Library › St Photius the Great › Homilies

Homilies

St Photius the Great, tr. Mango, 1958

15. Holy Saturday

XII

Homily Delivered on the Holy and Great Saturday¹

Oh, the awesome and great mystery! For it is fitting to begin our discourse with a miracle at a time of strange and wondrous things. Oh, the unutterable providence on our behalf of our Lord and Creator! Oh, unfathomable depth of judgments, and wealth of goodness, and founts of mercy flowing with copious streams, watering the whole world in an other-worldly manner, and gushing with an inexhaustible flow! Oh, the Lord’s passion, burial and death that abolish passions, death and hell! Who is there that does not laud and glorify His sufferings, and is not amazed thereat? Who is there that does not shudder and tremble and grow dizzy at the blows? Who is not filled with wonder and astonishment at the spitting, the scoffing, the jeering, the flagellation, on seeing intact feet pierced through, and stainless hands being transfixed, and the side being wounded with a spear, and, wonder upon wonder, the body being stained red with blood therefrom, and that after death? Whose sufferings are these? Oh, the endurance and long-suffering of the Maker and Creator of everything, Who by a word alone governs the universe! Why does He suffer? So that He may bestow freedom from passions unto that human race, at whose hands he undergoes this passion and mockery; so that He may free us, at whose hands He is scourged, crucified and wounded, from our scourges and wounds, us, whose nature, after being abducted and enslaved by our transgression of the commandment, has been cruelly tormented by our passions; so that He may mould again in His image that which we have defaced and beclouded with the iniquity of our deeds, and may restore to us our ancient nobility.

For this reason He is crucified, and dies and is buried, so that, having snatched human kind away from the Serpent’s domination, and drawn it up from the pits of death, He may raise it up along with Himself, and make it worthy again of its portion in paradise, from which it had been banished for wilful wrong-doing.² This is the purpose of the voluntary crucifixion, incomprehensible even to angels before its accomplishment, this is the goal of the Lord’s sufferings, this is the sum of the humiliation of the Logos,³ this is the end of Christ’s incarnation—our deliverance from captivity, our setting up from the lapse, our salvation and perfection—for the sake of which were wrought the wondrous birth of the Logos from a virgin, the manger and the swaddling clothes, the flight to Egypt, the reversal of the withdrawal and the return, the Forerunner harvesting repentance from desolate hearts and the baptism that perfects the Baptist but not the Baptized, the tempter and the tempted, the treacherous disciple and the betrayed Teacher, agonized and bedewed with drops of sweat, the haughty mind of the rulers, and the envy of the high priests flaring up, the custody⁴ and flagellation, and thereafter the cross, and death and sojourn in a tomb.

And yet, let no gloomy or melancholy thought fall upon thee. For indeed it is all for thy sake—the emptying of the tomb, and the killing of death, and the destruction of hell, and the resurrection in three days which confirms in visible deeds and inaugurates in godlike fashion the universal resurrection. All this is for us, that it may save us, disobedient ones, who have foolishly departed from the first injunction. For God, having with a wealth of goodness and wisdom of mind moulded man with His own hands, and contrived the creature’s side for the formation of woman, and allotted them to dwell without hardship in paradise, gave out an injunction as a test, so that the first citizen of paradise should not live an idle and inert life unworthy of his rational nature. Having linked His injunction with a tree, fair to see with the eyes and fair to taste (for something that is displeasing is repulsive in itself, and neither needs an extraneous guard nor is suitable to be proferred as a touchstone of disposition and a test⁵), He clearly and manifestly proclaimed what would be the prize for keeping the injunction and what the penalty for disregarding it. The latter, namely transgression, He declared to be conducive to death, while the former He showed to be the compacting and confirmation of immortality, so that deathlessness should not be merely a gift, but also the prize for striving. These things having been accomplished in such godlike manner and too excellently to be inquired into, Adam and Eve throve with all kinds of good things in an untilled and fruitful garden. But the crooked and malicious Serpent, who could not bear to see them enjoying the blessedness from which he had been banished, instead of repenting for his fall, and not making the rebellion for which he had crashed down worse through envy, nor adding evil to evil, he, I say, disregarded this (since envy is unable to keep sin within boundaries), and having cast an avid eye on our ancestors and captured their mind with deceitful words, and, alas,⁶ made them a prey to transgression, forthwith stripped them of immortality and alienated them from the joyous life in paradise, and thereby having, so to speak, elbowed⁷ their offspring away from their original and rightful freedom, and mischievously bound them to the pursuit of pleasure, he rose up as a tyrant to breathe scorn at the whole human race.

But what of Logos the artificer and our Creator? Did He overlook His creature, that He had made⁸ with a love of beauty and with care, as it was held under tyrannical sway, or did He provide for it,⁹ yet not all-wisely? Or, if all-wisely, yet not mercifully? And what excess of mercy or wisdom or providence is not shown especially in this respect? For starting from the transgression itself, He strove by many and various treatments to raise up the fallen,¹⁰ by word and the Law and the prophets, by wondrous bounties and equally wondrous misfortunes. Finally, since our nature, having once and for all fallen away from the good and become subservient to the tyrant, was driven headlong to more monstrous and unutterable deeds, it needed greater help corresponding to its daring actions. And what help was there other than re-creation? Oh, the mercy surpassing understanding! That is what human nature obtains. For the jointly-throning and co-eternal Son and Word of the eternal Father, the Author of the worlds¹¹ and Creator of the incorporeal hosts, our Maker, Who holds together the whole creation and steers everything in good order with a mere nod, makes unto Himself a flesh from virginal blood that He may re-create us, and He is born and baptized and crucified and dies and is buried, so that we may leap over the nets of sin, which our negligence and indolence have woven and spread out, and so place ourselves above the passions and death. Seest thou the ocean of His mercy, seest thou the depth of His compassion, seest thou the unfathomable decrees of His providence and wisdom, seest thou the height of His condescension? Our Lord is struck for our sake, and He is crucified, and dies, and is buried, that He may wipe off from us the stains of servitude, that He may grant us freedom, resurrection and immortality. He is crucified and dies and is buried, and the earth quakes in fear, and the curtain of the temple is rent, and stones are torn apart, and the sun is covered with much darkness, not because the moon intercepts and stands in the way of its rays according to the inherent law of nature, but wondrously and supernaturally, as if at the farthest end of distance the moon too was grieved and darkened and sorrowful at the Creator’s passion, these works of creation all but emitting a cry, and bewailing the affront to the common Lord, and vividly expressing by their condition the enormity of the crime.

As for thee, what sayest thou, O Jew? Do not even the sufferings of inanimate things put thee to shame? Dost thou not respect even their reproof? But while the earth quakes and trembles, does thy heart, grown thick with callousness, harden all the more? While stones are rent asunder and their natural solidity is shattered, dost thou become in thy mind stiffened into the nature of a stone, mollified as thou art by no manner of mercy?¹² While the sun in fear withdraws its lustre, dost thou unlawfully stretch out thy murderous arms? While the moon is sorrowful, dost thou arm the fury of thy mind? Thou hast trampled the Law underfoot, thou hast slain the prophets, and now thou thrustest thy spear against the Lawgiver, and thou subjectest Him Who has been prophesied to the death of criminals. This thou, the slave, doest unto thy master, the clay unto the potter, the creature unto the Creator;¹³ yea verily, ye the ungrateful unto your benefactor, the prisoners unto the deliverer, the captives unto Him Who has come to free you of your bonds, the condemned unto the judge, and that because He has given light to the blind, because He has nerved and strengthened arms that had been paralysed, because He has straightened and made firm the legs of the lame, because He has cleansed lepers of their disease, because He has braced and made fast the paralytic, because He has dried the streams of blood of the woman that touched Him, because with a few loaves He has fed many thousands, tended by the hands of His disciples, because He has set to flight and destroyed every infirmity and, having summoned up Lazarus, raised him on the fourth day.

Have these things caused thee to breathe murder and fury at the Lord? Instead of being thankful for these things, as it behoved thee to be, thou wast prompted by them to be ungrateful; instead of honouring Him with hymns, thou showerest Him with insults; instead of lauding Him, thou blasphemest against Him. These things were illuminated by the splendour of divinity which testified by deeds that He Who wrought manifest miracles by His preaching was the true God; and yet, because of these very things¹⁴ thou didst darken thy face, and didst not at all abate thy murderous spirit in devising death by the cross against the common Saviour and Creator. “The ox at the manger knew his Master as He lay, and the ass his Lord Who rode on him, but Israel did not know me who have come for its salvation with signs and miracles, and the people whom I have come to deliver has not regarded me.¹⁵ For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them,”¹⁶ saith the Lord Almighty.

We, however, O Lord, who, from not being a people are considered the peculiar people, and from not being pitied nor loved (for our acts drove us far off from such great affection of our Lord) have been pitied and loved only through the goodness and mercy of Him Who has loved us even unto blood, let us bewail the callousness of our¹⁷ hearts. We who have dared to have (?) an ungrateful mind that overcame every feeling of gratitude, let us wipe off (?) that incurable disease, and make¹⁸ our conscience pure of every sin, having sprinkled ourselves with hyssop,¹⁹ and cleansed it by means of repentance, and made it wholly pure; and let us draw nigh to the body of Christ our Lord, not stealthily approaching now, like that nightly friend, not enveloping our eagerness with fear, and shadowing our zeal with the timidity of our soul, not burying the treasure in earth and tomb after the general law of the departed, but with a universal cry escorting and magnifying Him, along with the Cherubic host, and with unwavering faith and zeal eagerly paying divine honours to the Lord’s body; not begging it from Pilate through Joseph, but as it is mercifully granted now to all the faithful by Him who once was begged for, Who cries out saying, “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you for the remission of sins,²⁰ for you on whose behalf I am become flesh, on whose behalf I am crucified, on whose behalf even now I am sacrificed every day on the mystical table, so that, being deemed worthy of the sacrifice, you may become sharers of my body and partners of my glory, you on whose behalf I have dwelled in a tomb, and the brazen gates have been broken, and the locks and iron bars have been shattered, and the empire which dominated you has been destroyed.” For the Lord is covered with a tomb, but to us He holds out immortality, His face is wrapped with a napkin, but He clothes those who have believed in Him with the garment of incorruptibility, He is enveloped in funeral swathing bands, but severs the tangled chains of our sin, He becomes a fellow-dweller of the dead, but He prepares the heavenly tabernacles for the complement of them that arise from the dead, He is covered with a tomb, and the might of Hell is despoiled, the pricks of death are broken, and the choir of the dead as it rises up cries out with us in a loud voice, “O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?” For verily, when Christ became flesh, was death swallowed up in victory.²¹

O tomb, who art the emptying of the tombs of ages and the filling up of the heavenly tabernacles! O tomb, out of which the death of our sin has sprouted up, and the joy of the deliverance has bloomed! O tomb, in which the condemnation of our transgressions lies buried, and the plea of salvation has been brought forth, whereby we have been delivered from the wrinkles of corruption, and have adorned ourselves with the hope of incorruption, in which²² the mortal part of our nature has wasted away, and the dignity of immortality has been re-created! O tomb, through which the might of the demons has fallen, and the horn of men²³ has been raised, through which the impious belief of the pagans has been made dead, and the holy veneration of the faithful has been strengthened! O tomb, jeered at by the Jews yet attended by angels, guarded by a watch of soldiers yet worshipped by the whole creation!

But Thou Who hast dwelled for us in a tomb, and become numbered among the dead, and hast of Thyself wrought unto us our resurrection, Christ our God, mayest Thou join in tending this Thy great and numerous flock which, I know not how, Thou hast appointed me to tend, and lead it to life-giving and spiritual fields, driving it away, as from a deadly pollution, from the heretical and schismatic pasture, through which the poison of the Serpent, instigator of evil, stealthily creeps in; but gathering everyone into Thy flock and fold, and guarding with Thy hand, as Thou dost, our pious and faithful Emperor, show him all the more terrible to the foes, kindly to his subjects, and make him worthy, along with us, of Thy kingdom. For we all take refuge with Thee, and on Thee we have pinned all our hopes, and to Thee we send up our worship and praise, together with the eternal Father and the co-eternal and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Previous · Contents · Next