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| Chapter XXVII
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Chapter
XXVII.
It is,
then, completely in keeping with this, that He Who was thus pouring
Himself into our nature should accept this commixture in all its
accidents. For as they who wash clothes do not pass over some of the
dirt and cleanse the rest, but clear the whole cloth from all its
stains, from one end to the other, that the cloak by being uniformly
brightened from washing may be throughout equal to its own standard of
cleanness, in like manner, since the life of man was defiled by sin, in
its beginning, end, and all its intermediate states, there needed an
abstergent force to penetrate the whole, and not to mend some one part
by cleansing, while it left another unattended to. For this reason it
is that, seeing that our life has been included between boundaries on
either side, one, I mean, at its beginning, and the other at its
ending, at each boundary the force that is capable of correcting our
nature is to be found, attaching itself to the beginning, and extending
to the end, and touching all between those two points2008
| 2008 “In order that the sacrifice might be representative, He
took upon Him the whole of our human nature and became flesh,
conditioned though that fleshly nature was throughout by sin. It was
not only in His death that we contemplate Him as the sin-bearer: but
throughout His life He was as it were conditioned by the sinfulness of
those with whom His human nature brought Him into close and manifold
relations.”—Lux Mundi, p. 217 (Augustine, de
Musicâ, vi. 4, quoted in note, “Hominem sine peccato,
non sine peccatoris conditione, suscepit”). | . Since, then, there is for all men only one
way of entrance into this life of ours, from whence was He Who was
making His entrance amongst us to transport Himself into our life? From
heaven, perhaps some one will say, who rejects with contempt, as base
and degraded, this species of birth, i.e. the human. But there
was no humanity in heaven: and in that supramundane existence no
disease of evil had been naturalized; but He Who poured Himself into
man adopted this commixture with a view to the benefit of it.
Where, then, evil was not and the human life was not lived, how is it
that any one seeks there the scene of this wrapping up of God in
man, or, rather, not man, but some phantom resemblance of man? In what
could the recovery of our nature have consisted if, while this earthly
creature was diseased and needed this recovery, something else, amongst
the heavenly beings, had experienced the Divine sojourning? It is
impossible for the sick man to be healed, unless his suffering member
receives the healing. If, therefore, while this sick part was on earth,
omnipotence had touched it not, but had regarded only its own dignity,
this its pre-occupation with matters with which we had nothing in
common would have been of no benefit to man. And with regard to the
undignified in the case of Deity we can make no distinction; that is,
if it is allowable to conceive at all of anything beneath the dignity
of Deity beside evil. On the contrary, for one who forms such a
narrow-minded view of the greatness of the Deity as to make it consist
in inability to admit of fellowship with the peculiarities of our
nature, the degradation is in no point lessened by the Deity
being conformed to
the fashion of a heavenly rather than of an earthly body. For every
created being is distant, by an equal degree of inferiority,
from that which is the Highest, Who is unapproachable by reason of the
sublimity of His Being: the whole universe is in value the same
distance beneath Him. For that which is absolutely inaccessible does
not allow access to some one thing while it is unapproachable by
another, but it transcends all existences by an equal sublimity.
Neither, therefore, is the earth further removed from this dignity, nor
the heavens closer to it, nor do the things which have their existence
within each of these elemental worlds differ at all from each other in
this respect, that some are allowed to be in contact with the
inaccessible Being, while others are forbidden the approach. Otherwise
we must suppose that the power which governs the Universe does not
equally pervade the whole, but in some parts is in excess, in others is
deficient. Consequently, by this difference of less or more in quantity
or quality, the Deity will appear in the light of something composite
and out of agreement with itself; if, that is, we could suppose it, as
viewed in its essence, to be far away from us, whilst it is a close
neighbour to some other creature, and from that proximity easily
apprehended. But on this subject of that exalted dignity true reason
looks neither downward nor upward in the way of comparison; for all
things sink to a level beneath the power which presides over the
Universe: so that if it shall be thought by them that any earthly
nature is unworthy of this intimate connection with the Deity, neither
can any other be found which has such worthiness. But if all things
equally fall short of this dignity, one thing there is that is not
beneath the dignity of God, and that is, to do good to him that needed
it. If we confess, then, that where the disease was, there the healing
power attended, what is there in this belief which is foreign to the
proper conception of the Deity?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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