Sermones dominicales super evangelia et epistolas

and humble he came so that he might be loved by us rather than feared, and that he might attract us to himself through love. Jeremiah 31: In perpetual charity I have loved you, therefore I draw you while having mercy. Job 6: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him through love; thus the sheep is attracted when a green branch is shown to it, as Augustine says, etc.

Concerning the advent of the Son of God, or the Incarnation, six things are to be seen. ¶ First, whether the Son of God would have been incarnated if man had not sinned. And it is to be said that yes, probably. For if man had not sinned, he would have been incarnated for the completion of human beatitude, so that man would be blessed in soul and in body. For the beatitude of man consists in the knowledge of the humanity and divinity of Christ, according to that of John 17: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. He would not, however, have been incarnated to suffer for man as he was afterwards principally. ¶ Second, it is to be seen how God is said to have come into the world when he is everywhere. The reason for which is that he is infinite good, containing all good things in himself, and he himself consists in all things; and therefore it is necessary that he be everywhere. Augustine: God is everywhere; he is within all things not enclosed, outside all things not excluded, above all things not elevated. And we say that the Son of God is said to have come into the world insofar as he began to be in the world in a new way in which he had not been before, namely through the assumption of flesh. And therefore it is called the advent of the Son of God into the flesh. ¶ Third, it is to be seen that since, according to Augustine, the works of the Trinity are indivisible, what is the reason that since operation proceeds from essence, as the philosopher says, and there is one essence in the divine Trinity, it is necessary that there be one operation in it? Why, therefore, is the Son said to be incarnate? And not the Father or the Holy Spirit? And we say, as Augustine says, that the whole Trinity wrought the Incarnation and is said to have done all the human works of Christ. But because in the Trinity there is a real relation constituting or distinguishing the divine persons, therefore the divine persons are distinct from one another, and one is not the other, because he is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit, and something is appropriate to one that is not appropriate to another. Thus, generation is appropriate to the Father and not to the Son nor to the Holy Spirit, and procession is appropriate to the Holy Spirit and not to the Father or the Son; and to be begotten eternally and to be incarnated temporally is appropriate to the Son and not to the Father or the Holy Spirit. And to see this I set forth two examples. One for the laity in preaching, and another for the clergy in a sermon. The example for the laity is the writing of a document. For the operations of the writing of a document are three: heart, imagination, and hand. For since all movement is from the heart, the hand cannot write unless it is moved by the heart. Similarly, if the imagination did not imagine the differences of the shapes of the letters, the hand would never

write. Regarding the hand, it is manifest. And yet, although these three are the agents of the writing, nevertheless only the hand is said to write this, not the heart or the imagination. Thus it is in the proposition that, although the whole Trinity wrought the Incarnation and the other human works of Christ, nevertheless only the Son of God was incarnated, died, was buried, rose again, and ascended into heaven. The example regarding the clergy is in the syllogism: it should be said thus. Every man has a soul. Peter is a man. Therefore, Peter has a soul. It is manifest that this conclusion, namely that Peter has a soul, was made by the will, memory, and intellect or reason. For if the will had not willed to syllogize, the aforementioned conclusion would not have been had; and if the memory had not retained the premises, it would not have assented to the conclusion; and if reason had not syllogized, the conclusion would not be had. And yet, although these three work the conclusion, nevertheless only reason is said to syllogize. It is similar in the Trinity regarding the Incarnation of the Son of God, because the Incarnation is appropriate only to the Son of God. ¶ Fourth, it is to be seen how the Son of God was made man. And it is to be said that he was made man through the assumption of a soul and body, from which man consists. But it must be guarded here that because from the union of soul and body a human person is constituted, it is said that man is this; in Christ it was not so: but there was only a divine person and not a human one. For the union of the two natures was made in one divine person and not of two persons in one nature. Thus, therefore, the person of the Word of God, from the fact that he assumed a soul and flesh from which man consists, was made man, human nature, who is always true God in the divine nature; and therefore that which he was, he remained; and that which he was not, he assumed. Whether the Son of God according to human nature performed all human things, such as nativity and death, and according to divine nature performed all the works which only he could do. However, the contrary did not happen in death, because the Son of God is not said to have died from the fact that he dismissed his soul and flesh, which he never dismissed. Thus he is said to have been made man because he assumed a body and soul. But he is said to have died from the fact that the soul was separated from the flesh; thus other men are said to die from the fact that the soul is separated from the flesh. ¶ Fifth, it is to be seen why only the Son of God is said to be incarnated and not the Father nor the Holy Spirit. And we say that the Incarnation is appropriate to the Son and not to the Father nor to the Holy Spirit. For through the Incarnation, the Son of God was made the son of the Virgin, for the reason of son is that he be generated and born and have a father and a mother; which is not appropriate to the Father nor to the Holy Spirit, but only to the Son. And therefore the Son of God, eternally begotten by the Father, began in time to have a mother and to be born of her. And because all things that pertain to the reason of sonship are appropriate to him and not to the Father or the Holy Spirit, therefore he alone ought to be incarnated. Also, the Son of God is the power and wisdom of God, ordering all things and perfecting all things, as is said in 1 Corinthians 1. If, therefore, the Father had come into the world to teach men