Orations 6.11–6.17

“How will this be,” she says, “since I do not know a man? I do not understand the plain sense of the word; how shall I know what in the matter is worthy of God?” And the archangel to her: “Do you then demand that the angelic orders publish unspeakable words?” And the holy one to the angel: “Is there harm in asking, if what concerns the conception is made known?” And the angel: “You see Gabriel bringing the good news, and do you hesitate over Emmanuel, whom he announces?” And the Virgin: “Is it, then, within a woman's nature to give birth to the Master of creation?” And the archangel: “Having an earthly mind, how can you learn the heavenly counsel?” And the holy one: “Shall I then accept your word without doubt and not inquire into the birth at all? And can he be contained in a womb who cannot be separated from the Father?” And the archangel: “You will be taught the mystery, as far as is possible, when you hold the Lord in your hand.” And the holy one: “Have you seen a field put forth a sheaf without first receiving seed?” And the archangel: “You have received a joy beyond nature; no longer think of corruption according to nature.” And the holy one: “I have never borne the yoke of a man; how can I become the mother of a child?” And the archangel: “Do you look for the coming together of marriage, where there is the descent of the Master's power?” And the holy one: “I wanted to obtain full assurance, so that I might escape all distress.” And the archangel: “I came to announce to you what has been decreed by the Creator of all; not to explain to you what is hidden from all.” And the holy one: “You are a faithful angel of God; and do you not know exactly what is possible for God?” And the archangel: “Do you wish to learn what is above you? Believe in him who willed to become like you.” And the holy one: “Perhaps it is not possible to announce to me the form of the uncircumscribed one; then at least show me the footprint of the one longed for.” And the archangel: “Know that if you receive what is said to you spiritually, you will see how you are found blessed in what is mystically accomplished.” And the holy one: “And shall I believe that the only-begotten Son of God becomes my kinsman, that he who shares the Father's throne shares the body of a woman?” And the archangel: “… .” And the holy one: “I greatly marvel how the radiance of the Father becomes the offspring of a woman.” And the archangel: “Wishing to escape the notice of the enemy, he who shares the throne of the Father's hypostasis becomes conformed to the rank of a slave.” And the holy one: “I wanted to learn how majestic authority becomes like poverty in suffering.” And the archangel: “Does he cast off the diadem of immortal power by putting on the garment of mortal nature? Does he lay aside his royal sovereignty by coming in earthly lowliness? Does he lessen the dignity of the Godhead by taking the image of humanity? Does the condescension of compassion become an alteration of his being? Is he separated from the most high Father if he is carried by you, his mother? Does he leave the cherubic throne if he occupies a place in the world? Does he fall from his majesty if he lies down in a manger? Is he not without beginning if he becomes new? Is he not hymned by angels as sovereign if he is seen by men as lowly? Does he not sit above if he lives below? Does he not provide for all if he walks with all? Does he not help all if a corner guards him? Is he not God if he comes forth from a womb? Is he not without need if he takes food? Is he not Lord of every breath if he takes on human form?

“Cast off your doubt, then, and receive the greeting eagerly; lay aside womanly lowliness [and put on manly understanding]. Do you not know that because of the economy of the matter I received the title of my name from the beginning? For Gabriel means ‘man God’. For since the unchangeable God was going to appear to men in human form, he announced in advance his glorious coming by an angelic ministry, so that by unbelievers he might be thought a [mortal] man, but to believers be revealed as [immortal] God. In the same way my mission has already been disbelieved a second time in divine things. For not you alone disbelieved what I said, but also Zechariah. And you, since I know you are a child in the more mystical things, or rather, since I revere you as the Lord's mother, I do not dare to correct for your disbelief; but on him, as one who knew the law and did not receive the word, I brought the manner of rebuke and subjected him to the penalty of dumbness; I bound the man's organ of speech, and I opened his wife's workshop of barrenness. For surely it has come to your knowledge how Elizabeth in old age has herself been numbered among mothers. Do you not know what reality is preserved in both images? Do you not know that in you the church of the Gentiles is depicted, and in her the synagogue of the Jews? Has it escaped you that from you, the free woman, the beloved Isaac is born, and from her, the slave, a son is born to complete the law of slavery and to announce the birth of the Lord's coming? Go to her, so that you may know whose mother you are. For even if you persist in opposing my words, when you see John's leapings you will know how in a little while, rejoicing, you will be found called blessed to all the ends of the earth. The ascetic branch of the barren woman points to the fruit in you, the Virgin. The lamp lying under that wooden bushel will point out the sun rising in the golden lampstand. That pair of turtledoves of the desert will reveal the pair of innocent doves. Taught by him, a mother would address you, filled with joy, as mother of the Lord. That swallow announces the spring of souls. For the earthly angel will proclaim the heavenly God, man from the womb; the law, grace; the prophet, the Master; the slave, the Lord; the clay, the Fashioner; the silver, the gold; the soldier, the king; the mortal, the immortal; the one below, the one above; the sick man, the physician; the sheep, the shepherd; the temporary, the eternal; the one from non-being, the one who always is; the minister, the Creator; the creature, the Creator; the baptizer, the maker; the informer, the judge; the one born of a mother in time, the one begotten of the Father before the morning star. For when the workshop of nature had ceased its work, then the mystery beyond nature worked in Elizabeth; when old age cut off hope, then the infant grew; when expectation was despaired of, then the message was confirmed; when the womb was dead, then childbearing rose again; when the season was overripe, then the fruit came early; when hopes had passed, then the baby came forth; when the vine-branch had withered, then the cluster ripened; when the root was weak, then the branch blossomed. For God's power is swifter than his will. So did the fig tree of the law put forth its early fruit, as it is written, and does the vine of the gospel not put forth the insatiable cluster of salvation? Why then do you still doubt, and do not learn, like us angels, to receive God's words without pretence? When you hear about mysteries, you ought to marvel, not track them down; to supplicate, not argue; to be reverent, not contentious; to sing hymns, not to pry; to meditate, not to investigate; to seek what is needful, not to busy yourself with what is endless; to be taught what is profitable, not to meddle with what is incomprehensible.”

So the Virgin was walled in by the angel's word, yet she pondered the Master's birth; she was strengthened by Gabriel's assurance, yet she reflected on the conception of Emmanuel. Divided between joy and grief, she fell into unequal weighings of her thoughts, now led up to the height of the Godhead, now brought down to the lowliness of humanity. While the scale of her mind thus swung to either side, she is granted the exact inclination of God. For he who kept the purest workshop of virginity unharmed also made the central and evenly balanced judge of her heart steady; and tuning the slackened strings of the harp of her soul with the illuminating hands of the Holy Spirit, he sounded from it the melody of rebuke, saying: “Do you still doubt? Having the helmsman of all, are you storm-tossed more than all? Carrying the physician of souls, do you not cast off the sickness of your thoughts? Do you not know that from you I am made flesh below and by angels I am worshipped above? Do you not wish the lover of mankind to become man below for man's sake? Do you not wish the promises to your fathers to be fulfilled through your womb? Do you not wish the disobedience of a woman to be undone again through the obedience of a woman? Because virginity has been sealed, is the economy therefore doubted? Because the workshop of nature is undefiled, is the mystery of the birth therefore incredible? Because the field is unsown, is the joy therefore unacceptable? Does it seem incredible to you that the immortal God is contained in a mortal vessel? That he is united to a body and not altered in spirit? [That] he becomes flesh and is not changed like all flesh? That the Word proclaimed by angels and prophets is found coming forth from your inward parts as an infant? That the one without beginning begins? That the invisible is seen? That the rich becomes poor? That he who feeds is fed? That the Master of all has tax demanded of him along with all? That he who sits upon the cherubim has nowhere to lay his head? … If I do not take an earthly body, it is impossible for you also to receive the Holy Spirit. If I do not share in mortal nature, you do not become sharers of immortal power. If I do not bear the image of the man of dust, you cannot share in the form of the heavenly. If I do not enter the person of the slave, which is being abolished, it is impossible for you to reach the glorified stamp of the Master. If I do not set foot bodily on the earthly place, you will not be received mystically into the bosom of Abraham. Do you not wish to serve the birth of the immortal, so that the power of death may be undone? Do you not wish to receive in your womb him who takes away the sin of the world? Do you not wish to give me a virgin's breast, so that I may suck out the devil's poison? If I do not put on the temporal beginning of humanity, you will not be able to ascend to the ancient sovereignty of the Godhead.

“But if I do not sit in my mother's arms, you will not sit at the right hand of my Father. If I do not come to be in the sinful body, and through it lie as a dead man in the new tomb, neither can the covenant be ratified nor can you be shown heirs of the kingdom of heaven. For in this way I made all from Adam to this generation disinherited, since I, the testator, could not taste death [as not having put on your flesh]. I shall not, then, as you think, defile the royal sandal if I tread on the work made of dust. I shall not outrage my uncreated dignity if I dwell in the house created by me. For neither do muddy pools harm the rays of the sun, nor again do diseased wounds stain the hands of the physician. Learn that God comes forth from you, he does not begin from you. In you the Word takes his stand, yet he does not at all depart from the Father; and he is born, as what he was not, a child; and he is given, as what he is, a Son, as Scripture says. And he is embraced and not grasped; he is beheld and not seen; contained and not contained; born and not measured; he appears to all and is not revealed to all; and he becomes what he is not, man, and remains what he is, God. Shake off, then, the dust of fleshly thinking, and put on the garment of mystical knowledge; cast away the sluggishness of the soul, and take hold of eternal life. For so you will be able both to be kept a pure virgin and to become a faithful mother; not to be separated from the unmarried and yet to be counted with the married; to carry the prophesied Christ and to trample the opposing enemy; to praise in hymns the illuminating radiance of the one's coming, and to quench the tempting burning of the other's madness.”

For he was grieved not a little, especially from the time the Virgin received the good news. The world was in good cheer, and the devil in despondency. The King within his palace was signing grants of peace, and the tyrant outside was forging the weapons of war against our life. The Master was preparing the harbour of salvation, and the tempter was making ready the storm of ignorance. The Lord was ordering the day of the knowledge of God, and the deceiver was walling up the night of impiety. The Creator was living among his creatures, and the robber was taking counsel with the demons. “The kingdom of death is overthrown,” said the devil, “if a virgin womb gives birth. If an incorrupt nature conceives, the nature of demons is dead; if purity holds sway, licentiousness is put to flight; if passionlessness prevails, hostility will run away; if incorruption speaks boldly, sin will hide its face. Let us not lose our ancient pasture of desire; let us not accept the youthful novelty of virginity; let us not through sloth fall from our right to injustice; let not the trade of pleasure-loving be idle; let not the spark of pleasure be quenched; let not the stamp of greed be cast off; let not the workshop of wickedness be shut; let not the seal of pride be counterfeited; let not the wages of evil remain unpaid. Let us set against the neck of virginity the storm of voluptuousness; against the firmness of self-control, the sweetness of gluttony; against the brilliance of truth, the spark of falsehood; against the foundation of piety, the tyranny of impiety. A great disaster holds the tribe of demons; we lie under the heaviest punishment unless we put on the strongest armour. Let us learn the Virgin's paradoxical affair, and see the fearful and extraordinary wonder of him who is being made flesh from her: how a girl, a woman, is with child without having come near any man at all; how she has not laid aside her purity, and yet has traded in childbearing; how the bloom of her beauty was not harvested, and yet the field of fair offspring was cultivated; how the vine was not dug, and yet the cluster ripened; how the seal of virginity remains untouched, and he who is contained in her womb is inexplicable; how she both does not know a man's conception and worships the child she carries. Who has seen a branch older than its root, an embryo that created nature, an infant that created the creation that brings it forth? The one she is going to bear as man, to him she already bows as God; the one she must nurse as an infant, him she glorifies with reverence as Lord. What then? Shall we give up the plot because she has been granted great protection? Shall we withdraw from the hostility because she is covered by the alliance from above? Do I not know too that the strong man arms himself to no avail when the treasure is securely guarded? Is it in vain that the thief lies in wait when the master of the house does not sleep? But is our war again against a second [Eve]? Is our battle against an incorrupt woman? Are we again compelled to worship a second Adam? Are we again ordered to be ruled by one formed after us? Are we again commanded to bow to the royal image? But that woman of the man of dust was easily thrown down by her eyes; this one, received by the hands of the heavenly man, is strongly walled. That one desired to be filled with the tree; this one consented to think nothing of it. That one received the counsel with pleasure; this one quickly secured her hearing. That one embraced the inquiry; this one loathed even the account. That one, in love with eating from the tree, imagined becoming a god; this one, counted worthy of union with the Master, prepared herself for giving glory. That one, sharing in corruption, thought to seize the dignity above her; this one, having come within the divine joy, does not forget human weakness. How then shall we raise a storm against such a boat? If we find the helmsman in her asleep. How shall we tear the sheep? If we suspect the shepherd of negligence. How shall we plunder the city? If we suppose the king is careless. Will not the satanic troop shake the virginal wall? Shall we fail of our hopes if we do not neglect our labours? Shall we miss our expectation if we do not withdraw from the contest? But when we cannot plot against the workshop of virginity, nor trouble the field of her mind, nor look the embryo in her womb in the face, then we will strike the Virgin's incorrupt conception with the darts of slander. Let us slander the mystery [so as to drag it to the courtroom]. Let us revile her purity, so as to bring punishment upon her. Let us mock the mystical pregnancy, so as to bring it before Jewish severity. Let us use this race as advocates of our lie. Let us suggest devilish wickedness to the unforgiving, who examine even the small faults of others, who know nothing at all of the limits of compassion, who sharpen the sword of inhumanity before the truth, who sign the paper of sentence before the inquiry, who are eager to pass unjust judgement on those being judged. Let the spotless oyster be destroyed, so that the precious pearl in it may not come to maturity. And even if the spear of our wickedness does not wound the Virgin's conception, [yet] the sword of Herod's envy will strike the birth of the infant. For he will fight on our behalf against Christ, who fights against us.”

With what colours of praise, then, shall I paint the virginal image? With what words of commendation shall I brighten the spotless character of purity? She is the inner sanctuary of sinlessness; she is the sanctified temple of God; she is the golden altar of burnt offerings; she is the divine incense of the compounding; she is the holy oil of anointing; she is the alabaster jar of precious pure nard; she is the priestly ephod, declaring the counsel of God; she is the golden lampstand carrying the seven-wicked lamp; she is the ark gilded within and without, sanctified in body and spirit, in which lay the golden censer, and the golden jar holding the manna, and the rest [containing what has been spoken of before. She is the firstborn, unyoked and red heifer, whose ash, the Lord's body taken from her, cleanses those defiled by the pollution of sin. She is the gate facing east, shut for ever after the Master's entrance and exit. She is the new book of the New Covenant, through which the dominion of the demons was swiftly despoiled, and the captivity of men quickly taken back. She is the three measures of humanity, of Greeks, Romans, and Jews, in which the unspeakable wisdom of God hid the leaven of his own goodness. She is the field of the Father's blessing, in which lay the treasure of the Master's economy. She is the royal ship bringing in the wealth from Tarshish, bringing from the land of the nations the conversion of the nations to the King of the Jerusalem above. She is the fair bride of the Song, who took off the old tunic, washed the feet of the law, and with reverence received the incorruptible Bridegroom in her chamber. She is the tent of the faithful, which carried the living ark of the economy, and was directed by the cows that had calved, the two Testaments, onto the unerring road of salvation. She is the tent of witness, from which Jesus, true God, came forth after the nine months' time of the unborn child. She is the basket daubed with asphalt within and without, adorned with understanding and reverence, in which the spiritual Moses is saved from the spiritual Pharaoh; whose daughter, that is, the church of the nations, nursing him in virginal arms, is promised that he will give her the wage of eternal life. She is the fifth well of the truthful oath, in which the water of immortality gushed out through the Lord's coming in the flesh, at the completion of the fifth covenant. For the first was written in the time of Adam, the second in the time of Noah, the third in the time of Abraham, the fourth in the time of Moses, and the fifth in the time of the Lord; since he also went out five times to hire the pious as labourers for the vineyard of righteousness: at the first hour, the third, the sixth, the ninth, the eleventh. She is the spotless fleece laid on the threshing floor of the world, on which the saving rain coming down from heaven dried the whole earth of the immeasurable flood of evils; and again it dried the fleece of the receding moisture of passions, and filled the earth with an abundant gift of good things. She is the fruitful olive planted in the house of God, from which the Holy Spirit took the Lord's bodily twig and carried it to the storm-tossed nature of men, announcing the peace from above. She is the flourishing and incorruptible paradise, in which the tree of life was planted and supplies to all, without hindrance, the fruit of immortality. She is the heavenly sphere of the new creation, in which the ever-shining sun of righteousness drove away from every soul all the night of sins. She is the boast of virgins; the exultation of mothers; the support of the faithful; the diadem of the church; the stamp of orthodoxy; the seal of piety; the coin of truth; the garment of self-control; the robe of virtue; the stronghold of righteousness; the lodging of the holy Trinity, according to the gospel narrative: “The Holy Spirit,” it says, “will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one born of you will be called Son of God.” To him be glory, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.