7. And preached, saying, There comes one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
8. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
GLOSS. He said this to do away with the opinion of the crowd, which throughout that he was the Christ; but he announces that Christ is mightier than he, who was to remit sins, which he himself could not do.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Who again is mightier than the grace, by which sins are washed away which John signifies? He who seven times and seventy times seven remits sun. Grace indeed comes first, but remits sins once only by baptism, but mercy reaches to the wretched from Adam up to Christ through seventy-seven generations, and up to one hundred and forty-four thousand.
PSEUD-CHRYS. But lest he should be thought to say this by way of comparing himself to Christ, he subjoins, Of whom I am not worthy, &c. It is not however the same thing to loose the shoe-latchet, which Mark here says, and to carry his shoes, which Matthew says. And indeed the Evangelists following the order of the narrative, and not able to err in any thing, say that John spoke each of these sayings in a different sense. But commentators on this passage have expounded each in a different way. For he means by the latchet, the tie of the shoe. He says this therefore to extol time excellence of the power of Christ, and the greatness of His divinity; as if he said, Not even in the station of his servant aunt am I worthy to be reckoned. For it is a great thing to contemplate, as it were stooping down, those things which belong to the body of Christ, and to see from below tine image of things above, and to untie each of those mysteries, about the incarnation of Christ, which cannot be unraveled.
PSEUDO-JEROME; The shoe is in the extremity of the body; for in the end the Incarnate Savior is coming for justice, violence it is said by the prophet, Over Edom will I cast out my shoe.
GREGORY; Shoes also are made from the skins of dead animals. The Lord, therefore, coming incarnate, appeared as it were with shoes on His feet, for he assumed in His divinity the dead skins of our corruption. Or else; it was a custom among the ancients, that if a man refused to take as his wife the woman whom he ought to take, he who offered himself as her husband by right of kindred took off that man's shoe. Rightly then does he proclaim himself unworthy to loose his shoe-latchet, as if he said openly, I cannot make bare the feet of the Redeemer, for I usurp not the name of the Bridegroom, a thing which is above my deserts.
THEOPH. Some persons also understand it thus; all who came to John, and were baptized, through penitence were loosed from the bands of their sins by believing in Christ. John then in this way loosed the shoe-latchet of all the others, that is, the bands of sin. But Christ's shoe-hatchet he was not able to unloose, because be found no sin in Him.
BEDE; Thus then John proclaims the Lord not yet as God, or the Son of God, but only as a man mightier than himself. For his ignorant hearers were not yet capable of receiving the hidden things of so great a Sacrament, that the eternal Son of God, having taken upon Him the nature of man, bad been lately born into the world of a virgin; but gradually by the acknowledgment of His glorified lowliness, they were to be introduced to the belief of His Divine Eternity. To these words, however, he subjoins, as if covertly declaring that he was the true God, I baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. For who can doubt, that none other but God can give the grace of the Holy Ghost.
JEROME; For what is the difference between water and the Holy Ghost, who was borne over the face of the waters? Water is the ministry of man; but the Spirit is ministered by God.
BEDE; Now we are baptized by the Lord in the Holy Ghost, not only when in the day of our baptism, we are washed in the fount of life, to the remission of our sins, but also daily by the grace of the same Spirit we are inflamed, to do those things which please God.
9. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
10. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
11. And there came a voice from heaven, saying, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Mark the Evangelist, like a hart, longing after the fountains of water, leaps forward over places, smooth and steep; and, as a bee laden with honey, he sips the tops of the flowers. Wherefore he has shown us in his narrative Jesus coming from Nazareth, saying, And it came to pass in those days, &c.
PSEUD-CHRYS. Forasmuch as he was ordaining a new baptism, He came to the baptism of John, which, in respect of His own baptism, was incomplete, but different from the Jewish baptism, as being between both. He did this that He might show, by the nature of His baptism, that He was not baptized for the remission of sins, nor as wanting the reception of the Holy Ghost: for the baptism of John was destitute of both these. But He was baptized that He might be made known to all, that they might believe on Him and fulfill all righteousness, which is keeping of the commandments: for it had been commanded to men that they should submit to the prophet's baptism.
BEDE; He was baptized, that by being baptized Himself He might show His approval of John's baptism, and that by sanctifying the waters of Jordan through time descent of the dove, He might show the coming of time Holy Ghost in the laver of believers; whence there follows, And straight away coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit like a dove descending and resting upon him But the heavens are opened, not by the closing of the elements, but the eyes of the spirit to which Ezekiel in the beginning of his book relates that they are opened, or this His seeing the heavens opened after baptism was done for our sakes, to whom the door of the kingdom of heaven is opened by the laver of regeneration.
PSEUD-CHRYS. Or else, that from heaven sanctification might be given to men, and earthly things he joined to heavenly. But the Holy Spirit is said to have descended upon Him, not as if He then first came to Him, for He never had left Him; but that He might show forth the Christ, Who was preached by John, and point Him to all as it were by the finger of faith.
BEDE; This is event also, in which the Holy Ghost was seen to come down upon baptism, was a sign of spiritual grace to be given to us in baptism.
PSEUDO-JEROME; But this is the anointing of Christ according to the flesh, namely, the Holy Ghost, of which anointing it is said, God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
BEDE; Well indeed in the shape of a dove did the Holy Ghost come down, for it is an animal of great simplicity, and far removed from the malice of gall, that in a figure He might show us that He looks out for simple hearts, and deigns not to dwell in the minds of the wicked.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Again, the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of a dove, because in the Canticles it is sung of the Church: My bride, my love, my beloved, my dove. Bride in the Patriarchs, love in the Prophets, near of kin in Joseph and Mary, beloved in John the Baptist, dove in Christ and His Apostles: to whom it is said, Be you wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
BEDE; Now the Dove sat on the head of Jesus, lest any one should think that the voice of the Father was addressed to John and not to Christ. And well did he add, abiding on Him; for this is peculiar to Christ, that the Holy Ghost once filling Him should never leave Him. For sometimes to His faithful disciples the grace of the Spirit is conferred for signs of virtue, and for the working of miracles, sometimes it is taken away; though for the working of piety and righteousness, for the preservation of love to God and to one's neighbor, the grace of the Spirit is never absent. But the voice of the Father showed, that he himself, who came to John to be baptized with the others, was the very Son of God, willing to baptize with the Holy Spirit, whence there follows, And there came a voice from heaven, You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased. Not that this informed the Son Himself of a thing of which he was ignorant, but it shows to us what we ought to believe.
AUG. Wherefore Matthew relates what the voice said, This is my beloved Son; for he wished to show that the words, This is My Son, were in fact said, that thus the persons who heard it might know that he, and not another, was the Son of God. But, if you ask, which of these two sounded forth in that voice, take which you will, only remember, that the Evangelists, though not relating the same form of speaking, relate the same meaning. And that God delighted Himself in His Son, we are reminded in these words, In you I am well pleased.
BEDE; The same voice has taught us, that we also, by the water of cleansing, and by the Spirit of sanctification, may he made the sons of God. The mystery of the Trinity also is shown forth in the baptism; the Son is baptized, the Spirit comes down in the shape of a dove, the voice of the Father bearing witness to the Son is heard.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Morally also it may be interpreted; we also, drawn aside from the fleeting world by the smell and purity of flowers, run with the young maidens after the bridegroom, and are washed in the sacrament of baptism, from the two fountains of the love of God, and of our neighbor, by the grace of remission, and mounting up by hope gaze upon heavenly mysteries with the eyes of a clean heart. Then we receive in a contrite and lowly spirit, with simplicity of heart, the Holy Spirit, who comes down to the meek, and abides in us, by a never-failing charity. And the voice of the Lord from heaven is directed to us the beloved of God; Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God; and then the Father, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, is well-pleased with us, when we are made one spirit with God.
Catena Aurea Mark 1