He cried aloud to all the people: “Do penance[1], for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”[2] In order to excite his hearers more efficaciously to repentance, as also to prepare them for Christian Baptism, he baptized those who were sorry for their sins, in the waters of the Jordan. Then the multitudes came to him from Jerusalem and Judaea to listen to his preaching; and many people of all conditions, after hearing him, confessed their sins and were baptized.
Some of the Sadducees and Pharisees[3] being present among the crowd, John addressed them sternly, saying: “Ye brood of vipers[4], who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come?[5] Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of penance [6], and think not to say: ‘We have Abraham for our father’, for I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham[7]. For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that yieldeth not good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire.”[8]
- ↑ Do penance. Repent of and confess your sins, and amend your ways.
- ↑ At hand. The time has nearly arrived when the Messias will appear from heaven and will found His kingdom.
- ↑ Sadducees and Pharisees. For more details about these sects see Old Test. LXXXVI.
- ↑ Vipers. John called them by this name, because they were as full of evil as are poisonous snakes. They were, as a matter of fact, those very children of the infernal serpent, about whom, after the Fall, God foretold that there should be enmity between them and the Redeemer.
- ↑ The wrath to come. Do not think that you can escape future condemnation, if you come here and are baptized for the sole purpose of winning praise from men.
- ↑ Fruit worthy of penance. Namely, works corresponding with a real conversion. In other words St. John meant: “Repent really, and do not perform only outward, or seeming penance.”
- ↑ Children to Abraham. Do not think that penance is unnecessary for you, because you are descended from Abraham, and belong, therefore, to the chosen people; for, if you prove unworthy of divine grace, God will reject you in spite of your descent from Abraham, and He will call others (the Gentiles) to His kingdom, who by their faith will become the spiritual children of Abraham. All those who, like Abraham, live by faith, are the spiritual children of him who is called the father of the faithful. If He so willed it, God could create men from stones, as He first created Adam and Eve of earth and make of them children of Abraham.
- ↑ The fire. Men are signified by the trees; the tree which bears no fruit being the impenitent sinner. John meant to say: “Do not put off your conversion, for the hour has almost come when it will be decided whether you are to have a place in the kingdom of God, or not. He who does not do penance will be shut out from the kingdom of the Messias, and cast into the everlasting fire of hell.”
