Anus, who, as we have seen, said that Jesus was created by God and was not himself God, claimed that God had adopted Jesus,
perhaps at his baptism.
It was Mark who began this process of transvaluation, as far as we can make out
at this distance, by insisting that Jesus became Messiah
at his
baptism — though
perhaps the evangelic tradition had already received this interpretation in the Roman community, or even, earlier still, in Palestine or in the early Gentile church.