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Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

Of the Prayers and Supplications before the Consecration

74. Ex. What you have said contents us about the holy General Councils. Let us now return to our subject. What is the meaning of the Air, waved over the precious gifts at the time when the holy Creed is recited, and why is this added, “Let us stand orderly, let us stand in fear,” and the rest?

C. This lifting aloft of the Air signifies the height of the doctrines of the orthodox Faith, set forth in the holy Creed: and the priests wave it with trembling, thus showing how we must with fear and trembling hear and love these things, and so at once is added, “Let us stand orderly, let us stand in fear.”¹

S. Germanus says that the Air is raised at this time and the Gifts are uncovered, as a type of the stone rolled away from the door of the sepulchre. “The Angel, he says, comes up in white array, rolling back the stone of the Tomb with his hand;” since the Air, as he said above, “stands and is spoken of for the stone, with which Joseph made the sepulchre sure.” And so the waving of the Air above the precious Gifts shows the great earthquake, which then took place. “And behold there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone from the door,” Matt. xxviii. 2.

Others interpret allegorically that the Air is thus shaken in the air as a symbol in fact of the unclean spirits, which either from’licentious self-love and boundless insolence as the Thomists teach,² or from spiritual extravagance, as the Scotists maintain, fell like lightning from their thrones, until when Michael supreme over the rest of the powers has said, “Let us stand in order, let us stand in fear,” at once that pernicious influence has ceased, the heavenly ranks are at peace, and because of the grace in which alone they were formed, they have been in a moment deemed worthy of the divine blessedness, waiting continually and sinlessly (such is the common interpretation of the Schoolmen) for one endless and unchanging glory.

And this reminder of the transgression and fall of Lucifer, at the reading of the holy Creed, is to the shame and confusion of Heresiarchs, who having no love for the Evangelic doctrines of the Faith have fallen away, thrice miserable! with all their followers into one general pit of the outer fire prepared for Lucifer himself and his angels. On the other hand the Orthodox and Faithful, bringing their reason into captivity to the obedience of the saving Articles of the Evangelic Faith and saying with the Archangel Michael, “Let us stand in order, let us stand in fear,” in peace far from schisms, far from presumptuous opinions, heresies and apostasies, hear at once in pledge of the coming everlasting happiness the words

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God even the Father, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with us all.

Here you observe that grace, love and communion are adduced as personal attributes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the same way as they were adduced by the blessed Paul in 2 Cor. xiii. 14. “The grace, he says, of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” And love is particularly assigned as the love of God even the Father, since (1 John iv. 9) “Herein was the love of God manifested, that God hath sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him: herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.” Grace is attributed to the Son, since also “the gift abounded to the many in grace which is by one Man Jesus Christ,” Rom. v. 15, and lower down, “Much more they which receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ,” Rom. v. 17. Communion is attributed to the Holy Ghost, since it is clear that He communicated or imparted Himself to the Apostles and the Saints, and it is this which is day by day invoked and communicates, imparts and operates in the Church what transcends reason and thought. “And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder like as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” Acts ii. 3, 4; and afterwards “I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh,” &c. In Holy Baptism this communion of the Holy Spirit is invoked. “Thou therefore, O King, lover of men, be present also now by the visitation of Thy Holy Spirit and sanctify this water.” At the chrism of the Holy Unction we introduce this communion of the All-holy Spirit: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, Amen.” And in the divine and holy Liturgy this beyond all else is sought. “O Lord, Who at the third hour didst send on Thy Apostles Thy All-holy Spirit, take Him not from us, O good Lord.”³ For “whatsoever the Holy Spirit shall touch, this has been hallowed and changed,” the great bishop of Jerusalem in his Catechetics did not cease to cry aloud about this.

Nevertheless properly love, grace, and communion are not personal attributes, but essential, and are of the nature of God; and just as the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord; the Father immortal, the Son immortal, the Holy Ghost immortal; the Father Almighty, the Son Almighty, the Holy Ghost Almighty: so the Father is love, the Son love, and the Holy Ghost love: the grace which is in the Father, the same is in the Son, and the same is in the Holy Ghost: and the communion of the Holy Ghost is none other than the common grace of the Supersubstantial Trinity, as we said at first. And as there is one Lord, not three Lords; one immortal, not three immortals; one God Almighty; so of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the love is one, the communion is one, the grace is one.⁴

And the Thessalonian comments concerning this moment in his Temple, how “the doors of the Sanctuary are again shut, since it is not meet for all to see the Mysteries, but only those concerned with the work of the Priesthood. And as there is order of degree among the Angels; for the foremost there share directly in the divine light; the second through the first, and the last through the intervening sets, as Dionysius the wise divine says; so also one may see in the church; for the Celebrant approaches directly to the holy Table; but the Priests and ministers approach through him; and through the priests and ministers the laity partake of the awful Rite and of the Holy Hymns. This people says not ‘Lord, have mercy,’ but ‘For many years, O Master,’ praying after a sort that he may prosper in his ministry, and may continue long in the priestly office. And the choirs on all hands sing, in reply to the High Priest, when he promises us through the Blessing (Eulogia,) God’s grace and love.”

Let us attend to offer the Holy Oblation in peace.

On every occasion the priest moves the people to peace; and according to Chrysostom, in 3rd Hom. to Col.: “When the President of the Church has entered, he says at once, Peace to all; when he gives the blessing, Peace to all; when he orders the salutation, Peace to all; when the Sacrifice is over, Peace to all; peace in the Churches, in the supplications, in the salutations, once, twice and thrice, and oftentimes he gives it.” And of a surety love is, as we said, the most substantial and inward sign of each Christian; and Christ had nothing else in His mouth than “Peace to you, Peace I leave to you, My peace I give to you,” (John xiv. 27), whence Nicolas Cabasilas observes how not only ought the holy offering to be in peace, but let this actually be a sacrifice and gift. “And we offer not only in peace, but offer peace itself as a gift and fresh sacrifice.”

Mercy of peace, sacrifice of praise.

“For we offer mercy,” says he, “and not sacrifice; but mercy is the fruit of firm and unalloyed peace,” so the same doctor pursues his comment. And Isidore of Pelusium, (Epist. i.) intends by peace not merely love and quietness, which we are bound to maintain among ourselves, but also the inseparable union with our Lord and God Himself, as we said. “Thou gavest us peace, O Lord, mutual concord. But grant us peace, indissoluble union with Thee, that being at peace with Thy Spirit, we may be indivisible from Thy love.” And this is what the people answer—

And with thy spirit.

Though other Doctors interpret this as not referring so much to the Holy Spirit, as to the Priest’s spirit or his soul which is called spirit and not soul at such like holy moments, as being the faculty which is quickened and divinized by the God-imitating rite of divinest sovereignty in the mysteries of Christ. The blessed Paul too calls the soul spirit. (2 Tim. iv. 22.) “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” And the great Chrysostom, 2 Cor. “In the most tremendous mysteries the Priest prays over the people, and the People pray over the priest; for the reply, ‘With thy spirit,’ is nothing else than this.”⁵

Let us lift up our hearts.

“Then the priest,” such is the comment of the blessed Germanus, “lifting up all to the Heavenly Jerusalem above, wherein our feet were standing before the Fall, even in thy courts, O Jerusalem, cries, Look to it; let us hold up our hearts, from things of earth let us raise our perceptions to the King above, and let us do what is pleasing to Him.” And all make answer, We lift them up unto the Lord. “Up with our hearts, let us set our affection on things above, not on things upon earth,” is the note of Symeon. “And they for their part agree and say they have their hearts there, where our treasure is, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of the Father.”

We lift them up unto the Lord.

“For in truth, at that awful moment,” teaches Cyril of Jerusalem, “we must lift up our heart to God, and not keep the heart below about the earth and earthly things. Earnestly, therefore, the priest enjoins at that time that all should forsake secular thoughts, home cares, and set the heart in heaven with the Lover of men. Then make answer, We lift them up unto the Lord, agreeing thereto by reason of what you confess. But let not such an one be present as to say with his mouth, We lift them up unto the Lord, but with his mind to keep his thoughts about secular concerns.”

Let us give thanks unto the Lord.

So having ascended with mind and heart into heaven, the priest moves the faithful to give thanks to God, the great Supplier and Giver of all good things. “Copying the first Priest” is the comment of Symeon of Thessalonica, “when He gave thanks to God and the Father, before He handed us the Mystery of the Communion, he too before the prayer of consecration, in which the holy gifts are dedicated, offers this thanksgiving unto God and the Father of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” And the people reply,

It is meet and right.

Consequently it is not the priest alone, but all the people that give thanks and send the service to God. “For neither does he alone give thanks,” is the comment of the great Chrysostom, 2 Cor. viii. 24, “but all the people too; for having first received their answer, and upon their agreeing that this is meetly and rightly done, then he begins the thanksgiving.”⁶ And thus “alone he utters mysteries to God alone,” as S. Germanus says. And Cyril of Jerusalem, “We are really bound to give thanks, because, unworthy as we are, He called us unto so great grace; because, whilst we were enemies, He reconciled us: because He vouchsafed unto us the spirit of adoption. Thereupon say, It is meet and right. For we, in giving thanks, do what is meet and right: though He for His part did not what was right, but beyond what was right, in that He benefited us, and vouchsafed us so great boons.” Here S. Clement, in the inspired promises of the Apostolic Constitutions, introduces a prayer truly holy and of deep compunction, which as a flood brimming with the great things of God, and full of all theological teaching, I think it an evident sin to pass in silence.

It is verily meet and right before all things to celebrate Thee Who art truly God, Who art before creation. From Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named; Who alone art unbegotten, without beginning, supreme, and above creation; Who art ever the same and unchanging; from Whom are all things, as though from some starting line they came into existence. For Thou art knowledge without beginning, eternal vision, ungenerated hearing, untaught wisdom, foremost in nature and alone in essence, and above all reckoning, Who broughtest all out of nothing into being through Thy only-begotten Son; having begotten Him before all ages immediately by Thy sole will and power and goodness, the only-begotten Son, God the Word, the living Wisdom, first-born of all creation, the Angel of Thy great counsel, Thy High Priest, the King and Lord of all nature spiritual and visible, Who is before all, through Whom are all things. For Thou, O God eternal, through Him hast made all, and through Him makest the universe worthy of due providence. For by Whom Thou gavest existence, by Him Thou didst give well-being, Thou the God and Father of Thy only-begotten Son; Who through Him didst before all make the Cherubim and Seraphim, worlds and hosts, powers and authorities, principalities and thrones, Archangels and Angels, and thereafter didst make through Him this visible world and all that is therein. For Thou didst set the heaven as a vault, and spread it out as a curtain, and found the earth on nothing by pure will; Who didst establish the firmament and arrange night and day; Who didst bring forth light from Thy treasures, and in the array thereof didst bring in darkness to give rest to the animals that move in the world; Who didst ordain the sun in heaven to govern the day, and the moon to govern the night, and didst inscribe the choir of the stars in heaven for the praise of Thy majesty; Who didst make water for drink and cleansing; air of life for breathing and utterance of sound by the tongue smiting the air, and for hearing thereby made efficient as admitting the perception of the speech which falls upon it; Who madest fire for comfort in darkness, to relieve our needs, that we may be warmed and lighted thereby; Who didst divide the great sea from the land, and make the one navigable, the other to be trodden by the feet; and didst make the one abound with living things small and great, and fill the other with tame and wild, and deck it with various plants, and crown it with herbs, and adorn it with flowers, and enrich it with seeds; Who didst gather the abyss together and enclose it in a vast vessel, making oceans stored with salt water in heaps, and didst fence it in with gates of finest sand; Who by winds dost now raise up its crests to the height of mountains, now lay it low like a plain; at one time madden it with a storm, at another smooth it with a calm so as to be easy for shipgoing mariners to journey over; Who with rivers didst gird in the world Thou madest by Christ, and flood it with torrents, and drench it with perpetual fountains, and with mountains hem it in to be an immovable most firm seat of earth. For Thou didst replenish Thy world, and adorn it with fragrant and healing herbs, with many diverse animals, strong and weak, for food and labour, tame and wild, with hissings of creeping things, cries of various fowls, revolutions of years, numbering of months and days, with order of seasons, with courses of clouds big with rain, for the seeds of fruit, the support of animals, the system of winds that blow when they are commanded by Thee, for the multitude of trees and plants. And not only didst Thou create the world, but didst make man therein the citizen of the world, manifesting him as an orderly world. For Thou saidst in Thy wisdom, Let Us make man after our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the heaven: wherefore also Thou hast made him of an immortal soul and separable body, the one out of that which is not, the other out of the four elements; and hast given him in soul reasonable discernment, distinction between piety and impiety, observance of just and unjust, and in body gavest the perception of the five senses, and the power of locomotion. For Thou, O God Almighty, through Christ didst plant Paradise in Eden eastward, with array of all kinds of trees for food, and introduce him therein as in a wealthy home; and in making him hast given him a law innate, that at home and in himself he may have the seeds of the knowledge of God. And having brought him into the Paradise of delight, Thou grantedst him authority over all to partake thereof, and forbadest the tasting of one only thing in hope of what was better, that if he should keep the commandment he might receive immortality as reward thereof; but when he neglected the commandment, and by deceit of the serpent and advice of the woman tasted the forbidden fruit, Thou didst justly expel him from Paradise, only in Thy goodness didst not overlook him utterly perishing; for he was Thy handiwork; but subjecting to him the creation, Thou hast given him by his proper sweat and toil to provide himself with food, all things being made to grow and increase and ripen by Thee: and in time, having for a short while made him sleep, Thou calledst him with an oath to regeneration; having abolished the sentence of death, Thou promisedst life by resurrection. And not so only, but having poured forth his offspring to a countless multitude, such as waited for Thee Thou didst glorify, but those who revolted from Thee Thou didst punish. And Abel’s sacrifice Thou acceptedst as of a pious worshipper, but from Cain the brother-slayer’s gift Thou didst turn away, as of one under a curse; and further, Seth and Enos Thou didst accept and Enoch didst translate. For Thou art the Creator and supplier of need, and giver of laws, and recompenser of those who keep them, and punisher of such as transgress them. Who broughtest the great deluge on the world for the multitude of the impious, and deliveredst righteous Noah from the deluge in an ark with eight souls, that there should be an end of transgressors, but a beginning of those who should survive; Who didst kindle the terrible fire over the Sodomite five cities, and didst convert a fruitful land into a salt marsh for the wickedness of its inhabitants, and didst snatch just Lot out of the burning. Thou didst deliver Abraham from the impiety of his ancestors, and appoint him heir of the world, and show him Thy Christ; Who foreordainedst Melchisedec as High Priest of religion; Who didst exhibit Thy patient servant Job as conqueror of the serpent, author of mischief; Who madest Isaac the son of promise; Who madest Jacob the father of twelve sons, and pouredst out his progeny like a multitude, and broughtest him into Egypt with threescore and fifteen souls. Thou, Lord, didst not overlook Joseph, but gavest him as reward for his temperance for Thy sake the sovereignty of Egypt. Thou, Lord, didst not overlook the Hebrews evil entreated by the Egyptians because of the promises made to their fathers, but deliveredst them when Thou hadst punished the Egyptians. But when men had corrupted the natural law, and sometimes deemed creation self-directed, at others honoured it more than they ought, and made it equal with Thee the God of all, Thou didst not suffer them to be deceived, but having pointed out Thy holy servant Moses, hast through him given the written law to help the natural law, and didst show creation to be Thy work, and didst banish the error of many gods: Aaron and his sons Thou glorifiedst with the honour of priesthood. When the Hebrews sinned Thou didst chasten them; when they turned back, Thou didst receive them: the Egyptians Thou didst punish with ten plagues: Thou dividedst the sea, and madest Israel to go through; when the Egyptians pursued after them Thou didst overwhelm and destroy them: with wood Thou didst sweeten the bitter water, madest water gush out of the flinty rock, didst rain down manna as food from heaven, quails out of the air. Thou gavest a pillar of fire by night for light, and a pillar of cloud by day for shadow from the heat; Thou appointedst Joshua as captain, and overthrewest by him seven nations of Canaanites; Thou didst cut Jordan in twain, driedst up the rivers of Etham, pulledst down walls without rams or the hand of man; for all to Thee be glory, O Master Almighty; Thee the countless hosts adore of Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Authorities, Powers, eternal armies; the Cherubim and six-winged Seraphim, with twain covering their feet, with twain their heads, with twain flying, and saying with thousand thousands of Archangels, and ten thousand myriads of Angels crying ceaselessly and without pause of silence

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