This sermon, edited by Muratori from the Ambrosian codex, we also read in the Cassinese codex 105, page 459, adorned with the name of St. Maximus. The conception and nativity of the venerable John the Baptist, which has now been run through in the Gospel reading, testifies that the Lord's nativity — whose secret the human mind does not grasp — is credible, and the fruit of an aged womb teaches that the fruitfulness of a virginal womb is not to be denied. For who indeed would refuse to believe the nativity of the newborn Christ, since from aged parents proceeds a despaired-of succession? There a boy is brought forth from the old by prophecy; here the Lord of the prophets is born of a virgin. There the dispute is about the old age of two; here the miracle is about the virginity of a single maiden.
Nor indeed is it any wonder if that barren woman, and this virgin, conceived, since there the messenger of the saving mystery, here the very mystery of our life, was being born. There a temporal lamp shone forth, here the sun of eternity gave light. Thence John is read to have been born a prophet, and more than a prophet; hence, however, a new man, and more than man, Christ the salvation of all, came. John assuredly is more than a prophet, who both, foretold by others, enters as the light of this world, and prophesies Christ the Lord from his mother's womb, and — when His baptism had been celebrated — not only proclaims Him by mouth, but even, for the fullness of testimony, marks Him out to the surrounding peoples as though pointing with a finger, saying: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world' (John 1).
But Christ is more than man, because the selfsame is Word and flesh, one Lord, and one and the same both eternal and new; eternal from God, new from a woman. There incomprehensibly begotten of the unbegotten; here wondrously born of a virgin. There brought forth by paternal majesty; here formed by the operation of the Spirit. There a simple nature in the Begetter; here a twofold substance in the Redeemer. There God is wholly impassible from His Father; here, however, He proceeded so far from His mother that He could even suffer. For He was able to suffer, just as the flesh born of flesh also suffered, and God born in flesh was not able to suffer. For God brought forth for us through the womb of the Virgin flesh, and the flesh God.
Nor is it to be doubted, brethren, that He could be God whatever He willed, who made all that He willed. Nor is it to be hesitated over whether the Son of God could join to Himself a passible man, whom He was able to crown, by the triumph of His passion, with the glory of impassibility. If it was new that God was born on earth, much more new is it that man reigns in heaven. From which things considered, we prove the perfect blessedness of the most glorious John the Baptist, whom heavenly favor exalted to such sublimity that — wondrous to earth and heaven — he both merited to prophesy the mystery of our salvation when not yet born, and to point it out when born. For John was then, by divine dispensation, unripe for birth, ripe for grace;
for he who by reason of his primacy did not yet seem fit for birth, was made a fit preacher of the Lord's coming; and when by the law of nature the maternal womb still enclosed the whole man, yet already the glad tongue of the mother brought forth the spirit of the son about to be born; for Elizabeth said, as was read, to blessed Mary: 'From the moment the voice of your salutation was in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy' (Luke 1). Attend, brethren, how great gifts were bestowed on those blessed mothers, and with what miracles the women about to give birth are honored. 'The infant,' she says, 'leaped in the womb of his mother' — he leaped, that he might reveal at once both his own merit and the glory of the virginal womb.
For, God inspiring it, that aged womb sensed that the Lord's womb had drawn near, and with a new joy announces to mortals how great a gladness the Christ about to be born would bring to the world. Who would not be astonished, brethren, that amid the mysteries of human redemption, while the mothers marvel, an infant not yet born rejoices? Amid these things John is born and precedes Christ by nativity, that he might render to his Lord — whom within his mother's inward parts he was celebrating with joys — the obedience of a servant. This, then, is the John of whom it was said by the prophet: 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord' (Isaiah 40). He was crying in the solitude, that with the richness of prophetic speech he might cultivate the hearts of mortals, deserted in the squalor of unbelief.
This is the angel sent before the face of Christ, who as a diligent teacher prepared for the Savior's coming the breasts of the peoples, instructed by the admonitions of a holier life. This is that Baptist who merited to baptize his own Lord, 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 — with his own tongue indeed, but with God speaking — that the Lamb of God was present on earth, and that He Himself takes away the sin of the world. This is he who, by the Lord's pronouncement, is greatest among those born of women; and truly greatest, because as a prophet he foretold the Son of God, as a forerunner he went before Him, as a Baptist he received Him, as a witness he pointed Him out.
And after all, this is he whom — with no soft delight of garments — a tunic woven of camel's hairs, rougher, clothed; nor did any sweeter pleasure of feasts, or the temptations of a devouring gullet, take hold of him; but as though truly a censor of his own throat and lord of a fasting belly, walking through the deserts the dry locust fed him. He is also read to have eaten wild honey, that we may perceive that he lived not on food prepared with human care, but on simple nourishment and unlabored sustenance. And this, I think, brethren, was so that neither a more comely garment might draw the champion of justice away from the proclamation of truth, nor the delight of foods corrupt him.
From this magnanimity, assuredly, it came that, while he confidently accused King Herod concerning the concubinage of his brother's wife, he feared neither to undergo a glorious death, nor to spurn the light of the world. Nor did he leave this life in sadness, because — always guarding prophetic severity — he had never at all been softened by the sweetness of the deceitful age. Wherefore he was most patiently beheaded in prison at the command of the unjust king, who knew, by the reward of a most valiant death (the King of the heavenly empire rewarding him), that he would receive back both his own head and salvation.