Tractates 1 part 13/14

Living by its own death, quickened by the emptiness of the tomb, traversing the innumerable bounds of the seasons with perennial chariot upon one and the same track, the great Day has come: unfolding months into seasons, seasons into the year, years into ages. Without pause it grows toward old age; and yet it does not depart from its native cradle. Truly it bears the image of the Lord's mystery; for by its setting it celebrates together the passions, and by its rising with renewed birth the resurrection, through which it promises us too the resurrection of future blessedness. TRACTATE 49. On Easter, V. The charioteer of the everlasting chariot, retracing by solemn winding its footsteps around the rounded turning-post, the saving Day has come. The same as its own successor and its own predecessor:

ever young in long age, parent of the year and offspring of the year; it goes before the seasons that follow; and, that it may scatter abroad the ages to be gathered, it brings forth for itself a beginning out of an end. This is the Day on which likewise — yet once for all — for love of his own man, God his maker and our Lord both died and rose again, never indeed to return to a setting. This, I say, on which the deadly darkness was burst asunder; on which death was subdued; on which the powers below were forced to give back alive the men whom they had received dead. May God the almighty Father grant that we, ever and everywhere increased in faith, number, and charity, may celebrate it with our brethren. TRACTATE 50. On Easter, VI.

With no idle course, perpetuating by reciprocal windings the tasks of the world's work, ever native, ever young at its setting, revolved from itself back into itself through its own tracks, the saving Day has come; lavish with all the offices of the Lord's mystery and with every kind of gift. For to the holy priests it grants their reward, to the assisting ministers the increase of promotion, to the faithful the fruit of immortality, to the penitents their care, to the catechumens the way of light, to the candidates for baptism the remission of all sins. And thus, gathering all together into the one grace of Christ's body, it leads them to the heavenly kingdoms, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. TRACTATE 51.

On Easter, VII. Leading round the swift course of the perpetual year into the twelvefold increase of change, by one and the same orbit — not the same, yet the same — the great Day has come, ever young to itself by its own setting. What passes by, it follows; what is to come, it precedes. In all things it is new; and yet in all things it is old. At every point it is changed, not in nature, but in number. It becomes the son of hours, who is the father of all ages. This is the Day, brethren, on which by our Lord the whole world was redeemed; on which, by the heavenly seed, our people, made new, that is, was given life. This, I say, is the Day which shows us the example of resurrection: by whose condition indeed we are more blessed; for he died that he might ever live;

but the faithful one, rising again after the setting of his second birth, is never overtaken by the horror of darkness. TRACTATE 52. On Easter, VIII. The holy Day, bent in a beautiful circle, is borne into the tasks of the world's work by the four-horse team of the seasons, rich by perpetual course in the twelvefold changes of the months, content with no halting-place, since its course is immortality. Whether it runs forth or runs back is uncertain: whose past remains, that it may return. A wondrous reckoning indeed! By wearing down it renews the diverse spans of innumerable ages; and yet its orbit is ever one — which admonishes us, brethren, of one heart and one accord to celebrate the saving mysteries of the Lord's passion and resurrection;

through our Lord and preserver Jesus Christ. TRACTATE 53. On Easter, IX. The magnificent Day, most beloved brethren, the father of the ages, is here, abounding with the offspring of every kind of fruits, of rich bosom, discharging the gifts of the four seasons to whomever you wish. In short, for our candidates for baptism the winter of sins ends today: with the oil prepared they will rejoice. Today the spring, smiling upon them, will render them diverse into diverse flowers by diverse gifts, when, drenched with the salutary wave, rejoicing in the harvest of clear summer, they shall begin to eat the new bread: whom the autumnal new wine too will not delay, by which, filled and made drunk, they shall happily glow with the warmth of the Holy Spirit:

and that they may never grow cold, God the almighty Father will grant to us all. TRACTATE 54. On Exodus, I. On the Day of Easter. As the divine reading testifies, in Egypt by Pharaoh and his people Israel, God's people, was most fiercely oppressed under the immense yoke of captivity (Exod. ch. 1). God commands this people to set forth, with Moses, namely, and Aaron as leaders (ch. 12:31), the pillar of cloud showing the way by day, the same pillar of fire too by night (ch. 13:21-22). The sea is split; and to the right and left, with the masses heaped up into a precipice, the astonished wave is made solid (14:21-22). God's people sails on foot. A wondrous thing! As the barbarians press vehemently upon their march, neither horseman nor ship is able to follow.

Miriam with the women beats the timbrel (15:20); a hymn is sung; God's people is set free; and, the waters being loosed, the way together with the pursuer is destroyed (14:28). As far as it is given to be understood spiritually, Egypt is this world. Pharaoh with his people is the devil and every spirit of iniquity. Israel is the Christian people, who is commanded to set forth, that it may press on toward things to come. Moses and Aaron, by that which they were, the priesthood, by their number, showed forth the mystery of the two Testaments. The pillar showing the way is Christ the Lord. That it bears the twofold image of cloud and fire designates two judgments: one of water, which has been done, the other of fire, which is to come.

By the sea we ought to understand the sacred font: in which, by the same waters by which God's servants are set free, those who do not flee but bear their sins are destroyed. Miriam, who beats the timbrel with the women, was a type of the Church: who, with all the Churches she has borne, singing a hymn, and beating the true timbrel of the breast, leads the Christian people not into the wilderness but to heaven. TRACTATE 55. On Exodus, II. He who receives the sacred law spiritually, brethren, is the one who is nourished by its fruit. For the Jews, since they understand carnally, and seek among the herds of cattle a lamb committed to a twofold nature, which cannot be found, thus have lost the true lamb Christ, whom they had found:

for they did not understand that by the goats was designated human flesh laden with its own sins, and by the sheep the spirit of majesty: which two things, joined together in Christ, presented the lawful lamb. This is the lamb, brethren, of whom the Law says: It is the Passover of the Lord (Exod. 12:11, 27). The Apostle Paul too: Christ our Passover is sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). But why he deigned to be sacrificed, John the Baptist foretold in these words: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). This one, then, is called the first-born, because he alone is conscious of the paternal antiquity. He is the mature one, because after him there is none later. He is the everlasting one, because he was slain, and was found alive.

He is unspotted from sin, because he alone is clean. He is salvation-bringing, because through him we conquer death. He is male, because he is the power of God. He, I say, is the perfect lamb, because in him that great priest, enclosed by a holy mystery as his own victim, today has rendered God to be the man whom he offered up. TRACTATE 56. On Exodus, III. Time does not allow, brethren, to render the truth to the image. Nevertheless, O Jew, why do you congratulate yourself upon the monuments of your crime? In Egypt you served long, not by the lot of a stranger, but by desert. You were rescued thence: you did not escape by your own virtue. The pillar of cloud led you by day, to show you blind (Exod. 13): the pillar of fire by night, to warn you that you would burn.

The angel going before advanced your camp, that even with God present you might be proved ungrateful (ch. 14). You walked through the sea on foot, that you might suffer shipwreck on dry land (ch. 17). For this very purpose indeed in the wilderness you drank water from the rock, you tasted manna from heaven (ch. 17), so that, when afterward you had sunk down to want, you might be more sharply tormented by the remembrance of your past goods. TRACTATE 57. On Exodus, IV. Wondrous, most dear brethren, is the narrative of sacred history thus read through. When the people of Israel, oppressed by the enormous yoke of captivity, were being slain in Egypt under harsh conditions by King Pharaoh (Exod. ch. 1), by the mercy of God, with Moses as leader, they were commanded to set forth (ch. 12).

For this people not the disk of the sun by day, but the pillar of cloud; not the bright moon, but the pillar of fire by night, opened up the unknown way: who, when he had come between two elements, there dreaded the issue of imminent death (ch. 14). For on this side he was pressed by the hostile sword-points of the pursuing Egyptians; on that side, shut in by the great barrier of the sea, he was hard pressed. For there were no ships for them, no defenses for crossing over: when suddenly by divine providence the sea is split: the waters, to right and left curbed by an icy stupor, are made rigid into glassy walls, awaiting the passage of God's people, that they may be a sea for the pursuers. The ungrateful Israel is led into a way in which he could fear neither swords nor waves. A wondrous thing!

Covered with dust, he exults in the midst of the deep, who might see his own triumph happily perishing about him in shipwreck. These things the Jew proclaims, brethren: and yet, mad, he does not even now believe in God, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. TRACTATE 58. On Exodus, V. Time does not allow to render the truth to the image. Nevertheless, O Jew, why do you congratulate yourself upon the designation of your crime? In Egypt you served long, not by necessity, but by desert (Exod. ch. 1). You were rescued thence (ch. 15): you did not escape by your own virtue. The pillar of cloud led you by day, to show you blind: the pillar of fire by night, to signify that you would burn (ch. 13). The angel goes before your camp: lest anywhere you should excuse your crime.

You walk through the sea (ch. 14): the wave, fleeing to right and left back into itself, bears witness to your feet swift to shed blood (Psalm 13). Finally you are received into the wilderness (Exod. ch. 17), where you now recognize that you have arrived. There indeed for this very purpose you drank water from the rock, you tasted manna from heaven (ch. 16), that you, wretch, might know what you were going to lose. TRACTATE 59. On Exodus, VI. The Jews, from whence they think themselves blessed, are thence known to be unhappy: for I think it more advantageous for a wretched man remaining in his own estate, than for a blessed one fallen down into the uttermost miseries. For they proclaim that their fathers destroyed the Egyptian people by fleeing (Exod. ch. 14): that God went before their elders, and led the way before them:

not understanding that thereby he had cast them off, removed from his face, behind his back together with those who were to come after: that the Red Sea too, split in the middle into twin banks, with the masses led to right and left packed into a battle-line, the liquid of the waters being preserved, dried up and braced against itself in the deep, hung astonished, with nature stupefied: that an earthly way gleamed amid the waves — which surely was announcing not the merit of a heavenly people, but the ruin of an earthly dispersion to come throughout the whole world. Therefore he led them thence into the wilderness (Exod. ch. 15), and admonished them by providing milk with honey to heal the wounds of a detestable mind (ch. 16): for upon the weak and languishing he sprinkled the tenderness of manna;

for they were not fit, nor worthy, to enjoy the perpetual solidity of the heavenly bread. The rock gushed for them into a font (ch. 17): that they might drink, from worn-out pits, as they deserved, muddy water thereafter, the Lord saying: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns, worn-out, which cannot hold water (Jer. 2:13). Lastly, what do the unhappy ones hope from the image, the truth of whom they were not worthy to know, our Lord Jesus Christ? TRACTATE 60. On Exodus, VII. How the Pharisee can celebrate a lawful Passover, I do not see: whose eminent and famous temple lies buried under its own dust, leveled with the fields in pitiable devastation.

The priestly chair of pestilence (Ps. 1:1), by the sacrilege of its own worshippers, has been justly destroyed. The emptied horn no longer breathes out ointments. The prophets testify that its festal days are turned into mourning (Amos 5:21), and its songs into lamentation (Amos 5:23, 22; Isa. 1:14). Bulls, rams, goats, and lambs we have received as often reproved by the Lord (Jer. 6:20). What more? It cannot, brethren, celebrate any mystery, whose sacrifice you perceive to be condemned by the divine sentence, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto all the ages of ages. TRACTATE 61. On Exodus, VIII. The Jew contends that he keeps a lawful Passover;

to whom nothing else from the old sacrament has remained but a fable woven with empty sighs. Finally, that royal temple lies leveled with the fields. Its altars, overthrown by hand together with their own sacrifices, scattered into dust, have vanished. The priestly chair of pestilence has been destroyed along with its name (Ps. 1:1). The salvation-bringing Lamb (Exod. 12:5), which is designated for him from sheep and from goats, cannot be found among the cattle. Its festal days and its songs, according to the voice of God, have come to mourning and grief (Amos 5:23). That proud city serves. Indeed it slaughters infinite flocks of sheep, which it takes up in bitterness.

Who would not understand, brethren, that that is not a Passover, but the stinking banquet of a bloody robber? TRACTATE 62. On Exodus, IX. The Pharisees contend that they keep a lawful Passover: who, together with the highest temple, as was thought, lost the highest priesthood; they were deprived of the horn of the royal ointment. Circumcision, the witness of an impure mind, threatens them now, now, that the punishment of the marked wound hangs over them. Every kind of cattle, together with its own sacrifice, is reproved. Their fasts, their festal days, and all their solemnity are an abomination before God (Amos 5:21; Isa. 1:14; Jer. 6:20; Isa. 58:5, and Zech. 7:5). Since these things are so, by whom, how, whence is a Passover celebrated?

Add that by their own fault they have lost the lawful lamb, which they had found: which Scripture designated from sheep and goats (Exod. 12:5): from goats indeed, on account of the garment of sinful flesh; from sheep, on account of the spirit of majesty. He is called the first-born, because besides the Father there is none first before him. The mature one, because he is eternal. The perfect one, because he is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The unspotted one, because he alone has no sin. The salvation-bringing one, because he changed death into life: who for our sake was slain, and lives: buried, and rose again: was esteemed a man, and was found God, glorious unto the ages of ages. TRACTATE 63. On Exodus, X.

If the Jews glory in the remembrance of an emptied image, how much more the Christian, in whom there is not the figure but the truth? Recognize this likewise from the very things themselves, and prove it. The Jews proclaim that their elders, oppressed by the heavy yoke of servitude under Pharaoh and his army, were set free from Egypt (Exod. 16). From the rage of the devil and the violent throng of idols, not only our elders, but the whole Christian progeny, is set free from the true Egypt — that is, from this world — ever, at every moment. To them Moses furnished leadership: our leader is Christ the Lord. To them the pillar of cloud and of fire showed the way:

to us the most radiant oracles of the Old and New Testament have revealed the way and the true Christ the Lord, who says: I am the way and the truth (John 14:6). Their fugitive people passed over through the Red Sea with dry foot, the rocks of the waters standing astonished to right and left (Exod. 14:21): but our sea happily makes shipwrecked those whom it receives as willing: and, slaying all sins, it submerges them in the generating wave, that, made heavenly, they may not know how to desire the earth. Finally, they after the sea came to the wilderness: we after baptism come to paradise. To them, hungering, manna was sprinkled (Exod. 15):

but we cannot hunger forever, who carry with us the provision of the heavenly bread. To them, thirsting, the rock flowed into a cup (Exod. 17:6): whoever drinks at the font of Christ knows not how to thirst unto eternity. To them in the desert the sweetness of milk and honey was displayed: but to us, what is more, sweeter than honey and whiter than milk, the blessedness of eternal life shall be granted by God in the kingdom. TRACTATE 64. On Exodus, XI. Why does the empty Pharisee swell, whom the past shadow of a moment delights? He exults that he grew in Egypt: but on his native soil he has decreased. That he was loosed from the bonds of captivity: but he is even now bound by the customs of barbarian fury.

God furnished him leadership: the same afterward cast him from his face. He attained a kingdom, that after royal dignity he might serve the Roman Empire with greater disgrace. Surely you wish to know of how great a sanctity he is: him whom the sea sustained when gathered together, the earth cannot bear when dispersed. TRACTATE 65. On Exodus, XII. How long, O Jew, will you not yet shake off the darkness of your brutish heart, and not even by proving it acknowledge that the oracles of the sacred law are already fulfilled in Christ? Nevertheless, according to your own sense, if you wish to celebrate a lawful Passover, a lamb must be sought by you (Exod. 12:5), as was commanded, committed of a discordant nature from lambs and goats, which your own elders did not find among the herds of cattle.

And would that you might find it: for you are worthy of such an immolation, who suppose your salvation to be situated in the entrails of an uncertain beast. Surely that you slay many here and there is a mark of your gluttony. That you do it in diverse places, of your vanity. That you eat with bitterness, of your unhappiness. I pass over that it is the commemoration of an ingrate, not a remedy; a sacrifice which he himself who commanded it reproves to be made. This only I say. Fulfill the law at least in the other things, as it is written: Gird your loins. Put shoes on your feet. Take a staff in your hand (Exod. 11). Set forth into the wilderness, if you wish to imitate your elders. TRACTATE 66. On Exodus, XIII. Receive in few words, O Christian, that the Jews cannot celebrate a lawful Passover.

Since Solomon's temple, overthrown by hostile devastation, lies buried with its own ruin: where do they sacrifice? They no longer have priests who may sacrifice for their salvation. The Lord abhors bulls, goats, rams, and lambs; whence do they sacrifice? They have forsaken God, they have overthrown his altars: to whom do they sacrifice? Indeed this one thing alone they retain as their own, that, in order to increase more and more their base lust, they baptize themselves at every moment in baser washings, ever ungrateful to God. TRACTATE 67. On Exodus, XIV. Receive in few words that the Jews not only cannot celebrate a lawful Passover, but retain absolutely nothing of the divine religion. The temple of Solomon, on which they presumed, has fallen. They themselves have overthrown the altars of God.

The Law and the prophets were until John. Mourning is proclaimed for their priests. The sacrifice is taken away. The ointment ceases. Circumcision is made void. The Sabbath is marked out. New moons and festal days are held in hatred (Isa. 1:13). The Romans possess their kingdom. Nothing, as I judge, has remained their own, except that, the salvation-bringing Lamb being neglected, the ungrateful ones eat lambs with bitterness, and men eat bitter things. TRACTATE 68. On Exodus, XV. Know, O experts in the law, that the Jews cannot celebrate a lawful Passover, with God himself speaking: by whom the synagogue is called a den of robbers (Matt. 21:13; Luke 19:46; Jer. 7:11): the priestly chair, of pestilence (Ps. 1:1): the sacrifice (Isa. 66:5; see Deut. ...).

...a butchering fit for dogs, fasts that are hateful (Is. 58:5; Zech. 7:5), a people that is a brood of vipers (Matt. 3:7; 12:34). After this I cannot reckon what such men can still presume, who place their own salvation in the death of cattle, when God, after they had come out of Egypt, where they had kept a figurative Passover, says (Exod. 12; Is. 1:11-12): 'I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and of the fat of lambs; who has required these things at your hands?' Surely, brethren, He took away the Passover from them without hesitation, He who reproved the very thing through which the Passover is performed by them. But they worship an image. Yet he does not even worship the image itself, who worships an image falsely, who does not love its truth.

Truly the only thing the innocent do fittingly is this: that they slay lambs everywhere, like ravening wolves. TRACTATE 69. On Daniel, at Passover, I. Awake, O Christian, and shaking off all the torpor of worldly sleep, with the ears of your heart open, learn courage from these children. But see that you do not deem false the fact that the fire yielded to them. Reason itself attests the truth. He who now baptizes those who believe in Him with the Holy Spirit and with fire, He Himself was also present then in the number of His Trinity. Finally, know that the deed was accomplished as a sacrament. Cast into the furnace (Dan. ch. 3), as soon as they were plunged into the flames, at once the fires are tempered by an invisible dew: death, fleeing away, changes its office; the kindlers of the fire are burned;

the flame fawns upon those it was meant to burn, as they sing a hymn; God is blessed by every creature. In the three is one mind, one power; one triumph exults. Life is made better by its punishment. The king would not have envied the children, had he not commanded that they be burned. TRACTATE 70. On Daniel, again. It is in a certain way part of martyrdom, beloved brethren, that the martyrs did not shudder at their punishment; for to the same degree that the mournful contemplation of cruelty in its many forms draws a man back from the crown, to that same degree a noble and perfect faith, whatever the torment laid upon it, binds up its own vows. Finally, the three children in that holy contest set God before their eyes, not the flames (Dan. ch. 3); the reward to come, not the penalty.

And so, amid the foul billows of the surging fire, triumphant, they taught the barbarian king, all his threats, and the very punishment itself, that fires are not stronger than holy men—through the Lord Jesus, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. TRACTATE 71. On Daniel, III. Whoever believes, undaunted, in the martyrdom of the three children, can himself also attain martyrdom. For so great was the force of the contest that even the fire itself shuddered at it: for when the barbarian king, in his excessive cruelty, was taking counsel against the three children, the fire was armed with sevenfold fuel beyond its wont for the furnace (Dan. ch. 3). I believe that by divine providence a spiritual number too befits the sacrament of the Trinity.

And so the grace of baptism was not lacking to them in the dew-bedewed furnace. O wondrous burning! O spectacle truly worthy of God! Those who hear are afraid; those who had kindled the fire are burned; those who were cast in come forth from the furnace sanctified and unharmed—through our Lord Jesus Christ. TRACTATE 72. On Daniel, IV. A great punishment is sometimes followed by a greater glory, above all in divine matters, in which the blessed, with unyielding devotion, guard their religion rather than their safety. Therefore, when I hear that the three children were burned (Dan. ch. 3), at first I am exceedingly terrified; but soon afterward I would wish to become their sharer, when I learn that amid the flames, dew-besprinkled and untroubled, they sang a hymn to God (ibid., ch. 4):

for so great is the power of faith and so great its might, that it compels even the very elements, against their own nature, to serve its worshippers. Wherefore, brethren, let not the contemplation of this most dreadful matter terrify you; for no penalty is now to be feared, when the surviving life of those who were burned mocks the flames. TRACTATE 73. On Daniel, V. A wondrous, brethren most beloved, and a contest delightful to God, has sacred history handed down to us—the contest of fire and of faith (Dan. ch. 4). For two discordant things, by devotion to the Lord, came together into one concord: for in the three children faith did not fear to be punished; and the fire, blazing up when they were sent into the furnace, drew back, when it perceived that they were of one virtue.

At last the burning blazed upon those who kindled it, not upon those it was kindled against. O wondrous design! O inestimable glory of God! By the sacrament of the Trinity the nature of so potent an element was subdued. Those who were thought to be extinguished by the fire shine forth more blessed when burned. TRACTATE 74. On Daniel, VI. Receive with a believing heart, O Christian, a wondrous thing, renowned by every example of the virtues. The three Hebrew children, in truth, greater than a shield by their constancy, stronger than the valiant by their youthful virtue, equals to one another, fortified by the sacrament of the Trinity, made solid by the one faith of unity, equal in their equality, glorious in the victory of their suffering—these the barbarian king, because they scorned to adore his statue, commanded to be burned.