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Commentary from
THE ANNOTATED
BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER
Edited by JOHN HENRY BLUNT
Rivingtons, London, 1884
NATIVITY OF
SAINT THE BAPTIST
[JUNE 24.]
This festival is in the
Comes of St. Jerome, as also
another commemorating the
Beheading of St. John the
Baptist, but the date is not
indicated in either case.
Mabillon says that the
festival of this day was in
the Carthaginian Calendar
before
A.d. 484; and it is
mentioned [circ. A.D. 400]
by Maximus, Bp. of Turin, as
also by St. Augustine, in
several Homilies. In the
Eastern Church it is kept on
January 7th, the day after
the holy Theophany; and the
festival of the Decollation
is also fixed, as in the
Latin Church and our own,
for August 29th. The day on
which our principal Festival
of St. John the Baptist is
kept has been supposed to be
connected with his words,
"He must increase, but I
must decrease;" the days of
the Bridegroom are growing
longer, but those of the
friend of the Bridegroom are
beginning to wane. So St.
Augustine says [Horn. 287],
"John was born to-day, and
from to-day the days
decrease; Christ was born on
the eighth of the kalends of
January, and from that day
the days increase." But the
24th of June is also the
proximate day of the
Baptist's birth, since he
was six months older than
our Lord.
Although the martyrdom of St
John Baptist is one of the
four recorded in Holy
Scripture (the other three
being those of the Holy
Innocents, St. Stephen, and
St. James), yet the present
festival, which commemorates
his Nativity, appears to be
the more ancient of the two
dedicated to his name, and
the one more generally
observed. So we may judge
from the Sermons both of
Maximus and St. Augustine,
each of whom accounts for
the custom of observing the
Birth and not the Martyrdom
of the Precursor of our Lord
as if no other festival in
his honour had yet been
established. "The prophets
who had gone before were
first born, and at a later
day prophesied, but St. John
Baptist heralded the
Incarnation of our Lord when
His Virgin Mother came to
visit Elizabeth, and both
the Precursor and the Holy
Child were yet unborn."
The miraculous birth of St. John the Baptist, and all that we know of his subsequent history, is told us in the opening chapters of the four Gospels, in the 11th of St. Matthew, and the 9th of St. Luke. By comparing our Lord's words in Matt. xi. 14, those of the angel in Luke i. 16,17, of Zacharias in Luke ii. 76, and those of St. John himself in announcing his mission, with preceding prophecies, we see that the prophets had spoken of him more than seven hundred years before he was born, and that the very last words of the Old Testament, written about four hundred years previously, were concerning him. And, comparatively little as is said about St. John in Holy Scripture, what is said shows how important his office was, and illustrates the words of our Lord, that among all previously born of women, none was ever greater than John the Baptist.
He appears to have spent his childhood, at least, with our Blessed Lord and His mother, and it is natural to suppose that his parents lived but a few years after his birth. But when the time for his ministry came, he adopted the ancient prophetic mode of life; such as is indicated in the case of Elijah the Tishbite, who is said [2 Kings i. 8] to have been "an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." As a prophet, and the greatest of all,—the last prophet of the old dispensation, and the first of the new,—he assailed the vices of the generation in which our Lord came, as Elijah himself had assailed those of Ahab and the Israel of that day; and so doing he brought many to repentance, and initiated a new moral life by that ordinance of Baptism with which the dispensation of Sinai ended, and that of Calvary began. And when by the power of his preaching he had prepared the hearts of the people to receive Christ as a blessing, and not as one "come to smite the earth with a curse" [Mal. iv. 6], the other part of his office was brought into exercise, that of baptizing our Lord, and witnessing to the descent of the Holy Spirit on His human nature.
Powerful as the effect of St. John the Baptist's ministrations evidently was, we have very little information given us about it. He proclaimed the coming of Christ, rebuked all classes of the people for their sins, showed them the way to turn from them, and baptized with a Baptism of water which foreshadowed the Baptism with the Holy Ghost as well as water. All people seem to have come readily to him, for the "offence of the Cross" had not yet begun, and the prophet who attracted was no "carpenter's son," but "a prophet indeed," the son of a man well known among them, a priest of the regular succession of Aaron, prophesying as Elijah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel, with the outward appearance and habit of a " man sent from God," and telling of that which they longed for, the near approach of their Messiah. This is all we learn of the ministry of the Baptist from Holy Scripture, and tradition has added little or nothing more. His martyrdom appears to have taken place very early in our Lord's ministry, and when St. John himself was only about thirty years of age; and since his work was done, we may see in it the manner in which the course of even the evil of this world is so regulated, that it ministered by a quick death to the rapid removal of a saint from the Church on earth to the Church in Heaven when the time of his reward was come.
INTROIT.—The Lord hath called me by name from the womb of my mother. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand hath He hid me: He hath made me like a polished shaft, and in His quiver hath He concealed me. Ps. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to praise Thy Name, O Thou most highest. Glory be.
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