The Tombs of the Servants. (Οἱ τάφοι τῶν δοὺλων.) (Homilies on Second Epistle to Corinthians, XXVI., Vol. Iii., P. 273.)
Thus God has led all the saints through tribulation and distress, helping them on the one hand whilst securing the rest against conceiving an unduly high opinion of their merits. Thus it was in the beginning that idolatries prevailed by the excessive admiration lavished upon men, and in this way the Roman Senate decreed Alexander to be the thirteenth god. For it had this authority of electing and making gods. When the whole work of Christ became known the provincial ruler sent to enquire whether they thought He too should be a god. They would not agree to that, and were impatient and angry that the power of the Crucified, bursting forth before their vote and decree, had attracted the whole world to its own majesty. This was ordained even against their will, so that the divinity of Christ might not be preached by vote of man, and that He should not be looked upon as one of the many decreed by them to be divine. For they made pugilists gods, and the creatures of Hadrian’s infamous lust, whence, too, the city of Antinoos derives its name. For, since death bears witness against mortal nature, the devil lighted upon another way—the immortality of the soul, to which he joined gross flattery, and led many into impiety. What malice! Whenever we bring forward this argument in its proper place, he destroys it; but when he wishes to make an injurious use of it himself, he sets it up most zealously. If anyone should ask, ‘How is Alexander a god? Did he not die and die miserably?’ He answers, ‘But his spirit is immortal’. Then you think over in your mind the argument for immortality, and play the philosopher in order that you may turn men away from the God of all; but when we say that this is the greatest gift of God, you persuade those whom you cheat that we are low-minded and cringing, and nothing better than unreasoning animals. And if we were to say that the Crucified lives, they would indulge in great laughter at us, although the whole universe is crying out that He does live, and did cry out of old, then by signs, now by converts, for these successes do not belong to a dead man; but if some one declares that Alexander lives, you believe him, although he has no wonder whatever to bring forward in proof of it. ‘Yes, he has,’ you reply; ‘in his lifetime Alexander did many and great deeds, for he subdued peoples and cities, and made many victorious wars, and set up trophies.’ Now, if I am able to show you things which neither Alexander nor any other man of his day contemplated in his lifetime, what further proof of the resurrection do you require? That a living man, being a king, and having an army, should carry out wars and victories is neither astonishing nor wonderful; but to do things so great after crucifixion and the tomb, to do them over land and sea, this is truly awe-inspiring, and proclaims divine and infinite power. After his death Alexander did not hinder his empire from dissolution, and when it had disappeared did not bring it back again. How should a dead man do this? Now, Christ set up His kingdom in dying. And why do I speak of Christ, since He gave to His disciples also to become famous after death? Tell me, where is Alexander’s tomb? Show it to me and say what day he died. But the tombs of Christ’s servants are famous; they have taken possession of the most royal city, and their days are solemnly kept as a feast for the world. Whilst the one is unknown amongst his own countrymen, even barbarians are familiar with the other. And the tombs of the servants of the Crucified are more splendid than the courts of kings, not in the greatness and beauty of the monument, though in this, too, they are remarkable, but, what is far more, through the devotion of those who frequent them. And he who is clothed in the royal purple leaves his throne to embrace those tombs, and, putting off the garb of vanity, stands as a suppliant of the saints in order to make them his intercessors with God, and the crowned king has need of a dead tent-maker and a fisherman as patrons. I ask you, would you dare to call the Lord of these a dead man, Whose servants, though no longer here, are the protectors of the kings of the earth? And you may see this happening not in Rome alone, but also in Constantinople. For here, too, the son thought his father, Constantine the Great, most highly honoured if he might be buried in the vestibule of the Fisherman. What door-keepers in palaces are to kings, this kings are at the tombs of fishermen. The fishermen, like lords of the spot, have taken possession of what is within; the kings, like sojourners and neighbours, have been contented to have a separate place in the doorway, thus proving to unbelievers that pre-eminence in the resurrection will belong to fishermen. For if it be so here in the matter of tombs, how much more in the resurrection. And the order is reversed: kings become servants and subjects, whilst subjects are invested with regal dignity, or rather with something even greater. The truth itself shows that there is no flattery in the matter, for kings have become famous through these subjects of theirs. Their tombs are far more awe-inspiring than those of all kings put together; there is great solitude in the one and a great crowd at the other. If you wish to compare these tombs with royal courts, here again they carry off the palm. Many are the bustling people at the court, but at the tomb many are they who call and attract rich and poor, men and women, slaves and freemen. There is great fear at the one, and an unspeakable delight at the other. But it is a pleasant sight to look upon the king with his golden sceptre and his crown on his head, his guards standing near, and princes, and generals, and commanders, and officers high and low. Yet the spectacle presented by the other is so much more magnificent and ineffable, that, compared to it, the court would seem to be a puppet show and child’s play. You have hardly crossed the threshold when the place carries your mind up to heaven, to the King above, to the army of the angels, to the throne of the Most High, to glory unspeakable. At court it falls to the ruler’s part to release one man and to put another in chains; now, the bones of the saints have not this poor and miserable authority, but a power far greater. For they call forth demons and torture them, and release from their sharpest chains those who are bound. What is more awful than this tribunal? Whilst no one is seen and no one appears by the devil’s side, there are voices and convulsions, and blows and torments, and angry tongues, the devil not bearing that wonderful power. And they who carry those bodies have dominion over bodiless spirits: dust, and bones, and ashes, tear those invisible beings into pieces. So it is that no man would ever go a long journey to see royal palaces, whilst many kings have often travelled far for this spectacle. For the testimony of the saints furnishes a likeness and a symbol of the judgment to come, devils are punished, men are chastised and set free. See you the power of the saints even when they are dead, and the weakness of sinners even whilst living? Fly therefore from evil, that you may have dominion over these, and pursue goodness with all zeal. For, if things so wonderful take place here, judge what it will be like hereafter.