Homily on the resurrection of Lazarus, Sabbath day (Mambre, 2)

II. On the Resurrection of Lazarus, on the Sabbath Day These six weeks signify the six thousand years, for this week holds the resurrection and the judgment of our nature. Therefore, the journey to Jerusalem and the circuit of the city manifest the resurrection of the dead, as on the Sabbath day of Passover the lamp-lighting proclaims the resurrection of Christ our God; for it foretells the resurrection by night, and the resurrection has not yet occurred, but it presages it. Likewise, here it shows the universal resurrection of mankind, which will occur on the Lord's Day, as he first spoke concerning his own resurrection and then arose; and first the prophets foretold, and then Christ fulfilled. Similarly, the Lord first evangelized: "The time of the last day shall come, and they shall hear his voice, and they shall come forth from without." And now it is that the resurrection of Lazarus was a type for human nature; for he wished to heal the whole body of the first-created, beginning from the smallest members: the withered hand of one, the leprosy of another, the blindness of a third; and he raised the son of the widow in the city of Nain, and the daughter of the centurion little by little, and then Lazarus in Bethany, as a pledge of the resurrection of all bodies.

On the Sabbath day, on which Jesus was betrayed, Lazarus died, and on the day on which the Lord slept in the tomb, he raised Lazarus. For this reason Adam, with a voice of thanksgiving, sings with his offspring: Lord, you brought me out of the abyss, you saved me from those who descend into the pit, the renewal of bodies from their origin. But the completed work of salvation and the passion of Christ and the feast of the resurrection, and the resurrection of Lazarus after the forty days shows that by fasts and prayers it makes us companions of Christ's passion, as he who raised Lazarus. By fasts and prayers we shall set our souls upright from the rolling of various passions. And since we sinned at the tenth hour, and at the same hour in which we went out from paradise, at the same hour the Lord of all descended from the cross into the tomb, at the same hour he raised Lazarus from the tomb. There was a certain sick man, Lazarus. Which, according to the Hebrews, means "to help.

And the illness, according to the knowable vision, speaks of the sins of the human race, and the dying, of the death of sins, which is evil. In Bethany, in the house of mourning of this world, according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam. All creatures mourn together, lament, groan, and weep even until now, for Adam’s fall from the glory of the enjoyment of paradise, from the life of God, and through Christ we were released from the bonds of sins into the renewal of life in Christ Jesus. In the village of Mary, she was illumined by the Lord’s light and by the coming. This was that Mary who, having sold all her possessions, bought the ointment with which she anointed the feet of the Lord, and washed them with water, and cleansed them with the hair of her head, for the sake of her brother’s resurrection in their house. And Lazarus was one of those who sat at table. Not that harlot who, in the house of Simon the Leper, anointed the Lord, of whom the three evangelists speak, but this one, full of purity and chastity and most excellent toward the divine things.

And Martha, the lordly one, it is said, was joyful at the arrival. Whose brother was ill. Brother reveals the kinship of the sisters, for this reason the saying seems to be: Because of that, the sisters loved you, to help the brother who was in danger. It is the custom of historians, just as they make the words clear, so also to show the place, for the sake of the trustworthiness of the account. Why for the women and not call it the village of Lazarus? For although the place was common, especially Lazarus's more than the sisters', yet it was fitting for the living to call the place rather than for the dead. But to anoint the feet of the Lord because of the excess of love according to the gratitude of the brother, and to wipe them with her hair, because she had nothing more precious than her head, with which she served the life-giving feet. Jesus at that ford of the Jordan and he spread over the place, he hunted the whole desert for life. They sent to him his crumbs.

Which signifies the ranks of the prophets. Lord, the one whom you loved fell ill. Although they did not yet have perfect faith, yet by the memory of love they thought to draw him into the compassion of the brother. When Jesus heard. He heard the news of the sick man, he allowed death to rule over him and to cause him to die. That illness is not unto death, but for the glory of God. It shows that illness has no power to cause him to die, but a short time, that he might proclaim the glory of God. It shows that from afar he held the veins of the sick man, and examined them minutely, made the true account, and as the Lord awakens from sleep with authority his servant. In sleeping, men are trampled upon, unable to help their loved ones; in awakening, God is glorified in his paternal glory, and the Son rejoices and delights because of the glory of God.

It seems to me that the Father sets aside the word, as in the prayer over the tomb on account of the clamorous Jews, who named him contrary to God. And then the Father prays, revealing the partnership of the Father and his own will with the divine command, by which the dead one was to be summoned. Again, he foretold in advance the praise that was to come from the elders and from the children. They sent to him the *korkn*. With many entreaties they sent, and with great urgency they begged, not doubting in faith the raiser of the dead of all, but in a human manner they hastened while the sick one had not yet departed from life. How much more easily harmed than the body; it stumbles more frequently than it stands in health, for the spirit, once it departs, does not return; the moving spirit goes, and the entire body falls into decay, and the existence of the body returns to the nature of dust.

Because of the turmoil of Lazarus's tomb, they were in their minds, and as if believing in God, they called him like a skilled physician to the sick. He gave place for two days. He allowed the robber to enter the house of the beloved, and to work destruction and disturbance. Death grew proud and fulfilled its will. Jesus heard and said. Jesus gave no answer, neither to go and heal, nor not to go and neglect. They spoke the name of the sick, and heard the name of the feast, and went away in sorrow. He remained for two days, revealing the time of perception before the bride, or because of the raging madness of the Jews, that the death might become public and known to the world, so that the divine miracle might appear more brightly. Jesus loved Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. According to what the parable says in the person of Christ: I love those who love me, and I distribute gifts to my friends.

While the Lord was descending into Egypt, they had gone ahead in time to the city of Adrianopolis, and dwelling there with great love, they lifted up the Beginner of all sins, the Father, the Only-begotten, with shoulders and carried the Carrier of all on their arms, and when the Lord returned from Egypt, they came with the side of Mariam and Joseph to Bethany. And Jesus said to the disciples: Come, let us go to the land of the Jews. He came and there, with a double death and grievous distress, he troubled them more than the sisters of Lazarus. Why are you so terrified and trembling? Surely you are about to depart from your body, who wash yourselves from the Lord. Do not fear those who kill the body, and cannot kill the soul. He makes both soul and body live from death, for it was not their custom to reveal the place where he was about to go. Lord, they say, the Jews seek to kill you, and you go there?

The disciples he was leading elsewhere, he did not wish to reveal the mystery to them, for they saw the sign of the resurrection and did not believe. He raised the twelve-year-old girl, the daughter of Jairus, and the son of the widow in the city of Nain. If he can raise the dead, he can raise all who have fallen asleep. If he made the death of others fugitive, even more so that of the chief. On the mountain Tabor, in the Hebrew tongue, it is said: "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." But you, instead of listening to him, give him command: "Do not go to Judea." If the mystery of Lazarus had been revealed, you would not have believed because of the weakness of your minds. But Jesus says: "It is the twelfth hour of the day." He reveals the entire day: for the day of the Lord by which the darkness of idolatry is dissolved, those who go by it call the day "light" according to Hebrew speech; and light is Christ, who illuminates. He who goes by day does not stumble. How much more for you, being with me, who am the light of the world.

Do not think, he says, that you will understand by the sight of the bodily eyes, which is common to men and all living creatures; the weak tremble before the powerful. But I speak of the vision of faith, which sees the resurrection at once. He who does not have that vision in his soul, even if he goes by the midday, stumbles, for he always carries darkness with him. Having trained their minds a little, he set the disciples among the words, until the dead man descended into the tomb. Then he says: Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep; let us go to awaken him. As for children you mix milk, maternally you give birth, and as a nurse you nourish, and you cover their ignorance with wisdom. When were you the chamberlain of Lazarus, that you go to awaken him, two days' journey away? Is he perhaps stupefied by the drinking of wine? Or who is there that sleeps four days and four nights? Why do his sisters not awaken him?

The disciples were innocent lambs; whatever they saw, they knew in the same way, and whatever they heard, they believed likewise. They were unable to comprehend the divine mystery. Here he reveals the going to Bethany and not to Jerusalem, so that he might remove from their minds the two places, but by the raising he reveals the care concerning Lazarus. Lord, if he fell asleep, then he lives. Many sick fall asleep and do not live, and there are those who do not fall asleep and live. What flatteries of ignorance, they wished to console the seer of hidden things. The disciples knew that our Lord loved innocent Lazarus, and they did not wish that grief should come to his household. The disciples considered falling asleep as living and health. The Lord laid bare the hidden mystery and said openly: Lazarus, our friend, died. Lest they suddenly start up with shrieking or wailing. But Jesus said: he died, by which the human race was seized, that is, by the laws. For by Christ they were to be changed into immortality, by the resurrection of Lazarus, which was a figure of those who were to be prepared.

I am glad for you, because you believed, for I was not there. Repeated words, which could not reach the truth. The name of death and of joy was proclaimed in their hearing, and by their astonishment they could not comprehend the twofold word. But the timid Thomas makes us aware of their ignorance. I do not raise him up for any boast, but for the confirmation of your faith. I am glad, that we may take the measure of my own power. Thomas says, Come, so that we also may die with him. He goes to raise the dead, and we, the living, prepare ourselves for death, for they were in doubt at this place. It is easier for a farmer to plow hardened land than for scholars to bring the ignorant to agreement. A farmer labors little with the wild land and has hope of many fruits, but a blind man through ignorance—only God has the power to bring to knowledge.

As much as the disbelief grew strong, from all sides there was joy. The disbelief of all, by ancestral power, wrought mightily. Jesus came and found Lazarus four days in the tomb. For the village was near Jerusalem, and the mourning was near to joy and to peace. Fifteen stadia; the stadion is two miles of the road, up to Jerusalem. From his birth twice the number of years up to the crucifixion: three pentecostal senses, by seeing, by hearing, by smelling, by tasting, and by touching. Those whom he united with his own essence, who ascended into heaven, with him he raised and according to him he seated with the Father. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and to Mary. The coming by divine vision is known to be, that the beholders might be of the divinely wrought signs. For some were benefited, being confirmed, rooted in faith in Christ.

That they might comfort them. The village had become a city, and the city a village; the whole multitude of the city had come to the mourning. For it is the nature's custom that we love to hear the grief of others, and to enter a house of sorrow rather than of joy: one out of insolence, another out of contempt, and many out of loquacity; few are partakers of the grief, for they were performing the wonders in the midst of Jerusalem. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went forth to meet him. Martha's going forth was according to the laws and the prophets, who had foretold and were to show forth Christ the Savior of the world. Mary, however, remained sitting in the house. One was like the word of the mouth, and the other like the heart, the treasury of thought. The heart stood firm in its place, and the word went forth to recount the lamentations of the sorrowful heart to that one who was able to remove the mourning from the house of his beloved ones.

Martha, who is the word, knew that all the comforters who were gathered for their persons were full of sorrow. The sorrowful cannot gladden the sorrowful, and the mourner cannot comfort the mourner. One said, "Do not bury my brother; my child died early." And the others, according to each of their own griefs, speak of death as untimely and break the heart, and twist the lament, woe upon woe. All this Martha left and said to Jesus: "Lord, you were here present; my brother was not dead." Martha prophesied, for she who receives the prophet in the name of a prophet takes the reward of a prophet, but she who receives God inherits the glory of the divine. With heavenly wisdom she said this, and ascended into the divine glory, for where there is life, death does not enter. The Lord had entered the house of Martha and Mary many times, and he would drive death from the village; let him leave it from the house.

Spiritual wisdom, divine love, true faith, and steadfast prophecy: these are four kindred brothers, for the mover of them is one: God. Just as a musician blows into a single mouthpiece, and many pipes—one thin, one thick, one deeper—utter a single sound, so also Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and if there was any other in their house, all had one faith, loved Christ with one love, and possessed one spiritual wisdom. Now I know that whatever you ask, God will give you. The woman prophesied not the resurrection of a single dead man, but that you are able to raise the dead of the ages by the will of the Father and the Spirit. The Lord said: Everything was given to me by the Father. This confirmed the minds of the hearers. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father. These words show unity of will and unity of nature, not trinity and division. For this reason Christ agreed with the faith of Martha.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” The Lord revealed to her the first resurrection of her brother and the final one. There is no need for entreaties, nor for the expectation of petitions, as some suppose. I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day. The gates of heaven opened for the woman; the woman saw the self-kindled light with her eyes, she reached the place that is not to be trodden, she was made equal to the son of Zebedee; she did not fall upon the breast of Christ with her body, but was strengthened by wisdom from God; she brandished the Word of life, she was changed into the life of God; the eyes of her mind opened, the inner man was illuminated; she came with tears, she was filled with laughter. The sorrowful one rejoiced; the color of her face brightened; she heard the good news of the resurrection, though she had not yet seen her brother risen, for she had seen the one who brings all the dead to life. “I am the resurrection and the life.” I know that he raised the dead, and they died again; Elisha raised two.

I raise and establish in immortality. He who believes in me, even if he dies, is alive, and he who believes in me shall never taste death, as from those near me who have seen. Thus also those who have believed in me are saved from eternal death. For the Savior spoke very loftily, and for this reason he demanded the reward of teaching from her: “Do you believe this which you have heard?” Although the word was ambiguous, yet she hoped, and said, “Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” She repeated the word of the myrrh-bearer, as the shameless woman said, “When the Messiah comes, he will tell us everything.” He spoke of the virgin birth, and hinted at the second coming; he was informed of everything and heard even the great things of God. He came as a sorrowful man, and departed as a joyful angel of God; he called his sister secretly, and instructed her in the same teaching, willingly and easily assenting to the hint concerning the Jews, that the sister also might offer the same entreaties before him, moving Christ to compassion for the brother’s life. And Mary repeated the same words a second time, saying, “The Teacher has come and calls you.

Indeed, the true teacher, without error, instructs, fulfilling all the necessities of learning. The teacher spoke, and he himself entered into the order of the disciples. As soon as he heard that he had risen, he quickly came to Jesus, to the same place and the same joy, to the same teacher. He cast one secretly and one openly, both from this sorrowful world into the untroubled joy of life. Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was at the place where Martha met him. Why did he delay himself and not hasten the news of his coming, so that the people might hasten to see the wondrous, divinely wrought signs? For when a man is silent in obedience to God, the divinely wrought miracle also falls silent on earth. And the man was stripped of the glory given by God because of his transgressions. Here, concerning Lazarus, by keeping the command of God, he was made alive from the tomb.

But the Jews, who had come to console them, themselves remained empty of the heavenly good news, sitting in the house steeped in grief, mingled with the first tears, and with the same sorrow. When they saw that Mary had risen, they also went after her. Not to the sight of the resurrection, but to the tomb of the dead one. For to whom it is given in addition, and to whom it is not given, and what he has, they take from him. Not because of the greed of the giver, but because of the unworthiness of the receiver, as is seen with the apostles and Judas. They thought that she was going to the tomb, to weep there. For they were always lovers of tombs, not only saying that men were dead, but also that the false gods were dead. And they sat and wept for Thammuz, as the prophet says. And Mary came to Jesus. Mary was rejected by them, and came to the one whom she knew beforehand, that he who had forgiven my many sins, is able to dispel my heavy sorrow.

She fell at the feet of Jesus and said, “Lord, you were here, my brother was not dead.” The children of one school spoke with one tongue, unanimously exhorting according to the teacher’s will toward divine learning. Likewise, the two sisters were caught in one hunt for the living, loved the Lord with one love, drank from one spring the living water, saw God incarnate, believed in the Lord of all. It seems they had thought to bring Jesus to work the brother’s resurrection, that from the two there might be a unanimous utterance concerning the nearby dead, saying, “Lord, if you had not neglected the human race, they would not die the death of sins.” “For we sinned and you became angry,” says one of the prophets, concerning the chastity of conduct and the wonderful exhortations. Jesus saw that she wept, and that those with her also wept. From the exertion of bodies sweat flows, and from a grieving heart tears pour forth over the dead, and for a living beloved when he comes from afar.

I saw Mary see Jesus, and the pangs of compassion compelled her by the memory of the dead one, but she did not shriek according to the world’s custom, but with joy she poured forth tears before the merciful one; with such a piteous sight that she made even the fiery ones weep aloud. She was troubled in spirit, as if she were saddened with all her might; she could not speak plainly where they had laid him, but murmuring she speaks, half-uttered, sharing sorrow over the beloved one. As copious rains cause streams to flow abundantly and make the green plants of the fields sprout, so likewise the abundant tears of men move God to compassion. She became a partner in their mourning, that men might be comforted by God. Or she roared against Satan like a lion over its prey, for the sorrows could not truly move him, as the movements of the body overcome us, for the divine nature is impassible and sorrowless, but the disturbance signifies that he gave command for sorrow to come and for tears to flow voluntarily.

It shows that when he wished, he would descend to those natural habits, revealing the true humanity, for although God united with the body, he did not allow the body to be moved in its natural habits, but when he permitted, he would descend to food and drink and sleep, and when he wished, he would pass beyond, above nature, keeping himself by the divine union. He says, “Where have you placed him?” They say, “Come and see.” Not out of ignorance, as his Father asked, “Where are you, Adam?” and to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” and to Moses, “What is that in your hand?” The Creator seeks his own image, whom he made according to his own image, and the evil one envied the good Adam and cast him out of the blessed life. The Lord came hunting for the salvation of men. From Bethany to Bethphage there are seventy-two miles; from such a distance you knew the death of Lazarus, and near the tomb you are ignorant?

You place him in the tomb, and I raise him up; you carry him on a bier, and I rouse him with a shout. Then how do you ask, Lord? He says, I am about to work divine miracles here in this place, lest men be deceived. He is cautious on two sides—of spirits and of bodies—because God had become man, but that they themselves might show and bear witness to the dead one and the place. Jesus wept. Not only the eyes of the body weep, but the whole body sweats, whereby our Lord many times conducted himself in the world, even to the most insignificant needs, that he might show his kinship with our afflictions. Again, he teaches this as a limit and point: that the faithful should weep only so much as they have the hope of resurrection in themselves. Again, that upon seeing the dead one, it is necessary to weep over the man, who from the beginning inherited the human race.

Or upon the tears of the Jews, who were lagging behind the divinely wrought signs, being of little faith, and were to become heirs of Gehenna. The Jews, they say, see how much he loved him, for he wept himself. Some say, Can he not, who opened the eyes of the blind, cause that this one also not die? You are accustomed to blaspheme, who divided the sea and performed many signs; you blaspheme and are not thankful to God, and you are changed into beasts. And you denied by oath in Moses. He who made a path through the sea, who saved the whole people from the mouth of Pharaoh's sword, you do not acknowledge grace; will you be thankful for the healing of the blind? The soul of the blind man was living and moved the body, but the eyes of the blind man were dead. Breath did not dwell in the dead body, nor the light of the sun in the dead eyes. If he brought the dead eyes to life and turned back the light that had withdrawn from them, then he also makes the whole body living.

But you, in your will, have increased in blasphemy. Perhaps in that same place you are ashamed, when many from among you were glorifying my Divinity upon the great wonders, which are visible. Jesus again became angry in his mind. There he says that he disturbed himself by summoning the artisan to himself, and here he rebukes nature to cease from the movement of sorrow, which he called and disturbed. Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus, and there was a cave and a great stone placed upon the cave. It was the custom of the ancients to seal the tombs firmly, because the hope of resurrection was far from them. This they considered life, and that the bitterness of death, they considered the tomb as a memorial of the dead, and they would carve the name of the dead upon the tomb, and Moses unwillingly permitted the custom. A brother who died without an heir, the brother would take the wife of the brother, and would raise up a child in the name of the dead for the sake of the inheritance of the land to be allotted.

Or the stone covering signifies Satan, who, by his authority, kept the souls shut up in the abyss. Jesus says, "Remove the stone from the mouth of the cave." From which the earth trembles and the mountains melt; do you ask for a small, helpful stone from men? I call witness to the resurrection; you yourselves lift the stone and look into the tomb. Let your eyes be witnesses, and the weight of the stone on your backs, and the stench of the corpse in your nostrils, which you all stand near. He knew their evil custom; from every side he was careful to prevent blasphemy. What need was there to remove the stone, by whose command the abyss was to change the dead? But for the sake of the blaspheming Jews, if they deny the miracles, their own hands become prosecutors, convicting their unbelief. Or the stone is the heavy burden of Satan, the guardian of sins, who, by the authority of death, kept the sinners imprisoned.

The Lord rolls away the stone, the tyranny of the demons, that with difficulty men rise from sins after the coming of Christ. Martha, the sister of the dead man, says, "Lord, he now stinks." He brings the example of the first-created, and death and putrefaction according to the prophet. "My wounds fester and rot." And the other prophets accuse concerning the race of men, they reveal the stench of sins to the Creator, each according to his word, for the whole world in general was putrid. The smell of a man's rot comes from the dead, but of God from the sinner, and God from his own sweet fragrance perfumed all. The laborer has no smell of rot from his plantings, for his mind is full of joy, because his senses are filled with the scent of his gardens, and he said through Isaac, "The smell of my son is like a full garden." For it is fourfold. The fourfold nature of men, it seems, signifies the four-cornered world, for all are sinful and diminished from the glory of God.

Many of the four-day dead did Christ raise from the corruption of sins. Jesus says to her: "Believe, and you will see the glory of God." O Martha, the imperishable life of men is like that of budding plants; only believe in God, and a sweet living fragrance will come to you, and you will see the glory of God, and the mouths of blasphemous men will be silenced when they see that four-day dead man alive in the public square. That is salt that sweetens every risen body, and that is light that penetrates blinded eyes, and that is a voice for deafened ears, which you see by deed for your brother, and by thought you will know the glory of God. When they lifted the stone. Before the stone was lifted, Lazarus was weeping from the tomb. It is not fitting to call it a tomb, but rather to name it resurrection. He raised his eyes to heaven. Before Jesus had raised his eyes to heaven, he saw the Father.

Father, I thank you, for you heard me; Father, I thank you, for you concealed this from the wise and the learned, and revealed it to innocent children. While he had not yet called out with a voice, the Father heard him at all times. Let Theodoretus and those like him of his heresies be ashamed, who said that one calls and another hears—a word full of folly. O wicked one! In the house of the high priest he raised his daughter from the dead; he did not entreat, nor did he look to the heavens, nor did he call upon the Father. He looked at the dead one and said: "Talitha cumi, girl, I say to you, arise, stand up." And she stood up alive. Likewise also in the city of Nain, there was a great crowd, and no one importuned him, nor did he call upon the Father; he merely stretched out his hand toward the bier, and the dead one stood up. Likewise also in his other signs. Where he acted in person, he showed the divine power; where he entreated the Father, he showed his belovedness. For the nature of the blessed Holy Trinity is the nature of the one infinite in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But the property is divided among each of the faces and aspects, for this is the nature of the three. Lord God, almighty, all-provident, creator, incomprehensible, indescribable, without quality, without quantity, without beginning, without time, neither begun nor ceased. But the particularity of the Father: begetter, and cause, beginningless and beginning, and not begun from anything, sender, not born from anything nor created either from himself or from any other. But the particularity of the Son: Son, Word, offspring, light, form, wisdom, ray, image, seal, depiction. But the particularity of the Holy Spirit: true emanation, renewer, comforter, straight, good. From the Father are the Son and the Holy Spirit, but they are not called brothers, nor are both called sons. As in the example of Adam are Seth and Eve, but they are not brothers, nor are both children. For the Father is begetter, and the Son is offspring, and the Holy Spirit is emanator. And the Son sits at the right of the Father, and the Holy Spirit at the right of the Son.

For in the one hundred and ninth psalm it says: The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand." The Father speaks of the Son, and after a little while it says: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, and the Lord at your right hand. The Father speaks of the Son concerning the Holy Spirit. And thus, neither great nor small appears in the Holy Trinity, for great and small, heavy and light, many and few, times and seasons encompass. But where there are no times and no seasons, no measure and no weight approach the infinite nature, there neither small nor great is depicted. I wished to call the Father great as the begetter and the cause, but I feared from the Father himself, lest I make the beginning weak and become hostile with honors, for the glories of the Father are not such that if they are from him they are lesser than he, for this weakness would produce that he cannot beget a Son equal to himself, or a Spirit that emanates; rather, it befits his wondrous power that those which are from his nature be recognized as partakers of his glory.

Now, the Father is not born and does not issue forth, and the Son does not beget and does not issue forth, and the Holy Spirit does not beget and is not born, but always has the property of emanation. The Father rejoices in the glory of the Son, and the Son delights in the honor of the Spirit, and the Spirit glorifies the Father and the Son, for from their essence it takes and newly creates the creatures, from which everything came to be in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, sensible and intelligible, corporeal and incorporeal. Now this confession the Fathers received from the great Gregory and from the holy Rstakes and from the blessed Nerses. I make this for the sake of the congregation. He himself provides an interpretation, that God did not look to his own honor, as to our salvation, for when he made himself equal to God and would forgive sins, they called him blasphemer and possessed by a demon, so that they might believe that you sent me. If you say that I am opposed to the Father and a blasphemer, let me not be a partner with the one who opposes you. I call you to partnership, for the confirmation of the faithful and the refutation of the unbelievers.

With inexcusable sins, they who divide the indivisible nature into parts, blaspheme among men and are condemned by God, and are erased from the book of life. When Jesus said this, he cried out with a great voice. He cried out for the sake of men, drawing all who hear and see to himself. He stood far from the tomb, twelve cubits away, not approaching the dead one. Instead of the hand, he intensified the voice, fulfilling the law which says: He who approaches a dead body is unclean until evening. That voice was a heavenly thunder; for if even one grain sprouts, immediately thereafter is the expectation of resurrection for all. The stench of decay turned into a sweet fragrance for the dead one, and he came forth alive. The voice entered the tomb, took hold of the dead one’s hand, for the perception of the dead is not affected by the sound of a voice, so that those who were there might look upon the divine command through the voice, and the dead one’s coming forth might appear manifestly by his command.

According to the custom of men, standing apart, he cries out with a voice, ministers in the accustomed manner, and by the power of the voice, from the hands of the slanderer he turns the spirit, binding it with the loosened body, and turns the earthy part to earth, and the water to moisture, and the fire to its fiery substance, and the air to the air, dispersed. He does not create a living being with his hands, as the first one, but merely calls by name with his voice, and with trembling he quickly departs. Bethany a house of obedience, because Lazarus was obedient to death on account of Adam, who fell under the dominion of death. Death was obedient to Jesus concerning the creative power, and served the lordly voice as a servant, and delivered the dead one to the divine command. Jesus comes to the house of obedience, which unites the disobedience of men with the obedience of the Word of God, and is obedient with the theandric body to the common Father in place of the disobedience of Adam, and according to the divinity receives praise with the Father in the fiery powers.

Lazarus, come out. Many dead are placed in the tomb, but it was necessary for one to be called out. If it had been said without a name, who among the dead would know and come out? For this reason, he calls by name: "Lazarus, come out." Many Lazaruses were there, but the intention of Jesus' will called that one who was the brother of Martha and Mary, whom I love, for whose sake they called me, beseeching me. Now you alone come, and for others you will be a hope. If he had not called by name, the power of Christ's voice would have shattered every tomb. There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping; still the sowers sow, the plants sprout, the fruits ripen and are offered to the only-begotten Son of God. He also, by another's name, calls the dead from the tomb, whose company the prophets call by the name of the Lord, and the apostles by the name of Jesus Christ, but he himself commands with an autocratic voice: "Come out.

So that the living and sentient may learn the nature of the soul, and that souls are very far from the body, he dissolves the dominion of death, and the one seized by it, together with soul and body, having been rescued, he transforms into a living being, according to that power of which he said: "Let the waters bring forth living creatures," which he spoke and they came to be; the same voice was at the tomb. The dead man came out with feet bound and hands swathed and face covered with a shroud. He did not drag himself nor walk according to the custom of men, for he was bound with bonds and covered with wrappings. As the angel carried the prophet Habakkuk by the hair with the meal and the bowl, all the food of the reaper, to Babylon. The word of God is swifter than the angels of heaven, more powerful in its swiftness; taking the whole body by the hair, he would carry it with him. And Jesus, with his vehement voice, did not approach the end, but from the very moment of the call, he brought the soul from afar and united it with the loosened body, and raised it from the sleep of the abyss without changing its step, where the will of the Lord willed, there it immediately was found.

The linen shroud could not hinder the Lord's command; it was loosening its own order, fulfilling the Creator's will, and death, in servitude, was obedient to the Lord's command. Today he releases the first man from the bonds of the curse of death, and the preeminence of sins does not suffice to hinder the Lord's command; he rescues the transgressions into himself, and as one who has transgressed, in exchange for the guilty man, he sets the debtor, guiltless, before the Father. Jesus says to them: Loose this one and let him go. You who bound, loose; and you who wrapped, unwrap; and you who swathed, strip away. Do not shrink back; there is no odor of decay. Do not recoil according to the law; he is not dead, but alive. See with your own signs; feel with your own hands; open the covered mouth; and you, together with the other witnesses, be all witnesses concerning this death of the resurrection which you see.

Do not know all the fruit of the earth by one fruit, particular at the time and good news to the despairing. Why does he command them to untie? Because they were shameless, and always strove to destroy the truth, for which reason he makes their hands and their nostrils prosecutor and witness. In the first instance of beneficence, God was silent concerning Adam, who was silent from keeping the commandment; in the second, concerning Lazarus, because of his love for Christ, he renews him from the lifelessness of the tombs, and releases him from the shroud of death, the linen covering. Many of the Jews who had come to the house of Mary, when they saw what he did, believed in him. Some believed because of the great miracles, though later they denied; those who had come to console other mourners consoled themselves with untroubled joy, and carried good news to others in the city. Some went to the Pharisees and reported what Jesus had done.

But some, as if maddened by demons, went to the Sadducees and said, "Many have believed in him; now hasten to silence the power of the new and wondrous signs." In the house of Mariam and Martha, they eat the evening meal, and opposite sits Lazarus, risen from the tomb. He has with him the tightly bound shroud, a faithful witness, so that through the food and drink and the burial cloth, they may believe in the true and faithful resurrection of Lazarus. Mariam receives piety, the anointing of oil confesses the service of her death, and the cleansing of impure conduct, and the old dead of bodily conduct, the tears that wipe away impure conduct, the feet that with the moisture of the eyes moisten the times of life, and the seven-day period by which months and years advance, into which she would go with unholy conduct of deeds.

The Lord with his pure feet cleanses Mariam and Martha, adorns them with grace through faith, receives the one dead for four days from the tomb alive. The Father comes in benevolence, the Son entreats, the Holy Spirit intercedes. When all the fruit of this world shall be gathered without our calling, the Lord with all the ancestral primordial glories and with the power of the creative Spirit, and with the multitude of angels, by the voice of the unhandmade trumpet, having come from heaven to earth, thrones are set, tribunals are ordered, the writings of wonders are opened, voices of the living resound, the heavens roll, the luminaries in the lower regions are shaken, the earth quakes, rocks split, tombs are plundered, the dead rise; then also Lazarus appears risen with us. The upper and the lower are united, the mixed are separated, and the confused are defined; the side of the righteous ascends continually, being with the Lord over the sweet airs of the immortals, soft and tender with the immortal garments of men, united in the host of angels.

May it be granted to all of us to attain, by the grace and philanthropy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.