Homily on the great day of the Lord's coming (Mambre, 3)

III. On the Great Day of the Lord's Coming to Jerusalem By providential and eternal divine mercy we have arrived at the season of benediction, in which we commemorate the heaven-resounding eulogy assembled with the universal faithful, and we proclaim the theology of the children with supernal voice, and we confess the arm of David with universal name and advent in a blessed manner. But we have manifestly encountered the union of our human nature with the Creator, crying out the twofold advent—the coming and the present—and we confess the creative revelation, which the blessed evangelists with theology—wondrous and desirable—bestowed upon the Church, discovery. Of whom one says: When they drew near to Bethphage and to Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them: "Go into the village that is before you, and when you enter, you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with it; untie them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord has need of them, and he will send them back immediately.

Jerusalem is interpreted as peace, because there the captive people were pacified, having been absolved from the transgression of the commandment by the hand of the priesthood and by the shedding of the blood of various animals, and by the daily and weekly washings. Thus also the true peace of the Church was Jesus, who by his imminent death was about to calm the disturbances of polytheism. And as Jesus drew near to the Passion, the pagans drew near from condemnation to the freedom of adoption. Now, the pagans approached the heavenly peace on account of the one who descended from heaven and became partaker of human nature through the body, and Jesus, the peace of the Church, was near on account of the prophets' foretelling and the Lord's death, which abolished the dominion of death over the universe, and by the everlasting divine life, he bestowed indissoluble life upon the multitudes, because human nature was pacified on account of the body, which was united with the Divinity inseparably.

They came to Bethphage and to Bethany. Bethphage is interpreted as "house of the jaw" [or "house of the mandible"], and Bethany as "house of mourning" and "house of obedience." Therefore "house of the jaw," because the jaw of the rational nature and the servant by the hand of motion, the minister of the commandment. The jaw of the first man loosed itself from rational servitude because of the transgression of the commandment, and the whole bodily temple remained empty of its inhabitant. Because of this, the bodily house becomes Jesus, and the eternal abode of the Trinity. And the jaw, concerning the human jaw, teaches the theology of the Creator. Now Bethany, which is "house of mourning," because the first man was a house of joy on account of having received the Lord's breath in his face, which because of the transgression of the commandment returned to the one who breathed, and the soul of the first-created became inglorious and mournful.

And the house of obedience, because of the disobedient fleshly and rational house of the creator-given traditions, let it be the house of its creator and obedient to the Father entirely, and it shall bear away the disobedience of the first man. Then Jesus sends two of his disciples. He speaks of the authoritative and spiritual traditions, of which one is apostolic and of the first grace, although later in time, but the second is prophecy, established by the Holy Spirit, so that by the testimonies of both he may confirm the lordship. And again: if one should stumble someone, the other should support him, and those who have grown cold in faith should take up these two traditions in their minds and with the love of the divine hand. Now as for the two disciples, because Jesus had many disciples, the upper eight-tiered heavenly assembly, which the great Paul enumerates: angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, seraphim, cherubim.

From our ancestors, judgments, kingdoms, and other God-given gifts, from which, as from many disciples, sending forth the two—prophecy, which truly foretold the incarnation beforehand, and apostleship, which, as a chiliarch, establishing itself in its own mysteries, says: Go into the village that is before you. For the universal multitude of men is the divine and all-seeing eye, like a village, into which it sends the prophetic before its own coming, and the apostolic at the time of the mixture with our form. It says: We find an ass tied. This is among the unclean animals, which is the synagogue of the Jews, and it was a clean animal and a sheep of the heavenly chief shepherd, having become an unclean animal from transgression, and the tied one under the authority of polytheism, from which the apostolic call looses it.

And further bound, because the Jews were bound by the preservation of the laws, he releases them from bondage through his evangelical teaching, by the calling of prophecy and apostleship. But in the youth, in the same way, he speaks of the assembly of the Gentiles, whom he looses from unholy ways and from idolatry through his heaven-born grace, which he does not accomplish by the catholicity of the laws according to the pleasures of each individual. And for this reason we liken the Jews to the more perfect living being, and the youth to the Gentiles. For those who first received the divine word are more perfect and first, and according to the chronology, "My firstborn son Israel," he said to Pharaoh. And the great Paul: "Glory, honor, and peace to the doers of good deeds—first to the Jew, and then to the Gentile." He brought, it says, the living creatures and cast them with the nets, and sat upon them.

He says from the apostolic and prophetic calling, by which he drew them near to himself through entreaty, and the donning of the garment, the pure and incorruptible vestment which the Holy Spirit bestows, so that he might sanctify the body with incorruptible raiment through purity, and illumine the soul with breath, and fill the mind, making room for the repose of the only-begotten Son within it. Again he sat upon them, for those called from both the Jews and the Gentiles into the holy Church and into the adoption of the heavenly Father, upon the most pure common hair of virtue, he sits and reposes in a lordly and divine manner. But the sitting upon the unclean animals: because not both congregations of Jews and Gentiles drew near to God in purity, but the incarnate Word called them through his teaching, and through his sufferings he dissolved the transgressions, and through his death he freed them from death, made them his throne, and sat upon the common councils, and judges and disciplines the soul and body of all, and bestows to each the good things, both the distinct and the receptive.

The garment of those who have been clothed from the same living species, upon which the one seated truly sits in the heaven of heavens upon the cherubic chariot. The garment is to be understood as the apostolic teaching; for there, in the seraphic sanctity, he sits and rests, but here, upon the apostolic preaching, he sits and works many wonders, and he directs the manifold teaching toward the heavens of heavens in a lordly manner. Now, the Only-Begotten sat commonly in heaven upon the cherubim and on earth upon the new living beings; there in a creative and equally-honored manner, here in a human-like and deified form, inseparable from the Father, wholly from the Trinity, while also being indivisible from the earth. But the perfect sitting upon the living beings is an excess of the Creator's love for his creatures, by which the lordly will, being moved, unerringly calls all human nature to his ineffable graces, and he rests and rejoices in those reborn through the font, in a brotherly and kindred manner, on account of those who have become brothers with us of human nature.

Now the Mount of Olives: the descent of the divine nature into corporeal nature, for oil is the solvent of the night. Thus the Word, having come forth from the Father and having united with the body, shone forth like the sun and dissolved the night of the whole human nature of the living. And the sojourn in Jerusalem is the consent to the voluntary sufferings. For Jerusalem is interpreted as peace, and peace, which is above all prophetic and apostolic graces, was granted to us by the divine death. For the descent into Jerusalem was to lead back our human race to the divinely built region, because the journey to Jerusalem was a journey to death, and by death he released from death those souls worthy of death. But what is the multitude of the assembly before and after, and the spreading of garments on the road? The first of the peoples: patriarchates, prophecies, priesthoods, judgments, kingdoms, the councils of the elders, the schools of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Forerunning call of John. These are the peoples who are before the incarnation of Christ.

Now the blessed apostles and the great martyrs and the teachers, and the entire newly-born of the font, who were called after the incarnation, a people who followed after. Now the spreading of the carpets on the road is the submission by evangelical teaching of the whole universe, those who spread with love their hearts and made ready the roads within themselves for the fourfold of the four evangelists, by which Emmanuel, who is of like nature with us, goes and follows, and rejoices with the temperate in delights. For the pure souls of the righteous, observing his bodily coming, confessed not merely by word, but spread out a material kind of garment, like a carpet, and in time, like a road, in a historical narrative, because we were given life in this earthly nature, and from the earthly we put on the spiritual image. But the spreading of the garments from the trees, because in the beginning and in the coming-to-be, the Word from the Father was uttered: Let there be light. And let the waters gather and the earth bring forth flowers and trees, and let everything come into being more swiftly than the blink of an eye, and let the whole earth be covered with blossoms, bringing forth at the summits a crown adorned with diadems.

From the transgression of the first ancestor, the same Word from the ineffable bosom of the Father commanded the flower-adorned earth to be thorn-bearing, for which the repentant Father sent forth the Word from his own-begotten bosom, inseparable from himself. For nature is not sufficient to bear the vision of nature; it takes our forms, and makes our nature form-kin to itself according to grace, and with our nature akin to itself, having warred with death to the measure of death, it wished to remove the dominion of death, and renewed the earth and the dry land in the first miraculous splendor. And this not in vain, but at the time when the punishment-bearing man was humbled, and the earth's prosperity, which was established for the sake of man, at the same time in the spring equinox, at which the existence of the earth had its beginning, at the same equinox it comes and restores the earth to its first order.

For this reason, the elders and children, by spreading branches from trees along the road, leafy and flower-adorned, signified thereby the cursed earth together with its thorn-bearing to be encompassed, and to be transformed into the primal God-wrought paradise-like form. Again, they spread branches from trees, because through the hand of the first planting, from the branches we received the fruit of the transgression of the commandment, on account of which they spread the same branches on the road, so that, by walking upon them with the feet of Jesus, together with our feet He might cast down the power of the adversary. But according to the intelligible type, the tree is the angelic powers, which, separated into rational and spiritual natures, were assigned to high-placed places, where also the heights of the seraphim, soaring above, trembling beneath the Lordly feet, with fourfold wings encompassing themselves, being unable to bring the visions to combustion, fearing the victorious and glorious sanctity of speech, existing unceasingly.

From such most exalted branches cut from the eloquent praises of the children, which they spread out in reality, following the testimony and the future coming, they cried out, saying: "Cursed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." And the bold-spoken Zacharias precisely articulates the deceit of the Virgin from her incompatibility, and the newborn child as God with us, and the future days, having come to Jerusalem and seated upon living creatures before the parable-speaker, but clearly saying: "Rejoice, daughter of Zion, for your King comes to you, God incarnate, seated upon impure living creatures." Why does he say Zion, and not the great Jerusalem, to rejoice? Zion was a fortress, when David reigned in Judea, having come to Jerusalem and having been besieged by the Jebusites, so that Jerusalem might not be a royal seat. But David, having fought, took the most fortified place called Zion, and built the fortress as his own house and royal residence; there he renewed the altar at Shiloh which had been destroyed; there also he brought back the ark from captivity, and renewed the entire priestly order together with the sacrifices.

And because the ineffable Word of the Father, unutterable, was imprinted in a unique manner in the Virgin, incorruptible, and was confessed by the pure mouth of the offspring of David, and having dissolved the paternal kingdom, he renews it in an adoptive manner for David, and the maker of peace, Jesus, by his own mouth, brings peace to the universe through salvation, for at Passover he commands that the Easter be held not elsewhere, but in Sion. There also he eats the lamb, there he was enclosed by the doors, and from the disciples he partakes of the honey, and he confirms the new kingdom, which is his resurrection, as trustworthy among them through the partaking. For this reason he commands the daughter of Sion to rejoice. Now the daughter of Sion, because the city of David was called Sion, and the city has the nature of a mother. Just as Joseph, of the tribe of David, is of the same nature as the craftsman, and Jesus was confessed as the son of David, so also is Sion.

The inhabitants of my time are the daughters of the first inhabitants. But according to the knowable vision, the daughter of Zion is called the daughter of peace, for the Lord brought true peace from heaven and gave it to the holy apostles, saying: "My peace I give to you, and the ineffable peace." Which having received, the disciples took from Zion the breath, which the first man expelled through impurity. In the upper room of Zion, having closed the doors, he appeared and breathed upon the apostles, saying: "Receive the pure Spirit." Thus also at Pentecost, in Zion and in the upper room, from the breath, from the thunder, tongues were divided, and the apostles, by means of fiery tongues, signified the calling of the nations through them. And truly from Zion they received peace, and from the polytheistic disturbances they calmed the world, and they reconciled the Creator Father with the creatures, and they founded the foundation of the Church in that same Zion.

Concerning such a new-wrought wonder, the prophet commands, before all others, that Zion rejoice. Now the daughter of Zion is the offspring and fruit of such graces, which is the Church; for the apostolic teaching began in Zion. This is mother Zion, and there man was born, man by the font of adoption of the heavenly Father. For this reason, mother Zion and daughter of Zion are foreseen: from Zion the calling of the apostles to the gentiles, and from the first wonders, which from Zion were transferred a second time to the gentiles, into the Church. Now he commands the daughter of Zion to rejoice, which is the calling of the universal Church. But the king Jesus, who reigns according to the creative power of heaven and earth, is king according to the body, which he united with the creative nature; and his coming speaks of the endurance of the passions; and sitting upon unclean beasts, he purifies the uncleanness of the Jews and the gentiles by his own death.

And seated upon it, he sanctifies with holiness the minds of the faithful, themselves unconfused from the Trinity. He says: Let him bind the vine to his ass. The vine confesses itself, saying: I am the true vine; and the ass is the faithful from among the pagans, whom he bound to himself, with a bond such that the temptations of this world cannot dissolve. And from the vine he makes a ball of its standard. By standard he means the holy Church, and by ball of the vine, the venerable apostles. For the vine, Jesus, bound to himself the impurity of the pagans by his wonder-working, touching all the diseased as a physician; and the ball of the vine is the twelve apostles, who, like a ball from the vine, were born from his teaching, because he bound the calling of the pagans to an eternal bond with the apostolic teaching. And the multitude of the people said: Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord. Moses and the prophets foretold this coming of the Saviour beforehand, and the priesthood always read and awaited the divine coming, because the Holy Spirit made the children theologians, and as if showing in part that he who was to come is this one, and that which you await

Again, that he may call upon the graces of the unbeginning and uncreated Trinity. And he comes to judge the world and to render rewards according to deeds. But the high priests and scribes, humbled by envy, were unable to see the truth, the unlying sun, for they became invisible in mind and in voice altogether, and moreover, rendered mute like the babble of children, they brought forth to Jesus and said: Restrain your people so that they may be silent. And he says: If I silence these, the stones will cry out. Stones have a nature of barrenness and muteness; likewise the pagans. Like that same kind, with hearts petrified, they were barren and without growth in divine piety, those who were destined through the apostolic preaching to confess his divinity. Again, the stones will cry out. He said the same thing concerning the priests, who had not yet fallen under the teaching of the apostles, and were barren in faith, those who were destined to resound the praise of the disciples, among whom were Nicodemus and Caiaphas and Paul and the seven Stephenites and the multitudes of thousands, who after the resurrection turned to the preaching of the apostles.

And again the stones will cry out. The stones are set in the foundations of the building, and they bear the whole structure upon themselves immovably. Thus also the blessed apostles were set in the foundations of the Church, firm and immovable in their faith, upon whom the edification of the Church was built. According to which, Peter was confessed as a rock by the divine mouth, confessing that Jesus descended from the Father unambiguously. Thus also those in the Scripture call the prophecies and the priesthood stones. For it says: The holy stones roll upon her earth. To roll means the divine call to the priesthood, to the judgeship, to the kingship, for the preaching of the blessed apostles and the sounds of the call reached every land with the tongue of the gospel, and their words arrived in the universe for salvation.

Now, if the children are silent, Peter the Rock, together with the apostles, will proclaim the testimony of the Son, both in the flesh and divinely, inseparable from the Father, wholly on earth and entirely in heaven, filling the cherubic throne with the Father, and, sitting upon unclean beasts, enters into Jerusalem. There, from the seraphim, he receives pure and uncreated, divinely fitting praise, and here, from the children, at the entrance, he receives in a divine and human-like manner with providence. There, with intelligible vision and the whole Godhead, he appears to the seraphim; here, with sensible nature, he is agitated, and he is all in all and fills all the sphere circularly, whose heaven was amazed and earth was astonished. And again the stones will cry out, because they always boasted in the patriarchate of Abraham's works, concerning which, reproaching us, he said: Do not boast vainly, you who are incomparable to Abraham, of the new works of the patriarch.

I say to you, he says, God is able from these stones to raise up the sons of Abraham. Just as from the barren womb Isaac was born, so also from the unbelieving and barren pagan people my lordship shall be able to beget children of faith for Abraham, who shall proclaim my coming, both in the flesh and divinely: Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord. But let us seal our words with the divinely fitting feast days; let us theologize with the children, crying out the awesome, creative benedictions; and with the disciples let us serve the Lord’s coming; with the multitude of the people let us spread garments and branches before the feet of the followers of the Creator on earth, so that wholly and with all we may partake, divinely and bodily, of the inseparable and distinct individuality of Christ, and of the unoriginate and coequal Holy Trinity; to whom let us confess praise, great fitness, and glory from our mouths—the ineffable and inexplicable one Godhead and the three persons, divided by individuality and united by divinity, for to him belong honor, glory, and power in goodness. Amen.