I. Concerning things done in Illumination.
[edit] We have, then, reverently affirmed that this is the purpose of our
Hierarchy, viz., our assimilation and union with God, as far as
attainable. And, as the Divine Oracles teach, we shall attain this only
by the love and the religious performance of the most worshipful
Commandments. For He says: "He [1]that loveth Me will keep My Word,
and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and will make
Our abode with him." What, then, is source of the religious performance
of the most august commandments? Our preparation for the restitution of
the supercelestial rest, which forms the habits of our souls into an
aptitude for the reception of the other sacred sayings and doings,[2]
the transmission of our holy and most divine regeneration.[3]
For, as our illustrious Leader used to say, the very first movement of
the mind towards Divine things is the willing reception of Almighty
God, but the very earliest step of the religious reception towards the
religious performance of the Divine commandments is the unutterable
operation of our being from God. For if our[4] being from God is the
Divine engendering, never would he know, and certainly never perform,
any of the Divine instructions, who had not had his beginning to be in
God. To speak after the manner of men, must we not first begin to be,
and then to do, our affairs? Since he, who does not exist at all, has
neither movement nor even beginning; since he, who in some way exists,
alone does, or suffers, those things suitable to his own nature. This,
then, as I think, is clear. Let us next contemplate the Divine symbols
of the birth in God. And I pray, let no uninitiated person approach the
sight;[5] for neither is it without danger to gaze upon the
glorious rays of the sun with weak eyes, nor is it without peril to put
our hand to things above us. For right was the priesthood of the Law,
when rejecting Osias, because he put his hand to sacred things; and
Korah, because to things sacred above his capacity; and Nadab and
Abihu, because they treated things, within their own province,
unholily.
II. Mysterion of Illumination.
[edit] The Hierarch, then, wishing that all men whatsoever should be saved by
their assimilation towards God, and come to recognition of truth,
proclaims to all the veritable Good News, that God being compassionate
towards those upon earth, out of His own proper and innate goodness,
deigned Himself to come to us with outstretched arms, by reason of
loving-kindness towards men; and, by the union with Him, to assimilate,
like as by fire, things that have been made one, in proportion to their
aptitude for deification. "For as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become children of God--to those who believe on His Name, who
were begotten, not of bloods, nor of will of flesh, but of God."[6]
He, who has felt a religious longing to participate in these truly
supermundane gifts, comes to some one of the initiated, and persuades
him to act as his conductor to the Hierarch. He then professes wholly
to follow the teaching that shall be given to him, and prays him to
undertake the superintendence of his introduction, and of all his after
life. Now he, though religiously longing for his salvation, when he
measures human infirmity against the loftiness of the undertaking, is
suddenly seized with a shivering and sense of incapacity, nevertheless,
at last, he agrees, with a good grace, to do what is requested, and
takes and leads him to the chief Hierarch.
He, then, when with joy he has received, as the sheep upon his
shoulders, the two men, and has first worshipped, glorifies with a
mental thanksgiving and bodily prostration the One beneficent Source,
from Which, those who are being called, are called, and those who are
being saved, are saved.
Then collecting a full religious assembly into the sacred place, for
co-operation, and common rejoicing over the man's salvation, and for
thanksgiving for the Divine Goodness, he first chants a certain hymn,
found in the Oracles, accompanied by the whole body of the Church; and
after this, when he has kissed the holy table, he advances to the man
before him, and demands of him, what has brought him here?
Section V ===
When the man, out of love to God, has confessed, according to the
instruction of his sponsor, his ungodliness, his ignorance of the
really beautiful, his insufficiency for the life in God, and prays,
through his holy mediation, to attain to God and Divine things, he (the
Hierarch) testifies to him, that his approach ought to be entire, as to
God Who is All Perfect, and without blemish; and when he has expounded
to him fully the godly course of life, and has demanded of him, if he
would thus live,--after his promise he places his right hand upon his
head, and when he has sealed him, commands the priests to register the
man and his sponsor.
When these have enrolled the names, he makes a holy prayer, and when
the whole Church have completed this with him, he looses his sandals,
and removes his clothing, through the Leitourgoi. Then, when he has
placed him facing the west and beating his hands, averted towards the
same quarter, he commands him thrice to breathe scorn upon Satan, and
further, to profess the words of the renunciation. When he has
witnessed his threefold renunciation, he turns him back to the east,
after he has professed this thrice; and when he has looked up to
heaven, and extended his hands thitherward, he commands him to be
enrolled under Christ, and all the Divinely transmitted Oracles of God.
When the man has done this, he attests again for him his threefold
profession, and again, when he has thrice professed, after prayer, he
gives thanks, and lays his hand upon him.
When the Deacons have entirely unclothed him, the Priests bring the
holy oil of the anointing. Then he begins the anointing, through the
threefold sealing, and for the rest assigns the man to the Priests, for
the anointing of his whole body, while himself advances to the mother
of filial adoption, and when he has purified the water within it by the
holy invocations, and perfected it by three cruciform effusions of the
altogether most pure Muron,[7] and by the same number of injections
of the all holy Muron, and has invoked the sacred melody of the
inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, he orders the man to be brought
forward; and when one of the Priests, from the register, has announced
him [8]and his surety, he is conducted by the Priests near the water
to the hand of the Hierarch, being led by the hand to him. Then the
Hierarch, standing above, when the Priests have again called aloud near
the Hierarch within the water the name of the initiated, the Hierarch
dips him three times, invoking the threefold Subsistence of the Divine
Blessedness, at the three immersions and emersions of the initiated.
The Priests then take him, and entrust him to the Sponsor and guide of
his introduction; and when they, in conjunction with him, have cast
over the initiated appropriate clothing, they lead him again to the
Hierarch, who, when he has sealed the man with the most Divinely
operating Muron, pronounces him to be henceforward partaker of the most
Divinely initiating Eucharist.
When he has finished these things, he elevates himself from his
progression to things secondary, to the contemplation of things [9]first, as one, who, at no time or manner, turns himself to any other
thing whatever than those which are peculiarly his own, but from things
Divine to Divine,--is persistently and always ranging himself under the
banner of the supremely Divine Spirit.
III. Contemplation.
[edit] This initiation, then, of the holy birth in God, as in symbols, has
nothing unbecoming or irreverent, nor anything of the sensible images,
but (contains) enigmas of a contemplation worthy of God, likened to
physical and human images. For how should it appear misleading? Even
when the very divine meaning of the things done is passed over in
silence,[10] the divine Instruction might convince, religiously
pursuing as it does the good life of the candidate, enjoining upon him
the purification from every kind of evil, through a virtuous and Divine
life, by the physical cleansing through the agency of water in a bodily
form. This symbolic teaching then of the things done, even if it had
nothing more divine, would not be without religious value, as I think,
introducing a discipline of a well-regulated life, and. suggesting
mysteriously, through the total bodily purification by water, the
complete purification from the evil life.
Let this, then, be, for the uninitiated, a conducting guidance of the
soul, which separates, as is meet things sacred and uniform from
multiplicity, and apportions the harmonious elevation to the Orders
severally in turn. But we, who have ascended by sacred gradations to
the sources of the things performed, and have been religiously taught
these (sources), shall recognize of what moulds they are the reliefs,
and of what invisible things they are the likenesses. For, as is
distinctly shewn in the Treatise concerning "Intelligible and
Sensible," sacred things in sensible forms are copies of things
intelligible, to which they lead and shew the way; and things
intelligible are source and science of things hierarchical cognizable
by the senses.
Let us affirm, then, that the goodness of the Divine Blessedness is
always in the same condition and manner, unfolding the beneficent rays
of its own light upon all the intellectual visions without grudging.
Should, then, the self-choosing self-sufficiency of the contemplators
either turn away from the light contemplated, by closing, through love
of evil, the faculties for enlightenment naturally implanted within it,
it would be separated from the light present to it, not turned away,
but shining upon it when shortsighted and turning its face from light
generously running to it; or should it overstep the bounds of the
visible given to it in due proportion, and rashly undertake to gaze
upon the rays superior to its vision, the light indeed will do nothing
beyond its proper functions, but it, by imperfectly approaching thing's
perfect, would not attain to things unsuitable, and, by stupidly
disregarding the due proportion, would fail through its own fault.
But, as I said, the Divine Light is always unfolded beneficently to the
intellectual visions, and it is possible for them to seize it when
present, and always being most ready for the distribution of things
appropriate, in a manner becoming God. To this imitation the divine
Hierarch is fashioned, unfolding to all, without grudging, the luminous
rays of his inspired teaching, and, after the Divine example, being
most ready to enlighten the proselyte, neither using a grudging nor an
unholy wrath for former back-slidings or excess, but, after the example
of God, always enlightening by his conducting light those who approach
him, as becomes a Hierarch, in fitness, and order, and in proportion to
the aptitude of each for holy things.
But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of sacred order, within
which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the proper
view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and
will acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the
light. Now he, who has well looked upon his own proper condition with
unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy recesses of ignorance, but
being imperfect he will not, of his own accord, at once desire the most
perfect union and participation of God, but little by little will be
carried orderly and reverently through things present to things more
forward, and through these to things foremost, and when perfected, to
the supremely Divine summit. An illustration of this decorous and
sacred order is the modesty of the proselyte, and his prudence in his
own affairs in having the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch.
The Divine Blessedness receives the man, thus conducted, into communion
with Itself, and imparts to him the proper light as a kind of sign,
making him godly and sharer of the inheritance of the godly, and sacred
ordering; of which things the Hierarch's seal, given to the proselyte,
and the saving enrolment of the priests are a sacred symbol,
registering him amongst those who are being saved, and placing in the
sacred memorials, beside himself also his sponsor,--the one indeed, as
a true lover of the life-giving way to truth and a companion of a godly
guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of his follower by the
Divinely-taught directions.
Yet it is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities thoroughly
opposed, nor that a man who has had a certain fellowship with the One
should have divided lives, if he clings to the firm participation in
the One; but he must be resistless and resolute, as regards all
separations from the uniform. This it is which the teaching of the
symbols reverently and enigmatically intimates, by stripping the
proselyte, as it were, of his former life, and discarding to the very
utmost the habits within that life, makes him stand naked and barefoot,
looking away towards the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion of his
hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness, and breathes out, as
it were, the habit of dissimilarity which he had acquired, and
professes the entire renunciation of everything contrary to the Divine
likeness. When the man has thus become invincible and separate from
evil, it turns him towards the east, declaring clearly that his
position and recovery will be purely in the Divine Light, in the
complete separation from baseness; and receiving his sacred promises of
entire consort with the One, since he has become uniform through love
of the truth. Yet it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in
Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual acquire the
unchangeableness of the Godlike habit, by continuous and persistent
struggles towards one, and by the entire destruction and annihilation
of things contrary. For it is necessary that a man should not only
depart from every kind of baseness, but he must be also bravely
obdurate and ever fearless against the baneful submission to it. Nor
must he, at any time, become remiss in his sacred love of the truth,
but with all his power persistently and perpetually be elevated towards
it, always religiously pursuing his upward course, to the more perfect
mysteries of the Godhead.
Now you may see the distinct illustrations of these things in the
religious rites performed by the Hierarch. For the Godlike Hierarch
starts with the holy anointing, and the Priests under him complete the
Divine service of the Chrism, summoning in type the man initiated to
the holy contests, within which he is placed under Christ as Umpire:
since, as God, He is Institutor of the awards of contest, and as wise,
He placed its laws, and as generous, the prizes suitable to the
victors. And this is yet more Divine, since as good, He devotedly
entered the lists with them, contending, on behalf of their freedom and
victory, for their power over death and destruction, he who is being
initiated will enter the contests, as those of God, rejoicing, and
abides by the regulations of the Wise, and contends according to them,
without transgression holding fast the hope of the beautiful rewards,
as being enrolled under a good Lord and Leader of the awards: and when
after following in the Divine footsteps of the first of athletes,
through goodness, he has overthrown, in his struggles after the Divine
example, the energies and impulses opposed to his deification, he dies
with Christ--to speak mystically --to sin, in Baptism.
And consider attentively, I pray, with what appropriateness the holy
symbols are presented. For since death is with us not an annihilation
of being, as others surmise, but the separating of things united,
leading to that which is invisible to us, the soul indeed becoming
invisible through deprivation of the body, and the body, through being
buried in earth in consequence of one of its bodily changes, becoming
invisible to human ken, appropriately, the whole covering by water
would be taken as an image of death, and the invisible tomb. The
symbolical teaching, then, reveals in mystery that the man baptized
according to religious rites, imitates, so far as Divine imitation is
attainable to men, by the three immersions in the water, the supremely
Divine death of the Life-giving Jesus, Who spent three days and three
nights in the tomb, in Whom, according to the mystical and secret
teaching of the sacred text, the Prince of the world found nothing.
Next, they throw garments, white as light, over the man initiated. For
by his manly and Godlike insensibility to contrary passions, and by his
persistent inclination towards the One, the unadorned is adorned, and
the shapeless takes shape, being made brilliant by his luminous life.
But the perfecting unction of the Muron makes the man initiated of good
odour, for the holy perfecting of the Divine birth unites those who
have been perfected to the supremely Divine Spirit. Now the
overshadowing which makes intelligibly of a good savour, and perfect,
as being most unutterable, I leave to the mental consciousness of those
who are deemed worthy of the sacred and deifying participation of the
Holy Spirit within their mind.
At the conclusion of all, the Hierarch calls the man initiated to the
most Holy Eucharist, and imparts to him the communion of the perfecting
mysteries.
- ↑ John xiv. 23.
- ↑ Ibid. i. 13.
- ↑ Ibid. iii. 5.
- ↑ See Baptismal Offices.
- ↑ C. 2. s. 62.
- ↑ Captic Con. II. 40; Ap. C. lib. viii. c. 38.
- ↑ mupos is the unguent prepared from myrrh, mupothenges is shining
with such unguent, and murostages (mupos and stazo) dripping with
ditto. Ap. Con. lib. ii. c. 14.
- ↑ Syr. Doc. p. 60. Clark.
- ↑ From outward signs to inward grace
- ↑ Catechism.
