Translated from the Greek 1 by Petru Molodeț, text revised by Luiza Oancea and Octavian Gordon.
Powerful is the net of the apostolic fishery; marvellous is the net of the remembrance of Andrew: a net of the immortal dead, which never breaks. For the net that was not woven by any craftsman’s hand, but by grace, does not wear out with time. For, even though the fishermen have left <this world>, their tools as fishermen of the Word and the net in which they catch the world do not wear out with time. Those who cast the nets are unseen, yet the nets are full. They have not taken with them a fishing rod that time destroys; they have not stretched out a line that the passing of time severs; they have not fashioned a hook that rust devours; they have not set out bait as a trap for fish; they have not perched on a rock buffeted by the waves; they have not boarded a ship battered by the storm; they have not set out to catch fish, to hunt the speechless creatures 2. But, just as their craft is marvellous, so too are their tools marvellous and very new. For, instead of a fishing rod, they cast out the preaching; instead of a line, they cast the remembrance into the water; instead of a hook, they send forth power; instead of any bait, they wrap the hook in miracles; instead of sitting on a rock, they fish from the heavens; instead of a ship, they have received an altar; instead of fish, they hunt kings; instead of a net, they have cast out the Gospel; instead of craft, they make use of grace; instead of the sea, they traverse the world; instead of nets, they fish with the cross. Who has ever seen the dead fishing and the living being caught? O power of the Crucified One! O divine worthiness! O apostolic benevolence! For there is nothing in the world like apostolic grace.
For the world 3 has seen many marvellous and new things. It has seen blood crying out after it was shed (Genesis 4:10), murder screaming without a tongue; and nature which, out of envy, was divided within itself; and the earth which, because of presumption, was defiled; and the murder of a brother who puts to death the one born of the same mother and opens the gates of death because of wickedness. He saw in the Flood an ark bearing within itself the seeds of nature (Genesis VII, 1–17). He saw an old man who, through faith, prepares to fight against his own flesh and blood (Genesis XXII, 2). He saw one who offers as a sacrifice the one who had not been slain, and one who is placed before 4 and is not killed. He saw a more encompassing canopy of heaven and God enclosed within a tent (Genesis 18:4–5). He saw the theft of a father’s blessings through the mother (Genesis XXVII, 28) and the Maker’s struggle with the servant (Genesis XXXII, 24). He saw the envy that took hold amongst brothers (Genesis 37:18) and the protective bondage of rule. He saw dreams that prepared a throne (Genesis 41:15) and a famine that drags the deceitful in its wake (Genesis 42:5). He saw fire encircling the bush (Exodus 3:2) and a miracle-working staff. He saw waves parting and the depths of the sea illuminated (Exodus 14:21). He saw paths prepared and a pillar of cloud guiding the famous multitude of the people (Exodus 13:21). He saw a staff that budded without soil (Numbers 17:8) and heavenly bread that became manna (Exodus 16:13). He saw the Lawgiver commanding the elements and the written word that overcomes the curse. He saw a man halting the sun with a word (Joshua 10:12–13) and a barren woman who, through prayer, conceived a prophet (1 Kings 1:20). He saw a handful of flour more abundant than the richest harvests and a jar of oil that flowed in abundance (3 Kings 17:16). He saw a prophet taken up to heaven in an ethereal chariot (4 Kings 2:11) and the bones of the dead – sources of life (4 Kings 13:21). The world has seen these and many other marvellous things, but they have vanished like a shadow and grass, and been extinguished like the light of a lamp. For when the Sun rose, the shadow fled entirely, for nothing is like the Apostles.
<They> served God the Word (Luke 1:2); they touched (1 John 1:1) Him Who, being inconceivable 5, became incarnate; they followed Him Who, as He walks, is everywhere; they sat at table with the Boundless One; they heard the voice of Him Who, through the Word, made all things; with their tongues they caught the whole world as in a net; they encompassed all the boundaries of the <world> with their word; they uprooted error from its roots like a weed; they mowed down the idolatrous altars as though they were thorns; they slew the idols as though they were beasts; they put the demons 6 to flight as though they were wolves; they gathered the Church just as one gathers a flock; they gathered the faithful together as though they were grains [in barns]; they cast heresies aside like chaff; they laid Judaism out to dry like hay; they split paganism as one would split wood; they ploughed the world with the cross <as with a plough>; they sowed the Word as one would sow grain; they illuminated 7 them all like stars [as they were]. Therefore the Lord cried out to them: ‘You are the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14)8. The sunrise is your virginal birth; the dawn – the womb of baptism; the radiance – the grace of the Crucified One; the rays – your ineffable tongues; the day – the age to come; midday – the hour of the Cross; sunset – the resting place of the tomb; dusk – temporal death; the bursting forth of light – the resurrection from the dead. You are the light of the world! Look upon the stars and marvel at their radiance!
That is why, today, Andrew, like a treasury of light, having found the Lord of all, cried out to Peter, his brother: ‘I have found Him,’ he said, ‘the Messiah’ (John 1:21). O, overflowing brotherly love! O, reversal of the natural order! Andrew came into life after Peter and set out before him in pursuit of the Gospel. ‘I have found Him,’ he says, ‘the Messiah.’ Out of boundless joy the word is born: bright are the good tidings of this discovery. ‘I have found,’ he says, ‘the Treasury.’ ‘Flee, Peter, from the poverty of circumcision! Cast off the rags of the Law!’ Cast off the yoke of the letter! Renounce all these things as worthless, and [renounce] the things of the present as though they were dreams: Bethsaida, as though it were an insignificant place; the net, as though it were a tool of poverty; the ship, as though it were a chamber of shipwreck; your craft, as though it were the mother of the idolatrous altar; the fish, as though they were a trade of gluttony; the earth, as though it were a sea of clamour; of your people, as the shoots of corruption; of the world, as a marketplace for the belly; of the temple, as a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13); of Jerusalem, as a graveyard of the prophets (Matthew 23:37); of the people, who howl furiously against God; of Caiaphas, as a father of the crafty Sanhedrin. I have found the Messiah whom the prophets foretold, whom the Law heralded beforehand with a trumpet’s blast. I have discovered the Treasury of the Law: ‘Flee, Peter, from the hunger of the letter!’ I have discovered the Messiah, Whom the signs foreshadowed like shadows; Whom Micah saw upon the throne of glory (3 Kings 22:19); whom Isaiah saw [sitting] upon the Seraphim (Isaiah 6:1–2); whom Ezekiel saw [sitting] upon the Cherubim (Ezekiel 10:1); whom Daniel saw on the clouds (Daniel 7:13); whom Nebuchadnezzar saw in the furnace (Daniel 2); whom Abraham received into his tent (Genesis 18:4–5); whom Jacob would not let go until he had been blessed (Genesis 32:29); Whose back Moses saw whilst sitting on the rock (Exodus 33:21–23). It is Him whom we have found, the One born without beginning and Who has appeared in the last days; The Treasury, whose abundance is inexhaustible, whose riches are unplundered, whose Being is without beginning, whose revelation is of recent making. I have found the Messiah, who is interpreted as Christ. Many were anointed ‘9’, but all served death: Abraham was anointed, yet he ended up in the grave; Isaac was anointed, yet his remembrance lies amongst the bones [of the dead]; Jacob was anointed, yet he became a servant of death; Moses was anointed, yet we do not even know where he was buried (Deuteronomy XXXIV, 6); David was anointed, yet all his possessions were spoils of war. All were anointed, yet they became slaves to death. But there is One who is the Anointed One – Christ the ‘10’, He who by nature is God and by mercy is Man: He who, through His Birth, sealed the Virgin’s womb and who made the fishermen fountains of healing: To Him be power, and the Kingdom, and glory, and worship, together with His Father, who is without blemish, of the same essence and power, and with the Most Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
- 1
The translation is based on the Greek original from J.-P. Migne’s edition, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 65, col. 821–828: Logos XIX. Eulogy on Saint Andrew the Apostle.
- 2
In the original, τὴν ἀλογίαν τῆς φύσεως, which literally means ‘the speechlessness’ or ‘lack of reason’ of nature.
- 3
In the original, ὁ βίος, a term whose primary meaning is ‘life’, but which can also mean ‘the world’ in general. See G.W.H. LAMPE, A Patristic Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961, s.v. βίος.
- 4
As a sacrifice.
- 5
Literally, the term ἀσχηματιστός means ‘formless’, ‘that which cannot be represented’, ‘that which cannot be captured in a scheme’, and is a technical term in ancient philosophy. I (the reviewer) have preferred to translate it as ‘unconceivable’, following the tradition of early ecclesiastical translations, in which the Greek word σχῆμα was consistently rendered as ‘form’. ‘Unconceivable’ should not, therefore, be understood as a synonym for ‘unimaginable’ or ‘unimagined’, but must be viewed within the context of traditional ecclesiastical language (O. Gordon, based on the clarifications of P. Molodeț, whose preferred translation is: ‘formless’).
- 6
A stylistic choice on the part of the editor. Although this word has recently been avoided, either for apotropaic reasons or out of a certain (positive) modesty on the part of the Romanian people, so that traditional terms such as ‘drac’, ‘drăcesc’ and ‘îndrăcit’ have been replaced, including in ecclesiastical texts, with ‘demon’, ‘demonic’ and ‘demonised’, we regard the latter as an inappropriate watering down, which may even lead to a lack of awareness of the reality to which these words refer. It is significant that the ‘improved’ versions by the Fathers (monks, generally speaking) did not make the neologistic replacement mentioned above.
- 7
The Greek verb is more expressive than its Romanian equivalent, etymologically referring to the light of a flash of lightning, to a flash (O. Gordon).
- 8
This entire passage repeats almost word for word that found in the Eulogy on Saint Paul the Apostle, PG 65, 820 B.
- 9
In the original, Πολλοὶ χριστοὶ γεγόνασιν. The Old Testament meaning of the word χριστός is ‘the anointed one’, with a strong prophetic connotation. See G.W.H. LAMPE, A Patristic..., s.v. χριστός.
- 10
In the original, ὁ Χριστός is capitalised. I have chosen to render the term in the translation as ‘the Anointed One’ to distinguish it from ‘the anointed ones’ in the Old Testament.