On the Death of Theodosius

And he indeed has gone to receive for himself a kingdom, which he did not lay down, but exchanged for the tabernacles of Christ, being admitted by the right of piety into that heavenly Jerusalem, where now, being set, he says: As we have heard, so also have we seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God has founded for ever. But he has left very many, as it were destitute of a father's protection, and above all his sons. But they are not destitute, whom he left heirs of his own piety: they are not destitute, for whom he acquired the grace of Christ, and the loyalty of the army: to which it was a proof that God favors piety, and avenges perfidy.

Of this prince, then, we have both recently proclaimed the death, and now we celebrate the fortieth day, the prince Honorius assisting at the sacred altars; because just as holy Joseph rendered to his father Jacob the offices of burial for forty days, so too has he paid the due rites to his father Theodosius. And since some have been accustomed to observe the third day and the thirtieth, others the seventh and the fortieth, let us consider what the reading teaches. When Jacob then had died, Joseph, it says, commanded the servants who were embalmers, that they should bury him. And the embalmers buried Israel, and forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are the days of burial reckoned. And Egypt mourned for him seventy days. This solemnity, then, is to be followed, which the reading prescribes. But it is also written in Deuteronomy: Because the children of Israel wept for Moses thirty days, and the days of mourning were completed. Both observances, then, have authority; because the necessary office of piety is fulfilled.

Good Joseph, then, who gave the pattern for this dutiful office, whom his father loved, and to whom he said: May my God help you, and bless you with the blessing of the earth having all things, because of the blessing of the breasts and of the womb, the blessings of your mother, and because of the blessings of your father: the good offspring of a pious father. He too, then, celebrates the fortieth day of his father Jacob, that supplanter; and we celebrate the fortieth day of Theodosius, who, imitating Jacob, supplanted the perfidy of tyrants, who hid away the images of the nations; for his faith hid away all worship of idols, it blotted out all their ceremonies: who also, for those who had sinned against him, grieved that the indulgence he had granted should perish, and pardon be denied.

But the sons will not deny what the father granted: they will not deny it, even if someone should attempt to disturb it; for those who release what he gave to individuals cannot deny what he granted in common.

Nothing more glorious did the end of so great a prince have, who had already handed over everything to his sons, the realm, the power, the name of Augustus: nothing, I say, more splendid was kept for him in death, than that, in the case of certain persons, the promised remission of the exaction of taxes, while it was delayed, by his succession became an inheritance of these very indulgences; so that he who wished to hinder it brought hatred upon himself, and yet the fullness of so great a favor was not taken away from Theodosius. And not undeservedly; for if the last wills of private persons, and the testaments of the dying, have perpetual firmness, how can the testament of so great a prince be void?

Theodosius is also more glorious in this, that he did not make his will according to common law; for concerning his sons he had nothing new to establish, to whom he had given everything, except to commend them to their present father: but concerning those subject and entrusted to him he ought to make a testament, that he might leave legacies, and seal trusts. He ordered a law of indulgence to be given, which he left in writing. What is more fitting, than that the testament of an emperor should be law?

So great an emperor, then, has departed from us, but he has not wholly departed; for he has left us his children, in whom we ought to recognize him, and in whom we both behold and hold him. Let not their age move you: the loyalty of the soldiers is the perfect age of the emperor; for that age is perfect where virtue is perfect. This is reciprocal; for the loyalty of the emperor is also the virtue of the soldiers.

You surely recognize what triumphs the faith of Theodosius won for you. When, by the narrowness of the places and the hindrances of the camp-followers, the column of the army was descending somewhat too late into battle line, and the enemy seemed to gain by the delay of the war advancing upon them, the prince leapt down from his horse, and advancing alone before the line, said: Where is the God of Theodosius? Already he was speaking as one near to Christ. For who could say this, unless one who knew that he clung to Christ? By this word he roused all, and by his example armed all. And now indeed advanced in age, but strong in faith.

The faith of Theodosius, then, was your victory: let your faith be the strength of his sons. Faith, then, increases age. Indeed, neither did Abraham, in order to beget a son in old age, take account of his age: nor did Sarah, in order to bear one. Nor is it strange if faith increases age, since it makes present things to come. For what is faith, but the substance of those things which are hoped for? So the Scriptures teach us. If, then, faith is the substance of things hoped for, how much more of things that are seen? Good is that faith of which it is written: But the just man lives by faith. But if he draw back, he will not please my soul.

Let us, then, not draw back to the loss of our soul, but let us cleave to faith for the gain of our soul; since in this warfare of faith our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob obtained testimony. And therefore they have left us the inheritance of faith. Faithful was Abraham, who was justified not from works, but from faith; since he believed God: Isaac, who through faith did not fear even the sword of the father about to strike: Jacob, who, intent upon the footsteps of his father's faith, while on his journey, saw the host of angels, and called it the council of God.

Elsewhere too, that is, in the books of Kings, Elisha was within Samaria, and suddenly the army of the Syrians, pouring around, besieged him. Gehazi saw them, and said to his master: O master, what shall we do? And Elisha the prophet said: Fear not; for there are more with us than with them. And he asked that the Lord would open the eyes of Gehazi. And his eyes were opened, and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots round about Elisha. And Elisha asked that God would strike them with blindness, and they were struck, and they entered into the city where they were to go, seeing nothing at all You have surely heard, soldiers, you who are gathered round, that where perfidy is, there is blindness. Deservedly, then, was the army of the unfaithful blind. But where faith is, there is the army of angels. Good, then, is that faith, which often works even in the dead. Indeed, the adversary and his legions are tormented by the daily virtue of the martyrs.

Whence I think that the strings of a cithara are called "fides" (strings), because even when dead, they give forth sound.

Wherefore we must strive all the more, lest, sated with this gift of living, we be ungrateful: but let us, as dutiful men, bestow on the pledges of the prince a diligent and fatherly affection. Pay to his sons what you owe to the father. You owe more to him now dead, than you owed him while living. For if among the children of private persons the rights of minors are not violated without grievous crime, how much more in the sons of an emperor?

Let it be added, of which emperor? Of a pious emperor, of a merciful emperor, of a faithful emperor, of whom Scripture has spoken no small thing, saying: Great and honorable is a merciful man: but to find a faithful man is difficult. If it is a great thing to find any man merciful or faithful, how much more an emperor, whom power impels to vengeance, yet whom compassion recalls from vengeance? What is more excellent than the faith of an emperor, whom power does not exalt, nor pride puff up, but whom piety bends down? Of whom Solomon excellently says: The threatening of an unjust king is like the roaring of a lion: but as dew upon the grass, so also is his cheerfulness. How great a thing, then, is it to lay aside the terror of power, and to prefer the sweetness of grace?

Theodosius of august memory thought he had received a favor, when he was asked to forgive; and he was then nearer to pardon, when the disturbance of his anger had been greater. His prerogative in forgiving was to have been indignant: and that was wished for in him which was feared in others, namely that he should be angry. This was the remedy of the accused; since, though he had power above all, he preferred, like a parent, to remonstrate, rather than, like a judge, to punish. Often we saw men trembling, whom he was rebuking, and who, convicted of crime, when they had despaired, were released from the charge. For he, judge of equity, wished to conquer, not to punish; not an arbiter of penalty, who never denied pardon to one confessing: or if there were anything which a hidden conscience concealed, he reserved it to God. This voice of his men feared more than punishment: because the emperor acted with such modesty, that he preferred to bind men to himself by religious reverence rather than by fear.

They say that Maximus of the philosophers granted impunity to those crimes which had been committed through anger; but the divine Scripture says better: Be angry, and sin not. He preferred to cut off sin, rather than excuse it. It is better to find the praise of clemency in indignation, than to be roused by anger to vengeance.

Who, then, will doubt that his sons will have the greatest protection before the Lord? By the favor of the Lord, the emperor Arcadius is now strong in youth: Honorius is now knocking at the doors of adolescence, further advanced in age than Josiah. For he, deprived of his father, having begun his reign, carried the age of his kingdom on to his thirty-first year, and pleased the Lord; since, beyond the other kings of Israel, he celebrated the Lord's passover, and abolished the errors of the ceremonies Asa too, still weak in bodily strength, when he had received the course of the kingdom, reigned forty years in Jerusalem: who, when he was pressed by the endless and innumerable multitude of the Ethiopians, hoped in the Lord, and that he could be saved with few. Would that he had been as faithful in the course of his life as he was devout at its beginning!

For, having been saved with few and being victorious, he afterward, abandoning the Lord, sought help from the Syrians, and applied physicians for the pain of his feet; for, having received so great a proof of divine favor, he ought not to have forsaken his helper, but to have held fast to him. Therefore even physicians did not help him, and, as one unbelieving, he fulfilled his death.

But the fathers of those kings, Abijah and Amos, were both unfaithful: but Theodosius, full of the fear of God, full of mercy, we hope stands before Christ as a patron for his children, if the Lord be propitious to human affairs. Good is the merciful man, who, while he helps others, takes counsel for himself, and in another's remedy heals his own wounds. For he acknowledges that he is a man, who knows how to forgive: and he follows the ways of Christ, who, having taken on flesh, chose rather to come into this world as a redeemer than as a judge.

Whence the Psalmist beautifully said: I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. When this psalm is read, we heard, as it were, Theodosius himself speaking. I have loved, he says: I recognize the pious voice, whose testimonies of voice I recognize. And truly he loved, who fulfilled his duties more diligently, who spared his enemies, who loved even his enemies, who forgave those by whom he was attacked, who did not allow the pretenders to the throne to perish. It is the voice not of one moderate, but of one perfect in the Law, to say: I have loved. For the fullness of the Law is love. But let us hear who it is that loved. When the kind of love is left unspoken, surely the grace of divine charity is signified, by which we love that which is desirable above all things desirable, of which it is written: You shall love the Lord your God.

Departing, then, from the earth, that pious soul, filled with the Holy Spirit, as if to those who met him and asked him, while it was raising itself to the sublime and the heights above, was saying: I have loved. Nothing is fuller than this, nothing more expressive. The angels or archangels were asking: What have you done on earth? For God alone is the knower of hidden things. He was saying, I have loved; that is to say: I have fulfilled the Law, I have not passed over the Gospel; that is to say: I have offered myself to death, and all the day long I have been accounted as a sheep for the slaughter. And therefore I am confident, that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This commandment of the Law the Lord Jesus also teaches in the Gospel must be kept, when he says to Peter: Simon, son of John, do you love me? And he answered: You know, Lord, that I love you. And again he said: Simon, son of John, do you love me? And again he answered: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And asked a third time, he said: Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you. Thus the threefold response confirmed love, or abolished the error of the threefold denial. And here, if we seek a threefold response, we find it: I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. I have loved, because he has inclined his ear to me, that I might call upon him in my days. I have loved, because I found tribulation and sorrow, and for the name of my God I did not shrink from the perils of hell, but waited that they might be able to seize and find me.

And he says beautifully: I have loved, because now he had completed the course of this life. Whence also the Apostle, already set in his passion, says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. Great is the Lord, who has given us contests, by which he who conquers may deserve to be crowned. I have loved, he says confidently, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer.

I have loved, and therefore he inclined his ear to me; that he might raise up the one lying prostrate, might revive the dead. For God does not incline his ear so as to hear bodily: but so as to condescend to us, that he might deign to hear us, and to relieve the substance of our weakness. He inclines himself to us, that our prayer may ascend to him. He who bestows mercy has no need of voice; nor did he who heard Moses in silence need a voice: and he said that one not speaking, but appealing with inexpressible groanings, was crying out to him. God knows how to hear even blood, though it have no voice, though no tongue serve it: but it received a voice by the title of a sacred passion. It cried out in martyrdom, it cried out in the killing of a kinsman, which he endured for a sacrifice.

I have loved, he says, and therefore, loving, I did the will of the Lord, and I called upon him not in a few, but in all the days of my life. For to call upon him on certain days, not on all, belongs to one who is weary, not one who hopes: and to render the recompense of thanks for the enjoyment of abundant advantages, not out of devotion of feeling. And therefore Paul says: In everything give thanks. For when do you not have something you owe to God? Or when are you without God's gift, whose daily use of living comes from the Lord? For what do you have that you have not received? Therefore, since you always receive, always call upon him: and since what you have is from the Lord, know that you are always a debtor. Yet I prefer that you pay your debt as one who loves, rather than as one compelled.

Do you hear him saying: The sorrows of death encompassed me? Yet I loved the Lord even in the sorrow of death. The perils of hell found me, not indeed fearing, but loving, but hoping, that no distress, no persecution, no perils, no sword would separate me from Christ. Finally, willingly he found tribulation and sorrow, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience proof, proof hope. For like a good athlete he sought contests, that he might find the crown; which nevertheless he knew was given to him not by his own strength, but by the Lord's help. For he could not have conquered, had he not called upon him who helps those who contend.

The wretched man enters combat to conquer; and yet he rushes into danger, unless the Lord's name is present, unless, when he fears, he prays, saying: O Lord, deliver my soul. Hence that saying of the Apostle: I see a law of my flesh warring against the law of my mind, and taking me captive under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

He conquers who hopes in the grace of God, not he who presumes on his own strength. For why should you not presume on grace, since you have a merciful president of the contest; For the Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy. He set down mercy twice, justice once: justice is in the middle, enclosed by a double fence of mercy; for sins abound beyond measure, let mercy therefore abound beyond measure. With the Lord there is abundance of all virtues; because the Lord is the Lord of virtues. Yet justice is not without mercy, nor is there mercy without justice; because it is written: Be not overly just. What is beyond measure, even if it is good, yet you cannot sustain it. Keep the measure, that you may receive according to the measure.

Mercy, however, did not hinder justice; because mercy itself is justice: He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor, his justice remains for ever; for the just man knows that he must come to the aid of the weak and the needy. Whence the Lord, coming to baptism, that he might grant us, in our weakness, the forgiveness of sins, said to John: Permit it now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice. It is clear, therefore, that justice is mercy, and mercy is justice. For if the mercy of God did not sustain us, how would we live even at the very beginning as infants; since, poured forth from the womb from warm into cold, from moist into dry, we are tossed about like fish, cast up shipwrecked into this life, as it were by a wave of nature? Reason is lacking, but divine grace does not fail. He himself therefore keeps the little ones, or certainly those who with humble affection confess themselves to be little ones.

Good, therefore, is humility, which frees those in peril, raises up those who lie prostrate. He knew it, who said: Behold, it, I have sinned, and I the shepherd have done wickedly; and these of the flock, what have they done? Let your hand be against me. He says this well, who subjected his kingdom to God, and did penance, and confessing his sin, asked for pardon: he himself, through humility, arrived at salvation. Christ humbled himself, that he might raise up all: he arrives at the rest of Christ, who has followed the humility of Christ.

And therefore, because the emperor Theodosius showed himself humble, and where sin crept in, he asked for pardon, his soul was turned into its rest, as Scripture has it, which says: Turn, O my soul, into your rest; because the Lord has done well by you. Beautifully he says to the soul: Turn, as if to one exercised by the long sweat of labor of any kind, that from labor it might be turned to rest. The horse turns to the stable, when it has finished its course: the ship to the harbor, when it is withdrawn from the mass of the waves to a safe anchorage. But what does he mean when he says: Into your rest, unless you understand it according to what the Lord Jesus says: Come, you blessed of my Father, take as inheritance the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For we receive, as it were, a hereditary possession, those things which have been promised to us; for God is faithful, who does not withdraw from his servants what he has once prepared. If our faith remains, the promise also remains.

See, O man, the grace of Christ toward you: you are still shaken on earth, and you possess in heaven. Let your heart, therefore, be there, where your possession is. This is the rest which is owed to the just, denied to the unworthy. Whence the Lord says: As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest; for those who have not known the ways of the Lord do not enter into the rest of the Lord. But to him who has fought the good fight and finished the course, it is said: Turn into your rest. It is a good rest to pass beyond the things that are of the world, and to rest in those heavenly companionships of secrets which are above the world. This is the rest to which the prophet hastened, saying: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest? This the saint knew as his own rest, to this rest he says his soul must be turned.

The soul, then, was in its own rest, to which he says it must return. This is the rest of the great sabbath, that each of the saints may be above the sensible things of the world, wholly intent in that intelligible secret, and cleaving to God. This is that rest of the sabbath, on which God rested from all the works of this world.

Freed from these cares of the world, Theodosius rejoices that he has been snatched away, and lifts up his soul, and directs it to that perpetual rest, declaring that good provision has been made for him, in that God has delivered his soul from death—that death which he frequently endured in the slippery course of this world, disturbed by the waves of sins: he has also delivered his eyes from tears; for sorrow and sadness and groaning shall flee away. And elsewhere we have: He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow. If, then, there shall be no death, one established in that rest cannot feel a fall: but he will be pleasing to God in the land of the living. For not as here is man enveloped in a body of death subject to falls and sins; so also there.

And therefore that is the land of the living, where the soul is, which was made to the image and likeness of God, not the flesh, shaped from clay. Therefore the flesh returns to the earth, the soul hastens to the rest above, to which it is said: Turn, O my soul, into your rest.

Into which Theodosius hastened to enter, and to go into the city Jerusalem, of which it is said: And the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. That is the true glory, which is received there; that most blessed kingdom, which is possessed there, toward which the Apostle hastened, saying: We are confident, therefore, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord; and therefore we strive, whether absent or present, to please him.

Released, therefore, from the uncertain contest, Theodosius, of august memory, now enjoys perpetual light, lasting tranquility, and rejoices in the fruits of divine recompense for what he did in this body. Therefore, because Theodosius, of august memory, loved the Lord his God, he deserved the company of the saints.

And I, that I may bring my discourse to a close with a kind of peroration, loved a merciful man, humble in his empire, endowed with a pure heart and a gentle breast, such as the Lord is wont to love, saying: Upon whom shall I rest, but upon the humble and the meek?

I loved a man who approved one who rebuked him rather than one who flattered him. He laid aside all the royal insignia he wore, he wept publicly in the Church for his sin, which had crept upon him by the deceit of others: with groaning and tears he asked pardon. What private persons blush to do, the emperor did not blush to do—publicly to perform penance: nor was there ever afterward a day on which he did not grieve for that error. What of this, that having obtained a splendid victory, yet because enemies had been laid low in battle, he abstained from participation in the sacraments, until he experienced the Lord's grace toward him at the coming of his sons.

I loved a man who, in his last moments, with his final breath, sought me out. I loved a man who, when he was already being released from the body, was more anxious about the state of the Churches than about his own dangers. I loved him, I confess, and therefore I grieved my sorrow in my inmost being, and I thought it should be consoled by a rather prolonged pursuit of speech. I have loved, and I presume upon the Lord that he will receive the voice of my prayer, with which I follow after that pious soul.

The sorrows of death encompassed me, the perils of hell found me; for the perils of many are there, but the remedies of few. In all things the priest is put in peril, in all things he is afflicted for the guilty; for what others suffer, he himself endures: and again he is freed, when others who are held are freed from their perils. I am crushed at heart; because a man is snatched away whom we can scarcely find: but yet you alone, Lord, are to be invoked, you are to be asked, that you may represent him again in his sons. You, Lord, who keep even the little ones in this humility, save those who hope in you. Give perfect rest to your servant Theodosius, that rest which you have prepared for your saints. Let his soul be turned to that place whence it descended; where it can feel no sting of death, where it may know that this death is not the end of nature, but of guilt.

For in that he died, he died to sin; so that there may no longer be a place for sin: but he shall rise again, that by a renewed gift life may be restored more perfect.

I loved him, and therefore I follow him even to the region of the living, nor will I abandon him, until by weeping and prayers I lead the man, whither his merits call him, into the holy mountain of the Lord: where there is perennial life, where there is no corruption, no contagion, no groaning, no sorrow, no fellowship of the dead; the true region of the living, where this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption. Great is the rest which fulfills the longing of one who loves, most beautiful the promise. Therefore the hundred and fourteenth psalm is inscribed alleluia: for above, in the fourteenth psalm, we received the perfection of man. But there, though formed, though a perfect man, he is still subject to sin; because he lives in the world: here is true perfection, where guilt has now ceased, where the grace of perpetual rest has shone forth.

Therefore the hundred and fourteenth psalm, because it is the recompense of charity: whence the Lord's Passover received the form of its celebration on the fourteenth moon; since he who celebrates the Passover ought to be perfect, ought to love the Lord Jesus, who, loving his people with perfect charity, offered himself to the Passion. And let us so love, that if it should be necessary, we would not flee death for the Lord's name, would count no pain, would fear nothing: for perfect charity casts out fear. Great is the mystery of the number, when the Father delivered up His only Son for us all, when the moon shone with the full orb of its light. For so is the Church, which piously celebrates the Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ, like the moon perfect, remaining forever. Whoever has well celebrated the Lord's Passover here, will be in perpetual light. Who has celebrated it more splendidly than he who removed sacrilegious errors, closed temples, destroyed idols? In this Theodosius surpassed King Josiah of former times.

Theodosius therefore remains in the light, and glories in the assemblies of the saints. There he now embraces Gratian, no longer mourning his wounds, because he has found his avenger: who, though snatched away by an unworthy death, possesses the rest of his soul. There both good men, and the generous interpreter of piety, rejoice in the fellowship of his mercy. Of whom it is well said: Day unto day utters speech. But on the contrary Maximus and Eugenius are in hell, as night unto night showeth knowledge; teaching by their wretched example how hard a thing it is to raise arms against one's own princes. Of whom it is beautifully said: I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus; and I passed by, and lo, he was not. For the pious man passed from the darkness of the world to eternal light, and the impious man was not, who ceased to be unjust.

Now Theodosius, of august memory, knows himself to reign, since he is in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and beholds His temple. Now he is a king to himself, since he receives back also his son Gratian, and Pulcheria, sweetest pledges to him, whom here he had lost, since his Flaccilla, a soul faithful to God, cleaves to him; since he rejoices that his father is restored to him, since he cleaves to Constantine. To whom, though the grace of baptism was granted at the very end of his life and remitted all his sins, yet because he was the first of emperors to believe, and left behind him to the princes an inheritance of faith, he has found a place of great merit. In whose times that prophetic saying was fulfilled: In that day there shall be that which is upon the bridle of the horse, holy to the Lord Almighty. Which that Helena, of holy memory, his mother, revealed, the Spirit of God being poured into her.

Blessed Constantine, with such a parent, who sought for her reigning son the help of the divine gift, whereby he might stand secure even amid battles, and not fear danger. A great woman, who found much more to confer upon the emperor than to receive from the emperor. The anxious mother, for the sake of her son, to whom the empire of the Roman world had fallen, hastened to Jerusalem, and searched out the place of the Lord's Passion.

They assert that she had first been a stable-maid, thus known to Constantius the elder, who afterward attained the kingdom. Good stable-maid, who so diligently sought out the manger of the Lord. Good stable-maid, who did not fail to know that innkeeper, who healed the wounds of him who had been wounded by robbers. Good stable-maid, who preferred to be counted as dung, that she might gain Christ. Therefore Christ raised her from the dung to the kingdom, according to what is written: For he raiseth up the needy from the earth, and lifteth up the poor from the dunghill.

Helena came, then, and began to revisit the holy places; the Spirit poured into her the desire to seek out the wood of the cross; she went to Golgotha, and said: Behold the place of the battle, where is the victory? I seek the standard of salvation, and I do not find it. She said, amid kingdoms, and is the cross of the Lord in the dust? Am I amid gold, and is the triumph of Christ amid ruins? Does he still lie hidden, and does the palm of eternal life lie hidden? How shall I count myself redeemed, if the redemption itself is not seen?

I see what you have done, devil, that the sword by which you were slain should be blocked up. But Isaac cleared out the wells which had been stopped up by foreigners, nor did he suffer the water to lie hidden. Let the ruin, then, be lifted away, that life may appear: let the sword be brought forth, by which the head of the true Goliath was cut off; let the ground be opened, that salvation may shine forth (Isaiah 45:8). What have you done, devil, in hiding the wood, except that you might again be conquered? Mary conquered you, who bore the Conqueror, who, without diminishment of her virginity, brought forth him who, crucified, would conquer you, and dying would subdue you. You are conquered again today, that a woman may detect your snares.

She, as a holy woman, bore the Lord; I will search out his cross: she taught that he was born; I, that he was raised again: she caused that God should be seen among men; I, for the remedy of our sins, will lift up from the ruins the divine standard.

She opens the ground, therefore, and shakes off the dust: she finds three crosses jumbled together, which ruin had covered over, which the enemy had hidden. But the triumph of Christ could not be blotted out. She hesitates in uncertainty: she hesitates, as a woman; but the Holy Spirit inspires a sure investigation, from the fact that two thieves had been crucified with the Lord. She seeks, then, the middle cross. But it could have happened that the ruin had confounded the crosses among themselves, that the fall had reversed them. She returns to the reading of the Gospel, finds that on the middle cross the title had been placed above: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. From this the chain of truth was gathered, by the title the saving cross became clear.

This is what Pilate answered to the Jews when they asked: What I have written, I have written, that is, I have not written what would please you, but what a future age would recognize: I have not written for you, but for posterity; as if to say: Let Helena have what to read, whereby she might recognize the cross of the Lord.

She found, then, the title, and adored the King, not the wood indeed; for this is a pagan error, and the vanity of the impious: but she adored him who hung upon the wood, inscribed in the title: him, I say, who, like the scarab, cried out, that the Father would forgive sins to his persecutors. The eager woman hastened to touch the remedy of immortality, feared to tread upon the sacrament of salvation. With joyful heart and trembling step, she did not know what to do. She pressed on nonetheless to the resting-place of truth, the wood shone forth, and grace glittered. And because Christ had already visited a woman in Mary, the Spirit visited in Helena: it taught her what a woman could not know, and led her into the way which no mortal could know.

She sought the nails with which the Lord was crucified, and found them. From one nail she ordered a bridle to be made, from the other she wove a diadem: the one she turned to adornment, the other to devotion. Mary was visited, that she might free Eve: Helena was visited, that emperors might be redeemed. She sent, therefore, to her son Constantine a diadem set with gems, which the more precious gem of the cross of divine redemption bound together, woven in with the iron. She sent also the bridle. Constantine made use of both, and transmitted the faith to future kings. The beginning, therefore, of believing emperors is that which is holy upon the bridle: from that faith, that persecution might cease, and devotion succeed.

Wisely did Helena place the cross upon the head as a kingdom; that the cross of Christ might be adored in kings. This is not insolence, but piety, since it is offered to the sacred redemption. Good, then, is the nail of the Roman empire, which rules the whole world, and clothes the brow of princes; that they who used to be persecutors might become preachers. Rightly is the nail on the head, that where understanding is, there may be its protection. On the crown is the diadem, in the hands the rein. The crown is from the cross, that faith may shine forth: the rein also is from the cross, that power may rule; and that there may be just moderation, not unjust command. Let the princes of Christ also have this granted to them by his liberality, that in imitation of the Lord it may be said of the Roman emperor: Thou hast set upon his head a crown of precious stone.

From that time the Church rejoices, the Jew blushes: nor does he only blush, but is also tormented; because he is himself the author of his own confusion. While he insults Christ, he has confessed him king: while he called him king of the Jews, he confesses his own sacrilege, who did not believe. Behold, they say, we crucified Jesus; that Christians might, after death, also rise again, and the dead might reign. We crucified him whom kings adore: whom we do not adore, they adore. Behold, even the nail is held in honor; and he whom we pressed unto death is the remedy of salvation, and by a certain invisible power torments demons. We thought we had conquered, but we confess ourselves conquered. Again Christ has risen, and the princes have acknowledged that he has risen. Again he lives, who is not seen. Now our contention is greater, now the battle is more vehement against him. Him whom kingdoms serve, whom power obeys, him we despised—how shall we resist kings?

By the iron of his feet kings are bowed down. Kings adore him, and do the Photinians deny his divinity? Emperors prefer the nail of his cross to their own diadem, and do the Arians diminish his power?

But I ask: Why is it holy upon the bridle, unless it was to curb the insolence of emperors, to check the license of tyrants, who, like horses, would neigh after their lusts; so that it might be lawful for them to commit adulteries with impunity? What crimes of the Neros, what of the Caligulas, and of the other reproaches do we know, to whom there was no holy thing upon the bridle?

What else, then, did the working of Helena effect, in directing the reins, but that it seemed to say to all emperors by the Holy Spirit: Be ye not like the horse and the mule; but that it might constrain the jaws of those with bit and bridle who did not recognize themselves as kings, that they might rule their subjects? For power, prone to vice, was carried headlong, and, after the manner of beasts, defiled itself with wandering lust. They knew not God; the cross of the Lord restrained them, and called them back from the fall of impiety. It lifted up their eyes, that they might seek Christ in heaven. They put off from themselves the bit of unbelief, they took up the reins of devotion and faith, following him who said: Take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Hence the rest of the Christian princes, except one, Julian, who abandoned the author of his salvation, while he gave himself to the error of philosophy. Hence Gratian and Theodosius.

Not false, then, was the prophecy, saying: Kings shall walk in thy light (Isaiah 60:3). Plainly and above all others shall Gratian and Theodosius walk, princes clothed no longer by the arms of soldiers, but by their own merits: not clad in purple raiment, but arrayed in the garment of glory. Who, since here they took delight in the pardoning of many, how much more there, in recounting how many they had spared, are they soothed by the memory of their own piety? Who now enjoy a shining light, having obtained there far better dwellings than they possessed here, saying: O Israel, how great is the house of the Lord, and how vast the place of his possession: great, and having no end! And having finished their greatest labors, they say to one another: It is good for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth. He shall sit alone, and hold his peace, because he hath borne it upon him (Lamentations 3:27).

For whoever has borne a heavy yoke from his youth rests afterward: removed from the crowd, he possesses the chief place of his rest, saying: For thou, Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope.

Lazarus the poor man bore a heavy yoke from his youth, therefore he rests alone in the bosom of Abraham, by the testimony of the divine reading. Theodosius bore a heavy yoke from his youth, when those who had killed his triumphant father lay in wait for his own safety. He bore a heavy yoke, when he underwent the exile of his piety, when, the barbarians having poured into the Roman empire, he took up the empire. He bore a heavy yoke, that he might remove tyrants from the Roman empire: but because here was labor, there is rest.

But let us now come to the transmission of the august body. You weep, Honorius, august offspring, and with tears attest your dutiful affection; because you send across many stretches of way your father's body, not yet honored with the honor of a tomb. But the patriarch Jacob also, for the sake of freeing his people, whom a grievous famine pressed with heavy peril, an old man, left his home and hastened to foreign lands; and there having died, was brought back for some days to his ancestral sepulchre, his son accompanying him. Nor was anything taken from his merits, but rather it was added to his praise, that, lacking for his own people the due lot of a home, he wandered in a kind of exile even in his supreme funeral.

You weep also, august emperor, that you do not yourself accompany the revered remains all the way to Constantinople. The same cause is ours together with you; we all attend with just grief; we all, if it could be done, would desire to be your companions on the journey. But Joseph went into a neighboring province: here many divisions of regions lie between, here seas must be crossed. Nor indeed would this be burdensome to you, were you not held by the commonwealth, which good emperors have set before both parents and children. In fine, for this reason did your father make you emperor, the Lord confirm you; that you might rule not the soldiers alone for your father's sake, but all men.

Nor fear that the triumphal remains will seem unhonored, wherever they shall come. Italy does not think this, which beheld glorious triumphs, which, freed again from tyrants, celebrates the author of her liberty: Constantinople does not think this, which sent forth its prince a second time to victory: whom, though it wished to keep, it could not. It was awaiting indeed, at his return, triumphal solemnities and the titles of victories; it was awaiting the emperor of the whole world, thronged by the Gallic army, and upheld by the strength of the whole world. But now Theodosius returns thither more powerful, now more glorious, whom a company of angels escorts, whom a throng of saints attends. Truly blessed art thou, who receivest a dweller of paradise, and shalt hold in the hospitality of a buried body's august tomb an inhabitant of that heavenly city.