In conceptionem venerabilis praecursoris

Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, discourse on the conception of the venerable Forerunner. 1 All the leapings of the God-bearing prophets are great and most glorious of all; for they move their feet and work their hands together with God from the Spirit. The Word and Son, Christ and God, immaterial, is borne upon their tongue—that Word who composed the beauties of heaven and forged the lightning of the solar chariots, who set the monthly horns for the moon, who yoked and unyoked the harmony of the stars, devising a proper course for each and enjoining upon them one common road, who did not let the clouds fly unbridled, but as the season calls, and the fruit of the fields seeks, and the farmer demands and desires and prays, and all those below intercede with the one above. 2 He himself said to the sea: "Leap and rage; and let the waves be raised up, but let them be broken within you." So let it frighten, that the seafarer may not acquire forgetfulness of the creator; but let it not sink the merchant, that the element may not become harmful to the heir. He himself distributes to the dry land the flowers, the plants, the fruits, the shoots, and honored each region with the excellent goods that spring forth, and showed the whole earth as one body divided into many members in many places. He himself distributes to the prophets the pipes and divides the reeds and forges the trumpets, sets the cymbals in motion and articulates the drums, allots the lots and assigns the gifts.

And the Baptist John has been allotted a double and more glorious domain, for while still young he forced the times, overstepped the boundaries of nature, and the womb could not contain the child, the matrix could not confine the prophet. He had no utterance, yet he filled the whole earth with glorious words. His tongue had no pipe, yet its melody reached the inhabited world. The trumpet of his mouth was mouthless, yet the sound of his teachings reached heaven, and the infant, so confident in the potter, strengthened the clay. The time had not come, nor had the birth arrived, the birth pangs were not present, the months were not completed, and the infant, without a tongue, spoke to the child, and used his leaps instead of some pipes, and kicked the womb like a drum, and running around the belly struck it like a cymbal, and found for himself a pure, broad, well-toned, belly-stringed lyre, and commanded his mother to say to Mary: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Blessed are you among women," because you have loosed the bonds, you have freed nature, you have slackened the birth pangs of Eve, you have set Adam above his necessities. "Blessed are you among women": for through you the barren mother, and the infant speaks clearly, and the child utters words beyond orators, and the one not yet lisping has been revealed as an evangelist. "And blessed is the fruit of your womb." I am voice and thunder, bridal guide and lamp, mediator and herald, prophet and apostle, trumpeter of the gift of life, smoother of a path having no obstacle, a baptist considered in the flesh, forerunner of a king whose tribunal is everywhere, whose throne is borne by all the elements. All serve as bodyguards, but no one has seen the face of the one guarded or knows his form. All tremble, pondering his glory, they become thunderstruck in their mind, trying to conjecture his essence or imagine his power. Let John then be hymned, the citizen of the desert, the wall-builder of the Jordan, the beholder of the divine-winged dove, the watcher of the paternal cloud, the hearer of the voice which set forth the worth of the son, revealed the glory of the Word, uncovered the glory of the only-begotten. Let John be hymned, the piper of the song to which all run. For who hearing does not repent, does not hasten to be washed, does not desire to be cleansed, does not bring a bucket to the spring to draw and drink, wishing to cool the burning heat? Who, learning that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, does not desire to overtake his brother and does not hasten to anticipate his neighbor?

Let John be hymned, whose first miracles and last are great and exceedingly radiant. The first miracles: Gabriel announced his birth to him; an angel interprets the conception to Zacharias. The priest, standing between the temple and the altar, received the gift from heaven, and wretched were the children of the Jews who were so far removed; for where the priest of God received the divine communication, there they sharpen the sword, arm their hands, practice murder, and perform the deed. And what did Gabriel say to Zacharias? "Do not fear, Zacharias, for your prayer has been heard, and behold, your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And he will be joy and exultation for you, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great before the Lord, and he will drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. And he himself will go forth before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers toward their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to prepare a prepared people for the Lord.

You hear what great wealth John the Baptist receives before being born, and of how many good things he becomes the agent for the instruments of his generation before being conceived. "Do not fear, Zacharias," he says, that is, the redeemer is coming and the people cease from sinning. "Your prayer has been heard"; for it is time for the heaven to be bent down and the earth to receive the creator. "And behold, your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son"; the barren woman gives birth, so that there may be time for the virgin to become a wonder and a mother of God. "And you will call his name John"; the name is fittingly strange, since the thing for which the name is given is also strange; the appellation is new, for the mystery that is to be administered through him is new. "And he will be joy and exultation for you"; joy because you beget him than whom "no greater has arisen among those born of women," and exultation because the end of the law and the prophets will be the one born from you. 8 "And many will rejoice at his birth," those who receive his proclamations of repentance and are purified by the bath of baptism; but scribes do not rejoice, and Pharisees mourn with them; to these he foretells the winnowing-fan and threatens the axe and proclaims the excision, because the thicket was for them thorny, overgrown, wild, untamed. And what else did Gabriel announce, glorifying the Baptist: "He will be great before the Lord"? "He will be great," because he points out the lamb that takes away the sin of the whole world, but "before the Lord"; for the things of heaven are not great

Perception, but for the Jews the mysteries of Christ are even a laughingstock, and they mock the heralds of the truth, considering the orators of grace to be enemies. "He shall not drink wine or strong drink," so that the spirit that chose to dwell in him might not be constricted. "He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb," it says, not simply nor in vain anticipating the gift and forestalling the graces, but in order to proclaim the light before conversing with the light, to announce the creator before beholding the elements, to herald the sun before seeing the course of the day, before observing the boundaries of the night. "And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God." For he was the teacher of the great Andrew, he was the instructor of John the Theologian, before they offered themselves to the net. From him the apostles learned: "Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," "Rabbi, where do you stay?" they say, following him, hastening to enter the tent of the uncontainable. "He will go before him in spirit and in the power of Elijah," not in soul and body. Away, away with such absurdity. The children of the Greeks prattle and mythologize these things, that souls pre-exist and pass from bodies to bodies, as those who are deranged say, weaving a crowd of superfluous and vulgar words about them. But the creator gave each soul its own body, whence John, even if he is called a second Elijah and is so spoken of out of zeal for him, is not so in soul and body.

But the one who gave him his activity in the Spirit, this one also gives to John the Baptist and Forerunner a measure of gift such as he received. The one who supplied the power to the ancient one, this one promises to supply it to the new one. 11 This one "will turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient in the understanding of the righteous." "Fathers" means Israel, "children" means the nations because of the time, but the fathers turn toward the children, since the children receive the source of life, and as grateful and faithful they appropriate the banquet of joy, and having taken the table of light beforehand, they sit around it. Hence those called "fathers" are rightly termed "disobedient"; for concerning them it has been proclaimed to the prophet Isaiah: "I know that you are hard, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead is bronze," in order to explain the inflexibility of the synagogue and the extreme disobedience of its heirs. "Righteous" are those from the nations; for even if they were ignorant of righteousness for a short time, now they are learning it with zeal; even if they did not know the door of piety, now they joyfully run and bring themselves into the bridal chamber; even if they were far from the light, now they behold the entire sun with pure eyes. And what else does Gabriel promise that John will accomplish, "to prepare for the Lord a people that is prepared"? And who prepared it, if not assuredly Christ? For the one who formed it re-formed it; the one who first set the wheel in motion, this one later set it rolling again; the one who said, "Let there be a man for a living soul," this one said:

I do not wish the sinner to die." And these things Gabriel, descending from the heavens, announced; and in these words John was sown within the womb of Elizabeth and came to be, and he who was in the womb, anticipating from the womb, greets him, and he who is in the belly theologizes while still held by the bonds of the belly; and being born, he is sent into the desert, that he might be likened to the angels, that he might converse with God, that he might become free from the smokes and tumults of worldly life, that he might practice courage, that he might be taught by the sensible beasts in what manner he must box with the hidden ones and fight against the lurking ones. 13 And as his age increased and time advanced, he became a diner at a table that had no cook, nor a hired chef; for wild honey was his, entirely unseasoned; and locusts were his dishes, whose sacrifice was without iron, whose slaughter was without a knife, needing no cauldrons, requiring no coals. He had no need of external seasoning, but possessed the seasoning from himself. And camel's hair furnished the garment for the Baptist, that the spirit might be warmed while the body was worn down, and that as the flesh wasted away, the worms of pleasures might be killed. But he also girded his loins with a leather belt. And the mortification of pleasures shone more than gold, sanctification flashed more than electrum, purity concealed the rays of many-gemmed stones.

Thus, having practiced philosophy, he was perfected as a true ascetic, a blameless runner, an irreproachable soldier, a just bridal escort, a pious herald, a mediator, and a forerunner, "abstaining from every evil thing whatsoever." How often did the devil, seeing him philosophizing in such a manner, envy him? Yet, nevertheless, he was unable to slander him. And what did he so intensely thirst for, long for, and desire? What was he to slander in the athlete, what to mock in the soldier, what to deride in one who held nothing in his hands? What prosperity was he to recount in one who had no kinship with worldly success? He could not slander children whom he had not fathered, nor daughters whose father he was not, nor fields which he did not possess, nor houses which he had not built, nor donkeys, oxen, or camels, none of which he had acquired, nor a wife whom he had not known, possessed, or married. Let John be praised, then, I will say again, since he apportioned the proclamation of salvation to all appropriately. For he commanded soldiers to be content with their wages, tax collectors to take nothing beyond the appointed taxes, the people to show a short path of life to Christ, the one who has to give to the one who does not have, the one who has abundance to provide the surplus to the one in need, so that the body may not be deficient, with the members contributing to one another and supplying what is necessary. This people flocked in droves to the font of baptism, and after them the Redeemer himself, wishing to follow like a shepherd after sheep and to partake of the font which he himself had revealed to the lambs.

The fingers of the Baptist trembled, his hands grew numb, each of his limbs from head to foot shook. And being unable to speak against him as a servant against a master, nor able to serve such a great command, he dared not refuse the one who gave great orders. "I have need to be baptized by you, and you come to me." How, he says, shall I wash the pure? And in what manner shall I grasp the uncontainable? How shall I whiten the light? How shall I wipe clean the sun? What need have you of my hand? What need have you of a tongue which you yourself have vaulted? What shall I say to you while baptizing? What shall I utter to the Jordan itself? What to the dove that deserts the heavens for the Spirit? What to the cloud upon which the proclamation of your father rides? Do you not know what I am, master? Do you not know why I have come? "I have need to be baptized by you, and you come to me." For were you not "conceived in lawlessness," as I was? Did not "your mother bear you in sins," or did the birth have seed? Was the pregnancy corruption, or the conception intercourse? Was the womb a bridegroom, or the belly a farmer? Was the milk from a man? Did anyone touch your mother's breast? Did the virgin fall under the curse of Eve? But what did the redeemer bring against him? "Let it be for now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Let it be for now," that is, why do you bare what is hidden before the time? Why do you uncover what must be concealed for now until the time? Why

Do you disturb the hearing of the Jews? Why do you shoot arrows at the ears of the devil? Why do you put the demons to flight from the earth before the cross? Why do you make cowards of those who are destined to serve the sacrifice of the cross even against their will?» 17 «Let it be for now.» Why do you inflict great loss upon yourself? Why do you deprive nature of its excessive pride? If I am not baptized, how will he hear a voice? If he does not hear a voice, how will he learn the counsel of the Father, how will he dare the mysteries of the Son, how will he behold the arrival of the Spirit, how will he see the heaven opening? If I am not baptized, who will sanctify the water of baptism, who will crush the heads of the serpent, how will the elements be purified, how will creation be cleansed, how will the soiled vessels of Adam be washed clean? «Let it be for now; for it is fitting for us to fulfill thus all righteousness,» which the law commands and the prophets proclaim and grace introduces and the new herald of the kingdom seeks. I was born of a woman, and the debt of Eve has been paid; I wore the form of a slave, and I freed Adam from his debt; I sat in a manger, and the one who had become bestial was released from the curse and freed from shame; I put on swaddling clothes, and I healed the wound of nakedness. For the sake of Israel I was circumcised; behold, now for the sake of the nations I am baptized, and thus all righteousness is sealed by my laws and by my works together.

This, then, was the power of the words spoken by the Word and God, and it was of such a kind. He himself, emboldened by the ministry of the mystery and made higher by the vision of the dove, and having acquired an even more brilliant boldness from the voice of the father, moved his tongue against tyrants and reproached Herod for his lawlessness, and speaks to the king with a loud voice: "It is not lawful for you to have the wife of your brother Philip." If you do not keep the law, you will not be able to hold the scepter. If you transgress the commandment, put off the purple. If you despise God, descend from the throne you received from him. "Do not exult in your arms," he says; "for the laws protect the king. Do not neglect virtue; for it is more seemly than the gold-encrusted tribunal. It is not lawful for you to have the wife of your brother Philip." "Spare the succession of the race," he says. "Do not corrupt the order of the royal seed. Tell me, by what name do you wish the child born to you from Herodias, who is being adulterated by you, to be called—son of the former bridegroom or of the second adulterer, of the one who lawfully entered the bed or rather of the one who unlawfully seized it? Shall we call the child born from her the son of Philip? The one born is not his. Do you then wish him to be called the offspring of Herod? But the field is not yours; the crop sown by you unlawfully is another's." The tyrant does not endure the advice, but gives chains as a reward to the teacher. And he sent the Baptist to prison and was laboring to bring about murder.

He wished to thrust the sword and was planning the slaughter, but, ashamed before the people, he put it off. So, as was natural, he sought an opportunity for the lawless deed and imagined a suitable day for the untimely cutting. But when the birthday of Herod was being celebrated—of him who ought never to have been born into the world, nor to have come forth into this common arena of human life, nor to have enjoyed the elements, nor to have benefited from creation, nor to have used the moon for his licentiousness, to have consumed the sun, to have insulted the course of the stars, to have slandered the measures of day and the boundaries of night; for he was not ashamed to break the law even by day, he did not spare the night in his debauchery, he did not respect the sun's course, transgressing the limits set by the Creator—yet on the birthday being celebrated of him who harmed the races and insulted the royal birth, "the daughter of Herodias danced in the midst and pleased Herod; whereupon he swore with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. And she, prompted by her mother, said: 'Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.' And the king was grieved; but because of the oaths and the guests reclining with him, he ordered it to be given, and sending word, he had John beheaded in the prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl; and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came, took the body and buried it, and going, reported to Jesus.

Alas, how many evils women have filled life with for men, how many thorns and caltrops they have sown and cultivated for us. A woman closed paradise to the first-formed man; women brought the flood upon the race of giants: "For when the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful," it says, they went in to them, and the Lord was angered in wrath and said, "I repent that I made man, and I will wipe out every living thing from the face of the earth." A woman tempted the great patriarch Joseph, and made the prophet converse with chains, and caused the God-bearer to sit in prison as an adulterer, to wear a heavy collar around his neck as a violator. A woman delivered Samson captive to the Philistines. A woman compelled Elijah to become a fugitive from the whole land of Israel. Now a woman dances and blinds the banquet and stupefies the tyrant with her lawless spectacle. For her hair was a snare entangling young men, the outline of her eyes tripping up those who looked. She plastered rouge over virtues, and the hook she carried was not avoidable to those who met her. She opened her mouth, and death was belched from her tongue. She bent back her neck, and the sight of her was a cause of ruin. She bared her breasts, and provided a view of the portals of Hades to those who looked too curiously. She bared her thighs, drawing up the garment of her variegated display from her feet, and serpents hissing from her loins came forth to ruin the theater.

And the nod was deceitful, the glance filthy, the speech corrupting, the movement soul-damaging, the kiss death-bringing. But Herod, caught, swore to give whatever the wicked dancer might ask. "And she, prompted by her mother, said: 'Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.' Do you see how great is woman-maddening pleasure? Do you perceive how corruption enslaves the one caught, how he who is enervated by drunkenness no longer knows the scepter, does not remember his authority, and lies as a plaything for all? For what did the dancer say to him? 'Give me here immediately on a platter the head of John the Baptist.' And these are not words of entreaty, but of command; for she does not approach the king as a maiden with fear or modesty or any restraint, but as a mistress to a servant, as to a prisoner one who has authority over bonds. 'Give me,' she says, 'on a platter the head of John the Baptist.' Do not delay the request. I require the prophet's slaughter here, the murder of the one who reproaches adultery to be accomplished in this place. Where you beheld my nakedness, there I exact punishment on its triumphant denouncer.

Give me the head of John on a platter." For Herodias commanded, the adulteress ordered: "If you do not give it, you do not have the one who commits adultery with you; your bed will be widowed after the wine. When you withdraw from the couch, with whom will you consort? The mother is ashamed of the corruption, with John trumpeting, she is abashed before the servants, she is disconcerted before the bodyguards. The queen becomes a byword for all because of John's frankness. All make a tragedy of her drama, and the Baptist, the cause of the tragedy, having leaped forward, set the tongue of all in motion. He put forth the trumpet against us; he first began to denounce the queen, not being cautious about adultery. Moses sleeps, and speaks through him; the law sleeps, John awakens it against us; he calls the queen an adulteress, and he urged many to follow and become bold." "Give me then the head of John the Baptist." "Give it"; for if you do not give it, we do not need to take it; but the executioner, commissioned by us, will desert to the murder. All know you as a slave of the adulteress, a captive of the dancer. The couch bears witness to this, the banquet bears witness, the wine, the drunkenness, the covenant of oaths, the unbridled promise of the king. "Give me then here on a platter the head of John the Baptist"; for I thirst to drink his blood and to chew his limbs, to see the head of the one who reviles the palace among the royal dishes.

her, still quivering, I must bring to my mother as a gift from the royal table, since this portion of the dinner from your birthday feast Herodias expects." So spoke the girl. "And the king, grieved by the oaths and the fellow diners, ordered it to be given." Will you not accept Herod's grief? Will you not deem the tyrant worthy of pardon? For it was possible, if he had wished, to turn away the dancer. It was possible, if he had wanted, to renounce the oath. What then? If Herodias had happened to demand the tyrant's eyes, would the king have sat blind on the throne? What then? If she had wished to mutilate the ear and cut off the nose, would the tyrant have suddenly become a monster? And again, what? If she had ordered the hands to be cut off, would the scepter have fallen from the fingers? Not at all. But it was fitting to say to the girl: "I swore to provide whatever you ask that is mine; for I thought you would expect bridal pearls, or that you would ask for a field of myriad plants, or that you would desire a city which I hold as a choice part of my kingdom. But now you ask for nothing of mine; you seek what I cannot provide—you seek the head of a prophet. And how can the king give what belongs to the Creator? If you had asked for the sky, would the king be liable under the oaths, or the earth, or the sea? Not at all; for it is not in my power to give what is beyond me, what is not subject to my authority and lies beyond my hands." None of this does Herod utter, but he is grieved; for his conscience stung him. The natural law within troubled him. He was in anguish, moreover, and feared the crowd and the multitude.

For many reasons they held the Baptist in wonder. But nevertheless, since she was laboring to bring forth murder and thirsting for slaughter and considered the death of the prophet her own freedom, shamed by the oaths she feigns and sends the executioner to serve at the girl's command. And thus the Baptist's head is brought on a platter—the beauty of the prophets, the boldness of speech, the grace of repentance, the many-toned flute, the trumpet sounding with divine voice, a tongue that moves the clouds, eyes that see the unseen, ears that purely hear the mysteries of God, a head that touched the head of all. And as it was given to the girl, a leopard carried the sacrifice of a lamb, a she-wolf carried the head of a royal lion. And she brought to her mother the accuser who did not cease his reproaches even after death, nor abandon his boldness after the slaughter. But the prophet has been laid to rest, and his word has been spread everywhere; the trumpet has ceased, and the theaters of the world are filled with its sounds; the tongue is on the ground, but the utterances from it have filled the tribes; it thundered among the nations, sounding louder than thunder in every generation; for from that

They began the cry, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," and broadcast it throughout the whole earth. But you, on account of one woman, do not run down the entire world, nor, because of a single vessel that is now filthy, cast down the whole pottery of the Creator. For if a woman closed paradise, a woman again opened the bridal chamber of the kingdom. Women brought the flood upon the race of giants, but women opened the royal dais to the chorus of the apostles. A woman tempted Joseph, but a woman nourished Elisha. A woman bound Samson, but a woman commanded Barak. A woman sent Elijah fleeing into the desert, but a woman fed the same man when he was wasting away from hunger. A woman tripped up Peter, and a woman became a patron of Paul, as he himself boasts. So do you think the argument grows weary in wishing to plead for woman? It does not grow weary, but with swift foot carries off the prizes. A woman gave birth to our Redeemer. She bore and suckled the creator of the race, she gave drink to the nourisher of creation, who devised springs for creation; she carried in her arms "the one who measured the heavens by the span and the earth by the fist," the one who measured and sealed the sea with his palm. To him is the glory and the power unto the ages of ages. Amen.