penitent and utter destruction for the ungodly; hence the prophet’s call to repentance.  His ministry was one of grace, but the time was drawing near when the Greater One would appear to complete by a swift judgment the work which his forerunner was beginning.  That Greater One would hew down the fruitless tree, winnow the wheat from the chaff on the threshing floor, baptize the penitent with divine power, and the wicked with the fire of judgment, since his was to be a ministry of judgment, not of grace.

75.  Whence, then, came this strange prophet?  Near the desert region where he spent his youth and where he first proclaimed his message of repentance and judgment was the chief settlement of that strange company of Jews known as Essenes.  It has long been customary to think that during his early years John was associated with these fellow-dwellers in the desert, if he did not actually join the order.  He certainly may have learned from them many things.  Their sympathy with his ascetic life and with his thorough moral earnestness would make them attractive to him, but he was far too original a man to get from them more than some suggestions to be worked out in his own fashion.  The simplicity of his teaching of repentance and the disregard of ceremonial in his preaching separate him from these monks.  John may have known his desert companions, may have appreciated some things in their discipline, but he remained independent of their guidance.

76.  The leaders of religious life and thought in his day were unquestionably the Pharisees.  The controlling idea with them, and consequently with the people, was the sanctity of God’s law.  They were conscious of the sinfulness of the people, and their demand for repentance was constant.  It is a rabbinic commonplace that the delay of the Messiah’s coming is due to lack of repentance in Israel.  But near as this conception is to John’s, we need but to recall his words to the Pharisees (Matt. iii. 7) to realize how clearly he saw through the hollowness of their religious pretence.  With the quibbles of the scribes concerning small and great commandments, Sabbaths and hand-washings, John shows no affinity.  He may have learned some things from these “sitters in Moses’ seat,” but he was not of them.

77.  John’s message announced the near approach of the kingdom of God.  It is probable that many of those who sought his baptism were ardent nationalists,—­eager to take a hand in realizing that consummation.  Josephus indicates that it was Herod’s fear lest John should lead these Zealots to revolt that furnished the ostensible cause of his death.  But similar as were the interests of John and these nationalists, the distance between them was great.  The prophet’s replies to the publicans and to the soldiers, which contain not a word of rebuke for the hated callings (Luke iii. 13, 14), show how fundamentally he differed from the Zealots.