Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 18.15–18.31

Why must I count up all who were called by God and made his own by such marvels as those by which he too was confirmed in piety? And it is not the case that his beginnings were of this kind, so incredible and extraordinary, while he put any of what had gone before to shame by what came later, like those who very quickly grow tired of the good and then disdain further progress, or even run back altogether to vice; this cannot be said. He held fast to what had gone before, so that both fitted each other: his life before the priesthood with its excellences, and his life after it with what had gone before; it was neither fitting for him to begin otherwise than he ended, nor to advance to any other end than that from which he had set out. He is entrusted with the priesthood, not according to the present ease and disorder, but after a short interval, so that to his own purification might be added the experience and power of purifying others; for this is the law of spiritual sequence. And when he was entrusted with it, the grace was glorified the more, as being truly the grace of God and not of men, nor, as the Preacher says, some self-governed impulse and choice of spirit. [16] For he took over a church that was overgrown and run wild, which had not been shepherded by a bishop for long, but only enough to be set in order by one of his predecessors, a man admirable and angelic in character, but simpler than today’s leaders of the people; and since he was very quickly taken away, it had again for a long time been neglected and gone to waste from lack of leadership. First he tamed the people’s ways without harshness, both by words of pastoral knowledge and by setting himself forth as a model, like a spiritual statue polished into the beauty of every excellent action. Then, applying himself intently to the divine words, though he came late to such learning, he gathered so much wisdom in a short time that he fell behind none of those who had laboured on them longest, and received from God this special grace: to become the father and teacher of orthodoxy; not, like the wise men of today, bending to the times, nor presiding over our doctrine in a middling and artful way, like those who have no fixity of faith or who peddle the truth. He was more pious than those powerful in speech, and more skilled in speech than those of right understanding; or rather, though he took second place in speech, he surpassed all in piety. He knew one God worshipped in Triad, and the three brought together into one Godhead; neither Sabellianizing with the one, nor Arianizing with the three, either by contracting and godlessly dissolving the Godhead, or by cutting it up with unequal estrangements of magnitude or nature. For when each is incomprehensible and beyond our conception, how can what surpasses be conceived or defined there? Where is the infinite measured, so that the Godhead should undergo what belongs to finite things, measured by degrees and descents? … of the churches was quenched, and the storm settled into a breeze, dissolved by his prayers and exhortations; and I too, if I may be allowed a youthful boast, shared with him both in piety and in activity. We who joined with him in every good work, accompanying him, as it were, and running beside him, were counted worthy here to contribute a very large share. But let the account of these things, which has run a little ahead, stop here.

Who could count the multitude of his excellences, or, wishing to pass over most of them, would not find it hard to decide what must be omitted? For what comes into the mind always seems better than what came before, and I am carried along with it; my difficulty is more about what I must leave out than other encomiasts’ difficulty about what to say, so that abundance becomes in a way a loss to me, and my mind is tested in trying to test his qualities, being unable to find which surpasses among things of equal worth. What we see happen in still water, when a pebble falls in and becomes a centre, circle rising upon circle and, continually rippling, always breaking up the one outside it, exactly this has happened to me. One thing came to mind, another came in after it, another withdrew; and I labour over the choice, as what was grasped first always gives way to what flows in. [20] Who was more earnest than he about common affairs? Who more philosophic about domestic ones, since God, who orders all things well and in various ways, allotted him a house and a moderate property? Who was more compassionate in soul or more generous in hand toward the poor, the most dishonoured part of a nature equal in honour? For he truly thought of his own possessions as a steward of what belongs to others, relieving poverty as far as he could, and spending not only from his superfluity but even from his necessities, which is the clearest proof of love for the poor; giving a portion not only to seven, according to Solomon’s law, but, if an eighth came, not being stingy even then, but disposing of his goods more gladly than we know others to acquire them; taking away the bond and the pointing of the finger (which to me means pettiness and scrutiny of the one who will receive, who is worthy and who is not), and the word of grumbling along with the gift. This is what happens to most people: they give, but do not add readiness, which is greater and more perfect than giving. For it is far better, he thought, to give even to the unworthy for the sake of the worthy than to deprive the worthy for fear of the unworthy. And this seems to be the meaning of sending one’s bread even upon the water: it will not be swept away or lost before the just examiner of these things, but will arrive where all our things will be laid up, and will meet us in due time, even if we do not expect it.

But the finest and greatest thing is that in him freedom from ambition was joined to magnanimity. How great and of what kind it was, I come now to show. Their money was common, and so was their readiness to give, he and his yoke-fellow vying with each other toward what was best; but he left the greatest part of the giving to her hand, as the best and most faithful steward of such things. And what a woman I speak of, and of what kind! Not even the Atlantic Ocean, or any other of the greatest seas, would have sufficed her if drawn upon, so great and so boundless was her love of giving. She emulated Solomon’s leech in the opposite direction, overcoming greed for the worse by greed for the better, and having no surfeit of zeal for doing good. Not only did she consider all their property, both what they had and what was added, too small for her desire, but she would readily have sold herself and her children, had it been possible, to be spent on the poor; I often heard her say so. To her he gave over all the reins of giving. This I at least regard as better than any example. For generosity with money one may find without difficulty in others too, both what is wasted on common and civic displays of ambition and what is lent to God through the poor, which alone is treasured up for those who spend it; but we do not easily find anyone who has given up the glory that goes with it. For love of glory gives most people their readiness to spend; but where the giving is unseen, there giving is duller. [22] Such then was his hand; the rest we will leave to those who know, so that, if anything of the kind is attested of me too, it comes from that source and is a share of that stream. Who brought men to the sanctuary more in accordance with God, or was more jealous at insults against it, or with fear cleansed the holy table of the unholy? Who with such impartial judgment and with scales of justice either decided a case, or hated vice, or honoured virtue, or preferred the best? Who was so forgiving to sinners, or so ready to run with those who run well? Who knew better the time for the rod and for the staff, yet relied more on the staff? Whose eyes were more upon the faithful of the land, both others and those who live for God in the monastic and solitary life, having disdained the earth and the things of earth? [23] Who did more to chasten vanity or to love humility, and that not affectedly nor superficially, like many today who pretend to practise philosophy and are elegant in appearance, like the most foolish of women who, lacking beauty of their own, take refuge in paints and are, so to speak, decorously theatrical, unseemly through their seemliness and uglier through their adornment? For his humility was not in his dress but in the state of his soul; nor did he act humility by a languid neck, a lowered voice, a bowed face, a deep beard, a close-cropped head, or a manner of walking, things put on for a little while and very quickly exposed; for nothing affected is lasting. But the same man was most lofty in life and most lowly in mind; inaccessible in virtue, but very accessible in company. He was ordinary in his dress, equally avoiding the showy and the shabby, but surpassed many in inner brightness. He subdued the disease and insatiability of the belly, if anyone did, but without seeming to, so that the belly might be disciplined and he himself not be puffed up, hunting for reputation by novelty. For he held that it is the work of a politician to do and say everything by which he will win reputation with outsiders, since for him nothing is more blessed than the present life; but that of a spiritual man, and one of us, is to look to one thing only, salvation: to think great whatever tends to this and to spurn as worthless whatever does not; and therefore to disdain what is seen and consider only how he may be best within, and to prize whatever will make him most worthy and will draw others through him to the best. [24] But the finest and most characteristic of his qualities, and not unknown even to the many, was his simplicity, and the guilelessness and freedom from resentment of his character. For among the ancients and the moderns, one is believed to have excelled in one thing, another in another, as each happened to be counted worthy of some grace from God: Job in endurance and invincibility in sufferings; Moses and David in meekness; Samuel in prophesying, seeing what lay ahead; Phinehas in zeal, for which he is named; Peter and Paul in intensity of preaching; the sons of Zebedee in loudness of voice, for which he called them sons of thunder. But why should I count them all? I speak among those who know. Of Stephen and of my father, nothing was so much the mark as freedom from malice. For the one did not hate those who stoned him even in danger, but was stoned and prayed for those stoning him, as a disciple of Christ, for whom he suffered, bearing to God a fruit greater than his death, his long-suffering; and for the other there was no interval between rebuke and forgiveness, so that the pain was almost stolen away by the speed of the pardon.

We both believe in and hear of certain dregs of God’s anger, the remainder of his movement against those who deserve it, since “God is the Lord of vengeance.” For though he inclines out of love for mankind from severity toward leniency, he does not altogether pardon sinners, lest they become worse through his kindness. But my father bore no grudge against those who provoked him, although he was not altogether immune to anger, and in spiritual matters especially was overcome by zeal; except when he happened to be prepared and armed, and drawn up from afar against what would grieve him as against an adversary. In that way he would not have been moved by ten thousand, as the saying goes, and this was the sweet passion in him. For his anger was not like the serpent’s, smouldering within and ready for defence, nor did it rush from its first movement into wrath and the desire to pay back; but it was like the sting of the bee, without killing the one struck; and his kindness was more than human. Wheels and whips were often threatened, and those who would apply them stood near, and the danger ended in a pinch of the ear, a slap on the cheek, or a blow on the temple; so he dissolved the threat. The offender’s clothes and sandals were stripped off, and he lay on the ground; then the anger turned not against the wrongdoer but against the one who had eagerly carried this out, as a servant of evil. How could anyone appear kinder, or more worthy to offer gifts to God? For often he was not even roused first, but defended the one who had roused him, blushing at that man’s faults as if they were his own. [26] Dew would sooner withstand the sun’s morning ray than any remnant of anger remain in him; but as soon as he spoke, his wrath departed together with his words, leaving only the love of good, and never outlasting the sun; nor did he cultivate the anger that destroys even the prudent, nor imprint any sign of its evil on his body, but preserved calm even when roused. Therefore the most unusual thing happened to him: not that he alone rebuked, but that he alone was loved and admired by those he reproved, his goodness overcoming his heat; and it was truly more prized to be corrected by the righteous man than to be anointed by the wicked; for with the one even roughness is welcome because of the benefit, with the other even kindness is suspect because of the malice. Though he was of a soul and character so simple and godlike … yet he was feared by the insolent because of their impiety; or rather, nothing else struck them but simplicity despised. For it was not possible for him to utter a word of blessing or curse without giving at once either a lasting good or a passing pain; the one came from the depth of his soul, the other was only on his lips, a kind of fatherly rebuke. On many who had grieved him, requital came neither late nor, as the poet’s phrase has it, as vengeance following behind; but at the very moment of their passion they were struck, turned back, came to him, knelt, obtained pardon, and went away nobly defeated, made better by being both chastened and forgiven. For forgiveness too is often a great thing for salvation, restraining the wrongdoer by shame and leading him from fear to love, the safer kind of goodwill. Some were disciplined by being tossed by oxen worn by the yoke, which rushed at them suddenly though they had never done this before; others by being thrown and trampled by the most obedient and gentle horses; others by being seized with unrelenting fevers and with visions of what they had dared; others by being taught in some other way, and learning obedience from what they suffered.

Was his gentleness, then, so great and so well known, while he left to another the advantage in vigour and in the virtue of action? Not at all; the same man was gentle, if anyone was, and active in his gentleness. For of these two, simplicity and sternness, which as a rule fight and are set against each other, the one having gentleness with inaction, the other activity without kindness, both came together wonderfully in him: he acted like a stern man, but with gentleness; he yielded like an inactive man, but with vigour, in his patronage, in his freedom of speech, and in every kind of government. Mixing the serpent’s prudence regarding evil with the dove’s innocence regarding good, he let neither prudence become knavery nor simplicity become folly, but worked out from both, as far as was possible, a single form of virtue. Such being the man, so presiding over the priesthood, and so esteemed by all, what wonder if he was also counted worthy of signs, by which God confirms piety?

One of the marvels concerning him: he fell sick and was in poor bodily health. And what wonder if even saints suffer, whether for the cleansing of even a little mud, or as a touchstone of virtue and a test of philosophy, or for the instruction of the weaker, who learn from them to endure and not to lose heart in suffering? He was sick, then, and the time was the holy and famous Pascha, the queen of days, the bright night that dissolves the darkness of sin, on which we celebrate our own salvation in abundant light, dying with the Light that died for us and rising with him as he rises. This was the time of his suffering; what it was I will tell briefly. A violent, burning fever inflamed him to his depths; his strength had failed; he was shut off from food; sleep had been driven away; he was in distress … and was shaken by palpitations. Everything inside his mouth, the palate and all that lies above, had broken out in so many sores … that every remedy applied was of no use. He, then, was in this state, breathing little and hopelessly, not even aware of those present, but wholly absorbed in his departure and in the things long desired by him and made ready. As for us, the sanctuary held us, initiates and suppliants at once (since we had despaired of everything else), fleeing to the great Physician and to the power of that night as our last help. What shall I say? Were we there to keep festival or to lament? To celebrate, or to honour with funeral rites one who was no longer here? O the tears poured out by the whole people then! O the voices and cries and hymns mingled with the psalmody! They sought from the sanctuary its priest, from the mystery its celebrant, from God his worthy minister; and my Miriam led them, striking the timbrel, not of victory but of supplication, learning then for the first time to be bold through suffering, and crying aloud to the people and to God alike: to the people, to share her pain and to vie with her in tears; to God, to hear those who prayed, reminding him of all his wonders before this (for suffering is inventive).

What then did the God of that night and of the sick man do here? I shudder to approach what comes next in the story; and you who hear, shudder too, but do not disbelieve, for that would not be holy when it is I who tell it, and about him. The time of the mystery had come, the reverent standing and order, and the hush for the rites; and he, raised up by him who gives life to the dead, and by the holy night, rises. First he stirs a little, then more firmly; then, calling by name one of the servants who had stayed with him, in a very weak and faint voice, he told him to come, to hand him his clothing, and to support him by the hand. The man came in amazement and served him eagerly; and he, using the hand that guided him as a staff, imitates Moses on the mountain, and, forming his feeble hands for prayer, eagerly celebrates the mysteries with his people, or for them, in few words, as many as his strength allowed, but, as it seems to me, with a most perfect intention. O the marvel! Without a sanctuary he was at the sanctuary, without an altar a sacrificer, a priest far from the rites; and these things were present to him from the Holy Spirit, known to him but not seen by those present. Then, having said the words of the thanksgiving as was customary and blessed the people, he goes back to his bed; and taking a little food and getting some sleep, he recovers his spirit. And as his health grew by small additions, the new day of the feast arrived (so we call the first Sunday after the day of the resurrection), and he went to the church with the whole fullness of the congregation, dedicated his recovery, and offered the thank-offering. To me this deed is no less honourable than the marvel concerning Hezekiah, whom, when he was sick and prayed, God glorified by an addition of life, and made this known by the shadow brought back on the steps, at the request of the saved man himself, honouring the king with grace and sign together, and confirming the addition of days by the addition to the day.

The same marvel happened to my mother too, not long afterward; and it is right not to pass over this either, for we shall give her due honour, since she is worthy of honour, and we shall please him by sharing the story with her. She too, who was so enduring in everything, so noble, and free from sickness all her life, was seized by illness. Of the many things that troubled her, not to stretch out my discourse, the heaviest was her inability to eat, which endangered her for many days, with no remedy found for the trouble. How then does God feed her? Not by raining down manna, as of old for Israel; nor by splitting a rock so that it might gush forth for a thirsty people; nor by feeding her by ravens, like Elijah; nor by satisfying her through a prophet carried through the air, as with Daniel when he was starving in the pit. In what way, then? She dreamed that I, her dearest (for she preferred none of us to me, not even in a dream), stood suddenly by her at night with a basket of the whitest loaves, and that, after praying over them and sealing them with the sign, as is our custom, I fed her, strengthened her, and restored her strength. And the vision of the night was a work of truth; for from then on she came to herself and to better hope. This was shown by a clear and manifest sign. For when day came and I went in to her early, I first saw her more cheerful than before; then I asked, in the usual way, how the night had been and what she needed. “You fed me, my child,” she said, “very readily and kindly, and then you ask how I am? Very well and peacefully.” At the same time her maids nodded to me not to contradict her, but to accept the answer readily, lest she be cast down if the truth were laid bare. I will add one more thing shared by both of them.

I was sailing across the Parthenian Sea from Alexandria to Greece (I sailed quite out of season, so did my longing persuade me, on a ship of Aegina; this above all urged me on, since I was hurrying to people I knew who would carry me). As I was sailing, then, when we had put out only a little way, a terrible storm fell upon us, such as not many could remember before, as my fellow passengers said. While all feared the common death, the death of the soul was more fearful to me. For I was in danger of departing wretched and uninitiated, longing for the spiritual water amid the deadly waters. And for this reason I cried out, I begged, I longed for a little respite; and my fellow passengers cried out with me, even in the common danger, as not even some of one’s own friends would do: strangers, but kind, having learned sympathy from danger. This I suffered, and my parents suffered with me, sharing in the danger through a vision at night; and they helped from land, charming the waves with prayer, as we learned afterwards when, after our return, we compared the times. This a saving sleep also showed us, when at last we got it, as the surge eased a little. I seemed to be grappling with a Fury, fearsome to look at and threatening danger; so the night clearly sketched it for us. Another of those on board (he was a boy, one of those most devoted and dear to me, and very anxious for me in my state) thought he saw my mother step onto the sea, take hold of the ship, and draw it to land without much effort. And the vision was believed; for the sea grew calm, and Rhodes soon received us, after we had suffered little in between. Of that danger we too became an offering, having promised ourselves to God if we were saved, and having given ourselves when we were saved.