At this moment, a Salvationist prophet named John is stirring the
people very strongly. John has declared that the rite of circumcision
is insufficient as a dedication of the individual to God, and has
substituted the rite of baptism. To us, who are accustomed to baptism
as a matter of course, and to whom circumcision is a rather ridiculous
foreign practice of no consequence, the sensational effect of such a
heresy as this on the Jews is not apparent: it seems to us as natural
that John should have baptized people as that the rector of our
village should do so. But, as St. Paul found to his cost later on, the
discarding of circumcision for baptism was to the Jews as startling a
heresy as the discarding of transubstantiation in the Mass was to the
Catholics of the XVI century.