Lake Genesareth

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter VI: Genesareth

What was it to that occurred at Nazareth when Jesus returned there there?  The Gospel does not tell; but apparently something happened which rendered any carrying in this village either painful or perilous for the Saviour, since Saint John adds immediately: "After that, He descended to Capharnaum with His Mother, His brothers, and His disciples." The uncouth violence of the Nazarenes as was proverbial.  Perhaps they refused to see anything but a clever imposture in the miracle of Cana, and so would force this "son of Joseph" to take Himself out of their country.

From Nazareth to Capharnaum is about a day's journey, which, as indeed may be inferred from Saint John's expression, is only a long descent down the slopes of the hills of Zabulon. The traveller reaches the end of his road, when, on coming out of the Valley of Doves (Ouadi el-Hamâm) he beholds at his feet the Sea of Galilee.  The long and narrowing outlines of the lake’s formation, with the rippling of its waters, suggested the idea of a harp, from which the Hebrews gave it the name Chinnereth.  In the time of Jesus it was often recalled the The Sea of Tiberias; or again, the Lake of Genesareth from the plain, which bloomed and flowered like a garden-bed, encircling its shores.  The Jews, in their admiration for this beautiful sheet of water, hold that the Lord once said: "Seven lakes have I created, yet but one of them have I reserved unto Myself, the Lake of Genesareth." But the renown of this lake rest not so much upon its beauty as upon our memories of Jesus.  Here everything recalls the Master, the waves over which His bark furrowed its way; the fertile banks along which He wandered; the rich harvest-fields; the sea-beach where He was so often to be found seated, sometimes in solitude, sometimes surrounded by the listening throngs.  In the distance you may still see those same bleak, bare mountain-peaks which were the lonely watchman at His hours of prayer.  There is no region which was witness to a greater number of His prodigies, nor one that hearkened for a longer period to His heavenly accents; thereby it is too endeared to all Christian hearts to pass over without striving to bring up a picture of it in our minds.

Lake Genesareth. Fouard.

The Lake of Genesareth is one of the three deep basins which are filled by the waters of the Jordan, on its course to the south.  Though it stretches out to a greater with than the Marsh of Houleh yet it has not the dimensions of that sea of pitch into which the Jordan empties its waters;2 but in the epoch of the Christ, the two lakes formed an astonishing contrast.  Everything round about the one was teeming with life, — its clear depths so well stocked with fish, its outlying lands lovely with flowers and fruit; while over and about the other real ale horror as of death, — with its sluggish sulphurous flow, within only living creature in its floods of bitumen, with its blasted and driven banks.  Nevertheless, each of these wide expanses of plain and water, now so different of aspect, had once rivalled one another in fertility.  When from the highlands of Bethel Lot looked down on the lake of Sodom and the Vale of Siddim, he found them both equally grateful and pleasant to the site, even as the gardens of the Lord and the banks of the Nile.

There were, in fact, the same causes which could not but have produced an equal fertility; for indeed these two seas are nothing but craters of extinct volcanoes, sunken so far within the burning soil that the Jordan, after entering the Lake of Genesareth, ranges to a depth of 191 metres below the level of the Mediterranean.

In such low-lying lands the earth, warmed by sky of fire, while it is refreshed with abundant waters, clothes the fields with every variety of plant.  "The walnut, a tree of colder regions, here springs up majestic, while the palm tree bends beneath its load of fruit, as in the torrid zones.  At their side products of the temperate climes here thrive and flourish, — the grape, the fig, and the olive.  It seems as if Nature had reversed all her laws to gather together in these places everything she has to offer which could presents the most striking contrast, — those rich in their native habits are the most opposite.  The difference seasons here dispute with one another for the sway, and exert their influence simultaneously.  Figs and grapes ripen, without intermission, during ten months, and the other fruits never are damaged by any season of the year."


In this picture it is easy to recognise the touch of a Galilean, proud of his fatherland and its beautiful lake.  There is not a particle of exaggeration in it, however; for even in our days, only let the Bedouins cease from their ravagings for a season, and the traveller will still find the palm trees overshadowing the Lake of Tiberias; in the meadows of Magdala he will see the indigo, the lotus, and sugar cane, while all around the lake still gleams a crimson girdle of laurel roses.

With no less complacency does Josephus boast of the fecundity of the waters.  The fish were so abundant that the fishermen living along its banks could be counted by the hundred; there were even two villages bearing the name of Bethsaïda, (The Fishery House).  Therefore, ever since the partition of Judaea among the sons of Israel, the right of casting nets into the lake had been reserved, as the common privilege of each and every inhabitant, by the law of Moses.  In the time of Jesus thousands of bright sails sparkled over the sea: there were Roman galleys, Herod's fine fleet, and fishermen's craft in plenty.  Today there are only three boats, which lie almost unused by the indolent seamen of Tiberias and Mejdel.

So it was, too, with the cities of the lake; today lying in ruins, formerly so busy and populous.  They were mostly dotted in a close line along the western shore; for on the eastern side the scarped and steep cliffs, rising from the water’s edge, make the shore inaccessible, except by way of the gorges, through which rush the mountain torrents in the winter season.  Of all these towns the city of Tiberias was the most famous.  Herod Antipas had only recently founded it, in honour of his protector Tiberius, and with such sumptuosity of architecture and ornament as the tastes which he had cultivated during his sojourn in Rome now prompted.  However, in his contempt for all Judaic customs, he had erected his Capitol upon the site of an ancient cemetery; and by so doing had closed its portals so far as the Jews were concerned, for they could not enter therein without contamination.  It was useless for him to multiply his solicitations, his favours, his privileges: he never triumphed over the scruples of his people.  Tiberias still remained, for the most part, a city of foreigners, Greeks and Romans who were charmed with their residence more Pagan than Jewish in tone and aspect, with the gilded palace of Antipas, his amphitheatre, and the warm baths of the ancient Ammaüs.  It is more than probable that Jesus never entered the gates of this city, and only from afar did He look upon its snowy ramparts and palaces of marble.

To the north of Tiberias the hill-ranges approach nearer to the shores; and the highway, climbing along a cliff, follows its trend for an hour or so, until it comes out upon the Plain of Genesareth.  There the heights, sweeping back from the sea once more, former natural amphitheatre encircling those fields which the Talmud calls the Paradise of Earth. Genesareth is no longer the fair and fragrant garden through which Jesus wondered long ago; yet now, in its desolation, it still bears delicate traces of its former fertility, in the spring-time covered with flowers, with thickets of laurel-roses overshadowing its brooks, while the thistles roundabout grow to be a veritable coppice, through which it is with difficulty that the traveller can tear a passage-way.

It is to the streams of water which have been so lavishly granted it, that Genesareth owes her garment of flowers.  In the south there is a " Round Fountain" (Medaouarah); in the north, the Spring of the Fig-tree (Aïn et-Tin); in the centre, a stream (which is, in fact, a river), falls sparkling from the mill-wheel of Shoncheh, and gliding through a thousand channels, moistens the fields along their course to the lake.  It seems as if even this wealth of waters was not thought sufficient to freshen Genesareth, for athwart the barrier cliff which rises over the northern part of the plain an aqueduct has been channelled out to divert this way the waters of Tabigah.

Still farther on the banks present a different scene: here the hillside slopes gently down to the lake, while all strong winds are warded off by the thick clumps of caper-trees, tamararisks, and laurels.  But on the summit of the hills and on the farther side of these mountains, there is nothing beside barren and scant pasturages, where a stony surface of basalt stares one in the face.

Such is the general landscape of the country bordering the western shores of the lake.  From Tiberias to the outlet of the Jordan, it forms a curve of nearly four leagues; and it is here that the town's made famous by the gospel are to be found, — Magdala, Capharnaum, Bethsaïda, and Chorozaïn.

Lake Genesareth, from Magdala. J-J Tissot.

The first named is the only one of the cities which can be easily located.  The desolate little village of Mejdel, situated at the southern extremity of the plain of Genesareth, still retains the name of Magdala, — the native place of the Magdalene, from whom Jesus drove seven devils, and who in gratitude for her deliverance followed Him even to the foot of the Cross.

It is more difficult to discover any traces of Capharnaum, "the city of Jesus." Geographers sometimes locate it to the south, it in the Plain of Genesareth, close by Round Fountain, (Aïn Medaouarah); sometimes in the north, in the vicinity of the Fig-tree Spring (Aïn et-Tin); sometimes even in Tell Houm, near the outlet of the Jordan.  The latter is only chosen for the reason that in its neighbourhood are some beautiful ruins, and in its name is contained the last syllable of Capharnaum. Aïn Medaouarah, on the other hand, is too distant from the lake to be regarded as the site of Capharnaum, "on the sea-shore;" and furthermore, in the neighbouring parts there are no remains of any such ruined town.  While, on the contrary, to the south of Aïn et-Tin, rise two masses of ruins, one of which gives certain indications of being a tomb, while far and near as far as Ouadi el-Amoud the ground is strewn with stones and ruins.  It is in this locality that, in harmony with the most ancient traditions, we have placed Capharnaum; for this position alone, or so it seems to us, answers to the descriptions of it in the Gospel, lying in the Plane of Genesareth, close by the lake, within the borders of Zabulon and Nephthali, and upon the high road of the caravans which, coming from the East and from Damascus, would descend by this route into Egypt.

Yet after all it matters little enough what opinion one may cherishas to these geographical questions; for, however uncertain we are as to the precise spot whereon the Christ made His abode, at least we know in what places He dwelt.  It is with perfect assurance that we hold the Plain of Genesareth in veneration, since Jesus once trod its paths; here His bark came to land when He left the opposite shore; just here too the little boat was pushed out from land at the time when, crowds becoming so great about Him, the Master would so order it that all might hear some one of those Parables over which the world will meditate to the end of time.  Somewhere, too, above those meadow-lands which today lie untilled, stood in those days the synagogue where Jesus healed the Demoniac; there too was the residence of Jaïrus, with that of the Centurion to whom He gave back his faithful servant; the dwelling where Simon's mother-in-law lay in all the languor is and pains of fever.  Matthew the publican had his toll-gatherers office on "the highway which skirts the sea," close by that caravansary whose ruins are still visible at Khan Miniëh.

Past the promontory which shuts in the Plain of Genesareth on the north, crossing over a sandy beach strewn with sea-shells, Jesus would find Bethsaïda, the native-place of His disciples Peter, Andrew, Philip, James, and John. Aïn Tabigah today marks its site for us; for Saint Matthew speaks of this village as being on the border of the lake, between Capharnaum and Chorozaïn; and Saint Mark adds that it was near Genesareth.  Now Aïn Tabigah is separated from the Plain only by a little headland; further on, along the shore, there are no traces of any habitations until we come to Tell Houm, and we are presuming that Tell Houm is Chorozaïn.  While, furthermore, there is no position which could have answered better for a fisherman's hamlet.  Here they had a bay sheltered from the winds; there are the mouths of numberless little streams also, whose fall would draw the the great runs of fish; and there was too a smooth strand on which they could beach their boats.  It was here that Jesus was walking when he called the sons of Jonas and Zebedee to Him; it is here that He went aboard of Simon's bark, and miraculously filled his nets to overflowing.

We have said that Tell Houm appears to locate the whereabouts of Chorozaïn.  This region, in fact, is where we find the ruins most numerous, — great columns lying along the ground, the remains of a synagogue which was without a rival in Palestine.  Big blocks of stone whereon the eyes of Jesus rested are still scattered about the foot of the hills, which, from Aïn Tabigah to the outlet of the Jordan, form a graceful border about the Sea of Tiberias.

Bethsaïda, Lake Genesareth. J-J Tissot.

Genesareth, Capharnaum, Bethsaïda, Chorozaïn, or, in a word, the western shore of the lake, in length about three or four leagues, formed therefore the field chosen for the Ministry of Jesus.  This region was the most populous of all Palestine, and nowhere else would the Saviour have found that commingling of races, manners, religions, sects, which made it well deserve its name of Galilee of the Gentiles.  Officers of the court of Herod, Greeks from Decapolis, countrymen, fishers, Galileans, courtesans whom contact with the Pagan cities had corrupted, Syrians, Phoenicians, Orientals, whose caravans were following down "the road that runs along the borders of the sea," soldiers, Roman centurions, set to watch over these tumultuous lands, publicans seated by the highway to collect taxes, — made up of such a motley multitude was the populace through which Jesus passed, and which He was soon to draw after Him.

Then two, as there was no one central point from which His renown could have spread abroad so swiftly throughout all Syria, so also there was no place to place which offered Him more secure retreats in seasons either of weariness or a danger.  In a few hours a boat could bear him to the mountain fastnesses of Gaulanitis, amid whose solitudes He often consecrated whole days and nights to prayer.  A three hours walk from the lake in a northerly direction would bring Him into the kingdom of a just and mild prince, the Tetrarch Philip.  Jesus had only to cross the frontier, should it be needful to shield Himself from any blows from Herod; and He did more than once take this precaution, for that listless monarch had intervals of bloodthirsty activity.  On these occasions we shall see Jesus taking refuge near to the other Bethsaïda in the north where Philip had taken up his abode.  But these periods of absence were of short duration; as soon as Herod had fallen back into his usual indolent mood Jesus would return to His chosen land of Genesareth.
Thus from the testimony of olden times we have tried to rehabilitate that countryside just as it was when long ago Jesus saw and loved it.  Today the traveller coming down to the borderlands about the Sea of Tiberias, with his fancy filled with such memories as these, would be sadly undeceived.  The green pastures, the vines, and the orchards have disappeared; the flourishing towns are only heaps of ruins; jackals slink about the synagogue of Tell Houm, where Jesus taught; the few thorny thickets do not suffice to temper the great heats within these hollow spaces, and the air which one breathes fairly burns with the dry glow.  The lake indeed still shimmers in the sunlight between the long lines of hills, as clear and as calm as it was of old; it reflects the same horizon and the same sky.  And yet all that the scene has lost in grace and in beauty it has gained in savage majesty, nay more, in eloquence, in sooth; for this sea aforetime so brilliant with life, and now doomed to the desolation of death, must recall great thoughts to all who wonder about the solitary stretches of sand along its shores today, thoughts which remind us how terrible it is to reject the word of God and incur His Anathemas.

"Woe to thee Chorozaïn!  Woe to thee, Bethsaïda!  For if Tyre and Sidon had beheld such miracles wrought among them as have been worked in your midst, they would have done penance long since in sackcloth and ashes.  This is why I say to you that Tyre and Sidon in the Day of Judgment shall be dealt with more mercifully than shall you.  And thou, Capharnaum, wouldst thou lift thyself up to the heavens?  Thou shalt be humbled down to Hell; for if the miracles which have been done in thee had been wrought in Sodom, she would perchance be living even to this day.  This is why I say to thee, in the Day of Judgment, the land of Sodom shall be dealt with more mercifully than shalt thou." [Matt. xi. 21-24.]

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Wedding Festivities at Cana

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter V: The Wedding Festivities at Cana

John ii. 1-11

Left with these five disciples Jesus kept on along the road northwards.  Without any train or beasts of burden, they were able to make their camp at Sichem on the first night, taking En-Gannim for the second; and from this point, after crossing the plain of Esdralon, they soon reached Nazareth.  On their arrival they did not find Mary; for "on the third day there was a wedding celebration at Cana of Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there." As He also was invited to take part in their merry-makings, Jesus, in company with His disciples, pushed onwards to Cana that same evening.  It was just at the hour when the ceremonies of the marriage were about to commence, and the Lord, on His arrival, could assist as a guest at the most brilliant spectacle of all, the procession formed by the bridal couple, surrounded by the whole family.4  Sacred writers allude so often to the nuptial festivals, that it would suffice merely to collect the words in which they have referred to them, in order to restore for us the bright pageant which was enacted before the eyes of Jesus.

The bride's preparations for this great today were matters of the weightiest moment.  From the instant she stepped from her perfumed bath, she shed around her such a wealth of fragrance that Solomon compares her, wrapped in her long veils, to a cloud of incense floating over the earth.  These veils are a distinctive feature of the betrothed maiden; not only covering the head, but enwreathing the whole body, and concealing from sight the white and gold-embroidered robe, her jewels, the virgin's girdle, (which no one might unclasp save only the joyous spouse), and the crown of myrtle that encircled her brow.

The young maid, thus attired at the hands of her girl companions, awaited the arrival of the bridal retinue.  By her side the paranymph, or bridesmaid, kept watch with the ten virgins, who must needs accompany her with lamps in their hands.  It was generally at a late hour that the cry rang out: "Behold the bridegroom is here!  Come ye out to meet him!" In those lovely nights of the Orient, which well-nigh surpassed anything our days can boast in the way of soft splendour and delicious balminess, the procession advances, led first by a troupe of singers, their voices mingling with the notes of the flute and a clash of tambourines; while, last of all, comes the bridegroom, gorgeously clad, his forehead wreathed with a golden turban entwined with myrtle and rose.  About him march his ten friends, called "Sons of the Groom," holding palm branches in their hands; while his kinsmen, acting as his escort, bear lighted torches, and the daughters of Israel greet him on every hand with their laughing compliments.  The bridegroom and his companions enter within the dwelling of the young maiden, and, taking her by the hand, he leads her toward the threshold; and here he receives the tables of stone on which is inscribed the dowry; whereupon, in merry marching train, the guests retrace their way back to the house of the fortunate youth.

The Bride and Groom. J-J Tissot.

A banquet is there made ready, which always lasted for many a long an hour, enlivened by the gay enigmas and bright sallies of wit.  A whole week, sometimes even two, slipped by amid such rejoicings; and so, to put somewhat of a check on this immoderate joy, and to recall their minds to thoughts of graver things, it was the custom from time to time, for someone to shatter the wine glasses of the happy pair.  This was indeed to show forth in action that thought of the ancient mime:

"Fortuna  vitrea est, tum quum spendet frangitur."5
(Fortune is of glass; she glitters just at the moment of breaking)

Toute notre félicité,
Sujette à l'instabilité,
En moins de rien tombe par terre:
Et comme elle a l'éclat du verre,
Elle en a la fragilité!


(All our happiness,
Suffering from instability,
In an instant may come down to earth;
And just as it has the sparkle of glass,
It also has its fragility!)

In the time of Jesus, were there the same symbolic rites performed which today are peculiar to Jewish marriages, beside the ceremonies already mentioned, — the long white napkins stretched over the head of the newly wed, who sit with their hands clasped under the veil, while the ring is slipped on the finger of the bride in token of their indissoluble union.  The sacred writings make no mention of these; they only tell how the guests conduct the lady to the nuptial chamber, where her couch was set in state beneath the canopy, sometimes even, (if we make credit Jewish authorities), under a bower of blossoms.

Such were some of the ceremonies at which Jesus was a guest upon "that evening of the third day." In this instance the pomp and splendour were indeed have a somewhat modest degree; for everything seems to indicate that the family which had bidden Jesus as one of their friends was of as humble as station as He: the fact of the wine having given out so early in the feasting; the air of authority with which Mary, the wife of a carpenter, gives her orders; the respect shown her Son, who is invited, although at the time absent from home.  The apparent luxury in the details of the banquet do not really contradict this conclusion; for everything which they might stand in need of, ornaments, rich furnishings, service of all kinds, these even the poorest people could always borrow of their neighbours.

Mary, who had preceded her Son to Cana, had betaken herself thither undoubtedly in order to lend her aid in the necessary preparations; thus she was able to notice how little wine her friends had to dispose of; and so too she was the first to perceive that it was falling short in the very middle of the repast.  It was the unlooked-for arrival of the five disciples which had brought down this disgrace upon the young couple; for, according to an ancient witness on this point, "it happened that the wine gave out in consequence of the great number of guests."

Mary was distressed, and by taking herself to Jesus:

"They have no wine," she said.

Used as she was to seeing her Son anticipate her least wishes, she continued to treat Him as she had always done hitherto, still bearing herself as a Mother who is all-powerful and always to be obeyed.

But now the times were changed.  In order to show Mary that He had ceased to belong to her, yet only that He might be entirely at the will of His Heavenly Father, Jesus refused to pay heed directly to her.

"Woman," He said to her, "what matters it to you and to Me?  My hour has not yet come."

This answer, which sounds so harshly to our ears, has not the same meaning in the Aramean tongue.  It is in frequent use among sacred writers, sometimes to denote a lively objection, sometimes only a simple dissent; both, however, were in perfect consonance with the forms of highest courtesy.  As for the title "Woman," that was, indeed, a term of respect.  In making use of it, Jesus surrendered filial homage to her, whom He loved beyond all other creatures, and whose prayer it cost Him so dear to deny.

And, furthermore, we must needs supply to this bare refusal some words which John Evangelist either did not hear, or at least has omitted to report; for we see in the sequel that the response of the Saviour, far from disheartening Mary, gave her yet fuller assurance.

On the instant she gave orders to the servants to hold themselves in readiness at His word:
"Anything that He may say to you, do it."

The Miracle at Cana. J-J Tissot.

They had not long to delay.  The last drops of wine had been poured out; there was nothing now left for the young couple except to make a humiliating avowal wall of their insufficient stores.  Now there were standing close at hand six great urns of stone, covered with branches, as is the custom in the East, in order to keep the water cool and fresh.  These vessels, each containing two or three firkins,9 were kept in readiness for the guests, who were required not only to wash their feet before touching the linen and drapery of their couches, but even during the meal frequently to purify their hands.  Already there had been many of these ablutions performed, and the urns were being rapidly emptied.  At a word from Jesus, the servants filled them with water to the brim.

"Draw out now," said the Lord, "and bear it to the Master of the Board." This was one of the guests, selected to preside over the feasting and to keep watch so that there might be nothing lacking.  The serving-men presented him with the drinking-cup.  He tasted the water changed to wine, without knowing whence it came.  Those who had drawn it out were not ignorant; but even so, the stupor that had fallen on them at sight of such a prodigy now enchained their tongues.

The master of the festal board called to the bridegroom:

"Every man," said he, " serves a good wine first, and when someone has over-drunk, then he serves up what is not so good.  But you, why, you have kept the best until this hour!"

This bantering allusion to drinkers who dull the edge of their taste by over-much indulgence, the familiar hint anent the usual excesses at other wedding banquets, where there is not, (just as here there was), permeating the feeling of all a sense of some Divine Influence present amongst them, all this shows that the supposition arrived at by the master of the entertainment was that the young host had wished to surprise the company agreeably.  But at once, to his amazement, the latter was made aware that a wondrous deeds had been accomplished.  His eyes turned to the servers, to Mary.  Then in a few words all was disclosed.  Jesus had performed His first Miracle.

He did it to console a few Galileans, whose very names still remain unknown, and in order to sanctify the bond of Marriage, which was to become, in His Church, a sacramental union.  He did it to teach the world, which gives its best of first and leaves the dregs at the bottom of the cup, that the Christ would not so deal with us, — that He would reserve for eternity that wine of the elect which will inebriate us with holy raptures.  And finally, He did it at the prayer of Mary, whose faith, thus tested by a first refusal, shone out in its strength only the more triumphantly.

"Here then took place," the Evangelist adds, "the first sign given by Jesus, being given at Cana in Galilee; and thus He manifested His Glory, and His disciples believed in Him." This word "sign" tells us what the Miracles of the Saviour were for John, — the manifestation left of His Divinity.  Elsewhere he goes so far as to call them the "works" of the Christ, as if prodigies were but the natural Attribute of Him, in Whom resideth almighty powers, and that the real miracle would be, not for God, whose name is Wonderful, to do wondrous things, but for Him not to do them.  And so the miracles which Jesus will work beneath our eyes should only be for us as signs and tokens, as the lustrous rays of His Divinity piercing through the veils of the flesh.  In those moments which will sometimes come upon us, when the humiliations of the Word Incarnate do well-nigh shake our faith, and force from us that cry of bewilderment: "Why, what is there Godlike in all this?" Then at once the answer should spring to our lips: "His Miracles declare His might; and in these flashes of power He stands forth revealed, as in the fierce white glare of the lightning, the almighty Son of God."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

John the Baptist’s Testimony, and the First Disciples of Jesus

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter IV: John the Baptist’s Testimony, and the First Disciples of Jesus

John i. 19-52.

All the while that Jesus was sustaining that struggle in the desert John continued to preach along the banks of the Jordan.  The gatherings grew every day greater, the enthusiasm more intense.  Very soon it was spread abroad that a heavenly Voice had marked out One from among the penitents, and that the Baptist had cried aloud to the multitudes: "Behold Him of Whom I have said: There cometh after me a Man Who hath been set over me, because He was before me."

John and the delegates. J-J Tissot.

So, though they had been for a long time indifferent to anything said by this rude preacher, who vouchsafed only anathemas and rebuffs to the princes of Israel, yet at last the members of the Sanhedrin were aroused by these rumours which arose from all round about him.  Ablution was to be one of the tokens of the Mission of the Christ.  They began therefore to question whether John might not be the Messiah, or at least one of the Prophets who were to announce Him.  In order to clear up this doubt the Supreme Council dispatched some of its members to the Precursor.  Those chosen for this office were priests; because all that pertained to the ablutions lay within the province of the sacerdotal body; and the delegates were also taken from the sect of the Pharisees, noted for their scrupulous respect for all such observances.  Certain of the Levites acted as a sort of escort in order to enhance the dignity of the embassy.

"Who are you?" asked the ambassadors.

"John confessed it, and denied it not; and he confessed that he was not the Christ." The Evangelist by this repetition shows with what insistence that Precursor reiterated his testimony before the Sanhedrin’s envoys:

"I the Christ!  I am not; no, I am not He."

" What, then?" Was the response; "are you Elias?"

"No," answered John.

"Are you the Prophet?" they said to thereupon, making allusion to the Seer of whom Moses had told them.

"No," replied John.

"Who are you, then?" persisted the members of the Sanhedrin, "in order that we may render an account to those who sent us here.  What do you say of yourself?"

"I am the Voice of one who crieth in the desert: Make straight the ways of the Lord!  Has had said the Prophet Isaiah."

This response, far from touching the Pharisees, seemed to them incompatible with the right of preaching and of purifying by ablution, which John claimed for himself.

"Why do you baptise," they said, "if you are neither the Christ, nor Elias, nor the Prophet?"
John replied: "As for me, I baptise in water; but there has been One in your very midst Whom you knew not.  He cometh after me, He who hath been set above me; and I am not worthy to loosen the latchet of His shoes."

Such steadfastness and humility before one greater than himself disconcerted the councillors of the Sanhedrin, who turned away, disdaining to interrogate him any further.

"These things took place at Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptising," that is to say, opposite Jericho, as we have seen, and at one of the fords which allow of the stream being crossed near that city.

Behold the Lamb of God. J-J Tissot.

The Saviour, on His descending from the Mount of the Temptation, would find His way naturally to the same spot.  Indeed upon the morrow John saw him coming towards him.

"Behold the Lamb of God!" he said; "behold Him Who beareth the sins of the world!"

This was enough to recall to the minds of the Jews who surrounded him the oracle uttered by Isaiah: "the lamb standing dumb before his shearers, the Man of Sorrows, Who shall bear the sins of the people."

"Look," continued the Precursor, "see, and behold Him of Whom I have said: ‘There cometh after me a Man Who hath been set above me, because He was before me.’  And I knew Him not; yet I am come, giving you the baptism of water, that so He may be made manifest in Israel."

Plain as these words were, they did not impel any one of those who heard them, on that same day at least, to follow Jesus.  The impression which they produced was soon effaced; only a certain few souls cherished the presentiment that salvation was close at hand, and began to turn their eyes to the Saviour.

As for the Baptist, he was so used to waiting at the divine action that he left all for grace to operate upon the people, contenting himself with simply showing them the Lord, Who must need call unto Himself those whom He willed, and at what hour He willed to have them come.

The calling of Andrew and John. J-J Tissot.

On the following day John was walking with two of his disciples when Jesus passed on before them.  The Precursor, casting upon Him a glance of infinite meaning, in which shone deep love as well as wondering awe, thus gazing after Him, exclaimed:

"Behold the Lamb of God!"

Then these two disciples he yielded to the prompting of those words, which had touched them so nearly the night before, and they parted company with John to go after Jesus.  The Saviour very soon turned about, and seeing that they were following Him, He said: "Whom are are you seeking?"

"Rabbi, where do you dwell?" was their reply.

The title they gave the Unknown and this demand of the disciples both declared what hunger and thirst for the truth filled their hearts.

"Come and see," said Jesus.  And they went with him and saw where He dwelt.

The Lord was living in one of the huts which were then built along the banks of the Jordan; perhaps it was merely one of those shelters woven from the boughs of turpentine and palm trees, beneath which the traveller spreads his mantle of hairy skins.  It was about four in the afternoon, (the tenth hour14), when the disciples entered the abode of Jesus, and "they passed the rest of the day with Him." The Evangelist does not tell us of their conversation, which was doubtless prolonged until it came to be one of those intimate communions most dear to holy souls, and from which they issue forth filled with new strength and light, with the unassailable certitudes that God has revealed Himself to them.  When night came on the two disciples were gained unto Jesus; they had recognized in Him the Prophet, — a greater than Moses, Him for Whom Israel had been waiting for so many ages.

One of these young men who in this way came to be the first to attach themselves to Jesus was Andrew, the fishermen of Galilee, born on the shores of lake Genesareth.  The second was no other than John Evangelist.  It is easy to divine this fact from his characteristic modesty, which makes him here, as elsewhere, conceal even his name; beside this there is the minuteness of the narrative, which enters into the slightest details, even to making note of the hour in which Jesus drew these first disciples to Him.

Simon, Andrew’s brother, and a fisherman like him, had also quitted the Lake of Genesareth to go down to the Jordan. Andrew came across him.
"We have found the Messiah," he said, that is to say, the Anointed, the Christ, and he brought him to Jesus.
The Saviour looked long upon him.  In this Galilean He saw the immovable Rock on which he would build His Church.

"Thou art Simon, son of Jonas," He said to him; "hereafter thou shalt be called Kephas." And this signifies, translating the Hebrew names of which the Lord makes use: Thou art Simon, — child of a dove, feeble and timorous as she, but hereafter thou shalt be impregnable as the cliff in which she finds her hiding-place; or again: Thou art the son of feebleness; hereafter thou shalt be firm as a rock,  —a play on words made sublime by their depth of meaning, and by the effects which followed upon their utterance; for from that same hour they began the slow working of a wondrous change within the son of Jonas, which was to discover itself to the whole world shortly.

The Church, at its birth, numbered already three members eager to spread abroad their faith.  Not far from the spot there was still another Galilean, named Philip; "he was of Bethsaïda, the village of Andrew and Peter."The Lord encountered him on the morrow, when he was preparing for his departure to Galilee.

Routes north to Nazareth from Jericho.

"Follow Me!" He said to him, thus inviting him to share henceforth His life and His sufferings.
Philip only vaguely understood what was implied in this vocation; notwithstanding, so docile was he that he abandoned himself to grace and followed Jesus.

There were two ways of returning to Nazareth open to the Saviour.  The one made its way through Scythopolis and by the sea of Tiberias, keeping to the banks of the Jordan; but the Galileans only took this road, which wound along the riverbanks, when they wanted to avoid the territory of the Samaritans.

Whenever the animosity of these people had for a time subsided they preferred a shorter road, which ascends by Bethel, and thence by Sichem and En-Gannim, coming out upon the Plain of Esdralon.  A few months later we shall see Jesus taking this direction on His return to Jerusalem, and stopping at Sichem, close by Jacobs Well; but outside the season of Israel's feasts this route was fraught with no perils, and the Saviour would therefore choose it for the journey from Jericho to Canaan.

Nathanaël under the fig-tree. J-J Tissot.

Having reached the heights of the hills of Ephraim the little company were passing through Bethel and the meadows which had once witnessed at the Vision of Jacob, when they perceived a Jew seated beneath a fig-tree.  It was Nathanaël,16 the friend of Philip, who was to become the fifth disciple of the Saviour.

The son of Tolmaï, (Bar-Tolmaï), He, this newly elected, was of a lineage more noble and the other four, and apparently he always retained something of an air of distinction in the midst of the rest; just as he is represented, in the paintings of the Middle Ages, with his purple mantle broidered with precious stones.  He was versed in sacred literature, and perhaps he was meditating their beneath the fig-tree; for the Jews were wont to seek the shade of this tree at the "Hour of Prayer."

Philip called to him, telling him: "We have found Him Who Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, have announced; it is Jesus, the Son of Joseph of Nazareth!"

Of Nazareth!  This name awoke at once in the mind of Nathanaël an invincible objection.  Was it not written that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem?  What was to be expected of them and hailing from an obscure village, of ill repute, and in Galilee?

"Of Nazareth!" He replied; "can anything good come from there?"

Philip still believed that Nazareth was the birthplace of Jesus, and of Joseph, His father; he did not know how to respond to the difficulties made by his friend; but with unshaken faith, all he could say was: "Come and see!"

They were indeed the very words of the Master which he repeated then; for he knew what had been their power over Andrew and John, and availed himself of them as though they were some divine charm to lure Nathanaël.

Bartholomew. J-J Tissot.

So soon as the Saviour saw the latter coming toward Him: "Behold a true Israelite,"He said, "a man in whom there is no guile!"
The Jews preferred this name of Israelite to any other; for, if they must needs share the glory of being the children of Abraham and Isaac with the sons of Ismaël (the Arabs), and of Esaü, (the Idumeans), on the other hand they were the sole descendants of Jacob, and this his name Israël, as it was got by conquest in a struggle where the fate of their common father had triumphed with God, so it ever remained in their eyes as the most splendid title of national glory.

What a meed of praise those words bestow!  What is there more to be desired than to recognise within one's self this true righteousness, and know that one is "of that Israel which is not of the flesh, but of God?"

Nathanaël, in his surprise at seeing himself already known, replied with quiet candour: "How do you know me?"

"Before Philip called thee," said the Saviour, "when thou worked under the figure-tree, I saw thee."

Evidently Jesus then made an allusion to something that had occurred under the tree, before Philip called to him, — some action which must be still a secret to us, but one which was as well known to Him as it was to Nathanaël.  By recalling it, the Lord revealed Himself as the Divine Seer, Whose glance pierces all mysteries.

"Master," cried out Nathaniel, "You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!"
The Jews only needed to meditate upon the inspired sayings of Scripture, in order to be convinced that in God there are several Persons, and that the Messiah was to be God.  Nevertheless, they habitually use the term "Son of god," as though it meant sons ship by adoption, and hence they attributed this title to the Angels, to the princes of Israel and to men distinguished for their pious or noble natures.  This ignorance as to the Mystery of the Trinity, and their attachment to the dogma of their Divine Unity, prevented most of them from believing that the Messiah could be God, as is He Who sent Him; and so we see them, even in the time of the Saviour, welcoming mere individuals as Christs, only asking that they free Judaea from her yoke, without troubling themselves at all whether they were the sons of God.  Nay more, this title which Jesus took as His Own was a most scandalous act in the eyes of His contemporaries.  When they accused Him of blasphemy, when they would have liked to stone Him, it was always when the Lord declared Himself the Son of God, equal to His Father and One with Him.  And when the Sanhedrin passes sentence upon Him, they give as their reason, "that in accordance with our Law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God".  The Jews generally did not expect a Divine Messiah, and there is very little likelihood that Nathanël, before being instructed by the Saviour, would have recognized him as the Son of God, by Nature consubstantial with the Father

These two titles explain each other.  Nathanaël did not make use of the first as meaning that Jesus was the Son of God by nature, equal and consubstantial with His Father; but he recognised in Him the object of His nation's vows, the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Jacob's Ladder. J-J Tissot. Jewish Museum.

Jesus followed out the thought: "Because I have said to the that I saw thee beneath the fig-tree, thou dost believe; thou shalt see things greater still.  Of a truth, ay, of a truth," He repeated, "thou shalt see the heavens opened,20 and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
As we have hinted, the hills of Bethel undoubtedly suggested this allusion to the Lord.

Therefore, that which Israel had once beheld in this very land on which they know trod, but had seen only in a dream, this it was given to Nathanaël, the true Israelite, to contemplate in reality: the heavens thrown open, to shower down grace divine; Jehovah, no longer afar off, on the cloud-hung apex of the celestial ladder, but pitching His tent in the midst of us; earth united to Heaven, by ties not visionary but everlasting, by the communion of those Angels who ascend to God, bearing unto Him the prayers of men, and again descend to us, the bearers of His blessing.

And this saintly commerce was no far-away hope held out to their longing hearts; for from that very hour Jesus commenced His Office of Mediator.


He has given us assurance of this by the affirmation, — the form of which Saint John has preserved for us, and which so well befitted Him Who is the eternal Amen: "Amen, Amen,22 I say unto you: you shall see the heavens opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Temptation

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter III: The Temptation

Matt. iv. 1-11; Mark I. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1-13.

The Holy Spirit had rested upon Jesus, not only to bear witness outwardly to the grace which abounded within Him, but to exercise an active influence over Him.  And therefore, so soon as the Christ had received this consecration, He was "led by the Spirit," Saint Matthew recounts; "impelled," says Saint Luke; "thrust out," “borne away, driven "into the desert," according to Saint Mark.  The energy of the terms chosen by the Evangelists plainly indicates that though the Spirit of God never failed to guide the steps of the Saviour, yet there was, here and now, a more sensible and lively motion than was customary up on the part of the Holy Ghost.

Mons Quarantania, north-west of Jericho. Public domain.

Mount Quarantania, Arabic name: Jabal al-Quruntul, from its Crusader name, Mons Quarantania, a mountain approximately 366 metres (1,201 ft) high, towering from the northwest over the town of Jericho in the West Bank.Halfway up to the top of the mount is the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Temptation or "Deir al-Qarantal" in Arabic.

Intrusting Himself to this Divine Compulsion the Lord went up into the desert.  By this name all the traditions understand a certain hill to the west of Jericho, which now bears the name of the Fortieth (Quarantine), in memory of the Fasting of Jesus, rising above the Fountain of Eliseus, its sides all honeycombed with caves.  Long ago, whole communities of hermits dwelt there, anxious to lead their solitary life in imitation of their Redeemer, in the very spot where He consecrated, by His example, the way of abstinence and prayer.

But no monastic discipline ever equalled in austerity the penance done by Jesus; for it was in the midst of winter that he buried himself in that retreat, at a time when the wilderness is more desolate than ever, the very skies are pitiless, and the trees are bare of fruit, and stripped of their leafy screens.  Here He abode in an entire solitude, "alone with the wild beasts," surrounded by lions and leopards, which lurk in the thickets of the Jordan, amid the jackals whose mournful howling is still heard among the mountains.  And they harmed Him not; for the creatures are but armed against the sinful race, and the Holiness of Jesus held absolute sway over their savage natures.

But it was to attain far other triumphs than these that the Saviour had gone up into the desert.  He had come hither that He might be tempted.  The New Adam, He was come to take up the combat at the point where the first had failed and fled, and to turn defeat into victory.  Yet what manner of trial was this with which He must needs make issue?  Must we really, with the rationalists, treat it all as a vision, in which the Christ, like the heroes of ancient fable, was given to choose between the paths of Virtue and of Vice?  Did the Saviour, in relating His Temptation two His disciples, represent it as being merely an allegory?  There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest such a thought; and it is only by the preconceived idea of stripping the scene of everything marvellous that one can be brought to consider it otherwise than as an actual happening.

However it is a profitless effort at best; for what astounds us in the inspired record is not so much the wonders wrought, then and there, as it is the simple fact of a the God being tempted.  Theology has no problem to offer as requiring more delicate discrimination in its solution.  Could the world have any thing wherewith to seduce a Divine Nature?  Where was the merit in such a victory for a Soul which could not sin? At every step the mind must halt before the brink of an abyss, and of necessity we must acknowledge that here the mystery of the Incarnation presents one of its features which still remains shrouded in deepest obscurity to mortal ken.

Without pretending to illuminate those infinite depths, we ought to make it clearly understood, however, that the greatest difficulty comes from the idea, ordinary entertained, that the Temptation of Jesus was like to ours.  There is scarcely any appetite for evil in us which does not leave some traces of its passage through our souls.  Let the wretched thought be as swift as may be, the first movement of the heart is too often as if she would detain it.  There was nought of this in Jesus; for having taken no part in the perversion of our humanity, he could not know those desires which awake within us without our consent, and which are nevertheless our own, because we can detect therein either the promptings of past faults, or the seed sown by inherent concupiscence.  Jesus was but tempted outwardly, by an imagery and eloquence appealing most strikingly to the senses, yet without the possibility of such attractions hurting His Soul or staining it.  If clear water be absolutely free from all impurity, the rudest shock will not at all disturb or sully its sweet limpidity; yet if it do rest upon a miry bottom, the least movement will suffice to drabble it.  Thus it is with Jesus and with us; those same storms in which our sinful natures oftenest suffer a shipwreck could only asault and buffet Him; they could not soil the purity of the Son of Mary.

Incorruptible in the bosom of corruption, none the less was Jesus made acquainted with the struggles of our daily warfare, even as He tasted all the glories of such victory.  His resistance, which was that of a hero in this Temptation in the desert, — which later on in the Garden of Gethsemane was unto the shedding of blood,— this divine hardihood was then, and will ever continue to be, His eternal merit.  And that we may better comprehend it, it is important to remember that His time of trial was not limited to the three assaults whose details are known to us, but that it was an issue consuming all of the forty days during which Jesus remained in the desert.  During all that time He was tempted: "And now He can have compassion upon our infirmities, for, without sinning, He has been subject to all our temptations."

It was also a season of penance for the Saviour, through which He passed without eating or drinking.  It would seem that during that long fast, wrapped in prayer and inward strife, He remained unconscious of the needs of the body; "but when the forty days were spent, He was hungry," and the Demon profited by that hour weakness to attack Him in person.  And of what semblance did he present himself before Jesus?  Was it as a Spirit of darkness, as an Angel of light, or with the features of man?  This the Lord did not disclose; and there is little to be gained for us by forming any conjectures.

Not less clouded in obscurity is the character of the conflict in which such mighty powers were brought to battle.  Was there only that threefold attack of sensuality, vainglory, and ambition?  Surely to concede only such people weapons as these two Satan, now in arms against his Lord, were to underrate the artifice and cunning of the Fiend.  Though the Saviour passed through all our common trials, yet all that was during the forty days which preceded the last combat; at this hour, wherein the Prince of Darkness entered the lists, it would be only natural to expect that the allurements would take on somewhat of nobility commensurate with Him toward Whom they were directed, and at the same time something super-subtile and strange worthy of the fallen Angel, whose wiles were all exerted then.  The aim of the Tempter seems to be betrayed even in his questions.  He wanted to know surely who Jesus was; for that keen intellect, which still remained in spite of his overthrow as clear as ever, had seen in the Divine Counsels that his ruin and the salvation of the world would be consummated on the day when the Son of God should become Incarnate.

Man does not live by bread alone. J-J Tissot.

So then he approached the Saviour: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread!"

The snare was worthy of the hand that fashioned it.  Satan did not offer to those eyes hollowed by long fasting, to the lips parched with first, to that famished body, the enticement of luscious fruits or savoury meats.  He was content to remind Him Whom no lust could have mastered that He, the Son of God, held nature at His beck, and that one word from Him would suffice to change the stones into bread.  Was it befitting that the Christ should perish of hunger in this wilderness, where Heaven seemed to have abandoned Him?  Was it not high time to have recourse to His almighty Attributes?

But Jesus could not forget that it was the will of His Father that He use this power of miracles, which belonged to Him, not four Himself, but for others.  With one word He thrust back the Tempt are:

"It is written: Man does not live by bread alone, but way every word which comes from the mouth of God.
"You shall remember," Moses had said to them, "the ways whereby the Lord has led you during these 40 years to afflict you and try you, in order that He might lay bare all that was hidden in your hearts, and that hether you woud be constant or unfaithful to His Commandments.  He has afflicted you with hunger, and He has given you Manna, a foodunknown to you and your fathers, to show you that man does not live by bread only, but by all things which proceed from the mouth of God."  Deut.viii. 2, 3.

Even as Israel was nourished with Manna during the forty years in the desert,2 so the Christ would entrust Himself to the Divine Loving-kindness, seeking above all else that support of the soul, which is the Word of God, His Truth.

Jesus had not responded to that query: "If you are the Son of God;" but the Devil knew that a superior being stood before him, in all likelihood the Messiah promised to Israel.  Thereafter he had but one intention, to bring the Christ to unveil His Mission, and there by His nature.

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. J-J Tissot.

Therefore he transported Him to the Holy City, and placed Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple.  Then, pointing to the crowds which thronged its courts, He insinuated that the Saviour might well perform some notable prodigy in the sight of His people.

"If you are the Son of God," he said "cast your self below; for it is written that He has given command to His Angels to keep guard over you, and they shall bear you up in their hands, for fear lest your feet should strike against a stone."

To descend encircled by Angels, to appear before the upturned eyes of men in this celestial pomp, would not this be to compel their wondering worship and to draw all hearts unto Him?  Satan could not have conceived a temptation more alluring to the Messiah than was this, and that he might render it irresistible he fortified it by the very language of Scripture.

Vain and useless wiles; for Jesus was come to irradiate the eyes, not of the flesh, but of the spirit, and to conquer souls by a grace unknown to the haughty.  So He was content to add: "It is written also: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

"Then they Devil transported Him to the top of a tall mountain, whence he showed unto Him in an instant all the empires of the world and their glory.

"I will give you all this power," he said, "and the glory of these kingdoms; for I have them in my dominion, and I distribute them to whom I will, all these things shall be yours, if, falling down before me, you will adore me."

We would not attempt to imagine what the surroundings of that last scene in the Temptation were like; for from the summit of the Quarantine, pointed out by the primitive traditions as the locality, the view only extends from Libanus to the desert of Tekoa; while of course it were useless to look for any height whence in the twinkling of an eye one can embrace all the kingdoms of the world.

I will give you all this power.  J-J Tissot.

But if we are to see in the very high mountain only a figure of that power over the whole face of the world which the Demon arrogates to himself, still we may ask what is the nature of this his empire, whereof we see today only too signal proofs, and what object had he been view by thus tendering it to the Christ?  Did he hope to see Him prostrate Himself at his feet?  Such blindness as this can hardly be attributed to Lucifer.  In this assault of the Tempter, there is evidently nothing but despair at seeing himself overcome by that man, though it be the Man-God; and hence we have his cry of rage and madness.  Satan asks no more: "Art Thou the Son of God?" For him there was no longer any room left for doubt; but now, made certain of his downfall, he sought at least to gratify his hate, and so blasphemed openly before the Presence.  His last speech upon the mountain is but an echo of that cry of revolt which of old he had flung in the face of Heaven itself.  "I will ascend," he had said long since, "and I will be like unto the Most-High!"

At sight of this monster of pride, Jesus, so calm until then, might well have felt a movement of horror.

"Begone, Satan!" He said to him; "for it is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."

The Demon had discharged his last darts.  "All the Temptation being accomplished, he departed from Him for a time," until the hour of the Passion, until that desolation upon the Cross, when for the last time he was to attack Jesus with all the fury of despair.  During the public life of the Saviour we shall see him retaining such a vivid memory of this first defeat that he is fain to fly distraught from His Presence, now grovelling at His feet, while he confesses His Divinity, now crying out to Him in his terror: "Wherefore comest Thou to destroy us before the time?" Now beseeching Him for the bodies of swine, as a last and only refuge.

Angels drew nigh unto Jesus, and they served Him. J-J Tissot.

After the tempest, sweeping wildly over the Mount of the Temptation, suddenly, after the storm was spent, there came a great calm; "the Angels drew nigh unto Jesus, and they served Him." Jewish legends tell how Moses, during his forty days of fasting on Sinai, was nourished by a wondrous harmony, the hymning of the spheres.  Of yet more celestial concord was the banqueting of the Saviour, since He had for ministers unto Him those Spirits of light before whom the stars of the firmament wax pale and wan, and are hushed in silence.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Mission of John the Baptist: Part III

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

The Mission of John the Baptist

Matt. iii. 1-17; Mark I. 1-11; Luke iii. 1-22.

He whom John announced under such animated imagery followed close upon the footsteps of His Herald.  The Baptist, as we have remarked already, began his ministry in the month of September, with the beginning of the Sabbatic Year; three months after this Jesus appeared upon the banks of the Jordan.  According to the primitive conditions they were then in the middle of winter; for the mild climate of Jericho committee John to pursue his practice of immersion during the season.

Although united by ties of kinship, Jesus and His Forerunner do not seem to have had any intercourse until this time.  One had grown up in Galilee, the other in the desert.  "I did not know Him,"1 is said twice, in fact, by John the Baptist, " but He Who hath sent me to baptize with water said to me: 'He upon Whom you shall see the Holy Ghost coming down and abiding with Him, He it is Who baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.'" Watching solely for the fulfilment of this promise, John awaited the covenanted signal from on high.

But even before this marvel did actually take place, the Prophet recognized Jesus.  It may have been by revelation from Heaven; it may have been buy some divine lineaments making the Master known to His messenger.  The Lord had followed the throng of Galileans to the Jordan; He was therefore surrounded by the surging crowds when He was seen by the Precursor.  John had thought to finish his ministry when the Christ should appear; so what must have been his or and wonder when he saw Him descending into the waters of the stream with the penitence, and heard Him asked for baptism at his hands!

" I ought to be baptiseth by Thee," he exclaimed, " and dost Thou come to me!" and he withstood Him.

"Suffer me to do this now," thus it behoveth us to fulfill all justice."

It was indeed the Decree of Heaven that the Christ you do if face our sins by placing Himself among the ranks of commons sinners.

The Baptism of Christ. J-J Tissot.

John resisted no longer, but immersed Jesus in the Jordan; and lo, at the moment when the Lord arose from the waters, and was in prayer, the heavens were thrown open, the Holy Ghost came down upon Him in the form of a Dove, and rested over Jesus; at the same time a Voice came from the far heights, which said: "This is My dearly beloved Son, in Whom I am always well pleased."

This Vision does not seem to have attracted the attention of the Jews towards Jesus.  Without doubt they did not hear the Voice of God, but only, as it were, a noise as of thunder; but John could not have misapprehended the Spectacle which was intended for his eyes alone.  In that instant he perceived all that appeals to our reverend thoughts of it, the Trinity made manifest to man for the first time: the Father in the Voice falling from the heavens, the Son in Jesus, the Holy Ghost in the Dove, symbol of grace, whose reign was now begun in the world.  Then, too, he saw the waters of earth sanctified by the presence of the Christ, receiving of Him the power to purify souls in baptism. Then he saw Jesus proclaimed the Son of God, that Son of Whom the Psalmist sang,3 begotten in the Bosom of God before the day-star and the sunrise were conceived.

Gilgal - site of camp after people crossing Jordan on dry ground. Grollenberg. Atlas of Bible. 1956.

Drawn thither by memories such as these, a caravan of some six or seven thousand pilgrims every year leaves the Holy City, in the Paschal Season, to go down to the Jordan; at its head marches the Pasha of Jerusalem, and a Turkish escort wards off the robbers, who still infest the defiles just as they did in the days of the good Samaritan.  These throngs, of most various complexion and costume, make their camp at evening near Gilgal, in the place where the Israelites long since pitched their tents, after having crossed the stream.  On the morrow, two hours before dawn, the clang of the kettle-drums awakens the multitude; thousands of torches flare up over the plain, and the crowds are far along on their road before the heat of the day becomes insupportable.  The first rays of the sun there are just gilding the mountain tops of Moab, when the great Caravan arrives at the spot where the Jordan is of easy access; horses, asses, mules, camels (which sometimes carry a whole family), pick out the pathway through the brushwood, and so, wading out in the current, the pilgrims perform their pious of ablutions.

Formerly, at that place, long marble slabs beautified the banks, and a Cross rose out of the midst of the waves above the very spot where Jesus was baptiseth.  Priests went before the pilgrims into the waters, to sanctify them with solemn prayers, casting balm and flowers on the stream; then only did the faithful step down into the river, clad in a garment which they afterwards took away with them, and in which they were robed in death.

These customs are now but a dim-remembered story.  The churches, the monasteries, once so numerous along the banks, today only encumber them with their ruins; while the pilgrims who bathed in the stream are no longer sons, as of old, submissive to their Mother.  Greeks, Copts, Jacobites, Armenians, all have rent asunder the seamless robe of the Church, and display before the eyes of the Mussulmans those piteous divisions which they have made in the Kingdom of Christ.  Nevertheless they all, by this common homage paid to the Jordan and to Jesus, bear witness to the fact that in these lands the Saviour once besought His Father that the one Baptism and one only Faith might regenerate the world.  This Prayer, uttered by Him unto whom the Heavens hearkened "for the reverence which was His due,"4 may not be denied for ever.  The time will come, would that it might be soon!  When all Christian peoples will plunge once more into the rivers of Jordan to be made one in Jesus, without a shadow of reserve, in a perfect Unity of faith, hope and love.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

The Mission of John the Baptist: Part II

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

The Mission of John the Baptist

Matt. iii. 1-17; Mark I. 1-11; Luke iii. 1-22.

Jericho and Bethany, near the Jordan.

In fact this stream (the Jordan: from Iarden, Iarad, “to descend”: well deserved its name; for in numberless windings it has channelled out a bed which continually deepens as it flows along), bears a singular aspect, because of its flowing along between uninhabited banks.  No craft ever furrows its waters; no town is builded along its brink.  The valley through which it rushes on its way is called by the Greeks the Channel, (The Aulon), and by the Arabs the Gorge, (The Ghor).1  It merits both these names; now extending itself to some width, then again intrenched between the mountainsides which overhang it.  In the middle way lies a long gulley, forming the bed of the Jordan, which flows along hidden beneath the leafy screen of willows and azaroles.(species of hawthorn)  At a distance this green line, winding through the barren pass, is all that there is to indicate the presence of the stream.

The Prophet generally remained near some ford; for he baptised by immersion, and everywhere else the steeper river banks make it difficult of access.  John the Evangelist, at this point, speaks of a place named "Bethany or Betharaba, over beyond the Jordan." Both these words signify alike a "the House at the Passage," and hence we know that the river used to be crossed at this spot.  The tradition which locates this ford opposite Jericho says that Jesus received baptism here, together with a great number of those who had come from the south.  John remained a long time at Bethany, for that route was frequented by the Jews who travelled between Perea and Jerusalem.  Only toward the end of his life do we see him ascending the course of the stream, as far as œnon (The Springs); this was near Salem, and above the Pass of Succoth, over which Jacob crossed on his return from Mesopotamia.  So that, with Jericho on the south, oenon to the north, keeping to the valley of the Jordan, we have marked out for us the region within which John preached and baptised.  He exercised his ministrations there with entire freedom, passing from one bank to the other, but without ever withdrawing far from the streams of water, which were necessary for baptism and the symbol of his Mission.

It is often asked whence the Precursor borrowed this rite, and some believe that it is to be connected with the ablutions which were ordained for Jewish proselytes.  But why need we look to an origin so uncertain as is this?  What moved John with the desire of baptising was, in the first place, the example of those frequent purification commanded by the Laws; but, most of all, the exhortations of the Prophets, which urged them to wash away the stains of sin from their souls, while they thus purified their bodies.  John's Baptism was only figurative of this cleansing of the heart, and, to make it clear that true contrition must penetrate through all secret recesses of the soul of man, the Precursor chose to immerse the whole body of the sinner.
One other ordeal was enjoined upon his penitents by the Baptist, — that of a confessing their sins.  The sacred text seems to insinuate that he even made it an express condition of baptism.  Did it only go so far as an acknowledgement that all men are sinners?  Christian antiquity never tolerated any such belief, for it was in remembrance of the Confession prescribed by John that the catechumens made a voluntary declaration of their sins.

And, after all, the persuasions by which John incited them to penance leave no doubt as to the motive animating his thought.  It is all summed up in these words:
"Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh unto you!"

The Kingdom of Heaven, no longer the kingdom upon earth, of which Israel was in expectation.  The Jewish doctors, deluded by their own chimeras, had but travestied that expression, "the Kingdom of Heaven," by making it portend the temporal triumph of the Messiah; but John restored to it its real significance, and by this proclaimed the divine character of the coming reign.

This message thrilled them with all the more emotion since everything about the Baptist spoke to their souls insistently, moving them to true contrition.  He was a Voice, — "a Voice crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." He was listened to by the sons of Israel, who were just then celebrating a solemn Sabbatical Year, and so, during the leisure hours of those holy days of rest, felt their hearts turned with deeper yearnings than ever before for the coming of the Messiah.  More than that, (let us never lose sight of this fact), there are certain times when grace moves upon the spirit of this world in more notable abundance; the appearance of John the Baptist was the signal of one such great epoch.  The hand of God laid hold upon the agitated throng and bore them on towards the sacred stream.  They came from either bank, "from Jerusalem, from Judaea, and from the countries lying round the Jordan;" that is to say, Perea, from Samaria, from Galilee, and from Gaulanitis.  Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, publicans, soldiers, courtesans, one and all, hurried to listen to this man's word, so stern and relentless to all imposture, all pride and luxury.

The poor and humble ones were the first to kneel before the envoy of Heaven.  One after another they stepped down into the stream of the Jordan, weeping, confessing their sins, and, by their penitence, giving an efficacy to John's baptism which it had not in itself.  But when it came the turn of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and when the stern Prophet saw them advancing to play a hypocritical part in the performance of the sacred rite, then rang out those thundering words, bringing them to a halt their upon the bank:

Breed of vipers, of whom have you learned to flee from the Wrath that is to come? J-J tissot

"Breed of vipers," he cried, " of whom have you learned to flee from the Wrath that is to come?"

These great ones of Judaea had never listened to such language as this; they were used to see foreheads bowed down to the ground before them, while all Jerusalem hailed them as her masters.  John torn away the mask:

"Show me some worthy fruits of repentance," was his command, " and do not venture to say amongst yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father.’  For I say to you, God is able to make these stones give birth to children unto Abraham."

It were impossible to strike these haughty men with a better aimed or a more trenchant blow.  It was useless for them to pride themselves upon their ancestry.  John had declared that to be sons of Abraham by the flesh was of no avail to them, if they were not the true offspring of his virtue and his faith.  The same Hand which had formed Adam out of clay, and brought Isaac from the bosom which was chilled and barren as a stone, could likewise bring forth from the very pebbles of this riverbed the seed promised unto Abraham, innumerable as the stars of heaven, or as the sand and upon the shores of the sea.

Thus, finally, the ancient alliance was declared to be dissolved, and with it went the loftiest prerogative of Israel, that ancient privilege which had exalted it above all the nations.  For, John added: "Already the axe is at the root of the trees.  Every tree which will not bear good fruit shall be cut down and thrown into the fire." And yet this warning was to be of no avail.  Humiliated, but not converted, the Pharisees and Sadducees withdrew from the Jordan, while only a very few of their number bowed down beneath the hand of John and received his baptism.

Though he was unsparing, even to harshness, toward these supercilious formalists, the Precursor had only words of mercy and kindness for the common people.  When, in their turn, the crowd gathered around the Prophet, asking, "And we too; what must we do?" John did not tell them to imitate his penitential life; he was content to preach to them the duties of alms-giving and fraternal love."

"Let him who has two coats give to him who has none, and let him who has food use it in like manner."

The publicans drew near as well.  Hateful to the Jews from their office as collectors of the Roman tax, they came to seek John, ready to sacrifice everything for this baptism.

"Master, what shall we do?" they asked him.

He did not oblige them to throw up this despised business of theirs; but rising above the narrow views of his countrymen, he recognised that they might serve the public authority without wronging the people.

"Demand nothing," he said, "above that which has been commanded you."

Certain soldiers, upon their march, passed near to where John was preaching, and witnessed some of the scenes of pardon.  These also, yielding to grace, questioned the Prophet, and he told them: "do not do any violence, nor any fraud; be content with your pay."

This was the way he chose to throw open the gates of the celestial kingdom, and thus he prepared them for the coming of Jesus, by preaching, not a visionary perfection, but a godly and upright fulfilment of man's daily duties, and the ordinary virtues of each one’s state of life.

Yet, notwithstanding, every day the excitement increased with the growing concourse of people about the Baptist.  Very soon it was not only of Elias that they spoke, but the whole country began to cherish the thought that this might indeed be the Christ.  John heard them, and his reply came quick and sharp:
"As for me, I baptise you with water, in order that you may do penance; but after me there cometh One who is mightier than I; I am not worthy to loosen, to bear His shoes.  He it is Who shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

No longer a baptism of water, unquickened and lifeless, as was that of the Precursor, but an ablution made fruitful by the Holy Ghost.

These are but fragments recalled from the many Sermons which John preached; for "he spoke many other exhortations, evangelising of the people." If that Message of his had come down to us in its entirety, throughout all his speech we should find the same eloquence, alive with the figures of the desert, with its scarped cliffs, hissing serpents, and gnarled tree trunks, among which he had lived for so long a time.

Yet sometimes, too, he spoke of their fields and harvests, as when he depicted the Messiah as a Thresher, with the huge cradle of the harvester in his hand,[1] throwing upon the air the good grain, mingled lawns impurities, to be winnowed by the wind, even as He does today in His Church upon earth; Whose wheat are the elect, whom He receives again purified for the heavenly storehouse; the chaff, those profitless souls which shall for ever be consumed.  "The fan is in His hand," he said, "and He will cleanse His floor; He will gather together the good grain into His granary, and will burn the chaff in a fire which shall not be extinguished."

[1]  In order to understand this figure aright, one needs to recall the manner in which the Jews gathered in their crops.  As soon as the mowers cut down the grain, they arranged the sheaves upon around platform; then cattle yoked abreast were put to trampling it, until the ears were all crushed and the grain loosened from its envelope.  Toward evening, at the time when usually in the Easter strong breeze blows up, they toss this compound of grain and loose straw into the air by the aid of a fan, a huge shovel with a very short handle; the grain, as it is the heavier, falls back to earth while the chaff and lighter refuse are carried off to some distance by the winter.  This is what is meant by purging the threshing floor; after this, although the harvester had to do was to store his crop in the caverns, which are generally used as granaries in this region.  As for the straw and the chaff, they mostly burn it as a fertiliser.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam