Homilia ii de sancta Maria deipara

Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, on the holy Mary the Mother of God. Every commemoration of the righteous is wholly praiseworthy, and every festival of the godly is glorious; all have excelled for piety, all have undertaken labors for true confession, all have reveled in dangers for the crowns of truth. But the present day of the feast is most glorious, for it contains the festival of a virgin who so far surpassed all others as to receive willingly God the Word Himself, who was contained by her without constraint. To her, before all, the archangel Gabriel first cried out: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; for you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel.” The tidings from Gabriel were for her the immediate beginning of joy. For since the first virgin was enclosed in the sorrows of the sentence for the transgression, and from her sprouted multitudes of groans, and every woman through her was in pain, and every birth through her was in bitterness, the second virgin, through the salutation, repelled all that is grievous for the female sex, stopped up every source of sorrow in childbirth, dispersed the cloud of despondency over women’s childbearing, and flashed the lights of joy upon her kindred, having heard from Gabriel.

Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. She did not receive the greeting in silence, but having heard such a voice, and having seen the archangel in the house contrary to expectation, and having been shaken in her thoughts concerning the birth by the voice, she cast forth, as is likely, some such words to the archangel: "I see," she said, "all things today strange and foreign in you," and: "How did you dare, to a virgin not betrothed, to enter impudently and proclaim the tidings of your incredible words? For you say that I am to bear a child without seed. You said I would conceive without marriage, that the place of the womb would bear fruit without meeting and intercourse with a man. Who has seen, who has heard from the beginning of time, a field unplowed that has put forth an ear of grain, or earth unplanted that has sprouted a grape cluster, wine without a vine, or a river flowing without a spring? That which no one of the first ages either heard with his ears or perceived with his eyes as having happened. How shall I believe you, who are acting a comedy before me?

What then does Gabriel say to her in her disbelief? “What I learned I said, what I heard I tell: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, Son of God,’ as he who exists before whom, as he toward whom all creation is directed, as creator and maker of all things, as father of the ages, as begetter of the world, as maker of the universe, as older than the heavens, as creator of the angels, as molder of humanity, as ‘savior of the lost.’ I am able to announce nothing more than these; for I was not commanded to tell the how, O virgin, but to serve the facts of the annunciation to you. Therefore marvel with me at the mystery and receive the good tidings without hesitation.” And she says, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; may it be for me according to your word.” Let us then also be disciples of the archangelic words of Gabriel concerning the Lord’s birth, let us follow in his footsteps along his paths, let us as he did extol without curiosity the power of the place.

Let us learn piety from the Magi, or rather be instructed by them, who, seeking the infant with a star guiding them, did not say to those they questioned: “How is the conception divine, how is the womb seedless, how is the birth without corruption, how after birth is the mother among virgins, how is the pre-existent one under a year, how is the one before the ages in time, how did the nature of the womb contain the uncontainable, how did the bodiless one become flesh without being changed, how did the Word of God, emptying himself into the virginal womb, become incarnate from her ineffably in the form of a servant, how is the perfect one an infant, how does the nourisher suckle, how is the one who orders all things held in arms, how is ‘the father of the coming age’ a child, how is he above and below, how is he in the heavens and on earth, how is the charioteer of the cherubic chariots in swaddling clothes, how is ‘the one in the bosom of the Father’ in a manger, how is ‘the one who leads out the fettered in manliness’ in swaddling clothes,” and all the other things which it is even dreadful to speak? But arriving at the cave in silence with gifts, after their inquiry they offered to the king and God the reverence befitting him, and then returned with joy to the one who had borne him, having been shown as the firstfruits of the knowledge of God to the nations.

The nations emulated them; but the Jews, being unbending, or rather stiff-necked, did not even hasten to imitate, for the recognition of the "sun of righteousness" when it appeared in their own places, those who were guided from afar by a star. But I, beloved, seeing your eagerness in listening to the divine oracles and your affection for those who expound them, overcome by your love of hearing, I rise up to the desire for teaching, delighting in the harmony of your love. For you, like learned disciples, constantly applaud those who speak; you, like passengers, guide the helmsman; you, with your prayers, control the rudders of the tongue. Who can worthily proclaim your zeal? Who can expound your hatred against the Greeks? Who can unfold your boldness against the heretics? Who can declare your hostility toward the Jews? For truly, the Jews are abominable along with the others, always hungering and thirsting for nothing but innocent murders, rejoicing in nothing but pits, in casting the prophets down, in dragging the righteous along the ground and stoning them, in piercing the heralds of piety with swords and dividing them with saws, in cutting off the hands and feet of the pious, and with bloodstained hands holding the instruments of defense, in staining their palms with the continuous slaughter of the righteous. They have advanced to such a most impious audacity against our Savior that they now openly cry out to him: "We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one comes from.

Oh the daring deeds! Oh the hatred towards the Jews, which does not weaken even in flight. For as often as I wish to flee from their abominable conduct, so often do they confront me openly, either accused by the words of the prophets, or insulted by the syllables of the law, or entangled in the books of the venerated Gospels, as now the divine pages have brought them before our eyes, putting forward their shameless utterances concerning the master of all and boldly saying what you have heard: "God spoke to Moses, but this one we do not know whence he is." Oh the manifest shamelessness! Oh the unveiled loquacity of the brigands! Oh the blind contradiction of their words! For when Herod "inquired of them where the Christ was born," they spoke more boldly: "In Bethlehem of Judea," and they displayed the use of prophecy and brought forward the hierophant bearing witness: "A great prophet has arisen" in Israel. And now with veiled face they cry out: "God spoke to Moses,

But this man we do not know whence he is.” Truly, “they did not know nor understand; they walk in darkness.” Indeed, this is “a foolish people and not wise.” Fittingly, Christ cried out to them: “We piped to you and you did not dance; we lamented to you and you did not beat your breasts.” Who can array themselves against such an ungracious disposition toward them? Who can refute their contentious malevolence? So many wonders Christ poured out for them: strengthening the paralyzed, cleansing the lepers, healing the afflicted, curing the demon-possessed, opening the eyelids of the eyes, raising their dead from tombs, turning water into wine, and providing countless other things which it is laborious to recount. And yet there was nowhere among them even a little faith. 7 Let it not persuade us, O Jew; read the hierophants, unroll the pages that lie with you. Do not accept Peter or Paul. Disregard the evangelists. At least listen to Moses. What did he prescribe in the law? — “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to him.” See what Isaiah proclaims in prophecy: “Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel.” Listen to Jeremiah crying out loudly: “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him.” And descending, he says: “After these things he appeared on earth and lived among men.” Again, see what Zechariah signified: “Behold a man; Anatole is his name,” and Malachi:

A sun of righteousness will rise for you who fear my name, and healing in its wings.” And the woman with the issue of blood, healed after many years, together with others, confirmed and sealed this word, receiving healing by the touch of the hem. What? Read Ezekiel and the “man of desires” with scholarly care. How the one said: “This is the gate” of the Lord, “and the Lord will enter through it and will go out, and the gate will be closed.” And Daniel: “I was watching,” he says, “and behold, upon the clouds of heaven, like a son of man coming.” 8 Stand by Jacob and learn what he says among the blessings. “A ruler from Judah will not cease, and a leader from his loins, until the one for whom it is reserved comes, and he himself is the expectation of nations.” Touch the harp of the Spirit and see what David precisely sang: “Mother Zion, a man will say, and a man was born in her, and the Most High himself founded her.” For the mother is a virgin and remained so after childbirth, preserving the seals of virginity which nature placed, unshaken. Again, see what David says: “Righteousness will rise in his days,” and so on: “He will rule from sea to sea and from rivers to the ends of the inhabited world.” Did not one of our teachers foretell these things? Did not one of the Savior’s disciples write such things on tablets or papyri? Did not all those who proclaimed about him, these children of the circumcision, trumpet these things? Did not the descendants of Abraham proclaim these things? Does he not take pleasure in believing these things? Be ashamed before the demons crying out and saying:

What have we to do with you, son of the living God?” Show reverence for the confession concerning the Lord Christ made by angels, men, demons, and all creation together. But if you reject even these, accept the Father’s testimony about him, thundering from heaven: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Glory to him for ever and ever. Amen.