Sermons to the People 380.1–381.1

To those who are quiet even a small voice is enough. If you want to hear, then, brothers, be quiet: do not have your heart in your ears, but your ears in your heart. The Church hands down and believes that today has dawned as the feast of blessed John the Baptist. One must believe this about the day itself, since the whole world acknowledges it without variation; and no one doubts that it is John's day, not that of the John who wrote the gospel but of John the Baptist, the Lord's forerunner, who appeared as great as he showed himself humble when, though he himself was thought to be the Christ, he said that he was not worthy to untie the strap of the sandal of the one he acknowledged as Lord, so that he might merit to be his friend. Some, however, think that the day of his passion is celebrated today. Let your Holiness know first that it is the day of his birth, not of his passion. For from the gospel reading it is found that his birth preceded the Lord's birth by six months. And since the agreement of the Church hands down the eighth day before the Kalends of January as the day of the Lord's birth, it follows that today is to be understood as the day of John's birth.

John went before the Lord, then, not as a teacher before a disciple but as a forerunner before a judge; not to set authority over him, but to render him service. John's own testimony on this point runs thus: "He who comes after me was made before me, because he was before me." The Lord came after John by being born of the virgin Mary, not of the Father's substance. For we have received two births of the Lord, one divine, the other human, yet both wonderful: the one without a mother, the other without a father; the one eternal, to create what is temporal; the other temporal, to bestow what is eternal. For he of whom John says (not the Baptist but the evangelist), "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made": he, so great, equal to the Father in the form of God, he who without time fashions times, he who from no age and before all ages is the judge of the age, became so small as to be born of a woman, yet remained so great as not to be separated from the Father. Rendering him service and testimony, like lamps before the coming day, all the prophets who foretold him came before him in birth and clung to him afterwards by faith. For it was fitting that he should be foretold as one who would come and work miracles: by those miracles God would be shown to those who understand well, while to those who see with human sight he would appear as man, small to the small, but humble to the proud, teaching man by his smallness to recognize himself as small, lest, not by growing great but by swelling, he think himself great. For pride is not greatness but swelling. So, to heal this swelling of the human race, he, himself the physician and himself the medicine, not only applying medicine but making himself the medicine, appeared among men as a man, offering the man to those who see, keeping God for those who believe. For the sight of his humanity healed the weak; the contemplation of his divinity seeks the strong. And there were not yet people who could see God in the man; they could see only the man; yet they ought not to put their hope in man. What then was to be done? Man can see man, but man ought not to follow man. God was to be followed, who could not be seen; man was not to be followed, who could be seen. So that there might be shown to man both one who could be seen by man and one whom man could follow, God became man. O man, for whose sake God became man, you ought to believe yourself something great; but come down, that you may go up, for God too became man by coming down. Cling to your medicine, imitate your teacher, acknowledge your Lord, embrace your brother, understand your God. This is he, so great and so little, a worm and no man, yet the one through whom man was made. This, then, is he: and what is John, if not what the Lord says of him, what the truthful one says of him, what the Truth says of him? For if we must believe John himself about the Truth, shall we not believe the Truth about John?

Let one who shares in the truth bear witness first to the Truth himself; and let the maker of man bear witness to the man. First let us hear what John says of Christ, and then what Christ says of John; let us hear the earlier, but understand by the later: let him speak first who was born first, but let him be confirmed by him by whom he was made. "He comes after me," he says, "and was made before me." Here those who believe that the one through whom all things were made was himself made before the rest cavil at these words, or use them against us, and say: "See, he was made: John says, He comes after me, and was made before me. Explain to me what 'was made before me' means." I am stating their words and setting them out to be examined. "You are accustomed," they say, "when something of this kind is said of Christ that shows him less than the Father, to say that the statement is to be referred to the man: so that, in that he is in the form of God, he is equal to the Father, but in that he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man, the Father is greater. What then will you say to John's words, 'was made before me'?" Hear what we say. But first notice that the apostle, distinguishing the two and yet commending one and the same person in both, did not say, "taking the form of God." What did he say of the form of God? "Though he was in the form of God"; looking to what the other John had said, in whose gospel stands "In the beginning was the Word"; or rather looking to that light from which John too said it. For John did not say, "In the beginning God made the Word," though he could have spoken as Moses did, who, because he was speaking of the creation made by the Lord God, said, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Since, then, if he had thought what the Arians think, he could have said, "In the beginning God made the Word," he did not say it; he said, "In the beginning was the Word." What was in the beginning was not made. For nothing of a made Word went before. For all the things God made, he made by the Word: "He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created." Between the one who speaks so that a thing may be made and what is made by the speaker the distance is very great: but if he is the one who speaks, he has a Word; if he has a Word, he made through the Word; if he made through the Word, he did not make the Word.

"Why?" they say. "Have you not heard of the earth too, The earth was invisible and unformed? If," they say, "you say that the Word was not made because it was said, The Word was, then neither was the earth made, because it was said, The earth was." O blind and heretical madness! Pay attention, if you have the means to pay attention; listen, if you have the means to listen, lest the sound strike the ear in vain where the truth does not enlighten the heart. I am going to state the words of the same Scripture, which you found there when you read it and passed over when you were quarreling. You think, of course, that something of the same kind was said of the Word of God when it was said, "In the beginning was the Word," as was said of the earth, "The earth was invisible and unformed." I will recite to you the earlier words in this book of Genesis: before the writer, God's servant, said, "The earth was," he first said, so that it might be plain that it had been made, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." See, I have first shown you the earth made, and made by God, as the Scripture sounds and bursts into the ears of the unwilling: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." These had been made, but not yet adorned, not yet set in order: the earth not yet given its distinctions, but already made. And so that you would not think that the earth had at once been made in such a way that there was nothing in it to be adorned, he went on to say: it had indeed been made, because "in the beginning God made heaven and earth"; but the earth which God made "was still invisible and unformed." He showed you what the earth was like that had been made; not that it existed without having been made. John, then, could have said, "In the beginning God made the Word; and the Word was," just as "In the beginning God made heaven and earth; and the earth was," so that the order of the words would be, "In the beginning God made the Word, and the Word was with God," and we would understand that the Word which God had made was with God. But as it is, you hear, "In the beginning was the Word." Why do you look for something prior, you who have become the lowest? For you have become the lowest in your error: you speak from the depths and look to the depths. I would wish, if you speak from the depths, that you would lift up your heart and cry to the Lord from the depths: the light that came in humility would break the clouds of darkness of your flesh and open your eyes to humility; you would see, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; he was in the beginning with God." Let Paul too say, "Who, though he was in the form of God." What does John say of the human birth? "And the Word became flesh." Let Paul too say, "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." What, then, were you saying about the words of John the Baptist? Repeat them to me now; say them now. What does John the Baptist say? "He comes after me." I recognize the birth. The one was born of a barren woman, the other of a virgin. Barrenness was turned into fruitfulness; virginity remained after fruitfulness.

"But John," he says, "if he had called him made in respect of his birth from the virgin, would not say, 'was made before me,' because from the virgin he was made after John. So what does 'was made before me' mean, if not that in the beginning the Word had been made? For in that respect he was before John; from the virgin he was after John." Listen, and if you are not quarreling, pay attention. For what you want to understand is perhaps somewhat obscure, so that by quarreling you only increase the smoke that keeps you from understanding. Look first at the Scripture that teaches you to become teachable: "Be gentle in hearing the word, that you may understand." Be patient, then, for a little while: perhaps we shall find in what sense it was said, "was made before me," without understanding that the Word through whom all things were made was himself made. "How?" he says. If I can, I will tell you; and if I cannot, it does not follow that there is nothing to be said by one who can say it. But I believe and hope that the majesty of the Only-begotten, who, being the Word, became an infant, will open the infancy of my tongue and bring to birth in my mouth what he has made conceived in my heart. See, I will say it as I can; understand it as you can; and what you cannot understand, do not find fault with as though you were already great; but put it off, so that you may merit to grow. Certainly this troubles you: how it could be said, "He who comes after me was made before me." Let it trouble you as one who seeks, not as one who quarrels. Certainly I too am seeking with you: we shall find together if we seek together; we shall both receive if we both ask; it will be opened to both of us if we both knock. "He comes after me," he says: recognize the birth from the virgin Mary. "He was made before me": what does "he was made before me" mean? Understand: he has been placed ahead of me. He who comes after me has been made ahead of me. It is as when two are walking on a road, one slower and the other faster, and the slower goes on ahead some distance, and after a little the faster follows: the slower, looking back from in front at the faster one following, says, "He is coming after me." And then, as the other quickens his pace, comes near, catches up, and passes him, he sees ahead of him the one he had looked back at behind; and surely, if he is somewhat alarmed and amazed at his speed, could he not say: "See, the man was behind me, and he has been made ahead of me"? What does it mean, "he who was behind me has been made before me"? He who was walking behind me, by his speed, came to be ahead of me. For if wherever you read "was made" you understand only that one was formed who did not exist before, you will have to say that the Lord God was made, of whom it is said, "The Lord was made my refuge"; "The Lord was made my helper"; and "He was made my salvation." How often was he made? And he himself made all things. So understand the words with me. For the same John did not keep silent about the fact that the Word was, lest you should think he meant the Word when he said, "was made before me"; so that you may know that "was made before me" refers to this: that he went ahead of me, that he was glorified more than I, that when people were paying attention to me, the forerunner, they came to recognize the Lord, whom I went before in being born and whom I announced in serving him; and their hope and their thronging turned to the Lord; he was glorified as the Son of God, made before me, according to what the apostle says: "Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." His glory, then, did not begin to be, but became known. He was made before John because he went ahead of John in honor.

But see whether this was deserved. Ask John himself: "He who came after you, why was he made before you? He who followed you, why was he preferred to you?" It goes on: "Because he was before me." That is, "In the beginning was the Word." So deservedly he was made before me, because he was before me. Before John, before Abraham, before Adam, before heaven and earth, before the angels, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities and Powers. Why before? Because all things were made through him. Let the servant acknowledge his lowliness; let the Lord show his majesty. Let the same John say, "I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal." He would be humbling himself greatly even if he said, "I am worthy." For what if he said he was worthy? Worthy to sit in judgment at the Father's right hand? Worthy to come to judge the living and the dead? What if he had said he was worthy to untie the strap of the sandal? Great humility, if the bridegroom's friend is worthy of this. For he was going to say that he was the bridegroom's friend; and lest some imprudent person should take that friendship to mean equality, he calls himself friend because of love, and throws himself down at his feet because of fear. And it is not enough that he lays himself at his feet: he does not even call himself worthy to untie the strap of his sandal. Humble indeed, had he called himself worthy to untie it; but because he does not call himself worthy even to untie it, he was worthy to be exalted for his humility. Let him say more openly, let him say more distinctly, what "he comes after me, he was made before me" means. For he has also given the reason: "because he was before me." For "in the beginning was the Word"; and "though he was in the form of God, he did not count it robbery to be equal with God." "He must increase, but I must decrease." It was fitting that he who came later should increase, and he who came earlier decrease. If he who came later increased, he was made ahead of him by increasing. "He must increase," he says, "but I must decrease." That is, "He was made before me." And how did Christ increase and John decrease? John went before the Lord in age, in human birth; both grew as the years went by, in bodily stature, and reached a certain measure, as men do. But John was man; Christ was God and man. If we understand that Christ increased in his divinity, we are absurd and gravely mistaken. For a thing increases in order to advance; God has nothing to grow into: for if he had something to grow into, he was less before he grew. Let us go back to the form of the flesh: it grew together with John; it did not grow while John was diminished. Let us refer it, then, perhaps to glory, and understand "He must increase, but I must decrease" in line with the saying, "He comes after me and was made before me." For John bore the person of man and spoke as a type of the human race, which Christ had come to save. We said, brothers, that God came humble to proud man. Let man recognize himself as man; let God appear to man. For if Christ came so that man might be humbled, and from humility man might grow, it was fitting that the glory of man should now cease and the glory of God be commended, so that man's hope might be in God's glory, not his own, as the apostle says, "Whoever glories, let him glory in the Lord." Rightly, then, is it said to man, "What do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?" John showed this type of human humility: as the reputation and fame of Christ advanced (not the stature of Christ, not the majesty of Christ, not his wisdom, not the Word of God, but that fame which began from the smallest beginning and now holds the world), it was the glory of Christ, not the glory of man, so that man might recognize his lowliness and God might share his divinity. For the glory of God, brothers, is our glory. The more sweetly God is glorified, the more it profits us. For God will not be higher because we honor him: let us humble ourselves, and we exalt him. For it is written, "I will exalt you, O Lord." What does "I will exalt you" mean? Was he on earth, and have you set him in heaven? Does man exalt God? What does "I will exalt you" mean? I will confess you to be high. Let man, then, confess himself to be man; let him decrease first, so that he may increase. Let John, decreasing into humility, say that he is not worthy to untie the strap of the sandal, and let him understand that he becomes enlightened by participation.

For John the evangelist said of him, "He was not the light." Did he perhaps do John an injury by saying, "He was not the light," when the Lord said to the apostles, "You are the light of the world"? Did the apostles put themselves before John? They do not, lest they judge the Lord himself a liar, who said, "Among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist." Not greater, certainly, in bodily stature, but in the grace of wisdom shared, the grace of salvation shared. What then does "He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light" mean? Why did he say this? "I know," he says, "what I am saying: to bear witness to the light." For there was the true light, distinct from John; not that John was not a light at all, but "He was not the light" is to be understood as said in comparison with this light, according to what he said: "There was the true light." How do you tell that this one is true? "Which enlightens," he says, "every man coming into this world." If every man, then John too. But so that we may not seem to be gathering from the words what was not said, though it follows from them, let John himself say: "We have all received from his fullness." He, then, was the true light. John was a light that is lit; Christ the light that lights. And so that you may know that John was a light, let the Lord now bear witness to him in turn. John bore witness to his Lord, the testimony of truth about his Lord, which he had from his Lord. For he had received from his Lord what to say about his Lord; but the Lord had not received from his servant what to say about his servant: Christ in himself spoke of John, and in John Christ spoke of himself. Let the Truth himself, then, bear witness; let us hear that John is a light. It is said to the Jews about John, "He was a burning and shining lamp." And surely a lamp is a light; not like the day, but still a light. So a lamp is lit so that it may shine, and John was enlightened so that he might speak. If, then, John was enlightened so that he might speak, let the lamp know what it is, lest it be blown out by the wind of pride. But perhaps the disciples are light, and John only a lamp? For the Lord says of John, "He was a burning and shining lamp," but of the disciples, "You are the light of the world." Did he put his disciples before John? Are even those faithful whom Paul addresses to be ranked above John, to whom he says, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord"? So the apostles are light, and the faithful are light, made righteous out of sinners, made believers out of unbelievers; yet the disciples were not called a lamp. Pay attention: perhaps they were so called, and not in another place but in the very same place, to show in what sense he called them light, that is, not the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world. Follow the words of the gospel: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden." But was he speaking of a city, not of a light? Follow further: "Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel." You are a light such as John was: a lamp that has been lit. As if theirs was the voice, or the voices, that had gone before: "You will light my lamp, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness." What darkness was there in the apostles? "For we too were once, etc."; like that of the reprobate and blasphemer: "Who was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent." See the darkness; let the lamp be lit: "But I obtained mercy." And so that you may know that it was said of them, "Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that it gives light to all who are in the house," there follows at once, "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works": but in humility, because man must decrease. And how must God increase? "And glorify your Father who is in heaven." The Father is glorified, the Son is glorified: for the Father glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. Let man, then, recognize that he is lowly, and that the most high God was humbled for his sake, so that man, who was humbled in confessing his sin, might be exalted in attaining righteousness. These two, the Lord and John: humility and glory; God humble in glory, man humble in weakness; God humble for man's sake, man humble for man's sake. For God was humble to benefit man; man is humble so as not to harm himself.

Let us recognize these two things, then, also in the very difference of their passions. We read that John suffered martyrdom for the truth: for Christ? Not for Christ, if Christ is not the truth. Not exactly for his name, but nevertheless for the truth itself. For John was not beheaded because he confessed Christ. But he was urging temperance, he was urging justice; he said, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." For the law which had commanded this had commanded it concerning those who died without children: that brothers should take their brothers' wives and raise up offspring for their brothers. Where that reason did not exist, there was nothing but lust. This lust John rebuked, the chaste man rebuking the incestuous one; for what he figured was of the same kind: "He must increase, but I must decrease." It had already been commanded that if anyone died without offspring, the nearest kinsman should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Why had God commanded this, if not so that in this way it might be signified that offspring would be raised up for the brother under the brother's name? For this was the command: that whoever was born from that union should bear the name of the dead man. Christ died; the apostles took his spouse, the Church. Those whom they begot from her they named not Paulians or Petrians, but Christians. Let these two things, then, these two passions, say it: "He must increase, but I must decrease." The one grew on the wood; the other was diminished by the sword. The passions have spoken this mystery; let the days speak it too. Christ is born, and the days grow longer; John is born, and they grow shorter. Let the honor of man decrease, then, and the honor of God increase, so that the honor of man may be found in the honor of God.

Today is the day of the apostles Peter and Paul, on which, the devil defeated, they merited the crown of triumph, as the faith of Rome bears witness. Since a solemn feast is kept for them, let a solemn sermon be given as well. Let them hear praises from us; let them pour out prayers for us. As is kept in memory, known from the tradition of the fathers, they did not suffer on one and the same day as it runs its course through the sky. Paul suffered on Peter's birthday, not the day on which he came from his mother's womb into the number of men, but the day on which he was born from the bond of the flesh into the light of the angels; and so the two separate days were given to the two of them in such a way that now one is celebrated for both. This seems to me a great sign of concord: the last of the apostles came to the first, his fellow apostle; called to the same day, he arrived, and crowned on the same day, he met him. The one was chosen before the Lord's passion, the other after the ascension; unequal in the order of time, equal in the eternity of happiness; the one from a fisherman, the other from a persecutor. In the one the weak things of the world were chosen, to put the strong to shame; in the other sin abounded, so that grace might superabound. In both the great grace of God shone out, and his glory, who made their merits and did not find them. For what else did he mean to show, who chose to call fishermen first to the kingdom and only afterwards emperors, if not that whoever glories should glory in the Lord? For he certainly did not despise the salvation of the noble, the learned, and the powerful, though he put the obscure, the unlearned, and the weak before them. But unless the lowliness of the weak had been chosen first, the swelling of the proud would not have been healed. If the rich had been called first by Christ, they would have thought and said that nothing had been chosen in them but their wealth, eloquence, learning in rhetoric, splendor of knowledge, nobility, high birth, ease, and royal power; and so, swollen with temporal and worldly prosperity, as though they had first brought to Christ what they were, so that he would seem to be repaying rather than giving, they would neither understand nor hold that what they would become is by the grace of God. How much better, then, and how much more orderly, that he first raised the needy from the earth and lifted the poor from the dunghill, to set him with the princes of his people; so that the gift of understanding and learning should not only be from God but should also be seen to be from God! With what joy, then, and with what glory to God do we see the wealth of an emperor despised by the mind of a fisherman, and the prayers of an emperor poured out at the shrine of a fisherman, so that neither should the one be cast down by what he did not have, nor the other be proud of what he had! Now as for what Christ worked in making Paul his preacher out of his persecutor, and how much that avails for human salvation, so that no one conscious of great iniquities need despair of God's mercy, let the apostle himself rather tell it. "It is a human saying," he says, "and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But I obtained mercy for this reason, that in me first Christ Jesus might display all his patience, as a pattern for those who would believe in him for eternal life." For who, under the hand of the almighty physician, will despair of salvation when taught by so great an example, considering that the man who now preaches the faith he once ravaged not only escaped the punishment of a persecutor but merited the crown of a teacher, and that he who in his rage longed to shed Christ's blood in his members poured out his own blood for his name by believing? Rome, then, the head of the nations, has two lights of the nations, lit by him who enlightens every man coming into this world: one in whom God exalted a despised lowliness, the other in whom he healed a damnable iniquity. In the one let us learn not to be proud, in the other not to despair. How briefly, and how wholesomely, great examples have been set before us! Let us always recall them, and in their praise magnify the true light. Let no one, then, exalt himself because of the heights of this world: Peter was a fisherman. Let no one, thinking of his own iniquity, flee from the mercy of God: Paul was a persecutor. The one says, "The Lord has become a refuge for the poor"; the other says, "I will teach the wicked your ways, and the ungodly will be converted to you."