Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 40.44–41.15

What need have I of longer words? It is the time for teaching, not for controversy. I testify before God and the elect angels: with this faith you will be baptized. If you have been written otherwise than my word requires, come and be written anew. I am no unskilled calligrapher of these things, writing what I myself have been written, and teaching what I have learned and kept from the beginning to these grey hairs. Mine is the danger, mine also the reward, as the steward of your soul who perfects you through baptism. But if you are so, and have been stamped well with the letters, keep for me what is written, remaining unchanged in changing times about an unchangeable matter. Imitate Pilate for the better, you who are well written, as he wrote badly: say to those who would persuade you otherwise, “What I have written, I have written.” For I would be ashamed if, while evil stays unbending, good should be bent most easily; whereas we ought to be easily moved from worse to better, and immovable from better to worse. If you are baptized thus, and according to this teaching, behold, I will not restrain my lips; behold, I lend my hands to the Spirit. Let us hasten our salvation; let us rise up for baptism. The Spirit is eager, the perfecter is ready, the gift is prepared. But if you still limp and do not accept the perfection of the Godhead, look for someone else to baptize you, or rather to drown you; I have no leisure to cut up the Godhead and make you dead at the time of your regeneration, so that you have neither the gift nor the hope of grace, having made shipwreck of salvation in a short time. For whatever you take away from the Godhead of the three, know that you have overthrown the whole, and your own perfection with it.

But is there not yet any imprint on your soul, neither of worse writing nor of better, and must you be written today, and stamped by us for perfection? Let us go inside the cloud: give me the tablets of your heart. I become Moses for you, though it is bold to say; I write with the finger of God a new decalogue; I write a concise salvation. If there is any heretical and irrational beast, let it stay below, or it will be in danger of being stoned by the word of truth. I will baptize you, making you a disciple, into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and the common name of the three is one, the Godhead. You will know, both by the gestures and by the words, that as you renounce all godlessness, so you are enrolled with the whole Godhead. Believe that the whole world, all that is visible and all that is invisible, was made by God out of nothing, is governed by the providence of its Maker, and will receive a change for the better. Believe that evil has no essence and no kingdom, neither without beginning, nor self-existent, nor made by God; but that it is our work and the evil one's, coming in upon us through our carelessness, and not from the Creator. Believe that the Son of God, the pre-eternal Word, begotten of the Father timelessly and incorporeally, in the last days became for your sake also Son of man, coming forth from the Virgin Mary ineffably and without defilement (for nothing is defiled where God is, and through which salvation comes); whole man and the same also God, for the sake of the whole of man who suffered, that he might bestow salvation on the whole of you, having destroyed the whole condemnation of sin; impassible in his Godhead, passible in what he assumed; as much man for your sake as you become God for his. Believe that he was led to death for our iniquities, crucified and buried, so far as to taste death; that he rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, to bring you up with him who lay below; and that he will come again with his glorious appearing, to judge the living and the dead; no longer flesh, yet not bodiless, but, by reasons known to himself, with a more godlike body, that he may be seen by those who pierced him and yet remain God, free from grossness. Accept besides these the resurrection, the judgment, the recompense by the just scales of God. And believe that this recompense is light for those purified in mind, that is, God seen and known in proportion to their purity, which we also call the kingdom of heaven; and darkness for those blinded in their ruling faculty, that is, estrangement from God in proportion to their dimness of sight here. Tenth, work what is good upon this foundation of doctrines; since faith without works is dead, as are works without faith. You have the parts of the mystery that may be spoken, and that are not secret from the ears of the many. The rest you will learn within, the Trinity granting it; and these you will keep hidden in yourself, guarded by the seal.

But this good news I announce to you. The standing in which you will stand immediately after baptism before the great sanctuary is a foreshadowing of the glory there. The psalmody with which you will be received is a prelude of the hymnody there. The lamps that you will light are a mystery of the procession of lights there, with which we shall go out to meet the Bridegroom, bright and virgin souls with the bright lamps of faith, neither sleeping through carelessness, lest he who is expected should come unexpectedly without our noticing, nor without food and oil and lacking good works, lest we be shut out of the bridal chamber. For I see how pitiable the plight is. He will be there, the cry demanding that we go out to meet him; and those who are wise will meet him with bright light and a more abundant supply for it; but the others will be in confusion, seeking oil out of season from those who have it. And he will enter swiftly, and the wise will enter with him; but the others will be shut out, having spent the time for entering in getting ready; and they will weep much afterwards, learning too late the loss caused by carelessness, when the bridal chamber is no longer open to them, though they beg earnestly, having wrongly shut themselves out of it. In another way they will be like those who stayed away from the wedding which the good Father gives for the good Bridegroom, because of a newly married wife, or a newly bought field, or a yoke of oxen, which they acquired to their harm, losing the greater for the sake of the small. For none of the arrogant and careless is there, nor any of those dressed in filthy and not wedding clothes, even if here he thought himself worthy of the splendid clothing there and slipped in unawares, deceived by empty hopes. Then what? When we have come there, the Bridegroom knows what he will teach, and how he will be with the souls that have entered with him. He will be with them, I think, teaching more perfect and purer things; of which may we too partake, both we who teach these things and you who learn them, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might for ever. Amen.

Let us philosophize briefly about the feast, that we may keep it spiritually. For different people keep festival in different ways, … and of discourses, the one most suited to the occasion. And nothing so delights any lover of the beautiful as for a lover of feasts to keep festival spiritually. Let us consider it thus. The Jew too keeps festival, but according to the letter; for, pursuing the bodily law, he has not attained to the spiritual law. The Greek too keeps festival, but according to the body, and in honour of his own gods and demons, some of whom are makers of passions by their own account, while others were honoured for their passions; therefore their keeping of feasts is also full of passion, so that sinning is honour to the god, to whom passion flees as a dignified excuse. We too keep festival, but as it seems good to the Spirit. And it seems good to him when we either say or do something fitting. And this is our keeping of festival: to store up in the soul something of what stands and is held fast, not of what passes away and is dissolved, which flatters the senses a little, but for the most part ruins and harms, at least in my view. For the body's own wickedness is sufficient for it. Why does the flame need more fuel, or the beast more abundant food, so that it becomes harder to hold and more violent than reason? … [2] … of days, the Sabbath, which is continually honoured among them, as the removal of leaven is of the same number; and of years, the seventh year, the year of release. And not only in sevens, but also in sevens of sevens, both of days and of years. The sevens of days produce Pentecost, a day called holy among them; the sevens of years produce what they call the Jubilee, which likewise has release of the land, freedom of slaves, and the return of purchased possessions. For this people consecrates to God firstfruits not only of produce and of firstborn, but also of days and years. So the honoured number seven brought with it the honour of Pentecost. For seven multiplied by itself produces fifty, less one day, which we have taken over from the age to come, being both the eighth and the first, or rather the one day that does not end. For the sabbath rest of souls here must end there, so that a portion may be given to seven and even to eight, as some before us have interpreted the saying of Solomon.

Of the honour of seven the testimonies are many, but a few out of many will suffice us. Seven honoured Spirits are named; for Isaiah likes, I think, to call the activities of the Spirit spirits. The words of the Lord are purified sevenfold, according to David. The righteous man is delivered from six troubles, and in the seventh is not even struck. The sinner is forgiven not seven times only, but seventy times seven. And again from the opposite side (for the punishment of wickedness is praiseworthy too): Cain is avenged sevenfold, that is, pays the penalty for killing his brother; and Lamech seventy times seven, because he was a murderer after the law and the condemnation. The wicked neighbours receive sevenfold into their bosom; the house of Wisdom is supported on seven pillars; the stone of Zerubbabel is adorned with as many eyes. God is praised seven times a day. And the barren woman bears seven, the perfect number, in contrast with her who is imperfect in children.

If we must also look at the ancient histories, I think of Enoch, the seventh among the forefathers, honoured by being taken up; I think of Abraham, the twenty-first, glorified with the patriarchate, by the addition of a greater mystery, for the seven tripled makes this number. And one of the very bold might even venture to come to the new Adam, my God and Lord Jesus Christ, numbered seventy-seventh from the old Adam who was under sin, according to Luke's genealogy reckoned backwards. I think too of the seven trumpets of Joshua the son of Nun, and as many circuits and days and priests, by which the walls of Jericho were shaken; and so too the seven circuits of the city; as also, as mystical, the threefold breathing of Elijah the prophet, which breathed life into the son of the widow of Zarephath, and his pouring of water of the same number upon the wood, when he consumed the sacrifice with fire sent by God and condemned the prophets of shame, who could not do the same in answer to his challenge; so too the seventh looking out for the cloud, commanded to the servant, and Elisha's equal number of bendings over the son of the Shunammite woman, which rekindled his breath. Of the same doctrine, I think (not to mention the lampstand of the temple with seven branches and seven lamps), the priest is consecrated in seven days, the leper is cleansed in seven, and the temple is dedicated in as many. In the seventieth year the people is brought back from captivity, that what exists in units may come to be in tens, and the mystery of the seven be honoured by a more perfect number. Why speak of distant things? Jesus himself, the pure perfection, knows how to feed five thousand in the desert with five loaves, and again four thousand with seven; and the remnants of the abundance were there twelve baskets, here seven hampers; neither, I think, without reason, nor unworthily of the Spirit. And you too, gathering them for yourself, might observe many numbers that have something deeper than appears. But what is most useful for the present occasion is this: it is perhaps for these reasons, or reasons very near to them, or for some more divine ones, that the Hebrews honour the day of Pentecost; and we honour it too, as there are other Hebrew observances which they performed in figure and which are restored to us in mystery. Having said this much beforehand about the day, let us go on to what follows in our discourse.

We keep the feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, the appointed time of the promise, and the fulfilment of hope. And how great, how great and venerable, is the mystery! The bodily things of Christ have come to an end, or rather the things of his bodily sojourn (for I hesitate to say “of the body”, until some argument persuades me that it is better for him to have laid aside the body); and the things of the Spirit begin. What were the things of Christ? The virgin, the birth, the manger, the swaddling, the angels glorifying, the shepherds running, the course of the star, the worship and gifts of the Magi, Herod's slaughter of the children, Jesus fleeing into Egypt and returning from Egypt, being circumcised, baptized, witnessed to from above, tempted, stoned for our sake, to whom a pattern of suffering for the word had to be given, betrayed, nailed, buried, rising, ascending; and even now he suffers much of this: from the haters of Christ, dishonour, and he bears it, for he is long-suffering; from the lovers of Christ, honour. And he puts off, as his wrath for them, so his goodness for us; perhaps giving them time for repentance, and testing our desire, whether we lose heart in afflictions and in the struggles for piety; as is the age-old principle of the divine economy and of his inscrutable judgments, by which he wisely directs our affairs. Such are the things of Christ; and what follows we shall see more glorious, and may we be seen. As for the things of the Spirit, may the Spirit be present with me and give me speech, as much as I wish; or if not so much, at least as much as fits the occasion. He will certainly be present as Master, not as servant, nor waiting for a command, as some think. For he blows where he wills, upon whom he wills, and when, and as much as he wills. So we are inspired both to think and to speak about the Spirit.

Those who bring the Holy Spirit down to the rank of a creature are insolent, wicked servants, and the worst of the wicked. For it is the part of wicked servants to reject lordship, to rise up against dominion, and to make him who is free their fellow servant. Those who think him God are inspired and illumined in mind. Those who also call him so are lofty if they speak to the well-disposed, but, if to the lowly, not prudent stewards: they entrust a pearl to clay, the sound of thunder to weak hearing, the sun to weaker eyes, and solid food to those still drinking milk; whereas they ought to lead them forward little by little and bring them up to higher things, bestowing light upon light and procuring truth for truth. Therefore we too, leaving aside for now the more perfect discourse (for it is not yet the time), will speak to them as follows. [7] … Confess the nature in other words, which you respect more; and we will heal you as sick people, slipping in also some things that please. For it is shameful, shameful and quite unreasonable, for those who are strong in soul to be petty about the sound and to hide the treasure, as though begrudging it to others, or afraid of sanctifying your tongue too; but it is more shameful for us to suffer what we accuse others of, and, while condemning pettiness, to be petty ourselves about letters.

Confess the Trinity, my friends, to be of one Godhead; or, if you prefer, of one nature; and we will ask the Spirit for the word “God” for you. For he who gave the first will give the second too, I know well, especially if what resists is a spiritual timidity and not a devilish obstinacy. Let me say it still more plainly and briefly: neither call us to account for the loftier word (for there is no envy of ascent), nor will we accuse you for the one attainable for now, so long as you are carried by another road to the same lodging. For we do not seek to conquer, but to win brothers, by whose separation we are torn apart. This we say to you, in whom we find something living, who are sound regarding the Son, whose life we admire, though we do not wholly praise your doctrine: you who have the things of the Spirit, receive the Spirit too, that you may not only strive but strive lawfully, from which comes the crown. May this be given you as the reward of your way of life: to confess the Spirit perfectly, and to proclaim him with us and even before us as he deserves. I dare to say something greater on your behalf, the Apostle's word: so much do I cling to you, and so much do I revere this orderly dress of yours, the colour of continence, these holy communities, the venerable virginity and purity, the all-night psalmody, the love of the poor, of brothers and of strangers, that I would accept even to be accursed from Christ, and to suffer something as one condemned, if only you would stand with us and glorify the Trinity together.

… As for the others, what need is there even to speak, since they are plainly dead (only Christ, who gives life to the dead by his own power, can raise them), who are wrongly separated by place while bound together in doctrine, and quarrel with one another as much as squinting eyes, which see one thing and differ not in sight but in position, if indeed we should charge them with squinting and not with blindness. And since I have set out in measure what concerns you, …

… let us return again to the Spirit; and I think that you too will now follow.

The Holy Spirit always was, and is, and will be, neither beginning nor ending, but always ranked and numbered with the Father and the Son. For it was not fitting that the Son should ever be lacking to the Father, or the Spirit to the Son. For then the Godhead would have been most inglorious, coming as if by a change of mind to the completion of its perfection. He was always, then, participated, not participating; perfecting, not perfected; filling, not filled; sanctifying, not sanctified; deifying, not deified; always the same as himself and as those with whom he is ranked; invisible, timeless, uncontained, unchangeable, without quality, without quantity, without form, intangible, self-moved, ever-moving, self-determining, self-powerful, all-powerful (although, as all that belongs to the Only-begotten, so all that belongs to the Spirit is referred back to the first cause); life and life-giving; light and giver of light; goodness itself and source of goodness; the right Spirit, the princely Spirit, the Lord; sending, setting apart, building himself a temple, guiding, working as he wills, distributing gifts; Spirit of adoption, of truth, of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of piety, of counsel, of might, of fear, those that are enumerated; through whom the Father is known and the Son glorified, and by whom alone he is known; one rank, one worship, adoration, power, perfection, sanctification. Why should I speak at length? All that the Father has belongs to the Son, except being unbegotten; all that the Son has belongs to the Spirit, except being begotten. These do not mark off essences, in my view, but are distinctions about the essence. [10] … Today let us teach doctrine, tomorrow we may argue technicalities; today let us keep the feast,

tomorrow we may behave unseemly. These things belong to the mysteries, those to the theatre; these to the churches, those to the marketplaces; these to the sober, those to the drunken; these to those who are in earnest, those to those who make sport of the Spirit. And since we have cleared away what is foreign, come, let us set in order what is ours.

He was at work first in the angelic and heavenly powers, all that are first after God and around God. For from no other source than the Holy Spirit comes their perfection and illumination, and their being hard to move or immovable towards evil. Then in the patriarchs and the prophets, of whom some pictured God or knew him, and others also foreknew the future, their ruling faculty being moulded by the Spirit, and being with things to come as though present; for such is the power of the Spirit. Then in the disciples of Christ (I pass over Christ, with whom he was present, not as working, but as accompanying his equal); and in them in three ways, as far as they could receive him, and at three times: before Christ was glorified by the passion, after he was glorified by the resurrection, and after his ascension into heaven, or restoration, or whatever one should call it. The first is shown by the cleansing of diseases and spirits, which clearly did not happen without the Spirit; the second by the breathing after the economy, plainly a more divine inspiration; the third by the present distribution of the tongues of fire, which we are celebrating. The first was indistinct, the second more expressive, the present more perfect: no longer present by his activity, as before, but present essentially, as one might say, being with us and dwelling with us. For it was fitting that, as the Son had conversed with us bodily, the Spirit too should appear bodily; and that, when Christ had returned to himself, the Spirit should come down to us: coming as Lord, sent as not opposed to God. For such expressions show agreement no less than they distinguish persons. [12] Therefore after Christ, that a Paraclete might not be lacking to us; and “another”, that you may consider his equal honour. For “another” stands for “another such as I”. This is a name of joint lordship, not of dishonour; for “another”, I know, is said not of things alien but of things of the same essence. In tongues, because of his kinship with the Word. Of fire: I ask whether because of the cleansing (for our discourse knows also a cleansing fire, as those who wish may learn from many places) or because of the essence. For our God is fire, and a fire consuming wickedness, even if you are again annoyed at being hemmed in by the “same essence”. Divided, because of the diversity of gifts; sitting, because of his royal dignity and his rest in the saints, since the cherubim too are the throne of God. In an upper room (if I do not seem to anyone more curious than I should), because of the ascent of those who were to receive him and their elevation from the ground; since certain upper rooms too are roofed with divine waters, by which God is hymned. And Jesus himself, in an upper room, gives communion in the mystery to those who were being initiated into higher things, that this might be shown: that God must in some way come down to us, as I know happened before with Moses, and we must go up, and so there comes to be communion of God with men, the dignity being blended. As long as each remains in its own place, the one in its height, the other in its lowliness, the goodness remains unmingled and the love for man incommunicable, and there is a great and impassable gulf between, separating not only the rich man from Lazarus and the longed-for bosom of Abraham, but the created and flowing nature from the uncreated and stable. [13] … (that is, upon all who believe), and upon your sons …

… and upon your daughters, and so on. … and later by Jesus, when he was glorified and glorifying in return, as he glorified the Father and was glorified by him. And how abundant the promise: to abide for ever and to remain, whether now with those who are worthy at each time, or hereafter with those counted worthy of the things there, if we keep him whole by our way of life and do not cast him off in proportion to our sins. [14] This Spirit creates together with the Son both the creation and the resurrection. Let this convince you: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power”; and, “The divine Spirit made me, and the breath of the Almighty teaches me”; and again, “You will send forth your Spirit and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” And he creates the spiritual regeneration. Let this convince you: that no one can see or receive the kingdom who has not been born again from above by the Spirit and cleansed from the former birth, which is a mystery of the night, by a formation of the day and of light, by which each is formed individually. This Spirit, being most wise and most loving, if he takes a shepherd, makes him a psalmist, charming away evil spirits, and declares him king of Israel; if a goatherd scraping sycamore fruit, he makes him a prophet: remember David and Amos. If he takes a gifted youth, he makes him a judge of elders even beyond his years: Daniel bears witness, who conquered the lions in the den. If he finds fishermen, he nets them for Christ, catching the whole world in the meshes of the word: take Peter and Andrew, and the sons of thunder, thundering spiritual things. If tax collectors, he wins them for discipleship and makes them merchants of souls: witness Matthew, yesterday a tax collector, today an evangelist. If ardent persecutors, he changes the direction of their zeal and makes Pauls instead of Sauls, as devoted to piety as … [he found them to wickedness]; and he is the Spirit of meekness, and yet he is provoked by those who sin. Let us therefore experience him as gentle and not wrathful, confessing his dignity and fleeing blasphemy, … he it is who has made me bold to you today; if, then, I am to suffer nothing, thanks be to God; and if I do suffer, thanks even so: in the one case, that he spares those who hate us; in the other, that he sanctifies us, who receive this reward for the priestly service of the gospel, to be perfected through blood.

They spoke, then, in foreign tongues and not in their native ones; and great was the wonder, a language spoken by those who had not learned it. And the sign is for unbelievers, not for believers, that it might be an accusation against the unbelievers, as it is written: “With other tongues and with other lips I will speak to this people, and not even so will they listen to me, says the Lord.” “And they heard”: stop here a moment and consider how you will divide the sentence; for the expression has an ambiguity, which is settled by the punctuation. Did each hear in his own dialect, so that, for example, one sound was uttered but many were heard, the air being struck in this way, and, to put it more clearly, one voice becoming many voices? Or should one pause after “they heard”, and attach “speaking in their own voices” to what follows, so that it means “speaking in voices that were the hearers' own”, that is, foreign to the speakers? This I prefer. For in the former way the wonder would belong rather to the hearers than to the speakers; but in this way it belongs to the speakers, who are even accused of drunkenness, plainly because they themselves were working wonders with their voices by the Spirit.