[Because Israel, symbolically
called “son” since Egypt, had lost its sonship through having worshipped Baal
and offered incense to idols, John gave them [a title] which suited them, Race
of vipers. Because these had lost that title of sonship, which had been
poured over them through grace in the days of Moses, they received from John a
name which was congruent with their deeds.
[After the Lord went down into the
land of the Egyptians and had returned from there, the evangelist said, Now
the true word spoken by the prophet is accomplished. He said, I will
call my son out of Egypt. He also said, He will be called a Nazarene,
because in Hebrew nezer means a “sceptre” and the prophets calls him a “Nazarene”
because he is the son of the sceptre. Because he was brought up in Nazareth,
the evangelist notes that this is like that [other prophecy], He will be called
a Nazarene.
The prophecy was in John but the
mysteries of the prophecy were in the Lord of John, just as the priesthood was
in the son of Zechariah, and the kingdom and the priesthood were in the Son of
Mary. The Law [came] through Moses, with the sign of the lamb and
many other symbols. Amaleck, the waters rendered sweet, the brazen serpent, but
the truth of [these things came[ through Jesus, our Lord. The
baptism of John was higher than the Law, but inferior to [the baptism] of the
Messiah, because no one baptized in the name [of the Trinity] before the time
of his exaltation.
John went off into the desert, not
to become wild there, but to render tame in the desert the wilderness of the
inhabited [land]. For passion, which causes trouble like a wild beast in the
midst of an inhabited [land] at peace, clams down and becomes tame when it goes
off to the desert. Be convinced of this from the example of Herod’s passion. It
was fierce in the midst of the inhabited land] at peace, and burned illegitimately
for his brother’s wife, to the extent that [Herod] lost the mild and gentle
John, who [had lived] peacefully in the desert, and had made no use of
marriage, even though allowed him by the Law. The Word became flesh and
lived among us, that is the Word of God, through the flesh which he
assumed, lived among us. He did not say, “near us” but among us,
to show clearly that it was our sake that he clothed himself with our flesh, in
accordance with what he said, My flesh is food. (Saint Ephrem's
Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty
Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes III §8-9 [trans. Carmel McCarthy;
Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993,
2000], 77-78)
