Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 9.1–11.5

Again anointing and the Spirit upon me; and again I go about mourning and gloomy. Perhaps you wonder at this. But Isaiah too, before he saw the glory of the Lord, and the throne high and lifted up, and the seraphim around it, says nothing of this kind, nor … nor fears; but he cries out against Israel, while sparing himself and keeping himself apart, as though he were guilty of nothing. But when he saw these things and heard the holy and mystical voice, as if he had become more aware of himself, “O wretched that I am,” he says, “for I am pierced to the heart,” and the rest of the passage, so that I may escape blasphemy. I find also Manoah of old among the Judges, and Peter later, the support of the church: the one saying, “We are lost, wife, we have seen God,” since he had perceived a vision greater than his own nature and power; the other unable to bear the Saviour’s presence and power, which he showed to those who sailed with him in the fishing, and therefore marvelling, yet sending him away from the boat, and adding the reason, that he was not worthy of divine manifestation and converse.

And when I hear in the Gospels of the centurion, who asked for the power but declined the presence, since his roof could not contain the divine dignity and greatness, I cannot blame myself for this cowardice and gloom. For the sun shows up the weakness of the eye, and the coming of God the sickness of the soul; and to some he is light, to others fire, to each according to the matter and quality that underlies. What do we think of Saul? He was anointed and shared in the Spirit, and was then spiritual (I would not say otherwise about him), and he even prophesied, and so beyond hope and expectation that the wonder became a proverb, “Is Saul too among the prophets?”, which is still said and heard today. But since he did not give himself wholly to the Spirit, nor was purely turned into another man, as had been declared, but something of the old spark of vice and of the evil seed remained, and there was in him a battle of spirit and flesh, why must I dramatize all his story? You know the contrary spirit, and the psalmist by whose songs he was charmed. But this much is clear from it: even if grace does not touch the unworthy, nor an instrument that is wholly evil and unfit (for “wisdom will not enter a soul that plots evil,” as is well said, and I am persuaded of it), yet to keep one’s worth and harmony is, in my view, no less a task than to be well tuned and found worthy at the beginning, because of the changeable and alterable character of human condition and nature. Because of this, grace itself often (to tell the most terrible and strangest of our evils) has produced pride and lifted men up, and so brought down from God those who did not draw near to him well; and we were cast down by being lifted up, “so that sin might become exceedingly sinful, working death in me through what is good.” [3] … and by example, through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, … for the shepherding that is fitting, drawing away from the world, bringing to God, spending the body … and joining it to the Spirit, fleeing darkness, rejoicing in light, driving away the beasts, gathering the flock, guarding against precipices and deserts, driving it up to the mountains and the heights. Of these, it seems, the most wonderful Micah also speaks, drawing us up to higher things … with the eternal mountains: “Arise and go, for this is not your rest,” even if the things … and turning below seem so to some. [4] Teach me this shepherding, O friends, from now on my shepherds and fellow shepherds; give me the watchwords, you our common father, who over a long time have trained many shepherds and seen them go before you, and you, the tester and judge of my philosophy. … how we … the word, and in a storm … and deafened by the din, can shepherd skilfully and nourish the flock? Since you are kind to sheep (if you will not be annoyed with me), we who shared the pasture of irrational sheep … were thought worthy of the spiritual one. You have us under your hands, and you have conquered the unconquered; and see, … together with others, … whom you sought, and whom … you honoured with the many and thick snowflakes of your words. [5] But I have something to blame in our friendship too: who of our common friends will judge between us? Or who will be an impartial judge, to give a just verdict and not suffer what the many suffer, and respect persons in judgment? Do you bid me tell the complaint, and will you not let loose your speech on me in turn? Something happened from you toward us that is unspeakable, O wonderful man, a thing truly unspeakable and incredible, and never heard of by us before. We were not persuaded, but forced. O the wonder! How all things have become new! And how far it separated us! What do you want me to say: the throne, or the greatness of the grace? Nevertheless, lead, prosper, and reign, and shepherd us who shepherd. For we are ready to follow and to be led by your shepherding soul, lofty and inspired (for the truth shall be told, even if, out of love, we have dared something beyond the law). Teach your love for the flocks, your care and intelligence together, your oversight, your vigils, the wasting away of your flesh, which wasted away for the Spirit, the bloom of your colour worn out for the flock, the intensity in gentleness, the calm and mildness in action (a thing not found in many, nor with many examples), the wars for the flock, the victories you have won in Christ. [6] Tell me to what pastures one must lead, to what springs one must go, and which one must flee, whether pastures or streams; whom to shepherd with the staff and whom with the pipe; when to drive to pasture and when to call back from it; how to fight the wolves, and how not to fight the shepherds; especially in the present time, when shepherds have become foolish and have scattered the sheep of the pasture, that I may lament the same things as the most holy prophets. How shall I strengthen the weak, raise the fallen, bring back the straying, seek out the lost, and guard the strong? How shall I learn these things and keep them according to the right rule of shepherding and according to your rule, and not become a bad shepherd, eating the milk, clothing myself with the wool, and slaughtering or selling the fatter ones, and leaving the rest to the beasts and the precipices, shepherding myself and not the sheep, for which the leaders of Israel of old were reproached? Teach me these things, establish me with these words, shepherd and shepherd together with me by these precepts, and save, by your prayers as by your teaching, both me and this holy flock, for my safety and for your boasting in the day of the appearing and revelation of our great God and chief Shepherd Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father almighty with the holy and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Nothing is stronger than old age, and nothing more venerable than friendship. By these I have been brought to you, a prisoner in Christ, bound not with iron chains but with the unbreakable bonds of the Spirit. Until now I thought I was someone strong and unconquerable, and (what folly!) I would not give my words even to these lovers and brothers of mine, so that I might keep my freedom from affairs and pursue philosophy in quiet, leaving everything to those who wanted it and conversing with myself and with the Spirit. I kept turning over in my mind Elijah’s Carmel and John’s desert, and the life above the world of those who practise philosophy in that way; I regarded present things as a storm, and I looked for some rock, or cliff, or wall under which I might be sheltered. “Let honours and labours belong to others,” I said, “and to others wars and the prizes of victory; for me let it be enough to flee wars, to look into myself, and to live as best I can, like one crossing a small sea on a light raft, and to win a small dwelling there by the poverty of my way of life here.” The reasoning of humbler men, perhaps, but of safer ones: to keep equally far from height and from falling.

Such things, while it was permitted, I could still write down as shadows and dreams, and feast my mind on vain imaginings. But now what? Friendship has won me over, and a father’s grey hairs have subdued me: the old age of wisdom, the appointed term of life, a safer harbour, and the friendship of one who is rich toward God and makes others rich. For now I dismiss my anger (let the meek hear and be glad), and I look gently on the hand that played the tyrant, and I smile on the Spirit, and my heart is settled, and my reason returns, and friendship, like a flame that had been quenched and had died away, comes alive again from a small spark and is rekindled. “My soul refused to be comforted, and my spirit grew weary within me.” I would say: “I will never again trust friendship. Why should I hope in man? For every man walks deceitfully, and every brother will trip his neighbour with his heel”; we are all of the same dust and the same lump, and have tasted of the same tree of evil, though one puts forward a more seemly tent than another. “And what profit is there for me,” I said, “in that friendship, so envied and so famous, which began from the world and advanced into the Spirit? What good was the one roof and table, or our common teachers and lessons? What good the blending of our souls, beyond that of brothers, or our genuine breathing together afterwards, if I was not granted even this much, to remain below in a time of power and height, when most people strive for the opposite and attain it, I mean to share in power and in the prosperity of their friends?”

Why should I tell all the inventions of my mind in grief and dejection (which I call gloom)? For there were these things, and things more absurd than these; I will accuse my own madness, or folly, myself. But now I take a different view and readjust myself to things far truer than these and more fitting for us. And that you may know the genuineness of my change, admirable friend: you not only break the silence for which you blamed me and against which you protested so loudly, but you even have my words as your advocates. This is already, purely, the work of our friendship and of the Spirit in us. But what is the advocacy? If I err in anything, correct me yourself, as you are accustomed to do in other matters. You could not bear to make the Spirit second to friendship; for in other things, perhaps, we are something to you, but the Spirit is far more precious to you than we are. You could not bear that the talent should be hidden and buried in the ground; you could not bear that the lamp should be covered for long under the bushel, since you take this to be my light and my work. You sought that Barnabas should be added to you as to Paul; you sought that Titus should be joined to you as to Silvanus and Timothy, so that the gift might run on through those who genuinely care for your concerns, and that you might fulfil the gospel in a circle from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum. [4] For this reason you bring me into the open, lay hold of me as I withdraw, and seat me beside yourself (this is my wrong, you might say), and make me a partner in your cares and your crowns. For this reason you anoint me high priest, clothe me with the long robe and set the mitre on my head, bring me to the altar of the spiritual whole burnt offering, sacrifice the calf of consecration, consecrate my hands by the Spirit, bring me into the Holy of Holies to behold as an initiate, and make me a minister of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man. Whether this is worthy of you who anoint, and of him on whose behalf and for whom the anointing is, is known to the Father of the true and real Christ, whom he anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, anointing the humanity with the deity so as to make both one; and to him who is himself God and Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation; and to the Holy Spirit, who has appointed us to this ministry, in which we also stand and boast in hope of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

[Oration 11, to Gregory of Nyssa] Are these things, then, sufficient, and has my discourse painted the man for you in moderate measure? Or must I, like careful painters, lay on the colours many times, so as to present you with a more finished portrait in words? Very well, I will paint him for you more fully and clearly. Who is the most illustrious of lawgivers? Moses. Who the holiest of priests? Aaron: brothers no less in piety than in body. Or rather, the one is God to Pharaoh, the leader and lawgiver of Israel, who went within the cloud, beholder and initiator of divine mysteries, and craftsman of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man; but both alike were priests. For “Moses and Aaron,” it says, “among his priests”: the one ruler of rulers and priest of priests, using Aaron as a tongue and himself becoming for him the things that are toward God; the other next after him, but far before the rest in dignity and nearness to God. Both scourged Egypt, cut the sea, led Israel through, drowned the enemies, drew bread from above, and in the desert, with water beyond belief, brought it forth in one place and sweetened it in another; both warred down Amalek by the holy stretching out of hands, a type of a greater mystery; both guided and hastened toward the land of promise. Is anything more recognizable than the likeness? Has not the painter, my discourse, clearly portrayed for you the one who shares my name and my soul? [3] Of these, the one anointed us and brought us into the open while we were hiding, I do not know with what feelings or how moved, unworthily of the Spirit in him; for even if the word is rather harsh, it will nevertheless be spoken: friendship will bear everything, both in suffering and in hearing. But the other has come to comfort, to reconcile, and to make me gentle toward the Spirit. It is a great thing that he comes to me even now (how could it not be the greatest, since I have set you above everyone all my life?), but I blame him for coming later than the need. How can there be an alliance after defeat and rout, best of friends and allies? A helmsman after the storm, and medicine after the scar? Were you, as one who loves his brother, ashamed of the tyranny? Or were you yourself, as one in power, annoyed at my disobedience? Which of the brothers do you accuse, and which do you acquit of blame? I will utter to you one of Job’s sayings, being in pain myself, and speaking to a friend, though not such a friend as his, nor in sufferings like his: “To whom are you attached, or whom are you going to help? Is it not him who has much strength? Is it not him who has a mighty arm?” For I see this happening to many of today’s judges: they would more readily grant the greatest things to the lofty than the least to the humble. This, then, you yourself would know; for it is not right for me to pronounce anything unfavourable about you, whom I set up as the boundary and rule of what is good; and at the same time I have been warned by Scripture not to be quick to judge. But I am ready to give an account, both to you and to anyone who wishes it out of friendship, of my disobedience, as some might call it, or my forethought, as I persuade myself, and my caution, so that you may know that you are not dealing with an altogether absurd and ignorant friend, but with one who is able to see some things better than the many: who is bold where boldness is warranted, and fears where there is cause for fear, and fears those things which, for people of sense, it would be more fearful not to fear.

What, then, seems right, and what is better? Shall I render my account to you now, if this is what you bid, and do you not object to the occasion? (It is a festival, not a court.) Or shall we put this off to another occasion and assembly? For the discourse is longer than the present occasion allows. But let us say to you something worthy of the festival, so that we may not send you away fasting, and that when we are the hosts. Let us purify ourselves, brothers, for the martyrs; or rather for him by whom they too were purified through blood and truth. Let us free ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit; let us wash, let us become clean; let us too present our bodies and souls as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, this our reasonable service and petition. For nothing is so precious to the Pure One as purity or purification. Let us contend for the sake of the contenders; let us conquer for the sake of the conquerors; let us bear witness to the truth for the sake of the witnesses. Let us make this our gift to their contests: that we too should show ourselves to be of their company, and heirs of the same glory, both the glory they have from us and that laid up in heaven, of which the things we see are small memorials and tokens. Let us wrestle against the principalities, against the powers, against the invisible persecutors and tyrants, against the world rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places, and, in the things of heaven, against the war within us and in ourselves among the passions, and against the daily assaults of what befalls us from without.

Let us handle anger as a wild beast, and the tongue as a sharp sword, and let us quench pleasure as a fire. Let us set doors on our ears, rightly opened and closed; let us discipline the eye; let us train raging touch and ravenous taste, lest death come up through our windows (for so I think the senses are called); and let us laugh to scorn immoderate laughter. Let us not bow the knee to Baal out of need, nor worship the golden image out of fear. Let us fear one thing only: to fear anything more than God, and to outrage the image by wickedness. In all things let us take up the shield of faith and escape all the darts of the evil one. This too is a terrible war, and this a great battle line, and this a great trophy. If we have come together, or are gathering, in this way, the festival is truly according to Christ, we have truly honoured the martyrs, or will honour them, we truly dance the victory song. But if we come to gratify the pleasures of the belly, to enjoy short-lived luxury and to refill what has been emptied, supposing these to be places of drunkenness and not of self-control, and occasions for trade and business, and not for ascent or deification (if I may dare to say it), which the martyrs mediate, then, first of all, one does not even recognize the occasion. For what is the chaff to the wheat? And what is the pampering of the flesh to the wrestling of martyrs? Those things belong to the theatres, these to my assemblies; those to the licentious, these to the self-controlled; those to lovers of the flesh, these to those who are being set free from the body. Then I would like to say something even bolder, but I spare the blasphemy out of reverence for the day; only, these are not what the martyrs ask of us; for so I may say it. [6] Let us not, then, celebrate holy things in an unholy way, brothers, nor lofty things in a lowly way, nor precious things without honour, nor, in short, the things of the Spirit in an earthly way. The Jew too keeps festival, but according to the letter; the Greek also celebrates, but as pleases the demons. But for us, since everything is spiritual (action, movement, will, word, even gait and clothing, even a nod, the Word reaching to everything and shaping man according to God), so also is our keeping festival and our rejoicing … For I do not forbid relaxation, but I chastise excess. If we come together in this way and keep festival in this way, it is a great thing, I say, that we ourselves will obtain the same prizes and inherit the same glory; for the things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human mind ever imagined, though free to shape blessedness as it will, these we believe are laid up for those who have been purified through blood and have imitated the sacrifice of Christ. But at the least we shall see the splendour of the holy martyrs (for this is no small thing, in my judgment), and shall enter into the joy of the same Lord, and shall be illumined, I know well, more clearly and purely by the light of the blessed and sovereign Triad, in which we have believed, which we worship, and which we confess before God and men, fearing nothing and ashamed of nothing, neither the enemies outside nor the false christs among ourselves, the enemies of the Spirit. And may we confess to our last breath, with great boldness, the good deposit of the holy fathers who were nearer to Christ, and of the first faith, the confession nurtured with us from childhood, which we uttered first and with which may we depart at the last, carrying this, if nothing else, from here: piety. [7] And may the God of peace, who reconciled to himself through the cross those who had been made enemies through sin; who preached peace to those near and to those far off, to those under the law and to those outside the law; the Father of love, Love itself (for he delights to be called by these names before all others, so that he may legislate brotherly love even by his names); who gave the new commandment, that we love one another as much as we have been loved; who has granted both to exercise tyranny well and to submit to tyranny out of fear, and to draw back with reason and to take courage again for the sake of the Word; who both equips great flocks and makes small ones great by grace: may he himself, according to the multitude of his goodness, comfort us with much comfort and lead us onward, shepherding and saving the flock with us; and may he equip you for every good work, persuade you to celebrate the martyrs spiritually, count you worthy of the delight there, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, and, when you appear in righteousness, satisfy you with his glory when it appears, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might, honour and worship, for ever and ever. Amen.