Homily 4, On the Holy Mother of God and on Simeon

Contents

1. 1Opening his sermon on the Presentation, Theodotus calls for thanksgiving with the Psalms and Isaiah's child “born to us” and recalls how the star, the Magi, the angels, and the Spirit announced Christ, last of all to Simeon.
2. 2The preacher sings with prophets and apostles of God seen on earth: the Virgin of Isaiah conceived the Word through hearing, and her pregnancy undid Eve's deadly “conception” passed on to Adam.
3. 3Theodotus calls the congregation to praise God the Word and his Mother, and takes up Gabriel's greeting in a string of salutations to Mary.
4. 4The birth of the eternal one in time is a wonder beyond words, which draws the mind between the Godhead and the real flesh; the Virgin's feast feeds an ever-growing thirst for divine things.
5. 5Those who reject the title Theotokos deny the power of the faith: the God who fashioned Eve without disgrace also fashioned the Virgin, and dwelling in her was no outrage to him.
6. 6Whoever accepts that God formed Eve must accept the incarnation from a Virgin; as fire purifies iron and water poured on the head soaks the whole body, the Spirit wholly sanctified Mary before she received the Word.
7. 7Returning to the feast, the preacher sees in the Virgin, Simeon, and Anna the firstfruits of both sexes meeting the Redeemer, and reads Isaac's blessing of Jacob as a riddle of the children of God who worship the Son.
8. 8We are made sons by grace, not equal to Christ; the saying that the least in the kingdom is greater than the Baptist compares the Baptist with other prophets and with John the Evangelist, not with Christ.
9. 9Scripture calls the Spirit-led “gods” and sons, but Christ is above all even as man; the Baptist's own witness shows that no mere man can be compared with the incarnate God.
10. 10Simeon fearlessly takes in his arms the God before whom Moses trembled and hails him as the light of the nations; that light reached the world through the apostles, whom the Jews of Thessalonica accused of rebellion.
11. 11Christ's kingship conquered the tyrant not with weapons of iron but, hidden in weak flesh, with the armour of righteousness, judgement, and holiness, triumphing through apparent defeat.
12. 12Christ sent out unarmed apostles who won the world by persuasion; converts left pagan myth and Jewish unbelief to confess the Trinity and Christ, complete in Godhead and perfect in manhood, worshipped by angels, by Simeon and Anna, by the Magi, and by all the adopted sons.
13. 13Mary keeps Simeon's words, and Simeon foretells the fall and rising of many and the sword in her soul; the prophecy is fulfilled in Paul, Thomas, and the Lord's brothers James and Jude, who came from unbelief to faith.