Paschal Homilies 1 part 15/28

And this could also be made clear to us through other sacred Scriptures.

For indeed in the Song of Songs the person of the bridegroom is introduced, crying out to the Church as to a bride, saying:

'Arise, come, my companion, my fair one, my dove; for behold, the winter has passed, the rain has gone, it has gone its way;'

they show themselves insatiable;

but when their hope collapses into its opposite, very beautiful are the feet of him who announces peace to those in danger.

In some such way as this, one might also observe what has been accomplished in our own case through Christ.

Or rather, it is very easy to understand without effort, that the Father sent to us from heaven His Son as Savior and Redeemer.

An arrogant tyrant was making war, not upon one nation only, nor even upon a single city or country;

but, unholily attempting to bring the whole world under himself, he was subjecting mankind to his own yokes;

removing them from the love of God, and driving away true knowledge of God, defiling them instead with manifold sins, making them slaves to the herds of demons, and attaching them to the creation rather than to God the Creator.

For some paid reverence to the sun, and others to the moon, granting to them the honors most fitting for the nature which alone is queen over all things.

and others, offering worship to earth, and water, and air, and fire, gradually slid down into this depth of evils, and pressed on until they brought down the honor and glory of the Godhead even to senseless pieces of wood.

Reveling in such things, the bloodthirsty dragon continued to boast greatly, and imagined his good cheer to be an unshakable condition.

And concerning him the blessed prophet Jeremiah said:

'Woe to him who multiplies for himself what is not his own—how long?—and makes his yoke heavy and burdensome.' For he wished to gather to himself man, who belongs to God, thereby ever preparing for himself a punishment more grievous to bear.

But God the Word, who is enthroned together with God the Father, foretold the good news of the time of salvation to us, who had acted godlessly and were in peril, saying:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me;'

'He has sent Me to preach good tidings to the poor;'

'to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind;'

...to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And since the time of the promised help was at hand, he set himself in opposition, on our behalf, to the villainies of the devil;

and he overpowered that murderous tyrant, and having laid him prostrate beneath the feet of those who had believed, he declared plainly:

'Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.' As many of us, then, as have become lovers of piety toward God, and long to share in the splendor of the saints, and thirst to attain to the city above, let us consider this within ourselves:

For the kings on earth who continually rebuke barbarian incursions, and preserve the cities in each land, being called saviors and redeemers — and indeed, what title of that sort is not given them? — are richly honored.

And they, boasting in their own valiant deeds, place under their own feet those they have saved, and having yoked them, as it were, with ordinances and laws, command them to pay tribute, making the matter a kind of acknowledgment that they ought to be subject.

Having therefore been redeemed through Christ, and delivered from the error of polytheism, and having through him been enriched with kinship toward God, and having passed over into the hope of the saints, let us consecrate our own life to him.

For as the blessed Paul writes, 'One died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised.' This was also recorded for us in the more ancient Scriptures, still in shadows and types.

For the law is a shadow, and travails in birth with the form of the truth.

So then, God also spoke of old to Moses the hierophant:

'If you take the count of the sons of Israel at their numbering, each of them shall give a ransom for his soul to the Lord, and there shall be no plague among them at their numbering;'

'and this is what all who pass over for the numbering shall give: half a didrachm, according to the sacred didrachm — the sacred didrachm being twenty obols.'

'And the half of the didrachm is an offering to the Lord;'

'everyone who passes over for the numbering, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to the Lord.'

'The poor man shall not give less than the half of the didrachm, when giving the offering to the Lord, to make atonement for your souls.' Now the stater, that is, the didrachm, is a coin of unadulterated purity, upon which a royal likeness is stamped.

It was offered to the Lord by those accustomed to pay it, not on behalf of a single person, but on behalf of two persons.

And tax-collectors had been appointed, according to what seemed good to the law;

who, traversing the land of the Jews up and down, ordained that the ransom must be contributed in equal measure from both rich and poor, God thereby legislating that the type should be kept exact for the manifestation of the truth.

And indeed, when our Savior Christ had once come into Capernaum, the collectors of the didrachms came to Peter, saying:

'Does your teacher not pay the didrachms?'

'Yes' — not because he subjects the free man to the law, nor ranks the Son among the servants, but because he knew that the Lawgiver had come to be under the law, in order that he might deliver us from the curse of the law, and, transforming the condition of slavery into something better, might render us conformed to himself, and show us to be sons of God, clothing us, as it were, with a certain splendid dignity, the Spirit of freedom.

'For we did not receive again a spirit of bondage unto fear,' as the divinely inspired Paul writes, 'but we received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry out:'

'Abba, Father.' So then, when Peter had come into the house, the Savior asked him:

'Then are the sons free?'

'But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up;'

'and when you have opened its mouth, you will find a stater;'

'take that, and give it to them for me and for you.' You understand, then, how the didrachm was paid on behalf of two persons.

And what is the mystery, or what beauty of the truth shall we find hidden in the shadow of the law? For the true stater — the image of the great King, that is, the Son, the imprint and radiance of the Father's essence — gave himself for us;

and made his own soul the ransom-price for the life of all, not only that he might save Israel — although Israel seemed to be rich in the knowledge of the law — but that he might also deliver from the covetous grasp of the devil the countless flock of the Gentiles, who had no hope, as Paul says, and were sick with the desolation of every good thing.

Therefore, the divine and heavenly stater was given on behalf of two peoples.

For we have been redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ.

We are debtors, then, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, but to Christ who redeemed and bought us. And indeed, when the sons of Israel could no longer bear the oppressive burden of Egyptian greed, the compassionate God had mercy on them at last, and, seeing them unreasonably weighed down under the yoke of slavery, called them to freedom;

he sent bitter plagues upon those who resisted their departure;

and since he saw them still exceedingly hard-hearted, he chastened them with the death of the firstborn;

and they, at last distraught by their afflictions, and yielding to the magnitude of the unexpected calamity, at last ordered those they had oppressed to depart from the land.

When this had come to pass and been accomplished, God sought, as it were, an equivalent recompense from those who had been redeemed.

For thus he spoke to Moses the hierophant:

'Sanctify to me every firstborn;'

'whatever first opens every womb among the sons of Israel, from man to beast, is mine.' Then the blessed Moses made clear to the Israelites the reason for this law, saying:

'And it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you, that you shall set apart to the Lord every male that opens the womb.' And again, further on:

'If your son should ask you hereafter, saying:'

'...and when Pharaoh hardened his heart against sending us away, he killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of men to the firstborn of beasts.'

Come, then, with right and blameless faith shining forth beforehand, let us also honor our own Savior with the valorous deeds that spring from works, making this offering a fitting oblation and a truly spiritual sacrifice. For it is written: 'Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.'

Therefore, especially in this present season, as we practice abstinence from food, and apply fasting like a kind of bridle, let us make gentleness and sobriety of conduct run alongside it.

For fasting alone, by itself, will by no means suffice for the accomplishment of virtue;

but when the fragrance of good works is, as it were, yoked together with it and accompanies it, it will be well-pleasing to God, and full of every praise.

But perhaps someone, terrified by the reproaches of his own conscience, will say:

'For the Judge knows all things, and cannot be deceived.'

Such a person will hear in reply:

'You have rightly, O man, been struck with fear, having beforehand beheld with good eyes the curse suspended over those who love sin.'

But let Paul, in his writing, free you from these terrors on this account:

'...us, who were dead in our trespasses and sins, in which we once walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind;'

'and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.'

'But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ, even when we were dead in trespasses.' For as the Savior himself said, 'God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' For the Word, being God and of God by nature, and having an ineffable begetting from the Father, equal in power and equal in operation with the One who begot him, being the image and radiance and imprint of his hypostasis, emptied himself, descending to the measure of man;

and did not disdain a nature so trampled down, in order that he might deliver us from sin;

and, having delivered us from that ancient curse, might, as God, show us to be superior to death and corruption.

For this reason the Only-begotten became man; he who, as God, is above the law, became subject to the law;

he who is borne even by the highest powers themselves, and is praised by the voice of the holy Seraphim as 'the Lord of Sabaoth,' came to be called a servant.

'Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled.' And Wisdom also will wail over them, saying:

'Woe to those who forsake the straight paths, to walk in the ways of darkness!' But we, having abandoned the crooked track, shall walk in the straight way, following the God-inspired Scriptures;

For as the blessed John says, and as the very nature of the events has testified, 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.' Now we say that the Word became flesh, not that he passed over into the nature of flesh.

For that would be a change, and something foreign to a dignity befitting God.

But rather, that he was born of a woman, and became, like us, a perfect man, united with the whole of our nature — by a union, I mean, that transcends mind and speech.

And he came to be called Mediator of God and men, joining together in himself the things which, by their natural principles, were kept apart from mutual kinship with one another.

For as God, he was joined to the essence of God the Father;

and he also laid hold of us, insofar as he became man;

yet he would not slip away from being God on account of what is human;

but even so he is God, since the divinity that is above all things does not yield victory to the flesh, but rather brings back what was assumed into its own glory.

For this reason, too, the wise John, although he knew that he had been born through a woman, says that he has come, not from below, nor from the earth, but rather from above:

for he cried out plainly: 'He who comes from above is above all.'

For the wretched Jews, having failed to understand the mystery of true religion — the very reason they persecute and rage without restraint — when Christ asked them, replied in their ignorance, saying:

For it is not that, being a man, he ascended into the glory of Godhead, but rather, being God by nature, he became man.

For where else has he emptied himself, according to the Scriptures? Therefore, being God, he became man;

for he was by no means deified, having merely been a man.

our God, and he will not keep silence. And the divinely-inspired Thomas, having touched the marks of the nails, and thereafter recognizing him as God, worshiped, saying:

'My Lord and my God.' And the Divine is intangible and invisible;

but he sojourned among us visibly, since the Word is not other than his own flesh and the temple from the Virgin, but is conceived as one together with it;

namely, according to union — that union according to which he is also said to have become flesh.

This one the wretched Jews dishonored, although he plainly said:

'He who believes in me has eternal life'; and, 'I am the light of the world'; and, 'I am the resurrection and the life.' But taking no account of any such things, and turning instead to let wrath and envy prevail, in the end they crucified him.

Yet against them, caught in such futile audacities, the Psalmist pronounced a curse, saying:

'Lord, in your wrath you will confound them, and fire shall devour them;'

'their fruit you will destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the sons of men.'

'They devised a plan which they will not be able to carry out.' For it was not possible for Life to be held fast by the bonds of death.

For he has been raised from the dead, having despoiled Hades, and having said to those in bonds:

'Uncover yourselves.' And having opened a way for human nature to return to life, and having shown himself manifest to the holy disciples, and having appointed them initiators of the inhabited world into the mysteries, and having commanded them to baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he ascended to the Father, as a kind of firstfruit and first offering of those who had fallen asleep, appearing also to the spirits above, so that he might make heaven accessible to us as well.

And indeed he said to the holy disciples:

'I will go and prepare a place for you;'

'and I will come again, and take you to myself;'

'that where I am, there you also may be with me.' Celebrating, then, upon all these things, let us of necessity purify ourselves through labors, mortifying the flesh by fasting — or rather, the pleasure that is in the flesh and comes from the flesh;

joining ourselves to the holy God through Christ the mediator, and let us show ourselves worthy of the splendor of the saints.

And adding to our fasting the honors that come from good deeds, let us show mercy to widows, let us visit orphans, let us break bread for the hungry, let us clothe the naked, let us visit those in bonds, let us bring the homeless poor into our house, and, in short, let us practice every kind of virtue.

For then, then, let us fast purely;

beginning the holy Forty Days from the thirteenth of the month of Phamenoth, and the week of the saving Pascha from the eighteenth of the month of Pharmouthi, ending the fasts on the twenty-third of the same month of Pharmouthi, at deep evening, according to the evangelical proclamation;

and celebrating on the following dawning Sunday, the twenty-fourth of the same month of Pharmouthi, and joining thereto also the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost, according to the ordinance of the divine law.

For thus, adorned with upright and good works, we shall 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, now and always, and unto the ages of ages.

Sacred words from of old have hymned the tokens of our holy feast;

and, resounding and far-carrying, they ordain that it is fitting to cry aloud over it, saying:

'Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the notable day of your feast.' But since the shadow of the Law has already been taken away, and moreover the letter has flowed on into a clear and more manifest disclosure of realities, let us set aside, as stale and by now useless, that which was devised by the ancients in shadow and types — I mean the fainter sound of trumpets — and let us persuade ourselves that the precise and well-ordered service of proclamation should now minister to the tokens of the feast.

For the new moon now appears — that is, there rises the renewing and new season of the resurrection of our Savior.

For 'if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,' according to what is written, 'and the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.' Should we not, then (for I shall consider it necessary to proceed straight to what is fitting), 'sanctify a fast,' according to the voice of the prophet?

Now to sanctify means to consecrate, and, as it were, to offer it up as one of the votive gifts spoken of, to the God who rules over all things.

Now those who are experienced in war, and who know how to drill others in tactics, when the occasion calls for battle, run around among the ranks of their own men;

and they command them to cast the fear out of their minds, and through countless words they persuade them that it is fitting to show themselves noble in the onset of toils.

But I, for my part, shall consider it necessary, once again, for those who do not hold virtue unpracticed, but who have made a very good habit of laboring for it among the things held most honorable, to set forth a discourse able to whet them on, as it were a summons to zeal in this very matter.

For it is already 'time to act for the Lord,' according to what is written.

But to do what? To play the man against the passions;

to put pleasures to death, and to bring the mind into order toward whatever has been holily admired, making use of the full armor of the saints;

in which the most excellent Paul also gloried before us, saying:

'I buffet my body and bring it into subjection;'

'lest, after preaching to others, I myself should become disqualified.' For labor spent on ascetic exercises is, admittedly, a burdensome and hard-to-bear thing;

yet it is rich in fruits leading to virtue and good order, and by a small loss of the worse, it confers a benefit incomparably better.

And the blessed Paul will make this clear when he says:

...by the impulse of the spirit; yet this hateful and pleasure-loving little flesh rises up against it, being sick within itself with the law of sin, and ever inciting those inclined toward it, of necessity, to barter away the glory that comes from better things;

come, then, setting before what is shameful that which is beneficial and honored by divine judgment, let us, with sobriety and moderation, lull to rest the untamed motion of the flesh, and let us make self-control, as it were, our friend;

and the virtues bordering and neighboring upon it — I mean courage, righteousness, prudence — let us bind upon our own heads, like some crown gathered well together out of spring flowers of sweetest fragrance into a splendid shape;

and having washed away all defilement, let us, pure together with a pure fast, accomplish the service most fitting for the saints.

For then, then, adorned with the honors that come from the virtues as with radiant garments, we shall share together in the heavenly feast;

not hearing that dreadful voice which the Savior spoke to one of those who had been invited:

'Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment?' For it is wise to fit oneself to the occasion.

How, then, is this a matter of dispute? Since, then, for those celebrating the feast, not to have adorned oneself splendidly is not without penalty, how is it not sufficient, for the conviction and condemnation of those who dishonor the divine calling, that they should appear to be lacking the brightness of mind? Those who, so to speak, are still defiled and reeking, and who pursue a life uncongenial and incompatible with the zeal of the saints — how could they be numbered among them? And yet Christ has plainly spoken concerning the dispensation that is to come in due season:

'Then shall the righteous shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.' Let, then, the unholy defilement of worldly affairs be cast away;

and let fornication depart along with it, and covetousness, and envy, whispering and slander, and deceit, and guile.

For thus, together with the charges arising from wickedness, the all-grievous judgment is also crushed, which lies in wait over the heads of those who love sin;

and there will rise up, as it were, those things in which one might reasonably take pride;

and we shall be together with Christ, the Savior of us all;

and, having a reputation free from every blemish, we shall easily gain as our due the privilege of dwelling together with the flocks of the saints.

Let us, then, once again welcome, as it were a governor and a guide toward the best things, the wise John, saying:

'Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world;'

'if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.'

'For all that is in the world — the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not from the Father, but is from the world.'

'And the world passes away, and its desire.'

'But he who does the will of God abides forever.' You see how the saints have chosen to live together with wise and blameless judgment, and how, as if leaping up manfully to a kind of watchtower over our affairs, they measure elegantly the distraction of the present life, indicating of what kind and how great it is, and for what purposes it might scarcely prove useful;

'For all that is in the world,' he says, 'is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life.' For do the measures pertaining to pleasure and luxury, among those who have collapsed into worldly indolence, not extend precisely as far as the table and the pleasures of the belly? For manifold delicacies, and seasonings, and the fading fashions of rich sauces, and a Sybaritic table — these, I think, are of all things held most precious among them.

And, as it seems to me at least, the desire of the eyes would also be fully realized concerning the beauty of bodies and the brightness of material things, and in whatever objects the use of the visual faculty is wont to be beguiled toward what is more delightfully charming.

As for arrogance and love of glory, how, then, could I express to what a measure of baseness they have advanced? For God counts the man who is excessively haughty and supercilious among those who are most especially his enemies.

For 'the Lord resists the proud,' according to what is written.

Having set these things apart as alien to us, and having deemed them worthy of altogether little regard, and having honored, with a holy judgment, the glory that comes from better things, let us live according to the Gospel, elegantly practicing, as it were, even to seem to have died to the world, by refusing to endure living in a worldly manner.

Something of this sort Paul also intimates when he says:

'For through the law I died to the law, that I might live to God;'

and Christ lives in me.' And he was, I think, calling to mind what He himself had said:

'Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into the death of the Lord? We were buried with him, then, through baptism into death,

so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.' Therefore I will say something necessary for our benefit, and will again make use of the words of the saints:

For merely to seem to have embraced the faith, while looking toward other things, and to hate being firmly grounded in it — this, I would say, amounts to the very extremity of all evil.

But upon those whose mind has thus been corrupted, who have chosen to think and act in this way, the divine word at once pronounces a curse:

'Woe,' it says, 'to fearful hearts, and to slack hands, and to the sinner who walks on two paths.' For it is truly the sickness of a chilled mind, and the mark and indictment of a relaxed and slackened spirit, to be easily inclined toward change, and readily to love, only to choose afterward to hate.

For if someone were to ask another person — even one of only moderate sobriety, not to say one of the very feeblest — saying, 'Which, my good man, since the choice lies before you, would you...

...obtain, health or sickness — and though it were easy to install whichever seemed good to him, would he choose to be sick, letting go of the other, or would he rather run to what is clearly better, and consider the question laughable? Has a man, then, sunk to such a depth of derangement of mind that he would not cry out plainly and distinctly that his body should by all means be sound and strong —

— and that, as for having anything to do with the other ailment, he would never in the least choose it? And indeed, there is no way we shall not say that such a person has counseled well.

For things that are right, even if someone should refuse to affirm them, possess of themselves a glory that is manifest and self-evident, and it is not safe to disparage them.

If, then, we shall reckon bodily strength among the best of things, and inscribe it in the portion of what is most to be desired, how is it not utterly senseless that we should not be seen holding the same understanding concerning the soul — or rather, that we should not deem it worthy of the more urgent care? For by as much as souls surpass bodies, by so much, I think, will it be necessary to devote to them a more perfect diligence.

Therefore, ointments, and foods, and the continual use of the remaining care, going beyond what is needed, banish sickness from human bodies.

For that it is necessary to think in this way was believed even by the men of old, and the divine law itself has proclaimed it to us like an oracle.

For this is the first and most admirable commandment:

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This, I say, is what it means to choose to honor the Maker with whole and complete faith.

Consider the matter thus:

and those who have chosen to do this we shall reckon most praiseworthy, and shall henceforth honor with the fairest vote;

or, as someone might perhaps think it better and preferable, to feign in word a right mind while one's judgment remains barbarous, and thus, being diseased, to slip into things not free from utter shame.

But, I think, one might say — if indeed he had a wise mind — that he both is and will be base, and deserves a base destruction, who conceals one thing in his heart but says another, according to the poets among the Greeks.

For I think it necessary to preserve toward those in power a goodwill wholly free from reproach;

but with the whole mind to hate the things of the barbarians.

But if to win a good reputation in these matters is something manifest and worthy of esteem, how shall we not reckon it necessary that those who are yoked to God, and who have made a full and true confession of faith in him — and this before many holy witnesses — should love to cleave to him alone, in a single undivided way, crying out that word in the Psalms:

'My soul has clung fast behind you'? For in no other way than this could they be reckoned among the true worshippers.