Likewise they say the Son of God is not God by nature, but created. Against questions of this kind we must answer thus: because if the Son is not God by nature, but a creature, then he is by no means to be worshipped, nor to be adored as God, since the Apostle says, 'And they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed unto the ages' (Rom 1:25); and to the Galatians, 'But then, not knowing God, you served those which by nature are not gods' (Gal 4:8). But they will reply to this and say: What of it, that his flesh, which you do not deny to be a creature, you adore together with the divinity, and serve it no less than the divinity?
I adore the Lord's flesh—nay rather, the perfect humanity in Christ—for this reason, that it was taken up by the divinity and united to the Godhead: so that I confess not one and another, but one and the same God and man, the Son of God. In short, if you separate the man from God, as Photinus or Paul of Samosata did, in him I never believe, nor do I serve. Just as, if one of us should find lying a royal purple or a diadem, will he try to adore it? But when the king has been clothed with them, one incurs the peril of death if he scorns to adore them together with the king:
so also in Christ the Lord, if anyone scorns to adore the humanity—not alone or bare, but united to his divinity—the one Son of God, true God and true man, he shall suffer the penalty of eternal death. SERMON 247. Why Christ was born and suffered. 1. Wisdom could by power have brought man back to himself; he chose rather to accomplish it sweetly. This was his reason for assuming manhood; nor is he thereby diminished. The Maker of the world, by a secret and wondrous counsel, through the mystery of the incarnate Word, willed to repair the fall of that same world—corrupted by original and actual sins—he who by that word by which he could create all things out of nothing, could also reform the things that had been lost. For he himself spoke, and they were made;
he himself commanded, and they were created (Ps 32:9). We do not believe this power of his to be lessened, we do not believe it changed—with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration (Jas 1:17)—so as to be less powerful and wise in reforming than he had been in fashioning. For the hand of the almighty potter, all whose ways are mercy and truth (Ps 24:10), which had raised man up safe from the earth and exalted him with the dignity of a rational nature, so availed to reform the ruin of the fragile vessel, that it neither left man's sin unpunished, because he is just, nor unhealed, because he is merciful.
If he were only just—he whose wisdom reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly (Wis 8:1)—he could by his might have contended against the seducer of the human race, and restored to his own dominion the lost sheep brought back to the flock. But in this way he would seem only to have shown the eminence of his power, not to have expended healing mercy upon the redeemed; nor would it appear with how great charity the Creator loved his creature, from whom by manifold benefit he sought to be loved; so that wretched man, grace going before, might obtain even by merit that which, though ill-deserving, was repaid to him as undeserved.
What, therefore, the wisdom of God could do wisely and mightily, he willed to do sweetly, uniting to himself the infirmity of our flesh, which he might first heal in himself; and through this, as through a medicinal compound, might restore health to the human race: not that it could not have been done otherwise, as regards the skill and power of the Physician; but because no more suitable antidote could be procured, as regards the constitution of the sick man. For that which is weak of God is stronger than men: and that which is foolish of God is wiser than men (1 Cor 1:25).
This seems to us to be the special reason why the Son of God willed to put on manhood and to dwell among men: that the mortality which he received from us he might overcome by dying, and might recall our nature—repaired above the dignity of its first origin—with himself to immortality; so that the lowliness of the flock might follow thither, whither the loftiness of the shepherd went before. Thus the sun's ray dries up the moisture which it draws to itself; yet it neither lessens nor changes the power of its heat and brightness. Thus fire converts into itself the matter which it takes up; yet for that reason it neither changes nor lessens its own nature. Much more mightily does that fire, of which it is said, 'Our God is a consuming fire' (Deut
4:24)—took upon himself our mortality and passibility, and consumed them; and thence, by the grace of health, took up again the whole body. A wondrous and incomparable kind of medicine, for whose sake the physician willed to be sick, and decreed to heal by his own infirmity the sick, for whom he was procuring the remedy of salvation. 2. Nor did he add anything to himself. For he needs nothing of ours. In this it appears with how incomparable a charity he loved us; for in that he sought out his deserters, laid hold of the seed of Abraham, brought back the wandering, healed the wounded—he added nothing to himself, was not thereby made higher, was not thereby made more blessed. This whole dispensation looked to our benefit, fought for our salvation:
it conferred nothing on the divine power. For even when we were vessels of dishonour, we could not escape the hand of the almighty potter: he used the vessels of wrath as he willed for the manifestation of his glory; for so it was said to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose have I raised thee up, that I may show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared in all the earth' (Ex 9:16). Did not even the demons, when they were cast out by the Lord from the bodies they possessed, glorify the Lord, when they said, 'What have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the living God? Art thou come to torment us before the time?' (Mt 8:29)? It is clear, then, from these and other things of this kind, that the divine power had no need of our reparation;
but yet with that same goodness by which he made us, he willed to reform us: and for this he applied a medicine, not as strong as he could, but such as he saw would more gently suit the constitution of the sick man. 3. The analogy of Christ with a skilled physician. For those skilled in medicine are wont to cure the illnesses which they undertake to heal, sometimes by contraries, sometimes by likes. This our Lord Jesus Christ did, enriching us by his poverty, lifting us up by his humility, healing us by his infirmity, giving us life by his death. Thus by the method of medicine dry things are set against moist, moist against dry, hot against cold: and the less strong contraries are overcome by stronger contraries coming upon them.
By a like reasoning, likes are applied to likes, when according to the size of the wounds or swellings the length or breadth of the poultices is measured. Thus the flesh of a scorpion, cooked in oil, heals the stings of scorpions; thus theriac made from the flesh of a serpent counters serpents' bites, and, taken as a drink, drives out potions infected with poison. After this likeness our Physician healed the death of our flesh, coming from the serpent, by the death of his own flesh, and reformed it unto the likeness of his own immortality, to be fulfilled in the time of restoration. Wherein it must be more diligently observed that the death which came by the tree was overcome by the tree.
And the very shape of the wood was configured to the length and breadth and height of the human body: so that, as the whole body was moved so that the hands were stretched out to the forbidden thing, so the body should be stretched out through all its members on the cross, and all that had been broken by the guilt of the paternal transgression should be made firm by the loosening of this plaster. But to this medicine, composed of likes, there was also admixed a medicine made by the opposite. For here obedience healed what there disobedience had corrupted: and what there the delight of the palate had defiled, here the torment of the cross reforms. 4. The mystical figure of the cross. In this figure of the cross a deeper mystery is contained:
which, the higher it is, the more diligently must it be attended to. For in the breadth of the cross is understood the love of neighbour, which must be extended not only to friends, but even to enemies to be loved. In its length also is understood the long and persevering endurance of labours and persecutions, which our pilgrimage, sighing for its fatherland, ought patiently to bear, both for the love of neighbours and for the display of all good works. By a like reasoning there is figured in its height the eminence of hope, penetrating even to the inner things of the veil;
where they shall fully enjoy the vision of peace who here are manifoldly harassed by the citizens of Babylon, until they are set free from the servitude of this corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. This breadth of charity the Lord Jesus signified on the cross, raising his head toward the east, lowering his feet toward the west, stretching out his hands toward the north and the south; that he might fulfil what he had foretold of himself before his passion, 'When I shall be lifted up from the earth'—that is, when I shall be crucified—'I will draw all things to myself' (Jn 12:32), that is, I will call together to myself the whole world. By this sacrament of the cross holy Elisha, applying his mouth to the mouth and his hands to the hands of the Shunammite's son, raised him up by prayer, and restored him alive to his mother (4 Kings 4:34).
By the power of the same sacrament Moses in the desert struck the rock twice with his rod, and brought forth water from the rock for the thirsting people (Num 20:11). For the double striking is figuratively understood as the joining of the two beams made in the cross. Twice, therefore, is the rock struck, when Christ—of whom the Apostle says, 'And the rock was Christ' (1 Cor 10:4)—stretched out on the two woods of the cross, is pierced by the lance. From this rock water flowed forth, when the blood of redemption and the water of baptism, by which we are transformed into the new man, issued from the side of Christ. 5. Especially the depth. On the mystery of our reparation. God is just in condemning man, merciful in redeeming him. He would have been unjust, had he restored the impenitent.
Moreover, among these dimensions of the cross the depth of the cross must be carefully attended to: because deep is the mystery of the cross, in which the wits of many who were called wise have failed; for they dared to reprehend that which they could not comprehend by human reason: namely, why the Word, coeternal with God the Father, containing all things, filling all things, enclosed himself wholly in the assumed man; and yet did not cease to rule, fill, and contain the whole world: not sufficiently considering that what avails in the lesser can much more avail in the greater; since one whole voice comes forth from the mouth of the speaker, and comes whole to the ears of many men.
Those who dispute more scrupulously about this question, and, as with a closed door, grope at the wall, let them first hear the Apostle saying, 'O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' (Rom 9:20). Then let them grow gentle, and knock with piety, that it may be opened to them: and they will understand that the Maker was just in condemning, and merciful in redeeming; and that what the justice of the Almighty had justly condemned could not be healed without mercy. Hence they will consequently perceive why the divine omnipotence humbled itself even to the poverty of captive man and the ignominy of the cross—that omnipotence which in paradise had by a just sentence condemned guilty man.
For when he was reproved by the Lord for the disobedience he had committed, he did not humbly accuse himself, as his fault demanded; but proudly accused his Maker, saying, 'The woman whom thou gavest me gave me of the fruit, and I ate' (Gen 3:12). By saying this he thought himself excused, and the Creator—the maker of the woman who had drawn the man to sin—inculpated. But if he had humbly accused himself, and had not thrown back the blame upon his Maker, he would not have been exiled from paradise. Now it was against the divine justice to restore the guilty, impenitent man to his former rank, and not to compel him by some means to a worthy fruit of penitence.
By the divine sentence, therefore, he was adjudged to death, and with all the posterity that was to proceed from his loins, was cast out of paradise, and condemned to a wretched exile. And because without penitence he could not return to his former state, he had to be moved and admonished to penitence; that a voluntary and submissive humility might reform what a wickedly upraised iniquity had corrupted. For it was not fitting that he should be dragged unwilling to penitence, who of his own accord had fallen into punishment; lest he should likewise prove ungrateful for his reformation, as he had proved ungrateful for his first creation. 6. How he prepared him for this grace. There was provided, therefore, such a medicine as befitted the sick man:
which should so soften the hardness of the swelling that, once softened, it might of itself pour out the deadly poison, as the Psalmist says, 'Pour out your hearts before him' (Ps 61:9): that is, by confession cast out from your consciences all that is unclean. As long as the world delayed to do this, so long did it remain unclean. That this, then, might be done, our Physician sent before him his heralds and witnesses, the lawgivers and Prophets, who should prepare the hearts of the hearers for penitence, and bear witness to him in the time of grace. The Physician himself came in the time of fullness, publicly preached the cause of his coming, being made a teacher of medicine, saying, 'Do penance; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand' (Mt 3:2);
and likewise, 'He that shall believe and be baptized shall be saved' (Mk 16:16). This counsel of medicine many received, many despised; to the despisers the hiss of the slaying serpent still pleased more than the persuasion of the redeeming Physician: but the son of adoption heard, and obeyed the voice of him who promised—he who in paradise had not obeyed the precept of him who threatened death. When the dispensation of his teaching was fulfilled, and blindness in Israel still in part enduring, at length he showed himself the physician, and made of himself the medicine; he showed himself the priest, and made himself the sacrifice: that he might fulfil that for which he had come, and prove with how great love he had loved those for whom he was offering his body on the altar of the cross.
Whence also in his Gospel he had foretold, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (Jn 15:13). Hence it is that the Apostle says, 'God commendeth his charity toward us; because, when we were yet enemies, he reconciled us to himself through the death of his Son' (Rom 5:8). And because it is natural that men should love those who love them, by this humility and charity the hardness of the world was humbled and melted; that it might acknowledge the benefit of its reparation, which had not acknowledged the excellence of its creation. Whence the Psalmist: 'Man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he is compared to the senseless beasts, and is become like unto them' (Ps 48:13).
But after he had returned to himself, and through the love of the Redeemer and the instruction of the Admonisher had learned from how great glory he had fallen, and in how great misery he was engaged, he found by experience that he had need of great mercy: and there was fulfilled what the Psalmist says, 'Their infirmities were multiplied; afterwards they made haste' (Ps 15:4). 7. The use and power of the cross. Thenceforth the power of the cross was preached throughout the whole world—the cross which by its parts is extended through the four quarters of the world, and has embraced the whole world by its softening. Nor could the world any longer be wholly ungrateful, which had been healed by so great a charity.
Our Crucified rose from death, ascended into the heavens, and left us the cross in memory of his passion, left the cross for health. By this sign the demons are put to flight, by this antidote healings are accomplished. This sign is a safeguard to friends, an obstacle to foes. By the mystery of this cross the untaught are catechized, by the same mystery the font of regeneration is consecrated, by the sign of the same cross, through the laying on of hands, the baptized receive the gifts of graces. With the character of the same cross basilicas are dedicated, altars are consecrated, the Sacraments of the altar are confected with the interposition of the Lord's words; priests and levites are by this same sign promoted to sacred orders.
And universally all the ecclesiastical sacraments are accomplished in its power. Whoever desires to cross without shipwreck this great and spacious sea, in which are creeping things without number (Ps 103:25), let him follow the cross, hold the cross, and not forsake it, until he arrives at the longed-for harbour of salvation. This directs our course, this equips us for the contest, this helps us in the struggle, this carries us forward to victory, this bears us to the crown, this destroys sorceries, and reduces to nothing all the devices of the demons; and what the bodily presence of Christ did on earth, this the memory marked with the victorious cross does, together with the faithful invocation of the name of Christ.
It would be long to expound the power of the cross in every particular. But he who bears the cross in the service of Christ will be able to know more proofs of its power than speech can unfold, or human thought comprehend. SERMON 248. On the Burial of the Lord. 1. The Lord's sepulchre is like a womb; thence he is born more glorious than from his mother. Let us see, brethren, what is done concerning the Lord's body, after it is taken down from the cross. Joseph of Arimathea, a just man, as the evangelist says, received it, and buried it in his own new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid (Jn 19:38-42). Blessed, therefore, is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, when it is born, is begotten from the womb of the Virgin;
...withdraws, he is entrusted to the tomb of the just man. Blessed indeed is the body which virginity brought forth and justice guarded. For Joseph's tomb kept it incorrupt, just as Mary's womb preserved it undefiled. As it was not touched by pollution there, so here it is not harmed by the corruption of death. Everywhere holiness is offered to the blessed body, everywhere virginity. A new womb conceived it, a new tomb enclosed it. The virgin's womb, then, is the Lord's, and the sepulchre is a virgin's. Or rather I should call that very sepulchre a womb, for the likeness is no small one. For just as the Lord came forth living from His mother's womb, so also He rose living from Joseph's sepulchre. And just as He was then born from the womb to preach,
so now He is reborn from the sepulchre to preach the gospel—save that this birth is more glorious than that one. For that birth brought forth a mortal body; this one produced an immortal one. After that birth there is a descent to the lower regions; after this one there is a return to the heavens. This birth is plainly more holy than that one. For that one held the Lord of the whole world shut up in the womb for nine months; but this one guarded Him in the bosom of the tomb for only three days. That one brought forth the hope of all more slowly; this one raised up the salvation of all more swiftly. The analogy of Joseph with the Lord's mother.
Perhaps someone will say concerning the earlier sermon on the Lord's nativity, in which we declared that it was no less a glory that Joseph's tomb raised up the Lord than that holy Mary's womb bore Him: What comparison can there be between a womb and a tomb, when she brought forth her Son from her inmost bowels, while he merely furnished a place for burial? But I say that Joseph's love was no less than Mary's: for she conceived the Lord in her womb, he in his heart; she granted the Saviour the secret enclosure of her members, he did not deny Him the secret of his heart; she wrapped the Lord in swaddling-clothes when He was born, he in linen cloths when He departed; she anointed the blessed body with oil, he honoured it with spices.
Their services, then, agree with one another; their love agrees too; and hence their merit must also agree—save that an angel admonished Mary to her service, while justice alone persuaded Joseph. Therefore Joseph laid the Lord in his own sepulchre. Joseph rather places the Lord in the monument of his heart. Christ's sepulchre is spiritual. We read in the prophet: Their throat is an open sepulchre (Ps. v, 10). If, then, the throat of men is an open sepulchre, take heed lest perhaps, according to this likeness, Joseph laid the Lord not so much in an earthly burial as placed Him in the monument of his own heart, and undertook to guard Him, not so much by the frail memory of mortals, as by the holy memory of the virtues.
For this is the faithful memory of the virtues, which, holding Christ within itself, does not allow Him to suffer the corruption of the slow-hearted heretics. Of this memory the Lord speaks in the sacraments: As often as you do this, you shall do it in memory of me, until I come (1 Cor. XI, 26). For as often as we speak of Christ, so often do we commit Him to a holier memory. Rightly, then, does the prophet say that the throat of men is an open sepulchre. For Christ's sepulchre is the blessed throat of the evangelists, through which they stored Him up in the eternal treasury of letters. It is called an open sepulchre because whoever wishes to attain to the mystery of Christ does not enter into it except through the secret of evangelical Scripture.
For in the secret of letters the Lord is entrusted, as it were, in some new little vessel; whoever therefore desires to see Him will there both find the sacrament of His passion and recognize the glory of His resurrection. The throat of the saints, then, is open. Whence the Apostle says to the Corinthians: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians (2 Cor. VI, 11); inviting them to enter, through the open door of his preaching, into the hidden mysteries of Christ. In this memory of the breast, therefore, the Lord is placed by Joseph, that He may rest in the seat of justice, and that the Son of Man may have where to lay His head. Why the Lord is buried in another man's tomb.
Let us therefore see why the Saviour is laid in a stranger's sepulchre and does not have His own. He is laid in a stranger's sepulchre because He was dying for the salvation of others. For this death did not befall Him but profits us; this death was not inflicted on Him but conferred on us. Why, then, should He who had no death of His own in Himself have His own sepulchre? Why should He have a tomb on earth whose seat remained in the heavens? Why should He have a burial who for the space of only three days lay not so much dead in the sepulchre as reposed as if on a bed? For the very brevity of the time declares it to have been rather a sleep than a death. But a sepulchre is the dwelling-place of death.
A dwelling-place of death, therefore, was not necessary for Christ, who is life; nor did He who ever lives have need of a dwelling for the dead. But rightly do we lay this life away in our sepulchre, that it may quicken our death, that with Him we may rise again from the dead. Mary Magdalene prophesies unknowingly. Whence also that Mary Magdalene, who sought the Lord among the other dead in the sepulchre, is reproved, and it is said to her: Why do you seek the living among the dead? That is, Why do you seek in the tomb Him whom you ought to adore in heaven? Why do you seek among those below Him whom it is now established has returned to those above? And she, not yet understanding nor recognizing Him, answered Him:
Lord, if you have taken Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away (John XX, 15). For she supposed Him, as Scripture says, to be the gardener. So this holy and simple woman seeks Christ from Christ, and by the devotion of her mind she prophesies, and knows it not. For she says to the Lord concerning Himself: If you have taken Him away, tell me. She asks rightly, If you have taken Him away: for He Himself bore His own body who brought it forth from the sepulchre; He Himself bore the body who, as it lay sleeping, gathered it up by His own breath; He Himself bore His own body who, carrying it by the power of His divinity, bore it up to the heavens. And therefore the woman wisely asks and inquires, If you have taken Him away, tell me where you have laid Him:
that is, If you, taking Him from the sepulchre, have carried Him to paradise. For she had heard Him say to the thief: This day you shall be with me in paradise (Luke XXIII, 43). Or surely, if from hell you have placed Him at the Father's right hand, as the Apostle says: Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (Col. III, 1). Blessed, then, is he who so seeks Christ the Lord as to believe Him both established in paradise and placed among the heavenly things. For he who seeks Him in hell or in the tomb is told: Why do you seek the living among the dead? SERMON 249. On the Last Judgment, I. The priest should not seek to preach pleasing things. Let him bear himself in the manner of physicians.
I beseech you, dearest brethren, and with great humility I admonish you, that none of you be angry with me, or perhaps judge me unfitting and superfluous, in that I strive so frequently to impress upon you the dreadful and profitably-to-be-feared day of judgment. For if there be anyone whom I perhaps displease in this matter, let him consider my peril, and hear the Lord terribly threatening the priest through the Prophet: If you have not announced to the wicked man his iniquity, they shall require his blood at your hand (Ezek. III, 18); and again: Cry aloud, He says, cease not: lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their crimes (Isa. LVIII, 1). But perhaps someone says: Why are such hard things constantly preached to us?