Leo
the Great of Rome, Homily 72: On the Lord's resurrection, II
Written
by Leo the Great of Rome.
I.
The Cross is not only the mystery of salvation, but an example to follow
The
whole of the Easter mystery, dearly beloved, has been brought before us in the
Gospel narrative, and the ears of the mind have been so reached through the ear
of flesh that none of you can fail to have a picture of the events: for the
text of the divinely-inspired story has clearly shown the treachery of the Lord
Jesus Christ's betrayal, the judgment by which He was condemned, the barbarity
of His crucifixion, and glory of His Resurrection. But a sermon is still
required of us, that the priest's exhortation may be added to the solemn
reading of Holy Scripture, as I am sure you are with pious expectation
demanding of us as your accustomed due. Because, therefore, there is no place
for ignorance in faithful ears, the seed of the Word which consists of the preaching
of the Gospel ought to grow in the soil of your heart, so that, when choking
thorns and thistles have been removed, the plants of holy thoughts and the buds
of right desires may spring up freely into fruit. For the cross of Christ,
which was set up for the salvation of mortals, is both a mystery and an example
-- a sacrament whereby the divine power takes effect, an example whereby man's
devotion is excited. For to those who are rescued from the prisoner's yoke,
redemption further procures the power of following the way of the cross by
imitation. For if the world's wisdom so prides itself in its error that every
one follows the opinions and habits and whole manner of life of him whom he has
chosen as his leader, how shall we share in the name of Christ save by being
inseparably united to Him, Who is, as He Himself asserted, 'the Way, the Truth,
and the Life'? The Way that is of holy living, the Truth of divine doctrine,
and the Life of eternal happiness.
II.
Christ took our nature upon Himself for our salvation
For
when the whole body of mankind had fallen in our first parents, the merciful
God purposed so to succour, through His only-begotten Jesus Christ, His
creatures made after His image, that the restoration of our nature should not
be effected apart from it and that our new estate should be an advance upon our
original position. Happy, if we had not fallen from that which God made us; but
happier, if we remain that which He has re-made us. It was much to have
received form from Christ; it is more to have a substance in Christ. For we
were taken up into its own proper self by that Nature which condescended to
those limitations which loving-kindness dictated and which yet incurred no sort
of change. We were taken up by that Nature which destroyed not what was His in
what was ours, nor what was ours in what was His; which made the person of the
Godhead and of the Manhood so one in itself that by co-ordination of weakness
and power, the flesh could not be rendered inviolable through the Godhead, nor
the Godhead passible through the flesh. We were taken up by that Nature which
did not break off the branch from the common stock of our race, and yet
excluded all taint of the sin which has passed upon all men. That is to say,
weakness and mortality, which were not sin, but the penalty of sin, were
undergone by the Redeemer of the World in the way of punishment, that they
might be reckoned as the price of redemption. That which therefore, in all of
us, is the heritage of condemnation, is in Christ 'the mystery of godliness'.
For being free from debt, He gave Himself up to that most cruel creditor, and
suffered the hands of Jews to be the devil's agents in torturing His spotless
flesh. Which flesh He willed to be subject to death, even up to His speedy
Resurrection, to this end: that believers in Him might find neither persecution
intolerable, nor death terrible, by the remembrance that there was no more
doubt about their sharing His glory than there was about His sharing their
nature.
III.
The presence of the risen and ascended Lord is still with us
And
so, dearly beloved, if we unhesitatingly believe with the heart what we profess
with the mouth, in Christ we are crucified, we are dead, we are buried; on the
very third day, too, we are raised. Hence the Apostle says, 'If ye have risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting on
God's right hand: set your affections on things above, not on things on the
earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ,
your life, shall have appeared, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory'.
But that the hearts of the faithful may know that they have that whereby to
spurn the lusts of the world and be lifted to the wisdom that is above, the
Lord promises us His presence, saying, 'Lo! I am with you always, even till the
end of the age'. For not in vain had the Holy Spirit said by Isaiah: 'Behold! A
Virgin shall conceive and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name
Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us'. Jesus, therefore, fulfils
the proper meaning of His name, and in ascending into the heavens does not
forsake His adopted brethren, though 'He sitteth at the right hand of the
Father' yet dwells in the whole body, and Himself from above strengthens them
for patient waiting while He summons them upwards to His glory.
IV.
We must have the same mind as was in Christ Jesus
We
must not, therefore, indulge in folly amid vain pursuits, nor give way to fear
in the midst of adversities. On the one side, no doubt, we are flattered by
deceits, and on the other weighed down by troubles. But because 'the earth is
full of the mercy of the Lord', Christ's victory is assuredly ours, that what
He says may be fulfilled, 'Fear not, for I have overcome the world'. Whether,
then, we fight against the ambition of the world, or against the lusts of the
flesh, or against the darts of heresy, let us arm ourselves always with the
Lord's Cross. For our Paschal feast will never end if we abstain from the
leaven of the old wickedness in the sincerity of truth. For amid all the
changes of this life which is full of various afflictions, we ought to remember
the Apostle's exhortation, whereby he instructs us, saying, 'Let this mind be
in you which was also in Christ Jesus, Who being in the form of God counted it
not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man.
Wherefore God also exalted Him and gave Him a name which is above every name,
that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, of things
on earth, and of things below, and that every tongue should confess that the
Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father'. If, he says, you
understand 'the mystery of great godliness' and remember what the Only-begotten
Son of God did for the salvation of mankind, 'have that mind in you which was
also in Christ Jesus', Whose humility is not to be scorned by any of the rich,
not to be thought shame of by any of the high-born. For no human happiness
whatever can reach so great a height as to reckon it a source of shame to
himself that God, abiding in the form of man, thought it not unworthy of
Himself to take the form of a slave.
V.
Only he who holds the truth on the Incarnation can keep Pascha Properly
Imitate
what He wrought: love what He loved, and finding in you the Grace of God, love
in Him your nature in return, since as He was not dispossessed of riches in
poverty, lessened not glory in humility, lost not eternity in death. So do ye,
too, treading in His footsteps, despise earthly things that ye may gain
heavenly: for the taking up of the cross means the slaying of lusts, the
killing of vices, the turning away from vanity, and the renunciation of all
error. For, though the Lord's Passover can be kept by no immodest,
self-indulgent, proud, or miserly person, yet none are held so far aloof from
this festival as heretics, and especially those who have wrong views on the
Incarnation of the Word, either disparaging what belongs to the Godhead or
treating what is of the flesh as unreal. For the Son of God is true God, having
from the Father all that the Father is, with no beginning in time, subject to
no sort of change, undivided from the One God, not different from the Almighty,
the eternal Only-begotten of the eternal Father; so that the faithful intellect
believing in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the same essence of
the one Godhead, neither divides the Unity by suggesting degrees of dignity,
nor confounds the Trinity by merging the Persons in one. But it is not enough
to know the Son of God in the Father's nature only, unless we acknowledge Him
in what is ours without withdrawal of what is His own. For that self-emptying,
which He underwent for man's restoration, was the dispensation of compassion,
not the loss of power. For, though by the eternal purpose of God there was 'no
other name under heaven given to men whereby they must be saved', the Invisible
made His substance visible, the Intemporal temporal, the Impassible passible:
not that power might sink into weakness, but that weakness might pass into
indestructible power.
VI.
A mystical application of the term 'Passover' is given
For
which reason the very feast which by us is named Pascha, among the Hebrews is
called Phase, that is Passover, as the Evangelist attests, saying, 'Before the
feast of Pascha, Jesus, knowing that His hour was come that He should pass out
of this world unto the Father...' But what was the nature in which He thus
passed out unless it was ours, since the Father was in the Son and the Son in
the Father inseparably? But because the Word and the Flesh is one Person, the
Assumed is not separated from the Assuming nature, and the honour of being
promoted is spoken of as accruing to Him that promotes, as the Apostle says in
a passage we have already quoted, 'Wherefore also God exalted Him and gave Him
a name which is above every name'. Where the exaltation of His assumed manhood
is no doubt spoken of, so that He in Whose sufferings the Godheard remains
indivisible is likewise coeternal in the glory of the Godhead. And to share in
this unspeakable gift the Lord Himself was preparing a blessed 'passing over'
for His faithful ones, when on the very threshhold of His Passion he interceded
not only for His Apostles and disciples but also for the whole Church, saying,
'But not for these only I pray, but for those also who shall believe on Me
through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou also, Father, art in Me,
and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us'.
VII.
Only true believers can keep the Paschal festival
In
this union they can have no share who deny that in the Son of God, Himself true
God, man's nature abides, assailing the health-giving mystery and shutting
themselves out from the Easter festival. For, as they dissent from the Gospel
and gainsay the Creed, they cannot keep it with us, because although they dare
to take to themselves the Christian name, yet they are repelled by every
creature who has Christ for his Head. For you rightly exult and devoutly
rejoice in this sacred season as those who, admitting no falsehood into the
Truth, have no doubt about Christ's birth according to the flesh, His Passion
and Death, and the Resurrection of His body: inasmuch as without any separation
of the Godhead you acknowledge a Christ, Who was truly born of a Virgin's womb,
truly hung on the wood of the cross, truly laid in an earthly tomb, truly
raised in glory, truly set on the right hand of the Father's majesty. 'Whence
also', as the Apostle says, 'we look for a Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ. Who
shall refashion the body of our humility to become conformed to the body of His
glory', Who liveth and reigneth, together with His Father and the Holy Spirit,
now and forever. Amen.
