Sermons & Letters 21

Chapter I. — The true worshipper and pious venerator of today's festival, most beloved, is he who thinks nothing false concerning the incarnation of the Lord, nor anything unworthy concerning His Godhead: for it is an evil of equal peril, whether the truth of our nature or the equality of the paternal glory be denied to Him. When therefore we approach to understand the mystery of Christ's Nativity, whereby He was born of a Virgin Mother, let the mist of earthly reasonings be driven far off, and let the smoke of worldly wisdom depart from the eyes of enlightened faith; for it is a divine authority in which we believe, it is a divine doctrine which we follow.

For whether we apply the inner hearing to the testimony of the Law, or to the oracles of the prophets, or to the evangelical trumpet, that is true which blessed John, full of the Holy Spirit, thundered forth: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing' (John i, 1-3). And likewise true is that which the same preacher added: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father' (ibid., 14). In each nature, therefore, the same is the Son of God, taking up what is ours, yet not losing what is His own; in man renewing man, in Himself remaining unchangeable.

For the Godhead, which is common to Him with the Father, suffered no diminution of omnipotence, nor did the form of a servant violate the form of God, because the supreme and eternal essence, which inclined itself to the salvation of the human race, transferred us indeed into its own glory, but did not cease to be what it was. Whence, when the Only-begotten of God confesses Himself less than the Father (John xiv, 28), to whom He says He is equal (John x, 30), He demonstrates in Himself the truth of both forms: so that inequality may prove the human, and equality may declare the divine. Chapter II. — To the majesty of the Son of God, therefore, the bodily nativity took away nothing, added nothing, because the unchangeable substance could neither be diminished nor increased.

For that the Word was made flesh does not signify this, that the nature of God was changed into flesh, but that the flesh was taken up by the Word into the unity of the person; in which name of flesh the whole man is assuredly received, with whom, within the womb of the Virgin made fruitful by the Holy Spirit and never to lose virginity, the Son of God was so inseparably united, that He who was begotten timelessly of the essence of the Father, was Himself born in time of the womb of the Virgin. For otherwise we could not have been loosed from the bonds of eternal death, unless He became humble in what was ours, who remained omnipotent in what was His own.

Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ, being born true man, who never ceased to be true God, made in Himself the beginning of a new creature, and in the manner of His birth gave to the human race a spiritual origin, so that, for the abolishing of the contagion of carnal generation, there might be for those to be reborn an origin without the seed of sin, of whom it is said: 'Who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God' (John i, 13). What mind can comprehend this mystery, what tongue can avail to tell this grace? Iniquity returns into innocence, and old age into newness; strangers come into adoption, and outsiders enter into the inheritance.

From the impious they become just, from the greedy generous, from the incontinent chaste, from earthly they begin to be heavenly. And what is this change, but of the right hand of the Most High? For the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii, 8), and so grafted Himself into us and us into Himself, that the descent of God to human things became the advancement of man to divine things. Chapter III. — In this mercy of God, however, most beloved, whose greatness toward us we cannot unfold, it must be guarded against with much solicitude by Christians, lest they be again taken in the devil's snares, and be again entangled in those very errors which they renounced. For the ancient enemy does not cease, transforming himself into an angel of light (2 Corinthians

xi, 14), stretching out everywhere the snares of deceptions, and pressing on to corrupt in whatever way the faith of believers. He knows to whom he may apply the fire of covetousness, into whom he may thrust the allurements of gluttony, before whom he may set the incitements of luxury, into whom he may pour the poison of envy; he knows whom he may disturb with grief, whom he may deceive with joy, whom he may oppress with fear, whom he may seduce with wonder; he examines the habits of all, sifts their cares, scrutinizes their affections; and there he seeks occasions of harming, where he sees each one more studiously occupied. For indeed he has many of those whom he has more tenaciously bound, fitted to his arts, whose talents and tongues he uses for the deceiving of others.

Through these are promised remedies for sicknesses, foreshadowings of things to come, appeasings of demons, and the driving away of ghosts. To them are added also those who falsely claim that the whole condition of human life depends on the influences of the stars, and say that what belongs either to the divine will or to our own is a matter of unavoidable fates. These, however, that they may do harm more craftily, promise that fates can be changed, if supplication be made to the stars that are contrary. Whence the impious device is destroyed by its own reasoning, because if the things predicted do not hold, the fates are not to be feared; if they do hold, the stars are not to be venerated. Chapter IV.

— From such institutions is also engendered that impiety, whereby the sun, rising at the beginning of the daily light, is worshipped by certain more foolish persons from the higher places; which some even among the Christians think they do so religiously, that before they arrive at the basilica of the blessed Apostle Peter, which is dedicated to the one living and true God, having climbed the steps by which one ascends to the platform of the upper court, they turn their body about and bend themselves back toward the rising sun, and with bowed necks incline themselves in honour of the shining orb. That this is done, partly by the fault of ignorance, partly by the spirit of paganism, we greatly waste away and grieve:

because, even if some perhaps venerate the Creator of the beautiful light rather than the light itself, which is a creature, nevertheless we must abstain from the very appearance of this observance; which, when he who has forsaken the worship of the gods finds it among us, will he not retain with himself this part of his old opinion as something plausible, which he has seen to be common to Christians and to the impious? Chapter V. — Let this damnable perversity therefore be cast out from the custom of the faithful, and let not the honour due to the one God be mingled with the rites of those who serve creatures. For the divine Scripture says: 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve' (Matthew iv, 10). And blessed Job, a man without complaint, as the Lord says, and restraining himself from every evil thing (Job

i, 8), who says: 'Did I ever behold the sun when it shone, and the moon walking in brightness, and was my heart rejoiced in secret, and did I kiss my hand? which is the greatest iniquity, and a denial against the most high God' (Job xxxi, 26-28)? But what is the sun, or what is the moon, except the elements of the visible creature and of corporeal light? of which the one is of greater brightness, and the other of lesser light. For just as some times are of the day and others of the night, so the Creator established a diverse quality in the luminaries, though nevertheless, before these were made, both days had passed without the office of the sun, and nights without the ministry of the moon.

But these were created for the benefit of man's doing, so that the rational animal might be deceived neither in the distinction of months, nor in the return of years, nor in the numbering of times: since through the unequal delays of unequal hours, and the manifest signs of dissimilar risings, the sun might enclose the years, and the moon renew the months. For on the fourth day, as we read, God said: 'Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven, and let them shine upon the earth, and let them divide between the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, and let them be in the firmament of heaven, that they may shine upon the earth' (Genesis i, 14, 15). Chapter VI. — Awake, O man, and know the dignity of thy nature. Remember that thou wast made to the image of God (Genesis i, 26);

which, though corrupted in Adam, has nevertheless been reformed in Christ. Use visible creatures as they are to be used, just as thou usest earth, sea, sky, air, springs and rivers; and whatever in them is beautiful and marvellous, refer to the praise and glory of the Creator. Be not given over to that light in which birds and serpents, in which beasts and cattle, in which flies and worms take delight. Touch the corporeal light with the corporeal sense, and with the whole affection of the mind embrace that true light which enlightens every man coming into this world (John i, 9), and of which the prophet says: 'Come to Him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed' (Psalm xxxiii, 6).

For if we are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in us (1 Corinthians iii, 16), greater is that which each faithful person has in his own soul, than that which he admires in heaven. Therefore, most beloved, we do not enjoin or persuade you this, that you should despise the works of God, or think anything contrary to your faith in those things which the good God created good; but that you should use every kind of creature, and all the ornament of this world, reasonably and temperately: for the things that are seen, as the Apostle says, are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians iv, 18). Whence, since we were born for present things, but reborn for things to come, let us not be given over to temporal goods, but be intent upon the eternal;

and that we may be able to gaze more closely upon our hope, in the very mystery of the Lord's Nativity let us consider what the divine grace has conferred upon our nature. Let us hear the Apostle saying: 'For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory' (Colossians iii, 3, 4); who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit through all the ages of ages. Amen.