講道與書信 第 27 章

Chapter I. — It is a just and reasonable homage of true piety, dearly beloved, on the days which attest the works of divine mercy, to rejoice with the whole heart and to celebrate with honour the things that were done for our salvation: the very law of the recurring seasons calling us to this devotion, which, a short interval after the day on which the Son of God, coeternal with the Father, was born of the Virgin, has brought in the feast of the Epiphany, consecrated by the manifestation of the Lord. In which the divine providence established a great safeguard of our faith, that, while the adored infancy of the Saviour in its very beginnings is recalled with solemn veneration, by these very original proofs the true nature of man arisen in Him might be proved.

For this is what justifies the ungodly, this is what makes saints out of sinners, if in one and the same Lord Jesus Christ both a true Deity and a true humanity are believed: a Deity by which, before all ages, He is equal to the Father in the form of God; a humanity by which, in the last days, He was united to man in the form of a servant.

To strengthen, therefore, this faith, which was being fortified against all errors, it was brought about by the great piety of the divine counsel that a nation dwelling in the far region of the Eastern quarter, which excelled in the art of observing the stars, should receive a sign of the child that was born, who was to reign over all Israel. For a new brightness of a more brilliant star appeared to the Magi, and so filled the minds of the beholders with wonder at its splendour that they in no way believed it should be neglected by them, since it was announced by so great a token. Now the grace of God, as the event showed, presided over this miracle;

and when not even Bethlehem itself had yet learned of Christ's Nativity, it was already bringing it to the nations that were to believe: and what could not yet be set forth by human speech, it caused to be known by the evangelizing of heaven. Chapter II. — But although this was a gift of the divine condescension, that the Nativity of the Saviour should be made knowable to the nations, yet, for the understanding of the miracle of the sign, the Magi were also enabled to be reminded of the ancient prophecies of Balaam, knowing that it had long ago been foretold and spread abroad in famous memory: 'A star shall arise out of Jacob, and a man shall spring up out of Israel, and he shall have dominion over the nations' (Num. xxiv, 17).

So the three men, divinely stirred by the brightness of the unusual star, follow the guiding course of the sparkling light, supposing that they would find the child there signified at Jerusalem, in the royal city. But when this opinion had deceived them, they learned through the scribes and doctors of the Jews what the sacred Scripture had foretold concerning the birth of Christ; so that, confirmed by a twofold testimony, they might seek with more ardent faith Him whom both the brightness of the star and the authority of prophecy made manifest. Now the divine oracle being brought forth through the answers of the priests, and the voice of the Spirit declared, which says: 'And thou, Bethlehem, land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come forth a ruler who shall govern my people Israel' (Mic. v, 2; Matt. ii, 6):

how easy and how consistent it was for the chief men of the Hebrews to believe what they were teaching! But it appears that they, like Herod, understood carnally, and reckoned the kingdom of Christ to be common with the powers of this world: so that these hoped for a temporal ruler, and that one feared an earthly rival. In vain, O Herod, art thou troubled with fear, and vainly dost thou strive to rage against the child suspected by thee. Thy realm does not contain Christ, nor is the Lord of the world content with the narrow limits of thy sceptre's power. He whom thou willest not to reign in Judea reigns everywhere; and thou thyself wouldst reign more happily, if thou wert thyself subject to His empire. Why dost thou not do with sincere office what thou promisest with cunning falsehood? Go with the Magi, and venerate the true King by adoring Him as a suppliant.

But thou, more a follower of Jewish blindness, dost not imitate the faith of the Gentiles, and turnest thy perverse heart to cruel snares, though thou art neither to slay Him whom thou fearest, nor to harm those whom thou destroyest. Chapter III. — Being led therefore, dearly beloved, into Bethlehem by the guidance of the preceding star, the Magi rejoiced with exceeding great joy, as the evangelist related; and entering the house, they found the child with Mary His mother: and falling down they adored Him; and opening their treasures, they offered Him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matt. ii, 10, 11). O the wondrous faith of perfect knowledge, which earthly wisdom did not teach, but the Holy Spirit instructed!

For whence did these men, when they set out from their homeland, who had not yet seen Jesus, nor had noticed anything in His countenance that they should venerate Him so orderly, observe this manner of gifts to be offered? unless because, besides that appearance of the star which stirred their bodily sight, a more brilliant ray of truth thoroughly taught their hearts, so that, before they began the labours of the journey, they understood it was being signified to them for whom royal honour in gold, divine veneration in frankincense, the confession of mortality in myrrh, were due. And these things, so far as pertained to the enlightenment of faith, they held it enough to have believed and understood, so that they should not inquire by bodily sight what they had beheld by the fullest sight of the mind.

But the diligence of a sagacious office, persevering even to seeing the child, was serving the peoples of a future time and the men of our age: so that, just as it profited us all that after the Lord's resurrection the hand of the apostle Thomas explored the traces of the wounds in His flesh, so it might be for our benefit that the gaze of the Magi proved His infancy. The Magi therefore saw, and adored the child of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. i, 3), made of a woman, made under the Law (Gal. iv, 4), which He had come not to destroy but to fulfil (Matt. v, 17).

They saw and adored the child, small in stature, needing another's help, unable to speak, and in nothing different from the general condition of human infancy. Because just as there were faithful testimonies which asserted in Him the majesty of invisible Deity, so it had to be most fully proved that the Word was made flesh, and that that everlasting Essence of the Son of God had taken on the true nature of man: lest either the miracles that were to follow of unspeakable works, or the torments of the sufferings to be undergone, should confound the sacrament of faith by the diversity of things; since they could in no way be justified except those who had believed the Lord Jesus to be both true God and true man.

Chapter IV. — Against this singular faith, dearly beloved, and against the truth proclaimed through all ages, there stands the diabolical impiety of the Manichaeans: who, to slay the souls of the deceived, have woven for themselves a deadly fabrication of impious dogma out of sacrilegious and fabulous lies, and through these ruins of insane opinions have rushed headlong so far as to feign for themselves a false Christ, who displayed in Himself nothing solid, nothing true to the eyes of men

and to human actions; but showed only the empty image of a simulated flesh. For they wish it to seem unworthy that it should be believed that God the Son of God inserted Himself into female entrails and subjected His majesty to this indignity, so that, mingled with the nature of flesh, He should be born in a true body of human substance: whereas this work is not an injury to Him, but a power; nor is it to be believed a pollution, but a glorious condescension. For if this visible light is violated by no impurities over which it may have been poured, and no filthy or muddy places contaminate the brightness of the sun's rays, which it is not doubtful is a corporeal creature: what quality of anything could pollute the essence of that eternal and incorporeal light,

which, by associating itself with the creature that it fashioned after its own image, bestowed purification and received no stain; and so healed the wounds of infirmity that it suffered no losses of its virtue? This great and unspeakable sacrament of divine piety, because it is announced by all the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, these adversaries of the truth of whom we speak have rejected the Law given through Moses and the divinely inspired oracles of the prophets, and have violated the very evangelical and apostolic pages themselves, by taking away certain things and inserting certain things;

forging for themselves, under the names of the apostles and under the words of the Saviour Himself, many volumes of falsehood, with which they might fortify the fabrications of their error, and pour deadly poison into the minds of those to be deceived. For they saw that all things opposed them, that everything cried out against them, and that their sacrilegious madness of impiety was refuted not only by the New but also by the Old Testament. And yet, persisting in their furious lies, they do not cease to trouble the Church of God by their deceptions: persuading the wretches whom they have been able to ensnare that they should deny that human nature was truly taken up by the Lord Jesus Christ; that they should deny that He was truly crucified for the salvation of the world;

to deny that from His side, wounded by a lance, the blood of redemption and the water of baptism flowed; to deny that He was buried and raised on the third day; to deny that He was lifted up in the sight of the disciples to sit at the right hand of the Father above all the heights of the heavens; and, that with the whole truth of the apostolic Creed taken away, no fear may terrify the impious and no hope may spur the saints, to deny that the living and the dead are to be judged by Christ: so that those whom they have deprived of the power of so great sacraments they may teach to worship Christ in the sun and moon, and under the name of the Holy Spirit to adore Manes, the master of such impieties. Chapter V.

— To confirm therefore your hearts, dearly beloved, in faith and truth, let today's festival profit all; and let the catholic confession be fortified by the testimony of the Saviour's manifested infancy, and let the impiety of those who deny the flesh of our nature in Christ be anathematized; of which the blessed apostle John forewarned us in no doubtful speech, saying: 'Every spirit that confesses Christ Jesus to have come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God; and this is Antichrist' (1 John iv, 2, 3). Let nothing therefore be common to any Christian with men of this sort; let no fellowship be had with such, and no partnership.

Let it profit the whole Church that many of them, by the Lord's mercy, have been detected, and by the confession of these same men it has been made plain in what sacrileges they lived. Let no one be deceived by their distinctions of foods, their sordidness of garments, and the pallor of their faces. Those fasts are not chaste which come not from the principle of continence, but from the art of deceit. Thus far they may have harmed the incautious, thus far they may have deluded the unskilled; henceforth no one's fall shall be excusable: nor is he now to be reckoned simple, but very wicked and perverse, who hereafter shall be found bound by that nefarious error. But the ecclesiastical affection, and that divinely instituted, we not only do not restrain but even incite, that you may supplicate the Lord with us even for such people:

since we too, with weeping and mourning, have pity on the ruin of the deceived souls, following the example of apostolic piety, that we may be weak with the weak (2 Cor. xi, 29), and weep with those who weep (Rom. xii, 15). For we hope that the mercy of God may be obtained by many tears and by the lawful satisfaction of the lapsed: because, while this life is lived in the body, no one's restoration is to be despaired of, but the correction of all is to be desired; with the help of the Lord, who raises up the fallen, looses the fettered, enlightens the blind (Ps. cxlv, 7): to whom be honour and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.