Sermon 223A

SERMON 223/A

About the Beginning of Genesis, on the Night of Easter Vigil

Through the Word, God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.

We have heard many divine readings, which neither we can match in our speech, nor can you grasp, even if we were able. Therefore, as much as the Lord grants, we wish to speak to your Charity of that very beginning of the Scriptures where, when it was read, we heard that in the beginning God made heaven and earth. Attend and consider who made it. But I know, you cannot consider who made it; consider what he made and praise him who made it. In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Behold those things that are made are evident, they are seen, they delight. The work is evident, the maker is hidden; because both what is seen is evident, and from where it is loved is hidden. When therefore we see the world, and love God, it is surely better that from where we love than from where we see. We see with our eyes, we love with our mind. Therefore, let us prefer the mind to the eyes, because better is he whom we love from within than his work, which we see from without. Let us inquire therefore, if it pleases, when God made so great a mass, with what instruments he made it. The instrument of the maker is the word of the commander. Why are you astonished? It is the work of the Omnipotent. Therefore, if you ask who made it, God made it; if you ask what he made, he made heaven and earth; if you ask by what means he made it, he made it by the Word, which he did not make. The Word, by which heaven and earth were made, the Word itself was not made. For if it was made, by what was it made? All things were made through him. If whatever was made was made through the Word, without a doubt the Word was not made, through which all things were made. In short, the narrator of the works, servant of God Moses, says: In the beginning, he says, God made heaven and earth. He made heaven and earth in the beginning. By what did he make it? By the Word. Did he also make the Word? No: but what? In the beginning was the Word. Already it was, through which he made; therefore, that which was not, he made. We can understand, and rightly understand, that heaven and earth was made in the only-begotten Word. For by what they were made, in it they were made. This can also be understood as the beginning, in which God made heaven and earth. For the Word itself is also the Wisdom of God, to which it is said: You have made all things in wisdom. If in wisdom God made all things, and his only-begotten Son is undoubtedly the Wisdom of God, let us not doubt that those things were made in the Son, which we have learned were made through the Son. For indeed the Son himself is the beginning. For inquiring Jews indeed and saying: Who are you? he answered: The beginning. Behold, in the beginning God made heaven and earth.

The Word which was with God became visible through the vehicle of flesh.

Now indeed the rest, whether they are arranged and disposed, or adorned, or when those things which were not made in heaven and on earth are created, God says, and they come to be. And God said, let it be, and it was done. And thus for each of the works: he said, and it was done. He himself spoke, and they were made. With what tongue did he speak? That someone might hear, he spoke? Let us not always be nourished with milk: raise your minds with us to solid food. Let no one think of God as a body, let no one think of God as a man, let no one think of God as an angel; although he deigned to appear thus to the fathers, not through his own substance, but through his created being subjected to him; for otherwise he, being invisible, would not appear to human eyes. Let us seek what is better in us, and from there try to reach what is best of all. What is better in us is the mind; what is best of all is God. Why seek a better thing from a worse thing? In you, the body is inferior to the mind; in things there is nothing better than God. Raise what is better in you, so that you may reach, if you are able, Him who is better than all. For I too, when I speak, I speak to minds. I see indeed visible faces, and I myself, visible in body, but through what I see, I address what I do not see. Internally I carry the word conceived in my heart, and I want it to appear in your ears what I conceived in my heart; I want to tell you what is inside, to bring forth to you what is hidden: I seek how it may reach your mind. First, I approach, as if to the door of your mind, your ears; and since the word I conceived in my heart is invisible, I cannot bring it to you, I provide it with a vehicle, the sound. Look, the word is hidden, the sound is evident; I place the hidden upon the evident, and I reach the listener; and thus the word goes out from me, comes to you, and does not depart from me. So then, if it is permitted to compare great with small, the lowest with the highest, human with divine, God did this also. The Word was hidden with the Father: that it might come to us, it took up as it were a vehicle, took on flesh; it proceeded to us, and did not depart from the Father; but before his incarnation, before Adam himself, the father of the human race, before heaven and earth and all things in them, in the beginning was the Word, and in the beginning, God made heaven and earth.

To know God, it is necessary to transcend the mutability of the soul.

But God made the earth before it was adorned, before its appearance was revealed. It was invisible and unformed, and darkness was upon the abyss. There was darkness where there was no light, for light had not yet been made. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and He was the Creator, not separated from the Father and the only-begotten Word. For behold, if we carefully consider, the Trinity is suggested to us. Where it is said: "In the beginning," it is understood of the Father and the Son: in the beginning, God the Father [created] through the Son. The Spirit remains, to complete the Trinity: the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said. To whom did God speak? Before the creature was made, was there someone to hear? Yes, there was, He says. I ask, who? The Son Himself. So God spoke to the Son. With what word did He speak? If indeed the Son already existed, as no Christian doubts, then undoubtedly this too existed. The Son was the Word, and to the Word the Father was speaking. So were words passing between God and the Word? By no means: brothers, remove the impediments of carnal thought; think invisibly about invisible things, do not let bodily likenesses move before the eyes of your mind. Transcend whatever is perceived in you: transcend whatever is not even seen in you; for the body is perceived, the soul is not perceived, but it is nonetheless changed. Now it wills, now it does not will; now it knows, now it does not know; now it remembers, now it forgets; now it progresses, now it diminishes. This is not God; this nature is not God, the soul is not a part of the substance of God. Because whatever God is, it is an immutable good, an incorruptible good. Although God is invisible, the soul is invisible, but the soul is changeable, God is immutable. Therefore, transcend not only what is perceived in you but also that which is changed in you. Transcend everything, transcend yourself.

Just as the soul of a man, the invisible God is revealed in His works.

A certain lover of invisible goodness, a certain lover of invisible eternity, says in his sighs and groans of his love: My tears have become my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? How are not truly the groans of the lover his bread by tears, so that somehow he feeds on them as if from the pleasure of food, and weeps willingly, as long as he does not see what he loves, when it is said to him daily: Where is your God? If I say to a pagan: Where is your God? he will show me idols. If I break the idol, he will show a mountain, he will show a tree, he will show a worthless stone from the river; for what he has taken from many stones, and placed in a more honored place, and bowed down and worshiped, this is his god. Look, he declares, pointing his finger, behold my god. When I mock the stone, when I take it away, when I break it, when I throw it away, when I despise it, he points his finger to the sun, to the moon, he points to any star; he calls this one Saturn, that one Mercury, that one Jupiter, that one Venus. Whatever he wishes, to wherever he points his finger, he answers me: Behold my god. And because I see the sun, and I cannot break it, I cannot bring down the stars, I cannot overthrow the heaven, as if he seems superior to himself by showing visible things, and extending his finger to whatever he wishes, and saying: Behold my god. And he turns to me saying: Where is your God? When I hear: Where is your God? I have nothing to show to the eyes, I find blind barking minds; to these eyes which have it from where to see, I have nothing to show. What I truly have to show, he does not have eyes from where to see. I wish to weep, as if feeding on bread from tears. For my God is invisible; the one who speaks to me requires visible things, when he says: Where is your God? But in order to reach my God, as it is said in the same Psalm: I have considered these things, and I poured out my soul over me. My God is not below my soul, but above my soul. Whence do I reach what is above my soul, unless I pour out my soul over me? And yet to this insolent one, requiring visible things, showing visible things, exulting in visible things, with the help of my God, I will try to respond. Certainly you say to me: Where is your God? I answer you: Where are you yourself? I answer, I say, I think not importunately. You asked where God is, but I ask where is my questioner himself. He will say: Behold where I am; you see me, I am speaking to you. And I to him: I am seeking my questioner: I see his face, I see his body, I hear his voice, I observe his tongue; I seek him who directs his eyes at me, who moves his tongue, who emits his voice, who desires to know by questioning. All this, about which I speak, is the soul. Therefore, I will not deal with you any longer. You say: Show me your God; I say: Show me your soul. You labor, you are troubled, you hesitate, when I say: Show me your soul; I know that you cannot. Why cannot you? Because your soul is invisible. And yet it is better in you than your body; but my God is better than your soul. How then shall I show my God, when you do not show me your soul, of which I show a better God than your soul? Behold, if you say to me: Know my soul from its work; because I direct my eyes to see, my ears to hear, I move my tongue to speak, I produce my voice to sound, from this understand and know my soul; you see that you cannot show it, but you command me to know it from its work. Behold, I also will show you my God from His works. Nor will I go further, nor perhaps send your unbelief to those things which you do not understand. I do not recount so the works of my God: He made invisible things, He made visible things, that is, heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them. I do not send you through many: I return to you yourself. You certainly live: you have a body, you have a soul; the body is visible, the soul is invisible; the body a dwelling place, the soul the dweller; the body a vehicle, the soul using the vehicle; the body, as it were, the vehicle to be guided, the soul the charioteer of your body. Behold, your senses are manifest, as doors in your body, through which something is announced to the inner soul dwelling: the eyes, ears, smell, taste, touch, arranged members. What that thing inside, whence you think, whence you enliven these things? All this, which you marvel at in yourself, He who made it, He is my God.

It is explained: I am who I am.

Therefore, my brothers, if I have met your minds, if I have met your inner men with some fitting conversation, as I could, if I have reached to those who dwell within clay houses, that is, to your souls inhabiting your bodies, speaking to them, do not conjecture divine things from what you know. God surpasses all things, heaven and earth. Do not put before your eyes, as if some great craftsman were assembling, arranging, contriving, turning, or shaping something; or certainly as if an emperor were sitting in a royal, bright, adorned chair, creating by commanding. Break the idols in your hearts; consider what was said to Moses when he inquired the name of God: "I am who I am." Compared to Him, whatever else exists, does not exist. What truly is, does not know any change. Everything that changes and flows, and ceaselessly changes in some time, was and will be; in it, you do not comprehend existence. But God does not have 'was' and 'will be.' For what was, no longer is; what will be, is not yet; and that which comes so that it passes away, will be so that it is not. Think, if you can, "I am who I am." Do not be thrown around by desires, nor be agitated by voluntary and temporal thoughts. Stand at "is," stand by "itself is." Where are you going? Stand, so you may also be. But when do we hold our fleeting thoughts, and affix them to what remains? When can we? Therefore, God has taken pity; and He who is, and He who said, "This you will tell the Israelites: 'He who is' sent me to you," expresses thereafter the name of His mercy after declaring the name of His substance. What is the name of His substance? "I am who I am." You will say to the Israelites: "He who is sent me to you." But Moses was a man, and he was among those things which, compared to Him, do not exist; he was on earth, in the flesh; and in that flesh, there was a soul, naturally changeable, under the burden of human fragility. For how would he comprehend what was said: "I am who I am"? Indeed, through what appeared to his eyes, He who was unseen, spoke to him, and used Moses, who was seen, as an instrument while God remained hidden. For what Moses saw was not the whole God; because neither [do you] fully capture in my audible voice that I am a man. I have a voice in my heart that does not sound out; the sound passes, the word remains. Thus, when God spoke to a man, the invisible one, through what was visible, spoke, eternal things through temporal things, unchangeable through fragile things, when He said: "I am who I am," and "You will say to the Israelites: 'He who is sent me to you,'" as if Moses could not comprehend what "I am who I am" means, and "He who is sent me to you," or if he did comprehend, we who read it cannot comprehend, subsequently, after the name of His substance, He spoke the name of His mercy. As if He said to Moses: "What I have said, 'I am who I am,' you do not understand; your heart does not remain steadfast, you are not unchangeable with me, nor is your mind immutable. You have heard what I am; hear what you can grasp, hear what you can hope for. God spoke again to Moses: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." You cannot grasp the name of My substance: take hold of the name of My mercy. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But what I am is eternal: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are certainly eternal, but I do not say eternal, but made eternal by Him. Indeed, the Lord Himself convinced the Sadducees criticizing Him, who denied the resurrection, by giving them the testimony of holy Scripture: "Read what the Lord said in the bush to Moses: 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all of them are alive." Therefore, also here God did not add, when He said: "I am who I am," "This is My name forever." For no one doubts that what is, is because it is eternal; but when He said: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," He added: "This is My name forever." As if He said: "Why are you afraid of the mortality of the human race? Why are you greatly startled, lest, when you have died, you will no longer be? This is My name forever." The name cannot be eternal, "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," unless Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob themselves live forever.

Turned to the Lord and prayer.

May the power of His mercy strengthen our hearts in His truth, and may it also strengthen and calm our souls; may His grace abound upon us, and may He have mercy on us, and take away scandals from us, from His Church, and from all our dear ones, and may He make us pleasing to Himself by His power and the abundance of His mercy upon us forever. Through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with Him and the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.