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| On the Festival of the Nativity, VIII.
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Sermon XXVIII.
On the Festival of the Nativity,
VIII.
I. The Incarnation an unceasing source of
joy.
Though all the divine utterances exhort us, dearly
beloved, to “rejoice in the Lord
always829
,” yet to-day we are no doubt
incited to a full spiritual joy, when the mystery of the Lord’s nativity is shining brightly upon us830
| 830 Nativitatis
Dominicæ sacramento nobis clarius coruscante: cf. XXVI.
chap. 1, note 1. I have no doubt that sacramentum here is
almost equivalent to “the festival with its sacred
observances” (cf. Bright’s n. 8), but I have preferred to
translate it as uniformly as possible by the same word
“mystery.” Cf. Sermon XXXI. chap. 1. | , so that we may have recourse to that
unutterable condescension of the Divine Mercy, whereby the Creator of
men deigned to become man, and be found ourselves in His nature whom we
worship in ours. For God the Son of
God, the only-begotten of the eternal and
not-begotten Father, remaining eternal “in the form of
God,” and unchangeably and without
time831
| 831 In contradiction of
the Arian’s position ἦν
ποτε ὅτε οὐκ
ἦν: cf. Lett. XXVIII. (Tome), chap. 2, de
æterno natus est coæternus: non posterior
tempore. | possessing the property of being no way
different to the Father He received “the form of a slave”
without loss of His own majesty, that He might advance us to His state
and not lower Himself to ours. Hence both natures abiding in
possession of their own properties such unity is the result of the
union that whatever of Godhead is there is inseparable from the
manhood: and whatever of manhood, is indivisible from the
Godhead.
II. The Virgin’s conception
explained.
In celebrating therefore the birthday of our
Lord and Saviour, dearly beloved, let
us
entertain pure
thoughts of the blessed Virgin’s child-bearing, so as to believe
that at no moment of time was the power of the Word wanting to the
flesh and soul which she conceived, and that the temple of
Christ’s body did not previously receive its form and soul that
its Inhabitant might come and take possession but through Himself and
in Himself was the beginning given to the New Man, so that in the one
Son of God and Man there might be Godhead
without a mother, and Manhood without a Father. For her virginity
fecundated by the Holy Spirit at one and the same time brought forth
without trace of corruption both the offspring and the Maker of her
race. Hence also the same Lord, as the
Evangelist relates, asked of the Jews whose son they had learnt Christ
to be on the authority of the Scriptures, and when they replied that
the tradition was He would come of David’s seed,
“How,” saith He, “doth David in the Spirit call Him
Lord, saying, the Lord said to my Lord: sit
thou on My right hand till I place thy enemies as the footstool of thy
feet832
?” And the Jews could not
solve the question put, because they did not understand that in the one
Christ both the stock of David and the Divine nature were there
prophesied.
III. In redeeming man, justice as well as
mercy had to be considered.
But the majesty of the Son of God in which He is equal with the Father in its garb of a
slave’s humility feared no diminution, required no
augmentation: and the very effect of His mercy which He expended
on the restitution of man, He was able to bring about solely by the
power of His Godhead; so as to rescue the creature that was made in the
image of God from the yoke of his cruel
oppressor. But because the devil had not shown himself so violent
in his attack on the first man as to bring him over to his side without
the consent of His free will, man’s voluntary sin and hostile
desires had to be destroyed in such wise that the standard of justice
should not stand in the way of the gift of Grace. And therefore
in the general ruin of the entire human race there was but one remedy
in the secret of the Divine plan which could succour the fallen, and
that was that one of the sons of Adam should be born free and innocent
of original transgression, to prevail for the rest both by His example
and His merits. Still further, because this was not permitted by
natural generation, and because there could be no offspring from our
faulty stock without seed, of which the Scripture saith, “Who can
make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? is it not Thou who art
alone833
?” David’s Lord was made David’s Son, and from the fruit of the
promised branch834
| 834 Germinis
preferred to the older reading generis by the Ballerinii
as agreeing better with Is. xl. 1 and Jer.
xxiii. 5. | sprang One
without fault, the twofold nature joining together into one Person,
that by one and the same conception and birth might spring our
Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom was present both
true Godhead for the performance of mighty works and true Manhood for
the endurance of sufferings.
IV. All heresies proceed from failure to
believe the twofold nature of Christ.
The catholic Faith then, dearly beloved, may scorn
the errors of the heretics that bark against it, who, deceived by the
vanity of worldly wisdom, have forsaken the Gospel of Truth, and being
unable to understand the Incarnation of the Word, have constructed for
themselves out of the source of enlightenment occasion of
blindness. For after investigating almost all false
believers’ opinions, even those which presume to deny the Holy
Spirit, we come to the conclusion that hardly any one has gone astray,
unless he has refused to believe the reality of the two natures in
Christ under the confession of one Person. For some have ascribed
to the Lord only manhood835
| 835 These were called
‘Psilanthropists’ (upholders of the mere manhood): of
whom Cerinthus (the opponent of S. John) was the earliest
propounder. | , others only Deity836
| 836 These are heretics
like Sabellius the founder of the Patripassian impiety. | . Some have said that, though
there was in Him true Godhead, His flesh was unreal837
| 837 These are
‘Docetists,’ to whom Leo in Sermon LXV., chap. 4, compares
the Eutychians isti phantasmatici Christiani.
Simon Magus was the earliest exponent of this view. | . Others have acknowledged that
He took true flesh but say that He had not the nature of God the Father; and by assigning to His Godhead what
belonged to His human substance, have made for themselves a greater and
a lesser God, although there can be in true
Godhead no grades: seeing that whatever is less than God, is not God838
| 838 These are Arians
who, as Bright (n. 29) points out, in wishing to pacify the catholics
by exalting the character of Christ without acknowledging His equality
with the Father, fell into the error of setting up two Gods (an
Uncreate and a Created). | . Others recognizing that
there is no difference between Father and Son, because they could not
understand unity of Godhead except in unity of Person, have maintained
that the Father is the same as the Son839
| 839 This is the heresy
alluded to in note 3 above. | : so that to be born and nursed,
to suffer and die, to be buried and rise again, belonged to the same
Father who sustained throughout the Person of both
Man and the Word. Certain have
thought that our Lord Jesus Christ had a body
not of our substance but assumed from higher and subtler
elements840
| 840 Ab elementis
superioribus et subtilioribus sumptum, cf. Serm. XXX. chap. 2,
de sublimioris generis prodiisse materia. This is the
modification of “Docetism” adopted by the Gnostic
Valentinus (see Bright’s note 31). | : whereas
certain others have considered that in the flesh of Christ there was no
human soul, but that the Godhead of the Word Itself fulfilled the part
of soul841
| 841 This is the view of
Apollinaris. | . But their unwise assertion passes
into this form that, though they acknowledge the existence of a soul in
the Lord, yet they say it was devoid of mind,
because the Godhead of Itself was sufficient for all purposes of reason
to the Man as well as to the God in
Christ. Lastly the same people have dared to assert that a
certain portion of the Word was turned into Flesh, so that in the
manifold varieties of this one dogma, not only the nature of the flesh
and of the soul but also the essence of the Word Itself is
dissolved.
V. Nestorianism and Eutychianism are
particularly to be avoided at the present time.
There are many other astounding falsehoods also
which we must not weary your ears, beloved, with enumerating. But
after all these various impieties, which are closely connected by the
relationship that exists between one form of blasphemy and another, we
call your devout attention to the avoiding of these two errors in
particular: one of which, with Nestorius for its author, some
time ago attempted to gain ground, but ineffectually; the other, which
is equally damnable, has more recently sprung up with Eutyches as its
propounder. The former dared to maintain that the blessed Virgin
Mary was the mother of Christ’s manhood only, so that in her
conception and childbearing no union might be believed to have taken
place of the Word and the Flesh: because the Son of God did not Himself become Son of Man, but of His mere
condescension linked Himself with created man. This can in no
wise be tolerated by catholic ears, which are so imbued with the gospel
of Truth that they know of a surety there is no hope of salvation for
mankind unless He were Himself the Son of the Virgin who was His
mother’s Creator. On the other hand this blasphemous
propounder of more recent profanity has confessed the union of the two
Natures in Christ, but has maintained that the effect of this very
union is that of the two one remained while the substance of the other
no longer existed, which of course could not have been brought to an
end except by either destruction or separation842
| 842 It is doubtful
whether Eutyches did ever actually say this, but it was the logical
inference from his position: as Gore (p 57), says “Eutyches
never formulated a heresy: he was no philosopher; but he refused
to say that the human nature remained in Christ after the
Incarnation. He shrank from calling Christ ‘of one
substance’ with us men: in some sort of way he left us to
suppose that the human nature was absorbed into and lost in the
Divinity.” | . But this is so opposed to sound
faith that it cannot be entertained without loss of one’s
Christian name. For if the Incarnation of the Word is the uniting
of the Divine and human natures, but by the very fact of their coming
together that which was twofold became single, it was only the Godhead
that was born of the Virgin’s womb, and went through the
deceptive appearance of receiving nourishment and bodily growth:
and to pass over all the changes of the human state, it was only the
Godhead that was crucified, dead, and buried: so that according
to those who thus think, there is no reason to hope for the
resurrection, and Christ is not “the first-begotten from the
dead843
;” because He was not One who
ought to have been raised again, if He had not been One who could be
slain.
VI. The Deity and the Manhood were
present in Christ from the very first.
Keep far from your hearts, dearly beloved, the
poisonous lies of the devil’s inspirations, and knowing that the
eternal Godhead of the Son underwent no growth while with the Father,
be wise and consider that to the same nature to which it was said in
Adam, “Thou art earth, and unto earth shalt thou go844
,” it is said in Christ, “sit
Thou on My right hand845
.”
According to that Nature, whereby Christ is equal to the Father, the
Only-begotten was never inferior to the sublimity of the Father; nor
was the glory which He had with the Father a temporal possession; for
He is on the very right hand of the Father, of which it is said in
Exodus, “Thy right hand, O Lord, is
glorified in power846
;” and in
Isaiah, “Lord, who hath believed our
report? and the arm of the Lord, to whom is it
revealed847
?”
The man, therefore, assumed into the Son of God, was in such wise received into the unity of
Christ’s Person from His very commencement in the body, that
without the Godhead He was not conceived, without the Godhead He was
not brought forth, without the Godhead He was not nursed. It was
the same Person in the wondrous acts, and in the endurance of insults;
through His human weakness crucified, dead and buried: through
His Divine power, being
raised the third day, He ascended to the
heavens, sat down at the right hand of the Father, and in His nature as
man received from the Father that which in His nature as God He Himself also gave848
| 848 Cf. Lett. XXVIII.
(Tome), chap. 6. | .
VII. The fulness of the Godhead is
imparted to the Body (the Church) through the Head,
(Christ).
Meditate, dearly beloved on these things with
devout hearts, and be always mindful of the apostle’s injunction,
who admonishes all men, saying, “See lest any one deceive you
through philosophy and vain deceit according to the tradition of men,
and not according to Christ; for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily, and ye have been filled in Him849
.” He said not
“spiritually” but “bodily,” that we may
understand the substance of flesh to be real, where there is the
dwelling in the body of the fulness of the Godhead: wherewith, of
course, the whole Church is also filled, which, clinging to the Head,
is the body of Christ; who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the
Holy Ghost, God for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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