1. In spite of the meanness and misery of his life, we are bound to confess that Herod was a religious man. In a sense all the Herods were religious. If it had not been so, they would not have been tolerated by the Jews, to whom it was ever a sore thought that they belonged to the hated offspring of Edom. Their religion was primitive enough, we might safely say savage enough, and therefore mixed with elements of treachery, bloodthirstiness, and lust. Yet it was religion of a sort. The feeling after God was there, and as evidence of its existence there was always a conscience that could be wrought to a pitch of bitter remorse.
As the eye is correlated with light, so is every specific organ correlated with some external arrangement, without which it would not have existed. Now apply this doctrine to that moral or spiritual faculty which in the majority of men acknowledges the presence of a spiritual observer and judge of absolutely secret thoughts and motives. Can we suppose that this sense of shame without the presence of any bodily observer, this sense of peace and even joy which streams in from outside just as it would do, though in larger measure, from the sympathy of a friend, is a mere imaginative overflow from the conception of ourselves as we should feel if our mind were transparent to the eye of those we wished to please? Surely the quiver of the whole nature to observation from within bespeaks as distinct an organ of our minds as the sensitiveness of the eye to light bespeaks an organ of our bodies. If the structure of the eye implies light, if the structure of the ear implies sound, then the structure of our conscience as certainly implies a spiritual presence and judgment, the access of some being to our inward thoughts and motives.1 [Note: R. H. Hutton, Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought, 133.]
2. It is therefore no surprise to be told that, when Herod learned of the proximity of John the Baptist to his palace at Machærus, he sent for him, gave him what we might call a chapel to preach in, went often himself to hear him, heard him gladly, and did many things which John bade him do. It was because this man had his burdened conscience that the religious revival which was beating in so many young hearts in Galilee became a thing of deep interest to him. It was because he had his uneasy spirit that he sought the companionship of so unlikely a court preacher as John. It was because he had his wounded spirit that he observed him, and did many things gladly, that he might get an anodyne for his pain.
George Fox's Journal for 1657 contains a record of his visit to Scotland, and of his being summoned, when in Edinburgh, before the Council as an unauthorized preacher.
“They asked me,” he says, “what was the occasion of my coming into that nation? I told them, I came to visit the seed of God, and the intent of my coming was, that all in the nation that professed the Scriptures might come to the light, Spirit, and power, which they were in, who gave them forth. They asked me whether I had any outward business there? I said, ‘nay.' Then they bid me withdraw, and the door-keeper took me by the hand, and led me forth. In a little time they sent for me again, and told me, I must depart the nation of Scotland by that day seventh night. I asked them, ‘why, what had I done? What was my transgression, that they passed such a sentence upon me to depart out of the nation?' They told me, they would not dispute with me. Then I desired them to hear what I had to say to them; but they said, they would not hear me. I told them, Pharaoh heard Moses and Aaron, and yet he was a heathen and no Christian, and Herod heard John the Baptist; and they should not be worse than these. But they cried, ‘withdraw, withdraw.' Whereupon the door-keeper took me again by the hand, and led me out.”1 [Note: The Journal of George Fox (ed. 1901), i. 401.]
3. There was one thing, however, which Herod would not do. Go back a little into his history. He had married the daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabatæans, and all was well with him. The marriage secured peace between his country and the neighbouring country of Arabia; it pleased the Emperor at Rome; and by all we know it gave Herod a happy home. But in an evil day he visited Rome, where his brother Philip was living. Philip's wife Herodias and he entered into an adulterous intrigue, and when he left she left with him. The daughter of Aretas fled to her father's house, and Herod and Herodias were now living together at Machærus. John the Baptist disapproved of the connexion and was not afraid to say so. He said plainly to Herod, “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” Herod was displeased. Herodias was still more deeply offended. And John was cast into one of the dungeons which were a notorious feature of that fortress-palace.
There are some men whom God has gifted with a rare simplicity of heart, which makes them utterly incapable of pursuing the subtle excuses which can be made for evil. There is in John no morbid sympathy for the offender: “It is not lawful.” He does not say, “It is best to do otherwise; it is unprofitable for your own happiness to live in this way.” He says plainly, “It is wrong for you to do this evil.” Earnest men in this world have no time for subtleties and casuistry. Sin is detestable, horrible, in God's sight, and when once it has been made clear that it is not lawful, a Christian has nothing to do with toleration of it. If we dare not tell our patron of his sin we must give up his patronage.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Sermons, iii. 276.]
4. Then, “when a convenient day was come,” as St. Mark puts it-it was his birthday-Herod “made a supper to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee.” It was an occasion after Herod's own heart. He loved the display of it, the sense of importance it gave him, and the opportunity of self-indulgence. He was altogether in his element, when unexpectedly the door opened, and Salome, the daughter of Herodias by her husband Philip, came in and danced before them all. Herod must have been taken aback. But the lords were delighted and he joined in the applause. The more shamelessly she danced the more delighted they were. Herod sprang to his feet and, by way of showing his appreciation, offered the girl anything that she would ask-even if it were the half of his kingdom. Salome consulted her mother. Herodias seized the opportunity to exact the vengeance she had been waiting for. “Ask the head of John the Baptist,” she said. And in a short time John's bleeding head was brought in upon a dish and given to the girl, who gave it to her mother.
So did the spectre of Death invade the gay assembly on Herod's birthday. But on whom did the grisly shadow fall? Not on the prisoner, who, ere the fiendlike woman seized her prey, was singing the song of the redeemed around the Throne, in the new-found ecstasies of heaven. They truly died who lived to bear on their seared consciences the guilt of prompting, of executing, of approving that foul murder. Assuredly there was death in the cup that stupefied the revellers' sense of right, and made them stifle God's last warning. How truly might all such sots as they who tarry now as Herod's court tarried then around the poisoned liquor salute their god with the echo of the gladiators' cry, “Evoe, Liber! Morituri te salutamus!”1 [Note: J. H. Moulton, Visions of Sin, 176.]
5. Herod was sorry. He had lost his religion. He lost his religion that day he intrigued with his brother's wife; but he did not know it. He still had delight in hearing sermons. He still did many things which the preacher bade him do. And that is the beat test we have of sincerity in hearing sermons. But now the preacher whom he had heard so gladly, and whom he had obeyed, perhaps at some little cost to his convenience, was dead. He himself was his murderer. However his conscience will torment him in the future, he can no longer keep up the pretence of being a religious man. He had done many things which John bade him do, but there was that one thing which he would not do, and now it had slain his religious life. It was an ugly sin. But it does not need an ugly sin to slay a man's religious life. A very proper sin, and even a very little sin, will do it, if he refuses to give it up.
Herod's crime haunted him. His guilty soul was shaken by superstitious dread; and, Sadducee though he was, denying the doctrine of the Resurrection, the idea took possession of him that the murdered Baptist had risen from the dead, endowed, as befitted a visitant from the unseen world, with mysterious and miraculous powers. It came to pass with Antipas as with many an unbeliever:
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,-
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,-
The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are.1 [Note: Browning, Bishop Blougram's Apology.]
