To be always in debt is a matter of anxiety, brethren; always sad it is to be bound by the fetters of a loan; but as for me, whom my promise often makes your debtor, the very nature and obligation of such a debt is enough to console me, since he who promises gives, not receives; and he who is in debt by giving makes rather the creditor himself beholden to him; and where he who has lent is the debtor, and he who is the debtor has lent, there the contract is shown to be one of friendship, not of necessity; and in such a loan of the soul there runs an interest not of burden but of most sweet honor. After the evangelical narrative had described that an angel of the Lord had appeared to the priest Zechariah, it added, saying: 'And Zechariah was troubled at the sight, and fear fell upon him' (Luke 1).
If a man is anxious about the power of a judge — who is always troubled and trembles at the arrival of an officer, and estimates and measures the weight of the summons by the person of the one coming, and, though of good conscience, is afraid until he recognizes the reasons of the one coming and understands its nature — what will he do, with what dread will he tremble, when the feeble nature of a man perceives a heavenly power, when a man looks upon an angel and sees a minister of the divine throne? The flesh is never secure about its own conscience: as Zechariah himself, of whom we now speak, proved, who gave offense at the very time of atonement: who, while he believes, doubts, the angel saying, 'Because you did not believe my words'; while he merits what he asks, he stumbles; he is condemned even as he receives the very gifts;
who, at the moment he receives a voice, then loses his voice. Hence it is that the angel, before he unfolds his commands, delivers his gifts, or reports what has been obtained, dispels dread, puts fear to flight, and strengthens the spirits troubled by wavering thought, so that the mind, which had departed from itself through the excessive excess of fear, returning into itself might feel and grasp so great a bounty of blessings, saying: 'Fear not, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.'
Do you suppose that so great a priest was so forgetful of the people, so forgetful of the whole community, that he would ask concerning the conception of his aged wife, concerning the childbearing of his despaired-of barren wife — that the envoy of all should then be present for himself alone, that the advocate of all should pray singularly for himself, that he should confine so great an office of the priesthood within domestic cares, shut it up amid the straits of family concerns, and that the aged high priest should assign the incense of the whole people to the sole desire for his own offspring, and that, being far advanced in years by such a desire, and already regarding the very time, he should be enkindled toward a childbearing untimely for himself? Far be it, brethren, far be it, that a faithful soul should suspect this of holy Zechariah. And yet the angel reports that the effect of the whole supplication lay in this, saying:
'Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son.' If the angel responded to what was asked, then the priest supplicated for offspring alone; if the priest's supplication was made on behalf of all, why did the angel report what was obtained as concerning offspring alone? What are we to hold? Why do we long keep the minds of our hearers in suspense? How this venerable high priest was present not for himself alone but for all; how the angel answered on behalf of all:
how God foresaw, in this one offshoot of the priest — whom for this very reason He had chosen for his parents and for nature itself — that He would give him to the whole community, bestow him upon the ages, grant him to the peoples; and he would become a son of the sacrament, brought forth among the sanctuaries, granted amid the sacred mysteries; he would be a high priest begotten of a venerable high priest; he would be an angel conceived in a holy womb by the mouth of an angel; he would be the voice of Christ: 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness' (John 1);
he would be the voice of Christ, reserved for Christ, kept for his own times; he would be a herald about to proclaim the presence of the Judge; he would be, as it were, penitence itself, about to call the peoples of Christ to pardon. How this priest, then, already unaware of himself, already dead to himself, a stranger to his wife, now denied offspring, acted for all and obtained for all, let us presently learn as the angel reports it. 'And many,' he says, 'shall rejoice at his birth.' He is no only-begotten who is created for the joy of all. 'For he shall be great before the Lord.' He who is great before God — who shall prove how great he is among men? 'And he shall not drink wine or strong drink.'
He who was born of the holy body of a priest, and one purged of all vices by extreme old age and exempt from the fires of youth, knows not wine, is ignorant of strong drink, which beget the excesses of drunkenness and vices, and utterly dissipate the graces of character and the ornaments of the virtues. 'And he shall not drink wine or strong drink, but shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.' According to that of the Apostle: 'Brethren, do not be drunk with wine, wherein is luxury, but be filled with the Holy Spirit' (Ephesians 5). 'And he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother's womb.' Blessed John, who deserved to thunder forth by the Spirit of God before he wailed with human weeping; blessed, who deserved to possess the divine before he was allotted the human;
blessed, who deserved to know heaven before earth; blessed, who, before he saw things present, deserved to announce things to come; blessed, who was able to contain God before he himself was contained by his own body; blessed and singularly blessed, who, before he knew how to seek, acquired merit; blessed, who came not to grace through labor, but descended to labors by the very condescension of grace. 'And he shall convert many of the children,' it says. To whom? Let the angel say it, so that, because the heretic blasphemes, because he denies, he may fall silent; let the angel say it, that the faithful may hear and rejoice; let the heretic believe and return. 'He shall convert.' To whom? 'To the Lord their God,' it says. Who is this God? Of whom the prophet says:
'This is our God, and there is no other beside Him, who found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved' (Baruch 3). When did He give it? Then, indeed, when in the tables of the Law He wrote out the rule of the whole of life and the entire norm of discipline. Be attentive, hearer, that you may know who this our God is, beside whom there is no other. Who is He? 'After this He was seen upon earth and conversed with men' (ibid.). Who else was seen on earth but Christ, who conversed among us in the flesh? And who else conversed with men but He who dwelt with men in a human body?
And if this is our God, and there is no other beside Him, heretic, since you do not have Him, whom will you have? 'There is no other,' it says, 'beside Him'; and now do you not say, 'Then where is the Father?' The prophet says, 'There is no other beside Him'; and where is He? In the Son, surely, because apart from the Son there is no Father. 'I am in the Father,' He says, 'and the Father is in me' (John 14). Hence the prophet did not say, 'There is no other,' but 'There is no other beside Him': that is to say, He is; but He is in Him. But you say, 'If He is in Him, how is He another?' Heretic, He is another in person in such a way that He is the same in substance; He is the same in substance in such a way that there is no confusion of the Trinity; the unity of the Trinity is such that there is no distance in the Godhead;
the whole Trinity so exists in itself and is not without itself, that in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is a personhood defined, but not a divinity separated. 'And he himself shall go before Him.' Before whom? Before Christ, who is their God. Our God, the God of all, the God beside whom there is no other. 'In the power of Elijah.' Let no one, when he hears this, impute it wrongly: here he speaks of that spirit which John deserved through divine grace, not that which he obtained from the flesh unto life; and he speaks of that power which he had from on high, not that which he acquired on account of bodily strength.
John, therefore, came in the spirit of Elijah and walks in his power, he who in his whole manner of living, clothing, honor, chastity, abstinence, and in all the virtues represents both Elijah and Christ. 'Let him prepare for the Lord a perfect people.' May our God and Lord deign to prepare and confirm this people in you, unto the glory of His name.