The pupil soon equaled the master, and his baptism was much sought after.

There was on this subject some jealousy among the disciples;[2] the disciples of John came to complain to him of the growing success of the young Galilean, whose baptism would, they thought, soon supplant his own.

But the two teachers remained superior to this meanness.

The superiority of John was, besides, too indisputable for Jesus, still little known, to think of contesting it.

Jesus only wished to increase under John's protection; and thought himself obliged, in order to gain the multitude, to employ the external means which had given John such astonishing success.