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This reading for Christmas and
Epiphany comes from the Five Hundred Chapters by Saint Maximus the
Confessor (Centuria 1, 8-13: PG 90, 1182-1186)
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A
mystery ever new
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The Word of God,
born once in the flesh (such is his kindness and his goodness), is always
willing to be born spiritually in those who desire him. In them he is born as
an infant as he fashions himself in them by means of their virtues. He
reveals himself to the extent that he knows someone is capable of receiving
him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory not out of selfishness but
because he recognises the capacity and resources of those who desire to see
him. Yet, in the transcendence of mystery, he always remains invisible to
all.
For
this reason the apostle Paul, reflecting on the power of the mystery, said:
Jesus Christ, yesterday and today: he remains the same for ever. For he
understood the mystery as ever new, never growing old through our understanding
of it.
Christ
is God, for he had given all things their being out of nothing. Yet he is
born as man by taking to himself our nature, flesh endowed with intelligent
spirit. A star glitters by day in the East and leads the wise men to the
place where the incarnate Word lies, to show that the Word, contained in the
Law and the Prophets, surpasses in a mystical way knowledge derived from the
senses, and to lead the Gentiles to the full light of knowledge.
For
surely the word of the Law and the Prophets when it is understood with faith
is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in
accordance with his decree to recognise the Word incarnate.
Here
is the reason why God became a perfect man, changing nothing of human nature,
except to take away sin (which was never natural anyway). His flesh was set
before that voracious, gaping dragon as bait to provoke him: flesh that would
be deadly for the dragon, for it would utterly destroy him by the power of
the Godhead hidden within it. For human nature, however, his flesh was to be
a remedy since the power of the Godhead in it would restore human nature to
its original grace.
Just
as the devil had poisoned the tree of knowledge and spoiled our nature by its
taste, so too, in presuming to devour the Lord’s flesh he himself is
corrupted and is completely destroyed by the power of the Godhead hidden in
it.
The
great mystery of the divine
incarnation remains a mystery for ever. How can the Word made flesh be
essentially the same person that is wholly with the Father? How can he who is
by nature God become by nature wholly man without lacking either nature,
neither the divine by which he is God nor the human by which he became man?
Faith alone grasps these mysteries. Faith
alone is truly the substance and foundation of all that exceeds knowledge and
understanding
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Maximus the Confessor:
The Word of God is Always
Manifested in the Life of
Those who Share in Him
The Word of
God, born once on the level of the flesh, is always born willingly for those
who desire it on the level of the spirit, because of his love for men.
He becomes an
infant, forming himself in them by the virtues.
He manifests
himself in just the measure of which he knows the one who is receiving him is
capable.
It is not
through any ill-will that he diminishes the manifestation of his own majesty;
it is rather that he weighs the capacity of those who desire to see him.
And so, though
the Word of God is always manifested in the life of those who share in him,
yet because the mystery is transcendent, he remains always invisible to all.
Thus the holy
Apostle, in wise consideration of the meaning of the mystery, says: ‘Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’.
He knows that
the mystery is always new, that the mind in understanding it will never
deprive it of its freshness.
Christ God is
born, made man by the assumption of flesh endowed with an intelligent soul,
he who brought things from nothing into existence.
[...] God
becomes perfect man, then, leaving aside no element of nature – except sin,
and this does not belong to nature.
He offered his
flesh as a bait, to provoke the insatiable dragon to devour the flesh which
he was greedily pursuing.
This flesh
would be poison to the dragon, destroying him utterly by the power of the
divinity in it. But it would be a medicine for human nature, restoring it to
its original grace by the power of the divinity in it.
By smearing the
tree of knowledge with his poison of evil, the dragon destroyed man when he
tasted it.
But having
chosen to devour the Lord’s flesh, he too was destroyed, by the power of the
divinity in it.
The great
mystery of the divine incarnation always remains a mystery.
In his essence
the Word exists personally in the Father to the full: how is he in his person
essentially in the flesh?
How can the
same person be God by nature and become fully man by nature, in no way
deprived in either nature, neither in the divine nature by which he is God,
nor in ours by which he became man?
Only faith can
grasp these mysteries, since it is the substance of things which are beyond
intelligence and reason.
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