Sermons & Letters 26

Chapter I. — Although I know, dearly beloved, that the cause of today's festival is not hidden from your holiness, and that the Gospel narrative has, according to custom, unfolded it to you, yet, that nothing of our office may be wanting to you, I will dare to speak of that same matter what the Lord shall grant: so that in the common joy the devotion of all may be the more religious, the more fully the solemnity has been understood by all. For the providence of God's mercy, having determined to succour a perishing world in the last times, appointed the salvation of all nations in Christ;

so that, since an impious error had long turned all the nations away from the worship of the true God, and God's own peculiar people, Israel, had well-nigh wholly fallen away from the ordinances of the Law, He might, having shut up all under sin (Rom. xi, 32), have mercy upon all. For since justice was everywhere failing, and the whole world had lapsed into vanity and malice, unless the divine power had deferred its judgment, the entire race of men would have received the sentence of condemnation. But wrath was turned into indulgence, and, that the greatness of the grace to be manifested might become clearer, it pleased Him to bring the sacrament of remission for the abolishing of men's sins at the very time when no one could glory in his own merits.

Now the manifestation of this unspeakable mercy, dearly beloved, was made when Herod held the royal power among the Jews, at a time when the lawful succession of kings had ceased, and, the power of the high priests being overthrown, a foreigner had obtained the sovereignty: so that the birth of the true King might be proved by that voice of prophecy which had said, 'The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a ruler from between his feet, until he come to whom it is laid up, and he shall be the expectation of the nations' (Gen. xlix, 10). To that most blessed patriarch Abraham there had once been promised an innumerable posterity, to be begotten not by seed of flesh but by fruitfulness of faith;

and therefore it was compared to the multitude of the stars, that from the father of all nations there might be hoped an offspring not earthly but heavenly. To create, then, the promised posterity, the heirs designated among the stars are roused by the rising of a new star, so that in that very thing wherein the testimony of heaven had been employed, the obedient service of heaven might minister. A star more brilliant than the others stirs the Magi, dwellers of the farther East, and at the brightness of that wondrous light those men, not unskilled in gazing on such things, understand the greatness of its significance: this being wrought without doubt in their hearts by divine inspiration, that the mystery of so great a vision might not be hidden from them, and that what was shown to their eyes as unusual might not be obscure to their minds.

Finally, they arrange their office with religious reverence, and equip themselves with these gifts, so that, about to adore One, they might show that they had believed at once in Three: honouring by gold the royal person, by myrrh the human, by frankincense the divine. Chapter III. — They therefore enter the chief city of the Jewish kingdom, and in the royal city they ask that there be shown to them Him whom they had learned to have been begotten to reign. Herod is troubled, he fears for his own safety, he dreads for his power, he inquires of the priests and doctors of the Law what the Scripture had foretold concerning the birth of Christ; the knowledge of what had been prophesied comes to him; the truth enlightens the Magi, unbelief blinds the teachers; carnal Israel does not understand what it reads, does not see what it points out; it uses the pages whose words it did not believe.

Where is thy glorying, O Jew (Rom. iii, 27)? Where the nobility drawn from thy descent from Abraham? Has not thy circumcision become uncircumcision (Rom. ii, 25)? Behold, the greater serves the lesser (Gen. xxv, 23), and, with foreigners entering into the lot of thine inheritance, thou art but the servant reciting that testament which thou holdest in the letter alone. Let it enter, let the fulness of the Gentiles enter into the family of the patriarchs, and let the children of the promise receive the blessing in the seed of Abraham, which the children of the flesh disown. Let all the peoples adore in the three Magi the Author of the whole universe; and let God be known not in Judea only, but in all the world, so that everywhere in Israel His name may be great (Ps. lxxv, 2).

For as unbelief convicts this dignity of the elect race of being degenerate in its own posterity, so faith makes it common to all. Chapter IV. — Now the Lord being adored, and all their devotion completed, the Magi, according to the admonition of a dream, return not by the same road by which they had come. For it was fitting that, now believing in Christ, they should not walk by the paths of their old manner of life, but, having entered a new way, should keep apart from the errors they had left. Then also, that the snares of Herod might be brought to nothing, who was preparing his impiety against the child Jesus by a pretended show of homage. Wherefore, since the hope of that scheme was undone, the wrath of the king blazes up into greater fury.

For, recalling the time which the Magi had indicated, he pours out the rage of his cruelty upon all the children of Bethlehem, and by a general slaughter of that whole city he butchers the infancy that was to pass over into eternal glory; reckoning that it would come to pass that, no little one there being left unslain, Christ too would be slain. But He who was to defer to another age the shedding of His blood for the redemption of the world, had been carried into Egypt by the ministry of His parents, returning, that is, to the ancient cradle of the Hebrew nation, and disposing the sovereignty of the true Joseph by a power of greater providence, that the Bread of life come from heaven (John vi, 48) and the food of reason might take away that famine, more dire than any starvation, by which the minds of the Egyptians laboured in the want of truth;

nor should the sacrament of the singular victim be prepared apart from that region in which first, by the slaying of the lamb, the saving sign of the cross and the Lord's Passover had been prefigured. Chapter V. — Instructed, therefore, dearly beloved, in these mysteries of divine grace, let us celebrate with reasonable joy the day of our firstfruits and the beginning of the calling of the Gentiles: giving thanks to the merciful God, who has made us worthy, as the Apostle says, to share the lot of the saints in light; who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. i, 12, 13);

since, as Isaiah prophesied, the people of the Gentiles that sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen (Isa. ix, 2). Of whom the same prophet says to the Lord: 'The nations that knew Thee not shall call upon Thee, and the peoples that knew Thee not shall flee to Thee' (Isa. lv, 5). This day Abraham saw, and was glad (John viii, 56), when he acknowledged the sons of his faith who were to be blessed in his seed, which is Christ, and foresaw by believing that he would be the father of all the nations (Rom. iv, 18), giving glory to God, and knowing most fully that what He had promised He is able also to perform (ibid. 21).

This day David sang in the psalms, saying: 'All the nations, whatsoever Thou hast made, shall come and adore before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify Thy name' (Ps. lxxxv, 9); and this: 'The Lord hath made known His salvation, before the sight of the Gentiles He hath revealed His justice' (Ps. xcvii, 2). Which indeed we know to have been done from that time when a star led the three Magi, roused from the remoteness of their region, to know and adore the King of heaven and earth. Whose very service exhorts us to the pattern of its own obedience: that, as much as we can, we may serve this grace which invites all to Christ. For whoever lives piously and chastely in the Church, who savours the things that are above (Col. iii, 1),

not the things upon the earth, is in some manner an instance of heavenly light; and while he himself preserves the brightness of a holy life, he shows the way to the Lord for many, as it were a star. In this zeal, dearly beloved, you all ought to profit one another in turn, so that in the kingdom of God, to which one attains by right faith and good works, you may shine as children of light: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto all the ages of ages. Amen.