Leo the Great
(from Sermons of Leo the Great in Volume 12
of NPNF Second Series)
Sermon LI.
A Homily Delivered on the
Saturday Before the Second Sunday in Lent-On the Transfiguration, S.
Matt. XVII. 1-13.
The Gospel lesson, dearly-beloved, which has reached the inner hearing of
our minds through our bodily ears, calls us to the understanding of a great
mystery, to which we shall by the help of God's grace the better attain, if
we turn our attention to what is narrated just before.
The Saviour of mankind, Jesus Christ, in founding that faith, which
recalls the wicked to righteousness and the dead to life, used to instruct
His disciples by admonitory teaching and by miraculous acts to the end that
He, the Christ, might be believed to be at once the Only-begotten of God and
the Son of Man. For the one without the other was of no avail to salvation,
and it was equally dangerous to have believed the Lord Jesus Christ to be
either only God without manhood, or only man without Godhead1
, since both had equally to be confessed, because just as true manhood
existed in His Godhead, so true Godhead existed in His Manhood. To
strengthen, therefore, their most wholesome knowledge of this belief, the
Lord had asked His disciples, among the various opinions of others, what
they themselves believed, or thought about Him: whereat the Apostle Peter,
by the revelation of the most High Father passing beyond things corporeal
and surmounting things human by the eyes of his mind, saw Him to be Son of
the living God, and acknowledged the glory of the Godhead, because he looked
not at the substance of His flesh and blood alone; and with this lofty faith
Christ was so well pleased that he received the fulness of blessing, and was
endued with the holy firmness of the inviolable Rock on which the Church
should be built and conquer the gates of hell and the laws of death, so
that, in loosing or binding the petitions of any whatsoever, only that
should be ratified in heaven which had been settled by the judgment of
Peter.
But this exalted and highly-praised understanding, dearly-beloved, had
also to be instructed on the mystery of Christ's lower substance, lest the
Apostle's faith, being raised to the glory of confessing the Deity in
Christ, should deem the reception of our weakness unworthy of the impassible
God, and incongruous, and should believe the human nature to be so glorified
in Him as to be incapable of suffering punishment, or being dissolved in
death. And, therefore, when the Lord said that He must go to Jerusalem, and
suffer many things from the elders and scribes and chief of the priests, and
the third day rise again, the blessed Peter who, being illumined with light
from above, was burning with the heat of his confession, rejected their
mocking insults and the disgrace of the most cruel death, with, as he
thought, a loyal and outspoken contempt, but was checked by a kindly rebuke
from Jesus and animated with the desire to share His suffering. For the
Saviour's exhortation that followed, instilled and taught this, that they
who wished to follow Him should deny themselves. and count the loss of
temporal flyings as light in the hope of things eternal; because he alone
could save his soul that did not fear to lose it for Christ. In order,
therefore, that the Apostles might entertain this happy, constant courage
with their whole heart, and have no tremblings about the harshness of taking
up the cross, and that they might not be ashamed of the punishment of
Christ, nor think what He endured disgraceful for themselves (for the
bitterness of suffering was to be displayed without despite to His; glorious
power), Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John, and ascending a
very high2
mountain with them apart, showed them the brightness of His glory; because,
although they had recognised the majesty of God in Him, yet the power of His
body, wherein His Deity was contained, they did not know. And, therefore,
rightly and significantly, had He promised that certain of the disciples
standing by should not taste death till they saw "the Son of Man coming in
His Kingdom3
," that is, in the kingly brilliance which, as specially belonging to the
nature of His assumed Manhood, He wished to be conspicuous to these three
men. For the unspeakable and unapproachable vision of the Godhead Itself
which is reserved tilt eternal life for the pure in heart, they could in no
wise look upon and see while still surrounded with mortal flesh. The Lord
displays His glory, therefore, before chosen witnesses, and invests that
bodily shape which He shared with others with such splendour, that His face
was like the sun's brightness and His garments equalled the whiteness of
snow.
And in this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offence
of the cross from the disciple's heart, and to prevent their faith being
disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them
the excellence of His hidden dignity. But with no less foresight, the
foundation was laid of the Holy Church's hope, that the whole body of Christ
might realize the character of the change which it would have to receive,
and that the members might promise themselves a share in that honour which
had already shone forth in their Head. About which the Lord bad Himself
said, when He spoke of the majesty of His coming, "Then shall the righteous
shine as the sun in their Father's Kingdom4
," whilst the blessed Apostle Paul bears witness to the self-same thing, and
says: "for I reckon that the sufferings of this thee are not worthy to be
compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us5
:" and again, "for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For
when Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in
glory6
." But to confirm the Apostles and assist them to all knowledge, still
further instruction was conveyed by that miracle.
For Moses and Elias, that is the Law and the Prophets, appeared talking
with the Lord; that in the presence of those five men might most truly be
fulfilled what was said: "In two or three witnesses stands every word7
." What more stable, what more steadfast than this word, in the proclamation
of which the trumpet of the Old and of the New Testament joins, and the
documentary evidence of the ancient witnesses8
combine with the teaching of the Gospel? For the pages of both
covenants9
corroborate each other, and He Whom under the veil of mysteries the types
that went before had promised, is displayed clearly and conspicously by the
splendour of the present glory. Because, as says the blessed John, "the law
was given through Moses: but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ10
," in Whom is fulfilled both the promise of prophetic figures and the
purpose of the legal ordinances: for He both teaches the truth of prophecy
by His presence, and renders the commands possible through grace.
The Apostle Peter, therefore, being excited by the revelation of these
mysteries, despising things mundane and scorning things earthly, was seized
with a sort of frenzied craving for the things eternal, and being filled
with rapture at the whole vision, desired to make his abode with Jesus in
the place where he had been blessed with the manifestation of His glory.
Whence also he says, "Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt let
us make three tabernacles11
, one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias." But to this proposal the
Lord made no answer, signifying that what he wanted was not indeed; wicked,
but contrary to the Divine order: since the world could not be saved,
except; by Christ's death, and by the Lord's example the faithful were
called upon to believe that, although there ought not to be any doubt about
the promises of happiness, yet we should understand that amidst the trials
of this life we must ask for the power of endurance rather than the glory,
because the joyousness of reigning cannot precede the times of suffering.
And so while He was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed
them, and behold a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." The Father was indeed present in
the Son, and in the Lord's brightness, which He had tempered to the
disciples' sight, the Father's Essence was not separated from the
Only-begotten: but, in order to emphasize the two-fold personality, as the
effulgence of the Son's body displayed the Son to their sight, so the
Father's voice from out the cloud announced the Father to their hearing. And
when this voice was heard, "the disciples fell upon their faces, and were
sore afraid," trembling at the majesty, not only of the Father, but also of
the Son: for they now had a deeper insight into the undivided Deity of Both:
and in their fear they did not separate the One from the Other, because they
doubted not in their faith12
. That was a wide and manifold testimony, therefore, and contained a fuller
meaning than struck the ear. For when the Father said, "This is My beloved
Son, in Whom, &c.," was it not clearly meant, "This is My Son," Whose it is
to be eternally from Me and with Me? because the Begetter is not anterior to
the Begotten, nor the Begotten posterior to the Begetter. "This is My Son,"
Who is separated from Me, neither by Godhead, nor by power, nor by eternity.
"This is My Son," not adopted, but true-born, not created from another
source, but begotten of Me: nor yet made like Me from another nature, but
born equal to Me of My nature. "This is My Son," "through Whom all things
were made, and without Whom was nothing made13
" because all things that I do He doth in like manner: and whatever I
perform, He performs with Me inseparably and without difference: for the Son
is in the Father and the Father in the Son14
, and Our Unity is never divided: and though I am One Who begot, and He the
Other Whom I begot, yet is it wrong for you to think anything of Him which
is not possible of Me. "This is My Son," Who sought not by grasping, and
seized not in greediness15
, that equality with Me which He has, but remaining in the form of My glory,
that He might carry out Our common plan for the restoration of mankind, He
lowered the unchangeable Godhead even to the form of a slave.
"Here ye Him," therefore, unhesitatingly, in Whom I am throughout well
pleased, and by Whose preaching I am manifested, by Whose humiliation I am
glorified; because He is "the Truth and the Life16
," He is My "Power and Wisdom17
." "Hear ye Him," Whom the mysteries of the Law have foretold, Whom the
mouths of prophets have sung. "Hear ye Him," Who redeems the world by His
blood, Who binds the devil, and carries off his chattels, Who destroys the
bond of sin, and the compact of the transgression. Hear ye Him, Who opens
the way to heaven, and by the punishment of the cross prepares for you the
steps of ascent to the Kingdom? Why tremble ye at being redeemed? why fear
ye to be healed of your wounds? Let that happen which Christ wills and I
will. Cast away all fleshly fear, and arm yourselves with faithful
constancy; for it is unworthy that ye should fear in the Saviour's Passion
what by His good gift ye shall not have to fear even at your own end.
These things, dearly-beloved, were said not for their profit only, who
heard them with their own ears, but in these three Apostles the whole Church
has learnt all that their eyes saw and their ears heard. Let all men's faith
then be established, according to the preaching of the most holy Gospel, and
let no one be ashamed of Christ's cross, through which the world was
redeemed. And let not any one fear to suffer for righteousness' sake, or
doubt of the fulfilment of the promises, for this reason, that through toil
we pass to rest and through death to life; since all the weakness of our
humility was assumed by Him, in Whom, if we abide in the acknowledgment and
love of Him, we conquer as He conquered, and receive what he promised,
because, whether to the performance of His commands or to the endurance of
adversities, I the Father's fore-announcing voice should always be sounding
in our ears, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased;
hear ye Him:" Who liveth and reigneth, with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
for ever and ever. Amen.
2
Proecelso (Vulg. excelso): possibly the
form of the adjective supports Codex Bezoe (D) in adding
li/an after
u9yhlo/n.
3
S. Matt. xvi. 28. Leo's application of the prophesy is
almost to fanciful to be the true one, though he stands by no means alone
among commentaters (ancient and modern) in so applying it.
4
S. Matt. xiii. 43.
5
Rom. viii. 18.
6
Col. iii. 3.
7
Deut. xix. 15.
8
Antiquarum protestationum instrumenta.
9
Utriusque foederis paginoe (instead of
the more usual Testamenti).
10
S. John i. 17.
11
Sc. booths or tents.
12
Quia in fide non fuit hoesitatio, non fuit in timore
discretio.
13
S. John i. 3: and below, cf. x. 38: and again Phil. ii.
6.
14
S. John i. 3: and below, cf. x. 38: and again Phil. ii.
6.
15
S. John i. 3: and below, cf. x. 38: and again Phil. ii.
6.
16
S. John xiv. 6: 1 Cor. i. 24.
17
S. John xiv. 6: 1 Cor. i. 24.
