Easter Work (prose version of the Easter Song) 2.17

OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN. We who dare to call the everlasting ruler of heaven by the name of Father must first notice that the gift of so great a favor is granted not to each separately but to all in common. For although anyone, set apart from the rest and dwelling secretly in more hidden places, implores the Lord in the words of this prayer, he will not say “My Father,” but “Our Father,” since that word is owed to Christ alone, whose Father God properly is. For although this is recorded in all the gospels, yet in that passage the Lord Jesus himself plainly taught the singular power of his own right, set apart from mingling with the people, where he comforted the disciples, saying: “I go to my Father and your Father.” In saying “my,” he fittingly claimed for himself this special glory; in saying “your,” he showed that the general grace was common to all. And since it is written, “Let earthly things teach you what heavenly things are,” let us make some comparison here, so that we may grasp divine things from human. Let us suppose, then, a noble man who has an only son and some servants. Surely, because he is called father of the household, the condition of love toward the servants and toward the son cannot be equal with him, since the son himself is shown to be master of all? We, then, use this prayer, not Christ, since by the petition of this prayer we also ask him, who is one coeternal Lord with the Father. Saying, then, “Our Father,” we confess that we are all brothers in him. We must not despise the affection of this name by driving out mutual love, nor follow the monuments of the original hatred by which Cain, who shed his brother's blood, became the beginner of the stain of kin-murder; but, burning with the fire of a gentle spirit, let us lay aside the wickedness of our fleshly old self and rejoice to be clothed with the new man, lest, when earthly works begin to fall away from heavenly ones, we seem unworthy of so great a Father, who, with Christ as our leader, has received us as sons born by holy adoption. HALLOWED BE THY NAME. What hallowing can be thought of by which the Lord, who hallows all things, may be hallowed, except that we prepare a pious, gentle, calm and chaste heart for his entry? So that, delighted by such a dwelling, he may work in us the increase of his hallowing, just as our Lord Jesus Christ himself says that he was glorified in his disciples, he who always shone with the bright light of divinity. For in the gospel according to John he prays to the Father for his disciples; among the various words he went on to say, he says this: “And I am glorified in them,” that is, because he found his brightness in them. Where, then, he finds the signs of his hallowing, there he says he is hallowed. For that kindness, gentle beyond measure, declares that whatever it makes fruitful in its servants is conferred on itself. A like sense is shown in his commanding that he be blessed, though he rather blesses all things; for the general hymn of the three young men singing in the furnace cries out that the Lord is to be blessed by every creature in turn. THY KINGDOM COME. We ask that the kingdom of the Ruler who never ceases to reign may come, that he may punish the deceitful prince of this world for his presumptuous tyranny, and that he alone, who alone is, may show his rule, which knows no death and is not consumed by time. For the day of that light, continuous without night, does not know time, where the bravest soldier, having adored Christ and coming out victor after the various battles of the world, will rejoice in the crown of everlasting nobility that will adorn the hair of his blessed head. THY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN SO ON EARTH. Here too the sense of the preceding context seems to be understood: that we ought to ask with unceasing prayers day and night that the will of him may fill heaven and earth who wills that wickedness be nowhere, so that he may not suffer the devil, cast down from heaven, to be hostile on earth either, nor let the cruel serpent attack the earthly substance of our body, as if compacted of mud, as food for his voracity, and, wrapping us in his worst persuasions, embrace and encircle us with his scaly coils, until, intoxicating us with deadly poisons, he consumes our wretched life by licking it; and therefore let us pray to the Lord constantly that he may protect in us both soul and flesh alike; for in one part we are of heaven, in the other we are the seed of earth. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. To those who ask for the nourishment of daily bread a threefold sense of understanding is opened, as indeed all the divine Scriptures ought to be read. So according to the letter we seem to ask specifically for bread from the grain crop for the sake of eating, and morally, as servants, we pray to the Lord that we may deserve to obtain our daily ration, provided that we know that the form of both reasons proceeds from spiritual discipline. For we are bidden to ask for our food daily lest, keeping anything for tomorrow, we be seen to doubt God's kindness. This, however, proves so laborious and difficult that such a rule can be kept by few and very rare men. For the Lord himself, faithful in all things, who for very many years in the barrenness of the desert governed the sons of Israel, brought out of Egypt, with daily food, sparing them only on the Sabbath, promised in the words of the gospel that he would give this to us too, if faith does not fail, speaking thus to his disciples among the other things he taught: “Do not be anxious, then, for tomorrow; for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.” But if we wish to understand the words we are speaking of more fully in the spiritual sense, we will perceive that this bread is the divine word, from whose substantial teaching, if the soul remains empty or fasting even a little, it will suffer the want of great hunger. For there is no small difference between spiritual and bodily meals. We are commanded to eat the latter sparingly, never to refuse the former. Here abstinence is healthy, there eagerness gives life. In short, David proclaims in these words that blessedness belongs to those who practice meditation on the Lord's law day and night: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence, but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night.” For this meditation satisfies and delights exceedingly, like the sweetness of thick honey, which, though it quickly fills the belly of the one eating, is yet never found to cause disgust, by the nectar-like sweetness of its nature. Let us hear also what the same prophet says on this: “How sweet are your words to my throat, Lord, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth!” He defined perfectly that the words of the law are to be understood as food, when he says that they are sweet to the throat, not to the ears, and are supplied to the mouth more than honey and the honeycomb, not to the hearing. For the deaf too, whom hearing does not help at all, are likewise filled with the heavenly precepts by reading with their mouths; and the apostle, writing to the Corinthians, showed that spiritual meals are teaching, saying: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual men but as to carnal, as to infants in Christ; I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able.” Who, I ask, would doubt or question that all these things are figurative and spiritual? For no one, not even a fool, could think that they were infants or took the nourishment of milk from the apostle. But it is fitting for us to know that those who are beginning to drink in the words of the law and gradually to be steeped in the divine instructions drink milky first principles like infants, because as good teaching is healthful food, so wicked teaching is harmful. Therefore the Lord warned his disciples to beware especially of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, knowing that the venom of sour doctrine corrupts the richness of all sweetness by a small touch, since, as the same apostle Paul says, “a little leaven corrupts the whole lump.” For even if we believe rather that this bread is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is by no means known to depart from the spiritual meaning, especially because such a feast, or such a prayer, is handed down by God to none of the Gentiles, none of the Jews, but only to Christians. AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS. If we weigh the vows of our petition more carefully, we recognize from our own examples whether pardon is to be granted or denied to us. For we are bidden to hope from the Lord for what we are seen to have forgiven our fellow servant, since the same pledge of an equal condition binds us, so that, as we do not wish to be debtors, so we do not desire to have them. For in the persons of others we are either loosed or bound. And if it is thought uncertain which debtors are meant here, the material for a weak excuse must be set aside: whether in a fault, or in money, or in anything at all your brother is guilty toward you, forgive it. For both the frequent presumption of offenses and the dishonest handling of sums of money show that we are entangled in many bonds before God. For whoever, as far as his means can be weighed, has been inhuman to the needy, disowns to God what belongs to God, whose infinite kindness so protects the straits of the wretched that he declares that whatever kindly bounty bestows on the poor has benefited himself. In the vows too which we promise, having obtained divine benefits, we are debtors until we pay them with a faithful mind. These things, then, which have been said of money debts, we ought to understand also of the other and various kinds of sins by which we are bound before the eternal judgment, knowing that money has been used as the likeness for crimes because avarice is the root of all evils, without whose vicious seed almost no crimes are produced in the world. One commits murder to snatch from an innocent man what he coveted; another, bribed by a reward received, becomes a swearer of false testimony. Some are driven by gatherings for foul purchase to the pandering of adulterous trade; others stain themselves with theft, others deny a deposit. There are many other such things, in which the hunger for gold, ever their friend, fights alongside them. Indeed hardly any crime is committed that the service of money does not support. So, having obtained the gift of divine kindness and the impunity of heavenly pardon, let us not deny one another what we have received, lest, absolved from the greater, when we do not release the small, we be entangled again in the greatest bonds; and lest that merciful Lord, a giver and not an exactor of debt, who released us ten thousand talents, if he perceives that we are strangling a fellow servant for a hundred denarii, command us to be handed over to cruel torturers to exact everything, and, thrust into prison custody, we not be allowed to come out at all until we pay everything we lost, down to the measure of the last quadrans. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. Not that the Lord, who is the way of light and the path of peace, leads anyone into the snares of temptation, but, abhorring those who do not obey the divine warnings, when he deserts them he allows them to enter. For all who, following the slippery contagions of the world and shut in by its delightful nets, aim at the luxuries of alluring perdition, abandoned by the Lord, who is the lover of pure virtue, go on to enter where voluptuous temptation has drawn them. From this, then, let us strive to draw our foot back, treading instead the narrow path which, by a slender road unknown to many, climbs hiddenly to the steep gate of the heavenly kingdom. BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. When we pray to be delivered from evil, we confess that he whom we ask to deliver us is good. And not undeservedly is the one who delivers to be followed and the one who slaughters to be fled. For in the one, through good fruits, is the tree of life; in the other, through bad ones, the root of the ancient transgression. For the gospel reading declared that deeds are to be understood as fruits, where the Lord, laying open the varied minds of different men, bade each be known by his fruits, that is, by his works, saying: “By their fruits you will know them.” For as great as is the distance by which heaven is separated from earth, fire from water, light from darkness, peace from war, and life likewise from the grave, by so great a remove are good things set apart from evil. For a twofold choice always serves the judgment of our deliberation, whether we hold to the right-hand path or the left, not ignorant or doubtful that the right-hand path belongs to the just who rejoice in the bosom of the patriarch Abraham, while the left is assigned to the deep punishments of the impious, from which no one can cross to the other side through so great a chasm and the immense danger of a sheer abyss. This, then, is the freedom to be desired for us: that, if we are worthy to be counted among the sheep and lambs of the supreme Shepherd, we may deserve to escape the grim bites of the wolf and, in the most sweet pastures of Christ, most welcome with the loveliness of abundant flowers, gather a life now secure.