Letter 2

To the same person. You often prepare to write to me, putting my lowliness to shame; for I, at least, am not reluctant in this matter. Now someone before our time has said that a tradition concerning these things is preserved in the Church by unwritten memory: namely, that Judea was the first land to have a human being as its inhabitant, since the first-formed Adam, after he was cast out of paradise, was settled there as a consolation for what he had lost. Palestine, then, was also the first to receive a dead human being, since it was there that Adam fulfilled his condemnation. It seemed a strange new thing to the people of that time to behold the bone of a head with the flesh still remaining about it; and having laid up the skull in a place, they named it the Place of the Skull [Golgotha]. It is likely that not even Noah, the founder of all human beings, was ignorant of the tomb, seeing that after the flood the whole flock was preserved through him. For this reason, he who searched out the beginnings of human death received his suffering [the Passion] in the place called the Place of the Skull, so that from the very place where corruption took its beginning among human beings, from there the life of the kingdom might also begin. And just as death prevailed in Adam, so it would be made weak in the death of Christ. This is why Isaiah the prophet has said, "On a horn, in a fertile place" [Isaiah 5:1]: "on a horn," inasmuch as it possesses the cross of the Master as a defense against death; and "in a fertile place," inasmuch as, after paradise, it was counted worthy of the primacy over all that is under the sun.

Πολλάκις μὲν γράφειν σοι παρασκευάζεις, δυσωπῶν τὴν ἐμὴν ταπείνωσιν, οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἐγὼ πρὸς τοῦτό γε ἐχνηρός. Εἴρηκε τοίνυν τις πρὸ ἡμῶν, ὅτι λόγος τοῖσδε κατὰ τὴν ἄγραφον μνήμην ἐν τῇ Ἐκκλησίᾳ διασῴζεται, ὡς ἄρα πρώτη Ἰουδαία (1) ἄνθρωπον ἔσχεν οἰκήτορα, τὸν πρωτόπλαστον Ἀδὰμ μετὰ τὸ ἐκβληθῆναι τοῦ παραδείσου ἐν ταύτῃ καθιδρυνθέντα πρὸς παραμυθίαν ὧν ἐστερήθη. Πρῶτον οὖν Παλαι- στίνη καὶ νεκρὸν ἐδέξατο ἄνθρωπον, ἐκεῖ τοῦ Ἀδὰμ τὴν καταδίκην πληρώσαντος. Καινὸν τοίνυν ἐδόκει εἶναι τοῖς τότε θεωρεῖν ὀστέον κεφαλῆς τῆς σαρκὸς περιούσης, καὶ ἀποθέμενοι τὸ κρανίον ἐν τόπῳ, Κρα- νίου τόπον ὠνόμασαν· εἰκὸς δὲ μηδὲ τὸν Νῶε, τοῦ ἀρχηγοῦ πάντων ἀνθρώπων ἀγνοῆσαι τὸν τάφον, ὡς μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμὸν ἀπ' αὐτοῦ διασωθῆναι τὴν ποίμνην. Διόπερ ὁ εἰς τὰς ἀρχὰς τοῦ ἀνθρωπείου θανάτου ἐρευνήσας, εἰς τὸν λεγόμενον Κρανίου τόπον τὸ πάθος ἐδέξατο, ἵνα ἐν ᾧ φθορᾷ τῶν ἀν- θρώπων τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔλαβεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἡ ζωὴ τῆς βα- σιλείας ἄρξηται. Καὶ ὥσπερ ἴσχυσεν ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ ὁ θάνατος, οὕτως ἀσθενήσῃ ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ τοῦ Χρι- στοῦ. Διὰ τοῦτο εἴρηκεν Ἡσαΐας ὁ προφήτης· «Ἐν κέ- ρατι, ἐν τόπῳ πίονι·» κέρατι μὲν ὡς κατὰ τοῦ θανά- του ἀμυντηρίοις ἔχοντί τὸν σταυρὸν τοῦ Δεσπότου· πίονι δέ, ὡς μετὰ τὸν παράδεισον τῶν κατὰ πάσης τῆς ὑφ' ἡλίῳ πρωτείων ἠξιωμένῳ.