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The Pharisees had become the dominant religious sect,though it is evident from the trial of Jesus and that of Paul that Sadducees were included in the great court of the Sanhedrin. From the Pharisees rose a distinct order which in the estimate of every Hebrew was invested with special sanctity. This was the order of Rabbis. By the common assent of the people its members held all the offices of note under the hierarchy. They accepted only their maintenance. The order was popu. lar, from being open to any of merit. To speak in disrespect of a Rabbi was to invoke divine vengeance. He had only to enter a house, and peace was supposed to visit the family. In all matters he must be consulted. Though a student of the law he was chiefly occupied with tradition.

Apart from the rabbis there were twenty-four courses or families of priests. Their duties pertained more particularly to the temple service, in which the rabbis took no part. Among the one hundred and forty conditions of priestly qualification was that which required the candidate to be of blameless moral character. Prophetic denunciation, however, leaves no room to doubt the corruption of this ecclesiastical aristocracy. To distinguish from those who were insincere and unworthy, the Record is careful to state of the aged priest Zacharias of Hebron, and his wife Elizabeth, that "they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

speaking Greek) "as common not only to all sorts of freemen. but to as many of the servants as please to learn them." Josephus' Antiquity of Jews xx. xi. 2.

"It was as little permitted that the hated Gentile should learn the Hebrew language or read the Law. St. Jerone expatiates on the trouble and cost he had at Jerusalem and Bethlehem to get a Jew to help him in his Hebrew studies." Geike's "Life of Christ, i. p. 67.

"Ever since the days of Alexander the Great, alike in the contact of Jews with Ptolemies and with Seleucids, Hellenic influences had been at work in Palestine. Greek was, indeed, the common medium of intercourse, and without it Jesus could have had no conversation with strangers, -with the centurion, for instance, whose servant he healed; or with Pilate, or with the Greeks who desired an interview with him in the last week of his life." Farrar's "Life of Christ," i. p. 42.

"The Jews came in contact with the Greeks only at and after the Macedonian conquests, and were, therefore, conversant only with the later Greek. They learned it from the intercourse of life, in commerce, in colonies, in cities like Alexandria, where the inhabitants were drawn together from Asia as well as from Greece; and it was, therefore, the spoken language of common life. . . The Jewish Greek has not un aptly been termed Hellenistic." Dr. Robinson, Preface to Gr. Lex., p. 5.

Filling the priestly office in his course of the temple service, the devout Zacharias engages in prayer, when the angel Gabriel announces to him that he is to be the father of the heraldprophet. Unable to master his doubt, he is made speechless until the message is fulfilled in the birth of the child, who is named John. The father prophesies the delivery of Israel, and that his son shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way. With concise statement we are then told that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel."

For men to voluntarily assume the life of a recluse in Palestine and other parts of the world, was no uncommon spectacle. Speaking of this in connection with those sects eminent for self-denial and piety, Josephus says, "When sixteen years old I contented myself with hard fare, underwent great difficulties and went through them all. When I was informed that one whose name was Banus lived in the desert and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both night and day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in these things and continued with him three years."

At what time John became an ascetic we have no means of knowing. It is evident that for many years before his public appearance in a prophetic character he was a lone tenant of the wilderness. The son of Zacharias would enjoy high privileges of instruction from one of the most faithful of the Hebrews; and as the law enjoined obedience to parents, it becomes highly probable that the son remained at the Hebron home until his maturity, gaining all the law and the prophets, and being taught the sacred traditions so far as a foremost priest of the house of Levi and a lineal descendant of Aaron was able to give them, as well as receiving the records of antiquity as preserved by secular historians. Roman law recognized the majority of males when twenty-five years of age, and as Judea was now in the empire of Tiberius this may have been the date at which John became a recluse. We know .

that he was six months older than Jesus, who began his ministry when thirty years of age. This estimate would allow John a residence in the wilderness of five and a half years. The period marked a crisis in the world's history. By the highest functionaries of the Roman court social abominations were practiced with open insolence. Pride, greed and lust were given utmost license. The nation was profaned. The country was the spoils of a shameless dynasty. The preceding century had chronicled atrocious crimes. The wars of the Maccabees, of the brothers Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and the coming of Pompey and the Roman horde to desecrate with their presence the Holy of holies,-forbidden all but the high priest; all this was fresh in the minds of those who in faith waited for the consolation of Israel. Cæsar had given control of the east to Antony, who became the willing tool of the fair and voluptuous Cleopatra. Then followed the murder of all whom Cleopatra denounced; Herod's flight from Jerusalem, which became the prey of plunderers; his return under Roman protection; his unholy marriage with Mariamne; the slaughter of his enemies and the selling of many of the inhabitants of cities and towns as slaves; and lastly came the infamous reign of Herod who murdered both his wife and sons. The principal of the rabbis, his most formidable enemies, he strangled. Surely, there was an extreme demand for the exhortation, "Repent ye."

The wilderness of Judea could have been only the region lying between the Judean mountains and the backish waters of the Dead Sea, extending nearly as far north as Jerusalem and to the desert on the south. Four streams carry the waters of springs through vast gorges in chalk and limestone. The mountains abound in natural caverns. In this solitary region lived the coming prophet in solemn communion with nature and God, subsisting on locusts and wild honey, and drinking the pure waters of the hillsides. Self discipline achieved he at length lifts his voice in the presence of the people, exclaiming, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." His face is bronzed from the exposure of the mountains and

the arid heat of the desert plains. His garment is made of camel's hair and bound to his person with a leathern girdle.

This austere man is invested with a remarkable power. Multitudes from Galilee, Samaria and Judea resort to him. Clear and unflinching before Pharisee and Sadducee he exposes the iniquities of the hour. The cold formalist was not soothed by soft words, but was saluted by the sharp inquiry, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Then accepting their presence as an indication of their desire to heed his teaching, he said, "Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance." The people heard, were convicted, and the beginning of a new life was signalled by baptism in the waters of Jordan. this was only the preparation for a greater message and ministry, for as John led his disciples into Jordan he said, "I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I; whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

But

John now entered the third period of his prophetical career. The first was that of youth, when he shared the home in Hebron and received the wise instructions of his devout parents; the second that in which he completed his preparation by the sojourn in the wilderness; and the third begins with the coming of Jesus from Galilee to receive baptism at the hands of the stern son of the desert. Here we observe a change in the bearing of the fearless prophet. Up to this moment rulers, ecclesiastics, princes, rabbis, and the people generally had been received in the spirit that acknowledges no superior. But now One approaches with more than human mien. As John looks on the graceful form and into the quiet lace, the eyes of the stranger, calm and undaunted, meet his. Instantly he feels that the promised Messiah is before him. Jesus requests bapti. m. John demurs, with modest frankness saying, "I have need to be baptized of thee; and comest thou to me?" Jesus accepts the implied distinction, but says, "Suffer it to be so now." When the two come up from the flowing river, John beholds the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove

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and abiding upon him," and adds, " And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God."

John now reached the culmination of his career. The "burning and shining light" continued to preach during Jesus' temptation and his first tour through Judea and Galilee. But public attention now centered in the man whom John declared the Messiah. John's disciples in displeasure came to their leader saying "Rabbi, behold, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him." John now gave the memorable address which will live in all ages as unexampled in humility and spiritual joy, settling conclusively his teaching concerning Christ, viz.: "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."

In the meantime the people had been disgraced by another scandal. Herod Antipas had become enamoured of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. The companion of each was thereupon divorced. The guilty union was then consummated. John commented freely on this unpardonable outrage, and Herod made this a pretext for John's arrest and imprisonment.

Herod had regained possession of the formidable fortress of Machærus in the Perea to the east of the Dead Sea, and in his voluptuous reign it was common for him to make this a resort. Originally built by the Arabs as a frontier protection, this gloomy citadel was particularly favored for defence. It was situated on a high and rocky eminence to the south of the mountain of Pisgah, in the vicinity where tradition says Moses was buried. Scarcely a mile away from the fortress Herod built a city, which he named Macharus also, and securely walled in a path barred by numerous and ponderous gates, which he kept constantly guarded. The summit was entirely enclosed by walls. Deep gorges sur

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