Coptic homilies in the dialect of Upper Egypt/III. English translation of the Syriac Version of the Discourse of Proclus on the Incarnation

TRANSLATION OF THE SYRIAC VERSION OF THE DISCOURSE OF PROKLOS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, WHICH HE DELIVERED ON THE SUNDAY PRECEDING LENT.

Rich are the beautiful streams of the Divine Goodness. Innumerable are the benefits of spiritual assemblings. Glorious thing is the merchandise of the Ecclesiastical Market and beloved in the honour of the feast at the altar. Glorious are the profits [ Or, merchandise. ] of the Cross. Indescribable is the trodden-out [ The allusion is to the treading-out of grapes. ] produce of Salvation. Unenvied and abundant is the treasure of the celestial gifts. Grace knows no poverty, for Christ does not borrow riches from [any] other place.

And, O my beloved, look into, if you wish, the Divine Books, and you will know with exactness the immeasurableness of the riches, and the greatness of the gift of the Giver. For they will teach you with exactness how, at divers times and in multitudinous ways, our Lord Jesus Christ has never ceased to confer benefits upon the human race since the beginning. For first of all Adam, [who] was driven forth from Paradise ; He took [him], and after he had been condemned, [ The text is not clear, and this rendering is unsatisfactory. ] He made him a fellow-occupant of His throne in heaven. Abel, who had been slain as a sacrifice; after his death He made the shepherd to become the accuser of the murderer (?). He saw Noah sailing in the ark, and He preserved him [as] the spark of the race. He found Abraham a sojourner in a strange land, and

He made him the Father of Nations. He saw Joseph in bonds, and He set him up for ever as a pattern of chastity. He found Moses a fugitive from Egypt, and He made him the governor of a people which could not be counted. Joshua, the spy of Palestine, He made to be the man who put a bridle on the Sun and Moon. He took David from [following] a small flock, and made him the root of kings, and the head of the generations of the Awful Mystery. The she-ass of Balaam, though she was without reason, He made to be endowed with the faculty of speech. [For] the Red Sea, because of the necessity, He gave sailors (?). He made the dry rod of Aaron to be the mother of blossoms out of the ordinary course of nature. He set up a serpent of brass [to be] a marvellous physician in the wilderness. Elijah, a fugitive slave on the earth, He made to be mounted on a heavenly chariot. He made the flame of the Babylonian furnace to be the nurse of the Three Children. He made the lions that were in the pit to stand up like disciples before the instruction of Daniel. He turned the fish of the sea into the couch of prophecy. He changed the house of Rahab the harlot into an altar of the love of receiving strangers. The tongue suffices not to relate [the instances of His love], for the wealth thereof surpasses speech.

Now therefore, every house of the merchandise of salvation is filled at the Ecclesiastical Festival. For there are terrestrial gifts and celestial rewards, and here are the selling of passions and the acquisition of spiritual excellences. There are the offerings of possessions and the selling of reward[s], [and here] [ Some words are omitted here. ] . . . There are (sic) the cloud which produces rain [and] the Gospel healing, and here are the Trinity uncreate and the Apostolic Trumpets. There, instead of savage passions, hymns of praise set to tones of music are sung. Here are the dismissal of Adam of

the dust and the lightning flashings of the Lord from heaven. There are the expulsion of the old tyrant and the worship of the Virgin mystery. Here the hand-written list of sins is torn up, and a bill of freedom is ordered and written. There are the death of the passions and the joy of souls.

O festival, he who is below. . . - [ If correctly published the text is corrupt. ] And all his merchandise. There with a loud voice repentance is preached, [and there are] the beneficial binding up of the Forty Days' Fast, [and] the reward of the wages of continence and angelic virginity, [and] the almsgiving which is acceptable, [and] the happiness of simplicity (or, integrity), [and] the incalculable understanding of longsuffering, [and] the patient endurance which cannot be wrecked, [and] the faith which is without perversity, [and] the incomprehensibility of the coming [of our Lord] in the flesh. Now in whatsoever way you will thresh the matter with the mind, you will find that this miracle is in the greatest degree beyond all possibility of investigation.

For the mind is too feeble which seeks to discover how God, Who is immutable, became man, and how the Word, Who cannot mingle [with anything], became united unto clay, and how the impassible God became a form in the flesh without having changed : because He is of the Father Who has no beginning, and because He cannot be depicted. For He Himself is very God, and, without falsehood, man; with the Father because He is equal in substance ; with myself because He is equal in race, [except] that He has not sinned. Of Divine Nature. Uncreate is He. [His] assumption [of humanity] is without falsehood. And He is One, the Son, and is not divided into Two Natures, but the Adorable Government has united to the Two Natures One Person. One is the Son, even though the heretics scoff, and the Jews rave, and the heathen are shaken [in derision]. He was not separated from the Father, and

dwelt with the children of men. He took upon Himself flesh, and was not changed. He became man, and was not separated (or, divided). The whole of Him was in heaven, the whole of Him was on earth, and in every place is the whole of Him, for the Divine Nature cannot be divided. He endured sufferings in that which He put on (i. e., flesh) ; He was free from sufferings because of that which He was. We say the Son, not God, Who is of grace, but by Nature God the Word : as the Son of the Father in Nature indivisible ; Wisdom, as the Governor of things divine and human ; Power, as the Preserver of all things which exist ; Truth, as the veritable Form of the Father ; Image, as equal in substance with His Begetter Who is immutable ; Light, as the Sun of souls; Life, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being ; Righteousness (or, Justice), as He Who rewards every man according to his works ; Holiness, as the destroyer of sin ; Salvation, as He Who by blood bought the world ; Resurrection, as the Restorer of him that had been cast into the grave.

But is it necessary that I should say other things? I say, however, O Jew, and I am not ashamed, and I will cry with a loud voice : it was the adorable Dispensation of God that negotiated my [ redemption. For what He was, He was because of Himself. What He became, He became because of me. He wrought wonderful things as God, and He bore sufferings as the Son of man. In what He was He remained. And because He loved He became man, because of the leaven of that which had been formed (i.e., the lump) He is the Son of man, for in truth having taken flesh from a woman He was born [like a man]. He is the Way, like a guide, to the Father ; the Door, like one who leads into the Paradise; the Shepherd, like him that seeks [the sheep] which he has lost ; the Ram, like one who is sacrificed on behalf of the world ; the Lamb, as the Purifier of the uncleanness of the world.

The Divine Dispensation of God [works] in many ways. High priest, that is, He was God, [and] He was. Without mother, that is, He was superior to us. Without father, that is, He was like unto us. He was not reckoned among the generations in any place. Above He was ineffable : below (i. e., on the earth) He was never expounded, and in every place He could not be interpreted. Body, soul, mind, He assumed, that through all these He might become (?) a likeness [of ourselves].

Because of these things, and because He redeemed [you], be ashamed, O Jew, and also because of the sufferings which He bore for you, and the miracles [which He wrought] on your behalf. But [you say], Are they miracles? And, O fighter against God, what have you to show in this respect which can be compared with what we have? Which miracle is more worthy of admiration the heaven which rained bread, or the God Who put on flesh? The sea which was divided by the passage [of the Israelites], or the Virgin who, after giving birth to a child, was still a virgin? The rod which turned a rock into a watery deep, or the Cross which bought and sanctified the world? Be ashamed of [these] miracles [, O Jew], and worship you Him that put on flesh.

But [you say,] are these things [truly] miracles? These (i.e., the following) I say [are] miracles. The conception which took place without seed. Birth-pangs which did not follow carnal union. The Virgin undestroyed. Virgin and mother, and virgin again. The course of the star [in the East]. The praise of the angels. The fear of the shepherds. The presentation of the offerings of the Magians. The obedience (or, submission) of the sea. The flight of the winds. The walking on the sea. The stilling of the storm. The leaping of the paralytic. The keen sight of the blind men. The smiting of the devils. The resurrection of the dead. The tottering of Creation. The lamentation of the heavens. The darkening of the Sun. The rending of the rocks. The cleaving of the Temple. The overthrow of Sheol. The emptying of the graves. The death of the thief. The fixing of the handwriting [on the Cross]. The dissolution of the Synagogue. The growth of the Church. The increase of the fear of God. The worship of the Cross. And when you have vomited forth error, proclaim, with Moses, 'This is my God, and I will worship Him' - to Him be praise, and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here ends the Discourse of the Sabbath which brings in the Fast.