Catechetical Oration 32–36

What further do the objectors bring forward besides these things? That, above all, the transcendent nature ought not to have come to the experience of death at all, but even without this could have accomplished what it wished with ease by the superabundance of its power; and if it had to …, it ought not to have been outraged by the dishonourable manner of death. “For what death,” he says, “could be more dishonourable than death by the cross?” What, then, do we say to this too? That birth makes death necessary. For he who had once decided to share in humanity had to pass through all the properties of the nature. If, then, human life being bounded by two limits, he had come to be in the one and not touched the next, the purpose would have remained half-accomplished, the other property of our nature not having been touched. But perhaps one who has learned the mystery precisely would say more reasonably that death did not follow because of birth, but, on the contrary, birth was taken on for the sake of death. For he who lives forever does not enter bodily birth because he needs to live, but to call us back from death to life. Since, then, there had to be a return of our whole nature from death, stretching out a hand, as it were, to the one lying down, and for this reason bending down to our fallen corpse, he came so near to death as to touch deadness, and to give our nature the beginning of the resurrection by his own body, raising up the whole man together with himself by his power. For since the flesh that received God, which was raised up together with the Godhead through the resurrection, came from nowhere else but from our lump, just as in our body the activity of one of the senses brings the whole that is united with the part into shared perception, so, as if the whole nature were one living being, the resurrection of the part passes through to the whole, communicated from the part to the whole according to the continuity and unity of the nature. What, then, do we learn in the mystery that is beyond reason, if he who stands bends down to the one who has fallen, so as to raise up the one lying down? As for the cross, whether it contains some other, deeper meaning, those who have knowledge of hidden things would know; but what has come down to us by tradition is this. Since everything in the Gospel was said and done according to the loftier and more divine life, and there is nothing in it in which a certain mingling of the divine with the human does not appear, the voice or the act being carried out in human fashion while what is understood in secret shows the divine, it would follow in this matter too not to see the one and overlook the other, but in the deathless one to observe the human, and in the man to search out the more divine. For it is proper to the Godhead to pass through all things and to extend along with the nature of existing things in every part (for nothing would remain in being unless it remained in him who is; and what is properly and primarily is the divine nature, which the persistence of existing things compels us to believe is in all that exists): this we are taught through the cross, whose shape is divided four ways, so that from the middle, where it joins with itself, four projections are counted; because he who was stretched on it at the time of his economy in death is the one who binds and fits together the universe to himself, bringing the different natures of existing things together through himself into one agreement and harmony. For among existing things something is thought of either above or below, or the thought passes to the lateral limits. If, then, you consider the constitution of things in heaven or things under the earth, or of the limits of the universe on either side, everywhere the Godhead meets your reasoning first, alone seen in every part of existing things and holding all things together in being. Whether this nature should be named Godhead, or Word, or Power, or Wisdom, or anything else of the lofty terms that can better indicate the one who transcends all, our account has no quarrel about a sound or name or form of words. Since, then, all creation looks to him and is around him, and through him becomes coherent with itself, things above growing together with things below and the lateral with each other through him, it was necessary that we be led by the hand to the understanding of the Godhead not only through hearing, but that sight too should become a teacher of the loftier thoughts. Starting from this, the great Paul initiates the people in Ephesus, instilling in them through his teaching the power to know what is the depth and height, the breadth and length. For he names each projection of the cross by its own word: calling the height what is above, the depth what lies below, and breadth and length the lateral extensions. And elsewhere, I think, he makes such a thought clearer to the Philippians, to whom he says that “in the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth.” Here he takes the middle and the arms together in one term, naming “earthly” all that is between things in heaven and things under the earth. This is what we have learned about the mystery of the cross. And what follows from this the account contains in sequence, such that even unbelievers admit that it is nothing foreign to the conception fitting to God: that he did not remain in death; that the wounds made in his body by the iron made no hindrance to his rising; that after the resurrection he appeared to the disciples at will whenever he wished, and was present with them unseen, and came to be in their midst, not needing entry through …; that he strengthened the disciples by breathing the Spirit on them; that he promised to be with them and to be walled off from them by nothing in between; that in what is seen he ascended to heaven, but in what is understood he is everywhere; and whatever else of the kind the history contains: none of these needs the support of reasonings to show that they are divine and belong to the lofty and transcendent power. I think there is no need to go through them one by one, since the account itself shows what is beyond nature. But since the economy concerning the washing is also a part of the mystical teachings (whether one wishes to call it baptism, or illumination, or regeneration, we have no quarrel about the name), it would be well about this too …

For when they hear such a thing from us (that, since the mortal passes over to life, it followed, the first birth leading to mortal life, that another birth should be found, neither beginning from corruption nor ending in corruption, but leading the one born into immortal life; for just as from a mortal birth what is born necessarily came into existence mortal, so from a birth that does not admit corruption the one born may become stronger than the corruption that comes from death); when they hear these and such things, and are taught beforehand the manner, that it is prayer to God and the invocation of heavenly grace, and water, and faith, through which the mystery of regeneration is fulfilled, they are hard to persuade, looking at what appears, as if what is done bodily did not agree with the promise. “For how,” he says, “does prayer and the invocation of divine power over the water become the source of life for those who are initiated?” To them, unless they are very obstinate, a simple argument suffices to bring them to assent to the doctrine. For I will ask in return, since the manner of fleshly birth is plain to all, how that which is laid down for the constitution of the living being becomes a man. There is no account in that case that finds the probable by any reasoning. For what has a man's seed in common with the quality seen in man? Man, when constituted, is a rational and intelligent thing, capable of mind and knowledge; but that is seen in a moist quality, and the mind grasps nothing more in it than what is seen by the senses. The answer, then, that we can expect from those asked how it is credible that a man is constituted from that, we shall give when asked about the regeneration that comes about through water. For there, each one asked has the answer ready, that that becomes a man by divine power, without whose presence it is motionless and inactive. If, then, there the subject does not make the man, but the divine power changes what appears into the nature of man, it would be the height of unfairness, while bearing witness to such power in God there, to think that the divine is weak in this matter for the fulfilment of his will. “What has water in common with life?” they say. “And what,” we shall say to him, “has moisture in common with the image of God?” But there is nothing strange there, if, God willing, the moist passes into the most honourable living being. We say the same in this case too: there is nothing wonderful if the presence of divine power transforms what is born in the corruptible nature into incorruption.

But they seek proof that the divine, being called upon, is present at the sanctifications that take place. Let one who seeks this read again what was examined earlier. For the demonstration that the power manifested to us through flesh is truly divine becomes the defence of the present argument. For once it has been shown that he who was manifested in the flesh is God, having shown his nature by the miracles that took place, it has been shown along with it that he is present in what is done at every time of invocation. For just as each existing thing has some peculiarity that makes its nature known, so truth is proper to the divine nature. And he has promised always to be present with those who call on him, to be in the midst of those who believe, to remain in all and to be with each; and we should need no other proof of the divine being present in what is done, since we have believed him to be God through the miracles themselves, and do not doubt that what was promised is present by the truthfulness of the promise. And that the calling by prayer precedes the divine economy is a superabundance of proof that what is worked is accomplished by God. For if in the other form of the making of man the impulses of those who beget, even if the divine is not invoked by them in prayer, form what is begotten by the power of God, as was said earlier, and when this is withdrawn their effort is ineffective and useless, how much more, in the spiritual manner of birth, when God has promised to be present at what is done and has put his own power into the work, as we have believed, and our will has its impulse toward what is sought, will what is sought be accomplished all the more, if the help that comes through prayer is duly taken along with it? And just as those who pray God that the sun may shine on them in no way blunt what will happen in any case, nor will anyone say that the zeal of those who pray is useless if they entreat God about what will certainly be, so those who have believed, according to the truthful promise of the one who promised, that grace is certainly present to those regenerated through this mystical economy, either make some addition to the grace or at least do not turn away what is present. For that he is certainly present is believed because the one who promised is God; and the testimony to the Godhead is through the miracles. So that the divine is present through all this admits no doubt.

The descent into the water, and the person's being in it three times, contains another mystery. For since the manner of our salvation became effective not so much from instruction handed down as through the very things done by him who entered into fellowship with man, working life in deed, so that through the flesh assumed by him and deified along with him all that is akin and of the same race might be saved together with it, it was necessary to devise some manner in which there would be a kinship and likeness, in what is done, between the follower and the leader. We must see, then, in what things the leader of our life was seen, so that, as the Apostle says, the imitation may be accomplished by those who follow according to the pioneer of our salvation. For just as drill is brought by trained men to skill in arms through what is seen by those who are learning rhythmic armed movement, while he who does not do what is shown remains without share in such skill, in the same way all who have equal zeal for the good must necessarily follow by imitation the one who leads the way to our salvation, bringing into act what he has shown beforehand. For it is not possible to arrive at the same end without travelling by the same ways. For as those who cannot find their way through the wanderings of labyrinths, if they come upon someone experienced, pass through the various and bewildering turnings of the chambers by following behind, which they could not have passed through unless they followed step by step the one who leads, so, I pray you, consider the labyrinth of this life to be impassable to human nature, unless one takes the same road by which he, having been in it, came to be outside what enclosed him. By labyrinth I mean figuratively the inescapable prison of death, in which the wretched race of man was enclosed. What, then, did we behold in the pioneer of salvation? A three-day deadness, and life again. So some such likeness must be devised in us too. What, then, is the device by which the imitation of what happened in him is fulfilled in us too? Everything that has died has a proper and natural place, the earth, in which it is laid and hidden. And earth and water have great kinship with one another, being the only elements that are heavy and tend downward, remaining in one another and held by one another. Since, then, the death of the leader of our life was beneath the earth and according to our common nature, the imitation of death made by us is expressed in the neighbouring element. And as that man from above, having taken on deadness, after being placed beneath the earth, ran back to life on the third day, so everyone joined with him by the nature of the body, looking to the same success (I mean the goal of life), having water poured on him instead of earth and going down into the element, imitates in three rounds the three-day grace of the resurrection. Something of this kind was also said earlier: that death was brought upon human nature by divine providence as a dispensation, so that, vice having flowed out at the dissolution of body and soul, man might be recomposed again through the resurrection sound, impassible, pure, and foreign to any admixture of vice. In the case of the leader of our salvation, the economy of death had its completion, fulfilled perfectly according to its own aim. For through death what was united was separated, and what was separated was brought together again, so that, the nature having been purified in the dissolution of the things grown together, I mean soul and body, the return of what was separated might be pure of foreign admixture. But in the case of those who follow the leader, nature does not admit exact imitation in everything; receiving now as much as it is able, it reserves what is lacking for the time after. What, then, does it imitate? It brings about the annihilation of the mixed-in vice in the image of deadness made through the water; not indeed a complete annihilation, but a certain interruption of the continuity of evil, two things running together for the removal of vice: the repentance of the one who has done wrong and the imitation of death. Through these man is somehow released from his natural union with evil, advancing by repentance to hatred of vice and estrangement from it, and by death working the annihilation of evil. But if it were possible for the imitator to come to be in complete death, what happened would not be imitation but identity, and evil would be annihilated from our nature entirely, so that, as the Apostle says, he “died to sin once for all.” But since, as has been said, we imitate the transcendent power as far as the poverty of our nature admits, by having water poured on us three times and coming up again from the water we represent the saving burial and resurrection that took place in the space of three days, keeping this in mind: that as water is in our power, both to be in it and to come up from it again, in the same way it was in the power of him who holds dominion over the universe, having plunged into death as we into the water, to return again to his own blessedness. If, then, one looks to what is reasonable and judges what happens by the power of each, he will find no discord in what happens, each accomplishing what is within his power according to the measure of his nature. For as water is available to man to touch without danger if he wishes, infinitely more easily is death available to the divine power, both to be in it and not to be changed by suffering. For this reason, then, it is necessary for us to rehearse beforehand in the water the grace of the resurrection, so that we may know that it is equally easy for us to be baptized in water and to rise again from death. But just as among the things that happen in life some are more fundamental than others, without which what happens could not be achieved (although, if the beginning were judged against the end, the beginning of the matter would seem to be nothing compared with the end; for what equality is there between a man and what is laid down for the constitution of the living being? Yet if that were not, neither would this come to be), so too what belongs to the great resurrection, though greater in nature, has its beginnings and causes here. For that cannot happen unless this goes before. I say that man cannot come to be in the resurrection without the regeneration of the washing, not looking to the refashioning and recomposition of our compound. For to this nature must by all means proceed, compelled by its own necessities according to the economy of the one who ordered it, whether it receives the grace of the washing or remains without share in such initiation; but I mean the restoration to what is blessed and divine and separated from all dejection. For not all that receives the return to being through resurrection returns to the same life; great is the interval between those who have been purified and those who still need purification. For those in whom the purification through the washing has gone before in this life, the departure will be to what is akin to them. And impassibility is akin to the pure; and that blessedness lies in impassibility is not doubted. But those in whom the passions have hardened, and to whom no purification of the stain has been applied, no mystical water, no invocation of divine power, no correction from repentance, must necessarily also come to be in what is fitting for them. And the fitting thing for adulterated gold is the smelting furnace, so that, the vice mixed into them having been melted out, after long ages their nature may be restored pure to God. Since, then, there is a cleansing power in fire and in water, those who have washed away the filth of vice through the mystical water do not need the other form of purification; but those uninitiated in this purification are necessarily purified by fire.

For both common reason and the teaching of the Scriptures show that it is not possible for one who has not purely washed away all the stains of vice to come within the divine choir. This is what, though small in itself, becomes the beginning and foundation of great goods. I call it small by the ease of the achievement. For what labour is there in the matter, to believe that God is everywhere, and, being in all, is present also to those who call upon his life-giving power, and, being present, does what is proper to him? And the salvation of those in need is proper to the divine activity; and this becomes effective through the purification in water. And he who is purified will be in participation of purity; and what is truly pure is the Godhead. You see how small and easily accomplished the beginning is: faith and water, the one lying within our will, the other the familiar companion of human life. But the good that springs from these, how great and of what kind, so as to have kinship with the divine itself!