Sermons 144–147

[On the same.] The height of the subject causes and the greatness of the mystery compels us to adjourn our sermon on the nativity of Christ. A virgin has given birth: who will speak of it? The Word became flesh: who will tell it? If the Word of God gives the cry of infancy, how will imperfect man cry out in a word? As great a light as the star gave the magi seeking by night, so great a clarity does the teacher's word give hearers about the Lord's rising: so that they may rejoice that they have found Christ, may not presume to run through the matter in argument, may honor his infancy with gifts and not belittle it. But pray, brothers, that he who grew little by little in our body may deign to grow little by little in our word. The evangelist today related that the angel spoke thus: “Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with God” (Luke 1). “Do not fear, Mary.” Why? “Because you have found grace.” The one who fears is not the one who finds but the one who loses. She found, she found the grace of conceiving the heavenly offspring, who in giving birth did not lose the insignia of virginity. “Do not fear, Mary.” What should she fear, who conceives the security of all things and brings forth the joys of the ages? There is no fear where the business is divine, not human; where there is consciousness of virtue, not of shame. What should she fear who has received him whom all fearful things fear? What should she fear, whose cause has the judge as its advocate and integrity as witness of her innocence? “Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with God.” The Virgin found within herself the Word, God, which was in the beginning with God; and she who was a small lodging of humanity became a great temple of the Godhead; and him whom the smallness of the human body did not hold, the greatness of the virginal womb took in. “Behold,” it says, “you will conceive in the womb.” For reverence's sake it would have been enough to have said “you will conceive”; what is the meaning of the emphasis “in the womb”? That the conception might be reality, not figure; that the childbirth might be genuine, not an image; that as true God was born of true God, so from a true conception the reality of a human body might be born. In the rising of Christ, brothers, the injury of the human body was taken away, not its nature; the creature was not destroyed but the fault condemned. It is a heresy, then, that falsely says that Christ took an airy body, that pretends that he did not have flesh but simulated a man. “You will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” What is Jesus in Hebrew, Sōtēr in Greek, is called Salvator in Latin. Rightly, then, all things are kept safe for the Virgin who bore the Savior of all. “And you shall call his name Jesus,” because in this name the whole majesty of the Godhead is adored: all who dwell in heaven, all who inhabit the earth, all who are held in the depth of hell bow down to this name and adore it. Hear the Apostle saying: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil 2:10). This is the name that gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, running to the lame, speech to the mute, life to the dead; and the power of this name put to flight the whole power of the devil from possessed bodies. And if the name is so great, how great is the power? But who is he who is called by this name? Let the angel now say: “And he will be called the Son of the Most High.” You see that what the Virgin conceives is not an earthly offspring but a heavenly one. A virgin gave birth, but God took up the Son. So whoever disputes about this birth in a human way goes on to the whole injury of so great a Father. “And the Lord,” it says, “will give him the throne of David his father.” From this the heretic breeds the fogs of his faithlessness, from this he fashions material for his error. “See,” he says, “it is not I who say it, but the angel: the Lord God will give him. Is not the one who gives greater than the one who receives? And he who receives did not have it before he received.” But let us hear these things, brothers, not as the faithless but as the faithful; and let what is for them an occasion of error be for us a proof of faith. “The Lord God will give him.” Who gives, or to whom does he give? Certainly God gives to man, the Godhead to the flesh. “The Lord God will give him.” Which God? Certainly the Word, who was in the beginning, always God. To whom does he give? To what was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1). Hear the Apostle saying: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5). To himself, certainly, not to another. This God, then, who was in Christ, was giving the kingdom to himself in Christ, and conferring on the body he had taken up what he had always possessed in his Godhead, as is proved from the angel's own words: “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father.” You see that when he receives he is called the son of David; when he gives, he is called the Son of God. He himself said: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16). And what need of receiving is there where there is power of having? He said: “All that the Father has is mine.” Who receives what is his own? Or does it belong to the giver's grace if what is given belongs to the receiver? We confess that he received; but it was he who was born, who took flesh, who took on infancy, who endured the cradle, who took on ages of life, who bore labor, who felt hunger, who suffered thirst, who did not shrink from so many kinds of injuries, who mounted the cross, who underwent death, who entered the tomb: heretic, ascribe to him what is added. Do you think that he who received such great injuries from men disdains to receive honor from God? Or do you suppose that he who received punishments and death from his enemies scorns to have the kingdom conferred on him by the Father? Heretic, if you understand that whatever belongs to injury, to infancy, to age, to time, to what is given, to what is received, to lessening, to death, belongs not to the Godhead but to the body, you will inflict no injury on the Son, you will make no distance within the Trinity. But let us return to ourselves and now speak of what is ours. “The Lord God,” it says, “will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” He who always sat with the Father in heaven now received the throne of David on earth; he who will always reign for himself has now obtained an eternal kingdom for us in the house of Jacob. Let us rejoice, brothers, because he who reigned for himself is going to reign for us; let us rejoice, because he has come to reign on earth so that we may be able to reign with him in heaven. Hear the Apostle: “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim 2). He was born for us; he has come to give the kingdom to us, as he himself promises when he says: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25). He said “for you,” not “for me.” He came to be with us always, to be always before our eyes, who now is held only in our hearts. He will come, so that those for whom the kingdom is glory may not be ignorant of his familiar friendship. “And of his kingdom there will be no end.” You who believe in his coming, rejoice, because he has promised a kingdom without end, where service has no successor, where dignities are everlasting. But why is it that those who canvass for passing things do not canvass for lasting ones? Why is it, why, that they buy perishable honors with gold, and will not receive everlasting ones for nothing? Brothers, here offices are prepared, here places are decreed, here honors are assigned; here whoever has not received his letters of appointment from the faith of the Gospel will not have the insignia of eternal dignities there. So if service delights us, if we want to serve forever, let us take up the arms of Christ, keep watch, be sober, conquer the devil, lay low the vices, so that we may receive rewards and crowns alike from our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who reigns with God the Father now and always, and for all ages of ages. Amen.

[On the generation of Christ, and on Joseph wishing to put Mary away.] You are going to hear today, brothers, how the blessed evangelist has related to us the mystery of the generation of Christ. “The generation of Christ,” he says, “was thus: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; but Joseph her husband, since he was just and did not wish to expose her, wanted to put her away secretly” (Matt 1). And how was he just, who thought he should not examine his bride's conception? Does he not inquire into the cause of a suspected chastity, does he not vindicate the reputation of his marriage? “He wanted to put her away secretly.” This seems more fitting for a kind man than for a just one; but by human judgment, not divine. With God there is neither kindness without justice nor justice without kindness; in heaven's understanding, fairness without goodness and goodness without fairness are not found. Virtues, if they are separated, fall apart; fairness without goodness is savagery, and justice without kindness is cruelty. Joseph, then, was rightly just, because kind; and kind, because just. In short, while he considered kindness he was free of cruelty; while he moderated the case he kept to judgment; while he put off vengeance he escaped crime; while he shrank from being an accuser he fled from the sentence. The holy mind seethed, struck by the novelty of the matter: there stood a bride pregnant, but a virgin; there she stood full with a pledge, but not empty of modesty; there she stood anxious about the conception, but secure about her integrity; there she stood clothed with a mother's gift, but not shut out from the honor of virginity. What should the bridegroom do in these circumstances? Accuse her of a crime? But he himself was the witness of her innocence. Speak of fault? But he himself was the guardian of her modesty. Press a charge of adultery? But he himself was the defender of her virginity. What should he do in these circumstances? He thinks of putting her away, because he could neither betray outside, nor contain within, what had happened. He thinks of putting her away, and he tells everything to God, because he had nothing he could tell a man. And we too, brothers, whenever a matter troubles us, appearance deceives, and the color of the case keeps us from knowing what is within, let us decline judgment, withhold vengeance, flee from sentence, and tell everything to God, lest while we perhaps easily drive the innocent to punishment we pronounce a harmful sentence on ourselves, as the Lord says: “With the judgment you judge, you will be judged” (Matt 7). Certainly, if we are silent, God will cry out, the angel will answer, who so forestalled Joseph, lest he abandon innocence: “Joseph,” he says, “son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins.” “Joseph, son of David.” You see, brothers, that the lineage is called in the person; you see the whole ancestry named in one; you see the line of David's family tree now summoned in Joseph. “Joseph, son of David.” Born in the twenty-eighth generation, how is he called son of David, unless because the secret of the lineage is opened, the faith of the promise fulfilled, and the heavenly conception and birth from above sealed in virginal flesh? “Joseph, son of David.” With such a word the promise of God the Father had been given to David: “The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not disappoint him: Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne” (Ps 132:11 [LXX 131:11]). That this was done he boasts in this song: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand” (Ps 110:1 [LXX 109:1]). “Of the fruit of your womb”: well “the fruit of your womb,” well “from the womb,” because the heavenly guest, the dweller from above, so came down into the lodging of the womb as not to know the bars of the body, and so went out of the dwelling of the womb that the virginal door did not open, and what is sung in the Song of Songs was fulfilled: “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed” (Song 4). “Joseph, son of David, do not fear.” The bridegroom is warned not to fear the bride's case; and truly, a kind mind is more afraid while it suffers with another. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear”: lest, though secure in conscience, you give way at learning the mystery. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear.” What you see is virtue, not crime; this is not a human fall but a divine descent; here is reward, not guilt; here is an increase of heaven, not a loss of the body; this is not the exposure of a person but the secret of the judge; here is the palm of the one who knows, not the penalty of punishment; this is not a man's theft, it is God's treasure; here is not a cause of death but of life. And so “do not fear,” because she who is in labor with life does not deserve to be killed. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife.” That a betrothed woman should be called wife belongs to divine law: as, then, she is a mother while her virginity remains, so she is called wife while her modesty remains. “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Let them come and hear, those who ask who it is that Mary bore: “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Let them come and hear, those who with a Greek whirlwind have tried to cloud Latin purity, saying anthrōpotokos, Christotokos, so as to take away Theotokos, blaspheming. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” And “what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” because “God is spirit” (John 3 and 4). Why then do you ask who it is that is born of the Holy Spirit, when God himself answers you that he is God? When John rebukes you, who says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word, God, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory” (John 1)? John saw glory; the unbeliever looks at the injury. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” “And we saw his glory.” Whose? His who was born of the Holy Spirit, his who, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. “What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.” The Virgin conceived, but of the Spirit; the virgin gave birth, but to the one whom Isaiah foretold: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us” (Isa 7; Matt 1). God with us, man with them. And “cursed is the man who puts his hope in man” (Jer 17). Let them hear, those who ask who it is that was born of Mary. “You shall bear a son,” says the angel, “and you shall call his name Jesus.” Why Jesus? The Apostle says: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil 2); and are you, a deceitful examiner, still asking who Jesus is? Every tongue now confesses that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father; and are you still asking who Jesus is? “You will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people.” He will not save another's people. From what? “From their sins.” If you do not believe Christians that he who forgives sins is God, then, most faithless one, believe at least the Jews, who say: “Though you are a man, you make yourself God” (John 10). “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2). They denied that he was God who did not believe that he forgave sins; you believe that sins are forgiven by him, and do you hesitate to confess him God? The Word became flesh so that man's flesh might be advanced into the glory of God, not so that God might be turned into the injury of the flesh, as the Apostle says: “He who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6). And how, when God joins himself to man, is he not one God? Human laws put an end to all disputed questions within thirty years; and does Christ, about five hundred years after his nativity, have to answer suits about it, endure litigation over his birth, sustain questions about his status? Heretic, stop judging your judge, and adore in heaven as God him whom the magus adored as God on earth (Matt 2).

[On the same, and on Joseph the betrothed, and the betrothed who was a mother.] Whenever, after the bounds of the year have run their course, the day of the Lord's Nativity arrives, and the brightness of the virginal birth is spread through the whole world with fiery radiance, our silence comes from choice, not from fear. What mind would presume to put itself in the way at the very rising of the divine King? When the sun's rays burst forth, human sight is dulled; when God shines forth, how is the whole gaze of souls not wounded? So, with our senses restored after the stupor of the new light, it is time that, having seen the generation of Christ in the flesh, we should contemplate also the secrets of his Godhead. “The generation of Christ,” says the evangelist, “was thus” (Matt 1). Brothers, if we want to understand what is said, let us not weigh divine words by human measures; human understanding must be set aside where all that is said is divine. So the fact that Christ is born is not custom but sign; not nature but power; not order but might; it is a heavenly miracle, not a human reckoning. What will worldly knowledge grasp here? What will the understanding of the flesh seek here? “The generation of Christ,” he says, “was thus.” He did not say “came about thus” but “was thus,” because the generation of Christ was with the Father when he was being begotten of his mother. What was, always was; what was made, this was being added: he was God, he was being added as man; he who had fashioned us from clay took us up from the womb. “When his mother Mary had been betrothed.” It would have been enough to say, “when Mary had been betrothed.” What is the meaning of a betrothed mother? If a mother, not betrothed; if betrothed, not yet a mother. “When Mary his mother had been betrothed”: betrothed in virginity, mother in fruitfulness; a mother who knew no man, conscious of childbirth. Or how was she not a mother before conception, who after childbirth was a virgin mother? Or when was she not a parent, who bore the Author of the ages and gave a beginning to things? By nature virginity is always a mother, as corruption is always a stepmother. It belongs therefore to the virginal gift that a virgin should regenerate through God what a virgin generated through God: God and integrity are a heavenly partnership; virginity joined to Christ is the union of perfect virtue. That the Virgin conceives is the honor of the Spirit, not the burden of the flesh; that the Virgin gives birth is the secret of God, not the ministry of marriage; that Christ is born belongs to the divine majesty, not to human weakness: it is wholly the glory of the Godhead, where no injury of the flesh is felt. “When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Why is the secret of heavenly innocence destined for a betrothed woman, and not for one who is free? Why is the bride's danger thus prepared by the bridegroom's jealousy? Why is so great a virtue thought a crime, certain salvation a crisis? Why is it that among the innocent modesty so labors, shame gives way, chastity is wearied, good faith wounded, an accusation arises, the case presses, and every means of excuse is taken away? Who excuses the bride whom her conception accuses? Or what will an outside defender profit when an inside witness of the fact stands by? What do we hold, brothers? In the Gospel no strokes, no letters, no syllables, no word, no names, no persons are empty of divine figures. A bride is sought, so that even then the Church might be signified as the bride of Christ, according to the word of the prophet Hosea: “I will betroth you to myself in justice and judgment, in mercy and compassion, and I will betroth you to myself in faith” (Hos 2). Hence John says: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3). And blessed Paul: “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11). Truly a bride, who by virginal childbirth brings forth again the new infancy of Christ. Joseph the betrothed is a steward, so that this Joseph might fulfil the figure of Christ's passion in that other Joseph. Joseph incurred jealousy through prophetic dreams; Christ received envy through prophetic visions. Joseph, sent into the pit of death, comes up alive from the pit; Christ, given to the tomb of death, returns alive from the tomb. Joseph was sold; Christ was valued at a price. Joseph is taken across into Egypt; Christ is driven in flight to Egypt. Joseph supplies bread abundantly to hungry peoples; Christ fills the nations of the whole world, who abide, with the bread of heaven. So it is clear why this Joseph bore before him the type of the heavenly bridegroom, carried his image, walked in his figure. Mary is called mother; and when is Mary not mother? “The gathering of the waters,” it says, “he called Maria” (Gen 1). Did she not conceive in one womb the people going out of Egypt, so that a heavenly offspring, reborn into a new creature, might emerge, according to the Apostle: “Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10)? And so that Mary might always go before human salvation, she rightly went before in song the people whom the life-bearing wave brought forth into the light: “Mary,” it says, “the sister of Aaron, taking a tambourine in her hand, said: Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously honored” (Exod 15). This name is akin to prophecy, saving for those reborn, a mark of virginity, an ornament of modesty, a sign of chastity, a sacrifice to God, the virtue of hospitality, a college of holiness; rightly, then, this motherly name is the name of Christ's mother. We have said why the mother was betrothed, why Joseph was the betrothed, why Mary has a motherly name, to show that everything about the birth of Christ was mystical: now let us set out from other causes why a betrothed woman was sought for the birth of Christ. Isaiah had foretold that a virgin would bear God of heaven (Isa 7), King of the earth, Lord of the world, Restorer of the universe, slayer of death, giver back of life, author of everlasting being: how sad this was for worldly men, how terrible for kings, how fearful for the Jews, the outcome of the Lord's nativity itself proved. For as soon as Judea heard from the magi's report that Christ was born, and Herod learned it, the Jews at once schemed to destroy Christ and Herod to kill him (Matt 2); and while they fear a successor for themselves, they tried to destroy the Savior of all. In the end, since they could not find him, they wipe out his homeland, mix milk with blood, dash his age-mates together in parricidal fury, tear apart his innocent companions, because they could not find accomplices of guilt to punish. If they do these things when Christ is already born, what would such savagery have done when Christ was conceived? Hence a bridegroom is provided, the appearance of a husband is provided, to hide the miracle, to cover the sign, to veil the Virgin's childbirth, to give no room to the charge of crime, and so to elude the snares of the raging one. Christ, though given over to death, if he had been killed in the womb, a headlong death would have taken away what had come for our salvation. And since this passage could give us much if it were expounded, let it suffice, brothers, to have tasted the Lord's mystery today.

[On the mystery of the Incarnation.] What made Christ the Lord, brothers, enter into commerce with an earthly body, enter the narrow confines of human flesh, dwell in the lodging of a virginal womb: since we began to hear this earlier, let us hear it more fully today. You are my life, you are my salvation, you are my glory: and so I do not allow you to be ignorant of what God has given me to know. The evangelist knew God when he said: “No one has ever seen God” (John 1). So the creature knew, recognized and felt the God whom it could not see; it was carried along in hard servitude, it showed a sad obedience to an invisible majesty; dread had besieged all things; fear had undone the universe; terror had shaken everything; in heaven the divine splendor had laid the angels low; on earth thunder and lightning shook the hearts of mortals. So dread shut out love of the ruler; it drove the angels down to earth; it drew men to idols; it filled the world with vain errors; it made all flee the Creator and worship creatures. One who fears too much cannot love: hence the world preferred to perish rather than to fear; death itself was lighter than dread. In short, when Cain began to be troubled by the terror of his brother's murder, he sought death and believed he would have rest if he died (Gen 4). And why speak of Cain? Elijah, when he felt himself drenched with utter fear, sought again the death he had fled, thinking it better to give way to death than to fear (1 Kgs 19 [3 Kgdms 19]). Peter too, troubled by fear of the Lord's power, begged Christ to depart from him: “Depart from me,” he says, “for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5). He said this because the weight of dread had extinguished whatever there was of love and faith; so fear, unless tempered by love, makes even devoted service stubborn. God, then, seeing the world tottering with fear, at once acts to call it back with love, invite it with grace, hold it with charity, and bind it with affection. Hence he washed the earth, grown old in evils, with an avenging flood, and calls Noah the father of a new age, addresses him with gentle speech, gives him familiar confidence, kindly instructs him about the present, consoles him by grace about the future; and, no longer by commands but by shared labor, he shuts up in one ark the offspring of the whole world, so that the love of partnership might take away the fear of servitude, and what had been saved by common labor might be preserved by common love (Gen 7). Hence he calls Abraham from among the nations, increases his name, makes him the father of faith, accompanies him on the way, guards him among foreigners, enriches him with goods, honors him with triumphs, pledges himself by promises, rescues him from wrongs, delights him with hospitality, makes him wonderful by an offspring despaired of; so that, filled with so many goods, drawn by such great sweetness of divine love, he might learn to love God, not to fear him; to worship him by loving, not by dreading (Gen 12). Hence he consoles Jacob in dreams as he flees, challenges him to a contest as he returns, binds him in a wrestler's embrace, so that he might love the father of the contest, not fear him (Gen 28; 32). Hence he calls Moses with a father's voice, addresses him with a father's love, invites him to be the liberator of his people (Exod 3). What more? He makes him a god, he gave him as a god to Pharaoh; he makes him a god, fortifies him with signs, arms him with powers, wins wars at his orders, grants a soldier to conquer by his very word, allows him to triumph by commands; and through all the crowns of the virtues he advances him to his friendship, grants him to be a sharer in the heavenly kingdom, and allows him to be a lawgiver; yet he received everything so that he might love; in short, he was so set on fire by love of God that he loved ardently himself, and so urged others to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6). Whatever there is of the heart, whatever of the mind, whatever of human strength, he willed to be so possessed by love of God that the world's allurement would have nothing in man to violate. But through these things we have mentioned, when the flame of divine love kindled human hearts and the whole intoxication of God's love poured itself into human senses, with wounded mind they began to want to see God with fleshly eyes. How could narrow human sight hold God, whom the world does not hold? The law of love does not consider what will be, what it ought, what it can. Love does not know judgment, lacks reason, knows no measure. Love takes no consolation from impossibility, receives no remedy from difficulty. Love, unless it reaches what it desires, kills the lover; and so it goes where it is led, not where it ought. Love gives birth to desire, grows with ardor, and ardor reaches out to what is not granted. What more? Love cannot not see what it loves: hence all the saints counted everything they had deserved as little if they did not see the Lord. And truly, brothers, how will one render service for benefits if he does not see the giver of the benefits? Or how does one believe he is loved by God, whose sight he does not deserve? Hence love, which longs to see God, even if it lacks judgment, has the zeal of devotion. Hence Moses dares to say: “If I have found grace in your sight, show me your face” (Exod 33). Hence another says: “Show your face” (Ps 80:3 [LXX 79:4]). Indeed even the gentiles fashioned idols for this reason, so that in their very errors they might see with their eyes what they worshiped. God, then, knowing that mortals were tormented and wearied by the desire to see him, chose as the means of making himself visible something that would be great for earthly beings and not least for those above. For what God had made on earth like himself could not but be held in honor in heaven. “Let us make man,” he says, “in our image and likeness” (Gen 1). Perfect devotion owes to the image what it owes to the king. If he had taken an angel from heaven, he would still have been held invisible; if from the earth something less than man, it would both have been an injury to the Godhead and would have cast man down, not raised him up. Let no one, then, dearest ones, think it an injury to God if God came to men through a man, and took from us so as to be seen by us, he who lives and reigns as God now and for all ages of ages. Amen.