Sermo cum presbyter fuit ordinatus

A homily of the same author, first, when he was ordained presbyter, concerning himself, and concerning the bishop, and concerning the multitude of the people. Are the events concerning us true? And have the things that have happened truly occurred, and have we not been deceived? Is it not night and a dream that is present, but is it truly day, and are we all awake? And who would have believed that, while it is day, while men are sober and awake, a lowly and despised youth has been raised to such a height of office? For at night, it is not unlikely that such things happen. Indeed, some who are crippled in body and lacking even necessary food, upon sleeping, have seen themselves become whole and handsome and enjoying a royal table; but it was sleep and the deception of dreams that appeared. For such is the nature of dreams: it is something crafty and wondrous, delighting in and rejoicing in paradoxes. But one would not see this happening by day, nor, perhaps, in the very truth of things.

But now everything has come to pass and been fulfilled and reached its end, as you see—these things, indeed, are more incredible than dreams: that such a great and populous city, a wonderful and vast populace, has gaped open toward our insignificance, as though about to hear something great and noble from us. Yet even if, like ever-flowing rivers, fountains of words were stored in my mouth, with so many people having thronged together for the hearing, the stream would quickly be checked in me by fear and the waters would be reined back; but when I preserve not even the measure of rivers or fountains, but of a cheap drizzle, how is it not a fear that even this small flow may dry up from fear and fail, and the same thing happen that is wont to occur with bodies? And what happens with bodies? Often, when we hold many things in our hand and squeeze them with our fingers, but then take fright, we spill everything, our nerves having become slack and the tension of our flesh having relaxed. This, then, is the fear: that the same may happen today to our soul, and the thoughts we have gathered for you with much labor—these small and cheap ones—may, driven by anxiety, vanish and fly away, leaving our mind empty. Therefore I beg all of you alike, rulers and ruled, that as much anxiety as you have instilled in us by your thronging to the hearing, you may inspire that much courage in us through your zeal in prayers, and beseech the one who gives speech to those who proclaim the gospel with great power to give us also a word at the opening of our mouth.

Certainly no labor is required of you, so many and so great as you are, to bind up again the soul of one young man, dissolved by fear. And it would be just for you to grant us this request, since it was for your sake that we cast this die, for your sake and for your love, than which nothing is more violent or more tyrannical, seeing that it persuaded even us, who are not at all experienced in speaking, to speak, and prepared us to strip for the racecourse of teaching, although we never before touched these wrestlings, but always ranged ourselves among the hearers and enjoyed untroubled quiet. But who is so hard and intractable as to pass by your assembly in silence, and finding you warm lovers of hearing, not to address you, even if he were more speechless than all men? I wished, then, when about to utter a discourse in church, to begin the preludes with the God who gave us this tongue; for thus it was fitting. For it is necessary not only to offer firstfruits of threshing-floor and winepress, but also of words, to the Word, and of words much more than of sheaves, inasmuch as this fruit is more akin to us and more dear to the God who is honored. For the grape and the ear of grain are brought forth by the bosom of the earth and nourished by the flow of rains and tended by the hands of farmers; but a sacred hymn is born of the piety of the soul, nourished by a good conscience, and received into the treasuries of heaven by God. And as the soul is better than the earth, so this produce is better than that.

For this reason, one of the prophets, a wondrous and great man, Hosea by name, exhorts those who have offended God and are about to propitiate him, saying: Bring with yourselves, not herds of oxen, nor so many measures of fine flour, nor a turtledove and a pigeon, nor anything else of that sort, but what? Bring with yourselves words, he says. And what kind of sacrifice is a word? someone might perhaps say. The greatest, beloved, and most august, and better than all the others. And who says this? He himself who knew these things most accurately of all, the noble and great David. For once, when offering thanks to God for a victory that had occurred in war, he speaks somewhat as follows: I will praise the name of my God with song; I will magnify him with praise. Then, indicating to us the superiority of this sacrifice, he added: And it will please God more than a young calf bearing horns and hooves. I myself would have wished today to lay down these victims and to stain the spiritual altar with the blood of these offerings; but what am I to do? A certain wise man silences me and frightens me, saying: Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner. For just as in the case of crowns, not only must the flowers be pure, but also the hand that weaves them, so also in the case of sacred hymns, not only must the words partake of piety, but also the soul that weaves them. But I am polluted, without freedom of speech, and full of many sins. And it is not only this law that silences those who are in such a state, but also another, more ancient than that one and established before it.

And this David, who just now discoursed to us about sacrifices, brought in, for having said: Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the highest. Praise the Lord from the earth, and having called each creation, the upper, the lower, the sensible, the intelligible, the visible, the invisible, the one above the heaven, the one beneath the heaven, and having set up one chorus from each and thus having commanded the king of all to be hymned, nowhere did he call the sinner, but even here he closed the doors to him. And that what is said may become clearer to you, I will read the psalm to you from above: Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the highest; praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his powers. Did you see angels praising, did you see archangels, did you see the Cherubim and the Seraphim, the higher powers? For when he says: all his powers, he encompasses the entire upper host. Did you see the sinner anywhere? For how was it possible for him to appear in heaven, he says? Therefore, let us bring you down also to the earth, moving you to the other part of the chorus; and not even here will you see him again. Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all abysses, the wild beasts and all the cattle, reptiles and winged birds. Not in vain, nor idly did I fall silent between these things, but the reasoning of my mind was confounded, and it came to me to weep bitterly and lament greatly.

For what could be more pitiable, tell me, than that scorpions and vipers and serpents are summoned to the praise of their maker, while only the sinner is left out of this sacred chorus? And rightly so. For he is a wicked and untamed beast, displaying his malice not against the fellow servants of the bodies, but pouring out the venom of his wickedness against the glory of the master. For it is because of you, he says, that my name is blasphemed among the nations. For this reason the prophet drove him out, as from a sacred homeland, from the inhabited world and exiled him to the land beyond the border. Just as an excellent musician cuts off the discordant string of a well-tuned lyre so that it does not spoil the harmony of the remaining notes, and just as a skilled physician cuts off the gangrenous limb so that the corruption from it does not spread to the good condition of the other limbs, so too the prophet acted, cutting off the sinner like a discordant string and like a diseased limb from the whole body of creation. What then must we do? Since we have been cast off, since we have been cut off, we must by all means be silent. Shall we be silent then, tell me? And will no one allow us to hymn our own master, but have we summoned your prayers in vain? Have we fled to your intercessions in vain? Not in vain, may it not be.

I have found, I have found another way of praise, which, like lightning appearing in the darkness, has shone forth in the midst of this perplexity, between your very prayers. For it is possible to praise fellow servants, and when they are praised, the glory will certainly pass on to heaven, just as He Himself says: "Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Behold, then, another way of praise, which even a sinner can utter without breaking the law. Whom, then, whom among our fellow servants shall we praise? Whom else but the common teacher of our fatherland, and through the fatherland of the whole world? For just as he taught you to stand firm for the truth unto death, so you taught other men to abandon the soul rather than piety. Do you wish, then, that we weave for him from this the crowns of encomia? I myself would wish it, but I see a vast sea of achievements and fear that, borne down to the depths, my speech may be too weak to rise again. Therefore, it is necessary to recount ancient achievements: journeys, vigils, cares, counsels, battles, trophies linked to trophies, and victories linked to victories—deeds greater not only than my tongue but than all human speech, requiring an apostolic voice moved by a spirit by which it is possible to say and teach everything. But passing over this part, we shall come to another, safer one, which can be crossed even in a small skiff.

Let us therefore stir up the discourses concerning self-control: how he mastered his stomach, how he disregarded luxury, how he scorned a costly table, and this though he was reared in a costly house. For one who has lived in poverty, it is nothing wonderful to come to this austere and harsh life; for he has poverty as a fellow traveler and companion, and it lightens the burden for him each day. But one who has become master of wealth would not easily shake off the grips that come from that source; so great a swarm of maladies flits around such a soul, and a heavy and murky cloud of passions blocks the eyes of the understanding, not allowing it to look toward heaven, but forcing it to bend downward and gape at the earth. And there is, there is nothing else that is so great an obstacle to the journey to the heavens as wealth and the evils that come from wealth. And this is not my word, but the verdict has come down from Christ himself: "It is easier," he says, "for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." But behold, this difficult thing—or rather, impossible thing—has become possible; and what formerly Peter doubted,

He sought to learn from the teacher, and this we all came to know through experience itself—indeed, more than this. For not only did he ascend to heaven, but he also brings in so great a multitude, having, along with wealth, other hindrances no less than wealth: youth and untimely orphanhood, which are quite capable of bewitching any human soul. Such incantations they possess, such drugs they prepare. But he overcame these, seized hold of the heavens, and transferred himself to the philosophy there, and he neither took note of the splendor of the present life nor looked to the renown of his ancestors—rather, he looked to the renown of his ancestors, not those bound to him by natural necessity, but those related to him by choice of piety. That is why he became such as he was. He looked to the patriarch Abraham, he looked to the great Moses, who, reared in a royal house and partaking of a Sybaritic table, and caught amid Egyptian tumults—you know what barbarian things are like, how full of pride and ostentation—despised all that, deserted to the mud and brickmaking, and, desiring to be among slaves and captives, he who was king and son of a king. Therefore, because of this, he returned again with a more splendid appearance than the one he had cast off before; for after the flight and his servitude with his father-in-law and his hardship in a foreign land, he returned leading the king—indeed, he became a god to the king. For he says, "I have set you as a god to Pharaoh.

And he was more splendid than the king, not wearing a diadem, nor clad in purple, nor driving a golden chariot, but having trampled all that vanity underfoot. For, it is said, all the glory of the king’s daughter is within. He therefore returned bearing a scepter, wherefore he commanded not only men, but also heaven and earth and sea, and the nature of the air and waters, and lakes and springs and rivers; for everything that Moses wished, those elements became, and in his hands creation was transformed again, and like a grateful handmaid, seeing a friend of her master arrive, she obeyed and hearkened as to the master himself. Looking upon him, this man became such even while young, if indeed he ever was young—for I am not persuaded, so gray was his mind from his very swaddling clothes—but even according to the measure of his age, being young, he took hold of all philosophy, and having learned our nature, that it is like a wild woodland, he easily cut out the diseases of the soul with the word of piety, as with a kind of sickle, providing the farmer with clean fields for the sowing of seeds, and receiving everything, he sent it down to the depth, so that, rooted from below, they might neither yield to the assault of the sun’s ray nor be choked again by thorns. And thus he tended the soul; but the leaping of the flesh he restrained with the remedies of continence, as if to a hard-mouthed horse, casting the bridle of fasting into the body and drawing it back so far as to bloody the very mouths of the desires with due restraint.

For he neither strained his body so that the horse, being hindered, would become useless to him for service, nor did he allow it to fall into excessive good condition, lest, having become too fleshy, it should again rebel against the reason that guides it, but he cared for both its health and its discipline. And he was not such a one only while young, and then, when he passed that age, dissolved this care, but even now, when he sits as in a calm harbor in old age, he again adheres to the same diligence. For youth, beloved, resembles a raging sea, full of wild waves and evil winds; but gray hair, like a waveless harbor, moors the souls of the aged, providing them with the security to enjoy the leisure of their age. Enjoying this now and sitting in the harbor, as I said before, he is no less anxious than those tossed about on the open sea; and he received this fear from Paul, who, having ascended to heaven and run up to the one after that and touched a third again, said: I fear lest, having preached to others, I myself become rejected. Therefore, he also placed himself in constant fear, so that he might continually be in confidence and sit at the helm, not watching the risings of stars, nor reefs and rocks, but the uprisings of demons and the wickedness of the devil and the battles of thoughts, and going around the camp in a circle, he makes all secure. For he does not only see to it that the ship is not swamped, but also that none of those on board should experience any disturbance, managing everything.

Because of him and his wisdom we all sail with a fair wind, having spread full the sails of the ship. Yet indeed when we lost our former father, who also begot this one for us, our affairs were in perplexity. Therefore we lamented pitiably, as not expecting this throne to receive another man of such a kind. But when this one appeared and came into our midst, he caused all that despondency to pass away like a cloud and hid all the gloomy things, not gradually erasing our grief, but so suddenly as if that blessed one himself had risen from the tomb and ascended again to this throne. But we have unwittingly, from desire for the fatherly achievements, carried our words beyond the measure—not beyond the measure of what has been accomplished by this man, for we have not yet begun those, but beyond what is fitting for us in our youth. Come then, let us again rest our words in silence as in a harbor. But they do not wish to desist, but are vexed and indignant, desiring to be fully filled from the meadow. But this is impossible, O children. Let us then cease pursuing the unattainable; what has been said is sufficient for our consolation, since also with costly perfumes, not only if one pours out the whole cauldron, but even if one touches only the surface with the fingertips, he has tinged the air and filled all present with fragrance. This indeed has now happened, not because of the power of our words, but because of the virtue of this man's achievements. Let us go then, let us go, concluding with prayers.

Let us pray that our common mother remain unshaken and unmoved, and that this father, the teacher, the shepherd, the helmsman, be borne forward to a longer life. If there is any account of you and of us—for we will not dare to count ourselves among the priests, since it is not even lawful to number miscarriages with full-term births—but if there is any account of you and of me as of some abortive thing, pray that a great impulse from above be given to us. For we needed security even before, when we lived the quiet life by ourselves; but since we have been brought into the midst—and how, I pass over, whether by human zeal or by divine grace, for I contend with you about nothing, lest someone say I am even being ironic—nevertheless, since we have been brought in and have shouldered this yoke, strong and heavy, we need many hands, countless prayers, so that we may be able to return the deposit safe to the Master who deposited it on that day when those entrusted with talents are called, brought in, and render their accounts.

Pray, therefore, that we not become among those who are bound, nor among those cast out into the darkness, but among those able to obtain at least moderate forgiveness, by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory, power, and adoration unto the ages of ages. Amen.