human flesh, God for human beings, the just one for sinners, the innocent one
162 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS
The blessed Mary conceived by believing
the one whom she bore by believing
4. So let us believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. You see, the blessed Mary herself conceived by believing the one whom she bore by believing. When she was promised a son, you see, and inquired how this might be, since she did not know a man, there was of course only one way known to her of conceiving8 and giving birth, which she hadn't indeed experienced herself, but had learned about in the natural way of things from other women; namely that a person is bom of a man and a woman. Well, she received this answer from the angel: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason the holy one to be born of you will be called the Son of God. When the angel said this, she was so full of faith that she conceived Christ in her mind before doing so in her womb, and said, Behold the maidservant of the Lord; may it happen to me according to your word (Lk 1:34-38).
"May there be," she said, "one conceived in a virgin without the seed of man; may he be bom of the Holy Spirit and a woman untainted, he in whom the Church may be bom again untainted of the Holy Spirit. Let the holy one that will be bom of a human mother without a human father be called the Son of God; since it was necessary that the one who was marvelously bom of God the Father without any mother should become a son of man; and that as a tiny baby he should when bom come out of a closed womb in the same flesh, as that in which as a grown man risen from the dead he would come in through closed doors."9 These things are wonderful, because they are divine; they are beyond our powers of expression, because they defy investigation; human lips falter in explaining them, because so do human minds in examining them. Mary be¬ lieved, and what she believed came about in her. Let us too believe, so that we too may benefit from what came about.
So then, although this birth is also wonderful, just reflect, O man, what your God undertook for you, your creator for a creature; that God abiding in God, the eternal living with the eternal, the Son equal to the Father, did not disdain for the sake of the guilty and for the sake'of sinful servants to put on the form of a servant.10 Nor, you see, was this something presented to humanity because it deserved it; I mean, what we deserved rather for our iniquities was punish¬ ment. But if he had noted iniquities, who would have borne it?11 For the ungodly, therefore and for sinful servants the Lord saw fit to be bom a servant and a man of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary .
Christ died for us while we were still sinners
5. Perhaps this may seem little enough, that he should come, clothed with human flesh, God for human beings, the just one for sinners, the innocent one for the guilty, the king for prisoners, the Lord for slaves; that he should be seen on earth and converse with men.12 So in addition he was crucified, died and was buried. Don't you believe it? You are saying perhaps, "When did this happen?"