that the demand made of Jesus was that he This content downloaded from 198.164.044.064 on