A.D. 253 – 1871 6 witnesses
“John having announced the coming of Christ, was preaching the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the other things which the Gospel history has handed down to us. But besides these he is declared to have announced others in the following words, And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.”
“But John was not imprisoned in those days. According to St. John’s Gospel it was not till after some miracles had been performed by our Lord, and after His baptism had been noised abroad; but according to Luke he had been seized beforehand by the redoubled malice of Herod, who, when he saw so many flock to the preaching of John, and the soldiers believing, the publicans repenting, and whole multitudes receiving baptism, on the contrary not only despised John, but having put him in prison, slew him.”
“For his exhortation was the telling of good things, and therefore is fitly called the Gospel.”
“But Herod the tetrarch being reproved by him,.... By John, as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions add: for Herodias his brother Philip's wife; for taking her to wife, whilst his brother Philip was living. The account, which the Jewish chronologer (x) gives, of this Herod, and of this fact of his, and John's reproving him for it, and the consequence of it, perfectly agrees with this of the evangelist. "Herod Antipater, and there are some that call him, "the tetrarch", was a son of Herod the first, and brother of Archelaus'; and he was the third king of the family of Herod; and he was very wicked, and a destroying man: many of the wise men of Israel he slew with the sword; and he took the wife of his brother Philip, whilst he was alive, to himself for wife; and John, the high priest, because "he reproved him" for this, he slew him with the sword, with many of the wise men of Israel.'' And John reproved him not only for this sin, but others: and for all the evils which Herod had done; his revellings, debaucheries, murders, &c. all which John, in great faithfulness, and with much freedom, told him and rebuked him for: for Herod had had a particular respect for him, and often had him with him, and heard him gladly, when John had an opportunity of speaking personally to him. (x) Ganz. Tzemach David, par, 1. fol. 25. 2.”
“many other things, &c.--such as we read in Joh 1:29, Joh 1:33-34; Joh 3:27-36. (Also see on Mat 3:12.)”
“(ordin.) For before that Luke relates any of the acts of Jesus, he says that John was taken by Herod, to shew that he alone was in an especial manner going to describe those of our Lord’s acts, which were performed since the year in which John was taken or put to death.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.