The (Medieval Texts in Translation) complete works of Liudprand of Cremona

Homily

homily of liutsios the italian deacon 1. Most beloved brothers, we preach to you1 about Jesus Christ and him crucified, something that is “to the Jews indeed a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness.”2 For indeed we confess that the Lord Jesus is at once God and Son of God, coequal with God the Father, consubstantial, equally omnipotent, and God’s cooperator , that he for our salvation at the end of time took on flesh from the Virgin, mounted the cross, died, was buried, arose on the third day by his own powers, and ascended to God the Father in  1. The title was written in Greek (Ομιλεῖα τοῦ λιουτζιου ιταλικοῦ διάκόνου). The fine Greek miniscule in the single manuscript copy of this text indicates that Liudprand wrote it (and presumably reviewed the rest of the writing) himself. Such manual labor was unusual for high-ranking authors until the tenth century: see G. Arnaldi, “Il secolo X,” in his Letteratura latina medievale (Florence: SISMEL-Il Galluzzo , 2002), 161. It was necessary as few in the West knew Greek characters: see B. Bischoff, “Ein Osterpredigt Liutprands von Cremona (um 960),” in his Anecdota novissima (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1984), 23; P. Chiesa, “Introduzione,” in Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera Omnia, CCSL 156 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1998), lxxxv. As with most early medieval sermons, it is not certain that this one was delivered in public (in this or a less literary form). Despite the direct address, it may have existed only as a written exercise: T. Hall, “The Early Medieval Sermon,” in The Sermon, ed. B. Kienzle (Turnholt: Brepols, 2000), 228–37; C. Muessig, “Sermon, Preacher, and Society in the Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002): 77–78. 2. 1 Cor 1.23. At certain times of the year the crucifix could become a target for Jewish satire: Horowitz, “‘And ItWas Reversed,’” Zion 59 (1994): x. Y heaven not as God alone or man alone, but as both at the same time, neither mixed nor separate nor anything else, and that he will return as judge at the end of time and will mete out to each according to how he has conducted himself. The Jew fears this, and the unhappy man refuses to hear it. 2. The idle listener to the law (rather than he who acts upon it) employs these arguments, increasing his own perdition: “If God is omnipotent, which I, too, admit, what need had the Uncreated One to take on a creature and, as a creature, to free a creature? Is it not written, ‘He spoke and they were made; he commanded and they came into existence’?3 If by his mere command, or rather by his will, God created everything, including that creature worthiest of angels (from whose rank and honor, through pride, that part fell by whose inducement to sin man fell, through disobedience), then surely and without taking on flesh he could free the creature above all from the power of the apostate angel whom he had cast out.” 3. O unhappy Jew, who does not acknowledge God’s omnipotence ? For you sin gravely, as long as you preach his power while denying his true justice. As the king and prophet David said: “God is a righteous judge.”4 For if God were merely to free fallen man by his power, and not for any reason, where would the justice be, in reference to which the prophet asserts that God is a just judge? In a certain way it would be more just, following your flawed reasoning , for God to coerce with his power an angel who wanted to grow prideful, so as to arrest his pride, than it would be for God, purely out of his power and without any just and true reason, to free man from the jaws of a well-earned death, when we lapsed because of disobedience.5 For if either case pertains to virtue, neither coercing angels nor saving mankind pertains to justice. I ask what fairness there may be in this case: to restrain from haughtiness a created angel, and against his own will to give him blessedness and fellowship with humble and blessed souls—a created angel unburdened by bodily weight, but called Lucifer “who didst arise in the 3. Ps 32.9. 4. Ps 7.12. 5. Augustine, On theTrinity 13.13.    liudprand of cremona morning”6 on account of the special effulgence of his rank, who desired to...