Misit Herodes et tenuit Johannem: et reliqua.
Mark the Evangelist wrote in the book of Christ concerning the great
Baptist John, that "the cruel king Herod bound him, and set him in prison,
for the sake of his brother's wife Herodias," etc.
This John was the greatest man, as Christ bore witness concerning him. He
said, "Among the children of women {479} there hath not arisen any greater
man than John the Baptist." Now ye have often heard of his great course and
of his ministry, now we will relate to you some explanation touching the
exposition of this gospel.
This Herod, who commanded John to be beheaded, and agreed with Pilate the
ealdorman in the suffering of Jesus, and delivered him to his judgement,
was the son of the other Herod, who reigned at the time when Christ was
born; for it was usual at that time for rich men to give their children
names after themselves, that it might seem the greater remembrance of the
father, when the son, his heir, was called by his father's name. The cruel
father, Herod, left five sons; three he commanded to be slain in his last
illness, ere he departed. Then he died miserably and suddenly after he had
slain the children on account of the birth of Christ; when Archelaus his
son succeeded to the kingdom. Then after a space of ten years he was driven
from his throne, because the Jewish people complained of his pride to the
emperor, and he then sent him into exile. The emperor then divided the
Jewish kingdom into four, and placed therein four brothers, who, according
to the Greek tongue, are called 'tetrarchs,' that is, _rulers over a
fourth_. A tetrarch is he who has a fourth part of a kingdom. One of these
brothers was called Philip, who took to wife the daughter of the king
Arethe, of an Arabian people, who was called Herodias. Then after some time
they, Philip and Arethe, were at variance, and he took his daughter from
his son-in-law, and gave her to his brother Herod; because he was greater
in fame and in power. Herod then cast off his lawful wife, and adulterously
lived in criminal union.
Then at that time John the Baptist preached God's righteousness to all the
Jewish people, and reproved Herod for that foul union. Ecclesiastica
Historia ita narrat: When Herod saw that all the Jewish multitude ran to
John's teaching, and zealously obeyed his admonitions, he was afraid, {481}
and imagined that through John's teaching they would despise his
government, and would anticipate them, and brought him into prison in a
town which is called Machaeruntia. John sent then two disciples from the
prison to Christ, and inquired of him, thus saying, "Art thou he who is to
come, or are we to await another?" As though he had said, Manifest to me
whether thou thyself wilt descend to the inmates of hell for the redemption
of men, as I have preached to the world that thou wast to come,--manifest.
Jesus then, at the same time as the evangelist Luke wrote, was healing many
sick from divers diseases, and giving reason to insane men, and sight to
the blind, and said then to John's messengers, "Go now to John, and make
known to him the things which ye have seen and heard. Behold now blind see,
and the halt go, and lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, and the dead arise,
and poor preach the gospel; and he is happy who shall not be offended in
me." As though he had said to John, Such wonders I work, and yet will I
perish by death for the redemption of mankind, and follow thee dying, and
happy shall he be who now praiseth my wonders, if he despise not my death,
and on account of that death doubt not that I am God. Thus Jesus revealed
to John that he himself would vouchsafe to die, and afterwards visit the
inmates of hell.
Then meanwhile it befell that Herod, as we before said, feasted his
councillors on the day on which he was born; for at that time they had
great rejoicing on their birth-tides. The daughter then, as we before said,
played with her maidens at the feast, to the pleasure of them all, and the
father then promised on oath that he would give her whatsoever she desired.
Of three impious sins we have heard,--the unholy celebration of his
birth-tide, and the giddy dancing of the maiden, and the father's
presumptuous oath. These {483} three things it befitteth us to oppose in
our conduct. We may not with vain celebrations turn our birth-tide to any
holyday, nor have our birth in such remembrance; but we should anticipate
our last day with penitence and penance, so as it is written, "In all
things be thou mindful of thy last day, and thou wilt sin not to eternity."
It is not fitting to us to pollute our body, which is hallowed to God in
the salutary baptism, with indecent and foolish play; for our bodies are
limbs of God, as St. Paul said, "And he enjoined, that we should prepare
our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, and acceptable to God." The body
is a living sacrifice which is shielded against deadly sins, and through
holy virtues is acceptable to God and holy. God himself forbids every oath
to christian men, thus saying, "Swear thou not by heaven, for it is God's
throne. Swear thou not by earth, for it is God's footstool. Swear thou not
by thine own head, for thou canst not make one hair of thy locks white or
black. I say unto you, swear ye not by anything, but be your speech thus
ended, It is as I say, or it is not so. Whatsoever there is more by oath,
that is of evil."
Christ himself confirmed his speech, when he spake to a Samaritan woman
with these words, "Crede mihi," that is, "Believe me." Yet if we anywhere
heedlessly swear, and the oath compel us to a worse deed, then will it be
more advisable for us to avoid the greater guilt, and atone to God for the
oath. David, for example, swore by God that he would slay the foolish man
Nabal, and destroy all his things; but at the first intercession of the
prudent woman Abigail, he returned his sword into the sheath, and praised
the woman's prudence, who forbade him that perilous murder. Herod through
folly swore that he would give the dancing daughter whatsoever she might
ask: then, because he would {485} not be called a perjurer by his guests,
he stained the feast with blood, and gave the death of the great prophet to
the lewd dancer in reward of her play. Much better for him had it been to
have broken the oath, than to have commanded such a prophet to be slain.
In all things we should carefully consider, if we anywhere, through the
devil's machinations, fall at once into two perils, that we always flee
from the greater guilt by the outlet of the less, as he does who will flee
from his foes over a wall, then observes he where the wall is lowest, and
there darts over. But Herod, when he would not, through John's
remonstrance, turn from the unclean connexion, fell into murder, and the
smaller sin was the cause of the greater, so that he for his foul adultery,
which he well knew was hateful to God, shed the prophet's blood, who he
knew was acceptable to God. This is the sentence of the divine judgement,
by which it is said, "Let him who injureth, injure yet more; and let him
who liveth in foulness, defile himself yet more." This sentence befell the
cruel Herod. Now there is another sentence shortly said concerning good
men, "Let him who is holy be yet more hallowed." This befell the Baptist
John, who was holy through manifold deserts; and was yet more hallowed,
when he through the preaching of truth came to triumphant martyrdom.
Herod feigned himself sad, when the daughter prayed him for the head; but
he rejoiced in secret, because she prayed for the death of that man whom he
would before have slain, if he had had a pretext. But if the child had
prayed for the woman's head, he would with great anger have refused her.
John was not by persecution compelled to deny Christ, but, nevertheless, he
gave his life for Christ, when he was martyred for truth. Christ himself
said, "I am the truth." John was Christ's forerunner in his birth, and in
his preaching, in baptism, in suffering, and in his precious death preceded
him {487} to hell. When he was beheaded, his disciples came, and bare his
holy body to a city which is called Sebastia, and they laid him there. The
holy head was buried at Jerusalem.
Some heretics said that the head blew the king's wife Herodias, for whom he
had been slain, so that she went with winds over all the world; but they
erred in that saying, for she lived to the end of her life after the
slaying of John. But John's head was afterwards manifested to two eastern
monks, who with prayers visited that city, and they bare the precious
treasure thence to a city which is called Edessa; and the Almighty God,
through that head, manifested innumerable miracles. His bones after a long
time were brought to the great city of Alexandria, and there with great
honour deposited.
Now it is to be considered why the Almighty God allows that his chosen and
his beloved servants, whom he has predestined to eternal life, be destroyed
with so many pains, and broken in this present life. But the apostle Paul
has answered concerning this, and said, that "God correcteth and chastiseth
every one whom he receiveth into his kingdom, and the more ignominiously he
is tortured for the name of God, so much shall his glory be greater before
God." Again, the same apostle said in another place, "The sufferings of
this life are not to be compared with the future glory which will be
manifested in us."
Now says the expositor, that no wild beast, neither among the four-footed
nor the creeping, is to be compared with an evil woman. What among the
four-footed is fiercer than a lion? or what among the serpent-kind is more
cruel than a dragon? But the wise Solomon said, that it were better to
dwell with lion and dragon than with an evil and loquacious woman. Now John
had dwelt in the waste unhurt among all the beast-kind, and among serpents,
and asps, and all the {489} worm-kind, and they dreaded him. But the
accursed Herodias slew him by beheading, and received the death of so great
a man as a gift for her daughter's dancing. Daniel the prophet lay seven
nights among seven lions in one den uninjured, but the accursed woman
Jezabel betrayed the righteous Naboth to his death by false witness. The
prophet Jonah was preserved unconsumed in the belly of the whale for three
nights, and the treacherous Dalila deceived the strong Samson with
flattery, and, his locks being shorn, betrayed him to his foes. Verily
there is no worm-kind nor wild beast-kind like in evilness to an evil
woman.
The historian Josephus wrote in the ecclesiastical history, that the cruel
Herod, a little while after the death of John, ruled his kingdom, but first
for his wicked deeds his army was slain in battle, and himself afterwards
driven from his kingdom, and sent into exile, by a very righteous
judgement, when he would not listen to John's exhortations to eternal life,
that he suddenly with disgrace should lose his transitory kingdom. The wise
Augustine exhorts us with these words, and says, "Consider, I pray you, my
brethren, with understanding, how wretched is this present life, and yet ye
dread leaving it too speedily. Ye love this life in which ye exist with
toil; thou carest about thy need; thou runnest, and art filled with
anxiety; thou ploughest, and sowest, and afterwards gatherest; thou
grindest, and bakest; thou weavest and preparest garments, and hardly
knowest the number of all thy needs, both on sea and on land, and shalt end
all these aforesaid things, and also thy life with tribulation. Learn now,
therefore, that ye may be able to earn the eternal life, in which ye will
suffer none of these toils, but with God will reign to eternity."
In this life we faint, if we sustain not ourselves with food; if we drink
not, we are destroyed by thirst; if we watch too long, we faint; if we
stand long, we are fatigued, and then sit; again, if we sit too long, our
limbs sleep. Consider {491} also after this, that there is no stability of
our body: childhood passes to boyhood, and boyhood to full growth; full
growth bows to age, and age is ended by death. Verily our age stands on no
stability, but so much as the body grows so greatly are its days
diminished. Everywhere in our life are faintness and weariness, and decay
of the body, and yet every one desires that he may live long. What is to
live long but long to toil? It happens to few men in these days to live
eighty years in health, and whatsoever he lives over that, it is toil to
him and pain, as the prophet said, "Evil are our days," and the worse that
we love them. So this world flatters very many, that they are unwilling to
end this life of exile. A true and blessed life it will be, when we from
death arise and reign with Christ. In that life will be good days, yet not
many days, but one, which knows no rise nor no ending, which no tomorrow
follows, because no yesterday preceded it; but the one day will for ever be
unended without any night, without afflictions, without all the toils,
which we a little before in this lecture recounted. This day and this life
are promised to righteous christians, to whom may the merciful Lord lead
us, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost ever without
end. Amen.
* * * * *