Homilia in sabbatum sanctum

4. A discourse on Holy Saturday, by John the humble monk and priest of Damascus. 1. Who will speak of the mighty acts of the Lord, and make all his praises heard? Who will recount the boundless and vast sea of his goodness? Who the love beyond reckoning toward his servants? Who the condescension beyond understanding? Who the compassion toward us, and the ineffable care that comes from it? There is no one, not even if he spoke with the tongues of angels and of men; not even if he had gathered within himself all human understanding. For even if the spirit is willing, the tongue is weak to speak, and the mind is dim to comprehend. For great, by common confession, is the mystery of the divine economy, grasped not by understanding but by faith alone, and needing the purity of soul that is formed from divine fear and longing. For there is no other way for the soul to obtain purification than by divine fear and love. Nor, again, can it receive the divine illumination unless the soul's faculty of sight has first been purified. For the Divine is unapproachable to the profane; and only the pure in heart shall see God, as Christ, who is truly the truth, says. Since even in the theophany that long ago came to Moses at the bush, he is first commanded to take off his sandal, and only so to approach the symbol that appeared. And the removal of the sandals signifies the putting away of dead and earthbound thoughts. And again, when Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke at the divine giving of the law, not all went up, but for those who went up, the ascent was measured by their purity.

If, then, under the symbols, purification from every stain was legislated, how much more ought they to make themselves pure and Godlike who are about to draw near to the true and archetypal realities? Let us therefore cleanse ourselves, O brothers, of every earthly mindset, and of all tumult, and of worldly disturbance, so that we may clearly receive the light-bearing gleams of the divine Word, and be fed in our souls with the spiritual bread, the food of angels, and, having entered within the innermost sanctuary, may know vividly the divine sufferings of the impassible One, and those which are saving for the whole world. 2. Now the mystery hidden from eternity is unveiled; now the sum of the divine economy is brought to completion; now the crown of the incarnation of God the Word is set in place; now the abyss of divine love is made public. For God the Word so loved the world that, by the good pleasure of the Father, he descended to incarnation, that the immaterial One might be clothed with the weight of material flesh, so that, having received the passions by that nature which is naturally subject to suffering, and having become a passion through death, he might clothe us, the passible, with impassibility. Hence come hunger, and thirst, and sleep, and weariness, and grief, and agony, and fear—that is, the essential longing for life; hence come the cross, and suffering, and death, from our nature. For these are its natural passions, and these are blameless in my constitution, the experience of which he did not refuse, so that, having been stirred up in him and subdued, they might become subject to us.

3. Christ is on the cross: let us come together, and become partakers of his sufferings, so that we may also become partakers of his glory. Christ is among the dead: let us die to sin, so that we may live to righteousness. Christ is wrapped in swaddling clothes and clean linen: let us be loosed from the chains of sin, and be clothed with the divine radiance. Christ is in a new tomb: let us cleanse ourselves of the old leaven, and become a new lump, so that we may be shown to be a dwelling-place of Christ. Christ is in Hades: let us descend with him to the humility that exalts, so that we may also rise with him, and be exalted with him, and be glorified with him, always seeing God and being seen by him. You who are from of old, be set free; you who are bound, come forth; you who are in darkness, be uncovered; you captives, be released; and you blind, look up; awake, Adam who sleeps, and rise from the dead, for Christ, the resurrection, has appeared. But, if it seems good, let us make the beginning of our account from above; for in this way it would be both clearer and more persuasive, and would make its journey along a smooth path; and pray for me the divine illumination of the Holy Spirit, without which the wise are foolish, and with which the unlettered become wiser than the very wise. 4. God is the cause of all things, but he himself is from no cause, and therefore also unbegotten; he has a Word that subsists in person, coeternal, begotten from him without effluence and without time, never separated from the Father; perfect God, in all things like the one who begot him, except for unbegottenness, one in substance and power, will and operation, kingdom and lordship; not without a cause—for he is from the Father—not beginning from time—

For there was never a Father when the Son was not; for the Father is Father of the Son, and the Father will not be without the Son, who has his existence together with the Father, begotten from him without separation, and remaining in him without departure, being the wisdom of the one who begot him, and a hypostatic power, God by nature, consubstantial with the Father, not known without the Spirit; for the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father, equal in strength, equal in perfection, equal in operation, equal in power, coeternal, hypostatic, coming forth not in a son's manner but by way of procession; this is another mode of existence, divine and incomprehensible; a good equal to the Father and the Son in all things, ruling, Lord, creator, God by nature, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, reigning together, glorified together, worshipped together by all creation. This is what we worship. The Father is the unbegotten begetter of the Son; for he is not from anything; the Son is the offspring of the Father, as begotten from him; the Holy Spirit is of God and the Father, as proceeding from him, who is also said to be of the Son, as being made manifest through him and imparted to creation, but not having his existence from him. One God, because there is one Godhead, one power, one essence, one will, one operation, undivided in the divided hypostases alone, that is, in the properties of existence. For to the Father alone belongs the unbegotten; to the Son alone belongs being begotten from the Father without beginning, without time, and eternally, and to the Spirit alone belongs proceeding without time and eternally.

One Trinity, simple, uncompounded, infinite essence, light beyond comprehension, power without limit, sea of goodness, one God glorified in three perfect hypostases without division. 5. He himself made angels out of nothing, heaven, earth, and all things in them: ethereal fire, and the abyss of waters; air, the treasury of breath, and the most translucent vehicle of light, the second vault made firm in the water, the boundary between the waters above and the waters below, which he also called heaven; the blazing sun, the double-course worker of day and night, signaling all things with its bright gleams; the moon that lights up the night and mingles its flame with the sun's radiance; these stars, the ornaments of the firmament; and all things on earth: flowers of every kind and of many uses, grass bearing seed, fruit-bearing trees, the most beautiful adornment of the earth; every kind of living creature swimming in the waters, great and wondrous sea monsters; the varied kinds of reptiles, and winged birds, having their birth from the waters but flying in the air and dwelling on the earth; living things again from the earth, and untamed beasts, and the tame herds of cattle; all together an indication of his own great workmanship, and a feast for the one who would be formed according to the divine image.

6. Last of all, like some king, the much-famed living creature, man, honored by his own hand and image, he formed the body from earth, but fashioned the soul by divine and life-giving breath—which I mean is the Holy Spirit, the life-giving and creative, perfecting and sanctifying all things—not joining to the body a soul that pre-existed (far be the discordant and absurd nonsense of Origen!), but establishing it from non-being in the composite formation. 7. This man, this one whom he made in his own image, both intelligent and rational, bearing a spirit of life, he set in communion with his own grace, and made him guardian of a paradise, which he planted in the east. For the children of the Hebrews call delight Eden; granting him a blessed and all-happy life, free from all care and at ease, from which all pain, grief, and groaning fled away. For like some other angel dwelling on earth, he sang hymns to God who made him, filled with divine thoughts, led through all creation to the Creator, for whom he had also been molded. For saying that this is the tree of life—the whole and full, undivided, bearing only the participation of the good—in the manner of an ascent, one will not err.

8. But the inventor of evil, the father of lies, the craftsman of envy, the serpent, the devil, could not bear to see man luxuriating in the prosperity of so many good things. He therefore set upon him, devising the deprivation of good things. And he feigns goodwill, but trips man up through deceit, and brings him down in a fall—the most pitiable of all falls. And consider what the bait was. 9. What of all things is higher? And what alone is higher? God, clearly, who is beyond all things and the cause of all things. What, then, is more desirable than to be called God? There is nothing. Having duped man by this desire, he persuades him to taste of the tree of knowledge, having first plundered the woman's simplicity. For evil is by nature somehow concealed under the guise of good; indeed, it rubs its own shameful deeds onto virtue; the greedy tasting of this tree the all-knowing God forbade to Adam for his benefit. For he says: From every tree in the paradise you shall surely eat; but from the tree of knowing good and evil, you shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it; for on the day you eat from it, you shall surely die. But if you wish to understand the tree as planted for the testing and trial of obedience and disobedience, and hence called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or as providing a knowing activity of its own nature to those who partake of it, you will not miss what is fitting.

10. But the tasting of it before perfection was unprofitable. For when he had tasted, he knew himself to be naked, and he sought for a covering, and was distracted, and was thrown into confusion over the care of his own body, having departed from the divine contemplation; from this he is stripped of grace, and is clothed with corruption, and is turned back to the earth, and becomes an exile from the divine paradise, and is condemned to sweat, and toil, and death. Not that the tree produced death—for God did not make death—but disobedience drew death along with it. From this, sin having gained a foothold, it enslaves me, the thrice-wretched one, and works every kind of evil in me, and by its own means seasoning a sweet food, it gives it over to death. 11. What then? Did the one who is compassionate by nature, who gave us being and graciously granted us to be well, overlook his own handiwork, the most precious, the most beloved, thus terribly tyrannized? By no means. But, to speak in the manner of the apostle, God, having spoken in times past to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days spoke to us in his only-begotten and consubstantial Son, whom he sent into the world, so that he might lead back the wandering man to the ancient blessedness. And—O the great goodness!—what happens? Things unmixed are mixed; things beyond nature come to pass; what eye did not see, and ear did not hear, and what did not arise in the heart of man, is now seen, and heard, and spoken of, and believed. What is this? The Son of God and God becomes the Son of man, a mediator between God and men; not having cast off being God; unchangeable;

nor did he merely assume the appearance of becoming man. For he is without falsehood, and all guile and deceit is altogether alien to the upright good pleasure; but he truly became man by nature, without any change or confusion, so that he might truly bestow salvation on nature. 12. He is therefore perfect God; for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; perfect man, that he might save the whole man; for what is not assumed is not healed. He is one and the same in two perfect natures, known without any division whatsoever; in respect of his person he is identified with his own flesh, and by nature he is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit as God; and he has become of one nature and one kindred with us as man, bearing in himself the whole substance of the first Adam, in respect of those things from which, and in which, and which a man is: a mortal body, and a rational and immortal soul, endowed with reason, self-determining, possessing will and energy. For a living being that lacks any one of all these is not a man. From a holy Virgin he formed for himself flesh animated by a rational and intelligent soul, and was united to it in person, and was conceived as God made flesh, one Son, and Christ, and Lord, and he made her who gave him birth the Mother of God.

13. For if he is not one by hypostasis, how did the Word become flesh? This shows that the Holy Spirit did not turn the Word into flesh, but rather that he was united in flesh by hypostasis. Or how is it, they say, that the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him? For the one who appeared as man, he himself declared him; and if he were not also God, how would he be believed to be in the bosom of the Father? Or how is it said, No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven? For he had not yet ascended bodily into heaven, since even after the resurrection he said: For I have not yet ascended to my Father. Or how is the one who descended himself also the one who ascended? For he descended in divinity, not locally, but by condescension; and he ascended bodily, being one and the same, both God and man. Or how does the one who speaks and appears as man say: I and the Father are one? For it is not plausible for a mere man to utter such words, unless he were also God, consubstantial with the Father. 14. And if he were not known in two natures, how would the same one be at once mortal and immortal, created and uncreated, visible and invisible, perfect God and perfect man? For these would not be the properties of one nature. For the created is not the same by nature as the uncreated, nor the mortal as the immortal, nor the visible as the invisible, nor divinity as humanity.

15. And how could Christ be of one compound nature, when the Father and the Spirit are contemplated in a simple nature? And how will he be consubstantial with the Father and with us according to the same nature, unless someone should say that the Father too is consubstantial with us? Which is more absurd than every monstrous notion. And how does he himself say: He who has seen me has seen the Father? And again: Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you? For he who has seen him as only a man has not seen God and the Father. 16. But if we say that his activity is also one, where shall we place the bodily walking, the breaking of the bread, the spoken word, and such things, which are not of a divine nature but of human activity? For these came about not in appearance but in truth of nature. 17. But if we suppose him to be without a natural and self-determining will according to the human, where shall we place the natural impulse for food and the rest—I mean for sleep, and drink, and such things? For these, being moved by the law of nature, lead the irrational soul to fulfillment by its own authority; whence also the impulse toward action accompanies the appetite; for nature leads irrational beings, and therefore they are blameless, being subject to punishment in no way; but those in whom reason is present, being moved self-determining, rather lead nature, having it in their authority to follow and to restrain the appetite. For natural willing is a rational and self-determining appetite.

I say these things with regard to those who keep to what is according to nature, since those who have been driven by carelessness toward what is contrary to nature are led rather than lead, habit having acquired, as it were, a mastery over the passions like a pasture. 18. And by what will shall we say that he who came into the house and willed that no one should know, was unable to escape notice? For the divine will is surely evident to all as all-powerful, while the human will is surely weak and powerless. And how is it that he who set aside his own will prayed for the fulfillment of the Father's will? Of what nature is praying proper? Of the created nature, clearly. Of this nature, then, is also the will that sets aside. Thus Christ is one, Son and Lord, in two perfect natures and their natural properties, willing and acting the things of each nature indivisibly and at the same time without confusion, with the communion of the one with the other, according to the unconfused interpenetration of the natures in one another—the one of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, who for our sake became Son of Man.

19. For since death came through a man, it was necessary that the resurrection be given through a man. Since a rational soul by its own free will carried out the transgression, it was necessary that a rational soul by natural and free will carry out obedience to the Creator, and that salvation return by the same means through which death drove life out, so that death might not think it tyrannizes over man. 20. What then follows from this? Having enticed man with the hope of divinity, he is enticed by the covering of flesh, and death, having tasted a sinless body, was nauseated, and the wretched one vomited out all the food that was in his entrails. For the God Word who made us, having taken up all that is ours on our behalf, and having been tempted in our passions according to likeness without sin, having fulfilled the law, and having been revealed as the only one among men without sin, and for this reason not subject to death, and having made public the power of the divine essence through wonders, finally comes willingly to the passion on our behalf, the salvation of the whole world, and gives himself on our behalf as a curse

becoming, not himself being a curse, but rather a blessing and sanctification, but taking upon himself our curse, he is crucified for us, and dies, and is buried. And "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree," says the Scripture. And: "Earth you are, and to earth you shall depart," God said to Adam. He becomes, therefore, a curse for us, so that we might receive the blessing. For "as many as received him," it says, "he gave them authority to become children of God, to those who believe in him." 21. O the wonder! The one who shepherds Israel, as God before all ages, is handed over to death by the hand of an Israelite woman as a man. The one who leads Israel like a sheep, as a blameless lamb is led to be sacrificed, and he brings a tree of life against the tree of knowledge, and by the taste of gall mixed with vinegar he drove out the disease that had fallen upon nature from the sweet food. The one who sits upon the Cherubim as God, as a condemned man hangs upon a cross, himself being the life of men, which the God-killers, having seen it hanging upon the tree, did not believe. For they closed their eyes, and with their ears they heard heavily. The one who with divine hands fashioned man, all the day long stretched out his undefiled hands to a disobedient and contradicting people, and to the Father's hands he commends his soul. And his side is pierced with a spear by the one who from the side of Adam created Eve, and divine blood and water gush forth, a drink of immortality, and a baptism of re-formation. Hence the sun was ashamed, not bearing to see the noetic sun of righteousness mocked.

The earth shook, being sprinkled with the Master's blood, shaking off the stain of idolatrous defilement, and leaping with joy at its cleansing. The dead rose from their tombs, prefiguring the resurrection of him who died for us. The sun was extinguished, and again was kindled, accomplishing the three-day count of the Master. The veil of the temple was torn apart, clearly signifying the entrance into the holy of holies and the revealing of hidden things. For a robber was about to walk the paradise, and the man put to death like a criminal was to be believed and worshipped as God by all creation; for truly he is God; and the earthly body, formed from dust, was to become higher than the heavens and to sit with God; and the knowledge of the holy, blessed, and much-hymned Trinity was to be made manifest. 22. He who breathed into Adam the breath of life and made him a living soul, is laid dead, breathless, in the tomb. He who condemned man to return to the earth has been counted among those forgotten in the earth. The gates of bronze are shattered, and the iron bars are broken; the eternal gates were lifted up, and the gatekeeper of Hades shuddered, and the foundations of the world were uncovered. For he who is free from sin has been reckoned among the dead; and he who loosed Lazarus's swaddling clothes is wrapped in grave-bands, so that he might loose from his bonds the man dead in sin and bound by its cords, and set him free. Now the King of glory has come down to the tyrant, the mighty one in battle, whose goings forth to us are from the uttermost part of heaven, who ran like a giant the course of life.

For this is intertwined with the weakness of humanity, and it binds the strong one like a sparrow, since those who served as his bodyguard by his self-powered divinity have vanished, and he makes plunder of his vessels, leading up rightly those whom that one led down wrongly. Now the Word descends against the dragon, Leviathan, the apostate (for Leviathan is interpreted as dragon), the great mind of the Assyrians—I mean the opposing powers—lurking in the heart of the earth; and him he draws with the hook of divinity, with the hidden body like some worm, and those whom he swallowed when he prevailed, most piteously, he is forced to vomit up, sending away empty the one who boasts in wealth. The child born and given to us, having descended into the den of asps, strangles and kills and destroys the arrogant and boastful one. Now Hades has become heaven, and the underworld is filled with light, and the darkness that once pursued is driven out, and to the blind sight is given. For to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, the Dayspring from on high has appeared. These things the prophets, and patriarchs, and righteous men clearly prefigured and foretold.

23. The righteous one is bound as useless. For they have devised a destructive counsel against themselves—those who plunder the Lord's people and trouble the paths of their feet. Woe to their soul! Evil according to their works shall befall them, as Isaiah says; but for us the deed has now truly become a release from pain and a healing of suffering. I give my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows, and I endure the shame of spittings, said the one speaking in Isaiah. Therefore the work of my hands shall not be put to shame, nor be ashamed. For I have not counted it robbery to be equal with God; but being God, consubstantial with the Father, I lowered myself to emptying, and for the sake of the ungodly I am humbled to death, since the Father so willed it. For what he wills, I will, being of one will with him and a partaker of the divinity. And I, the Most High, am exalted, and humanity is glorified in me (for thus I establish the Father's love), so that those justified in my blood and in my death having obtained reconciliation with my Father, may live in the life and rest beneath my wings—the sheep kept for me.

24. Let us understand what we have not seen, and let us believe through the hearing of those who proclaim peace. For to us the arm of God, his all-working power, is revealed. For we shall be glorified if we understand, and we shall be greatly glorified, mirroring the glory of the Lord in lowliness, and contemplating in the dishonored form the beauty that surpasses understanding. For even if he suffered from weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. Even if he is seen hanging on a tree, uncomely and dishonored, failing more than all the sons of men, yet he himself is the radiance of glory, which the earth, seeing, was ashamed and mourned. This one bore our sins on the tree, and grieved our bruise, and is in pain for us, and bore wound, and pain, and affliction, the reconciliations of our peace. For since we went astray as sheep, turning aside from the way of the Lord, and pursuing our own path, through the bowels of mercy he was handed over for our sins—not striving, nor crying out, leaving us an example, and as a voiceless sheep he is led to death for us. You shall see, says Moses, your life hanging before your eyes, and you shall not surely believe your life. David, the father of God—or rather, through David, the Lord of David—foretelling his own passion and life-bearing burial, said: They divided my garments among themselves, and on my clothing they cast a lot. He who clothed the first fathers of the race in tunics of skin willingly is stripped for crucifixion, so that, stripping us of mortality, he may clothe us in the comeliness of incorruption.

And he allots the garment to the soldiers. For when he rises from the dead, he is about to send out to the nations those whom he himself chose as disciples, and himself to become a garment of divine baptism for the faithful. For as many of you, he says, as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 25. Noah, shut up in the ark and saving by wood the seeds of a second world, and again becoming the beginning of the race, was willingly a type of Christ buried, who washed away sin by the blood that flowed with water from his side, and by the wood of the cross saved our whole race, and became the leader of a common life and a new citizenship. Abraham the great patriarch, leading Isaac, the child of promise and the one to whom the promises were made, to whole burnt offering, clearly foretold the slaughter of the Master. For Isaac himself, while living, is granted by God to his father; but the ram, held by its horns in a plant of Sabek, became the victim; and he becomes a type of the double mystery, of the ram and of Isaac, a true type of Christ our God. For this one is double and composite, being himself both God and man: insofar as he is by nature Son of God and God, he remained in impassibility; but insofar as he himself became man beyond man, for the sake of the world he brought himself to the Father as a spotless victim in a plant of Sabek, that is, in the wood of forgiveness. For Sabek is interpreted as forgiveness. What do the three measures of fine flour, having become hidden bread, mean? Do they not clearly hint at the three-day burial of the bread of life? And what of the pit of Joseph first, and the prison afterward?

Does it not most clearly reveal the tomb and the guard set over it? For they placed me, he says, in the lowest pit, in dark places, and in the shadow of death. And what of Moses, the God-seer and lawgiver? Is he not, hidden in the ark of bulrushes, given over to death, and taken up by the queen? So too Christ is covered in the tomb, put to death in the body, but by his own divinity, which reigns over all creation, he is led up again to life. And does not Moses again strike the sea with his rod, and by the double stroke, upright and crosswise, signify the figure of the cross, and descend into the deep, showing the Savior's descent into Hades, and put to death Pharaoh the pursuer, and save Israel? Since Christ also put death to death, and saves all who believe in him. And by the stretching out of his hands, turning back Amalek and making Israel victorious, he prefigures the same mystery of the Savior. The wonder of the manna also astonishes my mind. For just as it was hidden only at the evening of the Sabbath, so Jesus my God, and for my sake man, wholly sweetness and wholly desire, at the close of the Preparation is covered in the tomb. And did not the Lord himself foretell Jonah as his own type? For just as, he says, Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, so must the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

26. But someone will say: If he endured the voluntary death on the Preparation and rose again on the first day of the Sabbaths, how will the statement that he spent three nights in the heart of the earth be fulfilled? But indeed the divine Moses speaks to us in this way: that God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. When therefore the Lord was hung upon the immaculate cross, darkness came over the whole inhabited world—not with a cloud overshadowing and covering the sun's ray, nor with the lunar body walling itself off like some barrier and not permitting the radiance to reach us as it does; for this is how those skilled in such matters say solar eclipses occur—but darkness seized the whole earth, far darker than the palpable plague of the Egyptians. For that illuminating power which wells up from the sun's body failed. For it was fitting that all creation mourn the bodily death of the Creator. Therefore the prophet also says: The sun shall set at midday, and the light shall grow dark in the day. And another again: In that day there shall be no light. And not day, and not night, and toward evening there shall be light. In this darkness, therefore, the divine and all-holy soul of the Lord, from the sacred and

Having been divided from the life-giving body, he sojourned in the heart of the earth, which is reckoned as night. Then after the darkness, day is again sketched out by the Creator, as the sun runs its course once more to its own proper form; therefore the prophet foretold that there would be light toward evening; then the night before the Sabbath, and the Sabbath, and the night before the first day of the Sabbaths, and the bright and light-bringing day of holy Sunday itself, on which the uncreated light proceeds bodily from the tomb, like a bridegroom beautiful in the beauty of the resurrection. For the end of the Sabbaths, which the evangelist calls "late on the Sabbath," becomes the beginning of the first day of the Sabbaths. You have the clear enumeration of the three days and as many nights. But let us return again to where we set out. 27. He who fashioned man from dust is led down into the dust of death, and his life is taken away from the earth. For he lays aside earthly things—not the body, I mean, but the things of the body: sleep and toil, hunger and thirst, cutting and flux. For these things stole into our life through disobedience. And his burial takes place in peace, which he procured for us through cross and burial, joining together the things that were separated, and subjecting the apostate man to the one who fashioned him. Therefore the wicked are handed over to destruction instead of his burial: the Jews, after the sack of the temple and the city, led away captive by their enemies, never again to run back to their own homes; for they are left desolate, bereft of divine aid, after this utterance of the Lord: "Your house is left desolate.

But the demons, stripped of the tyrannical and arrogant rule which they wickedly wielded over us, having been subdued by the most shameful passions. But he himself has inherited as his portion the spoils of the wicked—those who have died from the beginning of the world—having set free all those who were held fast by the yoke of sin. For having been reckoned among the lawless, he planted the lawfulness; but the seed of the disobedient has come to destruction, and mourning has been dismissed from feasts, and hymns have echoed back laments. But for us light has risen out of darkness, and life has come forth from the tomb, and from Hades resurrection gushes forth, and joy, and gladness, and exultation. 29. It is not out of place also to touch upon the words of the Gospel and to draw out the wealth that is in them. Those who spoke divine things by the Spirit, and who had Christ speaking within themselves—the evangelists—say: When evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, by name Joseph, a respected councillor, a good and righteous man, who also himself had become a disciple of Jesus, and was awaiting the kingdom of God. This man had not consented to their deed, but for fear of the Jews he was hiding. This man, having dared, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. O blessed and renowned man! Truly the Lord says: Every tree is known by its own fruits. Therefore, being good and righteous, he had not consented to their counsel and their deed. Truly this is a blessed man, as the God-inspired David says.

For he did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor did he, standing in the way of sinners, rage and rave, nor did he sit in the seat of the pestilent against the Lord and against his Christ, having taken counsel with lawless peoples. He did not say: Away, away, crucify him. He did not utter the voice of the cowardly, drawing upon himself and his own offspring the penalty of innocent and divine blood; but having his will in the law of the Lord, and lying down and rising up always meditating in his law, he watered his own mind with the God-flowing streams of the Spirit. For he had become a disciple of the good Teacher, and he followed in his footsteps. O the purpose of a rich man! O the wisdom of a merchant, who snatched the heavenly wealth with the earthly, and hid the treasure of life within himself! But Pilate, it says, marveled if he had already died. He marveled how Life had died, how the steward of the breath of men had surrendered his breath. Yes, he has died, O Pilate, but willingly. For he has authority to lay down his own soul, and he has authority again to take it. Yes, he has died, that he might despoil death, that he might give life to him who was held fast by mighty bonds, that having become the firstborn from the dead, he might gush forth resurrection for the dead, that the mortal might be swallowed up by life. 29. He grants, then, the body to Joseph. O unbearable boldness and confidence, which faith and divine longing brought forth! The disciples, having become partakers of divine gifts, are held back by fear and hide, and you long for the dead man; you imitated your Teacher more quickly, your guide and Lord.

For you handed over your own soul to death by choice. You could not bear to see the Lord's holy body naked, that body united to the Godhead in person. You touched the divine coal, which the Seraphim could not touch even in its type. O blessed hands! O most fortunate arms, with which you grasped the body of my God and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and costly myrrh! For thus, he says, it is the custom of the Jews to bury. And there was, he says, in the place where he was crucified, a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. There, then, because of the Jews' Preparation, since the tomb was near, they laid Jesus; which he had hewn out in the rock; and having rolled a great stone to the door, he went away. Now Preparation is so called as a kind of preparation for the rest of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath had the cessation of works, since God had ordained for the Hebrews to touch no servile thing at all; but for us the divine Passion has become a Preparation for the cessation of sin and the hardships that come from it. Therefore the only pure and undefiled one is wrapped in a clean linen cloth—he who wraps the heaven in clouds, who clothes himself with light as a garment, is laid in a tomb; he who has heaven as his throne and the earth as his footstool, who fills and encompasses the universe, the only one who as God is uncircumscribed and holds creation in his hand, is circumscribed bodily in a tomb.

He himself, as God, is worshiped in heaven with the Father and the Spirit, and he himself, as man, lies bodily in the tomb, and dwells spiritually in the recesses of Hades, and makes Paradise accessible to the thief, his uncircumscribable Godhead accompanying him everywhere. For even if the sacred soul was separated from the life-giving and immaculate body, nevertheless the Godhead of the Word, after the conception in the womb of the holy Virgin and Theotokos Mary, when the unbreakable union of the two natures had come to be in person, has remained unbroken in both—I mean both the soul and the body—and thus the one person of Christ remained even in death itself, the soul and the body subsisting in the person of God the Word, and even after death possessing this person. Therefore every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father. 30. But why is he laid in a new tomb, in which no dead man had yet been laid? It seems to me, so that the resurrection might not be suspected to be that of one of those laid there long ago. For those who begrudge their own salvation are ready for mischief, and very sharp toward unbelief. In order, therefore, that the Lord's resurrection might be shown manifest and clear, he alone is buried in a new and empty tomb—the spiritual rock of life, from which the ungrateful drank as it followed; the cornerstone, not cut by hands, is covered in a hewn rock. For souls easily broken and easily dissolved by pleasures do not bear the divine Word.

to receive it, but rather are firm and disposed toward virtue in a manly way. 31. But on the next day, he says, which was after the Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered before Pilate, saying: Again the council of lawlessness has gathered—those who kill the prophets and stone those sent to them; those who savagely devour the vineyard of the Lord, I mean the people of Israel, and who hatefully put to death the heir, the Son, after the servants. For they did not know that as a man he would be heir of all creation. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And what do they say to Pilate? Lord, we remembered that that deceiver said while still alive: After three days I rise. O the customary lawlessness of the idolaters! The deceivers and partakers in deception call the one who is under contract to deception, the slave of sin, "lord." But the Savior of all and Lord, the true truth, the wisdom and power of the Father, the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world—him they address as a deceiver. Why do you say "while still alive" beforehand? Does he not live after death—he who is the life of the living and the cause of being to those who exist? He was among the dead, but living, as one free. Have you never heard in Jonah the prophet the Lord saying: Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed? For deception shall be destroyed, when the Lord rises from the tomb on the third day, and righteousness and truth shall be planted. Command, then, they say, that the tomb be secured until the third day. Why do you trouble yourselves in vain, wretched men?

Why do you fear a fear that has no real existence? A seal will not confine the Uncircumscribable. If the seals of the pit did not prevent the entrance of Habakkuk, he would not have turned aside Daniel, who was a prophet of God and his servant; how then will seals be able to hold back the common Master? But truly evil is blind, and it turns aside all too quickly. Lest his disciples come and steal him away, and say to the people that he has risen from the dead, and the last deception be worse than the first. Who steals a dead man, you fools? Those who dig up tombs may perhaps rob the dead of their clothing; but who has ever stolen a corpse? For if he were not to rise, and by his prediction he would be lying about the resurrection, how would his disciples cling to him in vain? For every dead man is forgotten from the heart of mortals, as the Scripture said. But if he is a deceiver, how will he not rather be forgotten? And how will they draw upon themselves deaths and afflictions of every kind, and a heap of evils, just as they have drawn them upon themselves, clinging to a dead deceiver? Truly you are attributing to the truth the deception that you yourselves devise.

32. But Pilate said, "You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how." And they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone together with the guard. Pilate flees from fellowship with the God-killers, knowing that he had found no cause in him, and he assigns the whole matter of their drunken outrage to them. "As you know how," he says, "make it secure. Let no contradiction be left among you against the resurrection; I have entrusted to you yourselves the seal and the guard. Therefore, since the predictions of the deceiver—as you yourselves say—are shown to be true by the outcome of the resurrection, you will not have dreadful pretexts and false marvels. Now the matter stands on the razor's edge. Now is the judgment, just as he himself said. For if he is raised up from the earth, you rulers will be cast out, and he will draw all to himself." These are Pilate's words. But the shameless and senseless Jews, rushing out to the tomb like hunters, seal the stone. Therefore he lies dead in the tomb, guarded by watchmen and a seal—he who created the abyss and sealed it; he who set sand as a boundary for the sea, as

The lion has rested; he slept like a lion's cub, like a king sleeping and guarded. Who will rouse him? Now I will arise, says the Lord; now I will be exalted; now I will be glorified; now you will see, now you will perceive. 33. But the women, set ablaze and fired with love for the Teacher, beholding all these things openly, and eager to risk danger before the Lord, surpassed the boldness of the apostles, not enduring to be outdone. So where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. For it was fitting that through those by whom death was ministered, through them also the resurrection should be served. And why, then, do the apostles hide themselves? It was fitting that the most faithful witnesses of the divine economy be kept safe, who were to become heralds to the nations, as having been eyewitnesses and servants of the divine mysteries. And why is Peter also permitted to fall into denial, he who was zealous and a most exact guardian of good things? He was about to be entrusted with the helm of the Church. So that he might be forgiving to those who turn back from transgression, he is providentially permitted to slip into denial, being taught by his own fall to be compassionate. But the women, filled with divine grace as with myrrh, and having drawn Christ, the myrrh that was poured out for our renewal, by their longing—him who was divinely emptied and anointed, and anointed bodily; for the anointing and the anointed came together into the fulfillment of one person and one hypostasis—pursuing him always with love, and running unfailingly to the fragrance of his myrrhs, they buy myrrhs again, and hasten to the tomb.

Therefore they are also the first to attain the divine resurrection, the righteous Judge apportioning grace in measure suited to their zeal. 34. Let us therefore also become like wise servants awaiting the arrival of the master of the house, who, having received the talent, let us multiply it with all our strength, so that as good servants and faithful stewards we may attain the joy of the Lord. And every gift given to men by the divine goodness seems to me to be a talent. For there is no one who is entirely without a share in the divine gifts, but one is well suited for this virtue, and one for more, another for fewer; one for high and exalted things, another for lowly and modest things. To each God has apportioned a measure of faith. The mighty, then, will be examined mightily, and to whom they entrusted much, they will demand much of him. For each is required according to the measure of the power entrusted to him by God. And the giver knows whom he gives to, and all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes. Let us therefore hasten with all our strength to multiply the talent. Let the one who received five render five more to the one who gave; and the one entrusted with two, two. Let the one who has received this grace extend a practical hand to those in need of mercy and those worn down by the burden of poverty; and let the other feed with the word those wasting away in hunger and dried up by the scorching heat of unbelief. Let us gain friends from the mammon of unrighteousness, and fill the stomachs of the poor, so that as approachable advocates they may plead on our behalf before the dread-filled judgment seat. Let us welcome the homeless;

Let us clothe the naked; let us visit the sick; let us not hesitate to move our foot toward those in prison; let us stretch out our hand to those in distress and grief. Let us suffer with them; let us pour out a compassionate tear, for it will quench the unending fire of Gehenna. If we accomplish these things with a thirsting heart, the Lord will also say to us: Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. 35. You who have been called, let us be splendidly adorned with the wedding garment, so that we may become partakers of the divine marriage, and be acknowledged worthy of the calling, and share in the fatted calf, and partake of the lamb of the Passover, and be filled with the new produce of the vine—now truly the flesh of God from bread, and the blood of God from wine, transformed by the invocation and ineffably; for he who promised is truthful—eating and drinking with a pure conscience, and by these things being purified sevenfold, as gold is, and being cleansed of the base alloy of sin, and being made heirs of incorruption, and being joined to God, and being deified, and delighting in his participation, when the trumpet of the Lord sounds, and the dead are raised, when the judgment seat is set, and on the day which God has appointed to judge the world in righteousness; when all things will receive their own restoration, with no other restoration remaining; when fire will devour the adversaries unspent, and the mansions prepared before the ages will receive the righteous, and the bosom of Abraham—the God and Lord, the Word made flesh, I mean, who is from the bosoms of Abraham.

When the land of the impious shall fall, and darkness shall receive them, and the dark fire which they kindled for themselves, and the worm that gnaws unceasingly, and weeping mingled with the gnashing of teeth—but the upright in heart, and those who hold a blameless faith, bright, shining brightly as the sun, the land of the meek shall receive. When of the virgins, the foolish ones shall be most senselessly thrown into confusion, seeking in an untimely hour the things of the hour, and hastening to adorn their dying lamps with strange oil—for whom the bridegroom shall be shut out. And the stern voice of the impartial judge shall resound from within: I know you not. And this is the same as to say: I do not love you; for you did not love my brethren; you did not show forth for yourselves the tokens of love; you did not stir up within you the bowels of compassion toward them. Therefore judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. For in nothing, as in mercy, am I, the compassionate one, served. Nothing knows how to seize my heart, except mercy. For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. You did not open the door of mercy to those in need, nor shall I spread open for you the entrance of my kingdoms. These are the husbandries of the foolish. But the wise ones were prepared, and were not thrown into confusion. For having filled their lamps with virtues of every kind, and having watered them abundantly with the oil of good works, and having kindled them with the illuminating fire of the orthodox faith, radiant, radiantly they met the bridegroom in the middle of the night, and they dance in the divine bridal chamber, and they enjoy the gladness there, ever being joined in mind to the undefiled one, and being deemed worthy to converse purely with the pure one. 36.

And you therefore, O divine and sacred flock of the great Shepherd and Priest and Victim, a people for his own possession, a royal priesthood, who have been enriched with the common name as servants of Christ, remembering his sufferings and words and deeds, let us keep his life-giving commandments. For he said: Believe in God, and believe in me. And again: The Father will send you a Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. Believing, then, let us love him fervently. For he says: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. 37. Let us therefore hate his enemies. Everyone who does not confess Christ to be the Son of God and Lord is antichrist. If anyone says that Christ is a servant, let us close our ears, knowing that he is a liar and the truth is not in him. Let us bear his reproach as a diadem of glory. For he says: Blessed are you when they reproach you and persecute you and say every evil word against you for my sake. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in the heavens. Thus

For we will shun the folly of the foolish, and we will emulate the wisdom of the wise. 28. Let us also be ready for the Lord's resurrection from the dead. Let us not prepare for the belly things that make for luxury. Let us not heap many garments upon the body, nor useless extravagance of perfumes, nor revels and drunkenness, and the beds and debaucheries that are their companions; let us not think great things against the poor; let us not kindle the desire of empty glory, nor spit out the sober reins of desire; let us not become horse-mad, raging disorderly after others' vessels; let us not sow in the flesh the kindlings of fire; let us not be stolen away by the filthy bait of gold and silver and precious stones; let us not, while others hunger, have our table full and rouse the untamed worm of Gehenna. For behold, the Bridegroom arises; behold, the King of kings comes forth from the tomb. Let us make ourselves ready, that we may not be deprived of the joy. Let us become approved money-changers, distinguishing the better from the worse, and let us burn up the one with the fire of divine zeal and love, and lay up the other in our own treasuries. Let us chastise anger and desire; let us wither the appetite of the belly; let us gird ourselves with chastity through self-control and a humble heart; let us cast down pride through simplicity and the remembrance of death; let us become all things to all; let us bear insults nobly; when wronged, let us rejoice in hope. For the fashion of this world passes away, and everything now seen passes by.

29. Let this mind be in us all, which was also in Christ Jesus, who loved us while we were enemies, and having loved us, had mercy on us, and having had mercy, humbled himself, and having humbled himself, saved us. For from love comes mercy, and from mercy, humility, and from humility, salvation and exaltation. If we live in this way, now we shall be freed from the sorrows that press upon us. If we cast off the yoke of the passions, and shake off the tyrant's pair-yoke, and just as sorrows came from better things, so from sorrows the better things will return, and we shall regain our ancient boldness of speech, and we shall celebrate a pure festival to the Lord God, a festival of departure, and we shall be delivered from the blasphemous voice that is raised against the Creator, and the commonwealth of the Church shall be in peace; and then with bright lamps we shall radiantly go out to meet the conqueror of death, the immortal bridegroom, and the undefiled bridal chamber will receive us, and with unveiled face we shall reflect the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, and we shall delight in his beauty, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, worship, and majesty, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.