15. S. 95.1–2 (PL 38:581); my trans. Cf. doc. Chr. 1.1; s. 339.4. (continued)
Preaching God Incarnate
Let us turn now to Augustine's practice as a preacher by examining one complete sermon. The centerpiece of Augustine's preaching was Christ, of course. He believed that Christ's identity had been succinctly encapsulated in the prologue to John's Gospel: Christ is, on the one hand, the divine Word (Jn 1:1–3), and, on the other, the Word-made-flesh (Jn 1:14). So fond was Augustine of John's prologue that he quoted it more than any other single biblical text. Brian Daley has noted that Augustine, unlike his contemporaries in the Greek East, did not generally embark on "technical speculation on the unity and inner constitution of Jesus' person"; Augustine preferred "to speak of the mystery of Christ in concrete, rhetorically challenging phrases that let the believer savor the inherent paradox of preaching an incarnate God."16 One sees this played out in his Christmas sermons. This is the complete text of Sermon 188:
(1) The Son of God: Now if we set about the great task of praising Him as He exists with the Father—equal to and co-eternal with the Father, the One in whom all things, visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth, were established, God and Word of God, Life and Light of humanity—it is no wonder that no human thinking, no words, can suffice. For how can our tongues rightly praise the One whom our hearts do not yet have the health and vigor to see? For it is in our hearts that He put the eyes He can be seen with—if wrongdoing be purged, if weakness be healed—and so we may come to be those blessed clean-of-heart, "for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). It's no wonder, I say, we cannot find words that we might speak about the one Word [of God] who spoke us into being and about whom we seek to say something. For our minds may form words like these, pondered over and uttered forth, but our minds were themselves formed by the Word. Nor does a human being make words in the same way human beings are made by the Word, because the Father did not beget His one and only Word in the same way He made all things through the Word. For God begot God, but the Begetter and the Begotten are together one God. God certainly made the world; the world, however, passes away while God endures. And so these things that were made did not make themselves, but by no one was God made, the One by whom all things were made. It is no wonder, then, that a human being [like me], a creature in the midst of it all, cannot explain the Word through Whom all things were made.
(2) Let us direct our ears and minds to this issue for a little while, to see if we, by chance, can say something suitable and worthy not about [the truth that] "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the
16. Brian E. Daley, "A Humble Mediator: The Distinctive Elements in St. Augustine's Christology," Word and Spirit 9 (1987): 101; also Daley, "Christology," AugEncy, 164–69.
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Word was God" (Jn 1:1), but about [the truth that] "the Word was made flesh" (Jn 1:14); to see if, by chance, we can speak about why He "dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14), or if, by chance, there is something say-able about why he wished to be visible. It's for this reason that we celebrate this day on which He deigned to be born of a virgin, a begetting which He Himself caused people to narrate the story of. In that eternity, however, "who shall declare his generation" (Is 53:8) in which God is born of God? There, there is no such day for annual solemn celebration. For [in eternity] a day does not pass away and then return with the revolving year, but endures without a sunset because it began without a sunrise. Therefore, the one and only Word of God, the Light and Life of humanity, is, in fact, the Eternal Day. This [Christmas] day, however, on which He was joined to human flesh and became, as it were, a "bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber" (Ps 18:6)—this day is our today and will pass away as tomorrow becomes yesterday. Nevertheless, today commemorates that Eternal Day who was born of the Virgin because the Eternal Day born of the Virgin consecrated this day.
What praises for God's love should we be voicing, what thanks should we be giving? After all, He loved us so much that He, through whom all times were made, became human within time for our sake; that He, more ancient in eternity than the world itself, became younger in age than many of His servants in the world; that He, who made humankind, became human. He loved us so much that He was created from a mother whom He had created, was carried in hands He had made, was nourished at breasts He had filled; that He, the Word without whom all human eloquence is mute, wailed in a manger in mute infancy.
(3) See, O humankind, what God became for your sake. Acknowledge this teaching of enormous humility from a Teacher who, as yet, cannot even speak a word. Once, back in paradise, you were so fluent [in speaking] that you named every living thing (Gn 2:19–20). For your sake, however, your Creator lay speechless and could not even call His mother by her name. You lost yourself in the trackless groves of fruit trees by neglecting obedience. He obediently came into the narrow confines of mortality so that, by dying, He might search for you who were dead. You, though you were human, wished to be God and so got lost (Gn 3:5). He, though He was God, wished to be human that He might find what had gotten lost. Human pride brought you to such a depth that only divine humility could raise you up again.
(4) Therefore, let us celebrate with joy the day on which Mary brought forth the Savior; a day when a married woman brought forth the Creator of marriage, a day when a virgin brought forth the Prince of virgins; when a virgin, though given to a husband, was a mother not by her husband, a virgin