Paschal Song 3

The Lord, the First, deigning to be present at the wedding-feast, gave proofs of His power, and as a guest present coming to feed, not to be fed — O marvel! — He turned the poured waters into wine: the liquids rejoice to lose their pallor, the glad wave changed its flavour, lavishing pure wine, and throughout all the tables the sweet cups blushed red with a vintage not born of any grape. Christ therefore filled the six vats with this nectar: for fruitful was He, the vine that by cultivating power makes all things fructify, beneath whose gentle shade the mild tendril nourishes unfailing clusters. Afterward a certain ruler, with his son dying, weeping and suppliant entreated the Lord to come visit the boy sick, labouring with fever, and to forbid the trembling soul to slip from its seat.

Then the bountiful Power — which denies the believer nothing nor delays His gifts — attending the swift faith, granting health with an easy word, said: 'Go, your son already lives.' How great is the command that Christ's bidding bears! He did not say 'he shall live,' but 'because he already lives,' after the manner of God, who, seeing all things before they are born, discerns as past whatever He wills to be future. Thence advancing with health-bringing steps, traversing cities, towns, countrysides, cottages, villages, fortresses, He healed all bodies with their diseases driven off. But behold, from the throng of the crowd's midst a leper, crying out, begged for help, wretched through his various limbs more by their whiteness: 'If you will, Lord,' he said, 'you can cleanse me from these blemishes.'

As Christ said 'I will,' at once one continuous skin returns, and the glad limbs changed their alien form by their own proper beauty, and that man was scarcely recognized any more in his own colour. By chance the breathless fever was scorching Peter's mother-in-law with the heat of a mighty torch, and, hanging on the doubtful brink of death, her wounded life burned beneath chill perils, and immense heat seethed with a deadly chill. But after the hand of the Lord touched her wearied limbs, the fiery burning departed, and the violence of the lurking flame, quenched in all her marrow, fell at the fount of hidden water. Moreover He drove off the raging furies of the black spirits, lest their dread blast tear men with its wicked plague and harass the honour of God's work — which it knew was not of God;

and everywhere, as the merciful One, He restored countless throngs to health, the languor driven off, and relieved the peoples from manifold ruin. Thence seeking the sea, He pressed the dry seaweed with His steps, and mounting the timbers of a small skiff He entered the waters of the deep; and the disciples, following the Lord, balanced their sails over the calm sea. Now far from land the vessel had been, and, driven by the breezes, the untroubled stern was furrowing the midst of the deep, when suddenly a fierce storm rises and the sea is whirled with squalls, and the salt shallows shake the trembling keel. Terror had stricken their spirits, and they thought they were already stretching out shipwrecked arms toward the rocks of the shore.

But He Himself was taking placid sleep in His breast, watchful in His majesty, since He slumbers not for ever who governs Israel, nor shall He sleep at all. So when, sleep dispelled, all weeping with one voice together cried 'Have mercy swiftly, have mercy, we perish; succour us with holy aid,' the Lord, delaying their prayers not at all, rising up commands the mighty winds to grow gentle, and swifter than the word He calms the swollen seas. That was not the warlike daring of the fierce deep that forced the swelling waves to rise against the Lord, nor did dreadful blasts drive on their savage forces: but the glad sea, leaping up to Christ, compelled its lowest depth to seethe in obedience, and the winds' joys moved their eager wings in swift flight.

Meanwhile, carried across the calm marble of the sea, He had left the boat and was traversing the midst of the fields with His steps, when from afar, rushing from the tombs with twin shrieking, two men leapt forth, whom not an evil with few demons but a fierce legion vexed, and who, bearing savage bonds on their chained arms with bloody binding, a twofold punishment also tormented. Alas, the harsh condition of frenzy! He who suffers violence is the more bound. Then, trembling at the Lord's precepts that bade him go out, the unhappy spirit dares not approach the man, who reflects the image which it sees Christ to bear: but the swine, rejoicing in unclean filth, ever friendly to squalor and accustomed to live in fetid mire, they begged for according to their own deserts, and the gloomy phalanxes took possession of the herd of pigs:

black, bristly, horrid — such a guest deserved indeed to have such a home. Hence, the Lord borne by the sea to other shores, He entered His native soil, where He willed to be born in body, and the Father Himself consecrated it to Him as a fatherland. Behold, there were men carrying a living yet now corpse, four men with double neck, and one lying on a bed scarcely a man, whose abiding life, without the body's use, was an image of death, and his loosened limbs lay deserted by their functions, and through his flowing limbs the slack bonds hung down with relaxed sinews. When the Lord beheld him destitute of the strength of his powers, He first cleansed him of his sins taken away — sins which beget increase for the evil and for the wretched one lying there: 'Arise,' He says, 'and lift your own pallet to your shoulders, and depart into your house.'

Delaying not at all the commands, he to whom health had been granted, leaving the footprints of others, at last rejoices to go on his own soles, and carried back his own bearer with welcome recompense. Meanwhile the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, the day being closed, dying had lost the upper airs of life. But the father, from whom a devouring end had stolen the hope of his grown offspring, weeping and groaning, fell down before the holy feet of the Lord, scarcely able to utter words of prayer, the sobs shaking him, saying: 'Have mercy on a bereaved parent, have mercy on an old man — just now my daughter, my only one, not yet ripe under virgin years, has died and taken from me, wretched, the name of father. Bring aid and pour back through her limbs the slipped soul, you who can grant all things.' Thus He spoke:

and the Author of Light moved His step toward the funeral of the dead girl, scarcely advancing as the people thronged Him, and mingled with the crowds went a woman who had endured a flooding flow of blood, who had wasted great wealth that she might be healthier, and, her household exhausted with no profit from any remedy, had lost her own substance together with her blood. But when, in the now-sound breast of the believer, rich faith began to be present, plunged into the midst of the throngs she strives to touch even the thread of Christ as He turned away. Hiding behind, she stole the sudden healing, snatched it from the hem of His garment, and her bold confidence condemned the gaping veins to dry flows. God had perceived this, from whose fount ran that which His secret power gave, and He praises the faithful theft, and grants His own desires to the noble robbery.

They had come to the mourning rooftops of the sorrowful house and the weeping home, where the dying maiden lay, allotted her last day, and a trembling tumult, wailing all things with bitter lamentations, filled the place, and the flute-players bemoaned funeral measures with tearful song, and frequent beating of breasts confounded the dwelling. 'Lay aside the griefs conceived in your anxious mind; this is sleep,' the Saviour says, 'and believe not that death is here, nor mourn for the girl laid in slumber.' He had spoken, and the spirit warms with its fire the body bound in chill death, and by His word He raises the unmoving corpse and grants her, once born, to live twice. They were astonished in their minds, and the parents behold unhoped-for prayers fulfilled, and in changed measures lament amid joys.

Thence retracing His step, behold He sees two blinded men following and crying: 'Renowned son of David, shake off the nightly shadows from our extinguished faces and bestow the bright day.' How safe it is to believe, how sound to have known God! Already in heart they saw, who had perceived the way of light; then the blind eyes of the petitioners, like a torpid fire fed with poured-out olive oil, gleamed beneath the Lord's hand, and at His serene touch their restored faces shone with their own lamps. These thus dismissed, another sick man is brought forth, wretched with manifold infirmity, who, abandoned as to voice, empty of hearing, was full of a demon alone throughout his empty limbs. Him at once, in sacred order, God cured by turning the causes into their contraries, emptying him of the demon and restoring him in hearing and voice.

Nor meanwhile less does He bid His own disciples be able to do all things, filling them at once with full powers: 'Go,' He says, 'and shut out the grievous plagues of diseases, but to the house of Israel' (since not yet had He enlarged this name to all nations), 'proclaim the kingdom of the heavens, take away the place of demons, drive off leprosy, and recall to life the corpses bereft of withdrawn life. Freely you have received; freely bestow on all.' And as though saying this: I commit to you, indeed, as ministers, the flocks to be guarded; I, in short, am the good shepherd, and I lavish my own fields for their feeding: let no one sell to my sheep that which is my pasture. These things therefore the Almighty first uttered into apostolic ears, that from these masters — He being now the Author — the flowing doctrine might run down into the remaining age:

even as from one fount of paradise four mighty rivers are read to proceed in their courses, from which streams are scattered into the whole world. For whoever takes up the work of deity — which he has not of himself but performs as the Lord delivers it — under a pure name, let him dispense it with a pure gift, that he may be reckoned a dispenser and not a trafficker, and may sing of the life to come in David's measures: 'I will enter into the Lord's rest, for I know no merchandise.' Thereupon, entering the conspicuous hall of the synagogue, He beholds a feeble man, maimed in a halved body, half-dead in his limbs, not wholly alive, whose withered right hand had condemned his torpid part;

and healing by His command, He bade the chill palm grow warm again and be brought back to health in divine fashion — as He always works, taking nothing away and restoring all. Behold, restoring his old arts again, that slippery serpent is present, the water-snake who, livid with the gall of black venom, rejoices to grow fat on human gore, and what he had so often scattered through one sick man after another, advancing into the bowels of a single one he poured out: from whom he took voice and light, and, holding the limbs wounded with threefold madness, he shook the man, both mute and blind. Then the Lord of the world, our light and the Word of the Father, the filth cast out, made new his eyes and mouth: and words arise through the Word, light through the Light.

There had come also a woman bound by an ancient disease — not by old age — trembling, groaning, bent, with downcast face and, stooping, gazing only on the bare earth. She, the Lord having mercy, after eight and ten continual harvests lifts up her limbs, and at last beholds heaven and the stars and recalls the burning orb of the sun, seeing all things upright: for those whom the evil enemy oppresses seek the depths, while those whom Christ nourishes rise again without stain. And when thereafter He saw the people follow Him into the deserts, that, like typical Moses and the true prophet, He might see them feel the ancient hunger, by greater deeds He displayed the ancient aid: then with much winged fowl He gave rich meat, and now augmented it with twin fishes;

sufficient manna then rained down, now with five loaves He gave abundant sustenance for five thousand men. The rest of the multitude lies hidden, and is shut in by no number — the vast legion of little ones, or the vast number of mothers. And what you may wonder at the more, the fragments taken away filled twelve baskets, and the supply, increased while the peoples devoured, that returns from all is not the supply given to the tables. And now, the warm sea beneath its blue draining the aging day with its ocean, when the pallor of night drew near and the evening-star ushered in the star-bearing shadows, the disciples, their master alone remaining on land, sought the billowy sea, and with the swelling flood the grim waters tossed the labouring ship; for the wind was against them.

Then in the time of the dim night the Lord walks above the trodden waves and treads the fields of the vast strait, and the encircling waters with their grey flowings lapped His sacred soles. The astonished company marvels that navigable ways had opened beneath a footpath: but Peter, taught to hold the friendly faith and ever to acknowledge Christ, descends into the midst of the waters, whom the right hand of the Lord lifted up as he slipped, having suffered nothing in so great a flood: to whom that hand was a harbour, and a wayfarer of the sea he moved free footsteps through the glassy plains. Thence, the Lord alone coming to the land of Gennesaret, the dwellers drew their sick, that the fringe, even scarcely touched, of God might heal their bitter diseases: and as many as touched it felt continual healing.

How precious was that garment, never sold, which by the gift of a modest hem redeemed all! Thence, as He sought the parts of Tyre and the fields of Sidon, a Canaanite woman, anxious for the affliction of her daughter, whom a spirit was vexing with black goads, entreated Him, confessing herself equal to the dogs which after their sagacious manner ever recline at the threshold of the fragrant table, wont to lick the overflowing crumbs of their masters. Humble was her voice, but lofty her faith, which, her daughter saved, made of a dog a sheep, and compelled one sprung among the brambles of the gentiles to feed from the grass of the Hebrew field.

Thence, ascending the high ridges of a mountain with the people following, thousands of the blind, thousands of the lame everywhere, and lepers together with the peoples, and deaf throngs, and feeble hands, and whatever of the weak among the crowd had come, He sets right by their motions into their former use, and adjusts the recalled organs to their own sinews. And while, healing, He revived the sick and troubled multitude by His power, the third day was at hand, and on the barren turf so great a crowd had touched no food, and excessive toils, the hunger doubling, would have nourished it, if the wounded throng, fasting from food, should return along the immense road.

Moved by which tenderness, God — who is ever the bread present to the needy and brings sustenance to places without crops — fed the enormous host of men with a few little fishes and seven loaves, and besides the weaker of the second sex and of age He satisfied there four thousand of those who ate. That you may marvel the more, learn also that the feast was increased: He nourished the crowd by their eating, and the worn-down food grew under their bites. And its leftovers, the heaped tops of seven baskets, fleeing hunger dreaded, when, the fragment taken up, it saw an abundant harvest from a modest seed.

Yet, although Christ bore mortal limbs in a human body, from His mother's coming-forth, it was not hidden that He was God, since a city set on a mountain is never concealed, nor is a burning lamp put under a bushel, but, scattering its panting fire on high, it leads light to all: for, radiant before great witnesses, His three disciples, with vast brilliance like the fiery burning of the sun, His face, turned by splendour into an ethereal form, had outshone the day, and to those beholding the very garment, the white form of snow shone forth from the Lord's covering. O sublime merit of the three, to whom it befell to see in the world the things not believed by the world! What of this, that they saw both Elias and renowned Moses? Unknown to their eyes, they beheld them with the light of the heart, that our faith might be the greater:

that this is throughout the world the Beginning and the End, that this One is seen as Alpha, this One as Omega. Around Him in the midst such prophets shone, the one yet living, the other standing on the boundary of life. And with a starry sound, saying 'This is my Son,' the Father's voice by His word displayed Christ as begotten. After His power, returned through His bodily limbs, veiled with the covering of flesh the adored form, and the Lord gave Himself openly to the peoples: behold, suddenly a humble man, his eyes cast down with mournful face, comes forth and as a suppliant stretches out his hands and arms and entreats with groaning: 'One son, Lord, I have, one only; whom a spirit lacerates with dreadful wrath, nor leaves him, unless it plunge him in waters or oppress him with black fires, and it wearies his soul under doubtful death.'

'This one, I pray, having mercy, with the frenzy expelled, give back to me, or give back to himself, lest the blind power drive out his trembling life with the light withdrawn.' He had spoken, and embracing the knees and rolling at the knees he clung; and the Lord with pious heart had already assented to his prayers. Then the raging robber and harmful enemy, by whom another's workmanship had long been possessed, compelled to depart from the invaded house, is roused to kindled wrath, and strives to tear the seized limbs, and labouring in vain as the Lord forbids, fled into the dark shadows, the boy living. The King even of kings alone and Lord of lords, not disdaining to pay the Caesarean tribute while Peter fished, bids him bring from the depth of the mid-sea a hook bearing a golden double-drachma.

Soon a dweller of the sea bit the hanging line, bearing the commanded tribute, and, the metal weighing the heavier, the cheap dignity of the fish hung at a greater price. And when His disciples questioned Him as to who in the hall of the heavenly kingdom could be reckoned greater: as God and wondrous teacher, He said: 'Higher than all is the humble, and more powerful than all shall he go who shall be subject to all and shall bear himself the lesser, with bowed neck, even as this little one is seen' (and He shows a small boy standing by); 'namely, He bids that we follow the disposition of tender age, not in years but in mind, since the softer age loves nothing of worldly pomp, courts not honour, nor swells supine: thus the path of pure life, as far as it stoops to the ground, so far does it become nearest to heaven.'

For the mind, sinking down, seeks the height, and what is lofty sinks down, and the lower the step by which it wills to descend, the more it rises. Behold, the Lord lifts the needy and humble from the dunghill and makes him sit among illustrious princes: but on the contrary He has bidden the proud, rebellious with warlike mind, go headlong from heaven beneath Tartarus. Small things do I speak if I run through God's deeds one by one and recount the special good, since the general is so great.