Homily on the Nativity (Mambre, 5)

Homily of Mambre Vercanoł on the Nativity of the Saviour and on the Eighth Day of His Nativity, that is, the Circumcision Light shining from light makes the vision of the lovers of light resplendent, but the heavenly and creative light, having dawned, illuminates the whole universe. The Law was light; the commandments of the Lord are light, and they illumine the eyes of the soul, as the chief musician David confessed. The baptism of John the Forerunner was also light, and it purified the confession of transgressions and the bodies by the washing of water, and it was superior to the priestly baptisms. The divine revelation of Israel was light, and its baptism. This is the supreme light and the pre-eminent light of illuminations, the light of light, for with a threefold distinction the Word, appearing from the bosom of the Father, first with a prophetic ray-gleaming illumination, announced the proclamation in the benighted polytheism.

Second, the divine and corporeal birth, being born from the incorrupt Virgin, confirmed the forefathers' prophetic visions, who, concerning the Virgin's pregnancy, the birth in Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, and the Word incarnate and divinely dwelling among us, revealed with the creative spirit three manifestations lordly and divinely. And surpassing the two, it abounds with additional grace, for it truly delineated the natures, and from the nature of nature it takes the beginning of generation and introduces the threefold into the times in which the creative wonders were silent, lest the teaching of the examples appear immature and untimely; it dissolved the causes of the envious and, completing the limit of the corporeal lords, cut off the contrary-minded will of the detractors. For in the transgression of the first man, on account of the image of the transgressor, it revealed the divine manifestation through the youthful primordial lord, so that from the two temporal witnesses the creative revelations might be confirmed as well-spoken, since the Word truly became incarnate, preserving the whole order of human parts.

And by the upbringing of the Virgin, she entrusted the childhood, and being the source of the common nature, in the childish years she caused the inarticulate utterances, and according to the legal custom, she named the circumcised eighth-day purification on the fortieth day with the blood of doves in the temple before the assembly. Thus also on the fortieth day at John the Baptist, and he completes the tradition of the entire scriptural synagogue, so that the blasphemers may be silenced by the boastful ones in the legal cause, for the forerunning of John purified the soul and body of human nature, and the incarnation on earth divinely made straight the path of purity of soul and body for the legal synagogue. I, a voice crying in the wilderness, saying a resonant voice, the herald, the foretelling, his own calling he says, and wilderness he says the hidden and unoriginated preaching of the apostles, and again wilderness, because in the cities and at the doors of kings the holy fathers prophesied.

But the great John, in the desolate wilderness of Salima and on the banks of the Jordan, went forth fiercely and cried out with a loud voice: "Repent, the kingdom of heaven has arrived; repent in repentance for the sins of those to be baptized by me," he says, "and the kingdom is the divinity of Jesus, which in his baptism revealed the creative power, and throughout the common world he confessed the power of the Holy Spirit by Jesus with the consent of the Father, and the same Baptist himself, at his coming to baptism, says: 'This is the Lamb of God and the remover of all human sins,' and he revered baptism, shrinking from the divine fire, and speaking of the service to him, he said these words: 'Why is it necessary for you, the giver of life to the common world, to be baptized, and do you debase your ineffable creation with your creature in nature? It is lawful for me to come to you, to you who give the Holy Spirit, to you who regenerate the world into the adoption of the heavenly Father, and to you who inscribe names in the book of the living.'

You give the Holy Spirit, you come to me, who did not know the sins and you burn the lawless deeds of mankind, Creator of creatures, you humble yourself before this matter, architect, Lord of your servant, your heavenly kingdom of my forerunning, God of man, giver of spirit to the endurance of the Baptist, Lord of my minister, I would not attempt, says my corruptible nature, to touch your fiery nature, for you are a consuming fire, our God, as Peter confessed at the paschal supper, wherein the great apostle recoiled from the wooden service from the corruptible, trembling nature. Here John feared to bring the water to the creative summit; there Peter, trembling, served the lordly hands with foot-washing. Here the creative word answers and says: Now this must be done. There he says: If you do not wash my feet with your hands with divine washing, you will not receive the grace of adoption with me, and as a servant obedient to both.

Now John, compelled by the command, brought water with trembling and poured it over the divine head. And there Peter, the servant, holding the Lord’s feet before him, feared to strike the Creator’s hands. And since the mystery of revelation, which takes its beginning from baptism, John baptizes not according to the forerunner’s proclamation, that you straighten the divine path for those who follow in your body and soul with pure hair. Now, the Creator of all, who is higher than himself, should purify himself, for if John cries out loudly on his behalf, that you prepare the Lord’s road, from which the all-surrounding Creator, having withdrawn, seeks baptism from the confession of the forerunner, it is manifest: I seek from you baptism from you, the giver of pure spirit, from you the spiritual one, I, the material one, from your spirit and from fire, the hope of the forerunner, and from you, the begetter above, with the font, the ordinance into confession and into bodily purity, the washer. He does not say of spirit and body on account of purity, or higher than me, the descending Lord, I am baptized by you.

But I will conclude the content with your apostolic circumcision and begin my evangelical [work] manifestly, and from the circumcision itself, by letter alone, I will command the baptism to be written down and, in a creative manner, call the baptized ones a rich reward to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and in fire and divine revelation, saying, "Let the two be faithful with witnesses." From the heavenly Father, opening the voice: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I was pleased with the world," and from the earth, the true forerunner saying, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and I will save your disciples, your forerunner, for my evangelical service in a creative manner." For with two witnesses—the creative Father and the forerunner John, and the youthful Lord Jesus—he seals the written law and reveals the spiritual divinely, and the baptism of John, which was above the priestly, he changes the letter into spirit, the evangelical forerunner, the servile into the lordly, and the divine into the human.

Because the mouth confessed John the Lordly as a lamp, and itself as the sun, and brought the assembly of the lawful into the law of night, and the coming ones from the Sadducees and from the Pharisees, it says to rejoice in the baptism of his new forerunnership and his arrival at the baptism of the sun’s risings, and as a light from the lighting of a lamp in the night, so also the children of the lowly lawful rejoiced in John’s forerunnership. But when the true sun Jesus came to his baptism and testified from the Father, he reveals the sun-radiant teaching, and the forerunner lamp of John diminishes, and the sun-radiant Jesus’ evangelical teaching gives place to the servile from the creative, as a lamp to the sun, because by speaking much of the Son of the heavenly Father, since he calls the angels sons and the firstborn of Israel from the human races, and sons by abundance: the priesthood and the kingship.

Thus it calls those who are cleansed from the holy font sons. But the true Son, the co-creative Word, from the bosom of the paternal nature, incorruptibly incarnate and more beloved than all, speaks from the co-creative co-glory, and with it is pleased with the world, because neither patriarchate nor prophecy nor priestly and John the Forerunner’s baptism were able to please the Father with the world, but only the Only-Begotten, co-glorious and co-substantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, by divine revelation reconciled the Creator with the creatures, and through the mediator abolished the transgression of the first man and of the angels, and mingled the divine benevolence with men. What is the dove-like form of the Holy Spirit to us in the Lord’s baptism? First, that the one born of water, in baptizing the divinity, should serve in the waters. Second, that the firstborn of Jesus’ creatures from the earth, the bird, should serve in a servile manner. Third, because the swift-moving, heavenly nature of the Holy Spirit, which is more rapid than all living beings, steadfastly observes the service according to John’s voice: “I saw the Holy Spirit descending in dove-like form from heaven and upon the divine one descending and resting upon the head,” because it bears witness to the co-substantiality of the material nature.

The Lordly and free co-creative Holy Spirit, for who from the non-existent would know the existent? Incarnation, but the same pure Spirit, co-glorious and with indivisible authority. For the divinely youthful Word, with ineffable nature, becomes co-existent with the Spirit's expressible nature, and in baptism, not on account of his own creative baptism, but he imprinted the image of the adoption of those being baptized. For as he sinlessly co-formed the first sinful man, so also, being sinless, he baptizes sinfully, that he might atone for the sins of those who have sinned, because Paul confessed him the firstborn of all creation. For he who was beginningless according to divinity, by becoming incarnate became beginningful, and the born one after times became the firstborn of creation on account of the beginningless divinity, so that the firstborn of the Creator and of creation, from the heavenly parts, the waters might precede to serve the servant-like, for it was water that from the beginning distinguished two kinds: the earth with spherical containment and the heaven spread flat above the established firmaments.

And because God revealed himself through water: waters shall serve the baptism of the only-begotten Son. From whom the beginning of authority, taken as adoption, shall regenerate the world for the Father of all, since in the beginning water was pre-existent, and the priestly libation of purity and the forgiveness of the pledge, and the purification of the unclean by the forerunner. But in the Lordly baptism, authority was taken not only to atone for sins, but also to receive the creative part in an adoptive manner. For Moses speaks of the visible existence and pre-existent water, and the foretelling of the youthful Father-Word following the divine, and the manifestation of the firstborn of creation in a God-seeing manner in the waters, and through water the universal world being born from animation into spiritual beings, concerning which the chief musician David, having become a prophetic foreseer by the Spirit, says: "Water above, because the heavens shall bless the name of the Lord," for even the earthly circuit of the Jordan stream flowed above more than the sky, concerning the one seated in heaven and on earth receiving baptism from himself, and the earthly man seated in heaven in a youthful manner, and the earth-dragging water above the sky for the sake of pouring down the divine body.

For the sake of the new, the fearless Isaiah says: Behold, the name of the Lord is coming from the distant years after many times, and after a short while it brings forth; and his Spirit, like flowing water, covers the neck. In the completion of the prophecies and the sealing of the law, the name of the Lord’s birth reached Herod and the high priest. But in this baptism of the Jordan, with water covering the neck, the Holy Spirit says with a clear voice and with the concord of the Father: This is my beloved Son, with him I was pleased with the world. For the valley, it says, the depth of the Jordan, and the full encircling expanse and the neck-covering with knowledge measure the Lordly body, covering the Jordan with water and baptizing the hand of the apostolic right reverently, because in the common destruction of the universe, water was that by which the bounties of the earth were removed by divine command.

But here, by a humane sign of mercy, he reveals in the waters the God who has become young again, so that by descending into the waters he might seal the first curse that was from the waters, and change the life-giving water into a generative flood, and so that the firstborn water of existence might serve the firstborn Son in two baptisms: in the Lordly one, by the Jordan, and in the Apostolic one, by the pure font. Of this kind of creative revelation in the waters, the great king David, having become a prophet through the Holy Spirit, says: The rivers clap their hands together. For when the Creator descended into the waters, the spring-dancing streams rejoiced universally, because just as when he was in the Jordan, he was wholly with the Father in his entire divinity, so also by descending into the Jordan he filled the waters entirely. For this reason, along with the Jordan, the waters rejoiced universally and clapped their hands, celebrating the two baptisms: the Lordly one by the Jordan and the Apostolic one by the holy font, so that the Lordly one might serve the baptism of John and that of the Apostles, which by the font newly begets the common children of the Creator.

What is it to us that Jesus delayed his teaching until the completion of thirty years, and that he concealed the invisible miracles of the Creator? For the thirty-year period, bringing to itself the full perfection of the body in stature from washing, and completing the limit of the body, so that, having been perfected in body, he might manifest the two natures, bringing them into himself in an indivisible co-existence, so that just as he was all-perfect in the ineffable Divinity, so also by the visible body he might reveal himself as fully adapted to the universe. Secondly, so that from the thirty years, the baptism of John, which was to manifest the equal lords, might meet the Baptist, with him (Jesus) sitting, and the Forerunner requesting baptism—the young from the young—so that according to the questions, the lords might bear witness to the co-existence, since from a distinct age, Elizabeth conceived from barrenness, and the holy Virgin from the annunciation of Gabriel.

Thus also the thirty-year-old incarnate Word was baptized by the thirty-year-old Forerunner, so that it might appear unlike and contrary to divine revelation. And further, because the time of manhood and valor is that of youth, which, united with the creative power, the deified body of the victor manifested in the Jordan, whence beginning, he would accomplish the lordly miracles and, having loosed the deified adversary from universal dominion, cast him out. But the six-month anticipation of John over the lordly ten was a forerunning preparation of the way, which not by a night vision, but by a clear, resounding voice proclaimed: "Prepare the divine path for yourselves," for he did not confess a long-delayed coming, but by the space of six months, because in manifesting his forerunning, he advanced six months, during which he fulfilled the forerunning service, and with the thirty-year-old Lord, he changed to baptizing the thirty-year-old Creator of all, Jesus.

Thus the youthful God, the magnificent Solomon, wrote in his wise songs: "Rejoice, O youth, in the ways of childhood." For the nature of the youth, with fervent common mind and body, is for the spiritual martyrdom of the virtuous. Thus also the youthful Word of the Father, at the age of thirty, revealed himself divinely to the universe in the time of light and valor, whereby he suffocated and slew the sea-dragon's armies in the waters of baptism, for it is said that he rejoiced in the manifestation at the Jordan, in the testimony of the Holy Spirit by the descent from heaven, and in the joyful delight of the universal water with the Jordan, and in the sealing of the elements by the submission of vanity. And the youthful childhood speaks of the resurrection, by which death freed the universe from death through salvation.

And those who rose from the tomb, and having been taken up to heaven on a cloud-borne chariot, and seated at the right hand of the Father in equal glory, that same youthful Lord remains immutable and rejoices eternally with universal joy in a youthful manner. Therefore, with the ineffable and divine revelation, being of foremost honor, let us bless with angelic melody, and let us unite with the Holy Spirit, who descended from heaven from the Father, together with the faithful witness who appeared in the form of a dove, luminous and orthodox, turning the minds of heretical sects. Let us join the voice of John the Confessor: Behold the Lamb of God and the Remover of the world's sins, for even if we are later in time, by the confession of faith let us be contemporaries of the Forerunner; let us be blessed of the Lord, even if we have not seen with bodily eyes, let us see with spiritual eyes and with the orthodoxy of faith, let us rejoice with the Jordan, delighting in baptism, let us clap our hands with the universal rivers, together with those who have been baptized, in a worldwide manner.

Let us be foretellers of divine joy revealed, for the Lord God our Lord appeared to us upon the earth; let us rejoice with the silent one at the submission to vanity, with the beholder of his own Creator revealed in the manifestation, the King, and at the dominion of the adversary cast out together with polytheism. Therefore, to the Father, sufficient, and to the only-begotten Son, and to the pure and liberating Holy Spirit, to the three persons and the one indivisible divinity, glorious worship and eternal praise, honor and power for ever and ever.