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(Published by Martène from a manuscript of St. Illidius of Clermont.) Though the benefits of our God are great and wondrous, yet they are proved to be neither new nor sudden; but from the beginning of the age they were both foretold by oracles and prefigured by mysteries. From the very beginnings of the coalescing world the responses of the Old Testament sang of the sacred Passion of the Lord; and therefore we assert that Christ the Lord was openly preached and proclaimed to the Jews from their very own books and volumes. Without doubt he rests upon strong privileges who asserts his case from the very instruments of his adversaries.
It is a splendid victory to ensnare the opposing party with their own writings as with their own nooses, to confute them with the testimony of their own utterances, and to overcome the rival with his own weapons, so that the arguments of your adversary are proved to fight for your advantage. And so, in the person of our Lord, while Eve, the mother of all the living, is brought forth from the rib of Adam the first man, from his (Christ's) sacred side and saving wound the Church, the parent of all the faithful, is shown to be restored. In his type righteous Abel is slain, and the innocent one is sacrificed by a fraternal—that is, a Jewish—impiety. This same Lord, in the last age of the aging world, is offered up under the figure of blessed Abraham, the long-lived father.
At which time, while the devout slayer-of-his-own rises up against the throat of his only son in a new sacrifice, suddenly a ram appeared before his eyes, as the divine word says: 'And Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns among the briars' (Gen. 22:13). 'Among the briars,' it says; let us inquire what this novelty is—that is, in the multitude of surrounding sins—'caught by its horns,' that is, hanging upon the horns of the cross by the fixing of the nails, just as we read in another place: 'There are horns in his hands' (Hab. 3:4). This is because the arms of the gibbet received his venerable hands. And he was reckoned among the thorns, when, the author of innocence and justice, he was mocked with a crown of thorns.
But we ought to look more deeply into what it is that Isaac is brought by his father to the altars, and suddenly a ram is substituted in his place—the offering not changed but doubled. Here the twin substance of the Redeemer is shown to be adored, for the only-begotten of God is offered, and the firstborn of the Virgin is sacrificed. This too prefigured the marks of the Lord's Passion: that we read that blessed Elisha, buried in his sepulcher, raised up by the touch of his sacred body a corpse cast in by robbers into his tomb, when the body of the dead man revived within his own tomb. Who else was here prefigured but our Lord Jesus Christ, who bestows resurrection from death, and, though buried, works life?
In the robber recognize the guilty world; in the powers of the prophet recognize Christ the Lord. Furthermore, most famously throughout the Holy Scriptures, even in the labors and afflictions of the prophet Jonah the Passion and resurrection of Christ are foreshadowed. This Jonah—which we do not suppose to be unknown to our faith—is prescribed to have borne the type of the Lord. For the Lord himself says: 'As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth' (Matt. 12:40). This Jonah, I say, is sent at the Lord's command to preach to the Ninevites the offense of heavenly wrath;
but foreknowing that the sad prophecy would be made void by the people's conversion, and fleeing, he made for Tarshish; he boarded a ship, but when a tempest arose and the sailors were thrown into confusion, he was given to the waves by lot, and, submerged, was received into the jaws of the great fish; but when the fish disgorged its deposit unharmed, on the third day he was returned to the land. See the Lord appearing wondrously even in the Old Testament in the form of a servant. See how, in ages past, he judged that he would come according to the humility of the servile form. Jonah, about to preach the wrath of the Lord, is sent to the great city of the Ninevites, to say: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown' (Jon. 3:4); and Christ is sent to the city of the world, to announce the day of salvation and the foreordained time of judgment.
Jonah seeks a ship, Christ the Church. Jonah is tossed by the waves, Christ is buffeted by the whirlwinds of the world. Unless Jonah is given up to destruction, the peril of the wrecked ship is not stilled; so the Church is not delivered unless it be saved by Christ's death. The sailors, about to cast Jonah out, nevertheless are afraid and say: 'Lord, lay not upon us innocent blood' (Jon. 1:14). Does not the imprecation of the sailors seem to you to be the confession of Pilate, who handed over Christ and yet washes his hands and says: 'I am clean of the blood of this just man' (Matt. 27:24)? How fittingly is the faith of the Gentiles preached through a Gentile person! And so Jonah says in his prayer: 'Take, then, O Lord, my soul, for death is better for me than life' (Jon.
4:3). That is: living, I could not save the one nation of the Jews; let me die, and let the whole world be saved by my death. The great fish received Jonah submerged, but it did not happen to devour him; and the one whom the malice of men cast away, the hungering beast preserved. With full bowels it suffers hunger, and over the prey which it swallowed it marvels that nothing is permitted to it. Who is this who can be taken in within greedy jaws, yet cannot be consumed? He is food, yet there is no corruption; he is handed over to the depth of perdition, yet is preserved by the very service of death.
Who is this who enters whole into the vast recesses of perils, and, shut up under an immense and deadly depth, is fed with the vital air, and, sent into a nature of things foreign to him, into the exile of life, sojourns with life, and, surviving death, announces the coming salvation of the world? I think that this is our Lord Jesus Christ, whom cruel death, the insatiable beast, seized as its food, and trembled at its captive prey. It trembled, I say; for though it knew the Crucified, yet it could not hold as condemned one whom it did not remember to be guilty—because it is not punishment that makes guilt, but the cause. As though it had devoured man, its accustomed food lost at the world's beginning,
but it learned, when choked, how great is the dignity of that very food; and therefore the divine word records: 'And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land' (Jon. 2:11). This we ought to understand: that from the lowest bowels of death, life returned victorious, and the exulcerated perdition of hell rendered it back from its innermost depths. And so we see in the afflictions of the prophet, most plainly prefigured, death and likewise resurrection. Wherefore, what you perceive fulfilled in the servant, do not hesitate to believe in the Lord. Since these things are so, perceive, O man, how much you are worth, and weigh well what you owe.
Perceive how much you are worth, that at last you may cease to be cheap in your own eyes, that by this very thing you may disdain to lie subject to vices that should bring you shame, while you measure your nobility by the dignity of our Creator and Restorer. He has reasons for which he should be confounded, why with conquered heart he should be subjected to unworthy masters—he to whom eternal glory is promised, and so, by a twofold privilege, you who once were made a partaker of the divine image are also rendered precious by the nobility of the exchange. See how strong you can be against your enemy; question your state—that the Lord has bestowed on you free power to wage war in your members against the prince of this world and to overcome spiritual wickednesses;
And so do not deem it impossible that you should obtain to be carried over into the beatitudes of the angels, since in this present age you have overcome the angelic powers. Therefore let not this life make you out to be degenerate and despised — you whom either creation is shown to have brought forth illustrious, or grace has — but rather let the faithful raise the course of Christ confidently to the things above. For those who see themselves redeemed at a heavenly price do not doubt that they are prepared for heavenly things. Here ends the homily of Saint Faustinus.