Sermons to the People 293.1–294.2

We are celebrating today the solemnity of Saint John, whose birth we heard with wonder when the Gospel was read. How great is the glory of the judge, if so great is the herald’s? What will the coming way be like, if such is he who prepares the way? The Church keeps John’s birth as in a certain way consecrated: nor is anyone found among the fathers whose birth we celebrate solemnly. We celebrate John’s, and we celebrate Christ’s: this cannot be without meaning; and if perhaps we explain it less well than the dignity of so great a matter deserves, it is still pondered more fruitfully and deeply. John is born of an old barren woman; Christ is born of a young virgin. Barrenness bears John, integrity bears Christ. At John’s birth the parents’ age was not suitable; at Christ’s birth there was no marital embrace. The one is announced by an angel’s proclamation; the other is conceived at an angel’s announcement. That John will be born is not believed, and the father is made mute; Christ is believed, and is conceived by faith. First faith comes into the virgin’s heart, and fruitfulness follows in the mother’s womb. And yet the words are almost the same: Zechariah saying, when the angel announced John, “By what shall I know this? For I am old, and my wife is already advanced in her days”; and holy Mary, when the angel announced her future child-bearing, “How will this be, since I do not know a man?”—almost the same words. To him it is said: “Behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until these things happen, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” But to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one that will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” He is rebuked, she is instructed. To him it is said, “Because you did not believe”; to her it is said, “Receive what you asked.” The words are almost the same, “By what shall I know this?” and “How will this be?” But it did not escape him who heard the words and saw the heart. In the words of both the thought was hidden; but it was hidden from men, not from the angel; or rather it was not hidden from him who spoke through the angel. Finally, John is born when the light is already diminishing and the night begins to grow; Christ is born when the night suffers loss and the day gains. And as if looking to this sign of the birth of both, John himself says: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We have set out things to be inquired into and said beforehand that they are to be discussed; but I have said this in advance: if we are not equal, either in ability or in time, to searching all the recesses of so great a mystery, he will teach you better who speaks in you even when we are absent, whom you think of piously, whom you have received in your heart, whose temples you have become.

John, then, appears set between as a kind of boundary of the two Testaments, the old and the new. For that he is in a certain way a boundary, as I said, the Lord himself testifies, saying: “The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist.” So he bears the role of the old and the proclamation of the new. Because of the role of the old, he is born of old people; because of the role of the new, he is declared a prophet in his mother’s womb. For, not yet born, at holy Mary’s coming he leaped in his mother’s womb. Already there he had been marked out, marked out before he was born: it is shown whose forerunner he was, before he was seen by him. These things are divine and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally he is born, receives his name, his father’s tongue is loosed. Refer what happened to the signifying image of things: only, do not think that what happened did not happen because you may say what it signified. Refer what happened to the meaning of things, and see a great mystery. Zechariah is silent and loses his voice until John, the forerunner of the Lord, should be born and open his voice. What is Zechariah’s silence, if not prophecy hidden, and before the preaching of Christ in a certain way concealed and closed? It is opened at his coming; it becomes clear when he who was prophesied comes. The opening of Zechariah’s voice at John’s birth is what the tearing of the veil at Christ’s cross is. If John had announced himself, he would not have opened Zechariah’s mouth. The tongue is loosed because the voice is born: for when John was already announcing the Lord, it was said to him, “Who are you?” And he answered, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

John is the voice; but the Lord “in the beginning was the Word.” John a voice for a time; Christ the Word eternal in the beginning. Take away the word, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, it is an empty noise. A voice without a word strikes the ear; it does not build up the heart. Yet in this very building up of our heart let us notice the order of things. If I think what I am to say, the word is already in my heart; but wishing to speak to you, I seek how what is already in mine may also be in your heart. Seeking how the word that is already in my heart may reach you and settle in your heart, I take up a voice, and with the voice taken up I speak to you: the sound of the voice brings the understanding of the word to you; and when the sound of the voice has brought the understanding of the word to you, the sound itself passes away; but the word which the sound brought to you is now in your heart, and has not left mine. So the sound, when the word has passed over to you, does not the sound itself seem to say to you, “He must increase, but I must decrease”? The sound of the voice made its noise in service and went away, as if saying, “This my joy is complete.” Let us hold on to the word; let us not lose the word conceived in our very marrow. Do you want to see the voice passing and the divinity of the Word remaining? Where is John’s baptism now? It served and went away. Now Christ’s baptism is frequented. We all believe in Christ, we hope for salvation in Christ: this is what the voice sounded. For because it is difficult to tell the word from the voice, John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word; but the voice recognized itself, so as not to offend the word. “I am not,” he said, “the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet.” It was answered, “Who are you, then?” “I am,” he said, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord.” The voice of one crying in the wilderness, the voice of one breaking the silence. “Prepare the way of the Lord,” as if he were saying: I sound for this, to bring him into the heart; but he whom I bring in does not deign to come unless you prepare the way. What is “Prepare the way,” if not “pray fittingly”? What is “Prepare the way,” if not “think humbly”? Take from him an example of humility. He is thought to be the Christ; he says that he is not what he is thought to be, nor does he take up another’s error for his own pride. If he had said, “I am the Christ,” how very easily would he have been believed, who was believed before he said it! He did not say it: he knew himself, distinguished himself, humbled himself. He saw where he had his salvation: he understood himself to be a lamp, and he feared to be put out by the wind of pride.

For this arrangement pleased God: that a man of such great grace, who could be thought to be the Christ, should bear witness to Christ. Indeed, among those born of women, as Christ himself said, none has arisen greater than John the Baptist. If there was no man greater than this man, he who is greater than he is more than man. Great is Christ’s testimony about himself; but to bleary and weak eyes the day testifies too little about itself. Weak eyes fear the day; they bear a lamp. Therefore the day that was to come sent a lamp ahead. But it sent the lamp ahead into the hearts of the faithful, to confound the hearts of the unbelievers. “I have prepared,” he says, “a lamp for my Christ”: God the Father speaking in prophecy, “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ”: John, a herald for the Savior, a forerunner for the judge to come, a friend for the bridegroom to be. “I have prepared,” he says, “a lamp for my Christ.” Why have you prepared it? “I will clothe his enemies with confusion; but upon him my sanctification shall flourish.” How were his enemies clothed with confusion through this lamp? Let us search the Gospel. The Jews, slandering, said to the Lord, “By what authority do you do these things? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” They were seeking a charge, not faith; something to lay snares with, not something by which to be set free. Indeed, he who saw their hearts—attend to what he answered, about to confound them by means of the lamp. “I also will ask you,” he said, “one question: tell me, the baptism of John, from where is it? From heaven, or from men?” They were at once struck back, and, though the day shone faintly, they were driven to grope; because they could not gaze at that brightness, they took refuge in the darkness of their hearts, and there began to be troubled within themselves, stumbling and falling. “If we say,” they say—this among themselves, where they were thinking, but where he was seeing—“if we say,” they say, “From heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him?” For John had borne witness to Christ the Lord. “But if we say, From men, the people will stone us,” because John was held to be a great prophet. And they said, “We do not know.” You do not know: you are in darkness; you lose the light. For how much better, if darkness perhaps dwells in a human heart, to admit the light, not to lose it. When they said, “We do not know,” the Lord said, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” For I know with what heart you said, “We do not know”: not wishing to be taught, but fearing to confess.

This divine arrangement—as far as a man can search it out, the better man better, the lesser less well—this divine arrangement conveys a great mystery to us. For Christ was going to come in the flesh, not just anyone, not an angel, not an envoy, but “he himself coming will save them.” It was not just anyone who was to come: and yet how was he to come? To be born in mortal flesh, to be a little infant, to be laid in a manger, wrapped in a cradle, fed with milk, to grow through the ages of life, and finally even to be destroyed by death. All these, then, are signs of humility, and the very form of exceeding humility. Whose is this humility? The Most High’s. How high? Do not seek on earth; go beyond even the stars. When you come to the heavenly armies of the angels, you will hear from them, “Pass us by too.” When you come to the thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, you will hear, “Pass us by too: we too were made.” “All things were made through him.” Go beyond the whole creation: whatever has been founded, whatever established, whatever is changeable, whether bodily or bodiless, go beyond all. You cannot yet by seeing; go beyond by believing: reach the Creator, and meanwhile, with faith going ahead of you and leading you, reach the Creator. There see: “In the beginning was the Word.” For it was not made at some time; but in the beginning it was. Not like the creature, of which it is said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” That which was in the beginning has no time when it was not. This, then, which was in the beginning—“and the Word was with God, and the Word itself was God; and all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made”; and that which was made is life in him—came to us. To whom? To the worthy? Far from it: to the unworthy. For “Christ died for the ungodly,” and for the unworthy, though he was worthy. For we were unworthy that he should have mercy on us; but he was worthy to have mercy, he to whom it might be said, “For your mercy’s sake, O Lord, deliver us.” Not because of our preceding merits, but “for your mercy’s sake, O Lord, deliver us; and be merciful to our sins for your name’s sake,” not for our merit. For not for the merit of sins, but for your name’s sake. For the merit of sins is surely not reward but punishment. So, for your name’s sake. See to whom he came; see how great he came. How did he come to us? “The Word” plainly “became flesh, that he might dwell among us.” For if he had come only in his divinity, who would have borne him? Who would have grasped him? Who would have received him? But he took what we were, so that we might not remain what we were: but what we were by nature, not by fault. For he came as a man to men, but not as a sinner to sinners. Of these two, human nature and human fault, he took the one and healed the other. For if he had taken our iniquity, he too would have sought a Savior. He took it, however, to bear and heal it, not to have it; and he appeared as a man among men, hiding as God.

Who, then, should bear witness to this day hidden in a kind of cloud of flesh? Give a lamp, let it testify to the day; but make this lamp great, so that whoever is more than it is the day: “Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.” O inexpressible arrangement! I, brothers, when I think about these things, marvel greatly at what John says of Christ, as the Gospel testifies: “I am not worthy,” he says, “to loosen the strap of his sandal.” What can be said more humble? What is higher than Christ? What more humble than the crucified? “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him, and rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice,” not because of his own. “We,” he says, “have all received from his fullness.” How much he says of Christ, how splendid, how lofty, how worthy—if indeed anything is said worthily of him by anyone! And yet he does not walk among the Lord’s disciples, he did not follow him, like Peter, like Andrew, like John, like the others. But he even gathered disciples for himself, and though the Lord was here with his disciples, John too had disciples. They were called John’s disciples. It was said to the Lord himself, “Why do John’s disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?” This was without doubt necessary for the faithful forerunner: that Christ should be proclaimed by one who could be believed to be his rival. John had disciples, and Christ had: he taught as it were outside, but as a witness he clung to him. Therefore among those born of women none has arisen greater than John the Baptist. There were prophets, they had disciples, but not with Christ present. Afterward there were great apostles, but because they were disciples of Christ, not because they could have disciples alongside Christ. He has disciples, gathers them, baptizes: do we think outside, or inside? Rather, in reality inside, so that as a man he might be set free by God; in appearance as it were outside, so that as a witness he might be believed. Consider this very point: Peter, Andrew, John and the others, for example, bore witness to the Lord; but it would be said to them, “You praise him whom you follow, you proclaim him to whom you cleave.” Let the lamp come, confounding the enemies; let it gather disciples. Christ has them, and John has them. Christ baptizes, and John baptizes; and people come to John and say to him, “He to whom you bore witness, see, he is baptizing, and all are coming to him”: so that, as a jealous rival, he might say something bad about Christ. But there the lamp burns more safely, there it shines more brightly, there it is strengthened: the more distinctly, the more securely. “I have already told you,” he says, “that I am not the Christ. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. He who comes from heaven is above all.” Then those who believed admired Christ; then indeed the enemies were confounded, when he was in a certain way compelled to proclaim him, who could be believed to envy him. For the servant is compelled to recognize the Lord, the creature is compelled to bear witness to the Creator; nor is he compelled, but he does it gladly. For he is a friend, not an envious man; and he is jealous not for himself but for the bridegroom.

The friends of the bridegroom do this; and there is a certain custom in human weddings that, besides the other friends, a groomsman is also brought in, an inner friend, privy to the secret of the bedchamber. But here there is a difference, and plainly a great difference. What in human weddings a man is to a man as groomsman, this John is to Christ; and the same Christ is God, the bridegroom, the mediator of God and men—but insofar as he is man. For insofar as he is God, he is not mediator but equal to the Father, the same as the Father, one God with the Father. How could that sublimity be a mediator, from which we lay far, far separated? To be in the middle, let him take something that he was not; but, so that we may reach him, let what he was remain. For see, God is above us, see, we are below him, and many spaces lie between, above all the gap of sin separates us and casts us far away. In so great a distance, since we had to come to God, by what way were we to come? God himself remains God; man is joined to God, and one person comes to be, so that he is not a demigod, as if God by part of God and man by part of man; but wholly God and wholly man: God the liberator, man the mediator; you through him to him, not through another, nor to another; but through that in him which we are, to him through whom we were made. Therefore the apostle, although he knew Christ as God—for he himself said of him, when speaking of the preceding privileges of the Jews, “Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever”—since, then, he knew him as God, and God over all, and therefore surely over all because all things were made through him—when he came to commend the mediator, he did not say God; for he is not mediator by being God, but mediator by having been made man. This is our liberation. “For there is one God.” Since you hear as Catholics, hear as instructed, hear watchfully: “One God”: is it the Father alone? Is it the Son alone? Is it the Holy Spirit alone? But surely Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one God. So, “One God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” If he had said, “One God, and one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus,” he would be understood as a lesser God. For he would be as it were separated from that deity of the Trinity, if there were one God and one mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, as though he were not the God who is called one. But because in the unity of God are Father and Son and Holy Spirit, let divinity keep the unity, let humanity take up the middle place.

By this middle position the whole mass of the human race, estranged from him through Adam, is reconciled to God. “For through Adam sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned.” Who could be dug out from here? Who could be distinguished from this mass of wrath for mercy? “For who distinguishes you? And what do you have that you did not receive?” So it is not merits that distinguish us, but grace. For if merits, it is a debt; if it is a debt, it is not free; if it is not free, it is not grace. The apostle himself said this: “But if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” We are saved through one: the elder, the younger, the old, the young, little ones, infants; we are saved through one. “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” “Through one man death, and through one the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Here someone meets me and says: How “all”? What about those who are to be sent into Gehenna, who will be condemned with the devil, who will be tormented in eternal fire? How “all” and “all”? Because no one comes to death except through Adam, no one to life except through Christ. If there were another through whom we came to death, not all would die in Adam. If there were another through whom we came to life, not all would be made alive in Christ.

What then, someone says, does an infant too need a liberator? Plainly it needs one: the mother bears witness, faithfully running to the church with the little one to be baptized. Mother Church herself bears witness, receiving the little one to be washed, and either to be sent away freed or to be nourished with devotion. Who would dare to bear witness against so great a mother? Finally, in the little one itself its weeping is a witness to its misery. As far as it can, weak nature that understands little bears witness: it does not begin with laughter, it begins with weeping. Recognize the wretched one; hold out help. Let all put on the bowels of mercy. The less they can do for themselves, the more mercifully let us speak for the little ones. The Church is accustomed to give orphans help in protecting their property: let us all speak for the little ones; let help be given them by all, lest they lose their heavenly inheritance. For their sake too the Lord became a little one. How could they not belong to his liberation who were the first to deserve to be killed for him?

Finally, of the Lord Savior himself, when his birth was foretold as near, it was said: “They shall call his name Jesus: for he will save his people from their sins.” We hold the name Jesus, and we have the interpretation of this name. Why Jesus, which in Latin is called Savior, why Jesus? “For he will save his people.” But Moses saved his people with a mighty hand and with the help of the Most High from the persecution and domination of the Egyptians; Jesus son of Nun also saved his people from persecutors and the wars of the nations; the judges saved the people, freeing them from the foreigners; the kings did so too, freeing them from the domination of the nations barking all around. Jesus does not save in this way, but “from their sins.” “They shall call his name Jesus.” Why? “For he will save his people.” From what? “From their sins.” Now I ask about the little one: he is brought to the church to be made a Christian, to be baptized—I suppose so that he may be among the people of Jesus. Of which Jesus? Of him who saves his people from their sins. If he has nothing in him to be saved, let him be taken away from here. Why do we not say to the mothers, Take these little ones away from here? For Jesus is the Savior: if these have nothing in them to be saved, take them away from here. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Will anyone dare to say to me in this crisis of the little one: Jesus is for me, Jesus is not for him? So Jesus is for you, Jesus is not for him? Does he not come to Jesus? Is it not answered for him that he believes in Jesus? Are we establishing another baptism for little ones, in which there is no remission of sins? Plainly, if this little one could speak for himself, he would refute the voice of the one contradicting and would cry out: Give me the life of Christ; in Adam I died; give me the life of Christ, in whose sight no one is clean, not even an infant whose life on earth is one day. He who gives from his own would not deny them grace. Let mercy be shown the wretched. Why is their innocence praised beyond measure? Let them find a Savior; let them not yet feel a flatterer. We plainly ought not even to dispute in so great a danger to infants, lest by disputing we seem to delay their salvation. Let him be brought, washed, freed, made alive. “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” He found no way to come into the life of this world except through Adam; he will find no way to escape the punishment of the world to come except through Christ. Why do you shut the only door? “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Listen, he cries to you: “For those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Why do you call this one well, unless because you contradict the physician?

So, he says, John too, of whom you were speaking, was born with sin? You have plainly found someone born without sin, if you find someone born without Adam. You do not wrench this statement out of the hands of the faithful: “Through one man death, and through one the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed through to all men.” If these were my words, could this statement be put by me more expressly? More evidently? More fully? “So it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned.” Now make an exception of John: if you separate him from men, if you separate him from that track of human descent, if you separate him from the union of male and female, you will also separate him from this statement. For he who willed to be separated from it deigned to come through a virgin. Why do you force me to discuss the merits of John? He greeted the Lord in the womb: but I think he greeted him from whom he desired salvation. He does not seek your most pernicious defense. When the Lord came to his baptism, conscious of the common weakness, he said: “I ought to be baptized by you.” For the Lord came to commend humility even in baptism, to consecrate the sacrament itself. For he received baptism as a young man just as he received circumcision as an infant. He received remedies to commend them, not wounds. But why would John say, “I ought to be baptized by you,” if he were utterly clean of all harm, if there were nothing in him to be healed, nothing in him to be cleansed? He calls himself a debtor, and you clear him, so that his debts may not be released. “I ought,” he says, “to be baptized by you”: I need it, it is necessary for me. And this was granted him there. For when the Lord went down into the water, John was not apart from the water. What more? Let the contrary disputer stop from now on, if it can be, because the Savior himself also set free his herald.

On the birthday of Saint John, among the other things that seemed worth saying, our sermon was led to the baptism of little ones; and because it was already long and we were thinking of ending it, not as much was said on so great a question as ought to have been said by concerned people in so great a danger. What makes us concerned is not the doctrine itself, long since founded with the highest authority in the Catholic Church, but the arguments of certain people which are now becoming more frequent and trying to overturn the minds of many. Today, then, with the Lord’s help, it has pleased us to speak on this. We are indeed celebrating the solemn day of a martyr; but the cause of all the faithful is greater than that of the martyrs alone. For not all the faithful are also martyrs, but those are martyrs because they are faithful. Let us see, then, what they propose and what moves them; for we ought to think not so much of refuting them as of healing them.

They concede that little ones ought to be baptized. So the question between us and them is not whether little ones are to be baptized; the question is about the reason why they are to be baptized. This, then, which they concede, let us hold without any doubt together with them. That little ones are to be baptized, no one doubts. Let no one doubt it, since not even those doubt it here who contradict in some part. But we say that they will not have salvation and eternal life otherwise than by being baptized in Christ; they say it is not for salvation, not for eternal life, but for the kingdom of heaven. Attend a little while we explain, as we can, what this means. A little one, they say, even if he is not baptized, by the merit of innocence, because he has no sin at all, neither his own nor original, neither from himself nor drawn from Adam, must, they say, have salvation and eternal life, even if he is not baptized; but he is to be baptized for this reason, that he may also enter the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of heaven. If this must be discussed, it must surely be discussed for their sake, not ours. For they are our brothers; they have been disturbed by the depth of the question; but they ought to have been guided by the helm of authority. For when they say that little ones are to be baptized not for receiving salvation and eternal life, but only for the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, they admit indeed that they are to be baptized, but not for eternal life, rather for the kingdom of heaven. What about eternal life? They will have it, they say. Why will they have it? Because they have no sin and cannot belong to condemnation. So is there eternal life outside the kingdom of heaven?