The Birth of the Precursor and His Circumcision

Continuing Fouard's Life of Christ Our Lord: Book I, Chapter II

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Chapter II: The Birth of the Precursor

I. The Vision of Zachary

Luke i. 5-25

For four centuries the world had waited for the fulfilment of these Prophecies.  The rain of Herod had almost reached its end; and the old King, beginning at last to realise that he was descending slowly, surely to the tomb, stands out a lonely figure in the palace which his blood stained hands had made so bare and empty.  Uneasy forebodings disturbed the souls of men.  Suddenly from Jerusalem, and from the Temple, a voice broke the silence of suspense in words that spoke deliverance and salvation.

Among the many Levites of that time, there was a priest named Zachary, of the family of Abia, the eighth of the divisions which, by turns, took part in the divine service.  Reduced as they were upon the return from captivity, the sons of Levi were not slow to increase in number; and thus they were soon forced to seek a residences outside of Jerusalem, in the ancient sacerdotal cities.  Hebron and Youttah had seen their levitical population returning to the old homes, and it was probably the latter of these towns which was the dwelling place of Zachary.  Situated to the south of Hebron, and at some considerable distance from it, Youttah stretches along the slope of the hill, in the heart of the mountains of Judea.  In this retreat Zachary lived with his wife Elizabeth, who was also of the sacerdotal tribe.  The sequestered pair "were just in the sight of god, and walked without reproach in the commandments and laws of the Lord." Yet they found their piety put to a severe test; for, childless while they were both far advanced in age, they had finally lost all hope of God's ever blessing them by raising up offspring to the barren daughter of Levi.

The time drew round for Zachary to join his associates of the Class of Abia, and to fulfil his functions in the Temple; he therefore took his way to Jerusalem.  Each Class was accustomed to decide the division of the various offices by lot; that of Incense-Burner fell to the husband of Elizabeth.  It was the highest of all the sacerdotal duties, and was performed with a solemnity of ritual which it behoves us to describe more in detail.

The altar of gold, whereron was offered the sacrifice of perfumes, stood in the midst of the Holy Place, between the Seven-branched Candlestick and the Table of the Bread of Proposition; only a single veil separated it from the Holy of Holies, despoiled in Zachary’s time of its Ark of the Covenant.  Everything about the Sanctuary must be made ready beforehand, the flames of the lamps trimmed and brightened, the ashes removed from the altar, and a fresh fire enkindled upon it before the entrance of the priest.  Upon his appearance all stood aside, and the people, crowding back beneath the porches, prayed there in silence. The officiating minister alone advanced within the Holy Place, and, at a signal given by the prince of the priesthood, must cast the precious perfumes upon the flame; then having bowed down before the Holy of Holies, he receded slowly, stepping backwards, that he might not turn his face away from the altar.  A bell gave warning of his withdrawal and the Benediction which he bestowed upon the people.  Immediately Levites intoned the sacred hymns, and the music of the Temple, combining with their voices, formed a symphony so powerful (the Rabbinical writers say) that it could be heard in Jericho.

Although this ceremonial was observed twice every day, in the morning and at evening, the Jews never assisted thereat without a secret tremor of anxiety; for the priest, who entered within the Sanctuary, was their Representative, and the incense burned beneath his hands was for a figure of the prayers of all.  Should Jehovah reject his offering, if He should strike him to the earth for some legal impurity, then indeed would Israel be overwhelmed by the same blow.  It was from this cause the impatience of the crowd arose, and the promptitude with which the Minister acquitted himself of his functions, that he might not prolong the general emotion.

But on this day these fears were quickened to terror; for Zachary tarried much longer than the wanted time in the Holy Place.  He appeared at last, trembling, dumb; his lips so suddenly sealed, his gesticulations, his agitation, all declared that some portentous spectacle had burst upon his sight.  Did he write down his marvellous vision at once?  "He remained dumb," it says; as if it was signify that his heart, as well as his tongue, refused to reveal immediately the celestial apparition, or that he would await that hour for disclosing it in which God Himself would open his lips.  This, then, is what Zachary at last made known.

He was about to enter within when, to the right of the altar from which arose white clouds of incense, of a sudden an Angel appeared.  Seeing this, terror overwhelmed the priest; but the Angel spoke to him: —

"Fear not at all, Zachary!  Your prayer is heard; your wife Elizabeth shall conceive a son, and you shall give him the name of John.  This child shall be your joy and your delight, and the multitude shall rejoice at his nativity.  For he shall be great before the Lord; he shall not drink of wine nor of aught that doth inebriate, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.  He shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and he himself shall walk before Him in the spirit and might of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers on to the children,9 the unbelieving unto to the wisdom of the righteous, and prepare for the Lord a perfect people."

Malachy, whose prediction the Angel here recalls, had foretold that two Forerunners should herald the Messiah’s appearance: one, John the Baptist, was to announce His first Advent;1 Elias, the other Envoy of Heaven, in the latter days of the world, shall descend from his chariot of fire to prepare men for the return of the Christ.  Yet in spite of the diversity of their missions, John was to be another Elias, because in him would be enkindled the very soul of the Thesbite, the same strong spirit, the same glowing genius, a fiery nature which should lead captive the sons of Israel by word and example, and bring them back to the virtues of their fathers.  Engrossed in the contemplation of so perfect a resemblance, the Jews had never, in their thoughts of them, separated these two forerunners of the Messiah.

God did not demand of Zachary a more illuminated intuition, nor that he should foresee clearly everything that the Angel’s announcement implied; all that was required of him was that he should believe implicitly in the Message, however mysterious it might seem.  Too haughty for such simple faith, the Levite still demurred; he dared to demand a sign before he would yield any credence to the divine communication.

"How shall I know the truth of these words?" he answered.  "I am old, and my wife is advanced in age."

To overcome and dissipate this incredulity, the Angel deigned to disclose his own dignity.

"I am Gabriel," he said, "one of the ministering Spirits, standing ever in the presence of God, whom the Lord has sent to speak to you and to announce to you these good tidings.  Look you, therefore, you shall be dumb and shall not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall take place, because you have not believed my words, which shall be accomplished in the time."

Zachary must needs have humbled himself under the hand which chastised him.  He retreated from the Sanctuary dumb; only by his signs of awe and terror could he respond to the breathless throng, now quite disquieted by his long delay, and at once all the people knew that he had seen a vision in the Temple.

The days of his ministry being fulfilled, he betook himself to his home.  A little later Elizabeth, his wife, conceived, and for five months secluded herself, "because," as she said, "the Lord hath dealt thus with me, since he has willed to take away my reproach among men." Nothing could be more natural than this desire to retreat from the world.  It was but seemly, indeed, to prevent the curiosity and malice of rumour from busying itself with such a marvel as was this on hoped-for conception.

II. The Circumcision of John the Baptist

Luke i. 57-80

"The time being come for Elizabeth to be delivered,16 she brought forth a son; and her neighbours and kinsfolk being made aware that God had manifested His mercy towards her, shared in her joy, and on the eighth day they all gathered unto the circumcision of the infant."

This consecration to the God of Abraham was celebrated in every family with solemn festivity.  Ten witnesses surrounded the child; while the father, or some other of the relatives present, made with an instrument of stone the bloody incision.  Zachary did not perform the sacred rite in person, for his moveless lips could not pronounce the benedictions incidental to it.  So also, when at the close of the ceremony they desired, according to the ancient custom, to confer a name upon the child,17 and would have called him Zachary after the father, the latter neither heard nor comprehended.18

Elizabeth, however, withstood them.  "No," she said; "he shall be called John."

"But," it was objected, "non of your kindred bear that name."

She persisted nonetheless in her design.  Turning toward the father, who stood before them a mute and wistful spectator of this scene, she asked him by signs what name he wished to give the child.

Zachary, taking up his tablets, wrote thereon, "John is his name."

Then while they were still filled with astonishment, suddenly the lips of the old man were opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spoke aloud in thanksgiving to the Lord.20  At this prodigy their wondering delight gave place to fear and awe.  From that dwelling, endeared to God, the thrill of emotion spread swiftly throughout the surrounding country; so that shortly, among the mountains of Juda, nothing else was spoken of beside these marvels; and those who heard the tale treasured it up in thoughtful silence, musing in their breasts, " What an one, think he, shall this child be?" For the hand of God was upon him.
With his hearing and speech Zachary recovered the divine favour, and, filled with the Spirit, he prophesied.  As sung every night in our churches, the Hymn of the holy old man is like an echo of the ancient prophecies of Israel.  Jehovah visits His people to save them from their enemies, from the hand of those who hate them; the Redemption is revealed under the eyes of this Levite, even as the dying Moses beheld it, and as Ezechiel and countless others had represented it, ‒ mighty and resistless as the horned frontal of the savage beast which spreads terror around about its path.  Yet, beneath this rude imagery, ‒  the last vestiges of an almost vanished era, ‒ there is a tenderer tone which predominates withal.  The salvation of Israel is no longer that which the carnal-minded Jews had fancied, ‒ the triumph of their race, the joys and riches of this world.  It is Salvation in righteousness and holiness, won by penitence and the remission of sins.  The God of Zachary is no longer a Jehovah who, as He moves among men, sows horror and death about Him, but the God with bowels of merciful compassion, shining upon the world like a holy beneficent Light.  It is as if, very different from the mornings of earth, this marvellous Orient, this great New Dawn, would be made visible, not on the horizon, but on high, within the heavens, thus to make it manifest to the world that He came, not to consume it with the scorching heat of noontide, but to spread about His pathway the pure light of a clear, cloudless daybreak.  Hence, though Jewish in its form, this chant is essentially Christian.  Struck with its beauty in the original Arameän, Saint Luke sought to reproduce, not only the thoughts, but the figures as well, foreign as they are to the genius of the Greek tongue.  To this fact is due the obscurity and, at the same time, the peculiar charm of this hymn:

The Benedictus

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
because He had looked down upon His people,
and hath wrought their Redemption;
He hath raised up, in the house of David His son,
an invincible power (as it were an horn),
to be our Salvation :
(according to that which He had promised us,
by the mouth of the holy Prophets,
from the beginning of Time;
a Salvation whereby He will preserve us
from our enemies,
out of the hands of them that hate us :
for the accomplishment of His Loving-Kindness
unto our fathers;
and as a remembrance of His holy Covenant,
the Oath which He swore to Abraham our father;
so that, delivered from the hands of our enemies,
and freed from fear, we may worship Him,
in righteousness and holiness in His sight,
even all the days of our life.
And thou, child, shall be called
the Prophet of the Most High.
Thou shalt walk before the Lord,
to prepare his ways,
to declare unto His people Salvation,
in the pardon of their sins,
pardon through the bowels of mercy
of our God:
whereby a Star, rising to the heights of heaven,
hath visited us;
illumining them that sit in the shadow
and in the darkness of death,
leading our steps within the paths of peace.

The halo which overhung the cradle of John might not last in all its early splendour; for the design of God was, in silence and in solitude, to form of him the greatest of the children of men.  The glorified dwelling place of Zachary disappears immediately from a range of vision.  All that we know is that God's Spirit came upon the Baptist even in his childhood and impelled him to retire to the Desert.  "The child grew," says Saint Luke, "and his soul was strengthened, and he was in the Desert until the day of his manifestation in Israel."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam