John preaches the baptism of penance

St Luke Chapter III : Verses 1-6

Contents

• Luke iii. 1-6.  Douay-Rheims (Challoner) text & Latin text (Vulgate).
• Annotations
• Douay-Rheims : 1582 text

Luke iii. 1-6.

A voice of one crying in the wilderness. J-J Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina;

Anno autem quintodecimo imperii Tiberii Cæsaris, procurante Pontio Pilato Judaeam, tetrarcha autem Galiææ Herode, Philippo autem fratre ejus tetrarcha Iturææ, et Trachonitidis regionis, et Lysania Abilinæ tetrarcha,

2 Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.

sub principibus sacerdotum Anna et Caipha : factum est verbum Domini super Joannem, Zachariæ filium, in deserto.

3 And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins;

Et venit in omnem regionem Jordanis, prædicans baptismum pœnitentiæ in remissionem peccatorum,

4 As it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaias the prophet: A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

sicut scriptum est in libro sermonum Isaiæ prophetæ : Vox clamantis in deserto : Parate viam Domini; rectas facite semitas ejus :

5 Every valley shall be filled; and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain;

omnis vallis implebitur, et omnis mons, et collis humiliabitur : et erunt prava in directa, et aspera in vias planas :

6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

et videbit omnis caro salutare Dei.

Annotations

    1. Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judœa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,

    2. Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.

    S. Luke passes from the twelfth year of Christ to His thirtieth, when, after the manner of the Hebrews, He began to discharge His Office of Teacher and Redeemer and to preach publicly.

    in the fifteenth year. Augustus reigned for fifty-seven years from the death of Julius Cæsar, and died on the 19th of August; so that the last year of Augustus was not a complete year, and, consequently, the first of Tiberius only consisted of five months, from August to January, from which the Romans began the year. This Tiberius, having heard wonderful things through Pilate of the miracles and the sanctity of Christ, wished to place Him among the gods, but the senate opposed him, because he had attempted to do it without consulting them.

    Pontius Pilate being governor of Judœa. Archeläus, son of the Infanticide Herod, was exiled by Augustus for his tyrannical conduct in the tenth year of his tetrarchy, supposed to be the fifty-second of Augustus and the twelfth of the life of Christ. Augustus then joined Judæa (that is, the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin) to the province of Syria, the governor of which was at the time Quirinus, or, as S. Luke calls him, Cyrenius, who committed the administration of Judæa to Coponius. Hence the governors of Judæa were called procurators or administrators, though they were really governors. Pilate is here called ἡγεμονεύων, ruler or chief; and the Arabic has “in the dominion over Judæa of Pontius Pilate.” Pilate was the fifth procurator of Judæa in succession from Coponius; he ruled nine years, in the second of which Christ was baptized, and in the fifth was crucified by him. By the vengeance of God Pilate was exiled by Augustus in the twenty-third year of the reign of the latter.

    Herod being tetrarch of Galilee. In the Arabic, “In the dominion of Herod the ruler over the fourth of Galilee, and of Philip, his brother, over the fourth of Ituræa.” A tetrarch is one who governs the fourth part of a province or kingdom; called by Theodoret a “Quadruplaris.”

    Herod the Infanticide, dying five days after the massacre of the innocents, in the second year of Christ, left three sons, Archeläus, Herod Antipas, and Philip (for he had put the rest to death—one of them, Antipater, at the very time of the massacre of the innocents). These striving together about the succession of their father, Augustus divided the kingdom into four parts, or tetrarchies; he gave 

• Judæa to Archeläus (and after his expulsion to Coponius), 
• Galilee to Herod Antipas, 
• Ituræa and Trachonitis to Philip, and 
• Abilene to Lysanias, a foreigner. 

    These tetrarchies were of great size, and like kingdoms, as Pliny tells us (bk. v. 18); and so Herod Antipas, although he is called a tetrarch by S. Matthew (xiv. 1), is called a king by S. Mark (6:14). Indeed Herod Agrippa, father and son, the nephew and grand-nephew of Herod Antipas, being son and grandson of his brother Aristobulus, obtained from Caligula and from Claudius the title of king, as appears from Acts xii. 1 and xxv. 24.

    and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, Ituræa, so called from Iethur or Ithur, the son of Ishmael, is a mountainous and woody district stretching along the base of the Lebanon. Trachon, or Trachonitis, says Pliny (bk. v. ch. 18), is a region beyond Jordan, between Palestine and Cœlesyria, bounded on the east by the Arabian desert, and on the north by Damascus; it was inhabited by half the tribe of Manasseh.

    And Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene. Bede and Adrichomius think that this Lysanias was a fourth son of Herod the Infanticide. But Josephus says that he was the son of another Lysanias, who was the elder son of Ptolemy Minnæus, who ruled in Chalcis close by Mount Lebanon, and that he succeeded him in his kingdom before Herod the Infanticide had been made king of Judæa by the Romans. The elder Lysanias was slain by Antony, the colleague of Augustus and Lepidus in the Triumvirate, at the instigation of Cleopatra, who was scheming to add his kingdom to her own ancestral kingdom of Egypt. This happened thirty years before the birth of Christ Lysanias the younger tried to reinstate Antigonus in the kingdom of Judæa, to the exclusion of Hyrcanus, whom Herod the Infanticide supported; for this reason Herod was created King of Judæa by the Roman Senate at the instance of Antony and Augustus, both Hyrcanus and Antigonus being excluded, as Josephus relates in bk. i. ch. 11. of his “War;” and the same author, in bk. xix. ch. 4 of his “Antiquities,” asserts that all that region was called Lysania after Lysanias.

    Abilene, Abila, Abyla, or Abela, is a celebrated town of Cœlesyria situated by Mount Lebanon, and from it the region of Abilene, or Abilina, takes its name. Abilene borders on Damascus towards the east, Chalcis on the west, and the Lebanon on the south.

    S. Luke is at great pains to enumerate here the chief personages, both secular and ecclesiastic:—

    (1.) To mark distinctly and palpably the time and year when John, and then Christ, began to preach.

    (2.) To shew that the sceptre had now passed from Judah, because Herod and his sons the tetrarchs, and Tiberias and the Romans had become the rulers of Judæa, and that therefore the Messiah, the beginning of whose preaching he relates in this chapter, had come, according to the prophecy of Jacob, Gen. xlix. 10.

    (3.) To give us to understand that Israel, torn in sunder among so many rulers; some infidels, others impious men, had need of the advent of the Messiah, Who should make the people whole and save them.

    (4.) Because these personages had much to do with those works of John and of Christ which S. Luke will afterwards relate.     Tiberius, as I have said, wished to number Christ among the gods; Pilate crucified Him; Herod Antipas seized upon Herodias the wife of his brother Philip, and being reproved by John, slew him; and he clothed Christ in a white dress and mocked Him; while Annas and Caiaphas persecuted Christ to death, and also persecuted the Apostles after His death.

    Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; There was but one high priest of the Jews, as appears from Josephus and others; why then are there two mentioned here? My answer is that Caiaphas was the high priest, but there were many chief, or leading priests, as is clear from Matt. xxvi. 3, and the chief priests are repeatedly mentioned in the Passion of Christ, as accusing Him before Pilate, condemning Him, mocking Him, but the most prominent of them were Caiaphas and Annas, the former as being high priest, the latter as father-in-law of Caiaphas, and as having been high priest, and having great influence among the Jews; indeed, Annas had five sons who were high priests after him (Josephus, “Antiquities,” bk. xx. ch. 8).

   the word (that is, the command) of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, God ordered John the Baptist to preach and baptize; ordered him by an interior inspiration, perhaps too by the voice of an angel.

    3. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins; (i.e., stirring them up to do penance) —to be obtained in the baptism of Christ. John was preaching penance, that by it they might dispose themselves for the reception of pardon and grace from Christ.

    4. As it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaias the prophet: A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

    5. Every valley shall be filled; and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain; S. Gregory (Hom. xx. In Evangelia), S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom, Bede, and others interpret these words as meaning, Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, as Christ said. This, however, is a discourse in which John exhorts his hearers to a change of life and conversation, as though he said, O ye Jews, prepare the way for Christ, your Messiah, now about to come to you. Wherefore, “Every valley shall be filled,” i.e., let it be filled up, “and every mountain and hill shall be brought low,” i.e., let it be brought low, “and the crooked,” i.e., difficult ways, “shall be,” i.e., let them be made, “into straight,” &c. In other words, smooth all the ways for Christ, your King, Who cometh, as is wont to be done for kings that are about to enter upon their kingdoms, so that the rough ways be made smooth and level. Remove from your minds all that is evil, distorted, or unequal; too much lifted up, or too much cast down; he that beareth in his heart the mountain of pride, let him bring down this swelling, and he that hath in him the valley of pusillanimity or sloth, let him lift and fill it up with generosity and confidence in God; and he that is of “rough” behaviour, let him train himself to suavity and modesty.

    6. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.—i.e., so shall it come to pass that every man shall be able to see both with the eyes of the body, and also more especially with those of the soul, “the salvation of God”—the Saviour Christ—feel and experience within himself the salvation and the power of the grace brought by Christ.

    S. Gregory (Hom. 20 In Evang.) says, 

“Every valley shall be filled up, because the humble receive a gift which the hearts of them that are puffed up repel from them. The bad places are made straight when the hearts of the wicked, turned awry by iniquity, are directed by the rule of justice; and the rough places are turned into smooth ways when haughty and angry minds return to the gentleness of meekness by the infusion of heavenly grace.”

Douay-Rheims : 1582 text

1. AND in the fifteenth yeare of the empire of Tiberius Cæſar, Pontius Pilate being Gouernour of Iewrie, and Herod being Tetrach of Galilee, and Philip his brother Tetrach of Ituréa and the countrie Trachonitis, and Lyſanias Tetrach of Abilina,

2. vnder the high Prieſts Annas and Caiphas: the Word of our Lord was made vpon Iohn the ſonne of Zacharie, in the desert.

3. And he came into al the countrie of Iordan, preaching the Baptiſme of pennance vnto remiſion of ſinnes; as it is written in the booke of the ſayings of Eſay the Prophet:

4. A voice of one crying in the desert; prepare the way of our Lord, make ſtraight his paths.

5. Euery valley shal be filled; and euery mountaine and hil shal be made low, and crooked things ſhal become ſtraight; and rough waies, plaine:

6. And al fleſh ſhal ſee the SALVATION of God.

+       +        +

The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.