Sermons to the People 184.1–188.4

The birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, on which Truth sprang from the earth and Day from day was born into our day, has dawned for us today, to be celebrated in its yearly return: let us rejoice and be glad in it. For what the humility of such great loftiness has bestowed on us, the faith of Christians holds, and it is far from the hearts of the ungodly; for “God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.” Let the humble, then, hold fast to the humility of God, so that by this great help, as if on the beast of burden of their own weakness, they may come to the height of God. But those wise and prudent people, while they seek the high things of God and do not believe the lowly ones, pass these by, and for that reason do not reach the others either; empty and light, puffed up and lifted up, they have hung as it were between heaven and earth in the windy middle. They are indeed wise and prudent, but of this world, not of him by whom the world was made. For if there were true wisdom in them, the wisdom which is of God and is God, they would understand that flesh could be taken up by God, and that he could not be changed into flesh; they would understand that he assumed what he was not and remained what he was; that he came to us in a man and did not withdraw from the Father; that he continued to be what he is and appeared to us as what we are; that power was placed in an infant's body and was not withdrawn from the mass of the world. [2] The whole world is the work of him as he abides with the Father; the Virgin's childbearing is the work of him as he comes to us. For the virgin mother gave a sign of his majesty: as much a virgin before conceiving as a virgin after giving birth; found pregnant, but not made so by a man; with child of a male, without a male; happier and more wonderful by fruitfulness added and integrity not lost. So great a miracle those people prefer to think invented rather than done. Thus in Christ, man and God, they despise the human things because they cannot believe them, and they do not believe the divine things because they cannot despise them. But to us, the more abject the body of the God-man in his humility seems to them, the more welcome let it be; and the more impossible the virgin's childbearing in the birth of the man seems to them, the more divine let it be to us.

Let us therefore celebrate the Lord's birthday with the crowds and festivity it deserves. Let men rejoice; let women rejoice: Christ was born a man, he was born of a woman; and both sexes have been honored. Let him, then, who had earlier been condemned in the first man now pass over to the second. A woman had persuaded us to death; a woman bore life for us. There was born the likeness of sinful flesh, by which sinful flesh might be cleansed. So let the flesh not be blamed; but let the fault die so that the nature may live; for he was born without fault in whom the one who had been at fault may be born again. Rejoice, holy young men, who have chosen above all to follow Christ, who have not sought marriage. He whom you have found to follow did not come to you through marriage, so that he might grant you to despise that through which you came. For you came through fleshly marriage, without which he came to the spiritual marriage; and he gave you to spurn marriage, you whom he especially called to the marriage feast. So you have not sought that from which you were born, because you have loved, more than others do, him who was not born in that way. Rejoice, holy virgins: a Virgin has borne for you one to whom you may be wedded without corruption, you who can lose what you love neither by conceiving nor by giving birth. Rejoice, you righteous: it is the birthday of the Justifier. Rejoice, you weak and sick: it is the birthday of the Savior. Rejoice, you captives: it is the birthday of the Redeemer. Let slaves rejoice: it is the birthday of the Lord. Let the free rejoice: it is the birthday of the Liberator. Let all Christians rejoice: it is the birthday of Christ.

He who, born of the Father, created all the ages, being born of a mother commended this day to the ages. That birth could have no mother, and this one sought no human father. In short, Christ was born both of a father and of a mother, and without a father and without a mother: of a father as God, of a mother as man; without a mother as God, without a father as man. “Who then shall declare his generation?” whether that one without time or this one without seed; that one without beginning, this one without precedent; that one which never was not, this one which never was before or after; that one which has no end, this one which has its beginning where it has its end. Rightly, then, did the prophets announce that he would be born, while heaven and the angels announced that he had been born. He who holds the world together lay in a manger; he was both an infant and the Word. He whom the heavens do not contain was carried in the bosom of one woman. She ruled our King; she carried him in whom we are; she nursed our Bread. O manifest weakness and wonderful humility, in which the whole Godhead lay so hidden! By his power he ruled the mother to whom his infancy was subject, and he fed with truth her at whose breasts he sucked. May he who did not shrink from taking even our beginnings perfect his gifts in us; and may he make us children of God, who for our sake willed to become a son of man.

It is called the Lord's birthday when the Wisdom of God showed himself an infant, and the Word of God without words uttered the voice of flesh. Yet that hidden divinity was both signified to the Magi by the witness of heaven and announced to the shepherds by the voice of angels. We celebrate this day, then, with a yearly solemnity, the day on which the prophecy was fulfilled that says: “Truth has sprung from the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven.” The Truth that is in the bosom of the Father sprang from the earth so as to be also in the bosom of a mother. The Truth by which the world is held together sprang from the earth so as to be carried in a woman's hands. The Truth by which the blessedness of the angels is incorruptibly fed sprang from the earth so as to be nursed at breasts of flesh. The Truth for which heaven is not enough sprang from the earth so as to be laid in a manger. For whose good did such loftiness come in such humility? For no good of his own, surely, but for a great good of ours, if we believe. Wake up, O man: for you God became man. “Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” For you, I say, God became man. You would have been dead forever had he not been born in time. You would never have been freed from the flesh of sin had he not taken the likeness of the flesh of sin. Everlasting misery would have held you had this mercy not been done. You would not have come back to life had he not then come to meet death. You would have failed had he not come to help. You would have perished had he not come.

Let us joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festal day on which the great and eternal Day came from the great and eternal Day into this so brief and temporal day of ours. He has become for us righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” For so that we might not be like the pride of the Jews, who, “being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, did not submit to the righteousness of God,” for that reason, after saying “Truth has sprung from the earth,” he at once added “and righteousness has looked down from heaven”: lest mortal weakness claim it for itself, lest it call it its own, and man, believing that he is justified by himself, that is, made righteous by himself, refuse the righteousness of God. “Truth,” then, “has sprung from the earth”: Christ, who said “I am the truth,” was born of a virgin. “And righteousness has looked down from heaven”: because whoever believes in him who was born is justified not by himself but by God. “Truth has sprung from the earth”: because “the Word became flesh.” “And righteousness has looked down from heaven”: because “every best gift and every perfect gift is from above.” “Truth has sprung from the earth”: flesh from Mary. “And righteousness has looked down from heaven”: because “a man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven.”

“Being justified, therefore, by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.” Brothers, I am pleased to mix with these few words of the Apostle, which you recognize along with me, a few words of this psalm, and to find how they agree. “Being justified by faith, let us have peace with God”: because “righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” “Through our Lord Jesus Christ”: because “Truth has sprung from the earth.” “Through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.” He does not say “of our glory” but “of the glory of God”: because righteousness did not come forth from us but “looked down from heaven.” Therefore “let him who boasts” boast not in himself but “in the Lord.” For this is why, when the Lord was born of the Virgin, whose birthday we celebrate today, the angelic voice proclaimed: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” For whence peace on earth, unless because “Truth has sprung from the earth,” that is, Christ has been born of flesh? And “he is our peace, who has made both one,” so that we might be men of good will, sweetly joined by the bonds of unity. Let us rejoice, then, in this grace, so that our glory may be “the testimony of our conscience,” where we boast not in ourselves but in the Lord. For hence it is said, “My glory, and the one who lifts up my head.” For what greater grace of God could have dawned on us than that, having an only-begotten Son, he should make him a son of man, and so in turn make a son of man a son of God? Look for merit, look for cause, look for justice; and see whether you find anything but grace.

Let us rejoice, brothers; let the nations be glad and exult. This day has been consecrated for us not by this visible sun but by its invisible Creator, when the Virgin Mother, from a fruitful womb and with her virginity untouched, brought forth him who was made visible for us, by whom, invisible, she herself also was created. A virgin conceiving, a virgin giving birth, a virgin with child, a virgin delivered, a virgin forever. Why do you marvel at these things, O man? God had to be born so, when he deigned to be man. He who was made from her made her such. For before he was made, he was; and because he was almighty, he could be made while remaining what he was. He made himself a mother while he was with the Father; and when he was made from a mother, he remained in the Father. How should he cease to be God when he began to be man, he who granted his mother not to cease to be a virgin when she gave birth? Accordingly, the fact that the Word became flesh does not mean that the Word perished and gave way into flesh, but that flesh came to the Word so as not to perish itself; so that, as man is soul and flesh, so Christ might be God and man. The same one who is man is God, and the same one who is God is man: not by confusion of nature but by unity of person. In short, he who as Son of God is always coeternal with the one who begets him from the Father, the same began to be son of man from the Virgin. And so humanity was added to the divinity of the Son, and yet no quaternity of persons came about, but the Trinity remains.

So do not let the opinion of certain people creep up on you, people too little attentive to the rule of faith and to the oracles of the divine Scriptures. For they say: He who is son of man became Son of God; but he who is Son of God did not become son of man. In saying this they had in view something true, but they could not express the truth. For what did they have in view, except that human nature could be changed for the better, while the divine could not be changed for the worse? That is true; but even so, that is, with the divinity in no way changed for the worse, the Word nonetheless became flesh. For the Gospel does not say, “The flesh became the Word,” but it says, “The Word became flesh.” Now the Word is God, because “the Word was God.” And what is flesh but man? For in Christ the flesh of the man was not without a soul; hence he says, “My soul is sorrowful even to death.” If, then, the Word is God and the flesh is man, what else does “The Word became flesh” mean but “He who was God became man”? And for this reason he who was Son of God became son of man, by assuming the lower, not by changing the higher; by taking up what he was not, not by losing what he was. For how should we confess in the rule of faith that we believe in the Son of God who was born of the Virgin Mary, if it was not the Son of God but a son of man who was born of the Virgin Mary? For what Christian denies that a son of man was born of that woman? But yet God was made man, and so man was made God. For “the Word was God, and the Word became flesh.” We must confess, therefore, that he who was Son of God, in order to be born of the Virgin Mary, took the form of a slave and became son of man, remaining what he was and taking up what he was not; beginning to be that in which he is less than the Father, and always remaining that in which he and the Father are one.

For if he who is always Son of God did not himself become son of man, how does the Apostle say of him: “Who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man”? For it was not another, but he himself, equal to the Father in the form of God, that is, the only-begotten Son of God, who emptied himself, made in the likeness of men. Nor was it another, but the very same, equal to the Father in the form of God, who humbled, not another, but himself, “becoming obedient even to death, the death of the cross.” All of this the Son of God did only in that form in which he is son of man. Again, if he who is always Son of God did not himself become son of man, how does the Apostle say to the Romans: “Set apart for the gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh”? See: the Son of God, which he always was, was made from the seed of David according to the flesh, which he was not. Again, if he who is Son of God did not himself become son of man, how did “God send his Son, made of a woman”? By this word, in the Hebrew manner of speaking, virginal honor is not denied, but the female sex is indicated. For who was sent by the Father but the only-begotten Son of God? How then was he made of a woman, unless the very same who was Son of God with the Father, being sent, became son of man? Born of the Father without a day of time, born of his mother on this day. For he chose this day, which he created, to be created on, just as he was made from the mother whom he made. For this very day, from which the daylight begins to grow, signifies the work of Christ, by whom our inner man is renewed from day to day. For the eternal Creator, created in time, ought to have as his birthday the day with which temporal creation would agree.

“My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord”: of that Lord through whom all things were made, and who was made among all things; who is the revealer of the Father, the creator of his mother; Son of God from the Father without a mother, son of man from a mother without a father; the great Day of the angels, small in the day of men; the Word, God before all times, the Word, flesh at the fitting time; maker of the sun, made under the sun; ordering all the ages from the bosom of the Father, consecrating today's day from the womb of his mother; abiding there, coming forth from here; maker of heaven and earth, born under heaven on earth; ineffably wise, wisely an infant; filling the world, lying in a manger; ruling the stars, sucking at the breasts; so great in the form of God, so small in the form of a slave, that neither was that greatness lessened by this smallness, nor this smallness crushed by that greatness. For when he took on human members he did not abandon divine works, nor did he cease “to reach from end to end mightily and to order all things sweetly,” when, clothed with the weakness of flesh, he was received, not enclosed, in a virgin's womb; so that the food of wisdom was not taken away from the angels, and we might “taste how sweet the Lord is.”

Why do we marvel at this in the Word of God, when this speech that we utter flows so freely into the senses that the hearer both receives it and does not enclose it? For unless it were received it would instruct no one; if it were enclosed it would not reach others. And this speech is certainly divided into words and syllables; yet you do not take single pieces of it, as of food for the belly, but all of you hear all of it, and each of you takes in all of it. Nor are we afraid while we speak that one person by hearing will use up the whole, and another will have nothing left to take; but we want you so attentive, cheating no one's ear or mind, that each of you hears the whole and leaves the whole for the others to hear. Nor does this happen by turns, so that when the speech being spoken has first entered you it leaves you in order to enter another; but it comes to all at once, and reaches each one whole. And if it could be held whole in memory, then just as you all came to hear the whole, so each of you would go home with the whole. How much more could the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and who, abiding in himself, renews all things, who is not enclosed by places nor stretched out by times nor varied by short and long pauses, nor woven of sounds nor ended by silence, how much more could this Word, so great and of such a kind, make his mother's womb fruitful by taking a body and not depart from the bosom of the Father? Come out to human eyes here, and enlighten angelic minds there? Go forth to the earth here, and stretch out the heavens there? Become man here, and make men there?

Let no one, then, believe that the Son of God was converted and changed into a son of man; but let us rather believe that, with the divine substance not consumed and the human substance perfectly assumed, the Son of God remained and became son of man. For because it is said, “The Word was God,” and “The Word became flesh,” the Word did not become flesh in such a way that he ceased to be God; for in that very flesh, because the Word became flesh, Emmanuel was born, God with us. Just as the word we carry in our heart becomes a sound when we bring it out with the mouth, yet the former is not changed into the latter, but, the former remaining whole, the latter is taken up in which it may come forth, so that what is understood remains within and what is heard sounds outside: yet the same thing is brought out in sound that had sounded before in silence; and so the word, when it becomes a sound, is not changed into the sound, but, remaining in the light of the mind and taking up the voice of flesh, it goes forth to the hearer and does not desert the one who thinks it. I do not mean when the sound itself, which is Greek or Latin or of any other language, is thought in silence; but when, before all diversity of languages, the thing itself that is to be said is still, in a manner, bare to the one who understands it in the chamber of the heart, and in order to come forth from there is clothed with the speaker's voice. Yet both of these, what is thought in understanding and what sounds in speaking, are changeable and unlike: the one will not remain when you have forgotten, nor the other when you have fallen silent; but “the word of the Lord remains forever,” and remains unchangeably.

And when he took flesh in time in order to come forth into our temporal life, he did not lose eternity in the flesh but even granted immortality to the flesh. So he, “like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced like a giant to run his course.” “Who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God”; but so that he might become for our sake what he was not, “he emptied himself,” not losing the form of God but “taking the form of a slave”; and through this “made in the likeness of men,” not in his own substance, but “found in appearance as a man.” For all that we are, whether in soul or in body, is our nature but his appearance: we, if we were not this, would not be; he, if he were not this, would still be God. And when he began to be what he was not, he became man while remaining God, so that not one of these but both might be said most truly: because he became man, “The Father is greater than I”; and because he remained God, “I and the Father are one.” For if the Word had been converted into flesh, that is, God changed into man, only “The Father is greater than I” would be true, because God is greater than man; but “I and the Father are one” would be false, because God and man are not one. But perhaps he could then say, “I and the Father are not one, but we were one.” For what was and has ceased to be, surely is not, but was. As it is, because of the true form of a slave which he had taken, he said truly, “The Father is greater than I”; and because of the true form of God, in which he remained, he said truly, “I and the Father are one.” He emptied himself, then, among men, not becoming what he was not in such a way as not to be what he was, but hiding what he was and showing what he had become. Accordingly, because a virgin conceived and bore a son, on account of the manifest form of a slave, “A child is born to us.” But because the Word of God, which remains forever, became flesh to dwell among us, on account of the form of God, hidden but remaining, as Gabriel announced, “we call his name Emmanuel.” For he became man while remaining God, so that the son of man too may rightly be called God with us: not God one person and man another. Let the world, then, rejoice in those who believe, for whose salvation he came through whom the world was made: the founder of Mary, born of Mary; son of David, Lord of David; seed of Abraham, who is before Abraham; maker of the earth, made on earth; creator of heaven, created under heaven. He is the day that the Lord has made, and the Lord himself is the day of our heart. Let us walk in his light; let us exult and be glad in him.

If we try to praise the Son of God as he is with the Father, equal and coeternal with him, in whom all things were founded in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, the Word of God and God, the life and light of men, it is no wonder that no human thought, no speech is enough. For how could our tongue worthily praise him whom our heart cannot yet see, though he made in it the eye by which he can be seen, if its iniquity is purged, if its weakness is healed, and they become “blessed, the pure in heart, for they shall see God”? It is no wonder, I say, that we do not find words with which to speak the one Word in whom it was spoken that we should exist, we who would say something about him. For our mind forms these words, thought and uttered; but by that Word the mind itself is formed. Nor does man make words in the way that he himself was made through the Word; for neither did the Father beget the one Word in the way that he made all things through the Word. For God begot God; but begetter and begotten together are one God. But God made the world; the world passes away, and God remains. And just as the things that were made certainly did not make themselves, so he through whom all things could be made was made by no one. It is no wonder, therefore, if man, made among all things, does not explain in words the Word through whom all things were made.

Let us therefore turn our ears and minds a little in this direction, in case we may be able to say something fitting and worthy, not from the fact that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” but from the fact that “the Word became flesh”; in case something may be said by us of how “he dwelt among us”; in case he may be speakable there where he willed to be visible. For this is why we celebrate this day, on which he deigned to be born of a virgin: this generation of his he caused to be told by men in some fashion. But of that eternity in which God was born of God, “who shall declare his generation?” There is no such day there to be celebrated solemnly. For it does not pass away to return with the yearly round, but remains without setting, because it did not begin with a rising. That only Word of God, then, that life, that light of men, is indeed the eternal day; but this day, on which, joined to human flesh, he became “like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber,” is today now, and tomorrow becomes yesterday. Yet today commends the eternal one born of a virgin, because the eternal one born of a virgin consecrated today. What praises, then, shall we speak to the love of God, what thanks shall we give? He so loved us that for our sake he through whom the times were made came to be in time; that in the world he was younger in age than many of his servants, though older than the world itself in eternity; that he who made man became man, was created from the mother whom he created, was carried by hands that he formed, sucked breasts that he filled, and, the Word, wailed in the manger in speechless infancy, he without whom human eloquence is speechless.

See, O man, what God became for you: recognize the teaching of such great humility, even in a teacher who does not yet speak. You were once so eloquent in paradise that you gave names to every living soul; but for your sake your Creator lay an infant and did not even call his mother by name. You lost yourself in the widest estate of fruitful groves by neglecting obedience; he came, obedient, into the narrowest lodging of a mortal, to seek the dead by dying. You, though you were a man, wished to be God, and so you perished; he, though he was God, willed to be man, to find what had perished. Human pride pressed you down so far that nothing but divine humility could lift you up.

Let us celebrate with joy, then, the day on which Mary bore the Savior: a married woman bore the creator of marriage, a virgin the prince of virgins; both given to a husband and a mother not by her husband; a virgin before marriage, a virgin in marriage; a virgin pregnant, a virgin nursing. For her almighty Son, by being born, in no way took from his holy Mother the virginity which he chose before he was born. Fruitfulness in marriage is good, but integrity in consecrated holiness is better. Christ the man, then, who as God could grant both (for the same one is man and God), would never give his Mother the good that married people love in such a way as to take away the better good for whose sake virgins decline to be mothers. The holy Church, a virgin, therefore celebrates today the Virgin's childbearing. For to her the Apostle says: “I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Whence a chaste virgin in so many peoples of both sexes, in so many not only boys and virgins but also married fathers and mothers? Whence, I say, a chaste virgin, except in the integrity of faith, hope, and love? Christ, then, intending to make virginity for the Church in the heart, first preserved it for Mary in the body. For in human marriage a woman is handed over to a bridegroom so that she is no longer a virgin; but the Church could not be a virgin unless she had found, as the bridegroom to whom she was handed over, the son of a virgin.