st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
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"<br />
He<br />
"<br />
"<br />
SERMONS. 115<br />
physicians say that opposites are the cures <strong>of</strong> opposites,<br />
1 Chri<strong>st</strong> overthrows opposites by opposites;<br />
pleasure by labour, haughtiness by humiliation (c. ii).<br />
The intensity <strong>of</strong> Chri<strong>st</strong> s love to man is next shown by<br />
His hungering early in the morning, as He returned<br />
from Bethany to Jerusalem. For we think <strong>of</strong> hunger<br />
rather as following hours <strong>of</strong> labour, than as felt at<br />
the opening <strong>of</strong> the day. Chri<strong>st</strong> was not really in<br />
need <strong>of</strong> food, but the circum<strong>st</strong>ances <strong>of</strong> the parable<br />
were adju<strong>st</strong>ed to set forth its one central teaching.<br />
came, then, to the fig-tree, being an-hungered.<br />
The fig-tree was an emblem <strong>of</strong> human nature.<br />
The<br />
fruit <strong>of</strong> this tree is sweet, but its leaves are harsh,<br />
useless, and only<br />
fit for burning. Even so the<br />
nature <strong>of</strong> man had a mo<strong>st</strong> sweet fruit to bear, that <strong>of</strong><br />
virtue, for which it was ordained to be prolific by God.<br />
And through its unfruitfulness in respect <strong>of</strong> virtue, it<br />
gained its harshness <strong>of</strong> leaves. For what is harsher<br />
than the cares <strong>of</strong> life ? In this way our fir<strong>st</strong><br />
parents, when by their disobedience they lo<strong>st</strong> that<br />
grace <strong>of</strong> God which covered them as a garment,<br />
sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons.<br />
They became environed, that is,<br />
with the cares and<br />
anxieties <strong>of</strong> a fallen life; for the decree had gone<br />
1<br />
This, the opposite maxim to the similia similibus curantur<br />
<strong>of</strong> the homoeopathi<strong>st</strong>, was a favourite -one with Dean Colet.<br />
"Let this be a settled and e<strong>st</strong>ablished maxim," he writes<br />
("Lectures on Romans," 1873, p. 87), "that evil cannot be<br />
removed except by means <strong>of</strong> . .<br />
good<br />
. For whatever seeks to<br />
conquer mu<strong>st</strong> needs make itself as unlike as possible to that<br />
which it seeks to conquer, since victory is gained in every<br />
in<strong>st</strong>ance, not by what is like, but by what is unlike.<br />
I 2