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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Cyril of Jerusalem
Even though Elijah the Tishbite was taken up to heaven, he was not greater than John. Enoch too was translated but was not greater than John. Moses was the greatest of lawgivers and all the prophets were admirable, but none greater than John. It is not I who would dare to compare prophet with prophet, but their Master and ours who himself declared "Among those born of women there is none greater than John." Not "born of virgins," observe! but "born of women."
Theophylact of Ohrid
I, He says, am not worthy to be even the lowest servant of His, one who would untie the strap, that is, the knot on the strap of His sandals. However, it is also understood this way: all who came and were baptized by John were loosed through repentance from the bonds of their sins when they believed in Christ. Thus, John loosed the straps and bonds of sin in everyone, but in Jesus he could not loose such a strap, because in Him he did not even find this strap, that is, sin.
Clement of Alexandria
This, then, is the type of "the law and the prophets which were until John;" while he, though speaking more perspicuously as no longer prophesying, but pointing out as now present, Him, who was proclaimed symbolically from the beginning, nevertheless said, "I am not worthy to loose the latchet of the Lord's shoe." For he confesses that he is not worthy to baptize so great a Power; for it behooves those, who purify others, to free the soul from the body and its sins, as the foot from the thong. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
John therefore was a foreteller of Christ nearer to Him in time than all who went before him. And because all the righteous men and prophets of former times desired to see the fulfillment of what, through the revelation of the Spirit, they foresaw would come to pass—whence also the Lord Himself says, "That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them,"—therefore it was said of John that he was more than a prophet, …
Ambrose of Milan
So that there can neither be penitence without Grace, nor Grace without penitence, for penitence must first condemn sin, that Grace may abolish it. Wherefore John, fulfilling the type of the Law, baptized unto repentance, Christ unto Grace.
Jerome
As he himself bodily preceded Christ as his forerunner, so also his baptism was the prologue to the Lord's baptism.
Translation