Easter Work (prose version of the Easter Song) 5.10–5.38

Meanwhile the day dawned, sadder than the shadows of night, about to see a new outrage, which, the gloom of darkness removed, was laying open to the people the unspeakable plans of the Hebrew assembly. Then Judas, the newest dragon and a poisonous murderer like the first (for as the one became the persecutor of the human race by taking life from Adam, so did this one by handing Christ over to death), seeing the Lord being led to Pilate's praetorium and bound in chains, he who looses the chains of sins, the wretch stiffened and shuddered, and, returning and paying back the money, the funeral wage of innocent blood, to the cruel stewards, he emptied himself of the price of the crime, not of the crime. For what can fear of death conceived there contribute to security, where no fear now obtains healing, according to the sense of the psalm that says: “There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear,” that is, at the judgment itself, where unfruitful fear has no time or space for correction? Or what confession can help one already placed in the jaws of hell, since we read: “But in hell who will confess to you?” For Judas, a public parricide, who, what he did not fear to dare, cut the throat not only of his own parent but of the author of the whole world, sought in vain the remedy of repentance; after the boldness of the betrayal the punishment of the sentence already held him, so that the axe laid at the roots of the tree, which bore accursed fruit, cutting off utterly the useless shoot of the evil wood, consigned it to cruel fires. He was suddenly seized with a mad fury, plotting nonetheless a deadly destruction for himself, although he was then saner, when he avenged on himself the crime of the unspeakable conspiracy; and, tightening with knotted throat the path of the accursed throat, through which the merciless voice had gone forth selling the redeemer of all, he drove out his unhappy soul with a noose from a beam. A small punishment indeed it would seem for so great an outrage, which no greatness of punishments could equal; yet the very kind of deadly end and the death of a corpse hanging on high denies the sky to be seen and forbids the earth to be touched, so that the culprit of an unheard-of crime, worthy to be expelled by both elements at once, should neither enjoy the air for life nor, as a man made in the common way, breathe out his soul as a man does. This kind of death also has another sign of his own downfall. For that the faithless deserter met his death on a lofty height showed from how great a summit he had fallen: lately a disciple, now a culprit; lately called an apostle, now an apostate.

When the Lord stood unafraid before the governor's tribunal, like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, the accusing people, finding nothing worthy of death to charge him with, cry out in a zeal for sedition that he had said he was a king, he who was plainly present as king. Nor should anyone wonder if a people that is a friend of deceit dragged the truth into a crime and rejected the heavenly rule and the divine power, a people that, ungrateful for the Creator's support, once worshipped groves and served idols in obedience to them. For it seems one madness and an equal insanity to have preferred Baal to the Lord then, and to have preferred Barabbas to Christ now; and while the righteous is killed and the impious is saved, the sentence, erring in both, changed the way of justice: the author of death was appointed to live, the author of life appointed to die. From this, then, all of you who have so far remained unbelieving, believe now that Christ suffered for the salvation of the world, who, his back furrowed by scourges, harassed by insults, embraces all punishments, so that not even a robber, worthy by his deserts to perish, should suffer destruction. Alas, how sad is the edge of the sickle that cut down the harvest of the Jewish posterity! For those who, demanding the Lord's death, professed that his blood should remain on themselves and their sons, saying and shouting furiously, “His blood be on us and on our children,” condemned the whole fruit of their stock, until this stain is washed spiritually from them by the water of the one whose blood, sprinkled, rules in them unto death. Alas, the wickedness of your deed, Pilate, which you committed! You committed so many crimes in one judgment, or rather prejudgment, that if, needing healing, you had recognized them with a provident mind, you ought to have washed not your hands alone, but to have bathed your whole body continually in the sacred bath of spiritual water. You beat the just unjustly, you, a governor, examine a king, you, a mortal man, do not tremble to put yourself before God. You are held, then, in the bonds of a punishment to be paid, because by many wounds you fasten to the cross the Lord of creation, and you fear more to offend Caesar than Caesar's maker.

And when Christ, handed over to military execution, was subject to the sentence of death, even in the attire which he received in the mockery of a royal image, the sacraments of a great mystery were being enacted. For his being clothed in the covering of a scarlet cloak showed the bloody appearance of his coming death. A crown of thorns encircled his head, because he alone, in his kindly humility, bore the thorns of all the sins that had everywhere invaded the human race. He carried a reed given into his hand, a scepter truly like the worldly kingdom, which, because of its very frequent change, is seen to be fragile, empty, light and fleeting.

And soon, stripped of the garments of others, he was at once clothed in his own, as one who would lay down in death the clothing of the body, which he knew he would receive back a little later, taking on nothing changeable any more, since after death he would return and rise again in his flesh with full majesty.

Nor is it foreign to the fellowship of divinity that he touched with his lips the wine mixed with bitter gall that was given him and put it away from his mouth. For it was a wonderful sign that the Lord tasted bitter death and at once scorned its horrible venom by turning away his returning face.

So, fixed on the high wood of the gibbet, he changed the anger of the accursed ordeal by holy devotion, and, cruelty cast aside, peace mounted the cross, and, making glorious with his limbs the violent instruments of the cruel wood, he clothed the punishment with honor, dedicated the torture to salvation, and, kindly sanctifying the torments in himself, made the sign set up for condemnation hallowed with blessedness. And so that no one may be ignorant in mind, each should gather by prudent reasoning that the form of the cross, which deserved to bear the Lord and is to be adored, is extended through the four regions of the world, to show the cause of its veneration. For the axis of the East received the head of Christ, stretched out on the cross with his limbs extended; the western boundary smiled on his feet, the North shone with his right hand, the middle gleamed with his left. And the whole substance of the world, made fruitful by the body of the Creator, showed in itself the line of the cross filled out with straight and crosswise bounds, which it is seen to have obtained from the origin of the first light.

And when the soldiers divided his garments among themselves, they cast lots for the tunic, who should have it, since it was not sewn but woven from the top throughout, and they thought it wicked to violate the appearance of so great a wonder. Let the teachers of schism read this, indeed, and know what impiety they commit in tearing apart catholic concord. For if it seemed hard to sacrilegious and deadly soldiers to tear Christ's garment, what wickedness do they commit who, disturbing the peace of the church, do not cease to divide the Lord Christ himself by schisms!

The title too, written with the threefold meaning of tongues, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin letters, “This is the King of the Jews,” was read placed above the Lord. What is the reason of this sacrament also does not seem absurd to ask. For whatever is shown to have been done in Christ does not escape a great mystery. Why, then, was this title read written in three languages, when the greatness of the Acts of the Apostles testifies that many and various nations of peoples were by no means absent from Jerusalem, and either one language of an interpreter could suffice for the various peoples, or, if Pilate wished to set this before the eyes of all, he would have made it known to the crowd by more exchanges of languages? But since it was not accomplished by human arrangement, let us understand it as fulfilled spiritually. For the true faith and catholic confession, which was signified in Christ, taught that one King is set forth to the peoples in threefold speech; and that he declares him by word specifically King of the Jews, he who rules over all creation, fits both the worldly cause and the divine reason. First, because Pilate, either from fear of Caesar or because of the offense of his own credulity, defined whose king he said he was, lest, by the bare name of king designated, he should seem to declare him king generally and to proclaim him against Caesar, and to have appeared sacrilegious as though against his own ruler by decreeing his death. Next, because Christ is religiously named King of the Jews, and all the Gentiles occupied in the worship of idols, when they deserve to obtain the sacraments of Christian doctrine, will begin to call the Son of God among the sons of Abraham, to whom we read he promised that he would make him, as indeed he did, the father of all nations. Jesus, then, was called King of the Jews, not only of those then present but also of those to come, because, leaving the useless roughness of their native stock, they will soon lose the bitterness of the barren wild olive, to be grafted into the olive of fruitful sweetness with the ointment of holy chrism.

Moreover, the deadly and harmful people, its mind sated by no punishments, set bloody men on either side of the Lord, fixed by the same condemnation, so that it might heap up the blows of the wounds inflicted by the insult of such persons, although the likeness of the sentence did not have a likeness of merit. For, the just one hanging between robbers as executioners, the punishment of the three seems equal, but the cause of two is unequal. For they are guilty before the world for their crime; but to this one the world itself is guilty, which was freed from sin by his blood. Yet the Lord, placed on that gibbet, did not lose the rights of his power, who, from the lofty judgment seat of the cross as from a royal throne, as a just judge looking on both and weighing the merits of both in the balance of his divine heart, chose the one and left the other, not examining the past deeds for which they were paying, but attending to the present differences of their minds. For one, from whom the atrocity of his fierce way of life did not depart even in the danger of death, was tearing the Lord with cruel insults and accursed biting words, like a shaggy goat, enemy of the shoot of the sweetest vine by the touch of his venomous tooth, and he spoke thus mocking: “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.” But the other, more modest with a better hope, who, sparing his tongue, also spared his punishment, addresses the Lord with suppliant words, bending to the ground his eyes, which alone he had free, because the stretched bonds of the wounds held back his palms, which were unwilling to be bowed from the duty of humility. For after he had refuted his companion, who had already deserved to be separated from his company, with the rebuke of a just speech, and acknowledged the guilt of his own wantonness, he prays to the Lord thus: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Him the kindly Lord at once, like a shepherd gathering with rejoicing a sheep straying through pathless deserts, addressed, saying: “Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” O wonderful and divine promise! He says that he is entering paradise who was hastening to descend to the underworld, so as to teach more plainly that there is no time at which God is not present everywhere. For, to empty the soul of the now blessed robber of the fear of death, he did not say only, “Today you will be with me,” lest he be thought to declare burial, but added “in paradise,” where with everlasting flower a charming loveliness smiles through the fields, and pleasure, nourished by watering springs and poured softly and beautifully through the gardens, gladdens all with pleasing sweetness, and among the blessed boughs with their leaves, and fruits no longer deceiving with any snares, that serpent of Tartarus groans that the ancient settler now lives without falling. So both, running like robbers with different motions, take the way of different paths, and, intent on far-removed places, performed a violence distinguished by their deeds. The one entered the gates of hell, the other broke into those above; the one, sunk in deep darkness, penetrated the bars of Gehenna, the other, entering the threshold of clear light, plundered the kingdom of heaven.

Meanwhile the whole world was suddenly darkened, overwhelmed by the shadows of a sudden blindness, and, covered with a sad mass of clouds, the day celebrated funeral rites; the sun, withdrawn, its rays hidden, veiled in a foul pall, lay hidden and stained the world with the mourning of a strange night. Such a face the elements, bereft of their Father's comforts, deserved to have, that they should be sad at the setting of him at whose rising they rejoiced. For as light shone at the Lord's birth, so it departed at his death. Then a star shone by day; now not even in the night did one appear. But although the light fled from heaven and earth, it did not remain long in this withdrawal; in the very intervals of the suspended time it was seen to accord with a great mystery. For as for three hours the face of the world lay overwhelmed by darkness, so the burial of the tomb covered the Lord, shut in for three days.

Nor did the earth then stand without disaster, trembling in all its foundations, as it perceived such things being committed, and nature, thinking that the end of the world had now come, hung at an uncertain boundary, lest the highest summit, descending to the underworld, should at once bend the whole mass with it into death, and the world, accompanying its own author, should flow headlong into chaos. But that immense kindness of the Godhead was hastening mercifully to Tartarus, to restore what was lost, not to destroy what had been established.

And when those who had fastened the Lord to the wood of the cross saw such perils taking place, they were by no means terrified by so many signs, so many unheard-of portents of present fear. Moreover, when, thirsting, he asked for a drink, one of the most wicked crowd tied a sponge to a reed and held out vinegar to his mouth. O how fitting that liquid was to the most wicked mind of the Jews, who, following worse and lowest things, were for the guilt of unbelief called bastards! For as sweet wines, when they have been turned into sad vinegar, are rejected from the cups of all the tables and thrown out, so this deadly and impious nation, which in ancient times had pleased God, is now hateful and greatly to be cursed.

So when the Lord had fulfilled all things of his blessed passion, he himself at once willingly laid down his soul from his holy body, himself to take it up again willingly, as he did, since he had indeed died but was living, dead in his perishing limbs, not in his Godhead. Let us hear what the evangelist John reports in his person; for the Lord says to his disciples: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my soul and will take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. This command I received from the Father.” Who, then, could doubt, or would dare to, that he who was able to lay down his soul when he pleased was also able to take it up again when it pleased him, and to work in himself rather this power which he deigned to show in very many? See, the doors of Tartarus are unlocked and cast down as Christ comes, the path from the underworld now lies open backwards, the rocks are split, the earth is cleft, the tombs are emptied of bodies, the crowd of the saints revives; and lest faith should fail in the believer, the multitude of those rising is recognized.

Then that wonderful temple too, full of ancient religion, seeing that the summit of a greater temple had fallen, as if a sad and groaning foster-child were mourning its own author, at once tore its veil and showed its bare breast to all, signifying that its inner secrets were plainly to be opened to the nations and to the peoples who would faithfully come, since the law, which long remained covered by the veil under Moses, has shone out as Christ comes to us. Come, tell me, sad and impious Death, where now is that deadly victory of yours, where now the accursed sting that serves you to the tomb, you who, never sated by any funerals since the destruction of the first generation, invading the human race, are wont always to lord it over wretched frailty with penal rule? See, most wicked one, you did not come to Christ, but Christ came down of his own accord to you, he who could die without death, who, begetting all things and establishing all things, did not create you alone, livid as you are. For venerable Scripture says: “God did not make death.” If, then, you wish to know the matter of your origin, you were conceived with the serpent as father and born with guilt as mother, but now, as pardon reigns, you are consumed.

Meanwhile the Lord's spirit had already left the body for a time, and Christ's cold limbs hung on the wood of the cross, and still fury, not abandoning its arms, supplies a lance to a hostile hand, and with a wicked blow violated the Lord's side with a fixed wound, opening a deep and dug-in wound, through which blood and water flowed together. O how this event accords with catholic doctrine! O how well these sacraments suit the faith of the Trinity! For body, blood and water are the three gifts of our life. For all of us who give ourselves to Christ as leader are reborn in the font of waters and, receiving his body and blood, eat and drink, so that we may deserve to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. For the apostle Paul also speaks thus, saying: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Let us pray that the Lord may bid us keep this temple unstained, so that so great a dweller may make us, narrow and slight as we are, fit and able to hold him.

After, then, that holy place received the treasure of the precious body laid in it, which shone noble when the Lord lay there and triumphed nobler when he rose, the generation devoted to deceit, devising its accustomed wickedness in an impious heart, keeps saying that Christ will be carried off by his disciples, stealing him in the silence of the night, so that, as he himself had foretold, it might be spread abroad that he had risen after the third day. So the Jews, terrified by this suspicion of theft, ask that a very large guard be applied more carefully, and that the doors and entrance of the tomb be fenced with a most faithful siege. If not yet, after the bitter punishments of the cross, after the blows and wounds of iron, after the mortal burial of the body, have you, bloody executioners, fulfilled your office, nor sated your unjust hatred after the death of the innocent, and do not prove that the Lord of singular power, who so often brought souls out of the underworld, will rather call back his own: then carry out the counsels fitting for you toward the worse, nurse in your minds the deceits now armed by the nourishment of treachery, seal the bars of the tomb, post military watches, shut the monument with a stone, and, arranging all things with malicious dispositions, as you do, tell me: who will be able to guard God, to whom all things are open and nothing is shut? He reigns in heaven, commands the seas, and rules the underworld too. Why, then, disorderly mob, do you waste your work in watches and labor? Why do you strive to test the faith which you will not admit even when it is proved?

Meanwhile, after that sad Sabbath, the festive day had begun to shine, which, most welcome to the ruling Lord, takes its name from his majesty, called for this honor the Lord's Day, since it obtained so great dignity that it first deserved to behold the origin of the world being born and the power of Christ rising again. For so the book of Genesis, the clear witness of things, says that God rested from his works on the seventh day, the Sabbath. It appears plainly, then, that this day is the head of the world, from which, as the first, the seventh, the Sabbath, is counted in fixed order; and the glory of the eternal King, making it illustrious also by the trophy of his resurrection, decreed that it should keep, with religious honor, the primacy granted it over all days.

At the conspicuous rising of this light the virgin mother, with the other women faithfully gathered, who had come to the Lord's tomb bearing together the gift of spices, furrowed their faces with tears and shook their breasts with groans. And soon they see the place of burial lie open, empty of the body, but overflowing full of wonderful power. For an angel had come down from heaven and sat wonderfully on the stone rolled away from the doors of the tomb, flaming in face, white in his garments, so that, shining with a twofold difference, he might show terror and joy alike: terror indeed to the guards, threatening with fiery face, joy to those seeking Christ, comforting them with the gladness of his snowy garment. So the women, strengthened by the angel's revelation, rejoice that the Lord has come back to life after death.

But the soldiers, terrified by such a sight, could not keep hold of life, set in a perilous danger, and, at once deserting their post, they rush back headlong to the city, reporting the miracles, and announce the plain truth for nothing. After they sold their faith for a price, they change into cowardly deceit, and soon invent that Christ's disciples, lying in wait to ambush their nightly rest, stole him away. Speak, accursed and wicked guard; say, criminal legion, what you mean to maintain, you who, in your eagerness to get money, do not see the pit of your fall and danger, and do not know how much punishment you deserve, since you prefer to seem negligent rather than truthful. For it is agreed that you were wakeful, anxious, sharp-eyed, that you never bent your eyes in sleep unless a comrade duly succeeded you in turn to relieve the labor, and that you fortified the place with watches so that it seemed it could be reached by no deceits. Was Christ, as you dare to compose with false voice, snatched from the tomb by the hands of his own while you rested in the time of night's work? Then whose linen cloths lie there, whose wrappings lie beside, around whose discarded garments does the angelic power sit? Or did the one who snatched away the blessed body first strip and bare it, thinking it could be removed more quickly uncovered than carried off bound, as it remained, since delay is the enemy of thieving robbers, and it could more safely and secretly have been carried off together with the Lord's wrappings? Iniquity has lied to itself. Yet this event has the excellent grace of a figurative sense. For it is agreed that Christ has been spiritually taken away from the Jews, he whom we carry with the whole devotion of mind and breast. Mourn, Judea, then, for your priests, mourn for your ministers and your people, you who, abandoned for such great crimes, will no longer rejoice in the trumpet, will not be strengthened by an anointed one, will not enjoy sacrifices. For in hope of what power will the trumpet be blown for you, when you see your king slain? What anointed one will be given further, when you have lost the rule of the Anointed himself? What victim will be struck, when the shepherd himself has been slaughtered as the victim? Let the synagogue depart, now darkened by its own color: Christ has joined to himself the church, beautiful with snowy glory.

She presents the honor and glory of Mary, who, though she is seen to be always mother with the evident brightness of the Lord, is yet seen always virgin. To her the Lord showed himself at once after the triumph of the resurrection, so that the holy and kindly mother, who was the gate of his birth when he came into the world, might, as the one to spread abroad the testimony of such a miracle, be also the messenger of his leaving the underworld.

Soon after, like a traveler passing by, he took part in a meal with certain men, and in the breaking of bread made himself known to their senses and eyes, because, since he himself is the true bread, he becomes known to those eyes which inner faith unlocks and uncovers and leads by the brightness of grace to the recognition of the Lord.

Often too, at different times and moments, he showed himself plainly to his disciples: now appearing unexpectedly as they were eating, now taking food of broiled fish and honeycomb, so as to teach more evidently that the food was bodily, and that by eating he proved to those who saw him that he now bore the same limbs which he had borne a little before.

Again, when the apostles, fearing to endure the violent savagery of the people that had often denied the Lord, remained with the doors of the house shut, standing suddenly within the barred doors, he gave peace to all with the greeting of his word, so that, granting joy in return to the afflicted, he might prove what he had marked by the prophetic voice, that the Lord will not abandon a contrite and humbled heart. And soon he opened his pierced hands and bared the wound fixed in his side, lest they believe him a phantom if they did not see the marks of the wounds.

But since Thomas, an equally venerable apostle, whom they called by the name Didymus, was not present and did not believe when his companions told such things, see, the Lord afterwards, when Thomas was sitting with the brothers, presents himself again with the doors unmoved, he who had never departed from them in spirit, and, seen by all in the midst, he does not disdain to humor the trembling disciple: showing again his palms and side, he allows himself to be tested by the touch of the wounds, recognized the more from this as being the Christ, because he cherished with calm gentleness the mind of the doubter he had received. For whoever practices artful deceits under the blind image of fraud and arranges empty mists and shapes to deceive incautious minds does not want to be examined, does not want his deeds to be known, so that he may lurk under the veil of a deceitful cloud, and, mocking wretched eyes with composed phantoms, he hates anxious friends if he begins to be detected. But the Lord Christ, true in all things, most gentle even to the one who doubts to believe, is not angry with the waverer, but with mild readiness allows him even to plunge his fingers into the wounds, knowing that the example of this proof belongs not only to Thomas, who was already blessed, but thereafter to the faith of many.

After a few days the Lord showed himself again on the seashore to Peter, fishing with his companions, and, seeing that, weary after the wakeful labor of the whole night, they had made no catch, he commands the nets to be let down on the right into the sea, and at once, the salt of the deep enclosed, the creaking folds brought out an immense gathering of fish as prey, which they joyfully threw down before the Lord's feet. Such a kind of miracle, then, ought not to be perceived as a common event, but weighed with figurative understanding. For let us believe that the nets are the very clear and plain commands of God, by which all who follow the right hand are enclosed, to be rescued from the waves of the world, bowed down at Christ's feet.

For the fish too, set on the coals, and the bread found by them in the same place, are seen not to lack catholic meaning. For the fish is seen to be understood as the water, by which it is certain that we are washed and reborn; the bread signifies Christ the Savior, by whose same body we are fed unto salvation; the fire bears the image of the Holy Spirit, by whom, devoted, we are consecrated to the faith. For in the same appearance he was shown and shone out when, as the book of their Acts testifies, he bathed the blessed apostles with the brightness of his divinity. Then he invites them to take the meal with the gentle bidding of solemn words, and they, gathered at once with one mind at the Lord's table, receive the food of holy blessing and recognize Christ in the full truth of faith.

And when they had risen from the modest meal, fittingly satisfied, the Lord gently asks Peter whether he loves him. And to him, at once assenting, wishing as a good shepherd to increase his flocks, he entrusts his sheep and lambs as to a most faithful and approved worker. And this he repeats and goes over a third time, so that the threefold denial of the recent fault might be purged by an equal number of professions of love. And that he gave to Peter specially the dignity of feeding the flock, though he is shown to love all equally, does not pertain to the loss of the others, but is seen to be joined to reason. For this most gentle animal, by the simplicity of its nature, is compared to the just, whom, when the King of all comes in his majesty, standing on his right, he will address otherwise, as he himself taught: “Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and so on. Fittingly, then, he entrusts the just who will enter the kingdom to him to whom he had promised to give the keys of that kingdom.

Then, instructing them with blessed admonitions and strengthening them by the handing on of the teaching of peace, he commands them to scatter the precepts of the religious faith through all lands and to grant to all nations the one Trinity of holy baptism, saying and decreeing thus: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” and so on.

And when he had commanded all things of the Godhead to be fulfilled, soon, going out to Bethany with them led out together, before the blessed men who deserved to obtain the sight of so great a triumph, carried up through the regions of the air, he ascended to the citadel of starry dominion and sits at the right hand of the Father's majesty, and rules and governs all by his own will, he who, possessing continually all things high and deep, after heaven descended to Tartarus, after Tartarus returned to heaven. For this reason, then, he willed to go up to the stars in their presence (as far as he deigns to open it to the senses of my littleness), so as to show them the way by which they should follow; for when, before the passion, they said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”, he answered plainly and said: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The way, since through him one comes to the Father's grace; the truth, because he grants to believers what he promises; the life, since those whom he adopts are not subject to death. So the disciples, most joyfully watching the Lord high above the clouds, having conquered the world, tread with his own footsteps the flashing tracts of the stars, venerate and adore him as suppliants, and, on their most welcome return, turn over in their hearts and carry back the regions of the airy path which served his steps and which they had seen with their eyes, about to warn all nations to believe. For they are proved to be faithful and very great witnesses of the divine power, who, seeing the countless deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, wrote a few of his noble acts. For if all the miracles of our Savior could have been bound in religious pages, perhaps not even the world itself, as the evangelist John testifies, would contain all the volumes of books that would be written.