Sermons & Letters 22

Chapter I. — Although, most beloved, all the divine oracles exhort us always to rejoice in the Lord, today without doubt we are more abundantly incited to spiritual gladness, when the mystery of the Lord's Nativity shines more brightly upon us:

so that, returning to that ineffable condescension of the divine mercy, whereby the Creator of men deigned to become man, we may be found in the very nature of Him whom we, being God, adore in our own. For God the Son of God, the only-begotten of the eternal and unbegotten Father, remaining eternally in the form of God, and having unchangeably and timelessly no other being than the Father is, took the form of a servant without detriment to His majesty, that He might advance us into His own, not cast Himself down into ours. Whence, each nature remaining in its own properties, so great a communion of unity was effected, that whatever there is of God is not disjoined from the humanity, and whatever is of man is not divided from the Godhead. Chapter II.

— Celebrating therefore, most beloved, the birthday of the Lord and Saviour, let us think of the childbearing of the blessed Virgin with entire integrity, so that we may believe that the power of the Word was lacking at no point of time to the conceived flesh and soul, and that the temple of Christ's body was not first formed and animated, which the Word coming upon might claim for itself as a dwelling, but that through Him and in Him a beginning was given to the new man; so that in the one Son of God and man, the Godhead should be without a mother, and the humanity without a father. For at once the virginity, made fruitful through the Holy Spirit, brought forth without any trace of corruption both the offspring of its own kind, and the author of its own stock.

Whence the same Lord also, as the evangelist records, asked of the Jews whose son they had learned from the authority of Scripture that Christ was; and when they answered that He was to be handed down from the seed of David: 'How then,' He says, 'does David in the spirit call Him his Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make thy enemies the footstool of thy feet' (Matthew xxii, 43, 44; Psalm cix, 1)? Nor could the Jews solve the proposed question, because they did not understand that in the one Christ both the Davidic lineage and the prophesied divine nature were foretold. Chapter III. — But the majesty of the Son of God, equal to the Father, clothing itself with servile humility, neither feared to be diminished, nor needed to be increased;

and that very effect of His mercy, which He was expending upon the restoration of mankind, He could accomplish by the power of the Godhead alone; so as to rescue the creature made to the image of God (Genesis i, 26) from the yoke of the dreadful tyrant. But because the devil had not so violently prevailed over the first man, as to transfer him into his own party without the consent of free will, so voluntary and hostile counsel had to be destroyed as sin, in such a way that the norm of justice should not be opposed by the gift of grace. In the common ruin, therefore, of the whole human race, there was one only remedy in the secret of the divine plan, which could succour the prostrate, if some one of the sons of Adam were born alien to and innocent of the original transgression, who might profit the rest both by example and by merit.

But because natural generation did not allow this, nor could the propagation of a corrupted root be without seed, of which the Scripture says: 'Who can make clean that which is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not Thou who alone art?' (Job xiv, 4)? The Lord of David was made the son of David, and from the fruit of the promised germ an offspring was born without vice, the twofold nature coming together into one person: so that by the same conception and the same childbearing our Lord Jesus Christ was born, in whom there was both true Godhead for the miracles of works, and true humanity for the endurance of sufferings. Chapter IV.

— Let the catholic faith therefore, most beloved, spurn the errors of the barking heretics, who, deceived by the vanity of worldly wisdom, have departed from the Gospel of truth, and, unable to understand the incarnation of the Word, have made for themselves out of the cause of enlightenment a matter of blindness. For, having reviewed the opinions of nearly all who believe falsely — opinions which even break out into denial of the Holy Spirit — we recognise that scarcely anyone has gone astray, except the one who did not believe in the truth of the two natures in Christ under the confession of one person. For some ascribed to the Lord only humanity, others only Godhead. Others said that there was indeed in Him true Divinity, but that the flesh was feigned.

Others professed that He had taken up true flesh, but had not the nature of God the Father; and, imputing to His Godhead the things which belonged to the human substance, they invented for themselves a greater and a lesser God, whereas there can be no degrees in true Divinity: since whatever is less than God, is not God. Others, knowing that there is no distance between Father and Son, because they could not understand the unity of the Godhead except in the unity of person, asserted that the same was the Father who was the Son: so that to be born and nourished, to suffer and die, to be buried and rise again, should pertain to the same one, who through all things fulfilled both the person of the man and of the Word.

Some thought that the Lord Jesus Christ did not have a body of our substance, but one taken from the higher and more subtle elements. Others, however, judged that in the flesh of Christ there was no human soul, but that the Godhead of the Word itself filled the place of the soul. Whose imprudence passed on to this, that they confessed indeed that there was a soul in the Lord, but said that the same lacked a mind, because for a man the Godhead alone would suffice for all the offices of reason. Lastly, the same men presumed to assert that a certain part of the Word had been converted into flesh, so that in the manifold variety of one dogma not only the nature of flesh and soul, but even the essence of the Word itself might be dissolved. Chapter V.

— There are also many other portents of falsehoods, with the enumerating of which the hearing of your charity is not to be wearied. But after diverse impieties, which are mutually connected to each other by the kinship of manifold blasphemies, I admonish the observance of your devotion especially to shun these errors; of which the one, some time ago rising up with Nestorius as its author, did not attempt with impunity, and the other, lately to be condemned with equal execration, has burst forth with Eutyches as its champion. For that man dared to preach the blessed Virgin Mary as the mother of a man only, so that in her conception and childbearing no union of the Word and the flesh should be believed to have taken place: because the Son of God did not Himself become the son of man, but only associated Himself to a created man by mere condescension.

This the catholic ears could by no means tolerate, which are so imbued with the Gospel of truth, that they know most firmly that there is no hope of salvation for the human race, unless He were the son of the Virgin who is the creator of the mother. But that profane assertor of a more recent sacrilege, though he confessed a union of two natures in Christ, yet said that by that very union such an effect was produced, that out of two one remained, the substance of the other in no way existing, which assuredly could not be brought to an end except by consumption or by separation. But these things are so hostile to sound faith, that they cannot be received without the destruction of the Christian name.

For if the incarnation of the Word is a union of the divine and human nature, but by this very concurrence what was twofold became single; the Godhead alone was born of the Virgin's womb, and through a mocking appearance alone underwent the nourishments and the burdens of the body; and — to pass over all the mutabilities of the human condition — the Godhead alone was crucified, the Godhead alone died, the Godhead alone was buried; so that, according to those who think such things, there is now no reason for the resurrection to be hoped for, nor is Christ the firstborn from the dead (Colossians i, 18): because there was no one who ought to be raised again, if there had been no one who could be slain. Chapter

VI. — Let there be far from your hearts, most beloved, the venomous lies of diabolical inspirations, and, knowing that the eternal Godhead of the Son grew by no increase with the Father, prudently observe that what was said to the nature in Adam, 'Earth thou art, and into earth thou shalt go' (Genesis iii, 19), is said to the same in Christ, 'Sit at my right hand' (Psalm cix, 1). According to that nature in which Christ is equal to the Father, the Only-begotten was never inferior to the sublimity of the Begetter, nor is His glory with the Father temporal, He who is in the very right hand of the Father, concerning which it is said in Exodus: 'Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorified in strength' (Exodus xv, 6); and in Isaiah: 'Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' (Isaiah

liii, 1; Romans x, 16)? The man taken up therefore into the Son of God was so received into the unity of the person of Christ from the very bodily beginnings, that He was neither conceived without the Godhead, nor brought forth without the Godhead, nor nourished without the Godhead. The same was in the miracles, the same in the insults; through human infirmity crucified, dead, and buried; through divine power raised again on the third day, He ascended to the heavens, sat down at the right hand of God the Father, and in the nature of man received from the Father what in the nature of the Godhead He Himself also bestowed. Chapter VII. — Meditating on these things, most beloved, with a devout heart, be always mindful of the apostolic precept, who admonishes all, saying:

'See that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, and not according to Christ: for in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in Him' (Colossians ii, 8-10). He did not say 'spiritually,' but 'bodily,' so that we may understand the true substance of the flesh, where there is the bodily indwelling of the fulness of the Godhead (Ephesians i, 23): with which indeed the whole Church also is filled, which, cleaving to the Head, is the body of Christ (Colossians i, 24): who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.