A clear testimony of truth must be held to be the fact that many writers, at various times and in various places, have coalesced into one opinion. This homily which we are about to present enjoys this singular safeguard. First of all we will review four Vatican codices, 6451 (page 136), 1196 (page 209), 1269 (1269 on the reverse), 1277 (page 42 on the reverse); then three Cassinese codices, 12 (page 521), 104 (page 166 on the reverse), and CXI (page 70). In agreement with these are two Vallicellian codices, 15 (page 153 on the reverse) and 7 A, and two Augian ones, XV and XVI; the codex XII of Holy Cross in Jerusalem (page 63), the Vercelli 81, the Veronensis 431, the Sublacensis, the Novariensis 42 (page 79), the Ratisbon codex of St. Emmeram, the Martinensis in Belgium;
the Ambrosian C 98, and the Breviary of the Church of Esztergom. Alcuin preceded the editors, who has this same homily under the name of Maximus at page 517 of the Venice edition of the year 1571 with the title: 'On the Nativity of St. John the Baptist'; which was afterward taken up by Gymnicus (page 193), Galesinius (page 147), Cumdius (volume IV, page 393), Combefis (volume VI, page 122), Raynaudus (page 226), and finally Margarinus in the Bibliotheca Maxima (volume VI, page 32). In the Laurentian codices this homily and the preceding one are lacking. The venerable remembrance, most beloved brethren, is indeed of all the prophets.
John the Baptist, whose true birthday is honored today, so far surpassed the glory of all those, that with a present truth of testimony he revealed the Lord Jesus our Saviour not only to be about to come, but already to have come and to dwell among men; whom, when he had seen him hastening to his baptism amid the mingled crowds, he said, as if pointing with his finger: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world' (John 1). How innocent is his life! Or can we by our devotion match his merits, who both first recognized the coming of the heavenly Lamb, and alone showed him! How marvelous to all is his heralding, from whose mouth the world first heard its own absolution!
This is he, most beloved, of whom it was foretold by prophetic announcement: 'A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God' (Isaiah 40; Luke 3). For he was to cry out, as indeed he did cry, so that, as the herald of salvation cried aloud, the heavenly preaching might open the ears of mortals long stopped up. Who, then, would not receive such a prophet with all admiration—one whom he recognizes to have so obtained from God, that his merits were praised before his nativity was formed? This one, then, is promised to Zechariah, that most just priest, as about to be born by the care of Almighty God through an angel, when he was advanced in great age and had despaired, through the barrenness of his aged wife, of the succession of a longed-for offspring.
And well is a new son given to most aged parents, one who would show to the aging and failing world the Only-begotten of God for the hope of a future youth. What of that—and with how great astonishment is it to be wondered at—that Zechariah himself, while he believed a little too slowly, in his senile trepidation, that the forerunner of the saving Word was to be conceived, fell mute with the silence of a sudden speechlessness, nor would he have recovered his former use of speech, had not the name of the boy, by which he was to be called, loosed for him the bonds of his closed mouth? And so it came about that the priestly mouth, which trembling had bound, released the merit of the son being born, and the father's tongue, restored, testified to the glory of the infant.
But what shall I say of the virtue of his continence, what of his love of justice, to whom, as it is read, virtue was inimitable and truth dearer than life itself? For dwelling in the wilderness, having a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt about his loins, he ate locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3; Mark 1): so that he who was to rebuke the evils of men might have no pleasure at all, either in clothing or in food. In short, so great a zeal for the divine law possessed his mind, that he both seized upon the perversity of a faithless generation with prophetic vigor, and, by the authority of the Holy Spirit fervent within him, dauntlessly rebuked the erring king:
and the most blessed man chose rather to fall by the sword of raging injustice, under a declaration of justice, than to keep silent about the truth—he who had come to make manifest its Author. Amen.