In last Sunday's Gospel, we read that our Lord bore witness to the exalted dignity of St. John the Baptist, declaring that he was "more than a prophet." In today's Gospel, St. John in turn gives testimony to the far higher dignity of our Lord, the latchet of whose shoes, he affirms, he is not worthy to loose. Christ was not only a great prophet like John, He was also the Word Incarnate, the true light that shone in darkness, but was not comprehended by the darkness (John i. 5-8); He was the Eternal (John i. 15), the true Son of God (John i. 34). As the majority of the Jews failed to recognize the Divinity of Christ to whom St. John bore testimony, so do many today fail to acknowledge that same divine Saviour witnessed to by His Church.

I. Christ is true God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. The Divinity of Christ is much denied in our day. This dogma, however, is proved: 1. By prophecies, which foretold that our Lord would be "Emmanuel," i.e., God with us (Is. vii. 14), that He would be "God the Mighty, Father of the world to come" (Is. ix. 6), that He would be "The Lord our just one " (Jer. xxiii. 6), etc. 2. By the testimony of our Lord Himself before the high priest (Matt. xxvi. 64), and on other occasions when He states that He and the Father are one (John x. 38), etc. 3. By our Lord's miracles and prophecies, which are the divine guarantee of the truth of His claims.

II. Jesus Christ was born of the Father from all eternity. l. This eternal generation is wonderful and incomprehensible, unlike human generation, and is best illustrated by the manner in which an idea is begotten of our mind. 2. Jesus Christ is equal to the Father in all things, as having the same Divine Nature. 3. Jesus Christ had no beginning, as He was begotten before all ages.

III. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures,--the nature of God and the nature of man. As God He was born of the Father before all ages; as man He was born of the Virgin Mary in time. Illustration: A man is but one person, although he is composed of body and soul; in a similar manner Christ is but one person, though He has both a human and a divine nature. The one person in Christ is the Person of God the Son.

CONCLUSION. l. Faith in the Divinity of Christ is the foundation of the Christian religion and of our salvation. 2. Exhortation to this belief against prevalent errors. " Every one . . . that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. x. 32).


Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part I

ARTICLE II OF THE CREED
CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, AND TRUE GOD

His only Son. In these words, mysteries more exalted with regard to Jesus are proposed to the faithful as objects of their belief and contemplation--that He is the Son of God, and true God, like the Father who begot Him from eternity. We also confess that He is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, equal in all things to the Father and the Holy Ghost; for in the divine Persons nothing unequal or unlike should exist, or even be imagined to exist, since we acknowledge the essence, will, and power of all to be one. This truth is clearly revealed in many of the oracles of inspiration and sublimely announced in this testimony of St. John: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."(l)

HIS ETERNAL GENERATION IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE

But when we are told that Jesus is the Son of God, we are not to understand anything earthly or mortal in His birth, but are firmly to believe and piously to adore that birth by which, from all eternity, the Father begot the Son,--a mystery which reason cannot fully conceive or comprehend, and at the contemplation of which, overwhelmed as it were with admiration, we should exclaim with the prophet: " Who shall declare his generation? (2) On this point, then, we are to believe that the Son is of the same nature, of the same power and wisdom, with the Father, as we more fully profess in these words of the Nicene Creed: "And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, born of the Father before all ages, God of God, true God of true God, begotten, not made, con-substantial to the Father, by whom all things were made."

Among the different comparisons employed to elucidate the mode and manner of this eternal generation that which is borrowed from thought seems to come nearest to its illustration, and hence St. John calls the Son " the Word;"(3) for as the mind, in some sort looking into and understanding itself, forms an image of itself, which theologians express by the term " word," so God, as far as we may compare human things to divine, understanding Himself, begets the eternal Word. Better, however, to contemplate what faith proposes, and in the sincerity of our souls believe and confess that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, --as God, begotten of the Father before all ages; as man, born in time of Mary, his Virgin Mother.

HIS UNITY OF PERSON

While we thus acknowledge His twofold nativity, we believe Him to be one Son, because His divine and human natures meet in one person. As to His divine generation He has no brethren or coheirs, being the only begotten Son of the Father, while we mortals are the work of His hands. But if we consider His birth as man, He not only calls many by the name of brethren, but regards them as brethren--they are those who by faith have received Christ the Lord, and who really, and by works of charity, approve the faith which they internally profess; and hence it is that He is called by the Apostle, "the first born amongst many brethren."(4)


Sermons

THE SECOND PERSON: TRUE GOD
BY THE REV. H. G. HUGHES

I. "What think you of Christ?"

"What think you of Christ?"-- a question, my dear brethren, formulated nearly two thousand years ago by Him concerning whom it is asked; a question imperative and insistent, the tones of which have not ceased and will not cease to re-echo through the world; a question which, whether they will or whether they will not, forces itself upon the attention of mankind.

It is a question all-important. How much depends upon the answer? Is there a Saviour from sin? Is there One who will lift me up when I have fallen, who will set my feet upon the Rock ? Is there One to whom I can turn in my misery and defilement, knowing that He hath power to cleanse and save ? Is there One to whom I can go in trouble and perplexity, knowing that He hath suffered too, that He can sympathize, can enlighten, for in Him is all the wisdom and knowledge of God? Is there a strong Helper, man even as I, One who was tempted, even as I, yet One who is sinless, to whom I can look as the perfect man, who hath conquered sin, and death, and hell; who being true man, my brother, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, is yet also God, the King Eternal, offering to me the riches of His mercy and His grace, whereby I too may become like to Him, and may save my soul? What hope, what consolation, what a fount of courage and joy and peace if we can answer these questions with a triumphant " Yes! " Whether we can or not depends upon the answer to the question of the Master Himself--"What think you of Christ?"

II. The Answer.

What do we think of Christ ? We think and we say, we most firmly and assuredly believe, that which Jesus said of Himself-- that which the Holy Catholic Church, with the living voice of her continuous tradition, pronounces now, and has pronounced throughout the ages, concerning her Lord and Master from the day when, in the persons of the holy apostles and disciples, she saw Him, in the days of her infancy, ascending to the " right hand of the Father." And, blessed be God, to those questions which I have just asked we can and do reply with a glad affirmative, because through the mercy of God we are able, under the guidance of that Church which Jesus Christ established, to answer aright the question of all questions, " What think you of Christ?"

Never perhaps was there a time in the world's history when men's minds were fuller of anxious interrogations upon all that concerns human life,--its origin, its meaning, its final destiny. This is not an age of quiet, peaceful faith; of acceptance of the teaching of authority. Everything is brought to the test of human reason: not only all theories, but the most sacred beliefs of mankind, are cast into the crucible of inquiry. We need not fear the ultimate result. The truth must and will prevail. But there are sad losses in the meantime; the faith of many is being destroyed, and with it the glorious hope of the future, and the love and charity which alone can make this desert earth to blossom with those noble and gracious virtues which Christian charity --Christian love of God and of men for God's sake--brings in its train.

There is every reason, then, for us Catholics to rouse ourselves; we may not, in the circumstances of our times, lull ourselves to sleep in selfish enjoyment of the truth which is ours. The times and the necessities of so many souls--souls, my brethren, dear to God as ours, redeemed like ours by the Precious Blood of Jesus--the necessities of these souls, I say, demand that every Catholic shall be an apostle of the truth.

You must not leave this to your priests; they have all the work upon their shoulders that they can well perform. You must share their work, under their leadership and guidance. You must be apostles. I do not say that you must throw yourselves into any and every question that is mooted now about religion. No, indeed; far from it. That would be dangerous to your souls and to your faith. You must leave that work to those who by their office and by their training are fitted to do it without peril. No; the question of religion and of religious truth is settled for you. You possess, thank God for it, you possess the holy gift of faith, you are firmly established upon that rock; but you can and ought, each according to his capacity and opportunities, to stretch out from your secure position a helping hand to those who are being carried away to destruction in the bewildering currents of a sea of perplexity and doubt. How are you to do this? First and foremost, by your good and holy lives; but also by a firm and intelligent grasp of the principles of our holy religion. Not in the spirit of skepticism or criticism, but in the spirit of a humble and thankful faith, you must inform yourselves to the best of your ability concerning the doctrines of the Catholic Church, your Mother, that you may be able to give a reason for the faith that is in you; that being yourselves " instructed in the way of the Lord," you may not only save your own souls, but help others on the way of salvation. Our Holy Father the Pope, who at the beginning of his pontificate set before him as his object "to restore all things in Jesus Christ," has pointed out the paramount importance of good and thorough instruction in the truths of religion as a means of gaining that great end, and has traced the evils which afflict society within and without the Church to ignorance of religious truth. And on no point ought a Catholic to be better instructed than on the doctrine of the Church concerning Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, the teachings in which she gives a complete answer to that ever recurring question, "What think you of Christ?" There are thousands asking themselves that question, wishing that they could feel sure of the answer, yet feeling that they cannot. It is for us who have the light of faith, who have the truth about Jesus Christ,--it is for us to be so well grounded in the truth that we may bear unflinching testimony to that blessed truth in the face of the world, and so defeat the forces of incredulity and misbelief by the undaunted firmness of our own belief, and the thoroughness of our knowledge of those sacred doctrines which the Church delivers to us, as well as of the solid ground upon which is based her claim to teach mankind the truth of God.

III. The Catholic Doctrine Developed.

"What think you of Christ?" Ah, my dear brethren, a Catholic child can answer that question with a confidence and a completeness that are beyond the power of worldly science to supply to its votaries. Let us recall the words of the Apostles' Creed-- that ancient confession of the Christian faith. "I believe . . . in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven; sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead." There is the answer; there, in simple language, is the faith of the Apostles and of the Church; Jesus Christ, God, the only begotten Son of the Father; Man, too, born of the Blessed Virgin Mother; God-made Man, Who suffered and died for us; Who rose again, Who sits in glory, in our nature, on the throne of the Godhead; Who is the dread Judge of all.

But today we are concerned with one point only; but that point is the very central truth of Christianity. "What think you of Christ?" asked Christ Himself. "Whose son is he?" And "they say to him, David's. He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word" (Matt. xxii. 42-46). They said the Christ should be the son of David; the Christ Himself who stood before them would have them know that He is more. And now, in our times, when men are giving various and conflicting replies--that He was a religious enthusiast; that He was the greatest and best of men; that in Him human nature reached its highest development; that in his quiet childhood the spirit of the old prophets entered into Him; that the Messianic hopes of His race took so strong a hold upon Him that He came first to desire and then to see their fulfillment in His own person. To these and all such solutions of the great question He Himself, through His own recorded words in Holy Scripture, through the voice of His Church, through her marvelous history and accomplishments, by the lives of His followers and imitators, the saints; by the very power of His religion over the hearts and minds of men, yes, and for those who have come to Him, by the spiritual experience of His mercy and His love--by these and other means Jesus Himself replies to the question: "If I am but what you say and no more, how do all these facts proclaim me God and Lord?" Yes, dear brethren, Jesus Christ is God; the Word of the Father; of one and the same nature or substance with Him; worthy, therefore, of the same worship and adoration and praise.

In the early ages of the Church--indeed from the very beginning of her history--the enemy of mankind raised up false teachers, who would have deprived our blessed Lord of the homage due to His Divinity. A remote tradition tells us that the apostle St. John wrote his Gospel for the express purpose of refuting certain heretics who denied that Christ was God. And he proclaimed the truth in those majestic words with which the fourth Gospel opens:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." "In the beginning with God," from all eternity, that is, He was with God and He was God. He is the almighty Creator of heaven and earth." All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made." And that eternal Word is none other than Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ, that is to say, is God-made-Man. The Second Person of the adorable Trinity become incarnate, having now two natures: the divine nature, which is His from all eternity; the human nature, which He took from His blessed Mother and made His own; for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John i. 14).

God's providence has turned to good the errors and unbelief of men. The great Arian heresy of the fourth century forced the Church to express in terms of great precision, such as should allow of no escape from the truth by any subtlety of argument, the faith delivered to the saints, and held and taught by her from the beginning. To this end did the Church introduce into the Creed, which to this day we recite or sing in the Holy Mass, a word which for all times secures her doctrine against all misconception and all elusiveness of error. Jesus Christ, she proclaims, is con-substantial with the Father. The Arians were willing to exalt Christ high above all other creatures, but they denied His Godhead, They asserted that the Word was a creature, though the highest of creatures; made before all worlds, most perfect and closest to God of all created beings; worthy indeed, by His excellence, of the title "Son of God," nay, even to be called divine by reason of a certain mysterious participation of divinity conferred upon Him. Further, some of the Arian body were willing to go still further, and to say that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, possessed a nature exactly similar to the nature of God the Father. And we must keep in mind that they said this of the nature of the Word of God as He was before the Incarnation.

To all these subtleties the Church had but one answer: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; and this doctrine of St. John she caused to be enshrined in that word con-substantial. Not the highest of creatures, not possessing a participation of divinity conferred upon Him; not even of a nature similar in all respects to that of the Father--no, none of these statements would satisfy the Church; none of them would she nor could she admit of as reconcilable with the Holy Scriptures of which she and she alone is the authorized interpreter, or as consonant with her divinely guided teaching from apostolic times. No! The Word is con-substantial with the Father. What does that mean? It means, dear brethren, that there is but ONE divine nature, and that this one single divine nature is equally possessed of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; not divided or shared out among the Three, but wholly and entirely possessed by each one; so that the Father is all that is God; the Son is all that is God, and the Holy Ghost is all that is God. That divine nature, that Godhead, then, which Jesus Christ Our Lord has, is the very same identical and single divine nature or Godhead as that of the Father. In other words, there is one God, and the Father is that God; the Son also is that God, and the Holy Ghost is that God. Three Persons, but one God.

"Glory be to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Ghost," so Arius taught his followers to sing; " Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost" is the song, at once an aspiration of praise and a confession of the true faith, which the Holy Catholic Church puts into our mouth.

And, dear brethren, He, that gracious One on whom all our hopes are stayed; He, our Saviour; He who knelt in agony and hung upon the Cross; He who lives in heaven now to make intercession for us--He is that Son of God, God Himself, con-substantial with the Father, one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, who with Him are one God in Three Persons. "What think you of Christ? " He is the God of heaven and earth, made man for us and for our salvation.

"Who is Jesus Christ?" we ask our children in the simple words of our Catechism. "Jesus Christ is God the Son made man for us," they reply. "Is Jesus Christ truly God?" "Jesus Christ is truly God." "Why is Jesus Christ truly God?" "Because he has one and the same nature with the Father."

IV. Other Proofs from the New Testament.

But now let us gather from the New Testament some of the many proofs that confirm our faith in the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I have quoted to you already the words in which St. John sets forth, in no uncertain tone, the central truth of Christianity, and the words in which our blessed Lord Himself put the Pharisees to silence, so that " no man durst ask Him any more questions." St. John, in the third chapter of his Gospel, sets before us a pathetic account of a ruler in Israel who, struck by the miracles of Jesus, came secretly by night to interrogate Him. "There was a man of the Pharisees," we read, "Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him: Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him." Then our blessed Lord spoke to him of the new birth, the birth of Baptism, " of water and the Holy Ghost," concluding His discourse in these words: " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting-. For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. . . . He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God." I have chosen this text out of many for the reason that in it Our Lord insists upon that fact which the Church proclaims in her use of the word " con-substantial." Jesus declares Himself to be the " only begotten " Son of the Father. He, Our Lord says, who believes this will not be judged--that is, will not be judged with the judgment of condemnation; he that pertinaciously and willfully refuses to believe this fact is already judged, already condemned, in that by his unbelief, and so long as he remains in his unbelief, he withdraws himself from the way of salvation.

What, then, is the force and significance of the expression twice used here by Jesus Christ concerning Himself,--the only begotten Son of the Father? Even God Himself, dear brethren, speaking to men, must make use of human language; must present divine truths to us under figures of things which we understand. Calling Himself the only begotten of the Father, He teaches us that He, and He alone, stands in a similar relation to His heavenly Father as an only child does to an earthly father. And what is that relation? A son is begotten by his father; the father communicates to his child his own nature--human nature, that is. I and you are human being's because our parents were human beings, and communicated to us the same nature that they themselves possessed. So, then, when Jesus Christ tells us that He is the only begotten Son of God, He tells us that He possesses the same nature as His Father. Human nature, indeed, is multiplied in many individuals of the species; and it is here that the figure used by Our Lord falls short of the divine reality, as all human language must necessarily fall short of things divine. But reason comes to our aid, and we are able, in the light of faith and by the aid of other revealed doctrines, to see where the figure fails. The divine nature, we know, is one and single--though belonging equally to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is not multiplied. So, then, for Jesus Christ to say that He is the only begotten of the Father is equivalent to asserting that He is very God, that He is of the same, one, identical substance or nature as His Father; and this, indeed, is the truth which He teaches us in His words to Nicodemus.

Turn to the fifth chapter of this same Gospel of St. John. It is the Sabbath day. Our blessed Lord has just healed a paralytic. "Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them: My Father worketh until now; and I work. Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God" (John v. 16-18).

The Jews, dear brethren, showed by their action that they understood the significance: of these words better than many a Christian of today, who, perhaps reads them in but a cursory manner. In truth, they contain a definite statement by Our Lord of His perfect equality with the Father. The Jewish people had formed a false idea of the Sabbath, leading them to an absurdly rigorous code of laws concerning what was lawful to do on the Sabbath day. Misunderstanding the statement of Holy Scripture that God rested on the seventh day from the work of creation, they lost sight of the truth that nevertheless God is always acting, preserving, sustaining His creation, so that, as St. Paul tells us, " in him we live, and move, and are." Our Lord would recall to their minds that God is ever working in His creation; that nothing could exist without the active concurrence of Him who upholds "all things by the word of his power" (Heb. i. 3); that in all physical laws, as well as in all the movements of the spirit, God is acting, preserving, upholding, moving His creation. And in this continual action of God He associates Himself on a perfect equality with His Father, and from the fact of God's continual activity justifies His own action. God did not cease to act on the seventh day: I cease not to act. " My Father worketh till now; and I work" (John v. 17). The Jews understood Him. To their mind, who heard Him speak. He claimed divinity and nothing less. Our Lord, far from receding from His claim, goes on in the following verses to emphasize it. Time will not allow me to quote the whole passage, but the conclusion must not be passed over: " He who honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father, who hath sent him."

V. Conclusion.

Yes, dear brethren, Jesus Christ is God. This is the doctrine taught concerning the coming Messias by the prophets of old time; this is His own testimony of Himself. At the last supper Philip said to Him, "Show us the Father." Jesus answered: "Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me?" Here Our Lord implies that they ought to have known; that He had already told them with sufficient plainness. "Philip," He continues, "he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, show us the Father? Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?"

The testimony of His enemies shows that He made this claim. Miracles and the fulfillment of prophecy establish its truth. The Church from the beginning has taught it; yes, and the work of Jesus in the world today, the work of His Church, the lives of His saints, attest the power of her name and prove that He is divine.

An objector might say--You are proving the divinity of Jesus chiefly from what He said of Himself. Yes, in part that is true. Like Himself, we appeal also to His works; but granting the objection we may ask, and with confidence. Is He not to be trusted? The greatest enemies of the doctrine of His divinity have freely acknowledged that His character is simply perfect. "We often ask ourselves," says a modern Catholic writer (Pere Rose, O.P., Studies on the Gospels. Intro. p. xvi), "how men . . . can possibly fail to understand how they destroy [Jesus] when they suspect His sincerity, representing Him as a visionary, the victim of the most monstrous illusions." And again: " How can these critics not see that the more they exalt the man in Jesus Christ the more they strengthen the testimony He gave of Himself touching His celestial origin, His divine sonship?" (ib.)

Yes, indeed. By the confession of all, the life of Jesus was a perfect life: there is no flaw to be found in it. He said that He was God; and we believe Him. And if that is not enough to satisfy an honest mind we may say to such what He Himself said to His slow-minded disciple: " Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? Otherwise believe for the very works' sake" (John xiv. n, 12).

1. John i. I. 2. Is. liii. 8. 3. John i. i.
4. Rom. viii. 29.