It was "the wilderness of Judæa," from which the Baptist ... is said to have come preaching. There is a wilderness-region, in the South Jordanic country, where he had probably spent his earlier years; but it was in a locality farther to the north, in the vicinity of Bethabara, and much nearer Galilee, where he entered on his ministry. . . . This wilderness, whether on the eastern or western side of the Jordan, has never been inhabited, except for purposes of ascetic seclusion, as by the Essenes and the hermits of later times. It was here that the prophet Elijah made his last appearance, before he was taken from the sight of his disciple and successor. And here his great representative, as if the old prophet had risen from the dead, suddenly appeared. He had been residing there, making his abode, like the sons of the prophets, in the leafy thickets of the Jordan forest. His food was the locusts of the desert and the "wild honey," or "manna," that dropped from the tamarisks; his clothing was a garment of camel's hair, fastened with a "leathern girdle round his loins." Here what sweet communion he had with God! He lay down to sleep in the fear and love of God; he awaked to adore and glorify Him; and with Him he daily walked, thus strengthening every holy resolution and growing in every grace, until he was prepared to come forth from his seclusion in that full-orbed brightness, which at once inspired the multitude with awe, and sent the fame of him to every quarter of the land. The holiness of John was one grand element of his greatness, and of his fitness for the office to which he was called. No holier man, not even Enoch, who walked with God, and was translated, nor Elijah, who rode to heaven in his chariot of fire, had appeared before his time. This was the eminence, doubtless, to which he who came after him, the latchet of whose shoes he felt himself unworthy to unloose, particularly referred, when he said that there had not arisen among men "a greater than John the Baptist." It was this that so qualified him to be the teacher of those Galileans, of whom the youthful John was one, who were so soon to be called to follow Jesus as his first disciples, and were eventually to be appointed his apostles.
—From "Life and Writings of St. John,"
