Беседа на день Рождества Господа и Спасителя нашего Иисуса Христа. Павла, епископа Эмесского (V в.)

Now is the time to exhort your piety - to form with us a kind of sacred choir and, together with the holy angels, to exclaim: glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men (Luke 2:14). Now a Child has been born to us (Ps. 9:6), on Whom the undoubted hope of salvation is concentrated for all visible and invisible creation. Nowadays supernatural childbirth is permitted: the fruit comes from the Virgin, who does not know marriage. Oh, miracle! The virgin gives birth, becomes a mother, but does not experience what mothers usually experience; gives birth, as is natural for mothers, but remains a virgin, being above the law of those who give birth. Seeing this miracle from afar, the prophet Isaiah exclaimed: behold, the Virgin will conceive in her womb and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Immanuel (Is. 7:14). And the Evangelist, citing this place, notes that the name means: God is with us (Matthew 1:23). Thus, the Mother of God Mary gives birth to Emmanuel. Anyone who speaks, thinks or reasons differently will be excommunicated from the Church. The Mother of God Mary gave birth to us Emmanuel, that is, God made man. For God the Word, who was born in a mysterious and incomprehensible way from the Father before the ages, in recent times was born from a Woman. Having completely assumed our nature, united with humanity at the very moment of conception and made our flesh a church for Himself, He came from the Mother of God as a perfect God and together as a perfect man: for the union of two natures - Divinity and humanity formed one Son, one Christ, one Lord... We worship not a quaternity, but a Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This means that we do not recognize two sons, and we do not consider Emmanuel to be a simple man, or even filled primarily with grace, as is characteristic of a Prophet or a righteous man: for in Him lives every fulfillment of the Divine bodily (Colossians 2:9), lives, that is, in His body itself, since He made our body His own. On this faith, on this hope, on this stone, the foundation of the Church was laid by the Lord God. So, when the Lord Jesus Christ went to Jerusalem, He asked His disciples: Who do men say I am, the Son of Man? The apostles answered: first John the Baptist; other Elijah; friends Jeremiah, or one prophet. And he said to them: “But you, who have been chosen by Me and consider the opinions of those false, some of whom take me for John the Baptist, others for Elijah, others for Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, who followed Me for three years, who saw My power and saw miracles, how I walked on the sea, and shared a meal with Me, who do you say Me to be? Immediately the chief of the apostles, through the mouth of the disciples, Peter said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:13–16). You are Christ, that is, you united two natures in yourself, becoming human. You are the Christ; The Evangelist did not say: “sons,” but: “Son of the living God,” for he knew the unity of the Person. Let us pray to the Heavenly Father, may He fill us with that joy, which is the mother of chastity, and say: let the Father arise, my glory, let the psaltery and harp arise (Ps. 56:9) of the Holy Spirit, to Whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen 67. “Acts of the Ecumenical Councils”, published in Russian translation at the Kazan Theological Academy. Kazan, 1893, ed. 2nd. Volume two, 144–145 pp. You might be interested in: