Like many other Roman institutions,this dual form of government was by no means ideal.But it worked,and that was all the conquerors wanted.They cheerfully left the theory of government to those Greek publicists who were interested in that sort of thing,and themselves stuck to the prosaic facts of daily life.As they were usually successful along these practical lines,the world accepted their rough-and-ready methods as the most practical solution that had as yet been offered by any race of men.
And now,behold!just when everything was going smoothly,the peace of Judaea was rudely upset by the sudden and most inconvenient appearance of a wild man from the desert.
To the people who lived west of the river Jordan,the Essenes,who despised all worldly possessions and loved to acquire holiness in the lonely desert,were an old story.They were harmless folk,who kept to their own little settlement and who rarely ventured forth into the villages and never into the towns,where bad people were buying and selling things and growing rich without a thought of that hereafter which so greatly worried the pious hermits.But the new prophet,although he dressed and lived like an Essene,did not in the least share their proverbial shyness.He went up and down the valley of the Jordan,indulging in that sort of religious exhortation which the modern world associates with the revival meetings which were so popular a few years ago.
When people refused to agree with him,he denounced them in terms that could not possibly be mistaken.
Soon there were clashes between him and the Sadducees.This was deplorable,for a breach of the common peace meant official reports from Palestine to Rome and commissions of inquiry from Rome to Palestine and perhaps a change of government which would make the King of Judaea an exile,passing his embittered days in a Roman city or in a far hamlet on the shores of the Black Sea.
Before the procurator in distant Caesarea therefore could hear of the trouble,the strong arm of the law was invoked against the religious firebrand,who dared to upset the peace and quiet of the land.
And behold!the man proved to be the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth,the little boy who was born while Mary was visiting the old couple some thirty years before.
John (who was just twelve months older than Jesus)had been a very serious child.At an early age he left his home and had gone into the desert to contemplate holiness on the lonely shores of the Dead Sea.
Far away from the turmoil of the farm and the factory,he thought deeply upon the wickedness of that world,of which,truth to tell,he knew nothing.
He himself was without desires and without needs.
An old shirt made of camel's hair was his only possession.
He ate the simplest food and only just enough to keep him alive.
He read no books but those written by his ancestors,and knew nothing of what had been said or thought or done by the more civilised people of the Near-West.
He served Jehovah with an absolute and unswerving loyalty and soon began to compare himself to Elijah and to Jeremiah and to the other great leaders of his race.He himself was good and he wanted all the world to share his virtues.And when he saw the harm done by old Herod and his terrible sons,and noticed the lukewarm allegiance of his fellow men to the laws of their fathers,he felt it his duty to go forth and tell the people of Judaea of certain things which they ought to know and which,unfortunately,they seemed to have forgotten long ago.
His uncouth appearance and the violence of his language caused large crowds to gather wherever he made his appearance.
Dirty and unkempt,a long wild beard flowing in the wind,his arms waving excitedly as he spoke of the coming day of Judgment,John was a man to inspire fear and doubt in the heart of the most hardened sinner.
Soon the crowds began to whisper to each other that this man was none other than the long-expected Messiah.
But he would not hear of that.
He was not the Messiah.Jehovah had merely sent him to prepare for the day when the real Messiah should come.
But the people,who dearly love a mystery,would not believe this simple statement.If this man were not the Messiah,he was at least the prophet Elijah,come back to this earth to perform some more of his miracles.
But that too John denied.
He stuck closely to the rle which he had selected for himself.He was but a humble messenger from Heaven,commanded to bring tidings of despair and of hope.
In the meantime,and while waiting for the day when all people should be forced to undergo the final baptism of fire (to cleanse them of their sins)he was willing to baptise those who showed signs of repentance with the water of the river as a token of their renewed faith in the power of Jehovah.
The Judaeans were greatly impressed.John's fame rapidly spread from village to village and from far and wide the Jews came to see and hear and received baptism at the hands of their strange new Prophet.