Introduction
The feast seems to have fallen in the second half of May in the year that St Theodore gave this instruction, since he refers to the recent celebration of St Pachomius, whose feast falls on 15 May.
The quotation from 1 Timothy 3.16 is one of the key quotations in the liturgical texts for the feast. All the texts in the New Testament speak of Christ’s being ‘taken up’, and this language has been preserved in the hymns of the Church. The Greek name of the feast means ‘Assumption’, not ‘Ascension’, which comes from the Latin name for the feast.
Apart from the necessary change of person in the verb, the whole clause ‘he descended into the lowest parts of the earth’ is the opening of the Irmos of the 6th Ode of St John of Damascus’s Easter Canon, which St Theodore would have known.
Catechesis 7
On the Assumption of our Saviour Jesus Christ and on conducting ourselves in a manner pleasing to God.
Brethren and fathers, a feast of feasts, the Assumption of our Saviour Jesus Christ, is at our doors, and a great and supernatural mystery; for our nature is being taken up beyond heaven, as it written: By grace you have been saved; and he has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [Ephesians 2.5-6] who is at the right hand of God, [Romans 8.34] far above every principality and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in that which to come. And he has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. [Ephesians 1.22-23.]
Do you see then to what height of glory human nature has been raised? Is it not from earth to heaven? Is it not from corruption to incorruption? How hard would not someone toil in order to become the intimate friend of a corruptible king here below? But we, although we were alienated and hostile in our intent by evil deeds, have not only been reconciled to God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, but we have also soared aloft to sonship, and now our nature is worshipped in the heavens by every creature seen and unseen. Such is the mighty work of the ineffable love for mankind of our good God, and with this in mind the blest Apostle cried out: What is the hope of his calling, and what the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of the might of his strength which he worked in Christ? {Ephesians 1.18-20] For what came to pass? He who is supremely good came to us through a virgin birth, he became a slave to the normal laws of nature, he ascended the cross, nailing to it the record against us, he descended to the lowest parts of the earth [Psalm 138.15] and abolished the pains of death and raised humanity with himself, finally he was taken up in glory {1 Timothy 3.18], manifesting himself for us to God the Father.
These then briefly are the events of the holy feast. And as we contemplate them, brethren, and because we are the body of Christ, let us reverence the gift, let us preserve the nobility, let us not betray the grace, let us not make the members of Christ members of a harlot; [1 Corinthians 6.15] but let us sanctify ourselves in both thoughts and deeds, let us yet refrain from carnal desires that war against the soul, [1 Peter 2.11] maintaining good conduct in ourselves, peaceable, compliant, obedient, humble, reliable. And this is the blessed life: but pleasures and trifles, occasions of laughter and dissoluteness and all such inordinate behaviour should be left to the lovers of the flesh and to the lovers of life, who see and do not see and hear and do not hear, for their hearts are insensitive [Cf. Mark 8.17-18] and their ears blocked up so as not to distinguish good from bad, light from darkness, life from death, but so as to go towards the fire that is ready. For the desire of the flesh is fire, and yet they rush towards it unbridled; love of money is a pit, and yet deep embedded they do not cease to follow their self-chosen demon and to be entitled to be called miserable rather than blessed, because despising what is truly good they embrace rather perishable corruption.
But we, brethren, let us hold fast to the confession in which we stand, and let us boast in the hope of the glory of God, [Romans 5.2] let us keep to the discipline in which the saints disciplined themselves, as indeed did the blessed Pachomius, whom we recently celebrated. Let us see healthily, let us hear healthily, let us touch healthily, using all our members healthily, so that guided by the word and as servants of the word we may become inheritors of eternal life according to the promise, [Cf. 1 Timothy 4.8] in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
Introduction, translation, and notes by Fr Ephrem Lash.