But what need is there to say more about the ternary and the Triad? For just as the Triad is the head of our faith, so plainly the ternary too is preeminent among numbers, to which this finding of the sacred pledge is reckoned, and by which it has obtained a fuller honor. For it is not the number one and single, since one too is an imperfect number and lacking quantity; nor is it twofold, because the binary is commingled with matter, from which John remained pure. And so for that reason it is threefold, in that the ternary is held in honor by him and is dear to him, as one indeed honored by the Triad and reckoned with her.
But since we know you, most blessed Forerunner, to be a worshiper of the Trinity and her best herald—for which your neck was even smitten off—cease not to render her favorable toward us; so that, among other things, we may walk along the path that leads to her, shunning under your auspices whatever is crooked, and being directed unto straight ways. For your fervent love and affection toward us is not hidden from us, and that daily you impart to us abundant grace, you who preside over your flock, and as a bountiful rewarder bestow great gifts upon those who are assiduous in your temple:
which may we too obtain, and, departing hence, may we be presented to the holy Triad and be illumined by her light, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belong honor and adoration with the unbegotten Father and the most holy Spirit, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen. A laudation of our holy Father and confessor Theodore the Studite on the third finding of the venerable head of the most holy Forerunner. (From the manuscript codex of the royal library, no. 273. It is found likewise in two other royal codices.) This present day, most religious hearers, bringing the third tidings of the memory of the Forerunner, gathers us into one. For since, when a treasure has been found by chance, all run together in joy and seek to see the thing desired;
how great a delight of festal light should that rightly demand—that just now the supremely venerable head of the Baptist, far more precious than all gold and precious gems, has been brought forth by the gracious will of God, who disposes all things unto the salvation of the human race? Let us therefore exult in it and rejoice, since for men of a religious mind the reception of spiritual gifts is exultation. Let us sing in gladness; let us praise in thanksgiving: this is one solemnity, that is another laudation. The festival of nativities presents the appearance of a rising; for it displays the spiritual morning-star in such a way that, from a mother's womb, the wondrous one rises upon the world: but of the beheading, a setting;
which, that is, represents the same divine luminary in such a way that, the whole course of the spiritual day being completed, it goes down beneath the earth, and there sprinkles upon those set in hell the foregoing radiances of Christ's coming. But that which we now celebrate as the day's feast obscurely indicates something more recondite—namely, the resurrection of everlasting life. For the Forerunner has risen and, as it were, once more, by the showing of his most sacred head, has been restored to life. O wondrous thing! The earth did not endure to detain this treasure within itself for longer years and to afflict us with the loss of it; but at its own proper time, as a kind of new and ripe fruit, it produces its own fruit. The heaven therefore saw the sacred head, and rejoiced;
the human race beheld it, and was poured forth into praises; the demons perceived its meaning, and were torn asunder; it shone brighter than the sun with the light of truth, and more gleaming than the moon with the splendor of piety; it surpasses the multitude of the stars with its varied miracles. For what and how great streams of cures, clearer and more abundant than every fountain, straightway flowed forth from it? The grace of the Spirit soon breathed forth, more fragrant and more powerful than all the lilies of the field. The whole circle of lands smelled the sweetest odor and exulted. All drew from it, and from what they sought and as much as they desired, and according as their souls were stirred, they snatched for themselves. For grace is so abundant that, in the measure that the resolved will of a faithful soul has abounded, in that measure it is received.
«The head of their circuit (namely of the sinners),» says David, «is the labor of their own lips» (Ps. 139:10); but for us this head has emerged as the loosing of toils, the driving away of diseases, the flight of demons, the bountiful bestowal of every divine gift. For it is the head of him who leaped in exultation in his barren mother's womb, because of the presence of the Word of God incarnate in the Virgin's womb, of whom the most sacred David says: «Man shall come forth, and a deep heart; and God shall be exalted» (Ps. 63:7-8). It is the head of him who, while yet from the womb, was filled with the Holy Spirit; of whom the great Zechariah says: «And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High: for you shall go before the Lord to prepare His ways» (Luke 1:76).
It is the head of him who, from his very cradle until his manifestation to Israel, resolved to dwell in the desert; of whom the prophet Isaiah says: «The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths» (Isa. 40:3). It is the head of him who preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins; of whom the Scripture thus speaks: «Behold, I send my angel before your face» (Mal. 3:1). But what need is there to say more? It is the head of him who merited to touch the divine crown of the head, to whom the Lord said: «Suffer it now; for thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness» (Matt. 3:15). But in what manner could any one of mortals at all have praised the most blessed head as is fitting?
And what tongue of those born of earth could ever, to a degree that is sufficient, celebrate that wholly admirable head, radiant with the brightnesses of incorruption? But, O divine and sacred head, vessel of the most sincere and purest senses! spiritual censer of the fragrance of a sweet spirit! richest storehouse of the wonders of the rich grace! I praise your divinely braided locks, more precious than the gold of Ophir, surpassing in beauty the fillets of brides, upon which there has not gone up the razor of viciousness (namely, the deception of sin), as once upon Samson when Delilah raged against him. Magnificently I proclaim your sacred beard, surpassing that of Aaron (Ps. 132:2),
(Ps. 133:2) from which the dew of health flowed into the souls of the faithful, more excellent than the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion. I venerate your bright eyes, the most splendid torches of the spirit, purer than the eyes of a dove, more precious than the most precious emerald gems. Your ears, breathed upon by God, I offer in praises, as organs likened to heavenly voices. Fittingly, with these words of Scripture, I will use them of you in a moral sense. How beautiful are those cheeks, like a turtledove's (Cant. 1:9 and 4:3), as it is held in the Canticle: «Your cheeks are like the rind of a pomegranate; your lips are like a scarlet thread; your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, and your speech is sweet and comely» (Cant. 7:4 and 4:3).
I praise the hedge of your teeth, gleaming with the whiteness of milk, whence proceeded the word of divine preaching unto the very ends of the earth's lands. Finally, I praise your neck, snow-white as silver, which the most wicked sword overran, and from which, in place of blood, fountains of miracles flowed forth. What do you say, Herod? For to you now must my discourse be turned. Have you obtained what you sought? Have you become master of what you desired? By no means. Lo, here again for you the witness of truth, that sword of the spirit that confutes you, the wholly free tongue of piety, lives and is not dead; loosed, not bound, which more clearly than the blood of Abel cries out against you: «It is not lawful for you to have your brother Philip's wife» (Mark 6:18).
Your crime exposes you for what you are — you who would restrain a man from a wicked bed only to thrust him on to crime when wrath comes upon it. Have you grasped the lesson? By no means. Have you been chastened, have you come to your senses? Not in the least. You have not curbed your lust: your whole soul you have made over to a Maenad; for the prize of a stage-show you brought forth the most divine head, dripping streams of blood, upon a platter. O monstrous cruelty! O most shameless banquet! This very same thing is even now enacted in deed: when one takes off the head of a John, then he makes the members of Christ into the members of a harlot. For what else do drunkenness and revelling accomplish, according to the mind of the Apostle? Come forward, you too, wicked and abominable Herodias: did you reap any advantage from your reckless plot? Did you bury the Baptist beneath the earth?
Is there then anyone who even now still gainsays and resists? Truly your hope was empty, the tale you played was powerless, your zeal and effort were vain. So great a reversal of things came about, that the more you sought to hide your crime, the more it was made known abroad. Where you supposed it lay hidden, there your deed is handed down to generations of generations. And you indeed perished together with your husband by a bitter death, the corpses of you both rotted and stinking beneath the tomb and crawling with a swarm of worms; but the head that you cut off leaps above the earth: the hands of the saints do it homage, the choirs of priests attend it in procession, the ranks of monks make supplication before it, the throngs of the great magnify it and follow it with praises.
It gathers a very great multitude of men, an assembly collected by the divine power of God; gathering with itself, so to speak, the very multitude of angels, and joining us to itself in the fellowship of praise — since, being supremely dear to the angels, it stands forth as a most glorious solemnity, vying with them in equal name and glory. It pours forth the ointments of grace above nard, above saffron, above cinnamon and all the spices of the perfumer. It cries out and exclaims, ever silently exposing your machination that was full of crime. Such is the end of wickedness, and so great an infamy attends it.
Understand this, you also, O kings of the earth, you satraps and mighty ones, you governors and subjects, and all the race of mankind: so that in this, as in other matters, you who pursue what is lawful in marriage may not fall into the same guilt as that wicked woman, disfigured by like reproach. But now that we have crowned, so far as is granted us, the golden head with flowers of praise more precious than gold, come, I pray you, let us likewise take up the other members as well, lest in praising the Forerunner only in part we be seen to offer a diminished and lesser-than-just praise. What then is more splendid and radiant than the hands which were counted worthy to be laid upon Christ in baptism?
For since God is a fire, consider what was wrought by the touch of the divine head — as if by contact with fire — so that the hands of the Forerunner, with their nature in no way changed, were rendered as it were flaming. His back is in the pallor of gold, according to that which is sung (Ps. 67:14), for he carries the cross of Christ upon his shoulders. His belly is an ivory casket upon a sapphire stone (Cant. 5:14), as Scripture says, for he cast out the delights of the belly that lodge in the navel. His loins are girt with the holiness of chastity, for he received the gift of virginity. The joints of his thighs are like collars (Cant. 7:2), for he was girded with the sword of tranquillity. His legs are pillars of marble founded upon bases of gold (Cant. 5:15) — that is, upon the virtues.
His feet have divine steps, for he prepares the paths of the Lord. All the members of that most holy and most undefiled body are weapons of righteousness, a chosen and sanctified vessel. Chastity reared him into a man, unceasing prayer perfected him. Nor must I pass over even those things that are outward, namely his garment and girdle. For the patriarch Jacob had made a coat of many colours for Joseph his dearest son, but the great evangelist Matthew describes the garment of John as simple and in no way elaborate. For he says, His clothing was of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins (Matt. 3:4); thereby too darkly indicating symbols that bring the death of sin — although there the many-coloured garment is also expounded in another sense.
But what mind or tongue could I have, equal to being satisfied with praising you in each of your members, O greatest glory of mankind? Yet because on every side I am hemmed in and destitute, grant me pardon, as one most kind, and above all strengthen me, your least servant, together with my spiritual Father and your flock, and keep all who praise your divine magnificence unharmed in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion with the most holy Father and the life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.