Homilies on the Dormition of the Mother of God · §2.17 · John of Damascus

Homily II — The tomb speaks

You, most holy of holy tombs (after, that is, the Master's tomb, the beginning of life, which was the spring of the resurrection), I will speak to you as to a living thing. Where is the unalloyed gold that the apostles' hands laid up as treasure in you? Where is the inexhaustible wealth? Where is the treasure that received God? Where is the living table? Where is the new scroll in which God the Word was written, beyond words, without a hand? Where is the abyss of grace? Where is the sea of healings? Where is the spring that gave birth to life? Where is the body of the Mother of God, so longed for and so loved?

Why do you seek in a tomb her who has been lifted up to the heavenly dwellings (Luke 24:5)? Why do you demand from me an account of corruption? I have no power to resist the commands of God. The sacred and holy body has left the linen cloths behind; it gave me a share in its holiness, filled me with ointment and fragrance, and made me a divine sanctuary, and it has gone, caught up, with angels and archangels and all the heavenly powers as its escort. Now angels attend me. Now divine grace dwells in me. For the sick I have proved to be a place of healing that wards off pain. I am an ever-flowing spring of healings. I am a defence against demons. I am a city of refuge (Numbers 35:6) for those who flee to me.

Come forward in faith, you peoples, and draw gifts in streams like a river. Come forward, holding a faith that does not doubt. 'You who thirst, go to the water,' Isaiah urges, 'and you who have no money, go and buy without price' (Isaiah 55:1). I cry out to all, in the words of the Gospel: 'Whoever thirsts for the healing of diseases, for release from the passions of the soul, for the blotting out of sins, for deliverance from every kind of affliction, for the rest of the kingdom of heaven, let him come to me in faith (John 7:37), and draw a stream of grace that has great power and serves many needs.' For the working of water is simple and one, and so is that of earth and air and the all-shining sun; yet it is changed differently in each of the things that share in it, to suit each one's nature, and in the vine it becomes wine, in the olive oil. So too grace, simple and one, does good to those who share in it in many ways, in proportion to each one's need.

I do not have this grace from my own nature. Every tomb is full of foul smell, a bringer of gloom, an enemy of gladness. But I received a very precious ointment and shared in its fragrance; and the ointment was so fragrant and so powerful that by being laid beside me for a little while it gave me a share in it that cannot be taken away; for truly the gifts of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). I welcomed as my guest a spring of gladness, and I have been enriched with its ever-flowing outpouring.

Greek

Σὺ, ὦ τάφων ἱερῶν ἱερώτατε, μετά γε τὸν ζωαρχικὸν τοῦ Δεσπότου τάφον, ὃς πηγὴ ὑπῆρξε τῆς ἀναστάσεως· ὡς γὰρ ἐμψύχῳ σοι διαλέξομαι· ποῦ χρυσὸς ὁ ἀκίβδηλος, ὃν ἀποστόλων χεῖρες ἐν σοὶ ἐθησαύρισαν; ποῦ πλοῦτος ὁ ἀδαπάνητος; ποῦ τὸ θεοδόχον κειμήλιον; ποῦ ἡ ἔμψυχος τράπεζα, ποῦ ὁ καινὸς τόμος, ἐν ᾧ ἀφράστως ὁ Θεὸς Λόγος χειρὸς ἄνευ ἐγγέγραπται; ποῦ ἡ τῆς χάριτος ἄβυσσος; ποῦ τῶν ἰαμάτων τὸ πέλαγος; ποῦ ἡ ζωοτόκος πηγή; ποῦ τὸ πολυπόθητον σῶμα τῆς Θεοτόκου καὶ πολυέραστον; Τί ζητεῖτε ἐν τάφῳ τὴν πρὸς τὰ οὐράνια μετεωρισθεῖσαν σκηνώματα; Τί με τῆς φθορᾶς εὐθύνας εἰσπράττεις; οὔ μοι δύναμις τοῖς θείοις ἀντιτείνειν κελεύσμασι. Τὰς σινδόνας καταλιπὸν τὸ σῶμα τὸ ἱερόν τε καὶ ἅγιον, καί μοι τοῦ ἁγιασμοῦ μεταδεδωκὸς, καὶ μύρου, καὶ εὐωδίας ποιῆσαν ἀνάπλεων, καὶ θεῖον ἀπεργασάμενον τέμενος, ἀνάρπαστον οἴχεται, δορυφορούντων ἀγγέλων, καὶ ἀρχαγγέλων, καὶ πασῶν τῶν οὐρανίων δυνάμεων. Νῦν ἐμὲ περιέπουσιν ἄγγελοι. Νῦν ἐν ἐμοὶ θεία χάρις αὐλίζεται. Ἐγὼ νοσοῦσιν ἰατρεῖον ἀλεξίπονον πέφηνα. Ἐγὼ πηγὴ ἰαμάτων ἀέναος. Ἐγὼ δαιμόνων ἀλεξιτήριον. Ἐγὼ πόλις φυγαδευτηρίου τοῖς προσφεύγουσι πέφυκα. Προσέλθετε πίστει, λαοὶ, καὶ ποταμηδὸν ἀρύσασθε τὰ χαρίσματα. Ἀδιάκριτον τὴν πίστιν κεκτημένοι προέλθετε. Οἱ διψῶντες ἐφ' ὕδωρ πορεύεσθε, Ἡσαΐας παρακελεύεται, καὶ ὅσοις οὐκ ἔστιν ἀργύριον, πορευθέντες ἀγοράσατε ἄνευ τιμῆς. Ἐγὼ πᾶσιν εὐαγγελικῶς ἀνακέκραγα· Ὁ διψῶν νοσημάτων ἴασιν, ψυχικῶν παθῶν ἀπολύτρωσιν, ἁμαρτημάτων ἐξάλειψιν, παντοίων ἐπιφορῶν ἀλλοτρίωσιν, οὐρανῶν βασιλείας ἀνάπαυσιν, πίστει προσερχέσθω πρός με, καὶ ἀρυσάσθω ῥεῖθρον τῆς χάριτος πολυδύναμον καὶ πολύχρηστον. Ὥσπερ γὰρ τοῦ ὕδατος ἡ ἐνέργεια ἁπλῆ καὶ μία τυγχάνουσα, ὡς δὲ γῆς καὶ ἀέρος, καὶ τοῦ παμφαοῦς ἡλίου, ἑκάστῳ τῶν μετόχων διαφόρως πρὸς τὸ κατάλληλον τῆς φύσεως μεταβάλλεται, καὶ γίνεται ἐν ἀμπέλῳ μὲν οἶνος, ἐν ἐλαίᾳ δὲ ἔλαιον· οὕτω καὶ ἡ χάρις, ἁπλῆ καὶ μία τυγχάνουσα, ποικίλως καὶ ἀναλόγως πρὸς τὴν ἑκάστου χρείαν εὐεργετεῖ τοὺς μετέχοντας. Οὐκ ἐξ οἰκείας τὴν χάριν κέκτημαι φύσεως. Τάφος ἅπας δυσωδίας ἀνάπλεως, κατηφείας πρόξενος, εὐφροσύνης ἀντίπαλος. Μύρον πολύτιμον δέδεγμαι, καὶ τῆς εὐωδίας μετείληφα, καὶ τὸ μύρον οὕτως εὐῶδες καὶ δραστικώτατον, ὡς μικρᾷ παραθέσει ἀναφαίρετον δωρήσασθαι τὴν μετάληψιν· ἀμεταμέλητα γὰρ ὄντως τὰ θεῖα χαρίσματα· πηγὴν εὐφροσύνης ἐξένισα, καὶ ταύτης ἀένναον ἐπλούτησα τὴν ἀνάβλυσιν.

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About this text

John of Damascus's three sermons on the falling asleep of Mary, preached at her tomb at Gethsemane: praise of the Mother of God, the story of her last days and burial, and the old account in which Juvenal of Jerusalem tells the empress Pulcheria that the apostles found the tomb empty.

English translated from the Greek of Migne, Patrologia Graeca 96, cols. Where the printed Greek is plainly wrong, the English follows the reading that the sense and Migne's facing Latin require; each such place is listed below. Psalm numbers are given in the English (Hebrew) numbering.

Printed text used

Translated from Migne, Patrologia Graeca 96 (Paris, 1860), cols. 699-762 (Greek · All three homilies)

Where the prints differ

Homily II, section 1 — Printed διαιρέσεως ('division'); the English follows προαιρέσεως ('a good will'), with the facing Latin 'probaque voluntate'.
Homily II, section 2 — Printed ἐνδέδυμαι ('I have put on') is read as ἐκδέδυμαι ('I have put off' the garments of skin), with the facing Latin 'exui'; printed ὑπερέρχεται is read as ὑπέρχεται ('undergoes'); printed ἀχειροτμήτῳ is taken in the sense 'not made by hands'.
Homily II, section 4 — Printed θέσματα ('ordinances') is rendered 'wills', with the facing Latin 'voluntates'.
Homily II, section 10 — Printed 'our hands' is read as 'my hands', since Mary is speaking (facing Latin 'manuum mearum').
Homily II, section 13 — Printed ἀμελητί ('carelessly') is read as ἀμελλητί ('at once').
Homily II, section 14 — Printed ἐλαίου ('oil') is read as ἐλέου ('mercy'), as Migne's own note directs; printed γεύμασιν is read as ῥεύμασιν ('in their flowing'), with the facing Latin 'fluentis'.
Homily III, section 2 — Printed κλίματι is read as κλίμακι ('ladder'), ἐδείξατο as ἐδέξατο ('received'), and 'fruits of the presence' as 'the bread of the presence', each with the facing Latin.

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