It degenerated exactly as the modern orthodox
Christology grew up. We have seen how, in the
synoptic Gospels, the descent of the spirit upon Jesus
is regarded as the moment of his becoming the
Messiah and Son of God. Presently the legend of
the miraculous birth was diffused, and paved the way
for a new apprehension of divine sonship, according
to which he was Son of God and Messiah from the
moment in which the holy spirit impregnated his
mother. This new point of view, of course, emptied
the story of his baptism of all sense and meaning ; for
if he was God incarnate from the first moment when
he was conceived, what was added to him by the
illumination in Jordan ? He did not need it, and it
merely overloaded him.
