Commentaria in Isaiam
Again, by this his cry he signified that the preaching of the Gospel would be heard far and spread wide, according to Psalm 18: “Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” Beautifully St. Basil on Psalm 28 attributes what the Psalmist gives to the great voice, that is, thunder, saying: “The voice of the Lord in power, the voice of the Lord in magnificence, the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars, the voice of the Lord shaking the desert of Cades, the voice of the Lord preparing the stags,” and so on, and explains mystically of the most efficacious voice of St. John. Finally St. Ambrose, sermon 9: “Even today,” he says, “John cries by example and word, and with the thunder of his voice closes up the deserts of our sins.”
Fourth, John was a threefold voice: namely a voice, first, announcing the coming Christ; second, showing Christ present; third, inciting to penance, and so preparing for Christ. Hence in Scripture John has three titles, namely: “Voice, Angel, Lamp,” or: “Preacher, Prophet, more than a Prophet.” For John was a voice preaching penance, he was an Angel and prophet preaching and announcing the imminent grace of Christ. He was a lamp, and more than a Prophet showing Christ present. See Francis Toletus on Luke 3, note 16.
Finally hear St. Peter Chrysologus, sermon 127: “John,” he says, “school of virtues, teaching of life, form of holiness, norm of justice, mirror of virginity, title of modesty, example of chastity, way of penitence, pardon of sinners, discipline of faith. John greater than man, equal to Angels, sum of the Law, sanction of the Gospel, voice of the Apostles, silence of the Prophets, lamp of the world, herald of the judge, forerunner of Christ, harbinger of the Lord, witness of God, mediator of the whole Trinity.”
Moreover John was so wholly voice that before he was born he spoke in the womb, not by speech, but by the leaping of the tongue and of the whole body, by which he adored and preached Christ present in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, newly incarnate, and announced the same to his mother, who accordingly, filled with the Holy Spirit, recognized him, and therefore called the Blessed Virgin the mother of the Lord, that is, of God, Luke 1:44. Again, this voice could not be shut up in prison and be silent. For in prison John spoke to his disciples, and sent them to Christ, Matthew 11:3. Nay, even dying he spoke, not by voice, but bearing testimony by his blood to chastity, and to Christ. Wherefore his blood still cries, not for vengeance as Abel’s, but for the mercy of Christ.
Tropologically, St. John was the voice of all virtues. Of penitence, saying: “Do penance.” Of confession, because “he confessed, and did not deny,” that he was not the Christ, but the voice indicating Christ. Of humility, because he said he was not worthy to loose the latchet of Christ’s shoes. Of faith, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world.” Of the chastisement of sins, saying: “Ye offspring of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come?” Luke 3:7. Of justice, saying to the soldiers: “Do violence to no man, neither calumniate any man; and be content with your pay,” ibid., verse 14. Of chastity, saying to Herod the adulterous king: “It is not lawful for thee to have her,” namely Herodias, as his brother’s wife, Matthew 14:4; and for this voice he fell a Martyr. Of praise and doxology, when, being born, he moved his father Zachary to sing: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people,” and the Blessed Virgin, by saluting the mother of the Lord through his mother, he moved to sing: “My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,” Luke 1, verses 46 and 68. Let holy men learn from John to be wholly voices of virtues, and voices and trumpets celebrating the glory of God.
IN THE DESERT. Jansenius and some refer these words not to voice, but to prepare. For what, he says, the Prophet says in the first hemistich: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord,” in the second he repeats and explains when he adds: “Make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.”
But all the codices of the Evangelists, and likewise of Isaias, so punctuate this as to join “in the desert” with “voice of one crying.” For John was a hermit, and a voice crying in the desert: nor did John cry that they should prepare the way for the Lord in the desert: for he did not wish to empty Judea of its inhabitants and make them hermits; but to him dwelling and crying in the desert the Jews went out from villages and cities, to see and hear him. Whence St. Jerome, writing to Theresia, volume 9: “He chose a place,” he says, “not where no one would hear him, but one to which he might lead back peoples from the conversation of corrupt nature.
The place itself, therefore, is a form of doctrine, and solitude itself is a preaching of virtues: dwelling works, while the hearer anxiously leaves the crowds of cities.” In fact, then, John said, nay cried, of himself:
Mitres grow cheap, and the honors of the deceitful world. Only deserts please me; the world and the cities are burdensome. O blessed solitude, O sole beatitude, companion and rival of Angels!
Note: Excellent and contemplative men have always sought desert places. For the desert is as it were a school of paradise. Whence God said, Osee 2: “I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart.” Hence St. Antony, Hilarion, Jerome and countless others, leaving cities, sought solitude, where, free from the company and crowds of men, and the allurements and perils of the world, they gave themselves to study and prayer, and, burning with charity and aflame with desire, aspired to heaven. Wherefore St. Augustine, letter 76, does not fear to say: “He will not be a good cleric who was not a good monk.” So, to omit others, St. Gregory Nazianzen, sermon on the Holy Lights of Epiphany: “I cannot restrain,” he says, “the pleasure of joy; but am lifted up in mind, and forgetful of my own littleness, I strive and long to undertake the office, nay rather the service, of the great John: and though I am not a forerunner, yet I come from the desert,” namely from the solitude of Pontus, to which with St. Basil, in desire of the heavenly life, he had retired. See what was said on Lamentations 3:28 and Jeremias 9:2. Wrong therefore are our deserters the Novators, enemies of monks and anchorites, who will have it that this desert of John was cultivated and inhabited, so that John dwelt as in his father’s house, which was in the mountains. So indeed those soft and delicate reformers of the faith transform John’s desert into a city, his garment of goat’s hair and camel hair into undulated cloth (commonly camelot), his locusts into sea-crabs. But Isaias teaches far otherwise, who explains this desert as solitude, and the Evangelists, who teach that he dwelt in the desert places of Judea, and the Church, which sings:
In thy tender years, fleeing the throngs of citizens, thou didst seek the caves of the desert, that thou mightest not stain thy life with even a light breath of rumor.
And all the Fathers, whom see in Canisius, book On the Corruption of the Word of God, chapter 59.
Why John withdrew into the desert: that, after the manner of Moses and Elijah, he might show forth the spirit and virtue of Christ.
Cedrenus and Nicephorus, book 1, chapter 14, relate that John, when he was a year and a half old, was led by his mother into the desert, to escape, as it seems, the persecution of Herod. Cedrenus adds that John hid in a cave, and there his mother died, but an Angel took charge of the little John. This cave was afterwards inhabited by hermits, as is plain from Sophronius in the Spiritual Meadow. To emulate virtue, namely, that in this withdrawal from the world and the world’s vices he might prepare for himself the purity of holiness and a name, so that all would rightly have faith in him when he pointed out Christ. Hence the Fathers commonly call John the prince of Monks and Hermits. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact and Euthymius on Matthew 3:5; Jerome, letter 22 to Eustochium; Cassian, Conference 18, chapter 6.
The other cause was to signify that the Gospel would not be preached in Judea and Jerusalem, but in the solitude of the Church, and the desert multitude of the Gentiles. Wherefore this desert of John was the most celebrated of Judea near the Jordan, both for the abundance of waters and for the dwelling and miracles of the Prophets near Aenon and Salim, John 3:23.