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