How Mary's virginity before and after childbirth is to be believed. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. For unless with your whole mind, without any hesitation, you believe and confess the same Son of God to be also the same Christ, the son of man, it will not profit you even to confess the Father. Believe therefore the Son of God, only-begotten of the unbegotten God the Father, life from life, true God from true God, coeternal and coessential, almighty and coequal in all things to the Father; and you shall deserve to attain to eternal joys with him and with all his saints. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. When you hear that the Holy Spirit was the minister of so great a nativity, doubt not in any way that a virgin could conceive.
Why do you not believe that he could form in the womb of the incorrupt Virgin, whom you ought to believe made man from the mud of the earth? Nor doubt that Mary remained a virgin after childbirth, for how this was done neither human speech nor sense can comprehend: since God the Father willed that his Son, coequal to himself in all things and in nothing unlike, should take human flesh for the sake of men; that to all who believe in him and obey his will he might bestow eternal life and glory;
that man, who was made to the image of God, and through the envy of the devil deceived and cast out from the eternal kingdom, he might, through his only Son by assuming flesh and taking on human nature, rescue from the devil and restore to the eternal kingdom. 3. Whatever weakness is in Christ is for our sake; whatever glory is of his own power. Who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He who for you took upon himself the corruption of human flesh, he himself for your redemption and salvation, in the humanity which he assumed, endured the Passion of the cross: for his Passion is our life, his death is our deliverance. On the third day he rose again from the dead.
If the Lord's three days' burial disturbs you, let his glorious resurrection confirm you. For whatever weakness you hear of in Christ is the cause of our necessity, of our redemption; whatever of glory is of his own power. He who therefore died that he might make us live again; who therefore rose again that he might raise us up to eternal life. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty. If it seems to you great and precious that for your sake the Son of God hung upon the cross, and sublime that he ascended into heaven; much more ought you to be astonished at this: that for your sake he died and was buried;
for to this end he descended, that he might bear for your salvation those things which are displeasing to human weakness, and lead you with him to eternal and heavenly glory. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. He who was judged to death by the wicked and impious, he himself shall judge all the good and the just unto glory, and shall thrust down all the impious to punishment. 4. Faith in the resurrection is necessary for salvation. And in the Holy Spirit. Just as you have believed God the Father almighty, and his only-begotten Son, with equal faith and veneration believe the Holy Spirit to be one God, coequal to the Father and the Son in all things, and in nothing unlike. The holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins.
In which everyone who has been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit shall receive eternal forgiveness of all sins; outside of which all the wicked and impious are appointed to eternal punishments. The resurrection of the flesh and life everlasting. What you have heard was fulfilled in Christ's glorious resurrection, believe that this shall be wholly fulfilled in you at the judgment to come; so that the resurrection of your flesh may restore you for eternity. For unless you have believed that you are to be restored after death, you shall not be able to attain to the rewards of eternal life: but if you have believed, you shall be grafted into eternal joys; through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and always, and unto all the eternities of the age of ages. Amen.
SERMON 244. On the faith of the Symbol and good morals. 1. The Blessed Virgin endured without stain of sin. I ask and admonish you, dearest brethren, that whoever wishes to be saved should learn the right and catholic faith, hold it firmly, and preserve it inviolate. Thus therefore each one ought to observe, that he believe the Father, believe the Son, believe the Holy Spirit. God is the Father, God the Son, God also the Holy Spirit; yet not three gods, but one God. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such also the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless let each of the faithful believe that the Son is equal to the Father according to divinity, and less than the Father according to the humanity of the flesh, which he assumed from our nature;
but the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. Believe therefore, dearest ones, in God the Father almighty, and believe also in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. Believe him to have been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, who was a virgin before childbirth and a virgin after childbirth, ever a virgin, and endured without contagion or stain of sin. Believe him to have suffered for our sins under Pontius Pilate, believe him crucified, believe him dead and buried; believe that he descended into hell, bound the devil, and freed the souls of the saints which were held under custody, and led them with him to the heavenly homeland.
Believe him to have risen from the dead on the third day, and to have shown us an example of resurrection. Believe him to have ascended into heaven with the flesh which he assumed from our nature. Believe that he sits at the Father's right hand: believe that he shall come to judge the living and the dead. Believe in the Holy Spirit, believe the holy catholic Church, believe the communion of saints, believe the resurrection of the flesh, believe the forgiveness of sins, believe also life everlasting. 2. The humility of many is feigned. What Christ did for us. Therefore, if anyone wishes to be a disciple of Christ, let him keep his commandments, let him learn humility, as he himself says: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt. 11:29). Let him entreat God with the heart;
for there are many who outwardly appear to humble themselves, but within are full of the swelling of pride. Christ humbled himself for us, took the form of a servant, obedient to the Father even unto death, and death upon a cross (Phil. 2:7-8). For us, brethren, that he might blot out our sins, he assumed human flesh, was born of a Virgin, laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, rejected by the Jews, by them persecuted, seized, and scourged, defiled with spittle, crowned with thorns, pierced with nails, transfixed with a lance, hung upon the cross, given vinegar mixed with gall to drink, and reckoned among the wicked. And all these things, dearest brethren, he endured that he might free us from the jaws of hell.
Therefore, dearest brethren, since the Lord endured such and so great things for us, if we wish to come to him, we ought to follow his footsteps and imitate the examples of the saints. The Lord says in the Gospel, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Luke 9:23): and elsewhere he says, Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor; and come, follow me (Matt. 19:21). The holy martyrs, dearest brethren, followed the footsteps of Christ, and drank the cup of the Passion which he himself drank. Peter the apostle was crucified for the name of Christ, Paul beheaded, Stephen stoned, and very many others suffered thus for his name. 3. What in turn we ought to do.
Therefore, brethren, crucify and mortify your members which are upon the earth; that you may be able to please him who created you. Let him who was proud become humble; let him who was unbelieving become faithful; let him who was lustful become chaste; let him who was a robber become upright; let him who was a drunkard become sober; let him who was slothful become vigilant; let him who was avaricious become generous; let him who was double-tongued become good in speech; let him who was a slanderer or envious become pure and kind; let him who once came late to church now run to it more frequently. Let each one redeem himself by an abundance of alms; for as water extinguishes fire, so alms extinguish sin (Sir. 3:33).
Give tithes each year from all the fruit which you gather to the churches and to the poor. Love fasting, avoid gluttony and the excess of wine. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit those who are set in prison. Visit the sick, gather strangers into your homes and wash their feet, wipe them with a linen cloth, kiss them, and prepare their beds. Let no one commit murder, nor theft, nor adultery, nor perjury, nor speak false testimony. Let him honor father and mother, that he may be long-lived upon the earth. Let him love God more than himself, love his neighbor as himself. Whoever has committed any of the aforesaid things, let him amend it quickly; let him make confession, let him do true penance.
and his sins shall be forgiven him. If you are willing, brethren, to fulfill these things which I have suggested, you shall merit the forgiveness of sins and shall obtain life everlasting; by the granting of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 245. On the mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation, I. 1. The three Persons of the Trinity are one. We read that holy Moses gave commandments to the people of God, where he said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one God (Deut. 6:4). He cannot be greater, he cannot be less, he cannot be numbered, as David the prophet says, Great is our Lord, and great is his power; and of his wisdom there is no number (Ps. 146:5).
You know these things full well, dearest brethren, who firmly hold in your heart the catholic truth: yet hear briefly what, with the Lord's help, I have proposed to explain. God is the one Father, God is the one Son, God is the one Holy Spirit; not three gods, but there is one God: three in names, one in the deity of substance. 2. Yet to Christ alone pertains the flesh. It is illustrated by examples: of the soul, of the sun, and of the lyre. But the heretic says to me: Therefore, if they are one, all are incarnate. No. To Christ alone pertains the flesh. Surely the soul is one thing, reason another: and yet in the soul there is reason, and the soul is one. But the soul does one thing, reason another: the soul lives, reason is wise;
and to the soul pertains life, and to reason pertains wisdom. And though they are one, the soul alone receives life, reason alone receives wisdom: and yet neither is the soul without reason, nor reason without the soul. So also the Father and the Son, although they are one and there is one God, to Christ alone pertains the flesh: just as to reason alone pertains wisdom, although it does not depart from the soul. Behold again another example. In the sun heat and splendor are in one ray: but the heat dries up, the splendor illumines; the heat receives one thing, the splendor another. And although the heat and the splendor cannot be separated from one another, the splendor receives illumination, not burning; the heat receives burning, not illumination. One thing they do together, another separately;
and yet they are not separated from one another. So also the Son assumed flesh; and he did not forsake the Father, nor did he divide himself from the Father. The Son, I say, assumed flesh in his own property: yet the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent in majesty. In the divinity there is equality, in the flesh alone the property of the Son: yet the divinity of the Father or of the Holy Spirit never departed from him. Since therefore the deity is one, the divinity is one, both the Father and the Holy Spirit indeed filled the flesh of Christ; but by majesty, not by assumption. Would you know that the Father was with him? I am not alone, says the Lord Christ; but the Father is with me (John 16:32). Hear also of the Holy Spirit, that he was with him:
the evangelist relates that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan (Luke 4:1). Behold how Jesus Christ alone assumed flesh; and yet the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent in majesty. If the Father fills heaven and earth, the Holy Spirit also fills them: they could not forsake the flesh of Christ, since they remained in the unity of the divinity. Look yet again at the lyre. That it may render sweet melody in music with sweet tones, three things seem to be present together: art, hand, and string: and yet one sound is heard; the art dictates, the hand touches, the string resounds. Three things work together; but the string alone sounds forth what is heard: neither the art nor the hand renders the sound, but they work together with the string.
So neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit assumed flesh; and yet they work together with the Son. The string alone strikes out the sound; Christ alone assumed flesh. The operation consists in three; but just as to the string alone pertains the rendering of the sound, so to Christ alone pertains the assumption of human flesh. 3. The Jew is refuted, that a Virgin could give birth. On the contrary the Jew says: A virgin could not, against nature, give birth: and the detestable Manichean says: If it was flesh, she could not be a virgin; if a virgin gave birth, it was a phantasm. To both an answer must be given. I bring forth from the history of the Old Testament a necessary example against the Jew, which just now sounded in our ears a most manifest truth.
The Lord commanded holy Moses that a rod should be brought from each of the tribes. Twelve rods were brought, among which there was also one that had been Aaron the priest's: they were placed by holy Moses in the tabernacle of the testimony. But Aaron's rod, after another day, was found suddenly to have put forth flowers and leaves, and to have brought forth nuts (Num. 17:6-8). It delights me to blend this mystery, along with your Charity, against Jewish perfidy, where above all the figure of the sacrament intervenes. Behold, the rod brought forth what before it did not have, not rooted by planting, not dug in with a hoe, not quickened by sap, not made fruitful by a seed-bed:
and yet, though there all the laws of nature were lacking, the rod brought forth what could be supplied neither by seed nor by root. Could the rod then, against nature, produce nuts: and could not a virgin, against the laws of nature, bring forth the Son of God? Let the unbelieving Jew therefore tell me how the dry rod flowered and put forth leaves and brought forth nuts; and I will tell him how a virgin conceived and gave birth. But surely the Jew will be able to explain neither the conception nor the birth-giving of the rod. Let him come to the church, let it be expounded to him; that he may acknowledge the true order of the natural function. The Virgin passed through the times of giving birth: but the rod did not have the times of germinating. (The Virgin had the times of giving birth;
but the rod, on another day, brought forth what nature did not possess.) For she, after nine months had run their course, gave birth; but the rod, on another day, germinated what nature did not possess. A virgin, says the Jew, nature does not suffer to give birth. But God, who in the Book of Numbers showed a wondrous sign against nature, that a she-ass should speak (Num. 22:28), he himself willed to do something more wondrous, that Christ should be born of a virgin. 4. The Virgin's childbearing is demonstrated against the Manichean by a similitude. Let that crafty Manichean also hear another sacrament. The ray of the sun penetrates glass, and pierces through its solidity with an imperceptible subtlety: and it appears within just as it stands without.
And so, brethren, neither when he enters does he violate, nor when he goes forth does he destroy; because at his entering and his going forth the window-glass abides whole. As, therefore, the sun's ray does not shatter the glass, could the entering or going forth of the Godhead make the Virgin's integrity gape open? But why do I linger further? The rod of Aaron prefigured the Mother of God, and the nuts that sprang from it, our Saviour. Let the Christian hear what the Jew or the Manichaean will not hear; that the one, redeemed, may profit in faith, while this one or that, hardened, may fall away. That rod of which we were speaking, Aaron's rod, was the Virgin Mary, who conceived and bore for us Christ the true priest, of whom David lately sang, 'Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek':
For in the verse above he had already said, 'The Lord shall send forth the rod of thy power out of Zion' (Ps 109:2). And the prophet Isaiah more openly designates holy Mary, saying: 'There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding' (Isa 11:1-2). That this rod, then, brought forth nuts, was an image of the Lord's body. For the nut has in its body a threefold union of substance: the husk, the shell, and the kernel. In the husk is likened the flesh, in the shell the bones, in the kernel the inner soul. In the husk of the nut is signified the flesh of the Saviour, which had in itself the roughness or bitterness of the passion.
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Innucleointerioremdeclaratdulcedinemdeitatis, quætrihuilpastum, etluminissubministratofficium. Intesta, lignuminterserenscrucis , quodnondiscrevitidquodforisetintusfuit, sedquæterrenaetcoelcstiafueruntmediatorisligniinterpositionepociavit, dicentebeatoApostolo, Quiaipsepersanguinemcrucissuæpacificavitomniaquæincælissunt, etquæinterris (Coloss. i, 20) : qaivivitcumPaireinunitateSpiritussauctiDeusinsæcutasæculorum. Amen. SERMOCCXLVI (a). DemysterioTrinitatisetIncarnationis, II (b). I, ObjiciuntArianideSapientiadictum , Dominuscreavitme, eic. Respondeturprimo, iddesapientiaSalomonidataposseintelligi :
In the kernel it declares the inner sweetness of the Godhead, which grants nourishment and supplies the office of light. In the shell, inserting the wood of the cross, which did not sunder that which was without and within, but by the interposition of the mediator's wood joined together the things that were earthly and heavenly, as the blessed Apostle says, 'For through the blood of his cross he made peace with all things that are in heaven and that are on earth' (Col 1:20): who lives with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 246. On the mystery of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, II. 1. The Arians object concerning the saying about Wisdom, 'The Lord created me,' etc. It is answered first, that this can be understood of the wisdom given to Solomon:
secondly, that there are in Christ two natures, united indeed, yet not confounded. We have received, brethren, the words of the Lord saying to his disciples, 'Let not your heart be troubled' (Jn 14:1), etc. Who now would so love Christ as to rejoice that his own nature is already made immortal in Christ, and to hope that this shall come to pass for himself through Christ? The Arians object to us, asserting the Son of God to be a creature: What is it that Solomon, in the person of Christ, consents to this and says, 'The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, in his works; before the age he founded me from the beginning, before he made the earth, before the fountains of waters issued forth, before the mountains were established; and before all the hills he begot me' (Prov 8:
22-25)? Against whom we answer thus: Many most learned men indeed assert that this was said in the person of that wisdom which Solomon had received for judging and ruling the people. But since you with obstinate mind demand that this be taken by us as said in the person of Christ, we do not resist nor struggle against it; but, strengthened by the aid of the truth itself, wherever you lead we follow. First indeed, as we said above, although we believe one person in Christ, yet we confess that there are two substances, that is, natures, namely of divinity and of humanity, of the assuming and of the assumed, of the creating and of the created:
which substances, nevertheless, are not confounded, but united, and in one and the same person inseparable, and ever abiding in their own property. Wherefore to each substance its own things must surely be fitted, that is, the infirmities to the humanity, which was created; but the signs or wonders to the divinity, which created. For so far are these two natures united and joined to one another, that the same, the selfsame Christ, God and man, at one time does or speaks human things, at another divine: as it is that he sleeps in the ship, and commands the winds and the sea; or that he hungered, and that he fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes; and finally, that he dies.
and that by divine authority he commands Lazarus, four days dead, to be called back from the dead. 2. By reason of his human nature he says he was created; but by reason of the divine, before every creature. Wherefore you ought not to wonder if Christ said of his humanity, 'The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, in his works': because the saying that follows shows what befitted the divinity, set over against what was premised before, saying, 'Before the age he founded me from the beginning, before he made the earth, and before he made the deeps, before the fountains of waters issued forth, before the mountains were established; and before all the hills he begot me.' This is to say: Although God created me, that I might show forth the beginning of his ways and works through the Gospel;
but before the age, that is, before the beginning, before heaven, or earth, or times were made, he begot me: that is, to show himself begotten of the Father without time and without beginning. For, to comprehend the whole briefly, Christ the Son of God, God and man, according to his divinity was begotten of the Father before the ages, without beginning, ineffably, as Isaiah says, 'Who shall declare his generation?' (Isa 53:8). But in the last time, according to his humanity, he was created. For the divinity, coming into the womb of the Virgin Mary, by that same authority by which in paradise it formed Adam from the clay, fashioned for itself flesh out of the substance of Mary herself:
which, taking it up for our salvation and uniting it to himself, God and man was born. Which generation Matthew relates, saying, 'Now the birth of Christ was in this wise' (Mt 1:18), etc. 3. They ask: Was he begotten while he was, or while he was not? It is declared that he ever coexists with the Father, and in what respect he is distinguished from the Father. Likewise they are wont to compose against us a poisoned syllogism of this kind, saying: If you believe the Son coeternal with the Father, tell us, we pray, was he begotten while he was, or while he was not? If while he was, then there were two unbegotten before, and afterwards one begot the other: or if, as true reason allows, he was begotten while he was not, then he will surely be later than the Father.
In which matter we have nothing else to do than to resist so great a malice of the heretics with apostolic examples, by which secular wisdom is easily beaten down. When, therefore, they have cast at us the objections mentioned above, we say: As we know the Father alone to be ever and without beginning unbegotten, so we confess the Son to be ever and without beginning begotten of the Father. Nor is there any other cause that makes a division of persons, save that the one is unbegotten and the other begotten, that is, the one is Father and the other Son: for the Father is ever Father, never Son; because, as we said, he was not begotten, but himself begot: and the Son is ever Son, never Father; because he did not beget, but was begotten. 4.
This is illustrated by the example of brightness. On which matter none other than the Apostle himself is to be summoned into the midst, who, foreseeing the malice of Eunomius and Arius, endeavoured by examples of visible things to explain an invisible, ineffable, and incomprehensible thing, as far as he could, or as the thing itself permitted. For what does he say, writing to the Hebrews concerning the Son? 'Who is,' he says, 'the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance' (Heb 1:3). Let us see, then, what is the reason that he named the Son brightness. For brightness, unless I am mistaken, we speak of only of the sun, or of the moon, or of some certain light. What, then, is it?
Are we so mad as to think that the Apostle likened that inestimable form of the divinity to the sun or to fire? Far be it: but that by that example we may understand that, just as brightness is born from the substance of the sun, so also the Son is begotten from the substance of the Father. Thus neither is the sun or fire prior to its own brightness, though brightness is born from it; but from the moment the sun or fire came forth, at once and together with it its brightness appeared; nor can the brightness be said to be later than the sun or fire, though, as I said, it is born from it. If, then, in creatures something is found that both is born and yet is not later than its begetter, why, O heretic, do you despair that this can be done by the Creator? Receive also another likeness of this matter.
Just as the brightness born of the sun fills the whole earth, and yet is at no time cut off from its begetter, nor withdraws: so the Son, begotten of the Father, though he be everywhere, ever abides in the Father. And as substantially the brightness is in the sun, and the sun in the brightness; so substantially the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. And as, though the sun and the brightness have one substance, yet there is not one person; because we say neither that the sun is the brightness, nor that the brightness is the sun; because we know that the sun begot the brightness, but the brightness is born of the sun: so also the Father and the Son, though they be of one essence, yet are not of one person, as we have already fully recalled above.
And as the sun by its brightness both warms, and illumines, and dries, and loosens, and heats, and blackens, and works all things that are enjoined upon it by God: so also we read that the Father wrought all things through his only-begotten Son. 5. They rejoin that he is created, not begotten. If it were so, he would be a servant, nor should he be worshipped—the adoration of Christ's body. They say the Son was created by the Father, not begotten. To which it must be briefly answered: if he was created, then surely also a servant; because everything that is created must needs serve the Creator: and if the Son is a servant, how, being established in the form of God, did he take the form of a servant (Phil 2:7)? For a servant cannot take the form of a servant.