Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Ver. 11. There hath not risen a greater] Because he was Christ's immediate forerunner, now the nearer to Christ, the more excellent, as the elements, the higher, the purer. John was beyond all the ancient prophets, both in dignity and doctrine; yet he came behind the evangelists and apostles, not in the dignity of his office, but in the clearness of his doctrine concerning the Messiah, whom he saw present, but neither saw nor heard of suffering, dying, rising again, as they did. Macarius writeth that the prophets knew indeed that Christ should be born into the world for the work of our redemption, but whether or not he should die and rise again, this they knew not. Verum longe errat Macarius, Mararius was far from the truth, saith one. The prophet Isaiah writes of all these more like an evangelist than a prophet, and is therefore called by an ancient, the Evangelical Prophet. Now the Baptist knew more than any prophet; being as the morning star that precedes the sun rising. But how Aristotle should be said to be Christ's forerunner in natural things, as John Baptist was in supernatural, and that he was certainly saved (all which the divines of Collen affirmed in print, a and showed their reasons), I cannot conceive. And yet Sleidan tells us that in the Council of Trent, the salvation of heathens, by the power of nature only without Christ, was cried up, and afterwards defended by Soto, Vega, and Victoria, as Valentia witnesseth.
a Colonienses edunt librum de salute Aristotelis asseruntque illum fuisse praecursorem Christi in naturalibus.