Mystagogic Catecheses 2-1 part 1/2

FIRST MYSTAGOGY, TO THE NEWLY ENLIGHTENED. And a reading from the First Catholic Epistle of Peter, from the words:

'Be sober, be watchful,' to the end of the epistle;

by the same Cyril and John the bishop.

I have long desired, O true and longed-for children of the Church, to discourse to you concerning these spiritual and heavenly mysteries.

But since I well knew that sight is far more trustworthy than hearing, I awaited the present season, that, finding you more open to instruction from this evening's experience concerning the things spoken, I might lead you by the hand into the brighter and more fragrant meadow of this Paradise here before us.

And besides, you have become capable of the more divine mysteries, of the divine and life-giving Baptism.

Since therefore it now remains to set before you a table of the more perfect teachings, come, let us teach you these things accurately, that you may know the significance of what was done to you on that evening of your baptism.

First you entered into the antechamber of the baptistery, and standing toward the west you heard, and were bidden to stretch out your hand, and as in His presence you renounced Satan.

Now you must know that this figure is found in ancient history.

For when Pharaoh, that most bitter and savage tyrant, was oppressing the free and noble people of the Hebrews, God sent Moses to bring them out of the wicked bondage of the Egyptians.

And with the blood of a lamb the doorposts were anointed, that the destroyer might pass over the houses that had the sign of the blood; and wondrously was the people of the Hebrews set free.

But when, after they were freed, he pursued them and saw the sea wondrously parted for them, yet he went on, setting foot in their footsteps, and forthwith was drowned, sunk beneath the Red Sea.

Pass over now, I pray, from the old to the new, from the figure to the truth.

There, Moses was sent by God into Egypt; here, Christ is sent by the Father into the world;

there, that he might bring out an afflicted people from Egypt; here, that Christ might rescue those who in the world are oppressed by sin;

there, the blood of a lamb was the averter of the destroyer; here, the blood of the spotless Lamb Jesus Christ is established as a refuge that puts demons to flight.

That tyrant pursued that old people as far as the sea; and you too, this insolent, shameless, evil-originating demon followed even to the very streams of salvation.

That tyrant was sunk in the sea; and this one is made to vanish in the saving water.

Nevertheless you hear yourself bidden, with hand outstretched, to say to him as though present:

'I renounce you, Satan.' I wish also to tell you why you stand facing the west;

Because the west is the region of visible darkness, and he, being darkness, has his dominion also in darkness;

for this cause, looking symbolically toward the west, you renounce that dark and gloomy prince.

What then did each of you say, standing? 'I renounce you, Satan, you the wicked and most savage tyrant;

no longer do I fear your power,' he says.

For Christ destroyed it, having partaken with me of blood and flesh, that through these sufferings He might by death abolish death, that I should not for ever be subject to bondage.

'I renounce you, the crafty and most subtle serpent.'

'I renounce you, who are a plotter, and under pretence of friendship have wrought all iniquity, and have brought apostasy upon our forefathers.'

'I renounce you, Satan, the contriver and accomplice of all wickedness.'

Then in a second clause you are taught to say:

It is every sin, which it is necessary also to renounce, just as one who has escaped a tyrant has surely escaped his weapons too.

Every sin therefore, of whatever kind, is reckoned among the works of the devil.

Only know this, that whatever you say, especially in that most awful hour, is written down in the unseen books of God.

Whenever therefore you are caught doing anything contrary to these, you shall be judged as a transgressor.

You renounce therefore the works of Satan, I mean all deeds and thoughts that are contrary to reason.

'And all his pomp.' Now the pomp of the devil is the madness for the theatre, and the horse-races, and the hunting-shows, and all such vanity, from which the holy man, praying to be delivered, says to God:

'Turn away my eyes that they behold not vanity.'

Let not the madness for the theatre be eagerly sought by you, where are the lewd spectacles of the players, performed with insults and all unseemliness, and the frenzied dances of effeminate men;

nor the madness of those who give themselves over to wild beasts in the hunting-shows, that they may pamper their wretched belly;

who, that they may serve their belly with food, themselves truly become food for the untamed belly of beasts;

and, to speak justly, for their own god the belly's sake, fight in single combat with their own life staked over precipices.

Flee also the horse-races, that frenzied spectacle which casts souls headlong;

for all these are the pomp of the devil.

But also the things that are hung up in idol-temples and at festivals—be it meats, or loaves, or other such things, defiled by the invocation of the abominable demons—may be reckoned in the pomp of the devil.

For just as the bread and wine of the Eucharist, before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity, were simple bread and wine, but when the invocation has been made, the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ;

in like manner such foods of the pomp of Satan, simple in their own nature, become profane by the invocation of the demons.

'And in your service.' Now the service of the devil is prayer in idol-temples;

the things done in honour of lifeless idols;

the lighting of lamps, or the burning of incense beside springs or rivers, as some, deceived by dreams or by demons, have gone over to this, supposing to find healing even for bodily ailments;

augury, divination, omens, or amulets, or inscriptions on plates of metal, or magic arts, or any other such evil practices, and all things of this kind, are the service of the devil.

For if you fall under these after the renunciation of Satan and the joining of yourself to Christ, you shall make trial of a tyrant more bitter; perhaps as one who formerly cherished you as his own, and relaxed his bitter bondage, but now is greatly exasperated by you; and you shall be deprived of Christ, and make trial of the other.

Have you not heard the ancient history that tells us of Lot and his daughters? Was not he himself saved with his daughters, when he had reached the mountain, while his wife became a pillar of salt, set up as a monument for ever, bearing the memorial of her evil purpose and turning back? Take heed therefore to yourself, and turn not back again, putting your hand to the plough, to the salty practice of this life;

but flee to the mountain, to Jesus Christ, the stone cut out without hands, that filled the whole world.

When therefore you renounce Satan, trampling underfoot all covenant with him, you break the old compacts with Hades, and there is opened to you the Paradise of God, which He planted toward the east, whence for his transgression our forefather was banished.

And a symbol of this is your turning from the west to the east, the region of the light.

'I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, and in one baptism of repentance.' Concerning these things it was told you at length in the former Catecheses, as the grace of God allowed.

Securing yourself therefore with these words, be sober.

For our adversary the devil, as was just now read, walks about as a lion, seeking some one to devour.

But in the times before this, death prevailed and devoured;

but at the holy laver of regeneration God has wiped away every tear from every face;

for you mourn no longer, having put off the old man;

but you keep festival, having put on the garment of salvation, even Jesus Christ.

These things took place in the outer chamber.

But, God willing, when in the succeeding mystagogies we enter into the Holy of Holies, there we shall learn the symbols of the things there performed.

Now to God be glory, might, and majesty, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

'Or do you not know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?' down to:

'for you are not under law, but under grace.'

Profitable to you are the daily mystagogies, and the newer instructions, which are the heralds of newer things, and most of all to you, who have been renewed from oldness into newness.

Therefore of necessity I will set before you what follows upon yesterday's mystagogy, that you may learn of what things were symbols those acts done by you in the inner chamber.

As soon, then, as you entered, you put off your tunic;

and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds.

Having put it off, you were naked, imitating in this also Christ, who was stripped naked on the cross, and by His nakedness put off the principalities and the powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree.

For since the hostile powers lurked in your members, you may no longer wear that old tunic—I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which is corrupt through the lusts of deceit.

This robe the soul, once it has put it off, may never put on again; but it may say, with the bride of Christ in the Song of Songs:

"I have put off my garment; how shall I put it on?" O wondrous thing!

You were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed.

For truly you bore the likeness of Adam, the first-formed, who was naked in paradise and was not ashamed.

Then, when you had been stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil from the very crown of your head to your lowest parts, and you became partakers of the good olive tree, Jesus Christ.

For having been cut off from the wild olive tree, you were grafted into the good olive tree, and became partakers of the richness of the true olive.

The exorcised oil, therefore, was a symbol of communion in the richness of Christ, being a means to put to flight every trace of the adversary's working.

For just as the breathings of the saints and the invocation of the name of God, like a most vehement flame, burn and drive out demons, so too this exorcised oil, by the invocation of God and by prayer, receives such great power that it not only burns away and cleanses the traces of sins, but also drives out the invisible powers of the evil one.

After these things you were led by the hand to the holy pool of divine baptism, as Christ was carried from the cross to the tomb that lay before it.

And each of you was asked whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And you confessed the saving confession, and you went down three times into the water and again came up, here too symbolically signifying Christ's three days' burial.

For just as our Saviour spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so you also, in your first rising up, imitated Christ's first day in the earth, and in the going down, the night;

for just as one who is in the night no longer sees, while one who is in the day walks in the light, so in the going down, as in the night, you saw nothing, but in the rising up you found yourselves again as in the day.

And in the same moment you both died and were born, and that saving water became to you both a tomb and a mother.

And what Solomon said concerning other things may well be applied to you:

"A time to be born, and a time to die." But in your case it is the reverse:

a time to die, and a time to be born;

and one and the same moment effected both these things, and your birth came to be coincident with your death.

O strange and paradoxical thing!

We did not truly die, nor were we truly buried, nor were we truly crucified and raised; but the imitation was in an image, while the salvation was in truth.

Christ was truly crucified and truly buried and truly rose again;

and all these things He has graciously granted to us, that, having shared in His sufferings by imitation, we might gain salvation in truth.

O surpassing loving-kindness!

Christ received nails in His undefiled hands and suffered pain, while to me He freely grants salvation through this communion, without pain and without toil.

Let no one, then, suppose that baptism procures only the remission of sins and the grace of adoption, as John's baptism conferred only the remission of sins;

but, knowing accurately, as we do, that just as it is a cleansing of sins and a bestower of the gift of the Holy Spirit, so also it is the antitype of the sufferings of Christ.

For this reason Paul also just now cried out, saying:

"Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism." Perhaps he said these things to some who held that baptism procures the remission of sins and adoption, but does not yet have communion, by imitation, in the true sufferings of Christ.

So that we might learn that all that Christ endured, He suffered for us and for our salvation in truth and not in semblance, and that we become partakers of His sufferings,

Paul cried out with all exactness:

"For if we have become united together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." And well does he say "united together."

For since the true vine has been planted here, we too, by communion in the baptism of His death, have become united together with Him.

Fix your mind with much attention upon the words of the apostle.

He did not say, "If we have become united together with His death," but, "with the likeness of His death."

For in Christ's case the death was true, for His soul was separated from His body, and the burial was true;

for His holy body was wrapped in clean linen, and everything in His case truly came to pass.

But in our case there is a likeness of death and of sufferings,

yet of salvation not a likeness, but a reality.

Having been sufficiently taught these things, hold them fast in your memory, I beseech you, that I too, unworthy as I am, may say of you:

"I love you, because you always remember me, and hold fast the traditions which I delivered to you." And God is able, who presented you as alive from the dead, to grant you to walk in newness of life;

for to Him be the glory and the might, now and unto the ages.

And a reading from the First Epistle of John, from the place:

"And you have an anointing from God, and you know all things," up to:

"and may not be ashamed before Him at His coming."

Baptized into Christ and having put on Christ, you have been made conformed to the Son of God.

For God, having predestined us unto adoption, made us conformed to the body of the glory of Christ.

Having therefore become partakers of Christ, you are with good reason called "christs" (anointed ones), and concerning you God said:

"Touch not My anointed ones." And you have become anointed ones, having received the antitype of the Holy Spirit; and all things have come to pass in you by way of image, since you are images of Christ.

And He, having bathed in the river Jordan and having imparted of the fragrance of His Godhead to the waters, came up from them, and there came upon Him an essential descent of the Holy Spirit, like resting upon like.

And to you likewise, when you came up from the pool of the sacred streams, there was given an anointing, the antitype of that with which Christ was anointed.

And this is the Holy Spirit, concerning whom the blessed Isaiah also, in the prophecy that bears his name, said in the person of the Lord:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me."

He was anointed—but the Father, having appointed Him Saviour of the whole world, anointed Him with the Holy Spirit, as Peter says:

"Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit." And David the prophet cried out, saying:

"Your throne, O God, is unto the ages of ages;

a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of Your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows." And just as Christ was truly crucified and buried and raised, while you in baptism are counted worthy to be crucified, buried, and raised together with Him in a likeness, so also is it in the case of the chrism.

He was anointed with the spiritual oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit, called the oil of gladness because He is the cause of spiritual gladness;

but you were anointed with ointment (chrism), having become fellows and partakers of Christ.

But take heed not to suppose that ointment to be a mere ordinary thing.

For just as the bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is no longer ordinary bread but the body of Christ, so too this holy ointment is no longer ordinary, nor, as one might say, common, after the invocation, but it becomes the gift of Christ and, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, effectual of His Godhead.

And this is anointed symbolically upon your forehead and your other senses.

And with the visible ointment the body is anointed, while by the holy and life-giving Spirit the soul is sanctified.

And first you are anointed on the forehead, that you may be delivered from the shame which the first transgressor, man, carried about everywhere, and that with unveiled face you may behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.

Then on the ears, that you may receive ears concerning which Isaiah said:

"And the Lord added to me an ear to hear." And the Lord in the Gospels:

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Then on the sense of smell, that, receiving the divine ointment, you may say:

"We are the fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved." After these, on the breast, that, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, you may stand against the wiles of the devil. For just as the Saviour, after His baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit, went forth and overcame the adversary, so you too, after the sacred baptism and the mystical chrism, having put on the full armour of the Holy Spirit, may stand against the working of the adversary and overcome it, saying:

"I can do all things in Christ who empowers me." Having been counted worthy of this holy chrism, you are called Christians, verifying the name also by your regeneration.

For before you were counted worthy of baptism and of the grace of the Holy Spirit, you were not properly worthy of it, but were advancing on the way toward being Christians.

It is necessary that you should know that the symbol of this chrism is laid down in the old Scripture.

For when Moses imparted to his brother the command of God, appointing him high priest, after he had washed in water, he anointed him; and he was called "christ" (anointed) from the typical anointing.

So too, when the high priest advanced Solomon to be king, he anointed him after he had washed in Gihon.

But these things befell them in a figure, whereas to you it is not in a figure but in truth, since from the One truly anointed with the Holy Spirit comes the beginning of your salvation;

for He is truly the firstfruits, and you are the lump;

and if the firstfruits is holy, clearly the holiness will pass over to the lump.

for this will be instructive of all things, if it abides in you, even as you just now heard the blessed John saying and discoursing much concerning the chrism.

For this holy, spiritual thing is a safeguard of the body and a salvation of the soul.

Of this the blessed Isaiah, prophesying from ancient times, said:

"And the Lord shall make for all the nations upon this mountain"—and by "mountain" he calls the Church—and elsewhere, when he says:

concerning this ointment, as mystical, he says:

"Deliver all these things to the nations;

for the counsel of the Lord is upon all the nations."

Having therefore been anointed with this holy ointment, keep it unstained and blameless in you, advancing by good works and becoming well-pleasing to the Author of our salvation, Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory unto the ages of the ages.

"For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you," and what follows.

And this teaching of the blessed Paul is sufficient to give you full assurance concerning the divine mysteries of which you have been counted worthy, having become of one body and one blood with Christ.

For he himself just now cried out: "That in the night in which our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, He took bread, and having given thanks, He broke it and gave it to His own disciples, saying:

Take, eat; this is My body."

"And having taken the cup and given thanks, He said:

Take, drink; this is My blood." Since, therefore, He Himself has declared and said concerning the bread:

"This is My body," who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He Himself affirmed and said:

"This is My blood," who shall ever waver, saying it is not His blood?

Once, by His own will, He changed water into wine at Cana of Galilee; and is He not worthy of belief when He changes wine into blood? Having been invited to a bodily wedding, He worked this marvel; and shall it not much rather be confessed that to the sons of the bridechamber He has granted the enjoyment of His body and blood? Therefore with all assurance let us partake of the body and blood of Christ as such.

For in the figure of bread the body is given to you, and in the figure of wine the blood is given to you, that, having partaken of the body and blood of Christ, you may become of one body and one blood with Christ.

For thus we also become Christ-bearers, His body and blood being distributed into our members.

Thus, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.

Once Christ, conversing with the Jews, said:

"Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in yourselves." They, not hearing the things spoken in a spiritual sense, were offended and went back, supposing that the Saviour was urging them to eat flesh.

There were also in the Old Covenant loaves of the Presence (showbread);

but those, belonging to the Old Covenant, have come to an end.

But in the New Covenant there is heavenly bread and a cup of salvation, sanctifying soul and body.

For just as bread is suited to the body, so too the Word (Logos) is fitting to the soul.

Do not, then, regard the bread and the wine as mere ordinary things;

for they are body and blood according to the declaration of the Master.

For even if sense suggests this to you, yet let faith establish you.

Do not judge the matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith without wavering, having been counted worthy of the body and blood of Christ.

And the blessed David suggests to you the power, saying:

"You have prepared a table before me in the presence of those who afflict me." What he means is this:

Before Your coming, the demons used to prepare for men a table, defiled and polluted, and filled with diabolical power;

but after Your coming, O Master, You have prepared a table before me.

"You have prepared a table before me"—what else does this signify but the mystical and spiritual table which God has prepared for us "over against," that is, in opposition, set in contrast to the demons? And with very good reason;

for that one had communion with demons, but this has communion with God.

"You have anointed my head with oil." With oil He anointed your head upon the forehead, because of the seal which you have of God, that you may become an imprint of the seal, a sanctification of God.

"And Your cup that inebriates me, how excellent it is!" You see here a cup mentioned, which Jesus took into His hands and, having given thanks, said:

...remission of sins. For this reason Solomon also, hinting at this grace in Ecclesiastes, says:

"Come, eat your bread with joy"—the spiritual bread;

he calls it the saving and blessedness-bestowing calling;

"and drink your wine with a good heart"—the spiritual wine—"and let oil be poured over your head." Do you see him also hinting at the mystical chrism? "And let your garments be always white, for the Lord has been well pleased with your works." Now the Lord has been well pleased with your works.

For before you came to grace, your works were "vanity of vanities."

But now, having put off the old garments and put on those that are spiritually white, you ought to be clothed in white continually.

We by no means say this, that you must always be clothed in white garments, but that you must be clothed in those things that are truly white and bright and spiritual, so that you may say, according to the blessed Isaiah:

"Let my soul rejoice in the Lord;

for He has clothed me with a garment of salvation, and put around me a robe of gladness." Having learned these things and been fully assured that the visible bread is not bread, even though it is such to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the visible wine is not wine, even though the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ, and that concerning this David of old sang, saying:

"And bread strengthens the heart of man, to make his face cheerful with oil." Strengthen your heart, partaking of it as spiritual, and make the face of your soul cheerful.

And may it be granted you, having an unveiled face in a pure conscience, beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, to go from glory to glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory unto the ages of the ages.

FIFTH MYSTAGOGICAL CATECHESIS. And a reading from Peter's catholic epistle:

"Therefore, putting away all malice and guile and evil speaking," and what follows.

By the loving-kindness of God, in the foregoing assemblies you have heard sufficiently concerning baptism, and chrism, and the partaking of the body and blood of Christ.

But now it is necessary to pass on to what follows, today setting the crown upon the spiritual edifice of your benefit.

You saw, then, the deacon giving water for washing to the priest and to the presbyters who stood around the altar of God.

Now he by no means gave it on account of bodily filth;

for we did not enter the church at the beginning having filth of body.

But the washing is a symbol of our need to be cleansed from all sins and transgressions.

For since the hands are a symbol of action, by washing them we plainly signify the purity and blamelessness of our actions.

Did you not hear the blessed David initiating you into this very mystery, saying:

"I will wash my hands in innocence, and I will go about Your altar, O Lord"? Therefore the washing of the hands signifies being unaccountable for sins.

"Receive one another, and let us greet one another." Do not suppose that kiss to be such as is customary among common friends in the marketplace;

it is not such, but this kiss blends the souls together with one another, and pledges to them all forgetfulness of wrongs.

The kiss, therefore, is a sign of the blending together of souls and of banishing all remembrance of wrongs.

For this reason Christ said: