Sermons · Sermon 2932

1"So, he said, did John, about whom you spoke, be born with sin? Clearly, you found one born without sin, whom you find born without Adam. You cannot tear this understanding from the hands of the faithful: 'Through one man came death, and through one comes the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men. If these were my words, could this understanding be said more expressively by me? Could it be more evidently? Could it be more fully? Thus it passed to all men, in whom all have sinned. Now you exclude John: if you separate him from men, if you separate him from that path of human propagation, if you separate him from the union of male and female, you will also separate him from this understanding. For he who wished to be separated from it, chose to come through a virgin. Why do you compel me to dispute John’s merits? He saluted the Lord in the womb: but I suppose that he saluted Him from whom he sought salvation. He does not seek your most pernicious defense. When the Lord came to his baptism, conscious of common frailty he said: 'I ought to be baptized by you.' For the Lord came indeed to commend humility even in baptism, to consecrate the sacrament itself. For he took baptism as a young man, just as he took circumcision as an infant. He took the remedies to be commended, not the wounds. But why would he say: 'I ought to be baptized by you,' utterly free from all guilt, if there were not in him what needed to be healed, if there were not in him what needed to be purified? He calls himself a debtor, and you absolve him, lest his debts be forgiven. 'I ought,' he says, 'to be baptized by you: I need it, it is necessary for me.' And this was granted to him there. For when the Lord was in the water, he was not exempt from the water. What more can be said? Let the contrary disputant cease henceforth, if it be possible, for the Savior himself liberated even his own herald."