Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 40.5–40.23

… is light, the highest, unapproachable and ineffable, neither grasped by the mind nor uttered in speech, … of every rational nature. It is in the world of thought what the sun is in the world of sense: presenting itself to our minds as far as we are purified, loved as far as it is pictured, and known again as far as we love; contemplating and comprehending itself, and pouring out a little of itself to what is outside. I mean the light contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whose wealth is their unity of nature and the one outleaping of their splendour. The second light is the angel, a kind of outflow of the first light or participation in it, having its illumination by inclining towards it and serving it; I do not know whether it receives its illumination according to the order of its station, or its order according to the measure of its illumination. The third light is man, as is clear even to those outside; for they call man phōs, because of the power of the word in us; and more especially those of us who are more godlike and draw nearer to God. I know also another light, by which the primeval darkness was driven away or cut through, the first thing to exist of the visible creation: the circling course of the stars, and the beacon above that lights up the whole world.

Light also was the firstborn commandment given to the first-formed man, since “the commandment of the law is a lamp and a light”, and “your ordinances are a light upon the earth”, even though the envious darkness slipped in and produced wickedness. A light, typical and proportioned to those who received it, was the written law, sketching in shadow the truth and the mystery of the great light; since the face of Moses too is glorified by it. And that we may give more lights by our discourse …

… and, having fallen into the depth, as the saying goes, despise him; but that, like those who travel a long road and rest from their labours at an inn, we may finish the rest of the journey fresh and eager. This, then, is the grace and power of baptism: not a deluge of the world, as of old, but a cleansing of the sin of each one, and a complete washing away of the mud and stains that have come in through wickedness. [8] And since we are twofold, I mean of soul and body, the one visible and the other invisible nature, the cleansing too is twofold, I mean by water and Spirit: the one received visibly and bodily, the other concurring invisibly and incorporeally; the one typical, the other true and cleansing the depths. This, coming to the aid of our first birth, makes us new instead of old and godlike instead of what we now are, recasting us without fire and re-creating us without breaking. For, to put it briefly, the power of baptism is to be understood as a covenant with God for a second life and a purer conduct. Therefore we must above all fear, and each must guard his own soul with all watchfulness, lest we be found liars to this confession. For if God, called in as mediator, confirms the agreements made with men, how great is the danger of being found transgressors of the covenants we have made with God himself, and of being answerable to the truth not only for our other sins but for the lie itself! And this when there is no second regeneration, no re-creation, no restoration to the former state, even though we seek it with ever so many groans and tears, through which a scarring over comes, though with difficulty, at least by my rule and measure (for it does come, and we believe it; and if we could also wipe out the scars, I would be glad, since I too need mercy). Yet it is better not to need a second cleansing but to stand by the first, which I know is common to all and of equal honour for slaves and masters, poor and rich, lowly and exalted, nobler and less noble, debtors and those who owe nothing, like the breathing of the air, the pouring out of light, the changes of the seasons, the sight of creation, the great delight common to all of us, and the equal share in faith.

For it is a terrible thing, instead of an easier remedy, to bring about a more painful one, and having thrown away the grace of pity to become liable to punishment, and to have to measure out amendment against sin. For how many tears shall we shed to equal the fountain of baptism? And who is the guarantor that the end will wait for the healing, and that the judgment will not receive us while we still owe, and need the fire there? You, perhaps, the good and kind gardener, will beg the Master still to spare the fig tree and not yet to cut it down when it is accused of being fruitless, but to let you put manure around it: tears, groans, prayers, sleeping on the ground, vigils, wasting of soul and body, and amendment by confession and a humbler way of life. But it is uncertain whether the Master will spare it, since it uselessly occupies the ground while another needs mercy and grows worse through his patience with this one. Let us then be buried with Christ through baptism, that we may also rise with him; let us go down with him, that we may also be exalted with him; let us go up with him, that we may also be glorified with him. [10] … “It is written,” he says, “that he will give his angels charge concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up.” O sophist of wickedness, why did you suppress what follows? For I know it well, even if you keep silent: “I will tread on the asp and the basilisk, and trample on serpents and scorpions,” walled about by the Trinity. If he tries to throw you down through greed, showing you all the kingdoms in one moment of time and sight as though they belonged to him, and demanding worship, despise him as a beggar. Say, trusting in the seal: “I too am an image of God; I have not yet been cast down from the glory above through pride, as you have; I have put on Christ; I have been transformed into Christ by baptism: you worship me.” He will depart, I know well, defeated and put to shame by these words; as from Christ the first light, so from those who have been illumined by him. Such gifts the bath bestows on those who understand it; such a banquet it sets before those who are rightly hungry.

Let us then be baptized, that we may conquer; let us share in the cleansing waters, more purging than hyssop, purer than the blood of the law, holier than the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the defiled, which gives a temporary cleansing of the body, not a complete removal of sin. For why should those once cleansed need cleansing? Let us be baptized today, that we may not be compelled tomorrow. Let us not put off the benefit as though it were an injury, nor wait to become more wicked so that more may be forgiven us; let us not become Christ-hucksters and Christ-traders, nor load ourselves beyond what we can bear, lest we go down with ship and crew and make shipwreck of the gift, losing everything when we hoped for more. While you are still master of your thoughts, run to the gift; while you are not yet sick in body and mind, nor seem so to those present, even if you are of sound mind; while your good does not lie in the hands of others but you yourself are its master; while your tongue is not faltering, nor chilled, nor, to say no more, failing in the words of initiation; while you can become a believer, not by conjecture but by confession, not pitied but called blessed; while the gift is clear to you and not doubtful, and the grace touches the depths and it is not a body washed for burial; while there are not tears around you announcing your departure, and those perhaps held back for your sake, and wife and children delaying your going and seeking your last words; while there is not an unskilled doctor at your side, granting you hours of which he is not master, weighing your salvation with a nod, philosophizing about the disease after your death, or raising his fees by withdrawing, or hinting at despair; while there is not a struggle between the baptizer and the man of business, the one striving to give you provisions for the journey, the other that he may be written in as heir, and time permitting neither.

Why do you wait for a fever to be your benefactor, and not God? Why for the hour, and not for reason? Why for a treacherous friend, and not for saving desire? Why not free choice, but force? Why not freedom, but constraint? Why must you learn of your departure from another, and not think of it as already at hand? Why seek medicines that will do no good? Why the critical sweat, when perhaps the departure is at hand? Heal yourself before necessity; have pity on yourself, the true healer of your weakness; apply to yourself the truly saving medicine. While you sail with a fair wind, fear shipwreck; and you will be less likely to be wrecked if you have fear as your helper. Let the gift be celebrated with festivity, not mourned with lamentation; let the talent be traded with, not buried. Let there be some interval between the grace and the departure, that not only may the evil writing be blotted out, but better be written in its place; that you may have not only the gift but also the reward; that you may not only escape the fire but also inherit the glory which working with the gift bestows. For to the small-souled it is a great thing to escape torment; to the great-souled, to gain a reward as well. [13] For I know three ranks among the saved: slavery, hired service, sonship. If you are a slave, fear the blows; if a hireling, look only to receiving your wage; if you are above these, a son, revere God as a father. Do good because it is good to obey your father, even if nothing is to come of it for you; this itself is the reward, to please the father. Let us not be seen to despise these things. How absurd it is to snatch at money beforehand but put off health; to cleanse bodies beforehand but store up the cleansing of the soul; to seek freedom from slavery here below but not to desire freedom above; to make every effort to be magnificently housed or clothed, but to take no thought how you yourself may be of the greatest worth; to be eager to do good to others, but not to wish to do it to yourself! If the good were for sale, you would spare no money; but when kindness is set before you, you despise it because it is ready to hand. Every time is your time for washing, since every time is a time for departure. With Paul I cry to you with that great voice: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation”: not one time, but every time, the “now” defining it. And again: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light,” dispelling the night of sin. For “in the night hope is evil”, according to Isaiah, and it is more profitable to be taken in the morning.

Sow when it is the time, and gather, and open your barns when it is time for that; plant in season, and let the ripe grape be cut for you; put to sea boldly in spring, and draw your ship up again when winter begins and the sea grows wild. And let there be for you a time for war and for peace, for marrying and for refraining from marriage, for friendship and for separation, if need be, and in short for every matter, if we are to trust Solomon; and we must trust him, for the advice is useful. But work at your salvation always, and let every time be the season for your baptism. If you always pass over today and watch for tomorrow, you will be robbed unawares by the evil one through little postponements, for that is his way: “Give me the present, God the future; me youth, God old age; me the pleasures, him the uselessness.” How great is the danger that surrounds you! How many are the unexpected accidents! War has consumed, or an earthquake buried, or the sea swallowed, or a beast snatched away, or a disease destroyed, or a crumb going down the wrong way, the most trivial thing (for what is easier than for a man to die, however proud you are of the image?); or excessive drinking, or a wind hurling down, or a horse running away, or a poison deliberately plotted, or perhaps a deadly drug given instead of a saving one, or an inhuman judge, or an inexorable executioner, or any of the things that make the passing away most swift and stronger than any help …

But if you were to forestall all this with the seal, and secure the future with the best and strongest of aids, being signed in soul and body with the anointing and the Spirit, as Israel of old was with the blood by night that guarded the firstborn, what will happen to you, and what will have been secured for you? Hear the Proverbs: “If you sit down,” it says, “you will be without fear; and if you sleep, you will sleep sweetly.” And receive the good news from David: “You will not be afraid of the terror by night, of mischance, and of the noonday demon.” This is the greatest safeguard for you while you live; for a sheep that is sealed is not easily plotted against, while the unmarked one is easily caught by thieves. And when you depart, it is a fine shroud, more splendid than clothing, more precious than gold, more magnificent than a tomb, more pious than fruitless libations, more timely than seasonal firstfruits, which the dead offer to the dead, making custom into law. Let everything go from you, let everything be plundered, money, possessions, thrones, splendours, all that belongs to the revolving world here below; but you end your life in safety, having lost none of the aids God has given you for salvation. [16] … And he becomes a counsellor as if he were good, though he is evil, so that by some means or other he may prevail, and we may nowhere escape his plotting. This he plainly contrives here too. For since he cannot persuade you openly to despise baptism, he harms you through a false security, so that through your fear you may unwittingly suffer the very thing you fear, and, being afraid of spoiling the gift, may through that very fear fall from the gift. Such is he, and he will never cease from his duplicity while he sees us hastening towards heaven, from which he himself has fallen. But you, man of God, recognize the plot of the adversary; for the battle is against one who is strong, and about the greatest things. Do not take the enemy as your counsellor; do not disdain to be called and to become one of the faithful. As long as you are a catechumen, you are in the porch of religion: you must come inside, cross the court, look upon the holy things, gaze into the Holy of Holies, be with the Trinity. Great are the things you are fighting for; you need great security too. Hold up the shield of faith. He fears you when you fight with that weapon; and that is why he strips you of the gift, that he may more easily overcome you when you are unarmed and unguarded. He lays hold of every age and every form of life: let him be repelled by all.

Are you young? Stand against the passions with this alliance; be enrolled in God's army; win glory against Goliath; take your thousands or your ten thousands. So enjoy your youth; but do not allow your youth to wither, deadened by the imperfection of your faith. Are you old, and near the necessary end? Revere your grey hairs; help your few days with the wisdom that age requires of you instead of your present senselessness; entrust your cleansing to old age. Why do you fear youthful things in deep old age and with your last breaths? Or are you waiting to be washed as a corpse, not so much pitied as hated? Or do you long for the remnants of pleasures, being yourself a remnant of life? It is shameful that your age has passed its prime but not your licentiousness; yet either you are in this state, or seem to be, if you delay your cleansing. Have you an infant? Let not wickedness get an opportunity: let him be sanctified from infancy, consecrated to the Spirit from the cradle. Do you fear the seal because of the weakness of nature? What a small-souled and faithless mother! Hannah promised Samuel to God even before he was born, and when he was born she made him holy at once and brought him up in the priestly robe, not fearing anything human but trusting God. Nor do you need amulets and incantations, with which the evil one creeps in, stealing to himself the reverence due to God among the more light-minded. Give the child the Trinity, that great and fine safeguard.

What then? Are you practising virginity? Be sealed with this cleansing; make it the companion and partner of your life; let it regulate for you your life and speech, every limb, every movement, every sense. Honour it, that it may adorn you, that it may give to your head a crown of graces and shield you with a crown of delight. Are you bound by marriage? Be bound also by the seal; make it dwell with you as the guardian of chastity, safer, do you not think, than many eunuchs and doorkeepers? Not yet joined to the flesh? Do not fear the perfecting: you are pure even after marriage. The risk is mine; I will join you together, I will lead the bride. For it is not because virginity is more honourable that marriage is among the dishonoured. I will imitate Christ, the pure leader of the bride and the Bridegroom, who both works a wonder at a wedding and honours wedlock with his presence. Only let marriage be pure and unmixed with filthy desires. This alone I ask: receive safety from the gift, and give the gift chastity in its season, when the appointed time for prayer comes, which is more honourable than business, and this by mutual agreement and consent. For we do not legislate but advise; and we wish to take something of yours for your own sake and for the common safety of you both. In short, there is no life, no occupation, to which this is not more profitable. You who are in authority, receive the bridle; you who are in slavery, equality of honour; you who are downcast, consolation; you who are cheerful, discipline; you who are poor, the riches that cannot be robbed; you who are wealthy, the good stewardship of what you have. Do not use sophistry, do not contrive anything against your own salvation. For even if we deceive others, we cannot deceive ourselves; to play against oneself is very dangerous and senseless. [19] “But you move in the midst of things, and are defiled by public affairs; and it would be terrible for the mercy to be spent in vain on you.” The answer is simple. If possible, flee even the marketplace with good company, putting on the wings of an eagle, or, to speak more properly, of a dove (for what have you to do with Caesar or the things of Caesar?), until you come to rest where there is no sin, no blackness, no serpent biting on the road and hindering your steps towards God. Snatch your soul from the world; flee Sodom, flee the burning; travel without turning back, lest you be fixed as a pillar of salt; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them. But if you are already held fast and bound by necessary bonds, say this to yourself, or rather I will say it to you: it is better both to obtain the good and to keep the cleansing; but if both are not possible, it is better to be stained a little by your public affairs than to fall from grace altogether; just as, I think, it is better to be rebuked a little by father or master than to be cast out, and to shine a little than to be wholly darkened. It is the part of the prudent, as among goods to choose the greater and more perfect, so among evils to choose the lesser and lighter. Therefore do not fear the cleansing too much. For what is achieved is always judged together with one's circumstances by the just and loving Judge of our affairs. And often one who lives in the midst of affairs and has achieved a little has gained more than one who lives in freedom and has not achieved everything; just as, I think, it is more wonderful to advance a little in fetters than to run with no burden, and to be spattered a little going through mud than to be clean travelling a clean road. A proof of what I say: Rahab the harlot was justified by one thing alone, her hospitality, though she is not praised for the rest; and the tax collector was exalted by his humility, with nothing else to his credit; so that you may learn not to despair of yourself lightly. [20] “But what advantage is it to me,” someone says, “to be forestalled by baptism and to cut myself off by haste from the pleasure of life, when I could give myself to pleasures and then obtain the grace? For those who toiled earlier in the vineyard had no advantage, the same wage being given to the last as well.” You have relieved us of trouble, whoever you are who say this, by having at last spoken out the secret of your delay; and though I do not praise your knavery, I praise your confession. But come, hear the parable explained, that you may not be harmed by Scripture through inexperience. First, the passage here is not about baptism but about those who believe at different times and enter the good vineyard, the church. For from the day and hour that each believed, from then his work is required of him. Next, even if those who entered first contributed more by the measure of their labour, they did not by the measure of their choice; and perhaps more was even owed to the last on this account, though the saying is paradoxical. For the cause of their entering later was that they were called later to work the vineyard; but let us consider how great the difference was in other respects. The first did not believe or enter before their wage had been agreed; the others came to the work without an agreement, which is a sign of greater faith. And the first were found to be of an envious and grumbling nature; the others are charged with nothing of the kind. To the first what was given was a wage, wicked though they were; to the others, grace; so that the first, being charged with folly, were justly deprived of more. What would have happened to them if they had come late? Let us learn: clearly, an equal wage. How then do they blame the employer as unequal because of his equality? All this takes away from the first the merit of their sweat, even though they toiled earlier; from which it follows that the equal distribution is just, the choice being weighed against the labour. [21] … the labourers who receive the wage are those who have entered the vineyard, not those who have missed it, which is what you are in danger of suffering. If it were certain that you would obtain the gift while thinking thus and knavishly shirking some of the work, you would be pardonable for taking refuge in such reasonings and wishing to profit a little from the Master's kindness; not to say that, to one who is not wholly mercenary in mind, labouring more is itself a greater reward. But if you are in danger of falling from the vineyard altogether through your trading, and of losing the capital while gathering small gains, come, be persuaded by my words: give up such misinterpretations and objections and come to the gift without calculating, lest you be snatched away before your hopes are fulfilled and find you have been reasoning cleverly against yourself.

“What then? Is not the Divine loving?” someone says. “For, knowing our thoughts, it approves the desire, and instead of baptism it counts the eagerness for baptism.” You are saying something like a riddle: that one who is not illumined is illumined before God because of his love for man, or that one who strives to obtain the kingdom of heaven is within it without doing the things of the kingdom. For my part I will speak boldly about these things as I think; and I think that others with sense will side with me. Of those who obtain the gift, some were wholly estranged from God and from salvation, having gone through every form of vice and striving to be wicked; others were half-wicked in a way, in a middle state between virtue and vice, who did evil but did not consent to what they did, as feverish people do not consent to their illness; others were praiseworthy even before their perfecting, some by nature, others purifying themselves beforehand for baptism by effort; and after their perfecting they have shown themselves better and more secure, the first in order to obtain the good, the second in order to keep it. Among these, better than the wholly wicked are those who give up something of their vice; and better than those who give up a little are the more zealous who purify themselves beforehand for baptism, for they have something more: the work. For the bath does not destroy good deeds as it erases sins. And better than these are those who also cultivate the gift and polish themselves into beauty as far as they can.

So also of those who fail to receive it, some are altogether brutish or bestial, according to their folly or wickedness; to them, along with their other evils, even the gift is, I think, not greatly venerable, but merely a gift: welcome if it is given, disregarded if it is not. Others know and honour the gift but put it off, some through carelessness, others through greed. Others are not even in a position to receive it, perhaps because of infancy, or some wholly involuntary circumstance, through which they cannot obtain the gift even if they wish. As we found a great difference among the former, so also among these. Those who utterly despise it are worse than the greedier or more careless; and these are worse than those who miss the gift through ignorance or compulsion; for compulsion is nothing other than an involuntary failure. And I think that the first will be punished, for their contempt of the bath as for their other wickedness; that the second will be punished too, but less, because they brought about their failure not so much by wickedness as by folly; and that the third will be neither glorified nor punished by the just Judge, as unsealed but not wicked, having suffered the loss rather than caused it. For not everyone who is not worthy of punishment is thereby worthy of honour, just as not everyone who is not worthy of honour is thereby worthy of punishment. And I consider this too: if you judge the would-be murderer guilty of murder from his will alone, without the murder, then reckon as baptized one who wished for baptism without baptism. But if not the former, I cannot see how the latter. Or, if you prefer, put it thus: if desire suffices you for the power of baptism, and on that ground you judge about glory, let the desire for glory suffice you for glory too. And what harm is it to you not to obtain it, if you have the longing?

Therefore, since you have heard these words, “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed” by missing the grace, receive the illumination while there is time, that darkness may not pursue you and overtake you, cutting you off from the illumination. “The night comes when no one can work,” after our departure from here. That is the voice of David; this is the voice of the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world. And think that Solomon too reproaches you sharply, you who are lazier or more sluggish: “How long will you lie, sluggard? When will you rise from sleep?” You allege this and that, and make excuses in sins: “I am waiting for the Lights; Easter is more precious to me; I will wait for Pentecost; it is better to be illumined with Christ, to rise with Christ on the day of the resurrection, to honour the manifestation of the Spirit.” And then what? The end will come suddenly, on a day you do not expect and in an hour you do not know; and then the poverty of grace will come upon you like a bad traveller, and you will starve amid so great a wealth of goodness, when you should reap the opposite by the opposite, the harvest by diligence and refreshment from the spring, like the very thirsty hart that runs eagerly to the springs and quenches the toil of its race with water; and not suffer what Israel suffered, to be parched by drought, or what the myth tells, to be punished by thirst in the middle of a spring. It is a terrible thing to let the fair go by and then look for trade; terrible to pass by the manna and then long for food; terrible is wisdom after the event, and to perceive the loss only when there is no remedy for it, after the departure from here, the bitter shutting up of each one's life, the punishment of sinners, and the splendour of the purified. Therefore do not delay in coming to the grace, but hasten, lest a robber get there before you, an adulterer outrun you, a greedy man take it first, a parricide snatch the good before you, or a tax collector, a fornicator, or one of the violent who seize the kingdom. For it suffers violence willingly, and submits to force through its goodness.

… [25] … between wealth and poverty; but here the more eager is the richer.