A TH GETHSEMAN ABBEY THE HISTORY MON 203 OF THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, FROM HIS INCARNATION TO HIS ASCENSION. PART I. FROM THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD UNTIL THE CURE OF THE CHAPTER I. PREFACE OF SAINT LUKE. ETERNAL GENERATION OF THE WORD AND HIS INCARNA- (a) "THE beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." (b) "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us, according as they have delivered them unto us who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word; it seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed." Thus speaks Saint Luke; and Saint Mark, the other disciple, might have used the same language. Nay, both evangelists could have said what, in point of fact, Saint John has declared: (e)" "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and (a) St. Mark, i. 1. (c) I. St. John, i. 1, 3. (b) St. Luke, i. 1. 1 14 THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE [PART I. our hands have handled, of the Word of life......We declare unto (a) "In the beginning was (1) the Word (2), and the Word was (a) St. John, i. 1-18. (1) The word of the Father; the interior expression of his intelligence; the eternal and infinite production of his infinite knowledge. The term of this knowledge is a divine person distinct from the divine person which produces it. If undoubtedly this is a great mystery, may we not add that it is the only mystery here? For that this person must be consubstantial and coeternal with his principle, is as evident as that the knowledge, reason, and wisdom of the Godhead cannot be of any other substance or of shorter duration than God himself. We must needs say the same of the Holy Ghost, who is the substantial love of the Father and the Son. (2) When every object which had a beginning began its existence, the Word was already: hence he is without beginning; hence he is eternal. (3) Skeptics might perhaps cavil at the other expressions in this verse which declare. the divinity of the Word, but this proposition narrows them explicitly to the sense of divinity strictly speaking; for is it possible to say more precisely that the Word was God, than by saying the Word was God? (4) This resumption represents, if we may presume to use such a form of expression, the situation of the Word during that eternity which preceded creation. He dwelt shrouded in the bosom of his Father: as yet he had not been produced, or, as we might say, brought forward to view; he was displayed by the creation and incarnation. This may be considered as an abstract of what the Evangelist states and is going to state concerning him. (5) God made all things by his word, since he created them by his intelligence; hence "In him was life (6), and the life was the light of men (7). The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (8). There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. The word was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world." "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name, who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (9). AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH (10). we say (and in as strict a sense of the Word as of the Father) that all things were made by him. The Arians concluded from this that the Son was inferior to the Father, since he acted in the subordinate character of his instrument at the creation. Yet the intelligence which actuates was never denominated an instrument; and supposing the denomination were correct, we must admit that such an instrument should be coequal to his employer. For who ever advanced or thought that an intelligent being, no matter what that might be, was greater than his own intelligence, or somewhat less than himself? (6) He was the author and the meritorious cause of the life of grace to be followed by an eternal life of glory. This meaning explains the passage of Saint John, by Saint John himself, who says, Epistle I. John, v. 11, "God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." Here, alluding to the Son, he says, "In him was life." Both expressions convey obviously the same meaning. (7) The Word gave life to men by irradiating their souls, and that light referred to here is the light of faith, and not, as many say, the natural light of reason. This is deducible from many reasons. The following is conclusive: The Evangelist speaks here of that light to which he is just going to state that Saint John the Baptist gave testimony. Now, the direct object of Saint John the Baptist's testimony was not Jesus Christ as author of the light of reason, but Jesus Christ as author of the Christian faith and evangelical law. (8) Mankind were immersed in the darkness of ignorance and error. They could not discern the light, because they did not wish to discern it. Those who bandage their own eyes cannot see the light of day. Ought they, therefore, to blame the sun? (9) Here the Evangelist speaks simultaneously of the incarnation of the word, and the spiritual birth of the children of God, as the first is the meritorious cause, and also the evidence of the latter. At least it is a further argument, inasmuch as it is more difficult to believe that the word of God was made flesh, than that flesh and blood could become the adopted child of God. (10) That is to say, that he was made man. The evangelist names the part for the whole; and that, too, the most despicable part, to impress us more deeply with the prodigious "He dwelt among us full of grace and truth; and we have seen his glory (11), the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father. "John beareth witness of him, and crieth out, saying: This was he of whom I spoke, he that shall come after me is preferred before me, because he was before me. Of his fulness we all have received (12), and grace (13) for grace. For the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Let none be surprised at our descanting on matters rising so high above the sphere of human understanding. They may be heard with astonishment, but our testimony is not the less admissible. "No man, it is true, hath seen God; but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him to us." The most obvious characteristics should designate that man who was commissioned to point out first to the world the incarnate word. Nothing else could give irresistible weight to his testimony. God provided for this emergency, and we shall now see that at the out humiliation of the Son of God. There is great energy in the juxtaposition of the two terms the word was made flesh. Hence, some of the earlier heretics took occasion to say that the word merely assumed the flesh, which he animated as its soul. Jesus Christ anticipated them by saying, "My soul is troubled; my soul is sorrowful unto death; Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Supposing even that he had not spoken thus, he is styled man more than once in Scripture, which is quite enough to clear up all doubts of his having assumed a rational soul. A human body without a soul would no more be a man than a tree is; and if its soul was irrational, such an object would differ in figure only from the brute. This observation is directed against the heretic Appollonarius, who attributed mere sensation, or a sensitive soul, to Jesus Christ, and not a rational soul. It would be an endless task to review all the impious absurdities and fanciful visions which the heretics ran into with reference to the Incarnation. We evince our faith and good sense by thoroughly acquiescing in all that it has pleased God to reveal to us on the subject. (11) His glory was made manifest by his miracles. Saint John had the further advantage of having been one of those three who had seen him in his transfiguration. (12) All graces come from the plenitude of Jesus Christ, as the showers which fertilize the earth are exhaled from the ocean, and the rivers roll back again the mass of waters which they derived from that mighty element. (13) The law of grace as contradistinguished from the grace of the law; for this really was a grace; but the latter is so superior to the former, that, when spoken of by way of comparison, the first might simply be called the law, and the second the grace; the more so, as all the grace of the old law sprang from the grace of the new law, which gushed forth by anticipation. |