Friday, December 25, 2020

Patristic Wisdom for the First Sunday after Christmas


But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Gal 4:4–7)


“The fullness of time” is the completed time which had been foreordained by God the Father for the sending of his Son, so that, made from a virgin, He might be born like a man, subjecting Himself to the law up to the time of his baptism, so that He might provide a way by which sinners, washed and snatched away from the yoke of the law, might be adopted as God's sons by His condescension, as He had promised to those redeemed by the blood of His Son. It was necessary, indeed, that the Savior should be made subject to the law, as a son of Abraham according to the flesh, so that, having been circumcised, He could be seen as the one promised to Abraham, who had come to justify the Gentiles through faith since he bore the sign of the one to whom the promise had been made.

Ambrosiaster, Epistle to the Galatians 4.5.1


Behold the whole array of those three powers through one power and one Godhead. For God, he says, who is the Father, sent His own Son, who is Christ, and again Christ, who himself being the power of God is God, … sent the spirit of His Son, who is the Holy Spirit.

Marius Victorinus, Epistle to the Galatians 2.4.6.

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