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BAPTIST JOHN (saint). John the Baptist, fl. first century A.D., was the son of Zachary, a priest of the course of Abia at the Temple, and Elizabeth, cousin of Mary. He was born six months before Jesus, but the date is uncertain (Luke 1: 1-45).

The Pardoner says that an inebriated Herod commanded that John the Baptist be beheaded, PardT 488-491. Neither Matthew 15 nor Mark 6 describes a drunk Herod. Innocent III, De miseria condicionis humane (On the Misery of the Human Condition) II.xviii, says that gluttony closed Paradise and beheaded the Baptist. [Herodes2]

Innocent III, De miseria condicionis humane, ed. and trans. R.E. Lewis, 22-23; ibid., De miseria condicionis humane, ed. and trans. M. Maccarrone, 52-53; ibid., On the Misery of the Human Condition, trans. M.M. Dietz, 46; Jacobus de Voragine, GL, trans. G. Ryan and H. Ripperger, 321-327; ibid., LA, ed. Th. Graesse, 566-575.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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