If it were held within the joints of man, either man would have nothing to behold, or, if he recognized what he hoped for, the fire would not burn in the bush. And it received a tongue as a breath, saying to Moses: Come not nigh hither; loose the strap of thy shoes. The ground on which thou standest is holy (Exodus 3:5). The seas themselves speak when they bless the Lord, Scripture saying: Bless the Lord, ye seas (Daniel 3:78). For those which we suppose to be roarings, converse with the Lord, the prophet saying: His voice as the voice of many waters (Ezekiel 1:24). What shall the wind, the straits, the thunders, the rivers report? Through this voice of blood Cain (Genesis 4:10) the parricide could be exposed, for thus says Solomon:
The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world, and that which contains all things hath knowledge of the voice (Wisdom 1:7). If therefore whatever lives makes sound, whatever moves speaks, blessed is the tongue, the price of man, if it holds discipline in its office. This tongue saves all things or slays them, helps or accuses, heals or butchers; it labours at both, when it vexes the one, so that first it perishes by its own falls. Hence Judas, the lying apostle, while he greeted the Lord Christ, with one word committed sacrilege. The Salvation of the world received the Lord Christ, and he himself entered into the snare. Impose therefore, O Christian, a bridle upon thy tongue, and enclose its liberty within the cavern of thy mouth. Bind thousands of words with restrained powers, lest it strike its Author.
Hear the Lord threatening such people through the prophet: 'Why dost thou glory in malice? Why art thou mighty in iniquity? All the day long thy tongue hath devised injustice; like a sharp razor thou hast wrought deceit' (Ps. 51:3-4), and the rest. Hence you have teeth: bite that tongue, if it cannot keep silent. Shut up within a cave, within a prison, the unruly tongue of your mouth, lest, when it comes forth for evil, the sword strike it. Command it while you may; for once the word has gone out, it does not return. If you cannot speak well, let it at least be permitted to keep silence.
For the devil would never have fallen from paradise, had the tongue kept silent, when as a robber the serpent wounded the infancy of the first man and the newborn state of his majesty—him whom God had fashioned innocent by His own fingers, where dwell eternity and innocence alone. The neighbouring robber, the serpent, with a single tongue conceived, and brought forth for man death, that hostile converse, and gave birth to bereavement for the whole world, while he struck down its author. O sword of the tongue, by which the whole world was smitten with a wound! The mother bears one whom she must mourn; the father begets one whom he must lose. All humanity either laments or is lamented, when all flesh returns to dust, back to its own origin. SERMON 78. To the candidates for baptism, after the handing over of the Creed.
Behold in what manner spiritual Israel is led forth from this present world as from Egypt, and the house of Jacob, which is the household of the heavenly King, is delivered from a barbarous people. Egypt, moreover, was smitten with ten plagues, so that the Hebrew people, freed from Pharaoh's dominion, might be made an accomplished people. When these plagues, as we read in Exodus (Ex. 12:29), had been completed in order, at midnight the destroying angel passed over the Egyptians, and looked upon those who were marked, and passed by the unharmed, and guarded them by the blood of the lamb; and he compelled the children of Israel to hasten forth to the land of promise.
So too the devil, who may figuratively be compared to Pharaoh, has in a certain manner been driven back from us by ten blows, most severely slain by the heavenly scourge. For he received the first plague when you gave your names, that you might be enrolled there whence he was blotted out. His second plague is the persistence of daily prayer; the third, of fastings; the fourth, of vigils; the fifth, of the terrible exorcisms; the sixth, the prayer of the Lord's priests descending upon you; the seventh, the handing over and confession of the apostolic Creed; the eighth, the instruction in the Lord's Prayer. He is struck with the ninth plague when renunciation is made of the world and its pomps, and of the apostate angels.
The tenth plague is when Egypt is slain together with her firstborn, when one draws near to the font of rebirth, is stripped of the old man, and is turned to the living God with the whole faith of his mind. After this he entered the Red Sea, that baptism reddened, consecrated by the blood of Christ. And while there he is dipped in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, believing, with the intervening rod of the cross marking him with right hand and left, the wave of Jordan is divided: the old pursuing enemy is drowned, the new Israel is revealed, and the Church comes forth resounding in splendour, adorned with timbrels and choirs and the shining fleets of the reborn. SERMON 79. On consolation at the taking up of a bishop.
You indeed, brethren, seek a comforter, but we too must be comforted, and our consolation is no man, but He who makes man; for He who made will restore, and He who created recreates. Through our weakness we can only grieve, but through hope we ought to be consoled. We wish all good men to live longer among us, and in this most harsh life we do not wish to be forsaken by our companions; but those who have lived well and go before us urge us by their example, that whether we live here long or depart hence quickly, we may so live as to come to them. For to go on living here a long time is nothing else than to endure troubles a long time.
But to live with God, and in God's presence, is to live without any trouble and without any fear, where a happiness that has no end does not perish. Nor ought we to think that your bishop, our brother, has gone hence too soon, and has lived too little. For rightly is one said not to live little there where, though it is called much, it never ends. For here, even what is much, when it has been ended, shall be reckoned as nothing. Nor yet did he live little here, if we consider his works and do not count his years. How much has this man fulfilled in a few years, which perhaps others have not accomplished by half in many years? Therefore to have wished to keep him here was nothing else than to envy his happiness. For in this we have sorrow over a man, as men do.
What then shall we do, that we may not be men? Therefore, as men, we grieve in a human way over the departure of a man; but let us grieve as we have heard the divine reading, namely that 'he, being made perfect in a short space, fulfilled a long time' (Wis. 4:13). Let us therefore reckon his times there as a day is reckoned. Whatever, then, he did with you by exhorting, by speaking, by setting himself forth for imitation, in praising and worshipping God—hold fast to it, and you shall be his most adorned memorial. For it is no great thing for him to be laid away in marble tombs, but to be laid up in your hearts. Let him who is buried live in living sepulchres. For his burial is your remembrance. With God he lives that he may be blessed; with you let him live, that you may be blessed.
We could perhaps exhort you to faithful prudence with many words, were we not scarcely permitted to speak by human grief. Accordingly, since God granted us to be present with the dying at that hour, since He granted us to carry out his funeral—the funeral procession that is owed to charity adds nothing to his happiness. He granted also that we might see your holiness, and might address you, that according to our small measure of consoling you we might comfort you. Whatever grief does not allow us to say, supply by your thinking; and let our spirit, in the remembrance of so great a man, though it feels human mourning, not feel unbelieving despair. SERMON 80. A sermon to be spoken at all times, or rather, concerning prayer.
The Lord, sweet and gentle, keeps the door of His mercy open, nor does He refuse those who knock thereat, but rather blames those who are negligent. For nothing is asked of Him which He does not have, such that He should blush at not giving. The Lord is rich and merciful, abounding and kind. 'He gives, and upbraids not' (Jas. 1:5); nay rather, then do the treasures of His house suffer sorrow, when the delightful things asked of Him are disdained. The Lord Himself says: 'Hitherto you have not asked anything' (John 16:24). 'Ask, and it shall be given you. Knock, and it shall be opened to you' (Luke 11:9). 'I am the door and the gate' (John 10:9). Why does your hand tremble in knocking, and why does your conscience slumber in its beggary? I am the door of life.
I shrink not from the squalid knocker, I reject not the poor petitioner, only let no one neglect his own beggary. 'Knock,' He says, 'and it shall be opened to you.' Angels stand at My door to lead in, not to drive away, not to terrify. There is no pomp at My door. I am the door, who endured the shame of the cross. Why does the needy man fear want, when My mercy has never at any time been denied to anyone? 'Who hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded?' (Sir. 2:12). If those who desire chastity of body knock, He straightway gives them the holiness of grace. And He says to them: 'Walk not defiled, go not about stained; be holy, for I am holy' (Lev. 15:44; cf. 11:44).
If an orphan approaches to pat the Father's door with a tiny hand, an angel announces him and says: 'Lord, an orphan knocks; he awaits the mercy of Thy protection.' Answer him, O Lord: 'To Thee is the poor man left; Thou wilt be the helper of the orphan' (Ps. 10:14). The Lord answers, who is rich, who is a merciful Father: 'I am the Father of orphans and the judge of widows' (Ps. 67:6). Let no one harm those whom I take up; let no one despoil those whom I defend. And if any come to that door, though they be divided in unequal places, yet by the prayer of the one rich Householder they all receive an equal mercy. This the door of salvation loves, that it may abound to those who knock in season and out of season.
Therefore the Lord Himself, His door athirst for the voice of the petitioner who knocks, invites all with a silent cry to prayer, ready to grant His mercy to all. Even if you do not receive, ask, persevere, knock, do not faint, do not give way; for the Lord does not slay with hunger the just soul—that is, of those who have been willing to be graciously importunate. And He sets forth in a parable (Luke 11:5) a man to whom an unexpected guest came, and a poor host received a guest. Suffering shame, he went straightway to the rich man's house to ask for loaves—and not without a sacred meaning, loaves, but three loaves; for the guest is the grace of mercy, yet contains the substance of the Trinity. Was there not one guest in three who came to father Abraham (Gen. 18:2)?
A guest and friend, a diner and one who makes a promise, and to Him were rendered in the Trinity all the offices of hospitality. Father Abraham brought a threefold calf; the mother who was to give birth to a son kneaded three measures of fine flour, for whom the father slew a lamb, that he might even then behold in the Trinity the very sacrament of the body of Christ. So too this friend, when a guest arrived, went to the rich man, alleged the necessity of three loaves, knocked—and none of the doorkeepers answered, for sleep had overcome them all. Not angels, not archangels, not prophets, not ministers; and yet he knocks, although no one answers. At length the householder, rejoicing at the importunity of the one who knocks, answers him from the inner sanctuaries:
'Why do you knock out of season, you who were slothful in season? It was day, and you did not walk in the light. Night has come, and you have begun to knock?' The affection which seeks Him unexpectedly excuses the time. And he answers: 'Lord, Lord, I ask Thee, to Thee I knock, Thyself I seek; rise Thou to give me mercy, for Thou didst not disdain to fashion my inward parts out of the mire. Thou needest no minister, for Thou canst do all things; but Thy servants sleep, O Lord: Thou dost not sleep, neither dost Thou slumber, who keepest Israel (Ps. 120:4). Freely I ask, under grace I beg, not under the law do I presume. And if the law and the prophets were until John (Matt. 11:13), yet Thy grace has no end. Thy servants, Thy prophets, have rested, and I know it, O Lord.'
'But Thou who art the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Rev. 22:13), be not wearied of me, who ask in the last hour of the night, Thou who at midnight didst lead captivity captive.' What shall the householder do, constrained by the voice of so great a persisterer? He does not rouse a servant, not a prophet, he sends no angel or archangel: rising Himself, He gives him an answer, if not for friendship's sake, yet for the sake of persevering mercy—the importunity to which He has taken away all shame. With how great joy does the well-persevering beggar of the night make his way back to his own guest, whom the poor man received, and having been made rich, welcomed in? Nor did the guest ever depart from his host unrefreshed. Was not this a guest, who says:
'I stand at the door; if anyone opens to Me, I will come in, and will sup with him, I and My Father' (Rev. 3:20)? How good is that house, if the Father and the Son enter as a friendly guest, where the Holy Spirit Himself there provides the various dishes for the Lord's supper! What are the dishes of the Spirit? 'Peace, joy, kindness, goodness, self-control, faith, charity' (Gal. 5:22). Let it only not irk us to receive the Lord as our guest. He carries with Him abundance of delights, that He may there feed the rejoicing armies of angels. Would that He Himself might be a blessed guest coming to us, and that we might have no more a Gothic and barbarian guest! For those guests bring arms and arrows, but with this Guest comes peace with gladness:
who comes not to torment the guest, but to spare; not to despoil, but to clothe; not to strike, but to heal. Let us receive that Guest with the doors of our heart open, and never shall the enemy have dominion over us. By the bounty of Him who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.