Commentary on Luke (Greek fragments) 2.10–2.49.2

“And the angel said to them,” and so on (2:10). We may understand that it was an archangel who announced the joy to the shepherds, coming down with the host under his command for the good news of the salvation of human beings; though for the moment he alone spoke with them, since the host under him did not come within their sight because their nature is invisible. “And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled” (2:22). So far, then, we have seen him, through what was just read, yielding to the laws given through Moses—or rather, the Lawgiver himself, who is God, subject as man to his own decrees. And for what reason, the most wise Paul teaches us, saying: “When we were children, we were enslaved under the elements of the world; but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.” So Christ bought off from the curse of the law those who were under the law but had not kept it. And how did he buy them off? By fulfilling it. And in another way too: to undo the charges of the transgression in Adam, he presented himself on our behalf to God the Father obedient and docile in every respect whatever; for it is written: “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” So he bowed his neck to the law with us, doing this too by the economy; for it befitted him to fulfil all righteousness. When the eighth day came, then, on which circumcision in the flesh was customarily performed according to the law’s decree, he too is circumcised, he who gave the law to Moses, and before that to Abraham. He receives the name too, that is, Jesus, which is interpreted “salvation of the people”; for so God the Father willed his own Son, born of a woman according to the flesh, to be named; for he then became the salvation of the people—not of one people but of every nation and of the whole world under heaven. At one and the same time, then, the rite of circumcision was performed and he received his name. And what is the riddle? Come, let us see again. The blessed Paul said: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing.” Did the God of all, then, command through the all-wise Moses that nothing be kept, and attach punishment to those who transgressed it? Yes, I would say; for as far as the nature of the act goes it is nothing at all, but it is pregnant with the type of a mystery. For on the eighth day Christ returned to life from the dead and gave us circumcision in the spirit. For he commanded the holy apostles: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And we say that circumcision in the spirit is performed above all at the time of holy baptism, when Christ also makes us partakers of the Holy Spirit. Of this, again, the ancient Joshua, who led the army after Moses, was a type; for he first brought the sons of Israel across the Jordan, and then at once sat down and circumcised them with knives of stone. So when we cross the Jordan, then Christ circumcises us by the power of the Holy Spirit, not cleansing flesh but rather cutting away the defilement in souls. On the eighth day, then, Christ is circumcised and receives his name, as I said. For then, then indeed we were saved by him and through him: “In whom,” he says, “you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him.” So his death took place for us, and his resurrection, and his circumcision; for he died so that we, who died with him when he died to sin, might no longer live to sin. Therefore it is said, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him.” He is said to have died to sin, not because he sinned (“For he committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth”), but because of my sin. As, then, we died with him when he died, so we shall rise with him. Again, since the Son came to be with us, though he is God by nature and Lord of all, for that reason he does not disdain our measure but came to be under the same law with us, though as God he is himself the Lawgiver. He is circumcised on the eighth day along with the Jews to confirm his kinship with them, so that they might not deny him; for the Christ was expected from the seed of David, and he showed the proof of kinship. For if even after his circumcision they said, “We do not know where this man is from,” then, had he not been circumcised according to the flesh and kept the law, their denial would have had a plausible pretext. … But after he was circumcised, circumcision ceased, since what it signified, namely baptism, was brought in for us; for this reason we are no longer circumcised. For circumcision seems to me to accomplish three things: first, it marks off the descendants of Abraham as with a sign and seal, and distinguishes them from the other nations; second, it prefigures in itself the grace and power of divine baptism—for as the one circumcised was of old reckoned among God’s people by the seal, so the one baptized, having Christ imprinted in himself as a seal, is enrolled for adoption by God; and third, it is a symbol of the faithful established in grace, who with the knife … of the spiritual word of faith and of ascetic labours cut off and put to death the uprisings of fleshly pleasures and passions, cutting not the body but cleansing the heart, circumcised in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise, the divine Paul testifies, needs no human verdict but hangs on the judgment from above. Since, then, the law goes against every woman who bears a male or female child and makes its condemnation of us most general, the holy Virgin, from whom we say that Christ sprang according to the flesh, is exempted from the reproach. For see, if you please, the precision of the law: “A woman,” it says—and not just any woman indiscriminately, but one “who has conceived seed and borne a male, shall be unclean.” But here the divine body was formed of the Holy Spirit, fashioned ineffably in the holy Virgin, and took little account of the laws of nature; for the firstborn of the saints, the firstfruits of those who obtain rebirth from God through the Spirit, had no need at all of the deposit of seed; of them it is said plainly: “Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh or of man, but of God.” So the holy Virgin escaped the outcry of the law, since she conceived from no seed at all, but bore for us the divine infant by the working of the Spirit. After the circumcision he again awaits the time of purification; and when the days were fulfilled (the fulfilment of the days was the fortieth), then he is brought up to Jerusalem and brought into the sight of the Father, as a man like us—God the Word who shares his throne, who was also written of through the shadow of the law in the firstborn. For the firstborn before the incarnation, which they sacrificed to him according to the law, were holy and sacred to God. O great economy! O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! He who is in the bosom of the Father, to whom all things are brought in service, who is glorified by the worship of all, when he came within the measures of humanity, offers a sacrifice to his own Begetter. O wonderful thing! The truth has kept the types of the law. For what reason? Because he was both Lawgiver as God and under the law as man. And what did he bring? As a firstborn male, a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons, as the law prescribed. But what do these signify? The turtledove is the most vocal of birds; the dove is a gentle, meek creature. Such did the Maker and Lord of all become toward us: having meekness in the highest degree, and like a turtledove charming the world under heaven and filling his own vineyard, that is, us who have believed in him, with his beautiful voice. It is written, then, in the Song of Songs: “The voice of the turtledove was heard in our land; the vines are in blossom”; for Christ, the divine and evangelical proclamation, the salvation of the whole world, has spoken to us. The turtledove and the dove were slain so that he himself might again be signified to us as through types, enduring death according to the flesh for the life of the world. For he is the sweetest-voiced turtledove, he the guileless dove. Christ, then, at one time offered himself together with the types—the truth with them—for an odour of sweet fragrance, so that he might bring us through himself to God the Father, and so undo the aversion that had come upon us through the transgression in Adam and through the sin that tyrannized over all of us, and so make us worthy of the Father’s regard. For we were those who of old cried out, “Look upon me and have mercy on me,” as the Psalmist says. “For the eyes of the Lord,” he says, “are upon the righteous.” For the Lord does not look upon those held fast in sins, but upon the meek and quiet one who trembles at his divine words. We had first to be cleansed, then, and so be counted worthy of God’s regard; and we have gained this through the Saviour of all. But we must ask, first, of whom “their purification” is written; second, about presenting him to the Lord; and third, what the pair of turtledoves and the two young pigeons signify. For if anyone thinks that “their purification” is said of the holy Mother of God, or of the blessed Joseph, or of the Lord, he will be impious. For neither did Joseph know the holy Virgin, nor did she conceive in iniquities like other women, so that they should make an offering for their own purification; but she conceived without seed and gave birth without corruption. Where there is no coming together of woman and man, no sleep and pleasure, no coupling and union, what need is there of purification? Nor is it said of the Lord, the undefiled, who is beyond all purity. “And to offer a sacrifice,” and so on (2:24). … he paid the double drachma to the collectors, though he did not owe the payment, since he is in truth the Son; but he paid it when he came under the law. For he had, he had to fulfil the economy that he accepted for our sake. And we shall find him written of in the payment of the double drachma too, as Saviour and Redeemer. For the double drachma was a kind of coin bearing the king’s image, and it was paid according to the law for two heads. See, then, Christ again represented in the double drachma. For he, being the image of the Father, the imprint of his hypostasis, the coin from heaven, offered himself as the ransom of the two peoples, that from the Jews, I mean, and that from the nations.

“And he took him up in his arms” (2:28). Christ was carried into the temple while still an infant, small and at the breast, and offered what the law prescribed, a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons: the type of chastity and meekness, and moreover of a difference in ways of life, since he is the lawgiver of both, of marriage and of the unmarried life. For you might say that those who are unencumbered and more spiritual and have chosen the solitary life are the doves, while those who have taken thought for begetting children and the rest of household management are the turtledoves. The blessed Simeon, honoured with prophetic grace, receives him into his arms and, filled with the highest delight, blesses God, saying: “Now you let your servant depart, Master.” Depart from what? From the arena of this life; for life is … and a prison. For he had come who was to make peace for the world, who joins heaven to earth, who makes the earth heaven through the teaching of the Gospel. “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples.” For the mystery of Christ had been prepared even before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in the last times of the age; and he became a light to those in darkness, who had gone astray and fallen under the devil’s hand; for they have been called by God the Father to the knowledge of the Son, who is the true light. “But also for the glory of Israel.” For even if some of them proved insolent and disobedient, with minds full of folly, yet the remnant has been saved and glorified through Christ. The firstfruits of these were the divine disciples, the brightness of whose fame shines around the whole world under heaven. And in another way too Christ is the glory of Israel, since he came forth from them according to the flesh, though he is God over all and before the ages. “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel” (2:34).

Emmanuel has been laid by God the Father in the foundations of Zion, a chosen stone, a cornerstone, precious. Those who believed in him were not put to shame; but the unbelievers, who were not able to see the mystery concerning him, fell and were broken. For God the Father said again somewhere: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame; but on whomever it falls, it will crush him.” But the prophet safeguarded those of Israel, saying: “Sanctify him as Lord, and he will be your fear; and if you trust in him, he will be to you for sanctification, and you will not meet him as a stone of stumbling, nor as a rock of falling.” Since, then, Israel did not sanctify Emmanuel, who is Lord and God, nor was willing to trust in him, it stumbled over him as over a stone through unbelief, and was broken and fell; but many rose, that is, those who accepted faith in him.

Or else, as the most wise Paul writes, the cross is “to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the nations foolishness.” And again: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God for salvation.” For this reason the Lord is a sign that is spoken against. “And a sword will pierce through your own soul too” (2:35). … we say that by the sword is meant here the trial, in the form of a knife, or else the very suffering brought upon Emmanuel by the madness of the Jews. And so, it seems, the righteous Simeon understood it and indeed said it; for the holy Virgin was all but slaughtered by a sword, seeing the one born of her according to the flesh crucified. Such too is the saying in Zechariah: “Sword, awake against my shepherd”; that is, let the saving passion now be set in motion, and let the time come for the showing forth of the good things.

“And the child grew,” and so on (2:40). The saying “The child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him” must be taken as said with respect to his humanity. Consider, I pray, the depth of the economy. The Word undergoes a human birth, though as God he is without beginning and outside time; he who as God is all-perfect is in bodily growth; the bodiless one is in the filling out of limbs; he is filled with wisdom, though he is himself all wisdom. And what do we say to this? See in these things him who is in the form of the Father in likeness to us; the rich one in poverty; the exalted one in lowliness; him who possesses fullness as God, in being said to receive. So did the Word, being God, empty himself. For what is written of him in human terms shows the manner of the self-emptying. It is not among the things possible that the Word who sprang from God the Father should undergo anything of this kind in his own nature; but when he became flesh, that is, a man like us, then he is born of a woman according to the flesh and is also said to undergo human things. For the Word, being God, was able to raise his own flesh to the measure of a full-grown man straight from the womb; but that would not have been far from a portent. Therefore he allowed the customs and laws of humanity to prevail over his own flesh too. Thus he might also be said to advance in wisdom: not receiving an addition of wisdom—insofar as he is understood as God, all-perfect in all things and wholly without need of the dignities that befit God—but because God the Word gradually extended the manifestation of his wisdom along with the growth of the body. The body advances in stature, the soul in wisdom; for the Godhead admits of advance in neither, since the Word of God is all-perfect.

Fittingly he joined the advance in wisdom to the growth in stature; for in proportion to the measure of the body’s stature the divine nature revealed its own wisdom. “And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast” (2:42). Having said that Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace with God and men, the evangelist shows that his statement is true. For he brings him to Jerusalem with the holy Virgin, a feast calling them there; then he says that he stayed behind and was afterwards found in the temple sitting among the teachers, asking and answering—evidently about what had been declared long before in the law—and then admired by all for his questions and his answers. You see him advancing in wisdom and grace by becoming known to many as such.

“Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow” (2:48). His mother knew that he was not Joseph’s child, but she says this because of the suspicion of the Jews. And since she said, “Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow,” the Saviour says in reply:

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49). For the first time he mentions his true Father more openly and lays bare his own Godhead. For when the holy Virgin said, “Child, why have you treated us so?”, then, then indeed, showing himself to be beyond human measures, and teaching that she had become the minister of the economy by bearing the flesh, but that he was God by nature and in truth, and Son of the Father who is in heaven, he says: “Did you not know…”

and so on. — Here let the followers of Valentinus be ashamed, when they hear that the temple was God’s, and that Christ, who of old was written of through the law and given shape as in shadows and types, is now among his own: let them be ashamed of saying that the Creator, the God of the law, the God of the temple, is not the Father of Christ. “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in grace with God and men” (2:52). … the evangelist John: “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” To what point will the full advance? Or what addition at all will he receive beyond whom there is nothing? So it is not as Word and God that he is said to advance, but because, being ever more admired, he was shown more gracious to those who saw him through what he accomplished; so that it is truer to say that it was the habit of wonder in the minds of the beholders that advanced, rather than he who is perfect in grace as God. Consider that what advances in something is other than that in which it is said to advance. If, then, he is said to advance in wisdom, it was not wisdom that advanced, but the humanity in it. For as the Godhead in him was revealed and manifested day by day, he became ever more wonderful to those who saw him. And note that he did not say, “The Word advanced,” but “Jesus,” so that you should not think of the Word bare, but understand that because he became flesh he is also said to advance, since he took on what naturally advances, that is, the human. So “advanced” belongs to the humanity and may reasonably be applied to it. For in this way each thing said will lie in its proper order: neither will what befits the Word bare be brought down to the human, nor will the human things climb up into the account of the Godhead.