[GREEK COLUMN] 1169 [A] ...upon the wonder! By a most perfect ecstasy of nature, weighed down with a deep sleep and fear, having closed their senses, and having lulled to rest every intellectual movement and perception within themselves, in this way they were with God through that divine, super-luminous, and invisible darkness. Behold, he shows you that this divine ray of light, natural to God, springs forth through the midst of the flesh united to Him, and he discourses of the supernatural participation of the apostles who received it, as one who has both suffered and learned these things as far as is possible, saying that these things were seen by the apostles not only beyond the power of sight and all sense in general, but also beyond all intellectual perception and activity. And this is why the blessed Damascene says that B these things, sung melodiously, were seen by the apostles as the invisible things of the Godhead flashing forth in the flesh on Mount Tabor. And surely Dionysius the wise also, intending to discourse to his friend Timothy concerning mystical theology, having reached [this point], had said: And thou, O friend Timothy, in thy strenuous application to mystical visions, leave behind both the senses and intellectual activities, and all things sensible and intelligible, and all things that are not and that are, and strain upward in ignorance, as far as is possible, toward the union [with Him who is] above all essence and knowledge. For by the unconstrained and absolute ecstasy of thyself and all things, having set aside all things and being loosed from all, thou shalt be led upward to the super-essential ray of the divine darkness.
EPILOGUS
But it would be time now to bring into the midst of the discourse the one who is, as it were, the end and seal, or, to use the expression of the sacred theologians, an epilogue, and I mean the wondrous John of Syria, and to learn and be taught from him as much as is possible. What then does this philosopher of ours say, writing and philosophizing concerning this divine mystery? "Today," he says, "an abyss of unapproachable light, today a limitless outpouring of divine radiance shines forth to the apostles on Mount Tabor; Jesus Christ, the thing and the name that is dear to me." And after a little: "Today," he says, "Moses is enlightened by the dispensation of the Master, which was formerly initiated in types; for this I would say is what is meant by the 'back parts' of God, and he clearly sees the glory of the Godhead, having been covered by the crevice of the Rock, as the Scripture says. And the Rock is Christ, the incarnate God-Word and Lord, just as Paul the divine clearly taught us: 'And the Rock,' he said, 'was Christ,' who opened, as it were, a very small crevice of His own flesh, and with unapproachable light, and [a light] stronger than all sight, illuminated those who were present. And again: 'Now were seen things invisible to human eyes, a bodily form emanating divine brightness, a mortal body sending forth the glory of the Godhead.' For the Word became flesh, and the flesh became Word, even if neither departed from its own nature. O wonder, exceeding every mind! The glory was not added to the body from without, but from within, from the Godhead of the God-Word, which is above all divinity, united to it hypostatically." And after some things: "And it is likely that those contemplating the divine glory are perfect, the [glory] that is beyond all things, the only super-perfect and all-perfect. For 'be perfect,' He says, 'as your heavenly Father is perfect.' And again Christ takes John into the mountain, as a virgin and most pure instrument of theology, so that, having seen the timeless glory of the Son, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' he might thunder; whence also the Son of Thunder is he proclaimed." Do you hear this wise teacher also, [as he describes] the glory of the divine transfiguration, and the light of the Godhead according to it, as if on purpose instructing and clarifying for those who are present? Or rather, I would not even say that this great man at that time was describing and proclaiming in a divine manner without prophetic grace, with the Spirit implicitly moving his heart toward the word for the sake of those now ignorant, and indeed also those who contend against the truth. For he says: "Christ, as if on the rock to Moses in the past, in type, opened a very small crevice of His own flesh, and with unapproachable light, stronger than any sight, illuminated those present there; and that at that time there were seen by the apostles things that cannot by nature be enjoyed by human eyes, so that they were seen by the apostles, but not, as some say, not seen." And what are these things? "A bodily form," he says, "emitting divine brightness, a mortal body sending forth the glory of the Godhead." So that that was not the essence of God, but glory and brightness rather than that—O impious one, filled with folly and envy, whoever you are who dares to say these things, and [to imagine] the visible essence of God, as if someone [insane] and raving, alas! [imagining] that which not even the inventor of evil, the devil, has ever dared to imagine. "O wonder!" he says, "The glory was not added to the body from without, but from within, from the Godhead of the Word of God D, which is above all divinity, united to it..." Let the ungrateful creatures also hear these things, according to the stated theologian, the creations of the wicked one, who attempt to drag down into creation that unapproachable light, that which radiates from within from the super-essential Godhead of the Word, the divine glory, the timeless one, he says, the one beyond all things, the only super-perfect and all-perfect. For just as a noble soldier, brave in soul, robust in body, and good in warfare, the spiritual...
A or evangelical panoply having put on, and having taken the sword of the Word in his hands, suddenly leaps into the middle of the enemy’s phalanx, and of one he cuts off the head, another he strikes in the heart vitally, through another’s vitals and inward parts he drives the sword, and casts one supine upon the earth, dead; and all those with them, and beneath them, he makes at once wounded and fugitives — "one chasing a thousand" by the power of the Spirit, to speak as the wondrous Moses, because God has delivered them, and the Lord has surrendered them.
But let us listen to him again. In the mountain, then, Tabor, Christ, having taken with Himself those who were excelling in the height of virtues, is transfigured before them, He who is always glorified in the same way and shining with the lightning of His divinity. For, B born from the Father without beginning, He possesses the natural ray of divinity as beginningless, not later obtaining its being, nor even obtaining that glory itself. For He is from the Father, but He is beginningless and timeless, possessing the splendor of His own glory. And having been incarnated, He Himself is within, remaining of His own proper quality. And the flesh is glorified at the same time by the production from non-being into being, and the glory of the divinity becomes also the glory of the body; for this and that is one Christ, consubstantial with the Father, and consubstantial and of the same nature with us. And so, if the holy body has never subsisted as partakerless of the divine glory, but from the supreme union of the invisible divinity in terms of subsistence it has been enriched perfectly, yet the glory, existing invisible in the visible body, was to those not receiving it, and to angels invisible, appearing as of the bonds of the flesh. Therefore, He is transfigured—not taking on what He was not, C nor changing into that which He was not, but showing Himself as He was to His own disciples, opening their eyes and making those who were blind become seeing. And this is what is: "He was transfigured before them." For remaining Himself in sameness, yet unlike how He appeared before, He was now seen by the disciples differently. And after a little: "And His face shone as the sun." What are you saying, O Evangelist? Why do you compare things that are truly incomparable? Why do you set beside and compare things that are truly incomparable? Did the Master shine like the servant? Did the ineffable and unapproachable light flash forth like this sun seen by all? "But I do not compare," he would say, "nor do I judge the only begotten and in no way imagineable effulgence of the divine glory; but speaking to those in the bonds of flesh, I bring as an example that which is the most beautiful and brilliant of bodies, not altogether D the most similar. For it is impossible for the uncreated to be depicted in creation without being omitted." And after a little: "The holy body is therefore circumscribed, for standing on Tabor it did not arrive outside the mountain; but the divinity is uncircumscribed, being in all things and beyond all things. And the body shines as the sun." For all things of the one incarnate God-Word have become common, both those of the flesh and of the uncircumscribed divinity. And it is one thing from which the boasts of glory are known, and another from which the common sufferings are recognized. The divine, however, prevails, and imparts of its own splendor and glory to the body, and remains itself unpartaking in the sufferings of passion. And after some things: "From thence Elijah answered, 'This is He whom I have seen of old in a small breeze, bodiless in the Spirit.' For no one has ever seen God, as He is by nature. And if someone has seen, he has seen this in the Spirit. This is the alteration of the right hand of the Most High. These things are what the eye has not seen, and what the ear has not heard, and what has never entered into the heart of man. Thus in the age to come we shall always be with the Lord, seeing Christ, flashing with the light of His divinity.
If the testimony of the theologians has perhaps been examined by us a great length, and especially of this latest teacher—I say rather the first, and middle, and last—since the honor of all these at once belongs to him, and he alone is worthy to be called these things, having come later to speak, and later than all of them in time, but having gathered into himself all that was theirs in zeal, and practice, and experience, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and having become, as it were, a manifold interpreter of some sort, and a theologian, and a common mouth of all the theologians of the venerable Church together, which I said also before, that these very things of his testify—that is to say, his words, and songs, and meters, and that philosophical and theological book of his, especially, being a mystery of piety directly, and a divine meadow and paradise, and an earthly heaven grown for us. Nothing then is absurd nor outside the scope and of the proper discourse at all, if even we, keeping silent as far as possible concerning our own contributions here, introduce the very interpretations of the theologians ourselves, constructing from this the strong and reliable evidence for the argument. Although, if we had wanted to speak from ourselves, it was permitted to us, surely, we would never have been outside the matter according to them, nor far from the teaching and their own words. For what do we have that we did not receive from them? Or how shall we speak of that which we do not have, having learned from their first, as they say, hair-strand until this age? For ours are all theirs, and words, he says, and wisdom and instruction, if at all any wisdom belongs to us, and simply the things any one might say of such matters, and we sail these themselves and those from them almost above this air. But it is better to take from those very ones—the thoughts, I mean, and indeed the words—both to instruct us who are recently learning these things, and to silence those who contradict in turn. And we, as some servants and baggage-carriers, according to our ability, to their words and in turn shall serve, saying how, and where, and how much the thing in them is.
A For it breathes where it wills and when and how much it wills, seeking to be placed [therein], even if he did not perceive them. For how, since not even, according to the Lord’s word, do the angels themselves know them, as they themselves say?
But you, friend, learn again more accurately from these things which I have said, that it is not so much ignorance and inexperience, as it is malice and contentiousness, and the will not to yield to these holy Fathers, that is naturally inclined to produce opposition to them and a perverse arguing against this manifest truth. Nay, one would not be wrong to call unbelief the cause of their ignorance and untimely strife, just as those who stand in the midst of solar rays at high noon and attempt to slander the light of the sun, which is poured out over all the earth and, to speak evangelically, enlightens every man. For have they not heard this theologian explicitly crying out here, that the Son having eternally by nature from the Father his being, possesses this natural radiance of his divinity without beginning? And that one thing is the human body in Him, and another is the all-powerful divinity; but since there is one hypostasis from both, and Christ is conceived simultaneously as God and man, for this reason the glory of the divinity becomes also the glory of the body; and that infinite light shines forth from the deified flesh, as if through glass membranes, as the great Basil says, the divinity having obviously prevailed and imparted of its own glory and brightness to the flesh? And how did those wise men not understand him when he spoke so clearly and openly, hearing that Christ is transformed, not into what he was not, being assumed, nor changed into what he was not, but that he was revealed to the disciples as what he was, opening their eyes and making them see, being blind? And that the Evangelist says Christ does not compare or liken his unbegotten and inaccessible light to this perceptible sun; because, he says, it is impossible for the uncreated to be depicted in creation without omission. But He graciously arranges also the manner of participation, as much as possible, and shows it at the same time to those who see and hear without stumbling. What he says, B was without beginning as God both before the flesh and after the becoming man, was revealed to his disciples in the Transfiguration, opening their eyes and making them see out of blindness. So that, regarding the natural energy of sight, they were no better at the vision of that inaccessible light than other men; for even they were so disposed. For the mysteries beyond the mind do not fall under human eyes, nor even under the intellect. For of these things also, the theologian says, with the Apostle, that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ever entered into the heart of man. But by the divine Spirit, their eyes having been opened or transformed, they saw in a supernatural way things invisible to human eyes; just as indeed Isaiah the prophet, having his ear opened by God, C sought them out and understood them. For how, where not even the angels know them, as they say?
Explaining again the divine vision according to Isaiah, he says thus, introducing the prophet speaking about himself: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up." How he saw, I do not know; that he saw, I say; but the "how," I keep silent about. I accept what has been spoken; I do not over-inquire into what has been kept silent. I consider what has been revealed; I will not pry into what has been veiled. For this reason it has been veiled. The account of the Scriptures is a tapestry of gold. The warp is gold. The woof is gold. I do not interweave the webs of spiders. I know the weakness of my own reasonings. "Do not remove the ancient boundaries," he says, "which your fathers set." It is not safe to move boundaries. And how shall we change what God has laid before us? Do you wish to learn how he saw God? Become a prophet yourself. And in another place again he says thus: "But the how the prophets see these things which they see is not for us to say." For it is not even possible for the manner of the vision to be interpreted by word. But only he who has learned by experience has seen clearly; for if the works and passions of nature are often impossible for anyone to express in words, D much more so the manner of the power of the Spirit. And if one must dare to use dim images, not so as to present the clear truth, but so as to furnish a sort of riddle, it seems to me that the same happens in the case of the prophets; as if the nature of pure waters, having received the rays of the sun, were to be illuminated, so also do the souls of the prophets, cleansed first by their own virtue, receive the gift of the Spirit, and, turning towards that radiance, so also [do they receive] the knowledge of things to come.
These same things the most capacious vessel of the Spirit, I mean the great Basil, says concerning the same matters, when he too philosophizes about the energy and the participation of the Holy Spirit, in this way: "Having been cleansed therefore from the vileness which he scraped off from wickedness, and having returned to the beauty from nature, and having rendered through purity the original form like a royal image, so is it only then possible to draw near to the Comforter." And He, as the sun having taken hold of a cleansed eye, will show in Himself the image of the Invisible. And in the blessed sight of the image is the ineffable vision of the beauty of the Archetype. Through this is the ascent of hymns, the guiding by the hand of the infirm, the perfecting of those who are advancing. This makes those who have been cleansed from every stain and shining in communion with Him spiritual; and just as transparent and bright bodies, once a ray falls upon them, themselves become radiant and emit another beam from themselves, so too do the spirit-bearing souls, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual and send forth the grace to others. And after a little: Thence the likeness to God, the highest of desirable things, which is to become god.
A Let those, therefore, who now strive for their own ill, also learn—if they do not stop up their ears, to speak with the wise Gregory—that the apostles saw on the mountain, in Christ, the supernatural glory of His divinity. For they did not see the things above nature by human power, nor by physical senses, but by having been tempered by the divine Spirit toward His grace, since in this alone is it the nature of these things to be beheld. And having opened their ears to these matters, let them the rather restrain their tongue, so as to receive through their ears the things spoken and to understand the things revealed, as the golden John says; but with the tongue’s silence, let them not investigate the things kept silent, nor be busybodies about the things veiled—for on this account, he says, they are veiled. Nor let them introduce the question of “how” into things beyond human nature, mind, and tongue, lest they fall away entirely from the faith, again according to the golden teacher. For he, too, traversing the things that were burning in Nicodemus toward Christ of old, says: “You call Him teacher, and say that He has come from God, and yet you do not accept the things being said, but to the teacher you utter the expression that introduces many commotions?” For this “how” is a questioning of those who do not firmly believe, of those still of the earth. Since even Sarah laughed for this reason, because she spoke the “how”; and many others, having sought this, fell away from the faith. And after a little: “But those who seek these things will neither know the ‘how,’ and they will fall away from the true faith.” For this reason, this man also seeks the mode out of perplexity. And after some things: “See how, when one entrusts spiritual things to one’s own reasonings, one utters ridiculous things, and seems to babble and be drunk when one is meddlesome B against what is acceptable to God in the things said, and does not accept the assent of faith. He heard ‘birth,’ but did not understand it as spiritual; rather, he dragged the things said down into the lowliness of the flesh, and so hung the great and lofty dogma upon the order of nature. For this reason, he weaves babble and ridiculous perplexities thereafter.”
But as for the things written to the Corinthians again by the Apostle, let us hear how the brilliant Chrysostom, interpreting them, speaks concerning the grace and participation in this divine light. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.” And after a little: “What does it mean, ‘beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image’? This was shown more clearly when He was working the gifts of signs; however, even now it is not difficult for one having faithful eyes to discern it. For at once we are baptized and, beyond the sun, the soul shines, cleansed by the Spirit. And not only do we look into the glory of God, but from there we also receive a certain radiance. For just as pure silver, placed toward the rays, would itself send forth rays, not from its own nature alone, but also from the solar brightness, so also the soul, being cleansed and becoming brighter than C silver, receives a ray from the glory of the Spirit and sends it back.” Therefore he says, “Beholding the same image, we are transformed from the glory of the Spirit into glory, our own, which is coming to be, and such as is fitting from the Lord the Spirit.” And again: “Do you wish that I show you this even more perceptibly from the apostles? Consider Paul, whose garments performed works; Peter, whose shadows had power. For if they did not bear the image of the King, and their rays were not unreachable, their garments and shadows would not have performed such works. For even the garments of a King are fearsome to robbers. Do you wish to see this shining even through the body? ‘Having fastened their eyes,’ he says, ‘upon the face of Stephen, they saw it as the face of an angel.’” But this is nothing compared to the glory flashing from within. For what Moses had upon his face, this they carried about upon their soul; nay, but even much more. For the former of Moses was more perceptible; this, however, is immaterial. And just as fire-bright bodies, flowing from bright bodies onto those nearby, bestow a share of their own light, so indeed it happens also with the faithful. For this reason, those who experience this depart from the earth and dream of the things in heaven. Alas! It is good here, and yet it is narrow and bitter that, enjoying such a benefit, we do not even know the things being spoken, because of quickly losing the things and being stunned by perceptible things. For this glory, ineffable and awesome, remains in us until the first or second day, but thereafter we extinguish it, bringing in the winter of worldly affairs and repelling the rays with the density of the clouds. For worldly affairs are winter, and are gloomier than winter.
You have heard of the common and consonant philosophy and theology in part from these D apostolic men, those who through experience know these divine and supernatural things.
But oh, the mischief of the evil demon! How he sets his traps from every side, and his snares! How, as a roaring lion, according to what is said, he goes about everywhere, seeking whom he may devour! Some disbelieve, openly contradicting, as I said, the truth and its holy words and theologians, and acting as busybodies about the things kept silent, and being meddlesome about the things veiled, not accepting the things said, nor understanding the things revealed—for I shall utter the same things concerning the same matters again and many times over; others, while they say they do not wish to stand with the enemies, nor to war against the sound words or those warring for them and standing in their defense, yet they accuse them, as they say, of rashness and babble, far from those having chosen to do and say those very things; they do not, however, contribute even the smallest things to the word of truth, nor to those struggling for it to grow.
A For if they were not also at peace with one another for evil, so as to loosen also their hands and their zeal against those they were eager to refute, and to attempt to purify some with a novel way, and to consolidate the side of their opponents from there, perhaps even against their will, in accordance with every necessity.
For what do they say? Let these and those things be silent, he says; and let the light of the Transfiguration of Christ not be called created and made and having an end, nor yet uncreated and the natural glory of God, and divinity; for thus, with these and those being silenced, there shall be peace among all, and the source of the scandals occurring from these things will be removed from the midst.
O the excellence of this device, and of the zeal for this marvelous peace! But rather, before exercising the question of this, and the argument, I wish to ask you before all others: who in the world is the one saying these things and things akin to these? B Or endangering one another at such a moment? To whom it would have been better—not even as much as one might say—if they had chosen the commended separation, instead of that most base and perishing peace. But that I may leave these aside for now, and turn the argument to those things more proper and related to the things proposed: did not those who formerly held the views of Arius, and stood against the glory of the Only-Begotten, after their own defeat and the bright proclamation of piety, while still fighting brightly with the thought and the term of *homoousios*, seek to remove us from the symbol of faith alone, and [thereby] from there reach agreement with us in all things, and cause the ecumenical war to cease, and [cause] every church to maintain peace? And did not those who succeeded to the madness of Macedonius against the divinity of the worshipful Spirit, after those long struggles and courses against the pious—having for the time being set aside other things—seek that the term *homoousios* alone be removed from the midst, they too proposing its unscriptural and strange nature, as the former ones did regarding the Spirit? But the champions of right reason at the time did not cast aside these terms, nor did they choose to set them as the price of a peace not to be commended; nor, again, [did they allow] them to become as it were a principle and destroyer of piety from that point on; and [they persisted] so much that many later on even to fire and slaughter and the noose struggled nobly for this very thing, while those in power, alas! most basely headed the impiety.
Tell me then, my good man, by the truth itself which we profess: is it necessary simply to honor and construct every peace, and to be zealous and struggle for all of it, or to seek such peace as this, but to disregard the rest? And if you should say the second, you speak very rightly in this, and I myself place [my confidence in it], and I agree with the argument readily; and it was necessary absolutely, according to this argument, for you not to prefer peace simply, and this when the matter is concerning God and divine dogmas, but [to prefer] the peace of God in every respect. For thus also He who was going to the cross said to His own disciples: C "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you"; and that "Not as the world gives, do I give to you." But if you say the former, I would marvel, if this argument can persuade even itself, according to the wise man who spoke. For if every peace simply is a good, however it may be, how is Christ, the Lawgiver of peace, the Peace Itself, [saying], "I did not come to cast peace upon the earth, but a sword"? And how does He Himself become a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal to some in Sion, clearly to them that disobey? And what of the choir of His disciples? Who, as it were, like some seditionaries and wasters and destroyers, were driven from every side because of the divine preaching, dying, so to speak, every day? Who, indeed, for he says, "upset the inhabited world," are here. And yet it was in their power, if they wished, to be silent about the word and, doing their own things, to lead a peaceful life. But the words of Christ rather drew them: "Behold, I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves," having been said; and again: "He who has not, he says, a sword, let him sell his garment and buy," implying the struggles and wars awaiting them; and that it is necessary not only not to retreat nor to flee, but to prepare and practice the struggle from afar—which, as we know, resulted in the works later on, with much to spare. Nay, indeed, even murderers and robbers, and traitors and burglars, agree most of all D and move about herein very dangerously. At any rate, he adds a decree publicly that no one of all people should dare to say either one energy and will, or two, regarding Christ; or [else] he honors Him with the ultimate, without clearly distinguishing between holy and profane—not to say Christ and Beliar—and [does so] by placing the wrong opinion about Christ alongside the right one, and condemning the sound argument along with the disease of the shameful heresy.
Which also those, they say, who then held the views of Nestorius, made a source of derision and mockery against the Church: "the Chalcedonians," they said—for that is what they considered it fitting to call us then, because of the marvelous council, I mean, the one in Chalcedon—brightly
A proclaimed those of Nestorius. For they, too, were saying, at first, that the one Son among them had two energies, and, as well, double wills in addition to these; then, after a little while, having changed suddenly, they claimed that He possessed one energy and will. Now, however, having suddenly lost both, they do not permit it to be said by anyone among them that He has even two, nor, in short, do they allow one, but none at all.
And these things, indeed, were said by those evil men of the diametrically opposed evils, rightly laughing at one another; but take heed lest you, too, even if you have not turned out to be evil like them, should now invite the defenders of the right doctrine to the same laughter and condemnation, by exhorting them to be silent in like manner regarding both these matters and those. For who of all people does not know that most of those who oppose the pious doctrine that we hold would readily have made peace with us and come to harmony, not only were they not impious—I say rather, were they not ungodly—if they had only had us remaining silent, not about the whole Gospel, nor even about all the dogmatic utterances?
And then, what shall we do regarding those holy melodies and theologians of the mystery, who from afar call us to the rite and the splendor and the communion of that great light, with a clear voice—and I do not mean only by words and those divine odes and hymns, but also by what is even higher and greater than these, I mean by the things themselves? For one of them, inviting us from thence to the mental ascent of the Lord’s transfiguration, says: "Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and let us behold the glory of His transfiguration, a manifestation as of the Only-Begotten from the Father. With light let us take hold of light, and having become aloft in the Spirit, let us sing hymns to the consubstantial Trinity unto the ages;" as from thence one especially and purely joins the other angels in singing to God unceasingly, in those endless ages. And again, another from thence says: "Come, you people, obey me, having ascended to the holy mountain, the heavenly, let us stand immaterially in the living city of God, and let us contemplate the immaterial Godhead of the Father and the Spirit, flashing forth in the Only-Begotten." And again, the same man, turning his own discourse toward Christ, the cause of the mystery, and interpreting in a way worthy of God the things accomplished at His transfiguration, says: "That you might show openly, O Christ, the secret second descent, so that the Most High God might be seen standing in the midst of gods, having flashed forth ineffably to the apostles on Tabor with Moses and Elijah." And again: "O You who fashioned man with invisible hands according to Your image, Christ, in Your creature You showed forth the archetypal beauty, not as in an image, but as You Yourself being in essence, the God who became man."
And the friend of this man, and fellow-singer, and fellow-theologian, and one who speaks throughout B by the Spirit, says something like this to Him who was transfigured, Christ, according to those blessed ones: "Having assumed the whole of Adam, O Christ, You made bright again the nature that had been darkened of old, and by the change of Your form You made it God-working." And again: "The unchangeable nature, having been mixed with the mortal, exposing the light of the invisible Godhead, flashed forth ineffably to the apostles." But here, I wish to ask those calumniators of the Godhead a little something again. Tell me, therefore, most excellent sir, is this Godhead, C as the God-bearing Cosmas says here, properly Christ’s as God’s, or whose do you say it is? It is Christ’s, certainly. For the discourse is about Him, and not about another. What, then, is this nature? And how is it possible, unless you should wish to innovate two divine natures, just as you do the other things? For the theologian, speaking of the two natures of Christ before this, says: "For the unchangeable nature"—having said "that is, the divine"—"for it alone has unchangeability, having been mixed with the mortal nature," then he adds, "exposing the light of the invisible, immaterial Godhead." What then, since this Godhead is not a nature according to this theologian, is it therefore a creature? And yet this is the Godhead of Christ, and you hear it being similar to His divine nature, and its light flashing forth ineffably to the apostles, both timeless and inaccessible, and this light of Christ is paternal—or rather, it is of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit at once—and it is the nature that, in a supernatural way, made the humanity God-working, and this is what the aforementioned theologians have spoken of in agreement, and according to him again, saying, "In the inaccessible light, as Peter beheld You, O Christ, on Mount Tabor, he shouted." And again: "In the inaccessible glory, on Mount Tabor, the unbearable and unapproachable light, the radiance of the Father, having been manifested ineffably on the mountain, enlightened the creature and deified mankind." And again: "Standing in a manner worthy of the holy ones, Moses and Elijah on Mount Tabor, seeing Christ clearly in the character of the divine hypostasis, sang while flashing forth in the paternal glory." This, then, tell me: do you say that the Godhead of Christ, His paternal inaccessible glory, and the light that is inaccessible according to it, are a creature? D And is it possible for one to speak of a created Godhead at all? And was this ever heard of from the age by those who wish to be pious, and who worship not the creature, but rather the Creator and Master of the creature? And who would endure this boldness? And what hearing and mind would not shudder and recoil from these words?
But I think it is superfluous to say the same things to them many times over and about the same subjects, as if they were deliberately not understanding what is said. But I shall turn my discourse again to those who are listening. Are these things, pray tell, the things that have from old held the Church of Christ in their embrace in a supernatural way, from the ends of the earth to the ends, which also Romans, and Scythians, and Persians, and Sauromatae, and Goths, and Indians, and Ethiopians, and Britons, and Spaniards, and Germans, and Gauls, and myriads of tribes of nations, singing in their own dialects...
A Christ, and that ineffable and universal salvation of his for us. For this reason, I have set forth for you these harmonic arguments, and the melodies for the mystery, and the continuous hymns of those wise teachers, whom the Church of all nations obedient to the Gospel of Christ sings aloud with the greatest eagerness; and they understand these arguments and thoughts even more, inasmuch as they are spoken in a way more humble and cruder than those languages and dialects, separated from Greek grammar and the muses; and so they are known even to women and children, and to the base and beggars and slaves, more than these things here with us, along with the holy Gospels, as if those people had previously withdrawn from their soul and from the things that were innate to them or known to them from above and from the Fathers, both these sacred words and hymns.
I myself, however, greatly fear those great sentences and prophecies of Christ, lest they be spoken directly against us, now indeed reproaching the scribes B and teachers of the Jews regarding these things and calling them hypocrites. For "Woe," he says, "unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and those who were entering you hindered." And now, regarding the disciples, saying, "Whoever shall confess in me before men, I also will confess in him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever shall deny me before men, I will deny him before my Father." For if, as he himself says, God does not receive glory from men, being as he is, but "I have known you," he says again to such as these, that "you do not have the love of God in yourselves."
And if that great Moses and Aaron, who followed him immediately, although they had chastised Egypt with supernatural signs, and delivered Israel from the Egyptians with a mighty hand, and divided the sea with a rod and a type of a greater mystery, and drowned the tyrant Pharaoh with all his army, and led the people in C the desert with a pillar of fire and a cloud, and provided food from heaven, and sweetened the water, and miraculously caused it to gush from the jagged rock—why need I name the greater and more supernatural thing?—holding immediate converse with God as a friend with a friend—if, therefore, he, who was deemed worthy of such and so great things by him who bears all things by the might of his power, was condemned—after all those things and indeed the supernatural vision of God, and the ineffable change and glory of the sight from thence, and indeed the power of the whole nation, and the leadership and the legislation, both written and unwritten—just like some of the condemned, not to see the land of promise, nor the [land] formerly praised to them, D was condemned to attain the inheritance with the disobedient—alas! For God was saying to Moses, "Go up into the mountain, and die." And he did the same thing a little before to Aaron, his brother, who was no less in dignity or in body, saying, "Because you will not enter into the land which I gave to the sons of Israel for an inheritance, because you disobeyed my word among the sons of Israel at the water of strife at Kadesh in the desert of Sin, because you did not sanctify me among the sons of Israel." If, therefore, Moses, the lawgiver, the head of the prophets, such a great friend and beholder of God, paid such penalties along with his brother for not having glorified God before the people—for this is what "you did not sanctify me" means. "Must we," Moses said in anger, to the grumbling and impatient Israel, "bring forth water out of this rock?" What then should we expect, and from what punishments shall we not be liable, or rather, how shall we not fall from the true promise, namely, the land of the meek in the future, of which that former land of promise was of old the Egypt, and be cast out along with the senseless and God-killing Jews, those who blaspheme against it—the glory of the only-begotten Son of God, which is hymned on high in a holy manner by every sacred and theological mouth, after the light of the world, after the bright rising of the Sun of righteousness, the universal distributions and illuminations of the Spirit, and the great proclamations and the salvation of all men in the flesh—as those who stumble at those things and disobey the divinity worse than they, which not even the demons do, says the great tongue and theologian?
Moreover, I also suspect no less the one who buried the master’s talent, and his fearful condemnation. "For you ought," he says, "wicked and slothful servant, to have put my money to the bankers, and at my coming I would have received my own with interest." By money, I would straightforwardly speak of the image carrying the royal [stamp], the evangelical and masterly words, those which describe to us his ineffable transfiguration, the one who displayed in himself the archetypal beauty of the divine image that human essence had taken back, the one who transformed it into the brightness and glory of his own divinity, that inaccessible and unchangeable and eternal and never-setting and natural light of his, which deified our nature according to the holy theologians, for whom every act of Christ and every mystery exists, which he himself also previously taught as the glory and kingdom both of himself and of the Father; for I shall never cease both saying and writing these things and the like, and proclaiming them brightly and loudly to all, both near and far, even if one mouth and tongue according to nature be but one, not sufficing for the service of the word to the will of my soul and this eagerness. And I look, in addition to the things said, also to that...
A lofty contemplation and experience which challenges everyone. For since the gift of deification from Christ is common to human nature, and there is no envy in the ascent, according to him who spoke it, who would offer a defense for those who do not accept even by faith the words concerning these things, for which they ought—by the divine will, that is, and the sacred words of the teachers and by experience—to have possessed them? For both the theologians mentioned a little while ago indicated this through the hymns of the mystery, and indeed the same ones shall demonstrate it even more clearly through these very words.
Let, then, Andrew the Great also come forward again, briefly discussing these same things as if in an epilogue. “As I, for my part,” he says, “think, the goal of the Transfiguration looks toward this, and it wills that the mystery be praised by us in this manner. For it wills that we, understanding the depth of the things done and said according to it, should by knowledge draw to ourselves a more active grace, by imitation of the Transfigured One, and that this wonderful and strange mystery should also be at work in us ourselves.” And John again, the wonderful philosopher of the Church, says, “Come, then, let us too emulate the obedience of the disciples, and let us eagerly follow Christ who calls us, and let us shake off the crowd of the passions, and without shame let us confess the Son of the living God, and having become worthy of the promise, let us return to the mountain of the virtues toward love, and let us become spectators of the glory and hearers of the ineffable things.” For truly blessed, as the Lord says, are the eyes that see, because they see, and the ears that hear, because they hear, which many prophets and kings desired to see and hear, and did not attain their desire. And again, let us keep these divine commandments with all vigilance, so that we too may enjoy His divine beauty, being filled with the sweetness of His taste: now indeed, as far as is possible for those burdened with this earthy tabernacle of the body, but afterwards more clearly and purely, when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun, when, delivered from the needs of the body, they shall be incorruptible as angels with the Lord, in the great and manifest revelation from heaven of Him who is the Lord and God and Savior of us, Jesus Christ.
Gregory again, the great and philosophic tongue of the Church, through a prayer, as if sealing what was said to him concerning the wonderful Stephen and that experience of his which is above nature, says: “But may it be that we should become not only spectators, but also partakers of the grace, having been filled with the Holy Spirit and the destruction of the adversaries… our Jesus Christ.”
But let John, he of the golden tongue and mind, come forward again in the discourse, and let it be for us at the end of the teachers here, adorning this from both sides. He says, then, B since it was until that time unclear to those hearing the word concerning the kingdom, therefore, having ascended the mountain, He was transfigured before His disciples, opening up to them the glory of the things to come, and as in a riddle and obscurely demonstrating what our body will be. But then indeed He appeared with garments, but in the resurrection not so. For our body does not need garments, nor a roof, nor a ceiling, nor anything of the kind. For if Adam before the transgression, being naked, was not ashamed, being clothed with glory, much more will our bodies, inasmuch as they will move toward a better condition, not reach for any of these things. D For this reason He Himself, when rising, allowed the garments to lie upon the tomb and the bier, having raised the body naked, filled with unspeakable glory and blessedness. Therefore, knowing these things, beloved, and having been instructed by words, and having been taught by the eyes, let us show forth such a manner of life, so that, having been caught up in the clouds, we may always be with Him, being saved by His grace, and enjoying the goods to come.
B But the discourse concerning these wonderful mysteries, my dear child—my sweet object and name, for whom I also eagerly undertook this struggle—has been worked out for you sufficiently by the servants and ministers of the Word themselves, teaching what they were well taught by Him; for nothing is clearer or higher than the voice of the Word; rather, what they well knew by experience, having endured according to these very ones to speak of that blessed and much-sung passion, you also have already learned from them, I mean from the first disciples and evangelists of the Word, and indeed also from the theologians, teachers, and followers of this who came after them, that the divine mystery of the Transfiguration is the kingdom and glory of God, which the apostles were deemed worthy to see with their eyes upon the mountain, and that it is not simply kingdom and glory, but natural glory and divinity and a prelude of the kingdom and glory that is to be revealed in the future in Christ, of which He will surely make the saints and spectators both at the same time participants and partners, making them other suns and equal to the angels, and children of God, according to the promise. You knew that it is none of the creatures, nor those things that appear and pass away or are dissolved, but light timeless and unapproachable, and natural to God. You learned that this is natural, and inseparable from the essence; but the nature not… D For you heard that the saints see that light not with human eyes, it not only being by nature above sense, but also above all human intellect, but spiritual and supernatural. You knew, above all, that this mystery of the Transfiguration wills that those things done and said in it by Christ,
A sensing us from the depths and having cast off the impurity of the soul from the passions, and having henceforth risen to the height of love, [we are] now, in as much as it is possible, to be shown as spectators of this deifying grace by the divine Spirit, and in the future age to partake of it more brightly and more loftily; the Son of God was truly made man, so that He might make man God, through communion with this deifying light and grace.
For truly the deification of human nature, which those who are being deified are deemed worthy of by the participation of the Holy Spirit, is this. For He deified the first-fruits of our nature by that new mixture of the divine nature and by subsisting in His own person beyond reason; but those who are deemed worthy of true adoption from Him, and who are being deified by the Spirit through communication and participation of His own deifying grace—these, I say, the only God by nature also makes children of God B and gods and like unto Himself, in that very thing, in a supernatural way.
And for this reason also, John, the son of thunder, says: Now, we are children of God; and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. But we know that if He should appear, we shall be like Him; hinting at the future, more perfect participation and communion of this deifying grace of those who are as He is, by which, as the sun there, according to the word of Christ, they shall shine like Christ Himself, the sun of righteousness, becoming conformed to that deified body of His. Which also John, who is golden-mouthed, C spoke of clearly a little while ago in the epilogues, as you have heard.
Those, therefore, who through purity of life, and having thereby established themselves as worthy of the indwelling of the divine Spirit, already possess as if in a pledge the beginnings of the future deification, having risen—I mean the great and first resurrection of the soul—even before the common resurrection of the bodies; but as for us, whom the darkness of sin and the passions still overshadow, not yet having broken through this barrier by sincere repentance, faith alone in the mystery, and the friendship of his heralds and our teachers, is left behind for us as a kind of deposit of that hoped-for blessedness; and they turn over in their minds the infinite love for mankind of the Master, by which He, being God, was made man, and furthermore [they consider] those mediators and defenders who stand by our cause, so that we shall not fall altogether from the D common and supernatural nature of the Master’s own prestige; while as yet hoping in the future, if even through laziness, alas! and the weakness of this treacherous flesh, and also the assault of those bodiless and implacable enemies—or I do not know what I should say—we might be deprived of that great and most mystical grace of the Spirit in the present life; and for this very reason I myself would particularly say [the same] even of the common enemy of the human race at the end of the present age... in order that we not... nor hear the sacred voice, nor be taught about this at all—and let us be emptied of how much the mystery of the great dispensation of Christ is to those who are such; but to the ungrateful and God-killers, alas! the Jews, along with Arius and Nestorius, those who cut themselves off from the portion of Christ of old, [it is] opening the door most wickedly, and giving no mean pretexts for the insult against the Only-Begotten. For this is also the direct negation of His present natural glory and of His divinity. But...