gatherings.6 Let men rejoice, let women rejoice. Christ has been bom, a man;
18 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS integrity. They prefer to regard this stupendous miracle as fiction rather than fact. Thus in Christ, true God and true man, they despise the human because they cannot believe it; they do not believe the divine because they cannot despise it. We, however, find the body of man in the humility of God all the more welcome, the more contemptible it seems to them; and the more they think it is impossible, the more divine it seems to us that a man was bom by a virgin bringing forth.
Rejoice, all Christians; it is the birthday of Christ
2. So then, let us celebrate the birthday of the Lord with all due festive gatherings.6 Let men rejoice, let women rejoice. Christ has been bom, a man; he has been bom of a woman; and each sex has been honored. Now therefore, let everyone, having been condemned in the first man, pass over to the second.7 It was a woman who sold us death; a woman who bore us life. The likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom 8:3) has been bom, so that the flesh of sin might be cleansed and purified. And thus it is not the flesh that is to be faulted, but the fault that must die in order that the nature may live; because one has been bom without fault, in whom the other8 who was at fault may be reborn.
Rejoice, holy brothers, who, choosing above all to follow Christ, have not sought to get married. The one you have found to be so worth following did not come to you by way of marriage,9 in order to enable you to set aside that by which you came into the world. For you came by way of carnal marriage, without which he came to his spiritual marriage; and he has given you the grace to turn your backs on any thought of weddings, because it is you above all whom he has invited to the wedding.10 The reason you have not sought the state from which you were bom, is that you have loved more than others the one who was not so bom. Rejoice, holy sisters, virgins; for you a virgin gave birth to the one whom you may marry without loss of virginity; neither by conceiving nor by giving birth can you lose what you love.
Rejoice, you just (Ps 33:1); it is the birthday of the Justifier. Rejoice, you who are weak and sick; it is the birthday of the Savior, the Healer. Rejoice, captives; it is the birthday of the Redeemer. Rejoice, slaves; it is the birthday of the one who makes you lords.11 Rejoice, free people; it is the birthday of the one who makes you free. Rejoice, all Christians; it is the birthday of Christ.
The two births of Christ
3. Bom of his mother, he commended this day to the ages, while bom of his Father he created all ages. That birth could have no mother, while this one required no man as father. To sum up, Christ was bom both of a Father and of a mother; both without a father and without a mother; of a Father as God, of a mother as man; without a mother as God, without a father as man. Therefore, who will recount his begetting (Is 53:8), whether that one without time or this one without seed; that one without beginning or this one without precedent; that