Commentary on Luke (Greek fragments)

“Those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” (1:2). By calling the apostles eyewitnesses of the Word who subsists and lives, he agrees with John, who says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and that his glory was seen, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father. For through the flesh the Word became visible, since the flesh was visible, tangible and solid, though in himself he cannot be seen. And again John in his Epistle: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life; and the life was made manifest.” Do you not hear that he calls the life tangible? This is so that you may understand that the Son became man, visible according to the flesh but invisible according to the Godhead. “He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High” (1:32). For the Son who has appeared from the one who begot him may rightly be understood as equal to him in glory, holding equal measure in every respect whatever. For it is not that, because he became man by the economy, he fell short of himself in anything at all; his own nature suffered no wrong from his coming to be in our condition for our sake, since the Word of God is unchangeable by nature. For this reason he is named God and Most High and Lord, even by the voice of angels.

“For no word will be impossible with God” (1:37). Some again raise the question whether the God of all can make things that have already happened and been done never to have happened, according to the saying, “No word will be impossible with him.” We do not mean, they say, as though they had not been done, but that they had never happened at all: for example, whether he can make a prostitute a virgin from her mother’s womb, so that she neither ever was a prostitute nor could be called one, since what is impossible with men is possible with God. To them we will say that we ought to look for God’s power as great and admirable when what is done is not unworthy of the divine glory. It does not follow that, because he can do all things, he should be seen as the worker of absurdities. For we recognize that it is absurd to say, “Can God make himself not to be God, or capable of sin, or not good, or not life, or not just?” We must therefore refuse with all our strength questions as absurd as these. Why, then, can God not make the woman who has committed fornication never to have been a prostitute? Because he cannot make falsehood truth; and this is no charge of weakness but a proof of a nature that does not endure to undergo anything unbefitting it; and falsehood is wholly foreign to God. For to make the woman who committed fornication never to have committed it is a lie. But, as I said, questions so foolish and so full of absurdity ought not to be admitted at all; nor should one be ignorant of the divine nature, or rather of what belongs peculiarly to that nature.

“Blessed is the fruit of your womb” (1:42). Do you not hear David too singing, “Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons, the reward of the fruit of the womb”? For the inheritance of the Lord are those adopted to him as sons through faith, who are also the reward of Christ, who became the fruit of the virgin womb, according to the saying, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thought of their heart,” and so on (1:51).

The arm hints at the Word who sprang from her. By the proud he means the wicked demons who fell with their ruler through self-exaltation; and the wise men of the Greeks who did not accept the seeming foolishness of the preaching; and the Jews who would not believe, who were scattered because they thought thoughts unworthy of the Son of God. And by the mighty he means the scribes and Pharisees, who pursued the first seats. — But it is more fitting to understand these words of the accursed demons; for when the Lord came to dwell among us he scattered them as they behaved insolently toward the world under heaven, and he brought those they had taken captive over to obedience to himself.

For all these things followed the prophecy: “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly” (1:52). The scattered demons and the devil, and the wise men of the Greeks (as I said), and the Pharisees and scribes, thought great things of themselves; but he brought these down, and exalted those who humbled themselves under his mighty hand, giving them authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and bringing to nothing the counsels against us of those proud in mind. The Jews too were once proud of their dominion, but they were brought down through unbelief; while those from the nations, being obscure and of no account, were exalted through faith. “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (1:53).

By the hungry he means the human race; for all were starving except the Jews alone, and these were rich in the giving of the law and in the teaching of the holy prophets; for theirs is the giving of the law, the adoption, the worship, the promises. But these, overfed and greatly puffed up by their rank, because they did not come humbly to him who became man, were sent away empty, carrying nothing away, neither faith, nor knowledge, nor hope of good things. For they have fallen from the earthly Jerusalem and have been estranged from the life and glory to come, since they did not receive the Author of life but even crucified the Lord of glory, and they forsook the fountain of living water and despised the bread that came down from heaven. Therefore there came upon them the famine most grievous of all, and a thirst more bitter than every thirst; for it was not a famine of bread for the body, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. But those from the nations, hungering and thirsting and their souls wasting away in evils, filled themselves with spiritual good things because they received the Lord;

for the good things of the Jews passed over to them. “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy” (1:54). He helped Israel—not Israel according to the flesh, which prides itself on the bare name, but Israel according to the spirit, which has kept the force of the title, that is, those who look to him and believe and are adopted as sons through the Son himself; just as the word and the promise were given to the prophets and patriarchs of old. But this can also be applied to Israel according to the flesh; for many tens of thousands of them believed. “And he remembered his mercy, as he promised to Abraham” (1:55). And he brought to fulfilment what he had said to him: “In your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.” This promise was being fulfilled, since from her was to be born the common Saviour, Christ, who is the seed of Abraham, in whom the nations are blessed. “For he takes hold of the seed of Abraham,” as the Apostle says; and so he fulfilled the promise to the fathers. “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us” (1:69). The horn is taken not only for power but also for kingship; and Christ is both, the Saviour who rose for us from the family and lineage of David; for he is the King of those who reign and the invincible power of the Father.

“To show mercy” (1:72). Christ is mercy and righteousness; for through him we have received mercy and have been justified, having washed off the stains of our wickedness—through faith, that is, faith in him.

“And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High” (1:76). But consider this too: the Most High is Christ, whom John preceded both in his birth and in his preaching. What then will those say who diminish his Godhead? And how do they not choose to understand that the words “And you will be called prophet of the Most High” were spoken by Zechariah because the other prophets too were his—that is, as God’s? “To shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death” (1:79).

To those under the law, then, and in Judea, the Baptist was a lamp, going before Christ, and of him God had spoken in advance: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” The law too prefigured him, commanding that the lamp in the first tabernacle be kept unquenched. But the Jews, after rejoicing in him for a short time—running to his baptism and admiring his life—at once laid him to sleep in death, all but quenching the ever-shining lamp. That is why the Saviour said of him: “He was the lamp that burned and shone, and you were willing to rejoice for an hour in his light.” “To guide our feet into the way of peace” (1:79).

For the world under heaven was going astray, worshipping the creature instead of the Creator, and it was blackened by the darkness of ignorance; and a kind of night, falling on the minds of all, did not let them see the one who is God by nature and in truth. But the Lord of all rose like a light and a sun for those of Israel.

“And it came to pass in those days,” and so on (2:1). … and necessarily the evangelist noted the time of our Saviour’s birth. For so that we might learn that there was no longer a king from the tribe of David among those of Israel, but that their rulers had failed, he fittingly records the decrees of Caesar, who now held Judea too under his sceptre along with the others; for so he commanded the census to be made.

“Because he was of the house and family of David” (2:4). The book of the holy Gospels traced the genealogy to Joseph, and through him showed that the Virgin too was of David’s tribe, since the divine law ordained that marriages be made within the same tribe. And the interpreter of the heavenly doctrines, the great apostle Paul, plainly declares the truth, testifying that the Lord arose from Judah. — The natures brought together into true unity are different, but from both there is one God and Son; not as though the difference of the natures were abolished by the union, for there has come about a union of two natures; therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. In accordance with this understanding of the union without confusion we proclaim the holy Virgin Mother of God, because God the Word was made flesh and became man, and from the very conception united to himself the temple taken from her … having his descent from the house of David. For we see that two natures came together with one another in an unbreakable union, without confusion and without division; for the flesh is flesh and not Godhead, even though it became God’s flesh; and likewise the Word is God and not flesh, even though he made the flesh his own by the economy. But even though the natures of those that have come together into unity are different and unequal to each other, yet the one from both is one alone; and the one Lord Jesus Christ is not to be divided into a man separately and God separately, but we say that one and the same is Christ Jesus, who knows the difference of the natures and keeps them unconfused with one another. “With Mary his betrothed wife, who was with child” (2:5).

The holy evangelist says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, showing that the conception took place while there was betrothal only, and that the birth of Emmanuel was wonderful and did not follow the laws of human nature; for the holy Virgin did not give birth by receiving the deposit of human seed. And what is the reason for this? Christ, the firstfruits of all, the second Adam according to the Scriptures, was born of the Spirit, so that he might pass the grace on to us also; for we too were to be called no longer children of men but rather of God, having obtained the new birth through the Spirit first in Christ, so that he might be first in all things, as the all-wise Paul says. Most providentially the time of the census sent the holy Virgin to Bethlehem, so that we might see another prophecy fulfilled; for it is written, as we said: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are the least among the thousands of Judah; from you shall come forth for me one to be ruler in Israel.” — To those who say, “If the Virgin gave birth in the flesh, she was corrupted; and if she was not corrupted, she gave birth only in appearance,” we say: The prophet says that the Lord the God of Israel entered and went out, and the gate remains shut. And if the Word became flesh without confusion, conceived entirely without seed, he was born without corruption.

“And she brought forth her firstborn son” (2:7). What kind of firstborn? He now says firstborn not of the first among brothers, but of one who is both first and only; for this too is one of the senses of “firstborn,” since Scripture sometimes calls the only one “first,” as in: “I am God, the first, and after me there is no other.” So to show that the Virgin did not bear a mere man, he added “the firstborn”; for she had no other son, remaining a virgin, but only the Father’s own, of whom God the Father cries out through the voice of David: “And I will make him firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.” The all-wise Paul too mentions this, saying: “And when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘And let all the angels of God worship him.’” How then did he enter the world? For he is outside it, not locally but rather by nature, since he is other by nature than all who are in the world. But he entered it by becoming man and being counted a part of it through the incarnation. For although he is Only-begotten as God, since he became our brother he was for that reason named firstborn, so that, having become the firstfruits of the adoption of human beings, he might enable us too to become sons of God. So take “firstborn” as said of the economy; for according to the Godhead he is Only-begotten. Again, he is Only-begotten inasmuch as he is the Word from the Father, having no brothers by nature and not ranked with anyone else; for the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, is one and alone; but he is firstborn because of his condescension to creatures. When he is named Only-begotten, no reason is attached for his being so called, but it is said absolutely: “the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father.” But when the divine Scriptures call him firstborn, they at once add both those of whom he is firstborn and the reason why he has this name. For they say “firstborn among many brothers” and “firstborn from the dead”: the first because he became like us in all things apart from sin, the second because he was the first to raise his own flesh to incorruption. He is Only-begotten by nature, since he alone is from the Father, God from God, alone from alone, God shining forth from God, and light from light; but firstborn for our sake, so that, since he is called firstborn of the things made, these may be preserved through him. For if he must permanently be firstborn, those of whom he is firstborn will certainly remain. But if, according to Eunomius, he is called firstborn from God as the first begotten of many, then since he is also firstborn of the Virgin, he would be first before another from her too; but if he has been called firstborn of Mary as the only one, not as born before others, then he is firstborn from God too, not as the first of many but as the only one begotten. Again, if it is agreed that first things are the causes of second things, and God and the Son of God was first, then the Son is the cause of those who are called sons, since they received the name from him. So he who is the cause of the second sons may justly be called firstborn, not as having existed first among them, but as having first become for them the cause of the title “son.” And just as calling the Father first—“I,” he says, “am first, and I am after these things”—will by no means compel us to think him of one kind with those after him, so, even if the Son is called first of creation, or firstborn before all creation, he will by no means be one of the things made. But as the Father, showing himself to be the beginning of all things, said, “I am first,” so the Son too is called first of creation; for through him all things came to be, and he is the beginning of all creatures, as Creator and Maker.

“And laid him in a manger” (2:7). … man, who had become like the beasts; therefore he is laid in a manger as in the place of fodder, so that we, changing our beastlike life, may be brought back to the understanding that befits a human being; and that we who were beastlike in soul, coming to the manger as to our own table, may find there no longer hay but the bread from heaven, the body of life. “And there were shepherds in the same region living out in the fields” (2:8). To shepherds first is revealed the mystery hymned by the angels; for they bore the type of those who would shepherd the churches. They had to be the first to hear “on earth peace,” because the spiritual shepherds too were to proclaim peace to the whole fullness of the Church. Further, the persons of the shepherds and the joy given them through the revelation clearly signify that the good shepherd had come for the straying sheep; for nothing is known to gladden shepherds so much as finding a lost animal of the flock—which belonged to no one else to find but Christ the chief shepherd. Then, since Bethlehem is interpreted “house of bread,” where were the shepherds to hasten after the proclamation of peace but to the spiritual house of the heavenly bread, that is, the Church, in which the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world is mystically offered every day? Shepherds became the firstfruits of those initiated; and again the type looks to the truth; for Christ makes himself manifest to spiritual shepherds, so that they may proclaim him to the others, just as indeed the shepherds of that time were taught by the holy angels, and ran and told the others. Angels, then, begin the proclamations about him, and glorify as God the one wonderfully born of a woman according to the flesh; for the Lord of all was God in our form, that he might undo the curse laid on the first woman; for it was said to her, “In pain you shall bear children.” Since women bear children for death, they have had the sting of grief; but since a woman has borne according to the flesh Emmanuel, who is life, the power of the curse has been undone, and the bearing of children in grief by mothers on earth has been extinguished together with death. Would you learn another reason for the matter? Remember the most wise Paul writing about Christ: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” What then is meant by saying that the Son was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh? The law of sin lurks in the members of our flesh, and with it the disordered movement of our innate desires; but the Word of God, having become man, had a flesh that was holy and truly all-pure; it was in the likeness of our flesh, yet no longer like it in that respect; for he was entirely free of the defilements implanted in our bodies, of the movement and inclination that carries us off to what is unlawful. This, then, is the reason for the Saviour’s incarnation.

“And she wrapped him in swaddling clothes” (2:7). When you see an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, do not halt your mind at his birth according to the flesh, but leap up to the contemplation of his glory that befits God. Go up to heaven: there you will behold him in the highest heights, possessing the supreme glory; you will see him seated on a throne high and lifted up; you will hear the seraphim singing his praise and saying that heaven and earth are full of his glory. And this came about on earth too; for the glory of God shone around the shepherds, and there was a multitude of the heavenly host glorifying Christ. Very many holy prophets were born at various times, but none of them was ever glorified by the voice of angels; for they were men, and true servants of God in our measure. But Christ is not so; for he is God and Lord and the one who sends the holy prophets, and, as the Psalmist says, “Who among the clouds will be equal to the Lord, and who will be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” For to us, who are under the yoke and in natural servitude, the name of sonship has been given by him by way of grace; but Christ is the truth, that is, the Son of God the Father by nature, even when he became flesh; for he remained what he was, though he took on what he was not. That what I say is true, the prophet Isaiah will again confirm, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat; before he knows how to choose evil things, he will choose the good. For before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness, to choose the good.” Yet is it not plain to all that a newborn, fresh infant, which because of its age and size cannot yet understand anything, is incapable of discerning an evil from a good thing? It knows nothing at all. But in Christ, the Saviour of all, there was a great and extraordinary wonder; for he ate butter and honey while still an infant. By “butter” the prophet means the Virgin’s milk, because it did not come from softness, pleasure and laxity, but was firm and solid, and had not the bitterness of sin but the sweetness of honey, since all the things of God are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. — As soon as Christ was born, the power of the devil was despoiled. He was worshipped in Damascus and had very many there who bowed down to him; but at the time of the holy Virgin’s childbirth the strength of his tyranny too was shattered, and those of the nations were caught in the net for the knowledge of the truth. — For it is the custom of the divinely inspired Scripture to call the God of all by various names, and sometimes to devise his titles from the things done at particular times; and this has been kept in the case of Christ himself, for he is true God. The saying “Quickly despoil, swiftly plunder” would show it. — … for the cross became his, through which he has reigned over the world under heaven, if indeed it is true that he became obedient to the Father unto death, the death of the cross. — Observe, beloved, and understand that those sanctified through faith did not go out into the customs of the nations; rather, those who were called entered into theirs. Wild beasts eat flesh—wolf and lion, bear and leopard—while tame animals eat grass—kids, lambs and calves. But the wild beasts, he says, will feed with the tame and eat their food. Therefore the tame did not go over to the habits of the wild, but the wild, as I said, passed over to the habits of the tame. They were changed, then, from a savage temper to the gentleness that befits saints; they were transformed through Christ, and the wolves became lambs; for he it was who tamed them and joined, as I said, the two peoples in a mind dear to God. This the hierophant Moses proclaimed long ago, saying: “Rejoice, you nations, with his people; ascribe greatness to the Lord our God.” … For being God ineffably made flesh, he alone knew the good and was free of the wickedness that is among men; and this belongs to the essence that is above all; for to be good by nature, firmly and unchangeably, would befit it alone, as its own: “For no one is good but one, God,” according to the voice of the Saviour himself. So do not see the one lying in the manger simply as an infant, but see him who is rich as God in our poverty, and for that reason glorified even by the holy angels themselves. And such was their hymn: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” For the angels and all the powers above, keeping the order assigned them, are at peace with God; for in no way do they transgress what seems good to him, but they stand firm in righteousness and holiness. But we wretched ones, setting our own desires against the will of the Master, had come to be in the rank of his enemies. This was undone through Christ; for he himself is our peace, and he joined us through himself to God the Father, taking out of the way the sin that made enmity, justifying by faith, and calling near those who were far off; and in another way too, by creating the two peoples into one new man, making peace, and reconciling both in one body to the Father. For God the Father was pleased to sum up all things in him, to join things below with those above, and to make a single flock of those in heaven and those on earth. Christ, then, has become for us peace and good will.

“And the angel said to them,” and so on (2:10). We may understand that it was an archangel who announced the joy to the shepherds, coming down with the host under his command for the good news of the salvation of human beings; though for the moment he alone spoke with them, since the host under him did not come within their sight because their nature is invisible. “And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled” (2:22). So far, then, we have seen him, through what was just read, yielding to the laws given through Moses—or rather, the Lawgiver himself, who is God, subject as man to his own decrees. And for what reason, the most wise Paul teaches us, saying: “When we were children, we were enslaved under the elements of the world; but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.” So Christ bought off from the curse of the law those who were under the law but had not kept it. And how did he buy them off? By fulfilling it. And in another way too: to undo the charges of the transgression in Adam, he presented himself on our behalf to God the Father obedient and docile in every respect whatever; for it is written: “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” So he bowed his neck to the law with us, doing this too by the economy; for it befitted him to fulfil all righteousness. When the eighth day came, then, on which circumcision in the flesh was customarily performed according to the law’s decree, he too is circumcised, he who gave the law to Moses, and before that to Abraham. He receives the name too, that is, Jesus, which is interpreted “salvation of the people”; for so God the Father willed his own Son, born of a woman according to the flesh, to be named; for he then became the salvation of the people—not of one people but of every nation and of the whole world under heaven. At one and the same time, then, the rite of circumcision was performed and he received his name. And what is the riddle? Come, let us see again. The blessed Paul said: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing.” Did the God of all, then, command through the all-wise Moses that nothing be kept, and attach punishment to those who transgressed it? Yes, I would say; for as far as the nature of the act goes it is nothing at all, but it is pregnant with the type of a mystery. For on the eighth day Christ returned to life from the dead and gave us circumcision in the spirit. For he commanded the holy apostles: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And we say that circumcision in the spirit is performed above all at the time of holy baptism, when Christ also makes us partakers of the Holy Spirit. Of this, again, the ancient Joshua, who led the army after Moses, was a type; for he first brought the sons of Israel across the Jordan, and then at once sat down and circumcised them with knives of stone. So when we cross the Jordan, then Christ circumcises us by the power of the Holy Spirit, not cleansing flesh but rather cutting away the defilement in souls. On the eighth day, then, Christ is circumcised and receives his name, as I said. For then, then indeed we were saved by him and through him: “In whom,” he says, “you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him.” So his death took place for us, and his resurrection, and his circumcision; for he died so that we, who died with him when he died to sin, might no longer live to sin. Therefore it is said, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him.” He is said to have died to sin, not because he sinned (“For he committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth”), but because of my sin. As, then, we died with him when he died, so we shall rise with him. Again, since the Son came to be with us, though he is God by nature and Lord of all, for that reason he does not disdain our measure but came to be under the same law with us, though as God he is himself the Lawgiver. He is circumcised on the eighth day along with the Jews to confirm his kinship with them, so that they might not deny him; for the Christ was expected from the seed of David, and he showed the proof of kinship. For if even after his circumcision they said, “We do not know where this man is from,” then, had he not been circumcised according to the flesh and kept the law, their denial would have had a plausible pretext. … But after he was circumcised, circumcision ceased, since what it signified, namely baptism, was brought in for us; for this reason we are no longer circumcised. For circumcision seems to me to accomplish three things: first, it marks off the descendants of Abraham as with a sign and seal, and distinguishes them from the other nations; second, it prefigures in itself the grace and power of divine baptism—for as the one circumcised was of old reckoned among God’s people by the seal, so the one baptized, having Christ imprinted in himself as a seal, is enrolled for adoption by God; and third, it is a symbol of the faithful established in grace, who with the knife … of the spiritual word of faith and of ascetic labours cut off and put to death the uprisings of fleshly pleasures and passions, cutting not the body but cleansing the heart, circumcised in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise, the divine Paul testifies, needs no human verdict but hangs on the judgment from above. Since, then, the law goes against every woman who bears a male or female child and makes its condemnation of us most general, the holy Virgin, from whom we say that Christ sprang according to the flesh, is exempted from the reproach. For see, if you please, the precision of the law: “A woman,” it says—and not just any woman indiscriminately, but one “who has conceived seed and borne a male, shall be unclean.” But here the divine body was formed of the Holy Spirit, fashioned ineffably in the holy Virgin, and took little account of the laws of nature; for the firstborn of the saints, the firstfruits of those who obtain rebirth from God through the Spirit, had no need at all of the deposit of seed; of them it is said plainly: “Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh or of man, but of God.” So the holy Virgin escaped the outcry of the law, since she conceived from no seed at all, but bore for us the divine infant by the working of the Spirit. After the circumcision he again awaits the time of purification; and when the days were fulfilled (the fulfilment of the days was the fortieth), then he is brought up to Jerusalem and brought into the sight of the Father, as a man like us—God the Word who shares his throne, who was also written of through the shadow of the law in the firstborn. For the firstborn before the incarnation, which they sacrificed to him according to the law, were holy and sacred to God. O great economy! O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! He who is in the bosom of the Father, to whom all things are brought in service, who is glorified by the worship of all, when he came within the measures of humanity, offers a sacrifice to his own Begetter. O wonderful thing! The truth has kept the types of the law. For what reason? Because he was both Lawgiver as God and under the law as man. And what did he bring? As a firstborn male, a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons, as the law prescribed. But what do these signify? The turtledove is the most vocal of birds; the dove is a gentle, meek creature. Such did the Maker and Lord of all become toward us: having meekness in the highest degree, and like a turtledove charming the world under heaven and filling his own vineyard, that is, us who have believed in him, with his beautiful voice. It is written, then, in the Song of Songs: “The voice of the turtledove was heard in our land; the vines are in blossom”; for Christ, the divine and evangelical proclamation, the salvation of the whole world, has spoken to us. The turtledove and the dove were slain so that he himself might again be signified to us as through types, enduring death according to the flesh for the life of the world. For he is the sweetest-voiced turtledove, he the guileless dove. Christ, then, at one time offered himself together with the types—the truth with them—for an odour of sweet fragrance, so that he might bring us through himself to God the Father, and so undo the aversion that had come upon us through the transgression in Adam and through the sin that tyrannized over all of us, and so make us worthy of the Father’s regard. For we were those who of old cried out, “Look upon me and have mercy on me,” as the Psalmist says. “For the eyes of the Lord,” he says, “are upon the righteous.” For the Lord does not look upon those held fast in sins, but upon the meek and quiet one who trembles at his divine words. We had first to be cleansed, then, and so be counted worthy of God’s regard; and we have gained this through the Saviour of all. But we must ask, first, of whom “their purification” is written; second, about presenting him to the Lord; and third, what the pair of turtledoves and the two young pigeons signify. For if anyone thinks that “their purification” is said of the holy Mother of God, or of the blessed Joseph, or of the Lord, he will be impious. For neither did Joseph know the holy Virgin, nor did she conceive in iniquities like other women, so that they should make an offering for their own purification; but she conceived without seed and gave birth without corruption. Where there is no coming together of woman and man, no sleep and pleasure, no coupling and union, what need is there of purification? Nor is it said of the Lord, the undefiled, who is beyond all purity. “And to offer a sacrifice,” and so on (2:24). … he paid the double drachma to the collectors, though he did not owe the payment, since he is in truth the Son; but he paid it when he came under the law. For he had, he had to fulfil the economy that he accepted for our sake. And we shall find him written of in the payment of the double drachma too, as Saviour and Redeemer. For the double drachma was a kind of coin bearing the king’s image, and it was paid according to the law for two heads. See, then, Christ again represented in the double drachma. For he, being the image of the Father, the imprint of his hypostasis, the coin from heaven, offered himself as the ransom of the two peoples, that from the Jews, I mean, and that from the nations.

“And he took him up in his arms” (2:28). Christ was carried into the temple while still an infant, small and at the breast, and offered what the law prescribed, a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons: the type of chastity and meekness, and moreover of a difference in ways of life, since he is the lawgiver of both, of marriage and of the unmarried life. For you might say that those who are unencumbered and more spiritual and have chosen the solitary life are the doves, while those who have taken thought for begetting children and the rest of household management are the turtledoves. The blessed Simeon, honoured with prophetic grace, receives him into his arms and, filled with the highest delight, blesses God, saying: “Now you let your servant depart, Master.” Depart from what? From the arena of this life; for life is … and a prison. For he had come who was to make peace for the world, who joins heaven to earth, who makes the earth heaven through the teaching of the Gospel. “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples.” For the mystery of Christ had been prepared even before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in the last times of the age; and he became a light to those in darkness, who had gone astray and fallen under the devil’s hand; for they have been called by God the Father to the knowledge of the Son, who is the true light. “But also for the glory of Israel.” For even if some of them proved insolent and disobedient, with minds full of folly, yet the remnant has been saved and glorified through Christ. The firstfruits of these were the divine disciples, the brightness of whose fame shines around the whole world under heaven. And in another way too Christ is the glory of Israel, since he came forth from them according to the flesh, though he is God over all and before the ages. “Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel” (2:34).

Emmanuel has been laid by God the Father in the foundations of Zion, a chosen stone, a cornerstone, precious. Those who believed in him were not put to shame; but the unbelievers, who were not able to see the mystery concerning him, fell and were broken. For God the Father said again somewhere: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame; but on whomever it falls, it will crush him.” But the prophet safeguarded those of Israel, saying: “Sanctify him as Lord, and he will be your fear; and if you trust in him, he will be to you for sanctification, and you will not meet him as a stone of stumbling, nor as a rock of falling.” Since, then, Israel did not sanctify Emmanuel, who is Lord and God, nor was willing to trust in him, it stumbled over him as over a stone through unbelief, and was broken and fell; but many rose, that is, those who accepted faith in him.

Or else, as the most wise Paul writes, the cross is “to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the nations foolishness.” And again: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God for salvation.” For this reason the Lord is a sign that is spoken against. “And a sword will pierce through your own soul too” (2:35). … we say that by the sword is meant here the trial, in the form of a knife, or else the very suffering brought upon Emmanuel by the madness of the Jews. And so, it seems, the righteous Simeon understood it and indeed said it; for the holy Virgin was all but slaughtered by a sword, seeing the one born of her according to the flesh crucified. Such too is the saying in Zechariah: “Sword, awake against my shepherd”; that is, let the saving passion now be set in motion, and let the time come for the showing forth of the good things.

“And the child grew,” and so on (2:40). The saying “The child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him” must be taken as said with respect to his humanity. Consider, I pray, the depth of the economy. The Word undergoes a human birth, though as God he is without beginning and outside time; he who as God is all-perfect is in bodily growth; the bodiless one is in the filling out of limbs; he is filled with wisdom, though he is himself all wisdom. And what do we say to this? See in these things him who is in the form of the Father in likeness to us; the rich one in poverty; the exalted one in lowliness; him who possesses fullness as God, in being said to receive. So did the Word, being God, empty himself. For what is written of him in human terms shows the manner of the self-emptying. It is not among the things possible that the Word who sprang from God the Father should undergo anything of this kind in his own nature; but when he became flesh, that is, a man like us, then he is born of a woman according to the flesh and is also said to undergo human things. For the Word, being God, was able to raise his own flesh to the measure of a full-grown man straight from the womb; but that would not have been far from a portent. Therefore he allowed the customs and laws of humanity to prevail over his own flesh too. Thus he might also be said to advance in wisdom: not receiving an addition of wisdom—insofar as he is understood as God, all-perfect in all things and wholly without need of the dignities that befit God—but because God the Word gradually extended the manifestation of his wisdom along with the growth of the body. The body advances in stature, the soul in wisdom; for the Godhead admits of advance in neither, since the Word of God is all-perfect.

Fittingly he joined the advance in wisdom to the growth in stature; for in proportion to the measure of the body’s stature the divine nature revealed its own wisdom. “And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast” (2:42). Having said that Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace with God and men, the evangelist shows that his statement is true. For he brings him to Jerusalem with the holy Virgin, a feast calling them there; then he says that he stayed behind and was afterwards found in the temple sitting among the teachers, asking and answering—evidently about what had been declared long before in the law—and then admired by all for his questions and his answers. You see him advancing in wisdom and grace by becoming known to many as such.

“Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow” (2:48). His mother knew that he was not Joseph’s child, but she says this because of the suspicion of the Jews. And since she said, “Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow,” the Saviour says in reply:

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49). For the first time he mentions his true Father more openly and lays bare his own Godhead. For when the holy Virgin said, “Child, why have you treated us so?”, then, then indeed, showing himself to be beyond human measures, and teaching that she had become the minister of the economy by bearing the flesh, but that he was God by nature and in truth, and Son of the Father who is in heaven, he says: “Did you not know…”

and so on. — Here let the followers of Valentinus be ashamed, when they hear that the temple was God’s, and that Christ, who of old was written of through the law and given shape as in shadows and types, is now among his own: let them be ashamed of saying that the Creator, the God of the law, the God of the temple, is not the Father of Christ. “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in grace with God and men” (2:52). … the evangelist John: “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” To what point will the full advance? Or what addition at all will he receive beyond whom there is nothing? So it is not as Word and God that he is said to advance, but because, being ever more admired, he was shown more gracious to those who saw him through what he accomplished; so that it is truer to say that it was the habit of wonder in the minds of the beholders that advanced, rather than he who is perfect in grace as God. Consider that what advances in something is other than that in which it is said to advance. If, then, he is said to advance in wisdom, it was not wisdom that advanced, but the humanity in it. For as the Godhead in him was revealed and manifested day by day, he became ever more wonderful to those who saw him. And note that he did not say, “The Word advanced,” but “Jesus,” so that you should not think of the Word bare, but understand that because he became flesh he is also said to advance, since he took on what naturally advances, that is, the human. So “advanced” belongs to the humanity and may reasonably be applied to it. For in this way each thing said will lie in its proper order: neither will what befits the Word bare be brought down to the human, nor will the human things climb up into the account of the Godhead.

“As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet” (3:4). The blessed Isaiah was not ignorant of the aim of John’s preaching; bearing witness from above and long beforehand, he called Christ Lord and God, and named John his minister and servant; and he showed that John was a lamp going before the true light, a morning star heralding the sun and signalling the coming of the day that was to dawn upon us; and that he was a voice, not a word, running before Jesus, as a voice before the Word: “Prepare the ways of the Lord, make his paths straight.” … John was … for the mission and the end of the holy prophets. Hence, as though the Lord were not yet present, he says, “Prepare the way of the Lord”; that is, Make yourselves ready to receive whatever laws Christ may wish to lay down; withdraw your hearts from the shadow of the law; cease from the types; stop thinking perverse thoughts. But he also pointed him out as present, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” — What is meant by “Make straight the paths of our God”? Every path that leads to the good is straight, smooth and easy; but the other is crooked, namely the one that drags down to wickedness those who travel by it. For it is written of such people: “Whose paths are crooked and their tracks bent.” So straightness of mind is like a right road with nothing crooked in it. Such was the divine Psalmist, singing and saying: “A crooked heart did not cleave to me.” And Joshua the son of Nun charged the people, saying: “Make your hearts straight toward the God of Israel”; and John: “Make your paths straight.” To be straight in soul is this: to display the rational nature of the soul as it was created. And it was created good and very straight; but when it turns aside and comes into a distortion of what is natural, this is called vice and distortion of soul. So the thing is not difficult; for if we remain as we were made, we are in virtue. As though someone answered back and said: “How shall we prepare the way of the Lord, or how shall we make his paths straight? For many things stand in the way of those who wish to live well: Satan the hater of good; the unholy multitude of evil spirits; the very law of sin in the members of the flesh, arming itself against the mind’s inclinations toward the good; and many other passions besides overpower the mind of man. What then shall we do, when such difficulty lies before us?”—to this the word of the prophecy responds, saying: “Every ravine shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places smooth roads; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” For there are some highways or paths that are hardly passable, so rough that at one point they climb toward mountains and hills and at another slope down and run off into precipices; and such roads, with their heights and depths, are very hard to travel. But if somehow the high and steep places should settle and the hollow and deep places be filled up, then the crooked will become straight, and what was once rough and full of ravines will become bare plains with, as it were, a level road. This took place spiritually through the strength of our Saviour. For of old the ways of the evangelical life and conduct were hard to travel, because the minds of all were held fast by worldly desires; but since the God of all, having become man, abolished sin in the flesh, all has become smooth and easy going. Neither height nor depth meets those who wish to live well; all the crooked places have been changed into a straight path. For he made the road to godliness smooth and very easy to run for us, with nothing steep or hollow and low, by which it was once rough and hard to travel. For all the crooked things have become straight, as the prophet Isaiah himself says again somewhere: “The way of the godly has become straight, and the way of the righteous prepared.” For the multitude of demons was driven out of the way, and the devil himself was abolished along with them; the law of sin too has been put to death, and the Saviour heals all our diseases.

“And all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (3:6). All flesh has seen the Salvation of God, that is, of the Father; for he has sent us the Son as Saviour. By “flesh” here we must understand the whole human being, and take it as the whole human race. All flesh shall see the salvation of God: no longer Israel alone, but all flesh. For the Saviour and Lord of all does not have a narrow kindness, nor did he save one nation; rather, he has caught the whole world under heaven in his net and enlightened those in darkness. And this, then, was what was sung on the Psalmist’s lyre: “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord.” The remnant of those of Israel has been saved along with them, as the great Moses also foretold long ago, saying: “Rejoice with his people.”

“He said therefore to the crowds that came out,” the Baptist, and so on (3:7). … now the blessed Baptist, filled with the Holy Spirit, was not ignorant of the bold deeds that the perversity of the Jews would dare against Christ. For he foreknew that they would disbelieve him and, setting their venomous tongue in motion, would hurl abuse at him. Looking ahead to that, then, he rebukes them because, though they had a law that spoke of the mystery of Christ and the predictions of the prophets that led to it, they had become dull of hearing and slow to believe in Christ the Saviour of all: “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Does not the divinely inspired Scripture say that those who believed in Christ are blessed, while announcing beforehand that the unbelieving and ignorant will fall under harsh and inescapable penalties?

“Bear fruits worthy of repentance” (3:8). The fruit of repentance is first of all faith in Christ; besides that, the evangelical way of life; and in short the works of righteousness opposed to sin, which the penitent ought to bear as fruits worthy of repentance. He added: “Do not begin to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as father’; for I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” — You see how very skilfully he brings down their senseless pride and shows that being descended from Abraham according to the flesh contributes nothing to their benefit? For what does nobility of flesh profit those who have it, unless they walk in like endeavours and follow in the virtue of their parents? “For if you were children of Abraham,” the Saviour says to them, “you would do the works of Abraham.” God seeks kinship in character and conduct. It is vain, then, to boast of holy and good ancestors while falling far short of their virtue. — “But if this is so,” says the Jew, “how is the seed of Abraham still multiplied, and how will God’s promise to him be kept, which says that he will multiply his seed like the stars of heaven?” Through the calling of the nations, O Jew. For it was said to Abraham himself, “In Isaac shall your seed be called,” and, “I have made you a father of many nations”; and “in Isaac” signifies what is according to promise. So he has been made father of many nations, that is, of those who are his through faith in Christ; and of them God also said somewhere, through the voice of Ezekiel: “I will pluck out their heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may know me, that I am the Lord.” And so that the blessed Baptist might benefit his hearers still more, he adds something further: “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees” (3:9).

By the axe here he means the most cutting wrath which God the Father brought upon the Jews because of their impiety toward Christ; for the wrath was brought upon them like an axe. The prophet Zechariah too made this plain to us, saying: “The mourning of Jerusalem will be like the mourning for a pomegranate grove cut down in the plain.” And Jeremiah also said, as though to her: “A fair olive tree, well shaded in appearance, the Lord called your name; at the sound of her circumcision a fire was kindled against her; great is the affliction upon her, her branches have become useless; and the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has spoken evil against you.” To this you will also refer the parable of the fig tree in the Gospels. So, as a fruitless plant no longer of good stock, she was cut down by God. Yet he does not say that the axe has been laid into the root, but at the root, that is, near the root. For the branches were cut off, but the plant was not dug up from its root; for the remnant of Israel has been saved, and it has not perished root and all.

“And the crowds asked him” (3:10). The blessed Luke has brought in three classes questioning John: crowds, tax collectors, and third, soldiers. And as a skilled physician applies to each ailment the suitable and fitting remedy, so the Baptist gave to each occupation the beneficial and fitting word: to the crowds coming to repentance he commanded that they show a mind of mutual love; to the tax collectors he shut the road to unrestrained greed; and to the soldiers he very wisely declared that they should extort from no one, but be content with their wages. “As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John,” and so on (3:15). So admirable and great was the son of Zechariah that the crowds of the Jews came to suspect that he might perhaps himself be the Christ, who was described through the shadow of the law and proclaimed beforehand by the holy prophets. But since some had once come to this suspicion, he cuts it off, yielding the dignities of the Master as a servant; for the distance between God and men is immeasurable. And we shall find the holy Baptist saying this somewhere in the Gospel written by John; for he spoke thus: “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I have been sent before him.” “John answered, saying to them all: I baptize you with water,” and so on (3:16). Having shown, then, that he is not the Christ, he goes on to bring proofs from which one can learn that an immeasurable difference appears between God and men, between servant and Master, between him who goes before as a servant and him who shines forth as befits God; since the blessed Baptist, great as he was in virtue, says that he is not worthy even, so to speak, to touch his sandals. Then he at once adds another proof to these: “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” For it is the work solely and peculiarly of the essence that is above all to be able to put the Holy Spirit into some, and to make those who approach it partakers of the divine nature; and this belongs to Christ not by receiving and sharing it from someone else, but from himself and essentially; for he baptizes with the Holy Spirit. The Word made man, then, is God and the fruit of the essence of God the Father; and he did this also when he had become man, being one Son with the flesh united to him ineffably and beyond understanding. And indeed the blessed Baptist, having first said, “I am not worthy to loose the strap of his sandals” (so they are accustomed to call the tip of the sandal, which ends in a point; for barbarians use such sandals), at once added: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”—clearly as one who has feet and sandals. For no one, if he had any sense, would say that the Word, while without flesh and not yet become as we are, had feet and sandals; but when he became man, since he did not lose his being God, he again acted, even so, in a manner befitting God, giving the Spirit to those who believe in him; for one and the same was at once God and man. “But yes,” says someone, “the Word did the works befitting God through the one from the seed of David.” Then to you who say this we shall answer with the words of John; for he said somewhere to the Jews: “After me comes a man who has become before me, for he was before me; and I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit; and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” See, he plainly says “a man,” and says that he came to be before him and was before him, clearly as pre-existing in the manner of God, according to what he himself plainly said to the crowds of the Jews: “Truly I tell you, before Abraham came to be, I am.” Then besides this he says that the Spirit came down upon him from heaven. Do they say that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Word of God bare and still without flesh, and make the giver of the Spirit a sharer in his own Spirit? Or rather do they say this: that having received the Spirit humanly, he baptizes divinely with the Holy Spirit, and is himself the one and only and true Son of God the Father, as the blessed Baptist himself bore witness? We must also say this: perhaps the blessed Baptist joined the meaning of fire to that of the Spirit, not saying that we shall all be baptized in fire through Christ, but signifying the life-giving working of the Spirit by the meaning of fire; for from its different working on its object the one Spirit receives different names.

“He will thoroughly clear his threshing floor” (3:17). The blessed Baptist says that the threshing floor belongs to Christ as Master; for this is what “his” means. For he clears it by separating and distinguishing the chaff from the wheat. He says that he will be seen as the distributor and, as it were, the one who marks out what befits each: the righteous and good man he gathers like wheat into the heavenly courts, while the unrighteous, shaken off like chaff, he makes food for fire. For the wheat, he says, is gathered into the barn, that is, it is counted worthy of the safety that comes from God, of his sparing, protection and love; but the chaff, as useless matter, is consumed by fire. … God says something also through Jeremiah, making a comparison of prophets and false prophets: “What is the chaff to the wheat?” that is, idle talk to the truth. For the word from God has a most nourishing power, but the word of the unholy false teachers, being very easily crumbled and like chaff, brings no benefit to its hearers. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened” (3:21). Jesus is baptized, blessing the waters and cleansing them for our sake. For the only-begotten Word of God is Holy of holies, and he himself would not have needed holy baptism, nor to obtain forgiveness of sins, as we gain it through him; for “from his fullness we have all received.” The Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, but it is also the Son’s own. And indeed the Spirit that proceeds from God the Father is very often called the Spirit of Christ; and Paul will bear witness, saying at one time: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwells in you; and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.” And again: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of the Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” The Holy Spirit, then, proceeds, as I said, from God the Father; but his only-begotten Word, as Son by nature and in truth and distinguished by the dignities of the Father, supplies it to the creation and gives it to the worthy. And indeed he said: — [The blessed] Cyril did not mention Herod in his interpretation. And I too think that it stands here superfluously. For if John had been shut up in prison, how was he baptizing? For we do not know of his being shut up and released, and shut up again and put to death. — “All that the Father has is mine.” “How then,” someone says, “was he baptized, and how did he receive the Spirit?” And we say that the Lord had no need of holy baptism, but in his love for humankind he devised for us a way of salvation. For believing in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and making this excellent confession before many witnesses, we wash away all the filth that comes from sin, are enriched with participation in the Holy Spirit, are made partakers of the divine nature, and gain the grace of adoption. It was necessary, then, that the Word of the Father, having lowered himself to self-emptying and not having disdained to come into likeness with us, should become the pattern and way of every good thing. So that we might learn the very power of holy baptism and how much we gain by coming to such grace, he himself begins the matter; and having been baptized he prays, so that you may learn, beloved, that for those once counted worthy of holy baptism unceasing prayer is a most fitting thing. The evangelist says that the heaven was opened, as having long been shut. For Christ said: “From now on you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” For since one flock had now been formed of those above and those below, and one chief shepherd had been shown to all, the heaven was opened, and man on earth was joined to the holy angels. And the Spirit came down again, as upon a second firstfruits of our race, and upon Christ as the first, who received it by the economy not so much for himself as for us; for in him and through him we have been enriched with all things. Most fittingly, then, he undergoes human things together with us. For where shall we see him emptied, though as God he has the fullness? Where did he share our poverty, if he is not fashioned into our poverty? And the voice of God the Father spoke over Christ at the time of holy baptism, as having received the man on earth through him and in him: “This is my beloved Son.” For he who is Son by nature and in truth and Only-begotten, when he became as we are, is declared Son of God—not receiving this for himself (for he was and is, as I said, true God), but so that he might pass the glory on to us. For he has become our firstfruits, and firstborn, and second Adam; therefore in him all things are said to have become new. And having put off the oldness that is in Adam, we have been enriched with the newness that is in Christ.

“The Holy Spirit descended” (3:22). If at the time of baptism he receives the Holy Spirit, this too, with the rest, would belong to the measures of his humanity. For he is not sanctified by receiving the Spirit insofar as he is God (for he himself is the one who sanctifies), but insofar as he became man. “And Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began” (3:23). This is the raving of the Samosatene, who wrongly takes the Gospel saying “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began,” and does not understand that he both was and began, but not in the same respect. For he always was, as God, but he began as man, when he became poor with what is ours; and he begins so that you may abolish your former birth and take up a second through regeneration. … great and unexpected harm results from keeping back the grace of baptism to a long and untimely delay. Above all, the hope is not secure, even if one should achieve one’s own plans; and if one’s aim does come about at the end, one is sanctified, but one has only the forgiveness of offences, and carries back the talent to the Master barren, having had no time to work with it.

“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan” (4:1). Here, I pray you, see human nature anointed in Christ as in its firstfruits with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and crowned with the highest honours. For of old the God of all promised, saying: “It shall be in those days that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” And the promise has been fulfilled for us, as in Christ first. Of the men of old, who had turned without restraint to love of the flesh, God said somewhere: “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh.” But since all things have become new in Christ, and we have been enriched with the new birth through Spirit and water, and are no longer called children of flesh and blood but rather call God Father, for this reason and most fittingly, as now honoured and having the splendid boast of adoption, we have become partakers of the divine nature through participation in the Holy Spirit. And the firstborn among us, when he came to be among many brothers, having lowered himself to self-emptying, receives the Spirit first, though he himself is the giver of the Spirit, so that through him the dignity, and the grace of communion with the Holy Spirit, might come to us too. Paul too teaches us something of this kind, saying of him and of us: “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one; for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will declare your name to my brothers.” For since he is not at all ashamed to call us brothers, because he came into likeness with us, for this reason, transferring our poverty to himself, he is sanctified with us, though he himself sanctifies all creation, so that he might not seem to refuse the measure of humanity—he who did not shun becoming man for the salvation and life of all, and became like us in every respect whatever, sin alone excepted. “And he was led in the Spirit into the wilderness” (4:1).

For “he was led” means not that he was carried off, but rather that he lived and conducted himself there. For we ourselves are accustomed to say of anyone living with moderation, “So-and-so conducts himself well.” The Lord, then, lived in the wilderness “in the Spirit,” that is, spiritually.

“And he ate nothing in those days” (4:2). The Lord fasted, then, giving nothing at all to the body’s need for food; not that he himself needed fasting, but he set forth his own conduct as a type and pattern for us, and made an image of the exceptional and admired life among us. For how were those on earth to know that dwelling in deserts is useful to them and necessary for salvation? For those who do so withdraw as from a storm of waves and from the idle distractions of the present life, and, like the blessed Joseph, all but strip off and leave to the world all that is its own. He shows, then, to those who have chosen to live so that self-control is necessary, and its fruit is fasting; for so Satan, when he tempts, will be defeated. You too, then, must first put on the power from on high, that is, be made a partaker of the Holy Spirit, and then choose to achieve the life that is lovely and honoured by God. Then you will occupy the deserts with spiritual courage; then you will fast in holiness, put pleasures to death, and be stronger than Satan the tempter. See, the president of the games, as God, has come to be among the contestants; he who crowns the heads of the saints, among those who are crowned. Let us see, then, the skill of the wrestling and the overthrow of the devil’s perversity. When the fortieth day had been spent in fasting, he was afterward hungry—though he himself gives food to the hungry, and is the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world, the sustainer of all things. But since, not disdaining our poverty, he ought not to withdraw altogether from the measures of humanity, he allowed the nature of the flesh to seek what was its own; in this sense we say that he was hungry. — Having fasted sufficiently, and by a power befitting God having kept his flesh uncorrupted without drink and food, he only then lets it suffer what is its own; for it says he was hungry. And for what reason? So that through both, skilfully, he might be recognized as at once God and man, clearly one and the same, both divinely above us and humanly like us.

“And the devil said to him,” and so on (4:3). … Satan, tempting him, expected that the suffering of hunger would be, as it were, an ally of the perversity in him; for he often overpowers us by taking the weaknesses in us to help his schemes or attempts; and he thought that Christ would readily leap at the wish to see loaves set before him. He said, then: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” He approaches him as a common man and as one of the saints; yet he suspected that he might perhaps be the Christ. How, then, did he wish to learn this? He reflected that to change a nature into what it was not is the effect and work of a power befitting God; for it is God who makes and transforms such things. “If this happens,” he says, “then he is surely the one expected to come against my dominion; but if he does not change it, I am dealing with a man, and I have cast off my fear and am rid of the danger.” Therefore Christ, knowing the beast’s design, neither changed the stone nor said that he could not do it or did not wish to, but rather shook him off as troublesome and superfluous, saying, “Man shall not live by bread alone”; that is, if God gives a man power, he can go without eating and live, like Moses and Elijah, who by the word of God lived without food for forty days. “If, then, it is possible to live without bread, why should I make the stone bread?” So he neither says, “I cannot,” lest he deny his own power, nor “I can,” lest the other, knowing that he is God, to whom alone such things are possible, should withdraw from him. — And see, I pray, human nature in Christ casting off the charges of Adam’s incontinence. Through eating we were conquered in Adam; through self-control we have conquered in Christ. — Our earthly body is nourished by foods from the earth and seeks for its support what is akin to it; but the rational soul is made robust for spiritual health by the divine word. For foods from the earth nourish the body akin to them, while those from above and from heaven brace the spirit. The food of the mind is the word from God, a spiritual bread that strengthens the heart of man, as is sung in the book of Psalms; and such, we say, is the food of the holy angels themselves. “He showed him all the kingdoms of the world” (4:5).

But you evildoer, wicked and accursed, how did you dare to show the Lord of all creation all the kingdoms and say, “All these are mine; now if you fall down and worship me, I will give them to you”? How do you promise what is not yours? Who made you heir of God’s kingdom? Who subjected the world under heaven to you? You seized it by deceit; so give it back to the Son made man, the Master of all. Hear what the prophet Isaiah says of you: “Has it been prepared for you too to reign? A deep ravine, fire and sulphur and wood laid up; the wrath of the Lord like a ravine burning with sulphur.” You whose lot is the unquenchable flame, how do you promise the King of all what is his own? Did you expect to have as your worshipper him before whom all things tremble, whom the seraphim and all the angelic powers glorify? “It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve.” — As though … at his very vitals, he brought forward this commandment most aptly; for before the Lord’s coming the devil had led astray the whole world under heaven, and he was the one worshipped everywhere; but the law of God, putting him outside the dominion he had procured by deceit, commanded that the one who is God by nature and in truth be worshipped, and that worship be rendered to him alone. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here” (4:9).

The devil brings a third temptation, that of vainglory, saying, “Throw yourself down,” as a display of the Godhead. But he did not bring him down through pride; rather, he himself was thrown out of this aim too: “For it is said,” he says, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” For God does not grant his help to those who tempt him, but to those who believe in him; and it is not because he counts us worthy of his care that we ought to make a show of it. Besides, Christ never gave a sign to those who tempted him: “For an evil generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it.” Let Satan, who is tempting him, hear this now too. So we have conquered in Christ; and he who once prevailed in Adam went away put to shame, so that we might have him under our feet. For when Christ conquered, he passed on to us too the power to conquer: “Behold,” he says, “I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” “For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you” (4:10).

See how wickedly he tries, by quoting the Scriptures, to pull down the Lord’s glory, as though he needed angelic help, as though he would stumble unless angels helped him. For the quotation from the psalm was not said of Christ; the Master does not need angels. The pinnacle was a very high building constructed against the side of the temple. — Some, however, wrongly refer the psalm to the person of the Lord, and, joining the verses, read thus: “For you, O Lord, are my hope; you have made the Most High your refuge.” They say, then, that the Lord has the Most High, namely the Father in heaven, as his refuge. Satan became the occasion of such an understanding for them; for he understood the verses so, saying: “You are the Son of God; throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you.” For Satan, being a slanderer and deceiver, fastens even what was said about us to the person of Christ the Saviour of us all. But we do not understand it as Satan is accustomed to understand. If the Arians have understood it so, it is no wonder; for they follow their own father, who is a liar, and there is no truth in him, according to the Saviour’s word. For if such a thing is true according to them, then we have made Christ our hope, but he has the Father as his refuge; so we have fled for refuge to one who is himself helped, and we call Saviour one who is saved by another. It is not so; far from it. We say, then, to those accustomed to think so: You are announcing another error to us; you are leaving the royal and straight road; you are falling into thorns and pits; you have fallen from the truth. The Son is equal to the Father in all things, the imprint of his hypostasis, Most High as the Father is. Satan, then, used these verses of the Saviour as of a common man; for since he is wholly darkness and has his mind darkened, he did not understand the force of what was said: that the psalm is spoken in the person of every righteous man helped by the Most High, who is the God of heaven; and besides, he did not know that the Word, being God, had become man and was himself the one tempted by the economy. He, then, as I said, supposed that the words were spoken of a common man, or of one of the holy prophets; but it is absurd for us, who know the mystery exactly and have believed that he is God and Son of God, and that for our sake he became man like us, to suppose that the verses were spoken about him. It does not fit the person of the Saviour, then, to say, “You have made the Most High your refuge.” For he himself is the Most High, the refuge of all, the hope of all, the all-powerful right hand of the Father; and if anyone makes him his refuge, evils will not come near him; for he himself will command the angels, who are ministering spirits, to guard the righteous man. For as fathers according to the flesh, when they see a rough and difficult road, snatch up their infants in their arms, lest they be hurt, since they have tender feet and cannot yet walk on a hard road, so the rational powers do not allow those who are not yet able to toil, but have a mind somehow childlike,

to toil beyond their strength, but draw them out of every temptation. “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (4:14). Leaving his stay in the cities, he camped in the deserts; there he fasted while tempted by Satan, there he conquered for us, there he crushed the heads of the dragons; there, as the blessed David says, the swords of the enemy failed utterly, and cities were destroyed—that is, those who were like towers and cities. Having thus prevailed over Satan, and having crowned in himself human nature with the prizes won against him, he returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, using energy and power, working very many divine signs and providing great wonder. He worked the divine signs not by receiving the grace of the Spirit from outside, as something acquired, as the choir of the saints do, but rather because he is by nature and in truth the Son of God the Father and has what is his as his own portion; for he said to him: “All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine, and I am glorified in them.” He has been glorified, then, as using the power and energy of the consubstantial Spirit as his own. “And he came to Nazareth, and entered the synagogue” (4:16).

Since he had now to make himself manifest to those of the blood of Israel, and the mystery of the incarnation had to shine out to those who did not know it—and that he had been anointed by God the Father for the salvation of the world under heaven—he arranges this too most wisely; and he grants it before the others to those in Nazareth, among whom he had been brought up, according to the flesh, I mean. Having entered the synagogue, then, he receives a book to read; and opening it, he chose a prophetic passage that speaks of the mystery concerning him. — Most plainly, through these words, he himself was the one who had said through the prophet’s voice that he would both become man and come to save the world under heaven. For we say that the Son was anointed in no other way than as having become like us according to the flesh and made man; for being at once God and man, the same one gives the Spirit to the creation divinely, but receives it from God the Father humanly—he who sanctifies all creation, since he has appeared from a holy Father, and pours the Spirit poured forth from him, as his own, into the powers above and also into those who have recognized his appearing. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor,” and so on (4:18).

By these words he plainly shows that for our sake he accepted the lowliness and abasement of the self-emptying, and the very name and reality of “Christ.” For the Spirit, he says, which is naturally in me because of the identity of essence and Godhead, has also come upon me from outside; just as at the Jordan it came upon me in the form of a dove, not as though it were not in me, but “because he has anointed me.” For whose sake did he choose to be anointed? For ours, who had become bereft of the Spirit through that ancient sentence: “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh.” — This the Word of God made man says; for being true God from the true God the Father, and having become man for us without change, he has been anointed together with us with the oil of gladness, when the Spirit came upon him at the Jordan in the form of a dove. Of old, kings and priests were anointed symbolically, gaining from it some share in sanctification; but he who became man for us was anointed with the spiritual oil of gladness and with the very coming of the Spirit, receiving this for us, not for himself. For when the Spirit had flown away and did not remain in us, because we were flesh, the earth was full of mourning, being deprived of participation in God. — He proclaimed release to captives, and also brought it about, binding the strong man who tyrannically oppressed our race. Just as “he has anointed me” befits the humanity—for it is not the divine nature that is anointed but what is of one kind with us—so “he has sent me” too must be reckoned to the human. — And those who of old had the devil’s mist over their hearts he made bright, rising like a sun of righteousness, and making them sons no longer of night and darkness but of light and day, according to Paul’s word; and those who were blind—for the apostate had blinded their hearts—recovered their sight and recognized the truth; and, as Isaiah says, darkness became light for them: that is, the ignorant became wise, and those who once went astray have known the ways of righteousness. And the Father says somewhere to the Son himself: “I have given you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out of bonds those who are bound, and out of the prison-house those who sit in darkness.” For the Only-begotten came into this world, and to those of the race, that is, to those of the blood of Israel—for from them he appeared according to the flesh—he gave the new covenant announced long before by the voice of the prophets; he also flashed the divine and heavenly light upon the nations; and he went and preached to the spirits in Hades, appeared to those shut up in the prison-house, and released all from bonds and constraint. How would these things not hold a clear proof that Christ is God and from God by nature? And what is “to send away in release those who are broken”? To send out free those whom Satan spiritually broke by beating them. And what is “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”? … To announce his own coming, that the time of the Lord, that is, of the Son, had arrived; for the acceptable year is the one in which Christ was crucified for us; for then we became acceptable to God the Father, having been made fruitful through him. Therefore he said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” And indeed he came back to life on the third day, having trampled the might of death. Then he said to the disciples: “All authority has been given to me,” and what follows. That, then, is surely the acceptable year in which we were received, having obtained kinship with him, having washed away sin through holy baptism, and having become partakers of his divine nature through participation in the Holy Spirit; or the acceptable year is the one in which he manifested his glory through his divine signs beyond reason. For we gladly received the time of salvation from him, which the all-wise Paul also pointed out, saying: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation”—when the poor, who once had suffered the want of every good thing, having no hope and without God in the world (these would be those from the nations), became rich in faith in him and gained the divine and heavenly treasure, namely the evangelical and saving proclamation, through which they became sharers in the kingdom of heaven, partners with the saints, and heirs of what is beyond mind and reason. “For eye has not seen,” he says, “nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Or perhaps the word here says that the abundant supply of the gifts through Christ has been given to the poor in spirit. By the brokenhearted he means those who are weak and have an easily shattered mind, unable to resist the assaults of the passions, but so subdued by them as to seem captives. To these he promises healing and release; and to them, being blind, he also gives recovery of sight. For those who worship the creature rather than the Creator, “saying to the wood, You are my father, and to the stone, You begot me,” and so did not recognize the one who is God by nature and in truth—how would they not be blind, with hearts bare of the divine and spiritual light? Into these the Father puts the light of the true knowledge of God. For they were called through faith and knew him, or rather were known by him; and being sons of night and darkness, they became children of light; for the day dawned for them, the sun of righteousness rose, and the bright morning star arose. Nothing prevents us from applying all that has been said to those of the blood of Israel too; for they too were poor and brokenhearted, and as it were captives and darkened; for there was none on earth who did good, not even one, but “all turned aside, together they became worthless.” But Christ came, preaching the achievements of his coming to those of Israel before the others (and such too were the infirmities of the nations), and they were redeemed through him; for they have become rich in the wisdom that comes from him, and have become understanding, and no longer have a weak and shattered mind, but one sound and strong and well fitted for receiving and achieving every good and saving thing. For wisdom and understanding were needed by those who had gone astray, who through great stupidity worshipped the creature rather than the Creator and inscribed wood and stones as gods. But those who of old did not know Christ, because they lived in mist and darkness, have inscribed him as God. When these words had been read to those assembled, he turned the eyes of all to himself, as they wondered, perhaps, how he knew letters without having learned. And since it was the custom of those of Israel to say that the prophecies about him had been fulfilled either in some of those who had reigned gloriously among them, or at least in holy prophets—for understanding nothing rightly of what was written about him, they went off on another path, falling wide of the mark—so that they might not again say some such thing about this prophecy, he necessarily guards against it beforehand and says: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your ears,” plainly presenting himself as the one foretold by the prophecy. — For he preached the kingdom of heaven to those from the nations; for they were poor, having nothing: no God, no law, no prophets; or else to all, simply, who do not have spiritual wealth. He rescued those who were captives, having overthrown the apostate tyrant, that is, Satan. He flashed the divine and spiritual light on those who had their hearts darkened; he said, indeed: “I have come as light into this world.” He released from the bonds of sin those, namely, who had a broken heart; and he showed the life to come and threatened the just judgment.

He proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord, in which the Saviour’s preaching took place; for by the acceptable year I think his first coming is meant, and by the day of recompense, the day of judgment. “And all bore witness to him and wondered,” and so on (4:22). … understanding that he was the one anointed and sent, and the doer of such wonderful deeds, they were carried back to their usual ways and talk foolishly; for though they had wondered at the words of grace that came out of his mouth, they wished to belittle him; for they said: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” And how does this impair the glory of the wonder-worker? What prevents him from being august and admirable, even if he was, as was supposed, the son of Joseph? Do you not see the divine signs: Satan fallen, the herds of demons conquered, many set free from various diseases? You praise the grace in his teachings, and then you quibble in Jewish fashion that he was registered as having Joseph for father? O great folly! It is true to say of them: “Behold, a foolish and senseless people; they have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear.”

“Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb,” and so on (4:23). … some: “Physician, heal yourself.” It was, then, a saying current among the Jews, invented for wit; for they used to say it of physicians who were ill. Putting this saying before them, Christ said: “You want many signs to be done by me, and above all among you, among whom I was brought up; but I know the common failing that befalls everyone. The most excellent things are somehow always despised when they are not rare among people but are had freely. So it is with men too: one who is familiar and always present is often robbed of the honour due to him by those who know him.” — He rebuked them, then, for saying foolishly such things as “Is not this the son of Joseph?”

But he keeps to the aim of his teaching of the mystery, and says: “Amen, amen, I say to you, that no prophet is acceptable in his own country. There were many widows in the days of Elijah,” and so on (4:24–25). … as I said, some of the Jews asserted that the prophecies about him had been fulfilled either in holy prophets or in some of the illustrious men among them, he usefully leads them away from such a supposition by saying that Elijah was sent to one widow, and that the prophet Elisha healed one leper, Naaman the Syrian. By these he signifies the Church from the nations, which was to receive him and be freed from leprosy, because of Israel’s insensibility.

“And all in the synagogue were filled with wrath,” and so on (4:28). Because he had branded their evil intent, they were inflamed to anger; and because he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled”—the one that says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” and what follows. For they thought he was making himself equal to the prophets, and they cast him out of the city—rather fixing the sentence against themselves and confirming what the Saviour had said; for they themselves have fallen from the city above, because they did not receive Christ. And so that he might convict them not only of impiety but also of going as far as attempts on his life, he allowed their daring against him to go forward; for their impulse was reckless and their envy untamed; bringing him, then, to the brow of the hill, they tried to throw him down the precipice. “But he passed through the midst of them,” not taking the slightest account, so to speak, of their plot; not fleeing suffering—for he had come for this—but waiting for the fitting time; for it was now the beginning of the preaching, and to suffer before he had preached the word of truth would have been untimely. For it was in his power to suffer and not to suffer, and he was Lord of times and events. This is proof that when he did suffer, he suffered willingly, and that he would not have suffered unless he had given himself up.

“And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee” (4:31). Those whom word does not move to know clearly who is God and Lord by nature and in truth, the display of signs catches in the net and makes docile. Usefully and necessarily, then, he often adds mighty works to his teaching of the mysteries. For the inhabitants of Judea were unbelieving and despised the words of those who called them to salvation, and those of Capernaum most of all; the Lord indeed accused it, saying: “And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades.” But though he knew that they were disobedient and hard-hearted, he went to them like an excellent physician to those fallen into the last extremity of disease, and tried to free them from the evil; for he himself says: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” He taught, then, in synagogues with great boldness; for this too he foretold through the voice of Isaiah, saying: “I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth.” And he also commanded the holy apostles to speak about him with great boldness, saying: “What I tell you in the darkness, say in the light; and what you hear in the ear, proclaim on the housetops.” And on the sabbath, when they were at rest, he spoke with them. They wondered, then, at the power of his teaching and at the greatness of his authority; for his word, it says, was with authority, not flattering but urging to salvation. For the Jews thought Christ was nothing other than one who would appear among them like one of the saints and in the rank of a prophet. But so that they might have a higher estimation and opinion of him, he goes beyond the prophetic measure; for he never said, “Thus says the Lord,” as was the custom of those others, but spoke as Lord of the law, indeed as one above the law. God said, then, through Isaiah: “And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sure holy things of David. Behold, I have given him as a testimony among the nations, a ruler and commander to the nations.” For it was fitting that Moses, being a servant, should become the minister of the shadow that does not abide, but that the Eternal One, I mean Christ, should be the announcer of the perpetual and abiding worship. And what is the everlasting covenant? The sacred decrees of Christ, of the seed of David according to the flesh: called holy and sure as making holy and making faithful—just as the fear of God is called pure as making pure, and the word of the Gospel is called life as life-giving: “For the words that I have spoken to you,” he says, “are spirit and life,” that is, spiritual and life-giving. But consider the precision of the prophecy. Isaiah, having said of Christ as in the person of God the Father, “Behold, I have given him as a testimony to the nations,” testifying, as it were, … so that no one might suppose him to be one of the holy prophets, but rather that everyone whatever might know that he is distinguished by the glory of lordship (for being God he appeared to us), says not only that he has been given as a testimony, but also as ruler and commander to the nations. The blessed prophets, and before them Moses, having the measure of servants, always proclaimed to their hearers “Thus says the Lord,” not as commanding but rather as ministering the divine words. But our Lord Jesus Christ spoke words most befitting God; indeed even among the Jews themselves he was marvelled at because his word was with authority, and because he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. For his word was not of the shadow of the law; but as being himself the Lawgiver he changed the letter into truth and the types into spiritual clarity; for he was ruler, and had this authority to command.

“And Jesus rebuked him,” and so on (4:35). And with authority befitting God he rebuked the unclean spirits. So that we should not disbelieve, he made the divine sign a neighbour to his words. — We saw the accursed Satan conquered by him in the wilderness and dashed down in three falls; we saw again his power shaken and his authority over us falling; we saw ourselves, in Christ as our firstfruits, rebuking the evil spirits. That this too looks to the boast of human nature you will learn from the very words of the Saviour. For the Jews spoke falsely against his glory and said: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Then, after saying very many necessary things to them, he afterwards said: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” “For if,” he says, “having become man like you, I rebuke the unclean spirits with authority and kingship befitting God, it is your nature that is crowned with such glory; for you are seen, through me and in me, to have been enriched with the kingdom of God.” The evil demons, then, were driven out; and being brought to perceive his invincible power, and unable to bear the assaults of the Godhead, they cried out something tyrannical and crafty, saying, “Ha! What have we to do with you?” that is, “Why do you not let us have a place, but remove the error of impiety?” Then they pretend to speak well of him and call him the Holy One of God; for they thought that by such praise they would make him a lover of vainglory, and get him to refrain from rebuking them, as if returning a favour for a favour. But the crafty hunter will not succeed. For God is not mocked; and the Lord stops their unclean tongues. Then he commands them to depart from those who had them. And those who had become spectators of such great things are amazed at the authority of his word; for he did not perform the divine signs by lifting up a prayer, or asking at any time for the power to accomplish them from another; but being himself the Word of God the Father, living and active, through whom are all things and in whom are all things, he was the one who crushed Satan and stopped the profane mouth of the unclean demons.

“He entered the house of Simon” (4:38). See, then, how he lodged with one of the disciples, a poor man of no note in life—he who for our sake endured voluntary poverty, so that we by his poverty might become rich, and might learn to associate with the lowly and not to look down on those in want and affliction. — Jesus comes to Simon’s house and finds his mother-in-law in a fever; and standing over her he rebuked the fever, and it left her. Perhaps, then, in the words “The fever left her,” spoken by Matthew and Mark, there is no indication of any living being causing this fever; but in the words spoken by Luke, “Standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her,” I do not know whether we shall not be compelled to say that the thing rebuked is a living being that could not withstand the power of the one rebuking; for it is not reasonable to say that something soulless and incapable of perceiving a rebuke is rebuked. It is no wonder that there are certain harmful powers acting on the human body, and we shall not in every case accuse the soul of the sufferers as harmed by them. For when the devil, having received authority to try Job through his body, struck him with an evil sore, Job is not to be accused on that account, since he contended and nobly endured the blow. Only let it be said, whenever we are tried by bodily pains, “But do not touch his soul”; as the Lord too, rebuking, heals those who have them. And he lays his hands on each one of the sick and freed them from their disease, showing that the holy flesh, which he made his own, implanting in it a power befitting God, bore the working of the Word’s power; or that we might learn that, though the only-begotten Word of God has become as we are, he is no less God even so, fulfilling all things easily even through his own flesh; for he worked wonders through it too. Do not marvel overmuch, but consider rather that fire, when it has come to be in a bronze vessel, puts into it the working of its own heat. So too the all-powerful Word of God, having truly united to himself the temple from the holy Virgin, animated and endowed with mind, implanted in it the working of his own power befitting God. And indeed, shaming the Jews, he says: “If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe my works.” One can see, then, with truth itself bearing witness, that the Only-begotten did not give his own glory to the one from the woman as to a man existing and thought of separately, by himself; but, being one Son with the holy body united to him, he worked the divine signs; and he is worshipped by creation as God. And indeed he entered the house of Peter because a woman lay thrown on a bed, consumed by a violent fever; though he could have said as God, “Put off the disease, rise up,” he did not do so; but showing his own flesh to be effective for healing—for it was God’s flesh—he touched her hand, and immediately, says Scripture, the fever left her. — But let us too receive Jesus; for when he comes into us as well, and we hold him in mind and heart, then he will quench the burning of unnatural pleasures, and will raise us up and make us strong—spiritually, that is—so that we may serve him, that is, fulfil what pleases him. See again, I pray, how great a benefit the touch of his holy flesh has: it drives out various diseases and a crowd of demons, overthrows the power of the devil, and heals so great a throng in a single moment of time. For though he could perform the wonders by word and nod, he lays his hands too on those who are in sicknesses, so that he might teach something necessary. For we had, we had to learn that the holy flesh, which he made his own, implanting in it a power befitting God, bore the working of the Word’s power. Let him touch us, then, or rather let us touch him through the mystical blessing, so that he may free us too from the sicknesses of the soul and from the attack and greed of the demons. “And rebuking them, he did not allow them to speak” (4:41). He did not let the unclean demons confess him; for they ought not to seize the glory of the apostolic ministry, nor ought the mystery of Christ to be spoken by an unclean tongue. So even if they say something true, let no one believe them; for the light is not known through darkness. And this the disciple of Christ will teach, saying: “For what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what agreement has Christ with Beliar?”

“And he saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets” (5:2).

… let us marvel at the skill of the economy, at the catching of those who caught the world under heaven—I mean the holy apostles—who, knowing how to fish, became a net in Christ’s hands, so that they too, letting down the dragnet of the Gospel proclamations, might bring him those throughout all the earth. And indeed he said somewhere through one of the holy prophets: “Behold, I send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish for them; and after that I will send many hunters, and they shall hunt them.” By the fishermen he means the holy apostles, and by the hunters those who from time to time are the leaders and teachers of the holy churches. But consider, I pray, that he does not only preach but also shows signs, giving pledges of his power and confirming what is said by the display of wonders. For when he had spoken sufficiently to the crowds, he turns again to his usual mighty working and catches the disciples by means of their fishing trade, so that they might know that his will is all-powerful and that creation serves his nods befitting God. “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep,” and so on (5:4).

And so, after sufficient teaching, since a divine work also had to be added to the words for the benefit of those who watched, he commanded Simon and his companions to put out a little from the land and let down the net for a catch. They said they had toiled all night and taken nothing; yet in the name of Christ they let down the net, and at once had it full of the catch, so that through a plain event, as from a type and image of what was wonderfully accomplished, they might be fully assured that their toil would not be without reward, nor their effort fruitless, when they spread the net of the evangelical teaching, but that in it they would by all means and everywhere gather the flocks of the nations. But consider this: Simon and those with him were not able to haul up the net, and for this reason, not daring to speak from fear and astonishment—for from wonder they were reduced to speechlessness—they signalled, it says, to their partners, clearly in the fishing trade, to help them and save the catch together. For many have joined and still join in the labours of the holy apostles: before others, those who search out for us the sacred writings of the holy Gospels, and after them other pastors and teachers, leaders of peoples and experts in the doctrines of the truth. For the net is still being drawn up, Christ filling it and calling to conversion those in the depths of the sea, as it is written, that is, those who are in the storm and waves of the world. — Origen gives a wonderful contemplation on the prophetic saying of the divine Jeremiah, which the holy Cyril explained above: “Behold, I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish for them; and after that I will send many hunters, and they shall hunt them.” “But when Simon Peter saw it,” and so on (5:8).

For this reason Peter too, falling into the memory of his former sins, trembles and is afraid, and as one unclean does not dare to receive the pure one, out of a praiseworthy timidity; for he had learned, according to the law, to distinguish between holy and profane.

“And behold, a man full of leprosy,” and so on (5:12). The faith of the man who approached is worthy of all praise; for he bore witness that Emmanuel can accomplish all things, and he seeks to be freed through nods befitting God, though the ailment was incurable; for leprosy does not yield to the skill of physicians. “But I have seen,” he says, “the unclean demons driven out with authority befitting God, and others released from many diseases. I understood that such things are done by a divine and invincible hand; and besides, I see that he is kind and most ready, pitying those who come to him. What, then, prevents me too from receiving mercy?” And what does Christ say to this? He confirms the faith in him and brings about full assurance on this very point; for he accepts the request, acknowledges that he can, and says: “I will; be cleansed.” He also grants him the touch of his holy and all-powerful hand, and at once the leprosy left him and the ailment was gone. But marvel, I pray, at Christ in these things, working at once divinely and bodily: divine, to will in such a way that all he willed was present to him; human, to stretch out the hand. From both, then, one Christ is understood, even though the Word became flesh.

“And he charged him to tell no one” (5:14). The very nature of the event, even with him silent, was enough to announce to all who knew the man the power of the one who had healed him; yet he charges him to tell no one. Why? So that those who receive from God the grace of healings may learn from this not to seek praise from those they heal, nor commendation from anyone, lest they fall into arrogance, the most shameful and last of all evils. And by the economy he tells the leper to offer the gift to the priests according to the law of Moses. For admittedly he wished to remove the shadow and refashion the types into spiritual worship; but since the Jews, not yet believing in him, clung to the commandments of Moses, as though the ancient customs were still in force, he allows the leper to do this “for a testimony to them.” And what is this? Always making reverence for the law their pretext, and saying that the hierophant Moses had been the minister of the commandment from above, they were eager to think little of Christ the Saviour of us all; and indeed they plainly said: “We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where he is from.” They had, then, to be persuaded by the facts themselves that the measure of Moses comes behind the glory of Christ; for the one was as a faithful servant over his house, the other as Son over the house of the Father. And from the very healing of the leper one can see quite clearly that Christ stands in incomparable superiority to the laws of Moses. For Miriam, Moses’ sister, became leprous because she spoke against him; and Moses was much grieved at this; but since he was not able to remove the disease from the woman, he fell before God, saying: “O God, I beseech you, heal her.” Pay close attention, then: there it was a request; he asked to obtain gentleness from above through prayer; but the Saviour of all said with authority befitting God: “I will; be cleansed.” The removal of the leprosy, then, was a testimony to the priests, and from it those who gave the higher vote to Moses could know that they were walking outside the truth. For it was necessary, it was necessary, to admire Moses as minister of the law spoken through angels, but to admire Emmanuel far more, as minister of grace, and to glorify him as the true Son of God the Father. One might see the deep and great mystery of Christ written for us in Leviticus. The law given through Moses declares the leper defiled, and has commanded that he be sent out of the camp as unclean; but when the ailment happens to abate, then, and only then, it orders that he be received back. Then it also explains in what way he will be clean, saying: “This is the law of the leper, on the day he is cleansed: he shall be brought to the priest; and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall look, and behold, the plague of the leprosy is healed in the leper; and the priest shall command, and they shall take for the one who is cleansed two clean living birds; and the priest shall command, and they shall slaughter one into an earthen vessel over living water; and he shall take the living bird and dip it into the blood of the bird slaughtered over living water, and sprinkle it seven times on the one cleansed of the leprosy, and he shall be clean; and he shall send away the living bird into the field.” So there are two birds, unblemished, that is, clean, having not one fault in the eyes of the law; and one was slaughtered over living water, while the other, remaining outside the slaughter, was then dipped in the blood of the dead one and sent away. The type would intimate to us the great and august mystery of our Saviour. For the Word was from above, that is, from the Father and from heaven; for this reason he is very fittingly likened to a bird. And he came down by the economy into likeness with us and took the form of a servant; yet even so he was from above; and indeed he said, speaking plainly to the Jews: “You are from below; I am from above; I am not of this world.” And again: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man.” For, as I said just now, even having become flesh, that is, a complete man, he was not earthly, not of dust like us, but heavenly and above the world, inasmuch as he is understood to be God. Yet in the birds one can see him suffering in the flesh according to the Scriptures, yet remaining beyond suffering; dying humanly, but living divinely; for the Word is life. — And indeed the all-wise disciple said that he was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. But even though the Word had no share in suffering death in his own nature, yet he makes the suffering of his own flesh his own. For the living bird was dipped in the blood of the dead one; and stained with the blood, all but sharing in the suffering, it was sent out into the wilderness; for the only-begotten Word of God went back up into the heavens with the flesh united to him; and the sight in heaven was strange. The multitude of the angels was amazed, then, seeing in our form the King of the earth and Lord of the powers; and indeed they said: “Who is this who comes from Edom?”—that is, from the earth—“the red of his garments from Bosor?” (Bosor is interpreted “flesh,” or “constraint and affliction.”) Then they asked further: “What are these wounds between your hands?” And he said to them: “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my beloved.” For just as, most fittingly, even after his return to life from the dead he showed his hands to the unbelieving Thomas and bade him feel the marks of the nails in them and the piercing in his side, so, having come to be in heaven, he fully assured the holy angels that Israel had justly been cast out of kinship with him and had slipped away. For this reason he showed his robe stained with blood and the wounds in his hands—not that he could not put them off; for having risen from the dead he put off corruption, and with it all that comes from it; but so that now, by the economy, the manifold wisdom of God, which he wrought in Christ, might be made known through the Church to the principalities and authorities. But perhaps someone will say: “How, then, do you say that the Son and Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same, though two birds were brought? Or would the law not show rather clearly that there are two sons and Christs?” Some indeed have already been brought down to such impiety as to think and say that the Word from God the Father is one Christ by himself, and the one from the seed of David another. But we say to those who out of ignorance have supposed this to be so: The divine Paul writes, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” If, then, they say there are two sons, there would surely be two lords, two faiths, and as many baptisms. Then he who has Christ speaking in him, as he himself says, would be teaching falsely. But this is not so; far from it. We know, then, one Lord, that is, the only-begotten Word of God made flesh, not setting man and God apart, but affirming that the very Word from God the Father became man while remaining God. Since they say otherwise, let those of the opposite opinion tell us: If they speak of two sons—one by himself, the one from the seed of David, and another apart, the Word from God the Father—is not the Word from God the Father better by nature than the one from the seed of David? What, then, shall we do, seeing the two birds, which are not of different natures from each other but rather of the same kind, and differ in nothing as to being what they are? Let them grant, then, because the birds are of one kind, that the Word of God differs in nothing from a man. But they will not allow it; for the distance between Godhead and humanity is great. Yet examples must be understood according to the account fitting them; for they fall short of the realities and sometimes give only a partial indication of what they signify. We say, then, that the law was a shadow and type, and like a painting setting things before the eyes of those who look. And shadows are, in the art of those who paint on a panel, the first layer of the colours; if the bloom of the colours is laid on them, then, and only then, the beauty of the painting will flash out. Since, then, the law given through Moses had to depict clearly the mystery of Christ, it does not show him dying and living at once in one of the birds, lest what was done should seem a stage trick; but it received him as suffering the slaughter in one, and showed the same one living and released in the other. I shall try to show by another story that the account of this does not go beyond what is reasonable. If one of us wished to see the story of Abraham painted as on a panel, how would the painter have drawn him? Doing everything in one figure? Or the same man separately and differently, that is, in different forms in many places? For example, at one point seated on the ass, with the boy taken along and the servants following; at another, the ass left below with the servants, having loaded Isaac with the wood and holding the knife and the fire in his hands; and elsewhere again the same man in another form, having bound the lad on the wood and armed his right hand with the knife to strike. But there was not one Abraham and another, though the painting is seen differently in many places, but the same everywhere, the painter’s art always adapting itself to the needs of the events; for it was not possible to see him in one figure doing all that has been said. The law, then, was a painting and type, pregnant with the truth of realities; so that though there was a pair of birds, yet one was the one in both, as in suffering and beyond suffering, in death and above death, and ascending into heaven as a kind of second firstfruits of humanity renewed for incorruption; for he opened for us the road upward, and we shall follow him in due time. And the slaughter of one bird and the dipping of the other in the blood of the one slaughtered, while it was sent away from the slaughter, would be the antitype of the true things; for Christ died for us, and we have been baptized into his death, and he has saved us by his own blood. “And he was teaching, and Pharisees were sitting by,” and so on (5:17).

Around him was the audience of the envious: these were scribes and Pharisees, who became spectators of what was wonderfully done and listened to him teaching. “And the power of God,” it says, “was there for him to heal.” Was it as though God gave him the ability to accomplish the divine signs? Did he borrow power from another? And who would dare to say this? Rather, he himself was acting by his own strength as God and Lord, and not as a sharer in divine grace. For men are often counted worthy of spiritual gifts, but one can see them sometimes weak in places, for reasons known to the distributor of the divine gifts himself; but in the Saviour of us all there was nothing of the kind: there was in him, for healing, not a human but a divine and invincible strength; for he was God and Son of God. — … Christ teaches as teacher, being the wisdom of the Father; for all the others teach by receiving from him. “And the power of the Lord,” it says, “was upon him to heal all,” that is, he had not a human strength for healing but a divine and invincible one. The other saints at some times receive the ability to work healings and at others do not; but Jesus, as God and as the power of the Father, always healed all. “And behold, men bringing on a bed a man who was paralysed,” and so on (5:18).

Then, it says, when a countless multitude of scribes and Pharisees had gathered, behold, men bringing on a bed a man who was paralysed; and being unable to get in by the door, they carried him up to the roof, as though attempting something strange and new; for pulling up the tiles they moved the material laid there. And yet, while this was being done, Jesus was patient and those present were silent, wishing to see the outcome and to see what he would say and do. Having opened up the roof, then, they let down the pallet and bring the paralysed man into the middle. What, then, does the Lord do? Seeing their faith—not the paralytic’s, but that of those who brought him; for it is possible for one person to be healed through the faith of others—or else he healed the paralytic himself, since he believed. One might also say that the place into which they let down the paralytic’s bed through the tiles was open to the sky, without their disturbing any of the roof at all. When the Saviour said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you,” he says this to humanity in common; for those who believed in him were to be healed of the soul’s ailments and to have forgiven the sins they had first committed. Or he says this: “I had to heal your soul before your body; for if this did not happen, you would sin the more, having received strength to walk. For even if you did not ask this, yet I as God see the passions of the soul from which the disease has also come upon you.” … the Saviour, then, since it was necessary, when a countless multitude of scribes and Pharisees had gathered, that something most befitting God should take place for their benefit—for they thought little of him—again arranged one of his wonders. A paralysed man lay on a bed, held fast by an incurable disease; since the physicians’ art was proved too weak for the case, he was brought by his own people to the physician from above and from heaven. And when he was now in the sight of the one able to heal, his faith was accepted; and Christ at once shows that it destroys sin; for he called to the man lying there, “Your sins are forgiven you.” But, I suppose, someone will say to this: “He wanted to be rid of the disease; how then did Christ announce forgiveness of sin to him?” So that you may learn that God silently and noiselessly watches over human affairs and oversees the path of each one’s life. So it is written: “For the ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and he watches all his tracks.” And since he is good and wills all men to be saved, he often scours clean of sins those who are caught in them, casting sickness on the body; so he says through the voice of Jeremiah: “By pain and the scourge you shall be disciplined, Jerusalem.” And the author of Proverbs said somewhere: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, nor lose heart when you are reproved by him; for the Lord disciplines whom he loves, and scourges every son whom he receives.” Rightly, then, Christ announces that he will first cut away the occasions of illness, and as it were the root of the ailment, that is, sin; for when this is removed, on account of which the ailment came, the disease had altogether to be removed with it. “And the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying,” and so on (5:21). He, then, as has been said, having authority most befitting God, announced the forgiveness of sins; but the word again troubles the dull and envious workshop of the Pharisees; for they said to one another, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies?” But you would not have said this of him, O Pharisee, if you had known the divine Scriptures, if you had remembered the prophetic words, if you had understood the august and great mystery of the incarnation. They charge him with blasphemy, fixing the utmost penalty for him and voting death; for the law given through Moses ordered that whoever spoke evil against God should suffer death. Since they had once dared this, he at once shows that he is God, so as again to convict them of intolerable impiety. “Why,” he says, “do you reason in your hearts?” When you say, then, O Pharisee, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” I too will say to you: Who can know hearts and see the thoughts in the depth of the mind but God alone? For he himself says somewhere through the voice of the prophets: “I, the Lord, search hearts and test the reins.” And David said somewhere, of him and of us: “He who fashioned their hearts one by one.” So he who knows hearts and reins as God is the one who forgives sins as God. “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority,” and so on (5:24).

Then, since in the saying “Your sins are forgiven you” there is often ready ground for unbelief—for a man does not see sins being forgiven with the eyes of the body—while casting off the disease, and the paralytic rising and walking, holds a clear proof of power befitting God, he adds: “Rise, take up your pallet, and go to your house.” Which was indeed done; for he went back home freed from so long a sickness. It was shown, then, by the event itself, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And of whom does he say this? Of himself, or also of us? Both are true. For he, as God made man, as Lord of the law, forgives sins; but we too have received from him this grace, so splendid and admirable; for he crowned human nature with this honour too. And indeed he said to the holy apostles: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And again: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” When do we find him saying this to them? When, having trampled the might of death and risen from the dead, he breathed on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” For having made them partakers of his nature and made the Holy Spirit dwell in them, he then made them partakers of his own glory too, giving them authority to forgive and to retain sins. Since, then, we have been commanded to do this very thing, how much more does he himself forgive sins, who gave others the authority to be able to do it!

“And he saw a tax collector named Levi” (5:27). For Levi was a tax collector, a man insatiable in love of gain, unbridled in greed, an unjust lover of what did not belong to him; for this was the practice of tax collectors. But he was snatched from the very workshops of injustice and wonderfully saved, when Christ the Saviour of us all called him; for he said to him, “Follow me; and he left everything and followed him.” Do you see how truly the most wise Paul speaks when he says that Christ came to save sinners? Do you see how the only-begotten Word of God, made flesh, transferred the devil’s vessels to himself? Levi was saved, and the event has given us good hopes; for we have been taught by what happened that repentance will save. The Master and God of all will himself confirm it, saying through the voice of a prophet: “Turn to me, and you will be saved, you from the end of the earth.” But none of these things shamed the Pharisees; rather, they bring charges against the disciples.

For hear: “And their scribes and the Pharisees grumbled to his disciples, saying,” and so on (5:30). … there are some who try to deprive those caught in sins of the divine gentleness; for they do not admit repentance, but as it were rebuke the one who saves, who seeks what is his own and gathers from every side what was scattered. To them we will say: Before you, the Pharisees grumbled when they saw Levi called and a crowd of tax collectors gathered and dining with Christ the Saviour of us all. Then approaching the holy apostles they accused them, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors?” But they heard: “Those who are well have no need of a physician.” For the Saviour of all, being a physician of spirits, does not withdraw from those who need him, and, as one able to cleanse them, by the economy he stayed with those not yet cleansed. Let us see, O Pharisee, the arrogance of your mind. Of what charges your haughtiness toward those in sins has been the cause for you, let us take as interpreter Christ himself, who knows all things; for he said of a Pharisee boasting in his prayer and of a certain tax collector accusing himself: “Amen, I say to you, this man went down to his house justified rather than that Pharisee.” So the tax collector who confessed his sin was justified above the arrogant Pharisee. — For what reason do the Pharisees find fault with the Saviour for eating with sinners? Because the law was to distinguish between holy and profane, that is, that the one sanctified should not mix with the profane. Professing to avenge this law they brought their charges; but it was envy against the Lord and love of mockery. He shows them, then, that he is present now not as judge but as physician; and he does what belongs to medicine, being with those who need healing. And since they had received an answer to the first charge, they add another, accusing the disciples of not fasting, wishing to get a hold against him from this. See the persistence of their wickedness. Since they had received an answer to the first, they pass from one thing to another, wishing to get a hold and to show that the holy disciples, and Jesus himself with them, cared little for the law. But they hear again: It is now the wedding feast, the time of calling, the time of teaching; the children are being reared, those who have been called are being fed with milk; fasting has no place. “Yes,” they say, “you dine with tax collectors and sinners, though the law commands that the clean not mix with the unclean; and love of humanity has become your pretext for transgressing the law. Why do you not fast, according to the custom of those who are decent and wish to live by the law?” To such things one might say: Do you know at all, O Jew, the way of fasting? Have you ever fasted according to the will of God? For, as the prophet Isaiah says: “In the days of your fasts you find your own pleasures, and you goad all who are under your hand. If you fast for lawsuits and fights, and strike a lowly man with your fists, why do you fast for me? I have not chosen this fast, says the Lord.” Then how do you, who do not know how to fast, accuse the holy apostles of not fasting as you do? And in another way too, those made wise through the new covenant in Christ fast rationally: on the one hand humbling themselves in the eyes of God and bringing on themselves, as it were, a self-inflicted penalty, from toil and abstinence from food, so that they may obtain the forgetting of their offences, or gain some other spiritual gift; or else putting to death the law of sin in the members of the flesh. But you do not know this way, O Pharisee; for you did not receive the Bridegroom from heaven, the sower and teacher of all virtue, Christ. Further, the saints fast so that by wasting the body they may lull to sleep the passions in it; but Christ had no need of fasting to achieve virtue, being free as God from every passion; nor did those with him need it, since they shared in the grace given through him, were strengthened, and worked virtue even without fasting. And if he did fast the forty days, it was not to put to death the passions in himself, but to draw in himself for men the law of self-control. Fittingly, then, he defends himself by saying what the evangelist adds: “And he said to them: Can you make the sons of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (5:34).

See again, I pray, how Christ shows that they have no part in the feast, but are wholly without share in the joy that is in him, and lie outside the festival of the whole world. For the manifestation of our Saviour in this world is a festival and nothing else, joining human nature to himself spiritually like a bride, so that she who was barren of old might become fruitful and most fertile. All, then, who have been called by him through the new and evangelical proclamation are sons of the bridechamber; but not so the scribes and Pharisees, who attend only to the shadow of the law. But since he had once granted the sons of the bridechamber that, as the time and need required, they need not toil, being engaged in a spiritual feast, so that fasting might not be rejected altogether among us, he very fittingly adds: “But days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” For all things are good in their season. And what is the bridegroom’s being taken away from them? His being taken up, clearly.

“And he also told them a parable,” and so on (5:36). … that the decrees of Christ are unacceptable to those who keep the legal way of life, and somehow cannot be held by the hearts of men that have not yet obtained renewal through the Holy Spirit, the Lord shows by saying that a patch cannot be put on a new garment, nor can old wineskins hold new wine. For the first covenant has become old, and was not faultless; so those who sit by it and keep the aged commandment in mind have no share in the newness that is in Christ—“for all things have become new in him”—and having a decayed mind, they are incompatible with and unattached to the ministers of the new covenant. And indeed the God of all said somewhere of them through one of the holy prophets: “I will give them a new heart and a new spirit.” And David sings: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” And we have been commanded to put off the old man and put on the new, which is renewed according to the image of the one who created him. And Paul too advises, saying: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may prove what is the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect.” Those, then, who have not yet obtained renewal in the spirit do not know how to prove the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect. The heart of the Jews, then, is an old wineskin; and for this reason it did not hold the new wine, that is, the evangelical and saving decree that gladdens the heart of man. But Christ has made us full of such good things.

“Why do you do what is not lawful to do on the sabbath?” (6:2). Further, God promises us a new covenant, since the first has become old and is near to vanishing, according to the word of the divine Paul. And indeed he says through one of the holy prophets: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will accomplish for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” If, then, the new is other than the first, and second to it, it is altogether necessary that those who wish to fulfil it should not use the ancient laws, but those that know how to lead to the newness of the evangelical way of life. But one can see that the scribes and Pharisees had nothing of this in mind; for they are wholly ignorant of the sacred Scriptures, and their one aim was always to disparage the divine and heavenly proclamation. They lie in wait, then, for the holy apostles, who followed Christ the Saviour of us all without distraction, and they say to him about them: “See, we observe those you are training opposing the commandments of the law; for they do what is not lawful to do on the sabbath. For while the law commands rest on the sabbath and touching no work whatever, the disciples rub ears of grain in their hands.” But you yourself, tell me: when you set your sabbath table before yourself, do you not break the bread? Why then do you accuse others? And so that we may also set the Saviour’s own words against you as a rampart, hear:

“And Jesus answered them and said: Have you not read even this, what David did?” and so on (6:3). … David, though he did these things contrary to what the law decreed, is deemed worthy of all admiration among us, rightly and justly; for he was truly holy and a prophet. Since, then, the law given through Moses plainly says, “Judge a righteous judgment, and you shall not show partiality in judgment,” “how,” he says, “have you condemned my disciples, while to this day you admire the blessed David as holy and a prophet, though he did not keep the commandment of Moses?” — By the loaves the bread from heaven, set forth on the holy tables of the churches, is clearly shown to us. And the vessels of the table, by which the mystical service is fulfilled, would be a clear type of the divine treasures. — Spiritually, the twelve apostles; of whom more will be said later, when our discourse comes round to the disciples themselves.

“And he taught. And there was a man there, and his right hand was withered” (6:6). He was teaching, no doubt, things beyond understanding, and whatever made plain to his hearers the way of salvation through him; then he at once made a display of his power befitting God, following on his teaching of the mysteries, all but smoothing by his word the path to belief; for sometimes the wonder moves to faith, even if the word is disbelieved. “And the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the sabbath.” For such is the envious man: he makes the praise of others food for his disease and rages unjustly at the glory of others. And what does he who knows all things, who searches hearts and knows what is in them, say to this? “For the light is with him,” as it is written. He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Stand in the middle.” And what is the reason for this? Perhaps to call the harsh and pitiless Pharisee to mercy; perhaps the suffering would shame them and persuade the flames of envy to die down. “I will ask you something: is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm?” and so on (6:9).

The question is very wise, and the proposition fitting for their stupidity. For if it is lawful to do good on the sabbath, and nothing prevents the sick from receiving mercy from God, stop collecting pretexts for slandering Christ and pouring on your own head the penalty that the Father has hung over those who dishonour the Son. You have heard him say of him through the voice of David: “And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and put to flight those who hate him.” But if it is not lawful to do good on the sabbath, and the law has forbidden that a life be saved, you have become the accuser of the lawgiver; you have slandered a commandment for which the ministry through Moses was admired. “But,” he says, “the God of all did not lay down the law of the sabbath for himself, but rather for us who bend our necks to him.” You have spoken well; I praise the words. So the Divine is free of necessity and law. How then do you accuse Christ for wishing to show mercy and benefit a life even on the sabbath? And when we wish to examine the law laid down concerning the sabbath, we shall find it was decreed by God for the sake of mercy; for he commanded rest on the sabbath and the touching of no work whatever, and relief rather, even for the irrational animals themselves; for he said: “So that your manservant and your maidservant may rest, your ox and your beast of burden and all your cattle.” Would not he who has mercy on the ox and the other cattle have mercy on a man on the sabbath who had fallen into a terrible and inescapable disease?

“But they were filled with folly” (6:11). Is the wonder not enough for you to believe? You see him acting as befits God, and healing those in sicknesses with the highest authority, and you are in labour with murder out of envy and malice?

“He went out to the mountain to pray” (6:12). Christ did everything for our edification and for the benefit of those who believe in him, and setting forth his own conduct as in some way an image of the spiritual life, he wished to make true worshippers. Let us see, then, as in an image and type of the things done by Christ, in what way we ought to make our supplications to God. We should pray in secret and hidden, with no one seeing; for this is what Jesus’ praying on the mountain alone and as at leisure hints at. And he taught us this himself, saying: “But you, when you pray, go into your room.” For we must pray without love of glory, lifting up holy hands, the mind leaping up as to a height, to the height of the vision of God, withdrawing from all tumult and running away from worldly care. And we must do this neither with quick weariness nor with feeble faint-heartedness, but rather intently and earnestly, with a patience not unworthy of admiration. For you have heard that Christ did not simply pray, but spent the whole night doing it. But perhaps the enemy of the truth will not bear our saying this; for he says: “He prays and seeks from the Father what he does not have. How, then, do you still say that he is consubstantial with him and equal in all things and in no way unlike? For beyond all dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater; and the one who gives is certainly greater than the one who asks to receive something.” Then let those who pervert what is right teach us this before all else: of what do they think the Son is in need? What did he seek to receive as not having it? He is the true light, life by nature and life-giving, Lord of the powers, wisdom and righteousness, creator and maker of all things, beyond everything that has come to be, King of all, steward of heaven and earth, giver of every good thing together with God the Father. And this you will learn from the blessed Paul writing to some: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He is resplendent on the highest thrones, he is glorified by every rational creature; he is therefore essentially the heir of all the dignities of God the Father that befit God. And indeed he said to him: “All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine, and I am glorified in them.” He who has as his own all that is God the Father’s—what does he still lack? And if he lacks anything at all, and they say this is true, nothing prevents us from saying that the Father himself is in need of some things. For if all that is the Son’s is the Father’s, and the Son lacks something, then the Father too is such; for all that is the Son’s is his. But the Father is all-perfect and needs none at all of the good things befitting God; so the Son is all-perfect, as having all that is the Father’s; he is the image and imprint of his hypostasis; and in the imprint the original certainly appears, and in the original the imprint. So much for them. But those carried away by the empty chatter of Nestorius also say that it is altogether unfitting for the Son, who is God by nature, to pray, but that it befits rather the man joined to him by conjunction, that is, the one from the seed of David; he, then, was the one who lifted up the prayer. What shall we say to this? You have been wholly ignorant of the mystery of the incarnation of the Only-begotten. Remember the blessed evangelist John saying: “And the Word became flesh.” And the all-wise Paul made this plain to us, saying of him: “For surely it is not angels that he takes hold of, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham; therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the things of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people.” Why, then, is he who was born divinely as the Word from God the Father, but lowered himself to self-emptying and to brotherhood with us, by becoming like us and being made like those on earth in every respect, sin alone excepted—why is he expelled from the measures of humanity? For since he became as we are, out of very great gentleness and love for humankind he does not disdain human things, making his own conduct a pattern for us of the utmost goodness; so that, as I said, we may be eager to follow in his footsteps.

“And when it was day, he called his disciples, and chose twelve of them,” and so on (6:13). … [Having made his] prayer, our Lord Jesus Christ, having held converse ineffably and beyond understanding, as he alone knows, with the Father and God in heaven, [End of the first of the four volumes of the commentaries on the holy Gospel according to Luke, made by way of a collection by Nicetas, deacon of the great Church of God and teacher, of Serrae] and having set himself before us as the type of a saving thing—for he taught in what way we must make our prayers rightly and blamelessly—comes down from the mountain and appoints the teachers of the mysteries for the whole world. — For he said to them: “You are the light of the world.” This appointment of the holy apostles the blessed David also mentions, saying as to Christ: “You will make them rulers over all the earth; they will remember your name in every generation and generation.” For while they were in the body they remembered the glory of Christ, speaking his mystery to cities and countries; and since they have been called to the dwellings above, they speak to us of him no less even so, through the all-wise writings they have composed about him. The priests ordained according to the law of Moses, Aaron namely and those with him, were adorned visibly with sacred vestments; but the divine disciples, distinguished by spiritual gifts, were entrusted with the ministry of the evangelical decrees; for it was said to them: “Heal the sick, cast out demons, cleanse lepers, raise the dead.” And indeed, bearing the power of Christ, they amazed the whole world. But see the evangelist’s utmost sobriety: he does not say simply that the holy apostles were appointed, but rather that they were named, with the record of the former added to them, so that no one should dare to enrol himself in the choir of the chosen. For as Paul says: “No one takes the honour on himself, but the one called by God.” And indeed, though the holy apostles were called by name to this great and splendid dignity, some at various times came to such madness and rashness as to name themselves apostles of Christ and to seize an honour not allotted to them. Of these the divine disciples have made mention; for they say: “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as angels of righteousness. And no wonder; for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. It is no great thing, then, if his servants also disguise themselves as angels of righteousness.” We know, then, and will receive no one except only those named in the Gospel writings, and the one appointed after them, the most wise Paul, to whom the Saviour himself bore witness, saying: “For this man is a vessel of election to me, to carry my name before all the nations.” — [Look for the words on the choice of the twelve apostles in chapter 70 of the Gospel according to Matthew, and about the middle of the seventh chapter of the present evangelist, where Christ took the book of the prophet Isaiah and read. For you will find there a wonderful interpretation by the holy Cyril, which he gives on “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”; and likewise in chapter 39 of this same evangelist. One should know too that the number of the apostles is fixed after the type of the twelve oxen that carried the sea made by Solomon; for they carried it three by three from four sides: the herald of the holy Trinity and its sending out through the four Gospels to the four ends of the earth. For through that sea is also figured the spiritual sea of baptism, which cleanses the world from sins, made by the spiritual Solomon.] — These the law prefigured, and the prophets proclaimed them beforehand. It is written, then, in a book of Moses: “And you shall take fine flour and make of it twelve loaves; and you shall set them in two rows on the pure table before the Lord; and you shall put on the row frankincense and salt; and they shall be for loaves, set forth for a memorial before the Lord.” For who else would be the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world but Christ the Saviour of all? And in imitation of him the blessed disciples too have been called loaves; for having become partakers of him who nourishes us to eternal life, they too nourish, through their own writings, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And just as the Saviour, being the true light, named the disciples light too—“For you are the light of the world”—so, being himself the bread of life, he granted his disciples to be understood in the rank of the loaves. And see, I pray, the skill of the law. “You shall put,” it says, “frankincense and salt on the loaves.” Frankincense is a symbol of fragrance, and salt of understanding and good sense; and both were present to the highest degree in the holy apostles. For their life was fragrant; and indeed they said, “We are the fragrance of Christ to God.” And besides this they were most understanding. I hear the prophet David too singing and saying of them: “There is Benjamin in ecstasy; the rulers of Judah their leaders, the rulers of Zebulun, the rulers of Naphtali.” For the blessed disciples were chosen from almost every tribe of Israel, and they were lights of the world, holding fast the word of life. And here is the wonder: the wise men of the Greeks have a brilliant eloquence and speak very beautifully; but the disciples of our Saviour were craftsmen, seafarers and fishermen, without boastful words, without a store of approved diction; unskilled in speech, but rich in knowledge. And the writings of the Greeks and their boastful diction have fallen silent, but the power of the evangelical proclamations prevails over the world under heaven. Of these God makes mention also through the voice of Jeremiah, speaking of the enemy of all, I mean Satan: “Woe to him who multiplies for himself what is not his, and makes his collar heavy and strong;

for suddenly those who bite him will rise up, and those who plot against you will awake, and you will be plunder for them.” Satan gathered all people on earth, who were not his, and made them his own worshippers, making his collar heavy on them; but those who plunder his goods have awoken; for the net of the apostles’ teaching of the mysteries caught all who had gone astray, and they brought the world under heaven to God. “He stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people” (6:17). See, I pray, the manner of the appointment. The most wise evangelist himself says that it was not done in a corner and secretly, but rather when many disciples had gathered, and a great crowd from all the country of the Jews and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. These were idolaters, or rather limping on both hams, partly honouring the customs of the Jews but not wholly departed from the faults of idolatry. The appointment, then, was made with all these present, and they were established as teachers of the mysteries for the whole world under heaven; which indeed they did, calling the Jews from the worship of the law, and the servants of the demons from Greek error, to the knowledge of the truth. Having appointed the holy apostles, he worked very many admirable signs, rebuking demons, freeing those who came to him from incurable sicknesses, and showing his power to be most befitting God; so that those who had flocked to him, both Jews and those from the land of the Greeks, might know that the apostles had been honoured with the dignity of apostleship by Christ, and not by one who was a common man like us, but rather by God, the Word made man and keeping his own glory. “For power went out from him and healed them all.” — Christ did not borrow strength from another; but being himself God by nature, even though he became flesh, he sent out power upon the sick and healed them all. — [If you wish also to learn the interpretation of the apostles’ names, know that Peter is interpreted “one who looses” or “one who has recognized”; Andrew, “comely power” or “one who answers”; James, “supplanter of toil”; John, “grace of the Lord”; Matthew, “one given”; Philip, “mouth of hands” or “mouth of a lamp”; Bartholomew, “son who suspends waters”; Thomas, “abyss” or “twin”; James of Alphaeus, “supplanting of the walk of life”; Judas, “confession”; and Simon, “obedience.”] “Blessed are the poor” (6:20).

… then, of the evangelical life, the Saviour says these things, regulating his disciples after their appointment. But it is necessary to see what kind of poor he meant. In Matthew he says that the poor in spirit will be blessed and that theirs is the kingdom of heaven, so that we may understand the poor in spirit as the man of modest mind, with a mind as it were drawn in; such a man is to be emulated and is known to God. And indeed he said through one of the holy prophets: “On whom shall I look, but on the humble and quiet one who trembles at my words?” And the prophet David said: “A broken and humbled heart God will not despise.” And the Saviour himself: “Learn from me,” he says, “for I am meek and humble in heart.” But in the reading before us he says that the poor will be blessed, without the addition “in spirit.” The evangelists speak so not contradicting one another, but often dividing the narratives between them: sometimes they go through the same heads, and sometimes what one has left out another puts into his own writing, so that nothing necessary for their benefit may escape those who believe in Christ. Here, then, he seems to call poor those who are above love of gain and have a character free from love of money. And indeed the most wise Paul shows himself a teacher of the best lessons for us, saying: “Let your character be free from love of money, content with what you have.” And he added to this: “Having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” For they had, they had to have a mind free from love of wealth and a desire at leisure for better things, since they were to announce the saving and evangelical proclamation. The saying does not touch all who are in prosperity, but only those who have set their longing on money. And who are these? Those [who disregard] “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” and so on.

“Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled” (6:21). Yet again in Matthew he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”; but here he says simply that those who hunger will be blessed. We say, then, that to hunger and thirst for righteousness is great and excellent, that is, to love to lay hold of the pursuits of godliness as of food and drink; for this is what righteousness signifies. But since the meaning here must be shown to follow the interpretations just given, we say again: the Saviour called blessed those who love voluntary poverty for the sake of running the apostolic course well and without distraction. For when they hear the Lord’s voice saying, “Do not have gold or silver in your belts, nor two tunics,” it follows altogether that they must endure very great hardship and barely have enough food; and this is burdensome for those in poverty and persecutions. For this reason, and most fittingly, he who knows hearts does not let them lose heart at what comes from poverty. For those who now hunger for the sake of godliness toward him, he says, will be filled, that is, they will delight in the good things that will be given—spiritual, that is, and of the mind. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” He calls those who weep blessed and says that they will laugh. By weeping we do not mean simply shedding tears from the eyes; for this is common and happens to all, believers and unbelievers alike, if something of the kind that usually grieves us occurs; but rather those who flee the cheerful and fleeting life spent in fleshly luxuries. For those, we say, are in enjoyment and laughter; but those who refuse luxury and fleshly relaxation, and all but weep through hating what is in the world, the Saviour says are blessed. So, having commanded them to be poor, he crowns with honours also what follows from poverty: that is, the lack of what serves for luxury, and dejection because of affliction. For it is written that many are the afflictions of the righteous, and out of them all the Lord will deliver them.

“Blessed are you when men hate you,” and so on (6:22). The Lord announced the persecution even before the apostles were sent out; the Gospel anticipated the outcome. For those who announced the evangelical proclamation—drawing the Jews away from the worship of the law so that they might know the way of the good life of the Gospel, and netting the idolaters for the knowledge of the truth—were bound to run up against many godless and unholy men; for these stir up wars and persecutions against those who proclaim Jesus, persecuting godliness. So that, when the time came at which these things were to be done by some, they might not fall into senseless despondency, he usefully foretells that even the assault of gloomy things will bring them reward and benefit. “For they will revile you,” he says, as deceivers and impostors; “they will exclude you” from themselves, that is, from friendship and fellowship with them. “But let no account be taken of such things among you,” he says; for how will the disorder of their tongue harm a mind that stands firm? For those who know how to live the life of wisdom piously, he says that endurance in these things will not be fruitless, but will procure the highest cheer. And besides, he usefully shows that nothing strange will happen to them in suffering these things; rather they will be like those who before them carried the divine words from above to those of Israel and were persecuted, sawn in two, died by the sword, and endured insults unjustly brought upon them. So he gives them to understand that they will be partners of those whose imitators they become; and they will not lack the prophets’ crowns, having walked the road those trod.

“Woe to you who are rich” (6:24). Having first proclaimed that poverty for God’s sake is the cause of every good, and having said that hungering and weeping will not be without reward for the saints, he turns the discourse to their opposites and shows that these bring about punishment and penalty; so that by the desire for crowns and the longing for blessedness they may be drawn to toil and persuaded to choose poverty for God’s sake, while by fear of the punishment hanging over them they may flee being rich and living in luxury and laughter, that is, in worldly delights. And he says that the former will be heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and the latter will fall into the worst calamities: “For you have received your consolation,” he says. One can see this, as in a well-painted picture, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: “For you received your good things in your life,” he says to the rich man, “and Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.” But come, let us exercise ourselves on this point. If anyone is rich in the world, has he altogether fallen from the hope of receiving mercy from God? We do not say that, but rather this: the rich man could have had pity on Lazarus, so as to become a sharer in his consolation. And indeed the Saviour showed those who have earthly wealth a way of salvation, saying: “Make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon, so that they may receive you into their own dwellings.”

“Love your enemies” (6:27). … the blessed Paul, that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”; for all things have become new in him and through him: covenant, law and way of life. See how very fitting such a way of life is for the holy teachers of the mysteries, who were to announce the saving proclamation to those everywhere on earth. One could expect from this that those who would persecute them and plot against them in many ways would be countless; and if it had happened that the disciples were vexed by such griefs and then wished to retaliate against those who had grieved them, they would have fallen silent and passed them by, no longer setting the divine proclamation before them, no longer calling them to the knowledge of the truth. It was necessary, then, to rein in the mind of the holy teachers of the mysteries by such august forbearance, so that they might bear nobly all that befell them, even if some insulted them, even if they plotted against them impiously. And he himself did this first, before the others, as a pattern for us; for while still hanging on the precious cross, though the multitude of the Jews was mocking him, he made supplications to God the Father for them, saying: “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Yes, and the blessed Stephen too, though struck with stones, knelt down and prayed, saying: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And the divine Paul says: “When reviled, we bless; when slandered, we entreat.” Such exhortation, then, was necessary for the holy apostles, and most useful for us too, for living rightly and admirably; for it is full of all wisdom. But prejudices that are not good make it hard to achieve in our minds, and so does the hard-to-fight tyranny of the passions in us. Therefore, knowing that the natural man does not receive these things, but thinks the words of the Spirit foolishness and impossible to achieve, he distinguishes such people from those able to hear: “I say to you who hear,” he says—and who readily choose to do what is said. For approved spiritual courage appears in temptations and toils. Imitate Christ, then, in these things, “who when reviled did not revile in return, when suffering did not threaten, but entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” But perhaps you will say to yourself: “Christ was God, but I am a weak man, with a weak mind, incapable of overcoming both greed and grief.” You will be right; for the human mind slips easily into sin. Yet I say this: the Lord has not left you bare of his care and love; you have him in yourself, that is, within, through the Holy Spirit; for we are his house, and he dwells in the souls of those who love him. He himself braces you to bear bravely what befalls you and to stand up vigorously against the assaults of temptations. “Do not, then, be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” “To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (6:29).

The most wise Paul said that Christ is the end of the law and the prophets; for the law trains us as a tutor for his mystery. But, as the blessed Paul said again, now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor; for we are no longer infants in mind, but have grown rather to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We needed, then, not milk but more solid food; this Christ grants us, revealing the way of the righteousness that goes beyond the law. For he himself said to the holy apostles: “Amen, I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then it is necessary to say what the excess is in the righteousness according to … the evangelical and saving proclamation, I mean. The law given through Moses, laid down for the men of old, commanded that things go by equal measures; it forbade doing wrong, but did not rather command bearing with wrongs already done, which is what the law of the Gospel wills. “For you shall not murder,” it says, “you shall not steal, you shall not swear falsely.” And besides these: “Eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” These belonged to one commanding not to wrong others, or at least, when wronged first, not to extend one’s anger against the wrongdoer beyond what is equal. But the force of the way of life under the law was not altogether pleasing to God; it was for the men of old in the rank of a tutor, accustoming them little by little to a proportionate righteousness and leading them up skilfully to what is perfectly good; for it is written: “The beginning of a good way is to do what is just.” But all perfection, then, is in Christ and his decrees: “For to him who strikes you on the cheek,” he says, “offer the other also.” In these words the way of forbearance to the utmost is shown us. He wishes us besides to despise money, so that even if a man had only a cloak he would not think it unbearable to lose his tunic along with it. And this is the virtue of a soul wholly turned away from the passion for wealth. “For do not demand back,” he says, “from him who takes away what is yours; but give to everyone who asks you”—which is proof of love and of love for the poor. And the merciful man must certainly also bear no grudge,

so as to do the deeds of friends even to enemies. “And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them likewise” (6:31). … it was likely that the holy apostles thought these things perhaps hard to achieve. He, then, who knows all things takes the law of self-love in us as umpire of what each would wish to obtain from another. “Be such toward others yourself,” he says, “as you would wish them to be toward you. If you wish them harsh and unsympathetic, rash and irritable, grudge-bearing and wicked, be such yourself too; but if the opposite, kind and forgiving, do not think it unbearable to be such.” And perhaps for those so disposed the law is superfluous, since God writes on our hearts the knowledge of his own will: “For in those days,” says the Lord, “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them on their heart.” “Be merciful, then” (6:36). Great is the boast of almsgiving. And indeed it is written: “A man is a great thing, and a merciful man precious.” For virtue forms us toward God, and works in our souls, as it were, certain imprints of the nature that is highest. “Judge not, and you will not be judged” (6:37).

He cuts away from our minds a most grievous passion, the beginning and origin of arrogance. For though some ought to examine themselves and live according to God, they do not do this, but busy themselves with the affairs of others; and if they see some who are weak, as though forgetting their own infirmities, they make the matter a subject for fault-finding and an occasion for slander; they condemn them, not knowing that, being sick with the same things as those they have accused, they condemn themselves. So the most wise Paul writes: “For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practise the very same things.” Yet one ought rather to pity the weak, as laid low by the assaults of the passions and inescapably caught in the snares of sin, and to pray for them, exhort them, rouse them to sobriety, and try not to fall into the same faults oneself. For he who judges his brother, as the disciple of Christ says, “speaks against the law and judges the law; there is one lawgiver and judge.” For the judge of the sinning soul must be above it; but you, who are not such, why do you judge your neighbour? The sinner will give account to the judge; but if you dare to condemn, though you have no authority to do so, you yourself will rather be condemned, since the law does not allow you to judge others. The man steered by understanding does not look at the sins of others, nor busy himself with what is bad in his neighbour, but gazes at his own evils. Such was the blessed Psalmist, falling before God and saying for his own sins: “If you mark iniquities, O Lord, Lord, who shall stand?” And again, putting forward the weakness of human nature, he asked for a reasonable pardon, saying: “Remember that we are dust.”

“Give, and it will be given to you” (6:38). He places his discourse on almsgiving as a neighbour, as it were, to the forbearance he has spoken of; for the thing is excellent, most pleasing to God, and most fitting for holy souls: “Be merciful,” he says, “as your Father is.” And that we shall receive the return with a richer hand from God, who distributes all things richly to those who love him, he himself has assured us, saying: “Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, will they put into your lap.” And the second seems somehow to conflict with the first; for if we are to receive a measure running over, how will it be measured back to us with the measure with which we measure? For this seems to indicate equality rather than abundance in the recompense to be given us. What, then, do we say? The most wise Paul will free us from the difficulty, supplying the solution to what is sought; for he said: “He who sows sparingly”—that is, moderately and with a tight hand—“will also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”; that is, … but if someone does not have, he has not sinned by not doing this; for he is acceptable according to what he has, not according to what he does not have. The law given through Moses also foreshadowed this; for each of those under the law brought to God for sacrifice according to his means and strength: some calves, others rams, or lambs, or turtledoves, or pigeons, or fine flour moistened with oil. Yet he who brought even this thing so small and easily obtained, because he had no calf, was equal to the other in intention.

“And he told them a parable” (6:39). He added this most necessary parable to what had been said. The blessed disciples were to be the teachers of the mysteries and instructors of the world under heaven; they had, then, to show themselves perfect in godliness above all, to know the way of the evangelical life, to be skilled in every good work, and to impart to those being taught the exact, saving word, polished to the truth—as men who had already recovered their sight and had their minds illumined by the divine light; so that they might not be blind guides of the blind. For those shut in the darkness of ignorance could not guide those sick with the same things to the knowledge of the truth; for if they wished to, both would roll into the pit of the passions. Then, removing the boastful passion of arrogance from the many, so that they might not strive to surpass the honour of their teachers, he added: “A disciple is not above his teacher.” Even if some should advance so far as to acquire virtue equal to their instructors, they will stand at the measure of their teachers and be their imitators; and Paul will again confirm it, saying: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” If, then, the teacher does not yet judge, why do you judge? For he did not come to judge the world but to show it mercy. — According to the former sense: “If I do not judge,” he says, “neither should you, the disciple; and if you are held by greater faults than those for which you judge another, how will you not be ashamed when you come to realize it?” The Lord set this forth through another parable, saying: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye?” (6:41).

With necessary reasoning he persuades us to refrain from wishing to judge others, and rather to examine our own hearts and seek to be rid of the passions in them, asking this of God; for he is the one who heals the brokenhearted and frees us from the diseases of the soul. For why, when you yourself are sick with things greater and worse than those in others, do you leave your own and rebuke them? So the commandment is necessary for the benefit of all who wish to live godly lives, and especially of those entrusted with teaching others. If they are good and sober, having set up their own conduct as an image of the evangelical life, they will with good grace rebuke those who do not choose to do the same, since these have not copied the ways of the goodness that is in them; but if some are careless and easily caught by pleasures that lead to evil, how could they rebuke others who are sick with the same? For this reason the blessed disciples wisely wrote and say: “Do not many of you become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we shall receive a greater judgment”; as Christ said, the distributor of crowns, who brings penalties on offenders: “Whoever does and teaches, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven,” but whoever does not do and teaches, least. For how do you, who are sometimes choked by many and great sins, condemn one guilty of few slips? “How will you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when you yourself have the beam in yourself”—you who are guilty of great sins? For this is what the beam signifies. How do you condemn one who has sinned very little, or sometimes not at all? “First take the beam out of your own eye” (6:42).

That is, show yourself clean of great sins, and then you will be a counsellor to one who stumbles in small things. So the wise man will be a teacher to himself, but will not condemn another. For the law given through Moses also commands this, saying: “Take heed,” it says, “to yourself,” not to another; and “take heed” means “look around at your own affairs.” — “But, Master,” someone might say, I suppose, “how shall we discern the one who has the beam in his eye but rebukes those who have a speck and are weak in part?” “There is nothing hard in this,” he says; “it lies open to those who wish to see easily.” … each man’s life, then, will show his ways; for the beauty of a truly good life is not characterized by outward adornments and feigned goodness, but by what one does. This again Christ said somewhere: “Beware of those who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” See again: Christ commands that those who come to us be discerned not from their clothing but from what they truly are; “for the tree is known by its fruit.” Just as it is foolish to look among thorns for the choice fruits of the season—grapes, I mean, and figs—so it is ridiculous to think one can find among hypocrites and profane men anything admirable, that is, nobility of virtue; such men one might call thistles and brambles. Among such there is nothing sweet, but everything bitter and ignoble; for a fig does not grow on thorns, nor is a grape produced on a bramble. So the teacher is to be discerned not from his outward bearing but from the life each has actually lived. — [These things are also said in the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew; but there about deceivers, here about those who are cleansed and cleanse others, and about the unclean who try to cleanse others. In parable he called these men trees, and their actions fruits; and he exhorts us to attend to their actions, which are the fruit, and not to their words, which are the leaves.] “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good” (6:45).

Having shown in what preceded how the good and the wicked man may be discerned—by their works, as the tree by its fruit—he now establishes this by another sign too. “The good man,” he says, “as from the good treasure of his heart, pours out good things; but the one not so disposed, whose mind is held fast by wickedness and evil, will certainly give out what is hidden in the depth; for what is in the mind and heart leaps out through speech running upward.” So the man of kindly ways speaks what befits him, while the bad and wicked man will belch out the uncleanness lying in the depth.

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord?” (6:46). The name and reality of lordship befit only the nature that is beyond all and highest; for it rules and has authority over all things: “For there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” And again: “For although there are many gods and many lords, in heaven and on earth, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” Knowing, then, only the one who is Lord by nature and in truth, the God Word who reigns with God the Father, we so name him. “But why then,” he says, “do you call me Lord” and do not do what I say? For what was said through one of the holy prophets is true: “If I am a Father, where is my glory? And if I am a Lord, where is the fear of me? A son honours his father, and a servant his lord, says the Lord Almighty.” It is dangerous, then, and deserving of the utmost penalty, to be unwilling to submit to Christ who rules all things. One may see this from many other things, and from these too: the true servant crowned with exceptional honours, and the disobedient and lazy one running into the outer darkness. For those who received the talents and doubled what was given to them for their master were honoured with praise; but the one who buried what was given him in the earth, as lazy, he subjected to a harsh and inescapable penalty. And this too, I think, must be added to what has been said. By being willing to submit to our Saviour’s words and to serve him, we shall be enriched, again by his gift, with the dignity of freedom. He said, then, to those who believed in him: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” So we gain the gift of freedom through obedience; and this is servitude under him; this makes us sons and heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ himself. And he himself will again confirm it for you, saying: “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin; the slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” If, then, we name Christ the Saviour of all as Master, let us do what he says: “For not everyone,” he says, “who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” What benefit there is in being willing to keep his commands, and what harm would come from refusing to submit, the Saviour himself taught, saying: “Everyone who comes to me … is like a man building a house,” and so on (6:47–48). For the one who is obedient and docile, the guardian of exactness, the ardent lover of exactness, being not a hearer of the law but rather a doer of works, will have a most firm standing in every fair and good thing, and will be like a house well founded and having an unshakeable foundation; so that even if temptations and the savagery of the passions in us assail him like a torrent or a flood of waters, he will suffer nothing to be dreaded. But the one who only lends his ear to what Christ says, storing nothing up in his mind nor accomplishing any of the commands, will in turn be like a house most ready to fall; for he will be carried down to what is unlawful, as pleasure provokes him and sweeps him into the pits of sin. — For we must confirm ourselves in the Lord’s precepts by daily exercise, so that pleasure, assailing us like violent waters, may not scatter the doctrines in us as rotten, but virtue, being indestructible, may win honour in adversity; and so that we may become conspicuous not by our fall but by our victory. For the fall of those who have been taught great things is conspicuous when they fall from great things. Neglect of toils, and rotten and unstable judgment, make men wretched. These are the ones likened to the foolish, who lay the foundation of the spiritual building on the sand of instability of mind, which a few drops of temptations and a small torrent of the evil one’s mockeries undermined, dissolving and scattering the base, since it held out not even a little against the rain and the winds.

“Not even in Israel have I found such faith” (7:9).

By a holy decree of God, then, Israel has slipped from kinship with him, and the nations have been called in its place and taken up, since they have a heart more ready to believe in him. The divine Singer will again confirm this for us, saying of them at one time, “Your ear has given heed to the readiness of their heart,” and at another, “Their weaknesses were multiplied; afterwards they made haste.” For even if they were weighed down by many sins, nevertheless they made haste to receive Christ’s teachings. But of Israel the prophetic word says: “God will reject them because they did not listen to him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations.”

“He went to a city called Nain” (7:11). See how he joins wonders to wonders. There he comes when called; here he arrives uncalled; for no one called him to the raising of the dead man, but he comes to it of his own accord. And he seems to me to have joined this to the former most fittingly. For it was not unlikely that someone might some day rise up to fight against the Saviour’s glory and say: “What was the wonder done for the centurion’s servant? He was sick; he was not certainly going to die; and the evangelist wrote this telling things to please rather than for truth.” So, to stop the unbridled tongue of such people, he says that Christ met the dead young man, the only son of a widow—a pitiable suffering, able to move lament and give cause for tears; and the woman followed, drunk with grief and now exhausted, and many with her.

“He came up and touched the bier” (7:14). Why did he not work the wonder by word alone, but also touched the bier? So that you might know that the holy body of Christ is effective for the salvation of man; for it is the body of life and the flesh of the all-powerful Word, and it bore his power. For just as iron brought into contact with fire does the works of fire and fulfils its function, so, since the flesh became the own flesh of the Word who gives life to all things, it is for that reason itself life-giving and destructive of death and corruption. For we believe that the body of Christ is life-giving, since it is the temple and dwelling of the living Word, having all his working. So he was not content with a command alone, though he was accustomed to accomplish by word whatever he wished, but he also laid his hands on the bier, showing that his body too has the life-giving working.

“And fear seized them all, and they glorified God,” and so on (7:16). This too was great from an insensible and ungrateful people; for a little later they did not think him even a prophet, nor one who had appeared for the people’s good, but delivered the destroyer of death to death—not knowing that then, then indeed, he was destroying death, when he worked the resurrection in himself.

“This report about him went out through the whole of Judea” (7:17). The wonder of the miracle escaped no one in the whole of Judea; and some of his acquaintances, that is, his disciples, report it to the holy Baptist himself. He, picking out two from the others, sends them to Jesus to ask him whether he is the one who is coming, or whether another must be expected. Do not suppose that the blessed Baptist was ignorant of the Word of the Father made man; for he knew very clearly that he is the one who is coming. But he was doing something wise and ingenious, which was likely to benefit greatly those being taught by him. For they, not yet having seen Christ, or his power and his pre-eminence over all, were quietly stung when he worked wonders and surpassed the Baptist by the greatness of his deeds. And they came to him once, consumed with envy and grief, with a heart not free of the diseases of the Jews, and said to the blessed Baptist: “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, see, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” For they did not want anyone else at all to baptize and be exalted above the honour of John. But they were taught by him the surpassing glory of Christ and its incomparable excellence. For they heard him say: “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; this joy of mine, then, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” We do not, of course, say that the blessed Baptist became in any respect less than himself; but the glory of Christ always received increase among those who believed in him, while the blessed John remained within the measures of humanity. For it was not possible for him ever to advance anywhere beyond; but the Word made man, being God by nature and ineffably begotten of God the Father, always rising to the power that befits him, was admired by all; for this reason he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” For beside one who always advances, the one who stays the same seems to decrease. So, to produce firm faith—in him, that is—in those still wavering and not yet fully assured that he was the Christ, he feigns ignorance; then he sends to him men to ask and say: “Are you the one who is coming, or do we expect another?” “Coming where?” some might perhaps say. And some think something like this: since the Baptist was to suffer death through Herod’s cruelty before the precious cross, and to depart, as it were, before Christ and go ahead of him as forerunner in the descent to Hades, he asks, they say, whether he too will come there, redeeming those in darkness and the shadow of death. But such an opinion must be wholly rejected; for nowhere shall we find the divinely inspired Scripture reporting that the blessed Baptist announced the Saviour’s coming in advance to the spirits in Hades. Yet this too is true to say: since he was not at all ignorant of the whole power of the economy in the flesh of the Only-begotten, he surely knew, above others, that he would also redeem those in Hades and shine on them, having tasted death for all by the grace of God, so that, as Paul says, he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. What, then, does he mean by asking, “Are you the one who is coming, or do we expect another?” I said that he feigns ignorance by the economy, not so that he himself might learn—for as forerunner he knew the mystery—but so that his disciples might be fully assured how great the Saviour’s pre-eminence is, and that the word of the divinely inspired Scripture had foretold that he would come as God and Lord, while all the others were servants sent ahead of the Master, preparing the way of the Lord, as it is written. So the Saviour and Lord of all was called through the prophets “the one who is coming.” The prophet David sings and says: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” that is, in glory befitting God, and in lordship and pre-eminence beyond all things. And he himself made this known again immediately after, saying: “The Lord is God, and he has appeared to us.” For Moses came, and after him Joshua the son of Nun led those of Israel; and after him, in order, the blessed prophets; and none of them is said to have shone on those on earth in the name of the Lord. But the only-begotten Word of God, being God and Lord by nature and in truth, has appeared to us. So God the Father named him, saying to the prophet Habakkuk: “Yet a little while, and the one who is coming will come and will not delay.” Yes, and through another prophet the only-begotten Word of God says thus: “Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion; for behold, I am coming, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord; and many nations shall flee to the Lord in that day, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This has come to fulfilment, as can be seen from the events themselves. So the divine Baptist, taking the name from the divinely inspired Scripture, sent some of his followers to ask whether he is the one who is coming.

“In that same hour he healed many” (7:21). Knowing, then, as God, the intention with which John had sent them, and the economy of the matter, and the reason for their coming, at that very moment he worked divine signs many times more than those already done, and healed many—teaching not John (for how could he teach one already persuaded?) but these who were in doubt. Having become eyewitnesses and spectators of his majesty, then, and having gathered in themselves great wonder at his power and working, they put the question, saying as from John, “Is he the one who is coming?” Here, I pray, see the skill of the Saviour’s economy: he did not simply say, “I am,” but rather leads them to full assurance through the events themselves, so that, readily receiving faith in him, they might return to the one who sent them; hence he answered not to the words

but to the intention of the one who sent them. “Go,” he says, “and tell John” what you heard through the prophets and saw fulfilled through me. For by the economy he was doing at that very moment the things that the prophets had announced he would accomplish when he came to us. And what are these? The restoring of the blind, the cleansing of lepers, hearing for the deaf, the raising of the dead, and what follows; to which he adds, as befits God: “And blessed is he who is not offended at me.” What does he mean by this, if not to show that his eyelids too, as the divine David says, examine the sons of men, and that nothing turning in their hearts escaped him? For they themselves were plainly the ones offended. “He began to speak to the crowds about John” (7:24). See again here what an economy the Saviour made. He set in motion a long and ample discourse about the holy Baptist: he repelled the opinion by which he was likely to be wronged; and by saying that he had something more than a prophet, he showed him to his hearers as worthy of admiration and love. Then, having set him up, as it were, as an image of the virtue in him, which holds the highest place among those born of women, he sets beside it the greater good: the one who has just laid hold of the kingdom and been born again as a son of God through the Spirit. For we say that the kingdom of heaven is the gift of the Spirit, according to the saying, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Greater, then, than everyone born of a woman is the one honoured with rebirth by the Spirit; for the former are still called children of the flesh, while the latter inscribe the God of all as their Father, no longer called born of women, like John and those before him, but born of God and made partakers of the divine nature. … even though we are less than those who achieved the righteousness in the law—in holiness of life, I mean—yet we have come to be among greater things through Christ. And we must remember that the Baptist, though so great in virtue, plainly confesses that he needs holy baptism: “For I,” he says, “need to be baptized by you.” He would not have needed it unless there were something more in it, surpassing the righteousness in the law. And the saying that from the days of John the kingdom of heaven is seized by force is not said as though no one before him had seized it. For where will the hope of the prophets go? And what will the great choir of the saints do, if it lies outside the kingdom of heaven? But it means that from John’s time onward the gift of the Spirit and the rebirth to God through holy baptism are seized by faith.

“But what did you go out to see?” and so on (7:25). Has he a splendid appearance? A royal rank? Did he have royal commissions? Did he carry royal letters and decrees and laws? Was he brilliant to look at? Did he not wear a garment of hair? Did he not have makeshift food? Did anything of this kind urge you to go out there? But if you went out profitably as to a prophet, yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. For the prophet only foretells; but he not only announced that the Christ would come, but also pointed him out, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He calls John a messenger (angel) not because he was an angel—for he was a man by nature—but because he did the work of a messenger, announcing the coming of Christ. Then, setting down “more than a prophet,” he explains “Behold, I send my messenger before you.” For he is greater than a prophet to whom God bears witness that, being his messenger, he is sent before the face of Christ to prepare his way. For “more than a prophet” is a great testimony about John: because when Christ was prophesied as coming, John too was prophesied with him, as the messenger who would go before him. “Among those born of women there is no greater prophet than John the Baptist” (7:28).

For the blessed John, together with all the others who were before him, is born of a woman; but those who have accepted faith are no longer called born of women, but sons of God: “For as many as received him,” it says, “to them he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, but of God.” And Paul: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” For when Christ came back to life after despoiling Hades, then he gave the Spirit of adoption to those who believed in him, and first of all to his own disciples: “For he breathed on them, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them,” and what follows. For since they had altogether become partakers of the divine nature, having been enriched with the Spirit that is sovereign and has authority over all things, for this reason he also invested them with a dignity befitting God, namely, to forgive the sins of whomever they wish, and to retain those of others. That the Spirit of adoption was not among men before his return to heaven, the all-wise evangelist John shows, saying: “For the Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,” meaning by glory the resurrection from the dead and the ascent into heaven. For having gone up there, the only-begotten Word of God sent us the Paraclete in his place, and he is in us through him; and he taught us this, saying: “If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you.” So then, even if we are less than those who had the righteousness in the law—in the excellence of life, I mean—yet through Christ we are among things greater than those born of women.

“They are like children sitting in the marketplace” (7:32). There was perhaps a kind of game among the children of the Jews, which went like this: a crowd of children divided into two parts, as though mocking the turmoil of life, the unevenness of its affairs, and the terrible and sudden change of some things into others; some piped, others lamented; but neither did those lamenting share the joy of those piping and rejoicing, nor did those with the pipe join in the weeping of those who wept. Then they accused one another, in a way, of want of sympathy or of feeling. Christ maintained that the crowds of the Jews, together with their leaders, had suffered something of this kind. For the prophets came, foretelling the gloomy things to come and stirring to lament; then after them came Christ and the apostles, sounding forth like a pipe the proclamation of the kingdom and the grace of repentance. But the hard-hearted Jews not only did not mourn at the former, but did not dance at the latter either, doing no work of virtue. “For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine” (7:33).

By what means will you be caught for faith, foolish Pharisee, who disparage everything indiscriminately and think nothing worthy of praise? The blessed Baptist went before the Saviour, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He was fit to persuade, attested by his very life, so splendid and admirable; and then you dare to slander such a man, who ought rather to be deemed worthy of all admiration? Did you say that he had a demon, who by fasting was putting to death the law of sin that lurks in the members of the flesh and wars against the law of our mind? The blessed Baptist was a road to godliness toward Christ. But let us look at the other, who seems in some way to go the opposite path to the way of life of the holy Baptist. Christ was not in the desert, but rather made his stay in the town with the holy apostles; and his diet did not have such hardship as that of the holy Baptist. Do you praise him, then, at least? Not at all; you have become a fault-finder in the case of Christ himself too. For you said: “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard.” But where can you show this? On the contrary, when Mary and Martha once received him at Bethany, and one of those named was distracted with much serving, Christ is seen checking what went beyond measure and training us to sufficiency; for he said, “You are anxious and troubled about many things,” but few things are needed, or one. And such he always was, everywhere. He stayed with tax collectors, being himself wholly untouched by sin; for he said, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” So he would not have been harmed by being with sinners; on the contrary, he became the procurer of every benefit and salvation for them; for he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” For the law given through Moses commanded you not to live with the wicked, so that you, as weak and prone to sin, might not easily fall into the same abyss of impiety. For if you had been firm in virtue and had your mind set steady in godliness, it would not have forbidden it. But what could Christ suffer from those disposed to do wrong? But you have been wholly ignorant of the mystery concerning him. For being God the Word he came to be with us, that is, he was made flesh for us, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. It belonged to one who condemns to be unwilling to be with those in sins; but to one who wishes to save, both to be with them and to admonish, to persuade them to depart from their shameful ways and to choose, in place of the road to wickedness, the path to eternal life. He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The sun is not defiled when it illumines the whole world under heaven and comes into contact with many unclean bodies; nor would the sun of righteousness be harmed in any way by keeping company with wicked men. But let no one seek to make his own measure rival the dignities of the Master; rather, let each, reckoning his own weakness, flee familiarity with such people: “For bad company corrupts good morals.” But nothing prevents admonishing such people.

“One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him” (7:36). The Lord was invited, then, by one of the Pharisees; and since he is kind and loves humankind, and cares that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, he granted the favour asked and went in and reclined. Then a woman runs in, who had been licentious in her life but showed a believing intention; and, not unaware of the blame for what she had done before, she entreated Christ, as one able to wash her clean and free her from every charge and grant her forgiveness of her sins. She did this standing behind; for she could not yet stand in front before the forgiveness of her sins.

“He spoke by a parable” (8:4). … the prophets spoke about Christ in many ways. Some foretold that he would come as light; others in the rank and pre-eminence of a king; and indeed one of them said: “Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and kinsmen in Jerusalem! Behold, a righteous king shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgment. And the man shall be hiding his words, and he shall be hidden as from rushing water.” That the Saviour’s word was always somehow hidden is plain. So the blessed Psalmist too introduced him saying: “I will open my mouth in parables.” See, then, what he declared brought to fulfilment. A very great multitude had gathered round him from all Judea, and he spoke to them in parables; but to those, who were not worthy to learn the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the word was obscure; for they thought it worthless to accept faith in him, and they impiously opposed the proclamations made through him. And indeed they rebuked those who wished to attend to him and thirsted for his teaching of the mysteries, speaking impiously and saying: “He has a demon and is mad; why do you listen to him?” So it has not been given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but rather to us, who are readier for faith; for he himself has given us the ability to understand a parable and a dark saying, the words of the wise and riddles. — It must also be said that parables are, as it were, images of things not visible but rather intelligible and spiritual; for what cannot be seen with the eyes of the body, the parable shows to the eyes of the mind, giving form, through things perceived by the senses and as it were tangible, to the subtlety of things intelligible. Let us see, then, what meaning the Saviour’s word weaves for us. “And his disciples asked him what this parable might be” (8:9).

What, then, is the aim of the parable, and where does its depth look? Let us learn from the one who composed it. The blessed disciples were ignorant of these things before us, and came to the Saviour entreating and saying: “What is this parable?” — But let us see what is the reason why what falls on the roads is snatched away. Every road is hard and unploughed, because it lies under the feet of all, and none of the seeds is covered in it. So in those who have a hard mind no divine and sacred admonition sinks in, by which they could bear the fruits that are the boast of virtue. These have become a trodden road for the unclean spirits and for Satan himself; they can never become nurses of holy fruits, having a heart barren and sterile. Again, there are some who have faith in themselves without examination, as in mere simplicity of words. These have a rootless godliness; for when they go into churches they delight in the multitude of those gathered and gladly receive the teaching of the mysteries, but not with judgment, rather from light wishes. And when they leave the churches, they are at once carried off into forgetfulness of the sacred lessons. If the affairs of Christians are not storm-tossed, they keep the faith; but when persecution makes an uproar, they have a mind ready to flee. To them the prophet Jeremiah says: “Take up arms and shields.” For above all God who saves has an invincible hand, and, as the all-wise Paul says, “God is faithful, who will not let us be tempted beyond what we are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that we may be able to bear it.” Yet if it should happen that we suffer while contending for godliness toward Christ, then in every way we shall be enviable. And indeed the Saviour said to the holy apostles: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” and what follows. Nor did he teach us this by words only, but also by deeds. For he laid down his own life for us and acquired the world under heaven by his own blood. We are not our own, then, but rather his who bought and saved us, and we owe our life to him. For, as the divine Paul says, for this Christ died and lived, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. Let us see also the thorns by which the divine seed is choked. What again does the Saviour say? He sows the seed; but though it remains in the souls of those who received it, and has as it were already sprung up and pushed through to the beginnings of appearing, it is choked by worldly cares, and, as Jeremiah says, becomes a sheaf that has no strength to make flour. “Break up your fallow ground, then,” says another prophet, “and do not sow among thorns.” So, that the divine seed may blossom for us, let us first cast worldly cares out of our minds. — The rich and fertile soil that yields fruit a hundredfold would be souls fair and good, receiving the seeds of the word deep, holding them fast, and nourishing them nobly. Of such might very justly be said the word spoken by God through one of the holy prophets: “And all the nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a land of delight.” For when a divine word comes down into a mind clean of what usually troubles it, then it puts down roots deep, springs up like an ear of grain, and comes well to ripeness. But I think it useful to say this to those who choose to learn what is good. Matthew, explaining this very chapter to us, said that the good soil gave fruits in three degrees: one, he says, bore a hundred, another sixty, another thirty. See, then, how Christ said that there are three kinds of loss, and likewise an equal number of kinds of success. The seeds that fall on the road are snatched by birds; those that only blossomed on the rocky ground soon wither; those among thorns are choked. But the land of delight bears fruits in three degrees, as I said, a hundred, sixty and thirty; for, as the all-wise Paul writes, “each of us has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” For we do not find that the successes of the saints have come about in an equal measure in every way; yet we must emulate the greater and higher rather than the lower. “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (8:21).

He who said through the legislation of Moses, “Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you,” and commanded us to love even our enemies—does he himself neglect the honour due to his mother, and reject love for his brothers? Not at all. What, then, does he wish to teach? He raises very high our love for those men who are willing to obey his laws, and wishes that we owe them the highest honours, as to mothers and brothers. For if he says that those who hear his word and do it are his mother and brothers, how is it not plain to all that he grants a choice and enviable love to those who follow him? For so it was possible to persuade all to come to the willingness to obey his words.

“He got into a boat, and his disciples” (8:22). … Christ, together with the holy apostles, the sea, or lake, of Tiberias. An unexpected and fierce storm arose against the boat, and the wave, arched high by the onslaught of the winds, put the fear of death into the disciples; for they were not a little troubled, though they knew how to work the sea and were not without experience of rough water. And since the greatness of the danger now drove them to unbearable fear, as they had no other hope of being saved except only the Lord of the powers himself, that is, Christ, they woke him, saying, “Master, save us, we are perishing.” For the evangelist says that he was sleeping; and Mark adds that it was on a cushion, showing his freedom from pride and teaching us much wisdom from this. This too seems to me to have been done most fittingly, so that they might not seek his help as soon as the rough water began to leap on the boat, but that, when the evil was at its height, the power of his authority befitting God might become more evident, calming a raging sea and changing it to a great calm, so that not a trace of the disturbance remained. For if it had happened while he was awake, either they would not have been afraid, or they would not have asked, or they would not have thought him able to do any such thing. Therefore he sleeps, giving time for fear and making their perception of what happened clearer. For one does not see what happens in the bodies of others as one sees what happens in oneself. Since, then, they had seen all others benefited while they themselves had enjoyed nothing, and they were remiss, and they needed to enjoy the benefits through their own experience, he permits the storm for the sake of training; and the disturbance happened to their advantage, so that the wonder might appear greater and the memory of the event become lasting. For having first expected to perish, they were then saved, so that, having acknowledged the danger, they might learn the greatness of the wonder. But, as I said, they wake him, saying, “Save us, we are perishing.” Here, I pray, see little faith along with faith; for they believe that he can save, but as men of little faith they say, “We are perishing.” For it was not possible ever to perish while he who has all power was with them. — But Christ, who has authority over all, at once arose; and immediately he calms the rough water, restrains the rush of the winds, stops the turmoil, and showed by the events themselves that he is God. Let us, then, say what is in the book of Psalms: “You rule the might of the sea, and you calm the surge of its waves.” Having calmed the rough water of the sea, he also brings to steadiness the faith of the holy disciples, storm-tossed together with the boat, and works in them, as it were, a calm, restraining the waves of little faith. And with the storm of the waters he dissolves the storm of their soul, rebuking and teaching at once, since it is not the onset of temptations that produces fear but weakness of mind. He said, then, “Where is your faith?” And another of the evangelists insists that he said, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” For the fear of death, falling suddenly, sometimes troubles even the mind that stands firm. For this reason they once came to Christ saying, “Increase our faith.” He who has incurred the charge of little faith falls short of perfection in faith. For as gold is tested in fire, so is faith in temptations. Yet the human mind is weak, and needs altogether the hand from above in order to be able to bear bravely what befalls it. And the Saviour taught us this, saying: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” And the most wise Paul confesses it too, writing: “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” When the storm had ceased and the sea had been changed to calm and fair weather at Christ’s nod, the disciples, amazed at the divine sign, whispered to one another, saying: “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” Did they then say to one another “Who is this?” as though they did not know him? Then how is the thing not wholly implausible? For they knew that Jesus was God and Son of God; but amazed at the surpassing greatness of the power in him and the glory of the Godhead—though he was as we are and seen according to the flesh—they say, “Who is this?” meaning, “How great and of what kind, and in what power and authority, that he commands the waters themselves and the wind, and they obey him?” For the act is one of command, a Master’s order, and not a servant’s request. This too is great for wonder and benefit to the hearers; for creation obeys whatever Christ wishes to command. Indeed Mark says that the manner of the rebuke was with authority befitting God; for he says that the Lord said to the sea, “Be silent, be muzzled”; and with the word the command was obeyed; and the sea, foaming with its waves, heard the incarnate Word, ceased from the storm, and knew him who from the beginning gathered it by his command and set the sand as its boundary, which it shall not pass. And it was a type of what happened later to the disciples. For Judea was a lake, upon which there came down a great squall of the Jews’ madness against Christ; and the disciples were troubled, so that they even fled. But the Saviour rose as from sleep, and the disciples were again in calm; for standing among them he said, “Peace to you.” In another way, with this world of ours understood under the figure of the sea, the boat will be understood as the Church, which has as its sailors the sanctified, who through accepting the faith have Christ always with them. But sometimes a terrible storm breaks, and countless waves of circumstances rise against the holy boat, and numberless temptations seethe, and the savagery of evil spirits falling upon it brings it to the very fear of death. And Christ is with his own; but because he often lets them suffer by the economy, he seems in a way to imitate one who is asleep. When, then, the turmoil is truly beyond measure and no longer bearable for the sailors, and the sheep see the evil at its height, then they should cry out, all but saying: “Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord?” For without delay he will arise and drive away all fear; he will rebuke those who tempt, and change mourning into cheer, spreading a gentle and waveless calm; for he will never overlook those who trust in him. “They sailed to the country of the Gergesenes,” and so on (8:26).

… the Saviour [came] to the country of the Gergesenes, together with the holy disciples. Then a man met him who was the dwelling of many unclean spirits, out of his mind and senses, and differing in nothing from those already dead and lying in the earth—or rather perhaps in a still worse state; for he went about naked among the tombs of the dead, a proof of the inhumanity of the demons. For the God of all, by the economy, allows some to come under them, not so much that they may suffer as that we may learn through them what the demons are like toward us, and so refuse to be willing to be subject to them; for when one has suffered, many are edified. The Gergesene, or rather the herd of demons hiding in him, fell before Christ and cried out: “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God?” and so on. Here, I pray, see cowardice entwined with great boldness and madness: it is a sign of diabolical madness to dare to say, “What have I to do with you, Son of God?”, and of cowardice to beg not to be tormented. But if you know at all that he is the Son of the most high God, you confess that he is God of heaven and earth and all that is in them. How then do you plunder what is not yours, or rather what is his? And then you say, “What have I to do with you?” What king on earth will endure leaving his subjects to barbarians for ever? Utter the words that befit you; and these are in “I beg you, do not torment me.” And see again, I pray, the incomparable glory of him who is beyond all—I mean the invincible strength of Christ. He crushes Satan by merely willing that he suffer it. The words of Christ are fire and flames to him. It is true, then, that, as the blessed Psalmist says, “The mountains melted from before the face of God.” For he likens to mountains the lofty and arrogant powers, the evil ones, clearly. But assailing, as it were, the fire of our Saviour’s power and authority, they melt like wax. Christ asked, and commanded him to say what his name was. Did he ask, then, not knowing, and seek to learn as one of us? Yet how is it not wholly foolish to say or think any such thing? For as God he knows all things and searches heart and reins. He asked by the economy, so that we might learn that a great multitude of demons had divided one human soul among them. For since the Lord knew the multitude of the demons dwelling there, while the onlookers saw one man and heard one voice uttered, he says, “Tell me, what is your name?”—so that he might not be disbelieved if he himself said, “They are many,” but they themselves might confess that they were many.

“And they begged him not to command,” and so on (8:31). For since others had already been sent away before, those left behind shuddered at the thing. They begged him to allow them to enter into those. — The herd of unclean spirits asked for the herd of pigs, equal and like to itself. And Christ granted it by the economy, though he was not unaware of what they would do. For he gave them the permission so that this too, with the rest, might become for us an occasion of benefit and a hope of safety. For they ask for authority over pigs, clearly as not having it; and those who have no authority even over things so small and most worthless—how could they harm any of those sealed by Christ and hanging on hope in him? And besides, it is possible to learn from what befell the herd of pigs that the accursed demons are evil and plot against those who come under them. For the driving of the pigs over the cliff and drowning them in the waters would show this very clearly. And for this reason Christ granted their request, so that we might learn from what happened what they are like—how harsh and bestial.

“Jesus said, Who touched me?” (8:45). The wonder did not go unnoticed; for though the Saviour knew all things, he asks as one who did not know, and says, “Who touched me?” Not unreasonably the holy apostles said, “The crowds press round you and crush you,” which was the greatest sign that he truly wore flesh and trampled all pride; for they did not follow at a distance, but pressed round him on every side. He brings what was done into the open and persists, saying, “Someone touched me; for I perceived power going out from me,” answering rather plainly to suit the understanding of his hearers. Did the Lord, then, out of love of glory, not allow the display of his working befitting God, the wonder that happened to the woman, to escape notice? We do not say that—how could he, who often commands silence? But rather this: he looks everywhere to the benefit of those called to the grace through faith. Had the sign remained unknown, it would have wronged many; but becoming known, it benefited them not a little, and above all the ruler of the synagogue. For it made his hope of what he expected more secure, and gave him firm courage that Christ would snatch his daughter even from the snares of death. For the unclean were not permitted to touch any of the holy things or to come near a holy man. We are fully assured, then, that Emmanuel is true God, both from what was wonderfully done and from what he said in a manner befitting God: “For I perceived,” he says, “power that has gone out from me.” To be able to send out a power, as from one’s own nature, that is, from oneself, is beyond our measures, and perhaps beyond those of angels. The thing befits only the nature that is beyond all and highest; for nothing among creatures bears any healing power, or any other power, as its own, but only as given by God. “And her spirit returned, and she arose at once” (8:55).

Such, then, is the history of the miracle; but perhaps we should also contemplate it more subtly and loftily. Let the simpler admire the mighty works of God in these things; for they edify even when understood bodily. But we who are able to pass on to seeing that these things too happened to those people as types, and were written for our sake, let us pray to God and ask that a word may come that makes these things plain too: how Jesus was going first to the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, not to the woman with the flow of blood who met him on the way; and that, though he was going first to the former, the latter is healed first. For the Son of God came first to the synagogue of the Jews, and found it sick and dead; for the trespasses of Israel caused it to die. But the woman with the flow of blood, on the way, full of uncleanness, flowing not at the season of her separation but continually—she believes in the Son of God before the other. And he goes there, but she wishes to touch even the fringe of his garment. And Luke added what Matthew did not say, that the ruler’s daughter was twelve years old. And the woman with the flow of blood had had the flow twelve years; so at the very birth of the one, the other began to flow. For the latter is free of suffering as long as the synagogue lives; and the same boundary of time marks the end of the one and the beginning of the salvation of the other. The one dies at twelve years old; and the other, believing after twelve years of her suffering, is healed—she who could not be healed by any of the physicians. For many physicians promised to heal those from the nations. If you see the philosophers promising truth, they are physicians trying to heal. But she, having spent all she had, could not be healed by any of the physicians; but she touched the fringe of Jesus through faith and was healed. If we look at our faith in Christ Jesus, and understand how great the Son of God is and what of him we have touched, we shall see that, compared with what is in him, we have touched a fringe; but yet the fringe heals us and makes us hear from Jesus, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.” And if we are healed, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue will also rise. “For when the fullness of the nations has come in, then all Israel will be saved.”

“He gave them power and authority over all the demons, and to cure diseases” (9:1). … to say that the fruit of good labours is glorious. For those who wish to achieve, as far as is possible for men, the all-pure and undefiled life, Christ makes resplendent with his gifts, grants them a rich recompense for what they have achieved in holiness, and makes them partakers of his own glory. Take as clear and plain proof of the matter the holy apostles. See them made most illustrious and crowned with glory beyond man, Christ distributing this too to them along with the rest: “For he gave them,” it says, “power and authority over all the demons, and to cure diseases.” But see again the Word of God made man going beyond the measure of humanity and distinguished by the dignities of the Godhead. For it is beyond the measures of humanity, and belongs to God alone, to give authority over unclean spirits to whomever he wishes, and to be able to free from diseases those caught by them; for the pre-eminence and glory of the highest nature belongs naturally to none of the things that exist, except to him alone. Worthy of wonder, then, is the grace distributed to the holy apostles; but beyond all praise and wonder is the generosity of the giver; for, as I said, he grants them his own glory. A man receives authority over evil spirits and overturns that arrogant pride, I mean the devil’s. Yet he once said: “I will seize the whole world with my hand like a nest, and like abandoned eggs I will take it up, and there is none who will escape or contradict me.” But he missed the truth and failed in his hope, the haughty and rash one, boasting over the weakness of all. For the Lord of the powers set against him the ministers of the sacred proclamations. And this, then, was what was proclaimed beforehand through one of the holy prophets concerning Satan and the holy teachers of the mysteries: that “suddenly those who bite him will rise up, and those who plot against you will awake, and you will be plunder for them.” For they all but devoured Satan, plotting against his glory, plundering his goods, and bringing them to Christ through faith in him. — Then, if you please, let us inquire whence this grace, so splendid and renowned, came down to men. The only-begotten Word of God crowned human nature with this honour, when, having become man and in no way departed from his own pre-eminence, he did the works befitting God, crushed Satan by his all-powerful word, and rebuked evil spirits. This became the way by which those on earth are able to rebuke evil spirits. — But did he make the apostles such idly, and most illustrious for no necessary purpose? How would that be true? For the ministers of the sacred proclamations had, they had to be shown able to accomplish wonders, and through these deeds to be believed to be ministers of God and mediators for the world under heaven, calling all to reconciliation and to justification in faith. For to the more sensible a word is sometimes enough for the knowledge of the truth; but those not readily disposed to receive what one says need wonders and miracles; for so are they called, with difficulty, to the truth.

“He said to them: Take nothing for the journey” (9:3). Having thus adorned the holy apostles, he commanded them to go and speak his mystery to those everywhere on earth. For this reason he bids them be very unencumbered, and wishes them to be free of all worldly care, so as not even to take any account of necessary and indispensable food. For he says that to possess nothing will be an ornament and as it were a crown for them, and not to carry anything at all—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no two tunics—all but saying the words in the Psalms: “Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will sustain you.” For what Christ himself said is true: “You cannot serve God and mammon.” So that they might have a single-formed and single-minded life, looking only to the need to teach the mysteries, he commanded them to take no account of clothing or food. But someone might say: “And whence would their supply of indispensable things come?” He shows this too at once, saying:

“And whatever house you enter,” and so on (9:4). … the fruit from those being taught: they, receiving spiritual things from you, will take care of your bodily needs. And he commanded them to stay in one house and not to go out from it, so as neither to grieve the one who received them nor to get a reputation for gluttony and fickleness. For those who had once received them were not to be deprived of the gift, nor were the holy apostles themselves to put any hindrance in the way of their zeal and eagerness for the divine proclamation by being drawn about by many—not so that they might sometimes learn something necessary, but so that they might set before them a delicate table beyond need. That honouring saints is not without reward we shall know from the Saviour’s words. For he said to the disciples: “He who receives you receives me, and the one who sent me.” By the economy he refers to his own person the honours paid to the saints, so that they might have safety on every side. And if the one who receives them is in every good thing and in bright hopes, how is the reverse not altogether true? For one would be full of the utmost wretchedness who took no account at all of the duty of honouring the saints. Therefore he says: “And as for those who do not receive you, when you leave that city shake off the dust from your feet against them.” For they must be unwilling to take anything at all from those who did not receive them nor bear with the sacred proclamations. For it is quite implausible that those who dishonour the saving proclamation and the master of the house should be seen kind to his servants, or that their blessings should be sought. “And the crowds, knowing it, followed him” (9:11). Some sought release from demons, others were there for the putting off of sicknesses, and others longed for his teaching of the mysteries, attending him very earnestly.

“The day began to decline,” and so on (9:12). As the day declined and evening was expected any moment, the disciples took thought for the crowds and came, bringing their entreaties for them. And let us examine carefully what “Send them away” means. Of those following him, as I said, some begged to be freed from the evil spirits that held them fast, and others sought the removal of other sicknesses. So the disciples, knowing that by a mere nod he accomplishes for the sufferers what they long for, say “Send them away”—not because they were weary themselves, as though the time had passed its prime, but holding fast to love for the crowds, and as it were already practising the shepherd’s science and beginning to care for peoples. But see the incomparable gentleness of the one entreated. For he not only gives what those who follow him ask to receive from him, but adds also gifts from his generous right hand, refreshing in every way those who love him and nourishing them, clearly, to spiritual vigour; for he commanded that food be distributed to them. But the thing was impossible for the disciples; for they carried nothing but five loaves and two fish; and they came and told him so. — So that the wonder might run still higher and he be recognized in every way as God by nature, he multiplies the little; and he looks up to heaven, as though asking the blessing from above. He did this too for our sake, by the economy; for he himself is the one who fills all things, the good pleasure from above and from the Father. But so that we might learn that when we begin a meal and are about to break bread we ought to bring it to God, placing it as it were in upturned hands, and to draw down the blessing from above upon it, he became for us, by the economy, the beginning, type and way of the practice. — Then how far did the wonder go? A multitude of no few men was filled—for it extended to five thousand, apart from women and children; for another of the holy evangelists added this to his account. And the wonder did not stop there: twelve baskets of fragments were also gathered. And what follows from this? Clear assurance that hospitality has a rich recompense from God. One can also see the new wonders matching the older ones, the works of one and the same power. He rained the manna in the wilderness on those of Israel: “He gave them the bread of heaven; man ate the bread of angels,” as is sung in the Psalms. But see, again in the wilderness he supplied food abundantly to those in want of it, as though sending it down from heaven. For to multiply the little, and as it were from nothing to feed so great a multitude, would not be unlike the first sign.

“He asked them, saying: Who do the crowds say that I am?” (9:18). First of all it is worth seeing what led our Lord Jesus Christ to come to this and to put the question, or inquiry, to the holy apostles. For he says and does nothing outside the right time and fitting reason. What, then, do we say? He had fed in the wilderness crowds not easily counted with five loaves, breaking two small fish along with them; and he had so multiplied what was as nothing that twelve baskets of fragments were taken up. The blessed disciples, then, were amazed together with the crowds, and they saw through the very deeds that he was God and truly Son of God. Then, withdrawing from the crowds and being alone, he gave himself to prayer, making himself a type for us in this too, or rather teaching the disciples the skill of the lessons of a teacher. For those who preside over peoples and have been allotted the leadership of his flock must, I think, always be occupied in necessary things and be seen doing what pleases God. And knowing this, the divine Paul says: “Pray without ceasing.” The Saviour and Lord of all, then, as I said, made himself a type of holy life for the disciples, praying alone with them only. But the thing was likely to trouble the disciples; for they saw praying in human fashion the one whom they had seen the day before working wonders as befits God. It would be nothing unlikely, then, … for them to say among themselves: “Whom shall we think this man to be? God, or a man, one of us, or of the holy prophets? He works wonders as God, but prayer does not fit one who is God by nature. For what does God need at all?” So, to drive away the disturbance of such thoughts, he makes the inquiry—not ignorant of anything that was being said about him by those outside, but rather leading them away from the opinion of the many and wishing to plant right faith in them. “Who, then,” he says, “do the crowds say that I am?” — Do you see the skill of the question? He did not at once say, “Who do you say that I am?” but rather leads them first to the talk of those outside, so as then to bring them to the true opinion; which is indeed what happened. For when the disciples had told the opinion of the crowd, he said to them: “But who do you say that I am?” O how excellent is that “you”! He sets them apart from the others, so that they may flee their suppositions too and not have a low opinion of him. “You,” he says, “the chosen, called by my vote to apostleship, witnesses of my wonders—who do you say that I am?” Peter leaps forward again before the others and becomes the mouth of the whole choir, and utters words of love for God; he brings out an exact confession of faith in him, saying, “The Christ of God.” The disciple is careful; for he does not say simply that he is a Christ, but rather the Christ of God. For many are called christs because they have been anointed by God in various ways: some were anointed as kings, others as prophets, and others—we, namely, who have received redemption through Christ the Saviour of us all and have been anointed with the Holy Spirit—have obtained the name of christ. It was said, then, through the voice of the Psalmist about those of old: “Do not touch my christs, and do my prophets no harm.” And about us, through the voice of Habakkuk: “You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your christs.” So there are very many christs, and they are so called from the fact; but one only is the Christ of God the Father—not as though we were christs not of God but of someone else, but as he alone has as his own Father the one in heaven. It is clear, then, that removing him from the multitude of others he assigned him to the Father, as being his alone. For being God by nature, and having shone forth uniquely from God the Father, his only-begotten Word became flesh, as it is written. This too must be known: in Matthew’s writing we shall find the blessed disciple saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The most wise Luke, abridging the narrative as it were, agrees in sense, but says briefly that he said “the Christ of God”; and here the word spoken to him by the Saviour is passed over in silence. But in Matthew again we shall find him saying plainly: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” The disciple, then, was admittedly taught by God, the Father himself guiding him to the knowledge of the mystery of Christ. And it must be noted that the most wise Peter confessed one Christ, against those who dare to cut Emmanuel into two Christs. For he did not ask them, “Who do men say that the Word of God is?” but “the Son of Man”; and Peter confessed this one to be the Christ of God. And how would Peter’s confession be admirable if it had nothing deep and hidden, and as it were out of the sight of the many? For what at all did God the Father reveal to him? That he is a man? Is this a mystery taught by God? Was he admired for this, and counted worthy of such exceptional privileges? For he heard: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah.” But he was admired, and very justly. For what reason? Because the one he saw in our form he believed to be the Christ of the Father, that is, the Word who came forth from his essence, made flesh and made man. “And he rebuked them and charged them to tell this to no one” (9:21).

When the disciple had confessed the faith, the Lord rebuked them, that they should tell no one that he was the Christ. Yet should not the disciples rather have proclaimed him to those everywhere? For this was the work of those he had appointed for apostleship. But, as the sacred Scripture says, there is a time for every thing. What was still lacking had to follow on what he had already accomplished by his own proclamations; and this was the cross, the passion, death according to the flesh, the resurrection from the dead—the great and truly extraordinary sign by which Emmanuel has been attested as true God and Son by nature of God the Father. For wholly to abolish death, to overthrow corruption, to despoil Hades, to undo the tyranny of the devil, to take sin out of the way, to open the gates above to those on earth, and to join earth to heaven—this showed him to be God in truth. So he bids them keep the mystery silent for a time, until the whole course of the economy should reach its fitting end. For then, having risen from the dead, he commanded that the mystery be laid bare to those everywhere on earth, setting before all justification by faith and cleansing through holy baptism; for he said: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth; go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days, until the end.” For the Lord is with us and in us through the Holy Spirit, and dwells in the souls of all.

“For whoever is ashamed of me,” and so on (9:26). By these words he accomplishes at once many useful and necessary things. First he shows that those who are ashamed of him and of his words will in every way receive the like. And what could be equal in power to give good cheer? For if the judge is ashamed of some, as owing them the reward of obedience, the prizes of love for him and the crown of goodwill, how can one not say beyond dispute that those who have obtained such splendid good things will be in every way in endless honours and glories? Then besides this he plants fear in them, saying that he will come down from heaven not in his first lowliness and our humble condition, but in the glory of the Father, with angels as his escort. It is most grievous, then, and full of destruction to be condemned for cowardice and sloth when the judge comes down from above with the angelic orders standing round him. But it is great and worthy of all admiration, and the procurer of the utmost happiness, for them to rejoice in what they have already toiled for and to expect the rewards of their sweat. For such will be praised, Christ saying: “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” “But I tell you truly, there are some standing here,” and so on (9:27). Since the disciples had not yet received the power from on high, it was likely that they would fall into human weaknesses and, having thought something of this kind about him, say: “How will anyone deny himself? Or how, having lost his life, will he find it again? And what prize equal to this will there be for those who suffer it?” So, to draw them away from such reasonings and as it were to reforge them to courage, planting in them a desire for the glory to come, he says, “But I tell you, there are some standing here,” and what follows. By the kingdom of God he means the very sight of the glory in which he too will be seen at the time when he shines upon those on earth. For he will come in glory, both his own and God the Father’s, and not in our lowliness. Having promised these things, he goes up the mountain, taking three of them, the chosen. — He shows that a lowly mind would not be fit for contemplation, but only one lifted above earthly things and above all bodily things, set apart in quiet outside the cares of life, and become higher than the domination of the passions. Then he is transformed into an exceptional brightness befitting God, so that even his clothing shone with the onset of the light and seemed all but to flash like lightning. Then Moses and Elijah, standing round Jesus, spoke with one another of his departure, which, it says, he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem—that is, the mystery of the economy in the flesh and the saving passion on the cross. For it is true that the law given through Moses and the word of the holy prophets showed forth the mystery of Christ beforehand: the one in types and shadows, all but painting it as on a panel; the others foretelling in many ways that he would be seen in due time in our form, and that for the salvation of all he would not refuse death on the wood. So the presence of Moses and Elijah and their speaking with one another was an economy, showing very well that our Lord Jesus Christ is escorted by the law and the prophets as Master of law and prophets, and shown beforehand by them through what they proclaimed in agreement with one another. For the things of the law and the prophets are not discordant; and this, I think, is the meaning of Moses and Elijah speaking with one another. But the blessed disciples dozed a little while Christ was occupied in prayer; then, waking fully, they became spectators of so august and wonderful a change; that is, recovering from their heaviness, they knew the truth exactly. And the divine Peter, thinking perhaps that the time of the kingdom of God had now come, welcomes the stay on the mountain and says that three tents ought to be made. But he did not know, it says, what he was saying; for it was not the time of the end of the age, and of the saints receiving their share in the promised hope. While the economy was still at its beginning, how was it fitting for Christ to cease from his love for the world by withdrawing from suffering for it? For he saved the world under heaven both by enduring death according to the flesh and by abolishing it through the resurrection from the dead. Peter, then, did not know what he said. “The appearance of his face became different” (9:29).

Since they heard that our flesh must rise, but in what form was unclear, he changed his own flesh to give a sample of the change, so as to confirm our hope. He is transfigured, then, before them. We say that his transfiguration took place … not by the body casting off its human form, but by a certain glory like light enveloping it and changing the colour of the flesh’s most lowly character, as it were, into a more glorious appearance; according to the saying of the divine Paul, well spoken: “It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory.” For now it is flesh just as it is, bare, not coloured with any glory, not adorned with natural brightness, but having only the dishonour and weakness that belong to its nature. But at the time of the resurrection there will be a change befitting God, a change of glory, not of form. For it will then flash with garments of divine glory; for the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, according to the Saviour’s word. The transfiguration shown to the disciples, then, displayed a pattern of that glory to come; and it was shown bodily so as to come within the sight even of their mortal eyes, even though they could not bear the excess of its brightness.

“A voice came out of the cloud” (9:35). Something else useful was done for the confirmation of faith in him, for the disciples and for all of us. For out of a cloud above, as from God the Father, a voice was sent down saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him”; and when the voice came, it says, Jesus was found standing alone. He commands them to listen to him rather than to Moses and the prophets. And so that the truth might not be slandered by some saying that he commanded them rather to listen to Moses, the evangelist noted, saying that when the voice came Jesus was found alone. It was to him, then, that he commanded them to listen; for he is the end of the law and the prophets. Therefore he said to the Jews too: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” The voice of God the Father was beautiful and admirable; but the disciples, now held by unmixed fear, fall on their faces, so that through this too we may learn how most necessary for those on earth has been the Saviour’s presence and mediation, which came about, clearly, by way of the incarnation. For if the only-begotten Word of God had not become as we are, which of us could have borne God assailing us from above? Who would have endured his unspeakable glory, which perhaps no created being could bear? For “he dwells in unapproachable light,” as the divine Paul says. “And behold, a man from the crowd cried out,” and so on (9:38). This man did not make a blameless approach; for he cried out against the choir of the holy disciples, as not having been able to rebuke the demon. He ought rather to have honoured Jesus and asked for his help. Therefore Christ says:

“O faithless generation!” (9:41), meaning: “Because of your unbelief the grace did not work.” For that one must approach Christ with faith, and those who have received from him the grace of working wonders, he himself taught us, everywhere asking faith from those who came to him. For this reason Christ cries out against him, calling him and those like-minded with him a faithless and perverse generation; for the faithless man is altogether perverse, knowing in no way how to walk straight. With those of such most unholy mind Christ does not deign to be. And if one may say something human, he grows weary and disheartened, saying: “How long shall I be with you and bear with you?” For he who says that those who have received grace from him are weak in working against the spirits accuses the grace itself rather than those who received it. So the man who said of the disciples that they could not cast it out impiously accused Christ himself.

“But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit” (9:42). The father of the possessed boy might have had to go away grieved, not having obtained the favour. But so that no one should think that Christ himself too lacked strength for the wonder, he rebuked the unclean spirit, and at once it was put to flight. “And he gave him back,” it says, “to his father”; for he no longer belonged to his father but to the spirit that held him. But when he had shaken off its greed, he became again his own father’s by the power of Christ, who also gave his own apostles authority to accomplish divine signs and to rebuke unclean spirits. “Let these words sink into your ears” (9:44).

What reason led Christ to say this now to the disciples? He had taken the chief of them up the mountain, and, transfigured, had shown them the glory with which he will shine forth in due time; and coming down from the mountain he had freed someone from an evil and harsh spirit. But he had altogether to endure the saving passion for us and to bear the perversity of the Jews; and when this happened, it was not unlikely that the disciples would be in turmoil, and would think and say to themselves something like this: “He who is so great, who raised the dead with authority befitting God, who rebukes seas and winds, who crushes Satan by a word—how has he now been caught and fallen into the snares of murderers? Were we deceived, then, in thinking him God?” So that they might know what was certainly going to happen, he bids them store the mystery away, as it were, in their minds: “For you,” he says, “let these words sink into your hearts.” The “you” here sets them apart from the others. For he wished them to know what would happen, but not to tell it to others; for the common crowd had to be kept from knowing that he would suffer; and they, fully assured that he would come back to life, having trampled death, would readily escape the harm of being scandalized.

“But they did not understand this saying” (9:45). How did the disciples not understand the mystery of Christ, foreshadowed in very many places through the shadow of the law? They were from the flock of the Jews, yet not careless nor ignorant of the writings of Moses; and indeed for this reason they were chosen by Christ. But, as the blessed Paul says: “A hardening has come upon Israel in part; and to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart, not lifted, because it is abolished in Christ.” Those who come to Christ, then, must say: “Unveil my eyes, and I will behold the wonders of your law.” “And a reasoning entered among them, as to which of them was the greatest” (9:46).

I do not think that all the blessed disciples had such a sickness; for it is implausible that all at once took in one and the same sickness. But since one, I think, suffered it, the most wise evangelist, so as not to be found weaving any charge against any of his fellow disciples, declares it without specifying, saying: “A reasoning entered among them, as to which of them was the greatest.” — The passion of vainglory, then, ran into one of the holy apostles; for to reason at all about which of them was the greatest belongs to one who is contentious and desires to be set over the others. But Christ our God, who knows all things, seeing the reasoning in the disciple’s mind like a root of bitterness springing up, as it is written, tears the evil out from the root before it is raised on high, before it grows strong. For the passions are easily conquered when they are beginning in us, but once grown strong they are hard to cast out. How, then, does the physician of spirits cut away the passion of love of glory? “He took a child and set it by himself” (9:47). He did this for the benefit both of the holy apostles themselves and of us after them. For such a sickness feeds on men generally, if they are in any pre-eminence over others. Of what, then, did he make the child brought forward a type and image? Of a life without malice and without love of glory; for it has a mind without guile, a heart without deceit, and is in simplicity of thought; it does not love glory, it does not know the way of pre-eminence. Then he says: “Whoever receives this child in my name,” and what follows; that is, “He who is least among you all, he will be great”—meaning the modest man, who out of reverence thinks nothing lofty of himself. “Whoever receives this child in my name,” and so on (9:48).

Since, then, those who honour the saints have one and the same reward, whether one be perhaps small or among those of eminent measure and glory (“For he who receives this child,” he says, “receives me, and my Father”), how is it not wholly stale to contend with one another and love the first places? He makes the aim of this saying still plainer, and says that the one who is least among all through humility is great. For it is written: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” “Jesus said to him: Foxes have holes,” and so on (9:58). He rightly sent this man away; for he ought to have taken up his own cross, that is, renounced the vain distractions of this life. “For friendship with the world is enmity with God.” He reproves such a man indirectly, not so much reproaching him as correcting him; therefore he says: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” And this is the simpler sense. But according to the deeper sense he seems to call the crafty and treacherous herds of the demons foxes and birds of the air;

for so they are called in many places of the divine Scripture: “Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards.” And the Lord himself called Herod a fox. And of the seeds thrown on the ground he says that the birds of the air devoured them, speaking of the evil spirits. When, then, such foxes and birds have holes and lairs in us, how will Christ come? Where will he rest? What fellowship has light with darkness? “Allow me first to go and bury my father” (9:59). This man showed an enviable and praiseworthy promise; but seeking to take leave of his household shows that he had a divided mind; for to wish at all to consult first those who will not approve belongs to an unsteady reasoning. Therefore he says to him: “No one who puts his hand” and what follows. For as the ploughman, when he grows slack at what remains, will not see the fruits multiply, so too the one who has chosen to follow Christ but does not renounce worldly affairs and his relatives according to the flesh—especially those who do not approve his purpose—will in no way achieve the good venture, nor is he fit for the kingdom of heaven. For such a man puts his hand to the plough, since he is eager to follow; but he looks back, because he makes talk and consultation with his household a pretext for delay. But we shall find that the holy apostles were by no means such; for as soon as they heard Christ saying, “Follow me,” they left the boat and their father and followed him. These those who follow Christ must imitate.

“The Lord appointed seventy others also” (10:1). Since the multitude of those who would believe in him was to be great—for not only Israel but also the flocks of the nations were being caught in the net—for this reason Christ our God appointed, besides the twelve, seventy others as well. [What follows these words, such as “The harvest is plentiful,” and what follows, and “Do not go from house to house”—which indicates restlessness and people seeking a wage, and is evidence of slander—was written earlier on the Gospel according to Matthew; and further what follows these as far as “But he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”] — … a type was also written beforehand in the words of Moses; for he too chose seventy, at God’s command, and God sent the Spirit on those chosen. And in another way too we shall find the twelve disciples and the seventy themselves signified through the shadow of the law; for it is written in Exodus of the sons of Israel: “They came,” it says, “to Elim” (which is interpreted “ascent” or “growth”), “and there were there twelve springs of water and seventy trunks of palm trees.” For as we ascend to a more perfect understanding and spiritual growth, we find the twelve holy apostles and the seventy appointed by Christ. For we draw, as from holy springs, the knowledge of every good thing from the Saviour’s disciples. And we admire the seventy too, and say that they are like palm trees; for the plant is of good heart, fruitful and well rooted, and always flourishing by the waters. “I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves” (10:3). — “Carry no purse,” and so on (10:4). He foretells the persecutions so that they may bear the trial. And how could a sheep prevail over a wolf? “I,” he says, “will be with you and shield you, changing the wolves into sheep; for nothing resists my will.” And experience showed this in the case of Paul; for the one who was harsher than any wolf toward those who believed in him he made gentler than a sheep. He does not permit them even to take thought for the body, let alone to busy themselves with things outside the body, since they were not even to take thought for provisions, nor to carry anything not already on the body, such as sandals, but to place all their care on him. Nor did he let them accept any drawing away from their zeal, not even allowing them to be drawn aside so far as to greet those they met—which Elisha too long ago told the one he sent, to go to the work with a straight course and not even return a blessing to one who blessed him. For turning aside to others is a loss to zeal. “Let not even this,” he says, “become a hindrance to the preaching, when conversation falls in the way and friendship becomes a pretext for delay.” Let no devilish malice, then, draw you away.

“They returned with joy,” and so on (10:17). “I saw Satan,” and so on (10:18). So that they might not be thought to have come to the preaching of their own accord, the grace of the Spirit given them bore witness; for when the divine sign accompanied the word, no manner of slander against them could prevail. They rejoiced at having been counted worthy to work wonders and to subject the demons. — His falling like lightning signifies that he was brought down from the height to the earth, from glory to dishonour, from strength to weakness. For before the Saviour’s economy he ruled the world under heaven, worshipped by almost all; but then he fell like lightning, he who had all who were led astray as his worshippers, and was put under the feet of those who worshipped him. For this is what is meant by “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions,” calling the demons serpents and scorpions. “In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit” (10:21).

… “and said,” and so on (10:21). Let us also look at the words that Christ spoke to his own Father for us and on our behalf: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants.” “See,” say those of perverted mind, “he gives thanks to the Father; how then is he not less than he?” And what prevents, my good sirs, one might say, the consubstantial Son from welcoming and praising his own Father, who saves the world under heaven through him? But if you think he is less because of the thanksgiving, hear what follows. He calls his own Father Lord of heaven and earth; and the Son of God who rules all things surely rules all things with him, and is above all as God from God, having essentially equality with him in every respect whatever. God the Father has revealed to us the mystery hidden and kept silent with him before the foundation of the world—clearly, the mystery of the incarnation of the Only-begotten, which was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has been made manifest to those on earth in the last times of the age. The blessed Paul writes, then: “To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the economy of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.” So the august and great mystery of our Saviour had been hidden in the Father’s knowledge even before the foundation of the world; and so we too were foreknown and predestined to adoption. And the most wise Paul will teach us this again, writing: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, having predestined us in love to adoption through Jesus Christ for himself.” So the Father has revealed to us, the infants, the mystery hidden and kept silent from the ages. And yet before us there were very many men, beyond number, in this life, who were wise in words; but, as Paul says, “they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened; claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and reptiles; for this reason they were given up to a reprobate mind,” and he did not make known to them the mystery. And it is written for us too: “If anyone thinks he is wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” It is true to say, then, that he who has only the wisdom of the world, and nothing more, is foolish and without understanding with God; but he who seems to be a fool among the wise of this world, yet has in mind and heart the light of the true vision of God, is wise with God. So to those who seem to be fools—that is, who have a mind guileless and infantile in malice—the Father has revealed the Son, since they were foreknown and predestined to adoption. Nor is it implausible, I think, to add this. The scribes and Pharisees, and those who held the ranks of the Jews, having a reputation for knowledge of the law, were thought to be wise; but not being so in truth, they were convicted by the facts themselves. And indeed the prophet Jeremiah says somewhere to them: “How will you say, We are wise, and the word of the Lord is with us? The lying measuring line of the scribes became vain; the wise were ashamed, terrified and taken; what wisdom is in them, since they rejected the word of the Lord?” And since they rejected the Saviour’s word, that is, the evangelical and saving proclamation, or rather the Word of God the Father who became man for us, they themselves became rejected. So Jeremiah said of them: “Call them rejected silver, for the Lord has rejected them.” The mystery of Christ has been hidden from these too; and indeed the Lord said somewhere to his own disciples about them: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” To you—who? To those who have believed, clearly, who have recognized his appearing, who understand the law spiritually: to these the Father was pleased to reveal his own Son.

“All things have been delivered to me by my Father” (10:22). Our Lord Jesus Christ again shows us his own glory, the dignity of his pre-eminence befitting God, and the skill of the economy in the flesh; and he makes plain to those on earth how great a benefit has come from it: “All things,” he says, “have been delivered to me by my Father.” For though he is Lord of heaven and earth, sharing the throne of the Father and ruling all things with him, yet since, having lowered himself, he has been reckoned a man among us, he again speaks, not unfittingly, in keeping with the economy in the flesh, and does not refuse the words that befit the measures of the self-emptying, so that he may be believed to have become as we are and to have borne our poverty. He, then, who is Lord of heaven and earth, and in sum of all things, says that all things have been delivered to him by the Father; for he has become Lord of the world under heaven. But having said this, he at once rises to his own glory and pre-eminence, and shows that he is in no way inferior to his own Father. For what did he say next? “And no one knows,” he says, the nature of the Father, without being taught, “except the Son”; nor has anyone known the Son, consubstantial with him, “except the Father.” Those who have known God by revelation have known not what he is, but that he is. — … those who take the first words, which say “All things have been delivered to me by my Father,” as a lowering of the Son, let them learn from what follows that the Son is in every respect whatever without difference from the Father. For since no one, as he says, knows the Son except the Father alone, how have you dared to think and say that he is less than he, as though you knew him exactly? For he whom the Father alone knows is beyond all mind and speech, just as the Father himself, who is known only by his own Offspring. For the holy and consubstantial Trinity alone knows itself, being beyond all mind and speech; but the Son reveals it to us through the Holy Spirit, as Paul says: “For God has revealed it to us through his Spirit.”

“And turning to the disciples, he said privately: Blessed are the eyes that see what you see” (10:23). The more secret matters must be shared especially with one’s closest friends, and not simply with anyone at all. His friends are those counted worthy of discipleship, who have the eye of the heart enlightened and the ear ready for obedience. And indeed he once said to the holy apostles: “I no longer call you servants; you are my friends. The servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” To these he says what was written above, most fittingly turning to them—that is, turning away from those who wished neither to see nor to hear, but were disobedient and had a blind mind in them; he gave himself wholly to those who love him, and looking at them he called blessed the eyes that see, or will see, what they first, before the others, have beheld. The saying is framed from common usage among all; but we must understand this: “seeing” here does not convey the operation of the bodily eyes, but rather the enjoyment of what he has given to the godly; as if someone were to say, “So-and-so has seen good times,” meaning, “He has enjoyed good times.” And you will understand the words in the Psalms, “May you see the good things of Jerusalem,” in this way: “May it be yours to share the good things of Jerusalem”—the one above, that is, and in heaven. For how can one doubt that those who became spectators of Christ’s divine signs would not in every case be blessed? Very many Jews saw Christ working in a manner befitting God; but to be called blessed would not befit them all; for they did not believe at all, nor did they see his glory with the eyes of the mind. But in what way were our eyes called blessed? What did they see? We saw God the Word, who is in the form of God the Father, become man for us; the one who shares the Father’s throne, with us, that is, in our form, so that he might make us conformed to himself through holiness and righteousness, engraving in us the beauty of his own Godhead—spiritually, that is, and in the mind. And Paul is witness of this, having written thus: “For as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one,” saying that the man of dust is the first-formed Adam, and the heavenly one the Word who shone forth from above and from the essence of the Father. Then, having come, as I said, into likeness with us, the Son by nature took the form of a servant, so that he might make us free who were bound under the yoke of slavery—for what is made is by nature a slave—gaining what is his; for we have been named sons through him and with him. Being rich, he shared our poverty, so that he might bring human nature into his own wealth. He tasted death through the wood and the cross, so that he might take away the transgression that came through the wood, undo the charges arising from it, and remove death’s tyranny over us. We saw Satan fallen: the boaster in humiliation; the one once worshipped, dishonoured; the one reputed a god, under the feet of saints; for they received authority to rebuke unclean spirits. This dignity is very great, beyond human nature, and befits only the God who is beyond all; and its beginning for us was the Word appearing in human form. And indeed he rebuked the unclean spirits; but the wretched Jews said: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” To these unholy words of theirs the Lord replied: “If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” “For if I,” he says, “who have become man like you, have thus the working of authority befitting God, this great and exceptional good has come down upon you; for human nature wins renown in me, trampling Satan.” So the kingdom of God has come upon us, since the Word has become as we are and works with the flesh the deeds befitting God. We have seen ourselves in these things, and our eyes have become blessed. We have heard his ineffable teaching of the mysteries; he taught us about God the Father; he showed him to us in his own nature; he made manifest the truth of the types given through Moses. These things many of the prophets desired to see, and very many kings too. And indeed we shall find them saying at one time, “Show us, O Lord, your mercy, and grant us your salvation”—for they call the Son mercy and salvation—and at another: “Remember us, O Lord, in the favour you bear your people; visit us with your salvation, that we may see the goodness of your chosen ones, that we may rejoice in the gladness of your nation.” And what nation is chosen in Christ by God the Father the most wise Peter will explain, saying to those who have won approval through faith: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” “And behold, a lawyer stood up to test him,” and so on (10:25).

By “time” he means the time when the Saviour, who is present everywhere and never departs from his Father’s side, was spending his days on earth. — The evangelist here calls the man a lawyer, that is, one versed in the law according to the usage of the Jews—or rather one who thought he knew the law, though he did not know it in truth. This man thought he could trip Christ up; and on what grounds, I will tell. Certain storytellers, accustomed to babble without restraint, went about the whole country of the Jews, and Jerusalem itself, accusing Christ and saying that he declared the commandment given through Moses useless and brought in new teachings of his own; and there were some who had already believed, who opposed their words, receiving everywhere the evangelical and saving proclamation. The lawyer, then, wishing—or rather thinking himself able—to trap Christ into saying something against Moses, or against the commandment spoken through him, and into saying that his own teaching was better, comes to test him and says: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He comes forward with hypocrisy and feigned intention, and, pretending to honour him, calls him Teacher, so that the testing hidden in him might escape notice through his fair words. But someone who well knew the mystery of the economy in the flesh might have said to him: “If you knew the law and the power of the contemplation hidden in it, you would not have been ignorant of the one you were trying to test, who knows hidden things and is able to see the hearts of those who come to him. You call him Teacher, but do not bear to learn; you pretend to honour, expecting to trip him up.” And see again, I pray, the malice of the lawyer’s words. He could have said: “What shall I do to be saved,” or “to please God and receive the reward from him?” But he leaves those aside and uses rather the Saviour’s own words, pouring ridicule on his own head. For since it was the custom of Christ the Saviour of all to speak often of eternal life to those who came to him, the self-important lawyer, as I said, conversing with him, uses his words. But if you had truly been eager to learn, O lawyer, you would have heard from him what leads to eternal life; since you test him maliciously, you will hear nothing else but only what was decreed through Moses to the men of old—which clearly had as its reward not eternal life but the life given here: release from evils and the bestowal of better things. “For if you are willing and listen to me,” it says, “you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are not willing and do not listen to me, the sword shall devour you.”

“And he said to him: You have answered rightly,” and so on (10:28). … from the lawyer what is set down in the law, Christ, who knows all things, punishing his wickedness and exposing his perverse mind: “You have answered rightly,” he says; “do this and you will live.” The lawyer has missed his catch; the net of deceit is torn. Let us then cry out to him the words spoken through Jeremiah: “You were caught and taken.” — Having failed in his hunt, he rolled into love of glory, from deceit into arrogance; his vices pass him, as it were, from one to another. For he asked not wishing to learn, but, as the evangelist says, “wishing to justify himself.” And see how, out of self-love and arrogance together, he cried out shamelessly, “And who is my neighbour?”—“Who is this,” he means, “that I should love him as myself? I am above all; I am a lawyer; I judge all and am judged by no one; I sit in judgment and am not judged; I surpass all; I am better than all; I command all; all need me, but I need no one. Who, then, is my neighbour, that I should love him as myself?” Is no one, then, lawyer, your equal? Do you carry yourself beyond all? Bring down your brow; remember the author of Proverbs, who says: “Those who know themselves are wise.” Truly the power of life lies in these, in loving God and neighbour—commandments not changed by us but stretched beyond the Jewish measures, the intensification being contained potentially in the commandments as stated. For to love God with the whole heart and soul and strength removes the love of money, of pleasure, of empty glory; it draws one out of worldly disposition, makes one chosen out of the world, joins one to Christ, and, to say it all, makes a Christian out of a Jew. And love of neighbour, rightly understood, when it is directed not only to those of one’s own nation but to all of one’s kind, follows upon love of God, taking on also, in imitation of Christ, not only “as oneself” but “above oneself,” so as to lay down one’s life for one’s friends—which the Lord did. Praised by the Saviour for making a good answer, the lawyer burst out in boasting, setting down that no one was his neighbour, as though no one could rival him in righteousness. He thought such things as that Pharisee who said, “I am not like the rest of men,” not knowing that this destroys righteousness: not doing what one does out of love. This man too, then, is found wanting in love—altogether in love for God, and plainly in love for his neighbour too, since he does not reckon anyone his neighbour. And it is clear that he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

“A certain man was going down,” and so on (10:30). See how the Saviour shows who the neighbour is: not defining him by race nor testing him by virtue, but joining him by nature, telling of the man who suffered terribly at the hands of robbers, to whom kindness is owed by every human being, since nature itself demands it. And the parable shows this too, that the one who is not puffed up finds his neighbour by nature more readily than the one who is puffed up; for the Samaritan did so rather than the priest and the Levite. For they passed by on the other side of one lying half-dead and in the worst of evils, feeling nothing human for him, not dropping on him the oil of love, but having an unsympathetic and harsh mind; while the foreigner, who was reckoned among the Samaritans, fulfilled the law of love. Hear, then, the parable. “Jesus answered,” and so on (10:30).

“And setting him on his own beast,” and so on (10:34). … since, as it is written, “Man, being in honour, did not understand, but was compared to the senseless beasts and became like them,” and he fell sick with every beastlike and unbridled desire, Christ, becoming the firstfruits of our race, he who knew no sin, showed first in himself that we have risen above these beastlike passions; for he took our weaknesses and bore our diseases. Therefore he said that he set the one who received healing on his own beast of burden; for he bore us in himself, since we are members of his body. And moreover he brought him to an inn; and he calls the Church an inn, since it became able to receive and hold all. For we shall no longer hear, according to the narrowness of the shadow of the law and of worship in types, “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of God,” but “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” and “In every nation whoever fears the Lord and works righteousness is acceptable to him.” And having brought him there, he counted him worthy of greater care. For when the Church had been gathered from the nations that had been dead in polytheism, Christ himself was in it, as it is written, dwelling and walking about, and giving every spiritual grace. Hence to the keeper of the inn (who might be understood to bear the type of the apostles and of the pastors and teachers after them), as he went up into heaven, he gave two denarii, to care diligently for the sick man, adding: “Whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I return.” By the two denarii he means the two Testaments, the one given through the law of Moses and the prophets, and the one given through the Gospels and the apostolic ordinances; both belonging to one God, and bearing one image of the one King above, like denarii, and sealing and stamping the same imprint on our hearts through the sacred words, since one and the same Spirit spoke in them. Away with Mani, then, and Marcion before him, those most godless men, who divide these between different gods; for the two denarii belong to one King, and were given by Christ to the keeper of the inn at the same time and with equal honour. These the pastors of the most holy churches received, and, having enlarged them by their teaching with toil and sweat, and spending more of their own, and rather increasing them by the spending (for such is the spiritual silver: by what is spent from it, it is not diminished but increased—and this is the word of teaching), they will each say to the Master when he returns on the last day: “Lord, you gave me two denarii; see, spending more of my own, I have gained two others, by which I have increased the flock.” And he will answer and say: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Lord.” “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” (10:36). The Lord rightly asked which of the three he thought had become neighbour to the man who suffered. And he says: “The one who showed mercy on him.” For neither the priest nor the Levite became neighbour to the sufferer, but the one who had pity. And to this Christ says: “Go and do likewise.” For the dignity of the priesthood is of no use to those who obtained it, nor to be called experts in the law to those who seem to be so, unless they win approval by their very works. For see, the crown of love has been woven for the one who loved his neighbour; this man was a Samaritan, yet not rejected. Therefore the first among the disciples, the blessed Peter, bore witness, saying something like this: “Truly I perceive that God is no longer one who shows partiality, but in every nation whoever fears him and does righteousness is acceptable to him.” For the Lord who loves virtue admits all lovers of good pursuits, welcomes them, makes them his own, and counts them worthy of the good things to come.

“And a woman named Martha received him into her house” (10:38). According to the history, the practice of hospitality is a great thing and worth acquiring; and the most wise Paul will bear witness, saying: “Do not neglect hospitality.” Such was Martha, receiving the Lord, whom it is good to imitate; as also her sister Mary, most eager to learn, who, sitting at the Saviour’s feet, filled her mind with his teachings. Through these things too the Saviour benefits his disciples, so that they might know how and in what way they ought to live in the houses of those who receive them. For when they come in they should not sprawl into ease, nor seem at all to lodge with people for that reason, but rather to fill them with divine and sacred lessons. And let those who open their hearth to them meet them cheerfully and eagerly, not as giving something but rather as themselves about to receive, in two ways: first, they will delight in the teaching of the mysteries from their guests; then, besides, they will gain the reward of hospitality. But when they receive the brothers at their hearth, let them not be distracted with much serving, nor seek what is beyond their means and need; for excess is everywhere and in everything troublesome: it breeds reluctance in those who wish to be hospitable, and it is found to cause weariness to those being entertained.

“As he was praying in a certain place” (11:1). Yet he is true God and Son of the God over all, and he himself distributes to the creation all things by which it may be well and be preserved, while he himself needs nothing at all; for he is full, it says. Of what, then, would anyone say he stands in need, he who has by nature all that is the Father’s? For he said plainly: “All that the Father has is mine.” And the Father has fullness of every good and of the dignities befitting God; and this belongs to the Son too; and knowing this the saints say: “From his fullness we have all received.” “Why, then,” someone says, “does he pray, if he is full and needs nothing at all of what is the Father’s?” To this we say that the manner of the economy in the flesh allows him, if he chooses, to fulfil human things when the occasion calls for it. For if he ate and drank and is found to have slept, what is absurd if, adapting himself to our measures and fulfilling human righteousness, he made his prayer without affectation? So that he might teach us not to be careless in this, but rather to strain ourselves in supplications—not standing in the middle of the streets (for some of the Jews did this, namely the scribes and Pharisees, making the thing an occasion for love of glory), but rather alone, quietly and withdrawn, and as it were speaking alone with God alone, with a pure and undistracted mind. For the beginning and teacher of every good and most profitable thing had to be for us no one else but he who is first in all things and receives the supplications of all. “And he said to them: When you pray, say” (11:2).

“Father, our,” and so on (11:2). O great generosity! O incomparable gentleness, befitting him alone! He grants us his own glory, raises the slave to the dignity of the free, allows us to call God Father, as having come to be in the rank of sons. And we have received this too from him, along with the rest; and the wise John will bear witness, saying of him: “But to as many as received him, he gave power to become children of God.” For we have been formed to sonship through the spiritual birth, accomplished in us not from perishable seed but through the word of the living and abiding God, as it is written: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” For one of the holy apostles said so. And Christ himself somewhere made the way of the thing plain, saying: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Or rather—for I must tell you something of the secret things—he himself became for us the way, the door and the occasion of a grace so splendid and worth acquiring, by coming into likeness with us; for he took the form of a servant, though, insofar as he is understood to be and is God, he is free, so that he might grant us what is his own. For he alone is free by nature, since he alone is the Son of the Father who is above all things and has authority over all, free by nature and in truth; for everything that has been brought into being bends its neck as a slave to its Creator. The Singer sings, then, and says to him: “For all things are your servants.” And that, transferring what is ours to himself, he gave us by the economy what is his, the all-wise Paul, the minister of his mysteries, will confirm, writing: “That being rich he became poor, so that we by his poverty might become rich.” For poverty to God the Word is our condition, that is, human things; and wealth to human nature is to receive what is his, of which one is the dignity of freedom, most befitting those called to sonship. And this too, as I said, is his gift; for he said to us: “And call no one father on earth; for one is your Father, the heavenly one; and you are all brothers.” For since he became as we are, for this reason we have been enriched with brotherhood with him. He bids us, then, speak boldly and say “Father” in prayer. And most fittingly he also gives those who pray this to consider: if we call God Father and have been counted worthy of so splendid an honour, how shall we not live worthily of the one who has honoured us? One of the holy apostles said this: “If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your sojourning.”

“Hallowed be your name” (11:2). Do we ask, then, that an addition of holiness come to the all-holy God? But this is not at all blameless. For he is full, as he himself says, all-perfect from himself and in himself, and he is the one who supplies holiness to the creation from his own fullness. And besides, it is silly and ridiculous to think that those who pray make their supplications not rather for themselves but for him. What, then, is “Hallowed be your name”? We say that they do not ask that an addition of holiness be in the God over all. For who is greater than he and able to give him anything? For beyond all dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. Rather, they ask that this be in themselves and in all. When we are disposed and believe that God, who is God by nature and over all, is Holy of holies, then, taking his fear into our minds, we pursue a right and blameless life, so that, having so become holy, we may be able to be near the holy God. For it is written: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And he said somewhere to the hierophant Moses: “I will be hallowed among those who draw near to me.” “So let your name be holy in us,” he means; for this is what “hallowed” signifies. And they ask this not for themselves only but for the whole world. For consider that among those who have not yet been enriched with the light of the truth, nor received the faith, the name of God is still despised. For it does not yet seem to them holy, august and worthy of worship. But when the light of the truth shines on them and they awake as from night and darkness, then at last, having learned who and how great he is, they confess him Holy of holies. That this is so you will understand from this. One of the holy prophets said: “Sanctify him as Lord, and he will be your fear; and if you trust in him, he will be to you for sanctification.” Do we, then, make God holy, who distributes richly to the creation from his own fullness what is his? But clearly we say that he teaches this: “Believe that he is holy; for then you will fear him, and he will be to you for sanctification.” And again it is written of Christ: “Sanctify him who makes light of his life,” that is, who counted it as nothing; for he laid it down for us. “Yet let him be sanctified,” he says, “by you,” that is, let him be confessed holy. For he is so by nature, being true God and Son of God. For holiness by essence would befit none of the things brought from non-being into being, but only the nature that is highest and above all. When, then, we believe that he is holy by nature—for this is to “sanctify him”—then we confess besides that he is true God, and moreover separated from the rest and in the greatest pre-eminence. “Your kingdom come.” Since God always reigns and rules all things, what does “Your kingdom come” mean? Those who say this in their prayers seem, then, to desire to see Christ the Saviour of all shining forth again in the world. For he will come, he will come, and will descend as judge, not then in our lowliness but in glory befitting God, with angels as his escort, to judge the world. The time then will be one of giving account, or rather of testing and recompense; fire has been made ready for the lawless, and a long penalty, perpetual punishments. How, then, do they pray to see that time? See again, I pray, the Saviour’s skill and his admirable economy in each thing. For he commanded them to ask in prayer that that truly fearful time should come, so that they might know that they must live not carelessly or slackly but rather in holiness and according to what pleases him, so that the time may prove for them the procurer of crowns, not of fire and penalty. For to the lawless and profane it would in no way be fitting to say in their prayers, “Your kingdom come.” Or let them know that, in saying this, they all but accuse God of not making the time of their punishment dawn and appear sooner. To them one of the holy prophets cries: “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light, and gloom without brightness.” So the saints ask that the time of the full reign of our Saviour should come, since they have toiled as they should, and they seek the rewards of what they have already accomplished; for they are confident that they will stand bright before the judge. “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” This too befits saints and is full of all praise. For to wish the good will of God to prevail on earth, what else would it be but to wish that all should be doers and knowers of all virtue? So we say that the holy angels are distinguished in heaven; for it is written of them: “Bless the Lord, all his powers, his ministers, who do his will.” Those who say this, then, ask that strength be given to those on earth to do the will of God and imitate the way of life above and in heaven—that among the holy angels, I mean—so that, as Paul says, walking on earth they may have their citizenship in heaven. And besides we say that those who say “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” ask to see the removal of sin. For the will of the God over all, as I said, is that those on earth should live holily.

so that the Church seen on earth, as an imitation and image of the Church of the firstborn, the one above, I mean, may gladden Christ. “Give us each day our daily bread” (11:3). Some perhaps think it unfitting and unbecoming for saints to ask bodily things of God, and for this reason they carry the saying over to a spiritual sense; and indeed they say that they ask for bread—not earthly, not bodily, but rather that which comes down from above and from heaven and gives life to the world, or, as they say, for the true and incorporeal substance, that is, the soul; for this, because it is not in flux, is properly a substance. For my part, I would say without any hesitation that it would most befit saints to be eager to share in spiritual gifts; yet this is worth seeing: even if they ask for common bread, and the Saviour commanded them to do this, they make their approach free of all blame. For see what sense lies hidden in what was said. By commanding them to ask for bread, that is, the food for the day, he would surely be evident as permitting them to have nothing, but rather to practise a poverty befitting saints. For to ask belongs not to those who have, but to those who are in want. If someone in need of nothing says to God, who knows all things, “Give us bread for the day,” he would seem to be speaking ironically rather than truly wishing to receive. Some say that the “daily” bread is the bread that is to come and be given in the age to come, so that it is again understood spiritually; and others carry the word over to other meanings. But if it were true that they make mention, in their prayers, of the bread to be given in the age to come, why do they add “Give us each day”? For through this too one can see that they ask for the food of the day, as men without possessions, clearly. “Daily” (ἐπιούσιος) must be taken as meaning “sufficient.” The blessed Apostle too used the word somewhere, with a slight change, of Christ the Saviour of us all; for he said that he prepared for himself a people “for his possession” (περιούσιος), saying περιούσιος instead of ἐπιούσιος, that is, one that is sufficient and falls short in nothing of being complete. “And forgive us our sins,” and so on (11:4).

The Lord wishes his disciples to be kind and forgiving, so that they can say in their prayers without reproach, “Forgive us, for we have forgiven.” “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge!” He bids them first ask forgiveness of their sins, and then confess that they too will in every way forgive; and, so to speak, they wish God to become an imitator of the forbearance in them, and the kindness they show their fellow servants they seek to receive in equal measure from God, who distributes what is just and knows how to have pity on all. And let no one think that just anyone may say, “Forgive us our sins.” For it would not befit those still sinning to say “Forgive us our sins,” but rather those who have withdrawn from their former stumblings and hold fast to the will to live henceforth as befits saints. We must, then, ask God for forgiveness of our sins, having first forgiven those who have offended us in anything—when they sin against us and not against the divine and supreme glory itself; for we are not lords of those offences, but only of those committed against us. “And do not lead us into temptation.” Luke stops the prayer here; but Matthew is found adding, “But deliver us from the evil one.” There is a very close sequence in the words; for being delivered from the evil one certainly follows from not entering into temptation. Or perhaps one who said that being delivered is the same as not entering into temptation would not miss the truth. In teaching us to say this he does not wish us to be unmanly or cowardly, but rather vigorous and bold in all that is praiseworthy, and besides, modest and poor in spirit, not thinking that we shall in every way overcome every temptation. For sometimes an unbearable fear falls upon the human soul, and the weight of temptation shatters the boldest mind. We must not, then, be rash toward temptations, but rather reckon the weakness of our mind. Let us, then, ask not to be tempted; but when the time calls us to it as of necessity, then, then indeed, we must struggle with all our strength. Temptations are of two kinds: one is tempted either by those of other beliefs or by the dishonourable passions. Those who live amid such terrible evils, or who are not yet in them, must pray and say, “Do not lead us into temptation.” But when temptation has leapt upon you, then stand nobly: rebuke the flesh, put a bridle on the mind, ask for help from God. For then the Saviour and Lord of all will help and grant victory. “And he said to them: Which of you will have a friend?” and so on (11:5).

The order of the thoughts is wonderful. The Saviour taught how one must pray, when the holy apostles asked this. But it was likely that those who had received this august and saving lesson from him would make their supplications according to the pattern given, yet not do so tirelessly or carefully, and then, not being heard at the first prayer, or the second, would break off their supplications as accomplishing nothing useful. So that we may not suffer this, nor incur loss from such faint-heartedness, he shows plainly by way of a parable that carelessness in prayer is harmful, while perseverance in it is most profitable. Come, then, let us carry over what is shown in the form of a parable into the truth. Trouble God with prayer, approach God who loves the good, and very often; and if you see the granting of grace delayed, do not despair of what you expect, nor slip from the hope set before you, perhaps saying foolishly to yourself: “I have come often, I have wept, I have entreated, and I have not been heard; for nothing I asked has come to fulfilment.” Rather, think this to yourself: The steward of all knows our affairs better than we; you sometimes ask for things beyond your measure; the giver himself knows the time fitting for his bounties. We must, then, make our supplications to God both sensibly and intently, even if some of our requests are refused. For what is obtained without sweat and received from what is ready to hand is usually despised. “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him,” and so on (11:8). Here “I tell you” has the force of an oath. God does not lie, even if what is promised comes without an oath; but to leave our little faith no excuse, he sometimes confirms his hearers with an oath. By saying “seek” he commands toil; for what is sought is always somehow found by toil. He who knocks beats on the door with his hand, so that the master of the house, unable to bear the trouble of the knocking, may open, even unwillingly. Learn, then, from our own affairs how to hunt for what is useful: knock, trouble, ask; such must those be who ask anything of God. We must pray sensibly and vigorously, then; and if some delay of our requests occurs, we must not grow numb nor desist. The most wise Paul writes, then: “Pray without ceasing.” For the devil troubles us not a little, sometimes bringing in unexpected circumstances and dragging us down into sin of many kinds. Besides this, the law of innate love of pleasure lurks in the members of the flesh, warring against the law of our mind, as it is written. Yes, and the heretics who war against the doctrines of the truth. There is need, then, of frequent and repeated prayer. For our weapons are not fleshly, as it is written, but powerful for God. “What father among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (11:11).

The Saviour again teaches us another thing necessary for our benefit. For sometimes we approach God who loves the good, making supplications about each matter according to what each of us thinks; but sometimes we do not distinguish or test what is truly profitable and benefits us when given by God, and what would harm us if we received it; rather, by unconsidered impulses of the will we fall into desires full of destruction. When, then, we ask anything of this kind from God, we shall by no means receive it, but rather make our supplication worthy of laughter; and what the reason for this is, let us learn from him. “Which of you is the man whose son will ask him for bread, and he will give him a stone?” “As from an image,” he says, “or a plain example drawn from yourselves, understand the force of what I say. You have become a father of children: in every way, out of great affection, you wish to benefit them. When, then, he asks for bread, you give it without delay and gladly, knowing well that he seeks wholesome food. But when, through lack of sense, the little child, not yet knowing how to distinguish what it sees, asks for a stone to eat, do you give it,” he says, “or rather do you draw it away from this harmful desire?” Let the same account hold of the serpent and the fish, the egg and the scorpion. “If, then,” he says, “you who are evil”—that is, having a mind capable of wickedness and not single-formed toward the good, as is the God of all—“know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give a good spirit to those who ask him?”—that is, spiritual grace, and good in every way; and if anyone receives it, he will be thrice blessed. So if you wish to receive anything of this kind, approach gladly; for the Father in heaven, who loves virtue, will readily grant it.

“And he was casting out a demon, and it was dumb” (11:14). We say that “dumb” here means voiceless; and the affliction was not natural, but the plot of the demon that had bound his tongue. Therefore he needs others to bring him; for he could not entreat by himself, being voiceless. Hence the Lord does not demand faith of him either, but at once corrects the disease. “And the crowds marvelled.” When he had been cleansed and the wonder accomplished, the multitude applauded him with praises and hastened to crown the wonder-worker with glory befitting God. “But some of them,” it says—these were scribes and Pharisees, with hearts drunk with madness and envy—made the wonder an addition to their disease. For removing from him what he had done in a manner befitting God, they ascribed to the devil the power to accomplish all things; for they said that he cast out the demons through him. — When Christ, then, was burying the evil demons as in an abyss and removing them against their will by sending them out of those who had them, though he should have been admired for this, he did not escape the talk of those accustomed to find fault. For they dared to say, making the miracle a charge: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul.” “Others, testing him,” and so on (11:16). Others, pricked by the same goads of envy, sought to see a sign from heaven from him, all but crying out: “Even if you drive a malignant demon out of a man, the thing is not yet great, nor does what is done prove divine working. We have not yet seen anything like the ancient wonders. Show us something indisputably worked from above. Moses brought the people across, making the sea passable for them through the middle; he struck the rock with his rod and showed it to be a mother of rivers; springs came forth from the flint. Likewise Joshua after him made the sun stand still at Gibeon and the moon at the valley of Aijalon; he stopped the Jordan and put a bond on its streams. But you have shown none of these.” For wishing to ask for a sign from heaven would indicate nothing else but that they then had such thoughts about him. And what does Christ say to this?

“But he, knowing their thoughts,” and so on (11:17). First he shows himself to be God by knowing even what they whispered secretly; for he knew their reasonings. Then, drawing them away from so terrible an impiety, he says nothing from the Scriptures—for they did not attend to them, but would have misinterpreted them—but from what commonly happens. “For a city,” he says, “and a house, if divided, is quickly dissolved; and a kingdom”—than which nothing is more powerful. “If, then, I too, having a demon, cast out the demons through him, there is strife among the demons; and if they stand against one another, their strength has perished.” For loyalty of subjects keeps kingdoms standing; and that none of their members oppose one another in any way keeps houses standing. And Beelzebul’s kingdom too would be kept standing by his not wishing to act against himself. How, then, does Satan cast out Satan? Therefore the demons are not sent out of men willingly. “For Satan does not fight himself,” he says; “he does not rebuke his own bodyguards, but rather strengthens his own kingdom. It remains, then, to understand that I crush Satan by divine power.” — … the most perverse multitude of the unholy Pharisees slandered Emmanuel and dared to calumniate his glory, impiously calling him helped by the cooperation of Beelzebul to be able to drive the evil spirits out of the sick. Therefore Emmanuel himself also cried out through the prophet Hosea against the unbridled tongue of the Jews, saying: “Woe to them, for they have leapt away from me! They are wretched, for they have been impious toward me. I redeemed them, but they spoke lies against me.”

“By whom do your sons cast them out?” (11:19). For the blessed disciples were Jews and of Jews according to the flesh. They received from God authority over unclean spirits, and indeed freed those held by them, pronouncing over them, “In the name of Jesus Christ.” “When, then,” he says, “the sons who have come from you crush Beelzebul in my name, rebuking his bodyguards and sending them without delay out of those who have them, how is it not plain blasphemy, combined with great ignorance, to say that I borrow power from Beelzebul? You will be condemned, then, by the faith of the sons who have come from you, if they, having received authority and power from me, paralyse Satan and send him out of those who have him against his will, while you say that I work the divine signs using his powers.”

“But if by the finger of God I cast out the demons,” and so on (11:20). “Since,” he says, “what you say is not true, but rather stale and false and bearing the charge of slander, it is evident that I cast out the demons by the finger of God.” By the finger of God he means the Holy Spirit. For the Son himself has been named the hand and arm of God the Father, since he works all things through him. And likewise the Son works in the Spirit. Just as the finger hangs from the hand, not foreign to it but naturally in it, so the Holy Spirit is joined in union with the Son by reason of consubstantiality, even though he proceeds from God the Father. For, as I said, the Son works all things through the consubstantial Spirit. Yet he says, “By the finger of God I cast out the demons,” and now by the economy, as man. For the Jews, having a rotten and foolish mind, would not have borne it had he said, “By my Spirit I cast out the demons.” And note carefully, I pray, that when the Father works wonders through the Son, it is the Spirit who works them. For he too was working in that temple; and those whose working is one have also the same nature. Let the fighters against the Spirit, then, driven everywhere to the truth, hate the vomit of deceivers, return to sobriety toward God, and ask from him the light of the truth; for the Saviour, who loves humankind, will grant it. — “If, then,” he says, “I, being a man and having become as you are, cast out demons by the Spirit of God, human nature has been enriched in me, as in the first, with the kingdom befitting God; for it has been glorified by crushing Satan and rebuking unclean spirits.” This is the meaning of:

“The kingdom of God has come upon you.” “When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own court,” and so on (11:21). Since the discourse on these things had to proceed through many thoughts, he uses a clear and most plain example, through which those who wish may see that he has conquered the ruler of this age, and, as it were, having hamstrung him and stripped him bare of the strength in him, has given him as plunder to his own followers. “As long as the strong man,” he says, “has power and guards his own, he suspects no greed against him. But when someone stronger than he comes upon him and overpowers him, then he is plundered.” This example is spoken as of men; but the devil, who hates the good, has suffered it too. For before the Saviour’s coming he was in great strength, having driven together and holding, as it were, in his own court flocks that belonged to another—clearly, those of the God over all. But when the Word of God who is beyond all, the giver of all strength and Lord of the powers, leapt upon him, having become man, all his goods were plundered and the spoils distributed. For those who of old were held by him in godlessness and error have been called through the holy apostles to the knowledge of the truth, and brought to God the Father through faith in the Son.

“He who is not with me is against me” (11:23). “For I have come,” he says, “to deliver all from the hands of the devil, to free those who are captives, to enlighten those in darkness, to raise the fallen and heal the broken, and to gather into one the children of God scattered—by him, clearly. But Satan, not being with me, tries to scatter what I have gathered and saved. How, then, does the one who fights against my economy give me power against himself? Is it not silly to think any such thing has happened?” Whence, then, it came about that the crowds of the Jews slipped into such thoughts about Christ, he himself made clear, saying: “When the unclean spirit has gone out of the man, it passes through waterless places,” and so on (11:24).

That this whole example applies to the Jews Matthew showed, adding: “So shall it be also with this evil generation.” For as long as they were serving in Egypt and living by the customs and laws of the Egyptians, they were full of all uncleanness, and the evil spirit dwelt in them. But when they had been redeemed through Moses, God having pity on them, and had received the law as a tutor calling them to the light of the true knowledge of God, the profane and unclean spirit was driven out—at the time, too, when they sacrificed the lamb as a type of Christ, were anointed with its blood, and escaped the destroyer. But since they did not believe in Christ but thrust away the Redeemer, behold, the unclean spirit has fallen on them again, and far worse than before; for it found their heart bare and empty of all godliness, and as it were swept, and it dwelt in them. For as the Holy Spirit, when he sees a human heart empty of all uncleanness, makes his abode there, dwells and rests in it, so the unclean spirit is wont to dwell in the souls of the lawless; for they are empty, as I said, of all virtue. So the last state of those of Israel has become worse than the first. For as the Saviour’s disciple said: “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of truth than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. For there has happened to them what the true proverb says: The dog turns back to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing, to wallowing in the mire.” From their very daring deeds one could see that they touched their own vomit again, practised returning to wallow in the former mire, and fell into the error of Egypt. For the unclean spirit entered again, and according to the Saviour’s word their last state became worse than the first.

“It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it” (11:29). The request came from wickedness; therefore they do not obtain it, according to the saying, “The wicked will seek me and will not find me.” And if it had been possible for Jesus not to be willing to suffer death on the cross according to the flesh, not even this sign would have been given to the Jews. But since the passion for the salvation of the world under heaven was indispensable, it has been given them for condemnation. That it is a very great sign of the power and authority befitting God of the Word made man to have abolished death through his resurrection from the dead, it will suffice, I think, for the reasonable to be fully convinced by this: that Pilate’s soldiers, who were guarding the Lord’s tomb, were persuaded with much money to say, “While we were asleep he was stolen by night.” Not even by this sign, then, did the Jews believe. Therefore he very fittingly said of them: “The queen of the south will rise,” and so on. “The queen of the south will rise at the judgment,” and so on (11:31).

[Of Cyril, from the commentary on Luke.] A barbarian woman, though long distances kept her away, overcame reluctance—not to amass money, but to hear the wisdom of Solomon, who spoke parables and riddles and described the beauties and the faults of human things. — A barbarian woman was eager to hear Solomon, and undertook so long a journey for this, to hear wisdom about the nature of visible things, of animals and plants. “But you, who are present and hear about invisible and heavenly things, when Wisdom herself has come to you and confirms the word by works and wonders, are you estranged from the word and do you let the wonder of the oracles pass without feeling? How, then, is there not something greater than Solomon here, that is, in me?” And see again the skill of the saying: why does he say “here” and not rather “in me”? To persuade us to be humble, even if we are full of spiritual gifts. And besides, it would not have been unlikely that the Jews, hearing “Something greater than Solomon is in me,” would again try to say their usual things about him: “See, he says that he is even better than those who reigned illustriously among us.” So the Saviour by the economy speaks with restraint, saying “here” instead of “in me.” — He also says that the Ninevites will be for their condemnation at the time of the judgment. For they were cruel and barbarous men, not knowing the God who is God by nature and in truth, wholly unacquainted with what was decreed through Moses, ignorant of the eloquence of the prophets. Yet, being of such a mind, they repented, he says, at the preaching of Jonah; so they are far better than those of Israel and will condemn them. But hear the words: “The men of Nineveh will rise at the judgment against this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it in a hidden place,” and so on (11:33).

And what was the need of such words? He contends against an objection devised by the Jews out of their perversity and ignorance. For they said that he worked wonders not so much that he might be believed, but that he might have many followers and snatch the applause of those who saw the divine signs. He repels this slander, then, and takes as an example the use of a lamp; for the lamp is always set on high and on a lampstand, so that it may be useful to those who see. And let us consider what follows from this. Before our Saviour’s coming, the father of darkness, that is, Satan, had darkened the world under heaven, and all things were blackened with a spiritual mist. But when we were in this state, the Father gave the Son to the world under heaven as a kind of lamp, so that the divine light might shine on us and deliver us from the devil’s mist. But, O Jew, if you blame the lamp because it is not rather hidden, but, set on high and on a lampstand, gives light to those who see, then blame Christ for not wishing rather to escape notice, but to be seen by all, enlightening those in darkness and giving the light of the true knowledge of God. So he did not perform the divine signs and seek to be known through them in order to be admired, but rather so that it might be believed that, being God by nature, he became man for us and did not cease to be what he was. And shining, as on a lampstand, in the holy Church by the preaching, he enlightens the minds of all, filling them with divine knowledge. “A Pharisee asked him to dine with him” (11:37).

The most wise Paul speaks the truth in saying that Christ came into the world to save sinners. For this reason, lowering himself to self-emptying, he was seen on earth with flesh and lived among men. One can see this taking place also through the words before us. For how is it not plain to all that the workshop of the Pharisees was always evil and profane, envious and nursed in arrogance, and insolent toward Christ the Saviour of us all? How, then, did he lodge with them? Was he ignorant of the perversity in them? And how is it safe to say this? For he knows all things as God. What, then, is it? He hastened above all to admonish them, imitating the best of physicians, who bring the help of their own practice more insistently to the sick. For, as he himself says somewhere, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” So the Pharisee, as far as his own purpose went, invites him to his hearth; but the Saviour of all lowers himself to this, as I said, by the economy, and made the thing an occasion of teaching. And the dull Pharisee supplied the occasions for the discourse; for he marvelled, it says, that he had not first washed before dinner. He was offended, it means, that, having among them the reputation of a righteous man and a prophet, he did not conform to their most irrational customs. For they used to wash before eating, as though freeing themselves from all defilement—and this too very foolishly. For washing with water is very useful for those defiled in body; but how could it free anyone from the uncleanness that is in mind and heart? Yet we say this: Foolish Pharisee, you have thought much of yourself for your knowledge of the sacred Scriptures; you know the law of Moses. Tell me, then, where did Moses command you this? What commandment laid down by God can you name about having to wash before eating? Through the commandment of Moses the water of purification was given for cleansing bodily defilement, bearing the type of the truly holy and cleansing baptism, I mean the baptism in Christ. And those called to the priestly service also washed with water. And indeed the divine Moses washed Aaron with water, and with him the Levites; the law showing through the typical baptism, as in shadows, that their priestly service did not have perfection for sanctification but needed rather the divine and sacred baptism for true cleansing; and showing us in another way too that the Saviour of all perfects for sanctification, and for the putting off of all defilement, the holy and chosen race in God’s sight, that is, us, through holy and august baptism. Yet he is nowhere seen

to have commanded washing before eating. Why, then, have you marvelled, or for what reason were you offended, O Pharisee? And what does the Saviour do? He makes the rebuke on a fit occasion; for hear: “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,” and so on (11:39). The Lord could have used other words too, wishing to admonish the foolish Pharisee; but he seizes the occasion and, as it were, weaves his teaching out of what was at hand. For at the time of food and table he takes the cup and the dish as a plain example, and shows that those who worship God sincerely must be clean and washed, and not only from bodily uncleanness but also from that hidden within in the mind—just as it would be well for the vessels that serve the tables to be freed from outward dirt and, besides, from what is within. “For he who made the outside,” he says, “made the inside too”; that is, he who created the body also fashioned the soul. Since both are works of the one God who loves virtue, they must have a cleansing that runs together. But this was unaccustomed for the scribes and Pharisees; for they were eager to do everything only so far as to seem clean, being like whitewashed tombs, according to the Saviour’s own word, beautiful outside, but inside full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. But Christ does not wish us to be such, but holy and blameless in soul and body. And indeed one of our own said: “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” And Isaiah too, in the person of God: “Wash,” he says, “become clean; take away the wickedness from your souls before my eyes.” Note the precision of the saying: being wicked, some may sometimes escape the eyes of men, but they cannot escape the divine eyes. What remedy, then, did the Saviour give them after the rebukes? “But give as alms what is within, and behold, all things are clean for you” (11:41).

Yet we say that there are very many ways of winning approval, such as meekness, humility, and their kin. Why, then, passing over such things, does he command them to become merciful? The Pharisees were very fond of money, gathering gains with an insatiable hand. And indeed the God of all said of them somewhere: “How has the faithful city Zion, full of judgment, become a harlot? In her righteousness lodged, but now murderers. Your silver is debased; your merchants mix the wine with water; your rulers are disobedient, companions of thieves, loving gifts, pursuing rewards, not judging for orphans, and not heeding the cause of widows.” He went, then, fittingly against the sickness that ruled them. “You tithe mint and rue and every herb,” and so on (11:42).

For neglecting as stale what they ought above all to have accomplished, that is, judgment and the love of God, they kept exactly only those commandments—or rather commanded the peoples under their hand to keep them—which were the way and occasion of very many gains for them; so that they did not pass over even the small things of herbs, worth no account. — [Here the Apostate says that one should avoid tombs, and so on. But this is child’s play and nonsense; the Lord calls those who cover their own wickedness with hypocrisy unmarked tombs, deceiving those who come upon them.] — It is the work of love for God not to offend him in any way, and to fear the transgression of the whole law; and of judgment, just judging, and giving equal care to what has been decreed, and not neglecting what is necessary while looking exactly only to what is profitable, but casting an impartial vote in every matter; for to judge unjustly does not belong to those who keep love toward their brothers. So, not keeping what is necessary and binding in the law, they were eager to take tithes even of the most worthless things. “You love the chief seat in the synagogues,” and so on (11:43).

By what he rebukes them for, by the very same he makes us better; for he wishes us to be free of love of glory, and not to pursue seeming before truly being—which the Pharisees did. For greetings from some, and love of the first seats, do not certainly show us to be approved; for these belong to many who are not good. The Saviour shows this at once, saying: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like unmarked tombs, and the men who walk over them do not know it.” For, being eager to seek greetings from all in the marketplace and to make much of presiding in assemblies, they differ in nothing from unmarked tombs, which are splendid with outward ornaments but full of all uncleanness. Here, I pray, see hypocrisy and doing everything to please men condemned in the extreme. Therefore the blessed Paul says: “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

“Teacher, in saying this you insult us too” (11:45). Being rebuked is always somehow hard to bear for every man; yet it is not useless for the reasonable, for it moves them to what is better. See those called lawyers among the Jews suffering this. For the Saviour of all was rebuking the Pharisees as running outside the straight road; and at this the band of unholy lawyers grew angry; for they bring themselves under the charges and think that what Christ said to those men was said against themselves. But surely it would have been better to love the rebuke and ask for the cure of their sicknesses, and not ignorantly to call the rebuke an insult, though it was beneficial and useful. What, then, does Christ say to this? He intensifies the rebuke and brings down their idle pride, saying: “Woe to you lawyers also, for you load men with burdens,” and so on (11:46).

He weaves his discourse to them as from a plain example. The law was admittedly burdensome to those of Israel; and the divine disciples too confessed this, saying in the Acts: “Now, then, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” And Christ himself taught us this, calling out and saying: “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” He says that those under the law are those who labour and are heavy laden, and he named himself meek, since the law did not have this quality. For, as Paul says, “Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” “Woe to you, then, lawyers; for you tie up burdens hard to bear and lay them on those under the law, but you yourselves do not touch them.” For they commanded that the commandment of Moses be kept inviolate and brought punishment on those who set it aside, while they themselves thought it of no account to do any of what was ordained. The most wise Paul too rebukes those accustomed to do this, saying: “You who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who say one must not steal, do you steal? You who say one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonour God by transgressing the law?” For the teacher is unapproved when his way of life does not agree with his word; and the Saviour himself has hung a bitter penalty on such a one, saying that “he who teaches and does will be called great; but whoever teaches and does not do will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” “Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them” (11:47). Having exposed the most wicked workshop of the lawyers too, he weaves a rebuke common to all the leaders of the Jews. Let us search exactly what he says. The fathers of the Jews killed at various times the holy prophets, who brought them the divine word; and those born of them, confessing that the prophets were august and honourable, built tombs, or monuments, round them, paying them the honour most fitting for saints. So their fathers killed them, but they, believing them to be prophets and holy men, became judges of those who killed them; for by the very means by which they resolved to honour those who had been slain, they accuse the slayers of impiety. But those who condemned their own fathers for such terrible murders were to be caught in the same evils and to go through the same offences, or rather still worse ones. For as long as one examines the wrongs of others, judging by natural reason, one sees the evil and blames it; but when led on to the same passions of soul oneself, one is carried to them as if blind. For they killed the Author of life; and to their impieties against him they added the murders of his divine disciples. For the Saviour, the Wisdom of God, says to them: “I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,” and what follows. By prophets here he means the apostles, and the successors of the apostles, the pastors and teachers of the churches, adorned with the gifts of the Spirit in prophecy and teaching. He foretells, then, the evils that were to overtake the generation of the Jews because of their insatiable murderousness; for the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world was to be required of this generation. By Zechariah here it is consistent to understand the father of the Forerunner, whom unwritten tradition records the Jews killed between the temple and the altar because he prophesied—or rather pointed out—the Mother of God, and the God and Saviour Jesus Christ to be born of her, as one to be sent as King and Lord over their nation; and because he did not remove the holy Virgin herself, after her conception by the Holy Spirit, from the place of the virgins, which was in the temple between the sanctuary and the altar, as though she were married, but recognized her as still a virgin and allowed her to stand in the usual place. For these reasons, then, those who heard fell into anger and armed — [Of the Nyssene. This Zechariah was a priest, led by the gift of prophecy to the knowledge of hidden things; who, having been initiated into the mystery of virginity in the incorrupt birth, did not exclude the unwed mother from the place in the temple allotted by the law to virgins, teaching the Jews that the girl was a virgin, and that the one to be born of her, Jesus Christ, was great God and Saviour; and this place was the space between the sanctuary and the altar. When they heard this, for fear of becoming subject to a king, they made away with him who bore witness to these things, sacrificing the priest at the altar itself. — Severus too says on the same passage that unwritten tradition records that the Jews killed the priest Zechariah, John’s father, between the sanctuary and the altar, for the same reason that the Nyssene gave. Of Origen. We find in the Kingdoms a Zechariah, a priest, slain near the sanctuary and the altar by Joash king of Judah; but Josephus relates that Zechariah son of Barachiah was himself the father of the Baptist; for they cannot …]

their hands against him, fearing the king expected from his prophecy, for fear of becoming subject to one who would rule over them. So they made away with him who bore witness to these things about the birth, sacrificing the priest at the altar itself. “Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation” (11:51). … that he says demonstratively “of this generation,” we say does not perhaps mark out only those then present and listening, but every murderer and everyone who falls into bloodguilt; for like will be ranked with like, as a brother and kinsman, according to the saying, “This is the generation of those who seek the Lord,” and, “You will keep us from this generation.” “You have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves,” and so on (11:52). By the key of knowledge we say he means the law, and justification in Christ—through faith in him, clearly. For though the law is in shadow and type, yet the types shape the truth, and the shadows depict for us in many ways the mystery of Christ. A lamb was slaughtered according to the law of Moses; they ate its flesh and anointed the doorposts with its blood, and they overcame the destroyer. But the blood of a common sheep could not have overthrown death; Christ, then, was being depicted as in a lamb, enduring slaughter for the life of the world and saving by his own blood those who partake of him. One could say very much more besides, through which the mystery of Christ can be seen depicted through the shadow of the law. And he himself said somewhere, speaking to the Jews: “It is Moses who accuses you, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” And again: “Search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they that bear witness about me; and you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.” For every word of the divinely inspired Scripture looks to him and is directed toward him. Those called lawyers, then, since they busied themselves with the law of Moses and were not ignorant of the words of the holy prophets, ought in a way to have opened to the crowds of the Jews the doors of knowledge. For the law is a tutor to Christ, and the godly proclamations of the holy prophets lead to the knowledge of him. But the so-called lawyers did not do this; on the contrary, they took away the key of knowledge—that you may understand the guidance through the law, or faith, clearly faith in Christ; for the knowledge of the truth comes through faith. And indeed the prophet Isaiah says somewhere: “And if you do not believe, neither will you understand.” “For without faith it is impossible ever to please.” The lawyers took away the key of knowledge, then; for they did not allow any to believe in Christ the Saviour of all. He worked wonders in many ways; but they, though they ought to have admired him for them, disparaged the divine signs, and, scandalizing the peoples under their hand, said: “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Do you see them in this taking away the key of knowledge? He taught in the synagogues, he made plain to his hearers the will of the Father, good and perfect and acceptable; but they are found not to have left even this teaching of his without blame; for they called out to the crowds: “He has a demon and is mad; why do you listen to him?” They truly took away, then, the key of knowledge; they did not enter themselves, and they hindered others too. “The scribes and Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things” (11:53). Vexed at the rebukes, it says, they began to press him hard. “Press hard” means to lie in wait for, to bear a grudge, or to be hostile. And they tried, it says, to make him speak offhand about many things. And what is “to make him speak offhand”? They demanded that he answer their crafty questions on the spot and as it were without consideration, thinking that he would certainly slip and say something not free from blame. But they did not know that he was God; or rather they had become despisers, boasters and insolent. Therefore Christ charged his followers, that is, his disciples, to beware of them; hear, then:

“First, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (12:1).

Of which the Lord wishes the disciples to beware, calling hypocrisy leaven here; for the thing is hateful to God; and though it sometimes escapes notice for a little while, it falls away, and before long. For that what we do cannot escape the eye of the Godhead he showed by saying: “Nothing is covered that will not be revealed.” For every word and every deed of ours will be manifest on the day of judgment; hypocrisy, then, is useless, and we must be seen to be true worshippers. — Perhaps too, according to the former interpretation, he teaches that what we say and do in secret will be plain to the eye that sees all things, and will be revealed to the others as well. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body” (12:4).

… he anoints those who love him for spiritual courage. “For I tell you,” he says, “my friends.” The saying about these things, then, would not suit all without distinction, it seems, but rather those in whom love for him from the whole heart is seen to be present; to whom it is fitting to say: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or sword?” For those who are not such are very easily led astray and readier for apostasy; but those who think as he does and are eager to follow in his footsteps would say with the divine Peter: “Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same thought for him.” For he willingly endured death for us, having an incomparable love for us. We have heard him say plainly: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Then how would it not be most absurd not to repay Christ, as one of the most necessary debts, what we received from him? And in another way too, being shield-bearers of life, we must not fear death, but rather imitate the faith of the holy fathers. The patriarch Abraham, when tested, offered his only son, I mean Isaac, reckoning that God is able to raise even from the dead. What, then, will be the dread of death to us, when life abolishes it? We should also consider this: crowns are found through toils; and men extend their anger only as far as the body, and the end of their plotting against us is the death of the flesh; but when God punishes, the loss will not stop at the flesh alone, but the immortal soul too is carried along with it into torments. Let death with glory come, then, rather, bringing us to the beginnings of endless life, the good things of the divine bounty being surely prepared too. — And so that he might grant another help to our minds as well, he added necessarily: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.” And he added that “even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” Do you see how great care he takes of those who love him? For if it extends even to things so worthless, and as it were comes down to the smallest of all living things, how would he forget those who love him, or be ignorant of anything that befalls them, he who takes such care of them as to know all their affairs minutely and to have, as it were, their hairs numbered? For either he will not let them fall into temptation, or, if by the economy he does, it is so that by suffering we may be approved; for he who allows one to fall into the snare will surely supply the power to endure it. “Everyone who confesses me before men,” and so on (12:8).

But first of all it is worth seeing who it is that confesses Christ, and how one might confess him rightly. The all-wise Paul writes to us, then: “Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven?—that is, to bring Christ down—or Who will descend into the abyss?—that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart—that is, the word of faith that we proclaim; because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.” In these words the whole mystery of Christ is very well interpreted. For one must first confess the Son who appeared from God the Father, the only-begotten God the Word from his essence, as Lord of all—not as having obtained lordship from outside and as something brought in, but as being this by nature and in truth, just as the Father is; and then believe that God raised him from the dead—having become man, clearly, and suffered in the flesh for us; for so he was raised from the dead. The Son, then, as I said, is Lord, not ranked with the others to whom the name of lordship is given and brought in; for alone Lord by nature is God the Word, who is beyond all that has come to be: “For there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” But neither will the Father be excluded from being Lord, being God by nature, nor would the Son slip from being God; for he is Lord by nature. To the divine essence alone, highest of all, belongs being wholly free, lying outside yoke and slavery, and having rather the creation subject under its feet as a slave. For this reason, though the only-begotten Word of God became as we are and, as far as the measure of humanity went, was brought under the yoke and slavery, and by the economy paid the double drachma to the tax collectors of the Jews according to the law of Moses, he did not hide the splendour of the glory in him. For he asked the blessed Peter: “From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons, or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” “Then,” he says, “the sons are free.” The Son, then, is Lord by nature, as free. And the wise Paul taught us this again, having written thus: “And we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit.” And a little before: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” See how he says that the Spirit is the Lord—not as in sonship (for he is Spirit, and not Son), but as consubstantial with the Son, who is Lord and free, and attested, by his natural identity with him, as having the freedom befitting God. Whoever, then, confesses Christ before men—as God, clearly, and Lord—will be confessed by him before the angels of God. Where and how? Surely at the time when he comes down from heaven with the angels in the glory of his Father, at the end of the present age; there he crowns the true confessor. But the others, that is, those who denied and dishonoured him, will be denied, the Judge all but saying to them what was said through the holy prophets of some: As you have done, so it will be done to you: “Your recompense shall return on your own head.” And he will deny them, saying: “Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness; I do not know you.” And who would these be? First, those who, when persecution overtook them, cast away the faith; and likewise the children and teachers of heretics deny him, the Arians and the disciples of the empty chatter of Nestorius. “Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man,” and so on (12:10). How, then, should this be understood? If the Saviour wishes to show by this that if any insulting word is spoken by us against a common man, he will have forgiveness if he repents, the saying is free of all difficulty; for God, being good by nature, frees from charges those who choose to repent. But if the saying refers to Christ the Saviour of all himself, how is he who spoke a word against him unaccountable and outside punishment? We say, then, that when someone who has not yet learned the force of the mystery concerning him, nor known that, being God by nature, he lowered himself into our condition and was reckoned a man, says something moderate about him and such as deserves pardon, God forgives these things to those who have sinned in ignorance. For example: Christ said somewhere, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world”; but some, not knowing his glory and thinking him a common man, said: “Is not this the son of the carpenter, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, I have come down from heaven?” And again: he stood once teaching the mysteries in the synagogue, and was admired by all; but some, it says, said: “How does this man know letters, having never studied?” For they did not know that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lay hidden in him. These things deserve pardon, as said carelessly out of ignorance. But for those who blaspheme against the Godhead itself the penalty is inescapable and the punishment perpetual, both in this world and in the one to come. By “Spirit” here he means not only the Holy Spirit, but the whole nature of the Godhead. For the Saviour himself said somewhere that God is spirit; so blasphemy against the Spirit would be against the whole essence that is highest of all; for the nature of the Godhead is understood as one in the holy and worshipful Trinity.

“Do not be anxious how or what you will answer” (12:11). Having hung so great a fear over them, and prepared them to resist nobly those who would draw them away from the right confession, the Lord bids them not be anxious about the rest, that is, about their defence; because in those disposed faithfully and lovingly the Spirit works the fitting words, dwelling within like a teacher. “Who made me a judge or divider over you?” (12:14). The Son was appointed by God the Father, when he appeared as we are, ruler and king on Zion his holy mountain, according to the Psalmist’s word. And what he was to accomplish he himself again declares: “For I have come,” he says, “announcing the decree of the Lord.” And what is this? Our Master, who loves virtue, wishes us to withdraw from every earthly and temporary thing, not quarrelling with brothers but rather yielding to them even if they wish to take more than their share. “For from him who takes away what is yours,” he says, “do not demand it back”; but rather to seek what is useful and necessary for the salvation of the soul. For those accustomed to live so, Christ lays down laws by which they may become illustrious and admired; he said, then: “Do not acquire silver or gold, nor two tunics, nor a bag, nor copper in your belts.” And again: “Make for yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” And again, when a young man came and asked, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” he said: “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor.” So to those who bring the neck of their mind obediently under him he gives commands, makes laws, divides the heavenly inheritance and distributes the spiritual blessings; but to those who mind only earthly things he will fittingly say: “Who made me a ruler or divider over you?” He shakes that man off, then, as troublesome and unwilling to learn anything he ought to know. Yet he does not leave us unadmonished, but, as though seizing a good occasion, weaves a discourse, all but solemnly charging us:

“And he said to them: Take care and be on your guard against all greed,” and so on (12:15). For he has shown us a diabolical pit, greed, which the wise Paul calls, as we have said, idolatry, as befitting perhaps only those who do not know God, or as equal in profanation to some worshipping wood and stones. Therefore he says: “Take care and be on your guard against all greed,” that is, small and great. For the one who is defrauded is certainly weak, and lifts his eyes only to the one who can be indignant at what he has suffered. And he, since he is just and good, receives the supplication and brings punishment on those who have done wrong. And you will learn this from his saying through the voice of the holy prophets: “Therefore, because you struck the heads of the poor with your fists and took choice gifts from them, you shall build houses of hewn stone and shall not dwell in them; you shall plant pleasant vineyards and shall not drink their wine; for I know your many impieties, and your sins are mighty.” And again: “Woe to those who join house to house and bring field near to field, to take something from their neighbour. Will you dwell alone on the earth? For these things were heard in the ears of the Lord of hosts. For if your houses become many, they shall become a desert; great and fair, and there shall be no one dwelling in them. For where ten yoke of oxen plough, it will yield one jar; and he who sows six artabas will yield three measures.” So greed is useless in every way; and in another way too it is unprofitable. “For one’s life,” he says, “does not consist in the abundance” of something; that is, the measure of life is not extended along with wealth. And the Saviour showed us this clearly and plainly, having composed very well the parable joined to what has been said. Christ teaches the most excellent of all things, and before all the virtues the chief of them, love, whose fairest part is almsgiving. But Satan, who hates the good, the inventor of all wickedness, the sower of the tares, the enemy of all virtue, who fights those who win approval, sometimes works a harmful reluctance in those able to do good. The law of God rouses to mercy, saying: “You shall surely open your heart to him who is in need among you”; but he persuades one to resist and to draw back the hand, to heap up on earth, to propose fleshly luxuries; he leads to forgetfulness of death and does not let one see the future, nor reckon anything human. And see the thing painted as in an image.

“The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he reasoned within himself, saying: What shall I do, for I have nowhere to gather my crops?” (12:16–17). Attend carefully, I pray, so that you may admire the skill of the saying. For he did not show us one field bearing well, but said that a whole country became fruitful for its owner, so that you may learn the depth of his wealth. What then? The rich man, surrounded by so many and measureless goods, is straitened with care and speaks the words of the poor man. For “What shall I do?” says the poor man, being in want of necessities; he is always spitting out such a wretched word. But see, the rich man uses the same words, grieving and suffering greatly: “And he said: I will pull down my barns, and gather there all my produce and my goods.” He thought of building larger storehouses; he wished to enjoy alone what he had; he does not love the poor, he does not aspire to the glory that comes from that; but he says, “I will pull down my barns.” See also another foolish word of his: “I will gather,” he says, “my produce.” He did not think he had these from God, as Job did; for then he would have been disposed toward them as God’s steward; but he thought them the produce of his own labours. That he thinks his prosperity is not from God he shows clearly from what he says: “I will gather my produce, and I will share my goods with no one, but will store up everything for myself and my belly.” For who, knowing God as the giver of what he possesses, would think so about those in need? For it belongs to the same people both to have something from God and to use what they have according to God. But this rich man builds not the storehouses that abide but those that are destroyed; and, still more unreasonable, he fixes for himself a length of life, as if he had reaped this too from the earth; for he says: “And I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.” — “But, rich man,” one might say, “you have the crops in your storehouses; but where will you get many years?” Such too is the rich man now, bent over his belly, possessing a gullet instead of reason, and not living according to the image of the only Good; therefore he entertains his own soul with the foods of the flesh and imposes on the soul the foul pleasure that follows them. For by “be merry” the Lord delicately indicated the passions of the lower belly that attend satiety; for sexual indulgence follows surfeit. Yet one ought to eat in order to live, not live in order to eat—as do those who make a god of the belly and say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” when one ought to say the opposite: Since tomorrow we die, let us not eat and drink. — What did his great anxiety profit this rich man? He belongs wholly to the flesh. But do you see how great a loss he suffered, he who was good to no one else but rich for himself alone? He took thought to become rich; he kept awake to gather much; he rejoices with his belly as having much provision; he belongs wholly to earthly things. He does not look up to God; he does not see what is to come; he does not reckon with God who judges from the divine tribunal; he does not see death his neighbour. For the rich man who hated the poor was condemned to an unexpected end, planning at evening his morning meal and not reaching the ray of dawn. For hear that his life was cut short by the sentence of God.

“Fool, this night they demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (12:20). That is, having the enjoyment for an instant and for a wholly short and narrow time; for like dust it will pass away, sent to others—sometimes to those we do not know, or perhaps even to enemies. — It is true, then, that one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. But thrice blessed and in bright hopes is the one who is rich toward God. For the one consumed with earthly cares has a harmful end and will go away poor to God; but the one who cares for the things of the Lord will be rich in good works and will have an inviolable treasure in the heavens.

“Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat,” and so on (12:22). The law given through Moses was laid down for those of Israel, guiding them in each thing to be done and making plain what was for their benefit. And they made the thing an occasion of the highest joy, saying: “Blessed are we, O Israel, for what is pleasing to the Lord is known to us.” But I would say: Thrice blessed are we, who are taught by the Saviour of us all himself his good and saving will, so that, having lived the evangelical life, we may reign with him. For see how he removes us from superfluous anxiety, not simply saying “Do not be anxious,” but adding “for your life”; that is, “Do not spend earnest care on these things, but give your zeal to higher things.” And the life is higher than food, and the body than clothing. And see how he does not simply lay down “Do not be anxious,” but here too stirs reasonings from what has already been given us: “For he who gave the greater,” he says, “how will he not give the less? He who fashioned the flesh that is fed, how will he not provide food?” Since, then, a contest lies before us for soul and body, and punishment and penalty hang over those who will not live rightly, let care for clothing and food be cast away. And besides, how is it not shameful for lovers of virtue to delight childishly in garments and costly tables? For the savage multitude of other desires will at once follow these; and this is a slipping away from God. We must rather aim at what pleases God; for he will supply what is needed and sufficient; and the Master is trustworthy, promising you this clearly, and assuring us from lesser things about greater ones.

“Consider the birds of the air,” and so on (12:24). As though raising us to spiritual courage, he gave assurance from the birds, which are of no account, saying, “You are worth more than many sparrows”; so now too, from the birds or the flowers in the fields, he works in you a settled and unshakeable faith. He does not let us doubt at all that in every way he grants his care, giving freedom from want in all things. — It is true that even Solomon was surpassed by the clothing of the lilies; for the bloom of colours, varied and manifold, in lilies and in some other things that grow in the fields, has an admirable beauty; but what is crafted by anyone in imitation of them falls altogether short of them and barely comes near the truth. If, then, this is so, how is it not true that not even Solomon, though he was so lavish, was clothed in all his glory like one of these? It is enough for the wise, then, to have clothing decent and easily obtained, for need alone, and a simplicity of food that does not exceed sufficiency; and for the saints the food in Christ will suffice—the spiritual, divine and intelligible food—and the glory that follows. And in another way too it would have been unfitting for those who were to be a pattern and model of holy life for others to fall carelessly into what they ought to advise them to depart from, being the world’s tutors. And for the disciples to take up worldly care would have done no small harm to the zeal for and the need of the sacred proclamations. Let us cast our care, then, on the Lord; let us not be anxious what we shall eat or what we shall drink or what we shall wear; let not our great reason be spent on small and worthless things; let us not make the free mind a slave of clothing and food; let it rather care for what saves the soul, what bears us up to the kingdom of heaven, what procures crowns for us; this work is most fitting for the human mind. For if anyone were to ask us what is greater in us, and what we have supposed to be better—food, or body, or soul—who is so silly, who so slow to understand what is useful, as not to answer at once, the soul? Since, then, the soul is greater than both food and clothing, why do we not rather spend our care on the greater things, while we so honour the lesser and give it our whole mind? You are anxious about clothing and food; why are you not rather anxious how you may be saved? You are anxious for the body; why are you not anxious for the soul? — … the good Lord, who feeds the most worthless bird, will he not nourish the one made in his own image? For this reason and very fittingly Christ wisely discredits care for these things, saying that the nations of the world seek them. And he raises them to an invincible faith that they will in every way be free of want, since their Father, the one in heaven clearly, knows well what they need; for he says: “And do not seek what you will eat,” and so on, “but your Father knows,” and so on. Very aptly he calls God Father, so that they may know that he would not forget his own children, but will be kind and fond of them. Let us seek, then, not food beyond reason and superfluous, but what looks to the salvation of the soul; not costly clothing, but how we may deliver our own body from fire and penalty, seeking his kingdom.

“Fear not, little flock,” and so on (12:32). He calls the saints a little flock, since smallness in the world goes with those who are voluntarily without possessions and without money; for to these the Father was pleased to give the kingdom. Hence he at once taught, adding: “Sell your possessions, and give alms,” and what follows. Or a little flock in comparison with the great number of unbelievers, or else because of the voluntary humility of such a flock. He commands them not to fear the want of bodily needs. For if he gives so great and exceptional an enjoyment, namely the kingdom of heaven, he will certainly give also what is necessary and sufficient for the flesh. — That is, “Do not disbelieve that the Father in heaven will in every way supply what is sufficient for life to those who love him. For he will not overlook his own; rather he will open to them his hand, which always fills all things with kindness.” And what is the proof of these things? “Your Father,” he says, “has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” He who gives things so great and exceptional, how will he hesitate to be kind to us and richly to provide the good things on earth? “So that you may gain the kingdom of heaven,” he means, “despise earthly riches.” He calls those on earth a little flock; for we are outnumbered by the multitude of the angels, which is measureless and incomparably surpasses our condition. And the Saviour himself taught us this again, having composed very well the parable in the Gospels; for he said: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if one of them goes astray, will not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and seek the one that is straying? And if he finds it, amen I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” See, then, how, when the number of rational creatures is extended to ten tens, the flock on earth is as one in the hundred; but though this is small, in nature, number and glory, compared with the measureless flocks of the spirits above, yet the goodness of the Father, surpassing all reason, has given it too the lot of the higher spirits, that is, the kingdom of heaven.

“Sell your possessions, and give alms” (12:33). The commandment is perhaps burdensome for those in wealth; for, as he himself says again somewhere, those who have riches will enter the kingdom of God with difficulty. Yet for the sound of mind the commandment is not without profit: they store up for themselves the hope of what is to come. For the present life is temporary, short and narrow, while the life after this is boundless and long. He who stores up treasure in the heavens will have the kingdom in heaven, not caught by the hands of robbers, not destroyed by the moth; since heavenly wealth is inviolable and remains free of harm. Come, then, without hesitation; acquire eternal things with temporary ones; give what does not remain, and become rich in what is kept safe; give earthly things, and gain those in the heavens; entrust your wealth to God, and you will find it stored up abundantly. The blessed David too will teach you this, singing and saying in the Spirit of everyone good and merciful: “He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever and ever.” “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (12:34).

This too is true: those who mind temporary things have all their hope in them, and those who seek the things in the heavens send the eye of their mind there. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning” (12:35). He speaks to them as to spiritual men, but again depicts spiritual things through manifest and visible things. For no one would say that he wishes us to have the loins of the body girded and burning lamps in our hands; rather, having the loins girded would indicate the mind’s readiness for diligence in all that is praiseworthy, and the lamp seems to signify the wakefulness of the mind and its spiritual brightness, and that we must be prepared daily for our departure from here and await the Master’s nod with eyes fixed. We say that the human mind is awake when it shakes off nodding into carelessness, through which it usually descends to every kind of wickedness, all but extinguished. Christ, then, bids us be awake; and his disciple sharpens us for this too, saying: “Be sober, be watchful.” Yes, and the all-wise Paul: “Awake, O sleeper.” For we must have the mind sober and awake and illumined by the knowledge of the truth, so that, rejoicing in this very thing, it may say: “You will light my lamp, O Lord my God; you will lighten my darkness.” — One should know that through the all-wise Moses too he is found to have commanded something of this kind to those of Israel, when he ordered the lamb to be slaughtered as a type of Christ, as the most holy Paul bore witness, saying: “For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.” To those who ate its flesh the hierophant Moses—or rather God through him—called out, saying: “Let your loins be girded, and your sandals on your feet, and your staffs in your hands.” For I say that those who have come to share in Christ must be ready to go to the works that befit saints and to walk eagerly wherever the divine law wishes. Most fittingly, therefore, he invested them with a traveller’s dress. — For the traveller’s dress is most fitting for those who preach the divine Gospel. So too God says through one of the prophets to the captives in Babylon, announcing their return beforehand and urging them to make ready for it: “Watch the road, gird your loins, be very strong in your might.” For, as to men about to set out for Judea at once, he bids them gird their loins, that is, to be ready and fit for the toils of the journey and to play the man against every toil with invincible eagerness. That we must expect Christ to return from heaven (for he will descend in the glory of the Father with the holy angels) he taught, saying: “And you be like men who are waiting for their master,” and so on (12:36). And consider this again, I pray: Christ will return as from a festival; by which it is clearly shown that the Divine is always in the festivals befitting it; for there gloom is nowhere at all, since nothing grieves the undefiled nature. — “When he comes,” he says, “and finds them girded and awake, with their hearts enlightened, then indeed he will declare them blessed.” “For he will gird himself and serve them.” From this we may learn that he will repay us in kind, and, as it were, refresh us after our toil, setting spiritual delights before us and spreading a bountiful table of his gifts.

“And if he comes in the second watch,” and so on (12:38). Here, I pray, see the breadth of the divine gentleness and the excess of his kindness toward us. For he knows, he knows our frame, and how easily the human mind slips into sin. He knows that the power of love of the flesh has tyrannized over us, and that the distraction of the present life all but forces us even against our will, carrying the mind off to every kind of unseemliness. But since he is good, he does not let us despair; rather he has pity, and has given us repentance as a remedy of salvation. Therefore he says: “And if he comes in the second or in the third watch and finds them so doing, blessed are those servants.” You will certainly wish to know clearly what this means. Some divide the night into three or four watches; for those who sit on the walls of cities and guard against the attacks of enemies keep awake three or four hours and then hand the guard and the watching on to others. So among us too there are three ages: first, when we are still children not yet grown; second, when we are young men; and third, when we are old. The first, when we are still children, is not called to account by God, but deemed worthy of pardon; but the second and the third owe God obedience and a holy life according to what pleases him. So if someone is overtaken while watching and, as it were, girded, whether still young or having reached old age, he will be blessed; for he will obtain what Christ has promised. — That not being awake is harmful he shows very well by this example; for as his disciple says: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be dissolved with burning, and the earth and all that is in it will be burned up; but we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises.” And he adds to this: “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people must you be found to be, holy and blameless before him?” For no one at all knows the time of the end. “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to all?” (12:41).

Peter asks whether the Lord spoke the parable of the lamps to all. “Is the law general,” he means, “and does it come upon all in equal measure, or would it suit only those set apart from the others?” What, then, disturbed the most wise disciple, or what moved him to wish to learn such things from Christ? We shall say this first of all: of the commandments, some befit the apostolic dignities, others those who hold the lesser rank. And one can see that this is true and is as I said, since the blessed Paul wrote to some: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not yet able.” For solid food belongs to the mature, who by practice have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil; to those who have a strong mind the great and exceptional commandments befitting saints would fittingly belong, but to those who have not yet reached such spiritual strength, those free of all difficulty. The blessed Peter, then, having understood the force of what Christ said, fittingly inquires. What, then, does Christ say to this? He uses a clear and most plain example, showing that the commandment befits those who are most eminent and have been taken into the rank of teachers of the mysteries. “Suppose,” he says, “a man, master of a house, who, about to set out on a journey, entrusted to one of his true servants the management of his whole house, to give his household, that is, his servants, their portion of food in due season. When he returns and comes home again and finds him so doing, as he commanded, that servant will be thrice blessed; for he will set him over all his possessions.” — The faithful and wise servant, then, who knowingly distributes to the servants their portion of food, that is, spiritual nourishment, at the right time and as needed, will be blessed, according to the Saviour’s word; for he will obtain still greater things and receive the rewards befitting true servants. But if someone becomes contemptuous and careless, indulging in greed against his fellow servants, eating and drinking and carried away into dissolute excesses, he will be cut in pieces; that is, he will undergo the utmost penalty, when the Master comes upon him unexpectedly. This, then, is the simple and obvious force of what was said. But let us learn exactly what is signified by it. The Saviour has appointed as stewards, as it were, of his own servants—that is, of those called through faith to the knowledge of his glory—faithful and most understanding men, skilled in the sacred doctrines, to give their fellow servants their portion of food; and not simply and without consideration, but rather at the proper time, that is, the food that is sufficient and fitting for each, clearly spiritual food. For the saying about these things would not suit all who have believed in Christ, without distinction. It is written, then: “You shall know well the souls of your flock.” For in one way we lead the catechumen still being instructed into the paths of the truth, using a simple word with nothing deep in it; and in another way those more mature in mind, able to understand the height of theology. He, then, who has used rightly what he received will be set over all the Master’s possessions. And the Saviour himself taught us this, elsewhere praising the diligent and true servant and saying: “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Lord.” “But if,” he says, “he lets go of being diligent and true, and makes his own mind drunk with worldly cares, and is carried away to what is unlawful, doing violence to and defrauding those placed under him, and not giving them their portion of food, he will be in every evil; and his lot,” he says, “will be with the unbelievers.” For he who has at all plotted against the glory of Christ, and dared to neglect the flocks entrusted to him, will differ in no way from those who do not know him. And indeed Christ once said to the blessed Peter: “Simon son of Jonah, do you love me? Shepherd my sheep, feed my lambs.” But if he who shepherds loves, surely he who despises this hates; and if he hates, he is also punished, and is brought under the penalty of unbelievers—such as was the one who received the talent to trade with spiritually, and then did not do so, but brought back what was given unmultiplied. But those who received the five, or even more, having toiled and worked diligently, were honoured with the most illustrious dignities; for one heard, “Be over ten cities,” and the other, “over five.” But the insolent and slothful servant underwent the utmost penalty. Carelessness in the teaching of the mysteries, then, is everywhere dangerous; hence the blessed Peter writes to some: “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, so that when the chief shepherd of all appears you may receive the reward.” And knowing that carelessness is the gate of destruction, Paul said: “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.” That a bitter, painful and hard-to-escape punishment hangs over those who are slothful in teaching the mysteries the Saviour shows at once, adding two further examples to the first. For he said: “That servant who knew his master’s will and did not make ready or act according to his will will receive many blows; but he who did not know, and did what deserved blows, will receive few.” — For what reason, someone might say? How is he who did not know held to account? Because he did not wish to know, though he could have learned. And if he who did not know is not wholly free of wrath because, though he should have known, he neglected to learn, what argument will free from having to suffer many blows the one who knew and was careless? — The judgment of teachers, then, is heavier; and the disciple of Christ teaches this, saying: “Do not many of you become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we shall receive a greater judgment.” For the giving of spiritual gifts is rich among the leaders of the peoples; so the most wise Paul writes somewhere to Timothy: “The Lord will give you understanding in all things,” and, “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given you by the laying on of my hands.” To such the Saviour, having given much, requires much of them. And what are these things? Steadiness in faith, freedom from error in teaching the mysteries, firmness in hope, unshakeable patience, unbreakable spiritual strength, eagerness and vigour for every one of the best brave deeds, so as to be for others too a pattern of the angelic life. “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish if it is already kindled?” (12:49).

Having this fire, Cleopas and his companion said: “Did not our heart burn within us on the road, as he opened to us the Scriptures?” This fire is saving and profitable: through it all of us on earth, who had in some way grown cold and dead through sin and through not knowing the one who is God by nature and in truth, are rekindled to the life of godliness and made fervent in spirit, according to the blessed Paul’s word. And besides this we gain participation in the Holy Spirit, who is in us like fire; for we have been baptized in fire, in the Holy Spirit. It is the custom of divine Scripture sometimes to call fire the divine and sacred words, and the working and power of the Holy Spirit. For one of the holy prophets said, as in the person of God, about Christ the Saviour of us all: “Suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he comes, says the Lord; and who will endure the day of his coming? Or who will stand at his appearing? Behold, he goes forth like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; and he will sit refining and purifying as silver and as gold.” And by the temple here he means the truly undefiled and holy body, formed through the holy Virgin by the Holy Spirit in the power of the Father. For it was said to the holy Virgin: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” And he calls the Only-begotten himself the messenger (angel) of the covenant, from announcing and serving the Father’s good pleasure toward us. And indeed he said to us: “All that I heard from the Father I have announced to you.” And the prophet Isaiah also writes of him: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us, whose government is on his shoulder; and his name is called Messenger of great counsel.” Just as those who know how to refine gold and silver melt out the dross in them by fire, so the Saviour, through the evangelical teachings, in the power of the Spirit, scours the mind of each of those who have believed in him. And the God of all said somewhere to the prophet Jeremiah: “Behold, I have made my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood.” And again: “Are not my words like fire, says the Lord?” And what would we understand the coal to be that touched the lips of the prophet Isaiah and cleansed him of all sin? Clearly, the saving proclamation and the confession of faith in Christ, which, if anyone takes it into his mouth, he is cleansed in every way. And Paul will confirm it, saying: “If you say with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Yet we say that the power of the divine proclamation is like a coal and fire, whose kindling the Lord hastens; for some of those of Israel already believed, of whom the divine disciples were the firstfruits. And once the fire was kindled, it was to lay hold of the whole world under heaven when the whole economy had been brought to its end. And he teaches this, saying: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?” (12:51).

… he is our peace, according to the Scriptures: “He joined the two peoples into one new man, making peace, and reconciled both in one body to the Father”; he joined things below to those above. How, then, did he say, “I did not come to give peace”? What do you say, O Master? You did not come to cast peace? Yet you have become our peace; you have broken down the dividing wall of the fence; you have destroyed the sin that separated us; you have preached good news to those far off and those near; you have joined flock to flock, those from the nations to those of the Jews; you have made peace through the cross between the things in the heavens and those on earth, as it is written; you have become our reconciler and mediator, and, removing the sin that lay between, you have joined us through yourself to God the Father. And you said that peace is your own, saying, “My peace I give to you.” How, then, did you not come to cast peace but a sword? Against whom is our fight? And how should the manner of the war be conducted by us, so that it may be beyond reproach and please you, who say that peace is your own and have given it to us? Let Paul, then, resolve the question, saying: “If any brother is a fornicator,” and what follows, “with such a one do not even eat.” For we must, I think, shun fornicators and consider peace with them a cause of loss: “For bad company corrupts good morals.” And as David says: “With the holy you will be holy, and with the crooked you will be perverse.” Would you see others too with whom embracing peace is harmful? Hear one of the holy disciples writing: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not even greet him.” And what teaching, if not surely that which the eyewitnesses from the beginning delivered to us? The leaders of the heresies are like wolves; then how will the sheep be at peace with the wolf? And they are dark: “For the god of this age,” he says, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers”; but we are sons of light, for the grace through the Spirit has dawned on us. “What fellowship, then, has light with darkness?” Let us love, then, peace with brothers and those of one faith with us, but shun peace with those others. For it is clear that peace is a good thing; but not every peace is wholly blameless; it is often dangerous and carries one away from the love of God. For peace with those of other beliefs is unprofitable, in the sense of thinking as they do. For this reason the faithful withdraw even from earthly affections, and do not know their kin, and a father renounces friendship with his son, and a son does not know honour for his father, and a mother has thrust away affection for her daughter. For those who have gone astray must follow those of sound mind, and not rather those who choose to think rightly follow them. Christ said this to us in another way too: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” So when, for the sake of godliness toward Christ, you deny an earthly father, then you will be enriched with the Father in heaven. And if you leave a brother who dishonours God, because you wish to worship him, Christ will receive you as a brother; for he has given us this too along with the rest: “I will announce your name,” he says, “to my brothers.” You will find a splendid and great family, the multitude of the saints; you will be with them an heir of his gifts. “When you see a cloud rising in the west,” and so on (12:54).

… some, from such things and from very close observation, foretell the downpours of rain or the attacks of harsh winds. “How then,” he says, “do you, who test the things in the sky, not see the signs happening on earth, nor test the time, whether the expected one has come?” — Those who judge the signs of the seasons, and sometimes foretell the storms to come, ought, then, to turn a keen eye of the mind on necessary matters too. And what are these? The law showed beforehand the mystery of Christ, and that he would certainly shine on those on earth in the last times of the age and endure slaughter for the salvation of all. And indeed it commanded the lamb to be sacrificed as his type, toward evening and by lamplight. For those who believed in him the gate of salvation was certainly to be opened wide, and great fair weather of affairs to come. And indeed in the Song of Songs Christ is found calling the bride written of there, who bears the person of the Church, and saying: “Arise, come, my companion, my fair dove; for behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has departed; the flowers have appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come.” So, as I said, a kind of spring fair weather was to dawn for those who believe in him. And that the blessed prophets too announced the mystery of Christ in many ways no one will doubt. “You ought, then, you ought,” he says, “being intelligent and knowing the face of the sky and the earth, not to be ignorant of the storms in this life. For there will be a south wind and a shower”—that is, punishment by fire; for the south wind is hot, and the falling of penalties is terrible and inescapable, falling like rain on those who are caught. They ought not to have been ignorant of the time of salvation. And this was the time of our Saviour’s coming, at which the most perfect knowledge of godliness came in, at which the grace that justifies the ungodly shone forth—not through the law, for it perfected no one, having types and shadows, but rather through faith in Christ, which does not cast out the law but brings it to completion through spiritual worship. Do you not test the time? Do you not [learn] the deeds from the words, the words from the deeds? … to understand, and to look to what is to come. “You see wonders and behold signs confirming the words. If these do not persuade you, let the trials that will overtake you persuade you: the destruction of the temple, the capture of the mother city, the ruin of the nation. Do not even these bring you to your senses?” “For as you go with your accuser before the magistrate,” and so on (12:58). … the example from which it is taken. For those who settle before the trial are wiser, seeing what is just of themselves. And what it is good to do here, it is good to do there also. “Suppose,” he says, “someone, before one of those appointed to office, brings a charge against you, and then, pointing you out to those who lead to court, has you carried off. While, then, you are on the way with him, that is, before you reach the judge, make an effort”—meaning, do not hesitate to apply all zeal—“to be rid of him; but if this does not happen, he will hand you over to the judge. Then, when you are found liable for the debts, you will be handed over to the officer,” that is, to the exactors; “and they, shutting you up, will exact even the last penny.” We are all, then, who are on earth, liable for offences; and the adversary and accuser of each is Satan; for he is an enemy and avenger. So while we are on the way, that is, while we have not yet come to the end of the life here, let us be rid of him; let us dissolve the charges against us; let us seize the grace through Christ, which frees us from every debt and puts us outside penalty, punishment and fear; lest, having the defilement unwashed, we be carried off to the judge and handed over to the officers, that is, the punishers, whose harshness no one could escape, but who will exact penalties for every offence, small and great. Far from these will be those who test the time of Christ’s coming and are not ignorant of the mystery concerning him.

“Telling him about the Galileans,” and so on (13:1).

The Galileans seem to have rebelled in the times of Pilate, following the teachings of Judas the Galilean, whom Luke too mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. The teaching of Judas, as Josephus also showed in the last books of the Jewish Antiquities, put forward a great show of vigour for the sake of piety. For he said that no one ought to call anyone “lord” even with the mouth, not even by way of honour and courtesy, and so not even the reigning emperor; and many of them endured the harshest tortures rather than call Caesar lord. They also taught that no sacrifices other than those prescribed in the law of Moses ought to be offered to God; therefore they prevented those handed down by the council of the people from being offered for the safety of the emperor and of the Roman nation. It is likely, then, that Pilate, angry with the Galileans over these things, ordered them to be killed at the very sacrifices which they thought they were offering according to the law, so that the blood of those who brought them was then mingled with the sacrifices being offered. Since these things seemed to have been done for piety’s sake, they reported them to the Saviour, wishing to learn what he thought of them. But he—since those of the people thought that the men had suffered these things most justly for their sins, having been killed as men who had stirred up sedition among the people and provoked the rulers to hatred against their subjects—grants that they were sinners; yet he does not say that they suffered these things as being worse than those who did not suffer. Then after this, turning away from civil strife kindled under the pretext of piety those who sided with the people (as far as the letter goes), he says: “Unless you repent”—that is, unless you turn from rebelling and resisting the rulers, which you do not do according to the will of God—“you will all likewise perish,” and your blood will be mingled with your sacrifices. Then he adds the example of the tower in Siloam, by it showing the fall of the whole city. For using the eighteen on whom the tower fell as an occasion, he hints that the part is a prelude to the whole city: for not only, he says, did the eighteen perish as guilty, but the whole city too will suffer the same a little later.

“And he said to the vinedresser,” and so on. “And he answered and said to him, Lord, let it alone,” and so on (13:7–8). If, then, someone wished to say that the vinedresser is the angel appointed by God to preside over the synagogue of the Jews, he would not miss what is fitting. For we remember that the prophet Zechariah wrote that one of the holy angels stood offering supplications on behalf of Jerusalem and saying: “O Lord Almighty, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, which you have disregarded? This is the seventieth year.” It is also written in Exodus that when the ruler of the land of the Egyptians, with his own shield-bearers, was pursuing those of Israel and was about to join battle with them, “the angel of God stood between the camp of the sons of Israel and the camp of the Egyptians, and they did not mingle with one another all night.” There is nothing unlikely, then, in understanding here too that the angel who presides over the synagogue lifts up supplications on its behalf. But if someone should say that the Son is the vinedresser, he too would have an account not out of keeping with proper reasoning. For he is our Advocate with the Father, our propitiation, and the cultivator of our souls. Indeed he himself said of himself: “The sower went out to sow his seed.” Nor will it do the Son any injury as to his glory to take on, I mean, the role of the vinedresser; for the Father himself is found to have accepted this at one time. For the Son said to the holy apostles: “I am the vine; you are the branches; my Father is the vinedresser.” For with each of the subjects proposed, the course of the discourse sometimes takes a turn. That Israel was going to undergo being cast out because of its great unfruitfulness, the blessed Baptist too indicated in a way when he said: “Even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees,” and so on. He seems, then, to compare the synagogue of the Jews to a fig tree, because the sacred Scripture compares it also to other plants—to a vine, I mean, and an olive tree, and forests. Indeed the prophet Jeremiah at one time says of it, or rather of those in it: “Israel is a vine with fine branches”; and at another, again as to it: “A beautiful olive tree, well shaded in form, the Lord called your name; at the time of its pruning fire was kindled upon it; great is the affliction upon it; its branches were made useless.” Another of the prophets, likening it to Mount Lebanon, says this: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars.” For the forest in Jerusalem, that is, the people in it, has been consumed as by fire. So, as I said, he takes the fig tree spoken of in the parable as an image of the synagogue of the Jews, that is, of those of Israel. “He came,” it says, “seeking fruit, and found none.” He came three times: the first through Moses and Aaron; the second in the time of Joshua the son of Nun and, after him, the judges; the third after these, in the time of the blessed prophets down to John the Baptist. In these times Israel was unfruitful. For as far as the good will of God the Father was concerned—and clearly of the Son too—worship in shadows and types was unacceptable, wholly unfruitful as regards spiritual fragrance. So it was also cast off. And the Saviour himself will teach this when he says to his Father and God in heaven: “Sacrifice and offering you did not want; in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure.” And through Isaiah: “For who required these things from your hands? You shall no longer tread my court. If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me.” What God hates and abhors, how could it be thought a spiritual fruit of the soul, spiritual and acceptable to him? “Behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years” (13:11).

“There was in the synagogue a woman who for eighteen years had been bent over from infirmity” (13:11). This too benefits not a little those who think rightly; for we must gather what is useful from every side. One can see from this, then, that Satan often receives power over some—over those who offend, that is, and have chosen indolence rather than zeal for piety—and those he seizes he sometimes casts into bodily ailments, being a harsh and cruel punisher. The all-seeing God, with great providence, gives him room for this, so that, weighed down by the burden of misfortune, they may choose to cross over to better things. Indeed the most wise Paul handed over to Satan a man in Corinth accused of sexual immorality, “for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.” So the bent woman is said to have suffered this from diabolical savagery: either, as I said, being overlooked by God for her own offences, or in the universal and general sense; for the accursed Satan became the joint cause of sickness in human bodies, since we say that through him the transgression in Adam was contrived, through which human bodies were brought down into weakness and corruption. Yet when human beings were in this state, God, being good by nature, did not overlook us; he set free from their bonds those who suffered, punished by a long and inescapable disease, showing very clearly that his presence and manifestation in this world brings release from human sufferings; for he came to reshape our condition into what it was in the beginning. “For God did not make death,” as it is written, “nor does he delight in the destruction of the living; for he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” For the overthrow of death and corruption, and of the envy directed against us by the wicked dragon, the author of evil, the incarnation of the Word took place, that is, his becoming man; and this is made plainly manifest to us by the very deeds. So he freed the daughter of Abraham from so long an illness, calling out and saying: “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” A voice most befitting God, full of the supreme authority! For with a royal nod he drives the disease away. He also lays his hands on her, and she was made straight, it says, at once. One can see from this too that the holy flesh bore the power and energy of God; for it was his own, and not that of some other Son existing beside him separately and individually, as some most impiously think. “But the ruler of the synagogue answered, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,” and so on (13:14).

Yet how should he not rather have marvelled at Christ for releasing the daughter of Abraham from her bonds? You saw her wonderfully freed from her affliction. Did you not see that the physician did not pray, did not receive the sick woman’s healing as a request granted by another, but accomplished a work of authority? Being a ruler of the synagogue, you surely know the writings of Moses; you saw him praying in very many places and accomplishing nothing at all by his own power. Indeed, when Miriam became leprous for only saying something against him by way of reproach—and that something true, for “he took to himself,” she said, “an Ethiopian wife”—he did not prevail over the evil, but rather fell down before God, saying: “O God, I beg you, heal her.” And yet, even at his supplication, the penalty of the sin was not remitted for her. And each of the holy prophets, if he did anything at all, is seen to have done it in the power of God. But here, I pray, see Christ the Saviour of all not lifting up a prayer, but ascribing the accomplishment of the deed to his own power, healing by a word and by the touch of a hand. For being Lord and God, he made his own flesh equal in power to himself—with respect, I mean, to being able to set free from diseases. From this, then, one ought at last to have understood the power of the mystery concerning him. So if the ruler of the synagogue had been at all quick-witted, he would have perceived from so marvellous a divine sign who and how great the Saviour is, and would not have said the same things to the crowds, nor charged those being healed with breaking the law, the tradition of rest on the Sabbath. For being healed is altogether work, he thinks! But is the law wronged when God has compassion even on the Sabbath day? Whom did he order to rest on the Sabbath—himself, or you? If himself, then let him not govern our affairs on the Sabbath; let the course of the sun rest too, let the rains not fall, let the springs of waters stand still, and the flowing of ever-running rivers, and the service of the winds. But if he ordered you to rest, do not charge God with granting mercy to some with authority even on the Sabbath. And why did he order rest on the Sabbath at all? “That your servant may rest,” he says, “and your ox, and your beast of burden, and all your cattle.” When, then, he gives rest to some by releasing them from diseases, and you yourself forbid it, you have plainly broken the law about the Sabbath, not allowing those in pains and diseases, whom Satan bound, to have rest.

But the ruler of the ungrateful synagogue, when he saw the woman whose limbs were bound, unable to walk upright but bent toward the ground and toward her belly, shown mercy by Christ and by a touch alone made fully straight, walking in the upright posture proper to human beings and magnifying God for it, is vexed at her release; burning at the glory of the Lord, he is bound by envy. He spitefully disparages the miracle, and, passing over the Lord who exposed his hypocrisy, he rebukes the crowds, so as to seem indignant because of the Sabbath, in order to persuade those who were scattered on the other days and busy with their work not to be spectators and admirers of the Lord’s wonders even on the Sabbath, lest perhaps they should believe. But tell us, you slave of envy, what work did the law forbid when it said to you: “You shall refrain from every handmade work on the Sabbath day”? Work by the mouth and by speech? Then stop eating and drinking and conversing and singing psalms on the Sabbath. And if you do not do these things, and do not even read the law, what is the Sabbath to you? Work by the hands, then. And what work of the hands is it to set a woman upright by a word? But if you call this labour because the woman was healed by a work, you too work a work in finding fault with the healing. “But he said,” he says, “‘You are freed from your infirmity,’ and she was freed.” What then? Do you not also loosen your belt on the Sabbath? Do you not loosen the sandal from your feet? Do you not spread your bed? Do you not wipe your hand when it is soiled with food? How then are you indignant at one single word, “You are freed”? And what work did the woman do after the word? Did she take up smithing, or carpentry, or building? On that very day did she undertake the work of weaving or of the loom? “But she was made straight,” he says; “for being healed is altogether work.” But in truth you are not indignant because of the Sabbath; rather, seeing Christ honoured and worshipped as God, you rage and choke and waste away with envy; you harbour one thing in your heart and allege another as a pretext. Hence you are very gracefully exposed by the Lord, who knows your vain reasonings, and you receive the name that fits you, being called hypocrite, dissembler, and deceitful. “You hypocrite, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox?” and so on. “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham,” and so on (13:15–16).

For you blame, he says, the one who released the daughter of Abraham; yet you give rest to an ox and an ass, releasing them from their labours and leading them to water; but when a sick person is wonderfully saved, and God has had compassion, you rebuke both as transgressors—the one because he healed, the other because she was freed from her sickness. See, I pray, the ruler of the synagogue: to him a human being is of less value than a beast, if he thinks an ox and an ass worthy of care on the Sabbath, but, from envy toward Christ, does not wish the bent woman to be freed from her infirmity or to regain the posture proper to her.

But the envious ruler of the synagogue wished the woman who had been made straight to stay bent down like the four-footed beasts, rather than regain the posture proper to human beings, only so that Christ might not be magnified, nor be proclaimed God by the deeds. The ruler of the synagogue is shown, however, to be a hypocrite, if he leads the irrational animals to water on the Sabbath, but does not think the woman—a daughter of Abraham not so much by race as by faith—worthy to be loosed from the bond of her infirmity, and judges freedom from disease a transgression of the Sabbath.

“All his adversaries were put to shame” (13:17). Put to shame were those who passed corrupt judgements; those who stumbled against the cornerstone and so were broken; those who opposed the physician; those who resisted the wise potter as he restored the vessels that had been bent out of shape. Not one answer was left them; they were themselves an irrefutable refutation of themselves, muzzled and at a loss what to say. So did the Lord sew up their bold mouth! But the crowds, as people benefited by the signs, rejoiced; for the glory and conspicuousness of the works dissolved every question and doubt for those who did not inquire with malice.

“It is like a grain of mustard seed” (13:19). The example is apt, and quite sufficient to present what happened—that is, what came about with the divine and sacred proclamation, I mean the gospel, which he also calls the kingdom of God; for through it we gain the right to reign with Christ. In the beginning it was among few and confined, but afterwards it spread out and ran through all the nations. For it was spoken in Judea alone, in which the blessed disciples too were altogether few in number; but when Israel disobeyed, he commanded the holy apostles, saying: “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” and so on. As the seed of mustard, then, is much inferior in size to the seeds of other vegetables, yet rises in height beyond the measure of a vegetable, so as to become a lodging for many sparrows, so too the kingdom of heaven … sprang up—that is, the new, sacred and saving proclamation, by which we have been guided to every one of the noblest deeds of virtue and have come to know him who is by nature and truly God: it was among few in the beginning, and as it were small and confined, but afterwards advanced to growth, so as to become a shelter for those who come to it, whom one must liken to sparrows, for before God our affairs are of very small measure. The law through Moses was given to those of Israel; but since it was impossible for those on earth to be saved through its shadow and bodily worship, … the proclamation, and it has stretched out over the whole world under heaven. The Mosaic writing signified this to us in a riddle; it runs thus: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Make for yourself two trumpets of beaten work; of silver you shall make them, and they shall be for you to summon the congregation and to move the camps.” And after other things: “And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets, and it shall be a perpetual ordinance for you throughout your generations.” This is so that from it you may perceive both the tutelage of the law and the perfection that comes through Christ, through the gospel way of life and an initiation beyond shadow and types. The law, then, is a trumpet, and likewise the gospel and saving proclamation; for so the prophet Isaiah too mentions it, saying: “And it shall be in that day, they will blow the great trumpet.” For truly a great trumpet sounded—the one through the holy apostles—not setting aside the first but receiving it along with itself; for through the law and the prophets they always confirm the word about Christ, using the older testimonies. So the trumpets are two, and of silver and beaten work: the silver signifying brightness, for the word from God is radiant; the beaten work indicating that the holy and divine trumpets, that is, the new and the old proclamation, would advance and make progress; for what is beaten out always advances somehow and is extended in breadth and length. And they were going to advance when Christ shone forth: the old law into spiritual contemplation, the gospel proclamation into being spread over the whole world under heaven. Moreover, the law gave to the priests the duty of directing the peoples with the trumpets; and Christ has given the preaching of himself and his decrees to the sacred ministers of the new proclamation, clearly the holy apostles. That the word of the gospel proclamation, small in the beginning, was going to spring up, as it were, into growth, is easy to see, since God foretold it through the voice of Isaiah: “The whole earth has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covers the seas.” For like a sea the saving proclamation has been poured out everywhere and has an all-powerful onrush; and this again the God of all makes clear to us through the voice of a prophet: “And judgement will roll down like water, and righteousness like an impassable torrent.” For he calls the gospel proclamation judgement and righteousness, and he affirmed that it would roll down over the whole world under heaven like water and a torrent, whose onrush no one could check as it pours down in full flood.

“It is like leaven,” and so on (13:21). The same account would hold also for the kingdom of God being compared to leaven. For leaven is small, yet it effortlessly lays hold of the whole lump and quickly mixes its own quality into it. Something of this kind the divine word works in us too; for when it has come to be in us, it makes us holy and blameless, and having entered into mind and heart, it renders us spiritual, so that, as Paul says, our whole spirit and body and soul may be kept blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That the divine word is poured into the depths of our understanding, the God of all will make clear when he says through one of the prophets: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will accomplish with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant, putting my laws; on their minds I will write them.” Let us, then, receive the spiritual and divine leaven into mind and heart, so that through so venerable and holy a leaven we may be found spiritually unleavened. For the life-giving energy of the gospel teaching, entering the mind, transforms soul and body and spirit, as it were, into its own quality. “And someone said to him, Lord, will those who are saved be few? And he said to them, Strive to enter by the narrow gate,” and so on (13:23–24).

The answer seems somehow to stray from the aim of the questioner. For he asked to learn whether those being saved are few; but he explained the path by which one can be justified, saying: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate.” What, then, do we say to this? It was the custom of Christ the Saviour of all to meet those who questioned him not always according to what they thought fit, but with an eye to what was useful and necessary for the hearers. And he did this especially when someone asked to learn one of the things that are superfluous and of no profit. For why was there any need to inquire curiously whether those being saved are many or few? What benefit would have come from this to the hearers? But it was necessary and profitable rather to know the way by which one might go to salvation. So with wise economy he keeps silent toward the idleness of the question, but transfers his words to what was necessary; and this was to know how to do those things by which one could pass through the narrow and constricted gate. For he says this somewhere else too in his teaching: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it; but narrow is the gate and constricted the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” For those who wish to enter there must be, first of all, right faith, then a life beyond reproach, at least by the measure of human righteousness. For so the prophet David too made his supplications to God, saying: “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness.” Yet those who wish to live holily cannot do so without toil; for the path leading to virtue is always somehow hard and steep and not passable for the many; but he who strives and chooses such labours will easily pass through the narrow gate and run the constricted way. Indeed it is written: “A man in toils toils for himself and forces back his own destruction”; for, as the Lord himself said again: “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it.” But wide is the gate and broad the way that carries many down to ruin. And what may its breadth be taken to be? A shameful and pleasure-loving life, luxuries and revels and drunkenness, and all the practices of wickedness; love of money, and the empty show of passing petty glories; forgetfulness of the divine commandments; not having the fear of God before one’s eyes. Those, then, who wish to press through the narrow gate must depart from such things, and be with Christ and keep festival with him; for that those who are not such are cast out, the Saviour showed by a plain example, saying:

“When once the master of the house has gone in and shut the door,” and so on (13:25). As in the case of a master of the house who has gathered many of his friends to his hearth and table, and then has gone in first with those with whom he had to do so, and shut the door, he says that those who knock after this will hear: “I do not know you.” Here he does not speak of knowledge simply as acquaintance, but of the intimacy that comes by participation, as in grace and honour. For if knowledge signified to us only acquaintance, how could he who has all things naked and laid bare to his eyes, he who knows all things even before they come to be, be ignorant of any who exist? So it is not only foolish but impious to suppose that the Lord does not know some; we shall rather think that he said this because they bring with them no intimacy or relationship with him from any quarter. “For I do not know,” he says, “that you have become lovers of virtue; you have not honoured my word, nor been joined to me through good deeds.” In the same way it was said to Moses too: “I know you above all, and you have found favour with me”—instead of: You have been placed in an intimacy with me above all, and have won much favour. So of those who have in no way been made his own he says: “I do not know you; depart from me, workers of unrighteousness.” “For there is no fellowship of light with darkness.” But who might be meant by those who say to Christ, “We ate and drank in your presence”? Such a saying would fit above all those of Israel, to whom Christ also said: “You will see Abraham and the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrown out.” How, then, did they eat and drink in the presence of God? By performing the worship of the law; for when they brought God the sacrifices of blood, they ate and made merry; and they listened in the synagogues to the books of Moses, who did not write his own things but rather interpreted those from God, for he always set before his own words: “Thus says the Lord.” But worship by blood is not enough for justification; nor could one wash away defilements by becoming a hearer of the divine laws while doing none of the things commanded. And besides, since they did not accept the faith that justifies the ungodly, nor follow the gospel decrees through which one could practise a noble and chosen life, how could they enter the kingdom of God? You may add to those named some others too who can say at times to the Judge of all: “We ate in your presence, and you taught in our streets.” And who might these be? Many have believed in Christ and celebrate the holy feasts in his honour; they attend the churches and hear the gospel teachings, but they lay up nothing of what is written in their mind, and keep their heart bare of spiritual fruitfulness. These too, then, will weep bitterly and gnash their teeth; for the Lord will deny them as well. Indeed he said: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of God, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

“They will come from east and west,” and so on (13:29). Many will gather with the saints, but they themselves will be thrust out; and though they held the first rank, they will then have the second, others being ranked before them. This has also happened; for the nations have been honoured above the flock of the Jews—even if this was also said of many others, without distinction. The faithful from the nations, who now seem last, as having come to know God last, will be first; they will then be first because of their sincere faith. But the unbelieving Jews, who now seem first, as having come to know God first (for “Israel,” he says, “is my firstborn son”), will then be last because of their unbelief. The saying is also understood of the faithful who seem to be last in the present life but will be first in the age to come, and again the reverse. That the Jews were going to slip wholly away from intimacy with him—spiritual intimacy, clearly—while the multitude of the nations would be brought in in their place, he showed by saying: “Many will come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and will recline with the saints”; but they themselves will be thrust out, while these will recline in the kingdom of God.

We shall reckon the first time, as has been said, as the one in which Adam was in paradise; the second, indicated as the third hour, the one in which Noah lived; the third, as the sixth hour, the one in which Abraham lived; the fourth, as the ninth hour, the one in which Moses and the prophets lived. About the eleventh hour, that is, in the fifth time, when the day—that is, the present age—was already drawing in, Christ hired the nations, called to knowledge, hired by no one else.

“Some Pharisees came, saying: Get out and go away from here” (13:31). The Pharisees, from envy, did not want Christ to stay in Jerusalem, lest by his divine signs and his initiations beyond the law he should draw many into the net of faith in him. But since, being God, he was not ignorant of their reasonings, he meets them gently and in a veiled way, as was his custom. “For tell,” he says, “this fox.” Attend closely to the force of the saying. It seems somehow to be turned toward and aimed at Herod, as some have thought; but it comes rather against the perversity of the Pharisee. For though he could have said, “Tell that fox,” he passes this by; and very cleverly, using a sort of middle expression, he all but pointed out the Pharisee who was near, saying “this fox.” He likens the man to a fox; for the beast is always somehow crafty and devious; and such too were the Pharisees.

“Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I am perfected” (13:32). Do you see that he promises to fulfil the very thing he knew grieved the band of the Pharisees, saying that he will rebuke unclean spirits and free from their sufferings those in sickness, and will be perfected—that is, will willingly endure the suffering on the cross for the salvation of the world under heaven? He knew, then, both how and when he would undergo death according to the flesh; but the Pharisees thought he would dread the hand of Herod, though he is the Lord of the powers. That he takes no account of human grasping he showed by saying: “Nevertheless I must go on today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem.” In saying “I must,” he did not indicate an inescapable necessity hanging over him, as it were, but rather that by the authority of his own will he will walk without fear wherever he wishes and travel about Judea, no one attacking or plotting against him, until he himself willingly accepts his perfecting—I mean the one through the precious cross. For the present, he says, I work mighty deeds; and this is the time for it, and not for much longer; for that is what “today and tomorrow” means. And this, he says, is reserved for Jerusalem, and it cannot happen otherwise: she who has always made it her practice to kill the prophets will come also against the Lord of the prophets. He makes Jerusalem guilty of the blood of many saints; and what follows from this? They were to slip away from intimacy with God—spiritual intimacy, clearly—and to be sent away from the hope of the saints. By saying this, he indicated the place where he was going to undergo his passion.

That they were unmindful of God’s gifts, hard to lead and sluggish toward everything that benefited them, he showed by saying: “How often I wanted to gather your children,” and so on. For he trained them through the most wise Moses, admonished them through the holy prophets; he wished to have them under his wings, that is, under the shelter of his power; but they missed such greatly desired good things, being unmindful and ungrateful. “You will not see me until the time comes when you say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” For the Lord departed from Jerusalem, leaving, as unworthy of his presence, those who had said: “Get out and go away from here.” Then, having travelled about Judea, saved many, and worked signs beyond reason, he returned again to Jerusalem; then, yes then, he sat on the foal of the donkey, and many crowds and young children, holding up the branches of palm trees, went before him, acclaiming him and saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” So having left them as unworthy, he says he will be seen by them again when the time of his passion arrives; for then he went up again to Jerusalem and entered amid acclamations; and at that time he underwent the saving passion for us.

“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” (14:3).

The Lord asked the lawyers and the Pharisees whether it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not; but they, it says, were silent. Why have you been silent, lawyer? Quote something of what is written; show that the law through Moses ever forbade doing good on the Sabbath, if it wants us to be hard and pitiless because of the Sabbath rest. But you could not show this from anywhere. Since they kept an obstinate silence, Christ breaks down their unbreakable shamelessness, using compelling arguments to do so. If the law, he says, forbade showing mercy on the Sabbath, how do you yourself pity an ass that has fallen into a well? Will you not care for a son in danger on the Sabbath? Rebuke the sting of your natural affection, if you know the lawgiver to be hard and pitiless; do not lend a hand to the sufferer, setting before him your reverence for the law—or rather the most irrational idleness—unless you think fit to know a spiritual Sabbath rest. The God of all does not cease to be kind; he is good and loves humankind; he did not establish the law of Moses as a teacher of inhumanity, but rather as one that brings in love for one’s neighbour. How, then, was it likely that so venerable and admirable a commandment should lose its force on the Sabbath by God’s will? Why, then, have you been silent, lawyer? Admittedly you were at a loss. So, bidding a long farewell to the envious spite of the Jews, he frees from his sickness the man in the grip of dropsy. The man, fearing the Pharisees, did not come asking to be healed, because of the Sabbath, but only stood before him, so that, pitying him from the sight of him, he might heal him. The Lord, knowing this, entering into his soul as God, does not ask him whether he wants to be made well, but healed him at once; for he knew that he wanted it; for to obtain healing he stood in front of him and kept silent.

“Noticing how they chose the places of honour” (14:7). He watched some of the guests foolishly snatching the first places as something great and worth having, and, necessarily, so that he might benefit both them and us, he urges them to despise vain glory. To some, perhaps, these things seem somehow small and not worth much concern; but when someone fixes the eye of his understanding on them, he will then learn from what blame it frees a person and how much decorum it works in him. For to leap readily at honours that do not suit us, that is, that are not wholly and altogether owed to us, shows us to be foolish. “For when,” he says, “one more honourable than you comes, he who invited you and him will say to you: Give this man your place.” O how full of shame the thing is! But prudent and admirable is the one who, though he could without reproach take pride of place among the first, does not desire it, but all but yields his own place to others, so as not to seem overcome by love of glory; such a one will receive honour as a debt; for he will hear from the one who invited him: “Go up higher.” A great and excellent good, then, is a modest mind. For if someone seeks to be placed before others, let him gain this by the vote from above, and let him be crowned with honours from God; let him surpass many by the brightness of his virtues—by humility; for a lowly mind is lofty before God; he becomes an imitator of Christ, who said: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” In saying these things he no longer rebukes severely but exhorts kindly; exhortation achieves the same, indeed even more, with the sensitive. For turning someone away from the things of ambition draws him away from ambition more effectively; and by so small an example as the one about dinners … the custom of men. For many who reached for honour have obtained this paltry honour, while others who humbled themselves remained without a mark of honour.

… showing the downfall of the ambitious and the exaltation of those without ambition, he adds something great to the small, bringing in the universal saying: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (14:11). This depends on the divine judgement, and not altogether … “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends,” and so on (14:12). That precept, then, concerned humility; but he adds a good teaching also for those who invite, bringing in a great aim for hospitality among men and a fruit worth striving for, even if it is far off and does not have its repayment at once—which is what the small-souled do: they invite friends, brothers, relatives, neighbours, so that, being invited back at once, they may get this in return. Far finer and more magnificent than this is what the Lord introduced: to invite those in need, to show kindness to the weak and the maimed, from whom there is no repayment; rather God is the one who repays the honour of kindness in the life to come. He says this not to keep us from honouring our own, but to teach us not to sell our courtesies for equal repayments, but to make them profitable, for the great returns that come from God. For he will say: “Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you; for I was hungry and you gave me food,” and so on. “For as you did it to one of these, you did it to me.” “Blessed is he who will eat a meal in the kingdom of God” (14:15).

It is likely that the man was not yet spiritual, but rather natural, and ill fitted for an exact understanding of what Christ said; for he was still among the unbelievers and not yet enlightened. He thought, then, that the saints’ rewards for what they do, when they choose to do good to others, would be bodily.

“A certain man gave a great dinner” (14:16). … Let us see, before the rest, what reason there was for many to be invited not to a lunch but to a dinner; or rather, before this, who the man who sent the one inviting to the dinner may be taken to be by us; who, too, the one inviting is; and who in general are those who were invited but dishonoured the invitation. The man, then, may be taken to be God the Father; for images are moulded toward the truth, they are not wholly the truth themselves. This Creator of all, then, and Father of glory, has made a great dinner, that is, has held a festival for the whole world, clearly the one in Christ. In the last times of the age, and as it were at the setting of our age, the Son appeared to us, when he also underwent death for us and gave us his own flesh to eat, being bread from heaven and giving life to the world. Toward evening and by lamplight the lamb too was slaughtered according to the law of Moses. Fittingly, then, the call in Christ has been named a dinner. Next, who is the one sent, whom he also says is a servant? Perhaps Christ himself; for being God by nature and true Son of God the Father, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He is, then, Lord of all, as God from God; but one might fittingly apply the name of servant to the measures of his humanity. And when was he sent? “At the hour of the dinner,” it says; for the only-begotten Word of the Father did not come down from heaven at the beginning of this age and come to be in our form, but rather at the times that the Sovereign himself willed—clearly the last ones, as we said before. And what was the message of the one who invited? “Come, for everything is now ready.” For God the Father has prepared in Christ for those on earth the good things given through him to the world: the putting away of sins, participation in the Holy Spirit, the splendour of adoption, the kingdom of heaven. To these Christ invited, through the gospel decrees, and before the others, Israel. Did they then resolve anything good among themselves? Did they marvel at the gentleness of the one who invited, at the providence of the one who served the invitation? Not at all; rather they dishonoured both the one who invited and the one sent; “and they began all alike …”

“And they all alike began to make excuses” (14:18). You see that, foolishly inclined toward earthly things, they do not see the spiritual, and take no account of what lies in hope with God. Next, who might be meant by those who excused themselves on account of fields and farming and the begetting of children in the flesh? Perhaps the leaders of the synagogue of the Jews: men with fat purses, overcome by love of gain, and spending all their zeal on it. For throughout the whole divinely inspired Scripture, so to speak, one can see them reproached for these very things.

And when you hear that the giver of the feast sent his servant, you are to consider both the servanthood and the sending as belonging to the economy in the flesh. What was he sent to say to the Jews invited through the law? “Come, everything is now ready.” But since the Jewish rulers refused the invitation—as they themselves said, “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?”—the master of the house was angry, as they deserved to suffer what comes from wrath and anger. “All alike began to make excuses,” that is, as by one agreement.

“Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant,” and so on (14:21). Here, then, the master of the house is said to have been angry with the Jewish rulers, since they had treated the great dinner with insolence. And in their place those in the streets and lanes have been invited: those of the Jewish multitude who had a weak and ignoble understanding, unlit and limping; for these might be understood as the blind and the lame, but they have become strong and healthy in Christ; they were taught to walk straight, and they received the divine light into their minds. That not a few of the Jews have believed, one may learn by reading the Acts of the holy apostles. For there, when Peter addressed the people, first three thousand believed, and again a great crowd. By teaching some things and working wonders in others he drew the guileless multitude after him, and many of the Jews believed in him; and the Pharisees called these accursed, because they believed in Christ; for they said: “Has any of the Pharisees believed in him? But this people, who do not know the law, are accursed.” Here both things are shown: that the rulers did not believe, and that many of the multitude believed; and the parable hinted at both, bringing in some who excuse themselves and others who are invited and obey.

“Go out into the roads and hedges, and compel them to come in” (14:23). See the calling of the nations, brought in through faith after those of the blood of Israel. For of old those from the nations were rustic in mind, wild in understanding and as it were outside the city, because they did not live under good laws but rather like cattle and with much irrationality; for this reason the one who invites to the dinner was sent to the roads outside the city and to the hedges in the fields. But he was ordered by the one who sent him not simply to invite, offering them only an exhortation, but even to compel. Yet believing is a matter of free choice for all, and as such it is acceptable to God; how, then, are some compelled? This too, indeed, was done by a wise economy. For the nations—yoked as they were to unbearable greed, fallen under diabolical yokes, held fast as it were by the unbreakable chains of their own offences, and not knowing him who is by nature and truly God of all—needed, yes needed, a more urgent call, one imitating compulsion, so that they might be able to look up to God, taste the sacred teachings, depart from the ancient deceit, and in some way leap free from the devil’s hand. Indeed Christ said: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” The word altogether shows the call to be a work of strength befitting God. The prophet David is found saying something of the kind to God about them: “With bit and bridle you will constrain the jaws of those who do not draw near to you.” Do you see how the God of all turns back to himself with a kind of bridle those who have wildly bolted away? For he is good and loves humankind, and wishes all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father,” and so on (14:26).

So in saying, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate” his kin by blood and even his own life, he does not dishonour the laws of innate affection, nor does he teach us to despise the natural disposition owed by children to parents, by husbands to their wives, by brothers to brothers, making enemies of those closest to us, so that we may be with him and be able to follow him. For he who commands us to love our enemies, how could he have wished us to hate those who are ours by nature? Christ, then, commands neither that we ignore nature nor that we be slaves to it, but that we use nature for what is better and saving; for he wants us to bring our own along with us into the friendship of Christ himself, not to be drawn away from divine love by our own. For honouring parents is the Lord’s own pleasure too, and Paul enjoins the rearing of children; and children, he says, must obey their parents in the Lord, and in the admonition of the Lord. He enjoined husbands to love their wives, but in imitation of Christ, who loved the church; and wives to fear their husbands, but after the pattern of the church, which fears Christ. For those who are our own, if they are ours in the faith, are not to be hated: “For if anyone,” he says, “does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith.” In a word, the aim set before us being to follow Christ, whatever agrees with it is to be chosen, and whatever does not agree is to be refused. For if, while living the life in the flesh, it is possible to keep one’s reverence for Christ, one should not flee life in the body but preserve it, as Paul did when, let down through a window in a basket, he escaped the hands of Aretas, so that he might still live and preach Christ, and not be killed too soon and hinder the preaching. But where he had to despise even life in order to finish his course, he said that he did not count even his life precious to himself; and he set Christ before himself as his aim in both, in living and in dying: “For to me,” he says, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “For which of you, wishing to build a tower,” and so on (14:28).

… What occasion led to these words must be stated. In what preceded he said that the great gospel dinner was being held, to which many were invited by the one who provided the festival for them. But some were indolent toward it; for they excused themselves, he says, all alike, one saying, “I have bought a field,” another, “I have bought yoke of oxen,” another, “I have married a wife, and I cannot come”; and using such pretexts they grieved the one who invited them. We ought, then, to know very clearly that when God calls us to himself, it is fitting for us to despise the desires directed toward the flesh and concerned with it. Then he uses two examples, sharpening his disciples toward invincible courage. For if someone wishes, he says, to build a tower, he first prepares what is needed for completing it and so sets about the building; and if a king goes to meet another king in war, he first deliberates whether he is strong enough to resist or not, so that he may either take courage for the war or choose peace. This very thing he requires also of believers; for those who have chosen to achieve the glorious and blameless life must store up in their minds a zeal sufficient for this, and remember the one who says: “Child, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation; set your heart right and endure.” But those who lack such zeal, how could they accomplish the aim set before them?

What is hinted at by this? “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” And there is also a swarm of other enemies against us: the mind of the flesh, the law raging in our members, the manifold passions; against these is our wrestling, this is the wild multitude of the enemies. How, then, shall we prevail? When we believe that “in God we shall do valiantly,” as it is written, “and he will bring to nothing those who afflict us.” Having so disposed himself, one of the holy prophets said: “Behold, the Lord helps me; who will harm me?” And the inspired David too sings somewhere: “The Lord is my light and my saviour; whom shall I fear?” and the rest. For he is our strength.

“Salt is good” (14:34). As without salt neither bread nor relish is edible, so without the apostles’ understanding and teaching every soul is insipid and tasteless, and not pleasing to God. Let the salts, then, be in us, that is, the divine and saving words; if we despise them, we shall be insipid and foolish and altogether useless.

“Now all the tax collectors were drawing near to him” (15:1).

“… and the sinners, to hear him.” “God the Father sent the Son from heaven not to judge the world,” as he himself says, “but that the world might be saved through him.” How, then, was the world, caught in the snares of sin, to be saved? By being made to pay penalties, or rather by being shown kindness, God bearing with it patiently, as it were consigning the past to oblivion and refashioning for a holy life those who did not know how to live well? Why, then, tell me, do you murmur, Pharisee, because Christ did not disdain to be with tax collectors and sinners, and in his wise economy was preparing for them this way of salvation? For this reason he lowered himself into self-emptying and came to be in likeness to us. Do you then rebuke the economy in the flesh of the Only-begotten? Yet the blessed prophets marvelled at the skill of the mystery. For the prophet David sings and says: “Sing praises with understanding; God has become king over the nations.” And Habakkuk says that he heard the report and considered the works and came into amazement. How, then, are you not ashamed to find fault with what you ought to marvel at? The race on earth had gone astray; it had slipped from the hand of the chief shepherd. For this reason he who shepherds the flocks above and in heaven became like us, so that he might also lodge us in his own folds, join us to those who had not gone astray, drive off the accursed beast, and remove, like a band of robbers and impious men, the unclean demons who had led the world under heaven astray. So he sought what was lost, and showed the Jews’ fault-finding over this very thing to be idle and empty. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep,” and so on (15:4). But understand with me here, beloved, the breadth of our Saviour’s kingdom and the skill of his economy toward us. For he says the sheep are a hundred, referring the number of the rational creatures subject to him to a complete and most perfect multitude; for the number one hundred is always somehow perfect, being made up of ten tens. And we have learned from the divinely inspired Scripture too that thousands of thousands minister to God, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand around his most high throne. The sheep, then, are a hundred; and one of them went astray, that is, the race on earth, which the chief shepherd of all sought, leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness, in the place above and in heaven, full of calm. Did he then, without regard for the many, show regard for the one alone? Not without regard for them. How so? For they are, yes they are, in safety, the all-powerful hand fencing them about. But it was right rather to have pity on the lost, so that nothing should be seen lacking to the rest of the multitude, and that, the one being added, the hundred might have its own beauty. Come, let us present the matter also by another example, everywhere pleading the cause of the incomparable gentleness of Christ the Saviour of us all. Suppose that many live in one house, and that it happens that one falls ill: on whose account would those skilled in healing be called? Not on account of the one alone who fell ill? But those called to heal would do this without disregarding the many, giving the help of their art to the one who is sick, since the occasion and the need call for it. So it was necessary, yes necessary, that God who holds power over all should extend his saving hand to the one that had gone astray. The chief shepherd has saved it; for he sought what had gone astray, and set up for us a fold safe from plunder and impregnable to beasts and robbers—I mean the church. Marvelling at it, we say that word spoken through the voice of the prophet: “Behold, a strong and saving city for us; he will set up a wall and an outer wall.” The same would be the meaning of the parable placed immediately after, in which he says that a woman who had ten drachmas lost one of them; then, having lit a lamp and found it, she was very glad at this very thing and made the event an occasion of the highest joy. The parable runs thus:

“A woman having ten drachmas,” and so on (15:8). Through the earlier parable, in which the race on earth was shown as a sheep gone astray, we learned that we are a creation of God who is over all, since he brought into existence what once was not: “For he made us, and not we ourselves,” as it is written; “and he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” But through this second one, in which what was lost is likened to a drachma—again one of ten, that is, of a perfect number or a multitude complete in its count (for ten too is perfect, as the return from the unit into the further course)—it is clearly shown that we came to be after the royal likeness and image, that is, that of God who is over all. For the drachma is surely a coin bearing royal marks. That we had in some way fallen and been lost and were found by Christ, and conformed to him through sanctification and righteousness, how could anyone doubt? For the blessed Paul writes thus: “And we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit.” And he writes thus to the Galatians: “My little children, with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you.” The search for what had fallen took place when the woman lit a lamp; for we were found by the wisdom of God the Father, which is the Son, when the divine and spiritual morning star shone in us, and the sun of righteousness rose, and the day dawned, as it is written. Indeed through one of the holy prophets God said somewhere of Christ the Saviour of us all: “My righteousness draws near quickly to be revealed, and my salvation will burn like a torch.” And he himself says of himself, at one time, “I am the light of the world,” and at another, “I have come as light into this world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” In light, then, what was lost has been saved, and the event became a joy to the powers above; for they too rejoice over one sinner who repents; and he who knows all taught us this himself. And if they keep festival over one of those being saved, tracing out, as it were, the divine purpose for all, and accustomed to celebrate with unceasing praises the gentleness of the one who saves, with what gladness might one say they are filled now that the whole world under heaven has been saved and called through faith in Christ to the knowledge of the truth?

“A certain man had two sons” (15:11). The prodigal asked for the share that fell to him; he received it, went abroad, spent it; then he came to be in want of every good thing and in scarcity of the God-given gifts, and was being destroyed as it were by famine, not having the bread from heaven; “for man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” One might apply the parable also to those from the nations. For he said that a certain man had two sons; that one of them was reasonable, and the other prodigal, who, having devoured the part of the property allotted to him, then, pressed by famine, turned to the pods that the pigs were eating. We shall find that those who had strayed suffered something of this kind. For the Creator gave all alike, as a kind of inheritance, the natural fitness for the good; but some preserved what was given, following the divine laws and guided by natural notions to everything that is not unseemly; while others, having lost all share in the gentleness and forbearance and love from above, came to be in want of the glories of the best life, and took as their food the lying myths of the Greeks, understood as the pods, which have a little sweetness but much lack of nourishment and dryness. Satan fed them on the lies of the Greeks and the senseless eloquence of their choice speakers; for the precepts among them are myths and nothing else, old women’s twittering. And the wisdom of the world, because of the fine sound of its diction, is a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. So of old they were fed on the Greek writings, which could do nothing to help them achieve virtue. But when they sought God and returned from their long wandering, they came back to life as dead men and were found as lost ones. For in those who still wander and do not know him who is God by nature, the mind is dead and as it were chilled, and busy with dead works—and these are the wishes of the flesh. But in those who have turned to God and come to know the truth the mind is not dead; enriched with the life-giving that comes from Christ, it lives rather, and takes care for the pursuits that lead to life; it departs from dead works and longs for eternal life—I mean the life to be given in the age to come by Christ to those who have believed in him.

To some it seems that by the pair of sons the holy angels are signified, and we who are on earth: the person of the elder, who also lived reasonably, indicating the order of the holy angels, and that of the younger and prodigal, the human race. But some among us, going another way, say that the elder son, who lived well, signifies Israel according to the flesh, and the other, who chose to live for pleasure and departed from his father, describes the multitude of the nations. I do not vote for these opinions; but let the lover of learning test what is true. For when we refer the true-born son to the person of the angels, we shall not find him speaking words fitting the holy angels, nor disposed as they are toward those who turn from sins to repentance. For the Saviour and Lord of all says that there is joy in heaven before the holy angels over one sinful man who repents; but the son described in the present parable, as acceptable to the father and having led a blameless life, is said to have become angry and to have come to such an unloving mind as even to reproach his father for his affection toward the one who was saved. For he would not, it says, go into the house, vexed that the one who had barely come to his senses was received when he repented, that the calf was slaughtered for him, and that the father held a festival over him. This conflicts, as I said, with the disposition of the holy angels; for they rejoice and glorify God when they see those on earth being saved. Indeed, when the Son underwent birth according to the flesh from a woman in Bethlehem, they announced the good news to the shepherds, saying: “Do not be afraid; for behold, we bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people: for to you is born this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.” And crowning the newborn with hymns and doxologies they said: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” But if someone should say that Israel according to the flesh is signified by the true-born and reasonable son, again what keeps us from agreeing with such an opinion is that in no way does choosing to live blamelessly fit Israel; for throughout the whole divinely inspired Scripture, so to speak, one can see them reproached as apostates and disobedient. Indeed it was said to them through the voice of Jeremiah: “What offence did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me, and went after vain things, and became vain?” And in agreement with these things God said somewhere about them through the voice of Isaiah: “This people draws near to me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” How, then, could one attribute to people so condemned the words in the parable as spoken by the true-born and reasonable son? For he said: “Behold, so many years I have served you, and I never transgressed your commandment.” But they would not have had a reproached life, had they not passed over the divine commandments and turned to what is effaced. Besides—for I think that this too must be said—some wish to refer the fatted calf, which the father slaughtered when the son had turned to return, to the person of our Saviour. How, then, could the true-born son, the wise and understanding one who had become an attendant, whom some bring in as the person of the holy angels, make the slaughter of the calf an occasion of anger and grief? For one would not see the powers above grieved when Christ underwent death according to the flesh and was as it were slaughtered for us; rather they rejoiced, as I said, seeing the world under heaven saved by the holy blood. Why, then, does the true-born son also say, “You never gave me a kid”? For which of the good things do the holy angels lack? Yet the Master of all has distributed to them with a rich hand the supply of spiritual gifts. Or what sacrifice would they have needed in their own case? For surely Emmanuel did not need to suffer for them too. And if someone should think, as I said before, that Israel according to the flesh is signified by the true-born and reasonable son, how will he speak the truth when he says, “You never gave me a kid”? For whether Christ is understood as a calf or a kid, as a sacrifice for sin, he was not sacrificed for the nations alone, but also to rescue Israel itself, which had incurred great condemnation for its transgression of the law. And the most wise Paul will bear witness, writing: “Therefore the Son too, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate.”

What, then, is the aim of the parable? Let us search out the cause for which it was spoken; for so we shall know the truth. The blessed Luke said, then, a little before, about Christ the Saviour of us all: “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to him to hear him; and the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying: This man receives sinners and eats with them.” Since, then, the scribes and Pharisees cried out against the gentleness and love for humankind that was in him, and accused him of receiving some who lived a profane life and of teaching them, Christ set before them the present parable as most necessary, through which one can see this well: as God of all, he wishes that even the one who is truly a faithful attendant and true-born, who knows how to live reverently and has gained the glory of the highest reasonableness, should hasten to follow his wishes, and should rather rejoice over those called to repentance, even if they are among the very much condemned, than receive an unloving grief over them. For sometimes we ourselves suffer something of this kind. Some live the finest and most excellent life; but another is weak and defeated, brought down to every kind of baseness; this one often turns to God in his very old age and asks pardon for his former sins, becoming a lover of better things; or perhaps, when about to end human life, he is counted worthy of divine baptism and puts away his charges, God having pity. Then some are sometimes indignant at this very thing and say: “This man, who did such and such and said such and such, has not paid the Judge the penalty for his life, and has been counted worthy of so splendid and admirable a grace; he has been enrolled among the sons of God and honoured with the glory of the saints.” Some sometimes spit out such things from untimely small-mindedness, not following the purpose of the Father of all. For he rejoices greatly when he sees the lost being saved, and he restores them to their original form, giving them their freedom, adorning them with the first robe, and giving a ring on their hand; and this is the God-loving adornment fitting free men.

Observe how in every way he marks it out with an exceptional beauty and works into it the radiance of a blameless life. For he adorns the souls of those who worship him with every adornment—spiritual and intelligible, clearly—so that to each it may be said, as through the lyre of the Psalmist: “Hear, O daughter, and see,” and the rest. Christ, then, is the garment for the honour and true glory of the sacred and holy race, and a bright and supramundane ornament for the souls of the saints. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ,”

he says; and the saying is true. “He longed to fill his belly with the pods” (15:16). We might see something of this kind suffered also by the prodigal described in the figure of the parable, who devoured his father’s property in a foreign land; he was perishing from want of the good things from above, and a famine, as it were, of the heavenly teachings was consuming him, and he longed to be filled with the pods that the pigs were eating; but the empty pleasure, flowing away, left him empty, and he was in utter want. “I will arise and go to my father” (15:18). For the Lord too, when he commands us to speak with boldness and to say “Father” in our prayers, gives those who pray to understand this: that if we call God Father and have been counted worthy of so splendid an honour, we must also live in a way worthy of the one who has honoured us. For the great Peter too says this: “If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear throughout the time of your sojourning.”

Perhaps you will say to yourself: “I have been stained by much sin; how, then, could I, so defiled, become clean?” Hear, then, what we have to say. Do you know that you have offended at all? Do you confess your weakness? Do you remember your slips? You are near to being saved; for the beginning of cleansing is to confess sins. So it is also written: “Tell your iniquities first, that you may be justified.” For the Master of all is not hard, not implacable, but rather kind and compassionate and good, and he knows what he has formed. For confession is a great thing, and so is flight from evil; so the prodigal was received.

Who is the fatted calf, if not surely Christ, the spotless victim, who takes away the sin of the world, who is sacrificed and eaten? Inasmuch as he clothed himself with the flesh that is irrational and animal by nature—even if he filled it with his own glories—he is understood as a calf, untouched by the yoke of the law of sin, and fatted inasmuch as the mystery of Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world, the awesome and great sacrifice, in which those who return from sin are permitted to share.

“There was a rich man who had a steward” (16:1).

But this too we say to those who love learning: parables bring us the disclosure of beneficial things obliquely and not openly, when we observe their meaning briefly and concisely. For not all the parts of a parable need to be scrutinized minutely and exhaustively, lest the discourse, going beyond measure, should weary its eager hearers with superfluity, or produce in some the annoyance of idle talk—as in the present parable. For if someone wished to make plain who the man with the accused steward may be taken to be by us, or who perhaps the one who accused him may be, and who those are that were liable for the debts and made reductions of their debts, and for what reason one is said to have owed oil and another wheat, he will make the discourse obscure and superfluous at once. So not all the parts of the parable are in every way useful for the contemplation of what is signified, but it may be taken as an image of a necessary matter, dimly indicating what serves for the benefit of the hearers. This, then, is the meaning of the parable. The God of all “wishes all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” For this reason he also gave a law as a help, according to the prophet’s word. By the law here we mean not, surely, only the law ministered through Moses, but rather the whole divinely inspired Scripture, through which one can learn the path that leads straight to every good and saving thing. The Master of all, then, wishes us to devote ourselves wholly to the pursuits of virtue and to choose to live earnestly and holily, freeing ourselves from the distractions of the present life, so that we may serve him attentively and without distraction. Indeed through the lyre of the Psalmist he says: “Be still, and know that I am God.” And again in his own person the Saviour of all says to those who have earthly wealth: “Sell your possessions and give alms; make yourselves purses that do not grow old, an unfailing treasure in heaven.” The commandment is saving, but the human mind is very weak and always somehow fixed on earthly things; and knowing this the Saviour himself said somewhere about them: “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” And again: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” For as long as someone is in wealth and luxury, he has an unpractised piety toward God. Is there, then, not a single way of salvation for the rich, but the fire prepared for the devil and his angels made ready for them? Not at all. For see, see, the Saviour has shown them an occasion of salvation through this parable. They have been entrusted with earthly wealth, the God over all patiently leaving it to them; yet, according to his purpose in it, they are made stewards of the poor. They are called stewards because each is to distribute to others what belongs to them; but they do not manage it rightly, as it were scattering what the Master gave them; for they spend it only on their own luxuries and buy passing honours, forgetting God, who says: “You shall open your heart wide to your brother who is in need among you.” Yes, and Christ the Saviour of us all himself: “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father also is merciful.” But they, as I said, take no account of pitying their brothers; they care only for their own arrogance. This is what has accused them before the Master of all. And they must certainly fall from their stewardship when death leaps upon them and drags them from our affairs; for the net of death is inescapable for every human being. What, then, does Christ wish them to do? While they are in this world, even if they do not wish to distribute all their wealth to the poor, let them at least with part of it win friends and many witnesses of their compassion—those, clearly, who have been well treated—so that when their earthly wealth fails them, they may have some place in their dwellings. For it is impossible that the lover of the poor should ever go unrewarded; whether someone gives all his wealth to others, or a part of it, he will surely benefit his own soul. “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (16:10).

Often the Saviour of all says the same things and uses different examples about the same subject, so that the mind of his hearers may be brought to an exact understanding of what he says. Observe again, I pray, the force of the passages before us. It seems to me useful first of all to see what occasions such a discourse has in general; for so the meaning of the passage will be easy to grasp. Christ, then, was teaching those in wealth to love above all the care of the poor, to lay up treasure in heaven, and to provide for their well-being in the future. But, being God by nature, he knew well the sluggishness of the human understanding in every earnest and good matter, and that, being great lovers of wealth and wholly tyrannized by this passion, they give no mercy to the poor. That those of such a mind will have none of the gifts from God—spiritual gifts, clearly—he shows from the plainest examples, saying: “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much,” and what follows. Solve the question for us, Master; open the eye of our heart. Hear, then, clearly and exactly what he said: “If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will give you the true?” The very little, then, is the unrighteous mammon, that is, earthly wealth, sometimes gathered by plunder and greed; to those who know how to live well, and who carry their mind away from earthly things and set it rather on the things above, earthly wealth would be reckoned as altogether nothing; they will spend it all on the needy, managing it well. This, I think, is to be faithful in a little: to distribute help from one’s possessions to those in the extremity of misery. If, then, we have been unfaithful in a little, how could we receive from him the true—that is, the abundant supply of divine gifts that adorns the human soul and engraves the divine beauty on it? That the aim of the Saviour’s words looks and is turned toward this, one might know very well from what follows too. For he said: “If you have not been faithful in what is another’s, who will give you what is your own?” We say that what is another’s is abundance of money; for we were not born with wealth, but rather naked; and it is true to say, as it is written, that “we brought nothing into the world, nor can we take anything out.” Let us, then, be faithful in this small and earthly wealth, which is a very little and nothing, because it flows away; and let us not appropriate to ourselves what was given us for the common need of the brothers, so as to make wealth unrighteous by holding on to it, and that when it is another’s—both because we brought nothing in, and because it belongs to the poor—so that we may be entrusted with our own divine and heavenly wealth, the true and abiding. For wealth is by nature foreign to every human being; it comes from outside and befalls some; and if it departs and is lost, it will do no harm at all to the principles of human nature. For it is not in being rich that we are rational and skilled in every good work; rather it is the fitness of our nature that is receptive of such things, and this is our own. For, as the blessed Paul writes, we were created for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. When, then, some are unfaithful in what is another’s, that is, in what has come to them from outside, how could they receive their own? That is, how could they come to share in the God-given good things? Or how shall we receive the holy and admirable beauty which God engraves on human souls, forming them to himself? For we came to be so in the beginning. That it is impossible for one and the same person to be divided toward opposites and to be able to live blamelessly, he shows, saying:

“No servant can serve two masters” (16:13). The example is clear and plain, and most fitting for the contemplation of what is before us; and what follows is like the conclusion of the whole discourse: “For you cannot serve God and mammon.” For if someone should become the servant of two masters, he says, divided in their wishes toward opposite things and having minds that do not agree with each other, how could he please both? For, divided toward what each thinks fit, he sets himself against the wishes of both. For it would be altogether necessary for the same person to be seen as both wicked and good. So if he chooses to be true to one, he says, he will hate the other.

It is impossible, then, to serve God and mammon; let us therefore transfer all our zeal to the one, bidding mammon a long farewell. For these things the great Teacher urges on us. “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, scoffed at him” (16:14). As the fiercer of bodily diseases do not admit the help of medicines but flee healing, as it were—and if someone applies what is naturally beneficial, they grow wilder and are as it were indignant, even when coaxed by skill—so the passions that befall human souls are sometimes hard and not to be admonished, and endure no word that calls them to depart from evil and leads them toward better things. We shall find that the Pharisees suffered this; through love of money they belittled the best counsels, and when they should have revered the Master who urged these things, they scoffed at him. But let us take out the sting of love of money, which can rouse us even to impiety, as it did them. The Saviour of all, then, having spent a long discourse on them, and seeing that they did not depart from their own reasonings and passions but rather lingered in their native perversity, turns at last to sharpness of reproof, the occasion calling for it, and shows them to be hypocrites and buffoons, lovers of a glory that would befit righteous and good men, yet not truly such. “You are those who justify yourselves before men” (16:15).

He is found saying this to them somewhere else too: “How can you believe, receiving glory from men, and not seeking the glory that comes from the only God?” For those who are truly good God crowns with praises for righteousness; but those who do not love virtue and are hypocrites perhaps steal by their own votes the appearance of being venerable. But, my good men, one might say to them, no one crowns himself. For it is written: “Let your neighbour praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” Yet even if the hypocrites could somehow escape notice and snatch honours from men, “God,” he says, “knows your hearts”; he honours the one who is truly righteous, but scatters the bones of men-pleasers; for man-pleasing is the root, beginning and birth of the arrogance hated by God and men. Having branded them with his reproofs, Christ adds to these something else that they were going to suffer because of their impiety and disobedience. For he says: “The law and the prophets were until John,” and so on (16:16).

Again he hides the painful thing in obscurity, and makes, as it were, a veiled prediction of what would happen to those who chose to disobey him. “Moses,” he says, “and with him the choir of the holy prophets, announced beforehand to those on earth the power of the mystery concerning me. The law showed through shadow and types that I would endure the death of the flesh in order to save the world under heaven and abolish corruption, having been raised from the dead; and the prophets spoke in agreement with the laws of Moses. So it is nothing strange,” he says, “that is, nothing not foreknown, when you disobey my words; for the word of prophecy concerning me and you extends to John the Baptist.” “But from the days of John the kingdom of heaven is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.” By the kingdom of heaven here he means justification by faith, the washing away of sin—I mean through holy baptism—sanctification through the Spirit, worship in the Spirit, the boast of adoption, the hope of the glory that will be given to the saints. The kingdom of heaven, then, is preached when the Baptist came forward and said, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” and pointed out the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, as already present. And everyone who has become an obedient hearer and lover of the sacred proclamation forces his way in; that is, using all eagerness and every strength, he longs to enter into the hope. For, as he says somewhere else, “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it.”

“But it is easier,” and so on (16:17). He says it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away—which does not yet happen, God not commanding it—than for one stroke of the law to fall. By the law he sometimes means the whole divinely inspired Scripture together, that is, the writings of Moses and the prophets. What, then, did they announce beforehand that must by all means come to fulfilment? They foretold that because of great unbelief and the impiety of its ways Israel would slip from intimacy with God, though it was firstborn among children; and that Jerusalem would be thrust out of his love. Indeed he said of her through the voice of Hosea: “Behold, I fence her way with thorns, and I will wall up her ways, and she shall not find her path.” For the way of the godly has become straight, and nothing in it … but all things smooth and fit for horses. But the way of the mother of the Jews is fenced, that is, the path of godliness was made impassable for them. And that they became darkened in mind and did not accept the light of the Saviour’s glory—for they did not know him—he declared beforehand, saying, as to the people of the Jews: “I have likened your mother to night; my people has become like one without knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being a priest to me; and you have forgotten the law of your God, and I will forget your children.” Do you hear that the multitude of the disobedient is likened to darkness and night, and very fittingly? For in the minds and hearts of believers the spiritual morning star rises, and the sun of righteousness; but the mind of those who insult so splendid and desirable a grace is blackened with spiritual darkness and mist. So much about those of Israel. But about those who have recognized the appearing of the glory of Christ the Saviour of us all, God the Father promised through one of the holy prophets, saying: “And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and in the name of the Lord their God they shall be.” In agreement with these, the Psalmist too says in the Spirit to Christ: “O Lord, they will walk in the light of your face, and in your name they will rejoice all the day; for you are the boast of their strength, and in your righteousness our horn will be exalted.” For we boast in Christ, having been justified in him; we have become exalted, having cast off the humiliation that comes from sin and become rich in the exact knowledge of the doctrines of truth. For God promised us this, saying through the voice of Isaiah: “And I will lead the blind in a way that they did not know, and I will make them tread paths that they had not known; I will turn the darkness into light for them, and all crooked things into straight.” For we who were blind have been enlightened and walk the unaccustomed path of righteousness; but those who boast of the law as their tutor have come to be in darkness. For, as Christ himself said, the darkness has blinded their eyes, and a hardening in part has come upon Israel, so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not hear; for they behaved outrageously toward the holy prophets, and they dared to lay hands even on him who calls them to salvation and life. “So even if you disobey,” he says, “even if you foolishly scoff at my words, which lead you to the pursuit of what is useful and fitting, these things were not unknown,” he says, “but have already been foretold through the law and the prophets.” And it is impossible for the words of God to fall into ineffectiveness; for what he knew would certainly come to pass, he declared beforehand.

As to the letter, he shows that he has come not at all to abolish or overturn the writings of the prophets, but rather to bring to completion both prophets and law. For since he said that the law and the prophets were until John, lest anyone should suppose that they have been cast out and set aside, for this reason he added: “Not one iota or one stroke will fall from the law,” as in Matthew. “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen” (16:19).

One might ask: according to the gospel narrative, which says that the poor man went away to rest and the rich man to punishment, have these things already happened, and has a worthy recompense been allotted to each, or does he sketch in these things the image of the judgement to come? “But surely,” someone says, “since he names Lazarus, it truly happened and was done. For why did he not say, ‘A certain poor man,’ but ‘Lazarus’? So that by the name he might show that these things were done in experience and truth.” To him we shall say: the divine Scripture says everywhere that the judgement will be after the resurrection of the dead; and there will be no resurrection unless Christ comes again to us from heaven in the glory of the Father with the holy angels. So too the all-wise Paul says: “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God”; for “the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised” in Christ “incorruptible.” Since, then, the Judge of all has not yet come down from heaven, neither has the resurrection of the dead taken place; how, then, is it not implausible to think that a recompense has already been given to anyone, either for evil works or for good? The things said by Christ about the rich man and Lazarus are therefore a form of parable, elegantly shaped. The account goes, as the tradition of the Hebrews has it, that there was a certain Lazarus at that time in Jerusalem, living in extreme poverty and sickness, whom the Lord mentioned, taking him as an example for a clearer setting forth of the discourse. Since Christ, then, has not yet come down from heaven, neither has the resurrection taken place, nor has the recompense of deeds followed for anyone. But as in an image, in the parable are described a rich man living in luxury and without pity, and a poor man in sickness, so that those who have earthly wealth may know that if they do not choose to be kind, generous and sharing, and to help with the needs of the poor, they will fall into a terrible and inescapable penalty.

But I think it necessary first to say what the occasion of the discourse was, or to show what matter Christ so excellently shapes and forms the present parable. The Saviour was making us craftsmen of good works, and wished us to be distinguished by the glories of the virtues. He wished us to love one another, to take care of the poor, and to hold vigorously to the pursuits that serve this; and above all, putting together counsels on this very matter for the rich in this world and leading them into the way most fitting for the saints, he said: “Sell your possessions and give alms.” The commandment is fine and good and saving. But Christ was not unaware that to be able to carry out what was commanded is not possible for the many; for the human mind is always weak toward the difficult and hard-to-accomplish feats of virtue; but since he is good and loves humankind, he devised a way of helping them, so that lasting and irremovable poverty might not succeed their wealth here, nor eternal punishment their passing luxuries. “For if you cannot bear,” he says, “to give up your pleasure-loving wealth, to sell your property entire and distribute it to the needy, at least be eager to win good repute in lesser things: make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon”—that is, do not make the wealth only your own, but stretch out a hand to the needy too; suffer with the suffering; comfort the saints who love a poverty not against their will, so that they may serve God without distraction. This will not go unrewarded for you; for when your earthly wealth fails you, overtaken at the end of life, then they will make you partners of their hope and of the consolation to be given them by God; for, being good, he will restore those who have toiled in this life and borne with patience the heavy load of poverty. The most wise Paul too gives such counsel to those in wealth, saying of those in distress: “Your abundance for their want.” This is the command of nothing else than what Christ said: “Make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon.” And that not bearing to do this brings ruin and unquenchable fire, he shows by setting forth the present parable to us: “There was a very rich man,” he says. Here, I pray, look and observe closely the words of the Saviour, which show much wisdom. For though he could have said, “So-and-so was a rich man,” as in the case of Job, he did not say this; he names a rich man simply, but mentions the poor man by name. What, then, is to be observed? The rich man is nameless before God, as being without pity; for he said somewhere through the voice of the Psalmist about those who do not fear him: “I will not make mention of their names with my lips.” But the poor man, as I said, is named on God’s tongue. Yet let us see the rich man’s brow raised for nothing needful. What, then, does Christ say about him? “And he was clothed in purple and fine linen”—that is, he was eager to dress well in most costly clothing. But the poor man was cast at the gate, fettered by disease and poverty; he was counted worthy of no consideration, had no share of pity or care; he sought to be filled with what slipped from the rich man’s table and was of less use; and he was punished in another way too by a most grievous disease; “but even the dogs,” he says, “licked his sores,” not, as is likely, harming him, but rather as it were suffering with him and tending him; for with their own tongue they heal their own sores, as it were scraping off what hurts and gently anointing. But the rich man, being more savage than wild beasts, was shown to be without fellow-feeling, without pity, and full of all inhumanity. “And it happened that the poor man died,” and so on. “The rich man also died and was buried,” and so on (16:22). But not so this Lazarus: he went away with every escort and with the better hopes; for to those who have their hopes in God the departure from our life would be a removal from grief and toils. Solomon taught something of the kind, saying: “In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was reckoned an affliction, and their going from us a ruin; but they are in peace, and their hope is full of immortality.” For to them is given a measure of consolation equal to their toils, or perhaps rewards even greater than their toils; for Christ said: “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they give into your lap.” So “Lazarus was carried away by the holy angels,” he says, “into the bosom of Abraham; but the rich man died,” he says, “and was buried.” For to him, having been hard and without pity, release from the body was death; for he departs from luxury into punishment, from glory into dishonour, from light into darkness.

“It is impossible that stumbling blocks should not come” (17:1).

What stumbling blocks, then, does Christ mention, which he says will by all means happen? Stumbling blocks are of two kinds. Some fight against the supreme glory and touch the essence highest of all, as far as the attempt of those who devised them goes. Others sometimes arise among us, but reach only so far as to grieve some of our brothers and fellow believers. For the inventions of heresies, and whatever discourse may arise against the truth, fight against the divine and supreme glory itself; for they carry those who are caught away from the correctness and exactness of the sacred doctrines. Of such stumbling blocks the Saviour himself said somewhere again: “Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks; for it is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the man through whom the stumbling block comes.” For such stumbling blocks—through the unholy heretics, I mean—do not come against one person individually, but rather lay plots against the world, that is, against those in all the earth. The blessed Paul rebukes the inventors of such stumbling blocks, saying: “Thus sinning against the brothers and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” And so that such stumbling blocks may not prevail over believers, God said somewhere to those who uphold the right word of truth and know well how to initiate into the mysteries: “Go through my gates, and make a way for my people, and throw the stones out of the way.” The Saviour hung a bitter penalty over those who lay such stumbling blocks. But he seems now to be speaking not of such stumbling blocks, but rather of those which very often happen from human pettiness between friends and brothers. What leads us to suppose this is the saying placed next, right after the first—the one, I mean, about forgiving brothers if they should somehow offend against us. What, then, are such stumbling blocks? Pettinesses perhaps and griefs, just and unjust provocations, abuse, frequent slanders, and the faults akin to and of the same kind as these. These, I say, cannot fail to come. Is it as if the God over all brings them on some by necessity? Far from it! For nothing bad comes from him; rather he is the fountain of all virtue. How, then, can they not fail to happen? Surely because of our weakness: “For we all stumble in many ways,” as it is written. Yet he says woe will be to the one who lays the stumbling blocks; for he does not leave it unrebuked, but rather restrains carelessness in these things by fear of the penalty. Yet he commands us to bear patiently with those who lay them.

“If he sins against you seven times in the day,” and so on (17:4). “If the one who sinned against you turns,” he says, “and condemns himself, you shall forgive him”—and not once, but very many times. For if someone is weak, and that often, we must not for that reason be seen to be without love for one another and neglectful of long-suffering; we must rather imitate the physicians of bodily sufferings, who treat the sick man not once or twice, but rather as many times as he happens to fall ill. For let us consider that we too are in weaknesses and are overcome by passions; and when we suffer this, we pray that those who have the duty of rebuking us and the authority to punish may be kind and bear us no grudge. We must, then, condescending to one another’s weaknesses, “bear one another’s burdens; for so we shall fulfil the law of Christ.” Observe that in Matthew Peter asks and says: “How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” But here the Lord says to the apostles: “Even if he sins seven times in the day”—that is, often—“and as often condemns himself, you shall forgive him.” “The apostles said to the Lord: Increase our faith” (17:5).

What gladdens the soul of all the saints is not the possession of temporary and earthly things—for these are perishable and easily lost—but rather of those that make those who receive them venerable and blessed. These are, clearly, the God-given and spiritual gifts; and one of them, and an excellent one, is faith, or steadfastness in faith in Christ the Saviour of us all. Paul too knows it to be the chief of the good things in us; indeed he said: “Without faith it is impossible ever to please him.” For by it the elders received their testimony. Observe, then, the holy apostles, who had become imitators of the more ancient saints: for what do they ask of Christ? “Increase our faith.” They do not ask simply for faith, lest you should think them unbelievers; rather they ask Christ for an increase of faith, that is, its confirmation. For of faith, one part is in our power, and the other is given by divine grace. For it is in our power to make the beginning and to have trust and faith in him with all our strength; but its confirmation and strength belong to divine grace. Therefore, since all things are possible with God, the Lord says that all things are possible to him who believes; for the power that comes to us through faith is God’s. Knowing this, the blessed Paul too says in the First Letter to the Corinthians: “For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit.” Do you see how he placed faith too in the list of the spiritual gifts? The disciples asked to receive this from the Saviour, bringing in their own; and he gave it to them after the fulfilment of the economy, through the coming of the Holy Spirit. For before the resurrection their faith was so little settled that they were subject to charges of little faith. … a longing that carries us toward righteousness would come to be in us from God the Father. Indeed the Saviour of all once sailed with the holy apostles on the lake, or sea, of Tiberias, and by design he gave himself to sleep; and when a violent wind stirred up the surge and raised a hard wave against the boat, they were greatly troubled, so that they even woke the Lord, saying: “Master, save us, we are perishing.” He arose, it says, rebuked the surge and changed the savagery of the storm into calm. And he blamed the holy apostles strongly, saying: “Where is your faith?” For they ought not to have been troubled in any way at all, when the Master of all was with them, before whom all his works tremble and shake. And if I must bring forward something else like the first, I will speak again. He commanded the holy apostles to get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side of the lake; and they did so without delay. Having rowed about thirty stadia, it says, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and they became terrified, thinking that what they saw was a phantom. Then he called out to them, saying: “It is I; do not be afraid.” And Peter said: “If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And he said: “Come.” And leaping down from the boat he began to walk; but when he saw, it says, the wind and the wave, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out: “Lord, help me.” He saved him in his danger, but blamed him again, saying: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” That at the time of the passion, when the band of soldiers and the unholy servants came to arrest Jesus, all left him and fled, and that Peter too denied him when one servant girl unsettled him, is not unclear. You saw the disciples still of little faith; marvel at them when they have received an increase of faith from Christ the Saviour of us all. “He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, until they were clothed with power from on high.” And when the power from on high—that is, the grace through the Holy Spirit—came down upon them in the form of fiery tongues, then, yes then, they became bold and vigorous and fervent in spirit, so as to despise death and count as nothing the terrors brought on them by unbelievers; and then they became workers of signs. That firmness in faith is something great and excellent, the Lord shows by saying: “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed”—that is, warm and fervent—“you would say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.” For he who trusts in Christ does not take courage in his own power, but rather ascribes to him the power to accomplish all things. The perfection of all good things in souls, then, admittedly comes from him; yet we must prepare ourselves to become receptive of such grace. For if the power of faith moves what is fixed and rooted in the earth, one might say in general that nothing is so immovable that faith could not shake it, if it needed to be moved. So the earth was shaken when the apostles prayed, as the Acts of the Apostles relate. Clearly faith also does the opposite, and stops things that are moving, such as the swiftest current of a river and the unceasing course of the luminaries moving in heaven.

This, however, must be firmly attended to: God does not cause empty astonishment or idle wonder; such things are far from the divine essence, which is free of conceit and boasting and wholly true; he acts altogether for the benefit and salvation of human beings. I say this so that no one may seek from the divine power useless movements of elements, as it may be, or removals of mountains or plants; nor be impious, as though the word were false if these things do not happen so; nor, again, think there is a weakness in faith if it does not effect these things. But let there be what is useful for true benefit, and the power will not be lacking. “Which of you, having a servant ploughing or keeping sheep?” (17:7).

In what has already passed, a long and extended discourse has been completed by him, pointing out the paths of good repute and displaying the glories of a blameless life, so that, coming through them and advancing with great eagerness toward every admirable thing, we may arrive at the prize of the upward call. But since the human mind is somehow always naturally inclined to be carried down into love of glory, and very readily falls sick with this tendency—and often the occasion of the passion is being in good repute with God for some of the noblest achievements; and this is most grievous and hateful to God, for the dragon, the author of evil, sometimes brings some to such a frame of mind that they think perhaps that God even owes them the highest honours when they lead a glorious and approved life—so that he may free us from such passions, he makes the force of the present passages serve as an example. For he teaches through them that the power of a master’s authority everywhere requires submission from servants as a debt. For the master, he says, will not acknowledge thanks to the servant, even if everything that ought to be done is done by him as befits his servitude. Here, I pray, see the disciples—that is, all who lie under the sceptre of Christ the Saviour of us all—sharpened toward diligence, rendering their service to him not as a favour but paying submission, which befits servants, as a debt. And through this the disease of accursed love of glory is also done away with. For if you do what is owed, why do you think highly of yourself? Do you not see that for one who does not pay what is owed there is danger, but for one who pays it, no thanks? The admirable servant Paul understood and learned this well: “If I preach the gospel,” he says, “I have nothing to boast of; for necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” And again: “I am a debtor of the proclamation of the teaching, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” If, then, you have become approved, have kept the divine commandments and obeyed the Master, do not demand honours from God as a debt, but rather approach asking for what comes from his generosity. Consider that our masters do not acknowledge thanks when some of their servants carry out the service assigned to them; yet often, out of generosity winning the goodwill of their faithful servants, they beget in them a fuller eagerness. So God too demands service of us, using the right of his lordship; but since he is good and generous, he also promises rewards to those who toil; and the greatness of his generosity far outstrips the sweat of those under his yoke. Paul will confirm it, writing: “The sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” And though they are servants, he calls them sons and crowns them with the honour fitting children.

See that one must first plough one’s own flesh, and so shepherd one another. “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household well, how will he care for the church of God?”

“Ten lepers met him” (17:12). Again the Saviour makes his own glory manifest to us, and through his works of majesty befitting God he comes to draw the senseless Israel into the net of faith. But it too was hard and disobedient. What word, then, will help them on the day of judgement, since they did not endure to receive the salvation through Christ, especially since they themselves heard his words and were spectators of his marvellous works beyond reason? Indeed he said of them: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin.” And again: “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen both me and my Father.” A clear proof of what I said just now will be the cleansing of the lepers. For these were driven out of cities and villages as unclean, according to the law of Moses. These things, then, have been said sufficiently beforehand, I think. The lepers, meeting the Saviour, begged to be freed from the evil, and called him Master, that is, teacher.

No one had pity on them as they suffered the disease; but he who appeared on earth for this very reason, and became man to have mercy on all, himself was moved with compassion and pitied them. “He said to them: Go and show yourselves to the priests” (17:14). And why did he not rather say, “I will; be cleansed,” as in the case of another leper, but commanded them instead to show themselves to the priests? Again the law called those freed from leprosy to this; for it ordered them to show themselves to the priests and to offer a sacrifice for their cleansing. As men already healed, then, he ordered them to go, and in some way to bear witness to the priests, that is, the leaders of the Jews, who were always envious of his glory, that beyond hope and wonderfully they had been freed from the evil, Christ granting them healing. He did not heal first, but sent them to the priests, since the priests knew the signs of leprosy and of when it is healed; he sent them to the priests, and sent the healing along with them. About these things, however—what the law of leprosy is, what pertains to the cleansing, and what each of the enactments meant—we have spoken more fully at the beginning of the Saviour’s miracles in Luke; referring those who love learning there, let us go on to what follows. The nine, being Jews, fell into ungrateful forgetfulness and did not return to give glory to God; hence he shows Israel to be altogether hard-hearted and unmindful. But the foreigner, that is, the Samaritan—a foreigner because his race derives from Assyria (for not in vain does it say, “through the midst of Samaria and Galilee”)—returned to glorify God with a loud voice. So he shows that Samaritans are grateful, while Jews, even when they are benefited, are ungrateful. “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming” (17:20).

That the Lord would come at the appointed times in our form the prophets proclaimed beforehand, and it has been fulfilled; for he appeared to those on earth, taking the form of a servant, while being even so in natural lordship, and in authority and glory befitting God. For the brilliance of his achievements showed him to us as such. But you did not believe in him, foolish Pharisee; you did not accept the justification he gives. How, then, do you ask when the kingdom of God is coming? He mocks the mystery, so venerable and truly admirable. For since the Saviour of all, in his discourses to everyone, everywhere made mention of the kingdom of God, the wretches deride it; or perhaps, having it in mind that he would endure death on the tree, caught in the net of their perversities for this, they mock and say: “When is the kingdom of God coming?”—as if to say, “Before the kingdom you speak of, a cross and death will take you.” What, then, does Christ say to this? He shows again his patience and his incomparable love for humankind; for “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten.” So he does not rebuke them sharply; but, since they were wicked, he does not count them worthy of a proper answer to their question, except that alone which, he says, is for the benefit of every human being: “The kingdom of God is within you; it does not come with observation.” “Do not ask about times,” he says, “at which he will shine forth again, that is, when the time of the kingdom of heaven will arrive; rather be eager to attain it; for it is within you,” that is, it lies in your choices and in your power to receive it. For it is possible for every human being who has become rich in justification in Christ—through faith, clearly—and made bright by every virtue, to attain the kingdom of heaven. In actuality it is outside those from whose heart evil reasonings come forth; but in potential it is within all. For that the kingdom of God was within even the Pharisees, though they did not know it and thought that it would come at some time to a place from outside, John shows when he says of Christ: “Among you stands one whom you do not know.” “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it” (17:22).

In saying these things he wants them to be ready for everything that naturally causes grief, and to prepare themselves beforehand for endurance, so that, having been approved, they may be able to enter the kingdom of God. He announces beforehand, then, that before his coming from heaven, which will be at the consummation of the age, tribulation and persecution will come on, so that they will desire to see one day of his—that is, one day of the time when they still lived and spent their days with Christ. And yet the wickedness of the Jews against him was very great; for they threw stones at him; they persecuted him not once but very many times; they led him to the brow of the hill to throw him down; they grieved him with insults and false accusations; and there was no kind of perversity the Jews did not practise. How, then, did he say that the disciples would desire to see one day of his? By comparison with the evils that surpass them, the lesser are somehow preferable; for after his ascension they experienced greater tribulations. “For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven,” and so on (17:24).

But he declared that he will come down from heaven, not obscurely or imperceptibly, but in glory befitting God, dwelling in unapproachable light, by saying that his coming will be like lightning. For he was born according to the flesh and of a woman to fulfil the economy toward us; and for this reason he emptied himself and humbled himself, and was not manifestly in the glory of the Godhead; for the time and the need of the economy called for this. But after the resurrection from the dead, having flown up to heaven and sat with God the Father, he will come down again, not in diminished glory nor in human meanness, but in the Father’s excellence, a multitude of angels escorting him and standing by him as God and Lord of all. He will come, then, like lightning, and not secretly. And no one is to be believed who says, “Look, here; look, there.” He cuts away another suspicion from the disciples’ hearts; for they thought that, having travelled about Judea and then come to Jerusalem, he would at once display the kingdom of God; indeed they came to him saying: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And the mother of the sons of Zebedee too, expecting this to happen, came asking for seats. So that they might know, then, that he must first undergo the saving passion, abolish death by the death of his own flesh, remove sin from the world, and abolish the ruler of this age, and then ascend to the Father and shine forth at the appointed times to judge the world in righteousness, he says that he must first suffer many things. That he will shine forth unexpectedly, as it were with no one knowing, and the end of the present age will arrive, he shows by saying that the consummation will be as it was in the days of Noah and Lot. They lived in luxury, he says, without care: they ate, they drank, they sold, they bought, they built. But the rush of waters destroyed the one, and the others became the work and food of divine fire. What, then, is shown by this? He wishes us to be awake always, and ready for our defence before the divine judgement seat. “In that day, whoever is on the housetop, with his goods in the house,” and so on (17:31).

He commands us to disregard every earthly and passing thing, and to look to one aim: that each must save his own soul. “Whoever, then, is on the housetop,” he says, “let him not come down into the house to take his goods.” By this he seems to wish to indicate the one who lives in ease and wealth and worldly distinction; for those standing on housetops are always somehow conspicuous to those around the house. “If, then, anyone is such,” he says, “let him take no account, at that time, of the goods stored in the house; for these are useless and contribute nothing to his benefit.” “For treasures do not profit the lawless,” as it is written, “but righteousness delivers from death.” “But even if someone is in the field,” he says, “let him not turn back”—that is, if someone is found engaged in diligence and labours, tending spiritual fruitfulness and gathering the wages of good things from his sweat, let him not turn back; for, as Christ himself said again somewhere, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and turns back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.” For we must hold to the sacred pursuits with impulses that never turn back, so that we may not suffer what the woman in Sodom happened to suffer; taking her as an example he says: “Remember Lot’s wife.” For having gone out of Sodom and then turned back, she became a pillar of salt, that is, she was made foolish and turned to stone. We must, then, hold vigorously to the aim set before us.

“Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it” (17:33). How someone loses his own life in order to save it, or in what way the one who thought he was saving it loses it, Paul will make clear when he says about the saints: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” For those who have truly become genuine to Christ our Saviour crucify their own flesh, that is, put it to death—engaging, clearly, in labours and in the contests for piety, and mortifying its mind. For it is written: “Put to death your members that are on the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.” Those, then, who are put to death for these things have saved their own life; but those who love the pleasure-loving life perhaps think they are gaining their own life, yet they altogether lose it. “For he who sows to the flesh,” he says, “will from the flesh reap corruption.” And in another way too, one who has lost his own life will altogether save it: the blessed martyrs did this, enduring contests to the point of life and blood, and binding on their own heads, like a crown, the genuineness of their love for Christ. But those who from an unmanly soul and mind denied the faith and escaped the immediate death of the flesh have become the murderers of their own souls; for they will go down to Hades and pay the penalty for their cowardice.

“On this night there will be two on one bed; the one will be taken and the other left” (17:34). He calls the time of judgement night, I think because of the unclearness and unexpectedness of his coming. By the two on one bed he seems to hint at those in ease and wealth, sharing an equal lot with one another as to being in worldly comforts; for a bed is a symbol of rest. “But one of them,” he says, “will be taken and one is left.” How, or in what way? For not all who have been in wealth and ease in this life have been wicked and harsh. For what? If someone is rich but kind and compassionate and right in faith, he is taken; but the other, as not having been such, will be left. By the women grinding he seems to indicate those in poverty and toils; but among these too, he says, there is a great difference. For those who bear the burden of poverty nobly and live soberly and reasonably will be taken, being clearly righteous; but those who are not such, but rather clever at wrongdoing and practitioners of every baseness, will be left, to be subjected to the penalty by fire. There will be, then, among them too a very full and exact testing of character; and the good will be taken, but the one who is not such will be left.

When he said “will be taken,” the disciples usefully and necessarily ask: “Where, Lord? And he said to them: Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” And what is this? From a common and most obvious fact he hints at a great and deep mystery. And what is it? He will come down from heaven to judge the world in righteousness; but he himself, he says, will send his angels, and they will choose the righteous and holy from among the sinners and bring them to him; but the others they leave on earth, clearly to be punished. The all-wise Paul indicates something of this kind, writing: “For I say to you that we who are alive, who are left, will not precede those who have fallen asleep; but he will sound the trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise incorruptible, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; and we who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.” As, then, when a dead body lies, the carrion birds run together to it, so when the Son of Man arrives, then all the eagles—that is, those who fly on high and are lifted above earthly and worldly things—will run together to him.

“That they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (18:1). We must pray without ceasing, then, according to the word of the blessed Paul, knowing well and believing firmly that he who is called upon can accomplish all things. “For let him ask,” he says, “in faith, with no doubting; for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” “For let that man not suppose,” he says, “that he will receive anything from the Lord”; for the one who doubts is admittedly insolent. For if you have not believed that he will fulfil your request, do not come at all, lest you be found an accuser of the Almighty, having been double-minded in folly. We must, then, refuse so shameful a disease. And that God will grant the petitions of those who make them not carelessly or negligently, but earnestly and without ceasing, the present parable will assure us. For if the widow’s continual approach shamed the unjust judge, who neither feared God nor respected man, so that he gave her justice even against his will, how will he who is compassionate and hates evil, who always extends his saving hand to those who love him, not receive those who come to him day and night, and give them justice as his elect? But come, come, let us consider who in general are those who wrong them. Very many wrong the saints, and in many things, when they rightly divide the word of truth: those ignorant of the sacred doctrines and carried away from all correctness. These are the foul and profane workshops of the heretics, which one might call gates of death; these bring persecutions and afflictions on those who walk straight in the faith. Against these those known to God make their supplications, imitating the holy apostles, who cried out against the perversity of the Jews and said: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness.” But perhaps someone will say: Christ said somewhere to the holy apostles, “Love your enemies, pray for those who abuse you.” How, then, shall we pray against them without disregarding the divine commandment? To this we say: shall we then pray that boldness and strength be given them by God, so that they may not allow those who hold the same faith as we to teach the mysteries? And how is the thing not altogether foolish? So when offences from anyone come against ourselves, then, yes then, we shall make our boast of bearing no grudge against them and of love for one another; then, imitating the holy fathers, even if they strike us, insult us, or bring on us other kinds of injustice, we shall free them from every charge and be superior to anger and grief. But when some sin against the very glory of God, heaping wars and afflictions on those who minister the divine proclamation as priests, then we approach God, seeking his help and crying out against those who fight against his glory—just as the great Moses did; for he said: “Arise, O Lord; let your enemies be scattered; let all who hate your name flee.” And the very thing said by the holy apostles would show that the weakening of the persecutors’ hand somehow contributes to the benefit of the divine proclamation: “Look,” it says, “upon their threats”—that is, bring their uprisings to nothing—“and grant to your servants to speak your word with boldness.” For that some were going to peddle the words of orthodoxy and carry many away from sound faith he declared beforehand, saying: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (18:8).

… this. How so? For he is God, who knows all things. He hints that the love of many will grow cold, and that some in the last times will run away from the right and blameless faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and to the lies of men seared in mind; against whom we approach God as his true servants, begging that their wickedness and their attempts against his glory may be shown to be ineffective. But others too wrong those who serve God, against whom our approach through prayer will be beyond reproach. And who are these again? The wicked and opposing powers, and Satan, the adversary of all, who savagely rises up against those who wish to live well, who casts the drowsy into the pits of baseness, who plants in us the seeds of every sin; for he presses on unbearably with his own shield-bearers. Over this very thing the Psalmist cried out against him, saying: “How long will you set upon a man? You all murder, as at a leaning wall and a pushed fence.” For as a wall that has already begun to lean, and a fence that has been pushed, or overturned, fall readily when someone pushes them, so the human mind, having of itself a very strong inclination toward worldly pleasures, falls readily toward them when someone draws and provokes it; and this is Satan’s work. About these, then, we shall say in our prayers to him who is able to save: “Give me justice against my adversary.” This the only-begotten Word of God did when he became man; for he cast the ruler of this age out of his tyranny over us, rescued and saved us, and brought us under the yokes of his own kingdom. For some of you, as true servants, will be kept by God in firmness of faith while on earth. Good, then, is the intercession made through frequent prayer; for Christ will receive our petitions and fulfil our requests. For if the widow’s persistence and endurance softened the judge of unrighteousness, who was shameless toward both God and men and full of all wickedness, how much more shall we draw the Father of mercy to compassion, even if he is long-suffering for the present? Some have tried to interpret this parable too curiously, saying that the widow is the soul that has cast off the devil, and her adversary the devil himself, against whom she approaches God, the judge of unrighteousness—that is, the one who condemns unrighteousness—who has no God whom he will fear, nor shows partiality to a man, and who pities the soul persisting before him. But some have taken these things rashly and badly. The Lord, however, to show that at the time of the consummation one must use prayer intensely against the dangers then, adds: “Will he find faith when he comes?”—setting forth its rarity in the form of a question. For he is accustomed to use the interrogative mode for what is rare, as here too, showing that those who keep the faith will be few, and that he will find it in few on the earth when he comes on the clouds. That you may learn how much loss there is in condemning others and not repenting of one’s own faults, we shall assure you from the Gospels themselves. This blessed Luke, then, says about Christ our Saviour: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.” And what is the parable?

“Two men went up into the temple to pray,” and so on (18:10). He teaches us in what manner we should make our petitions to him, so that the thing may not be found without reward for those who practise it, and so that no one, through the very things by which he thinks he is benefited, may provoke against himself God, the giver of the gifts from above; for it is written: “There is a righteous man perishing in his righteousness.” For see, here the Pharisee is condemned because he did not make his prayer with understanding. Many are the charges against him. First, he is tiresome and senseless; for he admired himself, though the sacred Writing cries: “Let your neighbour praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” Next, he did not know that to be better than the wicked does not by all means make anyone admirable; but to strive to rival those accustomed to be approved makes one bright and distinguished and numbered among those justly admired.

The tax collector, then, stood far off, not daring, so to speak, to lift his eyes on high, but with a blushing look showing the soul’s lack of boldness. Do you see that, having laid aside boldness as one who does not have it, he is struck by the reproofs of conscience? For he fears even to be seen by God, as having cared little for his laws; and by his very outward posture he accuses his own baseness: he beats his breast, confesses his offences, shows his disease as to a physician, and begs to be pitied.

So the tax collector was not despised. For what does the Judge of all, who knows the hearts and receives the prayers of all, say about him who confessed his own sins? “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” For even if someone is kind and reasonable, let him not for this reason fall sick with arrogance; let him rather remember Christ, saying to the holy apostles: “When you have done these things”—clearly, what is commanded—“say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do.” For we owe the God over all service, as under a necessary yoke, submission in every matter. Do you see how the tax collector put off his sins by bearing meekly the Pharisee’s accusation? The one fell from glory into the pit of dishonour; the other, from a life of reproach, was set in the midst of nearness to God and returned to a blessed state, drawn up far into the place of boldness; the one was humbled from his swelling, the other exalted from his humility.

“They were bringing even infants to him, that he might touch them” (18:15). … women, and the mothers were bringing infants, that he might lay his hands on them; but the disciples, thinking the thing a nuisance, held them back. He, however, received them very gladly, saying: “Let them be; for of such is the kingdom.” From this it is easy to see that the newborn child is a symbol of innocence; for the infant is like a new creation. The disciples did not rebuke the infants out of envy, but rather rendered the teacher his due, as it were keeping off superfluous annoyances. But Christ does not wish us to be without understanding when he says, “For of such is the kingdom of heaven,” but to be infants in wickedness and mature in mind. For the infant, knowing either very little or nothing at all, would reasonably be free of the charge of baseness and wickedness; and we too must become like them, living a simple and guileless life. But we must be mature in mind, having a firm understanding, so as to know clearly who the God of all is, and to keep away from diabolical stumbling blocks. For this is the definition of philosophy: to be without pretence, together with understanding.

“A certain ruler asked him,” and so on (18:18). The ruler spoken of here, supposed to be someone exact in the law, thought he could convict Christ of dishonouring the commandment given through Moses and introducing laws of his own. So he comes and pretends to speak kindly; for he calls him teacher and names him good, and professes a wish to become a disciple. But since he asked to test him, he who catches the wise in their craftiness fittingly says to him: “If you have not believed that I am God, how have you applied to me what befits only the supreme nature, and call me good, whom you have thought to be a man like you?” For God is good by nature, and to be good is his own dignity, essentially inherent and exceptional; but angels and we are good by participation. This was the aim of Christ’s saying. But perhaps one who shares in Arius’s impiety will not endure the correctness of these thoughts, saying: “See, he plainly denied that he is good, and ascribes it as fitting only to God the Father. But if he were consubstantial with him,” he says, “and from him by nature, would he not himself also be good as God?” But we must say to them: since every right and exact account knows the Son to be consubstantial with the Father, how is he not good, being God? For a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor does a river that is not sweet come forth from a sweet spring. The Son, then, is the good fruit of the good God, and as his image shows in his own nature the beauty of the one who begot him. But this suffices for the present. It has also been said in Matthew …

While the ruler expected to hear Christ say, “Leap away from the writings of Moses and come over to my decrees,” he did not say this, seeing in a manner most befitting God the purpose in the one testing him; but as though there were no other commandments except those given through Moses, he sends the man to them and says: “You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not murder,” and so on (18:20). The law, indeed, forbids every kind of baseness and exposes the ways of impiety as counterfeit. “For you shall not commit adultery,” it says, “you shall not murder,” and the rest, plainly forbidding both murder and lusting madly after other men’s marriages, and condemning also theft and perjury and false witness, and fixing penalties for those who offend. Then it commanded us to take care to revere our parents, setting rewards worth acquiring before those who wish to be approved: “For honour your father and your mother,” it says, “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” The perverse man, clever at wrongdoing, thought, though the one he questioned was God, that he would trap him without effort into answering as suited him; but Christ, though he was wicked, did not drive him away. “But when he heard these things, he became very sad.”

The ruler of the synagogue of the Jews, being an old wineskin, could not hold the new wine, but burst and was useless; for he was grieved, though he had received a lesson that brings eternal life.

… not the animal, but the thick rope used on ships …

For it is possible for them, if they do not choose to slip away from all that they have, to win approval in another way: to make friends by means of the unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails, they may receive them into the eternal dwellings.

“We have left everything and followed you” (18:28). Matthew adds to these words: “What then will we have?” To this someone will say: What in fact did the disciples leave, or for what do they ask Christ for a repayment? What do we say to this? It was chiefly for this reason that they made the question most necessary. For having possessed nothing except small and paltry things, they wish to learn in what way God will reward even those who have left very little for the sake of the kingdom of God—that is, through desiring to attain the kingdom of heaven, through love for him. For the rich man who has despised much will confidently expect the rewards; but the one who possessed little and then gave it up—how should he not learn what hopes he will have? Besides this, this too must be said: to lose much or little would be equal for those who suffer it, by right reasoning. So, as regards obedience and purpose, those who are not like the rich, but use equal eagerness and willingly endure the giving up of what they have, would be reckoned in equal rank with those who possess much. Then what does Christ say to them?

“Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or parents,” and so on (18:29). The voice befits God, and the sentence is holy; for it brings all the hearers back to firm hope; and he makes the promise sworn, as it were, placing “amen” before the saying, as if fulfilling the function of an oath. We must inquire who those may be who leave father or mother, wife and brothers and houses, and then examine closely how such people may receive many times more in the present time. Some leave a father, then, and sometimes neglect affection for their whole family, through love for Christ; and in what way, he himself will teach us, saying: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” And: “I came to divide a man from his father,” and what follows. For when the divine proclamation was drawing the world under heaven into the net of faith in him, some wished to go toward it, but perhaps were wary of fathers or mothers who were unbelieving and wicked; and fathers often could not bear to grieve their sons by running to the faith. The same account would hold of brothers toward brothers, and of a daughter-in-law toward her mother-in-law and of her toward her. But those firm in faith put nothing before their love for Christ, making no account of their kin according to the flesh. It remains to consider how one who leaves these will receive many times more in the present age. Will he then be the husband of many wives, or find many fathers on earth instead of one, his kin according to the flesh thus multiplied? We do not say this; but that he who has left fleshly and temporary things will receive things far better, and as it were many times more than those he despised. For the apostles too, having left little, were filled with the Holy Spirit, obtained gifts of every kind, and became chosen and celebrated by those everywhere. So all of us who have believed in Christ and loved his name shall be like them. Even if someone leaves a house, he will receive the dwellings above; even if he loses a father, he has the Father in heaven; even if he comes to be far from his brothers, Christ will take him into brotherhood; when he leaves the wife who shares his home, he will find the wisdom from above and from God, from whom he will beget a fruitful offspring; even if he leaves his mother, he will find the Jerusalem above, which is free and is our mother. “All the things written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished” (18:31).

By foretelling what would happen, he cuts away beforehand both absurd reasonings and every occasion of stumbling. For those who had seen his divine signs and had been strengthened by his words toward courage were going to see him enduring the mockery of the Jews, being crucified and dishonoured. It was likely, then, that, stumbling at these very things, they would think and say within themselves: “He who is so great in strength, who works wonders by a nod alone, who says that the Father’s providence reaches even to sparrows, the Only-begotten and Firstborn—how was he ignorant of what would happen, and how has he been hunted down by enemies, he who promises to save even us?” So that they might know, then, that he both foreknew his passion and, though he could easily have escaped, went to it willingly, he declares beforehand what would happen. And he necessarily added that everything had been foretold through the holy prophets, God having arranged even this beforehand usefully, so that when it happened no one might stumble. For he who foreknew what would happen could have avoided suffering altogether; but he was not forced by anyone; he chose to suffer willingly, knowing well that his suffering would be salvation for the whole world. For he underwent death according to the flesh, but he rose, having trampled corruption, and through his resurrection from the dead planted his own life in human bodies; for the whole of human nature was in him, running back to incorruption.

“They understood none of these things” (18:34). The Saviour of all foretold these things to the holy apostles, but they did not understand, it says, what was said; for they did not yet know exactly what had been proclaimed beforehand by the holy prophets. Indeed the foremost among the disciples, not yet understanding the depth of the mystery, opposed him, saying: “God forbid, Lord; this shall never happen to you.” And he was rebuked for saying this. But when Christ came back to life from the dead, he opened their eyes, as one of the holy evangelists wrote; for they were enlightened, having become rich in an abundant share of the Spirit, so as to say: “And we have the prophetic word more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” (18:38). This man came to him as to God, who can do all things; but he calls him Son of David; for, having been brought up in Judaism and being a native, he was not ignorant of what had been foretold about him through the law and the holy prophets, and that according to the flesh he was of the family of David. So, as having already believed that the Word, being God, willingly underwent birth according to the flesh—from the holy Virgin, I mean—he approaches him as God, saying: “Have mercy on me, Son of David.” That he made his supplication with this disposition Christ will bear witness when he says to him: “Your faith has saved you.” Let those who divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two imitate this man who was sick in his eyes: he approaches Christ the Saviour of all as God, and names him both Lord and Son of David. He bears witness to his glory by seeking from him an activity most befitting God; let them marvel at the steadfastness of his confession. For some rebuked him as he confessed his faith; but he did not give up, nor was his boldness hindered by those who tried to stop him. Faith knows how to fight against all things and conquer all things; so they rebuked him, but the believer did not shrink back, but followed the Master, knowing that shamelessness on behalf of piety is good. For if many are shameless for the sake of money, ought we not to put on good shamelessness for the salvation of the soul? … the voice of one who calls on the Lord with faith; and the blind man was fittingly honoured by Christ; for he was called by him and ordered to come near, so that he who had first drawn near to him by faith might draw near also in body. So faith presents us too and brings us near to Christ, so that we are counted worthy of words from him. When the blind man had been brought near, he asked him, saying: “What do you want me to do for you?” Was he then ignorant of the request? And how could this make sense? He asked, then, by design, so that those standing around, or walking along with him, might learn that he was not asking him for money, but for a divine activity, as from God. Was the blind man, then, freed from his sickness but careless of being a lover of Christ? Not at all; rather he showed his gratitude by his deeds. And he was freed from a double blindness, both the bodily one and that of mind and heart; for he would not have glorified him as God if he had not truly received sight. And he became for others too an occasion of glorifying him.

“Behold, a man called by name Zacchaeus” (19:2). Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and with him love of money was in great intensity, and greed was his aim; for this is the practice of tax collectors. Paul calls this idolatry, as perhaps fitting only for those who do not know God. For this reason the Lord very fittingly ranked tax collectors, who had put shameless boldness on their faces, with prostitutes, saying thus to the leaders of the Jews: “The prostitutes and the tax collectors are going before you into the kingdom of God.” But Zacchaeus did not remain in these things; he was counted worthy of mercy from Christ; for he is the one who calls near those far off, and enlightens those who were darkened. Come, let us see what the way of Zacchaeus’s conversion was.

He desired to see Jesus; for a seed of salvation had sprouted in him. Christ saw this with the eyes of the Godhead; looking up, then, he saw him with the eyes of his humanity too; and since his aim was that all people should be saved, he holds out his gentleness, and encouraging him says: “Make haste and come down.” For he sought to see him, and the crowd hindered him—not so much the crowd of people as that of his sins. He was also small in stature, not only bodily but also spiritually; and he could not see him otherwise unless he was lifted from the earth and climbed the sycamore, by which Christ was going to pass. The saying contains a riddle. For no one can see Christ and believe in him otherwise unless he is lifted onto the sycamore, making foolish his members that are on the earth—sexual immorality, impurity, and the rest. And Christ, it says, was going to pass by the sycamore; for, having walked the way of life of the law, which is the fig tree, he chose the foolish things of the world, that is, the cross and death. And everyone who takes up his cross and follows Christ’s way of life is saved, working the law with understanding—a fig tree that bears not figs but foolish fruit; for the work hidden for the faithful appears foolishness to the Jews: circumcision of wickedness, and rest from base action, not literally circumcising the foreskin and keeping the Sabbath. He knew him, then, to be ready for obedience, warm in faith, and easily changed from wickedness to virtue; therefore he calls him, and goes to win him. And he “made haste and came down, and received him joyfully”—not only because he saw him as he sought, but because he was also called by him, and because he received him as he would never have expected. “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for today I must stay at your house” (19:5).

This is divine foreknowledge, for he knew well what would be: he saw a man’s soul inclining most readily to choosing a holy life, and he transferred it to piety. For he received Jesus joyfully, it says; for he obtained what he did not expect. But perhaps someone might say to Christ the Saviour of us all: “Do you lodge with Zacchaeus, the chief of the tax collectors, who has not yet washed off his ways of greed?” “Yes,” he says. “I know this, being God by nature, overseeing the ways of each of those on earth, and having besides the knowledge of things to come. I have called to repentance one who is eager for it.”

“Half of my goods, Lord, I give to the poor” (19:8). Do you see how the chief of the tax collectors, the lover of money, at once became merciful and a lover of the poor, promising to distribute his wealth to the needy and making amends to those he had wronged, according to the law that commands four sheep to be repaid for one, according to David’s judgement about the man said to have robbed the poor man of his ewe lamb? “For he shall restore the lamb fourfold,” it says. “Today salvation has come to this house” (19:9).

For wherever Christ enters, there is salvation by all means; and Christ announces salvation to Zacchaeus not with postponements or promises, but today, since he too at once did what he promised. For he did not say, “I will give half, and I will repay fourfold to those I have wronged”; for he had heard Solomon: “Do not say, Come back, and tomorrow I will give”; but, “Behold,” he says, “I give, and I repay.” Therefore Christ too says: today you give, today salvation is yours. The Jews, then, ought to have rejoiced over Zacchaeus’s wonderful salvation, since he too was counted among the sons of Abraham, to whom God promised through the holy prophets the redemption through Christ. “He went on to tell a parable: A certain nobleman,” and so on (19:11–12).

Through the parable in hand he hints at once at his first arrival among human beings, his departure from here, his reception of the kingdom after this, and on top of these his second divine appearing, awaited by us in good hopes; and that at that time he will reign over those worthy of him, making them partners of his good things and indeed of the kingdom; but for those who in the present life refused the proclamation and enrolled themselves in the ranks of enemies and foes, he will be an inexorable judge. He declared these things in the manner of a parable, teaching clearly that the time of his kingdom had not yet arrived then, while he made these things known as he lived among men. He said and taught these things while staying in Jericho and setting out at last for Jerusalem; and he said them necessarily, since there was much talk about him among all, as though he were about to receive at once, then, in Jerusalem, the kingdom proclaimed through the prophets. Countless things caused this supposition among the many: the miracles he did and the marvellous mighty works by which he firmly persuaded the onlookers to consider him the Christ announced to them from their fathers and expected. Since, then, they supposed that the time of his kingdom was already present, he necessarily corrected those who thought so of their false opinion. As we said, then, the aim of the parable sketches, as in brief, the whole force of the economy that has come about for us, and the mystery of Christ from beginning to end. For the Word, being God, became man, and for this reason was called a servant; but he was and is nobly born, as to his ineffable birth from the Father. Having completed the mystery of the economy in the flesh, he went back up to the glory that belongs to him by nature, and as it were went away to a far country; for heaven is a country other than the earth; and he went up to receive a kingdom for himself. But how does he who reigns over all with the Father go up to him to receive a kingdom? Clearly, the Father gives this too to the Son who has become man; for having gone back up to heaven, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, waiting from that time until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

“Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas” (19:13). For the Saviour gives to those who have believed in him the diversity of the divine gifts; for this is what we say the ten minas are. But there is a great difference between these and those who denied his kingdom altogether: for the latter rise up against him, while the former bear the boast of serving him. So as his true servants they were entrusted with the Master’s wealth, so that by gaining something more they might win the praises that befit faithfulness. “But his citizens,” it says, “hated him.” Christ reproached the Jews with this: “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” They did not want him to reign over them, though the prophet Zechariah cried out: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; for behold, your king comes to you, righteous and saving.” And Isaiah likewise: “Behold,” he says, “a righteous king will reign, and rulers will rule with judgement.” Yes, and Christ himself said somewhere through the lyre of the Psalmist: “But I have been established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.” They denied his kingdom, then, saying to Pilate: “We have no king but Caesar.” “When he returned, having received the kingdom” (19:15).

When the nobleman, then—clearly Christ—has returned after receiving the kingdom, the ministers of the word will obtain praises and revel in the highest honours. For having multiplied the talent tenfold or fivefold by winning many, they will be over ten cities or five; that is, they will rule again, not only over those they ruled before, but also over many others besides.

Even now the Saviour distributes talents to his own servants, according to the parable in the Gospels. So open wide your hearts and receive them joyfully; become approved bankers; trade skilfully with what was given; multiply it by your good deeds. Great and fitting for saints is the boast, and it wins the praises of faithfulness. And why do I say this, leaving aside what is still greater? It makes one a citizen of heaven, raises one to a kingdom, and makes one glorified together with Christ the Saviour of us all. Let us see this from the gospel writings themselves. The one who received the five talents from the master of the house and gained five more besides—what does he come saying? “Lord, you gave me five talents; see, I have made five more.” Do you see how great the boast of diligence is? And what did Christ say to him? “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Lord.” What is greater than this in power? What more desirable for well-being? Praises from Christ, and the Master’s sentence crowning the diligent, calls faithful the one who has borne fruit spiritually. For did he bring the profit to the Master? Does he need anything for himself? He is the fullness of all things, and as the all-wise John says, “From his fullness we have all received.” But when we gain ourselves and benefit others too, then Christ rejoices; he counts our good repute as wealth. And I will say what is greater still: he makes the matter as it were his food. That what I say is true you will learn again from the gospel writings. He admonished the woman from Samaria; then, when she said, “When the Messiah comes, he will tell us all things,” he made himself manifest, saying: “I who speak to you am he.” And the woman hurries off at a run and initiated the city of the Samaritans. But Christ, knowing that many would believe in him, said to the holy disciples: “I have food to eat that you do not know.” For the salvation of the lost nourishes, as it were, his most gentle nature. The true servant, then—for I will go back again to the aim of the discourse—bound on the crown of goodness; for he was brought into the joy of his own master. But the one who received the one talent, and then became lazy, gained nothing at all, but rather hid it in the earth, fell under the extreme penalties. Let us flee imitating him; let us send away from our understanding the unprofitable and accursed sloth—sloth, clearly, in good pursuits; let us not bury in idleness the grace given us by Christ. The God of all says somewhere through the voice of Isaiah: “Priest, speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” But what if the teacher weaves for his hearers words that are accustomed to benefit, while they do not store the initiation in mind and heart, but merely applaud, repay the initiator with bare praises, and remain without a taste of the sacred teachings? Is it then fitting for the initiator to grow slack? Then what words will he find at the divine judgement seat to help him, when he blames the hearers’ indolence and says that his sloth was well grounded because of it? For he will rather be condemned, as one can see from the gospel parable. For the one who received the talent from the master of the house buried it in the earth, and having it unmultiplied, brought it saying: “Lord, see, you have what is yours.” Was he then praised and counted worthy of rewards, or rather condemned as lazy? “For you ought,” he says, “to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received what is mine with interest.” So I pay out the Master’s money to you as to skilled bankers; and you, receiving it, store what is given in your mind and hide it in the depth of your own heart, knowing well that seeds sent into the earth bear fruit when covered with clods, but those left uncovered are snatched away. The one who lent the talents will say to you too: “If I am a severe man,” he says, “reaping where I did not sow, why did you not give the grace given you”—for this is the mina—“to the bankers, that is, set it before those who know well how to test what comes from you, for their enjoyment? For at my coming I would have exacted, that is, demanded, what is mine with interest.” For it belongs to teachers to sow the beneficial and saving word among the hearers; but it is a work of the power from God to call the hearers to obedience and render their mind fruitful.

The lazy servant, having made the gift dead and not worked with it, will be stripped even of the gift given him; but those who walked the better way will be in the increase of the good things from above.

It should be noted that the other evangelist knows also of differences in quantity in the distribution of the talents: “To one,” he says, “he gave five talents, to another two, to another one,” making the distribution in proportion to the measures of each. Come, let us say who those may be who are entrusted. Those mature in habit, for whom solid food is fitting, who know how to initiate rightly, directing themselves and others to every practice, such as the inspired disciples were and those who after them succeeded to the same ministry: to these the Saviour gives the diversity of the divine gifts, so that they may be lights in the world, holding fast the word of life. These, admonishing the peoples under their hand, add to the talent and will gain the lot fitting for the saints.

Those who did not wish the nobleman to reign over them were slaughtered before him. Those of the blood of Israel suffered this; for having denied the kingdom of Christ, they fell into the extreme calamities, and the wicked perished wickedly.

“And they brought it to Jesus” (19:35). The colt is brought, two disciples having been sent by Christ; for two orders serve him in this, prophets and apostles, through whom the nations, of whom the colt is a type, are drawn into the net of faith. It is brought from a village, so that by this too he might show the unrighteous mind of the nations, who lived not lawfully but wildly and carelessly. But it was changed to gentleness; for it came under Christ, who teaches all things. Another evangelist said also that children, holding up palm branches, ran before him and glorified him together with the disciples, so that through them too we might see, as if painted on a tablet, the new people from the nations; for it is written: “And a people being created will praise the Lord.”

… that of punishment, clearly: the outer darkness prepared for the devil and his angels; this is the lot of the pitiless. “As he went along,” and so on (19:36).

Christ went up to Jerusalem to endure the cross for the salvation and life of all, and he sat on the colt; and the crowds of the Jews came to meet him, and young children with them, and they hastened to crown him with many acclamations and applause. For some spread their garments on the road, and others, still very young in age, holding up branches of palm trees on high, made Christ their song, saying: “Peace in heaven”—for God is no longer at war with us, but walks in our country, the country of his enemies, and for this is glorified by the angels; for the King above came down below and made one obedience.

“And some of the Pharisees from the crowd said,” and so on (19:39). But those who had been allotted to lead did not seem to agree with the zeal of the multitude; for the envious Pharisees gnashed their teeth and were indignant at this cry of the children, since one seen as a man accepted the hymnody fitting for God; and the bold men came to him, all but protesting and saying: “Do you not hear what these are saying?”—as if to say, “Though you are a man, do you allow yourself to be glorified and hymned as God, and accept from the children the acclamations fitting for God?” And what does Christ say to this? Was he then indignant with the children? Did he shake off the glorification? Did he rebuke those who acclaimed him as God? Not at all; rather he said to the fault-finders, muzzling them: “If these are silent, the stones will cry out.” Do you see how he who rode on the colt, the Son of David according to the flesh, bore witness to himself of the glory of the Godhead? But he was not a sharer in another’s glory, as the opponents of Christ say, nor was he a Son by himself, inferior beside the Word from God the Father; therefore he is named God and Lord and Most High. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,” and so on (19:41).

The God of all said somewhere through the voice of Jeremiah about the Jews: “Call them rejected silver, for the Lord has rejected them.” And again: “Hear, O earth: behold, I bring evils upon this people, the fruit of their turning away, for they did not attend to my word and they rejected my law.” The fruits of their turning away, then, were the grim things that befell them. Yet even when they were of such a mind, Christ pitied them, “who wishes all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Indeed, seeing the city, it says, he wept, so that by this we might learn that he was grieved—if one must say anything of this kind at all about God, who is beyond all. But we would not have known that he pitied them, wicked as they were, unless he had made it plain through a human act; for it was not possible to see him suffering it; and a tear shed is a sign of grief. So he wept also over Lazarus, so that we might understand that human nature, fallen into death, grieved him. “For he created all things for incorruption; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” Yet the devil’s envy did not prove stronger than the Creator’s will; but it was necessary that a penalty should follow the transgression of the commandment, carrying down into corruption the one who had dishonoured the laws of life. So, then, we say that he wept over Jerusalem too; for he wished, as I said, to see it approved, by accepting faith in him and embracing peace with God. Christ blames it, then, for this very thing, and says: “If you had known, even you, the things that make for your peace”—that is, the things useful and necessary for you to be at peace with God. And these were faith, obedience, abstaining from the types and from worship under the law, and choosing instead worship in spirit and truth, clearly that through Christ.

“But now they are hidden from your eyes” (19:42). For they were not worthy to know, that is, to understand, the divinely inspired Scriptures, which speak the mystery of Christ. “For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the Old Testament; for whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart, not being lifted, because it is abolished in Christ.” For he, being the truth, ends the shadow; but since they did not attend to the types of the law, they did not see the truth. Those of Israel showed themselves unworthy of the salvation in Christ. For this reason by the holy sentence of God they were hidden from them: the things that produce peace with God have been hidden from Jerusalem, of which one, and the first, is faith, which justifies the ungodly and joins those who have it through sanctification and righteousness to the all-holy God.

“Because you did not know the time of your visitation” (19:44). What visitation? That, I mean, through Christ the Saviour of us all; and the outcome is plain. For those who believed escaped the capture, having known the one who came to visit and save them, and having obtained peace from the Romans; so that if the whole city too had known what contributes to its peace, no one would have been captured. “Entering the temple, he began to drive out those who sold and bought in it” (19:45). There was in the temple a multitude, money-changers and those who sold the animals sacrificed according to the law. But it was already time for the shadow to cease and the truth in Christ to shine forth. For this reason Christ, as one honoured together with his own Father in their temple, commanded the things of the law to be curtailed and the temple to be shown a house of prayer. For to rebuke and drive out of the sacred precincts those who sold what was useful for sacrifice means this altogether, and nothing else. The Saviour and Lord of all does this usefully, making his own glory manifest to the Jews so that they might believe that he is the Son of God; for he took care of the temple as one having authority over it, and indeed he called God his own Father; for, as another evangelist says, he said to the merchants: “Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” And again: “It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you make it a den of robbers.” By driving out the animals fit for sacrifice he shows that it is time at last for the worship of the law to cease, and the shadow to end at the presence of the truth. And his making a whip of cords and threatening to raise blows against them shows that those who honour the worship of the law after the truth has been revealed, having a spirit of slavery and refusing to be freed, will be under slavish scourges. See their contempt: they were trading in the temple; some sold to those who needed them the things fit for sacrifice—sheep, I mean, and oxen and doves, as John showed, and anything of the kind—and others bought. Money-changers are bankers; for a kollybos is an obol, and kollybizō is used for “exchange,” as usage exchanges names. Christ, then, entered the temple with boldness as Master and drove out those mentioned, laying bare the authority over all things that he had as God, confident in his sinlessness, foreshowing by this the casting out of the bloody sacrifices, and at the same time teaching us to speak boldly on behalf of the church.

They ought, then, rather to have worshipped him as God; but they did not do this; they sought to destroy him, but did not find how; for the people hung on his words, which made the punishment heavier for the scribes and Pharisees and all the leaders of the Jews, since they did not accept the faith themselves but also forbade others.

“By what authority do you do these things?” (20:2). “The law given through Moses,” they say, “ordered only those of the blood of Levi to handle the sacred tasks; to them has been given the initiating into mysteries and the authority over the sacred precincts; they direct what is done in the divine temple. But how do you, being of another tribe—for you are from Judah—snatch the honours assigned to us? Who gave you this authority?” But if you had known the divinely inspired Scriptures, foolish Pharisee, you would have remembered the blessed prophet David saying to Christ the Saviour of all: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Tell me, then, which of the scribes or Pharisees has ministered to God according to the order of Melchizedek, who both blessed Abraham and received tithes from him? As the all-wise Paul writes: “Beyond all dispute, the lesser is blessed by the greater.” So the root and first fruits of the descent of those of Israel, that is, the forefather Abraham, was blessed by the priesthood of Melchizedek. And Melchizedek and his priesthood were a type of Christ the Saviour of all, who has become our high priest and apostle, bringing to God the Father those who have believed in him, perfecting them for sanctification through a worship beyond the law. Why, then, are you vexed, Pharisee, when what was useful for the sacrifices of the law is sent out of the sacred precincts, while he calls you to the life beyond types and to true justification—clearly that through faith in Christ—and sets before you the way of the gospel life? Tell me, do you charge the lawgiver with the abolition of the law, and with not following his own commandments? But God is altogether beyond the law; for he who laid down the laws not for himself but for us changes what he has ordained at the proper times to whatever he wishes, raising it to what is better. It was time, then, for the things in types to cease and the better things to be revealed. Indeed God said somewhere through the voice of Isaiah: “And the ordinances of my people will vanish.” For the law ceased when the new commandment, which the Son spoke to us in his own person, was revealed.

Accordingly, to these too, when they asked, “By what authority do you do these things?” the Saviour put in return the question of John’s baptism. But they flee the truth, and in their impiety they do not shudder. For God the Father sent ahead the blessed Baptist, crying aloud: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.” Of him the most wise evangelist too says: “He came for testimony, to bear witness about the light.” And he bore witness, saying: “This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit,” and, “He is the Son of God.” The blessed Baptist, being great, was a worthy witness concerning Christ. But since it was the Jews’ custom to slander the prophets as not sent by God, Christ asked what opinion they held about the Baptist. They feared to tell the truth, lest they should hear, “Why did you not believe him?” But they avoid accusing the Forerunner, fearing not God but the crowds. And since they pretended not to know where John’s baptism came from, and acted with malice, he fittingly gives them no answer.

“A man planted a vineyard,” and so on (20:9). One will find here the history of the sons of Israel, gathered together as in brief. For the vineyard is Israel, as the Psalmist says: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.” And Isaiah: “The beloved had a vineyard.” Having planted this vineyard in the land of promise, God the Father—whom he now calls a man because of his love for humankind and the custom of parable—went away for a long time. Yet he fills all things and is absent from none of the things that exist; how, then, did he go away? After being seen coming down in the form of fire on Mount Sinai and showing them his ineffable form plainly, he no longer gave them his presence visible to the eyes; but, as in the pattern of human affairs, what happened is somehow like a long journey abroad. Yet he is seen to have cared for the estate and kept it in mind; for there was no intervening time in which prophets and righteous men were not sent by God to admonish; but, as Jeremiah says: “Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reproach to them; they will not wish to hear it.” They became disobedient, and having dishonoured those who were sent, they sent them away empty. The master of the vineyard deliberates with himself, saying: “What shall I do?” He says “What shall I do?” not as one at a loss for other servants—for ministers of his holy will would not have failed him—but as when every method of healing has been tried and the patient has not been helped at all. Then he says next: “I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.” But they strive further in their defilements, always hiding the former by the latter; which he himself showed when he said: “Fill up the measure of your fathers.” For from of old the prophets charged them with these things, saying: “Your hands are full of blood”; and, “They mingle blood with blood”; and, “Building Zion with blood.” But they were not brought to their senses, though they had received this as the first commandment, “You shall not murder,” and were led in many and various ways to keep this commandment. Yet they did not put off that wicked habit, but after the prophets they killed the Son by nature too.

The leaders of the Jews, then, have been cast out, as having opposed the Master’s will and having made the vineyard entrusted to them fruitless; and the estate has been given to the sacred ministers of the new covenant. When the scribes and Pharisees heard it, they said: “May it not be!” From this one can see that, understanding the depth of the riddles, they shake off the suffering and fear what will happen; but they did not escape it, because of their unrestrained disobedience and their refusal to believe in Christ. “The stone that the builders rejected,” and so on (20:17).

He calls the teachers of the Jews builders too. And Ezekiel says: “Building the wall and plastering it without temper.” The Saviour, though he was a chosen stone, was rejected by those who ought to have helped with every help—clearly, the synagogue of the Jews; but he came to be for the unity of soul and faith of the two peoples, I mean of Israel and of the people from the nations; for the Saviour created the two peoples into one new man, making peace and reconciling both in one body to the Father. The thing, then, is like a corner joining two walls. The blessed David marvelled at this corner, that is, the coming together of the two peoples into identity, saying: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was from the Lord”—the corner, clearly—“and it is marvellous in our eyes.” So the stone is saving for the corner made by it, but crushing and ruin for those who have remained outside this spiritual and intelligible coming together; for the crowds of the Jews, stumbling at Christ and striking against him, were broken. For they did not wish to hear the voice of Isaiah, saying: “Sanctify the Lord himself, and he will be your fear; and you will not meet him as a stone of stumbling, nor as a rock of falling.” Christ, then, is a stone of stumbling to the unbelieving gentiles and a rock of offence to the Jews, but to us believers the foundation stone, holding together the whole base of the church; and a rock because of the firmness and steadfastness of the confession, against which the surging waves of the heresies dash and dissolve into foam. Matthew, however, having also said the rest of the prophecy, “This was from the Lord,” and what follows, and then saying, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits,” then added, “And he who falls on this stone will be broken,” and what follows. Matthew’s account, then, is exactness of report, and Luke’s is conciseness; and we find such an arrangement in all the evangelists, each reporting sometimes exactly and sometimes concisely. “The chief priests and the scribes sought to lay hands on him” (20:19).

The workshop of the Pharisees was again inflamed to unbridled anger; they wish to kill him who became man for the abolition of death; but fear of the people cut short their unholy attempt. For they had no thought of piety toward God, nor was the commandment through Moses a bridle to them, which says: “You shall not kill the innocent and righteous”; they prefer human fear to reverence for God. And what is the cause and occasion of their madness? “They perceived,” it says, “that he had told this parable against them.” Yet how should they not rather, having learned what would happen, have kept clear of the evil, and honoured by faith him who justifies the ungodly and saves, with a grace that bears no grudge, those held fast by their sins? But taking none of these things into account, they gather occasions for false accusation against him.

“And they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be righteous,” and so on (20:20). … having an appearance of reasonableness, but wicked in character; forgetting God, who said: “Who is this who hides counsel from me, keeping words in his heart, and thinks to hide them from me?”—approaching Christ the Saviour of all as a common man. But it would have been better to consider that God the Word came to be in likeness to us, yet from his divine signs beyond reason and from his glory befitting God he was shown to be not man only but also God. And what do they say?

“And they asked him, saying: Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly,” and so on (20:21). For God wished Israel to be free of human domination; but since they trampled on the divine laws, they came under the hand of the Romans, who also imposed tribute on them. They sought, then, to hand him over to the authority of the governor; for they expected that they would by all means hear him say, “It is not lawful to pay tribute to Caesar.” What, then, does he who knows the hearts of men say to them? Perceiving their craftiness, “Show me a denarius,” he said. When it was shown, he asked again: “Whose image and inscription does it have?” And they say, “Caesar’s.” And what does Christ say to this? “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” For those who have been allotted rule over their subjects impose on them tributes of money; but God does not demand a denarius from us, but faith and love and the fragrance of good works. So they marvelled at the answer, and that before all the people, before whom they also asked, so that their sin became greater. And forgetting even these things, they brought Jesus to Pilate, saying: “We found this man perverting the people and forbidding the payment of tribute to Caesar.” Yet, marvelling at the answer, they went away put to shame. “Some of the Sadducees came to him,” and so on (20:27).

What the heresy of the Sadducees is, he made clear in the Acts, writing thus: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge both.” They come, then, to Christ the Saviour of us all, who is the life and the resurrection, and try to do away with the resurrection; and being insolent and unbelieving, they invent a story full of ignorance. Let us see what Christ said in refuting them, as they tried to mock the resurrection with the fiction of the seven brothers who died married to one wife. “The sons of this age,” he says—that is, those who live the worldly and bodily life—marry for the sake of begetting children; but those who have achieved a glorious life full of good things and then are counted worthy to attain the honourable resurrection will surely be somewhere above the life in this world; for they will live as befits saints, and have already come near to God; for they are equal to angels and sons of God, performing the worship fitting holy spirits. And just as the angelic multitude is great, yet not increased by birth but existing by creation, so too those who rise; and there is no longer need of marriage. For here too, after Adam lost the grace of immortality through sin, succession is preserved for the race through the begetting of children—a help laid down already from the beginning by God, who foreknew all things. For in making man, he made them male and female. We shall, then, be better than ourselves, having put off corruption and having a spiritual body, that is, one looking only to the things of the spirit; and there will then be no mind dragging us down to baseness, since the Creator will hold us fast to his will through the Holy Spirit, just as he does the holy angels. “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed,” and so on (20:37).

For he brought forward to them Moses too, who knew well the resurrection of the dead; for at the bush, he says, he introduced God saying: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Of whom is he God, if they will not live as those do? But he is the God of the living; so they will by all means come back to life, the all-powerful right hand bringing all those on earth to this.

“For they no longer dared to ask him anything” (20:40). Faith is the beginning of understanding: “For if you do not believe, neither will you understand.” And inquiry into necessary things is saving. Emmanuel is admittedly both son and Lord of David; but in what way one ought to understand this very thing—if someone chooses to learn it—he will surely arrive at an exact contemplation of the mystery concerning him, which was kept silent from the foundation of the world but has been manifested in the last times of the age. The Pharisees, then, were silent when Christ questioned them; but they did this perversely, or rather against themselves, so that, if the question were examined, the saving word might not shine forth in them; for they did not wish to know the truth. And we too shall put such a question to the new Pharisees, who say that the one born of the holy Virgin is neither true Son of God the Father nor God, but divide the one Son into two sons: In what way is the son of David his Lord, and that not with human but rather with divine lordship? For his sitting at the right hand of the Father at all bears witness to his glory on high; for things that share a throne and an equal honour are also understood to be in natural identity; and sitting, in the case of God, would signify nothing else than kingship and authority over all. And he sits at the right hand of God the Father altogether—according to the unerring word of the Saviour—because the Word, being God, sprung from the very essence of God the Father, and existing in his form and in equality with him, became flesh, that is, a perfect man, not departing from the divine dignities, but rather remaining in what he always was, and existing as God, even though he became flesh in likeness to us. He is, then, Lord of David as befits the divine nature, glory and authority, but his son according to the flesh. The leaders of the Jews, though they raised their brows high over their possession of the divine laws, ought not to have been ignorant of the voices of the holy prophets. For Isaiah says: “Behold, the virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.” And the Word, being God, came to be with us, having entered into likeness to us, to save the world under heaven. But the leaders of the Jews, as I said, had no regard for the truth; and if anyone chooses to learn what their pretext was, he will hear from us: that they would not depart from their native love of glory, nor from their accursed love of gain.

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk about in long robes,” and so on (20:46). The ailments of the scribes were love of display and love of gain. So that the choir of the holy disciples might be somewhere outside such shameful charges, he usefully exhorts them, saying: “Do not allow yourselves to be caught in the same evils, nor become sharers in their lack of love for God.” For what was their custom? To walk in the market-places well wrapped up, with lofty eyebrows drawn down; to seek praise from those who see them; to have a feigned character; to babble in their prayers.

“He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury” (21:1). The Saviour said somewhere: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” He watches these offering their gifts into the treasury; and since they came from great wealth, what each brought was probably much, yet little again and unworthy of the hand that brought it. Then after them a poor woman, weighed down by grievous poverty, came in, who with difficulty and with sweat gathers from alms the cheapest food sufficient for a day; and she brought two obols, as if giving away her life. O marvellous wonder! She who constantly seeks mercy from another herself lends to God, making her very poverty fruitful for him. So she surpasses the others and is crowned by God with a just sentence. “And as some were saying about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and offerings,” and so on (21:5).

Some showed Christ the great works in the temple and the adornment of the offerings; for they thought he would marvel at what was seen along with them, though he is God and has heaven as his throne. But he leaves aside talk about these and foretells that it will fall from its foundations at the appointed time, the Roman army bringing it down to this, and the whole of Jerusalem exacting from Israel the penalties for the killing of the Lord; for after the Saviour’s cross they suffered these things. The disciples did not understand the force of what was said, but, thinking it had been said about the consummation of the age, they asked when these things would be, and what the sign would be when they were about to happen. What, then, does Christ do? He follows the aim of those who put the question, and for the time leaves aside the words about the capture of Jerusalem; he weaves those about the consummation of the present age, and says that before his descent from heaven certain false christs and false prophets will run ahead, putting on his person for themselves, whom one must not believe. For the only-begotten Word of God was willing, to save the world under heaven, to undergo even birth according to the flesh from a woman; but this was for him an emptying and humbling; so, having lowered himself into emptying, he thought fit to remain hidden; and indeed he charged the apostles before the precious cross not to make him manifest; for the manner of the economy in the flesh needed concealment, so that, having endured the precious cross for us as man, he might abolish death and drive Satan from his tyranny over all. But the second descent, from heaven, will not be hidden as the one before, but conspicuous and full of fear; for he will come down with the holy angels escorting him, and in the glory of God the Father, to judge the world in righteousness. So when certain false christs and false prophets arise, do not go after them.

Or does he mean the common end too, and the consummation of the whole world? He gives clear and plain signs of the consummation of the world. For there will be wars, he says, and tumults, and famines and terrors from heaven. For, as another of the evangelists says, all the stars will fall, the heaven will be rolled up like a scroll, the powers of the heavens will be shaken. In between, however, the Saviour places the things about the capture of Jerusalem, and mixes the discourse, saying:

“But before all these things they will lay their hands on you and persecute you,” and so on (21:12). For before the times of the consummation the land of the Jews was captured, the Roman army overrunning it; the temple was burned, their royal palace was shaken down, and the force of the worship according to the law ceased. But before these things happened, the blessed disciples were persecuted by them; they became prisoners, were led before rulers, were sent to kings; Paul, indeed, was sent to Rome to Caesar, and stood before Festus and Agrippa; but what was brought on them became for them a testimony, that is, the glory of martyrdom. “Settle it, then, in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer.” He exhorts: Do not prepare beforehand when you are going to make your defence. “For you will receive,” he says, “from me wisdom and a tongue that none of your adversaries can withstand or contradict.” Cutting away also the occasions of human faint-heartedness, he says they will be handed over by those closest to them, but that they will by all means be saved by him; at any rate he adds: “You will be handed over even by parents and brothers and friends and kinsmen.” But they will by all means be saved by him: “For not a hair of your head will perish,” he says. Making the prediction of the capture clearer, he adds: “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.” Then he transfers the discourse again to the time of the consummation. It is written in the Acts that after the resurrection there was a great famine under Claudius Caesar, and many earthquakes happened. What you have seen happening in my case, expect in yours too.

“On the earth distress of nations” (21:25). For as creation begins, as it were, to be changed, there will be a terrible distress and a fainting unto death; for the unbearable fear that comes on will be enough to destroy many. “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud” (21:27).

How will he come? How will he arrive? As he himself showed elsewhere too, saying: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory.” For he will come no longer in lowliness nor in our meanness, but in the glory and power of the Godhead. You will take “great” with both: for he will make his second divine appearing with great power and great glory, since he made the first with weakness and dishonour, as far as appeared to the many. And why in a cloud? Because God always appears so: “For cloud and darkness are round about him”; and, “The Lord sits on a swift cloud”; and again, “He who makes the clouds his chariot”; and, “A cloud took him from their eyes”; and, “As a son of man coming on the clouds.” So Daniel too sees him; so he will come then, not secretly, but as God and Lord in glory befitting God, and he will change all things for the better; for the dead will come back to life, and this body from the earth, easily caught by passions, will put off corruption and put on incorruption, Christ granting it and making those who believe in him conformed to the body of his glory. Therefore he himself calls the event our redemption, saying: “When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

For just as, if someone should say of a man that he received from his father his being rational, it signifies that he too was born rational from a rational being, so too the only-begotten came forth as God from God, and as judge from him who judges all the earth. And because the Father has given all judgement to the Son, he has not himself been stripped of his lordship; for the Only-begotten is inseparable from God, as light from the sun; for he is in him naturally; and all that the Father has is the Son’s, and the reverse.

“Look at the fig tree and all the trees” (21:29). Having spoken the parable of the fig tree, he at once adds: “Know that the kingdom of God is near.” This teaches that when these things happen, matters have not yet come to the last end, but are already travelling toward the end, just as the fig tree travels toward its fruit when its branches grow tender and put forth leaves. For so too the coming of the Lord, abolishing every rule and authority, prepares for the kingdom of God. Then he says: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.” By “generation” he means not the people of that time, but those like them in character. And in saying that it is impossible for his words to pass away, he already foretells the consummation of the elements too. “It is impossible,” he says, “for my words to pass away, even though the elements pass away; for I speak truly that the day will come and these things will happen, and what I say cannot fail to happen.” “But take heed,” he says, “lest the eyes of your understanding be weighed down”; for the cares of life and dissipation and drunkenness banish understanding and darken faith and fear toward God. There is need, then, of such watchfulness and attention, lest that day come upon you suddenly like a snare, having gained nothing from having heard beforehand. “And every day he was teaching in the temple” (21:37). And what was it that he taught, if not surely things beyond the worship of the law? For the time had come for the shadow to be reshaped into truth; and the crowd heard him most gladly; for they very often marvelled at him, because his word was with authority; for, being himself the one who of old spoke through Moses and the prophets, and Lord of all, he transferred with authority to spiritual worship what had been prophesied in types. He lodged on the Mount of Olives, avoiding the tumults in the city, so that in this too he might become a pattern for us; and the crowd that rose early to come to him could fittingly say David’s words: “O God, my God, I rise early to you; my soul has thirsted for you.” The things about the feast of Unleavened Bread drawing near, about the chief priests seeking to kill him, about Satan entering into Judas, about his agreeing to betray him and seeking an opportunity for it, down to “And the twelve apostles with him,” have been written before in the commentary on Matthew.

“Now the feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover” (22:1).

See that from of old the Saviour legislated for us what is best and profitable, and through the law and the prophets became our good counsellor for salvation; but then through riddle and shadow, because of the weakness of the hearers, while now, setting before us the naked truth, he brings into the open the very image of the realities. For it was truly fitting that the types should be ministered through servants, but the truth through the Master of all, since he it was who said of himself: “I am the truth.” Since the shadow, then, has been removed, let the power of the truth at last come in for us; let the type of what was said in riddles appear more plainly. The Jews, then, go wrong and wander and fall away from the reasonings they ought to have, setting out unleavened loaves; they do not listen, it seems, to Paul, who says, “Food will not commend us to God,” and the rest; nor to the Saviour: “Do you not know that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is cast out into the drain?” But we compare spiritual things with spiritual: fleeing wickedness as leaven and practising good deeds, so that with Christ, as in an upper room, we may recline in the Jerusalem above, at which Isaiah marvelled, saying, as to us who are to be in that city: “Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a rich city, tents that will not be shaken, nor will its cords be broken.” For cheerfulness among men lasts a little while and is broken off when some small change comes between; but the dwellings in heaven and the good in them have a noble firmness, held fast by the will of God. That we may lodge, then, in such admirable dwellings and keep the feast with Christ, let us accomplish a pure fast, not measuring its power by abstinence from foods, but, as we withdraw from an elaborate table, let us withdraw also from other luxury and from the variety of evils. “He sent Peter and John, saying: Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat” (22:8).

The time of the feast was called Phasek, and it signifies passing over. As, then, Israel was freed from slavery to the Egyptians, coming into the land of promise and walking through the midst of the sea with dry foot, so we too must vigorously cross over, as over a sea, the idle distraction of the present life. And we pass over from love of the flesh to self-control, from the ignorance of old to the true knowledge of God, from death to incorruption.

Let us see the truth still honouring the types. When the day came, it says, on which the Passover had to be sacrificed, he sent two chosen ones of the holy apostles (they were Peter and John) into the city, saying to them what was written above. Yet why did he not plainly point out the man to those he sent? For he did not say, “To so-and-so,” but gave a sign: simply a man carrying an earthenware vessel. What do we say to this? The traitor had already promised the Jews to hand him over. So that he might not learn who the man was and run and report it to those who had hired him, he gives a sign; for he was still pretending to have a disciple’s goodwill while in labour with bloody murder. “For a man will meet you,” he says, “carrying a jar of water.” Or perhaps he indicates by this something mystical and necessary too: for wherever the water enters—clearly the water of holy baptism—there Christ will lodge; for he frees us from all filth, so that we become a holy temple of God and sharers of his divine nature through participation in the Holy Spirit. And one would not miss the truth in saying that the soul of every saint is an upper room of the Holy Spirit. “For let the lowly brother,” it says, “boast in his exaltation.”

“And when the hour came, he reclined, and the twelve apostles with him” (22:14). When the Passover had been prepared, Christ feasted with the disciples, and, bearing patiently with the traitor, he says: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you.” What does this show? The money-loving disciple was seeking an occasion for the betrayal; so that he might not hand him over to the murderers before the feast of the Passover, the Saviour did not point out either the house or the man with whom he kept the Passover. Giving, then, the reason why he did not wish to say clearly with whom he lodged, he says: “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you”—as if he said: I took every care to be able to elude the traitor’s impiety, so as not to undergo the passion before its time. “But I will not eat this Passover until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (22:16). It is his custom to call the kingdom of God justification in faith, cleansing through baptism, participation in the Holy Spirit, and the power of worship in spirit. “So I will not taste,” he says, “such a Passover”—clearly, the one signified typically by eating—“until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God”; that is, until the time has been revealed at which the kingdom of heaven is preached. For in us who honour the worship beyond the law the true Passover is fulfilled. And it is not a lamb from the flock that sanctifies those in Christ, but rather he himself, sacrificed in a holy manner through the mystical blessing by which we are blessed and given life. For he has become for us the living bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world.

In the Gospel according to Matthew it stands thus: “I will not drink from now on of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father.” For Christ is understood as a kind of first fruits of the ears of grain, and as a new fruit in the form of a sheaf, the firstborn from the dead, the way of resurrection for us too, who transforms all things into newness and frees them from oldness. And the sheaf was brought up before the Lord. For Emmanuel, raised from the dead, the new fruit of humanity, as it were in incorruption, ascended into heaven, so as now to appear on our behalf before the face of God the Father—not, surely, bringing himself into his sight, for he is with him eternally and could not be absent from the Father, being God; but rather bringing into his sight, as in himself, us who were outside his presence and under wrath because of the transgression in Adam and the sin that tyrannized over us. See how the law prefigured for us also the time fitting for the resurrection, that is, the third day: “On the morrow after the first day,” it says, “the priest shall offer the sheaf before the Lord.” And at once it introduced a plain prefiguring of holy Pentecost, saying that seven weeks must be counted from the offering of the sheaf. For after the day of the Saviour’s resurrection, counting seven weeks, we who have believed keep Pentecost on the day following. “And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying: This is my body,” and so on (22:19).

He gives thanks, that is, he speaks with God the Father in the form of prayer, showing him as it were a partner and co-approver of the life-giving blessing to be given us. For every grace and every perfect gift comes to us from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. What was done was a type for us of the prayer that ought to be lifted up whenever the grace of the mystical and life-giving offering is to be set forth by us; and this we are accustomed to do. For sending up thanksgivings, and glorifying the Son with the Holy Spirit together with God the Father, we so approach the holy tables, believing that we are given life and blessed both bodily and spiritually. For we receive in them the Word of God the Father who became man for us, who is life and life-giving. Next, let us inquire, as far as possible, what the rationale of the mystery concerning us is. The God of all created all things for incorruption, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world; for he led the first man into transgression and disobedience, and for this reason under the divine curse. For it was said to him: “You are earth, and to earth you will return.” But the Creator’s gentleness surpassed the harm of the devil’s perversity; he helped those on earth. For God the Father is life by nature; and being alone this, he made Christ shine forth, who is himself life too; for the Word who came forth essentially from life could not be otherwise. God the Father, then, gives life to all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit. How, then, was man on earth, held by death, to run back to incorruption? The dying flesh had to come to share in the life-giving power from God. And the life-giving power of God the Father is the only-begotten Word. Him he sent to us as saviour and redeemer, and he became flesh—not undergoing change or alteration into what he was not, nor departing from being the Word; but rather being born according to the flesh from a woman and making his own the body from her, so that he might implant himself in us by an indivisible union and make us superior to death and corruption. For he put on our flesh so that, raising it from the dead, he might thereafter make a way for the flesh brought down to death to run back to incorruption, as Paul says: “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a man; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” So, having united to himself the flesh held by death, the Word, being God and life, drove away its corruption and made it life-giving. And do not disbelieve what I have said, but rather receive the word in faith, gathering assurance on this very point from small examples. When you put a little bread into wine, or into oil, or into any liquid, you will find it has become full of the quality of that liquid. When iron is joined with fire, it is filled with its energy, and, while it is iron by its own nature, it is pregnant with the power of fire. So the life-giving Word of God, having united himself to his own flesh, made it life-giving in the way he alone knows. For he himself said: “Truly I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life. I am the bread of life.” And again: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh.” “Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.” So, eating the flesh of Christ the Saviour of us all and drinking his precious blood, we have life in ourselves, being made one, as it were, with him, and abiding in him, and having him also in ourselves.

And let none of those accustomed to disbelieve say: “Since, then, the Word of God, who is life by nature, dwells in us too, is each one’s body also life-giving?” Let him rather know that it is one thing for us to have the Son in ourselves by relational participation, and wholly another for him to have become flesh, that is, to have made his own the body taken from the holy Virgin. For he is not said to have become man and become flesh by coming to be in us; this happened once, when he came forth as man, without casting off his being God. So the body taken from the holy Virgin and united to him became the Word’s own. How, or in what way, it is not possible to say; for the manner of the union is wholly inexpressible and incomprehensible, and known to him alone. It was fitting, then, that he should come to be in us in a manner befitting God through the Holy Spirit, and be mingled, as it were, with our bodies through his holy flesh and precious blood, which we have for a life-giving blessing, as in bread and wine. For lest we should be numbed with horror, seeing flesh and blood set out on the holy tables of the churches, God, condescending to our weaknesses, puts into the things set out the power of life, and transforms them into the energy of his own flesh, so that we may have them for a life-giving participation, and the body of life may be found in us as a life-giving seed. And do not doubt that this is true, since he himself says plainly, “This is my body,” and “This is my blood”; rather receive the Saviour’s word in faith; for being the truth, he does not lie. “But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table” (22:21).

The traitor, being full of diabolical madness, thought perhaps that he could escape the notice of Christ, who is God; but he was exposed by Christ as utterly wicked, though he was counted worthy of the table and shared the meal, and had enjoyed the divine gentleness to the end—which makes his punishment all the heavier. But woe to Judas, according to the Saviour’s word! For the one, by the good pleasure of God the Father, gave himself for us, to rescue us from all evil; but the other, having handed over Christ, the Saviour and redeemer of all, into the hands of murderers, will inherit the penalty most fitting for the devil.

“A dispute also arose among them, which of them was considered to be greatest” (22:24). The disciples, suffering something human, disputed with one another which of them would be greater, those who held the second rank perhaps not bearing to yield to those who were first. This was stirred up and written for our benefit; for Christ at once rebuked such a disease—and this was foolish love of glory, rooted in arrogance. For to be exalted in virtue is worthy of all account; but those so disposed must use a modest mind and yield to their brothers out of love the appearance of being among the greater. For having a puffed-up mind makes us look like the rulers of the nations, to whom an overbearing mind is always somehow dear; for they are called benefactors, he says, that is, they are flattered by their subjects. But let them, as being outside the sacred laws, be in such ailments; among you it shall not be so, but let your height be in lowliness.

“But I am among you as one who serves” (22:27). When Christ says this, who is so harsh as not to spit out all love of glory? For he who is served by all rational and holy creation, who shares the throne and reigns with God the Father, taking the rank of a servant, washed the disciples’ feet. In another way too the manner of the economy in the flesh has the rank of service. For Paul said: “For I tell you that Christ became a servant of the circumcision to fulfil the promises made to the fathers,” and the rest. So he who is served served; and the Lord of glory humbled himself, leaving us an example. But it is likely that the disciples perhaps thought and said within themselves: “What, then, will be the reward of faithfulness? Or what profit will come of it, when temptations too will come at times?” So that, strengthened by the hope of good things to come, they might drive all sloth in good pursuits out of their minds, he necessarily says: “You are those who have continued with me in my trials,” and so on (22:28).

… he does not yet depart from the measures of the incarnation, not having yet endured the precious cross; for he speaks as one of us; but after his return to life from the dead he manifested his glory, the time calling for it; for he said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He speaks, then, in a human way, as I said. Therefore he says: “And I appoint for you, as my Father appointed for me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table.” Shall we, then, even after the return to life from the dead, when the time has come in which we shall be with Christ, who makes us conformed to the body of his glory, after we have put on incorruption, again be in need of food and a table? Not at all; but from our own affairs he indicates spiritual things. For those who hold the first honours from earthly kings share their hearth and table; and there are others too who are counted worthy of honour from those in power, yet do not share a common table. That they will be in the first honours with him, he shows, then, as by an example from our life. “And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, to sift you like wheat” (22:31).

It is necessary and profitable, I think, to learn what the occasion was that brought the Saviour’s words to this. Having corrected them by rebuking the passion of love of glory and by giving himself as an example, Christ brought the disciples a third help through the passage before us. For he teaches that we must think modestly, being nothing as regards human nature and the slipperiness of our understanding, but being made firm and being what we are through him and by him. We must therefore take pride not in ourselves but in the gifts from him. And if someone is so disposed, what place will the wish to be above others find in him? For this reason he leaves the other disciples and comes to the chief himself, and says that “Satan has often wished to sift you too like wheat,” instead of “to test and try.” For it is Satan’s custom to leap upon those who are approved; so he sought out Job, but was defeated by his endurance. Yet he gets the better of human nature, for it is weak, while he is terrible and harsh; for, as the sacred Writing says of him, his heart is fixed like a stone and stands like an anvil that cannot be beaten. Yet he has been put under the feet of the saints, Christ having accomplished this too.

“But I have prayed for you” (22:32). See, again he adapts himself to us and speaks from the measures of humanity, though he is God by nature, even if he became flesh; for he says he prayed as a man. He shows by these words that if Peter had been given over to Satan for testing, he would have become wholly unbelieving, since even without being given over he grew weak; for he denied when one servant girl unsettled him in the high priest’s courtyard. The Lord, however, having hinted at the disciple’s denial in saying, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail,” at once brings in the word of comfort, saying: “And you, when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers”; that is, become a support and teacher of those who come to me through faith. Marvel again at the skill of the word and the surpassing divine gentleness: lest he lead the disciple into despair, as though he would be dismissed from the glories of the apostleship for having denied him, he fills him with good hope that he will obtain the good things promised. For he said: “And you, when you have turned, strengthen your brothers.” O unspeakable love for humankind! The sin had not yet happened, and he received forgiveness, and was placed again in the apostolic dignities.

“Before you deny three times that you know me” (22:34). You may also take the passage thus: he foretold to the admirable Peter that he would deny him three times, clearly at the time of the arrest. And since mention had once been made of his arrest, and what happened next surely follows on such a mention—I mean the sufferings on the cross—he then foretells the war that fell upon the Jews. Therefore he says: “When I sent you out without purse and bag and sandals, did you lack anything? They said: Nothing.” For the Saviour sent the holy apostles, commanding them to preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven to those in every village and city, and to heal every disease and every sickness among the people; and he ordered them, as they went, to take no thought for any bodily things, but to go about having all their hope of living in him; and this they did. “But now,” he says, “let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag.” And what this means we shall say. The saying was shaped as to them, but in truth it looks to the person of every Jew. For it is to them rather that Christ speaks. “If anyone,” he says, “is rich in money in the land of the Jews, let him gather everything together and flee; and he who is not rich, but lives in extreme poverty and dwells in the land, let him too sell what he has,” he says, “his cloak, and buy a sword.” For from now on the question for all who dwell in the land is not about having something or not, but about existence and life itself. For war will fall upon them with unbearable onrushes, so that nothing will suffice to resist it. Then he announces the cause of such evils, saying that he must be reckoned with the lawless according to the Scriptures—clearly, hung together with the robbers crucified with him, and enduring the penalty fitting for the lawless; and the account of the economy will at last receive its end in his coming to this. “For what concerns me has an end,” he says—that is, what is written in the law and the prophets, up to his suffering death according to the flesh; and there will befall those who killed him what was foretold of old through the holy prophets. “And they said: Lord, here are two swords” (22:38).

The Lord foretold these things about what would befall the land of the Jews. But the disciples did not understand the depth of what was said; they thought rather that, because of the attack that would come on him from the traitor and those who would arrest him, he had affirmed that there was need of swords; so they say: “Here are two swords.” And what does the Saviour say to them? “It is enough”—he all but laughs at the word, knowing well that the disciples, not understanding the force of what was said, thought, as I said, that there was need of swords for the attack about to come against him. Looking, then, to what was going to befall the Jews because of their impiety toward him, the Saviour laughs at what the disciples said, “See, here are two swords,” and says: “It is enough.” “Yes,” he says, “two swords will suffice to resist the war that is going to come against them”—against which not even many thousands of swords would have helped! “And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives” (22:39).

By day the Saviour spent his time in Jerusalem, but when evening came he lodged on the Mount of Olives with the holy disciples, at a place called Gethsemane; for so Matthew, the most wise evangelist, says. Having come there, then, Christ, as Matthew again says somewhere, took the three—Peter, I mean, and the sons of Zebedee—and began to be grieved and troubled. Here, I pray, see the depth of the economy in the flesh and the height of the ineffable wisdom. For what cause, O Master, are you troubled? Do you yourself fear death, and, overcome by cowardice, do you beg off from suffering, though you said to the disciples: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul”? But if someone should say that the grace of spiritual courage is given by you to the chosen, he would not miss the truth. For all strength comes from you, and you are life by nature and life-giving. How then? You knew, being God by nature, that by enduring death according to the flesh you would free from death those in all the earth, raise the trophy of victory over every wicked and opposing power, and be worshipped as God and Creator of all. On what account, then, are you grieved and troubled even to death? “Yes,” he says, “I know the good things that will come to the world from the passion; but firstborn Israel grieves me, because it is not even among the servants; and because the Lord’s portion, the measured lot of his inheritance, will be a portion for foxes,” as it is written. That, though he knew what would be, he pitied Jerusalem as about to be in every evil because of its impiety toward him, you may learn from this too: he went up from Judea to Jerusalem, and, as the evangelist says, “seeing the city, he wept over it,” seeing Jerusalem as all but already engaged in the utmost miseries and incurable calamities. So that we might learn that he had this disposition toward it, he declared to the disciples that he was both distressed and grieved; for it was not possible to learn what was hidden in him unless he disclosed by words the state he was in. And I think it necessary to add this to what has been said. The passion of grief or of distress would not arise in the divine and pure nature of the Word itself; for that is impossible, since it is beyond all passion. But we say that the incarnate Word willed to descend to the measures of humanity by seeming to undergo what belongs to it. As he is said to have hungered, though he is life and life-giving and himself the living bread, and to have been weary from a long journey, though he is the Lord of the powers, so too he is said to have been distressed and to seem to have received grief. For it was not fitting that he who had lowered himself into emptying and entered into the measures of humanity should seem to refuse what is human.

“Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (22:40). … the disciples what befitted the time, saying: “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” But so that he might not benefit them by words alone, but a demonstration of the very deed might be found, he went a little farther, fell on his knees and prayed. And why did he not pray with the holy disciples, but alone? So that we might learn the pattern of the prayer that pleases God. For he said elsewhere: “But you, when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” For everywhere we shall find him praying alone, so that you too may learn that one must converse with the God over all with a mind at leisure and a calm heart. And no one, surely, if he has any sense, would say that he made his petitions as one standing in need of another’s hand or help. For he himself is the all-powerful hand and power of the Father; but he did it so that we might learn through this not to doze in temptations but rather to strain ourselves in prayer. It is very ignorant, too, to be overbold about contests; I say that courage and endurance must be woven together with a modest mind. Let us see also the manner of the prayer. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours be done” (22:42). Do you see with what humanly fitting reverence Christ made his request to be spared the trial? “If you are willing,” he says, “remove it.” For as one of us, he assigns the outcome of what would happen to the Father’s will, so that we too may ask that those things prevail which he knows are profitable for our souls. Besides this, the matter also accuses the impiety of the Jews; for suffering was not unwilled by him, yet it was heavy in another way, because of the dishonour and the destruction of the synagogue of the Jews; for he would not have wished Israel to become a killer of the Lord, lest for this reason it should come under the extreme penalties. But since it was not possible not to undergo the passion, he chose it, God the Father approving with him; so that ease of being troubled belongs to human nature, and being unbroken in all things to the divine. For the memory of death stealing in troubles Jesus, but the power of the Godhead at once masters the passion that has been stirred and transforms it into courage. For human things were stirred in Christ too, for two reasons: for he had to appear, through these things too, as having become man from a woman not by seeming and supposition but naturally and truly, bearing all human things except sin alone. And fear and cowardice are natural passions in us, yet such as escape being ranked among sins. Again, human things were stirred in Christ not so that, once stirred, they might prevail, but so that they might be cut off by the power of the Word, nature being transformed in Christ first to a better and more divine state; for so, and not otherwise, could the manner of healing pass over to us ourselves. For even if what happened was not altogether willed by him, yet for the salvation of all he made the suffering on the cross voluntary; for he knew the achievements that would come from it—that he would renew human nature and win it with his own blood. For if he had not made it willed, though suffering was very much unwilled, what reason would there be thereafter for praying and saying: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup”? The Word of God became man for no other reason than that, mingling and blending, as it were, all that is his with our weaknesses, he might strengthen human nature and transform it into his own firmness. So when he appears to fear death and to say, “Remove the cup,” consider again that the flesh, which feared death, was being taught, carried by God the Word, no longer to suffer this; and he said to the Father: “Not as I will, but as you will.” For he did not himself fear death in so far as he is Word and God, but he hastened to carry the economy through to the end; for this was the will of the Father. And his not wishing to die is because the flesh naturally shrinks from death. Teaching humanity, then, no longer to mind its own things but to seek the will of God, he says as man: “Not as I will, but as you will.” For this reason he appears to have added in Matthew too: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” For human nature, even in Christ himself, is found weak in so far as it is itself; but it is lifted up through the Word united to it to courage befitting God. “Behold, a crowd, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve” (22:47).

Why does he say, “the one called Judas”? Did he not know that the man was numbered among the chosen? But as one who already hated even his name, he says, “the one called Judas.” And he adds to this, “one of the twelve,” to show and expose the traitor’s baseness. For he who had been honoured equally with the apostles became an occasion for those thirsting for Christ’s blood; for he had given them a sign: “The one I kiss is he.” He altogether forgot Christ’s glory; he thought perhaps he could escape notice, offering a kiss as a token of love while having a heart full of unholy designs. So he approaches Christ as if from drunkenness, expecting to make the chosen love an instrument of deceit and guile. For this reason, very fittingly, his condemnation was the heavier, because he was not ashamed even of the form and symbol—the kiss—of the betrayal. At any rate the evangelist adds: “But Jesus said to him: Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” For it is necessary to know also what John says about this. He said, then, that the servants of the Jews came forward to arrest Jesus; but he went to meet them, saying: “Whom do you seek?” When the servants said, “Jesus the Nazarene,” he presented himself to the hands of the murderers, saying: “I am he.” And they went backward, it says; and this happened three times. What, then, is the economy, and why did the Saviour present himself, while they fell down when they heard “I am he”? So that they might learn that suffering was not against his will; for the arrest of Christ and his being brought to the unholy leaders was not the result of their strength, but he gave himself up. Come, let us inquire into this too. Did the decision of God the Father, and the will of the Son himself, call him to suffering as from necessity? Then how, if this is true, was it not necessary by all means that someone should become a traitor, and that Israel should be carried to such boldness as to disobey Christ, dishonour him in many ways, and prepare for him death on the tree? Then how is he found saying, “Woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed,” and the rest? And why did Israel perish? But God weighs our affairs not unjustly but with a fitting judgement. How, then, did he make the unwilled willed? God the Father had mercy on those on earth who had fared miserably, and sent the Son from heaven as Saviour and Redeemer, who also came to be in likeness to us; and, though he foreknew what he would suffer, he chose to suffer to save the earth, God the Father approving with him, because of his great gentleness and love for humankind. So, as far as the dishonour of suffering was concerned, he would not have wished to suffer; but since it was not possible not to suffer, because of the cruelty and disobedience of the Jews toward him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.

“Touching his ear, he healed him” (22:51). For he healed in a manner befitting God the one who had suffered the blow, giving those who had come to arrest him this sign too befitting God. “When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not stretch out your hands against me” (22:53). Does Christ then blame the leaders of the Jews for not having prepared the snare of death for him before the time? He does not wish to show this, but rather: “Though you could have seized me daily as I taught in the temple, you did not take hold of me; for I was rather reserving my suffering for the fitting time; and this is the present one. Do not be ignorant,” he says, “that this is your hour and the power of darkness”—that is, a very brief time has been given you for your aggression against me, the Father approving my will. “So you have one hour against me”—that is, a very short and limited time, clearly the one between the precious cross and the resurrection from the dead; and this is also the power given to darkness. He calls Satan darkness, who rose up together with the Jews against Christ, so that he might save the world under heaven through suffering and come back to life on the third day, having trampled on the power of death, while they pay eternal penalty together with the traitor. He does not blame, then, their slowness to murder, but shows that the arrest was not a work of their strength but of his own will, since by design he made the unwilled suffering willed, and accepted it at the fitting time. For he does not blame them for not bringing suffering on him before its time, but rather convicts them for foolishly thinking they would prevail against his will. “Then, indeed, you did not take hold of me,” he says, “for I did not wish it; nor would you have prevailed even now, had I not submitted to your hands willingly.” So it was not a work of the Jews’ strength to bring the Lord to death; one would ascribe the attempt to their unholy daring, but to Christ the Saviour the willingness to suffer for all, so that he might rescue all, and, having bought them with his own blood, present them to God the Father. “But he denied him, saying: Woman, I do not know him” (22:57).

The blessed Peter grew weak, according to Christ’s prediction, and denied Christ the Saviour of all, and not once but three times, and he made the denial under oath; for Matthew said that “he began to curse and to swear, I do not know the man.” Some say that the disciple swore, “I do not know that Jesus became man”; but this is not credible. For how would he not have denied him by overturning the mystery of the economy in the flesh? For he knew that the only-begotten Word of God had become like us, that is, man; indeed he confessed plainly: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And he says such things not as affirming that he was Son of God as one of us is, but, seeing that the Word who is beyond everything that has come to be, and who shone forth from the essence of God the Father, had entered the measures of humanity, he will not cease to know and confess that he is the Son of the living God. And we do not, surely, say that the denial happened so that Christ might not be found false, but that, not being ignorant of what would be, he told the disciple beforehand. That the evil came, as I said, from human faint-heartedness, and that the disciple was condemned by the reproofs of his conscience, his lament and his tears of repentance will at once teach: “For going out,” it says, “he wept bitterly,” Christ having looked at him, and the word spoken to him having called it to his remembrance. Having turned, he did not miss his aim; for he remained what he was, a true disciple, enriched with the forgiveness of his offence. “They mocked him, beating him” (22:63).

One might fittingly say that prophetic word: “Heaven was amazed at this and shuddered exceedingly, says the Lord.” The Lord of earth and heaven, the Creator and Craftsman of all, the King of kings and Lord of lords, is dishonoured like one of us. Alas! The Lord of earth and heaven endures being struck like one of us, and bears the mockery of the ungodly, setting before us a pattern of the utmost forbearance; for he who tests hearts, how could he have been ignorant of who struck him?

“When day came, the council of elders of the people assembled,” and so on (22:66). … as day dawned, their impious council had gathered; the Master of Moses and the prophets was brought into the midst, lawlessly insulted, and the insolent Jew inquired whether he was the Christ. But one might say to them: If you ask in ignorance, how should you not have refrained from grieving him in any way before you learned the truth, lest you somehow strike against God? But if you feign ignorance, knowing well that he is the Christ, you will hear the sacred Writing say: “God is not mocked.” Therefore Christ too says to them, “If I tell you,” and what follows; for where did you believe when you heard? And where were you not silent when asked? And why, tell me, do you busy yourself and think fit to learn from him whether he is the Christ, when it was easy to gain knowledge of him from the law and the prophets? But the leaders of the Jews, together with the peoples under their hand, are admittedly unbelieving and altogether without understanding. To those asking, then, whether he is truly the Christ, and wishing to learn this very thing, he says: “If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I ask you, you will not answer.” Where, then, did they hear and not believe? And where were they silent when asked? Christ, having gone up to Jerusalem, found in the temple those selling sheep and oxen and doves, and the money-changers sitting; and having made, it says, a kind of whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, saying: “Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” Since, then, he called God his Father, those who performed the sacrifices in the temple, vexed at this, leapt at him saying: “By what authority do you do these things?” And to this Christ said: “John’s baptism, where was it from?” And they said: “We do not know.” He asked also somewhere else, saying: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said: David’s. Then the Lord said to them: How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord?” And to this again they were silent. And elsewhere again, if you search, you will find similar things in the divine Gospels. Therefore he answers them nothing, but convicts them as unbelieving and disobedient; for they ought, if they wished, to have understood that he is both Lord of David as God, and consubstantial Son of the Lord, God and Father, and son of David according to the flesh, since, being God and Lord, he appeared to us and became man like us, being of the seed of David, of the tribe of Judah, according to the Scriptures.

“From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (22:69). To make heavier the Jews’ penalty for not wishing to believe, he makes his glory plain, saying: “From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” “Me,” he says, “who came to be in your form, being by nature Son of God, you have held of no account. Since, then, you have sunk to such ignorance that you do not know his mystery and mine, though you are learned in the law, I necessarily say this: a brief time has been given you for your impiety against me, the time up to the cross; for after this I shall at once run back to my own honour, and shall sit with God the Father with the flesh.” When Christ said these things, the band of the Pharisees was kindled to unrestrained anger; they seize on the word as an occasion of blasphemy, and say they need no further testimony, having heard his words themselves. But, O wicked and foolish men! You thought fit to learn whether he is the Christ? He taught that he is by nature and truly the Son of God the Father, and has with him the thrones of the Godhead. From this above all one could learn that he is the Christ. Why did you make the way of salvation an occasion of destruction for yourselves?

“They led him to Pilate” (23:1).

They brought Jesus to Pilate; … they too were handed over to the Roman armies. And what was foretold about them through the holy prophets was fulfilled: “Woe to the lawless! Evils will befall him according to the works of his hands.” And: “As you have done, so it will be done to you; your recompense will be returned on your head.” And what do they say to Pilate? Putting together false accusations against Christ the Saviour of us all: “We found this man forbidding the payment of tribute to Caesar.” And where did he forbid paying tribute to Caesar? Yet you sent some of your own to him, with those called Herodians, testing him and saying: “Teacher, is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not?” Then Christ said to this: “Show me the coin of the tax,” and he asked whose image and inscription the denarius brought to him had. When they said Caesar’s, “Render,” he says, “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Where, then, did he forbid paying tribute to Caesar? But they had one aim: to bring down to death him who leads up to life. Yet they were shown to be more impious even than an idolatrous man. For Pilate freed Jesus from every charge, and that not once but three times. But they insisted, saying: “He stirs up the people,” gathering other occasions for false accusation; and they say that he taught, but were silent about the content of the teaching, fearing lest Pilate himself should somehow be found among the believers. Yet as they said these things Pilate rebuked them, defending him and saying: “I find no fault in him,” and what follows.

“Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas” (23:18). When the one allotted to judge was freeing him from death, they beg that the guide and teacher of all piety undergo the sentence, so as to undergo a still heavier punishment themselves. For they cried out all together, saying: “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas.” See, they plainly denied the holy and righteous one, as the blessed Peter says, and asked for a murderer to be granted to them, so that they might become sharers of his portion; and this indeed happened to them; for they were given over to destruction and slaughter. For they shouted, it says, saying: “Away, away, crucify him.” The Lord blamed this unholy outcry through the voice of Jeremiah, saying: “I have forsaken my house, I have left my inheritance, I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies; my inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has raised her voice against me; therefore I have hated her.”

The prophet Hosea said somewhere about the impiety of the Jews: “Woe to them, for they have leapt away from me! They are wretched, for they have been impious toward me. But I redeemed them, and they spoke lies against me.” And again: “Their rulers will fall by the sword because of the lack of discipline of their tongue.”

“And Pilate gave sentence that their demand should be granted” (23:24). Pilate, it says, decided that their demand should be granted, and they won a victory that was the mother of destruction. The Saviour carried the cross from the praetorium, because Abraham too, going up to the mountain shown to him to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command, laid the wood on the boy; and this was a type of Christ, carrying his own cross on his shoulders.

And the Saviour is led to his passion; and they laid his cross, it says, on Simon of Cyrene. But another of the holy evangelists said that Jesus himself carried the wood. Both this and that are surely true: the Saviour carried the cross, but perhaps halfway along the road they met the Cyrenian, seized him, and transferred the wood to him. It is in some way necessarily reasonable that the Saviour himself should carry the cross. For it was said of him through the voice of Isaiah: “A child has been born to us, a son has also been given to us, whose rule is on his shoulder.” For the cross became his rule, through which he has reigned over the world under heaven, if indeed it is true that “he became obedient to death, even death on a cross; therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.” “And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women” (23:27).

The Saviour, then, walked to the place of the cross; and the women followed weeping, with many others. For the female sex is always somehow given to tears and has a mind easily softened to pity. “But, O daughters of Jerusalem,” he says, “stop your tears over me; weep rather over yourselves and your children. For days are coming,” he says, “in which childlessness will be better for women.” For when the war fell on the land of the Jews, all perished utterly, small and great. Then, he says, to be under hills and mountains will be worth everything. “For if they do these things in the green wood,” he says, “what will happen in the dry?” The saying is shaped as in the manner of a parable, that is, an example, but it is pregnant with the force of a spiritual matter; for it means this, I think. He calls himself green wood, that is, fresh and fruitful and flowering; and his fruits were initiations into mysteries, and counsels, and displays of authority befitting God through divine signs beyond reason. But while he was in these, the Roman commanders—that is, Pilate who condemned him—surrounded him with such terrible dishonours. “When, then,” he says, “they have done such things to me, what will they do when they make war on Israel as on dry and fruitless wood?” For they will see in it none of the admirable things for which it would have been likely to be counted worthy of honour and sparing by them; for they will burn it, clearly exacting the penalty for its impiety toward Christ.

“There they crucified him” (23:33). But the Lord took care neither to manifest his Godhead wholly nor to hide it altogether—the one because of the people of that time, the other because of those after them—so as to show clear activities both of his Godhead and of his humanity, so that neither the divine power might be blunted nor the human nature disbelieved. For since a heresy was going to arise which says that the body was a phantom and came down from heaven—for the incorruptible nature would not have taken flesh of a corruptible body, nor accepted filth or defilement or stain—in order that God might assure the human race that he became what we are while remaining what he was, he therefore allowed the flesh to suffer what is its own. And he showed a double activity, suffering as man and acting as God, the same one; for he is not one and another, even if in one way and another …

“And the rulers also scoffed at him” (23:35). In vain, however, the leaders of the synagogue mock him, shaking their heads and pouring a bitter smile on him:

“He saved others; let him save himself,” they say. If he saved others—and you know this truly happened—how could he not have been able to rescue himself from your hands? “There was also an inscription written over him,” and so on (23:38). The inscription on the title, stating the Lord’s charge, plainly showed the crucified one to be King and Lord of practical, natural and theological philosophy; for the word says it was written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. By Latin I understand the practical, since the kingdom of the Romans was defined, according to Daniel, as more manly than the kingdoms on earth, and courage is the property of the practical, if anything is. By Greek, natural contemplation, since the nation of the Greeks devoted itself to natural philosophy more than other people. By Hebrew, theological initiation, since this nation was plainly dedicated to God from of old through the fathers. One of the robbers, it says, belched out the same things as the Jews; but the other rebuked the words of the one crucified with him; he confessed his sin, bore witness to Christ’s innocence, believed in him, and called him king even as he was crucified. For this reason he seized the lot of the saints.

“There was darkness over the whole land” (23:44). He who is beyond everything that has come to be, who sits with the Father, lowered himself into emptying, took the form of a servant, and bore the measures of humanity, to fulfil the promise made by God to the fathers of the Hebrews. But they became so hard and disobedient as even to rise up against the Master. For they were eager to bring death on the author of life, and they crucified the Lord of glory; and when they had handed over the Master of all to the cross, the sun set upon them, and the light was darkened in the daytime, according to the divine Amos. For there was darkness from the sixth hour until the ninth; and this was a plain sign to the Jews that the souls of those who crucified him had been spiritually darkened. For a hardening in part has come upon Israel. And David too, out of love for God, curses them, saying: “Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see.” And creation itself mourned its Master; for the sun was darkened, the rocks were split, and the temple itself put on the look of mourners, the curtain being torn from top to bottom. God hinted at something of this kind to us through the voice of Isaiah, saying: “And I will clothe the heaven with darkness, and make sackcloth its covering.”

“When the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God,” and so on (23:47). See again, I pray, that, having suffered the passion of the cross for us, he began to draw many into the net of the knowledge of the truth. For the centurion, it says, seeing what had happened, glorified God, saying: “Truly this man was righteous.” And some of the Jews beat their breasts, surely pierced with compunction, looking up to the Lord with the eyes of their understanding, and perhaps freeing themselves from their impiety toward Christ by crying out against those who crucified him, even if not openly, because of the impiety of their leaders. So the Lord spoke truly when he said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.”

“And the women who had followed him from Galilee followed,” and so on (23:49, 55). Wise women followed Christ the Saviour of us all, gathering what was useful and necessary for faith in him. And when he had given his own flesh as a ransom for the life of all, the wise women ran to care for the body; for they thought he would remain dead in the tomb.

“It happened, as they were perplexed about this,” and so on (24:4).

The women came to the tomb; but not finding the body of Christ, for he had risen, they fell into great perplexity.

Of Saint Cyril, on “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (23:46). Again a great and exceptional achievement for our souls through Christ the Saviour of us all. For since we have been justified through faith in him, and in him human nature was found rich in sinlessness, he has also made something new for us: that the souls separated from their bodies no longer run to Hades, as formerly, but rather are sent into the hands of the living God. Knowing this, the holy Stephen said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And the blessed Peter writes: “So let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.”

What follows from this? Because of their love for Christ and their zeal for it, they were counted worthy to see holy angels; and these became evangelists to them and heralds of the resurrection, saying: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” For the Word of God lives always and is life by nature; but having lowered himself into emptying and entered into likeness to us, he tasted death. But this was the death of death. He has risen, then, from the dead, becoming the way of return to incorruption, not for himself but for us; and let no one seek him who lives always among the dead; for he is not here, that is, in death and the tomb. Where, rather? In heaven, clearly, and in glory befitting God. And to establish their faith in these things more firmly, they recall to their memory how Christ said that he must by all means be delivered into the hands of sinners and suffer, and rise on the third day. Angels, indeed, announced the good news of his birth to the shepherds in Bethlehem, and now of his resurrection. Heaven ministered to the proclamations about him, and the armies of the spirits above attend the Son as God even when he became flesh. “And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest” (24:9).

Initiated by the voice of angels, the women hurry to report these things to the disciples. For such splendid grace had to be given to women; for she who of old had become the minister of death is freed from the charge by ministering the words of holy angels, and by being the first both to learn and to announce the venerable mystery of the resurrection. The female sex, then, has gained both release from reproach and the overturning of the curse. For he who said to them of old, “In pain you shall bear children,” gave them an end to the evil by meeting them in the garden, as another evangelist says, and saying: “Rejoice.” But to the holy apostles the account of the resurrection seemed to be mere nonsense and a falsehood, because they too did not know the divinely inspired Scripture. So they disbelieved, and mocked and spat at the report. How, then, in John, did the disciples, hearing from Mary, run to the tomb and believe? And the Scripture testifies this of them, saying: “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, went in, and he saw and believed.” But in Luke it is said: “And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest (it was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles), and they did not believe them.” “Behold, two of them were going that same day to a village” (24:13).

Two of the disciples, walking to a village called Emmaus, talked with one another about him, no longer expecting Christ to be living, but grieving as for one who had been killed. “And while they were talking, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, not recognized by them; for their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them: What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you walk, looking sad? One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said: Are you the only one staying in Jerusalem?” and so on (24:15–18). Then they speak of the report of the resurrection through the women and through Peter, but they do not believe it. For in saying, “And some women amazed us, not having found the body,” they did not consider them to be speaking the truth about what was said, nor that it was good news of truth, but took it to be a cause of a kind of confusion and amazement. And Peter’s testimony, since he had seen only the linen cloths at the tomb, they thought not trustworthy about the resurrection, because he said he had not seen him himself, but inferred his resurrection from his not lying there. One should know that these were of the seventy, and the one with Cleopas was Simon—not Peter, nor the Cananaean, but another of the seventy. “Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets,” and so on (24:27).

Here the Lord shows that the progression of the law and the ministry of the prophets were necessary, introducing faith beforehand in the marvellous event, so that when the resurrection came, those troubled by the greatness of the event might remember the prediction of old and turn to believing. Therefore he brings forward Moses and the prophets as witnesses, interpreting what was hidden and making clear to the worthy what is unclear to the unworthy, setting in them a faith ancient and ancestral from the sacred Writings they held. For nothing from God is vain; there is order in all things and need for each. In order servants were sent ahead and prepared for the Master’s coming, introducing to people beforehand the prophecy necessary for faith, so that, like a king’s treasure brought out in due time, what had been foretold might be revealed from the concealment of its former obscurity into the open through clear explanation. So, having first stirred them through the writings of the law and the prophets, he then makes himself more manifest, when they asked him to come into the village, when he took the bread, blessed, broke it and gave it to them. “For their eyes were kept,” it says, “from recognizing him”—clearly, until the word entered, moving the heart to faith, and then made the sight timely upon the hearing, making manifest what had been heard and believed beforehand. Yet he does not remain with them: “For he vanished from them,” it says. For after the resurrection the Lord’s dealings with people are not such as before, because they too needed renewal and the second life according to Christ, so that new men might be with the new man, and incorruptible men draw near to the incorruptible one. Therefore he also prevented Mary from touching him, as John says, until he had gone away and come.

“Rising that same hour,” and so on (24:33). Those with Cleopas, it says, rising that same hour—that is, the one in which Jesus vanished from them—returned to Jerusalem. “But it was not in that same hour,” he says, “that they found the eleven gathered and reported what concerned Jesus, but on the fortieth day of his resurrection, when he was also taken up.” So what happened in the days between these this evangelist passed over; … the eleven by themselves, saying that the Lord had risen and appeared to Simon—about which he did not mention where or when or how he appeared. In these days, then, the things in Galilee also took place, which Matthew mentioned.

“Jesus himself stood in their midst” (24:36). Now, keeping to the sequence, we say that, since the report of the resurrection was already going around the apostles from many sides, and their longing to see him had been roused, he comes as one longed for, and appears and is revealed to those seeking and expecting him. But he no longer appears to eyes held back; he no longer speaks as about another; he gives himself manifestly and bids them take courage. Yet even so they are doubtful and afraid; for they thought they saw not him, but some phantom and shadow. Then he calms the turmoil of such reasonings too, speaking a word familiar and customary to them; for he said: “Peace to you.” “He said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do reasonings arise in your hearts?” (24:38). So that they might firmly and without hesitation believe that he was the very one who had suffered, he shows at once that, being God by nature, he knows what is hidden, and was not ignorant of the turmoil of thoughts in them. For he said: “Why are you troubled?” This is a very clear proof that the one seen was not someone else, but the very one whom they had seen suffer death on the tree and laid in the tomb, who sees reins and heart, and from whom nothing in us could be hidden. So he makes the matter a sign—his knowing, I mean, the turmoil of the thoughts within them. And assuring them in another way that death has been conquered and human nature, in him as first, has put off corruption, he shows his hands and feet and the holes of the nails, and lets them touch him and be fully assured in every way that the body that suffered, as I said, has been raised. So let no one slander the resurrection. Even if you hear the sacred Writing say of the human body, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body,” do not do away with the return of human bodies to incorruption. For as that is natural which follows and is yoked to natural, that is, fleshly, desires, so that is spiritual which is subject to the will of the Holy Spirit. For after the resurrection from the dead there is no longer a time for love of the flesh, but the sting of sin will be wholly idle. Yet it is the very thing that was brought down into the earth that will put on incorruption. “See that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have” (24:39). So that the disciples might know clearly this very thing, that he is the very one who suffered and was buried and rose, he shows, as I said, his feet and hands. And that he is not, as they thought, rather a spirit, but truly a body, he bids them be fully assured, saying, “And see that I have.” For a shadow and spirit and mere appearance would not endure the touch of a hand. But, as we were saying, the Lord, having shown his hands and feet to the disciples, assured them that the body that suffered had risen; and to make their faith in this still more firmly settled, he asked for something to eat; it was a piece of broiled fish. And taking it, he ate it in their sight; he did this for no other reason than to show clearly that he who had risen from the dead was the same who before this, during the whole time of the economy, ate and drank with them and lived among them in human fashion, according to the prophet’s word—so that they might know that a human body would need such food, but a spirit no longer. Who, then, who thinks himself worthy to be a believer and receives without doubt the testimony of the holy evangelists, would still listen to the fictions of heretics, or still endure those wise in their own conceit? For the power of Christ surpasses human examination and the notion drawn from ordinary things. He ate a piece of fish because of the resurrection; and what follows eating no longer followed in the case of Christ—which an unbeliever might inquire into, knowing that whatever goes into the mouth by all means passes out and is cast into the drain. But the believer will not admit any such thing into his thought, but will ascribe the matter to the power of God.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,” and so on (24:45). When he had calmed their reasoning by what he said, by being touched, and by eating, then he opened their minds to understand that he had to suffer so—clearly, through the wood of the cross. The Lord, then, brings the disciples to remember what he had said; for he had foretold to them the sufferings on the cross, according to what the prophets had said beforehand. And he opens the eyes of their hearts too, so as to understand what had been foretold of old.

The Saviour promises the disciples the descent of the Holy Spirit, which God had promised beforehand through Joel, and the power from on high, so that they might be strong and invincible, and without any fear proclaim the divine mystery to those everywhere.

… Spirit; he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” after the resurrection; and he says: “Stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit”—no longer with water, for they had received it, but with the Holy Spirit; he does not bring in water upon water, but fills up what was lacking.

Having blessed them and gone a little ahead, he was carried up into heaven, to sit with the Father with the flesh united to him too. And the Word, having come to be in human form, opened up this way for us. He will come again at the appointed time in the glory of his Father, with the angels, and will take us with him. Let us, then, glorify God the Word, who became man for us, who suffered willingly in the flesh, rose from the dead and undid corruption; who was taken up, and will come after this with great glory to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his works; through whom and with whom be glory and might to the Father and God with the Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.