Paschal Homilies 1 part 9/28

And the manner of this commingling is altogether ineffable and inconceivable;

nevertheless, the depth of the mystery is received by faith.

For the things that are above our mind and understanding are marveled at not at all by curious inquiry, but by faith alone.

Since, then, he did not consider the flesh to be alien, but rather made it his own temple, and, having become man, he is also worshiped by the holy angels;

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

'And let all the angels of God worship him.' I myself would very gladly ask those who have rashly and senselessly dared to hold heterodox opinions, and who separate what God has joined together, as the Savior himself somewhere says, and who suppose there to be two Christs and two Sons — if indeed there are any such at all — in what way it could rightly apply to the Word who is of God the Father, before the incarnation, to be called 'firstborn.'

For how could he still be 'only-begotten' if he is 'firstborn'? For if he is only-begotten, he could not be firstborn;

but Christ is both at the same time, and no one, dividing the one and only Son into two, could assign 'firstborn' to the one and 'only-begotten' to the other.

For he will find the whole of the divinely inspired Scripture fighting against him;

indeed, we shall find both terms properly applied to Christ.

For he is firstborn as man among many brethren, but again only-begotten as the Word who is of God the Father.

'There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.' For, knowing Christ himself to be one, even though he is at one time introduced as the Word, and at another again as man, on account of the economy in the flesh, he writes again concerning him:

'In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,'

'who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;'

'because in him all things were created, those in the heavens and those on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers;'

'all things have been created through him and unto him.'

'And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.'

'And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.' You see again how, mingling for us the properties peculiar to humanity with the dignities befitting God, he says that he is the same one who is also the image of the invisible Father — for he is the radiance and the exact representation of his hypostasis — and calls him the firstborn of creation, and confesses him to be the creator of Thrones and Dominions and, in short, of all things whatsoever.

And again he says that the same one is firstborn from the dead.

And yet, insofar as he appeared as man in the last times of the age, how could he be before all things? And how will he bear the dignity of the creator? Or in what way will he be the image of the invisible God? And again, for one who had not yet come into being as man, by what reasoning could it apply to him to be the firstborn of all creation, and firstborn from the dead? For just as it would not be thought fitting for a man to create in a manner befitting God, so also to die is foreign to God;

but Paul evidently attributes both to one and the same person.

Therefore he does not know one Son and another;

but one and the same, just as indeed the blessed prophet Isaiah too is found thinking and saying something of this sort concerning Christ:

'And behind you they shall follow, bound with fetters;'

'and they shall be slaves, and shall worship you.'

'And they shall pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you.'

'For you are God, and we did not know it;'

'the God of Israel, the Savior.' Do you hear how it says, 'they shall worship you,' and 'they shall pray in you,' and 'God is in you, and there is no God besides you'? And they will say these things while knowing the temple in which he dwelt, and not being ignorant of the Word who indwelt it; yet they do not worship the one who indwelt alone, separating him from the object that is the flesh;

but the one who is ineffably commingled from both.

For God the Word dwelt in his own temple, the body assumed from a woman, possessing a rational soul;

but he transformed the assumed body into his own glory.

Since Scripture ascribes this to him, Paul again took courage to say:

'That at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth;'

'and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' And what indeed shall we say again, when, upon encountering the writings of the holy Evangelists, we find our Lord Jesus Christ bodily breathing upon his own disciples, and saying:

'Receive the Holy Spirit'? Paul, on the other hand, writes again, saying:

'But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God the Father.' And again in another place, concerning the Jews:

'whose are the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.'

'Amen.' And whom did Thomas touch, after his return from the dead, so as to send forth that most wise utterance, 'My Lord and my God'? Shall we then suppose that the Word who is of God the Father could endure the touch of a hand? But I think someone will say, not without reason, that we are talking utter nonsense, should we so senselessly dare to say this.

But what would that be which was touched by him — a thing not hard for any existing being to attain?

But let there also come forward, in addition to all these, Peter, the leader of the holy disciples, who, when the Savior once inquired:

'Whom do men say the Son of Man to be?' cries out plainly:

'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He does not say, 'The Son is in you;'

but knowing him to be one and the same, both before the flesh and after the flesh, he says, 'You are the Son of the living God.' What, then, resulted from this? The disciple was pronounced blessed for saying this;

Let us too follow this faith, and, casting off as far as possible any agreement with the Jews, let us not say, together with them, to Christ, the Savior of us all:

For since we were in many sins, and the bitter horde of the pleasures within us was plundering the soul of each one, God, having sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as Paul says, condemned sin in the flesh, and together with it, death which sprouted from it, so that he might restore all to the original life.

For the wretched Jews, obeying in all things the strategies of the devil, crucified the Lord of glory.

But it was not possible for him, being life by nature and God, to be held fast by the bonds of death.

Therefore, having despoiled Hades, and emptied every recess of the devil, he rose on the third day, becoming for human nature a way, a beginning, and a door, for running back up into life and vigorously triumphing over the snares of death.

For we were all in Christ, inasmuch as he became man without sin;

and he took hold of the seed of Abraham, according to what is written, that being made like his brethren in all things, he might conquer death, when he became man. For to this end the whole purpose of the economy in the flesh looks and aims.

having an advocate with the Father, and a propitiation for our sins, as John says, let us run swiftly toward the prize of the calling from above; leaping vigorously away from all sin, and hastening rather to press on in accomplishing God-loving virtue, practicing self-control, loving continence, presenting the members of the body as weapons of righteousness to God, remembering those in hardship, caring for orphans and widows, lightening for those in bonds the misfortune arising from their want, and altogether holding fast to love for one another.

For then, then we shall accomplish the purest fast, the mother of every good;

beginning the holy Forty Days from the twelfth of the month Phamenoth, and the week of the saving Pascha from the seventeenth of the month Pharmouthi;

ceasing the fasts on the twenty-second of the same month Pharmouthi, at the deep evening of the Sabbath;

and keeping the feast on the following dawning Lord's Day, the twenty-third of the same month Pharmouthi, in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion, now and unto the ages of ages.

So then, the bright signals of the holy feast once more prompt us to cry out something great and piercing:

'It is time to act for the Lord.' For the season of fasting has come, has come again to us, through the yearly cycle,

Just as, from the eastern regions, when the sun has only just begun to rise above the earth while its full brightness is still being brought forth within, the bright shafts of its rays shine forth in advance, changing the gloom that comes from darkness into a sweetly smiling hue and countenance;

in the same way, I think, when our divine feast is already being proclaimed and this solemn, persuasive preaching of the Church shines forth in advance, the preaching somehow brightens each person's mind into a more cheerful disposition;

and it seems to me — and I would perhaps say this not beside the point — that one might even be inclined to find fault with the timing of the contest, since it has not yet arrived;

and the mind, being a lover of labor, is naturally troubled and burdened, because it does not see the contests running together with the preaching;

therefore, quite rightly, the God-inspired oracle of Scripture compares one who is in such fervent eagerness to a war-horse, speaking somewhat as follows:

'From afar he smells the battle, with blood and shouting.' For the high-necked horse is roused to longing for the fight by the all-terrible din of war, the clatter of arms, the sight of gleaming iron, and the sound of the trumpets in battle, not free from dread;

but the divine word, introducing the noblest things, whets the soul of the holy man for the contest, and rouses it vigorously into a God-loving disposition.

To make use of such language, then, is, I think, a splendid and enviable thing, as anyone would admit.

Yet the fact that, though disposed for this, we are found suited to it in no respect, might perhaps have instilled in us some fear, and made silence thrice-desirable (for according to what is written, the wise are those who know themselves), had not the divine law driven us on to the necessity of speaking.

For it says, 'Hear, O priests, and testify to the house of Jacob, says the Lord Almighty.' Now we must inquire into something:

as for bearing witness to the house of Jacob, this has been declared through another prophet, who says:

'Sanctify a fast, proclaim a service of healing, gather all the elders who dwell in the land into the house of the Lord our God, and cry out to the Lord earnestly.' For surely no one would say that it is lawful to go with unwashed feet into the inner tabernacle;

but rather it is lawful for those who have first been purified through complete gentleness;

and that we must hasten, contemplating the profound mystery of our Savior.

For it is not possible, it is not possible, to partake richly of the blessing from above, unless we choose to do — and that most eagerly — the things proclaimed here.

These, then, are for the present the occasion of our discourse, drawn from the signals of the Law: we are appointed both to command as generals and to be armed together with the holy combatants, and also to preside over the festival for those who keep feast, and to be present with them as one who initiates into the mysteries.

'If you go out to war in your land against the adversaries who oppose you, and you sound the trumpets, you shall be remembered before the Lord, and you shall be saved from your enemies.'

'And on the days of your gladness, and on your feasts, and on your new moons, you shall sound the trumpets,'

'both over your whole burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings.'

'And it shall be a memorial for you before your God.'

And the Law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the realities, commands that, when the time urges toward battle, those allotted the priesthood must use the trumpets, sending forth a high and intense sound, to rouse the man under arms to the remembrance of courage;

but for those who keep feast, it commands them to sound a rhythm fitting for gladness.

But we, who transform the things of that shadow into the power of the truth, cultivate instead of that ancient trumpet and useless clamor the teaching word, which rouses to sober boldness those who set self-control in array against the movements of the flesh, who wage war against their own passions, and who have chosen to arm themselves with the weapons of righteousness;

but for those who are in good spiritual condition and offer spiritual oblations, honoring in return human nature, the queen of all things, this word is accustomed to leap together with them in joy, and to sing the praises of the achievements of our Savior that surpass every wonder.

The present season, then, is a spring season;

and it seems to me that many a discourse could crown it, one distinguished both by a fluent tongue and by a most excellent mind.

For now, having washed away, as it were, the dust of winter's gloomy countenance, it brightens with clear suns, and grants once more to the mountains and glens, the forests and thickets, to take on their most beautiful form;

for it now grows young again and, newly born, is decked all about with foliage.

And the shepherd, rejoicing, pipes sweetly, and, sending forth a clear melody from his reed, lets his flock go down to graze on the flowering, freshly-grown grass;

and the cowherd urges the frisking calf, together with its mother, to feed on the fresh green pasture.

And the young shoots of the vines now run forth, grasping the stakes as though with fingers by the reaching-out of their tendrils, and climbing up upon the plants fixed beside them;

for it is always their delight to go upward, so that the bright beauty of the clusters may shine forth.

And the meadows, fragrant in manifold ways with the sweet scent of flowers, gladden the farmers with their accustomed gift;

and one might add countless other things to these, extolling the season that is wont to adorn the earth with flowers.

But it is, I think, no great matter that it should glory in these things alone, for indeed that which is more worthy than all the rest is this:

for together with the plants there has also risen up the nature that governs all things upon the earth — I mean, mankind.

For the spring season brings in to us the resurrection of our Savior, through which we are all reshaped into newness of life, having escaped the corruption of death that was brought upon us from outside;

since he has received no less care from above — he for whose sake indeed the very generation of the plants was devised.

It coincides, then, within this one season for us, that together with all other things the nature superior to everything on earth is renewed along with them;

and the artisan of this is Christ.

And indeed God the Father spoke through one of the prophets:

'Take courage, Zion; let not your hands grow slack.'

'The Lord your God is mighty within you; he will save you, and will renew you in his love.' For in the time of his love toward us, that is, when he became man for our sake, having reshaped the whole of nature within himself unto newness of life, and having restored it to the elements it possessed from the beginning, he, as God, showed us a spiritual springtime; and though we were 'natural' men on account of the sin that had long held sway, he made us spiritual through godliness.

And if it is pleasant to anyone to learn, and he has made it a matter of earnest concern to know clearly what is meant by these two terms, and how great and how sacred is the difference between the names, I will let Paul himself speak:

'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God;'

'for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned.'

'But the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.' For those who have practiced going indiscriminately and simply into whatever rises up in the mind, and have let out every rope to the desires of the soul, are utterly unable to endure the laws of the Spirit which persuade them to be sober-minded and to practice a well-formed, finely-wrought life;

but those who allow the laws of the Spirit to prevail will never proceed thoughtlessly into anything to be done, but, always testing what is naturally beneficial, and setting the profitable before the pleasant,

and taking care to place what is not so profitable behind what is beneficial, they are condemned by no one, but rather they themselves judge everything.

For tell me, who among those who have chosen to live in this way, if he calls someone wicked, does not rather pass sentence upon his own vice, and bring down upon his own head the most shameful things of all?

For, I think, to dare thoughtlessly to injure those who ought rather to be admired is clear proof of the utmost baseness; and he who does not refuse to plead the cause of such shameful things will himself be enrolled as a witness of his own vileness.

And the divine Scripture determines that this too is a sickness no less than the others — I mean, being unable rightly to distinguish the natures of things.

'For woe,' it says, 'to those who call the good evil and the evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.' For thus, I think, one might easily distinguish the better among shameful things, and would make an effortless judgment concerning both, as if he were making by reason a distinction of light and darkness.

'Woe, then,' it says, 'to those who have slipped down into such drunken folly as to confuse things that are perfectly plain to see, and are not ashamed to give to light the name of darkness, and in turn to darkness the name of light.'

But one would not say that such maladies belong to the good and the spiritual;

rather, they belong to the natural and the wicked;

for having their mind tyrannized by the pleasures of the present life, they are so far removed from being willing to do the good that they no longer even know what it is.

Since, then, we are not like them, but are lovers of God and spiritual, let us present ourselves, as alive from the dead, to Christ, who died for us and on our behalf, and was raised; and as the divine Paul commands us —

— not journeying away into sin as into some abysmal country;

but rather, looking to the beautiful city of the saints, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is our mother, let us brighten our own life through complete gentleness and sobriety;

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength.' And commanding us to devote the entire measure of love, in no way divided or drawn aside toward anything else, he bids us honor him with whole and complete faith, never supposing that there can be any smallness in faith, or any incompleteness in piety;

that is, [he forbids] assigning any portion of good glory to those who are not gods.

Therefore he also adds, saying:

'You shall have no other gods besides me.' For that which is easily inclined toward apostasy and deviation, and readily disposed toward what is unlawful, would offer clear proof of every kind of pettiness of soul, and makes such a person appear ridiculous even in matters of no worth.

And I too understand that, for the present at least, we are not speaking these necessary things especially to those who have been trained, through utmost compassion, to a perfect condition, and who are already accustomed to being filled with more solid food;

for these are 'elementary things' and 'first principles of the oracles of God,' according to the word of Paul.

But I will not discuss at length the customary teaching proper to that solid food; rather, I will ask forgiveness for the present, and will make use of the words of our Savior:

'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.' For the one who has of his own accord a healthy mind will stand firm none the less, even if he does not happen to receive these exhortations;

But he who is weak in heart would need much assistance.

for otherwise he could not ward off the assault of passion.

Our argument will proceed by way of examples.

For well-rooted plants, believed to stand firm on account of their thick, abundant roots, shoot up to a great and lofty height, and, taking no account whatsoever of the excessive violence of the winds, remain securely fixed, even though the gusts, whistling with a great and unbearable roar, strive to overwhelm them with their onrush.

But trees that have not yet grown very sturdy, but are still somewhat tender and newly planted, and have only just risen above the earth that bore them, would need not a few props and supports.

For there is in them as much weakness as there is smallness of age, and their standing is so precarious that at times they are cast down out of their planting-pits by a single assault of wind.

And I think the same holds equally for young men just coming into bloom, still short of full manhood.

Those who have already advanced to a secure and truly God-loving mind, and are rooted in faith toward God, remain well unshaken, even should Satan press upon them, tempting them.

But those who still have a tender heart, if they do not very frequently receive the corrective word, would easily, I think, slip away, and would echo whatever seems good to the one who would overturn them.

If, then, there were no such persons among those in my charge, our discourse ought at once to run straight to the more advanced points of teaching, having a more perfect exposition.

But since one might observe, I think, many people who, for some reason, are fond of being tossed about, holding a mind wavering between him who is God by nature and those who are not really gods but are merely so called - why, leaving aside the ailment, should we go on rashly straight to what is not so? It is time, then, it seems, to say to such people, in the words of the divine Paul:

'If you come to the faith with due propriety, approach purely - that is, wholly - and not with a limping mind, nor with a divided heart;'

or rather, if one must speak more truly, with a heart wholly inclined toward those things by which grace redeems the one who truly turns to it.

For no one can serve two masters;

for either he will hate the one and love the other;

or he will hold to one and despise the other. Let us, then, consider the nature of the matter here by an example drawn from our own affairs.

Suppose someone has become barbarized, having been captured among them while still of tender age;

having been raised among them, he drew in their customs, and was molded, as it were, by savage habits and laws.

Then, as time brought increase both of age and of understanding, he realized that he had been deprived of the land that bore him; and from then on he is troubled, and yearns for his most beloved homeland, and indeed is fervently disposed to be tamed once more by his ancestral laws.

Then, transferring his own resolve, and with it his manner of life, to the gentleness that comes from above, he has come over to the king, and, having stated the reasons for it - that he is exceedingly devoted to his fatherland, and longs for its civilized laws - he was deemed worthy of honor and rewards.

Shall I, then - for I will ask my hearers on this point - do you not think that such a man, while he was still behaving as a barbarian and thinking as they do, would reasonably be held accountable for all his evils, and would not deserve the same fitting kind of punishment as one who had reformed?

But once he abides by what has been said out of rightness of reasoning, and preserves his goodwill blameless in the reckoning, would he not be worthy of even greater honors? But the point, I think, is clear.

Let us, then, proceed from what has just been set before us as in the shape of an image, to the truth itself - this, I say, we must do.

Come, then, let us run back to the beginning of the race of mankind, and examine the events concerning the first-formed man, carrying out our contemplation analogously, according to the same pattern as what has been said.

For he was full of every good thing, and had attained to the highest portion of the good cheer within us, of which he would have remained master forever, had he not, through deception, transgressed the divine commandment.

But even though this befell him, it would not be well were he, in consequence, also deprived of worshipping and revering the one who is God by nature.

Accordingly, the first pair of sons born from him used to bring to him the firstfruits of what they had found.

For nature knew how to honor God, needing no law at all for this.

And Abel offered his thank-offerings from the flock, while Cain offered his from the earth.

For the one tended flocks, while to the other tilling the soil seemed a good occupation, and this he practiced.

But as the human race, little by little, continually slipped toward the worse, and was afflicted with a wickedness far more shameful than what preceded it, the law sown in nature was destroyed and trampled underfoot, even though it had persuaded them to know the one and only God.

And besides all the other evils, the error of polytheism was also devised in addition - a terrible lesson, O brethren, possessing the very highest degree of the devil's bitterness.

For it was necessary that he should not only drive us out of friendship with God on account of the sin introduced into us, but also, afflicting us with a lack of true knowledge, render us abominable and utterly despised.

For it was only in this way, and not otherwise, that our affairs could be brought down to their most complete ruin.

For he feared, as is likely, lest, by drawing near to the God who is God by nature, and being eager to know the Creator of all things, we should shake off the yoke of his tyranny, and choose instead to run back up to the original beauty of our own nature.

For this reason, therefore, he has muddied the eye of our understanding, and, having bound man with imported false worship as if he were some fettered captive, he has made the free man to be counted among slaves taken by the spear.

But the deceiver will not obtain his prey, according to what is written;

the outcome of the affair has turned out for him according to his design.

For the wretch fights against God out of folly, and it seems to me that he suffers the same as sailors at sea who, contending artlessly against the contrary blasts of the winds, perish together with the ship itself.

For the Only-begotten Word of God has shone forth upon us, and has delivered us from his bonds;

and instead of captives has shown us to be free.

These narratives, then, have of necessity been brought forward by us for the present purpose.

For I thought it necessary to demonstrate profitably that knowledge of God - the one and true God - is indeed an ancient thing, manifested together with nature itself;

whereas the disease of polytheism is something imported, an invention of perversity.

But even if, overcome by his tyranny and unable to bear his intolerable greed, we once went astray, and served the creation rather than the Creator;

having granted the name of divinity to heaven, and sun, and moon, and stars, and earth, and water, and having inscribed a polytheism beyond all number - let us henceforth renounce the shame attaching to those things, and, having been redeemed through Christ from so abominable a deception, let us remain faithful and true worshippers of him who has honored us; and let us not be caught having faith on the bare tongue while harboring unbelief in our mind, nor let anyone feign the Christian in outward forms while concealing the idolater within.

If one's mind is still altogether barbarous, why does he pretend to think as the king does? The law knows the best shield-bearer of the ruler's freedom to be one thing, not the traitor, my friend;

nor one who trades with the enemy, but rather him who genuinely fights alongside, and to whom the defeat of his opponents is a thing devoutly to be wished; whereas the man double in disposition and manner they would call abominable and most vile, and beyond every kind of evil.