Homilia dicta praesente imperatore

Homily 3. By the same author. On the following day, when the emperor had arrived at the martyrium of the apostle and martyr Thomas, which is situated in Drypia, and had withdrawn before the discourse, this homily was delivered after his departure to the congregation. 1. Blessed be God, how great are the powers of the martyrs! Yesterday they drew the entire city together with the empress, today they have drawn the emperor together with the army to this place with great reverence, not by imposing bonds, but by the chain of love, a chain that is never broken. For this is the remarkable thing, not that the emperor has come, but that he has come with great eagerness, not under compulsion but by his own will, not bestowing a favor but receiving a favor. And he who benefits everyone throughout the inhabited world came to enjoy a benefit from these saints and to reap the greatest goods. For this reason, he himself laid aside the diadem, and all the bodyguards, some laying down their shields, others their spears, and abandoning that display, all came with a composed mind, as if entering from earth into heaven, where ranks and ostentation and all this pageantry of offices are set aside, and only the display of life and the fruits of virtue shine forth. If the power of the martyrs is so great here, consider how great it is in the heavens; if such are their honors at the time of their contests and struggles, how great will be the rewards at the time of recompense?

For our own affairs do not end with the present, but we journey toward another, better life than the present one, and we proceed toward longer hopes and an immortal enjoyment of goods that have no end. For God has divided our life into these two ages: he made the present one toilsome, and the future one sweet and pure, so that after laboring a little here, we may enjoy pure crowns there. For he wished to lead us directly from the beginning to that life, but we did not allow it, having caused a great delay through our indolence and having brought about this long postponement through our ingratitude. And I will try to make this clear from what happened to us from the beginning. For such is God: when he is about to provide us with something good, even if we appear unworthy of his generosity, he nevertheless shows through everything that he himself wished it, but that it was due to our indolence that we fell short of what he wished. This indeed he did from the beginning. For when he formed man, he did not create him immediately with toils, with hardship, with grief; he did not make him mortal, but he was for a time free from despondency, from sweat, and from death. For if he had assigned these things to him from the beginning, he would not later, after the transgression, have condemned him to them as a form of punishment and penalty. So, being without these things, he shone brighter than the sun itself, though naked of garments, yet clothed in glory.

For this too was a very great sign of his blessedness: that he needed neither clothing, nor shelter, nor any other such covering, but had a body superior to the need arising from these things. Yet he was blessed not only in this, but also because even before this he enjoyed communion with God and reveled in the freedom of speech toward him. And angels trembled, and the Cherubim and Seraphim did not even dare to look directly at him; but he conversed as a friend with a friend. For when he had created the kinds of irrational animals, he brought them to him, and he himself gave names to all, and the names remained unchanged. For this too is a very great proof of the honor from God: not that he ordered him to give the names, but that, when man had moved the law given to him, God did not move the honor he had given him before the law, but "Everything that Adam called, that is its name." Do you see how there was no symbol of the present life there? No arts, no commerce, no buildings, no garments, no shoes, no roof, no table, no toil, no grief, no death, no swarm of other passions, but splendid beginnings and bright portals, and the start proceeding toward a better life. But Adam did not allow it, transgressing the bounds of the commandments with unspeakable indolence and not enduring to abstain from even a single tree. Yet even so, the great philanthropy of God is shown. For such is God's custom: when we fall from something through indolence, he does not desist until, doing and managing everything, he leads us back to something far greater than that from which we fell.

And this indeed is what happened at that time. For we were cast out of paradise, and we received heaven; on account of which the transaction has become greater than the loss. But we did not receive it immediately; and this too is a sign of his care. For since the enemy said, "You will be like gods," and puffed them up with these hopes, and made them anticipate equality with God, and anointed them to arrogance, and caused them to conceive an idea greater than their own nature—treating this wound with abundant excess, he immediately allowed death to linger, so that by experience they might learn the counsel of the devil, and with the soul well-disciplined to be moderate, then receive the body as immortal. For the time being, however, he wished the fear of death to flourish in their mind, and the matter to appear terrifying. 2. For this reason, too, he permitted Abel to die first, so that the transgressor might learn through his very own sight what death actually is, and how heavy and burdensome a thing it is. For if he himself had died first, he would not have known the nature of the matter, never having seen another dead body; but as it was, while he himself was living, seeing death take hold in another body—that of his child—he learned more precisely and clearly the magnitude of the punishment. For this reason, too, he did not see it simply in another's body, but in the body of his own child, where, along with the nature of the matter, the tyranny made the pain more severe, and along with the nature, the virtue of the child, and along with the virtue, the bloom of his age; for he did not meet his end in old age, but in the very prime of youth.

and in addition to all this, to suffer these things at the hands of a brother, and from a brother unlawfully and unjustly. For through all these things the fearful mask of death was constructed, and it was more painful to the sight, and the grief for Adam was stirred up more grievously, each of the things mentioned kindling a great furnace and working a sharper flame, and teaching into how great an evil the devil had cast him. For if we, seeing the dead every day, are disturbed, troubled, and drawn together, and not only we, but also those who raise their eyebrows and are in high offices and puffed up, if they come to a funeral even of an ordinary dead person, are drawn together in their sight and become more humble than anyone—what was it likely that he suffered, the first man, seeing a dead body, and in the body of his son, and of such a son, and not yet having practiced the passion by the constant succession of the dying, but being disturbed especially by the novelty? What was it likely he suffered, seeing one who perceived neither voice, nor touch, nor tears, nor lamentations, nor movement, nor shared grief with his mourning father, nor the customary things?

doing these things. For do not look at the present state, but consider that then for the first time man saw that corpse, and he was filled with much fear and great disturbance. But nevertheless, along with this, God also devised the means of consolation; for he did not wish only to increase the fear of death, but also that man should reap some comfort. What comfort is this? That from the resurrection. But he did not give it immediately; rather, he opened up its hopes dimly and as if in a riddle. For when fear had been well increased, and had shaken man's mind, and it had been shown what death was—how heavy, burdensome, and oppressive, not only from the sight that then occurred, but also from what followed the sight: the worms, the stench, the ichor, the ashes, and all the other things that attend the dead body—since, then, fear had increased and shaken the mind, see how he next introduces the hope from the resurrection, dim and unclear, but introduces it nonetheless. For he did not allow Enoch, who came after this, to die; and Paul says: "By faith Enoch was translated so as not to see death, and he was not found, because God translated him." He translated him and did not allow him to die; he did not yet make him immortal, so as not to dissolve fear, but he remains not dead, yet he is not immortal, but he granted a length of life in the mortal body, opening up, as I said, the hopes dimly before the resurrection. For this reason, too, he first allowed a righteous man to die.

For along with the stated cause, one would not err in also mentioning this one. And what is this? The cause of the resurrection. For since death was not going to hold sway perpetually, for this reason He made its first foundation and its first root to be fixed in a righteous man, so that the foundation might be unsound. For just as sin is food for death, so righteousness is the removal and annihilation of death. He therefore permitted the first man who was to die to be righteous, conversing with us from the outset, and showing forth good hopes, and demonstrating that He would not abandon our race to remain in death; for this reason He also laid its foundation more unsoundly. 3. Then after Enoch, in the case of Noah, He showed us a vision of resurrection in yet another way. For what better state than that of the dead did Noah have, shut up as he was in such depth and darkness and prison? Yet those boundless seas, which covered the peaks of the mountains, did not drown the one in the ark; but as if rising from death, so Noah came forth from that long storm, displaying the vision of resurrection in his own deliverance. Again after him (for as time advanced, the images of resurrection were shown more clearly), He worked the same thing in the case of Jonah. For the three days in the whale were a symbol of the three days in death, and the release from the whale was a pre-announcement of the resurrection of the Lord’s body; for this reason He Himself said, “This generation seeks a sign, and a sign will not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah.

For just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. And one would not err in calling the birth of Isaac a type of the resurrection as well. For this reason also Paul, after recounting the circumstances of his birth from the barren woman, and saying that his father believed beyond hope upon hope, and that, not having weakened in faith, he considered his own body dead and the deadness of Sarah’s womb, but did not waver in disbelief at the promise of God, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that God is able to do what He has promised—for this reason he added: “And it was not written for him alone, but also for us, to whom it will be reckoned, for those who believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, who raised Him from the dead.” It is clear, then, that the birth of Isaac was a type of the resurrection of Christ. For if it were not a type, he would not have added and said: “And it was not written for him alone, but also for us, to whom it will be reckoned.” For types are not written for those who receive them at the time when they occur, but also for those who will benefit from them in the later time. Hence elsewhere he says: “These things happened as a type for those, but were written for the admonition of us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” And Elijah, having been taken up, opened for us this hope of the resurrection. But those things were in types.

Since the only-begotten Son of God came after many and countless ages, He showed us the resurrection in deed through His own body, releasing it from the tyranny of death. Hence He says, "Christ died and rose from the dead, and no longer dies"; for He died to sin once for all. 4. These things occurred dimly in the preliminaries; for the hope of resurrection was shown to us as in a riddle through Enoch, and the dissolution of death through Abel. But both of these things have happened clearly, manifestly, completely, and in truth through the only-begotten Son of God. Hence indeed multitudes of martyrs have blossomed for us, death having been dissolved and resurrection shining forth. For this reason the present life has become laborious and full of many sweatings, so that even the coarser among men, who cling to present things, being pushed and growing numb under the burden of this life, may flee pleasures and sympathy for the present life, and run toward the love of the heavens, and hasten toward that day. For the philosopher and the lofty-minded will not need exhortation from here, but having considered how great the kingdom of heaven is—or rather, before the kingdom, to be with God and to be with Christ (for this is greater than any kingdom)—he will perceive none of the present pleasures, but will despise them, passing them by as a shadow. But since many, enslaved to the flesh and held by the tyranny of worldly things, like wild beasts lurking in their dens, cling to them—

cutting off their sympathy for these things, He filled them with many sorrows, fears, anxieties, cares, struggles, dangers, cowardice, the great swarm of bodily passions, the siege from the body, and many other things which cannot be expressed in words, so that, shuddering at this cloud of evils, they might desire to sail into the waveless harbor and enjoy the perpetual calm, which has not good mixed with evil, but pure goods, the true goods. For the things here that seem good, such as wealth, glory, and power, are names of goods mixed with their opposites; but those there are genuine and pure, possessing blessedness not in names but in deeds. Therefore, in order that we may attain these, let us emulate the virtue of the martyrs, their courage, their zeal, their faith, their contempt for present things, their desire for future things. For it is possible to achieve all these even without persecution. For even if a pyre is not set before us, yet a more vehement desire is present; even if there are no teeth of wild beasts, yet a wrath more severe than a wild beast presses upon us; even if executioners are not standing by tearing our sides, yet envy lies within, consuming the mind more harshly than any executioner.

We must therefore strip ourselves for these passions, and, having fortified ourselves with the strength derived from philosophical reasonings, thus complete our present life, and be ever on the alert throughout our whole existence; so that, having labored for a short time, we may be crowned perpetually, and enjoy the pure blessings, and be always with the Lord, and partake of that communion which surpasses all speech and thought. May it be granted to all of us to share in this, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom glory is to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.