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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 27.02.34 Orations XL Part 3
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XXXIV. If you were full of leprosy, that shapeless evil, yet you scraped off the evil matter, and received again the Image whole. Shew your cleansing to me your Priest, that I may recognize how much more precious it is than the legal one. Do not range yourself with the nine unthankful men, but imitate the tenth.hyperlink For although he was a Samaritan, yet he was Of better mind than the others. Make certain that you will not break out again with evil ulcers, and find the indisposition of your body hard to heal. Yesterday meanness and avarice were withering your hand; to-day let liberality and kindness stretch it out.hyperlink It is a noble cure for a weak hand to disperse abroad, to give to the poor,hyperlink to pour out the things which we possess abundantly, till we reach the very bottom; and perhaps this will gush forth food for you, as for the woman of Sarepta,hyperlink and especially if you happen to be feeding an Elias, to recognize that it is a good abundance to be needy for the sake of Christ, Who for our sakes became poor. If you were deaf and dumb, let the Word soundhyperlink in your ears, or rather keep there Him Who hath sounded. Do not shut your ears to the Instruction of the Lord, and to His Counsel, like the adder to charms.hyperlink If you are blind and unenlightened, lighten your eyes that you sleep not in death.hyperlink In God's Light see light,hyperlink and in the Spirit of God be enlightened by the Son, That Threefold and Undivided Light. If you receive all the Word, you will bring therewith upon your own soul all the healing powers of Christ, with which separately these individuals were healed. Only be not ignorant of the measure of grace; only let not the enemy, while you sleep, maliciously sow tares.hyperlink Only take care that as by your cleansing you have become an object of enmity to the Evil One, you do not again make yourself an object of pity by sin. Only be careful lest, while rejoicing and lifted up above measure by the blessing, you fall again through pride. Only be diligent as to your cleansing, "setting ascensions in your heart,"hyperlink and keep with all diligence the remission which you have received as a gift, in order that, while the remission comes from God, the preservation of it may come from yourself also.
XXXV. How shall this be? Remember always the parable,hyperlink and so will you best and most perfectly help yourself. The unclean and malignant spirit is gone out of you, being chased by baptism. He will not submit to the expulsion, he will not resign himself to be houseless and homeless: He goes through waterless places, dry of the Divine Stream, and there he desires to abide. He wanders, seeking rest; he finds none. He lights on baptized souls, whose sins the font has washed away. He fears the water; he is choked with the cleansing, as the Legion were in the sea.hyperlink Again he returns to the house whence he came out. He is shameless, he is contentious, he makes a fresh assault upon it, he makes a new attempt. If he finds that Christ has taken up His abode there, and has filled the place which he had vacated, he is driven back again, and goes off without success and is become an object of pity in his wandering state. But if he finds in you a place, swept and garnished indeed, but empty and idle, equally ready to take in this or that which shall first occupy it, he makes a leap into it, he takes up his abode there with a larger train; and the last state is worse than the first, inasmuch as then there was a hope of amendment and safety, but now the evil is rampant, and drags in sin by its flight from good, and therefore the possession is more secure to him who dwells there.
XXXVI. I will remind you again about Illuminations, and that often, and will reckon them up from Holy Scripture. For I myself shall be happier for remembering them (for what is sweeter than light to those who have tasted light?) and I will dazzle you with my words. There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and its partner joyful gladness.hyperlink And, The light of the righteous is everlasting;hyperlink and Thou art shining wondrously from the everlasting mountains, is said to God, I think of the Angelic powers which aid our efforts after good. And you have heard David's words; The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom then shall I fear?hyperlink And now he asks that the Light and the Truth may be sent forth for him,hyperlink now giving thanks that he has a share in it, in that the Light of God is marked upon him;hyperlink that is, that the signs of the illumination given are impressed upon him and recognized. One light alone let us shun-that which is the offspring of the baleful fire; let us not walk in the light of our fire,hyperlink and in the flame which we have kindled. For I know a cleansing fire which Christ came to send upon the earth,hyperlink and He Himself is anagogicallyhyperlink called a Fire. This Fire takes away whatsoever is material and of evil habit; and this He desires to kindle with all speed, for He longs for speed in doing us good, since He gives us even coals of fire to help us.hyperlink I know also a fire which is not cleansing, but avenging; either that fire of Sodomhyperlink which He pours down on all sinners,hyperlink mingled with brimstone and storms, or that which is prepared for the Devil and his Angelshyperlink or that which proceeds from the face of the Lord, and shall burn up his enemies round about;hyperlink and one even more fearful still than these, the unquenchable firehyperlink which is ranged with the worm that dieth not but is eternal for the wicked. For all these belong to the destroying power; though some may prefer even in this place to take a more merciful viewhyperlink of this fire, worthily of Him That chastises.
XXXVII. And as I know of two kinds of fire, so also do I of light. The one is the light of our ruling power directing our steps according to the will of God; the other is a deceitful and meddling one, quite contrary to the true light, though pretending to be that light, that it may cheat us by its appearance. This really is darkness, yet has the appearance of noonday, the high perfection of light. And so I read that passage of those who continually flee in darkness at noonday;hyperlink for this is really night, and yet is thought to be bright light by those who have been ruined by luxury. For what saith David? "Night was around me and I knew it not, for I thought that my luxury was enlightenment."hyperlink But such are they, and in this condition; but let us kindle for ourselves the light of knowledge.hyperlink This will be done by sowing unto righteousness, and reaping the fruit of life, for action is the patron of contemplation, that amongst other things we may learn also what is the true light, and what the false, and be saved from falling unawares into evil wearing the guise of good. Let us be made light, as it was said to the disciples by the Great Light, ye are the light of the world.hyperlink Let us be made lights in the world, holding forth the Word of Life;hyperlink that is, let us be made a quickening power to others. Let us lay hold of the Godhead; let us lay hold of the First and Brightest Light. Let us walk towards Him shining, before our feet stumble upon dark and hostile mountains.hyperlink While it is day let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,hyperlink which are the dishonesties of the night.
XXXVIII. Let us cleanse every member, Brethren, let us purify every sense; let nothing in us be imperfect or of our first birth; let us leave nothing unilluminated. Let us enlighten our eyes,hyperlink that we may look straight on, and not bear in ourselves any harlot idol through curious and busy sight; for even though we might not worship lust, yet our soul would be defiled. If there be beam or mote,hyperlink let us purge it away, that we may be able to see those of others also. Let us be enlightened in our ears; let us be enlightened in our tongue, that we may hearken what the Lord God will speak,hyperlink and that He may causehyperlink us to hear His lovingkindness in the morning, and that we may be made to hear of joy and gladness,hyperlink spoken into godly ears, that we may not be a sharpsword, nor a whetted razor,hyperlink nor turn under our tongue labour and toil,hyperlink but that we may speak the Wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden Wisdom,hyperlink reverencing the fiery tongues.hyperlink Let us be healed also in the smell, that we be not effeminate; and be sprinkled with dust instead of sweet perfumes,hyperlink but may smell the Ointment that was poured out for us,hyperlink spiritually receiving it; and so formed and transformed by it, that from us too a sweet odour may be smelled. Let us cleanse our touch, our taste, our throat, not touching them over gently, nor delighting in smooth things, but handling them as is worthy of Him, the Word That was made flesh for us; and so far following the example of Thomas,hyperlink not pampering them with dainties and sauces, those brethren of a more baleful pampering,hyperlink but tasting and learning that the Lord is good,hyperlink with the better and abiding taste; and not for a short while refreshing that baneful and thankless dust, which lets pass and does not hold that which is given to it; but delighting it with the words which are sweeter than honey.hyperlink
XXXIX. And in addition to what has been said, it is good with our head cleansed, as the head which is the workshop of the senses is cleansed, to hold fast the Head of Christ,hyperlink from which the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted; and to cast down our sin that exalted itself, when it would exalt us above our better part. It is good also for the shoulder to be sanctified and purified that it may be able to take up the Cross of Christ, which not everyone can easily do. It is good for the hands to be consecrated, and the feet; the one that they may in every place be lifted up holy;hyperlink and that they may lay hold of the disciplinehyperlink of Christ, lest the Lord at any time be angered; and that the Word may gain credence by action, as was the case with that which was given in the hand of a prophet;hyperlink the other, that they be not swift to shed blood, nor to run to evil,hyperlink but that they be prompt to run to the Gospel and the Prizehyperlink of the high Calling, and to receive Christ Who washes and cleanses them. And if there be also a cleansing of that belly which receiveth and digesteth the food of the Word, it were good also; not to make it a god by luxury and the meat that perisheth,hyperlink but rather to give it all possible cleansing, and to make it more spare, that it may receive the Word of God at the very heart, and grieve honourably over the sins of Israel.hyperlink I find also the heart and inward parts deemed worthy of honour. David convinces me of this, when he prays that a clean heart may be created in him, and a right spirit renewed in his inward parts;hyperlink meaning, I think, the mind and its movements or thoughts.
XL. And what of the loins, or reins, for we must not pass these over? Let the purification take hold of these also. Let our loins be girded about and kept in check by continence , as the Law bade Israel of old when partaking of the Passover.hyperlink For none comes out of Egypt purely, or escapes the Destroyer, except he who has disciplined these. And let the reins be changed by that good conversion by which they transfer all the affections to God, so that they can say, Lord, all my desire is before Thee,hyperlink and the day of man have I not desired;hyperlink for you must be a man of desires,hyperlink but they must be those of the spirit. For thus you would destroy the dragon that carries the greater part of his strength upon his navel and his loins,hyperlink by slaying the power that comes to him from these. Do not be surprised at my giving a more abundant honour to our uncomely parts,hyperlink mortifying them and making them chaste by my speech, and standing up against the flesh. Let us give to God all our members which are upon the earth;hyperlink let us consecrate them all; not the lobe of the liverhyperlink or the kidneys with the fat, nor some part of our bodies now this now that (why should we despise the rest?); but let us bring ourselves entire, let us be reasonable holocausts,hyperlink perfect sacrifices; and let us not make only the shoulder or the breast a portion for the Priest to take away,hyperlink for that would be a small thing, but let us give ourselves entire, that we may receive back ourselves entire; for this is to receive entirely, when we give ourselves to God and offer as a sacrifice our own salvation.
XLI. Besides all this and before all, keep I pray you the good deposit, by which I live and work, and which I desire to have as the companion of my departure; with which I endure all that is so distressful, and despise all delights; the confession of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. This I commit unto you to-day; with this I will baptize you and make you grow. This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the One Godhead and Power, found in the Three in Unity, and comprising the Three separately, not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of Three Infinite Ones, Each God when considered in Himself; as the Father so the Son, as the Son so the Holy Ghost; the Three One God when contemplated together; Each God because Consubstantial; One God because of the Monarchia. No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me.hyperlink I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light.
XLII. Do you fear to speak of Generation lest you should attribute aught of passion to the impassible God? I on the other hand fear to speak of Creation, lest I should destroy God by the insult and the untrue division, either cutting the Son away from the Father, or from the Son the Substance of the Spirit. For this paradox is involved, that not only is a created Life foisted into the Godhead by those who measure Godhead badly; but even this created life is divided against itself. For as these low earthly minds make the Son subject to the Father, so again is the rank of the Spirit made inferior to that of the Son, until both God and created life are insulted by the new Theology. No, my friends, there is nothing servile in the Trinity, nothing created, nothing accidental, as I have heard one of the wisehyperlink say. If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ, says the Apostle;hyperlink and if I yet worshipped a creature, or were baptized into a creature, I should not be made divine, nor have changed my first birth. What shall I say to those who worship Astarte or Chemosh, the abomination of the Sidonians, or the likeness of a star,hyperlink a god a little above them to these idolaters, but yet a creature and a piece of workmanship, when I myself either do not worship Two of Those into Whose united Name I am baptized, or else worship my fellow-servants, for they are fellow-servants, even if a little higher in the scale; for differences must exist among fellow-servants.
XLIII. I should like to call the Father the greater, because from him flows both the Equality and the Being of the Equals (this will be granted on all hands), but I am afraid to use the word Origin, lest I should make Him the Origin of Inferiors, and thus insult Him by precedencies of honour. For the lowering of those Who are from Him is no glory to the Source. Moreover, I look with suspicion at your insatiate desire, for fear you should take hold of this word Greater, and divide the Nature, using the word Greater in all senses, whereas it does not apply to the Nature, but only to Origination. For in the Consubstantial Persons there is nothing greater or less in point of Substance. I would honour the Son as Son before the Spirit, but Baptism consecrating me through the Spirit does not allow of this. But are you afraid of being reproached with Tritheism? Do you take possession of this good thing, the Unity in the Three, and leave me to fight the battle. Let me be the shipbuilder, and do you use the ship; or if another is the builder of the ship, take me for the architect of the house, and do you live in it with safety, though you spent no labour upon it. You shall not have a less prosperous voyage, or a less safe habitation than I who built them, because you have not laboured upon them. See how great is my indulgence; see the goodness of the Spirit; the war shall be mine, yours the achievement; I will be under fire, and you shall live in peace; but join with your defender in prayer, and give me your hand by the Faith. I have three stones which I will sling at the Philistine;hyperlink I have three inspirations against the son of the Sareptan,hyperlink with which I will quicken the slain; I have three floods against the faggots with which I will consecrate the Sacrifice with water, raising the most unexpected fire;hyperlink and I will throw down the prophets of shame by the power of the Sacrament.
XLIV. What need have I any more of speech? It is the time for teaching, not for controversy. I protest before God and the elect Angels,hyperlink be thou baptized in this faith. If thy heart is written upon in some other way than as my teaching demands, come and have the writing changed; I am no unskilled caligrapher of these truths. I write that which is written upon my own heart; and I teach that which I have been taught, and have kept from the beginning up to these hoar hairs.hyperlink Mine is the risk; be mine also the reward of being the Director of your soul, and consecrating you by Baptism. But if you are already rightly disposed, and marked with the good inscription, see that you keep what is written, and remain unchanged in a changing time concerning an unchanging Thing. Follow Pilate's example in the better sense; you who are rightly written on, imitate him who wrote wrongfully. Say to those who would persuade you differently, what I have written, I have written.hyperlink For indeed I should be ashamed if, while that which was wrong remained inflexible, that which is right should be so easily bent aside; whereas we ought to be easily bent to that which is better from that which is worse, but immovable from the better to the worse. If it be thus, and according to this teaching that you come to Baptism, lo I will not refrain my lips,hyperlink lo I lend my hands to the Spirit; let us hasten your salvation. The Spirit is eager, the Consecrator is ready, the Gift is prepared. But if you still halt and will not receive the perfectness of the Godhead, go and look for someone else to baptize-or rather to drown you: I have no time to cut the Godhead, and to make you dead in the moment of your regeneration, that you should have neither the Gift nor the Hope of Grace, but should in so short a time make shipwreck of your salvation. For whatever you may subtract from the Deity of the Three, you will have overthrown the whole, and destroyed your own being made perfect.
XLV. But not yet perhaps is there formed upon your soul any writing good or bad; and you want to be written upon today, and formed by us unto perfection. Let us go within the cloud. Give me the tables of your heart; I will be your Moses, though this be a bold thing to say; I will write on them with the finger of God a new Decalogue.hyperlink I will write on them a shorter method of salvation. And if there be any heretical or unreasoning beast, let him remain below, or he will run the risk of being stoned by the Word of truth. I will baptize you and make you a disciple in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost;hyperlink and These Three have One common name, the Godhead. And you shall know, both by appearanceshyperlink and by words that you reject all ungodliness, and are united to all the Godhead. Believe that all that is in the world, both all that is seen and all that is unseen, was made out of nothing by God, and is governed by the Providence of its Creator, and will receive a change to a better state. Believe that evil has no substance or kingdom, either unoriginate or self-existent or created by God; but that it is our work, and the evil one's, and came upon us through our heedlessness, but not from our Creator. Believe that the Son of God, the Eternal Word, Who was begotten of the Father before all time and without body, was in these latter days for your sake made also Son of Man, born of the Virgin Mary ineffably and stainlessly (for nothing can be stained where God is, and by which salvation comes), in His own Person at once entire Man and perfect God, for the sake of the entire sufferer, that He may bestow salvation on your whole being, having destroyed the whole condemnation of your sins: impassible in His Godhead, passible in that which He assumed; as much Man for your sake as you are made God for His. Believe that for us sinners He was led to death; was crucified and buried, so far as to taste of death; and that He rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, that He might take you with Him who were lying low; and that He will come again with His glorious Presence to judge the quick and the dead; no longer flesh, nor yet without a body, according to the laws which He alone knows of a more godlike body, that He may be seen by those who pierced Him,hyperlink and on the other hand may remain as God without carnality. Receive besides this the Resurrection, the Judgment and the Reward according to the righteous scales of God; and believe that this will be Light to those whose mind is purified (that is, God-seen and known) proportionate to their degree of purity, which we call the Kingdom of heaven; but to those who suffer from blindness of their ruling faculty, darkness, that is estrangement from God, proportionate to their blindness here. Then, in the tenth place, work that which is good upon this foundation of dogma; for faith without works is dead,hyperlink even as are works apart from faith. This is all that may be divulged of the Sacrament, and that is not forbidden to the ear of the many. The rest yon shall learn within the Church by the grace of the Holy Trinity; and those matters you shall conceal within yourself, sealed and secure.
XLVI. But one thing more I preach unto you. The Station in which you shall presently stand after your Baptism before the Great Sanctuaryhyperlink is a foretype of the future glory. The Psalmody with which you will be received is a prelude to the Psalmody of Heaven; the lamps which you will kindle are a Sacrament of the illumination there with which we shall meet the Bridegroom, shining and virgin souls, with the lamps of our faith shining, not sleeping through our carelessness, that we may not miss Him that we look for if He come unexpectedly; nor yet unfed, and without oil, and destitute of good works, that we be not cast out of the Bridechamber. For I see how pitiable is such a case. He will come when the cry demands the meeting, and they who are prudent shall meet Him, with their light shining and its food abundant, but the others seeking for oil too late from those who possess it. And He will come with speed, and the former shall go in with Him, but the latter shall be shut out, having wasted in preparations the time of entrance; and they shall weep sore when all too late they learn the penalty of their slothfulness, when the Bride-chamber can no longer be entered by them for all their entreaties, for they have shut it against themselves by their sin, following in another fashion the example of those who missed the Wedding feasthyperlink with which the good Father feasts the good Bridegroom; one on account of a newly wedded wife; another of a newly purchased field; another of a yoke of oxen; which he and they acquired to their misfortune, since for the sake of the little they lose the great. For none are there of the disdain fill, nor of the slothful, nor of those who are clothed in filthy rags and not in the Wedding garment even though here they may have thought themselves worthy of wearing the bright robe there, and secretly intruded themselves, deceiving themselves with vain hopes. And then, What? When we have entered, then the Bridegroom knows what He will teach us, and how He will converse with the souls that have come in with Him. He will converse with them, I think in teaching things more perfect and more pure. Of which may we all, both Teachers and Taught, have share, in the Same Christ our Lord, to Whom be tim Glory and the Empire, for ever and ever. Amen.
Footnotes
111 Luke xvii. 12, &c.
112 Ib. vi. 6.
113 Ps. cxii. 9.
114 1 Kgs. xvii. 8, &c.
115 Mark vii. 32.
116 Ps. lviii. 4, 5.
117 Ib. xiii. 3.
118 Ib. xxxvi. 9.
119 Matt. xiii. 25.
120 Ps. lxxxiv. 6. So LXX. and Vulgate. Various interpretations are given of these Steps, but they differ only by indicating different virtues and good works as especially intended, and may well be summed up under the three heads of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways of salvation. A man can set in his heart such a "going up" by the co-operation of grace and free will - Neale & Littledale in Pss..
121 Luke xi. 24.
122 Mark. v. 13.
123 Ps. xcvii. 11.
124 Prov. xiii. 9.
125 Ps. lxxvi. 4.
126 Ib. xliii. 3.
127 Ib. iv. 7.
128 Isa. l. 11.
129 Luke xii. 49.
130 Anagoge is one of the three methods of mystical interpretation, according to the distich,
Littera scripta docet: Quid credas allegoria:
Quid speres anagoge: Quid agas tropologia.
131 cf. Isa. xlvii. 14. lxx..
132 Gen. xix. 24.
133 Ps. xi. 6.
134 Matt. xxv.41.
135 Ps. xcvii. 3.
136 Mark ix. 44, &c.
137 i.e. To view the Fire there spoken of as Temporal punishment, with a purpose of correcting and reforming the sinner. This is not S. Gregory's own view of the meaning of the passage, though he admits it to be tenable.
138 Isa. xvi. 3.
139 A strange paraphrase of the last clause of Ps. cxxxix. 11, in the LXX.., "And I said, then the darkness shall swallow me, and night is enlightenment in my luxury."
140 Thus LXX. in Hosea x. 12, where we read "Break up your fallow ground."
141 Matt. v. 14.
142 Phil. ii. 15, 16.
143 Jer. xlii. 16.
144 Rom xiii. 13.
145 Prov. iv. 25.
146 Matt. vii. 2.
147 Ps. lxxxv. 8.
148 Ib. cxliii. 8.
149 Ib. li. 8.
150 Ib. lvii. 4; lii. 2.
151 Ib. x. 7.
152 1 Cor. ii. 7.
153 Acts ii. 3.
154 Isa. iii. 34.
155 Cant. i. 3.
156 John xx. 28.
157 Quia gula est parens immundiatiae et luxuriae
158 Ps. xxxiv. 8.
159 Ps. cxix. 103.
160 Ephes iv. 16.
161 1 Tim. ii. 8.
162 Ps. ii. 12.
163 Hag. i. 1.
164 Mal. i. 1 sq.; Prov. i. 16.
165 Phil. iii. 14.
166 John vi. 27.
167 Jer. iv. 19.
168 Ps. li. 10.
169 Exod. xii. 11.
170 Ps. xxxviii. 9.
171 Job. xvii. 16.
172 Dan. x. 11.
173 Job xxxix. 16.
174 1 Cor. xii. 23.
175 Col. iii. 5.
176 Levit. iii. 4. The Mosaic Law ordered that the upper part of the liver and the kidneys, together with the fat, should in creation sacrifices be consecrated to God; signifying that anger (which was intimated by the liver, which produces bile), and lust (signified by the kidneys and the fat) should especially be sacrificed to God. Again Moses assigned the shoulder and the breast of some sacrifices to the Priests, hinting obscurely at this, that we ought to take care to offer our hearts to the Priests by confession (for the heart is signified by the breast which protects it) and also our actions, which are intended by the shoulder, that by the Priest they may be presented to God. But the Apostle bids us mortify all our members which are upon the earth, and offer ourselves entire as a sacrifice to God, destroying with the sword of the Word of God all our evil and corrupt affections. - Nicetas
177 Rom. xii. 1.
178 Levit. vii. 34.
179 i.e. If I think of One Blessed Person, the other Two are not in my mind, and so the greater part of God escapes me.
180 S. Gregory Thaumaturgus.
181 Galat. i. 10.
182 Amos v. 26.
183 1 Sam. xvii. 49.
184 1 Kgs. xvii. 21.
185 Ib. xviii. 33.
186 1 Tim. v. 21.
187 Supposing S. Gregory's birth to have been in 325, the earliest date which seems at all probable, he would be under 60 in 381, when this Oration was delivered; so that the expression on the text must be held to be a rhetorical exaggeration. Sudas, however, pushes back the date of his birth as far as 299 or 300; which does not fit in well with the chronology of his life, as given by himself.
188 John xix. 22.
189 Ps. xl. 9.
190 Exod. xxxviii. 28.
191 Ib. xix. 13.
192 Matt. xxviii. 19.
193 Rev. i. 7.
194 James ii. 17.
195 The word here used is Bema, which properly means a Platform. In an Oriental Church the East end of the building is raised by one or more steps above the choir. A little distance East of these steps is a great Screen called the Iconostasis, from the picture (Icons) with which it is covered. It has three doors, one in the centre, called the royal Gates, leading to the Altar: one on the left hand, leading to the Prothesis, or Credence; and one on the right to the Sacristy. The whole raised portion is called the Bema, or sometimes the Altar, the Altar proper being known as the Throne.
196 Luke xiv. 16 &c.