In synaxim incorporalium

Homily on the Synaxis of the Incorporal Beings. Not in vain do we celebrate the festival for the angels, paying them a reward and recompense for their benefactions toward us; for they never cease, with hymns and ineffable voices, to propitiate the master in the heavens on account of our sins. That these things are so in fact and are not empty words lacking testimony, the divine Gospel teaches; for when they saw the heavenly one on earth, they did not hide the mystery from men, the one who is without bounds in swaddling clothes, but immediately announced it to the shepherds, deeming them to share in the benefaction, and with one word they proclaimed the glory in the heavens and the peace on earth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men." The philanthropic army of a philanthropic God, though being incorporeal, does not look down upon those who are compounded of flesh and sinews and bones; it does not suffer the passion which we suffer toward one another; for healthy people abhor those who are sick, the uninjured abhor the wounded, the sober abhor the drunkards, the temperate abhor the licentious, the continent abhor the incontinent, when they ought to sympathize and through sympathy offer a remedy to the sufferer; for those who sympathize do not partake of another's disease, but rather impart their own good health. The mind of the angels, not looking to the body, but greeting the kindred wing of the soul, rejoices beholding the grace in it dancing even among men. And somewhere one of the angels said, marveling at the virgin's birth pangs:

The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who pours forth for us the Holy Spirit, the creator of the angelic chorus, who has vaulted the heavenly arches and ordained the sun to run by day and decreed the moon to travel by night, who has established the earth without foundation and bridles the sea in its bed, lies in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Born from a virgin womb, he seems to be planning something great; but the plan of God is salvific. I know in part what is being planned: he is countering the devil's arts, he wishes to recall the exile, to free the captive, to renew the corrupted. I rejoice in human well-being; I find again the companion of God in paradise. This was what stung the devil; for always boastful and greatly puffed up, he now speaks lowly and gloomy words, not grandiloquent ones; for he is ignorant of what is being done, but his conscience pricks him, and the memory of the ancient deception which he wrought upon the first-created humans, introducing death in exchange for life and exchanging idolatry for true worship of God.

Such is the chorus of angels, looking upon our well-being. And it is fitting that we also honor those who love us and intercede for us with the master. Have you not heard how the prophet Daniel introduces the archangel Michael contending with the guardian of the Persians for the freedom of the Israelites? For the one compelled the people to serve the Persians, while the other strove to release them from captivity. And Michael conquers his opponent; and the Jews, crossing the Euphrates, again took possession of their ancestral home and renewed the burnt temple of Solomon, the work extending over forty-six years—at times hindered by neighboring peoples, at times repelling those who hindered them, until they finally achieved their desire, Nehemiah completing the building for them. From this they said to the Lord: "This temple was built in forty-six years; and will you raise it in three days?" These things are from the Old Testament; those of the New Testament are greater. For throughout the entire time of the economy, angels ministered: angels announced the conception and birth of Christ, angels served him when he was baptized and worked wonders, angels bore witness to him when he was buried and arose, they carried the redeemer to the heavens and will again escort the judge from the heavens. If, then, we also hasten to dwell with angels and to delight in intellectual contemplations, let us serve the king of angels with great fear and trembling. Let us not, unnoticed by ourselves, consume our lives with revels, drunkenness, applause, and dances.

And just as in the night, seeking the door of repentance, we shall not find it—or rather, we shall find it, for the master calls us and says, “I am the door of the sheep.” 4 For it is necessary to praise the angels: they, hymning the creator, render him propitious and benevolent toward men. By angels I mean our allies, those who campaign against the opposing powers. Among them is the archangel Michael, who opposes the devil on behalf of the body of Moses, and who resists the ruler of the Persians for the freedom of the people. Among them is he who turned back the ass and restrained Balaam from his unholy divination, and since the seer did not understand what was happening, he used the voice of a beast to bring the rational one to his senses. Among them is he who drew his sword and urged Joshua son of Nun to engage the enemy. Among them is he who struck down eighty-five thousand Assyrians in a single night and joined death to the sleep of the barbarians. Among them is he who transported the prophet Habakkuk through the air in a single bound, so that he might give food to the prophet Daniel in the midst of the lions that had not tasted. These, then, and those like them, are valiant against enemies; but there are also those who excel against the passions, such as the divine Raphael, who through the dissection of a single fish healed a demon-possessed maiden and contrived for an old blind man to behold the sun. Nor are those who served the New Covenant unworthy of mention.

of whom the archangel Gabriel is a great part, who appeared to Zacharias and exacted punishment by silence for his disbelief that the barren woman could conceive because of the coming economy, who announced to the holy Mary the unwedded birth-pangs; this one, guiding shepherds to the cave, signified in a manger the uncontainable, in swaddling clothes the uncircumscribable. They sent up a harmonious song of praise: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men. Another admonishes the betrothed of the virgin not to dismiss her as corrupted, though she was undefiled; another suggests to him flight and return because of Herod’s slaughter of infants; another prevents the magi from setting out toward the tyrant; and they ministered on earth to the creator, though they beheld the uncreated in flesh; for they marveled at his power by which the tempter fell; and according to the voice of David, lifting him on their hands, they carried him outside the range of the stones; for, it says, the Jews took up stones to throw at him. Others attended to the passion; others after the resurrection, attending the empty tomb, said to the faithful women: Why do you seek the living among the dead? After the ascension, they escorted the disciples, loosening Peter’s bonds, lightening Paul’s dangers on land and sea, mediating for the faith of Cornelius, striking down the boastful Herod, the murderer of the just. Are not, then, those who serve our life worthy of the greatest honor? For angels were appointed not only as guardians of nations.

When the Most High divided the nations, it says, and scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. For each of the men an angel was allotted; the word is not mine, but that of divine Scripture. For when the maidservant Rhoda announced to the apostles that Peter, having escaped Herod’s prison, stood at the door, they, disbelieving, said, “It is his angel.” And the Saviour also bears witness to these things, speaking about the children: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of my Father in the heavens.” And Christ set guardian angels over each church, as he says, revealing to John: “Tell the angel of the church of Smyrna, ‘I know your poverty and your affliction, but you are rich.’” What do you mean, Lord? Am I, the poor man, rich? Why do you enrich me with an empty name? For if I am rich, I am not poor; if I am poor, I am not rich; for there is a great distance between wealth and poverty, as you yourself testify, having defined a great gulf between the rich man and the poor man. The faces are deceitful: the rich man turns away from the poor man, the poor man looks askance at the rich man; the things are opposite, life is uneven; for one groans over sufferings, the other exults in pleasures; this one prays to obtain bread, that one is overstuffed with gluttony; this one does not have a cup of wine, that one, hung over, belches forth his drunkenness; this one is wrapped in a rag, that one delights in variegated garments; this one lies sleepless on the ground, that one on a bed snoring, dreaming of luxury.

One asks for a small coin, another is buried in gold; for the one who hoards but does not distribute resembles a beggar awaiting a wealthy burial. But they do not even take equal pleasure in the seasons: for the beggar, winter is harsh, having no warmth; for the rich man, summer is troublesome, unable to bear the heat from surfeit. How then is the same person both poor and rich? The saying is true; for it is truth that speaks. We are poor through lack of money, but rich through the treasures of faith. It is better to be poor in worldly things and rich in spiritual things; for the end of the former is corruption, while the gain of the latter is inalienable. For this reason the Savior says: Do not amass treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and decay destroy, where thieves dig through, and so forth. It is good, then, for us to amass heavenly treasures by feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, releasing debtors, and transferring the loan to God: He who pities the poor, it says, lends to God. For these things the angels, observing, report to the judge of all; and he commands them to say to the one doing the good: Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

And the most wise Daniel, young in years but old in mind, who was taken captive because of the vices of others, but because of his own virtues he reaped the first prizes even among the most shameful of the elders and was the advocate of the blameless Susanna, the bridler of lions and the maker of the death of the Belian dragon, the beholder of others' dreams and the lover of mystical visions. For Daniel, it is said, is a man of desires, desires not of the flesh nor of the passions of the soul, but of divine wisdom and understanding; whence God revealed to him the future, the empires of the earth, those of the Medes and Persians and Macedonians and the Romans themselves, and above all these our Lord Jesus as a stone cut from a mountain without a quarry, that is, incarnate born from a virgin without a husband, the resurrection of the dead, the transformation of the living, the judgment through fire, the crown of the pious and the torment of the impious. Such a man says that the angels are a great thing; for by the command of God who created the whole creation they were to cast lots and rule over the strongest of the nations, one to oversee the Persians, and the archangel Michael to guard the people of the circumcision; and between the two overseers a conflict arose not from the passion of anger, but according to some divine and ineffable reason, one compelling the Jews to serve the Persians, the other drawing them toward freedom. Now suppose one were to imagine the overseer of the Persians saying such things: "Let it be, Michael; why

You are shaking the ancient rights, wishing to lead the Jews out from under the Persian yoke? The matter is not new; I received them from the Chaldeans and Medes. Their servitude is the penalty for their impiety. For they themselves served foreign gods, having rejected the benefactor God—the one who afflicted the Egyptians with manifold plagues, who led them on foot through the sea, who lit the night with a pillar of fire, who cooled the day with the shade of a cloud, who feasted them with air-borne foods, who gave them drink from self-flowing springs. And what of the most abominable deeds did they not commit—driving out strangers, contracting unlawful marriages, coveting, seizing orphans and widows and proselytes, making the golden calf, slaying their own children? Did they not saw Isaiah asunder? Did they not cast Jeremiah into a pit? Did they not slaughter Zechariah at the holy altar? Did they not shoot down the prophet Urias with arrows? Did they not stone Naboth to death for the sake of gain? Having dared all horrors against men, they now keep their hands from God. Leave them to be tamed by servitude, lest, growing wanton, they do something worse. Instead of God, they worshipped demons; instead of demons, they will serve barbarians, and leaving behind the land flowing with milk and honey, they will work foreign fields, plowing for others, reaping harvests for others, fattening the bellies of the nations with the sweat of their own brows, seeing their children not circumcised but made effeminate.

They will make eunuchs, he says, in the house of the kings of the Babylonians, seeing the women defiled by incontinent men and dominated by harsh women, ordered to carry water and gather firewood, the daughters worn out by distaffs and looms. Delivered from the Egyptians, they were ungrateful; let them learn prudence while serving the Persians. They crossed the Red Sea; they will not again cross the Euphrates returning to their ancestral hearth. For even if they ever flee the Persians, a harsher master will not be lacking for their minds; freed from brick-making, they did not forget their cunning. 7 To this Michael said: Will you not cease attempting the impossible? Do you expect Israel to remain in servitude? Seventy years have been prescribed for the gloomy things. As a father, God has disciplined them; he struck them when they sinned, but he does not turn away from those who repent. For even if they themselves are deserving of calamities, yet God has not forgotten the promises to Abraham, nor does he annul the covenants with David; he preserves the spark of the race, he cherishes the ember of the seed; he does not refute the mouths of the spirit-bearers. The expected one must come; all nature is agape at the voice of Isaiah, awaiting the strange mystery, waiting to see a virgin in labor: For behold, he says, the virgin will conceive and bear a son. To that infant even Persians will bow; the noetic powers will bend the knee, as David said: And let all the angels of God worship him. What more need be said? The commander-in-chief prevails, he puts the adversary to flight.

The Jews were released at the appointed time of the captivity; Zerubbabel, being a descendant of David, led them back. They recovered Palestine, rebuilt the temple, and renewed the sacrifices. When five hundred and forty-eight years had passed, an unwed virgin gives birth; a king without successor is born; Magi, being Persians and not strangers, worshipped him. Angels glorified the birth: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men. Christ is baptized for our redemption; and angels came and ministered. He undergoes a death that dissolves death; and again angels bear witness to the resurrection, turning away those who seek the living among the dead. He is taken up to the heavens; and angels again announce his second coming: For behold, he says, two men stood before them in white garments, and so forth. Awaiting him, let us rekindle the lamps of our souls, pouring in spiritual oil, spending our lives with unsleeping hearts, glorifying the power of the Trinity with unceasing mouths; for the power of God is for ever and ever, amen.