The Oration at Tyre

And one of those of modest ability, who had composed a speech, came forward into the middle of the gathering. A great many pastors were present, as at a church assembly, listening in quiet and good order. Addressing himself directly to one who was in every way an excellent bishop and dear to God—through whose zeal the temple at Tyre, by far the most splendid in Phoenicia, had been lavishly rebuilt—he delivered the following speech. [a]

Friends of God, and priests clothed in the holy robe that reaches to the feet, in the heavenly crown of glory, in the divine anointing and in the priestly garment of the Holy Spirit; and you, new pride of God’s holy temple, honored by God with the wisdom of age, yet showing the costly works and deeds of a young and flourishing virtue—you to whom God himself, who holds the whole world in his embrace, has given the special honor of building and renewing his house on earth for Christ, his only Son and firstborn Word, and for his holy and God-befitting bride— [c] whether one would call you a new Bezalel, master builder of a divine tabernacle, or a Solomon, king of a new and far better Jerusalem, or a new Zerubbabel, who brought to the temple of God a glory far greater than the former— [d] and you too, nurslings of the sacred flock of Christ, home of good words, school of self-control, and solemn audience of godliness, dear to God: [e]

Long ago it was given to us to send up hymns and songs to God, when we learned by hearing the divine Scriptures read of God’s wonderful signs, and of the kindnesses the Lord’s marvels had shown to men, and we were taught to say: “God, we have heard with our ears; our fathers told us of the work you did in their days, in days of old.” [f] But now we no longer learn of the lofty arm and the heavenly right hand of our all-good God, the King of all, by hearsay or by report. We see with our own eyes, in deeds, so to speak, that what was handed down to memory long ago is faithful and true. So we may raise a second hymn of victory, and sing out plainly and say: “Just as we heard, so we have seen, in the city of the Lord of armies, in the city of our God.” [g]

And in what city, if not in this one, newly built and made by God? It is a “church of the living God, a pillar and foundation of the truth,” and of it another divine oracle brings this good news: “Glorious things have been spoken of you, city of God.” Since the all-good God has gathered us to it through the grace of his only Son, let every one of those who have been called sing, all but shouting aloud: “I was glad when they said to me, We will go into the house of the Lord.” “Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place of the tent of your glory.” [h] And not only one by one, but all together, with one spirit and one soul, let us honor him and cry out, saying: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, on his holy mountain.” For he is truly great, and great is his house—lofty and long, “more beautiful than the sons of men.” “Great is the Lord, who alone does wonders.” Great is he “who does great things past tracing out, glorious and extraordinary things beyond counting.” Great is he “who changes times and seasons, who removes kings and sets them up,” “who raises the poor from the ground and lifts the needy from the dung heap.” “He has brought rulers down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly from the earth; the hungry he has filled with good things, and the arms of the proud he has broken.” [i]

Not to the faithful only, but to unbelievers too, he has confirmed the record of the ancient stories—he who works miracles, who does great deeds, the Master of all, the Maker of the whole world, the Almighty, the all-good, the one and only God. To him let us sing the new song, supplying in our minds the words: “To him who alone does wonders, for his mercy endures forever; to him who struck great kings and killed mighty kings, for his mercy endures forever; for in our humiliation he remembered us, and ransomed us from our enemies.” [k] Let us never cease to praise the Father of the universe with these words. And let us always honor, with his name on our lips, the second cause of our blessings: the guide into the knowledge of God, the teacher of true godliness, the destroyer of the impious, the slayer of tyrants, the reformer of life, Jesus, the Savior of us who had been given up for lost. [m]

For he alone, as the one all-good Son of an all-good Father, in keeping with his Father’s love for mankind, very willingly put on the nature of us who lay fallen in corruption. Like the best of physicians, who for the sake of saving the sick “sees terrible things, touches what is loathsome, and reaps sorrows of his own from the misfortunes of others,” he saved us for himself from the very depths of death—us who were not only sick, or weighed down by terrible ulcers and wounds already rotting, but were even lying among the dead. For none other of those in heaven had strength enough to serve the salvation of so many without harm. [n] He alone, then, took hold of our grievous corruption; he alone bore our labors; he alone took on himself the penalties for our impieties. He took us up when we were not half dead but already wholly in graves and tombs, foul and stinking; and both of old and now, by his zeal for mankind, beyond the hope of anyone, even our own, he saves us and shares with us the Father’s good things in abundance—he who is the giver of life, the bringer of light, our great Physician and King and Lord, the Christ of God. Then, once for all, when he saw the whole human race buried in gloomy night and deep darkness through the deceit of accursed demons and the workings of God-hating spirits, by merely appearing he loosed the many-knotted cords of our impieties, as wax melts under the rays of his light.

But now, at such great grace and kindness, envy that hates the good and the demon that loves evil all but burst with rage, and marshaled all his death-dealing forces against us. At first, like a mad dog that gnashes its teeth at the stones thrown at it and turns on the lifeless missiles the fury it feels against those who drive it off, he leveled his savage madness at the stones of the houses of prayer and the lifeless material of the buildings, and made the churches desolate—or so he thought. Then he let out terrible hissings and his snake-like voices, now through the threats of impious tyrants, now through the blasphemous decrees of godless rulers. Besides this he vomited out his own death, and poisoned the souls he captured with his venomous, soul-destroying poisons, all but killing them with death-dealing sacrifices to dead idols; and he stirred up against us every beast in human shape and every kind of savagery. Then, once again from the beginning, the Angel of Great Counsel, God’s great Commander-in-chief, after the greatest soldiers of his kingdom had shown training enough through endurance and steadfastness in everything, suddenly appeared, and so blotted out his enemies and foes and brought them to nothing that they seemed never even to have had a name. [p] But his friends and his own he raised beyond glory in the sight of all—not only of men, but of the heavenly powers too, of sun and moon and stars, and of the whole heaven and world. So now, as never before, the supreme emperors, conscious of the honor they have received from him, spit in the faces of dead idols, trample on the lawless ordinances of demons, laugh at the ancient deceit handed down from their fathers, and acknowledge one God only, the common benefactor of all, themselves included. [q] They confess Christ, the Son of God, as King of the universe, and proclaim him Savior on monuments, inscribing in imperial letters, as an indelible memorial, his achievements and his victories over the impious in the middle of the city that rules over the earth. So Jesus Christ our Savior, alone of all who have ever been, is acknowledged even by the highest on earth, not as an ordinary king born among men, but is worshiped as the true Son of the God of the universe, and as God himself. [r]

And rightly so. For what king that ever lived attained such virtue as to fill the ears and tongues of all people on earth with his name? What king, having laid down such pious and wise laws, has made them strong enough to be read continually in the hearing of all people, from the ends of the earth to the farthest bounds of the whole inhabited world? Who has done away with the barbarous and savage customs of savage nations by his own gentle and most humane laws? Who, attacked by all for whole ages, has shown such superhuman virtue that he flourishes every day and stays young throughout his life? Who has founded a nation never heard of from the beginning of time, a nation not hidden in some corner of the earth but spread over all the earth under the sun? Who has so armed his soldiers with the weapons of godliness that their souls, harder than adamant, shine out in their contests with their opponents? What king has such power that he leads his army even after death, sets up trophies over his enemies, and fills every place, country and city, Greek and barbarian, with his royal houses and with the consecrated gifts of divine temples, like the beautiful ornaments and offerings of this very temple? These things are themselves truly majestic and great, worthy of amazement and wonder, and plain proofs of the kingship of our Savior. For now too “he himself spoke, and they came to be; he himself commanded, and they were created.” For what could stand against the nod of the King and Ruler of all, the Word of God himself? [t]

It would take a discourse of its own to examine and explain all this exactly; and so too to describe how great and of what kind the zeal of the workers is judged to be by him who is praised as God. He looks on the living temple that all of you make up, and surveys the house of living and steady stones, well and securely built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as the chief cornerstone. He was rejected not only by the builders of that ancient building which no longer stands, but also by the builders of the structure of the mass of mankind that still endures—evil architects of evil things. But the Father approved him both then and now, and made him the head of the corner of this our common church. [u] This living temple of the living God, built out of yourselves—the greatest and truly God-befitting sanctuary, I mean, whose innermost shrines are unseen by the many and are truly holy, a holy of holies—who, having looked upon it, would dare to describe it? Who could even peer inside its sacred enclosures, except the great High Priest of the universe alone, who alone is permitted to search out the secrets of every rational soul? But perhaps it is given to one other, one alone among his equals, to stand second after him: to this commander who presides over this army, whom the first and great High Priest himself has honored with the second place in this sanctuary. He is the shepherd of your divine flock, who received your people by the lot and judgment of the Father, as one whom the High Priest appointed his own attendant and interpreter—the new Aaron, or Melchizedek, made like the Son of God, who abides and is kept by him continually through the common prayers of us all. [x] To him alone, then, after the first and greatest High Priest, let it be granted—if not the first place, at least the second—to see and oversee the innermost state of your souls. By experience and length of time he has examined each of you exactly, and by his zeal and care he has settled you all in godly order and teaching; and he is better able than anyone to give an account worthy of the works he himself has accomplished with God’s power.

Of our first and great High Priest it is said: “Whatever he sees the Father doing, these things the Son also does likewise.” So this man too, looking with the pure eyes of the mind to him as his first teacher, and using whatever he sees him doing as archetypes and patterns, has fashioned images of them, as like them as possible. He falls in no way short of that Bezalel whom God himself “filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding” and with other skill and expert knowledge, and called to be the builder of the temple made after heavenly patterns given in symbols. [z] In the same way this man, bearing in his own soul the image of the whole Christ—the Word, the Wisdom, the Light—has built this magnificent temple of God Most High, resembling in its nature the pattern of the greater, as the visible resembles the invisible. It is impossible to say with what greatness of mind, with what rich and unsparing hand of thought, and with what eagerness on the part of all of you, who in the generosity of your contributions vied ambitiously not to fall behind him in the same purpose in any way. And this place—it deserves to be mentioned first of all—buried by the plots of our enemies under every kind of filthy rubbish, he did not overlook, nor did he give way to the wickedness of those who had caused it. He could have gone to another site—the city had countless others to offer—and found an easier task and freedom from trouble. Instead he first roused himself to the work, then strengthened the whole people with eagerness, gathered them all into one great band, and fought the first contest. For he thought that this church above all, which had been besieged by the enemy, which had suffered first and endured the same persecutions with us and before us, and which like a mother had been bereaved of her children, ought to share with us in the great generosity of the all-good God. [aa] For when the great Shepherd had driven off the wild beasts and the wolves and every cruel and savage kind, and, as the divine oracles say, “crushed the molars of the lions,” and saw fit to bring her children together again in the same place, he set up the fold of the flock again with perfect justice, “to put to shame the enemy and avenger,” and as a rebuke to the God-defying daring of the impious. [ab]

And now the haters of God are not—because they never were. After troubling and being troubled for a short time, they paid a penalty justice could not fault, and brought themselves, their friends and their households to utter ruin. So the prophecies inscribed long ago on sacred tablets have been acknowledged as true by the facts. In them the divine word speaks truly on other matters, and also declares this about them: “The sinners drew the sword, they bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy, to slaughter the upright in heart. Let their sword enter their own hearts, and let their bows be broken.” And again: “Their memory perished with a crash,” and “their name has been blotted out forever and ever.” For when they too were in trouble, “they cried out, and there was no one to save them; to the Lord, and he did not hear them.” But “their feet were bound together and they fell, while we rose and were set upright.” And what was announced beforehand in these words— “Lord, in your city you will bring their image to nothing” —has been shown true before the eyes of all. [ac]

So they, who waged war on God like the giants, met such an end to their lives. But she who was desolate and given up for lost by men has reached such an outcome of her endurance toward God as we now see, so that Isaiah’s prophecy cries out to her: “Be glad, thirsty desert; let the desert rejoice and blossom like a lily, and the desert places will blossom and rejoice. Be strong, you limp hands and paralyzed knees. Take comfort, you who are fainthearted in mind; be strong, do not be afraid. Look, our God recompenses judgment and will recompense it; he himself will come and save us.” For, he says, “Water burst out in the desert, and a ravine in thirsty land; and the dry land will become marshes, and in the thirsty land there will be a spring of water.” [ae]

These things were foretold in words long ago and set down in the sacred books; but now the deeds are handed down to us no longer by hearsay, but in fact. This desert, this dry land, this widow with no one to stand by her—“whose gates they cut down with axes like wood in a forest,” whom “they shattered together with hatchet and chisel,” whose books they destroyed, “burning the sanctuary of God with fire and profaning the dwelling of his name to the ground,” whom “all who passed along the road plucked,” having first broken down her fences, whom “the boar from the forest ravaged, and the lone wild beast grazed upon”—has now, by the wonderful power of Christ, when he wills it, become like a lily. For even then it was at his nod, as of a caring father, that she was being disciplined; “for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son he receives.” [af] So, after she had been turned around in due measure, as was needful, she is commanded to rejoice once more, anew from the beginning. She blossoms like a lily and breathes out her divine fragrance on all people. “For water burst out in the desert,” he says—the stream of the divine new birth that comes by the saving bath. And now she who a little before was a desert “has become marshes, and in the thirsty land a spring of living water has gushed out.” The hands that once were limp have become truly strong, and these great works are plain proofs of the hands’ strength. The knees too, once worn out and slack, have recovered their footing and walk straight along the road of the knowledge of God, hurrying to the flock that belongs to the all-good Shepherd. [ag] And if there are any whose souls were numbed by the threats of the tyrants, the saving Word does not pass them by as incurable either, but heals them thoroughly too, and urges them on to divine comfort, saying: “Take comfort, you who are fainthearted in mind; be strong, do not be afraid.” [aj] The word foretold that she who had been made a desert for God’s sake ought to enjoy these things. This our new and noble Zerubbabel heard it with the sharp ear of his mind, and after that bitter captivity and the abomination of desolation he did not overlook the dead body. First of all, with entreaties and prayers, and with the common agreement of all of you, he made the Father gracious; and taking as his ally and fellow worker the One who alone gives life to the dead, he raised her who had fallen, having first cleansed her and healed her of her ills. And he clothed her, not in her old garment from the beginning, but in such a one as he learned once more from the divine oracles, which say plainly: “And the last glory of this house will be greater than the former.” [ak]

So, taking in a much larger area altogether, he fortified the outer enclosure with a wall around the whole, to be the surest bulwark for all of it. [al] He raised a great and lofty gateway and opened it toward the very rays of the rising sun, giving even those who stood far outside the sacred enclosure a full view of what was inside, and all but turning toward its entrance the eyes even of strangers to the faith, so that no one would pass by without first being struck to the heart by the memory of the former desolation and of today’s incredible wonder. He hoped that such a person, once struck, might be drawn by the very sight and moved to come in. [am] But once inside the gates, he did not let a person tread at once on the holy things within with unclean and unwashed feet. He left as large a space as possible between the temple and the first entrance, and surrounded and adorned it with four colonnades running across, enclosing the place in a square with columns rising on every side. The spaces between them he closed with latticed screens of wood rising to a fitting height, and in the middle he left an open court, so that the sky could be seen and the air was bright and open to the rays of light. Here he placed symbols of sacred cleansing, setting up fountains directly opposite the temple, whose abundant streams of water gave washing to those who went on from the sacred enclosure into the inner parts. This was the first stopping place of those who entered; it gave beauty and splendor to the whole, and a fitting station for those who still needed their first instruction.

But passing beyond this sight too, he opened the ways into the temple with still more gateways farther in, again placing three doors on one side, toward the rays of the sun. The middle one he made far higher and broader than the ones on either side, and adorned it especially with plates of bronze bound with iron and with varied relief work, as though he had harnessed the others to it as bodyguards to a queen. In the same way he arranged the number of gateways for the colonnades along each side of the whole temple, and above them he devised various openings into the building to let in more light, adorning their surrounds with fine carving in wood. The royal house itself he built of richer and more abundant materials, spending with unstinting generosity. Here it seems to me superfluous to write down the length and breadth of the building, or to go through in words its bright beauty, its greatness beyond description, the gleaming look of the work, its sky-high loftiness, and the costly cedars of Lebanon laid above. Even the divine oracle has not kept silent about them, saying: “The trees of the Lord will rejoice, and the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.” [an] Why should I now go into detail about the all-wise architectural design and the surpassing beauty of each part, when the witness of the eye makes learning through the ear needless? When he had finished the temple in this way, he furnished it with thrones set on high in honor of those who preside, and with benches arranged in fitting order throughout. Last of all he placed the holy of holies, the altar, in the middle; and, so that it would be out of reach of the many, he fenced it round with wooden lattices carved with the utmost skill and fine workmanship, a wonderful sight to those who saw it. Nor did he neglect the floor; this too he made splendid with marble of every beautiful kind. Then at last he went on to the parts outside the temple, skillfully building very large side halls and buildings on either side, joined to the sides of the royal house and connected with the entrances into the central building. These too our most peaceful Solomon, who built the temple of God, made for those who still need cleansing and sprinkling by water and the Holy Spirit, so that the prophecy quoted above is no longer a word but a deed: for now it has truly come to pass that “the last glory of this house is greater than the former.” [ao]

For it was necessary and fitting that, since her Shepherd and Master once accepted death for her sake, and after his suffering changed the soiled body he had put on for her into a bright and glorious one, and brought the flesh itself, which had been dissolved, out of corruption into incorruption, she too should likewise enjoy the Savior’s arrangements. For she has received from him the promise of things far better than these, and she longs to receive, without end through the ages to come, the far greater glory of the new birth in the resurrection of an incorruptible body, with the choir of the angels of light, in the palaces of God beyond the heavens, with Christ Jesus himself, the Benefactor of all and Savior. [ap] But meanwhile, for the present, she who was long widowed and desolate has been clothed by the grace of God with these flowers and has become truly like a lily, as the prophecy says. She has taken up the bridal robe and put on the crown of beauty, and she is taught by Isaiah to dance, honoring God the King with her thank-offerings in words of praise. [ar] Let us listen to her saying: “Let my soul rejoice in the Lord, for he has clothed me with the robe of salvation and the garment of gladness. He has placed a turban on me like a bridegroom, and adorned me with ornaments like a bride. As the earth makes its flowers grow, and as a garden makes its seeds spring up, so the Lord, the Lord, has made righteousness and rejoicing spring up before all the nations.” [as] With these words she dances. And with words like these the Bridegroom too, the heavenly Word, Jesus Christ himself, answers her. Hear the Lord saying: “Do not fear because you were put to shame, and do not be confounded because you were reproached; for you will forget your everlasting shame, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. Not as a woman abandoned and fainthearted has the Lord called you, nor as a woman hated from her youth, says your God. For a short time I forsook you, but with great mercy I will have mercy on you; in a little anger I turned my face away from you, but with everlasting mercy I will have mercy on you, says the Lord who rescued you. [at] Wake up, wake up, you who drank from the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; for you drank the cup of ruin, the bowl of my wrath, and drained it. And there was no one to comfort you among all the children you bore, and no one to take you by the hand. Look, I have taken from your hand the cup of ruin, the bowl of my wrath, and you will never drink it again; and I will put it into the hands of those who wronged you and humbled you. [av] Wake up, wake up, put on your strength, put on your glory. Shake off the dust and rise. Sit down; loose the chain from your neck. Lift up your eyes all around and see your children gathered together; look, they have gathered and come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you will wear them all like an ornament and put them on like a bride’s ornaments. For your deserted, ruined and fallen places will now be too cramped for those who live in you, and those who swallowed you up will be far from you. For your sons whom you had lost will say in your ears, ‘The place is too cramped for me; make room for me, so that I may live here.’ And you will say in your heart, ‘Who has borne me these? I was childless and a widow; who has brought these up for me? I was left alone; and these, where were they?’” [aw]

These things Isaiah foretold; these things were set down about us long ago in the sacred books; and at some time we were bound to learn their truth by deeds. For since the Bridegroom, the Word, addressed such words to his own bride, the sacred and holy Church, this escort of the bride fittingly stretched out your hands, through the common prayers of us all, and woke her and raised her up—her who was desolate, who lay like a corpse, who was without hope in the eyes of men—at the nod of God, the King of all, and by the appearing of the power of Jesus Christ. And having raised her, he set her up such as he had learned from the description in the sacred oracles. [ax] This is indeed a very great wonder, beyond all amazement, especially for those who pay attention only to outward appearance. But more wonderful than wonders are the archetypes, and behind them the prototypes: patterns grasped by the mind and fitting for God—I mean the renewals of the inspired and rational building in our souls. [ay]

This the divine Son himself fashioned after his own image, granting it in every way and in all respects the likeness of God: an incorruptible nature, without a body, rational, foreign to all earthly matter, a being with understanding of its own. Once, at the first, he called her out of non-being into being, and made her a holy bride and an all-holy temple for himself and for the Father. This he plainly confesses and declares himself, saying: “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Such is the perfect and purified soul, made so from the beginning as to bear the image of the heavenly Word. [az] But through the envy and jealousy of the demon who loves evil, she became, by her own free choice, a lover of passion and of evil. Then the Divine withdrew from her; and, like one bereft of a protector, she proved easy to capture and open to the plots of those who had long envied her. Battered down by the siege engines and machines of her invisible enemies and spiritual foes, she fell a tremendous fall, so that not one stone of virtue was left standing on another in her; she lay altogether dead on the ground, wholly stripped of her natural thoughts of God. And as she lay fallen, she who was made in God’s image, it was not this boar from the forest that we see among us that ravaged her, but a destroying demon and spiritual wild beasts. They set her ablaze with their passions, as with the fiery darts of their own wickedness; they burned the truly divine sanctuary of God with fire and profaned the dwelling of his name to the ground; then they buried the wretched one under a great heap of earth and brought her to despair of all salvation. [ba]

But her guardian, the divinely shining and saving Word, after she had paid the just penalty for her sins, took her up again from the beginning, in obedience to the love for mankind of the all-good Father. [bb] He chose first the souls of the supreme emperors, and through these men most dear to God he cleansed the whole world of all the impious and destructive men, and of the terrible, God-hating tyrants themselves. Then he brought into the open the men known to him, who long ago had been consecrated to him for life, but had been hidden away under his shelter as in a storm of evils; and he honored them worthily with the great gifts of the Father. And through them, in turn, he cleared out and scoured with picks and mattocks—the hard-striking teachings of instruction—the souls that a little before had been fouled and heaped with every kind of rubbish and rubble of impious decrees. [bc] And when he had made the ground of all your minds bright and clear, he then handed it over to this all-wise leader, dear to God. Besides his other gifts, he is a man of discernment and judgment, well able to discern and distinguish the minds of the souls allotted to him; and from the first day, so to speak, down to this one, he has not ceased to build. Now he has fitted into all of you the gleaming gold, now the tested and pure silver and the precious and costly stones, so that once again he fulfills in deeds for you a sacred and mystical prophecy, in which it is said: “Look, I am preparing for you carbuncle for your stones and sapphire for your foundations, jasper for your battlements, crystal for your gates, and choice stones for your wall; and all your sons will be taught by God, and your children will be in great peace; and in righteousness you will be built.” [bd]

Building, then, in righteousness, he divided the whole people according to their worth and their abilities. With some he fenced only the outer enclosure, walling it with unwavering faith; such are the great mass of the people, who are not able to bear any greater building. To others he allowed entry into the house, appointing them to stand at the doors and to guide those coming in; these may fairly be likened to the gateways of the temple. Others he propped up with the first outer columns around the square court, introducing them to the first approaches to the letter of the four Gospels. Others again he joined on either side of the royal house: those who are still catechumens, growing and making progress, yet not far removed from the innermost vision of God that the faithful enjoy. [be] From among these he takes the pure souls, washed like gold by the divine bath, and here he props them up with columns far better than the outer ones, made of the innermost and mystical teachings of Scripture, and he lights them up through the windows. [bf] He adorns the whole temple with one great gateway: the praise of the one and only God, the King of all. On either side of the Father’s supreme authority he sets the second beams of light, Christ and the Holy Spirit. And throughout the whole house he shows, abundantly and in great variety, the clearness and brightness of the truth in each of the remaining details. From every quarter he has chosen the living, steady and well-set stones of souls, and out of them all he builds the great royal house, bright and full of light both within and without; for not only their soul and mind, but their body too has been made glorious with the many-flowered ornament of purity and self-control.

In this sanctuary there are also thrones, and countless benches and seats: all the souls on which the gifts of the divine Spirit rest, such as were seen long ago by those with the holy apostles, to whom “there appeared tongues as of fire, dividing up, and it sat on each one of them.” [bg] In the leader of all, it may be, Christ himself sits enthroned, whole and entire; in those who hold the second rank after him, in proportion, as each can receive, by portions of the power of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. And the souls of some—of those entrusted to each for training and protection—may be seats for angels. But the august, great and unique altar—what could that be but the pure holy of holies of the soul of the common priest of all? Standing at its right hand, Jesus himself, the great High Priest of the universe, the only Son of God, receives with a bright look and with upturned hands the sweet-smelling incense from all, and the bloodless and immaterial sacrifices offered in their prayers, and carries them up to the heavenly Father and God of the universe. He himself is the first to worship him, and he alone gives the Father the reverence that is his due; and then he entreats him to remain kind and favorable to us all forever. [bh]

Such is the great temple which the Word, the great Creator of the universe, has built throughout the whole world under the sun, making it in turn an image on earth, grasped by the mind, of what lies beyond the vaults of heaven, so that through the whole creation, and through the rational living beings on earth, his Father might be honored and revered. But the region above the heavens, and the models there of the things here, and the Jerusalem above, as it is called, and the heavenly Mount Zion, and the city of the living God beyond this world, in which tens of thousands of angels in festal gathering and the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven praise their Maker and the Ruler of the universe with hymns that we cannot utter or comprehend—who that is mortal could worthily sing of these? For “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those who love him.” [bi] Since we have already been counted worthy of these things in part, men with children and women, small and great, let us all together, in one spirit and one soul, never cease to confess and praise the author of such great blessings to us, “who forgives all our lawless deeds, who heals all our diseases, who ransoms our life from corruption, who crowns us with mercy and compassion, who fills our craving with good things.” “For he has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor recompensed us according to our lawless deeds”; “for as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our lawless deeds from us. As a father has compassion on his sons, so the Lord has had compassion on those who fear him.” [bj] Let us rekindle these things in our memories, now and for all time to come. Night and day, every hour, and with every breath, so to speak, let us keep before our minds the author and president of this festival and of this bright and most splendid day, loving and revering him with all the power of the soul. And now let us rise, and with a loud voice from the heart implore him to shelter and keep us to the end within his fold, granting us his unbroken and unshaken eternal peace in Christ Jesus our Savior, through whom be glory to him for all the ages of ages. Amen.