The Cave And The Stone

Erat inquit spelunca. Dixisse suffecerat venisse ad monumentum; quid est quod tantopere speluncam Evangelista commemorat? Speluna plane, ubi hominem diaboli latrocinium collocavit; spelunca, ubi virum fraus condidit mulieris; spelunca, ubi Dei plasma mortia rapacitas includebat. Et lapis superpositus erat ei. Durae mortis janua durior durissimo lapide claudebatur: sed plorans quid proficit ad sepulcrum, quando sic duros et congestos obices non penetrat vox plorantis? Christiani, ploremus Deo pro peccatis nostris, et, mortuis non audientibus, cum gentibus non ploremus. Ait Jesus, tollite lapidem. Inter divinas virtutes humanum Christus requirit auxillium? Non sufficit amovere lapidem, qui mortem sufficit effugare? Sepulcri claustra reserare non valet, qui portas Tartari praevalet aperire? Dixerat per prophetam: Auferam cor lapideum de carne eorum, et dabo eis cor carneum; praecipit ergo ut Judaei ex e cor lapideum tollant, evolvant perfidiae saxum, silicem durae incredulitatis excludant, quatenus animae per infidelitatem mortuae de sepulcro pectoris prosilirent: et non tantum surrexisse Lazarum, quantum se Lazaro consurrexisse gauderent. Tollite lapidem. Tollite miserae humanitatis obsequium, ut divinitatis beatae opera nunc claresceant. Tollite lapidem. Quem posuistis vos, ut hominem quem ego posui, nunc reponam. Sanctus Petrus Chrysologus, Sermo LXV, De Lazaro a mortuis suscitato Source: Migne PL 52.382b-383a

'It was a cave,' 1 He says. It would have sufficed for him to have said that He came to the tomb. Why does the Evangelist wish to stress the cave? Certainly a cave is where the devil's theft deposited man, a cave is where the deceit of a woman laid up man, where death's rapacity enclosed the image of God. And a stone had been placed before it. The door of hard death was shut harder yet by a very hard stone. What profits weeping at a tomb when the voice of the one who weeps does not penetrate such hard and dense barriers? Christians, let us weep for our sins before God, let us not weep with the Gentiles before the dead who do not hear us. Jesus said: 'Remove the stone'. With His Divine powers Christ requires human help? He cannot move the stone who was able to put death to flight? He is not able to unfasten the barrier who has able to open the the gates of Tartarus? He said through the prophet: 'I shall remove their heart of stone, and I shall give them a heart of flesh,' 2 therefore He ordered the Jews to take their heart of stone from themselves, that they roll back the rock of faithlessness, that they push aside the flint of hard disbelief, so that their souls, dead through the lack of faith, might spring forth from the tomb of the heart, and that they might rejoice not so much that Lazarus had risen, but that they had risen with Lazarus. 'Remove the stone.' Remove the servitude of wretched humanity so that the works of blessed Divinity might now shine forth. 'Remove the stone,' that you have put in place so that I may now restore the man whom I established. Saint Peter Chrysologus, from Sermon 65, On The Raising of Lazarus from the Dead 1 Jn 11.38 2 Ezek 36.26