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| Chapter XI. The purpose and healing effects of the Incarnation. The profitableness of faith, whereby we know that Christ bore all infirmities for our sakes,--Christ, Whose Godhead revealed Itself in His Passion; whence we understand that the mission of the Son of God entailed no subservience, which belief we need not fear lest it displease the Father, Who declares Himself to be well pleased in His Son.
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Chapter XI.
The purpose and healing effects of the
Incarnation. The profitableness of faith, whereby we know that
Christ bore all infirmities for our sakes,—Christ, Whose Godhead
revealed Itself in His Passion; whence we understand that the mission
of the Son of God entailed no subservience, which belief we need not
fear lest it displease the Father, Who declares Himself to be well
pleased in His Son.
89. Let us likewise
deal kindly, let us persuade our adversaries of that which is to their
profit, “let us worship and lament before the Lord our
Maker.”2033
For we
would not overthrow, but rather heal; we lay no ambush for them, but
warn them as in duty bound. Kindliness often bends those whom
neither force nor argument will avail to overcome. Again, our
Lord cured with oil and wine the man who, going down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, fell among thieves; having forborne to treat him with the
harsh remedies of the Law or the sternness of Prophecy.
90. To Him, therefore, let all come who would be
made whole. Let them receive the medicine which He hath brought
down from His Father and made in heaven, preparing it of the juices of
those celestial fruits that wither not. This is of no earthly
growth, for nature nowhere possesseth this compound. Of wondrous
purpose took He our flesh, to the end that He might show that the law
of the flesh had been subjected to the law of the mind. He was
incarnate, that He, the Teacher of men, might overcome as man.
91. Of what profit would it have been to me, had
He, as God, bared the arm of His power, and only displayed His Godhead
inviolate? Why should He take human nature upon Him, but to
suffer Himself to be tempted under the conditions of my nature and my
weakness? It was right that He should be tempted, that He should
suffer with me, to the end that I might know how to conquer when
tempted, how
to escape when hard
pressed. He overcame by force of continence, of contempt of
riches, of faith; He trampled upon ambition, fled from intemperance,
bade wantonness be far from Him.
92. This medicine Peter beheld, and left His nets,
that is to say, the instruments and security of gain, renouncing the
lust of the flesh as a leaky ship, that receives the bilge, as it were,
of multitudinous passions. Truly a mighty remedy, that not only
removed the scar of an old wound, but even cut the root and source of
passion. O Faith, richer than all treasure-houses; O excellent
remedy, healing our wounds and sins!
93. Let us bethink ourselves of the
profitableness of right belief. It is profitable to me to know
that for my sake Christ bore my infirmities, submitted to the
affections of my body, that for me, that is to say, for every man, He
was made sin, and a curse,2034
that for me and
in me was He humbled and made subject, that for me He is the Lamb, the
Vine, the Rock,2035
| 2035 S. John i. 29, 36; xv. 1; 1 Cor. x.
4. | the Servant, the
Son of an handmaid,2036
| 2036 Bible:Luke.1.38">S. Mark x. 45; S. John xiii. 4, 5;
Ps. lxxxvi. 16; cxvi. 14; S. Luke i. 38. | knowing not the
day of judgment, for my sake ignorant of the day and the hour.2037
| 2037 S. Matt. xxiv. 36. On this place Hurter
observes: “We must certainly believe that Christ, as man,
knew, through His human understanding, the day and the hour of
judgment—though not by virtue of the natural power of that human
understanding. Accordingly, unless we are without sufficient
reason to charge the holy Doctor with erroneous views, these words must
be explained as meaning that Christ behaved Himself as though He knew
not the day of judgment, and as though He were a servant, though in
reality He was not a servant but the Son of God. And truly Christ
did ‘for my sake’—i.e. in order to set me an
example—conceal many titles and powers which He really
possessed: thus, for thirty years He did no miracle.”
Cf. Bk. V. § 53. “He feigns ignorance, that He may
make the ignorant wise.” |
94. For how could He, Who hath made days and
times, be ignorant of the day? How could He not know the day, Who
hath declared both the season of Judgment to come, and the
cause?2038
| 2038 See S.
Matt. xxiv. 22, 29; Ps. xcvi.
13; xcviii. 10. | A curse,
then, He was made not in respect of His Godhead, but of His flesh; for
it is written: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
tree.”2039
In and
after the flesh, therefore, He hung, and for this cause He, Who bore
our curses, became a curse.2040
He wept that
thou, man, mightest not weep long. He endured insult, that thou
mightest not grieve over the wrong done to thee.2041
| 2041 i.e. the
sorrows met with during our passage through the world, by reason of
human unkindness. Or perhaps the possessive adjective may be
taken as equivalent to a subj. genitive, and we should render by
“the wrong that thou hast done.” |
95. A glorious remedy—to have
consolation of Christ! For He bore these things with surpassing
patience for our sakes—and we forsooth cannot bear them with
common patience for the glory of His Name! Who may not learn to
forgive, when assailed, seeing that Christ, even on the Cross,
prayed,—yea, for them that persecuted Him? See you not that
those weaknesses, as you please to call them, of Christ’s are
your strength?2042
| 2042 2 Cor. xii. 9; xiii. 4; 1 Pet. ii. 24; iv.
13. | Why
question Him in the matter of remedies for us? His tears wash us,
His weeping cleanses us,—and there is strength in this
doubt, at least, that if you begin to doubt, you will despair.
The greater the insult, the greater is the gratitude due.
96. Even in the very hour of mockery and
insult, acknowledge His Godhead. He hung upon the Cross, and all
the elements did Him homage.2043
The sun
withdrew his rays, the daylight vanished, darkness came down and
covered the land, the earth trembled; yet He Who hung there trembled
not. What was it that these signs betokened, but reverence for
the Creator? That He hangs upon the Cross—this, thou Arian,
thou regardest; that He gives the kingdom of God—this, thou
regardest not. That He tasted of death, thou readest, but that He
also invited the robber into paradise,2044
to this thou givest no heed. Thou dost gaze at the women weeping
by the tomb, but not upon the angels keeping watch by it.2045
What He said, thou
readest: what He did, thou dost not read. Thou
sayest that the Lord said to the Canaanitish woman: “I am
not sent, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,”2046
thou dost not say that He did what He was
besought by her to do.
97. Thou shouldst hereby understand that His being
“sent” means not that He was compelled, at the command of
another, but that He acted, of free will, according to His own
judgment, otherwise thou dost accuse Him of despising His Father.
For if, according to thine expounding, Christ had come into Jewry, as
one executing the Father’s commands, to relieve the inhabitants
of Jewry, and none besides, and yet before that was accomplished, set
free the Canaanitish woman’s daughter from her complaint, surely
He was not only the executor of another’s instruction, but was
free to exercise His own judgment. But where there is freedom to
act as one will, there can be no transgressing the terms of one’s
mission.
98. Fear not that the Son’s act displeased
the Father, seeing that the Son Himself
saith: “Whatsoever things are
His good pleasure, I do always,” and “The works that I do,
He Himself doeth.”2047
How, then,
could the Father be displeased with that which He Himself did through
the Son? For it is One God, Who, as it is written, “hath
justified circumcision in consequence of faith, and uncircumcision
through faith.”2048
99. Read all the Scriptures, mark all diligently,
you will then find that Christ so manifested Himself that God might be
discerned in man. Misunderstand not maliciously the Son’s
exultation in the Father, when you hear the Father declaring His
pleasure in the Son. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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