Theological and Ethical Discourses 1 part 21/27

If all the merchants run to the fair to trade something and profit from their business, while one of them—seeing some going ahead of him and others coming behind and hastening past him with great eagerness, or sitting at his house watching them pass by and go off to the fair in haste—himself, gripped by laziness and indolence, and not only that but also occupied with drunkenness and luxury, and pitiably held captive by love for a harlot woman, does not choose to run to the marketplace, putting it off day after day: did not those others redeem the time of their life, trading and returning with great profit, while that man lost it, squandering it on things useless and vain, and thus selling it off?

But if he does reach the fair together with them, and all of them, bearing gold, go straight to their trading, and one buys this while another buys that, by which each hopes to gain profit, while he, bringing nothing at all, runs about seeking to find some source from which to borrow—or even after finding gold, if the fair should come to an end and he be left having done no business—did he not again lose the time, having gone to the fair without gold?

...going about here and there, greedily eating and drinking now from these, now from other people—and not only this, but if he also squanders his gold in drunkenness and debauchery, did not this man too lose the time and foolishly squander what he possessed?

But he who comes to the fair with gold and does none of the contrary things we have mentioned, but enters it together with his fellow merchants—if he merely goes about the whole fair, spying out and observing now his acquaintances, now those unknown to him, both his own people and strangers, to see how each of them does business, while he himself does no business at all, and thus, as he wanders about aimlessly, the fair should again break up, with everyone departing to their own homes—did not those who traded redeem the time diligently, doing what was fitting for the occasion and securing for themselves a profit from it, while he who was busy prying into others' affairs and did no business himself, even though present among them, forfeited the time, gaining no benefit from having been found at the fair?

And again, if others, in expectation of profit, despise the danger of robbers' attack, the toil of the journey, and the long road, while he, struck with fear of these things, even though urged by everyone to travel together with them, and even though he hears them promise to protect him from the evils he expects, does not choose to follow them and go off to trade with them at the fair—did not the former redeem the time, having traded well and profited, while he foolishly forfeited it, having feared there a fear where there was no fear?

So it is, therefore, also with every spiritual act and work.

For when others walk in the commandments of God and practice all the virtues with zeal and fervor, while we spend our time in negligence and idleness, they have redeemed the time and gained the greatest benefit, but we have lost both ourselves and the time.

But let us still further examine the meaning.

'Redeeming the time, because the days are evil'?

How then does one redeem the time, and what is this time, and what are the evil days on account of which we ought to redeem the time?

The time of business for every man is this span of the present life;

and the days of this life are plainly evil for those who do not use them well.

Everyone, therefore, who lives soberly and righteously with a sound mind in this life, and bears with steadfastness and patience of soul the toilsome and grievous trials and afflictions that come upon him, whether from visible or invisible enemies, redeems the time wisely and turns to good account the evil days of the present life.

And that this may become clearer, I shall make my argument from the things that happen daily in life.

He who knows how to make good use of the present time, whenever afflictions come upon him, and reproaches and dishonors and mockeries, recognizing them as riches and clearly foreseeing the profit to be gained from them, seizes them and lifts them upon his shoulders and goes his way rejoicing, laying down only patience in place of gold; and thus he redeems the time in a single moment—a time which others, fasting for many years, keeping vigil, sleeping on the ground, and toiling greatly at home, are unable to find, obtain, or gain.

But he who does not know how to do business in this way loses the time of his salvation.

If it seems good, let us also work out the argument by another example.

Which is better: the one who hid himself and escaped the afflictions, or the one who suffered much and endured, and perhaps even died?

It is quite clear that it is altogether the one who endured the afflictions and did not refuse death who has redeemed the time, while the other, along with the time, has also forfeited the salvation of his own soul.

Therefore, those who think rightly, through the afflictions and trials of this present life, purchase the eternal goods and unceasing joy, and through bodily death, the eternal and immortal way of life and dwelling together with the immortal and eternal God.

And just as a merchant, having found many precious things being sold for a small price—perhaps for a single obol or coin—gladly and eagerly pays it, desiring to obtain those precious things, so too the man who contends for the commandment of God chooses to die with gladness and eagerness, as one who, for the price of a single obol—I mean, death—is about to acquire the eternal goods.

Not so, however, do the lovers of the world act; not so the lovers of life, the lovers of glory, the lovers of the flesh, the lovers of pleasure, and the lovers of wealth;

but whenever they are invited to transgress a commandment of God by someone occupying a position of worldly eminence, being unable to bear his indignation and dishonor, or his aversion, or the loss of money, they betray the eternal and priceless things and foolishly purchase for themselves the temporary, corruptible, and worthless things, and they destroy their own salvation—that is to say, eternal life itself;

such people choose to buy for themselves a few days of ease, and so contrive to be punished for endless ages, trading away the time of their present life.

So that we too may not suffer this, let us, I entreat you, redeem the present time, while the fair of our life still stands, since its days are exceedingly evil, stirring up daily countless waves of the salty sea of sin surging against us—at times filling our souls with the storm and tempest of the body's self-indulgence and its disorderly movements, at times, through the visible and invisible enemies who assail us, casting us into despondency, lust, and savage wrath, stirring up our hearts, and by such means making us all far removed from the kingdom of heaven.

Let us, then, redeem the time of our life, giving our resolves and our whole selves solely to the work of the commandments of God, solely to the acquisition and gain of virtue, so that, laden with the cargoes of the gifts of the Spirit, we may arrive at the harbors of God and flee those evil days and that evil report which sends sinners away into the outer fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Let us redeem the discernment of our soul through despising visible things and through the study and practice of better things, and let us flee the mind of the flesh, which cannot please God, nor can it snatch us away from the enjoyment of temporary things and set our mind upon the things that abide and are eternal;

which does not allow the one held captive by it to live according to God, but drags the soul ever further down into the bestial impulses of the flesh and renders the man entirely bestial.

...of that very Sun of Righteousness, God, who will justify us through the gift of his Holy Spirit and, by union with himself, show us to be righteous, making us partakers of the ineffable good things of his kingdom.

Let us redeem the fortitude of our own souls through much patience and endurance in trials, according to the word of the Lord:

'In your patience,' he says, 'possess your souls'—that is, standing against sin with manly resolve, and striking the enemy with the weapons of the Spirit, enduring hardship as good soldiers of Christ in fastings, in vigils, in sleeping on the ground, in prayers, in mourning, in sackcloth and repentance and unceasing supplications, so that, having taken up the crown of victory, we may reign together with Christ forever.

Let us redeem the temperance of our body through all self-control and humility, since he who competes lawfully and contends in the stadium of piety is temperate in all things, according to the divine Apostle.

For if we acquire this, we shall flee the evil days of irrational desire and of wrath, and of the flesh itself, which is truly at war with the Spirit;

we shall flee the defilement that comes upon the soul from such things—the condemnation of conscience, the impurity of the heart, the censure of men, and God's own aversion—and we shall gain greatly in this spiritual business, having wisely traded with the time of the present life, and having traveled the road of life in righteousness and temperance, bearing manfully the burden and the heat of the day.

For thus, transacting the present time, yielding to those who wish it the temporary things, and laying claim only to the incorruptible and eternal things, we shall arrive at the calm harbor of the kingdom of God, richly laden with the cargoes of the Spirit, and we shall not fear either that evil report which drives sinners into the outer fire, or those evil torments and the dreadful day and condemnation of judgment, bearing with us that precious pearl of the Spirit which we have found and purchased, having given all our wills, our thoughts, our resolves, and our powers in the business of the time of the present life.

May it be granted to all of us to attain this, having rightly conducted the present life of this world here, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages.

Discourse 13. On the saying of the Apostle:

'The first man was from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.'

And how do we put off the earthy man and put on Christ, having become his kinsmen and brothers?

Having well feasted us at the earlier table of his divine words and gladdened our hearts, the blessed Paul again sets before us another table for our feasting, spread with his God-inspired sayings—a table full of spiritual dishes, from which our inner man knows how to be nourished, rejoicing at once and being strengthened in heart by the living bread of the word and by the wine that gladdens, the wine of the wisdom and knowledge of God; full too of the divine grace of the Spirit, from which the soul is filled with all gladness and delight, and, leaving behind the lower things of life, ascends to the heavens and to God on the light wing of the mind.

Let us see, then, what this table of the Apostle is, and what its dishes are.

But let us lift up our minds from earthly and corruptible things, and, as men about to hear the oracles of God, let us give heed to what is said with all precision, so that we may be counted worthy to feast worthily together with the Spirit, who through the Apostle speaks the hidden mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

'The first man was from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord, from heaven.'

Do not simply pass over this saying, beloved, nor regard it as easy to grasp;

but make your hearing ready, and you will come to know the depth of the mysteries of God hidden within it. 'The first man was from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.'

'As is the man of dust, so also are those who are of dust;'

'and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly.'

'And God formed man, taking dust from the earth.'

Having been formed, then, of dust from the earth, and having received the breath of life—which the Word knows how to call an intellectual soul and the image of God—he was placed in paradise, having received the commandment to work it and to keep it.

So that, as long as he should keep this commandment and work by it, he would remain immortal and vie eternally with the angels, and together with them ceaselessly hymn God, and receive the illuminations that come from there, and see God intellectually, and hearken to his divine voices; but in whatever hour he should transgress the commandment given to him and eat from the tree from which God had commanded him not to eat, he would be handed over to death, and the eyes of his soul would be blinded, stripped of the garment of divine glory, and his ears would be stopped up, and he would fall from that very fellowship with the angels and be driven out of paradise.

And this is indeed what happened to him when he transgressed, and he fell from immortal and everlasting life.

For Adam, having once transgressed the commandment of God, and having offered his ear to the deceiver, the devil, to whisper into it, and having been persuaded by him, having listened to his deceitful words spoken against the Master who had made him, tasted of the tree; and having opened his eyes to sensible things, and having looked with passion upon and seen the nakedness of his body, he was justly deprived of all the good things, becoming deaf so as no longer to hear with profane ears the divine words spoken in a godly and spiritual manner—words sounded only to those worthy of them—nor could he any longer behold that ineffable glory, since he had willingly turned his mind away from it, and had contemplated with passion the fruit of the tree, and had believed the serpent who said:

'In the hour that you eat of it, you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.'

This earthy man, then, being deceived by the hope of deification and partaking of it, was utterly deprived of all the intelligible and heavenly goods, and was cast down into the passionate perception of earthly and visible creatures;

and he became—to say again the same things—deaf, blind, naked, senseless with regard to that from which he had fallen, and moreover mortal and corruptible and irrational, made like unto the senseless beasts, according to the prophet who cries out thus:

'He was compared to the senseless beasts, and became like them.'

Have you learned from what glory and immortal delight and manner of life man was brought down into what dishonor, into what shame and ignorance, into what poverty he fell from such abundant wealth?

Such, then—even though we have not been able to say everything—was and became the first man, the one of the earth, made of dust.

Let us see, then, and be taught from the divine Scriptures, what sort of man is the second man, the Lord from heaven.

...upon the earth; and, to put it concisely, being thus and remaining such in the Father, and having the Father remaining in him, without being separated from him, without leaving him at all, he came down upon the earth and was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin;

and became man, becoming in all things like us without change, apart from sin, so that, passing through all that is ours, he might recast and renew that first man, and through him all those who had been born and are being born from him, who are like the one who begot them.

For since Adam who begot us became, after the transgression, corruptible and mortal—and I will add, also deaf and blind—and was made naked of the divine garment and became senseless, as is this man of dust, so also all those born from him have become men of dust: corruptible, mortal, deaf, blind, naked, and senseless, differing in nothing from irrational animals, or rather, one might say, having become even worse than they, in that they have taken upon themselves all the passions of those animals, one by one, and drawn them into themselves.

For those born of the dust from this man of dust were brought down into such ignorance of God and his divine commandments that they gave to this visible creation the honor which they ought to have rendered to God—and not only to heaven and earth and sun, moon and stars and fire and water and the rest, but they even deified those very shameful passions which God had forbidden them even to think of, let alone commit, and—O what senselessness!—having set them up as gods, worshipped them.

Fornication, adultery, madness for men, mutual murder, and whatever else is similar to these—things which, God forbid the blasphemy, it is not God but the devil who both commands, and suggests, and approves, and by which he has enslaved and continues to enslave the whole human race, and has made and makes them subject and slaves to himself.

Hence, even if in ancient times someone was found among those countless myriads and thousands who did not submit to his shameful commands and these desires of his, nevertheless, because he too, being descended from the seed of those who had sinned, was a slave of the tyrant death, and was handed over to its corruption, and was dispatched unfeelingly to Hades—there being, that is to say, no one able to save and redeem him—for this very reason, God the Word who made us, taking pity, came down, as he knows how, and became man, not from intercourse or seminal flux, but from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Ever-Virgin.

For taking from her all-pure blood flesh endowed with a soul, he became man, having been made and become wholly flesh himself -- namely the Son and Word of God -- immutably, unchangeably, as it is written:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us

This is the wonder incomprehensible to all and unfathomable to all: that the same one remained unchangeable in his divinity and yet became perfect man

For just as God fashioned Adam from the earth and granted him the spirit of life, and he became a perfect man unto a living soul, without intercourse and flux, so too he who fashioned that man becomes man without intercourse and flux;

and just as it is written there in the Old Testament that God cast a trance upon Adam and he slept, and taking one of his ribs God built it up and made the woman, so also here he has done.

The rib of Adam is the woman

From this very rib of Adam, that is, from his woman, () God the Word took flesh endowed with a soul and built it up into a perfect man, so that he might become in truth a son of Adam;

and having been made and become man, like us in all things except sin, he at once became, according to the flesh, kin to all men. For this too a certain one before us has said, speaking thus:

But he himself is God and man together, and his flesh and his soul were and are holy and most holy:

Holy God, as he was, the same he is and shall be:

for such was the Virgin -- spotless and undefiled;

such also was the rib taken from Adam

But the rest of mankind, even though they were his brothers and kinsmen according to the flesh, being made of earth remained such, and did not at once become holy and sons of God

But attend precisely to the Spirit who says these things:

God became man, and was made kinsman and brother of all men

Being therefore alone the Son of God, and alone both God and man, he alone was and is holy, as he shall be forever; alone righteous, alone true, alone immortal, alone loving mankind, alone merciful and compassionate, alone the Sovereign, alone the light of the world, being himself the unapproachable light

Such then being he, while we lie in death and corruption and have absolutely no fellowship whatsoever with him, except only, as we said, the kinship according to the flesh, there mediated between the two -- I mean God and men -- the faith in him, so that, since we are poor and have nothing at all to contribute toward our salvation, having received in place of all things faith in him, () God, having mercy on us, might grant us the remission of sins and deliverance from death and corruption, and freedom;

which he grants even until now to those who believe in him with their whole soul; and not only these things, but also the rest which he promised us, and which he continually promises us each day through the holy Gospels

To regenerate and refashion us through water and Spirit, and to number us among his holy servants; to grant us the grace of his Holy Spirit and to give us through it to partake of the good things of the earth which the meek inherit in joy and exultation of heart; to be united with us and numbered with us, and for both to become one in God himself the Father, bound together through him by the Spirit

Of all these things, then, we come to partake and enjoy whenever we exactly keep all that we have covenanted to him, and again flee all that we have renounced, not returning to our own vomit like dogs

Therefore, if we keep all that God himself has said and says to us, we are truly faithful, showing our faith by our works, and we become, like him, holy and perfect, wholly and entirely heavenly, children of the heavenly God, like him in all things by adoption and grace, since he too became like us in all things except sin;

but if, despising his holy and life-giving commandments, we fall away through negligence and do something contrary to his ordinances, having done what he commanded us not to do, we immediately fall from all those good things given to us by God through baptism

() And just as Adam, after the transgression, is cast out of paradise and of delight and of his converse with the angels, and is stripped naked and departs from the sight of God, so also we, when we sin, are separated from the Church of his holy servants, and strip off, through sin, the divine garment which we who are baptized put on -- namely Christ himself, as we believe;

and not only this, but we are also deprived of eternal life itself, and of that unsetting light itself, of the eternal good things, of sanctification, and of adoption

And thus we become again earthly, like that first earthly man, instead of heavenly and like that second man and Lord, Jesus Christ, in all things;

and besides these things we become liable to death and darkness, and are consigned to the unquenchable fire, tormented in great weeping and gnashing of teeth

For it is not from a sensible paradise, as Adam then, that we too are now cast out, nor are we condemned to till the earth as he was, but from the kingdom of the heavens and those good things concerning which it is written:

we cast ourselves out, and make ourselves liable to Gehenna also;

and had restoration through repentance not been granted to us, no one would ever have been saved

For this reason, God, being loving toward mankind and compassionate and willing our salvation, has wisely placed, between us and that fall, confession and repentance, and has given authority to everyone who wishes to recall himself from his fall, and through this to enter again into his former intimacy and glory and boldness toward God -- and not only this, but also into all those aforesaid good things, if he should wish to show fervent () repentance -- or even again to become heir of yet greater things

For according to the measure of repentance, every man finds a corresponding boldness and intimacy toward God, and this knowingly and clearly, as when one friend converses with another, face to face, and sees him purely with the eyes of the intellect

Those, therefore, who after baptism do not have this intimacy and boldness and participation in the aforesaid good things in full assurance, nor even know that they are clothed with Christ, nor behold in the light of the Spirit the light of his divinity, let them look closely into their own conscience:

and searching this out precisely, they will find that they have wholly set at naught the covenants made at baptism, either in part or altogether; or if not that, then that they have buried the talent of sanctification and adoption given to them and have not worked it, and for this reason have been deprived of the sight of the Master, since he is not false and does not repent of his gifts;

He who loves me will keep my commandments, and I will love him and manifest myself to him

You have heard what the Master says:

He who loves me will keep my commandments, and I too will love him and will manifest myself to him

If then Christ is truth, as he himself has said concerning himself:

"I am," he says, "the truth," and truth cannot lie (for it is impossible, says the Apostle, for God to lie); let none of those who do not see the Lord say that this is impossible;

for it is not impossible, but is even exceedingly possible

"I am the light of the world"; () those who do not see him are plainly blind, and they have remained blind precisely because they did not love him and keep his commandments

For if they had loved him and kept his commandments, they would have come to desire to see him, and would have sought this with their whole soul, and he himself would have manifested himself to them -- he who does not lie, who is by nature true and is the truth -- and for this reason came into the world, that he might illumine all who are in the world, that is, those sitting in darkness, not with some alien light, but with the light of his own glory and divinity

Let none, therefore, of the faithful who do not see the Lord intellectually, nor are clearly and knowingly illumined by his light, nor abide continually in the contemplation of his glory and, so abiding, see God within himself -- let him say that this is impossible:

nor let him too speak thus, like an unbeliever; but let each of you, beloved, having searched his own conscience, as we said, find himself to be the cause of his deprivation of the Master and of the sight of his glory