St. John the Baptist - Santa Clara, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 37° 20.961 W 121° 56.475
10S E 593772 N 4134153
his sculpture is located on the facade of Mission Santa Clara de Asis to the left of the entrance.
Waymark Code: WMQFZ3
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 02/23/2016
Views: 2
This Mission website (
visit link) verifies that this is a statue of St. John the Baptist.
St. John is depicted as a young man, standing and holding a long cross in his left hand. He carries an object, a shell perhaps, in his right. He wears a sheepskin in a toga-like style.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"John the Baptist (... known as the prophet Yahya in the Qur'an ) was a Jewish itinerant preacher in the early first century AD and is revered as a major religious figure along with Christianity, also in Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and Mandaeism. He is called a prophet by all of these traditions, and honoured as a saint in many Christian traditions.
John used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus. Scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus' early followers had previously been followers of John. John the Baptist is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus. Some scholars maintain that John was influenced by the semi-ascetic Essenes, who expected an apocalypse and practiced rituals corresponding strongly with baptism, although no direct evidence substantiates this.
According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself, and Jesus was the one whose coming John foretold. Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since John announces Jesus' coming. John is also identified with the prophet Elijah."