Orations

ORATION BY SAINT SOPHRONIUS OF JERUSALEM ON THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR, WHICH FELL UPON A SUNDAY

I perceive the present day as joyful and illustrious, bathing us in a twofold splendor and light, and filling our human race with a twofold happiness and pleasure. This is not because it shows us two suns or irradiates us with a twofold grace in that manner, but because the one and same Sun of Justice, which it offers, arises for us who dwell upon the earth in a twofold way, as it were, ministering a twofold splendor and glory to the race of mortals, and in the end bringing it a twofold spiritual joy. For on the one hand, He arose from the virginal womb, and on the other, He was awakened from the hidden caverns of the underworld. As His birth filled the souls of mortals with immense joy, so His awakening destroyed gloomy death, deprived it of all the dead whom it held, and opened the way for us who live in this earthly region to incorrupt and immortal life. For both united in one, according to what is said in the Psalms: "Mercy and truth have met together; justice and peace have kissed. Truth is sprung out of the earth: and justice hath looked down from heaven. For our Lord Jesus Christ will give goodness: and our earth shall yield her fruit." ^A For the birth of Christ and His resurrection from the dead fell upon one and the same day. Justly, therefore, and with good reason, you would call this day the mistress of days, as it presented to us the common Lord of all, risen from the dead, and the festive occasion was increased and accumulated by the celebration of His birth from the Virgin. Nothing can appear more splendid than these things, nothing more pleasant to be observed by the eyes of the mind. For what can be contemplated by the soul that is more divine than the birth of the most benign and almighty God? ^B What could be more illustrious? What more worthy of celebration? What more joyful to consider? What more festive to observe? For that true Light, which is born eternally and indivisibly from the true Light, and which rises for us today in a twofold manner—by His birth, that is, and by His resurrection—bestows a twofold supply of saving rays; for each is filled with saving joy. Therefore, joyful and festive voices brighten this present solemnity and invite the faithful to celebrate this feast day with a twofold name. Here, the Virgin, who brought Him into the light, hears with most just cause an angel addressing her with such a salutation: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," as if to say: the curse which had long since been inflicted upon Eve, now at last through thee comes to an end. ^C Here, in turn, the shepherds, keeping watch and observing the night-time, hear an angel delivering such a message to them: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: for this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David." Through whom we are both saved and, having shaken off the yoke of servitude, are gratuitously adopted as children of God. There, indeed, the illustrious women, disciples of Christ’s redemption, hear the Lord himself crying out to them: "Hail." For Christ truly exists as the author of all this great joy for everyone. For through Him death has died, and that terrible judgment of our condemnation has been, as it were, terrified and abolished, and the legal curse has been dissolved, and the punishment of Eve is extinguished, and the empire of death is overturned, and the resurrection of the dead, no longer allowing death to rage against itself, has been clearly begun. There, on account of the transgression admitted in paradise, that curse: "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," ^D is entirely proscribed.

because the life shown openly from the dead has revealed it; since the curse and the penalty was that: "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children"; but that other of Adam: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"; and regarding both, to lead a life of misery and sorrow forever. But in truth, the most powerful Liberator and Redeemer of these, through his own nativity and resurrection, brought himself into our midst, and declared himself the true Redeemer and Liberator. For nothing exists that can conquer the power of God. "For the Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to hell and bringeth up," as it is written. But ^B neither can anything at all be found that could prevail against his omnipotent will. His hands strike man on account of sins; the same hands, again, because of his immense kindness, heal the one struck. But who am I, to unfold according to their dignity the things that we see and hear? For I am destitute of speech, and tongue, and mouth, with which I might worthily discourse upon the miracles of those divine feasts. Therefore, being most perplexed, and established in the greatest difficulty of matters, I shall take up the hymn of the angels, and with a great voice I shall chant it to God, who has taken upon himself human nature, and who has been awakened today from the tomb and the dead, and I shall clearly and distinctly resound: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." For to make us sublime, and to show that we are more celestial than terrestrial, he descended from on high to us who are vile and ^C abject. In the war, moreover, which does not fall under our sight, he gave us, when attacked, security and peace, and reconciled us to his Father, and making our pacification with God the Father in himself, he demonstrated that he is our peace. And likewise we, who had been cast out and proscribed, being most far removed from the divine countenance, he so adorned and restored with his own virtues, that we might be approved by God, and beheld by the same with a clement eye. And with the partition wall removed from the midst, he bestowed that also upon us beyond others, that we might be able to behold the clarity of God with unveiled face. Finally, we, who had previously lapsed into death because of our sins, and had voluntarily and—as it were—on purpose severed ourselves from life: "For God made not death, neither (since he is good) hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living," he brought back to life, and ^D awakened from the tomb and destruction, and bade us say: "O death, where is thy victory? O hell, where is thy sting?" For Christ, by humbling himself to us who are humble, and by voluntarily undergoing our birth, and, as true man, meeting death, broke and obscured both. "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and divine power!" O grace, truly immense! For as we were not before, he brought us forth from nothing. With an insane and rash counsel again, into destruction we had fallen, and having been cast down into the abyss of death, he awakened us again from the tomb; and having conquered death, by which we were held fast, he restored to us the very nature of living, and even then, he never ceased to infuse the spiritual power itself, just as before. For since he is God, he always imparts truly divine and great gifts and benefits to those who are in need of his help. Therefore I cry out again, and I shall always cry out with those celestial hosts: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." For what is more convenient and more truly decent, and indeed more illustrious, than what those who desire to celebrate the born God and lift him up with praises can say, than: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men"? God acts on earth; and who would not escape to heaven? God is born of a Virgin and comes forth into our midst: and who would not be made divine today? Who, as he is able to approach more closely to him, would not yearn for the sanctity of virginity, and grasp at continence with a ready spirit? God is wrapped in vile and abject swaddling clothes: and who, should anything vile and abject happen to occur, would not receive it with open arms, so that he might become a partaker of divinity? For God did not cover himself in human poverty for any other cause than that he might make us gods by his grace. And this David the Psalmist, who is also the parent of Christ, enlightened by the gift of prophecy, and having been taught the benefits of Christ who was to be born of him, and having clearly seen through the Spirit the illustrious and divine deeds of the same, explained in express words long ago: "I said," he says, "ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." God is among us; having put off the old man, and having emulated him as far as it can be done, let us be made divine. The Most High has become terrestrial; and let us also lift up the purposes of our mind, and the desires of our soul on high, and let us strive to render ourselves capable of divine gifts. God is openly set forth in the manger, and to us, who are wasting away from hunger, and who, like beasts of burden, are led with hardly any reason, he voluntarily offers himself as food. Who, indeed, would not take delight in his divinity, as if this were divine food, after having entirely discarded that most unworthy and abject food? I would truthfully say: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." I exult with dancing, like the shepherds, while I hear voices that are so plainly divine; and I long to fly immediately to the manger that received God, and indeed, rapt with the whole impulse of my soul to that celestial cave, I burn with desire to contemplate the mystery that lies hidden within it, and to pour out that hymn: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," in honor and glory of the newborn. Moreover, I venerate the divine Magi, and the great.

^A I admire all the more the course which those men, devoted to God and led by divine instruction, took to arrive at the heavenly Bethlehem. They approached it, fearing not the fury of Herod nor the sword that slaughtered the infants, but rather the star, which with its own light marked the way—a guide certainly sublime and purely heavenly—having found it most opportune for accomplishing that sublime and heavenly journey with ease. I long to be a companion to them, and I desire to offer certain gifts to the newborn God; although at this time He does not demand from His friends gold, or myrrh, or incense (for these and other things necessary for the use of life, as the Creator and Lord of all, He is accustomed to give to the needy as a familiar friend, rather than to demand them from any at all). In place of gold, He requires the sincerity of faith. For myrrh, He asks for the incorrupt integrity of soul and body; then again, for the purity of doctrinal preaching; then, finally, for a sense and intellect that is orthodox regarding the faith. In place of incense, He demands from us the sweet fragrance of good works: not that He becomes rich by the acceptance of these, but that He makes us more opulent through them. For what exists, even among sublime or heavenly things, or illustrious benefits, of which God is not the treasure, the fountain, and the boundless sea? And He is not only the origin and cause of these, but also their magnificent and liberal bestower, if the needy are present.

^B But let the Magi and the divine shepherds proceed to Bethlehem, which received God, and let them have the star as their companion and the leader of their journey, and let them contemplate that truly stupendous miracle before their eyes; and, contemplating it, let them be amazed, and let them gladly offer to the newborn gifts worthy of Him, and let them repeat the doxology of the angels: "Glory to God in the highest," singing, "and on earth peace, good will toward men." They fear nothing, they dread nothing; they do not occupy their minds with the furies of the insane Herod, nor with any other commonly frightening thing; but they occupy themselves only with divine meditations, and gaze with fixed eyes upon the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the divine manger—the infant who is the Savior of all, and truly the inexplicable God and Lord; even though, for our sake, who are carnal and thus were unable to look upon the pure and naked brilliance of His divinity, He is covered by the veil of human flesh and body. But we, because of our countless sins and most grievous errors, having become unworthy of the contemplation of those things, are prevented from hastening there in our course and from being present; but, being guilty and like captives, we are forced to remain at home—not indeed bound by any bodily chains, but deterred and impeded by the fear of the Saracens; and we are tossed as if by a certain tempest, in sadness worthy of our misery, but unworthy of the blessings that were otherwise due to us. For if our misery had been worthy of those blessings, we certainly would have been positioned near those places (for we do not behold them from afar) together with the shepherds, and we would have led choirs, and with the Magi we would have offered gifts to God, and along with the angels we would have sung that hymn: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Truly, however, we are not permitted in this place to utter such voices; but to behold the manger itself and that truly sublime and heavenly cave, we are, as if unworthy of such a spectacle, entirely forbidden. Truly, we here imitate Adam, the prince of our race and our first parent, miserably banished from the habitation of paradise. For because of our wicked sins and lapses, which we continually design with a perverse and twisted mind, we suffer things as grave, or even much graver and more sorrowful, than he did. For as he, banished from the delights of paradise and made an exile, and cast out thence by a most grave and irrevocable sentence of God, did indeed usurp the garden of paradise with his eyes (for he lived opposite to it), yet he was not able to return to it again, as one who perceived before his eyes that flaming and whirling sword which precluded the approach to such a place, and which bereft him of that good so ardently desired because of the sin of prevarication he had committed; so also are we punished this day: since we have as a neighbor the city of Bethlehem, which received God, and yet we are not permitted to enter it, not indeed gazing upon that flaming and whirling sword of paradise, but fearing the savage sword of the Saracens, which is truly full of all cruelty. For this sword, flashing horrendously and breathing and threatening slaughter, renders us deprived of that blessed vision, and compels us to remain at home without any further progress. But although the dagger of the Agarenes may now flash just as that sword did which once guarded the entrance to paradise, yet if we were willing—that is, if we were converted and did seek with our whole heart through diligent works the God born for our sake—it would soon become calm and gentle, as it was before. If, I say, we have extinguished the flames of our sins through repentance, and have religiously worshipped the God Who is Good and Great, born for our sake and in our nature, and have ceased our study of the works He is accustomed to execrate, He will easily lay aside the sense of His ardor. With what face, I ask, do we dare to approach God, when we offer neither any fruitfulness of soul nor chastity of body in place of a gift? How do we ourselves not fear to approach, when we obtain no sweet fragrance of those works which are acknowledged to bring Him joy and pleasure? Especially when we are not unaware that He most bitterly hates the foul stench of wicked works? But I fear and am bound by great trembling, lest those of us who seem to hold the orthodox faith be found to labor according to that faith in a deficient way: as those who have permitted it to wander alone—that is, separated from the union of honest actions and stripped of the company of good works. For if faith...

^A left destitute of the action of fragrant works, according to James the brother of the Lord, who also at one time existed as pastor of this flock, is dead, how shall we maintain a straight course, we who do not care to adorn faith with other things, as it were, nor to arm our souls with the swift wings of works of mercy? Wherefore, brothers most beloved to my soul, let us associate works with faith, I beseech you, and not weaken it on account of the absence of works, which ought to have been present: for in this way it will happen that, just as we stand strong and valid in faith (for, defended and preserved by the grace of Christ, we have in no part undermined it), so we may also be strengthened by good works; and Christ himself, who takes intense delight in honest actions, we may recreate not a little by faith and works together, and merit for ourselves his most merciful majesty. For he is the one who, as legislator, clearly pronounces these decrees: "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven." Again, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Item, "You are my friends, if you do things which I command you." If, therefore, we have done his fatherly will, and have constantly retained the true and orthodox faith, we shall easily push aside the sword of the Ishmaelites; and we shall turn away from us the Saracen dagger; and we shall shatter the camp of the Hagarenes; and not long after we shall contemplate divine Bethlehem; and we shall behold the admirable things that are in it, and we shall look upon Christ, the artificer of ^B admirable works; and together with the angels we shall sing that doxology: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will," with a great and sonorous voice, and by this act we shall render a service especially pleasing to Christ. For he is most addicted to those things which are born to promote and procure our salvation.

Was it not when he was the Word of God, and had eternal birth from the eternal Father, that he inhabited the undefiled womb of the Virgin Mother for our sake? And did he not assume true flesh in her and from her? He assumed, however, flesh from her not first fashioned and existing before it was joined to him by an indissoluble bond; but rather, it obtained its existence together with him and in the very embrace of the Word. For its very constitution and rationale coincided at a point with the composition itself, and was coeval with it. Which flesh, also, animated by the spirit of rational life, he joined to himself according to hypostasis, as that illustrious light of faith, Leo, teaches, and the most wise Cyril, that ^C great herald of heavenly doctrine, clearly and in a manner most consistent with true piety and religion, confirms. For Christ, the cause of our salvation, being assimilated to us in all things and similar, had a conception devoid (for, that he might be born, [he had no need of] synergy), and he deigned to be circumbscribed in the Virgin’s womb, and willed to be brought into the light according to his clemency in the manner of men, and as a most manifest judgment and argument of his omnipotent divinity, he preserved the Virgin, from whom he proceeded, whole and incorrupt, and openly showed her to be none other than the Theotokos. Nay, the virgin herself in turn rendered clear testimony to his ineffable divinity: she made it attested, I say, that he is true God, and true Son of God, of the same nature and substance with the Father: even though, to the eyes of those upon whom he fell, he was held to be only a man like us. But even though this Son flickers—one [nature] divine, the other human—meanwhile he is divided in no part; for he remains one Christ and one Son, void of all mutation, confusion, section, and division. Is it not that same one who, when he was rich and held command over all things together with the kingdom, voluntarily lowered himself into our mendicancy so that we, who were most impoverished, might attain his immortal riches? Was it not that, when he was uncreated, nay, creator and founder of the whole creation, he willed to be reckoned among creatures so that he might exalt us into the fellowship of his uncreated nature? Was it not that, when he existed void of all matter and bodily concretion, he was moved in his soul to become flesh and body so that he might make us superior to these frail and fleeting bodies and flesh, and might clothe our bodies with incorruption, and endow our flesh with immortality? Is it not that, when he was circumscribed by no limits according to his divinity, he took upon himself flesh defined by bulk so that he might open to us ^D access to his immense kingdom? Is it not that, when he was free from all sin, and holy, and in all things unpolluted ("For he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth"), he was for our sake numbered among sinners? And was he brought forth into the light in the likeness of sinful flesh? For the Father, on whom no sin falls, made him his own, who knew no sin, to be sin for our sake: that by flesh immune from all sin, he might evacuate the condemnation of sin, and purge us sinners from the contracted stains of sins. Is it not that, when he was the Son and free, and possessed natural lordship, he endured to be reckoned among servants so that, adorned with the gift of freedom, he might offer us to God the Father as if we were sons? For through him we have attained that we are called and are sons of the Most High. Meanwhile, we have obtained that gift of adoption not by nature, but by grace. Is it not that, when he was eternal and impassible, and immortal, he put on our passible and mortal flesh so that he might liberate us from destruction and every necessity of suffering, and might deliver and rescue us from the bonds of death and the manifold chains by which we were held entangled? Did he not perform all these things, and in the most divine way fulfill them, and...

bring them to their conclusion? Assuredly; for it does not happen that God is thwarted in his purpose. For what can be conceived by the mind that God, if he wills, cannot bring about? Or who is there who, by his own will—even if he should strive against it with all his might—is able to stand against the omnipotent and most efficacious will of the same? It is the festival of this great divinity, brothers, that we celebrate today, even though we do so with great sadness: for we have the place where God the Word, and the Lord, appeared through a birth that cannot be explained in words, in our proximity, yet we are unable to hasten to it. Indeed, almost the same thing happens to us here as befell the most divine Moses. For he, having been brought up to a very high mountain, gazed most avidly with his eyes upon the promised land, and desired to enter into it; but because he did not bless God when he was about to bring forth streams and rivers of water from the rock by the blow of his staff, he was by no means permitted to enter. And he, indeed, deprived of the land so much desired in that manner, and exhausted by grief, emigrated from here to God. But we, who suffer things not unlike these, what shall we do? For even though we take pleasure in our minds from celestial gifts, and rejoice, and religiously delight in ourselves, and as it were draw forth continuous joy; nevertheless, we are saddened and not a little troubled because it is not permitted to behold the place at close quarters, and to hold a festive gathering there, where the true light has dawned, where eternal life has flourished, where at last the treasure of all gifts and graces, appearing in a visible form, illuminates and refreshes all who gaze upon it with faith and piety, and satisfies them most abundantly with celestial joy; and it bestows upon them such riches as neither flow away nor fail; and it brings it about that not without joy and delight, we may sing in concert with the angels, the shepherds, and the Magi: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. We are assimilated most miserably on this day’s light to Adam alone, the first parent of our race, and to the divine Moses: but we also accurately express the lot of our parent David: as we are at this time involved in almost the same difficulties, and are hindered by obstacles, as he was of old. For indeed, was not David, when he had been assumed as king by God, and was sometimes surrounded on all sides by the army of the Philistines, constrained by a spiritual thirst, just as we perhaps are now, and parched and burning, did he not desire to drink the salutary water from the cistern which was in Bethlehem? But the water which he mystically desired was both living, and it made all who drank from it alive by divine virtue: “If you knew the gift of God,” said Christ to the Samaritan woman, “and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink, you perhaps would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks from the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water ^A springing up into eternal life.” This sacred cistern ^B designated the most holy Virgin, who was to carry in her womb and give birth to God. For what was being transacted here was a prophecy and a figure of Christ, who is the living water bestowing life upon all, and of the mystical and spiritual cistern, which brought forth into the light that water which never fails, conceived within the womb, that is, the pure Virgin.

This cistern and water, however, King David desired to see, and he burned with intense longing to do so, with spiritual eyes, to be sure, and as well with his bodily eyes: with the former, as the most illustrious prophet; with the latter, as the most consummate just man. Burning within with this desire, he said: “O if someone would give me a drink of the water from the cistern which is in Bethlehem by the gate.” From this it is easy to understand how aptly we are likened at this time to those who longed to behold Christ of old, both with spiritual and with bodily eyes. To this desire of the ancients, Christ the Lord, alluding to that living water, preaches somewhere in this way: “Many prophets and just men have desired to see what you see, and did not see them, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear them.” Hither also pertain the things which the apostle Peter writes about this matter to those who had believed in Christ the Savior: “Whom,” he says, “though you have not seen, you love, in whom even now, not seeing him, you believe. But believing, you exult with joy ineffable and ^C glorified, obtaining the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls: concerning which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched, who prophesied of the grace in you, searching in what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them signified, foretelling the sufferings which were to be in Christ, and the glories to follow. To whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but to you they ministered those things which are now announced to you by those who have preached the gospel to you, by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which the angels desire to look.” If, therefore, the just, and the prophets, and the angels, desired and desire to behold the birth of Christ and the place in which the most longed-for birth of the same occurred; what wonder is it if we, abject and most insignificant, who are participants in the same religion and piety, and have been made co-heirs of the orthodox faith, ardently desire this? And what cause, I ask, hindered the divine David, when he was even a true Bethlehemite, and derived his origin from God-bearing Bethlehem, from drinking the water of the Bethlehemite cistern, which he sought so much and for which he thirsted with such great avidity? The very same cause which hinders us at this time; for he, too, just equally as we are now, was prevented by fear of the enemy from hastening to sacred Bethlehem and drawing the desired water. What, however, can happen to a man more miserable than to have the good that is desired placed before his eyes, and yet be unable to enjoy the object of his desire: since at that time ^D

of that time also, just as now, a station of the Philistines was besieging Bethlehem; and this circumstance—just as it keeps us also back at this present time from attaining that good, so blessed and so desired (since nothing happier, or more honorable, or more delightful could have befallen us)—hindered, deterred, and impeded him from approaching the divine Bethlehem.

But although he, desiring to drink water from the Bethlehemite cistern, could not reach that God-bearing city during that time because of the hostile battle line of the Philistines, which kept the city—which is always to be proclaimed with the highest praises—under siege; nevertheless, he obtained the desired water, since he had determined to drink water, not just any, but that specific water. For three most brave satellites, and most valiant defenders, having learned of the king’s desire, and hearing him say—not without a very just cause—"O that one would give me to drink of the water from the cistern which is at Bethlehem by the gate," ^B and perceiving that he was gripped by a longing for the water which is perceived by the senses, being, as one may conjecture and say, most ready to undergo death for his sake, rushed into manifest danger of their lives; wishing to prove to the king by this strength of their spirit and unbroken boldness, or certainly to demonstrate the singular and admiration-worthy benevolence toward their prince, and their unconquered zeal and ardor regarding his salutary discourse. For "Greater love than this," saith the Savior, "no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." ^C "The three mighty men therefore broke through," the Scripture saith, "the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and brought it to David." Here now consider the piety of David, and his discretion, the queen of all virtues. For, as the history of kingdoms relates, he would not drink that water, but poured it out as an offering to the Lord, saying: "Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this; shall I drink the blood of these men that went in jeopardy of their lives?"

Therefore, that truly divine man would not drink this water. But why would he not? Because, enlightened by the light of prophecy, he foresaw that the Jews would be of those who would deny faith in Christ, who was to rise from Bethlehem, and was to be born of the virginal pool, and was to come forth into the light. Thus the most holy seer prefigured by the act the infidelity of the Jews toward Christ. For this reason, I say, that divine man refused to drink the water brought to him, because he foresaw and certainly predicted that the insane and criminal Jews would by no means believe in the preaching of Christ, to their own ruin and perdition. But we, indeed, who gratefully receive Christ the Savior, and are adorned with the orthodox faith, and loathe the execrable incredulity of the Jews, and detest in all ways their spurious and foul madness, we earnestly desire to approach the holy Bethlehem, and to contemplate with the eyes of the mind the divine cistern which stands by the gate and mystically designates the Mother of God (for she poured forth the living water that gives life to the world), and to gaze accurately upon the salvation which appeared in her—that is, Christ, who endured his human birth in her by this light (for he is our salvation, and life, and redemption); yet we are by no means able to approach. We are indeed gripped by desire, and by a thirst which burns us just as that other thirst burned the king; but we are entirely unable to see the water, as that celebrated David did, and to feed our soul and sight upon it even by a mere glimpse, on account of the fear of the Saracens. For the station of the impious Hagarenes even now, as has been said, occupies and besieges illustrious Bethlehem, just as the Philistines did of old; and it permits no passage at all to it. For it threatens death and destruction if anyone should dare to go forth to that holy city and approach the most divine and for us most desirable Bethlehem. Wherefore, enclosed within the gates of this city, and positioned here in this divine temple of the Mother of God, we observe and celebrate this feast day and annual solemnity not without sadness; therefore, I exhort, entreat, and beseech your affection in Christ our God, etc.

In the Greek codex which I used, the epilogue of the oration is missing, which I do not think exceeded three or four periods from the space of the parchment that remained.

ANTON. BALLERINI PREFACE TO THE FOLLOWING HOMILY

Of the place where the writings of S. Sophronius are to be held, § I. - The homily which is now edited should not be considered second to any of his other works, § II, III. - Indications which prove this homily to be the certain offspring of Sophronius, § IV. - When the homily was delivered, § V.

...to produce it, and to bring it forth from shadows into the light of day, and to perform this in such circumstances of time, when the conception of the immaculate and most blessed Virgin, having been asserted among those truths which are to be held by faith through a solemn judgment of the Church, shines with clearer rays upon the glory of the same august Queen and our Lady, and exhilarates the whole world with the more abundant sweetness of its light; for I have reason indeed to congratulate myself exceedingly. And truly, while that most illustrious light of ecclesiastical erudition, Angelo Mai, ...

^A applied his cares most especially to searching out, in general, the writings of the patriarchs who held the Eastern sees, and, with singular study, to inquiring whether any relics of the works of the holy Sophronius might still be found; while I discern that this same excellent man showed such devotion to this holy doctor that he grieved vehemently, both because the writings of his that had been published were not yet collected in such a use of types and issued together with suitable volume apparatus, and because several others were retained in manuscripts up to our own days in a completely unseemly manner; while I discern, finally, that all the Sophronian works were of such value to him that he would eagerly snatch up those he had barely discovered in manuscript codices, and determine that they should be published—both the History of the Holy Martyrs Cyrus and John, even though it contains nothing besides the eulogy of these holy martyrs and the miracles performed at their tomb, and the Triodion, although this same work, if not entire, was already available for the most part in the common Triodion of the Greeks, and two homilies, one on the most holy apostles Peter and Paul, which he thought had not yet been published, and the other on the holy Forerunner of the Lord—why should I not myself consider that a precious pearl has been brought into my hands, since it fell to my lot to obtain this most brilliant homily of the holy doctor on the mystery of the Annunciation? ^B If it was permissible for him to congratulate himself when the homily in a Vatican codex first occurred to him, the one which is on the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, then there is offered to us a reason for congratulation no less or perhaps even greater concerning this one, which is now presented on the Annunciation of the Mother of God. For if you ask what it is that makes the Sophronian works so singular, such that they were equal to inspiring the great study of the most wise Mai, you will learn this easily from the prefaces or scholia of this man on the lucubrations of Sophronius: it is not only to be attributed to the excellent deeds of the holy patriarch for the Church, and his labors exhausted against heresies, especially those of the Acephali and Monothelites, but must be owed most of all to his deep and truly excellent knowledge of the sacred dogmas, so that for this reason he is found to have been called by the holy confessor Germanus the most wise, and it is truly said of his writings that the sixth ecumenical council (Act. 13), in its synodical letters, affirmed that it held them for orthodox and accepted them as most useful to the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; and what Photius pronounced concerning these very letters in his Bibliotheca (Cod. 230), namely, that they exhibit the orthodox opinion accurately expounded and present a doctrine of the sacred dogmas that is not at all common. ^C III. But if an accurate and clear explanation and defense of divine dogmas ought to be held as the most powerful reason that recommends the works of Sophronius to us, indeed I would affirm without hesitation that, after his synodical epistle approved and accumulated with praises by the Fathers of the sixth ecumenical council, scarcely any other of his minor works can be brought forth that seems comparable to this homily, which we are now publishing. And indeed, although this long oration dwells properly on explaining and celebrating the mystery of the Virgin greeted by the Angel, nevertheless, even at its very beginning, having deliberately provided an occasion for himself from that proclamation of the joyful message which he repeats a third time, he undertakes to set forth and explain the catholic doctrine concerning the most holy mystery of the most august Trinity; and he pursues this so widely through ten paragraphs that, with this treatment, as it were another of the principal parts of the oration having been completed, you find these words noted in the margins of the books in the Vienna Caesarean codex and the Coislinian codex: τέλος τῆς θεολογίας, that is, the end of the theology, which is the treatment of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But there it is possible to see Sophronius not only bringing forth the purest sources of catholic doctrine against the ancient errors of the Sabellians, Arians, and Pneumatomachians, but also attacking the new impieties of the Acephali and Theopaschites, who, led by Peter the Fuller, corrupting the Trisagion hymn and mixing everything up, stupidly transferred the preaching of the cross to the most august Trinity. But when he proceeds to handle the proper argument of the homily, besides those excellent things which he writes concerning the primeval condition of created man, or the disastrous fall of the human race, or the most merciful counsel of God raising up the prostrate man, he expounds the doctrine of the Church against all kinds of heresies concerning the mystery of the Lord's incarnation so clearly and excellently that this minor work can almost be compared to those very synodical letters which we said were praised by the sixth council. ^D Furthermore, if you add to all these things those truly most splendid passages which, explaining the angelic salutation, he hands down with both wondrous piety and wisdom concerning the most exalted prerogatives of the blessed Mother of God, which you look for in vain in others of his writings that survive to us; from there you will clearly gather how deservedly this most excellent minor work can be held as one of those few (to speak with Baronius in the year 636, no. 5) that remain to us, monuments of this most noble and divinely inspired genius, whose outstanding doctrine and eloquence have merited that he should be counted among the nobler masters of the Eastern Church. IV. Moreover, that this homily is to be considered the genuine offspring of the great Sophronius, arguments both extrinsic and intrinsic persuade us. And indeed, the authority of the manuscript codices provides sufficient extrinsic evidence. For the oration is found inscribed with the name of Sophronius 1. in the copy which Michael Le Quien testifies he had in his possession (10); 2. in the Coislinian codex 274 (which now is kept in the Imperial Library at Paris [...]).

3. in codex 3383 of the Bodleian Library, in the volume of the manuscript codices of John Selden, codex 53 no. 7, as Casimir Oudin writes (11); 4. in the Greek Historical codex 128 (Lambecius 59) of the Imperial Library of Vienna, although the oration is not complete there, but certain excerpts are exhibited; and it was possible to know for certain by argument that these belong to this homily which we publish here, after the distinguished man Frederick Pilat, out of his kindness, took care to have some of them transcribed and transmitted to me: for which, and other benefits to me, I profess myself most grateful to him; 5. in the codices which are kept among the schismatic Greeks; hence Nicodemus the monk in the *Heortodromion* (12) expressly affirms that the oration itself is by Sophronius on the authority of the codices existing in various monasteries which he lists there (13), and thereafter transcribes many fragments from it. Furthermore, since no one contradicts these witnesses; for no codex is alleged which assigns this same oration to anyone other than the great Sophronius, bishop of Jerusalem, nor does any exist among learned men who may have mentioned this homily, and raised any doubt or controversy about its author; according to the rules of critical art accepted by all, it must be considered established and proven that the homily can in no way be taken away from Sophronius.

To these are added internal proofs; for whatever you may examine in the homily, you will find nothing that does not plainly correspond to Sophronius. The manner of style agrees; for the power of eloquence is the same here as in his other lucubrations, the same methods of amplifying and adorning the oration, the same fluency in speaking, so that longer and often luxuriant periods occur (14). The rationale of the sentiments corresponds; for not only does the same sense of eminent piety, the same vehemence of the affections, and the same apparatus of all kinds of doctrine shine forth; but also exactly the same sentiments, and those brought forth in almost the same words: the same formulae in proposing and explaining sacred dogmas, and finally the same arguments used even in less obvious matters (15). That singular zeal of Sophronius agrees—of passing over no opportunity, nay, of summoning every opportunity to inculcate the sincere doctrines of the Church and to refute opposing heresies (16). Finally, the rationale of the errors which the author of the homily more frequently attacks agrees, namely those of the Nestorians, and especially of the Eutychians and the Polycephalic (as he calls them) sect of the Acephali. For that is common to other writings of Sophronius, and it is so characteristic of the age of Sophronius that it would be absolutely wrong to transfer this oration to other times.

V. But as for the fact that Sophronius did not insert even a word in this homily which could be referred to the errors of the Monothelites; Michael Le Quien, rather than conclude from that that the homily should be attributed to another writer, preferred to affirm (17) that it should be referred back to the letters of Honorius, the Roman pontiff, who had imposed silence on that controversy. But there is no need for such a hypothesis; for it could have happened that Sophronius delivered this oration before he was chosen as bishop of Jerusalem, and therefore before Cyrus of Alexandria and Sergius of Constantinople had openly disseminated the heretical poison. Indeed, some indication of that matter is not absent from the homily itself, where (§ 48) Sophronius designates himself with the title of "the most lowly" (*ἐλάχιστος*), which indeed, in a sermon delivered to the people, corresponds more to the condition of a monk than of a bishop. But that must not be omitted, that the credibility of that document which reports that silence was enjoined upon Sophronius by Honorius—namely the letter of that same Honorius, which is said to have been read at the Sixth Synod—is not sufficiently firm (18). I would add further, that even if the credibility of that letter of Honorius were established, nonetheless, not even by this reasoning would the question be solved, why Sophronius in that homily passed over in total silence the doctrine of the double will and operation of Christ the Lord. For the letter narrates that that council or precept of silence concerning maintaining one or double will of Christ was transmitted to Sophronius by Honorius through Stephen of Dora, whom Sophronius himself had sent to Rome to Honorius for the same cause of the Monothelites. Furthermore, it is completely uncertain whether Sophronius lived for such a long time after the return of Stephen that he could then have delivered this homily on the Annunciation of the Virgin (19).

ORATION II. — ON THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

^A A sermon of the holy Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, on the Annunciation of the most holy Theotokos.

Bless, Father.

I. Good news, brothers, good news: I shall say it even a third time, good news; not only because this is more sublime, more divine, more illustrious, and by virtue of incomparable excellences more eminent than any joyful tidings; nor only because it shows me, who bring it, pleasing to the sight, and makes my feet beautiful both in appearance and in reality, since it is better than any good thing, more useful than any useful thing, more admirable than all wonders, and richer in mercy than all the riches of mercy, and more to be venerated and more to be dreaded than all that is venerable and dread; but also because it is ^B repeated a third time to declare that most sublime and divine number of the blessed and ruling Trinity. For whatever in sacred and divine dogmas, or even in the preachings of divine wisdom and august proclamations, is expressed in a threefold manner, is ascribed to the glory of the blessed Trinity—of the Father, I mean, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—which is both known as Trinity and Unity; and is both Unity and found to be Trinity: the former because of the three hypostases, the latter because of the one and only divinity, that is, substance and nature.

^B For one substance of the supersubstantial and life-originating Trinity is proclaimed, as one being led back to one and only divinity. Wherefore also it possesses the con-substantial, and that which is kindred and of the same nature, firm and solid and unshaken, and indeed also without multiplicity. For the holy Trinity, which holds and rules over all things that exist, and kingly and divinely dominates all created things, is indeed numbered by its own hypostases; for it is Trinity and is believed as such: but as to substance and nature, and likewise divinity, it exceeds all numbering. For it does not extend to a trinitarian enumeration according to its substance; since it makes the enumeration threefold only in respect of its personal hypostases. ^C And for this reason it is shown to be divisible in the hypostases, yet remains according to nature indivisible, and is declared to be divisible by persons. For each of these appears individually, and the distinction in the hypostases holds; and while ^D the subject, which in this passage of Sophronius is said to present a distinction, and is proclaimed as distinct in regard to its persons, and is maintained as possessing a distinction, is not the divine nature or essence, but the sacrosanct and adorable Trinity. It has seemed not useless to recall now that opinion of the Apostolic Constitution, since that formula of speaking, which the most holy Pontiff...

^A remains indistinct in nature, but in persons is preached as distinct. For as regards these individuals, it appears distinct, but as regards nature, it appears undivided. Hence, by a reasoning truly miraculous and stupendous, it possesses both distinction and unity in equal measure; for it is neither confounded by reason of that which is one—namely, the nature—to the extent of being compressed into one single person; nor again, on account of those which are three—I mean the subsisting persons—is it cleft into diverse and utterly disconnected parts; but rather, that one whole remains undivided, rejecting any composition.

III. For this is the very thing in the Trinity which is most miraculous and most stupendous: that although it is one and the same according to nature, and God is one, and the Divinity is one, yet it is found to be three in persons; not as though the nature itself or the deity were divided, but because it expands into a number free from all confusion in its own hypostases and persons. ^B For just as God is the Father, so is the Son God, and likewise the Holy Spirit is God. And inasmuch as each one of them is called God, it presents the one substance of the three persons; but inasmuch as the Father, and the Son, and the most holy Spirit (for these are the names truly proper to the three persons and to His three hypostases, by which the blessed Trinity itself is distinguished one from another according to persons, without division of nature), they truly are three and are believed to be three, and by all the faithful, as well as by the celestial and invisible powers, they are proclaimed and glorified with a loud voice—on the one hand praised by the threefold proclamation of holiness, and on the other hand united by the one naming of natural lordship. For ^C « Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts, » the Seraphim, having six wings, have cried aloud—they who surely know the reasons of theology much better than we, in that they approach more closely than we to God, and share in His most pure splendors, and are illuminated by His untainted rays. For the most sacred Trinity is thrice preached holy by them, and is honored by threefold sanctification and glorification; yet by that phrase, « Lord of hosts, » it is gathered into one lordship without confusion. For just as that « Holy, holy, holy, » cried out thrice by those same Seraphim, demonstrates the enumerated number of the three persons of the blessed Trinity; so the « Lord of hosts, » ^D implies the one and only lordship of them, according to which God is one in three without confusion, and is glorified, and the one Divinity in

but thrice takes up the "Holy"? Because the hypostasis of the Trinity is not one and only; away with the abomination of Sabellian impiety! Nor are the persons of it two and only; away with the atheism of the Macedonian abomination! But he cries thrice, as I said, and shouts the "Holy," and ^A offers this to the lips with ceaseless, and tells it with unsilenced mouths, since three hypostases of the blessed and most primal Trinity of all are defined, and three are its kindred and coessential persons, which possess one honorably equal Godhead, and one equally powerful sovereignty, and one rule and kingdom over all things, without division.

IV. Wherefore we too, the least of all, being its most genuine worshippers and servants, desiring to proclaim glad tidings to you, say the glad tidings: glad tidings, glad tidings, we say, and again, glad tidings, we cry, introducing here also the honor of the blessed Trinity, even if the discourse is not trinitarian, but economical, and concerns the one of the same all-venerable Trinity, and proclaims to us only the arrival of the Word. For it is good, and most welcome to all the faithful, to proclaim both in both, and to keep the exposition of both unconfused—that is, that even in the economic utterances [of the word], trinitarian [expressions] be proclaimed, and in the trinitarian or theological utterances, the economic matters be introduced (since the Word—who undertook the human dispensation and saved the whole lump of us men—is known as one of the Trinity), yet with distinct and specific concepts, and indeed also with terms, so that from this there may not be born a jumbling and pouring together of the theological and trinitarian ^B proclamations and the economic and other utterances, through the condescension of the Word and God towards us who are humble.

V. Let there be driven away, therefore, from this holy panegyris of ours, the Sabellians, Marcellians, Arians, Eunomians, Eudoxians, Asterians, and all those who are similar to these, and are co-religionists in atheism, who are those...

who mingle theological discourses with those of the dispensation ^A, and by their own doing, mix and confuse everything, and are unable to find the truth. And indeed, the followers of Peter and Severus, and the entire myriad-mouthed and myriad-tongued heresy of the Acephali; who, because of their most impious and wicked animosity against us, who are faithful and God-minded, have woven the cross into the Trisagion hymn, and have confounded the doctrines of the unconfused Trinity. For even they themselves chant that thrice-repeated "Holy, holy, holy," and impiously attach the cross to the threefold sanctification. For if the Trisagion hymn is peculiar to the Trinity, how is it that those who are truly unlearned in divine wisdom so ignorantly append the cross to it? For it is not the cross that is proclaimed of the Trinity, but the most merciful incarnation of the Son made man—who is one of the Trinity—that belongs to both the cross and the crucifixion: for the cross proclaims His saving death, which He underwent for us in the flesh, being affixed to the cross. ^B

VI. But since those wretches do not profess the incarnation of the Word, nor do they speak of the union of different substances—I mean of divinity and humanity—nor do they proclaim His birth from the Virgin, who is truly and properly the Theotokos—all of which things must necessarily precede the cross—it happens that, by perversely mixing the blasphemous suffering of the divinity into sacrosanct dogmas, they impiously propose the cross as well. For those wicked and foolish men, insanely following the confusion of Eutyches and having drunk up his entire most filthy cup, mingle and confuse everything; they insert things that pertain to the dispensation into those that are theological, and things that belong to theology into those of the dispensation, forcing both natures into… ^C

they drag out the dispensation; they reduce two natures into one nature, they join two substances into a single substance, they erase the dual form of both divinity and humanity from their own tenets, and they define one form, substance, and nature of Christ; so much so that neither do the rationales of theology remain sincere and undefiled among them, nor are the dogmas of the dispensation kept immune from their Eutychian—or rather, Dystychian—conversion and confusion. But let those who have willingly fallen headlong into the abyss of impiety be confounded, and let them be driven about by the waves of impiety.

^B VII. We, however, being the foster-children of piety and enemies of those people’s acephalous deceits, let us faithfully hold to the dogmas of our fathers; and having become vigilant guardians of the apostolic traditions, both understanding the doctrines pertaining to the Trinity and knowing the doctrines of the Economy, let us neither confuse the one with the other, nor mix the one into the other, but let us adapt to each what is fitting, and let us assign their own proper place, mode, and time. And thus we shall be far from scandals, uncommuning with the error of heretics, and free from the madness of the heterodox; and we shall stand upon the divinely-inspired faith, being neither tossed about by any of the evil spirits nor carried away toward evil thoughts, into which our opponents have pitifully fallen—having pushed aside the fact of standing well and having abandoned the safe guarding of the ancestral piety—and they have perished, and are tossed by the waves of heretical impiety.

^C VIII. Since, therefore, we have well avoided the abyss of their impiety, and have firmly planted our feet upon the unshakeable rock of the faith, and are ascending a high mountain, and are standing upon the summits of the dogmas according to the evangelical and prophetic decrees, and having raised our voice, as strength is given to us, or rather as God may grant, let us cry out: "Good tidings, good tidings," and again we say, "Good tidings," and let us glorify the worship of the Trinity, and let us praise the compassionate descent to us of the Word of God, who is one of the Trinity. For this, brothers, is our good tidings, which we have both come forward to bring to you, as most faithful, with a favorable omen, and have undertaken to speak about this day.

We exhort your charity, moreover, that by purifying yourselves becomingly, you may show yourselves apt to receive these happy tidings of ours. For He does not loathe, nor indeed does He turn away from, these our sacred good tidings when someone, as is required, has purified himself; but He makes a saving dwelling within him, and fills him with light and charity, and makes him a divine temple of God—though in nature he is a human being—and wealthy in the gift of the most splendid presence of God.

Come together, all of you; hasten, all of you; gather, all of you; flock together, all of you; run together, all of you; anticipate one another, all of you, putting on the wings of a dove, so that you may fly and rest well in Christ; or, having taken on the feet of the swiftest gazelle, that you may be able to receive the celestial announcements with your ears; that you may believe the angel who narrates the most happy tidings; that you may listen with pious ears to him who announces the arrival of God among men; so that we, too, seeing your ready assembly and your congregation, most prompt to hear our sublime tidings, may be able, rejoicing and exulting together, to cry out: "Good news, good news, good news," confirming our faith with the threefold proclamation of the happy message.

^B IX. And indeed, then truth emerges, but falsehood never prevails, nor will the most unfortunate entrance be opened to incredulity at all. For nothing is more pernicious than incredulity against divine utterances. For this reason the Jews have been cast headlong; for this reason the Samaritans have been led astray; for this reason the Gentiles live in darkness; for this reason the heretics have fallen, because, while they denied faith to the gospels of God, and did not obey the divine oracles, but persistently and hostily impugned them, they were found to be dead in soul and body, and destitute of eternal life, and bereft of the true light. For never does falsehood, as long as it is falsehood and is recognized as such, attain to truth; nor are shadows, as long as they are shadows and persist in their darkness, ever illuminated, nor do they receive any ray at all of refulgent light. For this reason our radiant announcements are brought forth with a loud voice to you, who willingly receive the light; for they do not allow themselves to be proposed to the ears of the incredulous, nor does it please them ^C to have a seat in darkened hearts.

X. Therefore, as children of light and as sprouts nourished by light, receive our shining and, likewise, illuminating joyful tidings. For you have already been illuminated by their virtue, and their divine mysteries have shone upon your illuminated minds, and you have received them into pure hearts; and, receiving the Son of God with faith and joy, and having Him as your only Savior, you have become children of God. "For as many," it says, "as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." You, therefore, as most luminous children of God, hear those most luminous tidings of God through which you have become children of God, and having cast off earthly ignobility, you have obtained celestial nobility, and having spurned your human origin, you have attained to a divine generation. You, therefore, who by reason of your perfect faith in the sacred announcements have become worthy of divine instruction, I say, receive them with your ears.

^A What is our announcement, then? Or what benefit is to be expected from it? Listen faithfully to the one who speaks. We shall tell of most excellent things, just as He who is now proclaimed to you through us grants them to us.

XI. When God, therefore, in the beginning created from nothing the universe—all that exists besides Himself and has received from Him the beginning of its existence—both visible and invisible, sensible and intelligible, celestial and terrestrial, He also created man according to His own image, joining him together from a rational soul and body. After He had endowed him with a free and self-governing life, and made him an inhabitant of the divine paradise, He made him at once an image and likeness of His own goodness. And when He had created that good being, He imposed upon him a divine and saving commandment, lest he should perchance grow arrogant from the nobility of the image, and lest, because of his likeness to God, he should foolishly imagine his nature to be divine as well.

But when this one had received such great gifts from God his Creator, although he was indeed subject to the rule and empire of God his Maker, just as all other creatures were, as was fitting—for he had been appointed by Him as king of all things that are above the earth—he did not bear the greatness of the gifts, but strove to attain equality with God. ^B And being human and a creature, he desired to be God; and having been wrongly deceived by the guile of the serpent, he took upon himself things divine and lofty and supreme, and was brought down to death and corruption, falling with a most grievous fall; he wanted to seize the dignity of the divine nature. For this was indeed most just, that he who had willed to exalt himself beyond his desert should be humbled to the uttermost abjection. For "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled," since he sought in a wicked manner to usurp that which had not been granted to him by God. For "no one takes the honor to himself," as the great Apostle says, "but he who is called by God, who gives it."

XII. This man, therefore, held by death, consumed by corruption, springing from the earth—who had been emboldened to seize the honor of God, and was being dragged down again to the earth—today is born in a carnal birth, and tomorrow will be put to death by a carnal death; today he is seen in life, and tomorrow he is counted among the dead. ^C And man justly suffered this sentence, who had dared to bring injury upon God, suffering this from his own will and purpose, having used his free will, which he had received when he was honored by his Creator because of the most fair likeness to Him and his iconic radiance, in a wicked way. For God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.

^A And truly he had become unhappy and most miserable, he who was formerly most blessed, when he appeared as the possessor of Eden, when he had been placed as its first inhabitant, when he enjoyed a life free from labor and untroubled, when he lived naked and without tunic or any clothing, when he did not fear the changes of the air, when he had no knowledge of the congealing of ice, when he did not know the fiery heat of the sun, when, walking about naked, he experienced no shame; when he did not receive the assaults of the passions, when he was not aware of the pain of diseases, when he was exempt from human servitude, when he was set free from barbarian tyranny, when he heard not the harassments of tax-collectors, when he did not witness the encounters of creditors, when he did not dread the tearing of wild beasts, when he possessed ultimate prosperity, when he fed upon the fruits of Eden, when he enjoyed all goods in abundance, when he was bathed in divine light, when, being himself a creature, he reigned over earthly creatures, when he stood forth as the image of God, and marvelously shone with the likeness of God.

After he had transgressed the saving commandment of God, which included all these things, he was stripped bare as one who had rebelled against God Himself, and was left naked and deprived of his former splendor; he was immediately cast out from Eden, and returned again to the earth, having become corruptible on account of his transgression; and, by an excess of foolishness, shedding that former dignity with which God honored him when He created him, he became like the beasts. And so, while he thought he could possess divinity by force, he was oppressed by the servitude of corruption, death, and the passions.

^C XIII. But when He who had created him and brought him forth from the nothingness that he previously was, beheld him in such a state, He was moved with pity; and being moved with pity, He set out to have mercy; and having had mercy, He was moved in His innermost being, and being so moved, as the lover of mankind—as He is indeed good and the lover of mankind—He arose for his salvation and restoration, stirred by divine compassion; and He fulfills the ancient and loving counsel which, out of love for mankind, He had devised from the beginning. For as his Maker, He could not bear to see His own creation ruined, and falling into the earth and corruption, perishing.

XIV. But what is this counsel which God devised for the salvation and redemption of mankind? Let that admirable Isaiah, coming forward, proclaim it, he who foretold that God would be conceived without seed, and who narrated in advance His birth from a Virgin; he who, upon the fulfillment of this divine counsel, singing a song of thanksgiving to God, thus exclaimed: ^D "O Lord, my God, I will glorify Thee, I will sing praise to Thy name, for Thou hast done wonderful things, an ancient and true counsel; let it be so; for Thou hast turned cities into ruins..."

that their foundations might fall; the city of the impious shall never be rebuilt. Therefore, the poor people shall bless Thee, and cities of men suffering injustice shall bless Thee. For Thou hast become a helper to every poor city, and a shelter to those who are faint-hearted by reason of their need. From wicked men Thou shalt deliver them. ^A

These are, brothers, the divine tidings; these are what we announce to you today, not as things about to happen hereafter, but as things already divinely accomplished, which have already delivered man from condemnation, and have led him back to his former splendor and blessedness, and have made him a friend of God just as he was of old. ^B

XV. But by what means, you ask, is our salvation accomplished by God? Or how is this restoration effected? Listen intently and with all-wisdom (for it is wise, and more than wise, and beyond all human wisdom), having assumed a divine mind worthy of a divine proclamation. You must apply your souls to these things with your customary prudence and wisdom, for they far exceed all human wisdom.

He who fashioned man from the beginning and created him according to His own image judged that there was no other way to save man ^C and to redeem His own image, than if He Himself, by nature, became man, and made His own image His own garment. Hence things that cannot be mixed are mixed; hence things that cannot be mingled are mingled without confusion. Hence things that cannot be joined are joined; hence things that cannot be connected are connected; hence divine things become human, so that human things might become more divine. Hence the Word of God, remaining God and Word of God, is thickened. Hence the Uncreated, having been begotten by the Uncreated God, while remaining uncreated, is created. Hence the Most High is proclaimed humble, and the Invisible is seen by eyes as visible, and the Untouchable is allowed to be touched; and the Incorporeal comes forth in a body, and He who is without flesh is described in flesh; and He who is impassible is preached as passible; and He who possesses an immortal nature is proclaimed mortal by nature, so that He might lead the passible and mortal human race toward immortality, bright and

radiant, and reconcile those who were hostile and rebellious toward God to God the Father Himself. ^A

XVI. But how, you ask, are these things fulfilled, and how are they brought about, and how are they unerringly conducted to their work? For it is a fearful and trembling matter, and—to the ears of men who measure even the most divine things by human reason—wholly incredible. But where God is the one who proclaims, the pettiness of human reasoning falls silent. For all things are most easy, possible, and even effortless for God, whatever He might will to do. This is the most brilliant and excellent mark of His divine and supreme power, a mark altogether unshared by any created nature; and hence it is that things which are above human nature, and which surpass every created power, seize the mind with wonder and astonishment. ^B

But how does God accomplish this? How does He lead it to an illustrious end? Luke, inspired by God, clearly teaches us this—he who wrote for us that gospel which is the most sacred of all holy writings—so that no one, on account of the magnitude of the event, might remain incredulous, and so that no one, being himself weak and powerless and unfit for any more divine act, might falsely attribute impotence to God. You heard just recently, as he himself proclaimed, how in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. You hear that God sent him, and yet you do not wish to believe in the event? Do not be skeptical of the things that God has ordained, but rather believe with the utmost piety that God is most capable of fulfilling whatever He might will to do. For by whom else would an angel be sent, if not solely by God, who created him, and formed him into being from things that did not exist, and created the entire angelic nature in time? If, therefore, it is established that it was God who sent him, and it is manifest that the angel was sent, how can the things that were said not be true? Let all men marvel at these things; but let them not disbelieve the proclamation, knowing that the power of God is all-sufficient and truly omnipotent. ^C

XVII. But what does that blessed angel who was sent say to the Virgin who had known no man? Or how does he bring the announcement of such glad tidings to her? And what great wonders does this divine magnificent work produce through her? "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." ^D

With joy does the messenger of joy begin to address her. For he knew and understood clearly that his message would provide joy to all men and to all creatures alike, and that it would drive away all sorrows from everyone; for he knew that from this

knowledge of the mystery the world was to be illuminated with light; he knew that the darkness of error was to be cast away; he knew that the sting of death was to be blunted; he knew that the power of corruption was to be broken; he knew that victory was to be snatched away from hell; he knew that salvation was to shine forth upon lost man, who had long been oppressed by the yoke of these evils, ever since he had been driven from the delights of paradise and cast out from that blessed dwelling. ^B Therefore, he leads off the beginning of his embassy with joy; therefore, he places words of joy before his speech; therefore, joy precedes these auspicious glad tidings, as they were to be a source of joy for all who believe. For it was altogether fitting that a divine announcement of joy should have its beginning from words and expressions that elicit joy. For this reason, the angel proclaims joy before all things, because he is not ignorant of the outcome of his auspicious embassy, and he knows full well that the conversation which was taking place would clearly result in the joy of the whole world.

XVIII.

^A XIX. Therefore I acclaim you: "Hail, full of grace," since above all creatures [(18)] you have been enriched with the gifts of grace. And of such joy and grace in you I surely know and clearly perceive the cause; and therefore, crying out and at the same time congratulating you, I add: "The Lord is with you," who indeed, as Creator, rules over all creatures; but with you He is, inasmuch as He is carried in your bosom and confined in your womb by an ineffable conception. "The Lord is with you," who is eternally begotten of the Father and is understood as always existing with the Father; but now with you He becomes present through conception and accomplishes the fearful assumption of flesh from you. "The Lord is with you," who has his first generation eternally, but from you receives a second generation. "The Lord is with you," who, while ruling over all creatures with the Father, puts on from you the form of a servant and frees the human race from servitude. For this reason the Lord becomes a servant, that He might make the servant a lord by His own grace. "The Lord is with you," who, while previously standing outside the rank of every creature, is now seen with you as a created ^B being, and through you is numbered among other creatures. For in you the uncreated is created, and from you the Creator proceeds as created. In you I perceive the uncreated made a creature, and I behold the One who is without flesh having become flesh in you.

XX. He who sent the mission to you, O Virgin, was in heaven devoid of flesh and body; but here I behold Him having become flesh and body. In heaven, as the uncreated, He was preeminent above every creature; but here in you, the Virgin, I find Him to have become both a creature and a made work without any change in Himself. In heaven, indeed, I used to contemplate God lacking human nature; for how could humanity be seen in heaven? Far be it that modern Origens should dream such things, or that the Didymi should rave again, or that the followers of the most audacious Evagrius, driven to madness, should once again recount empty fables, and, having entered into a pact with the detestable Greeks, imagine a preexisting life of souls. But here I discern Him becoming man without change; and I contemplate a miracle within a miracle, since He is both God, who is immutable, and man, who is inexplicable; double as to His nature, but not double as to His hypostasis; for He exists as one and the same person, yet is manifestly discovered in two natures; ^C and He is neither divided because of the duality of the natures in which He coalesces, nor, again, ^D [by being united in His hypostasis does He confuse the properties of the natures from which He exists]...

nor, while governing all things by His nod as a heavenly Being, does He increase the number of the Trinity; and yet, at the same time, He appears as one of men among men. And thus I discover Him to be both God and man, and I stand utterly amazed at the magnitude of the miracle. ^A

XXI. "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." And what could be more sublime than this joy, Virgin Mother? Or what could be more excellent than this grace, which you alone have obtained from God? Or what could be thought of as more pleasant and splendid? All things fall behind the miracle that is seen in you; all things lie below your grace; all select things take second place, and the lesser possesses less brilliance. "The Lord is with thee;" and who would dare to contend with you? God is from you; and who would not immediately yield to you, and who would not rather rejoice in giving you the preeminence and excellence? Therefore, viewing your prerogatives which are eminent above all creatures, I exclaim with highest praise: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." For from you, joy has been imparted not only to men, but it is also bestowed upon the supernal powers. ^B

XXII. "Truly blessed art thou among women," because you have exchanged the curse of Eve into a blessing; because you have brought it about that Adam, who previously lay stricken by a curse, might be blessed through you. Truly "blessed art thou among women," because the blessing of the Father has dawned upon men through you, and has freed them from the ancient curse. Truly "blessed art thou among women," because your forefathers find salvation through you; for you are to give birth to the Savior, who will procure divine salvation for them. Truly "blessed art thou among women," because you have brought forth without seed the Fruit who bestows the blessing upon the whole earth, and redeems it from the curse which brings forth thorns. Truly "blessed art thou among women," because, though you are a woman by nature, you truly become the Mother of God in the act. For if He who is about to be born of you is God incarnate in truth, you are most justly called the Mother of God, inasmuch as you are truly giving birth to God. ^C

XXIII. But that blessed and divine Virgin, when she had seen the angelic interpreter of divine things thus arriving to her, and had heard him addressing her with such words, her holy soul was troubled; and [her] mind began to reflect and to ponder [the meaning of the angelic words], considering within herself and seeking to understand... ^D

the power of the angelic utterances; for she was amazed and marveled at the quality of the angelic greeting. «The Virgin, however,» it says, «seeing [this], was troubled at his word, and was reasoning what manner of greeting this might be.» For she was also full of human understanding, and would not accept any of the things being said without careful examination. For she feared and trembled, knowing the deception of Eve, lest the deceitful serpent, just as he had deceived her, might also deceive her a second time; and for this reason she prudently examined everything, lest he should cast her down from [the state of] divine brightness through an utterance like the serpent's. ^B

XXIV. Now, when the heavenly messenger sent to her perceived her thus struggling within herself, he immediately freed her from all fear, and cast out all terror and dread and every perturbation, speaking to her most joyfully and most pleasantly and most sweetly: «Fear not, Mary,» he says; «I am not like him who deceived your mother; I am not like him who once tripped up man; I am not like him who formerly exiled your forefathers from the paradise of delight; I am not like him who cast man out from a blessed life and brought him into a life full of miseries; I am not like him who through envy generated death and made all men subject to death; I am not like him who made all men, fashioned from the slime of the earth and having received their formation from the hand of God, into transgressors of the divine commandment, and turned them back again to the slime of the earth; I am not like him who rendered Adam, who formerly enjoyed the friendship of God, an enemy to God. ^C

I am an angel of God Almighty, and I stand as a leader of a certain angelic host, and among the angels of God I am called Gabriel. But I have been sent to you, the immaculate and blameless Virgin, by God the omnipotent Father, that I might announce to you the descent into you, Virgin, of his only-begotten Son, who brought all things into existence and called all things from non-existence into being; and his most celebrated conception in you, and his most divine incarnation from you, and his most admirable gestation in your womb, and his incomprehensible birth from you. ^D Through these, all the machinations of the enemy are undermined; through these, all the inventions of the enemy are cast down together with their own inventor; through these, man...

having been an outcast from paradise, once again inhabits paradise; through these, he who had been stripped of friendship with God by the counsel of the serpent is once again established as a friend of God. ^A And for this reason I cry out to you, O blessed Virgin, you who are to be the mother of the Savior of all: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women," since you have been deemed worthy to attain such great things, and because heavenly joy will be born into the world from you, and the divine blessing, which blunts the force of the ancient curse, flows through you to men.

^B XXV. And I myself, O Mother of God, praise your prudence, and I entirely approve of your wisdom, in that you fear the snares of that crafty one; that you fear the machinations of that beast who hates mankind; that you dread the hidden arrows of the devil; that you tremble at and fear the serpent's varied and truly death-dealing breaths, lest you, like Eve, should become another woman of that kind. ^C But do not fear, Mary; for you have found grace with God—immortal grace; you have found grace with God—most radiant; you have found grace with God—merited by many prayers; you have found grace with God—all-luminous; you have found grace with God—saving grace; you have found grace with God—shakeless; you have found grace with God—immovable; you have found grace with God—invincible; you have found grace with God—eternal. ^D

^A And others indeed, and those many in number, have flourished in exquisite holiness before you. But to no one, as to you, has full grace been imparted. No one, as you, has been enriched with blessedness; no one, as you, has been adorned with holiness; no one, as you, has been raised to such great magnificence; no one, as you, has been forestalled by purifying grace; no one, as you, has been encompassed by resplendent light; no one, as you, has shone with heavenly radiance; no one, as you, has been exalted above all height. And with good reason; for no one, as you, has drawn so near to God; no one, as you, has been endowed with God’s gifts; no one, as you, has been a partaker of God’s grace. You surpass all those things that are excellent among men; you surpass all the gifts bestowed upon all by God. For you are richer than all in the indwelling of God. ^B No one has been able to contain God in such a way; no one has had the strength to welcome God’s presence in such a way; no one has been deemed worthy to be illuminated by God in such a way. And for this reason, you have not only welcomed God, the Creator and Master of all, but you have Him ineffably incarnate from you, and carried in your womb, and after this born, and redeeming all men from the paternal condemnation, and bestowing upon them a salvation that shall have no end.

XXVI. And for this reason I have cried out to you, and I will cry out again vehemently: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.” Do not be troubled, ^{C D} [index: entries preserved]

to the words of my speech; do not fear, when you inquire about my discourse with you. I bring no deception that is destructive to men; I have not come to present the jealousy that breeds death to my fellow servants. Banish every agitation from your heart; banish every doubt from your mind; drive away every fear from your soul. I have not come to you as one to be feared, even if I appear most terrible to all others; I have not made use of the rank of my authority. For I know before whom I am standing as I speak; I know to whom I have been sent ^A from God; I know whom I have been appointed to serve.”

“On the contrary, I am struck with awe as I look upon you, and I am filled with fear and dread; on the contrary, I marvel at your greatness, and I am filled with trembling and terror. I am terrified by your grace; I am dumbfounded by your radiance. I am a servant and minister of God ^B; but you shall be the Mother of God, of my Master and Creator; and not only that, but His parent and unutterable nurse, nourishing with the streams of your virginal breasts Him who gives food in due season to all flesh. I am a servant of God and a messenger of His replies; but you have God Himself within your womb, dwelling in you in the flesh, and coming forth from you like a bridegroom, distributing joy to all, and bestowing divine radiance. For in you, O Virgin, God has placed His tabernacle ^C as in a certain most pure and shining heaven; and like a bridegroom from his chamber He shall go forth; and mimicking the course of a giant, He shall run the path in this life that will be salvation for all who are in this life, extending from the ends of the heavens unto their ends, filling all things with divine warmth and, together with it, with life-giving brightness.”

XXVII. “Therefore, I cry out to you again this blessed greeting of joy: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’ I have come bringing joy, not causing fear that is destructive to men; I stand as a mediator of joy, I am not recognized as a minister of sorrow ^D; I have appeared as an angel of joy; I am not known as a herald of sorrow. Why do you fear him who, conversely, fears you? Why do you tremble at him who trembles at your dignity? Why are you terrified by him who is terrified by your grace? Why do you stand in awe of him who stands in awe of your splendor? I am a servant and a very humble minister of your Son and offspring. He Himself created me when I did not exist; He Himself sent me from the heavenly regions to you, announcing to you His most joyous arrival; I announce to you His ineffable conception; I reveal to you His inenarrable incarnation; I make known to you His birth, the parent of all joy.”

XXVIII. “And for this reason I say to you, O Virgin worthy of all praise: ‘Do not fear, Mary; for you have found grace before God.’”

^A You have found grace, such as none of women has found in its entirety; you have found grace, such as none has beheld; you have found grace, such as none has received. ^B And what is this? Hear: “Behold, you shall conceive in the womb and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” I have been sent from heaven to proclaim these things to you; I have been sent to announce these things to you clearly; He who is about to be born of you has sent me to declare these things to you in words and utterances. The Word of the Father has commanded me; the Only-begotten Son of God has ordained that I should relate these things to you; He gave me the commission above, and I behold Him present here; He entrusted this task to me in heaven, and I see Him dwelling within you, O Virgin. He was eternal, who came to you, the Virgin; He was outside of time, who is being conceived in time from you; He was without flesh, who is about to be born of you in the flesh; He was uncircumscribed, who submits to circumscription within you.

XXIX. “Behold, you shall conceive in the womb.” Do not, however, think of the conception of other women, O Virgin. Behold, you shall conceive in the womb, a conception without seed, a conception ineffable, a conception unspoken, a conception divine, which no physical union of a man has cultivated, nor the communion of a male has brought about, which no one among men has the power to explain. For how shall those who are born according to nature have the power to speak of things that are above nature? Since, therefore, your conception transcends the order of nature, do not insist upon reasonings that are according to nature. ^C “And you shall bring forth a son,” who is not only subject to time and to death, but who at the same time possesses an eternal nature and transcends all times and all vicissitudes. “And you shall bring forth a son,” who is not only seen visibly in the flesh, but also consists of an invisible and incorporeal substance. “And you shall bring forth a son,” who appears not only as your son, O Virgin, but is also acknowledged as the Son of God. “And you shall bring forth a son,” who is not only perceived as man, but is also believed to be true God. “And you shall bring forth a son,” who is not in need of salvation that might come from another, but who confers salvation upon all men. ^D

Oration II. — ON THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

“And therefore you shall call his name Jesus,” which name is interpreted as Savior. For it is fitting, O Virgin, that He who is born for the salvation of all should obtain the very name of Savior, so that by this name the power of the One born may be manifested, and the saving pregnancy of your child may be signified to all men.

^B XXX. “He shall be great,” [He who is] called the Angel of great counsel, and celebrated as mighty God, and preached as the wonderful counselor of the Father, and declared the Prince of peace, and, as Creator, the ruler of all creatures, reconciling things on earth with the heavenly. For He bears the excellent accomplishments of His own sovereignty upon His own shoulder and arm; for He achieves what is done not by the power of another, but rather by His own, bestowing a peaceful condition upon all. But He is also the “Father of the age to come,” the only begotten of the only God the Begetter, existing as Father of the age to come, and glorified with the Father Himself before all ages. Concerning whom Isaiah also, anticipating the times, prophesied, saying: “A child is born to us, and a son is given to us,” your child, O Virgin, whose birth I now announce to you: “whose government is upon his shoulder: and his name is called Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Potentate, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come.”

“He shall be great,” not as one who is not great and is about to become great later, but as one who is always great and will remain so thereafter. For since it is established that He is the Son of God and the Father by nature, He Himself is also defined as great and shall be proclaimed God by nature; for being of one essence with God the Begetter, He will certainly possess the same identity of essence [as Him]. For God would never produce a begotten Son unequal to Himself, or unlike, but in all things of one essence and completely similar, and in all natural properties entirely equal [to Him].

^D XXXI. “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest.” For He is always great, and is proclaimed the Son of the highest God, as being born of that same great God and declared His only-begotten Son. Yet I say “He shall be” and “He shall be called,” not as if He is not already such in reality—do not suspect that—but I say this on account of His most wondrous birth from you, and on account of the assumption of human flesh from you. For those words, “He shall be” and “shall be called,” are temporal expressions, spoken of Him in so far as He has been made man, similar to you men; for He is also truly born similar to you.

^A Likewise that which is said: "The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob unto the ages; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." For all these things are proclaimed concerning that fleshly generation from you. For once He deigned for your sake to become man, like unto you, and accepted hearing and suffering all human things, so that He might not be thought to be a phantom by those who hear, nor a mere appearance by those who see, so that He might show the greatness of that true condescension toward you in His works, and that He might present clear proofs of His own incarnation for your sake. Since how, if He had not obtained an earthy birth and did not bear earthy lowliness (for what is lower than dust?), could man either become great, or be called the true Son of the Most High? Or how would He inherit the throne of David without a successor? Or how would He reign forever over the house of Jacob, and His kingdom have no end? For both David and Jacob, when taken according to mystical contemplation, are understood as Christ Himself. For He stands firm by His hand, that is to say, by His power, and has tripped up your adversaries, and has bestowed upon you the victory against them. By whom also those of mankind who believe in Him, will justly trip up that ancient people of the Jews, and will gain his, according to time, birthrights, as having well believed in Christ.

^C But He, while being such according to His eternal nature and His incomprehensible generation from the Father, is also said to accept these things because of the God-minded incarnation from you, so that those things which He Himself is by His immortal nature, these He might also bestow upon you by divine grace, to whom He has also mercifully been born according to the flesh, being consubstantial with you, having become passible and mortal, taken from you.

^D XXXII. But she who is the receptacle of God, and the bearer of God, and is clearly immaculate, and excels all creation together,

having heard of the divine conception, and learning of the wondrous gestation, and being informed of the supernatural birth, was struck with awe at what was said. For she knew the female nature, and she prudently examined the conceptions of women naturally, and pondered their labors, knowing that these things never occur without the union of a man. And seeing herself untouchable, and until that very moment having been untasted—even in thought—of any such custom, she says to Gabriel the archangel, who was announcing to her these great things, the great works of God, and the message of joy: "And how shall this be to me, seeing I know not a man?" ^B How shall I believe your words, which depart so far from the laws of human nature? I have seen many women give birth, but I have known no woman who has brought forth without the union of a male. And how shall these natural courses come to pass in me, who have not run them? And how shall I become the mother of a son, I who am entirely ignorant of the union with a male? Perhaps you think of me, O angel, because I am betrothed to a man according to the law of Moses, that I have seen the human marriage-bed, from which conceptions and gestations and births sprout? Not yet have I made the nuptial union with my betrothed and guardian. How then do you announce to me a conception, and a birth, and even the breastfeeding of a child who is to be born? ^C Do you not rather know, O minister of supernatural tidings, that Mary has not been raised among men, nor has she consorted with male children? Know the brilliance of my virginity, and you will not speak to me of a conception without a man. Know the magnitude of my purity, and you will not speak to me of a gestation without a husband. Know the blamelessness of my temperance, and you will not speak to me of an unnatural birth. Know my untouchable cleanliness, and you will not cry out to me of an unbelievable breastfeeding. ^D Nay, have you not learned that from my very first birth I was nourished in the Holy of Holies, where no man is found, where no man enters, where no path of males is ever seen? Know the holiness of my manner of life and do not attribute carnal thoughts to me. Know the most holy nature of my conduct, and do not suspect in me the customs of mothers. Virginity and marriage are not the same thing, O angel; they are not.

^A For uncoupled life and sexual union are not the same; purity is not the same as the intercourse of male and female. For even if marriage is honorable, and the "bed" according to the law of Moses is "undefiled," yet the grace of virginity far surpasses these. Great is the difference between these and that, and these admit of no comparison whatever between one another. How then do you, neglecting the characteristics of virginity, announce to me the problems of marriage and of the bed? ^B For these reasons I dread your announcement; for these reasons I fear your address; for these reasons I do not accept your salutation, without sagacious investigation, without wise inquiry, without true examination, lest, believing words alien to human faith, I myself also be deceived in my mind, and walk in the footsteps of my mother Eve, and become for wretched men the author of greater evils and worse calamities.

NOTES

As for the assertion that S. Sophronius may truly have persuaded himself that the holy Virgin had actually spoken these things, I would rather say, in the manner of those who, while celebrating the nativity of the holy Forerunner with Greek praises, represent him—even while still enclosed in his mother’s womb—as discoursing with a certain anticipation of all things sublime regarding divine matters, that Saint Sophronius brought forth these thoughts regarding the holy Theotokos rather out of the sentiments which he knew to exist in the faithful concerning her, than from the likelihood of the event having literally occurred. And you see that it is for this very reason that Sophronius interweaves these addresses of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin—which seemed opportune for refuting the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches against the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation—even though no one should persuade himself that they were uttered by the angel at that time.

Furthermore, it is of no small moment that those things which we read in this oration of Sophronius were at that time most thoroughly explored among the Christian populace. For it can be concluded from this that there existed an extremely common doctrine in the Church which taught that the place in the divine economy of human regeneration allotted to the Theotokos was that which had formerly been given to that ancient Eve in the first creation of the human race, to such a degree that whatever were the properties of this first mother were to be transferred to the holy Theotokos. And indeed, is it not evident from these words of Sophronius that the comparison between Mary and Eve was carried ^D to such an extent that the deception (if any had taken place) and the fall of the holy Virgin would have to be equated with the deception and fall of the first mother, and that the salvation or destruction of the entire human race depended no less on the deeds of the one than on the other, whether righteous or wicked?

But furthermore, something else shines forth from these words, which pertains more precisely to the present matter: namely, that according to the doctrine received at that time, the condition of Mary was none other than that of Eve before the fall. Therefore, you see here that the hypothetical deception of the holy Virgin is compared not with any of the manifold transgressions of those who dwell in the state of fallen nature, but with the error of Eve. Therefore, the Virgin compares herself to Eve (supra § 23), whom the serpent first approached, and whom for that reason (see a little below in the present) he clearly declares to be still experienced in malice. Therefore the angel (§ 24 and 25), while he weighs many matters to testify that he is not one who lures into error and destruction, recalls no snares and no ruins other than those which pertain to the fall of our first parents. This also looks to the fact that such a deception is feigned as would, just as it happened in the case of Eve, cast her down from divine charity (§ 23): for these things surely hold a suitable meaning if one deems the holy Virgin to have been constituted in that place which Eve held before sin; but on the contrary, would they not lack all sense if you were to count Mary also among fallen men? For the series of the oration does not otherwise portray fallen men—nor can it here (see § 12 to 18)—than as being enveloped in the darkness of sin and the shadow of death, by which therefore restoration is divinely prepared through the work of the incarnation; there remains, therefore, no room for the light of divine grace from which Mary could fall, if indeed you were to number her also among the fallen.

Finally, this aims at the fact that even graver ruins for the entire human race are represented as hanging over it from the hypothetical ruin of Mary (see the present): do not these things openly declare that, according to the doctrine received at that time, Mary had been substituted for the ancient Eve in such a way that, no differently than she, she was the beginning of a new order, and that a new danger and a sort of contest was again being instigated in her, the outcome of which would have been the origin of either new happiness or unhappiness for the human race? Hence it is that even the holy Proclus (homily 6, § 16) depicts demons engaging in designs not only to defeat the holy Virgin as if she were the pinnacle of all things, but also expressly preparing a war against her as if she were a second Eve, equal to that former one, who was still innocent and integral: "But is there," he says, "another contest now before us with a second Eve? Must the battle rank be set against an undefiled woman? How then shall we toss our little boat with such a storm? ... In what way shall we tear apart the sheep? ... In what way shall we plunder the city?" [original-script column: see facsimile] In which place, that you may fully grasp the force of those words *aphthoron gynaika*, observe that in contrast Proclus added concerning the prior Eve: [original-script column: see facsimile] For when she assumed corruption for herself, she believed she was seizing an eminent dignity; therefore, Proclus calls Mary *aphthors*, as she who, as if from her corruption...

^A And so, I answer you again, in accordance with nature: "And how shall this happen to me, since I do not know a man," and yet, as you say, I shall bring forth a man? A statement so incredible is alien to any coherent order of speech, and is a stranger to common custom. Therefore, I could never accept it unless you declare by what consistent reason that which you say can be brought to pass. For without a reasonable explanation, nothing of the sort can happen at all. Give me, then, the rationale for your proclamation, and then I will believe your words. The headlong fall of Eve makes me more cautious and prudent; into that fall, while she was still innocent and simple and untaught in the examination of arguments, that deceitful hiss of the prince of all evil, the serpent, brought her down. Therefore, I shall never become a second Eve, by believing words that are strange.

XXXIV. Having heard these things from the virgin and immaculate mouth speaking to him, the archangel answers her again in a gentle manner; and as for the questions posed by natural reason, he provides the solution through supernatural means, and releases the most innocent one from the investigation of arguments.

I know, O Virgin, and am convinced, that you have not known the bed of a husband. I see the immaculate nature of your virginity; I behold the divine quality of your mind; I see your untouched chastity; I understand your most pure sincerity. I am aware that you were nurtured in the Holy of Holies and grew up there, and that you preserve the holiness of body and soul that you have from thence. I know that Joseph possesses merely the name of a husband without the reality; for he has not come to you as the sower of seed, ^C but as a faithful minister of your offspring, dear to God. Why do you now utter such extraordinary things to me? I shall utter to you things that are far superior to these. You speak to me of things natural and human; but I have come to you to cry out high and most divine things. If you knew the power of my words, you would not bring up to me the customs of women; you would not offer me lowly arguments; you would not cry out to me the laws of nature, beyond which women never give birth. I myself know human custom, even if I am not a human being by nature. I know, too, that the union of man and woman is accustomed to produce the man who is born. I am not ignorant of the knowledge of these things, even if I am completely removed from the practice and the act; for one nature is incorporeal, and another, by contrast, is the nature of bodies; and another—

their law is the manner of life, while yet another is the custom of bodies. Put aside, I pray, the lowly and earthly things, and look for me to the high and heavenly; leave behind for me those things that are cheap and very small, and behold for me the marvelous and the very great. I do not announce to you today a birth according to nature, one which proceeds from the will of a man and of flesh; but I speak to you of a birth that is above nature and custom.

^B XXXV. I know, O Virgin, that a virgin has never given birth; but you shall give birth, being seen as, and remaining, a virgin. I know that a woman has never brought forth a child without the union of a man; but you shall indeed give birth, since God ordains the birth. Human nature did not create itself, such that it might also define its own laws. God, who fashioned nature and established the laws appropriate to it, can also, whenever He Himself wills, change the laws of the same nature which He Himself, while creating, determined. It is God who wills; and who would set himself against the decrees of God? For all women, as they become mothers, first come together with men; but you, remaining and continuing a virgin, shall become a mother by the divine will. God shall work in you a new conception; God shall show in you a new bringing forth. For nothing at all is impossible to Him, of those things which He may will to do; but for Him, to will is at once to perform, as none of His creatures stands in opposition to Him, being as He is the most powerful artisan of them. How, then, would God, who can do all things, not be able to make even you, O Virgin, a mother? Unless, perhaps, He also is subjected to the defined limits and the accustomed order which He established from the beginning, and He Himself serves the laws to which He willed that men should be enslaved. Such an opinion is not to be approved; such an answer is not sufficiently pious; such words are not acceptable to God: namely, to posit that God is subject to His own laws, and to contend that God Himself is made a slave to the order pre-established for slaves. I rejoice seeing your prudence; I rejoice observing your caution; I rejoice perceiving your wisdom, even though you have spoken against my words. For I do not judge your remarks to have proceeded from unbelief, nor do I find in them the utterances of one who is contending, but those of a prudent and wise investigation, and of a mind ^D that accurately and intelligently searches out all things.

XXXVI. “You shall conceive, therefore, in the womb,” as I have said; or rather, as I see, you have already conceived, from the moment I brought to you that ‘Hail,’ and have spoken to you a joy-producing word; “and you shall bring forth a son,” who both created you when you were not, and fashioned all creatures before you. For all things have been made through the Word of God; and the Word

^A is, by His nature, inaccessible to these things, for it is He who is the most mighty Creator of them; for He ordained the boundaries for you, not for Himself.

You shall therefore bring forth a Son, as I have said before, the eternal Son of God, who is also the Word of the Begetter; and He shall not be fleshless, but united with flesh and blood, possessing an intelligent and invisible soul, and everything else that a man is observed to be by nature. He, descending upon you, the undefiled one, “like rain upon a fleece” (Ps. LXXI, 6), shall take flesh from your virgin blood, and Himself creating a soul as He wills, and uniting and joining these to Himself according to substance into the undivided substance of one Son, shall be born of you in an ineffable manner, keeping you a virgin while you give birth, and making you the Mother of God, who has not known man. ^B You shall give birth when you have fulfilled the time of gestation. For the Lover of mankind desires—He desires also in this respect to make His own likeness to men, that He may be a man in all things, neither ceasing to be God nor participating in human sin. Do not, therefore, any longer pose to me that question born of human thought: “And how shall this be to me, since I do not know a man?”

XXXVII. To whom the all-holy Virgin, again having undaunted confidence, replies with steady lips: “Hear, O angel of my ineffable conception and of my virginal pregnancy and my birth-giving; how should I not marvel at your words? How should I not be amazed at your utterances? For you tell me things most transcendent, which have not yet happened among men. I know, indeed, that God brings to accomplishment whatsoever He has determined to do. But that which your speech announces to me has not yet happened even down to this day. ^C Often, indeed, women who were laboring with sterility, and were like dry rocks, have obtained offspring when God afterwards so willed it. But a Virgin, keeping her chastity incorrupt and remaining clean from the company of a man, has nowhere until the present time given birth. I know that Sarah spent many years sterile; but afterward, when she was tending toward old age and bore white hair as a witness to her own advanced years, she gave birth to Isaac; for God commanded it, and it was impossible that it should not come to pass. I know that Rebecca remained sterile, and afterward brought forth twin offspring, when she carried Jacob and Esau at the same time, who, from one father and one mother who was clearly sterile, were born after many years. I know that Anna ended her childlessness and wept over her sterility, and ^D lamented her own mother-womb

^A and because of this abstained from food and drink, since she could not bear the pain of sterility; but she too, imploring with tears the God of all, brought forth Samuel, and the laws of sterility were set aside, because God hearkened to her cries and, being powerful, fulfilled her request. To these I will add the one who brought me forth after sterility, and who, through entreaty, gave birth to me, Mary. For she too bore the name of Anna and had in common with the name also sterility. But she too, having entreated the God who is over all, and having offered many prayers to Him, attained what she sought: to become a mother; and she who gives birth, by God’s ordinance, has abolished the laws of barrenness. And I could enumerate many other sterile women who, by the singular providence of God, were made mothers. But that a virgin in her life has given birth, which you have come to announce, as you say, I have not heard to this day.

XXXVIII. Therefore, I do not deny faith in God’s command; for He is clearly shown to be the worker of all things that He wills to accomplish. But I marvel at the power of what you have said, and I am astonished at the paradox and strangeness of these things, unheard of by human ears; and I justly inquire how this will happen, or in what manner it will have its fulfillment. Hence, when I gave you my answer, I did not say: "This will not be for me, as you have said, because I know no man," but I asked you, "How shall this be to me, since I know no man?" For it has never happened, nor is a virgin seen to have given birth; therefore, I sought to learn the manner in which I, a virgin, shall become a mother and shall give birth to a child, not having received the seed of a man and of offspring. And for the same cause, I ask you again most prudently: "How shall this be to me, since I know no man?" For I do not utter words of unbelief, but I seek an accurate explanation of the matter. Tell me the manner of the conception, and explain the cause of the birth, and you will have me not incredulous to the words, but obedient to the utterances. For it is impossible that whatever is pleasing to God should not take place. ^D

XXXIX. When the archangel, the bearer of messages, heard these things from her who was truly to be the Mother of God, admiring her answer and her wisdom, he replied: "Most excellently and most wisely, O Virgin Mother of God, have you spoken, as formerly women...

^A who were barren have later become mothers of children, and in a way have overcome their own nature and have brought forth children beyond nature, as God took pity and had compassion, the Lord and Creator and Fashioner of our nature. For where God intends, the laws of nature cease. Just as they, then, by God’s command, conquered the infirmities of their own nature, and, by overcoming the great sorrows of nature, brought forth a fruit of the womb; so also you, having blossomed from the barren Anna, and having overcome the nature of the one who bore you, being a pure virgin, and remaining a virgin thereafter, shall miraculously bring forth a Son ^B without seed and without husband, with Him who is being born compelling it. For He is Himself the Lord of nature, as He is its Creator and Governor. For God is incomprehensible, even if He shall be born of you, the Virgin, as a man. For it was fitting for Him, and indeed owed to Him—becoming man for the sake of the salvation of all men through human philanthropy—to show forth the birth from a Virgin alone, completing the glorious and saving incarnation from you without any marriage union or intercourse.

XL. But if your mind is held in suspense because no chaste and undefiled virgin has, up even to this day, brought forth a child, nor has ever been called the mother of a seedless child, and you seek to learn when a virgin has given birth; I also ask and inquire of you, when did God become man? ^C Or when did God deign to be incarnate? Or when did God become man? Or when was God conceived without seed? Or when did God endure being carried in the womb? Or when did God manifest a carnal birth from a woman? Or when did God suckle from a woman’s breasts? Or when did God let out a cry? Or when did God receive growth in age? Or when has God lived among us as men? Or when did God die for the sake of men? Or when did God undergo the nailing of the Cross? Or when was ^D God’s side pierced by a lance? Or when did God undergo a three-day burial? Or when has God been seen suffering all these things, in order that he might free man from all his passions; and that, destroying the incursion of death and corruption, He might grant incorruptible and immortal...

state to his own image, namely man. If, therefore, O Virgin, these things have never happened, but had been reserved for the present time, and it had been divinely foretold that the same were to be fulfilled through you; how could it be that another virgin (for you wished to hear this from me in order to prove and confirm your virginal birth) gave birth before you? A virgin has never given birth, O Virgin, never has she given birth; nor will another virgin after you, O Virgin, ever give birth; nor has there ever existed a virgin who is Mother of God, O Virgin, nor after you, O Virgin, will any other virgin exist as Mother of God. For you alone among women are the virgin to give birth, and you alone among women are to be called Mother of God. ^A For "once in the consummation of the ages" (Hebr. ix, 26) the only-begotten Son of God and the Father was to clothe Himself in human nature, and He will show the flesh assumed marvelously from you, and from you alone.

XLI. Moreover, I will persuade you with prophetic words that this purpose of God was to receive its fulfillment through you, and through you alone. That marvelous Isaiah, therefore, foreseeing the incarnation of God and the Word from you, and the divine and seedless conception, and the painless gestation, and the ineffable birth, and the unutterable nursing, thus clearly proclaimed beforehand: "Behold, the virgin shall have in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel" (38). Do you see, O pure and immaculate Virgin, how he absolutely called "virgin" the one who was about to bring forth Emmanuel? A virgin who you are, and you alone, and no other shall be seen before you or after you. For ^B that man, inspired by God, did not say: "Behold, virgins shall have in the womb, and shall bring forth sons, and they shall call their names Emmanuel," so that I might be able to present another virgin to you who brings forth. For there is one Emmanuel, whom you, O Virgin, will bring forth according to the flesh, and there is no other Emmanuel who has existed before, or will exist after, so that another virgin might also partake of an amazing birth; and you alone, O Virgin, are His divine genetrix, and no other has been called Mother of God before you, nor will one exist after you.

XLII. Most aptly, therefore, and most fittingly did I cry out to you: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." ^C For what is said in the Hebrew tongue as Emmanuel, is understood when translated into the Greek language as "God with us." But when has God conversed with men, and been numbered with you men, ^D if not now in the last times of the age, when He also took hold of the seed of Abraham, whenever He...

interpreted, possesses a twofold meaning, namely of human and divine nature, from which it is also composed and in which it is recognized. For being perfect God before the ages, He became perfect man in you, assuming the human nature from you, and joining this to Himself according to hypostasis; having preserved unchanged the natural quality of each nature, and the natural and essential properties of these. For the God Word remained God Word, even if He naturally put on the nature of flesh; and the flesh, animated rationally—which He assumed from your immaculate blood—and which He animated with a spirit of rational life, remained flesh animated rationally, ^B even if it were recognized as the flesh of the only God Word, joined to Him according to hypostasis, and coming together into the concurrence of one person and one hypostasis, not being divided, nor indeed changing the things joined together, nor bringing them into an identity of substance.

Etsi igitur—although, therefore, Christ preserved the difference of both natures and substances; yet one Son and Christ will be manifest to the world from you, presenting no diversity of multiple sons and Christs. For the same one, who is true God, will also be born true man, showing nothing of those things which He is called and said to be as being anything other than most true. For this reason He shall be called Emmanuel, since He is truly both, ^C and is the same God, uncircumscribed, and the same man, in truth: the former according to the eternal generation from the Father, the latter according to the temporal and bodily gestation from you, the Mother. For thus He was pleased to save human nature; since He, the unemptiable, descended into such an emptying of Himself, that he might raise up from the earth the humanity cast down into the earth of corruption, and make it a partaker of celestial inheritances, instead of the enjoyments it once possessed in paradise.

XLIII. But how this will happen, O God-bearing Virgin, I shall say and recount in words, since I have come to reveal this to you as well: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; ^D therefore also the Holy One who is born from you shall be called the Son of God." You have the clear proof, you have the true explanation. The Holy Spirit descends upon you, the immaculate one, to make you purer, and to provide you with the power for bearing fruit. The omnipotent "power of God" *shall overshadow you*, that is to say, the Word of God and consubstantial Son. For He is the hand and the arm and...

^A the power, and by Him the Father, as by the Son, hath made all things, and "in Him all things consist" (Coloss. 1, 17); He who shall perform in you an ineffable incarnation, and shall show forth in you a cultivation-less conception, and shall work in you an incomprehensible birth.

XLIV. "Therefore, also, that which is born holy shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1, 35). If, therefore, He who is to be born of you, the Theotokos and Virgin, shall be called the Son of God, how shall she who bears Him not appear a virgin? For this shall be a clear and unwavering proof and mark of His divinity which rules over all: that you, being a virgin, should bring forth an ineffable birth, and remain a virgin after the incorrupt birth. For if God is He who is born of you, the Virgin—just as He is indeed God and is preached as such—what would He not be able to effect if He willed it? For He is God, even if He is born as man; and He is man, even if, as God, He keeps you, the one who bears Him, a virgin.

Idcirco ^B Idcirco, therefore, was I, Gabriel, sent unto you, the Virgin, so that I might make manifest by my very name that He who is born of you, the immaculate Virgin, is both God and man. For even the name Gabriel, when brought to interpretation, declares "God and man." For although there were many angels in heaven, He did not resolve to send any of these, but me, who am manifest as one among them, and am called Gabriel, He sent, so that both by my speech and by my name I might signify clearly to you that He who is to be born of you is both God and man, and "upholdeth all things by the word of His power" (Hebr. 1, 3), and, ^C as He is holy, will sanctify the birth of all mankind also, and will be called the Son of the Highest, and will make those who believe in Him sons of the Highest by grace. Henceforth, O Virgin, believe my words; for these will certainly be fulfilled in reality. For I speak truly to you, inasmuch as I am a herald and messenger of the truth.

And for your assurance and for a greater proof of the fulfillment of my words, I give an irrefutable sign, so that you may remain unshaken in faith: ^D "For behold, Elisabeth your kinswoman, even she hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who is called barren; for there is"

^A erit impossible apud Deum omne verbum. And this shall be for thee a most excellent proof, that my every word, these auspicious tidings unto thee, O thou venerable in all things, shall receive a true and saving outcome for the life and redemption of all mankind. For it is as easy for that same power before God, both for a barren woman to bear [that was] not bearing, and for a virgin to bear [that was] without a husband. Rejoice, therefore, O thou full of grace, thou virgin divine, over those gifts with which God, the Lord of all, has graced thee, and over those [gifts] whereby thou shalt give birth to the Son of God, who shall be the joy for the whole race of men."

XLV. Unto whom the virgin Mother of God, clearly believing and trusting that everything whatsoever had been spoken to her by the Lord would be entirely fulfilled, answers ^B meekly yet humbly (for she was about to give birth to "the meek and humble in heart" Christ, and it was fitting that she should be singularly adorned by His own humility and meekness), and indeed answers in a manner befitting a virgin: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word."

XLVI. Now when the archangel Gabriel had received this response from the Virgin Mother of God, he returned into heaven, whence he had been sent unto her. But she was bearing in her womb God, who had sent him—He who in heaven is glorified with the Father, yet on earth, and from her, endured to be borne in the womb according to the flesh. For simultaneously the Word and God descended unto her, and through the voice of the angel, He entered into her divine womb and was incarnate, and without change was made bodily, taking ^C upon Himself from her the flesh that was untouched by man, and truly uniting this unto Himself, endowed indeed with a rational soul, but not having existed prior to the ineffable union with Him. For at the same moment [there was] flesh, at the same moment [it was] the flesh of the Word of God; at the same moment it was ensouled, rational flesh: for in Him it had its subsistence, and it did not have its existence before that very [moment].

Nor did that flesh ever become the flesh of any other man like unto us, which should then have been conjoined with the Word of God and entered into union with Him; but at the very moment it began to be ensouled, rational flesh, taken from the virginal and immaculate blood ^D of the immaculate Virgin, it also received [the grace] to be the ensouled, rational flesh of the Word of God. For there is naught for those who most impiously desire to cleave the one Son and Christ into two sons and Christs...

or even a pretext, I say, at hand—be it a demonstration or a disguise—whereby they might affirm that it (the flesh of the Word) subsisted at some time by itself and had its own person, and that later it came together with the Word and God into a natural union. For the things which exist separately and are seen to be apart from each other never receive a natural union, or one according to hypostasis. Wherever a natural union does not proceed, nor does composition according to hypostasis occur, neither is one and the same hypostasis shown, nor is one and the same person proclaimed—indivisible at once and inseparable, and rejecting every division.

VARIAE LECTIONES

NOTES

Further, these things ought also to serve to wash away the stain with which Saint Pope Leo the Great is incautiously besmirched. For since Leo also, both most clearly and most frequently (see Epist. 59, to the clergy and people of Constantinople, ch. 5; Epist. 102, to the bishops of Gaul, ch. 3; and Sermon 28, on the Nativity of the Lord, 8, ch. 5, Ballerini ed.), accuses Nestorius of a vitiated dogma regarding the time of the union of the Word with the flesh; if the opinion of John Garnier is true (De haer. et libr. Nestor., diss. 1, § 3, p. 286), that Nestorius did not depart from the Church’s opinion regarding the time of the union, then the matter is brought to the point where the holy doctor must be accused of having falsely imputed a crime to Nestorius through remarkable imprudence—not to say rashness or calumny. Yet this very fact should have made Garnier hesitate, lest he fall headlong into that opinion. For why? Did not Saint Leo, at the time the Nestorian controversy was being agitated, sit at the side of Saint Celestine as archdeacon of the Roman Church, and play a leading part in matters being handled? Did not Saint Leo—which Garnier does not deny—have at hand the writings of Nestorius, even those from which Garnier reinforces his own opinion, which he even sent to John Cassian to be refuted before the Ephesine Synod itself? Indeed, when the Ephesine Synod was being celebrated, did not Cyril write to Leo about the most serious matters of the council, so that they might be deferred to Saint Celestine? To which of the Roman clergy, or at what time, shall we affirm that the affairs of Nestorius were evident if we think them unknown at that time to Saint Leo, who for that reason would have erred so grossly, and furthermore rashly proceeded to affirm things of which he was ignorant?

Garnier wonders (ibid.) at men attributing a contrary opinion to Nestorius. But it is rather to be wondered at that he so easily persuaded himself that so many men, illustrious for learning and holiness—a long catalog of whom, both from the East and from the West, it would be easy to furnish if the space allowed, and many of whom were contemporaries of the events—had seen nothing, or certainly less than he himself saw, regarding this matter, and written foolishly. Especially because the sum of the arguments for that opinion lies finally in the very words of Nestorius, so that it might deservedly be compared to a house built on shifting sand. For do those statements of Nestorius prove that he never taught otherwise? Certainly, if you wish to affirm this, there is only one reason at your disposal: that you maintain the consistency of Nestorius in the doctrines he once put forth. But Saint Celestine will confront you, by whose authority (Epist. ad Nestor., n. 2) Nestorius, wrapping truths in obscurities, again confounding both, confesses what he denied, or strives to deny what he has confessed; Marius Mercator will also confront you, warning the reader (Dissert. de XII anathem. Nest., n. 22) to be cautious regarding the fickleness and inconstancy of Nestorius, which, he says, whether it arises from cunning or stupidity to entice the listener, is not easy to know: in any case, however, it is certain that he is fickle and contrary to himself. The matter, therefore, is already judged: and one may grant as much constancy to Nestorius as we are accustomed to attribute belief to the testimonies of a man who, by solemn judgment, has been proclaimed most mendacious. It was not, therefore, to be presumed to that extent regarding his constancy, such that so many ancient Fathers, whom no one among the ancients had contradicted, should be condemned for ignorance.

Moreover, some excuse will not be lacking for Garnier in that Petavius, whom he set out to oppose, had handled this argument rather lightly. Now, however, there is the less room for doubt, the more certainly those two little arguments that Garnier added for his own cause collapse; namely, 1. That Nestorius constantly called Mary *Christotokos*; 2. That Cyril did not repress such an error. For as early as the year 1833, His Eminence Mai, regarding Saint...

Oration II. — ON THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

^A Just as this inseparable and undivided incarnation of the Word passes by such fools as Nestorios, Paul, and Theodore, and those who join them in their godless madness, and accordingly excludes those who belong to them from the family of true piety, so too does it banish from the fold of the pious those who desire to confuse the natures and who hasten to fashion a single nature out of two. For the Word, when He became incarnate, did not, according to their madness, alter His own nature by turning it into flesh, nor did He change the rational and ensouled flesh, which He assumed from this very Virgin Theotokos, into His own divine nature, nor turn it into divine substance. Rather, He remained immutable and beyond all change, free from all confusion, and He put on flesh consubstantial with us, becoming in truth man for our sake. ^B And the flesh remained unchangeable, free from any turning or confusion. Compounded with the Word for its subsistence and united to Him according to an undivided hypostasis, it retains without any change that which is consubstantial with us, preserving its likeness to us unchanged in nature, essence, and substance. Yet it sustains no division from the Word, nor does it suffer any scission or separation; rather, it is the property of the Word Himself. While by virtue of the hypostatic union it converges with Him into one person, it is shown to persist and remain within the proper boundaries of its own nature, displaying a difference of nature from Him—though not acknowledging any difference of person from Him—but coming together with Him into one and the same single hypostasis, and this one being united and composite (for it is not simple and incomposite), without, however, merging into one composite nature; for this is the beginning of confusion and becomes the foundation for that mutative alteration.

As, therefore, the incarnate Word rejects those who introduce scission and division, so too does He cast out from the sacred precincts those who confuse both natures and preach their mixture and mutation. ^D Such are these men: Severus, ^C and Eutyches, and Dioscorus, and Apollinarius.

^A And, prior to them, the Simons, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, the Basilidians, the Manesians, and the Menandrians; and the multi-headed heresy of the Acephali, which even now is stirring up evil, and which possesses a single shared war against piety, while it wages countless and ceaseless wars against itself. These things, then, are truly august, nay, most august, and are manifestly worthy of the divine ears of those of us who are pious; these Gospels we now announce invite us indeed with joy; but they drive out those polluted and demented men from this festival of their Gospel, as those who blasphemously understand and speak of it.

^B XLVIII. But I, the least of all, who have come forth to you today as a herald, speak only to you, the children of piety and faith, and to those who receive what is said with piety; I cry out with a loud voice, and I proclaim and declare openly: “Gospels, Gospels, Gospels! Gospels of our Savior; Gospels of God who was incarnate for our sake; Gospels of God’s coming among us; Gospels of God who became man from us; Gospels of God’s conception without seed; Gospels of God’s gestation in a womb of a virgin; Gospels of God’s immutable union with flesh; Gospels, by which we who were outcasts are raised up and deified, and ^C become gods by grace. We no longer fear corruption; we are no longer terrified by passions; we no longer tremble at death; we no longer stand in awe of the polluted devil; we are no longer afraid of his unseen assaults; we are no longer in dread of his manifest tyranny; but we appear as whole gods, we are found to be whole god-like beings, we are enrolled in the choir above, we are whole citi-

citizens ^A of the upper city, Jerusalem. For wherever we have our conversation, there also shall we receive our lots, and dwell in those ineffable mansions.

XLIX. To you, most beloved brothers, we have come today, bringing the gospel of all these things. For this gospel which we have just proclaimed to you is the origin, the root, the foundation, and the base of all these blessings. For from these, as you have learned, all the abundance of good things gushes forth for us as from a fountain, irrigating and gladdening and nourishing the entire world, leading us up to the heavenly courts, and rendering us partakers of the most divine mansions and blessed gifts situated therein. And for this reason, I often cry out with joy, with a resonant voice: "Good tidings, good tidings, good tidings," for which I summon and encourage you, and for which I desired that you should celebrate this day. For from this our salvation proceeds; from this our liberty shines forth; from this our adoption as children of God is brought forth; ^B from this our calling back is born; from this the Word and God, having come to save us, initiates the work of salvation. He makes this the commencement of his mercy towards us; he established this as the beginning of our deification, than which nothing is more delightful to men, nothing more precious to earth-born creatures, nothing more pleasing to mortals. Whence the second Adam, having taken the virginal earth, and having refashioned himself in human form, sets a second beginning for humanity, renewing the old age of the former, and showing us a second one, not worn out, which is of the same nature and same lineage as the former, yet does not possess the same ways of life as that one, nor the same weight of dignity and sublime glory. That one was condemned ^C through the first Adam; this one has been liberated from blame through the second Adam. That one was despoiled of divine splendors through the first Adam; this one has been restored with heavenly light through the second Adam. That one, through the first Adam—who was earthy and earth-minded—bore the yoke of servitude; this one, through the second Adam and consubstantial Son of God, receives the dignity of adoption, and has been enriched to cry out and call, "Abba, Father."

L. Are these tidings of ours small, brothers? Is the proclamation of our good tidings of little worth? Is the radiance ^D of our good tidings mean and contemptible? Or rather, does it not exceed…

surpasses all brilliance, and surpasses all radiance, and obscures all beauty? Therefore, to you, my fellow-partakers and like-minded ones, I cry out, and in crying out, “Good news, good news, good news,” I am not sated. I restrain my speech, though it still desires to run and yearns to proceed further with an agile step. For I see my listeners are weary, although not yet sated from listening to my holy proclamations. For indeed, you have a spirit that is willing, but flesh that is weak; ^B since you are weighed down by the satiety of speech, and you do not have the strength to endure further labor. And I know that a satiety of speech, however divine and sublime it may be, is an enemy to the eagerness for listening, especially to those who are prone to disdain in listening to speeches. Let us, therefore, celebrate the sublime and holy solemnity of our sublime and holy proclamations in a holy and sublime manner, and let us honor it with as befitting and worthy a manner as possible, so that through it we may most invincibly attain those heavenly goods, of which this feast has appeared to us as the root, the source, and the mother in Christ Jesus our Lord himself, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, honor, power, majesty, for ever and ever. Amen.

III. Oratio de Hypapante, or Homily on the Meeting of the Lord

Chap. I. That the mysteries of Christ are to be celebrated. The solemnity of this feast.

1. This other mystery of Christ is yet another manifestation of the magnificence of Christ our God. For His miracles are always great, such that they surpass the approach and access of all prayers, and exceed the virtue of all wisdom, not only human, but also angelic, and those of the Virtues which do not fall under our vision. For it is a certain speech and tongue which cannot be understood by us humans, given apart to the heavenly angels. Wherefore I will also exclaim with a loud voice, with the great Paul: “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the inquirer of this age?” Where are the ornaments of the rhetoricians? Where are the problems of the philosophers? Where are the clever arts of the grammarians? Certainly, God has made the wisdom of this world foolish, and has demonstrated it to be supervacaneous, vain, and useless, for the more reason that this wisdom was a gift and a bounty of grace, given over for the observation and investigation of God, and ^C for turning back from vain error, to the unbelieving nations. But “because in the wisdom of the world the world did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.” And I rightfully exclaim this along with Paul, and even now, filled with wonder, I shall exclaim: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” For how can a created thing see the mind of the Creator, or be able to comprehend His genius and intellect? Or how can the thing fashioned give counsel to Him who fashioned it, as if committing himself to the counsel of the fashioned thing, or to an imperfect creation for perfection? Therefore, among the foolish, what is preached is foolishness: because the wisdom of men has been made foolish. Therefore the Academy has fallen asleep, the Stoa has gone silent, the Peripatetic school is empty, ^D

^A nor do the followers of Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato, those supposedly most wise defenders, know what they are saying, nor can they understand what they assert—those whom the fisherman’s quill has rightly marked and the shoemaker’s knife has cut down, showing them to be dead and senseless dregs of the earth. But having dismissed these with our wise celebration (for they have both driven the wisdom of God from themselves and filled themselves with empty, foolish nonsense), let us all with theological mouths sing the praises of the wonderful things rightly done by God, and let us celebrate them with pure minds. For this is what most befits the divine festivals of God, and this is what He demands of those who celebrate His feasts.

4. That eternal Christ in the flesh, according to our custom, took to Himself a mother, who conceived Him without doubt and in an ineffable manner; and we, who have gathered salvation from her, have recently honored her in a mystical, festival day. After Him, the eighth day duly followed, which received the expected circumcision of the flesh; then truly, as initiates and clients of God, and as those who have received the divine gifts of God, we have again performed this mystically. But now another mystery follows those, and another gift is granted to mortals. For nothing proceeds from the God who was born that is not entirely referred to the utility of men; certainly, out of a desire to exalt the humble and the abject, He was born for the sake of us humans. But what is this mystery that we now celebrate, as befits God? It is the most admirable progress of Christ, the advent of Christ most full of joy, the offering of Christ most difficult to explain, the passing of Christ from place to place—leaving the most divine Bethlehem and arriving in this city, Jerusalem. ^C

5. Who can express this migration of God from one place to another? Therefore, O men, filled with the same wisdom as we are, [consider] the ineffable mysteries of Jesus Christ, and such that a river of speech cannot encompass them. For how, upon hearing of the progress of the uncircumscribed God, and His passing from other places to other places, would one not immediately laugh at the speaker, as if he were introducing incredible things to human minds, things that could in no way be accepted? Yet He who is uncircumscribed comes forth (even if the Gentiles criticize this proclamation, marked by their foolishness), He comes forth who does not sustain a natural boundary (since He is God), nay rather, who is infinite by nature and power (for this nature of ours is finite and of finite virtue), and He comes forth according to our human manner: let him be burst asunder, whoever says that the Son who has gone forth is one, and that He who is in another [place] is another. ^D

^A For that miserable Nestorius is delirious—he who does not go forth, and who dreams that the children of the Bridegroom are like us. But he, rather, persuades himself of this impiety from within himself, and tears the mystery of Christ apart with impious daring. For he wished that only He who was born of the Virgin should go forth, and not the Son born of the Father, that eternal Word. But God made His progression true and manifest. For He was truly made flesh and body, and was caught within corporeal limitation; even if he is vexed—that man, that miserable Eutyches, who denies the nature of the flesh in the Word, because it was made flesh, and dreams that the progression was a mere phantom. For if the nature of the Word, which was made flesh, had remained single, then what appeared would have been a phantom, and this mystery of Christ would be but a naked shadow, and not the Word truly incarnate. For how, if the Word did not assume the nature of the flesh, was it immutably made flesh? But the Word was truly made flesh, and in no way underwent a conversion into flesh, and inviolate took from the Virgin the nature of the flesh, according to which He was also born of her. The same One also admits no dissolution of the natures, and is known in two natures: neither divided because of their difference, as the insane Nestorius used to rage, nor merging the substance, the conjunction of which was made in the hypostasis. Thus, one and the same [Christ] exists in the same; He is known as God and human; He exhibits a single person, established and consisting of both natures; however, He does not confuse the properties of both; for from those things of which He was composed immutably, He appears in them indivisibly, neither confusing His mystery, nor dividing His person.

Chapter II. The meeting of Christ. The candles brought together. The day of purification.

6. Thus that heavenly One from Bethlehem goes forth: thus He appears visible, He who flees the keenness of the eyes: thus He who is without a body is shown in the flesh: thus He comes described, He who cannot be described. But let us all run to meet Him, we who so piously honor and venerate His mystery, let us all go with a ready mind. Who will be the first to meet Him? Who will be the first to see God with his own eyes? Who will be the first to receive God? Who will be the first to carry God in his arms? Let no one be irked by an accelerated pace, let no one limp in their hurried step, let no one break off his pious departure, let no one delay for the divine meeting: let no one be seen to be bereft of the celebration of which they have tasted, let no one appear to be devoid of the mysteries, let no one be deprived of the light-bearing joy: let no one become more languid than the swift course of the aged Simeon, let no one ^B be judged slower of foot than the aged Anna, so that in no way may they, though old and truly advanced in years, seeing Him whom they have been waiting for with their feet, and having failed in their quickness of course, not only accuse themselves, but also reproach their own slack and perhaps faithless spirit with the very words of the prophet. Let there be no one, therefore, who is not a participant in this meeting, let no one be alienated from the bearing of the light.

7. Let us also add the splendor of the candles, ^C thereby showing forth the divine splendor of Him who approaches, from whom all things grow bright, and by whom, once the worst darkness has been driven away, we are illuminated by the abundance of eternal light; and then, most of all, by manifesting the splendor of the soul, with which it is necessary for us to meet Christ. For just as the Mother of God, the most integral Virgin, bore the true Light in her arms, and was present to those who lay in darkness; so too, illuminated by His illuminations, and holding in our hands the light that appears to all, let us hasten to go to meet Him who is truly the Light. For verily, because the Light came into the world, and illuminated it when it was surrounded by darkness, and because the Dayspring from on high visited us and shone upon those who sat in darkness; this is our mystery; therefore we walk holding torches, therefore we run carrying lights, both designating that the Light has shined upon us, and signaling the splendor that is to come to us from Him. Wherefore let us run together, let us all meet God—lest, if we are sorry to do this, we be accused at some time of having a heart ungrateful to Him, or lest we hear of the duty of fearing the crime of contempt for Him, that which even the Jews, still involved in those darknesses and not to be illuminated, heard Him saying: "Because the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light: for their works were evil" (for wickedness always darkens the mind and does not allow it to see the light): or even that which the holy Gospel says: "The Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." That true Light, therefore, which illuminates every man coming into this world, has come. Let us all, therefore, O brothers, be illuminated; let us all be enlightened. Let no one of us remain not initiated into this splendor, let no one persist in being full of that night; but let us all go forth splendid and enlightened, and like all the rest let us go to meet [Him], and let us receive that clear and eternal light with the aged Simeon: and exulting in our souls with him, let us sing a hymn with thanksgiving to the Begetter and Father of the Light, who sent the true Light ^D and dispelled the darkness, and made us all splendid. For we also have seen through Him the salvation of God, which He prepared before the face of all peoples and manifested for the glory of our new Israel, and, released at once by seeing Christ, we have been freed from that ancient and dark sin, as if from the chains of the present life. We also, embracing by faith Christ who proceeded to us from Bethlehem, have been made from the Gentiles the people of God (for He Himself is the salvation of God and the Father) and with our eyes we have seen God made flesh…

^A, and having admitted the presence of God by the arms of the mind, we are called the new Israel, and we celebrate this on annual feast days, never to fall into oblivion regarding it. 8. But does Christ approach, being everywhere present? For nothing of Him, since His nature is uncircumscribed, and He cannot be debarred by any obstacle, and wills to fulfill the ancient law, is void of brightness. Nay, rather, He approaches, and by signifying His own birth as entirely supreme, He prophesied concerning Himself with Mosaic lips. But what is this prophecy? "Every male that openeth the womb," he says, "shall be called holy to the Lord." 12 Which commandment, however, He, being alone, fulfilled even further as a prophetic annunciation, for He alone looked forth from the Virgin's womb, and yet He did not deprive her of her virginity, nor did He dissolve the seal of her [womb] when He came forth: a thing which was openly foretold of Him alone. For He Himself was born alone of the Virgin alone; He was begotten alone from a womb void of seed, and He alone progressed from the Virgin’s womb, preserving the Virgin herself, being born without corrupting her grace, coming into the light without diminishing her splendor, progressing without the seal being loosed: which things show both that He who is born is God, and declare the Theotokos to be properly she who bears. Where the scoundrel Nestorius is again seen to be, who neither wishes to call Him who is born God, nor can bear to call her who gave birth the Theotokos; where also the execrable Eutyches is looked upon, who denies that the Lord’s flesh is of the same nature as ours. For in what way, if the Word, who endured for our sake to become our flesh, "became flesh," 13 if the nature of flesh was not truly assumed by Him from us, nor joined to Him in such a way as to show clearly that the Word took upon Himself the same nature that we have, though lacking a body [before the incarnation], and thus was truly made man with us—if it does not have a body of the same kind as our bodies, nor a soul of the same kind, of which our natures consist? But truly "the Word became flesh," and He who existed as God in Himself was truly made man, presenting nothing false, nor did He deceive us men; but by assuming our nature, He graced it for our sake.

9. For if this were not so as we believe, in what way, as the evangelist writes, does he say: "And after the days of their purification were fulfilled" 14? What kind of purification, O abominable Eutyches, if the flesh in Christ was not real? If human nature was not joined to the Word? For what purification does the divine, which is devoid of a body, require? What contamination is perceived in a divinity that is devoid of flesh? Although, as the condition of men required, He endured this ^B in writing, and most especially because of your madness and your imaginary stupor, and your astonishment, like that of the Manichaeans. For neither Christ, who is the expiator of all, needed any expurgation, especially having received that one only immaculate flesh: nor did she who gave birth, the inviolate and truly unpolluted Virgin, who brought forth the expiation for all, need the expiation prescribed by the law. Although this was inscribed according to the law, so that Christ might not be thought to be a destroyer of the law.

Chapter III. The orthodox are admitted to the meeting, heretics are repelled.

10. But what did the Virgin, or what did Simeon receive with his own [arms], besides God made flesh and body? And the prophet was receiving God with religious affection, and was offering Him to the Father and God, and was fulfilling the law in the Spirit, saying freely with his lips: "Now, Lord, dismiss thy servant, according to thy word, in peace." 15 Which was said to him by the Spirit 16, that he would not see death until he should first see the Christ of the Lord, and the seal of the law should be loosened. For that old man held the role of the law. "Because," he says, "my eyes have seen thy Salvation." 17 For that Mosaic law was not Salvation. But the old and aged and infirm law, having seen Christ, that is, the Salvation of God, was being led back from infirmity to salvation; and was being freed, being renewed in a manner befitting the newness that was present to it; for the Light was seen with the eyes, delivering the old Israel from all age, and leading the Gentiles to Him. Therefore he cries out, and crying out announces: "Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace; because my eyes have seen thy Salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." 18 Existing as new out of the old (and both Galilee of the Gentiles is illuminated, and the new Israel is demonstrated), he looked upon Christ, the Light.

11. But what did he see with his eyes, if not the body ^C that is akin to us and visible, and convincing the ignorance of Eutyches, produced from the Manichaean seed? For by its own nature the divinity evades aspect, and cannot be seen by the eyes of men. Let therefore both Eutyches and Nestorius, the enemies and adversaries of this celebration, and those striving to violate its joy, depart from this celebration of ours: the one indeed dividing the indivisible Christ, the other indeed impiously confounding those things which cannot be confounded: for our celebration never allows itself to be adorned by such as these. Therefore be purified, therefore shine forth, therefore cultivate the mysteries of Christ, as friends of Christ; for otherwise He neither admits those running to meet Him, nor does He endure to be seen by their eyes: but rather, away from His celebration ^D

He commands them to be exiles and treats them as profane, and declares their encounter with Him to be alienated. Let them depart along with the Eunomians and Eudoxians [(10-11)] and Asterius [(12)], and with them the Manichaeans and Apollinarians [(13)], Severus [(14)] and Dioscorus [(15)], and that miserable and truly headless gangrene of the Acephali [(16)]. For those, because they attempted to diminish and abrogate the perfect deity of Christ—which is conspicuous, yet invisible because of the flesh—and contended that it was of another nature and substance than the nature which is in the Father who begat Him, audaciously numbering it among created things, and declaring Christ to be a created God, and that He must be worshipped according to both natures, I mean the divine and the human. But these others, because of that deity of Christ which is not seen, even wish to exclude and falsify His flesh: they who, snatching away what are the properties of one nature alone, imagine a confusion of the conjoined substances, and willingly accept the miserable deceits of Apollinarius and Polemon [(17)]. With whom let the Ebionites [(18)] and Samosatenes [(19)], Paul and Bardesanes, be placed, and let them be banished from this our feast. The former, because they judged Christ to be only a naked man and equal to us, lacking those things which are proper to the deity, and did not even name Him God in any way. The latter, however, because they affirmed that Christ was not the eternal God, equal to the Father in eternity, but reckoned that He existed as God only from the ineffable incarnation itself.

12. And if indeed all, however many who either insanely acted according to these, or who according to these same men escaped as insane impious ones, are repelled from the divine encounter with Christ, we, who hold the right sentiment, all of us, on this festive day, with no stain of multifaceted heresy received, let us go to meet Christ God, and with the elder Simeon and with the woman and prophetess Anna, let us welcome Him. For both were growing old, and the Law, indeed, and the prophets who followed it, were awaiting the release. For until the manifestation of Christ filled with lights, the Law prevailed, and the prophets, prophesying, predicted the mysteries wisely performed by God concerning Christ, and the admirable oracles concerning Christ. We, having been translated from the multitude of the Gentiles into the new Israel, and having been called the new people of God, let us confess in turn, and singing the Psalms: “Let us sing to the Lord a new song” [(19)]. We, having been beautifully renewed and lifted on high by the presence of Christ, having cast off the splendor and the gentile antiquity, at once and the legal things altogether, and everything that savors of the flesh, and by this most exalted celebration of Christ, let us sing to the Lord a new song. For we have been renewed, and have been made new from the old, and commanded to sing a new song to God and to the Father, who by the presence of Christ both renewed us all and showed us to be His new people. “Let us sing to the Lord a new song: for He has done marvelous things” [(20)], and indeed, through the presence of Christ, more marvelously, through whom all things are renewed, lost ancient things are recovered, new things are observed, and being lifted up into God, they are transferred into the first youth.

13. But what these are, the lyre of the Spirit clearly delivers: “His right hand and His holy arm have saved Him” [(21)]. And what is this, I ask, the right hand of God and the Begetter, and the holy arm, if not that only One, the Son, through whom He made all things? Through whom He founded things which were not before, and led them from non-existence to existence: which afterward, falling toward destruction and age (for every thing, becoming old and aging, always inclines toward destruction by the habit of its nature)

and saves it by His omnipotent right hand and His holy arm, which is in every way exalted. For those who are enriched with the splendor of divine knowledge, and made bright in body, soul, and intellect, confess that Christ alone is to be acknowledged, He who came to us through the likeness of flesh for the recovery of all created things; through whom we are manifestly saved, and delivered from our ancient aging, and redeemed, and made a new lump for God, ^A appearing now as if we were no longer of the old and sour leaven.

14. For we were what is called creatures preserved in an unexpected way by the right hand of God, and renewed by His powerful arm: of whom David, singing in prophecy, aptly chanted: "His right hand and His holy arm have saved Him;" for we clearly were in need of salvation, and we sought for a retreat and redemption from our fatal aging: for the Psalmist, pointing out the coming of Christ as necessary for those in need of salvation, assigns to the right hand and the arm of the Father the strengthening for a glorious renewal, as it is set forth in this divinely inspired canticle: "The Lord hath made known His salvation: in the sight of the nations hath He revealed His justice." Which also Simeon (that is, the Law), receiving, cried out to God, giving thanks for the Salvation granted to him, that is, Christ: "Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word, in peace." For Christ is truly signified as peace to the heavenly and the earthly. "Because mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." The prophecy is fulfilled: the promise is perfected: that which was wandering is enlightened: that which was inglorious is affected with glory: and I (and the Law in me) have departed from the old age, and not only have I emerged new, but I have also seen Thy Salvation, O Lord, and with aged eyes having beheld Thy glory, I have received a vigor completely free from wrinkles and juvenile. For Christ became a light to the Gentiles, and the new Israel, ^B called and made new, He affected with an excellent and miraculous glory, having shared with it a glory truly free from old age, and with light that never grows old, nor shining through the law that causes wrinkles.

Chap. IV. The prophecies of Simeon and Anna explained.

15. And that elderly Simeon, having seen the Salvation of God, was freely conversing with Him in these words; carrying in his arms that Salvation of God and the Father, by which He transmitted salvation to all and gave an excellent redemption. But turning also toward the Virgin, who conceived and gave birth in the flesh to the Salvation of God, and toward Joseph, who was thought to be the father of this light, although he was revealed to be entirely alien to the carnal birth of the Light: "Behold," he said, "He is set for the ruin and the resurrection of many in Israel"; ^C for the ruin of those who still serve the oldness of the letter, for the resurrection of those who love evangelical newness; for the ruin of those who boast in the carnal fatherhood of Abraham, for the resurrection of those who are made children of Abraham through faith; for the ruin of those who have put on the prudence of the old Adam, for the resurrection of those who have put on the wisdom of the new Adam; for the ruin of those who are wise in dust and earthly things, for the resurrection of those who desire high and celestial things. For the first Adam was made from the earth, dusty, and he had an earthly disposition. But this second Adam, who is carried by my hands even in the flesh, and who Himself supports me as I carry Him, came to us from heaven as a sojourner, and to all who faithfully welcome His advent, and who reject the garment of the first Adam, desiring instead the birth of the new, He grants celestial citizenship. For as many as receive Him with faith, to them He grants the adoption of sons before God and the Father, who are not born of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but are born of God according to grace: for they do not proceed from His substance and nature.

16. For He alone is born of God according to nature and is consubstantial with God the Father; He is known as the only-begotten of God the generator, and certainly incarnate from thee, O Virgin, He received human generation from thee. And a sharp sword shall pierce thy soul, ^D which hast beheld the great mysteries of God, and hast borne for us this treasure of grace, and a sword shall traverse thy mind, struck with stupor, when thou beholdest Him with thine own eyes voluntarily fixed with nails to the cross and lifted up into the midst of robbers, to slay death itself, by which we were being slain; but to us, who were justly dying, to give life; and to the bound legions of demons, to loose man from the bonds of sins, anciently bound by the demon. But that sword which pierces through shall not persist, nor shall it remain in thee at all: never, O Mother of God, shalt thou be brought to the oblivion of the divine conception from thee and the miraculous progeneration from thee. Thou shalt indeed be seized in a certain human stupor from those things which are to happen at the time of the unspeakable Crucifixion; how God, who by nature can neither die nor even suffer, endures to be nailed to the cross, how He, who is exalted by the angels with eternal glory, is the same one who is afflicted with insults in the midst of robbers, how He, who provides food to all who are hungry, and who gives drink to all who are thirsty, drinks gall and vinegar: how that Life, which gives life to all who lack it, undergoes death: how His side is pierced with a spear, He who with a spear pierced death, which evades all sense of the eyes; how He, who buries death and corruption, who draws those buried from the tombs, who [receives] the bodies that had fallen from Adam and the same...

^A strain of his first fall, restores life to those aroused from death. You will be somewhat struck, seeing all these things; but you will not suffer long in doubt, for the sword of such great and terrible calamities will pass through your own soul and mind. Yet it will not persist, nor occupy a place of dwelling or station, being most swiftly driven away by that conception of yours free from seed, and by that birth of yours, always virginal.

17. There is nothing at all more horrible to those who do not understand, or more incredible to behold. Therefore, thoughts are revealed from many hearts, which cannot gaze upon your divine and wondrous mysteries, which not even the powers of the heavens were able to see. Therefore, he who does not believe falls by this proclamation; but he who believes in your preaching rises again and is illumined unto life and immortality, and with his mouth proclaims Him to be God, and perceives you, she who bore Him, to be the Mother of God. Therefore Christ, born in this way from you, will truly be set for a sign to those who are ignorant of His mysteries, against whom there shall be contradiction, and those who have been rendered partakers of unbelief shall suffer a fall from which they cannot be raised; and because they did not believe in eternal life, they shall never behold the resurrection from the dead, nor the life which is in the heavens. Having said this, [Simeon] ceases, and seeing the Law itself, and the Legislator Himself now arriving and standing perfectly according to the design of His own law, he pauses at the same time. For Christ went forth, the fulfillment of the Law; and according to the sentence of Paul, there is no one who contradicts [Him] who ^B is indeed for salvation to him who believes, but to him who has an unbelieving mind, it is for destruction and ruin.

18. Anna also draws near to this work with aged steps. For she too was calling [all] to the mystery that was to fulfill the grace of prophecy, while she testifies with prophetic spirit that the Lord has made known His salvation, and that in the sight of the nations He has revealed His righteousness, and that it is not the Law, which prevailed in shadow and figure, imposing on men ^C unbearable burdens, but now grace, revealed to all, having a sweet yoke and a burden [that is] light and easy to carry. And that it is not the Law of which the prophets prophesy regarding Christ, where He who inspired them with the prophecies and sent them to prophesy, has Himself now arrived. And this Anna, since she was resplendent with the grace of prophecy, and was speaking to those who were awaiting the redemption of Israel, was engendering divine consolation for them from every side, [saying] that the Redeemer of all had come, the Savior of the universe had appeared, who wills to redeem His own image, and desires to confer salvation upon the man created by Himself. For that reason the name of Christ is Jesus, for Jesus is interpreted as Savior.

19. And when all these things were taking place in reality, and were being proclaimed in words, Mary the Mother of God was amazed, and Joseph, who was present, was admiring along with her. Afterwards, they—even those things which were enjoined by the Law—had fulfilled them (for Christ had come to fulfill all things that were of the Law and to put an end to the legal precepts); they returned to Nazareth, where ^D she had been saluted by the archangel Gabriel, she who bore the Savior to the world, and who was pregnant from a conception free from seed, and remaining a virgin after birth, declaring to all who saw [it] that the Salvation of God had become known, that light had shone upon the nations, and that the righteousness and redemption of God had appeared to all the ends of the earth: and that the divine glory and eternal brightness had shone upon those who were awaiting Him, ignorant of all destruction and corruption.

Chapter V. The Mystery of the Turtle Doves and Pigeons Offered. Epilogue.

20. But what, then, is the intention of the turtle doves and pigeons that were accepted, which Christ, going up to Jerusalem, offered to present Himself to God the Father as a sacrifice? Or for what reason did He offer one pair of each kind, if she who bore Him remained a virgin? These animals were offered on His behalf to the Father, which are discovered to be pure, and among birds are excellent; and, besides the fact that both are clean and not profane, each genus of them contains a certain inherent virtue: those birds show that there is something excellent and select, beyond the rest, innate to them, which brings no small utility to those who contemplate it spiritually. For the precept of keeping the Law does not consist in the letter alone: it contains also something hidden, and more eminent than that which appears, and exceeding it in incomparable value. Therefore the letter kills me, if I follow the letter alone; but the Spirit gives life to him who well obeys the Spirit: and while the letter in a certain way draws back from the veil, the Spirit fulfills the one who goes beneath and clears away the treasure hidden therein, and thus attains those infinite riches. The birds, turtle doves and pigeons, were pure, as it has been said, and the turtle doves indeed [are symbols of] the highest temperance, which they embrace to such a degree that, if death befalls their spouse, the survivor does not endure to be joined to another, but passes the rest of its life in celibacy, cultivating widowhood rather than enduring the marital contact of another mate. Pigeons, however, are most pure from malice, and free from every harmful thing, which is why Christ calls them simple, and they return immediately even to their own persecutors, as though they had suffered nothing evil: which is a sign of the highest innocence, and, if I may so speak, an indication of manifold simplicity. And indeed the chaste turtle doves live privately and solitarily; but the harmless pigeons are not only tame and dwellers in houses, but even very fond of men. Let that most lovable pigeon persuade you of this, returning to the ark to Noah, bringing an olive branch in its mouth, and declaring the mercy of the Lord and the end of the flood,

mystically, as it appeared to the Father and to the Spirit, the ^A benign advent of Christ, which in the last times He displayed, truly full of the love of mercy. For it was evening then too, when at the time of Noah, according to our origin from Adam the father of life, that leaf-bearing branch flew back, and prophetically announced to us the future mercy of Christ God, as the age was inclining.

21. Christ therefore clearly wills that those approaching temperance should especially possess the purity and perceive the splendor of innocence, and be more illuminated by these; and [He wills that we] exhilarate Christ Himself, who created them and descended to save them by that mercy which He had toward mankind; so that He may both see and rejoice, and gladly receive those coming to meet Him together. For there is no other thing by which God is so worshipped as by the perfection of temperance and chastity and every innocence. Moreover, it is honorable, pleasant, and quiet, and free from the heat of business, to adhere to God as far as this is possible, and not to be zealously involved in any matter, distracted, that is, and torn away by worldly occupations: to which indeed that song seems to speak: "Be still and see, for I am God 39," as if always desiring to manifest His illuminating holiness to those who will be at leisure in life for Him alone. Honesty also shines forth likewise with mildness, and communion and mutual love, by which one will be able to act rightly, and by which mercy is conveniently felt toward one's neighbor, with which humanity is naturally conjoined—in which matters there comes about a very great assimilation to God Himself.

22. But why did He bring two things? For the law commanded this: because one and the same Christ is perceived as twofold in natures, and known in two without division ^B or confusion, both divine and human, of which He is also composed. But we ourselves, being constant in soul and body, are constituted as twofold, appearing both in soul and in body, so that we may do what is honorable in both; and not indeed fulfill virtue with one part, while we limp with the other, and lack the splendor of virtues. And the Lord Himself, who is known as the good bestower of all virtue, was teaching this when He said: "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect 40." For if anything is imperfect and incomplete, it is judged to be immediately unacceptable even to God.

23. Knowing this, therefore, let us also, most desirous of ^C Christ God, go to meet Him together: bringing temperance, introducing chastity, carrying innocence, showing a forgetfulness of injuries, separating ourselves from secular cares, and standing pure before God, contributing a gentleness of morals, benevolence, and having mutual love for all, and adding to all these a mind that pities all, and abounding in mercy proceeding from a pitying mind; let us thus receive Christ as He approaches, thus let us look upon Christ, thus let us embrace Christ in a divine manner with our arms, and with prophetic words confess Him openly, praising His advent to us, and proclaiming with our mouth and with great voices the mercy which He exercised toward us, so that we may both attain the kingdom of heaven and enjoy eternal goods in Christ Himself, our Redeemer and Savior God, with whom to the good God the Father and the most holy Spirit be glory, honor, and adoration everywhere, both now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.

IV.

Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Oration on the Exaltation of the Venerable Cross and on the Holy Resurrection.

^D The panegyris of the Cross is here, and who would not exult? It is the preaching of the Resurrection, and who would not be moved to joy? For the Cross, which was fixed in the place of Calvary, and held the Lord of the universe nailed to it...

^A, has rent asunder the handwriting, and delivered us from the bonds of sin [Coloss. II, 14], which our progenitor Adam, transgressing the commandments of God, had signed; and with gladness he caused us to skip like calves whose bonds have been loosed. "For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" [Rom. V, 20]. But the Resurrection has exterminated the corruption of death, and driven away the darkness of Hades, and raised the dead from their tombs; and, to speak prophetically, it has wiped away tears from every face, and bestowed upon every man the grace which is truly without succession. For the gift of the Resurrection is not particular, nor does the magnitude of this benefit extend to only a few. For He was the God and Lord of all creation who, according to human nature, wrought the tomb or rather the Resurrection in it; He who is not accustomed to give benefits that flow only to a few, and with whom there is no respect of persons. For since He is the most true Lord of all things, He pours out the gifts of grace and salvation upon all, for He has regard for His own image, and renews it most perfectly, since every human being, without exception, has been fashioned after the image of God.

The commemoration of the Cross is celebrated; who among men will not crucify himself?

^A of all this is? Formerly, the Cross indeed preceded the Resurrection; now, however, the Resurrection possesses the Cross as its leader and forerunner.

O the astonishing transformation! For I see here too the word of the Savior ^B clearly fulfilled: "Behold, the last have become first, and the first have become last." And who, indeed, could explain the cause of this exchange and change? For it is not the case that they were moving at speeds such that one rushed ahead and the other lagged behind as if sluggish. For why, as before, did not the divine Cross rise up and shine forth first, and the light-bearing Resurrection shine ^C three days after it? Truly, what our ancestors had in view in making this change, none of us could say for certain and with assurance. We think, however, and we conjecture, and we persuade ourselves, that those who come from the ends of the earth for the adoration of both were the cause of this sequence and reversal; so that, after they have first attended and celebrated the most joyful and splendid festival of the Resurrection, ^D and then immediately upon this have beheld the blessed exaltation of the Cross, they might carry away with them a fine and saving provision—its all-powerful accompaniment—having the Cross as a companion traveling with them on land, and sailing with them at sea; as a giver of salvation and a vanquisher of all distress, which proves in very deed how the immense power of the Cross has embraced all the ends of the earth, and how it fills all things, and is present everywhere without labor, snatching the faithful from all difficulties and procuring salvation for those who worship it, and rendering the schemes of all our enemies void.

Perhaps there is also some other more hidden reason known to the ancient teachers of this Church, which we do not blush to confess publicly is unknown to us. May God grant us the knowledge of this too, as we firmly believe, for the sake alone of your benefit—you who are most faithful. What, then, is more exalted than these blessed festivals for us? What among all things that exist is holier than these sacred assemblies and feasts? Or how shall we not rejoice and exult while we celebrate these feasts? The radiance of the Resurrection, and the brilliant adoration of the Cross: these are the trophies of all our salvation. These, having delivered us from death and the passions, and from the most foul molestation of the demons, have brought us back to our Master, having destroyed the gloomy and wretched, and having spread for us the light of those things that are full of joy. Or does not the life-bearing Resurrection grant us the entrance to immortal life? Or does not the exalted Cross free us from passions and perturbations? Truly, these have made us once again partakers of that likeness and intimacy with God, for the sake of which it was also instituted and has risen for all of us who inhabit the earth.

^A Since, therefore, we recognize the mystical power of these things, and the great benefits they have bestowed upon us, and the gifts of which they have become the means for us, let us celebrate them as beautifully and piously as they themselves desire to be honored: not with beds and wantonness, not with strife and envy, not with rapine and injustice; and I pass over the rest of the list in silence. For I dare to say, most beloved brothers, partners in the same faith with us, and partakers of the same spiritual fruits and gifts, that if anyone wishes to honor them in such a way, not only will they not look upon or admit such a person, but they will turn away and abhor him as one who leads a life unworthy of them and commits deeds utterly loathsome to them. Therefore, I exhort and urge you to flee and shun those things which we know are hateful to such august and venerable mysteries, and to pursue and perform with all zeal those things which we know are pleasing and acceptable to them. And they are pleased and gladdened by all things which lead the one who practices them toward salvation, and guide him toward eternal life. Or did they not shine forth upon us from Christ, bringing us a life that knows no end, and a light that does not fade? Therefore, let us also change our ways of life, and laying aside our former conduct as harmful and destructive, let us run easily in the newness of life. Or does the resurrection not grant us the inheritance of life? Or has the cross not crucified our old man? ^B If, therefore, we revere the resurrection and keep its feast, let us also love a newer life, by which we shall not be friends only in word, but also most intimate initiates of it. But if we venerate and kiss the cross, why do we not also crucify our passions along with the members (which are upon the earth), so that we too may cry out with Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me"? If, then, Christ is said to live in those who have crucified themselves to the world and have mortified "the members which are upon the earth," as Paul shouts and testifies, why do we not also undertake similar works, and mortify every earthly member—passion, evil desires, and the rest of that kind—so that Christ may also live in us and grant us life without old age? Therefore, let us pursue peace with all, and together with it acquire ^C sanctification for ourselves; for without these "no one will ever see the Lord," as Paul has again testified to us. And for this reason Christ is also proclaimed as peace: "For He Himself is," he says, "our peace." And He has been called "sanctification." Peace, indeed, as the author of peaceful concord and union, uniting heavenly things with earthly, and constituting one Church out of both. And sanctification and redemption (for this name also, among others, He has attained) in that He is our liberator, since we were captives; and He has not only liberated us from the yoke of demons and passions, but has also implanted in our breasts a certain divine sanctification. ^D

and zeal that you have heard with your own ears, let us pursue and attain, and seize with all our striving and intention; and through these may we be joined to Christ in that fair and blessed union. For He will not cast out from His goodness and blessedness the one who comes to Him in this manner; God forbid! Let us hasten, therefore, to acquire this harmony with Him, than which nothing is more precious; and let us hasten to purchase for ourselves the life of Christ within us, than which nothing is more powerful, so that having acquired this wealth, we may also enjoy the kingdom of heaven and find eternal life in Him, Christ our God and Savior, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ORATION V. — ON THE FEAST OF THE HOLY CROSS

^B The oration of Sophronius, most holy among monks, afterwards Patriarch of Jerusalem, delivered on the adoration of the venerable and life-giving Cross in the middle week of the holy Quadragesima; and that by sincere fasting, having purified our minds, we are able to approach blamelessly and partake of the divine mysteries.

Translated by Godefrido Tilmanno. — GRETSER. II, 223.

Indeed, all physicians, as soon as they perceive the initial onslaughts of diseases coming upon us, by skillfully mixing certain specifically prepared medicines, ward off the infirmities that are about to invade the body through a lack of appetite, so that no malady may take root ^C and cause unbearable pain to the sufferer. Often, too, from their vast experience, they are accustomed to easily drive away even chronic ailments from the body, especially if the patient happens to have surrendered himself to the hands of the physician and, becoming obedient, follows his prescriptions. In the same way, our good God has acted towards us. And He provides us with a medicine that is without pain, namely this holy and most excellent fasting, which is not defined by times and seasons, but is kept continuously, as it bridles the appetites of the flesh and restrains the growth of that feeding which arises from self-indulgence in the body, so that it may not, by warring against the soul on account of its innate love of pleasure, cast it into the abyss ^D and cause no small ruin. For truly, according to the voice of the great herald Paul, they are drawn up against one another in close battle. "For the flesh," he says, "lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another." (Gal. 5:17)

^A For this reason, then, beloved, God, the Lord of all, has set before us all the forty-day fast, for the sake of the many struggles and for the overthrow of the aerial spirits; so that, having thoroughly cleansed ourselves, we may reach, through a pure life, the Lord's day of the three-day and life-giving resurrection, and, cleansed ourselves, may appear before our pure God and rise again with Him, and be glorified with Him, and be lovingly received by Him. For even a traveler, when he ^B must journey daily toward an appointed place, if he merely catches sight of the resting-place, feels greater eagerness for the journey, even if he should have been exhausted by the length of the most difficult road, being greatly nourished by the hope of relief. For we too are travelers, passing through our brief life and making our journey; some, having lived well, arrive at the kingdom above, where our citizenship is; while others, who have lived wickedly—like me—will be seen having been buried down in some lowest pit of their own passions, by which, while living, they were enslaved and held captive.

And how, they say, can one run toward the things above while still remaining in this life? How? I say, by being winged through a mind purged by contemplation, and by rejoicing together with the powers above, celebrating the destruction of the foe of all mankind; so that in soul and body, through the gentle fast and the touching of the life-giving and immaculate Wood, we may be cleansed from both sides, ^C and leap for joy, as we have said, with the heavenly powers, whose fellow citizens we shall become when the Judge comes down from heaven. And how, he says, can this come to pass? When we are found worthy to touch the life-giving and immaculate Cross with pure lips, through both the illumination of our presiding mind and the turning away and opposition of the contrary spirits; for our good God has shown us this path through the tradition of the holy Fathers—I mean the path of the fast, which is highly beneficial—so that, having contributed a little toward our own toil, and having been cleansed from the filth, and having suppressed the traps of the passions, we might merit receiving perfect forgiveness through the touching of the life-giving Wood from Him who was fastened to it, as will be seen hereafter; otherwise, how could one serve the other, and lead us, as if by the hand, to the Lord's day of the Resurrection? ^D For the fast creates lightness for the body, while the adoration of the venerable Cross, provided it is utterly sincere, softens the mind and calls it away from the murky filth of the most obscene works, and leads us back, as if restoring us, to that heavenly kingdom.

^A But indeed, O fasting, an instrument clearly iron-wrought and supplied to us by the providence of God, by which, like a most sharp two-edged axe, the unseasonable and vicious appetites sprouting up within us are cut away. And indeed, what Adam lost as soon as he had it—being declared an exile from the communion of paradise—Moses, on the contrary, by keeping it with himself, was deemed worthy to see God. O fasting, more powerful than any fire, which reduced the Chaldean fire to ashes and preserved the three children without a trace of a wound! O fasting, which, although it brought some sadness to the prophet Jonah, preserved the city of the Ninevites unharmed. If anyone should desire to trace out the manifold way of fasting, he would be able to attain it with almost no effort, and might even be able to perceive something of the inscrutable judgments of God.

^B But lest we praise fasting alone and its life-giving gifts, come, let us set forth in the midst what is set before us in the midst of fasting—the life-giving wood of the precious Cross, which was fixed in the midst of the earth for our salvation. What, and how shall we sing hymns to it, in mouth and in heart? Thus let us say, crying out and speaking to it: Hail, precious Cross, upon which the Son of God and Word, having stretched out His hands, embraced us and brought us to the heavenly Father. Hail, Cross, through which our senses are cleansed of every stain by our wholehearted embrace of you! Hail, Cross, which procured wordless joy for our fathers through Him who was truly nailed upon you! Hail, Cross, bewilderment of the flaming sword, which, on your account, turns its back to the grateful thief. ^C Hail, Cross, which we, the faithful people, the holy nation, now holding, offer in your supplications to Christ and God, who was fixed upon you; wherefore we greatly boast in you, because our Master stretched out His immaculate hands upon you, and upon you was poured out the blood of the Son and Word, the invisible Father, of which those who piously partake today are propitiated to our life-giving God for the evils they have already committed; and we easily obtain their absolution through the extreme condescension that He showed toward us, and through the remembrance of His life-giving passion.

Hail, Cross, victory-making weapon of the great King, which in His second and fearful coming is ^D destined to travel along with the heavenly powers and the assemblies of all the righteous, who will also shine forth with you like luminaries, declaring and making a way for the coming of the King of all creation, whose power of grace and the ineffable beauty of the glory stored up in you—which you received from Jesus who was nailed upon you—will shine forth more clearly along with the righteous for the shame of the Jews, but for the boasting of those who...

^Agression, and will be the glory and exultation of those who have diligently contemplated thy proper and divinely-implanted power while they were yet established in this thick and very heavy bulk of flesh. But certainly, O venerable Cross, defender and most faithful guardian of Christians, and most powerful vanquisher of all opposing assaults, look upon us with that splendor which is in thee; make the power of our heart, which is capable of discerning, shine out with that brightness, and illumine us, so that we too may choose to suffer something such as the Son and Word of the invisible Father suffered upon thee, and that we, for His sake, might set our souls even unto death, just as He did for ours. For if we should wish to choose to suffer this, and to select this good and pleasant path, we shall be able with ease to be conformed to His passions, the reach of which—attaining through the power of thy working—may we be found worthy to become spectators and worshippers of the irresistible authority of Him who through thee mortified death; and make us worthy to behold at once the light-bearing and dawn-bringing day of Pascha with joyful gladness, as an earnest of that more perfect and truer Pascha, and for the enjoyment of those eternal goods, of which may we all partake by the grace and philanthropy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with His holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

VI. HOMILY OF SOPHRONIUS, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, ON THE HOLY ARCHANGELS AND ANGELS, AND THE REST OF THE HEAVENLY POWERS.

^B Purify, I beseech you, the internal approaches of my soul, design them; and having consumed and taken away the thorny matter that clings to it, insert the divine word into my breast; and having completely eliminated and dispersed the darkness of my heart, illuminate the inmost senses of my mind.

O you Cherubim, full of eyes and four-formed, who correspond in proportion to the internal powers and kindred forms of your nature, adorned in an ample and magnificent way with reasoning power—namely, with irascibility, and again with fortitude, and with heavenly loftiness—and who are full of all wisdom (for which reason you are also called fountains and springs of knowledge), polish me with the knowledge of the divine Word, and thus inflame me against the old serpent, and raise me up from the earth into the sublime.

O you divine and immaterial armies of God! O you intelligences gifted with mind and reason! It is fitting to proclaim, magnify, and invoke you step by step and in order. O Seraphim, who are adorned with six wings and placed in the first rank of the heavenly armies, you inflame all others with your ardor. Because of your unshaken stability, your freedom from corporeal concretion, your eternity communicated to you, and your power of knowing and inflaming, you bear before you a certain express likeness of the divine similarity; you are rightly called secondary lights, proceeding in a truly blessed emanation from the first light, that you may receive—as far as it is permitted—without any mediator, the splendor of that immense and infinite Triune and unique principality, which is absolute in all respects, and may make it common to other minds and intelligences. Since, therefore, you were accustomed to consume and expiate all malice and all filth by the power of inflaming and purging in which you excel, ^C and because you are designated by the names of those who inflame and heat, purify the internal accesses of my soul, and having consumed and taken away the thorny matter that clings to it, insert the divine word into my breast; and having completely eliminated and dispersed the darkness of my heart, illuminate the inmost senses of my mind.

O Thrones, kindled by ardor and inaccessible, who are the seat, vehicle, and rest of God Almighty, and who are superior to all humble and abject servitude: as you have embraced that supreme king of all among you, liberate me from all fraud and detestable work, and make me worthy of the glory and majesty of God.

O venerable Dominations, who have obtained this name for the reason that you express the divine authority by your office, and truly and properly receive the communication of heavenly goods without any impediment at all: grant to me that,

weak and infirm, may be able to rule over the perturbations of the soul that corrupt the mind, and over the snares of the demons which heavily plague the soul even unto the last breath of life.

O Powers, who have obtained an appellation consistent with your function, and are not at all able to be oppressed by any servitude or shaken by any whirlwind, and who have obtained power and stability from that only principality from which all power flows: grant me power against the visible and invisible enemies who rise up against my soul, and strive to reduce my mind to captivity, and endeavor to overturn my steps so that they are not directed according to God.

O unmoved and manly Virtues, who on account of the strength of your spirit, your fortitude, and the unconquered excellence of your powers, shadow forth the divine might and strength: encircle me, weak and infirm as I am, with divine power and fortitude, and render me fit to manfully repel and trample underfoot those spiritual serpents and scorpions.

O Principalities, not knowing how to bend or move, who have received the name and dignity of principality without controversy from the divine principality, which is devoid of any beginning and is the author of every principality, and who have been placed over the third choir of angels: be present as faithful ones, and render diligent aid so that I may triumph over the most hostile enemies, and resist them until the end, fearlessly and without a wound.

^C O thrice-holy, most lovable, and most venerable prince of the sacred militia, and minister, Michael, coryphaeus of the angels, worthy of all worship and of all praise and celebration; you who once existed as the leader of the Jewish people, and most faithfully showed them the path that was flat and closer to better things and to salvation, and who are one day to sound that huge, dreadful, and far-reaching trumpet which shall scatter its sound everywhere: at whose terrible blast those who had been dead from the ages will rise again from the hidden receptacles of the earth; and the earth, as if it were a swiveled sling, will be moved from its foundations; and the elements will be dissolved, and the sun will be poured over with a black color, and will grow dark like a haircloth sack; and the moon will be entirely converted into blood; and the stars, just as figs from a fig tree when they are shaken by a strong force of wind, will fall from heaven to earth; and the entire air, covered as if with dark clouds, will turn into night; and heaven, rolled up like a book, will vanish from the midst; and every mountain, and valley, and island, and city will be removed from its seats; and the magnates, and the powerful, and the leaders, and the judges of the earth, and the rest of the peoples will be humbled; and they will perceive that the time of the gravest sorrows, and groanings, and gnashing of teeth, and every kind of torment has now arrived, and they will be exanimate from fear and horror. When, therefore, all who are still among the living ^D shall exist in a moment, and will be changed as if in the blink of an eye; when the sea and the rivers, and hell, struck by the fear and dread of the immense evils hanging over them, shall cast forth those dead whom they held; when the just indeed, carried up by the clouds of the air, shall be snatched to meet Christ the Lord, to spend their life with Him for all eternity; but the sinners shall be sent away to the punishments which have been decreed for them; when, finally, all those admirable things which are awaited through the sound which you are about to give shall be accomplished; then, O holy arch-satrap, leader of the erring, awakener of the fallen, defender of souls, preserver of bodies, exterminator of demons, and illuminator of the entire creation; then, I beseech you, then do not be loath to be present as a faithful patron of my cause. O most holy Michael, who by the command of God didst lead the Israelite people through the sea, and didst establish them in the land of promise, and didst arm Jesus Nave against the adversaries, and didst deliver Moses' tabernacle from the bloodthirsty enemy, and didst illuminate the souls of many other saints, illuminate also my own internal senses, and lighten the internal eye of my soul; and confirm my heart, agitated by the waves of this life; and lift up my mind, inclined toward earthly things, toward heavenly wisdom; and confirm my slackened hands against enemies who are accustomed to war; and strengthen my deadened feet, so that they may not forsake the path which leads to the heavens; and raise up my neck, burdened by sins; and heal my scars, which exhale a foul odor and are plainly rotting; and calm the fire of burning passions and perturbations; and finally, cure the other miseries and burdens of my labors. Again, Michael in deed and in name, I pray you, and with as much feeling as I can, I beseech you that, when I am about to exit the race of this life, you may appear joyful and peaceful, and hide me under the honored veil of your wings, and having snatched me from the narrow and dark places of the infernal regions, establish me in the place of the admirable tabernacle, leading me even unto the house of God, in the voice of exultation and of confession and of the sound of those celebrating the festival.

You also, most divine and most excellent of the angels, Gabriel, who are the most longed-for of the world, and the best giver of joy and gladness; who are the most learned interpreter of divine arcana, and the primary administrator and procurator of all good things; who are, finally, the most august leader and prince of the sacred ministers; come now, instruct my mind and my heart, and direct me toward all the judgments and justifications of God. You who clearly disclosed to Ezekiel in the vision at the Chobar that divine scene, dissolve the stain of my barrenness. You who, by the command of God, didst release the womb of Elizabeth, which was previously unfruitful, from the bond by which it was held, and didst make the same fruitful,

^A overspread my own unhappy and afflicted soul with a certain pleasing grace, with inward gladness, and with light; for you are the one who filled the soul of our most blessed, most blameless, and most holy and pure Lady, the Mother of God, Mary, with immense joy through the joyful and saving Annunciation; and, by the promise of certain salvation, transformed the sadness and lamentation of Eve into gladness. You, who in a few moments converted the sorrow of the whole world into joy and, having rent the mourning garment, clothed everyone with the robe of gladness—again and again, O Gabriel, reconciler and giver of true joy, I entreat and implore you to visit me, pressed by grave infirmity, and to fill me with divine power and interior satisfaction; and furthermore, having rescued me from the torments of Belial and from the dangers of visible and invisible enemies, through your authority and intercession before God, bring me to the company of the just and the saints, and finally station me safely in those places that abound with every delight.

^B O you remaining angels and archangels, heavenly host, impenetrable crown, most excellent phalanx, immense multitude, numberless army, inaccessible height, incomprehensible magnitude, incomparable choir, knowledge superior to every investigation, inexplicable joy, most admirable procession, quantity exceeding all thought, subtlety ignoring measure, agility to which no other is similar, infinitely multiplex order, unspeakable swiftness, substance that cannot be circumscribed, glory that is unknown to the calculation of the mind, power greater than all virtue and strength; you are the ministers of the King of all; you are winds and spirits, and waters, and Princes, and powers, and armies, and deacons, and apostles, and preachers, and prophets, and evangelists, and interpreters of divine things, and guardians, and presidents, and conservators, and agents, and conductors, and guides of the way, and inquisitors, and weighers of books, and calculators, and curators, and illuminators, and givers of wealth, and luminaries, and lanterns, and lamps, and mountains, and hills, and clouds, and judges, and receivers, and narrators, and defenders, and combatants, and champions, and divine mirrors, and images, and likenesses, and sailors, and ships, and governors. You are they who traverse the heaven with most swift course; who run through the air with most rapid and agitated motion; ^C who fill the heavens and the ethers; who are present as guardians and companions to every man; who perform the will of the Creator without turning; who hear the voice of His words without intermission; who always grow and progress, and receive perpetual increases (for God alone is He in whom no change falls); who are called celestial bodies; who are called minds and tabernacles of God; who are named coals, and whirlwinds, and flames; who are called mystagogues, and interpreters of mysteries, and friends of the King of all, and musicians, as well as ministers of the sacred, and deacons.

Since, therefore, you are adorned with such and so great glory, and are heaped with so many prerogatives, I deservedly ask and beseech your kindness, O good angels and archangels, void of every stain: I supplicate your majesty, O undefiled spirits, to preserve my life unoffending, my hope unbroken, my morals blameless, and my love toward God and neighbor entire and free from every stumbling block. Guide me, I beseech you, and lead me, and direct me toward every saving and God-pleasing path. Again, O divine spirits, I desire, having requested and many times implored you, that when, at the final breath of my life, I shall be compelled to depart from this earthen vessel, and you are to weigh all my actions in the balance, and to examine all things which I have designated either openly or secretly, that you then—or at least those of your order whom God will then send to receive my unhappy and miserable soul—may show yourselves placid and merciful to me, and may dexterously lift the balance, which I have wretchedly weighed down by my evil deeds, and ^D may study to unload it by every reason and art, as ministers of the only merciful God. Moreover, in place of good and honest works, from which it was possible to conceive hope, set forth the immense mercy of the Lord in the midst, O most laudable and most excellent minds, praying that, through your intercession, He may deign to admit, in compensation for my sins and in remission and pardon of the condemnation and not-uncommon torments which I have justly deserved, all the afflictions, and diseases, and calamities which I have ever borne in life, and in their stead and place, to count and reckon them: so that, with the enemy once overcome and vanquished through divine grace, for the sake of my miserable soul which has been saved, a great joy may arise in heaven, with the most merciful Creator summoning you and saying: "Congratulate me, my friends, for I have found the sheep that had once wandered in the mountains." Finally, when the day of consummation shall arrive, and the end of the world is already knocking at the gates, and the heavens shall tremble, and the firmament shall totter, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken, and the abyss of the abyss shall freeze with fear, and the underworld shall shudder with dread, and the divisions of the immense sea shall turn into fire, and all the elements shall be dissolved like wax from the face of the fire, and those who lie buried in the recesses of the earth shall be resurrected, and the figure of this world shall pass away, and the terrible Judge shall stand on the very threshold, and you, anticipating His coming, shall run through the boundaries and ends of the earth, so that you may gather together all mortals who have died from the beginning of time, and may present them all at once to the incorruptible Judge, so that each one may give an account of every work, and every thought, and every conception of the mind: then, I beseech you—nor shall I ever cease to beseech you until the end of my life—you who survey all things, and perform the public ministries of God not without authority, and by this very…

Oratio VII. — ENCOMIUM IN S. JOANNEM BAPTISTAM

^A ...a certain royal dignity before yourselves, since you also bring forth scepters, and rods, and spears (for by these things you clearly show the power of coercing and punishing in which you excel), then, I say, then, I beseech you, be propitious, and, as princes of that thrice-excellent King, spare a miserable and unhappy man, and by your intercession before God, deliver me from that sad and angry sentence which banishes one into eternal fire. On the contrary, make me, together with my fellow-laborers and kinsmen, whose names and calling He who knows all things knows, a participant of that joyful and pleasant calling, and of that life which lacks all sorrow and needs nothing, and finally declare me an heir of the joy which never has an end.

O Lord, Savior, God and Word, who holdest dominion in the highest; who art without beginning, and containest all things; who art powerful in mighty strength, and bringest life to all, fear to all; who didst create by Thy nod alone the heaven and the earth, and all things which are contained in their compass; who didst first conceive the angels in Thy mind, and whose conception was a work: for what Thou hadst conceived in mind, that Thou didst complete and perfect by Thy word alone. Then, with like art and facility, Thou didst form man from the dust of the earth, after Thine own image and likeness, and, having formed him, and reduced him a little lower than the angels, and adorned him with free will, Thou didst constitute him king and lord of all created things; to the end, namely, that he might enjoy those good things which Thou hadst prepared for him in paradise, which he enjoyed also for a time until, captured and seduced by the serpent and his wife, he transgressed Thy divine commandments ^C by tasting, in truth, the fruit of the deadly tree: wherefore he fell headlong from his royal dignity, and, excluded from paradise, ^D fell into a punishment worthy of his deeds; that is, into weeping and a servile state, into sweat, labor and molestation, into sadness and pain, and, what is truly the most bitter of all torments, finally into a just death, and dissolution into the earth from which he had first been taken and brought forth. But Thou, O Lord, truly clement and merciful, ^A that flock, that possession, which Thou didst hold dear above all others, which the tyranny of the devil had oppressed, Thou didst by no means despise; but, being about to fulfill that tremendous mystery which Thou hadst defined before all ages, Thou Thyself, who art the wisdom, and mind, and Word, and character, and end, and image, and seal, and Son, and express form of the Father, didst empty Thyself. For Thou didst also dwell in the chaste Virgin through the Holy Spirit, and didst assume from her a birth which exceeds all reason. Nor didst Thou altogether loosen the virginal seals; but, void of flesh, in a way which Thou knowest, having entered into her, and having been clothed with flesh, Thou didst go forth from her again, the gate of the womb being left closed, as it was before. Soon Thou didst undergo the cross, offered gall and vinegar mixed together to drink, and pierced with a spear thrust into Thy side. Having at length suffered death voluntarily, Thou didst destroy death itself, and didst endow the whole world with immortality; and Thou didst restore to its integrity the fallen and deformed image, and didst erase the ancient curse which had been inflicted through the tree. Thou, therefore, King and Creator of all things, who alone art the architect of such and so many admirable things, and didst create all things which exist until now for the common utility of mortals, and art accustomed to punish those liable to penalty not without paternal affection, when, sitting before the tribunal, Thou shalt be about to bring all to judgment, deign to place me on the right with all those whose memory I hold in my mind. O inspector of all things, and knower of things hidden, with the crimes which I have at any time ^C committed, now consigned to oblivion, do Thou, O immortal ^D Bridegroom, open to me the door of the bridal chamber, that is, heavenly glory. O immortal Bridegroom, make us hear the voice of blessing. O Beneficent One, enroll us in the number of the just, and by the intercession of Thy joy, of Thy blameless Mother, and of the holy angels, and apostles, and prophets, and martyrs, and of all the just who have been from the beginning of the world, make us partakers, Thou who with Thy Father and the Holy Spirit art blessed now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Encomium on Saint John the Forerunner.

1. O voice of the Word, give us a voice! O lamp of the light, give us thy splendor! O Precursor of the Word, grant us the course of the word, so that today we may exult while celebrating with worthy praises thyself! For the mind has impelled us to sing to thee things greater than those to thy fathers and contemporaries, O blessed John! since we are filled with more than thine...

^A gifts than all those of thy ancestors. ^B And since we are unable to provide this from our own resources, we run again to thee, the benevolent Giver, and ask that thou thyself become the dispenser of our praises. This is so that, by honoring thee only with words from us, we might not appear to some as insolent for the insignificance of our words, and liable to contempt, or else as grateful praisers before those who do not know our poverty in rhetoric, but who demand that the speech be of equal stature to the honor and worth of the person being honored; and who do not grant pardon to the intent of the speaker, when it cannot bear the flame of longing, if it happens to reach beyond its own strength by force. For that those who would wish to crown thee with eulogies would fall far from the mark of thy worth, and remain quite a long way off, no one would dispute with his mouth, unless he were mad and had departed from his natural sense. What then must he do, who, hour by hour, because of thy countless gifts, is like a tree planted by waters, receiving its strength from the incessantly flowing waves, and from thy life-giving infusion gathers my own progress? Is it right to be silent and to shout no thanksgiving at all, because one is not able to do so according to one's worth; or to shout as one is able and might, and in this way demonstrate the uncontainable nature of the sentiment within him, even if that shout cannot reveal the magnitude of this due to the smallness of the speaker? For the man who tries is judged worthy of pardon, even if he calculates his share among the grateful; just as that foreigner and alien did, from among the ten lepers cleansed by the Savior—who is counted among the ungrateful mob that did not entreat their benefactor with their full strength: for though purified of their languor, ^C they did not give glory to God who had given them the cleansing.

2. Therefore, there must be no silence, but praises must be attributed to thee with affection, even if we do not reach the height of thy greatness. By no means let us pluck the stain of those nine, but let us have the celebrated company of him who was judged more grateful. Shout within us, O Baptist, just as thou didst shout before in the desert: for we are deserts in word and voice and splendor, with which the crown of thy glory is woven. Nay, shout even more loudly within us: we will shout when thou shoutest, and we will be silent when thou art silent, even if we were about to utter great shouts. Our shout will be reckoned as nothing unless it has drawn its crashing sound from thy divine shout, and nowhere in the lands will our voice be heard unless it has taken its resonance from thy great voice. ^D Therefore, all the more we call upon thee for help and entreat thee to unbind our tongue, lacking voice, from its shackles, just as at thy birth thou didst loosen the tongue of thy father Zacharias! Grant also to us humble supplicants a voice for spreading thy praises far and wide, just as thou, as an infant, didst gift thy progenitor with a voice to publicly proclaim thy name. If his tongue was bound until thy arrival loosed it and thou didst move him to salute thee, how shall we move our own tongue to thy praise?

^C 3. But the word, having arrived at the starting line of my discourse and being dazzled by the multitude of thy miracles, is held in greater perplexity as to where it should begin the narrative concerning thee. Shall I mention as first the birth that the archangel Gabriel announced to the world as the prologue of joy? Or the pregnancy that the barren, aged woman concealed as marvelous? Or the inward leap that proclaimed God within the womb to all? Or shall I desire to recount the birth from the barren one? Or the fact that she completed a three-days' journey and remained for three months, so that she who was to be the virgin mother of One of the Trinity might see thy marvelous birth and believe it firmly and securely, having been conceived without union? Or the lactation that for thee a woman bent by deep old age miraculously poured forth from dry breasts? Or the manner of life in the desert, which the world could not contain? Or the manifestation from the desert, which was the last and first made to Israel, which revealed Christ and preached the kingdom of heaven? Or the Jordan in which thou didst purify the people, and through which Christ purified thee, having taken thee as a minister of His own baptism? The commandments which thou didst humanely prescribe to those who obeyed, and the threats which thou didst sternly bring against those who disobeyed? The boldness through which thou didst rebuke rulers and kings, and at which King Herod deservedly trembled, even if on account of a woman's lust he cast off his fear? Or the noble beheading and the removal of thy venerable head, by which thou didst establish thyself as a twofold Forerunner of the Savior; for thou didst not only go before and precede Him on earth, but thou didst also descend into Hades as a forerunner for those who were waiting and remaining there, just as thou didst preach saving redemption to those on earth?

^D 4. But which of thy wonders shall we approach first? Or which shall we leave for second? Since each possesses an excellence that is joint-heir, and each naturally contends to be set at the prologue and to receive the goal of the entire present panegyrical discourse within itself, and does not allow the tongue to be carried away to another narrative, so that it might not be left incomplete and unfulfilled by him. It seems right to us that if we keep the order of time, and that which is first in time should also now be first in words; so that it may take the proper order, providing an appropriate and brief narrative for each, and avoid the confusion of chronological change; praising in this Laban the crafty, because he did not suffer the younger of his daughters to be betrothed in marriage before the elder, and this although she was desired and requested as a reward by the suitor, on account of the grace of her body and the gifts of her soul. Therefore, let our word be brought back again to the beginning of the word and the marvelous conception, if it is to set the prologue to the entrance into being and everything else in order, as he who is praised by us grants us the word.

^A Perhaps, indeed, a word even higher than this would not be disadvantageous for him to bring forward. For he will show, even in this way, that he was to be great even before this conception in the womb, and that he would appear in expectation of greater blessings, not being ignorant of our fall in Adam. For through this we were indeed acting wretchedly, and were going off into earth and corruption, as we, who have all once heard: “Earth you are, and to the earth you shall return” (Gen. III, 19), were persuaded; for this happened to be the condemnation of our nature on account of our disobedience. But it was not that alone which was demonstrated to be the wretchedness of human life; rather, it had godlessness mixed into it. For we abandoned the Creator and Master of everything, and we worshipped created things that were our fellow-servants, and we called the works of our own hands gods. ^B And therefore we were enslaved to passions of dishonor, because we offered the honor due to God alone to dishonorable idols and demons. Such was the malady of our nature, which, not having received a preeminent greatness, stood in need of a very great remedy. And this was for the Creator to be made like us creatures, and for God to become human after our likeness through the composition with human flesh; and to take up into Himself all of our natural and non-blameworthy passions; and to demonstrate this complete separation, and thus to save clearly the human being who had been willfully seized and held by these, and to re-unite him to the first state of blessedness, which He had prepared for him from the beginning.

^C 5. God promised to effect this first to Abraham, and in his seed He granted that all the tribes of the earth should be blessed, through the incarnation of His Only-Begotten Son and Word; after Abraham, He confirmed this by oath to David, and covenanted to place the King of glory upon his royal throne from the fruit of his loins, whenever the present age should arrive at its end, and the law written by Him should receive the fullness in the appointed time. To see and behold this, not only did Abraham and David, who were deemed worthy to obtain such promises, desire it, but many prophets and kings also longed for it, just as Christ, the desire of all the saints, declared to the blessed assembly of his own disciples in the Gospels. The last things of the present age were therefore at hand, and the promise was receiving its own fulfillment for each, and the law was awaiting the fulfillment expected through Christ; ^D and all the prophets and righteous in Jerusalem, awaiting the redemption of Israel, and learning by the Spirit that this was at hand, longed to behold its arrival, not only with the eyes of the soul but also of the body, before they should depart from the present life. And they did not merely long for it, but they also prayed and offered supplications to God, and since they were worthy, they obtained their petitions. Such was Simeon, who, as a priest, received Christ in his arms and confessed Him as Master of all the

^A creation. Such was that Anna, who, having spent her long widowhood decorously, and having attended upon God in the temple night and day, stood then by the prophetic Spirit and manifested Christ, who was present, to those who were present at that time. Such was Joseph of Arimathea, the bold embalmer of the Life of all, and for this reason proclaimed an honorable counselor, because he rejected the counsel of the Jews against the Savior as shameful and unbecoming. “For he,” it is said, “had not been consenting to their counsel and deed.” He alone, however, counseled his own course—as brilliant and honorable—honorably and brilliantly. Such was Zacharias also acknowledged to be, both elder and priest, who, through his advanced age and the death that follows upon such old age, offered up to God earnest and frequent prayers, ^B so as not to be deprived of the spectacle awaited by all, nor to see the expected death, which sat at the gates, before that sight. This petition the elder always brought forward: praying that the light of salvation might quickly shine forth for all, and that he himself might see the rising of this light. And so that he might not, by his time of life which was peaking in that age, be snatched away bereft of that contemplation, he made his request for this unceasingly, and especially since he offered to God the worship according to the Law, so that the replacement of these by a more spiritual and perfect service might very quickly come to pass, and that those who had the same lot laid upon them might be delivered from the burden of the yoke. For according to the timing and the rotation of the incense-offering, they stood at the entrance into the Holy of Holies; ^C into which, however, only the high priest used to enter once a year, carrying blood in his hands and clearly showing by this enigma the one and only future oblation of Christ the Savior, which, as High Priest and Lamb, He offered to Himself and to God the Father for us men as a sacrifice.

6. Having come, then, to this point, Zacharias (for he was worthy of such a ministry), standing by the altar and waiting by the persistence of his prayer for the manifestation of the Word, observed a divine angel standing on the right side of the altar, where he was offering the sweet-smelling incense, bringing him a message ^D of good and heavenly tidings. Gabriel was the minister of these announcements—he who by his very name, even before his words, declares his message; for he comes to announce the preliminaries of the divine incarnation of the Word of God, concerning which the elder was fervently praying. Seeing him shaken by the vision and adding tremor to his fear—for it is written, “Zacharias was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him”—because he was fashioning within himself the agitation of the Law and the transition to the evangelical way of life, the divine angel first removes the turmoil of fear and then begins the gospels. For those things being said were not for fear, but were the precursors of fearlessness and joy. What did he say? “Fear not, Zacharias, for thy petition was heard.” As if crying out, What do you fear, O elder? What do you fear [3330, D] and for what do you seek a response, obtaining one for your requests? What are you bearing, being delivered from the burden of the Law? ...

Why are you troubled at seeing the passing of the shadow? Why are you terrified at seeing the removal of those things which are being shaken? For the things announced by me are indeed fearful, but they are not productive of fear to those who hear them; I have great mysteries to tell you, but it is not fitting for you, when hearing these things precisely, to be held by agitation and fear; rather, you should rejoice and be glad with me; for these things have been established as productive of gladness and joy. The redemption of men is present; the resurrection of the fallen has drawn near; the end of the Law has arrived; the season of grace has dawned. And you shall see the culmination of these things before long with your own eyes: the Word of God made flesh from the Virgin, born after the manner of us human beings, and liberating the whole race of man; you shall be not only a spectator of the things you desired to see, but also a blessed minister. And that you might give credence to my words, I will lead you into confidence with a new prodigy, telling you those things which you never expected to see henceforth. What are they? "Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son to you, and you shall call his name John: and he shall be joy to you and exultation, and many shall rejoice at his birth; for he shall be great before the Lord, and he shall not drink wine or strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb; and many of the sons of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God; and he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, and shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." ^C 7. Do you see what triumphs are witnessed by angelic voices for John, even before his conception in the womb? For Samuel was indeed born of a barren woman, but not of one advanced in years nor of a father older and aged. Isaac, too, was born of parents advanced in years and who had passed the time and strength for childbearing; but he was not filled with the Holy Spirit from their womb; nor was any other of these men adorned with the honors with which John is adorned even before his birth. Samuel was a prophet, and he truly acted as one who sees; for he saw future things as if they were present, and he did not drink wine or strong drink, but he did not inhabit the desert, nor was he nourished on strange foods; nor, being born, did he cause joy to many, as John, who, the greatest, ran before the universal joy, leading the way. A fruit of a barren woman was also the most wise Joseph; and before him, the blessed Jacob, whom Rachel, who was barren, bore to him; and ^D Joseph was continent (for he set up the trophy of continence against the Egyptian woman), but he was not a leader of virginity as John became. How much virginity differs from continence, the very dignity of the virtues demonstrates, and that most excellent place for sons and daughters, granted only there in heaven to those who honor the virginity of Christ with both soul and body simultaneously, and have become imitators of the undefiled Virgin, who

^A bore God. Our Savior also declared this most clearly, saying: “Not all can receive this word,” ^B referring to the gift of virginity, I maintain, but only those whom Jesus has ordained for it through His divine foreknowledge. Jacob was loved by God while he was still in his mother’s womb; for to the mother carrying the son in her breast, a divine voice descended, saying: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Yet, while in the womb, he was not filled with the Holy Spirit. He was able to wrestle with God during the night, for the night of ignorance of God was then spread everywhere. But he was not able to run ahead of God or to baptize God; this is what John alone among men dared to do. For as the dawn of the knowledge of God rose, the radiant light of the true day shone forth too; and Jacob departed from the struggle unconquered but limping in his thigh—because of those who were to be born from his thigh—and he was entirely unable to run quickly, clearly foreshadowing by this riddle that life which remains difficult and immovable, which by the breath of divine grace fell into a destructive paralysis. John, however, was entirely free from this, even though he descended from Jacob; on the contrary, he ran most swiftly toward grace and ran ahead of the Lord, distancing himself far from the infidelity of the Jews and the mysteries of the night. ^C

8. We propose to bring forward Samson also by way of comparison.

He did not speak as the father of John, the voice crying out great and extraordinary things, but he bore the person of the Law, which restricts and holds back the voice. For Moses, who wrote of this, is recorded as being small of voice and of slow tongue. Therefore, he was immediately ^A commanded, portraying in himself the silence of the Mosaic Law, which grew silent when Christ, the great Lawgiver, appeared to us in the flesh, as he wished to become a prefiguration of the Law, for he was yielded to the angel who was purifying his silence: “I am Gabriel, who stands before God, and I was sent to speak to you and to announce these things to you; and behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day in which these things happen, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” How well the angel imposes silence, since the Maker of the voice was about to be born! And he was a type not only for those who did not believe the Law, but also for those who refused to give it faith, since the voice had been sent forth to preach. With good reason is Zacharias deprived of his own voice, as the wise Solomon says: “By what things a man sins, by these he is tormented,” that he might learn to give faith to the voice coming forth from the desert. From the barren earth, that is, his mother, John arose; he cries out in the desert to the souls of the Jews, which were not bringing forth the fruit of faith; he cries out to the nations, which previously did not have the fruit, sweet and edible, which Christ, like the food of the Samaritan woman, could have taken. To both, John was a great voice crying out in the desert: he announces salvation, he scatters ^B the fruitful seed into the arid lands of the Jews and the nations.

9. Why, then, did that elder and priest, the teacher and instructor of the Law, who awaited the consolation of Israel and always offered up fervent prayers for it, not believe the angel’s message, unless it was so that he might prefigure within himself the unbeliever under the Law? For if he thought that it was a holy angel standing at the altar, and speaking to him from there, why did he not hear his words with faith, measuring himself against the example of Abraham and Sarah in order to believe? And yet, even if this were not so, it was necessary in all things to believe God who decreed something strange and beyond nature. For what is there in the world that does not immediately incline to the will of the omnipotent God? The miraculous Job, instructed by the voice of God which fell from the cloud, cried out miraculously: “I know that Thou canst do all things, and nothing is impossible to Thee.” Unless he had suspected some power hostile and contrary to God was speaking to him, why would he have asked how faith should be added to the words, inquiring, “How shall I know this?” He knew that there was a liar from the beginning and one ignorant of the truth to be spoken: just as he lied before and is wholly in lie.

^A And he stood in no doubt about lying a second time, so that he might carry off the one caught by his first assaults into greater traps of deception. But Zacharias, the father of the great John, was not a man of such simple-mindedness—far from it! Nor did John, this sweetest fruit, spring from such a foolish root; he, who was perhaps for this reason fed on honey, because he is sweet and most pleasing to all who love the life that is set apart, beckoning and exhorting them to his own imitation by a divine sweetness. But the old man, as we have said, underwent an ecstasy, I think, like that Isaac of old, so that he might show beforehand the silence of the Law and the unbelief under the Law, and also proclaim the thunder of the Gospel, striking everything to the ends of the world and announcing the faith of the nations under grace.

10. Therefore, the priest is great and yet he disbelieves mystically; and more mystically still, he is deprived of the power of speech on account of the irrational unbelief of the Jews. Yet from him proceeds John, the precursor of the Word, bearing in himself the virtue of his begetter; for if the tree is known by its fruit, and an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, according to that divine and God-wrought voice, then if anyone should not wish to understand the old man's unbelief in this sense, he will be far inferior to Elizabeth in his virtues. For she, although she had heard nothing of these things (for the old man was dumb towards her), yet, when she saw the blessed Virgin come to her, and when she had learned of the virginal greeting, she immediately proclaimed her Mother of God. “Blessed art thou among women,” she cried with a loud voice, “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant leaped in my womb for joy.” Whom she also worthily praised, saying, “And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a completion to those things that were spoken to her from the Lord.” For she not only recognized by the Spirit that she was pregnant, but also possessed the knowledge of the things spoken to her from God through the voice of the angel—a thing which would otherwise be utterly incredible and ^B improbable. For it demonstrates Zacharias’ perfection towards God, not only that the angel was sent to him—the one who adorned these things on earth with the promise, and the birth of John the Baptist, and being honored by kinship with Christ: “For behold,” he says, “Elizabeth thy kinswoman,” the same angel who brought the glad tidings to the blessed Virgin—but also from the things which he sang prophetically after the birth of John, and announced beforehand regarding Christ: “Blessed,” he cried, “be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and wrought redemption for his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, who are from of old,” ^C along with the other things he added thereafter concerning Him, which he prayed to behold each hour before his death. ^D

^A Likewise, concerning the things which he prophesied near the end of the song regarding his own child: “And you, child,” he says, “shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of our sins, through the tender mercy of our God.” These things he spoke not from his own heart, but having become filled with the Holy Spirit; for it is written in the Gospels thus concerning him: “And Zacharias,” it says, “his father was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying.” What did he say? These things, clearly, which we have related beforehand. But it is evident that this Zacharias would not have been clearly filled with the Holy Spirit had he not been someone faithful to the Spirit and worthy of such desired fulfillment; just as he would not have been acknowledged as the father of John had he not been worthy of this esteem. Therefore, all these things should lead the way to the conception of John, showing him to be, even before his conception, greater than all those born of women; a fact which Christ, the truth itself, has most truly testified, so that no one might suspect John to be inferior to anyone among men because he did not draw his origin from great people. ^B The letter of the Gospel itself, in the place pertaining to him, especially intends this meaning, when it proclaims to those desirous of understanding: “And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame.” What then? The Gospel testifying, the parents of John, Zacharias and Elizabeth, had reached the pinnacle of virtue—the highest point to behold among men; for they possessed not only an unshaken testimony of justice in the sight of men, but also before God. For they were obliged to appear just to God alone, according to the evangelical law, which they already observed with a prophetic eye. They held to that new rule of ours, “Let not your left hand know what your right hand does,” and hastened to the commands of Christ in words and deeds. To this reckoning, they added another in particular, namely, the perfect fullness of the Mosaic precepts and justifications, so that they proceeded in both laws; hence, they brought back a distinguished crown of the old law, while on the other hand, they shone in the evangelical heights. ^C It was right and proper that the beginnings of John should be seen; thus it is demonstrated to us that John is the mediator of both Testaments, and that he possesses the excellence of both within himself. We confess that he defined the limits of the Old Testament, because he completed the assembly of the prophets: for all the prophets ceased to preach in the days of John the Baptist. Moreover, he appears as the beginning and leader of the New Testament, because he precedes the apostles; for he obtained an angelic mandate, namely, that he was to go and run before Christ. He was commanded, as an angel, to precede God, “and from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven ^D suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”

^A For, having taken its beginning from that time, it is voluntarily seized by all through the evangelical way of life. Born then of a father who was a priest and a prophet, and otherwise illustrious and God-minded, and of a holy mother who was a prophetess, this John—who possessed a preeminence among all the prophets—was conceived, he who alone prophesied while in the womb. For he recognized the Lord present in the Virgin’s womb, and he alone was filled with the Holy Spirit while in ^B the womb; thus conceiving and being conceived: conceived by a barren mother, yet himself conceiving the grace of the Spirit—a prophetic work—before he was released from the labor of birth, producing the gifts of the Spirit before he was even born. For according to the divine Isaiah, they conceive in the womb and are in labor, and then they bring forth, those who serve the prophetic Spirit and announce His hidden counsel to the public.

But John accomplished these things later, after his own miraculous conception; for he had been conceived in a barren womb and had been cast into an elderly mother by an elderly father. ^C Before this, however, he held his peace for a time, yielding to his mother's command. For he did not wish to bear the grace of the Spirit ineffectually, with which, according to the angelic voice, he was filled while yet reposing in the bosom of his mother. And when that fifth month had passed—the time which reveals the law of sensation in us, and by which the five corporeal and swifter senses are wont to be more readily excited, and in addition to which the mother hid herself in the manner of a mother—she hid this unceasing prophet within herself.

13. But now the sixth month had arrived; and the Virgin was present, carrying in her womb Him who is uncreated, yet who was being made. ^D For in the sixth month she conceived Him who created the six-day world in six days, and who created man on the sixth day, and who, having done evil through man, recreated him by the cross. John could no longer endure to keep silence, nor could his voice admit of being quiet while the Word was present. Instead, he became a premature herald, his proclamation in no way hindered by the bonds of his tongue. For he cried out by his leaping that He was present who would free us humans from our bonds, and by giving us—as though released from bonds—the ability to leap, he rejoiced, crying out in the Spirit that He had arrived who would wipe every tear from every face, and would bestow stable rejoicing upon the whole race. He stretched out his finger and pointed out the Lamb of God, who was to be slaughtered instead of the goats for the sins of men, and who would take away the sin of the world entirely. He stretched out both hands, and he heralded beforehand the trophy of the cross; that He who was present in the Virgin’s womb had come to stand against the demons. He stood upright, and he mystically proclaimed the resurrection of all from Hades by his posture—which He who was then hidden in the undefiled womb would later display when hidden in the tomb. And perhaps he would have contended with his mother, as one eager to cry out such things, had she naturally held him in the bonds of nature and kept him, though struggling, in captivity. But the mother granted her voice to him most swiftly, and addressed the blessed Virgin with these words:

"Blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" ^A For perhaps this is the proclamation of John, even if it were proclaimed by the mouth of Elizabeth; since he cried out with a voice akin to and identical with that to the Savior Christ, when again in the Jordan, as he was baptizing the crowd, He also came to be baptized by him. For he cried out then too, as he saw Him approaching: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and dost thou come to me?" Hast thou recognized the kinship of the voice? Recognize that it is he who uttered that one, and this one; the former through himself, the latter through the mouth of his mother.

14. I think, however, that one so fervent for the proclamation of Christ was interceding silently with Him who sent him against the one who was carrying him and impeding his progress: "Master, Thou didst send me to proclaim Thy ineffable arrival on earth, and ^B my mother detains me, having bound me. Thou biddest me to cry out, and she has tied my tongue; Thou hast sent me to run ahead, and she has closed my course. Thou art the Master of nature; command, and nature carries out what is commanded. Only ordain it, and my mother cannot forbid me. Only speak, and what is said shall be done immediately. For power accompanies Thy will, and all things serve Thy omnipotent decree. But if Thou dost not command me to perform these things, do not impute to me, for my laggard course, a failure regarding the course, ^C when Thou Thyself, the Lawgiver of the course, didst set the hindrance; for Thou Thyself didst establish the boundaries of nature, which the laws that serve nature cannot transgress." But the Master did not, because of John's fervor for preaching, prefer anything before the laws of nature which He had well ordained from the beginning, in accordance with which He Himself deigned to become man for our sake and to serve the laws with us. But perhaps He answered him then with those words, which after this he would bring forward at the baptism: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. III, 15). ^D Having heard which, as it is to be conjectured, John rested and dared to speak no more, although he was most vehemently struck with awe, being eager for the time appointed for all those in the womb to depart and to begin the proclamation divinely entrusted to him. And so as he saw the Creator dwelling with him for three more months, and subject to the same laws of nature, the time of birth arrived; for the Virgin who was carrying Him had remained with Elizabeth for three months, so that he who was going forth from her, and being sent as a true herald to the world, might be fully initiated into the mysteries of the most high Trinity in his mother's womb, as once Moses was in the cloud. He is born, moreover, by the command of God, who was still hidden in the virginal womb.

15. And being born, he immediately put an end to the reproach of his bearing mother, which she had suffered from the charge of barrenness. But he did not loosen the bridle of the tongue of his father, who had been begetting him, which he had from the offense of disbelief. And all the bystanders were contending about the child; the mother, who by the Spirit…

^A was enlightened, willed that he be called John. If one translates this Hebrew name into the Greek tongue, it signifies the grace and aid of God. But the relatives and the devout members of the synagogue and disciples, having heard the prophetic name, and believing that the grace of God and the Father was already illuminating the world, rejected a title of this kind, trying to evade its proper meaning and introduce another. And so they said rather boldly to the mother: "For there is no one in your kin who is called by this name," for they were intending to follow the custom of the Jews. But the father, since he could not speak, and possessed the sign, took a tablet and inscribed: "John is his name." He did not write this only on the wax, but what he was writing in letters, he shouted in words; he guided his hand toward the motion of his tongue, so that hand and words proceeded together. To signify this, the blessed Evangelist says excellently: "And having asked for a little tablet, he wrote saying: 'John shall be his name.'" For he was writing and speaking at the same time, and one could see the tongue and the hand both working at one and the same time; ^B for he did not write on one hand and speak on the other, nor speak on one and write on the other, but he spoke and wrote in equal measure; his hand ran downwards, and the word flowed upwards; neither overcame the other, but both, running firmly, greeted the finish line, and since they ran together from the start of the race, they together brought back the crown of victory, and neither wished to depart defeated. All were marveling at this, and it was certainly worthy of admiration; but they were marveling at the matter only corporally, because they had the corporal thing before their eyes; but those who are mystics and imbued with the Spirit shall not stand at the visible things, but we seek and investigate in the Spirit what spiritual and hidden meaning is in the words. If we attend to the lamp, the Spirit sends its rays down to us, his children, so that we may run toward spiritual nourishment.

16. We said that the name of John signifies the grace of God, since he was sent to be the forerunner and herald of it. ^C The Word of God is heard to be the grace of God, who for the sake of us men, laden with the shames of sin, appeared in our flesh, so that he might wash us from our filth, and fill us with his own glory and grace. For God is seen to be the maker and restorer for all equally, to Jews and Greeks, to Barbarians and the unlearned, to the wise and the foolish, to slaves and masters; he has shed an equal splendor of his own kindness and humanity upon all. Even if he was born carnally from the Jews, on account of the promise and intercession made to the patriarch Abraham, who himself traces his origin from the Gentiles and procreated the race of the Jews—or does he not, as the most wise Paul says, hold this opinion? "Is God the God of the Jews ^D only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also," for God is truly the God of the Gentiles, because one and unique is God, who justifies circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith.

^A Equal then to both and similar appears the grace of God. Moving under the prophetic Spirit, Zacharias proclaimed the admirable name of John by both word and writing: by these two signs of speech he indicates the one grace of adoption, which will be given to those from the Law and from the Gentiles who turn to it, and who seek and receive it with true faith and purity of soul. "For as many as received him," he says, "he gave them power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." For it is manifest that the Jews were signified by the writing on the tablet, as those serving the written Law; but the Gentiles by the Word of the mouth and the Spirit, as those partaking more of the Word and having approached to the Spirit of the Law. For the Law itself was also known as twofold: the one part carnal and adhering to the letter, the other rational and in the Spirit. This evangelical mystery must be received in this sense concerning the mystical and dual pronunciation of the name, which indeed we could not have discovered by ourselves, but John himself showed it, shining like an inextinguishable lamp and illuminating hidden things. Our wonder is greater than that of the ancients, who did not perceive future things, but only past and present ones. John moves on in life: leaping, he goes before the Sun of justice like a morning star, which surpasses all the stars with its flame and splendor and diffuses its received light, until the sun rises, shines more brightly, burns, and beams. So great, so illustrious, and so incomparable was the forerunner.

17. He who was born, and called John, and by his own name heralded the power of the One who was to be born after him from the Virgin, loosens the tongue of his father and of the Law, which previously served under the bonds of stuttering; and he provides a voice to the trembling Law and the mute ^B father, because he himself was the voice to announce the Word who was to come, and to take away the voice present to Moses the lawgiver. For how could it be possible that the voice, while generating the Word, was silent before the Word, when it had already been produced? Was the tongue to be bound with the chains of folly, lest it perhaps proceed to the production and generation of the Word? For it is manifest that Jesus, the Word of God, appeared after the voice of John and loosened the stuttering tongue of the Law. In the promises of the prophets, future things had been consigned and hidden: therefore a great and resonant voice was given to John, that he might repel whatever had previously seemed mute and speechless, and by his own virtue render it prompt and ready in responding. Zacharias was indeed a priest and prophet, so that he might be a mystical form for us: by the priesthood and old age, the Law and the obsolescence of the Law are represented; by the gift of prophecy, the number of the prophets. "And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue, and he spoke blessing God," ^D clearly meaning that Christ had appeared on earth, who is the Word and the wisdom of the Father; which seal from the mouth

of the prophets has been unsealed, and the bond of the legal tongue has been loosed. And likewise both the Law and the prophets openly speak the mystery of Christ, and bless Him as God eternal, co-laboring and thunder-pealing with the evangelical preaching. For this reason, the assembly of those present at that time and the neighbors dwelling there were seized with great fear, and were anxiously discussing among themselves. And they were continually pondering, "What then will this John be?" because such wonderful things had happened at his birth as we have not understood in any other case.

18. But I shall answer their questioning, since no other person born of woman has come into existence besides him, such that such wonderful and paradoxical things should happen. For since he has been testified to be greater than those born of women, for this reason he has been deemed worthy of such glory at his birth, that even through this he might glorify Christ, who was to be born after him for our sake. And not only in this way did Christ clothe His own Forerunner with wonders, but, being invisibly present with him as God, He caused him to appear great and glorious to all. For the evangelical narrative describes this: "And fear came upon all their neighbors, and in all the hill country of Judea all these words were spoken abroad; and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, 'What then will this child be?' And the hand of the Lord was with him." For in no way was the hand of the Lord, the Only-begotten Word of God, prevented from being with him in His divinity and magnifying him as His first and greatest herald; for He Himself is called the right hand, the hand, and the arm of God, as He who sees all things that come to pass through Him, even though He was conceived, incarnate, in a virginal womb, and rested ^B as in a royal bedchamber. Whence John, being born, was shown to surpass all those born of women, and he begat and brought forth great fear, not only in those living with him and of the same mind, yearning for the divine manifestation of Christ towards us, but also in those dwelling nearby who remained outside of grace because of their inseparable living in the written Law. For they think that we in some way dwell near them, receiving the Law in part and adhering solely to the letter, through which we have become aliens to them, and they have been alienated from the grace which they thought was theirs. Those miserable ones were thus cast out of the life hidden in the Law because of ^C their own depraved intent; but the herald and Forerunner of this life, born with such power, was nurtured, and after being weaned, he went forth into the desert, renouncing all common haunts among men as unworthy of his life and conduct, which was beyond that of men. For how could he who had nothing base or earthly, no human home, no food, no clothing, no friendship, no social interaction—neither affection for a wife, nor submission to a woman, nor any of the things that are done in villages and cities—possess [anything]? For he who... ^D

lived ^A in a human house, without food, without shelter, without friendship, without business, without relation to a family, without concord with a wife, without any other of the things that are done in villages and cities, did he dwell with men in cities or with villagers in villages? But he goes forth, not having emulated Moses, the best of men—even though he is instructed in divine matters more than Moses, and returns as a lawgiver, and redeems a wandering people, and leads them well toward piety, having been sorely oppressed by the intellectual Egyptians—nor yet imitating the ancient Elijah, who had performed such great miracles on earth, even if he is called a new Elijah, and advanced in the power and spirit of Elijah, and returns to bring to their senses Herod, the new Ahab, and is persecuted by Herodias, that other Jezebel, and being persecuted, is killed. He did not propose to himself any other famous man among men as the object of his life, since the prudent and inspired do not emulate a lesser virtue, but are accustomed to contend with the more perfect; nature, however, did not allow that anyone among men should be seen to be better than John. Among men, I say, that is, among males; for in no way does Christ allow one to suspect [this of] the most holy Virgin and venerable Mother of God, who surpasses all men and women. Plainly, John did not go out into the desert to imitate men, but the angels of heaven, because he deserved to receive their name.

19. Rightly and deservedly did he have with them that good and God-pleasing contest, who alone appeared on earth as an angel in the body, as he was a participant in the dignity of the ether, and about to render to Christ, who was being baptized in the streams of the Jordan, a ministry equal to that of the angels, and in an angelic manner was he to fulfill his entire service, though his life was human. With such a purpose did John leave the paternal hearth, that he might inhabit a certain elevated and heavenly region, namely, the desert; so that it might be seen by all, as in a mirror, that by the grace of God, Christ would depart from the synagogue of the fathers, which according to the flesh had brought [Him] forth, that He might approach the desert Church of the Gentiles. And this He was to do not for a time, but forever, until He appears again the second time from heaven with much glory and majesty, to demonstrate the true Israel. «But the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation ^B unto Israel.» For those who are endowed with a keen perception, and who hold that saying of Christ to the Jews: «Behold, your house is left to you desolate,» know that He has made the desert of the nations, the Church, His own house, and having deemed those who are called His own body, He presides over them as their head; for «we are the body of Christ and members in particular,» and we have Him as our head, as the chosen vessel teaches, saying He increases the growth of us, the members, and of the body, and is strengthened in spirit, [referring to] Him who strengthens our spiritual strengthening, accounting this as His own for our sake. How beautifully this is demonstrated in the deserts! Thus it appears most clearly that Christ was not and does not subsist only in one nation, namely in Israel alone, but in all nations and churches, which belong to Him.

for [it] speaks of this more emphatically, as if Christ is not only in one nation, as formerly in Israel alone, but is and becomes [present] in all nations and in the Churches that have fallen to them from these. For thus in many places of Scripture they are mentioned in the plural: sometimes as "high mountains," sometimes as "hills," at other times as "fountains," and at another time as "isles of the nations," and elsewhere tropically designated as "ships of Carthage." You, then, O blessed Baptist (for I shall call you Christ’s Baptist, even if the Word has not yet shown you doing this), so reached those deserts and, as I have been able to understand and express, proclaimed to them in a somewhat mystical way the salvation-bringing arrival of the divine grace which was soon to follow them. ^A

20. I desire to add to your praise and to join in, but I am prevented and strongly hindered from bringing it forth. On one hand, human frailty stands in the way—for I do not fear to confess to you the truth, which you knew even before our speaking—and on the other hand, because the time for the sacred liturgy, as you see, has arrived, and it constrains us all and does not allow us to withdraw with you into your beloved desert. ^B If we have spoken more briefly than you yourself desire, than we are able, and than this festival demands, grant us pardon. We pray as suppliants that you remain with us in spirit, even if you depart bodily into the desert, and that you might provide your aid to us, who are in need, at every moment without ceasing. For no place prevents you from helping when you so will, since you are truly present in heaven and look down upon us all with ease. Grant us, therefore, to celebrate this venerable festival with the joy that is our due, as befits the forerunner of grace and the conversation granted to you by God. ^C Lead us through the remaining paths of our life and guard us in the spiritual law whose form you have proposed to us in Christ, so that by your inspiration we may fulfill the law of the Spirit, and Christ may be invoked as the leader of this life by those who have withdrawn into the city devoted to you. I dare not say that Christ appeared after you in such a way as to serve your holy institutions, which He gave to you and to divine men, but rather guide us men in them, so that under your helmet, defense, custody, and instruction, we may live piously and holily, that we might be joined with your servants and noble disciples dwelling here, and be made partakers of that eternal and promised life in Christ Jesus our Lord, ^D through whom and with whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, and power, for ages of ages. Amen.

The Praise of our Holy Father Sophronius, Archbishop of Jerusalem, for the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, delivered on the fourth day of the Feast of the Nativity.

1. Again, an inseparable duality ^A has shone upon us; again, an indissoluble fellowship has blossomed for us; again, an indivisible connection has sprung forth for us, as apostolic festivities concur in one feast and celebration, radiating upon us with double brilliance, appearing in one splendor of solar light. For Peter, the chief of the apostles, is celebrated today, and Paul, who is a rival to Peter in grace and closely approaches him in the dignity of the apostolate—even though he does not belong to that number of the twelve ^B glorious apostles, the election and appointment of which no mere human, no prophet, no patriarch, no just person, nor any celestial and incorporeal angel could devise; for all these have been established as servants and as fellow-servants to us human beings, even if they far surpassed us in virtues, spiritual merits, and graces; but Christ himself, the Lord of all and God and Master, he, I say, endowed with a dual nature and a single person, he who consists of a divine and human nature, whom we clearly recognize to have both a divine and human substance; who is neither cut into these two, nor suffers any division, by reason of that conjunction which knows no change or partition: for he neither confounded those things of which he consists, even if he united them hypostatically, nor did he drag those in which he subsists away from one another, even though God and man are perfectly recognized in them, the same being beheld in the same; he who knows hearts and kidneys, and watches the counsels of the invisible soul, which each person secretly contrives within his heart, ^C and thinks, however cunningly, that he conceals them from those who are of the same nature.

2. Thus, then, caring for our salvation, for which he also descended from heaven to us, he made a choice of fishermen and imparted to them the grace of the apostolate, corresponding in number to them, yet without thereby dividing their dignity or introducing disorder into their order, but, along with the unity of apostolic dignity and grace, he preserved the difference of order. For the excellent wisdom and power of God, and the understanding most skilled of all minds, judged that both unity should be preserved in the dignity of the apostolate and that the difference of order should be clearly and unconfusedly recognized, so that neither should the order be turned into disorder ^D

^A for disorder is an enemy to God; nor should the grace of dignity be divided into unequal graces. For the gifts are without repentance, and the limit which he himself has determined, he will in no wise pass over, as the melody says. He who orders all things by weight and measure, and gives to each the gifts according to his impartial will, after the first election, which he made of the twelve apostles, and the second, which he obtained in the seventy-two disciples—after his ascent into heaven from earthly things, which took place for the sake of the flesh which he took from us (for he was fleshless and bodiless before he descended to us)—he also manifests a third election, well augmenting the number of the apostles, not creating a difference in the apostolate. For God, our potter, has the power to make vessels out of clay and form ^B as he wills, and to manage them according to his pleasure, while no one can resist his will. He, clearly electing Paul, spoke to Ananias, Paul's baptizer and teacher—for he it was who illuminated him when he was blind, and baptized him when illuminated, and taught him the divinely inspired doctrine: "Go," says Christ, to this one for divinely inspired instruction, and also for the restoration of his sight, "for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." But Paul himself also, the wonderful, showing the appointment of his own dignity, wrote, "He who wrought effectively in Peter unto the circumcision, also wrought effectively in me unto the Gentiles." ^C

3. Since, therefore, the Savior, by his choice, joined Paul, that divinely inspired man, to Peter, the first of the apostles and herald, and conferred one dignity on both—even if he destined the one to the apostleship of those in circumcision, and assigned the other to the Gentile flocks—and gave one grace and God-given dignity, I mean that of the sonship towards God and the Father, to those who through him are converted to Christ as Christ himself; and imparted the name to both alike, that they should be called Christians from Christ himself: reasonably, we too, their disciples and followers, embracing their faith and welcoming their teaching, have joined them together, whom the grace of the Spirit had joined. We also establish a common festival for them, ^D as having obtained a common and equally glorious appointment; and we celebrate one feast to Christ, as one spiritual joy has shone upon us through both. For those whom Christ himself joined and adorned with one grace, it is not safe to separate, as those who begat us in Christ have judged. For this reason they ordained one festival for both, so that they might not appear to be struggling against Christ's decree; to whom we also, the least, striving in all things to obey, hasten together to the common festive assembly for each apostle, and by this public witness we honor their fellowship; for where Peter is heralded as the leader, there immediately also Paul is named

and wherever Paul, that divinely inspired man, appears, there also Peter is shown to be gathered with him.

^B 4. Thus these wise and divine men cultivate an ineffable companionship; they reject separation, refuse partition, avoid divisions, flee from schisms, and abhor dissensions as the causes of hatred and the occasions of enmity. Truly, they do this to teach us the convenience of spiritual affection and the utility of love in Christ. For whatsoever is not in accordance with Christ can provide no true benefit. Wherefore, both of them, in order to demonstrate to us the blessings of charity and to express its power by their own example, rejoice in celebrating a common solemnity. Hence, the one, recognizing the bond of charity as invincible, defined it as greater than all other gifts, since it knows not how to do evil to one’s neighbor: "For love," he says, "worketh no ill to his neighbor." He commands those who are imbued with this love to tolerate one another; and not only this, but under the impulse of love, he bids them seek not their own advantage but that of their neighbor. This virtue makes its followers one body and one soul, places them in the same hope of their calling, and declares them partakers of eternal life. The other apostle says: "Purifying your souls in the obedience of the truth, love one another with a sincere heart and pure affection; and as servants of God, honor all, and love the brotherhood." For he knew that we are made brothers to one another through charity; whence he mandates that before all else we should foster mutual and fervent charity, because he clearly defines that love covers a multitude of sins.

^C 5. But we, striving for the opposite of these teachings, do not only not wish to love one another, but we would even prefer to pursue our neighbors with hostile hatred—ignorant, as it seems, that discord and hatred are the fruits of the evil spirit. Whence we wrong them, oppress them, strike them with countless calumnies, and afflict them with every kind of malice, having once cast off charity; which indeed, as the most wise Paul says, is not accustomed to bring evil upon a neighbor. For it has been discovered that the truly beautiful work of love is not to do evil to one’s neighbor. Yet neither these divine precepts, full of heavenly grace, which provide salvation to those who perform them—and not merely to those who hear them—nor, again, these wise examples have been able to lead us toward mutual charity. So grievously do we suffer from the disease of brother-hatred, and so terribly are we sick with animosity toward one another, which is properly the chief fountain and parent of all evils. Wherefore ^D I beseech you, dearly beloved, that as we celebrate the apostolic and benevolence-filled solemnity of the divine men Peter and Paul, we may emulate their love, and strive to be made one spirit and one body, even as it has been handed down to us in the unction of one faith; and let us put an end to our mutual injuries, so that the heavenly...

and share in those heavenly rewards of love with them, proving ourselves their genuine disciples, and being recognized as their children and sons, as those who hold fast their love and strictly honor their commands, and in no way corrupting any part of their sacred teachings.

^B 6. But why, one might ask, do these most wise and greatest of men come forth to us for a clear demonstration after the excellent Stephen, and voluntarily choose a fourth act? And yet, by the value of the highest apostleship and election, they stand before not only Stephen the glorious protomartyr, but all men dear to God together, and their dignity is of such magnitude that they hold the first place. For it is not doubtful that the brightness and radiance of martyrdom is far inferior to apostolic splendor and rank. Nevertheless, they conceded the third solemnity after the saving birth of Christ to Stephen, and reserved the fourth for themselves, mindful of the commands of the Master, and desiring to fulfill them even here; for those who wish to take the first places and pursue the greater honors, He ordained the last position, speaking to them thus precisely: "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be last of all; and whoever among you wishes to be prince, let him be the servant of all." And again: "He who is greater among you, let him be as the younger; and he who ^C presides, as he who serves: for he who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted." Furthermore, those who were called last to the working of the vineyard received the wages of the first. Wherefore the apostles, knowing this well, choose the second station and concede the first places to the divine Stephen; so that they might thus most justly become the first, and might teach us, by their own examples, the best way of exaltation—I mean lowliness and humility, which Christ, the first to act, paved with His own works—crying out with the voice of their deeds: "Learn from us how we are meek and humble in heart," according to the command of Christ the Master and Teacher. And for this reason, the one exhorted us to consider one another as excelling our own selves; while the other wishes to clothe us with humility one toward another, saying, "For God, He says, opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Wherefore he also adds to such an instruction: ^D "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation." Since, then, most desirable brothers, we show ourselves to be hearers and disciples, let us join imitation to learning, and deeds to the hearing of the word, obtaining from thence love for one another; so that both by word and by deed hurrying toward the imitation of them, and bearing their likeness, and thus celebrating their feast in a similar manner, we may gladden our souls and spirits, and brighten our senses with their most radiant festival; for they, seeing this, rejoice the more; and thus exhilarated and filled with joy, they [offer] their [prayers] for us.

offer prayers to God, asking for a tranquil life for us, and beseeching the kingdom of heaven; whose profit—once we have rightly composed ourselves, and expiated our sins through conversion to God, and bound ourselves to one another with the bonds of charity—may we all be granted to possess, and may we attain the life of eternal youth that never ends in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit be glory, honor, power, magnificence, and praise everywhere, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. [IX]

From the Encomium on Saint John the Theologian by Sophronius, most holy Archbishop of Jerusalem

^B Sophronius, most holy Archbishop of Jerusalem, from his Encomium on Saint John the Theologian and Evangelist, the beginning of which is: "John the son of thunder utters these things: 'In the beginning was the Word'." And after other things:

John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, shone forth. For this name of his mother was discovered, just as the holy Fathers who spoke by the Spirit of God also discovered it. Hence he had also another good lot, a lot much better and greater than every prosperous lot. And this was the glory of the mother who bore him, as the sister of God. For Salome, who gave birth to the great John, was the daughter of Joseph, who was deemed the father of Christ, our common Savior, as the most wise Luke has recorded. For he was not His father in deed and reality; since he never even knew the truly Theotokos and ever-virgin Mother of the Lord, nor did he deprive her of her immaculate and virginal grace. She was also the true sister and companion of James, Joses, Jude, and Simeon, as well as of Mary and Anna: whom the divinely inspired Fathers rightly call "brothers of God," adorning them with such a title in name only and not beyond that, because they were born from him who was ^C considered by men to be the father of Christ, and who is so called in the Gospels; just as the most pure and altogether immaculate Virgin Mother of God is seen calling Joseph by that name, she who never knew a man at all. For she says, "Son, both I and your father have been looking for you in sorrow." And after a few words: Zebedee called Salome the new Sarah into the midst, so that as a sister she might supplicate Christ.

NOTICE ON THE FOLLOWING SHORT WORK

Although I have spoken above (col. 3125, cf. 3372) of some new writings of St. Sophronius, it is not inconvenient in this place to mention one of these, which Fabricius does not indeed list in his Greek library, but which I recently learned of from [Pierre] Pithou, into whose work I happened to fall, who in his historical synopsis placed at the beginning of the *Corpus Juris Canonici* writes that among other collectors of canons was Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem,