The good shepherd passes sleepless nights and anxious days, lest any cunning robber, lest the crafty savagery of wolves contrive anything ruinous to the dear flock, lest anything harmful be devised. The good shepherd, as the Lord said, 'layeth down his life for his sheep' (John 10). But the good sheep too hear their shepherd's voice with attentive ears, ever follow their shepherd's will, do all their shepherd's pleasure. They climb the hills, seek the heights, often change regions:
and thus they penetrate places fit for pasture, watered by streams, shady, suitable, secret for repose; they find pleasant spots, and enjoy delights. And you, little children, the abundant portion of the Lord's flock, now clothed with a snowy and divine fleece, with a soft young growth, most fruitful with a heavenly seed—if through the hearing of our voice you have come often to salutary places, to saving pastures; if through the streams of our discourse you have tempered the heats of your soul, the ardor of your thirst; if under the covering of our teaching you have reclined with some comfort—attend to what we ordain, hear what we say, approve what we do; and receive the reason of our preaching not according to your will, but according to our disposition:
and whether we speak from this level, or whether we treat from the priestly seat according to the reason of the time, come together, run together as good sheep, as dear flocks, as beloved pledges, without disdain, eagerly, and with the whole course of faith. Nor let the change of places so near, and spaces so contracted, either make you slothful or make you murmur: for a sheep does not reach the fold if it wander according to its own pleasure; nor will a disciple be able to obtain knowledge if he strive to be taught according to his own will; a sick man too will never be able to recover health if he be treated according to his own judgment. But since our word today is against a raging wolf, let us take up the pastoral staff and pass to the Gospel reading.
'And king Herod heard' (for His name, that of Jesus, had been made manifest), 'and he said: John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him' (Mark 6). The fool piously believes concerning the dead man whom he brutally persecuted while alive. 'John is risen,' he says, and yet, unwitting, he confesses that in Christ the slain one rises again for Christ. O Herod, what did thy sword accomplish? What did thy cruelty profit? To what end did thine impiety advance? If, as thou sayest thyself, he has returned to mighty works, has risen to divine deeds—he who by thy fury was thought to be extinguished? John is risen, as thou thyself dost confess: here the person does not perish, but the infirmity; here it is not John, but rather death that has succumbed by such a death:
the punishment was mocked, the executioner is held up to ridicule, the very sentence of the wretched judge is deceived, which did not destroy the one it slew, but promoted him. 'John is risen from the dead, therefore mighty works are wrought in him.' And though an enemy of the Law, yet through the Law he had learned that resurrection of the dead which was promised. And if he knew John would rise, why, madman, did he kill him? If by such a death he knew he would be raised to the summit of all divine power, to every mark of authority whatever it is, why did he make himself the author of so timely a death? Impiety ever raves, cruelty is ever held fast by frenzy, fury knows not how to be free of madness; for it rages against itself as often as it aims at another; it punishes itself while it strikes down the innocent;
he is wholly lethal to himself when he is cruel toward the just. Behold, John, as thou sayest thyself, now lives in Christ: he returns to thy punishment, who came to the salvation of all by a heavenly gift. 'But others said that he is Elias; and others said that he is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. Which when Herod had heard, he said: This is John, whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead.' With a malevolent yet truthful sense, he becomes a witness of his own crime, an asserter of his own wickedness, an accuser of his own misdeed. 'John, whom I beheaded, is he himself; he is risen from the dead.' He speaks truth: for as they rise again in Christ who are His, so in His own Christ Himself suffers;
and as the honor of the head extends to the members, so the punishment of the members redounds to the pain of the head, to the injury of the head. 'John, whom I beheaded, is he himself.' This wise king, this excellent judge, this censor of morals, this guardian of discipline, this avenger of innocence, this punisher of crimes, says that he beheaded John, but is silent as to why he beheaded him, lest the baseness of so great a deed should confound the royal power; but the Evangelist brings it forth, that from the disgrace of the slayer he may bring the slain unto glory. 'For Herod himself,' it says, 'had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod:'
'It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife'—Herodias, who through love of crime contended to be the wife of two brothers, so that by affection she might violate affection, and Herodias might be joined to Herod, lest they be unlike even in name who were alike in crime, in morals, and in life, and lest they be joined by a name whom the baseness of crimes had joined. This Herodias, then, lay in wait for John. Herod did not overcome the mind of the adulteress, yet he deferred the crime of the adulteress. She, that there might be no accuser, aimed at the death of the accuser; he, that he might please the incestuous woman, himself a captive, only held the just man and bound him shut up, because as a guilty man he could not easily pronounce sentence against the innocent.
'And when a convenient day was come,' it says, 'Herod made a supper on his birthday for his princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee; and when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in and danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the girl: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask, I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom.' O ungrateful, inhuman king, who for such great virtue, for so glorious a labor, for so memorable a deed, gave not his whole kingdom, but the half. And why did he reserve even a part for himself, who, after such glory of his house, after such sanctity of his family, after such an example of chastity, ought neither to be, nor to seem, nor to live?
That daughter therefore of crime, not of nature, ran forthwith not so much to her mother as to the very sink of her own wickedness; so that she, wholly fluid, wholly dissolved, might fly back savage and fierce, and—to speak of the very rites—that she might sing a wicked tragedy, she who had most foully completed the comedy. But she went out and said to her mother: 'What shall I ask?' And she said: 'The head of John the Baptist.' And coming in straightway with haste to the king, she asked, saying: 'I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish the head of John the Baptist. And the king was sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for them that were with him at table, he would not displease her; and immediately, sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought.'
'And he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish, and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.' Thus judges a mind oppressed by surfeit, loosed by wine, and in some way sunk in the total shipwreck of drunkenness. 'I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish the head of John.' The serpent's offspring asks for the head of a man, to whom the primal sentence knew its own head to be condemned, God saying: 'He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel' (Gen. 3). The length of the reading draws us out at length, and the immense depth of this very passage advances us far into the deep. Let us defer to today what follows, lest, while the sermon hastens to its end, it pass over the things that must be said at length.
This we commend at the close of our discourse, which had run its course not without cause: for all the offspring of the ancient serpent this our John slew, and being himself slain, by the pouring out of his own blood extinguished them.