'What then? Are you Elijah?' And he said, 'I am not.' Thirdly they wish to learn whether he himself is the prophet; and when he answered 'No,' having no longer any particular name of one hoped to come and appear among them left to say, they say: 'Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?' - meaning by this: 'You are not any of these whom Israel expects and hopes will be present; but who you are, in that you baptize, we do not know. Therefore teach us this, so that we may have something to report to those who sent us to you for this purpose.'
Let us add also this, which is connected with what has been proposed: that the time of Christ's coming was already, in a way, at hand and stirring the people, reckoning around the years from the birth of Jesus and a little earlier, up to the manifestation of his proclamation.
Wherefore, as is likely, since the scribes and lawyers, having derived the time of his coming from the divine Scriptures, were already expecting the one hoped for, there arose Theudas, who, I suppose, gathered together no small multitude as though he were the Christ, and after him Judas the Galilean, in the days of the census. Reasonably, then, since the coming of Christ was being expected and talked of with greater fervor, the Jews from Jerusalem send the priests and Levites to John with 'Who are you?', wishing to learn whether he would confess himself to be the Christ. 'And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He says, I am not.'
Who among those who hear Jesus saying concerning John, 'If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come,' would not raise the question how, to those who ask 'Are you Elijah?', John says, 'I am not'? And how must we understand that John himself is that Elijah who is to come, according to what was said by Malachi, which runs thus: 'And behold, I send you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and manifest day of the Lord comes, who shall restore the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbor, lest I come and utterly smite the land'?
And the word of the angel of the Lord who appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right of the altar of incense, spoken to Zechariah, exhibits something similar to what was said by Malachi, through these words: 'And your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John'; and a little further on: 'He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.'
Now to the first point, someone will say that John did not know himself to be Elijah; and perhaps those who establish from these passages the doctrine of metempsychosis will make use of this, on the ground that the soul changes bodies as one changes garments and does not necessarily remember its former lives. These same persons will say also that certain of the Jews who assent to this doctrine have said, concerning the Savior, that he was one of the ancient prophets, risen not from the tombs but from birth.
For how could they suppose, when his mother Mary was clearly shown, and Joseph the carpenter was assumed to be his father, that he, being one of the prophets, had been raised from the dead? And these same persons, making use also of the phrase written in Genesis, 'I will blot out every rising,' will draw into contest, opposing the doctrine, the one who has taken care to resolve the deceptive plausibilities brought forward from the Scriptures.
XI. But a certain other churchman, spitting out the doctrine of metempsychosis as a false teaching, not admitting that the soul of John had ever been Elijah, will make use of the aforementioned word of the angel, who did not name a 'soul' of Elijah with reference to John's origin, but rather a 'spirit and power,' through the words 'And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to children' - being able to demonstrate from countless passages of Scripture that the spirit is one thing and the soul another, and that what is called the power of the spirit is different from that of the soul. Concerning these matters it is not opportune to set forth much at present, lest we draw the discourse too far aside.
For the present he will content himself, with regard to the fact that power differs from Spirit, with 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you'; and, with regard to the fact that the spirits that are in the prophets, being as it were gifts given to them by God, are named as their possessions, with 'The spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets'; and with 'The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha.' For thus, he says, it will be nothing absurd that John, turning the hearts of fathers to children in the spirit and power of Elijah, should on this account have his spirit called 'Elijah who is to come.'
As support for these points he will also make use of this argument: if the God of all, having made himself familiar with the saints, becomes their God, being thus named the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, how much more will it be possible for the Holy Spirit, having made itself familiar with the prophets, to be styled their spirit - so that the same spirit may thus be called both the spirit of Elijah and the spirit of Isaiah.
This same churchman will say that those who have supposed Jesus to be one of the prophets risen from the dead may have been deceived, both according to the aforementioned doctrine and according to their supposing him to be one of the prophets; and that they may err and hold a false opinion, in addition to reckoning him one of the prophets, also on the ground that they are ignorant of his so-called father and of his actual mother, thinking that he had risen from the tombs.
And in reply to the passage in Genesis concerning 'rising up,' the churchman will respond, making use of 'For God has raised up for me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew' - showing that 'rising up' here is also applied to birth. He, then, defending himself differently from the one who supposes metempsychosis, in answer to the first difficulty, will say that, on account of what has just now been established, John is, in some sense, Elijah who is to come, but that he answered the priests and Levites 'I am not,' having conjectured the intent of their question.
For the examination previously conducted with John by the priests and Levites did not intend this - to learn whether the same spirit existed in both - but whether John himself was Elijah who had been taken up and was now appearing, according to what the Jews expected, without a new birth - a thing which perhaps those sent from Jerusalem were themselves ignorant of. To this question he reasonably answers, 'I am not'; for it was not Elijah who had been taken up, having exchanged his body, who had come, named John.
XII. But the first interlocutor, whose reasoning we set forth as supposing that metempsychosis is established from this passage, dwelling further on the close examination of the wording, will say to the second, that it is not consistent that the son of so great a priest as Zechariah, born to both his parents in old age against all human expectation, should be unknown to so many Jews in Jerusalem and to the Levites and priests sent by them, who would not know that he had been born in this way - especially since Luke testifies that 'fear came upon all who lived around them' (clearly meaning Zechariah and Elizabeth), 'and in the whole hill country of Judea all these matters were talked about.'
But if the birth of John from Zechariah was not unknown, and the Jews from Jerusalem were sending, through the Levites and priests, to inquire, 'Are you Elijah?' - it is clear that they were saying this because they supposed the doctrine of metempsychosis to be true, as being ancestral and not foreign to their secret teaching. For this reason, then, John says, 'I am not Elijah,' because he does not know his own former life.
Since these arguments have no small degree of plausibility, the churchman will again raise a difficulty against the first interlocutor: whether it accords with the character of the prophet - one illumined by the Spirit, prophesied by Isaiah, foretold before his birth by so great an angel that he would be born, one who had received from the fullness of Christ, who had partaken of so great a grace, who had understood that the truth came to be through Jesus Christ, who had narrated so many things concerning God and the only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father - to lie, and, not knowing what was in fact the case, not even to have restrained himself from speaking falsely.
For concerning the more obscure matters he ought to have refrained from making a confession, affirming neither one side of the assertion nor the other. And how would it not have been reasonable, if this were a doctrine held by many, for John to have been reticent about himself, as to whether his soul had ever been in Elijah?
And the churchman will also call upon the first interlocutor to appeal to history, to inquire from those who profess to have knowledge of the secret teachings among the Hebrews, whether such a doctrine exists among them; for if it should nowhere appear to be so, it is clear that the argument of the first interlocutor has been dissolved.
Nonetheless, the churchman will make use of the solution given above, being himself still required to set forth the intent of those who inquired. For if, as he established, those who sent knew that John had been born of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and much more those who were sent, being of priestly lineage, to whom the extraordinary blessing of offspring granted to so illustrious a kinsman, Zechariah, could not have been unknown - with what understanding, then, do they inquire, 'Are you Elijah?' - men who had read that he had been taken up as into heaven, and who were expecting his coming?
Perhaps, then, since they expect Elijah before Christ at the consummation, and after him Christ, they appear to be asking, as it were in a more figurative sense, 'Are you he who proclaims beforehand the one who is to come at the consummation before Christ?' And to this he answers knowingly, 'I am not.'
Furthermore, the churchman, standing against the arguments examined by the other, who attempts to demonstrate that the birth of John, having become so notable, could not have escaped the notice of the priests, because all these matters had been talked about throughout the hill country of Judea, will say that a similar deception befell many also concerning the Savior, since 'some said he was John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets' - as also the disciples said in reply to the Lord when he inquired of them in the region of Caesarea Philippi.
And Herod also, saying, 'John, whom I beheaded, he has been raised from the dead,' concerning the Christ, seems not to have known what was said by those who declared: 'Is this not the carpenter's son? Is his mother not called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?'
It is, then, nothing to wonder at that, just as in the case of the Savior, though many had known his birth from Mary, others were deceived, so also in the case of John - that while some had not failed to know his birth from Zechariah, others were in doubt whether the expected Elijah had appeared in the person of John.
(And indeed the perplexity concerning John, whether he might be Elijah, has no less ground than that concerning the Savior, whether he might in fact be John) - of whom, in the case of Elijah, one may grasp his distinguishing character from the wording alone, and not from direct perception, on account of 'a hairy man, girded with a leather belt about his waist'; whereas the appearance of John, being perhaps already known beforehand, and not at all resembling the distinguishing character of Jesus, has nonetheless given rise in some to the suspicion that John had risen from the dead, renamed Jesus.
For indeed, concerning renaming, as taught among secret traditions, I do not know from what source moved, the Hebrews hand down the tradition that Phinehas, the son of Eleazar - who, admittedly, extended his life down to the time of many judges, as we have read in Judges - is Elijah, and that immortality was promised to him in Numbers through the covenant called 'of peace,' in return for the fact that, moved by zeal, having been stirred by divine jealousy, he pierced through the Midianite woman and the Israelite, and stayed what is called 'the wrath of God,' according to what is written: 'Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, has turned back my wrath, in that he was zealous with my zeal.'
It is, then, nothing to wonder at if those who suppose Phinehas and Elijah to be the same person (whether they speak correctly or not - for it is not now our task to examine this) also thought that John and Jesus were the same; or at least they were in doubt about this, and wished to learn whether John and Elijah were the same.
But this matter must properly be examined more carefully elsewhere, and the discourse concerning the substance of the soul, the origin of its constitution, its insertion into the earthly body, the apportionments of each life, and its departure therefrom, must be investigated at greater length - including whether it is possible for it to be inserted a second time into a body or not, and whether in the same cycle and the same ordering of the world or not, and into the same body or a different one; and if into the same, whether the body remains the same in substrate while changing in quality, or is the same both in substrate and in quality; and whether it will always use the same body or will exchange it.
In the course of which it will also be necessary to examine what, properly speaking, metempsychosis is, and how it differs from ordinary embodiment, and whether it follows for the one who asserts metempsychosis that the world must be kept incorruptible. In which discussion it will also be necessary to set forth the arguments of those who, according to the Scriptures, hold that the soul is sown together with the body, and what follows from these arguments.
And, in short, the discourse concerning the soul, being extensive and difficult to interpret, since it must be gathered from what lies scattered throughout the Scriptures, requires its own separate treatise. Wherefore now, having briefly examined the problem as it has arisen from what was inquired concerning Elijah and John, let us move on to what follows. - 'Are you THE prophet? And he answered, No.'
'If the Law and the Prophets were until John' - then what else could we say John is, but a prophet? - just as also his father Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesying, says: 'And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways' - unless indeed someone should seize upon the word 'will be called,' noting that 'you will be' was not said - and especially because of the fact that the Savior, speaking to those who supposed him to be a prophet, said: 'But what did you go out to see? A prophet.'
'Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.' It must be observed that by 'Yes, I say to you' he affirms that John is a prophet, and does not deny that he is a prophet. But if, in addition to being a prophet, he is also said by the Savior to be 'more than a prophet,' how then, if he is a prophet, did he answer 'No' to the priests and Levites when they asked, 'Are you THE prophet?' It must be said, in reply to this, that 'Are you THE prophet?' is not the same as 'Are you a prophet?' - and we have observed similar things when examining how 'THE God' differs from 'God,' and 'THE Word' from 'Word.'
Since, then, it is written in Deuteronomy: 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; him you shall hear. And every soul that does not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among his people' - a certain prophet in particular was expected, one resembling Moses in something, namely in mediating between God and men, and in receiving a covenant from God to give to his disciples, the new covenant; and concerning each of the prophets, the people of Israel recognized that none of them was the one prophesied by Moses.
Just as, then, they were in doubt concerning John, whether he might in fact be the Christ, so too whether he might be the prophet. And it is not surprising if they were not certain that he is the same as the Christ, while also doubting concerning John whether he himself was the Christ; for it follows from this doubt concerning him that he would be both the Christ and the prophet ...
But the distinction between 'THE prophet' and merely 'a prophet' escaped most people, as it also escaped Heracleon, who, in these very words, says that John confessed that he was not the Christ, but neither was he a prophet nor Elijah. And though it was necessary for him, having understood it this way, to examine the passages as to whether he speaks truly in saying that he is neither a prophet nor Elijah, or not, he - not attending to the passages - has in his commentaries passed over such important matters without examination, saying very little, and that unexamined, in what follows, concerning which we shall speak presently. - 'They said to him then, Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?'
In effect, this is what those who were sent are saying: 'That which, suspecting you to be, we came to learn, we have now come to know that you are not; it remains, after this, for us to hear from you who you are, so that we may report to those who sent us your answer concerning yourself.' - 'He said: I am a voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, just as Isaiah the prophet said.'
Just as the Son of God, properly speaking, being no other than the Word himself, makes use of his own word - for he himself was the Word who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was God, the Word - so John, the servant of that Word, if we understand the Scripture properly, being no other than the voice itself, makes use of the voice that points to the Word.
He, then, understanding the prophecy spoken concerning himself in Isaiah, says that he is not 'a voice crying,' merely located in the wilderness by itself, but 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness' - of him who stands and cries out: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink'; and who also says, 'Make straight the way of the Lord, make his paths straight; every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and all the crooked ways shall become straight.'
For just as it is written in Exodus that it was said by God to Moses: 'Behold, I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet' - so we must understand something analogous to this, even if not entirely similar, namely that the Word who was in the beginning is God, and John is, in relation to him, as Aaron was to Moses; for John was the voice that indicates and represents that Word.
Wherefore, quite fittingly, Zechariah is enveloped in no other punishment than the deprivation of voice, for having said to the angel, 'By what shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days' - a punishment fitting because of his unbelief concerning the birth of the voice, according to what was said to him by Gabriel: 'Behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.' This same Zechariah, then, when he had asked for a writing tablet, wrote, saying, 'John is his name' - and all marveled - he received back his voice: 'For his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue, and he spoke, blessing God.'
Just as, in discussing in what manner the Son of God must be understood to be the Word, we have made clear what has been set forth, so, by a fitting sequence of thought, since John 'came for a testimony, a man sent from God, that he might bear witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him,' we must understand that John was one who alone was able, as a voice, to contain worthily the Word that was being proclaimed.
And we shall understand this especially if we recall what we set forth earlier in expounding 'that all might believe through him,' concerning 'This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.' And it is well said also that he is not 'the voice of one speaking in the wilderness,' but 'of one crying in the wilderness'; for the one who cries out, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' also speaks - but it is possible for this same one to speak without crying out.
He cries aloud and shouts, so that even those far from the speaker may hear, and the hard of hearing may comprehend the greatness of what is said through the greatness of the voice that is proclaimed — thereby helping both those who stand far from God and those who have lost the keenness of their hearing. For this reason Jesus also stood and cried out, saying: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." For this reason John also bears witness concerning him and cries out, saying [this]. For this reason God also commands Isaiah to cry out with the voice, saying: "Cry out." And I said, "What shall I cry?"
But unless the intelligible voice of those who pray be altogether great, and not small, God — who says to Moses, "Why do you cry to me?" — does not hear the shouting and crying of those who pray in this way, even if they increase the shout and the cry; [Moses], not having cried out perceptibly (for this is not recorded in Exodus), but having cried out greatly, through prayer, with the voice heard by God alone. For this reason David also says: "With my voice I cried to the Lord, and he heard me."
There is need of the voice of one crying in the wilderness, so that the soul which is deprived of God and desolate of truth (for what other desolation is more grievous than a soul's being made desolate of God and of all virtue?), because it still walks crookedly and needs teaching, may be exhorted to make straight the way of the Lord. This way is made straight by the one who in no way imitates the crookedness of the serpent's course, while the one opposed to this perverts it. Therefore such a one, together with those like him, is rebuked through: "Why do you pervert the straight ways of the Lord?"
The way of the Lord is made straight in two ways: according to the contemplative [aspect], made clear in truth unmixed with falsehood, and according to the practical [aspect], when, after sound contemplation of what is to be done, action in harmony is rendered to the sound reasoning concerning what is to be done. And that we may understand more precisely "Make straight the way of the Lord," it will be opportune to cite what is said in Proverbs: "Turn aside neither to the right nor to the left"; for the one who turns aside to either has lost [the power of] making straight, no longer being worthy of visitation once he departs from the straightness of the journey; for the Lord is righteous, and has loved righteous deeds, and his face beheld uprightness.
What he sees, he illumines; therefore the one who is visited, perceiving the benefit that comes from the visitation, says: "The light of your face was marked upon us, O Lord." Let us stand, then, according to what was said by Jeremiah, upon the ways; and having seen, let us ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and let us see which is the good way, and let us walk in it — just as the apostles stood and asked the patriarchs and the prophets for the eternal paths of the Lord, whose writings, having inquired of, they afterward, by understanding them, saw the good way — Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the way" — and they walked in it.
For the good way is the one that leads to the good Father — to the good man who brings forth good things out of his good treasure, and to the good and faithful servant. But this way is narrow: the many do not have room to travel it, nor do the grossly fleshed; but it is also a way pressed upon by those who force their way through it — that is, it is the way for those who press forward by force to travel; for it is not said "pressing" but "pressed."
The one who does not loose the sandals from his feet, nor genuinely accepts that the place where he stands, or which he treads, is holy ground, presses upon this way — which is living and perceives the peculiar qualities of the one traveling it. But it will lead one who is [alive] to life — the one who said: "I am the life."
The Savior, in whom is all virtue, is manifold in his conceptions [epinoiai]; therefore he is, for the one who has not yet arrived at the end but is still progressing, a way; but for the one who has already laid aside all deadness, life. The one who travels this way is taught to carry nothing into it — for it itself has loaves and the things pertaining to life — because the enemies can do nothing within it, nor does he even need a staff; and since it is holy, not even sandals.
However, "I [am] a voice crying in the wilderness" and what follows can also be equivalent to "I am he concerning whom it is written, a voice crying," as though John himself were the one crying, and his voice were crying in the wilderness: "Make straight the way of the Lord." But Heracleon, discoursing more disparagingly concerning John and the prophets, says that the Word is the Savior, while the voice is the one in the wilderness understood through John, and the echo is the whole prophetic order.
It must be said to him that, just as, if a trumpet gives an unclear sound, no one prepares for war, and the one who, without love, has knowledge of mysteries or prophecy has become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal — so, if the prophetic voice is nothing other than an echo, how does the Savior, sending us to it, say: "Search the Scriptures, for you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify [of me]"; and, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote concerning me"; and, "Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you, saying:"
"This people honors me with their lips..." — for it is not [true] that one who accepts [the notion that the prophetic word is merely] an unclear sound can reasonably be praised for it by the Savior, nor is it possible to be equipped from the Scriptures — as from the voice of a trumpet, to which we are sent for the war against the opposing powers — if the sound of the voice should prove to be unclear. But in what way, if the prophets did not have love and were therefore this same sounding brass or clanging cymbal, does the Lord send us, to be benefited, to their echo, as those [Heracleon and his school] have taken it?
I do not know how, without any argument, he declares that the voice, being more proper to the Word, becomes Word — just as the woman is transposed into the man. And as one having authority to establish doctrine, to be believed, and to make one progress, he says that the change into voice occurs by means of the echo, assigning the place of a disciple to the voice that changes into Word, and that of a slave to the [change] from echo into voice. And if he had brought any plausibility at all to the construction of these things, we would even have striven for their overthrow;
but a bare, unargued denial suffices for its overthrow. But what we deferred to examine in what preceded — how it has been set in motion — let us now take up. For the Savior, according to Heracleon, calls him [John] both prophet and Elijah, but he himself [Heracleon] denies each of these. And [Heracleon says] that when the Savior calls him prophet and Elijah, he teaches not John himself but the things concerning him; but when he calls him "greater than the prophets" and [greatest] "among those born of women," then he characterizes John himself; yet [Heracleon says] John himself, when questioned concerning himself, answers — not the things concerning him.
As for how great an examination we ourselves have made concerning these matters, as far as possible, leaving none of the stated terms unaccounted for — [it is fitting] to compare it with what has been pronounced by Heracleon, since he does not have the authority to say whatever he wishes. For how [it is that] his being Elijah and a prophet concerns the things about him, while his being the voice crying in the wilderness concerns himself, he does not attempt to demonstrate even in the slightest; rather, he uses an illustration — that the things about him [John] are, as it were, garments, being other than he himself, and that, if asked concerning the garments whether he himself were the garments, he would not have answered "Yes."
For how being Elijah, who is to come, could be garments of John, I do not at all perceive according to him [Heracleon]; perhaps, according to us — as we have been able to explain "in the spirit and power of Elijah" — this spirit of Elijah can somehow be called a garment of John's soul.