Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! Continuing on our theme of the death and resurrection of Christ we will continue to look at poetry that explains to us what it is that Christ did through his death and resurrection. The following is hymn 41 which is a dialogue with Satan.
In this hymn, humor, a distinctive feature, also serves as a literary device. Characters appear to ridicule themselves by acknowledging their own weaknesses and falsehoods while at the same time they present arguments that attempt to prove the contrary. Matters may be depicted distortedly because the despicable characters dwell on them. Therefore it is up to the reader to unravel this unassuming riddle and to define the original, intended message of the text. For instance, in Hymn 41 Satan delivers a long speech on how, despite his old age, he still does not neglect small children but takes care of them. This care consists of his attempt to accustom youngsters to evil from a tender age. The following example is the entire text of Hymn 41:
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Said the Evil One: “I am afraid of that Jesus. He will destroy my ways. I am a thousand years old and have never been idle: Nothing in creation which I saw did I neglect or miss, and now comes he, who teaches profligate chastity. I weep now, for he has destroyed everything I had built. For it took me much effort and labor to entangle the whole of creation in wiles.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“I used to set off with the fastest [runners] and would outrun them. I would do battle, and confusion of crowds would be my weapon. I would rejoice in people’s agitation for it gave me a fast opportunity to harden the onslaught of the crowd. By means of a crowd I built a great mountain— a tower reaching up to heaven. Had they declared war on the heights [of heaven] how much simpler would it have been for them to overcome that one on earth!”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“Along with time and its benefits I struggled prudently. The people heard that God is one, but made for themselves a multitude of gods. Because, having seen the Son of God, they rushed toward the One God, so that under the pretext of confessing God to deny him. On the pretext of being zealous they ran away from him. Thus, every time they would be found perverse, for they are godless.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“I am a great many years old, but I never despised a child. I have taken particular care of infants, so that from the very beginning they would acquire bad habits, so that their defects would grow with them. But there are foolish fathers who do not harm the seed I have sown in their sons. And there are such who like good farmers, uproot vices out of the minds of their children.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“Instead of chains I bound people by sloth, and they sat down in idleness. I deprived their senses of everything good: their eyes— from reading, their lips— from psalm singing their minds— from learning. How excellent they are at barren stories, how expert at empty talk and stories, but if the word of salvation falls on their ears, they will push it aside, or stand up and leave.”
Blessed is he ‘who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“How many satans are inside a man, but it is me everyone curses! For the anger of man is like a demon, who every day harasses him; other demons are like wayfarers, they leave when they are compelled to, However, when anger is concerned, all righteous put it under oath, and cannot eradicate it. Instead of hating a destructive envy, everyone hates a weak and miserable demon!”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles oft he Evil One.
“The magician and a snake charmer was put to shame, he who binds snakes every day; a viper inside of him rebels, for he cannot subdue the lust within him. Concealed sin is like an asp; when someone blows on it, he gets burned. Even if he catches the viper through his craft, falsehood has invisibly struck him: he puts the snake to sleep by his incantations, but also arouses great wrath against himself by his very incantations.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
"I have prepared my sting and sat waiting. Who is able to subject anyone to his own opinion?...(line is missing in the original text)...Who else is so patient with everyone? And little by little I led him astray, so that he fell into listlessness.” “The one [who] shrinks from wrongdoing, habits subject him: little by little I trained him, until he fell under my yoke; and grew accustomed to it, so that he did not wish to abandon it.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“I have noticed and seen that patience is able to overcome everything. In the time when I triumphed over Adam, he was alone. So I left him, till he begat descendants and meanwhile looked for another job to do, so that idleness did not overtake. I began to count sea sand, so that through this my spirit became more patient and to train my memory, so that it did not let me down, when sons of men will become a multitude. Before they became numerous I tested them in many ways.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
Servants of the Evil One argued with him and refuted his words by objections:
“Here Elisha revived a dead one and won over death in the high chamber, and brought to life the son of the widow; now he is bound in Sheol.” However, the intellect of the Evil One is far greater: he beat them with their own words: “How can Elisha be overpowered if in Sheol his remains still bring dead to life?”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
If Elisha who is so weak has such a great power in Sheol that he could revive the dead, then how many dead ones would be resurrected by the death of strong Jesus? Thus, following that you may learn, how considerably Jesus surpasses us, my friends! For, behold, his cunning has deceived you, and you have not been able to discern his greatness, for you simply compared him with prophets.
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“Therefore your consolation is in vain”— said the Evil One to his comrades. “For how could Death take hold of the one who resurrected Lazarus? And even if Death would be victorious over him, this is because he would subject himself to it. And if he subjects himself to Death voluntarily, you should be still more terrified, for he would not die for nothing. Great tumult he has caused us, for having died, he would enter'in to revive Adam.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles oft he Evil One.
Death looked out of its cavern and was astounded for he saw Our Lord crucified and said: “Waker of the dead, where are you? Will you become my nourishment instead of sweet Lazarus, whose taste is still on my lips? Jairus’ daughter will come to look at your cross; the son of the widow will look up at you. The tree has ensnared Adam for me; blessed is this cross which has ensnared the son of David for me.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
Death opened its gullet and said: “Have you never heard, O Son of Mary, about Moses who was great and surpassed everybody? About how he became a god and performed divine actions, put firstborns to death and saved firstborns, warded off death from the living ones? However, I ascended to the mountain with this Moses; [God] handed him over to me let his might be praised! No matter how great was the son of Adam lo, dust returns to dust, for he came from earth.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
Satan came with his servants to look at Our Lord in Sheol and to rejoice with Death, his ally.’ But he saw Death sad and mourning for the dead, who at the voice of the Firstborn, returned to life and went forth from Sheol. The Evil One began to console Death, his relative: “You have not lost as much as you have acquired. Unless Jesus is within you, in your hands you will hold all who have lived and are living.”
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
“Open to us [the door], so that we can see and laugh at him. We will respond and ask: “Where is your might?” It is three days already, so let us tell him: “O, three days old, you have resurrected four days old Lazarus. So bring yourself back to life.” Death has opened the doors of Sheol, and the light of the face of the Lord gushed out from there, and like the Sodomites they were destroyed groping and looking for the door of Sheol, but it has disappeared.
Blessed is he who came and destroyed the guiles of the Evil One.
The following hymn is found in Metropolitan Hilarion, Christ the Conqueror of Hell: The Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective, 119-126.
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