Two Adams

Propers: The Great Vigil of Easter, AD 2022 C

Homily:

The Easter Vigil Homily of St Epiphanius of Cyprus

[Keep in mind that you are Adam; and Adam is all of humanity.]

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

What is this? Today, great silence in the earth … Great silence and great stillness. Great silence, for the King sleeps. The earth feared and was still when God fell asleep in the flesh. God died in the flesh, and Hell trembled. God slumbered a short spell, and woke up out of Hell those of times past who were sleeping …

Today is salvation for those on earth, and those of ages past beneath the earth. Today is salvation for the world, both seen and unseen. Twofold is the Master’s coming today, twofold the dispensation, twofold the love of man, twofold the descent, and likewise the condescension, twofold the visitation unto men—from heaven to earth, and from earth to under the earth.

God draws nigh, Hell’s gates open wide. O ye of times past who are fallen asleep, rejoice! Ye that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, receive the great Light! The Master is with his slaves, God with the dead, the Life with mortals, the Guiltless with the guilty, the unwaning Light with those in darkness, the Liberator with the captives, the One far above the heavens with those in the lowest depths.

When Christ was on earth, we believed on him; now that Christ is among the dead, let us go down with him. Let us learn the mysteries there, let us come to know the wonders of the hidden God hid beneath the earth, let us learn how the preaching appeared even to those in Hades …

Yesterday, he was slapped: today, he strikes Hell’s household with the thunderbolt of his Godhead. Yesterday, he was bound: today, he binds fast the tyrant with unbreakable bonds. Yesterday, he was condemned: today, he grants freedom to the damned. Yesterday, Pilate’s minions mocked him: today, Hell’s porters shudder to see him …

Forty days after his first birth, Christ went up to the earthly Jerusalem, to the temple, and as firstborn, brought a pair of turtledoves to God; and forty days after his rebirth from the dead, Christ ascended to the Jerusalem which is above, whence he had never been parted, into the true Holy of holies, as the incorrupt firstborn from the dead, and brought to God his Father, like two unblemished turtledoves, our soul and our body; and God, the Ancient of days, took him up in his arms, like another aged Simeon, into his bosom …

Indeed, the natural friend of man goes to bring out with his great might and authority the prisoners from ages past who dwell in the tombs, whom the harsh and indomitable tyrant tyrannizes, having spitefully seized and stolen them from God, and filled his infernal lair with those who once dwelt above. There is Adam the prisoner, the first-enchained and first-sentenced to death, lower down than all the rest. There is Abel, the first-slain and first-righteous shepherd, prototype of the unjust slaughter of Christ the Shepherd. There is Noah, the type of Christ, Builder of the great Ark of the Church …

There is Abraham, Christ’s forefather … There is Isaac in bonds … There is Jacob, grieving in Hades below … There is Joseph the prisoner … There is Moses, in darkness below, as once in a basket he was in darkness above. There is Daniel in the den of Hell below, who was once in a den of lions above. There is Jeremiah … There in the all-devouring belly of Hell lies Jonah, the type of Christ …

There is David, God’s forefather, of whom Christ was descended according to the flesh. But why speak I of David, Jonah, and Solomon? There is the illustrious John himself, greater than all the prophets, who heralds Christ’s coming to all those in Hades, as he did even in the darkness of his mother’s womb; the twofold forerunner, the preacher to the living and the dead, who was sent from Herod’s prison to Hades, the common prison of those fallen asleep since the world began, righteous and unrighteous alike.

From thence, all the prophets and the righteous secretly sent up ceaseless supplications to God, asking for deliverance from that most dismal place, from the dark and dreary domination of the enemy, and the endless, impenetrable black of night …

Having heard all these pleas, the all-compassionate God determined to extend his love for mankind not only to those living in his day and afterwards, but also to those before his coming, held in Hades, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Wherefore, just as God the Word visited men in the flesh … so also did he appear to the bodiless souls in Hell … bereft of his body, but not his divinity.

Let us then make haste and journey in mind to Hades … If thou followest Christ in silence, thou wilt presently see where he bound the tyrant, where he hung his head aloft, how he razed his dungeon and led out the prisoners, how he trampled the serpent, and where he displayed his head, how he freed Adam and raised up Eve … where he condemned the cruel dragon … where he put Death to death, how he spoiled corruption, and restored man to his primal dignity …

While these things, and even more besides, were taking place in Hades … and as everything was in an uproar and great commotion, since the Master’s presence was about to reach the very nethermost of the nether regions; then Adam, the first-created and first-imprisoned of all men, held fast in chains with great security deeper down than all the rest, heard the Master’s footsteps coming toward the prisoners, and recognized their sound as he walked about the prison, and turned to all the prisoners with him from former ages, and said:

“I hear the sound of someone’s footsteps coming toward us; and if he has truly deigned to come unto this place, we are free of our chains: if we should truly see him here with us, we are delivered from Hell” … And Christ answering said to Adam:

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. I am thy God, who for thy sake became thy son—for thy sake and thy posterity—who now speak and with authority command the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ and them that are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves,’ and them that sleep, ‘Arise.’ Again I bid thee, Awake thou that sleepest: for I did not make thee, that thou shouldest be held captive in Hell. Arise from the dead: for I am the Life of mortals.  Arise, my creation; arise, my form, made in mine own image.

“Arise, let us go hence; for we are one single, inseparable person—thou in me, and I in thee. For thy sake, I thy God became thy son; for thy sake, I the Master took upon me thy servile form; for thy sake, I that am far above the heavens came upon earth, and went under the earth; for thy sake, who art a man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for thy sake, who wast exiled from a garden, I was betrayed … in a garden, and in a garden was crucified …

“Behold my back which received scourging … Behold my hands which were nailed to the Tree … Behold my feet which were pierced and nailed … on behalf of thee who didst wickedly … On the sixth day, thine expulsion took place; so on the sixth day, I worked thy restoration and the opening of Paradise …

“I slept on the Cross and was pierced in the side by a spear, on behalf of thee who didst sleep in Paradise and bring forth Eve from thy side. My side healed the pain of thy side, my sleep shall draw thee out of sleep in the grave, my spear has stopped the sword which turned every way against thee.

“Arise then, let us go hence … I barred thee from the archetypal Tree of Life, but lo, I myself, the Life, am now wholly united to thee … Thou didst hide from God as one naked, but lo, now thou hast hidden within thyself the denuded God …

“Wherefore arise, all of you, let us go hence, from decay to incorruption, from death unto life. Arise, let us go hence, from darkness to everlasting light. Arise, let us go hence, from grief to joy. Arise, let us go hence, from bondage to liberty, from prison to the Jerusalem above, from bonds to God … to the bliss of Paradise, from earth to heaven. For to this end, I both died and rose again, that I might be Lord both of the dead and the living.

“Wherefore arise, let us go hence; for my heavenly Father awaits the lost sheep; the ninety and nine sheep, the angels, are waiting for the time when Adam their fellow-servant should arise, when he should ascend and return to God … “

When the Master had finished these sayings and others like them, Adam, who was united to him, arose with him; and Eve also arose together with them; and many bodies of the saints which slept from ages past arose … dancing with the angels, celebrating with the archangels, and glorifying Christ who raised us up from corruption: to whom be glory and dominion, together with his beginningless Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Amen.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!