HOMILY III.
A Of the same. On the following day, the emperor having arrived at the martyrium (shrine) of the apostle and martyr Thomas, which is situated in Drypia, and having departed before the discourse, the homily was delivered after his departure to the multitude.
1. Blessed be God! How great are the powers of the martyrs! Yesterday they drew the entire city here with the empress; today, the emperor with the army, with much piety, having bound them not with chains, but with the chain of love, a chain never to be broken. For this is indeed wonderful: not that an emperor has come, but that he came with great zeal, not by necessity but by intent, not giving favor but receiving it; and he who benefits all throughout the inhabited world came to enjoy the benefits from these holy ones, and to reap the greatest fruits of goodness. Therefore, he himself, and the diadem, and all the guards—some having set aside their shields, others their spears, and having abandoned that display—all arrived with a composed mind, as if entering from earth into heaven, where high offices and splendor and all this pageant of dignities depart, and only a demonstration of life and the fruits of virtue shine forth. If here the power of the martyrs is so great, imagine how great it is in the heavens! If at the time of the contests and struggles their honors are such, what will the prizes be at the time of the recompense? For our affairs do not end at the present; rather, we are journeying toward another life which is better than the present, and we walk toward greater hopes and the enjoyment of goods that have no end. For God has divided our life into these two ages: the present one He made temporary, but the one to come, pleasant and incorruptible, so that having labored a little here, we might enjoy the incorruptible crowns there. He indeed wished from the very beginning to lead us directly to that life, but we did not allow it, through sloth having caused much delay, and through ingratitude having constructed this long postponement. And I will try to make this clear from the things that happened to us from the beginning. For God is such: when He is about to provide us with something good, even if we appear unworthy of His magnificence, yet He shows through everything that He Himself indeed wished it, but that our falling short of what He wished has happened because of our own sloth. This He did from the beginning.
For while fashioning man, He did not fashion him at once with toils, nor with hardships, nor with sorrow; He did not make him mortal, but he was for a time exempt from misery, sweat, and death. For He would not have condemned him to these later, after the transgression, in the order of punishment and penalty, if He had allotted them to him from the beginning. Being therefore without these, he shone brighter than the sun, though naked of garments, yet clothed in glory. For this also was the greatest sign of his blessedness, that he had no need of garments, nor of covering, nor of any other such attire, but possessed a body superior to the need of these. Not in this alone was he blessed, but because even before this he enjoyed communion with God, and B reveled in the boldness of speech toward Him. And indeed the angels were trembling, and the Cherubim and Seraphim dared not look upon Him; but he, as if a friend to a friend, was conversing with Him. For when He made the kinds of irrational animals, He brought them to him, and he himself imposed the names on all, and the names remained fixed. For this also is the greatest proof of God's honor, not that He commanded the names to be imposed upon him, but that, when man had violated the law given to him, God did not revoke the honor He had given him before the law, but whatever Adam called it, that was its name. See how there was no symbol of the present life there? No arts, no trade, no building, no garments, no shoes, no roof, no table, no toil, no sorrow, no death, no swarm of other passions, but brilliant were the preludes, and radiant the vestibules, and they were leading the beginning to a better life. But Adam did not allow it, through unspeakable sloth having transgressed the limits of what was commanded, and having not endured to abstain from a single tree; yet even so, great is the philanthropy of God shown. For it is a custom of God to be such: when we fall from something through sloth, He does not cease before doing everything and maneuvering until He leads us back to matters much greater than those from which we fell; which indeed happened then. For we fell from paradise, and received heaven; wherefore the undertaking became greater than the loss. But we did not receive it immediately; and this is of His providence. For since the enemy said, "Ye shall be as gods," and puffed them up with such hopes, and caused them to expect godhood, and incited them to arrogance, and made them conceive a notion greater than their own nature; curing this ulcer from long duration, He immediately allows death to linger, so that through experience they might learn the devil's counsel, and the soul, having been well disciplined to be moderate, might then reclaim the body as immortal. For a time, however, He wished the fear of death to thrive in the mind, and the matter to appear dreadful.
2. Because of this, He even allowed Abel to die first, so that the one who transgressed might learn through the sight itself what death is, and how heavy and burdensome a thing it is. For if he had died first himself, he would not have known the nature of the matter, never having seen another dead; but now, himself alive, and seeing death holding sway in another body, that of his child, he was learning more accurately and clearly the magnitude of the punishment. Because of this, it was not merely in a strange body, but in that of his child that he saw it, where the tyranny of the thing C made the sorrow more grievous, and with the nature, the virtue of the child, and with the virtue, the flower of the age; for it was not in old age, but in the very prime of youth that he received the end; and in addition to all these, the suffering of these things from a brother, and from a brother acting lawlessly and unjustly. For through all these, the mask of death was being contrived to be dreadful and more painful to the sight, and the sorrow to Adam was being stirred up more grievous, each of the things mentioned lighting a great furnace and working up the flame more bitter, and disciplining him as to what a great evil the devil had cast him into. For if we, seeing dead people every day, are troubled, are disturbed, are shriveled, and we do not...
A only, but even those who lift their eyebrows and occupy great offices and are puffed up, if they come to the funeral of even a person of common condition, are struck down at the very sight, and are rendered more humble than anyone else: what is it likely that he suffered who was the first to see a dead person, and in the body of his son—and such a son—who had not yet thought of such a great evil from the frequency of dead people, and would be most deeply troubled by the strangeness of the affair? What is it likely he suffered when he saw that he heard no voice, and felt no touch, and was not moved by tears and lamentations, nor shared the grief with a mourning father, nor did what was customary? For do not look to the present state of things; but consider that at that time man first saw a dead person, and that he was filled with great fear and much perturbation. Yet afterward God devised a manner of consolation: for He did not wish only that the fear of death should be added, but also that man should receive some consolation. Which one? That from the resurrection. But He did not give that immediately, but opened its hope obscurely and as in an enigma. B For after the fear was greatly increased and had shaken the mind of man, and it was shown what death was, how heavy, how troublesome, how burdensome, not from the sight alone, but also from those things that follow upon the sight, from worms, from stench, from corrupt matter, from ashes, and from all other things that are observed in a dead body: when, therefore, the fear had increased and disturbed the mind, see how he afterward introduces the hope of the resurrection, wrapped up indeed and obscure, yet he does introduce it. For he did not allow Enoch, who was afterward, to die; and Paul says: "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him" (Heb. xi, 5). He translated him, and did not allow him to die; he made him for the time being immortal, so that he did not dissolve the fear, but rather it remains, and he does not die: yet he is not immortal, but in a mortal body he granted him a length of life: obscurely, as I said, opening the hope before the resurrection. Therefore he granted the just man to die first: C for besides the cause brought forward, he will not have erred who shall also bring forward this one. Which one? That which is sought from the resurrection. For because death was not to reign perpetually, therefore he took care that its first foundation and root should be fixed in justification, so that the foundation might not remain firm. For just as sin is the food of death, so also is justification the removal and abolition of death. He permitted, therefore, that he who was to be the first to die should be just, speaking to us from the beginning and exhibiting good hope, and showing that He would not allow our race to remain in death: for this reason he laid the weakest foundation for death. He gave us the image of the resurrection. For were things better then than in the condition of the dead Noe, shut up in such a deep [abyss], in darkness, and in a prison? Yet those immense seas, which covered the tops of the mountains, did not swallow up him who was in the ark; but, as if rising from death, so Noe went out then from that long-lasting storm, exhibiting in his own salvation the image of the resurrection. After him again (for as time proceeded, clearer images of the resurrection were shown), he did the same thing in Jonah. For three days in the belly of the whale were a symbol of three days in death; and the liberation from the whale was a prior proclamation of the resurrection of the Lord's body. Wherefore He himself was saying: "This generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given it except the sign of Jonah; for as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights" (Matt. xii, 39, 40). He will not have erred who says that the birth of Isaac also was a figure of the resurrection. Therefore Paul also, recounting those things which concern his birth from the barren one, when he had said that his father "against hope believed in hope" (Rom. iv, 18), and had not been weakened in faith when he considered his own body as dead, and the dead womb of Sarah: "In the promise also of God," he says, "he did not waver through unbelief; but was strengthened by faith, giving glory to God; most fully knowing that whatsoever he promised, he is able also to do" (Ibid. v. 20, 21). And therefore he subjoined: "It is not written for his sake only, but also for our sakes, to whom it shall be reputed, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead" (Ibid. v. 23, 24). It is clear, therefore, D that the birth of Isaac was a figure of the resurrection of Christ. For if it were not a figure, he would not have subjoined, "It is not written for his sake only, but also for our sakes, to whom it shall be reputed." For types or figures are not written only for those who receive them at the time the figures occur, but also for those who are to gain from them in a later time. And therefore he says elsewhere: "These things in a figure were happening to them: they are written, however, for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages are come" (I Cor. x, 11). Elias also, being assumed, opened this hope of the resurrection to us. But those things were indeed as in a figure: when, however, the only-begotten Son of God came after many and countless ages, He showed us the resurrection in the thing itself through His own body, absolving it from the tyranny of death: and therefore He says: "Christ dying and rising from the dead, now dieth no more; for in that he died to sin, he died once" (Rom. vi, 9, 10). For the hope of the resurrection was exhibited to us as in an enigma through Enoch; but the solution of death through Abel: these things, however, were both clearly, manifestly, entirely, and in truth accomplished through the only-begotten Son of God. Whence also a multitude of martyrs flourished for us, death having been abolished, and the resurrection shining forth. Therefore, even the present life has become full of many labors, so that from this point those who are weighted down and who are lingering in present things, being lifted up, may flee from the burdensome friendship to this life, and run toward the love of heaven, and toward that day. For the philosopher and the exalted man will not need suggestions from this point, but will consider how great the kingdom of heaven is, or rather how much better it is to be with the kingdom of God and with Christ (for it is greater than any kingdom), that he will perceive nothing of present things.
all pleasant things, but pass over these as well, and speed past them as if they were mere shadows. And since many are enslaved to the flesh and held fast by the tyranny of worldly things, dwelling in them like wild beasts that lurk in dens, A he cut off their sympathy for these things by filling their lives with many grievous things—fears, anxieties, cares, agonies, dangers, cowardice, and the great swarm of bodily passions, and the siege laid by the body, and many other things which cannot be expressed in words—so that, even if they shudder at this cloud of evils, they might desire to sail into the calm harbor and enjoy that continuous serenity which does not have its blessings mixed with evils, but possesses pure blessings, which are truly blessings. For the things here that seem to be good, such as wealth, glory, and power, are names of good things but are mixed with their opposites; whereas those things there are sincere and pure, possessing blessedness B not in name only, but in reality. In order, then, that we may attain these, let us emulate the virtue of the martyrs, their bravery, their zeal, their faith, their contempt for things present, and their desire for things to come. For it is possible to achieve all these even without persecution. For even if fires are not set before us, a more intense desire C is present; even if the teeth of wild beasts are not there, a harsher anger from a beast is set upon us; even if executioners are not standing by to tear our sides, envy is there, gnawing at the mind more cruelly than any executioner. We must, therefore, strip ourselves for these passions, and arming ourselves against them with the strength derived from the reasoning of the philosophers, thus pass through the present life, and be in a state of conflict D throughout our entire life; so that, having labored for a little time, we may be crowned forever, and enjoy the incorruptible blessings, and be always with the Lord, and enjoy that communion which transcends all word and thought—may we all attain this, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father be the glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.
Homily IV.
An hortatory homily delivered in the church of Saint Anastasia to those who were absent; and a demonstration concerning the struggles and contests of the blessed and righteous Job.
1. As those who have gathered are fewer than usual, so shall we also employ greater zeal. For it would not be just for the sloth of those who were absent to spoil our own diligence; rather, precisely for this reason we shall set before you a more bountiful table, so that those who were not present, having learned of the loss by experience, may henceforth be more eager regarding these assemblies. Therefore, I entreat your charity to attend to what is said; for thus there will be a twofold gain for you: by conveying what is said to those who are absent, you will make them more diligent, and you will render your own soul more seasoned in philosophy. For just as the nature of the earth, if neglected, brings forth evil weeds, but if it frequently enjoys the hands of husbandmen, it yields mature fruit; so too the soul of a man, if it lies in sloth, begets the thorns of offenses, but if it enjoys providence, it brings forth the flourishing fruit of virtue. Therefore also a certain wise man exhorts, saying: "As a field is a man who is foolish, and as a vineyard is a man who is lacking in understanding; if you leave it, it will be left desolate and will luxuriate in useless weeds" (Prov. 24:30–31). So that this may not happen now, we constantly handle the sickle of the word; and if anything wicked sprouts, we cut it off incessantly; but if there is anything mature and bearing fruit, we nourish and irrigate it, and lead it to its peak, demonstrating constant care. For we are in need of a twofold providence, or rather a threefold one: first, that we may be delivered from wickedness; second, that we may acquire virtue; and after these, that we may preserve what has been acquired; and here especially there is need of much toil, since that evil demon, who also envies our blessings, attacks those who have attained success more fiercely. And just as pirates and sea-robbers do not plunder ships that contain only sand, but pass them by, yet if they see one carrying precious cargo and stored-up wealth, they attack it, boring from below, assailing from above, moving every machine; so too the devil is accustomed to attack, envy, and plot against those who have gathered the most virtue.
So many, indeed, were the people throughout the world in the case of Job, and he stripped himself to wrestle with him alone, and moved all his machines; but yet he could not cause a shipwreck, but rather created a fuller cargo and greater commerce. For such is virtue: when attacked, it becomes more powerful, and when plotted against, it becomes more secure. Which indeed happened to that blessed man, who, being attacked from every side, stood more secure, and receiving countless arrows, did not give way; but he emptied the devil’s quiver, and he himself did not fall nor was he tripped...