The Greatest Born of Women

From the prison of Herod, John sends two of his disciples with the question, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matt. 11:2–3) — a question the Fathers read not as the Forerunner’s own doubt but as sent for his disciples’ sake, that they might hear the answer from Christ Himself. Jesus replies with the signs of the prophets (Matt. 11:4–6) and then turns to the crowds with the highest praise the Gospel records of any man: John is more than a prophet, the messenger of Malachi, the Elijah who is to come, and the greatest among those born of women (Matt. 11:7–15). This file follows the embassy, Christ’s tribute, and the careful patristic exposition of the saying that “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Forerunner)

The Embassy from Prison

The praise of John is set, in Matthew’s ordering, against the dark backdrop of his imprisonment. “Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” (Matt. 11:2–3; par. Luke 7:18–20). “He who is to come” (ho erchomenos) is a messianic title, and the question on its face asks whether Jesus is the awaited One — a strange question from the very man who had pointed to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29) and confessed Him “the Son of God” (John 1:34) (see Behold the Lamb of God).

The Fathers refuse to read the question as a lapse of the Forerunner’s faith. Chrysostom is emphatic that John, who had leapt in the womb (Luke 1:41), seen the Spirit descend and abide, and heard the voice of the Father, did not now begin to doubt; rather he sent the embassy for his disciples’ sake. His disciples were jealous for their master and slow to attach themselves to Jesus, and John, knowing his end was near, contrives that they should put the question directly and hear the answer from Christ’s own works, so that they might be won to the One he had announced (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 36.1–2; NPNF I/10). On this reading the question is the Forerunner’s last act of his office: even from prison, he points his followers away from himself to Christ. The tradition does not impose this as the only possible sense, but the Church’s memory of John as the unwavering witness governs its reading, and the Gospel itself withholds any hint of rebuke for unbelief.

“Go and Tell John”: The Signs of the Prophets

Christ answers not with a bare assertion but by pointing to His works, framed in the language of Isaiah. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me” (Matt. 11:4–6; par. Luke 7:22–23). The catalogue is woven from the prophet’s portrait of the messianic age — “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped … then shall the lame man leap” (Isa. 35:5–6) and “the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor … to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isa. 61:1). To answer with these signs is to say that the prophecies are now fulfilled in deed; the works themselves are the testimony (cf. Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 36.2; NPNF I/10). The closing beatitude — “blessed is he who takes no offense at me” — gently addresses the very scandal that a Messiah might leave His Forerunner in chains, and turns it into a beatitude for those whose faith is not shaken by it.

Christ’s Tribute to the Forerunner

When the messengers depart, Jesus turns to the crowds and delivers His tribute, lest any suppose that the embassy had betrayed weakness in John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? … a man clothed in soft raiment? … a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet” (Matt. 11:7–9; par. Luke 7:24–26). The threefold question rises by stages: John is no wavering reed and no luxurious courtier but a prophet — and more. Chrysostom notes the precise placement of this praise: Christ withholds it until the disciples are gone, so that it may not seem flattery offered to John’s face, but speaks it to the crowd for their benefit, and times it so that no one would think the question from prison a sign of John’s own doubt (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 37.1; NPNF I/10).

What makes John “more than a prophet” is named at once: he is himself the subject of prophecy and the one who points directly at the fulfillment. “This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee’” (Matt. 11:10), citing Malachi 3:1. The other prophets foretold the Messiah from afar; John is the herald who announces Him present, the angelos — messenger — sent immediately before the Lord’s face. The prophets saw the day; John ushers it in.

“No One Greater Born of Women”

Upon this Christ sets the crown of His praise: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11; par. Luke 7:28). The first clause is unqualified: of all who have come into the world by natural birth, none is greater than the Forerunner. The Church understands this to set John above the patriarchs and prophets, second among the saints only to the Theotokos — herself “born of woman” yet set apart by the Church’s veneration in a category of her own as Mother of God. So the Forerunner stands at the head of all the saints, and the Deesis icon places him at Christ’s left hand opposite the Mother of God, the two greatest intercessors flanking the Lord.

The second clause is the harder, and is a genuine exegetical crux: how can “the least in the kingdom of heaven” be greater than the greatest born of women? The Fathers offer several readings, and the Church dogmatizes none.

The “least” as Christ Himself. One ancient line takes “the least in the kingdom” to be the Lord, who is younger than John in age (born six months later), and reckoned least in the world’s esteem — “despised and rejected” (Isa. 53:3) — yet is greater than John by His divine nature. Chrysostom records this interpretation, by which the comparison is between John and Christ, not between John and other men (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 37.2; NPNF I/10).
The “least” as the New-Covenant faithful. A second reading, which Chrysostom also weighs, takes “least in the kingdom of heaven” of the citizens of the new dispensation: the least member of the kingdom — the lowliest baptized Christian dwelling in the grace of the New Covenant — surpasses John, who, however great, belonged to the order of the Law and the Prophets and stood at its threshold without entering the kingdom’s fullness. The greatness here is not of personal virtue but of covenantal grace: the gift given in Christ exceeds the highest attainment under the old order (cf. Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 37.2–3; NPNF I/10).
“Kingdom of heaven” as the heavenly state. Some understand “the kingdom of heaven” of the angelic or heavenly life, so that the least there is greater than the greatest in the present age — a reading that magnifies the world to come rather than diminishing John.

The first two are the principal patristic options, and they are not finally exclusive: both guard the same truth, that John’s greatness belongs to the highest reach of the old order, while the kingdom Christ brings opens a greater grace still. The Forerunner is the summit of all that came before; he is not thereby less, but the kingdom is more.

The Elijah Who Is to Come

Christ then names John’s prophetic identity outright. “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:13–15). John stands at the hinge of the Testaments: in him the line of prophecy reaches its term, and in him the herald of the kingdom appears. To call him “Elijah who is to come” fulfills Malachi’s promise that God would send “Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5), and accords with Gabriel’s word that John would go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). The tradition harmonizes this with John’s own denial, “I am not [Elijah]” (John 1:21): John is Elijah in spirit and office, the forerunner of the Lord’s first coming, not the Elijah of the flesh expected before the second (cf. Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 37.3; NPNF I/10; and see Behold the Lamb of God). The guarded “if you are willing to accept it” marks that this identity is grasped by faith, not by literal expectation.

The Forerunner’s Place in the Church

The Lord’s tribute has fixed the Forerunner’s place in Orthodox veneration. The Church honors John as the greatest of the saints after the Mother of God, and her hymnography takes up Christ’s own words: the menaion for his Nativity (June 24) and his Synaxis (Jan. 7) sing him as the prophet greater than the prophets, the boundary of the two covenants, the morning star before the Sun of righteousness. His greatness, as the next file shows, is inseparable from his humility — the same self-effacement by which he answered “I am not the Christ” is the form his greatness takes (see The Friend of the Bridegroom). That the praise comes in the hour of his imprisonment, and that he had sent it past himself to Christ, only seals the lesson: the greatest born of women is the one who exists wholly to point away from himself to the Lord whose way he prepared.

References

The Gospel According to Matthew 11:2–19. Revised Standard Version. (The embassy from prison, 11:2–3; the signs of the prophets, 11:4–6; the tribute to the crowds, 11:7–9; the Malachi citation, 11:10; “no one greater born of women” and “least in the kingdom,” 11:11; “all the prophets … until John” and “Elijah who is to come,” 11:13–15.) With the parallel in Luke 7:18–28.
Malachi 3:1; 4:5. Revised Standard Version. (The messenger sent before the Lord’s face; the promise of Elijah before the day of the Lord.) With Isaiah 35:5–6 and 61:1 (the signs of the messianic age) and Luke 1:17 (John in “the spirit and power of Elijah”).
John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homilies 36–37 (on Matt. 11:1–15). Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 10. (The embassy sent for the disciples’ sake, not from doubt, 36.1–2; the works as answer, 36.2; the timing of the tribute, 37.1; the interpretations of “least in the kingdom” — Christ Himself, and the New-Covenant faithful, 37.2–3; the Elijah question, 37.3.)