In sanctum Lucam

Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, encomium on Saint Luke the apostle and evangelist. 1 Not enduring to be silent out of fear concerning the present feast, even though I am exceedingly unlearned in speech, wretched I, and not having worthiness to speak, yet drawn by desire I render the debt according to my ability. Since I also see a contest of words and deeds at this present festival, the words striving to represent the magnitude of the deeds, and the deeds again contending through an excess of wonders to overcome the speed of the words, yet I consider such a victory rather better, if I should appear defeated in praises by the blessed Luke, who in teaching and wonders conquered all creation in heaven and on earth. For what is greater than an evangelist? And what is equal to that grace, which surpasses in thought every sensible motion, which with its tongue explored the paternal bosoms, which became the thunder of the ineffable mystery? A man of three cubits, entangled with clay, boxing with passions, subject to diseases, allotted to death, ascended to heaven in his thoughts, saw by faith the beginningless generation, beheld the Word proceeding impassibly from paternal bosoms and born God from God, and the uncreated substance not divided into two gods, saw the consubstantial Trinity worshipped on the throne, divided in hypostases and united in nature, neither the Trinity confined to one person, nor the substance extended into number. And the evangelist was found more daring than the seraphim.

For that one, because of the lightning, veils the sight, but this one, because of the grace, theologized the birth. 3 Again, descending from heaven to earth and stooping into the fearful cave, with the eyes of faith he saw a mystery beyond divine change and alteration, he saw an unwed virgin mother, he saw a womb broader than heaven, he saw a birth that was not a beginning of God but an epiphany, he saw an infant, the creator of all the ages incarnate, he saw God emptied in the form of a slave, he saw a manger as a bed of mystery, he saw swaddling clothes as the ransom of the world, he saw a cross as a bridge to heaven, he saw a tomb as a weapon against death, he saw the eternal and incomprehensible wealth of the Holy Spirit, he saw the one who holds the earth in his fist fleeing to Egypt in the flesh. And the mystery escaped the seraphim, but the evangelist theologized the wonder; therefore Paul, proclaiming the dignity of the evangelists, cried out: "So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavens through the church." 4 And behold for me the wisdom of the master: from every science and art he chose disciples for himself, from fishermen Peter, from tax collectors Matthew, from tentmakers Paul, from physicians Luke. And he did not do this idly or simply; for human nature was in the depth of error and there was need of fishermen. Again, the devil taxed Adam, having snatched away immortality; there was need of a tax-collector evangelist. Disobedience clothed man in leather tunics;

There was need of the tentmaker and of grace, that he might cut through the mortification of the passions with the scalpel of the Word. The race of humans was variously diseased with the fever of licentiousness, envy of avarice and pleasure, slander, despair, the irrationality of idolatry. For this reason, he appointed Luke as a skilled physician for them, and Paul cries out: “Luke the physician greets you”; for truly Luke is a physician of souls. Do you wish to see his workshop? Look at the heaven. Do you wish to see his healing? Look at his universal circuit. Do you wish to see his pharmacy? Look at the surgery of the Jewish tongues. Do you wish to see his herbs? Look at the various cures. Do you wish to see the sick he visits? Look at the neighboring heretics. For on one side, those who reject the Spirit are sick with blasphemy, and on the other, those who reject the Son are ill with atheism, but to each, as a physician, he prescribes what is suitable, saying to these: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit,” and crying to those: “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father either.” Truly great is the physician Luke. And do you wish to see his art? Look at the divine Gospel; for the other evangelists made their narration in a single mode. What do I mean? Matthew began from the genealogy according to the flesh, saying: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Mark also proclaimed the economy according to the flesh, saying:

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee.” But John, the evangelistic eagle, the theological lyre, proclaimed only the beginningless and unwitnessed generation and the coeternal existence. And let the mouths of the slanderers be stopped, because he was born alone from the alone, and the generation above is unwitnessed. For time was not present; for he himself is the creator of all the ages. An angel was not present; for he himself is “the one who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire.” Heaven was not present; “For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established.” The sun was not present; for he himself exists as “the sun of righteousness.” The moon was not present; “For the moon and stars he himself founded.” Earth was not present; for he himself said, “Let the waters be gathered together and let the dry land appear.” Therefore the generation above is unwitnessed, divine and incomprehensible, since only the Father knows how he begot, and the Son how he was begotten. So John alone proclaimed the beginningless generation and the coeternal existence.

The blessed Luke, the exceptional among the evangelists and the merchant of this wondrous stone and precious pearl, the sleepless guardian of the city, the experienced physician of souls, the impregnable wall of kings, narrated the whole mystery together: the gospel of Gabriel, the reverence of the virgin, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the form of God, the passionless emptying of the divinity, the unchangeable and unconfused nature of the incarnation, the inviolability of virginity, the spontaneous conception, the incorruptible birth, the angel's annunciation to the virgin saying, "Rejoice, O favored one, the Lord is with you." O greeting suited to no other than the holy virgin alone. Eve gave birth, but in sorrows; Sarah gave birth, but in pain; Rebecca gave birth, but in groans; Hannah gave birth, but in tears; Elizabeth gave birth, but in corruption; all gave birth in sorrows, since all conceived with corruption. But you alone rejoice, the gate of God and the cloud of mystery. You alone rejoice, the unconfined temple of the uncircumscribed. You alone rejoice; for the one made flesh from you "removed every tear from every face." You alone rejoice, the mother and the heaven, the maiden and the cloud, the virgin and the throne; for as a mother you bore the one from you and before you and after you, as a virgin you conceived the Word and labored with the mystery, as a throne you carried in your womb the one whom no one circumscribes in essence.

For this reason the prophet Isaiah, struck with wonder at the virginal mystery, cried out: "A voice of a cry from a city, a voice of a cry from a temple" was heard. What do you mean, O prophet? The riddle is secure and the meaning deep. "A voice of a cry from a city, a voice of a cry from a temple" was heard: he calls John the voice, he means the leaps the cry, he names Elizabeth the city, he proclaims the cave the temple. "A voice of a cry" was heard saying: "Before the woman in labor gave birth, before the pain of the birth pangs came, she escaped and gave birth to a male." And the mystery took all together both speed and birth and virginity and wonder, for the infant was not from intercourse. "Before," he says, "the pain of the birth pangs came": for the holy Mary did not suffer the things of Eve. "For she escaped and gave birth to a male": grace did not await the limits of nature; for the mystery of the economy is without appointed time. "Rejoice then, O full of grace, the Lord is with you": for our Lord Jesus Christ opened the bosoms of hospitality, he makes the apostles chamberlains, he perfects the evangelists, from whom he also established the blessed Luke as orator and teacher of the church.

This thrice-blessed evangelist Luke was a Syrian by race, a physician by craft, and became a disciple of the apostles, and later accompanied Paul until his martyrdom, and after that, serving the Lord undistractedly, he preached the word. Adorned with every virtue and shining with divine gifts, having reached eighty-four years of age, he fell asleep in Thebes, the metropolis of Boeotia, full of the Holy Spirit. He wrote the Gospel, indicating through its preface that other accounts had been written before him and that it was necessary for the faithful from among the Greeks to set forth the accurate narrative of the economy. The holy Luke the evangelist rested on the eighteenth of October, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power together with the immortal Father and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.