All things that were created by God are good for us, and very good, as Scripture says: 'And God saw all things whatsoever He had made, and behold, they were very good' (Genesis 1, according to the Septuagint). Therefore all things that were created by God are good, and very good; but they are held as midway between vices and virtues, so that from them the skilled draw material for doctrine, while the unskilled find a cause for error. For the wise recognize the Creator through the contemplation of the creature; but the foolish, while they esteem creatures themselves to be gods, are unable to be wise concerning the Creator.
Hence it is that the Gentiles made for themselves gods of sun, moon, stars, gold, stones, and wood, which Christians know to be assigned to servitude. Nor is it any wonder that the creature is thus midway, since Christ Himself, the Creator of all, is for the faithful unto salvation, for the unfaithful unto ruin, as the evangelist says: 'He is set for the ruin and the resurrection of many' (Luke 2). By the Apostle also they are held by some unto death, by others unto life, as Paul proves when he says: 'To some we are the odor of death unto death, but to others the odor of life unto life' (2 Corinthians 2). Therefore even the readings of the Gospel become for the good a matter of saving understanding, but for the wicked an occasion of error.
Before this, when the most blessed evangelist related that John the Baptist was bound in Herod's chains, put to death by reason of Herodias's adulteries, and beheaded as the reward of a dancing-girl, we perceived that some were disturbed as to why God had assigned a holy man to a sacrilegious woman, a virgin to an adulteress, an angel to a dancing-girl. Brethren, the virtues of John and the crimes of Herod we shall treat abundantly in another discourse; now let us set forth what was the cause of the chains, what the necessity of the prison, what the profit of death in John's case. John could not die by the common lot, he who was born by a singular privilege:
when Christ God was born in the flesh, John was begotten an angel on earth, so that earthly offices might thus be mingled with heavenly offices, just as the divine was being mingled with the human, and that on earth an angel might not be lacking to God, nor the heavenly order of service to the Lord. But let us hear the order of John's birth, that we may be able to find the causes of his death. 'There was,' it says, 'in the days of Herod, king of Judah, a certain priest named Zechariah, of the course of Abia, and his wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without blame' (Luke 1).
Great orators, excelling in genius, whenever they prepare to narrate the virtues of illustrious men, call to mind their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, so that the dignity of the ancients may add to the honor of those present, and the praise of the fathers may overflow to the glory of the sons. Inborn glory is greater than that which is sought; what comes from origin precedes what follows from labor; it is more blessed to have glory than to seek it. Hence it is that the evangelist, in order to extol the glory of John, tells the lineage of Zechariah his father and of Elizabeth his mother, recalls their ancestors, records their merits, speaks their titles, sets forth their ranks, unfolds their life, expands upon their distinctions, and proclaims their holiness. 'There was,' it says, 'in the days of Herod, king of Judea.'
It records the time of a wicked king, who violated the sacred honor of the priesthood, confounded its order, dissolved its statute, and took away its institution. And this too adds to the merit of Zechariah: that, although Herod extended the audacity of his recklessness against almost all, he dared nothing against this man, but was overcome by his virtues, so that the spotless succession of the priest might be preserved unto the glory of his offspring. 'And his wife of the daughters of Aaron.' Aaron was the first high priest under the Law, the origin of the priesthood; therefore, rightly, all others being passed over, she is called his daughter, since in herself she displayed the holiness whose memory, as the pious guardian of so great a lineage, she most gloriously transmitted to her son. But the evangelist describes the praises of this mother: 'They were,' it says, 'both righteous before God.'
It is a new felicity and a singular marriage, when one mind remains in two, one holiness in two: what differed in sex was united in mind; and in morals it was one, though sight made it double; and virtue rendered equal those whom nature had made unequal. 'They were,' it says, 'both righteous before God.' To please human judgments, to be righteous before men, is a matter of human virtue and of the greatest labor; but to be righteous before God, who searches hearts, weighs thoughts, and sees the movements of minds, is not of human labor but of a divine gift. If he is great who does not sin in the flesh, how great is he who does not sin in heart?
John, therefore, was born above the flesh from these, who sinned before God neither in heart nor in body. The evangelist added, saying: 'Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without blame.' 'Walking': he walks who does not stand in the crossroads of sinners, who feels himself a pilgrim in this world, who fearlessly enters the rugged dwellings of the virtues, who as a tireless traveler climbs the mountains of the ordinances and the hills of the commandments, that he may enjoy the presence of God the Father and the blessedness of the heavenly homeland. 'Walking in all the commandments and ordinances.' These in all, in which no one, or but few, walk. 'In all the commandments and ordinances.' Who, ignorant of smoke, passes through the fires of desires?
who escapes the slipperiness of life without ever falling? Who passes unpolluted through the whirlpools of vices? Who carries through the business of the flesh, the affairs of life, the sorrows of the world, and will be without blame, since birth itself is full both of tears and of lamentations? For she who gives birth laments from pain, and the newborn laments in tears from nature. But in Zechariah and Elizabeth guilt died, lamentation perished, all cause of complaint was cut off, because in them was being prepared that from which all holiness would be born; but let this now shine forth from the reading itself. 'And they had no son,' it says, 'because Elizabeth was barren.' That barrenness was not accursed but mystical, in which the childbearing was not taken away but deferred; nor was it closed to offspring, but to time:
it was cultivated with time, sown with virtue, ripened with age, grew with old age, so that in a single son the whole fecundity might be repaid, when in one there was born a heaped-up multitude of virtues. Blessed barrenness, which was kept for a single childbearing, and awaited John, to whom, because all first things were owed, the dignity of the firstborn would not perish. 'And they had both advanced in their days.' They had advanced, not declined: age lived on in the saints; it did not fail, but advanced. Or who fails, to whom the increases of virtue are ever being added?
Therefore in Zechariah and Elizabeth the sex is numbed, the flesh grows cold, the members are relaxed, time passes by, age departs, all that belongs to human order and to marital business fades away, so that by a divine gift, not by human childbearing, an angel might be born. We had promised to bring forth from the birth of John the causes of his death, but because our discourse has today drawn us out at greater length, and because what follows is quite necessary for us for the proof of the matter, let what has just been said be reckoned to the glory of his birth; and let us not be ungrateful to you, we who defer the debt but do not deny it: for to debtors the delay increases unto the favor of the creditor.
Wait, therefore, for what the debtor promises, and wait secure, because promises cannot be denied, when things so bountifully denied are paid out even to a barren woman.