Appendix to Augustine's Sermones: Sermones supposititii, Sermones 196-210

Just as a word is in some way conveyed from the speaker to the hearer by the service and vehicle of the voice, so he, sounding forth Christ, was the minister and bearer of the Word. Holy John, I say, showed in himself the type of the Law, which pointed to Christ from afar by signs and tokens; and therefore he sent two of his disciples to Christ. These two disciples sent by John to Christ are perhaps the two peoples, of whom one believed from among the Jews, the other from among the Gentiles. John directs to Christ; the Law sends to grace, and through faith in the Gospel desires that the old truth be established.

4. Exhortation. But let us, dearest brethren, so that we may be able to celebrate so holy a festival with joy not only bodily but also spiritual, prepare our minds, according to our strength, for giving alms and for keeping peace with all; and let us labour with all our strength, for the love of God and out of zeal for holy discipline, to restrain from all buffoonery or foul talk not only ourselves but also our whole household and all who belong to us; nor let us allow any pleasure-seekers to defile the holy solemnity by bringing forth lewd songs. For then holy John will be able to obtain for us whatever we ask, if he knows that we celebrate his festival peaceable, sober, chaste, without any foul talk. These things, then, dearest brethren, I suggest out of fatherly solicitude; for, God being gracious, I am so confident of your devotion that you will keep not only yourselves but also all who belong to you chaste and sober with all honourableness. Therefore, giving thanks to God, I pray that He who has granted you to begin faithfully the things that are holy may grant you to keep a happy perseverance, He who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon 198. On the Nativity of John the Baptist, 3.

1. John is honoured with a singular celebration. He surpasses human merits. Today, most beloved brethren, we keep the birthday of John, who ran before the coming of the Lord, a thing which we do not remember to have been granted to any of the saints: today, I say, we venerate his birthday with a unique and singular celebration. Therefore, since we are not able to extol him rightly by the office of the human voice, let us proclaim him by the oracle of the Lord's testimony, Christ declaring that among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). He Himself says this: and therefore recognize the magnificence of the praise from the dignity of the One praising; and thus, while no one among those born of women is asserted to be greater than he, it is given to be understood that John escaped the measure of human merits.

2. He is a voice. As Christ increases he is diminished. He signified Christ by his birth and manner of life. — I am the voice of one crying in the desert (Isa. 40:3): that is to say, I am not the Word which was in the beginning, God with God; but rather a voice, that is, I am the minister of the Word, so that through me it may reach the hearing and the senses of men. Hence the blessed Baptist declares with equal humility, He must increase, but I must be diminished (John 3:30). He must, he says, increase, because the Gospel of Christ is spread throughout the whole world; but I must be diminished, because the prophecy of John comes to an end. [He must increase, who is to be lifted up on the cross; but I must be diminished, who am to be cut short at the head.] For the prophecy of John received its end, because He who was being prophesied has come. John therefore signified the form of the Lord who was to come by his nativity and manner of life. John is born of an aged father: Christ of

a virgin mother, in the age of a world growing old; in that age, I say, which was barren in faith and in works. John came through a barren woman, when generation had been despaired of; and Christ came through a Virgin, while nature stood astounded. The one preached salvation; this One conferred it. The one baptized unto penitence; this One regenerated in grace.

3. His freedom in rebuking. When the correction of the wicked is omitted without fault. A pious device for correcting the wicked. For this is John who, condemning with public authority the impiety of King Herod, who had seized the wife of his living brother, lost his life for the sake of justice, but gained glory. And we sometimes, for the favour of men or for fear of giving offence, prefer flattery and sell the truth, [not fearing that which is terribly written: If you do not announce to the wicked man his iniquity, I will require his blood at your hand (Ezek. 3:18). Yet the teachers of the Church are sometimes accustomed to refrain from rebuke, not out of negligence towards those who sin, but because they fear that these will break out into worse evils from the very chastisement. When priests do not preach for this reason, they cannot incur guilt for their silence: for just as good men are sometimes corrected by a harsh rebuke, so on the contrary all the proud are provoked even by the gentlest admonition into worse precipices. For the preachers of the Church sometimes refrain from rebuking sinners, not of their own will but out of necessity, to such a degree that at times, by a spiritual remedy and a device of charity, they pursue certain proud men even with undeserved praises: so that, while they blush that the things said of them are false, they may be provoked to amendment of life and to good works; according to that which is written: For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does wicked things is blessed (Ps. 10:3, according to the Hebrews). And since that saying of a wise man is true, As true praise adorns, so false praise chastises, it is nevertheless not impossible with God that, for those also who, invited by human praises, have begun to practise good works, God should turn this for them into love and habit; according to that which one of the wise said: Grow well accustomed, and you will be ashamed to grow unaccustomed; and again: Let us speak good things, and speech will pass over into affection. Blessed John, however, with full and perfect freedom, preferred to endure unjust things rather than not to say just things.] Hence blessed John himself, by an evangelical address, knocks at our hearts with a saving oracle, saying: I am the voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. If we hold within us the word of truth and the affection of justice, there will be in us that way by which Christ enters the human breast. And therefore he says: I am the voice of one crying. The voice of the herald speaks of the judge; the cry threatens judgement.

4. The state of misery or of happiness is one day to be changed. And next he announces: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low (Luke 3:4–5). This, then, is what the Evangelist records in other words: He who exalts himself shall be humbled (ibid. 14:11). [The time will come, dearest brethren, when he who now neglects to humble himself to his salvation will grieve, without any remedy, that he was proud. The time will come when the humble will be raised into the heavens, and the proud plunged into the depths of hell. The time will come when all the avaricious will grieve that they were rich, they by whom Christ's poor are now mocked. This order of human custom which exists now will not always be kept: Lazarus will not always be tormented by hunger, nor will the avaricious rich man always enjoy an abundance of delicacies; but soon the one will be lifted from the dunghill by the Angels into paradise, and the other, who would not give alms, unless penitence comes to his aid, will be snatched from the luxurious banquet into hell; so that he who in this world would not give a crumb to the poor man may not deserve to receive a drop in hell; and he who would not feed the poor man from his delicacies may feed the flames from his marrow.] But let us, brethren, labour as much as we can, so that what pride had made swollen and lifted up may be levelled by humility and meekness; what iniquity had perverted may be corrected by the direction of justice; what malice

had embittered, may be tempered by the grace of goodness. Amid these pursuits may Christ the Lord find us; for He Himself has deigned to provide the way by which He may lead us through to the homeland, so that He may deign to say of us, And I will walk among them and dwell in them, and I will be their God (Lev. 26:12). If in this world He has walked in us, there He will dwell in us, Who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon 199. On the Nativity of John the Baptist, 4.

1. John is commended through his parents. Those who know how to gather gold from the earth, where they have sensed a rich vein, there they spend whatever there is of skill, whatever there is of labour. And we, brethren, since we see a heavenly treasure lying hidden in holy Zechariah, let us occupy upon him all that belongs to our speaking and all that belongs to your hearing, so that what has been acquired by common labour may be a common gain. There was, it says, in the days of Herod king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zechariah, and his wife, named Elizabeth, of the daughters of Aaron. And they were, it says, both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint. Blessed therefore, brethren, are those whom in this world no fault strikes, no crime wounds. Blessed indeed are these, whom no complaint was ever able to touch. Walking, it says, in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint. If their childhood, if their youth, if their young manhood was without complaint, where as a rule everything is a matter of complaint, what could their old age have been? If such was the beginning, what could the end have been?

2. Elizabeth was barren until the feeling of desire had passed away. Praises of John. And they had no son, it says, because Elizabeth was barren (Luke 1:5–7). It did not say, They had no sons, but, They had no son: because he who was to be born of such parents was going to be singular. Hear the Lord saying, There is none greater among those born of women than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). Because Elizabeth was barren. Elizabeth was indeed barren in body, but fruitful in virtues; slow in offspring, but not slow towards God; closed not in her seed, but in time; not denied pledges [of love], but reserved for a mystery. Brethren, holy Elizabeth's childbearing was not taken away but deferred, until there should pass away the time of the flesh, the passion of the body, the necessity of wedlock, the occasion of pleasure, the feeling of desire, and everything that confounds, weighs down and burdens the human conscience. For during a long time there was being cleansed the house of sacrifice, the lodging of holiness, the quarters of Christ's quartermaster, the dwelling of an angel, the hall of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God. You are the temple of God, says the Apostle, and the Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Cor. 3:16). Then, when every complaint of the body had been stilled, and they had become wholly without complaint, at once barrenness flees, old age revives, faith conceives, chastity gives birth, and there is born one greater than man, equal to the angels, the trumpet of heaven, the herald of Christ, the secret of the Father, the messenger of the Son, the standard-bearer of the King on high, the pardon of sinners, the correction of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and, to speak properly, the clasp of the Law and of grace, which joined the double mantle of the high priest to the holy Father in the body. The evangelist therefore describes the virtues of the father and the mother, so that the dignity of the offspring might be known from the merits of those who begot him, and that he might be proved greater than man who by his birth surpassed the law of human nativity. But if he is to come forth, let John now be born, because the nativity of Christ is at hand. Let the new morning star rise, because the radiance of the true sun is already breaking forth. Let the herald give voice, because the judge is present; let the trumpet sound, because the king is coming: and since God is about to come forth, let the angel now go before.

3. How illustrious the angel's prophecy concerning John is. He himself fulfils it while not yet born. But since a man is not sufficient to relate what is above man, the power

of the angel being born let an angel now speak. The Angel, it says, said to Zechariah: Fear not, Zechariah, your entreaty has been heard, and Elizabeth your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John; and he shall be joy and exultation to you, and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great before the Lord; he shall not drink wine and strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and he shall turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. And behold, he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the unbelieving to the prudence of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people (Luke 1:13–17). Here, brethren, human speech falls idle, the preaching of the expounder is silent, when by the angelic herald the glory of John is proclaimed, his virtue resounds, his praise is extolled: nor is there anything that man may now add to him on whom God has bestowed everything. He shall be filled, it says, with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. You see, brethren, how John reached heaven before he touched earth; he received the divine Spirit before the human; he took up divine gifts before the members of the body; he began to live to God before he lived to himself: nay rather, he lived to God before God lived to him, according to that saying of the Apostle, Now it is not I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). In the sixth month, it says, he exults in his mother's womb (Luke 1:44), and announces that Christ has come into the womb of the Virgin. An ardent messenger, who longed to announce before he longed to live. An impatient leader, who, before he arrived at a body, arrived at the King, seized arms before limbs, sought the battle line before the light, and, that he might conquer the world, first conquered nature. For he himself, without bowels, stirs up his mother's bowels; and because the body was slow in coming, by spirit alone he fulfils the office of one who brings the Gospel. What shall I say, brethren? John, before he went before Christ, went before himself. One and the same Holy Spirit fills the hearts of father, mother and son; that the song of the Lord's nativity might resound from one organ of holiness.

Sermon 200. On the Nativity of John the Baptist, 5.

1. The Emperor of heaven and earth, Who deigned to visit us, was long ago proclaimed by the oracles of the Prophets. For from the very beginning of the world the coming of the Lord Saviour was proclaimed to us. For the Word could not come to earth without the voice of a herald. The Prophets foretold Him, who announced that the Lord Christ would come into flesh; but Saint John, whose birthday, to be celebrated, has dawned today, not only prophesied the Word, but pointed Him out to the others. Rightly among the other Prophets is he called greater, who not only proclaimed and pointed out, but also baptized. John the Baptist was called greater: yet so that the disciple may not be above the Master, nor the servant above the Lord, Among those born of women, it says, there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). Of women, he says: for He Who was born of the Virgin is the founder and ruler and Lord of the world....

2. An angel was sent into the temple to Zechariah, who announced that he would receive a son in old age; to the Virgin Mary also an angel was messenger: but Mary believed, Zechariah distrusted. And he who distrusted is condemned with silence; she who believes is honoured with praises.... O blessed mother, who carried such a child, who as forerunner announced the Son of God, and baptized Him! Elizabeth was freed from the reproach of barrenness, she who bore a son promised from heaven, who, despising the riches of the world, sought the heavenly kingdoms. That he might go before the Word in the power and spirit of Elijah, while still placed in the womb he recognized that the presence of the Mother of the Lord was at hand. He is a faithful witness of Him Who was coming, as Scripture says, As the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the infant exulted for