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| Chapter XII. He explains more fully what the mystery is which is signified under the name of the man and wife.
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Chapter XII.
He explains more fully what the mystery is which is
signified under the name of the man and wife.
What then is that great
mystery which is signified under the name of the man and his wife? Let
us ask the Apostle himself, who elsewhere to teach the same thing uses
words of the same force, saying: “And evidently great is the
mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in
the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in
the world, received up in glory.”2531
| 2531 1 Tim. iii. 16. Quod manifestum in carne. The true
reading is pretty certainly ὅς, see
Westcott and Hort, Greek Testament, vol. ii., p. 132. The neuter
ὅ is found in D. and in many
Latin Fathers, as well as the Vulgate. |
What then is that great mystery which was manifested in the flesh?
Clearly it was God born of the flesh, God seen in bodily form: who was
openly received up in glory just as He was openly manifested in the
flesh. This then is the great mystery, of which he says: “For
this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.” Who then were the two
in one flesh? God and the soul, for in the one flesh of man which is
joined to God are present God and the soul, as the Lord Himself says:
“No man can take My life (anima) away from Me. But I lay it down
of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again.”2532
You see then in
this, three; viz., God, the flesh, and the soul. He is God who speaks:
the flesh in which He speaks: the soul of which He speaks. Is He
therefore that man of whom the prophet says: “A brother cannot
redeem, nor shall a man redeem”?2533
Who, as it was said, “ascended up
where He was before,”2534
and of whom we
read: “No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down
from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven.”2535
For this cause, I say, He has left his
father and mother, i.e., God from whom He was begotten and that
“Jerusalem which is the mother of us all,”2536
and has cleaved to human flesh, as to
his wife. And therefore he expressly says in the case of the father
“a man shall leave his father,” but in the case of
the mother he does not say “his,” but simply says
“mother:” because she was not so much his mother, as the
mother of all believers, i.e., of all of us. And He was joined to his
wife, for just as man and wife make but one body, so the glory of
Divinity and the flesh of man are united and the two, viz., God and the
soul, become one flesh. For just as that flesh had God as an indweller
in it, so also had it the soul within it dwelling with God. This then
is that great mystery, to search out which our admiration for the
Apostle summons us, and God’s own exhortation bids us: and it is
one not foreign to Christ and His Church, as he says, “But I am
speaking of Christ and the Church.” Because the flesh of the
Church is the flesh of Christ, and in the flesh of Christ there is
present God and the soul: and so the same person is present in Christ
as in the Church, because the mystery which we believe in the flesh of
Christ, is contained also by faith in the Church.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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