But we grieve and grieve much for the ignorance born partly of vice, and partly of pagan superstition, for though they may all revere the Creator of the wonderful light more than the created light itself, yet we ought to avoid even the very hint of this rite. For when he who has forsaken idolatry comes to us, how can he renounce the ancient superstition (which is present in him on a par with the acceptable [views]), seeing that it is characteristic of both the pagan and the Christian?

Therefore, let reprehensible conduct be excluded from the daily routine of the faithful, and let the rites of those who worship created things not affect the honor that befits God alone. For the Divine Scripture says: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. 4:10). And blessed Job, a man without reproach, as the Lord says, and shunning evil (Job 1:8), said: "Looking at the sun, how it shines, and at the moon, how it walks majestically, have I been deceived in the mystery of my heart, and have my lips kissed my hand? It would also be a crime to be tried; because I would then deny the Most High God? (Job 31:26-28). What is the sun, and what is the moon, if not the manifestation of the visible creation and the tangible light, the one more radiant and the other less radiant? There is a distinction between day and night time, which is why the Creator made a distinction between the luminaries, but before it became so, there was a day without the usual sun and a night without a moon.

They were created for the benefit of man, so that a rational being would not be confused either in the recognition of the months, or in the cycle of years, or in the calculation of time. For the sun sets the order of different lengths of hours [ [1]], the various constellations in the morning sky, as well as the years, and the moon directs the change of months. For on the fourth day, as we read... God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven [to illuminate the earth, and] to separate the day from the night, and for signs, and times, and days, and years; and let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven, to shine on the earth (Gen. 1:14-15).

V. Take heart, O man, and know the dignity of your nature. Remember that you were created in the image of God, which, although it was corrupted in Adam, was then restored in Christ. And use it as you should use tangible things, and as you make use of the earth, the sea, the sky, the air, the fountains of water, and fire. And all that is beautiful and wonderful in them, attribute to the glory of the Creator. And do not be a slave to that light, which is also enjoyed by birds and reptiles, wild animals and livestock, flies and worms. Touch the bodily light with the organs of sight, but at the same time, with every movement of the mind, comprehend that true Light Which enlightens every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9) and of Whom the prophet says: "Whoever has turned his gaze to Him have been enlightened, and their faces shall not be ashamed" (Psalm 33:6). If we are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), then what every faithful person keeps in his heart is much greater than what attracts our attention in heaven.

But, beloved, we do not proclaim and advise you this at all, so that you may be arrogant about the things created by God, or that you may say something contrary to your faith about what the good God has done good (Gen. 1:18), but in order that you may make reasonable and moderate use of all the beauty of created things and all the splendor of this world, as the Apostle says: ... for the visible is temporary, but the invisible is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Thus, being born for the present, and regenerated for the future, we must devote ourselves not to temporary, but to eternal good. And in order to better discern our hope, we recognize in the very Mystery of the Nativity of the Lord that which Divine mercy has given to our nature. So let us hearken to the Apostle, who says: For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ, your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:3-4) — with Him Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Homily VIII on the Nativity of the Lord

I. Although, beloved, the divine utterances always impel us to rejoice in the Lord, yet today, without a doubt, we are called even more strongly to spiritual rejoicing, for the Mystery of the Nativity of the Lord has shone even more brightly for us. Therefore, turning again to that inexplicable worship of Divine mercy, when the Creator of men was vouchsafed to become man, we find ourselves in the nature of Him Whom we worship in ourselves. For God is the Son of God, the Only-begotten of the Eternal and Unbegotten Father, always remaining in the image of God (Phil. 2:6), and not differing from the Father in immutability and timelessness, without diminishing His greatness, He took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7); in His Own He exalted us, and did not lower Himself in us. Therefore, both natures, while remaining unchanged in their properties, came together in such a union that everything belonging to God was not separated from human nature, and everything belonging to man was not separated from divinity.

II. As we celebrate, beloved, the birthday of the Lord the Saviour, let us fully comprehend the meaning of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and believe that at no time has there been a lack of the power of the Word for the soul and body that has been received, and that never before has there been an incarnate and animated temple of the Body of Christ (John 2:21) that could be appropriated by some pretender who has appeared. But it was through Him and in Him that the beginning of the new man was laid, so that in one Son of God and man there would be divinity without the Mother and human nature without the Father. For by the Holy Spirit, the fertilized virginity at the same time laid the foundation for both the corrected offspring of his race and the Creator of his ancestors. Therefore, one and the same Lord, according to the Evangelist, demanded of the Jews that they, following the will of the Scriptures, learn from His Son, Christ, and when they answered that the One who is coming will appear from the seed of David, He said: "How then does David, by inspiration, call Him Lord, when he says: The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool' (Matt. 22:43-44)? But the Jews could not answer the question posed, for they did not understand that in Christ alone both the descendants of David and the Divine nature were preached.

III. But the greatness of the Son of God, equal to the Father, as it did not fear to bow down when it clothed itself in servile humility, did not need to increase; and the merciful act performed for the restoration of man [by which the creation created in the image of God was snatched from the clutches of a terrible despot] could only be accomplished by the power of God. When the demonic devil rebelled against the first man, the latter was in his power, not without his own consent. Therefore, voluntary sin and sinister design had to be destroyed in such a way that the model of justice would not become an obstacle to the gift of mercy. After the general fall of the human race, under the cover of the Divine plan, there remained only one remedy that could help those who found themselves in the embrace of vice, namely, that the sons of Adam were to be born innocent and alien to the original cooperation, and He could help the rest both by example and by beneficence. But since the generation that came into being in a natural way was incapable of this, its offspring could not be born without the seed of the defiled principle, as the Scripture says: "Who shall be born clean of the unclean? Not one (Job 14:4). Therefore the Lord of David became the son of David, and from the fruit of the promised escape came descendants without sin, and a double nature came together in the Person. And by such conception and birth is born our Lord Jesus Christ, that both true Divinity in miraculous deeds and true humanity in the endurance of the passions are inherent in Him.

IV. The catholic faith, beloved, rejects the errors of the abusive heretics, who, deceived by the emptiness of worldly wisdom, have deviated from the truths of the Gospel, and, not wishing to understand the incarnation of the Word, have made for themselves the cause of blindness from a fountain of light. For among the faithful, who are seized with false thoughts, who seek to deny the Holy Spirit, we consider to be completely astray only those who do not confess in Christ the truth of the two natures in one Person. Some ascribe only humanity to the Lord, others only Divinity. Others [recognize] in Him the true Godhead, but at the same time they say that there was only a likeness of the flesh. Others, however, confessing that He had taken on true flesh, but did not have the nature of God the Father, and attributing to His divinity dependence on human nature, have invented for themselves a greater and lesser God, although in true Divinity there can be no gradations, for everything that is lower than God is no longer God. Others, however, believing that there is no distance between the Father and the Son (since they are unable to conceive of the unity of the Divinity except as the identity of persons), have declared Him to be the Father, Whom is also the Son, so that birth and growth, suffering and death, burial and Resurrection refer also to Him Who fills both man and the Word in all things. Some decided that the Lord Jesus Christ had a body alien to ours and consisting of parts higher and more subtle. Others have suggested that there was no human soul in the flesh of Christ, but that the place allotted to it was filled by the very divinity of the Word. Moreover, their ignorance reaches such a point that, while acknowledging the existence of the soul in the Lord, they assert that it is devoid of reason, because for all manifestations of reason, Divinity alone is sufficient for Him. Finally, they presumptuously claim that a certain part of the Word has become flesh. Thus, in the manifold variability of only one dogma, not only the nature of soul and body is destroyed, but also the essence of the Word Himself.

V. There are many other monstrous inventions, the enumeration of which should not tire your attention. But having [set forth] the essence of the various errors which are connected by kinship with heresies, I call upon your vigilance to resolutely reject them. Of these, one, having arisen once through the fault of Nestorius, was deservedly cursed, and the other, later condemned by a proper curse, appeared thanks to the zealot Eutyches. For Nestorius dared to call the blessed Virgin Mary the mother of man, implying that in the conception and birth [of Christ] there was no union of the Word and the flesh, for the Son of God did not Himself become the son of man, but united Himself with the already created man only through benevolence. Likewise, this is by no means able to bear the ears of the people of the Church, who are so imbued with the truth of the Gospel that they know most certainly: there can be no hope of salvation for the human race, except if He is the Son of the Virgin, Who is also the Creator of the Mother.

Eutyches, an ignorant zealot for sacrilege, while nevertheless acknowledging in Christ the union of the two natures, [asserted] that in union of the two [natures] only one is preserved, while the other, either through exhaustion or through separation, necessarily disappears. All this is so hostile to the true faith that it is impossible to accept it without losing the name of a Christian. For if the incarnation of the Word consists in the union of the divine and human natures, and when the double is united, then the Divinity alone was born from the womb of the Virgin, and it alone was nourished and grew bodily under a mystified form, so that, deprived of all bodily manifestations, the Divinity alone died, and the Divinity alone was buried. If we follow such reasoning, then there is no longer any place for the expected resurrection, and Christ is not at all the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18), for if there was no One Who could become a sacrifice, then there was no One Who was to be resurrected.

VI. Let your hearts, beloved, be free from the pernicious imaginations of the devil's admonitions, and knowing that the eternal divinity of the Son was created without any addition to the Father (1 John 1:2), prudently grasp what has been said about the nature of Adam: "Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3:19), whereas of it it is said in Christ: "Sit at my right hand" (Psalm 109:1). Following the nature in which Christ is equal to the Father, the Only-begotten was never lower than the height of the Parent, and the glory [shared] with the Father is not temporary with Him Who is in the very right hand of the Father, of whom it is said in Exodus: "Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorified in power" (Exodus 15:6); And also by Isaiah: [Lord!] who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? (Isaiah 53:1).