The Incarnation of God the Word is not some abstract
theoretical form, nor some fable of some imaginative myth writer, but a real
event, which took place in a specific area and time (Gal. 4:4). The great feast
of the Circumcision of the Lord reminds us of this great truth and stresses in
particular the real human nature, which He voluntarily put on for the sake of
our salvation.
In the establishment of the celebration of the
Circumcision of the Lord by the Church the activity of some heretical circles
of the ancient Church undoubtedly contributed. These heretics denied the real
incarnation of God the Word and taught the not real incarnation of the God the
Word. Such were the heretical Docetists, who taught the false belief that
supposedly the incarnation of Christ happened in appearance, “seemingly” as
they stressed. They together with the Marcionites, the Manichaeans and other
heretics, all forerunners of the heretical Monophysites of the 5th century,
tried to falsify the truth of our Church.
Our Church used every means in order to defend the
once revealed and handed down truth (Jude 3). She even established feasts to
safeguard the most high and saving truths. It is historically certain that the
feasts of Christmas, of the Circumcision and of Theophany were established by
the necessity of the anti-heretical struggle of our Church and then took on a
festive character, as we experience them today.
The circumcision was a practice customary for many
peoples of antiquity. Herodotus mentions that the first ones who used
circumcision on their male children were the Ethiopians and Egyptians mainly
for reasons of health (Herod. Hist. 2: 2, 104). Historically probably the Jews
took this custom from the Egyptians. According to the Old Testament however,
God Himself established circumcision as His command to the faithful Abraham, as
an action of making his descendants different from the other peoples so that
through them the plan for the salvation of the world could be materialized.
“This covenant, which you shall keep, is between Me and you and between your
seed after you unto their generations. Every male among you shall be
circumcised. Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark
of the covenant between you and me. And a child when he is eight days old,
shall be circumcised” (Gen. 17:12).
Together with the circumcision, the name giving also
took place. The ritual of the circumcision was something like Christian
baptism, of which it was a type. Just as the circumcised person became a member
of the people of the Covenant, distinguished from the uncircumcised, thus also
the baptized person is reborn and becomes a holy, distinct member of the Church
of Christ, destined to inherit God’s kingdom (Rom. 6:4).
According to the Evangelist Luke, on the eight day
from the birth of the Lord, Joseph and Mary kept the Mosaic commandment of
circumcision. In a laconic manner the sacred Evangelist mentions that “the days
for the Child to be circumcised were fulfilled, and His name was called Jesus,
the name called by the angel before He was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21).
Saint Ephraim the Syrian informs us that the betrothed Joseph did the
circumcision. Also Saint Epiphanios of Cyprus mentions that the circumcision
took place in the Cave of the Nativity. Of course the sacred Evangelist is
silent about every detail from this service, because obviously it does not have
to offer us, according to the Fathers, benefit for our salvation.
Our Church was not interested in the fulfillment in
and of itself of this legal regulation from the Lord. She was interested mainly
in stressing through His circumcision and to prove His real human nature, which
the heretics denied. The divinely inspired Evangelist included in his Gospel
the event of the circumcision also so that the Church could reject every
Docetistic, Manichaeistic and Monophysitic false belief.
To not accept the Orthodox teaching of our Church
concerning the true incarnation of the Son and Word of God, literally removes
the foundations of the whole edifice of deliverance brought by the human nature
in Christ. If a real incarnation of the Deliverer did not take place, we don’t
have real salvation; Christ is not a real Savior but one of the many founders
of religions of humanity. This problem intensely concerned the Church in the
5th century, when archimandrite Eutyches from Constantinople rejected Christ’s
human nature. For this reason the 4th Ecumenical Synod in Chalcedon was called
in 451.
The Incarnation of the Word however is an event of His
inconceivable self-humbling. “Being in the form of God...He emptied himself
taking on the form of a servant, in the likeness of humans becoming, and being
found in the form of a human He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death,
the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7). If we see the mystery of divine
condescension under the prism of God’s immeasurable love for His creature, man,
this comprises the greatest scandal of all ages. The ancient Greek axiom “God
does not mix with humans”, much more so the humanization of God, comprises
rationally the worse foolishness of history. However the goodness and
philanthropy of God exceeded all divisions with humanity. He made the great
movement and humbled His Son and made Him a human, in order to save the human
race. He descended to the human predicament, down to the condition of death
even in order to resurrect man from the condition of spiritual deadness and to
lift man to the heavens of His throne.
During all the time the incarnated Word was on earth,
simultaneously as God He was also in heaven. He was everywhere, as everywhere
present, because with the adoption of human nature He did not put off His
divine nature. In this double quality of His, as true God and true man, lies
also the event of the true Savior. He saves as true God with the fact that He
became true man, since He really took on human nature and saved it in His
person. Every straying from this truth comprises a heresy for our Church.
Nestorianism had denied Christ’s divine nature and Monophystism had denied
Christ’s human nature. Both of these dogmatic strayings were condemned by the
3rd and 4th Ecumenical Synods, as a straying from the truth and having very
serious soteriological results. The evangelist John stressed in particular that
“those who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, the same is the
deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7).
It is worth mentioning two excerpts from the dogmatic
definitions of the aforementioned holy Synods, for us to see the theological
clarity of our Church on this great truth: “...We therefore confess our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God the only-begotten, perfect God and perfect man, of
a rational soul and body ... of one essence with the Father, the same in
godhead, and one in essence with us according to humanity. For the union of two
natures occurred. Therefore one Christ, one Son, one Lord we confess (3rd
Ecumenical Synod, "Exposition of the Faith of the Reconciliations").
And “Therefore following the holy Fathers one and the same we confess the Son
our Lord Jesus Christ, and in agreement we all teach Him as perfect in godhead
and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, the same of a rational soul
and body, of one essence with the Father according to the godhead, and of one
essence with us the same according to humanity ... one and the same Christ, the
Son, the Lord, only begotten, in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably,
undivided, inseparable, we know neither of the differences of the natures taken
away through the union, rather the quality of each nature preserved and in one
person and one hypostasis going together, not in two persons, apportioned or
divided, but one and the same Son, only begotten, God, Word, Lord Jesus
Christ...." (Definition of the 4th Ecumenical Synod, by J. Karmiris, The
Dogmatic Symbolic Monuments, Athens, 1952, p. 165)
An article by By Prof. Lambros Skontzos.
Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/01/the-circumcision-of-christ-and-his.html
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