2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. the Baptist] According to Jewish tradition, baptism had long been practised in the admission of proselytes, and Prof. W. L. Alexander (in Kitto's' Cyclopaedia, iii, 593) well says that the baptism of John the Baptist was not regarded by the people as aught of a novelty, nor was represented by him as resting for its authority upon any special divine revelation,' and that Josephus seems in what he says of John's baptism to imply that the rite was already in use (Antff., xviii. 5 § 2). "The ceremony' of baptizing a proselyte was performed after the healing of the wound caused by the circumcision, in the presence of three persons who had acted as the instructors of the convert, and were regarded not only as witnesses for his baptism, but, with reference to the idea of a new birth therewith connected, as his fathers. Having stripped himself, cut his hair, and pared the nails on his hands and feet, he went into the water up to the arms; the laws were then read to him, and having promised to obey them, he immersed himself wholly. Females were attended to the bath by persons of their own sex, while their teachers stood outside the door' (Prof. Alexander). Male proselytes had a new name given them after circumcision and before baptism-' the one that first presented itself on the opening of the Bible'; female proselytes received a new name after baptism. the wilderness of Juddfa] A rocky district on the E. border. The word here and elsewhere rendered 'wilderness' signifies country uninhabited, but not necessarily without vegetation. The Gospel according to the Hebrews contained a passage answering to vv. 1-7: the words which I put in brackets may or may not have originally belonged to it :— 'And [in those days] John began baptizing [a baptism of repentance in the Jordan river]. And there came out unto him Pharisees and were baptized, and all Jerusalem. And John had raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his food was [locusts and] wild honey, whereof the taste was of the manna, like a cake made with oil for honey].' 2. the kingdom of heaven] Render, in all places, 'the kingdom of the heavens.' By this phrase, which was common in the mouths of the Scribes, is meant the reign of God in men's hearts and lives. Matthew alone among the Evangelists employs it, the others preferring 'the kingdom of God,' which is also found in vi. 33, xii. 28, xxi. 31, 43, of the present Gospel, but not, according to the right reading, in xix. 24. Other forms are 'the kingdom,' iv. 23, ix. 35, xiii. 19, 38, , 3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, J. i. 23, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye Isai. xl. &, the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4 And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. xxiv. 14, 'the kingdom of the Father,' xiii. 43, xxvi. 29, 'my kingdom,' &c. &c. The reader may turn, for a short discussion of the Jewish meaning of the phrase, to Drummond's Jewish Messiah, c. xv., which ends with the conclusion that, whatever it may or may not be in the Gospels, at all events in the purely Jewish literature, there is no satisfactory evidence that "the kingdom of God," or "the kingdom of heaven," was ever used by the Jews as synonymous with the kingdom of the Messiah.' 3. by the prophet Esaias] Isai. xl. 3. Editors read through (see note on i. 22) instead of 'by': so SVCD, the three Latin versions, and the translator of Irenaeus. Prepare-straight] Not only do modern ways prove the need of such preparation, but modern customs show how, when, and why it is done. When Ibrahim Pasha proposed to visit certain places on Lebanon, the emeers and sheikhs sent forth a general proclamation, somewhat in the style of Isaiah's exhortation, to all the inhabitants, to assemble along the proposed route and prepare the way before him. The same was done in 1845, on a grand scale, when the present sultan visited Brusa. The stones were gathered out, crooked places straightened, and rough ones made level and smooth. I had the benefit of their labour a few days after his majesty's visit. From customs like these comes the exhortation of John the Baptist, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight"; or, as it is more fully developed by the prophet, "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." The exhortation to gather out stones is peculiarly appropriate. These farmers do the exact reverse-gather up the stones from their fields, and cast them into the highway; and it is this barbarous custom which in many places renders the paths so uncomfortable, and even dangerous' (Dr. W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 77). 4. the same John] Render 'John himself.' camel's hair-girdle] Poor garments of haircloth are spoken of by Josephus, and cloth of camel's hair is said to be still woven in Palestine girdles of leather are worn to the present day by the 少 Bedawîn. It is to be remarked that Elijah is described (2 Kings i. 8) as "an hairy man '-the Hebrew seems to mean a man clad in a shaggy garment-' and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins'; see also Zech. xiii. 4. The general appearance and life of the prophet,' says Mr. Meyrick (Smith's Bib, Dict. ii. 931), were very similar to those of the Eastern dervish at the present day. His dress was a hairy garment, girt with a leathern girdle. He was married or unmarried as he chose; but his manner of life and diet were stern and austere.' locusts]These locusts are the insects, not the fruit (sometimes called "St. John's bread ") of the tree now termed the locust-tree. Lev. xi. 22 permits locusts to be eaten, and eaten they are at this day by Hottentots, Persians, and Arabs. The Bedawîn throw them alive into boiling water with salt in it; dry them in the sun; tear off the head, feet, and wings; cleanse the bodies from the salt; fry them in butter; and eat them on bread, often mixed with wild honey-which is still obtained in abundance from trees in the wilderness (The Land and the Book, 420). wild honey] Meli agrion. The common explanation is 'honey made by wild bees.' There have not, however, been wanting those who have explained it to mean that exudation from the leaves of trees and shrubs, so common in Oriental countries (including the Jordan valley), which is gathered and used as we use butter or honey, and which is called by the Arabs 'manna.' A passage of Diodorus Siculus, who wrote about 8 B.C., seems to give the precise name meli agrion, wild honey,' to this exudation; writing of the Nabataean Arabs he says ' And they use for food flesh and milk, and the provisions afforded by what grows from the earth: for the pepper grows among them from the trees, and much honey, the same that is called wild honey (meli agrion), which they use for a drink with water." Here, even if instead of grows' (phuctai) we render is produced, one gets an impression that a vegetable honey is meant, and the fact that Diodorus does not speak of it as merely 'wild' but the samethat is called wild' tends to show that it was something quite different from the ordinary wild honey. And Suidas (about 1100 A.D.) in his Lexicon says 'Locust. A kind of tiny animak The Forerunner also ate locusts and wild honey which is gathered together from the trees and is commonly called manna.' So too Reland, the Orientalist, writes in his Palaestina Illustrata, i. 59, 'here honey, besides that which the bees make, is produced in large quantity in the woods and oozes from trees,' and quotes to that effect Dioscorides (i. 37) and Pliny (xv. 7, xxiii. 4). But the most striking evidence in favour of this view is afforded in a happily preserved fragment of the Gospel according to the 5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan, 6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. 7¶ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bring forth therefore fruits || meet for repentance : • And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Hebrews, which answers to 1-7 of this chapter. There it is written 'And John had raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about | Or, answer- of life. /// his loins, and his food [was] wild honey, whereof the taste was of the was manna, like a cake [made] with oil' or '[made] with honey'; for made/made Epiphanius who quotes it twice gives it differently each time. Now this particular fragment comes to us not from the Nazarene but from the Ebionite copy of the lost Gospel; the Ebionites seem to have played tricks with their text, and this fragment itself contains some strong presumptive evidence of having been tampered with. But say what we will of it, say that, instead of being current, as the Gospel according to the Hebrews was current, at least as early as the middle of the 2nd cent., it was not written till the day before Epiphanius (who died in 376 A.D.) saw it, we have still to get over the fact that in the year 376 A.D. the 'wild honey' was believed by inhabitants of Palestine/to be the same as the exudation I have spoken of. The external evidence that this 'wild honey' was an edible gum seems to me, therefor, to be very strong indeed, and I can only suppose that modern commentators dismiss the theory so ourtly because they have not investigated that evidence. And the internal probabilities seem to me equally strong. Honey made by wild bees might very well be called 'wild honey,' but there appears to be no known instance in Greek literature of its being so called. On the other hand at the time when the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark were written there was an edible gum called by this name, and abundant in Palestine. Knowing this, would not the evangelists have been careful to avoid confusion by writing 'honey from wild bees,' if that was what they really meant? 7. Pharisees and Sadducees] See notes on v. 20, xxii. 23. generation] That is, 'offspring.' The same use of the word will be found in Winter's Tale, ii. 1, 148, and King Lear, i. 1, 119. warned] Render' taught.' 9. of these stones] Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 307) suggests 10 And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. 14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? that he pointed to 'the pebbles of the bare clay hills around him.' 10. now] Render 'already.' 11. shoes] Render 'sandals." to bear] As when a servant's master put off his sandals on entering the Temple, or coming into another man's house as a guest, when water was given to him to wash his feet. From modern analogies in the East it is probable that the Jews did not wear sandals at all indoors. Holy Ghost] See note on i. 18. 12. burn up the chaff] Unlike us, the Jews burnt their straw and chaff. 13-17. The Gospel according to the Hobrews had the following parallel passage: about the single word in brackets there is some slight doubt: 'When the people had been baptized, Jesus also came and was baptized by John. And as he went up from the water the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit in shape of a dove descending and entering into him. And a voice out of the heaven, saying "Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased"; and again, "I have this day begotten thee." And straightway a great light shone around the place. And when John saw it he saith unto him "Who art thou [Lord]?" And again a voice out of heaven said unto him" This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then John fell down before him and said "I pray thee, Lord, baptize thou me." But he prevented him, saying "Let be; for thus it is becoming that all things should be fulfilled."' |