In praecursorem domini

On the Forerunner. The most blooming meadows, variegated with golden-tressed flowers, adorned with fair-scented trees, stirred by sweet-voiced birds, both charm the hearing of men and warm their sight. For when the sun’s golden rays shine round about, the fiery gleams, reflected, flash back radiant beams. There, the lisping of chattering birds sends forth a clear melody with pipe-like notes; there, the gentle breezes of well-sounding winds, stirring the hollows of the cliffs amid the contending circles of the birds, sing in harmony, as in the likeness of a lyre; so that even the shepherds and cowherds dwelling in huts, having the lyre-like melodies of the musical birds echoing in their ears, imitate them with many-toned reeds, gently leading the lambs over every pleasant place and every pasture. But there, a spring pours forth prize-winning waters; here, the honey-dripping teaching of God’s wisdom shines. There, the clear notes of musical birds; here, the melodies of holy psalms. There, the solitary dove, roaming among the trees, announces the fair-colored spring with plaintive songs; here, John, nourished on locusts and honey, having stirred the churches with his desert preachings—or rather, spiritual ones—proclaims the heavenly spring that has appeared to the world. For in those days, it says, John the Baptist comes, preaching in the desert, and saying: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. In those days.

In the demonstrations of Jesus the God, in the sojournings of the heavenly king, in the radiances of the eternal light, in those days John the Baptist appears, preaching in the wilderness. Not in the inhabited world, for the condition of men was a desert, not yet inhabited by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And what did he preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. O repentance, reaping life in tears themselves, and arraying the bridal light in the bridal veil! O repentance, accuser of the devil, advocate of those who turn back! And John had his garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his loins. Let us consider, beloved, the garment of John; perhaps his garment may become for us an enigma of salvation. That garment bears the image of the peoples turning back from the nations. He had, it says, the garment of camel’s hair. Scripture often likens the devil to a camel, because of its bulk, its twistedness, and its heavy wrath. The one who observed the watchtower in Isaiah says: I saw a rider of a donkey, and a rider of a camel. He calls the rider of a donkey Christ, since he entered Jerusalem seated on a donkey; the rider of a camel, the Antichrist who at the end of days, by the working of the devil, visits the world. And John had his garment of camel’s hair.

For already by the proclamation of piety he had turned toward himself the gentiles who, like hairs, were covering him, and had stripped that one bare, and had thickened the Church, and by the unity of faith had woven the body of the Church, and had fashioned for himself a garment of salvation. He had a leathern girdle about his loins. Scripture mentions the loins and the leathern girdle, to signify that the generative passion of chastity was deadened by the girdle placed outside from dead skin. For that was a truthful accuser of the virginity hidden within. He ate, it says, locusts and wild honey. It speaks of the Jews who leap away from the law and the commandments, as Scripture says: "Your mixed multitude leaped away like a locust, or like a grasshopper on a fence on a frosty day. The sun rose, and it leaped away, and no longer knew its place." And wild honey, because the Jews had made the sweetness of the law wild by the transgression of the commandments. Then Jesus comes to him, it says, to the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But he prevented him, saying, "I have need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Let it be for now; you must become a witness of the voice sent to me now; for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness.

I must teach that unless one is reborn from water and Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. I must therefore first act, and then teach, so that the Jews may have no pretext: "You who teach others, do you not teach yourself?" Let it go for now; for the saying of the steadfast Job must stand: "No one is clean from filth, even if his life were but one day." I must wipe away the old sin of the body; I must renew the soul with the Spirit, and the body with water. Let it go for now; I must open the womb of water and Spirit, so that I may become firstborn to many brothers. For from this womb the prophet rebukes the Jews who have gone astray, accusing: "The sinners have been alienated from the womb." Then he releases him. When Jesus descended into the Jordan, there was to be seen, beloved, a great wonder: a spring bathing in the river, and a river being baptized in the river. For Christ is the spring, as he himself says: "They have abandoned me, a spring of living water." And the bride, the Church, says to him: "A sealed spring, which sends forth." He is the same river, as the prophet says: "The river of God was filled with waters.

He came down upon the waters, and they were sanctified, and he healed them. If any of you is uninitiated, beloved, in baptism, come and see how the Father cries from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have taken delight; listen to him." The Jordan cries out, the Spirit purifies the air, the Father calls the Son, the Son purifies the heaven, the Spirit adorns the earth, and brightens the air. Now is fulfilled what was spoken long ago by the prophet: "Day by day utters a word." The Father is day, the Son is day. The Father utters a word to the Son, as Paul says: "Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; by which word he will gather us all together in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom are glory and power, for ever and ever. Amen.