On the Feast of the Epiphany, Fourth Sermon

It is the right and reasonable duty of true devotion, dearly beloved, on the days that bear witness to the works of God’s mercy, to rejoice with the whole heart and to celebrate with all honor the things that have been done for our salvation. For the very law of the returning seasons calls us to such devout observance, and it has now brought before us the feast of the Epiphany. This feast was made holy by the Lord’s appearing soon after the day on which the Son of God, co-eternal with the Father, was born of a virgin. And in this God’s providence has set up a great safeguard for our faith. As the worship of the Savior’s earliest infancy is repeated year after year, the bringing forth of a true human nature in him is meant to be proved by the original evidence itself. For this is what justifies the ungodly, this is what makes sinners saints: belief in the true Godhead and the true humanity of the one Jesus Christ, our Lord. By his Godhead, existing before all ages “in the form of God,” he is equal with the Father. By his humanity he is united to man in the last days in “the form of a slave.” So, to confirm this faith, which was to be armed in advance against all errors, it was a wonderful and loving provision of the divine plan that a nation living in the far-off land of the East, skilled in the art of reading the stars, should receive the sign of the birth of the infant who was to reign over all Israel. For the unusual splendor of a bright new star appeared to the wise men. As they gazed on its brilliance it filled their minds with such wonder that they could not think it right to neglect what was announced to them so plainly. And, as the event showed, the grace of God was the cause that arranged this wonder. When all Bethlehem itself was still unaware of Christ’s birth, that grace brought it to the knowledge of the nations who would believe, and through the preaching of the heavens declared what human words could not yet explain. [a]

Although it was the work of God’s stooping down to us to make the Savior’s birth known to the nations, still, for understanding the wonderful sign, the wise men could have had a hint even from the ancient prophecies of Balaam. They would have known that it had been foretold of old and spread abroad by constant repetition: “A star will rise out of Jacob, and a man will rise out of Israel, and he will rule the nations.” So the three men, roused by God through the shining of a strange star, follow the guidance of its twinkling light, thinking they will find the child it pointed to at Jerusalem, in the royal city. But finding themselves mistaken in this, they learned through the scribes and teachers of the Jews what Holy Scripture had foretold about the birth of Christ. So, confirmed by a twofold witness, they sought with still more eager faith the one whom both the brightness of the star and the sure word of prophecy revealed. And when the divine oracle was proclaimed through the chief priests’ answers, and the voice of the Spirit declared, “And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are not least among the princes of Judah; for out of you will come a leader who will rule my people Israel,” how easy and how natural it would have been for the leading men of the Hebrews to believe what they themselves taught! But it seems that they shared Herod’s material notions, and counted Christ’s kingdom as on the same level as the powers of this world. So they hoped for a worldly leader, while he dreaded an earthly rival. The fear that tortures you, Herod, is wasted; in vain do you try to vent your rage on the infant you suspect. Your kingdom cannot hold Christ; the Lord of the world is not content with the narrow limits of your rule. He whom you do not want to reign in Judea reigns everywhere, and you yourself would rule more happily if you submitted to his command. Why do you not do in sincerity what you promise in treacherous falsehood? Come with the wise men, and bow down as a suppliant and worship the true King. But you, out of too great a fondness for Jewish blindness, will not imitate the faith of the nations. You turn your stubborn heart to cruel schemes, though you are doomed neither to stop the one you fear nor to harm those you kill. [c]

Led into Bethlehem, then, dearly beloved, by obeying the guidance of the star, the wise men “rejoiced with very great joy,” as the evangelist has told us, “and going into the house they found the child with Mary his mother; and falling down they worshiped him; and opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” What wonderful faith, of perfect knowledge, taught them not by earthly wisdom but by the instruction of the Holy Spirit! How did it come about that these men, who had left their country without having seen Jesus, and had noticed nothing in his looks to call for such an ordered act of worship, kept this pattern in offering their gifts? It could only be that, besides the appearance of the star, which drew their bodily eyes, the brighter rays of truth taught their hearts, before they set out on their toilsome road, to understand that the one meant was he to whom was owed royal honor in gold, divine worship in incense, and in myrrh the acknowledgment of his mortality. Such belief and understanding, no doubt, so far as the enlightening of their faith went, might have been enough in itself, and might have kept them from using their bodily eyes to inquire into what they had already seen with the fullest gaze of the mind. But their wise diligence, persisting until they found the child, did good service for peoples to come and for the people of our own time. For as it profited us all that the apostle Thomas, after the Lord’s resurrection, handled the marks of the wounds in his flesh, so it was to our advantage that his infancy should be confirmed by the visit of the wise men. So the wise men saw and worshiped the child of the tribe of Judah, “of the seed of David according to the flesh,” “made from a woman, made under the law,” the law which he had come “not to destroy but to fulfill.” They saw and worshiped the child, small in size, powerless to help others, unable to speak, and in nothing different from human children in general. For as the testimonies were trustworthy which declared in him the majesty of the invisible Godhead, so it ought to be impossible to doubt that “the Word became flesh,” and that the eternal essence of the Son of God took on man’s true nature. Otherwise, either the indescribable wonders of the acts that were to follow, or the sufferings he had to bear, might overthrow the mystery of our faith by seeming not to fit together. For no one at all can be justified except those who believe the Lord Jesus to be both true God and true man. [e]

This peerless faith, dearly beloved, this truth proclaimed through all ages, is opposed by the devilish blasphemies of the Manichaeans. To murder the souls of those they deceive, they have woven a deadly fabric of wicked teaching out of impious and forged lies. Over the ruins of their mad opinions people have fallen headlong to such depths as to imagine a Christ with a fictitious body, who showed nothing solid and nothing real to people’s eyes and touch, but displayed an empty shape of imaginary flesh. For they want it thought unworthy of belief that God the Son of God placed himself within a woman’s body, and subjected his majesty to such lowering as to be joined to our fleshly nature and be born in the true body of human substance. Yet this is entirely the work of his power, not of any injury to him; and what should be believed is his glorious stooping down, not his being polluted. For if this visible light is not marred by any of the uncleanness that surrounds it, and the brightness of the sun’s rays, which is surely a material created thing, is not soiled by any of the dirty or muddy places it reaches into, is there anything at all, of whatever kind, that could pollute the essence of that eternal and immaterial Light? For by joining himself to that creature which he had made in his own image, he gave it cleansing and received no stain; he healed the wounds of its weakness without suffering any loss of power. And because this great and unspeakable mystery of divine godliness was announced by all the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, these opponents of the truth we are speaking of have rejected the law given through Moses and the divinely inspired oracles of the prophets. They have tampered with the very pages of the Gospels and the apostles, removing some things and inserting others. Under the apostles’ names and under the words of the Savior himself, they have forged for themselves many volumes of falsehood, to fortify their lying errors and pour deadly poison into the minds of those they mean to deceive. For they saw that everything contradicted them and told against them, and that their blasphemous and treacherous folly was refuted not only by the New Testament but also by the Old. And yet, persisting in their mad lies, they do not stop troubling the church of God with their deceits. They persuade the wretched people they can trap to deny that man’s nature was truly taken by the Lord Jesus Christ; to deny that he was truly crucified for the salvation of the world; to deny that from his side, wounded by the spear, flowed the blood of redemption and the water of baptism; to deny that he was buried and raised again on the third day; to deny that, in the sight of the disciples, he was lifted above all the heights of the skies to take his seat at the right hand of the Father. And so that, once all the truth of the Apostles’ Creed is destroyed, there may be nothing to frighten the wicked or to give the saints hope, they persuade them to deny that the living and the dead must be judged by Christ. In this way those whom they have robbed of the power of these great mysteries may learn to worship Christ in the sun and moon, and to adore, under the name of the Holy Spirit, Mani himself, the inventor of all these blasphemies. [h]

So, dearly beloved, to strengthen your hearts in the faith and the truth, let today’s festival help you all. Let the catholic confession be fortified by the testimony of the showing of the Savior’s infancy, while we anathematize the blasphemy of those who deny that the flesh of our nature was in Christ. About this the blessed apostle John warned us beforehand in no uncertain words, saying, “Every spirit that confesses Christ Jesus to have come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that destroys Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist.” Consequently, let no Christian have anything in common with people of this kind; let him have no alliance or dealings with them. Let it benefit the whole church that many of them, by the mercy of God, have been discovered, and that their own confession has revealed how sacrilegious their lives were. Let no one be deceived by their distinctions between one food and another, by their soiled clothing, or by their pale faces. Fasts are not holy that come not from the principle of self-denial but from a deceitful design. Let this be the end of their harming the unwary and deluding the ignorant. From now on no one’s fall will be excusable. Whoever is found tangled in detestable error from now on must no longer be held simple, but utterly worthless and perverse. A practice approved by the church and instituted by God we not only do not forbid; we even urge you to it: that you should pray to the Lord even for such people. For we too, with tears and mourning, feel pity for the ruin of deceived souls, following the apostles’ example of tender love, so as to be weak with those who are weak and to “weep with those who weep.” For we hope that God’s mercy can be won by the many tears and proper amendment of the fallen. As long as life remains in the body, no one’s restoration must be despaired of; rather, the reform of all must be desired, with the help of the Lord, “who raises up those who are crushed, sets free those who are chained, gives light to the blind”; to whom is honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. [k]