De recens baptizatis

Of the blessed Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, on the newly baptized and on the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ. When the gloomy season of winter gives way to the time of spring, various birds, flying through the air, with honey-voiced songs signal the pleasantness of the season to men. Then also sweet-voiced swallows, cutting the air with swift flight and skimming past the heads of men, like a flower cast their own call into the ears of men. Then it is possible to see the air pure and windless, and the faces of men bright, reshaped in imitation of the calm. For the songs of birds delight the hearing, pure air brightens the eye, the radiance of various flowers sweetens the sight, and the mixed breath of herbs restores the sense of smell. And this delight, beloved, the earthly and perishable spring provides; but our divine and immaculate spring, Christ, having adorned the meadow of the church with spiritual violets and roses and lilies, brightens the sight with faith and fills the receptacle of our heart with divine fragrances. For which of the faithful now does not rejoice? Who now does not exult, when he sees the newly baptized, shining in the image of lilies with the bright calyxes of their robes, and possessing in the very heart the gold-radiant faith? Here you will find, beloved, having gazed with the eyes of the heart, the heart of the faithful dyed deep like a violet with the blood of Jesus, turning it purple; for the flame-leaved rose blossomed incorruptibly from the Virgin Mary.

What meadow possesses such fragrance as our meadow, the grace of the Spirit that perfumes? Smell the newly baptized and you will find in him the immortal fragrance of the Spirit, I mean the ointment of the heavenly chrism. Here the palms of the fathers, crowned with the branches of victory, produce sweeter fruits of love; here the sweet-voiced birds of the psalmists sing psalms to God in harmony; here virginity, like storax, offering pure incense of prayer to God, rejoices; here temperance, sacrificing the cheerful branch of chastity like Abraham sacrificing Isaac to God, delights; here the trunks of mercies, putting forth the fruitful branch of beneficence to the poor, both please the Lord and feed the poor. Let virginity sing, saying: Let my prayer be directed as incense before you, O Lord. Let the merciful one say: And I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God; for the righteous will bloom like a palm, will multiply like a cedar in Lebanon. Now the gloom of the devilish winter has fled and the cheerfulness of the heavenly meadow has shone forth; now the mourning of the dead has fled, for the light of the resurrection has come. Let us all sing together the new song, for the new way of life befits the new and blessed song. Let us sing the new song, for behold, Adam has been renewed, for the old sin has been obliterated, behold, all things have become new. Let us sing the new song, for behold, Adam has been renewed and Eve has been taken up into the heavens, for the devil has been cast into the fire.

Let us use that song from Mary, the sister of Moses, for it is fitting for us now as it was for them then. Let the chorus of those saints also be with us, and let it sing what it then chanted at the Red Sea: "Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified." For what has he done? He has thrown horse and rider into the sea. Horse and rider: the horse is the woman-mad sin, the rider is the demon seated upon that sin, whom he has drowned in the bath of baptism. Therefore let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified; for he has thrown Pharaoh and his power into the sea, that is, the devil and the dark and abominable army of his demons, whom he has engulfed in the bath of baptism. I no longer fear hearing: "You are earth and to earth you will return"; for in baptism I have put off earth and put on heaven, and I hear: "You are heaven and to heavens you will return." For all of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and: "As the earthly one is, so are the earthly ones; and as the heavenly one is, so are the heavenly ones." We must mount clouds and run up into the heavens. The word is not without witness: listen to Paul saying, "We shall be snatched up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord." Therefore, just as we have just heard the psalmist exhorting us and saying, "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it," let us then rejoice, not darkened by drunkenness and debauchery, for that would not be joy but folly and darkness of heart.

Let us exult, leaping in spirit, let us exult, feasting in love, rejoicing in hope. But if we must also conceive of another joy of the heart, having received the heavenly bread in pure palms, let us convey it to the soul as a provision for eternal life. Having received it in pure palms, I say, not washed in common water, but brightened by good deeds. And let us draw the divine and heavenly mixture with roseate lips, not reddening with some crimson, but purpling with the blood of Jesus Christ. O truly great and good day, on which the lamb is sacrificed and the world is purchased and our shepherd lives! For I am, he says, the good shepherd. O new mystery and extraordinary wonder! A cross stood and Christ was stretched out, and an unjust death was what appeared, and a holy bridal chamber was what took place; a cross was what appeared, and a bridal bower was what was accomplished. Yesterday the bridal chamber arose, and today a people was born. O death of Christ, death of death, pouring forth sweet life in the most bitter death! O mystery of Abraham accomplished in Christ! Isaac was bound upon the altar, and a ram was sacrificed in his place, and the Son of God was raised upon the cross and was crucified in the flesh for us, and while the flesh suffered, the divinity did not suffer. The sail of the cross was set in the ship of the world, and the world remained unshipwrecked; he who sails with this sail of the cross knows no shipwreck of death, but sails up into the heavens. No longer does Eve fear the reproach of Adam, for in Mary her fault has been redeemed.

No longer does Adam fear the serpent, for Christ has crushed the head of the dragon. For it is said, "You have crushed the head of the dragon upon the water," that is, upon the baptism. No longer do I mourn, no longer do I weep, saying, "I was turned to misery when a thorn was fixed in me"; for Christ came and, having uprooted the thorn of our sins, placed it upon his own head. My ancient grief is dissolved, the old curse is dissolved which said, "The earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you"; for the thorns have withered, the thistle has been uprooted, and a threefold crown has been placed upon my head. Who among Jews and Greeks believes that a tree stood and blossomed forth life? And each day it is harvested by the faithful, yet the fruit remains undiminished; and every tribe and every nation of the faithful ascends this tree by the step of the soul and fills the bosom of the mind with immortal fruit, and the tree bears all and nourishes all and seals all and enriches all and thereafter hurls them into the heavens. For what name did Christ not endure to be called for our sake? We cannot number his names,

I proceed to speak, beloved: door, way, sheep, shepherd, worm, stone, pearl, flower, angel, human, god, light, spring, sun of righteousness. Christ, who is many-named and yet one, the Son being many-named and one, not changing, not altering—for the divinity is immutable—but adapting to each matter according to its activity, having placed a proper name for each activity. And let us see, beloved, whether we can set forth the activity for each name. He was called "Way": "For I am," he says, "the way and the truth," since he himself has become the originator of all virtues and of the ascent to the heavens. The same is "Door": "For I am the door of the sheep," since through him, as through a door, we enter into the kingdom of the heavens. He was called "Salt," since he wiped away the stench of idolatry from people and seasoned our souls with the savor of piety through faith, and bound together the loosened limbs of the mind with truth. He was called "Sheep": For as a sheep he was led to slaughter, and as a lamb, voiceless before its shearer; he was called "Sheep" because of the slaughter and because of the partaking of his holy members and the immortal protection of his seal from his holy blood. He was called "Shepherd": "For I am the good shepherd," since he turned back the straying sheep and killed our adversary, the lion, with the staff of the cross.

He was called a pearl because he was born like a pearl in a shell between two folds of body and soul from a virgin without the seed of a man, or because he is an ornament of the soul, or because of his many-faceted radiance and purity, flashing from all sides with the splendor of divinity. He was called light, for he was the true light that illuminates every person coming into the world, since he drove away the dark error of ancient gloom from our mind and opened the eyes of our governing intellect, so that we might truly see that what we previously worshipped are not gods, but works of human hands, stones and wood. He was called a cornerstone, because after building the two peoples like two walls with faith, he rests upon them, joining them into one harmony of salvation. He was called the sun of righteousness because of his brightness and warmth—for there is no one who can hide from his warmth, and because of the twelve-rayed light of the apostles. He was called a mustard seed, because he makes himself small and descends to our dispositions at the beginnings of faith, but then, when he has nested in the furrows of our soul and spread into the depths, he rises to heaven-high stature, growing warm toward piety and wisdom. He was called a worm: "For I am a worm and not a human," because he hid his flashing divinity like a hook in the worm of the body, lowered himself into this depth of life, and like a good fisherman drew it up, fulfilling what is written: "You will draw a dragon with a hook.

He was called man because he bore a body not composed from pleasure and sleep, but born from a virgin and the Holy Spirit. But since each of us, beloved, also receives the honey-flowing teaching of the fathers, let us here seal our purse of words with the Holy Spirit, so that they themselves, coming from the honey-dripping wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, may fill the reservoirs of our hearts, and each of you may put forth abundant fruit of piety, and one may produce thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, the crown of the angels, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father be glory, honor, and power together with the holy and life-giving Spirit, now and for all the ages of ages. Amen.