On the Feast of the Nativity, Fourth Sermon

The divine goodness, dearly beloved, has indeed always taken thought for humankind in various ways and in many portions, and in his mercy God has given many gifts of his providence to the ages of old. But in these last times he has surpassed all the abundance of his usual kindness, when in Christ Mercy itself came down to sinners, Truth itself to those who had gone astray, Life itself to the dead. This was so that the Word, who is coeternal and coequal with the Father, might take our lowly nature into union with his Godhead, and, born God of God, might also be born man of man. This had indeed been promised from the foundation of the world, and had always been foretold by many hints in events and in words. But how small a part of humankind would these figures and foreshadowed mysteries have saved, if the coming of Christ had not fulfilled those long and hidden promises, and if what then benefited only a few believers who looked forward to it did not now benefit countless thousands of the faithful in its fulfillment? Now, then, we are no longer led to believe by signs and figures. Strengthened by the gospel story, we worship what we believe has been done, while the store of prophecy helps our knowledge, so that we have no doubt at all about what we know was foretold by such sure oracles. That is why the Lord says to Abraham, “In your seed all nations will be blessed.” That is why David, in the spirit of prophecy, sings: “The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of your loins I will set on your seat.” That is why the Lord says again through Isaiah, “Behold, a virgin will conceive in her womb and will bear a Son, and his name will be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us,” and again, “A rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise up from his root.” In this rod, no doubt, the blessed Virgin Mary is foretold, who sprang from the stock of Jesse and David and, made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, brought forth a new flower of human flesh, becoming a virgin mother. [a]

So let the righteous rejoice in the Lord, let the hearts of believers turn to the praise of God, and let the sons of men confess his wonderful works. For in this work of God above all, our lowly state realizes how highly its Maker values it. After his great gift to humankind in making us in his image, he gave far more for our restoration when the Lord himself took on him “the form of a slave.” For though everything the Creator spends on his creature is part of one and the same fatherly love, it is less wonderful that man should advance to divine things than that God should come down to humanity. But unless almighty God had deigned to do this, no kind of righteousness and no form of wisdom could rescue anyone from the devil’s bondage and from the depths of eternal death. For the condemnation that passes with sin from one to all would remain, and our nature, eaten away by its deadly wound, would find no remedy, because it could not change its state by its own strength. For the first man received the substance of his flesh from the earth, and was given life with a rational spirit by the breath of his Creator, so that, living after the image and likeness of his Maker, he might keep the form of God’s goodness and righteousness as in a bright mirror. And if he had steadily kept this high dignity of his nature by keeping the law that was given him, his uncorrupted mind would have raised even the character of his earthly body to heavenly glory. But in unhappy rashness he trusted the envious deceiver, agreed to his presumptuous advice, and chose to seize beforehand, rather than to earn, the increase of honor that was in store for him. So not only that one man but in him all who came after him heard the sentence: “Earth you are, and to earth you will go.” Therefore, “as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy,” and no one is immortal, because no one is heavenly. [c]

And so, to undo this chain of sin and death, the almighty Son of God, who fills all things and contains all things, wholly equal to the Father and coeternal in one essence, from him and with him, took on himself human nature; and the Creator and Lord of all things deigned to be a mortal. He chose for his mother one whom he had made, one who, without loss of her virgin honor, supplied just so much bodily substance that, without the defilement of human seed, the New Man might have purity and truth. In Christ, therefore, born of the Virgin’s womb, the nature is not different from ours just because his birth is wonderful. For he who is true God is also true man, and there is no lie in either nature. “The Word became flesh” by the raising up of the flesh, not by any failure of the Godhead. The Godhead so tempered its power and goodness as to raise our nature by taking it, and not to lose its own by imparting it. In this birth of Christ, as David prophesied, “truth sprang out of the earth, and righteousness looked down from heaven.” In this birth too Isaiah’s saying is fulfilled: “Let the earth produce and bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together.” For the earth of human flesh, which was cursed in the first transgressor, produced, in this offspring of the blessed Virgin alone, a seed that was blessed and free from the fault of its stock. And each one shares in this spiritual origin in regeneration. To everyone who is reborn, the water of baptism is like the Virgin’s womb; for the same Holy Spirit who filled the Virgin fills the font, so that the sin which that sacred conception overthrew may be taken away by this mystical washing. [e]

In this mystery, dearly beloved, the mad error of the Manichaeans has no part. They have no share in the regeneration of Christ, for they deny that he was born bodily of the Virgin Mary. So, as they do not believe in his real birth, they do not accept his real passion either; and, not acknowledging that he was really buried, they reject his genuine resurrection. For having entered on the perilous path of their abominable doctrine, where all is dark and slippery, they rush over the precipice of falsehood into the abyss of death, and find no sure ground to rest on. Besides all their other devilish outrages, on the very chief feast of Christ’s worship, as their latest confession has made plain, they revel in bodily as well as mental defilement, losing their own modesty along with the purity of their faith. So they are found to be as filthy in their rites as they are blasphemous in their doctrines. [f]

Other heresies, dearly beloved, though they are all rightly condemned in their variety, each have in some part of them something that is true. Arius laid down that the Son of God is less than the Father and a creature, and thought that the Holy Spirit was made by the same Father like everything else. In this he lost himself in great blasphemy; but he did not deny the eternal and unchangeable Godhead in the essence of the Father, though he could not see it in the unity of the Trinity. Macedonius lacked the light of the truth when he did not accept the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, but he did acknowledge one power and the same nature in the Father and the Son. Sabellius was plunged into inextricable error. He held the unity of substance in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be inseparable, but he gave to a singleness of nature what he should have given to an equality of nature; and because he could not understand a true Trinity, he believed in one and the same person under three names. Photinus, misled by the blindness of his mind, acknowledged in Christ a true man of our substance, but did not believe him born God of God before all ages. And so, losing the wholeness of the faith, he believed that the Son of God had taken on himself the true nature of human flesh in such a way as to claim that there was no soul in it, because the Godhead itself took its place. So, if all the errors which the catholic faith has anathematized are recounted, something is found in one after another that can be separated from its damnable setting. But in the detestable doctrine of the Manichaeans there is absolutely nothing that can be judged tolerable in any degree. [h]

But you, dearly beloved, whom I address in words no less earnest than those of the blessed apostle Peter, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,” built on the unshakable rock, Christ, and joined to the Lord our Savior by his true taking of our flesh: stand firm in the faith which you have professed before many witnesses, in which you were reborn through water and the Holy Spirit, and received the anointing of salvation and the seal of eternal life. But “if anyone preaches to you anything other than what you have learned, let him be anathema.” Refuse to set wicked fables above the clearest truth, and whatever you may happen to read or hear that is contrary to the rule of the catholic and apostolic creed, judge it altogether deadly and devilish. Do not be carried away by their deceitful keeping of sham and pretended fasts, which serve not to cleanse souls but to destroy them. They do put on a cloak of piety and chastity, but under this deceit they hide the filthiness of their acts, and from the recesses of their ungodly hearts they hurl arrows to wound the simple, so that, as the prophet says, “they may shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.” A sound faith, a true faith, to which nothing is to be added and from which nothing is to be taken away, is a mighty bulwark. For unless it is one, it is no faith, as the apostle says: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.” Hold fast to this unity, dearly beloved, with unshaken minds, and in it “pursue” all “holiness”; in it carry out the Lord’s commands. For “without faith it is impossible to please God,” and without it nothing is holy, nothing pure, nothing alive. “For the just lives by faith,” and whoever loses it through the devil’s deception is dead though living. For as righteousness is gained by faith, so too eternal life is gained by a true faith, as our Lord and Savior says: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” May he make you advance and persevere to the end, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. [k]