“Then came also publicans to be baptized and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.
“And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.”
Compelling, almost superhuman when he announced the terrible separation of the good from the bad, John becomes commonplace when he descends to particulars and falls, one might say, exactly into the Pharisean tradition. His only advice is to give alms, to give away the superfluous. From the publicans he asks only strict justice: let them take what has been allotted and nothing more. To the fierce, thieving tribe of soldiers, he recommends only discretion! “Be satisfied with your pay and do not rob.” This is nothing more or less than the Mosaic law. Long before him, Amos and Isaiah had gone further.
Now is the time for the accuser of the Dead Sea to give way to the liberator of the Sea of Tiberias. The lot of precursors is hard: they know, but are not permitted to see; they arrive on the banks of the Jordan, but do not enjoy the promised land; they make plain the path for him who comes after them, but will pass beyond them. They prepare the throne and do not seat themselves on it. They are servants of the master whom often they do not meet face to face. Perhaps the fierceness of John is justified by this consciousness of being an ambassador and nothing more. A consciousness which is never envious, but which leaves a tinge of sadness, even in his humility. They came from Jerusalem to ask him who he was, “What then? Art thou Elias?”
“No. I am not.”
“Art thou that Prophet?”
“And he answered, No.”
“Art thou the Christ?”
“No.... He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.... He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.”
At Nazareth, in the meantime, an unknown working man was lacing up His shoes with His own hands to go out to the wilderness, resounding with the voice which three times had thundered, “No.”