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| On the Feast of the Nativity, II.
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Sermon XXII.
On the Feast of the Nativity,
II.
I. The mystery of the Incarnation demands
our joy.
Let us be glad in the Lord, dearly-beloved, and rejoice with spiritual joy that
there has dawned for us the day of ever-new redemption, of ancient
preparation732
| 732
Præparationis (viz. the day to which prophecies and types
were leading up): another reading is reparationis
(restoration), which is less apposite. | , of eternal
bliss. For as the year rolls round, there recurs for us the
commemoration733
of our
salvation, which promised from the beginning, accomplished in the
fulness of time will endure for ever; on which we are bound with hearts
up-lifted734
| 734 Erectis sursum
cordibus, the phrase reminds us of the Eucharistic V. sursum
corda R. habemus ad Dominum. | to adore the
divine mystery: so that what is the effect of God’s great gift may be celebrated by the
Church’s great rejoicings. For God
the almighty and merciful, Whose nature as goodness, Whose will is
power, Whose work is mercy: as soon as the devil’s
malignity killed us by the poison of his hatred, foretold at the very
beginning of the world the remedy His piety had prepared for the
restoration of us mortals: proclaiming to the serpent that the
seed of the woman should come to crush the lifting of his baneful head
by its power, signifying no doubt that Christ
would come in the flesh, God and man, Who born of a Virgin should by His uncorrupt
birth condemn the despoiler of the human stock.735
| 735 From
“Thus” to the end of the chapter is repeated in Lett.
XXVIII. (Tome), chap. 3. | Thus in the whole and perfect
nature of true man was true God born, complete
in what was His own, complete in what was ours. And
“ours” we call what the Creator formed in us from the
beginning and what He undertook to repair. For what the deceiver
brought in and the deceived admitted had no trace in the Saviour.
Nor because He partook of man’s weaknesses, did He therefore
share our faults. He took the form of a slave without stain of
sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the Divine: because
that “emptying of Himself” whereby the Invisible made
Himself visible and Creator and Lord of all
things as He was, wished to be mortal, was the condescension of Pity
not the failing of Power736
| 736 From
“Thus” to the end of the chapter is repeated in Lett.
XXVIII. (Tome), chap. 3. | .
II. The new character of the birth of
Christ explained.
Therefore, when the time came, dearly beloved,
which had been fore-ordained for men’s redemption737
| 737 From “there
enters” to “death” is repeated in Lett. XXVIII.
(Tome), chap 4. | , there enters these lower parts of the
world, the Son of God, descending from His
heavenly throne and yet not quitting His Father’s glory, begotten
in a new order, by a new nativity. In a new order, because being
invisible in His own nature He became visible in ours, and He whom
nothing could contain, was content to be contained: abiding
before all time He began to be in time: the Lord of all things, He obscured His immeasurable majesty
and took on Him the form of a servant: being God, that cannot suffer, He did not disdain to be man that
can, and immortal as He is, to subject Himself to the laws of
death738
| 738 From “there
enters” to “death” is repeated in Lett. XXVIII.
(Tome), chap 4. | . And by a new nativity He was
begotten, conceived by a Virgin, born of a Virgin, without paternal
desire, without injury to the mother’s chastity: because
such a birth as knew no taint of human flesh, became One who was to be
the Saviour of men, while it possessed in itself the nature of human
substance. For when God was born in the
flesh, God Himself was the Father, as the
archangel witnessed to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “because
the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High
shall overshadow thee: and therefore, that which shall be born of
thee shall be called holy, the Son of God739
.” The origin is
different but the nature like: not by intercourse with man but by
the power of God was it brought about:
for a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bare, and a Virgin she remained.
Consider here not the condition of her that bare but the will of Him
that was born; for He was born Man as He willed and was able. If
you inquire into the truth of His nature, you must acknowledge the
matter to be human: if you search for the mode of His birth, you
must confess the power to be of God. For
the Lord Jesus Christ came to do away with not
to endure our pollutions: not to succumb to our faults but to
heal them740
| 740 For the impeccability
of Christ involved in this statement, cf. Serm. LXIV. chap. 2, and
Lett. XXVIII. (Tome) chap. 3, and especially Bright’s note 15 (to
Sermon XXIII. chap. 2). | . He came that
He might cure every weakness of our corruptness and all the sores of
our defiled souls: for which reason it behoved Him to be born by
a new order, who brought to men’s bodies the new gift of
unsullied purity. For the uncorrupt nature of Him that was born
had to guard the primal virginity of the Mother, and the infused power
of the Divine Spirit had to preserve in spotlessness and holiness that
sanctuary which He had chosen for Himself: that Spirit (I say)
who had determined to raise the fallen, to restore the broken, and by
overcoming the allurements of the flesh to bestow on us in abundant
measure the power of chastity: in order that the virginity which
in others cannot be retained in child-bearing, might be attained by
them at their second birth.
III. Justice required that Satan should
be vanquished by God made man.
And, dearly beloved, this very fact that Christ
chose to be born of a Virgin does it not appear to be part of the
deepest design? I mean, that the devil should not be aware that
Salvation had been born for the human race, and through the obscurity
of that spiritual conception, when he saw Him no different to others,
should believe Him born in no different way to others. For when
he observed that His nature was like that of all others, he thought
that He had the same origin as all had: and did not understand
that He was free from the bonds of transgression because he did not
find Him a stranger to the weakness of mortality. For though the
true741
| 741 Verax,
literally truth speaking, and so genuine, sincere, &c. | mercy of God had
infinitely many schemes to hand for the restoration of mankind, it
chose that particular design which put in force for destroying the
devil’s work, not the efficacy of might but the dictates of
justice. For the pride of the ancient foe not undeservedly
made good its despotic rights
over all men, and with no unwarrantable supremacy tyrannized over those
who had been of their own accord lured away from God’s commands to be the slaves of his will.
And so there would be no justice in his losing the immemorial slavery
of the human race, were he not conquered by that which he had
subjugated. And to this end, without male seed Christ was
conceived of a Virgin, who was fecundated not by human intercourse but
by the Holy Spirit. And whereas in all mothers conception does
not take place without stain of sin, this one received purification
from the Source of her conception. For no taint of sin
penetrated, where no intercourse occurred. Her unsullied
virginity knew no lust when it ministered the substance. The
Lord took from His mother our nature, not our
fault742
| 742 This sentence is
found also in Lett. XXVIII. (Tome), chap. 3; but here instead of de
matre Domini, natura there is a variant reading, de matre,
hominis natura. | . The slave’s form is created
without the slave’s estate, because the New Man is so commingled
with the old, as both to assume the reality of our race and to remove
its ancient flaw.
IV. The Incarnation deceived the Devil
and caused him to break the bond under which he held
men.
When, therefore, the merciful and almighty Saviour
so arranged the commencement of His human course as to hide the power
of His Godhead which was inseparable from His manhood under the veil of
our weakness, the crafty foe was taken off his guard and he thought
that the nativity of the Child, Who was born for the salvation of
mankind, was as much subject to himself as all others are at their
birth. For he saw Him crying and weeping, he saw Him wrapped in
swaddling clothes, subjected to circumcision, offering the sacrifice
which the law required. And then he perceived in Him the usual
growth of boyhood, and could have had no doubt of His reaching
man’s estate by natural steps. Meanwhile, he inflicted
insults, multiplied injuries, made use of curses, affronts,
blasphemies, abuse, in a word, poured upon Him all the force of his
fury and exhausted all the varieties of trial: and knowing how he
had poisoned man’s nature, had no conception that He had no share
in the first transgression Whose mortality he had ascertained by so
many proofs. The unscrupulous thief and greedy robber persisted
in assaulting Him Who had nothing of His own, and in carrying out the
general sentence on original sin, went beyond the bond on which he
rested743
| 743 Dum vitiatæ
originis præiudicium generale persequitur, chirographum quo
nitebatur excedit. Cf. Col. ii. 14, and Lett. CXXIV. 7. | , and required the punishment of iniquity
from Him in Whom he found no fault. And thus the malevolent terms
of the deadly compact are annulled, and through the injustice of an
overcharge the whole debt is cancelled. The strong one is bound
by his own chains, and every device of the evil one recoils on his own
head. When the prince of the world is bound, all that he held in
captivity is released744
. Our nature
cleansed from its old contagion regains its honourable estate, death is
destroyed by death, nativity is restored by nativity: since at
one and the same time redemption does away with slavery, regeneration
changes our origin, and faith justifies the sinner.
V. The Christian is exhorted to share in
the blessings of the Incarnation.
Whoever then thou art that devoutly and faithfully
boastest of the Christian name, estimate this atonement at its right
worth. For to thee who wast a castaway, banished from the realms
of paradise, dying of thy weary exile, reduced to dust and ashes,
without further hope of living, by the Incarnation of the Word was
given the power to return from afar to thy Maker, to recognize thy
parentage, to become free after slavery, to be promoted from being an
outcast to sonship: so that, thou who wast born of corruptible
flesh, mayest be reborn by the Spirit of God,
and obtain through grace what thou hadst not by nature, and, if thou
acknowledge thyself the son of God by the
spirit of adoption, dare to call God
Father. Freed from the accusings of a bad conscience, aspire to
the kingdom of heaven, do God’s will
supported by the Divine help, imitate the angels upon earth, feed on
the strength of immortal sustenance, fight fearlessly on the side of
piety against hostile temptations, and if thou keep thy
allegiance745
| 745 Si cælestis
militiæ sacramenta servaveris: here we have a return to
the earlier classical meaning of sacramentum. | in the heavenly
warfare, doubt not that thou wilt be crowned for thy victory in the
triumphant camp of the Eternal King, when the resurrection that is
prepared for the faithful has raised thee to participate in the
heavenly Kingdom.
VI. The festival has nothing to do with
sun-worship, as some maintain.
Having therefore so confident a hope, dearly beloved,
abide firm in the Faith in which you are built: lest that same
tempter whose
tyranny over
you Christ has already destroyed, win you back again with any of his
wiles, and mar even the joys of the present festival by his deceitful
art, misleading simpler souls with the pestilential notion of some to
whom this our solemn feast day seems to derive its honour, not so much
from the nativity of Christ as, according to them, from the rising of
the new sun746
| 746 Such an idea is no
doubt to be referred to the Manichæans. | . Such
men’s hearts are wrapped in total darkness, and have no growing
perception of the true Light: for they are still drawn away by
the foolish errors of heathendom, and because they cannot lift the eyes
of their mind above that which their carnal sight beholds, they pay
divine honour to the luminaries that minister to the world. Let
not Christian souls entertain any such wicked superstition and
portentous lie. Beyond all measure are things temporal removed
from the Eternal, things corporeal from the Incorporeal, things
governed from the Governor. For though they possess a wondrous
beauty, yet they have no Godhead to be worshipped. That power
then, that wisdom, that majesty is to be adored which created the
universe out of nothing, and framed by His almighty methods the
substance of the earth and sky into what forms and dimensions He
willed. Sun, moon, and stars may be most useful to us, most fair
to look upon; but only if we render thanks to their Maker for them and
worship God who made them, not the creation
which does Him service. Then praise God,
dearly beloved, in all His works and judgments. Cherish an
undoubting belief in the Virgin’s pure conception. Honour
the sacred and Divine mystery of man’s restoration with holy and
sincere service. Embrace Christ born in our flesh, that you may
deserve to see Him also as the God of glory
reigning in His majesty, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit
remains in the unity of the Godhead for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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