This most excellent sermon indeed is found inscribed to St Maximus in three codices which we have seen: in codex 174, once of the library of the wardens of the metropolitan church of Florence; in codex 39, Pluteus XVII of the Laurentian; and in Vatican codex 1060, page 42. Today's festivity, most beloved, conspicuous throughout the whole world, irradiates our minds the more brightly with a certain splendour of new light, in that it invites us to call to mind the beginning of our redemption and the rising of the true Light. For to whom, meditating on the nativity of John, does the nativity of Christ not straightway occur? especially since there was no other cause for John's being born of an aged father and a barren mother, except that, marvellously born, he might go before him who was to be born in a singular way:
namely, that the friend might go before the Bridegroom, the servant before the Lord, the voice before the Word, the lamp before the Sun, the herald before the Judge, the saved before the Saviour. John himself also testifies that this is the cause of his coming: not that he should simply come, but that he should go before the Lord as an indication for his manifestation. After me, he says, comes a man who was made before me, for he was before me, and I knew him not; but that he might be made manifest in Israel, therefore I came baptizing in water (John 1). He went before him in being born, in preaching, in baptizing, in dying, and lastly in descending to the lower regions. Thus he went before the Lord, and went before even himself.
For before he was conceived in the womb, unbelief closed the father's mouth, which he himself, before he could speak, marvellously unlocked by the utterance of his own name. Plainly, though he could not yet bring forth words to men, he was able by his exulting to announce to his mother's bowels the King of heaven hidden in the Virgin's womb. For the Holy Spirit, who animated him before he drew the vital breaths of air, filled also that dwelling of maternal modesty in which he abode. Whence Elizabeth said: Behold, as soon as the voice of your salutation reached my ears, the infant leaped for joy in my womb (Luke 1).
Here it must be asked how it could come to pass that the Holy Spirit poured out his gifts into him, when, according to the manner of the human condition, he still existed conceived in iniquities, and had not yet loosed the bond of original sin by the reception of the legal observance of circumcision. Since through Moses the divine voice says: The male whose foreskin of flesh has not been circumcised, that soul shall perish from among his people, because he has made void my covenant (Genesis 17). But it must be noted that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not bound by law, is not held by the bond of necessity; but, just as it breathes where it wills, so also it dispenses its gifts freely to whom it wills.
For the centurion Cornelius too, before he received the washing of baptism, He inspired; and upon certain who were still Gentiles, while Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit not only fell, as Scripture testifies (Acts 10), but even taught them to speak with tongues. What wonder, then, if the Holy Spirit filled blessed John before any remedy of the legal precept — John whom divine providence appointed to be a kind of boundary of the Law itself and of the Prophets and of the whole Old Testament, and, so to speak, an impassable limit? For 'the Law and the Prophets,' as the Truth declares, 'were until John' (Luke 16). For this John indeed received circumcision in his own flesh with the Lord, but in receiving it he brought it to an end.
And therefore he who shone forth as the herald of the new grace and its magnificent announcer had no need of circumcision to escape original sin; but divine election advanced him above the Law, above the order of the human condition. To him also was granted the glory of so great an honor that the very Mother of God was present at his birth, and the Maker of the world by His own presence consecrated his hidden beginning in the womb. Luke the evangelist testifies to this, when he says: 'And Mary abode with her,' namely with Elizabeth, 'about three months, and returned to her own house' (Luke 1). For from the conception of the Lord until the birth of blessed John there are three months.
Mary therefore was unwilling to depart until she had rendered the service of her diligence to the aged mother in childbirth, and until she who bore the King in the hall of her body might behold the herald go before Him. Happy the birth which that Light received, which enlightens every man coming into this world! But while we say these things, a question suddenly arises for us, which not without cause seems to introduce doubt. For the Lord testifies that 'among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist' (Luke 7). He therefore excluded a greater; He did not deny an equal. Hence it is that the angel said to Zechariah: 'He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah' (ibid.). John therefore seems the peer of Elijah, in whose spirit and power he is affirmed to come.
Especially since the Truth Himself says elsewhere: 'Elijah has already come, and they knew him not, but did to him whatsoever they willed; and if you will receive it, John is Elijah' (Matt. 17). But behold, on the contrary this occurs, that Elisha received a double portion of Elijah's spirit according to the measure of his petition: 'I beseech you, let your spirit be double in me' (2 Kings 2). But if even Elisha surpasses Elijah twofold, how does he not surpass John, who is said to be Elijah's equal — John than whom among those born of women no greater has arisen? Nevertheless, that the question may be resolved, the sense must be weighed, so that the discernment of one who judges soberly may understand that what sounds harsh in the outward words proceeds from a pious intention.
It is indeed harsh that Elisha asked for a double portion of his master's spirit, since 'the disciple is not above his master.' But that petition proceeded from a pure mind, because he asked not for anything earthly, but for spiritual grace. Whence Elijah too, as though somewhat indignant, rebuked the disciple's incautious words when he said: 'You have asked a difficult thing.' Yet, regarding the simplicity of the pious intention, he at once adds: 'Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be as you have asked' (ibid.) — not, that is, the doubling which the incautious speech poured forth, but the gift of the Spirit, which his humble and sincere mind sought with that intention. In this way, then, Elisha by no means surpasses John, just as he is not greater than Elijah.
Nevertheless, if we diligently examine the tenor of the sacred history, we find that Elisha was more abundant or more illustrious than Elijah in the powers of miracles. The one, indeed, while living restored a dead boy to life; the other, being dead, raised a dead man. When the one prophesied, the jar of meal and the cruse of oil did not fail; the other suddenly, on the very next day, struck down before a besieged and afflicted city the incredible forces of the enemy camps. And, to conclude all briefly, Elijah shone forth with twelve miraculous signs, Elisha, as the truth of Scripture relates, with twenty-four, which — since we avoid tedium — we here forbear to enumerate.
How then shall I extricate myself from the knot of this question, so that the sentence of the Truth uttered concerning the greatness of John may not waver, by which it is said that 'among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist'? For if Elisha is greater than Elijah, is he therefore also greater than John? — which is impossible to be. But it must be noted that it is one thing to do something great in the signs of miracles, and another to be great in the excellence of merits. For if we speak of miracles, John is found in the pages of the Scriptures to have performed no miracle. But shall he on this account be utterly the least of the saints, because he is recorded to have done no signs of powers? Elisha therefore is greater than Elijah in the display of signs, whom nevertheless he by no means surpasses in the sum of merits.
So too John is indeed the peer of Elijah, because as the one shall be the herald of the Judge, so this one became the forerunner of the Redeemer; but he is greater than Elijah, because Him whom he pointed out he also baptized. Finally, in that sacrament of baptism the wave of the Jordan was more washed than it washed: from which, moreover, all water everywhere throughout the earth conceived the power of sanctification. There blessed John heard the voice of the Father, beheld the Holy Spirit descending in the likeness of a dove, and with his own hands immersed in the waters the Son of God — awesome to the angels — bowed down. For that showed by deeds the foundation and origin of baptism, which afterward the Truth taught the disciples to perform by words full of power.
'Go,' He says, 'teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28). There the reality was manifest and not words; here words, and the reality true, but hidden. John therefore is the boundary of human merits.
For however much the authority of the apostolic senate may excel, however much the faith of the patriarchs may advance in the knowledge of divine things, or the oracles of the prophets grow strong to unlock hidden mysteries, however surely the glory of the triumphant martyrs may be heaped up, however much the blossoming chastity of virgins may flower, or the tongue of teachers exert itself in words of life — all are held back on this side of John's limit, and nothing of human virtue, nothing of religion, nothing of perfection proceeds beyond it. The course of his incomparable life no historian wove together after his death, but that chief archangel, before he was conceived in the womb, narrated his wondrous works, as of the Lord, so also of him.
His praise, indeed, we have learned not from the assertion of any truthful man, but from the mouth of the supreme Truth Himself; and He is the affirmer and praiser of John, who is praised and blessed by all creatures heavenly and earthly. From that Word, finally, were drawn forth the praises of John — the Word by which the dry land was founded, the stars are moved, the elements were created. Truly, of how great magnificence is it to merit the glory of praise from Him with whom it is the highest felicity to be in any way approved! For He says: 'What went you out to see? A prophet? I say to you, and more than a prophet' (Matt. 11).
But since a prophet is eminent and distinguished among other men, one who — having no equal in the common race of men — is even set above a prophet, it remains that he be called now not a man, but an angel. Whence He adds: 'For this is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel, who shall prepare your way before your face' (Mark 1). But even in his own subordination blessed John is shown all the better how far he is preferred to other men, of whom the Lord says: 'But he who is lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he' (Luke 7): because indeed our Redeemer, who is lesser than John on earth by reason of the coming of a later age, is in heaven greater by the privilege of eternal majesty.
O happy this abasement, when man is subordinated to God, the creature is preceded by the Creator, the tiny one is surpassed by the glory of immensity! Christ is said to be greater than John in heaven, where He is adored by all the powers of angelic dignity, before whom cherubim and seraphim humbly fall down, at whose principality and authority dominions tremble, whose countenance, finally, the angels desire to look upon — He declares Himself to be set above John in heavenly dignity, in whose sight plainly all nations are 'as a drop of a bucket,' and according to the prophet's (Isaiah)
prophecy (Isaiah 40:17), 'are counted as nothing and vanity' — they do not disdain to set the blessed man before themselves in comparison, so that a man may be found, before God, to hold as it were a place of comparison on account of the excellence of his merits. But He who is the author of loftiness Himself became the teacher of humility. To Him be glory and dominion, both now and henceforth, world without end. Amen.