Philotheus, Patriarch of Constantinople

YEAR OF OUR LORD MCCCLXXVI PHILOTHEUS CPOLITANUS PATRIARCH NOTICE (FABRIC. HARL. Bibliotheca Graeca, tom. XI, p. 513)

Philotheus, a monk first on Sinai, then superior of the monks on Mount Athos, and finally, having been bishop of Heraclea, patriarch of Constantinople in the years 1354 and 1362–1376, died in the year 1376. In many writings he cultivated the memory of Gregory Palamas and fought against his adversaries, of which very few have seen the light of day^A. It will be helpful, however, in the present place to append a brief notice of the writings of Philotheus, both published and unpublished.

1. His principal work consists of the 15 Books of Antirrhetics for the defense of the Palamite tome, in which he attacked the writings—already dead—of Nicephorus Gregoras, at the urging of Cantacuzenos. It exists still unpublished in various libraries, such as the Vatican, the Royal Parisian codex 1996 [according to the printed catalog of the Royal Parisian library, Vol. II, in codices 421, n. 2, and 1244, n. 1 (HARL.)], and the Royal Spanish library. They are also preserved in a notable codex, which was written by the hand of Sylvestros Syropoulos, deacon and great ecclesiarch, preserved in the Coislinian library, and accurately reviewed by Montfaucon, pp. 173–176. Boivin produces passages from the royal Parisian codex in his notes to Gregoras, p. 792, 798, etc. The same author published, in Greek and Latin, a prophetic dream attributed to Nicephorus Gregoras from the twelfth book in his Life of Gregoras. Excerpts from the fifth book are in the ms. of Lambecius V, p. 206 (FABR.) or p. 426, Kollar. In the Caesarean codex 245, n. 17. In the Augsburg public library codex there is Gregory Palamas’s Exposition of the Orthodox Faith and Philotheus’s Confession of Faith, etc., according to Reiser’s index of the mss. of that library, p. 27. In Munich, in the Bavarian codex 57, there are 15 of Philotheus’s Antirrhetic Sermons. See Hardt in Aretini Beyträgen, etc., year 1804, part 1, p. 32 sqq. Oxford, in the Bodleian library, in codex Guil. Laud. 59 s. n. 711, Cat. mss. Angliæ, etc. I. Cf. supra, vol. VII, p. 634 and 655 bis. — Moscow, in the synodal codex 165, n. 9; then excerpts from Theodoret’s Historia Philothea, n. 7; but n. 12 is the Confession of the Orthodox Faith. See Matthæi, Notit. codd. Gr. Mosq. p. 97 sqq. — Cited in the Laurentian codex 16, plut. 8, which contains theological sermons of an uncertain author attacking Palamas, who, according to Bandini (in Cat. codd. Gr. Laur. 1, p. 357 sqq.), appears to be Nicephorus Gregoras (HARL.).

To the Grand Domestic Palaiologos, regarding the saying of Saint Basil in the Antirrhetics against Eunomius, "For He who produced the clods of dew according to the word of Job, did not establish the clods and the Son in the same way," and regarding the divinity. It begins: "Come now again, most noble of wise men." Ms. Lambec. ibid. [s. p. 410, n. 5, 6, Koll.]. This is the thirteenth book of the Antirrhetics against Gregoras (FABR.). Paris, in the public library, codex 421, n. 3 (HARL.).

To the same, concerning the divine transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, and concerning the light which appeared there to the disciples, and that it was neither the essence of God nor a created thing, etc. It begins: "Since those statements, according to our... of slanders and innovations," ms. ibid. This is the fourteenth book of the Antirrhetics (FABR.). Moscow, in the synodal codex 165, n. 10 and 13. See Matthæi, not. cit. p. 98, and p. 178 concernining codex 277. — Oxford, in the Bodleian library, codex 59, s. n. 711, cat. mss. Angliæ, etc. I. — Paris, in the cited codex n. 4. Item in codex 1244.

(a) Confer on Philotheus: Henry Wharton and Robert Gerry (who added more and provided a notice of the codices) in the Appendix to Cave’s Hist. litt. SS. Eccl. vol. II, p. 68 sqq. to the year 1362. Oudin provided much more and made a more abundant mention of the codices in Comm. de SS. Eccl. tom. II, col. 1059, sqq. to the year 1350. Add Saxius, Onom. lit. part II, p. 372, to the year 1354. According to Jo. Baptist Riccioli, S. I., in his Chronologia reformata, from the year of Christ 1362 up to the year 1375, he held that patriarchal see for 13 years and six months. Add Lambecius VIII, p. 1097, Kollar ex Phil. Labbe, Protreptico corporis Hist. Byzantinæ, p. 56 sqq. (HARL.)

n. 2. (See the compiler, Cat. mss., vol. II, p. 263), and cod. 1276, n. 1. — In cod. Coislin. Cl. V. Montfaucon, Bibl. Coisl. p. 176. — Florent. in cod. Laurent. VIII, n. 15 sqq., regarding which codex the excellent Bandini discourses copiously in Cat. codd. Gr. Laurent. I, p. 342-349. Venet. in bibl. Marc. cod. 582. See Cat. codd. Gr. Marc. p. 506. Add. to n. 12. (HARL.)

2. Refutation of the chapters of Acindynus and Barlaam. Begins: They say they are opposed to divine Scripture. Ms. in the Coislinian library. (FABR.) See Montfaucon, loc. cit. p. 176; ms. at Augsburg. See Reiser, Indic. cit. p. 27. Mosque in cod. 165, n. 11. See Matthæi, loc. cit. (HARL.)

3. To Peter, follower of Barlaam. That as God is the Holy Trinity, so also there is one divinity, and concerning divine energy. Begins: Yesterday and the day before, someone... ms. at the end of the Antirrhetica in the Coislinian library. It exists also in the Imperial Library, Lambec. V, p. 197 (FABR.), or p. 410, Koll. n. 4, cod. 265. — Paris, in the public library, cod. 1276, n. 2. (HARL.)

4. On the panegyrical prayer written for Gregory Palamas, and on the two Canons and the office consecrated to his praises, which the Greeks have inserted into the Triodion, I have said above (1), p. 456, old ed. See also Lambecius V, p. 284. (p) and Allatius, who is indignant at Philotheus, p. 195 seq. concerning the books of the Greek Church, and against Hottinger, p. 215.

5. On the encomiastic prayer for the three hierarchs, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom. Printed in Greek and Latin in vol. XII of the Paris Bibl. Patrum, years 1644, 1654, I have said in vol. VII, p. 558 (q); and to Allatius, De Nilis, p. 76. [See vol. X, p. 27 seq. new ed.]

6. Homilies on the Gospels and the Sundays of the whole year, and others, taken primarily from St. John Chrysostom, Mss. in the library of the most serene elector of Bavaria (r) and in the library of the Catholic king, witnessed by Banduri, p. 988, in Antiquitates CPol., part also in the Imperial library. See Lambecius V, p. 65 seq. [or p. 142, n. 7, cod. 232 ed. Kollar.] Instruction from various learned men, from Chrysostom and others, on the holy Gospels of the Lord read in church. Ibid. On the Publican and the Pharisee.

7. On Demetrius the martyr. Begins: Demetrius has presented the opportunity for this collection of discourses today. Ms. in the Imperial library, Lambec. V, p. 193 (s). Cited by Allatius in De purgatorio, p. 771, and against Hottinger, p. 217.

8. On the evangelical beatitudes, three orations, to Helen, daughter of Jo. Cantacuzenus, wife of John Palaeologus. Mss. ibid. Lamb. V, p. 195 (FABR.), or p. 406 seq. ed. Koll. n. 2, cod. 265. — Milan in the Ambrosian library, on the eight beatitudes and certain other things on the sayings of St. Basil with commentary, witnessed by Montfaucon, in Bibl. biblioth. Mss., p. 503 E. (HARL.)

9. Oration on the exaltation of the cross, in Greek and Latin, in Gretser, De Cruce, vol. II, p. 174. Begins: Since the most holy... And another for the third Sunday of the fasts, on the adoration of the cross, ibid. p. 360. Begins: Having outlined and depicted... (FABR.) Another, which exists in Greek and Latin in volume II of the Syntagma of Jacob Gretser, De sancta cruce, col. 1477. Ingolstadt, 1616 fol. It is attributed to Philotheus, but in the Imperial codex 263 and 264 it is ascribed to Jo. Calecas. See Lambec. tom. V, p. 393, note 2; and p. 401, note 2. Add above vol. X, p. 246 and 247. (HARL.)

10. Refutation of the anathemas, by the nomophylax Harmenopulus, in the legal epitome of the adscripts, and that according to the opinion of Chrysostom, Christians should not be hastily subjected to anathema. ^{B C D} (p) Or p. 487, Kollar n. 3, cod. 265 concerning the canticles together with the Acoluthia: — p. 440, n. 29, cod. 268, Canon on Gregory Palamas with acrostics: Philotheus' Office for the same, together with the inserted Synaxarion of his life, ibid. p. 600, in cod. Caes. 324. Comp. above in this chap. 1, near the end. (HARL.)

(q) Or vol. VIII, p. 450, new ed. Add above to vol. X, p. 206, at Rome in the Vatican library, witnessed by Montfaucon in Bibl. biblioth. mss. p. 12 D, and there p. 703 B, concerning the codex of the Sfortian library. (HARL.)

(r) In cod. 61, which begins with a homily on the Publican and the Pharisee and single ones, which are many, the famous Hardt gave a list of the homilies in Aretini Beyträgen, etc., year 1804, part 1, p. 44 sqq. and part 2, p. 3 sqq., and p. 7 seq. with those indicated in Cat. codd. Nanian. and Taurin. He compares these, and he himself enumerates and collects 52 other homilies of Philotheus from the same codex, p. 15. In cod. 199 a huge number of the same homilies is found, and they are diligently reviewed by Hardt, loc. cit., year 1805, part 2, p. 117 sqq. Likewise at Venice in the Nanian codices 109, 118, 119 which he reviews individually (Mingarelli) in Cat. codd. Gr. Nan. 209 sqq., 239 sqq., 245 sqq., to which we refer the reader, and cod. 120 contains some homilies, 11 on Sundays in Matthew, Luke, and on feast days of the Saints. See ibid. p. 248 sqq. (Homilies II in the Gospel of Luke are also in Venice in cod. Marc. 582.) At Turin in the codices of the royal library 51 and 154. See Cat. codd. Gr. Taur. p. 155, especially p. 247 sqq., where 59 individual homilies or Institutions (didaskaliai) are enumerated, with the beginning of each provided. In Petri Possini Thesaurus asceticus, n. 15, is the sermon of Philotheus on the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. See infra vol. XIII, p. 755. Concerning the Greek names for the days of the week, see Kollar ad Lambec. Comment. vol. III, p. 168 seq. notes B and A; and he refers to Allatius, De Dominicis et hebdomadibus Græcorum, p. 1463. (HARL.)

(s) Or p. 405 seq. n. 1, cod. 265 ed. Koll. and vol. VI, part 1, pag. 82, n. 11, cod. 10. (HARL.)

In the year 1857, Cyril, patriarch of Jerusalem, made use of the law at the front of the Homilies of Palamas (from the Press of the All-holy Sepulchre). An insipid commentary, indeed, and unworthy of the light with which it was endowed. You will read the indignant words of Allatius against the author in his Prolegomena to the works of Palamas, in the same tome CXLIX EDIT. PATR. PATROL. GR. CLIV.

^A It exists in Greek and Latin in Freher’s *Jus Graeco-Romanum*, book IV, pp. 288-290; Frankfurt, 1596, fol. (FABR.) Compare above in this volume, p. 261, ms.; Vienna in Cod. Caes. 53, n. 14. See Lambeck, VIII, p. 1008 et seq.; Paris in the Public Library, 1561, n. 5, and 1363, n. 3 and 4; Turin in Cod. Reg. 278. See the Catalog of Greek Manuscripts of Turin, p. 381. In the Meermann codex, which he praises here in the *Supplementum Novi thesauri juris civ. et canon.*, The Hague, 1780, fol., p. 574, and compares with Leunclavius’ edition, vol. I, p. 288, and notes the principal textual variants. (HARL.) 11. *Order for the Ordination of a Deacon*, in Latin in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, vol. IV, Paris, 1575; and vol. VI, Paris, 1589; and vol. XIV, Cologne edition, 1618; and vol. XXVI, Lyons edition, 1677, pp. 214-216. In Greek and Latin, with notes by Jacques Goar, it exists at the beginning of the *Euchologion* published at Paris, 1647, fol. [cf. p. 1-28, Venice edition, 1730, fol.] under the title *Διάταξις ἱεροδιακονίας*, *Order of the Sacred Ministry, how a deacon ministers to the priest in the celebration of Vespers, Matins, and the Liturgy.* (FABR.) Compare the Catalog of the Leiden Library, p. 64 et seq. (HARL.) ^B Simeon, p. 103; and he brings forward a passage from it, p. 416, against Hottinger. (FABR.) Manuscripts in Rome in the Vatican Library, as testified by Montfaucon in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum mss.*, p. 13 C.—Moscow in the Synod Library, codex 165, in which there also exist:

*On the Sunday of All Saints*. (See no. 13.) *Life and Martyrdom of St. Febronia* (elsewhere one reads *Febronia*), inc. *A tyrannical and violent love*. It is also in the codex shortly to be mentioned of the Marciana Library. *Life of St. Febronia the Martyr* and *Life of St. Anysia of Thessalonica*. *Life of St. Sabbas the Younger*, inc. *Sabbas the wonderful, subject of struggles*. The same is in the Marciana codex soon to be praised. See above, vol. X, p. 319. *Oration on St. Onuphrius*, init. *To the best of men*. The same in the cited Marciana codex. *Dogmatic Orations against Acindynus and his sectaries*. Inc. *Again, the word of truth*, and *On the Dormition of the Blessed Mary*. Init. *I sound today, O friends, rendering according to my ability*. See Matthaei's *Notitiae*, cited p. 97 et seq., and p. 177, concerning the dogmatic orations in codex 277.

*On St. Anysia*, Venice in the Marciana Library, codex 582, in which exist *Lives and Eulogies of the Saints* preceded by a *protheoria*, the beginning of which is: *The purpose of the present discourse is*. There follow the *Lives of All the Saints*. Init. *And in words otherwise*. Then, besides those mentioned, the *Lives*: *Of Germanus the Hagiorite*. Inc. *But how might one describe our condition*. *Of Isidore, Patriarch of Constantinople*. Init. *Isidore, I believe, the great*. *Of Phocas the Martyr*, inc. *If even those who are illustrious*. Philotheus’ homily in his praise is also contained in codex 1185, n. 15, Paris Public Library. See Appendix to the Catalog of the Manuscripts of the Paris Library, vol. II, p. 618. *Office for All the Saints*. Init. *With what melodies of praise*. *On the Holy Apostles*. Inc. *It was right, truly*. Afterward follow various *Sermons*, namely: *On the Lordly light on Mount Tabor, and on the divine operation against those who contradict*, Apologetic I. Inc. *Again the word of truth*. II. *Against the same regarding the divinity, and the divine light, regarding spiritual visions and the sacred prayer of the perfect*. Inc. *Regarding these things, I think I have said enough*. (It is read in the Moscow Synod codex 556, n. 5. See Matthaei's *Notitiae* cited p. 218, add above, at p. 1, end.) *To Ignatios the Bishop on the text of Proverbs: Wisdom hath built her a house*. Init. *If, O man of God*. The work is divided into three sermons. (It also exists in the cited Moscow codex 336, n. 8.) *Historical sermon on the siege and captivity of Heraclea, accomplished by the Latins, under the empire of Cantacuzenus and Palaeologus*. Init. *The year was the six-hundredth from the creation of the world*. *Epistle, or Homily sent from Constantinople to the Heracleots, dispersed through the cities and towns of Thrace and Macedonia*. Inc. *Philotheus, humble metropolitan*. See Catalog of Greek Manuscripts of the Marciana, p. 505 et seq. (HARL.) ^C ...codex Lambeck IV, p. 60. (FABR.) Or p. 131, n. 4, Kollar edition. Codex 111. See above to vol. X, p. 320, to which add the cited Marciana Library codex and Moscow codex 336, n. 2. See Matthaei's *notitiae* cited p. 218. (HARL.) ...*resplendent*. (FABR.) Or p. 599, Kollar edition, in codex Caes. 326. Venice in Marciana codex 14 which contains the *Great Horologion*, exist canons of Philotheus and others, paracletic, to the Mother of God, Christ, and the guardian angels. See the celebrated Morelli, *Bibliotheca manuscripta Graeca et Latina*, vol. I, p. 29. Paris in the Public Library, codex 12, n. 5, and (testified by Montfaucon in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum mss.*, p. 1325 C, in Mazarine codex 198) Philotheus’ *Troparia* in the form of a dialogue between Christ and the Holy Mother of God. (HARL.) ^D ...excommunication should not happen without judgment, p. 235; and *On not mutilating or interpolating the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom*, p. 352.

17. His second oration on the peace of Christ, id., p. 144.

18. Response on re-circumcision to the great household dignitaries of the Palaeologi, contained in the Coislinian bibl., p. 176. It begins: *I am long since away from you*. (FABR., Paris. in the public library, cod. 1276, n. 3. (HARL.)

19. Ethical, Physical, and Theological Theorems and excerpts from various authors, Labbe, p. 99, New Library of mss.

20.

On the interpretation of the meanings of the circumvolution of the stars

21. Works of Philotheus, the Sinaite monk, ms. id. V, p. 145; V, p. 69 (1), Labbeus, p. 95, New Library of mss. Fragments of ascetic sermons, Lambec. V, p. 99. (FABR.) Or p. 210, Koll. n. 20, cod. 238. Paris. in the public library, codd. 1091, n. 8 (and in n. 9 the following sermon exists), and 1144, n. 5, certain chapters. The following sermon, and another on spiritual (intellectual) warfare, are also read in the Bodleian library, cod. Oliver Cromwell 111, n. 25 and 26.

22.

On the precepts of the Lord

[Parerga of Philotheus of Constantinople, written by Joannes Jonas, the Greek, in the library of the King of France, A.D. 1729; in cod. Harl. V. Cat. libror. mss. bibl. Harlei. n. 5616. (HARL.)]

[Against the Latins; Turin, in the Royal codex 151, end, beginning: *We are considered by the Latins to be making the argument*. V. cat. codd. Gr. Taur. p. 212. (HARL.)]

[Epistle to those who, being established in some power, without any regard for the laws, fell upon the possessions of others. Beginning: *Those who are the wicked among the rulers*. Paris. in the public library, cod. 1276, n. 4. (HARL.)]

[Another Philotheus, Achillinus, royal counselor, whose *Dream of the Orchard* concerning royal and priestly jurisdiction, written in the year 1374, was published in Latin by Goldastus in *Monarchia S. Romani imperii*, vol. I, Hanov. 1612 fol. (a) (FABR.)]

[In Montfauc. Bibl. biblioth. mss. p. 1400 E, mention is made of a codex in the Turin library which contains a writing of Philotheus of Alexandria. Whether he was the patriarch of Alexandria, who is mentioned infra in vol. XI, p. 680, old edition, I do not dare to define. Regarding this man, however, who was given to luxury, cf. Cave’s *Hist. litt. SS. Eccl.* II, p. 145, ad a. 995. His four volumes, whose inscriptions, translated from the Arabic, Cave has set down, seem to have perished long ago. The same author does not dare to affirm for certain whether the sermon of Philotheus on the commandments of Our Lord J. Chr. had that Alexandrian as its parent. P. Possinus published it in Greek and Latin in his *Ascetica*. (HARL.)]

[Philotheus, the physician. V. infra vol. XII, p. 647 and 649; and XI, p. 369. Add. Lambec. VI, part 1, p. 357 sqq.—Philotheus *On Urines* in the codex of the Ambrosian library of Milan, witness Montfauc. in *Bibl. bibl. ms.* p. 503 E. (HARL.)]

[Philotheus, monk. In the Moscow library of the synodal press, cod. 30 exists, according to Matthaei in *Not. codd. Gr. Mosq.* p. 517, n. 28: *Of Philotheus, monk of the monastery of the most holy Theotokos of the Bush on Sinai, on the tripartite nature of the soul and on watchfulness and prayer*. Beginning: *The blessed apostle Paul*. And n. 29, the same author’s *On the guarding of the mind and humility*. Beginning: *Watch and see, says the Lord, lest they be burdened*. In the Nanian codex 95 there are also *Ascetica* of Philotheus, monk of the monastery of the most holy Mother of God of the Bush. Beginning: *As many of us as were baptized into Christ according to the divine Apostle*, then follow three other sermons of his. V. Cat. codd. Gr. Nan. p. 185. And Mingarelli ibid. transcribed a longer passage from the first sermon, and appealed to Lambec. a little before at n. 21, already cited. Therefore these sermons seem to have as their author Philotheus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who in some codices is also called the Sinaite monk. (HARL.)]

[Philotheus, Archbishop of Selymbria, whose *Oration on St. Agathonicus* is read in Venice in the Nanian codex 509, n. 99, and from it Mingarelli in *Cat. Codd. Gr. Nan.* p. 531 sqq. published a very long passage. Cf. supra, vol. X, p. 190, where that oration ought to be added to the others. (HARL.)] — See infra in this volume. EDIT.

OF PHILOTHEUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, SERMON ON THE EXALTATION OF THE VENERABLE AND LIFE-GIVING CROSS

^A 1. Ever since we were torn away from that first, divine, and blessed life through the transgression of our first parent, and, being separated from God, became exiles from paradise, we were brought down to a most disgraceful way of life; we were condemned to death, and were divided by a thousand opinions, errors, and types of impiety, being enslaved by the devil through the pleasures and enticements of the flesh. Because of this, we had need of God incarnate, for he could not bear that the creature of his own hands should be punished with such great penalties, or perish utterly; rather, he intended that we should be refashioned by him through whom we were formed in the first place. For this reason, the only-begotten Son of God—the Word, who was present with the Father from all eternity and is timeless—having pity on our nature, which had swerved from the straight path, had rushed toward destruction, and through sin had arrived at the gates of Hades, decided and willed at length to become as we are, to come under the conditions of time, and to be made like us in all things, sin excluded. ^B Therefore, he who cannot be contained by any measurement is received into a virgin womb; he who is uncircumscribed is circumscribed by the bulk of a body. By this union, he raises the nature he assumed to divinity, and he who is always God truly becomes man.

2. Having lived among us and held citizenship in this world, he gave precepts of justice, made manifest the knowledge of the truth, and taught those things which were profitable and salutary. He performed great and wondrous signs and prodigies; then, of his own accord, he was delivered into the hands of sinful and wicked men. ^C He is convicted, he suffers the sentence of death, and he is executed by a most shameful kind of end: having received upon himself the punishments and torments due to our sins, according to that prophetic oracle: "He himself bears our sins and suffers pain for us, he himself [begins next page]"

^A bears our infirmities and carries our diseases. The Lord of glory accepts spittle and slaps, buffeting, insults, and mockery, a purple robe and a crown of thorns, a reed and a sponge, gall with vinegar, nails and a lance, and with all these, the cross and death. By His cross and His death, He cancels the condemnation and the sentence of the ancient curse, becoming a curse for us, as it is written: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." By His burial and resurrection, He leads us out from that bitter condemnation and from the darkness, He breaks the unbreakable bonds of the tyrannizing devil, and He bestows complete freedom. For He rises on the third day and ascends into the heavens, interceding for us with God and the Father; and He will come again with glory to judge the whole earth, and to render to each according to his works.

^B 3. Such was the provision of God for us, and such was his zeal to rescue us from the tyranny of the devil who had deceived us. Thus He deigned to become man for our sake, and He willed that His divine sufferings should be medicines for the healing of our infirmity; and through them we have been refashioned, deemed worthy of life, become participants in divine mysteries, and enjoyed spiritual gifts. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, according to the divine Apostle. Christ became a curse for us, since He gave Himself for us, voluntarily dying the most shameful and dishonorable death. He redeemed us from the curse because He poured out His divine and most holy blood, and rescued us from the slavery of the devil and of death, and from the condemnation and corruption of hades. Christ became a curse, having suffered the death of the accursed and evildoers. But because "He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth," He turned the curse into a blessing, and even took away the sin of the world, and granted us a way of salvation. For the Lord came so that He might bear the curse laid upon us; therefore He also accepted the death by the cross. For how could He have become a curse in any other way, if He had not accepted the death already subject to the curse through the cross? And how could He have called us, if He had not been crucified? For only upon the cross does one die with hands outstretched. The Lord stretched out His palms so that He might draw all to Himself, and unite them in Himself, as He Himself said: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself."

For the devil, having fallen from heaven with his spirits of wickedness, wanders in the air, and attempts to hinder those ascending to heaven. The Lord came, therefore, that He might cast down the devil, and purify the air, and make a way for us for the ascent into heaven through [His] flesh. ^D 4. For the devil, having been cast down from heaven with the spirits of his wickedness, now wanders in the air, and endeavors to place obstacles in the way of those going to the heights. The Lord therefore came to overthrow the devil, and to purify the air, and to pave and fortify a way to heaven for us through His own flesh, and so that it may be known by all,

^A that He is the one who sustains and holds all things together. Because His death sanctifies all things, for this reason He reasonably chose the most ignominious death by the cross. The divine David also celebrated this form of the precious cross, saying: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven" — this is the height — "if I make my bed in hell," — this is the depth — "if I take the wings of the morning," which is the sunrise, this is the breadth, "and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea," by which he means the west, this is the length.

5. Furthermore, the divine Paul alluded to this form when writing to the Ephesians: "That ye may be able," he says, "to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height." ^B By height, he undoubtedly understands the heavenly things; by depth, the subterranean; by breadth and length, the extremities that lie in between, which are held together by that power which encompasses the entire universe in its bosom. For this reason the Lord said that "the Son of man must be crucified," meaning that the passion could not take place otherwise than by the cross; and although many other ways of dying were available by which the Lord could have fulfilled and completed the mystery of our salvation, out of all others the death by the cross was preferred as necessary and indispensable. And now, wherever the cross is inscribed, it blesses, it sanctifies, it provides all things pertaining to salvation. Having therefore this invincible ^C armor, let us not tremble nor be afraid of our enemies, my brethren; for they tremble at the divine cross, and are afraid, and flee, not being able even for a moment to look upon its sign. For this reason let us perfect all our works with the cross. For this reason, by exalting and adoring the cross, we praise and extol Christ who was lifted up upon it. For he who praises the cross honors, glorifies, and adores the one who was crucified. For through the cross the tyrant was taken prisoner; through the cross death has been put to flight, and hell has been despoiled. For it was fitting that He whom the devil had conquered us with, by these same things should himself be conquered by Christ.

6. For the woman, and the tree, and death ^D were the causes of our condemnation and destruction. For Eve was deceived by the serpent. That tree was the wood, whose fruit both Eve and Adam tasted with great bitterness. And death was the punishment for the bitter tasting. But behold, again a virgin, and wood, and death, which were then the causes of our condemnation and ruin, have now become the spring of our liberty: instead of Eve, the blessed and ever-virgin Mary; instead of the tree in paradise, the wood of the cross; instead of the death of Adam, the death of Christ; for by those same weapons with which the devil attained victory, he was prostrated and brought under the yoke. For by that tree the enemy had defeated Adam; but

through the cross, Christ defeated the enemy. That tree of paradise became the cause of death and cast man down into Hades; but the tree of the cross called back even those who had already gone down into Hades. The tree of paradise made Adam a captive and naked, and caused him to hide himself; but the tree of the cross displayed Christ the victor on high to all. For while the whole world looked on, like a noble athlete, Christ, suspended on high upon the tree, crushed and cast down the opposing powers. And ^A the death of Adam condemned his descendants as well, and subjected them to the necessity of death; but the death of Christ brought back to life even those who had fallen and died before him, and granted them life, and opened the way of salvation to all men.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for our sake. Let us take heed to ourselves, beloved, that we do not again fall under a curse, through neglect ^B of the fear of God and the saving commandments of Christ. Christ washed us in baptism through the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit; let us not again return to our own vomit. Christ made us of the same form and of the same body as himself; let us not therefore make the members of Christ the members of a harlot, defiling the body and obscuring the royal image. Christ sanctified us and cleansed us from our sins through his own precious and immaculate blood, so that we might be without ^C any spot or wrinkle, or anything that brings deformity and ugliness; let us not again turn back to sin, nor love the stench of our passions and the resulting uncleanness of the mire of pleasures. Christ has filled us with light, most brilliant and pure; let us not again choose the dark gloom of sin. God has made us dwellers with the holy angels, and has deigned to make us co-heirs of his eternal goods; let us not again choose dishonor, destruction, and condemnation, but let us guard the freedom with which Christ has glorified us, ^D and let us employ all diligence and attention, my brothers, so that we may remain in the state to which we have been called and justified. For if we do not remain thus, but look backward and retreat, we shall be subjected to punishments and torments when the Lord comes to judge the entire earth. But so that this may not happen, let us conduct our lives properly, and as is pleasing to our God, let us embrace purity, shedding tears, pouring out contrition, subjecting the body and treating it like a servant, vivifying and feeding the soul with spiritual discourses and deeds, performing the works of God without sloth, and never growing drowsy.

7. But if we are slothful and fall into negligence,

^A when our nature is weak and slippery, let us again come to our senses, and repent, and confess. Let us break our hearts and recover our sobriety, and return to our former state of life. Let us guard the excellent deposit, our young emperor, that Christ of the Lord, who has injured no one, and who received the empire transmitted to him from his father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather: let us be subject in all things to his most just and equitable rule. For if we cherish him, and honor him in every way permitted, we shall be pious and pure before God and men, and we shall hear that voice of God speaking to us: “I have exalted my servant the king through my Church; I have anointed him with my holy oil; my hand shall help him, and my arm shall make him strong. ^B The enemy shall not prevail against him, and the son of iniquity shall not continue to harm him, and I will crush his enemies from before his face, and I will scatter those who hate him; and my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and I will place his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the floods. I am your Father, I am the root, I am the foundation, I am the nurse, I am the house, I am the garment, in a word, whatever you desire, I am. Do not be in need of anything; only be bound to me; you are everything to me: friends, and members, and co-heirs, provided that you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments, and perform them, and show all solicitude, and care, and mercy toward the needy of my people.

8. You shall not do injustice in judgment, nor pervert the judgment of the poor. You shall not respect the face of a powerful person, nor shall you receive gifts; judge according to what is right for the small and the great, and rescue the oppressed from the hand of the calumniator and the one who acts unjustly. Receive no vain rumor. For there are some of no upright conduct, and ^C not marked by excellent gifts by which they might be known and celebrated, who strive to become famous through the evils of others. Do not hope in iniquity, and do not covet rapine; do justice and righteousness, that you may be defended on the terrible day of my judgment. Do not harm the widow and the orphan. But if you harm them in your malice, and they cry out and call upon me, I will hear the sound of their cry, and I will be angered in spirit, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows, and your children orphans. Let us fear and tremble, dearest brothers, when we hear these things, and you who are living in wickedness, ^D and injustice, and rapine, and avarice, and infidelity, turn back and repent. And you who are adorned with virtue, and justice, and truth, and faith, do not grow slothful, nor fall away, so that the precious, and adorable, and venerable cross, the bulwark of the world, that of the Christian-named Church, may remain unshakable.

[Conclusion of the preceding homily:] ...an unassailable fortress, an impenetrable bulwark and infrangible rampart of our Orthodox Emperors; may He grant us, by the invincible power of His might, to complete the remainder of our life in a manner worthy of holiness and pleasing to God, and may He show our Orthodox and holy Emperors to be victors over the enemies who war against us, and who wrong us, and who hate us, so that we may obtain relief, peace, and tranquility, as we hope and pray, in the present life; and in the age to come, may we enjoy the ineffable joy and exultation of the righteous, the which may we all attain in Christ our God Himself, to whom is due glory and power, together with His beginless Father and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

[Note:] We have restored to John Caleca, Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom it belongs, the homily for the third Sunday of the Fast, that is to say, the Veneration of the Holy Cross, which Gretser had published under the name of Philotheus. See volume CXLIX, col. 263.

OF SAINT PHILOTHEUS: A SERMON ON THE COMMANDMENTS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

(From the *Thesaurus asceticus* of Petrus Possinus, p. 526. See the *Notitia* of Fabricius, above, col. 717, n. 22.)

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Wisdom and Power of the eternal Father, says: "He that loveth me, shall keep my commandments; and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him. And I and my Father will come, and we shall make our abode with him." And again: "Every one that heareth these my words, and doeth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock; and the rain fell, and the rivers came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these my words, and doeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man," etc. Furthermore, He said: "He that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven."

^A Then, signing the surety of His own words, He says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

2. Since, therefore, it is not possible to be saved, or to be delivered from Gehenna, for one who does not keep the commandments of the Lord, let us strive with all our might to keep them both in body and in spirit. For some of them are kept by the act of the body, and some by the thoughts and affections of the heart. Others, again, require for their execution the concurrence of the operations of both the soul and the body. For example, to clothe the naked and to minister to the infirm is performed by bodily service; as also is feeding the poor, and other things that pertain to bodily duties, which for the most part are more appropriate for those living a secular life who worship God. But to love God—which is enjoined upon all men—entirely requires the action of the mind; while it must be applied by all, it requires more intense study, however, from those monks who are crucified to the world. ^B

3. But there are within the commandments others which are more comprehensive, containing a great multitude of the bodily ones, and encompassing them within themselves, and at once cutting off many parts of that wickedness which is hated by God. For the divine commandments which are performed intellectually—that is, those which are accomplished rather mystically through the mind—are themselves the ones that most of all govern and perfect those that are done bodily, as they are the causes of purity: fasting and continence, and wakefulness, and exercise in humility; ^C as, in turn, mourning for one's own soul's miseries is the cause of freedom from anger; and as the sun is the cause of the moon’s radiance, so must one conceive of these.

4. And reasonably, this follows also in the case of the virtues of the soul, which we know how to call the comprehensive commandments; and some are performed in the deep heart, while others through the body. And strength belongs to the former, as they have their inclination more toward the future of perfection; for the ascent and love toward God for the future is insatiably extended, as the prophet David said: "I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear." ^D When this is made clear to me here, and when I am dissolved, it will be made even clearer to me, possessing a more luminous radiance.

5. Since, therefore, as it has been said, some of the commandments can be performed bodily, while others—that is, the psychic ones—by the heart, let us see, if it pleases, how the comprehensive divine commandments contain within them other commandments—I mean the individual ones: "You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you: That whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever..."

shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell ^A fire, and so forth. But what is the commandment that contains and fulfills these three? Hear Paul speaking, he who acts and speaks in Christ Jesus: “For I delight,” he says, “in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members,” and so forth; and he makes it yet more manifest what he says: “Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” He did not say this one or that, but every thought of disobedience. Therefore, he who cleanses his thoughts and casts down demonic notions by the power of Christ, tears up by the roots the angry thoughts against his brother. He who cuts them off, does not let them proceed into words; and he who, not having expressed them through words, has not said “Raca” or “fool” to his brother, nor has been angry without cause, shall be found a guardian of the commandment of Christ, for the root has been cut away from below. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar” ^B and, “Agree with thine adversary quickly,” and, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her,” and, “If thy right eye scandalize thee,” and, “But I say to you, swear not at all.”

^C 6. These five commandments which we have already mentioned are individual at once. But that which fulfills these again, namely, that which is comprehensive of the commandments we have spoken of, is this: “If thine eye be single,” that is to say, the mind, “thy whole body shall be lightsome,” that is to say, it does not sin. He therefore who keeps the eye of the soul pure by pursuing and driving away thoughts, and looking toward God, has performed all the aforementioned commandments. Those, therefore, who are lovers of God and firm in faith, apply themselves more unto the comprehensive commandments, so as to keep them; yet they do not neglect or dismiss those particular ones that occur by chance, but they keep them also in their own time. Let our speech be, “Yes, yes; no, no.” And he who keeps the commandment, “Every idle word ^D that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it,” and, “Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth,” and who does not at all allow his own heart to speak idly, he shall also cut off outward idle talk from his own life, and every other evil thing. “You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye; but I say to you, If one strike thee on the right cheek,” and, “Whosoever shall force thee one mile,” and, “Give to him that asketh of thee,” and, “It shall be forgiven you.” Behold, again, these four commandments are enclosed by the commandment that says: “If any man will follow me, let him deny himself,” and, “He that findeth his life shall lose it.”

^A 7. Therefore, whoever constantly cuts off the irrational love of his own body from his soul with a divine thought, as if with a spiritual sword, this is he who denies himself and saves his life unto eternal life: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them,” and, “When ye pray, be not of a sad countenance,” and, “If ye forgive men their trespasses,” etc., and, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,” and, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and, “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Behold, again, just as I have now recounted these many commandments, one other commandment completes and perfects them. What, then, is that one? Let us hear and do it. For the work will be required of us in the day of judgment. For that day will reveal the work of each one: “Because it is revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

8. But what, then, is the great, first, and one commandment which effects the rest? It is, surely, a sincere and complete charity, and a genuine love intent upon Christ, toward the Lord our God with all the soul, and with all the heart, and with all the strength, and with all the power. For he who loves God cannot but also love men as himself; it is natural for one who is not yet purified by the true love of God to be offended and irritated by the vices of men and by the injuries which he suffers from them. But charity toward God, taking possession of a man's heart, utterly drives out from him all hatred toward men. For these two things, the love of God and the love of men, have such a relation that the former makes the latter, in the way that the sun makes the hours of the day. For this reason the Lord said: “The first commandment is: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” For this reason He added, “like unto it,” since love toward God is the perfection, the incitement, and the instructress of love toward men; and this, in turn, is by nature meant to be the cause of love toward God. For he who loves God as he ought, I think, being lightened by that love, also walks beyond the rest of the commandments, as one who has the sleepless eye of God ever present as a witness of his own deeds and words, and even more, of his thoughts. “For the law is not made for a righteous man,” that is, the law does not exist against those who are such; for his action has soared above the law. He, therefore, who desires and thirsts for God, for self-love, and for self-righteousness—how great a righteous man he would be, how godly, how great and of what sort in being godlike and virtuous, and, in turn, how contemplative and practical, just as the great David says: “I have kept thy commandments and thy testimonies, because all thy commandments are my meditation, and my ways are before thee, O Lord.” For he says that the cause of keeping Thy commandments is that I am with Him through the memory and love of Thee, O Lord.

^B 9. Another commandment is: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs.” He who has been initiated in understanding through the method of watchfulness into the mysteries of general contemplation, will never entrust the sound of the thunder of heavenly doctrines to cracked vessels; but he will certainly distribute the life-nourishing words with discernment to those who, because of the childishness of their infancy in Christ, are still being fed with milk. And he seeks through the searching of the divine Scriptures, as it is written: “Blessed are they that search his testimonies, that seek him with their whole heart,” according to the divine David; and he knocks through mystic and secret prayer, meeting with the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, with groanings which cannot be uttered, that he might attain to his request, and that He might grant to him a ray of the intelligible Sun, a guide for the way that is obscure and most certain for the future.

10. Another commandment: “Beware of false prophets: by their fruits ye shall know them.” This command of the Lord, too, must be observed both by the senses ^C and by the mind; by the senses, indeed, by fleeing, as one would from a serpent or from fire, those heretical and faithless beasts; but by the mind, by avoiding those deceptive reasonings of a false doctrine, which with sinister operations deceitfully arrogate to themselves the honor of the right path. To these, minds that are errant and teachers of error pay heed, and instead of theology—that is, the true and pious doctrine concerning God—they obtrude upon us *theomachy*, that is, a wicked and raging assault against God. I am not unaware of the other exposition of this commandment concerning the avoiding of false prophets, translated into an allegorical sense, so that through it we may be seen to be commanded to exercise mastery over our own thoughts—so that, as they say, we may be lords over the Myrmidons, and not suffer these to reign over us. This precept is observed by those who excel in the power of discerning spirits; for they, from the thoughts that rise up in the mind, select and cherish some as good, while others they turn away from and drive out as harmful, that the frauds of those who lie in wait for us through the suggestions of demons, who mutter and plot against us within us in their councils, may be detected.

11. Another commandment of Christ is: “Enter ye in at the strait gate,” etc. For if “the righteous scarcely be saved,” as the divine Scripture has declared, “where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” What is this “strait gate and narrow way”? Hearing of the narrow and compressed way, there came into my mind that which Job said to God: “I have marked,” he says, “if I have transgressed anything unwillingly.” For surely, “to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Let us follow the remaining words of the Lord: “Thou shalt not commit fornication,” He says, “thou shalt not commit adultery.” ^D Look also at the commandment that completes these: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

^A For our mind, if it once becomes preoccupied with the persuasions of the Satan who wars against it, performs every kind of iniquity through the body insensibly. Therefore, he who walks in the Spirit, and is always sober and vigilant, can by the grace of God fulfill every commandment of the Lord in action.

12. But what of the new and holy Decalogue of our Lord Jesus Christ? The Beatitudes, I say, preached by Him—do they not exercise great virtues, and do they not pertain to the very goal we have set for ourselves? They certainly do; indeed, they harmonize with it in a wonderful way, whether we judge the matter by the evangelical and prophetic Scriptures or by the natural series and consequence of right order. For who, not sharply vigilant in guarding his own heart and driving every malice far from it, can be poor in spirit? Who can be humble, or mourning, or meek, or hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or merciful, or (which procures every good for heart and soul) pure in heart? ^B Who, not always intent upon himself and ever-vigilant, is inwardly at peace, and because of this, when there is need, outwardly peaceful? Who suffers persecution for the sake of righteousness, whether in spirit or in a sensible way? Or who, not always rejoicing in hope, is filled with the joy of the Lord? Who inclines toward God without ceasing, and to whom is this very inclination toward God—in the place and merit of prayer that is never intermitted—not imputed by grace? Who, having once cast off care for the body, does not experience his mind perpetually dwelling pleasantly within his own heart? Who procures for himself the natural knowledge of the whole world and of all that is in it: who, at the same time, is a narrator of the great works of God most worthy to be believed? Does not he who attends to himself, he who seriously watches over his own thoughts, and—against those he knows to be harmful—opposes others that are contrary; ^C rebuking the evil ones with words similar to Job’s, saying: “Go into a bad affair, wretched, perverse, mindless ones; whom I have not deemed of more worth than the dogs of my flocks.” While, on the contrary, he cherishes, cares for, and promotes the same, with a mind instructed by the Lord in the pasturing of such flocks.

13. For the power and efficacy of the Beatitudes of our Lord Jesus Christ look to no other end, ^D and have no other goal, than purity of heart and humility, since these two virtues are the most perfect of all those that make perfect. For they contain within themselves the force of every virtue, just as the firmament encompasses both the ethereal and the earthly creation. See, therefore, how those who lacked humility were cast out of heaven; and see how, because he did not attend to himself, the vigilant protector of his own progress, the traitor Judas, was erased from the roll of the elect. For humility is the producer and perfecter of faith, hope, and charity unto itself, and possesses within itself the most abbreviated way to keep the commandments of God. For he to whom it is granted to be truly humble, represents in his own life the divine beatitudes through action, just as piety itself works; again, he who is pure in heart will undoubtedly be humble, for humility is a property of purity, just as love toward God, along with desire and delight, are the marks of its purity.

^A Such a person will be found capable of observing all other virtues by means of these two. For the humble man does not get angry without cause, nor does he retaliate against a brother for insults received. And as for that command to be reconciled to one’s brother before offering a gift, who will fulfill it more readily and better than the humble man, who considers himself the last of all, being truly convinced that he is dust, ash, and refuse? He is, moreover, mild, mourning, and hungering for righteousness, God, and virtue; he is also merciful, for blessed humility is the provider of every good work. And who else will be found purer in heart than the one who is humble, if Satan, a bodiless being, became impure through pride? If all who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, as Scripture says, who then is more pious than the one who is humble in Christ, or more longsuffering in persecution—as the Savior says—bearing in his own body the excellence of the life of Jesus, unless he is stained with sins due to pride?

14.

15.

^A you remain, and there be no one to introduce you. Among these, there is no one who understands, there is no one who applies diligence; but sloth and the anxiety of this age, like a chain, have bound our mind. We write the divine Scriptures correctly, and we read them correctly, yet we do not wish to hear them correctly, because we do not wish to perform what they command. Who then sets out on a long journey without making provision for food for the way? Yet we, having abandoned our provisions here, rashly and emptily undertake an immense journey. Blessed is he who, with a bountifully provided travel-fund, sets out securely toward the Lord. ^B Behold, the ten virgins do not sleep. Behold, the servants are vigilantly active, awaiting their master, knowing that he comes after having received the kingdom, with great power and glory, to crown the servants who have diligently traded with the talents entrusted to them by him, but to slay his enemies who did not want him to reign over them. But in what manner? At midnight, while all of human nature is fast asleep, suddenly a great sound occurs from heaven, and horrific thunders, and terrifying lightnings, with an earthquake, by which those who were sleeping are shaken and awakened, and each one remembers his own works, whether they were good or evil; but those who have done evil beat their breasts, lying on their beds, because there is nowhere to flee, or to be hidden, or any time to amend through repentance those things in which they sinned. For the earth is shaken; the horribly resounding thunders ^C terrify, the terribly flashing lightnings sorely disturb; and a blind darkness on all sides overshadows the wretched. So too in that hour, when a most swift lightning flash shall in a moment terrify the whole earth; to which terror a most piercing blast of the trumpet from heaven shall supervene, and shall awaken the sleepers, and compel those who have slept from the age to be awakened. For the heavens themselves with their powers shall be shaken, and the whole earth shall imitate the trembling of the sea at the face of the glory of the Judge who is coming. For a terrible fire shall go before his face, running through and purging the earth of the iniquities that have defiled it. Hell opens its eternal gates. Death is destroyed. But the putrid dust, having heard the blast of the trumpet, shall be brought to life. A sight altogether marvelous! Innumerable souls, like fish in the sea ^D darting about in countless numbers in the underworld, shall in the twinkling of an eye burst forth from there, and each one’s bones, wherever they have been sought, shall fit themselves together, and clothe themselves, and rising they shall cry out, saying: "Glory to him who gathered us and raised us up through his mercy." Then the just shall rejoice, and the holy shall exult. Then the perfect ascetics shall receive comfort equal to their former labors; the martyrs, the apostles, and the prophets are crowned. Blessed is that holy one to whom it shall befall to see that hour, in which the just shall be caught up with glory in the clouds to meet the immortal Bridegroom, all who have loved him and have striven to perform all his wills. For as much as each one has more greatly increased his own wings in this life, so much the higher does he fly: and by as much as each one has more diligently cleansed the eye of his

there, [his] wing; so also are the high things flown; and just as from this each person has purified his own mind, so also he sees His glory; and just as each has entrusted himself to Him, so also he is satisfied with His love. And the first man, Adam, will Marvel in that hour, seeing great and stupendous things, [to see] how from him and his wife so many nations and a multitude of various generations have flowed forth. But he will marvel all the more at the Creator God, how He ordained that these things should come to be from one nature. ^A

ORDER OF THE HOLY MINISTRY, OR HOW THE DEACON MINISTERS WITH THE PRIEST, IN THE GREAT VESPERS, MATINS, AND THE LITURGY, COMPOSED AND ESTABLISHED BY THE MOST HOLY AND OECUMENICAL PATRIARCH, LORD PHILOTHEUS.

^B Be it known that the deacon never puts on his sacred vestments for Vespers or Matins, except for the Vespers of Saturdays and the Matins of Sundays throughout the whole year. Likewise, for the Vespers and Matins of the Feasts of the Lord and of the Mother of God. In the same way, he is vested at Vespers and at the Presanctified [Liturgy] of the Holy and Great Lent. And on the feast of the Annunciation, and at the vigil of the Holy Passion, and, to speak generally, at all Vespers that are celebrated with the solemnity of an entrance.

Notes of Jacques Goar. These are divided into three classes by the Greeks: those of Christ the Lord; those of the Mother of God; those which are proper to the saints. Glycas, contemplating that God created all things in six days, also thought that He renewed all things in six feasts, or rather by His economies in the flesh, in part four of his Annals, where they are enumerated in this order: Nativity, Baptism, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. However, since the day of the Transfiguration is very solemn among the Greeks, I wonder why Glycas removed one day from the week of feasts. Therefore, others recount the feasts of the Lord on Sunday in these verses: The Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation of Christ in the arms of Simeon, His Baptism, Transfiguration, the Resurrection of Lazarus, Palm Sunday, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Furthermore, the Eastern Church celebrates the same feasts of the Mother of God as does the Western Church, except for the Visitation, the institution of which is more recent among us. ^C It is [kept] by the Greeks, and, as has already been noted, it is reckoned among the feasts of the Lord; and they spend it with prayers, with public supplications chanted through the streets, and with intent vigils, with such an apparatus of worship that even Rome itself observes the nocturnal procession of its Greeks with great admiration. ^D

Order of the Vigil

As the time for the Great Vespers arrives, the priest, accompanied by the deacon, goes forth, and they make three bows before the icon of the Lord Christ, while all the brethren remain seated. In the same way, they also perform three bows before the icon of the Theotokos ^A; they make one in the center, and one towards each choir; then they enter the sanctuary. Taking his sticharion and orarion, and having bowed towards the East three times, the deacon approaches the priest, and says: "Bless, Master, the sticharion and the orarion." And the priest blesses them, saying: "Blessed is our God always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages." Then each of them puts on his respective vestments. Now, this is not performed in this manner today; but the priest alone bows, and he alone puts on the epitrachilion and phelonion, and begins to incense, while the reader, or the ^B master of ceremonies, holding a candle, calls out, "Command!" And with him preceding with the candle, the priest incenses the entire temple in the usual manner, going out through the doors; and when the master of ceremonies has called out "Command!" before the Holy Doors, all stand. The priest, having incensed the entire temple, goes out into the narthex, and having incensed there as well, he enters through the Beautiful Gates, and with melody calls out: "Lord, bless." ^C

Notes of Jacques Goar

...those professing a state of penance, and dedicated to the works of penitence, not only have they called works of this kind, but their monasteries and the cells of their hermitages also, as workshops of penance to which they have fled, have been called such from antiquity. Hence it is read that he who founded a monastery practiced penitence; and even today the religious, who have fixed their habitation therein in perpetuity through the reception of the monastic habit, say they have it in there. But when they were able to interpret corporeal afflictions and labors, and any work of penitence whatsoever—and the primary and chief argument of ^D penitence was of old that prostration of the body, and the humble lowering of the soul toward the earth, by which the more distinguished penitents wept for sin, implored the prayers of others, and sought the hope of pardon; thence worship was exhibited to God, or while venerating sacred images, any genuflection or inclination of the body began to be called *metanoia* by the monks. I add that, since the granting of a place of penitence and a promise of obtaining indulgence afforded the greatest sign of benevolence toward lay sinners, or those who had fallen from the faith, they themselves asked for it in the Church with the prayers they could, and all their speech, every groan of their mouth and sigh of their heart, did nothing but repeat that voice. For this reason, when the monks had rendered that voice familiar to themselves after adopting the penitent's rule, they used that same voice to impart and return greeting. Hence it finally came about that whatever honor and reverence was shown to the pastors or ministers of the Church, it became, as the argument of an aspired-to or professed penitence of the Greeks, commonly... [alt-version omitted]

^A understood. Having incensed the holy icons again, he enters through the holy doors, and incensing the holy table, he exclaims: Glory to the holy, and consubstantial, and life-giving, and undivided Trinity, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. And after the Amen, the superior, or the appointed monk, chants the prooemiac psalm [(4)]; meanwhile, the priest, having closed the holy doors, stands within the sanctuary. When they begin to chant "Opening Thy hand," etc., he goes out with the canonarch, and they make one prostration in the midst, and thus the priest departs to his own place; and the canonarch says the verses, standing in the middle of the temple. When they chant "Thou hast made all things in wisdom," the priest departs, and says the prayers of the Lucernarium, standing bareheaded before the holy doors; and after their completion, he says the Great Synapte. The deacon is vested at the third Antiphon of the Psalter, and says the Little Synapte; if, however, there be no stichology, he is vested while the prooemiac psalm is being recited, and says the Great Synapte.

^B These things, indeed, are done in this manner when a vigil is held; but if there is no vigil, nothing of the sort occurs, nor do they make prostrations, nor does the priest incense first, nor are the holy doors opened; but standing bareheaded before the holy doors, vested in the epitrachilion, he exclaims: "Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages." And the superior, or the appointed monk, says the prooemiac psalm in a plain voice [(6)]; and he says... [alt-version omitted]

Notes of Jacob Goar

[(4)] Understand the psalm. This is the prooemiac psalm which is placed before the whole Psalter, which for this reason many among Jerome call the preface of the Holy Spirit; ^C just as Chrysologus, serm. 44, calls it the prooemiac psalm; for this reason among the Greeks, because from it Vespers, the Liturgy, and other prayers, in the course of this Euchologion, are begun. Whence, the distinction of prayers referred to by Zonaras is not inept, in my judgment, noting that some occupy the place of prefaces, others terminate the offices, and others are to be inserted between these. His words are: "Different prayers are said by the priests among the daily offices of divine praise; for some are prefixed, which I have also called prooemia; others are added after the hymnody, which they have called hypotheses, as being subjoined to the hymns and spoken after them; but others they have named paratheses (perhaps it would be read more correctly as parentheses), as being placed beside the people for the Lord." ^D ... [(5)] ... [(6)] For familiar usage, Meursius writes in the Lexicon, and as a body without a soul, he sets the word likewise before the eyes without sense. This, while an anonymous interpreter in the Library of the Fathers...

^A renders the prayer of the lucernarium. When these are finished, the priest or deacon, standing in the customary place, pronounces the great collect, namely: *In peace let us pray to the Lord*, and the rest.

It should be known that the holy doors are never opened except at the beginning of the Great Vespers, when the priest alone censes ^B at all the entrances, that is, those of Vespers and of the Liturgy of the Holy Gospel. In the same way, they are opened also from *Draw near* until the completion of the divine Liturgy. It should be known that if the deacon is not vested at the beginning of Vespers, he vests while the third antiphon of the Psalter is being chanted—provided it is a recitation of Davidic psalms by verses; but if not, then while the *proemiac* psalm is being chanted, as has been said. He vests in this way: Having shown the proper reverence, he enters the holy tribunal through the side door; where he finds the priest standing—for he has gone ahead—and the deacon, having taken his sticharion, approaches the priest and says: *Bless, master, the sticharion with the orarion.* The priest blesses it, saying: *Blessed is our God always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.* And thus, the deacon vesting himself in it, when the stichology is completed, he goes out and stands in the customary place. And he says the little collect: *Again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord*, and the rest. And the priest exclaims: *For Yours is the power, and Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the ^C glory, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.* And thus is chanted: *O Lord, I have cried.* This being chanted, the deacon takes the censer, and having put in incense, he approaches the priest, who is also within the holy tribunal, and says: *Bless, master, the incense.* And the priest blesses it, saying: *Blessed is our God always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.* And the deacon censes the sanctuary and the entire temple, and having returned, he puts down the censer and waits there. And when they chant, *Glory, and now*, the priest enters and vests in the epitrachelion and phelonion, and the entrance takes place. The deacon, having taken the censer and put in incense and asked for a blessing, as we said, goes out with the priest through the northern ^D side-door. And with the holy doors being opened, and two readers going before with candles, and after them the deacon with the censer, the priest also goes out behind, having the phelonion hanging loose, and they go to the customary place. Where the readers place the candles...

^A in the middle of the temple on either side; and the priest stands opposite the holy doors. The deacon also stands at the right of the priest, slightly to the side, and having bowed slightly, holding also the orarion ^B with the three fingers of his right hand, he says in a low voice, so that only the priest may hear: Let us pray to the Lord. And the priest says in a low voice this prayer: In the evening, and morning, and at midday. And after the prayer they rise; and the deacon says to the priest, at the same time indicating toward the east with the orarion, holding it with the three fingers of his right hand: Bless, Master, the holy introit. And the priest blesses toward the east, saying: Blessed is the introit of thy saints, O Lord. Then the deacon departs and incenses the holy icon which is upon the seat of the superior, and the superior himself, and again stands in the place where he stood before, awaiting the completion of the verse. When it is completed, the deacon enters into the middle; and having made the sign of the cross with the censer, he cries aloud: Wisdom, stand upright! And immediately the superior, or the monk appointed for this, chants the *Phos Hilaron*. The readers, ^C having lifted the candles again, proceed as far as the holy doors. The deacon, having entered within the holy sanctuary, incenses the holy table. The priest, having made a reverence before the holy doors, and kissed them, enters, and the holy doors are shut. And after the end of the *Phos Hilaron*, the deacon says: Let us attend! And the priest: Peace to all. And again the deacon: Wisdom, let us attend! And the *prokeimenon* of the day is chanted ^D; upon the completion of which, the deacon having gone out and stood in the customary place, says: Let us all say with our whole soul and with our whole mind, let us say, and the rest. And after the exclamation, the priest says: Peace to all; the deacon: Let us bow our heads unto the Lord. And he says the prayer: O Lord our God, who didst bow the heavens. And he cries aloud: Blessed be the power of thy kingdom. And after the exclamation, the *stichera* of the *lite* are chanted. While they are being chanted, the deacon having entered and taken the censer, and put incense in it, and having asked for the blessing as is customary, goes out together with the priest through the northern part, the holy doors being closed, the candles going before, and having passed through the beautiful gates, they and all the brothers after them stand in the narthex. While the brothers are chanting, the deacon incenses everyone as is customary; and after...

the completion of the stichera, standing in the customary place, he says: "Save, O God, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance," until the end. ^A And "Lord, have mercy" is chanted forty times. Then he says again: "Let us pray again for the most pious and God-protected kings." And "Lord, have mercy" is chanted three times. And again he says: "Let us pray again for the remission of the sins of the servant of God, the hieromonk N., and of all our brotherhood in Christ; and for the remaining two petitions: for the preservation of this holy monastery, and for every soul of orthodox Christians." ^B Thus the priest says: "Peace to all." The deacon: "Let us bow our heads to the Lord." And the priest, having turned towards the west while the deacon stands at his right, holding the orarion with the three fingers of his right hand, says this prayer aloud: "Master, most merciful, Lord Jesus Christ, our God." And as the stichera from the verses are being chanted, with the candles going in front, everyone enters the temple. And the candlesticks are placed one on either side of the prepared four-footed stand, upon which lies a disk with wheat and five loaves, which we are accustomed to offer in the church; and on either side of the disk are placed two vessels, full, one of wine and the other of oil. And the wine is placed on the left, and the oil on the right. ^C And the priest together with the deacon stands inside the beautiful gates. When the stichera from the verses are finished, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart" is said, and the Trisagion; and after the "Our Father," the priest exclaims: "For Thine is the kingdom." And the dismissal troparion of the day is chanted; if it is Sunday, "Theotokos Virgin" is chanted three times; but if it is the memory of a great saint, the troparion of the saint is chanted twice, and "Theotokos Virgin" once; but if it is a dominical or mother-of-God feast, the troparion of the feast is chanted three times. When, therefore, the last dismissal troparion is being chanted loudly and slowly, the deacon, having first asked for a blessing from the priest over the incense and having received it, censes the bread crosswise, ^D then the abbot, and again the loaves, but only in front. And as the priest approaches, the deacon stands at his right side, holding the censer in his left hand, and the orarion with the three fingers of his right hand; and when the troparion is finished, pointing to the five loaves with the orarion, he says: "Let us pray to the Lord." And the priest says the prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, our God, who blessed the five loaves." And while the brothers say "I will bless the Lord," the priest enters with the deacon into the holy altar. And the brothers recite the psalm until: "They shall not lack any good thing." And the priest from inside the holy altar exclaims: "The blessing of the Lord be upon us, by His grace and love for mankind, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages." And

they chant, "O Lord, save the kings." And the priest says in a quiet voice: "All-holy Theotokos, save us." The brethren: "More honorable." And again the priest quietly: "Glory to Thee, O God, our hope, glory to Thee," and the brethren say, "Glory now and ever. Lord, have mercy." ^B The priest, having opened the holy doors and lowered his phelonion, while the deacon stands outside on the right holding the orarion as is customary, says this dismissal: "May Christ our true God, through the intercessions of His all-immaculate mother, of the holy, glorious, and all-praised apostles, and of all the saints, have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and loves mankind." If it is a Feast of the Lord, he makes the dismissal corresponding to the feast; but if it is the memorial of a great saint, he proclaims ^C in the dismissal the name of the saint as well. If, however, there is a litany, after the dismissal, the deacon, having taken the censer, goes out along with the priest, with candles proceeding before them, and it is performed without change, just as was previously described in the Great Vespers.

For Matins,

The Order for Matins

Notes by Jacques Goar

(13) This is the conclusion of the sacred reading, usually of the monastic exercises: "Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen." As among the Latins: "But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us," is pronounced, and usually puts an end to the readings.

(14) Understand them to sing the prayers, by which they pray that God may confirm the kings. Those are indeed of this kind: "Heavenly King, confirm our faithful kings..." and speaking the grace of this prayer concerning themselves, "we confirm the kings," that is, we ask that God may confirm them.

(15) Such is this invocation: "All-holy Theotokos, save us," which you will find repeated very frequently in the Office.

(16) It is read in the same manner: "More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption didst bear God the Word, thee the true Theotokos, we magnify."

(17) By what reason the names of the saints are recorded in the dismissal will be clear at the very end of this work.

(18) Superfluous period; it repeats what was written above concerning the supplication and procession.

(19) That this also is superfluous, the following reading demonstrates to the reader.

(20) It begins the explanation of the sacred service to be rendered by the deacon to the priest at Matins.

(21) The Greeks call the Midnight Office [mesonyktikon] because it is never performed except in the deep night, when even the people are sometimes gathered in the churches, and they are fulfilled, but it is distinguished from the Midnight Office, just as from our Matins: for in our [Western] lauds, which it is discovered from the Greek Offices, and from the Synopsis of Neophytus Rhodinus, corresponds: "The first service or its first part is Matins with lauds": although I cannot deny that by the word, just as with the Latin "Matutinae preces," it was meant to signify the first hour by most ancient authors (who called what are said to be our Matins, themselves Vigils, Nocturns, and the nocturnal prayer).

(22) It is the great litany, or the concatenated series, in which the deacon cries out at length; the form of which is found below in the liturgy of Chrysostom after the Gospel reading: and in this manner Methodius, in his book *On Conversion to the Orthodox Faith*, defines it as the intense supplication [ektenē deēsin].

^A and it is forty times chanted, and the dismissal is made; and the reading begins. The priest, having entered into the holy sanctuary, and having put on the stole, and having opened the sanctuary door ^B alone, exclaims: "Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages." And the Trisagion is chanted, and the customary psalms, and again the Trisagion. And the priest, while these are being chanted, censes the sanctuary and the entire church, going out from the northern side, and the brethren, and the narthex; and he exclaims, both at the two Trisagions and after the *Our Father*, the *For thine is the kingdom and the power*. Those who chant and the one censing should take care—when he says the exclamations—that he is found before the icon of Christ. After censing the whole church, and the customary troparia inside the holy sanctuary having been fulfilled, the priest exclaims: "Glory to the holy, and consubstantial, and life-giving, and undivided Trinity." And immediately the superior, or the monk appointed, says the Six Psalms. When he begins: "O Lord, the God of my salvation," the priest goes out and stands before the holy doors, bareheaded, and says the morning prayers in secret. After the completion of the Six Psalms, he says the Great Litany; and so is chanted: "God is the Lord," and the rest of the office as usual. At the completion of each session of the *kathisma*, the priest performs a small litany, and exclaims: at the first *kathisma*: "For thine is the might, and thine is the kingdom and the power"; at the second: "For thou art a good and man-loving God." And after the *Polyeleos* or the *Amomos* [Psalm 119]: "For thy most precious and magnificent name is blessed and glorified."

^A While the *anabathmoi* (steps) are being chanted, the priest enters with the deacon into the holy sanctuary, and after the priest has blessed the *sticharion*, the deacon vests in it as usual. Likewise, the priest puts on his *epitrachilion* and *phelonion*. When the chanting of the antiphons is completed, the *prokeimenon* of the feast or of the Sunday is chanted. After this, the deacon says: "Let us pray to the Lord." The priest then exclaims: "For Holy art thou, our God, and in the saints thou restest, and to thee we send up glory." Then "Let every breath" is chanted. Then the deacon says: "Wisdom. Let us stand and hear the holy Gospel." The priest says: "Peace be with you all." And immediately he adds: "The reading from the holy Gospel according to [the evangelist]." The people say: "Glory to thee, O Lord, glory to thee." The deacon says: "Let us attend." The priest reads the Gospel. When it is finished, the brothers chant: "Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ" (if it is Sunday, clearly), and the fiftieth Psalm with melody. The priest, having loosened his *phelonion* and carrying the holy Gospel in front of his chest, goes out and stands in the middle of the church, and the reader or the master of ceremonies stands to his right, holding a candle-stand with a lighted candle. Then the kissing ^B of the holy Gospel by the brothers takes place, as is usual. On any other feast, the kissing does not take place, except solely on Sunday. When this is finished, the customary *troparia* are chanted. Then the deacon going out stands in his usual place and says in a loud voice: "Save, O God, thy people and bless thine inheritance. Visit thy world with mercy and compassion, exalt the horn of Orthodox Christians, and send down upon us thy rich mercies, through the prayers of our all-immaculate Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, by the power of the precious and life-giving cross, and through the intercessions of the precious, heavenly, bodiless powers." Then "Lord, have mercy" is chanted twelve times, and thus the priest exclaims: "Through the mercy, and compassions, and love for mankind." ^C While the canons are being chanted, the priest goes out and stands in the right choir in his usual place. The deacon, having first received a blessing for the incense, first censes the entire sanctuary, then goes out through the northern side-door, and makes a sign of the cross in front of the holy doors. He censes first all the icons standing on the right side and proceeds to the *aiglon* of the monastery. Having made a cross there, he turns toward the west, and standing in the middle of the church, he makes a sign of the cross and proceeds, and censes first the icon standing in the stall of the Superior, then the Superior, and subsequently the brothers of the right choir with the ^D Superior of the monastery.

^A And after censing all the choirs, he stands in the midst of the choir, and looking toward the south, he makes a cross. And censing, he is venerated by those he censes, and he makes a slight return of veneration; and having performed the cross, he goes to the right choir, and having censed the holy icons there, he censes the brothers, beginning from above at the icons, and departing as if toward the Beautiful Gates, being venerated in turn and making a slight return of veneration. And having filled that choir, he stands again in the midst, looking toward the north, and making a cross, he goes out into the narthex, and having censed everyone there, he enters through the Beautiful Gates, and having made a cross toward the east, he censes the Superior. And again in the midst he makes a cross, and having censed the holy icons, he enters and deposits the censer. Going out, he venerates the Superior slightly from a distance, and stands in his accustomed place. And after the end of the 3rd ode, the deacon says: "Again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord, help, save, have mercy. Most holy, undefiled, all-blessed!" ^B And the priest exclaims: "For You are our God, and to You we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages." And after the sixth, the priest makes a minor litany, standing bareheaded before the holy doors, and he exclaims: "For You are the King of peace, and to You we send up glory." At the eighth, the priest makes a prostration together with the deacon who is presiding, and they enter within the sanctuary, and he vests according to custom. And when the eighth is completed, the deacon chants aloud: "The Theotokos and mother of the light, let us magnify in hymns." And the *More honorable* is recited; if not, he chants the beginning of the *irmos* of the ninth ode of the feast; and thus going out, he stands in the accustomed place. And the deacon censes everyone as usual, and having returned, he stands in the appointed place. And after the ninth, the deacon makes a small litany, ^C and the priest exclaims: "For all the powers of the heavens praise You, and to You they send up glory." When the *Doxology* begins, the priest enters within the holy sanctuary. And the deacon, when this is completed, says: "Let us complete our morning prayer to the Lord," and the rest. And immediately the priest says: "Peace to all." The deacon: "Let us bow our heads to the Lord." And the priest adds the prayer secretly: "O Lord, Who dwells on high," and he exclaims: "For Yours it is to have mercy and to save, O Christ our God." The deacon: "Wisdom." The priest: "He Who is blessed, Christ our God, always," and there is sung: "May God establish the kings." The priest: "Most holy Theotokos, save us," and there is sung: ^D [alt-version omitted]

^A "More honorable." Then he says again, "Glory to You, Christ God, our hope, glory to You." And the dismissal takes place. If it is Sunday: "May He who rose from the dead [(31)] through the intercessions of His all-immaculate mother, of the holy, glorious, and all-laudable apostles, and of all the saints, have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and loves mankind." If it is a Feast of the Lord, or the commemoration of a great saint, the holy oil [(32)] is given thus: while all are gathered near the icon of veneration and chanting, the deacon censes in a circle, beginning from the presider, having first censed the icon of the saint; and the priest, standing to the side of the icon, holding an oil-vessel, anoints those who approach on the forehead, and blesses them. And when all have been anointed, he exclaims: "Hear us, O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of those who are far away at sea; and be merciful, be merciful regarding our sins, and have mercy on us." And he exclaims: "For You are a merciful and man-loving God, and to You we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages." "Peace be to all." The deacon: "Let us bow our heads to the Lord." And while the deacon holds the orarion as is the custom, the priest, having loosened his phelonion, says this prayer. Look for these in the Litany: "Master, Lord Jesus Christ our God, through the intercessions of our all-immensely blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary." On the Feasts of the Annunciation, of the Palms, and of the bright Sunday of Pascha, these take place outside the monastery, and they are carried out in them in the same manner as the aforementioned litany. There are also blesssings of the waters of the Theophany, both in the evening and in the morning, and on the first of August, when the deacon goes out carrying the cross, followed by the priest, and the deacon censes. He says only in the prayers: "Let us pray to the Lord." The priest performs everything as is the custom, and as is written in the typika.

[Jacobi Goari notae.]

[(31)] Sunday renews the perpetual memory of the Resurrection. Hence the dismissal for Sunday is the same as that which is for the Feast of the Resurrection. Consult the end of this Euchologion.

[(32)] With the oil of the lamp before the icon of the saint, at whose devotion they move it to be lit, the Eastern Christians are accustomed to anoint themselves; the Greeks equally with the Latins; nor is it otherwise in Western regions, with the whole world applauding, a not inconsiderable abundance of oil, burning before the miracle-working image of Saint Dominic in the village of Soriano, for the recovery of health, and to prove the divine virtue, the Dominicans transmit and distribute even to the most remote regions. Even with flowers or other things that have touched miraculous and wonder-working images, drawn or carried away by divine virtue, they anoint themselves; and the Greeks repose very great hope of salvation in such things, just as our ancestors did with the brandea [cloths] with which the sepulchers of the princes of the apostles were covered at Rome: concerning which Joannes Diaconus speaks at length in the Life of Gregory the Great, lib. II, cap. 42; and concerning other very many relics applied to the Protomartyr Stephen (which he reports performed not a few miracles), Augustine, De civitate Dei, lib. XXII, cap. 8. And to return to the Greeks, at the feast of the saint which is being celebrated, they are anointed by the hand of the priest with the oil burning before the image placed in the middle of the choir; nor do they frequently depart from there without an experience of divine virtue.

PANELGYRIC ORATION OF PATRIARCH PHILOTHEUS ON THE ILLUSTRIOUS PONTIFFS AND TEACHERS OF THE WORLD, BASIL THE GREAT, GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, AND JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

^A Let us, as disciples, exalt our masters with praises; let us, as children, honor our parents as is fitting. Let us, as sons of the Church and worshippers of the great Trinity, celebrate with all our might the three philosophers and wise orators of the Church. Let us, as their hearers and initiates into heavenly mysteries through them, offer as a gift an oration to those who truly spoke with logos, and who breathed into their discourse both the divine and the human; not an oration such as they themselves repudiated and rejected, but one such as they themselves delighted in. For it is not the case that, because the excellence of these great ^B men surpasses both our mind and our speech to such a degree that we cannot attain even a fraction of its magnitude, we must therefore be silent, and that the proclamation of them must be utterly refused; no, that is not pious. Rather, we must embark upon the task with all our power, so that from this, our love may grow, and we may pay to the Fathers the debt we owe from the resources we possess. For we shall show from this that we are confident not in the height of our intellect or the power of our speech, but in faith alone, and love, and in being compelled, as it were, by the debt we owe, to take upon ourselves a burden even greater than our strength can bear. For we worship even God Himself—though by nature ^C He exceeds all emperors and princes by infinite degrees—to the extent that we are able, and we piously offer and sacrifice to Him whatever we have at hand: whether it be two mites, or a morsel of bread, or a cup of cold water, or the very smallest thing. And never, to this day, has anyone been accused of vileness or sloth because he offered something not in accordance with the dignity [of God], but in accordance with his own small substance. Rather, those fall into just condemnation who willingly neglected what they were able to offer. For the marvelous advice and exhortation of these great men is that one should not appear empty before God—according to His own oracle, ^D clearly—nor, because one lacks everything, should one offer nothing at all; but rather, that one should bring what one has, and do so with zeal; and if one needs to ask for forgiveness for the weakness of one’s offering, let each person bear fruit for God from the things that are present, and from one’s own [possessions].

Come hither, then, you admirable trinity of Fathers, you who are cognizant of the mysteries of the great Trinity, and friends, and ministers; after the first, I say, the disciples, and ministers, and friends of the Word; those guides of the Bride, and bridesgrooms yourselves, and at the same time children of that true and primary wisdom, which even you loved, according to that wise man, and which you sought out from your youth, and were joined and united to it more excellently than he. Come hither, therefore, you foundation of the faith and of the Word, you who possess the divine Word and the fiery tongue, who are golden in soul, and tongue, and in all other respects. And although there is no natural kinship, nor equality of honor, nor any union between me and you, and although, as I said, the discourse concerning such excellent men as you far exceeds my powers, yet do you assist me in your common praise, and excite my genius; provide me with words, guide my tongue in a way that is invisible, and lead me by the hand, by the power of the Spirit who dwelt in you. For it was fitting, of course, for one who was to speak of your praises, to have that own illustrious and wisdom-filled eloquence of yours, and your own voices; for those alone would have accomplished the task as it deserves. Otherwise, I would have said that Peter and John and Paul, the triad of the coryphaei and of the first disciples and apostles of the Word, the primary dwellings and instruments of the Holy Spirit, were worthy to undertake this endeavor, and to weave a praise suitable and appropriate for their equals in honor, their friends, their fellow students, and their companions in the struggle. But since that is among the impossibilities, as you yourselves would surely say, you will moderately bear with my insignificance, I know well, you who are compassionate and philanthropic, and who have truly praised moderation in all places, and who have imitated Christ in this also, if anyone ever has, in a wonderful manner. Especially since we are not emboldened by what is our own—for what and what kind of things are those?—but rather by your own [words], and by those things which you yourselves called God and one another, we offer back to you what is yours as much as we are able. And the discourse itself will make this clear.

Laws, therefore, and commonplaces of encomia from the profane teachers of rhetoric, who judge that one should inquire into and scrutinize before all else one’s homeland, ^D and lineage, and wealth, and also the strength of the body, and beauty, and the like, must be avoided by us in this place; not only because these men despised all such things, and lifted themselves above these low things and above the world itself, but because they themselves quite beautifully said that, just as the most noble or the most abject horses are not to be tested by their shape or color, so neither is it just or seemly for a man to be painted and described by outward things. We shall use for the praise of these great men only those things which are most their own and genuine, and by which they themselves designated their own like-minded companions and friends of God, I mean martyrs, and Fathers, and teachers,

^A have wonderfully praised them in their own writings. I hope, therefore, that no one who acts as censor and judge of the orations of others will condemn us for any foolishness or theft, if we have used their words and their divine sayings and sentiments somewhat liberally, and have thereby adorned both them and our own discourse; and this, perhaps, some will think to be far removed from the custom of orators. First, because I consider it not only unholy and lacking in reverence, but also an act bordering on rapine and greed, when they themselves can bring forth their own material, for us not to yield the floor to them and give them place, and listen in silence (as in the rites of the mysteries), but instead to act shamelessly and with confidence, and to dare to thrust forward our own words as a substitute. Secondly, because this is neither unusual nor foreign to the custom of the holy and ^B best men. For it is agreed that not only did our ancestors, men wise and upright, very diligently employ this method in the orations which they wove concerning these most illustrious men, but we also discover that these very teachers of wisdom, celebrated in their own volumes, performed this same act, as if borrowing from themselves and from their own works when they treated of the sacred mysteries, and when in turn they pursued themselves and their friends with holy praises: by which very method they set forth a pattern and example of this practice for those who would imitate them. But if you seek a third answer, a third is also at hand: it is the ardor and incredible love and, if I may so call it, a certain soft enchantment toward the discourses and those divine thunders and the nectar, truly sacred, of which we can never have our fill, whether listening to it, or reading it, or writing it, or employing it as need has demanded, and by which we could never be fully satisfied. Wherefore, let us now proceed to them and to the proclaiming of their praises.

These were born, according to the most high and truly inexplicable and divine providence, which is wont, as they themselves also teach, to lay the ^C foundations and principles of great matters long before, in the midst of the Church of Christ, whether you wish to term this birth earthly and corporeal, or supernal and sublime and divine, which the holy David called the day’s generation, the opposite of the nocturnal generation, or whether we wish to look to both. And since they had established this alone (namely, spiritual generation) as their mother, and nurse, and fatherland, and lineage, and everything of that sort, they were first nourished by her, and drank in the pure and guileless milk of faith through her introductory and preliminary discourses, and with these and after these they cultivated the circle of the liberal arts. But when there was need for those more perfect doctrines and external wisdom—for they themselves say that a power of speech is also required to explain the feelings of the mind: since an understanding that knows not how to explain itself is a movement of those who are sluggish—they judged it right to strike those who contradict the sound doctrine of the faith and who are deemed wise among themselves and knowledgeable, ^D with those very weapons of theirs, and to bring down their pride, and their empty boasting—

for they did not esteem the weakness of our sacred, holy teaching in the eyes of the foolish, nor did they wish their own training to be thought of as rustic or ignorant, or the strength of our sacred reasoning to be judged by the foolish as lacking grace; and so, they exerted themselves in these matters as well—not lightly, nor with a slack hand, as one might say, but with such great ambition and brilliance that one could leave no room for anything further. For having brought to bear their natural talents along with the appropriate diligence—from which, he says, sciences and arts derive their power—they gained, in a short time, the advantage over all those who philosophized about these things.

They mastered rhetoric and philosophy—or rather, every branch of philosophy—to such a peak, if anyone ever did. Regarding astronomy, geometry, and the proportions of numbers, they acquired just enough so as not to be shaken by those who are clever in such matters; and as I have already said, they rejected—as the Great one also says—what is superfluous, as useless for those who wish to be pious. Thus, one might even marvel more at what they chose than at what they passed over; or rather, at what they passed over even more than at what they chose. Such was the aim of these noble men. And just as was fitting for such men, having managed their own affairs even in these areas—granting only a little to the world and to the stage, as he says, and only as much as was needed to satisfy the desire of the many—they did not handle them theatrically or ostentatiously. On the contrary, here too they gave the greatest portion to God and to virtue. By pleading cases in the courts, taking the side of the oppressed, and standing up for justice according to the established laws, and by applying to this the strength they possessed, they very quickly became their own men and God’s. Having abandoned the whole world and everything in it, they turned toward the solitary, or rather, the angelic, life.

They pondered every old book, he says, and every new one, as no one else had, and they became rich in contemplation and rich in the brilliance of their lives, wonderously weaving both together into a truly golden chain—a thing which by many is not joined at all—using life as a guide to contemplation, and using contemplation to seal their life. Or, to speak more accurately, they not only excel others in these things and join this chain most beautifully, but they also arrive at the highest state and the most wonderful knowledge of these things, and they become legislators and teachers to all those who come after them in such matters—of the priesthood, of the monastic life, and, to sum up, of the acts and contemplation alike, leaving behind as canons, models, and laws these sacred writings and volumes, which cannot even be marveled at according to their worth because of the magnitude and abundance of the grace within them.

Thence comes their ascent and contemplation toward God, and their transcendent union and illumination, and that which is the highest of all desirable things: habit according to likeness. And as for those who have reached this, he says, all their contemplation finds its rest, since neither in its own amplitude does that ^D state, nor the mind itself—however endowed with the highest power of contemplation and penetration—find anything more sublime. But indeed, for those very men and for what follows, likewise...

^A let us defer to the Word. For they are at once the precise guides and craftsmen both of acting and of speaking, and there is no one who could ever dispute with them concerning these matters. To whomsoever it has been granted, through discourse and contemplation, to pierce through material things—this carnal cloud, or veil, or whatever one ought to call it—to be joined with God and to be grasped by the purest light, as far as is possible for human nature, this man is blessed, both for his ascent from here and because he gains there the divinization, which a sincere study of philosophy confers, and the elevation of the mind above the earthly duality, on account of the unity which we understand in the Trinity. But whoever has become worse because of the conjunction of soul with body, and is so entangled in the mire that he is unable to gaze at the rays of truth, nor to rise above these lowest things, even though he is from above and called to the things above, this man, to my mind, is ^B wretched because of his blindness, even if he wanders around with transient things; and he is all the more wretched in proportion as he is more deceived by matters flowing according to his will, and has been led to believe that one thing is better than the truly good, reaping the evil fruit of an evil opinion, either to be condemned to darkness or to behold as fire what he did not recognize as light. These things, he says, have occupied few men, both of our own time and of past memory (for few are God’s, even though all are His creatures), among lawgivers, commanders, priests, prophets, evangelists, apostles, pastors, and the whole spiritual assembly; but among all these, ^C indeed, among those whom we are now about to praise, no one more so. This is my trinity of theologians: Basil, John, and Gregory. For we shall not fear to number them either with those who came before or those who followed after; for they are so mutually connected, and so unanimous, and equal in the honor of their clarity and virtue. That which has competed with others, has been held in the same rank as others, and has surpassed others, to no one, as I feel, has it yielded first place. And indeed, they perfectly expressed the speech and doctrine of some, the action of others: they imitated the gentleness of those, the zeal of these, the struggles of others, in many things the former, and in all things the latter. And taking goodness from one and from another, ^D as those who paint figures most skillfully, they left behind those skilled in speaking in their action, and in turn, those trained in acting, in their eloquence and doctrine. Or if you prefer, those celebrated for eloquence they surpassed with action, and those excellent in action with eloquence, and those who were mediocre in both they surpassed by the excellence of one or the other; while those who were eminent in one, they surpassed by this very fact, that they used both in a singular way. And it is truly a new miracle, and more than any discourse, that they should be named, which amazingly leaves the ears and minds of all stunned. For these reasons, indeed, it would be more just for them to be numbered with Peter and Paul and the sons of thunder and their companions than with any others of Christ’s disciples; and it is on account of these before any others that we must believe Christ said to His disciples, as He ascended into heaven after His return from the underworld: "Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age," the bril-

brilliant ^A succession and the common apostolic mission of these men with those others, and their equality of honor, are signified.

That I speak what is true and just, and that I affirm nothing regarding these Fathers that is inappropriate—gratifying them out of some special affection, as one might suspect—will be evident from the following. Christ declares these men also to be disciples and apostles through the divine Spirit, just as He did those others, and He entrusts to them the Gospel, the preaching, and the common salvation of men. They too receive the fiery ^B tongues descending from above from the Spirit, and they receive the division and distribution of His gifts and supernatural operations. They speak not in human or barbaric tongues, but in the tongues of angels, and in secret, celestial voices; imbued with the divine Spirit, they interpret the sublime and hidden things of the God-inspired Scriptures; they prophesy, and with the prophets they behold in a wondrous way the Invisible; they are accounted worthy of supernatural revelations and ineffable mysteries. They work wonders and heal incurable ^C diseases, as did those others, by the invocation of Christ alone. I speak not of bodies only, but of souls as well; nay, those dead through sin they restore to life again, which is a greater thing than giving breath to bodies. Furthermore, they put demons to flight from human limbs; they are made gods by grace—ordained by Him who alone is God by nature—over passions and demons. Even as He once said to the great Moses of old, "Behold, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh," indicating by these words the slaughter and the plagues in Egypt, and the total destruction of its offspring in the deep of the sea, which the lawgiver and leader brought to pass through that supernatural power.

The first disciples and ministers of the Word, therefore, being sent by Him for the calling of the nations, are clothed by Him with this spiritual equipment and full armor for the sake of the men being saved, against the demonic ^D tyranny that holds them. For He says: "Go, preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." All these things, of course, the outcome proved, in accordance with the promises of the Lord—which are foreign to falsehood—when the apostles, standing before the Gentiles and the worshippers of idols, had little need of speech, but accomplished the greatest part, or rather almost the whole, by supernatural signs and wonders; and according to Paul, they presented to Him this Church gathered from the nations as a spouse without spot.

Furthermore, out of the superstition of the Greeks, and the worship of false gods and created things, and indeed out of the demonic [tyranny] against

^A mankind, having been most excellently removed by the power of Christ through the holy apostles, the persecutor attempts another path ^B of trial; not openly and manifest (for there was no longer any place for such contests for him, as he had been driven out and defeated on all sides), but he cunningly introduces—or rather, brings back—the polytheism he loves, and the atheism, which from the beginning he had once wickedly devised in paradise against the first-created, and by which he had long held our nature oppressed in tyranny. He labored impudently to draw back to himself the worship and honor of God, fearing neither the cross nor the blood of God, through which his cruel empire was destroyed. But even after that destruction, the dragon, his tail still twitching and yearning for vengeance and struggle, shamelessly and impiously bestirs himself. And this is nothing other than the new tyranny of the most wicked heresies against the Church of Christ, and the empty persecution of the faith; after the Neros, I say, the Trajans, the Decii, the Diocletians, the Maximians and the Maximini—and as many as were leaders and chiefs of the primary impiety and godlessness—he awakened for us the Sabellians, Arians, Macedonians, and Apollinarians, authors of a second godlessness, and persecutors of the Church of Christ, no less than those former ones, if not indeed more bitter: for since they bore the name of Christ—as he says (for I will again use the words of my masters)—they were pseudo-christs and a reproach to the Christians; to whom it seemed impious to perform, and a disgrace to suffer, because they did not imagine that we were afflicted by any injury, nor that the magnificent name of martyrdom applied to us; but that we were even here stealing the truth to some extent, and suffering as Christians while meanwhile paying the penalty for our impiety. And for this reason, he says, a horn of salvation was raised up for us who had been wronged, and a cornerstone, joining us to himself and to one another in the same structure. ^C There was sent at the fitting time this admirable trinity of theologians; either as a fire purging the dregs and filth, or a rustic winnowing-fan by which lightness and weight of doctrines are separated; or a sword cutting out the roots of wickedness. And the Word finds those who are his own allies, and the Spirit finds those who are willing to breathe for him. Hence the second calling, and apostleship, and the new preaching of the Gospel, of the chorus of the Fathers, the theologians, I say, against the second impiety and godlessness, of those who were apostles after the apostles, and evangelists after the evangelists, and theologians after the theologians; and Peter, and John, who seem to be, and are, the pillars of the Church of Christ: and a third joined to them, and equally to be honored, Paul, although a little later in time, but in his zeal, and study, and craft, and in the contests for the Gospel equal to them and of the same rank, and of the same spirit; these are the vertex and presidents of this chorus, as I have already mentioned. ^D But truly, the strength of the first disciples and apostles consisted in signs and wonders, and in tongues, and revelations, and prophecies, through which they brought to life the whole world under the sun, and for these things they had little need of words, a fact which

^A I touched upon above. But for these leaders, the successors of the apostles and theologians, who were in no way lacking in these gifts, the struggle and the strength lay in discourse and concerning discourse. For the struggle undertaken by these pilots of the universal ship of the Church was not against idols and the manifest worship of created things, but against a certain crafty and hidden impiety and, again, the enslavement to created things. For what did the persecutors intend by calling the Only-begotten, the consubstantial, and co-equal Word of God, "God" by a common name, while yet dragging Him down to the level of a creature; and by refusing to call the Spirit, who is of the same nature and sits upon the same throne, "God," and likewise dragging Him down to the order of creatures? Such is the wicked, I say, division and atheism of Arius. And what of the Sabellian mixing and confusion of the Three into the One, so that according to them, what is worshipped is neither Three nor One, but a new and strange atheism? Furthermore, while bearing the name of Christ, these enemies of Christ and His Church created a certain ambiguity for Christians, or rather, for the simpler and less skilled among the Christians, regarding the struggle and the discovery of the truth. For this reason, all the effort of these chief teachers ^B was placed upon discourse and doctrine, as I said, being required both to instruct their own people, and by persuasion to form them in the measures of piety, and to ward off the alien; and indeed, to refute the champions of evil doctrines who utter ^C blasphemies on high. For "they set their mouth against the heavens," as the blessed David says*, "and their tongue passed through the earth," as they incline heaven to earth and, with the creature, number the nature above the world, which no created thing is able to contain, even if out of philanthropy it has become something with us, so that He might draw us who lie upon the ground toward Himself. But those men are of such a kind and in such a state, just like certain Sennacheribs and Nebuchadnezzars against Jerusalem and Judea; or like the Dariuses and Xerxes, and that most famous and innumerable army of the Persians against Greece.

But it is better ^D to listen again to these teachers who, as they instruct, do so in such a way that no tongue, no genius could surpass them. There was a time, he says, when our affairs were flourishing and in a good state, when this superfluous and glibly-articulated method of theology, instructed by artifice, had found no access to the divine courts, but a simple and noble manner of speech was considered piety. But after the Sexti and Pyrrhones, and the tongue studious of contradiction, like some grave and malignant disease, began to corrupt our churches, and loquacity was seen as erudition—and as the Book of the Acts* reports about the Athenians, we have leisure for nothing else but to tell or hear something new—this madness was begun by that Arius (who earned his name from madness/fury), who also paid the penalty for his petulant tongue by a dissolution in profane places,

^A And those others who succeeded to this contagion created an art of impiety; they, by limiting the Godhead to the Unbegotten, drove both the Begotten and the Proceeding from the bounds of the Godhead, honoring the Trinity with nothing more than a community of name—not even leaving that much to it.

^B But as for us, knowing that to compress the three into one number is the mark of godlessness and of that innovation of Sabellius (who was the first to invent a contraction of the Godhead), and that dividing the three by natures is a cutting of the Godhead that is alien to the faith; we have rightly preserved both aspects: we have piously proclaimed the Godhead, and at the same time the three—confusing them neither into the One, nor distancing them into the three, but remaining within the bounds of piety, by avoiding excessive inclination and opposition to either side. Walking the middle and royal road (in which the praise of virtue resides, as it seems to those skilled in these matters), we believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, consubstantial and of equal glory, upon whom the perfection of baptism rests, in both names and realities. For you know, initiate, that it is the negation of godlessness and the confession of the Godhead. And thus we are perfected, knowing them as one in essence and in the indivisible nature of our worship, but as three in hypostases, or—if some prefer—in persons. ^C For let not those who wrangle about these terms be unseemly, as though our piety consisted in names, not in realities. But you fear that you might be reviled as a tritheist. Keep for yourself the good which is the union in the three; leave the conflict to me. Allow me to be a shipbuilder; you use the ship. Even if there is another who builds ships, nevertheless, allow me to build my own. Inhabit the ship securely, and though you labored nothing for it, you will nonetheless sail with a prosperous course. Or dwell in the house of mine, which I have constructed and prepared, even though you have expended no study or effort upon these things. Let us enter into the cloud. Give me the tables of your heart. I become for you a Moses—if even it is bold to say so—I write with the finger of God a new decalogue, I write a short salvation. But if some beast of the heretics and one devoid of reason remains below, let it stay there, or it will be in danger of being stoned by the word of truth.

^D It is not without reason, therefore, nor missing the mark, that I, having spoken earlier concerning those equals to the apostles, and apostles, and foremost theologians, said that Christ sent these also into the world, along with Peter and Paul and the sons of thunder—the leaders, I say, of that first choir—to burn up with the fire of the Spirit, by the power of the Word and of the true and primary wisdom, the second godlessness and the worship of creatures, and, together with those others, to warm and rekindle the Church of His, which was already in danger of failing in the winter and the demonic counter-breezes; through whom, of course, we attain to living holily, to exercising the priesthood, to teaching, and

to knowing the evangelical and apostolic faith, and to walking blamelessly and purely by his wise providence. For you have heard those divine voices, which through them the Holy Spirit has uttered in a manner worthy of God. For the Lord truly thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave forth His voice, and through these great ones there appeared His lightnings to the world, and the earth was shaken and became trembling, and the foundations of the mountains were shaken from the presence of the Lord, from the presence of the God of Jacob. ^A What are these things, and what sort of agitation of theirs must be understood? I think it refers to those who shout from the earth and their own belly, and attempt to speak the things of the Spirit without the Spirit. *Those whom I did not send,* says the Lord, *and they were prophesying.* Furthermore, as for the one inciting them and teaching them to speak such things, the leader and instigator of wickedness from the beginning, whom it is the custom of divine Scripture to call a "great mountain" and "Leviathan," being shaken, and tossed, and reeling by the light of the face of the Lord—*from the face of the fear of the Lord,* says the most great-spoken Isaiah, *and from the glory of His power.* ^B And that I may return again to the most wise David: *Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world,* which Paul the Great also interpreted of himself and his fellow apostles. And: *The heavens declare the glory of God,* he says, *and the firmament announces the work of His hands. Day to day utters speech, and night to night announces knowledge.* For nothing prevents us from calling the grace of the Spirit "day," because of the splendor and clarity of the light, and calling the same again "night," because of the depth and difficulty that contemplation has. For *He made darkness His hiding place,* he says, ^C meaning His divine word and the depth of knowledge and wisdom, which teaches these sons of light and day. And if one were to call these "night," in my opinion, he would not be straying from what is fitting, on account of the darkness and gloom of this flesh which rushes in and interrupts the light of the glory of the Lord, so that I may say again with the same prophet, *My God, You will light my darkness*—saying also, *The light of Your face has been marked upon us.* And: *Let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us.* And the same one again: *There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard,* ^D pre-announcing those words and the voices brought down from above as thunder; which embraced all ears and tongues from the ends of the earth to the ends, and occupied all the boundaries of the world with their great proclamation. Concerning whom I believe the admirable Isaiah also prophesied: *Get thee up on a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion* (I mean the Church of Christ), *lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem.*

^A For her iniquity is remitted.* And so much for this.

But since these men, who contemplate God and legislate and teach about God, made mention of the spectator of God and the lawgiver Moses a short while ago—for he says, "Let us enter into the cloud; give me the tablets of your heart; I become Moses to you (even if it is a bold thing to say); I inscribe the new decalogue with the finger of God; I inscribe the compendium of salvation"—I think this too should not be passed over unexamined, according to my strength, especially since it was uttered by those very men so sublimely and magnificently. What then do I say? And what is my discourse? These men too, like the great Moses, having been entrusted by Him who is with the pastoral rod, and having been called gods of Pharaoh and of the hostile army around him, descended into the dark and persecuting Egypt—I mean into wicked and irrational godlessness—and, with the divine word and the finger of God, like him, they scourged it with most severe plagues. Then, also leading the people of the Lord out from there ^B with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm,* they crossed over the deep of false infidelity by means of the wood of the cross, and by the wondrous imitation of what was fixed upon it and by the common salvation which He alone worked in the midst of the earth, following after him and together with him; and they drowned the Egyptian and the proud mind, I mean the intelligible Pharaoh, with all his hosts, sinking horses and riders and adjutants into the sea’s waters there, and they themselves sang the victory song in a magnificent way, and taught the Lord’s people to sing it likewise. ^C They ascended the mountain with Moses, and they cast down Amalek, that wicked architect of evil motions, by the extension of hands and the figure of a new mystery through the ineffable energies of the mind; for he had impudently attacked the Lord’s people again after that first and great victory. They led them through the wilderness by a pillar of light and cloud. They gave them the intelligible manna, Christ, for food of immortality in abundance; they fed them in a new way with honey from the smitten rock, that is to say, from the Lord’s side, by as much as these things are higher and more magnificent than those types and shadows. What more? Being ascended by God’s command to Mount Sinai, without lightnings and thunders, and storm and darkness (which terrify those being initiated by Him), they break through the fire, ^D and with Moses they enter into the cloud, and not on stony tablets, but on fleshy hearts, with the finger of God (to use their own words again), they inscribe a new decalogue, they inscribe a compendium of salvation, engraving on one side the divine mystery of the great Trinity and indeed also that of Christ’s dispensation, and on the other side the evangelical way of life and the way of fulfilling the commandments (since faith without works is dead, as works without faith, as they themselves have already said); and from there, no longer with Moses, but more than Moses,

^A their souls and faces are glorified. For what that man bore upon his countenance, these men possessed in their souls more magnificently and more sublimely. The same ones say even this. Nay, Christ himself also confessed this very thing in the person of his first disciples and apostles. *Many*, he says, *prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear*. ^B

Coming down from the mountain of the divine vision, having become like God and winged by the Spirit, they descend as new suns; or rather, they lead those being initiated (as they themselves say) into the interior of the cloud with Peter and the sons of thunder, secretly inducting them, and bringing them in with themselves, and illuminating them with the radiance and mystical splendors of the most high Trinity, the fountain of lights. They provide instruction not only in the outward symbols of the mystery, which are known to the ears of the many and are not secret, but, as they have already said, in things more inward and more mystical. For you possess, he says, the outward manifestations of the mystery, which are not hidden from the hearing of the many; but you shall learn the rest within, the Trinity granting it, clearly after baptism and purification, which you shall hide within yourself, held fast by a seal. And what these things are, and how great they are, and whence they come, the same ones teach those who are initiated again in the same Spirit, even if it is still more obscurely, not entirely without a mirror and coverings, on account of the opposing mist and the darkness of the flesh in which we are entangled. ^C

Of this divine and good Spirit, O God-bearing teachers, you too have been filled with the charisms and the operation, and, possessing him wholly within yourselves—the one of the Trinity who dwells wholly in each one in a distinct manner, and is wholly with God, and fills the all, and is above the all, and exists outside the all—according to your own teaching: for you too received the fiery tongues with the apostles in the upper room, that is, in the exalted citadel and contemplation of your mind; not, as they were, called to be apostles and disciples from being tax collectors, leather-workers, and fishermen (for *it pleased God at that time through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe; for, he says, since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom*), ^D but you came to the true and primary wisdom and apostleship from being orators, philosophers, dialecticians, and wise men, so that even through the lower wisdom—as if through some baggage-carrier and handmaid—the truly foolish and weak wisdom of outsiders might be refuted. You stepped forth for our salvation, as other gods by grace, and formers of those to be saved, by the power of the Maker and Former of all, and who alone is God by nature.

And Moses, that great man, put forward the slowness and thinness of his tongue and voice, and afterwards Jeremiah

^A, excusing the immaturity of his bodily age, lingered and hesitated to perform the duty of the prophetic and divine apostolate, delaying the preaching. But you, having received the wonderful revelation concerning this, and the oracles from thence, cast aside all timidity, and putting away completely all human reasonings, you followed the One who called you promptly, like the noble, like those endowed with virile strength, and like Isaiah you yourselves also said openly: "Behold, I am here, send me." Whence, even more excellently than he, from that divine and singular altar, as if with a pair of tongs, you received the intellectual coal by the operation of the Spirit; and you deemed that not only the Jews, the Syrians, the Egyptians, or just these or those, but the East and the West, the North and the South, and wherever in the world the saving word of God is preached, pertained to your duty and care; striving to stabilize that world which was being shaken, and to corroborate with the healthy doctrine of truth that which had been fractured by opposing tongues. ^B

Moreover, he who presided so illustriously over the great Church of the Caesareans [Basil], having that church as a kind of sacred prytaneum, or a mirror and court of all the churches of the world, presided from there over all things in word and deed, and with all his strength and intellect, administrating them with a certain excellent power of the Spirit; writing, teaching, admonishing, commanding, disputing, refuting, exhorting kings, prefects, generals, princes, the clergy, the people, those living the common life, and the solitary, men as well as women, whole regions and cities; setting himself against wretched shepherds and propagators of impiety; acting as orator, philosopher, and theologian in speech and in writings; and with the Spirit's help, most eruditely defending piety by the books he composed, so that it may be permitted to him, no less than to great Paul, to say: "My daily pressure, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?"

^C But those others, who in their own time had received by divine providence the sacred prelacy and principate of this most vast and queen of cities [namely, Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom], both of them being adorned with those high and divine things in which the great and wonderful kingdom of God shines, and which those who seek Him follow—they made this city truly the greatest, and the prince of all cities existing anywhere on earth. Through her, and from her, as if sallying forth from starting gates or some holy stronghold, they traversed the ends of the world with their divine oration and venerable doctrines; and they so far surpassed all their predecessors and successors—all, that is, who were entrusted with the priesthood and the pontifical office of this city, and the evangelical discipline after the first[]

^A disciples of Christ—surpassed them by such a degree that, in some sense, they are ignored by the greater part of the universal Church, and are not even known by name compared to these; although, indeed, many rose in their midst, and were brilliantly proclaimed in their own time, both by their speech and by their way of life. But these men so overshadowed all in both respects by the abundance of their brilliance, just as the sun overshadows the stars. And if any, even after these noble men, seemed to achieve success, or actually did achieve it, upon ascending to the leadership of the greatest of Churches, at once their title was taken from that source, and a new name was bestowed upon them by the faithful, while the names that each of the pastors originally bore were passed over in silence.

Neque ^B Indeed, it is not just men, women, and the whole common folk who do not call these great ones by their own names, but they attribute the title of "Theologian" to one, and "Chrysostom" to the other, with a certain immense pleasure and reverence; and the Church of Christ shows from this—and not without the Spirit of God, I suspect—that they are the first, and almost the only ones after the first apostles, to be pastors and teachers of the Church of Christ, and no others. And for this reason, the Church clings to their teaching, their dogmas, and their theology just as she does to the sacred tablets and divine Gospels, holding them as equal to her soul and life—or, to speak more truly, as taking precedence over her head and life—so that she does not wish to depart from their designations, nor even from their sacred names. Nay, she even honors those teachers whom she loves after them, and in whom she perceives, or at least fancies she perceives, traces of their character and teaching, with the cognomens of those first ones—judging their love toward those masters in any manner they can (for, as it says, those who love someone vehemently are wont to gladly usurp even his name)—and by doing so, they honor them with the names ^C of those illustrious ones, showing that they are not far from the shadows and likenesses of those suns themselves. For even this is a great thing for them.

So great, he says, is the situation concerning them. And these things are his; but I myself also for the time being agree with the discourse, and I affirm that this has been stated most excellently and becomingly, and I think that each of those who know them well would likewise confirm it.

^B Now Basil indeed, and Gregory the Great, adorned the Church of Christ with deeds and words, and with expositions of divine Scriptures, and with theological disputations, and with moral precepts; and I am not sufficiently able to say in which of these aforementioned things they have excelled more, for the reason that they were supremely illustrious in all things, and these cannot in any way be compared among themselves: although (as it has appeared both to our ancestors and to the men of our own day) they approached more closely to the mountain of theology and the Word, and they taught everyone those divine voices and the unique and most perfect theology concerning the Trinity, received most secretly from God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, as we have already somehow demonstrated from their own admirable and theological words. ^C Indeed, the times and the condition and necessity of the churches called those noble men more to these things, which a no small tempest and grave war was then oppressing, when—alas!—priests and pastors were acting impiously against God and were raging vehemently, as holy Jeremiah says, while emperors were abetting them and bitterly taking vengeance, and the courtiers likewise, along with the eunuchs and the gynaeceum—the domestic companion, I mean, and this society of vice—were all militating together and bringing aid to the agent of evil. And it was such governors and leaders that the Church of Christ needed. Therefore, also called hither from above, as we have already said, and girded with the panoply and armor of God, and having taken into their hands the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, they manfully overturned the citadels of error, and bound the strong man in wickedness by the power of the Spirit, and plundered his vessels, as Christ says in the Gospels, wrestling now with prefects and emperors, now with the prelates of the churches—who were wolves rather than pastors, and cruel lacerators of the flocks—and now with those who follow Judaism and Hellenism, and pursuing impiety in the Church with sermons, even to the point of exiles, death, and stonings: ^D even though they endured all those dangers and deaths, and calamities, by divine aid, manifestly for our sake and for our salvation.

John, moreover, the golden-tongued, even if he did not excel in any other kind of oratory, would surely be worthy of all honor from his theology alone—which he attained in such an excellent and admirable manner—and from his struggles against the Greeks and the Jews, and from the refutation of them and those who hold similar perverse opinions—I mean the Arians and

^A Sabellians, Macedonians, Manichaeans, Valentinians, and the followers of Marcion, and indeed those who impiously introduce fate and necessity against the freedom of the will—he would seem a person of wondrous and supernatural stature, and truly thrice-great. Now, however, rivers of theology have gushed forth from the mouth of Christ and from that theologian’s own tongue, and they have watered the whole earth, so far as the saving Word has encompassed it. His discourse is a potable and most sweet sea, a bottomless abyss of sublime and supernatural thoughts, a super-human abundance, a height coupled with clarity, an unutterable pleasure and sweetness, a rhetorical persuasiveness, and a power and force in his words conjoined with truth, which have shown the Greeks—who were renowned for their eloquence—to be mere children in comparison. Through him, he explained the entire old and New Scripture, brought its deep and difficult points into the light of clarity, celebrated the rites of the venerable mysteries, praised the holy Fathers and martyrs, and sent forth ethical and hortatory discourses like certain perennial springs and streams of flowing rivers from his grace-filled heart, so that one wonders at times at their volume above their beauty, and at other times at their beauty above their volume—or rather, one wonders at both always—so that even the fabled song of the Sirens, if it were not a myth, would appear mere trifles and child’s play compared to these. ^B These things and the like, therefore, not only could no one praise according to their worth, but no one could even go through them in part and delineate them in speech, unless he wished to measure the Atlantic sea with a ladle, or drain the great Nile or the Euphrates with a cup. But those works of his, as I said, have encompassed the world, diffusing themselves admirably and with the greatest glory and wonder, not only through Greeks and Romans, but also through Syrians, Egyptians, Moors, Spaniards, Goths, Triballians, Scythians, and every barbarian voice and tongue.

^C But these things are common to all three, I suppose; and not only in that each of them is likewise full of these and similar things, but also in that they do not love to possess anything peculiar or private apart from those of equal honor. Rather, they make what is individually possessed common, and they make it not so much their own as it is their friends’, and they consider it as held in equal honor, for these wise men share their own things with one another, and receive from one another in equal measure, on account of their equality of honor, I say, and their harmony and mutual affection.

^D For they say this is peculiar to Basil the Great: that, along with his most sublime and greatest theology, he is able to perceive and examine the movements of the soul to their depths, to weigh the reasons for creation and providence, to observe with keen insight the character and aptitude of souls, and to set forth a discourse on each of these things as though it were something animate and living, breathing a soul, as it were, into lifeless words—which is what he himself said concerning one of the secular rhetoricians.

e things as though it were something animate and living, breathing a soul, as it were, into lifeless words—which is what he himself said concerning one of the secular rhetoricians.

^A They say that theology is in a way peculiar to Gregory, along with the depth of discourse concerning it, whether in conceptions, or in diction, for which reasons, no doubt, the common title of the theologians has in a way become his own, the Church of the faithful having uniquely called him "The Theologian" after the Son of Thunder, the first theologian and evangelist, I might say. And indeed, there is also his brevity and incisiveness, and the power to encompass those great and extraordinary things in a few syllables and words, so that in no way does the brevity of his discourse injure his great and marvelous themes, but, joined with his admirable loftiness, there is also clarity, and a new beauty, and a perfection and completeness of thought. Furthermore, in all the rhetorical genres of discourse, the noble man is equally esteemed; whether he is offering counsel, or delivering a panegyric, or debating a judiciary controversy, he is always like himself and supreme, nor does he depart in the slightest from his own gravity and sublimity.

^B And since I have made mention of the beauty, gravity, or grandeur, and the almost inherent power of his mode of expression, I think it is necessary to add this as well: that Gregory alone of all the Greeks, being exercised if anyone ever was in Greek and Attic wisdom and language, felt no need to be enslaved to their laws and customs. Instead, he left the affectation and curiosity of Attic diction to others as something empty and superfluous, but borrowing from Greek wisdom only that which is pure, honest, and simple, he discovered an idea, form, composition, and phrasis of language previously unseen, becoming, as it were, a legislator and an eminent master of speech himself.

^C Whence he was held in admiration and was exceedingly renowned, especially among all those who cultivated and loved eloquence above others, and knew how to employ artifice in writing, so that they hung suspended—in mind and ear, and by the subtlety, festivity, nobility, and incredible and divine pleasantness and honey of his speeches—all of them together being numbed by this by no means common and inimitable style, marveling in astonishment at what it could be and whence it had arisen. They considered that natural ornament, so difficult to describe, to be a kind of ambrosia and nectar, or—to speak more precisely according to the divine Scripture—they regarded those discourses of his as the bread of angels and the holy manna, by which that mind and tongue, most wise and superior to human things, had set forth so miraculously those sacred truths concerning theology and the Godhead.

Furthermore, who could adequately express with words how holily and divinely he treated those sacred discourses regarding the creation and providence of things, and that great mystery, the great economy of Christ for our sake? ^D And how, I might ask, did he reconcile the New Testament with the Old, and reveal to all how the figures and shadows of the Law passed over into evangelical perfection and truth, and were fulfilled, so ingeniously, skillfully, wisely, and persuasively?

et quemadmodum figuræ et umbræ legis ad evangelicam perfectionem veritatemque transierint, completæque fuerint, omnibus patefecit; tam ingeniose ac dextre, sapienter et persuasive. ^A And with such clarity, and such ineffable sweetness, and such wonder, that from this the Church of Christ is able not only to see and contemplate the venerable mysteries on high, but also to feel and perceive them more sublimely, and to be raised up to that economy and salvation, and to be transformed by a most beautiful and most lofty change. This is what happened to him, similarly to the praises of the wise Fathers and martyrs, having been proclaimed and crowned by the Church no less through those marvelous discourses than through their holy actions, apostolic manner of life, and struggles.

As for poetry, and epic verse, and every kind of meter, which he composed in diverse forms on many and most varied subjects for the common instruction of Christians, and his exercise in poetic language and wisdom—who among the Greek poets will dispute with him, or deny him the greatness, and the art, and the power in these things? Concerning which, surely, one of our own wise men, struck with wonder in his panegyric upon him, said that he possessed such power, and wisdom, and art in these matters above the ancients, that even if he had been unskilled in other branches of learning and had not reached such a pinnacle and excellence in them, by these poems and his poetry alone he would have been proclaimed everywhere, and accounted by all learned men as a great and singular man. And thus far for this.

^B Since, therefore, these three are great together, and great also when considered individually, and thus gladly made their own private goods common property and imparted them to one another, as I have already touched upon before, and so vast and admirable is their glory and magnificence, and likewise in doctrine, and in actions, and in all things full of conjunction, agreement, and conspiracy, so that, as the proverb says, "you may know the lion by his claws," I shall add those things also which befit their words.

When I read their invective and confutational orations against the Jews and the Gentiles, and against those who lived after them and in the same age, who feigned themselves Christians while meanwhile defending the same emptiness of impiety, I seem to see the deluge of waters of Noah and the total destruction by the winds, by which the wicked walls and fortifications of the leaders of impiety and tyrants are dragged down—not easily captured by those wishing to tear them down, owing, I think, to their habit, and pride, and duplicity. When I read their writings concerning the Son and the Spirit, and the one Divinity in the Trinity, and the incomprehensibility of this, I know God better than I did, and I am instructed by them in the true monarchy, and at the same time in the mystery of the Trinity; and the elevations, and the submissivenesses, and the union, and the division of the persons at once, and of the nature, the temporal generations together and the processions, and the bodily breaking and flow, and the less and greater according to nature, and the incomprehen-

- ^A sible, and I reject the polytheism of both Jews and Gentiles; I am instructed in the certain reasonings of theology and contemplation, as far as it is possible, and I worship the one God, genuinely and purely in the Trinity—who neither had a beginning, he says, nor will ever have an end; he is like an infinite and immense sea of essence, surpassing every thought of time and nature, shadowed forth by the mind alone, and this only very faintly and moderately, not from things which are of his nature or according to him, but from things that are around him. He says that the deity is not poured out beyond these, lest we introduce a crowd of gods, nor is it bounded within them, lest we condemn the godhead to poverty, having thoughts in common either with the Jews on account of the monarchy, or with the Gentiles on account of the multitude. When I examine what they have written concerning divine creation and providence, I learn the reasons ^B of creation and divine power, and I find the knowledge of existing things, and I am taught about that which truly is, being outside and above all things that are; and how he brings forth those things which are in no way, and makes them to be, and creates natures, and powers, and energies, and properties, and communities, and differences, and unions, and states, and privations, and motions, and changes, and transformations, and gives to each appropriately, as he alone knows how; and he implants in each their own proper reasons, by which he governs our affairs in a new way, and beyond reason; and I discern the anomalies and inequalities which appear in some things, beyond equality and the standard measure. When I hear from them on high things concerning the lofty priesthood, I think I am encountering the voices of God borne from heaven, and I withdraw from the earth and from earthly things; and through the tongues of angels I then first learn the divine mysteries—what they truly are, and how they speak to those below, who are material, in an almost bodiless manner; and I see the revelation and good order of heavenly mysteries made manifest to men; and the prophets, and the evangelists, and the apostles, and the whole of the Old and New Scripture teaching me how and when one must approach the inaccessible, and when to withdraw, and when it is necessary to go to the one calling: the former, he says, because of one’s own infirmity, the latter because of the power of the one who calls. And how it is necessary to govern and manage the beautiful body of Christ, the Church, in various ways, ^C observing times, and the differences of things, and of intentions, and of persons, and of characters, and of opinions, and of conduct, and of exercise, and of education, I mean both in common and in each individual case, looking to the common head of all, Christ, and from thence awaiting the reckoning of our deeds. How it is necessary, in the presence of God, to test those who are called by him to these things, not favoring time, nor power, nor friendship; lest those who are worthy on account of what has been said be not well attended to, or, on the other hand, those who are unworthy on account of sloth be wrongly chosen; so that on both sides we might most shamefully turn aside from that which is good and perfect—naturally spurning the good itself, and choosing the evil, and owing penalties from here and there to the incorrupt judge who then judges them without partiality. ^D

^A As regards the highest virginity, and the rules and patterns of the monastic and angelic life, and he who has possessed that life along with them—what is there for me to say? For they have not only become the most precise ascetics of these things, alongside the peaks of that choir—Anthony, Ammon, and Paul—more than any others whatsoever, but they are also heralded as the legislators, leaders, and teachers of these things to everyone else; so that it is almost they alone who have the ability to act worthily, to speak, to write, and to guide others in such matters. Who has examined more accurately the passions of both soul and body, and the natural impulse and relation of the male toward the female, and the sympathy—if I may say so—and what things belong to nature, what to choice, and to habit, and indeed even those most wicked and evil habits, the passions that are hard to shake off ^B and are most violent, and what are their origins and causes, what are their agents of growth and nourishment, and again, what things through the inclination and the alliance of the Higher Power destroy and vanish them, and establish true incorruption in virginity? Which, indeed, is the soul’s true virginity and purity, containing within itself all virtue, both practical and contemplative, and leading the zealous one toward evangelical perfection: the angelic, I say, and monastic way of life, and virginity, and the God-working order.

Moreover, these Fathers, in addition to the things already mentioned, did not overlook the matters of lawful marriage or of widowhood ^C here; but they joined those topics to what was said before, pointing out to all in their discourse—from the divine Scriptures and from the experience of the things themselves—what is useful and what is harmful in both, and indeed what is burdensome and what is light, so that the man of God may be perfect in all things, lacking in nothing at all.

Who, when dealing with repentance, and compunction, and that most beautiful philanthropy—in the manner of these noble men, I mean—has not pondered their arguments and followed them in his teaching? For they explain the ocean of divine philanthropy, extending the word like a hand to those who, because of the weight of their sins, are being easily carried down as if into a precipice, that they might swiftly be drawn up from there ^D; and they lead those who are hard, and bold, and incapable of compunction toward the fear of God and toward contrition, by the fear of the examination of the things perpetrated in this life, and by the terror of the judgment and the punishment, and by the implacability of the Judge. They taught men so vehemently, both in word and in deed, to be philanthropic, and lovers of the poor, and compassionate, and they made this God-mimicking and God-working virtue to be held in such honor—that they showed it to be almost the only one capable of purging the filth of sins more than the others, of delivering from temptations of the soul and body alike, and of saving from every kind of death; and that it can adorn both practice and contemplation with its own beauty; and, finally, that those who cultivate it are declared by Christ to be blessed by the Father, and inheritors of the kingdom prepared from the foundation

^A of the world, to be His dancers, called sons of God and gods according to grace, by means of that imitation of the true and only God by nature. But besides these blessed ones, who else have appeared, after Christ and the first apostles, as the highest athletes, craftsmen, and preachers of humility and love—those truly sublime virtues which make one perfect—and of all virtue? Who were so poor in spirit, so broken in heart, and truly so meek and humble, that they might be called, according to this same word, certain images and likenesses of Christ Himself (according to His own word: "Learn from me," He says, "for I am meek and humble in heart"), and likewise, for men, guides, leaders, and admirable teachers, having become divine prototypes by doing, saying, and writing such things?

^B But if the highest limit of love for one's neighbor is also, according to the divine oracles, that which requires one not only to love his neighbor as himself, but, necessity demanding it, to despise even his own soul and life for his sake (for "Greater love than this," He says, "has no one, than that one should lay down his life for his friends," a thing which Christ, having spoken, at once fulfilled in deed, having given Himself over to death for us—and Paul the disciple, after Him, was the only one who dared to pray for such things for himself for the sake of the salvation of the Jews: "For I was wishing," he says, "to be anathema from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites"), have not these men also reached the highest limit of the commandment of supreme love, having dared the same things as the blessed Paul? For what do they themselves write about these things concerning themselves? "I dare," says Chrysostom, "to affirm something even greater about us than the Apostle. I so embrace you, and I so revere this seemly stole, and the color of continence, and these holy assemblies, and the august virginity, and purity, and the all-night psalmody, and the love for the poor, and for strangers, that I would accept being anathema from Christ, and suffering as one condemned, ^C only if you would stand with us, and we could together glorify the Trinity."

But these things, indeed, regarding those who are outside the Church of Christ—things so marvelous and full of the imitation of God, as I have already said. Let us see, in the same way, what he said also regarding those within and who are her true members, and who rightly confess and worship the divinity of the Spirit. "I would wish," he says, "if it were possible, to set before your eyes the love which I bear for you. For nothing is more lovable to me than you, not even this very light. For I would choose ten thousand times to be deprived of sight myself, ^D if I could thereby convert your souls; so much dearer to me is your salvation than this very light. For what profit is there for me of the sun's rays, when the grief for your sake often pours over my eyes the

darkness? For light is then good and pleasant, when it is drunk in with joy; for to a grieving soul, it seems even to bring distress. But may it never come to pass—heaven forbid—that you should make trial of this; yet if it ever happens that any of you sins, come to me as I sleep. Unless I am like the paralytics, unless I am like those who have fallen away, and, to use the words of the Prophet: "The light of my eyes, it also is not with me" (Ps. XXXVII, 11). And if any should not judge me ambitious beyond measure, you would see me shedding fountains of tears every day. My little house and solitude are witnesses to this. Believe me, I despair of my own salvation; for while I lament your state, I do not even have leisure to mourn my own evils. ^B Thus you are everything to me. If I perceive that you are making progress, I do not feel my own evils, thanks to the joy. If I see you not making progress, I am again cast down by grief, just as I am radiant at your good deeds, even if I have countless troubles, and I am sorrowful at your painful trials, even if I have countless good deeds. For what hope have we if you are not progressing? And what grief is there if you are prospering? I seem to be flying when I hear something good about you. Fulfill my joy. May it be granted that you are saved, and that I should give an account on your behalf; may you be saved, and I be accused of not having fulfilled my duties. For I do not care that you should be saved through me, but only that you should be saved, however it may be. This much only have I brought into my prayer: that I desire your progress, because I love you, because I am bound to you, because you are everything to me—both father, and mother, and brothers, and children. And if it were possible to open my heart and show you everything, you would see that within there is great spaciousness, and wives, and children, and husbands. For such is the power of love, and it makes the soul more spacious than heaven itself.

Such are the things concerning these holy and thrice-blessed Fathers and teachers, and concerning love, and on behalf of the love of God—both the deeds and the words, I say—a small part of which we have shown here, so admirable and extraordinary, and surpassing these earthly and human words, and worthy only of God and their soul and virtue, which one cannot even admire according to their dignity because of their excellence and magnitude. ^D Nay rather, so that I may again use their own remarkable words for these very things, this is far better; this is more profitable than the long labors and discourses which all now write, who are held by a certain ambition, and perhaps for this reason some things are altered regarding the doctrine of the faith. This is more glorious than many vigils and sleeping on the ground, the benefits of which they enjoy who perform them. This is far more profitable and pleasant than those famous exiles, and flights, and stonings, and revilings, and insults. For they chose to suffer even these things for that [Lord]. Wherefore also that word: "If you love me, Peter, feed my sheep"

^A, addressed to that great coryphaeus thrice by Christ, and which they, thinking it was likewise addressed to them directly, have also fulfilled, loving Him as He wished, and zealously striving with Peter in words and works, and having yielded up their souls like him for the flock, they have received from Christ the reward of the sacred ministry of the Gospel, and this divine and invaluable prize. For what does He say thereafter to the blessed disciple? "Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk where you would; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish." And this, He says, He spoke signaling by what death he would glorify God ^B, as if to say: "Since you have received my pastoral office and my flock, as I wish, and have confessed your love for me in this way, you shall receive from me this most worthy prize, that you should follow me through death and the cross, and thus glorify God, and be glorified by God."

These things you also, O noble ones, having emulated and spoken, and having brilliantly demonstrated by your works, and being by no means inferior even in this respect to the admirable Peter, have been honored likewise with similar rewards and appellations, and with him have been made by Christ the "light of the world, ^C salt of the earth, a city set upon a mountain, and a lamp placed upon a lampstand," which may shine in this house of the whole world. And not only these things, but even the keys of the kingdom of heaven have therefore been entrusted to you along with him. And you have traversed the world with the Gospel—a larger circle than that from Jerusalem to Illyricum—and you are not merely called sons of thunder, but truly are such, and, reclining upon the breast of Jesus, you draw from thence the power of the word and the depth of the thoughts.

These illustrious ones were not permitted, however, to experience the punishments of the protomartyr Stephen; for God from above restrained some of the stone-throwers and those secret slayers for the sake of the salvation of those being saved by them, as we have already said; while others, seized with shame and reverence toward them, though their souls were burning with anger and they were carrying stones in their hands—for this is why I also, above, confirmed them ^D to be peers to the princes of the apostles of Christ in rank, in honor, and in conflicts in all things, and placed them with Moses, or rather even above Moses and all the prophets and perfect legislators and seers of God of the Old Testament, inasmuch as they have illuminated that divine law and the sacred prophecies with their own writings, and have taught all mortals their transition from the letter to the spirit.

But if Moses said on behalf of Israel to the angry God: "If you forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book which you have written" §〗, choosing to perish with them because of his ardent love for the flock he shepherded, certainly also here, if you inquire, among the shepherds and legislators

^A For these men did not desire to perish together with their friends, as Moses did; rather, they desired even more to face danger for them, and to lay down their lives for their friends together with Christ, that salvation might be theirs. Yet, neither did they say to God that which Moses said, being exasperated against the disobedient: "Why hast thou afflicted thy servant? And why have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou shouldst lay the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? Or have I brought them forth, that thou shouldst say to me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nurse beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou didst swear unto their fathers?" §〗 Not in this way did these blessed men speak to God regarding those entrusted to their care; but rather, they taught us those things which are beyond speech and most sublime—things which they themselves, having attained, worthily taught us.

^B Great indeed are these things and sublime—or rather, if it is right to say so, greater than great and more sublime than sublime—and worthy of the virtue and character of such men, and of the power of their teaching, which claimed for itself the breadth of all doctrine. For I think (to speak of them again from their own writings), if there were or ever shall be a trumpet echoing far through the air, or the voice of God filling the world, or an earthquake of the inhabited earth from some novelty and miracle, such things would be their words and thoughts, which so far surpass all others, and leave them as far below as we are superior to the nature of irrational beasts.

^C And they are indeed such, and so they relate to us and to the entire Church of Christ together, that no one among all men can in any way be compared or contend with them regarding such things. But to us, he says, what other grace is there in today’s assembly? What delight in banquets? What in the marketplaces? What in the churches? What pleasure in the high-ranking and their households? What for monks, or for the mixed multitude? What for the idle, or for those occupied with affairs? What for those outside contemplating philosophy, or for our own? One thing, and through all things, the greatest, is their writings and labors. For later writers seek their abundance from no source other than their books. The old are passed over and forgotten, as well as those which some have labored upon in divine doctrine; the new are proclaimed and preached, and he is considered the most learned who has pondered most accurately the mind of these men, and who is able to express these things conveniently and instruct his hearers. ^D For these three suffice for the more studious for imitation; they indeed possessed that which is most new and full of wonder above all things mentioned, that they were the first and only ones who could be praised by themselves and by their own words and writings, across every kind of science and speech, and by those skilled in such matters: all men standing amazed and yielding to these great masters of speech; which is what I asserted at the beginning.

^A Now, among other men—I mean those who are diligent or sluggish, wise or ignorant, Greeks or barbarians, and all together—you might see those who are lovers of the same things loving one another and being loved in return, and running together at all times with the same eagerness (since, as the proverb says, like rejoices in like). But those whom we are now praising, all men pursue with such an intense and excessive love, as if by a signal, that it cannot be expressed in words nor grasped by the mind. And indeed, all the disciples and imitators of Christ—I mean the apostles, the martyrs, the pastors, and the teachers, and the whole multitude of the holy and righteous—are honored and loved by everyone with special regard because of their love for our common Lord and their imitation of Him as far as their strength allows; ^B yet everyone does not pour out their zeal and love toward all of them equally or in every respect. Rather, some love these, others those, and one loves another more vehemently, and they are assiduous in honoring them, and they offer them gifts according to their station. But everyone together both loves, praises, admires, applauds, and always carries on their lips these three, leaping for joy, shouting, celebrating them, and—what is most excellent—crying out aloud about them: calling them Fathers, teachers, benefactors, saviors after God, guides, theologians, pillars of the faith, defenders of the orthodox truth, destroyers of heresies, interpreters of the divine Scriptures, wise men and philosophers of the Church, orators, and declaring them to be everything to us ^C after God and together with God; indeed, even that they have become, are, and will be everything to us, and will never cease to be. Who, seeing these things and things like them, does not exclaim in great wonder? And as for those who have succeeded them in their sacred office, the care of human souls, and the governance of the Churches, what need is there to speak of how they depend upon their divine theology and speech, and how they breathe these men and everything that is theirs even more than they breathe this air? They hold them as masters of sacred dogmas, leaders of the evangelical life, canons of the priesthood, archetypes of every good, of love, of prudence, of fortitude, of temperance ^D and justice together, and of all wisdom, and of words and of every form of knowledge of divine and human things, and as the safest types and canons; and they dare not say, do, teach, or dispute against the opponents of our sound faith without their decrees and counsel, and without their form and method of disputation and their God-inspired doctrine. For they also seem to associate with them familiarly, and to hear what is theirs from these very ones in an intellectual and sensible way at once, by a certain holy method: the former on account of the overshadowing from on high and the love which they bear us in a singular way, the latter on account of their sacred volumes. For they have not abandoned us so as to have left us entirely. What more need be said? If they, even unto the consummation

^A of the age, had remained in the flesh, in the world, and among men, and if their life, for the common benefit, had extended itself by a new miracle beyond the course of nature—just as the heaven and the sun, and that remaining choir of the stars, or the quaternary of these great elements, through which this sensible and visible creation is held together by the power of Him who created it, and is preserved from dissolution; or even as a certain common soul and vital power of the universe—this would have also been for us, if anything among all things, something greater than any estimation, and consistent with the great providence and omnipotent power. But since these men were also born, and could not escape the law of nature, nor fail to render the dust unto the earth, they pay the debt, lest they might seem to be some substance free from the concretion of matter, and—as a foreign thing assuming our form—to have performed those new and superhuman deeds; and so, in due time, earth is rendered to earth, so that ^B they might at last find respite from long-standing struggles, labors, sweats, and dangers of every kind, and the image that was according to the Image is restored more purely and perfectly. Moreover, their wondrousness now is far greater and in most wonderful ways more sublime and excellent. For although they have departed from here, they have not departed from us; separated in their bodies, they are more closely joined to us in spirit, and are inseparably present with the Church of Christ, more strongly embracing that great and pastoral province, and fighting for the flock, and perfectly destroying the wolves (whom formerly, while they lived here, they drove away with the pastoral staff and the sling of the word), since now they are called superior—and are so, and do not merely suffer—to envy, and malice, and stoning, and ^C persecutions, and exile, and deaths of every kind, and they accomplish things that are above nature, the most noble things, having themselves transgressed nature, through their most sublime teaching and common exhortations. And indeed the tongue is silent, and nature has closed the golden lips: but the sacred volumes, and the orations proceeding from divine instinct, and the living and animated treasures of the dogmas concerning God, and the orthodox knowledge of His divinity, which they have left behind for us as a paternal and most precious heritage, are chanted by the tongues and mouths of countless numbers. They live indeed in Christ that blessed life, removed from all destruction: nevertheless, they live also among us here, speaking, as I said, and rendering the world—with Christ—saved.

A Laudation of the Three Doctors

Agedum, let the whole choir that loves them surround me, and ^D work with me in their praises. You who are pastors, celebrating the pastors and teachers; you who are occupied in the sanctuary and work at the sacred table; the princes and preceptors of this order and of sacred prayers: philosophers and wise men, dialecticians and writers, and orators, and you who cultivate both the first and highest wisdom, and indeed also the human and lower wisdom; these practitioners and artificers, and leaders, and exalted masters,

^A and in a word, let me say, monks and those living in the world, those of the desert and those of civil society, those of simplicity and those of precision, all those of contemplation and all those of action. I, indeed, call upon the apostles and the prophets, whosoever there were before Christ and after Christ, and the lawgivers, and the commanders, and the priests—since they know and love these men more fully, and are adorned with their manifold accomplishments, and are crowned by them with encomia, and words, and deeds alike, as if with garlands.

But, O wise shepherds, and teachers, and fathers, and guides, and protectors, after the first and only shepherd, and teacher, and protector, and Master of his own Church; ^B O saviors after the first Savior, and benefactors after the first benefactor, and faithful and prudent stewards, whom the Lord has set over his family, I mean this very Church of his; you who have given and are giving, according to his word, the ration of wheat to your fellow-servants in due season; whom, according to his own word, he has set over all his possessions—O companions of prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and fellow-strugglers, and fellow-workers, and fellow-combatants; O soul, and tongue, and mouth, and mind, and word, and wisdom, and virtue, and crown of boasting, and glory, and honor more excellent than every honor, and brightness, and fame, and exultation, and basis, and stay of the Church of Christ (for just as I embrace the three as one because of the novelty and equal honor of their union and kinship), ^C accept also from us this humble and brief discourse, or rather, this great and sublime one: the former because of itself and its own weakness; the latter because of you and your words, upon which it itself leans and is at the same time interwoven; for your humanity and condescension towards the humble and the abject do not shrink from it. Look down upon us from heaven propitiously, and visit this flock of Christ—and yours—which you gathered with sweats and long labors, once small and imperfect, according to your word, neither enjoying free pastures nor filling the fold; and even now non-the-less needing your inspection, and diligence, and providence, growing wild and overgrown, and—after that manifold diligence of yours—like that vineyard which was made for the beloved in a horn, in a fat place, as Isaiah says. ^D For I refrain from saying what follows, fearing to defile the festival. Since you live even more now in Christ, and look upon our affairs with more compassion and more clearly, gazing more purely and more highly upon the light of the great Trinity, and receiving the illuminations from thence directly, the mirrors and reflections having been dissolved; to whom is due all glory, honor, and worship, power, greatness, and majesty, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

REFUTATION OF THE ANATHEMAS OF HARMENOPOULOS

OF THE MOST HOLY PATRIARCH, LORD PHILOTHEUS, REFUTATION OF THE ANATHEMAS RECORDED BY HARMENOPOULOS.

(From the *Jus Graeco-Romanum*. The prologue of the first [part] was edited by Rallis and Potli in the *Syntagma*, vol. V, Athens 1855.)

During the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a tome was issued, with the concurrence of the then patriarch Alexios and the synod, which anathematized those who undertook to stir up apostasy or tyranny against emperors, as thereby inducing subjects to revolt from their own lords. It reads as follows: “For those who from this day forth intend to undertake intrigues or rebellions, anathema. For those who cooperate with them, and for those who share in the apostasy, anathema. For those who advise and urge [others] toward such things, anathema. For those who join them in military campaigns, anathema. For those who receive them for repentance but who do not repent from their apostasy and abandon it, anathema. ^B”

A similar edict went forth during the reign of Manuel Komnenos, which was issued with the concurrence of the patriarch of that time and the synod under him, anathematizing those who intended to undertake intrigue or rebellion against his son Alexios, as well as those who joined with them.

A further similar [edict] did the Emperor Michael Palaiologos cause to be ^C published regarding his son Andronikos, the pious emperor. There were present, as was fitting, the members of the official order and the patriarch Joseph, who joined to his sincere piety the crown of confession, and also the holy synod subject to him. These all submitted to anathema and most terrible imprecations anyone who dared to devise intrigue or rebellion to cast out from the kingship the pillar of piety, the divine Emperor Andronikos.

Since you are skilled in such matters, ^D venerable nomophylax and judge-general Harmenopoulos, why did you not also add to your writings that, by reason of the golden and holy laws of that great light of the Church, John, called "Golden-Tongued" (Chrysostom), by which Christians are forbidden to be anathematized as long as they hold the correct opinion concerning God, those tomes which [anathematize] those who desert and revolt...

against the emperors? For this is what the learned nominee, and one who pursued studies similar to yours, Balsamon, says; he who is most deeply learned and most wise in both laws and canons, who was also later declared patriarch of the great Antioch—a fact that I would say does not escape even you, being a learned and diligent man in such matters, if in truth you were to have written down these things alongside those mentions of the tomes, or else not to have included even these in your most beautiful and serious writings. But I am already filling in what is lacking in my friend’s writing; and I think that I shall not appear tiresome, nor even redundant, in doing what is necessary and just under every necessity.

The aforementioned patriarch of Antioch, the wise Balsamon, while explaining the holy canons, says this in the preface to the explanation of the canons of the synod of Gangra: ^B "The present synod, by reason of the evils brought about by Eustathius, in opposition to what was correctly dogmatized by the Catholic Church, decrees that those of the same mind as him are to be struck with anathema."

And a little later:

And that golden-tongued one, the teacher of the world, strictly forbidding that a faithful man be anathematized, says these things explicitly: ^C "What then is this, you say, that is anathema? Is it not that he be devoted to the devil, and no longer have any share of salvation, and become alienated from Christ? And who, I ask, are you? These are matters of majesty and great power. For then the King shall sit, and shall place the sheep on the right, but the goats on the left. Why then do you usurp for yourself such great dignity?" And after a few things are inserted, the same Chrysostom says: "Indeed, the Apostle appears to have expressed this word in two places only out of necessity; nor did he bring it forth in a definitive manner, while saying in the epistle to the Corinthians: 'If any man does not love our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema'; and, 'If any man preaches a gospel to you contrary to that which you have received, let him be anathema.' What then? That which none of those who have received authority have done, except only He ^D who received it—you dare to do these things contrary to the Lord's command, and do you anticipate the judgment of the King? This anathema cuts a man off from Christ. Teach in meekness, and the things that follow."

And these indeed are the words of the Father Chrysostom. Balsamon adds: "For this reason, as it seems, that synodical tome, which was made under the empire of Lord Constantine born in the Porphyra, when Lord Alexius was patriarch, for the purpose of anathematizing the authors of defections and tumults, and those who raise arms against emperors and plot tyranny, has fallen into disuse. But if those things written by our great Father and teacher Chrysostom...