節期講辭（神顯/光照/五旬節） 第 2-1 章

Again my Jesus, and again a mystery—a mystery not deceptive, nor unseemly, nor of Greek error and intoxication (for thus do I call their solemnities, and so, I think, does every right-minded person), but a mystery lofty and divine, and an usher to the splendour above.

For the holy Day of Lights, to which we have come, and which we have been deemed worthy to celebrate today, takes its beginning from the Baptism of my Christ, the true Light that lightens every man coming into the world;

and it works my cleansing, and aids the light which we received from Him from above at the beginning, but which we had darkened and confounded through sin.

Therefore hear a divine voice, sounding most strongly in my ears—I who am the initiate and the initiator into such things—and may it sound in yours also;

'I am the light of the world.'

And therefore: 'Draw near to Him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed,' being marked with the true Light.

It is a season of regeneration: let us be born from above.

Let us take up again the first Adam.

Let us not remain what we are, but let us become what we once were.

The Light shines in the darkness, in this life and this flesh, and is pursued by the darkness, yet is not overcome by it—I mean by the adversary power, which leaps shamelessly upon the visible Adam, but encounters God and is defeated; that we, putting off the darkness, may draw near to the Light, and then ourselves become perfect Light, offspring of perfect Light.

Do you see the grace of the day? Do you see the power of the mystery? Were you not raised from the earth? Were you not clearly set on high, exalted by our voice and uplifting? And you shall be set yet higher, when the Word prospers the discourse.

Is there any such purification as the legal and shadowy one, profiting by temporary sprinklings, and sprinkling the defiled with the ashes of a heifer? Is there any such thing in the mysteries of the Greeks—all whose rites and mysteries are to me but trifling, a dark invention of demons, a fabrication of an ill-fated mind, helped along by time and stolen away by myth?

For what they worship as true, they veil over as mythical;

though, if true, they ought not to be called myths, but only to be shown not to be shameful;

and if false, ought not to be marvelled at, nor thus rashly to hold the most contradictory opinions about the same matter;

as if conversing with children playing in the market-place, or with men truly ill-fated, and not with men of understanding and worshippers of the Word;

even though they spit out this artful and squalid plausibility.

Nor are there the clangings of the Curetes, and the clappings and armed dances, drowning out the cry of a weeping god, that he might escape a child-hating father;

for it was a strange thing that one who had been swallowed like a stone should wail like an infant.

Nor the mutilations of the Phrygians, and flutes, and Corybantes, and all that men do in their frenzy concerning Rhea, performing rites for the Mother of the gods, and being themselves consecrated to whatever is fitting for the mother of such beings;

for I am ashamed to give to the day the rite of the night, and to make indecency a mystery.

Eleusis knows these things, and the beholders of what is kept silent—and rightly worthy of silence.

These things, too: the thigh, an incomplete fruit of birth-pangs, just as before a head was;

and a hermaphrodite god, and a band of drunkards, and a dissolute host, and the folly of the Thebans honouring this one, and the thunderbolt of Semele being worshipped.

Nor are there the harlot mysteries of Aphrodite, who, as they themselves say, was both shamefully born and shamefully honoured.

Nor any Phalli and Ithyphalli, shameful both in their forms and in their practices;

nor the slaughterings of strangers by the Taurians, and the altar-blood of the Spartan youths, mangled with scourges, in this alone wrongly playing the man, those by whom a goddess is honoured—and that a virgin!

For the same men both honoured effeminacy and revered insolence.

Nor the sacrificing art of the Magi, and their divination by entrails;

and the astronomy and genethlialogy of the Chaldeans, bringing our affairs into conformity with the movement of the heavenly bodies—they who cannot even know what they themselves are, or shall be;

nor are these the orgies of the Thracians, from whom, as the word goes, even the term for worship is derived;

nor the rites and mysteries of Orpheus, whom the Greeks so admired for wisdom that they even made him a lyre that drew all things by its strains;

nor the just chastisement of Mithras,

against those who endure being initiated into such things;

nor the tearings of Osiris, another calamity honoured among the Egyptians;

nor the misfortunes of Isis, and the goats of the Mendesians, more reverenced than they ought to be, and the stall of Apis, that calf which revels in the silliness of the Memphites;

nor all the ways in which they outrage the Nile with their honours—that giver of fruit, as they themselves hymn it, rich in grain, and measuring out prosperity by the cubit.

For I forbear to speak of the honours paid to reptiles and beasts, and the ambition shown in indecency;

of each of which there is some private rite and festival, and common to all is the misery that attends them;

so that, if they had to be utterly impious, and to fall away from the glory of God, brought down to idols and works of art and things fashioned by hands, men of any understanding could pray nothing else against them than that they should reverence such things, and so honour them, that they might receive the recompense due to their error (as Paul says) in the very things they worship;

not so much honouring them, as being dishonoured by them.

Abominable in their error, yet more abominable in the worthlessness of the things they worship and revere, so that they are even more senseless than the very things they honour, surpassing in folly as much as those objects of worship surpass in worthlessness.

Let the children of the Greeks, then, sport with these things, and the demons, from whom comes their folly—those who divert God's honour to themselves, and tear men apart, this way and that, into shameful opinions and fancies; who, having cast us out from the tree of life by the tree of knowledge, partaken of out of season and unfittingly, overran us as now weaker, snatching away the ruling mind, and opening a door to the passions.

For being a nature envious and man-hating—or rather, having become such through their own wickedness—they could not bear that those below should attain the things above, while they themselves had fallen from on high to the earth; nor that so great a translation should take place of the glory and of the first natures.

This is the persecution of the creature;

for this reason the image of God was outraged;

and because we did not see fit to keep the commandment, we were delivered over to the lawlessness of error;

and because we went astray, we were dishonoured in the very things we revered.

For not only is this terrible—that we who were made for good works, for the glory and praise of our Maker, and for the imitation of God, so far as is attainable, should become a starting-place for passions of every kind, ill-fed and consuming the inner man;

but that sinning is reckoned not only blameless but even divine, when the objects of worship take refuge in such a defence.

But to us, just as it was granted, having fled the superstitious error, to be united with the truth, and to serve the living and true God, and to rise above creation, having passed beyond all that is subject to time and primal movement;

so let us also see and philosophize concerning God and divine things.

Let us philosophize, then, beginning from where it is better to begin;

and it is better to begin from where Solomon laid down the law for us;

'The beginning of wisdom,' he says, 'is to get wisdom';

and what does he mean by calling this the beginning of wisdom? The fear.

For we must not, having begun from contemplation,

end in fear (for unbridled contemplation might perhaps even push one over a precipice);

but rather, being grounded in fear, and purified, and—if I may so speak—made fine, we must be raised to a height.

For where there is fear, there is keeping of commandments;

and where there is keeping of commandments, there is purification of the flesh—of that cloud which lies before the soul and does not permit it to behold the divine ray purely;

and where there is purification, there is illumination;

and illumination is the fulfilment of desire to those who long for the greatest things, or the Greatest of all, or what is beyond the Great.

lest we should suffer what Israel did, not enduring the glory of the face of Moses, and for this reason needing a veil;

or what Manoah did, both to suffer and to say:

'We have seen God,' when God had appeared to him in a vision;

or, like Peter, to send Jesus away from the boat, as not worthy of such a visitation.

And when I say Peter, whom do I mean? The one who walked upon the waves.

Or, like Paul, to be smitten in the eyes, before being cleansed of his persecutions, having conversed with the One he persecuted—or rather, with a brief flash of the great Light;

or, like the centurion, to seek the healing, yet not to receive the Healer into the house, out of a praiseworthy diffidence.

Let each of us also say, so long as he is not yet purified, but is still a centurion, commanding many in wickedness, and serving Caesar, the world-ruler of those dragged down below:

'I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.'

But when he beholds Jesus—though small in spiritual stature, like that Zacchaeus—and is lifted above the sycamore-tree, having mortified his members which are upon the earth, and risen above the body of his humiliation, then let him also receive the Word, and hear:

'Today is salvation come to this house,' and let him receive the salvation, and bear the more perfect fruit, scattering and pouring out rightly what he had wrongly gathered as a tax-collector.

For the same Word is both fearful to the unworthy because of His nature, and able to be contained, through His love for mankind, by those thus prepared;

those who, having driven out the unclean and material spirit from their souls, and having swept and adorned their own souls with knowledge, did not leave them idle or unoccupied, so as to be taken again with greater preparation by the seven spirits of wickedness (as many as are reckoned of virtue—for the harder to fight against is the more eagerly sought after);

but, in addition to fleeing wickedness, they also work virtue, having settled the whole Christ, or as much as possible, within themselves, so that the wicked power, finding no empty place to occupy, may not fill it again with itself, and the last state become worse than the first, because of the greater fierceness of the assault, and the greater security and impregnability of the garrison.

then let us speak the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery, and shine forth to others.

purifying ourselves, and receiving the Word at His coming;

and not only so, but also holding Him fast, and displaying Him to others.

And since we have purified the theatre by our discourse, come, let us now philosophize a little concerning the feast, and keep festival together with the souls that love feasts and love God.

And since the chief point of a feast is the remembrance of God, let us remember God.

For I consider that the sound of those keeping festival yonder, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, is nothing else than this—God being hymned and glorified by those deemed worthy of the citizenship there.

And if the present discourse should contain something of what has already been said before, let no one wonder.

For I shall not only utter the same things, but utter them also concerning the same matters, trembling in tongue, and mind, and understanding, whenever I speak about God—and praying that you too may share this same praiseworthy and blessed experience.

And when I say 'God,' be illumined at once by one light and by three;

by three as to the properties, that is, hypostases—or, if anyone prefers so to call them, Persons (for we will not quarrel about names, so long as the syllables lead to the same conception);

but by one as to the principle of essence, that is, of Godhead.

For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one;

the three in whom is the Godhead, or, to speak more accurately, who are the Godhead.

But let us leave aside the excesses and deficiencies;

neither making the unity a confusion, nor the distinction an estrangement;

for far be from us alike both the contraction of Sabellius and the division of Arius—evils diametrically opposite, yet equal in impiety;

for why must we either wrongly fuse God together, or cut Him up into inequality?

But for us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things;

the 'of whom,' and 'through whom,' and 'in whom' not dividing the natures (for then neither the prepositions nor the order of the names would shift), but characterizing the properties of one and unconfused nature.

And this is plain from the fact that they are again gathered into one, if one reads, not carelessly, that passage in the same apostle: 'Of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things;'

to Him be the glory unto the ages.

The Father is Father, and without beginning;

The Son is Son, and not without beginning.

Yet if you take 'beginning' in the sense of time, He is also without beginning; for He is the Maker of times, and is not under time.

for He is the Maker of times, not subject to time.

The Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, proceeding indeed from the Father, yet not after the manner of the Son — for it is not by generation, but by procession;

if one may coin some novel term for the sake of clarity.

Neither does the Father depart from His unbegottenness because He has begotten;

nor does the Son depart from His generation because He is from the Unbegotten.

For how could it? Nor does the Spirit change into either Father or Son, because it proceeds and because it is God — even if this does not seem so to the ungodly.

For how could a distinctive property remain, if it were moved and changed about? But those who set up unbegottenness and generation as natures of gods bearing the same name would perhaps also estrange Adam and Seth from one another in nature — since the one was not from flesh,

while the other was from Adam and Eve — they would thus alienate them from one another according to nature.

There is therefore one God in three, and the three are one, as we have said.

Since these things are thus — or rather, this is so — and since worship ought not to be confined to the heavenly beings alone, but there should also be some worshippers below, that all things might be filled with the glory of God, seeing they are also of God;

for this reason man is created, honoured with the hand of God and with His image.

But to overlook this man, when by the envy of the devil and the bitter taste of sin he was being pitiably separated from God his Maker — that was not of God.

What comes to pass? And what is the great mystery concerning us? Natures are made new, and God becomes man;

and the Son of God consents both to become and to be called the Son of Man;

not changing what He was — for He is unchangeable — but assuming what He was not, for He loves mankind; that the Uncontainable might be contained, conversing with us through the medium of flesh as through a veil;

since the nature subject to birth and decay could not bear His Godhead in its purity.

He is not God only by becoming, nor mind only by flesh, nor the Timeless only by time, nor the Uncircumscribed only by measure;

but also birth joined with virginity, and dishonour with Him who is higher than all honour, and impassibility with passion, and immortality with corruption.

For since the sophist of wickedness supposed himself invincible, having beguiled us by the hope of becoming divine, he is himself beguiled by the screen of flesh;

so that, assailing Adam, he might fall upon God, and thus the new Adam might restore the old, and the condemnation of the flesh be undone, death being slain by flesh.

We have therefore duly kept the prelude to the feast at His Nativity — I, the leader of the feast, and you, and all that is in the world and above the world.

We ran with the star, and worshipped with the Magi, were illumined with the shepherds, and glorified with the angels; with Symeon we took Him in our arms, and with Anna the aged and chaste we gave thanks;

and thanks be to Him who came as a stranger to His own, because He glorified the stranger.

But now there is another work of Christ, and another mystery.

I cannot contain my joy; I am rapt with God; I all but, like John, proclaim the good news — though I am not the Forerunner, yet I come from the wilderness.

Christ is being illumined; let us shine together with Him.

Christ is being baptized; let us go down with Him, that we may also come up with Him.

Only this? Or is it needful carefully to observe the other points as well — who He is, and from whom, and at what time? He who is pure, baptized by John, beginning with His signs; that we may learn what, and be taught what? To purify ourselves beforehand, to be humble-minded, and to preach in perfection, both of spiritual and of bodily age.

This is for those who treat baptism carelessly, and do not prepare themselves beforehand, nor secure the safety of their redemption through a settled habit toward the good.

For even though the gift grants remission of past sins — for it is a gift — yet it is then all the more worthy of reverence, lest we return to the same vomit.

This is for those who exalt themselves against the stewards of the mystery, if they should excel in some worthiness.

The third point is for those who presume upon their youth, and think every season to be one of teaching or of presidency.

And do you despise the cleansing? It was administered by John;

and do you rise up against your own herald? He was thirty years old;

for everyone who does wrong is ready with an excuse.

But the rare case is not the law of the Church;

even as one swallow does not make a spring, nor one line the geometer, nor one voyage the seaman.

Nevertheless John baptizes; Jesus approaches —

perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself,

but most evidently to bury all the old Adam in the water;

and before these and on their behalf, to sanctify the Jordan;

that, just as He was spirit and flesh, so He might perfect us by the Spirit and by water.

"I have need to be baptized by You," says the lamp to the Sun, the voice to the Word, the friend to the Bridegroom, he who is above all that are born of women to the Firstborn of all creation, he who leaped for joy from the womb to Him who was worshipped while in the womb, the forerunner who has run before and shall run before, to Him who has appeared and shall appear.

"I have need to be baptized by You."

For he knew that he would be baptized with martyrdom;

or, like Peter, that he would have not his feet only cleansed.

"And do You come to me?" This too was prophetic;

for he knew that he would follow Christ, who would soon depart before him.

For he knew that after a little while He Himself would baptize the Baptist.

And what is the winnowing fan? The cleansing.

And what is the fire? The consuming of what is light and chaffy, and the fervour of the Spirit.

And what is the axe? The cutting away of the soul that is incurable even after the dung.

And what is the sword? The cutting of the Word, which divides the worse from the better, and severs the believer from the unbeliever, and stirs up son and daughter and bride against father and mother and mother-in-law — the new and fresh

against the old and shadowy.

And what is the latchet of the sandal, which you do not loose — you who baptize Jesus, you of the wilderness and without sustenance, the new Elijah, more than a prophet, inasmuch as you also beheld Him whom you prophesied, the mediator of the Old and the New? What is this? Perhaps the principle of His sojourn and of the flesh, of which not even the smallest part is easily loosed — not only by those still carnal and infants in Christ, but not even by those who are like John in the Spirit.

But also Jesus comes up out of the water.

For He raises up the world together with Himself, and sees the heavens opened which Adam had shut against himself and his posterity, even as he was shut out of paradise by the flaming sword.

And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead;

for it comes upon Him who is like to Him; the One borne witness to is from above.

And it comes as a dove, for it honours the body, since this too by deification is God — seen in bodily form.

And besides, from of old the dove was wont to announce the cessation of the flood.

But if you judge Godhead by bulk and weight, and on this account the Spirit seems small to you because it came in the form of a dove — O you who are petty-minded in the greatest matters — it is high time for you to dishonour the Kingdom of Heaven as well, because it is likened to a grain of mustard seed;

and to exalt the adversary above the majesty of Jesus, because the one is called a great mountain, and leviathan, and king of those in the waters,

while the other is named a lamb, and a pearl, and a drop, and the like.

But since this is the festival of baptism, and we must endure a little hardship together with Him who for our sake took form, and was baptized, and was crucified, come, let us reflect a little on the difference of baptisms, that we may depart hence cleansed.

Moses baptized, but in water;

and before this, in the cloud and in the sea.

This was figurative, as Paul also holds;

the manna, of the Bread of life;

the drink, of the divine drink.

John also baptized, no longer indeed after the Jewish manner;

for it was not in water only, but also unto repentance;

yet not wholly spiritual as yet;

for he does not add the words, "in the Spirit."

Jesus also baptizes, but in the Spirit.

And how is He not God — that I may venture a little, whereby you too may become God? I know also a fourth baptism, that which is by martyrdom and blood, with which Christ Himself was baptized — and one far more venerable than the others, inasmuch as it is not defiled by later stains.

I know also yet a fifth, that of tears;

but more laborious — like him who every night washes his bed and his couch with his tears, whose very wounds gave forth a stench because of his sin;

who walks in mourning and with downcast countenance; who imitates the conversion of Manasseh, and the humbling of the Ninevites that found mercy;

who utters the publican's words in the temple, and is justified rather than the boastful Pharisee;

who bows himself down like the Canaanite woman, and seeks lovingkindness, and the crumbs that are the food of a dog exceedingly hungry.

As for me — for I confess that I am a man, a changeable creature of fluid nature — I both receive this gladly, and worship Him who has given it, and impart it to others, and offer mercy in return for mercy.

For I myself also know that I am compassed with weakness, and that as I shall measure, so shall I be measured.

Do you not weep a single tear? May you never meet with such a judge!

Are you not ashamed before the lovingkindness of Jesus, who took our infirmities and bore our diseases, who came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, who desires mercy rather than sacrifice, who forgives sins seventy times seven? How blessed would your loftiness be, if it were purity and not pride — making laws beyond what is human, and undoing amendment by despair!

For it is equally an evil — both unchastened laxity, and unforgiving condemnation;

the one letting go the rein entirely, the other choking by its harshness.

But now I fear lest, teeming with sores, you bring in that which is incurable.

Or do you not even receive him who has been perfected through blood? This too belongs to your madness.

Nor him who transgressed at Corinth? But Paul confirmed his love toward him, when he saw his amendment;

lest such a one should be swallowed up by excessive sorrow, being overwhelmed by the immoderateness of the rebuke.

Nor do you allow young widows to marry, because of the frailty of their age? But Paul ventured even this — Paul, whose disciple you of course claim to be — he who reached even to the fourth heaven, and another paradise, and heard unutterable words, and embraced a wider circle within the Gospel.

But these things were not after baptism, you say.

What is the proof? Either show it, or do not condemn.

But if it is doubtful, let lovingkindness prevail.

But Novatus, you say, did not receive those who lapsed in the persecution.

What of it? If they did not repent, then justly so;

for neither do I receive those who either do not bend, or do not do so worthily, nor make amends counterbalancing the evil;

and when I do receive them, I assign them the place that befits them.

But if they have melted away in tears, I will not refuse to imitate them.

And what law is the misanthropy of Novatus to me — he who did not punish covetousness, that second idolatry?

Let us magnify the Lord together.

Let none of you dare to say, even if he has greatly trusted in himself:

"Touch me not, for I am clean — and who is as I am?" Impart to us also of your brightness.

But do we not persuade you? Then we will weep on your behalf as well.

These men, then — if they are willing, let them walk our way, which is also Christ's; but if not, let them go their own.

Perhaps there they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, more painful and more lasting, which devours matter like grass, and consumes the lightness of all wickedness.

But let us this day honour the baptism of Christ, and keep the feast well — not revelling in the belly, but rejoicing in spirit.

And how shall we make merry? "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean."

If you are crimson in sin, and less bloody, be made white as snow;

but if you are scarlet, and men perfected in blood, at least attain to the whiteness of wool.

In any case, be purified and keep on being purified.

For in nothing does God rejoice so much as in the amendment and salvation of man, for whom is every word and every mystery;

that you may become as lights in the world, a life-giving power to the rest of mankind; that, standing as perfect lights beside the great Light, you may be initiated into the illumination there above, being enlightened by the Trinity more purely and more clearly — that Trinity of whose one radiance, springing from one Godhead, you have now in measure received a foretaste, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.