s to the Pharisees (Matt. iii.
7) to realize how clearly he saw through the hollowness of their religious
pretence. With the quibbles of the scribes concerning small and great
commandments, Sabbaths and hand-washings, John shows no affinity. He may
have learned some things from these "sitters in Moses' seat," but he was
not of them.

77. John's message announced the near approach of the kingdom of God. It
is probable that many of those who sought his baptism were ardent
nationalists,--eager to take a hand in realizing that consummation.
Josephus indicates that it was Herod's fear lest John should lead these
Zealots to revolt that furnished the ostensible cause of his death. But
similar as were the interests of John and these nationalists, the distance
between them was great. The prophet's replies to the publicans and to the
soldiers, which contain not a word of rebuke for the hated callings (Luke
iii. 13, 14), show how fundamentally he differed from the Zealots.

78. But there was another branch of the Pharisees than that which quibbled
over Sabbath laws, traditions, and tithes, or that which itched to grasp
the sword; they were men who saw visions and dreamed dreams like those of
Daniel and the Revelation, and in their visions saw God bringing
deliverance to his people by swift and sudden judgment. There are some
marked likenesses between this type of thought and that of John,--the
impending judgment, the word of warning, the coming blessing, were all in
John; but one need only compare John's words with such an apocalypse as
the Assumption of Moses, probably written in Palestine during John's life
in the desert, to discover that the two messages do not move in the same
circle of thought at all; there is something practical, something severely
heart-searching, something at home in every-day life, about John's
announcement of the coming kingdom that is quite absent from the visions
of his contemporaries. John had not, like some of these seers, a coddling
sympathy for people steeped in sin. He traced their troubles to their own
doors, and would not let ceremonies pass in place of "fruits meet for
repentance." He came from the desert with rebuke and warning on his lips;
with no word against the hated Romans, but many against hypocritical
claimants to the privileges of Abraham; no apology for his message nor
artificial device of dream or ancient name to secure a hearing, but the
old-fashioned prophetic method of declaration