The Baptist's Final Witness—Why he sent his disciples
Did St. John the Baptist begin to have doubts about Our Lord? Father Coleridge explains why this impious idea about the Forerunner of Christ is untenable.
In this chapter, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How St John the Baptist lived in prison
Why he sent his disciples to Christ
Whether St John the Baptist had doubts about Our Lord or not.
He also shows us how God’s providence teaches us to be patient with those who have not yet arrived at a full embrace of the truth of Christ.
This Gospel is read on the Second Sunday of Advent.
It is curious that the Advent Gospel readings appear in reverse chronological order:
The last witness of St John the Baptist (and Our Lord’s witness to him)
St John the Baptist’s declaration of his mission
The first witness of St John the Baptist.
This reverse chronological order also recalls the curious mnemonic ‘ERO CRAS,’ spelt out by a reversal of the ‘O Antiphons’ from the 17th December. It is as if the Roman liturgy is engaging in a kind of “countdown” to Christmas.
These readings also show how central the Forerunner of Christ is in this period.
Naturally, this is because St John the Baptist went before Christ, to prepare the people for his coming. There is a fittingness about these readings appearing in Advent.
However, we should recall that on a strictly rationalist or historical basis, St John the Baptist was still a mere infant at the time of the Nativity. He was not preparing for Christ’s birth, but for his mission and his manifestation.
As such, while readings about his mission certainly has applicability to the historical event of Christmas, they also point to what we have been discussing elsewhere, namely the focus which Advent has on the second coming of Christ at the end of time.
We have addressed this, and how the Roman Liturgy presents this matter, below:
The Last Witness of St John the Baptist—Part I
From
The Training of the Apostles Vol. II
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1889, Ch. XIII, pp 244-253
St. Matt. xi. 2-6; St. Luke vii. 17-23;
Story of the Gospels, § 52
Sung on the Second Sunday of Advent
News taken to St. John the Baptist
The miracle at Naim was, in the opinion of the people generally, by far the greatest work of the kind that had been wrought by our Lord. He was already known all over the land as a mighty worker of miracles of various degrees, but the language in which the Evangelists speak of the effect of this one great wonder is stronger than that used on any former occasion.
Nor is this a matter of surprise to us. For nothing in the order of marvellous works of mercy can come near, in the common opinion of men, to the raising of the dead to life. Such a miracle seems to be in an order by itself. This power is by no means so frequently granted to the Saints of God as that of other miracles.
And, if it be true, as we are led by the silence of the Evangelists to think, that this was the first instance of the exercise of this power by our Blessed Lord, it is very natural to suppose that the sensation which it created all over the country would be quite different from any that had been occasioned by former works of our Lord, however magnificent and multitudinous.
But the particular effect of this miracle with which we are now concerned, is that which is specially mentioned by St. Luke in the few words in which he speaks of the ‘rumour which went forth concerning our Lord’ in consequence of this great display of power. He adds, ‘And the disciples of John told him of all these things.’
St. John in prison
We are thus taken back in thought to the holy Baptist, who had now for a year or more been a close prisoner in the fortress adjoining the palace in which Herod the Tetrarch resided.
St. Luke in another place gives us a picture of the Blessed Precursor of our Lord in his prison life, which was so soon to be terminated by martyrdom. He tells us how Herod had imprisoned St. John on account of his open denunciation of the incestuous intercourse between the Tetrarch and Herodias, which was now publicly obtruded on the world under the name of marriage, but which scandalized the people as well as the more religious classes to such an extent, that Herod was afraid to leave at liberty a man of so much influence as St. John, lest troubles might arise if the popular feeling were stirred up by the powerful voice of one who was held as a Prophet.
St. John in his prison was an object of fear and hatred to Herodias, for guilty persons of that sort, however powerful, are never free from fear, and they show the uneasiness of their conscience by constant attempts to rid themselves by violence, open or secret, of those whose presence is a rebuke to them, and from whose influence they anticipate trouble.
The vindictive spite of the adulteress did not sleep, notwithstanding the chains and dungeon of St. John. She was not satisfied, and her resentment was ere long to have its full glut in the murder of the Prophet.
Probably one of the elements of the alarm of Herodias on the score of St. John was the influence which he still exercised over her weak though unscrupulous paramour. Herod was a man of the world, probably himself the seduced rather than the seducer, a man not without some good instincts and some ideas of what was right and just. In many things he followed the advice given him by St. John, and the Prophet was allowed, as it seems, to have free intercourse with his friends and disciples, who might minister to his few wants and continue to be guided by him.
The cruelty of Herod was the cruelty of a voluptuary, which does not exclude occasional acts of generosity and good nature.
Watching Our Lord’s progress
The blessed St. John had only been occupied in his course of preaching for not more than a few months, and the greater part of his life had been spent in the desert in seclusion and prayer, contemplation, and mortification.
It would seem to be little matter to him, whether his cell, so to speak, were the dungeon in Herod’s prison, or the cave on the desert or on the mountain side. His wants were few, his happiness was in communion with his God, and this he could practise as well in one place as in another.
Nor had he any ambition, we may suppose, to continue his course of popular preaching, for the time of his ministry, which was essentially transient, had gone by; he had finished his work of the preparation of men’s hearts for our Lord, and now He had come whose shoe’s latchet he was not worthy to unloose.
But a heart like his could not but be on fire with zeal for souls. In his prison St. John watched the progress of the preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven. Many a work of wonder would have been related to him by his disciples, and he would have heard of our Lord’s gracious words and heavenly teaching, of the authority with which He spoke, and the multitudes that followed Him.
Effect of the opposition to him
Later on St. John might have heard of the opposition which had sprung up, and which threatened to bar the onward path of the new Teacher. His disciples might have told him of what had passed at Jerusalem at the last Pasch, and the court of the Tetrarch would receive some reports of the attitude now taken up by his political servants.
Then it would be said how for a time little had been said or heard of the Teacher against Whom so powerful a coalition had been formed. He had withdrawn from the spots where His presence had been most familiar, though there were reports of His continued preaching on the outskirts of the towns, and it was said that He was still dangerous.
He had not lost His hold on the common people. Perhaps St. John may have heard of our Lord’s sudden reappearance at Capharnaum, but it is certain that the miracle of Naim reached his ears, the first instance of which he could have heard of the raising of the dead to life.
It is impossible to suppose that St. John could be indifferent to all that was brought to him by his disciples concerning our Blessed Lord at this time. He may well have seen in the rise of the opposition to our Lord on the part of the authorities of the holy people a danger to the faith of those who were still under his guidance as his disciples.
If the authorities at Jerusalem were beginning to use their immense influence with the people against Jesus Christ, he might have felt that this was a call to exert his own influence more openly on the other side.
Slowness of belief
(… and a discreet treatment of Newman and the Oxford Movement?)
We are not told much about the disciples of the Baptist, but there seems no reason for thinking that they were in any way at all indisposed to our Lord. Their case may have been parallel to that of the near blood relations of our Lord, of whom we had lately to speak.
We are sometimes inclined to judge rather impatiently of men who do not at once accept the evidences of the Church, or close at once with the whispers of a lofty vocation. It is well that we have in the Gospels cases which may rebuke this impatience.
God dealt with the Brethren of our Lord, as they are called, in one way, and He dealt with the disciples of St. John in another—and in another again with such future disciples at Jerusalem, in the very midst of the priestly hostility to our Lord, as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Gamaliel, perhaps with St. Stephen also, and with the still greater soul of St. Paul.
If there was any hesitation as to our Lord’s Mission and dignity on the part of these disciples of the Precursor—though we do not know that there was—it would be something like what is found in the case of persons who are being gradually led on by the good, positive, though imperfect, teaching of communities outside the Church which have retained large shreds of Catholic doctrine, or much more, by the personal influence and teaching of some leader of thought on whom the full light has not yet dawned.
There will always be souls in such a stage of spiritual progress, as not yet to have been ripened for the full sacrifice of conversion, under circumstances when conversion implies great material losses and strong social persecution, and others, too, in whom the intellectual process of laying aside the prejudices and false teaching of generations is slow in attaining its completion.
Again, these souls have often a work to do in influencing others, a work which must have its time. Providence is very tender with such souls, so long as they retain their simplicity and their good faith, and the tenderness of Providence in their regard is the method chosen by Infinite Wisdom for their final salvation or perfection, a method full of beautiful order and delicate adaptation of means to ends.
The Father’s providence
These disciples of St. John, of whom we are now speaking, were on their way to a full faith in our Lord’s Divine Person, not by the teaching of flesh and blood, but by the silent gradual teaching of the Father of all in His Providence. It was the office of St. John to minister in his own way to the gradual formation and expansion of the faith in their hearts, thus aiding the work of the Eternal Father in them.
If the opposition of the priests and scribes of Jerusalem quickened the anxiety of the Baptist concerning those who were so dear to him, and over whom he had so delicate a charge, the news of the great manifestations of Divine power on the part of our Lord came to him as a fresh delight and consolation, furnishing him with a precious opportunity of doing a last service to the cause of the Master Whom he so devotedly loved.
Here was a new argument for St. John to use. He might, it is true, have taken up the argument himself, and have urged it home to the disciples who yet remained to him. But in the wisdom of Providence, a better way was ordained than even the words of the Baptist himself to disciples, however devoted to him.
In his own deep humility, St. John would rejoice above everything in being able to send his followers to our Lord, and let them hear from Himself what He might say, and see for themselves what He might do.
Arrangement of evidences
Again, in doing this, St. John was acting directly in accordance with the method of Divine Providence in the manifestation of our Lord, as laid down by our Lord Himself.
It will be remembered that on the great occasion on which our Lord, after the miracle on the man at the Probatic Pool, unfolded to the Jewish teachers and rulers the series of evidences with which it had pleased His Eternal Father to accredit His Mission, He had spoken of the witness borne to Him by St. John the Baptist as the first kind of evidence to which those who were then questioning Him and accusing Him ought to have paid attention.
They had sent unto John, He told them, and ‘he gave testimony to the truth.’ He was a burning and shining light, and they were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. ‘But,’ He added, ‘He had a greater testimony than that of John.’ This greater testimony was that of the works which His Father gave Him to perfect. ‘The works themselves which I do, give testimony of Me that the Father hath sent Me.’
Thus, in the order of Divine Providence, our Lord was to be first attested by the witness of St. John, and then by the still greater witness of His own miracles. This witness was greater than that of John, because the witness of John was that of a man, while the testimony of the works was that of God.
The works as such were not precisely the Words of God, the Voice of God, as it was heard at the time of our Lord’s Baptism and afterwards at the Transfiguration, but they were works which none but God, or One with Whom God was, could do, and thus they attested the truth which our Lord declared them to attest, that the Father had sent Him. He was therefore to be listened to and accepted as the Messenger of the Father.
This same order of Divine Providence as to the various testimonies to our Lord was now illustrated by the remarkable action of St. John Baptist himself. It was the great desire of St. John, as has already been shown more than once, to pass on his disciples to our Lord, and, as long as they existed as a separate body, to make them a school by means of which converts were gained who might afterwards go on to the teaching of our Lord and to faith in Him.
In order that this might be done more securely, it was right that St. John should follow the order of Divine Providence, and guide them to our Lord by means of the appointed proofs of our Lord’s Mission. Thus it was natural that when he knew for certain that our Lord’s Mission had been accredited by miracles, he should give his disciples the opportunity of using this testimony for their own advantage.
For himself, it is impossible to think that he needed the proof of what he had so faithfully taught and declared. At the time at which we have now arrived in the narrative of this second year of our Lord’s Public Ministry, it would seem as if St. John had come to the determination of formally sending a deputation of his disciples to our Lord in order that they might be convinced of the truth concerning Him to which St. John had himself so often borne witness.
St John and the ‘works of Christ’
The incident is introduced by St. Luke, as has been said, with words which connect it immediately with the miracle lately wrought on the son of the widow at Naim. St. Luke’s words imply that the blessed Baptist waited till his disciples of their own accord spoke to him of the mighty works of our Lord.
It need not be supposed that there was any difficulty in leading them on to the belief in our Lord, but they still clung to their old teacher, and it was his business, as it was his delight, to help them on. St. Matthew, who is the only other Evangelist who mentions this incident, introduces it with words still more striking, though he does not mention the significant fact of the disciples of St. John having spoken to their master concerning our Lord. He tells us that ‘John heard in his prison the works of Christ,’ or rather the ‘works of the Christ.’
Nowhere else in his Gospel does St. Matthew speak of our Lord in these words, as simply of the Christ. And we must therefore suppose that he intends us to understand him on this occasion as pointing out that the works of which he is speaking were the works of the Christ, in the strictest sense of the words, that is, the works which belonged to the Christ as He had been promised by the Prophets.
Message of St. John
This then was the occasion of this embassy, as it may be called, in which the great Precursor solemnly appealed to our Lord to give a definite answer to the surmises, conjectures, and doubts concerning Himself, which were current in the hearts of men wherever the wonderful tidings of His teaching and miracles had been carried.
It need not be supposed that St. John considered his own disciples alone in this message. He may have had the intention of convincing others by means of the disciples whom he sent, for it is natural to think that the adhesion of a body which must have been held in so much respect would add greatly to the prestige of the new Teacher.
No one would be able to say that St. John was in any way opposed to our Lord. And we find no traces of such an allegation in the Sacred Scriptures. John is always spoken of as testifying to our Lord, as saying great things of our Lord. The terms of the message of the Baptist are the same in the two Evangelists who relate this incident:
‘Art Thou He that art to come, or look we for another?’
To be continued…
From Fr Henry James Coleridge, The Training of the Apostles Vol. II
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