Six Homilies on the Creation 2.1–2.6

The word of God stirs up the soul's longing and sets joy about it like a torch, so that its thoughts may be made bright, its mind cheerful, its sins cleansed, and its understanding enlightened. Such is the word of God. What a whetstone is to iron, the word of God is to the soul. The whetstone does not give the iron just one thing; first it makes it spit out its rust; so too the word of God makes the soul spit out the rust of sin, and when it is dull, sharpens and brightens it. The word of God wishes us to be bright, according to the apostle's charge that says: “that you may be as luminaries in the world, holding fast the word of life.” See the brightness. It wishes us not to be dull but sharp: “For the word of God,” he says, “is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.” It wishes us not to be thick but to refine our mind with thoughts. For thickness is foreign to the word of God, while a finely discerning mind is at home with the law of God. That is why Scripture says of the grosser people: “And he ate and grew broad; he forsook God who made him.” Come, then, let the divine word shine on our minds too, especially with this holy fast before us, which thins bodies and sharpens minds. For fasting is the nurse of all holiness and the mother of a godly mind. What is asked is not how one goes without: many fast even because of public business, but it is not reckoned to them as fasting. For the aim is judged; necessity is not crowned. In this holy condition blessed Moses was taught the law on the mountain and was instructed about creation. We said yesterday that God, when he was about to give the law through Moses, first showed himself Creator and then lawgiver. How could the Jews have believed that God made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them unless he had first worked the wonders in Egypt, which showed him to be the Creator of the world? We teach in order to persuade; God persuades in order to teach. Since Moses was going to set out and say that God made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, if God had not first worked the wonders in Egypt and shown that he is the Creator of all creatures, the people would not have believed that God made the heaven and the earth. Moses first stretched out his hands to heaven and brought down hail and fire, and the peoples learned through the faithful servant that this mortal right hand, moved by the word of God, shook the heaven and stirred up creation; how much more, then, did the right hand of God, at his command, set the heaven firm and found the earth! For no one moves a creation he did not make. So it had to be shown that God made the earth: Moses stretched out his hand over the earth, and gnats came out. Again it had to be shown that God made fire: Moses took soot and sprinkled it, and filled the bodies of the Egyptians with sores boiling like flame. It had to be shown that God made water: the water was changed into blood. It had to be shown that he made the sea: the sea was made firm as rock, and the people passed through. First, then, he showed by works that he is Master, and then explained by words that he is Maker.

So too the Savior in the Gospel did not teach before he had worked wonders. His first sign: he changed the water into wine, and he does not appear to have taught before this sign; for the deed had to come first and the word follow. That is why the writer says: “The first account I composed, O Theophilus, about all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” How was the Savior to teach that he is the maker of the world? If he had not opened the eyes of the blind man, he would not have been believed when he said, “I am the light of the world.” If he had not raised Lazarus, his hearers would not have believed him when he said, “I am the life and the resurrection.” If he had not spat on the ground and made clay and anointed the blind man, it would not have been believed that he is the one who took dust from the earth and formed Adam. If he had not walked on the sea, he would not have appeared as Master of the sea. If he had not rebuked the wind, he would not have been shown to be Master of the winds. That is why he appeared as a man, but was recognized and glorified as God through the wonders. The Savior, at any rate, astonished the disciples, and they said, “What sort of man is this, that the winds and the sea obey him?” He first showed the elements obeying, and then explained through his works that all things came into being through him. He first showed them obeying. If creation had not first been shown obeying, John the evangelist would not have been believed when he said, “All things came into being through him.” How could the apostles, with their untrained tongue, have been believed when they spoke of God the Word, Creator, Savior, all-wise, teacher? But the tongue of the apostles was the wonders; the mouth of the apostles was a dead man raised, a lame man walking. That faith follows wonders, Scripture testifies, saying: “Through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people.” And all were amazed, and more and more multitudes of men and women were added daily. The wonders shone out first, and the doctrines followed. So too in the law the wonders in Egypt went first, showing God to be Creator. But God, being good, did not wish to exalt himself alone, but shares the glory with Moses. Since God appeared from what he made, Moses too appears from the glory he received. For when he came down holding the law, so that they would not attend to him as a mere man, God filled his face with glory, so that the abundance of grace might fill up what was lacking in the weakness of nature. For they perceived that a glorified face is not foreign to God. So too the Savior made the face of Stephen the first martyr shine. Why did he make Stephen's face shine? Since he was about to be stoned as a blasphemer for saying, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” God, anticipating this, crowned his face with an angelic form, to persuade the unfeeling: if he is a blasphemer, why is he glorified? Yesterday, then, we said that on the first day God made the things that are out of things that are not. And the wonderful thing is that the works not only show God's craftsmanship but also refute the impiety of the heretics. For I ask: how did the things that were not come into being? For they ask about the one who is, how was he begotten? Let them say how the things that were not came into being, if they were not. By human reasoning, what is not does not come into being; but by divine power it does. Sometimes the heretic says: “God spoke, and it came into being.” But now you have stated the fact, not the manner. “God said: Let there be light”: what was not came into being. If the word was changed into the thing, as though the very voice going out became light, then it is not out of things that are not, but out of one who is. For who dares to say that the Word is not? Then he made nothing out of what is not, but out of himself, and the creatures are found to be of one substance with him; and what they shun in the case of the Son, they apply to the creatures. But again, when hard pressed, they say: “God's will brought about the things that were not.” Then does will make what is not, while nature does not beget what is? And this is a wonder. I speak by way of an image: suppose a spring and a rock. Which is easier, for the spring to bring forth water, or the rock? The spring, if it brings forth, brings out of what it has; the rock, out of what it does not have. Then did the rock bring forth what was not, out of what it did not have, and the spring not bring forth the source that it had in itself? And how did the things that were not come into being? Was it by chance? Is “what is not” a name and not a thing? Do not think, since I say “out of things that are not,” that “what is not” is something. Then, when you cannot say how what is came into being out of what is not, will you dare to pry into how the one who is was begotten of the one who is? All creatures were not from the beginning and came into being; the only-begotten Word and Creator of the world did not come into being from the beginning, but was. These were not, and came into being; he was in the beginning without coming into being, while these came into being in the beginning, not having existed. [3] “And the earth was invisible,” he says. What is “invisible”? I know that many of the holy Fathers have said, “The earth was invisible because it was covered by the water.” Many thoughts are godly but not true. For example, Job's three friends, seeing him in his trial, condemned the saint as suffering justly, and said: “If you had not grieved widows, if you had not defrauded orphans, God would not have brought these things on you.” And yet, since they did not know God's purpose, they chose to condemn him as suffering justly rather than to pass sentence on God as bringing it on him unjustly. They acted on God's behalf, and God rebukes them: “Why did you not speak rightly against my servant?” So a thought may be godly and yet not true. What, then, is “And the earth was invisible and unformed”? The translators have rendered it clearly. For Aquila says, “And the earth was emptiness and nothing.” It is called “invisible” not because it could not be seen, but, as one might say, “unadorned.” It was not yet made bright with plants, not yet crowned with fruits, not yet girded with rivers and springs, not yet arrayed in the rest of its fine order; and it was “invisible,” not yet furnished to be fit for bearing. Scripture says of a brave and handsome man: “Did he not strike down the Egyptian, a man to be seen?” Is there, then, an invisible man? But it means “worthy to be seen.” So just as it called the Egyptian “a man to be seen,” as worthy to be seen, so it called the formless earth “invisible.” On the second day God said: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water.” So he made this heaven, not the one above but the one we see, fixing it out of waters like ice. I want to set the matter before your eyes, for many things are conveyed to us better by sight than by word. This water stood, let us say, thirty cubits above the earth. Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water,” and then in the midst of the waters […] half of the water above, and left half below, as it is written: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and it shall divide between water and water.” Why does he call it a firmament (stereōma)? Because he made it firm out of thin and dissolved waters. That is why David too says: “Praise him in the firmament of his power.” And to use another example: just as smoke, when it rises from wood and fire, is thin, and is turned into the thickness of a cloud, so God, raising the nature of the waters, which were so thin, fixed it above. And that the example is true, Isaiah testifies, saying, “The heaven was made firm like smoke.” So the heaven, fixed in the midst of the waters, lifted half of the waters above. Why waters above? For what use? For someone to drink? For someone to sail on? That there are waters above, David testifies, saying, “And the water that is above the heavens.” Attend now to the wisdom of the Creator. The heaven was like ice, fixed out of waters. Since it was going to receive the flame of the sun and moon and countless multitudes of stars, and to be wholly filled with fire, lest it be melted or burned up by the heat, he spread those seas of waters over the back of the heaven, to moisten and anoint its back, so that it might withstand the flame and not be scorched. You have an example of this too: just as a vessel that has water in it withstands the fire, but if it has none falls apart, so God set water against fire as its opponent, so that the heaven might have enough endurance from the waters anointing it from above. And see the wonder: so much moisture abounds in the heavenly body, though warred on by so much fire, that it even lends to the earth. For where does dew come from? There is no cloud anywhere; the air has no water; clearly the heaven drips from its surplus. That is why the patriarch Isaac, blessing Jacob, said: “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth.”

It is said, brothers, that on the day of judgment the water above withdraws, and the heaven, no longer held together by the waters, is dissolved, and the stars fall, having no path or base. We do not say this lightly; Scripture teaches it: “For the heaven will be rolled up like a scroll” (that is, being scorched, for what is scorched curls up), “and the stars will fall like leaves from a vine.” Attend, I beg you, to another use as well. The waters above the heavens not only preserve the heaven but also send down the flame of the sun and the moon. For if the heaven were transparent, all the radiance would run upward; for fire, which tends upward, would leave the earth deserted. That is why he covered the heaven above with boundless waters, so that the radiance, held in, might be sent downward. See the craftsman's wisdom. You also have in yourself the image of the craftsman's wisdom: God made in you too an image of the four elements. Attend, I beg you. Think of this head as the upper heaven, and of what is above the tongue as the other heaven, that is, the firmament; that is why it is called the palate (ouraniskos, “little heaven”). Above, among the unseen parts, is the brain, which does not appear; in the lower part, the tongue, which appears. Just as the upper heaven is among the invisible things, and the world among the things spoken of; and just as among the elements you find earth heavy, water lighter than earth but heavier than fire, and again air lighter than water but heavier than fire; so too in us the senses, taste, smell, hearing, sight, are not all equal. Take the proof. If you wish to taste something, unless you bring it to the tongue, you get no perception of what is tasted; for taste is coarse and cannot perceive from a distance. Smell perceives from far off: you pass by a house and smell incense that you do not see. Sight again is swifter than smell: from a mountain it sees great expanses. The mind again is sharper than sight: it conceives heaven, earth, sea, and everything at once. That is why the mind is the image of God. The mind conceives, and at once builds marketplaces within itself and paints a crowd, a populace. Let the heretics be ashamed. The mind does such things; and does not the craftsman of the mind, who is sharper than any perception, have a swifter activity, a quick work of creation, an incomprehensible nature? I wish, brothers, to tell you something strange as regards impiety, but akin to the faith as regards examination, so that you may learn how many novelties the devil devises, how many he invents, how many he suggests to the heretics, or rather the heretics to him. Today a heretic came to us in the presence of holy men and Fathers and said (I tell it so that the word, heard otherwise, may not wound otherwise): “Father and Son and Holy Spirit,” he says, “are one godhead, one power, one kingdom. But there must be removed,” he says, “from his soul” (I do not say from the altar) “the saying in the Sanctus […]. If you do not take this away,” he says, “you are not Christians.” Did you see such daring and madness of the devil? Did you see the root of fighting against God? Did you see the excess of blasphemy? [To destroy] the mystery, to make the faith vanish, to uproot what was founded. And see the devil's cunning. He fixed on to it the saying, “Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one faith, one power, one kingdom.” You have mixed the poison with honey. For a lie that wishes to be believed is never believed unless it lays a foundation of seeming truth. And how, hear: not that the case is at all alike, but I will say it. Rahab the prostitute, when she had received the spies, says “Yes”: the first is true. “But they went out,” she says: the second is a lie. If she had said, “They did not go out,” the house would have been searched. She told the truth to put them to shame; she added the lie to deceive. So too this man. When we asked, “Why should we remove the Sanctus?” he said: “‘Lord Sabaoth’ is not a name of God; it belongs neither to Christ nor to the Father.” Did you see the contemptible and foul mouth? Out of ignorance he did not know that Sabaoth is not a name of God but a name of armies, that is, “Lord of the powers.” I will also tell you the reason; but before the end …

Attend, then. Since the subject has come up, we must also give the reason why the blessed prophet heard this Sanctus being sent up to God. Isaiah was a wonderful man, full of zeal, a bold man, bold not from rashness but from zeal. In those times there was a king named Uzziah, who, along with the rest of his royal glory, wished to put on the priesthood as well. The priests knew the proper order, but did not wish to oppose the king at length; they respected his rank. Isaiah too kept silent; he did not withstand the king. When God saw the priests afraid, the prophet slackening, and the king daring, he struck him with leprosy on his face, as one who had dared to touch the holy things; and he was thrown out not only from the priesthood but also from the kingdom, and remained a leper. God did what was his to do, but he was indignant with the priests, and above all with the prophet, because he was present and betrayed godliness. So God kept silence toward the prophet and gave him no words until the transgressor died. When the impious man had died, then God laid aside his indignation and is reconciled to the prophet. So Isaiah says: “And it came to pass in the year in which King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up.” And why did God appear on a throne high and lifted up? Since God is invisible, while the king, who is seen, had made him afraid, he shows the prophet the heavenly glory, to persuade him what kind of throne they despised and what kind of throne they honored; what an escort, heavenly and angelic, they failed to honor or even to consider […]. “And the house,” he says, “was full of his glory, and the Seraphim stood around him.” The Cherubim are a throne, the Seraphim an escort. For “Cherubim” means nothing other than “wisdom filled full.” And just as this throne or any other gives rest to the one seated on it, and is both honor and rest, so God's throne is wisdom, on which God rests. That is why David says, “Who sits upon the Cherubim,” instead of “who rests upon wisdom filled full.” That is why the Cherubim are full of eyes: their backs, their heads, their wings, their feet, their chests, everything was filled with eyes, since wisdom sees on every side and has its eye open on every side. “Six wings,” he says, “to the one, and six wings to the one. And with two they covered the face, and with two the feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another: Holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth,” that is, Lord of armies. Six wings to the one, and six wings to the other: eight are still, and four cry out. What, then, does Scripture teach us? Not to set every reasoning in motion about God, but to proclaim some things by silence, and to glorify and speak of God by faith. Why do they cover the feet and the head? Because neither a beginning nor an end is found. With two they cover the head, with two the feet; so clearly they fly with the middle wings, not the upper ones and not the lower. For when we speak about God we must speak the middle things: that he is God, that he is Creator, that he is Master, that he is benefactor. All these are middle things. If you say, “How did he beget?” you have uncovered the head, which the Cherubim cover. If you say, “Where is the end of God?” you uncover the feet, which the Cherubim cover. They cover the head and the feet not to hide them, but to teach that they are unsearchable and incomprehensible. Take the type too. There were six and six, twelve wings; eight are still, and four move. It is a type of the apostles: twelve apostles, but four evangelists cry out. And what do they cry? The very utterance that Satan was eager to overthrow. Attend, I beg you. They did not simply say, as we do, “Holy, holy, holy,” but one answered the other, as it is written: “And they cried one to another.” “Holy,” he says; we must say it once. The other says, “Holy.” Then the first again, adding the third: “Holy.” Since we have counted three, do not think there are three gods. What, then, is “Holy, holy, holy Lord”? “For there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” And just as in the singing of psalms people send the melodies back and forth to one another, so the powers above dance in answer to one another and send up the doxology as in antiphonal song. Then: “The house,” he says, “was full of his glory. And the lintel was lifted up at the cry with which they cried, and the house …”

A strange thing! From the doxology, when glory ought to have been added, even the glory that was there was lost, and smoke came in. Smoke is an image of desolation. What, then, is this? The Holy Spirit foreknew that the “Holy, holy” is fitted to the world, to the preaching of the apostles, and that the temple of the Jews does not receive it. So it says that after the preaching of the Gospel the synagogue is filled with desolation and smoke. And it was not the door that was lifted, but the lintel. Every door has a threshold lying beneath and a lintel lying on the doorposts; doorposts cannot stand without a threshold, nor be held steady unless they receive the lintel. So the upper frame of the synagogue was lifted: not the whole synagogue; it has doors, but it has no lintel. The lintel is the ruling power from above. The lintel was lifted; it was stripped of grace. And once the lintel was lifted, the doorposts were bound to be shaken by any hand at all. That is why every hand shakes the Jewish things. And that is why a prophet said: “And I will make Jerusalem like shaken porches.” “And the house,” he says, “was filled with smoke.” And where did the glory go? Attend, I beg you. Isaiah says, “And his house was full of glory”; then he says, “It was filled with smoke.” When the smoke came in, the glory was necessarily moved. And where was it moved? Not into one house: it filled the churches throughout the whole world. And to show where the glory that was in the temple went, the Cherubim say: “The whole earth is full of his glory.” One nation was stripped bare, and the ends of the earth were enlightened. This holy voice of the Lord, the royal doxology, this God-inspired initiation into the mysteries, a devilish mouth said, “Remove it from the altar.” That the blasphemy is aimed at Christ himself, the testimony makes clear. Whom did Isaiah see on the throne? For he says: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?” He had been reconciled to his servant, but still showed a trace of indignation. Just as we, if we are reconciled to a household slave, do not at once show him a kindly face, so God, not wishing to show his whole face while Isaiah stood there, says, “Whom shall I send?” As when slaves stand before their master and he wishes to reproach their laziness, he says, “Whom shall I send? For this task I have no man,” not as though he had none, but as having no diligent one. So God too: “Whom shall I send in place of this man, who kept silent while the priesthood was attacked?” What, then, does Isaiah do? Like a household slave who has given offense and is stung and hastens to make amends for what went before, he says: “Here I am; send me.” From where, then, shall we show that the glory was Christ's? John the evangelist says: “Though Jesus had done such signs, the Jews did not believe in him, so that what was spoken through Isaiah might be fulfilled: You will hear with hearing and will not understand. These things he said when he saw his glory and spoke of him.” Do you see that the Sanctus is the crowning point of our salvation? If the Sanctus is not said, the mystery is not completed either. You have the image. As soon as the Cherubim said, “Holy, holy, holy Lord,” the sacrifice was sanctified. “And one of the Cherubim was sent to me,” he says, “and in his hand he had a coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.” He did not take it until it had been sanctified. “He touched,” he says, “my lips.” Why the lips? They are the porch of the mysteries. What do we the faithful say? This mystery forgives sins. And the Cherubim also say: “Behold, I have taken away your sins.” Do you see the type? Do you see the truth shining out? Let us not cease, then, to hallow him who sits on the throne high and lifted up; and let us give thanks also for the soul that was ensnared, which the wolf snatched and the shepherd drew back, which the devil seized and the lover of mankind rescued; so that every heretical mouth and every tongue raving with blasphemy may praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to the ages. Amen.