Mark 4:31

The word which proclaims the kingdom of heaven is sharp and pungent as mustard. It represses bile (anger) and checks inflammation (pride). From this word flows the soul's true vitality and fitness for eternity. To such increased size did the growth of the word come that the tree which sprang from it (that is the Church of Christ now being established over the whole earth) filled the world, so that the birds of the air (that is, holy angels and lofty souls) dwelt in its branches.

The Phrygians, however, further assert that the father of the universe is "Amygdalus," not a tree, he says, but that he is "Amygdalus" who previously existed; and he having in himself the perfect fruit, as it were, throbbing and moving in the depth, rent his breasts, and produced his now invisible, and nameless, and ineffable child. respecting whom we shall speak. For the word "Amyxai" signifies, as it were, to burst and sever through, as he says (happens) in the case of inflamed bodies, and which have in themselves any tumour; and when doctors have cut this, they call it "Amychai." In this way, he says, the Phrygians call him "Amygdalus," from which proceeded and was born the Invisible (One), "by whom all things were made, and nothing was made without Him." And the Phrygians say that what has been thence produced is "Syrictas" (piper), because the Spirit that is born is harmonious. "For God," he says, "is Spirit; wherefore," he affirms, "neither in this mountain do the true worshippers worship, nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit. For the adoration of the perfect ones," he says, "is spiritual, not carnal." The Spirit, however, he says, is there where likewise the Father is named, and the Son is there born from this Father. This, he says, is the many-named, thousand-eyed Incomprehensible One, of whom every nature-each, however, differently-is desirous. This, he says, is the word of God, which, he says, is a word of revelation of the Great Power. Wherefore it will be sealed, and hid, and concealed, lying in the habitation where lies the basis of the root of the universe, viz. Aeons, Powers, Intelligences, Gods, Angels, delegated Spirits, Entities, Nonentities, Generables, Ingenerables, Incomprehensibles, Comprehensibles, Years, Months, Days, Hours, (and) Invisible Point from which what is least begins to increase gradually. That which is, he says, nothing, and which consists of nothing, inasmuch as it is indivisible-(I mean) a point-will become through its own reflective power a certain incomprehensible magnitude. This, he says, is the kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard seed, the point which is indivisible in the body; and, he says, no one knows this (point) save the spiritual only. This, he says, is what has been spoken: "There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."

(non occ. leg. ap. Possin. Cyril.) And also because the wisdom spoken amongst the perfect expands, to an extent greater than all other sayings, that which was told to men in short discourses, for there is nothing greater than this truth.

When it is sown in the ground, he says, it is smaller than all the seeds that are on the earth. But when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all garden plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests under its shade. The preaching of the Gospel is the smallest among all disciplines. For the first teaching indeed does not hold the truth of faith, proclaiming a man, Lord God, dead and the scandal of the cross. Compare such teaching to the doctrines of philosophers, and their books and the splendor of eloquence and the composition of words, and you will see how much lesser the sown seeds of the Gospel are. But when those have grown, they show nothing biting, nothing vivid, nothing vital. Everything swells, flaccid and withered, into vegetables and herbs, which dry up and crumble. However, this preaching which seemed small in the beginning, whether sown in the soul of the believer or in the whole world, does not rise into vegetables, but grows into a tree, as is said very clearly by the other Evangelists. Therefore the mustard seed sown in the land or the field of the Lord arises and is transformed from a vegetable into a tree, whose nature is to surpass the nature of all herbs in height, breadth, and longevity. Great indeed is the height of this tree, because the preaching of the Gospel lifts up the minds of its hearers to desire heavenly things. It is spread out with branches, because it has occupied the ends of the whole world through preachers born from it. It surpasses in longevity, because the truth it proclaims will never be obliterated by any end. Under its shade, the birds of the heavens dwell, for the souls of the faithful that are accustomed to fly to heavenly things with desire, and to have their heart above, neglecting the desires of temporal things, according to the voice of the Psalmist: In the protection of the wings of the Lord they will hope (Psalm 90). Hence the bride in the Song of Songs, that is, the Church gathered from many souls of the saints, boasts and says: Under the shadow of him whom I desired, I sat, and his fruit was sweet to my throat (Song of Solomon 2). Which is to say openly: Under the protection of him whom I desired to see, I, deprived of the comfort of others, subjected myself, and the joy of his sight and presence was sweet to my heart, compelling me to despise, indeed to disdain, whatever is outside him.

The word of faith is small: because one need only believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. You see that this word is as small as a mustard seed.

Most brief indeed is the word of faith; Believe in God, and thou shalt be saved.

Or else, that seed is very small in fear, but great when it has grown into charity, which is greater than all herbs; for God is love, (1 John 4:16) whilst all flesh is grass. (Isa. 40:6 But the boughs which it puts forth are those of mercy and compassion, since under its shade the poor of Christ, who are meant by the living creatures of the heavens, delight to dwell.

I know quite well that, to you as to me, the Church which once felt like a refuge, now often feels like a trap. There is nowhere else to go! (I wonder if this desperate feeling, the last state of loyalty hanging on, was not, even more often than is actually recorded in the Gospels, felt by Our Lord's followers in His earthly life-time?) I think there is nothing to do but to pray, for the Church, the Vicar of Christ, and for ourselves; and meanwhile to exercise the virtue of loyalty, which indeed only becomes a virtue when one is under pressure to desert it...

The 'protestant' search backwards for 'simplicity' and directness - which, of course, though it contains some good or at least intelligible motives, is mistaken and indeed vain. Because 'primitive Christianity' is now and in spite of all 'research' will ever remain largely unknown; because 'primitiveness' is no guarantee of value, and is and was in great part a reflection of ignorance. Grave abuses were as much an element in Christian 'liturgical' behaviour from the beginning as now. (St Paul's strictures on eucharistic behaviour are sufficient to show this!)

Still more because 'my church' was not intended by Our Lord to be static or remain in perpetual childhood; but to be a living organism (likened to a plant), which develops and changes in externals by the interaction of its bequeathed divine life and history - the particular circumstances of the world into which it is set. There is no resemblance between the 'mustard-seed' and the full-grown tree. For those living in the days of its branching growth the Tree is the thing, for the history of a living thing is pan of its life, and the history of a divine thing is sacred.

The wise may know that it began with a seed, but it is vain to try and dig it up, for it no longer exists, and the virtue and powers that it had now reside in the Tree. Very good: but in husbandry the authorities, the keepers of the Tree, must look after it, according to such wisdom as they possess, prune it, remove cankers, rid it of parasites, and so forth. (With trepidation, knowing how little their knowledge of growth is!) But they will certainly do harm, if they are obsessed with the desire of going back to the seed or even to the first youth of the plant when it was (as they imagine) pretty and unafflicted by evils. The other motive (now so confused with the primitivist one, even in the mind of any one of the reformers): aggiornamento: bringing up to date: that has its own grave dangers, as has been apparent throughout history. With this 'ecumenicalness' has also become confused.