Chapter 2

Chapter 2. Herod Had Put Him To Death

Beginning this study with a survey of what may have developed from John the Baptist's influence seems to have been helpful. We now turn to an account that appeared in the 90s of the Common Era, written by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.

Between 4 B.C.E. and 39 C.E., a son of Herod the Great named Antipas ruled over the lands of Galilee and Perea, two separate regions that once were part of his father's kingdom.[1] Galilee, a territory in northern Palestine west of the Jordan River and Sea of Galilee, was bordered on the north and northeast by Phoenicia (roughly modern Lebanon) and by Samaria to the south. (Samaria, with Judaea and Idumea, were the inheritance of another of Herod's sons until the Romans initiated direct rule over them.) Antipas' other principality, Perea, was a long and narrow land lying between the Jordan River and the northern Dead Sea to the west and a highland region to the east. Separating Perea and Galilee were some 15 miles of territory belonging to the Decapolis, a region of semi-independent city-states.

Antipas had married a daughter of Aretas, who ruled the Nabatean kingdom surrounding the southern and eastern parts of Herod the Great's former domain. Sometime around the year 30 C.E., Antipas divorced this Nabatean wife to marry Herodias, the former wife of his half-brother Philip; subsequently, his territories were invaded, and his forces were defeated in battle by Aretas' armies.[2] At this point in his narration of these events, Josephus wrote:

But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod's [i.e., Herod Antipas'] army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour. When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some form of sedition, for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to await for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. Though John, because of Herod's suspicions was brought in chains to Machaerus....and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited upon Herod's army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod. (Jewish Antiquities 18.116-9)[3]

It is hard to avoid reading into this a picture we might assume from the Christian Gospels. The main points of connection to those accounts are that John the Baptist was a popular man employing a ritual of baptism who suffered a solitary execution by order of Antipas. His popularity stands out in the report that some saw him as a righteous man, "one who had God's favor," as people saw a subsequent event as divine punishment for the execution. Josephus characterized John's baptismal ritual as a "token of repentance," a sign of having changed one's ways, instead of a rite of absolution, a remission or "washing away" of sins. We will have to come back to this since Josephus emphasized the distinction while the Gospels of Mark and Luke conflate the two ("in token of repentance, for forgiveness of sins").

There are two main divergences from the Gospels' portrayal of John the Baptist.[4] First, Josephus did not paint a picture of an apocalyptic prophet. Instead, we see a man who proclaimed a typical (even somewhat uninteresting) form of piety: live right, practice justice, fear God. Second, there is no specific location given for John's activities apart from what we may infer: territories ruled by Antipas with abundant water for communal baptisms. The Gospels give us the wilderness (or desert) and the River Jordan. From Josephus, we might as easily assume the River Jabbok or the shores of the Dead Sea.

We can, however, assume a firm connection with the Jordan as it would be highly symbolic for religious gatherings of people who traced their origins to the Exodus. And with John imprisoned and executed at the fortress at Machaerus, near the southern borders of the Perean territory, that suggests he was most likely active in Perea.[5] Probably also a less developed land than Galilee, and maybe something of a "bad-lands," Perea would seem to be a reliable candidate as a wilderness or desert. (Matthew alone specifies "the Judaean wilderness"; Mark and Luke only mention wilderness as such.) Similarly, Josephus indicated that John was eloquent and forceful. If some vestige of that aspect of his character survived for later people, but little more, it is easy to see how they might see him as a preacher of doom like an Amos or Jeremiah.

As noted, Josephus made an emphatic distinction about the meaning of John's baptism as a ritual that symbolically signified repentance rather than a cleansing from sin. That may seem a bit overwrought. Baptism would presumably entail repentance from a sinful state, and it would help if the rite led to a sense of being freed from such. But possibly Josephus expressed an attitude like Paul's in Acts 19.1-7, downplaying the ritual as merely "in token of repentance": forgiveness or remission of sin comes from God and not by any mortal's rite. Or maybe it obscured a more controversial issue. As a sign of repentance, John's baptism might be a simple, pious act that showed a change of heart and attempt at moral improvement. As a remission of sin, it could represent a rival to accepted traditions (even those of the Jewish temple) and imply disaffection among the masses. But these theoretical distinctions do not amount to much if we recognize there was a large-scale religious procedure going on that was accessible and acceptable to many people.[6] That in itself implies rivalry with tradition and something of a sociopolitical threat, however the ritual's purpose is understood.

Seemingly similar ambiguity revolves around the issue of John's death. As with Jesus, a solitary execution is problematic.[7] Ordinarily, execution is reserved for those who commit acts or participate in activities viewed by authorities as subversive or disturbingly antisocial. But beyond individual culpability for specific crimes, there can be a wide range of possible rationales for an execution. A particular group might be involved in criminal activities, and a man executed as an actual or perceived "ring-leader" or as a warning to others. But that tends to imply a crackdown and the round-up of others involved. There could be specific disturbances or more general unrest (with criticism of and opposition to established authority), and a man executed as an inciter of riots, a popular leader and rival of rulers, or as inspiration without assuming overt leadership status. (We should note that these descriptions tend to merge in the viewpoint of authorities.)

Josephus' account does not make choosing from many possibilities easier. On the one hand, John was "a good man" who advocated simple piety but attracted those who got the wrong idea about his innocuous message. On the other, he was eloquent and charismatic; it appeared that people would be "guided in everything" by him, that he was giving direction as to how they should live, what they should do or believe. That points to significant social authority based on populist religious authority, and so necessarily a rival to established political authority. That alone would have been sufficient reason for the suspicions of Antipas -- John was stirring up the masses. Confirmation of this is seen in the sequence of red-letter words in the text: sedition, upheaval, and uprising, or from opposition to rioting to a general revolt. That seems to be Antipas' fear about John, so he thought a preemptive strike was necessary before things got out of hand.

The most suggestive sentence is, "When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed." That might imply the entry of extremist elements, heirs to the legacy of the Maccabees, who regarded fealty to pagan Rome as idolatry.[8] Rome would no doubt pressure Antipas to ferret them out (or, as the passage suggests, he took the initiative in such matters of state). Therefore, Antipas might have acted in the belief that groups around John were harboring rebels. But that would imply some form of crackdown, whereas the evidence shows that he singled John out for arrest. In any event, it does seem clear that John the Baptist had considerable authority, that some radicals found aspects of his message appealing, and that Antipas had enough suspicions in that regard to arrest him.

It may help to consider certain tendencies in Josephus' writings that scholars have observed.[9] For one, he downplayed evidence of seditious aspects of Jewish history. As a Jew writing about Jews for readers in the Roman Empire, it would have been hazardous (for himself and Jews in general) to relate that the Jewish people were strongly independent, loyal only to their God. So he often presented Jewish unrest as being a result of provocations by various poor rulers. But he also had a tendency typical of ancient aristocratic authors: the denunciation of most people from the lower classes. And where unrest did not result from the evil or stupidity of a ruler, Josephus would show it as being due to lower-class persons and groups foisting their presumptuous schemes on society at large.

These are necessary features to consider in any study of the writings of Josephus, but it is unclear how they may apply in this case. It is hard to see why seditious elements would have been "aroused to the highest degree" by "sermons" if John the Baptist only advocated piety, righteous living, and practicing justice. That seems so traditional as to be harmless.[10] And if that were all that John's sermons entailed, it is odd that Antipas should have felt "that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising." Rulers who stay in power for 40 years are not ordinarily starkly ignorant or demented, so we should probably conclude that Antipas understood the situation well.

According to Josephus, John the Baptist was a holy man who was active in the land of Perea east of the Jordan River and had performed a ritual of water baptism. It was not a rite of initiation into a sect, but an initiation into a righteous way of living and was open to virtually any Jew. It was also less a symbol of cleansing than of transforming, as it gave people a chance to reform their lives and start over with some confidence. If the only condition for the baptism was sincere repentance -- that is, substantive indications of behavioral change -- we can assume its popular appeal due to its being an experience of "getting right with God," and probably particularly so among the more alienated.

The movement of some number of people from surrounding territories to be "washed" in the Jordan has serious political overtones.[11] Coming out of towns and villages to wander in the wilderness awhile suggests a symbolic re-enactment of the Exodus. That, in turn, could imply that those who "came out to be washed" felt they had been "polluted" by contact with idolatry, and their return as "clean" might suggest John's baptism was something of an insurrectionary ritual -- or perceived to be so, both by opponents and by some proponents. Moreover, aspects of John's message were attractive to "radical" elements.

Evidence of John's prominence and prestige among the people heighten the political implications. Eloquence and charisma, coupled with people's sympathy or ardent support, could constitute a personal authority of some magnitude, possibly to the extent that John seemed to be a legitimate leader and rival to Antipas. Therefore, Antipas put John to death as a perceived threat to his power, a potential leader of popular revolts.

Without knowing more about John's message, we cannot go much beyond this. It might be tempting to suggest that John was a leader of bands of "freedom fighters" based in the wilderness and preparing an attempted overthrow of Roman power,[12] but such conclusions are largely unwarranted based on the evidence. Josephus wrote of the apprehension that Antipas had of the possibility of revolt, but noted that Antipas acted against John directly, with no further indications of a general crackdown. To Antipas, John was a "rabble-rouser" and was therefore the real problem. We might understand this better as signifying John's simple opposition without the connotations of potential violence (by "revolutionaries"). How "radical" does anything have to be for it to be described as such by those in power? John could have been the most ardent advocate of pacifism but would still have been seen as a threat if he ran his mouth a lot.

We should observe that Josephus presented a rather glowing picture of the Baptist. He stressed that John was an admirable man improperly executed due to suspicions Antipas had about seditious others who gathered at the river (yet failing to level calumny against even them). That could signify his belief that the fears were unwarranted, but the accumulated emphasis on the potential for sedition suggests otherwise; he implied that Antipas had reason to be apprehensive, that John's renown was a real threat to his authority. The equivocation on the subject may reflect the attitude of Josephus, a residual influence of the Baptist’s "fame," too well-attested to be denied: knowing that John had impeccable character and was highly regarded among a great many people, probably especially by the parents and grandparents who preceded Josephus' own generation.

Notes

     1. Information in this paragraph is indebted to Sanders, op. cit., pp. 20-2.
     2. Ibid., p. 22; Crossan, Historical Jesus, op. cit., p. 230.
     3. Text of Jewish Antiquities 18.116-19 from Crossan, ibid., pp. 230-1.
     4. As noted by Crossan, ibid., pp. 231-2.
     5. Ibid., p. 231.
     6. Ibid., pp. 231-2.
     7. Cf. Sanders' discussion, pp. 268-9.
     8. See Joel Carmichael, The Death of Jesus (New York: Horizon Press, 1982), pp. 152-3, 164-5, passim. Speculative and unscholarly but intriguing. A good overall study of the social and historical background is Richard Horsley (with John S. Hanson), Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999).
     9. See the general discussion by Crossan, Historical Jesus, pp. 91-100. Cf. Carmichael, pp. vi-x, 73, 165-6; Sanders, pp. 15-6, 28-30, 93; Horsley and Hanson, pp. 2, 110-17, passim.
   10. A point Carmichael makes (p. 166), suggesting that Josephus intentionally obscured the Baptist's actual message and mission.
   11. Ibid., pp. 167-70. Cf. Crossan, Historical Jesus, pp. 231-2, 137-67; and Horsley and Hanson, pp. 160-89.
   12. Carmichael's view of both John and Jesus, with the latter leading a violent revolt that culminated in a brief occupation of the temple.

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