Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| On the Feast of the Nativity, VII.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Sermon XXVII.
On the Feast of the Nativity,
VII.
I. It is equally dangerous to deny the
Godhead or the Manhood in Christ.
He is a true and devout worshipper,
dearly-beloved, of to-day’s festival who thinks nothing that is
either false about the Lord’s
Incarnation or unworthy about His Godhead. For it is an equally
dangerous evil to deny in Him the reality of our nature and the
equality with the Father in glory. When, therefore, we attempt to
understand the mystery of Christ’s nativity, wherein He was born
of the Virgin-mother, let all the clouds of earthly reasonings be
driven far away and the smoke of worldly wisdom be purged from the eyes
of illuminated faith: for the authority on which we trust is
divine, the teaching which we follow is divine. Inasmuch as
whether it be the testimony of the Law, or the oracles of the prophets,
or the trumpet of the gospel to which we apply our inward ear, that is
true which the blessed John full of the Holy Spirit uttered with his
voice of thunder808
| 808 Intonuit, no
doubt a reference to the name of Boanerges (sons of thunder) which he
shared with his brother James (S. Mark iii. 17). | : “in
the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing
made809
.” And similarly is it true
what the same preacher added: “the Word became flesh and
dwelt in us: and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father810
.”
Therefore in both natures it is the same Son of God taking what is ours and not losing what is His own;
renewing man in His manhood, but enduring unchangeable in
Himself. For the Godhead which is His in common with the Father
underwent no loss of omnipotence, nor did the “form of a
slave” do despite to the “form of God,” because the supreme and eternal Essence, which
lowered Itself for the salvation of mankind, transferred us into Its
glory, but did not cease to be what It was. And hence when the
Only-begotten of God confesses Himself less
than the Father811
, and yet calls
Himself equal with Him812
, He demonstrates
the reality of both forms in Himself: so that the inequality
proves the human nature, and the equality the Divine.
II. The Incarnation has changed all the
possibilities of man’s existence.
The bodily Nativity therefore of the Son of
God took nothing from and added nothing to His
Majesty because His unchangeable substance could be neither diminished
nor increased. For that “the Word became flesh” does
not signify that the nature of God was changed
into flesh, but that the Word took the flesh into the unity of His
Person: and therein undoubtedly the whole man was received, with
which within the Virgin’s womb fecundated by the Holy Spirit,
whose virginity was destined never to be lost813
| 813 Et nunquam
virginitate caritura, cf. Letter XXVIII. (Tome) chap. 2, beatam
Mariam semper virginem: these two passages seem to me much
stronger than others quoted by Bright, n. 9, to prove Leo’s
belief in the perpetual virginity of the blessed Mary. | ,
the Son of God was so inseparably united that
He who was born without time of the Father’s essence was Himself
in time born of the Virgin’s womb. For we could not
otherwise be released from the chains of eternal death but by Him
becoming humble in our nature, Who remained Almighty in His own.
And so our Lord Jesus Christ, being at birth
true man though He never ceased to be true God, made in Himself the beginning of a new
creation,
and in the
“form” of His birth started the spiritual life of mankind
afresh, that to abolish the taint of our birth according to the flesh
there might be a possibility of regeneration without our sinful seed
for those of whom it is said, “Who were born not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God814
.” What mind can grasp
this mystery, what tongue can express this gracious act?
Sinfulness returns to guiltlessness and the old nature becomes new;
strangers receive adoption and outsiders enter upon an
inheritance. The ungodly begin to be righteous, the miserly
benevolent, the incontinent chaste, the earthly heavenly. And
whence comes this change, save by the right hand of the Most
High? For the Son of God came to
“destroy the works of the devil815
,” and
has so united Himself with us and us with Him that the descent of
God to man’s estate became the
exaltation of man to God’s.
III. The Devil knows exactly what
temptations to offer to each several person.
But in this mercifulness of God, dearly beloved, the greatness of which towards us we
cannot explain, Christians must be extremely careful lest they be
caught again in the devil’s wiles and once more entangled in the
errors which they have renounced. For the old enemy does not
cease to “transform himself into an angel of light816
,” and spread everywhere the snares
of his deceptions, and make every effort to corrupt the faith of
believers. He knows whom to ply with the zest of greed, whom to
assail with the allurements of the belly, before whom to set the
attractions of self-indulgence, in whom to instil the poison of
jealousy: he knows whom to overwhelm with grief, whom to cheat
with joy, whom to surprise with fear, whom to bewilder with
wonderment: there is no one whose habits he does not sift, whose
cares he does not winnow, whose affections he does not pry into:
and wherever he sees a man most absorbed in occupation, there he seeks
opportunity to injure him. Moreover he has many whom he has bound
still more tightly because they are suited for his designs, that he may
use their abilities and tongues to deceive others. Through them
are guaranteed the healing of sicknesses, the prognosticating of future
events, the appeasing of demons and the driving away of
apparitions817
. They also
are to be added818
| 818 CL Lett. XV.
chaps. 12–14, where such opinions are put down to the Spanish
Priscillianists, though doubtless Leo is thinking here rather of the
Manichæans, from whom they derived so many of their false
views. | who falsely
allege that the entire condition of human life depends on the
influences of the stars, and that that which is really either the
divine will or ours rests with the unchangeable fates. And yet,
in order to do still greater harm, they promise that they can be
changed if supplication is made to those constellations which are
adverse. And thus their ungodly fabrications destroy themselves;
for if their predictions are not reliable, the fates are not to be
feared: if they are, the stars are not to be
venerated.
IV. The foolish practice of some who turn
to the sun and bow to it is reprehensible.
From such a system of teaching proceeds also the
ungodly practice of certain foolish folk who worship the sun as it
rises at the beginning of daylight from elevated positions: even
some Christians think it is so proper to do this that, before entering
the blessed Apostle Peter’s basilica, which is dedicated to the
One Living and true God, when they have
mounted the steps which lead to the raised platform819
| 819 Suggestum
areæ superioris: the older reading was
aræ: some of the mss.
again read arcæ which is no doubt midway
between the two. A learned dissertation on this passage by
Ciampini quoted by Quesnel (Migne’s Patrol. i. pp.
529–534), established the true reading: he says also that
this was the staircase up which the faithful climbed on bended knee in
approaching the Vatican basilica. S. Leo has alluded to
this curious practice already in Serm. XXII. chap. 6,
supra. It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that this
superstition has little, if any, connexion with the Christian habit of
turning to the East, which is probably rather to the Altar as the
centre of worship; for at all events in Western Christendom churches do
not by any means universally ‘orientate’ (i.e. lie due east
and west). | , they turn round and bow themselves
towards the rising sun and with bent neck do homage to its brilliant
orb. We are full of grief and vexation that this should happen,
which is partly due to the fault of ignorance and partly to the spirit
of heathenism: because although some of them do perhaps worship
the Creator of that fair light rather than the Light itself, which is
His creature, yet we must abstain even from the appearance of this
observance: for if one who has abandoned the worship of gods,
finds it in our own worship, will he not hark back again to this
fragment of his old superstition, as if it were allowable, when he sees
it to be common both to Christians and to infidels?
V. The sun and moon were created for use,
not for worship.
This objectionable practice must be given up
therefore by the faithful, and the honour due to God alone must not be mixed up with those men’s
rites who serve their fellow-creatures. For the divine Scripture
says: “Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve820
.” And the blessed Job,
“a man without complaint,” as the Lord
says, “and one that eschews every
evil821
,” said, “Have I seen the sun
when it shone or the moon walking brightly, and my heart hath rejoiced
in secret, and I have kissed my hand: what is my great iniquity
and denial against the most High God822
?” But what is the sun
or what is the moon but elements of visible creation and material
light: one of which is of greater brightness and the other of
lesser light? For as it is now day time and now night time, so
the Creator has constituted divers kinds of luminaries, although even
before they were made there had been days without the sun and nights
without the moon823
. But
these were fashioned to serve in making man, that he who is an animal
endowed with reason might be sure of the distinction of the months, the
recurrence of the year, and the variety of the seasons, since through
the unequal length of the various periods, and the clear indications
given by the changes in its risings, the sun closes the year and the
moon renews the months. For on the fourth day, as we read,
God said: “Let there be lights in
the firmament of the heaven, and let them shine upon the earth, and let
them divide between day and night, and let them be for signs and for
seasons, and for days and years, and let them be in the firmament of
heaven that they may shine upon earth.”
VI. Let us awake to the proper use of all
our parts and facilities.
Awake, O man, and recognize the dignity of thy
nature. Recollect thou wast made in the image of God, which although it was corrupted in Adam, was yet
re-fashioned in Christ. Use visible creatures as they should be
used, as thou usest earth, sea, sky, air, springs, and rivers:
and whatever in them is fair and wondrous, ascribe to the praise and
glory of the Maker. Be not subject to that light wherein birds
and serpents, beasts and cattle, flies and worms delight. Confine
the material light to your bodily senses, and with all your mental
powers embrace that “true light which lighteth every man that
cometh into this world824
,” and of
which the prophet says, “Come unto Him and be enlightened, and
your faces shall not blush825
.” For
if we “are a temple of God, and the
Spirit of God dwelleth in826
” us, what every one of the
faithful has in his own heart is more than what he wonders at in
heaven. And so, dearly beloved, we do not bid or advise you to
despise God’s works or to think there is
anything opposed to your Faith in what the good God has made good, but to use every kind of creature and
the whole furniture of this world reasonably and moderately: for
as the Apostle says, “the things which are seen are
temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal827
.” Hence because we are born
for the present and reborn for the future, let us not give ourselves up
to temporal goods, but to eternal: and in order that we may
behold our hope nearer, let us think on what the Divine Grace has
bestowed on our nature on the very occasion when we celebrate the
mystery of the Lord’s birthday.
Let us hear the Apostle, saying: “for ye are dead, and your
life is hid with Christ in God. But when
Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with Him in glory828
:” who lives and reigns
with the Father and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
