Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XII:
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great.: Sermon LXXVII

Sermon LXXVII.

(On Whitsuntide, III.)

I.  The Holy Ghost’s work did not begin at Pentecost, but was continued because the Holy Trinity is One in action and in will.

To-day’s festival, dearly-beloved, which is held in reverence by the whole world, has been hallowed by that advent of the Holy Ghost, which on the fiftieth day after the Lord’s Resurrection, descended on the Apostles and the multitude of believers 1149 , even as it was hoped.  And there was this hope, because the Lord Jesus had promised that He should come, not then first to be the Indweller of the saints, but to kindle to a greater heat, and to fill with larger abundance the hearts that were dedicated to Him, increasing, not commencing His gifts, not fresh in operation because richer in bounty.  For the Majesty of the Holy Ghost is never separate from the Omnipotence of the Father and the Son, and whatever the Divine government accomplishes in the ordering of p. 192 all things, proceeds from the Providence of the whole Trinity.  Therein exists unity of mercy and loving-kindness, unity of judgment and justice:  nor is there any division in action where there is no divergence of will.  What, therefore, the Father enlightens, the Son enlightens, and the Holy Ghost enlightens:  and while there is one Person of the Sent, another of the Sender, and another of the Promiser, both the Unity and the Trinity are at the same time revealed to us, so that the Essence which possesses equality and does not admit of solitariness is understood to belong to the same Substance but not the same Person.

II.  Each Person in the Trinity took part in our Redemption.

The fact, therefore, that, with the co-operation of the inseparable Godhead still perfect, certain things are performed by the Father, certain by the Son, and certain by the Holy Spirit, in particular belongs to the ordering of our Redemption and the method of our salvation.  For if man, made after the image and likeness of God, had retained the dignity of his own nature, and had not been deceived by the devil’s wiles into transgressing through lust the law laid down for him, the Creator of the world would not have become a Creature, the Eternal would not have entered the sphere of time, nor God the Son, Who is equal with God the Father, have assumed the form of a slave and the likeness of sinful flesh.  But because “by the devil’s malice death entered into the world 1150 ,” and captive humanity could not otherwise be set free without His undertaking our cause, Who without loss of His majesty should both become true Man, and alone have no taint of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for Itself the work of our restoration in such a way that the Father should be propitiated, the Son should propitiate 1151 , and the Holy Ghost enkindle.  For it was necessary that those who are to be saved should also do something on their part, and by the turning of their hearts to the Redeemer should quit the dominion of the enemy, even as the Apostle says, “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father 1152 ,” “And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty 1153 ,” and “no one can call Jesus Lord except in the Holy Spirit 1154 .”

III.  But this apportionment of functions does not mar the Unity of the Trinity.

If, therefore, under guiding grace, dearly-beloved, we faithfully and wisely understand what is the particular work of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and what is common to the Three in our restoration, we shall without doubt so accept what has been wrought for us by humiliation and in the body as to think nothing unworthy about the One and Selfsame Glory of the Trinity.  For although no mind is competent to think, no tongue to speak about God, yet whatever that is which the human intellect apprehends about the essence of the Father’s Godhead, unless one and the selfsame truth is held concerning His Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit, our meditations are disloyal, and beclouded by the intrusions of the flesh, and even that is lost, which seemed a right conclusion concerning the Father, because the whole Trinity is forsaken, if the Unity therein is not maintained; and That Which is different by any inequality can in no true sense be One.

IV.  In thinking upon God, we must put aside all material notions.

When, therefore, we fix our minds on confessing the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, let us keep far from our thoughts the forms of things visible, the ages of beings born in time, and all material bodies and places.  Let that which is extended in space, that which is enclosed by limit, and whatever is not always everywhere and entire be banished from the heart.  The conception of the Triune Godhead must put aside the idea of interval or of grade 1155 , and if a man has attained any worthy thought of God, let him not dare to withhold it from any Person therein, as if to ascribe with more honour to the Father that which he does not ascribe to the Son and Spirit.  It is not true Godliness to put the Father before the Only-begotten:  insult to the Son is insult to the Father:  what is detracted from the One is detracted from Both.  For since Their Eternity and Godhead are alike common, the Father is not accounted either Almighty and Unchangeable, if He begot One less than Himself or gained by having One Whom before He had not 1156 .

V.  Christ as Man is less than the Father, as God co-equal.

The Lord Jesus does, indeed, say to His disciples, as was read in the Gospel lection, “if ye loved Me, ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I 1157 ;” but those ears, p. 193 which have often heard the words, “I and the Father are One 1158 ,” and “He that sees Me, sees the Father also 1159 ,” accept the saying without supposing a difference of Godhead or understanding it of that Essence which they know to be co-eternal and of the same nature with the Father.  Man’s uplifting, therefore, in the Incarnation of the Word, is commended to the holy Apostles also, and they, who were distressed at the announcement of the Lord’s departure from them, are incited to eternal joy over the increase in their dignity; “If ye loved Me,” He says, “ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the Father:”  that is, if, with complete knowledge ye saw what glory is bestowed on you by the fact that, being begotten of God the Father, I have been born of a human mother also, that being invisible I have made Myself visible, that being eternal “in the form of God” I accepted the “form of a slave,” “ye would rejoice because I go to the Father.”  For to you is offered this ascension, and your humility is in Me raised to a place above all heavens at the Father’s right hand.  But I, Who am with the Father that which the Father is, abide undivided with My Father, and in coming from Him to you I do not leave Him, even as in returning to Him from you I do not forsake you.  Rejoice, therefore, “because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.”  For I have united you with Myself, and am become Son of Man that you might have power to be sons of God.  And hence, though I am One in both forms, yet in that whereby I am conformed to you I am less than the Father, whereas in that whereby I am not divided from the Father I am greater even than Myself.  And so let the Nature, which is less than the Father, go 1160 to the Father, that the Flesh may be where the Word always is, and that the one Faith of the catholic Church may believe that He Whom as Man it does not deny to be less, is equal as God with the Father.

VI.  And this equality which the Son has with the Father, the Holy Ghost also has.

Accordingly, dearly-beloved, let us despise the vain and blind cunning of ungodly heretics, which flatters itself over its crooked interpretation of this sentence, and when the Lord says, “All things that the Father hath are Mine 1161 ,” does not understand that it takes away from the Father whatever it dares to deny to the Son, and is so foolish in matters even which are human as to think, that what is His Father’s has ceased to belong to His Only-begotten, because He has taken on Him what is ours.  Mercy in the case of God does not lessen power, nor is the reconciliation of the creature whom He loves a falling off of Eternal glory.  What the Father has the Son also has, and what the Father and the Son have, the Holy Ghost also has, because the whole Trinity together is One God.  But this Faith is not the discovery of earthly wisdom nor the conviction of man’s opinion:  the Only-begotten Son has taught it Himself, and the Holy Ghost has established it Himself, concerning Whom no other conception must be formed than is formed concerning the Father and the Son.  Because albeit He is not the Father nor the Son, yet He is not separable from the Father and the Son:  and as He has His own personality in the Trinity, so has He One substance in Godhead with the Father and the Son, filling all things, containing all things, and with the Father and the Son controlling all things, to Whom is the honour and glory for ever and ever.  Amen.

Footnotes

Bright (n. 133) quotes Aug. (in Joan. Evan. Tr. 92, c. 1 and Serm. 267, 1) for the opinion, which Leo here seems to follow, that the “all” of Acts ii. 1 includes the 120 (cf. Acts i. 20) as well as the Twelve.

Wisd. ii. 24.

“The Atonement is a reconciling not merely of man to God but of God to man,” says Archbp. Trench, and that, as S. Thomas Aquinas explains, in regard to our sins not in regard to our nature, in which regard He always loves us (passages quoted by Bright, n. 54).

Gal. iv. 6.

2 Cor. iii. 17.

1 Cor. xii. 3.

See Serm. LXXV. chap. 3, n. 3.

See Serm. XXIII. chap. 2.

S. John 14:28, John 10:30, John 14:9.  In the English Church, the Gospel for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at Rome.

S. John 14:28, John 10:30, John 14:9.  In the English Church, the Gospel for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at Rome.

S. John 14:28, John 10:30, John 14:9.  In the English Church, the Gospel for Whitsunday is still the same as it was in Leo’s time at Rome.

Vadat (subj.); others read vadit (indic.) = goes, in which case Christ is still imagined to be speaking.  If we read vadat, His utterance ends with the last sentence.

S. John xvi. 15.