Happy Christmas!

A Christmas sermon from Augustine and a greeting from your friendly local Defense Against the Dark Arts professor

A Christmas sermon from Augustine of Hippo, preached in the early fifth century:

“The Word of the Father, by Whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born in time for us.

“He, without whose divine permission no day completes its course, wished to have one day set aside for His human birth.

“In the bosom of His Father, He existed before all the cycles of ages; born of an earthly mother, He entered upon the course of the years on this day.

“Man’s maker became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nurse at His mother’s breast;
that He, the Bread, might hunger;
the Fountain, might thirst;
the Light, might sleep;
the Way, might be wearied by the journey;
the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses;
the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge;
that He, Justice, might be condemned by the unjust;
that He, Discipline, might be scourged with whips;
that He, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross;
that Courage might be weakened;
that Healer might be wounded;
that Life itself might die.

“To endure these and similar indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures, He who existed as the Son of God before all ages, without a beginning, deigned to become the Son of Man in these recent years.

“He did this although He who submitted to such great evils for our sake had done no evil and although we, who were the recipients of so much good at His hands, had done nothing to merit these benefits.

“Begotten by the Father, He was not made by the Father. He was made Man in the mother whom He Himself had made, so that He might exist here for a while, sprung from her who could never and nowhere have existed except through His power.”

—Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 191