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| On Easter and His Reluctance.
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Gregory
Nazianzen.
Oration I.
On Easter and His
Reluctance.
I. It is the Day of
the Resurrection, and my Beginning has good auspices. Let us then
keep the Festival with splendour,2529
and let us
embrace one another. Let us say Brethren, even to those who hate
us; much more to those who have done or suffered aught out of love for
us. Let us forgive all offences for the Resurrection’s
sake: let us give one another pardon, I for the noble tyranny
which I have suffered (for I can now call it noble); and you who
exercised it, if you had cause to blame my tardiness; for perhaps this
tardiness may be more precious in God’s sight than the haste of
others. For it is a good thing even to hold back from God for a
little while, as did the great Moses of old,2530
and Jeremiah2531
later on; and then
to run readily to Him when He calls, as did Aaron2532
and Isaiah,2533
so
only both be done in a dutiful spirit;—the former because of his
own want of strength; the latter because of the Might of Him That
calleth.
II. A Mystery2534
| 2534 Mystery,
according to Nicetas, is frequently used by S.
Gregory in the sense of Festival. He also explains the
Anointing as meaning the Imposition of hands at
Ordination. |
anointed me; I withdrew a little while at a Mystery, as much as was
needful to examine myself; now I come in with a Mystery, bringing with
me the Day as a good defender of my cowardice and weakness; that He Who
to-day rose again from the dead may renew me also by His Spirit; and,
clothing me with the new Man, may give me to His New Creation, to those
who are begotten after God, as a good modeller and teacher for Christ,
willingly both dying with Him and rising again with Him.
III. Yesterday the Lamb was slain and the
door-posts were anointed,2535
| 2535 Ex. xii. A fine piece of mystical
interpretation. | and Egypt bewailed
her Firstborn, and the Destroyer passed us over, and the Seal was
dreadful and reverend, and we were walled in with the Precious
Blood. To-day we have clean escaped from Egypt and from Pharaoh;
and there is none to hinder us from keeping a Feast to the Lord our
God—the Feast of our Departure; or from celebrating that Feast,
not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth,2536
carrying with us
nothing of ungodly and Egyptian leaven.
IV. Yesterday I was crucified with Him;
today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; to-day I am
quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; to-day I rise with
Him. But let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for
us—you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver,
or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing
material of earth, that remains here below, and is for the most part
always possessed by bad men, slaves of the world and of the Prince of
the world. Let us offer ourselves, the possession most
precious to God, and most fitting; let us give back to the Image what
is made after the Image. Let us recognize our Dignity; let us
honour our Archetype; let us know the power of the Mystery, and for
what Christ died.
V. Let us become like Christ, since Christ
became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since He
for ours became Man. He assumed the worse that He might give us
the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be
rich;2537
He took upon Him the form of a servant that
we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be
exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that
He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He
might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin.
Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a
Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like
oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that
He became for ours.
VI. As
you see, He offers you a Shepherd; for this is what your Good
Shepherd,2538
| 2538 Nicetas says that this refers to S. Gregory’s Father, who had ordained him Priest, to
assist him in the Cure of Souls, and whose one desire was that his Son
might succeed him in the Bishopric. | who lays down his
life for his sheep, is hoping and praying for, and he asks from you his
subjects; and he gives you himself double instead of single, and makes
the staff of his old age a staff for your spirit. And he adds to
the inanimate temple a living one; to that exceedingly beautiful and
heavenly shrine, this poor and small one,2539
| 2539 S.
Gregory’s father had, according to the same authority,
rebuilt the Church at Nazianus with great splendour. He thinks
that the expression “heavenly” may refer to the great
dome. The “living temple” is of course S. Gregory
himself. |
yet to him of great value, and built too with much sweat and many
labours. Would that I could say it is worthy of his
labours. And he places at your disposal all that belongs to him
(O great generosity!—or it would be truer to say, O fatherly
love!) his hoar hairs, his youth, the temple, the high priest, the
testator, the heir, the discourses which you were longing for; and of
these not such as are vain and poured out into the air, and which reach
no further than the outward ear; but those which the Spirit writes and
engraves on tables of stone, or of flesh, not merely superficially
graven, nor easily to be rubbed off, but marked very deep, not with
ink, but with grace.
VII. These are the gifts given you by this
august Abraham, this honourable and reverend Head, this Patriarch, this
Restingplace of all good, this Standard of virtue, this Perfection of
the Priesthood, who to-day is bringing to the Lord his willing
Sacrifice, his only Son,2540
| 2540 S.
Gregory had an elder sister Gorgonia, and a younger brother Cæsarius, so that this expression must not be taken
too literally, but is rather to be read in connection with the
“promise,” his Mother having looked upon his birth as a
special answer to prayer, and having dedicated him to God from his
infancy. | him of the
promise. Do you on your side offer to God and to us obedience to
your Pastors, dwelling in a place of herbage, and being fed by water of
refreshment;2541
knowing your
Shepherd well, and being known by him;2542
and following when he calls you as a Shepherd frankly through the door;
but not following a stranger climbing up into the fold like a robber
and a traitor; nor listening to a strange voice when such would take
you away by stealth and scatter you from the truth on
mountains,2543
and in deserts, and
pitfalls, and places which the Lord does not visit; and would lead you
away from the sound Faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
the One Power and Godhead, Whose Voice my sheep always heard (and may
they always hear it), but with deceitful and corrupt words would tear
them from their true Shepherd. From which may we all be kept,
Shepherd and flock, as from a poisoned and deadly pasture; guiding and
being guided far away from it, that we may all be one in Christ Jesus
our Lord, now and unto the heavenly rest. To Whom be the glory
and the might for ever and ever. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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