John the Baptist’s Last Testimony

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

John Baptist’s Last Testimony

John iii. 22-36, iv. 1-2; Matt. iv. 12, xiv. 3-5; Mark i. 14, vi. 17-20; Luke iii. 19-20.

The interview with Nicodemus is the only one among all the incidents of this Passover as to which we have any particulars.  The faith of the Jews of Jerusalem, so ready and strong in outward seeming, was not to bear any fruit; this Jesus well knew. And so, quitting the town shortly, He went with His Galilean disciples into " the land of Judea."1 This name was assigned to all the outlying territory about Jerusalem, and especially to the mountainous country which extends to the south.  In fact, in a northern direction, it is but a few hours' walk to the confines of Samaria; to the east and west the city is surrounded by wild and rocky ravines, which on one side are channelled down to the shores of the Mediterranean, and on the other, straight to the uninhabited banks of the Jordan; so then it is principally to the south that we must look for the Judea to which Jesus consecrated the first year of His ministry.2

During eight months He travelled over this region; indeed, He went even as far as Idumea, since, as Saint Mark relates, He drew after Him some faithful disciples.  However, it does not follow that we are to conclude that the Saviour penetrated into the mountain-districts of that land; for the ouadis with their valleys, which reach from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf, Mount Hor, Petra, and its Tombs, — these were now no longer in the land of Israel, but in that of Esau.  The Idumea of the Gospel, doubtless only included that part of Judaea which extends south of Hebron, and which had belonged since the time of the Maccabees to the kingdom of Edom.  We do not know through what various ways Jesus journeyed in that southern land, but He could not have failed to visit ancient Hebron, where the Patriarchs were buried; nor the great oaks of Mambre beneath which Abraham pitched his tent, and there knew the Presence of Jehovah near unto him; nor the birthplace of His Precursor, the humble village of Youttah; nor Kerioth, from which came Judas who betrayed Him.

However arid and mountainous were these countries, still Jesus could find there the water necessary for the immersion of His penitents; for "He baptised, — not Himself, but by the ministrations of His disciples." For many a day has the discussion been prolonged as to the nature of this Baptism.  Some of the ancient Fathers, assimilating it with John the Baptist's ablutions, consider it as a mode of initiation, the ordering of which the Christ entrusted to His faithful Galileans.  But for the most part commentators concur in regarding it as the Sacrament which regenerates the soul; and they believe that if Jesus did not administer it Himself, it was to denote that the Sacred Rite has in itself a divine efficacy.

Remembering what was the prize which they of this New Birth attained unto, we may not suppose that the Saviour would make use of it so freely as did John with his ablutions in the Jordan.  He enlightened these first converts so as to the virtues of Baptism, — demanded of them an uprightness of heart, and unlimited self-sacrifice, and faith in the truths He had revealed to them; but there these first teachings stopped, for though before this Jesus had unfolded the plan of Redemption to Nicodemus, as yet He did not deal after the same manner with the common people.  We know from Saint Matthew and Saint Mark what was the burden of His sermons at this period, and we hear, as it were, and echo of the Message which John had brought them: "Do penance, for the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is nigh." The design of the Christ, by at first simply repeating the words of His Precursor, was to confirm the mission of His Prophet, waiting the time to disclose His whole doctrine, when He could do so freely in Galilee.  Therefore, as He was even then an object for the Scribes’ jealous suspicions, He was content to purify the hearts of numberless sons of Juda, by gaining them unto the Kingdom of the Messiah which was so near at hand.

In this same interval, apparently, occurred "that difference upon the subject of the purification" which Saint John recounts.  The heats of summer had so far shrunken the waters of the Jordan that it became difficult to perform any ablutions along the banks of the stream.  So John Baptist withdrew from Bethbara, and ascending the valley as far as the ford of Succoth tarried there, nearby the village Salim, at a place called OEnon, because of its copious springs. Beyond the necessity of seeking a spot better adapted for baptism, there was also, animating his thoughts in seeking this retreat, a desire to yield place to Him for Whom the Precursor had come to prepare the way.

But although they flocked around Jesus, they still came to John; and the latter continued to baptise, joyfully gleaning after the footsteps of the Saviour in the fields where hitherto he had harvested all alone.  But his disciples, on the contrary, incapable of such self-forgetfulness as this, saw with secret vexation that their master’s glory was being obscured just as that of the New-Comer increased.  Something soon occurred to make them give vent to their envy.

It was but a little while before the imprisonment of the Precursor: "They had entered into a dispute with a Jew upon the subject of purification." Undoubtedly the latter, enlightened by Jesus, refused to admit the efficacy of the earlier baptism.  Up sprung at once a contest which gave John's disciples an occasion of manifesting their jealousy. They referred to the Baptist finally, and said to him: "Rabbi, he who was with you beyond Jordan, and to whom you rendered your testimony, behold now he baptizes, and all men are coming to him."

What sadness underlies these complaints, — the very name of Jesus suppressed designedly, as though they remember how Christ had been drawn from obscurity by this very man whose brilliant renown He now has eclipsed!  Overcome with envy, and valuing not at all the penitents that were still attracted to OEnon: " all men are going to him!" They said.  But John, while mitigating the bitterness of their feeling, did not fail to render homage to the divine Master once more, by setting forth more clearly the limits of his own Mission, marked out for him from on High.

"Man," he said, "can have nothing which is not given him from Heaven.  You yourselves bear witness that I have said: I am not the Christ, but I am sent before Him."

Then, in order to explain better what his true position was in relation to Jesus, he borrowed from the Prophets the figure by which he compared the Saviour to a Bridegroom, of whom Israel is the Spouse.  What Jehovah had been unto His chosen people, this the Word, from that hour, has become for all faithful souls.  The advent of the Messiah, the throngs following after Him, typify the marriage festival, and the wedding procession which joyously conducts the Spouse on to Christ.  But as for him, the friend of Jesus, he must needs be glad and rejoice in His glory.  "He Who hath the bride is the Bridegroom," he said "but the friend of the Bridegroom, who is by His side, and listens to all, is transported with delight at the voice of the Bridegroom; and thus it is that my joy is fulfilled.  It is fitting that He should increase, and that I should diminish." Thus the Baptist concludes; and then dwelling upon that brief sentence, he proceeds to compare himself to the Saviour, that so he might the more humble himself before Him.

Jesus comes from on high; John is of this earth.  He, John, has not seen that of which he bears witness: he but accepts and delivers the Message with which he is intrusted.  Jesus has Himself seen all things, has heard all things, in the heavens; therefore He testifies nothing upon the belief of another; and nevertheless His testimony is not received, or rather, so pitiful is the number of those who accepted it that the Baptist, kindling under the passion with which the vision had stirred him, held this poor handful of souls as of no account!  Then, reverting to his own Mission, severely straitened, like that of the ancient prophets, John contrasts it with the Mission of the Christ, which is all-Divine, sweeping over and beyond all bounds; for God, meting out His gifts unto His Son in the measure of His love for Him, has lavished all things upon Him.  "The Father loveth the Son, and placeth all things within His hands. He that believes in the Son has eternal life; he that believes not in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

That Wrath, whose thunders now threaten these disciples of the Baptist, reverberated more terribly still over the heads of haughty sinners.  John never suppressed these outbursts.  We have seen with what hardihood he menaced the great men of Israel at the outset of his ministry; and since then his zeal had been only the more aroused.  No grandeur, no rank nor dignity, could act as a shield against his just rebukes.  Herod Antipas very soon made proof of this.

Herod the Great's family, showing five of his ten wives.'H' stands for Herod. * indicates a cross-reference.

By ascending the Valley of the Jordan, the Precursor had drawn near to Galilee; scarcely had the licentiousness of its prince been made known to him before he be stirred himself to stigmatise it.  We know to what a pitch this tyrant had already carried his scandalous disorders.  Casting aside his legitimate wife, daughter of Aretas, King of Petra, he lived with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.  This princess, famous among the descendants of Herod, was the daughter of that Aristobolus who was strangled at Sebaste by his father's orders; she was granddaughter of
Mariamne, whose execution had ever after haunted the old King with bitter remorse.  Being married to her uncle Philip, she found in her husband merely a disinherited son of Herod, living like an ordinary private personage.  Such a common-place condition as that to which this union reduced her seemed insupportable to her brilliant nature; beautiful, fiery, imperious, holding Judaism and its observances in supreme contempt, she was one who would rule at any cost.  And so when Antipas, during a visit he once made with his brother, saw her and became enamoured of her, he had only to promise her his throne in order to ensnare her.

The daughter of Aretas, being warned that Herod was about to repudiate her, anticipated his action by retiring to the fortress of Macheronte, then among the possessions of her father, lying to the east of the Dead Sea.  But it was all in vain that the king of Petra took up arms to avenge the wrong done his daughter; in vain also that his troops routed those of the Tetrarch: the monstrous and unnatural union of Antipas and Herodias was consummated, despite all obstacles.

So shocking a transgression of the Law could not fail to excite the mind of all Galilee.  Did Herod, startled as he was, and fearful of some disturbance among his people, come to John the Baptist, thinking to obtain from him some words of approval and commendation?  Some writers have so interpreted the facts.  Yet it is more probable that the Precursor himself at once took the initiative.  Pushing his way straight into the palace of the Tetrarch, — as of old Elias came before Achab, — he made the gilded halls re-echo with those words which the Church has so often since repeated to guilty princes:"It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife." and then John reproached him for all the evil deeds committed by him; whereupon having fulfilled his mission, he departed, leaving in Herod’s heart a rankling memory, an incurable wound.  The prince dared not arrest the Prophet on the instant, for he feared the people, who still thronged about him; but he was only waiting some favourable opportunity for laying hands upon him.  As soon as it presented itself, he had him seized by his satellites, and from the Gospel account we may infer that the members of the Sanhedrin, always the secret enemies of the Baptist, were not entirely unconcerned in this act of violence.  The prison in which John the Baptist was thrown was that same fortress of Macheronte where the daughter of Aretas had taken refuge.  Josephus has described its strange appearance, erected upon one of the mountains which border the Dead Sea while on the east it is surrounded by gorges so deep that the eye can scarcely fathom the dark chasms.  Herod, struck with the value of such a coign of vantage, had encircled the cliff with enormous ramparts, and raised upon the heights a town and a palace.  Tales of unhallowed deeds gave the deep defiles which environ it an evil renown.  The popular imagination, deluded by the volcanic phenomena which are of so frequent occurrence in this region, conjured up numberless prodigies which were to be be held in these parts.  The smallest plants, they said, here grow to the size of the fig-tree; great twisted roots, red as fire, sending out flames at evening, glide away from the profane hand that would grasp them, or strike him down in death.  From the depths of the valleys, and from the summits of the mountains, there burst forth springs of most various flavours, — sometimes boiling with heat, sometimes pouring out at the same time, as from a double vessel, icy streams mingling with the warm.

Such is the fantastic neighbourhood in which Josephus locates the prison of the Precursor.  Although held within these fastnesses, the latter retained his liberty so far as to be able to receive his disciples, and to charge them with divers messages.  Herod himself, during his sojourns at Macheronte, sought converse with the captive; for "he feared him, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and although he kept him in prison, he listened to him willingly." Thus he  came "to do many things by his counsel;" and at the last did really halt for an instant, undecided, in the downward path of sin on which he had so far proceeded.  But his wicked paramour was ever on the watch: she felt that the influence of John was ruinous to her own, and so, making a vow of merciless vengeance upon him, she went about procuring his death.  For a long time Herod protected the Forerunner; for he was attached to him, and feared the people, who venerated John as a Prophet.  Such half-hearted resistance as this was however powerless to withstand Herodias.  We shall see very soon how, in a night of debauchery, she snatched her victim from the hands which so feebly defended him.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam