"THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." (Mark i. 1,2, 3.) As in Matthew, at the very outset, the second Gospel starts out to show that Christ is the one foretold by the prophets, and that a direct reference is made to him by Isaiah, as one who was to be preceded by another who was to prepare the way for his advent. Cotemporaneous history, and a critical examination of the words of the prophet, will dispel the delusion.

Hezekiah, king of Judea, was improvident enough to show to the son of the king of Babylon, then on a visit to him, all his treasures, and riches of every description; and "there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed him not." When Isaiah was told by the king himself what he had done, the prophet spoke and said: "Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days." (Isaiah xxxix. S, 6, 7, 8.) The Babylonian captivity-is here referred to.

Isaiah then proceeds to declare that after great suffering, in their servitude under the Assyrians, the Lord would deliver the Jewish people, and that they should again be a great and prosperous nation. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 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." (Isaiah xl. 1,2, 3, 4.)

With what tenderness the prophet speaks to his countrymen, to assure them that their captivity will not last forever! Divested of poetical language and figures, the Lord says: In your lost condition in slavery ("wilderness") you shall hear the voice of the Lord to comfort you. Be prepared, for he will provide the means ("highway") for your deliverance from captivity. The words wilderness, desert, and highway are symbolical terms, representing the lost condition of the Jews and the promise made by the Lord, that he would provide means for their deliverance from their enemies. What follows, holds forth to the Jews a glorious future. "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low." That is, the down-trodden and oppressed children of Israel shall once more take the stand of an independent nation; and the proud and lofty Assyrian shall in his turn be humbled, and come under the yoke of the conqueror. The idea which underlies the language of the prophet is, that the Jews will be ultimately restored to their own country, and again become a prosperous people; and as is characteristic of all these Jewish prophecies, the expressions, "and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain," are mere expletives, to obscure the sense, and increase the ambiguity. Like the oracles of Greece, a simple idea is concealed beneath figures and metaphors, and the mind distracted by the introduction of thoughts that have no meaning, and no connection with the subject.

Josephus, after giving a full account of this prophecy from Isaiah says, it was subsequently fulfilled in the captivity and restoration of the Jews, and that when he wrote, the words of the prophet had passed into history. (Antiq., book x. chap. 2, sec. 2.) The Lord, by the prophet, is addressing the Jews of that day about matters which directly concerned them, and what was said had no more to do with John the Baptist preaching on the Jordan, in the neighborhood of the Arabian desert, than it had with the travels of Livingstone over the sands of Africa. The John referred to in Mark is a historic character, and all we know about him we learn through Josephus.

In his day he was a reformer. Shocked at the low condition of the Jews, who had reached the lowest deep in crimes and vices of all kinds, through the corruption of the priesthood, and tyranny of their civil Governors, he undertook to reform abuses, and elevate the moral standard of the nation. Standing on the banks of the Jordan, crowds from the surrounding country came to hear him denounce the sins of the people, and be baptized. He preached repentance, and those who did repent he purified with the mystic waters of the Jordan.

In the time of John, the Jewish people had become restive, and chafed under the government of Rome. The elements of rebellion were then at work, which, a few years later, led to open revolt, and the total ruin of the nation. While the Jews overran with discontent, the Roman Governors were filled with suspicion. Herod took alarm at the course of John, and caused him to be seized and confined in the castle of Macherus, situated on the borders of the desert, where he was afterwards put to death. All that is known of him is found in the following extract from Josephus:

"Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that washing [with water] would be acceptable to him if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now, when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure against him." (Josephus, Antiq., book xviii. chap. 5, sec. 2.)

It was this passage, and the one from Isaiah, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord," that suggested the story of Christ coming from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John, and the scenes that followed. As Josephus, in the passage just quoted, speaks of what John was doing on the Jordan, and what occurred there, it is strange he takes no notice of the wonderful things which took place at the time Christ was baptized, as described in Matthew. But, as we have shown, the prophecy of Isaiah has nothing to do with John the Baptist.

The story that the life of John was the price paid for a jig danced before Herod, is not only false and absurd, but in one sense impossible. Herod was a Roman officer, and received his appointment from Rome. As the Governor of a province, he acted under, and was governed by law. To take life without sufficient cause, from mere wantonness or caprice, subjected him to punishment and removal from office. Herod might put John to death as a promoter of sedition, but not to gratify the spite of a woman who had been accused of incest. Pilate dared not deliver over Christ to be crucified, until after he was charged by the Jews with conspiring against the government of CÆsar. His claim to be king of the Jews, which was made a charge against him, was the warrant which Pilate had to surrender him to a merciless mob, which would not be satisfied with anything less than his blood. The author of Matthew, it is clear, was ignorant of the topography of Judea, the history of the Jews, and knew nothing of the fundamental principles of the Roman law.