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| On the Feast of the Nativity, III.
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Sermon XXIII.
On the Feast of the Nativity,
III.
I. The truths of the Incarnation never
suffer from being repeated.
The things which are connected with the
mystery747
| 747 Sacramentum
(as usual). I would venture to urge that Bright is hardly
justified in interpreting this as “sacred observance” here,
unless I have misunderstood his note 8. Surely Leo means, the
facts and details and consequences arising from the mystery of the
Incarnation are well known to you. This agrees better with the
context and is in accordance with his common use of the word. | of to-day’s solemn feast are well
known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard: but
as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired,
so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy;
and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as
we ought. For we believe that what Isaiah says, “who shall
declare his generation748
?” applies
not only to that mystery, whereby the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father, but also to this birth
whereby “the Word became flesh.” And so God, the Son of God, equal and of
the same nature from the Father and with the Father, Creator and
Lord of the Universe, Who is completely
present everywhere, and completely exceeds all things, in the due
course of time, which runs by His own disposal, chose for Himself this
day on which to be born of the blessed virgin Mary for the salvation of
the world, without loss of the mother’s honour. For her
virginity was violated neither at the conception nor at the
birth: “that it might be fulfilled,” as the
Evangelist says, “which was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold the virgin
shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call
his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God
with us749
.” For this wondrous
child-bearing of the holy Virgin produced in her offspring one person
which was truly human and truly Divine750
| 750 Vere humanum vereque
aivinam unam edidit prole personam. | ,
because neither substance so retained their properties that there could
be any division of persons in them; nor was the creature taken into
partnership with its Creator in such a way that the One was the
in-dweller, and the other the dwelling; but so that the one nature was
blended751
| 751
Misceretur: Quesnel truly remarks that the fathers
“securius locuti sunt nondum litigantibus Eutychianis post
cuius hæresis ortum cautim—locutus est Leo.”
That no “fusion” of the natures is really implied Bright
(note 11) clearly shows. | with the other. And although the
nature which is taken is one, and that which takes is another, yet
these two diverse natures come together into such close union that it
is one and the same Son who says both that, as true Man, “He is
less than the Father,” and that, as true God, “He is equal with the Father.”
II. The Arians could not comprehend the
union of God and man.
This union, dearly beloved, whereby the Creator is
joined to the creature, Arian blindness could not see with the eyes of
intelligence, but, not believing that the Only-begotten of God was of the same glory and substance with the Father,
spoke of the Son’s Godhead as inferior, drawing its arguments
from those
words which
are to be referred to the “form of a slave,” in respect of
which, in order to show that it belongs to no other or different person
in Himself, the same Son of God with the same
form, says, “The Father is greater than I752
,” just as He says with the same
form, “I and my Father are one753
.” For in “the form of a
slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration,
He is inferior to the Father: but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the
Father. In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman,
made under the Law754
:” in
His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God,
“through whom all things were made755
.” 756
| 756 From
“accordingly” to “form of God” occurs again in Lett. XXVIII. (Tome) chap.
3. | Accordingly, He Who in the form of
God made man, in the form of a slave was made
man. For both natures retain their own proper character without
loss: and as the form of God did not do
away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair
the form of God757
| 757 From
“accordingly” to “form of God” occurs again in Lett. XXVIII. (Tome) chap.
3. | . And so the mystery of power
united to weakness, in respect of the same human nature, allows the Son
to be called inferior to the Father: but the Godhead, which is
One in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, excludes all
notion of inequality. For the eternity of the Trinity has nothing
temporal, nothing dissimilar in nature: Its will is one, Its
substance identical, Its power equal, and yet there are not three
Gods, but one God758
| 758 Several times in
this chapter and elsewhere in Leo the language reminds us forcibly of
the Quicunque “which,” says Bright (note 14),
“whatever be its date, was clearly compiled by some one
accustomed to the theological terminology of the Latin church of the
fifth century.” | ; because it is a true and
inseparable unity, where there can be no diversity759
| 759 From here to end of
chapter occurs again 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 by
“ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us from the
beginning, and what He undertook to repair. For what the deceiver
brought in, and man deceived committed, 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: for
that “emptying of Himself,” whereby the Invisible made
Himself visible, was the bending down of pity, not the failing of
power.
III. The Incarnation was necessary to the
taking away of sin.
In order therefore that we might be called to
eternal bliss from our original bond and from earthly errors, He came
down Himself to us to Whom we could not ascend, because, although there
was in many the love of truth, yet the variety of our shifting opinions
was deceived by the craft of misleading demons, and man’s
ignorance was dragged into diverse and conflicting notions by a
falsely-called science. But to remove this mockery, whereby
men’s minds were taken captive to serve the arrogant devil, the
teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be
restored merely by the Prophets’ exhortations; but the reality of
redemption had to be added to moral injunctions, and our fundamentally
corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh. A Victim had to be
offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and
free from our contamination, so that this design of God whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the
world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all
generations760
| 760 From what he
goes on to say in the next chapter, is clear that Leo meant that both
past and future generations of mankind shared in the
benefits of the Incarnation: cf. Bright’s note
16. | : and that we
should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries,
which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith, whereby we
live, has at no time suffered variation.
IV. The blessings of the Incarnation
stretch backwards as well as reach forward.
Accordingly let those men cease their complaints
who with disloyal murmurs speak against the dispensations of
God, and babble about the lateness of the
Lord’s Nativity as if that, which was
fulfilled in the last age of the world, had no bearing upon the times
that are past. For the Incarnation of the Word did but contribute
to the doing of that which was done761
| 761 Hoc contulit
faciendum quod factum, i.e. the Incarnation was but a part (though
an essential part) in the Divine scheme of redemption, and, as he goes
on to show, could not have occurred sooner than it did occur: for
it would have marred the sequence of the whole design: cf.
Bright’s note 17: also S. John viii. 56. | : and
the mystery of man’s salvation was never in the remotest age at a
standstill. What the apostles foretold, that the prophets
announced: nor was that fulfilled too late which has always been
believed. But the Wisdom and Goodness of God made us more receptive of His call by thus delaying
the work which brought salvation: so that what through so many
ages had been foretold by many signs, many utterances, and many
mysteries, might not be doubtful in these days of the Gospel: and
that the Saviour’s nativity, which was to exceed all wonders and
all the measure of human knowledge, might engender in us a Faith so
much the firmer, as the foretelling of it had been
ancient and oft-repeated. And so it
was no new counsel, no tardy pity whereby God
took thought for men: but from the constitution of the world He
ordained one and the same Cause of Salvation for all. For the
grace of God, by which the whole body of the
saints is ever justified, was augmented, not begun, when Christ was
born: and this mystery of God’s
great love, wherewith the whole world is now filled, was so effectively
presignified that those who believed that promise obtained no less than
they, who were the actual recipients.
V. The coming of Christ in our flesh
corresponds with our becoming members of His body.
Wherefore since the loving-kindness is manifest,
dearly beloved, wherewith all the riches of Divine goodness are
showered on us, whose call to eternal life has been assisted not only
by the profitable examples of those who went before, but also by the
visible and bodily appearing of the Truth Itself, we are bound to keep
the day of the Lord’s Nativity with no
slothful nor carnal joy. And we shall each keep it worthily and
thoroughly, if we remember of what Body we are members, and to what a
Head we are joined, lest any one as an ill-fitting joint cohere not
with the rest of the sacred building. Consider, dearly beloved
and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit thoughtfully bear in mind
Who it was that received us into Himself, and that we have received in
us: since, as the Lord Jesus became our
flesh by being born, so we also became His body by being re-born.
Therefore are we both members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy
Ghost: and for this reason the blessed Apostle says,
“Glorify and carry God in your
body762
| 762 1 Cor. vi. 20. Glorificate et portate deum in
corpore vestro, quoted again in this form in Sermon LIII. 3.
Observe (1) that , “et portate” is doubtless a
very old ‘Western’ gloss” Bright, note 18), and (2)
that the words “and in your spirit which are God’s” (A.V.) find no place in the Latin
Versions, and are now omitted in R.V. | :” for while suggesting to us
the standard of His own gentleness and humility, He fills us with that
power whereby He redeemed us, as the Lord
Himself promises: “come unto Me all ye who labour and are
heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and
learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest
to your souls.763
” Let
us then take the yoke, that is not heavy nor irksome, of the Truth that
rules us, and let us imitate His humility, to Whose glory we wish to be
conformed: He Himself helping us and leading us to His promises,
Who, according to His great mercy, is powerful to blot out our sins,
and to perfect His gifts in us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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