In ramos palmarum

On the Palms. 1. Let us proceed, brothers, from the miracles of the Lord to further miracles, and advance, as it were, from power to power. For just as in a golden chain, with interlinked rings joined together, one is held by another, and each of the joined rings is connected to the other and transmits onward, so also the miracles of the holy Gospels guide the feast-loving Church of God from one to another, and delight not with perishable food, but with that which endures to eternal life. Come then, beloved, today also let us listen with readiness of heart and attentive ears to what the Lord God will speak to us, both in the prophets and in the Gospels, concerning this most divine feast. He will surely speak peace to his people, and to his holy ones, and to those who turn their heart toward him. Today the prophetic trumpets have lifted up the whole world on wing, and have brightened and crowned the Churches of the Lord everywhere; and, taking the faithful from the arena of the holy fasts and the wrestling against the passions, they have taught them to sing the victory hymn and the new spectacle of peace to the victorious Christ. Come then, all of you, let us rejoice in the Lord; come, all nations, let us clap our hands and raise the cry of exultation to God our Savior. Let no one be without a share in the joy, let no one be lacking from the summons, for the seed of the disobedient has been consigned to destruction; let no one be ungrateful for the meeting with the king, lest he be shut out from the bridal chamber.

Let no one be found gloomy or downcast among us for the reception, lest he be condemned along with the wicked citizens. By wicked citizens I mean those who do not wish to receive the Lord as king over themselves. Let us all run together joyfully, let us all receive him eagerly, and let us celebrate in a manner beyond the world. Instead of garments, let us pour out our hearts before him, and let us raise up to him psalms, hymns, and thanksgivings, and let us cry out unceasingly, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." For those who bless him are blessed, and those who curse him are cursed. Again I will say, and I will not cease exhorting to the good: "Come, beloved, let us bless the blessed one, that we may be blessed by him." The word has summoned every age and rank together to the praise of the Lord: kings of the earth and all the peoples, rulers and all judges of the earth, young men and virgins. And the novelty of the wonder is that it has conceded the primacy to the new and innocent age of infant children and nursing babes to begin for the Lord in confession the divinely taught song, just as once Moses did for the people from Egypt: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Today the blessed David rejoices with joy, his lyre plundered by infants, with whom he dances in spirit and feasts together, just as before before the face of the ark of God, he joins in music and pleasantly lisps along: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

To him we will say: Tell us, O prophet, who is this one coming in the name of the Lord? It is not my school, he says, today; for it is dedicated to infants by the one who arranged from the mouths of infants and sucklings a hymn to destroy the enemy and avenger; so that through this wonder the hearts of fathers may be turned toward their children, and of the disobedient toward the wisdom of the righteous. Speak, children, whence this beautiful and graceful contest and song? Who taught you? Who made you wise? Who gathered you together? Where are the tablets? Who are the teachers? Share with us, they say, the feast and melody, and you will learn the things that Moses and the other prophets desired. Since, then, we have been invited, and the children have given us the right hand of fellowship, come, beloved, let us also emulate the godly dance, and journey with the apostles for the one who has mounted the heaven of heaven toward the east, and on a beast of burden, as he deigned, riding upon the earth. With the infants let us take up the branches, and with the branches let us clap, so that the Holy Spirit may breathe upon us also, and we may send up in good order the god-taught song: Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest. Today the patriarch Jacob celebrates in spirit, seeing his prophecy brought to fulfillment, and the one binding his colt to a vine, mounted upon a new colt; and with the faithful he worships in spirit. Today a colt is prepared, the formerly irrational example of the irrational nations, as an indication of the submission of the new people from the nations.

and infants reveal their infancy in knowledge of God. Today the King of Glory is prophetically glorified on earth, and he reveals the earthborn as partakers of the heavenly feast, to show that he is Lord of both, as he is hymned in harmony from both sides with the Father and the Spirit. For this reason, those above, announcing salvation on earth, sang, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory." And those below, joining in the heavenly festivity, cried out, "Hosanna in the highest, hosanna to the son of David." And some glorified, "Blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place," while others theologized, "Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord." 2. While these things were thus taking place, and the disciples were dancing around all the powers they had seen, and saying, "Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord; glory in the highest, and peace on earth," the city was shaken, saying, "Who is this?" stirring up hardened envy against the glory of the Master. Hearing "city," recognize the old disorderly crowd of the synagogue. The ignorant ask, "Who is this?" as if they had not yet seen the benefactor renowned for his divine miracles. For the shadow did not grasp the unsetting light that shone within it. Hence Isaiah cries out to them directly, saying, "Deaf, hear, and blind, look up to see." And who is blind but my children? and deaf but those who rule them? And the servants of God were blinded. You have seen often, and did not guard yourselves; your ears were open, and you did not hear.

See, beloved, the precision of the words; how the prophetic divine Spirit through his saints proclaimed future things as present? For the ungrateful saw and handled through the miracles the wonder-working God, and persisted in unbelief; they saw the man blind from birth proclaiming the Lord who gave him light; they saw a paralytic, contemporary and yoked to his infirmity, separated from his affliction by a command; they beheld Lazarus become a fugitive from death; they heard of the walk upon the sea, the wine-giving without cultivation, the bread-feeding without labor, the expulsion of demons, the restoration of the sick to strength; their streets proclaimed the powers, their roads announced the healings to travelers; all Judea was filled with the benefactions, and now they ask, "Who is this?" Oh, the folly of the falsely-named teachers! Oh, the disobedient fathers! Oh, the senseless elders! Oh, seed of shameless Canaan, and not of pious Judah! The children recognized the Creator, and the disobedient fathers said, "Who is this?" The young age hymned God, and those aged in evil days inquired, "Who is this?" Infants theologize, and elders blaspheme; children piously perform a sacred hymn, and unholy priests impiously resent it? You disobedient ones, in the wisdom of the righteous, turn your hearts to your children, learn the mysteries of God. The very event being accomplished bears witness that it is God who is thus hymned by untaught tongues.

Search the Scriptures, as you have heard from the Master, that these are the ones bearing witness concerning him, and you are not ignorant of the miracle. Listen, you ungrateful ones, to what the prophet Zechariah proclaims to you as good news. For he says: "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; behold, your king comes to you, righteous and mounted upon a colt of a donkey." Why do you shake off the joy? Why, when the sun shines, do you love the darkness? Why, in the face of invincible peace, do you meditate on war? If, then, you are sons of Zion, dance with your children; let the piety of the children be an occasion of joy for you. Learn from them: who taught them, who gathered them together, whence the teachings, what is the new theology and the ancient prophecy. But if no man taught them any of these things, and they spontaneously sing the praise, know that the work is of God, as it is written in the Law: "From the mouth of infants and sucklings you have prepared praise." Therefore, double your joy, that you have become fathers of such children, who have proclaimed in a God-taught manner even what was unknown to their elders. Turn, then, your hearts to your children, and do not close your eyes to the truth. But if you are the same, and hearing you do not hear, and seeing you do not see, and you vainly contend with the infants, they themselves will be your judges according to the word of the Savior. Well, then, this also, among other things, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed beforehand concerning you, saying: "Now Jacob will not be ashamed, nor will he now change his countenance; but when they see their children, my works, they will through me sanctify the holy one of Jacob, and they will fear the God of Israel.

And those who are led astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will learn to obey, and the stammering tongues will learn to speak peace. Do you see, O foolish Jew, how from the very beginning of the discourse the prophet announces shame for you because of your disobedience? Learn even from him how he proclaims the hymnody of your children as divinely taught, as also the blessed David foretold, saying, "From the mouth of infants and sucklings you have fashioned praise." Either, then, appropriate the piety of the children, as is necessary, or, along with their reverence, grant us the children as well. Let us join in chorus and celebrate with them, and sing together the divinely taught song in the new tongue. For once, Simeon the elder met the Savior and received in his arms the Master of the ages as an infant, and proclaimed him Lord and God; but now, instead of ungrateful elders, the children have met the Savior like Simeon, and have spread branches instead of arms, and have blessed as Lord and God him who sits on a foal as on the Cherubim, "Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." With them let us also cry out, "Blessed is God from God, the king of glory, who became poor in his own possessions without poverty for our sake, that he might enrich us with his goodness; blessed is he who came in humility, and comes again in glory; first, on a gentle foal and acclaimed by infants, that the scripture might be fulfilled, 'Your ways were seen, O God, the ways of my God, the king who is in the holy one.'

Second, he is fearsome upon the clouds, attended by angels and powers. O the honey-flowing tongue of the children! O the unadulterated teaching of those pleasing to God! David, having prophesied, concealed the meaning under the letter; the children, having opened the treasure, brought the wealth upon their tongue, and with a grace-filled word summoned all earnestly to the enjoyment. Let us also, therefore, draw with them the inalienable wealth, storing the gifts in insatiable bosoms and treasuries; let us cry out endlessly, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, true God, almighty from the Almighty, Son in the name of the Father, true king from a true king, having the kingdom coeternal and pre-eternal, as the one who begot him. For the kingdom is common, and the Word does not assign its honor to the Son from without, nor as having begun or accrued or diminished, far from it, but as natural and truly his own. For the kingdom of Father and Son and Holy Spirit is one, just as there is one essence and one lordship. Hence we worship with one adoration one trihypostatic divinity, without beginning, uncreated, infinite, and without succession. For neither will the Father ever cease to be Father, nor the Son to be Son and king; so too the Holy Spirit will not cease to be what it is in hypostasis. For nothing of the Trinity will be diminished, or will ever cease from its eternity, or from its commonality and kingdom.

It is not because the Son of God became man for us and conquered the tyrant against us, having achieved this victory against his hostile enemy in the flesh, that he became king; but because he is always Lord and God, for this reason he is king, as is the one who begot him, now, and with the foreknowledge, and into perpetuity. Do not blaspheme the kingdom of Christ, heretic, lest you dishonor the one who begot him. If you are faithful, approach Christ, our true God, and do not have freedom as a cover for your wickedness. If you are a slave, submit to the Master with trembling. For the word-wrangler is not well-disposed, but an obvious enemy. For it is written: He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 3. But we, beloved, let us return to where we began, crying out with the word, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the good and noble shepherd, who willingly laid down his life for his sheep; so that just as wolf-hunters catch wolves that are fattening on sheep with a sheep, so the chief shepherd, having set himself forth as a man, a prey for the noetic and soul-destroying wolves, may make prey of those who hunted the Adam long hunted by them. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, God against the devil, not openly through irresistible power, but through the weakness of the flesh, to bind the one strong against us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king against the tyrant, not through omnipotent power and wisdom, but through the supposed folly of the cross, to despoil the spoils of the serpent wise in wickedness.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the true one against the liar, the Savior against the destroyer, the peacemaker against the warlord, the lover of humanity against the hater of humanity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the Lord to save the deceived man, to undo the deception, to bring light to those in darkness, to abolish the deceit of idols, to introduce saving knowledge of God, to sanctify the world, to drive away the pollution and abomination of the worship of vanities. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, one for many, to rescue the poor race of men from the hands of those stronger than him, and the poor and needy from those who plunder him. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, to pour wine and oil upon the one who has fallen among robbers and been overlooked. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, to save us through himself, as the prophet says: Not an ambassador, nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them. Therefore we also bless you, Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is blessed before the ages and unto the ages of ages: before the ages and until now without a body, but now and for the ages with your divine, immutable, and indivisible incarnation. Let us see also what follows. What does the most divine evangelist say? For when the Lord entered the temple, he says, the blind and the lame came to him, and he healed them. And when the high priests and the Pharisees saw the miracles he performed, and the children crying out and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they could not bear this honor.

Therefore, approaching him, they said, "Do you not hear what these people are saying? Are you not weighed down by being glorified as God? Are you not burdened by hearing from the innocent what is fitting for God alone? Has not God long ago declared through the prophet, 'I will not give my glory to another'? And, 'How can you, being a man, make yourself God?'" But what does the patient one, the one abundant in mercy and slow to anger, do in response to these things? He endures the madmen, he restrains their inflammation with a defense, he reminds them of the Scriptures, he brings forth testimonies of what is being accomplished, and he does not refuse the inquiry. Therefore he also says, "Have you never heard me say through the prophet, 'Then you will know that I myself am the one speaking'? Nor again, 'From the mouths of infants and sucklings praise was prepared for you because of your enemies, to destroy the enemy and avenger'? Who are you, who attend to the law and read the prophets, yet reject me, who is proclaimed in the law? For you seem, under the pretense of piety, to be defending the glory of God, not understanding that he who rejects me also rejects the Father. For I came forth from God and have come into the world; and my glory is also the glory of my Father." Thus refuted by our Savior God, the foolish ones ceased their contradiction, silenced by the truth; but they drew upon themselves another reasoning of folly and held a council against him. But let us sing, "Great is our Lord, and great is his power, and there is no number to his understanding.

For all these things have happened so that the Lamb and Son of God, who takes away the sin of the world, might willingly come for our sake to the saving passion, and be recognized at the praetorium, and so that those who despise the one who ransoms the world with his life-giving blood might agree on thirty pieces of silver, and that Christ might be sacrificed as the Passover for us, so that those sprinkled with his precious blood and having their lips sealed like doorposts might escape the arrows of the destroyer; and thus Christ, who suffered in the flesh and rose on the third day, might be worshipped equally in honor and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit by all creation; for every knee of the heavenly, earthly, and subterranean beings shall bend to him, sending up glory to him unto the ages of ages. Amen.