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| On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary.
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Four
Homilies.466
| 466
[This very homily has been cited to prove the antiquity of the
festival of the Annunciation, observed, in the West, March 25.
But even Pellicia objects that this is a spurious work. The feast
of the Nativity was introduced into the East by Chrysostom after the
records at Rome had been inspected, and the time of the taxing at
Bethlehem had been found. See his Sermon (a.d. 386), beautifully translated by Dr. Jarvis in his
Introduction, etc., p. 541. Compare Tertullian, vol. iii.
p. 164, and Justin, vol. i. p. 174, this series. Now, as the
selection of the 25th of March is clearly based on this, we may say no
more of that day. Possibly some Sunday was associated with the
Annunciation. The four Sundays preceding Christmas are all
observed by the Nestorians in commemoration of the
Annunciation.] |
————————————
The First Homily.
On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin
Mary.467
| 467 The
secondary title is: The First Discourse of our holy father
Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neo-Cæsareia in Pontus,
on the Annunciation to the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God.
Works of Gregory Thaumaturgus by Ger. Voss, p. 9. |
To-day are strains of
praise sung joyfully by the choir of angels, and the light of the
advent of Christ shines brightly upon the faithful. Today is the
glad spring-time to us, and Christ the Sun of righteousness has beamed
with clear light around us, and has illumined the minds of the
faithful. To-day is Adam made anew,468
| 468
ἀνακεκαίνισται;
others ἀνακέκληται,
recovered. | and moves in the choir of angels, having
winged his way to heaven. To-day is the whole circle of the earth
filled with joy, since the sojourn of the Holy Spirit has been realized
to men. To-day the grace of God and the hope of the unseen shine
through all wonders transcending imagination, and make the mystery that
was kept hid from eternity plainly discernible to us. To-day are
woven the chaplets of never-fading virtue. To-day, God, willing
to crown the sacred heads of those whose pleasure is to hearken to Him,
and who delight in His festivals, invites the lovers of unswerving
faith as His called and His heirs; and the heavenly kingdom is urgent
to summon those who mind celestial things to join the divine service of
the incorporeal choirs. To-day is fulfilled the word of David,
“Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad. The
fields shall be joyful, and all the trees of the wood before the Lord,
because He cometh.”469
David thus made mention of the
trees;470
and the
Lord’s forerunner also spoke of them as trees471
“that should bring forth fruits meet
for repentance,”472
or rather for the coming of the Lord. But our Lord Jesus Christ
promises perpetual gladness to all those who believe on Him. For
He says, “I will see you, and ye shall rejoice; and your joy no
man taketh from you.”473
To-day is the illustrious and
ineffable mystery of Christians, who have willingly474
| 474 Others,
ὁσίως, piously. | set their hope like a seal upon Christ,
plainly declared to us. To-day did Gabriel, who stands by God,
come to the pure virgin, bearing to her the glad annunciation,
“Hail, thou that art highly favoured!475
And she cast in her mind what manner
of salutation this might be. And the angel immediately proceeded
to say, The Lord is with thee: fear not, Mary; for thou hast
found favour with God. Behold,476
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son, and shalt call477
| 477 Or,
καλέσουσι,
they shall call. | His name Jesus. He shall be great,
and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give
unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the
house of Jacob for ever: and of His kingdom there shall be no
end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I
know not a man?”478
Shall I still remain a virgin? is
the honour of virginity not then lost by me? And while she was
yet in perplexity as to these things, the angel placed shortly before
her the summary of his whole message, and said to the pure virgin,
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” For
what it is, that also shall it be called by all means. Meekly,
then, did grace make election of the pure Mary alone out of all
generations. For she proved herself prudent truly in all things;
neither has any woman been born like her in all generations. She
was not like the primeval virgin Eve, who, keeping holiday479
alone in paradise, with thoughtless mind,
unguardedly hearkened to the word of the serpent, the author of all
evil, and thus became depraved in the thoughts of her
mind;480
| 480 Or,
τῷ τῆς
καρδίας
φρονήματι, in the
thoughts of her heart. | and through her
that deceiver, discharging his poison and refusing death with it,
brought it into the whole world; and in virtue of this has arisen all
the trouble of the saints. But in the holy Virgin alone is the
fall of that (first mother) repaired. Yet was not this holy one
competent to receive the gift until she had first learned who it was
that sent it, and what the gift was, and who it was that conveyed
it. While the holy one pondered these things in perplexity with
herself, she says to the angel, “Whence hast thou brought to us
the blessing in such wise? Out of what treasure-stores is the
pearl of the word despatched to us? Whence has the gift acquired
its purpose481
| 481
ὑπόθεσιν; others
ὑπόσχεσιν, the
promise. | toward us?
From heaven art thou come, yet thou walkest upon earth! Thou dost
exhibit the form of man, and (yet) thou art glorious with dazzling
light.”482
| 482
καὶ
λαμπάδα
φωτὸς
ἀπαστράπτεις
. | These
things the holy one considered with herself, and the archangel solved
the difficulty expressed in such reasonings by saying to her:
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And
fear not, Mary; for I am not come to overpower thee with fear, but to
repel the subject of fear. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found
favour with God. Question not grace by the standard of
nature. For grace does not endure to pass under the laws of
nature. Thou knowest, O Mary, things kept hid from the patriarchs
and prophets. Thou hast learned, O virgin, things which were kept
concealed till now from the angels. Thou hast heard, O purest
one, things of which even the choir of inspired men483
was never deemed worthy. Moses,
and David, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and all the prophets, prophesied of
Him; but the manner they knew not. Yet thou alone, O purest
virgin, art now made the recipient of things of which all these were
kept in ignorance, and thou dost learn484
| 484 Or,
ὑποδέχου καὶ
μάνθανε, and receive thou
and learn. | the origin of them. For where the
Holy Spirit is, there are all things readily ordered. Where
divine grace is present, all things are found possible with God.
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” And if He is
the Son of God, then is He also God, of one form with the Father, and
co-eternal; in Him the Father possesses all manifestation;485
He is His image in the person, and
through His reflection the (Father’s) glory shines forth.
And as from the ever-flowing fountain the streams proceed, so also from
this ever-flowing and ever-living fountain does the light of the world
proceed, the perennial and the true, namely Christ our God. For
it is of this that the prophets have preached: “The streams
of the river make glad the city of God.”486
And not one city only, but all
cities; for even as it makes glad one city, so does it also the whole
world. Appropriately, therefore, did the angel487
say to Mary the holy virgin first of
all, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with
thee;” inasmuch as with her was laid up the full treasure of
grace. For of all generations she alone has risen as a virgin
pure in body and in spirit; and she alone bears Him who bears all
things on His word. Nor is it only the beauty of this holy one in
body that calls forth our admiration, but also the innate virtue of her
soul. Wherefore also the angel488
addressed her first with the
salutation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured,489
| 489 Or,
gifted with grace. | the Lord is with thee, and no spouse of
earth;” He Himself is with thee who is the Lord of
sanctification, the Father of purity, the Author of incorruption, and
the Bestower of liberty, the Curator of salvation, and the Steward and
Provider of the true peace, who out of the virgin earth made man, and
out of man’s side formed Eve in addition. Even this Lord is
with thee, and on the other hand also is of thee. Come,
therefore, beloved brethren, and let us take up the angelic strain, and
to the utmost of our ability return the due meed of praise, saying,
“Hail,490
thou that art highly
favoured, the Lord is with thee!” For it is thine truly to
rejoice, seeing that the grace of God, as he knows, has chosen to dwell
with thee—the Lord of glory dwelling with the handmaiden;
“He that is fairer than the children of men”491
with the fair virgin; He who
sanctifies all things with the undefiled. God is with thee, and
with thee also is the perfect man in whom dwells the whole fulness of
the Godhead. Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the fountain of
the light that lightens all who believe upon Him! Hail, thou that
art highly favoured, the rising of the rational Sun,492
| 492
τοῦ
νοητοῦ ἡλίου
ἡ ἀνατολή; others,
ἡλίου τῆς
δικαιοσύνης,
the rising of the Sun of righteousness. | and the undefiled flower of Life!
Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the mead493
of sweet savour! Hail, thou that
art highly favoured, the ever-blooming vine, that makes glad the souls
of those who honour thee! Hail, thou that art highly
favoured!—the soil that, all untilled, bears bounteous
fruit: for thou hast brought forth in accordance with the law of
nature indeed, as it goes with us, and by the set time of practice,494
| 494
ἀσκήσεως; better
κυήσεως,
conception. | and yet in a way beyond nature, or rather
above nature, by reason that God the Word from above took His abode in
thee, and formed the new Adam in thy holy womb, and inasmuch as the
Holy Ghost gave the power of conception to the holy virgin; and the
reality of His body was assumed from her body. And just as the
pearl495
| 495 There is
a similar passage in Ephræm’s discourse, De Margarita
Pretiosa, vol. iii. | comes of the two
natures, namely lightning and water, the occult signs of the sea; so
also our Lord Jesus Christ proceeds, without fusion and without
mutation, from the pure, and chaste, and undefiled, and holy Virgin
Mary; perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, in all things equal
to the Father, and in all things consubstantial with us, apart from
sin.
Most of the holy fathers, and patriarchs, and
prophets desired to see Him, and to be eye-witnesses of Him, but did
not attain hereto. And some of them by visions beheld Him in
type, and darkly; others, again, were privileged to hear the divine
voice through the medium of the cloud, and were favoured with sights of
holy angels; but to Mary the pure virgin alone did the archangel
Gabriel manifest himself luminously, bringing her the glad address,
“Hail, thou that art highly favoured!” And thus she
received the word, and in the due time of the fulfilment according to
the body’s course she brought forth the priceless pearl.
Come, then, ye too, dearly beloved, and let us chant the melody which
has been taught us by the inspired harp of David, and say,
“Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of Thy
sanctuary.”496
For the
holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and
without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary.
“Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest.” Arise, O Lord, out of
the bosom of the Father, in order that Thou mayest raise up the fallen
race of the first-formed man. Setting these things
forth,497
David in prophecy
said to the rod that was to spring from himself, and to sprout into the
flower of that beauteous fruit, “Hearken, O daughter, and see,
and incline thine ear, and forget thine own people and thy
father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy
beauty: for He is the Lord thy God, and thou shalt worship
Him.”498
Hearken, O
daughter, to the things which were prophesied beforetime of thee, in
order that thou mayest also behold the things themselves with the eyes
of understanding. Hearken to me while I announce things
beforehand to thee, and hearken to the archangel who declares expressly
to thee the perfect mysteries. Come then, dearly beloved, and let
us fall back on the memory of what has gone before us; and let us
glorify, and celebrate, and laud, and bless that rod that has sprung so
marvellously from Jesse. For Luke, in the inspired Gospel
narratives, delivers a testimony not to Joseph only, but also to Mary
the mother of God, and gives this account with reference to the very
family and house of David: “For Joseph went up,” says
he, “from Galilee, unto a city of Judea which is called
Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with
child, because they were of the house and family of David. And so
it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she
should be delivered; and she brought forth her son, the first-born of
the whole creation,499
| 499
πρωτότοκον
πασῆς τῆς
κτίσεως. [Or,
the heir, etc.] | and wrapped him
in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn.”500
She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who
is covered with light as with a garment.501
She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who
made every creature. She laid in a manger Him who sits above the
cherubim502
and is praised by
myriads of angels. In the manger set apart for dumb brutes did
the Word of God repose, in order that He might impart to men, who are
really irrational by free choice, the perceptions of true reason.
In the board from which cattle eat was laid the heavenly
Bread,503
in order that He
might provide participation in spiritual sustenance for men who live
like the beasts of the earth. Nor was there even room for Him in
the inn. He found no place, who by His word established heaven
and earth; “for though He was rich, for our sakes He became
poor,”504
and chose extreme
humiliation on behalf of the salvation of our nature, in His inherent
goodness toward us. He who fulfilled the whole
administration505
of unutterable
mysteries of the economy506
| 506 Or, the
whole administration of the economy in an unutterable mystery. | in
heaven in the bosom of the Father, and in the cave in the arms of the
mother, reposed in the manger. Angelic choirs encircled Him,
singing of glory in heaven and of peace upon earth. In heaven He
was seated at the right hand of the Father; and in the manger He
rested, as it were, upon the cherubim. Even there was in truth
His cherubic throne; there was His royal seat. Holy of the holy,
and alone glorious upon the earth, and holier than the holy, was that
wherein Christ our God rested. To Him be glory, honour, and
power, together with the Father undefiled, and the altogether holy and
quickening Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
