ACC ~ Luke 2 v51 - 52

JESUS AND JOSEPH SHOW HOW THE GREATER IS SUBJECT TO THE LESSER

ORIGEN: Children, we should learn to be subject to our parents. The greater is subject to the lesser. Jesus understood that Joseph was greater than he in age, and therefore he gave him the honor due a parent. He gave an example to every son. … I think Joseph understood that Jesus, who was subject to him, was greater than he. He knew that the one subject to him was greater than he and, out of reverence, restrained his authority. So each one should realize that often a lesser man is put in charge of better men. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 20.5. [1]

[1] FC 94:86**.

MARY LEARNS FROM JESUS AS FROM GOD

BEDE: Consider the most prudent woman Mary, mother of true Wisdom, as the pupil of her Son. For she learned from him, not as from a child or man but as from God. Yes, she dwelt in meditation on his words and actions. Nothing of what was said or done by him fell idly on her mind. As before, when she conceived the Word itself in her womb, so now does she hold within her his ways and words, cherishing them as it were in her heart. That which she now beholds in the present, she waits to have revealed with greater clarity in the future. This practice she followed as a rule and law through all her life. EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 2.51. [1]

[1] SSGF 1:240.

JESUS’ HUMAN NATURE INSTRUCTED BY HIS DIVINITY

JEROME: How does he who is Wisdom receive understanding? “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men.” This means not so much that the Son was instructed by the Father but that his human nature was instructed by his own divinity. There is the seer’s prophecy of him who blossomed from the root of Jesse, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding.” [1] HOMILY ON PSALM 15 (16). [2]

[1] Is 11:2.

[2] FC 57:26**.

HYPOSTATIC UNION ASSURES PROPER GROWTH IN WISDOM

JOHN OF DAMASCUS: He is said to have progressed in wisdom and age and grace, because he did increase in age and by this increase in age brought more into evidence the wisdom inherent in him further. By making what is ours altogether his own, he made his own the progress of people in wisdom and grace, as well as the fulfillment of the Father’s will, which is to say, people’s knowledge of God and their salvation. Now, those who say that he progressed in wisdom and grace in the sense of receiving an increase in these are saying that the union was not made from the first instant of the flesh’s existence. Neither are they holding the hypostatic union, but, misled by the empty-headed Nestorius, they are talking falsely of a relative union and simple indwelling, “understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm.” [1] For, if from the first instant of its existence the flesh was truly united to God the Word—rather, had existence in him and identity of person with him—how did it not enjoy perfectly all wisdom and grace? It did not share the grace, and neither did it participate by grace in the things of the Word. Rather, because the human and divine things had become proper to the one Christ by the hypostatic union, then, since the same was at once God and man, it gushed forth with the grace and the wisdom and the fullness of all good things for the world. ORTHODOX FAITH 3.22. [2]

[1] 1 Tim 1:7.

[2] FC 37:326-27**.