THE LIFE OF ST.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

St. Sebastian Dabovich

Saint John the Baptist was the son of the Jewish Priest Zacharia. His mother was Elizabeth, a
blood-relation to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. This righteous couple were childless, for
Elizabeth was barren. They prayed much and long; as true Israelites they desired the consolation
of being blessed with children, aspiring,—but in this instance with an humble and holy
resignation—to the birth of the great Messiah, who was coming to save mankind, and, as they
thought, to free and unite Israel. Although Zacharia and Elizabeth sorrowed in their old age to a
day which was beyond the natural limit of child-bearing, still they continued hopefully praying.
The prayers of faith of this priest and his patient spouse ascended on high, from whence came
down an angel with the message telling them that the Creator of nature and the God of wonders
had been pleased to fulfill their desire. Accordingly, Elizabeth bore unto her husband Zacharia a
male child, who was called John.
This John was called by God to be the forerunner of his Divine Son, to usher Him into the world,
and to prepare mankind by repentance to receive the Redeemer, whom the prophets had foretold
at a distance through every age from the beginning of the world, never ceasing to instill in the
people of God faith and hope in Him by whom alone they were to be saved. At first St. John led
a most austere life in the wilderness, exercising himself in prayer and meditating on the high
mission he was called to perform. In the thirtieth year of his age, John came from out his
seclusion. This was also the age at which the priests and Levites were permitted by the Jewish
law to begin the exercise of their functions. Clothed in camel's hair, held to his person by a girdle
of raw leather, the man of the desert, who knew not the luxuries of a dwelling-house, nor the
taste of cooked food, himself subsisting on locusts and wild honey, comes to the thinly settled
banks of the river Jordan, and preaches repentance, baptizing all comers. Make ye the way
straight, says he; for cometh He whose sandal-strap I am not worthy to unloose; He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. John was received by the people as the true herald
of the Most High God. All classes of people came and listened to him. Among them were many
Pharisees, whose pride and hypocrisy, which rendered them indocile and blinded them in their
vices, he sharply reproved. The very soldiers and publicans, or tax-collectors, who were
generally persons hardened in habits of immorality, violence, and injustice, flocked to him. He
exhorted all to works of charity and to a reformation of their lives, and those who addressed
themselves to him in these dispositions, he baptized in the river.
The baptism of John differed entirely from the great Christian sacrament of baptism, as the first
was an emblem of the effects of living in the fear of the justice of God by abstaining from evil
deeds, whilst the latter wholly delivers us from the original sin and the consequences, and makes
us the children of God, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When St. John had already preached and baptized about six months, the Lord Jesus went from
Nazareth, and presented Himself, among others, to be baptized by him. The Baptist knew Him
by a divine revelation, and, full of awe and respect for his sacred person, at first excused himself,
but at length acquiesced out of obedience. The Saviour of sinners was pleased to be baptized
among sinners, not to be cleansed Himself, but to sanctify the waters, and to manifest Himself to
the world, which was represented in the great mass of people which came to John. And John
bear witness of Him. Pointing Him out before the Jews, John said, Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world! John the Baptist reproved the vices of all men, no matter
who they were, with an impartial freedom and in a fearless spirit. He disclosed the hypocrisy of
the Pharisees, and uncovered the profaneness of the Sadducees; he denounced the fraud of
certain government officials, —i. e. the publicans,—the rapine and licentiousness of the soldiers,
and the incest of King Herod himself. Now, Herod had unlawfully taken unto himself Herodias,
the wife of his own brother Philip, who was still living. When the saint said to the king, It is not
lawful for thee to have her, Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill John. Herod
reverenced John as a holy man; therefore he dared not harm him. Nevertheless he had the saint
within his reach, in prison, for he could not bear to have the sore spot of his weak conscience
tampered with. St. John faithfully completed his mission, and he understood when his time was
up; even before this, he said, Jesus must increase, but I must decrease. While in confinement the
righteous preacher was still anxious to bear testimony to the glory of the Saviour; we read
furthermore in the Gospel that, on hearing in prison of Christ's wonderful works and preaching,
John sent two of his disciples to Him for their information, not doubting but that Christ would
satisfy them that He was the Messiah; and that by His answers they would lay aside their
prejudices, and join themselves to Him.
Herod continued to respect John; he would sometimes send for him, and listen to him with
pleasure, though he was troubled when he was admonished by him for his faults. In the
meantime Herodias sought an opportunity to compass the Baptist's destruction. An occasion at
length fell out favorable to her designs. It was on the birthday anniversary of the king, when he
made in his castle a splendid entertainment for the nobility of Galilee. During a sumptuous
repast, Salome, a daughter of Herodias by her lawful husband, danced before the guests, and so
pleased the king by her dancing, that he promised her, with the sacred bond of an oath, to grant
her whatever she asked, though it amounted to half of his dominions. The damsel consulted with
her mother, and she dispatched her daughter with haste, to demand that the head of John the
Baptist be brought in to her at once on a charger. This strange request startled the drunken tyrant
himself. He, however, assented, though with reluctance, but for the sake of his oaths, and of
them that sat at meat, he ordered a soldier of his guard to strike off the head of St. John. In this
way the bloody head of the holy prophet was brought into the hall, where they ate and drank and
made merry with music, and it was given to the young dancer, who took it and carried it to her
mother. No doubt Herod had no thought of the oath, while giving it, that it was a sinful one, but
he committed a much greater sin by keeping his oath. And thus it was that John the Baptist, the
man of the desert, ended his life, one of the chief causes of his death being a sinful supper. But,
by God's mercy, he was not put to death before he had fulfilled his great duty as the forerunner
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The many virtues of St. John, those of a martyr, a virgin, a teacher, and
a prophet, were exalted in praise by Christ Himself, when he said to the multitudes of the
people: Verily, I say unto you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater
than John the Baptist. When his disciples hearing that John was executed in prison, they came
and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
The misfortunes which befell Herod after the death of John the Baptist, the Jews said were
punishments from God for the murder of his servant, as their historian, Joseph Flavins, records.
Aretas, the King of Arabia, and the father of Herod's first wife, struck a deadly blow at the army
of the Galilean ruler. Soon after this the Roman emperor banished Herod into exile. The holy
relics of St. John did not remain for all time in their tomb at Sebastia. When the holy apostle
Luke visited this city, he took the right arm of the saint and brought it to Antioch, where the
Christians treasured it for a long time. When, in 956, the Mohammedans took possession of
Antioch, a deacon by the name of Job carried the relic to Halcedon, from which place it was
brought, on the eve of the Epiphany, to Constantinople. The Turkish sultan, Bajazet, desiring to
please the Crusaders, presented the Knights of Malta with the arm of the great Baptist. In 1799,
this order of knights sent the relic of St. John to the Emperor Paul I of Russia, and the great
prophet's arm may be seen to this day in the royal palace in the "Chapel of the Saviour's
Uncreated Image." The Holy Church celebrates the birth of St. John the Baptist on the 24th of
June. On the 29th of August, she commemorates his beheading. And on the 7th of January, the
Church praises the great saint for his whole life, his works, and his mission, as he was selected to
be the baptizer of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.