On Foreknowledge and Free Will

Leo the Great (440-461) Sermon 67  (On the Passion, XVI.: delivered on the Sunday.)

I. The contemplation of the prophecies of Christ’s suffering are a great source of pious delight

The minds of the faithful, beloved, ought indeed always to be occupied with wonder at God’s works and their reasoning faculties devoted particularly to those reflections by which they may gain increase of faith. For so long as the pious heart’s attention is directed either to the benefits which all enjoy, or to special gifts of His grace, it keeps aloof from many vanities and retires from bodily cares into a spiritual seclusion.

But this must be the more eagerly and thoroughly done at the season of the Lord Passion, that what is then read in the sacred lections may surely be received with the ears of understanding, and that the themes which are great in word may be seen to be yet greater from the mysterious realities which underlie them. For the first reason for our lifting up our hearts is that the voices of the prophets have sung of the things which the truth of the Gospel has also narrated, not as predestined to happen, but as having happened, and that what man’s ears had not yet learned was to be accomplished, was already being proclaimed as fulfilled by the (Holy ) Spirit. For King David, whose seed according to the flesh is Christ, completed his lifetime more than 1,100 years before the day of the Lord’s Crucifixion, and endured none of those punishments which he relates as inflicted upon himself.

But because by his mouth One spoke Who was to take suffering flesh of his stock, the story of the cross is rightly anticipated in the person of him who was the bodily ancestor of the Savior. For David truly suffered in Christ, because Jesus was truly crucified in the flesh which He had from David.

II. The Divine foreknowledge does not account for the Jews’ wickedness so as to excuse them

Since then all things which Jewish ungodliness committed against the Lord of Majesty were foretold so long before , and the language of the prophets is concerned not so much with things to come as with things past, what else is thereby revealed to us but the unchangeable order of God’s eternal decrees, with Whom the things which are to be decided are already determined, and what will be is already accomplished? For since both the character of our actions and the fulfillment of all our wishes are fore-known to God, how much better known to Him are His own works? And He was rightly pleased that things should be recorded as if done which nothing could hinder from being done. And hence when the Apostles also, being full of the Holy Ghost, suffered the threats and cruelty of Christ’s enemies, they said to God with one consent, For truly in this city against Your holy Servant Jesus, Whom You have anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel were gathered together to do what Your hand and Your counsel ordained to come to pass.

Did then the wickedness of Christ’s persecutors spring from God’s plan, and was that unsurpassable crime prefaced and set in motion by the hand of God? Clearly we must not think this of the highest Justice: that which was fore-known in respect of the Jews’ malice is far different, indeed quite contrary to what was ordained in respect of Christ’s Passion. Their desire to slay Him did not proceed from the same source as His to die: nor were their atrocious crime and the Redeemer’s endurance the offspring of One Spirit. The Lord did not incite but permit those madmen’s naughty hands: nor in His foreknowledge of what must be accomplished did He compel its accomplishment, even though it was in order to its accomplishment that He had taken flesh.

III. Christ was in no sense the Author of His murderer’s guilt

In fact, the case of the Crucified is so different from that of His crucifiers that what Christ undertook could not be reversed, while what they did could be wiped out. For He Who came to save sinners did not refuse mercy even to His murderers, but changed the evil of the wicked into the goodness of the believing, that God’s grace might be the more wonderful, being mercifully put in force, not according to men’s merits, but according to the multitude of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge, seeing that they also who had shed the Savior’s blood were received into the baptismal flood. For, as says the Scripture, which contains the Apostles’ actswhen the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter pierced the hearts of the Jews, and they acknowledged the iniquity of their crime, saying, what shall we do, brethren? the same Apostle said, Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and to your sons, and to all that are afar off, whomsoever our Lord God has called, and soon after the Scripture goes on to say: they therefore that received his word were baptized, and there were added on that day about 3,000 souls (Acts 2:37-41). And so, in being willing to suffer their furious rage, the Lord Jesus Christ was in no way the Author of their crimes; nor did He force them to desire this, but permitted them to be able, and used the madness of the blinded people just as He did also the treachery of His betrayer, whom by kindly acts and words He vouchsafed to recall from the awful crime he had conceived, by taking him for a disciple, by promoting him to be an apostle, by warning him with signs, by admitting him to the revelation of holy mysteries , that one who had lacked no degree of kindness to correct him, might have no pretext for his crime at all.

4. The enormity of Judas’ crime is set forth

But O ungodliest of men, you seed of Chanaan and not of Juda , and no longer a vessel of election, but a son of perdition and death, you thought the devil’s instigations would profit you better, so that, inflamed with the torch of greed, you were ablaze to gain 30 pieces of silver and saw not what riches you would lose. For even if you did not think the Lord’s promises were to be believed, what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what you had already received? You were wont to command the evil spirits, to heal the sick, to receive honor with the rest of the apostles, and that you might satisfy your thirst for gain, it was open to you to steal from the box that was in your charge. But your mind, which lusted after forbidden things, was more strongly stimulated by that which was less allowed: and the amount of the price pleased you not so much as the enormity of the sin. Wherefore your wicked bargain is not so detestable merely because you counted the Lord so cheap, but because you sold Him Who was the Redeemer, yea, even yours, and had no pity on yourself. And justly was your punishment put into your own hands because none could be found more cruelly bent on your destruction than yourself.

V. Christ’s Passion was for our Redemption by mystery and example

The fact, therefore, that at the time appointed, according to the purpose of His will, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried was not the doom necessary to His own condition, but the method of redeeming us from captivity. For the Word became flesh in order that from the Virgin’s womb He might take our suffering nature, and that what could not be inflicted on the Son of God might be inflicted on the Son of Man. For although at His very birth the signs of Godhead shone forth in Him, and the whole course of His bodily growth was full of wonders, yet had He truly assumed our weaknesses, and without share in sin had spared Himself no human frailty, that He might impart what was His to us and heal what was ours in Himself. For He, the Almighty Physician, had prepared a two-fold remedy for us in our misery, of which the one part consists of mystery and the other of example , that by the one Divine powers may be bestowed, by the other human weaknesses driven out. Because as God is the Author of our justification, so man is a debtor to pay Him devotion.

VI. We can only attain to Christ’s perfection by following in His steps

Therefore, dearly-beloved, by this unspeakable restoration of our health no place is left us for pride or for idleness: because we have nothing which we did not receive , and we are expressly warned not to treat the gifts of God’s grace with negligence. For He that comes so timely to our aid justly urges us with precept, and He that leads us to glory mercifully incites us to obedience. Wherefore the Lord Himself is rightly made our way, because save through Christ there is no coming to Christ. But through Him and to Him does he take his way who treads the path of His endurance and humiliation, and on that road you may be sure there are not wanting the heats of toil, the clouds of sadness, the storms of fear. The snares of the wicked, the persecutions of the unbelieving, the threats of the powerful, the insults of the proud are there; and all these things the Lord of hosts and King of glory passed through in the form of our weakness and in the likeness of sinful flesh, to the end that amid the danger of this present life we might desire not so much to avoid and escape them as to endure and overcome them.

VII. Christ’s cry of Forsaken on the cross was to teach us the insufficiency of the human nature without the Divine

Hence it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, representing all the members of His body in Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the psalm, O God, My God, look upon Me: why have You forsaken Me ? That cry, dearly-beloved, is a lesson, not a complaint. For since in Christ there is one person of God and man, and He could not have been forsaken by Him, from Whom He could not be separated, it is on behalf of us, trembling and weak ones, that He asks why the flesh that is afraid to suffer has not been heard. For when the Passion was beginning, to cure and correct our weak fear He had said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will but as You; and again, Father, if this cup cannot pass except I drink it, Your will be done (Matthew 26:39, 42). As therefore He had conquered the tremblings of the flesh, and had now accepted the Father’s will, and trampling all dread of death under foot, was then carrying out the work of His design, why at the very time of His triumph over such a victory does He seek the cause and reason of His being forsaken, that is, not heard, save to show that the feeling which He entertained in excuse of His human fears is quite different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the Father’s eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of the world?

And thus the very cry of Unheard is the exposition of a mighty Mystery, because the Redeemer’s power would have conferred nothing on mankind if our weakness in Him had obtained what it sought. Let these words dearly-beloved, suffice today, lest we burden you by the length of our discourse: let us put off the rest till Wednesday. The Lord shall hear you if you pray that we may keep our promise through the bounty of Him Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.