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| Chapter IV. How God has shown His Omnipotence in His birth in time as well as in everything else.
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Chapter IV.
How God has shown His Omnipotence in His birth in time
as well as in everything else.
Confess then the same truth in
respect of the actual nativity of the Lord, as in respect of everything
else. Believe that God was born when He would, for you do not deny that
He could do what He would; unless possibly you think that that power
which belonged to Him for all other things was deficient as regards
Himself, and that His Omnipotence though proceeding from Him and
penetrating all things, was insufficient to bring about His own
nativity. In the case of the Lord’s nativity you bring this as an
objection against me: No one gives birth to one who is anterior in
time: and in regard of the birth which Almighty God underwent you say
that the one who is born ought to be of one substance with the one who
bears; as if you had to do
with human laws as in the case of any ordinary man, to whom you might
bring the impossibility as an objection, as you include him in the
weakness of earthly things. You say that for all men there are common
conditions of birth, and but one law of generation; and that a thing
could not possibly happen to one man only out of the whole of humanity,
which God has forbidden to happen to all. You do not understand of whom
you are speaking; nor do you see of whom you are talking; for He is the
Author of all conditions, and the very Law of all natures, through whom
exists whatever man can do, and whatever man cannot do: for He
certainly has laid down the limits of both; viz., how far his powers
should extend, and the bounds beyond which his weakness should not
advance. How wildly then do you bring human impossibilities as an
objection in the case of Him, who possesses all powers and
possibilities. If you estimate the Person of the Lord by earthly
weaknesses, and measure God’s Omnipotence by human rules, you
will most certainly fail to find anything which seems appropriate to
God as concerns the sufferings of His Body. For if it can seem to you
unreasonable that Mary could give birth to God who was anterior to her,
how will it seem reasonable that God was crucified by men? And yet the
same God who was crucified Himself predicted: “Shall a man
afflict God, for you afflict Me?”2603
If then we cannot think that the Lord was born of a Virgin because He
who was born was anterior to her who bore Him, how can we believe that
God had blood? And yet it was said to the Ephesian elders: “Feed
the Church of God which He has purchased with His own
Blood.”2604
Finally how can
we think that the Author of life was Himself deprived of life: And yet
Peter says: “Ye have killed the Author of life.”2605
No one who is set on earth can be in
heaven: and how does the Lord Himself say: “The Son of man who is
in heaven”?2606
If then you think
that God was not born of a Virgin because the one who is born must be
of one substance with the one who bears, how will you believe that
different things can be produced from different natures? Thus according
to you the wind did not suddenly bring the quails, nor did the manna
fall, nor was water turned into wine nor were many thousands of men fed
with a few loaves, nor did the blind man receive his sight after the
clay had been put on him. But if all these things seem incredible and
contrary to nature, unless we believe that they were wrought by God,
why should you deny in the matter of His nativity, what you admit in
the matter of His works? Or was He unable to contribute to His own
nativity and advent what He did not refuse for the succour and profit
of men?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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