How, then, shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great
painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have
exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions. We must
put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all:
those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his
camel's hair raiment, with a child's cross in his hand, worshipping the
infant Christ. There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci,
if I recollect rightly, in which the blessed babe is lying asleep, and
the blessed Virgin signs to St John, pressing forward to adore him, not
to awaken his sleeping Lord and God. But such imaginations, beautiful as
they are, and true in a heavenly and spiritual sense, which therefore is
true eternally for you, and me, and all mankind, are not historic fact.
For St John the Baptist said himself, "and I knew him not."
He may have been, we must almost say, he must have been, brought up with
or near our Lord. He may have seen in Him such a child (we must believe
that), as he never saw before.
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