But what did you go out to see? A man in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 8. Clothed in soft, and so forth That the Baptist was not like the reeds, changeable by nature, the respect that the whole Jewish people paid him sufficiently evinced. Our Redeemer, therefore, proceeds to shew that Saint John was not changeable by his manner of life. Delicacies and effeminacy (the ordinary sources of fickleness of behaviour,) being found in the houses of kings, and the great ones of this earth, were far from being desired by the precursor. This he shewed to the world by his garments of camels’ hair, his habitation in the wilderness, his slender and insipid food of wild honey and locusts, and the prisons to which his constancy brought him. Saint John Chrysostom hom. xxxviii.