Ancoratus 1 part 8/12

He was crucified, then — the Lord was crucified — and we worship him who was crucified, who was buried, and who rose on the third day, and ascended into the heavens.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, according to what is written!

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, drawing as it were a droplet from the ocean of the knowledge of God, and grasping only an illustration of such an economy — the grace of our hope, by the good pleasure of the Father, the will of the Son, together with the will of the Holy Spirit, this being the same economy of God.

All the Scriptures had the proclamation of the resurrection scattered throughout them, but its perfection was reserved for the coming of the very hypostatic Word himself.

For “Christ is the fulfillment of the law,” according to what is written.

For where did the divine writing not speak concerning the resurrection? First, the blood of Abel proclaims it.

For after death he still speaks, as the Scripture says.

Enoch was translated and was not found, and did not see death.

Noah built an ark at God’s command, working out for himself a regeneration for his own household.

Abraham, in his old age, receives a son when his body was already as good as dead, and God granted the hope from the dead — especially since Sarah’s womb had been deadened; and that which had grown old and had come near to extinction, the dried-up spring of the customary course of woman, again receives power for the laying down of seed, and the old woman conceives as though she were younger.

And Isaac, alive, was given back to his father from death.

For God, in giving back the child alive to his father from among the dead, was proclaiming the hope of the resurrection.

Jacob shows the matter, not placing the hope concerning the bones in second place.

For he took care of such things not as things perishing, but as things about to live again, and he gave instructions that they be carried back from the land of the Egyptians, not as a matter of secondary importance.

And Joseph signified this, saying, “You shall carry my bones up with you.”

“For the Lord will surely visit you.”

If there were no hope of resurrection, what would be the point of care for bones, when the righteous give commands concerning bones that are decaying? The first utterance to Moses is God’s own testimony:

“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” — men who in the world have fallen asleep, but who with me are living.

It is one and the same Spirit that spoke in the Law and that teaches in the Gospel.

For this too is what the Savior signified to the Sadducees — he who speaks in the prophets: “Behold, I am present.”

Left in the tabernacle from evening until dawn —

For with men, the living trees, through twelve months, as the cycle of the year is completed, bear fruit only with labors — the sun warming, the rains watering, the dews spreading, and night and day nourishing; but in a single night God made the difficult easy.

For the dry rod budded, and put forth leaves and ripe fruits.

For God showed forth things like these, of the resurrection that was to be wrought by him.

When children are conceived according to the honorable marriage that the Lord instituted, first the seed of natural succession is laid down, as the Lord showed, according to the generative wombs.

And as the times roll on, that which has been laid down in the womb comes to full term through a period of nine months.

I mean that within the number of nine months that which is conceived is brought to completion and is born.

But in the resurrection it is not so.

“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible.”

As the Lord showed in the tabernacle of witness, that the nuts which in living trees are formed over twelve months come to thickness in the dry wood and become shoots — and in a single night, not only that, but within the space of a single hour, he brought to completion that which, as has been said, comes to pass over twelve months.

And likewise the infant that is formed in the womb over nine months, which is brought to completion after being assembled over a long period of time — in the resurrection it will rise, having been completed within the space of a moment.

Let the power of the Lord persuade the unbelieving — [the Lord] whose will no one withstands.

Let Moses hear and demonstrate.

"What is in your hand?" says the Lord;

and this rod was made of wood, and altogether dry.

And he says, "Cast it upon the ground."

And he cast down the dry rod.

and God made the dry thing moist, and not only moist, but also ensouled with life; indeed, altered in nature and fashioned otherwise in essence.

The deed was no phantom;

for truth works by God's command, and not illusion.

For in all things, through Moses, he set our understanding right, [directing it] toward the truth.

For the prophet knew that what was happening was not in mere semblance, but in truth—this by his very fleeing;

for if he had known that what was happening was an illusion, he would not have fled from before the serpent's face.

But lest this again become a stumbling-block to the contentious, and they say:

"that the rod was one thing, but God gave it a different body, as he willed"—

let them first learn that he did not ensoul one thing in place of another, but ensouled that very same thing which had been dry;

that this body given to the rod, and the kind or form set in motion by it, God was not summoning to judgment, nor did he wish to judge a serpent in the rod's stead; rather, he worked through the rod a full assurance of the resurrection, and God thereby demonstrated his own power, so that no one might disbelieve the Powerful One in all things.

And this very thing he did with complete certainty;

for he did not raise up some part of the rod, but transformed the whole rod, as he willed.

And that these things are so, and that the dead have hope of eternal life, and that those in the tombs will rise—call for me again as witness the trustworthy Moses.

For when Reuben had sinned, his father, the holy patriarch Jacob, cursed him and said: "Reuben, my firstborn and the beginning of my children, you ran wild like water;"

"for you went up onto your father's bed, and you defiled," he says, "the place where you went up."

"May you not return," or "may you not be added," or again "may you no more abound"—or, put plainly in the bare word, "may you not boil over";

thus the translators have rendered it.

And if you wish to learn that these things are so, and that death was decreed by the father for this one who had sinned, Moses will make it clear to you.

For when he too, blessing the twelve tribes, came to Reuben, and knowing that Levi was the priest—for by the hand of the priesthood sins were both loosed and bound—he said: "Let Reuben live, and let him not die."

But how could he live, who had been buried a hundred and twenty-six years before?

But since he knew that the resurrection was in all respects destined to come to pass, and knew also the second death—the one that comes through condemnation on the day of judgment—wishing to lighten him from the punishments to come, in place of the one [temporal] penalty, he said, "Let him live at the resurrection," signifying this;

for he knew that all will live; and "let him not die," that is, let him not be clothed with the second death—the one through condemnation, and eternal torment.

For if he had been concerned only about the loss of [this present] life, it would have sufficed to say only, "Let Reuben live";

but since he signifies the things to come, he says, "Let Reuben live, and let him not die."

And from whence could anyone fail to gather so many testimonies concerning our hope and expectation of the resurrection—the resurrection that is in truth, and not in mere semblance? For let the vainglorious, who contend to no purpose, say: does a part of the bodies rise, and of all only in part; or again, for some does the whole rise, while for others the resurrection is [only] in part, and for others the whole body?

What kind of partiality would this be? Is there partiality then with God? May it never be!

Let us search out where or when the saints ever raised a dead person only in part, and not the whole body.

The son of the widow of Zarephath rose whole, and no part was left behind; the son of the Shunammite woman rose whole, and [Elisha] let no member of his fail to rise.

And the Lord raised Lazarus, and left no remnant behind in the tomb, but [he came forth] with the wrappings and the other garments—though on the day of judgment there is certainly no need at all of garments;

he raised whole the son of the widow in Nain, the daughter of the synagogue-ruler, the daughter of the centurion.

O how vain is the notion of those who reckon such things, [supposing] that he raises a part and leaves a part behind!

Let us look, then, at the very matters at hand, and at those who have already become for us pledges of hope, equally weighed [against it].

Enoch was translated whole, and has not seen death to this day; and Elijah was taken up whole in body, and has not seen death to this day—so that in two living bodies he might set before us the perfect resurrection.

And so that no one might doubt, [there are] two distinct patterns in these two firstfruits of our resurrection:

Enoch was in uncircumcision, and uncircumcision did not hinder the resurrection, nor the body's reception [of life] throughout the course of [its] life; Elijah was in circumcision, so that the resurrection might not be thought to belong to some and not to others, but might be seen as universal and complete.

Elijah was in virginity, so that the preeminence of virginity might proclaim to the world both immortality and incorruption together with the body;

but so that the resurrection and the body's continuance might not be thought to belong only to virginity because of its excellence, Enoch was not a virgin, but continent, and had begotten children.

And these two remain among the living, abiding in body and soul, for the sake of our hope.

And so that no one might again doubt, he also brought others down into Hades together with [their] bodies.

Job says: "until I become again," and "he will raise up this body that draws these things," and "you will renew me," and again, "your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's"; and Isaiah [says]: "the dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised."

For he came, the one who looses those bound, with strength—likewise those who provoke him, those who dwell in the tombs.

And Job says: "But a man, once he has fallen asleep, shall rise no more, nor shall he know his place again."

For indeed the resurrection truly does not happen day by day, but is appointed for one [single] day.

And to show that he knew for what appointed time he was waiting, he immediately resolved the question: "until the heaven shall no longer be sewn together."

For as long as heaven and earth exist, so long also the bodies remain in the earth;

but when he comes who rolls up the heaven like a scroll and shakes the earth, then those [who lie] in the dust of the earth will also be raised.

For this reason he says to Ezekiel: "Son of man, say, let bone be joined to bone, and joint to joint"; and it happened so;

and that sinews and veins came upon them, and flesh and hair and nails;

and again: "Say, son of man: come, O spirit, from the four corners of the earth"—that is, plainly, from the places where the souls had been stored up.

And for what reason does the Lord himself not speak, but commands the man to speak? Because whatever the Lord says, he does at once, and it can no longer be undone;

but he commanded the man to speak, so that after they had risen for that hour, our hope of salvation might be signified, while it was a man's word—and not the Lord's—that was to be undone.

For those bones were destined to die again;

but when the Lord says, "Arise," they are raised and do not die;

for the word of God will not be undone.

"Arise, come forth"—until he comes, and no longer says it in the singular, "Arise," but "Arise, all of you," working the universal resurrection;

for he himself is the resurrection of the dead.

For here, after his own rising from the dead, he raised no one except those who had died but recently;

for many bodies of the sleeping saints rose together with him and appeared to many, entering with him into the bridal chamber, according to what is written in the Gospel.

And it does not say, "a part of the bodies of the saints rose," but "the bodies of the saints";

and they appeared to many, being none other than those who had died, but recognized by their own kin, since they had not died long before.

And our Lord, wishing also to show the wonder to others, kept accomplishing those very difficult things by showing them to be easy.

And when he comes to the girl who had just died, the daughter of the synagogue-ruler, since she had died within that very hour, he deigned to say to her:

by the word "Arise," strengthening that which had already been undone [in death], since she was still lying on the bed;

but the son of the widow at Nain, since he was already being carried out on the bier, he raised more easily;

for he touched the bier, and said nothing to the boy, but only touched the bier, and he arose.

But something still deeper, and far beyond human hope, [was this]: when he came to the four-days-dead Lazarus, he did not even say "Arise," nor did he touch the tomb with his hand, but thus, readily, by his own authority, he calls: "Lazarus, come forth."

Much easier and readier, indeed, is the “come out here” than the touching; and the touching, again, is much easier than the calling, “Girl, arise.”

And here the holy Word of God does all these things, that he might show us the hope of the resurrection.

But if I should wish to gather out all the testimonies from all the Scriptures — though our mind is small and slight and unlearned — yet on account of their multitude I fear lest I extend the discourse to too great a breadth;

but, to sum up, I will say that our salvation is concise, and alike in all things, since one hope of the resurrection has been proclaimed to us.

But these things the unbelieving disbelieve, the wrong-minded corrupt, the contentious do not receive, the vainglorious reject;

but may God grant mercy to all, and shine light upon the darkened parts of their understanding.

For the Greeks, not having received the Holy Spirit, will be convicted by the truth and by all the aforesaid testimonies, but especially by you, the sons of the holy church of God and of the orthodox faith.

For you teach — having received the Holy Spirit and having been deemed worthy of fitting speech at the opening of your mouth — first, that you have been counted worthy to be disciples of Christ, the chief Shepherd and protector of our souls; and, having gathered your own peoples as nurslings unto the flocks of Christ, taking care how you might nourish both yourselves and the nurslings of God — I mean, whoever wishes by all means to be benefited — out of the holy land hinted at through Moses.

But who among those who think rightly, looking upon you the devout and faithful — O orthodox, and sons of the church (for in saying “some,” I mean all the sons of the truth) — as it is written, who would doubt concerning these things? For being sons of a wise and most courageous woman, whose renown is according to Solomon, who says, “A courageous woman, who shall find?”— as though she were rare, or rather unique — you will choose the better and will love the profitable.

Now by “a courageous woman” understand for me the church of God, your mother, than whom none is more courageous, who dies at every persecution that arises, for the sake of the name of her own husband.

This most gentle woman, then, asks her own bridegroom precisely in the Book of Songs: “Where do you shepherd? Where do you make your flock lie down at noon?” Now Christ shepherds in the aforesaid holy land, and he not only shepherds, but also commands that the sandal be loosed from the feet of the shepherds, as he first says to Moses:

having received the tradition from him, you yourselves too securely lead by the hand those who are being introduced into the holy knowledge, taking care, first, that the sandals of each be loosed.

But the sandals of each of us differ.

For each has shod himself according to his own conduct.

And so, each one of you obeying you, the disciples and good shepherds — he who was shod with idolatry has loosed it off through your admonition; another has loosed off adultery; another, fornication; another, theft; and another, covetousness.

And not only this, but also, renouncing hateful words and shameful speech, each one, with blessed hopes, delivers himself, through you the good disciples, to be pastured under the mighty hand of the good Shepherd;

for each will by all means abstain from error.

And you set the truth before their eyes, exposing the idols as counterfeit and openly proclaiming the error concerning them; for you do not consider these to be dead, since they never even lived, but you reasonably teach all men at all times that they are empty and vain and non-existent.

For they never existed at all, that those things might be something.

But they are wretched contrivances, a fabrication of the human mind, which has lent strength to occasions for pleasures;

and from this, each man's own passion, having been ratified into an object of worship, has been ventured upon.

For first, straightway when this was introduced as a novelty among men through the wickedness of demons, this fornication first uttered itself, and the idols were first outlined in shadow-paintings.

…for their children, and through the matter of their own craftsmanship they fashioned gods: the potter out of clay, the carpenter out of wood, the goldsmith out of gold, and the silversmith likewise.

And yet again, each one depicted his own passion in likenesses of form before his own eyes: some bloodthirsty man, for instance, proclaiming Ares; an adulterer or adulteress, the promiscuous Aphrodite; a tyrant, having given wings to Victory.

For the squalid man, gaping after the things of this life, painted the likeness of Cronus; while the effeminate man depicted Cybele and Rhea, on account, I suppose, of the fluidity of the promiscuous intermingling of bodies.

And why should I speak to you of the multitudes of countless passions existing among men? But beyond all others the Egyptians, having gone astray, not only venerated their own passions, but even transformed into a new rank birds and quadrupeds, creatures of land and of water, and certain untamed beasts — even the very things that had been handed over to them as servants by the holy God;

and, being beast-like in their thinking, they commit excessive impiety, deifying the animals among them and feeling no shame: the dog, the barking one; the cat, the reptile-eater; the goat, the licentious one; the sheep, the bleating one; the crocodile, the many-clawed and most sullen; the ibis, the poison-eater; and the kite and the hawk and the raven, the most servile of creatures; and the serpent, the crooked and most repulsive one.

And, in a word, oh what great shame belongs to those who neither perceive by sight their own refutation, nor receive perception through their hearing, nor understand with their mind the things vainly done among them!

They have, then, been struck by an evil doom, being illumined not even by their own philosophers, nor becoming fellow-beholders of the general round of truth's teaching.

“Come now, Heracles, performing your thirteenth labor, come forward to boil our relish for us!”

Whom, indeed, taking and splitting up for kindling, mocking his own god as not existing, he was nourished, jesting over the breakfast set before him.

And another, Heraclitus, says to the Egyptians:

“If they are gods, why do you lament them?” For, lamenting Typhon and Osiris and other chthonic gods with shrill wailing, they mourn them as though they had been laid out for burial.

“If they are gods, why do you lament them? But if they have died, you lament them in vain.”

And another, a comic poet named Eudaemon, says: “If indeed there are gods, I am not able to speak concerning them, nor to declare what form they have.”

“For there are many things that hinder me.”

And Homer too says: “The rule of many is not good.”

And Philemon, another comic poet, says: “Those who worship one god have good hopes for salvation.”

For Apis, straightway the chaff-eating calf, is struck on the thigh with a sword by Cambyses, king of the Assyrians, so that, if blood should flow, he might be proven not to be a god.

But the followers of Cronus do not deny that their own god has been shut up in iron chains, reasoning thus:

“But if someone exists in confinement, it is not simply because he is subject to one who is greater, but such a one is also in confinement as an evildoer.”

But if there is also to be for me a discourse concerning Isis, who is also called Atthis and Io, and who is the daughter of Apis the Cappadocian, who is also called Inachus, I am perhaps ashamed to proclaim their deeds;

yet I shall not be ashamed to speak of what they themselves are not ashamed to worship.

And straightway, being in love — the one with Osiris, their own brother, the other with Typhon, the other brother — they set their own brothers to make war upon one another.

And great is the shame of the goddess who felt no reverence for her own brother, but was in love, and was not content with men from outside, but went so far as to reach even her own brother.

And not only this, but she also displays fratricide to those most dear to her, on account of the insatiability of her own desire.

And she bears one child, Horus, though she was not able to establish who truly was his legitimate father.

For if she should name Typhon, she doubts that he is his father;

but if Osiris, who could establish the certainty of this? Such a mother taught him to become a fine god, having taken him along and having played the harlot in Tyre for ten years.

And the children of the Sinopeans, deifying Sarapis, that is, Apis, who was called king, were enslaved rather to tyranny than to truth.

These are the wages of the gods honored among the Egyptians, to recount which in detail would consume a great deal of time.

But the Greeks, who suppose themselves to be something, philosophizing only in words and in sharpness of tongue and not in deeds, have run aground more than all others;

who derive Cronus from Uranus, saying that he was begotten from Uranus and that he cut off the private members of his own father — O evil deed, and shameful conjecture!

who, had he not been cut off, there would have been many Cronian sons.

And being of noble parents, so to speak, this one's son — Zeus is his name — was in danger of becoming the husband of every woman, as was also his son Hermes.

And would that he had, according to the laws, become one bound by a dowry-contract, and not always a stealer of marriages and an evildoer!

For he corrupted Penelope, becoming a goat on account of pleasure;

and he became a goat, I suppose, on account of the vigor of the intertwining of his beard.

But that gold could never actually come to be; rather, being a trickster, by bribing with gold he deceived the virgin.

And with Leda, again he becomes a swan, signifying thereby the winged uplift of the burning of his own pleasure.

And having become an eagle — though he never once took wing — he sits enthroned as the teacher of corrupters of boys;

never having become an eagle at all, but, in a ship marked with an emblem and named “Eagle” on account of its speed, having sailed past Troy and having seized Ganymede, the son of the king of the Trojans, he accomplished the corruption.

And toward Pasiphae he became a bull, and likewise also toward Europa.

And why should I recount to you the multitude of the corruptions wrought by this “noble” ravisher of virgins and teacher of ravishers? His tomb is well known to not a few.

For on the island of Crete, on the mountain called Lasius, it is pointed out even to this day.

But Zeuses have come to be, not one or two, but even three and four in number.

For one of them is the aforesaid son of Cronus, who cast his own father down to Tartarus on Mount Caucasus; another is called Latiaris, from whom the gladiators arose; and another is the “tragic” one, who even burned his own hand.

“Do not touch me, O goat, when you come near to kiss me;

for if you touch me, you will set my beard ablaze.”

But Athenas have come to be, not one, but many:

one wandering and roaming about the Tritonian lake, another she of Oceanus, another she of Cronus, and many others besides.

But Heracles, who is called among them "Averter of Evil," whose deeds I shall entirely pass over in silence, yet I shall point out one out of them all, the one perhaps praised among them—

it will suffice for him to have undertaken this labor, that salvation might come to human life.

For if he had not corrupted fifty virgins in a single night, how would the world have been saved? Rather, it would have perished!

And simply I confess to you, I am loath to write out their evil deeds in prose, one by one.

Moreover, most savage kings and tyrants, having had certain beloved ones and having buried them in the earth—having nothing more to grant them, seeing that they themselves too were corruptible just as those others—out of affection for them have, to the deception of human life, handed over their tombs to their own subjects to be venerated as gods, on an evil pretext; as Antinous, who was buried at Antinoöpolis, and who, depicted reclining in a pleasure-boat, was thus enrolled among the gods by Hadrian.

And Timogenes in Asia; and Canobus, the helmsman of Menelaus, and his wife Enmenouthis, buried in Alexandria, are honored on the seashore, twelve milestones apart from one another; and Marnas, the slave of Asterius the Cretan, among the Gazans; and Casius the shipmaster among the Pelusiotes.

Therefore, when you examine all these things carefully in the midst of the church, you release those who have thus been led forward from this evil example of the deadly path, and you bring others from adultery to chastity, and you free them not only from stealthy defilement of marriage but also teach them, for the sake of self-control, to disdain even their own wife, since the time is still compressed, as the sacred apostle says; and you instruct fornicators, lest, having committed the unlawful act before God and men, they be punished.

And when, laboring, you deliver all these things by word and by deed, you persuade them to accept all things from you, having first done all things in deed and formed them in yourselves, confirming your words through your deeds—by which you first taught yourselves, so that you might also make disciples of others.

For even in silence you hold to it, after the manner of the sun, which likewise teaches all everywhere even by its silence—

for as soon as it rises, though silent, it teaches all people their various crafts.

And when you hand down the benefit of all these things to your own children, or rather to your most faithful brothers, you lead them forward to walk upon earth but to hold their citizenship in heaven, and you beget in most of them a zeal for the monastic life.

Through the firmness that is in you and your unfeigned faith, hating heretics, silencing Manichaeans and Marcionites and the rest like them, you drive them away from God's fold, dissolving all their pretexts and stopping their mouths.

For how many things they boldly declare against God and against his holy prophets, being frivolous and empty of the Holy Spirit; they blaspheme against the Creator of all things, and as for all the good things which God, through his holy prophets, graciously gave to all mankind by prophecy in the Spirit, these men hate them—both the deepest things of the Law and of the Prophets—since, being earthly and carnal, they do not understand, examining them in a merely natural way.

For through such words the vain-minded are swept away like brushwood in the current of a mighty river.

But they say, "Fine indeed is the god of the Law, who, not knowing where Adam was, asked, saying, 'Adam, where are you?' and says to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' and to Abraham, 'Where is Sarah your wife?'" — and many other such things.

Yet these very men who say such things believe in the Savior as God with their mouth and not in truth—that is, that he is God and has foreknowledge—whereas he, in the New Testament, likewise asks the same kind of questions as in the Old: "Where have you laid Lazarus?" and "Who touched me?" and "Do you have any loaves with you?" and "Whom do you want?" or "Whom do you seek?"

Henceforth the refutation of these men is easy and simple.

For just as the Son asks while possessing foreknowledge, so also the Father himself likewise asks even in the Law, being always the same and not changing.

For if he says, "Where have you laid Lazarus?", he is ignorant neither in the Gospel nor in the Old Testament.

For he says, "Where have you laid him?", wishing to expose that they had not shown even an equal faith to that of the Shunammite woman—even though she had it toward a mere man, namely Elisha the holy prophet, whereas those around Martha had it toward God himself.

And if he says, "Who touched me?", he does not say it out of ignorance, but so that he might persuade the woman to confess of her own accord, so that the Son of God might not testify concerning himself, but be glorified by others.