How great the secret chamber of a royal bed-chamber may be, with what reverence, with what trembling that place is held where the very power of the prince rests, to which access lies open and is permitted to no stranger, to none who is unclean, to none unfaithful; how clean, how chaste, how faithful the services that there await him this is taught by the manifest emblems of an imperial court. Who, vile, approaches the very doors of the palace? Who, unworthy, draws near? Surely to the bridal chamber of the bridegroom none is admitted unless he is close enough, unless intimate enough, unless of good conscience, unless of praiseworthy repute, unless of approvable life. But within the very bridal chamber God takes the virgin alone; unspotted virginity alone is received.
Wherefore, O man, admonished by these examples, estimate who you are, how great you are, of what sort you are; and then at last consider whether you can penetrate the secret of the Lord's nativity, whether you may deserve to arrive at the bed-chamber of that breast where rests all the majesty of the heavenly King, all of the Godhead; whether you ought, with human eyes and bodily senses, a rash examiner, to gaze upon the virgin's conceiving; whether you can, a bold and curious arbiter, behold the very hands of God fashioning for Himself the holy temple of the body within the womb of the Genetrix, to lay bare to your sight the mystery hidden from the ages, to reveal to yourself the sacrament invisible even to the angels themselves;
and so to preside over the heavenly workmanship that you may clearly discern how God entered the inner recess of enclosed flesh, in what manner He drew the outlines of the sacred body in that venerable womb apart from the Virgin's awareness, how apart from the sense of her who conceived He solidified bones that were to endure for the ages; in what manner, apart from the order of man, He brought forth the true form of man; how, apart from the anxious travail of the flesh, He assumed the whole truth of the flesh; by what reasoning, apart from the nature of our flesh, He took on its entire quality: and if free access to these things has not lain open to you, was God then unable now to assume from flesh what in the beginning He assumed from clay?
Nay rather, because all things are possible to God, and to you it is not possible to arrive even at the least of God's works, do not dispute the Virgin's conceiving, but believe; that God willed to be born, piously perceive, for you do Him injury if you demand proof; receive by faith the great sacrament of the Lord's nativity, for you will not be able to attain even the least of God's works without faith, since the Scripture says: 'All His works are in faith' (Psalm 33). But you wish here that the whole should stand by reason, where the whole consists of faith which nevertheless does not subsist without reason, but by the reason of God, not yours, O man. What is so reasonable as that God should be able to do whatever He wills? He who cannot do what He wills is not God.
What things, therefore, God commands, the angel carries out, the Spirit fulfills, power effects, the Virgin believes, nature receives, the heavens declare, the firmament announces, the stars show forth, the magi proclaim, the shepherds catch the fragrance, the cattle recognize, as the prophet attests: 'The ox knew his owner, and the ass his Lord's crib' (Isaiah 1). You, O man, if not straightway with the angels, acknowledge it at least most tardily with the beasts of burden; lest, while you delay, you be set below those very beasts to which before you had been compared. Behold, the beasts of burden fawn with their tails, they caress with their ears, they lick with their tongues, and by such motion as they can, they confess that their Author has come, against nature, into your nature;
and you dispute and carp with the Jews, who shut out from their lodgings their own Lord, whom the beasts of burden received in their mangers. Wherefore, if at length you are ready to give a pious hearing at least to the angels, admit gladly, if not happily, at least worthily, the things that are to be said by the angel: which, that we should defer today and set forth in the following sermon, holy brethren, a discourse necessary enough for you compels us. You have heard today, dearest brethren, the angel treating with the woman concerning the restoration of man. You have heard it discussed, that man might return to life by the very same courses by which he had slipped down to death. The angel treats, treats with Mary concerning salvation, because the angel had treated with Eve concerning ruin.
You have heard the angel constructing, by ineffable art, from the clay of our flesh a temple of the divine majesty. You have heard that God on earth, man in heaven, is set in place by an incomprehensible sacrament. You have heard that by an unheard-of reasoning God and man are mingled in one body. You have heard that the fragile nature of our flesh is strengthened by angelic exhortation to carry the whole glory of the Godhead. Finally, lest the fine sand of our body should sink under so great a weight of the heavenly workmanship in Mary, and lest in the Virgin the slender rod, about to bear the fruit of the whole human race, should be broken, the angel's voice at once went before to put fear to flight, saying: 'Fear not, Mary' (Luke 1). Before the cause, the virgin's dignity is announced from her name:
for 'Mary' in the Hebrew tongue is called, in Latin, 'lady.' The angel therefore calls her lady, that the trepidation of servitude may depart from the mother of the Ruler, which very authority of her own offspring made and obtained for her, that she should be born and be called lady. 'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace.' It is true, for he who finds grace knows not how to fear. 'Thou hast found grace.' With whom? With God. Blessed she, who alone among men deserved to hear it before all. 'Thou hast found grace.' How much? As much as he had said above: full. And truly full, she who with a copious shower would pour and pour into the whole creation. 'For thou hast found grace with God.' When he says this, the angel himself also marvels, either that a woman alone, or that all men, deserved life through a woman:
the angel is astonished that the whole God comes within the straits of a virgin's womb, to whom the whole creation at once is too narrow. Hence it is that the angel delays, hence it is that he calls the Virgin from her merit, addresses her from grace, scarcely discloses the cause to her who listens, indeed that he may advance her understanding, scarcely composes her by long reassurance. Estimate, brethren, with what reverence, with what trembling it befits and beseems us to take part in so great a sacrament, when the angel himself does not without dread put to flight the dread of her who hears. 'Behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb.' Well shalt thou conceive that which the flesh knows not, which the condition possesses not, which nature does not admit. 'Behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb.' Who has ever come to the fruit before he feels the toil and sweat of the earth? Who plucks the apples before he lends and expends his labor upon the plant?
Who has arrived at the last dwelling apart from the way? Who receives the increase of nature apart from nature? Blessed therefore, and truly blessed, Mary, who apart from the cares of bearing, apart from the disgusts of a mother's pain, has come to so great a glory of offspring. Blessed she, whom the divine pledge so received and preserved in her breast, that the whole exterior of her body knew it not. Blessed she, who committed and entrusted to her mind alone that which she had received from on high by the angel's report. Within the Virgin's house the heavenly business is so transacted that, the enclosures remaining, the very walls of the house do not perceive it. 'Thou shalt conceive and bear a son.' He who enters and goes forth, and leaves no traces of either his entering or his going out, is a divine inhabitant, not a human;
and he who by His conceiving keeps the virgin a virgin, and by His birth leaves the virgin a virgin, is not an earthly man, but a heavenly one. Let the order of our flesh, therefore, withdraw; let our nature claim nothing for itself here, where for a divine progeny the heavenly order is established into a divine nature. Let conceiving and childbearing not weary the mind of the hearer, nor lightly move the sense of the Christian, where for a heavenly progeny the divine tokens of the power of God are wrought. 'Thou shalt conceive and bear a son.' He did not say 'to thee,' he said 'thine.' Why? Because 'He shall be called holy, the Son of God.' Grace made thee a mother, O Virgin, not nature; piety willed thee to be called Genetrix, whom integrity did not allow to be so;
in thy conceiving, in thy childbearing, modesty grew, chastity was increased, integrity was strengthened, virginity was made solid, all the virtues persevered. Virgin, if all things are preserved to thee, what hast thou given? If a virgin, how a mother? If a bride, how a genetrix? He by whom all things were increased to thee, diminished nothing, O Virgin. Virgin, thy Author is conceived of thee, thy Origin arises from thee, in thy offspring is thy Begetter, in thy flesh is thy God, and He Himself received the light of the world through thee, who gave light to the world. Warned therefore by the angel, O Virgin, presume not to call Him thy son, but as soon as thou hast borne Him, invoke the Savior:
because virginity does not bear a son for itself, but bears the pledge of its Author, and integrity carries its own Lord, not its foster-child, as the angel says: 'And thou shalt call His name Jesus,' which in the Latin word is called Savior. 'But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be?' Behold, Mary asks: and if whoever asks doubts, why does Zacharias alone incur blame as a querulous questioner? Because the Knower of hearts saw through not the words but the hearts; He judged not what they said, but what they felt; for the cause of the questioners was dissimilar, the character quite divided. She believed against nature, he doubts on behalf of nature; she asks the order of a matter that is intact, he prescribes that what God commands to be done cannot be done;
he does not come to faith though examples urge him, she runs to faith without any example; she marvels at the childbearing of a virgin, he disputes about a conjugal conceiving. Deservedly, therefore, she speaks, she knows and confesses God in her body; he is silent, until, convicted, he should render from his own body John, whom he denied. 'How shall this be? Why? Because I know not a man.' Woman, what man do you seek? Whom did you lose in Paradise? Restore the man, O woman, restore God's deposit, restore from yourself him whom you lost through yourself: pass over the order of nature, recognize the order of the Creator. He shall assume from you and make a man, who in the beginning made you and assumed you from man;
seek not a man, let the work of man cease, because for the restoration of man the divine art suffices. Hence it is that God Himself comes to you, because He repented of having come to man. Nor now shall flesh come to flesh; but the Holy Spirit shall come upon you. Because that which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is of the Spirit is spirit (John 3). He therefore who is born of the Spirit is, without controversy, God, because God is Spirit. 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.' The power of God overshadows, lest human frailty, about to bear God, should sink down. 'And the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.' The shadow of the divine power protects, so that the heat of our body may not be felt;
nor does it inquire into the secret of a worldly dwelling, which sees itself fenced round with the veil of supernal splendor. 'Therefore that which shall be born of thee holy shall be called the Son of God.' Let no one here take 'holy' in the common sense, but in that singularity by which it is cried in the heavens: 'Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of Sabaoth' (Isaiah 6). But Mary is sent to Elizabeth, virgin to a barren woman, the infant to an aged woman, that in pious contest both may receive, may alike take in, the one faith concerning the newness, the other virtue concerning the necessity. Having heard these things, Mary answered: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.' She who is called lady by the angel knows and confesses herself a handmaid.
Because the devout soul, amid the badges of benefits, grows toward obedience: it is increased toward grace, it leaps not forth toward arrogance, it does not swell up toward pride. 'Be it done to me according to thy word.' She who believes the word deservedly conceives the Word: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word' (John 1); and she arrives at the whole reality, who consents with hearing to the secret of faith. How greatly does the heretic sin, who after the cause does not believe, when he beholds her to have believed thus greatly before the cause. A sermon on the Nativity is indeed owed to you, but to believe the ineffable sacrament of the Lord's Nativity is more fitting than to recount it. The Virgin has brought forth.
What nature does not possess, what experience knows not, what reason cannot grasp, what the mind cannot contain, at which heaven trembles, the earth stands astonished, and all creation marvels — how shall human speech recount it? Yet the Evangelist, even as he unfolds in human words the Virgin's conceiving and the Virgin's childbearing, so too he shuts them up in a divine mystery, and does this that man may not presume to scrutinize what he has been commanded to believe. Who can reach the hidden things of God — the Virgin's childbearing, the causes of all things, the business of the ages, the commerce of Godhead and flesh, the man and God who are one God? The Evangelist speaks thus: 'The angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin's name was Mary' (Luke 1). The angel was sent from God.
Where an angel is the mediator, let human opinion fall silent; where a herald of heavenly things is present, let earthly interpretation be driven off. Let human curiosity grow numb where a heavenly interpreter is at hand. The angel was sent from God. Whoever hears more attentively that he was sent from God shrinks from searching out the secret of the Godhead. What God commands through an angel, he deserves to know who fears to know. Hear the Lord speaking: 'Upon whom shall I look, save upon the humble, and the meek, and him that trembleth at my words?' (Isaiah 66, according to the Septuagint). 'The humble and the meek': as meek as is the man who obeys commands, so unmeek is the man who disputes commands. The angel was sent to a virgin, because virginity is ever kindred to the angels.
To live in the flesh beyond the flesh is not an earthly life but a heavenly one. And if you would know it, to acquire angelic glory is greater than to possess it: to be an angel is a matter of blessedness, but to be a virgin is a matter of virtue; for virginity obtains by its own strength that which the angel has by nature. Therefore both the angel and the virgin perform a divine office, not a human one. 'The angel,' it says, 'coming in unto her, said: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.' 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee': behold with what gifts the virgin is endowed. 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' 'Hail' — that is, 'receive.' Receive what? The virtues of these gifts, not the loss of modesty. 'Hail, full of grace.'
This is the grace which gave glory to the heavens, God to the earth, faith to the nations, an end to vices, order to life, and discipline to morals. This grace the angel brought, and the Virgin received it, she who was to render salvation to the ages. 'Hail, full of grace.' Because to others grace has bestowed itself by portions, but to Mary the fullness of grace gave itself wholly and all at once. 'Of his fullness,' says the Evangelist, 'we have all received' (John 1). Whence David also says: 'He shall come down like rain upon the fleece' (Psalm 71). Though the fleece be of the body, it knows not the body's sufferings; so virginity, though it be in the flesh, knows not the vices of the flesh. The heavenly shower, therefore, poured itself upon the virginal fleece with a gentle descent.
And the whole flood of the Godhead hid itself in the fleece of our flesh as in something absorbent, until, pressed out through the gibbet of the cross, it might pour itself upon all the earth as a rain of salvation: 'And as the drops falling upon the earth' (ibid.), so that, distributed in life-giving drops, it might water the seeds of faith in due seasons and not destroy them. 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' The angel was sent from God, and what does he say? 'The Lord is with thee.' Therefore he who had sent to the Virgin was with the Virgin. God went before his messenger, yet did not depart from God: he cannot be held in places who is held in all places; and he is wholly everywhere, without whom no whole is anything. 'Blessed art thou among women.' Truly blessed Virgin, who both possesses the honor of virginity and bore the dignity of a mother.
Truly blessed, who both merited the grace of a heavenly conceiving and bore aloft the crown of integrity. Truly blessed, who both received the glory of a divine offspring and stood forth as queen of all chastity. Truly blessed, who was greater than heaven, stronger than earth, wider than the world; for she alone contained the God whom the world cannot contain. A gate of life, she bore him who bears the world, she brought forth her own begetter, she nourished the nourisher of all the living. But let us see what the Evangelist says: 'Mary,' he says, 'when she had heard the angel, was troubled at his saying.' The flesh was troubled, the inward parts were shaken, the mind trembled, the whole depth of her heart was struck with amazement; for at the angel's entrance the virgin felt the entrance of the Godhead.
The temple of the human body was troubled, and the narrow bounds of its fleshly dwelling were moved, when the whole greatness of God enclosed itself within the virginal breast. But if it please you, before we penetrate the mystery of the Christian faith, let us speak to those who ascribe the Virgin's childbearing, the great sacrament of godliness, the restoration of human salvation, to an affront against the Godhead. God came to a virgin — that is, the craftsman to his own work, the Creator to his own creature. When does the restoring of a work overflow to the dishonor of its craftsman? When is it counted no honor to his glory, if the maker should repair what he has made? Lest anyone lose his own work, does he not recall it when it grows old, and raise it up when it falls, and refashion it for the better when it is destroyed?
Therefore what is done in the Virgin's childbearing is no affront to the Creator, but the salvation of the creature. If God made man, who accuses him for why he remade him? And that which he is worthily believed to have formed from clay, why is it judged unworthy that he should reform it from flesh? Which is more precious, flesh or clay? Therefore, the more precious the material of our restoration, the greater its glory. Or when is God not the fashioner of man in the womb? Hear Job: 'Thy hands have made me and fashioned me.' And afterward: 'Thou hast curdled me like cheese; thou hast clothed me with bones and sinews; thou hast granted me life and mercy' (Job 10). And David: 'Thou hast formed me, and hast laid thy hand upon me' (Psalm 138). And to Jeremiah God said: 'Before thou wast in the womb, I knew thee, and in the belly I sanctified thee' (Jeremiah 1).
If, therefore, he traced out Job's features in his parent's belly, if he framed David's limbs in his mother's womb, if he sanctified Jeremiah in his mother's womb, if he filled John in the barren woman's womb with the Holy Spirit, what wonder is it now if he who took woman from man's side dwelt in a virgin's womb? He who formed the virgin from a man's body himself took up man again from a woman's womb; and accordingly, O man, the things that seem new to you are held ancient by God. But you say: What need was there for God to be born, when he has ready to hand the power of making? What need? That by being born he might restore that very nature which he had made by working; for she who had been made to generate unto life, was herself generating unto death.
Through the sin of the first man, nature received a deadly wound, and that which was the beginning of life began to be the origin of death. This, then, was the business of the nativity that compelled Christ to be born: that his nativity might bring healing to the nature of its Author, and that the healing of nature might be the making-alive of its children.