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| On the Passion, XVI.: delivered on the Sunday.
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Sermon LXVII.
(On the Passion, XVI.: delivered
on the Sunday.)
I. The contemplation of the prophecies of
Christ’s suffering are a great source of pious
delight.
The minds of the faithful, beloved, ought indeed
always to be occupied with wonder at God’s works and their
reasoning faculties devoted particularly to those reflexions by which
they may gain increase of faith. For so long as the pious
heart’s attention is directed either to the benefits which all
enjoy, or to special gifts of His grace, it keeps aloof from many
vanities and retires from bodily cares into a spiritual
seclusion. But this must be the more eagerly and thoroughly done
at the season of the Lord Passion, that what
is then read in the sacred lections may surely be received with the
ears of understanding, and that the themes which are great in word may
be seen to be yet greater from the mysterious realities which underlie
them. For the first reason for our lifting up our hearts1065
| 1065 Erigendi sursum
nostri cordis the liturgical allusion is the same as that noticed
in Sermon LXXIV. 5, n. 6. | is that the voices of the prophets have sung
of the things which the truth of the Gospel has also narrated, not as
destined to happen, but as having happened, and that what man’s
ears had not yet learnt was to be
accomplished, was already being
proclaimed as fulfilled by the (Holy1066
| 1066 The epithet
sanctus is of doubtful genuineness here. | )
Spirit. For King David, whose seed according to the flesh is
Christ, completed his lifetime more than 1,1001067
| 1067 This
calculation is based apparently on that of Prosper’s
Chronicon, which again, follows that of Eusebius. |
years before the day of the Lord’s
Crucifixion, and endured none of those punishments which he relates as
inflicted upon himself. But because by his mouth One spoke Who
was to take suffering flesh of his stock, the story of the cross is
rightly anticipated in the person of him who was the bodily ancestor of
the Saviour. For David truly suffered in Christ, because Jesus
was truly crucified in the flesh which He had from David.
II. The Divine foreknowledge does not
account for the Jews’ wickedness so as to excuse
them.
Since then all things which Jewish ungodliness
committed against the Lord of Majesty were
foretold so long before1068
| 1068 There is another
reading here, ut (for et) non tam de futuris quam de
præsentibus (for præteritis) , &c.,
which the Ballerinii probably do right to reject. Trans.
“foretold so long before that the language of the prophets
is concerned not so much with the future as with the
present.” | , and the
language of the prophets is concerned not so much with things to come
as with things past, what else is thereby revealed to us but the
unchangeable order of God’s eternal
decrees, with Whom the things which are to be decided are already
determined, and what will be is already accomplished? For since
both the character of our actions and the fulfilment of all our wishes
are fore-known to God, how much better known
to Him are His own works? And He was rightly pleased that things
should be recorded as if done which nothing could hinder from being
done. And hence when the Apostles also, being full of the Holy
Ghost, suffered the threats and cruelty of Christ’s enemies, they
said to God with one consent, “For truly
in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed,
Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel
were gathered together to do what Thy hand and Thy counsel ordained to
come to pass1069
| 1069 Acts iv. 27, 28; it is perhaps worth noticing that
Leo does not strictly follow the Biblical account in saying that the
Apostles were “full of the Holy Ghost” at the time
of uttering this prayer: v. 31 says they were so filled
afterwards. | .” Did
then the wickedness of Christ’s persecutors spring from
God’s plan, and was that unsurpassable
crime prefaced and set in motion by the hand of God? Clearly we must not think this of the highest
Justice: that which was fore-known in respect of the Jews’
malice is far different, indeed quite contrary to what was ordained in
respect of Christ’s Passion. Their desire to slay Him did
not proceed from the same source as His to die: nor were their
atrocious crime and the Redeemer’s endurance the offspring of One
Spirit. The Lord did not incite but
permit those madmen’s naughty hands: nor in His
foreknowledge of what must be accomplished did He compel its
accomplishment, even though it was in order to its accomplishment that
He had taken flesh.
III. Christ was in no sense the Author of
His murderer’s guilt.
In fact, the case of the Crucified is so different
from that of His crucifiers that what Christ undertook could not be
reversed, while what they did could be wiped out. For He Who came
to save sinners did not refuse mercy even to His murderers, but changed
the evil of the wicked into the goodness of the believing, that
God’s grace might be the more wonderful,
being mercifully put in force, not according to men’s merits, but
according to the multitude of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge, seeing that they also
who had shed the Saviour’s blood were received into the baptismal
flood. For, as says the Scripture, which contains the
Apostles’ acts when the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter
pierced the hearts of the Jews, and they acknowledged the iniquity of
their crime, saying, “what shall we do, brethren?” the same
Apostle said, “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise,
and to your sons, and to all that are afar off, whomsoever our
Lord God has
called,” and soon after the Scripture goes on to say:
“they therefore that received his word were baptized, and there
were added on that day about 3,000 souls1070
.” And so, in being willing to
suffer their furious rage, the Lord Jesus
Christ was in no way the Author of their crimes; nor did He force them
to desire this, but permitted them to be able, and used the madness of
the blinded people just as He did also the treachery of His betrayer,
whom by kindly acts and words He vouchsafed to recall from the awful
crime he had conceived, by taking him for a disciple, by promoting him
to be an apostle, by warning him with signs, by admitting him to the
revelation of holy mysteries1071
| 1071 Consecrando
mysteriis I think he has, as so often, the institution of the Holy
Eucharist especially in his mind together, of course, with other
sacramental ordinances (such as Holy Baptism and matrimony) which our
Saviour blessed with His sanction and made the means of holiness to His
disciples. | , that one who had
lacked no degree of kindness to correct him, might have no pretext for
his crime at all.
IV.
The enormity of Judas’ crime is set forth.
But O ungodliest of men, “thou seed of
Chanaan and not of Juda1072
,” and no
longer “a vessel of election,” but “a son of
perdition” and death, thou didst think the devil’s
instigations would profit thee better, so that, inflamed with the torch
of greed, thou wert ablaze to gain 30 pieces of silver and sawest not
what riches thou wouldst lose. For even if thou didst not think
the Lord’s promises were to be believed,
what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what
thou hadst already received? Thou wast wont to command the evil
spirits, to heal the sick, to receive honour with the rest of the
apostles, and that thou mightest satisfy thy thirst for gain, it was
open to thee to steal from the box that was in thy charge1073
| 1073 This last privilege
which Leo, with curious sarcasm, co-ordinates with the other three is
spoken of twice by S. John, viz. xii. 6; and xiii.
29. | . But thy mind, which lusted after
forbidden things, was more strongly stimulated by that which was less
allowed: and the amount of the price pleased thee not so much as
the enormity of the sin. Wherefore thy wicked bargain is not so
detestable merely because thou countedst the Lord so cheap, but because thou didst sell Him Who was the
Redeemer, yea, even thine, and hadst no pity on thyself1074
| 1074 Redemptorem etiam
tuum ne tibi parceres, vendidisti. It seems to me that
Leo’s preaching power is nowhere better shown than in the
passages where he draws out the heinousness of Judas’
guilt: cf. Sermon LVIII. chaps. 3 and 4, and Sermon LXII. chap.
4. | . And justly was thy punishment put
into thine own hands because none could be found more cruelly bent on
thy destruction than thyself.
V. Christ’s Passion was for our
Redemption by mystery and example.
The fact, therefore, that at the time appointed,
according to the purpose of His will, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead,
and buried was not the doom necessary to His own condition, but the
method of redeeming us from captivity. For “the Word became
flesh” in order that from the Virgin’s womb He might take
our suffering nature, and that what could not be inflicted on the Son
of God might be inflicted on the Son of
Man. For although at His very birth the signs of Godhead shone
forth in Him, and the whole course of His bodily growth was full of
wonders, yet had He truly assumed our weaknesses, and without share in
sin had spared Himself no human frailty, that He might impart what was
His to us and heal what was ours in Himself. For He, the Almighty
Physician, had prepared a two-fold remedy for us in our misery, of
which the one part consists of mystery and the other of
example1075
| 1075 Aliud est in
sacramento, aliud in exemplo, cf. Serm. LXIII chap. 4, n. 7. | , that by the one
Divine powers may be bestowed, by the other human weaknesses driven
out1076
| 1076
Exigantur: another reading perhaps more in keeping with
the context and Leo’s usual language is erigantur
(raised): cf. Lett. XXVIII. (Tome), chap. 3, humana augens,
divina non minuens, etc. | . Because as God is the Author of our justification, so man is a debtor
to pay Him devotion.
VI. We can only attain to Christ’s
perfection by following in His steps.
Therefore, dearly-beloved, by this unspeakable
restoration of our health no place is left us for pride or for
idleness: because we have nothing which we did not
receive1077
, and we are
expressly warned not to treat the gifts of God’s grace with negligence1078
. For He that comes so timely to
our aid justly urges us with precept, and He that leads us to glory
mercifully incites us to obedience. Wherefore the Lord Himself is rightly made our way, because save through
Christ there is no coming to Christ. But through Him and to Him
does he take his way who treads the path of His endurance and
humiliation, and on that road you may be sure there are not wanting the
heats of toil, the clouds of sadness, the storms of fear. The
snares of the wicked, the persecutions of the unbelieving, the threats
of the powerful, the insults of the proud are there; and all these
things the Lord of hosts and King of glory
passed through in the form of our weakness and in the likeness of
sinful flesh, to the end that amid the danger of this present life we
might desire not so much to avoid and escape them as to endure and
overcome them.
VII. Christ cry of “Forsaken”
on the cross was to teach us the insufficiency of the human nature
without the Divine.
Hence it is that the Lord
Jesus Christ, our Head, representing all the members of His body in
Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment
of the cross, uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the psalm,
“O God, My God,
look upon Me: why hast Thou forsaken Me1079
?” That cry, dearly-beloved, is
a lesson, not a complaint. For since in Christ there is one
person of God and man, and He could not have
been forsaken by Him, from Whom He could not be separated, it is on
behalf of us, trembling and weak ones, that He asks why the flesh that
is afraid to suffer has not been heard. For when the Passion was
beginning, to cure and correct our weak fear He had said,
“Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will
but as Thou;” and again, “Father, if this cup cannot pass
except I drink it, Thy will be done1080
.”
As therefore He had conquered the tremblings of the flesh, and had now
accepted the Father’s will, and trampling all dread of death
under foot, was then carrying out the work of His design, why at the
very time of His triumph over such a victory does He seek the cause and
reason of His being forsaken, that is, not heard, save to show that the
feeling which He entertained in excuse of His human fears is quite
different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the
Father’s eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of
the world? And thus the very cry of “Unheard” is the
exposition of a mighty Mystery, because the Redeemer’s power
would have conferred nothing on mankind if our weakness in Him had
obtained what it sought. Let these words dearly-beloved, suffice
to-day, lest we burden you by the length of our discourse: let us
put off the rest till Wednesday. The Lord shall hear you if you pray that we may keep our
promise through the bounty of Him Who lives and reigns for ever and
ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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