"Many Jews regarded however as a sign from God that the Herodic groups were defeated: They thought that God punished Herod because of . Herod had executed him although he was a righteous man. John the Baptist had urged the Jews to live virtuously and to follow the righteous ways in their relationships with their neighbours. To obey God they had to be baptised. In this sense the baptism was pleasing to God. It is true that it meant only the purifying of the body and not reconciling of the soul; the soul had been sanctified for the sake of the righteous life. As people came from everywhere to him and they received encouragement from his speech, Herod started to fear the effect of that kind of influential man, whose advice everyone wanted to follow. John would cause a rebellion. That is why Herod thought that it would be better to ward off a threatening danger so that he would not have to regret his hesitation later when matters would have gone too far. A suspicious Herod arrested John and sent him to the castle of Makairos, which we have seen earlier, and there he was executed. However, the Jews were convinced that the reason for his death was that the armies of Herod had incurred the anger of God.