If
a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears
good fruit (cf. Mt. 7:17; Lk. 6:44), then is not the
Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal
Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good,
whether in this world or the world above? Therefore,
the coeternal and identical Image of goodness,
Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the
preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His
unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put
on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our
nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades,
so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to
the heights of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to
assume a flesh that was both new and ours, that He
might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He finds
a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the
supplier of Her own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin
now hymned by us, and Whose miraculous Entrance into
the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now celebrate.
God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation
and reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just
from the crowd, but from the ranks of the chosen of all
ages, renowned for piety and understanding, and for
their God-pleasing words and deeds.
In the beginning, there was one who rose up against us:
the author of evil, the serpent, who dragged us into the
abyss. Many reasons impelled him to rise up against us,
and there are many ways by which he enslaved our nature:
envy, rivalry, hatred, injustice, treachery, slyness, etc.
In addition to all this,he also has within him the power
of bringing death, which he himself engendered, being the
first to fall away from true life.
The author of evil was jealous of Adam, when he saw him
being led from earth to Heaven, from which he was justly
cast down. Filled with envy, he pounced upon Adam with a
terrible ferocity, and even wished to clothe him with the
garb of death.Envy is not only the begetter of hatred, but
also of murder, which this truly man-hating serpent
brought about in us. For he wanted to be master over the
earth-born for the ruin of that which was created in the
image and likeness of God. Since he was not bold enough to
make a face to face attack, he resorted to cunning and
deceit. This truly terrible and malicious plotter
pretended to be a friend and useful adviser by assuming
the physical form of a serpent, and stealthily took their
position. By his God-opposing advice, he instills in man
his own death-bearing power, like a venomous poison.
If Adam had been sufficiently strong to keep the divine
commandment, then he would have shown himself the
vanquisher of his enemy, and withstood his deathly attack.
But since he voluntarily gave in to sin, he was defeated
and was made a sinner. Since he is the root of our race,
he has produced us as death-bearing shoots. So, it was
necessary for us, if he were to fight back against his
defeat and to claim victory, to rid himself of the
death-bearing venomous poison in his soul and body, and to
absorb life, eternal and indestructible life.
It was necessary for us to have a new root for our race, a
new Adam, not just one Who would be sinless and
invincible, but one Who also would be able to forgive sins
and set free from punishment those subject to it. And not
only would He have life in Himself, but also the capacity
to restore to life, so that He could grant to those who
cleave to Him and are related to Him by race both life and
the forgiveness of their sins, restoring to life not only
those who came after Him, but also those who already had
died before Him. Therefore, St. Paul, that great trumpet
of the Holy Spirit, exclaims, The first man Adam was
made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).
Except for God, there is no one who is without sin, or
life-creating, or able to remit sin. Therefore, the new
Adam must be not only Man, but also God. He is at the same
time life, wisdom, truth, love, and mercy, and every other
good thing, so that He might renew the old Adam and
restore him to life through mercy, wisdom and
righteousness. These are the opposites of the things which
the author of evil used to bring about our aging and
death.
As the slayer of mankind raised himself against us with
envy and hatred, so the Source of life was lifted up [on
the Cross] because of His immeasurable goodness and love
for mankind. He intensely desired the salvation of His
creature, i.e., that His creature would be restored by
Himself. In contrast to this, the author of evil wanted to
bring God's creature to ruin, and thereby put mankind
under his own power, and tyrannically to afflict us. And
just as he achieved the conquest and the fall of mankind
by means of injustice and cunning, by deceit and his
trickery, so has the Liberator brought about the defeat of
the author of evil, and the restoration of His own
creature with truth, justice and wisdom.
It was a deed of perfect justice that our nature, which
was voluntarily enslaved and struck down, should again
enter the struggle for victory and cast off its voluntary
enslavement. Therefore, God deigned to receive our nature
from us, hypostatically uniting with it in a marvellous
way. But it was impossible to unite that Most High
Nature,Whose purity is incomprehensible for human reason,
to a sinful nature before it had been purified. Therefore,
for the conception and birth of the Bestower of purity, a
perfectly spotless and Most Pure Virgin was required.
Today we celebrate the memory of those things that
contributed, if only once, to the Incarnation. He Who is
God by nature, the Co-unoriginate and Coeternal Word and
Son of the Transcendent Father, becomes the Son of Man,
the Son of the Ever-Virgin. Jesus Christ the same
yesterday and today, and forever (Heb. 13:8),
immutable in His divinity and blameless in His humanity,
He alone, as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied,
Practiced no iniquity, nor deceit with His
lips (Is. 53: 9). He alone was not brought forth in
iniquity, nor was He conceived in sin, in contrast to what
the Prophet David says concerning himself and every other
man (Ps. 50/51: 5). Even in what He assumes, He is
perfectly pure and has no need to be cleansed Himself. But
for our sake, He accepted purification, suffering, death
and resurrection, that He might transmit them to us.
God is born of the spotless and Holy Virgin, or better to
say, of the Most Pure and All-Holy Virgin.
She is above every fleshly defilement, and even above
every impure thought. Her conceiving resulted not from
fleshly lust, but by the overshadowing of the Most Holy
Spirit. Such desire being utterly alien to Her, it is
through prayer and spiritual readiness that She declared
to the angel: Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it
unto Me according to thy word (Lk. 1:38), and
that She conceived and gave birth. So, in order to render
the Virgin worthy of this sublime purpose, God marked this
ever-virgin Daughter now praised by us, from before the
ages, and from eternity, choosing Her from out of His
elect.
Turn your attention then, to where this choice began. From
the sons of Adam God chose the wondrous Seth, who showed
himself a living heaven through his becoming behavior, and
through the beauty of his virtues. That is why he was
chosen, and from whom the Virgin would blossom as the
divinely fitting chariot of God. She was needed to give
birth and to summon the earth-born to heavenly sonship.
For this reason also all the lineage of Seth were called
sons of God, because from this
lineage a son of man would be born the Son of God. The
name Seth signifies a rising or resurrection, or more
specifically, it signifies the Lord, Who promises and
gives immortal life to all who believe in Him.
And how precisely exact is this parallel! Seth was born of
Eve, as she herself said, in place of Abel, whom Cain
killed through jealousy (cf. Gen. 4:25); and Christ, the
Son of the Virgin, was born for us in place of Adam, whom
the author of evil also killed through jealousy. But Seth
did not resurrect Abel, since he was only a foretype of
the resurrection. But our Lord Jesus Christ resurrected
Adam, since He is the very Life and the Resurrection of
the earth-born, for whose sake the descendants of Seth are
granted divine adoption through hope, and are called the
children of God. It was because of this hope that they
were called sons of God, as is evident from the one who
was first called so, the successor in the choice.This was
Enos, the son of Seth, who as Moses wrote, first hoped to
call on the Name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
In this manner, the choice of the future Mother of God,
beginning with the very sons of Adam and proceeding
through all the generations of time, through the
Providence of God, passes to the Prophet-king David and
the successors of his kingdom and lineage. When the chosen
time had come, then from the house and posterity of David,
Joachim and Anna are chosen by God. Though they were
childless, they were by their virtuous life and good
disposition the finest of all those descended from the
line of David.And when in prayer they besought God to
deliver them from their childlessness, and promised to
dedicate their child to God from its infancy. By God
Himself, the Mother of God was proclaimed and given to
them as a child, so that from such virtuous parents the
all-virtuous child would be raised.So in this manner,
chastity joined with prayer came to fruition by producing
the Mother of virginity, giving birth in the flesh to Him
Who was born of God the Father before the ages.
Now, when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had
been granted their wish, and that the divine promise to
them was realized in fact, then they on their part, as
true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow given to
God as soon as the child had been weaned from milk. They
have now led this truly sanctified child of God, now the
Mother of God, this Virgin into the Temple of God. And
She, being filled with Divine gifts even at such a tender
age, ... She, rather than others, determined what was
being done over Her. In Her manner She showed that She was
not so much presented into the Temple, but that She
Herself entered into the service of God of her own accord,
as if she had wings, striving towards this sacred and
divine love. She considered it desirable and fitting that
she should enter into the Temple and dwell in the Holy of
Holies.
Therefore, the High Priest, seeing that this child, more
than anyone else, had divine grace within Her, wished to
set Her within the Holy of Holies. He convinced everyone
present to welcome this, since God had advanced it and
approved it. Through His angel, God assisted the Virgin
and sent Her mystical food, with which She was
strengthened in nature, while in body She was brought to
maturity and was made purer and more exalted than the
angels, having the Heavenly spirits as servants. She was
led into the Holy of Holies not just once, but was
accepted by God to dwell there with Him during Her youth,
so that through Her, the Heavenly Abodes might be opened
and given for an eternal habitation to those who believe
in Her miraculous birthgiving.
So it is, and this is why She, from the beginning of time,
was chosen from among the chosen. She Who is manifest as
the Holy of Holies, Who has a body even purer than the
spirits purified by virtue, is capable of receiving ...
the Hypostatic Word of the Unoriginate Father.Today the
Ever-Virgin Mary, like a Treasure of God, is stored in the
Holy of Holies, so that in due time, (as it later came to
pass) She would serve for the enrichment of, and an
ornament for, all the world. Therefore, Christ God also
glorifies His Mother, both before birth, and also after
birth.
We who understand the salvation begun for our sake through
the Most Holy Virgin, give Her thanks and praise according
to our ability. And truly, if the grateful woman (of whom
the Gospel tells us), after hearing the saving words of
the Lord, blessed and thanked His Mother, raising her
voice above the din of the crowd and saying to Christ,
Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps Thou
hast sucked (Lk. 11:27), then we who have the
words of eternal life written out for us, and not only the
words, but also the miracles and the Passion, and the
raising of our nature from death, and its ascent from
earth to Heaven, and the promise of immortal life and
unfailing salvation, then how shall we not unceasingly
hymn and bless the Mother of the Author of our Salvation
and the Giver of Life, celebrating Her conception and
birth, and now Her Entry into the Holy of Holies?
Now, brethren, let us remove ourselves from earthly to
celestial things. Let us change our path from the flesh to
the spirit. Let us change our desire from temporal things
to those that endure. Let us scorn fleshly delights, which
serve as allurements for the soul and soon pass away. Let
us desire spiritual gifts, which remain undiminished. Let
us turn our reason and our attention from earthly concerns
and raise them to the inaccessible places of Heaven, to
the Holy of Holies, where the Mother of God now resides.
Therefore, in such manner our songs and prayers to Her
will gain entry, and thus through her mediation, we shall
be heirs of the everlasting blessings to come, through the
grace and love for mankind of Him Who was born of Her for
our sake, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory, honor
and worship, together with His Unoriginate Father and His
Coeternal and Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and unto
ages of ages. Amen.
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