Berulle and High Christology

Berulle’s Discourses
At a time when Europe was rushing blindly into reform, rationalism and naturalism via the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and later during the Enlightenment, Berulle and the French School represented a return to the kind of mysticism of the medieval world (Howells). Berulle’s focus was on the Incarnation, the mystery of God Made Man through the union of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. Berulle and the French School, including St. Francis de Sales, placed a profound emphasis on the intercession of the Blessed Virgin in the spiritual journey to God. Since Christ came to man through the Virgin Mary it only made sense that man should seek God through the Mediatrix of Divine Grace in return (Leo XIII). What Berulle accomplishes in “Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus” is a kind of middle-ground Christology that brings high and low Christology together, emphasizing the mysterious nature of the union between the human and the divine.
Berulle’s discourses provide little pockets of thought that serve as kernels of devotion for his Christian audience. He does not attempt to overwhelm with scholasticism (this is not the Summa of Aquinas), neither does he attempt to overwhelm with emotionalism (this is not a modern work of sentimentality). Berulle recognizes that Christology that focuses too much on the divine nature of Christ (or high Christology) can lead souls away from the human reality of Christ and that too much focus on the human nature of Christ can lead souls away from His divine nature. Therefore, while Berulle may seem like high Christology to some, his approach is certainly grounded in the Divine Intervention that is the Incarnation—the moment in history when God Himself became Man and lived on the earth. To miss the importance of this fact is to miss what Berulle calls the mysterious moment in which “heaven is opened, earth is made holy and God is adored” (109). To know God, one must know Christ and understand His human and divine natures. One cannot, however, comprehend the union of these two natures in one Man—for it is a mystery that stretches beyond the use of reason. One’s reason may take one to this mystery, though. It is akin to the mystery of faith: faith rests upon reason, but reason is only the guide that gets one to the shoreline, at which point faith must be placed entirely in God for the soul to reach the other shore. Berulle does not shy away from this mystery: he embraces it and calls attention to it, reminding his readers then as now that there is more to heaven and earth that is dreamt of in the philosophies of the rationalists, the eager reformers, and the so-called enlightened. All things depend upon God, who is the source of this mystery and the only One who understands it wholly. To think otherwise is to be overly optimistic about one’s own powers—that is the point that Berulle makes again and again in the Discourse.
Berulle himself had been one of the eager reformers in his youth, animated by a spirit to cleanse the Church—but he saw as he matured in his spirituality that all things depended on God and not on Berulle (Howells). Thus he turned his attention more and more to the things of God, to focusing on the mystery of God that should propel men to meditate more on their relationship with God and to contemplate if possible the holy mysteries of their religion. Berulle states, “The church should be caught up in this mystery in a holy and divine way” (110) and asserts that the Christian religion “will never be changed or removed from the earth” (110). Christ came to the earth—God Himself came to mankind—not just in a mythical way or in an abstract, spiritual way—but in a real, tangible way: He took on human flesh, spilled His precious blood and died for mankind. The scope of this narrative is so all-encompassing that Berulle cannot emphasize the point enough: this should be the daily meditation and food for thought and inspiration for one’s prayer.
Berulle places emphasis on the uniqueness of the Christ, of the God-Man: he notes that there is no other story or instance in history like it in the slightest. It is the single most important moment in all of history—the moment when the angelic and the human became one to rectify a situation that man and a fallen angel had created. Berulle is not focusing solely on the divinity of God by pointing out these facts; he is focusing on how the divine God became human and why it matters. He is bringing high Christology down to low Christology and elevating low Christology upwards to high Christology. This is in no wise a hindrance to Christian devotion. On the contrary, it is the very stuff needed to inspire Christian devotion, for it gets right to the heart of what every Christian should acknowledge within himself: he himself is not enough to get to heaven. No man has the power to reach out, lift oneself up, or forge a ladder that will take him all the way there. To reach heaven, man needs God, and to get to God man needed Christ, who condescended to stoop down to man, become Man, and bring Heaven to man. Now that Christ has come and given the church to the world, man has the tools to be in union with God—but he must still be God-centered in his orientation—not man-centered. That is the lesson that Berulle makes very clear in the Discourse, and it is effectively made and necessarily made; for there can be no Christian devotion without this recognition that all things depend on God.
Where Berulle’s Christology could be somewhat of an obstacle for the layman is his extreme focus on discussing the mystery of the Incarnation in such theoretical detail. This is where Berulle, having brought his Christology low now begins to lift back up higher to bring his reader to the spiritual aspect of the mystery and its higher meaning. This is not an approach that most minds will be capable of handling. The initial wonderment and appreciation that is inspired in the initial pages of Berulle’s Discourse are more than sufficient to move the Christian to prayer. It does not require a great deal of words or rhetoric to accomplish this mission. Berulle is not writing a brief treatise, however; he wants to explore this mystery and apply his mind’s gifts to it in order to give more food for thought and for the spirit to his readers. Understanding that his readers will not hang with him too high above the ground, he states when discussing the “masterwork of the Incarnation”—“let us speak more simply and let us offer more clarity and breadth to this thought” (111). Berulle’s intention, thus, is to assist the reader—to make clear for the reader what this mystery encompasses: his aim is to encourage rather than discourage meditation and even contemplation.
Knowing that he is writing for the French analytical mind, he embraces the challenge of explaining the hypostatic union—the union of the divine and human in the person in Christ. How could such a union really, truly take place in a world where so much emphasis is placed on the scientific method, the need for empirical facts and proofs? How can one even comprehend such a union? These are the questions Berulle attempts to tackle so that he can use reason (beloved of the French people) to inspire Christian rather than naturalistic devotion. By elucidating on the marvel that is the hypostatic union and the infinite qualities that are God’s alone, Berulle concludes that “He alone is worthy to possess our hearts and minds, our sentiments and our thoughts” (114). In short, Berulle is like a theater critic identifying the greatest work of the stage ever to be produced and announcing to all his readers that here, with this one work, is the penultimate expression of everything magnificent that could ever and will ever be said on the stage.
Berulle is not averse to turning to philosophy to assist in his quest to bring high Christology down low to his readers on earth and to bring his readers up towards high Christology as they sift through the dirt for clues as to their nature during the period of great confusion that was plaguing the Church at the time (and that still persists to this day, no doubt). Berulle uses Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as a source of inspiration for his text when he writes: “W are like one who emerges from a deep, dark cave, finds himself on a high mountain and beholds the sun for the first time” (114) when studying the mystery of Christ the Man-God. He likens Christ to the sun, which the pagan Egyptians used to adore, and explains that God is the true light, the true sun, the true source of life in the world. He is who should be adored. In this manner, Berulle fluctuates between heady pronouncements about Christ’s divine nature and earthy discussions of how man can best think about who and what God is. Berulle creates a solution that joins the high and low together, and his repetitious manner of pointing at God and declaring that here is where man’s focus should be, of pointing at Christ and saying here is the mystery of mysteries that man should be contemplating, gives his Discourse an animated pulse that should inspire Christian devotion in all but a dead soul that is not responding to the gift of grace that is Berulle’s message.
Berulle constantly juggles the high and the low, weaving high discussion in with common, sensible descriptions. He turns his gaze from God to man and praises this creation of God, inspiring in his readers a great consciousness of their own gifts, their own unique specialness that they should be considering right alongside their contemplation of the mystery of the Incarnation. Berulle does this because it is useless to consider the mystery of Christ without understanding what the mystery of man himself is. Berulle thus declares, “You are an abyss of marvels, a world of greatness, an abundance of eminent, rare and singular realities…You are the masterpiece of God. As he moved outside himself you became the work in which he exhausted his greatness, power and goodness and in which he enclosed himself so as to become part of his own handiwork” (117). God became man, which God created by breathing life into the dust. He became man by breathing Himself through the Holy Ghost into the womb of a Virgin. He became His own greatest creation and did so for a very explicit reason—to provide man with a way to return to Him because though man had turned away from God, God did not resent man but wanted to demonstrate just what the essence of love actually was and is—the total giving of the self to the other, the total annihilation of the self for the other: and that annihilation is made evident in the Cross. For a man, of course, it is total annihilation—but for God the victory is His: He overcomes death and thus leaves man with hope in Him that if he but follows Christ, he too can overcome death. Thus, Berulle leads his reader onward from one miraculous mystery to another, never attempting to rationalize away the concepts that he is exploring but rather enlivening them with a devotion and zeal befitting a believing Christian.
Berulle moves efficiently from the mystery of the Incarnation to the idea of the three births of Jesus—the “birth in the womb of his Father in eternity” (the Word, which John speaks of in the Gospel), “his birth in the womb of the Virgin in time” (the Incarnation), and “his birth in the tomb to immortality” (His Resurrection and victory over death) (150). Berulle deftly summarizes the essence of Christianity in these three births and uses them as a starting point for a discussion of meaning of the eternal Word and the need for man to consider the tremendous wonder that is this gift of life that God has given.
Berulle truly succeeds most when he is touching on the role that the Virgin Mary plays in this holy mystery: “the heart of the Virgin is the first altar on which Jesus offered his heart, body and spirit as a host of perpetual praise” (161). This amazing depiction of Mary’s heart as an altar serves to connect the present sacrifice of the Mass in which the priest or alter-Christus celebrates the unbloody sacrifice and the altar of the church, assisting in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ, which is then placed within the tabernacle, where God’s presence is communicated to the faithful through the burning of a small flame in a red-glass encased candle. The tabernacle in which Christ is present in the Church is thus linked to Christ’s presence as a child growing in the womb of Mary (her womb serving as the original tabernacle). Her heart was the very first altar, Berulle asserts—the first altar even before the Last Supper, before the Cross. Mary was the high priestess before there was a priest. She is thus singled out by Berulle as deserving of honor, praise, and adulation—and he identifies her as the one upon whom all Christians should continuously rely, for her son never denied her anything. It was for her sake that He first revealed Himself to the world at the wedding feast at Cana. It is for her sake that He listens to her petitions, which she makes on behalf of those who turn to her in supplication. It is for this reason that Berulle’s greatest accomplishment in his discourses is not discussion of the hypostatic union or the life of Christ but rather the role that the Virgin Mary plays in the mystery of redemption and the role that she continues to play in the lives of followers of Christ to this day. Through Mary, Berulle inspires the most devotion.




Works Cited
Berulle, Pierre de. Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus.
Howells, Edward. "Relationality and Difference in the Mysticism of Pierre de Bérulle." 
Harvard Theological Review102.2 (2009): 225-243.
Leo XIII. Iucunda Semper Expectatione.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_08091894_iucunda-semper-expectatione.html