Section CLX

And in very truth, says Leo¹:

Our Savior was born today; let us rejoice. For it is not right that there be a place for sadness where there is the birthday of life, which, after consuming the fear of—

“—mortality, bestows upon us joy concerning the promised eternity. No one is separated from participation in this gladness; one reason for joy is common to all, because our Lord, the destroyer of sin and death, just as he found no one free from guilt, so came for the liberation of all. Let the saint exult, because he approaches the palm. Let the sinner rejoice, because he is invited to pardon. Let the gentile take courage, because he is called to life. For the Son of God, according to the fullness of time which the inscrutable height of the divine counsel disposed, assumed the nature of the human race in order to reconcile it to its author, so that the devil, the inventor of death, might be conquered through that very nature which he had conquered.”

And he would be conquered by that triumph whereby the universal nature of men would be repaired.

For² among all the works of God’s mercy which from the beginning have been expended for the salvation of mortals, there is nothing more admirable, nothing more sublime, than that Christ was crucified for the world. For all the mysteries of preceding ages served this mystery; and whatever was varied by sacred dispensation in the differences of victims, in prophetic signs, and in legal institutions, announced beforehand that which had been disposed and promised that which was to be fulfilled, so that now, when images and figures have ceased, it profits us to believe already accomplished that which formerly profited men to believe was to be done.

And it was to be done not merely for the benefit of some, but of absolutely all, even of those who perished eternally through their own perfidy.

For whatever mockery and contumely, whatever vexation and punishment, the fury of the impious inflicted upon the Lord³, was tolerated not from necessity but assumed by his will; for⁴ the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which had perished. And he so used the malice of his persecutors for the redemption of all that, in the mystery of his death and resurrection, even his slayers could be saved if they believed. Hence you, Judas, were more criminal than all and more unhappy: penance did not call you back to the Lord, but despair drew you to the noose. Had you awaited the consummation of your crime and delayed—

“—the hideous hanging of your death until the blood of Christ was poured out for all sinners! And although so many miracles of the Lord, so many gifts, tormented your conscience, at least those mysteries which you had received at the paschal supper, when you had already been exposed in your perfidy by the sign of divine knowledge, would have called you back from your precipice. Why do you distrust his goodness, who did not repel you from communion in his body and blood? Who, when you came with the crowds and a cohort of armed men to seize him, did not deny you the kiss⁵ of peace? But, an inconvertible man, a spirit⁶ going and not returning, you followed the madness of your heart; and with the devil standing at your right hand, you turned back upon your own head the iniquity which you had armed against the head of all the saints, so that, because your crime had exceeded every measure of vengeance, your impiety might have you as its judge and your punishment might suffer you as its executioner.”

This would by no means have happened if despair had allowed a place for confidence, as was necessary.

For the Passion⁷ of Christ contains the mystery of our salvation, and from the instrument which the iniquity of the Jews prepared for punishment, the power of the Redeemer made for us a step unto glory. The Lord Jesus so undertook this for the salvation of all men that, amid the nails by which he was held fast to the wood, he entreated the paternal clemency for his slayers and said⁸: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Nor⁹ is this wonderful:

For the victory of the cross has been denied to none of the infirm; nor is there anyone whom the prayer of Christ does not assist. If it profited many of those who raged against him, how much more does it assist those who are converted to him? Ignorance has been taken away, difficulty has been tempered, and the sacred blood of Christ has extinguished that fiery sword by which the region of life had been enclosed¹⁰. The obscurity of the ancient night has yielded to the true light. The Christian people is invited to the riches of paradise, and for all—

“—the regenerated a return to the lost fatherland has been opened, if no one causes that way to be closed to himself which could be opened by the faith of the thief.”

That way would certainly lie open to absolutely all, were there not those who obstruct it for themselves.

For it must be confessed¹¹ what the blessed teacher of the gentiles, Paul the Apostle, confessed with a glorious voice¹², saying: “A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.” For herein the mercy of God toward us is more wonderful: that Christ died¹³ not for the just nor for the holy, but for the unjust and impious; and although the nature of divinity could not receive the sting of death, nevertheless by being born from us he assumed that which he could offer for us. For long ago he threatened our death with the power of his death, saying¹⁴ through Hosea the prophet: “O death, I shall be your death, and I shall be your bite, O hell.” For by dying he underwent the laws of hell, but by rising he dissolved them; and he so cut short the perpetuity of death as to make it temporal from eternal. For just as¹⁵ all die in Adam, so in Christ all shall be made alive.

For the malignity¹⁶ of the devil:

poured out just blood, which, by reconciling the world, would be both its price and its drink. The Lord assumed that which he chose according to the purpose of his will. He admitted against himself the impious hands of those who raged, which, while they pressed upon their own crime, served the Redeemer. So great was the affection of his piety even toward his slayers that, entreating the Father from the cross, he asked not that he himself be avenged but that they be forgiven¹⁷, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And it was surely from the power of this prayer that the preaching of Peter the Apostle converted to penance the hearts of many—

“—of those who had said¹⁸: ‘His blood be upon us and upon our sons’; and in one day almost three thousand Jews were baptized¹⁹, and the heart and soul of all were made one, now prepared to die for him whom they had demanded to be crucified.

Judas the betrayer could not²⁰ attain this indulgence²¹, because, as a son of perdition at whose right hand the devil²² stood, he passed into despair before Christ fulfilled the mystery of general redemption. For after the Lord had died for all the impious, even he could perhaps²³ have obtained a remedy if he had not hastened to the noose. But upon his malignant heart, now devoted to the deceits of theft, now occupied with parricidal dealings, none of the teachings of the Savior’s mercy had ever settled. With impious ears he had received the words of the Lord saying²⁴: “I came not to call the just, but sinners”; and, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which had perished.” Nor had he understood the clemency of Christ, who not only healed bodily infirmities but also cured the wounds of feeble souls, saying²⁵ to the paralytic: “Be constant, son; your sins are remitted to you”; and saying to the adulteress²⁶ brought before him: “Neither shall I condemn you; go, and henceforth sin no more,” so that through all his works he might show that in that advent of his he had come as the Savior of the world, not as Judge. Estranged from this understanding, the impious betrayer rose against himself, not by the judgment of one repenting but by the fury of one perishing, so that he who had sold the author of life to his slayers might, unto the increase of his condemnation, sin even by dying.”

But he sinned for this reason, that he cast away hope²⁷:

“Since he who came to save sinners did not deny mercy even to his very slayers, but changed the evil of the impious into the good of believers, so that the grace of God, mercifully prepared not according to the merits of men but according to the multitude of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, might become more wonderful when the wave²⁸ of baptism received even those who had poured out the blood of the Savior… . Therefore, because the Lord Jesus Christ willed to suffer the fury of those who raged, he was in no way the author²⁹ of their crimes. He did not bring it about that they willed this, but yielded so that they could; and thus he used the madness of the blinded people, just as also the perfidy of the betrayer, whom he deigned to call back from the savagery of the crime conceived both by benefits and by words: assuming him as a disciple, advancing him as an apostle, admonishing him by signs, consecrating him by mysteries, so that for him nothing of benevolence might be lacking for correction and no occasion might remain for crime.

“But³⁰ you, most impious man, … believed the devil’s incitements more useful to you, so that, inflamed by the torches of avarice, you might burn for the gain of thirty pieces of silver and not see what riches you were losing… . Hence the crime of your transaction is to be detested not because you valued the Lord cheaply, but because, that you might not spare yourself, you sold even your Redeemer. And deservedly your punishment was entrusted to you, because no one could be found more savage than you for your punishment.”