Today's virginal solemnity, brothers, calls our tongue to its proclamation, and in the present life it is made a provider of profit for those who have assembled; and very fittingly. For she is the mother of chastity and the glory of her sex. Therefore she who is a mother in time remains ever a virgin. O how desirable an assembly! For behold, both earth and sea offer gifts to the Virgin. The one indeed, calmly spreading its back beneath the clouds, pours out rain; the other, directing the steps of those who walk without hindrance, confers gifts from heaven. For the natures rejoice, and women are honoured, and humanity shines. For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Rom. 5:20).
Blessed Mary has called us together—the immaculate dew of virginity, the paradise of the rational second Adam, the workshop of the uniting of natures, the solemnity of the saving exchange, the bridal chamber in which the Word was espoused to ensouled flesh, the bush of nature which the fire of the divine birth burned. Truly a light cloud, who bore with her body him before whom the cherubim and seraphim tremble. O heavenly shower! O most pure fleece, from which the Shepherd of the sheep was clothed! Mary, mother and handmaid, virgin and heaven, alone bearing God and man.
A fearful fountain, the loom of the dispensation, on which the tunic of the incarnation was ineffably woven; over which work the Holy Spirit is the overseer, while the weaver is the overshadowing power of the Most High; and it clothes the ancient Adam with a flowering garment. This is the holy and immaculate flesh. But the thread of this loom was the admirable grace; and the craftsman who entered through obedience was the Word of God. For who has seen, or who has heard, how in the sacred womb of the holy Virgin the uncircumscribed God dwelt, and how the womb of the blessed Virgin contained him whom heaven cannot contain? God was born of a woman, yet not naked, and man yet not mere man. And because he was born, taking away the sin of the old man, he showed the gate of salvation.
For where the serpent through disobedience poured out his venom, there the Word, entering through obedience, fashioned a life-giving temple. Whence Cain, the first disciple of sin, emerged; thence Christ, the deliverer of our race, sprang forth without seed. The lover of all did not blush at the pangs of a woman; whence had come the transaction that was being carried on. He was not defiled, dwelling in her whom he himself had founded without dishonour. If his mother did not remain a virgin, then he who was born is mere man, and the birth no marvel; but if even after the birth she remained a virgin, then he was born ineffably, who without hindrance entered through the closed doors—he whose union of natures Thomas proclaimed, saying: My Lord and my God (John 20:28).
Do not blush, O man; he himself was made for us the occasion of salvation. If he had not been born of a woman, he would by no means have died; if he had not died in the flesh, he would by no means through death have destroyed him who held the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14). It is no injury to the architect to remain in the things which he himself built. For just as the clay does not defile the potter who renews what he had fashioned, so it does not defile the undefilable one to proceed from the holy womb of the Virgin. For her whom he was not defiled in fashioning, he was not polluted in passing through. O womb in which the surety of our common liberty was composed! O belly in which weapons were forged against death!
O threshing-floor on which Christ, the husbandman of nature, like an ear of grain, sprang forth without seed! O temple in which God was made a priest, not changing his nature, but, having pity, he was clothed with him who is according to the order of Melchizedek: for the Word of God was made flesh (John 1:14). Even though the Jews believe not the birth, God was clothed with the form of man; even though the pagans disparage the miracle of the incarnation, the judgment is manifest; for on this account he is to the Jews a scandal, and to the Gentiles foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23). The mystery resounds, because the miracle is beyond reason. If the Word had not dwelt in the womb, the flesh would by no means sit upon the throne. If it had been an injury to enter the womb, it would be an injury to the angels also to minister to men.
For he who according to his nature, as God, is impassible, for mercy's sake became subject to many sufferings. Was Christ then made God by promotion? Far from it. For mercy's sake, as we believe, he was made man; for we proclaim that man was made into God, but we confess God incarnate. He inscribed his own handmaid as his mother, who according to his essence is without mother, and according to the dispensation is without father; if he is mere man, he is not without father, for he has a father. But now he himself is without mother as the fashioner, and without father as the one fashioned. Blush even at the title of the archangel, O man, who brought the good tidings to Mary. He is called Gabriel: but what is Gabriel interpreted to mean?
'God and man, the Son of the most blessed Virgin.' Therefore because he who was announced by him was God and man, the title went before, that the dispensation might be believed. Learn the cause of his presence, and glorify the power of the incarnate one. In this matter the human race owed much, and it fell short of the debt. Through Adam we all incurred sin, through whom too the devil held us as slaves, bringing forth our instruments only of the body's knowledge; the wicked falsifier of all stood by, casting up the debt against us, and demanding it by judgment.
It was therefore necessary that one of two things should be: either that death be brought upon all by judgment, because all have sinned, or that such a one be given in compensation who might stand as the justification of the whole redemption. And man indeed could not be saved, for he lay under the debt. The angel could not redeem, for he fell short in such a deliverance. It behoved only him who was without sin to die for sinners; for he alone was left for the loosing of the evil. What then? He himself who changes the whole of nature had led you as God, and he who fell short in no point of goodness, found for the condemned a most beautiful life and a most certain release from death, because he was man like us too. For speech cannot interpret the miracle.
And so he who became man dies, and this delivers what had fallen away, according to Paul who says: In whom we have redemption through his blood and the remission of sins (Col. 1:14). O astonishing thing! Such a one negotiated immortality, and yet he himself was immortal. For another such, according to the dispensation, neither was, nor was made, nor is, nor shall be. He alone was born of a Virgin, God and man, not only such as could be set in opposition and bring valuation, having dignity matching the multitude of them, but also surpassing all judgments; in this indeed, that he was the Son, preserving toward the Father that which is unchangeable;
and in this, that he was the Creator, that which belongs to power, having it unfailingly; and in his love of mercy, presenting without any delay the things of compassion. And in this, that he was a priest, presenting with worthy faithfulness that which was for our restoration—of which none will find anything like, nor ever near, in any other. Attend, then, to his love among men: voluntarily he was condemned, and by crucifying himself he dissolved that death which existed, and turned the iniquity of those who slew him into the salvation of the wicked. The child of man therefore could not save, for he himself needed to be saved, according to Paul who says: For all have sinned and stand in need of the grace of God (Rom. 3:23).
From the devil sin drew its origin, for the devil carried death to him in great peril, and craftily introduced it among us, and now the loosing of death was impossible for them. Then those who had been sent from the heavenly Physician accused it; whence the prophets, seeing indeed that the matter was beyond human skill, cried out to the heavenly Physician. And one of them said: Lord, bow down your heavens and come down (Ps. 143:5). Another: Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed (Jer. 17:14). Another cried: Stir up your might and come, that you may deliver us (Ps. 79:3). Another said: Alas for me, O my soul, for the merciful man has perished from the earth (Mic. 7:1-2). Another: If indeed God has dwelt with men (1 Kings 8:27).
Another: Speedily let your mercy lay hold of us, O Lord (Ps. 78:8). Likewise another: O God, attend to my help; O Lord, make haste to help me (Ps. 69:2). Another: He who is to come will come and will not delay (Hab. 2:3). Another: I have gone astray like a sheep that was lost; seek your servant, O Lord (Ps. 118:176). He did not therefore long despise the oppression of nature, who by nature exists as King and God. But he came, who was ever present, and paid the ransom with his own blood, and gave for the human race, in compensation of death, the body with which he had clothed himself from the Virgin, and redeemed the world from the curse of the law, of which Paul also cried out: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13).
For the nature of men, deceived by sin, was in bondage. For he who redeemed us is not mere man, O Jew, nor yet naked God, for he had a body. If he had not been clothed with all these things, he would not have saved me. But he who in the womb of the Virgin took up the sentence was clothed with the accused one. There that fearful exchange took place; for giving himself, Christ received flesh, and he himself was with the virgin from a virgin; and the same overshadowed her, and the same was incarnate from her: if Christ is one and God the Word another, then it is no longer Trinity but a quaternity. Do not rend the tunic of the dispensation, which is woven from above. Be not a teacher of Arius; that impious man divides the sentence—do not you suffer the unity to be torn apart.
For who appeared as a man to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death (Isa. 9:2), and how? Because they were living in darkness, according to Paul who says: Who has rescued us from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13)? And again: For you were once darkness (Eph. 5:8). Who then has shone forth? Let David teach you, saying: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Ps. 117:26). Who is this? Say openly, O David: The Lord is God, and he has shone upon us (Ps. 117:27). The natures came together, and the unity remained unconfused. He came to save, but he had also to suffer. For how then could either save—mere man, who did not prevail; or naked God, who could not suffer?
Being himself God by nature, he became man, and saved what he had bought, while what he became he endured. Therefore, when the synagogue had crowned him with thorns, the holy Church, weeping, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, go forth and behold the crown with which his mother crowned him (Cant. 3:11). For he himself bore a crown of thorns, that he might dissolve the sentence of the thorns; he himself in the bosom of the Father and in the womb of the Virgin, in the arms of his mother and upon the wings of the winds; above he was adored by the angels, and below he reclined with tax-collectors. The seraphim availed nothing, and Pilate interrogated him. The servant struck him, and creation trembled. On the cross he was worshipped, and he was on the throne. In the sepulchre he lay, and he stretched out heaven like a skin (Ps.
103:2). He was reckoned among the dead, and hell was despoiled. Below he was slandered as a deceiver, and above he was glorified by the saints. O astonishing mystery! I behold miracles, and I proclaim the deity; I gaze upon the passion, and I do not deny the humanity. But Emmanuel indeed appeared by nature as a man, yet did not break the virginal enclosure, as God, but came forth from the womb in the same manner as he had entered through the hearing. He was born just as he was conceived. Impassibly he entered, incorruptibly he came forth, according to the prophet Ezekiel who says: God, he says, turned me to the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looks toward the East; and this was shut; and the Lord said to me:
Son of man, this gate shall be shut and shall not be opened (Ezek. 44:1-2). For no man passed through it, but the Lord God alone shall enter and go out; and the gate shall be shut. Behold the manifest proof of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary. Let henceforth every contradiction be dissolved, and let the teaching of the holy Scriptures be illumined, that we may obtain the kingdom of the heavens in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be honour and glory together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, through the never-ending ages of ages. Amen.