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11. ὁ ἔχων δύο χιτῶνας. St Luke alone preserves for us the details in this interesting section. Beyond the single upper garment (χιτών, ketoneth), and garment (ἱμάτιον) and girdle, no other article of dress was necessary. A second ‘tunic’ or ketoneth was a mere luxury, so long as thousands were too poor to own even one.
μεταδότω τῷ μὴ ἔχοντι. St Paul gave similar advice (2Co 8:13-15), and St James (Luk 2:15-17), and St John (1Jn 3:17), because they had learnt this spirit from Christ. A literal fulfilment of it has often been represented by Christian Art in the “Charity of St Martin.”
βρώματα, ‘food.’ The word ‘meat’ has now acquired the specific sense of ‘flesh,’ which it never has in our E. V. For instance the “meat-offering” was generally an offering of flour and oil.
We may notice the following particulars respecting the preaching of the Baptist:
(1) It was stern, as was natural to an ascetic whose very aspect and mission were modelled on the example of Elijah. The particulars of his life, and dress, and food—the leathern girdle, the mantle of camel’s hair, the living on locusts and wild honey—are preserved for us by the other Evangelists, and they gave him that power of mastery over others which always springs from perfect self-control, and absolute self-abnegation. Hence “in his manifestation and agency he was like a burning torch; his whole life was a very earthquake; the whole man was a sermon.”
(2) It was absolutely dauntless. The unlettered Prophet of the Desert has not a particle of respect for the powerful Sadducees and long-robed luxurious Rabbis, and disdains to be flattered by their coming to listen to his teaching. Having nothing to hope from man’s favour, he has nothing to fear from man’s dislike.
(3) It shews remarkable insight into human nature, and into the needs and temptations of every class which came to him,—shewing that his ascetic seclusion did not arise from any contempt of, or a version to, his fellow men.
(4) It was intensely practical. Not only does it exclude all abstract and theological terms such as ‘justification,’ &c., but it says nothing directly of even faith, or love. In this respect it recalls the Old Testament, and might be summed up in the words of Balaam preserved in the prophet Micah, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Mic 6:8.
(5) Yet though it still belongs to the dispensation of the shadow it prophesies of the dawn. His first message was “Repent;” his second was “The kingdom of heaven is at hand:” and this message culminated in the words “Behold the Lamb of God,” which shewed that the Olam habba or ‘future age’ had already begun. These two great utterances “contain the two capital revelations to which all the preparation of the Gospel has been tending.” “Law and prophecy; denunciation of sin and promise of pardon; the flame which consumes and the light which consoles—is not this the whole of the covenant?” Lange.
(6) It does not claim the credentials of a single miracle. The glory and greatness of John the Baptist, combined with the fact that not a single wonder is attributed to him, is the strongest argument for the truth of the Gospels against the ‘mythical theory’ of Strauss, who reduces the Gospel miracles to a circle of imaginative legends devised to glorify the Founder of Christianity. At the same time this acknowledged absence of miraculous powers enhances our conception of the enormous moral force which sufficed, without a sign, to stir to its very depths the heart of a sign-demanding age.
(7) It had only a partial and temporary popularity. Rejected by the Pharisees who said that “he had a devil,” the Baptist failed to produce a permanent influence on more than a chosen few (Joh 5:35; Luk 7:30; Mat 11:18; Mat 21:23-27; Act 18:25; Act 19:3-4). After his imprisonment he seems to have fallen into neglect, and he himself felt from the first that his main mission was to prepare the way for another, and to decrease before him. He was “the lamp kindled and shining” (Joh 5:35) which becomes needless and ceases to be noticed when the sun has dawned.