15. I shall observe each man’s
earnestness, each woman’s reverence. Let your mind be
refined as by fire unto reverence; let your soul be forged as
metal: let the stubbornness of unbelief be hammered out:
let the superfluous scales of the iron drop off, and what is pure
remain; let the rust of the iron be rubbed off, and the true metal
remain. May God sometime shew you that night, the darkness which
shines like the day, concerning which it is said, The darkness shall
not be hidden from thee, and the night shall shine as the
day Ps. cxxxix. 12. On Easter Eve the Church was full
of lights which were kept burning all night, and the newly-baptized
carried torches. Gregory of Nyssa, preaching on the Resurrection
(Orat. iv.) describes the scene: “This brilliant
night, by mingling the flames of torches with the morning rays of the
sun, has made one continuous day, not divided by the interposition of
darkness.”. Then may the gate of Paradise be
opened to every man and every woman among you. Then may you enjoy
the Christ-bearing waters in their fragrance Or, as the Benedictine
Editor conjectures, “the waters which have a Christ-bearing
(χριστοφόρον)
fragrance.” On the epithet χριστοφόρος,
see Bishop Lightfoot’s note on Ignat. ad Eph. § 1 and
§ 9. Its meaning, as well as that of Θεοφόρος is
defined in the answer of Ignatius to Trajan, ῾Ο
Χριστὸν ἔχων
ἐν στέρνοις
(Martyr. Ign. Ant. § 2).. Then may you receive the name of
Christ Cat. xxi. 1:
“made partakers therefore of Christ, ye are rightly called
Christs.”, and the power of things divine. Even
now, I beseech you, lift up the eye of the mind: even now imagine the choirs
of Angels, and God the Lord of all there sitting, and His Only-begotten
Son sitting with Him on His right hand, and the Spirit present with
them; and Thrones and Dominions doing service, and every man of you and
every woman receiving salvation. Even now let your ears ring, as
it were, with that glorious sound, when over your salvation the angels
shall chant, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and
whose sins are covered Ps. xxxii. 1, which verse is still chanted in the
Greek Church as soon as the Baptism is completed.: when like
stars of the Church you shall enter in, bright in the body and radiant
in the soul.