Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 39.1–40.4

Again my Jesus, and again a mystery: a mystery not deceitful nor disorderly, not of the Bacchic error and drunkenness (for so I call their solemnities, and so, I think, does every sensible person), but a mystery lofty and divine, which brings us the splendour above. For the holy day of the Lights, to which we have come and which we have been thought worthy to celebrate today, takes its beginning from the baptism of my Christ, the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world; and it effects my purification and helps the light which we received from him from above at the beginning, and darkened and confused through sin.

Listen, therefore, to a divine voice, which resounds very strongly in me, the initiate and initiator of such things, and may it resound in you too: “I am the light of the world.” And therefore, “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed,” being marked with the true light. It is a time of new birth: let us be born from above. It is a time of re-creation: let us take back the first Adam. Let us not remain what we are, but become what we were. “The light shines in the darkness,” in this life and in the flesh, and is pursued by the darkness but not overtaken: I mean the opposing power, which shamelessly assaults the visible Adam but meets God and is defeated; so that we, putting off the darkness, may draw near to the light, and then become perfect light, the offspring of perfect light. Do you see the grace of the day? Do you see the power of the mystery? Have you not been lifted from the earth? Have you not plainly been set on high, exalted by our voice and our guidance upward? And you will be set higher still when the Word prospers my word.

Is this some purification of the law, a shadowy one, profiting by temporary sprinklings and sprinkling the defiled with the ashes of a heifer? Do the Greeks initiate into anything of the kind? To me all their rites and mysteries are nonsense, a dark invention of demons and a fiction of an ill-starred mind, helped along by time and concealed by myth. For what they worship as true they cover up as mythical; whereas, if it is true, it ought not to be called myth but shown not to be shameful; and if it is false, it ought not to be admired, nor ought they so boldly to hold the most contrary opinions about the same thing, as if they were playing with boys in the marketplace, or with men truly ill-starred, and not conversing with men of sense and worshippers of the Word, who spurn this artful and filthy plausibility.

These are not the births and thefts of Zeus, the tyrant of the Cretans, even if the Greeks are displeased; nor the din and clapping and armed dances of the Curetes, drowning the cry of a weeping god, that he might escape his child-hating father; for it would have been dreadful for one who had been swallowed as a stone to wail like a baby. Nor are they the castrations of the Phrygians, and pipes, and Corybantes, and all the madness of men about Rhea, initiating and being initiated for the mother of the gods in rites that befit such a mother. Nor is some maiden carried off, and Demeter wanders and brings in Celeuses and Triptolemuses and serpents, and does some things and suffers others: for I am ashamed to bring the night's rite into the day and to make indecency a mystery. Eleusis knows these things, and the beholders of what is kept silent and is truly worthy of silence. Nor is it Dionysus, and the thigh in labour with an unfinished embryo, as earlier a head with another; and a hermaphrodite god, and a chorus of drunkards, and a dissolute army, and the folly of the Thebans who honour him, and the thunderbolt of Semele worshipped. Nor the harlot mysteries of Aphrodite, who, as they themselves say, was both born and is honoured shamefully. Nor certain phalluses and ithyphalli, shameful in their shapes and in their deeds; nor the slaughter of strangers among the Taurians, and the blood of Laconian youths on the altar, torn by the whips and showing their courage wrongly in this alone, they who honour a goddess, and she a virgin. For the same people both honoured effeminacy and revered boldness.

Where will you put the butchery of Pelops, feasting hungry gods, a bitter and inhuman hospitality? Where the fearful and dark apparitions of Hecate, and the underground tricks and oracles of Trophonius, or the babbling of the oak of Dodona, or the sophistries of the Delphic tripod, or the prophetic draught of Castalia? This alone they did not prophesy: their own silence. Nor is it the sacrificial art of the Magi and their divination from entrails, and the astronomy and casting of nativities of the Chaldeans, who bind our affairs to the movement of the heavenly bodies, which cannot know even what they themselves are or will be; nor the orgies of the Thracians, from whom, as the story goes, comes even the word “worship”; nor the rites and mysteries of Orpheus, whom the Greeks so admired for wisdom that they gave him a lyre that drew all things with its strains; nor the tortures of Mithras, justly inflicted on those who submit to initiation into such things; nor the dismemberments of Osiris, another misfortune honoured among the Egyptians; nor the misfortunes of Isis, and goats more venerable than the Mendesians, and the stall of Apis, a calf that lives in luxury on the simplicity of the people of Memphis; nor all the honours with which they insult the Nile, the giver of fruit, as they sing, and of fine ears of corn, who measures their happiness by cubits.

I pass over the honours paid to reptiles and vermin, and the zeal for indecency: for each of them there is a special rite and festival, and common to all is the wretchedness. So that, if they had to be impious at all and fall from the glory of God, sinking down to idols and works of art and things fashioned by hand, men of sense could not pray for anything else against them than that they should worship such things and honour them in this way, so that they might receive in the things they worship “the recompense which was due for their error”, as Paul says, being dishonoured by them rather than honouring them: abominable for their error, more abominable for the cheapness of what they worship and revere, so that they are even more senseless than the objects of their honour, surpassing them in folly as far as the objects of their worship surpass in cheapness …

Let the children of the Greeks, then, play with these things, and their demons, from whom their folly comes, who draw the honour of God to themselves and divide men among various shameful opinions and fancies; who, having cast us out from the tree of life by the tree of knowledge, which was not taken at the right time nor fittingly, overran us as now weaker, seizing the ruling mind and opening a door to the passions. For, being envious and hating man by nature, or rather having become so through their own wickedness, they could not bear that those below should attain to things above, when they themselves had fallen from above to earth, nor that so great a change of glory and of the first natures should take place. This is the persecution of the creature; for this the image of God was outraged; and as we did not see fit to keep the commandment, we were handed over to the self-rule of error; and as we went astray, we were dishonoured in the things we worshipped. For not only is this dreadful, that those made for good works, for the glory and praise of their Maker and for the imitation of God as far as possible, should become a base for all kinds of passions, which feed wickedly on the inner man and consume him; but also that they should set up gods as advocates for the passions, so that sinning might be not only beyond account but even thought divine, taking refuge in such a defence, the objects of their worship. [8] … whence Solomon laid down the law for us: “The beginning of wisdom,” he says, “acquire wisdom.” What does he call the beginning of wisdom? Fear. For we must not begin from contemplation and end in fear (unbridled contemplation might perhaps push us over cliffs), but, being grounded, purified and, so to speak, made light, be lifted to the heights. For where there is fear, there is keeping of the commandments; where there is keeping of the commandments, there is cleansing of the flesh, of the cloud that blocks the soul and does not let it see the divine ray purely; where there is cleansing, there is illumination; and illumination is the fulfilment of desire for those who long for the greatest things, or the greatest thing, or what is beyond the greatest. [9] Therefore we must first purify ourselves, then converse with the pure; unless we are to suffer what Israel suffered, who could not bear the glory of Moses' face and so needed a veil; or to suffer and say what Manoah said: “We are lost, wife, we have seen God”; … send Jesus away from the boat, as unworthy of such a visit. And when I say Peter, whom do I mean? The one who walked upon the waves. Or, like Paul, be struck in the eyes before being cleansed of his persecutions, having conversed with the one he persecuted, or rather with a brief flash of the great light. Or, like the centurion, seek the healing, yet, through a praiseworthy fear, not receive the healer into the house. Let each of us too say, while he is not yet cleansed but is still a centurion, commanding many in wickedness and serving in the army of Caesar, the world-ruler of those who are dragged down: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” But when he has seen Jesus, though he is small in spiritual stature, like that Zacchaeus, and has been lifted up on the sycamore, having put to death his members that are on earth and having risen above the body of humiliation, then let him receive the Word and hear, “Today salvation has come to this house”; and let him take hold of salvation and bear more perfect fruit, scattering and distributing well … [10] For the same Word is both fearful, by his nature, to those who are unworthy, and through his love for man accessible to those who are thus prepared: those who, having driven the unclean and material spirit out of their souls and having swept and adorned their souls with knowledge, have not left them idle and unoccupied, to be seized again with greater force by the seven spirits of wickedness, as many as are counted of virtue (for what is harder to overcome is the more eagerly sought), but who, besides fleeing vice, also practise virtue, making the whole Christ, or as much as possible, dwell in themselves, so that the evil power, finding nothing empty, cannot fill it again with itself and make the last state worse than the first, because of the more violent assault and the stronger, harder-to-capture garrison. But when we have kept our soul with all watchfulness, and set ascents in our heart, and broken up fallow ground for ourselves and sown for righteousness, as Solomon and David and Jeremiah advise, let us light for ourselves the light of knowledge; then let us speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery and shine upon others. Meanwhile let us be purified and initiated beforehand by the Word, that we may do ourselves the greatest good, making ourselves godlike and receiving the Word when he comes; and not only that, but holding him fast and showing him forth to others.

Since we have cleansed the theatre by our discourse, come, let us now philosophize a little about the feast and keep festival with the souls that love feasts and love God. And since the chief point of a feast is the remembrance of God, let us remember God. For the sound of those who keep festival there, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, I think is nothing other than this: God hymned and glorified by those counted worthy of the citizenship there. If what I now say contains something said before, let no one wonder. For I will not only utter the same things, but about the same things, trembling in tongue and mind and thought whenever I speak of God; and I pray that you too may share this praiseworthy and blessed feeling. When I say God, be illumined by one light and by three: three according to the properties, or hypostases, if one likes to call them so, or persons (for we will not quarrel about names, so long as the syllables convey the same meaning); one according to the principle of essence, that is, of Godhead. For it is divided indivisibly, if I may so speak, and joined dividedly. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one: those in whom the Godhead is, or, to speak more exactly, who are the Godhead. Let us leave aside excesses and defects, neither making the union a confusion nor the division an alienation. For far be it …

… Sabellius' contraction and Arius' division, evils diametrically opposed and equal in impiety. For why must God either be wrongly confused or cut up into inequalities?

But for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things: the “from whom” and “through whom” and “in whom” not dividing natures (for then the prepositions or the order of the names would never be interchanged), but characterizing the properties of one unconfused nature. And this is clear from the fact that they are brought together into one again, if one reads with care that saying in the same apostle: “From him and through him and to him are all things; to him be the glory for ever. Amen.” The Father is Father and without beginning, for he is not from anyone. The Son is Son and not without beginning, for he is from the Father. But if you take beginning in the sense of time, he too is without beginning, for he is the maker of times, not under time. The Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, proceeding from the Father, not as a son, for not by generation, but by procession, if one must coin a term for the sake of clarity. Neither does the Father depart from being unbegotten because he has begotten, nor the Son from being begotten because he is from the unbegotten (for how could he?), nor does the Spirit change into the Father or into the Son because he has proceeded and because he is God, even though the godless do not think so. For the property is immovable.

For how could a property remain if it moved and changed? Those who make unbegottenness and begottenness the natures of gods who merely share a name might perhaps also make Adam and Seth alien to one another in nature, because the one was not from flesh (for he was formed) and the other was from Adam and Eve. There is, then, one God in three, and the three are one, as we said. [13] Since this is so, or rather since it is so, and worship was not to be confined to those above, but there were to be some worshippers below as well, that all things might be filled with the glory of God, since they are God's too, man is created for this purpose, honoured by God's hand and by the image. And it was not like God to overlook him when he was pitiably separated from God his Maker by the envy of the devil and the bitter taste of sin. What happens? And what is the great mystery concerning us? Natures are made new, and God becomes man; and he who rides upon the heaven of heavens towards the east of his own glory and splendour is glorified in the west of our lowliness and humility; and the Son of God accepts both to become and to be called son of man, not changing what he was (for he is unchangeable), but assuming what he was not (for he loves man), so that the uncontainable might be contained, conversing with us through the medium of the flesh as through a veil, since it was not for a nature subject to birth and corruption to bear his Godhead unveiled. Therefore what cannot be mixed is mixed: not only God with birth, mind with flesh, the timeless with time, the uncircumscribed with measure; but also birth with virginity, dishonour with him who is higher than all honour, the impassible with suffering, and the immortal with the corruptible. For since the deceiver thought himself unconquerable in wickedness, having beguiled us with the hope of Godhead, he is himself beguiled by the screen of the flesh, so that, attacking as though Adam, he might encounter God; and thus the new Adam might save the old, and the condemnation of the flesh be loosed, death being put to death by flesh. [14] … by the habit of good. For even if the gift brings the remission of past sins (for it is a gift), it is then all the more worthy of reverence, lest we return to the same vomit. This is for those who are lifted up against the stewards of the mystery, if they excel in some rank. The third point is for those who are confident in their youth and think every time suitable for teaching or presiding. Jesus is purified, and do you despise purification? By John: and do you rise up against your herald? Being thirty years old: and do you, before your beard has grown, teach the elders, or trust yourself to teach, perhaps having neither age nor character to command respect? Then Daniel is brought up here, and so-and-so, young judges, and the examples are on the tongue; for every wrongdoer is ready with a defence. But what is rare is not the law of the church, since one swallow does not make spring, nor one line a geometer, nor one voyage a sailor.

But John is baptizing, and Jesus comes to him, perhaps to sanctify the baptizer too, but certainly to bury the whole old Adam in the water; and before these and for their sake, to sanctify the Jordan; for as he was spirit and flesh, so he perfects by Spirit and water. The Baptist does not accept; Jesus contends. “I need to be baptized by you,” says the lamp to the Sun, the voice to the Word, the friend to the Bridegroom, he who is above all among those born of women to the Firstborn of all creation, he who leapt in the womb to him who was worshipped in the womb, he who was and will be forerunner to him who has appeared and will appear. “I need to be baptized by you”: add, “for your sake”. For he knew that he would be baptized by martyrdom, or, like Peter, that he would be cleansed not only in his feet. “And do you come to me?” This too was prophetic. For he knew that after Herod, Pilate would rage, and that, as he had gone before Christ, so Christ would follow him. And what does Jesus say? “Let it be so now”; for this is the economy. For he knew that shortly he himself would baptize the Baptist. What is the winnowing fan? The cleansing. What is the fire? The consuming of what is light and chaff, and the fervour of the Spirit. What is the axe? The cutting down of the soul that bears no fruit, even after the manure. What is the sword? The cutting of the Word, which divides the worse from the better, which separates the believer from the unbeliever, and stirs up the son and the daughter and the bride against the father and the mother and the mother-in-law, the new and fresh against the old and shadowy. What is the thong of the sandal which you do not loose, you who baptize Jesus, you of the desert who did not eat, the new Elijah, more than a prophet, inasmuch as you saw him who was foretold, the mediator between the Old and the New? What is it? Perhaps the account of his coming and of his flesh, of which not even the least point is easy to undo, not only for those who are still fleshly and infants in Christ, but not even for those who are like John in the Spirit.

But Jesus also goes up out of the water; for he carries up the world with him; and he sees the heavens torn open, which Adam had shut for himself and for those after him, just as he had shut paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to his Godhead, for he runs to his like; and so does the voice from heaven, for from there is he to whom witness is borne. And in the form of a dove, for he honours the body, since this too is God by deification, by being seen in bodily form; and besides, the dove has long been accustomed to announce the end of the flood. But if you judge Godhead by bulk and weight, and so the Spirit seems small to you because he came in the form of a dove, O you who are petty about the greatest things, it is time for you to despise the kingdom of heaven too, because it is likened to a grain of mustard seed, and to rank the adversary above the greatness of Jesus, because the one is called a great mountain and Leviathan and king of those in the waters, while the other is called a lamb and a pearl and a drop and such names. … [17] … of martyrdom and blood, with which Christ himself was baptized; and this is far more venerable than the others, inasmuch as it is not defiled by later stains. I know a fifth too, that of tears; but it is more laborious, like his who washes his bed and his couch every night with his tears; whose bruises stink because of his wickedness; who goes mourning and with a sad face; who imitates the conversion of Manasseh and the humility of the Ninevites, which found mercy; who utters the words of the tax collector in the temple and is justified rather than the boastful Pharisee; who stoops like the Canaanite woman and asks for mercy and crumbs, the food of a very hungry dog.

For my part (for I confess that I am a man, a changeable creature of unstable nature), I both accept this gladly and worship him who gave it, and I share it with others, and I offer mercy in advance in return for mercy. For I know that I too am beset with weakness, and that with the measure I measure it will be measured to me. But you, what do you say, what law do you lay down, O new Pharisee, pure in name but not in purpose, puffing at us the views of Novatus with the same weakness? Do you not accept repentance? Do you give no place to lamentation? Do you shed no tear? May you not meet with such a judge! Do you not respect the love for man of Jesus, who took our weaknesses and bore our diseases, who came not for the righteous but to call sinners to repentance, who desires mercy rather than sacrifice, who forgives sins seventy times seven? How blessed your loftiness would be, if it were purity and not conceit, laying down laws beyond man and destroying correction by despair! For licence without correction and condemnation without pardon are equally evil: the one lets go the whole rein, the other strangles by its violence. Show me your purity, and I will accept your boldness. But as it is, I fear that, teeming with sores yourself, you introduce what cannot be healed. Do you not accept even David in his repentance, whose prophetic gift repentance preserved? Nor the great Peter, who suffered something human at the time of the saving passion? But Jesus accepted him, and by the threefold question and confession healed the threefold denial. Or do you not accept him even when he was perfected by blood? For this too belongs to your folly. Nor the man in Corinth who transgressed? But Paul confirmed love to him when he saw his amendment, and gave the reason: “lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow”, weighed down by the immoderate rebuke. Nor do you let young widows marry, because their age is easily overcome? But Paul ventured this, whose teacher you evidently are, as one who has reached a fourth heaven and another paradise, and heard more unspeakable words, and taken in a wider circle with the gospel.

“But these things were not after baptism.” What is the proof? Either prove it, or do not condemn. And if it is doubtful, let love for man prevail. “But Novatus,” he says, “did not receive those who fell in the persecution.” What of it? If they did not repent, rightly; I too do not receive those who either do not bend or do not do so worthily, and who do not make amends equal to the evil; and when I do receive them, I assign them their proper place. But if he did not receive those who were wasted away with tears, I will not imitate him. And why should the inhumanity of Novatus be law for me, who did not punish covetousness, the second idolatry, but condemned fornication so harshly, as though he himself were without flesh and body? What do you say? Do we persuade you by these words? Come, stand with us men. Let us magnify the Lord together. Let none of you dare to say, even if he is very confident in himself, “Do not touch me, for I am pure; and who is like me?” Give us too a share of your splendour. But if we do not persuade you, we will weep for you. These, then, if they will, let them walk our way, which is Christ's; if not, their own. Perhaps there they will be baptized with fire, the last baptism, more painful and longer, which eats up matter like grass and consumes the lightness of all wickedness. [20] … (for in nothing does God rejoice so much as in the correction and salvation of man, for whom is every word and every mystery), that you may become as lights in the world, a life-giving power to other men; that you may stand as perfect lights beside the great light and be initiated into the illumination there, illumined by the Trinity more purely and clearly, whose single ray from the one Godhead you have now received in measure, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might for ever and ever. Amen.

Yesterday we kept festival on the bright day of the Lights; for it was fitting for us to hold a feast of joy for our salvation, much more than men hold wedding feasts, birthdays, name-days, feasts of first haircutting, house-warmings, and whatever else they celebrate for friends of the flesh. Today we shall speak briefly about baptism and the benefit that comes to us from it, even though yesterday our discourse ran quickly past it, because the hour pressed and the discourse wished to avoid satiety. For satiety of speech is an enemy to the ears, as excessive food is to bodies. It is worth attending to what is said, and receiving the discourse about such great things not carelessly but eagerly; for this too is illumination, to know the power of the mystery.

The Word recognizes three births for us: that from bodies, that from baptism, and that from the resurrection. Of these, the first is of the night, servile and subject to passion; the second is of the day, free, a release from passions, cutting away the whole veil of our birth and leading us up to the life above; the third is more fearful and shorter, gathering all the creature in a moment to stand before its Creator and give account of its service and conduct here, whether it followed the flesh alone or rose up with the Spirit and revered the grace of the re-creation. All these births my Christ is seen to have honoured in himself: the first by the first and life-giving inbreathing; the second by his incarnation and by the baptism with which he himself was baptized; the third by the resurrection, of which he himself was the firstfruits; as he became the firstborn among many brothers, so he also deigned to become the firstborn from the dead.

To philosophize about two of these births, I mean the first and the last, is not for the present occasion; but let us philosophize about the middle one, which is now necessary for us, and from which the day of the Lights takes its name. Illumination is the splendour of souls, the change of life, the pledge of the conscience towards God; illumination is help for our weakness; illumination is the putting off of the flesh, the following of the Spirit, communion with the Word, the setting right of the creature, the deluge of sin, participation in light, the dissolution of darkness; illumination is a carriage to God, a journeying abroad with Christ, a prop of faith, perfection of the mind, the key of the kingdom of heaven, the exchange of life, the removal of slavery, the loosing of bonds, the remodelling of our composite being; illumination (why need I list more?) is the most beautiful and magnificent of God's gifts. As certain things are called the holy of holies and the Song of Songs, as being more comprehensive and more excellent, so this is holier than every other illumination among us.

And as Christ, its giver, is called by many and various names, so too is the gift: either because of our great joy in it (for those who are passionately fond of something gladly dwell even on its names), or because the manifold nature of the benefit has produced many titles for us. We call it gift, grace, baptism, anointing, illumination, garment of incorruption, bath of regeneration, seal, everything precious. Gift, because it is given to those who brought nothing beforehand; grace, because it is given even to debtors; baptism, because sin is buried with it in the water; anointing, as priestly and royal, for these were the ones anointed; illumination, as splendour; garment, as covering of shame; bath, as washing; seal, as preservation and the mark of ownership. In it the heavens rejoice; angels glorify it because of the kinship of its splendour; it is an image of the blessedness above; we wish to hymn it, but cannot do so as it deserves …