{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/212/2120209.htm","path":"chr/ecf/212/2120209.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/212/2120209.htm","text":"I. The mystery of the Passion passes man\u2019s comprehension.\nThe Feast of the Lord\u2019s Passion 1030 that we have longed for and that the whole world may well desire, has come, and suffers us not to keep silence in the tumult of our spiritual joys: because though it is difficult to speak often on the same thing worthily and appropriately, yet the priest is not free to withhold from the people\u2019s ears instruction by sermon on this great mystery of God\u2019s mercy, inasmuch as the subject itself, being unspeakable, gives him ease of utterance, and what is said cannot altogether fail where what is said can never be enough. Let human frailty, then, succumb to God\u2019s glory, and ever acknowledge itself unequal to the unfolding of His works of mercy. Let us toil in thought, fail in insight, falter in utterance: it is good that even our right thoughts about the Lord\u2019s Majesty should be insufficient. For, remembering what the prophet says, \u201cSeek ye the Lord and be strengthened: seek His face always 1031 ,\u201d no one must assume that he has found all he seeks, lest he fail of coming near, p. 174 if he cease his endeavours. And amidst all the works of God which weary out man\u2019s wondering contemplation, what so delights and so baffles our mind\u2019s gaze as the Saviour\u2019s Passion? Ponder as we may upon His omnipotence, which is of one and equal substance with the Father, the humility in God is more stupendous than the power, and it is harder to grasp the complete emptying of the Divine Majesty than the infinite uplifting of the \u201cslave\u2019s form\u201d in Him. But we are much aided in our understanding of it by the remembrance that though the Creator and the creature, the Inviolable God and the passible flesh, are absolutely different, yet the properties of both substances meet together in Christ\u2019s one Person in such a way that alike in His acts of weakness and of power the degradation belongs to the same Person as the glory.\nII. The Creed takes up S. Peter\u2019s confession as the fundamental doctrine of the Church.\nIn that rule of Faith, dearly-beloved, which we have received in the very beginning of the Creed, on the authority of apostolic teaching, we acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we call the only Son of God the Father Almighty, to be also born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost. Nor do we reject His Majesty when we express our belief in His crucifixion, death, and resurrection on the third day. For all that is God\u2019s and all that is Man\u2019s are simultaneously fulfilled by His Manhood and His Godhead, so that in virtue of the union of the Passible with the Impassible, His power cannot be affected by His weakness, nor His weakness overcome by His power. And rightly was the blessed Apostle Peter praised for confessing this union, who when the Lord was inquiring what the disciples knew of Him, quickly anticipated the rest and said, \u201cThou art Christ, the Son of the living God 1032 .\u201d And this assuredly he saw, not by the revelation of flesh or blood, which might have hindered his inner sight, but by the very Spirit of the Father working in his believing heart, that in preparation for ruling the whole Church he might first learn what he would have to teach, and for the solidification of the Faith, which he was destined to preach, might receive the assurance, \u201cThou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it 1033 .\u201d The strength, therefore, of the Christian Faith, which, built upon an impregnable rock, fears not the gates of death, acknowledges the one Lord Jesus Christ to be both true God and true Man, believing Him likewise to be the Virgin\u2019s Son, Who is His Mother\u2019s Creator: born also at the end of the ages, though He is the Creator of time: Lord of all power, and yet one of mortal stock: ignorant of sin, and yet sacrificed for sinners after the likeness of sinful flesh.\nIII. The Devil\u2019s devices were turned against himself.\nAnd in order that He might set the human race free from the bonds of deadly transgression, He hid the power of His majesty from the raging devil, and opposed him with our frail and humble nature. For if the cruel and proud foe could have known the counsel of God\u2019s mercy, he would have aimed at soothing the Jews\u2019 minds into gentleness rather than at firing them with unrighteous hatred, lest he should lose the thraldom of all his captives in assailing the liberty of One Who owed him nought. Thus he was foiled by his malice: he inflicted a punishment on the Son of God, which was turned to the healing of all the sons of men. He shed righteous Blood, which became the ransom and the drink for the world\u2019s atonement. The Lord undertook that which He chose according to the purpose of His own will. He permitted madmen to lay their wicked hands upon Him: hands which, in ministering to their own doom, were of service to the Redeemer\u2019s work. And yet so great was His loving compassion for even His murderers, that He prayed to the Father on the cross, and begged not for His own vengeance but for their forgiveness, saying, \u201cFather, forgive them, for they know not what they do 1034 .\u201d And such was the power of that prayer, that the hearts of many of those who had said, \u201cHis blood be on us and on our sons 1035 ,\u201d were turned to penitence by the Apostle Peter\u2019s preaching, and on one day there were baptized about 3,000 Jews: and they all were \u201cof one heart and of one soul 1036 ,\u201d being ready now to die for Him, Whose crucifixion they had demanded.\nIV. Why Judas could not obtain forgiveness through Christ.\nTo this forgiveness the traitor Judas could not attain: for he, the son of perdition, at whose right the devil stood 1037 , gave himself up to despair before Christ accomplished the mystery of universal redemption. For in that the Lord died for sinners, perchance even he might have found salvation if he had not hastened to hang himself. But that evil heart, which was now given up to thievish frauds, and now busied with treacherous designs, had p. 175 never entertained aught of the proofs of the Saviour\u2019s mercy. Those wicked ears had heard the Lord\u2019s words, when He said, \u201cI came not to call the righteous but sinners 1038 ,\u201d and \u201cThe Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost 1039 ,\u201d but they conveyed not to his understanding the clemency of Christ, which not only healed bodily infirmities, but also cured the wounds of sick souls, saying to the paralytic man, \u201cSon, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee 1040 ;\u201d saying also to the adulteress that was brought to Him, \u201cneither will I condemn thee; go and sin no more 1041 ,\u201d to show in all His works that He had come as the Saviour, not the Judge of the world. But the wicked traitor refused to understand this, and took measures against himself, not in the self-condemnation of repentance, but in the madness of perdition, and thus he who had sold the Author of life to His murderers, even in dying increased the amount of sin which condemned him.\nV. The cruelty of Christ\u2019s crucifixion is lost in its wondrous power.\nAccordingly that which false witnesses, cruel leaders of the people, wicked priests did against the Lord Jesus Christ, through the agency of a coward governor and an ignorant band of soldiers, has been at once the abhorrence and the rejoicing of all ages. For though the Lord\u2019s cross was part of the cruel purpose of the Jews, yet is it of wondrous power through Him they crucified. The people\u2019s fury was directed against One, and the mercy of Christ is for all mankind. That which their cruelty inflicts He voluntarily undergoes, in order that the work of His eternal will may be carried out through their unhindered crime. And hence the whole order of events which is most fully narrated in the Gospels must be received by the faithful in such a way that by implicit belief in the occurrences which happened at the time of the Lord\u2019s Passion, we should understand that not only was the remission of sins accomplished by Christ, but also the standard of justice satisfied. But that this may be more thoroughly discussed by the Lord\u2019s help, let us reserve this portion of the subject till the fourth day of the week. 1042 God\u2019s grace, we hope, will be vouchsafed at your entreaties to help us to fulfil our promise: through Jesus Christ our Lord, &c. Amen.\nFestivitas dominic\u00e6 passionis is at first sight a strange phrase, but in reality most suggestive.\n173:1031 174:1032\nS. Matt. 16:16, 18.\n174:1033\nS. Luke xxiii. 34.\n174:1035\nS. Matt. xxvii. 25.\n174:1036 174:1037\nCf. Ps. cix. 6.\n175:1038\nS. Matt. ix. 13.\n175:1039\nS. Luke xix. 10.\n175:1040\nS. Matt. ix. 3.\n175:1041\nS. John viii. 11; this famous section therefore is recognized by S. Leo: see Bright\u2019s note 69.\n175:1042\nSee Serm. LIV. chap. vi. n. 2.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XII: The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great.: Sermon LXII","type":"page"}