Just as, when the eyes are darkened by excessive pain and long infirmity, the light becomes hostile unless it is restored gradually — for although light was created for the eyes alone, and is friendly to the eyes alone, through which it is either imparted or denied to the rest of the body — so too, for minds darkened by the long disease of unbelief, unless the brightness of faith is restored little by little, the very splendor of faith suddenly thickens the gloom of unbelief all the more; for nature is either drawn out or blunted by long habit. Hence it is that the Lord, when hearts were already blinded by the foul cloud of unbelief, in order to shine forth the mystery of the virgin birth, first sent ahead the conception of a despaired-of and aged barrenness:
so that whoever saw, after long old age, the dried-up members come back to life, and, the course of a life already grown old being run out, blossom again into first youth, and nature itself in the setting age raised up to the tokens of a servant about to be born, might believe that the flower of modesty, the title of chastity, the mark of purity, the enclosures of virginity could remain after childbirth, and be preserved, since the very Author proceeds from the womb.
And so that the very authority of the matter we are now speaking about may be present and lend support to our preface and to the simile which we took from eyes wearied by long ailment, and may prove that the eyes of men, ill-accustomed to night, darkened and dimmed, are gradually recalled to the light — in John the Lord kindled the lamp of His own light and sent it before, so that, having tasted the light, they might now bear within themselves the very radiance of the divine Sun and receive the very brightness of the Godhead. According to that which was said of John: 'He was a burning and shining lamp' (John 5): that he might open the dense darkness of night with his gentle light, while He Himself would give back to those already longing for the light the day that knows no night, unto perpetual light.
Hence it is that a faintly gleaming star accustoms even the Magi, still dwellers of night and with wholly dazed eyes, to the light, and gradually draws them to the very fountain of light and of days (Matthew 2). And truly, brethren, it is fitting, since the four-horsed chariot of the seasons runs through the boundaries of the whole year and brings back to us the natal feast of our Lord and now restores our joys. Let us now speak of the birth of John, of the childbearing of the barren woman, so that by this shortcut of belief we may be able — amid wintry lights made uncertain by clouds and mists, with the lamp going before and the star as guide — to arrive at that place where there is birth without childbearing, where the Author Himself of the one who bears is created, where the very Origin of the one who begets is born.
'There was,' says the evangelist, 'a certain priest named Zechariah, and his wife Elizabeth, and they had no son, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in their days' (Luke 1). The barrenness is aggravated by extreme old age, and whatever belongs to body and nature is wholly withdrawn from the hope of begetting; and lest even any thought of offspring should remain, it had come to such a point of time and age that, the vital warmth being past, a deadly cold now possessed the barren womb, so that the father himself might recognize that a man could no longer be born through man from that source from which human capacities had departed. Thus, thus, brethren, belief is affirmed and faith implanted in men's hard hearts;
and then the wholly divine is believed, when there is nothing human. It fell by lot that Zechariah, having entered the temple of the Lord, should offer incense. Well did it say 'having entered into the temple,' not 'having entered the temple': for he himself was more intimately God's temple, bearing in the purity of his breast all the secrets of the Law, and offering not so much the incense of frankincense as that of pure supplication. For God rests more graciously in His own work than in man's, and does not so gladly smell the drop of the Arabian tree as the holiness of a sincere heart and breast. 'There appeared to him,' it says, 'an angel of the Lord, standing at the right of the altar of incense.' It would have sufficed to say 'an angel appeared'; why so emphatically 'at the right of the altar'?
This is so that you, the hearer, may understand that there is nothing sinister in the holy angels, as Scripture says: 'The ways that are on the right the Lord knows' (Proverbs, according to the Septuagint). 'An angel appeared to him.' Since the whole man had already failed — so that John might be born of a barren woman before Christ was born of the Virgin — it was said of John: 'Behold, I send my angel' (Matthew 11). Happy is she in whom nature so failed among the aged that she might grow into God; happy is she who changed the losses of barrenness into virginal fecundity; happy is she who conceived in a single childbirth all that she had lamented as being confounded throughout the whole world; happy is she who became the germinating mother of the living, she who before was the pitiable origin of mortals.
bringing forth unto sorrows with sorrow, giving birth unto groans with a groan, producing man unto perils with peril to her who bears, and in the very birth announcing his setting through laments and tears; ever devouring her own offspring, knowing that with such great griefs she was begetting those who would die. Nature, therefore, was rather fed by barrenness, lest by fecundity itself it should rage more grievously — more apt to bring forth weeping than pledges of offspring: she who indeed with tears, grief, and groaning was for so long seeking and appealing to her Author, understanding that this had befallen her through fault, and had not been ordained by the most loving Author when she was created.
Hence it is that the Lord, the very Founder of nature, traverses the way of virginal conception and virginal birth by an invisible track and an unknown path, and walks the road of human birth with a divine step, not a human one, so that by being born He might first set nature itself free from the servitude of death to which it had thus been condemned, and, the fountain being purified, restore heavenly purity to the streams. Rightly does John exult in the womb, he who deserved to know the freedom of his origin before existing, and deserved to feel before living. At the hour of incense, through the angel, barrenness is opened, conception is commanded, birth is promised, and amid the sanctuaries the holy nativity is provided for:
hence it is that in John, while still in the womb, prophecy is conceived almost together with the framing of his limbs, and by God's nod he speaks before he reaches the function of a voice. But lest, while we desire to conclude in shortened discourse the deep and wondrous things of this most far-reaching election, I should pass over what most needs to be said, we shall next, if it please God, discuss what follows.