The Beggar And The Incarnation

Cum appropinquasset Jesus Jericho, caecus quidam sedebat secus viam... Jericho, ut dicunt, luna interpretatur. Cum ergo appropinquasset videns lunae, appropinquavit caecus soli: ille tenebris, nam et luna nonnullas tenebras habet; iste soli, qui totus lux est, et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae, ille defectui, iste profectui; ille mutabilitati, iste stabilitati; ac, ut ita dictum sit, ille insipientiae, iste sapientiae. Ut luna enim insipiens mutatur, sapiens vero sicut sol permanet. Et ut paucis absolvamus, quantum in Domino Jesu exinantus est Deus Dei Filius, ut homo fieret, tantum exaltatus est homo hominis filius, ut Deus fieret. Cum enim tempus ante tempora praefinitum hujus sanctae ac salutaris Incarnationis appropinquasset, stans vidensque Divinitas caecam et sedentem in tenebris humanitatem, ab angelis sanctis jussit sibi adduci, et de semetipso illuminavit ne animo caeca et iners, extra viam de inopia mendicaret: imo luminosa ac fortis, in ipsa via de plentitudine luminis illuminatantis, ea corporaliter exsultans, luadaret et glorificaret Deum, ad hoc tandem reducta, ad quod olim facta. Isaac, Cisterciensis Abbas, Sermo XXVIII Source: Migne PL 194.1782b-d

When Jesus had come near Jericho, there was a certain blind man sitting beside the way... 1 Jericho, so they say, is to be interpretated as 'moon'. When therefore He who saw came near the moon, the blind man came near the sun. The latter was of the darkness, for even the moon has not a little darkness, the former is of the sun, He who is all light, and there is no darkness in Him. 2 The blind man was defective, He was perfect, the blind man was unstable, He was stable, and, as we have said, the blind man partook of ignorance and He of wisdom. The fool changes like moon, 3 the wise man persists like the sun. And as in our littleness we perish, to such an extent the Lord Jesus was emptied, God the son of God, that He become man, so that man the son of man be exalted to such an extent that He become God. For when the time before the time neared for the limiting of His holiness and the salvation of the Incarnation, the Divinity stood and looked on blind humanity sitting in darkness, and He commanded His angels to bring it to Him, and from Himself He illuminated it, lest it be blind and dead in its soul, and beside the way begging out of its poverty. But He, bright and strong in the way, gave enlightenment from the plenitude of His light, exalting corporeal things, that they might praise and glorify God, being brought from what they had been reduced, to what they once were made. Isaac of Stella, from Sermon 28 1 Lk 18.35 2 1 Jn 1.5 3 Sirach 27.11