But before I proceed to elaborate the subject of the “origin and revelation of the Church”, I would like us to take a look at the etymology of the word “Ekklesia“, because it will help us to understand better what is going to be said further on.

The word ‘Ekklesia‘ derives from the verb meaning ‘to call out’ ‘call’, ‘call together’, ‘gather together’. Thus ‘Church’ means a gathering of people, a congregation.

We can also find the word in this meaning in ancient Greece with reference, for example, to the ‘ekklesia‘ of a municipality, a gathering of the citizens to discuss various concerns which they had.

Also in holy Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments, there is repeated reference to the ‘Ekklesia‘ as an assembly. The phrases ‘ekklesia of saints’, ‘ekklesia of laity’ etc. , are often used in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament we also have abundant use of the word with a deeper content, since through the incarnation of Christ the Church is not a gathering of people, but the Body of Christ. Thus it acquires a deeper meaning. I would like to cite a few examples.

Christ said to the Apostle Peter, who confessed His divinity:

“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16″18).

The rock (‘petra‘) on which the Church is supported is the confession that Christ is the Son of God. The Apostle Paul repeatedly speaks of the Church as the Body of Christ. This passage from the letter to the Ephesians is characteristic:

“And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23).

The members, the Christians who make up the membership of a concrete eucharistic community, are also characterised as the Church. The Church possesses the whole truth, because the whole revelation of God has been given to it. The Apostle Paul says:

“Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

The word `Church’ is also used in these meanings in the teaching of the holy Fathers and in the Worship. According to St. Cyril of Jerusalem, it is called the Church

“because it calls forth and assembles together all men”.

And St. John Chrysostom says characteristically

“in the multitude of the faithful, the Church”.

On another subject I shall be developing further what the multitude of the faithful means. In any case I must call to mind here the teaching of St. John Chrysostom that the Church is not a wall and a roof, but living and life.

The Church is presented in many liturgical texts as a gathering, and especially as a eucharistic place, because the Eucharist is the deepest expression of the Church. I would like us to look at a characteristic passage from the Liturgy of the apostolic era as it has been preserved in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. At the end of the Eucharist when the Celebrant of the eucharistic gathering took the bread into his hands, he prayed:

“We thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou gavest us through Thy Son Jesus”.

And then he spoke an amazing prayer

“Just as this fraction was scattered over the granaries and, gathered together, became one, so may Thy Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom”.

The bringing together of many grains of wheat and the preparation of the bread is an image pointing to the gathering of all the faithful into the Kingdom of God.

Among the expressions which are to be found in the liturgical texts and show exactly what the Church is, there is also the expression that the Church is “a holy people” or “communion of saints”. The people of God is not only the Clergy or only the laity, but the unity of Clergy, monks and laity, and this unity is in Christ. `In Christ’ means that members of the Church are all those who are united with Christ, all who are actually members of the Body of Christ through the sacramental and ascetic life, all who are baptised and confirmed in the faith, according to the teaching of St. Symeon the New Theologian.

This unity is shown clearly on the holy paten. In the middle there is the lamb of God, Christ Himself, on His right the portion of the Theotokos and on his left the portions of the saints, and in front the Bishop of the local Church with the living and those who lie asleep whom the priest mentions during the proskomidi. St. Symeon of Thessaloniki, speaking of the holy paten, says:

“God among gods who are deified by Him Who is God by nature”.

Christ is God by nature and the saints are deified by grace through Him Who is God by nature. The assembly of the faithful is expressed once more during the Sacrament of the divine Eucharist.

I shall not concern myself further with this point here, because the subject of who are the true members of the Church will concern us in other sections and other chapters.

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

A common human experience is that when one is absorbed in work or activity that one deems worthwhile, time seems to fly; one is often so deep in concentrated focus as to ‘forget about self;’ the opposite of this is the experience of listlessness. On a purely human level we could consider the words of Hindu teacher Gandhi regarding such absorbing work:

“.. . finding satisfaction in work is our best hope for happiness in life.”i

However, there is a higher matter to be considered, a Divine element to ‘worthy work.’

King David links the work we do to our purpose in life:

“The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; thy steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of thy hands.” (Ps 137: 8).

So, what is ultimately meaningful will be that which we do that carries out our purpose in life; and at the same time it will be a Godly act.

In his Epistle to the Corinthians (1Cor 3: 9,13-14) St. Paul tells us:

“For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building … each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.”

The Church Fathers knew that listlessness, that is to say, a feeling of lack of interest or energy, is born of inactivity or meaningless activity. One way of overcoming listlessness, then, is to choose work and activities that fit the gifts given to us by God. Such gifts are our abilities, interests and talents that fit and challenge our skills. The choice of such work gives the advantage that we will both fulfill God’s purpose and, at the same time, will find our life more worthwhile and meaningful.

Our holy Eastern Father of the Church Evagrios Ponticus tells us:

“Provide yourself with such work for your hands as can be done . . . so that you are not a burden to anyone and indeed can give to others . . . and you will overcome listlessness. . .”ii

It should be noted that Evagrios mentions both a personal and a social dimension in overcoming lassitude.

One factor is taking responsibility for oneself, that is to say, being as self-reliant as possible; the other factor is to be, at the same time, serving others. Why would this be so? Because what we do reflects both our love of God and of our neighbor. As Jesus’ apostle St. John writes in his Epistle:

“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1Jn 4:7).

In both the Eastern and Western Church traditions work, even of the humdrum, necessary or routine sort, can be made holy, made most fully meaningful, by dedicating it to God and keeping a mindfulness of Him during the activities being done. The beautiful Prayer for Work of the Eastern Church captures this ethos:

O Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of Thine Eternal Father, Thou hast said

“Without me you can do nothing.”

In faithfulness I embrace Thy words, O Lord, and bow before Thy goodness. Help me to complete the work I am about to do for Thine own glory. For thou art the Good God who loveth mankind and to Thee we ascribe Glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages and ages. Amen

ENDNOTES

[i] www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2008/09/10-Ways-to-Bring-Your-Whole-Self-to-Work.aspx#ixzz18Joy2PeJ

[ii] Palmer, G.E.H., Sherrard, P. & Ware, K. (Eds). (1979). The Philokalia, Volume 1: The Complete Text; Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth. London: Faber and Faber.

V. Rev. Fr. George Morelli Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist, Coordinator of the Chaplaincy and Pastoral Counseling Ministry of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, (http://www.antiochian.org/counseling-ministries) and Religion Coordinator (and Antiochian Archdiocesan Liaison) of the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology and Religion. Fr. George is Assistant Pastor of St. George’s Antiochian Orthodox Church, San Diego, California.

Source

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

How does one prove that Christ is God? We should not try to answer this question by using the argument of the creation of heaven and earth, because the unbeliever will not accept it. If we tell him that He raised the dead, healed the blind, expelled demons, he still will not agree. If we tell him that He promised us resurrection from the dead, the kingdom of heaven, and ineffable goods, not only he will not agree, but also he will laugh at us.

How then shall we lead him to the faith, especially when he is not spiritually developed? Surely, we shall do this by resting on truths which are acceptable both to us and to him without any dispute or shadow of doubt.

We shall start from the fact that Christ planted the Church in the world. What is the point then that we absolutely agree upon? It is the fact that Christ planted the Church. It is by this means that we shall reveal the power and prove the divinity of Christ. We shall see that it is impossible to regard the dissemination of Christianity in the whole wide world in such a short period of time as a human work. And indeed, when Christian ethics invites people who have bad habits and are slaves to sin to a higher life. And yet, the Lord managed to liberate from such things not only us, but the entire human species.

Christ’s superbly wondrous achievement is the Church. He achieved this without using arms, without spending money, without mobilizing armies, without causing wars. He achieved it by starting only with twelve disciples, who were insignificant, uneducated, poor, naked, unarmed… It was with such human resource that He succeeded in persuading the nations to think correctly, not only in the present life, but also in the life which is to come. He managed to nullify the ancestral laws, to uproot ancient customs, and to plant new ones. He managed to detach man from an easy way of life and to lead him to a difficult one. He managed all these things, although all fought against Him, and He had to endure a degrading crucifixion and an ignominious death!

This superbly wondrous achievement is not human. Surely, such things do not occur to human beings. What occurs is the exact opposite. In other words, as long as they are alive and prosper their work progresses. When, however, they die, what they created is destroyed along with them. This is endured not only by the rich or the leading ones, but also by the chief governors. This is so, because their laws are abolished, their memory is obliterated, and their names are forgotten, while their intimate associates are pushed aside. These things occur to those who originally governed the nations by a mere nod, and led to war grand armies; to those who condemned to death and recalled the exiled. To the Lord, however, it was the exact opposite that occurred.

It is superbly wondrous because it was achieved by the Crucified Christ. Before the crucifixion the state of his work looked pitiful. Judas betrayed Him. Peter denied Him. The rest of the Disciples fled in order to save their lives, while many believers abandoned Him. He was left alone among enemies. And yet, after the slaughter and the death, so that you may learn that the Crucified Christ was not a mere man, all things became brighter, jollier, and glorious. Peter, the head Apostle, who before the crucifixion did not bear the threat of a maidservant, but after so many heavenly teachings and his participation in the divine mysteries said that he does not know the Lord, the same one after the crucifixion preached Him to the ends of the world. Innumerable martyrs were sacrificed, because they preferred to be put to death than to deny Christ, as the head Apostle had denied Him after being intimidated by a young maiden.

The amazing submission of the world to the Crucified Christ and His Apostles: Now, all the lands, all the cities, the deserted and the inhabited places, confess the Crucified Lord. On Him faith is placed by kings and generals, archons and consuls, slaves and freemen, unlettered and educated, the barbarians and the various nations of humanity. Even that small and insignificant tomb that received the blood stained and tortured body of the Lord is more valued than a thousand royal palaces and more venerable even to kings. What is even a greater paradox is the fact that what happened to the Lord also happened to His disciples. Because, those who were despised and imprisoned, those who were atrociously tortured and underwent innumerable martyrdoms, the very same ones, after their death, were more honored than the kings. Where do we see this? In Rome, the emperors, the consuls and the generals put aside all things and run to venerate the tombs of Peter the fisherman and Paul the tent maker. In Constantinople, those who bear diadems on their heads, wish to be buried next not close to the tombs of the Apostles but at the entrance of their temples. And so the kings become the doormen of the fishermen! Indeed, they are not ashamed for this, but boast about it, not only themselves but also their descendants.

Christ’s prophesy about the Church and its speedy fulfillment. When Christ’s disciples were only twelve and the Church was not in any one’s thought, when the Jewish synagogue was still flourishing and the impious idolatry dominated almost the entire world, the Lord had prophesied:

“On this stone (i.e. on Peter’s confession of faith) I will build my Church, and the powers of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Do you realize the truth of this prophesy? Do you see its fulfillment? Think how important a fact is the spreading of the Church almost to the entire earth in a very brief span of time. Think how the life of so many nations changed and led to the faith so many peoples, how it abolished ancestral customs, how it liberated from age-long habits, how it scattered like dust the domination of pleasure and the power of sin, how it extinguished like smoke the foul smell of the sacrifices, the idolatrous ceremonies, the abominable feasts, the idols, the pagan altars and temples, how it erected sacred altars everywhere, in our land and in the lands of the Persians, the Scythians, the Africans and the Indians. What I say? Even in the British Isles, which are beyond the Mediterranean, in the ocean, the Church was spread and erected altars.

The superbly wondrous liberation and change that the Church induced in the world: The work of liberation of so many peoples from age-long shameful habits, as well as the change in the manner of life from an easier to a more difficult one, is indeed wondrous, or rather superbly wondrous. It is a proof of divine operation (energy), even if no one had opposed it, even if peace had prevailed and many had assisted. Because this spreading of the Church did not only come into collision with ancient habit, but also with pleasure, the happy manner of life. In other words, it had two powerful opponents, which tyrannized humanity: habit and pleasure. Whatsoever people had received, from centuries ago, from their fathers, their grandfathers and their ancient ancestors, even what they had received from the philosophers and the rhetoricians, all these things they agreed to despise, an attitude extremely difficult. Besides, they had to accept a new manner of life, which was indeed much more difficult; because she removed them from luxury and attached them to fasting. She removed them from avarice and led them to lack of property. She removed them from profanity and led them to chastity. She removed them from aggressiveness and led them to gentleness. She removed them from envy and led them to friendship. She removed them from an easygoing and pleasurable life and led them to a life of difficulties, hardships, and full of sorrows. Indeed she led to this life those who had been accustomed to the life of luxuries. Surely, those who became Christians were not people who lived in some other worlds and did not have sinful habits, but were those who had rotted in them and had become more flexible than clay. It was them that she called to follow the hard and ragged road. And it persuaded them to follow it!

The superbly wondrous work of the Twelve Apostles in the spreading of the Church. How many were persuaded? Not two, not ten, not twenty, not a hundred, but an innumerable crowd. And how many did she use to persuade them? She used two men, uneducated, uncultured, unknown, poor, without property, without bodily strength, without glory, without illustrious ancestry, without rhetorical eloquence. She used twelve men who were fishermen, tent makers, whose mother tongue was foreign; because, they did not speak the same tongue with the idolaters.

They spoke Hebrew, which was different from all other languages. It was with them that the Church was built up and spread to the ends of the world. This is not the only wondrous fact, but there is also the fact that these few, these poor, these uneducated and despised men, who set out to change humanity, did not pursue their work without disturbance. They were confronted with innumerable wars from every side.

They were opposed by every nation and in every city. But why do I speak of nations and cities? War was raised against them even on every house. Their teaching separated on many occasions the child from the father, the daughter in law from the mother in law, the brother from the brother, the servant from the master, the citizen from the ruler, the man from the woman, and the woman from the man. In every family not all believed simultaneously,, and so the Christians suffered daily harassments, ceaseless enmities, a myriad of deaths. All fought them as common opponents and enemies.

They were pursued by kings, governors, citizens, freemen, slaves, crowds, cities. They did not pursue only them, but –how terrible– even the neophyte catechumens, i.e. those who just believed

The victory of the Apostles and the Church is due to the power of the Crucified but also Risen Lord. It caused horror and wrath to the idolaters the thought of abandoning their pagan altars, of despising their bloody sacrifices, which all their fathers and ancestors practiced, and of believing in the Lord; of believing in Him who took flesh from the Virgin Mary, and stood trial before Pilate, and suffered numberless tribulations and degradations, underwent a dishonorable death, was buried and rose again. It is indeed a paradox, that, while the sufferings of the Lord were indisputable, -inasmuch as many had seen the lashings, the biting, the spitting, the slapping, the cross, the mocking, the entombment– it was not the same with the resurrection. The Lord, after his resurrection, manifested Himself only to the disciples. In spite of this fact, they spoke about the resurrection and persuaded the peoples and built up the Church. How did they do it? They did it with the power of the Lord, who sent them to preach his Gospel to the nations. It was He who opened to them the way. It was He who facilitated their difficult task. Had they not been assisted by the divine power, the spreading of Christianity would not have even begun.

The persecutions against the Church did not inhibit its expansion. The reason was that while the tyrants were forearmed against the Church, while the soldiers interposed their arms, while the mobs raged like a wild fire, while the bad habit was lined up in opposition, while orators, sophists, the rich people, ordinary citizens and leaders were aroused in enmity, the word of God, being stronger than the flame, turned the thistles into ashes, cleansed the fields and sowed the word of the preaching. Some of the believers were thrown into the prisons, others were exiled, others had their property confiscated, others were assassinated, and others were torn to pieces. In spite of the fact that Christians were treated as common criminals, suffering patiently every kind of punishment, humiliation and persecution, more and more people joined the Church. Indeed, the new believers not only were not discouraged by the tortures which they saw the older believers undergoing, but became more eager!

They run by themselves, without constraint, showing gratitude to their torturers. They became more fervent in the faith, seeing the torrents of the blood of the believers.

The expansion of the Church in spite of the persecutions proves the incomparable and unconquerable power of Christ. Did you see the incomparable power of Him who achieved all these wonders? How is it possible that people who are undergoing such horrid martyrdoms feel no sorrow? And yet, they rejoiced, and were elated! This is what St. Luke the Evangelist adduces as an example, when he says about the Apostles that

“they left from the council rejoicing, because they were proved worthy to be ill-treated for the shake of Christ” (Acts 5:41).

While no one can build even a wall with stones and plaster when is persecuted, the Apostles built up the Church throughout the world while sufferings persecutions, imprisonments, exiles and deaths as martyrs. They did not build her up with stones, but with souls –which is much more difficult; since it is not the same to build a wall as to persuade perverted souls to change their manner of life, to abandon their demonic madness and to follow the life of virtue. They achieved this, because they had with them the unconquerable power of the Lord, who had prophesied;

“I will build up my Church, and the powers of Hell will not prevail against her” (Matthew 16:18).

Consider how many tyrants fought the Church and how many persecutions they raised against it… Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus and their successors right down to Constantine, were all idolaters. All of them –some more moderately, and some more harshly– fought the Church. Even if some of them did not raise persecutions, nevertheless, their attachment to idolatry motivated those who wanted to flatter them to oppose the Church. In spite of all this, the evil schemes and attacks of the idolaters were dissolved as cobwebs, scattered like dust, vanished like smoke. Besides, what were planned against the Church became the occasion of great benefits for the Christians. The reason was that such plans created choruses of martyrs, who constitute the treasure, the pillars, and towers of the Church.

The wondrous fulfillment of what Christ prophesied about the Church reveals most clearly his true Godhead. Do you see the wondrous fulfillment of this prophesy? Indeed,

“the powers of Hell cannot prevail against her.”

Looking at what came to pass, believe what is to come. No one in the future will be able to prevail against the Church. If they did not manage to crush her when she numbered but a few members, when her teaching seemed novel and strange, when so many terrible wars and so many persecutions were raised against her from everywhere, much more they will not manage to injure her today, when she has spread in the whole world, and increased her dominion among all nations, abolishing their pagan altars and idols, their festivals and celebrations, the smoke and the smell of their abominable sacrifices. How did the Apostles achieve such a great, such an important task, after so many obstacles? Surely, it was by the divine and unconquerable power of Him, who prophesied about the creation and triumph of His Church.

No one can deny this, unless he is mindless and completely unable to think.

Source

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

God does not punish sinners because it gives Him gratification to destroy men. If that gave Him gratification, He would not have created man out of nothing.

He punishes man out of more important constructive reasons, of which two are most apparent to us: First, that by punishment He corrects them and leads him on the true path of salvation; second, to frighten others from sinning.

St. Isaac also thinks this when he says,

“The just wise man is similar to God, for he punishes man, not to reproach him for his sin but either to correct man or to instill fear in others.”

One recalcitrant young man, who ridiculed God and his parents, suddenly went insane. The entire city in which this young man lived saw, in this, the punishment of God and were terrified with the fear of God. The young man was held bound and isolated for three years. His mother wept bitterly and prayed to God for her son. One year, during the Feast of Pentecost, the mother brought her insane son to the monastery of St. Basil in Ostrog. After prayers, the insane youth was cured and became himself again. After that, he became an exemplary person and a true Christian.

Source: Mystagogy

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

Our venerable and God-bearing Father John of Damascus was also known as John Damascene, Chrysorrhoas, “streaming with gold,” (i.e., the golden speaker). He was born and raised in Damascus, in all probability at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba), South East of Jerusalem. He is also recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, one who would speak or hear about God should know beyond any doubt that in what concerns theology and the Dispensation [the term commonly used for the Incarnation by the Greek Fathers] not all things are inexpressible and not all are capable of expression, and neither are all things unknowable nor are they all knowable. That which can be known is one thing, whereas that which can be said is another, just as it is one thing to speak and another to know. Furthermore, many of those things about God which are not clearly perceived cannot be fittingly described, so that we are obliged to express in human terms things which transcend the human order. Thus, for example, in speaking about God we attribute to Him sleep, anger, indifference, hands and feet, and the alike.

Now, we both know and confess that God is without beginning and without end, everlasting and eternal, uncreated, unchangeable, inalterable, simple, uncompounded, incorpo- real, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed, unlimited, incom- prehensible, uncontained, unfathomable, good, just, the maker of all created things, all-powerful, all-ruling, all-seeing, the provider, the sovereign, and the judge of all. We furthermore know and confess that God is one, that is to say, one substance, and that He is both understood to be and is in three Persons I mean the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all things save in the being unbegotten, the being begotten, and the procession. We also know and confess that for our salvation the Word of God through the bowels of His mercy, by the good pleasure of the Father and with the co-operation of the All-Holy Spirit, was conceived with- out seed and chastely begotten of the holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, by the Holy Spirit and of her became perfect man; and that He is perfect God and at the same time perfect man, being of two natures, the divinity and the humanity, and in two intellectual natures endowed with will and operation and liberty or, to put it simply, perfect in accordance with the definition and principle befitting each, the divinity, I mean, and the humanity, but with one compound hypostasis. And we know and confess that He hungered and thirsted and was weary, and that He was crucified, and that for three days He suffered death and the tomb, and that He returned into heaven whence He had come to us and whence He will come back to us at a later time. To all this holy Scripture and all the company of the saints bear witness.

But what the substance of God is, or how it is in all things, or how the only-begotten Son, who was God, emptied Himself out and became man from a virgin’s blood, being formed by another law that transcended nature, or how He walked dry-shod upon the waters, we neither understand nor can say. And so it is impossible either to say or fully to understand anything about God beyond what has been divinely proclaimed to us, whether told or revealed, by the sacred declarations of the Old and New Testaments.

HT: Orthocath

, Chapter 2 of 

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

Fr. John Breck (1939- ) is an archpriest and theologian of the Orthodox Church in America specializing in Scripture and Ethics. After converting to Orthodoxy from Protestantism, he served as Professor of New Testament and Patristics at St. Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Kodiak, Alaska) from 1975-1978, as Professor of New Testament and Director of Studies at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (Paris, France) from 1978-1984, and as Professor of New Testament and Ethics at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Crestwood, New York) from 1984-1996. He has been the Director of the Saint Silouan Retreat on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, since 1995.

In the previous column, we stressed the point that God does not “punish” us for our sinfulness. If He allows us to know pain and suffering, it should not be construed as punishment meted out in vengeful anger. Because God in His very essence is Love, any suffering we may know or any penance we may be called to exercise is to be understood as a function of that love. Its purpose is not to exact retribution, to demand from us some penance or payment to compensate for offenses we have committed against the divine righteousness. It is to guide, chasten and purify us, so as to encourage an attitude of repentance that alone enables us to reenter the sphere of God’s holiness.

God does not punish us; He does not condemn us. As the scripturally based prayer of absolution declares:

“God desires not the death of a sinner, but that the sinner turn from his evil ways and live.”

Yet this leaves us with an unavoidable question. How are we to understand the biblical images of judgment and condemnation that occur in Jesus’ parables and other teachings: images of persons cast into

“outer darkness” (Mt 22:13),

or into

“unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:12; 18:8),

or into

“Hades/Gehenna” (Lk 10:15; 12:5)?

What are we to make of the frequent references, from the Psalms (20:10; 77:31, LXX) to St Paul (Rom 1:18 passim), that speak of divine “wrath,” directed against human sin? Don’t these references oblige us to look at suffering and death as wages of sin, paid out by the God of righteousness, who abhors sin and “hates evildoers” (Ps 5:5)?

To begin a reply, we need to clarify a few terms that easily lead to misunderstanding, particularly the notions of “propitiation” and “wrath.” As we pointed out in the last column, a great deal of confusion arises from the fact that we have adopted a Western notion of “repentance” that sees penance as an obligatory payment we must make in order to assuage God’s wrath and obtain forgiveness of our sin.

Under medieval Latin influence, we have confused “propitiation” and “expiation.” The former implies that since we ourselves are sinful by nature, we cannot offer a “reasonable sacrifice” to God that He will find acceptable. Only the divine Son, sinless and holy, constitutes a “satisfactory” offering to the holy and righteous God (Anselm); and God (in His mercy!) accepts the torture and death of His Son as the means by which those who believe in Him achieve “vicarious atonement.” Jesus is thus conceived as our sacrificial offering, our means of propitiation, in the face of divine judgment.

The inadequacy of that understanding, however, is clear from Scripture itself. The biblical terms ilasmos and ilasterion should be translated “expiation” rather than “propitiation” (as for example, in 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10; Rom 3:25). They signify the work of “atonement” in the sense of reparation for sin by means of God’s self-offering in Christ. It is that divine initiative, that self-offering by God Himself, which elicits from us faith manifested as repentance and good deeds. The work of atonement – achieving redemption and reconciliation between ourselves and God – is wholly God’s: it is not our offering to the Father, but His gracious offering to us. In His boundless mercy and love,

“God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor 5:19).

Our response to divine judgment, in other words, is not to offer propitiation: some payment we make or punishment we suffer in order to purchase forgiveness and salvation. Our response, rather, is to turn, to change direction, in an inner movement – inspired and directed by the indwelling Spirit of God – that leads us from “works of the flesh” to “gifts of the Spirit” (Gal 5:16-25), from sin and death to repentance and faith (which are two sides of the same coin).

What then of “divine wrath”?

Although the ancient Israelites believed in a God who became angry and vengeful, as well as forgiving and merciful, Jesus and the apostolic writers present God as preeminently the God of love. To St Paul’s mind, in any case, divine wrath is always directed toward non-believers, those who have heard the gospel message and have rejected it. For the apostle, “divine wrath” is a metaphorical expression (an “anthropomorphism”) that describes God’s way of responding to unrepentant sinners: by allowing them “to stew in their own juice.” Like the notion of punishment, divine wrath is to be understood not as God’s direct action against us, but as an expression of His silence, His apparent absence in the life and experience of those who reject Him.

While we are in this state in which He has seemingly abandoned us, God allows us to suffer the consequences of our sinful actions, including our refusal to repent. It is not God who punishes and condemns us; we do it to ourselves (God “gives us up” to the consequences of the sin for which we are wholly responsible, Rom 1:24f). As One whose very nature is Love, God desires that all come to repentance, in order that all may enjoy the free, unmerited gift of eternal life and eternal joy.

The way to that life and that joy, once again, is repentance: a change of “mind” (meta-noia), a conversion and radical reorientation of our life from slavery in sin to freedom in the Spirit.

The great spiritual elders of the Church can certainly speak of “the great anger of God the Judge,”1 and of the spiritual benefits that accrue from “fear of punishment” for our sins. We need to take these indications very seriously, for God does manifest Himself as “angered” by our rebellion; and as St Symeon declares,

“Fear of punishment hereafter and the suffering it engenders are beneficial to all who are starting out on the spiritual way.”2

The image of divine anger, and the summons to “fear punishment,” however, serve a single purpose: to call us to repentance.

As the Fathers also insist,

“When a man abandons his sins and returns to God, his repentance regenerates him and renews him entirely.”3

This renewal restores in us the very image of God: not because we have “become perfect,” but because, by humbly confessing our sins and turning from them – again and again throughout this life, and only by the grace and mercy of the God who loves us beyond all we can hope or expect – we

“regain our true splendor, just as the moon after the period of waning clothes itself once more in its full light.”4

Notes:

1. St John of Sinai (+ 649), The Ladder of Divine Ascent 5:32, (Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Books, 1973), p. 108.

2. St Symeon the New Theologian (+ 1022), “Practical and Theological Texts” #65-66, The Philokalia IV (London: Faber & Faber, 1995), p. 37.

3. St Isaiah the Solitary (4th-5th c.), “Twenty-Seven Texts on Guarding the Intellect” #22, The Philokalia I (London: Faber & Faber, 1979), p. 26.

4. St John of Karpathos (7th c.?), “One Hundred Texts for the Encouragement of the Monks in India” #4, The Philokalia I, p. 299.

HT: Mystagogy

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.

Both fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist biblical scholars, who have been victims of Augustinian and Carolingian presuppositions, become prone to misunderstandings of what they read in the Bible, especially when terms and symbols denoting glorifications which produce prophets are alluded to.

A classical example is 1 Cor. 12:26. Here St. Paul does not write, “If one is honored,” but “If one is glorified,” i.e. has become a prophet. To be glorified means that one has seen the Lord of Glory either before His incarnation or after, like Paul did on his way to Damascus to persecute the Incarnate Lord of Glory’s followers.

Another example is the phrase “kingdom of God” which makes it a creation of God instead of the uncreated ruling power of God. What is amazing is that the term “kingdom of God” appears not once in the original Greek of the New Testament. Not knowing that the “rule” or “reign of God” is the correct translation of the Greek “Basileia tou Theou,” Vaticanians, Protestants and even many Orthodox today, do not see that the promise of Christ to his apostles in Mt.16:28, Lk. 9:27 and Mk. 9:1, i.e. that they will see God’s ruling power, was fulfilled during the Transfiguration which immediately follows in the above three gospels.

Here Peter, James and John see Christ as the Lord of Glory i.e. as the source of God’s uncreated “glory” and “basileia” i.e. uncreated ruling power, denoted by the uncreated cloud or glory which appeared and covered the three of them during the Lord of Glory’s Transfiguration. It was by means of His power of Glory that Christ, as the pre-incarnate Lord (Yahweh) of Glory, had delivered Israel from its Egyptian slavery and lead it to freedom and the land of promise.

The Greek text does not speak about the “Basileion (kingdom) of God,” but about the “Basileia (rule or reign) of God,” by means of His uncreated glory and power.*

At His Transfiguration Christ clearly revealed Himself to be the source of the uncreated Glory seen by Moses and Elijah during Old Testament times and who both are now present at the Transfiguration in order to testify to the three apostles that Christ is indeed the same Yahweh of Glory, now incarnate, Whom the two had seen in the historical past and had acted on behalf of Him.

* For a typical Augustinian misunderstanding of Mk 9:1ff see “Promise and Fulfillment, The Eschatological Message of Jesus,” by W. G. Kummel, p 25-28, 44, 60 f., 66f., 88, 133, 142, 149. This so-called kingdom promised by Christ does not yet exist when He pronounces this promise, but will come into existence sometime in the future.

Source

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.

Part Three of a Five Part series

A Short History of the Liturgical Location for Preaching: The Ambo, the Pulpit and the Lectern.

The Pulpit

A Classic Pulpit

The word pulpit comes from the Latin pulpitum, meaning a stage or scaffold. The most popular and consistent architectural ‘solution’ to a highly visible and clearly audible location in a Church has been the pulpit.

The pulpit is the direct descendant of the ambo, as is an elevated stand to preach on, attached to the Church building itself – often to a pillar. To elucidate the meaning of the word, we can refer to Solomon (2 Chronicles 6:13), who prayed from

“a brazen scaffold,”

and to Esdras (Nehemiah 8:4) who

“stood upon a step of wood”

and read the law of God. Their elevated position and public action suggest to some the symbolical meaning of the pulpit: the level of the perfect. It has been also called the analogium, from the preaching of the word of God.

Originally, the bishop often preached from his cathedra; a survival of this is retained in the French and German words for pulpit, chaire and predigtstuhl. The other German word kanzel recalls the position of the ambo at the choir-screen, or chancel screen (cancelli). The pulpit characterized as part of the church furniture by its independent position and use, found itself separated from the choir and pushed forward in the central part of the nave beyond the choir for singers.

According to Eusebius, Paul of Samosata (Eusebius, 7, 30) spoke to the people from a high canopied seat in the apse.

There can be no doubt that the pulpit, like the ambo, is a very Orthodox piece of liturgical architecture, and not just in the bygone past, but in today’s parish church as well.

Sample Pulpits

Here is a sampling of pulpits from early Christian/Orthodox Churches – as I could find them.

Leading the way of our list of examples of Orthodox pulpits is this first one from the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George (Ecumenical Patriarchate). Note that it needs no sounding board over the top – it is placed so high on the pillar that it uses the ceiling for that purpose!

Pulpit of St. George Patriarchal Cathedral (Ecumenical Patriarchate)

An Early Monastery Pulpit

The Pulpit of St. Gabriel Church, Istanbul

The Pulpit at St. George Church, Istanbul

An Ornamented Orthodox Pulpit

A pulpit at a church in Cyprus

Another Orthodox Church Pulpit

The Pulpit of St. Catherine Church, West Palm Beach, Florida

Where the Gospel of Christ is preached in the Orthodox Church, and no ambo is available, there should be a pulpit!

Ornamented Pulpits

Pulpits became a central fixture in Churches in Europe as preaching took its proper place in the liturgical service. Pulpits, like Altars, iconostases, and rails, became more and more ornamented, and were often sponsored by wealthy merchants or royalty, and were appropriately adorned as the location where, again, the most important part of the service of the Word took place.

The Pulpit at Aachen Cathedral today

The stunningly beautiful pulpit in the cathedral at Aachen, Germany was, according to the inscription, a present from Emperor Henry II (d. 1024). The ground-plan consists of three unequal segments of a circle. The wooden core is covered with sheets of copper overlaid with gold. Of the fifteen flat surfaces formed by slightly sunken panels, six contain ivory carvings belonging to an earlier period, and the others, precious stones, cups of rock-crystal, and enamels. There is no explanation as to what this was intended to represent: with large generosity the emperor had given whatever he had that was costly for the house of God.

In many places the pulpit was made a part of the rood-loft, which was a gallery or loft of wood or stone, existing as early as the eleventh century and used, instead of the cancelli, to separate the choir from the nave; it was called the lectorium, or odeum, as the loft where the singers were, and doxale from the singing of the doxologies. Statues of the Savior and His Apostles, representing the Last Judgment and the Passion, frequently ornamented the rood-loft on the side towards the nave.

At Wechselburg in Saxony a Romanesque pulpit from the beginning of the thirteenth century is still in existence; it probably belonged, together with the celebrated altar cross, to the partially preserved rood-loft, which, with a few others of that period, is still to be found. It is ornamented with well-executed reliefs, and rests on arcades and columns. In the central oval panel, or mandorla, there is a relief of Christ as teacher, surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists; on either side are Mary and John trampling upon allegorical symbols of error. The other reliefs, viz., the sacrifices of Abel and Abraham and the Brazen Serpent, were chosen with reference to the cross and altar in the rood-loft, redemption by Christ’s sacrificial death being a main topic of preaching.

The pulpit at Pisa, completed by Niccola Pisano in 1260, is an unattached structure resting on seven columns, which opened the way to a new development for Italian sculpture. In addition to what is palpably borrowed from antiquity, e.g. the Virgin as Juno, there are figures taken entirely from the life of the time. Instead of the mosaic, six bas-reliefs surround the breastwork: the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple, Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment; they present the main contents of the doctrine of Salvation.

The first examples of Renaissance pulpits are those of Donatello (fifteenth century). Donatello inserted here into the original round form of the pulpit seven white marble panels, on which in his customary manner he represented in bas-relief little cherubs in an animated dance; the ornamentation of the bronze capital below the pulpit, which rests on a single support, is also purely decorative in character.

At an earlier era the platform of the pulpit was supported by an understructure or by a number of columns, and during the Renaissance pulpits projected from a pillar or wall, like balconies. Both bronze pulpits in San Lorenzo at Florence rest on four Ionic columns, and are decorated with representations of the Passion, over which there is a frieze of cherubs borrowed from the art of antiquity.

The magnificent pulpit made by Master Pilgram for the Cathedral of St. Stephen at Vienna (sixteenth century) is decorated with busts of the Fathers of the Church and figures of other saints.

The ornate decoration of the pulpit of the collegiate church at Aschaffenburg depicts the Church Fathers around the supporting pillar, busts of the same in the upper frieze, scenes from the Bible separated by spirited figures of the Evangelists, and angels in the place of consoles. In the Cathedral at Trier the ascent to the pulpit is covered by a magnificently ornamented archway with a high decoration at the top. On the string-piece of the steps are carved the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Judgment, and on the panels of the parapet the works of mercy are depicted.

The pulpit of Freiberg in Saxony is fantastically developed from the root of a plant and on it in a naturalistic manner the figures of men and animals are formed.

The most striking pulpits of the Baroque period are those of Belgium. The base, stairway, and sounding-board were artistically or fantastically covered according to the taste of the time with luxurious and ornate carving.

In St. Gudule’s at Brussels the banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise is carved underneath the pulpit, while, in contrast, the Mother of God is represented above the sounding-board as a mighty female warrior and slayer of the dragon.

Underneath the pulpit of the cathedral at Mechlin there is a representation of the Crucifixion on Calvary with the people at Christ’s feet, while below the rock Saul falls from his horse, overcome by the truth; above at the side are carvings of Adam and Eve with the Serpent. All these are rich in suggestions for the sermon.

At the base of the pulpit of the Church of St. Andrew at Antwerp there is a splendid carving of Christ, and the Apostles Peter and John in a little boat. Over the enormous sounding-board angels hold on high the St. Andrew’s cross, and beneath the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, sends rays in all directions. Note the resemblance in structure of the above pulpit with a classic ambo.

The whole structure of a pulpit in Krakow represents a ship, with sails, mast, and rigging, poised over sea monsters.

Recommended:

Click here to see a collection of 41 pulpits in Finnish Churches

Pulpit Ornamentation: General Principles

The ornamentation of the pulpit should never be excessive, but subordinate to that of the altar, whose view it should not obstruct. The latter difficulty is often removed by setting the pulpit slightly towards the side aisle, whereby a troublesome echo from the transept is avoided. Near which pillar of the nave the pulpit should be placed depends upon the acoustics of the church.

The sounding-board should, above all, make the voice of the preacher perfectly distinct; by giving it, the form of a shell the waves of sound are often sent in a definite direction. In order that the speaker may be readily understood, the pulpit should not stand too high. Its ornamentation should be appropriate: representations of the Evangelists or Church Fathers, scenes from the Bible, as the Sermon on the Mount, the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit on the underside of the sounding-board, and perhaps an angel over it. A simple pillar skillfully developed into the platform of the pulpit, is satisfactory, when its decoration and that of the stairway and string-piece is subordinate to that of the central main part. The lack of a vertical support makes an unpleasant impression; a reading-desk or crucifix is apt to produce an overloaded effect.

A well-arranged pulpit-cloth varied in color to suit the various feasts and periods of the year would not be improper.

Does the Pulpit have a place in Orthodoxy Today?

I think the answer to this is rather simple: Obviously yes, but only where preaching the Gospel is important. What is worse than an idle pulpit? That would be rather like having an idle altar – God forbid!

The glaring omission of pulpits in Orthodox Church architecture is not simply a reliance on the Eucharistic portion of the Liturgy, which is always primary in Orthodox architectural planning, but an abandonment of it as a necessary part of the Liturgy of the Word. Preaching in many places has atrophied to the point that sermons are no longer expected, and no longer given. Christian instruction, discipleship and education have been considered a private matter, not a parish one.

The reintroduction of the pulpit to contemporary Orthodox parish churches would be a small expense, and provide a serious challenge to the Church, a challenge to clergy in their sermon preparation and presentation, and a serious challenge to the laity who must, likewise, improve their listening skills in some places – which have atrophied as well.

At the end of this series of articles, I will offer some links to companies that offer ‘ambones’, pulpits, lecterns and analogia which are appropriate for Orthodox Churches.

Compiled from various sources

Part Four: Exterior Pulpits will be published tomorrow.

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.

Part Two of our Five Part series.

A Short History of the Liturgical Location for Preaching: The Ambo, the Pulpit and the Lectern.

The Ambo

An Ambo (pl. Ambones) is a Greek word, supposed to signify a mountain or elevation.

The Ambo

This was understood in the west as well – and well after the Great Schism. Even Pope Innocent III of Rome so understood it, for in his work on the Liturgy (II.I. 33), after speaking of the deacon ascending the ambo to read the Gospel, he quotes the following from Isaiah (40:9):

“O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into a high mountain! O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God’”

(translation as quoted in Handel’s Messiah – a personal favorite)

And in the same connection he also alludes to Our Lord Jesus Christ preaching from a mountain:

“He went up into a mountain -and opening his mouth he taught them” (Matt. 5: 1, 2).

As an ambo is an elevated platform or pulpit from which, in the early churches and basilicas, the Gospel and Epistle were eventuallychanted or read from it, and all kinds of communications were made to the congregation, sometimes the bishop preached from it, as in the case of St. John Chrysostom, who, Socrates Scholasticus says, was accustomed to mount the ambo to address the people, in order to be more distinctly heard (Eccl. Hist., 6, 5).  Sozomen (Church History 9.2) states the same, still characterizing the ambo as bema ton anagnoston. Chrysostom spoke from the ambo

“in order to be better understood”;

Originally there was only one ambo in a church, placed in the nave, and provided with two flights of steps; one from the east, the side towards the altar; and the other from the west.

From the eastern steps the subdeacon, with his face to the altar, read the Epistles; and from the western steps the deacon, facing the people, read the Gospels. The inconvenience of having one ambo soon became manifest, and in consequence in many churches two ambones were erected. When there were two, they were usually placed one on each side of the choir, which was separated from the nave and aisles by a low wall. Very often the Gospel ambo was provided with a permanent candlestick; the one attached to the ambo in St. Clement’s  in Rome is a marble spiral column, richly decorated with mosaic, and terminated by a capital twelve feet from the floor.

In the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia it stood under the dome (Paul the Silentiary, P.G., 86, 2259), but was united with the choir

“like an island with the mainland.”

Similarly at Ravenna the ambo of Bishop Agnellus (sixth century) stood in the central aisle of the nave, on the inner side of the old chancel screen. Bishop Agnellus, builder of the ambo of the cathedral at Ravenna (sixth century), called it pyrgus, or tower-like structure. The exterior surface of the round middle part and the steps which come far forward on the sides have panels arranged like a chess-board in six parallel bands filled with symbolic animals: fish, ducks, doves, deer, peacocks, and lambs in regular succession.

Owing to the aversion of Byzantine art of that period to delineating the human figure, animals are here presented in symbolical dependence on the words:

“Preach the Gospel to every creature.”

In large churches, therefore, the bishops, e.g. Ambrose, Augustine, and Paulinus of Nola, preached from the ambo at a very early date.

The ambo of Salonica, traditionally called “Paul’s pulpit,” appears to be the oldest remaining monument of this kind (fourth to sixth century). It is circular in form, about four meters in circumference, with two stairways, for ascending and descending, and is ornamented with carvings of the three Magi set in niches representing a shell; two ornamental bands are carried around above the niches (“Archives des missions scientifiques,” III, 1876).

Ambones are believed by some to have taken their origin from the raised platform from which the Jewish rabbis read the Scriptures to the people, and they were first introduced into churches during the fourth century, were in universal use by the ninth, reaching their full development and artistic beauty in the twelfth, and then gradually fell out of use, until in the fourteenth century, after the fall of Constantinople, when they were largely superseded by pulpits. In the Ambrosian Rite, the Gospel is still read from the ambo. They were usually built of white marble, enriched with carvings, inlays of colored marbles, and glass mosaics.

The most celebrated ambo was the one erected by the Emperor Justinian in the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, which is fully described by the contemporary poet, Paulus Silentiarius in his work peri ktismaton. He describes the body of the ambo as made of various precious metals, inlaid with ivory, overlaid with plates of silver, and further enriched with gildings and bronze. The ambo of Hagia Sophia was adorned with flowers and trees. The disappearance of this magnificent example of Christian art is involved in some obscurity. It was probably intact down to the time of the taking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1203, when it was stripped of its beauty and wealth.

In St. Mark’s, at Venice, there is a very peculiar ambo, of two stories; from the lower one was read the Epistle, and from the upper one the Gospel. This form was copied at a later date in what are known as “double-decker” pulpits. Very interesting examples may be seen in many of the Italian basilicas; in Ravenna there are a number from the sixth century.

Just when it became customary to use the ambo mainly for the sermon, which gave it a new importance and affected its position, is not known.

Isidore of Seville first employed the word pulpit (Etym., XVI, iv), then “‘tribunal,” because from this the priest gave the “precepts for the conduct of life,” proclaiming law and justice.

Isidore also derives “analogium” from logos, as

“the addresses were given”

from it. Thus the ambo became the regular place for the preacher, and its situation was dependent on local conditions.

The Small Ambo

Due to the reduction in importance of preaching, the ambo eventually became smaller in size, and lower in stature, until it slowly began to turn into the pulpit (if attached to a pillar or some other part of the nave) or a large lectern (if unattached). A good example of this is the Ambo in Cluj, Romania. (below)

The Episcopal Ambo

In the contemporary celebration, the last public prayer of the Divine Liturgy is the “Prayer Before the Ambo”. Originally, it was a prayer of thanksgiving said as the clergy descended the ambo at the end of the service. In ancient times, there was a large collection of Prayers Before the Ambo, written for the different feast days of the church year and for those occasional services, such as weddings and funerals, that called for celebration of the Divine Liturgy.

There is also a low platform in the center of the nave called the episcopal ambo where the bishop is vested prior to the Divine Liturgy and where he is enthroned until the Little Entrance. If the bishop is serving in a simple parish church, an episcopal ambo is set temporarily in place. In parishes where this is permanent, when the bishop is not present, an analogion with an icon is usually placed upon it.

Compiled from various sources.

Part Three – The Pulpit will be published tomorrow.

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.

On the foolish attack of the Avars and godless Persians against this city, protected by God, and of their shameful retreat which the divine love brought about for mankind by the intervention of the Mother of God.

I. Prophesying long ago, by the prophetic inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the benevolence of God the Father, with regard to the incarnation and the birth of the divine Word by the Mother of God, the eminent prophet Isaiah proclaimed and says:

“Go up a high mountain, to announce good news in Sion: raise up your voice loudly, to announce  good news in Jerusalem: ‘Lift up your voice without fear!’ Say to the cities of Judah: ‘Here is our God! Here is the Lord God who comes with power, extending his sovereign arms.’”

The prophet says this by divine inspiration; and by the mountains overhanging the naked and the ground, according to my opinion, he referred, tropologically to the high and elevated thought which does not wish anything to see things stuck to the world, except that which is absolutely necessary. Such was his thought and his word, and such of all those who, being prophets and apostles, like Isaiah merited the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Since there are, here and now, such things to tell which, so to speak, by a miracle, resulted from the kindness of God towards us, amidst great suffering, exceeding even the celestial spheres, which none could show to the world and show clearly to men, except someone who had the prophetic heart, and who was worthy of the light of the Holy Spirit.

II. Come then, holy Isaiah, because indeed your powerful spirit envisaged and predicted great things, inspire me, by the pen of your prophetic grace, the things which I have to tell; approach me, you who predicted the glory of the only son of God and the mystery of the Virgin, after having seen the throne of God, and having heard the song of the Seraphs, and the doors trembling before you on their hinges, and besides every obstacle depart before he that entered the sacrosanct residence of God. It is for you to paint for me the current miracle, and to give the grace which I can see in the figure and the example of old Jerusalem, all these admirable miracles that the Mother of God accomplished for this city because of the divine love for men.

Listen then, and understand thereafter, the picture that is before us, what it represents and what it shows.  In the house of David at once time reigned king Ahaz, the son of Ozias the leper, the heir to both the spite and the kingdom of his father.  And because even Ahaz fell easily into sin, and was inclined to injustice, he did not accept in his heart the teaching of the divine mystery of the Virgin, though he was invited by God, by the prophet, to ask that He grant to him a sign of the end of the reign of death, or further, on the divine incarnation.  The sign was anyway given to the house of David, and this sign is completed, because the Virgin gave birth to God, while keeping until the end her virginity.  Ahaz remained nevertheless the image of unbelief, while the Jewish people shout until our own day: “I do not ask for a sign, because I will not test the Lord.”

III. So Ahaz reigned over Jerusalem, but the picture that I intend to give differs anyway from the description of the prophet.  Because my emperor is religious and without misdeeds, devoting, it can be said, all his life to completing and observing the divine commands and he encourages all his subjects to do the same.  How could our city not obtain help and divine support more than the other Jerusalem, — our city which has received from God such an emperor ¹, who loves God particularly, and has another Isaiah, i.e. my archpriest , ever vigilant, and who transmits in a sober spirit the decrees of God to his people?  But, my prophet, paint for me the other details of the picture, since the difference between the two monarchs and their characters is obvious! So while Ahaz was the king to devastate the town of Jerusalem, and to dethrone the descendant of David, and to help to power the son of Tabeel who formed part of and became companion in their spite, it is beautiful to read the words of the prophet himself about them, not only because they are full of holiness and divine grace, but also so that you see your own eyes, by listening to what was said in paraboles, the figure of the prophet, painting this picture.

IV. ”In the time of Ahaz, son of Joatham, son of Oziah, king of Judah, Rezin, king of Aram, went up with Phacaeus, son of Romelius, king of Samaria, against Jerusalem, to besiege it.  He brought this news brought to the house of David while saying: Aram has allied itself to Ephraim. Then the heart of the king and the heart of his people began to sway, like the trees in the forest sway in the wind.  The Lord said to Isaiah: So go and join Ahaz, you and your son that survives and is called Jaschub (i.e. “returning to God”), at the end of the channel of the upper pool, on the road of the field of the Fuller, and you will say to him: Hey, don’t be disturbed! don’t be afraid, so that your heart does not weaken because of these ends of smoking firebrands.  Because every time my anger is raised, it is calmed.  The son of Aram and the son of Remaliah have exploited your loss, saying: Let us go up against Judah, to terrify it and to plunder, and we will make the son of Tabeel king there!  But that won’t happen.”

V. And all that the prophet said and wrote, as history and parabole, happened to those of the Jews who then lived in Jerusalem, as a figure and example, but was used also as a prediction for us, to whom God spread the grace of his love, by the mediation of the Mother of God. Because look: God revealed by the prophet the blessed message of the redemption of Ahaz, a descendant of David in the carnal way, and through him of the unbelieving people of the Jews, by the way of the channel of the higher pool, on the road of the field of the Fuller. Because the word clearly shows that any redemption which was purchased, purchases and will purchase mankind, flows from the teaching of the mystery of Christ.  Because I know that his words say “field” for the Universe, because man is a microcosm, and he symbolically names the Fuller, according to the Bible, that which can clean the stain.  From all that, it is obvious that conversion, leading to baptism by true knowledge, opens to the men the way to heaven.

VI. But it is time to return to our main subject, because there is no point in missing the target, however skillfully one draws one’s arrows.  “Hear this, therefore, all the peoples, listen, all the inhabitants of the world, the descendants of earth and the sons of men. (Because the descendants of earth are those who are interested only in terrestrial things, and the sons of men are those who keep the dignity of the image of God.)

Listen well, and I will tell you what great things the Lord of armies has done through the Mother of God.  But I will not relate further events with these details (because that would exceed the power of even the wisest) but, as a my talent allows, my report will have the value of the words of a modest historiographer. In the past Syria and Samaria undertook the war against Jerusalem, of which the monarch and the king in Damascus was Rezin, and that in Samaria, the son of Remaliah, who reigned indeed over the people living next to the country of Judah, but which were rightly minimised by their neighbors, because their power was short-lived.  But the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people began to sway anyway as the trees in the forest sway, as you heard in the prophetic words.

Against this city and the man reigning there in the love of God with his pious father, the Chaldaeans and Assyrians started to boast; they had been formerly the Masters of the Eastern people, vicious and cruel, according to every writing, famous for their malice and power. The other dog also started to boast and was mad, furious and barbarous, the ruler of savage peoples, who made foreign peoples migrate, living in the north and most of the west, whose the number is only like the grains of sand of the beaches of the sea; these deliberated, advanced, sprang, and surrounded the earth and the sea, like a swarm of bees.

VII. However the powerful emperor was far away, because he had left on campaign for a remote area, against those who were devastating all the Eastern part of the Roman empire; he did not see the the three-headed chimera, but the many-headed, Nabuchodonosor ; I speak about the current tyrant of Babylon: of the devil Chosrau who owes his life and empire over the Persians to the grace of the Christian emperor . The mighty emperor was thus far away, and entrusted the throne to his son, the imperial prince , who wished to follow the piety and devotion of his father.  The emperor thus entrusting him with his brothers and the city to the guardianship of God and the Virgin, left them.  But the Persian Shahrbaraz (as the Babylonians call this Holophernes) outrunning all the elite army of Persia, encircled Chalcedon nearby with his cavalry and his siege-engines, because God prevented his passage, because of the favorable situation of the city: he laid out in front of the city our Jordan, to put an obstacle to the incursion of those which are uncircumcised in their hearts. But he did not prevent the wickedness of that demented person who showed himself by words, councils and by the sending of troops, the ally and battle-companion of this pig, attacking our city from the west; and after having burned all the holy places, every imperial building, every warehouse and private dwelling, in his advance without delay and his effervescent fury, he even intended to burn the imperial city.

VIII. However, the enemy of the west, which was led by a terribly abominable little runt, called by the barbarians in their own language the Khagan, attacked the ramparts of the city for several days, making advance innumerable people which covered the land and the sea with their arms. Because he was the devastating revenge of the eternal malignant spirit; he showed himself to be the child of the devil, not by nature, but by his own decision, and every diabolical wickedness was incarnate in him. Like an anti-god, believing that he had power over land and sea, he mouthed off at heaven and reached the land of his language, to crush the people of God, like abandoned eggs, according to his plan. This is why he extended his hands, soiled with blood, from the confines of the land down to the sea.  Using his pirate fleet, he transformed the sea into firm ground, and he covered the firm ground with cavalry and infantry, because he wanted to devastate this Jerusalem from all sides.  So what led him into so great a nonsense?  And who inspired him with this malevolent plan?  I will answer the first question initially, then finally I will be able to do the second also.

IX. Firstly, I say and I report as the primary cause, the multiplicity and the variety of our sins, and that we run our public life unworthily from every point of view of the divine commands of our redeemer God, because we corrode ourselves and we devour ourselves, and we attempt to commit every form of wickedness.  In the second place I mention the insatiability and culpability of this wild beast, and there is nothing which could and would satisfy this leech.

Because his carnal procreator (if only it had not happened!) had taken refuge, like a plague sent by God, in the remote lands near these regions, where his people currently live, by beseeching previous Roman emperors.  Those had treated him then as a refugee, had clothed him naked, and had given food to him starving; they did not even suspect what a infamous creature they admitted in their vicinity, and what a devastating danger for the Roman empire they accomodated almost at their heart! The empire of the father was inherited by his son, the successor, the elder brother of this dog of today.  However in a short time, these seized control of nearby people by plunderings and massacres, and making them their slaves; little by little they grew and multiplied, and covered that land by their multitude.

X. And when this crafty and malignant fox became his brother’s heir (which he was not!), which means of intriguing did he not try against us?  And on the other hand what did our emperor not do to try to alleviate his spite?  Which forms of kindness did he not show towards this dog?  But apparently there is no end to the spite of this wild beast, and there is nothing so strong and capable which can soften his low and barbarian intentions.  So who does not know of his devastating invasion that it dared to carry out a few years ago, when the pious and good emperor left to meet him, according to certain treaties, to greet him from the Long Walls.  At the same time the emperor gave orders to surround him with every care and courtesy, hoping by this to reconcile and appease this savage.

Who doesn’t know the plot and the trick of this serpent, and that his unexpected trickery seized a mass of men, and made them captives?  With the men, women, old men and children also were chained and removed in great number to the enemy land.  But he did not put an end to his spite, even there, and spread himself with threats that he would devastate this city, reigning over the other cities, unless he received half of all the treasures and goods in the city. But it is inappropriate on this occasion to recount now all the events then.

In short, he received enough money and property to fill even the hands of Briaraeus, and would have improved the cruelty of Phalaris also, but all that did not satisfy this leech; on the contrary, the payment of treasure became the stimulant to still greater faithlessness for this dog.  He received all that in consequence of the earlier peace treaty, and he reinforced the terms of the treaty also with an ancient formula on oath, given by his emissary.  But neither the ancient oath, nor the payment of so much treasure, nor the imperial treatment, nor the wisdom and the influence of so powerful an emperor were effective to change his perfidy.

XI. However, when the most pious emperor left, as was told earlier, against the Eastern enemies of God, he did not leave this proud and boastful man without making peace with him.  But he entrusted the city, his imperial children and the palace to God and the Virgin, and in the unquestionable hope, flowing from what he had done, he left courageously on campaign, supposing at the same time that he would succeed in appeasing this wild beast by a reasonable subsidy; he thought this since he had already earlier entrusted to this barbarian the city, his children and the palace .

For a good man is to be able to conclude his business reasonably, and the judicious king makes the prosperity of his people and his city, as the wise kings, David and Solomon say in the Holy Scriptures.  But even this did not make the spite of this dragon more moderate, though even demons would have been ashamed.  On the contrary, when he was informed that the emperor had gone on campaign against the Persians, when he learned that his benefactor and his father — as he called him — had left the city, at once the preparations started: the concentration of the barbarian peoples, better called the wild beasts, the preparation of arms and helepoles, the gathering of the monoxyles on the sea which can travel the sea by oar, while transporting the tribes.

There they devised all kinds of tricks, even manufactured engines, to make the town of God, protected by the Virgin, the booty of this deer.  All this was premeditated and carried out by him;  he concentrated all the barbarian armed forces subjected to him, he covered land and sea with the wild tribes whose element of life is war.

XII. The most pious emperor, after having heard all this, stimulated to action the guardian of public affairs (this was Bonos, a man known by all), directed him by letters, and  helped him with all things necessary.  While raising his hands towards the sky, he protested thus to the Lord: “You, Lord, you see all, and you know all, and you know that I had entrusted to you and your Immaculate Mother my children, the city and your people living there.

I believed that the Khagan, this barbarian savage, would quieten down, and based on this opinion, I entrusted my business to him; I believed that thus this beast would change, perhaps.  Even so I could not achieve a result, and I did not succeed in dominating the insatiability of his spirit.  However you see what great things he devises against your people trusting in your name.  Therefore you, Lord of the Universe, to whom I entrusted my heart, my life and the children that you gave me, just as the city given by you to my care, keep your pledge intact.  Because you gave the law to Moses, your servant on pledges, when you ordered that a deposit or a pledge was to be kept intact and without fault.  So keep now, according to your own law, safe and well, the city which I entrusted to the force of your power and the mother of your kindness, to the Mother of God.”

XIII. Is it thus that the powerful emperor beseeched God? balancing up this and that, weighing up his care and plans, finding himself between two distresses.  While the children of the emperor, in the oratory of the Mother of God, being attached to the palace, offered their ingenuous innocence and their heart, just as the virginity and the purity of their bodies, as an entreaty and an aromatic incense, and they exclaimed all in tears:

“All-Powerful Lady! our father had entrusted to you your city and us, your servants who are still children, as you see it, very Holy Lady, and he had given us to you; then, raising his cross, he went against these wolves which were ravaging the sheep of the sheep-fold of your son.  So save us, save the city and its inhabitants, save us from the snake who attacks us.”

The Preceptor of the city, spending his nights in prayer and speeches, was the worthy archpriest, our Isaiah who knew himself the concentration of the troops and their armament. The fact that they raised their hands to God, and asked the Virgin for assistance and protection, was a weapon, sabre and shield for all the inhabitants of the city, because our archpriest gathered everyone, if he were a priest or clerk, living as a monk or among the people, — of the men of any age, from the child to the old man, and by the following words, as if he armed them, he harangued them to be brave and not discouraged.

“Come, and let us prostrate ourselves before the only son of God the Father, because it is him, our God. Come and cry before the Lord who created us; and because he holds the fate of the war in his hands, except by the will of God the multitude cannot be saved, even by unequalled power the emperor cannot be saved, nor will the city remain intact, if the Lord does not keep it. The enemy attacks us on horse and with war engines, with an enormous multitude, but we will overcome by the holy name of our Lord God. Because the Lord himself fights for us, and because the Virgin Mother of God will also be protective of this city, if we ourselves turn all our heart  toward them with all our heart and a devoted soul.”

So saying, and so teaching the city, the archpriest prayed to God, day and night, unceasingly.

XIV. However, the man that the wise and powerful emperor left to manage and supervise the affairs of the city did not neglect at all his duties; he showed his ingenuity in various ways in accomplishing everything that depends on the effort and diligence of man. Because God himself delights in such men, because he does not wish that those who have confidence in him to be saved, be lazy and impotent. It was thus that Joshua, son of Nun, in the past gave the order in which he drew up an ambush against the town of Hal; and he made Gideon arm his men with jugs and torches against the Midianites. The guardian of the affairs of the emperor thus examined everything with a very vigilant eye, reinforced the walls, and made provision for all that was necessary for the battle. He was motivated to this by fear of the mighty emperor, and by his letters, arriving unceasingly from afar, and containing instructions, because even in his absence the struggle was led by the servant of God: the emperor, teaching his duty, and motivating his most faithful guardian.

XV. At the same time at all the western doors of the city, from which left even the revenge of darkness, the holy archpriest, after having painted on icons the holy features of the Virgin carrying in her arms that which she had given birth to, the Lord, — and these icons were like the most brilliant sun, driving out the darkness by its rays, — the archpriest, I say, shouted in a comprehensible and reasonable voice to the masses of barbarians and the demons leading them:

“Oh foreign people and diabolical hordes, you have undertaken the whole war against these. But the Mother of God will put an end to all your boldness and pride by its only call, because she is really the mother of He which drowned Pharaoh and all his army in the middle of the Red Sea, and discouraged and weakened all the diabolical horde.”

This was done and said by the archpriest, then he beseeched God and the Virgin to keep the city, the lighthouse of the law of the Christians, intact, because it is to be feared that with her even the lessons of the mystery of Christ could run into extreme danger.

XVI. The enemy tribes thus encircled the city on the East and on the West, by sea and on the North. A poet named what he saw on one side Scylla, on the other side Charybdis. But the city begged in tears the Virgin by the words of the inspired mouth of the archpriest:

“Save me, oh Lady, save me, because I will perish. Do not remain dumb, inactive, silent any longer, because I know that you are powerful. See, my adversaries thunder and say: ‘Come let’s cut it off from the nations so that no-one will remember the name of Israel. ‘Have they conspired there, with one heart, Moab and Agaranians, Gebal, Ammon and Amalek and all the Philistines? even Assur has joined them. But treat them like a straw blown in the wind, when a fire devours a forest, so that they can never say: ‘She has no refuge in her God.’ “

The city was in this state and did what it did, because there are not human words which took to tell what was done and said in their houses and publicly in this city entrusted to the government and direction of the most holy shepherd.

XVII. The barbarian of the East, camped with all his army close to the town of Chalcedon, was the first to start fires. The enemy of the West at once put himself in contention with him, as if they were responding to each other and wanted to increase their zeal on both sides; they set ablaze and razed to the ground the sanctuaries of God and all the imperial buildings and all the private buildings.  Moses, when he led in Israel to war against Amalek, lifted his arms towards the sky (his form thus showing the shape of the cross), while Aaron and Hur supported the hands of the legislator on the two sides, because they were tired.

That means the loss of the power of the Law, because it dealt too much with the flesh, it is for this reason that God sent his Son into the world. However, our Moses raised with his own innocent hands the effigy of the only son of God whom even the demons fear and of whom it is said that He was not created by human hands. He did not need corporeal support, because, according to the Gospel of Christ-God, He died, crucified, for the world. He passed, pouring tears, around all the ramparts of the city, and he showed the effigy, as an invincible weapon, towards the nebulous troops of darkness and the phalanxes of the West. And in a low voice, like the first Moses, when he had the Ark of the Covenant carried before of the people, said to the Lord: “Arise, Lord! let your enemies be scattered! Let those who hate you flee before you!” and he added to it again the words of king David:

“As smoke is dissipated, they are dissipated; as wax melts before a fire, so perish the foreign tribes opposing our God who comes from the west to help us.”

XVIII. So it was the first day of the siege of the peoples come from the west, when things happened thus. And it was the third day of the week . The archpriest, like a second Moses, instead of going up the mountain, went up on the Western wall, preceded and followed by a procession of priests, all selected. The guardian of the affairs of the emperor, on the other hand, ordered the soldiers and a selected part of the people to make a fierce resistance, like Gideon once, who faced tens of thousands with a limited number of soldiers. The barbarian tribes lined up opposite, from sea to sea, like swarms of wasps, and filled all the earth with their weapons.

At the same time, on the side of the sea, the barbarian army was not yet prepared for battle. On the other hand, the view from the side of the land was most terrible, and the aspect of the enemies was such as to almost drive one mad. Because for each of our soldiers there was a hundred or even more barbarians, each one was covered in armor, they all wore a helmet and they carried all kinds of military machines. The sun which reflected on them, on the side of the East, reflected its rays on their steel, and showed them still more terrible, making those who looked at them shiver with fear. But so far the barbarian only wanted, so to speak, to show his power and numbers; then — yielding to the night — he withdrew into his camp.

The following day, the barbarian prepared all that was necessary for war, and covered the ground, in front of the army, with turrets, so called.  But this voracious and greedy dog did not restrain himself even then, and demanded food from the city. This the son of the emperor gave him, with a generosity of an emperor, while letting the barbarian dog know what follows: “Even if you hate me, I treat you with friendship, and all while preparing myself for war, my goal is peace.  This is because I am raised thus by my God and my very pious father.” The other, though he accepted the food and listened to the remarks of the monarch, remained the mad and barking dog that he had been before, and continued to behave like a voracious dog.

XIX. The third day arrived, and the enemy attacked the walls, like a hail accompanied by lightnings, because he thought that he would subjugate all, with a single blow. But the All-Powerful Virgin, after having made known to him  her own power by experience, revealed to him the presages of the fall which quickly awaits the sinner. Because she attracted a great number of soldiers of the Khagan into a trap before of one of her churches, being in front of the wall of the city. This place bore the name of a healing spring which was there.

The Virgin, by massacring the barbariabs at the hands of the Christian soldiers, struck the pride of the Khagan down to the  ground, and weakened all his army. The crafty man did not show his fear then, but all this gave courage to our men who knew on the one hand by experience the power of the Virgin, and on the other hand believed that the Mother of God really hastened to fight for the interest of her city. Because then, throughout the day, unceasingly, different local skirmishes took place and shooting with bow and sling, all along the wall. The Virgin was present everywhere, overcame without being overcome, spread fear and horror on the enemy, while giving strength to her servants. She preserved her subjects safe and sound, and devastated the enemy masses.

The third day of the presence of the barbarians proceeded thus, as we said, when all this occurred.

XX. On the fourth day, this imbecile started to draw up the helepoles and the catapults; in addition, he built siege-towers out of wood. The construction of all that was a very easy task for him, and did not require much time; all this was done almost more quickly than the pronunciation of the orders, on the one hand, because a whole multitude of barbarians worked there, on the other hand, because the wooden material was within his range, since he used the waggons, on which he travelled here, and at the same time material from the houses destroyed by him. But God made fun of him, and in his fury he addressed sarcastic words to him, terrifying him in his rage, he and all his people. On the fifth day, the very young monarch, having taken men on his side, those naturally which were his companions in all the plans and his support in the execution of the decisions: the archpriest himself and the best of the senate, — he sent gifts and a delegation, to again summon the tyrant to a armistice. So he sent Somnas, Eliakim and Joach; I overlook the fourth legate , because Hezekiah in the past also sent only three men to the Babylonian Rabshakah who in the past wanted to devastate Jerusalem.

XXI. But the legates returned without result, though they had handed over the gifts willing or not; then they said to those which had sent them: “We saw a terrestrial Proteus, a demon in human form whose word is unstable, his appearance and character terrible. Ah! the filth of his body and clothing — which we saw — ah! his words — which we heard —, we feel sick to speak to you about him and we are afraid of him. Like a second Salmoneus, he tattoos his skin below, thinks nothing of the future, and never reasons justly. But, since it is absolutely necessary that we tell you the essence of the words that he said to us, the tyrant, this depraved monster said to us what follows:

‘Let your God not mislead you. You trust him by saying that you will not hand over the city, to me and to the people which are with me. Tomorrow I will occupy the city in any case, and I will render it uninhabited. I will make —by my kindness — a gift of their lives to the inhabitants, and I will make possible for them to leave the city completely naked, but in mercy I will leave  to each one a chiton, to hide their shame. I will summon Shahrbaraz to them and the Persian troops so that they cause you no loss. So leave, right now as I said, the city, but do not ask anything humanitarian of me!’

These are the words that he said to us, and he threatened us with still more serious things.

He added further: if we do not leave early, we will see that tomorrow the mass of Persians will fight beside the tyrant in front of the ramparts of the city. And, indeed, we saw also the Persian legates sent by Shahrbaraz who brought him gifts. We understand again that they have concluded an alliance, to send the Slavic monoxyles, to transport the Persian army from Chalcedon, by sea.”

XXII. These were the words of the legates. Of course the barbarian did not ask for an army of Perses, as if he was short of allies, because the firm ground and the sea were both full of wild people under his command, but he wanted to make known to us his alliance with the Persians, who moved against us. When night fell, the monoxyles were launched; there were a multitude of Slavs who directed them to transport the advancing army of the allied Persians. Because the Slavs had already great experience with regard to bravery at sea, since the time when they also attacked the territories of the Romans.

The monarch, the archpriest and guardian of the affairs of the emperor, after listening to the words of the legates, sighed seriously, raised their hands with all those which lived the city towards the sky, and said:

“Mighty Lord — you who bring low every proud man, you who can decide according to your will everything that happens in the world, whose force is incomparable and whose power can be neglected by none, because all the Universe is suject to you — hear all the words of Sennacherib that he transmitted, to blaspheme you, the Master of the Universe. For our hope does not reside in our arrows, and we do not have a sword to save us. It is you, our strong bastion, even against these so powerful enemies. And for this reason thus, you, omnipotent and all-mighty — who is seated on the Cherubins, and it is from there that you look at the Hells — throw a glance from the throne of the Master on the masses of the peoples who do not know each other, and who have surrounded us from the east and the west.

XXIII. Our Lord, it is in your power to save small and great, because you have the power to do so, when you wish. And so who could face the strength of your arm, our Lord God? Do not give the sceptre of your glory to those which do not even exist! Do not let these men overcome you. Because, see, see that this Rezin and the son of Remaliah were allied, fell into agreement, and concluded a contract, in order to abolish the tabernacle of your glory, and to choke the voice of those who glorify you, ‘Let them fall into their own traps, our Lord, because under the pride of the impious people your unhappy people is consumed.’ Who is it that by his will alone conquered the Ethiopian Zare who led formerly his army with a thousand times a thousand men against king Asa? Who killed the enemy peoples whose number was innumerable, when Josaphat, deprived of any human help, lifted his hands towards you? Since you are able, now also, to do everything, by your pure will, save then the city of your heritage, and save the people who are called by your name, so that no-one can say ‘Where is their God?’ On the contrary: Let these people understand that they are only men.” Thus they the monarch, the archpriest, the head of the army and the city prayed constantly.

XXIV. But God put an obstacle in the passing of the Persians to this dog, preparing an ambush for them, and by killing some of those which were sent by the tyrants to each other. The fight did not cease, neither on the sixth, seventh, nor eighth day and continued with shootings and local brawls. For the barbarian, it was a very tiring and extremely serious task, on the one hand, to draw up on the land the siege-engines, to build helepoles against the bastions, and on the other hand, to prepare on the sea the monoxyles of the Slavs, so that they could start the siege at the same time, at the same hour, by land and sea, against the city. Because he had already transformed earlier, using the monoxyles filled with foreign tribes, the bay of the Horn into firm ground. He thought that to approach the city this was the best place. But he did not know, the devil, what he knew later, by experience, that the invincible guard of the city was the holy house of the Mother of God, being at Blachernae, close to the bay of Horn, and this is what safeguarded the city and all its inhabitants. It is there, that it was necessary that all the army of this Pharaoh perish in the sea, and so the bay was named Red Sea after the event. While this nutcase prepared the fight by land and sea, he advanced some armoured riders, selected as well as he could — this happened in the areas where those who were sailing towards the Euxine Sea took to sea — to show himself to the Persian army and to Shahrbraz which showed themselves in their turn. Because on the other side, he did the same, and filled all the opposite bank with heavy cavalry. The latter attacked the part of the city in Asia, and the former that in Europe, like mad beasts, thinking that she would be surely their booty.

XXV. When the ninth day came, on firm ground, the most violent fighting burst out, all along the wall, and consequently the enemy perished in heaps, carrying off his dead in the sight of all our men. Some of ours were also wounded. Even the following night did not put an end to the fight, and the combat continued on both sides throughout the night, without rest. The foreign tribe, in its combat against us, did not have men who would have been worthy of ours. Our army overcame the enemy everywhere with great courage. There came the tenth day of the stay of this dog. It was the fifth day of the week, and the seventh of the month, that the Romans call August. But who has the strength to tell the miraculous deeds of God, and who is able to show the power of the Virgin? Glory to he that names holy the chosen day which was the day of the most and most miraculous deeds, of the divine love, shown towards us. Because even the fifth, but the seventh also, and especially the tenth proved — one for certain things, the other for others — clearly such days which showed us all the miracles of our rescue, of divine origin. The fifth day, by its effect, fills with divine happiness all our senses which are at the center of the spiritual combats. The seventh on the other hand, like a virgin and without mother, was worthy of the grace of the Eternal Virgin, the Mother of God. Finally the tenth, which completes all, brought to us, by God and the Virgin, total freedom.

XXVI. I believe that even Zachariah, one of the twelve minor prophets, prophesied by his prophetic heart that day, and he named it that of happiness and of divine exaltation, in the words that he says to us:

“The fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth will become for the house of Judah happiness, joy and merry feastdays.”

It is true, we know that the sons of the Hebrews interpreted differently the words of prophecy, by saying that the fact that Jerusalem would pass into the hands of strangers in the days mentioned, and what would follow: the disastrous humiliation and the austere fasting, would become joy and happiness for Judah. What I do not know, it is the date when the Jews hope for that, the Jews which are always precisely in mourning, because they condemned innocent blood. It is God whom they nailed on the cross, and it is very right which they wear mourning for that. Moreover nobody prevents them from understanding, and believing in the words of Zachariah, as they wish. In any case for us the fifth, the seventh and the tenth days became absolutely identical, because they carried in themselves the love of God and the Virgin towards us.

XXVII. The tenth day has also another mystery about which I cannot keep silent, because doing so, in my opinion, would be a sin against justice itself. Because Nabuzardan, the commander of the guard of the Babylonian Nabuchodonosor, set fire to the Temple of Jerusalem on the tenth day of the fifth month of the Hebrews, and conquered the city by assault. The infallible witness is Jeremiah who is wisest in the things of God, and who was crowned already in the belly of his mother by the Lord; he writes in his book these words: “This happened in the fifth month, the ten of the month. Nabuzardan, commanding the guard, one of the immediate entourage of the king of Babylon, made his entry into Jerusalem. He set fire to the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and he set fire to all the houses of the city and all the palaces. The army of Chaldaeans which was with the commander of the guard, threw down all the ramparts which surrounded Jerusalem. Nabuzardan left part of the ordinary people of the country, as vine growers and ploughmen.”

XXVIII. These words of the prophet tell us that the fifth month of the Hebrews was in its tenth day, when the Persians set fire to the Temple and the capital of the Jews. Among the Hebrews the fifth month is named Ab, because God had ordered that they hold and call Nisan the first among the months newly named. And thus we find the month Ab is the fifth starting from Nisan. Nisan among Hebrews is usually what is among Romans April. Among the Romans we find that the fifth month is August, starting from April. And if the Hebrews learned how to count the months according to the changes of the moon, then it is clear — as anyone could say — that the months and the days of the Hebrews are not harmonized exactly with the days and the months of the Romans, but they agree only in general: thus the month of Nisan often falls in April. As the commander of the guard thus occupied Jerusalem on the tenth day of the fifth month of the Hebrews, the Khagan hoped to occupy Constantinople, on the tenth day of his arrival.

XXIX. Because even the Roman emperor who carried out the punishment of the Jews, for their sin against our Saviour, set fire to the Temple of Jerusalem and destroyed the city, on the tenth day of the fifth month. Josephus, a writer worthy of trust, writes thus in the sixth book of the History of the Fall of the Jews: “God already condemned beforehand the Temple to be delivered to the flames; and by the passage of time, the tenth day of the month Loos arrived, on which day the monarch of Babylon had formerly made it burn.

Therefore everyone can admire the punctuality of the flow of time: because fate fixed the same month and the same day when Babylonians had set fire to the Temple formerly.” However, Josephus correctly wrote that the tenth day of the month of Ab, where according to divine Jeremiah, the king of Babylon had occupied the Temple and Jerusalem, is identical with the tenth day of the month of Loos, when Titus devastated the same city; it is thus proof that Josephus knew himself that the months of the Hebrews show, from time to time, several times a simultaneity; and it happens that the fifth month of the Hebrews is at the same time as August of the Romans.

XXX. All that is true, even if it is a digression. Our history shows that Nabuzardan demolished the Temple and Jerusalem, on the tenth day of the fifth month. Titus destroyed them in the same way, on the tenth day of the fifth month. The Khagan also, this sinful tyrant, spread out against the city so great a mass of enemies, from the east, from the west, by land and sea, exactly in the fifth month, and on the tenth day of his stay, if we count the first month in the series of the months lately established in accordance with the law of God. But God and the Virgin covered him with shame, him and those who were gathered, in order to show their divine kindness towards us, who were unworthy of rescue, and to show that before God the worship which is pure and without cruelty of the Christians is much more valuable and much better received than that which is according to the law. This last includes all the fatty and bloody sacrifices that the people of Israel, according to the flesh, had to carry out. Our worship is better received, even if we, so to speak, are not afraid to approach boldly, very many of the divine sacraments, with sinful conscience and hands which were not washed.

XXXI. That which is to be told about the tenth day, was not hidden by me; but with regard to the numerical coincidence with the tenth day, I believe that I did not understand it until the end. As for the devastation of Jerusalem, it; was accomplished by the devastators on the tenth of the month. And the tyrant thought, even now, that he was going to take the city on  the tenth day after his arrival. Because the months did not differ much from the other, since the Jewish Ab, the Macedonian Loos and the month named August among the Romans, often coincide completely, even if they differ in their names. That is allowed, and that will surely be it, because it is really thus. That is to say August the fifth month, and the day the tenth, even if we do not count it from the beginning of the month, but of the arrival of this enemy criminal. Both the two dates coincide with the former ones. But with regard to the care of God towards us, our case is very differ from the others. It is about this that we will speak in the continuation.

XXXII. Now it is time to tell, if possible, the miraculous deeds of God and the Virgin, accomplished that day. It was the fifth day of the week, as we mentioned earlier, the seventh of August, the tenth day of the attack against us by this ravaging dog. He began the battle, on land and sea, at the same time against the city. Strong clamours were heard and a great noise of war all along the wall and over all the sea; the bugles sounded the signs of the attack everywhere and all the city was filled with noises and clamours all around. The tyrant prepared so that the catapults were put in motion and a multitude of projectiles was launched, at a single gesture, all along the wall; he had everything prepared that he wanted for the attack against the city. In the bay of Horn he filled the monoxyles with the Slavs and other wild peoples, which he had brought with him; and he gave the order that the barbarians with the heavy weapons, being transported in an innumerable mass in the monoxyles, should start to row against the city with terrible cries. Because he had tested and planned: while the besiegers from the land were going to destroy the walls of the city, those who attacked from the sea, in the bay of Horn, could easily approach the city. God and the Lady Virgin, on the other hand, showed him that his hopes were unrealizable and were overcome on all sides. Because on each point of the wall a so great number of corpses lay, and the enemy fell unceasingly that the barbarians were no longer in a position to take away and to burn their dead.

XXXIII. The Mother of God, in the sea battle, in front of her holy church of Blachernae, made the monoxyles with their men sink. If this expression were not serious, one could have said that all the bay could have been passed on dry foot because of the corpses lying there, and the monoxyles tossing randomly quite empty and moving without a goal. The fact that the Virgin herself won this fight, and won this victory, was shown clearly by the following facts: those who fought on the sea, on our vessels, turn around at the first attack of the enemy force and they failed to beat a retreat, and by that they would have made almost possible attacks by the enemy, if the pity of the Virgin had not prevented this misfortune, refusing to endure such a spectacle. She put in action her own force and power.

Not like Moses, dividing and uniting again the floods of the Red Sea by his staff, but only by her gesture and her pure will she made the chariots of Pharaoh  and his army to sink. Everyone sank there, with the sailors and their instruments. Some say that ours were not withdrawn from the fear of the enemy, but that it is the Virgin itself which ordered ours to pretend to retire, because she wanted to achieve a miracle. In consequence of that, the barbarians sank completely, in front of her holy church, in the bridge of our rescue, our calm harbour, because all that was the church of the Mother of God in Blachernae. And this sight and astonishing and mighty miracle could be seen: while all the bay became firm ground, covered in blood, because of the corpses and abandoned monoxyles, some of the barbarians who — as good swimmers — succeeded in escaping from the dead and devastation at sea, and to reach the north bank, fled into the mountains, not being pursued by anybody.

XXXIV. It is said that even the wicked tyrant was an eyewitness of his own shame, courtesy of the Virgin, and at the same time he was the minister of his own loss. After having contemplated his own defeat from a hill, sitting on a horse and surrounded by his men-at-arms, he returned shaken to his camp, drawn up in front of the walls of the city, while beating his chest and his cheeks with his hands. Many days passed during which our men succeeded, on the one hand to collect with weariness the corpses of the barbarians floating in the water, on the other hand to fish out their monoxyles so that they could be burned. When those who fought on the walls against the enemy, learned the happy news of the loss of the barbarians at sea, and still more admired the multitude of the heads splitted on the lances that our men carried slowly towards the man to whom the mighty emperor had entrusted the management of the affairs of state, encouraged by the power of God and protected by the strength of the Virgin, they opened wide the doors of the ramparts and — making noise and cries, indicating confidence and victory — poured outside for a hand- to- hand fight against the enemy and his engines. Our men were full of such happiness and strength, while the barbarians felt grief and despair to such a state that even the children and the women marched against them, arriving in the camp of the enemy. One could see how one can drive out a thousand, and two pursue ten thousand in an attack, as Moses said formerly.

XXXV. The Mother of God, the Virgin, the Lady gave such strength to those which did not have any and such power to the weak, only by her goodwill. It is also obvious that the Mother of God did this so that our men could burn the siege-engines of the enemy, and she wanted to show by that also a greater sign of her love for us. Because very wisely she influenced the guardian of the affairs of the state, to justly prevent those who were leaving with all enthusiasm, to have care for a greater security, and  prevent the exit of our men, and recall at the same time those which were running outside of the walls. And he did it, not by bugles sounding the retirement, but by cries, by running, by gesticulating and by exhorting with words our men with sure and reasonable words.

That was affirmed as a safety measure and an precautionary act by the head of the army. The Virgin Mother of God reached and ensures that these orders are carried out by the barbarians themselves, because she trusted them to destroy by fire their own siege-engines. The course of the events proves it too. At sunset, when the night fell, these devils lit and burned, along the wall, the tortoises, the caltrops, the helepoles, assault-towers on wheels, all the machines of war and the catapults, all that was there, or had been transferred onto chariots, or had been manufactured on the spot. So they started the similar fire which does not die out and which will absorb them. In consequence of that, during all the night, in the Western part of the city, all the air was lit by the light of the burning. For most of the following day, we could see neither the city nor the sea, because of widespread smoke. The archpriest, the General and a considerable multitude of townsmen, being outside the door whom we call, in accordance with reality, the Gilded Door, and looking at the fire and the smoke of the barbarian engines, raised their hands towards heaven, and uttered cries and tears of gratitude: “Your law, Lord, was shown by its strength; your right hand, Lord, cut the enemy in pieces, and by the excess of your glory, you have defeated the adversaries.”

XXXVI. Since the impudent dog thus received the reward of his own baseness, he withdrew to his own lands. In his retreat, he was to see thousands of corpses of the men and animals which he had brought with him; he was about to leave even more as casualties; the fugitives reported to us that these soon died. This fool could thus learn, by experience, that there is no god more powerful than our God, and that there is no power which could oppose the very Blessed Virgin. Thus the enemy of the west returned empty-handed and ashamed, the son of darkness; and as it is said, he blamed extremely those which had instigated him to this boldness, and that with true title, though he never needed a Master in spite.

XXXVII. The other enemy, the tyrant of Babylon who camped in the surroundings of Chalcedon, seeing the smoke of the fire, caused by the burning of the engines by the barbarians of the west, thought, it is said, that the city burned (God keep us!), was delighted at this, but at the same time he was saddened. He was delighted, because he thought in error that the capital of the Romans was already vanished; but he sighed and was saddened at the same time as it was not him, but — as he believed — the other tyrant who had devastated the city. Because this Holophernes had promised to his king Nabuchodonosor that he would succeed, either by fighting, or trickery; and that this scumbag would be the Master of the city. This is why he still camped several days at Chalcedon, even after the departure of the Western enemies, and the unlucky one hoped for the execution of his own foolish plan. Finally when God and the Virgin also reversed his hopes, he himself withdrew, ashamed and rightly humiliated, as he had made him his companion and accessory to turpitude.

XXXVIII. The two ends of smoking firebrands thus appeared, according to wise Isaiah: Rezin, the king of Syria and son of Remaliah, Phaceus, the monarch of Samariah, this one because of the flame and smoke of the fire which he had lit himself, the other because of the darkness and the sadness of his sinful conscience. They were in no state either to harm Jerusalem, either to strip the son of David of his power or to make the son of Tabeel monarch, — plans in which they agreed and that they concluded at the time of their alliance. On the contrary: their lot became opprobrium and eternal shame before each people and nation. It became obvious to us that very holy Isaiah depicted in the figure and example of the old Jerusalem the miracles accomplished today, and now he spoke to the descendant of David reigning in our time; “Do not fear a allied attack of these two ends of smoking firebrands which they have organised against you, against my city and my people.” According to what I know, all this also occurred as divine Isaiah had predicted, in the figure and example in connection with Jerusalem and Achaz, of the then king of the two tribes.

XXXIX. However, we all were eyewitnesses of the fact that the Virgin and Mother of God put to flight with a single blow the armed strength of both enemies; she did not do it with a blow of a lance, like Phineas who transfixed a Midianite and an Israelite. She did that by her voice and will only, terrifying and pursueing this one and that one at the same time. Because it is not only the tyrant of the west who withdrew shamefully, but the Persian also returned humiliated, as he was to ruminate in these words, himself: ” If so strong peoples of which the number can be compared only with the grains of sand of the sea, camped so many days under the walls of the city, reaching without a battle the edge of the sea, but could do nothing against this city and were lost despite every apparent advantage, then why I do remain still here, on the beach, ready, in vain, for the fight, and why I still nourish in myself these vain hopes? It is obvious that a divine and superhuman power guard this city and have kept it safe and sound; it is impossible for anyone to harm it.” This said, and apparently very astonished, he took the road of retreat, the murderer. Because disappointment in their hopes usually determines even the barbarians to hold the power of God as invincible. This was the experience of the Egyptians also who, after having tried the divine power at sea, were constrained to say: ” Let us run, run because God fights against the Egyptians for Israel.”

XL. I believe that the words and the visions of the prophet Ezechiel who saw great things, are fulfilled now. In these, instigated by the prophetic inspiration, he gave a prophecy in the Holy Scriptures on Gog. There are some who say that in Hebrew “Gog” means “assembly of the people” because they believe that no-one was ever called by this name. It appears obvious that what Ezechiel said was prophesied about the land of the people of Israel according to the flesh, but neither the date of what the prophet condescended to predict, nor the events of war against Judah which followed, make it acceptable to us to think that the things said concern the land of Israel and the people which mark themselves by the circumcision of the flesh. Because the prophet Ezechiel wrote what has been said before the deportation of the people to Babylonia; after this time, on the other hand, the people which marched against Judah did not withdraw empty-handed, and did not become, as the prophet says, the spoils of the wild beasts and the birds of prey. Because did not the Romans and Titus attack Judah after the activity of the prophet Ezechiel, and burn the Temple by fire and the city to the ground, and killed the majority of the population, by famine and sword? those who remained, men and the holy objects, became their property, as booty.

But before that, Titus and the Romans, when Mattathias and his sons had to face the attack of the peoples neighboring Judah which wanted to exterminate the remainder of the people, the enemy often fell, but, in these wars, we do not find anything similar to what the prophet wrote.  Since neither time, nor the events make it possible for us to accept prophecy as relating to the land of Israel, it must be that we seek that which the prophet names Israel, and what he names his land, against which Gog led his armies, then it became the grazing ground of the birds of prey and the wild beasts.

XLI. But so that what I say become clear and quite comprehensible, it is reasonable and suitable to quote words of the prophet, finding the place given; but the prophetic words will not be complete and continual; I restrict myself to what is relevant because the length of the place quoted: “The word of the Lord was addressed to me in these terms: Son of man, turn to Gog and prophesy against him and say to him: Thus speaks the Lord God: Here, I declare myself against you, Prince de Rosh, Mesoch and Thobel; and I will make you go out, with all your army, horses and riders, all perfectly armoured, many troop, all bearing shields and helmets.  The Persians, the Ethiopians and the Libyans are with them and you. Many peoples will come from the extreme north with you. That day, thoughts will be born in your spirit and you will utter evil designs: I will go up against a country without defense, march against the quiet people which live in the land in safety where there are no ramparts, nor bolts, nor doors.  I will plunder them and make booty of them. I will go up against those which live on the navel of the earth. They are Sheba, Dedan and the traffickers of Chalcedon .

You will get under way and you will leave your residence in the extreme north and of the many people with you, all will be mounted on horses. You will go up against Israel, my people. You will be like a cloud which covers the earth. And I will bring you against my country so that all the nations know me, when I express my holiness, on your subject, Gog, in their eyes.  Thus speaks the Lord God to Gog: My anger will go up and my jealousy in the heat of my fury, and I will express my greatness and holiness and glory and I will make myself known to the eyes of the many nations, and they will know that I am the Lord.

I will break your bow in your left hand, and I will make your arrows fall from your right hand. I will drive you over the mountains of Israel and you will succumb, and all your army and the people with you will be given to the multitude of the birds of prey. I give you like pasture to the wild beasts of the earth; and people will live in the islands in safety; and the day will arrive, says the Lord God, when I will give a famous place for his burial to Gog, in Israel, the common grave of the Passers- by which is on the sea; and the people of Gog will be buried there. Says the Lord God.

XLII. So, you have heard the words of the prophet.  Can anyone, by clear reasoning, form an opinion, which examines whether the prophecies quoted relate to the old Israel and its land, and if they can be accomplished on them? The date excludes the accomplishment of the prophecy in Israel, and even the places where according to the words of the prophet all that should be accomplished do not lead us to think of the land of Israel, according to the flesh. Because the prophet had said that for the people marching against the land of Israel their common grave will be in the sea, and by their fall, the islands will be delivered from their terror.

My attention is not diverted from the fact that the prophet has predicted that with the people Gog himself would fall to earth and would subside, and thus time could come when somebody will set out again and say that if this assassin did not fall with those who perished, then we cannot well relate the prophetic predictions to the events of today.

However, everyone who knows the Holy Scriptures well, knows that the verb “to fall” into the divine writings has several senses and several meanings. It can be interpreted in several fashions and in various ways.  The verb “to fall” is used in one of its meanings and senses: to break down in certain foolish hopes. The divine Ezechiel prophet declared rightly in this sense that the wicked tyrant falls, and his fall can be also noted by that the part armed with his people fell indeed and really. But if the sons of the Hebrews wish to interpret the words of the prophet in another way, and not of this one, they can understand them as they wish. But what other common grave, to be found at sea and pertaining to the people travelling with Gog against the land of Israel, can they show? When and how were the islands lived in in safety after Gog, fighting against Israel, had vanished?

XLIII. And if after the deportation of the Jews, when Ezekiel did prophesy, nothing accomplishes the words of the prophet in the land of Israel, according to the flesh, what then must we think? Because the Romans, as we have just said, undertook their attack only after these events against the land of Israel; they devastated all the landd, they returned with booty, they killed the majority of the people by a terrible famine and the murderous sword, and they put in prison those which remained. At the time of Hasmonaeans, the sons of Mattathias heroically fought against the neighboring peoples, threatening Israel; however, from the words of the prophet nothing occurred with the people which went on campaign against the land of Israel.

It remains after that to examine whether in the times which follow, the words of the prophet could have been accomplished.  The fact that the Jews live today all dispersed, among all the peoples, and Israel, according to the flesh, does not have its own land, against which Gog could fight in the intention to have profit and booty, is obvious to any reasonable man. After all that, what goal could there be for peoples attack the land of Israel? The goal of war is in general the hope of booty, the removal of men, the seizure of goods; this is why the barbarian peoples begin a war. On the land of Israel there is nothing, neither today, nor in the future of any sort that could be such a cause of war. If thus the words of the prophet, neither in the past, nor in the future, could not and cannot be fulfilled, it only remains to interpret them in fact by the events of the present.

XLIV. Thus, I have reasoned carefully, if it is not inconsiderate to say so, that we should interpret the word “Gog” for the assembly of these people led against us by this mad dog.  I have learned from other people that the name Gog means the multitude and the assembly of the people, but it is I who took this city for “the land of Israel” where God and the Virgin is glorified with a holy piety, and where the rite of the true piety of God is celebrated. Because the real existence of the true Israel means that the Lord is glorified with true heart and a devoted soul, and to live the innocent land of Israel means to celebrate a sacrifice everywhere pure and without bloodshed to God.  What other but our city would rightly be that which could be named infallibly and correctly, in its totality, the place of sacrifice of God, and one can see that it is generally speaking the only church which sings the glory and the anthems of God and the Virgin. Thus, Gog, i.e. a multitude of people, assembled against this land of Israel, saying: “So let us go up against those who live on the navel of the earth where Sheba, Dedan and the traffickers of Chalcedon are found, let us pillage plunder, and get booty.”

Those who know the significance of the names, existing among the Hebrews, say that Sheba and Dedan are people subject to the Romans.  However, so that I do not appear one who deploys more zeal than one should, and who deals too much with superfluous things, I pass over the circumstances which relate to this. But if we must understand for traffickers of Chalcedon the neighbors of this city, then my reasoning is on the right road and is irrefutable. Even if somebody said that by the “Chalcedonians” it is necessary to understand Libyan traffickers, even in this case there is no possibility that the prophet spoke about the land of Israel, according to the flesh.  Because the Chalcedonian traffickers never traded with that land of Israel.

XLV. It is also necessary to examine these words of the prophet, where he ensures that Gog, in arranging his wicked plans, says: “I will go up against a country without defense, march against quiet people which live on the land in safety where there are no ramparts, bolts, or doors. I will plunder them and make booty of them. I will go up against the navel of the earth.”  Because the fool thinks that the country is without defense, and the city without monarch, because he had news of the departure of the powerful emperor.  He supposed that the people lived quietly and lived in the city in safety; he believed that the people of the Christians were not expert in war, and he missed men too. And when this most shameless dog advanced against the Long Walls, and did all that he did, as a foolish man, he said in his heart:

“There is no God here, and as ramparts, neither the Virgin, nor the arm of the divine power will save the city. This is why I go up against the navel of the earth, and I will plunder it and I will make booty of it. And there will be nobody who can stop me.”

The insatiability and the greed of the barbarian pushed him to think all that.

XLVI. And what other place could one name as “the navel of the earth” but this city where God put the imperial residence of the Christians, and that He made, by its central position, such that it can by itself be used as an intermediary between the east and the west.  It is against this city that sovereigns, peoples and nations gathered, and it is their strength which was overcome by the Lord who had said in Sion:

“Be without fear, Sion! Let not your hands weaken! See, your God is in the midst of you, it is He which can save you.”

The gathering of the peoples of the northern lands, of the horses and armoured riders, and with them of Persians, presented themselves in front of this city. That was said word for word by the prophet. The strength of our God made their bows fall from their left hands and from their right, it was the Virgin who broke their arrows. They fell on the mountains of Israel and they became the pasture of wild beasts and birds of prey. All that was prophesied by Ezekiel, the divine prophet:

“On that day, says the Lord God, I will give to Gog a famous place for his burial in Israel, the common grave of the Passers- by which is on the sea, where all the people of Gog will be buried.”

I think that that means another thing than the loss of the foreign people, on the sea, the mass of whom was drowned by God and the Virgin in the bay of Horn. This bay is named not only the Bay of Horn, even if it is here that the Mother of God became the “horn of safety” for the city, but also the common grave of Gog, the place of burial of the people which is on the sea, and at the same time the Red Sea, where the chariots of Pharaoh drowned, even all its army.

XLVII. Because the zeal of the Lord of armies, God Almighty, did all that, and as the prophet says:

“Our Lord God manifested His greatness and His holiness and He became glorious in the eyes of the nations and the people. And all the earth knew, that he alone is the Lord.  Because our enemies learned from all that they had suffered, even if they wander in darkness, and the sun of justice has not yet risen on them, that death carries out them to feed and that their strength is lost in Hell, and that they are banished from glory, and that they will be thus too in the future.”

I thought that it is good, in this place, to quote the words of the prophet Ezechiel, and my opinion which follows, though I know indeed that it is possible to accuse me of verbosity. You who judge rightly, it is for you to decide if you accept my procedure, i.e. if it is necessary that I refer to this prophecy, or indeed to correct me by saying that the prophecy did not logically relate to my discourse. However, the fact of the achieved rescue, in your interest, by the Lord, cannot be discussed, because it is an indisputable fact.

XLVIII. It is a beautiful and worthy thing that the Deborah of today employs the words of the Deborah of before, in singing the anthem of the victory against this Sisera. This current Deborah is called by me the church of God who — raising his hands towards God — pierced this Sisera with a lance. However, the mother of this Sisera watched by the grilles of her window, believing that her son already was distributing the spoils. What does she say, then, our Deborah, singing a song of victory to our Lord: “Kings, listen; princes, lend an ear; let us sing for the Lord, God of Israel! How the great ones of the people praise the Lord!

Make heard the song of those who sing briskly, marching in the middle of the road. May they do justice to the Lord! Lord! Strengthen justice among the people of Israel, and humiliate those who are stronger than your people!” The current Deborah, the church of God, says this, and adds to it, in giving the example of virginal purity, of the mortification of the flesh, and the sound of drum also to its song, as the sister of Moses did. Let us sing with the Lord because He was greatly glorified, because Bel has bowed and Dagon broken down; and all those who adored the idols were humiliated, and those who glorified images were covered with shame.

We others — the people God saved with so much difficulty, beyond hope, and that He saved, by the strength of His own arm, from death and bitter and imminent slavery — let us show by good deeds our recognition of the Savior. Because it is not those who just say: My Lord, My Lord, who will be saved, but those who fulfill the will of the Lord.

XLIX. However, let us not look only at the deeds committed towards us by the barbarians, by burning the forsaken houses and by devastating the best lands, so as not to reduce  in this way our recognition of the rescue and kindness of being delivered! It is necessary that we consider also from what a powerful danger the Lord delivered us! And at this point in time we will recognize the greatness of the benefits with which God and the Virgin have filled us. Because we already believed that we saw with our eyes, as an immediate danger, priests, leaders, children — all who could beforehand have fled from death and in exchange ensured a miserable life, carried in a bitter servitude, in irons to foreign lands, to a deplorable life to which even death is preferable. As if we had seen women and children, – - women who were obscenely dishonored and who became toys of barbarian vice, and at the same time, objects of mockery placed in the sight of their husbands who do not dare to howl, even if they must endure such terrible things.

As if we had seen children who, because of their age cannot be useful yet, massacred; those, on the other hand, which can be, are deported in front of our eyes, by these foreign hands. Is there a sight more miserable than this? It would be all as well as to traverse, contemplate and count the holy churches, the palace, all the city lying on the ground.

L. Even if we have received forgiveness now, because of the multitude of our sins, we could have been the cause of the devastation of this great city, the beautiful buildings and the brilliant houses, and we could have become unworthy of all that. But now, that the Lord saved us of all these dangers, what thanksgivings do we owe, in exchange for what they did for us, to the Lord and the Virgin Mother of God? What praise and what glorification should we sing for the benefits in which we have taken part — even unworthily?

“Because the Lord has rescued the poor, He did not scorn the prisoners! How the heavens and the earth acclaim Him, the sea and all that is stirred up there! Because the Lord God has saved Sion, and He comforted the poor wretches of its people.”

It is necessary that we appear neither good-for-nothings, neither lazy, nor inactive; each one according to his possibilities must accomplish good deeds, and thus he will glorify and praise the Savior.

LI. And while these miraculous things took place by the love of God the merciful, proven towards us, according to the envoys bringing the imperial rescripts the faithful and mighty emperor who, himself held open day and night his ears and eyes, and his spirit was vigilant, he looked at and watched for every part of the roads and the sea; and his spirit meditated ceaselessly, and he reflected during long sleepless nights on the outcome of this complex concern: what news would he receive on the rescue of this city by God. There when on the other hand, as it is reported, the couriers arrived, announcing the marvelous deeds of God, he did not ask them the news that they brought. Beforehand he ran to the church of the Virgin and the Mother of God, and prostrated himself on the ground, asking Her that he would hear good news brought by the newly-arrived legates. And when he found that the news corresponded to that which he solicited, he knelt again on the ground, in the sight of the army and the people present, and while pouring out tears, he prayed to God and the Virgin:

“I give you grace, he said, Divine Word, our Savior and king of all things visible and invisible, and you also Virgin, Mother of God and Lady, because you did not denied anything to the city which you condescended to entrust to me and the people of whom you made me shepherd, and more precisely you have made them praise you with myself, but you have carried them towards the waters of saving baptism giving peace, you safeguarded them from any distress and you made the herd inaccessible to the wolves.”

Those which brought back the imperial rescripts, have said that the most wise emperor said and did all that, but this was proven by the letters of the emperor also which he condescended to address in imperial manner to several; all this shows, how it was in consideration of former pains taken, and what happened, at the invitation of God, after these events.

LII. At the same time, the very worthy archpriest dedicated himself to God without ceasing, like a favorable holocaust, on the one hand by the mortification of his own flesh, on the other hand by the divine enthusiasm of his heart. And he obtains for us safety for the future not by the blood of sheep and goats, but by the sacrifice without bloodshed, offered in favor of the delivery in the sacrosanct church of the Mother of God, at Blachernae. He unceasingly celebrates the triumphal festival of the delivery from evil with communal litanies and asks that the city remain intact for the eternity of all time.

Oh, very wise Isaiah — as you outlined to me at the beginning of my speech in broad outline the delivery of this city —, seal, yourself, with your seal again the end of this sermon, and announce that the city will be safeguarded, in the future also, from war. Speak thus to this city:

“Here is the oracle of the Lord, our God: I will protect this city to save it, because of myself, and David, my servant.”

Because by the devotion for God and tenderness for his subjects, our emperor is also a David; and with the example of David, that the Lord adorned him with victories, just as he makes his son reigning with him a man distinguished for wisdom and love of peace, with the example of Solomon, and that he is endowed with devotion and the true faith, just like his father! Because the devotion and the faith of Solomon was not to follow. Pray, prophet, to God, and also beseech the Virgin whom you saw in your heart, in advance, that she would be really the Mother of God, and you announced it by your prophetic words.

Thus beseech them that they save always the city and its people which are sinners, but can always escape thanks to God and to the Virgin. Because it is God who has glory and strength in the centuries of the centuries. Amen.

Notes

1. Heraclius (610-641 AD).

2. Sergius, Patriarch from 610-658 AD.

3. Cf. Hesiod, Theogony 185; also George of Pisidia, Bellum Avaricum 215.

4. The references to Nabuchodonosor and Holophernes are a reference to the apocryphal book of Judith.

5. Khosrau II was restored to his throne by the emperor Maurice in 590 AD.  After the murder of Maurice, Khosrau used the murder as a pretext to throw off his obligation and wage war on the Eastern Roman Empire.

6. Constantine, the 14-year old son of Heraclius.

7. In Pannonia.

8. When Heraclius was preparing to campaign against the Persinas, he addressed a letter to the Avar Khagan, reminding him of the treaty agreed in 620, and appointing him tutor to his sons.  In April 622 the emperor left to campaign in the east against the Persians.

9. 29th July 626 AD.

10. Theodore the Syncellus himself.

11. See Esther 4:17 and Deuteronomy 6:4.  The gods of the pagans do not really exist, nor their worshippers.

12. This numerology of 7 and 10 is discussed in Hierocles Alexandrinus, Commentarius in Aureum Carmen 20, 45-48.  Ed. Fr. G. A. Mullachius, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, vol. 1. Paris (1883), pp. 464-465.

13. Josephus, Jewish War, book 6, 4:8.

14. The biblical reading may have been massaged here to fit the interpretation.  The whole passage is from Ezekiel 38-39.

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.