John 1:32

τεθέαμαι τὸ πνεῦμα … ἐπʼ αὐτόν. “I have seen the Spirit coming down like a dove out of heaven, and it remained upon Him.” “I have seen, perfect, in reference to the sign divinely intimated to him, in the abiding fulfilment of which he now stood.” Alford. τεθέαμαι is used (as in John 1:14) in its sense of seeing with intelligence, with mental or spiritual observation and inference (cf. Aristoph., Clouds, 363, “Have you ever seen it rain without elouds?”). In what sense did the Baptist “see” the Spirit descending? Origen distinctly declared that these words οἰκονομὶας τρόπῳ γέγραπται οὐχ ἱστορικὴν διήγησιν ἔχοντα ἀλλὰ θεωρίαν νοητήν, ii. 239. The ὡς περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ does not necessarily involve that an actual dove was visible. It was not the dove which was to be the sign; but, as the Baptist affirms in John 1:33, the descent and abiding of the Spirit. John was scarcely the type of man who would be determined in an important course of action by the appearance of a bird. What he saw was the Spirit descending. This he can best have seen in the demeanour of Jesus, in His lowliness and sympathy and holiness, all of which came to their perfect bloom at and in His baptism. It was the possession of this spirit by Jesus that convinced John that He could baptise with the Holy Spirit. That this conviction came to him at the baptism of Christ with a clearness and firmness which authenticated it as divine is guaranteed by the words of this verse. It was as plain to him that Jesus was possessed by the Spirit as if he had seen the Spirit in a visible shape alighting upon Him. To a mind absorbed in this one idea it may have actually seemed as if he saw it with his bodily eyes. Ambrose, De Sacram., i., 5, “Spiritus autem sanctus non in veritate columbae, sed in specie columbae descendit de coelo”. The dove was in the East a sacred bird, and the brooding dove was symbolic of the quickening warmth of nature. In Jewish writings the Spirit hovering over the primeval waters is expressly compared to a dove: “Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas, sicut columba, quae fertur super pullos suos nec tangit illos”. Cf. also Noah's dove as symbol of the new creation. (See Suicer, s.v., περιστερά, and Strauss, i., 362.) Such a symbol of the Spirit would scarcely have been imagined by the Baptist, who was all for stern and violent methods.