Brethren, what it was that moved the Lord Christ to enter into commerce with an earthly body, to enter the straits of human flesh, to dwell in the abode of a virginal womb—since we began to hear of it before this, let us today hear more fully. You are my life, you my salvation, you my glory: and therefore I cannot bear that you should not know what God has granted me to know. The Evangelist knew God when he says: No one has ever seen God (John I). Therefore the God whom he knew he acknowledged and perceived: for since the creature could not see Him, it was borne along under harsh servitude, and rendered a gloomy homage to the invisible Majesty; dread had besieged all things; fear had loosed all things; terror had shaken everything; in heaven the divine splendour had prostrated the angels;
on earth thunders and lightnings shattered the hearts of mortals. Thus fear rather than love shut out the love of the ruling Lord; it drove the angels down to earth; it dragged men to idols; it occupied the world with empty errors: it made all men flee the Creator and worship creatures. He cannot love who fears overmuch: hence it is that the world chose rather to perish than to fear; death itself was lighter than dread. Indeed, when Cain began to be tormented by parricidal terror, he sought death, believing he would find rest if he perished (Genesis IV). And why do I speak of Cain? That famous Elijah, when he felt himself steeped in utter fear, sought again the death he had fled, thinking it better to succumb to death than to fear (1 Kings XIX).
Peter too, troubled by fear at the Lord's power, besought Christ to depart from him: Depart from me, he said, for I am a sinful man (Luke V). This he said because the weight of fear had extinguished whatever of love and faith there was; thus fear, unless tempered by love, however devoted the service, renders it insolent. Seeing therefore that the world was being brought low by fear, God straightway acts to call it back with love, to invite it by grace, to hold it by charity, and to bind it by affection. Hence it is that He washes the earth grown old in evils with an avenging flood, and calls Noah the parent of a new age; He addresses him with gentle speech, gives him familiar confidence, piously instructs him concerning present things, and consoles him through grace concerning things to come;
and now not by commands, but by shared labour, He encloses the offspring of the whole world together in one ark, so that the love of fellowship might take away the fear of servitude, and that what had been saved by common labour might be preserved by common love (Genesis VII). Hence it is that He calls Abraham out of the nations, enlarges him with a new name, makes him the father of faith, accompanies him on the way, keeps him safe among strangers, enriches him with possessions, honours him with triumphs, pledges Himself with promises, rescues him from injuries, cherishes him with hospitality, and makes him wondrous with a hoped-for seed; so that, filled with so many blessings and drawn by so great a sweetness of divine charity, he might learn to love God, not to fear Him; to worship by loving, not by dreading (Genesis XII). Hence it is that He consoles Jacob as he flees in his dreams, challenges him to a contest as he returns, and constrains him in a wrestler's embrace;
that he might love the Father of the contest, not fear Him (Genesis XXXII). Hence it is that He calls Moses with a fatherly voice, addresses him with paternal charity, invites him to be the liberator of His people (Exodus III). And what more? He makes him a god, He gave him as a god to Pharaoh; He makes him a god, He fortifies him with signs, arms him with powers, by His commands wages wars, grants the soldier to conquer by His word alone, concedes to triumph by His precepts, and through all the crowns of the virtues advances him to His own friendship, grants him to be a sharer of the heavenly kingdom, and allows that he himself should be lawgiver—yet He received the whole of him only that he might love: in fine, he became so kindled with the love of God that he himself ardently loved, and admonished others to love in these words:
You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole strength (Deuteronomy VI). Whatever belongs to the heart, whatever to the mind, whatever to human strength, He willed to be so possessed by the love of God that nothing worldly in man might remain to be violated once he was allured. But by these things which we have recounted, when the flame of divine charity kindled human hearts, and the whole inebriation of the love of God poured itself into human senses, with wounded mind they began to wish to behold God with bodily eyes. The God whom the world does not contain—how could the narrow human sight contain Him? What is fitting, what is due, what is possible, the law of love does not consider. Love knows no judgment, lacks reason, knows no measure. Love takes no comfort from impossibility, nor accepts any remedy from difficulty.
Love, unless it attains to the things it desires, kills the lover; and therefore it goes where it is led, not where it ought. Love begets desire, swells with ardour, and its ardour presses on toward forbidden things. And what more? Love cannot but see what it loves: hence it is that all the saints counted as small everything they had merited, if they did not see the Lord. And truly, brethren, how shall one render service in return for benefits, if he does not see the giver of the benefits? Or how does he believe himself loved by God, whose face he does not deserve to behold? Hence it is that love, which longs to see God, even if it has no judgment, yet has the zeal of piety. Hence it is that Moses dares to say: If I have found grace before You, show me Your face (Exodus XXXIII).
Hence it is that another says: Show Your face (Psalm LXXX). Indeed, even the Gentiles themselves for this reason fashioned images, that in those very errors they might discern with their eyes what they worshipped. Knowing therefore that mortals were tormented and wearied with the desire of seeing Him, God chose that whereby He might make Himself visible—a thing that was both great to earthly beings and not small to those on high. For that which on earth was made like to God—could it not be held in honour in heaven? Let us make man, He said, to Our image and likeness (Genesis I). Perfect devotion owes to the image what it owes also to the king. Had He taken an angel from heaven, He would nonetheless have remained invisible:
had He taken something from earth less than man, it would have been both an injury to the divinity, and would have cast man down, not raised him up. Let no one therefore, dearly beloved, believe it an injury to God, if God came to men through a man, and took from us that He might be seen by us—He who lives and reigns as God now, and through all ages of ages. Amen.