Where does this wisdom and these virtues come from? The Nazarenes marvel at where he gets his wisdom and virtue; but the error is obvious, for they suspect that he is the son of a carpenter.
13:55-56
(Verse 55, 56.) Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did he get all these things? And they took offense at him. The error of the Jews is our salvation, and the condemnation of the heretics. For they saw Jesus Christ merely as a man, so that the carpenters thought him to be the son: Isn't this the carpenter's son? Are you surprised if they err about his brothers, when they err about his father? This place has been explained more fully in the aforementioned book against Helvedius.
13:57
(Verse 57.) But Jesus said to them: A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house. It is almost natural for citizens to envy each other. For they do not consider a man's present deeds, but they remember his fragile infancy, as if they themselves had not also passed through the same stages of age to mature adulthood.
13:58
(Verse 58) And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. Not because he was unable to do many miracles for them, who were unbelieving; but rather because in doing many miracles he would condemn the unbelieving citizens. It can also be understood in another way, that Jesus is despised in his own home and country, that is, among the Jewish people. And therefore, he performed only a few signs there, so that they would not become completely without excuse. But he performs greater signs daily among the nations through his apostles, not so much in the healing of bodies, but in the salvation of souls.
14:1-2
(Chapter 14, Verses 1, 2.) At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, 'This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.' Some of the interpreters of the Church inquire about the reasons why Herod suspected this, that he believed John had risen from the dead and that is why miraculous powers were at work in him, as if an explanation of this strange error should be given to us, or it provides an opportunity for belief in transmigration of souls based on these words, even though at the time John was beheaded, the Lord was thirty years old: but transmigration of souls, on the other hand, suggests that after many years in different bodies, souls enter into various bodies.
14:3-4
(vv. 3, 4.) For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. Because John had said to him, 'It is not lawful for you to have her.' The ancient history tells us that Philip, the son of Herod the Great (under whom the Lord fled to Egypt), the brother of this Herod under whom Christ suffered, had married Herodias, the daughter of King Aretas; but later, due to some disputes arising against his son-in-law, he took his daughter back and gave her in marriage to Herod, his enemy and the former husband of Herodias. However, who this Philip is, the evangelist Luke explains more fully: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee; and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis (Luke 3:1). Therefore, John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, with the same authority that Elijah had rebuked Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 21), accused Herod and Herodias of having entered into an unlawful marriage and of not being allowed to marry his brother's wife while his brother was still alive. John preferred to risk his life before the king rather than be forgetful of God's commandments because of flattery.
14:5
(Verse 5.) And wanting to kill him, he feared the people: for they held him as a prophet. Indeed, he feared the sedition of the people because of John, from whom he knew that many crowds had been baptized in the Jordan; but he was overcome by the love of his wife, because of whose ardor he had even neglected the commandments of God (Genesis 40).
14:6
(Verse 6.) But on Herod's birthday, Herodias' daughter danced in the midst, and it pleased Herod. We have found no other to have observed their own birthday except Herod and Pharaoh, as their impiety was on equal terms, so too was their festivity.
14:7
(Verse 7.) So when he had promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask from him. But she being forewarned by her mother. I do not excuse Herod, that unwillingly and against his will he committed murder because of the oath, who perhaps swore to do this in order to prepare the machinery for a future killing. Otherwise, if he had said that he did it because of an oath, if he had asked for the death of his father or mother, would he not have done it? Therefore, since he was going to reject it in himself, he ought to have despised it and the prophet.
14:8
(Verse 8.) 'Give me,' she says, 'here on a platter, the head of John the Baptist.' Herodias, fearing that Herod might someday come to his senses and become a friend to his brother Philip, and that their unlawful marriage would be dissolved, instructs her daughter to immediately request the head of John at the very banquet itself: a worthy reward for the dance, a worthy prize for the blood.
And the king was saddened. It is the custom of the Scriptures that the historian narrates the opinion of many, just as it was believed by all at that time. Just as Joseph was also called the father of Jesus by Mary herself, so now Herod is said to be saddened, because those reclining at the table thought so (Luke 2). For he was a deceiver of his own mind and a skilled murderer, showing sadness on his face when he had joy in his mind.
14:9-10
(Verse 9, 10) However, because of the oath and because of those who were reclining at the table with him, he commanded it to be given. And he sent and beheaded John in prison. The wickedness excuses the oath, so that under the pretext of piety he might become impious. But what he added: 'And because of those who were reclining at the table with him,' he wants them all to be partakers of his wickedness, so that they might be carried away in a luxurious and impure banquet of bloody feasts.
14:11
(Verse 11.) And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. We read in Roman history that Flamininus, a Roman general, agreed to have a certain accused of a capital crime be beheaded at a banquet because he was lying next to a prostitute who claimed to have never seen a decapitated man before. He was expelled from the Senate by the censors because he mixed food with blood during the feast, and he preferred the death of a guilty man to the enjoyment of another person, so that lust and murder were mixed together. How wicked Herod and Herodias and the girl who danced demand the prophet's head as the price of blood, so that she may have power over the tongue that condemned unlawful marriages. This happened exactly as written; but we still see to this day, the Jews having lost Christ, who is the head of the prophets, in the person of John the Baptist.
And his disciples came and took his body and buried it. Josephus reports in a certain town of Arabia that John was beheaded. And what follows: His disciples came and took the body, both of him (John) and of the Savior, we can understand.