restored? With such grave thoughts were the rainds of the people occupied as they mused on the events which had been passing under their eyes, and said one to another, " What manner of child shall this be ?" while Zacharias himself, " filled with the Holy Ghost," broke forth in a glorious strain of praise and prophecy — a strain in which it is to be observed that the father, be- fore speaking of his own child, blesses God for remem- bering his covenant and promise in the redemption and salvation of his people through him of whom his own son was the prophet and forerunner. A single verse contains all that we know of John's history for a space of thirty years, the whole period which elapsed between his birth and the commencement of his public ministry : "The child grew and waxed strong in the spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Is- rael" (Luke i, 80). John, it will be remembered, was or- dained to be a Nazarite (see Numb, vi, 1-21) from his birth, for the words of the angel were, " He shall druik neither wine nor strong drink" (Luke i, 15). What we are to understand by this brief announcement is proba- bly this: the chosen forerunner of the Messiah and her- ald of his kingdom was required to forego the ordinary pleasures and indulgences of the world, and live a life of the strictest self-denial in retirement and soUtude. The apocryphal Protev, Jac. ch. xxii, states that his mother, in order to rescue her son from the murder of the children at Bethlehem Avhich Herod commanded, fled with him into the desert. She could find no place of refuge , the mountain opened at her request, and gave the needed shelter in its bosom. Zacharias, being ques- tioned by Herod as to where his son was to be found, and refusing to answer, was slain by the tyrant. At a later period Elizabeth died, when angels took the youth under their care (Fabricius, Cod. Apocryph. p. 117 sq. ; comp. Kuhn, Leben Jesu, i, 163, remark 4). It was thus that the holy Nazarite, dwelling by himself in the wild and thinly-peopled region westward of the Dead Sea, called " desert" in the text, prepared himself by self-dis- cipUne, and by constant communion with God, for the wonderful office to which he had been di^'inely called. Here year after year of his stern probation passed by, till the time for the fulfilment of his mission arrived. The very appearance of the holy Baptist was of itself a lesson to his countrjanen ; his dress was that of the old prophets — a garment woven of camel's hair (2 Kings i, 8), attached to the body hy a leathern girdle. His food was such as the desert spontaneously afforded — locusts (Lev. xi, 22) and wild honey (Psa. Ixxxi, 16) from the rock. (See Endemann, De victu Jo. Bapt. Hersfeld, 1752 ; Thadd. a St. Adamo, I)e victu Joa. Bapt. in deserto, Bonn, 1785; Miiller, Varia de victu Joa. Baptist. Bonn, 1829; Hackett, Illustr. of Script, p. 96.) Desert though the place is designated, the country where he spent these earl}' years — the wild mountainous tract of Judah, lying between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, along which it stretches — was not entirely destitute of means for sup- porting human existence (Matt, iii, 1-12; Mark i, 1-8; Luke iii, 1-20 ; John x, 28 ; Justin Martyr, Dial, cum Tryph. c. 88). Josephus, in his Life (ii, 2), gives an account of one of his instructors, Banus, which throws light on John's condition in the desert : " He lived in the desert, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequent- ly, both by night and by da)'. I imitated him in these things, and continued with him three years." Some writers infer that John was an J'^ssene ; so says, e. g. Taylor, editor of CalmeVs Bictionai-i/ of the Bible; comp. Johnson, Monls before Christ (Bost. 1870, 12mo), p. 109 scj. But this is denied by Eenan, Vie de Jesus (13th ed. Paris, 1867), p. 101 sq.
2. At length, in the fifteenth year of the associate reign of the emperor Tiberius (see Jarvis, Chron. Int7-od. p. 228 sq., 4G2 sq.), or A.D. 25, the long-secluded hermit came forth to the discharge of his office. His supernat- ural birth, his hard ascetic life, his reputation for ex- traordinary sanctity, and the generally-prevailing ex-
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pectation that some great one was about to appear — these causes, without the aid of miraculous power, for "John did no miracle" (John x, 41), were sufficient to attract to him a great multitude from "every quarter" (Matt, iii, 5). Brief and startling was his tirst exhorta- tion to them — " Kepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." A few scores of verses contain all that is recorded of John's preaching, and the sum of it aU is re- pentance— not mere legal ablution or expiation, but a change of heart and life. Herein John, though exhib- iting a marked contrast to the scribes and Pharisees of his own time, was but repeating, with the stimulus of a new and powerful motive, the lessons which had been again and again impressed upon them by their ancient prophets (comp. Isa. i, 1(5, 17 ; Iv, 7 ; Jer. vii, 3-7 ; Ezek. xviii, 19-32 , xxxvi, 25-27 , Joel ii, 12, 13 ; Micah vi, 8; Zech. i, 3, 4), But, while such was his solemn admonition to the multitude at large, he adopted to- wards the leading sects of the Jews a severer tone, de- nouncing Pharisees and Sadducees alike as " a genera- tion of vipers," and warning them of the folly of trust- ing to external privileges as descendants of Abraham (Luke iii, 8). Now. at last, he warns them that "the axe was laid to the root of the tree," that formal right- eousness would be tolerated no longer, and that none would be acknowledged for children of Abraham but such as did the works of Abraham (comp. John viii, 39). Such alarming declarations produced their effect, and many of every class pressed forward to confess their suis and to be baptized.