787 SPURIA. were fed, this one ate the tips of herbs: that one wore a sheepskin, this one camel's hair: that one was austere and apt to reprove, and this one likewise: that one rebuked Ahab, the king of the Jews, and Jezebel his wife: "You are the one," he said, "who subverts Israel and the house of your father" (3 Kings 18:18): so too John Herode and Herodias: "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (Mark 6:18). "And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children" (Luke 1:17). What is it, "To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children?" The fathers of the Jews, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs, and all the just, when they saw the people prone to sins and easily fornicated with strange gods, they turned away from them as being such. But from the time that John preached the baptism of repentance, many were turned to God. When, therefore, they perceived that their own fathers were turning to God, they too turned their own hearts to them, and this is it, "To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, to make ready a perfect people for the Lord" (Ibid.), acceptable; of which David the prophet foretold, saying, "This is the generation of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob" (Ps. 23:6). B Zacharias, the old man, is still astonished at the conception of the wonderful boy: he still hears of that unusual birth with indignation; neither does he wisely consider within himself that the potter and creator of the womb can renew a worn-out one: and because of this he has fallen into the precipice of unbelief. For when the angel said: "Behold, Elisabet your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John," Zacharias resists the words and says: "Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days." Whence, he says, shall I be certain and sure? What kind of proof for this promise can you finally offer me? Show me now also the rod which, as in the time of Aaron the high priest, has blossomed: then indeed I will believe you that old age can also produce the fruit of a little child. "For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days" (Luke 1:18). Your words are indeed good and pleasing, but the promise is hard to believe. You promise me a son as if you were a matchmaker, hope after hope, to be sure; the flower of my age has passed: I have consumed all the time of my youth without bringing forth any fruit: when I have become 788 as a dry log, do you then compel me to bring forth fruit? I walk through the market with a bent body, and I can no longer look up to the sky: old age drags me to the earth that is related to me; for I am earth, and to earth I shall return: I am barely able to advance the step of my feet, and two feet do not suffice for me to walk; I carry a staff as a substitute for a third foot: for no son has been given to me up to this point, by whom I might be led by the hand; I am a movable tomb and a walking corpse. How then, from this time, will a son call me father? "For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days." When old age leads me to the grave, am I then to ascend the bridal chamber and beget a son, when the sun of my youth has set for me? And I am worn out with many years, and the womb of Elisabet is withered and dead. Whence, therefore, shall I know this? "For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days." And the angel answering said to him: "I am Gabriel who stand before God: and I am sent to speak to you, and to evangelize these things to you; and behold you shall be silent, and shall not be able to speak until the day in which these things shall come to pass, because you have not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time." "And behold you shall be silent, and shall not be able to speak" (Ibid. v. 19, 20). I wish to do something, and you inquire, how? I have determined to produce a miracle, and you seek the reason and method? But you curiously examine the beginning of my works. Is any word impossible with God? Tell me, whence was Isaac born? Did not his father Abraham, an old man, beget him, and call Sarah, an old woman, his mother (Gen. 18)? You, being called to the same expectation, why did you not receive my words as he did? Wherefore, "You shall be silent, and shall not be able to speak, because you have not believed my words": I shall bind your tongue, which moved itself to an immoderate response: in the organ and member with which you committed sin, in that you shall also be punished: "For by what things a man sins, by the same also he is tormented" (Wisd. 11:17). Therefore, "You shall be silent, and shall not be able to speak, because you have not believed my words": being able to speak, you did not believe my sayings; being silent, await my words, "Which shall be fulfilled in their time" (Luke 1:21). For things which are impossible among men are possible with God. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. C
IN THE PRAISE OF THE CONCEPTION OF SAINT JOHN THE PROPHET, PRECURSOR, AND BAPTIST
Moses the great, that servant of God, the head of the prophets, the traveler of the sea, the charioteer of the air, the dispenser of the manna, the lawgiver of God, who was cast out by his mother, and saved by the enemy, this man, such and so great, built a tabernacle for the people of Israel according to the likeness which he had been taught by God on the mountain. And indeed he had made all those holy and sacred things which were contained within the inner partition; but what was the innermost was inaccessible and impassable to them, called the Holy of Holies. To this pattern of the tabernacle Solomon also built a temple; which not only in the value of the material and the variety of the art, but even in the very appearance of its structure, eclipsed all temples that are seen on the earth: so that they might never burn with a desire for those things which were among the Egyptians. And indeed that temple builds a likeness of the whole of this universe, both of that which falls under the senses and of that which is understood by the mind. For just as here are the earth and the heavens, and the intermediate space, this firmament: so also God ordered it to be made: and when He had divided this temple into two parts, and had spread the veil in the middle, it permitted that which was outside the veil to be approached by all: but that which was within, it was inaccessible to all, and to be seen by no one except the high priest alone, as had been commanded by the angel, with Moses speaking, so that...