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God Who is good and altogether good and more than good, Who is
goodness throughout, by reason of the exceeding riches of His goodness
did not suffer Himself, that is His nature, only to be good, with
no other to participate therein, but because of this He made first the
spiritual and heavenly powers: next the visible and sensible universe:
next man with his spiritual and sentient nature. All things,
therefore, which he made, share in His goodness in respect of their
existence. For He Himself is existence to all, since all things
that are, are in Him, not only because it was He that brought them
out of nothing into being, but because His energy preserves and
maintains all that He made: and in especial the living creatures.
For both in that they exist and in that they enjoy life they share in
His goodness. But in truth those of them that have reason have a
still greater share in that, both because of what has been already said
and also because of the very reason which they possess. For they are
somehow more dearly akin to Him, even though He is incomparably
higher than they.
Man, however, being endowed with reason and free will, received the
power of continuous union with God through his own choice, if indeed
he should abide in goodness, that is in obedience to his Maker.
Since, however, he transgressed the command of his Creator and
became liable to death and corruption, the Creator and Maker of our
race, because of His bowels of compassion, took on our likeness,
becoming man in all things but without sin, and was united to our
nature. For since He bestowed on us His own image and His own
spirit and we did not keep them safe, He took Himself a share in our
poor and weak nature, in order that He might cleanse us and make us
incorruptible, and establish us once more as partakers of His
divinity.
For it was fitting that not only the first-fruits of our nature should
partake in the higher good but every man who wished it, and that a
second birth should take place and that the nourishment should be new
and suitable to the birth and thus the measure of perfection be
attained. Through His birth, that is, His incarnation, and
baptism and passion and resurrection, He delivered our nature from the
sin of our first parent and death and corruption, and became the
first-fruits of the resurrection, and made Himself the way and image
and pattern, in order that we, too, following in His footsteps, may
become by adoption what He is Himself by nature, sons and heirs of
God and joint heirs with Him. He gave us therefore, as I said, a
second birth in order that, just as we who are born of Adam are in his
image and are the heirs of the curse and corruption, so also being born
of Him we may be in His likeness and heirs of His incorruption and
blessing and glory.
Now seeing that this Adam is spiritual, it was meet that both the
birth and likewise the food should be spiritual too, but since we are
of a double and compound nature, it is meet that both the birth should
be double and likewise the food compound. We were therefore given a
birth by water and Spirit: I mean, by the holy baptism: and the
food is the very bread of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who came
down from heaven. For when He was about to take on Himself a
voluntary death for our sakes, on the night on which He gave Himself
up, He laid a new covenant on His holy disciples and apostles, and
through them on all who believe on Him. In the upper chamber, then,
of holy and illustrious Sion, after He had eaten the ancient
Passover with His disciples and had fulfilled the ancient covenant,
He washed His disciples' feet in token of the holy baptism. Then
having broken bread He gave it to them saying, Take, eat, this is
My body broken for you for the remission of sins. Likewise also He
took the cup of wine and water and gave it to them saying, Drink ye
all of it:
for this is My blood, the blood of the New Testament which is shed
for you for the remission of sins. This do ye in remembrance of Me.
For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the
death of the Son of man and confess His resurrection until He come.
If then the Word of God is quick and energising, and the Lord did
all that He willed; if He said, Let there be light and there was
light, let there be a firmament and there was a firmament; if the
heavens were established by the Word of the Lord and all the host of
them by the breath of His mouth; if the heaven and the earth, water
and fire and air and the whole glory of these, and, in sooth, this
most noble creature, man, were perfected by the Word of the Lord;
if God the Word of His own will became man and the pure and undefiled
blood of the holy and ever-virginal One made His flesh without the
aid of seed, can He not then make the bread His body and the wine and
water His blood? He said in the beginning, Let the earth bring
forth grass, and even until this present day, when the rain comes it
brings forth its proper fruits, urged on and strengthened by the divine
command. God said, This is My body, and This is My blood, and
this do ye in remembrance of Me. And so it is at His omnipotent
command until He come: for it was in this sense that He said until
He come: and the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit becomes
through the invocation the rain to this new tillage. For just as God
made all that He made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now
the energy of the Spirit performs those things that are supernatural
and which it is not possible to comprehend unless by faith alone. How
shall this be, said the holy Virgin, seeing I know not a man? And
the archangel Gabriel answered her: The Holy Spirit shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. And now
you ask, how the bread became Christ's body and the wine and water
Christ's blood. And I say unto thee, "The Holy Spirit is
present and does those things which surpass reason and thought."
Further, bread and wine s are employed: for God knoweth man's
infirmity: for in general man turns away discontentedly from what is
not well-worn by custom: and so with His usual indulgence H e
performs His supernatural works through familiar objects: and just
as, in the case of baptism, since it is man's custom to wash himself
with water and anoint himself with oil, He connected the grace of the
Spirit with the oil and the water and made it the water of
regeneration, in like manner since it is man's custom to eat and to
drink water and wine, He connected His divinity with these and made
them His body and blood in order that we may rise to what is
supernatural through what is familiar and natural.
The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with
divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens
descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into
God's body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is
enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as
the Lord took on Himself flesh that subsisted in Him and was born of
the holy Mother of God through the Spirit. And we know nothing
further save that the Word of God is true and energises and is
omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out. But one
can put it well thus, that just as in nature the bread by the eating
and the wine and the water by the drinking are changed into the body and
blood of the eater and drinker, and do not become a different body from
the former one, so the bread of the table and the wine and water are
supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy
Spirit into the body and blood of Christ, and are not two but one and
the same.
Wherefore to those who partake worthily with faith, it is for the
remission of sins and for life everlasting and for the safeguarding of
soul and body; but to those who partake unworthily without faith, it
is for chastisement and punishment, just as also the death of the Lord
became to those who believe life and incorruption for the enjoyment of
eternal blessedness, while to those who do not believe and to the
murderers of the Lord it is for everlasting chastisement and
punishment.
The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of
Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for
the Lord has said, "This is My body," not, this is a figure of
My body: and "My blood," not, a figure of My blood. And on a
previous occasion He had said to the Jews, Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. For
My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed. And again,
He that eateth Me, shall live.
Wherefore with all fear and a pure conscience and certain faith let us
draw near and it will assuredly be to us as we believe, doubting
nothing. Let us pay homage to it in all purity both of soul and body:
for it is twofold. Let us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and
with our hands held in the form of the cross s let us receive the body
of the Crucified One: and let us apply our eyes and lips and brows
and partake of the divine coal, in order that the fire of the longing,
that is in us, with the additional heat derived from the coal may
utterly consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and that we may be
inflamed and deified by the participation in the divine fire. Isaiah
saw the coal. But coal is not plain wood but wood united with fire:
in like manner also the bread of the communion is not plain bread but
bread united with divinity. But a body s which is united with divinity
is not one nature, but has one nature belonging to the body and another
belonging to the divinity that is united to it, so that the compound is
not one nature but two.
With bread and wine Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God,
received Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the Gentiles.
That table pre-imaged this mystical table, just as that priest was a
type and image of Christ, the true high-priest. For thou art a
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. Of this bread the
show-bread was an image. This surely is that pure and bloodless
sacrifice which the Lord through the prophet said is offered to Him
from the rising to the setting of the sun.
The body and blood of Christ are making for the support of our soul
and body, without being consumed or suffering corruption, not making
for the draught (God forbid!) but for our being and preservation, a
protection against all kinds of injury, a purging from all
uncleanness: should one receive base gold, they purify it by the
critical burning lest in the future we be condemned with this world.
They purify from diseases and all kinds of calamities; according to
the words of the divine Apostles, For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of
the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. This too
is what he says, So that he that partaketh of the body and blood of
Christ unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. Being
purified by this, we are united to the body of Christ and to His
Spirit and become the body of Christ.
This bread is the first-fruits of the future bread which is
epio?sios, i.e. necessary for existence.
For the word epio?sion signifies either the
future, that is Him Who is for a future age, or else Him of Whom
we partake for the preservation of our essence. Whether then it is in
this sense or that, it is fitting to speak so of the Lord's body.
For the Lord's flesh is life-giving spirit because it was conceived
of the life-giving Spirit. For what is born of the Spirit is
spirit. But I do not say this to take away the nature of the body,
but I wish to make clear its life-giving and divine power.
But if some persons called the bread and the wine antitypes of the body
and blood of the Lord, as did the divinely inspired Basil, they said
so not after the consecration but before the consecration, so calling
the offering itself.
Participation is spoken of; for through it we partake of the divinity
of Jesus. Communion, too, is spoken of, and it is an actual
communion, because through it we have communion with Christ and share
in His flesh and His divinity: yea, we have communion and are united
with one another through it. For since we partake of one bread, we
all become one body of Christ and one blood, and members one of
another, being of one body with Christ.
With all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive
communion from or grant it to heretics; Give not that which is holy
unto the dogs, saith the Lord, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine, lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation.
For if trojan is in truth with Christ and with one another, we are
assuredly voluntarily united also with all those who partake with us.
For this union is effected voluntarily and not against our
inclination. For we are all one body because we partake of the one
bread, as the divine Apostle says.
Further, antitypes of future things are spoken of, not as though they
were not in reality Christ's body and blood, but that now through
them we partake of Christ's divinity, while then we shall partake
mentally through the vision alone.
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