And lo! strange rumours went through the land.  As the south wind of spring blows over Lebanon, melts the ice, and brings forth buds, so were the hearts of men filled with new hope.  A man out in the wilderness was preaching a new doctrine.  For a long while he preached to stones, because, he said, they were not so hard as men’s understanding.  The stones themselves would soon speak, the mountains be levelled and the valleys filled up so that a smooth road might be ready for the Holy Spirit which was drawing nigh.

Men grew keenly interested in those tidings.  Some said:  “Let us go out and hear him just for amusement’s sake.”  They came back and summoned others to go out and see the extraordinary man.  He wore a garment of camel’s hair instead of a cloak, and a leather girdle round his loins.  His hair was long, black, and in disorder, his face sunburnt, and his eyes flamed as if in frenzy.  But he was not an Arab nor an Amalekite; he was one of the chosen people.  Down by the lake he was better known.  He was the son of Zacharias, a priest and a native of the wonderful land of Galilee.  The Galileans had at first mocked at him, and with a side glance at Jesus, said:  “What a blessed land is Galilee, where new teachers of virtue are as plentiful as mushrooms in rainy weather!” Jesus retorted by asking whether they knew what kind of a people it was that only produced preachers of repentance?

The name of the preacher in the wilderness was John.  More and more people went out to hear him, and everyone related marvels.  He chased locusts and fed on them, and took the honey from the wild bees and swallowed it.  He seemed to despise the ordinary food and customs of men.  Since the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem, he had lived in the wilderness, dwelling in a cave high up in the rocks of the mountain.  It almost seemed that he loved wild beasts better than men, whose cloak of virtue he hated because it was woven out of evil-smelling hypocrisy and wickedness.

They called him the herald.  “We are surprised,” they said, “that the Rabbis and High Priests in Capernaum, Tiberias, and Jerusalem should keep silent.  They could put this man to death for his words.”  But the herald had no fear.  He preached a new doctrine, and he poured water over the heads of those who joined him as a sign of the covenant.

“And what is his teaching?” asked others.

“Go and hear for yourselves!”

And so more and more people went out from Judaea and Galilee into the wilderness.  The preacher had withdrawn a little way above the point where the river Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.  The district, usually so deserted, was alive with all sorts of people, among them Rabbis and men learned in the law, who represented themselves as penitents, but desired to outwit the prophet with cunning.  The preacher stood on a stone; he held a corner of his camel’s hair garment, pressed against his hairy breast with