Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 61.1–65.1

Today's festival, dearly beloved, conspicuous throughout the whole world, irradiates our minds with the splendour of a new light all the more brightly, as it invites us to recall both the beginning of our redemption and the rising of the true light. For to whom, meditating on the birth of John, does the birth of Christ not at once occur? Especially since there was no other reason for John to be born of an old father and a barren mother than that he, wonderfully born, should go before the one who was to be born uniquely: the friend before the Bridegroom, the servant before the Lord, the voice before the Word, the lamp before the Sun, the herald before the Judge, the saved before the Saviour. John himself testifies that this was the reason for his coming: not simply to come, but to go before the Lord as a sign of his manifestation. “After me,” he says, “comes a man who was made before me, because he was before me; and I did not know him; but so that he might be made manifest in Israel, for this I came baptizing in water.” He went before him by being born, by preaching, by baptizing, by dying, and finally by descending to the underworld. So he went before the Lord, and he went before himself too. For before he was conceived in the womb, unbelief closed his father's mouth, which he himself, before he could speak, wonderfully opened by the expression of his name. Indeed, when he could not yet utter words to men, he could by leaping announce to his mother's inner parts the King of heaven hidden in the Virgin's womb. For the Holy Spirit, who gave him life before he drew the breath of life, also filled the very lodging of his mother's modesty in which he dwelt. Hence Elizabeth says: “See, as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” Here we must ask how it could be that the Holy Spirit poured out his gifts on him, since, according to the rite of the human condition, he was still conceived in iniquities and had not yet loosed the bond of original sin by receiving the circumcision of the legal observance; since the divine voice says through Moses: “The male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, that soul shall perish from his people, because he has made my covenant void.” But it must be noted that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not bound by law nor held by the bond of necessity; but as he breathes where he wills, so he dispenses his gifts freely to whom he wills. For he also inspired Cornelius the centurion before he received the washing of baptism, and on certain men still Gentiles, while Peter was speaking, he not only fell, as Scripture testifies, but also taught them to speak in tongues. What wonder, then, if the Holy Spirit filled blessed John before any remedy of the legal command, whom divine providence set as a kind of boundary—and, so to speak, an impassable limit—of the law itself and the prophets and the whole Old Testament? For “the law and the prophets,” as the Truth says, “were until John.” For this John received circumcision in his flesh, like the Lord, but in receiving it brought it to an end. And so he who shone as herald of the new grace and magnificent announcer did not need circumcision to escape original sin; but divine election carried him above the law, above the order of the human condition. To him also was granted the glory of so great an honour that the very Mother of God was present at his birth, and the Maker of the world, hidden in the womb, dedicated his beginning by his presence. Luke the evangelist testifies to this when he says: “And Mary stayed with her”—namely Elizabeth—“about three months, and returned to her home.” For from the conception of the Lord to the birth of blessed John there are three months. Mary, then, would not depart until she had paid the service of attentiveness to the aged mother in childbirth, and until she, who carried the King in the court of her body, might see the herald go before. Happy birth, which that light received which enlightens every man coming into this world. But while we say these things, a question suddenly arises for us which seems, not without reason, to bring doubt. For the Lord testifies that among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist. So he excluded a greater; he did not deny an equal. Hence it is that the angel said to Zechariah: “He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.” John, then, seems equal to Elijah, in whose spirit and power he is declared to be coming. Especially since elsewhere the Truth itself says: “Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished”; and, “If you wish to know, John is Elijah.” But see, on the other side this occurs: that Elisha received a double spirit of Elijah according to the manner of his request: “I beg that your spirit may be double in me.” And if Elisha surpasses Elijah twofold, how does he not surpass John, who is equal to Elijah, than whom no one greater has arisen among those born of women? Nonetheless, so that the question may be solved, the sense must be weighed, so that what sounds harsh in the outward words the discernment of one who thinks soberly may understand to proceed from a pious intention. It is harsh indeed that Elisha asked for a double spirit of his master, since the disciple is not above the master. But this petition came from a pure mind, because he asked not for anything earthly but for spiritual grace. Hence Elijah too, as though somewhat indignant, rebuked the incautious words of his disciple when he said: “You have asked a hard thing.” But, looking at the simplicity of his pious intention, he at once adds: “Yet if you see me when I am taken from you, what you have asked will be.” Not, that is, the doubling which the incautious speech poured out, but the gift of the spirit which his mind sought with humble and sincere intention. In this way, then, Elisha by no means surpasses John, just as he is not greater than Elijah. Yet if we look carefully at the course of the sacred history, we find Elisha more abundant or more brilliant than Elijah in the powers of miracles. The one, living, restored a dead boy to life; the other, dead, raised a dead man. At the one's prophecy the jar of flour and the flask of oil did not fail; the other, for a besieged and afflicted city, by the next day brought down the incredible forces of the enemy camp. And to sum up briefly, Elijah shone with twelve, Elisha, as the truth of Scripture relates, with twenty-four signs of miracles, which, to avoid tedium, we put off enumerating here. How, then, shall I free myself from the knot of this question, so that the sentence of the Truth spoken about John's greatness may not waver, in which it is said that among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist? For if Elisha is greater than Elijah, then he is greater than John too?—which cannot be. But it must be noted that it is one thing to do something great in signs of miracles, another to be great in excellence of merits. For if it is a question of miracles, John is found in the pages of Scripture to have done no miracle. But will he therefore be the lowest of all the saints, because he is not recorded to have done any signs of power? Elisha, then, is greater than Elijah in the showing of signs, yet he by no means surpasses him in the sum of merits. So John too is equal to Elijah, because as the latter will be the herald of the Judge, so this one was made the forerunner of the Redeemer; but greater than Elijah, because the one he pointed out he also baptized. Indeed, in that sacrament of baptism the water of the Jordan was washed rather than washed; and from it, moreover, all water everywhere on earth conceived the force of sanctification. There blessed John heard the voice of the Father, saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and dipped in the waters with his own hands, bowed down, the Son of God, dreaded by the angels. For that showed in fact the foundation and origin of baptism which the Truth afterwards taught the disciples to carry out in words full of power: “Go,” he says, “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” There the thing was manifest and not words; here words, and the thing true but hidden. John, then, is the boundary of human merits. For however much the authority of the apostolic senate excels, however much the faith of the patriarchs advances in the knowledge of God, or the oracles of the prophets grow strong to unlock hidden mysteries; however much the glory of triumphant martyrs is heaped up, however much the springtime modesty of virgins flowers, or the tongue of teachers exercises itself in words of life, all are held within John's goal; nothing of human virtue, nothing of religion, nothing of perfection goes beyond it. The course of his incomparable life no historian wove after his death; but that chief archangel, before he was conceived in the womb, told his wonderful works as he did the Lord's. His praise we have learned not from the assertion of some truthful man but from the mouth of the supreme Truth itself; and he is the asserter and praiser of John who is praised and blessed by all creatures of heaven and earth. Indeed, the praises of John were drawn out by that Word by which the dry land was founded, the stars are moved, the elements were made. How great a magnificence it is to merit the glory of praise from him with whom it is the highest happiness to be approved in any way! For he says: “What did you go out to see? A prophet? I tell you, and more than a prophet.” But since a prophet is outstanding and distinguished among other men, it remains that one who has no equal in the common race of men and is set even above a prophet should no longer be called a man but an angel. Hence he adds: “For this is he of whom it is written: See, I send my angel, who will prepare your way before your face.” But in his being placed below, blessed John is shown better, how much he is preferred to other men, of whom the Lord says: “But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”; because our Redeemer, who is less than John on earth by the access of a later age, is greater in heaven by the privilege of eternal majesty. O happy this lowering, when a man is placed below God, a creature preceded by the Creator, the small surpassed by the glory of immensity! Christ is said to be greater than John in heaven, where he is adored by all the powers of angelic dignity, before whom cherubim and seraphim fall humbly, whose rule principalities and powers tremble at, whose face indeed the angels desire to look upon: he declares that he is over John in heavenly dignity, in whose sight all nations are like a drop from a bucket and, according to the prophet's oracle, are counted as nothing and empty; he does not disdain to set himself before the blessed man in comparison, so that a man is found to have, as it were, a place of comparison with God for the excellence of his merits. He who is the author of loftiness himself became the teacher of humility. To him be glory and dominion, now and henceforth, for ages of ages. Amen.

The conception and birth of the venerable John the Baptist, which has now been read through in the Gospel reading, testifies that the Lord's birth, whose secret the human mind does not conceive, is credible, and the fruit of an old woman's womb teaches that the fruitfulness of a virginal womb is not to be denied. For who would really refuse to believe the birth of Christ when a despaired-of offspring comes forth from aged parents? There a prophetic child is brought forth from the old; here the Lord of the prophets is born of a virgin. There the wonder concerns the old age of two; here the miracle concerns the virginity of one girl. Nor is it any wonder that the one conceived barren and the other a virgin, because there the messenger of the saving mystery was being born, here the very mystery of our life. There a temporal lamp shone; here the sun of perpetuity dawned. On the one side John is read to have been born, a prophet and more than a prophet; on the other came Christ, a new man and more than a man, the salvation of all. John is indeed more than a prophet, who both enters the light of this world prophesied by others and prophesies Christ the Lord from his mother's womb; and, when Christ's baptism was celebrated, not only proclaims him with his mouth but, for the fullness of testimony, marks him out to the surrounding peoples as though pointing with his finger, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” And Christ is more than a man, because he, the Word and the flesh, is one Lord, and one and the same is eternal and new: eternal from God, new from a woman. There incomprehensibly begotten of the unbegotten; here wonderfully born of a virgin. There brought forth by the Father's majesty; here formed by the Spirit's working. There a simple nature in the Begetter; here a twofold substance in the Redeemer. There, from his Father, he is wholly impassible God; here he came forth from his mother in such a way that he could also suffer. For he could suffer, as the flesh born of flesh did suffer, and he could not suffer as God born in the flesh. For through the Virgin's womb God brought forth flesh for us, and the flesh God. Nor must we doubt, brothers, whether God could be what he willed, who made all things he willed. Nor must we hesitate whether the Son of God could unite to himself a passible man, whom he could crown with the glory of impassibility by the triumph of the passion. If it was new that God was born on earth, much newer is it that a man reigns in heaven. Looking at these things, we confirm the perfect blessedness of the most glorious John the Baptist, whom heavenly condescension raised to such sublimity that he merited, both before he was born, to prophesy the mystery of our salvation, wonderful to earth and heaven, and, once born, to point it out. For John was then, by divine dispensation, unripe for birth but ripe for grace; for he who did not yet seem fit for his own birth was made a fit preacher of the Lord's rising; and while by natural law his mother's womb still enclosed the whole man, the glad tongue of the mother was already betraying the spirit of the son to be born. For Elizabeth, as was read, said to blessed Mary: “As soon as the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.” Consider, brothers, what great gifts were conferred on those blessed mothers, and with what miracles the women about to give birth are adorned. “The infant,” she says, “leapt in his mother's womb”; he leapt, so as to reveal both his own merit and the glory of the virginal womb. For by God's inspiration that aged womb sensed that the Lord's womb had arrived, and by a new joy announces to mortals how great a gladness Christ, about to be born, would bring to the world. Who would not be astonished, brothers, that amid the mysteries of human redemption, while the mothers marvel, an infancy not yet born rejoices? Meanwhile John is born and precedes Christ in birth, so as to show the service of a servant to his Lord, whom he was celebrating with joy within his mother's inner parts. This, then, is John, of whom it was said by the prophet: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.” He cried out in the solitude, so as to cultivate with the richness of prophetic speech the hearts of mortals, deserted in the squalor of unbelief. This is the angel sent before the face of Christ, who as a careful teacher prepared for the Saviour's coming the hearts of the peoples, instructed with the counsels of a holier life. This is that Baptist who merited to baptize his Lord for this purpose: that he might feel himself the more washed by the power of the one he baptized. This is the herald of the eternal kingdom, who cried out that the Lamb of God was present on earth and took away the sin of the world—with his own tongue indeed, but God speaking. This is the one who, as the Lord pronounced, is greater among those born of women; and truly greater, because as prophet he foretold, as forerunner went before, as Baptist received, as witness pointed out the Son of God. And after all, this is the one whom no softness of delightful clothing pleased, but a rougher tunic woven of camel's hair clothed him; nor did any sweeter pleasure of feasts or temptations of a greedy gullet capture him; but, as truly the censor of his own throat and master of a fasting belly, walking through the deserts he was fed by the dry locust. He is read also to have eaten wild honey, so that we may notice that he lived not on food prepared by human care but on simple fare and unlaboured substance. And this, I think, brothers, so that neither a finer garment might draw the champion of righteousness away from proclaiming the truth, nor delight in food corrupt him. From this greatness of soul came the fact that, while he boldly accused King Herod of union with his brother's wife, he feared neither to undergo a glorious death nor to despise the light of the world. Nor did he leave this life sad, because, always keeping prophetic rigour, he had never at all been softened by the sweetness of the deceitful world. Therefore with utmost patience, by the command of an unjust king, he is beheaded in prison, knowing that by the reward of a most brave death, with the King of the heavenly empire rewarding him, he would receive back both his head and salvation.

Celebrating today, dearest brothers, the birthday of Saint John the Baptist, let us exult and rejoice in the Lord that under the old law a man was born renowned in lineage, wonderful in birth, and most glorious in life and death. For this is that forerunner John, who greeted the Saviour of the world by leaping, though he was still hidden in his mother's womb and John himself was shut in his mother's bosom, and by his leaps announced him present. Once born, hiding in the darkness of the desert, he gloriously proclaims him, securely preaches him to the peoples who come to him, confidently points him out. This is that most illustrious Baptist of Christ, who rebuked the crowds of people coming to him with such eagerness that he did not spare the pride of the Pharisees, nor the ignorance of the scribes in the law of the Lord, nor all the vices which that faithless nation refuses to declare. Neither the threats of impious kings, nor the many comforts of a luxurious court, nor the pride of priestly lineage could keep him from speaking the truth. Truly, then, did Christ the Lord say he was more than a prophet. Born beyond the common birth of men, it was holy entreaty, not pleasure, that created him. For when the aged inner parts of his mother's womb had grown cold, and the tired members of the body promised no more grace of fruitfulness, against the impossibility of the old body and the barrenness of the womb, by Zechariah's prayers Elizabeth's belly swelled. John is conceived in a very old womb; offspring is granted to a father, such as he had never had. Elizabeth's womb is emptied, and she marvels, glad, that she is a mother. Zechariah exults with joy; and when there was dispute among the relatives about the boy's name, while the father fixes his stylus to the tablets to write down the name according to the will of the child born, which he could not explain in speech, he suddenly loosed his tongue into voice, outran the letters with speech, and, whom he wished to write John with the stylus, he testifies to by speaking. What wonder, then, if Christ proclaims him more than a prophet? For which of the prophets by being born restored voice, and a priest to the people? No wonder, then, if he afterwards said of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness”: that is, not only a voice that can penetrate the ears of hearers, but of one crying out, which surely strikes the hearts of hearers and leads them into the way of salvation. That voice even now cries out to all. And to you too, brothers, it always announces through our lowliness what is to be done and what to be shunned: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” We are commanded, then, to prepare the way for the Lord: by the purity of our faith, by which we not only oppose the vain and superstitious figments of idols but also detest and correct them in our brothers; by the chastity of the mind itself, by which we also show mercy to our brothers, restoring to all what is theirs, opposing none, correcting those who err, and, finally, doing good to each as far as we can. Let us, then, always live according to the counsels of the venerable Baptist, always praying God to grant us to keep a happy perseverance in good works. The end.

Today, brothers, we celebrate with most devout festivities the birthday of most blessed John the Baptist, whose life was not only praiseworthy but whose birth too was wonderful. For he was born of a barren woman, coming forth from an aged womb; he is the Baptist of Christ, John, of whom it is written: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” John cried out indeed in the wilderness, to rouse to repentance the hardest hearts of an unbelieving people. He cried out, so that [he might call] them from their most wicked unbelief … he cried out and said: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.” [A leaf is missing.] Let us, then, dwell with him for a time in this world, so that we may be with him for ever. The end.

After that most holy day of the Lord's birth we read that the birth of no man is celebrated except that of Christ's Baptist, John alone. In the other saints and elect of God the day is honoured on which this present life, after the completion of so many labours and the conquest of the world, brings them forth into perpetual eternities. In the others, then, the completed merits of their last day are celebrated. But in Christ's most holy Baptist John the first day too, and the very beginnings of the man, are celebrated; because through him the Lord willed his coming to be attested, lest men should fail to recognize him coming suddenly and unexpected. John was a figure of the Old Testament and bore in himself the form of the law; and so John foretold the Saviour, as the law ran before grace. That, not yet born, he prophesied from the secret of his mother's womb, and, still without light, was already a witness of the truth, meant this: that, hidden under the veil of the letter, he preached in spirit the Redeemer who had already come, and proclaimed our Lord to us as from a kind of womb of the law. So, because the Jews erred from the womb—that is, from the law, which was pregnant with Christ—“they erred from the womb, they spoke falsehoods.” This is why he came as a witness, to bear witness to the light. And that John, set in a penal prison, sends his disciples to Christ means that the law sends the world over to the Gospel: that law which, after the type of John, lay shut in the prison, as it were, of ignorance, in darkness and concealment, and was held enclosed within the letter by Jewish blindness of sense. Hence the blessed evangelist also says of him: “He was a burning and shining lamp”—kindled, that is, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, so as to show the light of salvation to a world held in the night of ignorance, and, as among the thickest darkness of offences, to point out by the ray of his light the most splendid Sun of righteousness. For he said of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” John cried out indeed in the wilderness, that is, among a pagan and unteachable people. For breasts empty of the fear of God and lacking the Holy Spirit are compared to the desert of a squalid wilderness. For this world was deserted of all cultivation of faith and of the fear of God, and, overgrown with the thorns of sins, lay squalid like an untilled field, bringing no pleasantness of good works at all, having received no light of spiritual grace. John, then, is sent, to break up, fertilize and cultivate the rough field by prophetic and apostolic preaching, announcing repentance, and to prepare it for ripe fruit, that is, for the grace of regeneration. And how great a glory is it that to Zechariah the aged priest and to barren Elizabeth a son is promised by Gabriel—by that same angel by whom the birth of the Lord is announced to most blessed Mary! And as though a son somewhat like the Lord is sent ahead, the barren woman's son before the Virgin's Son, it declares some greater miracle in that very birth. Barrenness is rewarded with unhoped-for offspring, because virginity was to be enriched with a new birth. John is promised before Christ, because the Old Testament is before the New, as “day pours forth speech to day.” The lamp is sent before the sun; the servant before the Lord; the friend before the bridegroom; the herald before the judge; the voice before the Word. And so blessed John says of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He says he is a voice because he was the announcer and preacher of the Word. For while still in his mother's womb he was filled with the Holy Spirit and anticipated his own birth by prophesying. He was sanctified after the likeness of the Lord before he was born, leaping within his mother's inner parts and declaring the Saviour's coming by his mother's mouth. Truly he was a burning lamp, in whom so singular a grace of divine condescension shone that he told by the voice of his holy mother that the Redeemer was even now at hand, and through her, not yet brought into the light, as a kind [of witness] of truth, showed Christ present; a fitting mediator indeed of the Old and New Testaments, and a worthy pointer-out of the glorious Lamb, who merited at one time both to announce his Lord and to see him. So, brothers, celebrating the solemnities of so great a day … [Fifteen obliterated lines are missing] … by weeping for our sins and redeeming them by fasts and abundant alms. The end.