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| On the Feast of the Nativity, IV.
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Sermon XXIV.
On the Feast of the Nativity,
IV.
I. The Incarnation fulfils all its types
and promises.
The Divine goodness, dearly beloved, has indeed
always taken thought for mankind in divers manners, and in many
portions, and of His mercy has imparted many gifts of His providence to
the ages of old; but in these last times has exceeded all the abundance
of His usual kindness, when in Christ the very Mercy has descended to
sinners, the very Truth to those that are astray, the very Life to
those that are dead: so that Word, which is co-eternal and
co-equal with the Father, might take our humble nature into union with
His Godhead, and, being born God of
God, might also be born Man of man. This
was indeed promised from the foundation of the world, and had always
been prophesied by many intimations of facts and words764
| 764 Cf. Serm. XXIII.,
chap. 4. | : but how small a portion of mankind
would these types and fore-shadowed mysteries have saved, had not the
coming of Christ fulfilled those long and secret promises: and
had not that which then benefited but a few believers in the prospect,
now benefited myriads of the faithful in its accomplishment. Now
no longer then are we led to believe by signs and types, but being
confirmed by the gospel story we worship that which we believe to have
been done; the prophetic lore765
| 765 Instrumentis
(lit. materials, stock-in-trade). | assisting our
knowledge, so that we have no manner of doubt about that which we know
to have been predicted by such sure oracles. For hence it is that
the Lord says to Abraham: “In thy
seed shall all nations be blessed766
:” hence David, in the spirit
of prophecy, sings, saying: “The Lord swore truth to David, and He shall not frustrate
it: of the fruit of thy loins will I set upon thy seat767
;” hence the Lord again says through Isaiah: “behold a
virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bear a Son, and His Name
shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us768
,” and
again, “a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a
flower shall arise from his root769
| 769 Is. xi. 1; in the interpretation that follows
there is apparently play on the rod (virga) and the virgin
(virgo). | .” In which rod, no doubt the
blessed Virgin Mary is predicted, who sprung from the stock of Jesse
and David and fecundated by the Holy Ghost, brought forth a new
flower of human flesh, becoming a
virgin-mother.
II. The Incarnation was the only
effective remedy to the fall.
Let the righteous then rejoice in the Lord, and let the hearts of believers turn to God’s praise, and the sons of men confess His
wondrous acts; since in this work of God
especially our humble estate realizes how highly its Maker values
it: in that, after His great gift to mankind in making us after
His image, He contributed far more largely to our restoration when the
Lord Himself took on Him “the form of a
slave.” For though all that the Creator expends upon His
creature is part of one and the same Fatherly love, yet it is less
wonderful than man should advance to divine things than that
God should descend to humanity. But
unless the Almighty God did deign to do this,
no kind of righteousness, no form of wisdom could rescue any one from
the devil’s bondage and from the depths of eternal death.
For the condemnation that passes with sin from one upon all would
remain, and our nature, corroded by its deadly wound, would discover no
remedy, because it could not alter its state in its own strength.
For the first man received the substance of flesh from the earth, and
was quickened with a rational spirit by the in-breathing of his
Creator770
, so that living after the image and
likeness of his Maker, he might preserve the form of God’s goodness and righteousness as in a bright
mirror. And, if he had perseveringly maintained this high dignity
of his nature by observing the Law that was given him, his uncorrupt
mind would have raised the character even of his earthly body to
heavenly glory. But because in unhappy rashness he trusted the
envious deceiver, and agreeing to his presumptuous counsels, preferred
to forestall rather than to win the increase of honour that was in
store for him, not only did that one man, but in him all that came
after him also hear the verdict: “earth thou art, and unto
earth shalt thou go771
;” “as
in the earthy,” therefore, “such are they also that are
earthy772
,” and no one is immortal, because
no one is heavenly.
III. We all become partakers in the Birth
of Christ, by the re-birth of baptism.
And so to undo this chain of sin and death, the
Almighty Son of God, that fills all things and
contains all things, altogether equal to the Father and co-eternal in
one essence from Him and with Him, took on Him man’s nature, and
the Creator and Lord of all things deigned to
be a mortal: choosing for His mother one whom He had made, one
who, without loss of her maiden honour, supplied so much of bodily
substance, that without the pollution of human seed the New Man might
be possessed of purity and truth. In Christ, therefore, born of
the Virgin’s womb, the nature does not differ from ours, because
His nativity is wonderful. For He Who is true God, is also true man: and there is no lie in either
nature. “The Word became flesh” by exaltation of the
flesh, not by failure of the Godhead: which so tempered its power
and goodness as to exalt our nature by taking it, and not to lose His
own by imparting it. In this nativity of Christ, according to the
prophecy of David, “truth sprang out of the earth, and
righteousness looked down from heaven773
.” In this nativity also,
Isaiah’s saying is fulfilled, “let the earth produce and
bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up
together774
.”
For the earth of human flesh, which in the first transgressor, was
cursed, in this Offspring of the Blessed Virgin only produced a seed
that was blessed and free from the fault of its stock. And each
one is a partaker of this spiritual origin in regeneration; and to
every one when he is re-born, the water of baptism is like the
Virgin’s womb; for the same Holy Spirit fills the font, Who
filled the Virgin, that the sin, which that sacred conception
overthrew, may be taken away by this mystical washing.
IV. The Manichæans, by rejecting the
Incarnation, have fallen into terrible iniquities.
In this mystery, dear beloved, the mad error of
the Manichæans has no part, nor have they any partnership in the
regeneration of Christ, who say that He was corporeally born of the
Virgin Mary: so that, as they do not believe in His real
nativity, they do not accept His real passion either; and, not
acknowledging Him really buried, they reject His genuine
resurrection. For, having entered on the perilous path of their
abominable dogma, where all is dark and slippery, they rush into the
abyss of death over the precipice of falsehood, and find no sure ground
on which to rest; because, besides all their other diabolical
enormities, on the very chief feast of Christ’s worship, as their
latest confession has made manifest775
| 775 See Introd. p. vi.,
and for details of their iniquity, Serm. XVI. chaps. 4 and 5: the
words proxima confessione fix the date of this sermon probably
in 444 or 445. | , they revel
in bodily as well as mental pollution, losing their own modesty as well
as the purity of their Faith; so that they
are found to be as filthy in their rites as
they are blasphemers in their doctrines.
V. Other heresies contain some portion of
truth, but the Manichæans contain none whatever.
Other heresies, dearly beloved, although they are
all rightly to be condemned in their variety, yet have each in some
part of them that which is true. Arius, in laying down that the
Son of God is less than the Father and a
creature, and in thinking that the Holy Spirit was like all else made
by the same (Father), has lost himself in great blasphemy; but he has
not denied the eternal and unchangeable Godhead in the essence of the
Father, though he could not see it in the Unity of the Trinity.
Macedonius was devoid of the light of the Truth when he did not receive
the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, but he did acknowledge one power and
the same nature in the Father and the Son. Sabellius was plunged
into inextricable error by holding the unity of substance to be
inseparable in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but granted to a
singleness of nature what he should have attributed to an equality of
nature776
| 776 Quod
æqualitati tribuere deberet, singularitati dedit, cf. Lett.
XV. chap. 2, where the Priscillianists’ notion (of a
singularis unitas in tribus vocabulis sed non in tribus accipienda
personis), is said to be taken from Sabellianism. | , and because he could not understand a
true Trinity, he believed in one and the same person under a threefold
appellation. Photinus, misled by his mental blindness,
acknowledged in Christ true man of our substance, but did not believe
Him born God of God
before all ages, and so losing the entirety of the Faith, believed the
Son of God to have taken on Him the true
nature of human flesh in such a way as to assert that there was no soul
in it, because the Godhead Itself took its place777
| 777 Cf. Ruff. de
Symb. chap. 39, and Schaff, Ch. Hist., in loco, where
the relation of Photinus to Marcellus is explained. | . Thus, if all the errors which
the catholic Faith has anathematized are recanted, something is found
in one after another which can be separated from its damnable
setting. But in the detestable dogma of the Manicheans there is
absolutely nothing which can be adjudged tolerable in any
degree.
VI. Christians must cling to the one
Faith and not be led astray.
But you, dearly beloved, whom I address in no less
earnest terms than those of the blessed Apostle Peter, “a chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession778
,” built upon the impregnable
rock, Christ, and joined to the Lord our
Saviour by His true assumption of our flesh, remain firm in that Faith,
which you have professed before many witnesses, and in which you were
reborn through water and the Holy Ghost, and received the anointing of
salvation, and the seal of eternal life779
| 779 Chrisma
(charisma, gift. Quesnel), salutis et signaculum
vitæ æternæ, the anointing and the sign of
the cross are, as is well known, two of the oldest baptismal
ceremonies; see Bingham, Antiq, Bk. xi. chap. 9. | . But “if any one preach to
you any thing beside that which you have learnt, let him be
anathema780
:”
refuse to put wicked fables before the clearest truth, and what you may
happen to read or hear contrary to the rule of the catholic and
Apostolic creed, judge it altogether deadly and diabolical. Be
not carried away by their deceitful keepings of sham and pretended
fasts which tend not to the cleansing, but to the destroying of
men’s souls. They put on indeed a cloke of piety and
chastity, but under this deceit they conceal the filthiness of their
acts, and from the recesses of their ungodly heart hurl shafts to wound
the simple; that, as the prophet says, “they may shoot in
darkness at the upright in heart781
.” A mighty bulwark is a
sound faith, a true faith, to which nothing has to be added or taken
away: because unless it is one, it is no faith, as the Apostle
says, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all,
and through all, and in us all782
.”
Cling to this unity, dearly beloved, with minds unshaken, and in it
“follow after” all “holiness783
,” in it carry out the
Lord’s commands, because “without
faith it is impossible to please God784
,” and without it nothing
is holy, nothing is pure, nothing alive: “for the just
lives by faith785
,” and he
who by the devil’s deception loses it, is dead though living,
because as righteousness is gained by faith, so too by a true faith is
eternal life gained, as says our Lord and
Saviour. And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent786
. May He
make you to advance and persevere to the end, Who lives and reigns with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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