The Birth, Naming, and Circumcision of John the Baptist

 June 24, 2022

Gospel according to Luke, as heard at mass this morning--Nativity of St. John the Baptist--at St. Al’s.  (Short commentary to follow.)

Luke 1:57-66, 80
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child
          she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard
          that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her,
          and they rejoiced with her.
When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,
          they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,
          but his mother said in reply,
          “No. He will be called John.”
But they answered her,
          “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
          and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
          and he spoke blessing God.
Then fear came upon all their neighbors,
          and all these matters were discussed
          throughout the hill country of Judea.
All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
          “What, then, will this child be?”
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
The child grew and became strong in spirit,                               
          and he was in the desert until the day
          of his manifestation to Israel.

Mass was said and homily delivered by an old, bearded Jesuit of my slight acquaintance—let’s call him Fr. C.  It had been ages since last I heard or read this bit of gospel, and I was struck by a few odd bits.  First, why Liz and Zach’s insistence on the name John when their whole tribe objected?  No reason is given.  Did it come to them from an angel or the Lord Himself?  If so, you’d think Ol’ Luke would have mentioned it.  At first listening, I thought the babe was able to speak at eight days old: 

Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
          and he spoke blessing God.

But that would make even less sense in a tale already rife with miracles.  A little research solved the problem.  Father Zechariah had been struck dumb, by the angel Gabriel no less, some time before the birth of John.  Why?  Because Zech had expressed some doubt that he and his wife would be blessed with a child at their age. And it was the angle who stipulated the name of John.

Luke 1:18:  [Zechariah] Whereby shall I know this?  For I am an old man, and my wife [Elizabeth] well stricken with years.

19:  And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.

20:  And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words…

It is unclear whether Gabriel zipped Zech’s lips at God’s request or on his own accord.  At any rate, Zechariah was quiet eight days after John’s birth, and it is why he had to write “John is his name,” on the tablet. And then, “Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
          and he spoke blessing God.”

What he said was missing from today’s reading, but appears between the above two sections in Luke, I, often referred to as The Song of Zechariah: 

⁶⁷ His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn^[a] of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David
⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
⁷¹ salvation from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us—
⁷² to show mercy to our ancestors
    and to remember his holy covenant,
⁷³     the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
⁷⁴ to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
    and to enable us to serve him without fear
⁷⁵     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶ And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
⁷⁷ to give his people the knowledge of salvation
    through the forgiveness of their sins,
⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
⁷⁹ to shine on those living in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

No mention is given of how old the couple were at the time of John’s (un-immaculate) conception.  My modern brain wants to say that Elizabeth was, say, 48 and Zechariah 65.  That would make it unusual but not exactly miraculous.

After I got home and started writing this piece, and ever eager to apply scriptural nuggets to my own life, I realized that I had three things in common with John the Baptist.  First, obviously, I was conceived and born.  At first thought, maybe not so miraculous, especially for us Baby-boomers, who are legion, but as Richard Dawkins writes,

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.” 

Second, I was given a name.  Not one ordained by God and sent by an angel, true, but an odd one that may as well have been announced by a supernatural being.  My first name—and I can prove it with my birth certificate—is Doss.  How I got that name is still a mystery.  My parents Jim and Gloria—God rest their good souls-- both lived into their eighties, but never did they volunteer, or was I able to ascertain, exactly what was in their minds when they named me.  My mother only said something like “We just liked the way it sounded.”  Well, right enough.  They never knew how many times in my youth I heard questions like “What’s your real name?” or “Where’s that name from?”  I could never give an accurate answer. 

Like all parents, no doubt they had hopes and dreams for what I might become.  Unlike Zechariah, however, they were not blessed with the gift of prophecy and could not be certain of what would become of me.  My mom would only say that she imagined seeing my name and picture on the sports page after running for a touchdown on the gridiron.  At the time of my birth, that was the extent of their hopes for me.  They never said what they hoped I would not become—alcoholic, like my mother’s father and older sister—which was in fact what I did become.  Fortunately for Zechariah and Elizabeth, they were given no foreknowledge of John’s early, grisly demise at the hands of Herod Antipas, Herodias and her daughter Salome.

Finally, like John, I was circumcised.  The topic per se is rather fraught with controversy, so I’ll try to keep it brief.  First question is:  Why?  I was not born Jewish, (like John), or Muslim.  It was a cultural thing in the U. S.  According to sketchy statistics, the incidence of male circumcision (MC) peaked at about 78% around the year of my birth, 1950.  I was born into a tepidly Catholic family, which may have had a mild effect on my parents’ thinking.  According to David Albert Jones,

“Catholic theology since the Second Vatican Council has increasingly emphasized that God's covenant with the Jewish people remains valid. It has never been revoked. This covenant includes infant male circumcision.”

Religion aside, MC had become entrenched in the English-speaking West during Victorian times, partly for reasons absurd: 

“Circumcision in English-speaking countries arose in a climate of negative attitudes towards sex, especially concerning masturbation. In her 1978 article The Ritual of Circumcision,^[81] Karen Erickson Paige writes: "The current medical rationale for circumcision developed after the operation was in wide practice. The original reason for the surgical removal of the foreskin, or prepuce, was to control 'masturbatory insanity' – the range of mental disorders that people believed were caused by the 'polluting' practice of 'self-abuse.'"

"Self-abuse" was a term commonly used to describe masturbation in the 19th century. According to Paige, "treatments ranged from diet, moral exhortations, hydrotherapy, and marriage, to such drastic measures as surgery, physical restraints, frights, and punishment. Some doctors recommended covering the penis with plaster of Paris, leather, or rubber; cauterization; making boys wear chastity belts or spiked rings; and in extreme cases, castration." Paige details how circumcision became popular as a masturbation remedy.”  [Wikipedia]

Speaking only for myself, it never, ever, hindered my penchant for self-pleasuring. 

Finally, there is some good evidence that, over the millennia, the practice of MC has been driven by female choice.  According to a study published by the NIH,

“Overall, most women expressed a preference for the circumcised penis. Such a preference was seen in most populations regardless of MC prevalence in that population. Reasons expressed for this preference included better appearance, improved hygiene, reduced risk of infection, and more pleasurable sexual activity. Apart from their own preferences for sexual activity, women can have considerable power in influencing the decision to perform circumcision for a son soon after birth or later, as well as for brothers, other male family members, and friends.  Circumcision should always be performed by a trained medical professional after consent has been given by the male or, in the case of minors, by the parent(s) or guardian(s). Women can choose to have a sexual partner who is a circumcised or encourage an uncircumcised partner to undergo the procedure. Importantly, a woman’s preference for a circumcised male partner is more than simply a sociocultural preference, as might apply to pierced ears, given the reduced risk of STIs and disease for women with circumcised male partners.”

Sex and Male Circumcision: Women’s Preferences Across Different Cultures and Countries: A Systematic Review - PMC (nih.gov)

Readers wishing to know more are advised to read the whole article

Back to the morning mass on June 24, Fr. C., in his brief (under five minutes) homily, addressed none of these points.  Instead, he stuck to the ol’ tried-and-true stuff about John, i.e., forerunner of Jesus and preacher of the examined life and continual repentance.  (Always good for me to hear, by the way.)  But that came much later in John’s career.  I commend Fr. C. also for finishing the mass in under 25 minutes.  Well done!

Other Versions:

Here are verses 57-66 in the King James Bible, (mod. Ed.):

⁵⁷ Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.

⁵⁸ And her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.

⁵⁹ And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father.

⁶⁰ And his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John.

⁶¹ And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name.

⁶² And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called.

⁶³ And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all.

⁶⁴ And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God.

⁶⁵ And fear came on all that dwelt round about them: and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judaea.

⁶⁶ And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be! And the hand of the Lord was with him.

 

And the Latin:

57 Elisabeth autem impletum est tempus pariendi et peperit filium

58 et audierunt vicini et cognati eius quia magnificavit Dominus misericordiam suam cum illa et congratulabantur ei

59 et factum est in die octavo venerunt circumcidere puerum et vocabant eum nomine patris eius Zacchariam

60 et respondens mater eius dixit nequaquam sed vocabitur Iohannes

61 et dixerunt ad illam quia nemo est in cognatione tua qui vocetur hoc nomine

62 innuebant autem patri eius quem vellet vocari eum

63 et postulans pugillarem scripsit dicens Iohannes est nomen eius et mirati sunt universi

64 apertum est autem ilico os eius et lingua eius et loquebatur benedicens Deum

65 et factus est timor super omnes vicinos eorum et super omnia montana Iudaeae divulgabantur omnia verba haec

66 et posuerunt omnes qui audierant in corde suo dicentes quid putas puer iste erit etenim manus Domini erat cum illo