On the Birth of Christ 1145–1149

of children, mothers, relatives, fathers, crying out piteously against the threats of the executioners? How could anyone describe the executioner standing over the infant with naked sword, glaring fiercely and murderously and uttering such things, dragging the baby to himself with one hand and raising the sword with the other; and the mother on the other side pulling the child back to herself and offering her own neck to the edge of the sword, so as not to see with her eyes her wretched baby destroyed by the executioner’s hands? How could one tell of the fathers: the calling out, the wailing, the last embraces of their children, and many such things happening at the same time? Who could tell in tragic style the many forms and ways of the calamity: the double birth pangs of those who had just given birth, the sharp burns of nature? How the wretched baby clung to the breast and at the same moment received the fatal blow through its vitals? How the wretched mother held the nipple to the infant’s mouth and received the child’s blood in her lap? Often, perhaps, the executioner, by the force of his hand, with one thrust of the sword drove through the child together with the mother, and the stream of blood became one, mingled from the mother’s wound and from the child’s death blow. And since this too was added to Herod’s foul order, that the death sentence was issued not only against the newborn but that if any had reached their second year, he too was to be seized (for it is written “from two years old and under”), our speech sees, as is likely, another suffering in this: that often the time between made the same woman mother of two children. What, then, was the sight in such cases, two executioners busy about one mother, one dragging to himself the child running beside her, the other tearing the nursling from her bosom? What would the miserable mother likely feel at this, her nature torn between two children, each kindling the fire equally in her mother’s heart, not knowing which of the wicked executioners to follow, as they dragged the infants to the slaughter, one from this side and the other from that? Should she run to the newborn, still uttering an indistinct and unarticulated cry? But she hears the other, already speaking, calling his mother with tears in a lisping voice. What is she to do? Which way is she to turn? Whose voice is she to answer with her cry? Whose wailing is she to answer with her lament? Which death is she to mourn, scourged equally, perhaps, over each by the goads of nature? But let us lead our hearing away from the laments over the children and turn our mind to things more cheerful and more fitting to the feast, even if Rachel, according to the prophecy, cries aloud as she mourns the slaughter of her children. For “on a day of festival,” as wise Solomon says, “forgetting of evils is fitting.” And what feast could be more notable for us than this, in which the sun of righteousness, having scattered the evil darkness of the devil, shines on our nature through our very nature, in which what had fallen

has been raised up, what was at war is brought to reconciliation, what was disowned is brought back, what had fallen out of life returns to life, what was enslaved in captivity is taken back to royal rank, what was fettered by the bonds of death runs back free to the land of the living. Now, according to the prophecy, the bronze gates of death are shattered; the iron bars are broken, by which the human race was formerly shut up in the prison of death. Now, as David says, the gate of righteousness is opened. Now the sound of those keeping festival is heard with one voice throughout the whole world. Through a man came death, and through a man salvation. The first fell into sin; the second raised up the one who had fallen. The woman has made the defense for the woman: the first gave entrance to sin, while this one served the entrance of righteousness. The one drew in the serpent’s counsel; this one presented the slayer of the serpent and gave birth to the author of light. The one brought in sin through the tree; this one brought in good in return through the tree. By tree I mean the cross; and the fruit of this tree becomes evergreen and unfading life for those who taste it. And let no one suppose that such thanksgiving befits only the mystery of Pascha. For let him consider that Pascha is the end of the divine plan. But how could the end have come, if the beginning had not gone before? Which is more primary than which? Clearly the birth is more primary than the dispensation of the passion. So the good things of Pascha too are part of the praises of the birth. And if one lists the benefits recorded in the Gospels and goes through the miracles of healing, the feeding from nothing, the return of the dead from the tombs, the impromptu cultivation of wine, the flight of demons, the change of various sufferings into health, the leaping of the lame, the eyes made from clay, the divine teachings, the laws, the initiation into higher things through the parables: all these are the grace of the present day; for this day began the good things that followed. Let us exult, then, and be glad in it, not fearing the reproach of men nor overcome by their contempt, as the prophet too urges, those who mock the account of the divine plan as though it were unfitting for the Lord to enter the nature of a body and mingle himself with human life through birth; not knowing, it seems, the mystery of it, how the wisdom of God arranged our salvation. We had sold ourselves willingly by our sins and been enslaved like purchased slaves to the enemy of our life. What would you most have wished to come to you from the Master? Was it not to be rescued from the calamity? Why are you curious about the manner? Why do you lay down laws for your benefactor, not accepting his benefit? It is as if someone pushed away the physician and found fault with his kindness because he did not carry out the

treatment in this way but in another. If, out of curiosity, you seek the magnitude of the divine plan, it is enough for you to learn this much: that the Divine is not one of the good things only, but whatever can be conceived as good, that it is: powerful, just, good, wise, all the names and concepts that have a meaning befitting God. Consider, then, whether all these did not meet in what was done for us: goodness, wisdom, power, justice. As good, he loved the rebel; as wise, he devised the means of return for those enslaved; as just, he does not use force against the one who enslaved us, who had justly acquired us by purchase, but gave himself as an exchange for those held captive, so that, like a guarantor who transfers the debt to himself, he might free the captive from those who held him. As powerful, he was not held fast by Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. For it was not possible for the author of life to be held by corruption. But is it shameful to come into human birth and undergo the experience of the sufferings of the flesh? You are speaking of the surpassing greatness of his kindness. For since humanity could not otherwise be rescued from such great evils, the King of all impassibility consented to exchange his own glory for our life. And purity comes to be in our filth, but the filth does not touch the purity, as the Gospel says, that the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. For the gloom vanishes at the presence of the ray; the sun is not darkened by the gloom. The mortal is swallowed up by life, as the Apostle says; life is not consumed by death. What was corrupted is saved along with the incorruptible; corruption does not touch incorruption. For this reason there is a common chorus of all creation, all sending up one harmonious doxology to the Master of creation, every tongue of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth crying out that the Lord Jesus Christ is to the glory of God the Father, blessed to the ages of ages. Amen.