Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁵ These things He did, yet was He despised by the many, who considered not so much what great things He did, as how small He was; as though they said within themselves, “These are divine things, but He is a man.” Two things then you see, divine works, and a man. If divine works cannot be wrought but by God, take heed lest in This Man God lie concealed. Attend, I say, to what you see; believe what you see not. He has not abandoned you, who has called you to believe; though He enjoin you to believe that which you can not see: yet has He not given you up to see nothing whereby you may be able to believe what you do not see.

Is the creation itself a small sign, a small indication of the Creator? He also came, He did miracles. You could not see God, a man you could, so God was made Man, that in One you might have both what to see, and what to believe. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Thus you hear, and as yet see not. Lo, He comes, lo, He is born, lo, He comes forth of a woman, who made man and woman. He who made man and woman was not made by man and woman.

For you would perhaps have been likely to despise Him for being born, the manner of His birth can you not despise; for He ever was before that He was born. Lo, I say, He took a Body, He was clothed in Flesh, He came forth from the womb. Do you now see? Do you see now, I say? I ask as to the Flesh, but I point out as to That Flesh; something you see, and something you see not. Lo, in this very Birth, there are at once two things, one which you may see, and another you may not see; but so that by this which you see, you may believe that which you see not.

You had begun to despise, because you see Him who was born; believe what you do not see, that He was born of a virgin. “How trifling a person,” says one, “is he who was born!” But how great is He who was of a virgin born! And He who was born of a virgin brought you a temporal miracle; He was not born of a father, of any man, I mean, His father, yet was He born of the flesh. But let it not seem impossible to you, that He was born by His mother only, Who made man before father and mother.