Paschal Homilies 1 part 27/28

‘observe its ways with zeal, and become wiser than it.’

‘For though it has no field of its own, and though it has neither a master over it nor anyone compelling it, it prepares its food in summer, and lays up a great store at harvest.’ ‘Or go to the bee, and learn: it is a worker, and holds its labor as a solemn thing.’

‘And all its produce is desirable and glorious.’

Therefore, labors undertaken for piety’s sake would be worthy of esteem to those who have practiced manliness;

whereas sloth, at least with regard to the noblest of manly deeds, is to be dismissed and abhorred.

For it will befall those who are accustomed to shun labor to be, altogether and in every way, in want of every good thing.

But to choose to endure hardship for the sake of virtue is rewarded, and would by no means be deprived of the rewards from above.

And that this matter is true, one may see even from the affairs among us, without much difficulty.

For how will the farmer gather an abundant harvest, if he folds his hands, still refuses to plow, and lets go the sweat of the mattock? Is it not so that, when he is thus disposed, the fields remain barren of standing grain, the plants in the garden are bare of ripe fruit, and the rows of vines stand idle and grapeless, as if painted in pictures, having nothing in them except being merely seen? And as for those who follow the trade of merchants, when will they be full of the gains most dear to them, if they still fear to sail across and to contend with the waves, or if they set the love of gain behind every toil and terror? I will also call to mind those for whom it is the most urgent pursuit to be distinguished in the wrestling-schools.

Of whom the divinely-inspired Paul also makes mention, saying, ‘They exercise self-control in all things, that they may receive a perishable crown.’ Since, then, not even one of the affairs among us could ever be driven through to its desired end without care and labor, how could anyone attain to the heights of virtue without having honored the necessity of enduring hardship, and being eager to be borne straight toward every good thing by, as it were, the unopposed impulses of the mind? Thus, imprinting upon our own souls the intelligible and truly lovable beauty of the life of the saints, and inscribing it spiritually, let us make our supplications to God, saying:

‘Lord, in Your will grant strength to my beauty.’ Now the counsel and will, the all-effecting power of God the Father, is the Son.

‘You have guided me by Your counsel.’ For we have been guided in Christ toward every knowledge of virtue.

And do not marvel at me if I say that the Son is named the ‘counsel’ of God the Father, since we shall also find the Father honored with such a title.

For indeed, ‘counsel’ signifies wisdom.

The prophet Isaiah, then, has written concerning Christ, the Savior of us all, that: ‘A child was born to us, a son also was given to us, whose government came to be upon his shoulder, and his name is called the Angel of Great Counsel.’ For he announced to us the things concerning his own Begetter, and clearly set forth the supramundane beauty of the essence that is highest above all, describing him, in his own nature, as—

—‘the radiance and exact representation of His subsistence.’ He said, accordingly, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father.’ —‘I and the Father are one.’ And ‘one,’ assuredly, in every respect, according, I say, to the identity of essence.

How then has he come to be called a child? For, being of equal glory with the one who begot him, and possessing, without variation, every one of the dignities befitting God, he became man, lowering himself into self-emptying, and enduring the condition proper to us of being born of a woman.

Yet the Spirit-bearing prophet says that he has been given to us.

For indeed, it was not for his own sake that he emptied himself and entered into our poverty, but that we might become rich with the things that are his, and, having washed away the inglorious and profane stain of sin, might gain through him the cleansing that comes by faith.

For as the Son himself says, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ Faith, then, is truly a saving thing.

He said, accordingly, to the holy apostles:

‘Truly I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no means enter the kingdom of God of the heavens.’ And the all-wise Paul also writes:

‘Now that no one is justified before God by the law is evident.’ And again, ‘We are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,’

‘yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed in Christ, that we might be justified in him.’

And to this you will perhaps say:

‘If there was no benefit at all to be gained from the law, if for those entangled in sins it was entirely unprofitable for their cleansing to abide in the ancient letters, why then was it given at all in the beginning?’ To such things we say, that the law in written letters was administered through angels, with Moses acting as mediator,

and it was an image of the truth, and, as it were, a kind of transformation of piety, leading through type and shadow toward that truth itself.

The most sacred Paul, then, writes:

‘So then the law has become our tutor unto Christ.’ And this too was an invention of wisdom from above, and a display of skill befitting God.

For just as those who are eager to become skilled in the science of bronze-working train their hand, and do not, from the very first attempts, immediately lay hold of the necessary material, but rather practice the art on wax, molding the shapes of the vessels—

so, we say, Israel was disciplined by the types of the truth, so as to advance gradually, little by little, toward the perfect good.

And this was the power of the citizenship in Christ, which, I say, has been proclaimed through the evangelical precepts.

One might also bring forward, to those who have chosen to speak rightly, another not ignoble manner of explanation for why the grace through faith was not given from the beginning to those throughout the whole earth, but rather the commandment through Moses had first, of necessity, to be driven in and introduced beforehand.

Sin has reigned over us, and has gained dominion over all who are upon the earth.

For a savage tyrant lay upon us, plunging us into the mires of fleshly love of pleasure, and vigorously driving down the will in each person into every form of baseness.

And it was not possible to be released from the yoke of his greed.

It was necessary, then, it was necessary, for those upon the earth to receive at last the very great and incomparable gentleness from above and from God, which justifies the pious man and sets him outside of punishment and judgment.

It was necessary that, for those who had the stain arising from baseness deeply ingrained and hard to wash away, the grace through faith in Christ should shine forth;

for it was not possible, in any other way, to escape both the snares of sin and the cruelty of the devil’s tyranny.

That you might not be ignorant of the greatness of the grace and generosity that comes through Christ, the law was brought in beforehand, justifying no one at all, but rather exposing the sickness that then existed.

It was, therefore, a conviction of sin, declaring those who sin to be accursed.

For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all the things written in the book of this law, to do them.’ And that the truth surely follows what I have said, the most sacred Paul will again confirm.

For he writes, ‘The law was added because of transgressions.’ And again, ‘The law came in besides, that the trespass might increase.’ For since those under the law were weak, and continually erring, the trespass increased.

Since, then, the law exposed the weakness of those under it, it therefore became necessary at last for those upon the earth to have the one who justifies by faith, and not by works of the law;

and this was Christ, concerning whom it is written:

‘Yet a little while, yet a little while, and he who is coming will come, and will not delay.’

‘And if he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’

‘But the righteous shall live by my faith.’

For the God of all did not desire sacrifice and offering;

nor did he take pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings—since, as Christ himself said, ‘God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’

Teaching these things, he continued in the synagogues, adding to his words the signs wrought by God, accomplishing those things fitting only for the nature that is above all—accomplishing them quite effortlessly, or rather by a most all-powerful nod.

For to him, even merely to will was already the deed.

But those of Israel were exposed as having a hard and unfruitful mind.

For they acted in opposition to the ordinances given through him, holding the divine signs to be of hardly any account at all, bristling like bulls into unrestrained anger, and uttering blasphemous words.

For him who called them to life, and who flashed forth to all the knowledge of virtue, they called a Samaritan, and named him a glutton and a wine-drinker, one born of fornication, and the son of a carpenter.

And for what reason? Because they did not want the paths of their life to be straight.

Bound, then, by the chains of their own passions, and having the stain of fleshly love ineradicably fixed on them, and being overcome by unholy gains, they would not accept the words that were able to lead them to good order.

They were, accordingly, plainly convicted, as Christ, the Savior of us all, said:

‘Everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.’ What then, in fact, have those done who could not bear to hold the divine light in mind? As I have said, they reviled him who called them to life; they stoned him who proclaimed the truth; and in the end they crucified him, having fabricated lying charges, and bringing him who was free from all sin under the law and Scripture.

For some used to say, in the time of Pilate and Caiaphas:

For he has not remained among the dead like one of us;

but rather he came back to life, inaugurating for human nature the way of resurrection from the dead.

And Paul writes to confirm this:

'For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.' Our Lord Jesus Christ has therefore become for us the root and the way and the occasion of the hope of incorruption.

For death reigned from Adam until Moses,

but it has fallen from its tyranny over us, and has grown powerless in Christ.

For we are no longer born unto death, as being of perishable seed, but unto the hope of life, having received Christ as the beginning of this.

The divinely-inspired Paul therefore writes to those who have believed in him:

'For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.'

'When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.' For he will come, he will come in due season, in the glory of his Father, and will descend again from heaven with the holy angels, to judge the world in righteousness, as it is written.

since we are to render an account of our own lives, let us live in holiness, and practice every manner of gentleness, cleansing ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, being content with what we have, considering what is superfluous to be troublesome in its own way, sympathizing with those who labor, standing together with those in their toils, remembering those in bonds as though bound with them, comforting those who are sick, having compassion on the tears of orphan and widow, aiding as far as possible those brought down into poverty, and, in a word, becoming caretakers of every good deed.

For thus shall we accomplish a holy and all-pure feast, beginning the holy Forty Days on the sixteenth of the month of Mechir, and the week of the sacred and salvific Pascha on the twenty-first of the month of Phamenoth;

ending the fasts on the twenty-sixth of the month of Phamenoth, at the deep evening of the Sabbath, in accordance with the gospel proclamations;

and celebrating the feast on the following dawning Lord's Day, the twenty-seventh of the same month of Phamenoth;

joining thereafter also the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost;

so that, having joined the saints in the dance during the season of respite as they leap and rejoice in heaven, we may be counted worthy of their communion in Christ Jesus our Lord;

to whom be glory and dominion, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages.

To those who minister the revered and divine proclamation — that is, I mean, the proclamation of Christ the Savior of us all — the Holy Spirit gives command through the lyre of the Psalmist, saying:

'Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the notable day of our feast,'

'for this is a statute for Israel, and an ordinance of the God of Jacob.' By 'new moon' in these words they mean the new and, as it were, freshly-blossoming season of the coming of our Savior, in which all the old things have passed away and all things have become new, according to the voice of the divinely-inspired Paul, and it is, as it were, the beginning of a new age.

We must therefore sound the trumpet in it, that is, sending forth a most notable and piercing sound, saying to all people everywhere:

'The Lord is God, and he has shone upon us; keep the feast with branches, up to the horns of the altar.' What the phrase 'keep the feast with branches' might mean to indicate, I shall try very carefully to explain:

the ancient tabernacle was set up in the wilderness;

for the first tent was one, having the altar of the worship according to the law, in which those who still honored God through shadow and types were commanded to sacrifice oxen, to make use of the slaughter of sheep, and to offer smoke.

There the altar was a type of Christ, the Cherubim overshadowing it with their wings, standing round about it, performing the posture of liturgical service, and attending upon it as upon God.

There was also set there a golden altar, upon which the fine and compounded ointment was burned as incense, very carefully prepared from many spices.

But as Paul, wise in all things, writes: 'These things having thus been prepared, the priests enter continually into the first tabernacle, performing the acts of worship;'

'but into the second, once a year, the high priest alone enters, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of ignorance of the people;'

While the worship according to Moses prevailed, there was a barrier standing in the first tabernacle for those still under the types,

for it was not granted, one after another, to those who wished to pass through into the holy and innermost tabernacle.

Only the one who was preeminent among the priests entered, once a year, and not without blood, according to what is written.

But since, as Paul says — who was learned in the law and nurtured in the sacred Scriptures — 'Christ, having come as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,' that is, not of this creation —

'not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood he entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, having obtained eternal redemption' — come, let us too, forsaking the barrier that stood in the first tabernacle, follow Christ, run into the Holy of Holies, and keep the feast with branches, where the mercy-seat, as a type of Christ, is overshadowed by the wings of the Cherubim.

Let us offer to God, not sacrifices through blood, but rather the fine and compounded incense — that is, the sweet fragrance that arises from the virtues, the spiritual and bloodless worship.

Yet I think it necessary to say this to you as well:

'Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit. Let us perfect holiness in the fear of God.'

For it is not possible, it is not possible, for those unwilling to act impiously, to go, as it were with unwashed feet, into the Holy of Holies.

For this the God of all made clear to us, when he said to Moses the hierophant:

'Make a bronze laver, and a bronze base for it, for washing, and you shall set it between the tabernacle of witness and the altar;'

'and you shall pour water into it, and Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and feet from it with water; whenever they go into the tabernacle of witness, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.'

But those things, in types, were travailing with the beauties of the truth, whereas it is Christ, who is the truth, who delivers us from all defilement.

How, or in what manner, he will teach, speaking through the voice of Isaiah:

'Wash yourselves, and become clean; remove your wicked deeds from before my eyes;'

'cease from your wicked deeds; learn to do good; seek out justice; deliver the one who is wronged; render judgment for the orphan, and give justice to the widow. Come, and let us reason together, says the Lord.'

'And though your sins be as crimson, I will make them white as snow;'

'and though they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool.' Of this grace, so radiant and worthy of love, the divinely-inspired Psalmist also makes mention, speaking to Christ the Savior of all:

'You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed;'

'you shall wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.' He therefore makes us wholly white through holy baptism, stopping the mouth of sin, and melting away every defilement within us — understood, of course, in an intellectual and spiritual sense.

And so the divinely-inspired John, calling it to the remembrance of the Jews, says:

'I baptize you with water,' he says, 'unto repentance;'

'after me comes one mightier than I; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.' For indeed the working and power of the Holy Spirit, whenever it comes to be in us and finds a soul overgrown with wild growth, then indeed, falling upon it after the manner of fire,

consumes it as if it were useless matter, and devours the defilements of sin.

And the preliminary approach to this matter, and the way, as it were, leading toward this grace so radiant and worthy to be possessed, is found to be faith in Christ.

'This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.' For the law given through Moses was delivered as an oracle to those of the blood of Israel, through the ministry of angels,

but it was a conviction of sin, and a means of exposing transgressions, yet utterly powerless when it came to being able to justify anyone.

The all-wise Paul accordingly writes:

'Now that no one is justified before God by the law is evident;'

'for the law works wrath.' For it imposed penalties immediately, in proportion to each person's transgressions,

yet it was unable to cleanse away defilements, that is, to free anyone from accusation; whereas the grace that comes through faith — that is, the grace that is in Christ — has rightly been given by the God of all to the whole world under heaven.

And again the divinely-inspired Paul will bear witness, writing:

'For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.'

And of this glory we are deprived — that is, we fall short — according to the voice of the most wise Paul, it being no unusual thing for us to be carried away by the snares of sin, and by inclinations toward baseness to arrive at more shameful things.

But, as the sacred Scripture says, 'Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.' And one might see that those who have been ignorant of the mystery of the incarnation of the Only-Begotten have indeed thirsted for this grace.

The most learned-in-the-law Paul accordingly writes: 'We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we also believed in Christ, that we might be justified by him.'

And do not suppose that God ordained the old law as being sufficient to be able to render anyone free from the accusations arising from weakness;

and that, since it fell short of its purpose, he, almost as though resorting to an afterthought, then devised the path of faith in Christ.

It is not so; far, indeed, from it.

Know rather that, even before he had fashioned the first man at all out of the earth, he was not ignorant of what was to come, nor of the malicious plot of the devil's perversity, and had beforehand considered the manner of our help — clearly the mystery of Christ. He established the law through Moses as a conviction of sin and an accuser of the weakness present in all things, and wisely displayed the condemning commandment beforehand, in advance of the justifying grace, so that grace might be admired all the more.

For where the thing that grieves exists, there most of all the form of what brings joy shows itself clearly.

That the mystery of Christ is ancient we shall see without effort, since here again the sacred Scripture speaks to us thus:

For the blessed Paul says again somewhere:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. Understand, then, how he says that we were blessed even before the very foundation of the world, and were also predestined to be sons in Christ Jesus.

Indeed, the saving baptism itself was prefigured for those of old, and for us who came after them, through the ark.

For in it the righteous Noah was saved through faith, even though everything under heaven had been condemned by a single decree of God.

For he unleashed the flood upon all.

Thus it is written concerning him:

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, being moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is according to faith. And that this deed was a type of holy baptism, the divinely-inspired Peter will confirm, saying concerning Christ the Savior of us all, that Christ also died once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

the antitype now saves—that is, baptism—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. And what indeed is this 'pledge of a good conscience toward God'? It is the confession of faith in Christ, which we have become accustomed to make in the presence of many witnesses—and not only human ones, to whom belongs the glory befitting the divine priesthood, but also the rational powers who minister to God, being eager to accomplish what redounds to his glory.

But I say that those who make an unerring confession of the faith ought in no way to be fond of being shaken.

For it is written: My beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

For at times men bred up in ignorance stir up storms even for some of those who have already believed, giving their neighbor turbid subversion to drink, as it is written, unfolding wicked things as out of the evil treasury of their heart, and belching forth the venom of the devil's perversity.

For they exalt themselves against the substance and glory that transcend all things;

and, so far as lies in them, they cast down from the highest thrones the Word who was begotten of God the Father, numbering among created things the Maker and Craftsman of all things;

him before whom all works quake and tremble, and who is most fittingly crowned with the true dignities of Godhead according to nature;

For to him every knee bows, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth;

and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Besides these, there are also those who divide the undivided one—I mean the one Christ—and thereby falsify the bright beauty of the truth, even though the divinely-inspired Paul has written to us clearly and plainly:

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. But if there were two lords, then surely there would also have to be two faiths, and there would likewise have to be that many baptisms.

Let us pass by those who have supposed these things to be so, as men of ruin and corruption, and, keeping our foot outside the snare, let us say that word from the Psalms:

Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth,

that he might deliver us out of the present evil age, according to the will of God and the Father. For since, as we have already said, through the worship according to the Law, which has nothing else but types and shadows, it was not possible to wash away the stains of wickedness, that is, of sin, he himself, for us and on our behalf—the Word who is of God the Father—having become man while remaining what he was, that is, God, gave over his own body to death, that he might redeem us who were under death and corruption, by his own blood.

In the roll of the book it is written of me, that I should do your will, O God, this I have desired. Consider, then, consider him saying clearly:

But a body you have prepared for me. For he both was and is bodiless, as God.

How then, O Jew, have you failed to recognize so ineffable and awesome a dispensation? How have you not accepted that the bodiless One became flesh for your sake—he who is above all creation, having condescended by dispensation to the measure of humanity? He who enriches those in heaven, yet bore your poverty? He who is Lord of all, yet took the form of a servant? But perhaps to this you will say, 'He was seen as a man like us.'

How then have you forgotten the writings of Moses? For he said somewhere concerning him to you: 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; according to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb, to him you shall listen.' The word has thus already foretold him both as a man and as one of the holy prophets.

And indeed the divinely-inspired Isaiah also says:

...Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, means 'God with us.'

And paradoxical indeed is the birth of Emmanuel;

for he came forth from a Virgin who had known no marriage.

Yet, since he came from a woman, following the laws of humanity, you say that he was seen as a man, so far as concerns body and form.

But have you not also seen him possessing, besides this, a glory most befitting God, gilded with the highest splendors, fulfilling the works of the Father?

For it belongs only to the substance that is highest of all to be able to give life to the dead who are already decayed and putrid, to bring light to those deprived of their eyes, to render the lame sound of foot, and to free those in the leprosy of that affliction by a mere touch and a nod.

Then who could ever endure so terrible and ineffable a sight? Or do you not see that the eye of the body cannot easily bear the encounter with the ray of the sun? How then could it have had the strength to gaze upon that dazzling and more-than-marvelous light? He therefore came to dwell among us as a man, making himself bearable to all, so that, as one of us, drawing near and sharing our life, he might show forth the way of godly conduct, that he might rescue us from the snares of ill-starred superstition—

—the superstition of the Greeks—that he might render us devotees of the true and spiritual worship.

But the loathsome, envious, and unholy beast—that is, Satan—did not remain quiet. He had taken under his hand, through deceit and greed, all that is under heaven, and had drowned it in the mire of sin; but when he saw himself falling from his dominion over us, unexpectedly cast out from being able to hold fast those he had long since seized, he supposed that this one too, like one of the prophets of old, was merely a man and nothing more.

Indeed, he even brought it about that they too should die, having whetted against them the perversity of the Jews.

And so he once again injected into them the venom of his own perversity.

But they, with no regard for their own salvation, leapt upon him boldly and insolently, their minds filled with bloodlust, and indeed they crucified him.