The preacher John has denounced the various religious denominations among his people as "a collection of snakes". Speaking to a crowd of many hundreds in Bethany yesterday, he told Pharisees and Sadducees, sent to question him by the religious leadership in Jerusalem, that the axe of God's judgment was raised and would chop down and throw every bad tree among them into the fire.
In his most virulent attack yet, he warned them that they were not to think they would escape God's judgment just because of who they were. "Chaff will be separated from grain and the chaff will be burned in eternal fire," he told them. John has already attacked the denominations for their obsession with appearances rather than truth.
"A bitter young man," said Bartholomew, a Pharisee. Mary, a young woman from Bethany, retorted: "He's just saying what we all know but haven't the courage to say." Her sister Martha wished there were more men like John. "Then we'd all be better off," she said.
There are three denominations or sects among John's people. The Pharisees believe in strict observance of tradition and what they conclude is the written law of God. Many say they tend to see themselves as morally superior. The Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They do not accept that angels and spirits exist or obligations in the written law which the Pharisees say have been handed down by tradition from Moses. The third denomination, the Essenes - the one John has been least critical of - live a quiet, simple, ascetic life.
Paul, a cheerful, plump young man from the village of Kroc in the south and a follower of John, told The Irish Times: "We are entering a post-denominational era where the differences between denominations will be irrelevant. Anyway, people are sick and tired of the way these guys cling to their divisions and appeal to the rest of us to respect those divisions. Then, at the same time, they tell us all they want is unity! No wonder John calls them hypocrites."
Over recent weeks, John has been preaching to large crowds along the Jordan river and near the desert in Judea. He is said to live there on locusts and wild honey. He dresses in clothes made from camel hair. He has denied he is the Messiah. "I am a voice crying in the wilderness," he told the crowd, "preparing a way for the Lord. Level the mountains! Fill up the valleys, Straighten the curves! Smooth out the ruts!"
"That fella should be in politics," remarked Philip, a Sadducee. "He wouldn't survive long," said his friend Nathaniel, "he'd soon have opponents come looking for his head."
Zebedee, who had been visiting friends in Bethany, said: "What he needs is a couple of days fishing on the lake [Galilee] with my two lads James and John and then to go chasing girls with them in the evenings. That'd sort him out."
"Something decent to eat would be more like it," said Alphaeus, a Pharisee. "No man could be right on just locusts and honey. And then wearing that camel hair stuff!" Anna, a cousin of Zebedee's, disagreed. "He's a classic case of the `only child syndrome'," she said. "Spoiled rotten by elderly parents. Unable to cope when they died. So he escaped to the desert where he could be king of everything again." She began to cough.
Anna had come to Bethany believing John would cure her fever. "And they tell us there is no epidemic . . ." she said, coughing again. John had asked her to get into the river to be baptised. She refused, "I'm bad enough as it is," she told him, "that'd be the death of me altogether."
She was not impressed with John. "Would you look at him," she said, "how could anyone as miserable as that be any use?" And she set off for Galilee where she lives with her daughter Miriam and son-in-law Simon. Zebedee followed her.
"If you have two coats, give one to the poor," John preached. "You tax collectors take from the people what the Government requires you to, and no more. You soldiers don't extort money and be content with your pay."
Paul complained that lately many people had been drifting to another preacher further down the river. "He is very popular," he said. But he didn't know his name.
