Paschal Homilies 1 part 13/28

but what does the Savior say to us ourselves? 'Make for yourselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, they may receive you into their eternal dwellings.' And that I may make clear to you the force of this divine decree, let me say something further:

For it is not, it is not possible to doubt, that among those in need there is no small multitude of the prudent and the reasonable, who perhaps escape our notice, yet are not unknown to God.

Whenever, then, we admit them as partakers of our earthly wealth, let no one doubt that we shall also share with them in the reward of their virtue.

'For they will receive you into their own tabernacles,' according to what is written;

understanding this excellently well, the blessed Paul himself says somewhere:

'Your abundance for their lack;'

And let us also thoughtfully consider this: that human failings are countless, and there could be no season free from our own faintheartedness;

but if, at every one of the things that habitually occur, we are going to be greatly troubled and to sit in judgment on those who have grieved us, our whole life will be spent in bitterness and sorrows.

And since 'the ways of those who bear grudges lead to death,' as it is written, nothing prevents each soul from becoming held fast by death, through being unable nobly to repel what grieves it, being ever sharpened toward the need to rise up fiercely against those who first gave offense.

Therefore, as the blessed Paul said, 'let us bear one another's burdens,'

'and so we shall fulfill the law of Christ.'

But there are some among us who are so far from wishing to be kind, and who place the boast of an unresentful soul so very far from their own souls, that if any of those called to brotherhood should stumble ever so slightly, having let loose every rope and let out, as it were, the whole sail to their passions, they are borne along by uncontrollable impulses and leap upon them like bulls, thinking their reputation would be most disgraceful should they fail to accomplish absolutely every terrible thing—

...inhumanity, introducing such reasonings, and pointing out ways by which the power of greed might be achieved.

Utterly terrible, beloved, is the judgment that awaits such men;

and the one who is provoked to anger is altogether destroyed together with those who provoke him.

And again I will bring you proof of this from the divinely-inspired Scripture itself.

The Edomites and the Israelites were assigned each to their own portion, and the two did not receive the same land as their inheritance;

yet the two were brothers and neighbors.

For upon the one is inscribed Esau as father, while the other descended from Jacob;

and the one possessed the land of the promise, the other the land of Edom—bordering upon the former, yet raised aloft with frequent mountain heights and rocky crags burning above, so that it was hard for anyone to capture, should he choose to ravage it, the approach to that place being most difficult to assault; and indeed they took great pride in this.

But though matters of lineage and land stood thus for the peoples mentioned, their dispositions were widely at variance;

and the ways of both had somehow been arranged into opposition of manner, and the difference in worship became a pretext for war.

For the Israelites, glorying in the laws given through Moses, worshiped the God of all;

whereas the Moabites—that is, the Edomites (for it is the same in either case)—overpowered by the deceits of demons, having carved out stones and pieces of wood, inscribed as gods things that knew nothing at all.

The two peoples, then, were indeed close to one another, yet divided in worship, in customs, and in dwelling places.

Then, when it happened that the people of Israel transgressed and grieved God through their outrage against the law, there rose up against Jerusalem an impious and lawless man, the tyrant of the Babylonians.

And indeed he commanded the whole nation under his hand to be under arms;

and, as one who would presently prevail over those consecrated to God, he gave the bitter signal for war.

And he came into Judea;

and encamping there with his whole army, he so terrified the people of Israel that they abandoned their native land and scattered into the neighboring regions,

leaping off, as it were, from a sinking ship, when the worst evils already lay upon them.

Whereas it was necessary to pity those in tumult and terror, and rather to try to come to their aid, to receive them to dwell in their own cities, and to forget the enmity that lay between them, they did everything contrary to this.

For binding the suppliant, they brought him to the Babylonians as ready prey, as it were, and made the slaughter of their brother and neighbor a boast of their own worship, laughing broadly at those who had been consecrated, and rising up against the divine glory, madly declaring that the power of the demons had thereby been aroused, and that the Babylonian had fallen upon those who dishonored the worship practiced among them for no other reason than this alone.

But when the mockery of the Jews appeared no longer tolerable to men, and hateful to God, the army of the enemy withdrew from the land of the consecrated people, and flowed, as it were, already upon Edom itself, since he who is mighty over all had reversed the nature of the matter, and had now justly turned and drawn off his wrath upon them instead.

And he who had once been so proud, unyielding, and boastful was so consumed by the arrows of the Babylonians that perhaps scarcely a single inhabitant escaped notice, even though the city might be populous and fortified with walls.

And I will read to you the divine oracle itself, which runs somewhat as follows:

This is the word from God to the Edomite:

'Behold, I have made you very small among the nations; you are greatly despised;'

'the pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rocks,'

'raising his dwelling on high, saying in his heart:'

'Who will bring me down to the ground?' 'Though you soar aloft like the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,' says the Lord. Then, explaining the cause of his indignation, he adds these words:

'...and cast lots over Jerusalem, you also were as one of them;'

'and you should not have gloated on the day of your brother, on the day of strangers;'

'nor should you have laughed over the sons of Judah on the day of their destruction, nor spoken arrogantly on the day of affliction.'

'Nor should you have entered the gates of the peoples on the day of their trouble, nor should you have gloated, you too, over their assembly on the day of their ruin;'

'nor should you have laid hands upon their forces on the day of their destruction;'

'nor should you have shut off those of them who fled, on the day of affliction.' You see, then, how, since they did not think it right to defend the people of Israel, but rather emulated the inhumanity of the enemy, they themselves, beyond all expectation, perished utterly, together with their whole race.

Were, then, the Edomites in such straits?

Did the Babylonian arrogantly trample upon the holy land with impunity, and mocking the miseries of those who suffered, keep his good cheer inviolate? By no means.

For I shall show at once that he paid a penalty proportionate to the deeds he dared to commit.

For when he had left Idumea and was planning to hasten home, and, thinking to return, gave the signal for departure — with no one hindering him — he set off for his own land;

and he was already within the halls of the barbarian kings, taking part in festivities, and making a solemn tale of the sufferings of the sanctified ones;

he ordered those in high office to gather for a great banquet, and his feast was filled with acclamations and applause.

And some divided among themselves the tales of his madness;

and whoever had done something more outrageous than the rest sought honors far more conspicuous than the others, and among them prizes were bestowed in exact measure to their inhumanity.

Then indeed, then at last, God who has power over all things let loose his wrath upon the one who had played the tyrant;

and he made the arrogant one be beset with unforeseen calamities.

For at that time his subjects rose in rebellion, and the peoples were torn apart from one another by discord;

and the most valiant of his subjects were already moving toward revolt against their ruler;

and they were preparing an undeclared war.

Their eager undertaking was to set the tyrant's palace on fire, and, as it were, to uproot from its very foundations that arrogant and renowned city — I mean the city of the Babylonians.

And indeed, having engaged in battle, they raised a trophy of victory, and having consumed Babylon with fire and those within it with the sword, they hastened, through their brave deeds, toward a glorious conclusion — the slaughter of the tyrant.

But since the prophet Jeremiah, understanding through the illumination of the Spirit that these things would come to pass altogether and in every way, appears to have cried out something great and extraordinary.

As if whetting many against him for battle, he speaks thus somewhere:

'Set yourselves in array against Babylon on every side;'

'all you who bend the bow, shoot at her, do not spare your arrows, and prevail against her;'

'her hands have grown feeble, her battlements have fallen, her wall has been torn down, for it is vengeance from God, the vengeance of his people.' And as though he had not been unmoved by the wailing of those who fell, he again says thus:

'A voice of war, and great destruction, in the land of the Chaldeans.'

'How has the hammer of the whole earth been broken and shattered? How has Babylon become a desolation? Babylon, they shall come upon you among the nations, and when you are captured, Babylon, you will not know it;'

'you were found, and you were caught, because you resisted the Lord.' 8.

Let these narratives be spoken by me to you, not that we might seize upon idle words merely to applaud them in vain, but that, receiving the experience of what has taken place as a kind of tutor's instruction, we might refuse to imitate the wicked.

For since we have come to know the God of all things, who is good and compassionate, we ought not to rejoice over those who have fared wretchedly, but rather to love to grieve with them and to be brought into fellowship with them, and to bury painful things beneath unresentful affection.

And in this we must not rise up against those already laid low, nor indeed pounce upon the miseries of the fallen, even if it should be in our power to do all things without hindrance;

…but rather, excelling in virtue, let us make ready our own mind for the taking up of virtue, having first laid down and, as it were, firmly rooted in our own souls the rectitude of blameless faith.

The true and truly God-loving Christian must believe in one God the Father almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ his Son, and in the Holy Spirit;

so that clearly we must understand and speak of God the Father as truly the fount and root of his own offspring, regarding the fruit that has issued from it as, so to speak, co-eternal with it.

For of all other things, visible and invisible, he is the maker of their coming-into-being, and Father only by will;

For thus we say that all things are from God.

But of his own offspring he is not a maker, but a Father by nature.

For he has truly begotten him — not by way of effluence, or division, or passion — as indeed one may observe occurring even in our own case.

For body proceeds from body;

but God is not so, since he is not corporeal, nor exists in place, or shape, or circumscription;

but rather in a manner beyond conception and beyond utterance, as befits God.

For it would not be possible for that nature which is above all things to undergo what is ours.

The Father, then, has begotten the Son out of himself — light out of light, his image and expression, and the radiance of his own hypostasis — as it is written.

But since our condition had reached its extremity — death reigning, the evil and apostate dragon exercising lordship over those on earth, and sin holding sway — he became man, that he might rescue us all from the things just enumerated.

Having truly become this, and having taken flesh from a woman — I mean, the holy Virgin — according to the Scriptures, he was seen on earth and lived among men. He was man as to what was seen, according to the nature of the flesh, that is, perfect with respect to the reckoning of humanity;

For the Word of God did not come to be in a man, as he did in the saints, but he himself in truth has appeared and been called man.

Therefore, holding right belief, we do not speak of two Sons, nor indeed of two Christs or Lords, but rather of one Son and Lord, both before the incarnation and when he took on the covering of flesh.

For we do not divide him into two, thinking of the man separately, and again, separately, worshiping as God the Word who shone forth from the essence of God the Father;

but we admit no division or separation whatsoever with regard to the reckoning of sonship after the union with the flesh;

but knowing him as one and only Son, only-begotten — inasmuch as he alone was begotten of God the Father — and the very same one also as firstborn, when he came to be among many brothers, we honor and glorify him together with the holy angels, since he is indeed God by nature.

Thus also the divinely-inspired Paul said:

'And when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says:'

'And let all the angels of God worship him.' Therefore, according to the voice of the Psalmist, 'the Lord is God, and he has shone upon us.' For he truly appeared to us who were walking in night and darkness, and, illuminating with his words the hearts of those who heard him unto piety, he most earnestly exhorted them to turn back to God;

and by his wonders beyond all speech, showing himself to be God by nature, he called all men to believe more readily in what was necessary.

But those who readily dared everything — I mean those of Israel — though they ought to have given thanks, and gladly embraced him as benefactor, and acclaimed him as Savior and helper and Lord, were caught in impiety instead.

For they did not spare their tongue;

and leaving no kind of audacity unattempted, at last they crucified him;

for perhaps they were saying to themselves that very thing which had long ago been prophesied through the voice of Isaiah:

But he, although being life by nature, permitted the flesh, by economy, to suffer death for our sake, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living, as it is written.

having proclaimed there to the spirits, and having opened for those below the closed gates, and having emptied the insatiable recess of death, he came to life again on the third day;

and so he ascended to the Father with the flesh he had taken up, as it were a firstfruit of our nature, and firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might hold the first place, according to what is written.

And he will come again to us from heaven as judge, to render to each according to his works.

For he will judge the world in righteousness, as it is written.

In view of these things, beloved, these tokens of our holy feast proclaim to us the occasions of the divine festival.

Come then, let us put away all hesitation, and dismiss all sluggishness of our own mind, and with a keen and watchful disposition run eagerly toward every good thing — keeping the fear of God in mind, embracing love for one another, cultivating purity of body, thrusting away defilement of soul, remembering the poor who are afflicted, since we ourselves also are in the body;

and remembering those who are in bonds, as though bound together with them;

and doing all things with the fear of God.

beginning the holy Forty Days on the ninth of the month Phamenoth, and the week of the saving Pascha from the fourteenth of the month Pharmouthi, and ending the fasts on the nineteenth of the same month Pharmouthi, at deep evening, according to the evangelical proclamation;

and celebrating the feast on the following dawning Lord's Day, the twentieth of that same month, and thereafter joining also the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost;

so that, through an upright manner of life, we may once more delight in the sacred words;

in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory and dominion.

The Law holds a shadow of the good things to come, and forms beneath it the bright figure of the truth, disclosing to us, through type and enigma, the mystery of the things ordained through Christ.

Therefore he commanded the sons of Israel, saying:

'Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the well-marked day of our feast.' But we, going as far as possible beyond the types, releasing the nature of our own affairs from the ancient figures, let us give priority to the instruction of the divine and evangelical commandments.

And since for us this radiant and most notable feast has shone forth once again, bringing with it, as one of its ripe fruits, the contests of good conduct, grant, then, grant to one who follows in the footsteps of the voices of the saints, that we may cry aloud, as it were from a sacred trumpet:

'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.' For I think that to be eager to live in a godly manner, and to love being adorned with the honors that come from equity — especially at this present time — is what it means to prepare the way of the Lord, and to receive the gladness fitting for those who keep festival, arising from a good conscience.

For the impious there is no rejoicing, says the Lord. For how, or from where, could this be fitting for them, since they have hanging over them the judgment for the things for which they are held to account? But to be in spiritual well-being, and to be nourished richly on the fattest hopes, would fittingly belong to those who have lived most rightly, and who have made the divine law, as it were, a rule of their own life.

Wherefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, let us consider one another so as to stir up love and good works, according to what is written, remembering him who says:

well do they sharpen courage in one another, and hasten to display before each other their strength and skill, believing that the time of war has arrived, and thus prove formidable and immovable against those who fall upon them from the opposing side;

being now somehow superior to hesitation and fear, and making light of even the greatest dangers, should they arise;

so too, I say, it is necessary that whoever are lovers of holiness should love to oppose themselves most unhesitatingly to the evil devices of the devil;

and to make their resistance so exceedingly strong that henceforth, speaking truthfully, they may proclaim that saying:

'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?' For nothing at all could bring us down into cowardice, if, following in the footsteps of the virtue of the saints, we hold the same conviction as they, being courageous and saying:

And since death, hateful to all, has been abolished by the power of Christ, and the corruption, once terrible and hard to overcome, has been destroyed through his resurrection, come, let us send forth some great and piercing proclamation, and say to all people everywhere:

'The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice.' And what, again, would be the manner of rejoicing for those who have chosen to seize upon this in Christ? Surely the most fitting one: to depart as quickly as possible from earthly and grovelling pleasure, and altogether from every fleshly desire;

and instead to choose the things belonging to the better portion, and, devoting the mind to what is best in them, to hasten to fulfill, and most eagerly, what has been well and rightly spoken to us through the voice of the blessed Paul:

'Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.' Let, then, the things that have gone by be buried, as it were, under thick oblivion;

and having indeed departed from our former folly, let us reach forth to the things that are before;

that is, let us make it our earnest endeavor to press on toward what is perfect in understanding.

We have served the creature rather than the Creator;

and we were once darkness, but now are light in Christ, according to what is written.

For we have been called to the knowledge of God;

and the light of truth has flashed forth into our minds.

For this is the foundation of every good thing, and the basis of all virtue in us.

Therefore God the Father himself signified this very thing to us from above, through the voice of the holy prophets, saying:

'Behold, I lay in the foundations of Zion a chosen, precious cornerstone;

and he who believes on him shall by no means be put to shame.' And having grasped this most excellently, the divine Paul also proclaimed to us:

'As a wise master builder, I have laid a foundation.' And what is the foundation, or indeed what is our own base, you will learn from him as he openly proclaims:

'For no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' Therefore, having as the base and foundation of true knowledge of God our Lord Jesus Christ, let us hold fast our confession, as the sacred Scripture somewhere says, and let us examine our own heart, lest perhaps some remnant of God-hated unbelief lie hidden within it, like a serpent in its hole;

lest some root of bitterness, springing up, cause trouble, according to what is written.

For one might rightly say, and would not miss the mark of what is fitting, that ignoble double-mindedness is an evil thing and a wasting disease of the mind, since indeed the most shameful of all things will surely befall — and not willingly — those who are disposed in this way.

For one might observe that a house which has slipped from its original foundation is altogether easily shaken and has reached, so to speak, the very extremity of weakness, and is wholly easy to overcome;

and it seems to me that the disciple of Christ has spoken rightly and blamelessly concerning such people, that it would have been better for them not to have known the way of truth, than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

For there has come to pass for them that saying of the true Proverb:

'The dog is turned to its own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' For just as it is altogether wretched, brothers, to see the unclean dog lapping up its own vomit;

(for whoever does this becomes at once an abomination) — so too, surely, one of refined character will utterly loathe to see the sow which, long-bodied and foul-smelling, no sooner leaps up out of the spring waters than it plunges itself again into the mud and into the marshes that defile it to the utmost;

so too, I think, it is true to say that the offense of double-mindedness is utterly shameful and most absurd — indeed running beyond every absurdity — since it persuades one to run back again to the folly of the beginning, and bids one go again into that disease of impiety which, by faith in Christ, we have wondrously repelled, and thereby laid hold of spiritual soundness and kept our mind healthy and unharmed.

It follows, then, that we should again carefully consider and observe the following:

if any of the members of our body were inflamed, and a terrible disease were feeding upon it;

and one of the physicians checked the affliction, turning it toward gentleness by the discoveries of his art, and, as it were, reining in the further course of the evil, or even arresting it altogether — would anyone who fell into such foolishness be found thinking the matter not worth everything, and wishing instead to run back again to being sick? And what man could be so mindless and short of judgment as to love the opposite, when it is possible to choose to be strong? Since, then, it is not our fleshly body from the earth, but that which is most excellent, the soul and the mind, that has been set free from ancient and abominable thoughts, and we have swum across the disease of our former way of life — do you not consider health, my friend, thrice-desirable, while sickness still seems to you most sweet, even though it is in your power to shake it off, if only you are willing? But surely someone will be seen crying out in protest at this, and will bring forth from his heart a chilly argument:

'Is it not the case that ruling over all things will be assigned as a special privilege to those who have obtained it by lot? Yet would not one say that to be subjected is most fitting for the rest?' But I think no one will hesitate to agree.

And if some of those ranked among the subjects are well-disposed and most loyal, they will be deemed worthy of honors and glory;

but if disobedient and hard to rein in, certain unruly ones will be ranked among the most hostile enemies;

and they will share in the harshest of all penalties.

Yet in these matters one must also carefully consider the following:

The will of the king is the source of all honor and glory for everyone;

but these honors reside not by nature in those who hold them, but in those who receive the gifts of rank;

and as long as they stand rightly minded toward the affairs of the king, they hold their power firmly established, and stand well within their glory;

but once turned to the opposite, they are no longer enviable, but will be found fallen into a thrice-wretched state, beyond every evil.

and if, whetted by unmixed madness unto revolt, and having recklessly seized weapons and tyrannical practices, he should stir up cities and lands, and, having forced a yoke of necessity upon some, should violently wrest for himself the glory of kingship;

in the eyes of the prudent, he would not on this account be fit to be honored — nor indeed would he be numbered among those who rule over all;

rather, he would be made to answer for the words of his madness, and would justly be required, for such unholy undertakings, to pay a penalty matching and, so to speak, of equal measure to his crime.

But let these things be said by us, drawn usefully from matters familiar to us, and fashioned together, as it were, like a painting on a tablet.

Come, then, let us project our thoughts beyond things perceived by the senses, and look with a keener eye upon the divine beauty itself; and, contemplating as far as is possible the nature that is queen of all things, and having, as well as we are able, duly considered its ineffable power and authority, let us understand the servitude of the things that have come into being from it and lie subject beneath it —

since He is good by nature, in order that, being so, He might not be known to Himself alone, but that others also might partake of the goodness inherent in Him, He brought into being the things that once were not;

and He created a multitude of holy spirits surpassing all number;

and, establishing the best order among those He had made, He named one Principality, another Dominion, another Throne, some Archangels, and indeed also Angels.

For, conceiving nothing other than that which He possesses well and blamelessly, in every way and altogether, He measured out to each of the created beings the honor that seemed good to Him alone.

Therefore the multitude of holy angels in the heavens is beyond counting, while certain Principalities, and Powers, and Thrones have been established by God, fulfilling, as it were, the role of a father or a teacher for the others.

For it was thus, and not otherwise, that affairs were to proceed for created beings, as it were with a favorable wind.

and do not, floating upon the reasonings of ignorance, be carried away from the doctrines of truth.

For what I have already said, I will say again.

For as the blessed Paul writes, 'to say the same things to you is not troublesome for me, but for you it is a safeguard.' There is one Maker and Lord of all things;

and myriads upon myriads of holy angels stand beside Him;

and there is nothing among the things made by Him that does not bear the yoke of servitude.

But if some have leapt away in revolt, and, as it were, pulled their necks against the yoke, they have been punished, and have fallen;

and having justly slipped from the city above, they have led astray some of those on earth, attempting to seize for themselves the glory of God — of whom Satan is the first and foremost;

one must by no means at all suppose that they are in truth gods.

For there is truly but one nature that rules over all things;