Holy Spirit in Christianity the Book of Acts. The Holy Spirit does not simply appear for the first time at Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus, but is present in the Gospel of Luke (in 1–2) prior to the birth of Jesus. In , John the Baptist was said to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" prior to birth, and the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary in . In John the Baptist stated that Jesus baptized not with water but with the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus during his baptism in the Jordan River. In Jesus provided assurances
John the Baptist (Caravaggio) as an adult, frequently in the act of baptising Jesus. Nevertheless, it was not totally without precedent. Leonardo had painted a youthful and enigmatically smiling Baptist with one finger pointing upwards and the other hand seeming to indicate his own breast, while Andrea del Sarto left a Baptist which almost totally prefigures Caravaggio. Both Leonardo and del Sarto had created from the figure of John something which seems to hint at an entirely personal meaning, one not accessible to the viewer, and Caravaggio was to turn this into something like a personal icon in the course of his many variations