Thus I have investigated this point to the best of my ability, though I have passed by matters therein that might be investigated, for fear of prolonging my observations beyond the limits of my letter. But for your intelligence little seeds are enough. "Give instruction," it is said, "to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser." [3157] ^ "If a skilful man hear a wise word he will commend it, and add unto it." [3158]
6. About the words of Simeon to Mary, there is no obscurity or variety of interpretation. "And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary His mother, Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." [3159] Here I am astonished that, after passing by the previous words as requiring no explanation, you should enquire about the expression, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." To me the question, how the same child can be for the fall and rising again, and what is the sign that shall be spoken against, does not seem less perplexing than the question how a sword shall pierce through Mary's heart.
7. My view is, that the Lord is for falling and rising again, not because some fall and others rise again, but because in us the worst falls and the better is set up. The advent [3160] of the Lord is destructive of our bodily affections and it rouses the proper qualities of the soul. As when Paul says, "When I am weak, then I am strong," [3161] the same man is weak and is strong, but he is weak in the flesh and strong in the spirit. Thus the Lord does not give to some occasions of falling and to others occasions of rising. Those who fall, fall from the station in which they once were, but it is plain that the faithless man never stands, but is always dragged along the ground with the serpent whom he follows. He has then nowhere to fall from, because he has already been cast down by his unbelief. Wherefore the first boon is, that he who stands in his sin should fall and die, and then should live in righteousness and rise, both of which graces our faith in Christ confers on us. Let the worse fall that the better may have opportunity to rise. If fornication fall not, chastity does not rise. Unless our unreason be crushed our reason will not come to perfection. In this sense he is for the fall and rising again of many.
8. For a sign that shall be spoken against. By a sign, we properly understand in Scripture a cross. Moses, it is said, set the serpent "upon a pole." [3162] That is upon a cross. Or else a sign [3163] is indicative of something strange and obscure seen by the simple but understood by the intelligent. There is no cessation of controversy about the Incarnation of the Lord; some asserting that he assumed a body, and others that his sojourn was bodiless; some that he had a passible body, and others that he fulfilled the bodily oeconomy by a kind of appearance. Some say that his body was earthly, some that it was heavenly; some that He pre-existed before the ages; some that He took His beginning from Mary. It is on this account that He is a sign that shall be spoken against.
9. By a sword is meant the word which tries and judges our thoughts, which pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of our thoughts. [3164] Now every soul in the hour of the Passion was subjected, as it were, to a kind of searching. According to the word of the Lord it is said, "All ye shall be offended because of me." [3165] Simeon therefore prophesies about Mary herself, that when standing by the cross, and beholding what is being done, and hearing the voices, after the witness of Gabriel, after her secret knowledge of the divine conception, after the great exhibition of miracles, she shall feel about her soul a mighty tempest. [3166] The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man--to become a propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own blood. Even thou thyself, who hast been taught from on high the things concerning the Lord, shalt be reached by some doubt. This is the sword. "That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." He indicates that after the offence at the Cross of Christ a certain swift healing shall come from the Lord to the disciples and to Mary herself, confirming their heart in faith in Him. In the same way we saw Peter, after he had been offended, holding more firmly to his faith in Christ. What was human in him was proved unsound, that the power of the Lord might be shewn.
[3143] Placed in 377.
[3144] Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia. Soc. vii. 36; Theod. v. 8.
[3145] Gen. iv. 15, LXX.
[3146] cf. 1 Tim. iv. 13.
[3147] Matt. xviii. 21, 22.
[3148] Deut. v. 12.
[3149] Lev. xxv. 10.
[3150] Gen. iv. 8.
[3151] Gen. iv. 9.
[3152] Gen. iv. 11, 12, 14, 15, LXX.
[3153] Dan. xii. 2.
[3154] Gen. iv. 23, 24.
[3155] LXX. molops, i.e. weal.
[3156] John i. 29.
[3157] Prov. ix. 9.
[3158] Ecclus. xx. 18.
[3159] Luke ii. 34, 35.
[3160] epidaneia.
[3161] 2 Cor. xii. 10.
[3162] Num. xxi. 8.
[3163] semeion, LXX.
[3164] cf. Heb. iv. 12.
[3165] Matt. xxvi. 3.
[3166] The Ben. note strongly objects to this slur upon the constancy of the faith of the Blessed Virgin, and is sure that St. Basil's error will not be thus corrected without his own concurrence. It supposes this interpretation of the passage in question to be derived from Origen, Hom. xxvii. In Lucam, and refers to a list of commentators who have followed him in Petavius, De Incar. xiv. 1.