Leo the Great

In his own words on Colossians

• Colossians 1:13

  "Snatched from the powers of darkness" at such a great "price," and by so great a "mystery," and loosed from the chains of the ancient captivity, make sure, dearly beloved, that the devil does not destroy the integrity of your souls with any stratagem. Whatever is forced on you contrary to the Christian faith, whatever is presented to you contrary to the commandments of God, it comes from the deceptions of the one who tries with many wiles to divert you from eternal life, and, by seizing certain occasions of human weakness, leads careless and negligent souls again into his snares of death. Let all those reborn through water and the Holy Spirit consider the one whom they have renounced. -.

• Colossians 1:15

  They then who "are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God," must offer to the Father the unanimity of peace-loving sons, and all the members of adoption must meet in the First-begotten of the new creation, Who came to do not His own Will but His that sent Him; inasmuch as the Father in His gracious favour has adopted as His heirs not those that are discordant nor those that are unlike Him, but those that are in feeling and affection one. They that are re-modelled after one pattern must have a spirit like the model. The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace: for thus says the Apostle, "He is our peace, who made both one;" since whether we be Jew or Gentile, "through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father."

  Sermon XXVI. On the Feast of the Nativity, VI.

• Colossians 2:9

  Embracing then, dearly beloved, the sole pledge of the Christian hope, let us not be torn from our faithful bonding to the body of Christ, in whom, as the apostle says, "dwells the fullness of divinity in bodily manner, and you have been filled out in him." Since the substance of God is incorporeal, how does it dwell in bodily manner in Christ unless the flesh of our race has been made the flesh of the divinity? We filled out in that God in whom we have been crucified, in whom we have been buried, in whom we have been even raised up.

• Colossians 2:15

  And so the Lord was handed over to their savage wishes, and in mockery of His kingly state, ordered to be the bearer of His own instrument of death, that what Isaiah the prophet foresaw might be fulfilled, saying, "Behold a Child is born, and a Son is given to us whose government is upon His shoulders." When, therefore, the Lord carried the wood of the cross which should turn for Him into the sceptre of power, it was indeed in the eyes of the wicked a mighty mockery, but to the faithful a mighty mystery was set forth, seeing that He, the glorious vanquisher of the Devil, and the strong defeater of the powers that were against Him, was carrying in noble sort the trophy of His triumph, and on the shoulders of His unconquered patience bore into all realms the adorable sign of salvation: as if even then to confirm all His followers by this mere symbol of His work, and say, "He that taketh not his cross and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me."

  Sermon LIX. (on the Passion, VIII.: on Wednesday in Holy Week.)