2 Now, therefore, the order of our reading obliges us to return to that same John. The same is he who was prophesied of by Isaiah, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye a way for the Lord, make His paths straight.” Such testimony gave he to his Lord and (for the Lord deemed him worthy) his friend. And the Lord, even his friend, did also Himself bear witness to John. For concerning John He said, “Among them that are born of women, there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.”
But as He put Himself before John, in that wherein He was greater, He was God. “But he that is less,” says He, “in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Less in age; greater in power, in deity, in majesty, in brightness: even as “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the preceding passages, however, John had given testimony to the Lord, in such wise that he did indeed call Him Son of God, but said not that He was God, nor yet denied it: he was silent as to His being God, not denied that He was God; but yet he was not altogether silent as to His being God, for perhaps we find this in the lesson of today.
He had called Him Son of God; but men, too, have been called sons of God. He had declared Him to be of such excellence, that he was not himself worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe. Now this greatness gives us much to understand: whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to loose, he than whom none greater had arisen among them that are born of women. He was more, indeed, than all men and angels. For we find an angel forbidding a man to fall at his feet. For example, when in the Apocalypse an angel was showing certain things to John, the writer of this Gospel, John, terrified at the greatness of the vision, fell down at the angel's feet.
But said the angel, “Rise; see that you do it not: worship God, for I am your fellow-servant, and the brethren's.” An angel, then, forbade a man to fall down at his feet. Is it not manifest that He must be above all angels, for whom a man, such that a greater than he has not risen among them that are born of women, declares himself to be not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe?
Source: Tractates on the Gospel of John (New Advent)