Florence’s Crazy Soccer Game on the Feast of St John the Baptist

The modern visitor to Florence can easily enjoy the city as it stands today without having to think of the more warlike aspects of its history. The Battle of Montaperti in 1260, when Florence was defeated and nearly destroyed by the other Tuscan cities, the endless faction-fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the siege of 1530 that made the Medicis the rulers of Tuscany all seem very remote as you stroll about the Uffizi under the placid gaze of Renaissance saints, and enjoy your bistecca alla fiorentina in a quiet trattoria. But Florence has preserved an interesting reminder of its bellicose past, the “calcio storico fiorentino – historical Florentine soccer”, a no-holds-barred soccer game with very few rules and a lot of violence, which forms part of the annual celebrations of the city’s patron saint, John the Baptist.

A painting of a Florentine soccer match being held in front of the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in 1561.

The origins of the game are uncertain. Attempts have been made to connect it to a similar game called “harpastrum” played by the Romans, but, as the article about it on Italian Wikipedia rightly notes, there is no mention of it among the constant references to Florence and its culture in any of Dante’s writings, and the first attestation of it dates to the later 15th century. The local tradition brags especially that it was played during the aforementioned siege of 1530, as the city’s way of showing its lack of concern for the enemies at the gate. (Florence surrendered to the besieging armies about six months later.) After falling out of use for about two centuries, it was revived in 1930 for the 400th anniversary of the siege, and has been kept up ever since, with interruptions for the Second World War, and some... other things that happened more recently...

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Lorenzo Noccioli, CC BY-SA 3.0. This picture was taken in 2008, the year I attended the finale. (Same attribution for the photo below.)

In 2008, I attended the finale, which is held on St John’s feast day, with some friends who were studying in Florence. It begins with a troop of “sbandierai – flag-tossers”, who perform a really impressive display of the medieval art (or game) of waving around huge but very light flags, then throwing them up into the air and catching them again, a sort of pre-gunpowder version of fireworks. This is followed by a very long procession onto the sand-covered playing field in Piazza Santa Croce, with costumed personages representing every aspect of medieval and renaissance life, from government officials to military corps. The procession is slow and dignified, and gives no hint of the mayhem that ensues when the actual game begins.

It also traditionally included, inexplicably to the uninitiated, a huge white horned cow or bull calf of a highly prized breed called “chianina”, wearing a decorated blanket, and looking very out of place amid drummers, standard bearers and the strutting horses of the cavalry officers. (This was done when I saw the game in 2008, but the custom has since been discontinued.) After the procession has filled the enormous field, a signal is given, everyone rushes off the field in no particular order (very Italian), and the “game” begins without further ado.

I put the word “game” in quotes because the game aspect of calcio storico is frequently not so evident; in fact, it could more accurately be described as a huge street brawl, in which a ball is occasionally brought into play. When I saw it, within 20 seconds of the starting gun, two sets of players from the opposing teams had begun boxing each other. Wrestling is a big part of calcio storico, the idea being that an opponent grappled to a standstill is one less guy scoring for the enemy, although the grappler is of course also immobilized by having to hold him down.

A video of this year’s calcio storico finale, played earlier today, complete with the procession described above. N.B. YouTube flags this for violent content, and requires one to sign in and confirm one’s age.

About half of the players start with their shirts off, which seemed a very counter-intuitive choice, given that the “no-holds-barred” aspect of calcio storico would seem to demand some kind of protective clothing. In point of fact, it is perfectly permissible to rip your opponents’ clothes off, and within five minutes the playing field was littered with the remains of ripped shirts. It is also, apparently, legal to “pants” people, so all the players wear very thick and tight belts, to obviate such a compromising eventuality. One of the oddest aspects of the game is the little truces that take place among the players as the fighting, running and summer sun wear them down. Two players from opposite sides grab each other’s belts and stand still; since they are both too tired to run or fight any more, they keep an eye on each other by holding the belts, and let the less tired players deal with the ball.

An engraving which shows the set-up of the game in Piazza Santa Croce in 1688, which is pretty similar, mutatis mutandis, to the modern one. (Note the little tents on either end of the playing field.) 

Ah yes, the ball. It is easy to forget that there is a ball as you watch the 40+ players punch, kick, tackle and grapple with each other, but there is actually a point to it all. The waist-high barrier that defines the rectangular playing field has in the middle of each short side a very narrow medieval-looking tent; when my friends and I came into the stadium, we assumed this was the goal, and remarked how difficult it must be to score with such a narrow goal. In reality, the entire short side of the playing field is the goal, which means that if a player from the other side gets close to it, he is fairly likely to score. The two little tents are for the flagbearers of the two sides to hide out while the battle rages; each time a goal is scored they change sides, running though the chaos to take possession of the other tent. The Confraternity of Mercy, a famous free ambulance corps whose headquarters are right next to the Duomo, is also present in force. To some degree they tend the wounded, but most of the wounded just keep playing (and bleeding); the Confraternity mostly just pour water on the players as they wrestle in the sand, a very useful service that prevents the calcio storico equivalent of road rash.

“Oh, right... the ball...”

After 50 minutes of this craziness, the game abruptly came to an end with a signal from a gun, and an announcement that the Santa Maria Novella quarter’s team had beaten the homefield team of Santa Croce by 9 to 4½. My friends and I had seats on Santa Croce’s side of the stadium; wise heads apparently decided long ago that it was best to keep the supporters of the various teams apart from each other, lest the activities on the field spill over into the stands. (The tournament has been suspended or even annulled more than a few times due to acts of violence and vandalism.) While Santa Maria Novella’s team was visibly younger and tougher, it would be hard to imagine more enthusiastic fans than Santa Croce’s, who gave everybody on their side a free blue t-shirt, and kept up a nearly continuous chant of “Picchi’azzurro! Picchi’azzurro! – hit them, blue! hit them, blue!”

I wanted to share in their disappointment [note], but a player from their side had already been carried away on a stretcher, and several others were walking around with icepacks and dazed expressions on their faces. In the meantime, the procession reassembled on the field, and in a slow and wholly dignified way marched off the field in the order in which it came. And we learned from the announcer what the winning side’s prize was – they got the cow. I was unable to find out whether or how soon it would become a large number of steaks, which are justifiably one of the most famous things about Florentine cuisine, and can also be used for healing black eyes.

[note] Santa Croce are the Yankees of the game, with 21 victories since the last major rule change in 1978. This year, however, Santa Maria Novella scored a crushing 18-4 victory over the perennial losers San Giovanni, who have won only six times since 1930, mostly recently 29 years ago, in 1996.

Liturgical Notes on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

The Birth of St. John the Baptist is one of the most ancient of all the Church’s feasts; it is mentioned several times by St. Augustine in his sermons, and in a Martyrology written around 440 A.D. and falsely attributed to St. Jerome. The date is determined by the words of the Gospel of St. Luke that St. John’s mother Elizabeth was six months pregnant at the time of the Annunciation (chap. 1, 36). The feast is kept on the 24th, however, where Christmas and the Annunciation are kept on the 25th of their respective months, because of a peculiar feature of the ancient Roman calendar. The Romans counted the days backwards from three points in each month, called the Kalends, the Nones and the Ides (“Kalendae”, “Nonae” and “Idus” in Latin). Thus Julius Caesar was killed on the Ides of March, which we call March 15th, but the Roman name for March 14th was “the day before the Ides of March”. Therefore, the birth of both the Savior and His Forerunner are kept seven days before the Kalends of the following months.

The feast was formerly kept with two different Masses, one of which was to be said early in the morning, and the other after Terce. This custom gradually died out and was observed only in a very few places at the time of the Tridentine liturgical reform; the Mass in the Missal of St. Pius V is the second of these two. St. Augustine notes that John the Baptist is the only Saint whose birth the Church celebrates apart from that of the Savior Himself, the feast of Our Lady’s Birth having not yet been instituted in his time. This custom is observed in fulfillment of the words of the Angel Gabriel to John’s father Zachariah that “Many shall rejoice in his birth,” (Luke 1, 14) which are read on the vigil the day before.

Folio 174v of a 13th century Missal according to the Use of Paris, with the morning Mass of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, beginning in the upper part of the left column, and the day Mass beginning at the lower right. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des manuscrits. Latin 1112)

The Gospel of the vigil, Luke 1, 5-17, was formerly continued at the first Mass of the feast with verses 18-25, recounting Zachariah’s doubt and punishment, and the conception of the Baptist, ending with the words of his mother, “Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he hath had regard to take away my reproach among men.” The Gospel of the second (now only) Mass, Luke 1, 57-68, is one of very few that does not begin with the words “At that time,” but rather starts directly with “Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son.” The name of St John’s mother is also the first word of the first antiphon of Lauds and Vespers, which reflects the fact that it was she, and not Zachariah, who declared St John’s name, the name which, as St Ambrose notes, “Elizabeth learned by prophecy, ... not from her husband.”

The liturgical commentator William Durandus, writing at the end of the 13th century, says that “the Church solemnizes three births, namely, those of John the Baptist, the Blessed Mary, and Christ. And indeed John was the morning-star, for just as the morning-star precedes the sun, so he preceded Christ; for he preached Him first. Mary was the dawn. The birth of Christ was the rising of the sun, because in Him the splendor of the Father appeared.” (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, 7, 28) The feasts of the Birth of Christ and of John the Baptist are preceded by penitential vigils, Masses celebrated in violet, without the Gloria in excelsis or Alleluia, since John preached a baptism of repentance, and Christ came to call sinners, but the Virgin had no need of repentance, and so the feast of Her birth has no vigil.

It has often been noted that the days of the year begin to grow shorter right after the Birth of John the Baptist, which is three days after the summer solstice, and begin to grow longer right after the Birth of Christ, four days after the winter solstice. The priest who taught me to serve the traditional Mass once explained in a beautiful homily of two sentences how this symbolizes the words in which St. John “summed up the entire Gospel in a single sentence, ‘I must decrease, that He may increase.’ ” (John 3, 30)

A Greek icon of the Nativity of John the Baptist, 1670 

Many popular customs are attached to this feast. Durandus notes that it was a custom in places to make bonfires of the bones of animals, to drive away evil influences (such as dragons!) that were believed to pollute the waters in summertime, a custom which he is astute enough to note was inherited “from the gentiles”. But he also notes that bones were burned to commemorate the fact that the bones of John the Baptist were burnt “in the city of Sebaste.” (Rationale 7, 14) In point of fact, to this day, the city of Genoa preserves in its cathedral relics that are venerated as the ashes of St. John the Baptist, the tradition being that the bones were deliberately burnt to make the relics easier to transport and hide from iconoclasts. As any good medieval liturgist would, Durandus also sees in this custom an allegory of the passing of the Old Law and the coming of the New, noting that torches were also made of the bones to symbolize that John was “the light, the lantern that burned and preceded, the forerunner of the true light that enlighteneth every man.” A vestige of this custom is preserved in the Rituale Romanum of Pope Paul V, which provides for a blessing of a fire on the eve of St. John.

It is also a well-known fact that the Vesper hymn of St. John provided the names of the notes for the first diatonic scale, noted by Guido of Arezzo in the 11th century. The opening stanza reads

Ut queant laxis / resonare fibris
Mira gestorum / famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti / labii reatum,
   Sancte Ioannes.

The six notes of the original scale are named for the syllables at the beginning of each half-line, each such syllable occurring on a higher note than the one preceding. The names of the notes were thus originally, “ut – re – mi – fa – sol – la”; the scale was later increased to seven notes with the addition of “si”, from “Sancte Ioannes”. In Italian, “ut” was changed to “do” to make it easier to pronounce and sing, since words do not end in hard consonants in Italian, and “si” was changed to “ti” in the English-speaking word in the 19th century.

Less well known is the story of how the hymn was composed by a monk of Monte Cassino called Paul the Deacon, who also wrote an important “History of the Lombards”, and compiled the collection of homilies and sermons which forms the traditional corpus of patristic writings in the Divine Office. According to Durandus, Paul had lost his voice one Easter when he was supposed to sing the Exsultet, and “wrote the hymn Ut queant laxis in honor of John the Baptist that his voice might be restored, at the beginning of which he asks for the restoration of his voice, which he obtained, as it was also restored to Zachariah by the merits of St. John.” (Rationale ibid.)

So that these thy servants can, with all their voice, sing thy wondrous deeds, clean the blemish of our spotted lips, O Saint John! 

The Birth of John the Baptist, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, in the Tornabuoni Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, the Dominican parish in Florence, 1485-1490.

The Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

Truly it is worthy and just, right and profitable to salvation, that we should give Thee thanks always and everywhere, o Lord, holy Father, almighty and everlasting God, holding the solemn fast, by which we anticipate the birth of blessed John the Baptist. Whose father, when he doubted the message of God’s word that he was to be born, was deprived of the use of his voice, and received it back when he was born; who grew silent when he did not believe the Angel’s promise, but at the birth of the glorious herald, gained his speech and became a prophet. And likewise his mother, being sterile and worn by old age, did not only become fruitful in childbearing, but was also filled with the Holy Spirit, so that she might receive the fruit of the Blessed Mary with a blessing with eager voice. And himself that was begotten, as the one who shows the way to heaven, urged that the way of the Lord be prepared, and being lately conceived and brought forth in the last age of his parents, proclaimed that the Redeemer of the human race would be born in the last times. (An ancient preface for the vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, first attested in the oldest surviving collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary.)

The Annunciation to Zachariah, 1300-10, by the Italian painter Deodato Orlandi, 1265-1330 ca. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, public domain or CC BY 3.0) 

VD: exhibentes sollemne jejunium, quo beati Johannis baptistae natalicia praevenimus. Cujus genitor et verbi Dei nuntium dubitans nasciturum vocis est privatus officio, et eodem recepit nascente sermonem; quique Angelo promittente dum non credit obmutuit, magnifici praeconis exortu et loquens factus est et profeta: materque pariter sterilis aevoque confecta non solum puerperio fecunda processit, sed etiam, quo beatae Mariae fructum sedula voce benedictione susciperet, spiritu divinitatis impleta est; ipseque progenitus, utpote viae caelestis adsertor, viam domino monuit praeparari, seraque in suprema parentum aetate concretus et editus, procreandum novissimis temporibus humani generis disseruit redemptorem.

The panel shown above is one of six images of the life of St John the Baptist, by a painter called Deodato Orlandi, who was active in the area of Pisa and Lucca, between 1284 and his death in roughly 1330; almost nothing is known of his life. The panels are now in the Gemäldegallerie in Berlin. As is the case with most Italian painters of his era and region, his work is heavily influenced by the style of Byzantine icons; this is especially noticeable in the gold striations in the robes, and the gold backgrounds. It will be his contemporary Giotto (1267-1337) whose style will create a strong impetus to move away from this to a more naturalistic style, in which the sense of space is created by, e.g., variations in the shades of color within the robes, and the use of blue backgrounds to represent the sky.

The Visitation

The Birth of the Baptist

The imposition of the name John.

John preaching to the crowds in the desert.

The Last Judgment; the classic medieval arrangement of this motif puts the Virgin Mary to Christ’s right (our left) as the greatest of all the Saints, and John the Baptist on the opposite side, as the second greatest, him of whom the Lord said, “Greater man hath not been born of woman.”

The Synaxis of the Holy Forerunner John the Baptist

In the Byzantine Rite, a “synaxis” (“σύναξις” in Greek, “собóръ – sobor” in Church Slavonic) is a commemoration held the day after a major feast, to honor a sacred person who figures prominently in the feast, but who is, so to speak, overshadowed by its principal subject. The most prominent example is the feast of the Holy Spirit, celebrated the day after Pentecost, since Pentecost itself is the feast of the Holy Trinity. Likewise, the Synaxis of the Virgin Mary is kept the day after Christmas, that of St Gabriel on the day after the Annunciation, etc. For those of the Byzantine Rite who follow the Gregorian date of Epiphany, today is therefore “The Synaxis of the Holy and Glorious Prophet and Forerunner, John the Baptist.” A synaxis is a commemoration, and not the principal feast of the person honored thereby; the Byzantine Rite celebrates the same two principal feasts of St John as the Roman Rite, the Nativity on June 24, and the Beheading on August 29. There is also a feast of his Conception on September 23rd, and of the various occasions on which the relics of his head were lost and recovered, the “First and Second Finding” on February 24, and the “Third Finding” on May 25th. (The Conception of St John is occasionally found on ancient liturgical calendars in the West, but never really caught on.)

St John the Baptist as the Angel of the Desert, 16th century, by the school of the Cretan icon painter Andreas Ritzos. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Troparion: The memory of the righteous (is celebrated) with hymns of praise, but the testimony of the Lord will be sufficient for thee, O Forerunner. For, being received in truth as the most honorable of the prophets, thou wert deemed worthy to baptize in the streams the One foretold (by them). And therefore, having suffered for the truth, with joy thou proclaimed even to those in hell God who was made manifest in the flesh, who taketh away the sin of the world, and granteth us great mercy.

Тропарь Памѧть праведнагω съ похвалами, тебѣ же довлѣетъ свидѣтельство Господне, Предтече: показалбосѧ еси во истинну и пророкωвъ честнѣйшїй, ꙗко и въ струѧхъ крестити сподобилсѧ еси Проповѣданнаго. Тѣмже за истину пострадавъ, радуѧсѧ благовѣстилъ еси и сущымъ во адѣ Бога, ꙗвльшагосѧ плотїю, вземлющаго грѣхъ міра и подающаго намъ велїю милость.

Τροπάριον Μνήμη δικαίου μετ’ ἐγκωμίων, σοὶ δὲ ἀρκέσει ἡ μαρτυρία τοῦ Κυρίου, Πρόδρομε. Ἀνεδείχθης γὰρ ὄντως τῶν Προφητῶν σεβασμιώτερος, ὅτι καὶ ἐν ῥείθροις βαπτίσαι κατηξιώθης τὸν κηρυττόμενον, ὅθεν τῆς ἀληθείας ὑπεραθλήσας, χαίρων εὐαγγελίσω καὶ τοῖς ἐν Ἅδη, Θεὸν φανερωθέντα ἐν σαρκί, τὸν αἴροντα τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ παρέχοντα ἡμῖν τὸ μέγα ἔλεος.

All feasts begin with Vespers of the preceding day, and there is no such thing as Second Vespers as there is in the Roman Rite; therefore, the Vespers of a Synaxis are celebrated on the evening of the main feast’s calendar day, and there is always a very clear thematic link between the liturgical texts of the two celebrations. At some of these Vespers, the responsorial chant called the Prokimen is sung in a longer and more solemn form than usual, and in the Slavic choral tradition, gives baritone deacons a chance to really show off! The Psalm from which this chant is taken, 113, is sung at Vespers of Epiphany and throughout its octave in the Roman Rite. (This video starts at the place marked with an asterisk in the translation given below.)

The refrain, sung first by the deacon, then repeated by the choir, Psalm 113, 11: Our God is in heaven: He hath done all things whatsoever He would.
The verses sung by the deacon:
- When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. * Choir: “Our God is in heaven etc.”
- The sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back.
- What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back?
Deacon: Our God is in heaven: Choir: He hath done all things whatsoever He would.

St John the Baptist and Subdeacon

Today is the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist; by a nice coincidence, I happened to consult the part of William Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, the Summa Theologica of medieval liturgical commentaries, which discusses the rites of Mass (book 4), and thus discover his interesting explanation of the subdeacon’s singing of the Epistle, which he sees as a symbol of St John and his role in the life of Christ.

The Epistle should be read, according to Master William of Auxerre, on the right side of the Church, because Christ came first to the Jews, who are said to be on the right (i.e. the place of honor); nonetheless, it is better that it be done in the middle of the church, since John was in the middle between the Apostles and the Prophets. ... (This also refers to the opening words of the Introit of St John the Evangelist, “In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth”, Sir. 15, 5, also used in several other places in the liturgy.)

But the Epistle is put before the Gospel, for it designates the office which John exercised before Christ, since he went before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, as he himself bear witness: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord.’ ” John is therefore like the subdeacon, the minister under Him who said about Himself, “The Son of man came not to be served.” Wherefore, just as the preaching of John went before the preaching of Christ, so the Epistle goes before the Gospel. The Epistle also bears the figure of the Law and Prophecy, which preceded the coming of Christ, just as it precedes the Gospel; for the Law preceded the Gospel, as shadow goes before light, as fear before charity, and a beginning before perfection.

John the Baptist Preaching Before Herod, by the Dutch painter Pieter de Grebbe (1600 ca. - 1652/3; public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

Only one acolyte accompanies the subdeacon when he is about to read the Epistle (a very typical medieval custom), because few followed the preaching of John, since the Law brings no one to perfection, but when the deacon is about the read the Gospel, subdeacons and acolytes and others accompany him, because very many received the preaching of the Gospel, which does bring to perfection. It can also be said that by the procession of the subdeacon and deacon to read, the two-fold manifestation of Christ in His two comings is signified. The first of these had only one Forerunner, namely John, which is signified by the procession of the subdeacon. The second will have two, namely, Enoch and Elijah (Apoc. 11), who are figured by the two or more who go before the deacon.

The face of the one who reads the Epistle should be turned to the altar, which signifies Christ, because the preaching of John directed himself and others towards Christ, from Whose countenance come forth judgment and justice. But (the acolyte) who goes before the subdeacon as he goes to read, does not turn his face towards the reader, because John directed those who heard him not to himself, but to Christ.

However, those who go before the deacon as he goes to read look towards the Gospel, and towards the face of the one who recites it, first, so that by the mutual regarding of each other, the love and charity of Christ may be designated, which are preached in the Gospel: secondly, that they may show themselves to be witness of the teaching of the Gospel, as we read in Isaiah (43, 10), “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.”

St John the Baptist (lower right) at the head of the “praiseworthy number of the prophets”; fresco on the ceiling of the San Brizio chapel of the cathedral of Orvieto, Italy, by Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

But because John was the boundary between what preceded and what followed, in the middle between the Apostles and the Prophets, (for “the law and prophets (were) unto John, and from then, the kingdom of God was proclaimed” (Luke 16, 6)), therefore the Epistle is not always read from the prophets, nor always from the Apostles, but sometimes is taken from the Old Testament, and sometimes from the New. For John, whose voice the Epistle represents, preached along with the ancients that Christ would come, saying “He that is to come after me was before me”, and with the more recent, he shows that Christ is present, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.”

Liturgical Notes on the Beheading of St John the Baptist

The Beheading of St John the Baptist is one of the oldest and most universal feasts that exists, attested in the sermons of the some of the Church Fathers already in the early fifth century; it is kept on the same day in the Roman, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Gallican and Byzantine Rites. However, even though the Church’s devotion to the Saints in ancient times was very much focused on the martyrs, the day which commemorates John’s martyrdom has always been less celebrated than that of his birth; thus we find among the works of St Augustine fifteen sermons for the feast of his Nativity, but only two for his Beheading. The Nativity also had a vigil from very ancient times, and somewhat later, was given an octave, while the Beheading has neither. Durandus explains that this is because at John’s birth “many rejoiced”, as the Angel said, but at his death, he did not go straight to heaven, which was not yet opened by the death and Resurrection of Christ.

The Beheading of St John the Baptist, by Caravaggio, 1608; from the Co-cathedral of St John in Valletta, Malta.

In the Roman Rite, the feast of the Nativity has a fully proper Mass and Office, while on the Beheading, the majority of the liturgical texts are shared with other Martyrs. The Introit of the Mass is one normally used for Virgin Martyrs, but was selected for his feast day as a text particular apposite to the cause of his death, that he spoke to King Herod the truth about his unlawful “marriage” to his sister-in-law. “I spoke of thy testimonies before kings, and I was not ashamed; and I meditated also on thy commandments, which I loved.”

This is also expressed by the Epistle of the Mass, Jeremiah 1, 17-19, which follows from the Epistle of the vigil of his Nativity, verses 4-10 of the same chapter.

“Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command thee. Be not afraid at their presence: for I will make thee not to fear their countenance. For behold I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, over all the land, to the kings of Juda, to the princes thereof, and to the priests, and to the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.”

The Roman Rite historically makes very little use of the Gospel of St Mark, notwithstanding the evangelist’s traditional association with the first bishop of Rome. There are three very prominent exceptions: Easter and the Ascension among the feasts of the Lord, and today’s feast among those of the Saints, on which the Gospel is Mark 6, 17-29. The same Gospel is read in the Ambrosian Rite, and also in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, with one additional verse at the end.

In the Roman version of the Divine Office, the majority of the musical propers (antiphons, responsories, hymns) are taken from the common Office of a single Martyr, but there are a number of propers as well, which follow the text of this Gospel fairly closely. At Second Vespers, the antiphon for the Magnificat is slightly more rhetorical than the Gospel itself. “The unbelieving King sent his loathsome messengers, and commanded that John the Baptist’s head should be cut off.”

A page of the Antiphonary of Hartker, written at the monastery of St Gallen in Switzerland at the end of the 10th century. (Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 391, p. 107 – Antiphonarium officii https://www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/csg/0391)

Other Uses of the Roman Rite have more proper texts, which vary greatly from one to another; most of these are also taken from the Gospel, with some notable exceptions. The Premonstratensians have this extraordinary antiphon, the text of which comes from a sermon by St Peter Chrysologus, (ca. 380-450), bishop of Ravenna, whom Pope Benedict XIII declared a Doctor of the Church in 1729. As Canons Regular, St Augustine is one of the principal patrons of their order, and his feast therefore ranks higher than that of the Beheading; this antiphon is used to commemorate the latter at Vespers on August 28th.

Aña Joannes schola virtutum, magisterium vitae, sanctitatis forma, norma justitiae, virginitatis speculum, pudicitiae titulus, castitatis exemplum, poenitentium via, peccatorum venia, fidei disciplina; Joannes major homine, par Angelis, legis summa Evangelii satio, Apostolorum vox, silentium Prophetarum, lucerna mundi, Praecursor Judicis, Christi metator, Domini testis, totius medius Trinitatis: hic tantus datur incestui, traditur adulterae, addicitur saltatrici.

Aña John, the school of virtues, the master of life, the form of holiness, the norm of justice, the mirror of virginity, the glory of modesty, the model of chastity, the way of penitents, the forgiveness of sinners, the discipline of the Faith; John greater than man, equal to the Angels, the greatest plant of the law of the Gospel, the voice of the Apostles, the silence of the Prophets, the light of the world, the Forerunner of the Judge, that showeth Christ, the witness of the Lord, that standeth amid the whole Trinity; this man so great is handed over to the unchaste, he is delivered to the adulteress, he is consigned to the dancer.

An ancient responsory for Matins places in the mouth of St John as he dies in prison the words later later spoken by his cousin on the Cross; note how the doxology is cleverly incorporated into the repetition. It appears in the Dominican Office with a slight variation.

R. In medio carceris stabat beatus Joannes; voce magna clamavit et dixit: * Domine Deus meus, * in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum. V. Misit rex, et decollari jussit Joannem in carcere, orantem et dicentem. Domine Deus meus. Gloria Patri. In manus…

R. In the midst of the prison stood the blessed John; with a great voice he cried out and said, * “O Lord, my God, * into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” V. The king sent, and ordered John to be beheaded in the prison, as he prayed and said, “O Lord my God. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

There is also an antiphon used by the Cistercians and Dominicans among others, whose text is actually that of a Collect attested in the Gelasian Sacramentary; a surprising number of collects were set to music in this fashion in the Middle Ages.

Aña Perpetuis nos, Domine, sancti Ioannis Baptistae tuere praesidiis; et quanto fragiliores sumus, tanto magis necessariis attolle suffragiis.

Aña Defend us, o Lord, by the perpetual protection of St John the Baptist; and the more fragile we are, the more do Thou sustain us by such prayers as we need.

A Greek icon of the Beheading of St John from the second half of the 18th century.

The Byzantine Liturgy is famous for the use of highly complex rhetorical language in its Office texts, and those of the “Cutting-off of the Honorable Head of the Holy and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John” are no exception. The following hymn is sung at the blessing of bread (‘artoklasia’ or ‘litia’) which is held at the end of Vespers on major feast days. Its author seems to presume that Salome is the daughter of Herodias with Herod, rather than with Philip, and that Herod connived with her at the oath, as an excuse for the murder.

Today, the mother of the murder, skilled in the works of impiety, contrives with murderous counsel to send her own wanton daughter, born from a lawless embrace, against the greatest of the prophets chosen by God. For as the most hateful Herod completes the banquet of his unlawful birthday, he contrives with an oath to be asked for the honorable head of God’s herald, whence pour forth wonders. And this he accomplished, the senseless man, giving it as a reward for a vulgar dance, for the sake of his oath. Nonetheless, the prophet of Christ’s coming did not cease to denounce their union that was hated of God, even after his death; but he cried out in rebuke, saying “It is not licit for you to commit adultery with the wife of your brother Philip.” Oh, this birthday that slayeth the prophet, this banquet full of blood! But let us, in accordance with piety, in the beheading of the Forerunner, keep the festival, brightly clad, and rejoicing as if on an auspicious day, and ask him to propitiate the Trinity for us, to deliver us from every danger and calamity, and save our souls.

(In Greek, the words “skilled in the works of impiety” are a single word, “ἀνοσιουργότροπος” (anosiurgotropos), which in Church Slavonic becomes the jaw-cracking eleven-syllable “непреподобнодѣлоѻбразнаѧ” (neprepodobnodjeloobraznaja). )

The Prominence of St John the Baptist in the Old Roman Rite

Unknown Master, 15th cent. Birth of John the Baptist (photo by Fr Lawrence Lew)

Each year in the Western rites of the Catholic Church, the birthday or nativity of St John the Baptist, Precursor of the Lord, is celebrated on June 24, exactly six months away from the nativity of Jesus Christ Our Lord. The simplest explanation for the date is that, as the St. Andrew’s Daily Missal says, “in the Gospel of March 25th we read that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that three months later [i.e., end of June], Elizabeth, in virtue of a divine miracle, would have a son.”

But there is also an allegorical explanation given by all the liturgical commentators across the ages. As John himself said, concerning the Messiah: “He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3, 30). Right around Christmas in the northern hemisphere falls the shortest day of the year, when the darkness is at its peak; after this, the light will slowly increase. Similarly, right around St John’s nativity falls the longest day of the year, after which the light—John’s light—will decrease. The cycle of nature itself proclaims the right relationship between the Son and Word of God and all of His disciples, no matter how great.

Those who study liturgical, architectural, and artistic history in our times, in which St. John the Baptist is, to be quite frank, an almost marginal figure in Catholic life, may be astonished as they discover the magnitude of the traditional devotion to the Baptist, greatest of the prophets, over all the centuries of the Church, in lands Eastern and Western. In Europe there were thousands of churches dedicated to him, statues and innumerable windows, paintings of every description. He was one of the most popular patrons of places. After the Virgin Mary, there is practically no saint more often invoked.

We can see the evidence of this devotion in the classical Roman rite. Not only does he have two feasts, one of which (the Nativity’s) has a proper Vigil Mass as well, and one of which (again today’s) enjoyed an octave; but in each and every celebration of the Tridentine Mass he is invoked six times in the thrice-repeated Confiteor; again in the great “Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas” prayer at the end of the Offertory; yet again in the Roman Canon; and finally in the Last Gospel. That means nine times each Mass.

By comparison, before 1962, St. Joseph wasn’t mentioned even once in the Order of Mass!

The text of the traditional Confiteor readers:

Confíteor Deo omnipoténti, beátæ Maríæ semper Vírgini, beáto Michaéli Archángelo, beáto Ioánni Baptístæ, sanctis Apóstolis Petro et Paulo, ómnibus Sanctis, et tibi, Pater: quia peccá­vi nimis cogitatióne, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa. Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem, beátum Michaélem Archángelum, beátum Ioánnem Baptístam, sanctos Apóstolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes Sanctos, et te, Pater, orare pro me ad Dóminum, Deum nostrum.
       (I confess to almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to thee, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the Saints, and thee, Father, to pray to the Lord our God for me.)

The Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, the last prayer of the Offertory, reads:

Súscipe, sancta Trínitas, hanc oblatiónem, quam tibi offérimus ob memóriam passionis, resurrectiónis et ascensiónis Iesu Christi Dómini nostri: et in honórem beátæ Maríæ semper Vírginis, et beáti Ioánnis Baptístæ, et sanctórum Apostolórum Petri et Pauli, et istórum, et ómnium Sanctórum: ut illis proficiat ad honórem, nobis autem ad salútem: et illi pro nobis intercédere dignéntur in cælis, quorum memóriam ágimus in terris. Per eúndem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.
       (Receive, O holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee, in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the Saints, that it may avail unto their honor and our salvation, and may they vouchsafe to intercede for us in heaven, whose memory we celebrate on earth. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.)

How powerful it is to remember—and yet so often forgotten!—that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered not only “in remembrance of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” but also “in honor of blessed Mary ever Virgin, of blessed John the Baptist, of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, of these, and of all the Saints.”

The mention once again of the two patrons of the Church of Rome reminds us that only five days after the Nativity of John, on June 29, comes the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, who are also, like John, mentioned nine times each in the Tridentine Order of Mass: six times in the thrice-repeated Confiteor; once here, in the Suscipe; once in the Roman Canon; and once in the Embolism after the Lord’s Prayer. For those who know their numerology, nine is a special number because it honors the Blessed Trinity (3+3+3 or 3x3), as in the ninefold Kyrie of the authentic rite of Mass.

The Roman Canon mentions the Baptist in the second list of saints, after the Consecration:

Nobis quoque peccatóribus fámulis tuis, de multitúdine miseratiónum tuárum sperántibus, partem áliquam et societátem donáre dignéris, cum tuis sanctis Apóstolis et Martýribus: cum Ioánne, Stéphano, Matthía, Bárnaba, Ignátio, Alexándro, Marcellíno, Petro, Felicitáte, Perpétua, Agatha, Lúcia, Agnéte, Cæcília, Anastásia, et ómnibus Sanctis tuis: intra quorum nos consórtium, non æstimátor mériti, sed véniæ, quaesumus, largítor admítte. Per Christum, Dóminum nostrum. Amen.
       (To us also, Thy sinful servants, confiding in the multitude of Thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs, with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and with all Thy Saints, into whose company we beseech Thee to admit us, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.)

That ”John” here is none other than the Baptist is acknowledged by all liturgical commentators (see, e.g., Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, The Saints Who Pray with Us in the Mass, Romanitas Press, 2017, p. 26).

The Last Gospel, taken from the Prologue of the Gospel of John, includes these words (John 1, 6-8):

Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Ioánnes. Hic venit in testimónium, ut testimónium perhi­béret de lúmine, ut omnes créderent per illum. Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimó­nium perhibéret de lúmine.
       (There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to testify concerning the Light, that all might believe through Him. He was not the Light, but he was to testify concerning the Light.)

How sad it is to reflect on the fact that nowadays, at nearly all celebrations of the Novus Ordo, the name of St John the Baptist, the greatest man born of woman, will not be mentioned even once. (The only time he’d be mentioned at all is if the Roman Canon were chosen ad libitum.)

This is the kind of thing traditionalists have in mind when they speak of the different spiritualities of the old and new “forms” of the Mass. The devotional worldview of those brought up on the novel production of Paul VI is not the same as that of our predecessors in the Faith and of those who retain the traditional form of worship. Thank God, more and more Catholics are coming to see the immense value in reconnecting with their birthright: the lex orandi and lex credendi of the Roman Church of the ages.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

The Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for a major feast. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is simply omitted before the Gospel, not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est. 

Folio 89r of the Gellone Sacramentary, 780 AD; the Mass of the vigil of the Nativity of St John, which is here called “jejunium Sancti Johannis Baptistae - the fast of St John the Baptist”, begins with the large decorated P at the bottom of the page. Note the hole where the parchment gave way in the process of preparation; the text is copied out around it on both sides. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

Because they are penitential days, they are not celebrated on a Sunday, but anticipated to the previous Saturday, which is the case this year for the vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. Before 1908, the feast of St Paulinus of Nola was ranked as a simple feast, and the vigil would have taken precedence over it, but in that year, St Pius X raised it to the rank of a double. The vigil is therefore observed in the Divine Office with the ninth lesson at Matins, and a commemoration at Lauds. Private Masses may be said of either the vigil or the feast, with the commemoration of the other; in major churches, the Mass of the feast is said after Terce, and that of the vigil after None.

The vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist is attested in all liturgical books of the Roman Rite until 1969, when vigils in the traditional sense were abolished. The same chants and Scriptural readings which it has in the Missal of St Pius V are already found in the oldest graduals and lectionaries, and the same prayers are all in place in the Gregorian Sacramentary at the beginning of the 9th century. The Baptist’s conception is noted on September 24th in many early Western calendars and martyrologies, but does not seem to have been kept as an actual feast as it is in the Byzantine Rite (one day earlier). This is because the vigil itself serves as the liturgical commemoration of his conception, the announcement of which by the Angel Gabriel to his father Zachariah is read as the Gospel of the day. This custom mirrors that of the Ember Wednesday of Advent, on which the Gospel of the Annunciation is read in preparation for Christmas.

The introit of the vigil sums up the Angel’s message, and prepares us for the great feast of the following day, on which “many will rejoice at his birth.”

Introitus Ne tímeas, Zacharía, exaudíta est oratio tua: et Elísabeth uxor tua pariet tibi filium, et vocábis nomen ejus Joannem: et erit magnus coram Dómino: et Spíritu Sancto replébitur adhuc ex útero matris suae: et multi in nativitáte eius gaudébunt. V. Dómine, in virtúte tua laetábitur rex: et super salutáre tuum exsultábit vehementer. Gloria Patri. Ne tímeas. (Do not be afraid, Zachary, thy prayer hath been heard, and Elizabeth thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John; and he shall be great before the Lord, and shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb; and many will rejoice at his birth. V. O Lord, in Thy strength the king shall be glad; and in Thy salvation shall he rejoice exceedingly. Glory be. Do not be afraid.)

It has very often been noted that the birth of the Baptist occurs shortly after the summer solstice, when the hours of daylight begin to grow shorter, and the birth of Christ occurs shortly after the winter solstice, when the hours of daylight begin to grow longer. This arrangement is traditionally understood as a reflection of St John’s words about Christ, “He must wax, and I must wane.” (John 3, 30) The Collect of the vigil seems also to refer to this when it speaks not of the upcoming festivity, but rather of John’s role in sending us to Christ.

“Præsta, quáesumus, omnípotens Deus: ut familia tua per viam salútis incédat; et, beáti Joannis Praecursóris hortamenta sectendo, ad eum, quem praedixit, secúra perveniat, Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum etc. – Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that Thy household may walk in the way of salvation and, by following the exhortations of blessed John the Forerunner, safely come to Him whom he foretold, even our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, etc.”

The Preaching of St John the Baptist, ca. 1665 by Mattia Preti (1613-99); public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

The Epistle, Jeremiah 1, 4-10, is chosen particularly for the words of verse 5, “Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.” This makes a perfect complement to the Gospel, since it parallels the words of the angel to Zachariah so closely. “For … and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. … And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias (i.e. of a prophet).”

The association of this passage with John the Baptist goes back to the very origins of Latin Christianity, already cited in Tertullian’s treatise On the Soul, chapter 26. “Elizabeth exults with joy, (for) John had leaped in her womb; Mary magnifies the Lord, (for) Christ had so impelled Her. The mothers recognize each other’s offspring, being each herself recognized by them, who were of course alive, and not merely souls, but spirits also. So also do you read the word of God (spoken) to Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.’ … And God made a man, and breathed into him the breath of life, and God would not have known him to be a man in the womb, unless he were whole: ‘and before thou camest out of the womb, I sanctified thee.’ ”

The Prophet Jeremiah, by Piero della Francesca, 1452-66, in the church of St Francis in Arezzo.

And likewise, in St Ambrose’s highly influential commentary on the Gospel of Luke (1.33): “There is no doubt that this promise of the Angel is true; for indeed, Saint John, before he was born, while still in his mother’s womb, showed the grace of the Spirit received. For when neither his father nor his mother had done any wonders, leaping in the womb of his mother, he proclaimed the good tidings of the coming of the Lord to his mother. For thus do you read, that when the mother of the Lord had come to Elizabeth, she said to Her, ‘For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.’ For he had not yet the spirit (i.e. breath) of life, but the spirit of grace. And then, we have also been able to note elsewhere that the grace of sanctification precedes the essence of living, since the Lord saith, ‘Before thou camest forth from the womb, I sanctified thee, and set thee as a prophet among the nations.’ ”

The Gradual is one of only two in the historical corpus [1] of the Roman Missal whose texts are taken from the Gospels, the other being that of the feast of John the Evangelist. This acknowledges the unique roles that the two Saints John played in Our Lord’s life on this earth, and perhaps also reflects the fact that they share the dedication of the cathedral of Rome with Him. Both graduals are in the fifth mode, but their music is different.

Graduale Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Joannes. V. Hic venit, ut testimonium perhibéret de lúmine, paráre Dómino plebem perfectam. (There was a man sent by God, whose name was John. V. This man came to bear witness concerning the light, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people.)

The Gospel, Luke 1, 5-17, is titled in the Missal “The beginning of the Holy Gospel according to Luke”, since the first four verses, which are not traditionally read in the Roman Rite, are treated as a prologue. This part explains who John’s parents were, and tells us of their childlessness and of the Angel’s words to Zachariah when he appears to him in the temple. However, the second part, verses 18-25, which narrates Zachariah’s doubt and punishment, and the actual conception, is not read. Beginning in the Carolingian era, the Nativity of the Baptist was celebrated with two Masses, one at dawn and one during the day, which are analogous to the second and third Masses of Christmas. Luke 1, 18-25 was historically read as the Gospel of the dawn Mass, but disappeared from the Roman Rite when that Mass fell out of use. In the post-Conciliar lectionary, these verses have been restored to the lectionary, not in connection with the Birth of St John, but in Advent, on December 19th when that day is a feria.

The so-called Leonine Sacramentary contains a special preface for the vigil, a shortened version of which is found in many manuscripts of the Gregorian sacramentary and in the traditional Ambrosian rite; here is the older Leonine form.

VD: exhibentes sollemne jejunium, quo beati Johannis baptistae natalicia praevenimus. Cujus genitor et verbi Dei nuntium dubitans nasciturum vocis est privatus officio, et eodem recepit nascente sermonem; quique Angelo promittente dum non credit obmutuit, magnifici praeconis exortu et loquens factus est et profeta: materque pariter sterilis aevoque confecta non solum puerperio fecunda processit, sed etiam, quo beatae Mariae fructum sedula voce benedictione susciperet, spiritu divinitatis impleta est; ipseque progenitus, utpote viae caelestis adsertor, viam domino monuit praeparari, seraque in suprema parentum aetate concretus et editus, procreandum novissimis temporibus humani generis disseruit redemptorem.

Truly it is worthy… holding the solemn fast, by which we anticipate the birth of blessed John the Baptist. Whose father, when he doubted the message of God’s word that he was to be born, was deprived of the use of his voice, and received it back when he was born; who grew silent when he did not believe the Angel’s promise, but at the birth of the glorious herald, gained his speech and became a prophet. And likewise his mother, being sterile and worn by old age, did not only become fruitful in childbearing, but was also filled with the Holy Spirit, so that she might receive the fruit of the Blessed Mary with a blessing with eager voice. And himself that was begotten, as the one who shows the way to heaven, urged that the way of the Lord be prepared, and being lately conceived and brought forth in the last age of his parents, proclaimed that the Redeemer of the human race would be born in the last times.

[1] The graduals of two very late Masses, both promulgated by Pope Pius XI, also take their text from the Gospels, those of St Thérèse of Lisieux (1925) and the votive Mass of Christ the Eternal High Priest (1935).

The Feast of All Saints 2023: The Patriarchs and Prophets

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the seventh day in the Octave of All Saints.

In like manner, brethren, let us look upon the multitudes of the holy fathers that contemplate this most secure happiness, shining forth more brightly than the stars, radiant with the faith of the patriarchs, resplendent in their patience, rejoicing in the hope of the prophets, and splendid in their piety. Enlightened, as it were, by the dawn that went before the rising of the true Sun, they announced to a longing world the two comings of the Savior, and all that would come to pass through the mystery of the ineffable Word that was awaited. But among them, we know that John the Baptist holds the first place who venerated by all the world, and called “greater than a prophet”; it was he that prepared for the coming of the new law, and clearly showed forth the innocent Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world, and brings salvation to us, Whom all the others only foretold.

The Birth, Naming and Circumcision of St John the Baptist, ca. 1335, by the Italian painter Giovanni Baronzio. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

The Beheading of St John the Baptist 2023

A righteous man is murdered by adulterers, and a death sentence is pronounced by the guilty upon their judge. Then the death of the prophet was the fee of a dancing girl. Last of all (something which even savages are wont to shun), the order to perpetrate this cruelty was given amid feasting and merriment, and the servants of this brutal crime run from banquet to prison, from prison to banquet. How many crimes within this one evil deed!

The Head of St John the Baptist Presented to Herod, by Donatello, 1427; one of six decorative panels on the baptismal font of Siena Cathedral.

Look, most grievous king, on these sights well worthy of thy banquet. Put out thy hand, that nothing may lack from thy savagery, and let the streams of sacred blood run between thy fingers. ... Look at the eyes, which even in death are witnesses of thy crime, even as they turn away from the sight of thy pleasures. Those eyes are closed, not from the necessity imposed by death, but from horror at thine excess. That golden mouth, now bloodless, whose sentence thou couldst not bear, groweth silent, and is still feared. (St Ambrose, On the Virgins, book 3; the sermon at Matins for the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist in the Breviary of St Pius V.)

A Relic of St John the Baptist

Oft in past ages, seers with hearts expectant / Sang the far-distant advent of the day-star; / thine was the glory, as the world’s Redeemer / First to proclaim him.

A reliquary of a finger of St John the Baptist, from the museum of the cathedral of Florence, where he is honored as Patron Saint of the city. Attributed to Matteo di Giovanni; first half of the 15th century.

The text given above is a rather free translation of the third stanza of the Matins hymn for today’s feast, the Nativity of St John the Baptist, taken from George Herbert Palmer’s translation of the hymns of the Sarum Breviary. The Latin is:

Ceteri tantum cecinere Vatum
Corde praesago iubar affuturum:
Tu quidem mundi scelus auferentem
Indice prodis.

Translated literally, “The rest of the prophets in their foreseeing heart told only that the day-star would come; but Thou with Thy finger reveal Him that taketh away the sin of the world.”

The Forgotten Forerunner

St John the Baptist, 1425 ca. - 1432, from the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

St. John the Baptist, whose birthday we celebrate on June 24, is well represented in the Gospels and even in every celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. Yet while devotion to other Saints close to Jesus, such as St. Joseph, has grown over the centuries, Western piety seems slightly neglectful of the one whom the Eastern churches call the Forerunner of the Lord. That is a shame, for the Saint who represents the last and best of the Old Testament has, as we shall see, a surprising relevance for this late chapter in Church history.

Biblical Prominence

Saint John the Baptist plays a prominent role in all four canonical Gospels. After recounting Christ’s genealogy and infancy, Matthew proceeds straight to his ministry (Matthew 2). Mark begins his “gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1, 1) not with Jesus Christ the Son of God but with “the voice of one crying in the desert,” John the Baptizer. (1, 3-4) Luke opens his Gospel with the story of John’s conception, (Luke 1.5-25) and Saint John the Evangelist, in an astonishing move, interrupts his magnificent prologue about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us with a disclaimer that John the Baptist was not the Light but an important witness to the Light. (John 1, 6-10)

Conception and Naming

John’s conception in the womb of his mother Saint Elizabeth follows a hallowed tradition of miraculous conceptions. Isaac’s mother Sarah was beyond child-bearing, (Gen. 17, 19) and so was Samson’s, (Judges 13, .3-24) but the Most High brought life out of their barrenness.

John’s naming also follows a biblical pattern. Among adults, God renames chosen vessels as a sign of their new mission. Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, and Simon bar Jonah becomes Saint Peter. But for specially chosen vessels, the naming takes place in the womb. Isaac is the name that the Lord God gives to the miraculous offspring of Abraham and Sarah, Jesus is the name that the Archangel Gabriel reveals for the incarnate Son of God, and John is the name, according to the same angel, for His second cousin.

Unlike the Blessed Virgin Mary’s unconditional fiat, John’s father receives the news about his son’s conception and naming in a spirit of doubt. As a result, Saint Zechariah or Zachary is punished by being struck dumb, a curse is not lifted until it is time to name the child eight days after his birth, at his circumcision:

And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father's name Zachary. And his mother answering, said: “Not so; but he shall be called John.” And they said to her: “There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a writing table, he wrote, saying: “John is his name.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came upon all their neighbours; and all these things were noised abroad over all the hill country of Judea. (Luke 1, 59-65)

Note the wording. Zachary does not say, “He will be called John,” but “His name is John.” Zachary is, in other words, uttering the essence of his son’s identity, not randomly assigning a label that happens to fall short of Jewish naming conventions at the time. In so doing, he is like Adam in the Garden, who names the beasts according to their essences. (see Gen. 2, 20) It is this act of faith that frees him from the angel’s curse and liberates his tongue.

It is also noteworthy that Zachary’s wife Saint Elizabeth, who must have learned about the angel’s message from her husband in writing, believes Saint Gabriel wholeheartedly. Her insistence on the name John despite her relatives’ protest is rather comical in the Latin Vulgate translation: Nequaquam! Which, if we were to translate it into modern slang, would be: “No way!”

Gestation

John was conceived in the normal fashion (unlike Our Lord), and yet his gestation in the womb was accompanied by a miracle. When the Blessed Virgin Mary, who bore a less-than-one-month-old Son of God in her womb, visited her aged cousin Saint Elizabeth, who was six-months’ pregnant with Saint John, something amazing happened:

And [Mary] entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” (Luke 1, 40-45)

The Visitation, 1306, by Giotto, in the lower basilica of St Francis in Assisi.

How did the preborn John the Baptist recognize the voice of the Mother of God? And how did he know that he was in the presence of the Messiah? Not only was Saint Elizabeth filled with the Holy Ghost, but so was her son. (see Luke 1, 15) John the Baptist is considered by Catholic tradition to be like Jeremiah the prophet, who declares that he was sanctified in the womb. (See Jeremiah 1, 5) And consequently, both Jeremiah and John are on a small list of saints who never committed a sin, either venial or mortal, in their lives. Unlike the Blessed Virgin Mary, John was conceived in original sin, but while he was in the womb he was purged of the stain of original sin and went on to live without personal sin. No wonder that his is the only earthly birthday, besides that of Our Lord and Our Lady, that is honored on the Church calendar.

Moreover, Luke’s account of the Visitation bears a striking resemblance to David’s greeting of the Ark of the Covenant, when he dances before the Ark half-naked—much to the chagrin of his wife Michal. (see 2 Kings [2 Samuel] 6, 14-16) Just as David danced before the old Ark of the Covenant, John dances in his mother’s womb before the New Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle that is Mary the Theotokos, the God-bearer.

Early Years

The Holy Bible has only two sparse lines about the youth of John the Baptist: “He grew and was strengthened in the Spirit” and “He was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.” (Luke 1, 80) The rest is speculation. It is widely conjectured that after the death of his parents (who, because of their age, died when he was relatively young), John went into the desert and joined the Essenes, an ascetical and messianic Jewish community. If this is true, he may have adopted certain customs of theirs, such as ritual washing or “baptizing,” but in a way that would have scandalized them.

Titian, 1542

Description

Unlike other literature, the Bible is rather taciturn about how its characters look or what they eat, and when it does divulge this information, it is to reveal something important. John the Baptist is described in one fulsome verse:

And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and he ate locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1, 6; see Matthew 3, 4)

Most artists portray the Baptist looking like Tarzan or a caveman, with a one-shoulder tunic made out of camel hide. Nevertheless, the sacred text states that he wore hair rather than a pelt, which would have been more in keeping with his Nazarite vow not to touch dead bodies (more on this vow later). On the other hand, his wardrobe is not to be confused with the fashionable coats worn today. Camels have two kinds of hair: a fine, soft undercoat from which contemporary camel hair coats are made, and a coarse outer guard hair that is the fabric for haircloth and hairshirts. Given his ascetical life, he probably wove his own clothing from the rough guard hair that he could have picked up off the ground, since camels shed this hair in the spring and summer. No wonder that Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of tailors.

His leather belt is significant because the prophet Elijah also wore one. The Pharisees’ suspicion that John the Baptist was Elijah returned is not as insane as it might sound initially. (See John 1, 21) Elijah never died but was assumed into heaven in a fiery chariot; he wore a leather belt and lived apart; and he openly criticized the marriage of the king and his wife, Ahab and Jezebel, like John’s condemnation of the marriage of Herod and Herodias. John fits the profile of the Old Testament’s greatest prophet.

Biblical scholars have debated the meaning of “locusts.” Some have suggested that it was carob tree beans, others that it was a kind of manna-like pancake. But the Greek word clearly points to locusts, which are still eaten in the Middle East (Bedouins like theirs sun-dried and salted). Curiously, locusts are one of the few insects permitted as a clean comestible under the Mosaic Law.

A vendor in Yemen selling dried locusts

Scholars also quibble over the meaning of “wild honey,” some claiming that the reference is to gum from the tamarisk tree, which is nutritious but bland. Saint Jerome speculates that because the honey was wild, it was bitter in taste. He may be right, although it would depend on the nectar and pollen available to the bees. Either way, it must have been difficult to harvest the honey and even painful to do so (lots of stings), since wild bees usually have hives in inauspicious locations such as tree trunks, rock crevices, etc.

John was also predicted by Saint Gabriel to be a teetotaler, drinking neither wine nor strong drink. (Luke 1, 15) This restraint, combined with his holiness, identifies the Baptist as one of three persons mentioned in the Bible who took a lifelong vow of the Nazarite, the other two being Samson and Samuel. (See Judges 13, 4-7; 1 Samuel 1, 11) During the duration of his vow, a “Nazarite” (nazir is the Hebrew word for consecrated or set apart) could not cut his hair, drink alcohol or ingest anything from the grape, or touch corpses and graves.

Finally, Our Lord mentions that John neither ate bread nor drank wine. (See Luke 7, 33) A diet without bread further illustrates Saint John’s wildness, for bread, like wine, is a product of civilization. But mentioning bread and wine together also has unmistakable Eucharistic overtones. John was great, despite never feasting at the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Lord.

Preaching

John’s mission was to prepare the way of the Lord, (Matthew 3, 3) and he did so by preaching repentance. He is famous for fearlessly calling the Pharisees and Sadducees “a brood of vipers.” (Matthew 3.7) and for speaking out against Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. On the Collect of his feast, the Church prays that we may learn to “boldly rebuke vice” like Saint John.

This petition, however, needs to be understood properly. Contrary to a popular misrepresentation, John was not an arrogant hothead, but a gentle spiritual director. As St. John Henry Newman astutely notes, Herod continued to like Saint John after the latter rebuked him; therefore, the Baptist must have rebuked him well—

that is, at a right time, in a right spirit, and a right manner. The Holy Baptist rebuked Herod without making him angry; therefore he must have rebuked him with gravity, temper, sincerity, and an evident good-will towards him. On the other hand, he spoke so firmly, sharply, and faithfully, that his rebuke cost him his life. [1]

Similarly, when tax collectors asked him for advice, he did not tell them to quit their job working for the despised Romans but simply not to cheat anyone. And when soldiers (presumably, Gentiles in the service of Rome) asked what to do, John did not condemn them or their occupation but told them not to use their position to do bully others and to be content with their pay. (Luke 3, 12-14) John most likely baptized these soldiers as well, touching them as he dipped them in the River Jordan—something the Essenes, who valued their ritual purity, would never have done.

Baptizing with Water

Another difference between John and the Essenes is the significance each attached to purification through water. The Essenes had a ritual washing every day, but it was not related to a remission of sins. John’s baptism was different. Although the Baptist makes clear that his baptisms did not absolve sins and that only baptism in water and the Spirit would, he nevertheless preached “a baptism of penance for the remission of sins” (Luke 3, 4), and he never baptized unless the penitent confessed his sins. (Matthew 3, 6) John’s baptism served the crucial purpose of making people aware of the sins that are remitted in the Sacrament of Baptism.

Martyrdom

The details of Saint John the Baptist’s martyrdom are well known. After criticizing Herod’s marriage, the monarch imprisoned him, even though he liked him. For his own birthday, Herod threw a large party and inviting several dignitaries. When Herodias’ daughter danced for him, Herod was so moved that he promised to give her anything that she wanted. At her mother’s behest, Salome (as she is known by tradition) requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The sad king obliged because he could not lose face in front of his important guests.

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