Sermons & Letters 16

CHAPTER I. — The dispensations of the mercy of God, dearly beloved, which our Savior undertook for the restoration of the human race, are so divinely ordained that the Gospel of grace should take away the veil of the Law, not destroy its institutions. Wherefore we must keep that saying of the Lord in which He said that He came not to destroy the Law;

but to fulfill it, so that we too may serve this rule, as far as by God's gift we are able: knowing that nothing of the ordinances of the Old Testament is to be neglected, if we vigilantly strive to recognize what is there veiled under a shadow that was to pass away, and what is founded upon an action that was to remain. For the distinction of foods and of victims, the circumcision of the flesh, the difference of washings, and the observance of ablutions, are no longer to be practiced under figurative significations, since they have also been fulfilled in the very things which they signified; but the moral commandments and precepts remain just as they were issued, since they suggest nothing other than what they say, and among Christian devotion they grow by increase, they do not fail by ceasing. To love God, therefore, and one's neighbor,

to honor father and mother, not to worship strange gods, and the rest which are either terribly forbidden or wholesomely commanded, we venerate no otherwise from the evangelical edicts than from the legal institutions; so that, although many things have been added from the newness of grace, yet nothing has been diminished from the antiquity of righteousness. Wherefore the apostolic ordinances rightly appointed that the usefulness of the ancient fasts should remain, and, although the custom of the Church had learned to exercise itself with more prolonged chastisements, it should nevertheless embrace the sanctification of abstinence coming from the Law; for to whom it had been granted to be able to do what is greater, it was unbecoming not to celebrate what is less. CHAPTER II.

— By this reasoning, therefore, dearly beloved, being plainly instructed, we join the fast of the tenth month to the ecclesiastical rules, and appoint it, as is the custom, to your devotion: since it is full of piety and full of righteousness that, the harvest of earthly fruits being concluded, thanks be rendered to God, and a sacrifice of mercy be paid to Him together with the offering of the fast. Let each one rejoice in his abundance, and be glad that he has brought much into his storehouses, but in such a way that from his abundance there be joy also on the part of the poor. Let the fertility of minds imitate the fecundity of the crops, the flowing of the vines, the offspring of the trees: what the earth has given, let hearts give; so that we may be able to say with the prophet: Our land has given its fruit (Ps. 67:7).

For God, the true and supreme husbandman, is the author not only of bodily but also of spiritual fruits; and He knows how to cultivate both seeds, both plantings, with a twofold tillage: giving to the fields the advancement of germination, giving to souls the increase of virtues; which, just as they took their beginning from one providence, so they call toward the effect of one work. For man, made to the image and likeness of God, has nothing in the honor of his nature so proper to him as to imitate the goodness of his Author, who, as He is a merciful bestower of His gifts, so is He also a just exactor, willing us to be partners of His works; so that although we can create no nature, we may nevertheless exercise the material received through the grace of God:

for earthly goods have not been conferred on us for our use in such a way that they should serve only the pleasure and satiety of carnal senses; otherwise we should be no different from cattle, no different from beasts, which know not how to provide for the needs of others, and have learned to have care only for themselves and their own offspring. CHAPTER III. — Animals, therefore, lacking understanding [Quesnel indicated this reading in the margin; whether he corrected it from a manuscript or by conjecture, we do not know], are trained by no commandment, nor have they received a law who did not receive reason; but where there is the illumination of reason, there is also the discipline of piety, which owes love both to God and to the neighbor.

For a man is not otherwise proved to be a lover of himself, unless he show himself to be, above himself, a lover of the Author of his nature, and, according to himself, a lover of one who shares his nature. Rightly does the whole Law and the Prophets hang upon these two commandments; rightly is the vast breadth of all disputations unfolded in a most complete summary under the brevity of a few words. Let God be loved, and let the neighbour also be loved, in such a way that we take the pattern of loving our neighbour from that love wherewith God loves us, who is good even to the evil, and who cherishes with the gifts of His kindness not only His worshippers but even those who deny Him. Let kinsmen be loved, let strangers be loved; and what is owed to friends, let it be given over and above to enemies.

For although the malignity of certain men is softened by no kindness, yet the works of piety are not without fruit, nor does benevolence ever lose what it bestows upon the ungrateful. Let no one, dearly beloved, make himself a stranger to good work; let no one plead his own scantiness, as though he who scarcely suffices for himself cannot help another. It is a great thing that he offer out of little, and in the scale of divine justice it is weighed not by the quantity of gifts but by the weight of the heart. The widow of the Gospel put two coins into the treasury (Mark 12:42), and surpassed the gifts of all the rich. No piety is worthless before God, no compassion without fruit. He has indeed given men different means, but He does not seek different affections.

Let all take stock of their substance, and let those who have received more give more. Let there be abstinence of the faithful, food for the poor; and what each withdraws from himself, let it profit the needy: for although the remedies of sparing confer much both upon souls and bodies, yet the fasts themselves are of little profit unless they are sanctified by the working of mercy. For in almsgiving there is instituted a certain power of baptism, because as water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin; and by the same Christ it is said, Wash yourselves, be clean (Isa. 1:16), by whom it is said, Give alms, and behold all things are clean unto you (Luke 11:41);

so that no one may doubt, no one distrust, that the splendour of regeneration is restored to him even after many sins, if he has striven to be cleansed by the purification of almsgiving. Chapter I. — Our Saviour, dearly beloved, is born today; let us rejoice. For it is not lawful for there to be place for sadness there, where is the birthday of life; which, having consumed the fear of mortality, brings upon us the gladness of the promised eternity. No one is cut off from participation in this gladness; there is one common ground of rejoicing for all: because our Lord, the destroyer of sin and of death, as He finds none free from guilt, so He comes to set all free. Let the holy man exult, because he draws near to the palm. Let the sinner rejoice, because he is invited to pardon.

Let the Gentile take courage, because he is called to life. For the Son of God, according to the fullness of time which the unsearchable depth of the divine counsel had appointed, took upon Himself the nature of the human race to be reconciled to its Author, so that the devil, the inventor of death, might be conquered by that very nature which he had conquered. In which conflict, entered upon for our sake, it was fought with great and marvellous justice: while the almighty Lord contended with His most savage foe, not in His own majesty, but in our humility, opposing to him the same form and the same nature, partaker indeed of our mortality, but free from all sin. For alien to this nativity is what is read of all men:

No one is clean from filth, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth (Job 14:4 acc. LXX). Nothing therefore of the concupiscence of the flesh passed over into this singular nativity, nothing flowed from the law of sin. A royal Virgin of David's stock is chosen, who, to be made pregnant with the sacred offspring, should first conceive the divine and human progeny in mind before in body. And lest, ignorant of the heavenly counsel, she should be alarmed at effects unwonted, she learns by angelic converse what was to be wrought in her by the Holy Spirit. Nor does she believe it a loss of modesty, she who is soon to be the Mother of God. For why should she despair of the newness of the conception, to whom efficacy is promised from the power of the Most High? Her faith as a believer is confirmed also by the attestation of a preceding

miracle, and to Elizabeth is given an unexpected fruitfulness; so that He who had granted conception to the barren might not be doubted to be about to grant it also to the Virgin. Chapter II. — The Word therefore of God, God, the Son of God, who in the beginning was with God, by whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing (John 1:1-3), for the sake of freeing man from eternal death, was made man: so inclining Himself to the taking up of our lowliness without diminution of His majesty, that, remaining what He was, and assuming what He was not, He might unite the true form of a servant to that form in which He is equal to God the Father (Phil. 2:6), and might join both natures in so great a covenant, that neither should the glorification consume the lower, nor the assumption diminish the higher.

The property of each substance therefore being preserved, and coming together into one person, lowliness is taken up by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity: and to pay off the debt of our condition, the inviolable nature is united to the passible nature, and the true God and true man are tempered into the unity of the Lord; so that, as befitted our remedies, one and the same Mediator of God and men (1 Tim. 2:5) might both be able to die from the one, and be able to rise from the other. Rightly then did the birth of salvation bring no corruption to the Virgin's integrity: because the guarding of chastity was the bringing forth of truth. Such a nativity therefore, dearly beloved, befitted Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, that He might be joined to us by that humanity,

and might excel by that divinity. For unless He were true God, He would not bring the remedy; unless He were true man, He would not afford the example. Therefore, at the birth of the Lord, by the exulting angels is sung, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will is proclaimed (Luke 2:14). For they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built up from all the nations of the world: at which unspeakable work of divine piety, how much ought the lowliness of men to rejoice, when the sublimity of angels rejoices so greatly? Chapter III. — Let us therefore give thanks, dearly beloved, to God the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit, who for His great mercy, wherewith He loved us, had compassion on us;

and when we were dead in sins, He made us alive together in Christ (Eph. 2:5), that we might be in Him a new creation and a new work. Let us then put off the old man with his deeds (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:8); and, having obtained participation in the generation of Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh. Acknowledge, O Christian, your dignity, and having been made a partaker of the divine nature, do not return to the old baseness by a degenerate manner of life. Remember of what Head and of what Body you are a member.

Remember that, rescued from the power of darkness, you have been transferred into the light and kingdom of God. Through the sacrament of baptism you have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not drive away so great an Indweller by wicked deeds, and subject yourself again to the servitude of the devil: because your price is the blood of Christ; because He will judge you in truth who redeemed you in mercy, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.