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| On the Feast of the Epiphany, III.
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Sermon XXXIII.
On the Feast of the Epiphany,
III.
I. When we were yet sinners, Christ came
to save.
Although I know, dearly-beloved, that you are
fully aware of the purpose of to-day’s festival, and that the
words of the Gospel860
| 860 Secundum
consuetudinem evangelicus sermo reseraverit. The Roman Gospel
for the day was apparently then, as now with us, S. Matt. ii. 1–12: but the manifestation of Christ
to the wise men was not universally so prominent a feature of the
Festival as other manifestations of Him, e.g. His birth (Jan. 6 having
been in the East the original Christmas Day), His baptism, &c. | have according to
use unfolded it to you, yet that nothing may be omitted on our part, I
shall venture to say on the subject what the Lord has put in my mouth: so that in our common joy
the devotion of our hearts may be so much the more sincere as the
reason of our keeping the feast is better understood. The
providential Mercy of God, having determined
to succour the perishing world in these latter times, fore-ordained the
salvation of all nations in the Person of Christ; in order that,
because all nations had long been turned aside from the worship of the
true God by wicked error, and even
God’s peculiar people Israel had
well-nigh entirely fallen away from the enactments of the Law, now that
all were shut up under sin861
, He might have
mercy upon all.
For as justice was everywhere failing and the
whole world was given over to vanity and wickedness, if the Divine
Power had not deferred its judgment, the whole of mankind would have
received the sentence of damnation. But wrath was changed to
forgiveness, and, that the greatness of the Grace to be displayed might
be the more conspicuous, it pleased God, to
apply the mystery of remission to the abolishing of men’s sins at
a time when no one could boast of his own merits.
II. The wise men from the East are
typical fulfilments of God’s promise to
Abraham.
Now the manifestation of this unspeakable mercy,
dearly-beloved, came to pass when Herod held the royal power in Judea,
where the legitimate succession of Kings having failed and the power of
the High-priests having been overthrown, an alien-born had gained the
sovereignty: that the rising of the true King might be attested
by the voice of prophecy, which had said: “a prince shall
not fail from Juda, nor a leader from his loins, until He come for whom
it is reserved862
| 862 Gen. xlix. 10, donec veniat cui repositum est
(ᾧ ἀποκεῖται),
cf. Ezek. xxi. 27: the reading of A. and R. VV. is
“until Shiloh come;” the LXX. read ἕως
ἃν ἔλθῃ τὰ
ἀποκείμενα
αὐτῷ, and the Vulgate, donec veniat qui
mittendus erat. Origen paraphrases thus:
“He should come for Whom the things were reserved, that is, the
Christ of God, the Prince of the Divine
promises. He alone could be called the expectation of the
nations, for men of all nations believed in God through Him, according
to the words of Isaiah, ‘In His name shall the Gentiles
trust.’” Hom. in Genesin xvii. §
6. | , and He
shall
be the
expectation of the nations.” Concerning which an
innumerable succession was once promised to the most blessed patriarch
Abraham to be begotten not by fleshly seed but by fertile faith; and
therefore it was compared to the stars in multitude that as father of
all the nations he might hope not for an earthly but for a heavenly
progeny. And therefore, for the creating of the promised
posterity, the heirs designated under the figure of the stars are
awakened by the rising of a new star, that the ministrations of the
heaven might do service in that wherein the witness of the heaven had
been adduced. A star more brilliant than the other stars arouses
wise men that dwell in the far East, and from the brightness of the
wondrous light these men, not unskilled in observing such things,
appreciate the importance of the sign: this doubtless being
brought about in their hearts by Divine inspiration, in order that the
mystery of so great a sight might not be hid from them, and, what was
an unusual appearance to their eyes, might not be obscure to their
minds. In a word they scrupulously set about their duty and
provide themselves with such gifts that in worshipping the One they may
at the same time show their belief in His threefold function:
with gold they honour the Person of a King, with myrrh that of Man,
with incense that of God863
| 863 Cf. Serm. XXXI.
chap. 2, above. | .
III. The chosen race is no longer the
Jews, but believers of every nation.
And so they enter the chief city of the Kingdom of
Judæa, and in the royal city ask that He should be shown them Whom
they had learnt was begotten to be King. Herod is
perturbed: he fears for his safety, he trembles for his power, he
asks of the priests and teachers of the Law what the Scripture has
predicted about the birth of Christ, he ascertains what had been
prophesied: truth enlightens the wise men, unbelief blinds the
experts: carnal Israel understands not what it reads, sees not
what it points out; refers to the pages, whose utterances it does not
believe. Where is thy boasting, O Jew? where thy noble birth
drawn from the stem of Abraham? is not thy circumcision become
uncircumcision864
? Behold
thou, the greater servest the less865
, and by the
reading of that covenant866
| 866 Or
“will” (testamenti, διαθήκης). | which thou
keepest in the letter only, thou becomest the slave of strangers born,
who enter into the lot of thy heritage. Let the fulness of the
nations enter into the family of the patriarchs, yea let it enter, and
let the sons of promise receive in Abraham’s seed the blessing
which his sons, according to the flesh, renounce their claim to.
In the three Magi867
| 867 Cf. Sermon XXXI.
chaps. i. and ii. | let all people
worship the Author of the universe: and let God be known not in Judæa alone, but in all the
world, so that everywhere “His name” may be “great in
Israel868
.” For while the dignity of
the chosen race is proved to be degenerate by unbelief in its
descendants, it is made common to all alike by our belief.
IV. The massacre of the Innocents through
the consequent flight of Christ, brings the truth into
Egypt.
Now when the wise men had worshipped the
Lord and finished all their devotions,
according to the warning of a dream, they return not by the same route
by which they had come. For it behoved them now that they
believed in Christ not to walk in the paths of their old line of life,
but having entered on a new way to keep away from the errors they had
left: and it was also to baffle Herod’s design, who, under
the cloke of homage, was planning a wicked plot against the Infant
Jesus. Hence when his crafty hopes were overthrown, the
king’s wrath rose to a greater fury. For reckoning up the
time which the wise men had indicated, he poured out his cruel rage on
all the men-children of Bethlehem, and in a general massacre of the
whole of that city869
| 869 Cæde
generali universæ civitatis illius; as the context shows, this
phrase is rhetorically exaggerated. | slew the
infants, who thus passed to their eternal glory, thinking that, if
every single babe was slain there, Christ too would be slain. But
He Who was postponing the shedding of His blood for the world’s
redemption till another time, was carried and brought into Egypt by his
parents’ aid, and thus sought the ancient cradle of the Hebrew
race, and in the power of a greater providence dispensing the princely
office of the true Joseph, in that He, the Bread of Life and the Food
of reason that came down from heaven, removed that worse than all
famines under which the Egyptians’ minds were labouring, the lack
of truth870
| 870 Cf. Sermon XXXII.
chap. 1, Tunc autem Ægypto Salvator illatus est, ut gens
antiquis erroribus dedita, iam ad vicinam salutem per occultam gratiam
vocaretur; et quæ nondum eje cerat ab animo superstitionem, iam
reciperet veritatem. | , nor
without
that sojourn
would the symbolism of that One Victim have been complete; for there
first by the slaying of the lamb was fore-shadowed the health-bringing
sign of the Cross and the Lord’s
Passover.
V. We must keep this festival as thankful
sons of light.
Taught then, dearly-beloved, by these mysteries of
Divine grace, let us with reasonable joy celebrate the day of our
first-fruits and the commencement of the nations’ calling:
“giving thanks to” the merciful God “who made us worthy,” as the Apostle says,
“to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: who
delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the
kingdom of the Son of His love871
:”
since as Isaiah prophesied, “the people of the nations that sat
in darkness, have seen a great light, and they that dwelt in the land
of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined872
.” Of whom he also said to
the Lord, “nations which knew not thee,
shall call on thee: and peoples which were ignorant of thee,
shall run together unto thee873
.”
This day “Abraham saw and was glad874
,” when he understood that the
sons of his faith would be blessed in his seed that is in Christ, and
foresaw that by believing he should be the father of all nations,
“giving glory to God and being fully
assured that What He had promised, He was able also to perform875
.” This day David sang of in
the psalms saying: “all nations that thou hast made shall
come and worship before Thee, O Lord:
and they shall glorify Thy name876
;” and
again: “The Lord hath made known
His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the
sight of the nations877
.”
This in good truth we know to have taken place ever since the three
wise men aroused in their far-off land were led by a star to recognize
and worship the King of heaven and earth, [which to those who gaze
aright ceases not daily to appear. And if it could make Christ
known when concealed in infancy, how much more able was it to reveal
Him when reigning in majesty]878
| 878 Both Quesnel and
the Ballerinii condemn this passage inclosed in brackets as
spurious. The former thinks it has crept into the text ex
annotatione marginali alicuius astrologiæ plus æquo
dediti. It is wanting in all the mss. melioris notæ. | . And
surely their worship of Him exhorts us to imitation; that, as far as we
can, we should serve our gracious God who
invites us all to Christ. For whosoever lives religiously and
chastely in the Church and “sets his mind on the things which are
above, not on the things that are upon the earth879
,” is in some measure like the
heavenly light: and whilst he himself keeps the brightness of a
holy life, he points out to many the way to the Lord like a star. In which regard, dearly-beloved,
ye ought all to help one another in turn, that in the kingdom of
God, which is reached by right faith and good
works, ye may shine as the sons of light: through our
Lord Jesus Christ, Who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for
ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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