復活節講道集 第 1 章 第 8/28 段

'Be silent, be muzzled'; and, having reordered everything within us into a better arrangement and stability;

and might reshape our whole nature unto virtue, according to the archetypal image after which it was made.

And the Only-begotten did not stop his provision of good things to us at these, through his becoming man.

For, being by nature Life, even as he who begot him is also Life, he showed the flesh in which he had dwelt to be superior to death.

For the wretched Jews, filled full with every impiety, delivered him up to the cross and to death, obeying in all things the stratagems of the devil;

but he conquered by suffering, and showed the death of his own flesh to be the foundation of salvation for us.

For, immediately despoiling Hades entirely, and throwing open for the spirits of those who had fallen asleep the gates that had been inescapable, and leaving the devil there desolate and alone, he rose on the third day, having loosed the pangs of death, as it is written, because it was not possible for him to be held fast by it; and, having opened up for human nature a new way of resurrection from the dead, he ascended into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God on our behalf, according to the voice of Paul:

so that he might make even the bright dwelling-places of the angels accessible to those upon the earth.

For he himself is our peace, who made the two one, joining men to angels in friendship, and bringing down to us the love that comes from the angels, so that we might reign together with Christ, so that we might be found sharers and partakers of immortal glory — casting away all hesitation, and sloth with regard to good things, putting these, as it were, outside our own minds, and most gladly engaging in the labors that are for the sake of virtue.

'As we have opportunity, let us work what is good toward all;' let us not give ourselves to revelings and drunkenness, nor to beds of lust and licentiousness, but let us put on the Lord Jesus; let us take up compassion and mercy; let us cultivate love toward one another;

meekness, humility, self-control, mercy toward the poor;

and, to speak simply, holding fast to the authority that leads to God, and cultivating every reverence.

Let us keep the all-holy feast, beginning the sacred Forty Days from the twenty-third of the month Mechir, and the week of our saving Pascha from the twenty-eighth of the month Phamenoth, and bringing the fasts to their close on the third of the month Pharmouthi, in the evening of the Sabbath, according to the apostolic traditions;

and celebrating on the following Lord's Day that then dawns, the fourth of the same month Pharmouthi;

linking together, in due order, the seven weeks of the holy Forty Days.

For thus shall we also inherit the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom be glory and dominion to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, both now and always and unto the ages of ages.

'Sound the trumpet in Zion,' says the sacred law somewhere, rousing the yearly discourse of the Church to its accustomed exertions, and compelling those who have chosen to live most excellently to cast, as it were, the vote for the tokens of the divine contests.

For behold, behold again for us, as though from some cycle and revolution, the season of our holy feast is rising, fasting evidently advancing before it, and the contest of endurance rising before it in the order of the morning star.

For it — well-nigh even lifting up its voice — to those whose mind is given to diligence, signals the rays of the sun, and, so to speak, having stepped within the doors and displaying the light of day, thereupon counsels them to put sleep away from their eyes, and to refrain from doing what befits the night;

but this all-pure and most undefiled fast, springing forth before our holy feast and shining ahead of it, brings to the mind of those who love virtue the remembrance of the things spiritually proclaimed through Paul:

'The night is far spent, and the day is at hand;'

'let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the works of light, that we may walk becomingly as in the day;'

'not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy;'

'but put on the Lord Jesus Christ' — the truly radiant garment of the pious.

As for those who have set their delight in sailing, and have chosen to love seafaring, gentle breezes blowing astern persuade them to put out from harbor with all speed, and to loose the cables from the mainland without any fear;

But also the cluster ripening in the vine-rows, showing its skin already splitting and swelling with wine, calls forth, as it were, the song and melody of the winepress.

And the ear of grain, rippling across the field, already bright with its golden stalk, and weighed down by its rich adornment, chafes, perhaps, at the reaper's delay.

For the season, I think, is dear to all, being fitted to each of the things that are useful.

Now these things being thus determined, how is it not utterly shameful, and worthy of every abhorrence, that we should fail of the reasoning that befits us, and incur ridicule before God? And it would be exceedingly fitting that we should, if we do not now eagerly seize the season already at hand, in which it is possible to excel in the virtues — a smooth course, as it were, for those who press on toward them;

for if we shrink back, and forever cast aside the eagerness to pursue what is better, and heedlessly draw upon ourselves the forfeiture of good things, we shall justly hear the word that fits sloth:

'Through slothfulness men become destitute of wealth.' Now, I myself would say that to do good always, and to be adorned with the noblest manner of life, is above all most fitting for the pious;

for, I think, to cease from righteousness would be the very beginning of wickedness.

it is not unfitting to give somewhat even more at the present season, which bids us, as it were in the manner of a debt, to lay down our zeal in these matters.

For in the same way that those who have honored bodily vigor, and who have set high esteem among trainers above all else, must always be exercising, and it is not without benefit for their purpose to pursue the art practiced in the wrestling-schools;

but whenever the umpire summons them to a display of the manly courage within them, then indeed, mindful that they ought above all to render no unremarkable fruit for so long a discipline, they advance with all their strength, the more distinguished in their desire to be seen prevailing.

So, I think, likewise those for whom the divine law lies before them as in the order of a contest and a training-exercise must be pious through all things, and hold in high regard doing what pleases the Lawgiver;

and when the season of fasting calls them to a more splendid display, they must cast off sloth, the parent of cowardice, and rather train their resolve, and the more youthful vigor of a well-disciplined courage.

Come then, let us again gird ourselves with zeal for good things, and do what is by nature beneficial rather than practice the enchantments born of loathsome pleasure, and, out of desire for what is profitable, thrust far from us, with all sobriety, association with wrongdoers, so that we may present ourselves to Christ as his genuine worshipers, having kept our faith in him unbroken and unfalsified, and having guarded our confession unwavering and unshaken — the confession which we have confessed before many witnesses, I mean the holy angels.

For many, moulding for themselves the outward form of piety like a mask, yet having denied its power — according to Paul's word — plunder the minds of the more simple, sweeping them away with deceitful words, and persuading them to slip down together with them into the snare of death and the trap-door of Hades, as it is written.

For they have not resolved to speak to those who come to them the things that also accord with the sacred Scriptures, but they persuade them to hold whatever their own disqualified mind fancies of itself, knowing neither what they say nor the things about which they make their confident assertions.

But you, as Paul says, remain in the things you have learned, departing from vain disputes of words, spitting out the old wives' little sayings of the heretics, turning away from idle myths, holding the faith in simple reasonings, and laying up the tradition of the Church like some treasure in the storehouses of your heart — hold fast to the teachings that are pleasing to God;

so that you may be not only radiant in faith, but also, even from your very achievements in piety, already most conspicuous.

For manifold indeed is the path that carries one toward the ability to accomplish virtue;

and by many a varied road one might scarcely arrive at the prize of the calling on high; yet in one thing, nevertheless, our entire good is bound together — in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' And it is no hard matter to show that this word has proved true for us.

For the most wise Paul, in his epistles, will contend most nobly on behalf of what we have said concerning these things;

'Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.'

'For he who loves the other has fulfilled the law.'

'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet' — and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

'Love works no ill to the neighbor.'

'Love, then, is the fulfillment of the law.' Do you hear how the whole discourse is enclosed within the boundary set by love?

For as many things as are found to have gone beyond the divine law, these have, in every case, entirely slipped outside the circle of love.

It reasonably follows that they ought to be admired, and this is seen to belong to them — namely, that through their deeds they be seen standing within the bounds of love.

For he who does wrong does not love his neighbor;

but he who hates injustice surely loves in every way, thereby fulfilling the whole law.

For being zealous to honor love procures the fulfillment of what is laid down in the law;

but negligence concerning love has its origin in the very things condemned by the law.

For tell me, who would go in to another man's wife and leap into a foreign marriage-bed, being restrained, out of love, from grieving someone? And who, I think, would not refrain with all his might from bloodshed, held back toward gentleness as by some bridle, out of reverence and honor for the one who would suffer it? And to whom among men would not the seizing of another's property appear detestable and utterly loathsome, when he reckons it a bitter thing and counts among the most shameful evils the wronging of a brother? Therefore the law that directs us toward every virtue has its fulfillment in love.

But I think it fitting, having examined more closely the parts of the virtue we have just named, to state what follows from this.

Well then — for here too I shall employ the voice of Paul —

'Love,' he says, 'is patient and kind;'

'love does not boast, is not puffed up, does not behave unseemly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not reckon evil, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices together with the truth.'

'It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.'

'Love never fails.' Do you see how great a multitude of good things the power of love brings forth for us in travail? 'Love,' he says, 'is patient' — that is, it does not grow weak at the faint-heartedness of one's neighbor;

for he who is patient at all is surely also patient with respect to certain untoward things done to him by someone, and overcomes something of what is wont to cause distress.

But being sound of mind, he does not yield when anger provokes him toward returning like for like.

For injustice is indeed a truly burdensome thing, sufficient to kindle terrible fits of wrath;

and to have suffered wrong beforehand at someone's hands — although anger is by nature an evil thing — both arms it and pleads its case together with the anger;

for it would seem somehow to persuade one to retaliate with a counter-wrong, and to hasten to strike back at the one who has caused the grief.

But those who, with a vigorous mind, look to the law of love, and consider that it is fitting for them to be patient, rein back again the anger as it boils up — like a colt leaping with disorderly friskings — restraining it as with reins by their forbearance;

and, showing themselves better than those who caused the grief even after this, they win the verdict that belongs to all good things.

But what is indeed the most beautiful part of love had all but ridden past us unnoticed.

For let us again go through what the advocate of this virtue says once more concerning it, and what other admirable achievement he further enjoined upon us in this regard.

'Love,' he says, 'does not seek its own, is not provoked.' Now the strict and more legal sense of these words would show that the one who does not seek his own is the one who, in nothing, has made his own interests his priority, so long as the benefit of the many is thereby accomplished for him.

For let the discourse proceed also by way of examples;

The leaders of the Jewish ranks once commanded the holy apostles to speak to no one in the name of Christ;

but they, taking no heed at all of such foolish talk, though the direst dangers hung over them, again met with the crowds and taught, having rightly determined that it was their duty to come to the aid of those who were going astray, while entirely disregarding the plot that thereby threatened them.

For they were not seeking their own things, but the things of others, and thus did not step outside the God-beloved boundary of love.

But, in order to make this plain to those who are wont to understand more simply, come, let us turn once more to fit it to the words of the Savior.

Raising us up, then, to the utmost gentleness and brotherly love, and shearing away from our soul, as though it were a thorn, contentiousness and love of strife, together with the desire for things that belong to us not at all, he says: 'Give to everyone who asks of you;'

'and do not demand back your goods from him who takes them away.' Do you hear how he bids us to shrink from what belongs to another? He does not wish us to resist, even should someone take from us something that is rightfully ours;

but rather to be seen superior even to the provocations that arise from loss, and not like those who, when something is taken from them by someone, are wont, in their intemperate distress, to be inflamed into unseemly wrath.

But again, what will the robber say to me against this — he who lurks at the crossroads like a wild beast, lying in wait for the one who has done no wrong as he passes by, as though he were one of his enemies, and who has spread the net of his brigandage in the river's streams, so that, should anyone be caught, he immediately springs up, inflamed with an unnatural boldness?

Where, tell me, have you put the Savior's law, though you say that you are a Christian? For you overstep the ordinance of love;

but, as though transformed into some untamed beast, and having fallen into an alien savagery, you no longer perceive it.

Having reckoned as nothing him who was made according to the divine image, you do things that are unbearable;

and you dare unholily to strike him with iron;

But when you sometimes see your fellow man burying a corpse in the earth, you do not desire that the earth itself should immediately gape open for you, nor do you consider, hindered as you are by such savage acts of daring, that it is your custom to plow the earth, to cut open the fields with your plows, then to hide within them what you think fit, and again to cut down with iron what has been brought to fruit through God,

and at that time you marvel at the earth, as a mother of good fruits, as most excellently serving you in the provision of necessities;

and, as is fitting, you also praise the usefulness of iron.

How then, in doing wrong, do you not blush at the very things by which your life was sustained? For the one you made into a man-slayer, and the other you stained crimson with the blood of the innocent.

How then do you still beg the earth to become for you a mother of fruits, when you wronged her without sparing her? How will you let loose the bright iron, which, having diverted it from its proper use, you turned into a man-slayer? And how at all, tell me, could one who thinks as he ought still ask that his field be watered by the yearly streams from God, when he sits idly among the river reeds for no good purpose, and does not row his boat about in pursuit of the creatures in the waters —

but rather making your occupation one of greed, defiling with unjust blood the stream given by God, and handing over your own kinsman, a man, to the water-creatures as their prey? Then with what hands, tell me, will you stretch out to God? What at all will you say when you pray, or how will you ask for good things, when God says through one of the prophets:

'When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you; and though you multiply your prayer, I will not listen to you;

for your hands are full of blood.' And he who takes no account whatsoever of the laws given by him — of what further consideration shall he be deemed worthy? 'Those who glorify me I will glorify,' says the Savior, 'and he who despises me shall be despised.' Either, then, submit your neck to him, and in return demand honor and the rich increase of all things necessary, or, if you cannot bear the yoke, endure being punished.

For if I must say something further on this: to be drunk with good things, and to be surrounded by all that one could pray for, has at times become for you the occasion of such great impiety.

'And they were filled to the full, and their hearts were exalted;'

and truly terrible is that luxury which leads to downfall;

and it is capable of producing conceit, the begetter of madness.

And a bitter offspring of madness is contempt for God;

and the fruit of such contempt is every kind of transgression.

Therefore, whenever we see you afflicted with this, we shall fittingly lament, and utter the prophetic word, grieving together as friends over your unholy deeds:

'Woe is me, O my soul, for the godly man has perished from the earth, and there is none upright among men.'

'All contend with bloodshed;'

'each oppresses his neighbor with oppression, they lift up their hands for evil.' At these transgressions of ours, God is fittingly indignant, and, as is evident, deeply grieved.

For behold, behold, what was spoken through the prophets has come to its fulfillment among us, not once, but already many times;

'Set your hearts upon your ways, says the Lord Almighty.'

'You sowed much, and brought in little.'

'You ate, but were not satisfied;'

'you drank, but were not filled with drink;'

'you put on clothing, but were not warmed by it.'

'And he who gathers wages has gathered them into a bag full of holes.' But besides these things he says still further:

'You looked for much, and it turned out to be little.'

'And it was brought into the house, and I blew it away, says the Lord Almighty.' Let us then see whether these things have not truly come to pass.

Let someone come forward and show me a man rejoicing, and I am defeated; let him seek a tearless eye, and if he finds one, I will cease.

You who dwell as farmers of Egypt now vie with one another only over this: which of you shall suffer the harsher fate, and among you the one who 'wins' is more wretched than those who seem to be defeated.

For he wins by the very things over which he grieves, and his calamity is greater than his neighbor's sufferings.

And the things in which you were accustomed to take pride have now, for a long time already, departed far from you.

For are not our accounts full of every misery and of tears? What, then, tell me, do we see in some of the villages that lie there? Their land, having borne the blows of hail, withers away in famine and lamentation, receiving no help at all from any quarter, not even so much as to grieve in moderation.

For the ear of grain, already come to maturity and standing tall, all but cried out, 'Let someone reap me now!' And the man who had plowed the earth, having already brought the reaper home, rejoiced as he girded himself for the work, and often reasoned that even the threshing floor would not suffice for him.

But it was all a dream, or a shadow, and the work of hail, not of a reaper.

And the man who thought himself already surrounded by good things was at once left destitute of all;

and, being rich in hail instead of ears of grain, he was disappointed of a hope both great and abundant.

But the village that neighbors and borders on this one, having suffered a milder visitation of wrath, laments the labors spent upon the plow, and, having cultivated a long and broad field, considers as wealth for the present the food that reaches satiety — or rather, food that falls very far short of satiety.

Let us then examine what is the cause of these things, and let us learn it from the divine Scripture.

Therefore he who has authority over all things will again say to us:

'Your ways and your doings have brought these things upon you;'

'this is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it has reached even to your heart.' For it follows fittingly upon transgressions that one ought justly to be punished, and the penalty must of necessity be weighed equally against our own follies.

Let us, then, cease from every unholy act of daring;

'We have sinned, we have transgressed the law, we have done wrong.' For then, then indeed, God will be merciful;

for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our transgressions, according to the word of Paul,

but one who has been tempted in every respect in the same way, yet without sin. For that the Only-begotten is ready and willing to show mercy, I think I shall need no labor at all to be able to persuade you of this;

for I suppose that you also will most readily agree, once you consider the measure of his love toward us, and reflect on the greatness of what he endured for our sake.

For since all of us who inhabit this earthly region had been netted like fish for ruin and destruction by the irresistible greed of the tyrannizing demon, the Only-begotten became man, so that he might rescue us all, and proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, as he himself somewhere says, and might also call for this purpose the acceptable year of the Lord. The Only-begotten, then, is merciful — even though the Jews, not understanding the manner of this dispensation, were so far from being willing to receive him at all that at one time, insulting him, they even called him a Samaritan, and at another time, having been provoked beyond endurance and leaping into a strange madness, they even dared to stone him.

And when the Lord, rebuking them as fighters against God, inquired of them the reason for their irrational madness, saying:

'Many good works have I shown you from my Father;

for which of these works do you stone me?' — they, raving, said:

'It is not for a good work that we stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.' Then what did the Savior say to them? 'If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works.' For he did not think it fitting that what concerned himself should be judged by what appeared to onlookers as merely human, but by what God was working — not holding the dignity of Godhead as something acquired from outside, as we do, when the divine Scripture calls us gods;

but rather it inheres in him essentially, inasmuch as he truly is God by nature, and heir of the distinctive property of him who begot him.

And he has the power to do all things, not having received it from another, but as Lord of the powers, and from the very essence of God the Father.

For even though he became man, on account of his love toward us, let us not therefore fail to know him as Lord of all, nor let us dismiss the fact that Emmanuel is by nature God; nor, sharing the same view as the Jews, shall we reproach him for the humanity he took on for our sake;

nor shall we say, unholily calling to account him who became like us for our sake, apart from sin:

'We will not worship you, since you, being a man, make yourself God.'

For he was, and is, and shall be God by nature, both before the flesh and after the flesh.

And Paul also will bear witness, writing:

'Christ, yesterday and today, the same also forever.' Do you see how he is found not dividing Emmanuel into a duality of Sons, nor attributing this 'remaining always the same' to the Word considered perhaps as bare by himself, who flashed forth from God the Father;

but rather, knowing him who became man to be one and only Son by nature, he names him both Christ and Jesus.

For when could anyone show that the Word was named Jesus or Christ, except from the time that he became man? For he is called Jesus because he saves the people, and again Christ because he was anointed for our sake.

Therefore he calls him Jesus and Christ not as the Word who existed bare, before the incarnation, from God the Father, but as having come to be in flesh; and concerning him he says, without any hesitation whatsoever, 'He was yesterday and today, the same also forever.'

But perhaps someone accustomed to holding heterodox views will appear, and, belching forth the venom of the impiety within him, will cry out: 'Was Christ not born, tell me, in the last times, my good fellow?'

'—even before he was born?' To such things we too, marshaling our arguments concerning the truth in reply, will cry out: 'By saying this, my good man, you will be pleading our own case.'

For how could the Spirit-bearer, and steward of the Savior's mysteries, have granted the attributes of the Word who is ever living and ever existing, to the temple born in the last times, unless he had considered it impious to divide him, and had shrunk, even after the incarnation, from dividing the one and only true Son into two? Rather, the things that belong to the Word properly and by nature, even before the flesh, these again he attaches to him also after he had become flesh, knowing him not to have become someone else on account of the flesh, but preserving for him, even when he became man, the unimpaired dignity of Godhead.

And do not marvel, my good man, at the word of Paul.

For he does not say such things having tyrannized over the doctrines of piety, and having simply strained them to what seemed good to him, but having been instructed from the very words of the Savior himself.

For what he said to Nicodemus, if you wish to learn, it is possible to see by consulting the Gospels;

but I will nevertheless say it, on account of its being profitable to all;

'For,' he says, 'if I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?' And:

'No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.' And at another time again, speaking to the Jews, he asserted, and clearly showed, that they would remain entirely without share in eternal life, if they did not taste of the mystical blessing;

and to those who were displeased at this, and who went away backward, as it is written, he says again, teaching beforehand his departure from here into the heavens:

'Does this scandalize you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?' And yet — for I will take up the whole argument again — as regards the flesh, he was born on earth through the holy Virgin;

but God the Word descended from heaven.

For that which belongs to him by nature he attributes also to his own flesh, as not being other than it, insofar as concerns the unity that comes from the economy.

And we will not, because of uniting to the utmost the things unlike in nature, do away with the truth that

the radiance of the Father exists according to its own principle, while, on the other hand, the flesh from the earth — that is, the man in his entirety — is another;

but even having thus distinguished these things, and having divided the account applying to each only in our conceptions, we shall again bind them together in an undivided unity.

For 'the Word became flesh,' according to the holy Evangelist, not having been changed into flesh — for that is not what he means — but instead of saying 'man' in his entirety, he named it 'flesh.'

Therefore, as our all-renowned father and bishop Athanasius, the unswerving canon of the orthodox faith, said in his own writings, a union of two things unlike in nature has come to be in one and the same, namely of divinity and of humanity.

But Christ is one from both.