At the first glance, such a fact surprises us in John the Baptist, and we are tempted to call it in question.

Humility has never been a feature of strong Jewish minds.
It might have been expected that a character so stubborn, a sort of Lamennais always irritated, would be very passionate, and suffer neither rivalry nor half adhesion.

But this manner of viewing things rests upon a false conception of the person of John.

We imagine him an old man; he was, on the contrary, of the same age as Jesus,[2] and very young according to the ideas of the time.

In mental development, he was the brother rather than the father of Jesus.