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| Chapter V. By the case of Leporius he establishes the fact that an open sin ought to be expiated by an open confession; and also teaches from his words what is the right view to be held on the Incarnation.
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Chapter V.
By the case of Leporius he establishes the fact that an
open sin ought to be expiated by an open confession; and also teaches
from his words what is the right view to be held on the
Incarnation.
And from his confession
or rather lamentation we have thought it well to quote some part, for
two reasons: that their recantation might be a testimony to us, and an
example to those who are weak, and that they might not be ashamed to
follow in their amendment, the men whom they were not ashamed to follow
in their error; and that they might be cured by a like remedy as they
suffered from a like disease. He then acknowledging the perverseness of
his views, and seeing the light of faith, wrote to the Gallican
Bishops, and thus began:2372
| 2372 The recantation
of Leporius may be found in the Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum. vol. vii. p.
14; Labbe, Concilia, ii. p. 1678; and Migne Patrol. Lat. xxxi. p.
1221. | “I
scarcely know, O my most venerable lords and blessed priests, what
first to accuse myself of, and what first to excuse myself for.
Clumsiness and pride and foolish ignorance together with wrong notions,
zeal combined with indiscretion, and (to speak truly) a weak faith
which was gradually failing, all these were admitted by me and
flourished to such an extent that I am ashamed of having yielded to
such and so many sins, while
at the same time I am profoundly thankful
for having been able to cast them out of my soul.” And after a
little he adds: “If then, not understanding this power of God,
and wise in our conceits and opinions, from fear lest God should seem
to act a part that was beneath Him, we suppose that a man was born in
conjunction with God, in such a way that we ascribe to God alone what
belongs to God separately, and attribute to man alone what belongs to
man separately, we clearly add a fourth Person to the Trinity and out
of the one God the Son begin to make not one but two Christs; from
which may our Lord and God Jesus Christ Himself preserve us. Therefore
we confess that our Lord and God Jesus Christ the only Son of God, who
for His own sake2373
was begotten
of the Father before all worlds, when in time He was for our
sakes2374
made man of the Holy Ghost and the
ever-virgin Mary, was God at His birth; and while we confess the two
substances of the flesh and the Word,2375
we always acknowledge with pious belief
and faith one and the same Person to be indivisibly God and man; and we
say that from the time when He took upon Him flesh all that belonged to
God was given to man, as all that belonged to man was joined to
God.2376
| 2376 The
meaning of course is not that the manhood was endowed with the
properties of Deity, or conversely the Deity with the properties of
Humanity, but simply that two whole and perfect natures were
joined together in the one Person. | And in this sense ‘the Word was
made flesh:’2377
not that He
began by any conversion or change to be what He was not, but that by
the Divine ‘economy’ the Word of the Father never left the
Father,2378
| 2378 This phrase
gives some countenance to the idea that the recantation was actually
drawn up by Augustine, as the thought which it contains is a favorite
one with him, as excluding any notion that Christ ever for one moment
ceased to be God. See Serm. 184.
“Intelligerent…Eum…in homine ad nos venisse et a
Patre non recessisse.” 186 “manens quod erat.”
Similar language is used by S. Leo, Serm. 18. c. 5. In Natio. 2. c. 2.
and S. Thomas Aquinas in the well-known Sacramental hymn “Verbum
supernum prodiens, Nec Patris linquens dexteram.” Cf.
Bright’s S. Leo on the Incarnation, p. 220. | and yet
vouchsafed to become truly man, and the Only Begotten was incarnate
through that hidden mystery which He alone understands (for it is ours
to believe: His to understand). And thus God ‘the
Word’ Himself receiving everything that belongs to man, is made
man, and the manhood2379
| 2379 Homo is here
used as frequently by Augustine and other early writers for
“Manhood,” and not an “individual man.” In this
way it was freely used till the Nestorian Controversy, after which it
went out of favour as capable of a Nestorian interpretation, and gave
place to “humanitas” or “humana natura,” when
the manhood of Christ was spoken of. See the Church Quarterly Review
vol. xviii. p. 10; and Bright’s S. Leo on the Incarnation, p.
165. | which is
assumed, receiving everything that belongs to God cannot but be God;
but whereas He is said to be incarnate and unmixed, we must not hold
that there is any diminution of His substance: for God knows how to
communicate Himself without suffering any corruption, and yet truly to
communicate Himself. He knows how to receive into Himself without
Himself being increased thereby, just as He knows how to impart Himself
in such a way as Himself to suffer no loss. We should not then in our
feeble minds make guesses, in accordance with visible proofs and
experiments, from the case of creatures which are equal, and which
mutually enter into each other, nor think that God and man are mixed
together, and that out of such a fusion of flesh and the Word (i.e.,
the Godhead and manhood) some sort of body is produced. God forbid that
we should imagine that the two natures being in a way moulded together
should become one substance. For a mixture of this sort is destructive
of both parts. For God, who contains and is not Himself contained, who
enters into things and is not Himself entered into, who fills things
and is not Himself filled, who is everywhere at once in His
completeness and is diffused everywhere, communicates Himself
graciously to human nature by the infusion of His power.” And
after a little: “Therefore the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, is truly born for us of the Holy Ghost and the ever-virgin Mary.
And so in the two natures the Word and Flesh become one, so that while
each substance continues naturally perfect in itself, what is Divine
imparteth without suffering any loss, to the humanity, and what is
human participates in the Divine; nor is there one person God, and
another person man, but the same person is God who is also man: and
again the man who is also God is called and indeed is Jesus Christ the
only Son of God; and so we must always take care and believe so as not
to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Very God (whom we
confess as existing ever with the Father and equal to the Father before
all worlds) became from the moment when He took flesh the God-man. Nor
may we imagine that gradually as time went on He became God, and that
He was in one condition before the resurrection and in another after
it, but that He was always of the same fulness and power.” And
again a little later on: “But because the Word of God2380
| 2380 Verbum Dei
(Petschenig) Verbum Deus (Gazæus). | vouchsafed to come down upon manhood by
assuming manhood, and manhood was taken up into the Word by being
assumed by God, God the Word in His completeness became complete man.
For it was not God the Father who was made man, nor the Holy Ghost, but
the Only Begotten
of
the Father; and so we must hold that there is one Person of the Flesh
and the Word: so as faithfully and without any doubt to believe that
one and the same Son of God, who can never be divided, existing in two
natures2381
(who was also
spoken of as a “giant”2382
| 2382 The allusion is
to Ps. xviii. (xix.) 5, where the Latin (Gallican Psalter) has
“Exultavit, ut gigas, ad currendam viam.” The mystical
interpretation which takes the words as referring to Christ is not
uncommon. So in a hymn “De Adventu Domini” (Mone. Vol. i.
p. 43) we have the verse, “Procedit a thalamo suo Pudoris aula
regia Geminæ gigas substantiæ, Alacris ut currat viam,”
and in another “De natali Domini” (p. 58) “Ut gigas
egreditur ad currendam viam.” | ) in the
days of His Flesh truly took upon Him all that belongs to man, and ever
truly had as His own what belongs to God: since even though2383
| 2383 Etsi
(Petschenig) Et sic (Gazæus). | He was crucified in weakness, yet He
liveth by the power of God.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
