Homilia ii in sanctum pascha

Of the same author, on the holy Pascha. A sacred and royal trumpet has assembled for us this spiritual theater, a trumpet which Bethlehem filled and Zion kindled, in which the Cross is the hammer and the Resurrection the anvil. I know not how to tell of its beauty, how to describe its light, how to announce the joy in it, how to narrate the kingdom in it. With what hand shall I touch it? With what words shall I greet a tomb that begets life, a grave free from corruption and productive of incorruption, a bridal chamber that put the bridegroom to sleep for three days, a wedding room that raised the bride undefiled after the marriage? A coffin guarding a corpse and the earth shaken by God: for the body proclaims him dead, but the miracle proclaims him God; the burial proclaims him dead, the resurrection proclaims him God; the tears of the women proclaim him dead, and the words of the angels proclaim him God. Joseph buried him as a dead man, but the buried one, as a man, this one as God despoiled death. Again, the soldiers guarded him as a dead man, and the gatekeepers of Hades, beholding him as God, cowered. You will say that this same one is both that one and that one, not another and another, nor another in another, nor another through another; for being one, the incarnate Word, by an ineffable reason, brought together these and those into one as he willed: and he gave the flesh to serve the passions, and used the divinity for signs and wonders; but just as it is not lawful for the Word to be separated from the flesh, so it is necessary that the sufferings be interwoven with the wonders.

For the one who descended into Hades as a corpse, that same one freed the dead as a god. How then do angels serve the tomb? How do they appear in white garments to the women as if to a bridegroom? And how did they say to them: "You seek Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified; he is not here, for he has risen, just as he said. That is, heaven is his place; send the myrrh there. He has risen; we did not raise him. For your sake we rolled away the stone; for before we descended, the tomb was empty. He has risen, just as he himself said." What the angel said, not even a prophet can interpret. Hosea speaks of the time of the resurrection; Isaiah knows it, but does not understand the how. For these are the words of Hosea's prophecy: "Let us go and return to the Lord our God, for he himself" has played "and will heal us; he will strike and bandage us after two days; on the third day we shall rise and live before him." Listen again to what Isaiah trumpeted: "Lebanon was ashamed, Sharon became a marsh. Galilee and Carmel will be revealed. Now I shall rise, says the Lord, now I shall be glorified, now I shall be exalted. Now you will see, now you will be put to shame." For he directed his speech against the Jews.

Now I shall rise, when I raise Adam, whom transgression cast down; now I shall be glorified, when I establish dispassion among the nations of the passions; now I shall be exalted, raising your firstfruits to the heavens and lifting up to the throne of the cherubim “the form of a servant” which I have acquired from you; now you will see the types ceasing, the truth blossoming; now you will be put to shame, slandering with words and being defeated by deeds, because glory belongs to God—to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit—now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.