教會階序 第 1 章 第 4/5 段

And since, as we have often said, the three arrangements of the sacred initiators preside, through the three most holy rites and powers, over the three ranks of those being perfected, and work their salvific bringing-forward under the divine balances, fittingly the liturgical rank, as only cleansing, performs the single bringing-forward of those being cleansed, submitting them under the divine altar, as the intellects being cleansed are sacredly consecrated supramundanely in it; while the priests bend both knees, since those sacredly brought forward by them are not only cleansed, but have also, by their most radiant sacred performances, been wrought, in an uplifting way, out of a life cleansed away, into a contemplative habit and power, in a sacred-performing fashion; and the hierarch, bending both knees, has upon his head the God-given Scriptures, leading hierarchically those cleansed by the liturgical power and illumined by the sacred-performing power, toward the knowledge, proportionate to them, of the sacred things beheld by them, and through it perfecting those brought forward toward the whole consecration that pertains to them.

These, then, are the priestly orders and allotments, and their powers, activities, and perfections.

And the triad of the ranks of those being perfected, subordinate to them, must next be narrated.

Let us say, then, that the cleansed ranks are the multitudes separated off from the sacred performances and rite-performances, of whom we have already made mention: the one as still being formed and fashioned by the ministers, by the birth-giving Scriptures, toward a vital bringing-to-birth; another as still being recalled, toward the sacred life from which it departed, by the converting teaching of the good Scriptures; another as still, through unmanliness, being terrified by the terrors of things contrary, and being strengthened by the power-making Scriptures; another as still being transferred from worse things toward the sacred activities; another as having been transferred, but not yet having attained the all-pure irreversibility in more divine and unshakeable habits.

For these are the cleansed ranks, by the liturgical bringing-to-birth and cleansing power.

These the ministers perfect, by their sacred powers, so that, having been completely cleansed away, they may be transferred toward the illuminative contemplation and communion of the most radiant sacred performances.

And the middle rank is the contemplative one, the communicant—in all purity, in proportion—of certain sacred things, which has been allotted to the priests for the illumining of it.

For it is, I think, clear that the rank which has been cleansed of every unhallowed stain, and has attained the all-pure and unmoved establishment of its own intellect, is transferred, in a sacred-performing way, toward the contemplative habit and power, and communicates in the most divine symbols that pertain to it, in the contemplations and communions of them, being filled full of all sacred gladness, and being proportionately winged up, by their uplifting powers, toward the divine love of the knowledge of them.

This, I say, is the order of the sacred people, that has passed through every purification and has been deemed worthy, so far as is permitted, of the contemplation and communion of the most luminous rites.

Now the order higher than all those being perfected is the sacred rank of the monks—wholly cleansed of every defilement by the entire power and complete purity of their own activities; brought, in intellectual contemplation and communion, into all the sacred ministry it is permitted them to behold; entrusted to the perfecting powers of the hierarchs; instructed by their divinely-inspired illuminations and hierarchic traditions in the sacred operations of the holy rites they have contemplated; and led up, in proportion to their sacred knowledge, to the most perfect perfection.

Hence our divine leaders have honored them with sacred names, calling some 'therapeutae' (worshippers) and others 'monks,' from their pure service and worship of God and from the undivided and unified life that unifies them—in the sacred recollection of what is fragmented—into a godlike monad and a God-loving perfection.

The priest stands before the divine altar, sacredly pronouncing the invocation for the monastic consecration.

The one being consecrated stands behind the priest, not bending both feet, nor one of the two, nor holding the God-given oracles upon his head, but only standing beside the priest who is pronouncing the mystical invocation over him.

When the priest has completed it, he comes to the one being consecrated and first asks him whether he renounces all things that are divided—not only ways of life but also imaginings.

Then he sets before him the most perfect life, testifying that he must rise above the middle order.

That he bends neither of his feet nor holds the God-given oracles upon his head, but stands beside the priest who pronounces the invocation, signifies that the monastic order is not one that brings others forward, but stands by itself in a solitary and sacred station, following the priestly orders and led up by them, as a faithful attendant, to the divine knowledge of the sacred things proper to it.

The renunciation not only of fragmented ways of life but indeed also of imaginings manifests the most perfect philosophy of the monks, enacted in the knowledge of the unifying commandments.

For it is, as I said, not of the middle order of those being perfected, but of the order higher than all.

The seal of the cross-shaped figure, as we have already said, signifies the rendering inactive of all the desires of the flesh together.

The shearing of the hair manifests the pure and unfeigned life, which does not adorn the inward unsightliness of the mind with artificial fashions added from without, but leads it up by itself—not with human beauties but with unified and monastic ones—to that which is most godlike.

The casting off of the former garment and the taking on of another manifests the transposition from the middle sacred life to the more perfect one—just as in the sacred divine-birth (baptism) the change of garment signified the leading up from a life being purified to a contemplative and illuminated state.

And if now the priest and all the sacred persons present embrace the one who has been consecrated, understand the sacred communion of godlike beings, who lovingly rejoice together with one another in divine gladness.

Finally, at the end of all, the priest calls the consecrated one to the divine communion, sacredly manifesting that, if the one consecrated has truly attained the monastic and unified way of life, he will not merely be a contemplator of the sacred things proper to him, nor come to the communion of the most holy symbols according to the middle order; but with divine knowledge of the sacred things in which he partakes, he will come to the reception of the divine communion in a manner other than the sacred people.

It has therefore been gathered by us that the holy rites are purification, illumination, and perfection; that the ministers are the purifying order, the priests the illuminating, the godlike hierarchs the perfecting; that the order being purified is the one not partaking of sacred contemplation and communion, as still being purified; that the contemplative order is the sacred people; and the perfected order is that of the unified monks.

For thus our hierarchy, sacredly well-arranged in the God-given orders, is of one kind with the heavenly hierarchies, preserving in itself—so far as is possible among men—their God-imitating and godlike characters.

But you will say that the heavenly hierarchies altogether lack the orders that are being purified.

For it is neither permitted nor true to say that there is any heavenly ordering that is defiled.

And I, for my part, would altogether confess that they are wholly unblemished and possess in a super-cosmic way that which is all-pure—unless I were to fall away entirely from the most sacred mind.

But it is possible to say sacredly, concerning the heavenly hierarchy, that purification belongs to the lower beings as the illumination from God concerning things hitherto unknown—leading them up to a more perfect knowledge of the divine cognitions, and purging away the ignorance of things whose knowledge they did not yet possess, as they are led up through the first and more divine beings to the higher and more luminous radiances of the visions of God.

Thus in accordance with the heavenly hierarchy there are also orders that are illuminated and perfected, and that are purifying, illuminating, and perfecting—inasmuch as the highest and more divine beings purge the lower sacred and heavenly orderings of all ignorance, according to the orders and proportions of the heavenly hierarchies, and fill them with the most divine illuminations and perfect them in the all-holy knowledge of the divine intuitions.

For it has already been said by us, and divinely declared in the oracles, that not all the heavenly orderings are alike in all the sacred knowledge of the God-revealing illuminations; but the first are illumined immediately from God, and through them, again from God, the lower ones are illumined in proportion to themselves with the most luminous beams of the divine ray.

Now that these things have been defined, it is necessary, I think, to speak also of the things sacredly performed by us over those who have fallen asleep (the dead).

For neither is this common to the sacred and the unholy; but just as the kind of life of each is different, so too, when they go toward death, those who have led a sacred life, looking to the true promises of the divine Source—as having beheld their truth in the resurrection that accords with it—go with firm and true hope, in divine gladness, toward the term of death, as toward the end of sacred contests, knowing assuredly that their estate will be in complete and unending life and salvation through the whole resurrection that is to be theirs.

For the sacred souls, which in this present life were able to fall away into the change toward what is worse, will in the regeneration receive the most godlike transposition into immutability.

And the pure bodies of the sacred souls—their yoke-fellows and fellow-travelers, enrolled together with them and contending together amid their divine sweat-labors—will recover their own resurrection in the immutable establishment of the souls according to the divine life.

For having been united to the sacred souls with which they were united in this present life, as having become members of Christ, they will receive the godlike, incorruptible, immortal, and blessed portion.

In these, then, is the falling-asleep of the sacred—in gladness and unshaken hopes, arriving at the term of the divine contests.

But of the unholy, some senselessly suppose that they pass into non-existence; others suppose that the bodily union with their own souls is once and for all broken off, as being unfitted to them in a godlike life and blessed estates—neither having considered nor having been sufficiently initiated in divine knowledge into the most godlike life that, in Christ, has already begun among us.

Others assign to the souls the union of other bodies, wronging, as I think, what belongs to those bodies which toiled together with the divine souls; and they impiously deprive of the sacred recompenses those that have come to the term of the most divine courses.

Still others, inclining somehow toward materialistic notions, have said that the most holy and blessed estate promised to the holy is of the same kind as this present life, and have impiously cast upon those who are equal to the angels foods proper to a changeable life.

But none of the most sacred men will ever fall into such errors; rather, knowing that they will receive themselves wholly the Christ-like portion, when they come to the term of this present life they see more clearly that their road to incorruption has already drawn nearer, and they hymn the gifts of the divine Source and are filled with divine delight, no longer fearing the change toward what is worse, but knowing well that the good things they have gained they will possess firmly and eternally.

But the pleasures of their own passions, which perish, they regard with other eyes; and esteeming blessed the sacred life from which they (the unholy) have senselessly fallen, they (the unholy) are wretchedly and unwillingly torn from this present life, led by the hand toward no sacred hope, because of their most evil life.

But since none of these things happens at the falling-asleep of sacred men, the one who comes to the term of his own contests is himself filled with sacred gladness and, with much delight, sets foot upon the road of the sacred regeneration; while the kinsfolk of the one fallen asleep, in accordance with their divine kinship and like manner of life, count him blessed—whoever he is—for having reached, as he prayed, the victorious end, and send up thanksgiving songs to the Author of the victory, praying moreover that they too may reach the like portion; and taking him up, they bring him to the hierarch, as to the bestowal of sacred crowns.

And he gladly receives him and performs the things appointed by sacred ordinance to be done over those who have piously fallen asleep.

The mystery (rite) for those who have sacredly fallen asleep.

The divine hierarch, having gathered the sacred choir, if the one fallen asleep had belonged to the priestly order, lays him down before the divine altar and begins the prayer and thanksgiving to God.

But if he had been ranked among the devout monks or the sacred people, the hierarch lays him down beside the venerable sanctuary, before the priestly entrance, and then performs the prayer of thanksgiving to God.

Next the ministers, having read the unerring promises contained in the divine oracles concerning our sacred resurrection, sacredly sing the odes of the psalmic oracles that are concordant and of the same import.

Then the first of the ministers dismisses the catechumens and proclaims by name those holy ones already fallen asleep, among whom he deems worthy the one just now perfected, of the like-ranked proclamation, and exhorts all to ask for the blessed perfection in Christ.

Then the divine hierarch, drawing near, makes a most sacred prayer over him; and after the prayer the hierarch himself embraces the one fallen asleep, and after him all those present.

When all have embraced him, the hierarch pours the oil upon the one fallen asleep, and having made the sacred prayer on behalf of all, lays the body in an honored place together with other sacred bodies of the same rank.

Now if the unholy should see or hear these things performed by us, they will, I think, laugh broadly and pity us for our error.

But one need not wonder at this.

For if they will not believe, as the oracles say, neither will they understand.

But we, having contemplated the intelligible meaning of the rites with Jesus giving light, let us say that not without reason does the hierarch bring in and place the one fallen asleep in the place of his own rank.

For it sacredly manifests that in the regeneration all will be allotted according to those lots by which they here allotted their own life.

For instance, if someone here had a godlike and most sacred life, so far as the imitation of God is attainable by a man, he will be in divine and blessed estates in the age to come.

But if his life, though sacred, was lower than the topmost godlike one, this man too will receive sacred recompenses of like kind.

For this divine justice the hierarch, giving thanks, makes a sacred prayer and hymns the august divine Source as destructive of the unjust and tyrannical dominion over us all, and as transferring us to our own most just judgments.

The odes and readings of the divine promises are revelatory of the most blessed estates into which those who have attained divine perfection will eternally be placed; they are receptive of (efficacious for) the one sacredly fallen asleep, and exhortatory to those still living toward the like perfection.

And only the catechumens are cast out from the sacred precincts.

For this order is wholly uninitiated in every sacred rite, and it is not permitted it to contemplate anything—small or great—of the things sacredly performed, inasmuch as it has not partaken of the visual power of sacred things through the light-originating and light-bestowing divine-birth (baptism).

But the remaining orders of those being purified have already come into the initiation of sacred tradition; yet, having senselessly run back toward what is worse when they ought to have brought their own ascent to completion onward, they are with good reason set apart from the contemplations and communions of the divine things in sacred symbols (for they would be harmed by partaking of them unholily, and would come to a greater contempt of the divine things and of themselves)—yet not unreasonably are they present at the rites now being performed, being plainly taught and beholding our fearlessness toward death, and the honors of the holy that are hymned by the true oracles, and the unending torments threatened to be the lot of the unholy among them.

For it will perhaps be of benefit to them to behold the one sacredly perfected, proclaimed by the liturgical announcement as being truly a partaker of the holy ones from of old, sacredly proclaimed.

And perhaps they too will come to the like longing and will be taught by the liturgical knowledge that the perfection in Christ is truly blessed.

Then the divine hierarch, drawing near, makes a sacred prayer over the one fallen asleep; and after the prayer the hierarch himself embraces him, and next all those present.

Now the prayer entreats the divine Goodness to forgive all the sins committed by the one fallen asleep through human weakness, and to place him in light and in the land of the living, in the bosoms of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the place from which pain and grief and groaning have fled away.

These things, then, as I think, are the manifest and most blessed honors of the holy.

For what could be equal in worth to the wholly painless and light-giving immortality?

Even if, in the very highest degree, the promises that are higher than every mind, signified by our proportionate signs, have names that fall short of their actual truth.

For we must hold the oracle to be true, that 'Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'

And the 'bosoms,' as I think, of the blessed patriarchs and of all the rest of the holy, are the most divine and blessed estates which receive all godlike persons into the ageless and most blessed perfection within them.

But you would perhaps say that these things have been rightly stated by us, yet you are at a loss why the hierarch entreats the divine Goodness, asking forgiveness of sins for the one fallen asleep and a lot like that of the godlike and most luminous.

For if everyone will receive from the divine justice the recompenses of the good or other deeds he did in the present life, and the one fallen asleep has completed his own activities according to this present life, then by what hierarchic prayer will he be transferred to another lot than that worthy of and corresponding to his life here?

Now I, for my part, know well, following the oracles, that each will have his lot in correspondence.

For 'the Lord has shut up against him,' it says, and 'each will receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or evil.'

But that the prayers of the righteous, even in this present life—let alone after death—are effective only upon those worthy of sacred prayers, the true traditions of the oracles teach us.

Or what benefit did Saul gain from Samuel?

And what did the prophet's prayer profit the people of the Hebrews?

For just as if someone, while the sun bestows its proper light upon undamaged eyes, should ask to share in the solar light while abolishing his own sight—so the man who entreats the prayers of the holy, yet drives away their sacred activities (which are according to nature), depends upon impossible and superfluous hopes, by his inattention to the divine gifts and by his desertion from the most luminous and good-bestowing commandments.

But I say, following the oracles, that the prayers of the holy are altogether beneficial in this present life in the following manner.

If anyone, having a sacred disposition toward sharing in them, as one who recognizes his own littleness, comes to one of the devout men and asks him to become his helper and fellow-suppliant, he will assuredly be benefited thereby with the benefit that surpasses all others.

For he will obtain the most divine gifts that he asks, since the divine Goodness accepts him both for his own reverent self-knowledge and for his respect toward the devout, and for the praiseworthy longing of the sacred requests he asks, and for his corresponding and godlike disposition.

For this too has been ordained among the divine judgments: that the divine gifts be bestowed, in a most God-befitting order, upon those worthy to partake, through those worthy to impart.

If, then, anyone should dishonor this sacred good order, and, having come to a wretched conceit, should think himself sufficient for converse with the divine Source, and should despise the devout—and moreover, if he should ask requests unworthy of God and not sacred, and should not have an intense and fitting longing for the divine things—he will, through himself, fail of his ignorant request.

Now concerning the aforesaid prayer, which the hierarch prays over the one fallen asleep, it is necessary to state the tradition that has come to us from our divinely-inspired leaders.

The divine hierarch is, as the oracles say, a revealer of the divine ordinances.

For he is 'an angel (messenger) of the Lord, the Almighty God.' He has therefore learned from the God-given oracles that to those who have lived devoutly, the most luminous and divine life is requited according to worth by the most just balances, while the Goodness of the divine love for mankind overlooks the stains that have come upon them out of human weakness—since, as the oracles say, 'no one is clean from defilement.'

These things, then, the hierarch knows to have been promised by the true oracles; and he asks that they come to pass and that the sacred recompenses be granted to those who have lived devoutly—at once forming himself in goodness after the imitation of God and asking for the gifts of others as his own graces, and at the same time, knowing that the unerring promises will come to pass and revealingly manifesting to those present that the things he asks according to sacred ordinance will assuredly be for those perfected according to the divine life.

For the hierarch, the interpreter of the divine justification, would never ask for things that are not most pleasing to God and that have not been divinely promised to be granted by Him.

Therefore the divine hierarch asks the things divinely promised, dear to God, and certain to be granted, displaying both his own good-formed disposition to the good-loving God and revealingly manifesting to those present the gifts that will be for the devout.

Thus too the hierarchs possess the powers of separation (excommunication), as revealers of the divine ordinances—not as though the all-wise divine Source, to speak reverently, followed their irrational impulses in a servile manner, but as the perfecting Spirit, moving them in the manner of interpreters, separates those judged by God according to worth.

For it says, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'

'If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.'

'If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.' And to the one illumined with the divine revelations of the all-holy Father, the oracle says: 'Whatever you bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose upon the earth shall be loosed in the heavens'—inasmuch as that one, and every hierarch in his line, in accordance with the revelations of the paternal ordinances that come about in him, revealingly and as a conductor admits the God-loving and excludes the godless.

For he uttered that sacred theology, as the oracles say, not of his own motion, nor with flesh and blood revealing it, but with God noetically initiating him into His own truths.

We must give heed to them as to those moved by God.

'For he who rejects you,' it says, 'rejects Me.' But let us return to what follows in the aforesaid prayer.

For when the hierarch has completed it, he himself embraces the one fallen asleep, and next all those present.

For the one perfected according to the divine life is sweet and honored to all the godlike.

And after the embrace, the hierarch pours the oil upon the one fallen asleep.

And remember that in the sacred divine-birth (baptism), before the most divine baptism, the first participation in a sacred symbol granted to the one being consecrated, after the entire stripping off of the former garment, is the oil of anointing.

But now, at the end of all, the oil is poured upon the one fallen asleep.

And then, indeed, the anointing with oil was calling the one being consecrated to the sacred contests; but now the oil poured upon him manifests that the one fallen asleep has contended in those same sacred contests and has been perfected.

Having performed these things, the hierarch lays the body in an honored place together with other sacred bodies of the same rank.

For if the one fallen asleep lived the God-loving life in soul and body, the body that contended together with the holy soul amid the sacred sweat-labors will also be honored together with it.

Hence the divine justice, together with its own body, bestows upon it the corresponding lots, as the fellow-traveler and fellow-partaker of the holy—or of the contrary—life.

But it is not permitted to interpret the perfecting invocations in writings, nor to bring forth their mystical meaning, or the powers from God enacted upon them, out of the hidden into the common; rather, as our sacred tradition holds, having learned them by un-publicized initiations and having been brought, by divine love and sacred activities, to a more divine state and ascent, you will be led up by the perfecting illumination to the highest knowledge of them.

But that children, not yet able to understand divine things, should become partakers of the sacred divine-birth (baptism) and of the most holy symbols of the divine communion, seems—as you say—to the unholy worthy of reasonable laughter, if the hierarchs teach divine things to those unable to hear, and idly hand over the sacred traditions to those who do not comprehend; and what is yet more laughable—

—that others, on their behalf, pronounce the renunciations and the sacred professions.

But many things are hidden even from the highest beings, and are accurately known to the all-wise and wisdom-making divine Source alone.

Yet concerning this too we say those things which our godlike celebrants of the sacred rites, initiated by the ancient tradition, have brought down to us.

For they say (and it is also true) that infants, being led up according to sacred ordinance, will come to a sacred disposition, being perfected free from all error and untried by an unholy life.

—being entrusted to a divine father and sponsor (godfather) of the sacred salvation.

This one, then, who professes to lead the child up according to the sacred life, the hierarch requires to confess the renunciations and the sacred professions—not, as they would laughingly say, initiating one in another's stead into the divine things.

For he does not say, 'On behalf of the child I make the renunciations or the sacred professions,' but rather, 'The child renounces and is enrolled'—that is, 'I confess that I will persuade the child, when he comes to a sacred mind through my divinely-inspired guidance, to renounce wholly the contrary things, and to confess and enact the divine professions.'

Therefore, as I think, there is nothing absurd if the child is led up according to a divine ascent, having a leader and sponsor who is sacred, and who instills in him the divine things and keeps him untried by the contrary ones.

And the hierarch gives the child a share of the sacred symbols, that he may be nourished in them and may have no other life save that which ever contemplates divine things and becomes a partaker of them in sacred advancements, possessing a sacred disposition in these and being led up in a manner befitting the sacred by the godlike sponsor.

Such, O child, and so beautiful, are the uniform visions of our hierarchy that have been beheld by me.