JOHN THE BAPTIST

JOHN THE BAPTIST, the forerunner of the Lord, was the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the latter "a cousin of Mary," the mother of Jesus, whose senior John was by a period of six months. The exact spot where he was born is not determined. The rabbins fix on Hebron, in the hill-country of Judæa; Paulus, Kuinoel, and Meyer, after Reiland, are in favour of Jutta, "a city of Judah." His father, while engaged in burning incense, was visited by the angel Gabriel, who informed him that in compliance with his prayers his wife should bear a son, whose name he should call John, and who should, by his pure life and fervid preaching, prepare the way for the long-expected Messiah. Zacharias unbelieving receives a sign, which acts also as a punishment—his tongue is sealed till the prediction is fulfilled by the event. Six months after Elizabeth had conceived she received a visit from Mary, the future mother of Jesus. On being saluted by her relation, Elizabeth felt her babe leap in her womb, and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, she broke forth into a poetic congratulation to Mary, as the destined mother of her Lord. At length Elizabeth brought forth a son, whom the relatives were disposed to name Zacharias, after his father;—but Elizabeth was led to wish that he should be called John. The matter was referred to the father, who signified in writing that his name was to be John. This agreement with Elizabeth caused all to marvel. Zacharias now had his tongue loosed, and he first employed his restored power in praising God.

As a consequence of the lofty parental influences under which he was nurtured, the child waxed strong in spirit. The sacred writer adds, that "he was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel." The apocryphal Proter. Jac., chap. xxii., states that his mother, to rescue her son from the murder of the children at Bethlehem, fled with him into the desert. She found no place of refuge; the mountain opened at her request, and gave the needed shelter in its bosom. Zacharias refusing to disclose their retreat was slain by Herod. At a later period Elizabeth died, when angels took the youth under their care. In the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius, John made his public appearance in the wild mountainous tract of Judæa, exhibiting the austerity, the costume, and the manner of life of the ancient Jewish prophets (Luke iii.; Matt. iii.).

The burden of John's preaching bore no slight resemblance to the old prophetic exhortations, whose last echo had now died away for centuries. He called upon the Jewish people to repent, to change their dispositions and affections, and thus prepared the way for the great doctrine promulgated by his Lord, of the necessity of a spiritual regeneration. The reason assigned by him for entering on his perilous office was that the kingdom of God was at hand, and the high moral tone of his teaching shows, that in the true prophetic ardour no blot of sensuous expectation defaced the meaning of the expression.

The more than prophetic fame of the Baptist reached the ears of Jesus in his Nazarene dwelling, far distant from the locality of John (Matt. ii. 22-23). The nature of the report—namely, that his divinely-predicted forerunner had appeared in Judæa—showed our Lord that the time was now come for his being made manifest to Israel. Accordingly he comes to the place where John was then baptizing, in order that thus he might fulfil all that was required under the dispensation which was about to disappear. John's sense of inferiority inclines him to ask rather than to give baptism in the case of Jesus, who, however, wills to have it so, and is accordingly baptized of John. Immediately on the termination of this symbolical act, a divine attestation is given from the opened vault of heaven, declaring Jesus to be in truth the long looked-for Messiah.

The relation which subsisted between John and Jesus, after the emphatic testimony above recorded had been borne, we have not the materials to describe with full certainty. It seems but natural to think that John would forthwith lay down his office of harbinger, which, now that the Sun of Righteousness himself had appeared, was entirely fulfilled and terminated. Such a step he does not appear to have taken. On the contrary, the language of Scripture seems to imply that the Baptist church continued side by side with the Messianic, and remained long after John's execution. Indeed, a sect which bears the name of "John's disciples," exists to the present day in the East, whose sacred books are said to be pervaded by a Gnostic leaven. They are hostile alike to Judaism and Christianity, and their John and Jesus are altogether different from the characters bearing these names in our evangelists. Though it has been generally assumed that John did not lay down his office, other explanations may be given of the facts. John may have ceased to execute his own peculiar work, as the forerunner, but may justifiably have continued to bear his most important testimony to the Messiahship, of Christ; or he may even have altogether given up the duties of active life some time, at least, before his death; and yet his disciples, both before and after that event, may have maintained their individuality as a religious communion. Nor is it improbable that some misconception may have had weight in preventing the Baptist church from dissolving, and that with a view to remove some error of this kind that John afterwards sent the embassy of his disciples to Jesus. The manner of John's death is too well known to require to be detailed. He reproved a tyrant for a heinous crime, and received his reward in decapitation. Josephus, however, assigns a purely political cause for his execution, but there is no contrariety between his account and that given in the New Testament. Both may be true: John was condemned in the mind of Herod on political grounds, as endangering his position, and executed on private and ostensible grounds, in order to gratify a malicious but powerful woman.

The castle of Machærus, where John was imprisoned and beheaded, was a fortress lying on the southern extremity of Perea, at the top of the Lake Asphaltites, between the dominions of Herod and Aretas, king of Arabia Petraea, and at the time of our history appears to have belonged to the former (Lardner, vi. 483). At the time of the tragedy, Herod was on his route towards the territories of Aretas, with whom he was at war. Bishop Marsh (Lecture xxvi.) remarks, that the soldiers, who are said to have come to John while baptizing in the Jordan, are designated by a term which denotes persons actually engaged in war, not merely soldiers. In the same way, the officer sent to bring John's head bears a military title. These minute indications afford a very strong evidence of the credibility of the sacred narratives. We also see a reason why Herodias was present on this occasion, since she was Herod's paramour, and had, "like another Helen," led to the war.