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Beheading of St. John the Baptist Beheading of St. John the Baptist Icon of the Beheading of John the Baptist (Museum of Icons, Recklinghausen) 1 Traditional accounts Salome and the Apparition of the Baptist’s Head by Gustave According to the Synoptic Gospels, Herod, who was Moreau. Watercolor painting. 1876. Now in Musée d'Orsay, tetrarch, or sub-king, of Galilee under the Roman Em- Paris, France. pire, had imprisoned John the Baptist because he re- proved Herod for divorcing his wife (Phasaelis) and unlawfully taking Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip I. On Herod’s birthday, Herodias’s daughter The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (also known (whom Josephus identifies as Salome) danced before the as: Decollation of Saint John the Baptist or Behead- king and his guests. Her dancing pleased Herod so much ing of the Forerunner) is a holy day observed by various that in his drunkenness he promised to give her anything Christian churches that follow liturgical traditions. The she desired, up to half of his kingdom. When the daugh- day commemorates the martyrdom by beheading of Saint ter asked her mother what she should request, she was told John the Baptist on the orders of Herod Antipas through to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Al- the vengeful request of his step-daughter Salome and her though Herod was appalled by the request, he reluctantly mother. agreed and had John executed in the prison.[1] On August 29, 2012, during a televised public audience The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also relates in his at the summer palace of Castel Gandolfo, Pope Bene- Antiquities of the Jews that Herod killed John, stating that dict XVI maintained the discovery of Saint John the Bap- he did so, “lest the great influence John had over the peo- tist’s fragmented head for the second time attested to the ple might put it into his [John’s] power and inclination to historical veneration of his sanctity dating back to the raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing Apostolic Age. In addition, the Pontiff also noted that the he should advise), [so Herod] thought it best [to put] him religious feast particularly commemorates the transfer of to death.” He further states that many of the Jews believed this relic, now enshrined in the Basilica of San Silvestro that the military disaster that fell upon Herod at the hands in Capite in Rome. of Aretas, his father-in-law (Phasaelis' father), was God’s 1 2 4 RELICS punishment for his unrighteous behavior.[2] who became a monk with the name of Inno- None of the sources gives an exact date, which was proba- cent. He built a church and a monastic cell bly in the years 28-29 AD (Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 6:14- there. When he started to dig the foundation, 27; Luke) after imprisoning John the Baptist in 27 AD the vessel with the head of John the Baptist was (Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14) at the behest of Herodias his uncovered, but fearful that the relic might be brother’s wife whom he took to be his mistress (Matthew abused by unbelievers, he hid it again in the 14:3-5; Mark 6:17-20);[3] and according to Josephus, the same place it had been found. Upon his death, death took place at the fortress of Machaerus. the church fell into ruin and was destroyed. The Second Finding occurred in the year 452. During the days of Constantine the Great, two 2 Feast day monks on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem reportedly saw visions of John the Baptist, who revealed The liturgical commemoration of the Beheading of St. to them the location of his head. They uncov- John the Baptist is almost as old as that commemorating ered the relic, placed it in a sack and proceeded his birth, which is one of the oldest feasts, if not the oldest, home. Along the way, they encountered an un- introduced into both the Eastern and Western liturgies to named potter and gave him the bag to carry, honour a saint. not telling him what it was. John the Baptist appeared to him and ordered him to flee from The Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast on Au- the careless and lazy monks, with what he held gust 29, as does the Lutheran Church and many other in his hands. He did so and took the head home churches of the Anglican Communion, including the with him. Before his death, he placed it in a Church of England. container and gave it to his sister. After some The Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches time, a hieromonk by the name of Eustathius, also celebrate this feast on August 29. This date in an Arian, came into possession of it, using it the Julian Calendar, used by the Russian, Macedonian, to attract followers to his teaching. He buried Serbian and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches, corresponds the head in a cave, near Emesa. Eventually, a in the present century to September 11 in the Gregorian monastery was built at that place. In the year Calendar. The day is always observed with strict fasting, 452, St. John the Baptist appeared to Archi- and in some cultures, the pious will not eat food from a mandrite Marcellus of this monastery and in- flat plate, use a knife, or eat round food on this day. dicated where his head was hidden in a water The Armenian Apostolic Church commemorates the jar buried in the earth. The relic was brought Decollation of St. John on the Saturday of Easter Week, into the city of Emesa and was later transferred while the Syriac Orthodox, Indian Orthodox, and Syro- to Constantinople. Malankara Catholic Churches commemorate his death on January 7. • Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Bap- tist (May 25). The head was transferred to Comana of Cappadocia during a period of Muslim raids (about 820), and it was hidden in the ground dur- 3 Related feasts ing a period of iconoclastic persecution. When the veneration of icons was restored in 850, Patriarch There are two other related feasts observed by Eastern Ignatius of Constantinople (847-857) saw in a vi- Christians: sion the place where the head of St. John had been hidden. The patriarch communicated this to the • First and Second Finding of the Head of St. emperor Michael III, who sent a delegation to Co- John the Baptist (February 24). According to mana, where the head was found. Afterwards, the church tradition, after the execution of John the head was again transferred to Constantinople, and Baptist, his disciples buried his body at Sebaste, but here on May 25, it was placed in a church at the Herodias took his severed head and buried it in a court. dung heap. Later, Saint Joanna, who was married to Herod’s steward,[4] secretly took his head and buried it on the Mount of Olives, where it remained hidden 4 Relics for centuries. According to ancient tradition, the burial place of John The First Finding occurred in the fourth cen- the Baptist was at Sebaste, near modern-day Nablus in tury. The property on the Mount of Olives the West Bank, and mention is made of his relics being where the head was buried eventually passed honored there around the middle of the fourth century. into the possession of a government official The historians Rufinus and Theodoretus record that the 3 A 1742 Tarì coin of the Knights Hospitaller, depicting the head of Saint John the Baptist on a silver round platter. (in accordance with Josephus). Other writers say that it The purported head of Saint John the Baptist, enshrined in its was interred in Herod’s palace at Jerusalem; there, it was own Roman side chapel in the San Silvestro in Capite, Rome found during the reign of Constantine and thence secretly taken to Emesa, in Phoenicia, where it was concealed, the place remaining unknown for years, until it was man- ifested by revelation in 453. Over the centuries, there have been many discrepancies in the various legends and claimed relics throughout the Christian world. Several different locations claim to pos- sess the severed head of John the Baptist. Among the various claimants are:[6] • Roman Catholic tradition holds that the head on dis- play in San Silvestro in Capite in Rome is that of John the Baptist, discovered for the second time, as also maintained by Pope Benedict XVI in August 2012. A Muslim shrine dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, Umayyad • Mosque, Damascus, Syria. Islamic tradition maintains that the head of Saint John the Baptist was interred in the once-called Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus. shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate around Pope John Paul II visited the tomb of John the Bap- 362, the bones being partly burned. A portion of the res- tist at the Umayyad Mosque during his visit to Syria cued relics was carried to Jerusalem, then to Alexandria, in April, 2001. Consequently, Muslims also believe where, on 27 May 395, they were laid in the basilica that that Jesus Christ will return to this location in the was newly dedicated to John the Baptist on the former Second Coming. site of the temple of Serapis. The tomb at Sebaste con- tinued, nevertheless, to be visited by pious pilgrims, and • In medieval times, it was rumored that the Knights St. Jerome bears witness to miracles being worked there. Templar had possession of the head, and multi- Today, the tomb is housed in the Nabi Yahya Mosque ple records from their Inquisition in the early 14th (“John the Baptist Mosque”).
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