Holy Pentecost

Today the Church celebrates the central mystery of her own existence. Fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit descended upon the gathered Apostles in the form of cloven tongues of fire, fulfilling the Savior’s promise to send the Paraclete from the Father. The upper room in Jerusalem became the womb of the Church; what was conceived at the Annunciation, born at the Nativity, sanctified at the Theophany, perfected at Pascha, and exalted at the Ascension is now poured out upon the world. The Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation, who spoke through the prophets, who overshadowed the Theotokos, who anointed Christ at the Jordan—this same Spirit descends to dwell in the Apostles and, through them, in the whole Body of Christ.

Pentecost is therefore at once the feast of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the Church, and the full revelation of the Holy Trinity. The Father has sent the Son; the Son has ascended to the Father; the Spirit now proceeds from the Father and rests upon the Son’s disciples. The Apostles, simple Galilean fishermen, are made wise by the descent of fire and speak in the tongues of every nation gathered in Jerusalem. The curse of Babel is reversed: where once language scattered the children of Adam, the Spirit now gathers them into one Body, one Faith, one Lord.

In the Antiochian (Greek) tradition this feast also bears the name “Sunday of the Holy Trinity,” and on the following day, Monday, the Church celebrates the Day of the Holy Spirit. The kneeling prayers of Great Vespers, composed by St. Basil the Great, are sung this same Sunday evening; the faithful kneel for the first time since Pascha, returning to a posture of penitence and supplication now that the Bridegroom has sent His Spirit to remain with the Bride. The Pentecostarion closes; the long stretch of “ordinary” Sundays after Pentecost begins.

Hermias was a Roman soldier of advanced age who, after long years of military service, was stationed at Comana in Pontus during the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161). When persecution against the Christians intensified, the governor Sebastian, sent into Cappadocia to seek out and arrest the faithful, came upon the aged soldier. Sebastian urged Hermias to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, promising imperial honors and great wealth in exchange. The veteran Christian refused, bravely confessing his faith and counting earthly reward as nothing beside the hope set before him.

The tortures Hermias endured are extraordinary even by the standards of the early martyrologies. He was beaten on the face until the skin peeled away; cast into a red-hot oven and, when the door was opened after three days, emerged unharmed; given poisoned drinks by the sorcerer Marus, who, witnessing the martyr’s preservation, himself confessed Christ and was beheaded on the spot. The torturers raked his body with sharp instruments, plunged him into boiling oil, gouged out his eyes, and hung him head-downward for three days—during which time the martyr summoned the blind in the crowd and healed them in the name of Jesus Christ. When even the flaying of his skin failed to kill him, the enraged Sebastian drew his own sword and struck off the saint’s head. The Christians secretly recovered the body of Hermias, whose relics afterward worked many miracles of healing.

His witness is the perfect counterweight to the day’s Gospel: the Spirit promised by Christ as “rivers of living water” pours through Hermias even unto the giving of his sight, his blood, and his life.

Eustathios was a Greek hierarch who served as protopresbyter of the imperial palace in Constantinople before being raised to the Ecumenical Throne by the emperor Basil II in July of 1019. His patriarchate was brief—six years—but marked by his irenic engagement with the widening tensions between the Christian East and West. In 1024 he participated in a diplomatic effort to reach an accommodation with Pope John XIX, proposing the formula that the Patriarch of Constantinople would be “ecumenical in his own sphere” (in suo orbe) in the East, as the Roman Pontiff was “in the world” (in universo). The compromise did not hold; thirty years later the Great Schism would harden. But the gesture itself reveals a pastor who labored for the peace of the Church, refusing despair even as the rift widened.

He reposed in November 1025 and was numbered among the saints by the Church of Constantinople. His memory falls fittingly on the eve of Pentecost: a bishop who sought to gather, not scatter, who labored that the unity of the Spirit might be kept in the bond of peace.

These two monastics from the Eastern Roman territories suffered death by fire during one of the periodic persecutions of the early or mid-Byzantine period. The Synaxaria preserve their names and the manner of their martyrdom—committed to the flames for refusing to deny Christ—but few other details. They are commemorated together with Hermias on May 31, three witnesses bound by the testimony of blood and the seal of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church.

• St. Cyril of Alexandria (John 7:37): “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink: behold the boundless love of the Savior; behold the open hand of the Bountiful, calling not to a measured gift but to drink without measure.”
• St. John Chrysostom (John 7:37): “I draw no man to Me by necessity and constraint; but if any has great zeal, if any is inflamed with desire, him I call.”
• St. John Chrysostom (John 7:37): “They who come to the divine preaching and give heed to the faith must manifest the desire of thirsty men for water, and kindle in themselves a similar longing.”
• St. Cyril of Alexandria (John 7:38): “He calls the spiritual gift a ‘river,’ and the abundance of grace a ‘flowing’—for the Spirit who is given is not a trickle but a flood.”
• St. John Chrysostom (John 7:39): “The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified: that is, the gift of the Spirit follows the glorification of the Crucified.”
• St. Cyril of Alexandria (John 8:12): “He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life: He is again persuading them to aim at what is profitable, to desire rather to be led by His appointments than to choose their own unlearning.”
• St. John Chrysostom (John 8:12): “He was not one of the prophets but the Lord of the whole earth: ‘I am the Light of the world’—not ‘a light’ for one nation, but the Light of all.”
• St. John Chrysostom (John 7:46): “No man ever spoke like this Man: the officers sent to seize Him were themselves seized by Him—captured not by chains but by His words.”

”On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

We must search well in this too, what it is the most wise Evangelist is hinting with some extreme great care, calling the last day of the feast great, or what it was that induced our Lord Jesus Christ, as of some needful reason and belonging to the time, to say on it to the Jews, If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink. For He might have used other words, such as, I am the Light, I am the Truth. But turning His explanation to the matters of believing, He hath introduced the word, let him drink, as something |543 necessary and due to the matters of the feast. And the aim in what is before us I will endeavour briefly to say. When therefore God was ordering what belongs to the feast of tabernacles, He says thus unto Moses, On the fifteenth day of the seventh month a feast of tabernacles unto the Lord, and ye shall offer whole burnt sacrifices and sacrifices seven days, and the first day shall be notable holy. Then after enjoining besides the mode of the sacrifices, He added ag... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

1. They who come to the divine preaching and give heed to the faith, must manifest the desire of thirsty men for water, and kindle in themselves a similar longing; so will they be able also very carefully to retain what is said. For as thirsty men, when they have taken a bowl, eagerly drain it and then desist, so too they who hear the divine oracles if they receive them thirsting, will never be weary until they have drunk them up. For to show that men ought ever to thirst and hunger, Blessed, It says, are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness Matthew 5:6; and here Christ says, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. What He says is of this kind, I draw no man to Me by necessity and constraint; but if any has great zeal, if any is inflamed with desire, him I call. But why has the Evangelist remarked that it was on the last day, that great day? For both the first day and the last were great, while the intermediate days they spent rather in enjoyment. Wherefore ... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

The feast being over, and the people about to return home, our Lord gives them provisions for the way: On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink. Which lasted seven days. The firstand last days were the most important; In the last day, that great day of the feast, says the Evangelist. Those between were given chiefly to amusements. He did not then make the offeron the first day, or the second, or the third, lest amidst the excitements that were going on, people should let it slip from their minds, He cried out, on account of the great multitude of people present. If any thirsts: as if to say, I use no compulsion or violence: I but if any have the desire strong enough, let him come. He is speaking of spiritual drink, as His next words show: He that believes in Me, as the Scripture truth said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But where here does the Scripture say this? No where. What th... Read More

”He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

He shews that vast and ageless is the reward of faith, and says that he who does not disbelieve shall revel in richest graces from God. For he shall be so replete with the gifts through the Spirit, as not only to fatten his own mind, but even to be able to overflow into others’ hearts, like the river stream gushing forth the God-given good upon his neighbour too. This very thing used He to enjoin the holy Apostles, saying, Freely ye received, freely give. And the wise and holy Paul too himself longing to be effectual unto this writes, For I long to see you that I may impart some spiritual gift. And one may see this most exceeding well in both the holy Evangelists and in the Evangelic teachers of the church, who on those who go to Christ through faith pouring forth most plenteous word of inspired teaching, spiritually delight them, no more suffering them to thirst after the knowledge of the truth, with their wise soundings all but crying aloud into the heart of those who are being instr... Read More

”But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

CHAPTER II. That after the Saviour’s Cross at His rising again from the dead the Holy Ghost took up His abode in us permanently. The sense of what is before us demands for itself keen scrutiny and to understand sufficiently the depth of the mystery will be (and hardly) the achievement of much acumen. For one who revolves in his mind and looks at each of the holy Prophets, with reason goes first into deep thoughts, How was the Spirit not, albeit so great a choir of Prophets has been set forth who are found uttering in the Spirit the Divine mysteries concerning Christ in many words. For we do not go so far astray from fit thoughts, as to deem that the mind of the saints was bereft of the Spirit. For there shames us and as of necessity calls us unto the belief that they were in truth Spirit-clad, the very fact of prophecy and the things found in the holy writings. For Samuel saith to Saul, The Spirit of the Lord shall spring upon thee and thou shalt be turned into another man, and o... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

2. How then did the Prophets prophesy and work those ten thousand wonders? For the Apostles cast not out devils by the Spirit, but by power received from Him; as He says Himself, If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Matthew 12:27 And this He said, signifying that before the Crucifixion not all cast out devils by the Spirit, but that some did so by the power received from Him. So when He was about to send them, He said, Receive the Holy Ghost John 20:22; and again, The Holy Ghost came upon them Acts 19:6, and then they wrought miracles. But when He was sending them, the Scripture said not, that He gave to them the Holy Ghost, but that He gave to them power, saying, Cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, raise the dead, freely you have received, freely give. Matthew 10:1–8 But in the case of the Prophets, all allow that the Gift was that of the Holy Spirit. But this Grace was stinted and departed and failed from off the earth, from the day in which ... Read More

”Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, ‘Truly this is the Prophet.’”

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

Others said, When Christ comes, no man knows whence He is John 7:27; and there was a difference of opinion, as might be expected in a confused multitude; for not attentively did they listen to His words, nor for the sake of learning. Wherefore He makes them no answer; yet they said, Does Christ come out of Galilee? And He had praised, as being an Israelite indeed, Nathanael, who had said in a more forcible and striking manner, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? John 1:46 But then these men, and they who said to Nicodemus, Search and look, for out of Galilee arises no prophet John 7:52, said it not seeking to learn, but merely to overturn the opinion concerning Christ. Nathanael said this, being a lover of the truth, and knowing exactly all the ancient histories; but they looked only to one thing, and that was to remove the opinion that He was the Christ, on which account He revealed nothing to them. For they who even contradicted themselves, and said at one time, No man kn... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

Or thus; By the glory of Christ, He means the cross. For, whereas we were enemies, and gifts are not made to enemies, but to friends, it was necessary that the victim should be first offered up, and the enmity of the flesh removed; that, being made friends of God, we might be capable of receiving the gift. But be it so, they knew not His birth-place: were they ignorant also of His extraction? that He was of the house and family of David? Why did they ask, Has not the Scripture said, that Christ comes of the seed of David? They wished to conceal His extraction, and therefore put forward where He had been educated. For this reason, they donot go to Christ and ask, How say the Scriptures that Christ must come from Bethlehem, whereas you come from Galilee purposely and of malice prepense they do not do this. And because they were thus inattentive, and indifferent about knowing the truth, Christ did not answer them: though He had lauded Nathanael, when he said, Can any good thing come out o... Read More

”Others said, ‘This is the Christ.’ But some said, ‘Will the Christ come out of Galilee?’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

Astonishment-stricken are they at His confidence as being God-befitting, and seeing that His words no longer suit the measures of man, they betake themselves to memory of the Law, as having already fore-declared of Christ, and saying that a Prophet should be raised up like to the all-wise Moses who should interpret to Israel the words from God. For so says God concerning Him to the holy Moses, I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and will put My words in His mouth and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him. From the quality therefore of His words, and the superiority of His sayings, do they say that He is already shewn to be Him who was fore-heralded through the Law. For to whom will it belong to say, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, and, He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, save only to God by Nature? and this is the Christ. And even though the Jews think... Read More

”Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

No careless search do the Jews make about Christ, for they were found going through every idea and through varied ideas gathering the perception of the truth. For having first marvelled through His Words, and already taken the eminent confidence of His instructions as a guide to their conjecturing something great about Him, they search besides the Divine Scripture, thinking to find thence a most unerring conception of Him: for so is its nature. That He shall be therefore of the seed of the thrice-blessed David and shall be revealed in Bethlehem of Judaea, they believe, persuaded by the prophecies concerning this. For the Lord sware in truth unto David, saith somewhere the wise Melodist, and will not reject Him, Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. And the Prophet saith, And thou Bethlehem house of Ephrata, little art thou to be among the thousands of Judah, for out of thee shall He come forth unto Me to be Ruler of Israel, and His Goings forth from the beginning, from t... Read More

”So there was a division among the people because of Him.”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

To no purpose do they wrangle and are split into diverse opinions, some supposing that He is the Prophet, others the Christ. And the cause of their division, that they know not Christ, nor understand the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures: for else would they believing that none other is Jesus than the Prophet of the Law, have departed from their unseasonable dispute.

”Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

They who had been sent by the chief priests and Pharisees to take the Lord, made the dissension of the multitude with one another a seasonable pretext for their daring deed. For they imagined that they would with less dispute suffer them to bear Him away, as no longer careful what should befall Him, but that as having been an occasion of fighting and disturbance, they would be altogether glad at His being insulted. Yet no man laid hands on Him, not from reverence to Him, nor yet putting the bridle of piety upon their anger, but checked by His Might alone (for to its own season did He give to endure His Passion for us). And hardly is the device of the Jews appeased, restrained by the hindrance from above. For they might not attempt bloodshed before the time, but must await, ungodly though they be, the time of ungodliness.

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

This, if nothing else, might have been sufficient to cause compunction in them, but they felt it not, as the Prophet says, They were cleft asunder, and were not pricked in heart. Psalm 35:15, Septuagint 3. Such a thing is malice! It will give way to nothing, it looks to one thing only, and that is, to destroy the person against whom it plots. But what says the Scripture? Whoso digs a pit for his neighbor, shall fall into it himself. Proverbs 26:27 Which was the case then. For they desired to kill Him, to stop, as they thought, His preaching; the result was the opposite. For the preaching flourishes by the grace of Christ, while all that was theirs is quenched and perished; they have lost their country, their freedom, their security, their worship, they have been deprived of all their prosperity, and have become slaves and captives. Knowing then this, let us never plot against others, aware that by so doing we whet the sword against ourselves, and inflict upon ourselves the deeper wou... Read More

”Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, ‘Why have you not brought Him?’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

They who had been sent to hunt our Lord, availing to accomplish nought of what had been commanded them took themselves again to the rulers. And they are troubled exceedingly at the arrival of the officers, not seeing them bring Him Who was sought. And believing that what they suspected had already happened, they are smitten with no small fear. For since Christ was marvelled at for His Signs above nature and His Words above measure, they were wasted with the envy that was their foster-sister, and were again in no slight fear lest the people of the Jews deciding that it ought to follow Him, should get clear out of their hand. Supposing that this had happened (for things suspected are evermore ready to be believed) they eagerly enquire saying, Why did ye not bring Him? What was it that hindered you (say they) from bringing to its completion what was pleasing to the rulers? We are more ready to press forward to learn all, and sometimes not discerning what is sorrowful, in our eager desire ... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

1. There is nothing clearer, nothing simpler than the truth, if we deal not perversely; just as (on the other hand) if we deal perversely, nothing is more difficult. For behold, the Scribes and Pharisees, who seemed forsooth to be wiser than other men, being ever with Christ for the sake of plotting against Him, and beholding His miracles, and reading the Scriptures, were nothing profited, but were even harmed; while the officers, who could not claim one of these privileges, were subdued by one single sermon, and they who had gone forth to bind Him, came back bound themselves by wonder. We must not only marvel at their understanding, that they needed not signs, but were taken by the teaching alone; (for they said not, Never man wrought miracles thus, but, Never man spoke thus;) we must not, I say, merely marvel at their understanding, but also at their boldness, that they spoke thus to those that had sent them, to the Pharisees, to His enemies, to men who were doing all with a view to ... Read More

”The officers answered, ‘No man ever spoke like this Man!’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

Seasonable in truth is it to say of our Saviour Christ, Who taketh the wise in their own craftiness. For behold, behold as it is written, He removed the many-tangled counsel, and shewed the whole nature of affairs turned contrariwise, on all sides exposing the pollution of the rulers and their unholiness of life as being feeble and perilous, who refused not to fight against God. For the chief Priests and Pharisees, fearing lest the people of the Jews should be persuaded by the Saviour’s words, send out officers to take Him, thinking that Christ’s being out of the way would remove their care as to Him. But what they suspected, this they that had been sent by them returned actually suffering, and what it was like that they would shudder at hearing, this they learn even against their will, and hear unexpectedly from those who speak contrary to their mind, Never spake man so. But since they say these things in excuse for not having brought the Lord, come let us expand what they said, ev... Read More

”Then the Pharisees answered them, ‘Are you also deceived?’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

It seems likely that the officers were more strongly Jewish, and ever cleaving to the Pharisees and sharing their common mind, and ever soused with the words of their rulers, were persuaded to think the same with them, as being ever with them. But when they came, no ways bringing the Lord, but astonishment-stricken beyond their expectation, and late and only now marvelling at Him Whom they ought not to have hated at the beginning, and thinking that all the rest ought to be persuaded by them: they say with a kind of deep anguish, Have YE also been deceived? And understand how this saying is replete with a sort of despair of any hope as regards the people. For as though the rest of the multitude had already been deceived, so many as were not over-stable, they put forth their fear as to the officers. For the remaining multitude (says it) of the common people who are not versed in the sacred Scriptures, nor yet fortified by cleaving to us, let it be granted (if so be) to them to be joined ... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

They still speak them fair, and do not express themselves harshly, dreading lest the others should entirely separate themselves, yet nevertheless they give signs of anger, and speak sparingly. For when they ought to have asked what He spoke, and to have marveled at the words, they do not so, (knowing that they might have been captivated,) but reason with them from a very foolish argument;

”Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

They fall away to their wonted boastfulness, casting imputation of unlearning on those who marvelled at Jesus as a wonder-worker and as bringing in things God-befitting, and crown their own heads alone with skill in the law and knowledge of the holy Scriptures. And because themselves consent not to those who rightly marvel at these things, they believe that they are full of virtue. And as though the Law bade them find fault with things worthy of marvel, and cast a perverse judgment on things that surpass wonder, they plume themselves not a little, demented and of too great lightness easily cast into all uninstructedness. And whence they the rather ought to acknowledge Jesus now present, thence are they taken wronging themselves and weighting their collar, as it is written, for professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Albeit it had been far better to confess that they knew not the Law, than thinking and saying that they knew it well, and then dishonouring Him That was procla... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

Do you then make this a charge against Christ, tell me, and not against the unbelievers?

”But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

Then is the charge against you the heavier, because the people believed, and you believed not. They acted like men that knew the Law; how then are they accursed? It is ye that are accursed, who keep not the Law, not they, who obey the Law. Neither was it right, on the evidence of unbelievers, to slander one in whom they believed not, for this is an unjust mode of acting. For you also believed not God, as Paul says; What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid. Romans 3:3–4 For the Prophets ever rebuked them, saying, Hear, you rulers of Sodom; and, Your rulers are disobedient Isaiah 1:10, 23; and again, Is it not for you to know judgment? Micah 3:1 And everywhere they attack them vehemently. What then? Shall one blame God for this? Away with the thought. This blame is theirs. And what other proof can a man bring of your not knowing the Law than your not obeying it? For when they had said, Hath any of the rulers believed on him? and,... Read More

”Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them,”

_No Eastern patristic commentary is preserved for this verse in the Catena. Verse is part of the narrative-transition material; see surrounding verses for thematic patristic engagement._

”’Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?’”

_No Eastern patristic commentary is preserved for this verse in the Catena. Verse is part of the narrative-transition material; see surrounding verses for thematic patristic engagement._

”They answered and said to him, ‘Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

Being a Jew (it says) and home-born, why dost thou feign to have no knowledge of the Galileans, and art strangely co-ignorant of our matters with those who are absolutely ignorant? and being most conversant with the most sacred Scriptures, and versed in tho appointments of the Law, whence knewest thou not (he says) that it is not possible to look for a Prophet out of the Galilaeans? This then is the aim of the Pharisees’ words. But we must notice this again: they spurn the multitudes as knowing nought of the things they ought to have had accurate knowledge of, and finding fault with their extreme want of learning, and loathing them and haughtily styling them uninstructed, themselves are caught sick of yet worse, and no wise differing from their inexperience. For those on receiving the miracles done through Christ, and gathering little by little faith in Him, at one time said, Christ when He cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man. hath done? at another time drawn off... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

2. When they ought to have shown that they had not sent to summon Him without judgment, or that it was not fitting to allow Him speech, they take the reply rather in a rough and angry manner. Search, and look: for out of Galilee has arisen no prophet. Why, what had the man said? That Christ was a prophet? No; he said, that He ought not to be slain unjudged; but they replied insolently, and as to one who knew nothing of the Scriptures; as though one had said, Go, learn, for this is the meaning of, Search, and look. What then did Christ? Since they were continually dwelling upon Galilee and The Prophet, to free all men from this erroneous suspicion, and to show that He was not one of the prophets, but the Master of the world, He said,

”Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

Again therefore spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the Light of the world. As we said that Jesus had made His Discourse in accordance with what was written of the feast, when at its last day He was standing crying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, because the oracle of Moses had made mention of the brook: so now too does He make His explanation most seasonable, and due to the nature of things. For since He saw that the teachers were partners in folly with the multitudes and that the laughers were sick of the like with them they laughed at, drenched (so to speak) all of them in one night of unlearning and seeking to get hold of His Mystery yet finding nought at all, He brings forward the reason of tho want of understanding that is in them, crying, I am the Light of the world. Ye (He says) going through the whole holy Scripture and thinking to test the things spoken of Me through the Prophets, are far astray of the way of Life. And no marvel: for He is not in you Wh... Read More

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 444)

He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. He is again persuading them on all sides to aim at hunting after what is profitable, and to desire rather to be led by His appointments, than to choose to follow their own unlearning and bereave themselves of everlasting life. He shews how great shall be the profit to those who are obedient to Him, seeing He is by Nature Good and willeth all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. But since He knew as God that they would gainsay, He fashions His speech after an elder image of things and from what had befallen their ancestors He declares plainly that the desire to follow Him will be to their great profit. It was written then of them of Israel, that in the daytime also He led them with a cloud and all the night with a light of fire. For when they were crossing the wide desert, hasting unto the Land of promise, a cloud was suspended over them like a roof in the day driving off the su... Read More

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

Not of Galilee, not of Palestine, nor of Judæa. What then say the Jews?

John Chrysostom (AD 407)

As they had brought Galilee as an objection against Him, and doubted His being one of the Prophets, as if that was all He claimed to be, Me wished to show that He w as not one of the Prophets, but the Lord of the whole earth: Then spoke Jesus again to them, saying, I am the Light of the world: not of Galilee, or of Palestine, or of Judea. Walk not in darkness, i.e. Spiritually abide not in error. Here He tacitly praises Nicodemus and the officers, and censures those who had plotted against Him; as being in darkness and error, and unable to come to the light.

Source: On the Holy Spirit, especially chapters 9, 16, and 26.

Basil’s classic treatise—written in defense of the Spirit’s full divinity against the Pneumatomachi—remains the indispensable patristic foundation for any Pentecost homily. He grounds the Spirit’s deity in the baptismal formula, the doxologies of the Church, and the Spirit’s own actions: sanctifying, illuminating, deifying. The kneeling prayers of Pentecost Vespers, sung this same evening, are his own composition; they remain in continuous use in the Orthodox liturgy.

Source: Oration 41, On Pentecost.

Delivered at Constantinople around 381, Gregory’s homily on Pentecost articulates the trinitarian theology that the day demands: “The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself.” Gregory frames the descent as the climax of God’s progressive self-revelation.

Source: The Discourses, Discourse XXXII (on the Holy Spirit).

Symeon insists—against the spiritual complacency of his age—that what was given to the Apostles at Pentecost is not historical relic but the present inheritance of every baptized Christian. To be a Christian is to receive the Spirit consciously, perceptibly, as fire and light. His witness is a sharp pastoral check against the temptation to preach Pentecost as a feast that “happened” rather than a feast that happens.

Source: Kontakion on Pentecost (preserved at the Mystagogy Resource Center).

The Byzantine kontakion-form hymn dramatizes the descent in vivid imagery: the wind of the Spirit, the dividing tongues, the apostolic preaching, the gathering of the nations. Romanos pairs the upper room with Sinai, the fire of Pentecost with the cloud of the Exodus, and the apostolic tongues with the trumpet that gave the Law—drawing out a typological theology of two covenants, both inscribed by the same Spirit, the second writing not on stone tablets but on the fleshly tablets of the heart.

Source: The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to John, on chapters 7–8.

Theophylact (eleventh century) consolidates Chrysostom and Cyril into a digest accessible to the parish clergy and the educated laity. His treatment of the rivers of living water (John 7:37–39) follows Chrysostom closely; his treatment of John 8:12 lays out the dual sense of “light”—Christ as the moral and metaphysical light, dispelling at once the darkness of ignorance and the darkness of sin.

The Fathers read Acts 2 against Genesis 11. At Babel, human pride built upward toward heaven, and the Lord scattered the tongues so that man could no longer collaborate in his rebellion. At Pentecost, God Himself descends in tongues of fire, and what had been scattered is gathered—each hearer hears the wonderful works of God in his own language. The point is not that everyone now speaks the same language, but that the Gospel can be spoken truthfully in every language. Babel’s curse is not erased by uniformity; it is undone by catholicity. The Church speaks every tongue because the Spirit makes the praise of God intelligible in each of them.

John’s editorial gloss in 7:39 is one of the dense theological seams of the Fourth Gospel: “the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Chrysostom, Cyril, and Theophylact all press on this single sentence. The Spirit’s coming is not arbitrary timing; it is the fruit of the Paschal mystery. Until Christ has died, risen, and ascended in glory to the Father, the Spirit cannot be poured out upon a humanity that is not yet reconciled, not yet healed, not yet ready to receive Him. Pentecost is therefore the completion of Pascha. The Cross opens the well; the Resurrection makes the water flow; the Ascension lifts the source so that the rivers can descend from on high.

Christ’s striking image in 7:38 is not “a river will flow to the believer” but “out of the believer’s heart.” The Spirit makes the Christian a tributary of His own life. Chrysostom dwells here: where the Spirit dwells, He does not stop with sanctifying the individual—He overflows into the world through that individual’s word, mercy, and witness. The same image governs every later Orthodox spirituality of the prayer of the heart: when the heart becomes the dwelling place of the Spirit, the heart begins to give out what it has received. The Saints—from the Apostles in the upper room to the desert fathers to Hermias of Comana to Symeon the New Theologian—are the rivers Christ promised.

For the Orthodox tradition, Pentecost is not a feast of the Spirit over against the Father and the Son—it is the feast on which the Trinity is fully revealed. The Father sends the Spirit; the Son sends the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26); the Spirit comes in His own Person and does His own work. The hymnography of the day is saturated with trinitarian doxology, and the kneeling prayers of Vespers are explicitly addressed to all three Persons. To preach Pentecost as merely “the day of the Spirit” is to miss the structure of the feast. It is the day when the icon of the Trinity is at last fully drawn.

”Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, who hast revealed the fishermen as most wise, having sent upon them the Holy Spirit, and through them Thou hast fished the universe, O Lover of mankind, glory to Thee.”

The Apolytikion gathers the whole theology of the feast into a single line: the unlettered fishermen become the world’s teachers, not by their own learning but by the Spirit’s descent. The verb is deliberate—Christ “fishes the universe” through the Apostles, redeeming the Lord’s earlier promise to make them fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). Source: Antiochian Archdiocese Sacred Music Library.

”When the Most High came down and confounded the tongues, He divided the nations; but when He distributed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity; and with one voice we glorify the All-Holy Spirit.”

The kontakion makes the Babel typology explicit: the same God who once divided is the same God who now unites. The crucial line is “with one voice we glorify”—the Spirit’s gift produces not a uniformity of language but a unity of doxology.

”Rejoice, O Queen, glory of mothers and maidens; for every mouth, though eloquent and fluent, has not the power to hymn thee worthily; and every mind is dazed when it seeks thy mystery; wherefore, with one accord, we glorify thee.”

The Theotokos was present in the upper room (Acts 1:14), and the feast does not pass without honoring her share in the Spirit’s descent. The Pentecost megalynarion replaces “It is truly meet” at the Anaphora.

”O Lord, who at this present and saving feast hast graciously vouchsafed to receive prayers of supplication for those held in Hades…”

The first kneeling prayer is addressed to the Father; the second to the Son; the third—the longest—to the Holy Spirit. The faithful kneel for the first time since Pascha. The prayers, composed by Basil and preserved in continuous use, are themselves a homiletic resource: each is a meditation on a different Person of the Trinity and on the Church’s posture before Him.