“Yes, he’s the one. But, my dear Herodias,” the Tetrarch began to protest, “he’s likely to say something that will offend you, too. The fellow has no respect for the Tetrarch’s office or authority and no bridle on his loose tongue.”
“By the gods, then, that’s all the more reason I want to hear him.” She laughed gaily, then quickly grew sober. “And certainly the Tetrarch should be concerned,” she added, “if the man flouts the Tetrarch’s authority.” She signaled to Longinus to resume the march. “Let’s ride down and join his audience. After the boredom of our journey, this should at least provide a diversion.”
Antipas shook his head grudgingly but offered no further protest. “She’ll regret it as soon as she hears him, by the gods,” he muttered to the centurion as they started. “But I warned her.”
At the bottom of the slope the group dismounted, and on Longinus’ summons, soldiers came up to hold the horses. The servants remained behind with them except for Neaera and Tullia who followed their mistresses as the Tetrarch’s party quietly slipped around a screening clump of willows to join the throng about the gaunt and weathered speaker. To Antipas, John seemed little changed since that day when they had come upon him at the ford farther up the Jordan. His clothes looked the same; fleetingly the Tetrarch wondered if the haircloth mantle had ever been cleaned since he had last seen it.
Although the Tetrarch’s group had slipped unobtrusively into the rim of the crowd, Antipas was quickly recognized, and soon a murmur moved through the multitude and heads began to nod as intent black eyes shifted from the fiery prophet to study the newly arrived ruler of Galilee and Peraea.
“It’s old Herod,” Longinus heard a beak-nosed, thin Jew whisper to the man beside him. “And that woman, she must be the new wife he’s fetched from Rome, the one he took away from his brother, and that must be the brother’s daughter beside her.” Both men turned to stare, then smile. “I wonder what John will say to that!” one said to the other as they turned back to peer again at the thundering prophet.
John, too, had recognized the Tetrarch, Longinus was sure; yet the prophet made no immediate reference to his presence. Instead, he continued preaching on the necessity of repentance and on the use of baptism as a sign of Yahweh’s forgiveness. The man was a powerful speaker; he had native ability, Longinus immediately perceived, to command attention and sway his hearers. The crowd listened, entranced, to his every word; now and then one would step forward and, crying loudly in repentance, ask for baptism.
Sometimes a man would interrupt the prophet to seek an answer to some deeply perplexing problem. But no one yet had spoken openly of the Tetrarch’s presence among them.
Then a tall, narrow-faced Jew, unkempt, ill-clothed, evidently a man of the earth, stepped forward and held up his hand. “This repentance of which you speak,” he questioned, “is it necessary for the rich man in the same manner as it is for the poor and dispossessed, for the man of authority as well as for the servant? I ask you, does the measuring rod measure the same for all men, or is there one rule for one man and another rule for another?”
“Repentance is necessary for all men, my brother,” John replied calmly. “The same measuring rod measures for both the man of authority and the servant who serves him, for both the rich man and the man of earth.”