Homilies 1 part 6/11

Again, from impious parents came Timothy — I mean the apostle, that noble whelp of Paul — yet he did not follow, as by some natural necessity, the disposition of his parents;

but, rationally hating their impiety, he deserted to the holy ordinance of true religion, and appeared as sweet fruit from a bitter root.

The mating is of mules, yet the offspring is that of a sheep.

So too Absalom, a frenzied youth born of a gentle father, as renowned for recklessness as his father was for goodness —

or rather, to speak more truly, surpassing by a great measure, in wickedness, the virtue of the one who begot him.

And in general, if anyone should wish to turn his attention to such contrarieties between children and their fathers, he will find countless good men sprung from bad, and wicked men from the best.

For if nature, and not one's manner of life, produced virtue or vice, there would not be both, but only one would prevail exclusively.

Let it be said, then: Peter, son of Jonah;

but who this Jonah was makes no difference to me.

For I glorify the father from the deeds of the son;

and beginning from below, I send the glory upward, just as lamps at night, set upon the floor, illumine the ceilings.

Isaiah, then, prophesying, says that the Father laid the Son as a chief cornerstone, showing that the whole fabric of the world has him as its foundation and base.

And the Only-Begotten again, as he says in the Gospels, names Peter the foundation of the church: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.'

For truly he was the first to be cast, like some great and mighty stone, into the hollow of this world — or into 'the valley of weeping,' as David says — so that, bearing up all Christians built upon him, he might lead them up to the height which is the dwelling-place of our hope.

Paul too calls Christ the foundation, saying:

No one can lay another foundation than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

By a similar designation our Savior likewise honored his first disciple, naming him the rock of the faith.

Through Peter, then, the foundation of the churches is kept unfallen and unshaken, he having proved a genuine and faithful initiator into true religion.

Because of the building set up by the righteous man, we stand rooted — we Christians, from the rising of the sun even to its setting.

Though many trials have arisen since the gospel was proclaimed — countless tyrants, and before them the devil himself — all wishing to shake us and cast us down to the ground, foundations and all,

rivers, as the saving Word says, like torrents; violent winds of diabolical spirits assailed us; furious rains of the persecutors of Christians broke forth — yet nothing was seen to be stronger than the stronghold that is according to God, since the edifice of the faith was built by the holy hands of the first of the apostles.

And this came to pass for the one reason: the blessing of him who named the evangelist 'rock.'

Let us see, then, if you please, how Peter built;

not with stones and bricks, nor with the other materials of earth, but with words and deeds, by which he was empowered by the Spirit.

When, then, our God and Savior ascended into the heavens — having the cloud for his chariot, while the apostles looked on — this man took up the teaching of the gospel;

and before all his fellow-bearers of the oversight, opening his mouth, he grew bold before the mobs raging against true religion, and showed himself a wise public speaker in the midst of the nations and of Israel;

even while men ground their teeth and were filled with rage, should anyone but speak the name of Jesus.

So that what was said of the Lord by prophecy fits Peter too, altogether: 'Many dogs surrounded me, fat bulls encompassed me.'

But nevertheless, fervent in the Spirit, and keeping blameless the commandment which had said to him,

'Feed my lambs' — standing before a mixed crowd drawn from countless nations, he cried out:

'Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem.'

And, that we not speak at length by stringing together his entire address, he recalls the oracles of Joel prophesying the coming of the Spirit;

from there he passes on to David, and, citing the fifteenth psalm, confirms the resurrection;

and having brought his whole discourse to its conclusion with wisdom of words and the testimony of the Law, he at once won over his hearers — not ten, nor a hundred, nor three or five times that many, but three thousand men, a whole church's fullness, an entire populace sufficient to astound his adversaries, from whom they were suddenly torn away.

O warm and fiery medicine of persuasion, that swiftly took hold of souls!

O wisdom that speaks of God, which has eclipsed all human wisdom!

What do you say to this, you who crown Demosthenes above the orators and extol Socrates among the philosophers? For Demosthenes, that great and much-celebrated master of rhetoric, was so far from persuading his hearers of what he wished that he was actually exiled from the city by them;

and Socrates, as the end of his many speeches to the Athenians and his wise disputations, found the hemlock, put to death by the very company of his disciples;

so far beyond his reach lay the power of persuasion.

But Peter the fisherman, the manual laborer, the unlettered man — call him whatever disparaging name you please — by a single assault of speech caught three thousand men and firmly transformed them;

and this though they were indignant and in an uproar, not even allowing him at the outset to open his mouth.

And when the order of Christians had come to sufficient increase and progress, since, in addition to his rational teachings and exhortations, he also furnished a marvelous demonstration of practical power — raising up whole the lame man at the temple gates, that man lame from his mother's womb through a flaw of nature, afflicted with his disease — all the people streamed together to the temple, drawn by the report of the great deed to see the spectacle, and all gazed intently at the man, astonished at the miracle;

and the mouths of Christ's enemies were stopped, and henceforth the cross was a trophy of victory, not a reproach.

Again the unlettered man, the worker of a menial trade, begins a second speech, saying to them: 'O men, if what has happened seems to you worthy of a miracle and of divine power, worship the healer of the lame man — Jesus, whom you struck, and, boiling over at last with rage, lifted up on the wood.'

and, as has been told you many times, having risen from the dead, he now reigns over all.

Now, therefore, having taken up repentance for the sins you have committed, come to him and be enlightened, as your father David says —

For if you are sons of the prophets and disciples of Moses, do not dishonor the grace of your forefathers by attending to liars, but, wisely considering what was proclaimed beforehand by them, receive into your souls the Savior of your race.

For this is he whom Moses also promised would be raised up for you as a prophet.

Having spoken these and similar things to the people, he departed, having added as many more again to the three thousand.

Such, then, was he in speaking boldly and publicly on behalf of the mystery of the gospel: eager, undismayed, prudent — a source of courage to his own and of fear to his adversaries.

But since this alone was not the chief concern of this most excellent teacher of true religion — to make the people of God numerous — but far more, that his disciples should live exactly by the laws given them, and since he saw that Ananias — the thief of his own produce, that strange sort of temple-robber — was about to instill in the Christians an evil habit of sin, he cut him off from the church abruptly and decisively;

not that he was cruel or murderous in intent, but he thus treated the sin as a physician would, with a view to its benefit.

For since the people were newly converted and newly established, having but lately received the evangelical laws out of their former Greek and Jewish indifference, he reasonably judged that the disciples needed not only admonition by words but also some fear put into practice; for men are somehow accustomed, in whatever manner they are disciplined at the beginning of a new way of life, to preserve that habit to the very end;

and for this reason, having exposed the sin, he immediately brought upon it the punishment of death — not by employing a sword, nor by handing the man over to executioners, but on that occasion displaying, above all, the power of Christ in the very manner of the death.

For he did but accuse him, and the accused man fell down and breathed his last.

But how great this was, and how much reverence it produced in the church, we have no need to be told.

For two things were accomplished in one act: both that our Savior was believed to be God, and that the teacher of his laws had angels in attendance, working promptly at the apostle's will.

He wished to do good to the lame man, and grace did not delay;

he willed to punish the sacrilegious man, and punishment came at once.

These things were enough to astonish even hearts of stone, and to convince them firmly that the words spoken by Peter were no deception;

but God was with him, and holy and true was the mystery which he proclaimed.

And this too must be noted: that the sign unto punishment and death was worked by the apostle but once, out of necessity, so that it might furnish to those who chose evil courses a proof of his power to punish;

but the deeds of beneficence and of healing he performed daily and continually, and such ease and grace attended his healing that none of the sick who came to him ever went away disappointed of their hope, but departed for home whole and healthy.

And every place in Jerusalem where Peter appeared spoke of Christ;

and he had a multitude of the sick following him, and daily an extraordinary spectacle made up of a mixed crowd, some gathering that they might be freed from the ills that troubled them, others that they might behold those being healed.

Thus indeed that marvel too is recorded of the apostle which was said of none of the others, that the relatives and kinsfolk of the sick carried them on beds in public, so that, as Peter came by, even his shadow might overshadow some of them.

This, then, is already something greater than even the Master's own wonders, and the servant is extolled above the Lord.

And perhaps in this sign is fulfilled the prophecy which the Savior made to the disciples:

"He who believes in me will do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do."

I do not compare the servant to the Master;

but I mean that God, in displaying his own power through his own servants, enriched none of the disciples with his own gifts as he did Peter, but set him before all the rest, exalting him with gifts from above;

and just as he became the first disciple in the order of time, so also, by the power of the Spirit, he was shown to be greater than the brethren in the trial of deeds.

He was called first, and he obeyed swiftly;

found beside the shores, in that turbulent region of the world, he who is ever buffeted by the waves of human tempest has unceasingly the sound that roars along the strand.

He was the first among Christians to despise worldly matter, and, disregarding all that lay at his feet, he transferred himself to things intelligible and beyond the world.

And perhaps someone will say — one of those who call that thrice-blessed man poor and obscure:

"What, then, did he lay aside? What did he give up?" — Everything he had, O man;

and to each person, what he possesses is a great thing;

and that too is wealth, which the man of no property has.

Alike before God appear both the man who lays aside his chariots and the man who scorns his donkey.

For what the four-horse chariot is to the rich man, that the cheap pack-ass is to the poor man.

And a philosopher likewise is both the one who leaves behind the silver table adorned with figured scenes, and the one who leaves the cheap wooden one;

likewise the one who leaves the populous village and the one who leaves the small garden-plot, the one who leaves the gold-spangled robe and the one who leaves the worn-out tunic.

For God does not judge the generous and charitable man by the quantity and quality of what is given, but accepts the intention of the giver.

Therefore the Gospel proclaims that widow as right-minded, the one who gave her small coin, because she held back nothing of what she had.

And he too who has offered a cup of cold water receives, as the reward of so easy a kindness, the kingdom;

for with what he had, he met the need of the thirsty man, even though, on account of his poverty, he had no fragrant wine to offer.

But I say these things by way of concession, since it is not altogether the case that, if a man is a fisherman, he is also poor.

Do you not know that a fisherman is also a hunter of pearls? And pearls are the flower of proud and haughty wealth, with which kings are adorned, in which women who love riches and love adornment glory.

A fisherman dyes the much-renowned purple robe that is dedicated to royalty;

fishermen dye the gold-shot wools, hunting the tawny pinna-shell.

One must not, then, judge by the instruments of their craft as though they were cheap and contemptible — I mean the net and the hooks;

for it is not from the cheapness of the tools that each man's means are to be judged, but from the work that is accomplished;

since, by that reasoning, you would find nothing poorer than husbandry, the foremost of arts, were its wealth to be judged by the mattock and the spade.

And utterly destitute too would be those who mine gold, the king of wealth.

For a single pick assists them;

a wooden pan, which sifts the gold out of the earth.

Let the pagans and the Hebrews, then, be silent — those who reproach Peter with poverty and who try, on the ground of his being a fisherman, to belittle the great man;

and, leaving off such sophistries, let them answer me when I ask:

"Which of the fishermen, or of all mankind, has bridged the sea on foot? Who has set his foot upon a lake even while it stood still, as that man did upon waves shaken by the winds?" ... For though our good God has wrought many wonders through his own servants, both anciently in the commonwealth of Israel and in the later times in which the merciful dispensation of our Savior was made manifest to the world, none of the saints, from the beginning to the end, appears to have accomplished such a deed through his own faith together with grace from on high.

Wondrous is Moses, who crossed the deep without ships;

but he bridged dry land, which is the rule for men, the water having been driven back on this side and that into itself.

but likewise that river too, parting itself just as the Red Sea had done and checking its stream, gave the people who were crossing bare dry ground to walk upon.

But never yet has any man planted his foot upon water.

For the law of nature does not admit that a liquid and flowing substance can withstand what is solid and presses down upon it.

It seems to me that the Lord and Master of all, being at that time exceedingly delighted with the man's overflowing eagerness, with which he cried out, saying:

"Bid me come to you upon the waters" — as the reward of his great love and faith, the Lord gave him that new and extraordinary grace, of which Peter alone, from Adam to the end of mankind, is shown to have been receptive.

For indeed true and extraordinary is God's display of such a mighty work, surpassing the lowliness of creation, even as it also seems to David, the best of the prophets.

For he too, in one of the psalms, hymning God and expounding his ineffable and inconceivable power, said these things, which you know well from singing them often:

"Your way is in the sea, and your paths in many waters, and your footsteps shall not be known."

What, then, the Master had as his own, among the distinctive marks of his Godhead, this he made common with his servant, judging him worthy of so great an honor.

Enviable, then, too is the great John, who rested upon the Lord's breast;

great too is James, named a son of thunder;

splendid in honors too is Philip, who was caught up by the Spirit when he had initiated the Ethiopian into the knowledge of the Savior;

yet nonetheless let all of them yield to Peter, and let them confess that they hold second place, whenever a comparison of their gifts puts the more preeminent one to the test.

Reviewing and considering all things one by one, I find this man, both in reasoned discourses and in deeds of action, everywhere leaping ahead of the other disciples, springing forward, and leaving behind those who run the same course of life.

For once, when the Lord was questioning the twelve, making trial of what conviction and understanding they had concerning the opinion held of him, and bidding them say plainly whom they declared him to be — while all the others deliberated in silence and delayed, showing by some inward searching that they were in labor over their answer — he who bears in his soul the live coal of faith, by which Isaiah too had earlier had his lips purified, opened his mouth quickly and confessed that blessed and truly wise utterance:

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Who could admire these words in a manner worthy of them, becoming a trustworthy interpreter of the greatest of the apostles? For see first how unadorned and concise the utterance is, setting forth in a brief exclamation the force of countless great matters.

For every discourse is best in which the diction fits properly and does not spread out beyond a slight and meager thought;

but on the contrary, it signifies a multitude of matters in brief compass, after the likeness of the mustard seed, which is smallest when held and seen, but if you bring it to the sense of taste, it draws the whole body, from feet to head, into its own inner heat.

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Every discourse that contributes to the knowledge of God and our Savior is considered and turns upon these two things:

one is that of the primordial Godhead, which is the Word who was in the beginning, who ever is, and is with the Father, and is God, even as the great John the theologian initiated us into the mystery — he who lay like a sponge against the breast of the Only-Begotten, and from there drew out the knowledge of the hidden truth;

the other is that of the dispensation which God in his goodness undertook, in condescension to our weakness.

he made this clear, beginning from the lower things and leading the understanding up by degrees to the lofty things.

This is a disclosure of the dispensation and an exposition of the theophany in the flesh.

For this is not a name of the pre-eternal Word, but a token of the grace given to those who are anointed.

Therefore our Lord too, having wholly accepted to become man, and all else that pertains to the flesh, accepts as well to be called Christ, as one anointed unto kingship — not with the oil of the horn, as Samuel and David and the men after them were anointed, but by the working of the Spirit, by which working also the Lord's man (for so it pleases many to call Jesus) was wondrously and paradoxically conceived in the womb of the virgin.

But having confessed Jesus, who became man for our sake, he did not halt his discourse at this point; rather, ascending by the spiritual ladder of Jacob to heaven, and coming to behold the Word who was God in the beginning, he adds to Him the surpassing and true dignity, addressing Him as Son of the living God.

And precisely so, and not otherwise:

he himself, having confessed the straight and unperverted rule of faith, and having handed down to all of us the doctrine of piety as an inviolable law, departed neither unrewarded nor unhonored;

but, having been called "blessed" by the truly Blessed One, he is named the rock of the faith, the foundation, and the substructure of the Church of Christ.

By the promise he receives the keys of the kingdom and becomes lord of its gates, so that he may open them to whom he wills and close them to whom it is just — assuredly to the profane and unholy, and to those who deny that confession for the sake of which he himself, as an exact guardian of good things, was appointed to preside over the entrances of the kingdom.

O the darkness and the mist, poured out thick before human eyes, on account of which the heretics cannot see the footprints of the fathers, nor are they able to walk that path which the feet of the apostles trod smooth!

For behold Peter, the genuine disciple of Christ by election, who everywhere received the first vote both of honors and of achievements, that great man, that truly great one, whose renown filled the whole inhabited world — when bidden to say how he glorifies our God and Savior, did not begin from any lengthy circumlocution, nor did he encircle himself with a ring of syllogisms and arguments in answering the question, as indeed the clever sophists and technicians of the faith are now accustomed to do; but in simplicity of heart he set forth the truth concisely, neither distinguishing the unbegotten from the begotten, nor rashly splitting hairs over "like" and "unlike," nor meddling with the distinction that lies beyond all being, nor measuring the immeasurable Godhead by syllogisms, such as the playthings of Arius and the contrivances of Eunomius.

Let us then emulate, O Christians — whose token is faith, not much talking — the fisherman, the guileless one, the old man from Bethsaida, the first catch of Christ,

[confessing,] "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and to leave what is more than this to the wranglers in words, whose business is strife and whose end is destruction.

Do the wonders of the Apostle, then, come to an end with what has been said? Or, quite the contrary, do we seem not even to have begun, if one measures against what has been said all that remains?

But I, leaving most things to your own knowledge — for you know Peter and his affairs, even should no one choose to praise the man — wish to say a little about his repose, and how he removed from earth to heaven, that I may end my speaking there where he too ended his life.

having heard the words "one flock, one shepherd" —

and the Lord gave His most faithful disciple, almost in His own stead, to the converts as father, shepherd, and instructor.

Having heard this voice, then, he did not live his life in idleness, nor did he love a life free of dangers, but, going about the whole world, he revealed Christ to those who were blind, guiding the wandering, confirming those who had tasted salvation, fighting his enemies, exhorting his own household, enduring persecutions, bearing the weight of imprisonments, and in many ways risking himself in advance for the gospel.

And as time went on, having come to the city that reigns over men, from there he ran up to the Kingdom.

For Nero, kindled to rage — as once Herod in Palestine, when the Magi announced Christ as king — passed over the other modes of punishment and decreed that the thrice-blessed man be nailed to the wood of the cross, so that Peter might imitate the Master not only by walking on the sea, but also by hanging upon the wood.

Yet, being reverent and wise even in the hour of his agony, and knowing what difference there is between Lord and servant, he asked one favor of his enemies: that they should not bring him to the wood in the same posture, but should nail him with his head toward the part of the cross nearest the ground.

For it is not fitting that even in suffering the servant should receive the same honor as the Master.

He spoke, and obtained what he wished, and through the cross he departed to Him who was crucified and rose again, himself binding on the crown of martyrdom, and leaving to us the occasion for these feasts.

These things, then, O beloved and sacred head, we too have rendered to you, according to our ability, as thank-offerings for your many achievements;

but now it is time to turn our discourse to another contestant, the partner of your virtue, the man of Tarsus, who — by a different manner of punishment, yet with one and the same aim of piety — departed with you to Christ.

Paul the divinely inspired, the loud-voiced trumpet of the gospel, formerly the bitter enemy of Christians, but at the last the mighty advocate of the Church — he was appointed by grace as a younger addition to the apostles;

and in time he was second among the disciples of Christ, but equal in the proof of virtue — to say nothing more, he made even the grey hairs of the Twelve blush — a fervent zealot for Moses, if ever anyone was, a wall of the Law, a tower of the Old Testament, strong and unshaken;

and for as long as he held his mind unchanged, he was a great danger to those who spoke of Christ, and everywhere he terrified and drove our people to flight;

truly, according to the prophecy of Jacob, "Benjamin, a ravening wolf" — tearing apart the lambs of the New Testament and scattering the flocks.

And since he had also carried out the deed against holy Stephen, with his hands still stained with blood he ran toward Damascus, wishing to join persecution to persecution, and murders to murders, and to tear up Christianity by the root, even as it was just then blossoming in its first growth.

Our God saw well what he did — that a strong enemy might also become a noble friend;

and, shining suddenly around him with light, He astounds him and turns him to humility, halting him in his course through fear, and, by darkness, bringing to soberness those eyes that had looked fiery and full of rage.

He chastises him not in silence, but adds word to deed, uttering that which is written:

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads."

not as though He Himself had need of speech — for what need was there of words, when the deeds sufficed? — but so that He might give occasion for Saul to ask and learn that the one supposed to be dead and lying in the grave, Christ, lives and appears from the heavens, and thus with authority defends Himself against those who injure Him.

But nothing serves so well as to set forth the very words that explain to us the capture of the Hebrew wolf.

The narrative sketches for me a man bursting with wrath, still panting from his earlier blood-guilt after the casting of stones, his eyes bloodshot and savage, as a murderer must needs look, preserving even at the outset the tokens of the patriarch's prophecy.

For that patriarch, when he was about to die, having gathered his sons about his bed on every side, spoke prophetically by the Spirit.

Thus, in blessing Judah, he was speaking to him directly, but allegorically he was praising the Christ who would come from him.

And having prophesied in turn to all his sons the things to come, he came last to Benjamin, as being also the youngest in age;

and while he seemed to be speaking to his son, in reality he was signifying Paul, who, as we know, was descended from that one's tribe.

"Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he shall devour, and at evening he shall distribute food."

Let us examine what is meant by this.

Surely it means this: that having devoured his first prey — that is, having persecuted, murdered, shed blood, and scattered the Church like a flock — he at last became a good herdsman and shepherd, laying aside the persecutor and putting on the apostle, distributing the Word to all as food, and establishing for us this holy table.