A the cultivation of fields, without rain, living in delights, needing nothing of sweat, or mattock, or labur, or weariness to sustain life; rejoicing in ever-flourishing trees, passing from flower to flower, moving from fruit to fruit, having use as a companion to his desires, but, by reason of the beauty of the things that offered themselves to his view, often not even knowing where first to lay his hands. I have often wept over such great blessedness, seeing that he had fallen from it. For the misfortune was common, and touched our whole race. But after I fell upon the Gospels and grasped the meaning of this day (for that day B and this one were the sixth), then I cast away all sadness, and having changed my mind, I exult in words, and I say to myself and to you: "Pain has fled, and sorrow, and sighing. The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." For just as physicians are accustomed to heal the bites of serpents with remedies expressed from the serpents themselves, using the very cause of the evil to overcome the evil, so the Savior applied all the causes of our evils for our healing, turning the bitter into sweet, transferring the gall to a remedy, turning back the sting of death against itself, converting the harm of the wood into salvation, taking up the day that had struck the world, and in its place giving back the day that gladdened the world. Do not believe me, but trust your own eyes. Look at the present church, and cease from contending with us. It is the day of the cross, and we all rejoice: and we fast from evils, and we are pure in all things, in our interior and in our exterior. This is the reason for the feast, and the method of rejoicing. But I mention only small miracles of the power of the cross. Look toward the circle of the world: how many villages, how many cities, how many places, how many nations, how many islands, how many shores, how many clans, and tribes, and languages of the Barbarians; all these to-day fast on account of the cross, crucifying their affections by its power: and although for many the night ends, yet the labor of fasting is not absolved. Now also we all gather together to hear about the cross, and we fill the church, and we push one another, sweating, laboring; and we who obtain the first seats before judges, stand willingly before Jesus: because Jesus stood for us, that he might stop the floods of wickedness. What then has been done to-day? For it is not right for us to pass over the miracles of this day with a deaf ear.
3. It was daylight, and indeed about dawn, and D Jesus is led bound in the hands to the praetorium of Pilate; with what hands, I ask? Those which healed the blind, which ministered to the lame. And fingers were bound which had fashioned eyelids, and he who healed nature was restrained, lest he might perform the work of his own art. These things were rendered back to the Lord. He is bound who binds the waters in the clouds, who looses those who are bound with power, who grants release to the captives; he is bound
A who looses Lazarus from the bonds of death. He was led into the praetorium, he who is escorted by myriads of angels; he stood before Pilate, he who has the heaven as his throne; he endured being dragged, the Creator by the creatures, the Fashioner by the fashioned, the Maker by the made.
§4. What then happens as a result of this? "And they themselves," it says, "did not enter into the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover." O, the greatness of the lawlessness! They commit a murder of injustice, and yet they refuse to enter into the praetorium, guarding against being defiled, those who are already defiled. By means of a sheep, they were loosing the Sheep [(51)]. Therefore, the judge of the whole world awaited the tribunal; the Witness of souls awaited witnesses; the one who fashioned, being judged. And men indeed sat to judge; but God stood, and standing he was silent, standing at the threshold of men, the Lord of the heavenly gates.
Pilate asked, perhaps being more humane than the Jews. What do I say? The deeds will show the truth. "What accusation do you bring against this man?" Who can accuse God? I am compelled to speak the words of Pilate. For Jesus was silent, not because the Word lacked words, but so that by answering he would not dissolve the crown of the cross. And possessions, he who possesses nothing? Or foreign houses, he who does not even have a place where to lay his head? Or possessions, he who stripped his own disciples down to their very belts? He who, not having an ass, borrowed another’s colt so that he might bless your children? Bring a reason; fabricate one, that you may justly execute him. The Jews answered him, "If this man were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him to you." A great demonstration of matters, an indefinite pronouncement. State the wickedness, and do not lead the hearer astray. Pilate says to them, "Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law." A just judge, he cast the burden upon the heads of the Jews. You take the one guilty of the crime. The Jews say to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death." How then did you kill Isaiah? How Zachariah? How each of the prophets? But it is not lawful for you to kill, not because you do not wish to, but because you are not able. For they had already been deprived of such authority by the Romans. Is the law therefore abolished? It is already idle in its works, remaining only in ink, but the bound Jesus has loosed it. C But Pilate: "I find no cause in him." Not only you, O Pilate, but neither the Jews, nor the blind, nor the dead, nor the sun, nor the moon, nor the world, nor all the righteous, the prophets, and the martyrs. For one of their prophets says: "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." All D support Pilate in rendering a just sentence.
The Jews alone fight, judging with shouting, and by tumults they strive to shade the truth, confirming that of Isaiah: "I expected that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns; and not justice, but a cry." The vine of the Jews brings forth a crop of crying.
5. While these things were happening, Pilate could neither speak nor hear because of the confused tumult, and matters were veering toward sedition. Then his wife sent to him, an excellent helper, who held back her husband as he was rushing into error, saying: "Have nothing to do with that just man." If it is in your power, make him safe: but if you cannot, save yourself. She was all but uttering that word of David: "Gather not my soul with the ungodly, nor my life with B bloody men." "Have nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things in a dream because of him." another Joseph seeing the truth through dreams, testifying against the shouts of the Jews: for it was fitting that they be defeated by women. Rahab the harlot once defeated them; the woman with the issue of blood defeated them; the Canaanite woman defeated them. And now again, a woman is crowned against them. The Jews answered him: "We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die." What law? By what words is it confirmed? Perhaps by those read today: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before his shearer, so he openeth not his mouth. By the iniquities of my people was he led to death." These syllables I find useful for them; elsewhere you shall not find where it is established that Jesus was justly slain.
6. Pilate entered the praetorium, yielding to the wrath of the Jews, striving to extinguish an unquenchable flame. He went in and went out, and rather ignited the fire further. For he went out having Jesus crowned and clad in purple; a spectacle thoroughly hateful to the Jews; showing them their enemy already crowned, already a victor, already clothed in purple. For that indeed was brought for the sake of ignominy, but it was a faint indication of his native royal dignity. C But as they saw him—whom they had often seen, yet whom they had never seen; whom, always seeing, they were inflamed, consumed by their own fire (for they would wish, if they had become incinerated by fire), they raised their Sodomitical cry, they raised it, and they were raised: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him." "Shall I crucify your king?" "We have no king," they say, "but Caesar." A denial without persecution; atheism after the evils of Egypt. "These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Do you not have a king besides D Caesar? What then led you into the wilderness, or who fed you? Who led you...
whom Moses proclaims, saying: "The Lord reigning for ever and ever, and beyond"? Since, therefore, you have denied your own King, remain henceforth without a king, drawing the eternal yoke of servitude. These things have been done up to this hour. But let us see also the remaining part of the day; for the whole of it is holy.
A 7. They received Him crowned. With what? With thorns, the gifts [of the Jews]. "I waited for it to bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns." He was struck with the palm of the hand, spat upon, beaten, he received scourges; but he was not ashamed by any of these things. Stand with Isaiah, and behold God with his eyelids. What then does he say? "Lord, who has believed our report? And we saw Him, and He had no form, nor comeliness; but His form was dishonored, failing beyond the sons of men." He had no beauty nor form, B the artificer of all beauty. For He was mourning for the evils of the Jews. "A man placed in a blow, and knowing how to bear infirmity." A man, not God; for it was a man, and not God, who was being struck. Who then is this, who is so full of labor, so full of pain, and struck by all? Does He perhaps suffer justly the things which He suffers? "But He bears our sins, and suffers pain for us." — "I find no cause in this man," Pilate says. But do not be ashamed of these ignominious goods. For having suffered so much, He remained impassible; He was wounded, spat upon, He endured the most disgraceful things, and yet He remains honorable, glorious, like one of those who are struck. C Just as Isaiah says to them again: "And we thought Him to be in pain, and in a blow from God, and in affliction: but He was wounded for our sins, and was made infirm for our iniquities." Therefore both He and we lie wounded. "By His bruise we were healed." The dead man is the physician of the dead, the wounded man becomes the remedy for the wretched. But how long, O man, do you lead our certainty and freedom into ambiguities? Speak more clearly about what is asked. "As a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer, without voice"—an excellent sheep handed over to evil butchers. If you slaughter Him, O Jews, do not shear Him; but if you shear Him, spare the excellent sheep that bears fruit.
8. And there were also two other evildoers led with Him. D For the discourse leads us to the eleventh hour of the day, so that no one should despair of his own life; and I wished to pass over the history, because it has been told by us many times. But I see the thief always doing violence to me. And it is no great thing; for he even broke into the gates of paradise, applying art to salvation.
A Stabat in cruce (The Lamb stood on the cross) with two wolves. But the one remained in his resolve, while the other was being changed. "Remember me," he said, "when you come into your kingdom." O the power of Jesus! The thief is now a prophet, preaching from the cross: "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." What, indeed, do you see of a king, O thief? Slaps, spittle, nails, and wood, and the mockeries of the Jews, and now the soldier’s lance bared. "But I do not see," he says, "the things that appear; I see angels standing around, the sun fleeing, and the veil torn, the earth trembling, the dead contemplating flight." Jesus, however, who receives everyone, even the prophets who came about the eleventh hour, as laborers, giving them the same denarius. "Amen, amen I say to you, take also you the amen, O thief; you who today are a thief, today are a son, today will be with me in paradise." I who cast him out, I Myself shall bring you in; I who closed the gates of paradise, who fortified the approach with a flaming sword. For unless I bring you in, the gates shall remain closed. Come, O thief, you who have robbed the devil, and been crowned against him, having seen a man yet worshipped God, having cast aside your former weapons and taken up the armor of the true faith.
C 9. Now that these things are so, and all things are being sanctified—from the ether, the sun; from plants, wood; from animals, gall; from woven garments, the seamless tunic; from the sea, the purple robe; from metal and iron, the lance and nails; and from the twin fountains flowing with blood and water—the Savior was performing His own office: "Father, forgive them their sin." To whom "forgive"? To Greeks, Jews, strangers, barbarians; in short, to all. For once He spoke, and the work is never left unfinished. For did He say "Forgive" only concerning His enemies? He says it for every nation, and He always says it, and whoever wills, receives it.
10. All came to the praetorium, saying to Pilate: "We know that this deceiver said, while still alive: 'After three days I will rise again.' Do you truly know? Do you truly remember that He is to rise? Secure the tomb; for it is yours to secure. Guard the dead man, that He may not escape." "You have," He says, "a guard. Go, guard as you will. Lock as you know how; arrange as you know; guard as you know. Unless you guard, you leave me a handle for an excuse and a pretext. But now I deliver Him to you, whom you held while He lived, and who, though slain by you, eludes you all." Let us, therefore, remain vigilant and sober, that we may behold the deep sleep of the Jews, and celebrate our feast with the heavenly hosts, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and empire, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
IV. Homily on the Holy Sabbath
A Joannis humilis monachi presbyteri Damasceni, sermo in Sabbatum sanctum.
1. Who shall speak of the mighty acts of the Lord, or who shall make all his praises heard? Who shall recount the limitless and vast sea of his goodness? Who can fathom the incomprehensible love he bears toward his servants? Who can grasp his condescension, which surpasses all human understanding? Who can describe his tender love toward us, and the ineffable providence that has its source therein? Truly, there is no one who can do so, not even if one were to speak with the tongues of angels and men, and had gathered into himself all human wisdom. For although the spirit is willing, the tongue is weak to express it, and the mind is dim in its capacity to understand. For the mystery of the divine dispensation is admittedly great; it is not to be grasped by intellectual power, but by faith alone, and it requires a purity of soul that is established by the fear and love of God. For it is impossible for a soul to attain purification in any other way than through divine fear and love. Nor, yet again, is it possible to receive the divine illumination B if the visionary faculty of the soul has not first been purged. For the Divine is inaccessible to the profane; only the "pure in heart" shall see God, as Christ, who is the Truth itself, says. For even in the theophany that once occurred to Moses in the burning bush, he is first commanded to put off his shoes, and only then approach the symbol that appeared to him. The taking off of the shoes signifies the laying aside of dead and earth-bound thoughts. And again, when Mount Sinai was smoking as God gave the Law upon it, not everyone went up; rather, the ascent was permitted only to those who had undergone purification. If, therefore, in those things which were but types, the cleansing of every stain was ordained, how much more does it behoove us to render ourselves pure and godlike if we wish to approach the true and primal realities? Let us therefore purify ourselves, brethren, from every earthly mindset, from all turmoil, and from the clouded cares of this life, so that we may see clearly and receive the light-bearing splendors of the divine Word, and feed our souls with the spiritual bread, which is the food of the angels. Being thus brought into the inner sanctuary, we may know clearly the divine sufferings of the Passionless One, and the things that bring salvation to the whole world.
2. Now the mystery hidden from the ages is revealed; now the head of the divine dispensation is being unveiled.
A now the crown of the incarnation of the Word of God is brought to completion; now the abyss of divine love is made public. For thus did the God Word love the world, that by the good pleasure of the Father He descended for the sake of incarnation, as the Immaterial took on the weight of material flesh, so that by receiving in the part that is apt for suffering the passion, and becoming subject to death, He might clothe us, who are subject to passions, with freedom from passion. Hence come hunger, and thirst, and sleep, and fatigue, and sorrow, and anxiety, and fear—that is, the essential appetite for life; hence come the cross, and the passion, and death, from our own nature. For these are its natural passions, and these are the blameless ones of my constitution, the experience of which He did not refuse, so that, having been stirred and subdued within Him, they might become subject to us.
3. Let us meet Christ B in the cross, and let us be made participants in His sufferings, that we may also become partakers of His glory. Christ is among the dead: let us be dead to sin, that we may live to righteousness. Christ is wrapped in clean swaddling clothes and linen cloths: let us be loosed from the chains of sin, and clothe ourselves in the divine radiance. Christ is laid in a new tomb: let us cleanse ourselves from the old leaven, and become a new batch, that we may become a dwelling-place for Christ. Christ is in Hades: let us descend with Him to the humility that brings about exaltation, that we may also rise with Him, and be exalted with Him, and be glorified with Him, always seeing God and being seen by Him.
You who are from the age, be loosed; you who are bound, come out; you who are in darkness, be uncovered; go free, you who are held captive; and you blind, receive your sight. Awake, you who sleep, Adam, and arise from the dead; C for Christ, our resurrection, has appeared. But, if it seems good, let us make the beginning of our discourse from the primary focus; for thus it will be clearer and more persuasive at once, and will proceed along a smooth and easy path; and do you implore for me the divine illumination of the Holy Spirit, without whom the wise are foolish, and with whom the unlearned become wiser than the very wise.
4. God is the author and source of all things, but He Himself is from no one, whence also He is unbegotten; having an enhypostatic Word, co-eternal, begotten from Him without flux or time, never separated from the Father: a perfect God, in all things like D to Him who begat Him, except for His unbegottenness, in essence and power, in will and energy, in kingdom and...
lordship. He is not without cause, for He is from the Father; He did not take His beginning from time, for there never was a time when the Father was not, when the A Son was not. For the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Father shall not exist if the Son does not exist, who has His existence with the Father, begotten from Him indivisibly, and remaining in Him without ever departing, being the wisdom of the One who begat Him, and a subsistent power, God by nature, consubstantial with the Father, not known without the Spirit. For the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father; B equal in strength, identical in purpose, in action, in power, co-eternal, subsistent, not begotten, but proceeding. This is another mode of existence, divine and incomprehensible. To the Father and the Son, He is in all things like; good, ruling, lord, creator, by nature God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, reigning together, glorified together, worshipped together by all creation. This is who is worshipped by us. The Father is the begetter of the Son, unbegotten—for He is not from anyone. The Son is the offspring of the Father, as begotten from Him. The Holy Spirit C is of God and the Father, as proceeding from Him, which is also said to be of the Son, as being manifested through Him and imparted to creation, yet not having His existence from Him. One God, because there is one Godhead, one power, one essence, one will, one energy, undivided in the three distinct hypostases alone, that is, in the properties of existence. Since the Father is the cause, the primal cause, these things are not indicators of substance but of the relation toward one another, and of the mode of existence, and of the difference in manifestation—if I may so speak—or the difference in the relation toward one another; this has also made them different in name. For just as the beams of the indivisible D light, having an indivisible relation toward one another according to nature: the Godhead is common. But what are the properties? Paternity and Filiation. According to the cause and that which is caused, excluding only the appellation and the reality of the Father and the Son. We know God: but in the three properties only—of Paternity, and of Filiation, and of Procession—we understand the difference according to the cause, and that which is caused, and the perfection of the hypostasis, that is, the mode of existence.
is the Godhead, one power, one essence, one will, one undivided operation and indistinguishable in the distinct and separate persons, or by the properties of existence. For to the Father alone it belongs to be unbegotten; to the Son alone, to be begotten of the Father without time and eternally; to the Holy Spirit alone, to proceed without time and eternally. A For to the Father alone belongs the unbegotten, to the Son alone the having been begotten of the Father without beginning, without time, and eternally, and to the Spirit alone the proceeding without time and eternally. A Trinity one, simple, uncompounded, an infinite substance, light incomprehensible, power unlimited, a sea of goodness, one God glorified indivisibly in three perfect subsistences. B Or the Trinity is one, simple, uncompounded, an infinite substance, light incomprehensible, power unlimited, a sea of goodness, one God glorified indivisibly in three perfect subsistences.
5. He created the angels when they were not, heaven, earth, and all that is in them: ethereal fire, and the abyss of the waters, the air as a storehouse for breath, and the most transparent vehicle of light, a second firmament established in the waters, the boundary between the high and the abyssal waters, which he also called heaven: C the shining sun, a double-coursed worker of day and night, illuminating all things with its glorious brightness; the moon, by which the night is illuminated, and the heat excited by the sun's splendor is tempered: and these, indeed, as the most glorious ornaments of the firmament: and all things that are upon the earth: flowers of every kind and of great utility, grass bearing seed, fruit-bearing trees, a most beautiful adornment for the earth: infinite species of aquatic animals, vast whales and creatures of stupendous mass: various kinds of reptiles and winged birds, which have their origin from the waters, but fly in the air and dwell upon the earth: again, animals from the earth, and untamed beasts, and flocks and herds of tame animals, all together as proofs of his own magnificence, and as a delight for him who was about to be formed according to the divine image.
6. And last of all, man, as a certain king, that most celebrated animal, adorned by his own hand and image; forming the body, indeed, from the earth, but creating the soul by a divine and vital breath; D I mean the Holy Spirit, the life-giving, the creative, and the one who perfects and sanctifies all things; not binding it to the body as having pre-existed (away with that harsh and absurd babbling of Origen), but in the composite shaping, producing and creating it from nothing.
D. I have included this, because I know not what theological boasters of our own time do not hesitate to banish the trite doctrine concerning divine relations to the commentaries of our scholastics, and to assert without hesitation that they were unknown to Nazianzen and others. Clearly, if the persons of the Trinity did not differ only by mutual relations, each one would differ from another by a peculiar gift proper to itself, and thus tritheism, or rather inequality of persons, would be introduced; or if they were distinguished neither by any absolute quality nor by any relation, then the Jews and Socinians have won, so that God is one person, and not properly Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Wherefore Petavius rightly concludes: That there are relations in God is a matter of faith, and not of opinion.
[7.] God fashioned this man, whom He made capable of intelligence and reason, endowed with a spirit of life, deemed him worthy of the communication of His grace, and made him the lord of the paradise He had planted toward the east (for the Hebrews call pleasure *Heden*). He kindly bestowed upon him a life blessed and most happy, immune from every care, peaceful and relaxed, from which groaning was banished. A For as another angel dwelling upon earth, he praised God his Creator, being filled with divine concepts, led through all created things to the Creator Himself, for whose sake he had also been formed. For in my judgment, if one were to call this tree the tree of life—this whole and full universality, which bears the undivided and sole communication of good—he would not wander from the anagogical sense.
[8.] But the inventor of wickedness, the father of lies, the devil who is the artificer of envy, could not bear to see a man dwelling in an abundance of so many good things. He sets upon him, therefore, with the intent of depriving him of those good things. And while appearing to show goodwill, he trips B the man up through deceit, and brings him down in a fall, of all falls the most pitiable. And observe what the bait is.
[9.] What is there of all things that is higher? Or what is only higher? C God, clearly, who is above all things and the cause of all. What, then, could be more desirable than to be called by the name of God? There is nothing at all. Mocking the man with the desire for this, he persuades him to taste of the tree of knowledge, having first plundered the simplicity of the woman. For it is the nature of evil somehow to be hidden under the guise of good; for even personal disgraces are grafted onto virtue; of which tree the all-knowing One, in His providence, had warned Adam against tasting. For He says: "Of every tree that is in the paradise, you shall eat; but of the tree of knowing good and evil, you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it; for in whatever day you eat from it, you shall die the death." But if you wish to understand it also as a tree planted for the proof and testing of obedience and disobedience, and thence named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or even as providing D a cognitive energy regarding the nature of those who partake of it, you will not at all depart from the truth.
[10.] But the tasting of this was unprofitable before perfection. For, having tasted, he immediately knew himself to be naked, and thought to provide himself with a covering; he began to be distracted, and was troubled by concerns for his own body, removed from divine contemplation. Hence, stripped of the grace of God, he put on corruption, returned to the earth, was exiled from the divine paradise, and was subjected to sweat, labor, and death by divine decree.
A For it is not the wood that generates death—for God did not make death—but the harm of disobedience dragging it along. From this, sin, having found nourishment, enslaves me, the thrice-wretched, and works in me every kind of evil, and through itself, while fattening me like sweet fodder, it delivers me to death.
11. Why, then, is He who by nature is compassionate, who gave us our very being and granted us our well-being, to overlook His own creature, the most precious and best-beloved, being so cruelly tyrannized? Not at all. But, to speak with the Apostle: *God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son*, B His only-begotten and consubstantial Son, whom He sent into the world that He might lead back the wandering man to his ancient blessedness. And—O the greatness of His goodness!—what comes to pass? Things that cannot be mixed are mixed; things that transcend nature come into being; what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, is now seen, heard, spoken of, and believed. What is this? The Son of God and God becomes the Son of man, a mediator between God and man, without losing what He is as God. For He is immutable; nor is He merely feigning to be man—as one who cannot lie, and to whom all fraud and deception are foreign to the upright decree of His own benevolent will—but He truly became man by nature, without any change or confusion C, that He might truly bestow salvation upon our nature.
12. Therefore, He is perfect God; for *in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily*. He is also perfect man, so that He might save the whole man; for what is not assumed is not healed. One and the same person is recognized in two perfect natures, without any division; according to hypostasis, He is identified with His own flesh, but by nature He is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit as God; and as man He has become akin and of the same race as us, bearing in Himself the whole substance of the first Adam, from which, and in which, and what man is: I mean a mortal body and an intelligent, immortal, rational, self-determining, volitional, and operative soul. For that which is from one of these... D [alt-version omitted] ...to the Lord, as is decreed. Hail, most holy Mother, Virgin-Theotokos, who gave birth to Him who was incarnate of thee by the Holy Spirit, Christ, the Son of God, who is perfect in Godhead and perfect in humanity—that is, in two natures and wills and energies, both willing and acting as God, and willing and acting as man, that He might possess the same power in both, unconfusedly and indivisibly.
A being animal bereft of all these, is not human. From the holy Virgin, having fashioned for Himself a body animated by a soul rational and intelligent, and having been united with this according to hypostasis, and being conceived, God incarnate, He was born one Son, and Christ, and Lord, B and rendered her who bore Him the Theotokos.
13. [13.] For if He is not one according to hypostasis, how did the Word become flesh? This, the Holy Spirit signifies, not that the Word was changed into flesh, but rather was united to flesh according to hypostasis. Or how, as they say, did the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, declare Him? B For the man who was seen was the one who declared Him; and if He were not also God, how would He be believed to be in the bosom of the Father? Or how, "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven" 87? For He had not yet ascended into heaven bodily, where, even after the resurrection, He said: "For I have not yet ascended to My Father" 88. Or how is it that the very one who descended is also the one who ascended? He descended, indeed, in divinity, not by change of place, but by condescension; but He ascended bodily, being one and the same God and man. Or how is it that the man who spoke and was seen says: "I and the Father are one" 90? For it would not be consistent for a mere man to utter such statements, unless He were also God, consubstantial with the Father 91.
14. C But if He is not recognized in two natures, how could the same one be both mortal and immortal, created and uncreated, visible and invisible, perfect God and perfect man? For these things would not... D ...lest he should persist in preaching the term "two energies" for the future, which they promised in the most insistent manner that the aforementioned man would do, if also Cyrus, our brother and fellow bishop, were to depart from the term "one energy." By what reasoning the Palestinians complied with this command, may be gathered perhaps from the Short Exposition of Faith of Anastasius Sinaita, a contemporary of the events and a witness (p. 10), where he deliberately warns his reader not to speak rashly and inconsiderately of two natures, and two wills, and natural operations, in the manner of certain ignorant people. For among the simpler folk, a scandal is begotten when they hear "two naturals." This is what he often explains with complete accuracy, so that hardly anyone anywhere does better. In the end he adds that the Nestorians do not posit a human will and operation, on account of the vice of the human will and operation, which is indeed always tainted by sin and assaulted by the devil; but the Monophysites invented, in their own brain, an identity of willing and acting, because of the identity of nature which they had dreamt up.
(80) 80 And Theotokos, Deiparam. You have many [references to this] in *De fide orthodoxa*, published under the name of Justinian. Also in the little book of Cyril of Alexandria, *On those who do not wish to confess the holy Virgin to be Theotokos*. And in another of his essays, *Apologetic*, *On the twelve chapters*, ch. 2. PANTINUS.
created and uncreated, visible and invisible, perfect God and perfect man, should be one and the same? For these properties cannot belong to one nature. For that which is created is not the same by nature as that which is uncreated, nor is the mortal the same as the immortal, the visible as the invisible, nor divinity as humanity.
15. How, moreover, could Christ be of one composite nature, when the Father and the Spirit are considered in a nature that is altogether simple? And how will he be of the same essence as the Father and as us, according to the same nature, unless someone should say that the Father is also of the same essence as us? Which would be more absurd than any monstrous fiction. And how does he himself say: *He who sees me, sees the Father*? And again: *Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth*? For he who saw him merely as a man, did not see God and the Father. B
16. But if we also assert that his energy is one, where shall we place his bodily walking, the breaking of bread, the utterance of speech, and other things of that kind, which are surely not of the divine nature, but of human faculty? For these did not happen in appearance only, but in the truth of nature.
17. Furthermore, if we should assume that, as man, he was devoid of natural and self-determining will, I pray you, to what shall we attribute his natural appetite for nourishment and other things, I mean sleep, drink, and the like? For these, being aroused by the law of nature, move the soul that is devoid of reason with power so that they may be satisfied (whence there also accompanies this very appetite an impulse toward the act itself, because nature leads the brute animals, which is why they are blameless and not subject to any kind of punishment): but in the case of those in whom reason resides, since they are moved by free will, they rather lead nature, it being in their power both to follow the appetite and to restrain it. For C will is a natural, rational, and self-determining appetite. These things, I say, apply to those who preserve what is according to nature; for those who, through negligence, have slipped into what is contrary to nature are led rather than they lead, as the habit of passions has acquired dominion over them like a law.
18. Furthermore, by what will shall we say that he went into the house D and, wishing that no one should know it, could not remain hidden? For it is manifest to everyone that the divine will is omnipotent, but the human is surely weak and powerless. And how, pray, did he, while setting aside his own will, pray for the fulfillment of the Father’s will? Of what nature is praying the property? Of the created, clearly. Therefore, to this [nature] belongs also the will that sets [the other] aside. Thus, one law.
A And thus one Christ, Son and Lord, is in two perfect natures and their native properties, at once indivisibly and inconfusedly willing and acting those things which are of either nature, with the communion of the other, according to the unconfused interpenetration of the natures within one another—one, I say, of the holy Trinity, the Son of God, and for our sake become the Son of Man.
19. For since through man came death, through man it was necessary that the resurrection be bestowed 6. And since a soul endowed with intellect had through its own free will violated the commandment, it was necessary that an intellect-endowed soul by its natural and free will should render obedience to the Creator, and that by the same reasons salvation should return whereby death had exterminated life, lest death should consider that it was to exercise perpetual tyranny over men 7.
20. What then follows from this? He who by the hope of divinity had lured man, is himself caught by the screen of flesh; and death, having tasted of a body free from sin, felt nausea, and the wretch vomited out all the food it had sent down into its bowels. For God the Word, our own Creator, having taking upon Himself everything that is ours for our sake, and having been tempted in our sufferings according to likeness apart from sin 9, fulfilled the law, appearing as the only one among men free from sin, and therefore not liable to death; and having made manifest the power of His divine essence through miracles, He at last voluntarily approaches the passion which is the salvation of the whole world for our sake, and gives Himself up, becoming a curse 10 for our sake—not that He Himself was a curse, but rather a blessing and sanctification, although He took upon Himself the curse that we had incurred—for our sake He is crucified, dies, and is buried. B For cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, says the Scripture 11. And, Earth you are, and into earth you shall return, God said to Adam 12. He becomes, therefore, a curse for us, that we might receive the blessing. For as many, He says, as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name 13.
21. O the wonder! He who feeds Israel 14 as the eternal God, is delivered to death as a man by an Israelitish hand. He who leads Israel like a sheep 15 is led as a guileless lamb to the slaughter, and He brings the tree of life against the tree of knowledge, and by the taste of the gall mixed with vinegar 16, He has driven out the malady that had made its home in our nature from the pleasant eating. He who sits upon the Cherubim as God is suspended upon the cross as a criminal, being Himself the life of all men, which the God-slayers, seeing it hanging from the tree, did not believe. For they closed their eyes
A and heard heavily with their ears. He who fashioned man with divine hands stretched out His immaculate hands all the day long toward a people who did not believe and who contradicted Him, and at last He commits His soul into the hands of the Father 19. His side, which had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam 21, is pierced by a lance 20, and it pours forth divine blood and water, a cup of immortality and a laver of restoration. Hence the sun was covered with shame, not bearing to see the intelligible sun of righteousness afflicted by the mockeries of the insolent. The earth was shaken, sprinkled with the Lord’s blood, casting off the stain of idols, and rejoicing in its own purification. The dead arose from the monuments, foreshadowing the resurrection of Him who died for our sake 89. The sun was extinguished and kindled again, to make up the number of three days decreed by the Lord 90. The veil of the temple was rent, clearly signifying the approach to the holies of holies and the revelation of hidden things. For the thief was about to enter Paradise, and that man who was killed as a criminal was to be believed and worshipped by all creation as God—for He is truly God—and that body formed from dust and earth was to be carried above all the heavens and to sit with God, and the knowledge of the holy, blessed, and most praiseworthy Trinity was to be manifested.
22. He who breathed the breath of life into Adam and made him a living soul 22 is laid dead and breathless in the tomb. He who condemned man to return to the earth is numbered among those who have been given over to oblivion in the earth 23. Brazen gates are broken in pieces, and iron levers are shattered 24; the everlasting gates were lifted up, the gatekeeper of Hades shuddered 93, and the foundations of the earth were revealed 25. For He who was free from sin was reckoned among the dead; He who had unloosed the bandages 26 of Lazarus is Himself wrapped in grave-clothes, that He might unloose from their bonds the man who had died in sin and was bound by its chains, and might set him free. C Now the King of glory has descended to the tyrant, the One who is strong in battle 28, whose goings forth to us are from the highest heaven, who ran the way of this life like a giant. For He engages with him, displaying the weakness of humanity, and as he overcomes the strong man like a sparrow, He scatters his satellites with His omnipotent deity and plunders his vessels 29, duly leading back those whom he had wickedly cast into the abyss. Now the Word descends to the serpent, to that Leviathan, the deserter (for Leviathan is interpreted as "serpent"), that great intellect of the Assyrians, or
A I mean of the opposing powers, who was lurking in the heart of the earth; and he draws him out with the hook of his divinity, as if it were a worm, by means of his hidden body, and forces him to disgorge those he had swallowed and most miserably devoured in his strength, sending away empty the one who was boasting in the pride of his riches. Having been born and given to us as a child, he descended into the hole of the asps and throttles, kills, and destroys that arrogant and haughty one. Now Hades has become a heaven, and the subterranean regions are filled with light, and the darkness which formerly pursued is driven away, and sight is given to the blind. For to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, a sunrise from on high has appeared. These things the prophets, and patriarchs, and righteous men clearly prefigured and foretold before.
23. B The Just One is bound, as one of no use. For they have taken counsel against them, delivering a fate of destruction—they who reap down the people of the Lord and disturb the paths of their feet. Woe to their soul! Evil will befall them according to their deeds, says Isaiah. But for us, the action has already truly become a release from labors and a healing of pain. "I give my back to the scourges, and my cheeks to cuffs, and I endure the reproach of spitting," said he who spoke in Isaiah. Therefore, the work of my hands shall not be put to shame, it shall not be confounded. For I did not consider it robbery to be equal to God; but being God, consubstantial with the Father, I emptied myself for your sake, and humble myself unto death for the ungodly, the Father having thus willed it. For what he wills, I will, being naturally a co-willer with him, and a partaker of his divinity. C And I, who am the Most High, am exalted, and through me, human nature is glorified (for thus I commend the Father's love), in order that in my blood those justified, and in my death having attained reconciliation to my Father, they may live in life, and rest under my wings, the sheep that are kept for me.
24. Let us understand, we who have seen, and let us believe in the hearing of those who announce peace. For to us the arm of God, his all-working power, is revealed. For we shall be glorified if we understand, and we shall be greatly glorified, beholding in his vileness the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, and in that form devoid of glory, contemplating the beauty which is beyond reason. For even if he suffered through infirmity, yet he lives by the power of God. D Even if he is seen hanging upon the tree, misshapen and without glory beyond all the sons of men, yet he himself is the radiance of his glory, seeing whom the earth was ashamed and mourned. He carried our sins upon the tree, and felt pain for our wounds, and for our sake was pained, and bore the blow, and the pain, and the affliction of...
A our peace, as an atonement. For since we had wandered like sheep, swerving far from the way of the Lord and wearying ourselves in our own path, he was delivered up for our sins through the bowels of mercy; he did not strive, nor did he cry aloud, leaving us an example, and as a sheep he is led without a voice to the slaughter for our sake. "You shall see," says Moses, "your life hanging before your eyes, and you shall not believe in your life." David, the ancestor of God—or rather, through David, the Lord of David—foretelling his own passion and life-giving burial, said: "They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots." He who had clothed the first parents of our race in garments of skin, willingly strips himself for the crucifixion, that having stripped us of our mortality, he might clothe us in the comeliness of incorruptibility. B And he leaves his garment to be apportioned by the soldiers. For he who was to rise from the dead was about to send forth to the nations those whom he himself had chosen as disciples, and he himself was to become the covering of divine baptism for the faithful: "For as many of you," says Paul, "as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."
25. And Noah, confined in the ark, and preserving the seeds of a second world by the wood, and again becoming the beginning of the human race, prefigured Christ willingly buried—he who washed away sin with the blood that flowed with water from his side, and who saved our whole race by the wood of the cross, and became the guide to a common life and a new way of living. Abraham, the great patriarch, taking his son Isaac to be offered as a whole burnt offering—he who was from the promise, and in whom were the promises—openly typified the slaughter of the Lord. For Isaac himself was graciously restored alive to his father by God; but a ram, caught by its horns in the thicket of Sabek, became the sacrifice. And thus the double mystery, of both the ram and Isaac, becomes a true type of Christ our God. For he is double and composite, being the same both God and man; for in so far as he is the Son of God by nature and God, he has remained in impassibility, but in so far as he himself, having become man for the sake of man, offered himself as a pure and blameless sacrifice C for the sake of the world to the Father in the thicket of Sabek, that is, in the wood of remission (for Sabek is interpreted as 'remission'). What do the three measures of fine flour, from which the bread baked in ashes was made, signify? Do they not clearly hint at the three-day burial of the bread of life? And what of the pit of Joseph first, and the prison afterwards? Do they not most clearly represent the same burial, and the guard added to it? "They set me," he says, "in a pit in the lowest place, in dark places, and in the shadow of death." And what of Moses, the beholder of God and legislator? Is he not hidden in the D basket, surrendered to death, and taken up by the princess? Thus
A Christ is concealed in the tomb, dead indeed as far as the body is concerned, but raised again to life by the power of his own divinity, which reigns over all creation. Does not Moses, again, striking the sea with his rod, and by the twofold stroke—the upright and the transverse—indicate the form of the cross? He descends into the deep, showing the Savior’s descent into Hades, and puts Pharaoh, the pursuer, to death, and brings salvation to Israel. For Christ, too, has put death to death, and saves all who believe in him. By the stretching forth of his hands, putting Amalek to flight and making Israel victorious, he also foreshadows the same mystery of the Savior. B The miraculous manna also fills my mind with wonder. For just as it was hidden away only at the evening of the Sabbath, so too my God Jesus, who for my sake became man—my whole sweetness and my whole desire—is covered in the tomb at the end of the Preparation. And does not the Lord himself foretell that Jonas is a type of him? For, he says, "As Jonas spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so must the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights."
26. But someone will say: If he endured voluntary death on the Preparation, and rose again on the first of the Sabbaths, how will it be true that he spent three nights in the heart of the earth? But indeed, the divine Moses speaks to us in this way: "God called the light day, and the darkness he called night." When, therefore, the Lord was suspended on the immaculate cross, C darkness came over the whole earth, not by a cloud intervening to cover the sun, nor by the lunar body acting as a wall or partition to bar the sun’s splendor from reaching us (for those skilled in these matters teach that solar eclipses happen in this way), but by the earth being entirely seized by darkness, far denser than that with which the Egyptians were struck. For the light-giving power that streams from the solar body failed. For it was fitting that the whole of creation should mourn the bodily death of the Creator. Hence the prophet also says: "The sun shall set at midday, and the light shall be darkened in the day." And another again: "In that day there shall be no light; and there shall be neither day nor night, and at evening there shall be light." In that darkness, therefore, the divine and holy soul, D separated from the most holy and life-giving body, was present in the heart of the earth.
which is accounted as night. Then, after the darkness, the day is again fashioned by the Creator, with the sun having returned to its proper course; wherefore the prophet foretold that there should be light at evening. Then the night before the Sabbath, and the Sabbath itself, which was before the first of the Sabbaths, and this the very day of the holy Lord's day, brilliant and light-bringing, in which the uncreated light proceeds bodily from the tomb, like a bridegroom beautiful in the splendor of the resurrection (for the end of the Sabbaths, which the evangelist calls "late on the Sabbath," becomes the beginning of the first of the Sabbaths): in this way A you have the clear enumeration of the three days and as many nights. But let us return again to where we turned aside.
27. He who fashioned man from dust is brought down into the dust of death, and his life is taken from the earth. For he lays aside things that are of the earth—I do not mean the body, but the things of the body: sleep, and labor, and hunger, and thirst, and wounding, and flowing. For these things crept into our life through disobedience. And his burial takes place in peace, which he provided for us through the cross and burial, joining things that were distant, and subjecting man, the deserter, to God the Creator. Therefore, the wicked are delivered to destruction in place of his burial: the Jews, indeed, after the destruction of the temple and the city, led away as captives by their enemies, never to return again to their own land; for they are left destitute of divine assistance after that voice of the Lord, "Your house is left desolate." But the demons, having been deprived of the proud and arrogant tyranny B which they, being evil, had exercised over us in an evil way, enslaving us to the most shameful passions, have themselves been spoiled. He, however, has claimed as spoils of the most wicked ones all those who had died from the ages, all who were held under the yoke of sin. For while he was counted among the lawless, he planted righteousness, and the seed of the unbelievers became destruction; their feasts were turned into mourning, and in place of songs, sounds of lamentation echoed. But for us, light has risen from darkness, and life has come forth from the tomb, and resurrection has welled up from Hades, and joy, and gladness, and exultation.
28. Moreover, it will not be irrelevant, having touched upon the evangelical words, to draw forth the wealth hidden within them. They say who spoke divine truths by the Spirit, and who had Christ himself speaking within them, the evangelists: "When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, a noble councillor, a good and just man, C who himself had also been a disciple of Jesus, and was expecting the kingdom of God. He had not consented to their deed; but for fear of the Jews he was hiding. He boldly entered to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus." O blessed and lau-
laudable man! Truly, says the Lord, every tree is known by its own fruits. A Being therefore good and righteous, he had not consented to their counsel and deed. Verily, this is a blessed man, as the God-inspired David says. For he did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor did he stand in the way of sinners, nor did he boast, nor did he sit in the seat of the pestilent against the Lord and against His Christ, having taken counsel with lawless peoples. He did not say: "Take away, take away, crucify him." He did not utter the voice of the wretches, drawing upon himself and his own offspring the penalty of innocent and divine blood; but having his will in the law of the Lord, and in His law meditating and standing B or lying down always, he was watering his own mind with the God-implanted streams of the Spirit. For he had become a disciple of the good Teacher, and had followed in His footsteps. O the purpose of the rich man! O wise merchant, who seized the heavenly wealth in exchange for earthly, and hid the treasure of Life within himself! But Pilate, he says, marveled if He were already dead. He marveled how Life had died, how the Dispenser of the breath of men had given up the breath. Yes, He has died, O Pilate, but willingly. For He has power to lay down His soul, and He has power to take it up again. Yes, He has died, that He might plunder death, that He might bring to life him who is held by chains, that, having become the firstborn from the dead, He might spring forth resurrection to the dead, that the mortal might be swallowed up by Life.
29. Therefore, the body is granted to Joseph. O the uncontainable daring and boldness, which faith and divine love brought forth! The disciples who had been partakers of divine benefits are hidden, constrained by fear, and you—do you seek the dead Master? You have imitated your leader and Lord more quickly than them. For by your own disposition you have surrendered your own soul to death. You could not bear to see naked the holy body of the Lord, which was united to the Godhead according to hypostasis. You touched the divine coal, whose likeness even the Seraphim are unable to touch. C O blessed hands! O most blessed arms, with which, having taken hold of the body of my God, you wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and costly myrrh! For thus, he says, is the custom among the Jews to bury. There was, he says, in the place where He was crucified, a garden, and in the garden a new monument, in which no one had yet been laid. There, therefore, because of the Preparation of the Jews, since the monument was near, they placed Jesus, whom he had hewn out in the rock; and having rolled a great stone against the door, he departed. Preparation, then, is so called, D as being a kind of preparation
A for the rest of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath had the cessation from works, since God had ordained to the Hebrews that they should not touch any servile work at all; but for us, the divine passion has become a preparation for vacating sin and the evils that arise from it. He is wrapped, therefore, in a clean linen cloth, He who alone is clean and undefiled, He who covers the heaven with clouds, He who is clothed with light as with a garment; He is placed in a tomb, He who has heaven as His throne and the earth as His footstool, He who fills and contains all things, He who alone as God is uncircumscribed, and who holds the creation in the palm of His hand, is circumscribed bodily in a tomb. He is worshipped as God in heaven with the Father and the Spirit, and He is the same who lies bodily in the tomb as man, and is dwelling in the recesses of Hades B in His soul, and making the way into paradise accessible to the thief, while the uncircumscribed Divinity accompanies Him everywhere. For although the holy soul was separated from the life-giving and immaculate body, yet the divinity of the Word, after the conception in the womb of the holy Virgin and Theotokos Mary, having come to be in an inseparable union of the two natures according to hypostasis, remained undivided from both, I mean from the soul and the body; and thus one hypostasis of Christ remained even in death, the soul and the body subsisting in the hypostasis of the Word of God, and retaining this hypostasis even after death. For this reason, every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
30. Why, however, is He placed in a new tomb, in which no dead man had yet been laid? It seems to me, lest the resurrection be suspected as belonging to one of those who had been buried there long ago. For those who are envious of their own salvation are ready for wickedness, and are most quick to unbelief. In order, therefore, that the resurrection of the Lord might be shown to be manifest and clear, He alone is buried in a new and empty tomb, [He who is] the spiritual rock of life, from which the ungrateful ones formerly drank; the stone, I say, the cornerstone and not cut by hands, is concealed in a hewn-out rock C. For soft souls, and those who easily flow away into pleasures, cannot endure to receive the divine Word, but rather those that are firm and prepared in masculine strength for virtue.
31. “On the morrow,” it says, “which was after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered unto Pilate, saying.” Again the council of iniquity is gathered. Those who kill the prophets, and stone those who are sent to them; those who have cruelly devoured the vineyard of the Lord, the Israelite people D,
A devouring; who, having killed the servants, inhumanely slew even the Heir Himself. For they did not know that, as a man, He would be the heir of all creation. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And what do they say to Pilate? "Sir, we remembered that that deceiver said while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise.'" O the customary lawlessness of idolaters! They call the comrade of error and the slave of sin their lord—they, the deceivers themselves, and those who share in the error. But the Savior and Lord of all, who is truly the Truth, the Wisdom and Power of the Father, the true Light that enlightens every man coming into the world, they call a deceiver. Why, while He was still alive, do you not say this beforehand? Does He not live after death, He who is the Author of life to the living and to those who exist, the cause of their being? B Among the dead He was, indeed, but living, inasmuch as He was free. Have you never heard the Lord speaking in the prophet Jonah: "Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown"? For error shall be overthrown, as the Lord rises on the third day from the tomb, and righteousness and truth shall be planted. "Command, therefore," they say, "that the tomb be made secure until the third day." Why are you troubled in vain, you wretches? Why do you fear a fear where there is no fear? A seal shall not contain the Incircumscript One. If the seals of the pit did not hinder the entry of Habakkuk, so that he could not go to feed Daniel, the prophet and servant of God, how shall these seals be able to detain the Lord of all? But blind indeed is wickedness, and C quickly it is turned aside. "Lest," they say, "His disciples come and steal Him away, and say to the people, that He is risen from the dead; and the last error will be worse than the first." Who steals a corpse, O senseless ones? Those who dig up tombs are accustomed to loot the garments of the departed; but who has ever stolen a corpse? For if He should not rise, and if He should lie about the resurrection in His prediction, what cause will there be for the disciples to cling to Him in vain? For every dead man, as the Scripture testifies, is forgotten from the heart of mortals. But if He is, moreover, a deceiver, how much sooner will He be forgotten? And how will they bring upon themselves deaths and tribulations of every kind and a heap of evils, by clinging to a dead deceiver—as indeed they would have brought these upon themselves? Truly, the very error you attribute to yourselves, you falsely charge to the truthful.
D 32. "But Pilate said, 'You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.' So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone with the guard." Pilate shrinks from association with the God-killers, knowing that he found no cause of death in Him, and he casts the whole blame for the outrage upon them. "As you know," he says, "make it secure." Lest any doubt arises among you as to the resurrection,
A I have handed over to you both the seal and the guard. Do not, therefore, provide wicked pretexts and false impostures, 20 since the predictions of the deceiver, as you call Him, are proved true by the event of the resurrection. Now the matter stands on a razor's edge. [20*] Now is the judgment, as He Himself said. For if He Himself is lifted up from the earth by rising, you, the rulers, will be cast out, and He will draw all men to Himself. Such were the words of Pilate. But the shameless and ungrateful Jews, rushing like dogs to the tomb, seal the stone. Thus He lies dead in the tomb, guarded by watchers and seals—He who created the abyss and sealed it, He who set the sand as a boundary for the sea. He rested as a lion, B as a lion's whelp He fell asleep, sleeping guarded in the manner of a king. Who shall awaken Him? "Now I will arise," says the Lord; "now I will be exalted, now I will be glorified; now you shall see, now you shall perceive."
33. Meanwhile, the women, inflamed with the most ardent desire for the Master, seeing all these things openly and being most prepared to face any danger for the Lord, surpassed the apostles in boldness, not enduring to be outdone by them in this portion of praise. Therefore, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." 89 For it was fitting that through those by whom death had been ministered, through them also the resurrection should be served. But what does it mean that the apostles are now hiding? Surely there was need for the most faithful witnesses of the divine economy to be preserved, who would be heralds to the nations, as C eyewitnesses and ministers of the divine words. And why was Peter, that emulator and most diligent guardian of good things, permitted to fall even into denial? 90 It was, of course, destined that the rudder of the Church be entrusted to him. Therefore, so that he might know how to forgive those who return from transgression, by supreme providence God permitted this denial to overtake him, so that, instructed by his own fall, he might have compassion on the fall of others. But the women, filled with divine grace like ointment, and drawing to themselves by their love Christ, that ointment poured out for our restoration—Him, that is, who is poured out in the manner of divinity and is the Anointer, but who is also the Anointed in body—for the Anointing and the Anointed came together into one person and hypostasis—Him, I say, constantly pursuing with D the ardor of love, and running steadily in the fragrance of His ointments, they buy ointments again and hasten to the tomb. Wherefore they also become the first participants in the divine resurrection, as the righteous Judge bestows grace commensurate with their zeal.
34. Let us, therefore, also become like the wise servants waiting for the arrival of the master of the house,
A and let us use every effort to multiply the talent we have received, so that, like good servants and faithful stewards, we may attain the joy of the Lord. And it seems to me that this talent is every gift bestowed by divine goodness upon men. For there is no one who is entirely without a share of divine gifts, B but one is suited for this virtue, another for another; one for more, another for fewer; one for higher and more exalted tasks, another for humbler and more modest ones. To each God has distributed a measure of faith. Those who are powerful will be powerfully examined, and from him to whom much was entrusted, they will demand much. For each is required to give account according to the measure of the power entrusted to him by God. And He who gives knows to whom He gives, and all things are naked and exposed to His eyes. Let us therefore hasten with all our might to multiply the talent. Let him who received five give back five more to the One who gave them; and let him who was entrusted with two do likewise. Let each one who has received this grace stretch out a helping hand to those who are in need and exhausted by the burden of poverty. Let another feed with the Word those who are withering in the famine and parched by the heat of unbelief. Let us acquire friends from the mammon of iniquity, and let us fill the bellies of the poor, so that they, like confident advocates, may plead our cause before the tribunal filled with dread. C Let us welcome the homeless; let us clothe the naked; let us visit the sick; let us not hesitate to direct our feet toward those detained in prison; let us stretch out our hand to those who are in distress and sorrow. Let us suffer with them; let us pour out tears of sympathy, for this will extinguish the unending fire of Gehenna. If we accomplish these things with a thirsting heart, the Lord will say to us also, "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you."
35. We who have been called, let us clothe ourselves radiantly in a wedding garment, so that we may become partakers of the divine marriage; D and let us be found worthy of the calling, and let us partake of the fatted calf and the lamb of the Passover, and let us drink our fill of the new fruit of the vine—now indeed the flesh of God from wheat, and the blood of God from wine—truly, by the invocation, mysteriously transformed (for He is a stranger to falsehood who [ordained] it).
A For eating and drinking with a pure conscience, and being purified by these sevenfold, as if by some gold, and scrubbed clean of the counterfeit of sin, and receiving incorruptibility as an inheritance, and being joined to God, and being deified, and reveling in the participation of Him: when the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and the dead shall rise, when the judgment seat shall be set, and in the day in which God established to judge the world in righteousness; when all things shall receive their own restoration, with no other restoration remaining; when fire shall devour the adversaries without consuming them, B but the mansions prepared before the ages shall receive the righteous, as well as the bosom of Abraham—the Word of God and Lord himself, who was incarnate from the bosom of Abraham. When the earth of the impious shall fall, and darkness shall receive them, and the dark fire which they kindled for themselves, and the worm that gnaws without ceasing, and wailing mixed with the gnashing of teeth; but the earth of the meek shall receive those who are upright in heart and possess an unblemished faith, who are bright and shining brightly like the sun. When the foolish virgins shall be most foolishly troubled, seeking at a time not their own the things of the [proper] time, and hastening to adorn their extinguished lamps with strange oil, against whom the bridal chamber shall indeed be shut, but the voice of the impartial Judge shall sound from within, sharp and severe: "I do not know you." It is the same as to say: "I do not love you; for you did not love my brothers, nor did you show the bowels of mercy toward them." Therefore, "judgment without mercy [will be] to the one who has not shown mercy." For I, who am merciful, am delighted by no worship such as mercy. C Nothing so captures my heart as compassion. "For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." You did not open the doors of mercy to those in need, nor shall I myself open to you the entrance to my kingdom. This is the harvest that the foolish have gathered for themselves. But the wise virgins were prepared, and they were not troubled. For having filled their lamps with every kind of virtue, and having abundantly watered them with the oil of beneficence, and having kindled them with the illuminating fire of the orthodox faith, they went out as radiant ones, radiantly to meet the Bridegroom at midnight; they dance in the divine bridal chamber, and enjoy the joys therein, being intellectually joined forever to the Pure One, and being deemed worthy to converse purely with the Pure. D 36. And therefore you, O divine and holy flock of the Great Shepherd and Priest and Victim, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, who have gained the common name as servants of Christ, mindful of His sufferings, and words, and deeds, let us strive to keep His life-giving commandments. For He says: "Believe in God, and believe in me." And again: "The Father will send the Helper, who proceeds from the Father."
Believing, therefore, let us love Him fervently. "For he that loveth me," He says, "shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."
A 37. Let us therefore hate His enemies. Whosoever does not confess Christ as the Son of God and Lord, is an antichrist. If anyone shall say that Christ is a servant, let us close our ears, knowing that he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Let us bear His reproach as a diadem of glory. For "Blessed are you," He says, "when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven." For thus, we shall turn away from the folly of the foolish virgins, but we shall emulate the wisdom of the prudent ones.
B 38. But let us also be ready for the Lord’s resurrection from the dead. Let us not prepare for our belly things that make for luxury. Let us not accumulate a multitude of garments for the body, nor useless luxury of perfumes, nor revelries and drunkenness, and the beds and wantonness akin to these; let us not think highly of ourselves against the poor; let us not kindle an appetite for empty glory, and let us not reject the temperate bridles of desire; let us not become like lust-maddened horses, wildly craving things that belong to others; let us not sow in the flesh the fuel for fire; let us not be lured by the wicked enticement of gold and silver and precious stones; let us not allow our own table, filled with food, to excite the untamable worm of Gehenna while others are hungry. For behold, the Bridegroom is rising! Behold, the King of kings comes forth from the sepulcher! Let us prepare ourselves, so that we may not be deprived of the joy. Let us be expert money-changers, discerning the better from the worse, and let us burn the one with the fire of divine zeal and love, and store the other away in our own treasuries. Let us chasten anger and desire; let us wither the gluttony of the belly. C Let us gird ourselves with chastity through abstinence and a humble heart; let us cast down pride through humility and the memory of death; let us become all things to all men; let us bear insults bravely; being wronged, let us rejoice in hope. For "the fashion of this world passes away," and all that is presently seen moves on.
39. Let us, above all, be minded thus in ourselves, as in Christ Jesus, who loved us when we were enemies, and having loved us, had mercy on us, and having had mercy, humbled Himself, and humbling Himself, saved us. For mercy comes from love, and humility from mercy, and salvation and exaltation from humility. If we conduct ourselves thus, now indeed we shall be delivered D from the evils that beset us. If we cast aside the yoke of the passions,
A we shall also be delivered from the tyranny (31) that presses upon us; and just as painful things have come to us from better things, so too will better things return again from painful ones, and we shall regain our ancient boldness, and we shall purely celebrate the feast of our departure to the Lord God; and we shall be delivered from the blasphemous voice raised against the Creator, and the administration of the Church will be in peace. Then, with radiant lamps, we shall splendidly go out to meet the victor over death, the immortal Bridegroom, and the immaculate bridal chamber will receive us, and with unveiled face we shall contemplate the glory of the Lord, and we shall feast upon his beauty; with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, adoration, and magnificence, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
NOTICE REGARDING THE FOLLOWING HOMILY
I have nowhere found this homily, which is now published for the first time in Latin, on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God in Greek, but only in Arabic in the Colbertine codex, such as also exists at Oxford in England among the manuscripts of Balliol College, no. B, with the name of John of Damascus prefixed; and I have no doubt that it is his offspring. However, it seems to be in large part defective and mutilated, and it has not been rendered completely by the Arabic translator. Hence it is that it does not everywhere sufficiently reflect the talent and vein of our author, which, however, the first part of the discourse represents not badly. As for the Latin translation, it was prepared for me by a man of exceptional learning, and one also most skilled in the Arabic language, the most illustrious Abbot du Four de Longuerue, whose most ready and inexhaustible goodwill toward me and my studies I experience daily.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
SERMON OF OUR MOST HOLY FATHER JOHN OF DAMASCUS ON THE ANGELIC ANNUNCIATION OF THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST TO OUR IMMACULATE LADY MARY
C It is the beginning of the world and the source of our salvation. Today the Son of God, who is before the ages, now becomes the Son of man in time. Today is the beginning of the renewal of human nature. Today the abolition of original sin has occurred. Today our nature has been sanctified, in the habitation of the Creator himself. Today it has become worthy to rule over the archangels. Today the time has been completed of which the oracles of the prophets sounded. Today the time has been completed which the minds of the saints and the elect desired. Today Adam has built a temple for his Creator from his own lineage, in which he might dwell enfolded, and which he might redeem: Mary the virgin, precious, blessed, holy, the purest part of the Adamic nature, and the queen of the human race, pure, than whom none purer will be found anywhere in the body in the whole human race: holy, than whom none among future creatures is holier in soul as regards intelligible things: the glory of the Israelite nation, and the light of the Davidic lineage: of whom her grandfather David exclaims, raising his prophetic voice: Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and forget thy people, and thy father's house; and the King shall greatly desire thy beauty. This is she, D whose origin is the source of our salvation. It is now time, most beloved brethren, that we should exclaim with this Davidic voice: How magnified are thy works, O Lord; in wisdom hast thou made them all. For the present solemnity is the beginning of our festivals, and the head of our solemnities: whence our salvation arose, and our law had its beginning. For we were formerly subjects of an ancestral and original rebellion, and with the guilt of heavy sins added to it, we had become inhabitants of darkness and of the regions of death, nor could any of the prophets sent by God, and of the holy righteous, enlighten us with light, by redeeming us from the sins and wickedness of our transgressions. Wherefore the Creator himself became the redeemer, and illumined us with the light of his approach to us, just as the prophet says: The people that sat in darkness has seen a great light: and the secrets of his coming were entrusted to us, when he himself sent the angel Gabriel to announce the miracles of his incarnation. This present day is the beginning of our solemnities.
glorious beauty whose purity the Heavenly King desired, and He sent to her His minister Gabriel, that he might address her with a salutation of joy, and make her certain that she had been chosen by the Creator, saying: *Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women* (Luc. I, 28). And how should she not be blessed, A and full of grace, with whom the Lord of creatures took up His abode, joining to Himself from her a temple whereby He might bring aid to His own race? Today He who forms all things visible and invisible has fashioned for Himself a human image. Today He who produces all spiritual and material creatures has produced for Himself the likeness of flesh. O the abyss of the Creator’s mercy, and the excellence of His descent! For when He Himself willed to deliver His own creature, He emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, being found in appearance as a man (Phil. II, 7-8). O the magnitude of the benefits B which are unsearchable to anyone! We were indeed rebels against Him: but He Himself undertook our care. O the abundance of these goods, the price of which cannot be estimated! We indeed have committed the greatest sins: but He has redeemed us from them by His own liberality. He imposed upon Himself a burden that we ought to have borne, and bought us with the blood of His cross, and delivered us from the bond of servitude: Glory be to the magnitude of His majesty, of which there is no end.
When Mary saw the angel, she was troubled at his word, and began to ponder within herself what manner of salutation this might be. But the angel said to her: *Fear not, Mary: thou hast found grace with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son: and shalt 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 his father David; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.* And Mary said: *How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?* The angel answered, and said to her: *The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren: for with God nothing shall be impossible.* And Mary said: *Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.* And the angel departed from her (Luc. I, 29-38). Verily, this glorious and illustrious woman among women, having found grace with God, was chosen by Him, that He might take a body from her and fashion it from her holy blood: so that there was not in her predecessors any like her in purity, nor will there be any future one endowed with like sanctity. Therefore let the foolish and witless Nestorius be ashamed. For the holy thing which was born of the perpetual virgin Mary was to be called the Son of God, the Holy Spirit descending upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowing her. And the angel clearly expressed the naming of the holy Trinity, when he mentioned the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Highest, and the holy thing born of her. And indeed he also clearly indicated the unity of the substance of the most holy Godhead, and the simplicity of [His] will. For not the person of the Father, and the person of the Holy Spirit, assumed a body. The Incarnation of the eternal Son was accomplished by the will of the Father, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Let the beginning of His goodness, which cannot be comprehended, be praised. Certainly the angel brought us salvation, when he fixed its understanding for us, saying: *Nothing is difficult for God* (Gen. XVIII, 14); and Mary herself, being of exquisite sanctity, showed us the excellence of her humility, by receiving the angel, and by applying entire faith to him, having laid aside fear. *But upon whom shall I look, saith the Lord, but upon him that is humble, and peaceful, and reverent to my word* (Isa. LXVI, 2)? Now we have been made certain, brethren, and we have known the benefit conferred upon us on this most noble of days; in that, I say, solemnity which is the prince of other solemnities. Therefore let us proclaim glory by her spiritual glorification, and let us praise Him, celebrating with perpetual proclamations the gifts conferred upon us by Him, and rendering thanks with that thanksgiving which good works accompany, let us offer to Him sacrifices of good works that are entire and without defect. Let each one offer what he can, and what his strength achieves. And God indeed has commanded this: *Thou shalt not appear in my sight empty* (Exod. XXIII, 15). But He, who is most praiseworthy, who is the cause of all goods, accepts even various species of gifts, since He Himself bestows all kinds of graces; and He rejoices in the ready mind of the one offering. Therefore let us all run together, old men and adolescents, those of mature age and the younger, every company and kind, hastening to honor our Lady and the queen of our nature, proclaiming with praises the beauty of her purity, reverencing her perpetual virginity: finally honoring the height of her sanctity, let us say: O glory of daughters, ornament of mothers! O mother unknown to man! O virgin pregnant with the Son! O miracle, by which the prophets sent by God were struck with awe, and whose glory C surpasses the holy angels! Be propitious to thy servants, who implore thy aid D with entreaties. Intercede for us with thy Son and thy God, that He may forgive our sins, provide for our infirmity, deliver us from the spiritual Pharaoh, just as He delivered the Israelites from the whirlpool, may He make us cross the sea of this world which rages with waves and abounds with winds, may He grant us rest from the work of the bricks and the intellectual clay, and deliver us at last from the cruel foreigners, who exercise grave enmities against us as sins and impieties.
A And may we attain the pleasure of the kingdom of heaven, and the commemoration of the region of the living, passing an eternal life, which purified minds desire, through Jesus Christ, who is the cause of our opulence, which he himself announced to us when he saved us: to him be glory and holiness, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
NOTICE
This other oration on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of which most learned men—Philippus Labbe in his *Conspectus of the Works of St. John Damascene*, and Leo Allatius in his *Catalogue of the minor works of the same author* which he had sent to the illustrious John Aubert—made mention, I finally found in the Seguerian library, manuscript 32, though it is in large part mutilated. It is a salutory address to the most holy mother of our God, in which three things worthy of observation occur: the first of which is that the author gives thanks that through her the faithful have sacred images; the second is that he suggests the Roman Empire enjoys profound peace through her; and finally, that the Ishmaelites or Saracens are often routed and slain through the Virgin’s work. These things certainly do not pertain to those times which followed the edict issued by Leo the Isaurian against images, since at that time there was no peace for the faithful Christians throughout the whole Greco-Roman Empire, but a most dire persecution under the same Leo and his son Constantine; indeed, the armies of these emperors were most frequently defeated by the Saracens. Whence I judge that this oration was delivered during the first years of Leo, after the death of the Caliph Yazid, while his son Hisham was reigning, who took care to revoke immediately at the beginning of his principate the edict of his parent issued in the East against images. For the rest, in this homily we have a most remarkable argument of the most holy John Damascene’s fervent devotion toward the Mother of God, which he strove to signify to her in every possible way.
V.
B Discourse of John, monk and presbyter, on the Annunciation of our most holy Lady, the Mother of God.Now the royal and surpassing festival and celebration of the Queen has shone forth more brightly than the golden rays of the sun. Now the catholic and apostolic Church, exulting in a marvelous manner, displays its beauty. Now those who delight in spectacles and celebrate feast days, observing the solemnity of solemnities, gather together with an immense crowd. Now let the heavenly, the earthly, and the nether regions, and all the creatures in them, rejoice. Now let the all-praised one be praised, just as she is worthy of praise with all-praised praises. Now let the one God-magnified, and the God-chosen, and the God-named Virgin be magnified. Now let her who is truly many-named and many-eyed, and who is, all together, the most exalted of the whole creation, be praised. Now let the God-beloved, and God-containing, and world-venerated Ark of God be blessed. For today, in truth, joy and exultation come to pass everywhere in the world. Today let the assemblies of those who love festivals cry out. Today let all peoples cry out to the Queen born of David, saying, *Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei*, the city of the great King. Today let the God-written book of the prophets be opened, and let it be said concerning her, the ever-virgin, and Ever-Virgin Mary. Today let them rejoice
A over that animate city, the cities of all Judea. Today let Gabriel, the prince of the choirs of this most festive celebration, cry out from above to the Queen and say: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" Today let us, too, who are of clay-tongued speech, cry out and say to the most glorious and light-bearing Mother of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, joyfully praising her with certain delightful words and saying: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
Hail, full of grace, you who were chosen out of all generations, and tribes, and tongues, and nations, and peoples. Hail, full of grace, you who were predestined before the ages by the Creator and King of the ages. Hail, the culmination of the Old and New Testaments. Hail, the multi-flowered blossom of the God-bearing Fathers and patriarchs. Hail, the name foretold by the holy prophets who have existed from the ages. Hail, the descendant of Adam, the father of the world and fashioned by God. Hail, daughter of Eve, the first woman and mother of the world. Hail, the antitype of the animate ark which Noah built. B Hail, you who were truly born from the loins of Abraham, the father of nations, according to the promise of God. Hail, the heaven-reaching ladder which the great among the patriarchs, Jacob, once beheld. Hail, the fire-bearing bush which the far-famed Moses once saw on Mount Sinai. Hail, the holy-flowering rod of Aaron, who is truly looked upon with wonder among the priests. Hail, the new purple-variegated tabernacle, which the weaver Bezalel fashioned with a new work. Hail, the golden, stone-studded, and gold-woven oracle. Hail, the propitiatory overshadowed by the two Seraphim. Hail, the priestly ephod of the high-priestly vestment. Hail, the golden altar of incense... let my angels praise with a great voice. Hail, you in whom, for our sake, He who dwells in the flesh, He who says in Isaiah, "I am God first, and I am after these things," has tabernacled.
C Hail, O God-bearing treasure of God, who held in the flesh Him who is in no way held. Hail, the God-bearing treasure of God, and a report superior to every report. Hail, and for this reason hail, because you gave birth to a Child, about whom Jacob hints, saying: "Judah is a lion's whelp; from the sprout, my son, you have ascended." Hail, because you gave birth to a Child, about whom the God-progenitor David says: "That He shall live, and there shall be given to Him of the gold of Arabia." Hail, because you gave birth to a Child, whom "thousands of thousands of angels" attend, according to Daniel. Hail, because you D gave birth to a Child, whom the whole creation of those in heaven and those on earth hymns, glorifies, and blesses. Hail, because you gave birth to a Child, whom the many-eyed Cherubim proclaim as God, and the six-winged Seraphim proclaim as Lord. Hail, because you gave birth to a Child in the namesake city of David. Hail, because you gave birth to a Child, ancient of ages and recent, sprung from the fountains of Israel.
A Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, the Artificer of infants and the Sustainer of all things. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, of equal power and glory with the Father. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, as the wondrous Luke declares, in the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus Caesar. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account multitudes of angels descended to the earth. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks in the fields by night, were struck with amazement. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account angels sang together, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account there is heard a sound and a clamor. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account Herod is troubled, boiling with rage. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account your kinswoman Elizabeth is exiled from her home. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account Zacharias, the most great priest, is slain in the midst of the temple. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account Bethlehem is searched by a band of soldiers. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, for whose sake executioners armed with swords are sent. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account the recently born, who can barely imitate speech, are torn limb from limb. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, on whose account Rachel, pouring forth rivers of tears, sends forth a most sorrowful song. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, being circumcised on the eighth day according to the Law of Moses. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, who carved the Law upon tablets of stone, and became under the Law, and fulfills the Law. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, whom you offered in the Solomonic temple upon the completion of forty days. B Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, of infant appearance, whom Simeon, the priest venerable for his hoary hair, upon seeing, hastened to be released. Hail, because you have given birth to an Infant, who was proclaimed as Lord before all the people by the prophetess and widow Anna.
Hail, full of grace; hail, through whom there has been made known to us He who was begotten before all the hills, God, I say, who has power over all things. Hail, through whom the One above the world has been made known to us, He who adorned the unadorned world and created the uncreated creature. Hail, through whom there has been made known to us He who, before the mountains were brought forth, and the earth and the world were formed, was begotten from the unbegotten Father. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who stretched out the heaven like a curtain and established the dry land over the waters of the abyss. Hail, through whom there has been made known to us He who bridled with sand the great, world-encompassing, and wondrously visible sea. C Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who formed Adam, the first of men, with undefiled and unmade hands. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who said to Abraham: In blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who of old, through Moses, rescued the Israelite people from Egyptian servitude. D
and slew the Pharaonic king in the sea. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who throughout the ages showed Himself visible to the Fathers and prophets and to all who are called saints according to purpose. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who, through the compassions of mercy, became man for the sake of man. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who alone is holy among the holy, and alone glorious among the glorified, and alone most high over all the earth. Hail, through whom there has appeared to us He who alone is impassible, and alone compassionate, and alone truthful, and alone from the One only-begotten Son of God and God. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the self-begotten is born to us, and the self-existent sprouts forth, and the perfect one grows. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the incorporeal is embodied for us, and the beginningless begins, and the uncontainable is contained. Hail, O Lady B Theotokos, through whom the life-in-itself is quickened, and the illimitable is given a measure, and the fleshless is incarnated. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the uncreated is created, and the rich becomes poor, and the Most High becomes an infant. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the untouchable is touched, and the intangible is held, and He who bears all things is carried. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the guardian of all, and the nourisher, and the God who is the dispenser [of all] is fed with milk. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom the Son of God and Word, [became] Son of man corporally according to an ineffable good pleasure. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom He who is without mother becomes without father, and a new Melchisedech is assembled. Hail, O Lady Theotokos, through whom He who is fairer in beauty than the sons of men has passed.
Hail, only Mother of God, who from the ends of heaven even to its ends C holdest, as Mother and in the manner of David, the attainment of protection. Hail, only Mother of God, who art the magnificent and glorious splendor of the celestial, the terrestrial, and the infernal. Hail, only Mother of God, who art brighter than every ray and purer than every purity. Hail, only Mother of God, who art more venerable than every object of veneration, and a report surpassing every report. Hail, only Mother of God, who art sweeter than every sweetness, more noble than every noble thing, and more enriched than all abounding wealth. Hail, only Mother of God, who art the name by itself truly, genuinely, the most beautiful and most longed-for [name] of the Christian creation. Hail, only Mother of God, who art to be worshipped unto the ages, and glorified unto the ages, and praised unto endless ages. Hail, only Mother of God, who unto all generations of generations art unanimously magnified by angels and men in fear. Hail, only queen among queens, who art indeed the daughter of kings, but Mother of Christ the King of all, and the strength of pious kings. Hail, only queen among queens, clothed and adorned in a gold-woven vesture, as the great psalmist D
B proclaimed. Hail, only one among women blessed, who restored the fall of our first mother Eve. Hail, only one among women blessed, who exalted the lowliest race of women lying on the dust. Hail, only one among women blessed, radiant and admirable, who alone conceived Christ, God and man, without the agency of a man, and brought Him forth without pain. Hail, only one truly blessed among women and glorious, who without being harmed by the flame, did conceive and bear one of the tri-radiant and most holy Trinity. Hail, only one among women blessed, who alone contained, without restriction, Him whom the world cannot contain. Hail, only Spouse who knows no spouse, who long ago was promised in the Song of Songs. Hail, only Virgin among virgins, who remained a Virgin before birth, in birth, and after birth. Hail, only one among gates, the closed gate, and only city among cities fortified with towers.
Hail, truly full of grace, hail, because you are holier than the Angels and more excellent than the Archangels. Hail, full of grace, because you are more admirable than the Thrones, more dominant than the Dominions, and of greater power than the Virtues. Hail, full of grace, because you are superior to the Principalities and more sublime than the Powers. Hail, full of grace, because you are more beautiful than the Cherubim and more august than the Seraphim. Hail, full of grace, because you are higher than the heavens and purer than the sun we see. Hail, full of grace, because you are nobler than all things beneath the sun’s rising, and more royal than all the kingdoms of mortal nature. Hail, full of grace, because you are far better than that truly good and broad land flowing with honey and milk. C Hail, full of grace, because you are made whiter than snow and sweeter than honey. Hail, full of grace, because you are more fragrant than lilies, redder than roses, and have blossomed more than the many-colored spring. Hail, full of grace, because you have been made more beautiful than Jerusalem and more magnified than Solomon’s temple. Hail then, hail, and again I say, hail, full of grace, because heaven and earth are full of your greatness.
Hail, through whom we, the humble, worship with fitting reverence the second and light-bestowing generation of Christ. Hail, through whom we have known the world-creating, life-originating, and ever-reigning Trinity. Hail, through whom we, the Christian people, are named by the name of your Son and God. D Hail, through whom we have been enrolled as citizens in the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Hail, through whom we possess the soul-saving and light-formed faith. Hail, through whom we worship the most-worshipped and healing-producing Cross. Hail, through whom we are baptized into the sanctifying and thrice-resplendent baptism. Hail, through whom we, being pure, dare to approach the terrible flesh at the terrible table, and partake of it. Hail, through
whom we taste of the true and immortal bread. Hail, through whom we have been raised up from the gates of Hades to the heavens. Hail, through whom we have been redeemed from the curse and deemed worthy of ineffable joy. Hail, through whom we adore the Christ-formed and venerable icons. Hail, through whom we trample upon the gold-wrought, demon-formed idols of the Greeks. Hail, through whom A we resist that ancient and arrogant rebel.
Hail, through whom the empire of the Romans enjoys tranquility. Hail, through whom it is granted to kings to reign, and the command of armies is entrusted to generals. Hail, through whom victory is often won in battle against alien and strange-tongued nations. Hail, through whom foreign peoples fall like leaves, and the impious are driven like the chaff before the wind, with no one pursuing them. Hail, through whom those who fight with arms and bear shields are broken, and those protected by iron are struck down before the engagement. Hail, through B whom ambidextrous archers are repelled, and the nations that desire war are beaten with stripes. Hail, through whom the barbarian and butcher-dog Ishmael is slain by the sword. Hail, through whom the faithful, who are held miserably captive in iron shackles, escape from the midst of their armed captors. Hail, through whom the entire world is covered and preserved for all time. Hail, through whom every good thing in heaven and on earth was promised to us. Hail, through whom a blessing has gushed forth for the faithful, since we are thy people, even if we are entangled in the chains of our sins. C Hail, through whom the brittle substance of the weak, both men and the wandering and unstable nature of the weak-born women, is blessed. Hail, through whom the impious, having become pious, piously worship and adore thy most venerable birth-giving. Hail, through whom the lovers of gold become lovers of Christ, and the lovers of silver become lovers of humanity, and the lovers of the poor become zealous for riches. Hail therefore, hail, full of grace, because many have despised much wealth for thy sake, so that they might win thee, the only Good. Hail, because many of the pious emperors have often deemed gold to be mud for thy sake, and silver to be ash. Hail, D because many of the Christ-loving queens have deemed jewel-bright crowns and gold-threaded purple robes for thy sake to be more worthless than a spider’s web. Hail, because many of the nobles have despised for thy sake Indian and crystal-clear stones. Hail, because many, if I may so speak, even of the noble women, have for thy sake counted as nothing those linen and scarlet, purple and silk garments, that seemed worthy of admiration. Hail, because many of the adulterous women have deemed ornaments and bracelets set with gems to be more fragile than leaves for thy sake. Hail, because many times many of the famous and illustrious men, and even the wealthy, have held thousands of gold and silver as refuse and dung for thy sake. Hail, because for thy sake youth-
-A-ful women have chosen to wear wool garments perpetually. Hail, thou who art full of grace, because thou hast become a refuge for us, and thou dost intercede for us who are created from clay to thy Son, and thy God, and our God. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, the common salvation of all the ends of the earth together, and the Christian protection of all Christians. Hail, thou who alone art the helping assistance of the helpless, and the sole almighty power of those who lack strength. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, the sole exaltation of the humble, and the sole support of the poor, and the sole mother of orphans, and of the destitute, and of widows. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, the sole comfort of those who are oppressed, and the sole covering of those who lack shelter. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, B the sole redemption of captives, and the sole recall of exiles and those who have been banished. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, the sole visitation of the sick, and the sole healing of the infirm, and the sole health of those who are vexed by demons. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, the sole steering of those who sail, and the sole traveling companion and leader of those who journey by night. Hail, because the eyes of all of us set their hope on thee, who alone art pure, and look upon thee at all times. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, thou who always standest before us, the humble, and deliverest us from every just wrath and threat. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, thou who always keepest and watchest over our impoverished race in temptations, in dangers, and in various calamities. Hail, thou who art full of grace, because no one except God has obtained such a great name, or has attained such glory. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all, hail, for whose sake we celebrate this day, more excellent C than the world, in a way surpassing the world. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all; hail, for whose sake we hold today the solemnity of solemnities and the festival of festivals with all the people gathered together. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all, hail, for whose sake we assemble today like a flock in thy most holy temples, and magnify thee with a loud voice. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all; hail, for whose sake we gather today like bees to multiply our hymnody for thy protection. Hail, thou who art full of grace, hail, for whose sake we, carrying lights today, extol thee brilliantly in the Church. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all; hail, for whose sake we have today taken up the words of David with David, and the words of the angel with the angel. Hail, thou who art truly blessed above all, hail, for whose sake we, the captive praisers, have today woven together this fourfold fifty of joyful D addresses; nevertheless, extend thy mercy, all-good Lady, to those who have known thee, and look upon thy servants and upon thy works, and guide everyone into the way of peace: because the eyes of all hope in thee, and through thy mediation, we have obtained reconciliation with thy Son and God, and our
A God we have attained; to whom be glory, to whom be dominion, to whom be strength, together with his Father, who is without beginning, and with his consubstantial and Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.
NOTICE REGARDING THE FOLLOWING SERMON
Many ecclesiastical codices contain this, as a most eloquent monument to Mary, which is wonted to be read with frequent use in the Churches of the East. Billius used a highly depraved codex, although he was a man of long learning and an accurate interpreter in many things, yet in many places he expressed the Damascene poorly. Besides the codices in which Pantinus noted many emendations, I have collated them with other Royal ones, and most recently with another of the most eminent Cardinal Mazarin, which is fully approved, though not entirely complete; from all of which I strive to produce an integral and sound text, with some things noted in the margin that have been either changed or emended; and allowing the reader to compare our edition with that of Billius. In the place of notes, there will be the emendation of the text, the new version, and the things which I here and there ascribe to the margin, from all of which the reader will easily perceive what displeased one in Billius, or in Pantinus; nor will he judge it difficult to determine whether, after such great vigils of Billius, it remains possible to put any further effort into the Damascene. Thus Combefis in his Bibliotheca concionatoria; to whose efforts I have added my own, as much regarding the emendation of the text as the translation, on account of the various readings I have obtained from the codex of the most illustrious Abbot Dominicus Passionei.
B A Sermon of John, the humble monk and presbyter of Damascus, on the day of the Nativity of our most holy Lady, the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary.
a. Come, all nations, every race of men, and every tongue, and every age, and every rank; let us celebrate with gladness the birthday of the world’s joy. For if the children of the Greeks—whose minds were stolen by the false myths of demons, and who obscured the truth—used to observe the birthdays of kings with every honor, every man offering gifts according to his ability, and all those things that corrupt life, how much more does it behoove us to honor the birthday of the Mother of God, through whom the entire human race—through whom the sorrow of our first mother Eve—has been transformed into joy? For she indeed heard by the decree of the divine sentence: *In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children*; but she hears: *Hail, full of grace*. She heard: *Thy turning shall be toward thy husband*; she: *The Lord is with thee*. What, then, shall we offer to the Mother of the Word, if not word and speech? Let all creation rejoice and praise the most sacred labor C of the most holy one. For she has brought forth to the world an unassailable treasure of good things. For through her, the Creator has transformed all nature toward the better, through the medium of humanity. For if man, standing as a middle point between mind and matter, is the bond of all visible and invisible creation, the Creator-Word of God, having been united to the nature of men, has through her been united to the entire creation. Let us, therefore, celebrate the release of human sterility, because the loss of good things has been undone for us.
2. But for what reason was the Virgin born of a barren mother? For it was fitting that the only thing new under the sun, the crown of miracles, should be preceded by miracles, and that the progress should be made gradually from the humbler to the greater. Yet there is another, higher and more divine reason, which I could put forward. For nature gives way to grace, and stands trembling, not daring to advance further. Since, therefore, it was to be that the Theotokos Virgin should be born of Anna, nature did not dare to anticipate the offspring of grace, but remained barren until grace brought forth the fruit. For it was necessary that the firstborn be born, from whom would be born the firstborn of every creature, in whom all things consist. O blessed pair, Joachim and Anna! The entire creation is in your debt. For through you it has offered to the Creator the most excellent of all gifts: a chaste Mother, who alone was worthy of the Creator. O most blessed loins of Joachim, from which the most immaculate seed was cast! O glorious womb of Anna, in which, by silent growth, the most holy fetus was nurtured and formed! O womb, which contained a living heaven, more spacious than the breadth of the heavens! O field, which brought forth the heap of life-giving grain, as Christ himself declared: Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remains alone. O breasts that suckled her who nourished the Nourisher of the world! O miracle of miracles, and the most wondrous of wonderful things! For it was fitting that God's ineffable and condescending incarnation be preceded by miracles. But how shall I proceed further? My mind is carried out of itself, and fear and desire divide me between them. My heart palpitates, and my tongue is restrained; I cannot bear the pleasure; I am overcome by the miracles, and have become possessed by divine passion. Let desire prevail, let fear withdraw, let the cithara of the Spirit sing: Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth exult.
C 3. Today the gates of sterility are opened, and the divine virginal gate comes forth, from whom and through whom God, who is above all, as the hearer of the secret things, Paul, would say, is about to enter corporally into the world. Today a rod has sprung from the root of Jesse, from which a divine rose will ascend for the world. Today, from earthly nature, He has established a heaven on earth, He who of old had fixed the firmament from the waters and raised it to the heights. And, indeed, this heaven is far more divine and more wondrous than that one. For He who established the sun in that one, is Himself to rise as the Sun of justice from this one. Two natures, let the Acephali rage as they will; one person, however much the Nestorians may burst with anger. For that eternal light, which has its existence before the ages from the eternal light;
A indeed that light which is void of matter and incorporeal, becomes embodied from her, and like a bridegroom comes forth from the bridal chamber, being God, and later becoming earth-born. Like a giant he will exult to run the course of our nature, and having traveled through sufferings toward death, and to bind the strong man, and to plunder his vessels—namely, the human race—and to lead back the wandering sheep to the heavenly land. Today the Son of the carpenter, the all-crafting Word of Him by whom all things were fashioned, the strong arm of the Most High God, as if by His own finger, the Spirit, sharpening the blunted adze of nature, fashioned for Himself a living ladder, whose base is set upon the earth, but its head reaches up to heaven itself, upon which God rests—the type of which Jacob beheld, through B which God, descending without change, or rather condescending, was seen upon the earth and conversed with men. For this is what that descent signifies: the condescending humility, the life on earth, the knowledge of Him granted to those on earth. Upon the earth the intelligible ladder, the Virgin, is set; for from the earth she has her birth; but her head reaches unto heaven. For the head of every woman is the man; but as for her, since she knew no man, God and Father became her head, having made an arrangement through the Holy Spirit, and, as if a divine spiritual seed, having sent forth His own Son and Word, the omnipotent power. For by the good pleasure C of the Father, not from carnal union, but from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, the Word supernaturally became flesh without change, and dwelt among us. For the union of God with men takes place through the Holy Spirit. He who can receive it, let him receive it. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let us move beyond things corporeal. The divine nature is free from passion; He who begat impassibly before, naturally, also begets the same Son afterward, impassibly, by the plan of the economy. And David, the ancestor of God, is witness, saying: *The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you*. But the "today" has no place in the generation before the ages; for that generation is timeless.
D 4. Today the gate facing the east is built, through which Christ will enter and go out; and the gate will be shut, in which Christ is the door of the sheep, whose name is the Orient, through whom we have had access to the Father, the source of light. Today have breathed the breezes, heralds of joy for the whole world. Let the heaven above rejoice, and let the earth below exult, and let the sea of the world be stirred. For in this is born the shell, which from heaven will contain in its womb the lightning of the Godhead, and shall bring forth the most precious pearl, Christ:
A from whom the King of glory, arrayed in the purple of the flesh, coming to the captives, shall preach deliverance. Let nature exult, for the ewe lamb is born, from whom the Shepherd shall clothe Himself with the sheep, and shall tear asunder the garments of ancient mortality. Let virginity lead the dances, because, as Isaiah speaks 64, a virgin is born, who shall have in her womb and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, God with us. God with us, acknowledge this, Nestorians, and at last yield; for God is with us. Not a man 45, not an ambassador, but the Lord Himself shall come and save us. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; God is the Lord, and He has shined upon us. Let us institute a solemn day for the birthday of the Mother of God. Rejoice, Anna, you who were barren and did not bear; break forth and cry out, you who did not travail. Exult, Joachim, because from your daughter a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and his name shall be called Messenger of the great counsel, the salvation of the whole world, God the mighty 68. Let Nestorius blush and put his hand upon his mouth 46. This child is God, and how is she who bore Him not the Mother of God? "If anyone does not confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God 47, he is alien from the Godhead." This is not my own saying, even though the word is mine; for I have received this most divine inheritance from the Theologian father, Gregory, as most theological.
5. O blessed pair, Joachim and Anna, and truly most immaculate! By the fruit of your womb you were made known, just as the Lord says somewhere: By their fruits you shall know them 70. In a manner pleasing to God, and worthy of her who was born of you, you ordered your way of life. For by your chaste and holy conversation you brought forth the necklace of virginity, her who was a virgin before childbearing, and a virgin in childbearing, and a virgin after childbearing, the one who alone always, both in mind, and in soul, and in body, continued in virginity. For it was fitting that the virginity which sprouted there from chastity should bring forth the only-begotten light in a bodily manner, by the good pleasure of Him who had begotten Him in an incorporeal way; a light C not that which begets, but that which is always begotten, and for whom to be begotten is His sole personal property. O what a workshop of miracles and of what kind of covenants this maiden has become! The offspring of sterility, virginity bringing forth, a mixture of Godhead and manhood, of passion and impassibility, of life and death, so that in all things the worse might be overcome by the better. And all these things were done for the sake of my salvation, O Lord; for so great was Your love toward me that You did not accomplish my salvation through angels or any created thing, but as You made the first formation, so also You likewise wrought the restoration through Yourself. D
A I am carried away in triumph and exultation, steeped in the fountain of miracles, overflowing with joy; I strike the harp of the Spirit once more and sing the divine hymn of the Nativity.
B O most chaste pair, Joachim and Anna! Preserving the chastity that the law of nature prescribes, you have divinely attained what surpasses nature: for you gave birth to the mother of God, who knows not man, for the world. Living piously and holily in human nature, you have brought forth a daughter who is superior to the angels and is now the Mistress of the angels. O most beautiful and most sweet girl! O lily among thorns, sprung from the most noble and royal Davidic root! Through you, the kingdom has been enriched by the priesthood. Through you, there has been a translation of the law, and the Spirit, who lay hidden beneath the letter, has been revealed, having been transferred from the Levitical tribe to the Davidic tribe for the dignity of the priesthood. O rose, which, sprung from the thorns—that is, the Jews—have perfumed all things with divine fragrance! O daughter of Adam and mother of God! Blessed are the loins and the womb from which you came forth. Blessed are the arms that carried you; and the lips that were granted the enjoyment of your chaste kisses, of your parents alone, so that in all things you might always preserve your virginity. Today the salvation of the world has begun. Jubilate to God, all the earth; sing, exult, and chant. Lift up your voice, lift it up, do not fear; for in our [midst], in the holy Probatic pool, the mother of God has been born to us, from whom the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world chose to be born. C Leap, O mountains, O rational natures, you who ascend to the heights of spiritual contemplation! For the most manifest mountain of God is born, which surpasses and transcends every hill and every mountain—that is, the height of angels and men—out of which the cornerstone, Christ, the one subsisting person, who joined together things that were utterly divergent, D that is, the divine and human nature alike, as well as angels and men, Gentiles and the carnal Israel into one spiritual Israel, chose to be hewn without hands or bodily labor. The mountain of God, a fat mountain; a mountain curdled, a fat mountain; the mountain in which it has pleased God to dwell in it. The chariot of God, manifold with ten thousands, overflowing with the depth of divine grace; I mean the Cherubim and Seraphim. A summit holier than Sinai, which no smoke, no darkness, no tempest, no terror-striking fire covers, but the enlightening radiance of the all-holy Spirit. For there, indeed, the Word of God inscribed the law on stone tablets with the Spirit as if with a finger; but in her, of the Holy Spirit and her own blood, the Word Himself has been incarnate, and has given Himself to our nature as a remedy more efficacious for salvation. There was the manna; in her is He who had imparted the sweet flavor to the manna. Let that most celebrated tabernacle which Moses constructed of precious and manifold...
and everything that in the desert prepared the material: and before this, that tabernacle of Abraham, [living] and rational, became the tabernacle of God. For this did not exist as a vessel of divine action, but in a substantial manner [it was the vessel] of the hypostasis of the Son and God. Let there be recognized the incomparable nature of [the Virgin] in relation to it: the ark covered round about with gold, and the golden pot bearing the manna, and the lampstand, and the table, and all those ancient things. For by the pattern of this she was honored, as shadows of the true archetype. B
7. Today the Creator of all has fashioned a new book, the Word of God, whom the Father vomited forth from His heart, written by the Spirit, who is the tongue of God, as with a pen; which, though given to a man who knew letters, was by no means read by him. For Joseph did not know Mary, nor the power of this mystery. O most holy daughter of Joachim and Anna, who hast hidden thyself from the principalities and powers, and the fiery darts of the wicked one; who hast dwelt in the bridal chamber of the Spirit, and hast been kept spotless to be the bride of God, and mother by nature of God! C O most holy daughter, who art seen in maternal arms, and art formidable to the apostate powers! O most holy daughter, who art nourished by mother's milk, and art surrounded on every side by angels! O daughter dear to God, ornament of parents, whom, as has been truly said by thee, all generations call blessed! O daughter worthy of God, beauty of human nature, the correction of the foremother Eve! For by thy childbearing, she who had fallen has been raised up. O most holy daughter, glory of women! For although the first Eve became guilty of transgression, and through her death entered in, while she served the serpent against the first parent, yet Mary, obeying the divine will, deceived the deceiver himself, and brought immortality into the world. D O daughter ever-virgin, who hast had no need of the works of man for conception! For He whom thou didst bear in thy womb has the eternal Father. O earth-born daughter, who didst bear the Creator in the arms that gave birth to God! The ages contended among themselves as to which of them should glory in thy birth. But the preordained counsel of God, by whom the ages were made, overcame their contention, and the last have become first, having been favored by thy birth. Truly thou hast surpassed all created things in dignity. For from thee alone the Creator took a portion, the firstfruits of our lump. His flesh was compounded from thy blood, and his blood from thy blood, and God sucked milk from thy breasts, and thy lips were joined to the lips of God. O miracles exceeding the grasp of the mind and speech! The God of all, foreknowing thy dignity, therefore loved thee, and having loved thee, predestined thee, and in the last times brought thee into existence, and revealed thee as the Theotokos, mother and nurse of His own Son and Word.
A 8. It is said that contraries are the medicines for contraries; but contraries do not arise from contraries. Even if each thing is naturally woven [(59)] through contraries, it originates out of the abundance of its own nature. Just as sin, for instance, producing death for me through the good, is shown to be sinful beyond measure, so the Author of good works what is natural to Him for us through contraries. For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. If we had kept our first communion with God, we would not have been granted one greater and more wondrous. But now, because we did not keep what we had received, we were cast out from that former communion through sin. However, by the compassion of God, we have received mercy and have been taken up, so that the communion might become secure. For He who takes up is able to keep the union unbreakable. For since the whole earth had gone whoring in its fornication, and the Lord’s people had been led astray by a spirit of fornication away from the Lord their God—who had acquired them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and had brought them out by signs and wonders from the house of slavery of Pharaoh, and had led them through the Red Sea [(60)], and had guided them in a cloud by day, and all night long in the illumination of fire—yet their heart turned back toward Egypt. And the people of the Lord became "not the people of the Lord," and he who had obtained mercy, "not having obtained mercy," and he who was beloved, "not beloved." For this reason, a Virgin is now born as an adversary to the ancestral fornication, and she is betrothed to God Himself, and she gives birth to the mercy of God. And the people of God, who were not formerly a people, are established; and he who had not obtained mercy, has obtained mercy; and he who was not beloved, is beloved. For from her is born the beloved Son of God, in whom He was well pleased.
B 9. A vine rich in shoots sprouted from Anna, and blossomed a cluster of sweetness, a drink of nectar gushing forth for earth-born men unto eternal life. Joachim and Anna sowed for themselves unto righteousness, and reaped the fruit of life. They lit for themselves the light of knowledge, and sought out the Lord, and the offspring of righteousness came to them. Let the earth be confident, and the children of Zion. Rejoice in the Lord your God, because the desert has blossomed; the barren woman has brought forth her fruit. Joachim and Anna, like spiritual mountains, distilled sweetness. Rejoice, blessed Anna, for you have brought forth a female child. For this female is the future Mother of God, the gate of light, the fountain of life, and she dissolves the crime of women. The rich of the people shall entreat the countenance of this female [(61)]. Kings of nations shall worship this female, bringing gifts. You shall offer this female to God, the King of all, clothed in the comeliness of virtues as if with golden fringes, and adorned...
A with the grace of the Spirit, whose glory is from within. For the glory of every woman is her husband, coming from without; but the glory of the Theotokos is from within, namely the fruit of her womb. O desirable, thrice-blessed female! Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. O female, daughter of King David, and Mother of God, the King of all! O divine and living image, in whom God the Creator took delight, having a mind divinely governed and intent upon God alone; and all desire stretched toward that which alone is to be sought and worthy of love; and anger only against sin and its progenitor. You shall have a life better than nature. You shall not have it for yourself, however, for you were not born for your own sake. Wherefore you shall have it for God, for whose sake you came into B the world, that you might serve the salvation of the whole world, and that the ancient counsel of God, the incarnation of the Word and our deification, might be fulfilled through you. Your appetite shall be nourished by divine discourses, and you shall grow fat upon them like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God; like a tree planted by the streams of the Spirit; like the tree of life, which gave its fruit in its preordained time, God, that is, incarnate, the eternal life of all. Having every thought nourishing and profitable to the soul, and rejecting every superfluous and soul-destroying thought before you taste of it. Your eyes are always toward the Lord, beholding the eternal and unapproachable light. Your ears hear the divine word and are delighted by the harp of the Spirit, through whom the Word entered to be made flesh. Your C nostrils are charmed by the scent of the perfumes of the Bridegroom, who is the divine perfume, voluntarily poured out and anointing His own humanity. For "Your name is oil poured out," says the Scripture. Your lips praise the Lord and cling to His own lips. Your tongue and throat discern the words of God and are filled with divine sweetness. Your heart is pure and undefiled, seeing and desiring God, who is without stain. Your womb is the dwelling place of Him whom no place can contain; and your breasts are filled with milk, by which God, the child Jesus, was nourished. Gate of God, shining in perpetual virginity. Hands that bore God, and your knees, a throne higher than the Cherubim; through which hands that were hung down and knees that were paralyzed have been strengthened. Your feet, led by the law of God as by a lamp of light, and running D after Him without looking back, until they drew the Lover to the Beloved. You are entirely the bridal chamber of the Spirit. You are entirely the city of the living God, which the streams of the river gladden; the waves of the gifts of the holy Spirit. You are altogether beautiful, altogether near to God. For, having ascended above the Cherubim and being exalted above the Seraphim, you have become near to God. 10. O miracle, greater than all miracles!
A Since God was seen made a little lower than the angels, let the most wise Solomon be silent, and let him not say: "There is nothing new under the sun." O Virgin full of grace, holy temple of God, in which the spiritual Solomon, that prince of peace, dwelt after constructing you within himself—a temple, I say, adorned not with gold and inanimate stones, but instead of gold shining with the Spirit; and instead of precious stones, having the most precious pearl, Christ, that carbuncle of the Godhead—pray, O suppliant, that it may touch our lips, so that, having been purified, we may praise Him together with the Father and the Spirit, crying out: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord Sabaoth," one nature of the Godhead in three persons. "Holy is God and Father," who was well-pleased in you, and from you to complete the mystery foreordained before the ages. "Holy the Strong," the Son of God, and God the Only-begotten, who brought you forth as first-born today from a sterile mother, so that, being Only-begotten from the Father, and first-born of all creation, He might be born Only-begotten from you, a Virgin mother, and first-born among many brothers similar to us, a participant through the flesh and blood which He assumed from you. But He did not bring you forth from the Father alone, or from the Mother alone, so that the property of being "only-begotten" might be preserved in every way for the only Only-begotten. For He alone is only-begotten from the sole Father, B and alone from the sole Mother. "Holy Immortal," the all-holy Spirit, who with the dew of His own Godhead kept you unharmed by the divine fire. For that bush of Moses already foreshadowed this.
11. Hail, Probatica, the most holy shrine of the Mother of God. Hail, Probatica, the ancestral dwelling of the Queen. Hail, Probatica, the sheepfold of old of the sheep of Joachim, but now the heaven-resembling Church, the rational sheepfold of Christ; you, who once each year received the Angel of God troubling the water, restoring one person to health, now have a most copious host of heavenly powers praising the Mother of God with us; that abyss of miracles, that fountain of healing for the whole world, who received not a ministering angel, but the Angel of the Great Council, who like rain descended silently into the fleece, and restored to sound health and ageless life all nature, which was ailing and declining toward destruction; through whom the paralytic who lay C in you leaped like a deer. Hail, venerable Probatica, may your grace increase. Hail, Mary, sweetest little daughter of Anna; for love draws me back to you again. How shall I describe your most reverent gait, how your attire? How the grace of your countenance? That aged wisdom in a youthful body? Your dress was modest, shunning all softness and luxury. Your step was grave, and not precipitate, having nothing slack or soft about it. Your manners were severe, and
A tempered with cheerfulness, inaccessible to men. Such is that fear which seized you at the unusual salutation of the angel. You were obedient and submissive to your parents. Your mind was humble in its most sublime contemplations. Your speech was pleasant, proceeding from a gentle soul. What indeed else could you be but a dwelling worthy of God? Deservedly all generations call you blessed, as the choicest glory of the human race. You are the boast of priests, the hope of Christians, the most fruitful plant of virginity. For through you the honor of virginity has been spread most widely: *Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.* Those who confess you to be the Theotokos are blessed; those who deny it are cursed.
12. O holy pair, Joachim and Anna, accept this natal oration from me! O daughter of Joachim and Anna, and Lady, accept the prayer of a sinful servant, who yet ardently loves and honors you, and has you alone as the hope of his joy, the president of his life, and also as a reconciler with your Son, and the sure pledge of his salvation. Dispel the burden of my sins, dissipate the cloud and the earthly thickness that obscures my mind, suppress temptations, govern my life prosperously, that I may be led by you to heavenly beatitude, and reconcile peace to the world. To all the orthodox inhabitants of this city, grant complete joy and everlasting salvation, through the prayers of your parents and the whole gathering of the Church. May it be, may it be. Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus Christ the Son of God. To Him be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto endless ages of ages. Amen.
VII. Another sermon by the same, on the Nativity of our most holy Lady, the Theotokos.
1. Creation celebrates brilliantly today, taking the Virgin as a new heaven. B A maiden has been born on earth, an animated bridal chamber of the King of heaven. A young maid has come into the light, shining more brightly than the rays of the sun. An infant shone forth from a barren womb, the most sacred sanctuary of virginity. Who would not come to the celebration? Who would not bring festal gifts and offerings dear to the Virgin? The most beautiful gift for those who cultivate virginity is incorrupt integrity; for the married, chastity; for the rich, generosity; for the poor, gratitude; for those who preside, gentleness; for kings, justice; for priests, holiness; and for all in all things, righteousness. Since such are the gifts, and with such ones there is brilliance, come, let us dance with joy. Let us sing songs of thanksgiving, with David: *Let us exult in the Lord, let us cry out to God our Savior.* For the Creator of all, a temple of reception has been built. C D
A For the Word, who is the Creator of all things, a dwelling of hospitality has been prepared; for the Sun of justice a cloud of light has been spread out; for Him who covers the heaven with clouds, a tapestry of divine splendor has been woven; for Him who mixes the seasons with the hours and the years, a bridal chamber has been declared.
β'. Dance, maidens, for the birth is a virgin one. Leap for joy, mothers, for the Virgin is the fruit of a mother. Be of good hope, you who were barren, looking toward her who was once barren and then gave birth to a child of God. Let not the maidens be absent from the dance, celebrating the birth of her who alone is the pinnacle and queen of maidens. Sound the trumpet over the mountains; cry out over the heights; proclaim in Jerusalem, as we are commanded here through Osee. David, ancestor of God, be glad; Isaiah, prince of prophets, be joyful. The former, because from your loins, according to the oath, the queen proceeds, from whom God promised to place upon your throne the fruit of your loins; the latter, because your prophecy has reached its fulfillment: *A rod shall go forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend from the root.* The rod is the Virgin, from whom, through an untainted marriage, the flowering and everlasting Christ rises up.
γ'. But why should I attempt to describe the joy by this word or that, and not express the exultation with a comprehensive voice? *Let heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds rain down justice; let the earth flourish, and let mercy and justice spring up together.* Why? Because a tabernacle for the God of Jacob has been revealed; because a holy place has been indicated for the most holy Word. *How terrible is this place,* let the most patriarchal Jacob cry out, *this is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!* C O ineffable reports! O paradoxes of result! What is this new story? What is this strange and ineffable parable? If the heaven of heaven is not sufficient for you, as the Word says, and what is the natural dwelling place sufficient for Him? *Do I not fill heaven and earth?* says the Lord. And where shall a place be found for such a one, so great and exceeding every capacity of comprehension? For the infinite does not reside in quantity, nor will a place that encompasses it be found. *Heaven is my throne,* he says, *and the earth is the footstool of my feet.* And what house shall be built for Him who asks? Or what place shall be found for His resting? Yet it has been spoken, and it has been revealed. How, and in what manner? This is what is sought. Wait a little, beloved, and you shall receive the solution of what you desire.
δ'. When man was about to be brought from non-existence into being, through the infinite goodness of God, first the heaven was stretched out, the earth was spread beneath, the sea was bounded, and all things that were complementary to both were taken up in the adornment of the whole D universe. Then, finally,
man was placed royally in Paradise as if in a school of virtue; and had he not violated the commandment, he would never have been exiled from that life-giving place. And A had he not been stripped of his garment and set his will against the divine counsels, he would in no wise have fallen into that most pitiable change, whereby, instead of the one God and Monarch, he began to worship many gods. Therefore, to speak summarily, since all things were given over to destruction, God, in His mercy, that His own handiwork might not pass into nothingness and be utterly abolished, fashioned another new heaven, earth, and sea, in which the One who cannot be contained deigned to be contained for the recreation of the race. And this is the blessed and much-celebrated Virgin. O, what a miracle! She is Heaven, as she brings forth the Sun of justice from the innermost treasures of her virginity; she is Earth, as she brings forth the stalk of life from her undefiled loins; and she is Sea, as she brings forth the spiritual pearl from the depths of her womb. B Now, therefore, the new creation of the Uncontainable has appeared. The royal hall of the King of all has been made ready; the rational dwelling for the Incomprehensible has been prepared. How magnificent is this universe! How awe-inspiring is the creation which is adorned with the trees of virtues, which smells fragrant with the blossoms of purity, which shines with the brilliance of contemplations, and which, lacking no other abundant blessings, is—to say it in a word—worthy of God’s indwelling among men! And yet, the former universe is also most admirable; for, as He says, "when the stars were created, all my angels praised me with a loud voice and heralded." But nothing is ever so God-becoming as this blessed and all-wonderful Virgin. And that this is true, hear the very patient Job saying: "Heaven is not pure, and the stars are not blameless before Him." But what is purer than she? What is more blameless? God, the supreme and purest Light, so loved her that, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, He was substantially united with her, and perfect man came forth from her, without any change or confusion of their proper states. C O, the miracle! The most philanthropic One was not ashamed to gain His own servant as a Mother. O, the condescension! The supremely good One did not refuse to be called the offspring of His own handiwork, having fallen in love, as it were, with her who is more beautiful than all creation—having grasped her who exceeds in dignity the heavenly powers. Concerning her, therefore, the most admirable Zechariah says: "Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Zion, for behold I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord." And concerning her, the most blessed Joel is also seen, as I believe, to cry out in this manner: "Be of good courage, O earth, rejoice and be glad, for the Lord hath done great things for thee." For she is the earth on which the most holy Moses was commanded to remove the sandal of the shadowy law for the sake of the change into grace. She is the earth on which it was appointed to be founded in the flesh by the Spirit. D
according to the song of him who "foundeth the earth upon its stability" (Ps. CIII, 5). She is the earth that is incapable of seed, and yet nourishes the provider of food for all. She is the earth upon which the thorn of sin did not spring up; on the contrary, rather, through this shoot of hers, it has been plucked up by the roots. She is the earth, not as the former one which was cursed, and whose fruits are full of thorns and thistles; but she upon whom is the blessing of the Lord, and whose fruit of the womb is blessed, as the sacred word says.
5. B But since these things are so, come, let us see whence the ever-verdant branch of virginity took its straight course; who is the father, and who the mother that bore her. Joachim and Anna, the radiant and most celebrated pair of the Word, an harmony more divine than all other unions. For if the branch is more surpassing than all, is not its root also more excellent? Yet for us, a stem so noble and distinguished had as yet been barren of fruit. A most pure fountain, but one bearing no stream. A lamentable calamity; grave and dire circumstances. What then? "The righteous cried, and the Lord heard them, and delivered them out of all their tribulations" (Ps. XXXIII, 18); such as David, long before, by most divine inspiration had signified. "The righteous cried," he says. This pair was seen by me to represent the person of the whole human race. They saw, therefore, humanity destitute of the knowledge of God, the world widowed of faith; since, according to what is sung, "All have turned aside; together they have become useless" (Ps. XIII, 3). The disorder was painful, the barrenness gloomy. The righteous cried out, in their own garden, clearly. For what reason? Because, since the painful sin had gone forth from Paradise, there God, the Lord of all, said to the first mother: "I will multiplying multiply thy sorrows and thy groanings. In pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy turning shall be to thy husband" (Gen. III, 16). What did they cry? Asking for the fruit of the womb, that is, the abundant fruit of the knowledge of God; and it is likely they prayed thus: C "Adonai Lord Eloi Sabaoth, Thou knowest the reproach of childlessness. Thou knowest the despondency of barrenness. If indeed, looking down, Thou wilt look upon the humility of Thy servants, and wilt give to Thy servants the seed of a child, we will give it as a gift before Thee." And indeed the Lord heard them, who is swift to mercy and slow to anger, giving her who properly bears the name Mary as a ransom so radiant and magnificent in place of Eve. The daughter became a maternal remedy; the new leaven of the divine renewal, the all-holy first-fruits of the generation, the root of the branch spoken of by God, the exultation of the forefather. O the benefit! O the munificence! Does not the sun itself now cast forth more radiant beams, as if sensing the excess of joy? Does not all nature in a way plume itself and exult, hoping for freedom from corruption in the birth of her who, without stain, was to bear the Liberator of the world? D
A Observe also what follows; be a lover of hearing, beloved, and do not weary of searching. Milk, it says, and there shall be butter. This is a place appropriate for the prayer of the just. Having prayed in a garden, they brought forth a garden far more blessed than the former. There, the serpent, whispering, easily deceived the vulnerable Eve. Here, Gabriel the archangel, conversing with Mary, caused her to rejoice, but he did not deceive her. There, the hearing of the serpent brought in bitter death. Here, the persuasion of the angel introduced life, ever-joyful for the human race. There, the sentence full of pain for her who was to bring forth from disobedience; here, the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, bringing gladness to her who had prophetically escaped the sorrowful pangs. O, the change of things being done! O, the newness of the things being accomplished! The old things have passed away (let it be said here too), behold, all things have become new. The beginning of the house, in its most exquisite contemplation, and the solemnity of this present day, shines forth as the inauguration of God’s coming to men.
6. You have, O friend, the solution to what was being sought. You have received the debt of the promise. Come, do you also say with Isaiah the words of Isaiah: O Lord my God, I will glorify you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, a counsel from of old, true. And not long after, you will see the blessed one entering into the Holy of Holies, as already consecrated to B the most holy Divinity: then, she who conceives in the womb Him who cannot be contained. O the wonder! That He who holds all things in His fist should dwell in the small mass of a body. But how is He not circumscribed, O Christ-fighter (if I may momentarily digress)? For though He is, he says, according to us, yet He is also above us. And what is this? For the difference and distinction is not according to the human form, but according to the nature of the Godhead. For example, He was suckled at maternal breasts after the human manner, but He provided life to His mother in a way befitting God. He spoke with articulated voice according to us, but He commanded with divine power above us, from which miracles were performed. He walked with earthly feet according to us; but that He trod upon the back of the sea, this was beyond our condition. He was crucified in the flesh according to us; but by a power superior to us, He bound the opposing powers on the cross. Of these things, some pertain to the nature defined by certain limits, inasmuch as it is like us; others to the uncircumscribed, which is superior to us. So indeed that neither vitiates the natural properties of the other by their substantial union, but each remains within its own boundaries. But you, while avoiding circumscribing, or representing in an image (for these are the same), both confound the natures with the Acephali, and abolish the dispensation with the Manichaeans. Your madness would be less C if you were a Jew, than when, marked with the name of Christian, you rail against Christ. For he, indeed, not admitting that God assumed a body, neither depicts Him, acting consistently with himself; but you, having accepted it, yet not depicting Him, become inconsistent with yourself, incurring ridicule even from the Jew. And thus I speak of the insult, but toward them so... D
A that we have gathered not to discuss dogmas, but to celebrate a feast. We, having briefly greeted the Virgin, and having unrolled those things by which she is named in the divinely inspired Scripture, shall conclude our discourse with these, however unworthily.
7. Hail, Mary, that is, "ten thousand" [myria], because of the infinite abundance of praises. For though one should say ten thousand things about you, he would never attain to the dignity of the subject. Hail, Mistress [Kyria], who, in a manner worthy of a mother, hast received dominion over the Lord of all; and if one were to say that all things are your servants, he would not be shooting wide of the mark. Hail, myrrh of the sea, B who in the salty flow of this life carriest flesh dead to sin, in which there is sweetness and altogether desire, as he says in the Canticles: "I have gathered my myrrh with my spices." Hail, bush, the fire-braided miracle, or rather, the one inaccessible to sin; for you are both an untouched plant and a bush that showed heaven to those born of earth through your divine childbearing. Hail, ark, the divinely-built shelter, the repository of the newly-created world, from whom proceeds Christ, the new Noah, filling the world above with incorruption. Hail, rod, the divinely-planted bough, the only one among all virgins to be a mother, who, without seed being accepted, didst flower forth as a Son the God of all and hierarch. Hail, urn, the golden-wrought vessel, separated from every [other] vessel, from whom the whole world is fed with manna, that is, the bread of life baked in the fire of the Godhead. Hail, tabernacle, the pole of the Godhead, more preeminent than the arches of heaven, from whom God conversed with men in person, and from whom eternal propitiation descended upon the world. Hail, censer, the golden vessel C bearing the divine coal within, from whom the fragrance of the Spirit breathed forth, driving the rotting corruption from the world. Hail, table, the divinely-blessed mixture, full of the participation in all goods of virtue, to him who says in the Canticles: "Thy navel is a round goblet, never lacking a mixture." Hail, temple, the most purely fashioned dwelling of the Lord, concerning which David says: "Thy temple is holy, wonderful in justice"; from whom Christ, building for Himself the temple of His body, shows mortals to be temples of the living God. Hail, sanctuary, the divinely-gushing fountain, full of all holiness, from whom proceeds the Holy of Holies, who cleanses the world from impurity. Hail, place of the Lord, the God-trodden earth, who didst contain Him who is outside every place by His Godhead through your childbearing; from whom He who was simple exists as composite; and He who was eternal, as temporal; and He who was circumscribed, as uncircumscribed. Hail, house of God, the dwelling shining with divine splendors, whose lintel of chastity cannot be removed; you who are full of the glory of the Lord, and more shining in spirit D than the fiery Seraphim. Hail, gate, facing the east, from whom the rising of life dawned for men, diminishing the setting of death; the God-trodden bush, and you who bear the keys of virginity.
A Hail, heaven, the more honorable dwelling-place of the cosmic space; you starred with the radiances of the virtues, from whom the Sun of righteousness rose, having created a day of endless salvation for men. Hail, throne, [(75)] elevated on high in glory, an animate seat, sketching within itself the seat of God, and offering to God a rest superior to the intellectual powers. Hail, Cherubim, the fire-like mind, which, as eyes, is full of divine meanings, flashing forth manifold graces, and through whom the never-setting light is ferried across to men. Hail, Mother unwedded, you who alone among mothers remain pure, and who possess the traits of mothers in a manner proper to virgins, the most novel miracle of all wonders. Hail, Virgin who brought forth, you who alone among virgins are a mother, and who bear the traits of virgins in a manner proper to mothers; the most awesome report of all portents. B Hail, royal seal, impressing the King of all, who took substance from you, upon your maternal body; for as is she who generates, such is, clearly, also the offspring. Hail, sealed book, unharmed by every corruption-producing thought, from whom the Lord of the God-written law is read, in a manner befitting a virgin, by Himself alone. Hail, volume of the new mystery, totally untouched by corruption, in which the formless Word has been painted with the brush of human shape, that is, made flesh, He who became in all things like us, sin excepted. Hail, sealed fountain, the source of incorruption, who poured forth Christ, the stream of life, with the seals of virginity in no way injured. By partaking of Him, we who have been made immortal return to the ageless paradise. Hail, enclosed garden, a fertility never opened by virginity, whose fragrance is as that of a full field, which the Lord, who proceeded from you, blessed. Hail, unwithering rose, which exhales a fragrance never-ending, in whom the Lord, having inhaled, rested, and through whom, having blossomed, He dispelled the stench of the world. Hail, sweet-smelling apple, fruit born of a barren tree, and beautiful as God, you who say in the Canticles: "Stipate me with apples, for I am wounded by love." Christ, having plucked its purity, had an undefiled sweetness of fragrance for the world at the banquet. Hail, lily, whose offspring, Jesus, clothes these lilies of the field; a sweet-breathing rose-garden of the Spirit, from whom Christ clothed Himself in a robe not woven, without seed, which obscures all the ornamentation of Solomon. C Hail, flower, more varied than every dye of the colorists, a seasoning of every virtue, from whom blossoms a flower similar to the similar, accurately mirroring the mother, upon whom the seven spirits rest, as the Word says. Hail, flowing nard, irrigating like the aromatics of the perfumers with the fragrances of purity, the distribution of which is a sweet odor to Him who said in the Canticles: "My nard has given its fragrance." Hail, myrrh, who distilled from the virginal balsam-making for Christ a myrrh of sanctification, that is, of milk, you who sing in the Canticles: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved D
A in my bosom." Hail, cinnamon, fragrance of the spiritual paradise of integrity, whose odor is sweet to the One saying in the Canticles: "Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with fruits of the orchard, calamus and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon." Hail, daughter, you priestly maiden, whose sinlessness is lovely, and the world is astonished at the One saying in the Canticles: "How beautiful your steps have become in sandals, O daughter of Aminadab! Your belly is a heap of wheat, fenced with lilies." Hail, sister, namesake of the good Brother and most desirable, whose voice in the Canticles is thus: "You have heartened us, my sister, my bride, you have heartened us." Hail, bride, whose groomsman is the Holy Spirit, B and the bridegroom is Christ, who says in the Canticles: "You are all beautiful, my neighbor, and there is no blemish in you; come from Lebanon, my bride." Hail, ointment, the priceless seal of virtues, breathing with the ointments of perfect purity, from whom the Lord came forth who is namesake to you. For "your name," He says, "is ointment poured forth," from which the royal priesthood has been anointed. Hail, incense, the place of prayer for the whole world set straight before the Lord, you who are filled with the fragrance of the Spirit, concerning whom it is wondrously cried out: "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, like a branch of smoke perfumed?" Hail, pure gold, C you who were tested in the furnace of God by the fire of the Spirit, and who nowise bear the wrinkle of malice; from whom the lampstand, and the table, and all things that are golden according to the Law, in an allegorical significance, are transferred to you, the gold-named and many-named one. Hail, incorruptible wood, who did not receive the worm of sinful corruption, from whom the intelligible altar was built for God, not of incorruptible woods, but of an undefiled womb. Hail, royal purple, who from your virgin blood wove the cloak for the One saying in the Canticles: "The lock of your head is like purple; a king bound in the corridors. How beautiful you were made, and how pleasant!" Hail, twisted fine linen, who wove the depth of divine thoughts D in your mind, and were unyielding to contrary attractions; "For how," she says, "shall this be to me, since I do not know a man?" By whom the purple and gold-mixed shoulder-piece was woven for the High Priest of the powers above. Hail, hyacinth, the fire-appearing fleece of virginity, from which mystically an encompassing garment was fashioned for God. Hail, light cloud, you who possess the earthly and heavy body in a manner light, as if aerial, and as if on an altar covering the Bread of Life, on which Isaiah prophesied the Lord would sit. Hail, undefiled one, the untouched treasure of virginity, who bore the uncorrupt Word, from whom virginity
shone forth, shortening the world. Hail, pure one, who alone canst boast of having a heart that is pure; the mountain truly acceptable to God, from which the new Israel is sanctified more valuably and more lastingly than the old. Hail, thou who knowest not marriage, bringing forth nuptial childbirth without the work of any man, and in a manner befitting a mother, yielding fountains of milk for the nourishment of the offspring; whence the virginal milk is drawn by Him who nourishes all things. Hail, spotless one, the only one accessible to God for His indwelling, and who from thy birth hast a worthiness for God; wherefore thou art to be worshipped even by all the heavenly Powers. Hail, fleece, the symbol of the victory around Gideon, from which the immortal dew flowed forth typically, He who said in His own words: "Take courage, I have overcome the world." Hail, place of God, who didst contain in thy womb Him who is uncontainable in all things: in whose hand are all things, while He Himself is in thy hands; a thing which, even if expressed in words, cannot be understood, nor, if understood, can it be sufficiently conceived. B Hail, Mother of God, the only handmaid of thine own Son, and yet both by nature; after whom there is no virgin mother, having returned in blessed virginity to the incorruption of old in Paradise. Hail, receiver of God, the luminous element of the divine infinity, in whose feet-sized womb the Infinite was contained, and who containest within Thyself the ends of all. Hail, Mother of God, properly and truly, the fearful point of union for men with God, through whom heavenly things are joined to those on earth, and human things to God, and in turn restoring to man things divine. Hail, nuptial chamber, built with the excellent dowries of virginity for Him who says in the Canticles: "I entered into my garden, my sister, my bride." Of whose commerce with flesh she adds: "Go forth and see king Solomon in the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his betrothal, and in the day of the gladness of his heart." C Hail, ewe, if conjugal union be considered, barren; but if divine conception, a mother: from whom that Lamb of God came, who takes away the sin of the world. Hail, cloud of light, overshadowing the new Israel in this wilderness of life by thy intercession; from whom the decrees of grace were heard, and from whom the sun of righteousness arose, illuminating all things with the rays of incorruption. Hail, lampstand, the golden and firm vessel of virginity, whose wick is the grace of the Spirit, and whose oil is that holy body which was assumed from thy immaculate flesh; from which Christ the lamp that knows no setting shines forth; who indeed didst light up eternal life for those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Hail, full of grace, more graceful than all joy, and a name; from whom Christ, the immortal joy, the medicine for the sorrow inflicted on Adam, came into the world. Hail, paradise, more blessed than the land of Eden, where every plant of virtue has blossomed, and in which the tree of life has shone; by whose commerce we return to the life of old, with the flaming sword turning its back, as it is written. D Hail, city of the great King, to speak in the words of David,
A a resounding and wondrous dwelling-place, whose stories, in Christ Jesus who through you has become propitious to me, are for all to hear, in both language and thought; and for which I, wretched and poor in speech, have failed and faltered while celebrating your numberless praises. For to Him belong all glory, honor, and adoration, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for ages of ages. Amen. [alt-version omitted]
ADMONITION REGARDING THE THREE FOLLOWING HOMILIES
The three orations of Saint John Damascene on the Dormition of the most holy Mother of God now appear in Greek for the first time, whereas the Latin translations of the first two by Raphael Volaterranus and the very learned Jacques Billius had been published among our author’s works at both Basel and Paris. Combefis reviewed and emended Billius’s translation according to his custom, and published it in the *Bibliotheca Patrum concionatoria*; to these he added a third oration, as it had been translated into Latin by Leo Allatius and sent to him by that same most learned man. I found the Greek phrasing of the three orations in a most ancient and elegant codex of the library of the renowned monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, of which the very reverend father, Dom de Montfaucon, most kindly provided me a copy, owing to his perpetual benevolence toward me and my studies. In the recension of the first two, two Royal codices, nos. 1820 and 2026, along with the Colbertine 977, provided assistance. B Before Damascene, preachers of orations on the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin and her return to life and assumption into heaven included Germanus of Constantinople, Andrew, who was a monk and priest of Jerusalem and Archbishop of Crete, and long before them, Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the immediate predecessor of Saint Sophronius, whose entire sermon I transcribed from the Séguier codex. In that codex, although Photius declared in his *Bibliotheca*, cod. 256, that nothing necessary occurred in it—C *nothing necessary*—I noted this observation worth making: that there was scarcely any other before him who had delivered a sermon on the transition of the Blessed Virgin. For these words of the most holy prelate undoubtedly signify this: "And concerning her most venerable Dormition, I know not how it is that those who came after have not appeared, or, if they have set it forth, have not happened [to be preserved]. Wherefore, on the day of the Theometorical Dormition, many who are fond of learning—or rather, fond of Christ—and eager to hear, stand agape, and, as people D who grasp divine things, long to learn some secret thing concerning her." And concerning her very venerable dormition, I know not how it came to pass that there were none who afterward expounded it in a sermon. Wherefore many on this day of the Dormition of the Mother of God stand open-mouthed, whoever are eager to learn, or rather, whoever are "taught by God" (Christi docibiles), being well-disposed and sagacious hearers of divine things, that they might perceive even a little of that secret. From these I shall gather that the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos at the time of Modestus, or after the beginning of the seventh century, was either recently instituted or not so solemn that laudatory sermons were delivered to the people; and consequently, that it was different from that celebration in honor of the holy Virgin Mary which, in the age of Saint Theodosius the Archimandrite, that is, at the end of the fifth century, I read in his *Life* to have been most solemn in Palestine, "because this feast was illustrious to the many." Furthermore, Modestus in no way disagrees with John Damascene, just as he does not with Andrew of Crete or Germanus of Constantinople, in those things he expounds regarding the transition or falling asleep of the Mother of God; but all these do disagree with the narrative of the *Transition of the Blessed Virgin Mary* which bears the name of Melito of Sardis. For in that account we read that the Virgin remained near the Mount of Olives after the Lord’s ascension and died on the final day, while all the others report that she died within the walls of Jerusalem and on Mount Sion. But all say that her body was carried and buried in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, on the estate of Gethsemane. It is quite probable that this tradition became established under the authority of Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem. For deep silence on his part indicates that it was unknown to Jerome, who spent the greater part of his life at Bethlehem—not far from the holy city—especially in his *Epitaph of Saint Paula the widow*, in which all the holy sites of Palestine are accurately recounted. Everyone also knows that Saint Epiphanius, a Palestinian by birth who long lived in Palestine, openly declared it unknown whether the Blessed Virgin died or not: "And if she has died, we do not know," he says in *Heresy 78*. The fact that certain learned men not long ago affirmed that she died at Ephesus and was buried in the church which was therefore consecrated in her honor and named Mary, in which the third general synod was held: Epiphanius’s words argue this to be false. To these may perhaps be added that Damascene in his second oration recounts from the *Euthymian History* that the Empress Pulcheria anxiously and fruitlessly sought where on earth the body of the Mother of God might lie buried, specifically so that she could translate it to the church she had built in her honor in Constantinople at the Blachernae. It is wrongly objected that in the fifth century it was not yet accepted that churches should be consecrated in honor of some saint in which the saint’s buried body did not lie. For a witness to this is Sozo-
Sozomenus, lib. VII Hist. eccl. cap. 24, that under the Emperor Arcadius a church of St. Stephen existed at Constantinople, long before his body was discovered in Palestine: which happened only under Theodosius the Younger. Nay more, at Rome a basilica had been built by Pope Liberius to the Blessed Virgin, which Xystus III restored. In the sixth or at least the seventh century, the solemn feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God was celebrated in the Gallican Church on the 18th of January, as is evident from Gregory of Tours and various Martyrologies, and the Gothic and Gallican Missals, which the most learned Mabillon edited and illustrated with very erudite annotations. In the office of this day it was read: Beseeching the mercy of our Redeemer, that He may deign to lead the surrounding people to the place where He transferred the blessed mother Mary for the honor of the ministering apostles. Which last words I do not doubt were taken from the history of Pseudo-Melito. Likewise in the Contestatio, or Preparation: Thou wast rightly received by Him in the Assumption happily, whom thou didst piously conceive so as to bear Him through faith, so that thou who wast not conscious of the earth, the rocks did not hold thee enclosed. Truly with diverse fillets the soul is adorned, to whom the apostles render sacred homage, angels song, clouds a vehicle, the assumption paradise, etc. I do not think the Greeks or Palestinians received these from us, since the Eastern orthodox celebrated this feast on another day of the year, namely, the 15th of August, as do we since the times of Charlemagne; but they received them from the Jacobites and Copts, in whose calendars the Dormition of the Mother of God is assigned to the 21st day of the month of Tybi, or January. Regarding which you may read more among the recent critics who have written concerning the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
VIII. Encomium of the humble and insignificant monk and presbyter John of Damascus on the Dormition of the most celebrated, most glorious, and blessed Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary.
1. The memory of the just is celebrated with praises, says the most wise Solomon 47; for as the parent of God, David, says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints 48. If, therefore, the memory of all the just is recalled with praise, who is there B who would not offer praise to the fountain of justice and the treasury of holiness? Not that it adds to her glory, but that it might acquire eternal glory for itself. For the tabernacle of the glory of the Lord does not need to have its glory increased by us; I mean that city of God of which glorious things have been spoken, as the divine David utters regarding her: Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God 49. For what other city of the invisible and uncircumscribed God, who holds all things in the palm of His hand, shall we understand, than her who alone, in a manner transcending nature and essence, encompassed without circumscription the Word of God and God, who is superior to all substance, concerning whom, therefore, glorious things have been spoken by the Lord Himself? For what is more glorious than to have accepted the counsel of God 50, that ancient and true counsel?
2. For even the tongue of men, nor the mind of the super-celestial angels C, can hymn as she deserves, through whom it is given to us to behold the glory of the Lord clearly. What then? Shall we keep silent because we are unable to praise her worthily, being constrained by fear? By no means. Or shall we walk with a passing step, as the saying goes, and, ignorant of our own limits, having cast off the bridle of fear, shall we handle without shame those things which it is unlawful to touch? By no means. But rather, having mingled desire with tempered fear, and having woven one crown from both, with sacred reverence, D
A let us offer the humble first-fruits of our intellect to the Queen and Mother, the benefactress of all nature, in grateful discharge of our debt. For it is recorded 81 that some peasants, while they were turning the furrows of the earth with their plow-oxen, saw a king passing by, adorned with his royal purple, radiant in the brilliance of his diadem, and surrounded round about by an infinite multitude of guards. Since they had nothing at hand to give as a gift to the sovereign, one of them, without hesitation, drew water in his hands (for the streams flowed abundantly nearby), and offered the water as a gift to the emperor. When the king asked what he meant by this, he boldly replied: "I have brought what I had at hand, judging it best that my readiness of mind should not be hidden by my poverty." B For you indeed, being in no need of our possessions, do not demand from us anything other than a benevolent and ready heart. And for us, what is offered is both a duty and a source of praise; for glory is known, for the most part, to follow those who are grateful. The king, moved with admiration, praised his wisdom, accepted his readiness of heart with favor, and rewarded him generously with many gifts. If, therefore, that haughty tyrant prized benevolence more than opulence, will not this truly good Lady, the Mother of the only good God—whose condescension is infinite, who preferred the two mites to many great fruits—much more accept our resolve, not judging us by our ability? Yes, indeed, she will accept it, receiving it as a debt offered, and she will measure back to us things incomparable. Since, therefore, it is altogether necessary to speak, so as to perform this debt, come, let us turn our discourse to her in this way.
C 3. By what name, O Lady, shall we address you? With what words shall we accost you? With what praises shall we adorn your sacred and glorious head—you, the dispenser of good and giver of wealth, the ornament of the human race, the glory of all creation, through whom it has truly been blessed? For He whom the world formerly could not contain, has been contained through you. He whom it could not look upon, is contemplated through you with unveiled face. Open for us, O Word of God, our slow-tongued mouth. D Grant, in the opening of our lips, a most graceful speech. Breathe into us the grace of the Spirit, through which fishermen become eloquent, and the unlettered speak wisdom beyond human understanding, so that we, too, who are slow of speech, may be able to proclaim, if only faintly, the greatness of your most beloved Mother. For she, having been chosen from ancient generations by the preordained counsel and good pleasure of God and the Father, who without beginning, without flux, and without passion begat Him, the propitiation...
salvation, justice, and redemption, Life from Life, Light from Light, true God from true God, A whom she bore, incarnate from Himself in the last times; whose delivery was new and unusual, a generation surpassing nature and thought, and saving to the world, and whose falling asleep was glorious and truly holy and all-praised. The Father predestined her, but the prophets foretold her through the Holy Spirit. The sanctifying power of the Spirit came upon her, and cleansed and sanctified her, and as it were, watered her in advance. And then Thou, B who art the Boundary and the Word of the Father, dwelt in her without circumscription, recalling the extreme lowliness of our nature to the infinite height of Thine incomprehensible Divinity. Whose first-fruits, having taken from the most pure, unstained, and altogether immaculate blood of the holy Virgin—flesh animated by a rational and intelligent soul—Thou didst frame for Thyself, granting it to subsist in Thyself. In this way Thou becamest man, yet without ceasing to be perfect God, and of the same substance as Thy Father; but through Thine unspeakable compassion Thou didst assume our weakness, from which Thou didst proceed as one Christ, one Son, one and the same God and man, perfect God at once and perfect man, whole God and whole man, one composite hypostasis, from two perfect natures, Divinity and humanity, C and in two perfect natures, in Divinity and in humanity; not naked God, nor mere man, but one Son of God and God incarnate, God the same and man, not undergoing confusion, nor suffering division, bearing in Thyself the natural properties of the two natures of different substances, united according to hypostasis, unconfusedly and at the same time indivisibly: the created and the uncreated, the mortal and the immortal, the visible and the invisible, the circumscribed and the uncircumscribed; the divine will and the human will, the divine operation, and surely the human operation also, two powers of free will, divine and human, divine miracles again, and human affections, yet natural and blameless. For the whole of the first Adam, D just as he was before he failed the commandment, free from sin, Thou didst assume, O Lord, through the bowels of Thy mercy: the body, namely, the soul, the mind, and the natural properties of these (for what was not truly assumed was not healed). And thus, having become mediator between God and men, Thou didst dissolve the enmity, and those who had defected from the Father Thou didst lead back to Him; that which had strayed Thou didst bring back; that which was covered in darkness Thou didst illuminate; that which was broken Thou didst restore; that which was corruptible Thou didst change into incorruption, and didst free creation from the delusion of many gods; Thou didst make men the children of God, and didst show them to be partakers of Thy divine glory; Thou didst raise up Him who was condemned to the nether regions of the earth *— *the one who had fallen by transgression.
omnem principatum et potestatem provexisti: et qui ita multatus erat, ut in terram reverteretur, et infernum incoleret, in teipso regio in throno collocasti. A Quænam igitur immensorum bonorum istorum quæ captum omnem et comprehensionem superant, officina fuit? annon perpetua virgo, quæ te in lucem edidit?
HOMILY I ON THE DORMITION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
B 4. See, O fathers and brothers beloved by God, the grace of the present day. Behold how sublime and venerable she is, whose praises are now celebrated. Are not her mysteries formidable? Are they not full of wonder? Blessed are they who behold, as far as it is most befitting. Blessed are they who have attained the sense of understanding. Such flashes of light illumine the present night! Such retinues of angels attend the passing of the Mother of Him from whom life arose! Such divine utterances of the apostles adorn the funeral of this body, which received God! How did the Word of God, who for the sake of His compassion deigned to become her Son, with His sovereign hands, serving this all-holy and most divine one as a mother, receive her sacred soul? O upright lawgiver! Who is not subject to the law, yet fulfills the law which He Himself established. For He Himself legislated that children should render the debt of duty to their parents. Honor, He says, your father and your mother. That this is true is clear to everyone, at least to those who have C remembered even a little of the divine oracles of Holy Scripture. For if, as the divine Scripture says, the souls of the just are in the hand of God, does not she more than any other commend her soul into the hands of her Son and her God? This word is true, and superior to all contradiction. But if it be agreeable, let us consider to the best of our ability who she was, and whence, and in what manner she was granted to this world as a gift, the most excellent and most dear of all God’s gifts: and also what was the manner of her life in this age, and of what mysteries she was deemed worthy to be a participant. For if the Greeks, in honoring those who had departed from life with funeral orations, gathered with all diligence everything they perceived to be D attractive, so that the encomium upon the person being praised might be complete, and that it might provide for those remaining both a zeal for virtue and consolation—yet they mostly wove their speech with myths and endless fabrications, since those whom they were praising had nothing from their own lives that was worthy of praise—why then should we, if we are silent and bury in the depths of neglect things that are most true and worthy of all veneration, which have brought all blessing and salvation to all, not invite great derision upon ourselves, and fall into the same punishment as he who hid his talent? Therefore, out of concern for the brevity of our discourse, so that it may not be hostile to the ears, but rather as food that is overflowing for the soul...
we must curb our words just as food exceeding its measure is harmful to the body.
A 5. Joachim and Anna were her parents. Joachim, just like a shepherd of sheep, pastured his thoughts no less than his flock, leading them by his authority wherever he wished, just as he did his animals. For, being pastured like a sheep under the Lord God, he was deprived of none of the best things. And let no one think that I mean by "best" those things that are pleasing to the multitude, upon which the minds of the greedy are always gaping; things which are not of a nature to remain, nor do they know how to make their possessor better—the pleasures of this present life, which cannot possess a firm and stable strength, but flow away and vanish at almost the same hour, even if one possesses an abundance of them! Far be it from us to be struck by these things, nor is this the portion of those who fear the Lord. Rather, those things are truly good which are eagerly sought and loved by those who are of a sound mind, which remain forever, by which God is delighted, and a mature fruit is produced for their possessors: I mean the virtues, which will give fruit in their own time—I mean in the age to come—namely, eternal life, to those who have worthily cultivated them and have contributed their labors to them according to their strength. For labor comes first, and eternal happiness follows. Joachim was accustomed to pasture his own thoughts in a place of pasture, that is, by dwelling upon the contemplation of the holy oracles, and by delighting himself B over the water of refreshment, that is, divine grace; so that he might surely divert them from evil things and lead them along the paths of righteousness. Anna, too, whose name means "grace," was no less of the same character and yoked with him in marriage; yet, although she flourished with every kind of virtue, she was held by a mystical reason with the disease of sterility. Grace was truly sterile, since it could not produce fruit in the souls of men. For all had turned aside, they had together become useless; there was no one who understood, no one who sought after God. Then the good God, looking down and having compassion on the work of His own hands, and desiring to save it, loosed the sterility of Grace—that is, of that God-minded Anna—and she gives birth to a child, such as there was none before, nor will there ever be again. And the loosening of the sterility C declared most clearly that the sterility of goods in the world was to be loosened, and that the trunk that was once dry was to be made fruitful with an abundance of secret blessedness.
6. Hence, the Theotokos comes forth by promise. For an angel announces the conception of her who was to be born. Indeed, it was fitting that she should not be inferior in this respect either, nor take second place, she who was to give birth according to the flesh to the only and truly perfect God. Then she is offered and consecrated to the holy temple of God; and there she dwells, showing forth a pattern of a life D more excellent and purer than that of others, removed from all illicit commerce of men and women. But
when she reached the flower of her age, and the law forbade her to remain any longer within the precincts of the temple, she was committed by the choir of priests to Joseph, as a spouse, or rather as a guardian of her virginity, who had kept the law inviolate until old age just as any other had. A With him, therefore, this holy and most immaculate maiden dwelt, keeping herself at home, and knowing nothing of those things which were happening before her doors.
7. But when the fullness of time had come, as the divine Apostle says, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to this truly child of God, and said to her: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Excellent indeed was the angel's address to her who excelled the angels. For it brings joy to the whole world. But she was troubled at the word, being unaccustomed to conversation with men, since she had set her mind on carefully preserving her virginity. B And she wondered within herself what this salutation might be. Then the angel said to her: "Do not fear, Mary; for thou hast found grace with God." Truly she found grace, she who was worthy of grace. She found grace, she who had cultivated the labors of grace and had reaped an abundant harvest. She found grace, she who had brought forth the seeds of grace and had reaped a most prolific harvest of grace. She found an abyss of grace, she who had kept the ship of double virginity unharmed. For Mary had kept her soul no less than her body virgin; whence also the virginity of the body was maintained. "And thou shalt bring forth," he says, "a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus" (for Jesus signifies Savior; for he shall save his people from their sins). C What does the treasure of true wisdom say to these things? She does not imitate Eve, the first parent, but rather corrects her incautious simplicity, and strengthens herself with the defense of nature, replying to the angel's words in this manner: "How shall this be, since I do not know a man? You are speaking of impossibilities," she says. "For your word breaks the laws of nature which the supreme Maker established. I take no pleasure in being called a second Eve, or in subverting the will of my Creator. But if you are not suggesting something contrary to God, explain the mode of conception, and resolve my doubt." To whom the angel of truth replied: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also the holy thing which is born shall be called the Son of God." D What is now taking place is not subject to the laws of nature. For the Creator and Lord of nature changes the laws of nature by his own will. And she, hearing that name which she always cherished and honored with holy reverence, uttered the voice of obedience, full of fear and joy: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word."
8. O depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! For I, too, at this time join the Apostle (for I also now, using the Apostle's voice)...
shall exclaim: "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!" A O the unsatiable goodness of God! O charity that cannot be searched out! He who calls the things that are not as though they were, who fills heaven and earth, whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth, made the womb of his own handmaiden a spacious dwelling-place for himself, and brought to pass in her the newest of all mysteries. For being God, he becomes man, and is born in a manner surpassing nature at the time of conception, and he opens the womb without violating the seals of her virginity, and is carried in earthly arms as an infant—he who is the radiance of glory, the express image of the Father’s substance, who sustains all things by the word of his mouth.
O truly divine wonders! O mysteries surpassing nature and thought! O virgin boasts that transcend humanity! What is this great mystery concerning thee, O holy Mother and Virgin? "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Blessed art thou in generations of generations, the only one worthy to be called blessed. For behold, all generations shall call thee blessed, even as thou hast said. The daughters of Jerusalem—by which I mean the Church—have seen thee, and the queens—that is, the souls of the just—have called thee blessed, and they shall praise thee forever. B For thou art that royal throne, by which the angels stood, beholding their own Master and Creator seated upon it. Thou art a spiritual Eden, holier and more divine than the one of old. For in that one, the earthly Adam dwelt, but in thee, the Lord who descended from heaven.
The ark of old prefigured thee, in which the seed of the second world was preserved; for thou hast brought forth Christ, the salvation of the world, who submerged sin and stilled its waves. The bush outlined thee; the divinely-inscribed tablets traced thee; the ark of the law, the golden urn, the lampstand, the table, and the rod of Aaron that blossomed—all clearly prefigured thee. For from thee the flame of the Divinity, the Father’s boundary and Word, that most sweet and heavenly manna, the name that is above every name, the everlasting and unapproachable light, the heavenly bread of life, the fruit brought forth without cultivation, bodily blossomed from thee. C What? Did not that furnace prefigure thee, showing a fire that was at once dewy and flaming, which bore the figure of the divine fire dwelling within thee? Nay, even the tent of Abraham signifies thee most manifestly. For since the Divine Word dwelt in thy womb as in a tent, human nature offered up the ash-baked bread—its own first-fruits—from thy pure blood, baked and made into bread by the divine fire, subsisting in his divine person, and coming into the true existence of a body endowed with a rational and intellectual soul.
Little was I about to let Jacob’s ladder slip by. For what? Is it not clear to everyone that it was prefigured...
A and represented by you? For just as that man saw, through the ends of the ladder, heaven joined to earth, and angels ascending and descending by it, and even Him who is truly strong and invincible wrestling with him in a figure; so you also, fulfilling the office of mediatrix, and having become the ladder of God’s descent to us—He who took up our weak nature, and knit it to Himself and united it, and made man a mind that sees God—you gathered together those things which had been apart. Whence angels descended to Him, as serving God and Lord, and men, having used the angelic way of life, are caught up to heaven.
9. But where shall I place the proclamations of the prophets? Not on you, if we wish to show these things to be true? For what is the Davidic fleece, upon which the Son of God, the King of all, B co-eternal and co-reigning with His own Begetter, descended like the rain? Is it not you, most clearly? And who is the Virgin, whom Isaiah foresaw and predicted would have in her womb and would bring forth a Son being God with us, that is to say, remaining God after becoming man? And what is the mountain of Daniel, from which the cornerstone Christ was cut, having not undergone the hand of man? Are you not the one who, without seed, gave birth, and remained a virgin again? Let the most divine Ezekiel come, C and let him show the closed gate, being traversed by the Lord and not opened, as he prophetically proclaimed; let him manifest the outcome of his sayings. He will show you without a doubt, through whom the God above all passed, and having taken flesh, in no way opened the gate of virginity. For the seal remains truly forever. Therefore, the prophets preach you. Angels minister to you, apostles serve you—the virgin and theologian serves the Ever-Virgin and Theotokos. For today, as you departed to your Son, angels, the souls of the just, and patriarchs and prophets D encompassed you with their escort; apostles and an infinite multitude of God-bearing Fathers, gathered from the ends of the earth by divine command as if in a cloud to this divine and holy Jerusalem, attend you, and to you, the fountain of the Lord’s life-giving body, they sing holy hymns most enthusiastically.
10. O how the fountain of life is drawn to life through the midst of death! O how she who in birth-giving surpassed the laws of nature, now submits to its decrees, and the immaculate body is subjected to death! For it is necessary that this mortal, having been laid aside, should clothe itself in incorruption, since even the Lord of nature did not refuse the test of death. For He dies in the flesh, and by death destroys death, and bestows incorruption upon corruption, and makes the deadness a fountain of resurrection. O how that most holy soul
A from the tabernacle that had received God as it migrated, the Artificer of all things receives with His own hands: honorably and lawfully honoring her who, though she was a handmaid by nature, He had — in the unfathomable abyss of His benevolence — economically made His mother, since He was truly incarnate and had not merely put on the appearance of humanity! For it is fitting to believe that the ranks of the angels were watching, awaiting your departure from this life. O most glorious passing, which grants you this: to migrate to God! For if this gift of God is granted also to all God-bearing servants (nor do we doubt that it is granted), yet the difference between the servants of God and the Mother is infinite. By what name, therefore, shall we call this mystery that has taken place in you? Shall we call it death? But although your most holy and blessed soul, as the lot of nature dictates, is separated from your most blessed and immaculate body, and the body is consigned to lawful burial, yet it does not persist in death, nor is it dissolved by corruption. For as your virginity remained unharmed in your giving birth, so also, as you depart from life, your body is kept undissolved, and is translated to a better and more divine tabernacle, not cut off by death, but enduring for endless ages of ages. B For just as this all-radiant and ever-shining sun, when hidden for a little while by the lunar body, seems in some way to fail and be covered by darkness, and to exchange its splendor for shadows, yet does not depart from its own light — but has within itself an ever-flowing fountain of light, or rather, it is itself an unfailing fountain of light, as God who created it ordained — so also you: the fountain of the true and ever-flowing light, the inexhaustible treasure of life itself, the copious wellspring of blessing, the cause and promoter of all good things for us, even if you are covered for a time by death in a bodily manner, yet you abundantly pour forth for us fountains of infinite light, and of immortal life, and of true blessedness — pure, clean, and inexhaustible streams, rivers of grace, sources of healings, and ever-flowing blessing. For you have blossomed like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, and your fruit is sweetness to the throat of the faithful. Hence, I shall not call your holy transition death, but a falling asleep, or a departure, or more fittingly, a migration to God. For as you depart from the body, you arrive at better things.
11. C Angels traveled alongside you, and with them, archangels. At your outflowing, the unclean and aerial spirits trembled. By your passage, the air is blessed, and the ether is hallowed. Heaven joyfully welcomes your soul. Arrayed with holy hymns and the rite of a joyful solemnity, the heavenly Powers come to meet you, as if saying: "Who is this that ascends, made white, emerging like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun?" How you have been made beautiful, how you have become pleasant! You are the flower of the field, D and as a lily in the midst of thorns; therefore the maidens have loved you.
A At the fragrance of your perfumes we have run. The King has brought you into His chamber, where Authorities perform their guard, Principalities bless, Thrones hymn, the Cherubim marvel with joy, and the Seraphim glorify you, who by nature and by true dispensation have come to be the mother of their own Master. For you have not ascended into heaven in the manner of Elijah, nor were you caught up to the third heaven like Paul; but you have reached even to the royal throne of your Son, looking upon Him face to face, and rejoicing, and standing with great and ineffable boldness. To the angels you are an ineffable delight, and to all the supercelestial powers a joy without ceasing; to the righteous, an ineffable gladness; to the prophets, an everlasting exultation; to the world, a blessing; to all things, a sanctification; to the weary, relief; to those who mourn, consolation; to the sick, healing; to those tossed by storms, a harbor; to those who sin, forgiveness; to those who are sad, a kindly comfort; and to all who ask, a ready help.
B 12, O miracle truly supernatural! O astonishment of events! Death, once loathsome and hated, is now praised and called blessed. That which once was the procurer of mourning and dejection, of tears and sadness, is now shown to be the cause of joy and festivity. But if for all the servants of God, whose death is called blessed, the security comes from the end of their pleasing of God, and for this reason their death is called blessed—for it perfects them and shows them to be blessed, granting them the immutability of virtue, according to the saying: "Call no man blessed before his death"—yet we shall not apply this to you. For your blessedness did not come from death; nor was your passing your perfection, nor did your departure grant you security. C For you are the beginning, the middle, and the end, the security and true confirmation of all goods beyond understanding; you are the seedless conception, the divine indwelling, the undefiled place. Wherefore you truly said that you would be called blessed by all generations, not because of death, but because of the conception itself. Hence, death did not make you blessed, but you yourself adorned death, dissolving its dejection and showing death to be joy. Therefore, your holy and immaculate body was delivered for a pious burial, with angels running before it, encircling it, and following it, performing every service D that it is fitting to offer to the mother of their own Master, while the apostles and the entire multitude of the Church sang divine hymns, and, struck by the lyre of the Spirit, cried out with a loud voice: "We shall be filled with the good things of your house; your temple is holy, wonderful in righteousness." And again: "The Most High has sanctified His tabernacle." "The mountain of God, the rich mountain; the mountain in which it has pleased God to dwell." The company of the apostles took you, the true ark of the Lord God, upon their shoulders.
A and by placing you in the tomb, they sent you through it, as through a Jordan, to the true land of promise, I mean the Jerusalem on high, the mother of all the faithful, whose builder and maker is God. For your soul did not descend into Hades, nor did your flesh see corruption. Your immaculate and undefiled body was not left on earth, but you, the Queen, the Lady, the Mistress, the Theotokos, the true Mother of God, have been translated to the royal mansions of heaven.
13. Oh, how did heaven receive the one who became more spacious than the heavens? And how did the tomb receive that which was the container of God? Yes, it received it, yes, it has contained it. For it did not become broader than heaven by reason of bodily bulk. For how could a body of three cubits, which is always being lessened, be compared in breadth and length with heaven? But by grace it surpassed the measure of all height and depth. For the divine is incomparable. O holy, and B wondrous, and venerable, and adorable monument! Which even now the angels surround, standing by with fear and great reverence; the demons shudder at it; men run to it with faith, honoring and adoring it, kissing it with their eyes and lips and with fervent desire of soul, and drawing from it an abundance of good things. For just as if someone were to put a costly ointment on clothes or in some place, and then take it away, the remains of the sweet fragrance still linger even after the ointment is removed; so now too, the divine, holy, and utterly spotless body, full of divine fragrance, that abundant fountain of grace, when it was placed in the tomb and then caught up to a better and higher region, did not leave the sepulchre bereft of honor; C but it imparted its divine scent and grace, and left the monument as a fountain of healings and of all good things for those who approach with faith.
14. We too sit by you today, O Lady—and I say it again, Lady, Virgin-Mother of God, who have not known man—fastening our souls to your hope, as if to a most strong and unshakable anchor; entrusting ourselves, mind, soul, and body, entirely to you, and honoring you as much as we are able with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; for to do so according to your worth is impossible. D For if, as the holy word has taught us, the honor shown to fellow servants is proof of favor toward our common Master, then how could the honor due to you, who gave birth to your own Master, be neglected? How should it not be cultivated? How should it not be considered more necessary than breath itself, and be the source of life? For so would one be more [devoted to the sacred utterances].
show goodwill toward his own master. And why do I say "toward the Master"? For it is truly sufficient for those who piously remember you, that most precious gift of your memory; for it becomes a source of inextinguishable joy. For with what delight is he not filled, what goods does he not possess, who has made his own mind the storehouse of your all-pure memory? This is our offering of thanksgiving to you, the first fruits of our words, the top-most pickings of our poor mind, B moved by longing for you, and having forgotten its own weakness. But do you benignly accept this longing, knowing that it exceeds our power. And do you watch over us, good Lady, Mother of the good Master; lead and carry us wherever you wish, and may you calm the impulses of our most shameful passions, and guiding us to the stormless harbor of the divine will, may you deem us worthy of the blessedness to come, and of that sweet and direct illumination of the God-Word who was incarnate of you. With whom to the Father be glory, honor, power, greatness, and majesty, together with His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
II. The second discourse of the same author on the glorious Dormition of the all-holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary.
1. There is no one among men who could worthily celebrate the holy departure of the Mother of God, not even if he had ten thousand tongues and as many mouths; nay, not even if all the languages of the diverse nations were to come together could they reach the proper praises. For she transcends every rule of panegyric. C But since it is pleasing to God that we offer what we can according to our power, from love and zeal and a good disposition—and those things that are pleasing and lovely to the Son are pleasing to the Mother of God—come, let us again take up the praises, obeying your commands, O best of shepherds and most beloved of God, calling upon the Word born of her as our helper, who fills every mouth opened unto Him, and who alone is her ornament and most glorious panegyric; knowing that when we begin the praises, we pay a debt, and having paid this, we begin again to owe, so that the debt always remains beginning and being fulfilled. D May she be propitious toward us as she is hymned, she who is beyond all created things and rules over all things created, as Mother of God, of the Creator and Maker and Ruler of all. And do you also forgive me, O assembly eager to hear divine words, and accept my ready spirit, and applaud my longing, and have compassion on my weakness in the meantime. As indeed, if someone were to offer to the emperor, who has been appointed by God to hold the reins of his fellow men, possessing always a full
table, and a hall perfumed with the vapors of the most exquisite ointments—if one were to offer him at an unaccustomed time either a violet resembling the purple hue, or a rose, the most fragrant shoot of a thorn-bush, having green follicles and a flower of twin color emerging from them, from which a beautiful redness gradually progresses—or even the sweetest fruit of autumn; he will not gaze so much at the scantiness of the gift as at its novelty, and will admire the singular A affection, with upright judgment and sound mind; and he will reward the husbandman with abundant and most beautiful gifts. So too, if we, as if in a winter of eloquence, offer flowers to the queen, and equip our aged faculty of speech for the contests of panegyric, and by rubbing our desire against our mind as a stone against iron, or by squeezing out—like an unripe grape—our thought, the parent of speech, we impart to you, who are lovers of discourse and desirous of hearing us, some small spark and new wine of speech, you will favor us all the more readily with a kindly spirit. For what else should we offer to the Mother of the Word, if not words? Like, indeed, rejoices in like, and likewise in what is friendly. Now B therefore, having opened the starting-gate of the Word, or having loosened the reins a little, let us send it forth like a horse directing its course. But do you, Word of God, bring me help and aid: render my mind, crude in speech, eloquent; make it facile, direct it; that toward which all discourse of a wise man tends, and for the thought of the wise.
2. Today the holy and only Virgin is offered C to the supra-cosmic and heavenly temple: she who pursued virginity with such zeal that she passed into its state as if into a most pure fire. For whereas every virgin loses her virginity by childbearing, she, however, remained a virgin before the birth, in the birth, and even after the birth. Today the sacred and animate Ark of the living God, which bore its own Artificer in the womb, rests in the temple of the Lord, which is built by no human hands, and David, her forefather and ancestor of God, leaps for joy, and the Angels dance in chorus with him, the Archangels applaud, the Virtues celebrate, the Principalities exult, the Dominations delight, the Powers rejoice, the Thrones keep the feast-day, the Cherubim sing praises, and the Seraphim proclaim the glory. For they do not consider it a small glory, when they bestow glory upon the Mother of glory. Today the most holy dove, a simple and innocent soul, consecrated to the divine Spirit, flying forth from the ark—by which I mean that body which received God and gave the beginning of life—found rest for her feet, having taken flight toward the intelligible world, and as they speak of the incarnation of Christ, so they also speak of the deification of the flesh; which they are unable to express with equal facility.
A Having tabernacled in the immaculate land of the inheritance above, a place is fixed for her which is liable to no uncleanness. Today, Eden receives the rational paradise of the new Adam; in which the condemnation is undone, in which the tree of life is planted, and in which our nakedness is clothed. For we are no longer naked and destitute of covering, nor stripped of the brilliance of the divine image, or despoiled of the abundant grace of the Spirit; we shall no longer lament our old nakedness by saying: *I have stripped off my tunic, how shall I put it on?* For into that paradise the serpent had a way of entry, through the desire for whose false deification we were compared to the senseless beasts.
For the only-begotten Son of God himself, who is God and consubstantial with the Father, has fashioned himself as a man out of this Virgin and pure earth. And I, indeed, who was man, have received B divinity, and I who was mortal have been gifted with immortality; and I have stripped off the tunics of skin—for having cast aside corruption, I have been clothed in incorruption—having received the garment of deification. Today the immaculate Virgin, who admitted no earthly affections but was nourished on heavenly thoughts, has not returned to the earth; but since she was truly an animate heaven, she is settled in the heavenly tabernacles. For who would err from the truth in calling her heaven, unless one were to say—rightly understanding—that she is superior even to the heavens by the incomparable excellence of her prerogatives? For He who is the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens, and Artisan of every created thing, both of the world and above the world, of the visible and invisible—He for whom no place C among all things can be defined, if indeed "place" is defined as what contains the things within it—in her, He was fashioned as an infant by Himself without seed, and showed her to be a spacious storehouse of His own divinity, which fills all things and is alone uncircumscribed; being wholly gathered within her without passion, and remaining wholly outside, holding His own place as incomprehensible.
Today the treasure of life, the abyss of grace—I know not how with bold and intrepid lips I should utter this—is covered by a life-giving death; and she who had brought forth the destroyer of death approaches this without fear, if indeed one should call her most holy and vital departure "death." For how could she who has poured forth the true D life to all be subject to death? Yet she yields to the ordinance of the birth she herself brought forth, and as a daughter of the ancient Adam she undergoes the paternal sentence. For her Son, who is Life itself, did not refuse it; but as the mother of the living God, she is worthily transferred to Him. For when God says, *Lest perchance the first-formed man, having stretched out his hand and taken of the tree of life and tasted, shall live forever,* how could it be that she who received Life itself, the beginningless and endless, who knows neither beginning nor...
A end, should not exist for infinite ages?
3. Formerly, indeed, the Lord God cast out of the paradise of Eden those who were the progenitors of our human race, when they had gulped down the wine of disobedience, and by the drunkenness of transgression had lulled to sleep the eye of the heart, and by the surfeit of sin had weighed down the eyes of their mind, and had fallen into the sleep of death. But now, shall paradise not receive this one, who has shaken off every assault of passion, and has brought forth the germ of obedience to God and the Father, and has inaugurated life for the whole mortal race? Shall heaven not joyfully unbar its gates? B Truly, it shall. For Eve, indeed, since she lent her ears to the serpent’s message, and listened to the advice of the enemy, and had her senses charmed by the onset of a false and deceptive pleasure, brought upon herself the sentence of sorrow and grief, and underwent the pangs of childbirth, and was condemned to death with Adam, and was settled in the recesses of hades. But how could death devour this truly most blessed one, who inclined her ear to the Word of God, and was filled by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and through the archangel became pregnant by the good pleasure of the Father C, and without pleasure or male intercourse conceived the Person of the Word of God, in whom all things are full, and as was fitting, gave birth without labor pains; and who joined herself entirely to God? How could the underworld receive her? How could corruption attack that body from which Life was received? These things are abhorrent and altogether foreign to that God-bearing soul and flesh. Death itself also feared to behold her; for in having attacked her Son, it had learned from what it suffered, and having learned by experience, it had been schooled. For her, the dark and untrodden descents of hades were not traversed; rather, a straight, level, and easy path to heaven was made ready. For if Christ, who is the D Way and the Truth (John XIV, 6), said, "Where I am, there also shall my servant be" (John XII, 26), how much more shall his Mother dwell with him? For just as before she was in labor, she brought forth, so too, her departure from life was free from pains. The death of sinners is indeed evil (Ps. XXX, 22), but concerning her in whom the sting of death, namely sin, had been deadened, what shall we say if not that it was the beginning of a perennial and better life? Truly, "Precious is the death of the saints of the Lord God of hosts" (Ps. CXV, 15), but more precious is the passing of the Mother of God from this life. Now let the heavens rejoice, and let the angels shout! Now let the earth exult, and let men leap for joy! Now let the air resound with joyful songs, and let the dark night cast off its sad and ugly gloom, and joyfully imitate the brightness of the day with the flashes of fire. For the living city of the Lord God of hosts is carried on high, and kings from the temple of the Lord, that is, the illustrious Sion, offer their own Mother to the heavenly and free Jerusalem, a most excellent gift [index: entries preserved]
A they, the apostles—who were appointed by Christ as princes of the whole world—the Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin.
4. A Nor does it seem to me irrational, to the extent of my power, to describe in speech, to conjecture, and to fashion in a representative way those spectacles which were brought to pass in this most holy Mother of God, which we have received—as the saying goes, from Father unto son—moderately and quite compendiously from of old. For I seem to see her, who is holier than the saints and more sacred than the sacred, more pious than the pious, this sweet urn of manna—or rather, to speak more truly, this fountain—lying upon a lowly couch in the divine and renowned city of David, I mean Sion, that conspicuous and most glorious place, in which the law of the letter was fulfilled, and the law of the Spirit was dictated; in which the Lawgiver, Christ, celebrated the typical Pascha, and in which He, the God of the Old and New Testaments, delivered the true Pascha; in which the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, initiated His own disciples in the mystical supper, and sacrificed Himself unto them like a fatted calf, and trod the grape of the true vine as in a winepress; in which Christ, rising from the dead, appeared to the apostles, and gave assurance to Thomas, and through him to the ends [of the earth], that He is God and Lord, bearing two natures in Himself even after the resurrection from the dead, and two operations corresponding to these, and free-willed decrees, enduring unto the infinite age. B This is the citadel of the Churches; this is the lodging of the disciples; in this, the many-voiced, many-tongued, and fire-formed descent of the most holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles; in this, the Theologian, the receiver of the Mother of God, tended to things that were necessary for her. This, the mother of all Churches throughout the habitable world, became the dwelling-place of the Mother of God, after the return of her Son from the dead. In this, therefore, the blessed Virgin lay upon a most blessed couch.
5. But here, having reached this part of the discourse—that I might confess my own emotion—burning with the most fervent and boiling fire of love, I am seized with a certain trembling and with joyful tears, as if embracing that very couch, the blessed and desirable one, pregnant with wonders, which received the Life-bearing tabernacle and obtained sanctification by that juxtaposition; C I seemed to be embracing with my own hands that very holy, most sacred, and God-worthy tabernacle, applying my eyes, and lips, and forehead, and neck, and cheeks to her limbs, and I felt the touch as if the body were present, and having contemplated it with my eyes, I was unable to look upon that which I longed for. D For how could I see that which has been snatched up on high into the heavenly temple? And these things, indeed, have happened to me.
A for Him who established the law that parents should be honored? Those who were scattered everywhere throughout the world to fish for men, by the many-toned and diverse tongues of the Spirit and by the net of the Word drawing men from the abyss of error to the spiritual and heavenly table of the mystical supper, the holy feast of the spiritual nuptials of the heavenly Bridegroom, which the Father celebrates most magnificently and royally for the Son who is of the same power and nature as Himself—these men, by divine command, the cloud drew like a net towards Jerusalem, compelling and gathering them together like eagles. For "wheresoever the carcass is," says the Truth, "there will the eagles be gathered together." For even if this saying was foretold concerning the second, great, and glorious appearance of Him who said these things, and His descent from heaven, still it will not be absurd if it is employed here as a seasoning to the discourse. Those eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word were present, therefore, that they might serve His Mother as was their duty, and might draw from her a blessing as from a kind of magnificent and most precious inheritance. For who doubts that she is the fountain of blessing and the spring of all good things? Their followers and successors were also present, that they might be partakers of the ministry and the blessing alike. For it is fitting that those who share a common labor should also have common fruits. And furthermore, the divinely chosen group that dwelt in Jerusalem was present. And indeed it was fitting that all the first among the ancient righteous and patriarchs should approach that place and take part in this sacred retinue; for they were the ones who had prophesied the fleshly and most benign birth of the Word of God from her for the sake of our salvation. But not even the gathering of the angels was absent. For whatever obeys the supreme King from the heart, and is worthy of the honor of standing by Him, it was necessary that it should also accompany His Mother in the flesh, that truly most blessed one, more excellent than all generations and all creation. All stood by her, shining with the brilliance of the Spirit and illuminating them with dazzling rays, fixing their pure intellectual eye upon her with reverence, fear, and unwavering love. For there is no order of the heavenly beings that did not unanimously attend, and no one was found who refused to descend and perform all the tasks I have mentioned because he was occupied with heavenly things or was comparable to nothing below.
B 7. Here are divinely inspired and God-spoken discourses. Here are certain hymns worthy of God and fit for the funeral procession. For it was necessary to sing praises to the infinite goodness, the most exalted greatness, and the infinite...
A potential, as well as to his moderation towards us, which is above all height and sublimity, the immense wealth of his incomprehensible kindness, and the inexhaustible abyss of his love; to tell how he, without departing from his own majesty, descended for the sake of the life-giving emptying, with the consent of the Father and the Spirit; how he who is above essence was embodied beyond essence from a woman’s womb; how he is God and has become man, B and remains both at once; how he neither departed from the substance of his divinity, and in like manner has shared with us in flesh and blood; how he who fills all things, and sustains the universe by the word of his own mouth, dwelt in a narrow place; how the material and grass-like body of this celebrated one received the consuming fire of divinity, and like flawless gold, remained unconsumed. These things happened because God willed it. For when God wills, all things are possible, but when he does not will, they are impossible. Moreover, on this occasion, there arose a contest of words, not so that one might surpass the other—for that is a sign of a mind vainly desiring glory, and is far from pleasing to God—but so that they might not fall short in zeal and power C in praising God and honoring God’s Mother.
8. Then, indeed, then Adam and Eve, the ancestors of our race, cried out aloud with exultant lips: "Blessed art thou, daughter, who hast taken away from us the penalties of the violated commandment. Thou, having inherited a mortal body from us, hast brought forth for us the garment of immortality. Thou, having received origin from our loins, hast given back to us the reward of well-being. Thou hast loosed the pangs of childbirth; thou hast rent the swaddling bands of death; thou hast restored to us our ancient dwelling. We shut the paradise, thou hast opened the entrance to the tree of life. Through us, bitter things came from pleasant; through thee, the more pleasant things have returned to us from the bitter. And how, O immaculate one, dost thou become subject to death? D Thou art the bridge to life, and the ladder to heaven; for thee, death shall be a ferry to immortality. Truly thou art blessed, who art to be proclaimed most blessed. For who, if he were not the Word, would have presented himself to endure this, which he had been deemed worthy to perform?" All the choir of the saints joined in applause for this, saying: "Thou hast fulfilled our prophecies. Thou hast brought us the joy for which we were waiting. For through thee we have been loosed from the bonds of death. Come to us, O divine and life-bearing treasure. Come to us who desire thee, thou who hast fulfilled our desire." But the multitude of saints who were still in the body drew her back with words no less urgent, saying: "Remain with us, our consolation, the sole comfort we have on earth. Do not leave us orphans, O Mother of that benign and merciful one, we who are in peril for the sake of thy Son. May we have thee as the rest from our labors and the refreshing of our toils. For thee..."
to one wishing to remain, the power is at hand, and to one wishing to depart, there is no impediment. But if thou departest, O tabernacle of God, may it be granted also to us, who are thy people because of thy Son, to depart. Thou alone art left to us on earth as comfort: and to live while thou livest, and to die when thou diest, is blessed. But what do we say [in calling thee] dying? For to thee, indeed, death is life, or rather, a life more excellent, and one incomparably surpassing this life: but to us, all life is devoid of life, bereft of thy company. B
9. With such words as these, it seems to me, the Apostles together with the whole assembly of the Church addressed the blessed Virgin. But when they beheld the Mother of God hastening toward her exit from life, and burning with desire for Him, then at last they turned themselves to hymns pertaining to her departure, being moved by divine grace, and lending their mouth to the Spirit; and, carried out of the flesh, they desired to depart together with the departing Mother of God, and to depart beforehand, so far as possible, by the intensity of their intent. And when they had all fulfilled their desire and their duty alike, and had woven a blooming and manifold crown of sacred hymns, they received, as it were, a divinely-given treasure—her blessing—uttering their final and farewell words. And these, as far as I can surmise, proclaimed the flowing and fleeting fragility of the present life, and brought into the open the hidden mysteries of future blessings.
10. Then, there followed in sequence and in harmony with these things, as I think, what took place at that time: the coming of the King Himself to His own Mother, to receive into His divine and most pure hands her holy, undefiled, and spotless soul. And she herself, as is not at all removed from the truth, said: "Into thy hands, my Son, I commend my spirit. Receive, then, the soul dear to thee, which thou hast kept free from fault. To thee, and not to the earth, I surrender my body: guard it safe, in which thou didst deign to dwell, and which, by thy birth, thou preservedst incorrupt. C Transport me to thee, so that where thou art, the offspring of my womb, I too may be thy fellow-dweller. For I hasten to thee, who didst descend to me without any distance of space. Be thou the comfort of my migration to my most dear children, whom thou didst not hesitate to call brothers. Through the extension of my hands, heap their blessing with new blessings." Then, having raised her hands, as is natural, she blessed those who were gathered, having spoken such words as these: and the Lord said: "Come, my blessed Mother, into my rest; hear and come, my neighbor, the beautiful among women, for behold the winter is past, the time of the pruning is come. Thou art all fair, my neighbor, and there is no spot in thee. The odor of thy ointments is above all spices." D Having heard these things, the holy one deposits her spirit in the hands of her Son.
A 11. And what happens? A movement and change of the elements, it seems to me, and voices and sounds and crashes, and worthy hymns of angels—some running before, some escorting, some following—who were fulfilling the escort of the immaculate and all-holy soul, and ascending with her as she ascended to heaven, until they placed the Queen before the royal throne; while others were circling the divine and holy body, and with angel-befitting songs were hymning the Mother of God. And what of those who stood by the all-holy and most sacred body? With fear and longing, and tears of exultation, they encircled that divine and thrice-blessed tabernacle, and embraced it, and kissed every limb, bringing their own bodies to it, and being filled with sanctification and blessing from the touch. Then, indeed, diseases took flight, companies of demons were put to rout, driven from everywhere toward the infernal regions alone; the air, the ether, and heaven were sanctified (45) by the ascent of the spirit, and the earth by the deposition of the body. Nor was the nature of water deprived of its blessing: for it is washed with pure water—not water that cleanses her, but that is rather cleansed by her (46) most especially. There, hearing was restored to the deaf, the foundations of the feet were set right for the lame, vision was renewed for the blind, and for sinners approaching with faith, their bonds of debt were torn asunder. And then what? The pure body is wrapped in pure linen cloths, and the Queen is laid upon a bier again. Then torches and myrrh, and hymns sung in procession, with angels chanting in their own tongues the hymn most fitting to them, and the Apostles and God-bearing Fathers singing divine songs, inspired by the Spirit, and rhythmic to the Spirit.
C 12. Then, truly then, the Ark of the Lord, having departed from Mount Sion, borne upon the glorious shoulders of the Apostles, is conveyed toward the heavenly temple by way of the tomb. And first it is led through the midst of the city, like some surpassingly beautiful bride adorned with the inaccessible radiance of the Spirit, and thus it is brought to the most holy place of Gethsemane, with angels running before, following, and covering her with their wings, along with the whole fullness of the Church. And just as King Solomon, for the depositing of the ark in the temple of the Lord which he himself had built, gathered all the elders of Israel in Sion to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the city of David—which is Sion—and the priests took up the ark and the tabernacle of testimony, and the priests and the Levites brought them up, and the king and all the people sacrificed oxen and sheep without number before the ark, and the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord into its place, into the oracle of the house, into the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the Cherubim: so also now (47) at the deposition of the spiritual ark—not of the covenant of the Lord, but of the person of God the Word himself—the new Solomon himself, who is the prince
of peace and the artificer of all things, has today assembled the supercelestial orders of the heavenly minds, and the leaders of the New Testament, I mean the apostles, together with all the holy people in Jerusalem. He brings her soul through the angels into the Holy of Holies—the true and heavenly archetypes—placing it upon the wings of the four-formed living creatures, and presenting it at his own throne, inside the veil, where Christ himself has entered as our forerunner in the flesh. But her body is carried by the hands of the apostles, covered by the King of kings with the brilliance of his invisible divinity, while the whole assembly of the saints goes before, sending forth holy cries B and offering a sacrifice of praise, until it is deposited in the tomb as in a bridal chamber, and through it, into the delights of Eden and the heavenly tabernacles.
13. Perhaps there were also present some of the Jews, those who were not altogether ungrateful. It is not inappropriate to mix into this narrative, like a seasoning for food, that which is circulated by the speech of many. For they say that when those who were carrying the blessed body of the Mother of God had arrived at the foot of the hill, a certain Hebrew, a slave to sin and an ally of error, imitating that servant of Caiaphas who had slapped the face of Christ our God, which is sovereign and divine, having become an instrument of the devil, moved by a rash and precipitate and diabolical impulse, surged against that most divine tabernacle to which the angels approached not without fear, and having seized the bier with both hands, he madly and furiously tried to pull it down to the ground C (this was the attempt of envy, the author of evils), but the result outstripped his labors, and he harvested a bitter grape worthy of his own intention. For they say he was deprived of his hands. And one could see the perpetrator of the crime immediately lacking the very hands with which he had committed the deed, until he changed his mind and repented through faith. The bearers of the bier stood still immediately, and that miserable man, having lost his hands, upon bringing them to that tabernacle—which was the fountain of life and the source of wonders—again obtained their restoration. For calamity is wont, for the most part, to produce prudent and salutary counsels. But let us return to the prayer we had proposed.
14. From there she is brought down to the most holy Gethsemane; and again there are kisses and embraces, and again eulogies, holy hymns, and invocations and tears, streams of sweat flowing D from agony and burning love: and it was possible to see sweats and tears vying with one another as they poured forth. And thus the all-holy body is placed in the most glorious and excellent tomb; and from there, three days later, it is raised up to the heavenly dwellings. For it was fitting that that divine domicile, that undug fountain of the water of remission, that unplowed field of the heavenly bread, that never-irrigated vine of the immortal grape...
that evergreen and fruitful olive tree of the Father’s oil A should not be confined within the bowels of the earth. But just as that holy and immaculate body, which had subsisted in the Word of God from her, rose from the tomb on the third day, so it was appropriate that she too should be snatched from the grave, and the Mother be translated to the Son; and just as He Himself had descended to her, so she, in turn, was to be brought up to Him, into the greater and more divine tabernacle—that is, into heaven itself. It was fitting, I say, that she who had received the God Word as a guest in the hospitality of her womb should be lodged in the divine tabernacles of her Son; and just as the Lord had said that He must be about His Father’s business, so too was it fitting for the Mother to dwell in the royal courts of the Son, in the house of the Lord and in the courts of the house of our God. For if the dwelling of all those who rejoice is in Him, where else would be the cause of gladness? It was fitting that she who in childbirth had kept her virginity unharmed should have her body preserved incorrupt even after death. It was fitting that she who had carried the Creator in her bosom like an infant should spend her time in the divine tabernacles. It was B fitting that the bride whom the Father had betrothed should dwell in the heavenly chambers. It was fitting that she who had watched her Son on the cross, and who had received into her heart the sword which she had escaped in childbirth, should behold Him seated with the Father. It was fitting that the Mother of God should possess the things of her Son, and be worshipped by all creation as the Mother of God and handmaid. For although inheritance usually descends from parents to children, now, however, to use the words of a certain wise man, the springs of the sacred rivers flow upwards. For the Son has made over the whole of creation to His Mother.
15. Come, therefore; let us too today celebrate a funeral feast for the Mother of God, not carrying flutes and cymbals, C nor celebrating those divine orgies—as they themselves call them—of the mother of those falsely-named gods, whom foolish men mythologize as having many children, whereas the truth itself shows that she bore none. For these are demons and shadowy phantoms, falsely pretending to be what they are not by nature, with the madness of deluded men coming to their aid. For how can that which lacks a body beget through union? And how will they commingle? And how will that be God, which, though it did not exist before, comes into generation later? For the fact that the race of demons lacks a body is clear to everyone, even to those who are blind in the eyes of their minds. For Homer, in one of his works, while explaining the condition of those gods who are worthy of him, says: They do not eat bread, nor do they drink sparkling wine; Therefore they are bloodless and are called immortals. They do not eat bread, he says, nor the warming wine D
A of it; for this reason they are bloodless, that is to say, they have no blood, and are called immortals. He speaks truly and appropriately A when he says "called," for they are called immortals, but they are not in fact what they are called, since they have died the death of wickedness. But we, who worship God—God, I say, not brought into existence from nothing, but eternal from the eternal, superior to every cause, reason, thought, time, and nature—we honor and venerate the Mother of God. This is not because we claim her Divinity derived its origin from her (since the generation of God the Word is timeless and co-eternal with the Father), but because we acknowledge a second generation through His voluntary assumption of flesh, the cause of which we both know and celebrate with praise. For He who exists without beginning and is incorporeal is incarnate for our sake and for our salvation, that He might save the like through the like; and being incarnate, He is born of this holy Virgin without union, Himself remaining wholly God, and becoming wholly man; He Himself is wholly God with His own flesh, and wholly man with His own super-divine divinity. In this way we acknowledge this Virgin to be the Mother of God, and we celebrate her Dormition, not proclaiming her to be a goddess (such are the figments of Greek imposture), since we even announce her death; but we acknowledge her as the Mother of the incarnate God.
16. Let us, the people of Christ, both be and be called those who have been enriched, and let us proclaim her today with sacred canticles; let us honor her with nocturnal vigils; let us delight her with the purity of soul and body—her who is truly pure and, after God, B surpasses all in purity. For it is natural for like things to rejoice in their likes. Let us honor and observe her through mercy and compassion toward the needy. For if God is honored by nothing so much as by mercy, who will deny that His Mother is likewise pleased by these very things? She has laid open for us the ineffable abyss of God’s love for man. Through her, that long-standing war C which was waged against the Creator has been ended. Through her, reconciliation with Him has been enacted for us, and peace and grace have been given; whence angels dance together with men, and we who were previously despised have been made children of God. From her we have gathered the grape of life; from her we have plucked the sprout of incorruption. She has become for us the mediatress of all good things. In her, God became man and man became God. And what is more miraculous than this? What is more blessed? I tremble with fear, dreading what I speak. With Maria the prophetess D, O youthful souls, let us dance with timbrels, mortifying the members which are upon the earth; for this is what the timbrel mystically signifies. Let us jubilate over the ark of the Lord, and let the walls of Jericho, that is, the hostile fortifications of the adversary powers, fall. Let us leap with David in the Spirit; for the ark of the Lord rests today. Let us cry out with Gabriel, the leader of the angels: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you D. Hail, full of grace, inexhaustible pool of joy
Hail, the only destroyer of sorrow. Hail, O painless remedy for every heart. Hail, you by whom death is cast out and life has been brought in.
17. Indeed, after the Lord’s sepulcher, which gave the beginning of life and was the fountain of the resurrection, you are the most holy (for the discourse I hold with you is as with one possessed of a soul)—where now is that untainted gold which the hands of the apostles deposited within you? Where is the inexhaustible wealth? Where is the God-receiving treasure? Where is the ensouled table, where is the new scroll in which the Word of God was written without hands in an ineffable manner? Where is the abyss of grace? Where is the pool of healings? Where is the life-giving fountain? Where is the much-longed-for and most desirable body of the Theotokos? Why do you seek in the tomb her who has been raised to the heavenly tabernacles? Why do you demand from me an account of the guardianship? It is not within my power to contend with divine commands. Leaving the linen shroud behind, that body, sacred and holy, which imparted to me its holiness and filled me with myrrh and sweet fragrance and made me a divine shrine, has been snatched away and gone upward, with angels and archangels and all the heavenly powers acting as an escort. B Now angels wait upon me. Now divine grace dwells within me. I have shown myself to be an analgesic apothecary for the sick. I am an everlasting fountain of healings. I am a bane to demons. I have become a city of refuge for those who flee to me. Approach with faith, O peoples, and draw out the gifts of grace like a river. Advance with unwavering faith. "You who thirst, go to the waters," commands Isaiah, "and those to whom there is no silver, go and buy without price." I call out the evangelical message to all: Whoever thirsts for the healing of ailments, for the redemption of weaknesses of the soul, for the wiping away of sins, for the casting off of all kinds of tribulations, for the rest of the kingdom of heaven, let him come to me with faith and draw out the most powerful and most useful stream of grace. C For just as the operation of water, as also of earth and air, and of the all-shining sun, is simple and one, yet it changes differently according to the nature of those things which partake of it, and becomes wine in the vine and oil in the olive, so too does grace, being simple and one, benefit those who partake of it in a varied and proportional manner according to the need of each. I do not possess this grace from my own nature. Every tomb is full of stench, a cause of sadness, and an enemy of joy. I have received a precious myrrh, and I have partaken of its fragrance; and this myrrh is so fragrant and most effective that, even by a small application, it confers a participation that cannot be taken away—for the D divine gifts are truly without repentance—I have entertained a fountain of joy, and I have become enriched with the perennial bubbling of this spring.
A You see, beloved Fathers and brothers, how this most glorious tomb extends toward us; and that these things are so, is written word for word as follows in the third book, fortieth chapter, of the Euthymiaca Historia (58): “We have said above how Saint Pulcheria erected many churches to Christ in the city of Constantinople. One of these is that which was built in Blachernae in the early years of the reign of Marcian, of divine memory. When, therefore, they had built a venerable house there for the all-praised and all-holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and had adorned it with every kind of ornament, they sought the all-holy and God-receiving body; and, having called Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, and the bishops from Palestine who were then residing in the imperial city due to the council held at that time in Chalcedon, they said to them: ‘We hear that there is in Jerusalem the first and most excellent church of the all-holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary in the place called Gethsemane, where her life-bearing body was laid in a coffin. We desire, therefore, to bring these relics here for the protection of this imperial city.’ Juvenal, responding, answered: ‘The holy and divinely inspired Scriptures do not record the events concerning the passing of the holy Theotokos Mary; but we have received from an ancient and most truthful tradition that, at the time of her glorious dormition, all the holy apostles, B who were traversing the world for the salvation of the nations, were in a moment of time lifted up... [and assembled]... and upon this there was no small grief in the midst, Pulcheria being unaware of these things.”
From the Euthymiaca Historia
The holy and blessed Flavian, who had succeeded the blessed Proclus in the Constantinopolitan see, had a certain Chrysaphius, a eunuch of the palace of Theodosius the Younger, who, burning with envy at the ordination of Flavian, suggested to the emperor—who was an innocent man—that he should signify to the patriarch that it was proper to send him *eulogiae* or gifts on account of his ordination. Chrysaphius furthermore declared that the emperor demanded a sum of gold. The bishop, however, replied that he had no money to send unless he were to borrow it against the sacred vessels. For all the faculties of the Church, he said, were consecrated to the use of the poor. This, therefore, created great pain, without Pulcheria’s knowledge of any of these things. C And upon this command he sent the sacred vessels.D Saint and blessed Flavian succeeded to the Constantinopolitan see after the blessed Proclus. A certain Chrysaphius, a eunuch... [text concerns the dispute between Flavian and the emperor]... Euthymiaca history was long posterior to Flavian, Pulcheria, and the Emperor Marcian, if it is at all certain that its author wrote that the testimony of Pseudo-Dionysius from chapter 3 of the book *De divinis nominibus* had been cited by Juvenal before Marcian and Pulcheria. For, as I show in a singular dissertation, all the books that bore the name of Dionysius the Areopagite are later than the reign of Zeno, and therefore could not have been cited at the time of the Council of Chalcedon. Moreover, that Marcian and Pulcheria were made certain by Juvenal of Jerusalem concerning the Assumption of the Virgin Theotokos, I would by no means dare to deny, just as I would not affirm that these things were fabricated by the same Juvenal, as those fictitious writings which Leo the Great complains, in his letter to Maximus of Antioch, had been produced by him for the sake of obtaining the primacy of Palestine.
HOMILY II ON THE DORMITION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
A traveling for the salvation of the nations, in a moment of time they were caught up and arrived in Jerusalem; and while they were there, an angelic vision appeared to them, and divine melody was heard from the supernal Powers. And thus, with holy and heavenly glory, she commended her soul to God by an ineffable word. Her God-receiving body, having been carried out with angelic and apostolic chanting, and prepared for burial, was placed in a sarcophagus in Gethsemane; where, in that place, the chorus and hymnody of the angels remained unceasing for three days. But after the third day, when the angelic chanting had ceased, the apostles who were present—with the exception of Thomas, who had been absent, but who arrived after the third day and wished to venerate the God-receiving body—opened the sarcophagus. And indeed, they were quite unable to find her all-hymned body; but they found only her burial clothes lying there, and being filled with an ineffable fragrance emanating from them, they secured the sarcophagus. Struck with amazement at the wonder of this mystery, they could only reason that He who had been pleased to be incarnate and become man from her in His own hypostasis, and to be born in the flesh as God the Word and Lord of glory, B and who had preserved her undefiled virginity even after the birth, had also been pleased, after her departure from here, to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and a translation before the common and universal resurrection. There were present at that time, with the apostles, most venerable Timothy the apostle and first bishop of the Ephesians, and Dionysius the Areopagite, just as the great Dionysius himself bears witness in his writings concerning the blessed Hierotheus, who was also present then, writing to the aforementioned Apostle Timothy in these words: “Since, among our own God-inspired hierarchs, when we too—as you yourself know—and many of our holy brethren had gathered for the vision of the life-originating body, there was present also the brother of the Lord, James, and Peter, the chief and most ancient summit of the theologians. Then, after the vision, it seemed good to all the hierarchs to hymn, as each was able, the infinite goodness of the divine power.”
39. Recte Joannes Scythopolitanus ad hunc ementiti Dionysii locum animadvertit, videri sibi, corpus illud quod vitæ principium dedit, Deumque suscepit, fuisse corpus Virginis exanimum. Nec ullus e Græcis scriptor noscitur anterior, qui dormitionis Deiparæ meminerit: nisi certum sit Pseudo-Melitonem inter Græcos auctores debere censeri. Hunc cum multa de Maria jejune passim scribat, puta eam cum morti se proximam esse didicisset, admodum timuisse, ne Satanæ insidiis pateret, tum Ephesina synodo antiquiorem fuisse crediderim. Posthac enim longe melior de Dei Genitrice, ut quidem par erat, existimatio ab omnibus, non in Oriente solum, verum etiam in Occidente haberi cœpit. Sunt qui illo Pseudo-Dionysii loco corpus Christi significatum dixere: id quod mihi verisimile non est. Nequaquam enim hic larvatus auctor eo stupore cœspitaverit, ut Domini corpus conspectum fuisse a Dionysio Areopagita fingeret, quem ante Pauli Athenis prædicationem nihil de Christo audiisse vel pueri noverant, uti nec Timotheum, qui ad corpus videndum cum apostolis illic affuisse fertur. D At ex hoc Dionysii loco colligere est, narrationem de obitu Virginis evulgatam fuisse ante quinti sæculi finem: quo tempore sub Dionysii Areopagitæ nomine libri illi prodire cœperunt. Cum adnotationem in priorem orationem ederem, animo exciderat, apud Nicephorum Callistum, lib. XVII Hist. cap. 28, legi, uti Justinianus Purificationis festum instituerat; ita et Mauritium dormitionis Deiparæ quotannis die XV Augusti agendum sanxisse. Quod si comparetur cum iis quæ ex Modesto Hierosolymitano attuli, magis magisque perspicuum fiet, solemnitatem hanc, etiam apud Palæstinos, ante postrema Mauritii tempora non celebrari cœpisse, nec proinde orthodoxos Orientis Gallis nostris auctores fuisse ut Dei Genitricis transitus mense Januarii festive recoleretur.
A being so affected that he seemed united with the things he was chanting, and by all who heard and saw him, whether he was known to them or unknown, he was considered, being caught by the Divine, to be a divine composer of hymns. But why should I have a discourse with you about the things divinely spoken there, when—unless I have forgotten myself—I know that you have often heard from me some parts of those divine chants? Upon hearing these things, the emperors requested from the archbishop Juvenal that that holy reliquary, together with the garments of the glorious and most holy Mother of God that were placed therein, be sent to them, secured with a seal. Once they received it, they deposited it in the venerable house of the holy Mother of God that is built in Blachernae. And these things were done in this way.
B 19. But what shall we answer regarding the tomb? Your grace indeed is perennial and unfailing; but the divine power is not bounded by places, nor are the benefits of the Mother of God confined to a single monument. For if they were defined by the tomb alone, very few would be divinely imbued with this sort of gift. Yet it distributes itself copiously to the ends of all the world. Therefore, let us ensure that our mind and memory become a storehouse of the Mother of God. And how shall this be accomplished? She is a Virgin, and a lover of virgins; she is chaste, and a lover of chastity. Wherefore, if we cultivate chastity both in body and in memory, we shall obtain her grace. C For she flees from all mire, and turns away from muddy passions as from the brood of vipers. She execrates gluttony; she is hostile to the vices of shameful fornication; she flees from its filthy thoughts as from the offspring of vipers; she repels base and jesting words and songs; she shakes off harlot's perfumes; she hates the swellings of anger; she does not admit inhumanity, envy, and strife; she turns away from the vain glory that breaks one down with various labors; she resists the pride of vanity with a hostile spirit; she shudders at the remembrance of injuries as an adversary to salvation; finally, she regards every vice as lethal poison; but she delights in the contraries of these. For contraries are the medicines of contraries. She rejoices in fasting, D and temperance, and psalmodic chants; she exults in purity, and virginity, and modesty. And toward these she maintains perennial peace, and embraces them kindly. She embraces peace and a gentle state of mind; she fosters love, and mercy, and humanity in her arms, as her own foster-daughters. And, to sum up the matter in few words, she is afflicted and indignant at any vice, but she rejoices in any virtue as if it were her own proper gift. Wherefore, if we avoid vices with an eager spirit, and pursue virtues with all zeal, and keep them as our companions, she will often come to her servants, and will draw with herself the company of all good things, and will take along Christ her Son, and the King and Lord of all, who dwells in our hearts; to whom be glory, honor, power, great-
- ness and magnificence, with the unoriginate Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Homily III on the Dormition of the B. V. Mary
A 1. It is the custom of those who are moved by love for someone, to have that person ever on their tongue, and to imagine them in their mind, both by night and by day. Let no one, therefore, censure me if, after the two laudatory sermons I have already delivered, I now present a third, which I offer to the Mother of my God as a funeral gift for her passing. I do not do this to confer any grace upon her, but for my own sake and for yours, O divine and sacred congregation, providing an offering profitable and salutary for souls, one befitting this holy night, and yielding the gain of spiritual delight.
For, as you see, a shortage of food has overtaken us. Therefore, I am preparing for you an impromptu banquet, which, though it be neither very costly nor worthy of the one who invited us, will nevertheless be able to satisfy our hunger out of necessity. For she herself has no need of our praises, but we have need of the glory that comes from her. For how will that which is already glorified be made more glorious? Or how will the fountain of light be illuminated? But through these things that we do, we are weaving wreaths for ourselves. "For as I live," says the Lord, "I will glorify those who glorify me." B Wine is truly sweet, and bread is fit for sustenance; the one gladdens, and the other strengthens the heart of man. But what is sweeter than the Mother of my God? She has taken my mind captive; she has plundered my tongue; she is what I imagine in my waking and in my dreams. She is the Mother of the Word, and she has become the dispenser of the Word; she is the offspring of the barren one, who renders barren souls fruitful.
Today we celebrate her holy and divine transition. Come, therefore, let us ascend to the mystical mount, and having become superior to worldly and material impressions, and having entered the divine and incomprehensible darkness, and having come to be in the divine light, let us hymn the Power that has boundless might. How did He, who is from that superabundant height, that immaterial C and transcendent realm, who, without departing from the bosom of the Father, descended into the virginal womb, and was conceived and made flesh, and who journeyed toward death through suffering—how did He, having taken up a body born of the earth, and having gained the incorruptible through corruption, returning again to the Father, draw up His Mother according to the flesh to the side of His own Begetter, having made her a terrestrial heaven, and having raised her to the celestial land?
2. Today the intellectual ladder, animate and ensouled, through which the Most High descended and was seen on earth, and D associated with men, having used death as a ladder, has ascended from earth into heaven.
A Today the earthly table, which had borne the heavenly bread of life, the coal of the Divinity, without marriage, is carried from earth to heaven; and the gates of heaven, the gates of God set towards the east, were lifted up. Today the animate city of God is translated from the earthly Jerusalem to the Jerusalem above; and she who conceived the Firstborn of all creation, begotten of the Father, and who conceived the only-begotten as her own firstborn, dwells in the Church of the firstborn; and the animate and rational Ark of the Lord is translated to the rest of her Son. The gates of paradise are opened, and they receive the God-bearing field, from which the tree of eternal life, namely Christ, the author of all life, sprouted and destroyed Eve's disobedience and the death brought in by Adam. B This Christ, the cause of life for all, is received by a hewn-out cave, a mountain not cut by hands, from which a stone, hewn without hands, has filled the whole world. The bridal chamber of the divine incarnation of the Word rests as in a most glorious bedroom, the tomb, from which she migrates to the bridal chamber placed in the heavens, where she is to reign openly with her Son and God; and she has left the tomb as a bridal chamber for those who dwell on earth. Is this tomb a bridal chamber? Yes, truly, and more illustrious than any bridal chamber: not shining with the splendors of gold, the brightness of silver, the glitter of stones, nor adorned with silk cloths and garments woven of gold and purple, but with the divinely radiant luminosity of the All-Holy Spirit. It does not provide the union of bodies to the lovers of earth, but to those bound by the Spirit, it provides the life of holy souls, C a state better and sweeter to God than all others. This tomb is more beautiful than Eden; and that I may not speak of the devil’s favor in that place, his gracious—if I may so call it—counsel, the envy, the deceit, Eve’s fickleness, her persuasiveness, the sweet and bitter bait by which she lost her mind and robbed her husband as well, the disobedience, the exile, the death—lest by recounting these I make the solemnity a cause for sadness—I say that this tomb has raised a mortal body from earth to heaven, whereas that former one brought the parent of our race down from on high to earth. For was it not to her that it was said, "You are earth, and to earth you shall return," that he who was made in the divine image was condemned? D This tomb is more precious than the tabernacle of old, containing the rational and animate lampstand, divinely illumined, and the life-bearing table, which received not the bread of proposition, but the heavenly; not fire consisting of matter, but that which is superior to all matter, namely, the fire of the Divinity. This tomb is more fortunate than the Mosaic ark, in that it has been allotted not shadows and figures, but the Truth itself. For it received the immaculate and golden urn, which bore the heavenly manna, the animate tablet, having received by the finger of the most powerful Spirit the Word of God who was to be incarnate, the Word...
which brought forth the divine coal, and filled the whole creation with fragrance.
3. Let demons flee, let the thrice-wretched Nestorians howl, as the Egyptians did of old, and their leader, the new Pharaoh, the bitter avenger and tyrant. For they have been buried in the deep A of blasphemy. But we, who have been saved with dry feet and have crossed the salt sea of impiety, let us sing the funeral song to the Mother of God. Let Mary, that is, the Church, take the timbrel in her hands, and let her begin the festival song. Let the maidens of the spiritual Israel come forth with timbrels and dances, shouting aloud. Let the kings of the earth and the judges, together with the princes, young men and virgins, old men with the young, praise the Mother of God; let assemblies, and speakers of every kind, and the different languages of nations and peoples, sing a new song. Let the air resound with spiritual reeds and trumpets, and let the auspicious day be renewed with fiery splendors. Rejoice, O heavens, and let the clouds rain down gladness. Leap for joy, O rams of God's chosen flock, B you divine apostles, who are exalted like high and lofty mountains by your most sublime contemplations; and you, lambs of God, holy people, the sheep of the Church, having reached the high mountains by the inclination of your soul. Alas! Alas! The fountain of life, the Mother of my Lord, dies? It was necessary that what was formed from the earth should return to the earth, and thus travel to heaven, having received after the deposition of the body on earth the most pure life. For it was fitting that, just as gold, having laid aside the earthy and lightless mass of mortality, the flesh in death, as if in a crucible, C should arise from the tomb incorrupt and pure, glowing with the brightness of incorruption.
4. Today, she who gave a beginning to the second existence, that is, the bodily existence, to Him who gave her the beginning of the former existence, receives a beginning of a second existence from Him—from Him who had no temporal beginning of His former and eternal existence, even if He had the Father as the principle and cause of His divine existence. Rejoice, O Sion, the divine and holy mountain, in which the living, divine mountain dwelt; O new Bethel, in which the pillar has been anointed, namely, human nature anointed by divinity. From you D her Son was raised to heavenly heights, as if from olives. Let a cloud of the whole world be prepared, and wings of the winds to convey the apostles from the ends of the earth to Sion. Who are these who fly like clouds and eagles toward the body of the cause of the resurrection of all, to serve the Mother of God? Who is this that comes up, made white, all beautiful, shining like the sun? Let the harps of the Spirit, the apostolic tongues, resound...
Let the cymbals, the peaks of the theologians, clash; and let Hierotheus, that vessel of election A, consecrated by the divine Spirit, having learned and experienced divine things through divine union, depart entirely from the body; let him go forth entirely according to the free choice of his soul, and let him applaud with hymns of praise. Let all nations clap their hands; let all praise the Mother of God. Let the angels serve a mortal body. O daughters of Jerusalem, follow the queen who leads the way [*], and as maidens near to her, rejuvenated in the Spirit, be brought together to the bridegroom, to stand at the right hand of the Lord. Descend, descend, O Lord, to the Mother, as is fitting, to pay back the debt due for your nourishment. Stretch out your divine hands: receive the motherly soul, you who on the cross committed your own spirit into the hands of the Father; call to her with a sweet whisper. "Come, my beautiful one, my neighbor, who in the beauty of virginity shine brighter than the sun. You have shared in my things; now come, partake of yours; come, Mother, to the Son; come, reign with him who was poor with you." Depart, O Lady, depart, but not like Moses; ascend, and die. Nay rather, die, and thus ascend. Commit your soul into the hands of your Son. Render to the earth what belongs to the earth, for this too shall be raised up with you. Lift up your eyes, O people of God; lift them up, and behold in Sion the ark of the Lord God of Hosts, beside B which the apostles stand in reality, burying the body that was the principle of life and the receptacle of God; while the angels cherish it in an incorporeal and invisible manner, standing by the Mother of their own Master like servants and not without fear. The Lord himself is present, who is everywhere, filling all things and containing the universe, who has no place; for in him all things exist as in their Creator, who fashions and embraces all. Behold the Virgin, the daughter of Adam and Mother of God; she delivers her body to the earth because of Adam, but sends her soul to the heavenly mansions because of the Son. Let the holy city be sanctified, and together with other blessings, bring forth an eternal blessing. Let angels go before the procession of the divine tabernacle, and let them prepare the tomb. Let it be adorned by the splendor of the Spirit. Let myrrh be prepared, and let the most pure and most fragrant body be anointed with it. Let clear water be present, to draw down a blessing from the most pure fountain of blessing. Let the earth exult at the deposition of the body; let the air leap for joy at the ascent of the Spirit. C Let dew-laden breezes blow, full of grace. Let all creation celebrate the ascent of the Mother of God. Let the choirs of the young shout for joy. Let the tongues of orators pour forth hymns; let the hearts of the wise contemplate the miracle; let the elderly, venerable for their gray hair, produce contemplations with steady gaze. Let all created things bring their contribution. For not even thus would they attain to the smallest part of her worth. D
A Agite, come, let us all travel in spirit with her who is departing. Come, let us all in the longing of our hearts go down together to the tomb. Let us surround the most holy bed. Let us sing sacred hymns, chanting in this way: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." Hail, predestined Mother of God. Hail, chosen before the ages by the counsel of God, most divine bud of the earth, dwelling-place of divine fire, most holy statue of the Holy Spirit, fountain of living water, paradise of the tree of life, branch of the divine vine, from which nectar and ambrosia flowed; river full of the spices of the Spirit, field of the divine grain, rose most radiant in virginity, and breathing the fragrance of grace, lily of royal vesture, ewe-lamb who brought forth the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, workshop of our salvation, higher than the angelic powers, handmaid and mother. B Come, let us surround the undefiled tomb, and draw from it divine grace. Come, let us carry the ever-virgin body with the arms of the soul, and let us enter inside the monument, and let us die together with her, indeed putting away the passions of the body, but living together a life free from passion and undefiled; let us listen to the divine hymns poured forth from the immaterial angelic lips. Let us enter to worship, and let us know the strangeness of the mystery, how she has been raised, how she has been lifted high, how she has been taken up to heaven, how she stands above all the angelic ranks beside the Son; for there is nothing between Mother and Son. This third eulogy for your passing I have performed, in addition to the two, Mother of God, out of reverence and longing for the Trinity, C whom you served by the Father’s good pleasure, and by the power of the Spirit, having received the beginningless Word, the omnipotent wisdom and power of God. Accept, therefore, my zeal, which exceeds my strength, and grant salvation,, alienation from soul-destroying passions, relief from bodily sicknesses, a solution to difficulties, a calm condition of life, and the illumination of the Spirit. Kindle the love for your Son, order our life to be pleasing to Him, so that, having become participants of the blessedness that is with Him, and seeing you shining with the glory of your Son, we may send up sacred hymns, rejoicing eternally in the assembly of those who worthily celebrate the feasts of the Spirit, in honor of Him who through you wrought our salvation, Christ the Son of God and our God; to whom be glory and power, with the beginningless Father, and with the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto all the endless ages of ages. Amen.
XI.
Homily of our Holy Father John Damascene in praise of Saint John Chrysostom.
α'. It was necessary, O golden-tongued John, for those who possess your
A golden tongue to offer up a discourse flowing with gold, when attempting to touch upon your praises. Indeed, your own voice would have been needed, for it alone could worthily set forth its own proclamation—and even that, in the present time. For as long as you were alive upon the earth, before your departure, the forgetfulness of your achievements served as its own primary accuser. For the achievements of the wise are, in a sense, hidden from them, lest the truth of their being should waste away through mere opinion. But since the babbling of children is dear to their parents, and two mites are more acceptable to God than the contributions of the wealthy and magnificent (because He assesses these things not by the power of the gift, but by the will of the giver), and since the exhortation of a god-loving man is not to be rejected—for such a one is worthy of respect and owed the greatest thanks by us—I lay hold of B the task of speaking. Yet I do not do so recklessly, nor without restraint, but rather drawing back in fear, and offering only the first fruits of your divine and sacred teachings. For in unraveling such a subject, if I happen to reach something near to its worth, it will not be an ordinary or undeserved praise; but if I fail, which is the best thing not to suffer, though it be impossible to avoid, I beg forgiveness, bowing to the justice of this defeat, and grant me, I pray, the fire-breathing grace of the Spirit. For you yourself became the mouth of Christ, bringing forth from the unworthy that which is worthy—not just once or twice (for that is something many might do), but for whole houses, and peoples, and cities.
C β'. For having begun with yourself, and having truly made yourself a Jerusalem, a city of the living God, as a habitation for the divine Spirit, you traversed the ends of the earth with your word—the regions of East and West, of the North and the South—so that the divine declaration of the inspired David was most aptly spoken of you: *Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world* (Ps. XVIII, 5; Rom. X, 18). For you became a student of Christ, who is in very truth the Wisdom and subsistent Power of God and the Father; and by following His footsteps as much as was within your power, you became an imitator of God, as far as is possible for a human. For you built the bounds and pillars of nature, the model of every virtue, upon the deepest foundation of humility, through which alone God has willed to save, and man is saved. D For there is no support more firm than this. And that humility draws its origin from faith is clear to everyone. For how could anyone submit to the One who is greater, if he did not believe that the divine Power is indeed both greater and most high?
γ'. You were also full of arguments, as a minister of the Word, through which you proclaimed the divine and subsistent Word of God the Father, with the aid of the Spirit, to be consubstantial with the Father; so that the unity to be adored in the Trinity might be clearly made known, and the Trinity might be recalled to the sum of unity, bringing forth a paradoxical union...
A and distinction. Neither is the unity confused, nor is the Trinity divided at once; but in each the other is preserved, the unity of substance in the union of the hypostases remaining undivided in nature. These things you have taught the whole world: one deity in three hypostases, which has been fully and perfectly communicated to us in one of its hypostases; and this is the Son of God and the Word, who, being impassible, was united to a passible nature, and in this manner subsisting, and beginning to be, and being incarnate and thickened, and he who is simple in nature becoming composite by the reception of a nature, and truly known as of two natures, as bearing two natures after the union, from which he is one which is preached; each possessing perfectly according to its own definition and principle, the one being without beginning and uncreated, and the other having a beginning and being created; the one impassible, invisible, intangible, and uncircumscribed, and the other passible, visible, tangible, and circumscribed; each having volition, and free will, and capacity for operation, he himself accomplishing this and that, the one Christ, and Son, and Lord, the one working organically, the other working with authority; each having its own proper energy and free movement; but he being one, accomplishing this and that through both, having wrought our saving renewal, for which he compassionately emptied himself.
C 4. Having learned these things, you taught us to build upon them the golden and silver splendor of excellent works, so that when we approach the judging fire, we might not be consumed as if we were stubble; but rather that we might be purified more and more, having all dross consumed, and being made pure, we might dwell eternally with him by whose fire we are kindled and made gods. Who will give me a tongue worthy of your praises? Who might transport me to that former day, when that divine fire, fashioned in the likeness of tongues, rested in one form and in many ways upon each of the apostles, so that the one dogma of the faith might be proclaimed in many languages, gathering into one those things which were divided, having dissolved the multifaceted error into which those who once built the tower had D evilly conspired, receiving as the reward of their impiety the confusion of language and through it the division of understanding? Who might impart to me this tongue of the Spirit, so that I might proclaim the supernatural excellences of this man who was full of the Holy Spirit? Would that an ocean of words and an abyss of thoughts might flow to me. But the grace of the Spirit is not subject to words. For he who desires to speak of the things of the Spirit without the Spirit attempts to see without light, and has darkness as his guide for his vision. Wherefore I return to him whom I have now proposed to praise, kindling the lamp of knowledge from him as from a divine torch, that he himself might be both the subject of the praise and the provider of the praises.
5. For who has been of such copious eloquence, of such great prudence and sagacity? The comparison between these qualities A is truly incomparable, so that it is obscure in which respect he was the more admirable. Who has stood forth as such a model of virtues, or ever become so known, that he had no need of words for instruction? Who has ever poured forth such showers of words, which were the consequences of his actions and drew their power from them, so that it is permissible to say of him what the divine Luke says of Jesus our God: *Which he began to do and to teach*? For from Him he had obtained both his being and his well-being. Who has so devoted himself to action and contemplation that, having trampled upon the pleasures of the flesh, he lived as if without a body, and together with God contemplated divine things? Who in faith has so composed and subjected his works, as if they were limbs of the body, to the soul? Who has so animated works with faith and rendered them vivid? B Though one might not absurdly concede that faith excels, yet the one without the other is useless and of no benefit. Who has so driven away gluttony, having enslaved that mistress, and having muzzled her when she was raging with a pious reasoning, becoming the master of her rather than her servant, so that he might be freed by a religious soul?
6. And so great was his continence C that he knew not whether, or what, or how much food and drink he took. For nature is subject to fate, and this little flesh is fleeting, mobile, and in need of spirits. Since it is impossible that we should draw breath without respiration, the rest of our needs must likewise be replenished. For there are three things that are evacuated: the dry, the moist, and the spirit; the proper replenishment of each of which was determined by the Creator of all things, by which the nature of the body is constituted. But the grace of the Spirit is not subject to the limits of nature. *For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.* Who is so pure in soul and thought, not only in body, as to bear witness to his own D dull disposition toward fleshly lust? Though it was not truly dull; for it was not some brutish thing, nor an infirmity of nature, but the continence of reason, by which the non-rational part of the soul was governed, so that all desire might be directed toward God, for whom he was created. He would flee from the sweetness of pleasure as from the tinder of a fire, and would value more highly the asperity of virtue, by which he was carried up to eternal tranquility. Accustomed to these things, progressing little by little, he became more continent each day than he had been, until he completely quelled the passion, having tamed it by the art of asceticism and bridled it, changing the habit he had contracted into his very nature over time. For labor, when it is favored by divine assistance, is born to calm the passions.
7. Who has so renounced avarice of possessions, with which he also renounced the possessions themselves, desiring not to have them as much as another desires to have them? It is the support of evil motions of the soul, the extinction of hope, the adversary of faith. Whence Paul, the heaven-sounding lyre of the Spirit, the multisonous mouth of the apostolic tongues, rightly—
A calls this another servitude of idols. For whoever neglects to grasp the anchor of divine providence, relies instead on the accumulation of riches. Placing these before the Higher Power, as if he were to live forever, and being like the sea that is never filled, even if the greatest and most numerous rivers of gold flow into it, the one whom we now praise did not choose these things; but having rejected all of them, he leaves to others his glorious and conspicuous fatherland—I refer to Antioch, whose governance the East obeyed—and his notable lineage, gold, silver, the precious stones, the soft and splendid raiment, and indeed even the elegance and power of his oratory.
B 8. He betakes himself to Meletius, the president of the Church of the Antiochenes, a man abounding in many divine gifts, and celebrated everywhere for his life and doctrine: who, when he received him—he being then about eighteen years of age—was struck by the love of his heart, as if, with the foresight of a seer, he beheld the outcome of that young man. Instructing him in the precepts of sincere piety, and composing his morals to the rules of uprightness, he delineated in him the beauty of truth. In this way, by the laver of regeneration, he fashions Christ in him, that One who is beautiful above the sons of men because of the effulgent glory of His Divinity. When he reached his thirtieth year, and had attained the perfect maturity of body and soul, and had been promoted to the rank of reader of the divine oracles, and indeed to that of teacher, moved by the impulse of divine love he migrates into the desert, desiring to wither the flesh that was luxuriating and foaming with passions, lest the better part be enslaved to the worse. For the two desire C against one another, and the destruction of the tabernacle properly transfers dominion to the soul. Thus, while he was dwelling in the nearby mountains, he is led to a certain elder who used the Syrian dialect but was not unskilled in knowledge, and who had cultivated the peak of supreme continence. Having expressed this man’s austerity for four years, and having risen above every kind of sensuous pleasure, with reason joining his labors, desiring obscurity, he becomes a settler in a remote region, eager to have a cave as his home, just like a wrestling school and stadium of virtue. How many struggles did he endure there, and in proportion to the multitude of his pains, how much did he receive the consolation of the Spirit! How many ascents did he set in his heart, and by the Spirit was he perfected! He progressed from virtue to virtue, so that through both—by which I mean action D and contemplation—he compelled every Egyptian thought of soul and body to go into exile.
9. Like another Moses granted to life, he had left behind Egypt, this present life, and the things of this life, and having in a certain way become outside of life, he saw God as if in a bush, shining forth in the roughness of this life. And just as a rose comes from thorns, thus it is established that from the labors of virtue, a sweet-smelling plant germinates to the scent of God. Thus, having been loosed from earthly thoughts, and having left behind, like sandals, the things of earth in the place of God, to the
A extent that it is possible to behold God, he beholds Him. And again he returns to Egypt, so that he may lead the people, numerous and uncountable, out of Egypt and out of the bitter tyranny of Pharaoh, the ruler of this world, and bring them toward the supernal land of promise; and he leads them across the Red Sea of divine water and blood, living in a desert empty of passions; and, having turned aside Amalek by the stretching out of hands raised in the form of a cross, directed toward Him who for our sake stretched out His hands upon the cross, they received from Him the victory-bearing power. Having therefore spent two years in the cave, and having kept his soul as well as his body sleepless, as though now free from flesh, through study and meditation on the divine oracles he banished every ignorance, having welcomed into himself the light of true knowledge. And if it was necessary to partake of sleep for the recovery and restoration of nature, he performed this office of nature in such a way that during that two-year period, he never reclined, neither by night nor by day. By this method, the lusts of the lower part were put to death, the powers of the loins were unstrung, and the heat of the belly around the navel was extinguished, so that it had no strength by which it might be helped.
B 10. Returning thereafter to his homeland, and becoming of the order of presbyters in the Church, and having repaid the nursing-wages to his nursing mother as a grateful son, by divine providence he is translated to the prince of cities, and takes to wife the daughter of the great high priest. For it was not right that such a lamp of religion, in which an ageless and eternal light rested, should be hidden under a bushel, but should be placed upon a high and conspicuous candelabrum, so that, from a high and central vantage point, like a trumpet of beaten gold, it might sound forth to the ends of the universe. Who so governed and ordered the Church, and yet manifested a humble mind in such a high prerogative of rank? Who so reined in anger and the vehemence of spirit as to have acquired a lawful gentleness, which shrank from everything contrary to virtue, and vindicated the just man from the unjust? Who was so excellent in that charity from which mercy is born, the symbols of whose virtue living monuments still bear to this day? C For every word of his was an invitation to mercy, so that whoever heard him speaking the word was immediately moved to the habit of compassion and liberality. For he persuaded them to lend their own possessions to God, by bestowing corruptible and fleeting things upon Him who would give back permanent and incorruptible ones in return, and to store up in heaven the storehouse of compassion, which would not be consumed nor exposed to the predation of thieves: that they might purge sins by alms, and iniquities by mercy toward the needy; that they might break bread for the poor according to the prescription of the Gospel, and give a cup to those who thirst; that they might cover the nakedness of the naked, and clothe those destitute of garments, and gather in those living under the open sky; that they might visit the sick, and D betake their feet to the prisons, and reap mercy with mercy.
A And who has warded off wrath, and has persuaded the flock to be warded off, which shuts the divine bowels of mercies to those who possess them? For, "As you have done," he says, "it shall be done to you; with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you in return." For to him who forgives, it shall be forgiven. And again, the sequence has uttered: it shall not be forgiven to him who does not forgive. Who has condemned envy and spite, and taught condemnation; is it excellent to be envied? for every good thing is subject to envy. But the envious man is self-condemned, along with being most base, as the most unjust and most futile of all the passions, the opponent of mercy; for if mercy consists in grieving for the evils of others, envy consists in grieving for their good things—not for one's own sake, but for the sake of the one who is affected by them; and it brings about this, that by the increase of another's goods, the languor and decay of the envious person increases. So that the former person is avenged, who has been enriched with goods. In addition to these things, he warned not to judge a fellow-servant, lest we be judged by the just scales of the only Judge who weighs the trial for us; nor to seize the authority of the Lord. For there is one Judge, who is not subject to being judged, as He alone is free from sin, ruling and not being ruled. "Forgive," he cried in the evangelical manner, "and it shall be forgiven you." Who has warded off the sorrow that leads to death, and has taught the sorrow that is the occasion of joy? Of these, the one, as a mourning for sin against God, is salutary—if those who are skilled in these matters have interpreted sin as missing the mark; but the other, which results from the deprivation of pleasures, is truly soul-destroying and altogether B to be rejected. For it is not, it is not possible for sorrow to occur, except upon the deprivation of an appetite. Whatever, therefore, the appetite is, of such a quality likewise is the sorrow of missing it; if the appetite is good, it is the best, but if it is otherwise, it has an otherwise quality. And the best of appetites is the one that inclines toward the only Best. But the appetites for things contrary are also opposite. Did he not stir up the weakness of acedia or listlessness by the remembrance of death? Having taught how to shake off the nervous-cutting power of it from the soul itself, and having replaced this with the fear of God, and having urged the people to prayers with longing, and to shake off slothfulness utterly from their souls, and with all strength to guard their own hearts, so that death might not ascend upon them through the senses, as through certain windows.
12
. He taught to search the Scriptures, having become an interpreter and teacher D of these, and by a prophetic spirit having searched out the hidden depths of the Spirit, and having rent the veil of the letter, and having made public the hidden beauty; and all these things with a humble and un-vainglorious mind. For he knew, he knew how to trample underfoot the empty conceit, the empty expenditure of labors, which spoils the harvest of the virtues. For he knows, as a jar, the psychic vessel of the virtues, and by taking in an inflow with the outflow, it renders the vessel no less empty, bestowing profitless sweats, and causing labor...A that is devoid of fruit. For he knew that it is becoming for God to have all glory and exaltation, and for man to have humility, which is the road for the best of men to be exalted, and the ladder of Israel, which carries man up to God and makes God the guest of his heart.
13. He humbled himself before all creation for the sake of the Lord the Creator, except when Christ was dishonored and the divine law was slighted and overturned. He had cast away all arrogance and fierceness, and a supercilious gaze; he gave a gentle eye to those who spoke with him, and a mild and divine speech, seasoned with salt. His character was graceful, and the smile on his face was pleasant, yet not overflowing into unrestrained laughter. For knowing that vices are closely attached to virtues, and are in a way neighbors, he was obedient to the one who commands the best things, and paid attention to himself, becoming a discerning money-changer; he sent away all counterfeit coinage, while accepting the drachma stamped with the King's image. For he had driven every form of wickedness from his own heart by the impulse of the divine Spirit, and, being watered and fattened by the virtues that are the counterparts of the vices, he was known as an B evergreen olive tree in the house of God, the Church, and he offered to God a beautiful fruit—the multitude of those who were saved through him. Or like a palm tree of the best sort, he was fenced about by the thorns of reproof. He rebuked with strength those who, by joining house to house, hastened to snatch the vineyard of Naboth, as if there were no Elias ready to reprove them. But the Holy Spirit had raised up Elias again, who, since He willingly dwells in the souls of the just, raises up prophets throughout every generation—zealots for good works, who hate whatever is base and unseemly, and who harbor and introduce everything lawful and just.
14. Thus did this divine man become a judge of injustice—not judging by it, heaven forbid! How could that be? But by condemning it, and showing it to be worthy of rejection, and by keeping those who do injustice away from the divine enclosures. For C a widow was continually harassing him, troubling him, her heart consumed by the injustice done to her. She grasped this man of God as a refuge, like some strong and unassailable fortress, having taken counsel in a way that was safely guided. For whom else could she have found to take up her suffering? A magistrate? But the one who was causing these outrages ruled over the magistrates. The Emperor? But his mind was softened by his affection for his own kin. For she who was exerting this force was his own flesh and bone; and she who ought to have restrained those who commit injustice was herself carried away with all her might into iniquity. What are you doing, D you lawless woman? You are clothed in purple, as if set forth as a guardian of the law, and yet you trample the law underfoot! Oh, the inexplicable wisdom of Him who said: "Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor throw your pearls before swine!" For she, having trampled the divine and holy law—that is, the precious pearl—having turned [away] the needy one
has shattered the widow, having pillaged her daily sustenance. What are you doing, O insatiable and ungrateful woman? While you possess [lands] that the earth and sea provide as gifts, why do you invade the meager property of a needy widow, whose life it was just for you to redeem? Do you confirm the law with your words, while by your actions you make it void? Have you no reverence for the Father of orphans and the Judge of widows? A Indeed, he who is always nourished by the divine words has truly heard the divinely inspired utterance: "Judge the orphan, and justify the widow." And having Elijah as his guide—the one who breathed fire with his zeal—he emulates the boldness of John, saying to you: "It is not lawful for you to possess the vineyard of your sister." For you think that you have exceeded [the limits of] nature, even if you have surpassed her dignity through your tyrannical authority; for a kingdom that is established and patterned by law is a principality, but one that is founded upon lawlessness is not unjustly termed a tyranny. Have you not read of the villainy of Jezebel? Why do you enter this divine shrine? Depart far from the divine palaces. The divine temple is a basin in which sins are washed away. Did not the publican, who received Jesus into his home, duly scatter what he had ill-gotten through tax-collecting? And you, my daughter (for I cherish you, because you are a member—however useless and harmful—so long as there is hope of salvation; yet salvation is impossible without repentance), render back well what you have plundered badly.
15. Uttering these things, he did not persuade her. B For she had stopped her ears like an asp, not listening to the one who was treating her with religious and wise counsel. And when he saw that the malady was altogether incurable, he thrusts the one who did not have the wedding garment out of the sacred chamber. What then? Jezebel rises up again against the prophet. Yet the herald of the truth does not flee, nor is he handed over to custody, as one who is a "voice crying out," but he is condemned to exile. O what a perverse state of mind! Again, the serpent’s enchantment strives to banish the man of God from the Church, and it did not fail in its desire. C For a short time, while the divine eye patiently slumbered, he is banished from the royal city; or rather, by the providence of God, so that He might display the manly triumph of those servants of His whom He loves, and—as one who belonged to God, and in whom and with whom God was present—he wandered about with Abraham when he was called to a foreign land; he was expelled with Moses from royal palaces; he fled with Elijah to the cave of Horeb; he fled with Jesus, who is God, into Egypt, so that in these struggles his fortitude might be made known, and he might reap the fitting rewards. So that, in a way, he might imitate Job, and God might speak the very words to him: "Do you think that I have dealt with you for any other cause, than that you might appear righteous?" D and so that he might preach the Gospel to others as well.
16. But if some others have been accomplices in this unlawful exile, we honor them with silence out of respect for the Fathers, so that we may not...
A be found taunting the Fathers. For these matters are related in many ways; namely, that some of the bishops gave their assent to this most wicked deed, while others utterly refused, even though the empress condemned them, despite her threatening the restoration of the pagan temples (which had long ago been destroyed) if they did not all unanimously agree to drive the holy man from his bishopric. Therefore, let that prevail which is held to better serve his reputation; for it would by no means be right to set the Fathers against one another, lest we constitute ourselves as their judges. B
17. Whether, therefore, the matter happened in this way or that, the president is torn from the Church, the head from the body, and the flock is widowed of the excellent shepherd who, through his zeal to imitate Christ, always laid down his own soul for the sheep. The Church was suffering from the longing for her preacher; the sheep, for their shepherd and flute; Christ’s soldiers, the chosen ones of the militia and the trumpet by which spiritual enemies were struck down, were mourning; the widow yearned for her protector, the orphan for his father, the sick for their caregiver, the stranger for his host; the queen of cities for the sincere gold with which it was decorated—him, I say, who had mingled the empire with the priesthood, and bestowed the scepter and diadem upon paternal beauty; the religious ears longed for the golden speech and the golden mouth. And, if it be not too bold to say it, Christ departed together with him whom he carried abiding within himself. C How then could I narrate this bitter calamity with dry eyes? For not even a heart, though it be fashioned of stone, can refrain from tears. For the rock, when struck by the Mosaic rod, poured forth waters; and a heart, even if it be hard, if it is struck by the magnitude of this tragedy, pours forth fountains of tears in rivers due to the monstrosity of the deed.
18. But suddenly the palace is shaken, and Pharaoh again summons by his cries the one who is gifted with divine sight, so that he might appease the plague that has been inflicted; which indeed comes to pass. For hardly had John turned his foot back by the emperor's command, when the trembling ceased. Thus, indeed, does God know how to honor those who are His: *For I live,* says the Lord, *but those who glorify me I will glorify.* 1 Reg. 11, 30. Again, therefore, the flock of Christ receives its former joy. For he who had become all things to all men is restored to all; and the whole people subject to Christ rejoices, and thrives, and grows on the good soil of the heart, receiving the words of John as D the fruit of the Spirit. But the devil is wounded, and again he rises up in his accustomed manner against the herald; and since he has no strength of his own, he demands a strong and mighty rampart of the Church in order to overthrow it and plunder the wealth that is inaccessible to robbers. He receives power over his body, as once he did over Job, he who previously could not even bear his indignation’s nod. Again the just man is taken away; the bridegroom is thrust out of the bridal chamber; the Church is despoiled of her nuptial adornment, and with it taken away, her head is shorn bare. For fire from the throne, like divine lightning, upon the Church...
A also descends and is divided. And again, moans and tears; for the multitude desired either to go into exile with him, or to remain, and death appeared to them more desirable than the loss of John. But since God permits the escaping evils to prevail, according to judgments known only to Him, B 19. thus again, changing his abode and moving from city to city, he attained him whom he sought after in his pursuit; for he reckoned it a gain to live 78, and death a profit, having fought the good fight, kept the faith, finished his course, and received the rewards of his contests, the crown of righteousness. But not even in death did the beloved—lover of his bride and lover of the arts—forsake his own bride, nor did he leave his children deprived of his own grace; but by divine providence and judgment he is fittingly brought to the royal halls—the body to what is seen, but the spirit to the unseen; and he remains a herald of divine oracles until Christ shall come again, with whom he shall be glorified, exulting in His joy and beauty. These stutterings, O Father of Fathers, are mine to you; but may you look upon us who bear the same name, and grant us in return intimacy with the Creator, who is Christ, the eternal joy: to whom be glory and power, always, now and ever, and unto the unending ages of ages. Amen.
NOTICE REGARDING THE FOLLOWING ORATION
Various indices of hand-written codices attribute this homily on Saint Barbara to John of Damascus. The Royal codex of 1831, from which Combefis had rendered it into Latin in his *Bibliotheca Concionatoria* for the fourth day of December—the very day the Greeks assigned for the feast of St. John of Damascus, thereby, if I am not mistaken, signifying him to be the author of this oration inscribed to the most holy martyr—provided me with this copy. It is clear that there is nothing in this tract inconsistent with his diction, style, and method. Since many disagree regarding the age and country of Barbara, it is helpful here to touch upon what I have discovered regarding both in a very ancient Colbert codex, in which her *Life* exists as it was read before Metaphrastes: "At those times, during the reign of the wicked and impious Maximian, when Marcian held the prefecture, there was a great persecution against the Christians. There was a certain man in the region of the East, in a place called Heliopolis, which is distant twelve stadia from Euchaita, named Dioscorus, a man of great wealth," etc. And at the end of the narrative: "A certain Valentius, a religious man fearing God, requested the relics of the holy martyrs Barbara and Juliana; having diligently provided for them, he laid them to rest in a place called Nyssa, in the district of Gelasia, in a noble house, which was two miles distant from Euchaita." Everyone knows that Euchaita existed in Paphlagonia.XII. Oration of our Holy Father John, Presbyter of Damascus, in praise of the holy and glorious martyr of Christ, Barbara.
1. It is universally accepted that praise surpasses every...A composition of laudatory speeches, and that the glory, grace, and renown of the holy martyrs who have conquered for the sake of piety far excel that embellishment which is gathered from the rhetorical arts and the sophistic arts of sonorous phrasing. And I believe that even those who are highly skilled in such sciences, and who have spent their entire lives and consumed their efforts in such studies and exercises, would be struck with wonder and at a loss before the greatness of the subject—to say nothing of those of us who are unlearned and inexperienced, who have not even tasted, as they say, with the tip of a finger, such experience, technical skill, and logical thought. But we should not on this account be so completely dizzied by the undertaking of this discourse, or so constrained by fear and hesitation, that we leave ourselves, and the present audience B eager to learn, deprived of the profit that, as is fitting, arises from the wondrous variety of such struggles. Come, then, let us invoke the impulse and assistance from above from Christ, the overseer and judge of such contests, and let us describe in discourse, as best we are able, and bring as if before your eyes, the one we now deservedly praise; let us, as if in a summary, propose the specimen of the struggle of the glorious martyr Barbara, whose festival we are celebrating today with a gathering of the people: so that by considering the power by which the martyrs were invisibly confirmed and strengthened, we may derive no small utility and improvement thence—not looking to extol the struggles with the eloquent speech and fine rhetoric of the tongue (for they have no need of such assistance as eloquence provides), but C as we relate the events in a simple and naked narrative.
2. But now, raise yourselves up for me, O assembly devoted to Christ and to the martyrs, and, gathering and contracting your minds so they do not wander toward exterior things, listen carefully to what is to be said. For it is truly absurd to run eagerly to worldly spectacles—I mean horse races, or wrestling matches, or any other such athletic games—and to desire to see the contest of the struggle and the collision of the adversaries, and not to depart before the end, even if countless things distract one, until one sees the victor carrying off the prize, and having received the palm, and been crowned, even though we derive no benefit from it. But here, where a soul-profiting and spiritual spectacle D is set before us—having as its overseer and judge, not one of the kings of the earth, but the King of all things, visible and invisible, Christ our God; and as spectators, the thousands and tens of thousands of heavenly hosts and powers; and as the contestant, the celebrated and most beloved crown-bearer and martyr of Christ, Barbara; and as adversaries, not one or two, but the chief ones, just as the Apostle says: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly
places, that is, for the sake of the heavenly A things. Furthermore, the most chaste sheep of Christ, Barbara, found as her own antagonists both the carnal spirit and the world-rulers, magistrates, and princes, having engaged a host of enemies both visible and invisible.
3. Since such a spectacle of contests is proposed to us, shall we not hasten to see these things, so that we may contemplate the battles, the turning points, and the grappling of both parties, and behold the triumph of our own holy victor, crowned and garlanded? And indeed, to see the hateful demons overcome, falling in great shame, while the hosts of angels acclaim them with joyful shouting and adorn the illustrious victor with applause for the victory; and finally, even Christ Himself, as the president of the contests, rising from His royal throne, just as He did for Stephen the protomartyr, and reaching out the crowns, and receiving the victor, flowing with sweat, escorted and surrounded by the retinue of angels, and embracing her, and bringing her to rest in the heavenly chambers and bridal B suites? What is more delightful, or sweeter, or more profitable to those who love to look upon such a spectacle? "Proclaim those blessed," says Basil, the holy teacher of the Church, "who have truly been sanctified in martyrdom, so that you may become a martyr in intention, and escape without bloodshed, lashes, and tortures." Is there any other inspection or business which brings greater profit and more abundant wealth? I truly do not think so.
But what has come over me, most beloved? Before we have even struck at the beginning of the struggles, our discourse has hurried us to the end. Come then, recalling it, let us now set foot onto the threshold of the martyrdom and begin to narrate everything in order.
4. When the all-good and merciful God, the Word, looked upon His own creature, which He had created from the beginning in His own image and to which He had entrusted C the sovereignty of earthly things, having been cast out from the comforts of paradise by the wiles of the spiritual serpent through the operation of the visible serpent; and when He saw it enslaved and, with all its progeny, given over not only to the destruction of death, but also led into the most diverse errors and shameful passions, and its mental eyes so darkened by the gloom of impiety that it had abandoned Him who is truly God and offered worship to gods fashioned from wood and stone and insensate matter, and by the wicked and apostate demon pushed and cast down into the D lowest pit of hell and impiety; He did not endure the insult of the avenging tyrant, nor the desperate ruin of the deceived human race. Wherefore, in order to assist His own creature, from a maiden ignorant of nuptial union, the good Shepherd assumed the fleece
by which He ensnared the adversary, and, having vanquished him by the cross, justly cast him out of his tyranny, inasmuch as he had unjustly armed death against Him whom the law of sin could not touch. For he was in no way subject to the penalties and punishments of death, who had never tasted of sin. B
5. Therefore, since he had slain man unjustly, he would himself, by right, have to be slain, and would be deprived of the riches he had acquired. For his destruction is the loss and casting away of his power; for the demonic race was created by the Creator as immortal. And the Lord Himself, at the time of His passion, said: "The prince of this world comes, and in me he will find nothing" 22; that is, no cultivation of his seeds, nor any trace of sin, nor odor, nor shadow of an indication. For, as I may speak with the prophet: "Sin he did not commit, nor was deceit found in his mouth" 23. Wherefore He said again: "Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out" 24; that is, he will fall from his tyranny and be driven away. By His own resurrection, therefore, having restored and renewed the human mass, He sent forth the holy apostles to the ends of the whole world, that they might announce the saving proclamation to men, and lead them back to their own Maker, and dissolve the darkness of impiety with the flashes of the Spirit, and exterminate error, and teach the truth. From this, just as fire, having seized upon a very large and abundant pile of wood, rises most quickly into a towering flame, and consumes one thing after another near it, and cannot hide the power of its light in a corner, but makes it visible even to those furthest away; so that divine fire, which the Lord, who descended from above to the earth, came to cast upon the earth 25—the fire, I say, which consumes all sin and wicked and earthly habit and affection—passing through the apostles and their successors into the minds of men, C adorned those who were gentle and apt for reformation, and who were looking for their own Maker and Redeemer from the captivity to which they were addicted, and having immediately wiped away the filth of sins and cleansed them, He fashioned them into divine, luminous, and bright beings. But those who had deeply received the quality of impiety, and, like bats, could not bear to have the light shining—which shines even when the sun is not visible—brought before their very eyes, but preferred to live perpetually in darkness and to wallow in the mire, He consigned to the final fire of Gehenna, as those who had willingly desired to be incurably sick.
6. But such was not the most sacred and most pure soul of the martyr Barbara. Rather, having received the splendor of the faith, and having compared the light with the darkness, and having seen how incomparably superior it was, and having possessed the divine knowledge against the error and darkness of abominations, she straightway, like good and fertile earth, D
having received the heavenly seed and diligently cultivated it by the practice of the commandments, brought forth fruit—thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold—placing ascents in her heart and advancing toward the perfection of the virtues. Thus, the prophetic oracle was finally fulfilled, which says, "And the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covering the seas" A (the prophetic grace figuratively calling the gatherings of the nations "seas"). But the enemy of good, that most wicked demon, could not bear to see the number of those being saved increasing daily. For he who from the beginning had envied Adam and his spouse their mode of life in Paradise, much less could he endure—when he beheld such innumerable myriads ascending, not into a visible and earthly paradise, but into heaven, from which he himself had been cast out like a block of iron—ascending through faith in Christ. Therefore, the tempter demands the trial; for he has no power over anyone unless he receives it. But just as of old, when he had heard God boasting of His servant and saying, "Hast thou considered in thy mind my servant Job, that there B is none like him on the earth, blameless, just, truthful, God-fearing, abstaining from every evil thing?"—that creature, immediately struck with envy, replied, "Does Job reverence the Lord for nothing?" and what follows; "but send me, that I may touch his flesh, unless he blesses thee to thy face." Then God, wishing to demonstrate His own servant to all, and that he was firm and unassailable even in the final dangers, grants the request to him, so that the boasting might not seem to have been spoken without cause. So also then, the most wicked one, having heard the Lord speaking of the Church with encomiastic praise, "And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (calling the gates of Hades C every kind of torture of various sorts that pushes and precipitates one into Hades and death), again shamelessly demands the trial. And having received the authority, he selected as instruments those who were full of every impiety and equivalent to him in the cruelty of their character, and he established them as governors and princes. Through them he ratified this universal edict: that the worship of Christ should cease, that sacrifices should be offered to idols, and that those who gainsaid this should, without any indulgence, perish by every kind of torture. Hence, every age and rank, both male and female, who had purposed to keep the faith of Christ inviolable until death, were mown down without mercy, no differently D than hay.
7. At that time, therefore, while the impious Maximian was reigning, and Marcian was governor, there was someone set over the region, Dioscorus by name, very wealthy, but madly devoted to the worship of inanimate idols. He had a only daughter, named Barbara, of exceptional beauty, and in the dignity of her character...
A shining. He built a high tower and shut the virgin up in it, so that she might not be seen by men, on account of the distinct and brilliant radiance and splendor of her beauty. Living there, aloof from the tumults of the world outside, she occupied her mind with pious thoughts, cultivating and nourishing them; for it is known that solitude is the mother of subtle and magnificent ideas. She abhorred the error and worship of idols as a snare leading down to hell, but she cherished and embraced the true faith of the Christians and the holy and consubstantial confession of the Trinity, as something that leads up to the heavens. She pondered in her mind the teachings concerning the immortality of the soul, the kingdom of heaven, the enjoyment of those things that are undefiled, and concerning hell and the never-ending punishment B therein; furthermore, she depicted and revolved in her mind the unsteady and uncertain instability of the temporary affairs of this world. She constantly imagined the lamp-bearing virgins united to the incorruptible Bridegroom Christ in the heavenly bridechamber, and partaking of the inner and secret delicacies of blessedness. And she longed, desired, and prayed to be deemed worthy of that most blessed lot and inexpressible joy, and of that glory which no speech can describe.
8. As the prudent and chaste virgin was thus filling her soul with such contemplations, her father arrived. Since many noblemen were expressing their interest and valuing her marriage and union, he commanded her to consent to their proposals. But she, spurning such talk as nonsense and a nuisance, looked at her father with an angry countenance; she utterly rejected this soul-destroying exhortation C and admonished him never to suggest such a matter to her again. For the virgin considered it ridiculous and full of all absurdity, having once pledged and united herself to the heavenly and immortal Christ, to yield to those who, like worms, wallowed in the muddy marshes of pagan filth. Her father, therefore, being busy with the construction of a bath, and having ordered the workmen to construct two windows towards the south, through which light might be brought in, left for a certain region. Barbara, the handmaiden and bride of the Trinity, having inspected the building, compelled the workmen to fit three windows to the structure. Then, having returned, and the beautiful virgin having withdrawn again into her tower, she saw the statues which her father worshipped, D devoid of soul and sense. Immediately filled with the Holy Spirit, and taking up a divine and fervent zeal, she spat upon their despicable faces, opportunely using that melody of the prophet David: "Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them." O truly blessed and religious soul! O maiden fervent in faith, adorned with faith! O young woman who, with divine sense and prudence, mocked the madness and insanity of her father! O daughter who with firm mind called back [her parent] from the folly of Eve...
and her deception! She, having received the mere suggestion of the enemy, was immediately overturned; but this one not only sternly beat back his allurements, but even spat in his very face by means of the idols. For she extended the insult of her spit against the author of evil who was acting and deceiving through them, and she sent it away, and struck him down.
B 9. When her father had returned from the journey he had undertaken, and was angry and indignant at the builders because they had changed his command and added a third window, they referred the cause to the order of his daughter. And he asked her for the reason for the triple window; but the all-praised one, having seized the opportune pretext, explicitly theologized about the glory of the Trinity, urging the unbeliever toward the saving faith: "Indeed," she says, "for the Trinity illuminates every man coming into the world [John 1, 9]. For this sensible light is a creature and a work, and a very dim and dark image and shadow, of that light which is understood and worshipped in the conjunction of three suns." He, however, raised in impiety and an advocate of darkness, as if struck by the lightning of the thrice-luminous divinity through the clear and unveiled confession of the all-glorious maiden, and darkened all the more by the brilliance of that shining beam, became full of madness; and boiling over with rage, he drew his sword and rushed to slaughter his only-begotten daughter, having stepped beyond the bounds of both piety and nature, because she had pointed out to him the path of life. Truly, not only does a beautiful and most fragrant rose grow from a flowering plant, but also from an impious root, the fruit of piety often appears. C And Abraham the patriarch is witness, and for this reason he was called the father of the nations who emulated his faith, being the first to depart from paternal polytheism and atheism. Truly, the divine prediction of our Savior Jesus Christ is fulfilled in this as well, setting a daughter and daughter-in-law against father, mother, and mother-in-law [Matt. 10, 32], and setting the new and recent against the old and senseless, and cutting off the worse from the better.
10. What then, most glorious Barbara? Seeing the all-defiled assault of her father, or rather, feeling pity for him in his savagery, having opened by prayer a vast rock that was nearby, she passed through the middle of it to the other side of the mountain. O the miracle! The cleft rock receives the lamb into its bosom, and the father, harder than the stones, and the persecutor, hardened all the more in his stupidity, was being changed into a stony hardness. And not even the strangeness of the miracle was able to soften the hardness and inhumanity of his soul; D but rather, having crossed the mountain, he sought her through questioning. And indeed having found her, and having struck her, dragging her by the hair, and dragging her from the mountain, again he...
returns, and shut her up in a small dwelling. A And having informed the governor about her, he hands her over to be tortured, having adjured him by the gods to consume her with bitter torments. The governor, therefore, having taken his seat upon the tribunal, ordered the martyr to be brought before him. But having looked upon the flourishing beauty of her face, he was amazed, and wondered at the brightness of her expression; and he began to test her with blandishments, striving to persuade her, and to win her over with flatteries. For this is the first snare of the devil. For he attempts to soothe and soften a person either with pleasures and the allurements of praise, or to terrify and overwhelm them with threats and torments. When, therefore, he saw that he had emptied his entire previous quiver, and saw the athlete of Christ spurning worldly attractions, and regarding all earthly glory and pleasure as the flower of grass that easily perishes and fades, and hating his enticements and sorceries just as the venom and horrendous poisons of a serpent, he immediately turned his mind to another kind of temptation. But when he saw her mocking also his threats, full of rage, as if having failed his mark, he addressed her: "What then do you wish, girl? To sacrifice to the gods, or to be consumed and perish by bitter torments?" To whom the martyr, with a constant mind and confident boldness, in a few words clearly confessed her pious faith, and exposed the madness and impiety of the God-hating tyrants. B And with what words? "I am prepared," she says, "to offer sacrifice to my Lord Jesus Christ, who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and all things that exist in them. But as for your gods, the Prophet has worthily mocked them: They have a mouth, and will not speak; they have eyes, and will not see; they have ears, and will not hear; they have noses, and will not smell; they have hands, and will not touch; they have feet, and will not walk; they shall not cry out in their throat. May those who make them be like them, and all who trust in them. C For just as the venerable name of God is falsely applied to them by you, they are devoid of and utterly lacking in vital energy." 11. At these things, the most wicked and most savage governor, stupefied, with hissing rage, orders the naked virgin's flesh to be torn mercilessly with ox-sinews, and the inflicted wounds to be rubbed with haircloth, so that the whole body might be stained with blood. Oh, your venerable and holy confession, D O glorious victor, martyr of Christ Barbara, which by the author of the Holy Spirit, in the sight of all, you confessed fearlessly and unhesitatingly, and you theologized for the hearing of men, and of angels who were gazing upon your contest, and of demons who, in an invisible phalanx along with the visible cohort of adversaries, were warring against you; which the Lord inscribed in the heavens, and before the Father—the divine fountain of light and life—he confessed, and again out of his heart he will confess and proclaim! Oh, that noble...
A Oh, the greatness of your most noble patience and endurance! By which you struck with terror the devil and his apostate demons, and moved the holy angels to wonder and praise; by which you dissolved the error of idols like a spider's web, and firmly established and confirmed the true faith!
12. The judge, therefore, seeing the immovable and enduring constancy of the holy woman, commands her to be thrown into prison for the time being, until he might meditate upon what crueler tortures to inflict upon her. But in the middle of that night, a most brilliant light shone around her, B in which the Lord of glory appeared, soothing her dejection and sorrow with his manifestation, and with encouraging words urging her on toward the struggles to come. «Take courage, Barbara,» he said, «for there will be great joy in heaven and on earth regarding your struggle. Do not fear or dread the threats of the tyrant. For I am with you, and I will deliver you from all the blows brought upon you.» And immediately the wounds vanished from her body. And having said these things, the Lord of the heavens returned again to the heavens. The true martyr and handmaid of Christ was greatly exultant, and became full of cheerfulness, joy, and exultation at the encouragement of Christ. And rightly, O thrice-blessed maiden, did you exult! For the cause of joy is the only true cheerfulness, and is a delight both unchangeable and inviolable. O truly blessed are your eyes, that were deemed worthy to look upon the Lord of glory, C upon whom the Cherubim and the many-eyed orders in heaven do not dare to fix their gaze! O thrice-blessed ears, that have received the sound of the words of God! O soul most admirable and thrice-happy, that was comforted by the exhortations of the very mouth of Him who is the Lord of things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, and the God of all consolation! For you, even while still bearing flesh, received the earnest of the kingdom of heaven, O bride of Christ, as a token of your entire dowry. Therefore, you considered and accounted the pains inflicted upon you like the arrows of infants, or the bites of fleas; but, charmed by the love of the One who appeared to you and strengthened in your soul, you said: "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or persecution? Or stripes? Or perils? For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angel, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of Christ."
13. Morning therefore having come, the martyr was led to the tribunal, the ruler having ordered it. And seeing the wounds upon her body vanished, and that her body was whole and inviolate, not even having the slightest scratch, D the witless and demented man says, «Do you see how the gods take an interest in you, and love you, for they have even healed your wounds?» But the martyr, laughing at his madness, astonishment, and distraction, answered him: «Your gods are like you, deaf and blind and senseless;