Orations 5.1–6.10

All the festivals of the martyrs are wonderful, imitating the brilliance of the stars in their commemoration. For just as the stars are fixed in heaven in their positions and are known by their distance from one another, and shine on the whole circle of the earth, and the same star is seen among the Indians and is not hidden from the Scythians, flashes on the land and lights up the sea and steers those who sail, and though because of their number we do not know the names of them all, yet because of their beauty we marvel at their brilliance; so also each of the saints. For even if their remains are enclosed in tombs, all that is under heaven has not confined their power. And that what has been said is true, you may learn from the facts themselves. Palestine has the remains of Abraham, and his tent rivals paradise; for the God who pronounced sentence on Adam there was entertained as a guest here by the patriarch. One tomb embraces the bones of Joseph, and the ends of the world are amazed at his battle against the Egyptian woman. Not even the grave of Moses is found, and after death he proclaims the one who split the Red Sea by a rod. Where Isaiah is buried we do not know, and the whole church cries out through his prophecy: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son.” Daniel was buried in Babylon, and through the whole earth he has cried: “Behold, one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven.” The youths with Ananias also fell asleep in Babylon, and through them the whole world cries every day: “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.” Ezekiel was buried among the Persians, and with the cherubim he has cried: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.” So the devil gained nothing by killing Adam in paradise; for through death God opened to the righteous a door of boldness.

But while all the commemorations of the saints are wonderful, none is so glorious as the present festival. Abel is named for his sacrifice; Enoch is remembered for pleasing God; Melchizedek is proclaimed as an image of God; Abraham is praised for his faith; Isaac is commended as a type; Jacob is called blessed for his wrestling; Joseph is honoured for his self-control; Job is called blessed for his endurance. Moses is acclaimed as lawgiver; Joshua son of Nun is remembered as a general; Samson is called blessed as a companion of God; Elijah is attested as a zealot; Isaiah is recorded as a theologian; Daniel is proclaimed as wise; Ezekiel is admired as a beholder of unspeakable things; David is spoken of as father of the mystery according to the flesh; Solomon is admired as wise. But none is such as Mary the Theotokos. For what all of them saw in riddles, she carried in her womb made flesh; and nothing hindered the unspeakable economy of God the Word. Bulk? But that is a material condition, and the Word is foreign to bulk and passion. The size of so small a space? But the Godhead is not circumscribed. Defilement? But he who was not polluted in fashioning her was not defiled when he was made flesh in her and born of her; rather, his love for mankind brings more glory to the King. Birth? But birth did not diminish his being without beginning. Becoming man? But the divine nature underwent no change. Having a mother according to the flesh? But he did not lose being without mother according to the Godhead. A manger? But he did not leave the Father's bosom empty. A cave? But the Trinity never left the throne empty. Nothing in life, then, is like Mary the Theotokos. Go round creation, man, in your thought, and see whether anything is equal to or greater than the holy Virgin and Theotokos. Travel the earth; look around the sea; search the air; explore the heavens with your mind; consider all the invisible powers; and see whether there is another such wonder in all creation. For “the heavens declare the glory of God”; angels serve with fear; archangels worship with trembling; the cherubim shudder, unable to bear him; the seraphim, flying around, do not come near, but cry out in trembling: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; heaven and earth are full of his praise.” The lake could not bear his voice; the clouds became the vehicle of the resurrection in trembling; the sun shuddered, unable to bear the outrage; Hades vomited out the dead in fear; the gatekeepers of Hades cowered when they saw him; the mountain smoked when it received his tread; the bush, unable to bear the vision, was set ablaze; the Jordan shuddered and turned back; the sea, fearing the rod, was split, tamed by the figure of the Master; Aaron's rod blossomed against nature because of the image; the fire in Babylon respected the number of the Trinity. Count, then, the paradoxes, and marvel at the Virgin's victory: that him whom all creation hymned with fear and trembling she alone, inexplicably, received in her bridal chamber.

Because of her all women are blessed. No longer is the female under a curse; for the sex has one by whom it will surpass even angels in glory. Eve has been healed; the Egyptian woman has been silenced; Delilah has been buried; Jezebel has been forgotten; Herodias too is no longer remembered; and now the roll of women is admired. Sarah is acclaimed as the field of peoples; Rebekah is honoured as the clever agent of blessings; Leah too is admired as mother of the ancestor according to the flesh; Deborah is praised as one who led an army beyond nature; Elizabeth too is called blessed, as one who carried the leaping of the Forerunner in her womb and was disposed toward grace; and Mary is venerated, because she became mother and handmaid and cloud and bridal chamber and ark of the Master. Mother, for she bore him who willed to be born. Handmaid, for I confess her nature and proclaim the grace. Cloud, for she conceived by the Holy Spirit the one whom she bore without passion. Bridal chamber, for God the Word dwelt in her as in a bridal chamber. Ark, not carrying the law but bearing the Lawgiver in her womb. Therefore let us say to her: “Blessed are you among women,” you alone who healed the grief of Eve; you alone who wiped away the tears of the one who groaned; you alone who carried the ransom of the world; you alone who were entrusted with the treasure of the pearl; you alone who grew great with child without pleasure and gave birth without passion; you alone who bore Emmanuel as he himself willed. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”: the fruit, not the seed; the flower, not passion; the radiance, not a creature; the one who shares the throne, not the slave; the sun, not the sand; the one who is worshipped, not a creature; the ransom, not the debtor. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

In place of all, the prophet is enough for your praise, crying: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb.” He spoke the wonder and kept silent about the manner. “And shall bear a son”: he proclaimed the childbirth and did not corrupt her condition. “And they shall call his name Emmanuel”: he spoke the mystery and thundered the name; “which is translated, God with us.” He proclaimed the one born as God and shut the mouths of the Jews. God with us, and error has been quenched; God with us, and circumcision has been abolished; God with us, and the demons are put to flight; God with us, and the devil has been abolished; God with us, and the font gives birth and does not grow weary; God with us, and kings are pious; God with us, and the churches are crowded; God with us, and death has become sleep; God with us, and the dead, leaping at their freedom, cry: “Not an angel, not an envoy, but God himself came and saved us.” To him be glory to the ages of ages. Amen.

The constant expectation of profits steals away the toil of merchants, and a burning desire for money makes them bold against the wild waves. Since, then, we too are about to launch today from the harbour mouths of our eagerness the small and cheap boat of our teaching, [let us run] on the fair and untroubled voyage of the Virgin's story. Come, then, let us venture more truly upon the depth of the Master's spiritual benefit, rubbing off the sluggishness of bodily weakness; let us cast off the ropes of the affairs of this life and hoist the sails of our festal duties, so that, carried thus by the gentle breeze of the Spirit, we may find ourselves reaching the gold-bearing city of Havilah. And what is Havilah, and the land, and the gold? Is it not the holy Virgin, and her pure and spotless soul? And what is the carbuncle? Is it not the Lord, who says: “I came to cast fire on the earth”? And what is the green stone? Is it not the pallor of the voluntary death of his body, which by the burning nature of such a leek made bitter the death that swallowed him? I ask, then, those who wish to share this voyage with us not to neglect the customary rowing; for so the voyage of teaching will gain a fair passage, and brotherly alliance will show its goodwill. Yet from the very preface I want to remind you, brothers, that it is not without danger to embark on the virgin sea, especially for those unused to such a voyage and strangers to it. For though many have dared such an open sea, few have come safely through it without storm into the waveless and fair harbour of the will of God.

For divine indeed and bright, and belonging to the supreme and blessed order of the bodiless powers, is the spotless garment of virginity; since the King of all also consented to put on this most seemly robe. “For the Lord,” it says, “has reigned; he has put on seemliness.” And not only did he put on the untouched tunic of priestly purity, but he also clothed himself in the honourable robe of royal dignity. In these the two orders are shown: of those who lead and those who are led, of true virginity and of pious chastity. For he was both king and priest “according to the order of Melchizedek.” In the same way Aaron also in former times was clothed in purple and fine linen: for the fine linen is a sign of the blameless and pure life of priests, and the purple, dyed red with the sweat of soldiers, a token of the toilsome and virtuous conduct of kings; so that by the garment of each the piety and courage of mind belonging to each rank might be shown. So also the Lord, having come to be in both, as priest propitiated the Father for all, and as king routed the devil, who was arming himself against all.

Truly the fair words of virginity are a honeycomb, having their sweetness from true faith and possessing their pleasantness from exact practice. She is the spiritual paradise of God, in which is “every tree beautiful to see,” that is, spiritual contemplation, “and good for food,” spiritual teaching; and the tree of life is planted there, the saving economy of God; and with them is also “the tree of knowing what is known of good and evil”: virginal beauty, exercising natural desire in the field of free choice. She is the land of the true promise, flowing with spiritual and pure milk and gushing with spiritual and incorruptible honey: “For I will bring you,” he says, “into a land flowing with milk and honey”; so that those who are led and live in this world may cultivate chastity, and those who lead and are dedicated to God may hold to purity. For twofold is the character of the church: “clothed in golden fringes, many-coloured,” and bearing “all the glory of her beauty within,” as it is written; in the affairs of life bringing forth, according to Solomon, like a fig tree, the unripe figs of modesty, and in priestly things, according to the same Solomon, putting forth like a vine the blossoming clusters of goodness. “For our vines,” he says, “are in blossom, and the fig tree has put forth its unripe figs.” It was according to this order, I think, that the apostles after the resurrection offered the Master a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb: signifying by the fish the rational fish caught by the hook of faith from the salty sea of evils, according to the Lord's word to Peter, “From now on you will be catching men”; and by the honeycomb those who from the virtuous flowers of righteousness store up in the innermost chamber of the heart the profitable and pleasant fruit of piety, which kings and common people alike take for the health of the soul. So “he shall eat butter and honey”: the child born of the holy Virgin eats from the conversion of the two orders, for the sake of those who are infants in wickedness after the mystical birth of the font.

Partaking of this food, John was counted worthy to touch the undefiled head of the Lord; enjoying this nourishment, he became one of the angelic order. For “his food was locusts and wild honey”: the very height of blameless life and the purest form of spotless purity. And the evangelist rightly called such nourishment wild; for the form of virginity is hard to hunt, and this plant has settled far from the land of this world, and perhaps few have been able to learn its quality. But let the prophet's eating of wild honey be understood in another way too. First, because he kept the eye of the mind clean from the easily fanned fumes of fleshly appetites; for according to medical teaching, unsmoked honey is not to be applied to a clouded eye. And after this, because, not yet having believed in the Lord, nor having put the neck of his soul under the yoke of the gospel, he followed with pleasure an estranged and daring life, nourished by the sweet mind of the legal pregnancy. For he did not come to the Jordan by his own judgement, but at God's command. “For I too,” he says, “did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me: He on whom you see the Spirit descending like a dove and coming upon him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” For this reason it can be said [that his food was wild honey]: for the honey of purity is wild. “For Christ is the fulfilment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes”; and “without faith it is impossible to please God”; and “He who does not believe in the Son will not see eternal life.”

All, then, who have kept the lamp of purity unquenched have bound on the unfading crown of incorruption; all who have acquired the priceless tunic of chastity will be received into the mystical bridal chamber of righteousness. All who have come nearer the angelic rank will enjoy the Master's blessedness more truly. Therefore all who have tasted the Master's sweetness have taken hold of the summit of the gospel. All who abstain from the luxury of wine and strong drink will rejoice in the new fruit of the life-bearing planting. All who have kept the bodily grape incorrupt have gathered the spiritual fruit of blessing in abundance. “As the grape,” he says, “is found in the cluster, and they will say, Do not destroy it, for it is a blessing of the Lord.” He means the blessed John the evangelist, who alone was kept spotless in body and spirit in the apostolic cluster until he became a raisin, that is, until extreme old age. This is the first and choice gift of God; this the illuminating oil of the mind; this the pure incense of fragrance; this the precious ointment of the heart; this the approved spice of the soul; this the most passionless flower of the fragrant body. Through this gift Abel, though dead, still speaks; for those whose lamp of virginity is not quenched, the fame of their purity remains immortal. Through this gift Melchizedek remains a priest for ever. Through this gift Isaac becomes a type of the Master's passion. Through this gift Moses is appointed god to Pharaoh. Through this gift Joseph receives the reins of second place in royal dignity. Through this gift Elijah walks the upper air on bodily feet. Through this gift Jeremiah is entrusted with uprooting and overthrowing kingdoms. Through this gift Daniel shuts the mouths of savage beasts. Through this gift the three youths are kept unharmed in the fearful furnace. Through this gift the two sons of Zebedee are called sons of thunder. Through this gift John is made faithful and friend of the heavenly Bridegroom. And to speak briefly: through this gift she who descends from the human race and is derived from the earthly lump becomes the mother of the Master of the angels. “She was found with child of the Holy Spirit.” Since, then, the sermon in its course has reached the second veil, where the footprint of a strange road is shown, the path of an unseen journey is made new, the gateway of the second tent is opened, things inaccessible appear, the face of what is not seen shines out, and the mercy seat shaded by the cherubim is revealed: “For Christ,” it says, “having come as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, entered once for all into the Holy Place.” After the apostolic testimony, do some still dare to say, like the fools, “He is not God,” who was born and came forth from the greater and more perfect tent? And how was he a common man like us, the stone cut without hands from the virginal mountain? Whoever tramples him, that is, counts him among those formed from earth, is handed over to unpardonable punishments: “For how much worse punishment,” Paul says, “will he deserve who has trampled on the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant common?” Let us take courage, if you will, toward the sanctified place of the second tent, having loosed the dead sandal of our fettered way of life. For neither does the priest enter the inner sanctuary unless he separates himself from every absurdity of thought, nor can Moses see the great vision of the Master's economy unless he passes beyond all human affairs. For so the thorny nature of men learned to share in the illuminating, not the burning, nature of the Godhead. For the bush that then kept company with the fire bore a symbol of the Virgin who conceived without seed the true light, the sun of righteousness rising from this spotless bridal chamber to warm the waters of the nations, as it is written; to dissolve by the warmth of goodness the frost of the devil's harshness; to drive out by the brightness of the Godhead the night of ignorance; to light up with illuminating rays the creation made by him; so that no one any longer stumbles on the virginal day of grace, walking in the light of orthodoxy according to the firm faith marked out by its boundaries, in the twelve-acre field of the apostles, as it is said: “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble.”

For there are many who not only, as David says, set their mouth against heaven, but also bring their tongue down upon the earth and attack the purity of the Virgin at close quarters. So that we too may not fall, like pleasure-loving and earthy men, when we hear the evangelist say, “Before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit,” and “he did not know her until she had borne her firstborn son,” and so suppose from this that after the divine birth the Virgin ceased from her purity and Joseph held to marital union, I beg the spiritual to receive spiritual things spiritually, and not to be carried down to the passion of the flesh, ignorant of the depth of Scripture. For if we believe, according to the new creation in Christ, that there is no male and female, and that the counterfeit coin of bodily sin does not pass current in the spiritual commonwealth, let us no longer pry into the earthly footprint of the old man, nor again long for the fruit of the fig tree withered from the roots by the Master's word. For we cannot wear two tunics at once; it is not possible to put on a tunic of skin over the garment of incorruption. “For what fellowship,” he says, “has light with darkness?” Let us not drag the knowledge of the gospel down to bodily intercourse; let us not take the mystical interpretation as marital union. Why do we seek a natural sequence in an economy that is beyond nature?

Let us learn what Joseph's ignorance means. He did not recognize the mystery being accomplished in the Virgin, or of what wonder he was the servant. He did not know that the Christ who was prophesied was being born of the woman betrothed to him. He did not know that the Prophet spoken of by Moses was coming forth from a girl who knew no marriage. He did not remember that she who was formed of the good clay could become a temple of God. He did not know that by the spotless hands of the Master the second Adam was again being formed out of the virginal paradise. He did not know that the ruler of the dry land was being created without sowing. He did not know that the land of Israel would one day give the life-giving fruit [“And our land,” it says, “will give its fruit”]. The Virgin's womb swelled, and Joseph's heart was wounded; he saw the swelling of her belly and utterly despaired of the mystery of her purity; he saw her with child and fell into the greatest storm; he noticed her laden and suspected her corrupted. His lack of knowledge was not a suspicion of intercourse but an intensifying of unbelief; the matter called for accusation, not for patience. He heard the angel saying, “Do not fear to take your wife,” and yet he prolongs his brooding over the doubt. I do not believe in the conception, he says, unless I see the birth; unless I behold the infant, I will not drive away the cloud of ignorance; unless I see the firstborn son, I will not unload this most absurd thought; unless I see the spiritual sun risen, I am not persuaded that the spiritual moon remains in the rank of virginity. What then? Shall I embrace this thought and not proceed to separation? I will proceed; for so I may both escape the reproach of men and she may escape the punishment of the law. Let us hear with what words, disbelieving the divine word, he began to speak to her.

“Go far from the Jewish kinship, since you have taken on the uncleanness of the Gentiles.” Then the holy Virgin gave a gentle answer to the heavy rebuke, saying: “Do you think me defiled because you see me with child?” To this Joseph: “It is not for a modest woman to think thoughts alien to piety.” The holy one says: “Judging me guilty of fornication, do you give me no room for a defence?” And Joseph: “Do you persist in denying it, though you have become pregnant?” And the holy one: “Seek faithfully the truthfulness of the prophetic prediction, and you will learn clearly from it the newness of the Lord's conception.” And Joseph: “Have you broken our pious marriage? You will come, as you do not expect, to the strict reckoning.” And the holy one: “Do you wish, then, on suspicion, to condemn one not outraged by intercourse?” And Joseph: “Perhaps I am among those who live well; how then can I hand you over to those who judge such things?” And the holy one: “The Lord will judge this sin for me, he who, as he knows, has come into my womb.” And Joseph: “Does the inconsolable abuse grieve you? Then show the purity that no one has plotted against.” And the holy one said: “Wait for the customary time of the unborn child, and you will see the sanctified offspring of the Lord.” And Joseph: “Do you think to deceive the good sense of my grey hairs with inflated words?” And the holy one: “The words seem strange to you, [I know,] until you see the paradoxical deeds.” And Joseph: “I do not wish to be divorced from you, because of our Jewish kinship; and again I cannot transgress the strictness of the law.” And the holy one: “Be persuaded that the root of Jesse has, of itself, put forth the unfading flower of life.” And Joseph: “I will cast away the rising of my absurd thoughts when I see the birth of the Master of all.” And the holy one: “I love you without passion as my betrothed, because of the law; but I do not wish you to stumble rashly against the Saviour because of the birth.” And Joseph: “Fearing this very thing, I am staying for now without separating from you.” And the holy one: “Remember also the promised coming of the Lord, and turn away from the unbelief that has come upon you from the Evil One.” And Joseph: “Afraid of the surpassing beauty of your body, I readily accepted a suspicion unworthy of the matter.” And the holy one: “Lend, then, the approved coin of patience, so that you may gain the eternal lodging of the kingdom.” And Joseph: “I am counting from now the well-numbered fulfilment of the time, so that I may behold the indescribable incarnation of the Master.” And the holy one: “O Joseph, then we shall be called blessed by all, when we are called parents of the Creator of all.”

Then at last Joseph was fully assured who the Virgin was, when he was also taught by the angel who the one born was. For he says: “Rise, take the child and his mother.” He no longer says, “your wife.” “Let him who is able to receive it receive it.” Then he laid aside the cowardice of his soul, when he beheld the choir of angels; then he called the womb blessed, when he observed the star; then he laid aside the thoughts of fleshly marriage, when he received the treasures of the Magi from the east; then he called himself wretched, when Simeon held the infant and glorified him as God; and she whom he had earlier turned from as incontinent he afterwards received as pure; she whom he had reviled as disgraced he praised in hymns as blameless; she whom he had driven away as profane he entreated as spotless; she whom he had pushed away as shameless he cherished as dear to God; she whom he had publicly called a maenad he besought as a holy lamb. So Joseph, until the Virgin bore the Lord, did not know the mystery of the economy; until she put forth the fruit of salvation, he doubted the incorruptible tree of purity; until the sheaf of joy came to maturity, the suspicion of corruption did not wither. Such ignorance is no accusation against the righteous man; nor is he open to condemnation because out of ignorance he brought blame on the divine conception. For to whom God bears witness of righteousness, who can attribute folly? For the mystery was so incomprehensible to the human mind, and the mystical birth so paradoxical, that the holy Virgin herself, while carrying God the Word, hesitated at the archangel's word: she rejoiced inwardly in him who was being made flesh from her, and outwardly answered back him who was speaking with her; she embraced the treasure of life, and pondered the greeting of the voice.