復活節講道集 第 1 章 第 11/28 段

Yet besides this, let us know very well also this: that the labor of the flesh is not sufficient for the sanctification of our souls, nor would the matter of abstinence from food suffice for some as a display of virtue,

unless it be joined in some manner with purity in works and gravity of life, running together with the boast of fasting.

For I think it necessary — or rather, I say it is among the most necessary things — to devote oneself perfectly and wholly to the service rendered to Christ;

to be carried on a steep and difficult course, and to end up senselessly in that which pleases the devil.

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. Therefore one must reject him who is not truly a master, I mean Satan, so that we may love the Lord who truly and really is.

But what the manner of our love should be, he himself will illuminate through himself, the Lord saying:

'He who loves me keeps my commandments.' Now those who are genuine keepers of the Savior's commandment possess a piety that needs no scrutiny;

and not enduring the rapacity of the devil, they shake off the yoke of sin, and look toward a state of freedom;

subduing every strange and abominable pleasure;

and mortifying the desires of the flesh with labors that come from ascetic discipline.

And you will hear Paul himself crying out this:

'For those who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.' Therefore — for I will say something again, taking it from Paul — 'if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,' putting to death the members that are upon the earth, that is, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness;

and rather presenting themselves as a fragrant aroma, according to what is written, and dedicating their own life as a kind of spiritual sacrifice to the God who loves virtue.

For the fruit of good labors will surely be glorious.

For let no one among us suppose that he will accomplish the good without a struggle, and, having come to no experience of toil, will boast his triumph over sin.

And as a clear and unambiguous proof of what has been said, we shall take up the things done and written in Exodus, this being a Mosaic book.

For God made visible things to be, as it were, images and most vivid types of the less visible things, and whoever should observe what happened to the ancients, if he sets these forth for himself as proof of hidden and intelligible things, would not miss the mark of what is fitting.

And indeed the divinely-inspired Paul agrees with us in these words concerning these matters, crying out in this manner, and saying concerning the ancients:

'Now these things happened to them as types, and they were written for our admonition.' It is possible, then, from ancient history, as though finely delineated on a tablet, to see depicted both the rapacity which the devil, who readily dares all things, has exercised against us, and that he sharply confronts those who advance toward a free state and readiness, not allowing them to run out beyond the boundaries of sin;

but rather compelling them to linger within it, and commanding that reverence toward God not be fulfilled in its entirety;

and if indeed one should choose to think rightly.

What, then, is the meaning of this history? It is time, as it seems, to say.

Israel was once robbed of the honor and glory of its ancient freedom;

for the most cruel tyrant of the Egyptians laid upon them the harsh yoke of slavery, and, not relenting from their labors, oppressed the Jews with clay and brick-making.

But as God had mercy, seeing them already worn down and being consumed by the ruler's inhumanity, and intended to restore them to that freedom from above and most ancient, he commanded the all-wise Moses to say, when he went to the tyrant of the Egyptians:

'Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews:'

to cease henceforth from the impurity of earthly works, so that, going forth entirely as it were out of the land of him who had oppressed them, having their mind now become free and released as if into the wilderness, they might approach, pure in purity, the service rendered to God.

Now the divinely-inspired and truly great Moses commanded these things, and called Israel toward the most pure wilderness.

But Pharaoh armed himself recklessly against him, and insolently defied the divine glory, saying:

'I do not know the Lord, and I will not send Israel away.' But when he was overcome by the plagues from above, his whole land being in danger, he already sank down into an unwilling understanding; then he devised various means of hindrance for them, and, not releasing the yoke of slavery entirely, tried to prevent them in another way, saying:

'Go, sacrifice to the Lord your God in my land.' You see how, even if the law of God draws them somewhat out of sin, Satan rises up in opposition, acting against it,

Since our Savior Jesus Christ contends on behalf of the life of all, he unwillingly reins in his rapacity, having no free course to tyrannize over those whom he would wish.

But still he does not permit us to go entirely outside of his own land;

But it is impossible for the manner of our service to be blameless, unless, as though having run out entirely from the land of the devil, we should be found wholly without part in servitude under him.

And that this statement is true, I shall establish with full assurance from the very words of the all-wise Moses.

For what did he say to Pharaoh, who said, 'Go, sacrifice to the Lord your God in my land'? He cried out that it was not possible for it to be so:

'For no one can serve two masters,' as I have already said;

and it is among the most unseemly things at once to be seen as a craftsman of baseness and of the things that lead to virtue, and to apportion equal zeal to things so utterly distinguished from one another — so that the mind, when sick, sometimes grows soft toward what is devoted to the devil, but again grows strong toward what is pleasing to God, thereby calling down upon itself, as it were, a most just condemnation.

which would happen to us, and very easily so, if we should wish to follow the ancient types.

You will see, then, that those of Israel, having chosen that they must cast off that most dishonorable slavery, and overpower the hand of those who had long oppressed them, were not able to accomplish any of these things unless they had sacrificed the lamb in Egypt as a type of Christ, and had been anointed with its blood, and had eaten unleavened bread over it.

For neither could one escape in any other way the unbearable onslaughts arising from earthly passions, unless through participation in Christ, who is able to dissolve the power [of Pharaoh], that is, of Satan.

For being immutable by nature, and not knowing the experience of being thrust down toward sin, he ineffably mingled himself with that nature which is very easily thrust down toward anything base whatsoever, I mean the human nature;

...the mind, and that the passions of the flesh may be chastised, having been utterly put to death by the power of him who dwelt in it, that is, of God the Word.

And indeed Paul writes, saying:

'For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.' Sin, then, has been condemned, having first been put to death in Christ, and about to be put to death also in us, whenever we install him in our own souls through faith and participation in the Spirit, who renders us conformed to Christ, evidently through the quality that is in sanctification.

For his Spirit is, as it were, a certain form of our Savior Christ, impressing upon us in a certain manner, through itself, our divine likeness.

Wherefore also he is even named the same as he in the divinely-inspired Scriptures, not being other than him, insofar as identity of essence and divinely-befitting activity are concerned.

And indeed, when our Savior himself says:

'I am the truth' — John writes that 'the Spirit is the truth'; and again Paul, who was reared in the sacred Scriptures:

'Now the Lord is the Spirit;'

'and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.' Do you hear how the mystagogue has skillfully preserved, for both the Son and the Holy Spirit, both the identity in essence and yet the being understood distinctly — I mean with respect to their subsistence — that which each is said to be, and truly is?

For the Spirit would reasonably be understood as Spirit, and not as Son, but rather as the Spirit of the Son, forming and reshaping into his likeness those in whom he comes to dwell by participation, so that God the Father, seeing in us the features of his own offspring shining forth distinctly, might henceforth love us as children, and might illumine us with honors that transcend the world.

And this again would become a most manifest proof: that which was of old divinely decreed through the all-wise Moses.

For what did he say to him? 'Sanctify to me every firstborn, the first-issue that opens the womb.' In saying 'Sanctify,' he meant instead, 'Register and dedicate as sacred and owed to God.'

What, then, did Moses set forth? And what did he speak to the sons of Israel? 'And it shall be,' he says, 'when the Lord your God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you,'

'you shall set apart to the Lord all that opens the womb, the males.' He commands that every firstborn that opens the womb be sanctified.

For all are holy in whom the image of the holy and firstborn one — I mean Christ — shines forth resplendently.

Having taken beforehand the bodily likeness as a type of an intelligible matter, and of the conformity understood in the Spirit, the law showed the pre-eternal will of God and Father.

'For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son; and those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also sanctified;'

'and those whom he sanctified, he also glorified.' But come, let us again, refining as best we can the sense of this consideration, examine it more precisely;

what sort of form one might reasonably attribute to Christ, and one would not thereby go astray from the fitting aim.

But it is beyond dispute that that supramundane beauty, which might perhaps be conceived as belonging to that very essence which surpasses all things — I mean the divine essence, which is beyond mind —

the transformation comes about in us by the power that operates according to virtue, and the reshaping in sanctification, that power referring everything whatsoever to what is pleasing to God, and driving out all the weakness of our understanding, and, as it were, re-forging it into a mind now secure and unassailable.

For I myself think it is especially for this reason that God, the giver of the law, did not simply say to sanctify every firstborn, but added that it should be the males that are fitting.

For this very reason the female is unconsecrated, and is not sanctified even though it be firstborn; but if it does not yet seem fitting to say so, I will say it again, since occasion and need now call for it.

As though it were a certain part of the form conceived within the divine and incomprehensible nature, we shall contemplate the manly and vigorous quality present in all things, fixing upon it the eye of the mind.

For such, in a way, is the nature of the Godhead: yielding to none of the things that exist, but rather prevailing, and in every respect acting the part of a man toward that which is called into being, and exceedingly vigorous, and, as one cannot even express, most robust in the accomplishment of its own works.

Fittingly, then, he who in respect of all good things is, as it were, of manly mind and vigorous, might reasonably be reckoned conformed to Christ;

but not so he who has, so to speak, a feminine mind, soft and easily overcome.

I will again set before you an image of the matter from the writing of Moses.

He said, then, that the tyrant of the Egyptians, who in the divine Scripture stands as a type of the devil, armed himself against the travail of the Hebrews, and, warring even against those still in the womb, decreed that the newborn be destroyed at once, even as they were just coming to the experience of light.

And the decree of his cruelty was framed with the skill befitting him.

For the murderous man decreed that the female should be kept alive, but that the male must be drowned in waters and marshes.

To what, then, does this observation point for us? And what will the more discerning be given to understand from it? For pleasing to the devil are soft, unmanly, and effeminate dispositions;

wherefore he also allows the female to grow up, the evil one never expecting ever to be overreached by them.

But he considers the male, hard of mind, to be most hostile and most resistant to being conquered;

and knowing that if this male is nurtured on the words of truth and grows up to the measure of the stature that is in Christ, he will become, according to Paul, a perfect man, no longer vulnerable to capture from any quarter -- for this reason he takes him away before he reaches maturity.

For as to the male seed that springs forth from her womb -- what, then, does this signify from here on? That everything precious in God's sight is abominable in his.

And the converse will certainly also hold true:

for that which is utterly loathed by the devil is among the things held necessary by God;

gaining for itself, as it were, the best possible verdict -- namely, being hated by the devil -- together with its other good order.

And that this too is true, it is no difficult matter for me to show you from the sacred Scriptures themselves.

Thus, in the book called Numbers (for so one of the books of Moses is named), right at the very beginning, God said somewhere to Moses himself, the hierophant, and to Aaron:

Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel (calling the reckoning, that is, the numbering, a sum), by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, head by head;

every male from twenty years old and upward, everyone who goes out in the army of Israel -- number them. Observe how he commands that the male be registered, indeed the multitude already come of age and, as it were, now bursting with vigor;

From twenty years old, he says, and upward. But he takes no account whatsoever of the female, nor of the age of mere boyhood.

For a mind that is weak and immature in understanding is cast aside in God's sight.

But that which is manly together with prudent is most well known, and is inscribed in the book of life, inasmuch as it is sufficiently equipped already to withstand the devil's machinations.

For understanding, yoked together with a vigorous disposition, is sufficient for accomplishing whatever is fitting for those who live piously.

(...the aim of the discourse) the Spirit renders us conformed to Christ;

and through virtue exercised in action, the divine features surely shine forth brightly in us.

But for those who are not such, the opposite will come to pass.

And I will make the force of the argument perfectly clear.

For in the very manner that the male was taken as a type of courage -- courage, I mean, that which is conceived according to God, which also renders us conformed to Christ -- by this same reasoning, the figure of the female is introduced as a type of softness and of a weak disposition, one that collapses and falls very easily into pleasures.

And indeed the divine Scripture fashions both sin itself and the workers of sin in the form of the female.

For in the way that we say those who love him are conformed to Christ;

so also the most unlovely form of sin is engraved upon the souls of those who love sin.

And I will again adduce the blessed prophet Zechariah, who is able to expound this very thing most clearly to those who listen.

And the angel who spoke with me went out, and said to me:

Lift up your eyes, and see this thing that is going forth.

This is the measure that is going forth;

this is their iniquity in all the earth.

And behold, a talent of lead was lifted up;

And behold, a woman was sitting in the midst of the measure;

and he cast her into the middle of the measure, and cast the lead weight upon its mouth.

And I lifted up my eyes, and saw:

and behold, two women were coming forth, with wind in their wings;

and they had wings like the wings of a hoopoe;

and they lifted up the measure between the earth and the heaven. You hear how lawlessness appears to the prophet in the form of a woman;

and the souls that undertake to lift it up on high share equally in the very ugliness inherent in it.

For these too are seen as women.

But the prophetic word has affirmed to us that wings of a hoopoe were fixed upon them, so that by this it might display the readiness for uncleanness and the proneness to love of the flesh found in unholy souls.

For that bird -- I mean the hoopoe -- is unclean, being especially voracious for worms and the refuse from the belly.

And every soul that loves sin and loves pleasure is seen to be of just such a kind.

For the pure mind is nourished on the words of truth,

and by truth is meant Christ.

But the earthly mind, one that loves the mire, seeing the desires for each vile thing crawling within it like so many worms, gathers them up and feeds itself, taking no heed whatsoever of the stench that thereby arises.

If, then, it is reckoned by us to be sweet and dear to bear the most glorious image of the Savior, and to be transformed unto that divine and heavenly beauty, let us reject the most unsightly stamp of sin;

let us flee the soft mind, one easily overcome by the devil's perverse assaults.

Let us rather be manly according to Christ, so that we may be found sharers of his life, having come to be in the presence of God and the Father, through him and in him.

For thus, thus, shaking off, as it were, one of the heaviest of burdens -- the corruption dwelling in our bodies -- we shall change out of the garment of sin's glory; not denying the nature of the flesh, but being refashioned unto the boast of incorruption, and, even with flesh, shining forth with a certain ineffable glory from Christ;

For he will transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, as it is written.

And that, although we are of a corruptible nature, since we have come to be in the presence of God and the Father, we shall remain incorruptible, clothed with the glory of the Savior -- this too the example set forth in the divine Scripture will make no less clear to us.

He says to the holy Moses and to Aaron:

Fill an omer with manna, to be kept in store for your generations;

And Moses said to Aaron:

Take one golden jar, and put into it a full omer of manna, and you shall lay it up before God, to be kept for your generations. And yet manna, according to its own nature, would decay, and was utterly useless to those wishing to preserve it, remaining good for only a single following day;

but it remained incorrupt when it was placed before the sight of God by the hand of Aaron, and enclosed within the golden jar.

That this too has some bearing on us ourselves, I think no one will doubt.

For the truly holy high priest of our souls, that is, Christ, will clothe our body, as it were with a kind of gold, in the divine glory;

and having set it, as it were, before the sight of God and the Father, he will translate it unto incorruption.

For we shall no longer be subject to corruption;

but we shall rather abide forever.

For the manna was taken as an example of this matter.

Since, then, so radiant a torch lies in store for the saints, let us thrust as far as possible from ourselves the drowsiness of mind that comes upon us through idleness, and work out our own salvation with good sobriety.

And by hastening to accomplish every kind of virtue, and following most vigorously the evangelical commandments, let us render fitting recompense to the Savior, and to him who contended above all for the life of all, and who purchased us with his own cross, let us offer thank-offerings, spiritual sacrifices, according to the psalmist who somewhere sings and says:

'I will come into your house with whole burnt offerings;'

'I will pay you my vows, which my lips uttered.' For we who have altogether received the faith, and confessed Christ as Lord and God, have promised our servitude, and have subscribed to obedience;

we owe him submission.

For let us consider that, being God by nature -- since he too has appeared from God, having ineffably and beyond understanding shone forth from the very essence of God the Father -- for this reason too we quite rightly conceive him to be in form and equality with the Father in every respect; so that, though he truly exists thus, he humbled himself, according to the Scriptures, taking the form of a servant, that is, becoming like us, so that we too might become like him, being reshaped unto the likeness given through grace by the working of the Spirit.

Since he is one of us, for our sake indeed a man like us;

but God, on account of himself and the one who begot him, both before the incarnation and when he became man.

For it was not possible that he who is by nature God from God should not be God, even though he became flesh, according to the word of John.

And indeed, to a genuine disciple once (this was Philip), who entreated and said:

'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us' -- presenting himself to view as the very essence and glory of the Father, he said:

'I have been with you so long a time, and you have not known me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father.'

'Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? I and the Father are one.' For he showed us the Father's nature in his own, and by his divinely befitting activity in all things, presenting himself to us as the essential likeness of the one who begot him, for our knowledge, he thereby showed the true and only God.

Therefore, to the dead he commanded to return again to life, even to those already decayed and foul-smelling;

and to the sea and the winds he cried out with authority:

'Peace, be still!' And upon those blind from birth he bestowed the sweet and much-longed-for light, and besides these he wrought countless other things wondrously.

For no one has ever seen God, according to the holy evangelist.

For that which is conceived to exist, and truly is, the divine and inconceivable nature -- what bodily eye could behold it? Or how could that which is by essence invisible be seen at all? And who shall look upon that unapproachable light, seeing that even the ray of the sun flashes forth a brightness unbearable to our eyes? But it was nevertheless necessary that we too should see God.

Therefore the sight of him comes through his wonders;

and in the things wondrously accomplished, the beauty of the divine nature will be perceived.

And Wisdom again says that from the beauty of created things, their Creator is analogously beheld.

In order, then, that by working wonders he might be recognized, and might show us the Father in himself, and might be believed to be God by nature and Lord of all, he became man like us -- that is, taking on our likeness, he was seen on earth, according to what was said by the wise, and lived among men. And since he was owed to the Jews by promise, he was born in Bethlehem of Judea, according to the Scriptures;

and he taught first among them, granting to those who heard him a knowledge incomparably better than that of Moses' writing, inasmuch as that law had of old been composed in types;

For the law made nothing perfect. The most complete boast of piety comes about through the commandments of our Savior.

Since, then, the time was persuading that the things ordained in types should at last be transformed into truth, Christ cried out to those of the blood of Israel:

'I am the truth,' virtually saying this:

'Let the commandment of Moses now pass away, and let the type be rendered void, along with the folly of worship performed in shadows; and let the power of truth henceforth shine forth, and let the grace of virtue in its actual working be seen by them, now being accomplished in deeds;'

'for God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.'

But the hard and unyielding peoples of the Jews, who looked only to insensibility, and were diseased with a beast-like madness, did not think they ought to receive him who was foretold through the Law and the Prophets, that he would come and would save our whole race; but the wretches slipped into such madness that they mocked him foolishly as one who taught and introduced things above the Law;

and counted as nothing so reverend and precious a teaching, and hurled at him monstrous reproaches, and did not hesitate to call him a glutton and a drunkard and a Samaritan;

for I will refrain from mentioning things still harsher than these.

Therefore also, through the voice of the holy prophets, was lamented the one who had been overtaken by such terrible acts of audacity:

'The house of Israel has fallen; it shall no longer rise again;'

'the virgin Israel has stumbled upon her own ground; there is none to raise her up.' For it was from among them that the synagogue of the Jews was wrenched from its foundations, having most recklessly squandered the surpassing forbearance of the Savior.

For the peoples of the Jews and their leaders somehow supposed that impiety against the prophets carried no force at all as ground for an accusation.

Therefore, not fearing to stretch out an unholy hand against him, they condemned Christ, and through their madness in this the wretches exiled themselves from eternal life.

And indeed he said somewhere among the prophets concerning them:

'Woe to them, for they have leaped away from me;'

'they are wretched, for they have committed impiety against me.'

'But I redeemed them, and they spoke falsehood against me.' For paying him back bitter recompenses, and rendering evil for good, as it is written, they not only spoke falsely against him, but adding to their ancient impieties the greatest lawlessness of all, they said to one another concerning Christ that very thing written in the Gospels:

'This is the heir;'

'come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' Then, carrying this most detestable plan into action, and making Satan their fellow-worker in the deed -- or rather, their leader and overseer -- they bought off with a little silver that most wretched disciple.

For concerning such men the divine word said somewhere:

For in their madness they have dared to say:

seeing him, the utterly audacious ones smirked, and were persuaded to say this by their own father -- I mean, of course, Satan:

'If you are the Son of God, come down now from the cross, and we will believe you.' But the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing death, which had of old tyrannized over us, now shaking and falling (for it was about to be utterly destroyed by the death of his holy flesh), counted the reproaches of the Jews as nothing.

For his purpose was to free both the living and the dead from sin, and to open anew for human nature the way back to incorruption -- which indeed came to pass.

For he despoiled Hades with a divinely befitting and good command, saying to those there:

'Come out, and be unveiled.' And having on the third day raised up his own flesh -- for Christ is the firstfruits of them that sleep, and the firstborn from the dead -- he was taken up to the Father, an advocate on our behalf.

For as Paul says, 'We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses;'

'but one who has been tempted in all things according to our likeness, yet without sin.' And again: