Section CXLVIII

Unless perhaps these things appear more splendid to someone, which Zeno of Verona subjoined after describing the ruin of the human race¹, saying²:

When these things had thus continued for a long time, that most skillful artificer of things, the Son of God, whose wisdom has no end and whose strength has no measure, descended from heaven through love of his own image. He illumines the lodging of the virginal womb, and there encloses God in man³. He makes use both of mortal appearance and mortal condition⁴. He teaches that justice procures immortality; by deeds he consummates the precepts. Finally, he underwent death so that, when it had been conquered, by rising again he might through man—the man whom he bore—both bring to man the hope of conquering death and admit him to the rewards of immortality. Thus it came about that, just as through the condemnation of one condemnation extended to all men, so through the justification of one the justification of eternal life might extend to all men⁵. Do you now see clearly that there was providence in the assumption of man, a mystery in the Passion, and the highest good in the Resurrection?

Certainly we see 1) that there was providence in the assumption of man, and we have its very fountain and the noble origin of this providence among things known and ascertained. For the love with which the Only-begotten pursued his own image brought it about that he himself descended from heaven, illumined the lodging of the virginal womb, and completed the human οἰκονομία even unto the cross. But he completed it by that order of providence in such a way that, after the manner of a most skillful artificer, he did not cast away his work, but wisely repaired it after it had fallen and forcefully vindicated it into liberty after it had been sold and taken captive.

We see 2) the mystery of the Passion and death tending to this: that the triumph over death to be borne away by all might be foreshadowed in the head, that hope of it might be given to all, and that all might promise themselves the reward of immortality.

Finally, we see 3) the highest good in the Resurrection, in which is contained the fullest sealing of universal reparation. To Zeno is added Jerome, a witness greater than every exception to this universal reparation through Christ. After he has brought forward the words of Scripture⁶, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” and appended this commentary to them⁷, “But the blood itself is precious in which we are redeemed in the Passion of the Lord and Savior, whose flesh we eat and whose blood we drink,” with only a few things interposed he proceeds⁸:

For he assumed a human body and through sin destroyed sin, who grieves for us and bears our infirmities; then, “for his house,” which is written in the Seventy but is not contained in the Hebrew: that is, for the Church and for all the people of the earth, namely, for the whole human race. For he is the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world.