Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Addition in the Codex, with a Various Reading.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
VI.—The Addition in
the Codex, with a Various Reading.
God, therefore, wishing to visit His own form
which He had fashioned after His own image and similitude, hath in
these last times sent into the world His incorporeal and only Son, who
being in the Virgin’s womb incarnate, was born perfect man to
raise erect lost man, re-collecting His scattered members. For
why else should Christ have died? Was He capitally accused?
And since He was God, why was He made man? Why did He who was
reigning in heaven come down to earth? Who compelled God to come
down to earth, to take flesh of the holy Virgin, to be wrapped in
swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, to be nourished with milk, to
be baptized in the Jordan, to be mocked of the people, to be nailed to
the tree, to be buried in the bosom of the earth, and the third day to
rise again from the dead; in the cause of redemption to give life for
life, blood for blood, to undergo death for death? For Christ, by
dying, hath discharged the debt of death to which man was
obnoxious. Oh, the new and ineffable mystery! the Judge was
judged. He who absolves from sin was bound; He was mocked who
once framed the world; He was stretched upon the cross who stretched
out the heavens; He was fed with gall who gave the manna to be bread;
He died who gives life. He was given up to the tomb who raises
the dead. The powers were astonished, the angels wondered, the
elements trembled, the whole created universe was shaken, the earth
quaked, and its foundations rocked; the sun fled away, the elements
were subverted, the light of day receded; because they could not bear
to look upon their crucified Lord.2479
| 2479
Here, again, we have this fact insisted on. See p. 301, note
4. | The creature, in amazement, said,
What is this novel mystery? The judge is judged and is silent;
the invisible is seen and is not confounded; the incomprehensible is
grasped and is not indignant at it; the immeasurable is contained in a
measure and makes no opposition; the impassable suffers and does not
avenge its own injury; the immortal dies and complains not; the
celestial is buried and bears it with an equal mind. What, I say,
is this mystery? The creature surely is transfixed with
amazement. But when our Lord rose from death and trampled it
down, when He bound the strong man and set man free, then every
creature wondered at the Judge who for Adam’s sake was judged, at
the invisible being seen, at the impassable suffering, at the immortal
dead, at the celestial buried in the earth. For our Lord was made
man; He was condemned that He might impart compassion; He was bound
that He might set free; He was apprehended that He might liberate; He
suffered that He might heal our sufferings; He died to restore life to
us; He was buried to raise us up. For when our Lord suffered, His
humanity suffered, that which He had like unto man; and He dissolves
the sufferings of him who is His like, and by dying He hath destroyed
death. It was for this cause that He came down upon earth, that
by pursuing death He might kill the rebel that slew men. For one
underwent the judgment, and myriads were set free; one was buried, and
myriads rose again. He is the Mediator between God and man; He is
the resurrection and the salvation of all; He is the Guide of the
erring, the Shepherd of men who have been set free, the life of the
dead, the charioteer of the cherubim, the standard-bearer of the
angels, and the King of kings, to whom be glory for ever and
ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
