Chapter I.—The whole paschal mystery, dearly beloved, the evangelical narrative has indeed presented to us, and thus the hearing of the mind has been penetrated through the ear of the flesh, so that to none of us has the image of the deeds performed been lacking;
since the text of the divinely inspired history has evidently shown by what impiety the Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, to what judgment He was condemned, with what savagery He was crucified, and with what glory He was raised. But the office of our sermon must also be added, so that, just as I perceive that you demand the debt of custom with pious expectation, so I may subjoin to the solemnity of the most sacred reading [the exhortation]... Therefore, that there may be no place for ignorance among the faithful, the word which is in the preaching of the Gospel ought to be increased in the soil of your heart, so that, with the choking growths of thorns and thistles removed, the plantings of pious thoughts and the seedlings of upright wills may freely go forth into their own fruits.
For the cross of Christ, which was expended for mortals to be saved, is both a sacrament and an example: a sacrament, by which divine power is fulfilled; an example, by which human devotion is incited: for to those rescued from the yoke of captivity, redemption grants this also, that imitation can follow it. For if worldly wisdom so glories in its own errors that whatever leader each one has chosen for himself, he follows his opinions and manners and all his institutions, what fellowship in the name of Christ will be ours, unless we are inseparably united to Him who is, as He Himself has suggested, the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)? The Way, namely, of holy conversation; the Truth of divine doctrine; and the Life of everlasting blessedness. Chapter II.
—For the fullness of the human race having collapsed in our first parents, so did the merciful God will to come to the aid of the creature made to His own image through His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, that the repairing of nature might not be outside of nature, and that the second condition might advance beyond the dignity of its original origin. Happy, if it had not fallen away from that which God made; but better, if it abide in that which He has remade. It was much to have received a form from Christ, but it is more to have substance in Christ. For that nature took us up into its own property (which nature bends itself into whatever measures of kindness it wills, nor does it anywhere incur a conversion of mutability. That nature took us up) which would consume neither its own by ours nor ours by its own:
which so made in itself one Person of the Godhead and the manhood, that under the dispensation of weaknesses and powers neither could the flesh be inviolable through the Divinity, nor the Divinity be passible through the flesh. That nature took us up which would neither break off the propagation of our race from the common line, and yet would exclude the contagion of sin passing over into all men. Weakness indeed and mortality, which were not sin but the penalty of sin, were received by the Redeemer of the world unto punishment, that they might be expended unto a ransom.
What therefore in all men was the transmission of condemnation, this in Christ is the sacrament of piety. For He offered Himself, free from debt, to the most cruel exactor, and admitted the Jewish hands, the ministers of the devil, to the torment of His immaculate flesh. Which flesh He therefore willed to be mortal until the resurrection, so that for those who believe in Him neither persecution might be insuperable nor death terrible: since there was no more to be doubted concerning the fellowship of glory than there was to be doubted concerning the communion of nature. Chapter III.—If therefore, dearly beloved, we believe without hesitation in our heart what we profess with our mouth, we are crucified in Christ, we are dead, we are buried, we are also raised up in Him on the third day. Whence the Apostle says:
If you are risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; savor the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:1-4). But that the hearts of the faithful might know that they possess that whereby, spurning the desires of the world, they may be able to be lifted up to the wisdom on high, the Lord promises to us His presence, saying: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28:20). For not in vain had the Holy Spirit said through Isaiah: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and shall bear a son;
and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). Therefore Jesus fulfills the property of His name, and He who ascended into the heavens does not forsake the adopted; He who sits at the right hand of the Father is Himself the indweller of the whole body; and He Himself below strengthens unto patience, who above invites unto glory. Chapter IV.—Therefore we must neither be deceived among vain things, nor tremble among adverse ones. There indeed deceptions flatter, and here labors grow heavy. But because the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord (Ps. 32:5), the victory of Christ is everywhere present to us, that what He said may be fulfilled: Fear not, for I have overcome the world (John 16:33).
Whether therefore we fight against the ambition of the world, or against the concupiscences of the flesh, or against the darts of heretics, let us always be armed with the Lord's cross. For we never depart from the paschal feast, if we abstain from the leaven of the old malice (with the sincerity of truth). For amid all the varieties of this life, which are full of diverse passions, we ought to be mindful of the apostolic exhortation, by which he instructs us, saying: Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;
who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. For which cause God also has exalted Him, and has given Him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and of things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:5-11). If, he says, you understand the sacrament of great piety, and take note of what the only-begotten Son of God did for the salvation of the human race, have this mind in you.
...to you also that which is in Christ Jesus, whose humility is to be despised by none of the rich, and of which none of the noble need be ashamed. For no human felicity can be advanced to so high a pinnacle that it should reckon shameful to itself what God, remaining in the form of God, did not judge unworthy — to take upon Himself the form of a servant. CHAPTER V. — Imitate what He has wrought; love what He has loved; and, finding in yourselves the grace of God, love again in Him your own nature. For as He did not lose His riches through poverty, nor diminish His glory through humility, nor forfeit His eternity through death, so do you also, by the same steps and the same footprints, that you may lay hold of things heavenly, despise the things of earth.
For the taking up of the cross is the slaying of covetousness, the killing of vices, the turning aside from vanity, and the renunciation of every error. For although the Pasch of the Lord be kept by no one who is unchaste, nor by the wanton, nor by the proud, nor by the covetous, yet none are separated further from this festival than the heretics, and especially those who think ill of the Incarnation of the Word, either by diminishing what belongs to the Godhead, or by emptying out what belongs to the flesh. For the Son of God is true God, having wholly from the Father all that the Father is, with no temporal beginning, changeable by no variation; neither divided from the One, nor different from the Almighty, the eternal Only-begotten of the eternal Begetter:
...so that the faithful mind, believing in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in that same essence of the one Godhead, may neither divide the Unity by degrees, nor confound the Trinity by singularity. But it is not enough to know the Son of God in the Father's nature alone, unless we also acknowledge Him, not departing from what is His own, in what is ours. For that self-emptying which He spent for the reparation of mankind was a dispensation of mercy, not a privation of power. For since even from the eternal counsel of God there was no other name under heaven given to men whereby they must be saved (Acts 4:12), He, the invisible, made His own substance visible, He the eternal made it temporal, He the impassible made it passible:
...not that His power should fail in weakness, but that weakness might be able to pass over into incorruptible power. CHAPTER VI. — Wherefore this very festival, which by us is named Pascha, is called by the Hebrews Phase, that is, 'passing over,' as the Evangelist testifies, saying: Before the feast day of the Pasch, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should pass out of this world to the Father (John 13:1). But of what nature was that passing over to be, save of our own, since inseparably both the Father was in the Son, and the Son was in the Father? But because the Word and the flesh are one Person, the assumed is not divided from the One who assumed, and the honour of Him who is exalted is named the increase of Him who exalts, as the Apostle says, which we have already recalled:
For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name which is above every name (Philippians 2:9). In this, assuredly, the exaltation of the assumed manhood is commended: that He in whose sufferings the Godhead abides indivisible, may be the same, coeternal in the glory of the Godhead. Unto this participation of the ineffable gift the Lord Himself was preparing the blessed passing over for His faithful, when, now near to the imminent Passion, He made supplication not only for His apostles and disciples, but also for the whole Church, and said: And not for these only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me: that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us (John 17:20, 21). CHAPTER VII.
— Of which unity they can have no share who deny that in God the Son, true God, human nature abides — assailers of the saving mystery, and exiles from the paschal feast; who, because they dissent from the Gospel and contradict the Creed, cannot celebrate with us: for although they dare to take to themselves the Christian name, yet from every creature whose head is Christ they are cast out; while you rightly exult in this solemnity, and rejoice with godly joy, you who, admitting no falsehood into the truth, doubt neither concerning the nativity of Christ according to the flesh, nor concerning His passion and death, nor concerning His bodily resurrection:
...since, without any separation of the Godhead, you acknowledge the true Christ from the Virgin's womb, true upon the wood of the cross, true in the sepulchre of the flesh, true in the glory of the resurrection, true at the right hand of the Father's majesty. Whence also, as the Apostle says, we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of His glory (Philippians 3:20, 21); who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen. CHAPTER.
— After the blessed and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the true Temple of God, thrown down by Jewish impiety, He raised again by divine power on the third day, this day, dearly beloved, is completed the forty-fold number of holy days, arranged by most sacred ordinance, and expended for the profit of our instruction: that, while by the Lord the space of the delay of His bodily presence was extended over this span of time, the faith of the resurrection might be fortified with the needful proofs. For the death of Christ had greatly troubled the hearts of the disciples, and, upon minds burdened with sorrow at the torment of the cross, at the giving up of the spirit, at the burial of the lifeless body, a certain torpor of distrust had crept in.
For when the holy women, as the evangelical history has disclosed, announced by an angel that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, that the sepulchre was empty of the body, and that they were witnesses of the living Lord, their words seemed to the apostles and the other disciples like idle tales. This hesitation, wavering through human weakness, the Spirit of truth would by no means have permitted to remain in the breasts of His preachers, had not that anxious solicitude and curious lingering laid the foundations of our faith. In the apostles, therefore, provision was being made for our own perturbations and our own perils: in those men we were being led against the calumnies of the impious, and against the arguments of earthly wisdom.
Their sight instructed us, their hearing taught us, their touch confirmed us. Let us give thanks to the divine dispensation and to the needful slowness of the holy Fathers. It was doubted by others, that it might not be doubted by us. CHAPTER II. — Not idly, therefore, dearly beloved, did those days run their course which flowed between the Lord's resurrection and His ascension; but in them great mysteries were confirmed, great secrets were revealed. In them the dread of dire death is taken away, and the immortality not only of the soul, but also of the flesh, is declared.
In these days, through the Lord's breathing upon them, the Holy Spirit is poured into all the apostles; and to the blessed apostle Peter above the rest, after the keys of the kingdom, the care of the Lord's fold is committed. In these days, to two disciples the Lord joins Himself as a third companion on the way (Luke 24:15), and, to wipe away all the mist of our uncertainty, the slowness of the fearful and trembling is rebuked. Enlightened hearts conceive the flame of faith; and hearts that were lukewarm, the Lord opening the Scriptures, are made to burn.
In the breaking of bread too the eyes of those who ate together are opened; far more happily are the eyes of these laid open, to whom the glorification of their own nature was made manifest, than were the eyes of those first parents of our race, upon whom the confusion of their transgression was thrust. CHAPTER III. — But amid these and other miracles, while the disciples were tossed with fearful thoughts, and the Lord had appeared in the midst of them and had said, Peace be to you (Luke 24:36; John 20:26), lest that should remain in their opinions which was revolving in their hearts (for they thought that they saw a spirit, not flesh), He reproved the thoughts discordant with the truth, presses upon the eyes of the doubters the marks of the cross abiding in His hands and feet, and invites them that it might be examined more diligently:
...because for the healing of the wounds of unbelieving hearts the traces of the nails and of the lance had been preserved: that it might be held, not with a doubtful faith, but with the most steadfast knowledge, that the same nature which had lain in the sepulchre was to sit upon the throne of God the Father. CHAPTER IV. — Throughout all this time, therefore, dearly beloved, which was passed between the Lord's resurrection and His ascension, this the providence of God provided for, this it taught, this it instilled both into the eyes and into the hearts of His own, that the Lord Jesus Christ might be truly acknowledged as raised again, who had been truly born, and had suffered, and had died.
Whence the most blessed apostles and all the disciples, who had been both fearful concerning the outcome of the cross and doubtful concerning the faith of the resurrection, were so strengthened by the manifest truth that, when the Lord went up into the heights of heaven, they were not only afflicted with no sorrow, but were even filled with great joy (Luke...
...24:52). And truly great and ineffable was the cause of rejoicing, when in the sight of the holy multitude the nature of the human race ascended above the dignity of all the heavenly creatures, to pass beyond the ranks of the angels, and to be exalted beyond the heights of the archangels, and to have no measure of its advancement set by any sublimities, until, received by the concession of the eternal Father, it should be joined in fellowship on the throne of that Glory to whose nature it was united in the Son. Since, therefore, Christ's ascension is our advancement, and whither the glory of the Head has gone before, thither the hope of the body also is called, let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joys, and be glad with godly thanksgiving.
For today we are not only established as possessors of paradise, but have even in Christ penetrated the heights of the heavens: having obtained, through the ineffable grace of Christ, more ample things than we had lost through the devil's envy. For those whom the venomous enemy cast down from the felicity of their first dwelling-place, the Son of God, having incorporated them into Himself, has set at the right hand of the Father: with whom He lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all the ages of ages. Amen.