Homilies on the Dormition of the Mother of God · §1.16 · John of Damascus

Homily I — The tomb that still pours out grace

O, how did heaven receive her who became wider than the heavens? And how did a tomb receive the vessel that held God? Yes, it received her; yes, it held her. For she did not become wider than heaven in bodily size. How could a body three cubits long, forever wasting away, be compared with the breadth and length of heaven? Rather, by grace she outstripped the measure of every height and depth, for what is divine admits no comparison. O holy, wonderful, venerable tomb, worthy of reverence! Even now angels attend it, standing by with awe and great fear; demons tremble at it; people run to it in faith, honouring it, venerating it, greeting it with eyes and lips and the longing of the soul, and drawing from it an abundance of good things. For just as, when someone lays costly perfume on garments or in some place and then takes it away, traces of the fragrance remain even after the perfume has been removed, so now too that divine body, holy and all-blameless and filled with divine fragrance, the unfailing spring of grace, laid in the tomb and then caught up to a better and higher place, did not leave the tomb without honour. It gives the tomb a share of its divine fragrance and grace, and has left it a fountain of healings and of every good thing for those who come to it in faith.

Greek

Ὦ πῶς οὐρανὸς ὑπεδέξατο τὴν πλατυτέραν οὐρανῶν χρηματίσασαν; πῶς δὲ τάφος τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ δοχεῖον ἐδέξατο; ναὶ ἐδέξατο, ναὶ κεχώρηκεν. Οὐ γὰρ σωματικοῖς ὄγκοις οὐρανοῦ πλατύτερον ἐγένετο. Πῶς γὰρ τὸ τρίπηχυ, τὸ ἀεὶ λεπτυνόμενον, εὔρεσί τε καὶ μήκεσιν οὐρανοῦ παραβληθῆναι δυνήσεται; τῇ δὲ χάριτι μᾶλλον παντὸς ὕψους καὶ βάθους τὸ μέτρον ὑπερηκόντισε. Τὸ γὰρ θεῖον ἀσύγκριτον. Ὦ ἱεροῦ, καὶ θαυμαστοῦ, καὶ σεβασμίου, καὶ προσκυνητοῦ μνήματος· ὃ καὶ νῦν περιέπουσιν ἄγγελοι, αἰδοῖ καὶ φόβῳ πολλῷ παριστάμενοι· φρίττουσι δαίμονες· πίστει προστρέχουσιν ἄνθρωποι, τιμῶντες, προσκυνοῦντες, ὀφθαλμοῖς, καὶ χείλεσι, καὶ πόθῳ ψυχῆς ἀσπαζόμενοι, καὶ ἀφθονίαν ἀγαθῶν ἀρυόμενοι. Ὥσπερ γὰρ εἴ τις μύρον πολυτελὲς τοῖς ἱματίοις ἢ τόπῳ τινὶ ἐναπόθοιτο, εἶτα ἀφέλοιτο, ἐναπομένει τῆς εὐωδίας τὰ λείψανα καὶ μετὰ τὴν τοῦ μύρου ἀφαίρεσιν, οὕτω καὶ νῦν τὸ θεῖον σῶμα, καὶ ἱερὸν, καὶ πανάμωμον, καὶ τῆς θείας εὐωδίας ἀνάπλεον, ἡ ἄφθονος κρήνη τῆς χάριτος, ἐν τῷ τάφῳ τεθὲν, εἶτα πάλιν ἁρπασθὲν πρὸς κρείττονα χῶρον καὶ ὑψηλότερον, οὐκ ἀφῆκε τὸν τάφον ἀγέραστον, ἀλλὰ μεταδίδωσι μὲν τῆς θείας εὐωδίας καὶ χάριτος, πηγὴν δὲ τῶν ἰαμάτων καὶ πάντων τῶν ἀγαθῶν τοῖς πίστει προσιοῦσι τὸ μνῆμα κατέλιπε.

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About this text

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

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

Printed text used

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

Where the prints differ

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

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