Prophet John the Baptist (Forerunner) - for a Christian, the most revered saint after the Mother of God. His icons are in every Orthodox church. The life of the Forerunner is exciting and amazes with the stamina of the saint. The history of the iconography of the prophet is also very interesting, but in order to better understand it, you need to know the path of John the Baptist.
Forerunner Conception
The birth of the prophet was predicted by St. Malachi, saying that before the Messiah the Forerunner would come and point to the Savior.
The father of John the Baptist was Saint Zacharias, a priest and a righteous man. Mother, Elizabeth, was the sister of Anna, who gave birth to the Virgin Mary. Both parents of the Forerunner kept the commandments of God, led a blameless existence. All their lives, Elizabeth and Zachary dreamed of having a child. But the Lord heard their prayers when they were old.
The father of the future prophet did not believe the Angel, who announced the imminent birth of his son, for which he was punished. The priest was speechless and could not say another word.
Birth of a prophet
For five whole months, Saint Elizabeth hid her pregnancy,afraid of ridicule, until the Virgin Mary came to her with joyful news of the conception of the Savior.
After the birth of the prophet, on the eighth day, all the relatives came to perform circumcision, which was considered a necessity. Having offered Elizabeth to name her son by the name of his father, according to custom, they heard a refusal and were very surprised at such a decision. They asked Zechariah. He wrote that the child's name was John. Immediately the ability to speak and hear returned to the priest. Word quickly spread about this miracle.
The icon of John the Baptist in honor of his Nativity is found in almost all Orthodox churches.
Saving the prophet and returning to the people
King Herod was also aware of the birth of the Forerunner. And after the news of the birth of the Messiah, he was completely frightened. He assumed that John was the Son of God. Therefore, he ordered to kill the prophet and, just in case, all babies under two years old in Bethlehem and its environs.
This news made the righteous Elizabeth flee with her son into the desert. Zechariah, without revealing the whereabouts of his wife with John, was killed. Forty days later, the mother of the prophet also died.
John the Baptist lived in the wilderness until he was thirty years old. He ate wild honey and locusts (according to some sources, this is a type of locust, according to others - plant foods that the poorest segments of the population ate), drank water, and his clothes were made of camel hair. But the time has come for the prophet to appear to the people.
At the command of the Lord, the prophet came to Jordan with a call to sincerely repent of sins, correct himself anddo good deeds, as the time for the appearance of the Messiah has come. Those who followed his instructions were baptized by John.
While preaching in the wilderness, the Forerunner heard about the miracles performed by Jesus and sent the disciples to find out if everyone had been waiting for him for so long. After this, Christ spoke of the prophet as an angel who prepares the way for him. Hence the icon of John the Baptist, depicting the Forerunner with wings and a scroll. The Desert Angel Who Started the Sermon…
The baptism of Jesus and the beheading of the prophet
Undoubtedly, the baptism of John the Baptist was not a fully Christian sacrament. But it was the Forerunner who sowed the seeds of faith in people and prepared the way for the Savior.
During the baptism of Jesus himself by John, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove to the earth, and the voice of the Lord announced that the Savior is the Son of God. The icon of Christ, depicting his baptism in the Jordan River, clearly shows the miraculous signs of the coming of the Messiah. Prophet John fulfilled his mission as an Angel-messenger.
And besides, he vehemently denounced the vices of everyone, regardless of the position in society. He even accused the king of leaving his wife and cohabiting with his brother's wife Herodias, for which he paid with his head. By order of King Herod, the prophet was executed by cutting off his head. But the Lord punished those responsible for the death of the Forerunner. The daughter of the king's concubine Salome, at whose request the saint was executed, fell into the frozen river. Her head remained on the surface and was cut off by sharp ice floes, and her body was not found at all. The king with Herodias, who persuaded her daughter to ask for the execution of the prophet,exiled to Spain by the Roman emperor, where the earth opened up and swallowed them both.
Feast of John the Baptist
The church has several dates for the memory of the saint:
- October 6 (September 23) - in honor of the conception of John the Baptist;
- July 7 (June 24) - Christmas of the Prophet;
- September 11 (August 29) - the beheading of John the Baptist;
- January 20 (January 7) - in honor of the baptism of the Savior by the prophet;
- March 9 (February 24) - in memory of the first and second finding of the head of John the Baptist;
- June 7 (May 25) - the third acquisition of the head of the prophet;
- October 25 (October 12) - transfer to Gatchina from M alta of the right hand of the Baptist.
All dates of memory are called "The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist". Why do they say that? These days, believers gather in temples for glorification in the prayers of the saint.
The image of the prophet
Each icon of John the Baptist is painted according to the following signs of a saint: a middle-aged man (about 32 years old), thin in physique and face, which emphasizes his righteous life and holiness; with dark skin from constant exposure to the sun. His face corresponds to the Jewish type. The saint has a black beard in tufts. Its length is shorter than average. The same color is curly and thick hair, divided into strands. Camel wool clothing, leather belt.
The fact that the saint is especially revered by Christians influenced the variety of plots of icons depicting the prophet. The earliest of them were written in the first half of the third century withdepiction of the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist on the Jordan River. For comparison: the first icon of the Mother of God was painted in the second century in the Roman catacombs.
Iconography of the prophet John the Baptist
The first icon of the saint, depicting only himself, was painted in the second half of the sixth century. This is the image of the prophet in full growth, he is in a sackcloth and with a scroll in his left hand. On top of the icon, on the right and left, there are medallions with images of the Savior and the Virgin.
In the tenth-eleventh centuries, the icon of John the Baptist, bowed in prayer to Christ, appeared. In this plot, the prophet was depicted to the right of the Savior, and starting from the thirteenth century, to the left.
At the end of the thirteenth century, the image of John the Baptist, the Angel of the Desert, appeared in the iconography of the prophet. This was preceded by several stages. So, in the tenth-eleventh centuries, they depicted the moment of calling the prophet to serve. Here John the Baptist bowed in prayer against the backdrop of the mountainous terrain. Then, towards the middle of the eleventh century, an image of a saint appeared with an ax on a barren tree and a scroll in his hand. In addition, at the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries, iconography was formed with the display of the acquisition of the head of the prophet. In the same period, the desert, the axe, the scroll and the head in the vessel were combined into one icon with the image of the praying Forerunner. And, finally, at the end of the thirteenth century, this composition was supplemented by the image of the wings of St. John the Baptist. This is related to the statement about the prophet in the Gospel of Luke. According to this book of the New Testament, God said thatsends his Angel to prepare the way for the Savior.
Plots of the iconography of the prophet and the spread of his image in Russia
There are compositions involving the entire holy family, which depict infants John, Jesus, and their parents.
Among handwritten Orthodox images there is an icon of the Mother of God, praying together with the Forerunner to Christ for the human race. Evidence of greater reverence for the prophet than for the apostles is the intercessory prayer at the liturgy in churches, when the name of the saint is pronounced immediately after the mention of the Virgin.
In Russia, icons depicting the prophet began to spread especially widely during the period when Ivan the Terrible was tsar. Among the authors of the images of John the Baptist, one can single out Andrei Rublev, Theophan the Greek, Procopius Chirin, Gury Nikitin, A. Ivanov.
It can be said that the icon of Christ is on a par with the image of the holy prophet, because the Forerunner is especially revered by Christians. It was John the Baptist who informed the world about the long-awaited coming of the Messiah, by his example and preaching he lit the flame of faith in the hearts of people, prompting them to purify themselves and accept the Savior. Our intercessor and Angel of God is the holy prophet John the Baptist!
