Homilia in divini corporis sepulturam

Of our holy father Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, a homily on the divine-bodied burial of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and on Joseph of Arimathea, and on the Lord's descent into Hades, which occurred miraculously after the saving passion. On the holy and great Sabbath. What is this? Today there is great silence on the earth; great silence and stillness henceforth; great silence, because the King sleeps; the earth feared and became still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who had slept from eternity. God has died in the flesh, and Hades trembled. God slept for a short while, and awakened those in Hades. Where now are the disturbances, and shouts, and uproars against Christ of a short while ago, O lawless ones? Where are the mobs, and insurrections, and ranks, and weapons, and spears? Where are the kings and priests and judges who are condemned? Where are the torches and swords and the disorderly clamors? Where are the peoples, and the arrogance, and the unseemly guard? Truly indeed, for indeed truly the peoples plotted vain and empty things. They stumbled against the cornerstone Christ, but they themselves were shattered; they dashed against the solid rock, but they themselves were shattered, and their waves dissolved into foam; they stumbled against the invincible anvil, and they themselves were broken; they raised the rock of life on wood, and it descended and killed them; they bound the great Samson, the sun God; but having loosed the bonds of eternity, he destroyed the alien and lawless ones. The sun God Christ set beneath the earth, and made perpetual darkness for the Jews.

Today salvation for those on earth, and for those from eternity beneath the earth; today salvation for the world, as much as is visible, and as much as is invisible. A twofold today of the Master’s presence, a twofold economy, a twofold philanthropy, a twofold descent and condescension together, a twofold visitation to men: from heaven to earth, from earth to beneath the earth God arrives; the gates of Hades are opened. Those who have slept from eternity, rejoice; those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, receive the great light. The Master with the servants; God with the dead; life with the mortals; the guiltless with the guilty; the unwaning light with those in darkness; the liberator with the captives; and the one above the heavens with those in the lowest depths. Christ on earth, we have believed; Christ among the dead, let us descend together and behold the mysteries there as well; let us know the hidden wonders of the hidden one beneath the earth; let us learn how the proclamation appeared even to those in Hades. What then? Does God, having appeared in Hades, simply save everyone? No, but there too only those who believed. Yesterday the things of the economy, today the things of authority; yesterday the things of weakness, today the things of sovereignty; yesterday the things of humanity, today the things of divinity are shown. Yesterday he was slapped, today with the lightning of his divinity he slaps the dwelling place of Hades; yesterday he was bound, today he binds the tyrant with unbreakable bonds; yesterday he was condemned, today he grants freedom to the condemned; yesterday the servants of Pilate mocked him, today the gatekeepers of Hades, seeing him, shuddered. But hear the account of Christ’s passion from a higher perspective.

Listen, and sing hymns; listen, and glorify; listen, and proclaim the great wonders of God: how the law gives way, how grace blossoms, how the types pass away, how the shadows cross over, how the sun fills the inhabited world, how the Old has grown old, how the New is confirmed, how the ancient things have passed, and how the new things have bloomed. Two peoples in Zion at the time of Christ’s passion were present: the one from the Jews together, and the one from the Gentiles; two kings, Pilate and Herod; two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas; so that the two Passovers together might occur, the one ceasing, the other of Christ beginning; two sacrifices were being performed on that same evening, since also salvations, of the living I mean and of the dead, were being effected. And the Jew was binding a lamb for slaughter as a sacrifice, while the one from the Gentiles was binding God in flesh. And the one was gazing at the shadow, while the other was running to the sun, God. And those who bound Christ were being sent away, while those from the Gentiles were eagerly receiving him. And the one offered a beast-sacrifice, the other a God-bodied sacrifice. But the Jews were commemorating the crossing from Egypt, while those from the Gentiles were being proclaimed the deliverance from error. And where were these things? In Zion, the city of the great King; in which salvation was wrought in the midst of the earth, in the midst of two living beings Jesus the God-child was made known; in the midst of Father and Spirit, the two living beings, life from life, as it is said, being recognized as living, and in the midst of angels and men born in the manger; and in the midst of two peoples placed as a cornerstone; and in the midst of law and prophets together being proclaimed; and in the midst of Moses and Elijah appearing on the mountain.

And in the midst of the two thieves, God is made known to the grateful thief; and in the midst of the present life and the future life, the eternal judge sits; and in the midst of those living today and the dead, he has wrought a twofold life and salvation. I say again twofold life, twofold birth together and rebirth, and hear the matters of Christ’s twofold birth, and applaud the wonders. An angel announced to Mary the maternal birth of Christ; an angel announced to Mary Magdalene the fearful rebirth from the tomb. By night Christ is born in Bethlehem; by night again he is reborn in Zion. He accepts swaddling clothes for his birth; swaddling clothes are also rolled around him here. At his birth he received myrrh; he also accepts myrrh and aloe at his burial. There Joseph, the husbandless husband of Mary, is named; but here Joseph of Arimathea is revealed as the caretaker of our life. In Bethlehem the place is a manger; but also in the tomb the place is as a manger. Shepherds were the first of all to be told of Christ’s birth; but also shepherds, Christ’s disciples, were the first of all to be told of Christ’s rebirth from the dead. There the angel cried out, “Hail,” to the Virgin; and here the angel of the great counsel, Christ, cried out, “Hail,” to the women. In the first birth, after forty days Christ entered the earthly Jerusalem, into the temple, and as a firstborn offered a pair of turtledoves to God.

But also in the resurrection from the dead, Christ after forty days ascended into the upper Jerusalem, from which he was not separated, and into the true Holy of Holies as the firstborn incorruptible from the dead, and he brought to God and Father as two unblemished turtledoves, our soul and our flesh; whom he also received, like a certain Symeon, the Ancient of Days God and Father, as in his arms in his own bosom without circumscription. But if you hear these things mythically and not faithfully, the unbroken seals of the Lordly tomb of Christ’s regeneration accuse you. For just as with the sealed, all-imbued, womb-unopened locks of the virginal nature Christ was born from a Virgin, so with the seals of the tomb unbroken, Christ’s regeneration has been accomplished. But how and when and by whom Christ, the life, is placed in the tomb, let us hear from the sacred scriptures. When evening came, it says, a rich man named Joseph came; this man, having dared, went in to Pilate and asked from him the body of Jesus. A mortal went in to a mortal, asking to receive God; he asks for the God of mortals; clay from clay seeks to receive the fashioner of all; the grass from grass takes the heavenly fire; the pitiful drop from a pitiful drop receives the abyss. Who ever saw, who ever heard? A man grants to a man the maker of men; a lawless one promises to grant to the lawless the boundary and the law; a judge without judgment releases as condemned the judge of judges for burial. When evening came, it says, a rich man named Joseph came.

Truly rich, having obtained the entire composite hypostasis of the Lord; truly rich, because he received the twofold nature of Christ from Pilate; and indeed rich, because he was deemed worthy to obtain the priceless pearl. He is rich; for he carried a purse full of the treasure of divinity. For how is he not rich, who acquired the life and salvation of the world? And how is Joseph not rich, having received as a gift the one who nourishes all and rules all? When evening came—for the sun of righteousness had already set in Hades—then came a rich man named Joseph from Arimathea, who had been hiding for fear of the Jews. And Nicodemus also came, the one who had come to Jesus by night. A mystery of mysteries, hidden. Two hidden disciples come to conceal Jesus in a tomb, teaching the hidden mystery in Hades of the hidden God in flesh through their own concealment. Each surpassing the other in devotion to Christ. For Nicodemus was magnanimous with the myrrh and aloe; Joseph is praiseworthy for his boldness and frankness before Pilate. For this man, casting aside all fear, boldly went to Pilate, asking for the body of Jesus; and having entered, he acted with great wisdom so as to attain his desired goal. Therefore he did not use any boasts or lofty words before Pilate, lest he kindle his anger and fail in his request; nor does he say to him:

Give me the body of Jesus, who recently darkened the sun, shattered the rocks, shook the earth, opened the tombs, and rent the veil of the temple. He says nothing so great to Pilate. But what? Some piteous request, and small to all. O judge, I have come to you asking a very small request. And thus: Give me the dead for burial; the body of that Jesus condemned by you, Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus the poor, Jesus the homeless, Jesus the hanged, the naked, the lowly, Jesus the son of a carpenter, Jesus the bound, the exposed to the open air, the stranger, and unknown in a foreign land, the contemptible, and above all the hanged. Give me this stranger; for what does the body of this stranger profit you? Give me this stranger; for he came here from a distant land, to save the stranger; for he descended into the darkness to bring up the stranger. Give me this stranger; for he alone is a stranger. Give me this stranger, whose country we strangers do not know. Give me this stranger, whose father we strangers do not know. Give me this stranger, whose place and birth and manner we strangers do not know. Give me this stranger, who lived a strange life and existence in a foreign land. Give me this Nazorean stranger [whose birth and manner we strangers do not know. Give me this voluntary stranger], who has nowhere here to lay his head. Give me this stranger, who as a stranger in a foreign land was homeless, born in a manger. Give me this

a stranger, who as a stranger fled from Herod from the very manger. Give me this stranger, who as a stranger was sojourning in Egypt from his swaddling clothes, having no city, no village, no house, no dwelling, no relative; this stranger is in a foreign land. Give me, O governor, this one naked on the wood; I will cover the one who covered the nakedness of my nature. Give me this corpse who is also God; I will cover the one who covered my lawlessness. Give me, O governor, the corpse who buried my sin in the Jordan. I plead for a corpse wronged by all, sold by a friend, betrayed by a disciple, persecuted by brothers, and struck by a slave. I intercede for a corpse, condemned by those he freed from slavery, given vinegar by him, wounded by those he healed, abandoned by his disciples, and deprived even of his mother. I beseech you, O governor, for a corpse, homeless, hanging on the wood.

For this one has no father on earth, no friend, no disciple, no relative, no one to prepare his burial; but he himself alone, the only-begotten of the only one, God in the world, and no other. When Joseph had spoken these words to Pilate, Pilate ordered that the most holy body of Jesus be given to him. And coming to the place Golgotha, he took down God in flesh from the wood, and placed him on the ground: God in flesh, naked, and not a mere man. And he who drew all upward is seen lying below; and for a short time he who is the life and breath of all becomes breathless; and he who created the many-eyed is seen without eyes; and he who is the resurrection of all lies supine; and God dies in the flesh, he who raises the dead; and the thunder of the Word of God is silent for a short time; and he who holds the earth in his grasp is lifted by hands. Do you, then, do you, O Joseph, who asked and received, know whom you have taken? Do you, approaching the cross and taking down Jesus, know whom you carried? If you truly know whom you hold, you have now become rich. But how, then, do you perform this divine-bodied and most awe-inspiring burial of Jesus? Your desire is praiseworthy, but the manner of your soul is more praiseworthy. Do you not, then, do you not shudder, carrying on your hands him before whom the cherubim shudder? Or with what fear do you certainly uncover the linen from that divine flesh? And how reverently did you lower your gaze? Do you not shudder as you gaze, uncovering the nature of the flesh of God, who is beyond nature? Do you, then, do you, tell me, O Joseph, bury a corpse toward the east, the east of the east?

Do you then, with your fingers, close the eyes of Jesus in a manner befitting a corpse—you, whose immaculate finger opened the eye of the blind man? Do you then close the mouth of the one who opened the mouth of the speechless? Do you then arrange the hands of the one who stretched out the withered hands? Or do you bind the feet in a manner befitting a corpse—you, who gave the power of walking to motionless feet? Do you then lift onto a bed the one who commanded the paralytic: "Take up your pallet and walk"? Do you then pour out ointments for the one who emptied his own heavenly ointment and sanctified the world? Do you then dare to wipe that still-bloody divine side of Jesus—you, the God who healed the woman with the issue of blood? Do you then wash the body of God with water—you, who washed all and gave purification? And what torches will you light for the true light, which illuminated every person? And what funeral songs will you sing for the one praised unceasingly by the whole heavenly host? Do you then weep as for a dead man over the one who wept and raised the four-day-dead Lazarus? Do you then make laments for the one who gives joy to all and dissolved the grief of Eve? Nevertheless, I bless your

hands, O Joseph, that ministered and still touched the blood-flowing, God-bodied hands and feet of Jesus. I bless your hands that drew near to the blood-flowing side of God, before Thomas the faithful, faithless, and praised meddler. I bless your mouth, insatiably filled and united with the mouth of Jesus, and there filled with the Holy Spirit. I bless your eyes, placed against the eyes of Jesus, and there partaking of the true light. I bless your face, brought near to the face of God. I bless your shoulders that bore the one who bears all. I bless your head, to which Jesus, the head of all, drew near. I bless your hands, in which you carried the one who carries all. I bless Joseph and Nicodemus. For they have become, before the cherubim, those who lifted and carried God within themselves. They have become, before the six-winged ones, ministers of God, covering and honoring the Lord not with wings but with linens. He whom the cherubim tremble at—this one Joseph and Nicodemus carry on their shoulders, and all the ranks of the bodiless are amazed.

For Joseph and Nicodemus came; thus the whole assembly ran together, even the divine assembly of angels. And the cherubim anticipate, and the seraphim run together, and the thrones help bear the weight, and the six-winged ones cover, and the many-eyed ones shudder, seeing Jesus without eyes in the flesh, and the powers cover him, and the principalities sing, and the orders shudder, and all the hosts of the aerial ranks are amazed, and, bewildered, they question among themselves and say: What is this fearful word, and fear, and trembling, and manner? What is this great, and paradoxical, and incomprehensible spectacle? He who above to us bodiless ones as God is naked, invisible, below to mortals is naked, visible. He before whom cherubim stand with reverence, Joseph and Nicodemus tend with boldness. When did he descend, he who did not leave the heights? How did he come forth, he who was within? How did he come to earth, he who fills all things? How did he strip himself, he who escaped all notice? He who above with the Father as God is without deficiency, below with his mother as a mortal is truly without deficiency. He who never appeared to us, how does he appear to men as a man, and at the same time as a philanthropic God? How was the invisible seen? How was the immaterial incarnated? How did the impassible suffer? How did the judge stand before a tribunal? How did life taste death? How is the uncontainable contained in a tomb? How does he inhabit the grave, he who did not leave the Father’s bosom? How does he enter the gate of a cave, he who opened the gates of paradise, and did not break the gates of the Virgin, but shattered the gates of Hades? He who did not open the gates for Thomas, but opened the gates of the kingdom for men, while preserving the gates and seals of the tomb unopened?

How is he who is free among the dead counted among the dead? How does the light that knows no evening come among the dark and the shadow of death? Where does he go? Where does he arrive, he who cannot be held by death? What is the reason? What is the manner? What is the purpose of his descent into Hades? Perhaps he goes down to bring up Adam the condemned, our fellow servant. Truly he goes to seek out the first-formed as a lost sheep. Surely he wishes to visit those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death; surely God goes to release from their pains the captive Adam and his fellow captive Eve, and he is revealed as her son and his son. But let us go down together, let us dance together, let us hasten, let us leap together, let us escort him, let us hymn him, let us make haste, seeing God's reconciliations with men, the release of the condemned coming from a good Master. For the one who is by nature a lover of mankind goes to lead out those who have been prisoners from eternity, with great courage and authority, those dwelling in tombs, whom bitter and insatiable death has tyrannically swallowed, having tyrannized and plundered them from God, and having heaped them together, to number them among the free dwellers above. There Adam the first-formed is a prisoner, and the firstborn of all the lowest condemned is lower still. There Abel the first to die, and the first righteous shepherd, a type of Christ the shepherd, of unjust slaughter.

There is Noah, the type of Christ, the builder of the great ark of God, the Church, which saved all the savage nations from the flood of impiety through the dove, the Holy Spirit, and banished the dark raven from it. There is Abraham, the forefather of Christ, the sacrificer, who offered to God a sacrifice both sword-bearing and death-bearing, yet altogether blessed. There below is Isaac bound, the ancient bound type of Christ, who was bound by Abraham above. There is Jacob, sorrowful in Hades below, who before was sorrowful through Joseph above. There is Joseph the prisoner, who in Egypt was in the prison as a type of Christ, both prisoner and master. There is Moses in the darkness below, who once was in the ark in the darkness above. There is Daniel in Hades, the pit, who once was in the den of lions above. There is Jeremiah as if in a pit of mire, in the pit of Hades and the corruption of death. There, in the world-containing whale of Hades, lies Jonah as a type of Christ, the eternal and pre-eternal Jonah, the living one for eternity, and for the ages of ages, and for ever. And there too is David, the forefather of God, from whom Christ is according to the flesh. And why do I speak of David and Jonah and Solomon? There also is John himself, the great one, the greatest of all the prophets, as in the dark womb proclaiming Christ beforehand to all those in Hades: the double forerunner and herald of the living and the dead; he who was sent from the prison of Herod to the universal prison of Hades, whence the righteous and unrighteous who have slept from eternity.

All the prophets and righteous ones from that place offered unceasing prayers to God in secret and mystery, begging for deliverance from that utterly painful, gloomy, enemy-dominated darkness, and from the all-night-long vigil of the whole race. And one said to God: "From the belly of Hades hear my cry, my voice"; another: "From the depths I cried out to you, Lord; Lord, hearken to my voice"; and another: "Reveal your face, and we shall be saved"; and another: "You who sit upon the cherubim, appear"; and another: "Rouse your power, and come to save us"; and another: "Let your compassions quickly overtake us, Lord"; and another: "Deliver my soul from the lowest Hades"; and another: "Lord, lead up my soul from Hades"; and another: "Do not abandon my soul in Hades"; and another: "Let my life ascend from corruption to you, Lord my God." Hearing all these, the all-compassionate God, Christ, deemed it not just to grant his own philanthropy only to those in his time and after him, but also to those held in Hades before his advent, sitting in darkness, in the shadow of death. Therefore, God the Word visited men in the flesh through animate flesh; but to souls separated from bodies he appeared in Hades through his divine and pure soul, the body being separated, but not the divinity. So let us hasten in mind and go down to Hades, that we may see how there the one mighty in power once by force seizes the tyrant of force, and with his lightning subdues those immortal ranks of phalanxes without hand, with his whole army of people.

He removed the doorless doors from the midst, and Christ the Door, having broken the woodless gates with the wood of the cross, and having crushed and shattered the eternal bars with the divine nails; and having dissolved the indissoluble chains like wax with the hand-divine bonds; and having pierced the heart of the tyrant, the fleshless one, with the side-divine lance. There he shattered the powers of the bows, when he stretched the hand-divine bowstrings with the cross. Therefore, if you follow Christ in stillness, you will now see where he bound the tyrant, where he hung his head, how he dug up the prison, where he led out the prisoners, how he trampled the serpent, and where he hung its head; how he freed Adam, and how he raised Eve, and how he dissolved the partition wall, and how he condemned the bitter dragon, and how he set up the invincible trophies; where he put death to death, and how he destroyed corruption, and where he restored man to his ancient dignity. He who yesterday, in the economy, was dismissing the legions of angels, and saying to Peter, "Can I not now present more than twelve legions of angels?" today, in a manner befitting God, both war-like and lordly, descends below Hades and death; and the tyrant, through death, has not twelve legions of the immortal, incorporeal armies and invisible orders, but countless myriads and thousands of thousands of angels, powers, thrones without thrones, six-winged, wingless, many-eyed, eyeless, heavenly orders; which indeed escort, guard, and honor Christ as their own Master and King—not as allies; far from it!

For what alliances does the all-powerful Christ need? But rather, certain reliable spear-bearers, shield-bearers and scepter-bearers, resplendent in the swift divine command of the Lord, always stand by their own Master, God, with zeal, anticipating one another by mere nod, bringing the action to fulfillment at the command, and crowned with victory against the battle lines of enemies and lawless ones. Hence, descending then together in courses and running together with God and Master to the places in Hades and the underworld, and deeper than all the earth, the subterranean dwellings of those who have slept from eternity, he leads out in valor those who have been bound from eternity. So, as the all-gated, sunless, and wholly dark prisons and dwellings, descents and caves of Hades, the divine assembly of the Master’s light-bearing presence overtakes them, Gabriel the chief commander precedes all; for it is his custom to bring glad tidings of joy to men and a certain strong utterance, a bright and leonine voice of archangelic and general-like quality, against the opposing powers, and he says: "Lift up your gates, you rulers!" After him, Michael also cries out: "And be lifted up, eternal gates!

Then the Powers say, “Stand back, lawless gatekeepers!” Then the Authorities with authority: “Be shattered, unbreakable chains!” And another: “Be ashamed, hostile enemies!” And another: “Fear, lawless tyrants!” And just as in the case of some fearsome, invincible, all-powerful royal and triumphant army array, a kind of shudder, confusion, and grievous fear falls upon the enemies of the unconquerable Master, so too did it suddenly occur among those in Hades at the extraordinary presence of Christ in the underworld: from above, like lightning, the darkening of the hostile powers of Hades blinding their eyes, and with thunderous voices they hear and armies command, saying, “Lift the gates, you who are your own rulers! For do not open them, but from their very foundations lift them, uproot them, remove them so that they may never be closed again. Lift the gates, you who are your own rulers!” Not because the present Master is unable and the doors are closed when he orders entry, but because he permits you, like runaway slaves, the raising, removal, and breaking of the eternal gates. Therefore, he does not entrust this to your commoners, but to those who seem among you to be rulers, to them he says, “Lift the gates, you who are your own rulers!” “Your own,” not of any others. So then, rulers. If

For even until now you have ruled wickedly over those who have slept from eternity; but no longer will you rule over them, nor over others, nor over yourselves, nor even over yourselves. For Christ, the heavenly door, is present. Make way for the one who has mounted the setting of Hades. Lord is his name, and the exits of the gates of death belong to the Lord of Lords. You have made the entrances; he has come to make the exits. Therefore do not delay. Lift the gates and hasten; lift them and do not put it off. But if you think to wait, we permit the gates themselves to be lifted without hands and of their own accord. And you were lifted, eternal gates. As soon as the Powers cried out, as soon as the gates were lifted, as soon as the chains were loosed, as soon as the bars were broken, as soon as the bolts fell out, as soon as the foundations of the prison were shaken, as soon as the hostile powers were turned to flight, one jostling another, and another tripping over another, and one crying out to another to flee, they shuddered, they were shaken, they were astounded, they were troubled, they were transformed, they were dismayed, they stood together and were beside themselves, they were at a loss together and trembled. And one stood gaping, another covered his face with his knees; another was fixed face down, and another was petrified as if dead, and another was seized with terror, and another lay transformed by heavenly things, and another fled further within. For there Christ then cut off the heads of the rulers in ecstasy; there they were shaken in him, there they opened their bridles, saying, "Who is this king of glory?

Who is this one so great, who with such multitudes accomplishes such wonders here? Who is this king of glory, who now does in Hades what has never been done in Hades? Who is this who leads out from here those who have slept from eternity? Who is this who has loosed and dissolved the boldness and power of us the invincible, and leads out from the prison of Hades those who have been bound from eternity? To them the powers of the Lord cried out, saying: Do you wish to learn, O lawless tyrants, who this king of glory is? The Lord is mighty and powerful; the Lord is powerful and strong and invincible in wars. This is the one who cast you out and hurled you down from the heavenly vaults, O wretched and lawless tyrants! That one is this one who crushed the heads of your dragons in the waters of the Jordan. This is the one who through the cross exposed, triumphed over, and killed you. That one is this one who bound you, darkened you, and consigned you to the abyss. This is the one who consigns and destroys you by eternal fire and Gehenna.

Therefore do not delay, nor wait, but hasten, and lead out the prisoners whom until now you have cruelly oppressed. For your power is now dissolved; your tyranny has now ceased; your arrogance has been dreadfully abolished; your vainglory has utterly perished; your strength has been trampled and destroyed. These things the lordly powers of the Lord said to the opposing powers, and at the same time they pressed them. And some were demolishing the prison from its very foundations; others were pursuing the opposing authorities as they fled from the outer chambers further inward. And others were searching the hiding places, the strongholds, and the caves, and they ran. And still others, each from a different place, were bringing a prisoner to the Lord, and others were binding the tyrant with unbreakable chains, and others were releasing those who had been prisoners from eternity; and some were giving orders, and others were serving as quickly as possible; and some, as the Lord entered further inward, ran ahead, while others accompanied him as a victorious King and God. While these things, then, were happening and being proclaimed in Hades in this way, and even beyond these things, all things being noised about and shaken, as the presence of the Lord itself

that one Adam, the first-created of all humans, the first-formed, and the first-dying, who was about to occupy the lowest of the lowest, held prisoner with great security deep within, heard the feet of the Master entering toward the prisoners, and recognized his voice as he walked about in the prison. Turning to all the prisoners with him from eternity, he said: "I hear the sound of someone's feet coming toward us. And if indeed he has deigned to come here, we have been freed from our bonds. If indeed we shall see him with us, we are delivered from Hades." While Adam was saying these and similar things to all his fellow prisoners, the Master entered among them, holding the victorious weapon of the cross. Seeing him, the first-formed Adam, striking his breast in astonishment, cried out to all and said: "My Lord is with all." And Christ, answering, says to Adam: "And with your spirit." And taking him by the hand, he raises him, saying: "Arise, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for your sake and for those from you, now speaking and authoritatively commanding those in bonds: 'Come out,' and those in darkness: 'Be illuminated,' and those who have fallen asleep: 'Arise.' I command you: 'Arise, sleeper.' For I did not make you for this, that you be held prisoner in Hades. Rise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, my creation, arise, my form, made in my image. Arise, let us go from here.

For you are in me, and I in you, we exist as one and undivided person. Because of you, I, your God, have become your son. Because of you, I, the Master, have taken on your form as a slave. Because of you, I who am above the heavens have come upon earth and beneath the earth. Because of you, the human, I have become as a helpless human, free among the dead. Because of you, who came forth from a garden, I was handed over to the Jews, and was crucified in a garden. Behold the spittings upon my face, which I endured for your sake, that I might restore you to your original breath. Behold the blows upon my cheeks, which I endured, that I might correct your distorted form into my image. Behold the scourging of my back, which I endured, that I might scatter the burden of your sins lying upon your back. Behold my hands well nailed to the wood, because of you who stretched out your hand to the wood evilly. Behold my feet nailed and pierced to the wood, because of your feet that ran evilly to the wood of disobedience on the sixth day, when the sentence was given, and I have labored for your re-creation and the opening of paradise. I tasted gall for your sake, that I might heal for you the bitter pleasure from that sweet eating. I tasted vinegar, that I might nullify the sharpness of your death, and the unnatural cup. I received a sponge, that I might wipe out your bond of sin. I received a reed, that I might sign freedom for the race of humans. I slept upon the cross, and was pierced in the side with a spear, because of you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side.

My side has healed the pain of your side; my sleep will lead you out of the sleep in Hades; my sword has halted the sword turned against you. So now arise, let us go from here. The enemy led you out from the land of paradise; I restore you not again in paradise, but on a heavenly throne. I barred you from the symbolic tree of life, but behold, I myself, Life, have been united with you. I stationed the cherubim to guard you in a servile manner; I make the cherubim worship you in a manner befitting God. You were hidden from God as naked; but behold, you have hidden God naked within yourself. You put on the leather tunic of shame; but I, being God, put on the bloody tunic of your flesh. Therefore arise, let us go from here, from death to life, from corruption to incorruption, from darkness to the eternal light. Arise, let us go from here, from pain to joy, from slavery to freedom, from prison to the upper Jerusalem, from bonds to relief, from confinement to the delight of paradise, from earth to heaven. For this I died and rose, that I might rule over both the dead and the living. Arise, let us go from here; for my heavenly Father awaits the lost sheep. The ninety-nine sheep of the angels await their fellow servant Adam, waiting for when he will rise, and when he will go up and return to God. A cherubic throne has been prepared; the bearers are swift and ready; the bridal chamber has been made ready; foods are ready; the eternal tents and dwellings are ready; the treasuries of goods have been opened; the kingdom of the heavens has been prepared from before the ages.

What the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, such good things await man. As the Master speaks these and similar words, Adam, united with him, rises up with him, and Eve also rises up with him; and many other bodies that had slept in faith from eternity arose, proclaiming the three-day resurrection of the Master, which we, the faithful, shall joyfully receive, and behold, and embrace, dancing with angels, celebrating with the bodiless ones, together glorifying Christ, who raised you from corruption and gave you life; to whom is glory and power, together with his Father without beginning, and his all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.