The Truth About Nativity

and mythology of Nativity

by Father Georgios Methlinos

Professor of the University of Athens

With His incarnation and birth, the God-man Jesus Christ realizes the purpose of man's creation,
the appearance of the God-Man in History. The union of the formed creature with the Uncreated
Maker. The purpose of incarnation is to deify man. "Man becomes God, that Adam might become God"
(Troparion of Nativity). "He became man, that we may be deified” (M. Athanasios). "God became and
man the God" (John Chrysostom). In the moralist's logic, the term "deification", used by Fathers,
such as M. Athanasios, is a scandal. That's why they talk about "moral deification". For they are
afraid to accept that with theosis changed "by grace" what the Triune God is "by nature"
(uncreated, unholy, immortal). Nativity is, therefore, directly connected with the Crucifixion and
Resurrection, but also Ascension and the Pentecost. Christ God-man inscribes the way that every
living man is called upon, walking with Him. The Annunciation and Nativity lead to the
Pentecost, the fact of human deification in Christ, that is, in the body of Christ. If the Nativity is
the birth of God as man, Pentecost is the perfecting of man as God by grace. With our baptism we
participate in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ, we also live our "Nativity", our
regeneration. The saints, who come to union with Christ, to theosis, participate in the Pentecost
and thus arrive at the completion and fulfillment of a regenerated man in Christ. This means
ecclesiastically, the realization of man fulfilling the purpose of his existence.

No matter how weary this theological dictate is, especially for the theologically uninitiated
modern man, it only expresses the reality of the experience of our Saints. Through this experience
alone therefore can a Christ-centered Nativity cane be understood. On the contrary, the inability
of mankind not born-again in Christ to give purpose to Nativity has led to some myths around
them. Those who have not tasted the life in the Holy Spirit, unable to experience Nativity,
mythologize about it verging of fantasy and fiction, losing its true meaning. As we will see, this
disorientation is not always connected with the denial of the mystery, but with an inability to
experience it, which inevitably leads to its misinterpretation.

A first mythological answer to the Nativity question is given by heresy, the speculative and
unfounded –which is to say, the inexperienced theological syllogism. Docetism, the most terrible
heresy of all ages, has accepted the idea of an imaginary of the Word of God (δοκείν-φαίνεσθαι,
a seeming illusion). An illusion, that is, of the presence of God in the reality of the inner world.
Why, would anyone ask? Doketai or Docetists of every age cannot tolerate in the bounderies of
their logic the incarnation and the birth of God as man. Shifting to unscrupulous advocates of the
stature of God, they are ashamed to accept something God has chosen for our salvation. The path
of maternity. To be born of a Mother, even if she is none other than the purest creature of all
human history, the Virgin Mary. All of them can be classified as the "utmost" Orthodox (according
to St. Gregory the Theologian). Since Docetism has led to Monophysitism, to the denial of Christ's
humanity. They are the conservatives, the typists, the ones that are scandalized the easiest. For
all of them truth, reality, and historicity is scandalous. While others reject the deity of Christ, they
deny His humanity. But Orthodoxy and Christianity in its authenticity is "the most historic
religion," according to the late Fr. George Florovsky. She lives in the reality of the energies of God
for our salvation and accepts them with the realism of the Virgin: " Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
be it unto me according to thy word." (Luke 1:38)! "And Pilate in the Symbol" says a fine Serbian
proverb. Because Pilate, the most indecisive historian of history, as an actual historical person,
asserts the historicity of the Gospel. But in the persecution of the Testaments, the God-Word, "a
flesh was born-that is, a man-and sprang into himself, and set his glory (the uncreated light of his
divinity)" (John 1:14). For "in him all the creature of the Divine dwells physically" (Col 2,9), he is
a perfectly God and perfectly man.

The incarnation and birth of Theanthropos is a scandal for human wisdom, which self-
extinguished and self-indulging is rushing to call "the baptism" the mystery of Christ, which
culminates in its crucifixion (1 Cor.1: 23). Is it possible for God to eat in such a void so as to die
on the cross as a Godfather? This is the scandal for the wise men of the world. For them, the "gods"
of this world usually sacrifice people for them, they are not sacrificed for the people. How will
they accept the mystery of Divine Unrighteousness? "So God loved the world, that his only
begotten son (sacrificed) ... the world was saved (John 3: 16,17). At the boundaries of "logical" or
"natural" theology, the divine element is finally lost in the face of Christ, and the human,
misunderstood and misinterpreted remains. Because there is no historical man-Christ, but
Godman. The union of God and man in the Face of God-Word is both "inexplicable" and
"indivisible". The "logical" interpretations of the Person of Christ prove to be unreasonable
because they are unable to conceive with logic the "superfluous".

The legal-forensic consciousness also lives in Christ its scandal. It seeks social feasibility in
incarnation and ends up in the myth, too, when it is not delivered to the Divine Word. The Franks
built the myth of "the satisfaction of divine justice" through the distinguished meticulous
Anshelm (11th century). God-Word is flesh to be crucified-sacrificed and thus giving satisfaction
to the insult that God has caused human sin! The then-held in the Frankish feudal society is
projected (mythologically) to God, which takes the place in the Franco-German imagination of a
super-author. Let John cry, "so God loved the world, that his only begotten son was ..." (3:16),
Paul: "God has made love to us, that we are sinful beings, Christ for us has died "(Romans 5: 8).
No! "To take revenge," and "seeking satisfaction," the Western (the Westernized) man will cry out.
Thus, a "Christianity" of another kind, which is no different from fiction, has been created, since
it projects a God of our imagination and superstitions. The rationalization and extradition of the
mystery of Theanthropos is the greatest danger of Christianity in history.

Religious (typological) consciousness lives the "scandal" of incarnation by resorting to the religion
of the Faith. It exhausts the meaning of Nativity at the ceremonies and loses their true purpose,
which is "adoption" (theosis). "We take pleasure in adoption ..." (Galatians 4: 5). It is the scandal
of fission, even if it is called Christianity.

But they are the enemies of the "child" who are experiencing the scandal of power. Heroism!
Those who hold or rather "praise man." (Mark 10,42), like Herod, see a newborn Christ a
competitor and a danger to their interests. That is why "ask for the soul of the child" (Matthew
2:20). Thus they interpret the true character of the royal property of Christ, whose "end is not".
Christ as the King of all creation is the only true Lord, its creator and savior, and not the Heroes
of this world, who are being murdered unscrupulously, in order to keep their power.