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| On the Feast of the Epiphany, IV.
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Sermon XXXIV.
On the Feast of the Epiphany,
IV.
I. The yearly observance of the Epiphany
is profitable to Christians.
It is the right and reasonable duty of true piety,
dearly-beloved, on the days which bear witness to the works of Divine
mercy, to rejoice with the whole heart and to celebrate with all honour
the things which have been wrought for our salvation: for the
very law of recurring seasons calls us to such devout observance, and
has now brought before us the feast of the Epiphany, consecrated by the
Lord’s appearance soon after the day on
which the Son of God co-eternal with the
Father was born of a Virgin. And herein the providence of
God has established a great safeguard to our
faith, so that, whilst the worship of the Saviour’s earliest
infancy is repeated year by year, the production of true man’s
nature in Him might be proved by the original verifications
themselves. For this it is that justifies the ungodly, this it is
that makes sinners saints, to wit the belief in the true Godhead and
the true Manhood of the one Jesus Christ, our Lord: the Godhead, whereby being before all ages
“in the form of God” He is equal
with the Father: the Manhood whereby in the last days He is
united to Man in the “form of a slave.” For the
confirmation therefore of this Faith which was to be fore-armed against
all errors, it was a wondrous loving provision of the Divine plan that
a nation which dwelt in the far-off country of the East and was cunning
in the art of reading the stars, should receive the sign of the
infant’s birth who was to reign over all Israel. For the
unwonted splendour of a bright new star appeared to the wise men and
filled their mind with such wonder, as they gazed upon its brilliance,
that they could not think they ought to neglect what was announced to
them with such distinctness. And, as the event showed, the grace
of God was the disposing cause of this
wondrous thing: who when the whole of Bethlehem itself was still
unaware of Christ’s birth, brought it to the knowledge of
the nations who would believe, and
declared that which human words could not yet explain, through the
preaching of the heavens.
II. Both Herod and the wise men
originally had an earthly conception of the kingdom signified; but the
latter learnt the truth, the former did not.
But although it was the office of the Divine
condescension to make the Saviour’s Nativity recognizable to the
nations, yet for the understanding of the wondrous sign the wise men
could have had intimation even from the ancient prophecies of Balaam,
knowing that it was predicted of old and by constant repetition spread
abroad: “A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall
rise out of Israel, and shall rule the nations880
.” And so the three men
aroused by God through the shining of a
strange star, follow the guidance of its twinkling light, thinking they
will find the babe designated at Jerusalem in the royal city. But
finding themselves mistaken in this opinion, through the scribes and
teachers of the Jews they learnt what the Holy Scripture had foretold
of the birth of Christ; so that confirmed by a twofold witness, they
sought with still more eager faith Him whom both the brightness of the
star and the sure word of prophecy revealed. And when the Divine
oracle was proclaimed through the chief priests’ answers and the
Spirit’s voice declared, which says: “And thou,
Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not least among the princes of Judah;
for out of thee shall come a leader to rule My people Israel881
,” how easy and how natural it was
that the leading men among the Hebrews should believe what they
taught! But it appears that they held material notions with
Herod, and reckoned Christ’s kingdom as on the same level as the
powers of this world: so that they hoped for a temporal leader
while he dreaded an earthly rival. The fear that racks thee,
Herod, is wasted; in vain dost thou try to vent thy rage on the infant
thou suspectest. Thy realm cannot hold Christ; the Lord of the world is not satisfied with the narrow limits
of thy sway. He, whom thou dost not wish to reign in Judæa,
reigns everywhere: and thou wouldst rule more happily thyself, if
thou wert to submit to His command. Why dost thou not do with
sincerity what in treacherous falseness thou dost promise? Come
with the wise men, and in suppliant adoration worship the true
King. But thou, from too great fondness for Jewish blindness,
wilt not imitate the nations’ faith, and directest thy stubborn
heart to cruel wiles, though thou art doomed neither to stay Him whom
thou fearest nor to harm them whom thou slayest.
III. The perseverance of the Magi has led
to the most important results.
Led then, dearly beloved, into Bethlehem by
obeying the guidance of the star, the wise men “rejoiced with
very great joy,” as the evangelist has told us: “and
entering the house, found the child with Mary, His mother; and falling
down they worshipped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to
Him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh882
.” What wondrous faith of
perfect knowledge, which was taught them not by earthly wisdom, but by
the instruction of the Holy Spirit! Whence came it that these
men, who had quitted their country without having seen Jesus, and had
not noticed anything in His looks to enforce such systematic adoration,
observed this method in offering their gifts? unless it were that
besides the appearance of the star, which attracted their bodily eyes,
the more refulgent rays of truth taught their hearts that before they
started on their toilsome road, they must understand that He was
signified to Whom was owed in gold royal honour, in incense Divine
adoration, in myrrh the acknowledgment of mortality. Such a
belief and understanding no doubt, as far as the enlightenment of their
faith went, might have been sufficient in themselves and have prevented
their using their bodily eyes in inquiring into that which they had
beheld with their mind’s fullest gaze. But their sagacious
diligence, persevering till they found the child, did good service for
future peoples and for the men of our own time: so that, as it
profited us all that the apostle Thomas, after the Lord’s resurrection, handled the traces of the
wounds in His flesh, so it was of advantage to us that His infancy
should be attested by the visit of the wise men. And so the wise
men saw and adored the Child of the tribe of Judah, “of the seed
of David according to the flesh883
,”
“made from a woman, made under the law884
,” which He had come “not
to destroy but to fulfil885
.”
They saw and adored the Child, small in size, powerless to help
others886
| 886 Alienæ
opis indignum. | , incapable of speech, and in nought
different to the generality of human children. Because, as the
testimonies were trustworthy which asserted in Him the majesty of
invisible Godhead, so it ought to be impossible to doubt that
“the Word became flesh,” and the eternal
essence of the Son of God took man’s true nature: lest either the
inexpressible marvels of his acts which were to follow or the
infliction of sufferings which He had to bear should overthrow the
mystery of our Faith by their inconsistency: seeing that no one
at all can be justified save those who believe the Lord Jesus to be both true God
and true Man.
IV. The Manichæan heresy corrupts
the Scriptures in order to disprove the truth.
This peerless Faith, dearly-beloved, this Truth
proclaimed throughout all ages, is opposed by the devilish blasphemies
of the Manichæans: who to murder the souls of the deceived
have woven a deadly tissue of wicked doctrine out of impious and forged
lies, and over the ruins of their mad opinions men have fallen headlong
to such depths as to imagine a Christ with a fictitious body, who
presented nothing solid, nothing real to the eyes and touch of
men887
| 887 Whatever may be
the correct reading here, actionibus with the better
mss. or tactibus, the
conjecture of Quesnel from the reading of some mss. actibus, the meaning must be such as is
given in the translation. | , but displayed an empty shape of
fancy-flesh. For they wish it to be thought unworthy of belief
that God the Son of God placed Himself within a woman’s body and
subjected His majesty to such a degradation as to be joined to our
fleshly nature and be born in the true body of human substance although
this is entirely the outcome of His power, not of His ill-treatment,
and it is His glorious condescension, not His being polluted that
should be believed in. For if yonder visible light is not marred
by any of the uncleannesses with which it is encompassed, and the
brightness of the sun’s rays, which is doubtless a material
creature, is not contaminated by any of the dirty or muddy places to
which it penetrates, is there anything whatever its quality which could
pollute the essence of that eternal and immaterial Light? seeing that
by allying Himself to that creature which He had made after His own
image He furnished it with purification and received no stain, and
healed the wounds of its weakness without suffering loss of
power. And because this great and unspeakable mystery of divine
Godliness was announced by all the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures,
those opponents of the Truth of which we speak have rejected the law
that was given through Moses and the divinely inspired
utterances888
of the
prophets, and have tampered with the very pages of the gospels and
apostles, by removing or inserting certain things: forging for
themselves under the Apostles’ names and under the words of the
Saviour Himself many volumes of falsehood, whereby to fortify their
lying errors and instil deadly poison into the minds of those to be
deceived. For they saw that everything contradicted and made
against them and that not only by the New but also by the Old Testament
their blasphemous and treacherous folly was confuted. And yet
persisting in their mad lies they cease not to disturb the Church of
God with their deceits, persuading those
miserable creatures whom they can ensnare to deny that man’s
nature was truly taken by the Lord Jesus
Christ; to deny that He was truly crucified for the world’s
salvation: to deny that from His side wounded by the spear flowed
the blood of Redemption and the water of baptism889
| 889 Cf. Ep. xxviii.
(Tome) 5, aperto per militis lanceam latere crucifixi intelligat
unde sanguis et aqua fluxerit ut ecclesia Dei et lavacro rigaretur et
poculo, and almost immediately afterwards, where he interprets the
spirit, water and blood of 1
John v. 8, as
spiritus sanctificationis et sanguis redemptionis et aqua
baptismatis. | : to deny that He was buried and
raised again the third day: to deny that in sight of the
disciples He was lifted above all the heights of the skies to take His
seat on the right hand of the Father; and in order that when all the
truth of the Apostles’ Creed was destroyed, there may be nothing
to frighten the wicked or inspire the saints with hope, to deny that
the living and the dead must be judged by Christ; so that those whom
they have robbed of the power of these great mysteries may learn to
worship Christ in the sun and moon, and under the name of the Holy
Spirit to adore Manichæus himself, the inventor of all these
blasphemies.
V. Avoid all dealings with the heretics,
but intercede with God for
them.
To confirm your hearts therefore, dearly-beloved,
in the Faith and Truth, let to-day’s festival help you all, and
let the catholic confession be fortified by the testimony of the
manifestation of the Saviour’s infancy, while we anathematize the
blasphemy of those who deny the flesh of our nature in Christ:
about which the blessed Apostle John has forewarned us in no doubtful
utterance, saying, “every spirit which confesses Christ Jesus to
have come in the flesh is of God: and
every spirit which destroys Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist890
| 890 1 John iv. 2, 3: see Letter XXVIII. (Tome) 5, n.
7, on the various reading. | .” Consequently let no
Christian have aught in common with men of this kind, let him have no
alliance or intercourse with such. Let it advantage the whole
Church that many of them in the mercy of God
have been discovered, and that their
own confession has disclosed how
sacrilegious their lives were. Let no one be deceived by their
discriminations between food and food, by their soiled raiment, by
their pale faces. Fasts are not holy which proceed not on the
principle of abstinence but with deceitful design. Let this be
the end of their harming the unwary, and deluding the ignorant;
henceforth no one’s fall shall be excusable: no longer must
he be held simple but extremely worthless and perverse who hereafter
shall be found entangled in detestable error. A practice
countenanced by the Church and Divinely instituted, not only do we not
forbid, we even incite you to, that you should supplicate the
Lord even for such: since we also with
tears and mourning feel pity for the ruins of cheated souls, carrying
out the Apostles’ example of loving-kindness891
| 891 Exsequentes
apostolicæ pietatis exemplum. | , so as to be weak with those that are
weak and to “weep with those that weep892
.” For we hope that
God’s mercy can be won by the many tears
and due amendment of the fallen: because so long as life remains
in the body no man’s restoration must be despaired of, but the
reform of all desired with the Lord’s
help, “who raiseth up them that are crushed, looseth them that
are chained, giveth light to the blind893
:” to whom is honour and
glory for ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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