St. John the Baptist
He preached and baptized at the Jordan in camel hair, living on locusts and wild honey, and when Jesus came he pointed his own followers away from himself: he must increase, but I must decrease.
Canonized
No year of birth or death is recoverable. The Catholic Encyclopedia states it outright: 'As to the date of the birth of John the Baptist, nothing can be said with certainty. The Gospel suggests that the Precursor was born about six months before Christ; but the year of Christ's nativity has not so far been ascertained.' born and died are therefore null rather than estimated from the Gospels.
He was the son of Zachary, a priest, and Elizabeth, who was "of the daughters of Aaron". Nothing else about his childhood survives except one line of Luke that the Catholic Encyclopedia quotes: the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation to Israel.
He came out of the desert to preach at the Jordan, wearing camel hair and a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey. The article is careful about how he looked to people: not "a reed shaken by the wind", not a man in the soft clothes of a courtier — his whole bearing "manifested undaunted constancy". Crowds came out to him and he baptized them, and then Jesus came from Galilee and asked to be baptized too. John tried to stop him: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?
What he did next is the thing worth carrying. His own disciples came to him worried that this new teacher was taking their people, and he told them they had it backwards. He was the friend of the bridegroom, not the bridegroom. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
Herod Antipas had taken his brother's wife. John said so out loud, and Herod had him arrested and held at the fortress of Machaerus. From prison he kept following what Jesus was doing, and at one point sent two of his own followers to ask him directly whether he was the one they had been waiting for. Herod had him executed there. His disciples came and took the body away, and went and told Jesus.
What they carried
He lived on what the desert gave him before he began, and he ended in a cell for saying out loud that the tetrarch's marriage was adultery. From that cell he sent his own disciples to ask Jesus whether he was the one after all — the man he had pointed his followers toward.
State of life
prophet · hermit · martyr
Themes
courage under pressure · speaking truth to power · humility · the desert · imprisonment · doubt · preparing the way
St. John the Baptist (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- THE FEAST IS THE NATIVITY, 24 JUNE, AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN HIS TWO CELEBRATIONS WAS DELIBERATE. He is one of very few people with two celebrations in the universal calendar: the Nativity on 24 June, a SOLEMNITY, and the Beheading on 29 August, a MEMORIAL. A record carries one feast_day, and this one takes the Nativity for three reasons, the third being the strongest. It is the higher rank — one of only three person-solemnities in the whole universal calendar. It celebrates the person rather than an event done to him. And the only source held disclaims the two dates in DIFFERENT WAYS: of the birth it says merely that history cannot supply it, while of 29 August it says the CALENDAR ENTRY ITSELF is unreliable. Those are different kinds of doubt, and the second is the worse one to build on.
- THE BEHEADING, 29 AUGUST, AND THE DISCLAIMER THAT KEPT IT OUT OF feast_day — quoted verbatim so nobody later 'corrects' this record to that date. Catholic Encyclopedia: 'The date of John the Baptist's death, 29 August, assigned in the liturgical calendars can hardly be relied upon, because it is scarcely based upon trustworthy documents.' The celebration is real and is in the universal calendar as a memorial; the date behind it is not attested. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/AugUC.shtml
- Feast 24 June, solemnity — 'The Nativity of John the Baptist'. Universal Calendar, Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/JunUC.shtml
- Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), 'St. John the Baptist' — the only document held, and the source of everything above: Zachary 'a priest of the course of Abia', Elizabeth 'of the daughters of Aaron', the desert years, the clothing 'of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins' and food 'locusts and wild honey', that his bearing 'manifested undaunted constancy' rather than that of 'a reed shaken by the wind', the baptism of Jesus and 'I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?', 'Behold the Lamb of God', the exchange with his own disciples ending 'He must increase, but I must decrease', the rebuke of Herod Antipas over Herodias, the imprisonment at Machaerus, the question sent from prison, and the disciples who 'came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb'. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08486b.htm
- HISTORICITY FOLLOWS THE MARTHA PRECEDENT: documented, because the life is scriptural and Scripture is a document, even though no date in it can be fixed. This is the distinction between historicity, which is about whether the narrative rests on a record, and date_note, which is about whether particular dates can be pinned down. Martha's record carries the same combination — documented, with born and died null.
- TWO COMPETING ACCOUNTS OF WHY HEROD ARRESTED HIM, AND THIS RECORD FOLLOWS THE GOSPELS. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives both: 'from the synoptic Gospels we learn that John dared to rebuke the tetrarch for his evil deeds, especially his public adultery. Herod, swayed by Herodias, did not allow the unwelcome reprover to go unpunished.' It then adds: 'Josephus tell us quite another story, containing perhaps also an element of truth. "As great crowds clustered around John, Herod became afraid lest the Baptist should abuse his moral authority over them to incite them to rebellion."' The record states the Gospel account and does not present it as the only one on offer.
- CONVERT IS NULL, AND THE REASON IS CATEGORICAL RATHER THAN EVIDENTIAL. The field asks whether a person was a convert or was raised in the faith. John was born into a priestly family of Israel and died before the Church he pointed toward existed, so neither value is true of him. This is the first record in the corpus where the question itself does not apply, rather than one where the sources merely fail to answer it.
- BURIAL PLACE NOT ESTABLISHED. The Catholic Encyclopedia: 'His burial-place has been fixed by an old tradition at Sebaste (Samaria). But if there be any truth in Josephus's assertion, that John was put to death at Machaerus, it is hard to understand why he was buried so far from the Herodian fortress.' Nothing about it is stated in this record.
- THE SEAM WAS REPAIRED ON 2026-08-17. struggles had restated the summary's fourth paragraph almost entire — Herod, the brother's wife, Machaerus, the question from prison and the execution instead of indexing it — the Padre Pio failure named in the docstring. The field now points at those sentences and carries the connection between the two ends of the record, which neither field had made: the man he sent to ask about is the man he had told his own followers to leave him for. The holiness line and the question from prison are the same relationship at two moments, and the field now says so. The encyclopedia carries both without joining them.
- NO PATRONAGE IS DECLARED in the document held, so patronages is empty.