St. Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo (in Northern Africa) from AD 395 – 430. Some of his Christmas sermons have been published in the Ancient Christian Writers series – St. Augustine: Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany (The Newman Press, 1952). Following are selected excerpts that summarize his Trinitarian Christology.
Listen, dearly beloved, and see what sound advice the Apostle has for us when he says: As therefore you have received Christ Jesus our Lord, walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and confirmed in the faith. With this simple and solid faith we ought to persevere in Him, that He may Himself make known to the faithful what is hidden in Him; for, as the same Apostle says, in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.[1]
Consider that first begetting: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Whose Word was it? God’s own. What Word? The Son Himself. The Father never was without the Son; yet He who was never without the Son, begot the Son. He begot Him, but He did not give Him a beginning. He who was begotten without a beginning, has no beginning. Yet He is the Son, yet He was begotten.[2]
Before He was made, He was; and His was the power, because He was all-powerful, to be made and to remain what He was. Abiding with His Father, He made for Himself a mother; and when He was made in the womb of His mother, He remained in the heart of His Father. How could He have ceased to be God when He began to be man? …because the Word was made flesh, the Word did not become flesh by ceasing to be; on the contrary, the flesh, lest it should cease to be, was joined to the Word, so that, just as man is body and soul, Christ might be God and man, not in a confusion of nature, but in the unity of a person.[3]
Creator of heaven and earth, He was born on earth under heaven. Unspeakably wise, He is wisely speechless; filling the world, He lies in a manger; Ruler of the stars, He nurses at His mother’s bosom. He is both great in the nature of God, and small in the form of a servant, but so that His greatness is not diminished by His smallness, nor His smallness overwhelmed by His greatness. For He did not desert His divine works when He took to Himself human members. Nor did He cease to reach from end to end mightily, and to order all things sweetly, when, having put on the infirmity of the flesh, He was received into the Virgin’s womb, not confined therein.[4]
Let no-one, therefore, believe that the Son of God was changed or transformed into the Son of man; but rather let us believe that He, remaining the Son of God, was made the Son of man, without loss of His divine substance and by a perfect assumption of the human substance.[5]
He was born, yet is not bound to time. He was born from eternity—eternal, coeternal. Why do you marvel? He is God. Consider His divinity, and the cause of your marveling vanishes. And when we say, “He was born of a virgin,” this is something extraordinary—you marvel. He is God! You must not marvel. Let our surprise yield to thanksgiving. Have faith; believe…[6]
Believe, therefore, that the Son is equal to the Father; but yet that the Son is of the Father, and the Father is not of the Son. The source is with the Father, equality with the Son. For if He is not equal, He is not a true Son. Indeed, what are we saying, Brethren? If He is not equal, He is less… The Son is God of God the Father; God the Father is God, but not of the Son. At the same time God the Son is equal with the Father—born equal, not born less; not made equal, but born equal. What the one is, the other who was born is also. Has the Father ever been without the Son? Heaven forbid! Take away the word “ever” where there is no time. The Father has always been, the Son has always been. The Father is without beginning of time, the Son is without beginning of time. Never was the Father before the Son, never was the Father without the Son. But yet—because the Son is God of God the Father, and the Father is God, but not of God the Son: let us not therefore fret over honoring the Son in the Father. In fact, when we honor the Son, we give honor to the Father; we do not detract from His divinity.[7]
But here He has shown us that no human being, regardless of sex, should be without hope. The human sexes are male and female. Now then, if He, manifesting Himself as a man—and obviously it was proper for Him to be such—had not been born of a woman, women might have despaired of themselves; they would have been mindful of their first sin, of the fact that it was through woman that the first man was deceived; and they would have thought that they had no hope whatever in Christ. He came, then, as a man to give the male sex special preference; and He was born of a woman to console the female sex. It was as though He addressed them and said: “That you might know that of itself God’s creature is not bad, but only an evil desire has perverted it—in the beginning when I made man, I made them male and female. I do not condemn my own creation. See, I have been born a man; see, I have been born of a woman. It is not, therefore, my own creation that I condemn, but the sins which are not my handiwork.” Let each sex see its own honor, let each confess its own guilt, and let them both hope for salvation… The woman in Paradise announced death to her husband; and so, too, the women in the Church announced salvation to the men. The Apostles were to announce Christ’s Resurrection to the nations; women announced it to the Apostles. Therefore, let no one misrepresent the fact that Christ was born of a woman. The Deliverer could not have been defiled by that sex; and as its Creator He could not but show it favor.[8]
Let men rejoice, let women rejoice. Christ was born Man; He was born of woman. Both sexes have been honored. Let him, therefore, who had been condemned before in the first man, now become a follower of the Second Man. A woman had been the cause of our death; a woman, again, gave birth to life for us. The likeness of sinful flesh was born to purify the sinful flesh. For that reason do not let the flesh be found with sin, but let sin die that nature may live; for He was born without sin, that he who was with sin might be reborn.[9]
By His birth of an earthborn mother He hallowed this one day who by His birth of the Father was the Creator of all ages. In the one birth a mother was impossible, while for the other no human father was required. In fact, Christ was born both of a father and of a mother, both without a father and without a mother; of a father as God, of a mother as man; without a mother as God, without a father as man. Who, then, shall declare His generation? The one is without time, the other without seed; the one without beginning, the other without parallel; the one which has always been, the other which has never been before or since; the one which does not end, the other which begins where it ends.[10]
He lies in a manger, but He holds the world. He nurses at His mother’s breasts, but He feeds the angels. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but He gives us the garment of immortality. He is given milk, but at the same time is adored. He finds no room at the inn, but He builds a temple for Himself in the hearts of those who believe.[11]
This is a manifestation of power that is astonishing indeed; but deserving of greater admiration is the act of mercy, that He who was able to be born in such a way, determined to be born. Begotten the only Child of His mother, He already was the Only-begotten of His Father; and He, Maker of His own mother, was made in His mother. Existing from eternity with His Father, He is to-day born of His mother! Made from His mother after His mother, but from the Father before all things—without having been made! Without Him the Father never was, and without Him His mother would never have been![12]
How great is the multitude of His sweetness which He has hidden for them that fear Him, and which He has wrought for them that hope in Him! For we know in part … until that which is perfect is come. That we might show ourselves fit to receive this perfection, He, equal to the Father in the form of God, made like to us in the form of a servant, reforms us to the likeness of God; and the only Son of God, having been made a son of man, makes many sons of man sons of God; and the servants that have been nourished by the visible form of the servant, are made freemen by Him so that they may see the form of God. For we are the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. And we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is.[13]
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of man as well as the Son of God, born of the Father without a mother, created all days. By His birth from a mother, but without a father, He consecrated this day. In His divine birth He was invisible; in His human birth, visible; in both births, awe-inspiring.[14]
He came, therefore, in the flesh to cleanse the vices of the flesh. He came born of the earth, a Physician to heal our inner eyes which this our outer world had made blind; thus, when He has healed them, we who were heretofore darkness are made light in the Lord, and the light will no longer shine in darkness as a light present for such as are absent, but will become visible to seers of the truth.[15]
This is the Lord our God, this is the Mediator of God and man: a Man, our Savior; who, born of the Father, created even His mother; who, born of His mother, glorified even the Father. Without birth by woman, He is the only Son of the Father; without embrace of man, His mother bore Him as her only Son. This is He who is beautiful above the sons of men, Son of holy Mary, Bridegroom of Holy Church whom He has made like His own mother; for He has given her to us to be our mother and keeps her a virgin for Himself.[16]
Rejoice, you who are just. It is the birthday of Him who justifies. Rejoice, you who are weak and sick. It is the birthday of Him who makes well. Rejoice, you who are in captivity. It is the birthday of the Redeemer. Rejoice, you who are slaves. It is the birthday of the Master. Rejoice, you who are free. It is the birthday of Him who makes free. Rejoice, you Christians all. It is Christ’s birthday![17]
[1] Augustine, “Agreement of the Evangelists Matthew and Luke in the Lord’s Genealogy,” in St. Augustine: Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, ed. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, trans. Thomas Comerford Lawler, vol. 15, Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 1952), 29.
[2] Ibid, Sermon 14, 129.
[3] Ibid, Sermon 4, 80–81.
[4] Ibid, Sermon 5, 85–86.
[5] Ibid, Sermon 5, 87.
[6] Ibid, Sermon 7, 99.
[7] Ibid, The Words in the Gospel of John, 12:44–50, 139–140.
[8] Ibid, Agreement of the Evangelists Matthew and Luke in the Lord’s Genealogy, 26–27.
[9] Ibid, The Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 73.
[10] Ibid, The Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 74.
[11] Ibid, Sermon 8, 105–106.
[12] Ibid, Sermon 10, 113.
[13] Ibid, Sermon 12, 123.
[14] Ibid, Sermon 13, 126.
[15] Ibid, Sermon 13, 128.
[16] Ibid, Sermon 13, 127.
[17] Ibid, The Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 74.
