Easter Song 3.1–3.327

First, the Lord, deigning to be present at a wedding, gave proofs of his power and, present as a guest, coming to feed, not to be fed (wonderful!), turned poured-out water into wine: the waters rejoice to lose their pallor, the glad wave changed its taste, bestowing pure wine, and at every table sweet cups grew red with must not born of the vine. So Christ filled six vessels with this nectar: he who was himself the fruitful vine, by his tilling power making all things fruitful, under whose kindly covering the gentle vine-leaf nourishes grapes that never fail. Afterwards a certain official, his son dying, begged the Lord, weeping and suppliant, to visit the sick boy laboring with fever and forbid his trembling soul to slip from its seat. Then generous power, which denies nothing to the believer and does not delay its gifts, kept pace with swift faith, granting health by an easy word: “Your son lives now,” he says, “go.” How much authority Christ's command carries! He did not say “he will live” but “because he lives now,” in the manner of God, who, seeing all things before they are born, sees as past whatever he wills to be future. Then, advancing with saving steps, traveling through cities, towns, fields, cottages, villages and fortresses, he healed all bodies, driving away their diseases.

But look, crying out from the column in the middle of the crowd, a leper was asking for help, wretched with the excess of white all over his mottled limbs: “If you will, Lord,” he says, “you can cleanse me of these spots.” As Christ says “I will,” at once his skin returns to one color, and with their own beauty his glad limbs changed their foreign look, and in his own color he is scarcely recognized. It happened that a panting fever was roasting Peter's mother-in-law with the heat of a strong torch, and, hanging between life and death, her wounded life was burning amid chilling perils, and immense heat was seething a deadly cold. But after the Lord's hand touched her weary limbs, the fiery heat departed, and, quenched in all her marrow, the violence of the flame fell as by a spring of hidden water. Moreover he drove out the raging wrath of black spirits, lest their cruel breath tear men with wicked plague and harass the honor of God's handiwork, a spirit he knew was not of God; and everywhere, kindly, he restored countless crowds to health, their weakness driven out, and relieved the peoples of all kinds of disaster. Then, making for the sea, he trod the dry seaweed and, climbing into the timbers of a small boat, went out on the waters; and the disciples following the Lord trimmed the sails on the calm sea.

The boat was already far from land, and, driven by the winds, the stern was furrowing the middle of the deep in safety, when suddenly a fierce storm rises, the sea is overturned by gales, and the salt waves shake the trembling keel. Fear had struck their minds, and they thought they were already shipwrecked, stretching out their arms to the rocks of the shore. But he himself was enjoying calm sleep, wakeful in majesty, because he who rules Israel never slumbers, and will never sleep at all. So when his rest was broken, as all, weeping, cried together with one voice, “Have mercy quickly, have mercy, we are perishing, come to our aid with your kindly help,” not delaying their prayers at all, the Lord, rising, commands the strong winds to grow mild and quicker than said calms the swollen seas. It was not the fierce sea's combative daring that made the swollen waves rise against the Lord, nor were the blasts driving fearsome, savage forces: but the sea, leaping for joy at Christ, made the depths of the strait seethe in obedience, and the joyful winds moved their eager wings in rapid flight. Meanwhile, carried across the calm marble surface, he had left the boat and was traveling on foot through the fields, when far off, from the tombs, two men rushed out shrieking, harassed not by the evil of a few demons but by a fierce legion, and, in a bloody bond, bearing cruel shackles on their chained arms.

A double punishment tormented them too. Alas, the harsh lot of madness! The one who suffers violence is the one more tightly bound. Then, trembling at the command of the Lord who orders it to come out, the unhappy spirit does not dare approach a man, and gives back the image which it sees Christ to bear; but they asked, as they deserved, for the beast that rejoices in unclean filth, ever fond of dirt and used to living in stinking mud, and the sad troops took over the herd of swine: black, bristling, shaggy, such a guest was indeed worthy to have such a house. From there the Lord, carried by sea to other shores, entered his native soil, where he had willed to be born in the body, and where the Father himself had dedicated a homeland to him. Look: men were coming carrying a living corpse, four of them on their necks, and lying on a bed scarcely a man, for whom life remaining without the use of his body was the image of death; his loosened limbs lay deserted by their duties, and through his slack limbs the languid bonds hung with their sinews undone. When the Lord of mighty works saw this man lacking strength, he first cleansed him, taking away his sins, which bring increase of evil to the wretched man as he lies: “Rise,” he says, “lift your own pallet onto your shoulders and go off to your house.” Delaying his commands not at all, he to whom health had been granted, leaving behind others' footsteps, rejoices at last to walk on his own feet, and carried back his carrier in grateful repayment.

Meanwhile the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, her day closed, had died and lost the air above. But her father, from whom devouring death had taken the hope of a grown child, weeping and groaning, threw himself before the Lord's holy feet, scarcely able to utter words of prayer for the sobs that shook him, saying: “Have mercy on a bereaved parent, have mercy on an old man; just now my only daughter, not yet ripe in her virgin years, has died and taken from wretched me the name of father. Bring help and pour back her departed soul into her limbs, you who can do all things.” So he said: and the Author of light was making his way to the funeral of the dead girl, scarcely able to move his steps for the crowding people; and mingled with the crowds went a woman who had suffered from a flow of blood, who had wasted great wealth to become healthier, and, her house drained and no medicine helping, had lost her property together with her blood. But when rich faith began to dwell in the believer's now sound heart, plunging into the midst of the crowds, she strives to touch even a thread of Christ as he turned away. And, hiding behind, she stole a sudden cure, snatching it from the hem of his garment, and, the flow dried up, her bold confidence closed the open veins. God had felt this, from whose spring there ran what his secret power gave, and he praises the faithful theft and grants its wish to the excellent robbery.

They had come to the grieving roof of the sad house and the weeping home, where the maiden lay dead, having met her last day, and a frantic tumult filled all with bitter laments and howling, and the flute-players moaned funeral strains in weeping song, and constant beating of breasts had filled the house with confusion. “Lay aside the griefs your anxious minds have conceived; this is sleep,” the Savior says, “do not believe that a funeral is here, nor mourn the girl laid to sleep.” He had spoken, and he warms the corpse held fast by icy death with the fire of the Spirit, and by his word raises the motionless body and grants her who was born once to live twice. The parents were astonished in mind, and they see their unhoped-for wishes, and, in changed measures, beat their breasts for joy. Then, as he turned back, look, he sees two blind men following and crying out: “Glorious Son of David, shake off the nocturnal shadows from our darkened faces and grant us bright day.” How safe it is to believe, how sound to know God! They already saw in heart, who had perceived the way of light; then the blind eyes of those praying, like a fire growing dim when olive oil is poured on, flashed under the Lord's hand, and at his serene touch their faces, restored, shone with their own lamps.

These dismissed, another sick man is brought forward, wretched with manifold weakness, whom his voice had left, empty of hearing, filled only with a demon throughout his empty limbs. God healed him at once in holy order, turning the causes into their opposites, emptying him of the demon, restoring hearing and voice. No less, meanwhile, he bids his own disciples have power over all things, and fills them at once with all powers: “Go,” he says, “and shut out the sad plagues of disease, but to the house of Israel (for not yet had he enlarged all nations with this name) proclaim the kingdom of heaven, leave no place to demons, drive out leprosy, and call back the bodies of the dead whose life was withdrawn: you have received freely, spend freely on all.” As if he said: “To you, my ministers, I entrust the flocks to be saved; I, in short, am the good shepherd, and I lavish my own fields for food: let no one sell to my sheep the pastures that are mine.” The Almighty spoke these words first into the apostles' ears, so that from them as teachers, he himself being the author, the teaching might flow down through the rest of the ages: just as four great rivers are read to go forth in their courses from the one spring of paradise, and from them streams are scattered through the whole world.

For whoever receives under a pure name the work of the Godhead, which he does not have from himself but carries as the Lord hands it on, let him dispense it as a pure gift, so that he may be counted a steward, not a merchant, and may sing of the life to come in David's measures: “I will enter into the Lord's rest, because I do not know trade.” Then, entering the conspicuous hall of the synagogue, he sees a weak man, maimed in his divided body, half-dead in his limbs, not wholly alive, whose withered right hand had condemned the paralyzed part; and, healing by command, he orders the cold palm to grow warm again and to be restored to health in God's way, as he always does: he takes nothing away and restores everything. Look: that slippery serpent is here again, renewing his old arts, livid with the gall of black poison, who rejoices to grow fat on human gore, and the venom which he had so often scattered among different sick people he poured, advancing, into the entrails of one: he took from him his voice and his sight, and, holding his wounded limbs with a threefold fury, he shook him, mute and blind. Then the Lord of the world, our light and the Word of the Father, shutting out the filth, renewed his eyes and mouth; and words rise through the Word, sight through the Light. There had come also a woman bent by an old disease, not by age, trembling, groaning, stooped, with downcast face, bowed over and looking only at the ground.

who, by the Lord's mercy, after eighteen unbroken harvests raises her limbs, and sees at last the sky and the stars and recalls the burning orb of the sun, seeing everything, upright: because those whom the evil enemy crushes head for the depths; those whom Christ nourishes rise up without stain. And when he saw that the people who had followed him into the desert felt the ancient hunger, he, the Moses of the figure and the true prophet, showed the ancient help by greater deeds: then, with many birds, he gave rich meat; now he multiplied two fish; then he rained sufficient manna; now with five loaves he gave ample food to five thousand men. The rest of the crowd lies hidden, not counted in any number, the great legion of little ones, or the great one of mothers. And, what you may wonder at more, the fragments gathered up filled twelve baskets, and, increased as the people ate, the plenty that comes back from all the tables is more than what was given. And now, as Ocean was snatching the aging day beneath the blue of the warm sea, when the pallor of night had come and Hesperus was bringing on the starry shadows, the disciples, their master remaining alone on land, made for the billowing sea, and in the swelling flood grim waters were tossing the laboring boat; for the wind was against them. Then, in the darkness of night, the Lord walks over the waves he treads and presses the plains of the vast sea, and with gray flowings

the marble waters flowing around licked his holy soles. The astonished company marvels that ways for ships lay open to a path for feet: but Peter, taught to keep friendly faith and always to recognize Christ, goes down into the midst of the waters; the Lord's right hand lifted him as he slipped, so that he suffered nothing in so great a flood: for him that hand was a harbor, and, a traveler on the sea, he moved free footsteps over the glassy plains. Then, when the Lord came, the inhabitants of the land of Gennesaret brought their sick, so that the fringe of God, even barely touched, might heal their bitter diseases: and as many as touched it felt lasting health. How precious was the garment that was never sold, which by the gift of a little thread redeemed them all! From there, as he made for the region of Tyre and the fields of Sidon, a Canaanite woman, anxious over the affliction of her daughter, whom a spirit tormented with black goads, was begging him, having confessed herself equal to the dogs, which with their keen nose always lie at the threshold of the fragrant table, used to licking the crumbs that fall from their masters. A humble voice, but lofty faith, which, saving her daughter, made a sheep out of a dog, and made one born among the briars of the Gentiles feed on the grass of the Hebrew field.

Then, climbing the high ridges of the mountain, the people following, thousands of blind, thousands of lame from everywhere, and peoples of lepers together, and crowds of the deaf, and weak hands, and whatever of the crowd had come feeble, he restores to their former use in motion, and fits the organs he has recalled to their sinews. And while, healing, he refreshes the sick multitude by his power, the third day had come, and on the barren turf so great a people had found no food, and hunger, about to be doubled, was feeding excessive toil, if the wounded crowd should go back, fasting from food, along the long road. Moved by this kindness, God, who is always the bread of the needy and brings food to places without crops, fed a huge column of men with a few small fish and seven loaves, and, besides those of the weaker sex and of tender age, satisfied there four thousand who ate. That you may marvel the more, learn too that the food was increased: the crowd made the meal grow by eating, and the worn food grew under their bites. And fleeting hunger dreaded its remnants, seven baskets filled to the top, when, the fragments gathered, it saw an abundant harvest from a little seed.

Yet, though he bore in a human body the mortal limbs he took from his mother, it was not hidden that Christ was God, because a city set on a mountain is never hidden, nor is a burning lamp put under a bushel, but, scattering its panting flame higher, it gives light to all: for, shining with ample brightness before three disciples as witnesses, like the fiery heat of the sun, turned in splendor into a heavenly form, he had outshone the day with his face, and to those watching the white form of snow shone from the Lord's very garment. O sublime merit of the three, who were given to see in the world what was not entrusted to the world! What of their seeing both Elijah and glorious Moses? They saw them, unknown to their eyes, by the light of the heart, so that our faith may be greater: that he is through the world the beginning and the end, that he is to be seen as A, he as Ω. Around him in the middle such prophets shone, one still living, the other standing at the boundary of life. And with a starry sound, saying “This is my Son,” the Father's voice showed by its word Christ his begotten. After his power, returning through his bodily limbs, had covered the adored form with the veil of flesh, and the Lord had given himself openly to the peoples, look, suddenly a humble man, his eyes cast down and his face sad, comes forward and, a suppliant, stretches out his hands and arms and implores, groaning: “I have one son, one only, Lord, whom a spirit tears with horrible fury and does not leave, except to plunge him into water or overwhelm him in black fires, and it wears out his soul in a doubtful death.

Have pity, I pray, drive out the madness and restore him either to me or to himself, lest the blind power drive out his trembling life and take away the light.” He had spoken, and, embracing his knees and rolling at his knees, he clung to him; and the Lord with kindly heart had already assented to his prayers. Then the raging robber, the harmful enemy, who had long possessed a building that by right belonged to another, forced to leave the house he had invaded, is lifted up into blazing anger and strives to tear the limbs he had seized, and, laboring in vain as the Lord forbids, flees into dark shadows, the boy still living. The King too, the only King of kings and Lord of lords, not disdaining to pay Caesar's tribute through Peter's fishing, bids the hook bring up from the depth of the sea a carrier of a golden didrachma. Soon a dweller of the sea bit the hanging line, bearing the tribute commanded, and, heavier for the burden of metal, the cheap honor of a fish was worth a greater price. And when his disciples asked him who could be held greater in the hall of the heavenly kingdom, he answered as God and wonderful teacher: “Higher than all,” he says, “is the humble, and he will go more powerful than all who is subject to all and bears himself as lesser with bowed neck, as this one is seen to be a little one” (and he shows a small boy standing there);

that is, he bids us follow the disposition of tender age, not in years but in mind, because that softer age loves nothing of worldly pomp, does not court honor, and does not swell with head thrown back: so the path of a pure life, the lower it bends to the ground, the nearer it comes to heaven. For the mind that bends down seeks the heights, and the heights bend down, and the lower step rises where it wishes to descend. Look, the Lord lifts the humble needy man from the dung and makes him sit among the great rulers: but, on the other hand, the swollen rebel with his combative mind he commanded to go headlong from heaven down to Tartarus. I would be speaking of small things if I ran through God's deeds one by one and unrolled a particular good when the good is general.