The Ancient Witnesses

Chapter 6: The Fullness of Time • 219

except that he willed to die? Why did God assume flesh with all its weakness, except that he chose to take on the indignities associated with the flesh? Why did the Lord of all creation enter the form of slavery except to endure all the indignities of slavery?” 108 Christ had come in the flesh, Chrysologus had explained, in order to identify himself with human weakness. He had entered the form of slavery in order to suffer the same indignities of slavery that his children suffered. “Why did God the Father send his own Son to death, and to this kind of death?” he continued. “And why did Christ submit to so shameful a passion? Consider: When is a king more glorious? When he is decked out in his purple, adorned with the crown, covered with gold, and high up on his throne? Or, is he more glorious dressed in armor, carrying his sword? When for his country, his citizens, and his children he destroys the enemy, despises danger, forget his own wounds, and endures death for the sake of his people, so that he gains a greater victory?” 109 Chrysologus was teaching us to see Christ’s suffering on the cross as glorious warfare waged by the King on behalf of his subjects. His questions and creative scenarios held our attention. His sermons also made use of strongly contrasting themes. 110 When he came to the

108 Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 72b, Fathers of the Church, vol. 110, pages 6-7. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina vol. 24a .

109 Same as previous note, page 8.

110 Known as antithesis. Patristics scholar B. Düler, in Siegmar Döpp and Wilhelm Geerlings, Dictionary of Early Christian Literature (page 481), describes Chrysologus’s sermons as emphasizing antithesis (contrasting themes) throughout, “to the point that whole sermons have an antithetical structure” in “what amounts to a dialogue.”