The Gospel of John in Pictures: John 5 - John the Baptist

Puvis De Chavannes' painting, The Beheading of John the Baptist ostensibly portrays the end of John's life as recorded in both Matthew 14 and Mark 6 where Herod, having held John in prison for some time, gives in to a request from Herodias' daughter Salome at a banquet and has John the Baptist beheaded.


But perhaps the painting takes its symbology from elsewhere.  The details of the narrative are there, but the scene imagined.  Salome waits with the plate, the executioner is captured in all his physicality as he swings the sword to strike.  And John, John is there transcending the moment.  His stare is elsewhere - directed towards us. His head, surrounded by a halo, gives us the clue as to the other narrative reference - intended or otherwise.  In John's gospel Jesus says: "John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light."  And so as the sword arches towards the illuminated head of John the Baptist we have, captured in a visual moment, the extinguishing of John's light as commented upon by Jesus. 


The bitterest irony of both the comment, and its visual representation, is that Herod is specifically named as one who 'chose for a time to enjoy his light': 'Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man.  When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.' (Mark 6:20)  And so the painting telescopes too Herod's fascination, and termination, of the 'light' of John the Baptist.


Finally, the painting depicts the end of John's life but by depicting John in the clothes he wore at the beginning of his preaching:  'John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist.' (Matthew 3:4) this picture takes us back to the start of his life.  And John's clothes reach back farther into the past than that: they are the clothes which the Old Testament prophet Elijah wore (see 2 Kings 1:8), a prophet whom Jesus explicitly identifies with John (see Matthew 11:13 and Malachi 4:5). 


So this image encompasses the whole of John's life, and his past as viewed prophetically by Jesus, and in his posture - his hands open in acceptance, his pose echoing so many of those images of Jesus himself at the point of trial and execution - this points forward to another execution too.  As Herod himself is reported to have said of Jesus, after the execution of John the Baptist: “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” (Matthew 14:2)