講道與書信 第 42 章

Chapter I. — Long desired by us, dearly beloved, and to be wished for by the whole world, the festival of the Lord's Passion is now at hand, which amid the exultations of spiritual joys does not permit us to be silent. For although it is difficult to discourse upon this same theme worthily and fittingly more than once, yet it is not permitted to a priest to withhold from the ears of the faithful people the duty of a sermon on so great a sacrament of the divine mercy, since the very subject, precisely because it is unspeakable, grants the power of speaking; nor can that fail to be said of which what is said can never be enough. Let human weakness therefore give way before the glory of God, and in unfolding the works of His mercy let it ever find itself unequal to the task.

Let us labour with our understanding, let us cling to it with our wit, let us fall short in our eloquence: it is good for us that even what we rightly perceive concerning the Lord's majesty should seem to us too little. For when the prophet says, 'Seek the Lord and be strengthened, seek His face evermore' (Ps. 104:4), no one must presume that he has found the whole of what he seeks, lest he who has ceased to approach should cease also to draw near. But among all the works of God, in which the attention of human wonder is wearied, what so delights and yet surpasses the contemplation of our mind as the Passion of the Saviour? Concerning His omnipotence, which is His together with the Father of one and equal essence, whenever we think, as best we can, His humility becomes more wondrous to us in God than His power;

and the self-emptying of the divine majesty is grasped with more difficulty than the exaltation of the servant's form to the highest. But it greatly aids our understanding that, although the Creator is one thing and the creature another, the inviolable Godhead one thing and the passible flesh another, nevertheless the property of each substance concurs into one Person, so that, whether in weaknesses or in mighty deeds, the reproach and the glory belong to one and the same. Chapter II. — By this rule of faith, dearly beloved, which we received at the very beginning of the Creed through the authority of the apostolic teaching, we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we call the only Son of God the Father Almighty, to be also the same who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary;

nor do we depart from His majesty when we believe Him crucified and truly dead, and truly raised again. For all that belongs to God and all that belongs to man, both the humanity and the deity together fulfilled: so that while the impassible is in the passible, neither could power be brought low in weakness, nor could weakness be overcome in power. Rightly was the blessed Apostle Peter praised in his confession of this unity, who, when the Lord was searching out what the disciples understood concerning Him, forestalling the mouths of all with the swiftest speech, said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'

This assuredly he saw not by revelation of flesh nor of blood, by the interposition of which the inner eyes could be hindered, but by the very Spirit of the Father working in the heart of the believer, so that, being prepared for the governance of the whole Church, he might first learn what he was to teach, and, for the firmness of the faith which he was about to preach, might hear: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it' (Matt. 16:16). The strength of the Christian faith, therefore, which, built upon the unconquerable rock, does not fear the gates of death, confesses one Lord Jesus Christ, both true God and true man; believing the same to be the Son of the Virgin who is the Author of His mother;

the same born in the end of the ages, who is the Creator of times; the same Lord of all powers, and one of the race of mortals; the same who knew no sin, and yet in the likeness of sinful flesh was offered up for sinners. Chapter III. — He, in order to loose the human race from the bonds of the deadly transgression, both concealed the power of His majesty and set before the raging devil the weakness of our lowliness. For if the cruel and proud enemy had been able to know the counsel of God's mercy, he would rather have striven to temper the minds of the Jews with gentleness than to inflame them with unjust hatreds; lest he lose the servitude of all his captives while he persecutes the liberty of Him who owed him nothing. His own malignity therefore deceived him:

he inflicted torment upon the Son of God which was to be turned into a remedy for all the sons of men. He shed the righteous blood, which for the reconciling of the world was to be both a price and a cup. The Lord took upon Himself what, according to the purpose of His will, He chose. He admitted upon Himself the impious hands of the raging men, who, while intent upon their own crime, became ministers of the Redeemer. Toward His very slayers His affection of piety was so great that, praying to the Father from the cross, He asked not that He Himself be avenged but that they be forgiven, saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Luke 23:34). And of the power of this prayer it came to pass that the preaching of the Apostle Peter converted to repentance the hearts of many of those who had said, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children' (Matt.

27:25) turn their hearts to repentance, so that in one day nearly three thousand of the Jews were baptized (Acts 2:41), and there came to be one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32) among those who were now prepared to die for Him whom they had demanded to be crucified. Chapter IV. — To this pardon the traitor Judas could not attain: since, being the son of perdition, at whose right hand the devil stood (Ps. 108:6), he passed into despair before Christ fulfilled the sacrament of the general redemption. For when the Lord had died for all the impious, perhaps even he might have obtained this remedy, had he not hastened to the noose. But in his malignant heart, now given over to the deceits of theft, now occupied with parricidal bargains, nothing had settled

but a disregard of the proofs of the Saviour's mercy. With impious ears he had received the Lord's words when He said, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' (Matt. 9:13); and 'The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost' (Luke 19:10); nor had he understood the clemency of Christ, who not only healed bodily infirmities but also cured the wounds of ailing souls, saying to the paralytic, 'Be of good cheer, son, thy sins are forgiven thee' (Matt. 9:2); saying also to the adulteress brought before Him, 'Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more' (John 8:11); that through all His works He might show that in this His coming He had come as the Saviour of the world, not as its judge.

Estranged from this understanding, the impious traitor rose up against his own self, not by the judgement of one repenting, but by the frenzy of one perishing: so that he who had sold the Author of life to His slayers, sinned even in dying, to the increase of his own damnation. Chapter V. — What therefore the false witnesses, what the bloodthirsty rulers, what the impious priests did against the Lord Jesus Christ by the ministry of a cowardly governor and the service of an unskilled cohort, was to be both detested and embraced by all ages. For the cross of the Lord, just as it was cruel in the mind of the Jews, so is it wondrous in the power of the Crucified. The people rages together, and Christ has mercy on all. What is inflicted by their wickedness is received by His will:

so that the licence of their crime might accomplish the work of the eternal will. Whence the whole order of the deeds done, which the evangelical narrative most fully traverses, is so to be received by the hearing of the faithful, that, with the truth of the actions which were fulfilled at the time of the Lord's Passion kept safe, we may understand that not only was the remission of sins accomplished in Christ, but also that a pattern of righteousness was set forth. But that this may be discussed more diligently, with the Lord's help, let this portion of the sermon be reserved for the fourth day of the week. There will be present, as we hope, the grace of God, which, while you pray, will make us fulfil our promises: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.

After the preceding sermon the order of some of the following sermons was disturbed in the printed editions, as also in a few manuscripts, and for that reason it had to be entirely changed by us. To the preceding sermon was subjoined the sermon whose opening is 'Omnia quidem tempora' ('All times indeed'). But at the end of the preceding sermon another sermon is promised, to be delivered on the fourth day of the week, in which St. Leo pledges to speak in such a way that, with the truth of the actions fulfilled at the time of the Lord's Passion kept safe, we may understand not only that the remission of sins was accomplished in Christ (which he had established in that sermon), but also that a pattern of righteousness was set forth; which matter he defers to be expounded on the fourth day of the week. But of this nothing appears in the sermon 'Omnia quidem tempora' subjoined in the printed editions;

nay, in that very sermon another sermon likewise to be delivered on the fourth day of the week is promised, which will hereafter be indicated by us. But in the following sermon, 'Gloria, dilectissimi' ('The glory, dearly beloved'), chapter i, he both makes mention of the promise and adds: 'Which Passion of the Lord both redeemed us all and taught us, so that from whence the price was given, thence also righteousness might be drawn.' And in chapter 3: 'He established both a sacrament and an example, that they might lay hold of the one by being reborn, and follow the other by imitating,' which pertain to the pattern of righteousness set forth. This sermon, therefore, being as it were a portion of the earlier sermon reserved for the fourth day of the week, was not to be separated from it.

After this we shall give the sermon 'Omnia quidem tempora' ('All times indeed'), delivered on the Lord's Day against the Eutychians; at whose end, since another sermon on the same subject is said to be added on the fourth day of the week, and it was not found immediately subjoined in the printed editions, we have subjoined it. Now we have discovered that this sermon is the one which begins: 'The sermon, dearly beloved, promised concerning the glorious Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ'; where the holy Pontiff likewise discourses against the error of Eutyches. Indeed, that these two sermons are, on account of their continuation, to be held as it were one, is evident from Epistles 124 and 165, in which, after St. Leo had transcribed almost the two whole last chapters, 3 and 4, from the sermon which begins:

'All times indeed'—he immediately subjoins a fragment of the first chapter from another sermon, which begins: 'The sermon, dearly beloved'; whence the one is a portion of the other. All this is confirmed by the order which is found in two ancient manuscript Lectionaries of the basilica of St. Peter, numbers 105 and 107, where among the sermons on the Passion, after the sermon 'Long desired by us,' is subjoined 'The glory, dearly beloved'; then 'All times indeed'; and afterwards 'The sermon, dearly beloved, concerning the glorious,' etc. The same order is also exhibited in three other codices of the excellent second collection. Chapter I. — The glory, dearly beloved, of the Lord's Passion, concerning which we have promised to speak again even today, is above all to be marvelled at in the mystery of humility, which both redeemed us all and taught us:

so that from whence the price was given, thence also righteousness might be drawn. For the omnipotence of the Son of God, whereby through the same essence He is equal to the Father, could have rescued the human race from the dominion of the devil by the sole command of His will, had it not better befitted the divine works that the hostile adversity of the wicked one should be conquered by that which it had conquered, and that natural liberty should be restored through that very nature through which the general captivity had been brought in. And since the evangelist says that 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:14), and the Apostle says that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself' (2 Cor. 5:19):

it has been shown that the Only-begotten of the Most High Father entered into such a partnership with human lowliness that, having assumed the substance of our flesh and soul, He remained one and the same Son of God, increasing what was ours, not His own; for it was weakness that was to be exalted, not power: so that when the creature was united to its Creator, nothing divine was lacking to the assumed, and nothing human lacking to the Assumer. Chapter II. — This counsel of the mercy and justice of God, although in ages past it was overshadowed by certain veils, was nevertheless not so hidden that it was denied to the understanding of the saints, who from the beginning until the Lord's coming stood forth as praiseworthy:

since both by prophetic words and by the significations of things done, the salvation which was to come in Christ was promised; which not only those who preached it attained, but also all who believed those preaching it. For one faith justifies the saints of all times, and to the same hope belongs whatever, through the Mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5), we either confess to have been done, or our fathers worshipped as to be done. Nor is there any distinction between Jews and Gentiles. For as the Apostle says, 'circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God' (Rom. 2:25; 1 Cor. 7:19);

which, if they are kept with the integrity of faith, make true sons of Abraham, that is, perfect Christians, as the same Apostle says: 'For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise' (Gal. 3:27-29). Chapter III. — There is no doubt, therefore, dearly beloved, that human nature was assumed by the Son of God into so great a union that not only in that Man who is the firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), but also in all His saints, there is one and the same Christ;

and just as the members cannot be divided from the head, so neither can the head be divided from the members. For although it belongs not to this life but to the eternal, that God should be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28); nevertheless even now He is the undivided Inhabitant of His temple, which is the Church (Col. 1:18), according to what He Himself promised, saying: 'Behold, I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age' (Matt. 28:20). With this the Apostle in agreement says: 'He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead: that in all things He might hold the primacy, for in Him it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself' (Col. 1:18-20). Chapter IV.

— By these and many other testimonies, what is instilled into our hearts, save that through all things we should be renewed after the image of Him who, remaining in the form of God, deigned to be in the form of sinful flesh (Phil. 2:6)? For He took upon Himself all our infirmities, which come from sin, without any partaking of sin, so that He was not without the affections of hunger and thirst, of sleep and weariness, of grief and weeping, and endured the most cruel sufferings even to the extremities of death: because no one could be loosed from the snares of mortality, except He alone, in whom alone the nature of all was innocent, should suffer Himself to be slain by the hands of the impious. Whence our Saviour, the Son of God, established for all who believe in Him both a sacrament and an example:

that they might lay hold of the one by being reborn, and follow the other by imitating. For the blessed Apostle Peter teaches this, saying: 'Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness' (1 Pet. 2:21-24). Chapter V. — Just as, therefore, there is no one of the believers, dearly beloved, to whom the gifts of grace are to be denied, so there is no one who is not a debtor to Christian discipline:

because, even though the harshness of the mystical law has been removed, nevertheless the profit of voluntary observance has increased, as the evangelist John says: 'Because the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ' (John 1:17). For all things which under the law preceded, whether in the circumcision of the flesh, or in the diversities of sacrifices, or in the observance of the sabbath, bore witness to Christ and foretold the grace of Christ. And He Himself is the end of the law (Rom. 10:4), not by emptying its significations, but by fulfilling them. And although He is the same Author of the old as of the new, nevertheless He changed the sacraments of the figured promises, because He accomplished what was promised; and He imposed a cessation upon the announcements, because the One announced had come.

But in the moral precepts, no decrees of the former Testament were reproved, but many were increased by the evangelical teaching: so that those things which give salvation might be more perfect and more luminous than those which promised the Saviour. Chapter VI. — All things, therefore, which the Son of God both did and taught for the reconciliation of the world, we know not only in the history of past actions, but also perceive in the power of present works. It is He who, born of the Holy Spirit from a Virgin mother, makes His own undefiled Church fruitful by the same inspiration, so that through the birth of baptism an innumerable multitude of the sons of God may be begotten, of whom it is said:

'Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God' (John 1:13). It is He in whom the seed of Abraham is blessed by the adoption of the whole world; and He becomes the father of nations, a patriarch (Gen. 22:18), while the sons of the promise are born by faith, not by flesh. It is He who, making no exception of any nation, out of every nation which is under heaven makes one flock of holy sheep, and daily fulfils what He had promised, saying: 'I have other sheep also, which are not of this fold, and them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock and one shepherd' (John 10:16). For although to the blessed Peter,

He principally says, 'Feed my sheep' (John 21:17)—as it stands in the epistle to the Corinthians, 'ye are in Christ Jesus'—nevertheless by one Lord is the whole care of the shepherds governed, and He feeds those who come to the rock with pastures so glad and so well-watered, that innumerable sheep, strengthened by the richness of His love, even as the good Shepherd deigned to lay down His life for His sheep (John 10:15), so they themselves do not hesitate to die for the name of the Shepherd. It is He with whom not only the glorious fortitude of the martyrs suffers together, but also the faith of all who are reborn, in that very regeneration.

For while the devil is renounced, and God is believed; while there is a passing from oldness into newness; while the image of the earthly man is laid aside, and the heavenly form is assumed, there comes between a certain likeness of death and a certain similitude of resurrection, so that he who is received by Christ and who receives Christ is not the same after the washing as he was before baptism, but the body of the regenerate becomes the flesh of the Crucified. Chapter VII. — This transformation, dearly beloved, is of the right hand of the Most High (Ps. 76:11), who works all things in all (1 Cor. 12:6): so that in each of the faithful, through the quality of a good manner of life, we may understand Him to be the Author of pious works;

giving thanks for the mercies of God, who so adorns the whole body of the Church with the innumerable gifts of graces, that through many rays of one light the same splendour may everywhere appear, and the merit of any Christian whatsoever cannot but be the glory of Christ. This is that true light which justifies and illumines every man. This is that which rescues from the power of darkness, and transfers into the kingdom of the Son of God (Col. 1:13). This is that which, through newness of life, advances the desires of the soul and extinguishes the lusts of the flesh. This is that whereby the Pasch of the Lord is lawfully celebrated with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:8): while, the leaven of the old malice being cast away, the new creature is inebriated and fed by the Lord Himself.

For the partaking of the body and blood of Christ does nothing other than that we pass over into that which we receive: and He in whom we have died together, been buried together, and been raised together, Him we bear in all things both in spirit and in flesh, as the Apostle says: 'For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory' (Col. 3:3-4): who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen. Chapter I.

— All seasons indeed, dearly beloved, exercise the minds of Christians with the sacrament of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection, nor is there any office of our religion in which not only the reconciliation of the world but also the assumption of human nature in Christ is not celebrated. But now the whole Church must be instructed with greater understanding, and, with the recurrence of the days, must burn with a more fervent hope; and this is expressed in the pages of evangelical truth, so that the Pasch of the Lord ought not so much to be recalled as past, as to be honoured as present. In nothing, therefore, let the gaze of our faith wander away from those things which pertain to the cross of Jesus Christ, and let us receive nothing of those things which are recounted in the narrative of the Gospel with idle hearing:

so that, since there have not been lacking, nor even now are lacking, those who assail the truth of the Lord's incarnation, and who assert that the fact that in the womb of the Virgin mother Mary the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), that the child brought forth advanced through bodily growth to the age of perfect manhood, and that being crucified, dead, and buried He rose again on the third day, was done indeed in the form of our image but not in the nature of our flesh—we, in no way departing from the evangelical and apostolic testimonies, may be strengthened by the understanding of those whose most certain experiences have taught us:

so that we may piously and constantly say that in them we too have been instructed, and what they saw we have seen, and what they learned we have learned, and what they handled we have felt (1 John 1:1); and therefore in the Passion of the Lord we are not troubled, because in His generation we are not deceived. Chapter II. — For we know, dearly beloved, and with the whole heart profess, that there is one Deity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and the consubstantial essence of the eternal Trinity, in nothing divided from itself, in nothing diverse, because it is at once timeless, at once unchangeable, at once, being what it is, never ceasing to be.

But in this ineffable unity of the Trinity, whose works and judgements are in all things common, the Person of the Son properly undertook the reparation of the human race: so that, since it is He through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made (John 1:3), and who animated with the breath of rational life the man formed from the mud of the earth, the same might restore our nature, cast down from the citadel of eternity, to its lost dignity, and might be the Reformer of that of which He was the Founder: thus directing His counsel into effect, so that for the destruction of the devil's dominion He might use the justice of reason rather than the power of might.

Since therefore the whole posterity of the first man had fallen, wounded together by one wound, and no merits of the saints could overcome the condition of the death that had been brought in, there came from heaven a singular Physician, foretold by many signs and long promised by prophetic pledge, who, remaining in the form of God, and losing nothing of His own majesty, might be born in the nature of our flesh and soul, without the contagion of the ancient transgression. For the Son of the blessed Virgin alone was born without fault, not a stranger to the race of men, but foreign to sin (in whom there was both the perfect innocence and the true nature of one created after the image and likeness of God), since from the offspring of Adam there existed one in whom the devil had nothing that he might call his own.

For while he raged against Him whom he did not hold under the law of sin, he lost the right of his impious dominion. Chapter III. — For the shedding of the righteous blood for the unrighteous was so potent for privilege, so rich for a price, that if the whole company of captives believed in their Redeemer, no tyrannical bonds could hold them. For, as the Apostle says, 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound' (Rom. 5:20). And whereas those born under the prejudice of sin received power unto righteousness by being reborn, the gift of liberty made was mightier than the debt of servitude. What hope, then, do they leave to themselves in the protection of this sacrament, who deny in the body of our Saviour the truth of human substance?

Let them say by what sacrifice they were reconciled, by what blood they were redeemed. Who is it who 'gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour' (Eph. 5:2)? Or what sacrifice was ever more sacred than that which the true High Priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many saints has been precious (Ps. 116:15), yet the slaying of no innocent one was the propitiation of the world. The righteous received crowns, they did not give them; and from the fortitude of the faithful were born examples of patience, not gifts of righteousness.

For the deaths were single in single persons, nor did any one pay another's debt by his own end, since among the sons of men one alone, our Lord Jesus, stood forth, in whom all were crucified, all died, all were buried, all also were raised; of whom He Himself said: 'When I shall be lifted up, I will draw all things unto myself' (John 12:32). For the true faith, which justifies the impious and creates the righteous, being drawn to a share of His nature, acquires salvation in Him in whom alone man finds himself innocent; and because 'there is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim.

2:5), through the communion of His own kind He attains to the peace of the Godhead, having freedom to glory in His power, who, engaging against the proud enemy in the weakness of our flesh, bestowed His victory upon those in whose body He triumphed. Chapter IV.

— When therefore in our one Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son both of God and of man, we confess the divine nature from the Father and the human substance from the mother—although the Person of the Word of God and of the flesh is one, and both essences have common actions—nevertheless the qualities of their respective works are to be understood, and it is to be discerned by the contemplation of sincere faith to what things the humility of weakness is advanced, and to what things the loftiness of power inclines; what it is that the flesh does not do without the Word, and what it is that the Word does not accomplish without the flesh. For without the power of the Word the Virgin would neither conceive nor bring forth, and without the reality of the flesh the infancy wrapped in swaddling clothes would not lie there. Without the power of the Word the magi would not adore the child made known by a new star (Matt.

2:11), and without the reality of the flesh the child would not be commanded to be carried into Egypt, whom Herod desired to slay (Matt. 2:13). Without the power of the Word the voice of the Father sent from heaven would not say, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3:17; Luke 3:22), and without the reality of the flesh John would not testify, 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world' (John 1:29). Without the power of the Word there would be no restoration of the weak and no quickening of the dead, and without the reality of the flesh neither would food be necessary to one fasting, nor sleep to one wearied. Lastly, without the power of the Word the Lord would not profess Himself equal to the Father (John 10:30), and without the reality of the flesh the same would not say that the Father was greater than He (John

(Matthew 16:28) — since the catholic faith embraces both and defends both, when, according to the property of the divine and the human substance, it believes the one Son of God to be both man and the Word. There are many things, dearly beloved, which we might draw from the whole body of the Scriptures for the setting forth of this faith which we preach, since nothing is more often commended by the divine utterances than that the Son of God is according to His Godhead everlasting from the Father, and the same is according to the flesh temporal from His mother. But lest the hearing of your charity be wearied, a limit must be set to today's sermon, that we may reserve for the fourth day of the week the things that are to be added, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.