PRECURSOR: First in All!



"Among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist" (Mt.11:11), said Jesus of John the Baptist.He was the supreme ascetic; he who was filled with the Holy Spirit from His mother's womb (Lk. 1:15);he who preached Christ in Hades, and many more such wonders.
  • Prologue

    PART I
    1. Gabriel's message   
    2. Mute and deaf   
    3. Questions-answers   
    4. A strange meeting   
    5. John's birth and Circumcision   
    6. Herod slaughters the infants   


    PART II
    1. Hermit   
    2. Confronting the Devil   
     
    PART III
    1. The Jordan River   
    2. His motto   
    3. Chatting with the crowds   
    4. Brood of vipers   
    5. "Divide and conquer" 
     
    PART IV
    1. "Behold the Lamb of God"   
    2. Α Visit to Jesus   
    3. The bride and the bridegroom   
    4. John and the new age 
     
    PART V
    1. Why?   
    2. The dove
    PART VI
    1. The two "camps"
    • 2. John in prison   
    3. "Are you the Messiah?"   
    4. Praising John. Reprimanding the Jews.   
    5. John's beheading
                                   PART VII
    1. Feasts of the Finding of his Skull  
    2. Feasts of the Conception, Birth and more  
    3. The supreme feast  
                                    PART VIII
    1. Superior to Archangels!  
    2. Precursor and Baptist    
            A segment. Part VI

      Jesus had set up camp in the countryside of Judea with His followers, and was baptizing, the baptism of John; although it was not Jesus Himself who baptized, "but His disciples".
     Near there, in Aenon, John also had set up camp and he was baptizing. And John's disciples opened a discussion with a baptized Jew about purification, that is, baptism; apparently wanting to belittle the baptism of Christ's disciples and exalt John's baptism. Not having persuaded the Jew, they went with him to John, and said to him, ""Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified--behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!"Their words concealed bitterness and "enmity" against Christ; they did not even mention His name!

The reason why John continued to baptize alongside Jesus, while had to stop baptizing, in order to give authority to the work of Jesus was precisely this:  the spirits between the two camps were sharp. If he stopped baptizing , his followers would not stand for it! No one knows how his people would have reacted.
Even Christ himself, living in this climate of "polarization" was cautious in His movements; until John's imprisonment He stayed in Nazareth; He preached "loosely", opportunistically. 

  Chrysostom:  "I am of the opinion that John was allowed to die prematurely, so that, on the one hand, this rivalry, the schism that existed between his disciples and of Christ would not continue, and on the other hand, from now on the world would focus on Christ"

   But when John was put in prison, Jesus left Nazareth, and settled in Capernaum and "from that time Jesus began to preach".


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