Easter Work (prose version of the Easter Song) 2.6–2.16

Then, by the joyful message of the angel, the shepherds keeping their flock in the night watches were the first to know that the Lord was born, so that the Shepherd of the world might shine out to shepherds and the Lamb might appear, born among the flocks. For, as the word of the Gospel testifies, it says: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” The faithful assertion of the evangelist shows whose kingdom was in question here, when the multitude of the heavenly army praises God in Christ, so that, although the birth was human by reason of his mother's condition, the one communion of the Godhead shows that the Father is known in the Son. They said, then: “Glory to God in the highest.” Surely the glory of God remained in the highest, from which Christ, in coming, did not withdraw. “And on earth peace to men of good will.” We must believe that men are called earth, from which we were formed when the Lord fashioned us, who rebuked Adam saying: “For you are earth, and to earth you shall go.” For then our earth won peace after that deadly war in which it fell, when Christ took the earth of our flesh. For if we think that in this place the fields and mountains are called earth, what peace or battles can a dumb and sluggish mass have? That peace, then, came down especially on men whom it found capable of good will, so that wherever he who searches the reins and the heart sees the zeal of a sincere intention, there he delights to prepare the home of his dwelling. For peace is also the reasoning of the better will not to favor the contest of the flesh against the spirit, but to keep both natures always in harmonious purity under the rule of the spirit. Nor should we distrust the weakness of the flesh so much as to seem to despair of heavenly help. For the almighty Lord Jesus Christ, who is shown to be the mediator of God and man, so as to take away from us the excuse of bodily frailty, asking only for the zeal of our will, kept for his majesty the perfecting of the good work. For the apostle's teaching explains it thus, saying: “To will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find,” because to will the good is ours, to accomplish it is God's, who pours his peace on men of good will. The divine word then continues, saying:

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi came from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to adore him. Hearing this, King Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And gathering all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. And they said: In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah; for from you shall come a leader who shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, secretly calling the magi, learned from them the time of the star that appeared to them. And sending them to Bethlehem he said: Go and inquire diligently about the child, and when you have found him, report to me, that I too may come and adore him.” Fittingly, in agreement with the decree of the Scriptures, Christ's birth shone from the East, because it fulfills what Zechariah's prayer signifies: “The Dayspring from on high has visited us.” For David's psalm too contains the like: “In the sun he has set his tabernacle,” and so on; by the sun it signifies the East, the region from which the day always rises. Why, then, Herod, do you rage so cunningly? Why are you madly insane? You profess Christ with your tongue, you persecute him with your heart, and you hide a foul mind, condemned to the darkness of cloudy gloom, under the calm of a pleasant face. For you order Christ to be sought not to be adored with the devotion you feign, but to be killed by the frauds you plot. You err greatly and are deceived in believing that he will succeed you, he who rules first on the royal throne, who neither succeeds at all nor departs, but eternally possesses the throne of his majesty; and you read the law and neglect it, you who threaten the King of kings with your kingdom. This guilt has no words, this treachery has no excuse: for you are trying to destroy him whom you had promised to adore. Perhaps you would have sinned less if you had asked nothing about Christ, so that, persecuting him only as an unknown man, you would be seen as a murderer only, and not also as sacrilegious, having offended God. Had you not read him warning in David's song: “Do not touch my anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm”? Since, then, it is necessary to obey the divine command, that neither his anointed nor his prophets should suffer anything from malicious wickedness, because it is a great sin to treat insultingly those consecrated with spiritual ointment, what name will this crime have, that you plot by your deceits to kill the Lord Christ himself, from whom the anointed are named, the true Prophet himself, from whom true prophecy comes down? Ought you not to have followed David, obedient to the Lord's commands, who, when Saul entered the cave in which he lay hidden and he was urged to kill him, said: “Far be it from me entirely, may it not happen to me from the Lord, if I do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to lay my hand on him, for he is the Lord's anointed.” And he indeed spared the enemy who wished to kill him. But you lie in wait for the Lord, who was born for the salvation of the world. And if, forgetful of the ancients, you were moved by no examples, for this reason at least you ought to have laid down the arms of your parricidal attempt, so as not to cast down the power of the scepter you bore, you who are known to be anointed and persecute the author of anointing. Yet lest the bloody treachery of your name should withdraw from its fill of so great a crime, what you plot in vain fury another Herod will see afterwards, under the heavenly honor of the cross but by the hellish crime of your nation.

The Gospel passage then continues thus: “When they had heard the king, they departed. And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. Seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy, and entering the house they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him, and opening their treasures they offered him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.” What does it mean that the star they had seen went before them, except that, looking to the guidance of a small star, they might find the substance of full light? And they adored him because they had truly come to adore, which Herod, saying falsely that he would do it, did not deserve to obtain. For it is granted to adore God only to true adorers, as our Lord himself said to the Samaritan woman: “You adore what you do not know; we adore what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true adorers will adore the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such to adore him.” Although the words of the Lord's teaching are clear and open, that only truth adores God, we must yet examine more carefully the force of the saying: “the hour comes, and now is, when the true adorers will adore the Father in spirit and truth.” I think, then, according to the understanding the Lord grants to my littleness, that by signifying the present time, in which he showed himself openly to the world, he said that the Father is adored in him. For so he made clear in the words that follow, saying: “He has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father.” And magnificently, after he said “in spirit,” he added “and truth,” since truth follows those who bear the Spirit of God, and falsehood accompanies one who bears a foreign spirit. Another mystery too is declared in the persons of these magi: for by them, Gentiles and strangers who came to him, our Lord Jesus Christ showed the grace of the law to come, that he had now prepared for all nations a way of coming to him. So he is known to have spoken both through his prophets and through himself. Through the prophets indeed, though he foretold this often, he explained it by David's testimony thus: “The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” He called the nations a wonderful inheritance, because it was being prepared to be acquired for the Lord through the grace of the new testament. And through himself, in the Gospel, as a good shepherd he promised thus: “And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them too, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one fold and one shepherd.” Nor let us believe that the devotion of the gifts lacked a divine purpose. For through those kinds of gifts, offered with fittingly different meanings, Christ's power was clearly declared. Let us inquire carefully what the gift of gold proclaims. Without doubt so splendid a substance, shining with the wealth of metallic splendor, is said to have been offered as to a king. But in this king too we confess a twofold substance: for Christ both reigns spiritually in heaven and was born in the flesh king of the Jews. The gift of incense, because that incense was once used for a religious offering, is given to Christ as God; myrrh, because it is suited to the burial of bodies, is presented to him who was to die in human flesh, for the honor of the tomb. The very offering, threefold in quantity, proclaimed by its number the worship of the catholic faith, since almighty God, who sees present, past and future and who always is, was always and will always be, in the threefold power of his Godhead set the foundation of all things in the course of those times, although all things are always present before his eyes, who has received neither the age of antiquity nor the growth of youth, but who never ceases to be the same as he always is. For to Moses, carefully asking the lofty name of his power so as to tell it to the people of Israel, he uttered from the flame of the bush that did not burn: “I am who am,” and said: “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you.” Likewise in the Gospel he said to the Jews who put Abraham before him in antiquity: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am.” See the difference of the two substances, distinguishing God and man. Of Abraham he said “before he came to be”; of himself he did not say “I was,” but “I am,” because the being of the Godhead is not to have been, since it stands in ever-living eternity, neither rising from beginnings nor unfolding to ends. For time is from God, not God from time.

The reading continues thus: “And having received an answer in sleep not to return to Herod, they went back to their country by another way.” We too, then, ought to imitate the faithful deeds of the magi, and as they believed a dream, let us now believe the most evident sights, so that we who have deserved to adore Christ, found by the shining sign of the cross, and to offer him from the treasures of our heart gifts of threefold praise, may no longer return to the prince of this world, the deceiver who had once led us astray, but, leaving our former path, may go by the secret ways of that road which directs the steps of those who trust to the heavenly fatherland.

Then such deeds are told in order: “Then Herod, seeing that he had been mocked by the magi, was very angry, and sending he killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the magi.” So, mocked by the magi whom he had believed he would mock, the impious king made public with headlong anger the emotions he had concealed, if it is fitting to call him a king who neither held to kindness nor tempered his own spirit by ruling it, but, like a most savage and bloody lion from which a tender lamb may perhaps be taken away, exercises his bestial onslaught on the whole flock of little blood, and chews, tears, plucks and kills the softest cattle; the most wretched mothers stand far off calling in vain their young, now lost, and stir the empty air with constant bleating: so Herod, goaded by Christ's escape, did not cease to dash the troops of little ones in bloody tyranny. For what crime, I ask, does an innocent crowd succumb to death? Why are those who have scarcely just been born already worthy to be punished? There is fury in the bloody king, not reason; enemy of the first cries of infants and setting out to commit a countless crime, he slaughtered thousands of boyish age and bereaved so many mothers together in one grief. One, pitiable, tearing the hair loosened over her face, wounded her bare head with the disfigurement of her lost hair; another furrowed her cheeks, wet with showers of tears, with the violence of her nails; another bloodied her breast with hard blows; an unhappy mother, no longer a mother, falling over the cold corpse of her only son, killed, poured out the abundance of milk with blood through the torn veins of her breasts. No one can set out the images of that calamity, so varied and so manifold, where there was one grief in different kinds of lament. What feeling had you, what was the intention of your mind, no longer a tyrant but a butcher? What roars did you belch out, inflamed, when, looking out from the highest citadel on the wounds of innocent little ones, you saw a vast sea of tears gathered in flood? Yet among the slain infants, who certainly fell but did not perish, though Christ was away, he could not be absent, he who, always inserted into the dangers of his saints, feels in his kindness the punishments inflicted on others' bodies for his sake.

And when, advancing in age, he was twelve years old (a number he had drawn from the flesh, running, that is, through temporal life by human reckoning), he showed himself older than the elders in prudence and a master to the masters in teaching, so that, as the manifest interpreter of his own law, he, though lesser, showed how great he was.

And after no long delay of time (what delay can there be in times, which in their swift and fleeting course recede before they have come?), as the evangelist indicates, “Jesus himself was about thirty years old, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.” Most splendidly he kept both words, “about” and “was supposed,” for the divinity; for as he was seen to be about thirty years old though he is eternal, so he was supposed to be the son of Joseph though he was born of a virgin. Then he came to the streams of the Jordan to be baptized, seeking what he had come to give, to be washed who had come to wash. John the Baptist, seeing him (John, who had perceived him in his mother's womb, when, while still hidden, he was already aware of Christ's coming, and exercised the gift of prophecy though he could not speak, as if coming down from the temporary silence of his mute father), began to proclaim and say: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” When he says “takes away,” he shows that he did not have what he takes away, which he indeed bore not to carry it himself but to destroy it himself. As we see the rising of the radiant day suddenly poured into the darkness of night's blindness, and yet the light does not lose the grace of its splendor by the touch of the gloom it shakes off, so the Lord Jesus Christ, taking up the sins of the human race, did not keep them but put them to flight. For as fire makes metals bright by consuming their dross, so the good craftsman cleansed us of original contagion by his flame; then, spotless, entering the waters, he washed our filth in himself, having nothing of his own to wash. In short, purifying the very waters by the majesty of his holy body, he blessed the fame of the stream, which received the honor of the Lord's baptism. The waves felt the dread presence of the Godhead: the sea withdrew from the shore, the river went back to its source. Of these things the prophet sings, signifying: “The sea saw and fled, the Jordan turned back. What is it, O sea, that you fled, and you, Jordan, that you turned back?”

The text of the Gospel reading then continues thus: “And when he had been baptized he came up at once from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And behold, a voice from the heavens saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Let us consider more attentively how great a mystery is revealed in this place too. For after the Lord, baptized, came up from the water, at once the heavens were opened. How opened at once, when heaven is never seen to be shut to Christ, whose home is always above the stars? But I think, as far as his kindness deigns to inspire my senses, that the heavens were opened at that moment, when the Lord, baptized, came up from the water, so that in his mercy he might teach by his own example that the kingdoms of heaven are opened to man, whose likeness he took, when he has deserved to be bathed in the consecration of spiritual water. And that the Spirit of God came down upon him in the form of a dove shows how great is his goodness, gentleness and simplicity, through a bird that has no bitterness of gall. And lest it be unknown that God had been seen in bodily form, it is affirmed by the voice of the Father saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This splendid affection of love contains the full firmness of catholic doctrine and proclaims that the power of the Father and the Son is one. For love, which has its being in God, does not depart from the spirit of likeness and equality. For he who said in the law of his command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” taught that there ought to be no distance between the one who loves and the one beloved. And in the following word which he added, “in whom I am well pleased,” he is understood to have set forth the common power of one Godhead. For it is more to have said “I am well pleased” (complacui) than “I am pleased” (placui), because complacui is a word of agreement and is seen to belong to two persons. The heavenly voice expressed it so that the Father might be seen to be well pleased in the Son and the Son in the Father. For in this very gathering together of the Father's voice, the Son's baptism and the Spirit flying down, the Trinity shone out from one God, of whom he does not deserve to be worthy who has not counted the unity.

“Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he was hungry. And the tempter came to him and said to him: If you are the Son of God, say that these stones become bread.” He was tempted, then, by the devil, always the enemy of faith. For no one questions what is plain to him except one who, full of a deceitful mind, does not believe the truth he has found, like the devil himself, who, after he knew from the clear word of the Father that Jesus was the Son of God, and dreaded his singular power in eating nothing for forty days and forty nights (for although Moses and Elijah likewise endured a fast of as many days and nights, he knew that they did so upheld by another's help, though by their own merit, while he saw that Jesus worked by his own power), suddenly seized on a most vain hope of foolish temptation because the Lord was hungry. Nor did he dare to attack the Godhead except because he saw the man joined to it. Soon, contriving the ancient snares of food, he stirred up wicked tricks with his accustomed deceit, and, pointing to stones, which were rather his own food, the serpent said: “If you are the Son of God, say that these stones become bread,” as if he could not do this who, constantly performing such a work, brings forth from the stony bowels of the earth a crop pregnant with frugal food and, as nourishment grows from the rock in the dense ears of the harvest, bestows the rich food of bread from the fruitfulness of stones. But singular Wisdom preferred to scorn the glory of a wonderful deed, lest he admit a repetition of the temptation. For God receives those who believe and shuts out those who tempt. For the people of Israel is read to have offended God most of all in this, that, forgetful of his benefits, it dared to tempt him by asking for a feast in despair. Moses in his books did not keep silent about their unbelief, and David briefly explained it, recalling: “And they tempted God in their hearts, asking food for their souls. And they spoke ill of God and said: Can God prepare a table in the desert?” and so on. For what can be difficult for him who, for his boundless power over all things, is called almighty? The Lord, then, answering Satan, said thus: “It is written: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” A most apt and fitting answer was given to the enemy. For to him who asked whether he was the Son of God he answered as man, so that he might be defeated rather by the one whom he seemed to attack. Hearing this, broken and weakened, he still does not lay down the arms of his boldness. “And the devil led him and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him: To you I will give all this power and their glory, for they have been handed over to me, and I give them to whom I will. If you, then, will adore before me, all will be yours.” What wonder if the wretch spoke perversely, who took the shape of a twisted serpent so as not to walk straight paths, thinking that Christ could be touched by desire for a fragile and fleeting kingdom, Christ who had come rather to bestow a strong and eternal one on his own? Or that he who had come to teach that worldly riches perish would deign to acquire them, and would adore a monster cast down from heaven, he whose throne is heaven, whose footstool is the earth, whose service is the whole world, whom no one dares to look upon and whom all the powers above the stars praise with lowered voices? But again the Lord confounds him with this answer, saying: “It is written: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve.” He is still seen to answer in the person of a man, disdaining, that is, to subdue the weak rebel by the might of greater power; although that viperous envy, cast down in the encounter of this word too, did not yet lay aside its rash temper, but, trusting in the triple-forked flicker of its tongues, it raises its wounded head a third time against the victorious hand of the Trinity. “Then the devil took him into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written that he has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands.” O how much blindness and gloom always reigns in a black breast, and how the mind, darkened by the shadows of its own malice, does not know how to keep its deceit undetected! See, by saying “If you are the Son of God,” he shows that he does not know it. When he goes on to say, “He has commanded his angels concerning you,” he confesses that this is the one he sees; but, found to be a pretender and a dissembler by his use of double-edged speech, he is proved a liar by his own arts. The malignant heart is the home not only of deceit but also of folly. For what more foolish thing could be found than to believe that he would fear the leap down from the lofty heights of the high temple and the top of the lofty pinnacle, he who came down from the highest citadel of heaven to be seen on the level earth, of whom David cries out: “And he bowed the heavens and came down,” at once holding the lowest and not leaving the highest? So the divine voice struck down the boldness of the failing one, saying: “It is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Here, now revealing himself as Lord and God, he forbids the tempter to make such attempts any further, the kindly teacher warning us by his example that the spirit who is the craftsman of ancient malice is without doubt subject to human virtues wherever God has been poured into the simplicity of a pure heart.

The instruction of the reading says, then: “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.” In this departure of the fleeing devil and the angels' ministry that followed, I think, an image of the Easter glory is declared by signs going before. For as, the temptations overcome and the devil driven away, the angels gave their service to the Savior, so, having scorned the insults of the Jews and the punishments by the blessed passion of the cross, and having trodden down death itself, the devil's fruit, Christ rose from the underworld, was carried to the stars, and in the accustomed rule of his majesty is adored by the angels in heaven.

Then he called certain men from among the fishermen and joined them to himself as disciples, to fish thereafter for human souls, which, following the slippery joy of the world, as if swimming the uncertain ways of the surging sea, had wandered with roving courses through voluptuous slips; and he won for eternal life such men as no noble lineage puffed up with the birth of earthly nobility, nor the brilliance of learned eloquence exalted with the glory of vain chatter, but whom the holy rule of a simple life, conspicuous for a lofty humility, made already neighbors of heaven. For almighty God chose rather the foolish and weak things of the world, refusing those that seem wise and strong, because, as the apostle Paul, the excellent teacher, writes: “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” And at once he said again: “God chose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and God chose the ignoble and despised things of the world, and the things that are not as the things that are, to destroy the things that are.” Moreover the merciful Savior, wishing to apply swift salvation, also established the manner of praying and its petitions. And the most kindly judge wishes to be asked briefly, so as to grant the suppliant's request more quickly. So he taught us to pray to the Father, his by nature, ours by grace, bestowing his own honor on men, so as to grant to all as a favor the excellence that he alone has.