Ad cives Nazianzenos

Homily 17. To the citizens of Nazianzus who are distressed and to the magistrate who is angry. 1. "My belly, my belly aches, and the sensory organs of my heart seethe," says Jeremiah somewhere in his own words, the most compassionate of the prophets, lamenting Israel's disobedience and alienation from God's philanthropy, calling his own soul "belly" according to the laws of figurative speech. For I find this in many places of Scripture, either as something hidden and invisible (for both soul and belly share the property of being concealed), or as something receptive and distributive, so to speak, of the nourishment from reason; for what food is in the body, reason is in the soul. "Sensory organs" perhaps refer to the movements and thoughts of the soul, especially those derived from sensation, by which the righteous man is torn, heated, and impelled, and is not even restrainable due to the fervor of the Spirit; for this is what "seethe" means, like a kind of eagerness mixed with passion. And if one should take "sensory organs" as referring to bodily ones, it will not be off the mark; both eyes and ears are not only burdened by worse sights and sounds, but also long to see and hear better things because of compassion. However these things are understood, the righteous man aches and seethes, and does not bear the sufferings of Israel moderately, whichever way you wish to understand these: either the bodily sufferings and what is seen bodily, or the spiritual sufferings and what is understood spiritually.

For the same prophet seeks a fountain of tears, and longs for the utmost weight, and embraces solitude, so that he may empty the great burden of his grief, and somehow be relieved of the inward wound, by mourning Israel in quiet. 2. And the same is done by the divine David, not long before, when he is distressed at his own circumstances, saying, "Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and rest?" He seeks the wings of a dove, either as lighter and swifter—for such is every righteous man—or as shadowing forth the Spirit, by which alone we flee from evils, so that he may be as far as possible from present troubles. Then the remedy in straits: hope. "I was waiting," he says, "for God who saves me from faintheartedness and from the storm." Which he also appears to do elsewhere, very quickly adding the cure to what grieves, and providing us with a good lesson both in word and deed of magnanimity toward troubles. "My soul," he says, "refused to be comforted." Do you see words of despondency and despair? Were you not afraid, as if David were incurable? What do you say? Do you not accept consolation? Do you despair of comfort? Will no one heal you? No word, no friend, no relative, no adviser, no sympathizer, no one recounting his own experiences, no one telling ancient tales, no one setting forth present examples—how many have been saved from even worse evils? Are all things cast away? Are they gone? Are they cut off? Is every hope lost? Must we only lie down, awaiting the end? These are the words of the great David, who expands in afflictions, who even when the shadow of death surrounds him, rises up with God against it.

What then am I to suffer, I who am small, weak, earthly, not so great in spirit? David is dizzy, and who is saved? What help might I find in my distress, or what consolation? To whom shall I flee when I am hard-pressed? David the great healer answers you, who also chants away evil spirits through the Spirit in him. Do you wish to learn from me to whom you shall flee, and do you yourself not know? Who is it that strengthens slack hands and encourages paralyzed knees, and leads through fire, and saves through water? You need no battle line, he says, no weapons, no archers, no horsemen, no counselors, no friends, no external aid. You have within yourself the alliance which I and everyone who wishes have. Only to will is needed, only to set out. The consolation is near, in your mouth and in your heart: "I remembered God," he says, "and I rejoiced." What is more ready than memory? Remember also, and rejoice. Oh, the ease of the remedy! Oh, the speed of the healing! Oh, the greatness of the gift! God remembered not only puts an end to faintheartedness and grief, but also produces joy.

Do you wish to hear also other words of benevolence? "If," he says, "turning back you groan to the Lord, then you will be saved." Do you see salvation yoked to a groan? And while you are still speaking, he will say, "Behold, I am here," and he will declare to your soul, "I am your salvation." There is nothing between the request and the attainment—no gold, no silver, no transparent and precious stones, nothing by which men are bent toward gentleness. When Zephaniah says, as if speaking on behalf of God who is angry and severe, "I will utterly desolate their ways, so that they cannot travel. Their cities have perished because they no longer exist nor are inhabited"—when he threatens the most terrifying things, when he casts down by despair, when he produces darkness through the threat, immediately he also brings the light of more hopeful expectation, and revives me with these words: "But I said, Fear me, and accept discipline, and you will not be utterly destroyed from her eyes." And a little further on, with even brighter and more benevolent words: "At that time the Lord will say, Take courage, Zion; let not your hands grow slack. The Lord your God is in you, powerful to save you. And he will bring joy upon you, and will renew you in his love, and will gather the broken, and will save the oppressed, and will receive the rejected." These things both the saints and the reasonings desire, and my own speech demands. But accept words of wisdom, as the divine Solomon says, so that, falling into a depth of evils, you may not despise, nor be swallowed up by your own ignorance more than by the difficulty that besets you.

There is a cycle, brothers, of human affairs, and God educates us through opposites. Just as He wisely constituted and bound together all things, so He wisely guides and steers the whole by His unfathomable and inscrutable judgments, and among all things, also our own. For the whole is set in motion, so to speak, around the Unmoved, and is shaken, though in no way by reason (for He is the same, standing and unmoved in all things, even if He escapes our weakness), but by the events that meet and befall us each day. And this is an ancient and established doctrine of God, that darkness is a concealment of Him spread before our eyes; and that most of His governance is not seen, except in obscure riddles and phantoms—whether He is curbing our pride, so that we may know we are nothing in relation to true and primary wisdom, but only incline toward Him and ever seek to be illumined by the rays from there; or whether through the unevenness of visible and mutable things He is leading us to what is stable and permanent. Yet nothing is unmoved, as I said, nor uniform, nor self-sufficient, nor entirely alike—neither cheerfulness nor dejection, neither wealth nor poverty, neither power nor weakness, neither lowliness nor dominion, neither the present nor the future, neither what is ours nor what belongs to another, neither small nor great, nor anything one might name. And this

Inequality holds equality, the change concerning all things. For all things easily revolve, and change, and are replaced; so that one might rather trust in breezes and letters on water than in human prosperity. And envy sets itself against good fortune, and pity against misfortune; and this is wise, in my opinion, and wonderful, so that pain may not be without consolation, nor good fortune without discipline. 5. It is the part of prudent men who are educated by misfortunes, and who, like gold purified by fire, say: "It is good for me that you humbled me, so that I might learn your ordinances," as humility gives birth to knowledge of the ordinances. And they suffer what Peter suffered, when he called upon salvation as he was about to sink; and they rather cleave to God through pain, and claim the benefactor as their own through affliction. For a soul in distress is near to God, and need turns one toward the one able to give, who, by the abundance of his gift, is even despised. Therefore let us look upward, brothers, at every time and in every circumstance let us set before ourselves good hope, neither in times of cheerfulness casting away fear, nor in times of sorrow losing hope. Let us remember the storm in fair weather, and the helmsman in the storm; but let us not be faint-hearted in afflictions, nor become bad slaves, confessing the Master when he is kind, but not cleaving to him when he disciplines; although sometimes toil is better than health, and endurance than ease, and attention than neglect, and conversion than indulgence. To speak briefly, let us neither fall because of misfortunes, nor become insolent because of satiety.

Let us submit to God and to one another, and to those who rule on earth: to God for all reasons, to one another for the sake of brotherly love, to the rulers for the sake of good order; and all the more so, the more gentle and kindly they are. It is a terrible thing to squander fairness by the constant exercise of leniency, lest we ourselves be called to account for their harshness, having dissolved calm with a wind, brought darkness upon light, and mixed wormwood with honey. This too is one of our laws, and one of those that are praised, and among the finest ordinances of the Spirit, who approved the possible together with the good and legislated that, just as slaves are to obey masters, wives their husbands, the Church the Lord, and disciples their shepherds and teachers, so also are all to submit to every superior authority, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience, as those liable to tribute; and that those who do no evil are not to hate the law, nor to await the sword, but, being purified by fear, are to be praised by the authority. One and the same measure: but it spares what is straight and cuts off what is excessive. One sun: but it illuminates the healthy eye and dims the weak one. Do you wish me to speak also of our own, with boldness? One Christ: but he lies for both fall and resurrection—fall for the unbelievers, resurrection for the believers.

For some it is a stumbling block and a rock of offense—those who have not known nor understood, but walk in darkness, whether worshipping idols or seeing only the letter, neither willing nor able to be illumined beyond it. For others it is a cornerstone and a praised rock—those who are bound together by the word and have taken their stand upon it; or, if you will, that pearl which the good merchant purchases with all that he has. But we, brothers, suffer something of this kind: not setting our own affairs right, but chafing against authority—just as if someone were to blame the umpire as corrupt while himself being a poor wrestler, or the physician as ignorant and rash in his use of incisions and cauteries while himself being in a bad state and in need of harsher remedies. These words of mine to the governed are both consolation and admonition. So speaks the poor shepherd, tending his little flock, whose law of shepherding is to rejoice with them when they rejoice and to groan with them when they are downcast. 8. But what of you, the powerful and the rulers? For now the word passes to you, lest we seem altogether unequal, advising the one side as is fitting, but yielding to your power as if out of respect for our freedom in Christ we were shrinking away, or out of fear; or as if we cared more for some and neglected you, whom it is all the more worthy to care for, inasmuch as the balance, whichever way it inclines, carries greater weight, and the achievement is greater—may the opposite be far from us and from our word. What then do you say? And what do we agree upon with one another? Will you receive the word with frankness?

And the law of Christ subjects you to my authority and my tribunal. For we too rule—and I will add, that we hold the greater and more perfect rule. It is necessary that the spirit yield to the flesh, and the heavenly to the earthly. You claim freedom of speech, I know, because you are a sheep of my flock, sacred from the sacred, and a nursling of the great Shepherd, well led from above by the Spirit, and illumined like us by the light of the holy and blessed Trinity. Therefore my speech to you is brief and concise. 9. You rule jointly with Christ, you administer jointly with Christ; from him you have the sword, not for action but for threat, which keep as a pure offering to the giver. You are an image of God; and you lead an image through your hand, here managed, and transferred to another life, into which we will all pass, having played a little in this life, whether prison, stadium, prefiguration, or shadow. Honor the natural union; respect the archetype; be with God, not with the world-ruler; with the kind Master, not the bitter tyrant. That one was a murderer from the beginning; that one struck the first man through disobedience, introduced the toilsome life, and legislated punishment and being punished for sin. But you, man of God, remember whose creation you are, and where you are called, and how much you have, and how much you owe, from whom you have reason, law, prophets, the very knowledge of God, the not despairing of what is hoped for. Imitate through these things the philanthropy of God.

This is especially what makes a human being divine: to do good. It is possible for you to become God without having done anything; do not anticipate the time of deification. 10. Others empty their wealth, others offer their flesh to the spirit and are dead to Christ, and completely withdraw from the world; others consecrate to God what is dearest to them. You have certainly heard of Abraham’s sacrifice: he gave his only-begotten son to God more willingly—the son from the promise and in whom the promise rested—than he received from God in the beginning. We ask none of this from you; bring one thing instead of all: philanthropy, in which God rejoices more than in all the others together: a gift peculiar, a gift blameless, a gift that challenges God’s generosity. Blend gentleness with fear; mix hope with threat. I know that many things are set right by kindness, which shames into a return that is owed, when we allow ourselves to be pressed and then shame the one we pity with goodwill. Let nothing persuade you that you are unworthy of your office; let nothing shut out pity and mildness—neither occasion, nor a powerful man, nor fear, nor hope of greater offices, nor boldness that has the upper hand. Acquire goodwill in times of necessity, the goodwill from above; lend mercy to God. No one has repented of having first contributed something to God. He is generous in return, especially rewarding with goods from that realm those who have first deposited or advanced something; but sometimes also with goods here, as a pledge of what is to come.

11. In a little while, the world will pass away, and the stage will be dismantled. Let us make use of the time; let us purchase the things that endure with things that do not. Each of us is under penalties; and the dust bears many debts. Let us forgive, that we may be forgiven; let us remit, that we may ask for remission. You see in the Gospel: a certain debtor of many talents is brought in, and is released from the debt; for he is brought before a good master. And he is forgiven, but he does not forgive; for he is a slave also in his will; and the humanity he received concerning the greater part, he does not share with his fellow slave concerning the lesser, nor, if for no other reason, does he follow the example of magnanimity regarding what belongs to another; and the master is indignant. And I will be silent about what follows; but it is better for all, to offer beforehand the goodness from here for the account there. 12. What do you say? Do we hold you by these words, of which you have often confessed yourself a lover, O most excellent of rulers, and, if I may add, most gentle? Or must I also bring forward this gray hair of yours as a supplication, and the number of years, and this long and unsullied priesthood, which perhaps even angels revere, serving purely the most pure, as worthy of their own service? Do these things persuade? Or shall I dare something greater? Grief makes me bold. I bring forward Christ to you, and Christ's kenosis for our sake, and the sufferings of the impassible one, and the cross, and the nails by which I was loosed from sin, and the blood, and the burial, and the resurrection, and the ascension, and this table at which we approach in common.

and the patterns of my salvation, which I celebrate from the same mouth from which I convey these things to you, the sacred and upward-leading initiation. 13. Even if not for one of these reasons, yet for all, grant the favor both to us and to yourself, and to the Church in your house, and to this good flock of Christ. Consider that it joins me in intercession, even if it yields the office of intercession to me, as more reverend on account of the one who honored me, and is at the same time restrained by the law of office. Be defeated in this one thing well: conquer us by philanthropy. Behold, I bring before you my suppliants in the presence of God, and of angels, and of the kingdom of heavens, and of the recompense from there. Honor my faith, which I was entrusted with and which I trusted, so that yours also may be honored in greater and more perfect matters. The sum of my speech is this: you also have a Lord in heaven. May you find such a judge concerning yourself as you yourself become to those under your rule. May we all obtain both the good things here and the more tolerable things there, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belong glory and power, to whom belong honor and kingdom, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as he was, and pre-existed, and will be, and is now, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.