Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 2.38

[38] We must neither be such lovers of the Father as to take away even his being Father (for whose Father would he be, if the Son were separated from him in nature and estranged along with the creation? For what is alien is not a Son; nor is one who is blended with the Father and confused with him, which is the same as saying one who confuses); nor such lovers of Christ as not to keep for him even his being Son (for whose Son would he be, if he were not referred to the Father as his principle?), nor to keep for the Father the dignity of being principle, as Father and begetter. For he would be the principle of small and unworthy things, or rather he would be principle in a small and unworthy way, if he were not the principle of the Godhead and goodness that are contemplated in the Son and the Spirit: in the one as Son and Word, in the other as Spirit who proceeds and is not dissolved. For it is necessary both to keep the one God and to confess the three hypostases, each with its own property. [39] To understand these things and to set them forth adequately and as they deserve needs a longer discourse than the present occasion allows, and, I think, a longer life; or rather, now and always, it needs the Spirit, by whom alone God is understood and interpreted and heard. For only the pure may touch what is pure and always the same. The reason we have now gone through them briefly is to show this: that it is hard, especially in a crowd made up of every age and condition, like an instrument of many strings that needs different strokes, when speaking about such great matters, to find a word able to build up all and to make them shine with the light of knowledge. This is not only because the danger hangs on three things, understanding, speech, and hearing, so that one must stumble in one of them at least, if not in all (for either the mind was not illumined, or the speech was weak, or the hearing, not having been cleansed, did not take it in; and from any one of these, as from all, the truth must go lame), but also because the very thing that makes the word easiest and most acceptable for those who undertake to teach any other subject, the reverence of the hearers, here becomes the source of loss and danger. [40] For since they are contending about God, the greatest of beings, and about salvation itself and the first hope of all, the more fervent they are in faith, the more they resist the word, thinking docility a betrayal of the truth, not piety; and they would give up anything sooner than the reasonings of their own with which they come, and their familiarity with the doctrines among which they were brought up. And this, I say, is the feeling of the more moderate and not wholly bad, who, even if they miss the truth, yet because they suffer this through reverence, and have “a zeal, but not according to knowledge,” will perhaps be among those not severely condemned nor beaten with many stripes, as are those who fall away from the Master’s will through vice and wickedness. And perhaps these might one day be won over and changed by the same reverence by which they resisted, if some word were to touch them, striking at the right moment from within or from without, as iron strikes flint, the mind that is pregnant and worthy of light; and very quickly from a small spark the beacon of truth might blaze out. [41] What could one say about those who through vainglory or love of power “speak unrighteousness on high,” arming themselves with the bombast of some Jannes or Jambres, not against Moses but against the truth, and rising up against sound teaching? Or about the third class, those who through lack of education, and the rashness that follows it, rush headlong at every doctrine with a swinish passion and trample on the fair pearls of truth? [42] Or about those who bring no opinion of their own and no impression of the doctrine of God, worse or better, but submit themselves to all doctrines and teachers, as though to choose out of all what is better and safer, trusting themselves as judges of truth (and not good ones); and then, carried about and turned now this way, now that by plausibility, washed over and trampled by every word, having changed many teachers and many writings and thrown them off as easily as dust to the winds, at last, with hearing and understanding worn out (O what folly!), they are equally disgusted with every doctrine, and engrave on themselves an evil impression: to laugh at and despise our very faith as unstable and having nothing sound, passing in their lack of education from the speakers to the doctrine; as if someone with diseased eyes or damaged ears were to blame the sun or sounds, the one as dim and not shining, the others as unmelodious and weak. [43] And for this reason it is easier to inscribe the truth fresh on a soul, like wax not yet stamped, than to write a pious word over writing, I mean over evil teachings and doctrines, so that the second is confused and thrown into disorder by the first. For it is better to walk a road that is smooth and well trodden than one untrodden and rough, and to plough land that the plough has often cut and tamed; but to write on a soul which no evil word has yet stamped, and in which the letters of vice have not been deeply impressed; for otherwise the godly calligrapher would have two tasks: to wipe out the former impressions and to write in their place those that are more approved and more worthy to remain. So many, then, in other matters and in doctrine itself, are the evil impressions and characters of the evil one, and so great the work for the one entrusted with this training and presidency of souls; and my discourse has passed over most of them, so as not to be longer than it should. [44] Just as, if someone were to undertake to lead and tame a beast composed of many beasts, of many shapes and forms, larger and smaller, tamer and wilder, he would certainly have work and no small contest in presiding over a nature so uneven and strange, since each of the beasts does not delight in the same sounds, nor food, nor strokings of the hand, nor whistlings, nor the other ways of handling, but different ones are pleased or annoyed by different things, as nature and habit dictate; what must the keeper of such a beast do? What else but be manifold and varied in his knowledge, and apply to each the suitable treatment, so that the beast may be well led and kept safe by him? So, since the common body of the church is composed of many different characters and minds, like one animal composite and unlike itself, it is entirely necessary that the one who presides be simple, the same in his uprightness in all things, and yet as manifold and varied as possible in adapting himself to each, and fitting and suitable in his dealings with all. [45] For some need to be nourished with milk, the simpler and more elementary teachings: those who are infants in their condition and, as one might say, newly formed, and cannot bear the manly food of the word; if one offered it to them beyond their strength, they would perhaps be oppressed and weighed down, their understanding not being sufficient (as with matter that cannot draw in and assimilate what enters it), and would lose even their original strength. But those who need the wisdom spoken among the perfect, and the higher and more solid food, having their senses well exercised to discern true and false, if they were given milk to drink and fed with vegetables, the food of the weak, would be annoyed; and very reasonably, since they would not be strengthened according to Christ, nor grow with the praiseworthy growth that the word works, perfecting the well-nourished to a mature man and bringing him to the measure of spiritual stature. … to the ground; so that we might be best thought of among the many by harming them most, or destroying them, and shedding the innocent blood of simpler souls, which will be required at our hands. [47] But knowing that it is better to hand over one’s own reins to others more skilled than to be an unskilled driver of others, and to offer a well-disposed ear rather than move an untaught tongue, having reasoned this out with ourselves, and with counsellors perhaps not bad, or at any rate well-meaning, we judged it better to learn what we did not know of what must be said and done, than to teach it while ignorant. For it is something to be glad of if a word reaches even a hoary old age and is then able to benefit a young soul in piety. But to undertake to teach others before being adequately taught oneself, and to “learn pottery on the wine jar,” as the saying goes, practising piety on other people’s souls, seems to me the part of those who are very foolish or very rash: foolish if they do not even perceive their own ignorance, bold if they are aware of it and yet venture on the task. [48] The wiser of the Hebrews say that there was of old among the Hebrews a law, one of the best and most praised, that not every age should be given every Scripture, since this would not be more profitable, because not every Scripture is immediately intelligible to everyone, and the deeper would do the many the greatest harm by its surface meaning; but that some books were open to all from the beginning and common, those whose bodily sense also is not unworthy, while others were entrusted only to those who had passed their twenty-fifth year: those that veil their mystical beauty under a plain garment, as a prize for diligence and a bright life, flashing out and appearing only to those whose mind has been purified, since only this age is able to rise above the body and to ascend well from the letter to the spirit. [49] But with us there is no boundary between teaching and being taught, such as the stones of old were between the tribes beyond the Jordan and those within the Jordan; nor is one thing entrusted to some and another to others; nor is there any rule of fitness; but the matter has been so thrown away and confused, and we are in so bad a state, that most of us, not to say all, before we have almost shed our first hair and stopped lisping childish things, before we have entered the divine courts, before we know even the names of the sacred books, before we recognize the character and the authors of the New and the Old (I do not yet say, before we have washed off the mire and the shameful stains of the soul that vice has smeared on us), if we have practised two or three phrases of the pious, and those by hearsay, not by reading, if we have spent a little time with David, or wrapped our cloak well about us, or played the philosopher as far as the belt, painting on ourselves some figure and appearance of piety, then (bless me, what presidency and what pride!) Samuel is holy from his swaddling clothes: at once we are wise and teachers and lofty in divine things, the first of scribes and lawyers; we ordain ourselves heavenly, and seek to be called rabbi by men; the letter is nowhere, everything must be understood spiritually, and dreams are broad nonsense; and we should be indignant if we were not highly praised. This is what the better and simpler of us are like. What then of those who are more spiritual and more high-minded? They have condemned us on many counts, if that seems good to them, put us to the test and set us at nought, and gone away, spitting on our communion as on that of impious men. [50] And if we say to one of them, leading him on gently and reasonably, “Tell me, my good sir, do you call dancing something, and flute-playing?” “Certainly,” he would say. “And what of wisdom and being wise, which we define as the knowledge of things divine and human?” This too they will grant. “And is it better and loftier, these things than wisdom, or wisdom far above them?” Above them all, I am sure they will say; so far they are reasonable. “Then is there teaching and learning of dancing and flute-playing, and does it need time for this, and much sweat and toil, and sometimes the paying of fees, and the need for introductions, and long journeys abroad, and doing or suffering everything else by which experience is gathered; while wisdom, which presides over all things and holds all good things gathered together in itself, so that God himself is pleased to be called by this name more than by any other, though he is called by many names, we shall suppose to be so light and trodden a thing that one need only wish it to be wise?” This is the mark of great ignorance. If we say these things to them, or someone else more teachable and intelligent does, and clear away the error little by little, it is just sowing on rocks and speaking into the ears of those who will not hear. So far are they from being wise even in this, in knowing their own lack of education. And it seems to me fitting to say of them the word of Solomon: “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun”: a man wise in his own eyes; and, what is worse than this, a man entrusted with teaching others who does not even perceive his own ignorance. [51] This condition deserves tears and groans if anything does; I have often pitied it, knowing well that seeming takes away most of being, and that vainglory is a great obstacle to virtue for men. To heal and stop the disease would belong to someone like Peter or Paul, the great disciples of Christ, who received the gift of guidance in word and deed along with grace, and became all things to all, that they might gain all; for the rest of us it is a great thing if we are well guided and led by those entrusted with correcting and setting straight such things. [52] But since we have mentioned Paul and those like him, let us, if you agree, pass over all the others who were put forward for the people in lawgiving, prophecy, generalship, or some other such stewardship, such as Moses, the great Aaron, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, the judges, Joshua [sic], David, the multitude of the prophets, John, the twelve disciples and those who came after them later, who each in his own time went through his presidency with much sweat and toil; passing over all these, let us bring forward Paul alone as witness to our argument, and consider in him how great a thing is the care of souls, and whether it requires little effort or slight understanding. And so that we may most easily learn and see this, let us hear what Paul himself says about Paul. [53] I leave aside the labours, the sleepless nights, the fears, the hardships in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, those plotting from outside, those working against him from within. I pass over the persecutions, the councils, the prisons, the chains, the accusers, the tribunals, the deaths daily and hourly, the basket, the stonings, the beatings with rods, the travels, the dangers by land and by sea, the deep, the shipwrecks, dangers of rivers, dangers of robbers, dangers from his own race, dangers among false brothers, the life by his own hands, the gospel without charge, how he was a spectacle to angels and men, standing between God and men, contending for the one and bringing to the other and making his own a peculiar people: and besides these, the things that are without. Who could worthily describe his daily oversight, his care for each one, the anxiety for all the churches, his sympathy and brotherly love toward all? Someone stumbled, and Paul was weak; another was made to stumble, and it was Paul who burned. [54] And his diligence in teaching? And the variety of his treatment? His kindness? And again his severity? And the mixing and blending of both, so as neither to be softened by gentleness nor made harsh by severity? He gives laws to slaves and masters, rulers and ruled, husbands and wives, parents and children, marriage and celibacy, self-control and indulgence, wisdom and ignorance, circumcision and uncircumcision, Christ and the world, flesh and spirit. For some he gives thanks, others he rebukes. Some he calls his joy and crown, others he charges with folly. With some he travels and shares their eagerness, those who cut the word straight; others he checks when they walk badly. Now he excommunicates, now he confirms his love; now he mourns, now he rejoices; now he gives milk to drink, now he touches on mysteries; now he comes down to others, now he lifts them up with himself; now he threatens with the rod, now he offers a spirit of gentleness; now he is lifted up against the lofty, now humbled with the humble. Now he is the least of the apostles, now he promises a proof of Christ who speaks in him; now he longs for his departure and is poured out as an offering, now he judges it more necessary to remain in the flesh for their sake. For he does not seek his own, but the good of his children, whom he begot in Christ through the gospel. This is the rule of all spiritual presidency: everywhere to overlook one’s own interest for the profit of others. [55] He boasts in his weaknesses and afflictions; he prides himself on the dying of Jesus as on some other adornment; he is lofty in fleshly things and exults in spiritual ones; he is not unskilled in knowledge, and yet says that he sees through a mirror and in a riddle. He is confident in the spirit, and buffets the body, subduing it as an adversary. What is he teaching us by this, and what training us in? Not to set our minds on things below, not to be puffed up by knowledge, not to rouse the flesh against the spirit. He fights for all, prays for all, is jealous over all, is set on fire for all, those outside the law and those under the law: herald of the Gentiles, champion of the Jews. He dared something even greater for his brothers according to the flesh (that I too may dare to speak so): he prays that they might be brought to Christ in his own place, out of love. O what greatness of mind! O what fervour of spirit! He imitates Christ, who became a curse for us, who took up our weaknesses and bore our diseases; or, to put it more moderately, he accepts to suffer something for them, even as one impious, first after Christ, if only they might be saved. [56] And why should I go through them one by one? Living not for himself but for Christ and the preaching, having crucified the world to himself and been crucified to the world and to visible things, he thinks all things small and less than his desire; even if he fully preaches the gospel from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, even if he reaches the third heaven by being caught up, even if he becomes a spectator of paradise and a hearer of words unspeakable for us. Such is Paul, and anyone who is like him in spirit. But we are afraid that, compared with these, we may be some foolish rulers of Tanis, or exactors who glean, falsely calling the people blessed (I will add, and being called blessed ourselves), and troubling the path of your feet; mockers bearing rule, or youths as leaders, immature in understanding, not having even enough bread and clothing to lead anyone; prophets teaching lawless things, or rulers who disobey and deserve to be spoken ill of along with their fathers for the hardness of famine; or priests very far from speaking to the heart of Jerusalem: all of which Isaiah, purified by the seraph and the coal, rightly reproaches and testifies. [57] Is the work, then, so great, and so laborious for a heart that feels and grieves, and truly a moth in the bones for anyone with sense, while the danger is small or the fall to be despised? But great fear is held over me, on the one side by the blessed Hosea, who says that the judgment is against us priests and rulers, because we have become a snare to the watchtower, and like a net spread over Tabor, fixed by those who hunt men’s souls; and he threatens to cut off the worthless prophets, and to consume their judges with fire, and to refrain a little from anointing king and rulers, because they made kings for themselves and not through him. [58] On the other side the divine Micah, who cannot bear Zion built with bloods (whichever kind you like) and Jerusalem with iniquities, her leaders judging for bribes, her priests answering for hire, and her prophets divining for silver. In return for this, what will happen? Zion will be ploughed as a field, Jerusalem will become a garden-watchman’s hut, and the mountain of the house will be counted as a grove of the forest; and he laments the dearth of upright men, so that scarcely a straw or a gleaning is left, when the ruler asks and the judge speaks words to please; and he says almost the same as the great David, who says, “Save me, O Lord, for the godly man has failed”; from which, he says, good things too will fail them, consumed as by a moth. [59] Joel bids us lament, and wishes those who minister at the altar to beat their breasts when famine presses: so far is he from allowing them luxury amid the misfortunes of others; and besides sanctifying a fast and proclaiming a service, he would gather the elders, the infants, the pitiable ages, in sackcloth and thrown very humbly on the ground, because the plains had been distressed by barrenness and libation and sacrifice had been taken away from the house of the Lord, so as to draw down mercy by humiliation. [60] And what of Habakkuk? He takes up even hotter words and is impatient with God himself, and as it were cries out against the good Master because of the injustice of the judges: “How long, O Lord, shall I cry,” he says, “and you will not hear? Shall I shout to you when wronged, and you will not save? Why have you shown me toils and labours, to look upon wretchedness and impiety? Judgment has come against me, and the judge takes bribes. Therefore the law is scattered, and judgment does not go forth to its end.” Then the threat that follows: “See, you despisers, and look, and wonder marvellously, and vanish, for I am working a work.” And why need I bring in all the details of the threat? But a little before (for this seems to me better to add to what has been said), having called upon and lamented many of the unjust and wicked, he at last calls upon the leaders and teachers of wickedness too, calling vice a turbid overthrow and a drunkenness and wandering of the mind, and saying that they make their neighbours drink of these, so that they may look upon the darkness of their soul, and the caves of reptiles and wild beasts, dwellings of evil thoughts. These, then, are of this kind, and speak to us with such lessons. [61] And how is it right to pass over Malachi? Now he bitterly accuses the priests and reproaches them with despising the name of the Lord, and adds in what way: by bringing polluted bread to the altar, food that is no first-fruits; and what they would not offer to any of their governors, or would be dishonoured if they offered it, this, having vowed a vow, they offer to the King of all: lame and sick and corrupt things, utterly profane and detestable. Now he reminds them of God’s covenant with the Levites (which was one of life and peace), and to fear the Lord with fear and to stand in awe before the face of his name. “The law of truth,” he says, “was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace, going straight, and turned many from unrighteousness; for the lips of a priest shall guard knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth.” And the reason, how honourable and at the same time how fearful! “Because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.” I decline to repeat the curses that follow, for their harshness of speech, but I fear their truth. Yet this is moderate to say and profitable: “Is it still worth while,” he says, “to look upon your sacrifice, or to receive anything acceptable from your hands?” as one greatly displeased, and rejecting their priestly service because of their wickedness. [62] As for Zechariah, whenever I remember him I shudder at the sickle, and likewise at what he testifies against the priests: what he indicates about the famous Joshua, the great high priest, whom in the vision he strips of the filthy and unworthy garment and clothes with the bright priestly one; and all that the angel says and charges him in speaking to Joshua. These things, which perhaps refer to greater and loftier matters than the many priests, let them be honoured with silence; except that at his right hand too the devil stood to oppose him: a thing, to me at least, not slight, and worthy of no small fear and watchfulness. [63] And what he accuses the other shepherds of, and how carefully he attacks them, who is so bold and so adamantine of soul as not to tremble on hearing it, and become more moderate himself? “A voice,” he says, “of shepherds lamenting, because their greatness is distressed; a voice of lions roaring,” because they have suffered these things. He almost hears the laments as already present, and laments with the sufferers. And a little before, more sharply and vehemently: “Feed the sheep for slaughter, which their owners slaughtered and did not repent; and those who sold them said, Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich; and their shepherds felt nothing for them. Therefore I will no longer spare those who dwell on the earth, says the Lord Almighty.” And again: “Sword, awake against the shepherds, and strike the shepherds, and draw out the sheep”; and, “I will bring my hand upon the shepherds,” and, “My anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I will visit the lambs”; adding to the threat now those who are foremost among the people. So diligently does he dwell on the subject, and cannot easily leave the threats. [64] And, to pass over the elders in Daniel (and let us pass them over), and the word well spoken and foretold by the Master about them, that “lawlessness went forth from Babylon, from elders who were judges, who seemed to govern the people,” how shall we bear Ezekiel, the beholder and interpreter of great mysteries and visions? How shall we bear what he charges the watchmen: not to keep silent about vice and the sword coming upon it, since this profits neither themselves nor the sinners; whereas to foresee and proclaim beforehand will benefit both, if the one speak and the others hear, or at any rate those who gave the warning? [65] How shall we bear the other invective that he makes against those who shepherd, now in these words: “Woe upon woe shall come, and rumour upon rumour; and a vision shall be sought from the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders”; and now again in these: “Son of man, say to her, You are a land not rained upon, nor did rain come upon you in the day of wrath; whose leaders in the midst of her are like roaring lions, snatching prey, devouring souls in their power”; and a little later: “Her priests set aside my law and profaned my holy things; between profane and holy,” he says, “they made no distinction,” but all was one to them; “and they hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned among them.” And he threatens to bring to an end the wall and those who daub it; that is, the sinners and those who cover them up, which is the work of bad rulers and priests, who lead the house of Israel astray according to their hearts, estranged in their desires. [66] And I am silent about all that he says about those who feed themselves: who eat the milk, clothe themselves with the wool, and slaughter the fat, but do not feed the sheep; who do not strengthen the sick, nor bind up the broken, nor bring back the straying, nor seek the lost, nor guard the strong, but wear them down with toil and destroy them with haste; so that the sheep are scattered over every plain and mountain because there are no shepherds, and become food for all the birds and beasts, since there is no one to seek them and bring them back. Then what? “As I live,” he says, “says the Lord: because these things are so, and my sheep have become a prey, behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hands”; and the sheep he will gather and keep safe, while the shepherds will suffer such and such things, as bad shepherds deserve. [67] But so as not to draw out my discourse at length by listing all that all the prophets say, I will mention one more, the one known before he was formed and sanctified from the womb (this was Jeremiah), and pass over the rest. He seeks water for his head and a fountain of tears for his eyes, so as to weep for Israel as it deserves; and he laments no less the wickedness of those who preside. [68] God says to him, reasoning with the priests: “The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? And those who hold to my law did not know me.” And again he himself says: “The shepherds have become foolish and have not sought the Lord; and therefore the whole flock did not understand and was scattered.” And, “Many shepherds,” he says, “have destroyed my vineyard; they have defiled my portion, the desirable one,” and it has been given over to an untrodden wilderness. Then again he turns on the shepherds themselves: “O shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! Therefore thus says the Lord against those who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them out, and have not visited them; behold, I will take vengeance on you according to your evil doings.” And he would have the shepherds howl and the rams of the flock beat their breasts, because their days for slaughter have been fulfilled. [69] And why should I speak of the ancient things? Who, measuring himself against Paul’s rules and limits, which he laid down for bishops and presbyters, that they be sober, self-controlled, not given to wine, not violent, apt to teach, blameless in all things and beyond the reach of the wicked, will not find much of himself that falls short of the straightness of the rules? And what of the laws Jesus gives his disciples when he sends them out to preach? The sum of them, not to speak of each, is that they should be such in virtue, so unencumbered and moderate, and, to put it briefly, so heavenly, that the gospel should run no less because of their character than because of the Word. [70] And I am frightened too by the Pharisees who are reproached and the scribes who are refuted; for it is shameful, when we must greatly surpass them in virtue, as we are commanded, if we have any need of the kingdom of heaven, that we should appear worse than they in vice; so that we might rightly hear ourselves called serpents and offspring of vipers, and blind guides, straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel, and tombs foul within with seemliness outside, and dishes clean on the surface, and all the other things that they both are and are called. [71] With these thoughts I live night and day: they melt my marrow and consume my flesh, and do not let me be bold or look upward; they humble my soul and contract my mind and put a bond on my tongue, and make me think not about presidency, nor about correcting and directing others, which requires great abundance, but how I myself may escape the wrath to come and scrape off from myself a little of the rust of vice. One must first be cleansed, then cleanse; be made wise, and so make wise; become light, and give light; draw near to God, and bring others near; be sanctified, and sanctify; have hands to lead by the hand, have understanding to give counsel. [72] “When, then, will this be?” say those who are quick in everything and not safe, who build up easily and pull down easily. “And when will the lamp be put on the lampstand? And where is the talent?” meaning by this the gift of grace. So say those who are warmer in friendship than in reverence. When will this be, and what is my answer, my most excellent friends? No term is too long, not even extreme old age. For grey hairs with prudence are better than untaught youth, and considered slowness than inconsiderate haste, and a short reign than a long tyranny; as also a small honourable portion is better than a large possession dishonourable and unsafe, a little gold than many talents of lead, and a little light than much darkness. [73] But this quickness, unsafe and over-hasty, is perhaps like the seeds that fell on the rocks and, because they had no depth of earth, sprang up at once and could not bear even the first heat of the sun; or like the foundation laid on the sand, which could not hold out even a little against the rain and the winds. “Woe to you, O city, whose king is a youth,” says Solomon; and, “Be not quick in words,” is a saying of the same Solomon, who means that quickness in speech is a lesser thing than heat in action. And who, contrary to these, demands quickness before safety and profit? Who fashions, as if in a single day, like clay figures, the champion of the truth: one who is to stand with angels, and give glory with archangels, and send up sacrifices to the altar above, and be a fellow priest with Christ; who is to refashion the creature, and present the image, and build for the world above, and, to say the greatest thing, to be god and to make others god? [74] I know whose ministers we are, and where we are placed, and to where we are sending; I know the height of God and the weakness of man, and again his power. “Heaven is high, and the earth deep”: and who of those cast down by sin shall ascend? Who, still wrapped in the darkness here below and the grossness of the flesh, shall with his whole mind purely behold the whole Mind, and mingle with things stable and invisible amid things unstable and visible? For scarcely could even one of the most purified see here even an image of the Good, as men see the sun in the waters. “Who has measured the water with his hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handful? Who has set the mountains in a balance and the valleys in scales? What is the place of his rest, and to which of all things shall he be likened?” [75] Who is he who made all things by a word, and by wisdom fashioned man, and brought into one things far apart, and mingled the dust with the spirit, and composed a living creature visible and invisible, temporary and immortal, earthly and heavenly, touching God and not grasping him, drawing near and kept far off? “I said, I will be wise,” says Solomon, “and it went far from me, farther than it was,” speaking of wisdom. And truly “he who increases knowledge increases pain”; for what is found does not gladden more than what escapes vexes; which, I think, tends to happen to those still thirsty who are dragged away from water, or who cannot keep hold of what they think they hold, or those whom a flash of lightning has left at once after shining around them. [76] This kept me down and made me humble, and persuaded me that it is better to hear the voice of praise than to be an interpreter of things beyond my power: the majesty, the height, the dignity, and the pure natures scarcely able to contain the brightness of God, whom the abyss covers, whose hiding place is darkness, though he is the purest light and inaccessible to most; who is in all this universe and also outside the universe; who is all beauty and above all beauty; who illumines the mind and escapes the mind’s speed and height, always withdrawing as much as he is grasped, and by fleeing drawing the lover upward, and by being, as it were, stolen away when held. [77] Such and so great is what we long for and strive for; and such must be the one who leads souls as brides and makes the betrothal. For my part, I fear that I may be thrown out of the bridal chamber, bound hand and foot, as not wearing a wedding garment, but having boldly thrust myself among those reclining there. And yet I was called from my youth (to tell something unknown to most); I was cast upon him from the womb, and was given as a gift by my mother’s promise, and afterwards confirmed by dangers; and the longing grew with me, and reason ran with it, and I brought and gave everything to him who had received me as his lot and had saved me: property, distinction, health, my very learning, of which I enjoyed only this, to be able to despise it and to have something for which I preferred Christ. And the oracles of God were sweet to me as honeycombs; I called upon understanding and gave my voice to wisdom. And the other things too: to measure anger, to bridle the tongue, to discipline the eye, to train the belly, and to trample on the glory that remains below. I speak as one beside himself, but it shall be said: in these things perhaps I was not worse than the many. [78] But this is a philosophy beyond us: to accept the leadership and presidency of souls, when we have not yet even learned to be shepherded well, nor have our souls been cleansed as they should be, and then to be entrusted with the oversight of a flock; and this in such times as these, when one should be content, seeing others turned up and down and thrown into confusion, to flee from the midst and withdraw under shelter, and so to escape the evil one’s storm and darkness: when the members are at war with one another, love has gone (if there was any trace of it left), and the priest is an empty name besides, since contempt has been poured out on rulers, as it is written. [79] Would that it were only empty! But now (may the blasphemy turn upon the heads of the godless!) all fear has been banished from souls, and shamelessness brought in instead; knowledge and the depths of the Spirit belong to whoever wants them; and we are all pious on one ground alone, that we condemn the impiety of others. We use the godless as judges, and throw holy things to the dogs, and cast pearls before swine, publishing divine things to profane ears and souls; and, wretches that we are, we carefully fulfil the prayers of our enemies, and are not ashamed to go whoring in our own inventions. Moabites and Ammonites, who were not even permitted to enter the assembly of the Lord, intrude into our holiest places. We have opened to all, not the gates of righteousness, but the doors of abuse and of insolence against one another; and the best among us is not the one who for fear of God lets fall not even an idle word, but the one who happens to have spoken most evil of his neighbour, whether openly or in riddles, and who rolls under his tongue toil and trouble, or, to speak more properly, the venom of asps. [80] We watch one another’s sins, not to lament them but to reproach them; not to heal them but to strike them further, and to have our neighbours’ wounds as a defence for our own evils. Bad and good are marked not by character but by enmity and friendship; what we praise today we revile tomorrow; what is pilloried among others is admired among us; and everything is readily forgiven to impiety. So great-souled are we in vice! [81] Everything has become as it was in the beginning, when the world did not yet exist, nor its present order and form, but the whole was confused and unformed and needed the shaping hand and power. Or, if you like, as in a battle by night and in the dim light of the moon, we do not distinguish the faces of enemies from friends; or as in a sea battle in a storm, amid the onsets of the winds, the boiling surf, the rush of waves, the crashing of ships, the thrusting of poles, the shouts of the boatswains, and the groans of the falling, deafened and at a loss, and with no opportunity for courage, we (alas for the calamity!) fall upon one another and are destroyed by one another. [82] And it is not that the people are so and the priest otherwise; but now it seems to me that the word spoken of old in a curse is clearly fulfilled: “The priest has become as the people.” Nor is it that the many are so while the great and leading men of the people are otherwise; these indeed openly war against the priests, having their piety as a means to persuade. Those who suffer this for the faith, about the highest and first questions, I do not blame either; but, if I must tell the truth, I even praise them and rejoice with them. May I be one of those who contend for the truth and incur hatred for it; or rather, I will boast that I am one. For a praiseworthy war is better than a peace that separates from God; and this is why the Spirit arms the gentle warrior, as one able to fight well. [83] But now there are some who fight even about small things and to no profit, and take as partners in the evil as many as they can, very ignorantly and rashly. Then the faith is made the pretext for everything, and this august name is dragged into their private quarrels. From this, as is to be expected, we are hated among the Gentiles, and, what is harder still, we cannot even say that it is unjust; and we are discredited even with the more reasonable of our own people; no wonder, with the majority, who would scarcely accept even any good thing. [84] Sinners build upon our backs, and what we devise against one another they hold against all; and we have become a new spectacle, not to angels and men, as was Paul, the noblest of athletes, contending against principalities and powers, but to almost all the wicked, at every time and place, in market places, at drinking parties, at feasts, in mournings. We have even reached the stage (I almost weep as I say it), and are laughed at with the most licentious; and nothing that is heard or seen is so delightful as a Christian lampooned. [85] This is what our war with one another brings us; this is the work of those who fight too much on behalf of the good and gentle one; this of those who love God more than is profitable. It is not allowed to wrestle outside the accepted rules, nor to contend in any other way; or the one who does so will be shouted down and disgraced, and will lose the victory, contending in some other way than fairly, and not according to the fixed rules of the contest, however noble and skilful he may be. Shall someone, then, contend for Christ not according to Christ, and then please peace by fighting for it in a way that is not allowed? [86] The demons tremble even now when Christ is called upon, and the power of this name has not been blotted out even by our wickedness; while we are not ashamed to insult so august a thing and name, though we all but hear him crying out openly every day: “For my name is blasphemed because of you among the Gentiles.”