Word for the Most Glorious Nativity of Our Blessed Lady Theotokos

Essay rights. Nikolai Kavasila “A Homily for the Most Holy Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos” (18 chapters) is included in the cycle of “Theotokos Homilies.” In the teaching about the Mother of God, the author moves away from the traditional Christological aspect, focusing on its anthropological side, which was a response to the ideas of Renaissance humanism about the autonomy of the human mind, its independence from God. It shows the true dignity and rebirth of man through the Virgin Mary, especially emphasizing the conscious, voluntary and effective participation of the Mother of God in the Incarnation. Her will and faith were as necessary for the implementation of the Economy as the participation of the Triune God. The humility of the Mother of God and Her obedience to God united in the Person of the Most Holy Virgin the human will with the Divine will. Human freedom appeared in accordance with the freedom of God. The Word for Christmas begins with the glorification of the righteous Joachim and Anna, whose prayers and virtuous life prepared the coming of She who became the “living book” containing the Lawgiver Himself. The author emphasizes the purity and righteousness of the Virgin Mary, who, being from the fallen human race, was able to restore the pristine purity of human nature through her own effort of will and sinless life. This act surpasses the understanding of both men and angels, and became the necessary condition that allowed God to descend and put on human flesh. The Mother of God surpassed all the righteous of the Old Testament, becoming the perfect fulfillment of the law. Her presence in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple serves as proof of Her perfect purity. The church, which was inaccessible even to the high priest without purifying sacrifices, accepted the Virgin as Its rightful inhabitant, testifying to Her superiority. The author emphasizes that the Mother of God revealed human nature as it was intended by the Creator: capable of being pure, fighting sin and remaining in goodness. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin is presented as the day when “the earth gave its fruit” and the world received an “active eye” for the knowledge of the True Light. This is not just a birth, but the beginning of the re-creation of man and the entire Universe. *Title of the work in Greek – Εἰς τὴν ὑπερένδοξον τῆς ὑπεραγίας Δεσποίνης ἡμῶν Θεοτόκου γέννησιν. Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII First of all, let us invoke God here, not in order to offer a word equal to the subjects [of discussion] and worthy of the essence [of the glorified event] - this completely exceeds human hopes - but so that in some way praise would be brought [to today's holiday] on behalf of those present, and we would, remembering the multitude of those who spoke [about it], would not find ourselves behind the rest; and in addition - what is more important - in order to gain benefit from [demonstrated] zeal and receive as a reward for the word some sanctification, just as those who perform some sacred observance [receive]. First of all, I would prayerfully ask for what, as I know, the All-Singing One prefers to everything [else] and what, above all else, she desires for Her hymns - spiritual benefit. After all, both in Her good deeds [to us], and in those thanksgivings in response to Her good deeds, which She deigns to accept, in everything She seeks spiritual benefit. So, I believe, it would be timely to remember, not in passing, those truly blessed ones who brought the common good to this world - not only to give them the praise due according to the law, but also to glorify them as brightly as possible, before fulfilling the duty to the Virgin Herself. After all, it is inappropriate to pass over common benefactors either without saying anything at all that should be said or only briefly mentioning those for whom the concurring voice of the whole world would not be enough to praise them properly. If servants must necessarily correspond and satisfy in everything what they are assigned to - after all, the One who arranges the work, being All-Wise, knows what must be done, and, being Omnipotent, lacks nothing, then what abundance of praise you will not surpass, O blessed two, whom God has deigned to serve the best and greatest of all works from the ages, of all the most wonderful and of all the most useful; I'm talking about the incarnation and birth among people of the One who chose Himself from us as a Mother? After all, how misfortunes and temptations must come, but, as they say, “woe to the man through whom they come” (Matthew 18:7); so equally, of those worthy and righteous who have benefited [the human race], although everyone should enjoy honor, you are the best and most righteous of the rest; You are so much higher than all of them: generals, legislators, priests, people’s leaders, and all those who stood up for their relatives - how absurd it would be to compare what was revealed to people through you with what was successfully accomplished by them. After all, if in order to preserve this perishable life for people and protect the common nature in several bodies from the general flood, a man was chosen, the most righteous of those living then; if in order to free the Jews, a leader was required, and of the entire multitude of people, only Moses, who adorned his soul with the exercise of every virtue and, unlike all [his fellow tribesmen] could see God and hear His voice, was awarded this honor; if it took that glorious Joshua [Joshua] to return to the Promised Land; if even before them Abraham received a reward for piety and became the father of a people taught to worship God; in a word, if of all those who worked for the common good there was no one who would have already corresponded in advance [to the upcoming feat] and did not have a soul completely ready for what he later led the others to; - then when it was necessary to free the Universe from the domination of demons and bring immortality into the lives of mortals, plant the seeds of angelic life in the souls of people and, speaking in general, unite heaven and earth, which, it should be assumed, were those servants whom God used, sending down this wondrous grace to the world. They can rightly be called instruments of His love for mankind, His co-workers with His forces, or something else higher. It is clear that suffering, anger, torment were deservedly sent to the evil through evil angels, and good was given through the good; and the most beautiful of all was realized for people through the incomparably best of all. After all, you overcame Moses, Noah, and Abraham, and those from whom the people benefited, completely with righteousness, keeping the law and love of God. And the fact that you were able to do so much before God and were elevated to such wondrous honor clearly testifies that you pleased God more than all people. There is undoubted proof that you became pleasing to God because you fulfilled the law before all people and prevailed [over everyone] with your righteousness. After all, your fruit is rightly called the Blessed Virgin (and it is said: “by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16), and what can be considered greater when Her generation did not just come from your nature, but turned out to be the work of your prayer and righteousness: nature refused supernatural birth, everything was transferred to the judgment of God, God listened to your prayers, and effective prayer received an impulse from virtue. By gift given from God to the parents, the offspring appears, making them blessed, and since God, who has ordered everything by measure and number (Wis. 11:20), cannot be partial, what kind of person you are, having received the fruit [Virgin], becomes clear by the greatness of the gift, just as one can, I think, evaluate an athlete by a wreath. Since grace is the fulfillment of the law, and since we know that the new is the fruit of the old and no fruit could be born from those who have yet come to the measure of the fulfillment, it becomes clear that you have become a branch of the law in everything perfect; otherwise you would not have given birth to the fruit of the law and the treasure of grace - the Virgin. If, before God the Judge, he is found worthy of much, who cared for a little with due diligence, then how brightly did you all shine, fully observing the law, honoring the Tabernacle of the Testimony more than all others? And therefore, you alone, of all, brought out and showed [to the world] the true tabernacle of God, to which that [ancient] one is as inferior as any image and shadow to the truth. You would not have been awarded these greatest [gifts] if you had not worked on the little things with all due diligence, and you would not have perceived the true if you had neglected the important shadows. Just as it was fitting for the Savior, who intended to introduce a new law, to first fulfill all the righteousness of the old law, so you, who were already standing near the threshold of the new law and had prepared the church for the reception of grace, were first to become careful guardians of the law. After all, grace is the fulfillment of the law. And how would it be possible, without succeeding in what exists, to add what is missing? How could the roof of the law be established without first erecting the whole building beautifully? How great the depravity of the Jews was was revealed by the destruction of the law and the breaking of the tablets, when Moses could not bear to entrust to the ears of drunken people those verbs that he himself had received after fasting and many labors with a sober mind. On the contrary, the fact that you revealed the Virgin and created that living book, which contained not just the law, but the Lawgiver Himself, was clear evidence of supernatural virtue. Like Moses, you fasted and called on God, but you received a different answer than he: he found in prayers the law, which soon disappears, but you are the blood that forms the New Testament, which was received by God Himself, who entered into the interior behind the veil and acquired eternal redemption, as the apostle says. Paul (cf. Heb. 9:12). What is holier than lips that turn such an effective voice to God? What is like the souls that gave birth to such prayer? Are they not more pleasing to God than all sacrifices, are they not more sacred than altars? It was necessary, after all, for the Mother of God to receive a spiritual body from such a root and in such a way, from the root closest to God of all people, in a way that is the power of prayer. Taking advantage of these appropriate initiators, She came into the world who brought God to people, destroyed the enmity between them, opened the way for prayers to Heaven, and abolished the mediastinum of division. Even though similar things happened to others, and birth as a fruit of prayer was not unknown to those who lived in ancient times or in later times, She, who opened the treasury of grace-filled gifts for everyone, became the cause not only of those who came after Her, but also those who were in past times speak about Her. They all ascend to Her: either because the ancient relates to the new in the same way as a shadow receives its shape and form from the body, or because She was a common adornment even before coming into the world, when God from ancient times adorned His Mother with the honors that He appointed for the human race. From this it is clear that this did not happen in the same way to the rest [the righteous] and to the Most Pure One; the similarity is no closer than between shadows and truth, images and the thing itself. As with the ancients, blood was a cleanser from sins before the great Sacrifice [of the Son of God], but both of these sacrifices were so different in reality that they coincided in appearance and name - after all, both: blood and sacrifice, and for the remission of sins - in the same way here. After all, One [Virgin] truly was the result of holy prayer, in which there was nothing contrary to God, and She alone was the gift of God, which is worthily given to those who ask and accepted by those who wish. After all, what the Virgin had combines the hand of the giver and the receiver. Therefore, nature could not bring anything consistent with the birth of the Virgin, but God Himself, called [by the spouses], did everything and, pushing nature aside, directly, so to speak, created the Virgin as the first man. And first of all, and most legitimately, the first person is the Virgin, who first and only revealed the nature [of man]. The situation is as follows. Of those many [benefits] that God either already bestowed on people, or intended to bestow as a reward on those who strive for preserving what was given, that gift is the main one, which builds a person above all others, namely: to love God purely, to live in accordance with reason, to have dominion over the passions and not to participate in any sin. In order to lead such a lifestyle and be completely clean from all filth, we were given the strength from the beginning, firstly, even if not without labor and struggle, to gain the upper hand over sin, and secondly, having exposed and used all the [possibilities] available to us, to rest from labor and without struggle to remain good and without sin in the incorruption of the body and to carry [all] this within ourselves. Otherwise, the human destiny would not be consistent with common sense. After all, if our nature were so disposed towards sin that, as a result of the wounds it inflicts, we would become completely unclean, even if we strained all our strength and refined our minds, and thus evil would be inexorable in us, then, firstly, we would become worse than dumb creatures in whom there is nothing bad, and secondly, it would be difficult not to bring accusations against the Creator for not being Good in everything as being the creator of evil, and for the fact that He is not always just, demanding from us what was not put into nature, and for the fact that He unjustly exacts for the guilt of every sin, without arming man against it. And if He initially connected [man] with his good actions in such a way that without doing anything ourselves, we would be good, then in this case we would not turn out to be truly good, not by ourselves striving for good and virtue, but being forced to do so, rather by enduring good than by doing it. -Then what is the use of the independence of reason, which we received as the basis for praise and crowns, by which we differ from those drawn by our own nature and thanks to which we act according to our own impulses. However, it is also unlike God to not at all give a person peace from the battles for virtue, of which battles He Himself found (our) nature worthy, but to let him fight endlessly, knowing no limit to his efforts. Then there would be no one more unhappy than man in comparison with all the others who have something to strive for and where to rest. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to believe that the power against all sin from God was invested in nature, and we were required to transform this power into action and, thus, of our own will and thanks to ourselves, remain good, and God would then apply His [help] to perfect goodness in us and rest from labor and effort. But why do others need exploits (works), if not because our virtue, being imperfect, is not far from our opponents, but we must beware of sinful proximity? Then there will be no danger and no, even the smallest, possibility of sin, when God, the most perfect good, takes possession of all our aspirations, leaving no emptiness outside of Himself. Such are God's gifts to people, and such is their greatness. People who received such a beautiful nature from the hand of the Creator (would have received an even more beautiful one if they had preserved the first) ended so badly that they could neither manage what exists, nor use what is present, as they should have, nor receive the next, which would have been much better and which they would have received if they had proven themselves to be good stewards of the first. But the power against sin was in nature and was with everyone, but no one put it into action and no one lived life being pure from guilt, but the disease that began with the first man passed through everyone and took possession of everyone, so that it seemed that we had evil in our nature. The beauty inherent in nature was hidden, and in such a countless number of human bodies a person was not visible, since everyone used the power of the soul for the worst, and the inherent goodness did not manifest itself in any way, since no one lived in accordance with it. But the Most Pure Virgin, who did not have Heaven as a city and came not from those who are in Heaven, but from the earth, in a common way with everyone - from that very fallen race that did not know its nature - She is One of all the people who lived from the beginning of the century to the last times, resisted all evil and returned to God the immaculate beauty received from Him and took advantage of all the opportunities and saved weapons for this. With love for God, strength of soul, directness of aspiration and greatness of understanding, She put all sin to flight and established a victorious trophy, which nothing can compare with. Having done this, She revealed man as he [originally] was created, and revealed God with His ineffable wisdom and love for mankind. And the One to whom She later, having clothed Him with His body, attracted the eyes of all, [the Virgin] first won over Her through Her deeds, and thanks to Her Alone it became truly possible for the creature to know the Creator. But before this, neither the law, nor the tongues of the prophets, nor the art of the Creator, revealed in visible things, nor the heavens, preaching the glory of the Creator (cf. Ps. 18: 1), nor the angelic cares and providences, nor anything else from existence, turned out to be strong enough to demonstrate divine goodness and wisdom. After all, only a person who bears the image of God, if he appears as what he truly is, free from all false traits, can show God Himself. She was able to do this and gloriously preserved the human essence pure from everything alien to Her, one of all the already past and future people, the Blessed Virgin. After all, no one will be born clean from an unclean one (Job 14:4). This is beyond any miracle, and puts not only people in awe, but also the angels themselves, and puts to shame any verbal exaggeration. After all, [Virgo], being exactly the same person and not having anything more in Herself compared to other people, was still the only one who escaped the common illness. How could She do this? What reasoning guided you? Or more precisely, how did She come to the intention of boldly entering into that struggle in which, as She heard, none of her relatives were lucky? Which leaders are you looking at? Who has the basis of hope? Where did you get your boldness from? Nature was in such a position that the majority [of people] were familiar with such badness that it is impossible to even talk about it, and as for the good minority, they also needed those who could support them, and were far from being useful to others. What was it that gave the Virgin victory, if She did not enter this life before all people, and thereby did not inherit a nature not accustomed to sin, and if She was not born after the New Man and the change He brought? After all, if Adam, whom everything encouraged to virtue and turned away from evil, had overcome sin, there would be nothing surprising in that. And the way of life, and its place, filled with all kinds of pleasure, and a pastime not burdened with hard work, and a body that had not experienced sin, and a soul that had not tasted any defilement, and also the fact that he did not have any man as the founder of the family, but knew God directly as the father of nature, and the mentor, and the lawgiver, who willingly entered into all communication with him - all this was in accordance with preserving him love for God is unbreakable. Those who were born after grace and reconciliation, and the New Sacrifice, and the outpouring of the Spirit, after an indescribable birth in water and a terrible meal, or would have abandoned all defilement, as having taken advantage of countless and, moreover, supernatural aids, would not have shown anything surprising. Now, when it turned out to be so painful and burdensome for a person to resist sin to the end, that the first of us turned out to be the first to break the law, and although he was perfectly armed to remain in goodness and virtue, he immediately fell, unable to resist the attack [of the enemy]; when even those who were born after redemption and [the bestowal of] grace - I am speaking, of course, about those who are more zealous than others and instructed in the highest wisdom - if they turn within themselves, they will feel that they are not at all innocent of evil and therefore need constant purification - whose mind will be able to think and whose tongue will worthily sing of this pure man, She who, having come into this life and not to the common infirmity, and not after a general physician, by the power of the soul's prudence alone, without any assistant, at the very zenith, the very flowering of evil, in the land of condemnation, with a nature accustomed to being constantly conquered, in a body subject to death, when everyone capable of helping filth was present in abundance, and everyone who knew how to fight it was absent, was able to keep the soul clean from all evil, which none of those everywhere could do praise? After all, if She, before the general reconciliation, before coming to earth as the Peacemaker, She Herself, by the forces of Her own nature, destroyed hostility, opened Heaven, attracted grace and received power against sin, then this is a miracle that surpasses all understanding. What did She bring that was so supernatural that it turned out to be tantamount to a great sacrifice? And if, when [our] nature was hostile to [God], such a way of life turned out to be possible, and when the barrier still existed, She united with God; and if the wall that separated the universe from God could not resist the zeal of one soul, what could be more surprising than that? After all, God did not somehow specially combine Her with this wisdom, and did not honor Her Who brought [so much] to others with greater assistance than other ones, but guided only by Her reasoning and using only in equal measure all the given means for [acquiring] virtue, She won this new and glorious victory. To believe that God creates virtue in the souls of people as something similar to other creations, first of all, is contrary to the concept of virtue, which is good will and a matter of our disposition [will]; After all, those who in this being use reasoning and free will, it is possible to achieve well-being through the proper use of reasoning and free will, and good cannot be the destruction of being, and success in good cannot deprive us of the good we already have, but rather add. It is absurd that we should harm nature itself and natural inclinations by doing well, and should lose our freedom by increasing virtue. Then - such an assumption is the beginning of countless absurdities. After all, it necessarily follows from it either that no one deserves any guilt for any kind of wickedness, and that the good are not justly awarded rewards, as those who did not act independently and do not control their own will, or, if we do not agree with the first assumptions that God should be considered unjust if, when rewarding some, He crowns some, and determines extreme punishments for others, neither one nor the other, without doing it in accordance with common sense. Moreover, it would show [God] to be envious if He could show all people as the best and equally honor them with good deeds, and then shied away. How then could it turn out that God does not look at the face of man, and that He wants everyone to be saved, and that He is the most common of all goods, so much more common than the stars, light, and the rest, which also goes to everyone, how much more He is poured out and how much more abundant the good is? This is impossible to imagine or conceive. After all, absolutely everyone can see that God has endowed all people with the greatest help for wisdom; if all are the greatest, then all are equal; therefore, it is impossible to imagine and completely absurd to think that there is a greater good and more likely to lead to virtue than the residence of the Savior in the flesh, His stay here, death and Resurrection and everything that follows from this, and which the whole Universe can equally enjoy. So, the help that He provided to the Mother was in no way greater than the greatest of all [help] that was collectively given to all people in general. This means that the Most Pure Virgin wove a wreath for Herself from Her righteous deeds. Having received from God the same thing as the rest, She, by adding from Herself, so surpassed others that she not only won where others yielded, but won so gloriously that she served both for Her glory and for the benefit of other people, as if everyone had worked for this victory. Indeed, through Her superiority She did not show the human race to be worse, but adorned it; gave the opportunity not to look down as one who is conquered, but showed those who had great glory; With Her exceptional beauty She did not expose the ugliness of her relatives, but gave them beauty. Having defended Herself sufficiently as far as Her own nature was concerned, and adding nothing to the guilt of sin common to all, She did not create even more severe punishments for them, but, having distinguished itself in some new way, so convicted and conquered sin that it served to liberate those convicted and defeated from all evil. In this way, not only in Herself, but as far as possible, in all people, She preserved the beauty given to them, pure from what is contrary to nature. Anyone who begins to investigate [this subject] can find [the above] numerous and clear evidence. Firstly, when God wished to descend on Her, nothing prevented His descent, and He could not have descended if a prohibiting barrier had been erected between [Him and the Virgin]. And this would have happened if anything close to sin had been internalized by the Blessed Virgin. It is said: your iniquities have created a division between Me and you (cf. Isa. 59:2). One should not think that the barrier existed, and God Himself, by His condescension, destroyed the wall; after all, when He had not yet descended, there was nothing to destroy the obstacle, I am talking about the blood and passion [of Christ]. After all, this was the only way to destroy sin. For even among those who lived under the law and had images of grace [it was known] that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb. 9:22). Further, who does not know about the Virgin the definitions that declare Her to have not tasted any sin? After all, the Judge Himself, who, as Scripture says, does not look at face (Luke 20:21), passed judgment on both the common Mother of people [Eve] and the Virgin. He identified sadness first, as the one who had sinned, but he honored the Virgin with joy. From this it is obvious that if sorrow is appropriate for those who have sinned, then those who are supposed to rejoice have nothing to do with sin. That’s why God did not invite anyone else who lived before the Virgin from all eternity to rejoice that they were all included in the number of those subject to responsibility for sin and all shared the ancient unfortunate lot. Those who consider the preparation of the Virgin for the Sacrament become clear [also] the following: when She tried to find out the image of the new birth, that is, what she became and what she endured, she would give birth to God, Gabriel remembered the Spirit and Power of the Most High and other similar things; but in his annunciation there was nothing about permission from guilt and remission of sins. But this preparation would be required before anything else, if it were really required. For if Isaiah, who was sent simply as a messenger of a Mystery that had not yet been revealed, needed purification and purification by fire, then about She who was to become the minister of these amazing works themselves, and to offer for their sake not only a tongue, but a soul, and a body, and everything, did not [God] clearly testify that She had nothing that should be discarded when she did not demand liberation from defilements? If some of the holy teachers say that the Virgin was previously purified by the Spirit, then it should be assumed that they understand this purification as the addition of grace-filled gifts, just as it is said about the angels, in whom there is nothing bad, that in this sense they too are purified. This same thing, after the ineffable birth, the Savior testified about the Mother, saying at a general meeting: “My Mother and My brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21). With these words, He did not want to glorify them so much as the Mother: after all, He honors them with the name of Mother and brothers because the subject of their zeal was the Divine law. The same one, whom He not only honored with the title of Mother and not just called His Mother, but truly had Her as such, He showed her to surpass all abundance of holiness. If He knew those whom He honored only with [this] name as careful guardians of the law, then regarding She Whom He granted to be [Mother], Who gave birth to Him, is it not clear that He recognized that She never, with a single thought, in any way deviated from His commandments and laws, and that Her righteousness is as much higher than all human righteousness, just as simply “being called” differs from truly “being”, as much as a thing comes before the name. Just as it could not have been that She gave birth to Him in a more beautiful way than She gave birth to and became His Mother more truly than She became (but reached the extreme limit of kinship closeness to Him), so it was impossible for Her to gain anything more to the kindness with which She lived from beginning to end. There is also the following clear sign that the Blessed Virgin was delivered from all defilement: after all, She entered the most sacred chamber, which was inaccessible even to the leader of the priests himself before he was cleansed from all sin (to the extent that cleansing from sin was then possible). And by the fact that for this She did not require any propitiatory and cleansing sacrifices, She showed that She had nothing to cleanse itself from. But She not only entered there in an extraordinary way, but also lived there from childhood until girlhood. And neither at the beginning of Her stay, nor as She grew, did She need cleansing sacrifices. And what’s incredible is that none of Her contemporaries thought it a deviation from the sacred institutions that the High Priest dares to enter with fear and trembling once a year, not without cleansing blood (cf. Heb. 9:7), and the Virgin uses the Sanctuary as a home, eats food there, sleeps there, spends all her time there. But She was also involved in ordinary human things in a way that was greater than human: after all, to strengthen Her strength with food, She did not need the fruits of the earth and the hands of people, but the organizer of Her meal was an Angel. But, apparently, it was revealed not only to the One who sees the secret, but also to the eyes of people that She is above all guilt and purer than those who need human followers. So radiant was Her virtue and greater than could be hidden. Although age, origin and race of life could not preach Her virtue among those who were still blind and immersed in the abyss of darkness, since the Sun of righteousness had not yet risen, yet nothing prevented this light from appearing, and the beauty of Her soul overcame all obstacles and made the blind feel the touch of the ray. And deservedly so. What could have such power to hide the greatness of this philosophy, which, according to the prophet, covered the heavens themselves (Hab. 3:3). After all, She who turned out to be such a conqueror of all human defilement that she could immediately destroy it all with ease, how could she be enveloped in its darkness? That is why people, recognizing that Her [gifts] were both the greatest of all, and supernatural, and such as no one else has, honored Her with the best that they had, giving Her a dwelling in the most sacred place, which they had previously dedicated to God from all the earth, one to the One. They gave Her this place to live, considering that the same place should be both a shrine of God and an abode for the Most Pure One, so that in the same way they could give worship to both God and the Virgin, or rather, so that the same house should have Her inside, and be the church of God. God, Who knew Her all the better because He was looking inside Her heart, and therefore One was aware of what She was worthy to receive from Him, and One was able to give it to Her, adorned Her with what She was truly worthy of. Having brought Her out of those sacred walls, He led Her to another tabernacle, not made of clouds, not of the wings of angels or archangels, not of anything else created and subordinated - but He Himself became a tabernacle for the Blessed One, Himself Who dwells in the impregnable Light (1 Tim. 6:16), Who is the Power of the Most High. “The Lord Himself overshadowed Her” (Luke 1:35), as the most sacred Gabriel announced. After all, God alone considered Himself to be a worthy tabernacle for She Who alone became a worthy tabernacle for God. By the presence of the Virgin in that [earthly] Sanctuary, God glorified not Her, but that place itself, in the same way as He honored the ancient Easter through the application of His slaughter, the baptism of John through spiritual baptism, and all other images through their true implementation. And if other images refer to other objects, then the Holy of Holies, of course, led to the Blessed Virgin. The fact that this place perceived only the high priest entering once a year, already cleansed of sins, indicated Her indescribable womb, bringing the One Sinless One, Who once in all times, with one sacrifice, completely destroyed sin. The fact that [the Holy of Holies] was inaccessible to all people, except for the one who received the greatest sanctification of all, meant that the Virgin never carried anything in her soul that was not completely holy. That is why this place was so revered that it was destined to receive [the Virgin] within itself, for on no other side did it deserve such reverence. After all, of the things that were in it, none were so sacred that in themselves they would be considered inviolable for most people. Among those items was manna, which everyone could take with their hands, bring into the house and eat; there was a staff no more sacred than the priests who carried it and for whose sake it [once] flourished. The most valuable were the tablets containing the law, but they were all carried in their hands. What else has so strikingly removed this passage [from general use], if not the images of the Most Pure Mother [contained in it], leading to Her? Therefore, having been impregnable to all people, [the Holy of Holies] turned out to be open for the entry of the Virgin. By Her appearance She immediately resolved a law that had existed since ancient times, which meant that, intending to give Her honor and preserving [the Holy of Holies] for Her Alone, not to allow any of the others to enter, and the Virgin to be immediately perceived as superior to man, without even remembering the general human humiliation. From here it is clear what conclusion needs to be drawn from these very examples: if in relation to the place that prototyped Her there was such a distance of everyone that, let’s say, it did not communicate in any way with people and with the entire Universe, then from the measure of the lower one can understand the greatness of the higher. Just as the outline of a shadow, being an image of the depicted bodies, purely captures the bodies themselves, in the same way the separation of the Virgin from everything human, Her elevation above the earthly, as well as the fact that She took nothing from the earth, but had a mind inaccessible to any defilement - all this, as if in some unclear and vague symbol, was depicted by what was in the Holy of Holies. This is entirely consistent and consistent with plausible reasoning and the order of things. Indeed, besides the fact that the Mother of the Sinless One herself had to become like Him in this, it was also necessary that man himself, by diligence of mind and strength, should become above all sin, and this for many reasons. First, it was fitting that human nature should appear what it was, in order to bring due honor and glory to the Creator; after all, neither in the first [representative] of the human race, nor in those who descended from Him, as in those damaged by sin, could it be possible to find a [damaged] person, so that it was absolutely not possible for the Second Adam, abiding in His divine nature, to reveal another nature, that is, ours. After all, He Himself was not in the same attitude towards sin that a person should have in this life. He was completely inaccessible to sin, and not that, having the opportunity of a double choice, he preferred good to evil and rushed towards good, although he could become evil. Hence it was necessary that one should be revealed who, having the opportunity to sin, did not sin in anything and was such as God wanted man to be in this life. Otherwise, the Creator would have used His art in vain, and this in the most beautiful of [His] deeds, if nature had not provided in any person the image that it was the Creator’s goal to receive from nature. Then, is it in accordance with the demands of reason that the law of God should not be fully preserved by anyone, and it turned out as if the Wise One thoughtlessly established it, when then no one was found who would keep all the laws, as if he prescribed something that no one could follow, as if He spoke without finding anyone who would listen, as if He who succeeded in everything in this regard failed? So, when from all points of view it was necessary for a man to appear - a thorough doer of the divine commandments in everything, pure from all filth, then who among the others could become him, if not the best of all? Such a person was, according to Divine decree, the Blessed Virgin, whom He Himself chose for Himself as a kind of sacred destiny, selecting it from the entire Universe. In general, since it was necessary for one person to clearly demonstrate human nature for what it actually is, yet other people were not able to lift this burden, then this lot went to the Immaculate One. God invested in us the strength through sobriety and diligence, as mentioned above, to prevail over sin, and intended to adorn the victorious with a non-fallen stay in goodness. Both were delivered to human nature by the Virgin Alone: ​​one, through what She herself successfully accomplished, the other, through Him to whom she became the Mother. Indeed, in Her, man demonstrated in great abundance the ability to fight sin. The Blessed Virgin, through self-restraint of mind, directness of will and greatness of soul, drove out all defilement from beginning to end. Then, in the ineffably Born of Her, man received a reward. Christ was infallible, not as having conquered through zeal, but as having been crowned from the beginning, appearing to his enemies like a hero with all his trophies. And it is not that He had a will capable of resisting evil, and preserved it with impassive vigil, but He also had it impregnable, impervious to all evil, just as He later snatched the body [impregnable] from corruption from the grave. The situation of the human race also corresponded to the possibility of doing good to it. And it was She who gave birth [made it so] that after diligent work one could become sinless and remain completely unfallen in goodness. So, in the course of time, the Mother introduced the first purity to the human race; The son is the second and most beautiful. And, of course, it was fitting that this should go first of all to the Blessed Mother, that is, that what belongs to the Son, through His prayer, would also belong to Her, so that She would yield to the virtue of the Son and be able to achieve even more through Him and add to Herself, thanks to what she received from Him, an even more beautiful glory than before. And both in this world and in paradise, She revealed the pure and perfect man as in the beginning he was created and as he was to remain, and as he could become later, having fought for Her nobility. Since it was necessary for human nature to meet with the Divine and to unite so tightly that one Hypostasis became in the two natures, then each nature had to first show itself in unclouded purity. And God revealed Himself as much as it was possible for Him to appear. The Virgin alone showed the man; and thus, being God and becoming man, Jesus appeared, not before the two [natures] of which He was separately manifested. And just as God, having first laid reason as the foundation, and then created the sensory principle, thirdly, creates from both a combination, that is, man, so, being God from the beginning, and appearing as a man hardly at the end of the centuries, He became the God-man in these last days. Therefore, as I think, not at the beginning, but many centuries later, God joined human nature in the reasoning that then it had not yet truly appeared, but now it was revealed for the first time. So, the Immaculate One did not create man, but found the lost; did not give us nature, but preserved it, did not create it, but contributed to the reconstruction, became an assistant to the Creator and a co-worker to the Artist. She gave [man] what he was before. God added what he was not. But He would not have added the second unless He had gained the first. The one to whom this second should have been added, that is, Adam, had Eve as his only helper among all living beings; To God, in order for the abundance of grace to be revealed, one of all things, the Virgin helped. After all, none of the others partook of the nature of God, and therefore had nothing in common with His actions. And none of those who exist were thus involved in the goodness of God so as to be able to become a helper. The best artist does his job and shows himself to be the best after he gets hold of an instrument suitable for any kind of art. God manifested Himself after He found not just an instrument suitable to Him in everything, but a most suitable co-worker, the Blessed Virgin. The rest of the time, so to speak, He was mostly hidden, for there was no one who would reveal Him. When the Virgin came into being, then He became visible everywhere, just as, of all bodies, we clearly see the sun only through the air, for the air has nothing that would hinder the eyes from perceiving light. In the same way, She had nothing but purity and this was something that was exclusively akin to the First Light. Therefore, celebrating with all joy, bright and bright we reach this day on which all this took its beginning, the day of the birth of no more the Virgin than the entire Universe, the day which was the first and only glimpse of true man, through which true humanity became available to everyone. Now, truly, “the earth has given its fruit” (Ps. 66:7), the earth, which all other times, with thorns and thorns, brought forth the corruption of sin. Now heaven has learned that it was not in vain that it was erected when that for which it was formed was revealed; the sun saw that for which it received visible light. Now the whole creation felt itself filled with greater beauty and light, when the general beauty shone. Now all the Angels of God glorified and sang the Lord with a loud voice, so much stronger than when He adorned the sky with a round dance of stars, as much as it now rises higher and more radiant than any star, and more useful for the whole world. Now human nature has received an active eye, remaining blind until this very day. After all, just as God later took pity on a man born blind, having accidentally met him, so He took pity on the wandering and stumbling nature, and put this wondrous eye into it. And man saw what over time he wanted to see in many prophets and kings, but could not. After all, just as in one body there are many parts and many members, but not one of them, except the eye, is adapted to turn to the sun, so of all those who have existed since the ages, the true light was entrusted to the Virgin alone, and through Her to all. Hence, from every creature unceasing praise is given to Her, and every tongue sings Her praises with one accord; incessant hymns to the Mother of God come from all people and angelic choirs. Our hymn is added to this general offering, albeit less than we owed and what became the zealous; after all, we were able to express less than diligence suggested. There is a lot missing that we still have to [say]. But let it be your business, O O Glorified One, of your love for mankind to measure good deeds not by our measure, but by Your generosity. And just as You Yourself, having been chosen from the common [our] race as a gift to God, adorned the rest of humanity, so to us, for the fact that we dedicate these words to You, sanctify the treasury of words and reveal the land of our soul, barren for all filth, by the grace and love of Your Only Begotten Son, Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs all glory, honor and worship with His beginningless Father and the Most Holy and Good and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: