On the Newly Baptized

The Church as a Spiritual Spring Meadow§1

Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, opens his homily on the newly baptized by comparing the church to a spring meadow filled with spiritual flowers and fragrance.

1When the season of spring succeeds the gloom of winter, birds of every kind fly through the bright air and signal the sweetness of the season to human beings with honey-voiced songs. Then the sweet-singing swallows cut through the air with swift flight, dart past people's heads, and cast their own cry into human ears like a flower. Then one can see the air clear and calm, and people's faces bright, reshaped in imitation of the stillness. For the voices of birds delight the hearing, the clear air brightens the eye, the gleam of many-colored flowers sweetens the sight, and the mingled breath of the plants restores the sense of smell.

This is the delight that the earthly and perishable spring offers to human beings, beloved. But our divine and incorruptible spring, Christ, has thickly covered the meadow of the church with violets and roses and spiritual lilies, and he brightens our sight with faith and fills the reservoir of our heart with divine spices. For which of the faithful does not rejoice now? Who does not exult now, seeing the newly baptized shining in the image of lilies with the bright calyxes of their robes, and possessing the gold-gleaming faith in the middle of the heart?

Here you will find, beloved, if you gaze with the eyes of the heart, the heart of the faithful dyed purple like a deepest violet with the blood of Jesus. For the flame-leaved rose has blossomed incorruptibly from the virgin Mary. What meadow possesses such fragrance as our meadow, which perfumes the grace of the Spirit? Inhale the newly baptized, and you will find in them the immortal fragrance of the Spirit—I mean the myrrh of the heavenly anointing.

Here the palms of the fathers, crowned with the victory branches, bear sweeter fruits of love, fragrant as cypress. Here the beautiful-voiced birds of the psalmists sing the psalms to God in harmony on the lyre. Here virginity, like storax offering the pure incense of prayer to God, rejoices. Here self-control, sacrificing the cheerful branch of purity to God as Abraham offered Isaac, takes delight. Here the trunks of mercy, putting forth the fruitful branch of good deeds to the poor, delight the Lord and nourish the needy.

Let virginity sing and say: "Let my prayer be set before you as incense, Lord" (Psalm 141:2). Let the merciful say: "But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God" (Psalm 52:8 (LXX 51:10)). For the righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and will be multiplied like a cedar in Lebanon (Psalm 92:12-13 (LXX 91:13-14)).

Now the gloom of the devil's winter has fled, and the cheerful radiance of the heavenly meadow has shone forth. Now the mourning of the dead has run away, for the light of the resurrection has come. Let us all sing together the new song, for the new and blessed song befits the new way of life. Let us sing the new song, for behold, Adam has been renewed, the old sin has been destroyed, behold, all things have become new.

The New Song of Baptism and the Bridal Chamber of the Cross§2

Amphilochius is preaching to the newly baptized, urging them to sing the new song and interpreting the Red Sea victory as a type of baptism.

2Let us sing the new song, for behold, Adam has been renewed and Eve has been carried up to the heavens, for the devil has been hurled into the fire. Let us borrow that song from Miriam, the sister of Moses, for it suits us now just as it suited them then. Let the chorus of those holy ones stand with us and sing what it sang then at the Red Sea: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously glorified” (Exodus 15:1). For what has he done? “Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:1). Horse and rider: the horse is the sin that is mad for women, and the rider is the demon seated upon sin, and in the baptismal washing he drowned them both. Let us sing then to the Lord, for he is gloriously glorified, for he has thrown Pharaoh and his power into the sea (Exodus 15:4)—that is, in the baptismal washing he has drowned in the sea the devil and the dark and accursed camp of his demons. I no longer fear to hear: “Earth you are, and to earth you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). For in baptism I put off the earth and put on heaven, and I hear: Heaven you are, and to the heavens you shall return. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27), and: As is the man of dust, so are those who are of dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:48). We must mount upon the clouds and run up to the heavens. The word is not without witness; hear Paul saying: We shall be snatched up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Therefore, as we have just heard the psalmist urging us and saying: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24 (LXX 117:24)), let us rejoice then, not darkened by drunkenness and dissipation, for that would not be gladness but foolishness and darkness of heart. Let us rejoice, leaping in the Spirit; let us rejoice, entertained by love, rejoicing in hope. And if we must consider another gladness of heart, let us receive the heavenly bread with pure hands and send it on to the soul as provision for eternal life—with pure hands, I say, not washed with common water but made bright by good deeds. And let us draw the divine and heavenly mixture with rose-colored lips, reddening them not with some purple dye but making them crimson with the blood of Jesus Christ. O what a truly great and good day, on which the lamb is slain and the world is purchased and our shepherd lives! For I am, he says, the good shepherd (John 10:11). O new mystery and strange wonder! The cross stood and Christ was stretched out upon it, and what appeared was an unjust death, but what was happening was a holy bridal chamber; what appeared was a cross, but what was being accomplished was a bridal chamber. Yesterday the bridal chamber arose, and today a people was born. O death of Christ, death of death, pouring forth sweet life in the bitterest death! O Abrahamic mystery being fulfilled in Christ!

The many names of Christ and their works§3

Amphilochius continues his homily on the newly baptized, now moving from the cross as bridal chamber to the many names of Christ and what each name reveals about his saving work.

3Isaac was being hobbled at the altar, and a lamb was being slain in his place; and the Son of God was being lifted up on the cross, and in the flesh he was being crucified for us, and though the flesh suffered, the divinity did not suffer. The sail of the cross stood in the ship of the world, and the world remained unshipwrecked; the one who sails with this sail of the cross knows no shipwreck of death, but sails up into the heavens. Eve no longer fears the reproach of Adam, for in Mary her fault has been healed; Adam no longer fears the serpent, for Christ has crushed the head of the dragon. For you, he says, crushed the head of the dragon upon the water (Psalm 74:13–14, LXX 73:13–14, alluding to baptism), that is, upon baptism. I no longer mourn, I no longer weep saying, I was turned to hardship when a thorn was planted in me; for Christ came, and having uprooted the thorn of our sins, he placed it on his own head. My ancient grief is released, the old curse is released that says, Thorns and thistles the earth shall bring forth for you (Genesis 3:18); for the thorns are dried up, the thistle is uprooted, and a triple-woven crown is placed on my head. Who among Jews and Greeks believes that wood stood and life blossomed? And every day it is harvested by the faithful, and the fruit remains unspent; and every tribe and every nation of the faithful climbs this tree with the step of the soul and fills the bosom of the mind with immortal fruit, and the tree carries all and feeds all and seals all and enriches all, and after these things hurls them into the heavens. For what name did Christ not endure to be called for our sake? We cannot count his names, but I attempt to speak, beloved: door, way, sheep, shepherd, worm, stone, pearl, flower, angel, man, God, light, spring, sun of righteousness. The many-named Christ is also one; many-named is the Son, and being one he is not turned, not changed, for the divinity is unchanging; but fitting himself to each matter according to the working, he has set a proper name for each working. And let us see, beloved, if we can present the working for each name. He was called way: For I am, he says, the way and the truth (John 14:6), since he himself has become the leader of all the virtues and of the ascent into the heavens. The same one is door: For I am the door of the sheep (John 10:7), since through him as through a door we enter into the kingdom of the heavens. He was called salt, since he wiped away the stench of the idolatry of human beings and seasoned our souls for the savor of piety by faith, and bound together the loosened limbs of the mind by the truth.

The Names of Christ Concluded and the Homily Sealed§4

Amphilochius is finishing his list of Christ's names and works, then closing the homily by deferring to the fathers' teaching and blessing the congregation.

4He was called sheep: For he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the one shearing it, voiceless (Isaiah 53:7). He was called sheep because of the slaughter, and because of the partaking of his holy members, and because of the immortal protection that comes from the seal of his holy blood. He was called shepherd: For I am the good shepherd (John 10:11), because he turned back the wandering sheep and killed our adversary the lion with the staff of the cross. He was called pearl because he was born like a pearl in an oyster, between two folds of a virginal body and soul, without the seed of a man—or because he is the adornment of the soul, or because of his many-rayed and pure brightness, flashing out on every side with the radiance of divinity. He was called light: for he was the true light, which enlightens every person coming into the world (John 1:9), because he drove the dark error of the old moonless night from our understanding and opened the eyes of our governing mind, so that we might truly see that the things we formerly worshiped are not gods but works of human hands, stones and wood. He was called cornerstone, because he built up the two peoples like two walls by faith and lies upon them, joining them into one fitting of salvation. He was called sun of righteousness because of his brightness and warmth—for there is no one who will hide from his heat—and because of the twelve-rayed light of the apostles. He was called mustard seed, because he makes himself small and comes down to our condition at the beginnings of faith; then, when he has burrowed into the furrows of our soul and spread into its depths, he is lifted up to a height reaching heaven and grows warm toward piety and wisdom. He was called worm: For I am a worm and not a man (Psalm 22:6, LXX 21:7), because he hid his flashing divinity like a hook in the worm of his body, let himself down into this deep of life, and like a good fisherman drew up, to fulfill what is written: You will draw the dragon with a hook (Job 41:1, LXX 40:25). He was called man, because he wore a body that came not from pleasure and sleep but from a virgin and the Holy Spirit. But since each of us, beloved, is waiting also for the honey-flowing teaching of the fathers, let us seal our purse of words here with the Holy Spirit, so that when they come from the honey-dripping wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ they may fill the cisterns of our hearts, and each of you may sprout much fruit of piety—one may bear thirty, another sixty, another the hundredfold crown of the angels—in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father be glory, honor, and might, together with the Holy and life-giving Spirit, now and to all the ages of ages. Amen.