Peter Chrysologus, Sermo CXLVII

SERMON 147. On the sacrament of the Incarnation.

What thing it was, brethren, that made the Lord Christ enter into the commerce of an earthly body, come within the narrow bounds of human flesh, dwell in the lodging of a virginal womb — since we began to hear [of it] before this, let us hear it more fully today. You are my life, you my salvation, you my glory: and therefore I do not suffer you to be ignorant of what God has given me to know. The evangelist knew God when he says: No man has seen God at any time (John 1). So the creature knew God, recognized Him, felt Him; [but] because it could not see Him, it was borne along in hard servitude, it rendered a sad obedience to an invisible majesty; dread had besieged all things; fear had undone the universe; terror had shaken everything; in heaven the divine splendour had cast down the angels; on earth thunders and lightnings shook the hearts of mortals. Thus dread shut out, [leaving it] the less, the love of the one who rules; it put angels to flight to the earth; it dragged men to idols; it filled the world with vain errors: it made all men flee the Creator [and] worship creatures. He cannot love who fears too much: hence it is that the world preferred to perish rather than to fear; death itself is lighter than dread. Thus Cain, when he began to be troubled with the terror of the parricide, asks for death; he believes it rest if he should perish (Gen. 4). And why do I speak of Cain? That Elias, when he felt himself sprinkled all over with fear, sought again the death he had fled, judging it better to succumb to death than to fear (1 Kgs. 19). Peter also, troubled with fear of the Lord's power, besought Christ to depart from him: Depart, he says, from me, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5). This he said because the weight of dread had extinguished whatever there was of love and faith; so fear, unless it be tempered with love, makes even devoted service stubborn.

God therefore, seeing the world tottering with fear, at once acts to call it back with love, to invite it with grace, to hold it with charity, and to bind it fast with affection. Hence it is that He washes the earth, grown old in evils, with an avenging flood, and calls Noe the father of a new age, addresses him with kindly speech, gives him familiar confidence, instructs him lovingly about present things, consoles him by grace concerning things to come; and no longer by commands, but by a shared labour, He shuts up in one ark the offspring of the whole world, so that love of fellowship might take away the fear of servitude, and that what had been saved by common labour might be preserved by common love (Gen. 7). Hence it is that He calls Abraham out of the nations, increases him in name, makes him father of faith, accompanies him on the way, guards him among strangers, enriches him with goods, honours him with triumphs, by promises

binds Himself, snatches him from injuries, courts him with hospitality, makes him wonderful by an offspring despaired of; so that, filled with so many good things, drawn by so great a sweetness of divine charity, he might learn to love God, not to fear Him; to worship Him by loving, not by dreading (Gen. 12). Hence it is that He consoles Jacob in dreams as he flees, challenges him to a contest as he returns, binds him fast in the embrace of a wrestler; that he might love, not fear, the father of the contest (Gen. 28). Hence it is that He calls Moses with a father's voice, addresses him with a father's charity, invites him to be the liberator of His people (Exod. 3). And what more? He makes him God, He gave him as God to Pharao; He makes him God, fortifies him with signs, arms him with powers; by His commands he wins wars, He grants him to conquer an army by a word alone, He allows him to triumph by precepts, and through all the crowns of the virtues He advances him to His friendship, He grants him to be a sharer in the heavenly kingdom, and He allows that he himself be lawgiver; yet all this he received that he might love: in the end he was so kindled by the love of God that he himself loved ardently, and warned others to love thus: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole strength (Deut. 6). Whatever there is of heart, whatever of mind, whatever of human strength, He willed to be so possessed by the love of God that the worldly affection of man should have nothing to violate.

But through these things which we have recounted, when the flame of divine charity kindled human hearts, and the whole intoxication of the love of God poured itself out upon the human senses, they began, with wounded mind, to wish to behold God with bodily eyes. God, whom the world does not contain — how could narrow human sight contain Him? What will be, what ought to be, what can be, the law of love does not regard. Love knows not judgement, lacks reason, knows no measure. Love accepts no consolation from impossibility, admits no remedy from difficulty. Love, unless it attain what it desires, kills the lover; and so it goes where it is led, not where it ought. Love begets desire, grows with ardour, [and] ardour presses on to things not granted. And what more? Love cannot but see what it loves: hence it is that all the saints counted as small all they had merited, if they did not see the Lord. And in truth, brethren, how will one render obedience for benefits, if he does not see the giver of the benefits? Or how does one believe himself loved by God, Whose sight he does not merit? Hence it is that love which desires to see God, even if it has no judgement, has yet the zeal of piety. Hence it is that Moses dares to say: If I have found grace before Thee, show me Thy face (Exod. 33). Hence it is that another says: Show Thy face (Ps. 79). Lastly, the gentiles themselves fashioned images for this reason, that in their very errors they might discern with their eyes what they worshipped.

God, therefore, knowing that mortals were tormented and wearied with the desire of seeing Him, chose this [means] by which to make Himself visible, which should be both great to those on earth and not least to those above. For what was made on earth by God like to Himself

could it fail to be held in honour in heaven? Let us make, He says, man to our image and likeness (Gen. 1). Perfect devotion owes to the image what it owes also to the king. If He had taken an angel from heaven, He would none the less have been held invisible: if from the earth [something] less than man, it would both have been an injury to the divinity, and it would have cast man down, not raised him up. Let no one therefore, dearly beloved, think it an injury to God if God came to men through a man, and took from us, that He might be seen by us — He Who lives and reigns, God, now and through all the ages of ages. Amen.