In diem luminum

Of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, on the Day of the Lights. Now I recognize my flock; today I see the customary form of the church, when you have hated the distraction of fleshly cares and have run together with your whole number to the service of God. And the people crowd the house within the sacred sanctuary, and fill the outer space in the forecourts, as many as are not contained by those within, after the image of bees: for some work within, while others buzz around the swarm outside. So then you do, O children, and may you never abandon this zeal; for I confess that I suffer a pastoral passion, and I wish, sitting on this high watchtower, to see the flock gathered round the foot of the summit. And if it happens thus to me, I am filled with wonderful eagerness and I labor at my discourse gladly, like shepherds their pastoral songs; but when it is otherwise and you are wandering in your outer straying, as you did recently on the past Lord’s day, I lament much and embrace silence, and I plan flight from here and seek the Carmel of the prophet Elijah or some uninhabited rock; for somehow the unsociable and the fondness for solitude are dear to those who are disheartened. But now, seeing you celebrating the festival together with your very families, I am reminded of a prophetic saying, where Isaiah from afar hymned the Christ’s church, rich in children and with many offspring, proclaiming beforehand: Who are these? they fly like clouds and like doves with their young to me. And besides this, also that: The place is narrow for me, make me a place, that I may dwell.

For these things the power of the Spirit ordained for the populous church of God, which in later times was destined to fill the whole inhabited world from end to end. So time, advancing and revolving, brings around the memory of the holy mysteries that cleanse man, which wash away even the ingrained sin of the soul and the body, and lead back to the original beauty which the supreme craftsman God fashioned in us. And for this reason, the initiated people, you who have experienced the blessings of the day, have gathered, and you also bring those still uninitiated, like good fathers guiding by practice and introduction the uninitiated towards the perfect comprehension of piety. And I rejoice with both: with those who have been initiated, because you have been enriched with a great gift; with the uninitiated, because you hope for a fair expectation—release from liabilities, loosening of bonds, kinship with God, free boldness, and instead of servile abasement, equality with angels. For these things, and whatever follows from them, the grace of the bath guarantees and gives to us. Therefore, reserving the other subjects of the scriptures for other occasions, let us remain with the present purpose, offering as gifts what is proper and suitable to the feast, to the best of our ability; for each festival loves its own.

Thus we welcome a marriage with wedding songs, and for mourning we bring the customary dirges; in serious matters we are earnest, in feasts we release the soul’s tension and strain, and we keep each season free from the intrusion of alien concerns. So Christ was born a few days ago—he who was born before all sensible and intelligible substance—and today he is baptized by John, in order to cleanse the defiled, to bring down the Spirit from above and to raise man up to the heavens, so that the fallen may be roused and the one who cast him down may be put to shame (and do not be surprised that the human condition became so earnestly sought by God), in order that he might personally effect man’s salvation. For we were plotted against with the malice of the evildoer, and we are saved with the care of the Creator. And the wicked and envious one, innovating sin against our race, found the serpent a fitting screen for his own disposition—the unclean one entering through a like creature, the earthly and chthonic in intent dwelling in the reptile—while Christ, correcting that one’s wickedness, takes up man completely and saves man, and becomes for all of us a type and pattern, so that he might sanctify the firstfruits of each action and leave an unquestionable zeal for tradition to his servants. Baptism, then, is a cleansing of sins, a remission of transgressions, a cause of renewal and regeneration—and understand regeneration as something contemplated by the mind, not seen by the eyes.

For we do not, in accordance with the Hebrew Nicodemus and his cruder understanding, actually exchange the old man for a child, nor do we transform the wrinkled and gray-haired into the soft and young, nor again do we lead the man back into his mother’s womb; but we lead back the one stained by sins and grown old in evil practices, by royal grace, to the innocence of an infant. For just as a newborn child is free from accusations and punishments, so also the child of regeneration has nothing to answer for, having been released from liabilities by the royal gift. This benefit, however, is not granted by the water (for then it would be higher than all creation), but by the command of God and the coming of the Spirit, which arrives mystically for our freedom, while the water serves as an indication of the cleansing. For since we are accustomed, when the body has been defiled by filth and mud, to wash it with water and render it clean, we therefore also employ this in the mystical action, indicating the incorporeal brightness by means of a sensible thing. Or rather, if you wish, let us persist more subtly in the inquiry concerning the bath, beginning from the scriptural precept as from a spring: “Unless one is born,” it says, “of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Why both, and why was the spirit alone not considered sufficient for the completion of baptism?

Man is composite and not simple, as we know precisely, and for this reason, to the twofold and conjoined being, kindred and similar remedies have been assigned for healing: to the visible body, perceptible water; to the invisible soul, the unseen spirit, called faith, which arrives ineffably. For the spirit blows where it wills, and you hear its voice, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. It blesses the body being baptized and the water that baptizes. Therefore, do not despise the divine bath nor debase it as common because of the use of water; for the agent is great, and from it the things accomplished become wondrous. For even this holy altar, at which we stand, is stone by nature, common and differing in no way from other slabs that adorn our walls and beautify the floors; but when it has been consecrated to the service of God and has received the blessing, it is a holy table, an undefiled altar, no longer touched by all but only by priests, and by them with reverence. Bread, again, is common bread at first, but when the mystery consecrates it, it is called and becomes the body of Christ. So too the mystic oil, so too the wine, being of little worth before the blessing; after the sanctification from the spirit, each of them works differently. The same power of the word also makes the priest reverend and honorable, separated by the newness of the blessing from the commonness of the many.

Yesterday and the day before, being one of the many and of the people, he is suddenly shown forth as a leader, a president, a teacher of piety, an initiator into hidden mysteries; and he does these things having changed nothing of his body or his form, but being, according to appearance, that which he was, while by some invisible power and grace his invisible soul has been transformed for the better. And thus, in many matters, directing the mind to things that are contemptible to the eye in their appearance, yet great in what is accomplished through them, especially when from ancient history he gathers things kindred and similar to the subject under investigation. The rod of Moses was a rod of walnut wood, and what else was it but common wood, which every hand cuts and carries and shapes according to its will and gives to the fire at will? But when God wished to accomplish through it the lofty and indescribable wonders, the wood was changed into a serpent; and again elsewhere, striking the waters, it sometimes made the water blood, sometimes caused a generation of frogs to gush forth; and again it cut the sea, which was divided to its depths and did not flow together. Likewise, the sheepskin of one of the prophets, being a goat's hide, made Elisha the master of the inhabited world. The wood of the cross is salvific for all men, being, as I hear, a part of a sycamore, a contemptible plant and more dishonored than many. And a bush of bramble showed the theophanies to Moses, and the relics of Elisha raised a dead man, and clay gave light to the blind man from birth; and all these things, being inanimate and insensible materials, mediated the great wonders, having received the power of God.

In accordance with the same sequence of reasoning, water, being nothing other than water, renews the human being into the intelligible rebirth of the grace from above blessing it. But if someone again, hesitating and doubting, should continually cause me trouble by asking and inquiring, "How does water regenerate, and how does the mystagogy performed upon it do so?" I will say to him most justly: "Show me the manner of generation according to the flesh, and I will explain to you the power of the regeneration of the soul." You will perhaps say, as if giving an account, "The cause of the seed makes the human being." Listen then in turn from us: "Water, when blessed, purifies and enlightens the human being." But if you again object with "How?" I will counter you more vehemently: "How does the moist and formless substance become a human being?" And so the argument, proceeding in this way, will be exercised upon every thing: "How the sky? How the earth? How the sea? How each individual thing?" For everywhere human reasoning, being at a loss for discovery, takes refuge in this syllable as in a seat for those unable to walk. And to speak concisely, everywhere the power and energy of God is incomprehensible and beyond technical description, easily bringing into existence whatever it wills, but hiding from us the detailed knowledge of its activity. Hence the blessed David, once having fixed his mind on the magnificence of creation and having filled his soul with unaccountable wonder, uttered that saying sung by all.

How great are your works, O Lord; you have made all things in wisdom. For he perceived the wisdom, but did not find the art of the wisdom. Let us therefore leave aside that which is beyond human capacity to investigate, and rather seek that which yields a partial understanding: why is cleansing accomplished through water, and for what purpose are the three immersions employed? What the fathers taught, and what our mind, in agreement, has accepted, is this. We recognize four elements, from which the world has its constitution, known to all, even if their names are passed over in silence; but if it is fitting for the simpler ones, let us also state the appellations: fire and air, earth and water. Now our God and Savior, fulfilling the economy on our behalf, went under the fourth of these, the earth, so that from there he might cause life to rise up. We, when we receive baptism, in imitation of our Lord and teacher and guide, are not buried in the earth (for that becomes the covering of the completely dead body, sheltering the weakness and corruption of our nature), but coming to the element akin to earth, water, we [do so] to that one.

we hide ourselves as the Savior hid in the earth, and having done this a third time, we depict for ourselves the grace of the three-day resurrection. And we do these things not receiving the mystery in silence, but with the three holy hypostases being invoked by us, in which we have believed, on which we also hope, from which both our present being and our future being are derived. Perhaps you are vexed, you who fight boldly against the glory of the Spirit, and you are jealous of the Paraclete of the veneration, who is worshipped by the pious. But leaving off contending with me, oppose, if you can, the words of the Lord, which legislated for men the invocation of baptism. What does the command of the Master say? Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How in the name of the Father? Because he is the beginning of all things. How in the Son? Because he is the creator of creation. How in the Holy Spirit? Because he is the perfecter of all things. Therefore we bow to the Father, that we may be sanctified; we bow also to the Son, that this same thing may happen; we bow also to the Holy Spirit, that we may become what that one is and is called. There is no difference in sanctification, as if the Father sanctifies more, the Son less, and the Holy Spirit less than the two. Why then do you fragment the three hypostases into different natures and make three gods unlike each other, when you receive one and the same grace from all?

Since examples always make the discourse more vivid for hearers, I wish to instruct the opinion of the blasphemers by means of an image, clarifying great things that are not seen by perception from earthly and lowly things. For if it happened to you that, having suffered a calamity of captivity, you were among enemies, serving and suffering and groaning for the former freedom you had, and then suddenly some acquaintances and fellow citizens, coming into the land of your masters and tyrants, freed you from the pressing necessity by giving ransom equally and dividing the expense of the money among themselves in equal shares, would you not, having received that grace, look upon the three alike as benefactors and bring the repayment of the ransom into equal shares, since the zeal and the expense had been common on your behalf, if you are a just judge of the benefaction? And these things are by way of examples; for it is not now our purpose to direct the discourse of faith, but let us return to the present occasion and the subject before us. For I find that the grace of baptism was not proclaimed by the Gospels after the cross, but even before the incarnation of the Lord the old scripture everywhere prefigured the image of our regeneration, not revealing the form clearly, but by riddles prefiguring the philanthropy of God. And just as the lamb was proclaimed beforehand and the cross was prophesied, so also baptism was indicated both practically and verbally; let us recall the beautiful types, for the time of the feast demands the memory as necessary.

Hagar, the handmaid of Abraham, whom Paul also allegorizes when speaking to the Galatians, having been sent out of her master's house because of Sarah's anger (for it is hard for lawful wives when a slave is suspected with the master), was carried destitute into a desert land, holding the infant Ishmael at her breast. But when she fell into lack of necessities, she herself came near death, and before her the child (for the water in the skin was exhausted, since it was not possible for the gathering then living in types to have a self-sufficiency of the ever-flowing spring), an angel appears unexpectedly and shows her a well of living water, and drawing from there she saves Ishmael. See then a mystical type, how from the very beginning through living water salvation comes to the perishing, not existing before, but given by grace through an angel. At a later time, Isaac needed to be joined in marriage, for which reason Ishmael together with his mother had been driven from the paternal hearth. And the servant of Abraham, sent as a matchmaker so that he might betroth a wife for his master, finds Rebecca at the well, and the marriage that was to produce the race of Christ took its beginning and first covenant upon water. Moreover, Isaac himself, when he was in charge of the herds, dug wells everywhere in the wilderness, which the foreigners blocked and filled up, as a type of the later impious ones who hindered and obstructed the grace of baptism, fighting against the truth; but nevertheless the martyrs and priests, digging wells, prevailed, and the gift of baptism flooded the whole world.

By the same power of the word, Jacob, hastening to his betrothal, unexpectedly met Rachel at the well. A great stone lay upon the well, which a multitude of shepherds, gathering together, would roll away and then draw water for themselves and their sheep; but Jacob alone rolls away the stone and waters the sheep of his betrothed. This matter is, I think, an enigma and a shadow of what was to come. For what is the stone that lay upon the well but Christ Himself? Concerning whom Isaiah says: "And I will place in the foundations of Zion a precious, honorable, choice stone"; and Daniel similarly: "A stone was cut without hands," that is, Christ was born without a man. For just as it is new and paradoxical for a stone to be cut from rock without a stonecutter and stoneworking tools, so is it beyond every wonder for a birth to be seen from an unwedded virgin. Therefore, the stone, the intelligible Christ, lay upon the well, hiding in depth and mystery the bath of regeneration, which still required much time for its revelation, like a long rope; and no one rolled away the stone except Israel, which is the mind that sees God. But he also draws up the water and waters the sheep of Rachel, that is, having revealed a hidden mystery, he gives life-giving water to the flock of the Church. And add the three rods of Jacob: for from the time the three rods were placed by the spring, from then on Laban the polytheist became poor, while Jacob became rich and possessed many sheep. Let Laban be allegorized as the devil, and Jacob as Christ; for after the baptism, Christ took away the entire flock of Satan and himself became rich.

Moses the Great, while still an infant, fair and at the breast, fell under the common and grievous decree which the harsh Pharaoh issued against the male infants, and was exposed on the banks of the river, not naked, but placed in an ark (for it was necessary that the law should typologically be in a chest), and he was set down near the water; for the law neighbors grace, and the temporary sprinklings of the Hebrews, which shortly after were to be covered by the perfect and marvelous baptism. And as it seems to the divine Paul, the people themselves, having crossed the Red Sea, were evangelizing the salvation from water; the people passed through, and the Egyptian king with his army was drowned, and the mystery was foretold through the deeds. For even now, whenever the people come into the water of regeneration, fleeing Egypt, that is, wicked sin, they themselves are freed and saved, while the devil with his own servants (I mean the spirits of wickedness) is choked with grief and perishes, considering the salvation of men as his own misfortune. These things, then, are sufficient for the confirmation of our present treatise, yet we must not neglect what follows, for the lover of beauty. For the people of the Hebrews, having suffered much as we have been taught, and having completed the wretched circuit of the desert, did not obtain the land of promise before, with Jesus leading and steering and directing their life, they crossed over into the Jordan. And Jesus, having also placed the twelve stones in the stream, makes it clear that he was preparing the twelve disciples, the ministers of baptism.

But the wondrous ritual, surpassing every human intellect, of the elder of Thesbe—what else does it practically foreshadow but the faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the redemption? For when the entire people of the Hebrews, having trampled upon their ancestral piety, fell into polytheistic error, and King Ahab was toyed with by idolatry, having as his evil partner in life and utterly polluted teacher of impiety the infamous Jezebel, the prophet, filled with spiritual grace, coming into an encounter with Ahab, with the king and the whole people as witnesses, set himself against the priests of Baal for a wondrous and extraordinary contest. And proposing to them to sacrifice the bull without fire, he showed them to be ridiculous and wretched, vainly praying and crying out to gods that do not exist. Finally, having himself invoked his own true God, with even greater excesses and additions, he wondrously accomplished the proposed contest. For not simply by praying did he bring fire from heaven upon the dry wood, but having commanded and ordered his servants to bring much water, and having poured it a third time over the kindling from the jars, he kindled fire from water by prayer, so that from the natural opposition of the elements, which paradoxically came together into friendship and cooperation, he might display the power of his own God with great excess.

These things Elijah clearly proclaimed to us beforehand through that wondrous ritual, foreshadowing the mystery of baptism that was later to be celebrated; for fire was kindled by water poured out three times, so that it might be shown that where the mystic water is, there also is the life-giving spirit, the warm, the fiery element, which burns the impious and enlightens the faithful. Moreover, his disciple Elisha, when Naaman the Syrian, who was suffering from leprosy, came to him as a suppliant, cleansed the sick man by washing him in the Jordan, and by the general use of water and the specific baptism of the river, clearly prefigures the future; for the Jordan alone among rivers received in itself the firstfruits of sanctification and blessing, and as from some source of its own type, channeled the grace of baptism to the whole world. These, then, are active and practical indications of regeneration through the bath. But let us now consider the prophecies through words and voices. Isaiah cries out, saying: Wash yourselves, become clean, remove the wickedness from your souls. David says: Approach him and be enlightened, and your faces will not be put to shame. Ezekiel, writing more clearly and plainly than the other two, promises the good proclamation: And I will sprinkle pure water upon you, and you will be cleansed from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will give you, and I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and I will give you a fleshy heart, and I will place my spirit in you.

Most clearly also Zechariah prophesies Jesus, who is clothed in the filthy garment, the servile and our flesh, and stripping him of the gloomy attire, adorns him with the pure and shining robe, teaching us through the figurative example that in the baptism of Jesus we all, stripping off our sins like a beggar's and many-patched tunic, put on the sacred and most beautiful one of regeneration. And where shall we place that saying of Isaiah which cries out to the desert: "Rejoice, thirsty desert, let the desert exult and bloom like a lily, and the deserts of the Jordan shall blossom and exult"? For it is evident that he does not announce joy to inanimate and insensible places, but speaks figuratively through the desert of the parched and unadorned soul, just as David when he says: "My soul is like a waterless land to you," and again: "My soul thirsted for the strong, living God." And again in the Gospels the Lord says: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink," and to the Samaritan woman: "Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks from the water which I will give him will never thirst for eternity." And the honor of Carmel is given to the soul which has likeness to the desert, that is, the grace through the Spirit. For since Elijah dwelt on Carmel (and the mountain became renowned through the virtue and fame of its inhabitant), and John the Baptist, shining in the spirit of Elijah, sanctified the Jordan, for this reason the prophet decreed that the honor of Carmel would be given to the river.

And the glory of Lebanon he transferred from the parable of the tall trees to the river; for just as that Lebanon has sufficient cause for wonder in the very trees which it grows and nourishes, so the Jordan is glorified by regenerating men and planting them in the paradise of God, of whom, according to the psalmist’s voice, ever blooming and flourishing with virtues, the leaf will not fall, and the fruit, when received in due season, God will rejoice over as a good gardener exulting in his own works. And the inspired David, also prophesying the voice which the Father sent forth from the heavens to the Son as he was being baptized, in order to guide those hearing to the natural dignity of the divinity, who for the time being were looking only at the perceptible lowliness according to the human, inscribed in his book that: “The voice of the Lord upon the waters, the voice of the Lord in majesty.” But the testimonies from the divine scriptures must be stopped here; for the discourse would proceed into infinity if one should wish to select each detail and set it forth in a single book.

All of you, then, who pride yourselves on the gift of regeneration and bear the saving renewal as a boast, show me after the mystical grace the change of ways and the difference of the reordering for the better, making it known by the purity of your conduct. For nothing of what falls under the eyes is altered, the features of the body remain unchanged, and the formation of the visible nature is not exchanged; but there is need of some clear proof, by which we may recognize the newly-born man, distinguishing the new from the old by some visible signs. These, I think, are the movements of the soul according to its purpose, by which, separating itself from the old habit and cutting a newer path of conduct, it will clearly teach its acquaintances that it has become another person from another, drawing no mark of the old vice. And this is the manner of the transformation, if you obey me and keep the word as law: the man before baptism was licentious, covetous, a plunderer of others' goods, abusive, slanderous, and whatever is similar and consequent to these. Let him now become orderly, temperate, content with his own and from these giving to those in poverty, truthful, respectful, affable, practicing every praiseworthy action simply. For as darkness is dissolved by light and blackness disappears when whiteness is applied, so the old man disappears when adorned with the works of righteousness.

You see how Zacchaeus, by the change of his life, killed the tax collector, restoring fourfold to those unjustly wronged, and distributed the remainder to the poor, which he had previously wickedly amassed from the oppressed poor. The evangelist Matthew, another tax collector, a fellow craftsman of Zacchaeus, immediately after the calling changed his life as if exchanging a mask. Paul was a persecutor, but after grace an apostle, bearing heavy chains for Christ as apology and repentance for the unjust bonds which he once received from the law and carried against the gospels. Such ought regeneration to be, thus to erase the habit of sin, thus to live the sons of God; for we are called children of that one after grace. And for this reason it is proper to examine accurately the characteristics of our parent, so that, forming and shaping ourselves to the likeness of the father, we may appear genuine children of him who called us to adoption by grace; for base is the accusation of being a bastard and a supposititious child, falsifying the father’s nobility in deeds. Therefore it seems to me that the Lord himself, in the gospels, when arranging the rules of life for us, uses those words to those being discipled by his words: You do well to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse and persecute you, that you may become sons of your father in heaven, because he makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good and rains on the just and the unjust.

For they are said to become sons then, when they imprint the likeness of paternal goodness in their own reasonings through philanthropy toward their kinsmen. For this reason, even after the dignity of adoption, the devil plots against us more fiercely, goaded by an envious eye, when he sees the beauty of the newly born man hastening toward the heavenly polity, from which he himself fell, and he kindles fiery temptations against us, eager to plunder even this second adornment, as he did the former world. But when we perceive his assaults, it is fitting to apply to ourselves the apostolic saying: "All of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death." And if we have become conformed to death, then sin is utterly dead in us, pierced through by the spear of baptism, like that fornicator by the zealous Phinehas. Flee then from us, ill-named one; for you wish to disturb a corpse—one who long ago bade you farewell, who long ago lost his senses for pleasures. A corpse does not love bodies; a corpse is not caught by wealth; a corpse does not slander; a corpse does not lie; it does not seize what is not its own; it does not revile those it meets. My life has been regulated toward another life; I have been taught to despise worldly things, to pass by earthly matters and hasten toward the heavenly, just as Paul clearly testifies that the world was crucified to him and he to the world.

These are truly the words of a soul reborn, these utterances of the new initiate, of the man initiated into his own covenant, which he made with God in the tradition of the mystery, promising to despise all punishment and pleasure for the sake of love for him. So much, then, is sufficient for the sacred theme of the day, which the circling year has brought to us in its appointed cycles. But it is good now to rest our discourse with the benevolent giver of so great a gift, offering a small voice in return for great things, the recompense. For you, Lord, are truly a pure and inexhaustible fountain of goodness, who turned away from us justly and pitied us kindly, hated us and were reconciled, cursed and blessed, banished from paradise and recalled again, stripped away the leaves of the fig tree, that shameful covering, and clothed us in a precious garment, opened the prison and released the condemned, sprinkled us with pure water and cleansed us of our filth. No longer will Adam, called by you, be ashamed, nor, reproached by his own conscience, will he hide himself, concealed under the thicket of paradise; nor will the fiery sword encircle paradise, making the entrance inaccessible to those who approach; but everything has been transformed for us, the heirs of sin, into joy. Paradise is accessible to man, and heaven itself; the creation, both earthly and supramundane, which once was at strife with itself, has been reconciled to friendship, and we men have become harmonious with the angels, revering the same theology as they.

For all these reasons, let us sing the hymn of joy to God, which a mouth possessed by the Spirit long ago cried out prophetically: "Let my soul rejoice in the Lord; for he has clothed me with a garment of salvation and has put on me a tunic of gladness, and as a bridegroom he has placed a mitre upon me, and as a bride he has adorned me with ornament." And the adornment of the bride is surely Christ, who is and was and will be, blessed now and for ever and ever, amen.