From the Forty-Third Festal Letter, for Easter 371

For us, then, to whom the Passover also belongs, the calling is from above, and “our citizenship is in heaven,” as Paul says. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.” Looking forward to it, we rightly keep the feast. (And again, later:) Heaven is truly high, and its distance from us is infinite, for “the heaven of heavens,” he says, “is the Lord’s.” But that is no reason for us to be careless or fearful, as though the way there were impossible. Rather, we should be eager. Yet we do not need, like those who long ago moved from the east and found a plain in Shinar and began to build a tower, to bake bricks with fire and look for tar for mortar. Their languages were confused, and their work was destroyed. But for us the Lord has consecrated a way through his blood and has made it easy. (And again:) For he has not only comforted us about the distance, but has also come and opened for us the door that was once shut. It had indeed been shut from the time he drove Adam out of the delight of Paradise, and set the cherubim and the flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Now, however, it has been thrown wide open. He who sits upon the cherubim appeared with greater grace and loving kindness, led into Paradise with himself the thief who confessed, and, having entered heaven as our forerunner, opened the gates to all. (And again:) Paul too, “pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling,” was by it caught up to the third heaven. Having seen the things that are above, and then come down again, he teaches us, proclaiming what is written to the Hebrews: “For you have not come to the mountain that could be touched and that burned with fire, to clouds and darkness and a storm, and to the sound of words. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels, and to the festal gathering and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven.” Who would not wish to enjoy such high company as theirs? Who would not long to be enrolled with them, so that he may hear with them, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”? [a]