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Homilies

St Photius the Great, tr. Mango, 1958

11. Palm Sunday

VIII

Homily of Photius, The Most-Blessed Patriarch, Archbishop of Constantinople, on Palm Sunday and Lazarus¹

When, as the children cry out, “Hosanna in the highest,”² the Church sounds her clarion call, and I draw into my ears that splendid and most God-becoming sound, I am altogether transported with zeal (for joy is a mighty thing to renew nature, and desire knows not how to wait when time bids); and I go about Bethany in the course of godly thought,³ and I clap my hands and dance, and leaping I join the troop of infants,⁴ and fashion with them a victorious anthem for the Lord: “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” And when again I behold them bearing branches, and going forth to meet Christ, forming choirs and spreading out their garments, I rejoice likewise in that I see children with unconstrained tongue and deed proclaim the King, and at that moment especially it comes upon me to deplore and hate the perversity of the Jews, inasmuch as children are grateful, while their fathers think of murder, and babes speak of God, while old men fight against God. Then do I see even the wisdom of the scribes collapsing; for in their fancy and assumed knowledge they have been lifted to an evil eminence, and have fallen away from the true and verily divine wisdom. Then do I also bewail the hardness of heart of the teachers themselves; for, though presuming to teach others, they have not even been deemed worthy of joining the choirs of their pupils because of the wilful wickedness into which they had been swept, and while professing to cure diseases of the soul in others, they themselves have been taken sick with the lowest ignorance, having miserably inflamed their whole soul with the disease of conceit, and in truth ailing a double ailment, inasmuch as they are in a low state, and, being as they are in the last extremity, they are not even aware of their sickness. For if they had accepted the physician who was at hand and present with them, and had availed themselves (an easy matter and free of cost) of the cleansing waters, while the streams of healing were gushing for their benefit,⁵ they could have washed off thereby the stains of their disease. But having of their own free will shut the eyes of their senses and of their very understanding, to their own detriment, they turned away from their treatment, and did not wish to recognize their Saviour and Creator. “For had they known Him,” as the divine Paul testifies, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”⁶ They did not know Him, they did not even want to recognize Him. And where the will is recalcitrant, both the judgment falls prey to the disease which has seized it, and the freedom of the mind is enslaved and cannot mount to the noble apprehension of truth. They did not know Him who is escorted by angels, and who is proclaimed by prophets. They did not know Him who sits on the right hand of the Father, and is carried in a virgin’s arms, and sustains everything with a word alone. They did not know Him who is borne on the cherubic throne, yet is upheld by a beast of burden, who is hymned by children, yet comes willingly to suffer. They did not know Him; they did not even choose to understand, but professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,⁷ and in their reasonings their foolish heart was darkened.⁸ This the prophet also said, foreseeing from afar, “They shall indeed hear, but they shall not understand; they shall indeed see,⁹ but they shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have been closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”¹⁰

Tell me then, O Jew, why dost thou boast of the prophets, but blasphemest against Him who has been prophesied? Why dost thou adhere to the letter, but disregardest the spirit of the writings? Why dost thou gather the gleanings of the Law, but leavest it to others to reap its fruit? Why watchest thou vainly in the quarries of the letter, but dost not dig up, neither dost thou treasure away the gold that lies concealed in them? Others have diligently plucked the flowers from the meadows of the Law and, brilliantly crowned, surround with their choirs the bridal-chamber of the Church, and they exude the fragrance of the piety which is of Grace; while thou hast wasted away thine eyes on the petals of the leaves, and thou art completely bent on them, and neither art thou distressed by their harshness, nor dost thou transfer thy gaze to the contemplation of the flowers. Thou dwellest miserably on the oystershell which encases the pearl,¹¹ while Christ’s people neatly open it and extract therefrom the truly white glow of truth. Thou sittest with long labour by the bridal-chamber, but thou dost not receive the bridegroom who has come, seized as thou art by love of harlotry. Verily is your synagogue husbandless, brooding alone senselessly on bare words. Verily is this people foolish and unwise;¹² for, having been placed in the front ranks of the Law, they have not been enrolled even in the last place as regards the knowledge of God. Hast thou not heard King David singing under divine afflatus, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest put down the enemy and avenger?”¹³ Dost thou not believe him as a prophet? Then believe him as a kinsman, if thou hast not repudiated the kinship in words too: for it has long been evident that in deeds thou hast abandoned it. Dost thou despise him as a shepherd? Then fear him as a king. For he knows how to threaten in kingly fashion when he perceives those who take no heed of him or treat him insolently, and he lays on with his gleaming sword,¹⁴ and rules with a rod of iron,¹⁵ and dashes to pieces as potter’s vessels¹⁶ those who rely on the rottenness of their hearts. Repeat then with him in a loud voice, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise.” The Saviour has come for thy vindication; for thy vindication is He perfecting the praise of babes. Why dost thou begrudge thyself thine own salvation? Why art thou so mean in requiting an act of grace, unless this too, though easy, is yet above the powers of thy perversity? Disbelievest thou what thou hast heard? Believe what thou seest. Even to the prophet Isaiah dost thou refuse compliance, who cries out saying, “Stammering tongues shall learn to speak peace?”¹⁷ Are not stammering tongues clearly proclaiming the truth? Have not babes learnt to praise peace? For Christ is our peace Who hath broken down the middle wall of enmity,¹⁸ and through Him we have been reconciled with our Father and Creator, from Whom we had wickedly parted ourselves in former times.¹⁹ Does not Zechariah too, seized by God, foretell the Grace to Sion: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, proclaim it, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy king is coming to thee, just and a Saviour; he is meek, and riding on a beast of burden and the foal of an ass?”²⁰ Hast thou not thine eyes to witness what has been prophesied? Those things which thou hast been hearing from the prophets, dost thou not see them standing before thee? Are things not concordant with the words? Is He not meek? Is He not just? Is He not a Saviour? Is He not riding on a beast of burden? Are not stammering tongues splendidly proclaiming peace? Are not children, with the wisdom of old men,²¹ bringing their gift of praise?

It is the children who bring their gift of praise so that the story may expose as unfounded any suspicion of insincerity, in the event that some deliberate evil-doer might say that the singers of praise offered their hymn to the Lord with some artifice and in order to curry favour.²² For the nature of babes knows not how to devise craftiness, nor is it subject to the disease of flattery, but just as the grace of the Spirit sounds in them, so do they proclaim the miracle. Children offer their gift of praise so that all may be taught in very deed²³ that the grace of the Mystery is comprehended not by those who have a curious turn of mind and are shamelessly inquisitive, but that the knowledge of piety is revealed to those who approach it with an unaffected mind and thoughts unused to evil. For if a man forces that which is above scrutiny to be subjected to scrutiny, instead of following the divine writings, he will grievously tear asunder those very rules of nature by which he is so elated, and will altogether forsake the laws of theology, which he is insulting, and will be driven afar from his laboriously-sought speculation. Children are offering their gift of praise so that they may both make public the transgression of their parents and inaugurate the believers’ knowledge of God. For what surpasses understanding and is incapable of being learned by the judgment of the mind requires a more divine inspiration, which, impinging upon pure and unaffected hearts, reveals through them the knowledge of truth to others. Thou, however, dost thou not even see Lazarus rising up from his tomb, the dead man coming to join the living, and reclining at the Lord’s table?²⁴ Thou loosest the swathings of the dead, but dost thou not loose thy unbelief? Thou rollest away the stone from the tomb, but dost thou not roll away envy from thy heart which causes a worse corruption in thee? Thou seest Hell at the Lord’s command give up the four-days-dead, yet dost thou arm thy prophet-slaying hands to kill both the resurrected and the Resurrector?

Oh, what folly! Oh, the incurable hardening of their thoughts! They have perverted their minds to such a degree of impiety, that whence they ought to have derived belief, they derive unbelief; for what they ought to give praise, they blaspheme; for what they ought to render glory and exult, they are ungrateful; what they ought to honour and pay homage to, they speak ill of and battle against God. Such a thing is madness! Such a thing is possession by conceit! For, intoxicating the mind with the error²⁵ of phantasies, it does not allow the eye of reason to peer through the murk that has poured all around it, and to gaze at the light of truth. Such is the disease of the pharisees and the scribes who, though they make much of the first seat at table, and puff themselves up at being called Rabbi, and boast of keeping the Law by broadening the borders of their garments,²⁶ take not the least heed of truth, or account piety for anything. Such is the sting of envy! Once it has pierced²⁷ the soul, it disables the whole man. For it destroys the power to be watchful, and ruins miserably the senses, through the use of which lies the road to knowledge, allowing one neither to comprehend the advantageous, nor to preserve what is heard by means of memory, nor even to see clearly what is presented to the sight.

As for us, my beloved ones, let us escape these soul-destroying diseases. Let us escape vainglory, through which the first of the incorporeal beings suffered the first fall. Let us escape envy, if for no other reason than that it saps its possessor, and distresses not at all, or very little, the envied one. Let us escape conceit and the striving for fame, through which the apprehension of truth is put to flight. Let us escape ingratitude and blasphemy, for these things threw the high priests and scribes into the pit of perdition; these things inflamed the high priests and scribes of the Jews to kill Christ; these things have shown the high priests and scribes more foolish than the babes. Let us not, therefore, imitate the ingratitude of the Jews, but let us emulate the gratefulness of the children; not the godlessness of the old men, but the godly speech of the babes; not the blindness of the envious, but the knowledge of God of those who sing praise; not the wickedness of those who thirst for blood, but the guilelessness of the infants. Let us too become like children. For, saith the Lord, “Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”²⁸ Let us become children in guilelessness, by not inserting anything wicked or deceitful in our soul, but by receiving and inscribing the pious faith in a soul entirely clean and freed from the marks of impiety,²⁹ that we may enter the kingdom of heaven. Let us bring branches of charity and fellow-love to the Lord, that we may enter the eternal joy of the righteous. Let us go forth to meet Him as He comes riding on a young ass, and is proclaiming the folly of the Jews, and is adopting the gentiles as His children. Let us go forth to meet Him spreading out our garments. How are we to spread them out? By spreading them under the poor; for He takes upon Himself the plight of the poor, and cries out, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”³⁰ Oh, what merciful and divine words! You are spreading out your garments under my feet, He says, when you clothe the poor; you are cherishing me when you release them from the bitter sting of the cold. Let us spread out our garments for Him, that we may be entitled to cry out with the children, “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”³¹ Blessed is He that cometh to spread out His arms on the cross, and to gather the gentiles unto Himself. Blessed is He that cometh to make Hell a prisoner, to release Adam from his bonds, and to raise him from his fall. Blessed is He that cometh to destroy the power of tyranny, and to bestow liberty on them that are sore distressed. Blessed is He that cometh to empty out the storehouses of Hell, and to fill the heavenly mansions with the throng of the saved. Blessed is He that cometh to offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sake,³² to expiate all our sins, and to reconcile us with the Father. Blessed is He that cometh to suppress death, to inaugurate our resurrection, to free us from servitude, and to bestow on us His adoption.

For it is Thine, Who art our Creator, to have given us existence and fashioned us out of nothing, and after we had fallen and been crushed, to have raised us again and restored us. It is part of Thy love of man to seek that which is gone astray,³³ and to convert from error,³⁴ and to make us worthy of our ancient inheritance. For we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture,³⁵ and all of us depend on Thee. And to Thee we send up praise and thanks, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the consubstantial, life-giving and all-powerful Trinity, now and for ever and ever. Amen.

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