Sermon 237
SERMO 237
TREATISE HELD ON THE FOURTH WEDNESDAY
A great error of those who deny that Christ had true flesh.
About the resurrection of the Lord, which followed in the Gospel according to Luke, was concluded today, where we heard that the Lord appeared in the midst of his disciples discussing his resurrection and not believing it. So unexpected and incredible was it to them that they did not see even when seeing. For they saw the living body which they had mourned as dead, they saw him standing in their midst whom they had sorrowed over hanging on the cross, therefore they saw and because they did not believe their eyes to see the truth, they thought they were being deceived. For they thought, as you heard, that they were seeing a spirit. What the worst heretics later believed about Christ, the hesitant Apostles believed first. For there are those today who do not believe that Christ had flesh, because they destroy the Virgin's birth and do not want to believe that he was born of a woman. The Word was made flesh, they utterly estrange from their faith or rather infidelity. The whole dispensation of our salvation that He became man for the sake of redeeming man whom God had made man; this whole thing that Christ shed true, not false, blood for the remission of our sins and with his true blood erased the handwriting of our sins, this whole thing the damnable heretics try to nullify, this whole thing, like the Manicheans, they do not believe; that the Lord appeared to the eyes of men as a spirit, not as flesh.
Christ was Word, spirit, and body.
Behold, the Gospel speaks. The Lord stood among his disciples, who were yet to believe that he had resurrected. They saw him and thought they were seeing a spirit. If it is not wrong to believe that Christ was a spirit and not flesh, if it is not wrong, let the disciples remain in that opinion. Pay attention so that you understand what I want to say; but may God grant that I say it, that is, that I say it in a way that is expedient for you to hear. Behold, I repeat this very thing. Sometimes those abominable ones who detest the flesh and live according to the flesh sometimes say this and thus deceive: Who believes better about Christ—those who say that he had flesh, or us who say: He was God, he was spirit and to the eyes of men he did not appear as a body, but as God? What is better, flesh or spirit? What shall we answer except that spirit is better than flesh? If then, he says, you confess that spirit is better than flesh, I therefore have a better opinion of Christ when I say that he was a spirit, not flesh. O unhappy error! Why do I say that Christ was flesh? You say spirit, I say spirit and flesh; you do not say better, but you say less. Therefore, listen to everything I say, that is, what the Catholic faith says, what the most well-established and serene Truth says. You who say that Christ was only a spirit, which is as our spirit, that is, our soul, you say that Christ was only this. Listen to what you say. I say what you say. He was spirit from that nature and substance from which our spirit also is. How much less you say, notice: there was the Word, there was flesh. You say: Only a human spirit. I say Word, spirit, body: God and man. If I want to say two things, if I want to say two realities, I use this summary: God and man. And true God and true man. Nothing false in humanity, nothing false in divinity: God and man. But about that man if you ask me, again I say two things, human soul and human flesh. You are a man because of soul and flesh; he is Christ because of God and man. Behold what I say.
Let your hands prove whether your eyes are lying!
But you think it better to say because you say: It was the Spirit, the Spirit appeared, the Spirit was seen, the Spirit dwelled among men. This you say. This I said: this the disciples also thought. If you say nothing wrong, if what you say is good, then what the disciples thought was also good. If the Lord let them think this way, then you should also be let be. What you believe, they believed. Is what you believe good? Then what they believed was also good. But it was not good. The Lord said to them: Why are you troubled? The disturbance believed what you believe; what? They thought they saw a spirit. And the Lord said to these things: Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? These thoughts are earthly. For if they were heavenly, they would descend into your heart, not ascend. Why, then, is it said to us: Lift up your hearts, unless it is that earthly thoughts should not find our hearts before us, which we have placed above? Therefore: Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, touch and see. It is not enough for you to look, put your hands in; if it is not enough to look nor sufficient to touch, feel. He did not only say touch but feel and handle. Let your hands prove it to you, if your eyes deceive you. Feel and see, have eyes in your hands. What do you feel and see? Why? Because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. You were mistaken with the disciples, correct with the disciples. It is human, I concede. You thought Christ was a spirit; Peter also thought this, and the others: They thought they saw a spirit; but they did not remain in this error. That you may know this was entirely false in their hearts, the doctor did not leave them in this way. He approached, applied medicine, he saw wounds in their hearts and to cure the wounds of their hearts, he bore scars in his body.
The Word of God is impervious to the human mind.
Thus let us believe. I know that you believe thus. But lest there be any bad weed in this field of the Lord, I speak also to those whom I do not see. Let no one believe about Christ except what Christ wanted to be believed about Himself; and what He wanted to be believed about Himself benefits us to believe, He who redeemed us, who sought our salvation, who shed His blood for us, who endured for us what was not due to Him, who brought to us what was not due to us: let us believe this. What is Christ? The Son of God, the Word of God. What is the Word of God? What the word of man cannot express, that is the Word of God. Do you ask me what the Word of God is? If I wanted to tell you what the word of man is, I cannot fully explain it, I am exhausted, I hesitate, I falter; I cannot explain the power of the human word, how much more that of the Word of God. Behold, before I say to you what I want to say, already the word is in my heart; it has not yet been said by me and it is with me; it is said by me and it reaches you and does not depart from me. You listen intently to hear the word from me; I feed your minds as I speak. You would share food among yourselves if I brought it to your bellies, and it would not be enough for each individual; but the more of you there are, the more you would divide what I set before you, and each would receive less the greater the number of those receiving. But now I have brought food for your minds; I say: Take, receive, eat. You have received, you have eaten, and you do not divide it. Whatever I speak is whole for all and whole for each individual. See how the power of the human word cannot be fully explained and you ask me: What is the Word of God? The Word of God feeds thousands upon thousands of angels. They are fed by mind, they are filled by mind. It fills angels, it fills the world, it fills the womb of the Virgin, nor there does it move about, nor here is it constrained. What is the Word of God? Let Himself say, the only-begotten, the only Son, what the Word of God is let Him say. He speaks briefly of Himself but what He says is great: "I and the Father are one." I do not want you to count words about the One Word. All the words that can be spoken by humans about the One Word are not sufficient to fully explain it. Therefore, the Word which cannot be fully explained was made flesh and dwelt among us, it assumed the whole and complete human being, soul and body of man. And if you want to hear something more scrupulously, because he had both soul and flesh, and a spirit akin to a beast; when I say human soul and human flesh, he assumed the whole human soul. For there were those who created heresy from this and said that the soul of Christ had no mind, had no intellect, had no reason, but that the Word of God was for Him in place of mind, in place of intellect, in place of reason. I do not want you to believe this. He who created the whole redeemed the whole; He assumed the whole, liberated the whole Word. There is the human mind and intellect, there the soul giving life to the flesh, there true and entire flesh, without sin alone.