Sermo in omnes sanctos

Of our father among the saints, Gregory the Wonderworker, a homily on all the saints. Bless, O Master. I wished to remain silent, and not to make public a rustic tongue; for silence is great when speech is cheap, and quietude is admirable when ignorance is present; and a philosopher is extreme who conceals his lack of learning through silence. This I too would have chosen to do, knowing the weakness of my own tongue; but the sight of what is seen draws me to speak. Since, then, the festival is splendid and the assembly is crowded, and our gathering is fervent in faith, I shall turn with confidence to the beginning of the discourse, especially with the Father praying, the Church contending together, and the holy martyrs strengthening this weakness. For these have persuaded even old men, with much sweat, to complete a long journey, and have compelled the faltering steps to be supported by the staff of speech; and they have urged the female to travel together with the young; and they have brought the crawling infant age here, the martyrs leaping against death, laughing at swords, tearing apart tyrannical rage, snatching death as the provider of immortality, appropriating victory in their own fall, leaping through the body toward heaven. Scattering their limbs in order to bind their souls, breaking the bars of life in order to open the keys of the heavens. He who disbelieves that death has been undone, that Hades has been trampled, that its bonds have been broken, that the tyrant is bound—let him look at the martyrs somersaulting against death and acclaiming the victory of Christ. O the wonder.

From the time when Christ plundered Hades, men have danced upon death. Where is your sting, O Death? Where is your victory, O Hades? Hades and the devil have been plundered; he has been stripped of his ancient panoply and cast out of his own power. And just as Goliath was beheaded by his own sword, so also the devil, having begotten death, is turned aside by death; and the facile method of his own deceit finds a strong instrument of his own destruction. Like a hook pierced by the Divinity, and having swallowed the usual bait, he who thought to catch is clearly caught, having grasped God instead of man. Therefore the martyrs leap upon the serpent’s head and despise every form of torture. For from the time when the Second Adam led the first Adam up from the depths of Hades, as Jonah from the whale, and made the deceived one a citizen of heaven to the shame of the deceiver, from that time the gates of Hades have been closed and the gates of heaven opened, granting unhindered entrance to those who ascend with faith. Long ago Jacob saw a ladder set up to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending. But now, through the man who became man, the Lover of men, having kicked the inhuman with the foot of divinity and borne man with the hand of Christliness, has made the impassable ether passable by human feet. Then the angels ascended and descended; now the Angel of the Great Council does not ascend and descend.

For where shall he go who is present everywhere, and fills all things, and holds the ends of the world in his hand? For once he descended and once he ascended; not by a change of nature, but by a condescension of philanthropic goodness: the Word seated with the Father, and the Word dwelling in the womb, and the Word found everywhere, and never separated from the God of all. Once the devil laughed a broad laugh against human nature, and rejoiced in festivals over our misfortunes. But the laughter was for three days; the lamentation is eternal; and the broad laughter prepared for him a broader lamentation, an unceasing tear, an inconsolable weeping, a dart in the heart. This dart the commander forged in the virginal furnace, as he willed and how he willed, through fire against the enemy; and having tempered it with the energy of the invincible divinity, and dipped it in the water of the immaculate baptism, and sharpened it with the impassible passions, and polished it through the mystic resurrection; through himself he slew the accursed one with his whole host. What word then shall describe either our joy or his calamity? For he who was once an archangel is now a devil; he who once dwelt in the heavens is now seen crawling on the earth like a serpent; he who once rejoiced with the cherubim is now shut up in the pigsty in pain; whom we shall put to flight by thinking contrary to his purpose, by the grace and philanthropy of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom is the glory and the power unto the ages of ages, Amen.