This is the Baptist passage:
Antiquities 18.116-119
But to some of the Jews the destruction ofHerod’s defeat is attributed to his murder of John the Baptist. Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practise justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour. When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some form of sedition,f for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. Though John, because of Herod’s suspicions, was brought in chains to Machaerus, the stronghold that we have previously mentioned, and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited upon Herod’s army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod.
The more strong argument pro authenticity is the causal link :
moral purification --> baptism ---> mere purification of the body.
that usually is said to be apparently different (and therefore not of Christian origin) from the causal link according to Christian baptism:
immorality and physical impurity --> baptism ---> moral and physical purification
But note that, against Celsus, Origen had need of describing the Christian baptism as
both a rational and magical act of conversion.
His argument is the following:
1) who is baptized shows, just a minute later, great example of virtue and this is a
magical fact. Believe it or die.
2) if
1 is true, then it is
rational to receive the baptism.
3) if it is rational to receive the baptism, then even
before the baptism, who is going to receive the baptism is
already a rational and virtuous and good person.
4) Therefore the example of John the Baptist, as described in Josephus, confirms the points
1,
2 and
3 above.
I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite.
(
Against Celsus, 1.47)
In the words of NPL Allen:
In one sense, Josephus merely serves as an independent witness to back up his assertions on a very superficial level. However, if the reader bothers to actually turn to Josephus’ BP (i.e. AJ, XVIII, 5, 2 / 116 -119), he/she will most “conveniently” discover a lengthy, reiteration of those very issues that disprove some of Celsus’ claims.
(p. 359, my bold)
...
Then, he has Josephus confirm (on his behalf) the following details:
1. John the Baptist may have been a Jew, but he was not only a proven “good man”, he also actively worked towards making other Jews “exercise virtue” and practice righteous behaviour and “piety towards God”;
2. John the Baptist did not practice, what some may imagine was some form of traditional Jewish purification ritual; he practiced essentially, what was for Origen, a Christian baptism which ensured that the convertee subsequently engaged in a divinely directed, behavioural change, that embodied piety, righteousness and Godly virtues. Specifically, he enacted a religious rite which did two interdependent actions:
• the remission of (some) sins; and
• the purification of the body (supposing that the soul was purified beforehand by righteousness).
The latter two points are nothing more than embellishments of the very concepts that Origen had been trying to sell to his reader in his Cels. and particularly Cels I, 47.
