Orations (other than the Theological Orations)

[2] And so that my discourse may proceed in order, I shall speak first about my cowardice, since it came first. For I cannot bear that any of those who watch my affairs carefully, whether they go well or otherwise, should take offence at me, since God has been pleased that our affairs should mean something to Christians; and those already offended, if there are any, I will heal by my defence. For it is good, as far as possible and as reason allows, neither by sinning nor by being suspected of it to put a stumbling block or an offence before the many; since we know how inexorable and how very severe is the punishment from the One who does not lie, even for those who cause one of the little ones to stumble. [3] For I did not suffer this, my friends, as one uneducated and without understanding, nor rather (if I may boast a little) as one who despises the divine laws and ordinances. For just as in a body one part rules and, as it were, presides, while another is ruled and led, so also in the churches God has ordained, by a law of equality that has regard to worth, or by the providence by which he has bound all things together, that some should be shepherded and ruled, those for whom this is more profitable, being directed in word and deed toward what is right; and that others should be shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the church: those who are above the many in virtue and in nearness to God, holding the place of soul to body, or of mind to soul; so that both, joined and blended together, the deficient and the excessive, as in members, and brought together and bound by the harmony of the Spirit, may be shown to be one perfect body, truly worthy of Christ himself, our head. [4] I know, then, that anarchy and disorder are not more profitable than order and rule for other things, nor for men; but for men least of all, inasmuch as the danger for them concerns greater things. For them it is a great thing, even if they do not keep the first course of reason, not to sin at all, at least to keep the second: when they sin, to be brought back. Since this seemed good and just, it is in my view equally evil and equally disorderly for all to wish to rule and for no one to accept it. For if all were to flee this office, whether one should call it a ministry or a leadership, the church’s fullness would be lame in its greatest part and would no longer remain beautiful. Where, then, and by whom would God still be worshipped among us with the mysteries that lift us upward, which is the greatest and most precious of our possessions, if there were no king, no ruler, no priesthood, no sacrifice, nor any of those things whose loss the disobedient of old were sentenced to as the heaviest penalty for their great offences?

Nor is it anything strange or out of place for most of those who pursue divine philosophy to rise from being ruled to ruling; nor is it outside the accepted bounds of philosophy, nor a matter for reproach; just as it is not for a distinguished sailor to become a bow-officer, and for a bow-officer who has watched the winds well to be entrusted with the helm; or, if you like, for a brave soldier to become a captain, and for a good captain to become a general and be entrusted with the command of a whole war. Nor (as one of those thoroughly perverse and wicked people might perhaps suppose, who judge other people’s affairs by their own passions) was I ashamed of the rank of this degree out of desire for a higher one. I am not so ignorant either of the divine greatness or of human lowliness as not to think it a great thing for any created nature to come near to God in any way at all, who alone is most luminous and most brilliant, and who surpasses all material and immaterial nature in purity.

What then was it that happened to me, and what is the reason for my disobedience? For to many I seemed at that time not to be myself, nor to be as I had been known, but to have become someone else, and to resist and be self-willed more than was right. Hear now the causes of this, which you have long wanted to hear. Most of all, struck by the unexpectedness of it, like those panic-stricken by sudden noises, I did not keep control of my thoughts; and for this reason I let go of the modesty to which I had been accustomed all my life. Then there stole over me a love of the beauty of quiet and withdrawal. I had been a lover of it from the beginning, as much, I think, as anyone who has devoted himself to letters; in the greatest and most severe dangers I had promised it to God; and I had even taken hold of it a little, so far as to stand in its vestibule, and my longing had been kindled the more by the experience. So I could not bear being tyrannized and thrust into the midst of the tumults, and dragged by force, as it were, from this way of life as from some sacred place of asylum.

For nothing seemed to me so good as to shut the senses, to be outside the flesh and the world, gathered into oneself, touching nothing human except where it is absolutely necessary, speaking with oneself and with God, to live above visible things, and always to carry within oneself the divine reflections pure, unmixed with the impressions here below that lead astray; being, and always becoming, truly an unspotted mirror of God and of divine things, receiving light upon light, the clearer upon the dimmer; already reaping in hope the good of the age to come; going about with angels, still upon earth yet having left the earth, and set on high by the Spirit. If any of you is possessed by this love, he knows what I mean and will forgive what I felt then. For the many I could perhaps not persuade by speaking, those to whom the thing even seems laughable, being badly disposed either by their own folly or by those unworthy of the profession, who have pinned an evil name on a fine thing, the name of vainglory on philosophy, taking as their allies envy and the wickedness of the many, which is readier for the worse; so that in any case they commit at least one sin: either evil is done, or good is disbelieved.

Besides this, I felt something (I will speak out the whole secret to you; I do not know whether it was boorish or noble, but I felt it all the same): I was ashamed on behalf of the others, those who, being no better than the many (indeed it is a great thing if they are not much worse), with unwashed hands, as the saying goes, and uninitiated souls, thrust themselves into the holiest things, and before becoming worthy to approach the sanctuary lay claim to the bema, and press and jostle around the holy table, thinking this rank not a pattern of virtue but a means of livelihood, not a ministry subject to account but an office free from scrutiny. And they are almost more in number than those they rule: pitiable in piety and wretched in their splendour; so that it seems to me that, as time and the evil advance, they will soon have no one left to rule, all teaching instead of being “taught by God,” as the promise says, and all prophesying, so that even Saul is among the prophets, according to the ancient history and proverb. For at no time has anything been, or is anything, so prevalent (though different things have flourished and died down at different times) as such reproaches and sins are now among Christians. And if to stop their course is beyond us, yet to hate them and be ashamed of them is not the least part of piety.

But what is last and greater than what has been said (for I come now to the very crown of my discourse, and I will not lie, since it is not right for those who speak about such great matters): I did not think, nor do I think now, that it is the same thing to rule a flock or a herd and to preside over the souls of men. There it is enough to make the herd or the flock as fat and sleek as possible; and with this in view the herdsman and the shepherd will look out for watered and grassy places, will drive them in and out, from pasture and to pasture, will rest them, move them on, and call them back, a little with the staff but mostly with the pipe. And the shepherd or herdsman has no other work except to fight the wolves a little and now and then to tend a sick animal; for the most part his concern will be oak and shade and reeds, lying down on a fine spot of grass by cold water, improvising a bed under the breezes, now and then singing a love song over his cup, chatting with his cattle or his flock, and feasting on or selling the fattest of them. But no one has ever yet cared for the virtue of flocks or herds. For what virtue do these have? Or who has considered their good before his own pleasure? [10] But for a man, since it is hard to know how to be ruled, it is likely far harder to know how to rule men, and above all this rule of ours, which is under divine law and leads to God, whose danger is as great as its height and dignity, at least to anyone with sense. Such a man must first of all, like silver or gold turned every way, in all kinds of times and circumstances, never ring false or alloyed, nor carry in himself anything of the baser matter that deserves a hotter fire; or else the evil will be greater the more people he rules, since wickedness that spreads to many is greater than wickedness confined to one.

For a fabric does not so readily take a fast dye, nor does what is near take on a stench or its opposite, nor is any diseased vapour so readily poured out into the air and through the air reaches living creatures (which is, and is called, a plague), as subjects are wont very quickly to be filled with the vice of the one set over them, and far more readily than with its opposite, virtue. For this is where wickedness most has the advantage over goodness, and what I find most distressing when I consider it: that badness is something easily imitated and close at hand, and nothing is so easy as to become bad, even if no one happens to lead us to it; while the acquisition of the good is rare and uphill, even if much draws and invites us to it. And this is what, it seems to me, the most blessed Haggai also perceived when he came to that wonderful and most true image: “Ask the priests about the law,” he says, “if holy meat in a garment touches any food or drink or vessel, will it at once sanctify what it touches?” And when they said no, he says: “Ask again whether something that has come into contact with uncleanness has not at once received a share of the defilement,” since they would say that it does receive a share, and does not remain clean through the contact.

What does he mean by this? Just what my discourse means: that the good is hard for human nature to take hold of, as fire is for moister material; but most people are ready and apt for sharing in evil, like stubble, I think, easily kindled by a spark and a wind and consumed because of its dryness. For one would sooner take on a little vice in abundance than deep virtue little by little. Indeed, a little wormwood very quickly imparts its bitterness to honey, while honey does not impart its sweetness even to twice its quantity of wormwood; and a small pebble pulled away could draw a whole river downhill, while even the strongest dam could hardly check or hold it back. [13] This, then, of the things we have said, is the first thing worth guarding against: that we not appear bad painters of wonderful virtue, or rather, perhaps not bad painters, but a bad original for the many; and that we not come near the proverb, trying to heal others while ourselves teeming with sores.

Second, even if someone were to keep himself pure from all sin, or as nearly as possible, I do not know whether even this suffices for one who is to train others in virtue. For the one entrusted with this must not only not be bad (for that is most shameful even among the many under his hand), but must excel in good, according to the commandment that bids us “turn away from evil and do good”; and he must not only wipe out the bad impressions from his soul but write in the better ones, so as to stand further ahead in virtue than he does in rank; and he must know no limit to the good and to the ascent, nor count what has been won as gain so much as what escapes him as loss, but always make what he has reached a step to what comes next; and not think it a great thing if we surpass the many, but a loss if we fall short of what is fitting; and measure his achievement by the commandment, not by his neighbours, whether they are bad or have reached some measure of virtue; and not weigh virtue with small weights, since it is owed to the Greatest, from whom and to whom are all things.

Nor must he think that the same things suit everyone, just as not all have the same age, nor the same features of face, nor the same animal natures, qualities of land, or beauty and size of the heavenly lights. He must consider that for a private person vice is doing wrong and whatever deserves punishment, for which the law too is a harsh master; but for a ruler or one who presides, vice is not being as excellent as possible and always advancing in good, if he is to draw the many to moderation by the surplus of his virtue, and not to rule them by force but to bring them by persuasion. For what is involuntary, besides being tyrannical, is neither praiseworthy nor lasting: what is forced, like a plant bent by force of hands, tends to spring back to itself when let go; but what is by choice is at once most lawful and most secure, being kept by the bond of good will. Hence our law and lawgiver above all bids us shepherd the flock “willingly, not under compulsion.”

But suppose someone is not bad and has reached the summit of virtue: I do not see what knowledge he could take, or in what power he could trust, to dare this office of presiding. For in truth this seems to me the art of arts and science of sciences: to lead man, the most changeable and complex of living creatures. One may see this by comparing the healing of souls with the treatment of bodies: learning how laborious that is, and considering how much more laborious ours is, and how much more precious, in the nature of its material, in the power of its knowledge, and in the end of its activity. For the one labours about bodies, perishable matter that flows downward, which will certainly be dissolved and suffer its own fate, even if for now, with the help of the art, it overcomes the strife within it; for either disease or time dissolves it as it yields to nature and does not pass its own limits.

But our concern is with the soul, which is from God and divine and shares in the nobility from above, and presses on toward it, even though it has been bound to what is worse. Perhaps this is for other reasons too, which only God who bound them together knows, and anyone instructed by God in such mysteries; but so far as I and those like me can know, it is for two reasons. One is that through struggle and wrestling with what is below it might inherit the glory above, tested by the things here like gold by fire, and might have what it hopes for as a prize of virtue and not only as a gift of God (and this indeed belonged to the supreme goodness: to make the good ours as well, not only sown in us by nature but cultivated by choice and by the movements of free will that can go either way). The other is that it might draw the worse to itself and set it on high, freeing it little by little from its grossness, so that what God is to the soul, the soul may become to the body, training by itself the matter that serves it and making its fellow servant God’s own. [18] Places and times and ages and seasons and such things the physician will examine; he will prescribe drugs and diet and guard against what is harmful, so that the cravings of the sickness may not oppose the art; and at times, in some cases, he will use cautery and surgery and the more severe treatments. But none of these, however laborious and hard they seem, is so great a task as to observe and heal characters and passions and ways of life and wills and anything else of this kind in us; to banish from our compound everything bestial and wild and to bring in and establish in its place everything gentle and dear to God; and to arbitrate justly between soul and body, not allowing the better to be dominated by the worse, which is the greatest of injustices, but subjecting what is second by nature to what rules and leads; as the divine law, which is most excellently in force throughout his whole creation, both what is visible and what is beyond sense, requires.

I consider this too: each of the things I enumerated, as the physician observes them, remains as its nature is, and does not cunningly contrive anything against him of itself, nor devise anything against what the art applies; rather, the treatment masters the material, unless perhaps some slight disorder on the patient’s part intervenes, which is not hard to guard against and check. But with us, our own intelligence and self-love, and our neither knowing how nor being willing to be easily overcome, are the greatest hindrance to virtue, and become a kind of battle line against those who fight on our side; and as much zeal as we ought to bring to laying bare the disease to those who treat it, so much do we bring to fleeing the treatment; and we are brave against ourselves and skilled against our own health.

For either we slavishly hide our sin, covering it up in the depth of the soul like some festering and malignant ailment, as though we shall escape the great eye of God and of justice if we escape men; or we “make excuses in sins,” finding arguments to plead for our passions; or, stopping our ears in the manner of the deaf adder that stops its ears, we strive not to hear the voice of the charmers, nor to be charmed by the remedies of wisdom by which sickness of soul is healed; or finally, those of us who are bolder and more high-spirited, we are openly shameless toward sin and toward those who heal it, going bareheaded, as the saying is, into every lawlessness. O what madness, or whatever more proper name there is for such a passion! Those whom we ought to love as benefactors we drive off as enemies, “hating those who reprove in the gates and abhorring holy speech”; and we think we are waging war the more against those who wish us well, the more we harm ourselves, like those who devour their own flesh thinking they are consuming their neighbours’. [21] These are the reasons why I count our healing art far more laborious than the one concerned with bodies, and for this reason more precious: because that one mostly concerns what is seen and seldom touches what lies hidden in the depth, while for us the whole treatment and care concerns “the hidden man of the heart,” and the battle is against the one who fights and wrestles against us from within, who uses us ourselves as weapons against us and, most terrible of all, … to the death of sin. Against these, then, there is need of much and complete faith, of still greater cooperation from God, and of no small counter-skill on our part (so I persuade myself), shown in both word and deed, if we are to be well healed and cleansed and become of the greatest worth in what is most precious of all we have, our souls.

[22] As for the ends of the two treatments (for this still remains for our examination): the end of the one is to preserve the health or good condition of the flesh if present, or to recall it if it has gone; and it is not yet clear whether these will benefit those who have them, since their opposites have often helped their possessors more, as poverty and wealth, fame and obscurity, lowliness and brilliance, and whatever things lie in the middle by nature and incline no more this way than that, but take on the better or the worse from the use and choice of those who have them. But the aim of the other is to give wings to the soul, to snatch it from the world and give it to God; to guard what is according to the image if it abides, to take it by the hand if it is in danger, or to restore it if it has been ruined; to make Christ dwell in hearts through the Spirit; and, the sum of it all, to make god, and a sharer in the blessedness above, one who belongs to the company above. [23] This is what the law, our tutor, intends for us; this the prophets, who stand between Christ and the law; this Christ, the perfecter and end of the spiritual law; this the Godhead that emptied itself; this the flesh that was assumed; this the new mingling, God and man, one from both and both through one. For this reason God was blended with flesh through the medium of a soul, and things far apart were bound together by the kinship of the mediator with both; and all things came together into one for the sake of all, and for the sake of the one forefather: the soul for the soul that disobeyed, the flesh for the flesh that served it and was condemned with it, the one for soul, the other for flesh; Christ, who is stronger and higher than sin, for Adam who came under sin. [24] For this reason the new was brought in in exchange for the old, and by suffering he who had suffered was called back, and for each of our things each of his who is above us was given in exchange; and the economy of love for humankind toward the one who fell through disobedience became a new mystery. For this reason, birth and the Virgin; for this reason the manger and Bethlehem: the birth in place of the formation, the Virgin in place of the woman, Bethlehem because of Eden, the manger because of paradise; small and visible things in place of great and hidden ones. For this reason angels glorify the heavenly one, then the earthly; and shepherds see glory over the Lamb and Shepherd; and a star leads, and magi fall down and bring gifts, that idolatry may be destroyed. For this reason Jesus is baptized and has witness borne to him from above, fasts and is tempted, and conquers the conqueror. For this reason demons are driven out and diseases healed, and the great preaching is entrusted to small men and brought to success. [25] … burial against the return to the earth, and resurrection for the sake of the resurrection. All these things were a kind of training of God for us and a healing of our weakness, bringing the old Adam back to the place from which he fell, and bringing him to the tree of life, from which the tree of knowledge estranged us when it was partaken of out of season and unfittingly.

Of this treatment we who preside over others are the servants and fellow workers. For us it is a great thing to know and to heal our own passions and sicknesses; or rather, not yet a great thing, except that the wickedness of the many who hold this rank has made us say so; but it is much greater to be able to heal and cleanse the passions of others skilfully, and in a way that profits both, those who need the treatment and those entrusted with the healing.

Then those who treat bodies will have toils and sleepless nights and cares, as we know, and will reap griefs of their own from others’ misfortunes, as one of their wise men said; and, partly by toiling and discovering things themselves, partly by collecting and contributing them from others, they will apply them to those in need; and nothing is so small to them, even of the least things, whether found or missed, as not to be thought of great weight toward health or, conversely, toward danger. And all this for what? That a man may live more days on earth, and he perhaps not even one of the decent but one of the most wicked, for whom it would perhaps have been better to have died long ago, being bad, so as to be rid of the greatest of sicknesses, vice. And if we suppose him one of the good, for how long will he live? For all time? Or what will he gain from the life here, whose dissolution it is the part of the good to seek … reason leads some, while others are regulated by examples; some need the goad, others the bridle. For some are sluggish and slow to move toward the good, and must be roused by the blow of the word; others are hotter in spirit than is moderate and hard to restrain in their impulses, like thoroughbred colts running far from the turning post, whom the word would improve by checking and curbing them.

Some are helped by praise, others by blame, both applied in season; while their opposite, out of season and without reason, does harm. Some are set right by encouragement, others by rebuke; and this either by being reproved in public or by being admonished in secret. For some tend to despise private admonitions and are brought to their senses by the condemnation of the many; while others grow shameless under the openness of reproof, but are trained by the secrecy of rebuke and repay the sympathy with obedience.

With some it is necessary to watch everything carefully, down to the smallest things: those whom the thought that they are unnoticed (since they contrive this) has puffed up as cleverer than others. With others it is better to overlook some things, so as, in the words of the proverb, “seeing not to see and hearing not to hear,” so that we do not provoke them to desperation by drowning them in the diligence of our reproofs, and in the end make them bold for anything by dissolving their sense of shame, the medicine of persuasion. With some, indeed, we must be angry without being angry, disdainful without disdaining, and despairing without despairing, so far as their nature requires this. Others must be treated with gentleness and humility, and by sharing their eagerness for better hopes. Some it is more profitable to conquer, by others often to be defeated; and as for wealth and power in some cases, and poverty and misfortune in others, either to praise them or to pray them away. [33] For it is not with our medicine as it is with virtue and vice, the one being always the most beautiful and the most beneficial for all, the other the worst and most harmful: one and the same remedy has not been shown always to be the most healthful or the most dangerous, even for the same people, for instance severity, or gentleness, or each of the others I listed. For some this is good and useful, and for others again the opposite, according, I think, as the times and circumstances concur and as the character of those being treated admits. To distinguish all these in words and to survey them with complete precision, so as to sum up the treatment in a summary, is impossible, however far one may attain in care and understanding; but in actual experience and practice they become plain to the man who has the healer’s skill.

In general this is well known to us: that just as for those who walk on a rope stretched high in the air it is not safe to lean this way or that, and the tilt, even if it seems small, does not lead to something small, while their safety consists in balance; so also here, whichever way one leans, whether from vice or from ignorance, there is no slight danger to himself and to those he leads of falling into sin. We must truly walk on the royal road, and take care to turn aside neither to the right nor to the left, as they say. Such, then, is the state of our passions, and so great is the work here for the good shepherd, who is to know well the souls of his flock and to guide them according to the reason of the shepherd’s art, the right and just one, worthy of our true Shepherd.

As for the distribution of the word (to speak last of the first of our concerns: I mean the divine and lofty word, about which everyone now philosophizes), if anyone else is confident and undertakes it with all his understanding, I admire his intelligence, not to say his simplicity. To me at least it seems no slight matter, and to require no little of the Spirit, to give each his portion of the word in due season, and to dispense with judgment the truth of our doctrines: all that has been philosophized about worlds or the world, about matter, about soul, about mind and the intelligent natures, better and worse, about the providence that binds together and directs all things, both what seems to happen according to reason and what is contrary to reason here below and human.

And further, all that concerns our first formation and our final re-formation, types and truth, the covenants, the first and second coming of Christ, his incarnation and sufferings and departure; all that concerns the resurrection, the end, the judgment and the recompense, both the gloomier and the more glorious; and, the sum of all, what is to be thought about the original and blessed Trinity. Here indeed lies the greatest danger for those entrusted with enlightening others: lest, through fear of polytheism, they contract the doctrine into one hypostasis and leave us bare names, supposing the same one to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit; or else divide it into three that are either alien and foreign, or without order and without principle and, so to speak, rival gods, and so fall from the opposite side into an equal evil, like a plant bent far over the other way to correct its warp.

For there are three diseases now affecting theology: atheism, Judaism, and polytheism. Of the first Sabellius the Libyan was the champion, of the second Arius of Alexandria, of the third some of those among us who are excessively orthodox. What is my view? That we should escape what is harmful in all three and remain within the bounds of piety: neither be led into the atheism of Sabellius by this new analysis, or rather synthesis, lest by defining all as one we make each nothing rather than all one (for things that pass into one another and change into one another escape being what they are), or picture for ourselves some composite and absurd God, like the fabulous animals that are painted and modelled; nor, cutting the natures apart according to the well-named madness of Arius, be shut up in Jewish poverty and bring envy into the divine nature, limiting the Godhead to the Unbegotten alone, as though afraid that God would be destroyed for us if he were Father of a true God, equal in honour by nature; nor, setting three principles against one another or ranking them side by side, introduce the Greek polyarchy from which we have fled.

[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.”

[87] Of the war from outside I am not afraid, nor of the beast who has now risen up against the churches, the fullness of the evil one, though he threaten fire, though swords, though wild beasts, though precipices, though pits, though he prove the most inhuman of all who have ever raged, and invent punishments harsher than those that exist. I have one remedy against them all, one road to victory: I will glory in Christ, namely in death for Christ. [88] But for my own war I do not know what to become, what alliance to find, what word of wisdom, what gift of grace, with what armour to arm myself against the wiles of the evil one. What Moses will conquer him, stretching out his hands on the mountain, so that the cross, typified and foreshown, may prevail? What Joshua after him, drawn up beside the commander of the divine armies? What David, playing the harp or fighting with slings, girded by God with strength for war and training his fingers for battle? What Samuel, praying and sacrificing for the people, and anointing as king one who is able to conquer? What Jeremiah will lament these things as they deserve, writing lamentations for Israel? [89] Who will cry, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them”? Who will pray for us, Noah and Job and Daniel, who are named together in prayer and numbered together, that the war may abate a little for us, that we may come to ourselves, that we may at last recognize one another, that we may no longer be, instead of one Israel, Judah and Israel, no longer Rehoboam and Jeroboam, no longer Jerusalem and Samaria, handed over in turn for their sins and lamented in turn? [90] For I confess that I am too weak for this war; and therefore I turned my back, covering my face in the rout, and sought to sit alone, because I was filled with bitterness, and to keep silence, understanding that the time is evil: that the beloved have kicked; that we have become rebellious sons, we, the vine rich in branches, the true vine, all fruitful, all beautiful, springing up well under the drops from above; that the diadem of beauty, the seal of my glory, the crown of boasting, has been turned for me into dishonour. If anyone is bold and noble in the face of these things, I call him blessed for his courage and his nobility.

[91] And I do not yet speak of the war within, in ourselves, the war in our passions, which we wage night and day under the body of our humiliation, partly in secret, partly openly; and of the tossing that heaves and whirls us up and down through the senses and the other pleasures of this life; and of the mire of the deep in which we are stuck; and of the law of sin warring against the law of the spirit and trying to corrupt the royal image in us and whatever of the divine effluence has been deposited in us; so that scarcely could anyone master the matter that drags him down, unless he has trained himself by long philosophy, and little by little has broken away the noble and light-like part of the soul from what is lowly and yoked to darkness, or has found God merciful, or both, and has made it his special study to look upward. Before one has overcome this as far as possible and has sufficiently cleansed his understanding, and far surpassed others in nearness to God, I know that it is not safe either to accept the presidency of souls or the mediation between God and men (for this, perhaps, is what a priest is). [92] And whence was I brought to this fear? (I say this so that you may not suppose me more cowardly than I should be, but may rather greatly praise my foresight.) I hear of Moses himself, when God spoke with him, that though many were called up the mountain, among them Aaron with his two sons the priests, and seventy elders of the council, the rest were commanded to worship from afar, Moses alone to draw near, and the people not to go up with them; since it is not for all to come near God, but only for one who, like Moses, is able to contain the glory of God. And still earlier, at the beginning of the lawgiving, trumpets and lightnings and thunders and darkness, the whole mountain smoking, and fearful threats that if even a beast touched the mountain it would be stoned, and other such terrors kept the rest below; and it was a great thing for them, after thorough purification, only to hear the voice of God. But Moses goes up and enters within the cloud, and receives the law and the tablets: for the many, those of the letter; for those above the many, those of the spirit. [93] I hear of Nadab and Abihu that, merely for burning incense with strange fire, they were destroyed by strange fire, punished by the means by which they had sinned, and finding the same time and place for their destruction as for their impiety; and not even their father Aaron, second to Moses before God, was enough to save them. I know also of Eli the priest, and a little later of Uzzah: the one paid the penalty for his sons’ lawlessness, which they dared against the sacrifices by taking first-fruits from the cauldrons before the time, even though he did not approve their impiety but rebuked them often and severely; the other, because he merely touched the ark when it was tilted by the calf, saved it but himself perished, God guarding the reverence due to the ark. [94] I know that not even the bodily blemishes of priests or of victims went unexamined, but that it was the law that the perfect should offer the perfect, a symbol, I think, of soundness of soul; that it was not lawful for everyone to touch the priestly vestment or any of the holy vessels; nor were the sacrifices themselves to be consumed by those, or at times, or in places where it was not fitting; nor might the anointing oil or the compounded incense be imitated; nor might anyone enter the temple who was not clean in soul or body, down to the smallest things; so far was it from anyone daring to frequent the holy of holies, which was accessible to one man alone, and once a year; so far was it from anyone being permitted to look at or touch the veil, the mercy seat, the ark, or the cherubim. [95] Knowing these things, then, and that no one is worthy of the great God, sacrifice, and high priest who has not first presented himself to God as a living, holy sacrifice, nor shown forth the reasonable, well-pleasing service, nor sacrificed to God a sacrifice of praise and a contrite spirit, the only sacrifice that the giver of all requires of us, how was I to dare to offer him the external sacrifice, the antitype of the great mysteries? Or how was I to put on the garb and name of priest before my hands had been perfected by holy works? Before my eye had been trained to look upon creation soundly, to wonder only at the Creator, and not to the wrong of the One who fashioned us? Before my ears had been sufficiently opened by the instruction of the Lord, and an ear been given me that is not dull of hearing, but a golden earring set with a precious sardius, a wise man’s word in an obedient ear? Before my mouth, my lips, and my tongue: the mouth opened to draw in the Spirit, or enlarged and filled with the Spirit of the mysteries and doctrines that are spoken; the lips bound with divine perception, as Wisdom says (and I would add, loosed in due season); and the tongue filled with exultation and become the plectrum of divine melody, awaking with glory, awaking at dawn, and labouring until it cleaves to the throat? Before my feet were set upon the rock, made perfect like the feet of deer, and my steps directed according to God, not slipping in the least or at all? Before every member had become a weapon of righteousness, and all deadness had been put off, swallowed up by life and having given way to the spirit? [96] Who, if he has not yet been set on fire in his heart by the pure and tried oracles of God as the Scriptures were opened to him; nor written them in threefold form on the breadth of his heart, so as to have the mind of Christ; nor gone within the treasures that are hidden, unseen, and dark to the many, so as to survey the riches in them and be able to enrich others, comparing spiritual things with spiritual? [97] Who, if he has not yet beheld, as is fitting, the delight of the Lord, and visited his temple, or rather become a temple of the living God and a living dwelling of Christ in the Spirit; who, if he has not yet recognized the kinship and the difference between types and truth, and withdrawn from the one and attached himself to the other, so as, fleeing the oldness of the letter, to serve the newness of the spirit, and to pass over cleanly to grace from the law, which is fulfilled spiritually in the abolition of the body?

[98] Who, if he has not yet travelled, in action and in contemplation, through all the titles and powers of Christ, both the higher and first and those lower and last that are for our sake: God, Son, Image, Word, Wisdom, Truth, Light, Life, Power, Vapour, Effluence, Radiance, Maker, King, Head, Law, Way, Door, Foundation, Rock, Pearl, Peace, Righteousness, Sanctification, Redemption, Man, Servant, Shepherd, Lamb, High Priest, Victim, Firstborn before creation, Firstborn from the dead, Resurrection; who, if he hears these names and realities idly, and has not yet had communion with the Word nor shared in him according to what each of these is and is called; [99] who, if he has not yet had leisure, nor learned to speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, but is still an infant, still fed on milk, still one of those not numbered in Israel nor enrolled in God’s army, not yet able to take up the cross of Christ like a man, not yet perhaps even any other of the more honourable members: who, I say, will then gladly and eagerly accept to be appointed head of the fullness of Christ? Not if I am judge and counsellor! This is the greatest of fears, this the extreme of dangers, to anyone who understands both the greatness of success and the ruin of failure. [100] Let another, I said, sail for trade and cross the vast seas, and be ever tossed about with the winds and the waves, to gain great things, if it so happens, and to run great risks, whoever is the best sailor and the best merchant. For me it is preferable to stay on land, cutting a short and sweet furrow and greeting gain and sea from afar, and so, as best I can, with a little small barley-cake, to draw out a safe and calm life, rather than to throw a long and great risk for great gains. [101] For to a lofty man it is a loss not to undertake greater things, nor to extend his virtue to more people, but to stop at small things, like a great light lighting up a small house, or a young man’s full armour covering a child’s body; but for a small man it is safety to carry small burdens, and not to put himself under things beyond his strength and so both incur ridicule and add danger; just as building a tower is fitting for no one but the one who has the means to finish it, as we have heard. [102] You have my defence for my flight, and perhaps not an inadequate one. These, then, friends and brothers, are the things that led me away from you, painfully for me and perhaps for you, but necessarily, at least as it seemed to me then. What brought me back was above all my longing for you, and seeing that you long for me in return; for nothing is so strong for love as affection returned. [103] Second, my care, my duty: the grey hairs and weakness of my holy parents, who are more distressed on my account than by their age: this patriarch Abraham, a head honoured by me and numbered with angels, and Sarah, who brings us forth in travail in the teaching of the faith. I had prayed, among my first prayers, to become a staff for their old age and a support for their weakness, and indeed I fulfilled it as far as I could, even to the point of despising, for their sake, philosophy itself, the most precious of all possessions and names to me; or, to say it more truly, having made it my first act of philosophy not to seem a philosopher. I could not bear that my labour should be lost through a single cause, nor that the blessing should be undone which one of the holy men of old is even said to have stolen, having tricked his father with food and a pretence of hair, and having hunted the good, not in a good way, by craft. These two, then, are the causes of my defeat and my gentleness. And perhaps it is not unreasonable that my reasonings yielded and gave way to both of these; for there is a time also to be conquered, as, I think, for every thing; and it is better to be conquered well than to conquer dangerously and unlawfully. [104] Third, and greatest (and having said this I will be silent about the rest): I remembered the days of old, and running back to one of the ancient histories, I drew from it counsel for myself in the present circumstances. For let us not suppose that these things were written at random, nor that they are merely a crowd of words and deeds put together to entertain the hearers, a kind of delight for the ear that stops at pleasure. Such are the myths of those who play, and of the Greeks, who, caring little for truth, bewitch ear and soul with the elegance of their fictions and the daintiness of their diction. [105] But we, who extend the precision of the Spirit to every least stroke and line, will never admit (for it would be impious) that even the smallest deeds were recorded with random zeal by those who wrote them down, and preserved in memory until now; but rather that we might have reminders and lessons for considering similar cases, should such an occasion ever arise, so that we may flee some things and choose others, following earlier examples as rules and patterns. [106] What, then, is the history, and whence the counsel? For it is perhaps not a bad thing to go through it, for the safety of the many. Jonah too fled from the face of God, or rather thought he fled; but he was overtaken by sea and storm and lot and the belly of the whale and a three days’ burial, which holds the type of a greater mystery. He fled, so that he might not bring the gloomy and strange message to the Ninevites and afterwards be a liar when the city was saved by repentance. For he was not displeased at the salvation of the wicked, but was ashamed of the service of falsehood, and was jealous, as it were, for the credibility of prophecy, which was in danger of being undone in him, since the many could not see the depth of God’s economy in these things. [107] But as I heard from a man wise in these matters, who not unreasonably came to the help of what seems unreasonable in the history and was able to grasp the depth of a prophet, it was not these things that made the blessed Jonah a fugitive, brought him to Joppa, and took him on from Joppa toward Tarshish, entrusting his flight to the sea. For it is not likely that he, being a prophet, did not know God’s purpose: that by the threat he was bringing it about, in his great wisdom and according to his unsearchable judgments and the untraceable and incomprehensible character of his ways, that the Ninevites should not suffer what was threatened; nor, if he knew this, that he would not follow God, who was contriving their salvation by whatever means he wished. And to think that Jonah hoped to hide himself in the sea and escape the great eye of God by his flight, is this not wholly absurd and uninstructed, and not right to be believed of a prophet, nor even of anyone else who has sense and perceives, even moderately, God and his supreme … [108] But Jonah knew better than anyone, says the one who gave this explanation, and I am persuaded of it, what the preaching would bring the Ninevites, and that in planning his escape he was changing his place but not fleeing God. For no other man could do so either, neither by hiding himself in the bosom of the earth or the depths of the sea, nor by being lifted on wings, if there were such a device, and running into the air, nor by consorting with the lowest parts of Hades, nor by wrapping himself in a thick cloud, nor by devising anything else at all for the safety of his flight; but this alone of all things is the most inescapable and irresistible: God, when he wishes to seize something and take it in hand, outruns the swift, trips up the wise, overturns the strong, humbles the lofty, tames boldness … [109] Jonah, then, who threatened others with God’s mighty hand, was not ignorant of it, nor did he intend to flee the divine altogether; let us not believe this. But because he saw the falling away of Israel and perceived the prophetic grace passing over to the Gentiles, for this reason he withdrew from the preaching and put off the command; and leaving the watchtower of joy (for this is what Joppa means to the Hebrews: I mean his ancient height and dignity), he threw himself into the sea of grief. And for this reason he is storm-tossed, sleeps, is shipwrecked, is awakened, is chosen by lot, confesses his flight, is cast into the sea, and is swallowed by the whale, but not consumed; and there he calls upon God, and (the wonder of it!) after three days he is given back together with Christ. But let the discussion of this wait a little, to be worked out more carefully, if God grants it. [110] But now, to what my discourse set out to say: it occurs to me to consider and to suppose that for him there was perhaps some ground for pardon, hesitating over the prophecy for the reason I gave; but for me what room for defence would be left if I went on resisting and refused the yoke of the ministry, which I do not know whether to call light or heavy, but which at any rate was laid on me? [111] For if one were to grant us what alone is strong to say in these matters, that we are far beneath serving God as priest, and that one must first be worthy of the church, then of the bema, and first of this, then of the presidency, perhaps another will not acquit us of the charge of disobedience. Dreadful is the threat against disobedience, and dreadful its penalties; as also on the other side, the call not to hesitate at all, nor to shrink back, nor, like Saul of old, to hide among one’s father’s baggage, even when called to presidency only for a little while, but to go readily, as to some light and easy thing, toward a charge where it is not safe even to change one’s mind or to heal the earlier decision with a second. [112] For this reason I laboured in my thoughts, searching out what was right, standing between two fears, the one dragging down, the other leading up. And after being at a loss over these for a very long time and swaying myself to both sides, or turned this way and that like a current by unsteady winds, I finally became the property of the stronger, and the fear of disobedience conquered me and swept me along. And consider how rightly and justly I balance these fears: neither to aim at a presidency not given, nor to reject one that is given. For the one belongs to the bold, the other to the disobedient, and both to the untaught. And I stand somewhere between the very bold and the very timid: more timid than those who leap at every presidency, bolder than those who flee them all. This is my judgment on these matters. … [113] … perfecting the one who has trusted in him and set all his hopes on him; but for the danger of disobedience I do not know who will be our helper, or what word will bid us take courage. For there is fear that we may hear this said about those entrusted to us: “I will require their souls at your hands”; and, “As you have rejected me from being leaders and rulers of my people, so I too will reject you from being king over you”; and, “As you did not listen to my voice, but turned a stubborn back and disobeyed, so it shall be, when you call upon me: I will not look upon your prayer, nor will I hear.” May these words never come to us from the just Judge, to whom, even if we sing of mercy, we surely also sing of judgment. [114] But I am carried back again to history; and looking over the most approved of the ancients, I find that of all whom grace ever put forward for presidency or prophecy, some yielded readily to the call while others put off the gift; and that neither are blamed, neither the timidity of those who withdrew nor the eagerness of those who rushed forward. For the one were reverent before the greatness of the ministry; the others trusted the one who called and followed. Aaron was eager, but Moses resisted; Isaiah obeyed readily, but Jeremiah feared his youth, and did not dare to prophesy until he had received from God both a promise and a power greater than his age. [115] With these thoughts I charm myself, and little by little my soul yields and softens like iron; and I take time as a fellow worker for my thoughts, and the ordinances of God, to which I have entrusted my whole life, as my counsel. For this reason I am not disobedient, nor do I contradict, as my Master says, who was called not to presidency but led as a sheep to the slaughter; but I fall down and humble myself under the mighty hand of God, and ask pardon for my former idleness and disobedience, if this is a charge against me. I kept silence, but I will not always keep silence. I withdrew a little, long enough to examine myself and to give comfort to my grief; but now I have accepted to exalt him in the congregation of the people and to praise him in the seat of the elders. If the former deserved accusation, this deserves pardon. [116] What need of longer words? You have me, O shepherds and fellow shepherds; you have me, O holy flock, worthy of Christ the chief shepherd; you have me, O father, conquered in everything, and more subject to you by the laws of Christ than by those outside. You have my obedience: give your blessing. Lead me by the hand with your prayers, guide me with your word, establish me by the Spirit. “The blessing of a father establishes the houses of children”; and may I be established, and this spiritual house which I have chosen, which I pray may be my rest for ever and ever, when I am sent on from the church here to the church there, the festal gathering of the firstborn enrolled in heaven. [117] Such is my plea, and so reasonable. And may the God of peace, who made both one and gave us back to one another; who sets kings on thrones, and raises up the poor from the earth and lifts the needy from the dunghill; who chose David his servant and took him from the flocks of sheep, though he was the least and youngest among the sons of Jesse; who gives the word to those who preach the gospel with great power for the perfecting of the gospel: may he himself hold our right hand, guide us with his counsel, and receive us with glory, he who shepherds the shepherds and guides the guides; so that we may shepherd his flock with knowledge, and not with the instruments of an unskilled shepherd, the one set as a blessing and the other as a curse for the people of old. May he himself give power and strength to his people; and may he himself present the flock to himself bright and spotless and worthy of the fold above, in the dwelling place of those who rejoice, in the splendour of the saints; so that in his temple we may all, flock … say “Glory.” Amen.

How slow you are to hear our discourse, my friends and brothers, though you were quick to tyrannize over us and to tear us away from our citadel of solitude, which I embraced above all things, and which I admired exceedingly as the fellow worker and mother of the divine ascent and as making men god, and set over my whole life! How is it that what you longed to receive you despise now that you have received it, and have proved better at longing for us when we were absent than at enjoying us when present, as if you had wished to master our philosophy rather than to profit from it? Or is it right for me to say this too: we have become a surfeit to you before you have tasted us or we have given proof of ourselves, which is the strangest thing of all.

You did not even gather us in as strangers, or gather with us (to say it more sympathetically), out of respect for this commandment, if nothing else; you did not lead us by the hand as beginners, nor encourage us as timid, nor comfort us as men under constraint; but you have made our feast no feast (I hesitate to say it, but let it be said), and greeted us with no good beginning, and mingled dejection with the festival, which lacked the greatest thing for its pleasure: you, my conquerors (for it would not be true to call you my lovers). So contemptible is everything that is easily conquered: what is lofty is courted, and what humbles itself for God is dishonoured. [3] What shall I do? Shall I be judged before you, or become your judge? Shall I give sentence or receive it? For I hope to win if I am judged, and to condemn you justly if I give judgment. The charge is that you do not repay our love in equal measure, nor return honour for our obedience, nor pledge the future by your present eagerness, which can hardly be trusted even when it is there, since every beginner is warmer. Each of you puts something else before both the old shepherd and the new, neither revering grey hairs nor encouraging youth.

There is in the Gospels a splendid supper, and a gracious host, and friends, and the banquet most delightful, for it is a son’s wedding. He invites, but they do not come; he is angry, and (I pass over what comes in between, because of its ill omen, but to speak moderately) he fills the banquet with others. This we pray may not happen; but you have become, how shall I say it gently, so much loftier or bolder than those men: they were invited to the supper and rose against it and insulted the one who had invited them; but you, who are not outsiders, nor among those invited to the wedding, but have yourselves invited us, bound us to this holy table, and shown us the splendour of the bridal chamber, have then left us (this is your noble deed!), one for his own field, one for his newly bought yoke of oxen, one for his newly married wife, another for some other petty thing; you scattered and leapt away, caring little for the bridal chamber and the bridegroom.

For this reason I was filled with discouragement and perplexity (for I will not keep silent about what I felt); and I nearly withheld the discourse which I had meant to bring as a gift to the wedding, the finest and most precious thing I had; and I very nearly let it loose against you, my longed-for ones, since once I had been forced; for I had got hold of so brilliant a subject, and love was sharpening my tongue, love, which is hottest and most resourceful in accusation when it turns to jealousy and takes on an unexpected grief from being slighted. If any of you, stung by such a passion, has been slighted, he knows the feeling and will pardon those who have suffered it and come near to this madness.

But you, if you would do me a favour, my tilled field, my vine, my own heart, or rather the heart of our common Father, who begot you in Christ through the gospel: respect us too (for it is just, since we preferred you to everything; you are witnesses, and so are those who entrusted us with this, whether one should call it a leadership or a ministry; and if more is owed to one who has loved more, how shall I measure the love which, through my own, I have taken as owed to me by you?); but respect yourselves still more, and the image entrusted to you, and the One who entrusted it, and the sufferings of Christ, and the hopes that come from them. Hold the faith which you received and in which you were brought up, by which you are saved and are trusted to save others; for not many, you well know, have your boast. Place piety not in speaking often about God, but rather in keeping silence for the most part; for the tongue is a slippery thing for men when it is not steered by reason. Think hearing always less dangerous than speaking, so as to learn something about God more gladly than to teach it; leave the more precise examination of these things to the stewards of the word, and yourselves be pious in word a little, but in deed more, showing your love for the lawgiver by keeping the laws rather than by admiring him; fleeing vice, pursuing virtue, living by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, drawing knowledge from him; building on the foundation of faith not wood, nor hay, nor stubble, weak material easily consumed when our works are judged or purified by fire, but gold, silver, precious stones, things that remain and stand. [8] May you do these things, and so glorify us, whether we are present or absent, whether you lay claim to our words or prefer something else; and may you become children of God, pure and blameless in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; may the cords of the ungodly who walk round about not entangle you, nor the chains of your own sins bind you tight, nor the word be choked in you by the cares of life so that you become unfruitful; but may you walk on the royal road, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left, guided by the Spirit through the narrow way as through a broad one; and our affairs too will be well, both now and at the examination there, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Hear this, all you nations; give ear, all who dwell in the world; for I call all, as from some lofty and most central watchtower, with a great and high proclamation. Hear, peoples, tribes, tongues, every race of men and every age, all who are now and all who shall be; and, that my proclamation may be greater, every power of the heavens, all you angels, whose work was the overthrow of the tyrant: who have brought down not Sihon king of the Amorites, nor Og king of Bashan, petty rulers who harmed a small part of the world, Israel, but the dragon, the apostate, the great mind, the Assyrian, the common enemy and foe of all, who raged and threatened much upon earth, and spoke and devised much unrighteousness on high. [2] “Hear, O heaven, and give ear,” for it is time for me to cry out the same words with Isaiah, the loudest-voiced of the prophets; except that he calls and testifies about Israel, which had rejected God, and I about a tyrant who both rejected him and has fallen a fall worthy of his impiety. [3] Hear also, O soul of the great Constantius, if you have any perception, and all you souls of the Christ-loving emperors before him; but his above all, inasmuch as he grew up with the inheritance of Christ, increased it in power, and confirmed it with time, so that for this reason he became the most renowned of all emperors that ever were, and yet (O the spite of it!) he made a mistake most unworthy of his own piety: he unwittingly reared the enemy of Christ for Christians; and in this one thing alone of all he showed kindness badly, in saving and making emperor one who was saved and made emperor to no good end. And for this reason he would be especially pleased, as with the overthrow of impiety and the return of Christian affairs to their former state, so also with this discourse. For I will dedicate a discourse to God as a thank-offering, holier and purer than any irrational sacrifice: not like that man’s accursed discourses and drivel and his more accursed sacrifices, whose abundance and power was a power of impiety, and an unwise wisdom, if I may so name it; since all the power and learning of this age walks in darkness and falls far from the light of the truth. That wisdom, then, is of this kind, and among such men, and with such fruits: withering quickly like grass, falling quickly like green herbs, departing with its fathers who perish with a noise, and more conspicuous in their fall … the impiety … to be punished for his lawlessness against letters; for letters, which are common to all rational beings, he begrudged Christians as though they were his own, reasoning most irrationally about reason, he who was, as he thought, the most rational of all.

First, that he wickedly transferred the name to suit his purpose, as though Greek speech belonged to the religion and not to the language; and for this reason he drove us away from letters as thieves of another’s good; as if he had also barred us from the arts that were invented among the Greeks, thinking that these too were his because of the shared name. Second, that he supposed we would not notice that he was not going to deprive us of any of the chief goods (we who greatly despise these letters), but was afraid of the refutations of his impiety, as though they had their strength in elegance of diction and not in the knowledge of the truth and in arguments; and it is more impossible to restrain us from these than from confessing God while we have a tongue. For we offer this too, our speech, along with everything else, as we do our bodies, whenever we must contend with these also for the truth. So the man who ordered this stopped our Atticizing, but did not stop our telling the truth; he exposed his own rottenness, but did not escape our refutations; except that, without knowing it, he gave us more cause to use them. [6] For it was not the act of one confident either in the just claims of his religion or in his own letters to restrain our letters; as if someone, thinking himself the strongest of athletes and claiming to be proclaimed victor over all, were to order that none of the brave should compete or come down into the stadium, or were to cut off one of their limbs: a sign of cowardice rather than of strength. For crowns are won against those who compete, not against those who sit above; against those who use all their strength, not against those deprived of most of their power. If you were afraid to meet us and come to blows at all, by that very fact you showed your defeat, and it is mine to conquer without even having fought, since you contended not to contend. Such were the measures of our wise emperor and lawgiver, as if no part of him might be without a share in his tyranny, and he would proclaim his unreason at the beginning of his reign by tyrannizing over letters before other things. But it is good for us to give thanks to God for letters themselves, having recovered our freedom; and above all to honour him with other offerings too, sparing nothing, neither money nor possessions, which, though they had become the prey of the time and of the tyranny, the love of God for mankind preserved; but to honour him before all else with letters, a just offering of fruit, common to all who have shared in the grace. But let this be enough of our discourse on behalf of letters, so that by drawing it out further we may not fall out of season, and seem to be busy with something other than that for which we have assembled. [7] Now my discourse leaps and rushes to celebration, and shines with what it sees, and calls all to a spiritual dance: those who devoted themselves to fasting and weeping and prayer, asking night and day for deliverance from the sorrows that held us, and making the hope that does not put to shame their good remedy in their evils; those who, enduring great struggles and contests and struck by many and hard assaults of the time, became a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men, in the Apostle’s words, weary in body but remaining unconquered in soul, and able to do all things in Christ who strengthened them; and those who, putting off the worldly matter and power of vice, either accepted with joy the plundering of their property, or were unjustly exiled, as the saying is, from their own land, or were parted for a little while from husbands or wives or parents or children, or whatever other names of our small kinship hold us, and offered their sufferings for Christ as fruit to the blood of Christ: these might now say and sing in season, “You set men over our heads; we went through fire and water; and you brought us out into refreshment.” [8] I call to the festival also the other part: those who confess the God of the universe and are sound in their reasonings so far, but do not enter into the reasons of providence, which often orders the better through its opposites and calls to correction by kindness; but through poverty and lightness of soul, when the ungodly is proud, they are inflamed and burned up in their thoughts and cannot bear the peace of sinners, as the psalm says, nor wait for God’s counsel and be patient until the end; but being always slaves of what is present and visible, they are confirmed in the truth by such wonders as these.

I call also the souls fluttering about the stage of this world and the great theatre; and I call them with the words of Isaiah: “Women coming from the spectacle, come”; and, turning the eye of the soul back from its wandering outside, “be still and know that he is God,” exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth, always and in all the wonders and signs that he has done, and more clearly in those of the present.

Would that that company too were part of my chorus, which until now sang with us to God a song neither counterfeit nor false, and was once even deemed worthy of the station on the right, and will, I believe, soon be deemed worthy of it again; but, I know not what has happened to it, it suddenly changes its tune and its place, and does not come together with us even under the common gladness, which surprises me more; but it sets up a dance of its own, neither well-measured nor harmonious (so much perhaps they themselves will allow me to say); but of what kind, and what? Though zeal moves me to speak, faith prevails, and I will hold back what is unpleasant in my word out of respect for hope. I still cherish my members; I still give more to the former love than to the present disdain; and for this reason I am more patient, so as not to reproach them more hotly.

One part, one kind of souls, I bar from the festival, groaning and grieving, mourning those who perhaps do not even understand, lamenting those who do not perceive their own destruction (for this is the most pitiable thing in their wound); yet I bar them: those who were sown not upon the firm and unshaken rock but upon the dry and barren ground. These are those who approached the word superficially and with little faith, and because they had no depth of earth sprang up at once and peeped out to please their neighbours, then under a brief assault of the evil one and a little heat of temptations withered and died. And still worse than these, and more to be barred from the festival, are those who did not resist the time even a little, and joined those who take us captive with the evil captivity away from him who ascended on high and took us captive for good; but they showed themselves wicked and cheap to excess, not holding out even a little, not even made to stumble by some affliction or temptation on account of the Word, but selling their own salvation, the wretches, for temporary gain, or court favour, or a little power. … who puts courage into feeble knees, and breaks the arms of the sinner and the wicked (for I take this too from divine Scripture, and this from another song, as each comes to my memory, many filling up my song for me and contributing to the thank-offering); who gives us to see both the ungodly lifted above the cedars and his overthrow so that he is no more, when we could pass by his impiety with swiftness and safety of foot. Who will sing these things worthily, and tell them, of those who tell divine things? “Who shall speak the mighty acts of the Lord, and make all his praises heard?” What voice or what power of speech will match the wonder? Who broke bow and sword and war? Who crushed the heads of the dragons upon the water? Who gave him as food to the peoples to whom he also handed him over? Who made the storm a breeze? Who said to the sea, “Be silent, be muzzled,” and, “In you your waves shall be broken,” and indeed broke them when they had not been lifted up for long and had foamed? Who gave us to tread upon serpents and scorpions, which no longer secretly watch for the heel, as the sentence was, but openly rise up and lift the head that they were condemned to have trodden on? Who executed judgment and unexpected righteousness? Who did not leave the rod of sinners altogether upon (dare I say?) the lot of the righteous, or, to put it more moderately, the lot of those who know him?

For we were not handed over as righteous men (this happens to few and seldom), so that, like noble athletes, they might put the tempter to shame; but we were condemned as sinners, and then shown mercy with care and like a father, struck only enough to be chastened, and admonished only enough to turn to him. For he reproved us, but not in wrath; he disciplined us, but not in anger; showing his love for mankind through both, the reminder and the relief. Who is it that executed vengeance among the nations and reproofs among the peoples? “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” I find one voice, one song, somehow worthy of the present, which Isaiah uttered before us, very fitting for the present time and vying with the greatness of the benefit: “Let the heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds sprinkle righteousness; let the mountains break forth into gladness, and the hills into exultation.” For the whole creation too, and the heavenly powers, share, as I hold, in perceiving such things; for not only does it groan and travail together, being in bondage to corruption (I mean to the things below that come to be and pass away), eagerly awaiting their end and the revelation, so that then it too may obtain the freedom it hopes for, being now bound to these against its will through the power of the One who made it; but it also shares the glory and exults with the children of God when they rejoice.

Therefore (for I will not refrain from divine words in expounding divine power), let the desert rejoice and blossom like the lily: the church that only yesterday and the day before was, as it seemed, a widow without a husband, and everyone who until now was shrivelled by the envious and joyless winter of impiety; for the Lord has had mercy on his people and has not forsaken his inheritance; for he has done wonderful things, an ancient and true counsel, which was to take pleasure in those who fear him and hope in his mercy; for he has broken gates of bronze and shattered bars of iron; for we were humbled because of our iniquities, but were called back, and when the snare was broken we were strengthened by the grace of God who called us and comforts the lowly in heart.

Do you see how I weave my song from divine words and thoughts? And somehow I am elated and adorned with the words of others, and become as if inspired with pleasure; I disdain everything lowly and human, fitting and joining different passages together and bringing the words of the same Spirit into one.

In earlier times the wonders of God were shown by Enoch translated, Elijah taken up, Noah preserved and preserving the seeds of the races, the world in a small wooden ark, when they escaped the flooding of the inhabited earth, so that the earth might be adorned again with more pious inhabitants; by Abraham called, and honoured with a child beyond his age, so as to believe in another seed that had been promised, and offering his only son as a willing sacrifice, and receiving a strange victim in place of the child; by the astonishing destruction of the ungodly, deluged with fire and brimstone, and the more astonishing rescue of the godly, and the pillar of salt that makes a show of the turning back toward evil; by Joseph sold and loved and chaste, made wise by God, set free, ruling, and supplying grain for a greater dispensation; by Moses deemed worthy of visions of God, receiving the law and giving it, becoming a god to Pharaoh, and leading Israel to the land of promise; by the plagues of Egypt counted out, and the safety of those who toiled in the midst of the Egyptians; by the sea retreating at a rod and closing again at a word, letting some pass as on dry land and flowing over the others according to its nature.

And the other things that followed these: a pillar of cloud overshadowing by day and a pillar of fire giving light by night, both of them guiding; bread rained in the desert and meat sent from heaven, the one measured to need, the other even beyond need; water from the rock, the one given forth, the other made sweet; Amalek defeated by prayer and by the secret and mystical shape of the hands; the sun standing still and the moon held back, and the Jordan cut off; walls shaken by a circuit of priests, the sound of trumpets, and a number that had power; the ground and the fleece, alternately rained on and remaining dry; strength in hair, a match for a whole army; a few picked men who lapped, trusted to conquer, and conquering, as they hoped, a small number against many thousands. Why must I count up each of the wonders worked through Christ himself in his saving coming and incarnation, and those worked after him and through him by his holy apostles and the ministers of the word? How many books and records contain them?

But as for the things of the present, “come, hear, and I will tell you, all you who fear God,” so that another generation and the successions of generations may know the wonders of God’s power. But since it is not possible to make these known without setting out the greatness of the danger, and this is not possible without exposing the malice of his character, and from what beginnings and seeds of vice he fell into such great misery, increasing his impiety little by little like the venom of the bitterest reptiles and beasts, we will leave it to books and histories to recount all his doings in tragic style, for we have no leisure to string together a tale longer than our present subject; but going through a few things out of many, we will leave a kind of inscribed monument for those after us, proceeding in our discourse to the chief and most conspicuous of his doings.

[21] First of all, he was saved by the great Constantius, who had just succeeded his father in power (when the army took up arms against those in office, innovating for fear of innovation, and the palace was being settled under new leaders); and though he was saved with his brother by an incredible and unexpected rescue, he felt no gratitude for his salvation either to God or to the emperor through whom he was saved, but proved bad to both, being in travail with apostasy against the one and insurrection against the other. [22] But what I must say before this: they were thought worthy of royal maintenance and care in one of the imperial estates by the most humane emperor, as remnants of the family kept for the empire. He was at once devising a defence of the revolutionary deeds at the beginning of his reign, as not having been dared by his will; at once seeking to show his magnanimity by sharing the rule; and third, to make the government more secure by additions: which was the intention of one more kind than wise.

And since they were at leisure from everything, the empire being still in the future and in preparation, and their age and their hopes not yet bringing them even to the second ranks of office, they had teachers in the other branches of learning, their kinsman and emperor having them educated in the whole circle of general education; and they made still more use of our philosophy, not only the part that concerns words, but all that sounds forth piety through character, associating with the most earnest men and with the most gracious deeds, which give a great display of virtue. They even enrolled themselves in the clergy, so as to read the divine books to the people, thinking this no less a glory for them, and considering piety a greater ornament than anything.

[24] By most costly shrines of martyrs, by lavish offerings, and by all the things by which the fear of God is marked, they displayed their love of wisdom and of Christ: the one truly in piety (for he was, though rather hot by nature, genuine in his piety), the other buying up the opportunity and hiding his malice under a pretence of decency. Here is proof; for I cannot pass over the wonder that happened, which is most worthy of memory and able to instruct many of the ungodly. [25] Both were labouring, as I said, for the martyrs, and vying splendidly with each other, raising the building with many hands and great expense; but since it was not from the same intention, their labour did not come to a like end for both. The work of the one, I mean the elder of the brothers, advanced and went according to plan, since God readily accepted the gift, as he did Abel’s sacrifice, rightly offered and rightly divided; and the gift was like the consecration of a firstborn. But the other’s (alas for the dishonour of the ungodly, already bearing witness here to what awaits them there, and proclaiming great things by small signs!) the God of the martyrs rejected like Cain’s sacrifice. [26] The one laboured, and the earth shook off what he had laboured on; he strove the harder, and it refused to receive the foundations of one rotten toward piety, as though crying out the earthquake that was to come from him, and honouring the martyrs by the dishonour done to the most impious. This work was a kind of prophecy of the man’s later arrogance and madness, of his dishonour toward martyrs and his lawlessness toward holy shrines: unnoticed by others, but pursuing the persecutor from afar and signifying beforehand the wages of impiety.

O soul wise to do evil, yet not escaping its own torment! O God proclaiming the future, to check impiety or to show his foreknowledge! O wonder, strange, but more true than strange! O brotherly love of the martyrs! They did not accept honour from one who would dishonour many martyrs; they did not admit a gift from one who would make many athletes, and begrudge them even their contest; or, to say it more truly, they alone of the martyrs could not bear to be insulted, while the others would be laid to rest and tended by holy hands; nor would they allow the sophist of vice to boast of his insults, so that by the same hand some martyrs’ shrines would be raised and others pulled down, some martyrs honoured and others dishonoured, the honour in appearance coming a little before the real dishonour; nor that, besides the greatness of the insult, he should think himself wise in his own eyes, escaping the notice, as of men, so of God, the sharpest and wisest of all, who catches the wise in their craftiness, by the screen of his outward show; but that he should know that he was understood, and not be exalted when he was found out.

For if the God of the martyrs did not check his impiety, nor at once dry up and cut off, like an evil stream, the vice that was being devised and hidden, it was for reasons he alone knew, according to his wisdom and governance, by which he also arranged that the iniquities of the Amorites should be filled up; but the malice had to be hated and the honour rejected for the sake of the many, and God’s impartiality and purity toward all that is offered to him had to be shown. [29] For he said to Israel when it was impious: “If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me”; and he did not accept their new moons and sabbaths and great day (for he needs nothing, being full, of things human and small, so as to delight even in what is offered unworthily); he abhors the sacrifice of the lawless, even if it is a calf, as if it were a dog’s, and the frankincense as blasphemy; he banishes and shakes off from the temple the hire of a harlot; and he honours only that sacrifice which pure hands and a mind lofty and purified offer to the Purest. What wonder, then, if he did not accept that man’s honour either, offered wickedly and with wicked intent, he who does not look as man looks, nor at the appearance, but at the hidden man and the inner workshop of vice or virtue? Such, then, was this; and if anyone disbelieves it, we call as witnesses those who saw it; there are many who have handed this wonder down to us and to those after us, and will hand it down.

When, advancing to manhood, they took up the doctrines of philosophy (would they never had!) and acquired the power that comes from reason, which becomes for the decent a weapon of virtue and for the more wicked a goad to vice, he could no longer contain the whole disease, nor keep the deceit of his impiety entirely to himself; but like fire smouldering in fuel, which, even if it has not yet risen into a bright flame, gives signs from the depth by some sparks that catch or by smoke; or, if you like, like springs that run under caverns with a draught of wind, and then, having no room and no free outlet, blow up and rumble from below in many parts of the earth, pushed up by the force of the wind and held down and checked by the weight from above: so he too hid most of his impiety because of the times and the training given by the ruler (for impiety was not yet safe), but here and there he laid bare the secret of his mind to those who were sharper at perceiving impiety; in his debates with his brother, contending more than was right on behalf of the Greeks, on the pretext, if you please, of exercising the weaker argument (but in reality it was an exercise against the truth), and delighting in everything by which an impious character is marked.

When the emperor’s kindness proclaimed his brother Caesar and entrusted him with no small part of the world, he himself had great licence and freedom to associate with the most pernicious arguments and teachers (Asia was his school of impiety: all the wonder-mongering about astronomy and nativities and the pretence of foreknowledge, and the sorcery that goes with them). One thing was still lacking: that power should be added to his impiety. Not long after, this too was given him, against us, by the lawlessness of the many, which had multiplied, and by the extreme well-being, as one might call it, of Christians, which sought the opposite change, and by our power and honour, and the surfeit through which we became insolent.

[32] For in truth it is perhaps harder to keep good things than to acquire them when they are lacking, and easier to recall by diligence a prosperity that has gone than to preserve it while it lasts. “Before destruction goes pride,” as the Proverbs well say, “and before glory humility”; or, to say it more clearly, destruction follows pride, and good repute humility. For “the Lord resists the proud but gives grace to the humble,” and brings opposites in exchange for opposites, measuring out all things justly. Knowing this, the divine David counts being humbled among the good things, and gives thanks to the one who humbled him, since from this he came to learn the ordinances; and “Before I was humbled,” he says, “I went astray; therefore I kept your word,” setting humiliation between going astray and correction, as born from the one and giving birth to the other: for sin is the mother of humiliation, and humiliation of conversion. We, then, who were exalted when we were decent and moderate, and grew little by little so as to advance, under God’s guidance, to our present state and numbers, when we grew fat, we kicked; when we were enlarged, we were straitened; and the glory and power that we gathered in persecutions and afflictions we destroyed in prosperity; the rest of the discourse will show it. [33] The Caesar’s reign and life come to an end; I shall keep silent about what lay between, sparing both the doer and the sufferer; respecting the piety of both, I do not praise their rashness. Since, being men, they had to err in something, this is what one might perhaps not praise in either of them; unless here too, by the very things for which we shall accuse the one, we shall free the other from blame. And he at once becomes heir of his brother’s rule, though not of his piety, and a little later also of the one who had made him emperor: the first willingly, the second forced by the common end, and defeated with a defeat evil and ruinous for the whole world. [34] What was this, most divine and most Christ-loving of emperors? (For I am led to blame you as though you were present and listening, even though I know that you are far above our blame, ranked with God, having inherited the glory there, and having moved so far as to have exchanged your kingdom.) What counsel was this that you took, you who far surpassed all in understanding and shrewdness, not only the emperors of your own time but those before; who cleared away the barbarians on every side, and subdued the tyrants at home, some by words, some by arms, and each so as not to be hindered at all by the other; whose trophies won by arms and battle were great, but those won without bloodshed greater and more glorious; to whom came embassies and supplications from every side; to whom some things were already subject and others about to be, and all that was hoped for was equal to what was conquered; who was guided by the hand of God in every counsel and deed; whose understanding was admired more than his hand, and his hand more than his understanding, and more than his renown in both, his piety? [35] How then did you appear ignorant and inconsiderate here alone? What was the haste of this inhuman kindness? Which of the demons entered into the deliberation? How did you take the great inheritance and the ancestral ornament (I mean those named after Christ, the nation that has shone out everywhere in the world, the royal priesthood, increased by much toil and many sweats), and in so short a time, in a brief moment, hand it over to the common murderer? [36] Perhaps I seem to you, brothers, to be impious and ungrateful in these words, and because I do not quickly add the words of truth to those of accusation. And yet I have made a sufficient defence through the very things I have charged, if you pay attention to the accusation: here alone the accusation carries acquittal, for in saying “kindness” I declared the defence. For who of those who know him even moderately does not know that for the sake of piety and his love for us, and his wish for every good thing for us, he would have overlooked not only that man, or the honour of a whole family, or an addition to the empire, but the empire itself, and all that exists, and his very soul, than which nothing is more precious to anyone, and would readily have given them in exchange for our safety and salvation?

[37] For never did a hot love of anything strike anyone as that man’s longing that Christians should grow and advance to the height of glory and power; and neither the subduing of nations, nor the good order of the commonwealth, nor abundance of money, nor surplus of glory, nor being and being called king of kings, nor anything else by which human happiness is recognized, nothing of all these so gladdened him as that we through him, and he through us, should be in good repute with God and men, and that our power should remain indissoluble for all time. For besides the rest he knew this clearly, since he thought about these things more loftily and royally than most: that the Roman state grew together with Christian affairs, and that its sovereignty came in together with the coming of Christ, never before having fully achieved monarchy; and for this reason, it seemed to me, he was the more eager to do good to our affairs. And if he grieved us at all, it was not through contempt or insult, nor by favouring others before us; but he grieved us so that all might be one and of one mind, and not cut up and divided by schisms. [38] But, as I said, simplicity is unguarded, and kindness goes along with what is unsound, and what is free from vice is least suspicious of vice. For this reason the future was not seen precisely, and the pretence was not detected, and impiety crept in little by little, and two kindnesses came in together: the one toward the pious race and the one toward the most impious and godless of all men. He (finding what fault with Christians? What of ours unable to praise? Thinking what of the doctrines of the Greeks extraordinary and hard to refute by argument? Following what example?) made himself most notorious for impiety, and rivalled in a novel way the one who had raised him up: since it was not possible to surpass him in virtue and in better things, he strove to make himself conspicuous by the opposite, by excess of impiety and ambition for the worse. Such, then, is the defence of the man on behalf of Christians and before Christians, and so just, at least to those who have sense.

[39] But there are some who, even if they acquit us of this charge, do not let go of others, but accuse him of simplicity, because he handed the rule to his most hostile and inimical enemy, and made the same man first an enemy and then strong, laying the ground for his enmity by the slaughter of his brother and adding power to it through the empire. I must therefore also go briefly through this, and show that his kindness was not wholly unreasonable, nor outside imperial magnanimity and foresight; for I should be ashamed if, having received such honour from him and being convinced that he so excelled in piety, we did not plead his just cause, which we owe even to those who have done us no good, we who are servants of the Word and of the Truth; and this after his departure from here, when we have escaped the appearance of flattery, and our word is free from evil suspicion. … what could the one entrusted with it have been to that man? And if not to have foreseen his character is blameworthy, where shall we place the vice itself? But truly wickedness is a thing beyond reckoning, and there is nothing by which one could make the wicked better; since he too, from the very things by which he ought to have shown himself better disposed and to have removed any spark of malice he had, was kindled to greater hatred and considered how to retaliate against his benefactor. These things he was taught by Platos and Chrysippuses, and the brilliant Peripatos, and the august Stoa, and those who warble elegant phrases; these things by the equality of geometry, and the discourses on justice, and the doctrine that one should choose to be wronged rather than to do wrong; these things by his noble teachers, the fellow champions and lawgivers of his reign, whom he gathered to himself from the crossroads and the pits; whose character he did not praise, but whose eloquence he admired; or perhaps not even this, but only their impiety, as a sufficient counsellor and teacher of what to do and what not to do.

And how are these men not worthy of wonder, who fashion in words cities that cannot be established in fact, and all but worship august tyrannies, and with lofty brows set the obol above the gods; some of whom teach that there is no God at all, others that he takes no thought for things here, but that everything is borne along at random and by chance, others that things are led by the stars and the configurations of necessity, though led I know not by whom or whence, others that everything tends to pleasure and that this is the end of human life? Virtue is to them merely a fair-seeming name, reaching no further than the present life, nor is there any later examination of the things lived here to restrain injustice. For either none of their wise men saw these things, but was enveloped in deep mire, as the saying goes, and in the lightless darkness of error and ignorance, not cleansed in mind even enough to look at the rays of the truth, but wallowing in things below and in sensation, unable to imagine anything beyond the demons or to be lifted up as befits the Maker; or, if anyone saw through a little, using reason and not God as his guide, he was swept away by what was more plausible and by what draws the many because it is near at hand.

[45] What wonder, then, that one who started from such doctrines and was steered by such pilots should have proved so wicked, the one entrusted toward the one who entrusted him, the one honoured toward the one who honoured him? For if I must make some defence through accusation, it seems to me that he was not so much grieving over his brother (whom he knew to be his enemy because of religion) as unable to bear the growth of Christian affairs, and raging against piety, so that he dared to attack the established order and sought freedom for his madness; for philosophy and kingship, as their saying goes, must come together, not so that cities may cease from evils, but so that they may be filled with them. [46] And the first act of his arrogance and madness was to crown himself and to honour himself with the great title (which is not a prize to be snatched by fortune but a reward of virtue, granted by time, or by the emperor’s vote, or, as of old, by the judgment of the senate), and not to make the lord of the empire master of the measure of honour. And second (for he knew that by what he had already dared he had made his madness necessary for himself), what does he plan? To what lengths of impiety and rashness does he go? O that frenzied soul! He marches against him himself, and sets out from the West, on the pretext of making a defence concerning the diadem (for he still seemed to hide his madness), but in truth to transfer all power to himself and to be admired for his ingratitude; and he was not disappointed of his hope.

Let them not wonder, those who do not know the untraceable depth of the reasons of God by which the universe is borne along, and do not yield to the craftsman of its governance, who is altogether wiser than we, and leads what is his own where and how he wills, but altogether toward the better and toward healing, even if those being treated are annoyed. By these reasons that man was not lifted up into vice (for the divine is wholly guiltless of evils, being good by nature, and vice belongs to the one who chooses it), yet he was not restrained from his impulse; but running with great speed through his own territory and part of the barbarian bank, and seizing the passage by stealth more than by force, he comes near the palace. As his partisans say, he set out on the campaign by foreknowledge, by the prompting of demons who promised the future and presided over a change in affairs; but, as the account of those who tell the truth has it, he arrived at a set time, though a more secret and deeper one, and hastening toward a death of which he himself was the author, having secretly arranged the attempt through someone of the household; so that what happened was not foreknowledge but knowledge, a work of wickedness and not a benefit from demons. How well they hit the mark in such matters Persia clearly showed. And let those cease who ascribe his speed to the demons, unless we are to add this very evil to their account.

If, then, the emperor’s end had not come before the tyrant’s attack, and the invisible war had not prevailed over the visible hand, the wretch would perhaps have learned that he was hastening against himself; and before his folly was chastened by the Persians, he would have paid the penalty within the bounds of Rome for what he had wickedly dared. Here is the proof: while he was still advancing and, as he thought, unnoticed, he was surrounded by an army of the most noble emperor, which had already cut off his retreat, as became clear from later events; for even when he already held power, mastering this army was no small task. But as it was, the emperor, boiling against his madness and his impiety alike, and having the wisest of men in his nets, ends his life (O our wickedness!) in the midst of his march, having made a full defence before God and men for his kindness, and having shown Christians by his zeal how he was moved on behalf of piety.

How shall I not weep for the wretch? How shall I not lament, more than those who were persecuted, those who ran over to him; and, more than those who deserted to vice, the one who snatched them away? Or rather, for the one group it is nothing terrible to suffer for Christ, but the most blessed thing of all, not only because of what is there, but also because of the good repute and boldness here which they won for themselves through their dangers; while for the others what they have already suffered is a prelude to what is stored up and threatened; and it would have been better for them to be punished longer here than to be kept for the tribunals there. These things I say because of the law that bids us not rejoice at the fall of an enemy and requires sympathy from those who stand; but I must bring my discourse back again to him.

What is this great rivalry in evil? What this love of impiety? What this race to destruction? Whence is the disciple of Christ such a hater of Christ, he who had conversed with so many words of truth, and spoken some and heard others of those that lead to salvation? For no sooner had he inherited the empire than he openly professed his impiety, as if he were ashamed of having once been a Christian, or bore a grudge against Christians on this account, whose name he had shared. And the first of his daring deeds (as those say who pride themselves on knowing his secrets: into what words am I forced to fall!) was that he washes off the bath of baptism with unholy blood, setting the consummation of abomination against our consummation, a pig rolling in the mud, as the proverb says; and he purifies his hands, cleansing them of the bloodless sacrifice through which we share with Christ both in his sufferings and in his Godhead; and he establishes the palace with victims and sacrifices, using evil counsellors for an evil reign.

But since I have mentioned entrails and the man’s superstition in such things (or, to say it more properly, his ill-starred demon-worship), I do not know whether I should commit to writing the wonder that is talked about, or disbelieve those who tell it. For I myself waver in judgment and cannot tell which way to lean, since things that would justly be believed are mixed with things not worthy of belief. That some sign should be given at so great an innovation of evil and impiety is not incredible, but has often happened at the greatest changes; and the manner of it too is very worthy of wonder, to me at least, and to all who wish and think that pure things should be shown purely.

What is said, then, is this: that as he was sacrificing, the entrails showed the cross with a crown around it; which brought shuddering and anguish to the others, and awareness of our power, but to the teacher of impiety, of course, courage, as though we were circumscribed and hemmed in; for so he improvised an interpretation of the cross and the circle. This is my wonder; and if it is false, let the winds carry it away; but if it is true, Balaam is prophesying again, and Samuel is brought up (or seems to be) through a ventriloquist, and demons confess Jesus against their will, and the truth is shown through its opposites, so that it may be the more believed; perhaps it was even arranged that he should be held back from impiety by these things, for the divine knows how to devise many strange ways of salvation, inclining toward love of mankind. And what is told by more people, and is not unreasonable to believe: … drivel), struck by the unexpected (for he was a late learner in such things), he takes refuge in the cross and the old remedy, and signs himself with it against his fears, and makes the one he was persecuting his helper; and what follows is more fearful still. [56] The seal prevailed; the demons are defeated; the fears are dispelled. Then what? The evil breathes again, grows bold again; again an onset, and the same fears; and the seal again, and the demons are quiet; and the initiate is at a loss; and the mystagogue, standing near, misinterprets the truth. “We disgusted them,” he says; “we did not frighten them; the worse is prevailing.” He says this, and saying it persuades, and having persuaded leads the disciple to the pit of destruction. And there is nothing strange in this; for wickedness is readier to follow evil than to be checked by the better. What he said or did, or by what deception he was sent back up, those who perform and undergo such rites would know; at any rate he comes up possessed by demons both in his soul and in his affairs, and showing by the madness of his eyes whom he had served; unless indeed he was filled with demons from that day on which he devoted himself to such wicked things; but then more conspicuously, so that he might not have gone down in vain, and might receive from the demons what they call “enthusiasm,” solemnly changing the names. Such, then, were the first things.

When his travail prevailed and the persecution broke out, he saw something, whether as a man wise in vice and extraordinary in impiety, or because he was taught it by those who anointed him for this contest: that to take up the war openly and to preside personally over impiety, besides being very rash and uncultivated, would also be altogether contrary to his aim; for we would become more contentious if we were forced, and would set our ambition for piety against his tyranny. For noble spirits tend to be stubborn against what rules by force, and, like a flame fanned by the wind, to be kindled the more, the more violently it blows upon them. And this he found not only by reasoning, but could also learn from the earlier persecutions, which made Christianity more honoured rather than weaker, strengthening souls for piety and tempering them by dangers as hot iron is tempered in water. But if he campaigned with art, and coloured force with persuasion, or wrapped his tyranny in gentleness like bait around a bronze hook, his contest would in this way become at once wise and powerful.

For besides other things he also begrudged the athletes the honour of the martyrs; and for this reason he contrived both to use force and not to seem to, and that they should suffer and yet not have the honour of suffering for Christ. O what simplicity! First, if he thought it would go unnoticed for what cause the dangers were faced, and that he would cover up the truth with sophistries; and did not see that the more he plotted against their honours, the greater and more brilliant he would make them.

Second, if he supposed that we face dangers from desire of glory and not for the truth. Let such games be played among them by Empedocleses and Aristaeuses and Empedotimuses and Trophoniuses and the whole number of such unfortunates: of whom the one, having deified himself, as he thought, in the Sicilian craters, and sent himself away from us to a better lot, was betrayed by his dearest sandal, spat out by the fire; and he was shown to be not a god after being a man, but a vainglorious man, unphilosophical after death, and not sensible even in common matters; while the others, hiding themselves in certain shrines from the same disease and self-love, and then being exposed, were not so much honoured for their stealth as insulted for not escaping notice.

[60] But for Christians it is sweeter to suffer for piety, even if they escape everyone’s notice, than for others to win good repute along with impiety; for pleasing men is of small account with us, and our whole longing is for honour from God; or rather, for those who truly love wisdom and love God, it goes beyond even this: they love their kinship with the good for the sake of the good itself, not for the honours laid up as its reward. For this is the second rank of the praiseworthy, to do something for wages and for a return, as the third is to flee wickedness for fear of punishment. Such, then, is our case, and so it stands; and this is easily shown from many things. [61] But he, as though he were going to deprive Christians of a great honour (for most people judge the affairs of others by their own passions), pursues this before all else: to rob us of good repute. And he does not, with greatness of soul like the other persecutors, openly register his impiety; nor does he think about us, if not royally, at least altogether tyrannically, so that his impious deed might at least have some magnificence: to force the people of the whole world and tyrannize over a doctrine that stands above all doctrines; but very slavishly and ignobly he does evil to piety, and he brought into the persecution against us the twists and duplicities of his reasonings. Since, then, ruling is divided into these two, persuading and forcing, the more inhuman part, that of tyranny, he left to the peoples and cities, whose folly is the harder to restrain because of its unreason and its unconsidered rush at everything; and this not by public decree, but by an unwritten law of not checking their impulses. [62] The milder and more royal part, that of persuasion, he took upon himself, if you please; yet he did not keep even this entirely; for it was not possible by nature for the leopard to put off its spots, or the Ethiopian his blackness, or fire its burning, or the evil one his hatred of man, since he is a murderer from the beginning, or that man the wickedness with which he set out against us. But as they say that the chameleon easily becomes anything and takes on every colour except white (I pass over the Proteus of the myth, the Egyptian sophist), so he too was and became everything to Christians except gentle; and his kindness was most inhuman, his persuasion violent, and his mildness an excuse for his savagery, so that he might seem to use force with reason when he failed to persuade. [63] And this is clear from the fact that with him persuasion was brief, and force, which was greater, followed at once; so that, as in hunting, we might be caught either in the snares or by the chase, and one way or another he might master us. Having thus thought and decided, he next adopts this strategy, the only safe one, though very impious: he begins his wickedness, as all persecutors usually do, with those nearest him and his own guard; for it is not possible to attack those outside unless these have been won over, just as one cannot lead an army against the enemy when it is in revolt against its general. … by looking at the serpent that was hung up and destroyed by the sufferings of Christ: many of those in power and high places, who were more likely to be overcome, both through fear and through hopes; and many of the lowly, known only by their number, against whom he made his assault and was repulsed, like some ineffective engine by a noble wall. But what escaped him did not grieve him as much as what was captured encouraged him in his frenzy; and his desire presented what he hoped for as already won. [66] Now he dares to act even against the great standard that processes with the cross and leads the army, lifted on high, a release from toils, named, and as one might say reigning over the other standards, among the Romans: both those that glory in the faces of emperors and in hangings spread out in various dyes and letters, and those that, breathing into the fearful jaws of dragons hung on the tops of spears, and fanned through their coils of woven, many-coloured scales, present to the eyes a sight at once most pleasant and fearful. And when things near at hand went as he intended, and he had got the better of the danger in hand, as he thought, so now he tries what comes next. [67] Most foolish, most impious, most uninstructed in great things! You, against so great an inheritance, against the fruit-bearing of the whole world that has embraced all the ends of the earth through the plainness of the word and the folly, as you would call it, of the preaching, which conquered the wise, stopped the demons, and outran time, being at once old and new (as you tell marvels about one of your gods): old to the few and new to the many, old in the outline and new in the completion of the mystery, stored up for its own times? You, against the great inheritance of Christ? (You, who, and how great, and from where?) The great inheritance that will not cease, not even if some rage more than you, but will always go forward and be exalted further (for I believe the prophecies and what is seen); which he made as God and inherited as man; which the law sketched, grace fulfilled, and Christ renewed; which prophets fastened together, apostles bound together, and evangelists completed? [68] You, against the sacrifice of Christ with your pollutions? You, against the blood that cleansed the world with your bloods? You, war against peace? You, a hand against the hand that was nailed for you and because of you? You, your tasting against the gall? A trophy against the cross? Overthrow against death? Insurrection against the resurrection? Against the Martyr, not even martyrs? After Herod a persecutor, after Judas a traitor (except that you did not show repentance by a noose, as he did), a Christ-killer after Pilate, and a God-hater after the Jews? [69] Did you not respect the victims slain for Christ, nor fear the great contestants, that John, Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Luke, Andrew, Thecla, and those who after them and before them faced danger for the truth, who readily contended against fire and sword and beasts and tyrants, and against evils present and threatened, as though in other people’s bodies, or bodiless? For what? So as not to betray piety even by a word. Theirs are the great honours and festivals; by them demons are driven out and diseases healed; theirs are the appearances, and theirs the predictions; whose bodies alone, when touched or honoured, are as powerful as their holy souls; whose very drops of blood and small tokens of their suffering do as much as their bodies. [70] These you do not revere but dishonour, you who admire the pyre of Heracles, which came from misfortune and from wrongs concerning women; and the butchery of Pelops, hospitable, or rather god-loving, from which the Pelopids are famous for their shoulder and the ivory; and the castrations of the Phrygians, charmed by the flute and outraged after the flute; and the tortures in the rites of Mithras and the mystic burnings, which are just; and the slaughter of strangers among the Taurians; and the sacrifice of the royal maiden at Troy; and the blood of Menoeceus for Thebes, and later that of the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra; you who praise the Spartan youths flayed with whips and the blood on the altar that delights a pure and virgin goddess; who extol the hemlock of Socrates, the leg of Epictetus, and the bag of Anaxarchus, whose philosophy was compulsory rather than voluntary; and the death of Cleombrotus of Ambracia, philosophized from the dialogue On the Soul; and the Pythagorean resistance over beans, and the contempt of death of Theano, or of I know not which of those initiated into his doctrines or philosophizing them. [71] But you, if not those, at least admire the present ones, O most philosophical and most noble, you who look to those Epaminondases and Scipios for endurance, who march with the army, take improvised food, and praise generalship that does its own work. It is the mark of a noble and philosophic soul not to dishonour the virtue even of enemies, and to rate the nobility of foes above the vice and softness of one’s closest friends. Do you see these men without livelihood or hearth, almost without flesh and blood, and drawing near to God by this; with unwashed feet and sleeping on the ground, as your Homer says, so as to honour one of the demons by the fiction; below, and above things below; among men, and above the human; bound, and free; constrained, and unconstrained; who have nothing in the world, and all that is above the world; whose life is double, the one disdained, the other pursued; immortal through mortification, joined to God through their dissolution; without desire, and yet with the divine and passionless love; whose is the source of light, and whose already its radiances; whose are the angelic psalmodies, the all-night standing, and the departure of the mind to God, snatched away beforehand; whose is the purification, and whose the being purified, knowing no measure of ascent and deification; whose are the rocks, and whose the heavens; whose is being cast down, and whose the thrones; whose is nakedness, and whose the garment of incorruption; whose is the desert, and whose the festival there; whose is tyranny over pleasures, and whose the enjoyment that cannot be undone or told; whose tear is a flood upon sin, a purification of the world; whose stretching out of hands quenches flame, lulls beasts, blunts swords, turns back battle lines, and will muzzle your impiety too, be sure of it, even if you are lifted up for a little while and play the drama of impiety with your demons? … which Croesus refuted with his Lydian gold; and of the love of beauty of Socrates (I am ashamed to call it pederasty, even if it is dignified with fine ideas); and of the Sicilian gluttony of Plato, for which he was even sold, and not ransomed by any of his disciples, nor by any Greek at all; and of the fish-eating of Xenocrates; and of the chatter of Diogenes, who lived in the jar, by which he set strangers above the tyrants of tragedy and cheap loaves above sesame cakes; and of the philosophy of Epicurus, which defines no good above pleasure. Great to you is Crates; and indeed it is philosophical to let one’s property be given over to pasture for sheep, and like our own philosophers; but he parades his freedom by proclamation, like one who loves not so much wisdom as glory. Great is he who, when his ship was storm-tossed and everything was thrown overboard, gave thanks to fortune for reducing him to his cloak. Great is Antisthenes, because, when his face was battered by some insolent and bold fellow, he merely wrote the striker’s name on his forehead, as craftsmen do on a statue, perhaps to accuse him the more hotly. You praise one of those not long before us, because he stood all day praying to the sun (perhaps watching it as it sank lower, so as to finish his prayer by ending with its setting); and the standing at Potidaea in the winter season, all night long, labouring at contemplation, so as not even to feel the cold because of his ecstasy; or Homer’s love of learning about the Arcadian riddle, and Aristotle’s philosophy and watching over the changes of the Euripus, by which they died; and the well of Cleanthes, and the strap of Anaxagoras, and the gloom of Heraclitus. [72] How many are these, and how long ago? But do you not admire the thousands and tens of thousands among us, who philosophize these things and things still more wonderful throughout their whole life and, so to speak, throughout the whole world, men and women alike, vying in courage and here alone forgetting their nature, where one must be made God’s own through purity and endurance? Not only the low-born and those used to toil from their poverty at the start, but also those once very lofty and brilliant in wealth, family, and power, who make hardship something new for the imitation of Christ; with whom, even if there is no eloquence (because they do not place piety in words, and think the fruit of the wisdom of the mouth small, as one of your poets also thought), there is more reasonableness, and education in deeds. [74] And yet, overlooking all these things, and looking to this one thing only, how he might gratify the demons who had often brought him down as he deserved, before settling any other public matter he rushes upon the Christians. Two things were his concern: the Galileans, as he insultingly called them, and the Persians, who were holding out mightily in the war; but ours was so much the greater and more eagerly pursued that the Persian matter was thought by him nonsense and child’s play. And this he did not reveal, yet did not hide; but so great was the excess of his madness that he never stopped confessing it always and to everyone. And not even this did the most intelligent of all men and the best protector of the commonwealth see: that in the former persecutions little was confounded and disturbed, since our doctrine had not yet reached many, but the truth still stood among a few and needed to shine forth; whereas now, when the saving word had been poured out and had come to prevail especially among us, to try to change and disturb Christian affairs was nothing else than to shake the Roman empire and endanger the whole commonwealth, and to suffer at our own hands what not even our enemies would pray for worse against us; and to overthrow this new and wonderful philosophy and kingship, by which we are happy and have returned to that golden age and polity, free from strife and war. [75] Or would a tolerably managed public post, relief of taxes, selection of officials, punishment of thefts, and the other things that belong to temporary and momentary happiness and show, have brought great benefit to the commonwealth, so that our ears had to be filled with their praises; while peoples and cities in faction, families torn apart, households divided, and marriages split, all of which were likely to follow that evil, and indeed followed it in full measure, were the things best suited to his good repute and to the safety of the commonwealth? Yet who is so inclined to impiety, or so far outside common reasoning, as to agree to this? For just as in bodies, when one or two members are weak, the rest bear up without difficulty, and the good of health is preserved in the greater part, by which perhaps those members too may return to a better state; but when the greater part is in revolt and in bitter condition, there is no way for the whole not to be ill, and such a state is already a clear danger: so also among subjects, the sicknesses of individuals tend to be hidden by the commonwealth, which is in better health, but when the greater number are unsound, the whole is in danger. This, it seems to me, anyone else would have seen, even of those who hate us most, at the present time and with so great a growth of the Christians; but his wickedness darkened his reasonings, and for this reason he weaves his persecution out of small and great things alike. [76] That was very boyish and frivolous, unworthy not only of an emperor but of anyone even moderately steady of mind: that, thinking our disposition would follow a change of name, or that he would at least shame us as though we were charged with something most shameful, he at once made an innovation in our name, calling us Galileans instead of Christians and legislating that we be so called; showing by his act that the name of Christ is the greatest for glory and the most precious, since he planned to deprive us of it; or else he feared the power of the name, as the demons do, and for this reason passed over to another name, one neither customary nor familiar. [77] But we will not change their names for them; for there is nothing we could change them into more ridiculous than their phalli and ithyphalli, their Black-bottoms and No-bottoms, and the goat-foot, and the august Pan, the one god sprung from all the suitors, who took his name from the outrage, as was fitting. For among them either one, and the strongest, must outrage many, or one, and the most shameful, must come from many. We will not begrudge them either the things or the names; let them enjoy their own simplicity and pride themselves on what is most shameful; and if they wish, we will leave them the Ox-feaster too, and the Three-nights’ one, to gratify them the more: who was both begotten in that way and begot magnificently, and made the fifty daughters of Thestius his thirteenth labour in one night, so as to be named a god from these. For if one wished to make such innovations, there are many names for him from his own deeds, at once more shameful and more fitting for Christians to use. What would prevent us too, playing back on equal terms at the emperor (of the Romans and of the world, as he thought, deceived by the demons), from calling him Idolian, and Pisaean, and Adonaean, and Bull-burner (as some of our wits have already named him, since the thing is very easy), and whatever else history gives us to make up, or to make from the truth? [78] But most absurd of all: the Saviour and Master of all, the maker and governor of this universe, the Son and Word of the great Father, the mediator and high priest and sharer of his throne, who for us, who had dishonoured his image and been carried down to the dust and did not know the great mystery of the union, not only came down to the form of a servant but also went up on the cross and gathered up my sin to put it to death; he, when he was called a Samaritan and, what is much worse, accused of having a demon, was neither ashamed nor brought a charge against those who insulted him, though it was easy for him to repel the wicked with angelic armies or by a word alone; but he very gently and meekly sent away those who insulted him and shed tears for those who crucified him: and we are supposed to be pained at being so called, or ashamed, or to give up our ambition for the good on that account, and to make more of these insults than of our souls and bodies, which we know how to despise for the truth! But this, as I said, is ridiculous rather than painful, and we send it off to the stage; we would never outdo those who there easily make such jokes at the expense of the Maiden and are made the jest. [79] But this was very wicked and malicious: that, unable to persuade openly, and ashamed to use force tyrannically, hiding the fox in the lion’s skin, or, if you like, the most unjust of men (how shall I say it properly?) under the mask of Minos, he used force with a show of gentleness. The rest I will leave to those who wish to record and write history, since my discourse is hastening on; and I think many will be eager to write the tragedy (or should one call it a comedy?) of that time, who will think it a part of piety to pelt the wretch with words, so that so great a matter, least worthy of being forgotten, may be handed down to those who come after; but I myself will tell one or two things instead of all, as a sample, for those who greatly admire his doings, so that they may know that they think fit to praise one whom it is not possible to find worthy even of blame. … thrown out or killed … for they love not only the truths of the things they pride themselves on, but also … [81] And he, what does he contrive, and what snare does he set for the firmer among the Christians? Like those who mix poisons with food, he contrives to mix impiety with the customary honours paid to the emperors, and to rank the laws of the Romans and the worship of idols together; and for this reason he had the demons painted alongside his portraits, as though they were some of the customary depictions, and set out the images to peoples and cities, and especially to the governors of the provinces, so that it would be impossible for some evil not to be incurred: either the honour of the idols would be carried along with the honour of the emperors, or by refusing the idols the emperors would be insulted, since the worship was mixed. This trick, this snare of impiety sophistically devised, a few of the more pious and intelligent escaped, and they even paid the penalty for their intelligence: the pretext was that they had broken the law against the emperor’s honour, but in truth they faced danger for the true King and for piety. But many of the simpler and more guileless were caught, for whom perhaps there is pardon for their ignorance, since they were carried off by craft into impiety. Such, then, was this, which alone would suffice to expose the emperor’s intention; for we do not suppose that the same things befit emperors and private persons, since the two are not of the same dignity. To a private person we might grant that he act by craft (for since open force is not possible for him, his contrivance is pardonable); but for an emperor, since it is very shameful to be overcome by force, it is more shameful, I think, and more unbecoming, to steal by craft. [82] Another thing, which comes from the same mind and intention but is much worse in its extent and more impious, since the evil reached more people, I will add to what has been said. It was the day of the imperial bounty, whether an annual one or one devised by the emperor for his mischief, and the soldiers had to be present to be honoured, each according to his rank or station. Again the stage of meanness, again the drama of impiety: inhumanity was drugged with a show of kindness, and the unreason of soldiers, together with the greed with which they mostly live, was enticed with money. He then sat in state, celebrating splendidly against piety and priding himself on his tricks, a Melampus, I think, or a Proteus, being and becoming everything and easily changing his shapes; and what was around him, and how worthy of lamentation for those of right mind, not only for those then present but also for those who now receive that spectacle by hearing! [83] Gold lay before them, incense lay before them, the fire was near, the officers close at hand; and the arrangement was plausible: this seemed to be the custom of the imperial bounty, an old and honoured one. Then what? One had to burn incense upon the fire and receive from the emperor the wages of destruction, so small a price for so great a thing: whole souls, and impiety toward God. Alas for the transaction! Alas for the exchange! A whole army bought by a single trick; those who had subdued the world fell before a little fire and gold and smoke, most of them not even knowing their own slaughter: this was the most grievous thing. One came forward as though to make a profit, and lost himself along with the gain; he kissed the emperor’s right hand, and did not know that he was kissing his murderer. For those who did know there was nothing more to be done, once they had been seized by the evil, and considered their first folly an unbreakable law. What myriads of Persians achieved this, what archers, what slingers, what soldier clad in iron and invulnerable everywhere, what engines against the walls? … one hand, one moment, and one foul counsel accomplished … over the cold drink, looking upward with the seal. When one of their fellow diners marvelled and said, “What is this? Do you call on Christ after the denial?” “How have we denied him?” said the half-dead men, “and what is this new thing?” And when he said, “Because you burned incense upon the fire,” and explained that this was the denial, at once they leapt up from the banquet like madmen and frenzied, boiling with zeal and anger, and ran through the market place, shouting and saying: “Christians, we are Christians in our souls! Let every man hear, and before all God, for whom we live and for whom we shall die. We have not lied to you, Saviour Christ; we have not denied the blessed confession. If our hand stumbled, our mind did not follow. We were tricked by the emperor; we were not wounded by the gold. We strip off the impiety; we are cleansed with blood.” Then, running to the emperor and throwing the gold down before him very boldly, they cried: “We have not received gifts, O emperor, but we have been condemned to death; we were not called to honour, but sentenced to dishonour. Grant your soldiers a favour: slaughter us for Christ, by whom alone we are ruled; give fire in return for that fire; make ashes in place of those ashes. Cut off the hands that we wickedly stretched out, the feet with which we wickedly ran. Honour others with the gold, who will not repent of taking it; for us Christ suffices, whom we hold in place of all things.” At the same time as they said this they urged the others to recognize the deception, to sober up from the drunkenness, and to make their defence to Christ with blood. At this the emperor, angered, avoided killing them openly, so as not to make martyrs of those who, as far as it lay with them, were martyrs; but he handed them over to exile, and so took his vengeance, and conferred on them the greatest benefit: to stand far away from his pollutions and his tricks. [85] Although he had such an impulse, and used his malice for many things, yet (for the man’s mind had no firmness, nor did it belong more to his own reasonings than to the rush of the demon) he did not keep his resolve to the end, nor preserve the secret of his wickedness. But as they say that the fire of Etna is hidden in the depths of Etna, welling up from below and held down by force (whether it is something else, or the gasping of a giant being punished), and for a time it rumbles fearfully and belches smoke from the summit as a sign of the evil, but if ever it grows too much and becomes hard to restrain, it is thrown up from its own bosom, rises, and pours over the craters, and sometimes destroys part of the land below with an incredible and fearful stream: so one can find him too, for a while mastering himself and his sophistic doctrine, and harming our affairs by deceit; but if ever his uncontrolled anger boiled over, he could not hide his malice, but used open persecution against our divine and pious community. [86] … and these things were done with one of the imperial philosophers as general, who was named from these deeds alone? Who does not know the riot of the people of Heliopolis? Who does not know the madness of the people of Gaza, who were admired and honoured by him because they rightly perceived his magnificence? Who does not know the frenzy of the Arethusians, until then unknown, but from that time very well known? For not only a right deed makes people famous, but also vice, when it outdoes the renown of the wicked. [87] For some are said (I must mention one thing out of many, worthy of a shudder even from the godless) to have brought pure virgins, above the world and almost untouched even by the eyes of men, out into public, and to have stripped them of their clothing, so as first to outrage them by the sight; and then, having cut them open and divided them (O Christ, how shall I bear your long-suffering at that time?), some of them feasted wickedly with their own teeth, worthily of their own misery, gorging themselves on the raw livers, and after that food took another, the common and customary one; while others, scattering pigs’ food over the still-quivering entrails and letting loose the fiercer of the pigs, made that theatre see flesh devoured and torn together with barley, a mixed food, then first seen and heard of, with which only the author of these things deserved to feed his demons; as indeed he fed them well from that blood and from the wound that he received in his own entrails, even if the wretches are insensible to such things and, because of their impiety, have not even understanding. [88] As for the affair of the admirable Mark and the Arethusians, who is so far outside our world as not to know it, and not to anticipate in the telling the one who mentions it? Under Constantius the great, by the licence then given to Christians, he had pulled down a dwelling of demons, and had brought many over from the Greek error to salvation, not less by the brightness of his life than by the power of his word; and for a long time he had been an object of anger to the Arethusians, or rather to the demon-loving among the Arethusians. When affairs turned against the Christians and those of the Greeks began to flare up, he did not escape the power of the time. For peoples tend, even if for the present they restrain their anger, like fire smouldering in timber or a stream held back by force, to be kindled and to break out if they get an opportunity. Seeing, then, the movement of the people against him, since they thought and threatened nothing moderate, at first he planned flight, not from cowardice so much as because of the commandment that bids us flee from city to city and give way to persecutors; for Christians must not consider only their own interests, even if they are very brave and enduring, but must also spare the persecutors, so as, so far as it lies with them, to contribute nothing to their enemies’ danger. But when he perceived that many were being dragged and led off because of him, and many were running for their lives because of the cruelty of the persecutors, he could not bear to overlook others in danger for the sake of his own safety; and for this reason he took a most excellent and philosophical counsel: he returns from his flight, gives himself up to the people to do with him whatever they wished, and sets himself against the hardship of the times. Then what dreadful thing was absent? What heavier thing was not devised? Each contributed something to the harmony of a single evil; those who pressed upon him did not respect even the man’s philosophy, if nothing else, but were rather the more angry on this account, because they thought the man’s presence a contempt of them rather than courage in the face of dangers. [89] An old priest was led, a voluntary athlete, through the middle of the city, venerable in age, more venerable in his way of life, to all except the persecutors and tyrants; and he was led by every age and condition, not by some and not by others, but by all alike, men, women, young, old, those who administered the city and those in office. There was a contest among all to outdo one another in insolence toward the old man; and it was thought by all a part of piety to do him as much evil as possible and to conquer an old athlete contending against the whole city. He was dragged through the streets, thrust into sewers, pulled by the hair and by every part of the body there is, with insult mixed with torture, at the hands of those who deserve to be punished thus in the rites of Mithras; he was tossed in the air from boys to boys, who caught the noble body on their styluses and made the tragedy a game; his legs were crushed in presses down to the very bones; his ears were cut through with threads, the strongest and thinnest; raised aloft in a basket, smeared with honey and fish sauce, he was stung by wasps and bees at midday, while the sun blazed fiercely, melting his flesh and making the more eager for those creatures the eating of that blessed flesh (for I would not call it wretched). Then it is said (let this too be thought worthy of writing) that the old man, young for the contests (for he did not lose his cheerfulness even in terrible things, but even revelled in the tortures), uttered that saying which is remembered and celebrated: that he welcomed the omen, seeing himself on high and them low and lying beneath; so far did he rise above those who held power, and so far was he from the pains, as if he were present at another man’s danger, and making the thing a procession rather than a calamity. [90] Yet who of those even moderately decent and humane would not have respected these things? But the time did not allow them, nor did the emperor’s impulse, which demanded inhumanity from peoples and cities and officials, even if it did not seem so to the many who did not know the depth of his malice. Such were the doings of the steadfast old man. And for what? That he might not give a single gold coin to the torturers; by which it was clear that he endured for piety. For as long as, having assessed the temple at a very heavy price, they demanded the whole sum in gold, or ordered him to rebuild the temple himself, it seemed that the impossibility of the order, rather than the piety of his soul, caused his resistance; but when, conquering them little by little by his endurance and always reducing something of the assessment, he finally brought it to this, that what was asked was quite small and very easy to pay, and the contest was equal, for them to win by taking anything at all, for him not to be overcome by paying nothing at all (though many were eager to contribute even more, not only for piety’s sake but also because of the man’s being uncapturable and unconquered), then it was clearly shown that he made the contest not about money but about piety. [91] Are these, then, marks of decency and gentleness, or, on the contrary, of rashness and inhumanity? Let those who admire the philosopher-emperor tell us. I think no one at all is at a loss for the just and true answer. And I add that of those who saved the accursed man, when his whole family was in danger, and smuggled him away by stealth, this man was one; for which alone, perhaps, he justly suffered these things, and deserved to suffer still more, because without knowing it he saved so great an evil for the whole world. They say, indeed, that for this reason the prefect of that time too (a man Greek in religion but above a Greek in character, like the best of those praised of old and now), unable to bear the varied tortures and the endurance of the man, said this to the emperor with frankness: “Are we not ashamed, O emperor, to be so far defeated by all the Christians that we cannot master even one old man who has gone through every torture? And to master him is no great thing; but how is it not the last misfortune to come away defeated?” And so, it seems, prefects were ashamed of the very things in which emperors prided themselves. What could be more wretched for the doers than these things, or for the sufferers? Such, then, were the affairs of the Arethusians, so that the inhumanity of Echetus and Phalaris is small compared with their cruelty, or rather with the cruelty of the one who persuaded and arranged these things; if indeed the shoots belong to the seed, and the shipwrecks to the wind. [92] And the rest, of what kind and how many? Who would give me the leisure and tongue of Herodotus and Thucydides, so that I might hand down the man’s wickedness to future time also, and the narratives of that time might be inscribed for those who come after? I will pass over the Orontes and the corpses by night which this river hid for the emperor, “crowded with corpses” and killing secretly (for here it is more fitting to quote the epic). I will pass over too the innermost and most remote parts of the palace, and all that was in pits and wells and ditches, full of evil treasures and mysteries: not only of boys and virgins cut open for necromancy and divination and unlawful sacrifices, but also of those who faced danger for piety. Let us concede these things, if you like, since he too was ashamed of them, doing at least this much with moderation; for it is clear from his attempt to hide them that the pollution was not seemly to be made public. As for the affairs of our Caesareans, those great-natured men, hot in piety, who were so harried and insulted by him, perhaps they are not worth reproaching him for; for he seemed, being justly angry on behalf of Fortune, whose temple met misfortune in the time of good fortune, to have proceeded to this retaliation; since one must make some concession even to injustice in power. [93] But who does not know that, when a certain people raged against the Christians, committing much murder and threatening more, the governor of the province, who steered a middle course between the times and the laws (for he thought he must serve the one, and was moderately ashamed before the others), and for this reason arrested many Christians but rebuked a few of the Greeks, was then brought up to the emperor on an accusation, tried dishonoured and seized on these charges; and when he put forward the laws according to which he had been entrusted to judge, was almost led away to death, but at last, obtaining kindness, was condemned to exile? And how wonderful and kind the sentence! “For what great matter is it,” says the just judge, “even for one who does not persecute Christians, if one Greek hand has done away with ten Galileans?” Is this not open cruelty? Is this not a proclamation of persecution, and much more manifest and fearful than those set out publicly? For what difference is there between proclaiming danger to Christians and appearing pleased with the persecutors of Christians and making moderation a great crime? For the will of an emperor is an unwritten law, backed by power, and much stronger than written laws that are not supported by force. [94] “No,” say those who revere his doings and fashion a new god for us, the sweet and kind one, “he did not decree publicly: Let the Christians be persecuted and suffer everything the persecutors please”; and so they acquit him of the charge of persecuting. But no one ever called the hydra gentle because it put forth nine heads instead of one, if the myth is to be believed; nor the Chimaera of Patara, because it had three, and unlike, so as to be more fearful; nor Cerberus in Hades, because his were so many and alike; nor the sea monster Scylla, because hers were six around her and most to be fled; and yet, they say, her upper parts were kind and humane and not unpleasant to see, for she was a maiden with something akin to us, but the dog-shaped and bestial heads that grew from her were of no good, snatching whole fleets and no different in danger from Charybdis opposite. Or will you blame the arrows and stones of archers and slingers, and not the slingers and archers? Or the dogs of hunters, the poisons of poisoners, the horns and claws of beasts that gore and tear, while those who use them stand outside and share no blame for what they dare? These things are full of unreason and truly need a sophist, pleading for his own evils and covering up the truth by the power of speech. But there is no way he will hide himself, not even if he twists much and becomes all sorts in his devices, not even if, putting on the cap of Hades, as the saying is, or using the ring of Gyges and the turn of its bezel, he steals himself away. On the contrary, the more he tries to flee and escape, the more he is caught by the truth, which judges him, and by judges more intelligent than these men, as doing and daring things which he himself could not defend as justly done. So easy to catch is wickedness, ensnaring itself on every side. [95] And it was not that what he was already doing was such, and so far from imperial nobility and magnificence, while what he intended to do was milder and more royal. That would have been worth much, if it were not far more inhuman than what has been said. For just as with the scales of a dragon in motion, some are already bristling, others are beginning to bristle, others are about to, and others cannot fail to be moved, though for the moment they are at rest; or, if you like, as with a thunderbolt, some things are already seized and others are blackened beforehand, until it reaches them too, as the evil prevails: so with him, some things were already being done against the law, and others were sketched out in his hopes and his threats against us; and these so outlandish and so far from what was customary, that it belonged to his mind alone to plan them and to wish to bring them into action, though there had been many persecutors and enemies of Christians before him. For what neither Diocletian, the first to outrage the Christians, nor Maximian, who succeeded and surpassed him, ever thought of, nor Maximinus, the persecutor after them and beyond them (whose images, still set up in public, bear the marks of the blow that struck him for this, and pillory the outrage done to his body), these things he intended, as those who shared and witnessed his secrets say; but he was held back by the love of God for mankind and by the tears of Christians, which were shed in abundance and by many, since they had this as their only remedy against the persecutor. These were his plans: that Christians should be deprived of all freedom of speech, and shut out of all assemblies, markets, festivals, and the law courts themselves; for no one was to be allowed to use these who did not burn incense on the altars set before them, and so pay a great price for so great a thing. O laws and lawgivers and emperors, who, as the beauty of heaven, the light of the sun, and the outpouring of the air are set before all, a common and ungrudging kindness, so have set the sharing of the laws before all free men, equal and of equal honour! Of this he intended to deprive the Christians: so that it should not be lawful for them, when tyrannized, to obtain justice, nor when fined in money, nor when suffering any other forbidden thing, small or great, to be helped by the laws; but that they should be outlaws, and be killed, and be all but barred from the very air … which for the sufferers would have brought more honour and boldness toward God, but for the doers greater lawlessness and disgrace. [97] And how all-wise was the reasoning against our doctrine of the murderer and protector, the lawbreaker and lawgiver, or, to speak more properly, the enemy and avenger! For it is the law of our religion, he says, neither to retaliate, nor to go to law, nor to possess anything at all, nor to consider anything one’s own, but to live elsewhere and despise present things as though they did not exist; not to return evil for evil (it is not even allowed); nor, when struck on the cheek, to spare the other, but to offer it too to the one who strikes, and to strip off the tunic as well as the cloak. He will perhaps add that we must also pray for those who wrong us and wish the best for those who persecute us. And why should he not know these things accurately, he who was once a reader of the divine oracles, and was thought worthy of the honour of the great bema, and honoured the martyrs with shrines and sacred precincts? [98] At this I marvel first: how he studied these things accurately but did not read, or willingly passed over, this: that “the wicked shall perish wickedly,” everyone who has denied the divine, and, what is greater, who drives out those who abide in the confession and throws around them such evils as he himself deserved to fall into. If, then, as he lays down the law that we are such and must abide by our precepts, he can show that the worst has been enjoined on him too, or that this is honourable among his gods, and that, the habits being divided into these two, virtue, I mean, and vice, the better portion has been allotted to us and the worse thrown to them: let him say this, and so we shall win with our enemies and the persecutors of our cause as witnesses. But if they too lay claim to some nobility and gentleness, in word at least if not in deeds, and are not so shameless, however wicked they are and however much they delight in wicked gods, as to claim that vice belongs to them like some special inheritance, let them show how or where it is just that we should endure when we suffer, while they do not spare even those who spare them. For consider it this way: of the times when power has been ours, and when it has been yours, these going round and changing now one way and now another, what such thing ever happened to your people from Christians, as has often happened to Christians from you? Of what freedom of speech did we deprive you? Against whom did we stir up boiling crowds? Against whom governors who did more than they were ordered? On whom did we bring danger of life? Or rather, whom did we drive from offices and from the other honours that are owed to the best? And, to sum up, on whom did we bring any such thing as the many things that were dared or threatened by you? Not even you yourselves would say so, who charge us with gentleness and kindness. [99] Then how do you not reckon this, O wisest and most intelligent of all, you who would confine Christians to the summit of virtue: that of our legislation some things are binding on those to whom they are commanded, and there is danger for those who do not keep them; while others are not binding but a matter of choice, which bring honour and reward to those who keep them, but no danger at all to those who do not? For if it were possible for all to be most excellent and to reach the summit of virtue, that would be the best and most perfect thing; but since divine things are separate from human, and some have a share in every good thing, while for others it is much if they reach the middle, what do you mean by legislating for us things that are not for all, or that those who do not keep them are condemned? For just as whoever does not deserve punishment does not by that alone deserve public proclamation, so whoever does not deserve proclamation does not by that alone deserve punishment; but one must stay within the bounds of our philosophy and of human power, and so require what is to be achieved. … letters; for I cannot bear not to return to this often, and I must try to plead for them as far as I can. For though there are many terrible things for which that man deserves to be hated, there is nothing in which he appears to have acted more lawlessly than in this. And let everyone share my indignation who delights in letters and is devoted to this pursuit, as I myself will not deny that I am. For the other things I have left to those who want them, wealth, noble birth, fame, power, which belong to the round of things below and to dreamlike pleasure; but I cling to letters alone, and do not blame the toils by land and sea that procured them for me. May the power of letters be mine, and that of anyone who is my friend: letters, which I embraced and still embrace first after the first, I mean after divine things and the hopes beyond what is seen. So that if what is one’s own presses on everyone, as Pindar says, it is necessary for me to speak about these; and it is just, more than I know of in anything else, to repay letters with letters for the gift of letters. [101] Whence, then, did this occur to you, most frivolous and insatiable of all, to deprive Christians of letters? For this was not among his threats, but among the things already made law. Whence, and from what cause? What eloquent Hermes, as you would say, put this into your mind? What wicked Telchines and envious demons? If you like, we ourselves will give the cause of this too. You had to, attempting many lawless evils, be led at last into this, and plainly fall into your own trap, so that in the very thing in which you thought you most needed to be wise, you might unwittingly disgrace yourself most and be condemned for unreason. For answer: what does your decree mean? What is the reason for the innovation concerning letters? If you seem to say anything just, we shall be grieved, but we shall not blame you; for as we have learned to conquer with reason, so also to be conquered well. [102] “Ours,” he says, “are letters and Hellenizing, to which also belongs worshipping the gods; yours are unreason and boorishness, and your whole wisdom is nothing beyond: Believe!” Well, I think that those among you who philosophize in the doctrines of Pythagoras would not laugh at this, for whom “He himself said it” is the first and greatest of doctrines, and preferable to the Golden (or rather leaden) Verses. For after the first and much-celebrated philosophy of silence for those initiated into his doctrines, so that by keeping silent they might be trained in the measures of speech, it was lawful, he says, for those asked about any of the doctrines and then stating it, when a reason was demanded, to answer nothing else but that this had been the view of Pythagoras; and what had seemed right to him was the reason for the doctrine, unaccountable and unexamined; so that “He himself said it” comes to the same thing as our “Believe,” in other syllables and words, even if you do not stop mocking and disparaging it. For our doctrine means that it is not permitted to disbelieve what was spoken by God-inspired men, but that their trustworthiness is the proof of the doctrine, stronger than any power of argument and counter-argument. [103] But let this be one of our points that is easy to insult. How will you show that letters belong to you? And if they are yours, how do we have no share in them, according to your legislation and your unreason? For of what Hellenizing are letters, and in what sense is it said and understood? Let me distinguish for you the force of the name, since you are an expert in homonyms and their meanings, different things under one name, or the same things under different names, or different things under different names: you will say that it belongs either to the religion or, clearly, to the nation and to those who first invented the power of the language. If to the religion, show where and among which of the priests Hellenizing is prescribed, as sacrificing is for some, and to some of the demons; for neither are the same things for all, nor all things for one, nor in the same manner, as your hierophants and the experts in sacrifice think. Where, as among the Lindians, is it pious to curse the Ox-feaster, and are insults against him the god’s honour? Or, as among the Taurians, to slay strangers, or among the Spartans to be flayed at the altar, or among the Phrygians to be castrated while charmed by flutes and unmanned …, or for some to practise pederasty and for others fornication, or whatever else belongs to the other mysteries (not to name them one by one), and in this way is Hellenizing set apart for one of the gods or demons? And even if this were so, it is not yet clear that it is Greek, or that this common thing was assigned to one of your gods or demons, as it has been laid down that many other common things be offered in sacrifice. [104] But if you do not say this, but claim the language as yours, and for this reason put us far from it as from an ancestral inheritance in which we have no share, first I do not see what the reason is, or how you will attach this to the demons. For if it happens that the same people Hellenize in language and in religion, it does not follow that letters belong to the religion, and that we should for this reason reasonably be written out of them; this seems unsyllogistic even to your own logicians: for if two things concern the same subject, it does not follow that they are the same as each other; so, if we suppose the same man to be a goldsmith and a painter, goldsmithing will not turn into painting, nor painting into goldsmithing. Such things are full of nonsense. [105] Then I will ask you, you lover of the Greeks and of letters: will you bar us from all Hellenizing, including these middling and prosaic words and the usage of the many, or only from the elegant and surpassing kind, as belonging to none but those who excel in education? If from this, what is the principle of the allotment, that smerdaleon and konabizein and mōn and dēpouthen and hatta and amōsgepōs belong to the dialect alone, while the rest is thrown out into Cynosarges, like bastards of old? But if what is cheap and unadorned in speech belongs equally to Hellenizing, why do you not deprive us of this too, and simply of every Greek sound, whatever it is and however it happens to be? That would have been kinder of you, and more complete in your lack of culture. [106] For it is like this (to philosophize to you about these matters more loftily and more completely): whether there are divine voices, proceeding from vocal organs, poured through the air and flowing into ears, better and more significant than ours (for I laugh at your solemn Moly and Xanthus and Chalcis), or whether divine beings communicate with one another through naked thoughts and impressions, it is not for us to say; but our case is this. A language belongs not only to those who invented it but to all who share in it; and so does any art or pursuit you may wish to consider. As in an artful and musical harmony one sound belongs to one string, tightened or loosened, and another to another, but all belong to the one tuner and artist, and tend to one beauty of harmony; so in these things the artist and maker, the Word, set over one pursuit or art one inventor and over another another, but set all out in common for all who wish, binding our life together by fellowship and kindness and making it gentler. … Is Atticizing yours? And draughts, and counting, and reckoning on the fingers, measures and weights, and before these, tactics and warfare, whose are they? Are they not the Euboeans’, if indeed Palamedes was a Euboean, the inventor of many things, and for this reason envied, and indeed made to pay the penalty for his wisdom and condemned by those who campaigned against Ilium? What then? If Egyptians and Phoenicians and Hebrews, whom we make use of for our education, and those who hold the island of Euboea, were to claim these as belonging to them, on your premises, what shall we do? What plea shall we make against them, caught by our own laws? Must we be deprived of them all and suffer the jackdaw’s fate, stripped naked of our borrowed feathers? And whence do you have initiation, and being initiated, and religious worship? Is it not from the Thracians, as the very name may persuade you? And sacrificing, is it not from the Chaldaeans, or the Cypriots? Astronomy, is it not Babylonian? Geometry, not Egyptian? Magic, not Persian? Divination by dreams, whose do you hear it to be but the Telmessians’? Augury, whose but the Phrygians’, who first studied the flight and movements of birds? And, not to be long, whence did you get each of these? Was it not one from each people, all of which came together and formed one mystery of superstition? What then? Shall we accept that, when everything goes back to its first owners and inventors, we have nothing of our own except vice and this innovation concerning the divine? For you were the first of the Christians to devise an insurrection against the Master, as the slaves once did against the Scythians, as they say. It would indeed have been worth much if this wicked association had been dissolved for you, according to your rules and laws, so that we might be rid of troubles, and it might be possible to see the Roman empire again in its ancient happiness, rid of all civil strife, which is far more to be shunned and feared than war from outside, as much as consuming one’s own flesh is more to be shunned than consuming another’s. [107] But if these things seem to you to belong to a wickedness clothed in poison and far from imperial magnificence, come, I will set before you things still more to your advantage. For seeing that our doctrine is great in its teachings and in its testimonies from above, the same at once old and new, old in its prophecies and in the movements of the Godhead flashing through them, new in the final manifestation of God and in the wonders that came from it and around it, and still better known through the patterns of the church that have been handed down and kept until now, so that not even this might remain unspoiled, what does he contrive and do? He imitates Rabshakeh the Assyrian, who was general for the king of the Assyrians, Sennacherib. He, campaigning against Judaea and besieging Jerusalem with great force and power, and sitting down before the city, since he could neither take the city by force nor was anything inside betrayed to him by traitors, tried to win over the city by gentle words in its own tongue. Perceiving this, the besieged are said first to have refused it, bidding him speak to them in Syrian and not in Hebrew, lest they be stolen into slavery by the gentleness of the speech. [111] Having thought of this, he too was ready to establish schools in every city, with platforms and seats of honour and lower seats, and readings and expositions of Greek doctrines, both those that regulate character and those of the hidden kind; a form of prayers sung in turn, and a measure of rebuke for those who sin; something of preliminary rites and of initiation, and whatever else clearly belongs to our good order; and further to build lodgings and hostels, houses of chastity and houses for virgins and places of meditation, and to practise kindness to the needy, both in other ways and through letters of commendation, by which we send on the needy from nation to nation: the things of ours that he most admired. [112] These things the new dogmatist and sophist intended; but that the man’s undertaking was not accomplished nor came to action, I do not know whether it was a gain for us, who were the sooner rid of him and his schemes, or for him, who advanced no further than dreaming; for it would have been shown which are the movements of men and which the imitations of apes. For apes too are said to imitate some of the lures men set out with evil skill, and by these they are caught; for their imitation cannot reach as far as our wise man’s. For a Thessalian mare, a Spartan woman, and the men who drink of Arethusa (I mean the Sicilians, as the oracle about them says) do not have the choicest qualities of their kind more than such customs and laws are among the things most fitting for Christians, and such as would not be emulated by any of those who wish to follow us; since such things have prevailed not by human devices so much as by divine power and the firmness of time. … for it is not possible … wisely brought up; but for them, I do not know which will seem more ridiculous and weaker, since they do not have the strength of their system from divine inspiration, like roots that float on water and have no firm hold. And let us too cast into the theatre a few things from their own theology, and play along with them, as in many of the dramas; and to rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, let there be added putting up with talking nonsense along with those who talk nonsense; poets too know of laughter in tears. [114] Let the theatre be well prepared, or whatever they will bid us call their building; let the heralds cry out; let the people assemble; let the front seats be held either by those eminent in grey hairs and age and in the choice of their way of life, or by those conspicuous in family and fame and in the wisdom woven here below, which has more of what is pleasant than of true piety; we shall leave this to them. What will … do? Let them themselves write down their own presidents. Purple will adorn them, and the fillet, and the flower and beauty of crowns; since I know that in many things they are eager for what is august and above the private person, as though what is common and plain had something despicable, while what is exaggerated and hard to reach had something credible. Or will they here too come down to our level, thinking that loftiness in character rather than in costume befits them, as we do? For to us what is visible and painted is of small account; our greater concern is with the inner man, and with drawing the spectator over to what is intelligible, and with this we rather educate the many. [115] So much for this; what next? You will furnish them, of course, with interpreters of God-inspired oracles, as you would say, and unroll books of theology and ethics. Which books, tell me, and whose? Is it fine to sing to them Hesiod’s Theogony and the wars and tumults there, the Titans, the Giants, with their fearful names and deeds: Cottus, Briareus, Gyges, Enceladus, your dragon-footed ones, the thunderbolt-bearing gods, the islands hurled at them, arrows and tombs at once for those they hit; their bitter offspring and productions, Hydras, Chimaeras, Cerberuses, Gorgons, an emulation of every evil? Let these be set before the ears from among the fine things of Hesiod. Let Orpheus come forward with his lyre and his song that draws all things after it, and let him thunder out over Zeus the great and extraordinary words and thoughts of theology: “Zeus most glorious, greatest of gods, wrapped in dung, the dung of sheep, of horses, and of mules,” so that from this, I suppose, the life-giving and life-bearing power of the god may be shown, for it could not be done otherwise; and let him not spare his other grand language either: “So speaking, the goddess drew up her two thighs,” so as to initiate her lovers, which she still does now in images. On top of all, Phanes and Ericapaeus, and the one who swallows all the other gods and then gives them up again, so as to become “father of men and gods.” Let these things be wheeled on for the wonderful hearers of theology, and then let allegories and marvels be devised for them; and let the discourse, falling out of its subject, go off into pits and precipices of a contemplation that has no firm footing. [116] And where will you put Homer, the great writer of comedy, or rather of tragedy, about your gods? For you will find both in his wonderful poems, some things worthy of calamity and others of laughter. And truly it takes no small thought to see how Oceanus is to be reconciled to Tethys through Hera adorned like a harlot, since there is danger for the universe while they remain chaste for some time; or how the dry nature and the wet must be reconciled, lest by the excess of the one the whole be confounded; or whatever else more absurd than this you can think up. And what is that wonderful union of the cloud-gatherer and the august Hera, when she persuades him to disgrace himself at midday, even if the poets flatter him with their metres, spreading dewy lotus beneath them and making crocus and hyacinth grow from the earth? Whence these things, and what is their meaning? And how is the same Hera, according to you, the sister and consort of great Zeus, now hung in the air and the clouds, weighed down with iron anvils, and honoured with golden fetters, the white-armed and rosy-fingered, so that even for the gods who wished to beg her off their kindness was not without danger; and now drawing the whole girdle of loves to herself by her adornments for Zeus, so that he confesses that all his loves for all others fell far short of this one? And what is the fear lest, when the gods are stirred up over the Laconian adulteress and heaven sounds the trumpet, the seat of earth be broken up, the sea be displaced, the realms of Hades be made public, and the things covered for a long time come into view? What is the nod of the dark brows and the stirring of the ambrosial locks that shake all Olympus? What is Ares, wounded, or shut up in a bronze jar; the clumsy lover of golden Aphrodite, an unwary adulterer, caught by the Lame God, gathering a theatre of the gods to watch his disgrace, and let off for a small sum? [117] All these things, and more than these, so wisely and variously put together and wholly outside what is customary: who among you is so lofty and great, and truly equal to Zeus in counsel, as to bring them into seemliness by discourses of a contemplation above the clouds and beyond our measures of comprehension? And yet, if these things are true, let them not be ashamed but be proud of them, or persuade us that they are not shameful; and why must they flee to myth as a cover for their shame? For myth is the refuge not of the confident but of those who retreat. But if they are false, first let them show us their theologians without a covering, so that our discourse may be with them; then let them say how it is not foolish to pride themselves, as on strong arguments, on things of which they are ashamed as mythical; and to publish to the eyes of all, in statues and figures, things that could have escaped the notice of the many (for education is not for all), and, most terrible of all, with what expense of money, in temples and altars, shrines and offerings and sacrifices costing many talents; and, when it was possible to be pious without loss, to choose to be impious with loss? [118] But if they say that these are the fictions and nonsense of poets, who use two things for the pleasure of poetry, metre and myth, and as it were sweeten the hearing with them, while the meaning stored up in them is for themselves more secret and deeper and passable only to a few of the wiser, consider how simply and justly I will discuss these things. First, how do they praise those who insult the gods they worship, and deem them worthy of almost godlike honours, men for whom it would have been gain enough not to pay the penalty for their impiety? For if for those who blasphemed one of their gods in private and slightly there was death or penalty from the laws, what should those have suffered who let loose their poetry against all together, publicly, and in the most shameful things, and handed down the comedy for so long a time? Then this too is worth reckoning: there are among us too some discourses in concealment, I will not deny it; but what is the manner of their double sense, and what its force? It is not that what is visible is unseemly, while what is hidden is wonderful and very brilliant to those led into the depth; but like a fair body that is not to be approached, it is veiled, and with no mean garment. For it is necessary, as it seems to me at least, that the indications and reflections of divine things should not be unseemly and unworthy of what they show, nor such that even men would be annoyed if they were said about them; but they must either have what is altogether most beautiful, or at least not what is most shameful, so that the one may gladden the wiser and the other may not harm the many. But their contemplative region is such, and so far from their subjects, that it would be easier to bring together things far apart than to combine and fit these together and say that they belong to the same man: the mythologies, I mean, and their aims. [120] And what would you say about their ethical part? Whence, and starting from what, and using what words, will they be able to mould their hearers to virtue and make them most worthy by their exhortations? Concord is best, and that cities and peoples and households and individuals should be of one mind with one another, following the law and order of nature, which divided and united all things and made this whole universe one world out of many. By what examples will they teach this? By telling of the wars of the gods, and their factions and insurrections, and the multitude of evils which they both suffer and inflict on one another, in private and in public, with which almost all prose and poetry is filled? They would sooner make warlike men out of peaceful and frantic men out of wise by such examples than, on the contrary, moderate and temperate men out of rash and uneducated. For if even without things drawing to the worse it is hard to change from vice and move from the worse portion to the better, who could persuade these men to be gentle and restrained when they use such guides and patrons of the passions; where evil is even honoured, as having one of the gods for its patron, and its passion is honoured with altars and sacrifices and has received a lawful freedom? For this is the most terrible thing, that what is punished by the laws is revered as divine; so great is your surplus of injustice. [121] Second, let honour and respect for parents be set before them, and reverence for the first cause of our being after the First Cause; let reason introduce this and theology persuade them of it. And how will Cronus not persuade them, castrating Uranus so that he might beget no more gods, and giving it to the waves to produce a goddess, the offspring of foam; and Zeus rising up against Cronus in imitation of his father, the sweet stone and bitter tyrant-slayer; or whatever else of the kind their books offer in honour of parents. Third, let them have contempt of money, and not make profit from every source, nor take evil acquisition as the earnest of misfortune. How then will their god of gain be set up, and the purse be held out, and the thieving power of the god be honoured, and the saying that “without bronze Phoebus does not prophesy,” and that nothing is more precious than the obol? For these are their august and venerable things. [122] What else? Let them teach temperance and introduce self-control; and the persuader is near at hand: Zeus, who becomes everything for the sake of women, and the dearest eagle, lover of Phrygian boys (so that the gods might banquet most sweetly, served their wine by the darlings of Zeus); and Heracles the Three-nights’ one, contending with the fifty daughters of Thestius in one night and accomplishing this thirteenth labour, which somehow is not counted with the others. Let Ares cut short anger, Dionysus drunkenness, Artemis hatred of strangers, their oblique oracle-monger deceit, the lame god excess of laughter (he who limped about when the gods were grieved, propping himself up on his thin legs); let Zeus cut short gluttony, running to a rich feast with the blameless Ethiopians along with the other demons; and the Ox-feaster, who tyrannized the farmer and gobbled up the ploughing ox and took his name from the deed; and all of them running after the savour of sacrifices and libations. [123] And how are these things near ours, for whom the rule of friendship is each person himself, and to wish the same things for one’s neighbours as for oneself; for whom a crime is not only to have done evil but almost even to have intended it, anger being punished as if it were an act; for whom temperance is so pursued that even the eye is restrained, and the murderous hand is kept so far away that even anger is chastened; and swearing falsely is so terrible and monstrous that even the oath is forbidden to us alone? As for money, many never had any; and many would gladly have had more for this reason alone, that they might despise more, philosophizing that having nothing is better than all wealth; and having thrown off the belly as a bitter and detestable mistress and the mother of all evils, it is little to say that they hardly allow themselves to be flesh, spending the mortal on the immortal; and they have one law of virtue, not to be overcome even by small things, and … in all things overlooked. For the finest thing is that, while others punish the ends according to the laws, we punish even the beginnings, checking from afar, as it were, a wicked stream that is hard to hold back. [124] Where, and among what men, tell me, is it the rule to bless when reviled, to entreat when blasphemed, as being harmed not by slander so much as by truth; to give way when persecuted; when stripped, to strip off still more; when cursed, to pray for those who curse; in a word, to conquer rashness by kindness, and to make better those who wrong us, by our endurance? And yet, even if we grant that they punish vice by the exhortations of their fictions, how can they reach the measures of our virtue and education, for whom even not to advance in the good, and not always to become new instead of old, but to stay in the same place, seems vice? It is the experience of tops, which spin round but do not advance, and move while standing still, so to speak, under the force of the whip. And we must have accomplished some good things, hold on to others, and aim at others, until the end and deification, for which we were made and toward which we hasten, those of us who have minds able to cross over and who hope for something worthy of God’s greatness of mind.

The just diseases of the ungodly, the ruptures that were not hidden, and the many other blows and scourges like the deeds they dared; the deaths that did not come in the usual way, the confessions in the midst of their sufferings and the useless repentances, the warnings through dreams and the apparitions while awake: who could worthily tell these in the style of tragedy? And all that befell those who acted lawlessly toward the divine houses, or outraged the holy tables, or raged against the mystic chalices, or glutted themselves without restraint on our bodies, or ran riot in all the other things they dared: clear and manifest signs of God’s wrath against such men? These things I will willingly pass over, not because I disbelieve what is seen and told, nor because I attribute what happens to some spontaneous movement and chance, like those who suppose such things happen at random, but so as not to seem to dwell on small things while passing over the greater and more famous. So I come to tell the wonder that is famous among all and is disbelieved not even by the godless themselves. … raged, and trampled on the holy things, and insulted the Spirit of grace; or, to speak more fittingly, Jeroboam, or Ahab the Israelite, the most lawless of men, or Pharaoh the Egyptian, or Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian; or, putting all these together, let us call him by all their names, since he appears to have gathered the vices of all into himself: Jeroboam’s apostasy, Ahab’s bloodthirstiness, Pharaoh’s hardness, Nebuchadnezzar’s sacrilege, and the impiety of them all together. When he had gone through everything else and every form of tyranny against us, and despised them as small and ignoble (for there was never a nature more resourceful than his in finding and devising evils), at last he let loose on us the race of the Jews, taking as fellow workers in his scheme their ancient fickleness and the hatred against us that had smouldered in them from of old; pretending, of course, to prophesy from their books and secret writings that the time was now laid up for them to return to their land, rebuild the temple, and renew the power of their ancestral customs, and hiding his design under a pretence of goodwill.

When he had thought of this and persuaded them (for everything that leads to pleasure is easily turned to deception), they set about rebuilding the temple, and toiled at the work with many hands and much eagerness. Indeed, those who admire their affairs say that their women not only readily stripped off all the ornaments of their bodies and contributed them to the work and to the workers, but even carried out the earth in the folds of their garments, sparing neither costly clothing nor tenderness of limb, and considering everything less than the undertaking. But when, driven together suddenly by a wild whirlwind and an earthquake, they rushed to one of the nearby sanctuaries, some to pray, others, as tends to happen in such cases, using what was at hand for help, and others simply swept along by the confusion and falling in with those who were running, there are some who say that not even the sanctuary received them, but that when they came to the doors, which had been open, they found them shut by some invisible and unseen power, which works such wonders to dismay the ungodly and to keep the godly safe. But what all now say and believe is that, as they forced and struggled at the entrance, fire came out from the sanctuary to meet them and stopped them, and burned and consumed some (so that something happened to them like the sufferings of the Sodomites, or like the wonder of Nadab and Abihu, who offered incense in a strange way and perished), and maimed others in the extremities, leaving a living monument of God’s threat and movement against sinners. So it was; and let no one disbelieve it, since no one disbelieves the other mighty works of God either. But what was still more extraordinary and conspicuous: a light stood in the sky, tracing the cross; and the figure and name that had earlier been dishonoured on earth by the godless was now shown in heaven to all alike, and became a trophy to God of his victory over the ungodly, loftier than any trophy. [6] These things came from the heavens and the things above, which shared in our sufferings according to the great harmony and kinship of the universe; let the psalm complete the rest for me: “You destroyed cities” (like those ancient ones for the same impieties), in the very midst of their lawless acts against us, some flooded by the sea and some brought down by earthquake, so that little was lacking for the rest to be fulfilled too, that “their memory perished with a noise,” with a loud and famous destruction; so great was their fall and such the ruin, even of their neighbours, especially those who most rejoiced in impiety, that much time would be needed to restore them, if anyone should even dare to do so. [7] Earth and heaven, then, were so; did the air not give a sign at such a time, and was it not hallowed then by the signs of the cross? Let those who were spectators and initiates of that wonder show even now their garments, marked at that time with the marks of the cross. For at the very moment when someone, whether one of ours or one of those outside, was telling these things or hearing them told, he saw the wonder on himself or on his neighbour, being covered with crosses like stars, or seeing the other so marked in his clothing, more varied than any woven mosaic or elaborate painting. What came of this? Such was the amazement of those who saw it that almost all, as if at one signal and with one voice, called upon the God of the Christians and propitiated him with many praises and supplications; and many, without delay, but immediately upon what happened, ran to our priests and begged earnestly to become part of the church and to be initiated into the more perfect mysteries, purified by holy baptism, and profiting through their fear.

Such were these things; but he, goaded and shaken by his madness little by little, meets the very climax of his misfortunes. For when he thought that Christian affairs were going as he intended and were already conquered, hoping that everything could be taken by him if he only wished it, and having snatched some success against the western barbarians, he takes this one most intelligent and humane counsel. Raising a double army from here, one of hoplites, the other of the demons who led him, in whom he trusted more, he marches against the Persians, relying on the unreason of rashness rather than the safety of strength; and the wisest of men could not even see that boldness and rashness, though close in name, are very far apart in force, like what we call courage and cowardice. For to be bold in what ought to be dared is courage, as to give way is cowardice; but where the danger is greater, to rush to close quarters and push on rather than hold back is rashness, as to withdraw is safety. And to keep what one has and to add something of what one has not are not to be ranked by the same reasoning: the former must be valued most and first by sensible men; the latter, if it comes with ease, may be accepted, and if it meets resistance, disregarded. But the one who risks everything he has to gain something hoped for is very foolish. And he seems to me like a boxer bad at his art who strikes out before setting his stance well; or like a helmsman whose ship is falling apart and unseaworthy, trying to sink an enemy ship, or eager to do so. Considering none of these things, it seems to me, he rashly undertook what he had decided, while Roman affairs were still in travail for him and in a bad state, especially because of the persecution, scheming for others’ land, and being a Salmoneus thundering with a hide, looking to those Trajans and Hadrians, whose safety was admired no less than their courage. But he did not think of Carus, nor of Valerian, who paid the penalty for an unreasoning impulse and (as the tragedy says, that I may not reproach their fortunes) were destroyed within the borders of Persia at the height of their good fortune. … bringing together into one the marvel-mongering of sacrifice, so that it might be destroyed in a short time. And the omen was great and extraordinary (O Christ, and Word, and sufferings of the impassible One, and mystery of the whole world!): to present the race of Christians to the demons, if he mastered what lay before him. Such, then, were the first parts of his undertaking, very bold, and loudly proclaimed by many of his partisans. For taking and cutting through all the land of the Assyrians through which the Euphrates flows, passing by Persia and mingling there with the Tigris, and capturing some of the forts, since there was no one at all to hinder him, whether escaping notice by the speed of his advance or being so led on by the Persians and drawn forward little by little (for both are said), advancing in this way, with the army marching alongside and the ships carrying grain and baggage on the river, after no short interval he attacks Ctesiphon, to come near which was thought by him, because of his longing, to be a part of victory.

From this point, as when sand is pulled from under one’s feet, or a squall strikes a ship, his affairs go backward. For Ctesiphon is a strong fortress and hard to take, fortified with a wall of baked brick, a deep ditch, and the marshes made by the river. Another fortress, called Coche, makes it still stronger, built with equal security, both natural and man-made, and so closely united with it that the two seem to be one city, divided only by the river between them. Since it was possible neither to take it by a sudden assault nor to reduce it by siege, nor to drive past it, especially with the fleet (for the fleet would have been in danger from both sides, shot at and blocked from both), he leaves it behind him, and does so in this way. Cutting off no small part of the Euphrates, the greatest of rivers, and diverting it by a canal so as to be navigable for ships (they say ancient traces of the canal can be seen), and joining it to the Tigris a little further on, he thus saves the ships, handing them from river to river in safety. So he escapes the danger from these fortresses. But when, as he advanced, the Persian force appeared, and was always being added to, it did not think it necessary to stand face to face and risk battle without great necessity, since it could win from its abundance; but shooting and pelting from the hills and narrows, wherever they allowed, and seizing beforehand the vital points of the passage, it easily kept him from going forward. Then he was in great perplexity, and not knowing where to turn, he found a wicked way out of his plan. [11] For a man not without repute among the Persians, imitating Zopyrus with Cyrus at Babylon, as though he had given offence to the Persian king, indeed the greatest offence over the greatest matters, and was therefore most hostile to the king’s affairs and well disposed to those of the Romans, and gaining credit from the pretence, said: “What is this, O emperor? How can you plan so feebly about so great a matter? What is this ship-borne grain of yours, this superfluous cargo, the teacher of cowardice? For nothing is so hard to fight and so quarrelsome as a belly, and having one’s safety in one’s hands. But if you will trust me, you will bid farewell to this fleet and the slackness that goes with it for this noble army; and you yourself, by another road, better supplied and safer, on which I will be your guide (for I claim to know the Persian land as well as anyone), will invade the enemy’s country, obtain your wishes, and return to Rome; and you will reward us then, when you have had proof in deed of our goodwill and our advice.”

When he had said this and persuaded him (for lightness is very credulous, especially when God drives it on), all the terrors came at once: fire held the ships, there was no grain, and there was laughter besides, for the destruction was almost by his own hand; his hopes were gone, and the guide went off together with his promises. The enemy was all round them, the war flowing about them on every side; advance was not easy, food was not plentiful; the army was dejected and angry with the emperor; nothing was left of good hope; and only one thing seemed possible in the circumstances, to be rid of a wicked reign and command. [13] So far, then, things were such; from this point not one account is given, but different ones are told and put together by different people, both by those who were present and by those who were absent. Some say that he was struck by a Persian javelin in a disorderly sally, as he rushed to and fro in his frenzy; and that something happened to him like what befell Cyrus son of Parysatis, who went up with the Ten Thousand against his brother Artaxerxes, fought boldly, and ruined his victory by rashness. Others tell such a story about him: that he went up on one of the high hills to survey the army as from a watchtower and to learn how many were left after the war; and when the number appeared to him great and more than he had hoped, he said, “How terrible, if we bring all these back to the land of the Romans!”, as though begrudging them their safety; at which one of the soldiers was angered and, unable to restrain his rage, thrust him through the bowels, disregarding his own safety. Others say that one of the barbarian jesters dared this (those who follow the soldiers to divert their idleness and to season their drinking). There are some who give this glory to a certain Saracen. At any rate he receives a blow that was truly mortal, and saving for the whole world; and by one cut of his slayer he pays the penalty for the bowels of many in which he had wickedly trusted. At which I marvel how the vain man, who thought he knew everything from them, did not know this one thing, the blow against his own bowels. [14] It is worth not passing over this either about the man, which gives the greatest proof, among many, of his ill fortune. He lay on the bank of the river, gravely hurt by the wound; and knowing that many of those before him who had been thought worthy of glory had vanished from among men by certain arts, so as to be thought more than human, and for this reason were considered gods, he was seized by love of the same glory, and at the same time ashamed of the manner of his death because of the inglorious folly of it. What does he contrive and do? For wickedness is not used up along with life: he tries to throw his body into the river, and for this used some of his trusted fellow workers and initiates of his secrets. And if one of the imperial eunuchs had not perceived the thing and informed the others, and so prevented the attempt out of hatred for the crime, another new god would have appeared to the foolish, born of misfortune. But he, having reigned so and commanded so, so ends his life.

He who was proclaimed after him in the camp itself succeeded to the empire at once, since the height of the danger necessarily sought a leader: a man distinguished in other respects and in his piety, and in appearance truly worthy of rule. He was quite unable to come to blows with the Persians or to advance, though he lacked nothing in courage and eagerness, since the army had let fall its hands and its hopes; so he sought to withdraw, and considered how he might do so safely, as if he had become heir not of an empire but of a defeat. Had not the Persians, moderate in victory (for this is a law among them, to know how to measure good fortune), or fearing something else among the things that are told, turned to an agreement, and one so unexpected and humane, nothing would have prevented the army from being left without even a fire-bearer, as they say; so completely did the Persians have them in hand, fighting on their own land and elated by what had happened; for gaining some success is enough to give hope for the future too. But as it was, the one, as I said, had one aim: to save the army and leave the Romans their sinews; for they were sinews, and if they fared badly, it was through the folly of their commander rather than their own cowardice. And they came to these terms, so shameful and unworthy of the Roman hand, to put it most briefly. If anyone acquits that man of the blame and finds fault with this one, he is to my mind a very unfair reckoner of what happened then. For the ear of grain belongs not to the reaper but to the sower; nor the fire to the one who could not put it out, but to the one who kindled it. And it is time to quote the saying of Herodotus about the tyranny of the Samians: “This shoe Histiaeus stitched, and Aristagoras put on,” he who took over what his predecessor had prepared. [16] What remained but that the body of the impious man should be brought back to the Romans, though he had ended so? And since we also have a dead man, the one who ended his life before him, let us see here too the difference between the two emperors, if this too bears on the happiness or misery of the departed. The one is escorted with public praises and processions and with these solemn rites of ours, all-night hymns and torch-bearing, with which we Christians think it right to honour a pious departure; and the carrying out of his body becomes a festival mingled with grief. And a story is believed by some, and has spread to the ears of the many, that when the body crossed the Taurus, as it was being brought to his ancestral city (the one named after his family, of great name), a sound was heard by some from the heights, as of people singing and escorting him: angelic powers, I suppose, a reward for his piety and a funeral recompense. For even if he seemed to disturb the right faith, this too is the fault of the boorishness and wrong belief of those who held power under him, who took over a soul simple and inexperienced in piety, which did not foresee the pits, led it wherever they wished, and under a pretence of exactness turned his zeal into vice. [17] But we, in the more general way, thinking of the father who laid the foundation of imperial power and faith for Christianity, and of the inheritance of the doctrine that came down to him, honoured as was fitting the body of one who had lived with a just rule, ended his life with a holy end, and left the empire to us. As he approached the great and royal city, why need I tell of the escort of the whole army, and the armed order, as for the living emperor, or the outpouring of the brilliant city, the most famous of all that ever were or will be? And that bold and noble man, adorned with his new purple and, as is likely, proud of it, himself becomes part of the honour of the escort, giving and receiving the same favour, partly forced and partly willing, as they say. For the whole army, though it had yielded to the present power, still gave more respect to the departed (since we are somehow by nature better disposed to sufferings that are still fresh, being touched by affection and attaching pity to it); and for this reason, not bearing that he should not be honoured as emperor, they persuade and compel the apostate to meet the dead body in fitting dress; and this was, stripping his head of the diadem and bowing to the emperor as was fitting, to escort him with the bearers to the tomb and to the celebrated shrine of the Apostles, who received and guard the holy race, which enjoys almost equal honours. So the one … [18] For the other, the start of the campaign was shameful (he was mocked by peoples and cities, with public and scurrilous shouts which many still remember), and the return more inglorious still. What was the inglory? Mimes of jests led him, and he was paraded with the shameful things of the stage, played at with flutes and danced at, and reproached with his apostasy, his defeat, and his end. And what evil did he not suffer? What did he not hear of the things in which such men run riot, whose art is insult, until the city of Tarsus receives him, condemned I know not how or for what to this outrage? There is his dishonoured precinct, his accursed tomb, his detestable shrine, not even to be seen by pious eyes. [19] I have gone through these things as the greatest and most proper of the charges against him, not ignorant that to two or three of the palace flatterers who equalled him in impiety (I willingly pass over the others) so great a wage of impiety was given that nothing would have prevented them, in a short time, from plundering all the land and sea under the Romans, had not a happy end come to affairs more quickly; so far did they surpass the Hundred-handed ones in robbery and greed. And the governments of the provinces were entrusted not to the most decent but to the most inhuman; and there was one qualification for office, transgression, and for obtaining his gifts, to have taken the worst counsel about oneself.

What if I should speak of the changes and reversals of lawsuits, often altered and overturned in the middle of the night, like ebbing tides; since our noble man thought fit to judge too, making everything his own out of ambition? Perhaps I would seem to bring very small charges, and to insult the greatest matters with small ones. But let it at least be agreed that these things do not belong to the Elysian fields, nor to the glory of Rhadamanthys there, the portion of which those of his clan and rank think him worthy. One thing of his I can admire. Many of his acquaintances and friends, especially from his sojourns in Asia, he summoned with all eagerness, as though about to do wonders for them, such as he had made them fly with hopes of, reminding them of his promises; but when they arrived, there it was: tampering with votes and deceptive appearances; he mocked some in one way and others in another; and some he entertained at table, drinking many a toast of “Comrade” and warbling in place of any other bait, and sent them away empty-handed, not knowing whom to blame more, him for the deceit or themselves for their lightness.

And how is this not praiseworthy in the philosopher’s education: that he was so free from anger and above the passions, like those emperors of old who were unmoved and unshaken, and who, whatever happened, would not change their face at all or show a trace of passion; so that he filled the palace with shouts and quaking when he was judging, as though he himself were the one tyrannized and wronged, and not the defender of others who suffered these things? These things we will not deem worthy even of a word; but who of all men does not know that many who approached him in public, even of the more rustic sort, to obtain something of what men ask of emperors, he so mistreated, striking them with his fist in public and kicking them with his heel, that they were content not to suffer anything worse?

And his puffings and counter-puffings, which that wonderful man, while mocking our rites, showed off to old women as he lit the fire on the altar, where shall we put them? Truly a fine thing, to see the cheeks of the Roman emperor disgracing themselves and providing much laughter, not only to outsiders, but to the very people he thought to please by doing it! Did he not hear of Athena, his own goddess, that she cursed the flutes when she saw herself disgraced by them, using the water as a mirror? And the toasts and kisses which he publicly drank to harlots and received from them, slipping licentiousness under the pretext of a mystery, how is this not worthy of wonder? [23] These things experience showed to others, and power, which gave him freedom beforehand; but to me they were seen in a way from afar, from the time I was with the man at Athens. For he came there too, just after the upheaval concerning his brother, having asked the emperor for this very thing. His visit had a double reason: the more seemly, to study Greece and the schools there; the more secret, known to few, to consult the sacrificers and deceivers there about his own affairs, since impiety did not yet have freedom of speech. Then, I know, I proved no bad reader of the man, though I am not one of those well gifted for such things. But the unevenness of his character and the extremity of his excitement made me a prophet, if indeed he is the best prophet who knows how to guess well. For it seemed to me a sign of nothing good: a neck unsteady, shoulders jerking and hunching up, an eye restless and rolling and with a mad look, feet unsteady and shifting, a nostril breathing insolence and contempt, ridiculous contortions of the face expressing the same, laughter unrestrained and convulsive, noddings and shakings of the head for no reason, speech halting and broken off by his breath, questions disorderly and senseless, answers no better than these, tripping over one another, unsteady, and not proceeding in any order. [24] Why should I describe each detail? Such as I saw him before his deeds, such I came to know him in his deeds. And if some of those who were with me then and heard me were present, they would bear witness without difficulty; for when I saw these things I said to them at once: “What an evil the Roman world is rearing!”, having foretold it and prayed that I might prove a false prophet. For it would have been better for the world to be filled with any other evils than these, and for such a monster to appear as never before, though many floods are told of, many conflagrations, earthquakes and chasms, and moreover most inhuman men and strange and composite beasts, which nature produced as novelties. In this way he received an end worthy of his madness, God here alone not keeping to his usual long-suffering, where kindness would have been an evil for many, and would have caused much discouragement to those who do right and much contempt in those who sin, as though no one watched over our affairs, nor was there any governance or recompense, but chance carried and overturned everything; which belongs to a wicked mind, very dangerously disposed about the greatest things. … fighting against God? Where are the oracles against Christians, and the threats, and our destruction by an appointed day, even to the name? All is gone, proved false, flowed away; the boasts of the ungodly have proved a dream.

Hezekiah king of Judah, when a king of foreigners came against him with a great force and surrounded Jerusalem with his army, and bitterly hurled blasphemous and impious words against both the king and God himself, as though he would by no means save the city from his power, went to the temple, tore his garment, shed fountains of tears, and stretching his hands to heaven called God to witness the blasphemy of Sennacherib, and asked him to become the avenger of the arrogance of his threats: “You have seen, Lord,” he said, “how this foreigner has reproached you, the God of Israel; you have seen, Lord; do not keep silent.” And he was not disappointed of his request; but the God-fighter perceived his madness in deed, and went away with his threats unaccomplished, an invisible power falling suddenly upon him, having lost the greater part of his army, and moving off at a bitter message, which unexpectedly ended both the siege and his hopes. So it was with Hezekiah, who was surrounded by great power, the king of great Jerusalem, who perhaps could have repelled the enemy even by himself. But we, who had only hope in God left us as weapon and wall and every other defence, being wholly stripped and cut off from human help, what other hearer of our prayer or preventer of the threats were we to have, than the God who swears by the pride of Jacob? O incredible tales! O boldness of hopes! We were promised to the demons in place of some other victim; and the great inheritance of God, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, became the prize of a single hope and the trophy of a single war.

Are these the wages Christians get from you, in return for your being wickedly saved through them? Is this what you repaid to the Lord your God? Before, then, when God still held back and delayed his wrath on our behalf, and had not yet kindled all his zeal, but still kept his hand raised against the ungodly, and had bent and prepared his bow but held it back by force, and was waiting for all that man’s wickedness first to break out like some hidden and malignant disease (as is indeed the law of God’s judgment, that he may either save by repentance or punish more justly): then, vexed by what was happening and weary at what was coming (for we could not bear his kindness, hidden from his own), we sent up to God those cries, partly calling on him as master, partly beseeching him as a kind father, partly as it were reproaching him and pleading our case with him, as people in pain do: “Why, O God, have you cast us off for ever? Has your anger been kindled against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you acquired from the beginning,” which you purchased by the sufferings of your only-begotten Word, which you deemed worthy of your great covenant, which you drew up to heaven by the new mystery and the pledge of the Spirit; and, “Lift up your hands against their pride for ever,” reminding him of all the evil that the enemies had done against his saints and how they had boasted against his feasts; and we called on the sword and the plagues of Egypt, and asked him to judge his own cause, and bade him arise at last against the ungodly: “How long shall sinners, Lord,” we said, “how long shall sinners boast, humble your people and afflict your inheritance, and alike speak and do lawlessness?” And moreover those mournful cries, more fitting still: “You made us a contradiction and a reproach to our neighbours, a byword among the nations, and a laughing-stock to all men.” We spoke of a vine, brought out of Egypt, out of dark godlessness, and grown in beauty and greatness of faith, then stripped of its hedge, the oversight of God that had guarded us until then, and exposed to all the wicked rulers passing by, and ravaged by a wild boar, the evil one who was singular in vice and full of the mire of vice.

These things, then, I used to think and cry out to God before; but now what cries I take up in place of those! I now lament the destruction of the ungodly, and become kind to those who hate me, and say such things as these: “How have they become a desolation? Suddenly they failed; they perished because of their lawlessness,” like dust that a whirlwind carried off, like chaff scattered by the wind, like the morning dew, like the whizz of an arrow sent forth, like a clap of thunder, like darting lightning. If, then, they should now repent and, ceasing from their great error and drunkenness, pursue the truth, perhaps there might be some gain for them even from their fall, since being disciplined is often for the good of those who suffer; but if they remain in the same mind and still cling to their idols, not chastened by misfortune, which teaches even fools … Jeremiah laments Jerusalem so much that he even bids lifeless things lament and calls on the walls for tears. But what lament worthy of these men will be found? Or who would mourn the present, leaving aside weeping for the punishment to come, because they became foolish and went far away and served the creature rather than the Creator; and not only this, but rose up against those who serve God and stretched out an impious hand, worthy of such evils?

Let this be as is dear to God. Who knows whether God, who frees those who are fettered and brings up from the gates of death the one who is heavy and sinking down, who does not desire the death of the sinner but his return, who enlightened and gave understanding to us too as we sat in darkness and the shadow of death, will not one day take these men also and shepherd them with the shepherd’s rod, laying aside the heavy rod of iron? But my discourse will run back again to the same victory song: “Bel has fallen, Dagon is broken, Sharon has become a marsh, Lebanon is put to shame.” No longer will they say to the fool, “Rule,” to the motionless and senseless assembly of idols; nor will they seek the fly-god of Ekron, or anything more ridiculous than this; no longer will they seek out groves and high places and every leafy and shady mountain; no longer will they sacrifice their sons and daughters to demons, for which Israel was reproached of old by the prophets. But what are these things to me? I will turn to the present and to our own affairs. No longer will they look with an evil eye on our holy houses; no longer will they defile with foul blood the altars named after the purest and bloodless sacrifice; nor shame the sanctuaries with godless altars; no longer will they plunder and profane offerings, mixing greed with impiety; no longer will they outrage the grey hairs of priests, the dignity of deacons, the modesty of virgins; no longer will they let loose the filth of pigs upon the entrails of saints cut open, so as to glut them with the food and the entrails together; no longer will they bring fire to the shrines of martyrs, as if to put a stop to others’ contests by the dishonour done to these; no longer will they consume with fire the relics of saints, dishonouring them along with the most dishonoured bones, and give them to the winds, so as to deprive such men even of the honour due to them; no longer will they assemble a seat of pestilent men and revel in blasphemies against bishops and presbyters, and also prophets and apostles and Christ himself; no longer will they hold festival against us, shutting us out by their law of counterfeit learning, as though stopping our tongues with it too. [30] … and the music of your instruments, my prophet bids you; but let David sing again in freedom, who struck down the lofty Goliath with mystic stones, who conquered many by gentleness, and by spiritual harmony healed Saul when he was choked by the evil demon. Let the torch-bearer quench his fire; let the wise and holy virgins light their lamps for the bridegroom. Let the hierophant put off his harlot’s robe; you priests, put on righteousness, and a garment of glory in place of a spirit of heaviness, and the great and spotless tunic, Christ, our adornment.

Let your herald be silent about shameful things; let my herald proclaim things inspired by God. Stop your books of sorcery and divination; let the prophetic and apostolic books alone be unrolled. Put an end to your shameful nights full of darkness; I will raise up against them holy and bright vigils. Bar up your shrines and the roads that lead to Hades; I will explain the roads that are open and lead to heaven. How many preparations of arms and devices of engines, how many myriads of men and phalanxes, could have accomplished what we accomplished merely by praying and God by willing? By a word he dissolved the darkness, by a word he established light, founded the earth, rounded the heaven, ordered the stars, spread out the air, bounded the sea, drew out the rivers, gave souls to living things, fashioned man toward himself, and set the world as an adornment upon all; by a word too he dissolved the present dark night and brought all things back to light and to the same order and harmony. No longer do greedy and deceitful demons hold power; no longer is creation outraged, worshipped instead of God under the guise of honour. Cast down your Triptolemuses and Celeuses and mystic serpents; be ashamed at last of the books of your theologian Orpheus; accept the gift of the time, which covers up your indecency. But if these are myths and fictions, I will reveal your mysteries of the night.

No longer does the oak speak; no longer does the cauldron prophesy; no longer is the Pythia filled, with I know not what, unless with myths and nonsense. Again Castalia has been silenced and is silent, and is water that does not prophesy but is laughed at; again Apollo is a voiceless statue; again Daphne is a plant lamented in myth; again Dionysus is androgynous and attended by a chorus of drunkards, and your great mystery is the phallus, and a god in passion for the wicked Prosymnus; again Semele is struck by the thunderbolt; again Hephaestus is lame, but quick at finding adulterers, a god blackened with soot, though famed for his craft, an Olympian Thersites; again Ares is a prisoner for adultery, along with Terror and Fear and the Din of battle, and wounded for his rashness; again Aphrodite is a harlot, born shamefully and minister of shameful marriages; again Athena is a virgin and gives birth to a serpent; again Heracles is mad, or rather has stopped being mad; again Zeus becomes everything through licentiousness and impurity, he, the counsellor and highest of the gods, who alone draws up all the gods together with all that exists, but is not himself drawn down by them all. Again the tomb of Zeus is shown in Crete. If I see your god of Gain, and of Eloquence, and of Contests, I hide my eyes and pass by your god out of shame at the sight; but you, worship for me the vigour of his speech and his purse. One thing of yours alone is venerable: the honours paid by the Egyptians to the Nile through androgynous men, the Isises, the Mendesian gods, the Apises, and the other composite and strange beasts that you mould or paint. I laugh at your Pan and Priapus and Hermaphroditus, and at the gods mutilated or torn apart by madness. But these things I will leave to the stage and to the poets who adorn them; I will end my discourse with an exhortation. [33] Men and women alike, young and old, you who are initiated to this bema and you who are ranked in the place below, all whom the Lord has redeemed, formerly from error and godlessness, and now from the uprising of the nations and from the evils already present and expected, hear the word of a man not moderately instructed in such things, both from daily events and from the ancient histories and books and deeds. It is a great thing to experience none of the hardships; but perhaps not even great, if the saying is true that “whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and scourges every son whom he receives” and cares for. But it is a great thing not to fall into sin at all from the beginning, or not in the greatest things, since God placed complete sinlessness above human nature; and the second thing, as it seems to me, is, having stumbled somewhat and been disciplined, and then relieved, at least to remain mindful of the training, and to flee a second scourge for a second vice.

Therefore let us too perceive the divine discipline in deed. Let us show ourselves worthy not of what we suffered first, but of what we obtained afterward. Let us make some defence regarding the misfortune that held us: that we were not handed over to the nations as evildoers, but chastened as children. Let us not forget the storm in the calm, nor the sickness in the time of health, nor the captivity when we have been restored to Jerusalem, nor Egypt after Egypt; let us not make the time of affliction better than the time of relief. And we shall do so if we appear to have been humbled and moderate then, lifting all our hopes to heaven, but now elated and puffed up, running back to the same sins from which we fell into the misfortunes that befell us. “Not so, children, not so,” says Eli the priest somewhere, admonishing his sons who were sinning against God. But knowing that it is easier to recall a prosperity that has gone than to preserve it when it comes from God (for prudence brings back the one, and carelessness dissolves the other), and that sick bodies recover through treatment and abstinence, but once recovered, through little neglects and surfeits, slip again and return to the same illnesses: knowing these things and teaching one another, let us come to ourselves and manage the time prudently.

[35] First, brothers, let us keep festival, not with brightness of body, nor with changes and costliness of dress, nor with revels and drunkenness, whose fruit, as you have learned, is debauchery and licentiousness. Let us not crown the streets with flowers, nor shame the tables with perfumes, nor adorn our porches; let our houses not be lit with light that the senses perceive, nor resound with … and clapping. For this is the custom of the Greek holy days; but let us not honour God with these things, nor exalt the present time with things of which it is unworthy, but with purity of soul and brightness of mind, and with lamps that light up the whole body of the church, I mean divine contemplations and thoughts, raised upon the holy lampstand and enlightening the whole world. Small to me, beside this light, are all the lights that people kindle at their private and public festivals. I have perfume too, but the one with which only priests and kings are anointed, varied and costly, emptied out for us, compounded by the art of a great perfumer. Would that I might offer God the fragrance of this perfume! I have a table too, this spiritual and divine one, which the Lord prepared for me in the presence of those who afflict me, at which I rest and take my delight, and where I commit no insolence through surfeit, but rather lull to sleep every insurrection of the passions. I have flowers too, more blooming and more lasting than all those of spring, from the full field which the Lord has blessed: the holy and fragrant shepherds and teachers, and all that is pure and choice among the people. With these I wish to be crowned and to walk in procession, having fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, as the holy Apostle says. Let us take up hymns instead of drums, psalmody instead of shameful writhings and songs, thankful applause instead of theatrical applause, and a harmonious action of the hands; thoughtfulness instead of laughter, sensible speech instead of drunkenness, dignity instead of luxury. If you must dance, as a festive man and lover of feasts, dance; but not the shameful dance of Herodias, whose work was the death of the Baptist, but the dance of David at the resting of the ark, which I consider a mystery of the agile and many-turning walk according to God. This, then, is the first and greatest point of my exhortation. [36] Second, I know that I shall say a hard word, hard for many to accept; for a man who has been badly treated and comes into power to retaliate, especially if his anger is just because of what he has suffered, is least inclined to obey reason when it checks his temper with its bridles; yet it deserves to be heard and accepted. Let us not use the time insatiably, let us not revel in our power, let us not be bitter to those who wronged us, let us not do what we condemned. But, enjoying the change so far as to escape the terrors, let us hate whatever goes as far as retaliation. Sufficient punishment, for the moderate at least, is the fear felt by those who caused us pain, and their expectation of suffering what they deserve, and being tortured by their own conscience; for what one fears one will suffer, one has suffered even if one does not suffer it, and perhaps one is punished more by oneself than by those who might do it. Let us not, then, wish our anger to be measured out, nor appear lesser punishers than is deserved; but since we cannot exact the whole, let us forgive the whole; let us by this become better and loftier than those who wronged us; let us show what the demons teach them, and what Christ teaches us, who, glorious in what he suffered, conquered no less by what he could have done and did not do. Let us render God a thank-offering; let us increase the mystery by kindness; let us use the time for this. [37] Let us conquer by gentleness those who tyrannized over us; and above all let kindness be what forgives, and the power of the commandment, which returns equal kindness to us in the things we ourselves need; for we know that with the measure with which we measure it will be measured back to us. And if anyone feels very bitterly, let us leave those who pained us to God and to the tribunal there; let us not lessen by our own hand any of the wrath to come. Let us not think of confiscation, let us not drag them before tribunals, let us not banish them from their country, let us not torture them with scourges, nor, to put it briefly, do any of the things that we suffered. Let us make them too more decent, if possible, by our example. If anyone has lost a son, or a father, or a wife, or a friend, or anyone else dear to him, let us make the suffering of all bring its reward, by persuading them to bear bravely what they have suffered; this will be a greater favour to them. Shall I tell the greatest of the good things we receive? The persecutors are shouted down by peoples and cities, in theatres, in markets, in assemblies; the old order is called blessed, the new is pilloried; and by their own fellow persecutors (what is most strange) the gods themselves are dragged down with every outcry, as having deceived them for a long time, and their deception exposed at last; and yesterday’s worshipper is today’s insulter. What greater thing than this do we seek? These things are now, and perhaps small for the wretches. There will be a time when I shall see those who insulted me, and their great leader, bewailing their own vice, when all wickedness is judged and tortured.

[38] I leave aside our divine teachings and the scourges laid up there for such men, as we hold; but come also to your own words and terrors, which please not only poets but philosophers too: your Pyriphlegethons and Cocytuses and Acherons, with which they punish injustice, Tantalus, Tityus, Ixion. Julian, the emperor of your clan, will be numbered with them, and before them, by my reckoning and definition; not punished with thirst in lakes up to his chin, nor fearing a stone that looms above his head, as tragedy has it, always pushed up and always rolling down; nor whirled round on a whirring wheel, nor having his liver torn by birds, never failing and always growing again (whether these things are truth, or myth showing the truth in fictions); but we shall see by what and what kind of punishments he will then be punished, and how much harsher than these, if indeed penalties and recompenses are measured to the sins. [39] This is your guest-gift in return for the foot, O wisest and most intelligent of men (to address you in your own words); this we give, we who were shut out from letters by your great and wonderful legislation. Do you see that we were not going to keep silent to the end, nor be condemned of unreason by your decrees, but to have a free voice, refuting your unreason? There is no device to stop the cataracts of the Nile falling from Ethiopia upon Egypt, nor the ray of the sun, even if it is covered by a cloud for a little while; nor to fetter the tongue of Christians that pillories your doings. This Basil and Gregory say to you, the opponents and counter-workers of your undertaking, as you yourself thought and made others think, magnifying us by your threats and sharpening us still more for piety. Knowing us to be distinguished in life and word and in our concord with one another, and known to you since Greece, you honoured us with the Cyclops’ honour and kept us for the last in your persecution; and perhaps you were devising some great and magnificent victory gift for the demons, if we had received you on your return from Persia; or you hoped to sweep us along with you to your pit, in your evil thinking. [40] For we are not more ignoble than those young men who were bedewed in the fire and conquered beasts by faith, and who readily shared danger with a noble mother and a nobler priest and showed that of all things faith alone cannot be captured; nor than these in your own time, of whom the one, having insulted the mother of your gods and scattered her altar, was brought in as one condemned but went in as a victor, and, much laughing at your purple and your words as calculating and ridiculous, came out with greater freedom, like someone returning from dinner and a brilliant feast; while the other, his whole body scraped deep with combs and scarcely breathing through his wounds, was so far from giving in to the tortures or thinking any of the present things terrible, that when he saw a part of his body unharmed by the blows, he even accused the torturers of insult, for not having honoured his whole body but having left some part unscraped and unconsecrated; and at the same time he pointed to his leg, as the only part that had escaped the claws, and bade them not spare this either.

This is the discourse for you, in place of the lies and drivel of Porphyry, in which you exult as in divine voices, or of your Misopogon, or Antiochicus (for you give the discourse both titles), than which nothing is more dishonourable to Christians; which then your purple made great, along with the flatterers who admired all your doings; but now it is a beard carried around and dragged about, laughed at even by those who toiled on it with you. In it you boast greatly of the frugality of your body and of never having had indigestion from greed, as though saying something wonderful; but that you drove out the Christians so bitterly, and destroyed so great and holy a nation, you willingly pass over. Yet if one man has indigestion or lets out natural belches, what harm is that to the commonwealth? But when so great a persecution was stirred up and so great a confusion devised, how was it not entirely necessary for the affairs of the Romans to fare badly, as indeed they have plainly fared?

This is the monument from us, higher and more conspicuous than the pillars of Heracles; for they are fixed in one place and are seen only by those who come there; but this cannot but be carried about, to be known everywhere and by all; and future time, I well know, will receive it, pillorying both you and your doings, and teaching the rest not to dare any such thing against God, lest, having done the like, they suffer the like.

Eagerness loosens my tongue, and I disregard the human law for the law of the Spirit, and I give my speech to peace, having granted it to no one before. For before, when the members were in revolt against us, and the great and precious body of Christ was divided and cut up, so that our bones were almost scattered at the edge of Hades, like the depth of the earth broken by the plough and scattered over the ground; and when the evil one, cutting the tunic that was uncut and undivided and woven throughout, had made the whole his own, achieving through us what he could not achieve through those who crucified Christ: then I set a guard on my lips, which were not eager to speak in any case, because I thought it to be the spiritual order first to purify myself by the philosophy of deeds, then to open the mouth of the mind and draw in the Spirit, then to utter a good word and to speak the perfect wisdom of God among the perfect; and as there is a time for every matter, small and great (for the saying of Solomon is right and very carefully considered), so I knew, as well as anyone, that there is a time for speech and for silence. … rebukes, a groan sent up from the depth, all-night standing, the departure of the mind to God, a fine lament in prayer, a medicine of compunction for those who hear; those who sing psalms, who glorify, who meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, who carry the high praises of God in their throats; and these fair proclamations and signs of the life according to God, the silent heralds: squalor and unkempt hair, bare feet following those of the apostles, carrying nothing dead; hair cut to measure, a garment that chastens pride, a girdle orderly for one without adornment, drawing up the tunic a little, and only so much as not to draw it up; a steady walk, an eye that does not wander, a gentle smile, or rather the beginning of a smile, chastening unrestrained laughter; speech moved by reason, silence more precious than speech; praise seasoned with salt, not for flattery but for guidance to what is better; rebuke more desirable than praise; measures of gravity and of relaxation, and the mixing and blending of both, the gentle with the noble, the severe blended with modesty, so that neither is harmed by the other, but each wins repute through the other; measures of mixing with the community and of withdrawal, the one training others, the other initiating into the mysteries of the Spirit; the one keeping apartness in the midst of community, the other brotherly love and kindness in solitude; and what is still greater and loftier than these: wealth in poverty, possession in sojourning, glory in dishonour, power in weakness, a fine offspring in celibacy (if indeed offspring according to God are better than those that begin from the flesh); those who delight by not delighting, humble for the sake of heavenly things, who are nothing in the world and above the world, outside the flesh while in the flesh, whose portion is the Lord, poor for the kingdom and reigning through poverty.

[3] These men made me brilliant when they were present, my abundance, my good delight; and when absent they humbled me. These things gripped my soul, these troubled it. Because of these I went about mourning and gloomy; for these I shook off speech too, along with my other pleasures: because the beloved kicked, and turned their backs to me and not their faces, and became a flock more free than its shepherd, not to say more headstrong; because the true vine was turned to bitterness for me, though most beautifully pruned by the good husbandman, and producing a fine crop for the divine winepresses; because my friends and my neighbours drew near and stood against me, and my nearest stood far off; because we divided Christ, we who are so very God-loving and Christ-loving, and lied against one another for the sake of the truth, and practised hatred for love’s sake, and were broken apart for the sake of the cornerstone, and shaken for the sake of the rock; because we fought for peace more than was right, and were brought down for the sake of him who was lifted up on the tree, and put to death for the sake of him who was buried and rose again. [4] So it was before; and why should anyone, in a time of brightness, scratch open the unpleasantness, dwelling on painful things, whose experience is to be prayed against and whose memory is to be fled? Silence is better than speech, covering the wound that befell us in the depths of forgetfulness; unless one should stir up the memory of painful things for this reason alone, that we may be taught by the example, and, as in diseases, flee the causes that brought us into them. But now, when pain and grief and groaning have fled away; when we who belong to the One have become one, and we who belong to the Trinity are of one nature, one soul, and equal honour; we who belong to the Word, outside unreason; we who belong to the Spirit, boiling not against one another but with one another; we who belong to the Truth, thinking and saying the same; we who belong to Wisdom, of good understanding; we who belong to the Light, walking becomingly as in the day; we who belong to the Way, all going straight; we who belong to the Door, all inside; we who belong to the Lamb and the Shepherd, gentle, of the same fold and of one shepherd, who does not shepherd with the instruments of an unskilled shepherd, nor destroy the sheep of the pasture, nor give them up to wolves and precipices, but is most circumspect and skilled; when we have become sympathetic with him who suffered for us, and bear one another’s burdens; we who belong to the Head, fitted and joined together into one body by every joint in the Spirit; when he who makes all things and transforms them to what is more profitable has turned our mourning into joy for us, and given gladness in place of sackcloth: then I put off silence along with the past, and bring speech to the present time …, or rather to God as a most fitting thank-offering, a gift purer than gold, more precious than costly stones, more valuable than costly fabrics, holier than the sacrifice of the law, more sacred than the first-fruits of the firstborn, more pleasing to God than a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs, senseless as it is, more than incense, more than whole burnt offering, more than ten thousands of fat lambs, by which the elementary law held Israel, still an infant, sketching the truth in bloody sacrifices. [5] This I offer to God, this I dedicate, the one thing I have left for myself, the only thing in which I am rich. For the other things I gave up to the commandment and to the Spirit; I exchanged all I once had for the pearl of great price, and became a great merchant, or rather I pray to become one, having bought with small things, sure to perish, the great things that do not perish. But I cling to the word alone, as a servant of the Word, and would never willingly neglect this possession; I honour it and embrace it and rejoice in it more than in all the other things together in which the many rejoice; and I make it the partner of my whole life, my good counsellor and companion, my guide on the way upward, and my eager fellow contestant. And since I disdain every pleasure that stays below, all my love after God has been poured out on this; or rather on Him, because the word leads to God with understanding, by which alone God is truly grasped, kept, and increased in us. I have said that Wisdom is my sister; and I honoured her and embraced her, as far as was possible for me; and I seek for my head the crown of graces and of delight, which are the gifts of wisdom, illuminating the ruling part in us and enlightening our steps according to God.

With this I bridle temper when it is carried away, with this I lull the envy that wastes me away, with this I give rest to grief, the bond of the heart, with this I chasten the spreading of pleasure, with this I measure hatred, but not friendship; for the one must be measured, while the other must know no limit. This makes me moderate when I prosper and great-souled when I am poor; this persuades me to run with one who runs well, to stretch out a hand to one who falls, to be weak with the weak and to rejoice with the strong. With this, my fatherland and a foreign land are equal to me, and changes of place are equally strange to me, but nothing of mine. This divides the worlds for me, leading me away from the one and joining me to the other; this leads me through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand without elation, and philosophizes with me in those on the left hand, the harsher ones, joining to them the hope that does not put to shame and lightening the present by the future. With this too I now welcome my friends and brothers, and set before them a table of the word and a spiritual, ever-flowing bowl; not with the things by which the table below flatters the belly, which is being brought to nothing and cannot be cured.

I have kept silence; shall I keep silence for ever? I have endured like a woman in labour; shall I endure always? For Zechariah, John at his birth looses the silence; for it was not fitting that the father of the voice should keep silent when the voice had come forth; but as, when disbelieved, it bound his tongue, so, when manifested, it gave the father his freedom; and the voice and lamp, the forerunner of the Word and the light, was announced and born. And for me the present benefit looses the tongue and lifts up the voice like a trumpet, and this most beautiful spectacle: the scattered children of God gathered into one and resting under the same wings, going to the house of God in concord, and tuned to the one harmony of the good and of the Spirit; now that we no longer carry off and drive away one another, as we did when so robbed or forced by the evil one, and shot at in the dark night of the mind which he raised up against us, so that (I do not know what to call it) we even rejoiced at one another’s evils, and did not think the destruction of one another a loss to the whole; now that Judah and Israel appoint for themselves one head, and Jerusalem and Samaria are gathered to the one Jerusalem above, and we are no longer of Paul and Apollos and Cephas, for and against whom there was puffing up, but we have all become Christ’s.

But since you have me, and my word, having tyrannized over me, not unwilling, through love, I will speak, even if with difficulty, since you bid me; and I will speak words of thanksgiving and of admonition. The thanksgiving is this: “Who shall speak the mighty acts of the Lord? Who shall make all his praise heard” in every ear? For both have become one, and the middle wall of the partition has been broken down; you have stopped our being a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples; you afflicted us so much as to make known the good of peace through division, and having made us suffer, you restored us again. O the strangeness of the healing! You taught us peace through the hatred, which was very quickly dissolved, and managed opposite by opposite, and parted us so far that we ran to one another the more warmly; as plants forcibly bent aside by hands, when let go, spring back to themselves and to their first nature, and show what is their own, being bent aside by force but straightened again not by force. For the hand no longer despises the eye, nor the eye the hand; the head no longer rises against the feet, nor are the feet estranged from the head, harming no more than they are harmed by the disorder and anarchy, which is the confusion and dissolution of the whole; but the members have the same care for one another by the order and law of nature, which binds and preserves all things through one another; and we have appeared as one body and one spirit, even as we were called in one hope of our calling.

Therefore the poor people shall praise you, made rich out of destitution; for you have made wonderful your mercies toward us, and something has been added to the ancient tales. For where sin abounded, grace superabounded; for I sowed a grain and reaped an ear; mourning for sheep, I have gained shepherds besides. And I will add, I well know, the most precious of the shepherds, even if for certain spiritual reasons he puts off his shepherding: he has been entrusted with the Spirit, with the working of the talents, and with the care of the flock, and anointed with the anointing of priesthood and perfection, yet in his wisdom he puts off the oversight and keeps the lamp under the bushel (which he will soon set on the lampstand, to shine round the whole soul of the church and to be a light for our paths); he is still surveying the glens and mountains and streams, and devising snares for the wolves that snatch souls, so that in due time he may receive the staff and shepherd this rational flock together with the true Shepherd, encamping in a place of green pasture, in the evergreen words of God, and nourishing it by the water of rest, that is, by the Spirit. This, then, we hope and pray; but now it is time for me to add the exhortation to the thanksgiving; and I will make this too as brief as possible, since you have anticipated most of the admonition by your very deeds, and those who have been taught by experience have no need of longer words.

We ought, brothers, neither to have been divided at all, nor to have had our ancient dignity and ornament destroyed, by which, although our flock was small and not worthy even to be named among the flocks that are counted, I held it equal to the greatest and broadest, and in some cases even set it before them in the power of the Spirit. For so it was: each flock has some ornament of its own, small or greater, but most proper to our flock was its unbroken and peaceful unity; so that it was often called Noah’s ark, which alone escaped the flood of the whole world and preserved the seeds of piety within it. But since we were shown to be men, and did not entirely escape the envy of the evil one, nor prove stronger than the disease that holds all things, but ourselves took part in the common misfortune, and did not keep to the end the fair inheritance of our fathers, the good of concord, we still had no small advantage over the others even here (if we may boast against our enmity, trusting in Christ): that we suffered these things last and were set right first. For to fall ill belongs to our common nature and to human weakness, which touches all, even those very strong in body and in mind; but to be healed and to return to one another belongs to reason and to grace, which arbitrated for us well and justly, and better than our prayers and the hopes of others.

For we, on our side, received in grace the heads given to the schism, as having been newly set up for piety’s sake and to help the right doctrine when it was in distress; and we did not turn away from them as enemies, but embraced them as brothers who had quarrelled a little over the ancestral inheritance in a brotherly way, but not in a wicked one. We did not praise the enmity, but we accepted the zeal; for division for the sake of piety is better than a concord that comes from passion; and for this reason we made the loss an addition to ourselves, stealing away by love the design against us, and so far reversing the order that the grace did not follow the vote, but the vote the grace, and we used the hands of others for this, having been a little anticipated by the Spirit. And you, letting go your suspicion of the written words, ran to the spirit, not praising the simplicity shown in the surface meaning of the words, yet not supposing impiety; knowing that with us the Trinity is unfallen and unshaken, no less than in its very nature, and that to cut off any of the three or to make it foreign to us is to destroy the whole, and to go bareheaded against the whole Godhead. And these things we defended on one another’s behalf even in the midst of our division, sometimes even before outsiders; which is indeed the greatest proof of the truth, which was not overcome by the time, nor did the enmity altogether put out the spark of love in us; because the greatest thing remained with us even in our faction: sameness of belief, and the knowledge that we were not unequally yoked concerning the truth, nor contrarily disposed, but shaped by the same stamp of the faith, and of our first …

[12] For among those who are genuine in their relation to God nothing is so strong for concord as agreement about God, and nothing so ready to bring division as disagreement about him. For the man who is gentlest in other things is hottest on this, and the meek truly becomes a fighter when he sees God harmed by long-suffering, or rather sees himself harming God by his own fall, God who is rich and makes us rich. So, as I said, we handled even the division more moderately, so that the concord might become more conspicuous than the separation, and the space between almost … ; but since speed in making peace is not enough for its safety, unless some reasoning appears that holds it fast, and God comes as ally to the reasoning, from whom every good thing begins and in whom it comes to its end, come, let us strengthen it by prayers and by reasonings as far as we can. Let us consider first that the most beautiful and loftiest of beings is God, unless one prefers to lead him even beyond being, or to place all being in him, from whom it comes to the others too; and second, those beings that are first from God and around God, I mean the angelic and heavenly powers, which, being the first to draw from the first light and made clear by the reason of the truth, are themselves light and radiances of the perfect light. And nothing is so proper to these as freedom from strife and faction. For there is no faction in the Godhead, since there is no dissolution either, dissolution being the offspring of faction; but so great is its concord, both with itself and with the beings second to it, that among the other names by which God delights to be called, and before them, this excellence has become a name for God. For he is named Peace and Love and the like, giving us through the names to lay claim to these virtues as God’s. [13] Of the angels, the one who dared to revolt, and stiffened his neck to be raised above his dignity against the Lord Almighty, and planned to set his seat above the clouds, as the prophet’s word says, paid a penalty worthy of his madness, condemned to be darkness instead of light, or, to say it more truly, made so by himself; but the rest remain in their own dignity, of which the first part is peace and freedom from faction, having received their being one from the praised and holy Trinity, from which they also have their illumination. For the Trinity too is one God and is believed to be so, no less because of its concord than because of its identity of essence. So those are near God and divine things who appear to embrace the good of peace and, conversely, hate and loathe faction; while of the opposite portion are those who are warlike in character, who hunt for reputation by novelty and pride themselves on their own shame. For he too both revolts against himself, and by his many shapes and by the passions works this same thing in others, being a murderer from the beginning and a hater of the good, so as to shoot down the common body of the church in the dark night, hiding himself in the gloom of faction, I think; and he approaches each person for the most part sophistically and very cunningly, and as it were opens up a space in us for himself by his art, so as to burst in wholly, like a champion into an army through the breach in a wall or battle line.

This, then, is one reason, and so great a one, that compels goodwill and agreement: the imitation of God and divine things, to which alone it is safe for the soul made according to the image of God to look, so that its nobility may be best preserved through its inclination toward them and its likeness to them, as far as is attainable. Second, let us look up to heaven above and down to the earth beneath, having heard the divine voice, and let us learn the laws of creation: that heaven and earth and sea and this whole world, the great and famous element of God, by which God is shown, proclaimed in silence, as long as it … and is at peace with itself, remaining within its own bounds of nature, and no part rises against another, nor goes outside the bonds of goodwill by which the artist Word bound the universe together, is a world (kosmos), as it is called, an unsurpassable beauty, and no one could ever conceive anything more brilliant or magnificent than this. But as soon as it ceases to be at peace, it ceases also to be a world. Or does it not seem to you that heaven, sharing in an orderly way with air and earth, giving light to the one and rain to the other, is held fast by goodwill …? And that earth and air, granting food and breath to all living things, and thereby holding their life together, imitate the affection of parents?

And the seasons, gently blended and passing little by little into one another, and taming the harshness of the extremes by the mean, are they not fittingly arbitrated by peace for pleasure and use at once? What of day and night, which have received equal shares and a measured alternation, the one rousing us to work, the other giving us rest? What of the sun and the moon and the beauty and number of the stars, appearing and withdrawing in order? Do not sea and land, mingling gently with each other, giving out kindly and receiving humanely, nourish man and supply him richly and generously with their own goods? And the rivers, drawn through mountains and plains, which do not overflow except for use, nor turn back to cover the earth? The mixings and blendings of the elements, and the proportions and harmonies of the members? The foods and births and dwellings of animals, divided out among them; and the ruling and the ruled, and those yoked to us and those free? All these things, being so ordered, and directed and governed according to the first causes of harmony, or rather of their flowing and breathing together, what else should one think them but proclamations of friendship and concord, legislating oneness of soul to men by their own example? [16] … choruses and armies and households, and ships’ crews, and marriages and fellowships, which are held together by peace and dissolved by faction, I will come in my discourse to Israel; and reminding you of its sufferings, its dispersion and its wandering, which they have now and will have for a very long time (for I trust the prophecies about them), I will then ask you, who know it accurately, what is the cause of these misfortunes, so that we may be taught concord by the evils of others.

[17] Was it not that, as long as they had peace with one another and with God, oppressed in Egypt, the iron furnace, and drawn together by the common affliction (for sometimes affliction too is a good medicine for salvation), they were called a holy people, the portion of the Lord, and a royal priesthood? And not so in name only and otherwise in deed; but they were led by generals who were led by God, and guided by a pillar of fire and of cloud by night and by day; the sea parted for them as they fled, heaven supplied food when they were hungry, the rock gushed water when they thirsted, and when they fought, the stretching out of hands stood in the place of myriads, raising trophies by prayer and making a way for what lay ahead; rivers gave way, imitating the sea, their kin, and the elements stood still, and walls were shaken by trumpets. And why need I speak of the plagues that served their good, the voices of God heard from the mountain, the double legislation, the one in the letter and the other in the spirit, and the other things by which Israel was honoured of old beyond its worth? But when they began to be sick, and raged against one another and split into many parts (as the cross drove them to final destruction, together with the madness with which they raved against our God and Saviour, not recognizing God in man), and drew upon themselves the iron rod threatened from afar, I mean the rule and kingdom that now prevails over them, what happens? And what … [18] Jeremiah laments them for their former sufferings and bewails the captivity to Babylon; for those things too were truly worthy of laments and mourning; and how not of the greatest? Walls razed, a city levelled, a sanctuary pulled down, offerings plundered, profane feet and hands, the feet trampling the inaccessible places, the hands revelling in the things not to be touched; prophets silent, priests led away, old men not pitied, virgins outraged, youth falling, an alien and hostile fire, rivers of blood instead of the holy fire and blood; Nazirites dragged off, laments raised against the hymns; and, to say something from Jeremiah’s Lamentations themselves: the sons of Zion, precious and valued as gold, delicate and untouched by evils, travelling a strange road; and the roads of Zion mourning because there are none to keep the feasts; and a little before these, the hands of compassionate women, as the siege prevailed, not offering food to their children but tearing them apart for food, and making their dearest a remedy for hunger. How are these things not terrible, and beyond terrible, not only for those who suffered then but also for those who hear now? I at least, whenever I take up this book and keep company with the Lamentations (and I do so whenever I wish to chasten prosperity by the reading), my voice is cut off, I am overwhelmed with tears, the suffering comes as it were before my eyes, and I lament with the one who lamented. But their last blow and removal, the yoke of slavery now lying on them, and their famous humiliation under the Romans, of which nothing is so much the cause as faction: who of those who know how to write laments and match speech to suffering will lament this worthily? What books will contain it? One monument of their misfortune is the whole world, over which they were scattered, and the cessation of their worship, and the very site of Jerusalem, scarcely recognizable, of which only so much is accessible to them, and they enjoy so much of their former glory, as to appear there on one day to lament its desolation. [19] … those who remain in some evil; but those who are easily carried both ways and change, like shifting breezes, or the changes and reversals of the straits of Euripus, or the unstable waves of the sea. I consider this too: that those who remain in faction are at least made easier by the hope of concord, and this lightens most of their misfortune; for the greatest help to the unfortunate is the hope of change and the better thing lying before their eyes; but those who have often agreed and always run back to vice are deprived, with everything else, of the hope of the better too, always fearing concord no less than faction, and trusting neither, because of their mobility and instability in both. [20] And let no one suppose that I am saying that every peace is to be loved; for I know that as there is a faction that is best, so there is a concord that is most harmful; I mean the good peace, which joins us to the good and to God. If I must define these things briefly, this is my view: it is not good to be either more sluggish than is moderate or hotter, so as either to go along with everyone through easiness or to stand apart from all through disorderliness; for sluggishness is equally ineffective and restlessness unsociable. But where impiety is manifest, one must go to close quarters with fire and sword and times and rulers and all things, rather than share in the evil leaven and agree with those who are infected; and nothing of all things is to be feared so much as fearing something before God, and for this reason betraying the doctrines of faith and truth, when we are servants of the truth. But where what pains us is suspicion and unexamined fear, patience is better than haste, and condescension than self-will; and it is much better and more profitable, remaining in the common body, to set one another right as members of one another and to be set right, than, after condemning in advance by separation and destroying our credibility by the division, to legislate correction afterward by command, like tyrants and not brothers. [21] Knowing these things, brothers, let us embrace one another, let us cling to one another, let us become truly one; let us imitate him who broke down the middle wall of the partition and gathered all things together by his blood and made peace; and let us say to this common Father, to his venerable grey hairs, the meek and gentle shepherd: “Do you see the wages of your gentleness? Lift up your eyes round about and see your children gathered together, as you longed, and as you asked night and day that this alone might be added to you, that you might end your sojourning in a good old age. Behold, all have come to you, and rest under your wings, and encircle their own altar, having gone away with tears and running back with gladness. Rejoice and delight, best and most child-loving of fathers, because you have put them all on and clothed yourself with them as a bride with her ornament. Say to us too: Behold I and the children whom God has given me. And add another word too, the Master’s, and most fitting: Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost.” [22] And may no one be lost, but may we all remain in one spirit, with one soul striving together for the faith of the gospel, of one soul, minding the one thing, armed with the shield of faith, our loins girded with truth, knowing only one war, against the evil one and those whom he commands; not fearing those who can kill the body but cannot take hold of the soul, but fearing the Lord of both soul and body; guarding the good deposit which we have received from the Fathers, worshipping Father and Son and Holy Spirit; knowing the Father in the Son and the Son in the Spirit, into whom we were baptized, in whom we have believed, with whom we have been enrolled; dividing before we join and joining before we divide; neither taking the three as one (for they are not without hypostasis, nor within one hypostasis, as though our wealth lay in names and not in realities), and yet the three are one. For they are one not in hypostasis but in Godhead: a Monad worshipped in a Triad, and a Triad summed up into a Monad, all worshipful, all royal, of one throne, all-glorious, above the world, above time, uncreated, invisible, untouchable, uncircumscribed; its order within itself known to itself alone, but to us equally venerable and to be worshipped, and alone entering the Holy of Holies, leaving the whole creation outside, the one part separated by the first veil and the other by the second: by the first the heavenly and angelic creation from the Godhead, by the second our creation from the heavenly. Let us act so and be so disposed, brothers; and those who think otherwise, to the ruin of the truth, let us receive and heal as long as possible; but those who are incurable let us turn away from, lest we share their disease before giving them our health; and the God of peace will be with us, of the peace that surpasses all understanding, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[2] Caesarius’s parents (to begin from where it is most fitting for us) are those whom you all know, whose virtue you emulate as you see and hear it, and admire, and tell to those who do not know it, if there are any such people, each of you having taken up some part of it (since one person cannot do everything, nor is it the work of one tongue, however diligent and ambitious one may be). Though there are many great things in them to praise (if I do not seem superfluous in admiring my own), one is greatest of all and stands out above the rest: piety. I mean these venerable and grey-haired parents, venerable no less for their virtue than for their age, whose bodies are worn by time, but whose souls are young for God. … to God, and handing down piety not only to herself as a necessary inheritance but also to those born of her, truly a holy lump from a holy first-fruit; and she increased and multiplied it so much that some have believed and said (I will say it, even if the word is bold) that even her husband’s perfection was the work of none but her; and (O the wonder!) that a greater and more perfect piety was given to him as the prize of piety. Both of them loved their children and loved Christ, which is most strange; or rather they loved Christ more than their children; for their one enjoyment of their children was that they should be known and named from Christ, and their one measure of good children was virtue and nearness to what is better. They were merciful and sympathetic, snatching most of their goods from moths and robbers and the ruler of this world, moving from their sojourning to their true dwelling, and storing up for their children the brightness there as their greatest inheritance. So too they reached a rich old age, equal in honour both in virtue and in years, and full of days, both of those that remain and of those that pass away; each lacking the first place among those on earth only so far as each was kept from it by the other. And they filled up the measure of all happiness, except this last thing, as one might suppose, whether one should call it a testing or a dispensation: which, in my view, is that, having sent ahead the one of their children who was less safe because of his age, they might now end their life in safety and be taken up above with their whole household.

[5] I have gone through these things, not wishing to praise them, nor unaware that one would scarcely reach their worth even by making their praise the whole subject of a discourse, but to show that virtue was owed to Caesarius from his parents, so that you may not wonder or disbelieve if, having had such parents, he showed himself worthy of such praises; but rather the opposite would be surprising, if he had looked to others and neglected the examples of his own family close at hand. His first years, then, were such as befit those who are truly well born and who are to live well. And to cut short what lies between (his beauty and stature and the man’s grace in all things, and, as it were, a harmony as in musical tones; for it is not for us to admire such things, even if they seem no small matter to others), I will proceed to the next part of my discourse, which it is not easy to leave out even if one wished.

[6] Brought up and educated in such ways, and sufficiently trained in the learning to be had here, in which he surpassed the many by more than one could say in quickness and greatness of nature (how can I pass over the memory of those days without tears, and not have my emotion convict me of being unphilosophical, against my promise!), when the time seemed to have come to go abroad, then for the first time we were separated from each other: I remained in the schools of Palestine, which were then flourishing in rhetoric, while he reached the city of Alexander, which was then and is now, in fact and in repute, the workshop of every kind of learning. What shall I mention first, or what as greatest, of his good qualities? What shall I omit without defrauding my discourse of what is greatest? Who was more faithful to his teachers than he? Who dearer to his fellow students? Who more avoided the company and conversation of the wicked? Who attached himself more to the best, especially to the most distinguished and best known of those from his homeland, knowing that this too, the company one keeps, contributes no small amount to virtue or to vice? As a result, who was more honoured by the authorities than he? Who in the whole city (though because of its greatness everyone is hidden in it) was better known for his temperance or more conspicuous for his intelligence? … carrying off the first prize among those in the second rank. And this is not a word without witness; but the East and the West, and all the places to which he went later, are notable monuments of his education. [8] But when, having gathered every virtue and every kind of learning into his one soul, like a great merchant ship laden with varied merchandise, he was setting out for his own city, to share with others too the fair cargo of his education, then a wonderful thing happened, which it is fine to tell briefly, for to recall it gladdens me most of all, and would make you happier too. Our mother prayed a mother’s child-loving prayer, that as she had sent us both off, so she might see us return together. For we seemed to be a pair worthy of prayer and of sight, if not to others, at least to our mother, when we were seen together; a pair now wickedly broken up by envy. And God so moving things, who hears a just prayer and honours the love of parents for dutiful children, without any design or arrangement, the one from Alexandria and the other from Greece, at the same time and to the same city, the one by land and the other by sea, we arrived. The city was Byzantium, the city that now presides over Europe, in which Caesarius, after no long time, gained such fame that public honours, a marriage with a lady of distinguished family, and a seat in the senate were offered him, and an embassy was sent by common decree to the emperor, the great one, asking that the first city might be adorned and honoured by the first of the learned (if it cared to be truly first and worthy of its name), and that this might be added to all the tales told about it, that it prided itself on Caesarius as its physician and inhabitant; although, besides its other brilliance, it flourished with many great men in philosophy and in other learning. But enough of this. What happened then seemed to others a chance without reason or cause, such as chance brings about often in our affairs; but to those who love God it was very clear that it was nothing else than the work of God-loving parents, gathering their sons from land and sea into one fulfilment of their prayer. [9] Come, let me not pass over this either among Caesarius’s good qualities, which perhaps seems small to others and not worth remembering, but seemed to me then and seems now very great, if brotherly love is among the things to be praised; and I will never cease setting it among the first whenever I tell of him. The city held him with the honours I mentioned, and declared that it would not let him go whatever happened; but I, pulling the other way, prevailed, I who was everything to Caesarius, great and honoured, and so fulfilled our parents’ prayer, our homeland’s due, and my own longing, taking him as my companion and fellow traveller on the road, and being preferred by him not only to cities and peoples, to honours and revenues, which flowed to him in abundance from many sides or were hoped for, but almost to the emperor himself and his commands. From then on I resolved to philosophize and to be conformed to the life above, shaking off all ambition like a heavy master or a grievous disease; or rather, the longing was older and the life came later. But as for him, who had dedicated the first-fruits of his learning to his homeland and been admired as his labours deserved, after this the desire for glory and for being a protector of his city, as he persuaded me, gave him to the palace. This was not at all to our liking or according to our judgment (for I will confess to you that to be ranked last with God seems to me better and loftier than to hold the first place with the king below); yet he does not deserve blame. For philosophy is as hard as it is great, and the undertaking is not for many, nor for any but those called by the divine magnanimity, which gives its hand to those who choose well; but it is no small thing if one who has chosen the second life lays claim to goodness, and takes more account of God and of his own salvation than of brilliance here below, and treats that brilliance as a stage or a mask for the many and temporary things, playing the drama of this world while himself living for God with the image, which he knows he has received from him and owes to the Giver. And this, indeed, we know Caesarius intended. [10] … he was at once numbered among the emperor’s friends and reaps the greatest honours; but he offers the kindness of his art without fee to those in office, knowing that nothing advances a man so much as virtue and being known for the finest things. And those among whom he was second in rank he far surpassed in glory: lovable to all for his temperance, and for this reason trusted with precious things, and needing nothing of the oath of Hippocrates, so that even the simplicity of Crates was nothing compared with his; more venerable to all than his rank warranted, always thought worthy of great present honours and judged worthy of greater ones in hope, by the emperors themselves and by those who hold the first place after them. And, greatest of all, neither glory nor the luxury around him corrupted the nobility of his soul; but, though many great things belonged to him, the first in dignity was to be and to be called a Christian, and all the rest together was a toy and nonsense to him compared with this one thing. For the other things are played, as on a stage, by others and by oneself, set up very quickly and taken down, perhaps destroyed more easily than established, as one can see from the many changes of life and the prosperity that falls now up and now down; but piety alone is a good of one’s own and abiding … [11] These things Caesarius philosophized even in his court robe; with these thoughts he lived and departed, showing and presenting to God a piety greater than that visible to the public, according to the hidden man. And if I must, passing over everything else (his protection of relatives in misfortune, his disdain of pride, his generosity to his friends, his frankness toward the rulers, his contests and arguments for the truth, many and against many, not only with skill in argument but very piously and fervently), I will tell, instead of all, the best known of his deeds. The emperor of evil name was raging against us, having first raged against himself by denying Christ, and was by now unbearable to others too, not even, like the other enemies of Christ, registering himself for impiety with greatness of soul, but stealing the persecution under a pretence of gentleness; and, like the crooked serpent that held his soul, drawing the wretched down into his pit by all kinds of devices. His first trick and sophism was that we should not even obtain the honour of our contests (for the noble man begrudged Christians even this): that those suffering as Christians should be punished as evildoers. The second was that the name of persuasion, not of tyranny, should be attached to what was done, so that the shame might be greater than the danger for those who went voluntarily over to impiety. And, drawing some by money, others by dignities, others by promises, others by all kinds of honours, which he offered not royally but very slavishly in the sight of all, and all of them by the witchery of his words and by his own example, after many others he tries Caesarius too. Alas for the madness and folly, if he hoped to carry off Caesarius, my brother, the son of these parents! … [13] … it would be altogether out of season and out of place to tell the arguments. But when Caesarius, having undone all the twists of his arguments and pushed aside every trial, hidden and open, like a game, proclaimed with a great and clear voice that he was and remained a Christian, not even then was he altogether sent away; for a terrible longing held the emperor to enjoy Caesarius’s learning and pride himself on it. It was then that he uttered that famous saying in everyone’s hearing: “O happy father, O unhappy sons!”, since he thought fit to honour me too with a share in the dishonour, having known both our learning and our piety at Athens. Kept back for a second hearing (since justice nobly armed the emperor against the Persians), Caesarius returns to us a blessed exile and a bloodless victor, more conspicuous in his dishonour than in his brilliance.

This victory I judge far loftier and more honourable than that man’s great power, his lofty purple, and his costly diadem; I am more elated by this tale than if Caesarius had received from him a share in his whole empire. He withdraws for the present, in those evil times, and this according to our legislation, which bids us, when the moment comes, to face danger for the truth and not betray piety through cowardice, but, as long as it is allowed, not to provoke dangers, whether out of fear for our own souls or to spare those who bring the danger upon us. But when the darkness was dispelled, and the foreign land had judged well, and the gleaming sword had struck down the impious, and affairs returned to the Christians, why need I say with what glory and honour, with what and how great testimonies, and as one bestowing a favour rather than receiving it, he is taken back into the palace, and his second honour succeeds the first? Time changed the emperors, but Caesarius’s good repute and first place with them remained unbroken; and there was a contest among the emperors as to which of them should attach Caesarius more closely, and whose friend and acquaintance he should rather be called. Such were Caesarius’s piety and its rewards. Let young men and grown men hear it, and press on through the same virtue to the same distinction (“for glorious is the fruit of good labours”), all who think this worth pursuing and a part of happiness.

But of this kind too is one of the wonders about him, which gives the greatest proof both of his parents’ godliness and of his own. He was living in Bithynia, holding an office not much below the emperor: this was to keep the emperor’s money and to have charge of the treasuries; for by this the emperor was preparing greater offices for him. And when the recent earthquake at Nicaea occurred, said to have been the most severe ever recorded, which overtook almost everyone and destroyed them together with the beauty of the city, he alone of the notable men, or with very few, is saved from the danger, sheltered by the falling ruins in a safety beyond belief, and bearing small marks of the danger, enough to take his fear as tutor toward the greater salvation and to become wholly of the portion above, transferring his service from the things that are shaken and exchanging his palace. This he intended, and prayed earnestly for himself, as he assured me in writing, when I had seized the occasion for admonition; which I never ceased doing at other times either, jealous that his great nature was turning about among lesser things, and that so philosophical a soul was rolling in public affairs and covered like the sun by a cloud. But though he overcame the earthquake, he did not overcome disease; for he was a man. The one was his own, the other common to him with others; the one belonged to piety, the other to nature. And the consolation came before the suffering, so that, shaken by his death, we might boast of the strangeness of his safety then. And now our great Caesarius has been restored to us, precious dust, a praised corpse, escorted with hymn upon hymn, carried in procession to the shrines of the martyrs, honoured by the holy hands of his parents, by his mother in bright garments setting piety against grief, by tears overcome by philosophy, by psalmody quieting the laments; receiving honours worthy of his newly created soul, which the Spirit refashioned through water.

This is my funeral gift to you, Caesarius; these are the first-fruits of my words, which you often blamed me for keeping hidden, and which you were to be the first to see laid bare, over yourself. This is the adornment I give you, dearer to you, I know well, than all adornment: not flowing silks and soft threads, in which even in your lifetime you did not delight as most people do, adorned as you were by virtue alone; nor fabrics of transparent linen, nor pourings of costly perfumes, which you used to send off to the women’s quarters even before, and whose fragrance one day dissolves; nor any other of the small things precious to small minds, all of which this bitter stone would have hidden today along with your fair body. Away with Greek contests and myths, by which unhappy youths were honoured, who set small prizes for small contests; and with all the libations and first-fruits, the garlands and freshly plucked flowers, by which they pay their dues to departed men, serving ancestral custom and the unreason of grief rather than reason. My gift is a discourse, which perhaps future time too will receive, always in motion, and not allowing the one who has moved from here to depart altogether, but always keeping the one it honours in ears and in souls, and setting forth an image of the beloved clearer than paintings. Such, then, are our offerings; and if they are small and less than his worth, what is offered according to one’s power is dear to God. Some we have paid, others we shall pay, offering honours and remembrances year by year, we who are left in this life. But may you ascend the heavens, O divine and holy head, and rest in the bosom of Abraham, whatever that is, and behold the dance of the angels and the glories and splendours of the blessed; or rather join in the dance and exult with them, laughing from on high at all things here: the so-called riches, the dignities cast aside, the false honours, the error of the senses, the whirl of this life, and the confusion and ignorance as in a battle by night; standing by the great King and filled with the light there. May we too, who have now received a small effluence of that light, as far as it appears in mirrors and riddles, hereafter meet the very source of the good, beholding the pure truth with a pure mind, and finding this reward for our diligence about the good here: a more perfect share and vision of the good there; which is the end of our initiation, as the books and the souls of the theologians declare.

What remains? To offer the healing of words to those who grieve. Great for mourners is the medicine that comes from those who share their grief; those who have an equal share in the suffering have more to give in consolation to those who suffer. My word, then, is above all to such people; for whom I would be ashamed if, as in every other good thing, they did not carry off the first prize in endurance too. For if they are the most child-loving of all, they are also the most philosophical and Christ-loving of all, having long practised departure from here themselves and taught it to their children; or rather having made their whole life a practice of dying. But if grief still darkens your reasonings, and, like a film creeping over the eye, does not let you see clearly what is right, come, receive comfort, you elders from a young man, you fathers from your son, who ought rather to be admonished by those of your age, you who have admonished many and gathered experience over a long time. And do not wonder if a young man admonishes the old; this too is your doing, if I can see anything better than grey hairs. How much longer shall we live, O precious grey hairs, drawing near to God? How long shall we suffer here? Not even the whole life of men is long, if compared with the divine and endless nature, much less the remnant of life and the dissolution, as we might call it, of human breath, the last moments of this temporary life. How far ahead of us has Caesarius gone? How long shall we still mourn the departed? Are we not hastening to the same dwelling? Shall we not soon go under the same stone? Shall we not shortly be the same dust? And what do we gain in these few days, except that, having seen more evils, suffered some and perhaps done some, we pay to the law of nature the common and unalterable contribution: to follow some and go before others, to weep for some and be lamented by others, and to receive back from others the contribution of tears that we first made to others?

Such is our life, brothers, the life of us who live for a time; such is the game on earth: not to be, and to come into being, and having come into being, to be dissolved. We are a dream that does not stand, an apparition that cannot be held, the flight of a passing bird, a ship on the sea leaving no track, dust, vapour, morning dew, a flower that grows in its season and perishes in its season. “Man, his days are like grass; like a flower of the field, so he will flourish”: so the divine David philosophized well about our weakness; and again in those words: “Declare to me the fewness of my days”; and he defines the days of man by the measure of handbreadths. And what would you say to Jeremiah, who even reproaches his mother for his birth in his pain, and that for the sins of others? “I have seen all things,” says the Preacher; I have gone over in thought all human things: wealth, luxury, power, unstable glory, wisdom that escapes more than it is held; luxury again, wisdom again, coming round often to the same things: pleasures of the belly, gardens, a multitude of servants, a multitude of possessions, men and women cupbearers, men and women singers, weapons, guards, nations falling down before me, tributes collected, royal pride, all that is superfluous in life and all that is necessary, in which I surpassed all the kings before me. And what after all these? “All is vanity of vanities, all is vanity, and a choice of the wind,” that is, an unreasoning impulse of the soul and a distraction of man, condemned to this perhaps from the ancient fall. “But the end of the word,” he says, “hear the whole: fear God”; here he stops his perplexity; and this is the only gain for you of the life here: to be guided through the confusion of things seen and shaken toward the things that stand and are not shaken.

[20] Let us not, then, mourn Caesarius, knowing from what evils he has been released, but ourselves, for what evils we have been left to and what we shall store up, unless, truly attaching ourselves to God and running past the things that run past, we hasten to the life above, while still on earth having left the earth, and truly following the Spirit who bears us upward. These things are painful to the faint-hearted and light to the manly of mind. Let us consider it this way. Caesarius will not rule? But neither will he be ruled by others. He will not be feared by anyone? But neither will he fear a harsh master, often not even worthy to be ruled. He will not gather wealth? But neither will he incur envy, nor lose his soul by gathering wickedly, always seeking to add as much again as he has acquired. For such is the disease of riches: it has no limit to needing more, but always makes drink the remedy for further thirst. He will not display his learning in speeches? But he will be admired in speeches. He will not philosophize about the doctrines of Hippocrates and Galen and their opponents? But neither will he suffer with diseases, reaping griefs of his own from others’ misfortunes. He will not demonstrate the theorems of Euclid and Ptolemy and Heron? But neither will he be pained by the uneducated who puff themselves up. He will not pride himself on the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle and Pyrrho, and of certain Democrituses and Heraclituses and Anaxagorases, Cleantheses and Epicuruses, and I know not whom of the august Stoa and the Academy? But neither will he take thought how to refute their plausibilities. Why need I mention the rest? But the things precious and eagerly sought by all: will he not have a wife? Children? But neither will he lament them or be lamented by them, either leaving them to others or being left behind as a memorial of misfortune. Will he not inherit property? But he will be inherited by those who are most useful, and whom he himself wished, so that he departs from here rich, carrying everything with him. O the generosity! O the new consolation! O the magnanimity of his heirs! A proclamation worthy of every ear has been heard, and a mother’s grief is emptied by a good and holy promise: to give all her son’s wealth to her son, as a funeral gift on his behalf, and to leave nothing to those who had expected it. [21] … the earth, in the way that God who bound and loosed these things knows, makes it co-heir of the glory there; and just as it shared in the body’s hardships because of their union, so it shares its own delights with the body, having consumed it wholly into itself, and having become with it one spirit and mind and god, the mortal and fleeting being swallowed up by life. Hear, then, what is philosophized by the divine Ezekiel about the joining of bones and sinews, and after him by the divine Paul about the earthly tent and the house not made with hands, the one to be dissolved and the other laid up in heaven; who says that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, and laments life in the body as exile, and for this reason longs and hastens for his departure. Why am I faint-hearted about my hopes? Why do I think only of this present time? I await the voice of the archangel, the last trumpet, the transformation of heaven, the remaking of the earth, the freedom of the elements, the renewal of the whole world. Then I shall see Caesarius himself, no longer exiled, no longer carried to burial, no longer mourned, no longer pitied, but bright, glorious, exalted, as you often appeared to me in dreams, O dearest of brothers to me and most loving of brothers, whether it was my wish that shaped the picture or the truth. [22] But now, leaving laments, I will look to myself, lest I unknowingly carry about something worthy of lament, and I will examine my own state. “Sons of men” (for my discourse now passes to you), “how long will you be heavy of heart” and dull of mind? “Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?”, thinking the life here something great, and these few days many, and turning away from this separation, so desirable and sweet, as if it were something heavy and dreadful? Shall we not know ourselves? Shall we not cast off what is seen? Shall we not look to what is perceived by the mind? Shall we not, if we must grieve at all, rather be distressed at the lengthening of our sojourning, like the divine David, who calls the things here tents of darkness, a place of affliction, the mire of the deep, and the shadow of death; because we linger in the tombs we carry about, because, having become gods, we die like men the death of sin? This is the fear I fear; with this I live night and day; and the glory there and the tribunals there do not let me breathe: the one I long for, so far as to be able to say, “My soul faints for your salvation,” the others I shudder at and turn from. And I do not fear that this body of mine, flowing away and decaying, will wholly perish; but that the glorious creature of God (for it is glorious when it does right, as it is dishonoured when it sins), in which there is reason, law, hope, may be condemned to the same dishonour as the irrational animals, and be nothing more after the separation, as I could wish for the wicked and for those worthy of the fire there. [23] Would that I might put to death my members that are on earth! Would that I might spend everything on the Spirit, walking the narrow way trodden by few, not the broad and easy one! For what comes after this is bright and great, and the hope is greater than our worth. “What is man, that you are mindful of him?” What is this new mystery concerning me? I am small and great, lowly and lofty, mortal and immortal, earthly and heavenly: the one with the world below, the other with God; the one with the flesh, the other with the Spirit. I must be buried with Christ, rise with Christ, be co-heir with Christ, become a son of God, God himself. See where our discourse has brought us as it advanced. I almost confess gratitude to the suffering by which I have philosophized such things and become more a lover of departure from here. This is what the great mystery means for us; this is the purpose of God, who for us became man and became poor: to raise up the flesh, to restore the image, and to refashion man, so that we may all become one in Christ, who has become perfectly in all of us all that he himself is; so that we may no longer be male and female, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free (the marks of the flesh), but bear in ourselves only the divine stamp, by which and for which we came into being, so shaped and moulded by it as to be known by it alone.

And may what we hope for come to pass, according to the great love for mankind of God, the giver of great gifts, who asks for little and bestows great things, both now and in the time to come, on those who truly love him, bearing all things and enduring all things for love of him and hope in him; giving thanks in all things, on the right hand and on the left alike, I mean the pleasant and the painful, since reason knows that these too are often weapons of salvation; and entrusting to him our own souls and the souls of those who, being readier, have gone to rest before us on the common road. Having done this ourselves, let us end our discourse here, and you your tears, hastening now to your tomb, which Caesarius has as your gift, sorrowful and lasting: prepared in good time for parents and for old age, but given, beyond all expectation, to a son and to youth, though not without reason in the eyes of the One who orders our affairs. O Master and Maker of all things, and especially of this creature of yours! O God of your people, their Father and Pilot! O Lord of life and death! O Steward and Benefactor of our souls! O you who make all things and transform them in due season by your artist Word, as you yourself know in the depth of your wisdom and governance: receive now Caesarius, the first-fruits of our departure; and if the last goes first, we yield to your reasons, by which the universe is borne along; and receive us too afterward, in the acceptable time, having ordered our life in the flesh for as long as is profitable; and receive us prepared by your fear, not troubled, nor shrinking back on the last day, nor torn by force from the things here, which is the experience of souls that love the world and the flesh, but going eagerly to the long and blessed life there, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

In praising my sister I shall be honouring what is my own; yet not falsely because it is my own, but praiseworthily because it is true; and true, not only because it is just, but because it is known. Even if we wished it, favour is not allowed; for the hearer stands in the middle, like a skilled umpire, between my words and the truth, neither accepting what is beyond desert nor failing, if he is just, to demand what is deserved. So the fear I have is not that we may overshoot the truth, but on the contrary that we may fall short of it, and, coming far below her worth, lessen her glory by our praises; since it is hard to match either deed or word to her good qualities. Let nothing that belongs to others be praised if it is not just, nor let what is one’s own be dishonoured if it is honourable, so that being a stranger may not be a gain to the one, and being kin may not turn into a loss for the other. For in both ways the principle of justice would be harmed, if those were praised and these passed over in silence. But using truth as our boundary and rule, looking to it alone and considering nothing else of the things that the many cheap people consider, we will praise what deserves praise and keep silent about what deserves silence. [2] Most absurd of all would be this: if we shall think it impious to deprive our own of anything, or to revile or accuse them, or to wrong them in anything, small or great, and even hold wrongdoing against those closest to us the worst of all; but in depriving them of words, which are owed most of all to the good, and by which we could make their memory immortal, we shall think we are doing something just, and take more account of the wicked who accuse us of favour than of the decent who demand what is deserved. And while their being unknown and unattested does not prevent us from praising outsiders (although it would be much more just to refrain), friendship is to prevent us from praising those we know, together with the envy of the many; and this especially in the case of those who have departed from here, to whom it is too late to show favour, since along with everything else they have left behind those who praise or blame them. [3] But since we have sufficiently defended ourselves on these points, and shown that this discourse is necessary for us, come, let us now approach the praises, setting aside polish and refinement of diction (since the woman we praise was unadorned, and her lack of adornment was her beauty), but paying the due rite as one of the most necessary debts, and at the same time training the many to emulation and imitation of the same virtue, since in every word and deed our concern is to build up those entrusted to us. Let another, then, praise the departed’s homeland and family, out of respect for the rules of encomium; he will certainly not lack many fine words, if he wishes to adorn her with external things too, like a precious and beautiful form adorned with gold and stones and the ornaments of art and hand, which expose the ugly by contrast but add no beauty to the beautiful, being outshone. But I will make use of the rule for these things only so far as to mention our common parents (for it is not holy to pass over those who begot and taught so great a good), and will turn my discourse to her as quickly as possible, and not defraud the longing of those who want to hear about her.

Who, then, does not know our new Abraham and the Sarah of our own day, Gregory, I mean, and Nonna his wife (for it is good not to pass over even their names, as an encouragement to virtue)? He was justified by faith, she lived with the faithful one; he became father of many nations beyond hope, she brought them forth spiritually; he fled the slavery of his fathers’ gods, she is daughter and mother of the free; he went out from his kindred and his house for the land of promise, she was the cause of his departure (in this alone, if I may be bold, she was even above Sarah); he sojourned well, she eagerly shared his sojourning; he attached himself to the Lord, she both called and considered her husband lord, and was in part justified by this; theirs was the promise, theirs, so far as lay with them, Isaac, and theirs the gift. [5] … remnant, and what was left of them for piety, but long and lasting was the life in which they had laboured. One thing more I will add to my words about them: they were well and justly divided between the two sexes, he being the adornment of men and she of women, and not an adornment only but a pattern of virtue.

From them Gorgonia had both her being and her good repute; from them she had the seeds of piety; from them both to live well and to depart with the better hopes. These things are fine, and such as do not easily belong to many of those who pride themselves greatly on their noble birth and their ancestry from above. But if we must speak of her more philosophically and loftily, Gorgonia’s homeland is the Jerusalem above, which is not seen, … the city in which we have our citizenship and toward which we hasten; whose citizen is Christ, and whose fellow citizens are the festal gathering and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, keeping festival around the great Citizen in the contemplation of his glory, and dancing the dance that never ends; and her noble birth is the keeping of the image and the likeness to the archetype, which reason and virtue and pure longing bring about, ever more conforming to God those who are true initiates of the things above, and who know whence and who we are and for what we were made.

So I judge these things; and for this reason I know and call her soul nobler than any from the rising of the sun, using a better rule and measure of nobility and lowliness than the many do, marking them not by blood but by character, and judging those who are praised or blamed not by their clans but each one by himself. Let my discourse, then, be about her own good qualities, and let each of you contribute something and help it along; since it is not possible for one person to embrace everything, even one very able in hearing and understanding.

In temperance she so excelled, and so surpassed all the women of her time (not to speak of those of old, whose renown for temperance is great), that, since life for all people is divided into these two, I mean marriage and celibacy, the one higher and more divine but more laborious and more dangerous, the other lower and safer, she escaped what is unpleasant in both, and chose what is finest in both and brought it together into one, the height of the one and the safety of the other; and she became temperate without pride, blending the good of celibacy with marriage, and showing that neither of these entirely binds us to God or to the world, nor again separates us from them; so that the one is not to be fled by everyone because of its own nature, nor is the other wholly praiseworthy; but it is the mind that presides well over marriage and virginity, and these, like some material, are shaped and wrought toward virtue by the artist Word. For she was not separated from the Spirit because she was joined to the flesh; nor, because she had her husband as head, did she ignore her first Head; but having ministered a little to the world and to nature, as much as the law of the flesh required, or rather the One who gave the flesh these laws, she consecrated herself wholly to God. And what is finest and most august: she won her husband to her side, and gained in him not an unreasonable master but a good fellow servant. And not only this, but she also made the fruit of her body, I mean her children and her children’s children, a fruit of the Spirit, consecrating to God a whole family and a whole household instead of one soul, and making marriage praiseworthy through her being well pleasing to God in marriage and through the fine fruit that came from it; while she lived, she set herself before those born of her as an example of every good, and when she was called away, she left her will to the household after her as a silent exhortation.

The divine Solomon, in his instructive wisdom, I mean the Proverbs, praises a woman’s keeping of her house and love for her husband; and against the woman who wanders outside, unrestrained and dishonoured, hunting precious souls with the dress and words of a harlot, he sets the woman who conducts herself well within and is manly in a woman’s tasks, always setting her hands to the spindle and preparing double cloaks for her husband, buying a field in its season, providing grain well for her servants, receiving her friends at a full table, and all the other things with which he celebrated the temperate and industrious woman. But if I were to praise my sister for these things, I would be praising the statue from its shadow, or the lion from its claws, passing over the greater and more perfect things. Who had more right to be seen? Who was seen less, and kept herself inaccessible to the eyes of men? Who knew better the measures of gravity and cheerfulness, so that her gravity did not seem inhuman nor her gentleness licentious, but the one prudent and the other kind, and this the very bound of decorum, kindness blended with dignity? Hear, you women who are too fond of display and careless, and dishonour the veil of modesty. Who so chastened her eye? Who so laughed laughter to scorn, that even the beginning of a smile seemed a great matter to her? Who more set doors upon her hearing? And who opened it more to divine words; or rather, who set the mind as guide over the tongue to speak the ordinances of God? Who so set her lips in order?

[10] Do you wish me to tell this too among her good qualities, which seemed worth nothing to her, nor to any women truly temperate and orderly in character, but which women very fond of ornament and finery, and not purified even by the words of those who teach about such things, have made seem a great matter? No gold adorned her, worked by art to an excess of beauty; no blonde tresses, showing through and half shown, no spiral curls, no tricks of those who most dishonourably make a stage of the precious head; no costliness of flowing and transparent dress; no gleams and charms of stones, colouring the air around and lighting up the forms; no arts and witchery of painters, and that cheap beauty, and the sculptor from below who rivals creation and hides God’s creature under treacherous colours, shaming it by the very honour he pays it, and setting forth the divine form as a harlot’s idol before lustful eyes, so that a bastard beauty may steal the natural image that is kept for God and for the life to come. Though she knew the many and varied outward adornments of women, she knew none more precious than her own character and the brightness stored up within. One red was dear to her, that of modesty; one white, that which comes from self-control. The paintings and pencillings, the living pictures and the fading comeliness, she left to the women of the theatre and the street, and to those for whom shame is a shame and a reproach. [11] Such, then, were these things; but no word could reach her prudence and her piety, nor could many examples of them be found, except in her fathers according to the flesh and according to the spirit. To these alone she looked, and falling short of them in no point of virtue, she was outdone in this one thing alone, and very willingly: that she had her good from them, and knew and confessed them as the root of her own illumination. What was sharper than her mind, which not only her kin, nor those of the same people and the one fold, but all around knew as a common counsellor, and made her suggestions and advice an unbreakable law? What was more apt than her words? What more intelligent than her silence? But since I have mentioned silence, I will add what was most characteristic of her, most fitting for women, and most useful for the present time. Who knew the things of God better, from the divine oracles and from her own understanding? And who spoke less, keeping within the bounds of piety proper to women? And as was due from one who truly knew how to be pious, in which alone insatiability is good: who so adorned churches with offerings, among them the one I know not whether it will be adorned again after her? Or rather, who so presented herself to God as a living temple? Who so glorified priests, among them the one who was her fellow contestant and teacher in piety, whose are the fine seeds and the pair of children consecrated to God? [12] … So that I would boldly adorn her with the words of Job: “Her door was open to every comer; no stranger lodged outside. She was an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, a mother to orphans.” And of her compassion toward widows what greater thing need be said than that she won the reward of not being called a widow? Her house was a common lodging for her kin by blood, and her goods were common to all in need, no less than her own. “She scattered, she gave to the poor”; and trusting in the unfailing and unlying promise, she laid up much in the winepresses there; much she welcomed Christ, through many who received her benefits; and finest of all, with her the appearance was not greater than the truth, but in secret she cultivated piety well for him who sees in secret. She snatched everything from the ruler of this world and transferred everything to the safe storehouses; she left nothing to the earth but her body; she exchanged everything for the hopes there; one wealth only she left her children: the imitation of these things and emulation of them. [13] Nor was it that, while her magnanimity was such and so incredible, she gave her body to luxury and to the unrestrained pleasures of the belly, that raging and tearing dog, as though trusting in her good works; as many do, who buy their luxury with their compassion toward the poor, and do not heal evil with good but take back the bad in return for the good. Nor did she wrestle down the dust by fasting and leave to another the remedy of sleeping on the ground; nor, having found this help for the soul, set a less strict measure on sleep than another; nor, having laid down this law as though bodiless, lie down on the ground while others kept vigil all night upright, which is the special contest of philosophers. In these she showed herself more manly not only than women but than the noblest men: in the earnest tone of psalmody, the reading of the divine oracles, their exposition or seasonable recollection, the bending of knees hardened and as it were grown to the ground, the tears that cleanse defilement in a contrite heart and a spirit of humility, the prayer that sets one on high, and the mind unwandering and lifted up. In all these, or in any of them, is there anyone, man or woman, who could boast of having surpassed her? It is a great thing to say, but true: in some of these good things she emulated others, in others she was the one emulated; some she found, others she conquered. And if in some one of them she had a rival, yet by gathering them all into one she prevailed over all. So she achieved all of them, as no one else achieved even one moderately; and each to its summit, so that even one alone would have sufficed instead of all.

[14] O squalid body and garment, blooming with virtue alone! O soul holding the body fast, almost without food, as though it were immaterial! Or rather, O body forced to die even before the separation, that the soul might receive its freedom and not be hampered by the senses! O sleepless nights, psalmody, and standing that ended only from one day into the next! O David, whose songs are not long only to faithful souls! O tender limbs, cast on the ground and roughened against nature! O fountains of tears, sown in affliction that they might reap in exultation! O cry by night, piercing the clouds and reaching the heavenly One! O fervour of spirit, daring the dogs of the night for love of prayer, and frosts and rains and thunders and hail and the hours of darkness! O female nature that overcame the male through the common contest for salvation, and proved that female and male are a difference of body and not of soul! O purity after the bath of baptism, O soul, the bride of Christ, in the pure bridal chamber of the body! O bitter taste, O Eve, mother of the race and of sin, O deceitful serpent, O death, overcome by her self-control! O emptying of Christ, form of a servant, and sufferings, honoured by her mortification! [15] O how shall I count up all her deeds, or, passing over most, not defraud those who did not know her? But it is fitting now to add also the rewards of her piety; for you who knew her well seem to me to have long been longing and looking for this in my discourse: not only the present things, nor those in which she now exults there, which surpass the mind and hearing and sight of men, but also those with which the just Rewarder repaid her here; since he often does this for the building up of unbelievers, confirming great things by small ones and the invisible by the visible … of those who perceive, even moderately, God and his power above all things.

… she went away at once, feeling her salvation, light in body and soul and mind, receiving as the reward of her hope the thing she hoped for, and recovering the strength of her body through the strength of her soul. These things are great, but not false. Believe them, all of you, both the sick and the healthy, so that some of you may keep your health and others may regain it. And that the story is no boast is clear from the fact that I kept silent about it until now and have now revealed it; and I would not have published it even now, be sure, had not some fear held me lest I hide so great a wonder from believers and unbelievers, from those now living and those to come. [19] These, then, are the things of her life; and we have left out most of them for the sake of proportion in the discourse, and so as not to seem insatiable in praise. But perhaps we would wrong her holy and famous end if we did not mention its good things too, especially since it is so longed for and asked about. I will mention them as briefly as possible. She longed for her departure (for she had great boldness toward the One who called her), and preferred being with Christ to everything on earth; and no one of those most given to lust and least restrained loves the body as she longed to throw off these fetters and rise above the mire in which we live, to be purely with the Beautiful, and to receive wholly her Beloved, and, I will add, her Lover, by whose small rays we are now illumined, and from whom, so far as knowing him goes, we are separated. Nor does she fail of this desire, so great and lofty as it was; and, what is greater still, she enjoyed the good beforehand through foreknowledge and much watchfulness. This was repaid by one of the sweetest sleeps, and by one vision that comprehended the set time of her departure and made known this very day, so that, God presiding, she might be prepared and not troubled.

For her, the good of purification and perfection was recent, which all of us have received from God as a common gift and as the foundation of a second life; or rather, her whole life was purification and perfection for her; and she had the regeneration from the Spirit, and its security from the life she had already lived. And for her almost alone, if I may be bold to say it, the mystery was a seal and not a gift of grace. And seeking, in addition to all this, the perfecting of her husband (do you wish me to describe her husband briefly? He was the husband of that woman, and I do not know what more need be said), so that she might be consecrated to God with her whole body and not depart half perfected, nor leave anything of her own imperfect, she did not fail of this prayer either, from him who does the will of those who fear him and brings their requests to fulfilment.

When everything was as she wished, and nothing she longed for was lacking, and the appointed day was near, she now prepared herself for death and departure, and fulfilled the custom about it by lying down. And having given her charges to her husband, her children, and her friends, as was fitting for one who loved her husband, her children, and her brothers, and having philosophized brilliantly about the things there, and making her last day a day of festival, she fell asleep, full not of days according to man (which she did not even pray for, knowing them to be evil and spent for the most part with dust and error), but very full of days according to God, more so, I think, than anyone easily could be of those who have ended their life in a rich old age and counted many cycles of years. So she was released, or rather, better to say, taken up, or flew away, or changed her dwelling, or departed a little before her body.

But what a thing of hers I nearly passed over! Perhaps you would not have allowed it, you her spiritual father, who kept the wonder carefully and made it known to us: a great thing for her honour, and a great thing for us as a reminder of virtue and a longing for the same departure. A shudder runs through me, and tears with it, as I remember the wonder. She was already dissolving and drawing her last breaths, and around her was a chorus of kin and strangers rendering the last farewells; her aged mother bending over her, her soul torn in jealousy of the departure; and the love of all mixed with anguish, some longing to hear something to kindle their memory, others to hear what she would say, but no one daring to ask. The tears were silent, and the travail of grief unrelieved (for it did not seem holy to honour with laments one who was parting so), and there was a deep silence, and death was a kind of sacred rite. She was breathless and speechless to all appearance, and the silence of her body was a paralysis, as though the organs of speech had already failed through the withdrawal of the one who moved them. But the shepherd, who watched all her doings carefully because of the wonder in all of them, perceived her lips moving gently, and put his ear to her lips (he had the boldness for it from his character and his sympathy): you yourself tell the mystery of the silence, what it was and of what kind; no one will disbelieve you when you say that it was psalmody that she was murmuring, the closing words of a psalm; or, to speak the truth, a testimony of her boldness was her departure. And blessed is she who rests with those words: “In peace I will lie down and sleep.” These things, fairest of women, both befell you and were fitting for you; what happened was a song, and with your departure came your epitaph: for you were truly at peace from the passions, and received, beyond the common sleep, the sleep owed to the beloved; as befitted one who had lived and departed in the words of piety … in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever.

Again anointing and the Spirit upon me; and again I go about mourning and gloomy. Perhaps you wonder at this. But Isaiah too, before he saw the glory of the Lord, and the throne high and lifted up, and the seraphim around it, says nothing of this kind, nor … nor fears; but he cries out against Israel, while sparing himself and keeping himself apart, as though he were guilty of nothing. But when he saw these things and heard the holy and mystical voice, as if he had become more aware of himself, “O wretched that I am,” he says, “for I am pierced to the heart,” and the rest of the passage, so that I may escape blasphemy. I find also Manoah of old among the Judges, and Peter later, the support of the church: the one saying, “We are lost, wife, we have seen God,” since he had perceived a vision greater than his own nature and power; the other unable to bear the Saviour’s presence and power, which he showed to those who sailed with him in the fishing, and therefore marvelling, yet sending him away from the boat, and adding the reason, that he was not worthy of divine manifestation and converse.

And when I hear in the Gospels of the centurion, who asked for the power but declined the presence, since his roof could not contain the divine dignity and greatness, I cannot blame myself for this cowardice and gloom. For the sun shows up the weakness of the eye, and the coming of God the sickness of the soul; and to some he is light, to others fire, to each according to the matter and quality that underlies. What do we think of Saul? He was anointed and shared in the Spirit, and was then spiritual (I would not say otherwise about him), and he even prophesied, and so beyond hope and expectation that the wonder became a proverb, “Is Saul too among the prophets?”, which is still said and heard today. But since he did not give himself wholly to the Spirit, nor was purely turned into another man, as had been declared, but something of the old spark of vice and of the evil seed remained, and there was in him a battle of spirit and flesh, why must I dramatize all his story? You know the contrary spirit, and the psalmist by whose songs he was charmed. But this much is clear from it: even if grace does not touch the unworthy, nor an instrument that is wholly evil and unfit (for “wisdom will not enter a soul that plots evil,” as is well said, and I am persuaded of it), yet to keep one’s worth and harmony is, in my view, no less a task than to be well tuned and found worthy at the beginning, because of the changeable and alterable character of human condition and nature. Because of this, grace itself often (to tell the most terrible and strangest of our evils) has produced pride and lifted men up, and so brought down from God those who did not draw near to him well; and we were cast down by being lifted up, “so that sin might become exceedingly sinful, working death in me through what is good.” [3] … and by example, through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, … for the shepherding that is fitting, drawing away from the world, bringing to God, spending the body … and joining it to the Spirit, fleeing darkness, rejoicing in light, driving away the beasts, gathering the flock, guarding against precipices and deserts, driving it up to the mountains and the heights. Of these, it seems, the most wonderful Micah also speaks, drawing us up to higher things … with the eternal mountains: “Arise and go, for this is not your rest,” even if the things … and turning below seem so to some. [4] Teach me this shepherding, O friends, from now on my shepherds and fellow shepherds; give me the watchwords, you our common father, who over a long time have trained many shepherds and seen them go before you, and you, the tester and judge of my philosophy. … how we … the word, and in a storm … and deafened by the din, can shepherd skilfully and nourish the flock? Since you are kind to sheep (if you will not be annoyed with me), we who shared the pasture of irrational sheep … were thought worthy of the spiritual one. You have us under your hands, and you have conquered the unconquered; and see, … together with others, … whom you sought, and whom … you honoured with the many and thick snowflakes of your words. [5] But I have something to blame in our friendship too: who of our common friends will judge between us? Or who will be an impartial judge, to give a just verdict and not suffer what the many suffer, and respect persons in judgment? Do you bid me tell the complaint, and will you not let loose your speech on me in turn? Something happened from you toward us that is unspeakable, O wonderful man, a thing truly unspeakable and incredible, and never heard of by us before. We were not persuaded, but forced. O the wonder! How all things have become new! And how far it separated us! What do you want me to say: the throne, or the greatness of the grace? Nevertheless, lead, prosper, and reign, and shepherd us who shepherd. For we are ready to follow and to be led by your shepherding soul, lofty and inspired (for the truth shall be told, even if, out of love, we have dared something beyond the law). Teach your love for the flocks, your care and intelligence together, your oversight, your vigils, the wasting away of your flesh, which wasted away for the Spirit, the bloom of your colour worn out for the flock, the intensity in gentleness, the calm and mildness in action (a thing not found in many, nor with many examples), the wars for the flock, the victories you have won in Christ. [6] Tell me to what pastures one must lead, to what springs one must go, and which one must flee, whether pastures or streams; whom to shepherd with the staff and whom with the pipe; when to drive to pasture and when to call back from it; how to fight the wolves, and how not to fight the shepherds; especially in the present time, when shepherds have become foolish and have scattered the sheep of the pasture, that I may lament the same things as the most holy prophets. How shall I strengthen the weak, raise the fallen, bring back the straying, seek out the lost, and guard the strong? How shall I learn these things and keep them according to the right rule of shepherding and according to your rule, and not become a bad shepherd, eating the milk, clothing myself with the wool, and slaughtering or selling the fatter ones, and leaving the rest to the beasts and the precipices, shepherding myself and not the sheep, for which the leaders of Israel of old were reproached? Teach me these things, establish me with these words, shepherd and shepherd together with me by these precepts, and save, by your prayers as by your teaching, both me and this holy flock, for my safety and for your boasting in the day of the appearing and revelation of our great God and chief Shepherd Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father almighty with the holy and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Nothing is stronger than old age, and nothing more venerable than friendship. By these I have been brought to you, a prisoner in Christ, bound not with iron chains but with the unbreakable bonds of the Spirit. Until now I thought I was someone strong and unconquerable, and (what folly!) I would not give my words even to these lovers and brothers of mine, so that I might keep my freedom from affairs and pursue philosophy in quiet, leaving everything to those who wanted it and conversing with myself and with the Spirit. I kept turning over in my mind Elijah’s Carmel and John’s desert, and the life above the world of those who practise philosophy in that way; I regarded present things as a storm, and I looked for some rock, or cliff, or wall under which I might be sheltered. “Let honours and labours belong to others,” I said, “and to others wars and the prizes of victory; for me let it be enough to flee wars, to look into myself, and to live as best I can, like one crossing a small sea on a light raft, and to win a small dwelling there by the poverty of my way of life here.” The reasoning of humbler men, perhaps, but of safer ones: to keep equally far from height and from falling.

Such things, while it was permitted, I could still write down as shadows and dreams, and feast my mind on vain imaginings. But now what? Friendship has won me over, and a father’s grey hairs have subdued me: the old age of wisdom, the appointed term of life, a safer harbour, and the friendship of one who is rich toward God and makes others rich. For now I dismiss my anger (let the meek hear and be glad), and I look gently on the hand that played the tyrant, and I smile on the Spirit, and my heart is settled, and my reason returns, and friendship, like a flame that had been quenched and had died away, comes alive again from a small spark and is rekindled. “My soul refused to be comforted, and my spirit grew weary within me.” I would say: “I will never again trust friendship. Why should I hope in man? For every man walks deceitfully, and every brother will trip his neighbour with his heel”; we are all of the same dust and the same lump, and have tasted of the same tree of evil, though one puts forward a more seemly tent than another. “And what profit is there for me,” I said, “in that friendship, so envied and so famous, which began from the world and advanced into the Spirit? What good was the one roof and table, or our common teachers and lessons? What good the blending of our souls, beyond that of brothers, or our genuine breathing together afterwards, if I was not granted even this much, to remain below in a time of power and height, when most people strive for the opposite and attain it, I mean to share in power and in the prosperity of their friends?”

Why should I tell all the inventions of my mind in grief and dejection (which I call gloom)? For there were these things, and things more absurd than these; I will accuse my own madness, or folly, myself. But now I take a different view and readjust myself to things far truer than these and more fitting for us. And that you may know the genuineness of my change, admirable friend: you not only break the silence for which you blamed me and against which you protested so loudly, but you even have my words as your advocates. This is already, purely, the work of our friendship and of the Spirit in us. But what is the advocacy? If I err in anything, correct me yourself, as you are accustomed to do in other matters. You could not bear to make the Spirit second to friendship; for in other things, perhaps, we are something to you, but the Spirit is far more precious to you than we are. You could not bear that the talent should be hidden and buried in the ground; you could not bear that the lamp should be covered for long under the bushel, since you take this to be my light and my work. You sought that Barnabas should be added to you as to Paul; you sought that Titus should be joined to you as to Silvanus and Timothy, so that the gift might run on through those who genuinely care for your concerns, and that you might fulfil the gospel in a circle from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum. [4] For this reason you bring me into the open, lay hold of me as I withdraw, and seat me beside yourself (this is my wrong, you might say), and make me a partner in your cares and your crowns. For this reason you anoint me high priest, clothe me with the long robe and set the mitre on my head, bring me to the altar of the spiritual whole burnt offering, sacrifice the calf of consecration, consecrate my hands by the Spirit, bring me into the Holy of Holies to behold as an initiate, and make me a minister of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man. Whether this is worthy of you who anoint, and of him on whose behalf and for whom the anointing is, is known to the Father of the true and real Christ, whom he anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, anointing the humanity with the deity so as to make both one; and to him who is himself God and Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation; and to the Holy Spirit, who has appointed us to this ministry, in which we also stand and boast in hope of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

[Oration 11, to Gregory of Nyssa] Are these things, then, sufficient, and has my discourse painted the man for you in moderate measure? Or must I, like careful painters, lay on the colours many times, so as to present you with a more finished portrait in words? Very well, I will paint him for you more fully and clearly. Who is the most illustrious of lawgivers? Moses. Who the holiest of priests? Aaron: brothers no less in piety than in body. Or rather, the one is God to Pharaoh, the leader and lawgiver of Israel, who went within the cloud, beholder and initiator of divine mysteries, and craftsman of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man; but both alike were priests. For “Moses and Aaron,” it says, “among his priests”: the one ruler of rulers and priest of priests, using Aaron as a tongue and himself becoming for him the things that are toward God; the other next after him, but far before the rest in dignity and nearness to God. Both scourged Egypt, cut the sea, led Israel through, drowned the enemies, drew bread from above, and in the desert, with water beyond belief, brought it forth in one place and sweetened it in another; both warred down Amalek by the holy stretching out of hands, a type of a greater mystery; both guided and hastened toward the land of promise. Is anything more recognizable than the likeness? Has not the painter, my discourse, clearly portrayed for you the one who shares my name and my soul? [3] Of these, the one anointed us and brought us into the open while we were hiding, I do not know with what feelings or how moved, unworthily of the Spirit in him; for even if the word is rather harsh, it will nevertheless be spoken: friendship will bear everything, both in suffering and in hearing. But the other has come to comfort, to reconcile, and to make me gentle toward the Spirit. It is a great thing that he comes to me even now (how could it not be the greatest, since I have set you above everyone all my life?), but I blame him for coming later than the need. How can there be an alliance after defeat and rout, best of friends and allies? A helmsman after the storm, and medicine after the scar? Were you, as one who loves his brother, ashamed of the tyranny? Or were you yourself, as one in power, annoyed at my disobedience? Which of the brothers do you accuse, and which do you acquit of blame? I will utter to you one of Job’s sayings, being in pain myself, and speaking to a friend, though not such a friend as his, nor in sufferings like his: “To whom are you attached, or whom are you going to help? Is it not him who has much strength? Is it not him who has a mighty arm?” For I see this happening to many of today’s judges: they would more readily grant the greatest things to the lofty than the least to the humble. This, then, you yourself would know; for it is not right for me to pronounce anything unfavourable about you, whom I set up as the boundary and rule of what is good; and at the same time I have been warned by Scripture not to be quick to judge. But I am ready to give an account, both to you and to anyone who wishes it out of friendship, of my disobedience, as some might call it, or my forethought, as I persuade myself, and my caution, so that you may know that you are not dealing with an altogether absurd and ignorant friend, but with one who is able to see some things better than the many: who is bold where boldness is warranted, and fears where there is cause for fear, and fears those things which, for people of sense, it would be more fearful not to fear.

What, then, seems right, and what is better? Shall I render my account to you now, if this is what you bid, and do you not object to the occasion? (It is a festival, not a court.) Or shall we put this off to another occasion and assembly? For the discourse is longer than the present occasion allows. But let us say to you something worthy of the festival, so that we may not send you away fasting, and that when we are the hosts. Let us purify ourselves, brothers, for the martyrs; or rather for him by whom they too were purified through blood and truth. Let us free ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit; let us wash, let us become clean; let us too present our bodies and souls as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, this our reasonable service and petition. For nothing is so precious to the Pure One as purity or purification. Let us contend for the sake of the contenders; let us conquer for the sake of the conquerors; let us bear witness to the truth for the sake of the witnesses. Let us make this our gift to their contests: that we too should show ourselves to be of their company, and heirs of the same glory, both the glory they have from us and that laid up in heaven, of which the things we see are small memorials and tokens. Let us wrestle against the principalities, against the powers, against the invisible persecutors and tyrants, against the world rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places, and, in the things of heaven, against the war within us and in ourselves among the passions, and against the daily assaults of what befalls us from without.

Let us handle anger as a wild beast, and the tongue as a sharp sword, and let us quench pleasure as a fire. Let us set doors on our ears, rightly opened and closed; let us discipline the eye; let us train raging touch and ravenous taste, lest death come up through our windows (for so I think the senses are called); and let us laugh to scorn immoderate laughter. Let us not bow the knee to Baal out of need, nor worship the golden image out of fear. Let us fear one thing only: to fear anything more than God, and to outrage the image by wickedness. In all things let us take up the shield of faith and escape all the darts of the evil one. This too is a terrible war, and this a great battle line, and this a great trophy. If we have come together, or are gathering, in this way, the festival is truly according to Christ, we have truly honoured the martyrs, or will honour them, we truly dance the victory song. But if we come to gratify the pleasures of the belly, to enjoy short-lived luxury and to refill what has been emptied, supposing these to be places of drunkenness and not of self-control, and occasions for trade and business, and not for ascent or deification (if I may dare to say it), which the martyrs mediate, then, first of all, one does not even recognize the occasion. For what is the chaff to the wheat? And what is the pampering of the flesh to the wrestling of martyrs? Those things belong to the theatres, these to my assemblies; those to the licentious, these to the self-controlled; those to lovers of the flesh, these to those who are being set free from the body. Then I would like to say something even bolder, but I spare the blasphemy out of reverence for the day; only, these are not what the martyrs ask of us; for so I may say it. [6] Let us not, then, celebrate holy things in an unholy way, brothers, nor lofty things in a lowly way, nor precious things without honour, nor, in short, the things of the Spirit in an earthly way. The Jew too keeps festival, but according to the letter; the Greek also celebrates, but as pleases the demons. But for us, since everything is spiritual (action, movement, will, word, even gait and clothing, even a nod, the Word reaching to everything and shaping man according to God), so also is our keeping festival and our rejoicing … For I do not forbid relaxation, but I chastise excess. If we come together in this way and keep festival in this way, it is a great thing, I say, that we ourselves will obtain the same prizes and inherit the same glory; for the things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human mind ever imagined, though free to shape blessedness as it will, these we believe are laid up for those who have been purified through blood and have imitated the sacrifice of Christ. But at the least we shall see the splendour of the holy martyrs (for this is no small thing, in my judgment), and shall enter into the joy of the same Lord, and shall be illumined, I know well, more clearly and purely by the light of the blessed and sovereign Triad, in which we have believed, which we worship, and which we confess before God and men, fearing nothing and ashamed of nothing, neither the enemies outside nor the false christs among ourselves, the enemies of the Spirit. And may we confess to our last breath, with great boldness, the good deposit of the holy fathers who were nearer to Christ, and of the first faith, the confession nurtured with us from childhood, which we uttered first and with which may we depart at the last, carrying this, if nothing else, from here: piety. [7] And may the God of peace, who reconciled to himself through the cross those who had been made enemies through sin; who preached peace to those near and to those far off, to those under the law and to those outside the law; the Father of love, Love itself (for he delights to be called by these names before all others, so that he may legislate brotherly love even by his names); who gave the new commandment, that we love one another as much as we have been loved; who has granted both to exercise tyranny well and to submit to tyranny out of fear, and to draw back with reason and to take courage again for the sake of the Word; who both equips great flocks and makes small ones great by grace: may he himself, according to the multitude of his goodness, comfort us with much comfort and lead us onward, shepherding and saving the flock with us; and may he equip you for every good work, persuade you to celebrate the martyrs spiritually, count you worthy of the delight there, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, and, when you appear in righteousness, satisfy you with his glory when it appears, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might, honour and worship, for ever and ever. Amen.

I opened my mouth and drew in the Spirit; and I give all that is mine, and myself, to the Spirit: action and word, inaction and silence. Only let him hold me, lead me, and move my hand, mind, and tongue toward what is fitting and what he wills, and draw me back again from what is fitting and better to avoid. I am a divine instrument, a rational instrument, an instrument tuned and struck by that good craftsman, the Spirit. Yesterday did he work silence? I practised philosophy by not speaking. Today does he strike my mind? I will sound forth the word and practise philosophy by speaking. I am neither so talkative as to want to speak when I am being moved to silence, nor so silent and unlearned as to set a guard on my lips in the time for speech; but I both shut and open my door to the Mind, and the Word, and the Spirit, the one connatural Godhead. [2] I will speak, then, since I am bidden to; and I will speak to this good shepherd and to you, the holy flock, what seems to me best for me to say and for you to hear today. Why did you need a fellow shepherd? For the discourse will begin from you, dear and honoured head of mine, worthy of that Aaron down whom flows that princely and priestly ointment to the beard and the garment. Why is it that, though you are still able to support and guide many by the hand, and indeed do guide them in the strength of the Spirit, you put a staff and a prop under your spiritual works? Is it because you know and hear that even after that great Aaron, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons, were anointed? (For I willingly pass over Nadab and Abihu, for fear of an ill omen.) And Moses, while still living, appoints Joshua in his place as lawgiver and general for those hastening to the land of promise. As for Aaron and Hur supporting the hands of Moses on the mountain, so that Amalek might be defeated by the cross, foreshadowed and typified from afar, I think I shall willingly pass that over as not very fitting or appropriate to us; for Moses chose them not as fellow lawgivers but as helpers in prayer and props for weary hands.

But what is it that ails you? What is weary? The body? I am ready to support it; indeed I have supported it, and have been supported, like Jacob of old, by fatherly blessings. But the spirit? Who is stronger and more fervent, even now, especially as the things of the flesh sink and give way, like whatever blocks, opposes, and hinders the brightness of light? For as a rule these two war against each other and are set against each other: the body thrives when the soul is weary, and the soul flourishes and looks upward when pleasures subside and wither along with the body. But I have admired in you, besides, your old-fashioned nobility: that you did not fear even this, which very much belongs to present times, that the Spirit might be thought a pretext on your part, and that we might seem to many to take these things in a fleshly way while pretending to do so spiritually. For the many have made the office seem a great and lordly thing, offering wonderful enjoyment, even if one presides over and leads a flock still smaller than this one and bringing more hardship than pleasure. That, then, comes from your simplicity or your love for your children, by which you neither admit anything wicked yourself nor readily suspect it of others (for what is hard to move toward evil is slow to suspect evil). But it is for me to speak briefly a second time to this people, whether yours or mine as well. [4] We are tyrannized by the old age of a father and, if I may say so, by the goodness of a friend. Help me, whoever is able, and give a hand to one who is pressed and torn between longing and the Spirit. The one urges mountains and deserts, quiet of soul and body, and the mind withdrawing into itself and drawing back from the senses, so as to converse purely with God and be lit up by the rays of the Spirit, with nothing earthly and turbid mixed in or interfering with the divine light, until we come to the source of the radiances here below, and come to rest from longing … the mirrors … The other wills to bring me into the open, to bear fruit for the common good, and to be helped by this, by helping one another; to proclaim the illumination, and to bring to God a people for his own possession, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, his image cleansed in more people. For it is better and greater, as a garden is better than one plant, and the whole heaven with its beauties than one star, and a body than one member, so also to God a whole Church set in order is better than one person who does right; and one must look not to one’s own interest only, but also to that of others. For so did Christ: though he could remain in his own honour and deity, he not only emptied himself to the form of a servant, but also endured the cross, despising the shame, so that by his own sufferings he might consume sin and kill death by death. Those are the fictions of longing; these the teachings of the Spirit. Being between longing and the Spirit, and not knowing which to choose, I will not give the greater share to either; but what I think I have found best and safest I will share with you too, so that you may approve it with me and help me in the decision.

It seemed to me best and least dangerous to take a middle course between longing and timidity, and to give part to desire and part to the Spirit. This would happen if I neither fled the ministry altogether, so as to set aside the grace (for that is dangerous), nor took up a burden greater than my strength (for it is heavy); the one befits someone else’s person, the other someone else’s strength, or rather both are madness. It belongs to piety and safety alike to measure the ministry by my strength; and as with food, to take what is within one’s strength and to send away what is beyond it; for in this way health comes to the body, and safety to the soul, by moderation in both. Therefore I now accept to share the care with my good father, like a fledgling, not useless, flying close beside a great and high-flying eagle; but after this I will give my wing to the Spirit, to carry it where he wills and as he wills; and no one will force me, nor shall I be drawn elsewhere, if I take counsel with him. For it is sweet to inherit a father’s labours, and the more familiar flock is sweeter than a strange and foreign one; I would add that it is also more precious to God, unless affection deceives me and habit steals my perception. Yet nothing is more useful than to rule the willing willingly, nor safer; since our law does not lead by force or by compulsion, but willingly. Force would not hold together any other rule either, since what is held by force tends to seize its freedom when it gets the chance; but ours, which is not rule but tutelage, preserves above all what is voluntary. For the mystery of piety belongs to those who are willing, not to those who are tyrannized. [6] … you have granted a great thing …

Man of God, faithful servant, steward of the mysteries of God, and man of desires of the Spirit (for so Scripture calls those who have advanced and are lofty and above visible things): I call you also God to Pharaoh, that is, to every Egyptian and hostile power; pillar and ground of the Church; will of the Lord; a luminary in the world, holding forth the word of life; prop of faith; and lodging of the Spirit. But why should I count up all the titles which virtue has made for you, each form of it claiming and bringing you a different one?

But tell me, where do you come from? What is your business? And what favour do you come to bring us? For I know that you are moved in everything with God and by God, and for the benefit of those who receive you. Have you come to visit us, or to seek the shepherd, or to look over the flock? Us you find no longer existing, but for the most part departed with him, and chafing at the place of affliction; and especially now, when we have lost our skilled helmsman, the lamp of our life, toward whom we steered our course, watching him signal salvation to us like a beacon from above. He has departed with everything good, and with all the good order of pastoral care which he gathered over a long time, full of days and of wisdom together, and crowned, if I may use Solomon’s words, with the old age that is a crown of boasting. The flock is bewildered and cast down, and you see how full it is of discouragement and dejection: no longer resting in a place of green pasture, nor nourished by the water of rest, but seeking cliffs, deserts, and pits, over which it will be scattered and destroyed; doubting whether it will ever find another wise shepherd, quite convinced that it will not find such a one, and content with one who is not much worse.

Since there are three things, as I said, that make your presence necessary, and all equally (ourselves, the shepherd, the flock), come, according to the spirit of service in you, give each what is fitting, and dispense your words with judgment, so that we may admire you all the more for your wisdom. How will you dispense them? By praising him with the praise his virtue deserves, not only to lay a pure discourse on the pure man as a funeral tribute, but also to set his life and counsel before others as a pattern of piety. And by speaking to us briefly, as a philosopher, about life and death, the union and separation of body and soul, and the two worlds, the present one which does not stand, and the intelligible one which abides; and by persuading us to despise the one, which is deceitful, disorderly, and uneven, carrying and carried up and down as on waves, and to attach ourselves to the other, which is firm, stable, godlike, always the same, and free from all disturbance and confusion. For so those who have departed before us would grieve us less; indeed they might even give us pleasure, if your discourse, leading us away from here, set us on high, hid the present unpleasantness in what is to come, and persuaded us that we too are hastening to a good Master, that home is better than sojourning; that what a calm harbour is to sailors, departure and removal thither is to those storm-tossed here; or that, as those who have finished a long journey before others are more at ease and less weary than those still on the road and toiling, so those who have reached the lodging there are better off and in a more tolerable state than those still cutting their way along the crooked and precipitous road of this life.

So you will comfort us. And the flock, how? First, by promising your own oversight and leadership, under whose wings all may well rest, and whose voice we thirst for more than those exhausted by thirst long for the purest spring. Second, by persuading them that not even now has the good Shepherd left us, he who lays down his life for the sheep; but he is present, shepherds and guides, knows his own and is known by his own; not seen bodily, but present spiritually, fighting for the flock against the wolves, and allowing no one who climbs over the fold like a robber and plotter to drag away and steal, by a strange voice, souls well led by the truth. And I am persuaded that our father does so now more by his intercession than formerly by his teaching, inasmuch as he draws nearer to God, having shaken off his bodily fetters and been freed from the mud that clouds the mind, and conversing naked with the naked, with the first and purest Mind, being counted worthy of the rank and boldness of an angel, if it is not rash to say so. These things you yourself will set out and treat philosophically better than I could show, by the power of word and of spirit. But lest the discourse fall far short of his worth through ignorance of his excellences, I will sketch and outline briefly his praise, from what I myself know of the departed, and hand it to you, the fine painter of such things, so that you may finish exactly the beauty of his virtue and deliver it to the ears and minds of all.

He, then (to leave aside homeland, family, bodily excellence, outward distinction, and the other things men pride themselves on, as the laws of encomium allow, and to begin from what is first and most proper to us), was the shoot of a root not praiseworthy nor well suited to piety (for I am not ashamed of the beginning, since I take confidence in the end), not planted in the house of God, but very strange and unusual, a blend of two utterly opposed things, Greek error and legal marvel-mongering; avoiding parts of each, it was composed of parts of each. For, rejecting the idols and sacrifices of the one, they honour fire and lamps; revering the Sabbath of the other and a certain pettiness about foods, they hold circumcision in dishonour. Hypsistarians is the name of these humble folk, and the Almighty alone, so they say, is to be worshipped by them. Such being his double nature in impiety, from what did he become what? I do not know whether I shall praise more the grace that called him or his own choice. At any rate, he so cleansed the eye of his mind of the rheum that lay on it, and ran to the truth with such speed, that he endured to be deprived for a time of his mother and his property for the sake of the Father above and the true inheritance, and bore this dishonour more easily than others bear the highest honours. This I wonder at less, though it is very wonderful. Why? Because this distinction he shares with many others; all must come inside the great net of God and be caught by the words of the fishermen, even if some are taken by the gospel earlier and others later. But what most moves me to admire in him, I must tell.

He was ours even before he was within our fold, for his way of life made him one of us. For as many of our own are not with us, whose life estranges them from the common body, so many of those outside are on our side, who anticipate the faith by their character and lack only the name while having the reality. Of these was my father: a foreign branch, but inclining toward us by his life. In self-control he was so outstanding that he was at once most lovable and most modest, two things hard to combine. Of his justice what greater and more conspicuous sign could there be than this: having held a position second to none in civic life, he did not increase his property by a single drachma, though he saw others laying Briarean hands on public funds and swelling with ill-gotten gains (for so I call unjust wealth)? Of his prudence these too are no small signs, but the discourse as it proceeds will show more. As a reward for these, I think, he obtained the faith. How (for so great a thing does not deserve to be passed over in silence), I will now set forth. [7] “A valiant woman, who shall find?” I have heard the divine Scripture say; and that she is a gift from God, and that a good marriage is joined by the Lord. Those outside think the same, if indeed it is their saying that “a man wins no prize better than a good wife, and none worse than the opposite.” But no one can be named who was more fortunate in this than he. For I think that if anyone, from the ends of the earth and from every race of men, had sought to make the best marriage, he could not have found a better or more harmonious one than this. For the best of men and of women so came together into one that their marriage was a union of virtue no less than of bodies; for though they surpassed all others, they could not surpass each other, because their virtue was equally balanced and equally honoured.

To Adam, the helper given to correspond to him (since it was good that the man should not be alone) became an enemy instead of a fellow worker, not a yoke-fellow but an opponent, beguiling her husband through pleasure and estranging him through the tree of knowledge from the tree of life. But to him the woman given by God became not only a fellow worker (that is less wonderful) but even a leader, drawing him by deed and word to the highest things: judging it best in other matters to be ruled by her husband according to the law of marriage, but not ashamed in piety to offer herself even as his teacher. For this she deserves admiration, but he deserves more admiration for yielding willingly. For she is the one who, while other women vie with one another and pride themselves on beauty, both natural and artificial, knew one beauty, that of the soul, and the preserving or cleansing, as far as possible, of the divine image; and threw away painted and artificial adornments to the women of the stage. She knew one true nobility, piety, and knowing where we have come from and where we shall arrive; one wealth secure and inviolable, to give away one’s wealth to God and to the poor, and especially to relatives who had fallen on hard times. To these, she thought, giving only enough for need brought not a release from misfortune but a reminder of it, while doing good more generously brought secure honour and the most complete consolation. And while some women excel in managing a household and others in piety (for it is hard to attain both), she surpassed all of them in both, by excelling in each and by being the only one to unite the two. She increased the household by her care and forethought, according to Solomon’s definitions and rules for the valiant woman, as if she did not know piety; and she was so devoted to God and divine things as if she were far removed from housekeeping; neither was harmed by the other, but she strengthened both through each other.

What time or place for prayer escaped her? This was her first movement of the whole day. Or rather, who hoped so surely to have what she asked at the very moment of asking? Who so revered the hand and face of priests, or honoured every form of the philosophic life? Who wore down her flesh more by fasts and vigils, or stood like a pillar in psalmody night and day? Who admired virginity more, though she herself accepted the bond of marriage? Who was a better protector of orphans and widows? Who so relieved the misfortunes of mourners? These things are small, perhaps, and perhaps even despised by some because they are not easily attainable by most (for what cannot be attained is not even believed, because of envy); but they are highly honoured by me, because they were inventions of faith and undertakings of spiritual fervour. Such as this: her voice was never heard in the sacred assemblies or places except for the necessary responses of the liturgy.

And if it was once a great thing for the altar that no iron was lifted up on it, nor any chisel seen or heard (for a deeper reason: everything consecrated to God must be natural and unwrought), how is it not also great on her part that holy things were honoured in silence; that she never turned her back on the venerable table, nor spat on the divine floor; that she never grasped the hand nor kissed the lips of a pagan woman, however modest otherwise and however closely related; nor shared salt, I do not say willingly but even under compulsion, with those who came from the profane and impure table; nor ever brought herself to pass by or look at a polluted house, against the law of conscience; nor defiled her ears with pagan tales or theatrical songs, nor the tongue that received and uttered divine things (for nothing unholy befits holy things); and, more wonderful than these, that she never gave way to bodily grief so far, though she was exceptionally moved even by the sufferings of strangers, that a cry of lament broke from her before the thanksgiving, or a tear fell from an eye mystically sealed, or mourning dress remained when a festival day had come, though many sorrows often befell her. For she held that a God-loving soul must subordinate everything human to the divine. [11] I pass over things more secret than these, of which God is witness, and the faithful maidservants in whom she confided such things. What concerns me perhaps does not even deserve mention, since I have proved unworthy of what was hoped; but this too was a great undertaking on her part, that she promised me to God even before my birth, not fearing the future, and dedicated me as soon as I was born. It is God’s doing that she did not altogether fail in her prayer, and that her fair offering was not rejected. Of these things some were already present, others were yet to come, growing by gradual additions. And as the sun, most pleasant when it strikes with its morning rays, is hotter and brighter with its midday ones, so she too, who from the beginning showed no small signs of piety, shone out more brightly in her last light. Then, at any rate, he who had brought her into his house had in her no small goad to piety at home. She came from above and from her ancestors God-loving and Christ-loving, and had received the inheritance of virtue as her father’s lot; not grafted, as he was, from the wild olive into the good olive. She could not bear to be unequally yoked, because of the abundance of her faith; this alone she could not endure with philosophic patience, though in other things she was the most enduring and courageous of women: to be united to God only by half, because of the estrangement of the part of herself joined to her, and that the union of the spirit was not added to the bodily union. And therefore she fell down before God night and day, asking from him the salvation of her head with many fasts and tears; and she applied herself to her husband diligently and won him over in many ways, by reproaches, admonitions, attentions, estrangements, and most of all by her own character and her fervour in devotion, by which a soul is most bent and softened, being willingly forced toward virtue. And the drop of water, always striking, was to hollow the rock and in time accomplish what was striven for, as what follows shows. [12] She asked and hoped for these things, boiling with faith rather than with youth. For no one was so confident about present things as she was about things hoped for, having learned God’s generosity by experience. For him, his reason too worked together toward salvation, gradually accepting the treatment; and a vision in dreams also worked together, by which God often benefits a soul worthy of being saved. What was the vision? Here is the sweetest part of the story for me. He seemed to sing (something he had never done before, though his wife often begged and entreated him) this part of the divine David: “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” The psalmody was strange to him, and with it longing entered in. And when she who had obtained her prayer heard it, she seized the moment, interpreting the vision as the sweetest of things if it were joined with its reality, showing by her joy the greatness of the benefit, and hastening his salvation, lest anything intervening should hinder the call and undo what was striven for. And as it happened that at that time several bishops were hastening to Nicaea to stand against the madness of Arius (the evil had just sprung up and was dividing the Godhead), he gives himself to God and to the heralds of the truth, confesses his longing, and asks from them the common salvation; among them was the great Leontius, then head of our metropolis. And the marvel that grace accomplished here too I would greatly wrong grace to pass over in silence; and there are not a few witnesses of it. The teachers of exactness fell into a spiritual error, grace foreshadowed the future, and a form of priesthood was mingled with the catechesis. O involuntary initiation! For, bending his knee, he was so formed by the words of the catechesis that many of those present prophesied the future, not only the more lofty in understanding but also the humbler, persuaded by no faint signs of what would be.

A short interval, and marvel is joined to marvel. I will entrust the account to the ears of the faithful, for to profane souls nothing good is credible. He comes to the regeneration through water and the Spirit, by which we confess to God the forming and perfecting of the man according to Christ, and the transfer and refashioning of the earthly into spirit; and he comes with warm desire and bright hope, having purified himself beforehand for the washing as far as he could, and sanctified himself in soul and body far more than those who were to receive the tablets from Moses. For their purification extended only to their clothing, a slight restriction of the belly, and a temporary continence; but for him the whole life in between was a preparation for the illumination, a purification before the purification, securing the gift, so that perfection might be entrusted to purity, and the good might run no risk in a disposition that presumed upon grace. And as he came up out of the water, light flashed around him, and a glory worthy of the disposition with which he approached the gift of faith. It was evident to some of the others as well, who at the time kept the marvel to themselves in silence, not daring to speak of it (for each thought the sight was his alone), but shortly afterward shared it with one another; but to the baptizer and initiator it was so clear and plain that he could not even keep the mystery to himself, but burst out publicly that he was anointing his own successor by the Spirit. [14] … is surrounded with light, recognizes the one he was persecuting, is entrusted with the great ministry, and fills every ear and mind with the gospel.

Why must I count up all who were called by God and made his own by such marvels as those by which he too was confirmed in piety? And it is not the case that his beginnings were of this kind, so incredible and extraordinary, while he put any of what had gone before to shame by what came later, like those who very quickly grow tired of the good and then disdain further progress, or even run back altogether to vice; this cannot be said. He held fast to what had gone before, so that both fitted each other: his life before the priesthood with its excellences, and his life after it with what had gone before; it was neither fitting for him to begin otherwise than he ended, nor to advance to any other end than that from which he had set out. He is entrusted with the priesthood, not according to the present ease and disorder, but after a short interval, so that to his own purification might be added the experience and power of purifying others; for this is the law of spiritual sequence. And when he was entrusted with it, the grace was glorified the more, as being truly the grace of God and not of men, nor, as the Preacher says, some self-governed impulse and choice of spirit. [16] For he took over a church that was overgrown and run wild, which had not been shepherded by a bishop for long, but only enough to be set in order by one of his predecessors, a man admirable and angelic in character, but simpler than today’s leaders of the people; and since he was very quickly taken away, it had again for a long time been neglected and gone to waste from lack of leadership. First he tamed the people’s ways without harshness, both by words of pastoral knowledge and by setting himself forth as a model, like a spiritual statue polished into the beauty of every excellent action. Then, applying himself intently to the divine words, though he came late to such learning, he gathered so much wisdom in a short time that he fell behind none of those who had laboured on them longest, and received from God this special grace: to become the father and teacher of orthodoxy; not, like the wise men of today, bending to the times, nor presiding over our doctrine in a middling and artful way, like those who have no fixity of faith or who peddle the truth. He was more pious than those powerful in speech, and more skilled in speech than those of right understanding; or rather, though he took second place in speech, he surpassed all in piety. He knew one God worshipped in Triad, and the three brought together into one Godhead; neither Sabellianizing with the one, nor Arianizing with the three, either by contracting and godlessly dissolving the Godhead, or by cutting it up with unequal estrangements of magnitude or nature. For when each is incomprehensible and beyond our conception, how can what surpasses be conceived or defined there? Where is the infinite measured, so that the Godhead should undergo what belongs to finite things, measured by degrees and descents? … of the churches was quenched, and the storm settled into a breeze, dissolved by his prayers and exhortations; and I too, if I may be allowed a youthful boast, shared with him both in piety and in activity. We who joined with him in every good work, accompanying him, as it were, and running beside him, were counted worthy here to contribute a very large share. But let the account of these things, which has run a little ahead, stop here.

Who could count the multitude of his excellences, or, wishing to pass over most of them, would not find it hard to decide what must be omitted? For what comes into the mind always seems better than what came before, and I am carried along with it; my difficulty is more about what I must leave out than other encomiasts’ difficulty about what to say, so that abundance becomes in a way a loss to me, and my mind is tested in trying to test his qualities, being unable to find which surpasses among things of equal worth. What we see happen in still water, when a pebble falls in and becomes a centre, circle rising upon circle and, continually rippling, always breaking up the one outside it, exactly this has happened to me. One thing came to mind, another came in after it, another withdrew; and I labour over the choice, as what was grasped first always gives way to what flows in. [20] Who was more earnest than he about common affairs? Who more philosophic about domestic ones, since God, who orders all things well and in various ways, allotted him a house and a moderate property? Who was more compassionate in soul or more generous in hand toward the poor, the most dishonoured part of a nature equal in honour? For he truly thought of his own possessions as a steward of what belongs to others, relieving poverty as far as he could, and spending not only from his superfluity but even from his necessities, which is the clearest proof of love for the poor; giving a portion not only to seven, according to Solomon’s law, but, if an eighth came, not being stingy even then, but disposing of his goods more gladly than we know others to acquire them; taking away the bond and the pointing of the finger (which to me means pettiness and scrutiny of the one who will receive, who is worthy and who is not), and the word of grumbling along with the gift. This is what happens to most people: they give, but do not add readiness, which is greater and more perfect than giving. For it is far better, he thought, to give even to the unworthy for the sake of the worthy than to deprive the worthy for fear of the unworthy. And this seems to be the meaning of sending one’s bread even upon the water: it will not be swept away or lost before the just examiner of these things, but will arrive where all our things will be laid up, and will meet us in due time, even if we do not expect it.

But the finest and greatest thing is that in him freedom from ambition was joined to magnanimity. How great and of what kind it was, I come now to show. Their money was common, and so was their readiness to give, he and his yoke-fellow vying with each other toward what was best; but he left the greatest part of the giving to her hand, as the best and most faithful steward of such things. And what a woman I speak of, and of what kind! Not even the Atlantic Ocean, or any other of the greatest seas, would have sufficed her if drawn upon, so great and so boundless was her love of giving. She emulated Solomon’s leech in the opposite direction, overcoming greed for the worse by greed for the better, and having no surfeit of zeal for doing good. Not only did she consider all their property, both what they had and what was added, too small for her desire, but she would readily have sold herself and her children, had it been possible, to be spent on the poor; I often heard her say so. To her he gave over all the reins of giving. This I at least regard as better than any example. For generosity with money one may find without difficulty in others too, both what is wasted on common and civic displays of ambition and what is lent to God through the poor, which alone is treasured up for those who spend it; but we do not easily find anyone who has given up the glory that goes with it. For love of glory gives most people their readiness to spend; but where the giving is unseen, there giving is duller. [22] Such then was his hand; the rest we will leave to those who know, so that, if anything of the kind is attested of me too, it comes from that source and is a share of that stream. Who brought men to the sanctuary more in accordance with God, or was more jealous at insults against it, or with fear cleansed the holy table of the unholy? Who with such impartial judgment and with scales of justice either decided a case, or hated vice, or honoured virtue, or preferred the best? Who was so forgiving to sinners, or so ready to run with those who run well? Who knew better the time for the rod and for the staff, yet relied more on the staff? Whose eyes were more upon the faithful of the land, both others and those who live for God in the monastic and solitary life, having disdained the earth and the things of earth? [23] Who did more to chasten vanity or to love humility, and that not affectedly nor superficially, like many today who pretend to practise philosophy and are elegant in appearance, like the most foolish of women who, lacking beauty of their own, take refuge in paints and are, so to speak, decorously theatrical, unseemly through their seemliness and uglier through their adornment? For his humility was not in his dress but in the state of his soul; nor did he act humility by a languid neck, a lowered voice, a bowed face, a deep beard, a close-cropped head, or a manner of walking, things put on for a little while and very quickly exposed; for nothing affected is lasting. But the same man was most lofty in life and most lowly in mind; inaccessible in virtue, but very accessible in company. He was ordinary in his dress, equally avoiding the showy and the shabby, but surpassed many in inner brightness. He subdued the disease and insatiability of the belly, if anyone did, but without seeming to, so that the belly might be disciplined and he himself not be puffed up, hunting for reputation by novelty. For he held that it is the work of a politician to do and say everything by which he will win reputation with outsiders, since for him nothing is more blessed than the present life; but that of a spiritual man, and one of us, is to look to one thing only, salvation: to think great whatever tends to this and to spurn as worthless whatever does not; and therefore to disdain what is seen and consider only how he may be best within, and to prize whatever will make him most worthy and will draw others through him to the best. [24] But the finest and most characteristic of his qualities, and not unknown even to the many, was his simplicity, and the guilelessness and freedom from resentment of his character. For among the ancients and the moderns, one is believed to have excelled in one thing, another in another, as each happened to be counted worthy of some grace from God: Job in endurance and invincibility in sufferings; Moses and David in meekness; Samuel in prophesying, seeing what lay ahead; Phinehas in zeal, for which he is named; Peter and Paul in intensity of preaching; the sons of Zebedee in loudness of voice, for which he called them sons of thunder. But why should I count them all? I speak among those who know. Of Stephen and of my father, nothing was so much the mark as freedom from malice. For the one did not hate those who stoned him even in danger, but was stoned and prayed for those stoning him, as a disciple of Christ, for whom he suffered, bearing to God a fruit greater than his death, his long-suffering; and for the other there was no interval between rebuke and forgiveness, so that the pain was almost stolen away by the speed of the pardon.

We both believe in and hear of certain dregs of God’s anger, the remainder of his movement against those who deserve it, since “God is the Lord of vengeance.” For though he inclines out of love for mankind from severity toward leniency, he does not altogether pardon sinners, lest they become worse through his kindness. But my father bore no grudge against those who provoked him, although he was not altogether immune to anger, and in spiritual matters especially was overcome by zeal; except when he happened to be prepared and armed, and drawn up from afar against what would grieve him as against an adversary. In that way he would not have been moved by ten thousand, as the saying goes, and this was the sweet passion in him. For his anger was not like the serpent’s, smouldering within and ready for defence, nor did it rush from its first movement into wrath and the desire to pay back; but it was like the sting of the bee, without killing the one struck; and his kindness was more than human. Wheels and whips were often threatened, and those who would apply them stood near, and the danger ended in a pinch of the ear, a slap on the cheek, or a blow on the temple; so he dissolved the threat. The offender’s clothes and sandals were stripped off, and he lay on the ground; then the anger turned not against the wrongdoer but against the one who had eagerly carried this out, as a servant of evil. How could anyone appear kinder, or more worthy to offer gifts to God? For often he was not even roused first, but defended the one who had roused him, blushing at that man’s faults as if they were his own. [26] Dew would sooner withstand the sun’s morning ray than any remnant of anger remain in him; but as soon as he spoke, his wrath departed together with his words, leaving only the love of good, and never outlasting the sun; nor did he cultivate the anger that destroys even the prudent, nor imprint any sign of its evil on his body, but preserved calm even when roused. Therefore the most unusual thing happened to him: not that he alone rebuked, but that he alone was loved and admired by those he reproved, his goodness overcoming his heat; and it was truly more prized to be corrected by the righteous man than to be anointed by the wicked; for with the one even roughness is welcome because of the benefit, with the other even kindness is suspect because of the malice. Though he was of a soul and character so simple and godlike … yet he was feared by the insolent because of their impiety; or rather, nothing else struck them but simplicity despised. For it was not possible for him to utter a word of blessing or curse without giving at once either a lasting good or a passing pain; the one came from the depth of his soul, the other was only on his lips, a kind of fatherly rebuke. On many who had grieved him, requital came neither late nor, as the poet’s phrase has it, as vengeance following behind; but at the very moment of their passion they were struck, turned back, came to him, knelt, obtained pardon, and went away nobly defeated, made better by being both chastened and forgiven. For forgiveness too is often a great thing for salvation, restraining the wrongdoer by shame and leading him from fear to love, the safer kind of goodwill. Some were disciplined by being tossed by oxen worn by the yoke, which rushed at them suddenly though they had never done this before; others by being thrown and trampled by the most obedient and gentle horses; others by being seized with unrelenting fevers and with visions of what they had dared; others by being taught in some other way, and learning obedience from what they suffered.

Was his gentleness, then, so great and so well known, while he left to another the advantage in vigour and in the virtue of action? Not at all; the same man was gentle, if anyone was, and active in his gentleness. For of these two, simplicity and sternness, which as a rule fight and are set against each other, the one having gentleness with inaction, the other activity without kindness, both came together wonderfully in him: he acted like a stern man, but with gentleness; he yielded like an inactive man, but with vigour, in his patronage, in his freedom of speech, and in every kind of government. Mixing the serpent’s prudence regarding evil with the dove’s innocence regarding good, he let neither prudence become knavery nor simplicity become folly, but worked out from both, as far as was possible, a single form of virtue. Such being the man, so presiding over the priesthood, and so esteemed by all, what wonder if he was also counted worthy of signs, by which God confirms piety?

One of the marvels concerning him: he fell sick and was in poor bodily health. And what wonder if even saints suffer, whether for the cleansing of even a little mud, or as a touchstone of virtue and a test of philosophy, or for the instruction of the weaker, who learn from them to endure and not to lose heart in suffering? He was sick, then, and the time was the holy and famous Pascha, the queen of days, the bright night that dissolves the darkness of sin, on which we celebrate our own salvation in abundant light, dying with the Light that died for us and rising with him as he rises. This was the time of his suffering; what it was I will tell briefly. A violent, burning fever inflamed him to his depths; his strength had failed; he was shut off from food; sleep had been driven away; he was in distress … and was shaken by palpitations. Everything inside his mouth, the palate and all that lies above, had broken out in so many sores … that every remedy applied was of no use. He, then, was in this state, breathing little and hopelessly, not even aware of those present, but wholly absorbed in his departure and in the things long desired by him and made ready. As for us, the sanctuary held us, initiates and suppliants at once (since we had despaired of everything else), fleeing to the great Physician and to the power of that night as our last help. What shall I say? Were we there to keep festival or to lament? To celebrate, or to honour with funeral rites one who was no longer here? O the tears poured out by the whole people then! O the voices and cries and hymns mingled with the psalmody! They sought from the sanctuary its priest, from the mystery its celebrant, from God his worthy minister; and my Miriam led them, striking the timbrel, not of victory but of supplication, learning then for the first time to be bold through suffering, and crying aloud to the people and to God alike: to the people, to share her pain and to vie with her in tears; to God, to hear those who prayed, reminding him of all his wonders before this (for suffering is inventive).

What then did the God of that night and of the sick man do here? I shudder to approach what comes next in the story; and you who hear, shudder too, but do not disbelieve, for that would not be holy when it is I who tell it, and about him. The time of the mystery had come, the reverent standing and order, and the hush for the rites; and he, raised up by him who gives life to the dead, and by the holy night, rises. First he stirs a little, then more firmly; then, calling by name one of the servants who had stayed with him, in a very weak and faint voice, he told him to come, to hand him his clothing, and to support him by the hand. The man came in amazement and served him eagerly; and he, using the hand that guided him as a staff, imitates Moses on the mountain, and, forming his feeble hands for prayer, eagerly celebrates the mysteries with his people, or for them, in few words, as many as his strength allowed, but, as it seems to me, with a most perfect intention. O the marvel! Without a sanctuary he was at the sanctuary, without an altar a sacrificer, a priest far from the rites; and these things were present to him from the Holy Spirit, known to him but not seen by those present. Then, having said the words of the thanksgiving as was customary and blessed the people, he goes back to his bed; and taking a little food and getting some sleep, he recovers his spirit. And as his health grew by small additions, the new day of the feast arrived (so we call the first Sunday after the day of the resurrection), and he went to the church with the whole fullness of the congregation, dedicated his recovery, and offered the thank-offering. To me this deed is no less honourable than the marvel concerning Hezekiah, whom, when he was sick and prayed, God glorified by an addition of life, and made this known by the shadow brought back on the steps, at the request of the saved man himself, honouring the king with grace and sign together, and confirming the addition of days by the addition to the day.

The same marvel happened to my mother too, not long afterward; and it is right not to pass over this either, for we shall give her due honour, since she is worthy of honour, and we shall please him by sharing the story with her. She too, who was so enduring in everything, so noble, and free from sickness all her life, was seized by illness. Of the many things that troubled her, not to stretch out my discourse, the heaviest was her inability to eat, which endangered her for many days, with no remedy found for the trouble. How then does God feed her? Not by raining down manna, as of old for Israel; nor by splitting a rock so that it might gush forth for a thirsty people; nor by feeding her by ravens, like Elijah; nor by satisfying her through a prophet carried through the air, as with Daniel when he was starving in the pit. In what way, then? She dreamed that I, her dearest (for she preferred none of us to me, not even in a dream), stood suddenly by her at night with a basket of the whitest loaves, and that, after praying over them and sealing them with the sign, as is our custom, I fed her, strengthened her, and restored her strength. And the vision of the night was a work of truth; for from then on she came to herself and to better hope. This was shown by a clear and manifest sign. For when day came and I went in to her early, I first saw her more cheerful than before; then I asked, in the usual way, how the night had been and what she needed. “You fed me, my child,” she said, “very readily and kindly, and then you ask how I am? Very well and peacefully.” At the same time her maids nodded to me not to contradict her, but to accept the answer readily, lest she be cast down if the truth were laid bare. I will add one more thing shared by both of them.

I was sailing across the Parthenian Sea from Alexandria to Greece (I sailed quite out of season, so did my longing persuade me, on a ship of Aegina; this above all urged me on, since I was hurrying to people I knew who would carry me). As I was sailing, then, when we had put out only a little way, a terrible storm fell upon us, such as not many could remember before, as my fellow passengers said. While all feared the common death, the death of the soul was more fearful to me. For I was in danger of departing wretched and uninitiated, longing for the spiritual water amid the deadly waters. And for this reason I cried out, I begged, I longed for a little respite; and my fellow passengers cried out with me, even in the common danger, as not even some of one’s own friends would do: strangers, but kind, having learned sympathy from danger. This I suffered, and my parents suffered with me, sharing in the danger through a vision at night; and they helped from land, charming the waves with prayer, as we learned afterwards when, after our return, we compared the times. This a saving sleep also showed us, when at last we got it, as the surge eased a little. I seemed to be grappling with a Fury, fearsome to look at and threatening danger; so the night clearly sketched it for us. Another of those on board (he was a boy, one of those most devoted and dear to me, and very anxious for me in my state) thought he saw my mother step onto the sea, take hold of the ship, and draw it to land without much effort. And the vision was believed; for the sea grew calm, and Rhodes soon received us, after we had suffered little in between. Of that danger we too became an offering, having promised ourselves to God if we were saved, and having given ourselves when we were saved.

Such, then, are the things common to both. But I think some of those who know his affairs well have long been wondering that we have dwelt on these things as if they were all we had for praise, while we have put aside the memory of the difficulties of the times, against which he can be seen to have taken his stand, as though we either did not know of these or did not think them great. Come then, let us add these too to what has been said. Our time produced a first evil, and I think also a last: the emperor who apostatized both from God and from reason. Thinking it a small task to subdue the Persians but a great one to subjugate the Christians, and persuaded at the same time by the demons who led him, he left no form of impiety untried: persuading, threatening, using sophistry, drawing people to himself not only by his tricks but also by force. Yet he could not escape notice, whether he disguised the persecution with sophistical devices or openly used his power, so that we might be caught one way or the other, either deceived or forced. Who is found to have despised him or worked for his overthrow more than my father? Of his contempt, among many other signs, there is this: the archers and their commander whom that man sent against our holy houses, either to seize or to overturn them. For when the commander, after attacking many others, came here too with the same arrogance and demanded the church with his orders, he was so far from accomplishing anything he wished that, had he not quickly yielded to my father, whether he understood of himself or listened to someone’s advice, he would have gone away with his legs torn to pieces, so fiercely did the priest boil against him with anger and zeal for the church. And how could anyone more evidently have worked for his overthrow? Publicly he struck the accursed man with prayers and supplications of the whole people, not even fearing the times; privately he drew up the nightly battle line against him, wearing out that aged and tender flesh by sleeping on the ground, and watering the floor with tears, for almost a whole year; and he practised this philosophy before the knower of secrets alone, trying to hide it from us because of the unostentatious character of his piety, as I said. And he would have escaped notice altogether, had I not once come in suddenly, seen the signs of his sleeping on the ground, asked those around him what they were, and learned the mystery of the night. [33] Another story of the same time and the same courage. The city of Caesarea was in tumult over the appointment of a bishop, one having departed and another being sought; and the tumult was hot and not easily settled. For the city is by nature especially contentious in this matter, owing to the fervour of its faith, and the prestige of the see increased the rivalry. So matters stood, and some of the bishops were present to give the city its bishop. The people were divided into many parties, and different people put forward different candidates, as usually happens in such cases, as each happened to have friendship with some or reverence toward God; at last the whole people agreed, and, seizing one of their leading men, chosen for his life but not yet sealed with divine baptism, against his will, and with the help of a military force then stationed there, they set him on the bema, brought him to the bishops, and demanded that he be consecrated and proclaimed, mingling force with persuasion; not very orderly, but very faithfully and fervently. And here one cannot say whom the occasion showed to be more distinguished and more God-fearing than he. For what happens, and how far did the tumult go? The bishops were forced; they purified him, proclaimed him, and set him on the throne, by hand rather than by judgment and disposition of spirit, as was shown by what followed. For when they had gladly got away and were masters of their own judgment, they took counsel together (whether spiritual counsel I do not know, but they took counsel nonetheless) to regard nothing that had been done as valid, nor the installation as approved, alleging the force against him, though he had been forced no less than they, and seizing on certain words as having been spoken at the time more rashly than wisely. But the great high priest and just examiner of affairs neither joined those who took this counsel nor approved their judgment, but remained unbending and undefeated, no less than if he had not been forced at all. For, since the force was common to all, he held that those who accused must be accused in turn, or those who pardoned must be pardoned, or, what was more just, that they could not be acquitted even by acquitting him. For if they deserved pardon, so certainly did he; and if he did not, still less did they. For it was much better to run the risk then and resist to the very end than to plot afterward, and especially at that time, when it was better to end existing enmities than to devise new ones; for this was the situation. [34] The emperor was present, raging against the Christians; the ordination was the object of his anger; the man put forward was threatened; the city stood on a razor’s edge, either to exist no longer after that day, or to be spared and meet with some kindness. For to what had provoked him over Fortune, whose temple had been pulled down in a time of prosperity, there was added the innovation concerning the man, as though public property had been plundered. The governor of the province was seeking how to please the occasion and how to do my father harm, being in any case not well disposed toward him, but at odds with him from political rivalry. He summoned the consecrators by letter, as if to accuse them, no longer quietly, but now adding some threat, as though the emperor demanded it. Then, when a letter came to my father too, he was not afraid at all, and did not hesitate even a little (let us consider his boldness, how great it was and with how much spirit, from what he wrote back): “We, most excellent governor,” he says, “have one examiner and king of all that we do, the one who is now being warred against. He will examine this ordination too, which we have performed lawfully and in a way pleasing to him. As for you, if you wish to force anything else, it is very easy; but this no one will take from us: to defend what has been done as rightly and justly done; unless you lay down this law too, you for whom it is not lawful even to peer into our affairs.” The recipient himself admired this letter, even if he was angry for a little while, as many who knew his affairs well reported; it also checked the emperor’s onslaught and freed the city from danger, and, I would not be wrong to add, freed us from shame. This was the deed of the bishop of a small city, whose see held second rank. Is it not much better to hold first place in this way than to speak from loftier thrones, and to prevail in deeds rather than in titles? [35] But his last deed in order, and first and greatest in power, who is so far outside our world as not to know it? The same city was again in tumult over the same matter, the one who had been so rightly forced having very soon been taken up and departed to God, for whom he had contended nobly and manfully in the persecutions. And the tumult was the more unreasonable the hotter it was. For the man who stood above the rest was not unknown, any more than the sun among the stars; he was very evident both to all the others and especially to the select and purest part of the people, both those of the bema and our Nazirites, with whom alone, as far as possible, such appointments ought to rest, and then there would be no evil in the churches; and not with the wealthiest and most powerful, or with the impulse and unreason of the populace, and especially with the most venal among them. As it is, I am in danger of thinking the public offices better ordered than ours, to which divine grace is ascribed, and fear a better administrator of such things than reason. For who of the right-minded would have gone to another, passing over you, divine and sacred head, inscribed on the hands of the Lord, unmarried, without possessions, almost without flesh and blood, next after the Word in words, wise among philosophers, above the world among the worldly, my companion and fellow worker, sharer of my soul (if I may say something bolder), partner in life and in education? I would have liked my discourse to be free, describing you among others, and not to be forced to say such things in your presence, holding back most of them for fear of being suspected of flattery. But to what my discourse set out to say: the Spirit knew his own (how could he not?), but envy opposed him; and the rest I am ashamed to say; would that I could not even hear others say it and carefully mock our affairs. Let us pass this by, as rivers pass the rocks in the middle of their stream, honouring with silence what deserves oblivion; and let us go on to what follows in the discourse. [36] He knew precisely the things of the Spirit, being himself a man of the Spirit; and therefore he thought it necessary to think nothing low, nor to fight according to factions and prejudices, giving more to favour than to God, but to look to one thing only, the benefit of the churches and the common salvation. For this reason he wrote, admonished, and united the people and the priests, both the others and those of the bema; he testified, voted, and ordained even before he was present; he gave his grey hairs authority over others’ affairs as if they were his own. And finally, since the ordination had to be canonical and one was lacking from the number of those who were to proclaim it, he tore himself from his couch, crushed by old age and disease, and rushes to the city with youthful vigour, or rather is carried there, his body dead and barely breathing, convinced that if he had to suffer anything, that zeal would be a fine burial offering for him. And here too a sign occurs that is not disbelieved: he is strengthened by the toil, grows young with eagerness, manages, marshals, enthrones, and is escorted back, using his litter no longer as a coffin but as a divine ark. And the long-suffering which I just finished praising he showed here even more. For when his fellow ministers could not bear the shame of defeat and the old man’s power in affairs, and for that reason were angry with him and reviled him, he was able by his endurance to rise above them too, finding gentleness his greatest ally, and not reviling in return when reviled. For what was dreadful, he thought, if, having conquered in deeds, he put up with being defeated by the tongue? So by his long-suffering he won them over too, taking time as well as an ally of his judgment, so that they apologized, fell at his feet, and turned their indignation into admiration. They were ashamed of their former conduct, and treated him as patriarch, lawgiver, and judge, casting away their hatred.

From the same zeal came also his resistance to the heretics, when they campaigned against us with the help of the emperor’s impiety, intending to subdue us too and add us to the others, almost all of whom they had already enslaved. Here too he contributed no small share, both by himself and, perhaps, through us, whom he set on those most savage beasts like hounds of good breed, training us for piety. I find fault with you both (and do not be at all annoyed at my frankness; I will burst out with what pains me, even if rather bluntly): that when I was disgusted with the evils of life, and in love with solitude as much as anyone of our time, I think, and striving as fast as I could to escape this common storm and dust and to reach safety, you somehow carried me off and handed me over to this vulgar marketplace that plots against souls, under the fair name of the priesthood. From this some evils have already befallen me, and others are expected; for having suffered already makes one somewhat despondent about the future, even if reason persuades otherwise and suggests what is better.

Nor would I pass over this among his excellences. He was enduring in everything and stronger than his frame. Suffering from his last illness, which attacked him together with old age, and that a long and dangerous one, he had sickness in common with other men; but this was no longer common, but very much his own, and consistent with his other marvels: there was no time when, though pressed hard by his suffering, often during the day and sometimes every hour, he was not strengthened by the liturgy alone; and the suffering withdrew as if banished by command. Having lived nearly a hundred years, beyond the limits David sets for our time, and forty-five of them in the priesthood, the measure of a human life, he then ends his life in a good old age. And how? In the words and posture of prayer, leaving no trace of vice, but very many memorials of virtue. Therefore the reverence for him on the tongues and in the minds of all is greater than for a man; and it is not easy to find anyone who remembers him and does not also embrace his image, as Scripture says, laying a hand on his mouth. Such was his life, and such the completion and perfection of his life.

And since a memorial of his magnanimity had to be left to the world, what should it be rather than this church, which he raised to God and to us, using a little help from the people but bringing most from his own means? It is a work not worthy of silence: in size beyond most, in beauty beyond almost all. Its eight equal straight sides meet one another; it rises aloft with the beauty of pillars and two-storeyed porticoes, and the sculptures upon them do not fall short of nature; it flashes from above with its vault, and lights up the eyes with rich fountains of light, truly a dwelling place of light; it is encircled by ambulatories of the most splendid material, set at equal angles and enclosing a large space in the middle; and it shines forth with the graces of its gates and porches, welcoming from afar those who approach. And I do not yet speak of the outer ornament: the beauty and size of the squared stone, joined to a hair’s breadth; both the marble in the bases and capitals at the angles, and the local stone, in no way inferior to the foreign; the many and varied bands, projecting and interwoven, from foundation to summit, which, by bounding the sight, rob the beholder. How could words present in brief a work of so much time and labour and so many hands? Or will it suffice to say this much: that while many works, private and public, adorn other cities, this one alone has been able to make us famous to most people? Such, then, is the church. And since a priest was needed too, he provides this too from his own house; whether one worthy of the church I cannot say, but he provides him. And since sacrifices too were needed, he adds these as well: the sufferings of his son and his endurance in hardships, so that God might have from him a rational whole burnt offering, a spiritual victim in place of the sacrifice of the law, well consumed. [40] … for which you laboured …, this praise as a send-off, or rather as a funeral oration? Do you grant peace to the discourse, in the old manner, and set its limit here, avoiding surfeit, so that it may be moderate? Or do you seek some addition? You set the limit, I know, for it is enough. But allow me to add this: make known to us where in glory you are, and the light around you; receive your yoke-fellow shortly, and the children whom you buried before you; receive me too into the same tents, when I have suffered in this life a little more, or nothing more; and before those tents, into this sweet stone which you set up for us both, honouring here too your priest and namesake. And forgive my discourse, both what was left out and what was added for your sake. And may you guide safely, above all, the whole flock and all the bishops, whose father you were called; and especially the one whom you forced and tyrannized over, in a fatherly and spiritual way, so that I may not blame you entirely for the tyranny.

And you, what do you think of us, judge of my words and movements? If these things have been said sufficiently and worthily of your desire, give your vote, and we accept it; your vote is in any case God’s. But if what I have said falls far short of his glory and your hope, the ally is near. Let loose your voice, awaited for his excellences like seasonable rain; in any case he has you in his debt for the greatest things, as one shepherd another, and as a father his son in grace. What wonder if he, who thundered to the world through you, should himself enjoy something of your voice? What remains? To join the spiritual Sarah, the yoke-fellow and contemporary of our great father Abraham, in the philosophy of funeral consolation.

The nature of God and of men is not the same, mother; or rather, the nature of things divine and things earthly is altogether different. With them are changelessness and immortality, both of being itself and of all that belongs to being; for what belongs to the firm is firm. But how is it with ours? It flows and perishes, and takes now one change, now another. Life and death, at any rate, as they are called, though they seem to differ most from each other, somehow pass over into each other and take each other’s place. For life, beginning from corruption, our mother, and travelling through corruption, the continual passing away of the present, ends in corruption, the dissolution of this life; while death, bringing release from the evils here and often leading over to the life above, I do not know whether it should properly be called death, since it has its fearfulness in name rather than in fact. And we are in danger of suffering an irrational passion, fearing what is not fearful and pursuing as more desirable what deserves to be feared. There is one life, to look toward Life; one death, sin, for it is the destruction of the soul. The other things on which some pride themselves are a vision of dreams mocking reality, and deceitful phantoms of the soul. If we think so, mother, we shall neither pride ourselves on life nor grieve too much at death. What terrible thing, then, have we suffered, if he has passed from here to the true life? If, freed from turmoil, dizziness, surfeit, and the shameful tribute, we shall be with things that stand and do not flow, small lights dancing around the great Light? [43] But does the separation grieve you? Then let the hope gladden you. Is widowhood dreadful? But not to him. And where is the good of love, if one gives oneself the easier things and assigns to one’s neighbour the harder? And what is dreadful at all for one who will herself be released shortly? The appointed time is near; the grief is not lasting. Let us not weigh down the lightest things with ignoble thoughts. We have lost great things, for we had great things; to lose belongs to all, to have had is given to few. Let not the one bend you, but let the other console you; for it is more reasonable that the better should prevail. You bore the loss of children still in their prime and fit for life most courageously and philosophically; bear also the laying aside of an aged body already weary of life, even if the vigour of his soul kept his senses quite unimpaired. But do you need someone to care for you? Where then is this Isaac of yours, whom he has left you in place of all? Ask of him the small things, the guiding hand and service; give him in return the greater: a mother’s blessing, your prayers, and the freedom that comes from them. Are you indignant at being admonished? This I praise; for you have admonished many, all whom long time has brought under your understanding. The discourse is nothing to you, most philosophic of women; let it be a common consolation for mourners, so that they may know that they are human beings mourning human beings …

Since I could not restrain by reason the talk of the many, and the rush and eagerness that now possesses everyone to teach and speak the things of the Spirit without the Spirit, I took another way, a better and less toilsome one, as I persuade myself: to train everyone to quiet by the example of silence; so that, if they think something great of us, they might respect our superiority, and if they think us small and worth only as much as we are, they might show moderation toward one of equal standing. This is the reason for my silence; this is the mystery of our endurance.

But what happens? They pull me this way and that, tear at me, and go to law over my labours, exacting my discourse relentlessly as if it were any other debt; they love me more than I love myself; and they are all wiser than I, knowing better than I the time for speech or silence. They say they will not let go, striking us with reproaches like flint with steel, until from a small spark they kindle the blaze of words. Some of them even promise better things and set great prizes before my discourses: first, to do good to themselves, by giving to God and to us the opportunity to bear fruit for the word; and then also to all these here, through the assessment, who are my portion (if indeed my father’s portion is mine), my flock, whom I would greatly wrong if I were not eager to benefit them in every way. And the finest thing is that what they ought to have achieved with much labour, this they offer in return for the discourses themselves. O the noble rivalry, in which they strive to defeat me! O the praiseworthy gift! See how great is the work of my silence: it has made discourses themselves more desirable to you. See the fruit of our obscurity. Would that discourses might bring as much benefit as silence!

Since, then, this is your view, and you have conquered the unconquered and set up a trophy over my philosophy, come, let me say something to you better than silence. I will speak, then, not anything soft or relaxed, nor in the harmony most pleasant to the many (for I would not repay my lovers well by speaking so), but something very manly and vigorous, by which you may perhaps become better, carried over from the flesh to the spirit and lifted up sufficiently in mind. “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart?” (for I will begin my address to you from the loud-voiced David). “Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?”, supposing this present life to be something great, with its luxury, its petty glory, its lowly power, and its false prosperity? These belong no more to those who have them than to those who hoped for them, nor to these more than to those who never even expected them; like dust tossed and scattered by a whirlwind, now to some, now to others; flowing away like smoke, mocking like a dream, and like a shadow that cannot be grasped; neither beyond hope when absent for those who do not possess them, nor reliable when present for those who have them. [5] Shall we not look up to heaven? Shall we not sober up? Shall we not take the rheum from our eyes? Shall we not know what true wealth is, what real splendour is, and where is a dignity that does not fall; what is endless happiness, and where is the good that is unshaken, neither displaced nor plotted against? Shall we not acquire these with much sweat and toil, if so it must be? Shall we not, if we must delight in anything here, delight in our hopes? Shall we not recognize the holy martyrs, both all the others, who are spread throughout the world like common bonds, and those whose festival this is? For what did they endure wounds, chains, and rackings, the threat of fire, the edge of the sword, the savagery of beasts, darkness, hunger, pits, the seizure of goods, the loss of limbs, and finally death, and all eagerly, as though they were contending in other people’s bodies? To become what, and to inherit what? It is clear to everyone, even if we do not say it. Shall we not, with the same hope, under the same judge and president of the games, draw up our ranks against the same tyrant, the bitter persecutor of souls then and now, the invisible enemy and foe? Shall we not show the same courage in this world, as in a common theatre, if not in the peak of danger, which brings a quick release as well, at least in the daily contests and wrestlings, so that we too may be counted worthy of the same crowns, since they are very near?

I urge everyone, man and woman, old and young, townsman and countryman, private person and ruler, rich and poor (for the same contest calls all), to strip eagerly for this contest, and not to grow soft or delay or let slip the moment, which cannot be had again. For the present time is for work, the future for recompense. “Rise, let us go hence,” you have heard the Saviour say, not only leading his disciples of that time away from the place in Judea, but leading away all later disciples too from here, and drawing them to himself as he is lifted up, as the promise says. Let us follow a good Master; let us flee worldly desires; let us flee the deceitful world and its ruler; let us belong purely to him who made us; let us honour the image, revere our calling, and change our life. Why do we make ourselves low, when we have been made lofty? Why do we linger among visible things? … one [offers] …, another having nothing; one his eagerness, another his welcome of the eager; one praiseworthy action, another well-aimed contemplation; one timely speech, another reasonable silence; one teaching without stumbling and a life that does not contradict it, another a docile and well-disposed hearing; one pure virginity that cuts itself off entirely from the world, another honourable marriage that does not separate altogether from God; one fasting without pride, another enjoyment that is not licentious; another undistracted attention in prayers and spiritual hymns, another in protecting those in need; all tears, all purification, all ascent and straining toward what lies ahead.

Fine too is the fruit of simplicity, and laughter disciplined, anger restrained, the eye trained, and the mind not allowed to wander. Nothing offered to God is so small, even if it is the least and falls far short of what is due, that he does not entirely accept and welcome it, even though he knows how to weigh mercy with just judgment. He accepts Paul’s planting as Paul’s, and Apollos’s watering; the widow’s two mites, the tax collector’s humility, and Manasseh’s confession. Moses pitched the tabernacle below, the copy of the heavenly things, and all brought what had been proclaimed to them, some even of their own accord: some gold, some silver, some precious stones for the ephod; the women fine twined linen, others spun scarlet, others purple, others rams’ skins dyed red; and the women brought goats’ hair for the works of the tabernacle, the meanest thing; and others whatever each man or woman happened to have. All brought, and no one was without a share, not even the poorest. So also let us, for this copy of God’s tabernacle, this Church, which the Lord pitched and not man, which is built up with various beauties of virtue, one bringing a little, another more, but all alike bring our offerings for a perfect work, for a dwelling place of Christ, for a holy temple, being joined and fitted together by the architecture of the Spirit. Yet we shall never bring as much as we have received, even if we bring everything. For our very being is from God, and our knowing God, and our having anything to bring. But the finest and most loving thing is that God measures the gift not by the worth of what is given, but by the ability and disposition of the one who offers.

Do not, then, wait to become good, but become so now; and do not, because you fall short of what is due, fall short in everything. Bring part; be eager for part; and for the rest, ask that pardon be given to your weakness. “You shall not appear before me empty,” he says. Let no one be empty or fruitless, nor any soul barren and childless. Let each bear fruit to God from what he has and from what is his own: the sinner his change of life, the one who runs well his vigour, the young his self-control, grey hairs their prudence, the rich man his sharing, the poor man his thanksgiving, the one in authority his freedom from pride, the tax collector his mildness. Priests, clothe yourselves with righteousness; or, to say it more truly, let us clothe ourselves. Let us not scatter and destroy the sheep of the pasture, for whom the good shepherd laid down his life, who knows his own and is known by his own, calls them by name, and leads them in and out, from unbelief to faith, and from this life to the rest there. Let us fear lest judgment begin with us, and lest, as was threatened, we receive from the Lord’s hand double for our sins, by not entering ourselves and by hindering those who could enter.

“Be content with your wages, soldiers, and demand nothing beyond what is appointed.” John bids you this together with us: the great herald of the truth, the voice that ran before the Word. What does he mean by wages? Clearly the imperial ration and the allowances assigned by law to the various ranks. And the surplus, whose is it? I hesitate to say the blasphemous word; but you understand, I know, even if I spare it. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”: to the one tax, to the other fear, you who bear the name of public servants; and when I say fear, I forbid greed. “What great thing, then, shall we gain?” you may perhaps say. The greatest of all, if you wish, through me as mediator: good hopes, and the first places in the city above, not in this small one, least among cities, whose government (to speak moderately, honouring it as the place that reared me) is nothing very grand or splendid. There let us wish to be first; let us lay claim to the splendour there; let us rest in Abraham’s bosom in return for compassion here. Let us judge just judgment; let us rescue the poor and needy; let us have mercy on widow and orphan; let us ransom those being put to death, or, to say the very least, let us not put them to death ourselves. Let us not overlook the one who needs us, even for the crumbs from the table; let us not pass by the one covered with sores and lying at our gates; let us not live in luxury while others suffer; let us not loathe our fellow servant. Let us not, friends and brothers, become of the rich man’s portion, nor be in anguish in the flame, nor be separated by the chasm from the holy ones, nor beg Lazarus the poor man to cool our burning tongue with the tip of his finger, and not obtain even that much. Let us be kind, compassionate, sympathetic; let us imitate the goodness of the Master, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and nourishes all alike with rain. Let us not consent to grow rich through the poverty of others; let us not fall so far short of divine equality; nor mix our wealth with the tears of others, by which it will be consumed as by rust and moth, or, to use Scripture’s word, will be vomited up. But are we greedier than we should be? There is a good kind of greed too: let us give something small here, so that we may be rich there. [12] These precepts, then, are common to all, not only to those in public service; for the remedies of a common sickness are common too. But you, assess us justly, assessor of our taxes: assess not my words carefully, which bring no profit, or little, or only the ear’s pleasure and delight, but my people, piously and humanely, respecting, if nothing else, the season itself, because the Saviour too is born during an enrolment. “For a decree went out,” it says, “from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled”; and it was enrolled. “And Joseph also went up to Bethlehem with Mary, who was betrothed to him, to be enrolled, because he was of the house and lineage of David.” And then the Saviour is born (the marvel!), the creator and master of all, in a poor and small lodging. Let us fear the mystery; let us revere the economy; and let us ourselves contribute something to the season. Now angels rejoice; now shepherds are surrounded with light; now a star from the East runs toward the greatest and unapproachable Light; now magi fall down, bring gifts, and recognize the King of all, rightly inferring the heavenly one from the star; and now Herod rages and kills children, and because of the Liberator destroys those who were to receive liberty. But let us at least be with those who worship, and bring to him who became poor for our sake even to the point of taking a body, not frankincense, nor gold, nor myrrh (the first as to God, the second as to a king, the third as to one who tasted death for us), but mystical gifts, beyond what is seen: to take nothing, to give wealth no advantage over poverty, and not to wrong the creature through the creature. [13] You write with Christ, you weigh with Christ, you assess with the Head, you reckon with the Word. Christ is just now born for you; he is God, and becomes man, and lives among men. What does the story show? It seems to me that it serves to admonish those entrusted with such things, that God always enters into the greatest administrations. And to put the assessors to shame, he shares flesh and the life of men at that very time; and to console us in our servitude and to legislate gratitude (for this must not be overlooked either), he himself pays the double drachma, and not for himself alone but also for Peter, the most honoured of the disciples; since he also became man for us, took the form of a servant, and was led to death for our iniquities. These things the Saviour did, though he was able to save by will alone, as God, since he established all things by a command; but he brought us something greater and more compelling, sympathy and equality of honour. And what of us, the disciples of Christ, who is meek and loving and served us so greatly? Shall we not imitate the Master’s compassion? Shall we not be kind to our fellow servants, so that we too may meet with such treatment when the Lord measures to us as we have measured? Shall we not gain our own souls through gentleness? It is enough that the free serve, and that the difference is so great that, of the same clay, one part rules and another is ruled, one imposes taxes and another is enrolled; that some may wrong and do harm, while others must beg and struggle not to suffer it; and this among those who share the one image and the one dignity, heirs of the same life, for whom Christ died alike. This is enough for the free; let not the yoke be made heavier, nor the penalty of our first sin.

Would that vice had perished, and its first foundation, and the Evil One who sowed tares upon us while we slept, so that neglect of the good became the beginning of evil, as the withdrawal of light is the beginning of darkness. From this came the tree, the bitter taste, the envious serpent, and the disobedience that condemned us to live by the sweat of our face. From this I am naked and shameful, and knew my nakedness, and put on the garment of skin, and fell from paradise, and was turned back to the earth from which I was taken, having this one thing in place of delight, to know my own evils; and I was condemned to unceasing grief in place of a little pleasure, and to war with the one who was wrongly befriended and drew me away through the taste. These are the wages of vice for me; from this come birth in toil, life in toil, and dissolution. Toil is the mother of need, need of greed, greed of wars; and wars are the fathers of taxes, which are the heaviest part of the condemnation. But let us not increase the penalty, since we lie under the same sentence, nor become evil to others. God requires of us kindness toward one another, even though we are punished by him.

There will be another enrolment too, and another assessor, if you hear of a book of the living and a book of those not saved. There we shall all be enrolled, or rather we have already been written, each according to the worth of the life lived here. There wealth has no advantage, nor poverty any disadvantage, nor favour, nor enmity, nor any other of all the things by which justice is cheated here. By the finger of God we have all been written, and the book will be opened to us on the day of revelation. “The small and the great are there,” and the servant together with his master, to quote Solomon, and the king with his subject, and the assessor with the assessed; and that splendour is near. And I will keep silent the ill-omened word; except that as we write, so shall we be written. Make this enrolment better for yourself by showing yourself kind and humane to us. … possession that holds them not, to die to the world, to live to Christ, to empty the flesh, to draw the soul away from the body. If you spare these, or even purely give back to God the servants of God and his initiates, the beholders of heavenly things, the first fruits of our race, its support, the crowns of the faith, the precious pearls, the stones of the temple of which Christ is foundation and cornerstone (I mean the fair fullness of the Church), you would take the best counsel both for them, and for yourself, and for all of us. And I pray that this wealth may come to you from us rather than treasures of much gold and silver, which exist now and in a little while will be no more.

This is the fruit of my words for you; less than you hoped, perhaps, but at least according to our ability. And may you give me in return for my contribution the greater thing, obedience, so that in other matters too you may need my words less, considering one another to stir up love and good works; so that, obtaining a kind and humane enrolment there, and dancing around the King of all, which is the only work of those enrolled there, we may offer to God the praise, the one praise of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, beholding and exalting the glory and splendour of the Godhead, to whom be glory, honour, and worship for ever and ever. Amen.

When I see the present itch of the tongue, and the wise men made in a day, and the theologians appointed by a show of hands, for whom merely wishing is enough to be wise, I long for the highest philosophy, and seek “a lodging farthest off,” as Jeremiah says, and wish to be with myself alone. For nothing seems to me as good as to close the senses, to be outside flesh and world, to touch nothing human except where it is altogether necessary, conversing with oneself and with God, to live above visible things, and always to carry within oneself the divine impressions pure, unmixed with the forms of things below that lead astray; to be a spotless mirror of God and of divine things, both being and always becoming such, receiving light upon light, a clearer light upon a dimmer, until we come to the source of the radiances here and attain the blessed end, when the mirrors are dissolved by the truth. Hardly could anyone master the matter that drags us down, whether by training himself with long philosophy and gradually breaking away the noble and luminous part of the soul from the lowly part yoked to darkness, or by finding God merciful, or both, while making it his chief study to look upward. And before one has overcome this, as far as possible, and sufficiently cleansed both ears and mind, I know it is not safe either to accept the oversight of souls or to venture upon theology.

And why I have been brought to this fear (so that you may not think me more timid than I should be, but may even praise my foresight): I hear of Moses himself that, when God was giving him oracles and many had been called up to the mountain, among them Aaron with his two sons, the priests, all the rest were ordered to worship from afar, and Moses alone to draw near, and the people not to go up with him. And a little before this, lightnings and thunders and trumpets, the whole mountain smoking, terrifying threats, and such terrors kept the others below; and it was a great thing for them merely to hear the voice of God, and that after they had purified themselves thoroughly. But Moses both goes up and enters within the cloud, is with God, and receives the law: for the many, the law of the letter; for those above the many, that of the spirit. [3] I know Eli the priest, and a little later a certain Uzzah: the one was punished for the lawlessness of his sons, which they dared to commit against the sacrifices, even though he did not approve their impiety but often rebuked them; the other, because he merely dared to touch the ark when it was shaken by the calf, saved the ark but perished himself, God evidently guarding the reverence due to the ark. I know that it was not safe for the many even to touch the walls of the temple, and that for this reason they needed other walls outside; nor might the sacrifices themselves be consumed by those, or at a time, or in a place, where it was not fitting; so far was anyone from being allowed to approach the Holy of Holies boldly, or to look at the veil, or the mercy seat, or the ark, let alone touch them. [4] Knowing these things, then, and that no one is worthy of the great God, sacrifice, and high priest who has not first presented himself to God as a living sacrifice, or rather has become a holy temple of the living God, and living, how could I either readily undertake discourses about God myself, or approve one who undertakes them rashly? The longing is not praiseworthy; the undertaking is fearful. For this reason one must first purify oneself, and then converse with the Pure; unless we are to suffer what Manoah suffered, and say when God has appeared to us, “We are lost, wife; we have seen God”; or, like Peter, send Jesus away from the boat as unworthy of such a visit; or, like that centurion, ask for the healing but not receive the healer. Let anyone of us say, while he is a centurion, commanding many in wickedness and still serving as a soldier to Caesar, the world ruler of those dragged downward: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” But when I see Jesus, though I am small in spiritual stature, like Zacchaeus, and am lifted above the sycamore, having put to death my members on earth and withered the body of humiliation, then I shall receive Jesus and hear, “Today salvation has come to this house”; and I shall obtain salvation and practise a more perfect philosophy, scattering well what I gathered badly, whether money or doctrines. … We worship, then, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, distinguishing the properties and uniting the Godhead; and we neither merge the three into one, so as not to be sick with the disease of Sabellius, nor divide them into three alien and foreign things, so as not to share the madness of Arius. For why must we, like a plant bent wholly to one side, forcibly bend it over to the other side, correcting distortion by distortion, instead of straightening it to the middle and standing within the boundaries of godliness? [6] When I say the middle, I mean the truth, to which alone we do well to look, rejecting both the bad contraction and the still more absurd division. So that neither, by contracting the account into one hypostasis for fear of polytheism, do we leave ourselves mere names, supposing the same one to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and defining not so much that all are one as that each is nothing (for they would cease to be what they are by passing over and changing into one another); nor, by dividing them into three foreign, unlike, and broken-off essences, according to the well-named madness of Arius, or into three without beginning and without order and, so to speak, rival gods, do we fall, in the one case, into Jewish narrowness, confining the Godhead to the Unbegotten alone, or, in the other, into the opposite but equal evil, supposing three principles and three gods, which is more absurd than the former. 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’s nature were estranged and alienated along with creation?), nor such lovers of Christ as not even to preserve this, that he is Son (for whose Son would he be, if he were not referred to the Father as cause?), nor to diminish the Father’s dignity as principle, as Father and begetter; for he would be the principle of small and unworthy things if he were not the cause of the Godhead contemplated in the Son and the Spirit. Since one must both keep the one God and confess the three hypostases, that is, three persons, each with its own property … [7] The one God would be kept, in my account, when the Son and the Spirit are referred to one cause, not compounded or merged; and according to the one and the same movement and will of the Godhead, so to speak, and the identity of the essence. And the three hypostases are kept when no merging, dissolution, or confusion is conceived, lest the whole be destroyed by honouring the one more than is right. And the properties: of the Father, that he is conceived and spoken of both as without beginning and as principle (principle as cause, as source, as eternal light); of the Son, that he is by no means without principle, but is the principle of all things. When I say principle, do not insert time, nor set anything between the begetter and the begotten, nor divide the nature by something wrongly inserted between things coeternal and conjoined. For if time were older than the Son, clearly the Father would first be the cause of time. And how is he the maker of times who is under time? How is he Lord of all, if time has preceded him and is lord over him? The Father, then, is without beginning, for he has his being neither from elsewhere nor from himself. The Son, if you take the Father as cause, is not without beginning, for the Father is the Son’s principle as cause; but if you think of a beginning in time, he is also without beginning, for the Master of times does not begin in time. … so do bodies. For those whose being is not alike do not beget alike either; unless God is also subject to the other things that belong to material beings, such as suffering, grieving, hungering, thirsting, and all the passions of the body or of the composite. But your mind does not admit these, for the discourse is about God. Do not, then, conceive the generation otherwise than as befits God … [9] “But if he was begotten,” he says, “how was he begotten?” Answer me, you inescapable dialectician: if he was created, how was he created? Then ask me, “How was he begotten?” Is there passion in generation? There is passion in creation too; for are not shaping, and planning, and the unfolding of what was conceived all at once into its parts, a passion? Is there time in generation? Created things too are in time. Is there place here? There is place there. Failure in generation? Failure in creation too. These things I have heard you philosophizing about; for often what the mind sketched, the hand did not carry out. “But by a word,” he says, “he established all things, and by will; for he spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.” When you say that all things were created by the word of God, you do not bring in human creating; for none of us does what is done by a word. Nothing would be loftier or easier for us than we are, if saying were the completion of the deed. So if God creates created things by a word, his creating is not human. Either show me a man who does something by a word, or admit that God does not create as a man does. Come then, sketch a city by will, and let the city appear; wish a son to be born to you, and let the child appear; wish anything else that is done, and let the wish pass into deed. But if none of these follows from wishing, while God’s willing is action, then man creates in one way and God, the creator of all, in another. How then does he create not in human fashion, but is compelled to beget in human fashion? You did not exist, then came to be, then beget; therefore you bring into being what did not exist. Or, to say something deeper, perhaps you do not even bring it out of nonexistence; for Levi too, it says, was still in his father’s loins before coming into being. And let no one cavil at the statement. For I do not say that the Son exists from the Father in such a way as first being in the Father and afterwards proceeding into being; nor first imperfect and then perfect, as is the law of our birth. [10] These are the arguments of cavillers, of those who rashly pounce on everything said. But we do not think so, nor hold so; but at the same moment as the Father exists unbegottenly (and he always was, for the mind does not fall upon a time when he was not), the Son also was, begottenly. So the being of the Father coincides with the having been begotten of the Only-begotten, who is from him and not after him, except only in the conception of principle, principle, that is, as cause. For I often turn back to the same point, fearing the grossness and materiality of your mind. But if you do not pry into the Son’s generation, or subsistence, or whatever more proper term than these one can conceive (for what is conceived and spoken defeats my tongue), do not busy yourself about the procession of the Spirit either. I am content to hear that he is Son, that he is from the Father, and that the one is Father and the other Son; and beyond this I busy myself with nothing, lest I suffer what happens to voices that fail altogether when strained beyond their pitch, or to the sight when it strains toward the sun’s ray. For the more and the more precisely one wishes to see, the more one damages the sense and is deprived of seeing at all, the object overcoming the sight by its excess, if one wishes to see it whole and not as much as is safe to see. … you will understand perhaps some day, when you receive what is perfect (“For I shall see,” it says, “the heavens, the works of your fingers,” so that we may suppose that the things now seen are not the truth but images of the truth). If you have not known yourself, you who discourse on these things, if you have not grasped these things, to which even sense is a witness, how do you suppose that you know God precisely, what and how great he is? This is great unreason. [12] But if you will be persuaded by me, a theologian who is not rash, hold what you have grasped, and pray to grasp the rest. Love what remains within you, and let the rest remain in the treasuries above. Ascend through your way of life; gain purity through purification. Do you wish one day to become a theologian and worthy of the Godhead? Keep the commandments; walk by the precepts; for action is a stepping stone to contemplation. Labour for the soul through the body. Is there anyone among men who can be lifted up so far as to reach the measure of Paul? Yet he says that he sees through a mirror and in a riddle, and that there will be a time when he will see face to face. You may be more philosophical than another in words, but you are certainly lower than God. You may perhaps be more intelligent than another, but you fall as far short of the truth as your being is second to God’s being. We have the promise that we shall one day know as we are known. If it is not possible to have perfect knowledge of beings here, what remains for me? What is hoped for? The kingdom of heaven, you will surely say. And I think this is nothing other than attaining what is purest and most perfect; and the most perfect of all things is the knowledge of God. But let us hold fast to part and grasp part while we are on earth, and let us store up the rest there, so that we may have this as the fruit of our labour: the whole illumination of the Holy Triad, what it is, of what kind, and how great, if it is lawful to say this, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.

He was brought up from the first in divine habits and lessons, having studied the general curriculum only a little, so as not to seem altogether inexperienced in such things, nor ignorant of what he had decided to despise. For the nobility and ambition of his soul would not endure being occupied with vain things, nor suffering the fate of unskilled athletes, who beat the air more than bodies and miss the prizes. Having meditated on every book of the Old and of the New Testament as no one else has on a single one, he grew rich in contemplation and rich in the brilliance of his life, and he wove the two together wonderfully, truly the golden chain, which most people cannot weave, using life as the guide of contemplation and contemplation as the seal of life. For “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” like a first swaddling band; and wisdom, passing beyond fear and lifting us up to love, will make us friends of God and sons instead of slaves.

Brought up and trained in this way, as those who are to preside over the people and handle the great body of Christ ought to be even now, he was, according to the great counsel and foreknowledge of God, which lays the foundations of great things far ahead, enrolled in this great order of the sanctuary, became one of those who draw near to the God who draws near, and was counted worthy of the sacred station and rank. And having passed through the whole sequence of grades (to cut short what lies between), he is entrusted with the presidency of the people, which is to say, with the oversight of the whole world. And I cannot say whether he received the priesthood as a prize of virtue or as the fountain and life of the Church. For she, fainting with thirst for the truth, had to be given drink, like Israel, or, like Elijah, to be refreshed from the brook when the earth was parched by drought, and, barely breathing, to be brought back to life, and a seed left for Israel, lest we become like Sodom and Gomorrah, whose wickedness is notorious and whose destruction is more notorious, overwhelmed by fire and brimstone. For this reason a horn of salvation was raised up for us when we had already fallen, and a cornerstone, binding us to himself and to one another, was laid in due time; or a fire purifying base and evil matter; or a farmer’s winnowing fan, by which the light and the weighty among doctrines are sifted; or a sword cutting out the roots of wickedness. And the Word finds his ally, and the Spirit takes hold of one who will breathe on his behalf.

So, then, and for these reasons, by the vote of the whole people (not in the evil manner that prevailed later, nor by bloodshed and tyranny, but in an apostolic and spiritual way), he is raised to the throne of Mark, successor no less to his piety than to his presidency: in the latter he comes long after him, in the former immediately after him; and this, indeed, should properly be regarded as succession. For sameness of mind goes with sameness of throne, while contrary opinion makes a rival throne; and the one has the name of succession, the other its reality. For it is not the one who uses force that succeeds, but the true successor; not the one who breaks the law, but the one lawfully appointed; not the one who holds contrary opinions, but the one of the same faith; unless someone calls him a successor in the way that disease succeeds health, or madness good sense. … which is the work of human favour, not of the Spirit; men who, when they have gone through everything by force, at last tyrannize even over piety; whose rank is not entrusted to them because of their character, but whose character is trusted because of their rank, the order being quite reversed; who owe more sacrifices for themselves than for the people’s sins of ignorance; and they certainly err in one of two ways: either, because they themselves need pardon, they pardon without measure, so that vice is not checked but even taught; or they cover up their own faults by the harshness of their rule. He was neither. He was lofty in deeds and humble in mind; inaccessible in virtue but very accessible in meeting; gentle, free from anger, sympathetic, sweet in speech, sweeter in character, angelic in appearance, more angelic in mind; calm in rebuke, instructive in praise; spoiling neither good by excess, but making his rebuke fatherly and his praise worthy of a ruler; his gentleness not slack, his severity not harsh, but the one gentleness, the other prudence, and both philosophy; needing very little speech, because his character was enough to instruct; very little of the rod, because of his speech; and still less of the knife, because of the rod, which struck with moderation.

Why should I paint the man again for you? Paul has drawn him beforehand: partly where he hymns the great high priest who has passed through the heavens (for my discourse will dare even this far, since Scripture knows how to call those who live according to Christ christs), and partly where, writing to Timothy, he lays down the law, sketching in words the man who is to take charge of the episcopate. For if you apply that law as a rule to the one praised here, you will see clearly how straight he is. Come, then, join me in the festival around this discourse, as I labour, wishing to pass over most things, but held now by one, now by another, unable to find which excels, as in a body equally beautiful everywhere; for whatever strikes me seems always the finer, and carries off my discourse. Come then, divide his excellences among you, all of you who are his praisers and witnesses, and contend a good contest with one another, men and women together, young men and maidens, old men with the younger, priests and people, solitaries and cenobites, the simple and the exact, the contemplative and the active. Let one praise his fasting and prayer, as of someone bodiless and immaterial; another his vigour and tirelessness in vigils and psalmody; another his care for the needy; another his resistance to the powerful, or his condescension to the lowly. Let the virgins praise the one who led them to the Bridegroom; the married, the teacher of self-control; the hermits, the one who gave them wings; the cenobites, the lawgiver; the simple, the guide; the contemplatives, the theologian; those in gladness, the bridle; those in misfortune, the comfort; grey hairs, the staff; youth, the tutor; poverty, the provider; wealth, the steward. Widows too, I think, will praise their protector; orphans their father; the poor the lover of the poor; strangers the hospitable; brothers the lover of brothers; the sick the physician, of whatever disease and cure you like; the healthy the guardian of health; all of them, the one who became all things to all, to win all, or more. [11] These things, as I said, let others admire and extol, who have leisure to admire the small things of his. When I say small, I speak comparing him with himself and measuring his deeds against his own deeds (for what has been glorified has not been glorified, however bright, because of the surpassing glory, as we have heard); since even a few of his deeds would suffice others for renown. But we (for it is not to be borne that the discourse should leave the greatest and serve the lesser) must turn to the most important of his deeds. It is the work of God, for whose sake also the discourse is spoken, to say something worthy of his greatness of speech and soul.

There was a time when our affairs flourished and were in good condition, when this superfluous, glib, and artful kind of theology had no entrance into the divine courts, but it was thought the same thing to play with pebbles that cheat the eye by the speed of their moves, or to dance before spectators with all kinds of effeminate contortions, and to say or hear something novel and curious about God; and simplicity and nobility of speech was considered piety. But since the Sextuses and Pyrrhos and the habit of contradiction, like some terrible and malignant disease, have crept into our churches, and babble passes for education, and, as the book of Acts says of the Athenians, we spend our time in nothing else but saying or hearing something newer, O what Jeremiah will lament our confusion and dizziness, he who alone knew how to match lamentations to sufferings? [13] This madness was begun by Arius, who bears the name of madness, and who paid the penalty for his unbridled tongue by his death in a profane place, the result of prayer, not of disease, suffering the bursting of Judas for a like betrayal of the Word. Others, inheriting the disease, constructed an art of impiety: confining the Godhead to the Unbegotten, they banished from the Godhead not only the Begotten but also the Proceeding, honouring the Triad only by sharing a name, or not even keeping this for it. But not so that blessed man, truly a man of God and great trumpet of the truth. Knowing that to contract the three into one in number is godless, the innovation of Sabellius, who first devised the contraction of the Godhead, and that to divide the three by natures is an alien dismemberment of the Godhead, he both kept the One well, in the Godhead, and taught the three piously, in their properties, neither confusing them in the one nor separating them in the three, but remaining within the bounds of piety by avoiding excessive leaning or opposition to either side.

And for this reason, first, at the holy synod of Nicaea, among the three hundred and eighteen chosen men whom the Holy Spirit gathered into one, he checked the disease as far as it lay with him; not yet ranked among the bishops, but holding first rank among those assembled; for preference went to virtue no less than to rank. Then, when the evil had already been fanned by the breezes of the Evil One and was spreading further (here come the dramas with which almost every land and sea is filled), a great war gathered around him, as the noble champion of the Word (for the battle line is drawn up chiefly against whatever resists, and one dreadful thing after another poured round him from every side; for impiety is inventive of evils and very bold in attack; and how would those spare men who did not spare the Godhead?); but one of these attacks was the most grievous. I too contribute something to this drama; but let my homeland, dear soil, be excused; for the wickedness belongs not to the land that bore him but to those who chose him. She is holy and known to all for her piety; they are unworthy of the Church that bore them. You have heard that even in a vineyard a bramble grows; and Judas the traitor was one of the disciples. … at first the slave of another man’s table, sold for a barley cake, having learned to do and say anything for his belly; and at last having crept into public service and been entrusted with its lowest post, to be receiver of the pork on which the army is fed; then, having proved dishonest in his trust and having served his belly, when only his body was left, he plans flight; and, passing from one land and city to another, as fugitives do, at last, to the harm of the whole Church, like some Egyptian plague, he lays hold of Alexandria. Here he halts his wandering and begins his wickedness. In other respects he was worthless: he had no share in liberal education, was not fluent in conversation, did not wear even some form and empty pretence of piety, but was most skilled at doing evil and confounding all things. … his wife consoling him in his misfortune with worse things (for the trial strove that he be struck in soul as well as in body); and he had his most genuine friends as “miserable comforters,” as he himself says, not healers: they saw his suffering but, not knowing the mystery of the suffering, supposed the blow to be not a test of virtue but the exacting of a penalty for vice. And not only did they think so, but they were not even ashamed to reproach him with his calamity, when, even if he were suffering for vice, they ought to have softened the pain by consolation. [18] Such, then, was Job, and the first part of his story. For it was a contest of virtue and envy: the one striving to overcome the good, the other to remain unconquered, bearing everything; the one contending to make vice prosper by punishing the upright, the other to keep hold of the good, who have the advantage even in misfortune. And what of him who spoke to him through whirlwind and clouds, who is slow to punish and swift to help, who does not let the rod of sinners rest altogether on the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous learn wickedness? At the end of the contest he proclaims the athlete with a splendid proclamation and unveils the secret of the blow, saying, “Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise than that you might be shown righteous?” This was the remedy for the wounds, this the crown of the contest, this the reward of endurance. For what follows is perhaps small, even if it seems great to some, and arranged for the sake of small minds, even though he receives double what had been taken away.

So here too it is no wonder if George got the better of Athanasius; it would be more wonderful if the righteous man had not been tried by fire through the insults. Nor is this very wonderful; it would be so if the flames had prevailed further. He then got out of the way and managed his flight in the best possible manner. For he betook himself to the holy and divine retreats of Egypt, whose inmates, separating themselves from the world and embracing the desert, live to God more than all who live in the body: some contending in a life wholly solitary and unmixed, speaking only with themselves and with God, and knowing only so much of the world as they see in the desert; others, cherishing the law of love in community, at once solitaries and in company, dead to other men and to the affairs that go round in our midst, whirling and whirled about and mocking us with their rapid changes, but being a world to one another and sharpening virtue by comparison. Conversing with these, the great Athanasius, as he was mediator and reconciler of all others, imitating him who made peace by his blood between things at variance, so also reconciles the solitary life with the communal, showing that there is a priesthood that is philosophic and a philosophy that needs priestly initiation.

For he so harmonized both and brought them into one, quiet action and active quiet, as to persuade them that the monastic life is marked by steadiness of character rather than by bodily withdrawal. So the great David too was at once most active and most solitary, if indeed the words “I am alone until I pass by” are a great and trustworthy proof of the point. Therefore those who surpassed others in virtue were more outdone by his understanding than they outdid the others; and contributing little to the perfection of his priesthood, they received more toward the perfection of their philosophy. Whatever he approved was law to them, and whatever he did not approve was forsworn; his doctrines were to them the tablets of Moses, and their reverence for him greater than men owe to the saints. When some came tracking the holy man like a wild beast, and, searching everywhere, could not find him, the monks did not deign to give those sent a word, but stretched out their necks to the swords, as if in danger for Christ, and thinking that to suffer something fatal for his sake was the greatest part of philosophy, far more divine and lofty than the long fasts, sleeping on the ground, and other hardships in which they constantly delight. [21] He, then, was so occupied, and approved the saying of Solomon, who taught that there is a time for every matter. And for this reason he hid himself for a little while, escaping the time of war, so as to reappear with the coming of the time of peace; which indeed happened a little later. But George, with no one left now to hinder him, overruns Egypt, plunders Syria with the force of his impiety, and seizes as much of the East as he could, always taking in whatever was weak, as torrents carry along what flows into them, and fastening on the lighter or more timid. He wins over the emperor’s simplicity (so I call his levity, out of respect for his piety); for he had, to tell the truth, a zeal, but not according to knowledge. He buys up those in office who were lovers of gold rather than lovers of Christ (for the goods of the poor, wickedly spent, gave him plenty), and especially the effeminate, unmanly among men, of doubtful sex but manifest impiety, to whom, I do not know how or why, the Roman emperors, though they entrust them with the women’s quarters, hand over the business of men. And this the servant of the Evil One was able to do, the sower of tares, the forerunner of Antichrist, using as a tongue the first of the eloquent men among the bishops of that time (if one may call eloquent a man who was not so much a teacher of impiety as hostile and contentious; I willingly pass over his name), while he himself acted as the hand of the faction and dragged down the truth with gold, which had been collected for piety and which the wicked have made an instrument of impiety.

The outcome of this power was the synod which first seized Seleucia, the city of the holy and beautiful virgin Thecla, and afterwards this great city, and which made those cities, until then known for the finest things, notorious for the most shameful. Whether that synod should be called the tower of Chalanne, which rightly divided tongues (would that it had divided theirs too, for their agreement was for evil), or the Sanhedrin of Caiaphas, by which Christ is condemned, or anything else of the kind, it overturned and confounded everything. It destroyed the pious and ancient doctrine that defends the Triad, by laying siege to the “of the same essence” and shaking it down with engines; and it opened a door to impiety through the ambiguity of what was written, on the pretext of reverence for Scripture and the use of approved terms, but in truth bringing in instead the unwritten Arianism. For the formula “like according to the Scriptures” was a bait for the simpler, wrapped around the hook of impiety: the portrait that looks at all who pass by, the buskin that fits either foot, the winnowing in every wind, which took its authority from a newly written wickedness and a scheme against the truth. For “they were wise to do evil, but to do good they did not know.” [23] Hence the sophistical condemnation of the heretics, whom in word they disowned, so that their attempt might be plausible, but in deed advanced, charging them not with boundless impiety but with insatiable writing. Hence the profane became judges of the holy; hence the novel mixture, the public spectacle, the mystic questions, the unlawful examination of past lives, the hired informers, and judgments for an agreed price. Some were unjustly thrust from their sees, others brought in instead, and signatures to impiety were demanded as if they were among the necessities: the ink was ready and the informer near. This happened to most even of us who were unconquered: we did not fall in mind but were led astray in writing, and came into agreement with the wicked in both respects, sharing the smoke, if not the fire. Over this I have often wept, seeing the outpouring of impiety at that time, and the persecution now raised against right doctrine by the champions of the Word.

For truly “the shepherds have become senseless,” as it is written, and “many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have defiled my desirable portion,” I mean the Church of God, gathered with much sweat and many victims, both before Christ and after Christ, and by the great sufferings of God himself for us. For except for a very few, and of these, those who were overlooked because of their insignificance or who resisted because of their virtue, who were to be left as a seed and root for Israel, that it might flourish again and revive by the inflowing of the Spirit, all became time-servers, differing from one another only in this, that some suffered it earlier and others later; that some became champions and leaders of impiety, while others took second place, whether shaken by fear, enslaved by need, enticed by flattery, or, most excusable of all, deceived by ignorance, if indeed even this is enough to defend those entrusted with leading the people. For just as the impulses of lions and of other animals are not the same, nor those of men and of women, or of old and young, but there is no small difference between ages and kinds, so it is with rulers and ruled. The common people we might perhaps pardon for suffering this, since their lack of testing often saves them; but how shall we grant this to a teacher, whose task is to correct the ignorance of others, unless he bears the name falsely? For is it not absurd that no one is allowed to be ignorant of Roman law, however rustic and unlearned he may be, and that there is no law helping those who act in ignorance, while the initiators into salvation are ignorant of the first principles of salvation, even if in other respects they are among the simpler and are not deep in mind? But let there be pardon for those who followed through ignorance. What would you say of the others, who laid claim to shrewdness and yet, for the reasons I mentioned, were overcome by those in power, and, after long playing the stage part of piety, stumbled and fell as soon as anything appeared to test them? … I suppose …, in which everything philosophic and God-loving among us, everything already living before its time for the things above, is being shaken away from us. These, though in other respects peaceful and moderate, cannot bear to be reasonable in this, to betray God by keeping quiet; here they are very warlike and hard to fight (such is the heat of zeal), and would sooner stir up something they should not than leave undone what they should. And not the smallest part of the people break away with them, as in a flock of birds, flying up with those who fly up first; and they have not even now ceased flying up together.

This Athanasius was to us while he was present, the pillar of the Church; and this happened when he had withdrawn before the attacks of the wicked. For just as those who plan to take some strong fortress, when they see that it is otherwise hard to approach and capture, resort to craft, and then, having drawn away the commander by money or deceit, master the fortress at once without trouble; or, if you like, as those who plotted against Samson first cut off the hair in which he had his strength, and then got the Judge into their hands and mocked him as they pleased, in return for the man’s former power: so too our foreigners, having put our strength out of the way and shorn off the glory of the Church, then revelled in the doctrines and deeds of impiety. At this point the confirmer and patron of the rival shepherd departs this life, putting a bad head on a reign not bad, and repenting, as they say, of his follies with his last breaths, when everyone is a fair judge of himself because of the tribunal there. For he confessed, it is said, to three evils unworthy of his reign: the murder of his kinsmen, the proclamation of the Apostate, and the innovation in the faith; and with these words he is said to have departed. Then the word of truth gains free scope again, and those who had been oppressed gain freedom of speech, their zeal sharpening their anger. This is what happened to the people of Alexandria too, being what they are toward those who insult them: not bearing the man’s excess, they branded his wickedness with an unusual death and his death with an unusual insult. You know that camel, the strange load, the novel elevation, and the first procession, and I think the only one, which is held over insolent men as a threat even now.

When the typhoon of injustice, the destroyer of piety, the forerunner of the Evil One, paid this penalty (not a praiseworthy one in my view, for we ought to consider not what he deserved to suffer but what we ought to do; but he paid it nonetheless, the victim of popular anger and impulse), the athlete returns from his noble exile (so I call his flight for the Triad and with the Triad). And he is welcomed so gladly by those in the city, and by almost all of Egypt, which streamed together from everywhere and from its farthest borders, that some might have their fill of the voice of Athanasius alone, others of his appearance, and others, as we have heard of the apostles, might be sanctified even by his shadow alone and the empty outline of his body. So, though many honours and receptions have often been given to many people throughout all time, not only to public officials and priests but also to the most distinguished of private citizens, not one is remembered more crowded or more splendid than this. One thing only, they say, could be compared with it: Athanasius himself, and the honour paid him at his earlier entry, when he returned from the same exile for the same causes. When the crowd was boundless, like a sea that the eyes cannot bound, someone is said to have said to one of his acquaintances and friends, as often happens on such occasions: “Tell me, my good man, have you ever seen a people so great and so excited poured out to honour one man?” “No,” said the young man; “in my opinion, not even Constantius himself would receive this,” indicating the height of honour by naming the emperor. And the other, laughing very elegantly and pleasantly, said: “Why do you say this, as if you were saying something great and wonderful? I hardly think even the great Athanasius would be brought in like this”; and at the same time he added one of the local oaths to confirm what he said. His words meant, as I think is clear to you too, to set the man now being praised even before the emperor himself.

So great was the reverence for this man among all; and so great now the amazement at the entry we are recalling. Divided by peoples, ages, and trades (for this city especially likes to arrange itself so when it weaves public honour for someone; how could I represent in words that great spectacle?), they were one river; it would take a poet to call it the Nile, truly golden-flowing and rich in grain, flowing back from the city to Chaereu, a day’s journey, I think, and further. Allow me to revel a little longer in the story; for I am there, and it is not easy to draw my discourse away from that celebration. He rode on a colt (and do not blame me for folly), as my Jesus did on that colt (whether it signifies the people from the Gentiles, whom he mounts as a benefactor, freed from the bonds of ignorance, or whatever else the Scripture means to indicate); branches received him, and garments of many colours and patterns were spread before him and beneath him, the high and costly being dishonoured only there, and having no equal. This too was an image of the coming of Christ, as were those who shouted before him and danced before him, except that it was not only a crowd of children that praised him, but every tongue, in harmony and in rivalry, as they hastened to outdo one another. I pass over the applause of the whole people, the pouring out of perfumes, the all-night vigils, the whole city flashing with light, the public and private feasts, and all the ways in which cities show their gladness, which were then lavished on him beyond measure and beyond expectation. So that wonderful man takes possession of his city, and with such a festival. … what was at variance both with him and within itself, without needing anyone to help bring it together; he frees the wronged from tyranny, making no distinction between those of his own party and those of the opposite; he raises up the fallen doctrine; the Triad speaks freely again, set upon the lampstand and shining with the brilliant light of the one Godhead into the souls of all. He legislates again for the world; he turns every mind toward himself, writing to some, summoning others, instructing some who came unbidden, and setting before all one law, willingness; for this alone was enough to guide them to what was better. In short, he imitates the natures of two famous stones: to those who strike him he becomes adamant; to those in faction, a magnet, drawing the iron by an unspeakable force of nature and attaching to itself the hardest of materials.

But envy was not going to bear this, nor to see the Church restored to the same glory and her ancient health, with the division quickly scarring over, as in a body. Therefore it raises up against him the emperor who was its fellow apostate and its equal in wickedness, falling short only in time; who was the first of Christian emperors to rage against Christ; who, suddenly bursting out with the little basilisk of impiety which he had long been carrying within him, as soon as he found his opportunity, was proclaimed emperor, became bad toward the emperor who had entrusted him with the empire, but worse toward the God who had saved him; and who devised the most inhuman persecution of any that ever were, inasmuch as, by mixing persuasion with tyranny (for he begrudged the sufferers even the honour of their contests), he made even the glory of courage doubtful, transferring the twists and tricks of argument to his conduct, or, to speak more truly, from his conduct to argument, eager for these, and imitating the many arts of the Evil One who dwelt in him. This man thought it a small task to subdue the whole race of Christians, but a great one to master Athanasius and his power on behalf of our doctrine. For he saw that his schemes against us came to nothing because of the man’s opposing array and resistance, since every loss the Christians suffered was made good by additions from the Greeks and by that man’s understanding, which was also extraordinary. Considering and seeing this, that clever deceiver and persecutor no longer kept to pretence and sophistical meanness, but, laying bare his wickedness, openly banishes the man from the city. For the noble athlete had to win three bouts to receive perfection and the victor’s proclamation.

A short interval, and justice, handing the wretch over to the Persians, judges him there; and having sent him out an ambitious emperor, brings him back a corpse, not even pitied; and, as I heard from someone, not even received by the grave, but shaken out and cast up by the earth, which quaked because of him: a prelude, I think, of the punishment there. Another emperor arises, not shameless of face like the former, nor oppressing Israel with evil works and taskmasters, but very pious and gentle; who, to lay the best foundation for his reign and to begin good government where he should, releases the bishops from exile, both all the others and, before all, the one who was before all in virtue and had manifestly been warred against for piety. He seeks the truth of our faith, torn apart and confused by many, and divided into many opinions and parts, so that, above all, the whole world might, if possible, agree and come into one by the cooperation of the Spirit; and if not, that he at least might be with the best, and give it strength and receive strength from it in return, thinking very loftily and magnificently about the greatest things. Here especially was shown the man’s purity and the firmness of his faith in Christ. For when all the others who held our doctrine were divided three ways, many being unsound about the Son, more about the Holy Spirit (on which point to be less impious was thought to be piety), and few sound on both, he first and alone, or with very few, dared the truth clearly and expressly, confessing in writing one Godhead and essence of the three; and what had been granted earlier to the great number of the Fathers concerning the Son, he himself, inspired, later granted concerning the Holy Spirit, offering the emperor a truly royal and magnificent gift, written piety against unwritten innovation, so that king might be overthrown by king, word by word, writing by writing.

This confession, it seems to me, was respected by those of the West and of the East, as many as were capable of life. Some carried their piety as far as their minds (if we must believe what they say), but no further, like a dead embryo dying in the mother’s womb; others kindled it a little, like sparks, enough to satisfy the times, or the more fervent of the orthodox, or the devout among the people; and others spoke the truth boldly. Of their portion I would be; for I dare boast of nothing more, no longer managing my own timidity, as though out of regard for the opinion of the weaker (for we have managed things enough, neither gaining what was others’ and spoiling what was our own, which is the mark of truly bad stewards), but bringing my offspring to the light, nourishing it eagerly, and setting it before the eyes of all as it grows ever more perfect.

This, then, is less to be admired among his deeds. For what wonder is it that one who had faced danger in deed for the truth should confess it in writing? But what most moves me to admire in the man (and silence would be a loss, especially in these times, which breed many divisions), I will add to what has been said; for his action might be a lesson to people today too, if we looked to him. For as with water, not only is that portion cut off which the hand lets go in drawing, but also what flows out between the fingers of the hand that holds it, so with us not only what is impious is split off, but also what is more pious; and not only over small doctrines that deserve to be overlooked (that would be less dreadful), but now even over words that lead to the same meaning. For while “one essence” and “three hypostases” are said piously by us (the one indicating the nature of the Godhead, the other the properties of the three), and are understood in the same way by the Italians too, who, however, because of the narrowness of their language and the poverty of their terms, cannot distinguish hypostasis from essence, and for this reason introduce “persons” instead, so that three essences may not be accepted, what happens? How very laughable, or pitiable! A petty quibble about a sound seemed a difference of faith. Then Sabellianism was imagined in the “three persons,” and Arianism in the “three hypostases,” fictions of contentiousness. And then what? As something painful was constantly added (and contentiousness makes everything painful), the ends of the earth were in danger of being torn apart along with the syllables. Seeing and hearing this, that blessed man, truly a man of God and a great steward of souls, did not think he should overlook so absurd and irrational a cutting up of the Word, but brought his own remedy to the sickness. How does he do this? He called both parties together, gently and humanely, and examined precisely the sense of what was said; and since he found them of one mind and not at all differing in doctrine, he conceded the names and bound them together by the realities. … averter of evil, truly all those things which the sons of the Greeks ascribe piecemeal to their gods. I will add also: patron of marriage, of virgins, of peace, of reconciliation, and escort of those hastening from here. O how many titles the man’s virtue makes me give him, as I want to name him from every side! [37] Having lived thus, taught and been taught, so that his life and character are the definition of episcopacy and his doctrines the law of orthodoxy, what reward of piety does he receive? For this too is not to be overlooked. He ends his life in a good old age and is gathered to his fathers, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, who contended for the truth. And, to write a brief epitaph, he was honoured with a departure more splendid than his entries, having moved many tears, and having laid up in the minds of all a glory about himself greater than anything that is seen. But you, dear and sacred head, who honoured above your other excellences the right measures of speech and of silence, may you bring our discourse to a stop here, even if it falls short of the truth, yet not of our ability; and may you look upon us graciously from above, and guide this people as perfect worshippers of the perfect Triad, contemplated and worshipped in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and as for us, if the times are peaceful, may you hold us and shepherd with us; if warlike, bring us back, or take us to yourself, and set us beside yourself and those like you, great though the request is, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be all glory, honour, and might for ever. Amen.

Dear peace, sweet both as a thing and as a name, which I have just given to the people and received back: I do not know whether from all as a genuine word worthy of the Spirit, and not as public agreements broken with God as witness, so that our condemnation is the greater. Dear peace, my study and my adornment, which we hear is God’s, and whose God, God himself and very God, is named, as in “the peace of God,” and “the God of peace,” and “he is our peace”; and not even so are we abashed. Dear peace, the good praised by all but kept by few, where have you left us, such a long time now? And when will you return to us? How much I long for you and embrace you, more than other men; when you are present I cherish you, and when you are absent I call you back with many laments and tears, such as neither Jacob the patriarch shed for that Joseph, sold by his brothers and snatched, as he thought, by a beast, nor David for Jonathan his friend, a casualty of war, or later for his son Absalom. The one, torn in his fatherly heart, cried, “A beast has snatched Joseph, an evil and savage beast,” and, setting out the boy’s bloodied garment, embraced it as though it were the boy’s flesh, inflamed and consoled by the same thing. The other now curses the mountains on which the battle was: “Mountains of Gilboa,” he says, “may no rain fall on you, nor dew”; and, “How have Jonathan and power fallen?” And now he defends the parricide as though he had done no wrong, and pours a libation to the dead, perhaps grieving for his son all the more because he had raised his hand against his father. For such is a father: the one he repelled as an enemy when he made war, he longs for as a friend when he is dead; and nature, than which nothing is stronger, conquers enmity.

Pitiable too was the ark held by the foreigners; and Jerusalem razed and trampled by the Gentiles; and the sons of Zion, precious and worth their weight in gold, going into captivity, and still scattered even now, a people foreign and sojourning in the world. Terrible too are the things now done and heard: homelands uprooted, myriads falling, the earth labouring under blood and corpses, and a people of foreign tongue running through a land not its own as if it were its own. Let no one blame the cowardice of those who fight for us, for these are the men who subdued almost the whole world; it is because of our wickedness and the impiety against the Triad that prevails. These things are terrible, and beyond terrible. Who will contradict me among those who know how to judge misfortunes from what they have suffered themselves or shared with others? But nothing yet is so great as peace driven out, the comeliness of the Church stripped away, the ancient dignity dissolved, and order so far reversed that, whereas formerly we became a people from no people, and a nation from no nation, now we are in danger, from a very great people and nation, of being dissolved again into no people and no nation, as at the beginning, when you did not rule over us, and we had not yet come together into one name and rank. And truly it may be easier to bear misfortune than to keep good fortune; for we too, when we were warred against, were strengthened and gathered together by persecution, and when we were gathered together, we fell apart. Who in his right mind would not lament the present state of things? Who will find words equal to the misfortune? Robbers are at peace, whom wickedness has bound together; and those ranged together for tyranny, partners in theft, conspirators in sedition, accomplices in adultery; and also troupes of dancers, ranks of soldiers, and ships’ crews. I pass over inheritances divided equally, opposing factions in civic life, and successions of public duties and offices proceeding in order and by law, and this much-praised sophistic, or grammar, not to say philosophy, over which the ambition of the young rages and runs mad: we see it quarrel a little but mostly keep the peace. But we are disjointed and unbound, never able to come together, and no word appears to heal this disease; rather, as if we were initiators and initiates of vice, not of virtue, we supply many kindlings of division and care little or nothing for concord. And yet when those others quarrel, their quarrel does not lead to anything great, and for some of them it is better to quarrel than to agree; for who in his right mind would praise associations for evil?

[4] But if someone should ask us, “What do you honour and worship?” the answer is ready: “Love.” For “our God is love,” a saying of the Holy Spirit; and God rejoices to hear this more than anything else. And what is the sum of the law and the prophets? The evangelist would allow no other answer than this. Why then do we, the people of love, hate and are hated so? Why do we, the people of peace, wage war without herald and without reconciliation? Why do we, the people of the cornerstone, stand apart? Why are we, the people of the rock, shaken; we, the people of the light, darkened; and we, the people of the Word, full of such silence, or unreason, or madness, or I do not know what to call it? Of food, of sleep, of song, and even of the most shameful things, as they say, there is satiety, and a surfeit of everything, not only of what is painful but even of what is sweetest, and everything passes over and turns into everything else; but for us there is no limit to striking and being struck, not only with those of other opinions who differ in the doctrine of the faith (that would be less painful, and zeal is a defence of praiseworthy things, if it stays within bounds), but now even with those of the same opinion, quarrelling against the same people and for the same things (this is the most wretched, or most pitiable thing of all). And for what? For love of rule, perhaps, or of money, or envy, or hatred, or arrogance, or any of the things that we do not see even the godless suffer from. And the pretty thing is the changing of votes. When we are caught, we are pious and orthodox, and we take refuge falsely in the truth, as if we were quarrelling for the faith; and we do this one praiseworthy thing, as among evils, if it is not utterly shameful: blushing at vice, we pass over to a more venerable name, piety. “Thunderstruck and many-sided creature,” one might say, “creature of the Evil One and sophist of vice,” whoever you are who suffer this, or, to speak more truly, “most senseless one: this man was pious to you yesterday, and how is he impious today, having added nothing and taken nothing away, either in word or in deed, but standing on the same ground? He breathes the same air and looks with the same eyes at the same sun; or, if you like, when asked about numbers or measures, he gives no other answer but the same.” But today he is a fornicator to you, who yesterday was a Joseph (for strife goes even this far, like a flame running through stubble and seizing everything around it); and today he is a Judas or a Caiaphas, who yesterday was an Elijah or a John, or one of the others ranked with Christ, wearing the same girdle and clad in the same grey or black cloak which gravity of life puts on, according to my rule and reasoning. And the fair flower of lofty men, their pallor, or the orderliness and quiet of their voice, or the gravity and gentleness of their gait, yesterday we called philosophy and today vainglory; and the same power over spirits or diseases we have ascribed now to Jesus, now to Beelzebul; and the measure we use for these things is not a just one, but contentiousness and anger.

And as the same earth stands still for the healthy and the unaffected, but moves for the dizzy and the reeling, the condition of those who see passing over to what is seen; or, if you like, as the same interval between columns seems greater to those nearer and close by, and smaller to those farther off, the air being stolen by the distance and the sight joining the thicker parts together: so we too are easily deceived through enmity, and judge differently about the same things according as we are friends or not. And the times readily ordain for us many saints, and many godless men, beyond all reason, or rather make everyone wretched; not only because we look to a bad example (for vice is ready to hand even without anyone drawing us), but because we readily concede everything to everyone for the sake of this one thing, that they join in our madness. Formerly it was not safe to utter even one superfluous word, but now we revile even the most pious. Once it was not lawful even to read outside the rule, nor to call for professions (which means, it seems to me, the assent of the people); but now we use the profane as arbiters even of the ineffable, throwing holy things to the dogs and casting pearls before swine. Not only this, but we also fill their ears with our insults against one another; and we cannot even see that it is not safe to trust a weapon to an enemy, nor a word against a Christian to one who hates Christians. For what we reproached today, we were reproached with tomorrow; and the enemy fawns on what is said, not because he praises it, but because he bitterly stores it up, to vomit his poison in due time against the one who trusted him.

Why do we suffer this, my friends, and how long? When shall we sober up from our drunkenness, or take the rheum from our eyes and look up to the light of the truth? What dizziness is this? What night battle? What storm, which cannot tell the faces of friends from those of enemies? Why have we become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to those around us? What is this ambition for evil? Whence comes this incurable sickness of ours? Or rather we are not even sick, but strong in evil, with the passion of madmen, and we delight in being consumed. And nowhere is there a word, a friend, an ally, a physician, either to apply medicine or to cut out the disease; no angel at hand, no God; but besides everything else we have shut ourselves out from God’s love for mankind. “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” and “Why do you turn away for ever?” And when will you visit us? Where will these things go, and where will they stop? I fear that the present things may be the smoke of the fire that is expected; that Antichrist may come upon them, and take our faults and sicknesses as the occasion for his own power. For perhaps he will not attack the healthy, nor those compacted in love; but the kingdom must be divided against itself, then the strong reason within us be tested and bound, then the goods plundered, and we suffer what we now see the enemy suffering from Christ.

“For these things I weep,” says Jeremiah in Lamentations; and I seek for my eyes fountains of tears enough for the suffering, and I call the wise women to make the lament, or to join in it; and I am pained in my belly, my senses are in turmoil, and I do not know how to lighten the pain, or with what words. Because of these things the old is passed over in silence and the new is made a comedy (for my tragedy is a comedy to our enemies); because of this we owe the churches no small debt, and have added to the theatre; and that in such a city, which is as eager to make sport of divine things as of anything else, and would sooner laugh at something praiseworthy than pass by anything laughable without laughing. So I would be surprised if they did not laugh at me too today, as I say these things, the newcomer herald of piety, teaching that not everything is to be laughed at, but that some things must be taken seriously. And why do I say laugh? It would be a wonder if I were not even brought to trial for wishing to do good. For such are our affairs. Yet I am not grieved by them: not by churches being held by others (which might perhaps sway the small-minded), nor by gold flowing to others, nor by wicked tongues doing their part, speaking evil because they have not learned to speak well.

For there is no fear that the Divine may be confined to a place, or become purchasable, so as to belong wholly to the wealthier. Nor will those who praise or blame change me (like people who mix ointment with mud, or mud with ointment, confusing the qualities by mixing them), so that I should be annoyed at their blasphemies as though I were being altered. Otherwise I would have spent much money on those who praise me, if they made me better by their praises. But it is not so (how could it be?); what I am I remain, whether reviled or admired. “A mortal swims in vain words,” says Job; and as foam flowing round a rock, or breezes round a pine or any of the thick and lofty trees, so the tongues flow round me. And at the same time I reason with myself in this way: if the accuser lies, the word touches him rather than me, even if he blasphemes me by name; but if he speaks the truth, I will blame myself rather than the speaker (for he has the matter of his speech from me; I do not have my character from him); and, passing by the voices as nothing, I will attend to myself, gaining from their wickedness only this, that I live more safely. Third, and greatest, the abuse has something magnificent in it: we are blasphemed together with God; for the same people both reject the Godhead and insult the theologian. None of these things, then, is dreadful, though most people think so. What is dreadful is that no one is any longer trusted to be faithful, or genuine and unaffected in virtue, however strong in soul and genuine in piety he may be; but one man is openly bad, while another has a mask and paint of goodness to deceive by appearances.

Some people are not thought black because of others who are, nor low-born, nor ugly, nor unmanly, nor licentious, though many are so; each is judged by himself, and neither blame nor praise is shared. But vice spreads easily to everyone, and becomes a common accusation against the whole body, not only when it belongs to many, but even when it belongs to a few. And the most dreadful thing is that it does not stop with us, but passes over to our great and venerable mystery. For of those who judge our affairs (as happens with almost all who judge the affairs of others), some are reasonably mild and humane, while others are very bitter and unfair. The one group blames us for our wickedness, acquitting the doctrine of blame; the other accuses the law itself of teaching vice, especially when they meet many wicked men among those in leadership. [11] What is this, my friends, and how long? Shall we not come to our senses, even late? Shall we not sober up? Shall we not be ashamed? Shall we not, if nothing else, guard against the tongues of our enemies, which readily spread even lies? Shall we not stop our excessive contentiousness? Shall we not learn which of the things we inquire into are within our reach, and how far, and which are beyond our power; which belong to the present time, when the confusion below darkens the mind, and which to the age to come and the freedom there; so that we may be content with the former for the time being and be purified by them, to be perfected later and to rest from our longing? Shall we not distinguish among ourselves which things are not to be inquired into at all, which in moderation, and which are to be conceded and left to the lovers of strife, however they may stand, as doing our doctrine no harm? And which must be given to faith alone, and which to reasoning as well? And for which we must fight eagerly, with reason and not with arms? For to raise our hands as well is altogether outside our fold and must be thrown off to those who hate us.

Shall we not regard this as the one definition of piety: to worship Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, the one Godhead and power in the three, neither over-worshipping nor under-worshipping (to imitate a little myself those who are wise in these matters; for the one is impossible, the other impious), nor cutting up the one greatness by novelties of names? For nothing is greater or less than itself. With this defined, we shall also agree on the rest, we who are of the same Triad and of nearly the same doctrine and body; and we shall cut out and destroy, as a common disease, the superfluous and useless offshoots and digressions of present-day questions. Or was it not enough for me (I leave aside things farther back) to have the evil spirit of Montanus against the Holy Spirit, and the rashness of Novatus, or rather his unclean purity, enticing many by the fair appearance of the word; and the madness of the Phrygians, which continues even now, as they initiate and are initiated in rites almost like those of old; and the folly of the Galatians, who abound in many names of impiety; and the contraction of Sabellius, and the division of Arius, and the subdivision of the present sophists that comes from it, who differ from one another only as a chattering tongue differs from a lazier one? But still we too almost differ among ourselves, we who are sound on the main point, and quarrel for the same things and against the same people.

I mean the brotherly fight within the same yoke that has lately risen among us, by which both God and man are dishonoured. The one, as if he were not born for us at all, nor nailed to the cross, and clearly neither buried nor risen, as some of those who love Christ badly have thought; but honoured only there where honour has become dishonour, and for this reason cut into two sons, or composed of them. The other, not perfectly assumed or honoured, but cast aside and estranged in what is greatest, if indeed the greatest thing in human nature is being in the image, and the power of the mind. For forsooth, because the Godhead is united, the humanity must be divided, and those who are otherwise wise must lose their wits about the mind; and I am not to be saved whole, though I fell and was condemned whole through the disobedience of the first-formed man and the theft of the adversary; so that grace is lessened for God and salvation for us. Not only this, but we also have a war over men, we who have been saved by God; and our excess of factiousness is so great that we have put it at the service of others’ ambitions, and take up private enmities for the sake of others’ thrones: committing two very great sins in one, kindling their love of rule, and taking this as a prop for our own passion, like those falling over a cliff who grasp at the nearby rocks or the stronger bushes.

It would be better to make them weaker by our own quietness; for in that way we would do them a greater favour than by fighting for them. But as it is, some fight as allies and are fought for as allies, very pitiably, as it seems to me; so that the world is already split into two hostile parts, and that after being brought together with difficulty, little by little, and with the blood of many. And everything peaceful and moderate suffers at the hands of both, either despised or attacked. We who make these accusations today belong to that group, and for this reason accepted this see, so contested and so envied; no wonder, then, if we are crushed by both and removed from the middle after much sweat and toil, so that they may strike each other at close range and with all their fury, with no wall or barrier between them. To define and settle these things belongs above all to God, who binds all things together, and then to those men who are zealous for the good and know the blessing of concord; beginning from the Triad, of which nothing is so proper as oneness in nature and peace with itself; shared by the angelic and divine powers, which are at peace with God and with one another; extending to the whole creation, whose order is its freedom from strife; and dwelling in us, in the soul by the mutual following and fellowship of the virtues, in the body by the harmony and proportion of the members or elements with one another, of which the one is called beauty and the other health.

I praise also Solomon’s saying, which lays down a time for every matter, and so also for war and for peace. I will add only this: the time for both must be observed, since it is sometimes good to fight, according to his law and word; but as long as it is possible, we must incline rather toward peace, for this is something loftier and more godlike. How absurd it is to think concord best in private but not most profitable in public; to think that the household and the city best governed is the one that quarrels with itself not at all, or very little, or, if it does, is most quickly reconciled and healed, while for the common body of the Church something else is better and more fitting; that each should strive to be at peace with himself (peace within each person, and mastery over the passions, being desirable), but should not show himself the same toward others, but think his neighbour’s ruin his own glory; that God bids us forgive even those who sin against us, not seven times but many times as many, since forgiving procures our being forgiven, while we would more eagerly abuse even those who do us no wrong than receive kindness from others; and that we know so great a blessedness laid up for the peacemakers that they alone, in the ranks of the saved, are called sons of God, while we ourselves are fond of enmity and then think we are doing what is pleasing to God, who suffered for us that he might reconcile us to himself and destroy the war within us. … rather harsh, since sparing children is a father’s law. But may you find the great Judge gracious and peaceful, now and on the day of recompense, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.

[7] What, then, do you wish? Are you persuaded of this, so that we need no trouble, nor a second discourse on God, and do you spare my weakness, because of which I can barely utter even these things to you? Or must I, as with the hard of hearing, sound the same word many times, so that by persistence of voice we may speak into the ears of those who hear? You seem to me to call for the discourse by your silence; for the proverb too teaches that silence is consent. Receive, then, the word of both parties, from one soul and one mouth. I am vexed that I have not gone up some high mountain, nor received a voice equal to my desire, to utter these things to all those of evil mind together, as in a common theatre, the world: “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood,” introducing not one nature of the Godhead, nor even a twofold one, but either three, estranged and torn apart from one another, and, not surprisingly, fighting one another through excesses and defects; or one, but petty and narrow, not able to be the principle of great things, as though unable or unwilling, and that for one of two reasons, envy or fear: envy, lest something of equal honour be brought in alongside it; fear, lest something hostile and warring? And yet, as much as God is more honourable than creatures, so much more magnificent is it for the first cause to be the principle of Godhead than of creatures, and to come to creatures through the Godhead between, than, on the contrary, that the Godhead should have come into being for their sake, as the over-inquisitive and high-flying suppose. … you will not bind them above the Father, nor estrange them from the cause, but you lead the fair offspring and the wonderful procession back to him. I will ask you briefly, you lover of the unbegotten and lover of the unoriginate: which God is dishonoured more, the one who is the principle of such beings as you bring in, or the one who is the principle not of such, but of beings alike in nature and glory, such as our doctrine holds? For to you your son is a great and very great honour, and the more so the more he resembles his father in everything and is the genuine stamp of the one who begot him; and you would not choose to be master of ten thousand slaves rather than father of one child. But to God, is anything greater than to be Father of a Son, which is an addition of glory, not a diminution, and producer of the Spirit as well? Or do you not know that, making him the principle of creatures (I mean of the Son and the Spirit), you neither honour the principle, and dishonour what comes from it? The one, because you make it the principle of small things unworthy of the Godhead; the others, because you make them small, and not only creatures but more dishonoured than all creatures, if indeed they came into being for the sake of creatures, and did not exist once, like instruments for a craftsman before the things made, nor would have come into being otherwise, unless God had wished to create something through them, as though his willing were not enough. For everything that exists for the sake of something is less honourable than that for which it came into being. [8] But I, bringing in a principle of the Godhead that is timeless, inseparable, and unbounded, honour both the principle and what comes from the principle equally: the one, because it is the principle of such beings; the others, because they are so and such, and from such a principle, separated neither by a “when,” nor by nature, nor by worship; one, though distinguished, and distinguished, though conjoined, paradoxical as it is to say; no less praiseworthy in their relation to one another than each conceived and taken by itself. A perfect Triad of three perfect: the Monad moved because of its richness, the Dyad passed beyond (for the Godhead is beyond matter and form, of which bodies consist), the Triad bounded because of its perfection, for it is the first number that passes beyond the composition of the dyad; so that the Godhead neither remains narrow nor is poured out without limit. For the one is ungenerous, the other disorderly; the one altogether Jewish, the other Greek and polytheistic. And I consider this too, perhaps not without education or learning, but after very careful thought: that for you there is no danger at all in bringing in the Son as begotten. For the Unbegotten will suffer nothing bodily or material in begetting, since he is not a body; this the common notions about God concede. So why do we fear where there is no fear, and act impiously in vain, as the saying goes? But for me there is danger that the Godhead may suffer loss, if I were to accept the creature. For what is created is not God, nor is a fellow servant lordly, even if it holds the first place in servitude and creation and is kindly treated only in being insulted. For whoever deprives something of its due honour does not honour it more by what he gives than he dishonours it by what he takes away, even if what is done has a show of honour. … (as far as one may compare intelligible things with sensible ones, and the greatest with the small, since no image reaches the truth), a Godhead in harmony with itself, always the same, always perfect, without quality, without quantity, timeless, uncreated, incomprehensible, never falling short of itself nor ever going to fall short; lives and life, lights and light, goods and good, glories and glory, true and truth and Spirit of truth, holy ones and holiness itself; each God, if contemplated alone, the mind separating what is inseparable; the three God, when conceived with one another, by the identity of their movement and nature; leaving nothing above itself, nor surpassed by anything else, for there was nothing; nor going to leave anything after itself, or to be surpassed, for there will be nothing; nor admitting anything of equal honour with itself, for nothing created, servile, participating, and circumscribed reaches the uncreated, lordly, participated, and infinite nature. For some things are altogether far off, others in some measure approach and will approach, and this not by nature but by participation. And when? When serving the Triad well has become something beyond service; unless this itself is freedom and kingship, to know lordship rightly and not to confuse what is distinct through lowliness of mind. And for those to whom service is so great, how great is their lordship? And if knowing is blessedness, how great is what is known? [12] This is what the great mystery means for us; this is what faith and regeneration into Father and Son and Holy Spirit and the common name mean: the denial of godlessness and the confession of Godhead; for this is the common name. So to dishonour or to separate any of the three is to dishonour the confession, both the regeneration and the Godhead, both the deification and the hope. See what the Spirit grants us when confessed as God, and what loss he brings when rejected; I leave aside the fear and the threatened wrath, not for those who honour him but for those who dishonour him. These things have been set forth to you briefly, as doctrine and not as controversy; in the fishermen’s way, not Aristotle’s; spiritually, not maliciously; in the manner of the Church, not of the marketplace; for profit, not for display; so that you who harangue against us and make a festival of it, and agree only in this, may know that we think the same, are breathed upon by one Spirit and breathe one breath; and that you may not, like the starving, pick up our little things, whether they should be called slips or games. O extreme misfortune, to have one’s security not in one’s own soundness but in the rotten things of others! [13] See, we give one another our right hands before your eyes. See the works of the Triad, glorified and worshipped by us alike. This will make you kinder and more orthodox. Would that we might be heard, and that this day might become a day called holy, not of contradiction but of spaciousness; not a memorial of temptation but a feast of victory; so that our agreement with one another, and that of almost the whole world, part of which was sound, part has now recovered its health, and part is beginning to be healthy, may become for you too a cause of salvation and refashioning. O holy, worshipful, and long-suffering Triad! For long-suffering you are, who have borne so long with those who cut you. O Triad, whom I have been counted worthy both to serve and to herald, unfeignedly, for so long! O Triad, who will one day be known to all, to some by illumination, to others by punishment! May you receive these too as worshippers, who are now insulters; and may we lose no one, not even the least, even if I must lose something of grace myself; for I do not dare to say as much as the Apostle. [14] But are these things not dear to you? Is your tongue convulsed and in labour with contradiction? We shall see this too some day, or others will who have more leisure than we; we shall know your elegant offspring, or rather abortions, when, breaking or crushing the asps’ eggs with a hard and resisting word, we show them to be wind-eggs and empty, and bring out into the open the basilisk of impiety hidden in them: a basilisk, but dead, unformed, and motionless, dying in the birth pangs, and not existing before it is born (to use your way of speaking, so that I may do you a small favour), no more hateful in its conception than pitiable in its miscarriage. This he will give us, I know, who gave us to tread on asp and basilisk and to walk upon serpents and scorpions; who will also crush Satan quickly under our feet, whether falling like lightning from heaven because of his ancient brightness, or fleeing as a serpent because of his later crookedness and his change into a creeping thing; so that we may breathe a little from evils, pain, grief, and sighing having fled away altogether, now and hereafter, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.

We longed for you, children, and were longed for in return in equal measure; of that I am persuaded. See a father’s fairness: I speak of my own feeling and bear witness to yours. And having been separated just long enough to recognize and test our longing by the separation, as painters do with their pictures, we have come together again. How great a kindling of memory is even a brief acquaintance between friends, for those of a loving character who imitate God’s love for mankind! How should we not, the disciples of Christ, who was emptied for us even to the form of a servant and gathered us to himself when we were strangers to heavenly things, hold fast to one another and embrace one another, and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, which is the mystery, or rather the sum, of the law and the prophets?

This is one benefit, and the first: to run to one another as quickly as possible and embrace. For zeal does not bear delay, and a whole life is one day to those who are weary with longing. The second, and the greatest: not to arrive after the festival, nor to miss the mystic rites of the martyrs and the delight and refreshment that come to us from them. For I confess that in other things I am more sluggish than anyone, and that I shook off every desire from the time I enlisted with Christ; nothing attracts me of the things that others find delightful and covet: not wealth, which is dragged below and overturned; not the pleasures of the belly, and satiety, the father of insolence; not soft and flowing clothing; not the brilliance and charm of precious stones; not bewitching sounds, nor effeminating scents; not the applause of crowds and theatres, which drives men mad, and which I long ago conceded to those who want it; nothing of what is the offspring of our first taste, by which we perished. Indeed I condemn as great folly those who allow themselves to be mastered by these things, who destroy the nobility of the soul by pettiness about them and attach themselves to fleeting things as if they stood firm. But for that other thing I am quite insatiable and cling to it, and I approve myself for the passion: I delight in the honours of martyrs and exult in the blood of athletes; others have the contests and the victory, I the crowns. So much do I seize the glory beforehand, and so do I make the achievements my own! And by you, above all, I am overcome in virtue and lightened by your memory, and become as though inspired with pleasure, and in a way I am present at your martyrdom, share in your contest, and pass over wholly to you: perhaps because of our kinship in eloquence, in which you surpassed others as much as rational beings surpass irrational nature (for affection somehow enters into those who are joined in any way, no less in other matters than in kinship of blood); perhaps because of the suddenness and unexpectedness of your change, which is beyond word and example. For the sun is sweet after the cloud that hid it, and spring sweeter because it follows the gloom of winter, and pleasanter is the smiling calm, and the sea spread out and playing with the shores after the uproar of the winds and the labour of the waves. [6] This is Cyprian, my hearers (that those who know may be gladdened by the reminder, and those who do not may learn the finest of our stories and the common pride of Christians); this is he, once the great name of the Carthaginians, now of the whole world; famous for wealth, admired for power, distinguished by family (if indeed the greatest proof of noble birth is membership and presidency in the council of the city); the flower of youth, the ornament of nature, mighty in eloquence, both in philosophy and in the rest of learning, whichever part you like; so that people admired the variety more than the excellence in each, or rather his distinction in each part of a learning that covered everything; or, to distinguish more clearly, he surpassed some by variety, others by excellence, some by both, and all in all things. [7] Of his eloquence his writings are witnesses, which he produced for us in great number and brilliance, after he had turned his learning to the service of God, who makes and refashions all things for the better, and had subjected unreason to the Word. But from here I do not know how to use my discourse, or what to do: how am I not to stretch out a long discourse, quite out of season, by recalling everything about Cyprian? And how am I not to deprive those present of the greatest things by what I pass over in silence? That I may take a middle way between the occasion and the longing of my hearers, this seems to me the right course: to leave the rest to those who know, so that they may teach those who do not, if there are any, and both may be equally benefited, those who teach his deeds and those who learn them (since even the remembrance of the man is sanctification, and the telling of it a very great encouragement to virtue); and to recall briefly one or two of his deeds, those that cannot be passed over even if one wished. [8] I will recall his former life, and what way of salvation came to him, what his call was, and his change for the better. It is very ignoble and small-minded to think that the athlete is insulted by recalling his darker past. For then our great Paul would not be praiseworthy, and Matthew the tax collector would be among the worst, and Cyprian himself as well: the first recalled his former persecutions and the change of his zeal, so that by the comparison he might glorify his benefactor the more; the second added “the tax collector” to his own name in the list of the disciples, as though it were some mark of honour; and the third denounced his former wickedness at length, so that he might offer this fruit too to God, his confession, and might become for many who turn from wickedness a way to better hope. What, then, was his wickedness? Consider how great it was, and of what kind. He was a servant of demons, who was afterwards a disciple of Christ; and a most bitter persecutor, the great champion of the truth; troubling our way by word and deed, because of his power in both, he who afterwards was most powerful for Christians in both. How great an evil, too, was the magic added to these, the best known of his deeds! How much more terrible, too, was the lust of the body, which can drive mad even those who are wise in other things and force them to think worse, seizing reason like an unruly colt! [9] My discourse comes to the main point. And let no one, looking at Cyprian’s beginnings, give himself to pleasures; let him rather be chastened by his end. There was a virgin of noble and modest family. Hear, virgins, and rejoice with me, and so too the married women who are chaste and love chastity; for the story is an ornament common to both. And the virgin was very beautiful in appearance; let the divine David sing to her with us, saying, “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within”: a genuine bride of Christ, a hidden beauty, a living statue, an inviolable offering, an untrodden sanctuary, “a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed” (let Solomon too sing something), kept for Christ alone. By her the great Cyprian was captured, I do not know whence or how, though she was guarded and modest in everything. For greedy eyes touch even what is untouchable, the readiest and most insatiable of instruments. And he was not only captured but also made attempts on her. O the folly of hoping to rob her, or rather the shamelessness of the one who both dares such things and persuades others to dare! It was he who at the beginning slipped into paradise against the first creature; who stands among the angels to demand Job; and who at last dares even against the Master himself, who was to destroy and kill him, and brings temptation to the one who cannot be tempted (since he saw in what was visible of God a second Adam), thinking to wrestle him down too. For he did not know that, rushing at the humanity, he would fall upon the Godhead. What wonder, then, if through Cyprian too he tempts a holy soul and an untouched body? [10] He tempted, then, and used a go-between, not some old woman skilled in such matters, but one of the demons who love bodies and pleasures; for the apostate and envious powers are quick to serve such ends, seeking many partners in their fall. And the wage for the procuring was sacrifices and libations, and the pleasure of blood and the savour of burnt fat; for such had to be the wages of those who grant such favours. But she, when she perceived the evil and recognized the plot (for pure and godlike souls are quicker to catch the one at work, however sophistical and various his attempt), what does she do, and what counter-device does she contrive against the author of wickedness? Despairing of all else, she flees to God and makes her own Bridegroom her protector against the hateful desire, who rescued Susanna and saved Thecla, the one from wicked elders, the other from a tyrannical suitor and a still more tyrannical mother. Who is he? Christ, who rebukes spirits, relieves the baptized, walks on the sea, and gives a legion of spirits to the deep; who rescues the righteous man in the pit, set before lions as food, who overcame the beasts by stretching out his hands; who rescues the fugitive prophet swallowed by the sea monster, who kept his faith in its belly; and who saves the Assyrian youths in the flame, cooling the fire with an angel and joining a fourth to the three. [11] Invoking these and more, and imploring the Virgin Mary to help a virgin in danger, she puts forward the remedy of fasting and sleeping on the ground: at once withering her beauty as a snare, to take away the fuel from the flame and consume the kindling of the passions, and at once propitiating God by faith and humility; for by nothing of all things is God so served as by hardship, and he gives his love for mankind in return for tears. You long, I know, for what follows in the story; you are anxious for the virgin, and no less for the lover, whether the desire ended badly for both. But take courage. The desire becomes the go-between of faith; the lover who would betroth the virgin to himself is betrothed by Christ; and the flame of desire is quenched while that of truth is kindled. How, and in what way? Here is the sweetest part of the story. The virgin conquers; the demon is conquered. The tempter comes to the lover and reports his defeat; he is despised. He is annoyed at the contempt; he takes revenge on the one who despised him. And what is the revenge? He takes up residence in his former servant, so that evil might be driven out by evil and madness become the cure of madness. Repulsed from the virgin like an engine from a strong and noble wall, a fugitive from her word and prayer, he wrestles with the one who sent him (O the marvel!), turning back on the one who had thrown him and choking him, like a second Saul; for everything that is oppressed seeks a way out. What is the release? He flees to the virgin’s God, as Saul to David’s lyre and its music; he approaches her Shepherd; he is cleansed, as of his desire through the blow, so of the evil spirit through faith in Christ. He changes his desire, for a long time disbelieved and sent away (for it seemed incredible and marvellous that Cyprian should ever be numbered among Christians, even if all men were); but he changes nonetheless, and there is clear proof of the change. He displays his books of magic publicly; he makes a triumph of the weakness of the evil treasure; he proclaims his folly; he raises a bright flame from them and consumes with fire the long deceit, which could not help him against one flame of the flesh. He departs from the demons and attaches himself to God. O the grace! What a God he finds through evil desire and an evil spirit! He becomes a sacred sheep of the sacred flock, and, as I heard from someone, even a sacristan, having begged earnestly for it, so that he might practise lowliness to cleanse his former boastfulness. Then he becomes a shepherd, and of shepherds the strongest and most approved. For he presides not only over the church of the Carthaginians, nor only over Africa, famous to this day because of him and through him, but over the whole West, and almost over the East itself, south and north, wherever his fame reached. So Cyprian becomes ours. [12] These things the God of signs and wonders did; these things he did who led Joseph into Egypt, sold through the spite of his brothers, who tested him in the matter of a woman, glorified him in the distribution of grain, and made him wise in dreams, so that he might be trusted in a foreign land, honoured by Pharaoh, and become father of many myriads, for whose sake Egypt is scourged, the sea divided, bread rained down, the sun stands still, and the land of promise is allotted. For wisdom knows how to lay the foundations of great things far ahead, and to bring about contraries through contraries, that it may be the more admired. These things too would suffice, among the excellences of Cyprian, for the measure of a most perfect encomium. But what remains is so great and of such a kind that, even if none of what has been said belonged to him for praise, what follows would be enough for him to surpass all. To cut short the intervening details: his contempt for money, the destruction of pride, the discipline and purity of his body set against his former impulses, the philosophic simplicity of his dress, his manner in meetings, at once lofty and humane, so that he stayed equally far from meanness and arrogance; his sleeping on the ground and his vigils, in which, though he learned such things late, he far surpassed those who had begun before him; his zeal for writing, by which he educated every character, cleansed away ignorance of doctrine, adorned the lives of men, and brought back to its ancient state the Godhead of the sovereign and royal Triad, which was being cut apart and by some merged together, remaining within the bounds of pious unity and enumeration: to sum these up because of their immensity, I will end my discourse with the end of his life. [14] Decius raged against us and devised every form of punishment; some terrors were already present, others impending. He made it an equal contest to seize the Christians and to outdo the persecutors before him; or rather, either to seize all Christians or to seize and subdue Cyprian alone. For the more he knew the man surpassed others in piety and fame, the more conspicuous and brilliant he saw his victory would be if he mastered him. For in the one way he would master only Christians, in this way philosophy itself and eloquence as well. And he thought it the best generalship first to cut out the tongue, and then to lead away, voiceless and wordless, those whom it supported: not thinking rightly or piously, yet not altogether unreasonably with regard to his own wish and design; and the event showed it. For when the noble man had shaken off every attack and attempt manfully and nobly, like a rock by the sea the onrush of the waves, he was finally condemned by him to exile. The noble man was not content with his own safety, nor glad merely to be saved; nor did he consider his dishonour a safety for his body, rather than his quiet a danger to his soul, and the neglect of others endangered by the times, when there was no trainer to encourage them for the contest. For a word can add no small courage to those who strip for the contest of virtue. [15] For this reason he was absent in body but present in spirit, and contended along with the athletes; he could not help them with his tongue, but he helps with his writing. How? He becomes a trainer from abroad, writing exhortations and composing piety in words; and he alone makes almost more martyrs by his letters than all those present with the sufferers of that time did by themselves. For he persuades those who run risks for the good to put neither homeland, nor family, nor property, nor power, nor anything else lying on the ground, before the truth and the prizes of virtue laid up there; and that this is the best of bargains, to buy the kingdom of heaven with a little blood, and to receive eternal glory in exchange for passing goods. For there is one homeland for lofty souls, the intelligible Jerusalem, not those divided here by small boundaries and changing their many inhabitants; one splendour of family, the keeping of the image and likeness to the archetype, as far as is possible for those bound by flesh and able to receive only a small effluence of the good; one power, mastery over the Evil One, and to be neither caught by flight nor conquered in the contests for piety, when vice contends with virtue and world with world, the passing with the abiding, a bitter president of the games with noble contestants, and Belial is drawn up against Christ. Therefore he persuaded them to despise swords, to think fire cold, to suppose the wildest beasts tame, to regard hunger as the highest luxury, and to pass by the tears, laments, and wailing of their families as baits of the Evil One and hindrances to the divine journey. For these, he said, are the marks of manly and noble souls and of sober reason. And the example was near at hand: he himself who said and wrote these things, counting all things as dung that he might gain Christ. [16] So thinking, and so arming them by his words for the contest, Cyprian produced many athletes. And what reward does he receive for these? How lavish and generous! He becomes a martyr after all whom he sent ahead, his head cut off by the sword; and he places this crown on his many trials. So he is brought to Christ, so he passes over to Christ: Cyprian, great in impiety and greater in piety, great both as persecutor and as crowned victor, no less wonderful for his change than for his virtue. For it is not so great to preserve a pattern of goodness as to make a new beginning in godliness; the one is a matter of habit, the other of good counsel; of the one there are many examples, of the other few. [17] But what of that further wonder of his? Let us persevere a little longer in the discourse, that we may please the athlete. Such was the man’s life, and such the manner of his contest. When he ended his life (if it is lawful to say so, and not rather to call what befell him a departure to God, or the fulfilment of longing, or the loosing of bonds, or the laying aside of a burden), here too a wonder was worked, worthy of what went before. The name of Cyprian was great with all, not only with Christians but also with those ranged against us (for the good is alike venerable to all); but his body was hidden, and the treasure was with a certain woman fervent in piety, and that for a long time; I do not know whether God was honouring her love for God and the martyr, or exercising our longing, to see whether we could bear being deprived and robbed of the holy relics. But since the God of the martyrs would not allow the good of all to become the property of one, nor deprive the community through his favour to her, he makes the body public by a revelation, granting this honour too to a certain worthy woman; so that women too might be sanctified, just as they formerly bore Christ and announced the resurrection from the dead to the disciples, so now with Cyprian, the one by showing, the other by handing over the common benefit. This is the last of his excellences. So he comes into the open who deserved not to be hidden, and is not allowed to make a philosophy of his own concealment, since he is greater and loftier even than the honours paid to bodies. [18] These, then, are our offerings, and I do not think more need be said. For even if we stretched out a long discourse, we would say nothing worthy of what belonged to him, or of what each has conceived about the man. We have gone through these things as far as to discharge the honour owed to him; the rest must be added by you yourselves, so that you too may offer something to the martyr: the overthrow of demons, the ending of diseases, the foreknowledge of the future, all of which even the dust of Cyprian can do, together with faith, as those know who have experienced it, who have passed the wonder down to us and will hand it on to future time. Or rather, offer greater things than these first, such as befit those who genuinely honour him: the emptying of the body, the ascent of the soul, flight from vice, growth in virtue; the virgins their freedom from the flesh, wives their decorum of virtue rather than of body, young men their courage against the passions, old men their good counsel, those in power their good government, those in command their gentleness, those in letters their reasonableness; and, to speak of our own, the priests their mystic guidance, the people their docility, those in mourning their consolation, those in prosperity their fear, the rich their sharing, the poor their thanksgiving; and all their battle line against the evil and bitter persecutor, so that he may not strike unseen, nor shoot from hiding, nor fight like darkness, nor sport as an angel of light and steal us away to the pit of destruction.

It is dreadful to be captured by the eyes, wounded by the tongue, enticed by hearing, set on fire by boiling anger, brought down by taste, softened by touch, and to use the weapons of salvation as weapons of death; when we ought, fenced with the shield of faith, to stand against the wiles of the Evil One, and, having conquered with Christ and contended with the martyrs, to hear that great voice: “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom promised to you,” where is the dwelling of all who rejoice and dance an unending dance; where is the sound of those who keep festival, and the voice of exultation, and a more perfect and purer illumination of the Godhead, which we now enjoy only in riddles and shadows. With these things Cyprian rejoices to be honoured more than with all others together; these he taught by his life when he was present, and these, though absent, he urges on all through our voice. Do not dishonour it, if you care at all for his endurance and his contests for the truth, and for me who plead for these things. These are the first fruits of my words for you, divine and sacred head; this is your prize for your words and your contest: not an Olympic olive wreath, nor Delphic apples, mere playthings, nor the Isthmian pine, nor Nemean celery, by which unhappy youths were honoured; but a word, the most fitting of all things for the servants of the Word; and if it is worthy of your contests and words, it is the gift of the Word. And may you look upon us graciously from above, and guide our word and our life, and shepherd this sacred flock, or shepherd it with us, directing all else to the best as far as possible, and driving away the grievous wolves, the hunters of syllables and words; and granting us a more perfect and brighter illumination of the Holy Triad, at whose side you now stand, which we worship, which we glorify, with which we live as citizens, worshipping the Father in the Son and the Son in the Holy Spirit; and may we stand before it at the last sincere and blameless, and share in it perfectly as perfect, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be all glory, honour, and might for ever and ever. Amen.

I will praise the philosopher, even though I am ill in body; for he is a philosopher; and I will praise him with very good reason. For he is a philosopher, and I am a servant of wisdom, so that praise is fitting for me, so that, if nothing else, I may practise this philosophy at least: to admire a philosopher. For, in my view, one must either practise philosophy or honour philosophy, unless we are to fall altogether outside the good and be condemned for unreason, we who have been made rational and hasten through reason to the Word. Let the man practise this philosophy too, among his others, of being praised, and let him endure the praise. For we will not praise him to gratify him (we know the philosopher’s freedom from ambition, and besides, the discourse would add nothing to the facts, except to fall short of their worth through its own weakness), but to benefit ourselves. This philosophy will not despise, since its work and study is to do some good to our life. The first of benefits is that fine things be praised. For praise procures zeal; zeal, virtue; virtue, blessedness; and this is the summit of what is desired, toward which every movement of the earnest tends. [2] Come then, best and most perfect of philosophers, and, I will add, of witnesses to the truth. Come, refuter of bastard wisdom, which lies in words and bewitches by eloquence, but can neither rise above this nor wishes to; you who are skilled with both hands in virtue, both in contemplation and in action; who practise our philosophy in a foreign garb, or perhaps not foreign, if bright clothing and radiance belong to the angels when they are portrayed in bodily form, a symbol, I think, of the purity of their nature. Come, philosopher and wise man (for how long is one to love wisdom, and nowhere attain wisdom?), and dog, not in shamelessness but in frankness; not in gluttony but in living from day to day; not in barking but in guarding the good and keeping watch for souls, fawning on whatever is akin in virtue and barking at whatever is alien. Come, stand near the holy things and this mystic table, and near me, who through them initiate into deification, to which your word and life bring you, and your purification through suffering. Come, let me crown you with our crowns and proclaim you with a loud voice, not in the midst of Olympia, nor in some small theatre of Greece, nor as having competed in the pancration, or boxing, or the double race, or any of the small contests for small prizes, nor in honour of some hero or demon honoured for misfortune and in myth (for such are their solemn and honoured things, which have gained time as an ally of their folly and custom as law); but before God and the angels and the whole fullness of the Church, as having conquered the falsehood of the heresies, in honour of the living God, who teaches suffering by his own sufferings, and whose prize is the kingdom of heaven and becoming god, which is higher than suffering.

But what is the proclamation? If you want the shorter and better known: This is the most truthful contender for the truth, the champion of the Triad even to blood, and persecutor of the persecutors: they by doing evil, he by eagerly suffering; for nothing so conquers the persecutor as the eagerness of the one who suffers. If you want the fuller and more complete: This man is the best born of the best, the most noble of the noble. By nobility I do not mean what most people mean; far from it! It is not our way, nor a philosopher’s, to admire the nobility that comes from myths and tombs and long-rotted pride, nor that which is added by blood and documents, which nights bestow, and the hands of kings, perhaps not noble themselves, who command nobility like anything else; but the nobility marked by piety and character, and by the ascent to the first good, from which we came. Of this nobility there is one proof: our noble man is not only an athlete himself, but also descended from martyrs, so that he has the example of virtue at home. He is a citizen, by wisdom, of the whole world (for the Cynic way does not endure being bounded by small limits); by body, of the city of the Alexandrians, which is reckoned with yours and next after yours; a city which, while it surpasses all in all things, has fervour as its most distinctive mark, and the finest form of this, Christianity and its devotion to it, which begins in choice but is confirmed by nature. For fervour joined to piety became zeal; and zeal is the safeguard of faith.

Brought up and trained in this way, as was fitting for one born of such parents and destined to be such a man, when the time came to choose a way of life (which I regard as the foundation of doing well or badly), he saw something great, youthful, and loftier than most. He despises luxury, wealth, and power more than others prize them, and spurns and sends away the first as the chief misery, the second as the utmost poverty, the third as the greatest weakness. For nothing is good, he held, which neither makes its possessors better (indeed it often makes them worse) nor remains with them to the end. He sets before himself philosophy, the mistress of the passions, approaches the good with youthful vigour, and, before he is separated from matter, he rises up against visible things, attaching himself to what stands firm by greatness of nature and nobility of choice. When he had so resolved, he did not even think it worth deliberating which of the philosophies he should choose, the outside one, which plays with shadows of the truth in the dress and pretext of philosophy, or ours, lowly in appearance but lofty in what is hidden, and leading to God; but by every vote he chooses ours, not turned aside at all in mind toward the worse, nor swept away by the elegance of words on which those who practise the philosophy of the Greeks pride themselves. But this he made the first object of his philosophy: to know which of our ways is preferable and more profitable, equally for himself and for all Christians. For he thought it the mark of a most perfect and philosophic soul to serve the common good everywhere together with one’s own. For each of us is born not for himself alone, but for all who share the same nature and came into being from the same source and for the same ends. [5] He saw that the solitary and private life, alien and foreign to most people, is great and lofty and beyond what is human, but stops with those who achieve it, and denies the communal and humane character of love, which he knew to be among the first of praised things; and, besides, is untested, being neither exercised in affairs nor measured against others. The communal and mixed life, on the other hand, besides testing virtue, also reaches out to the many and is close to the divine economy, which made the universe and bound it together in friendship, and called back our race, fallen from the good through the evil that entered, by mingling and converse with us. Having thought and decided this, and at the same time thinking it right to chastise the pride of the Greeks, who put on solemnity with the cloak and the beard, what does he do, and how does he handle philosophy? He takes a middle course between their arrogance and our wisdom: of theirs he adopts the dress and the stage, of ours the truth and the height. [6] For this reason, crowning with wool the Peripatetics and the Academies and the solemn Stoa, and Epicurus’s chance with its atoms and pleasure, as one of them did the poet, he sends them as far off as possible and repels them. Of the Cynic way, he spat out its godlessness and praised its simplicity; and so he is what you now see: a dog against those who are truly dogs, a philosopher against the unwise, a Christian on behalf of all; conquering their arrogance by the likeness of his dress, and the bad taste of some among us by the novelty of his clothing; showing that piety does not lie in small things, nor philosophy in gloominess, but in firmness of soul, purity of mind, and genuine inclination toward the good, whatever our dress and whomever we associate with; whether withdrawing the mind from the senses into ourselves alone, or keeping ourselves apart in common life among the many of our own kind, practising philosophy among those who do not (like Noah’s ark in the flood, lighter than the flood, and the bush on the mountain which the fire burned but did not consume, the great sight of Moses), neither suffering anything from the many, any more than adamant from those who strike it, and making others better through ourselves as far as we can. The fruit of this philosophy is not cities fashioned in words (some “skindapsoi” and goat-stags, as they themselves say, which only the tongue puts together), nor categories, analyses, and mixtures, nor predicates and quasi-predicates and technical wisdom, nor lines that lie nowhere, nor interweavings and figures of the stars devised against Providence. These are secondary and incidental to him, and played with only so far as not to be played with by those who pretend to know them.

What, then, is first and pursued in earnest? Pleading before rulers, frankness before emperors, after the divine David, who spoke before kings and was not ashamed; checking the unreason of surging crowds, the power of savage potentates, the sickness of households in faction, the boorishness of the uneducated, the arrogance of the educated, wealth that exalts itself, insolent satiety, mischievous poverty, anger that is carried away and carries away reason, immoderate pleasure, unrestrained laughter; and putting a stop to the distress of grief, the instability of youth, the small-mindedness of old age, the desolation of widowhood, the despair of orphans. Will not anyone of sound mind prefer these by far to syllogisms and lines and gaping at the stars, considering that if everyone were drawing conclusions or doing geometry or astronomy, our life would gain nothing from it, except that everything would fall apart; whereas if the things I have named were done away with, all would be disorder and confusion? How much better and loftier are these than the arrogance of Antisthenes, the gourmandise of Diogenes, and the community of wives of Crates, need I say? But we spare these too, out of respect for the name, so that they may profit something from the man. And we, to sum up what lies between (his temperance, his self-control, his freedom from pride, his graciousness, his sociability, his humanity, and the rest in which the man surpasses all), will turn to what is last in order but first in power.

There was a time when we had calm from the heresies, when the Simons and Marcions, the Valentinuses, Basilideses, Cerdons, Cerinthuses, and Carpocrateses, and all their nonsense and marvel-mongering, which cut up the God of all to the utmost and warred on behalf of the Good against the Creator, were afterwards swallowed up in their own Depth and given over to Silence, as they deserved. The evil spirit of Montanus, the darkness of Mani, the rashness, or purity, of Novatus, and Sabellius’s evil advocacy of the monarchy gave way and withdrew, the one separated off into an opposing party, the other altogether despised and cast aside for its weakness; and nothing else grieved the Church. For the persecutions even made her more brilliant through her sufferings. Not much time passed, and a second storm rose against the Church: the typhoon of injustice, the fullness of impiety, the legion of spirits, the antichrist tongue, the mind that spoke injustice on high, the dismemberment of the Godhead; whose attempt was dreadful, and his end more dreadful, worthy of the betrayal that Judas dared against our Saviour: Arius, well named for his madness. He began from the city of the Alexandrians and practised the evil there; then, like a wild flame from a small spark, running over most of the world, he is overthrown by our Fathers, the pious number that assembled at Nicaea and set theology within defined boundaries and words. … Persia judged the wretch well for us, destroying him and exacting the penalty for much blood by one man’s blood. But just now the unseemly one begins, and, using the defence of Christians as a pretext for his impiety, he fastens on the true Christians; and he becomes as much harsher than that one, as then the contest was more conspicuous and brilliant, whereas now even suffering brings no honour, at least with those who reckon sufferings unjustly. Do you want me to move the theatre to tears, and perhaps even this most enduring man himself, superior to suffering, by recalling one of the things that happened then? There are many witnesses of the story, for the tragedy of that suffering reached many; and I think future time too will take up the account of these days. A ship carrying as its cargo one of the presbyters, and he in danger not for any wrong but for the faith, is set adrift on the sea, not to save its passenger but to destroy him. And the cargo was willing, for it was pious. And fire sailed with the cargo as a fellow merchant; and the persecutor delights in the novelty of the punishment. Alas for the spectacle! Alas for the drama! The ship was on the open sea; the theatre on the shores, some rejoicing, others lamenting. How can I present so much in a few words? The fire is kindled, the ship consumed, the cargo consumed with it; fire mingles with water, opposites run together for the punishment of a pious man, two elements divide one body, and a strange beacon is raised over the sea. Someone perhaps approached it, as though it were gentle and kindly; approaching, he found a pitiable and incredible sight: a voyage without a pilot, a shipwreck without a storm, and the presbyter turned to dust, and not even dust, scattered on the waters. And the priesthood did not avail him even so far as to obtain a more seemly death; or if not death, at least burial, which is owed even to the impious. Such was the fleet of the impious; such the end of the pious; and nowhere was there fire from above, more holy, to punish the one who kindled such beacons.

But why do I speak of outside matters? I must now go to your own contest and your struggles for piety, which you set on all that went before like a fine seal. The evil of this heresy was flourishing in your city, where it had also begun. When the most holy eye of the world, the high priest of priests, the guide and teacher of your confession by his own contests for piety, the great voice, the prop of the faith, the second lamp and forerunner of Christ, if it is lawful to say so, had fallen asleep in a good old age and full of days lived according to God, after the slanders, after the contests, after the famous hand, after the living dead man, the Triad took him to itself, with whom he had lived and for whom he had run risks (Athanasius, I know, you have all recognized in my words). Then a second plague and scourge of Egypt brought himself into the Church: the betrayer of the truth, the shepherd of wolves, the robber who climbs over the fold, the second Arius, the muddy and undrinkable overflow, the river more abundant than its godless source. I hesitate to tell the lawlessness and bloodshed of that time, with which the beast seized the holy throne, and the preliminary rites of his evil entry; yet I will lament a few things out of many (which you too lament and lamented before), using the words of the divine David: “O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple,” and what follows: “They have given the dead bodies of your servants as food to the birds,” and to be torn by beasts. I will add from him those words of another lament and another song: “How much evil the enemy has done in your holy place, and those who hate you have boasted in the midst of your feast.” For how did they not boast? How did they not defile your holy temple with disasters of every kind and evils of every sort?

A godless and lawless man was in command, who did not even bear the name of Christian (this was the most dreadful part of the outrage), but hastened from the idols to the temple of God, from unclean blood to things more abominable and loathsome, perhaps offering his outrage against us as a sacrifice to the demons; and a force boiling with anger was drawn up, an outlandish and savage army against the unarmed and unwarlike. The priest who was the holy man’s successor, anointed by the law and order of the Spirit and honoured for grey hair and wisdom, was driven out; and Tabeel reigned, the heir of what belonged to others. Arms against the holy, polluted hands against the inviolable, trumpets against hymns. Consider what followed: men falling in the holy places; women trampled, some even with the burden of nature, births premature or, to speak more properly, stillborn; virgins dragged off and outraged pitifully and more shamefully still (I am ashamed, both before the women and the men, to tell the manner, and to lay bare in words the hidden things of shame, which then, when they were bared, made me ashamed); some thrown into the wells inside the church, others hurling themselves from the upper floors at the outrage of what they saw, others heaped on those already lying there; murders upon murders, corpses upon corpses; holy things trampled by profane feet; altars outraged by licentious postures and songs, and, as I hear (what will my bold tongue utter?), even by dances and contortions on top of them; blasphemous tongues haranguing from the sacred thrones; mysteries mocked; psalmody silenced; wailing raised in its place; streams of blood, fountains of tears; priests led away; monks torn apart; the whole picture of the Assyrian invasion that once overran holy Jerusalem, which no word can worthily present nor any hearing contain, but only the soul and voice of Jeremiah can worthily lament, who seeks fountains of tears, calls forth lament from the walls at such sufferings, and lays mourning on the roads of Zion, which no longer bring the festival crowds. [13] This drama the East saw, and the West lamented, where the priest in flight displayed the tokens of their madness. How? He set before the church of the Romans, in place of the dead, the bloodstained garment, and moved the whole people to tears by that silent accusation, so as both to present the suffering and to gain a helper against the terrors, as indeed we know he did; for the stronger is especially inclined to bend toward the weak and to attach itself by voluntary goodwill to the one who suffers loss. None of the other pious could bear this; but it moved you all the more, as you are more perfect in word and more fervent in zeal. For this reason you fight for the Word and are fought against by impiety; and besides many other things in which you contended for the good in deed and word, teaching, admonishing, rescuing, refuting, rebuking, confounding, private persons and rulers, in private and in public, at every time and place, at last, seized by the madness of an impious authority (O noble misfortune! O your sacred wounds!), you are torn in your fair body by scourges, as though you were the spectator of another’s suffering; what is seen is bent, but what is understood is not cast down; you display your courage before the eyes of all; and even in silence you become a teacher of endurance, since your tongue has given up speaking. [14] Then what? You are banished from your homeland, you who know no land as your own or foreign, so it seems to me, so that others too might be taught piety through you. Oasis is your place of exile, the inhuman desert, a place now holy because of you. Share with us the good things of your exile, since you have shared those of your return. Make your return a spectacle for us. Whom did you teach philosophy there? Whom did you cleanse of impious opinions? Whom did you bring to piety? I seem to see the school there, the rite and the festival around you. Tell us this too: did you have some consolation for the remnants of your body? Did you practise philosophy in your poverty? Did you have companions in your contest, or did you bear this too alone in your want? Did you long for your sisters, your companions in chastity and endurance, or were you above even your attachment to them? Did the desolation of your aged mother bend you, or were you full of confidence, having left them piety as their greatest safety? But since you have happily returned to us, and he has given you back, longing, to those who long for you, he who glorifies those who glorify him and provokes to jealousy those who provoke him, who does the will of those who fear him and breathes resurrection into the dead; who gave life to Lazarus after four days, and to you, beyond hope, after four years; who joins bone to bone and joint to joint, the vision of Ezekiel, most wonderful and loftiest of the prophets: hold to the same work again and the same frankness, so that you may not seem to have been checked by your sufferings, nor to betray philosophy through cowardice. [15] Confound, as before, the superstition of the Greeks and their polytheistic godlessness, the old gods and the new, the shameful myths, and the more shameful sacrifices of those who cleanse mud with mud, as I heard one of them say, I mean bodies with bodies, their own with those of irrational animals; and their solemn images and their unseemly monstrosities. If they define the Divine by these, it is wretchedness; if they only hint at it, it is folly. Let them teach what the reason is, and what the mystery of the shamefulness in these things; for not even the representations of fine things should have anything shameful. If they say that there is something else besides these, let them show us what it is, and from what words or theologians. Confound also the uprisings of the heresies, and the more warmly the more you have suffered. For philosophy becomes nobler through suffering, tempered by dangers as red-hot iron by cold water. And define our piety, teaching us to know one unbegotten God, the Father, and one begotten Lord, the Son, called God when spoken of by himself, and Lord when named together with the Father, the one because of his nature, the other because of the monarchy; and one Holy Spirit, who proceeded and proceeds from the Father, God to those who understand intelligently what lies before them; fought against by the impious, understood by those above them, and openly spoken of by the more spiritual. Neither place the Father under a principle, lest we bring in something prior to the First, by which his being first would be overturned; nor make the Son or the Holy Spirit without principle, lest we take away what is proper to the Father. For they are not without principle, and yet in a way they are without beginning, paradoxical as it is: they are not without principle as regards cause, for they are from God, even if not after him, as light is from the sun; but they are without beginning as regards time. For they are not under time, lest what flows be older than what stands, and the non-substantial than substances. [16] Neither three principles, lest the doctrine be Greek and polytheistic; nor one, but a Jewish one, narrow, envious, and impotent, either by absorbing the Godhead into itself, as pleased those who bring the Son forth from the Father and then resolve him back into him again, or by casting down the natures and estranging them from the Godhead, as pleases the wise men of today, as though it feared they might be set up against it, or could do nothing beyond creatures. Neither the Son unbegotten, for the Father is one; nor the Spirit a Son, for the Only-begotten is one; so that they too may have this divine singularity, the one of sonship, the other of procession, not sonship. The Father truly Father, and much more truly than those among us: because uniquely, in his own manner, and not as bodies are; and alone, for without a consort; and of one alone, for of the Only-begotten; and only Father, for he was not first a son; and wholly Father, and of one who is whole, for ours is uncertain; and from the beginning, for not later. The Son truly Son, because he alone is Son, of one alone, uniquely, and only Son, for he is not also a father; and wholly Son, and of one who is whole, and from the beginning, never having begun to be Son; for the Godhead does not come from a change of mind, nor the deification from progress, so that there was ever a time when the one was not Father and the other not Son. The Holy Spirit truly holy, for there is no other such, nor in such a way; nor is his sanctification by addition, but he is holiness itself; nor is he more or less holy, nor did he begin in time, nor will he cease. For common to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not having come into being and the Godhead; to the Son and the Holy Spirit, being from the Father; proper to the Father, unbegottenness; to the Son, generation; to the Spirit, sending forth. If you seek the manner, what will you leave to those who alone are attested to know one another and be known by one another, or to those of us who will later be illumined from there? [17] God, if he came into being? Do not, by defending God in vain, destroy God, making him who shares the Godhead a fellow servant, he who frees you too from servitude, if you genuinely confess his lordship. Do not fear the procession; for God, who is rich in all things, is under no necessity either not to produce or to produce alike; but fear estrangement, and the threat laid down not for those who confess the Holy Spirit as God but for those who blaspheme him. [18] Neither honour the monarchy wrongly, contracting or cutting off the Godhead, nor be ashamed of the charge of tritheism, while another runs the risk of ditheism. For either you solved the problem together or shared the perplexity; or he made shipwreck of the Godhead along with his reasonings, while the Godhead remained yours. And if the argument proved weak, it is better to labour in reasoning with the Spirit’s guidance than readily to be impious in pursuit of ease. Spit on the objections and antitheses, the new piety and the petty wisdom; spit on them more than on spiders’ threads, which hold flies but are broken by wasps, not to speak of fingers or any other heavier body. Teach men to fear one thing only, to dissolve the faith in sophistries. It is not dreadful to be defeated in argument, for argument is not for everyone; but it is dreadful to suffer the loss of the Godhead, for hope belongs to everyone. These things, I know, you will set forth by yourself more eagerly and perfectly; your wounds assure me of it, and your body that laboured for piety; and we too will join in this philosophy as far as we can.

And when you depart on your fair departure, remember me, and the Triad dwelling in tents, if God dwells at all in things made with hands, and this small harvest, sown from no small seeds of piety, yet still small and poor and gathered little by little. For we have become like those gathering straw at harvest, if I may use the prophet’s word in season, and like …

I longed for you, children, and was longed for in return in equal measure. For I am persuaded of it, if I must add an oath to my word: “Yes, by my boasting in you, brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” For the Holy Spirit made this oath for me, by whom we were moved toward you, that we might prepare for the Lord a people for his own possession. See how great the confidence is: I am sure of my own feeling and I vouch for yours. And it is no wonder. For those who have the Spirit in common have their feelings in common; and those whose experience is equal are equal in believing. For what someone has not experienced he would not believe from another; but the one who has experienced it is readier to assent, an invisible witness of an invisible feeling, a familiar mirror of another’s form. For this reason I could not bear to stay away from you any longer, though I am quite annoyed and vexed with things here: not only with what cities bring (crowds, uproar, markets, theatres, surfeit, insults, people leading and led, fining and fined, mourning and mourned, weeping, rejoicing, marrying, burying, praised, blasphemed, the stuff of vice, the seething of the world, its rapid changes, as in a Euripus and its winds), but also with these more solemn and venerable things, I mean those around this sanctuary and the holy table. Over these we seem to have authority, and we are among those who draw near to God; but I fear that we may draw near badly and, like straw to fire, not bear the fire.

Yet I have returned to you, having run away under compulsion, but having run back not under compulsion but very eagerly, with feet that moved of themselves, as the saying goes, the Spirit leading me like a stream, forced uphill but hastening downhill. So one day is a whole human life to those weary with longing. Jacob’s case seems to me to have been different: serving the Syrian Laban fourteen years for the two maidens, he did not grow weary; for “all the days,” it says, “were to him as one day, because he loved them.” Perhaps because what he longed for was before his eyes, or because toil is light to love, even if the delay brings grief. So what is at hand is slow to desire, as one of those before us said. I at least, when I was present, scarcely felt the passion; but when I was separated, I came to know longing, that sweet tyrant. Nothing new in this. For if a herdsman so laments a calf that has strayed from the herd, and a shepherd a sheep missing from the ten, and a bird the nest it left for a little while, so that the herdsmen and shepherds take their pipes, climb some lookout, fill the reeds with their dejection, and call back the strays as though they were rational; and if they obey, they rejoice over them more than over all the others, about whom they did not worry; while the bird, twittering, darts back to its nest, falls upon its twittering chicks, and covers them with its wings: how precious must rational flocks be to a skilful shepherd, especially those for whom he has run risks, since this too adds to his affection? … since they watch for unguarded moments, being unable to prevail openly. I fear the robbers and thieves, lest, climbing over the fold, they either plunder by shamelessness or steal by deceit, so as to sacrifice, kill, and destroy, seizing their prey and devouring souls, as one of the prophets said. I fear the side door, lest someone of those who were ours yesterday and the day before, finding it unlocked and entering as one of our own, should plot against us as a stranger. For many and various are the wiles of the one who works such things, and no architect of anything intricate is so skilled as the adversary, the sophist of vice. I fear now even dogs that force themselves to be shepherds, and (the paradox!) bring nothing to shepherding except cutting off the hair they cultivated so badly; who neither remained dogs nor became shepherds, except to tear, scatter, and undo the labour of others. For destroying is always easier than preserving: a man is born with labour, says Job, and a ship is built and a house constructed with labour; but to kill, or destroy, or burn is in the power of anyone who wishes. So let those who set the dogs against the flock not be proud now; they could not name a single sheep that they brought in or saved; for they did not learn to do good, having practised wickedness. If they trouble the flock, so does a small storm, so does a slight disease, so does a single wild beast falling on it suddenly. Let them stop, then, who glory in their own shame; and, ceasing from their wickedness, if they can, let them worship and fall down and weep before the Lord who made them, and mingle with the flock, as many as are not altogether incurable.

These things I say, a timid and circumspect shepherd, and therefore accused of indolence for my caution. For I am not one of those shepherds who eat the milk, clothe themselves with the wool, slaughter the fat ones, and work them hard or sell them, saying, “Blessed be the Lord, we have become rich”; who feed themselves, not the sheep, if you remember any of the prophetic words by which the prophets drive out the bad shepherds; but rather one of those who can say with Paul: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and it is not my burning and care?” “For I seek not what is yours, but you.” And: “I was consumed by the heat by day and pinched by the frost by night”: the voice of a patriarch shepherd, whose sheep were marked, and trained to conceive at the watering troughs there. So, then, and for these reasons, I have come back to you, and to you in this state. And since I have come, let us give an account to one another of what we have accomplished in the meantime. For it is good that we be required to give account not only of word and deed, but of every moment, and of the very hour, however brief and slight. You report to me your work; I will set out what I pondered in quiet, conversing with myself. What contemplation of lofty things, either received from me and kept, or contributed from yourselves, about theology or about the other doctrines that I set before you many times? For I seek not only the loan but the interest; not only the talent but the trading with it; lest anyone, having hidden and buried what was entrusted to him, should also lie against the one who entrusted it, as though he were hard and covetous of what belongs to others. What praiseworthy action have you borne as fruit, without even your left hand knowing it, so that your light shines before men; that the tree may be shown by its fruit, and the teacher known through his disciples; and that one of those who watch our affairs (and they are many, some out of goodwill, others out of curiosity) may say that truly God is among you, not only soundly preached but also worshipped? For as there is no approved action without faith (since many pursue the good for glory’s sake, or because they are so by nature), so faith without works is dead. And let no one deceive you with empty words, those of people who readily concede everything for the sake of this one thing, impiety in doctrine, and so pay a bad wage for a bad deed. Show, then, your faith by your works, the fertility of your land: whether we have not sown in vain, whether there is among you a sheaf strong enough to make flour and worthy of the barns, so that we may cultivate you more eagerly. Who bears fruit a hundredfold, who sixtyfold, who at least thirtyfold; who, in the reverse order, advancing from thirty to sixty (for we have this order too in the Gospels), has ended at a hundred; so that, advancing like Isaac, he may become great, going from strength to strength, singing the Songs of Ascents and setting ascents in his heart?

I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. For the gain is yours, not mine; and if it is ours too, it is because it is yours, the benefit reflecting back to us as in rays that are reflected. Have you fed the poor, entertained strangers, washed the feet of the saints? Have you, while enjoying yourselves with a belly that will be brought to nothing (let that be granted), also enjoyed yourselves through the commandments? For there is no better or more lasting enjoyment than this for those who wish to enjoy. Have you given rest, as far as you could, to some of those who serve the altar and are rightly poor (let me say this too), so that they may attend the altar more free from distraction, and, sharing in what is yours, may give in return what is theirs? For it is shameful that we should have to demand this, and that you should not provide it. I have not admonished you about this so that it may be done in my case (for it would be better for me to die than that my boasting should be emptied and the gospel become without reward for me by my profiting from it here; for preaching the gospel is a necessity, but the honour lies in making it free of charge); but so that you may learn to do good to Christ by doing good to one of the least. For as he became for my sake all that I am, except sin, so he takes upon himself even the least of mine; whether you give shelter or clothing, or visit in prison, or look in on one who is sick, the smallest thing, or cool with only a cup of cold water a tongue that is suffering, as the rich man suffering in the flame begged of Lazarus the poor man, receiving, in return for his luxury here and for overlooking Lazarus hungry and covered with sores, this: to beg of Lazarus there and not obtain it. [8] This, then, is what we require of you; and I know that you are not ashamed to be asked for an account either by us or by the last day, into which all our things are gathered, according to what is said: “And I come to gather your counsels and your deeds,” and, “Behold the man, and his work, and his reward with him.” Now for our own things, which we bring you from the solitude. For Elijah too gladly practised philosophy on Carmel, and John in the desert; and Jesus himself assigned his actions to the crowds, but his prayers, for the most part, to leisure and solitude. What was he legislating? To my mind, that one must also be quiet, so as to converse with God undisturbed and to draw the mind back a little from wandering things. For he himself did not need to withdraw (for he had nowhere to contract himself into, being God and filling all things), but he did it so that we might learn that there is a time for action and a time for loftier leisure. What, then, are the fruits of my solitude? For I wish, like a good merchant who profits everywhere, to bring you some merchandise from there too. … having grown dizzy (which I suffer now too), I took in the sight not idly, and the spectacle became a lesson to me. For did I not say to myself that our life and human affairs are a sea (for there is much salt and instability in these too), and that the temptations that fall upon us and all unexpected things are the winds? This, it seems to me, the most wonderful David perceived when he said, “Save me, O Lord, for the waters have come in to my soul,” and, “Rescue me from the depths of the waters; I came into the depths of the sea, and the storm overwhelmed me.” Of those tempted, some seemed to me to be swept away like the lightest and lifeless things, not resisting the assaults even a little, for they had in themselves no firmness and no weight of sober reason to oppose what falls upon them; others seemed to be rock, worthy of that Rock on which we stand and whom we worship, all those who use the reason of philosophy and have risen above the lowliness of the many, and bear all things unshaken and unmoved, and laugh at those who are shaken, or pity them (the one out of philosophy, the other out of humanity). And they count it among shameful things to despise terrors when they are absent, or rather not even to think them terrors, but to be defeated by them when they are present, and by what? By things that pass, as though they stood firm; and to practise philosophy out of season, but to appear unphilosophic in time of need; as if someone thought himself the best of athletes without even going down into the stadium, or an approved pilot who prides himself on his skill in fair weather but lets go of the rudder in storms.

Since I have once entered on these themes, I came to another image, very apt to the present. Perhaps you will think me an old man and a teller of tales if I make it known to you too; but it must be told, since I know that Scripture often uses such things to explain more clearly. There is in a myth a plant which flourishes when it is cut and contends with the iron; and, to speak paradoxically about a paradoxical thing, it lives by death, grows by cutting, and increases by being consumed. … So runs the myth, with the freedom of fiction; but to me the philosopher clearly seems to be something of this kind. He wins approval through sufferings, makes painful things the material of virtue, and prides himself in adversity; neither lifted up by the weapons of righteousness on the right, nor bent by those on the left; but the same, though not always in the same circumstances, or even found more approved, like gold in the furnace. Let us consider it this way. Is he well born? He will show a good character to match his blood, so as to be approved on both counts, by his genealogy and by what is seen. Is he low born in his statue and clay (if indeed clay differs much from clay)? He will set against it the nobility of the mind, which each fashions in himself for worse or better, and will strike out the other kind, which is sown or written, as worth nothing and counterfeit. For birth is threefold: one begins from above, by which we are all equally noble, since we have come into being in the image of God; one comes from the flesh, and I do not know whether anyone is noble by it, since it consists in corruption; and one is recognized by virtue as against vice, in which we share more or less, I think, as we keep the image or corrupt it. This nobility the man who is truly wise and a philosopher will love. As for the fourth kind, that which consists in documents and decrees, I will think it worth mentioning when I accept beauty in paint, and revere an ape that has been ordered to be a lion. [11] Is he young? He will be manly against the passions, and he will have this enjoyment from his youth: not to suffer what the young suffer, but to show an old man’s prudence in a body in its prime; and he will rejoice in the victory more than those crowned at Olympia, for he will conquer in a common theatre, the world, and win a victory that cannot be bought. Is he nearing old age? He will not grow old in soul; he will accept dissolution as the appointed term of a necessary freedom; he will gladly pass on to what follows, where no one is untimely or old, but all are perfect in spiritual stature. Has he been given beauty? He will set beauty against beauty, that of the soul against that of the body. Has his bloom passed without abuse? He turns to himself and does not know that he is looked at. Is he ugly in appearance? But he is well formed in what is hidden, like the sweetest fragrance of a rose in full bloom within a bud that is neither blooming nor fragrant. Is he beautiful beyond the sons of men? He gives no occasion for the outside to be gazed at, turning the beholder toward the inner man. Is he healthy? He will use his health for the best: he will admonish, rebuke, speak freely, keep vigil, sleep on the ground, fast, empty out matter, contemplate things earthly and heavenly, and practise death with all zeal. Will he fall ill? He will fight; and if he is defeated, he will conquer by gaining release from the fight. Is he rich? He will practise the philosophy of giving away his wealth; he will share what he has with the needy, as a steward of what belongs to others, so that the other may be benefited by the sharing and he himself may be gathered to God having nothing but the cross and his body. Is he poor? He will be rich in God, and in laughing at those who have, since they are always acquiring and always poor, needing more, and drinking only to thirst the more.

Is he hungry? He will be fed with the birds, whose life knows neither sowing nor ploughing; he will live with Elijah at the house of the widow of Zarephath: “The jar of oil shall not fail, and the pitcher of flour shall not run low”; the one will ever flow and the other yield richly, so that a hospitable widow may be honoured and may feed the one who feeds her. Will he thirst? Springs and rivers are his drink, a drink that neither intoxicates nor is measured out; and if all fail through drought, perhaps he will be given drink from a brook. Will he be cold? So was Paul; but for how long? There is a clothing even of rock; let Job persuade you, who says, “Because they had no shelter, they wrapped themselves in the rock.” Consider also the more perfect things. Will he be reviled? He will conquer by not reviling in return. Persecuted? He will endure. Blasphemed? He will entreat. Slandered? He will pray. Struck on the right cheek? He will offer the other too; and if he had a third, he would present that as well, so as to teach the one who strikes him patience, instructing him by deed in what he could not teach by word. Reproached? So was Christ; he will be honoured by sharing his suffering. Even if he hears himself called a Samaritan, even if he is accused of having a demon, he will accept everything together with God. Many things still: … a reed for a sceptre, a scarlet cloak, a cross, nails, robbers crucified with him, passers-by insulting him. For God must have the advantage in bearing more dishonour.

Nothing is harder to capture than philosophy, nothing harder to seize. Everything else will give way before the philosopher does. “He is a wild ass in the desert,” says Job, “let loose and free, laughing at the crowds of the city, not hearing the tax collector’s reproach.” He is a unicorn, an animal that is its own master. “Will he be willing to serve you? Will you bind him at a manger? Will he be brought under the yoke?” When he is shut out from everything on earth, wings are made ready for him like an eagle’s; “he will return to the house of his master”; he will fly up to God. Let me state the sum of it. These two are hard to master, God and angel; and the third is the philosopher: immaterial in matter, uncircumscribed in the body, heavenly on earth, impassible in sufferings, defeated in everything except his mind, and conquering, by being conquered, those who think they prevail. Since my discourse has portrayed the philosopher for us, beginning from where I said, come, let us look at our own affairs beside his (for I think that I too have the Spirit of God, even if in some of these things I am vulnerable and can be captured); so that, if those who hate and war against us find me defeated, they may at least be pardoned for their attempt, if not for their intention; but if they find me superior to those who war against me and loftier, they may either be freed from their wickedness or devise some newer way of injustice, since the present one is despised, and may not be charged with folly in addition to wickedness, as acting lawlessly in vain and not even knowing how to do the wrong they are eager for. … this tunic as quickly as possible, so that I may take a lighter one. Will they call me a deserter of my homeland? How little they think of us, truly insolent haters of strangers! Do I, my friends, have a homeland with boundaries, I to whom every land is homeland and none is? And are you not a stranger and a sojourner? I do not praise your settled dwelling, if you are so disposed, lest you fall away from the true homeland, in which one must deposit one’s citizenship. Will you reproach us with old age and sickness? Not all of this comes from matter and nature (so that you may know one of my secrets); some of it reason too has consumed, if I may boast a little. Nor are you, swelling and nourishing your flesh, a pleasant sight to me. Would that some grey hair and pallor had bloomed on you too, so that you might at least be believed to be intelligent and a philosopher. What else? Will they depose me from my throne? Which throne did I ever mount gladly, now or before? Do I count those who mount them blessed? Or do you make thrones pleasant to me, mounting them so unworthily? Did not what happened recently show you my mind? Or was that too an affectation, and a test of the people’s longing? Artful people may suspect or say of others anything that belongs to themselves. What of my crushing grief? What of the curses that I twice pronounced publicly against myself? What of the tears, and my becoming almost pitiable to you, and hated for my resistance? Will they deprive me of the presidency? Which of the right-minded ever admired it? Now even to flee from it is, to my mind at least, the first mark of understanding. Because of it all our affairs are shaken and tossed; because of it the ends of the world are in suspicion and in a kind of deaf war that has not even a name; because of it we are in danger of belonging to men, though we came into being from God, and of losing the great and new name. Would that there were no presidency, no preference of place and tyrannical prerogative, so that we might be known by virtue alone! But as it is, this right and left, this middle, this higher and lower, this walking ahead or walking together, have caused us many breaches in vain, thrust many into the pit, and led them away to the place of the goats; and not only those below, but even some of the shepherds, who, though teachers of Israel, did not know these things.

Will they shut me out from the altars? But I know another altar, of which the things now seen are types; on which no chisel has gone up, nor hand, nor has iron been heard, nor any of the tools of craftsmen and decorators; but it is wholly the work of the mind, and the ascent to it is through contemplation. At this I will stand; on this I will offer acceptable things: sacrifice, offering, and whole burnt offerings, better than those now offered, as much as truth is better than shadow. About this altar, I think, the great David too speaks as a philosopher, saying, “And I will go in to the altar of God, who gladdens my spiritual youth.” From this altar no one who wishes will lead me away. Will they drive me from the city? But not from the city above. Let those who hate us be able to do this, and they will truly have made war; but as long as they cannot, they pelt us with raindrops, strike us with breezes, or play with dreams; so I regard their war. Will they take away my possessions? Which? If mine, let them cut off my wings too, which I have not put on. If those of the Church, this is what the whole war is about; for this the thief covets the money box and betrays God for thirty pieces of silver, the most dreadful thing of all; for it is not the betrayed but the betrayer who is worth so much. [17] Will they shut me out of houses? Cut off my luxuries? Estrange my friends? For, as you see, I have been a burden to a great many, though they invited me (for I will not be ungrateful); and if I was a burden to anyone, it was by sparing them rather than by accepting from them. The reason is that a pious and God-loving house gave us rest, like that of the Shunammite to Elisha, kin to me in body, kin in spirit, generous in everything; with whom this people too took root, while still having to steal the piety that was being persecuted, not without fear or danger. May the Lord repay them on the day of recompense! If we pursue luxury, may those who hate us luxuriate over us; for I will call down no greater curse on myself. As for friends, some will not flee us, I know well, even if they suffer nothing (for sharing the wrong has made them share the pain); but with others we have already been trained to bear being overlooked when we are overlooked. For of our friends and neighbours, some openly drew near from the opposite side and stood against us; others, and this was the kindest thing, stood far off; and all were made to stumble on this night. Peter too almost denied me; and perhaps he does not even weep bitterly, to heal his sin.

I alone am bold and full of rashness, it seems; I alone am hopeful amid fearful things, I alone enduring, both set forth in public and despised in private, and known to East and West by being warred against. What madness! “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise against me, in this I will hope.” So far am I from thinking anything present fearful that, leaving my own case aside, I lament those who have grieved me. Members of Christ once, members precious to me, even if now corrupted, members of this flock, which you almost betrayed even before it was gathered! How were you torn apart, and how do you tear apart, like calves let loose from their bonds? How did you raise altar against altar? How did you become a desolation …? How have you yourselves been deadened by the cutting, and made us grieve? How did you misuse the simplicity of shepherds for the breaking up of the flock? For I do not blame them for inexperience, but I will accuse you of wickedness. “For your destruction, Israel, who will help?” What healing medicine shall I find? What bandage? How shall I join what is broken? With what tears, what words, what prayers shall I heal the breach? Or perhaps in this way? [19] O holy Triad, worshipful and perfect, rightly brought together and revered by us, yours is the work, yours the achievement. May you restore these to us, separated only so far as to be taught concord by the separation; and give us in return for our labours here the things of heaven, which know no strife. Of these the first and greatest is to be illumined by you more perfectly and purely: how the same is conceived as Monad and found as Triad; how the unbegotten, the begotten, and the proceeding are one nature, three properties; one God, who is over all, through all, and in all; neither exceeded, nor changed, nor diminished, nor divided; grasped in part now, sought in part, and some day perhaps to be grasped, as far as he is, by those who have sought well here through life and contemplation; to whom be all glory, honour, and might for ever. Amen.

Since you have come together eagerly, and the festival is crowded, and so this is above all a time for work, come, let us give you some merchandise, even if it is not worthy of the common eagerness, at least not short of our ability. For the one demands greater things, while the other contributes moderate ones; and it is better to contribute according to one’s ability than to fall short altogether. For it is not the one who is unable to do such things who is accountable, but the one who is unwilling who is to blame, both in divine and in human affairs. I am a small and poor shepherd, and not yet pleasing to the other shepherds (to put it moderately), whether through my good repute and right doctrine, or through pettiness and strife, I do not know: “God knows,” says the divine apostle; and the day of revelation will show it clearly, and the last fire, by which all our affairs are judged or purified. Yet I will try, as far as I can, not to hide the gift, nor to put the lamp under the bushel, nor to bury the talent (things I have often heard from you, as you reproached my idleness and were displeased with my silence), but to educate you with words of truth and to fit you together in the Spirit.

Where, then, shall I begin to set you in order, brothers? And with what words shall I honour the athletes whose festival this is? What shall I say first? What is greatest? What is most beneficial to your souls, or most useful for the present time? We might find it out in this way. What is the finest thing in our doctrine? Peace; and I will add that it is also the most profitable. And what is most shameful and most harmful? Discord. Since I have asked this and answered, I will ask the second question: What most dissolved the former, and what brought in the latter?

… so that, as in diseases, having cut off the causes and blocked or dried up the springs of the passions, we may cut off also the streams and effects that flow from them. For one cannot know anything well about the end without considering the beginning rightly. Do you, then, wish to state and make known the cause yourselves, or do you leave it to me, the physician, both to show it and to correct it? For I am ready to speak if you wish, and readier still to listen if you speak. You leave it to me, I know well; for perhaps you think us not bad physicians of such things, nor unskilled in the healing of souls, whether you think so wrongly or rightly. Do not be surprised if I say something paradoxical; for it is paradoxical, but true, as I say and as you will agree, if you wait to learn to the end, and do not suffer what I am blaming, rising up before the discourse is finished out of heat. … ignorance, and its offspring, the evil of rashness; for rashness is the offspring of ignorance. Weak souls are equally sluggish and hard to move toward virtue and toward vice, inclining much in neither direction, like the movements of the benumbed. But noble souls, when reason trains and directs them, are a great thing for virtue; and when knowledge and reason are lacking, they are found equally great for vice. So too a horse that is to win must be spirited and noble, whether for war or for racing; but the same horse would be good for nothing unless trained by the bridle and taught gentleness by laborious exercise.

This is what has made the one Church into many parts, and divided us: “I am of Paul, or of Cephas, or of Apollos,” or of so-and-so; and it has shown us many Pauls, Apolloses, and Cephases, instead of Christ, from whom we are named, the great and new name, whose we are said to be; and would that it had stopped there! But it has also shown many Christs (I shudder to say it): the one born, the one created, the one beginning from Mary, the one dissolving back into that from which he came forth into being; and the one a man, and the one existing, and the one appearing. And so also many Spirits: the uncreated and the created, the one of equal honour, and the operation, and … Whereas we should know one God, the Father, without beginning and unbegotten; and one Son, begotten of the Father; and one Spirit, having existence from God, yielding to the Father unbegottenness and to the Son begottenness, but in all else of the same nature, sharing the throne, equal in glory and in honour: to know these things, to confess these, to stop here, and to send away the great nonsense and the profane empty babbling of words to those who have leisure. What, then, has stirred us up so much? Fervour without reason and knowledge, unrestrained, and a voyage of faith without a pilot.

Knowing this, then, brothers, let us neither be sluggish toward the good, but be fervent in the Spirit, … lest he sow his evil seeds among us, he who praises the right and leads us away from the right again; I mean this apparent right, which is not truly right. Looking to this, Scripture says elsewhere, “Do not be very righteous, nor be overwise.” For the same passion concerns righteousness and wisdom: fervour in action and in word, falling outside the good and virtue through excess; for both deficiency and excess alike spoil it, as addition or subtraction spoils a rule.

Let no one, then, be wiser than is right, nor more lawful than the law, nor brighter than the light, nor straighter than the rule, nor higher than the commandment. How will this be? If we know order, praise the law of nature, follow reason, and do not dishonour good order. Look up to the heaven above and down to the earth below, and consider how the universe was constituted, and from what, and what there was before its ordering, and what name the universe now has. … by order all things were set in order, and by the Word who set them in order; although it was possible for all things to come into being as one and all at once (for he who gave being to things that were not, and forms and shapes to the things that came to be, was not too weak to bring forth and order the whole at once); but for this reason something is counted first, and second, and third, and so on, so that order might at once come in together with created things.

Order, then, constituted the universe. Order holds together the things of heaven and of earth; there is order among intelligible beings, order among sensible things; order among the angels; order among the stars, in their motion, magnitude, relation to one another, and brightness: “one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory”; order in the hours and seasons, which advance and withdraw in the world and tame harshness by their mean; order in the measures and intervals of day and night; order in the elements, from which bodies are made. Order rolled the heaven around, spread out the air, laid the earth beneath, or rather set it above the waters; it gathered and holds the liquid nature; it let loose the winds and yet did not let them loose entirely; it bound water in the clouds and did not hold it back, but scattered it over the face of the whole earth, in good order and evenly; and these things not for a little while, nor for one season or time, but from beginning to end, directed along and going round the same course, both fixed and moving, the former by the Word, the latter by flux. “He established them for ever and for ever and ever; he set a decree, and it shall not pass away.” This belongs to the fixity; and whatever has come or will come into being belongs to the flux. And while order prevails, the universe is a cosmos and its beauty undisturbed. But disorder and the absence of order brought in thunderbolts in the air, earthquakes on land, floods at sea, wars in cities and households, diseases in bodies, sins in souls. All these are names not of order or peace, but of disturbance and disorder. And the destruction that is so much talked of and expected, brothers, let us think it nothing other than an excess of disorder. For order binds and disorder dissolves, when it pleases the one who bound the universe to dissolve or transform it.

Order also laid down for all animals their birth, their food, and the places suited to each. No one has seen a dolphin cutting a furrow, nor an ox gliding through the water; nor the sun waning or waxing at night, nor the moon blazing by day. “The high mountains are for the deer, the rock is a refuge for the hares. He made the moon for seasons; the sun knows its going down.” Night comes, and man withdraws into sleep, and the beasts grow bold, and each seeks the food given it by the Creator; day comes, and the beasts gather in, and man hastens to his work; and we give way to one another in order, by the law and reason of nature. I will add the greatest and most fitting thing. Order constituted man, a rational animal, from a blend of the rational and the irrational, and bound the dust to the mind and the mind to the spirit, mystically and ineffably. And to work a greater wonder in his own creature, he both preserved and dissolved the same; for he brought the one in and led the other out, as in a stream, and procured immortality for the mortal through dissolution. Order set us apart from the irrational animals, founded cities, laid down laws, honoured virtue, punished vice, invented the arts, joined marriage together, tamed life by love for offspring, and established, greater than earthly and fleshly longing, the longing for God.

And why speak of each thing? Order is the mother and safety of all that exists; and it alone could fittingly speak the word of Wisdom, the Creator of all, if it were given a voice: “When the universe was being given essence and existence by God, I was beside him, setting it in harmony; when he prepared his throne upon the winds and made strong the clouds above; when he laid the foundations of the earth and set firm the springs under heaven …”

… and by the Spirit of his mouth he granted all their power. But (and it is for this that I have gone through all these things, and toward this that my discourse has long been hastening) order in the churches too has distinguished that some are flock and others shepherds; that some rule and others are ruled; that some are as it were the head, others the feet, others the hands, others the eye, others some other member of the body, for the harmony and benefit of the whole, whether they are led or lead. And as in bodies the members are not torn from one another, but the whole is one body composed of different members, nor is the operation of all the same, though needing one another is the same, so as to require goodwill and agreement: the eye does not walk, but guides; the foot does not look ahead, but moves and carries; the tongue does not receive sounds, for that belongs to hearing; nor does hearing speak, for that belongs to the tongue; the nose is the organ of smell; “the throat tastes food,” says Job; the hand is the instrument of giving and taking; and the mind is the leader of all, from which comes sensation and to which sensation returns. So too with us, in the common body of Christ, … the difference between those who lead and those who are led; and “the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets,” as Paul says; do not doubt it. “And God has appointed some in the Church,” he says, “first apostles, second prophets, third shepherds and teachers”: first because of the truth, second because of the shadow, third because of the measure of benefit and illumination. And the Spirit is one, but the gifts are not equal, since the vessels of the Spirit are not equal either. For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom and contemplation, to another a word of knowledge or revelation, to another firm and unhesitating faith, to another workings of powers and loftier miracles, to another helps, governings, that is, disciplines of the flesh, kinds of tongues, interpretations of tongues, the greater gifts and the secondary, according to the proportion of faith.

Let us revere this order, brothers; let us guard it. Let one be the hearing, another the tongue, another the hand, another something else. Let one teach and another learn; let another work what is good with his own hands, to share with the one in need and want. Let one rule and preside, and let another be justified through service; and let the one who teaches do so in good order. “Let two or three prophets speak, and in turn, and let one interpret”; and “if a revelation comes to another, let the first give way.” And let the learner learn in docility, the giver give in cheerfulness, and the one who serves serve with eagerness. Let us not all be tongue, the readiest of members; let us not all be apostles, not all prophets, not all interpreters. It is a great thing to speak about God, but greater to purify oneself for God, since “wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul.” We have been bidden to “sow for righteousness and reap the fruit of life,” so that we may also be illumined with the light of knowledge. And Paul wishes that, through loving the Lord, we may be known by the Lord, and through being known, may be taught; and he knows this as a better way to knowledge than the conceit that puffs up. [13] Is teaching a great thing? But learning is free from danger. Why do you make yourself a shepherd, when you are a sheep? Why do you become the head, when you are a foot? Why do you try to be a general, when you are ranked among the soldiers? Why do you pursue the great but unsafe gains of the sea, when you can farm the land in safety, even if you profit less? If you are a man in Christ, and your senses have been trained, and the light of knowledge shines brightly in you, speak the wisdom of God that is spoken among the perfect, the wisdom hidden in a mystery; and do so when you have the occasion and are entrusted with it. For what do you have of yourself that has not been given to you and that you have not received? But if you are still an infant and low in mind, and unable to approach loftier things, become a Corinthian, be fed with milk. Why do you need more solid food, which your members cannot digest, and which cannot become nourishment because of your weakness? Speak, if you have something better than silence (for you know that setting a guard on one’s lips is praised); but love quiet where silence is better than speech; and say some things, and listen to others; praise some things, and do not reject others harshly. … envy, every light, even if it seems surpassingly bright; but, you see, he treads upon our darkness, and made darkness his hiding place, setting it between himself and us, as Moses formerly set the veil between himself and the hardness of Israel; so that darkened nature might not easily see the hidden beauty, which few deserve, nor, having attained it easily, easily throw it away because it was acquired so easily; but that light might converse with light, which always draws us upward through longing, and that mind, purified, might approach the Purest, and part might appear now and part later, as the prize of virtue and of our inclination toward him here, that is, of our likeness to him. For “now,” he says, “we see through a mirror and in a riddle, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” How great is our lowliness! And how great the promise: to know God as much as we are known! These things says Paul, the great herald of the truth, the teacher of the Gentiles in faith, who completed the great circle of the gospel, who lived for no one but Christ, who reached as far as the third heaven, the beholder of paradise, who longed for his departure because of its perfection …

Moses scarcely saw the back parts of God through the rock (what these are, and what the rock is), and that after much entreaty and after receiving a promise; except that he did not see as much as he longed for, but what escaped him was more than what was shown him: Moses, God to Pharaoh, the leader of so great a people, who displayed such power in signs. And you, whom have you fed from heaven? What water have you given from the rock? What sea have you split with a rod? What people have you led through the waters as on dry land? What enemies have you drowned? Whom have you guided with a column of fire and cloud? What Amalek have you defeated by prayer and the stretching out of your hands, and by the cross foreshadowed mystically from afar, that it should be a disaster to you not to comprehend God perfectly, and that for this reason everything should be shaken and carried up and down? And since I have mentioned Moses, have you not learned from this the sequence of grace and the law of order? If you are a Moses, go within the cloud, speak to God, hear his voice, receive the law, and legislate. If you are an Aaron, go up with him, but stand near, outside the cloud. If you are an Ithamar or an Eleazar, third from Moses, or one of the elders and the Seventy, stand still further off, holding the third place in station. If you are one of the people and the many, the mountain does not admit you; even a beast that touches it will be stoned. Stay below and hear only the voice, and that after sanctifying and purifying yourself, as you have been commanded.

And to instruct you by more examples: who consecrated the hands of the priests? Moses. Who was the first of those consecrated? Aaron. And still earlier, who represented the people before God, and who was a voice for him to the people? Who entered the Holy of Holies, except one? And did this one enter always? By no means; but once a year, and at a fixed time. Who carried the tabernacle, except the Levites? And these, as had been ordered, some carried its more precious parts, others the secondary ones, according to the rank of the bearers. And since it also had to be guarded, who guarded it, and how? Some this side, others that; and nothing was left undefined or disordered, not even in the smallest things. But we, if we gain a little reputation, or often not even that, but by chance, or have studied two or three words of Scripture, and those piecemeal and without understanding (this is that wisdom made in a day, and the tower in Chalanne, which rightly divided the tongues), must rebel against Moses and become Dathan and Abiram, the insolent and godless. Let us flee their arrogance, and not imitate their madness, nor receive their end. … before his passion, and when he prayed, who were with him? The same again. Such was Christ’s preference. And as for the rest of their good order and rank: Peter asks one thing, Philip another, Judas another, Thomas another, or someone else; not all the same thing, nor one all things, but each in turn, one thing each. … what each needed, you would say? But what of this, what do you make of it? Philip wishes to say something, and does not dare alone, but takes Andrew along with him. Peter needs to ask something, and puts John forward by a nod. Where is harshness here? Where is love of rule? How could they have shown more clearly that they were disciples of Christ, meek and lowly in heart, who became a servant for us his servants, and referred all glory to the Father in everything, to give us a pattern of good order and moderation? From this we are so far removed that I would be content if we were not the most foolish of all, we who display this lack of order about the greatest things and in the greatest matters.

Do you not know that humility is judged not so much in small things (for it might come about from display and a false semblance of virtue) as it is tested in greater things? And to my mind the humble-minded man is not the one who speaks of himself in small terms, and that to few and seldom, nor the one who humbly addresses the more lowly, but the one who speaks with moderation about God; who knows what to say and what to keep back, and confesses his ignorance of some things, and yields the word to the one entrusted with it, and accepts that someone else is more spiritual and further advanced in contemplation. For it is shameful to choose not the loftier but the cheaper in clothing and food, and to display humility and awareness of one’s own weakness by calloused knees, fountains of tears, fasts, vigils, sleeping on the ground, toil, and every kind of bodily discipline, but to be an absolute tyrant in discourses about God, yielding to no one at all, and raising one’s brow above every teacher of the law, in the very place where humility brings safety together with good repute.

“What then? Shall we be silent about God? Is this what you command?” (one of the more fervent interrupted). “And about whom rather than him shall we speak? Where shall we put ‘His praise shall continually be in my mouth,’ and ‘I will bless the Lord at all times,’ and ‘My throat shall meditate on truth,’ and ‘Behold, I will not restrain my lips’?” And he will say such well-practised and fixed phrases. To such a man one must reply gently and not harshly, teaching good order from these very words. I do not command you to be silent, most wise friend, but not to take a contentious stand; not to hide the truth, but not to teach contrary to the law. I am the first of those who praise wisdom, and those who occupy themselves with divine words, or wish to; and may I never put anything before this occupation, nor hear myself called wretched by Wisdom herself as one who despises wisdom and instruction. Yet I flee excess and chastise insatiability; and I would rather be more idle than I should than meddlesome, if I cannot escape both and attain the mean; and more timid than I should rather than rasher. But you act as if, when I forbade excess in food, you accused me of forbidding food altogether, or of praising blindness when I recommended seeing with moderation.

“If you have a word of understanding, answer,” it says, “and who will hinder you?” But if not, put your hand on your mouth; this to those who are ready to teach. If you have the occasion, teach; if not, fetter your tongue and loose your hearing. Meditate on divine things, but remain within the bounds. Speak the things of the Spirit, and if possible nothing else; and speak of them more often than you breathe (for this is good and godly, to be constantly spurred toward God by the remembrance of divine things), but keeping in mind what you have been commanded. Do not busy yourself about the nature of the Father, the subsistence of the only-begotten Son, the glory and power of the Spirit, the one Godhead and splendour in the three, the undivided nature, confession, and glory, and the hope of those who have believed. Hold to the words you were brought up with; let argument belong to the wiser. It is enough for you to have the foundation; let the craftsman build on it. It is enough for the heart to be strengthened with bread; leave the delicacies to the rich. No one of sense will judge you for not feeding people lavishly; but he will if you do not set out bread, nor give water to drink, whether to a disciple of Christ or anyone else, when you are able to do as much as that. Do not be quick in words, Wisdom bids you; do not stretch yourself to match the rich when you are poor, nor seek to be wiser than the wise. Wisdom is also to know oneself, not to be puffed up, nor to suffer what happens to voices, which fail altogether when strained beyond their pitch through immoderation. It is better, being wise, to give way through gentleness than, being ignorant, to overreach through rashness. Let your quickness go as far as confessing the faith, if ever this is demanded of you; but beyond that be more timid. For there slowness carries the danger, here quickness.

… what harm is it to you if you do not excel in every argument, nor have precedence in every problem or inquiry, but others appear wiser or bolder than you? Thanks be to God that he both gives special gifts and knows how to save through common ones. And this wonder concerns not only words but creation itself, if you have ever considered it. Neither among created things do the first prizes belong to some, but to all, and the grace of the one creation is common; nor in the faith do the things that save belong to the more powerful, but to the willing. What is finer than air, fire, water, earth, rain, fruits both cultivated and wild, shelter, clothing? The sharing of these is common, of some entirely, of others in measure; and no one is so much a tyrant as to enjoy the common grace alone. He makes the sun rise on all equally and rains on rich and poor; common is the alternation of night and day, common the gift of health, common the limit of life, common the measure of bodily grace, common the power of the senses; and perhaps the poor man has more, in that he gives more thanks for these things and enjoys the common goods more sweetly than the powerful enjoy what comes from their abundance. These, then, are common and equal, tokens of God’s justice; but gold, transparent and coveted stones, soft and elaborate clothing, the table that inflames and maddens, and superfluous possessions, the toil of those who own them, are the adornments of the few.

This I observe in the faith too. Common to all are the law, the prophets, the covenants, the oracles of the covenants, grace, tutelage, perfection, the sufferings of Christ, the new creation, the apostles, the Gospels, the abiding presence of the Spirit, faith, hope, love toward God and from God, not by measure, as once the gift of manna to ungrateful and unfeeling Israel, but as much as each wishes; ascent; illumination, small here, but clearer the illumination hoped for; and, greatest of all, the knowledge of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the confession of our first hope. What is greater than these? What is more common? Things beyond these, even if they are more precious for their rarity, are second in necessity; for the things without which it is impossible to be a Christian are more useful than those attainable by few.

Someone is rich in contemplation and rises above the many, compares spiritual things with spiritual, and writes threefold on the breadth of his heart the word that builds up all, the word that builds up many, and the word that builds up some in place of more or all; and he cannot bear being poor, and enters into the depths. Let him ascend, let him be guided and carried by his mind, and, if he wishes, as far as the third heaven, like Paul; only with reason and knowledge, and let him not fall through being puffed up, nor shed his feathers through the height of his flight. What envy is there of a praiseworthy ascent? And what fall is like being pierced by pride, and not knowing how lowly is the upward gaze of man, and how far short of the true height even the highest of all still falls?

Another is small in mind and poor in speech, and does not know the twists of argument, the sayings and riddles of the wise, the objections, suspensions of judgment, and antitheses of Pyrrho, the solutions of Chrysippus’s syllogisms, the bad art of Aristotle’s arts, or the charms of Plato’s eloquence, which have wickedly entered our Church like Egyptian plagues. This man too has the means to be saved. And by what words? Nothing is richer than grace. “You need not,” it says, “ascend into heaven to bring Christ down from there, nor descend into the abyss to bring him up from the dead,” busying yourself either with his first nature or with the final economy. “The word is near you,” it says; the mind holds this treasure, and the tongue, the one believing, the other confessing. What is shorter than this wealth? What easier than this gift? Confess Jesus Christ, and believe that he was raised from the dead,

and you will be saved. For righteousness comes through believing alone; but full salvation is also to confess, and to add boldness to knowledge. You seek something greater than salvation, the glory and splendour there; for me even to be saved is the greatest thing, and to escape the torments there. You walk the untrodden and inaccessible road; I the beaten road, which has saved many. Nothing would be more unjust in our faith than if it fell only to the wise and to those who excel in speech and logical demonstrations, while the many failed to obtain it, as they fail to obtain gold and silver and the other things that are precious below and sought after by the many; and if what is lofty and reaches only a few were dear and proper to God, while what is common and within reach of the many were to be spat on and rejected. For not even the more moderate among men would act so, refusing honours offered according to ability and rejoicing only in the outstanding ones; much less God, of whose many marvels nothing is so characteristic as that he benefits all. Do not despise what is customary, do not hunt for novelty, so that you may be approved among the many. “Better a small portion with safety than a great one with rottenness,” let Solomon teach you by his counsel; and “Better a poor man walking in his simplicity” (this too is one of the wise proverbs), the man poor in speech and knowledge, who leans on simple words and is saved on them as on a light raft, than the crooked-lipped fool, confident in his demonstrations of argument along with his ignorance, and emptying the cross of Christ, a thing beyond reason, by the power of words, where the weakness of the demonstration is a lessening of the truth.

Why do you fly up to heaven when you go on foot? Why do you build a tower when you do not have the means to finish it? Do you too measure the water in your hand, the heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handful, great elements measurable only by the one who made them? Know yourself first; consider what lies in your hands: who you are, how you were formed, and how you were compounded, so as to be the image of God and to be bound to what is worse; what moved you, what wisdom is in you, and what is the mystery of your nature; how you are measured by place, while the mind is not bounded but, remaining in the same place, goes over all things; how the sight is small and yet reaches very far, and whether it is a reception of what is seen or a passing over to it; how the same being moves and is moved, governed by will; what the cessation of motion is; what the distribution of the senses is, and how through them the mind converses with things outside and receives what comes from outside; how it takes up forms; what the keeping of what has been taken up is, that is, memory; and what the taking up again of what has departed is, that is, recollection; how a word is the offspring of the mind and begets a word in another mind, and how a thought is passed on by a word; how the body is nourished through the soul, and how the soul shares in suffering through the body; how fear congeals, boldness relaxes, grief contracts, pleasure diffuses, envy melts, vanity lifts up, and hope lightens; how anger maddens, and shame reddens through the blood, the one when it boils, the other when it retreats; and how the marks of the passions appear in bodies; what the presidency of reason is, and how it presides over all these and tames the movements of the passions; how the incorporeal is held fast by blood and breath, and how their failure is the departure of the soul. Consider these, or some of them, O man; I do not yet speak of the nature or motion of heaven, the order of the stars, the mixture of the elements, the differences of the animals, the ranks of the heavenly powers, lower and higher, and all the things among which the creative Word is distributed, and the principles of providence and government. And even then I do not yet say, “Take courage,” but “Still fear to approach loftier things.” As for what is more beyond your power, as long as you are unable, study these things, stay with them, and let your ambition spend itself on what is safe.

You do not accept this; your tongue has no bridle, and you are not stronger than your impulse, but you must by all means be mad and not yield to the first powers, unless they too have the measure of being greater than is useful; but at least do not condemn your brother, nor call timidity impiety, nor go away condemning him … But show yourself humble here, as long as it is allowed; here prefer your brother, not to your own harm, where condemning and dishonouring him means falling away from Christ and the only hope, and cutting out, along with the tares, the hidden wheat, perhaps more precious than you. Rather correct him, and that gently and humanely, not as an enemy, nor as a harsh physician, nor as one who knows only cautery and the knife; and condemn yourself and your own weakness. For what if, being blear-eyed or suffering some other trouble in your eyes, you see the sun dimly? What if everything seems to you to be turning round, perhaps when you are seasick or drunk, and you attribute your own ignorance to others? One must pray much and suffer much before condemning another of impiety.

It is not the same to cut down a plant, or some short-lived flower, and a man. You are the image of God and you are speaking with the image of God; you who judge will yourself be judged; and you are judging another’s servant, whom another manages. So test your brother as one who will yourself be judged by the same measures. Therefore do not quickly cut off or estrange the member, since it is uncertain whether by doing so you may not also harm what is healthy; but admonish, rebuke, exhort. You have a rule of healing. You are a disciple of Christ, who is meek and loving, and who bore our weaknesses. If he resists the first time, be patient; if the second time, do not despair, there is still time for healing; if the third time, become the kindly farmer: beg the Master still not to cut down or hate the fruitless and useless fig tree, but to turn it, tend it, and put manure around it, that is, correction through confession, public shame, and a humbler way of life. Who knows whether it will change and bear fruit, and feed Jesus as he returns from Bethany?

Bear something of your brother’s foul smell, whether real or apparent, you who are anointed with the spiritual ointment compounded by the perfumer’s art, so that you may share your fragrance with him. Vice is not a viper’s poison, that as soon as you are struck you should be overwhelmed with pains or even destroyed, and so be pardoned for fleeing the beast or killing it. But if you are able, heal him too; and if not, you at least have the safety of sharing nothing of his wickedness yourself. His passion is a kind of unpleasant smell, which your fragrance may perhaps overcome and drive away. Would you be quick to accept for your fellow servant and kinsman anything like what zealous Paul dared to think and to say, that he himself, if it were possible, should be exchanged for Israel and cut off from Christ, out of sympathy? You, who often cut off your brother on mere suspicion! The one whom you might perhaps have won by kindness you destroy by rashness: your own member, for whom Christ died. “If, then, you are strong,” says Paul, discussing foods, and confident in reason and in the nobility of your faith, yet build up your brother too. Do not by your food destroy the one whom Christ honoured with his suffering, common to all. For even if the subject is different, the word of exhortation is equally useful.

There ought to be a law among us, as there was among the wise men of the Hebrews of old, that some of the sacred books are not to be given to the young, as not profitable to souls still unsettled and tender; so too that discourse about the faith should be permitted neither to everyone nor always, but at certain times and to certain people: I mean to those who are neither altogether careless and sluggish in mind, nor too insatiable, ambitious, and more fervent than they should be for piety. The latter should be set where they will harm neither themselves nor others; those who are moderate in speech, truly orderly and sober, should have freedom in discourse; and the many should be led away from this road, and from the loquacity and sickness that now prevail, and turned to some other form of virtue, where carelessness is less harmful and insatiability more pious. [33] For if, as there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, through all and in all, so there were one way of salvation, that through reason and contemplation, and those who fell from it had to miss everything and be cast away from God and the hope there, nothing would be more dangerous than either to give such advice or to follow it. But if, as in human affairs there are many differences of lives and choices, greater and lesser, more brilliant and more obscure, so also in divine things the means of salvation is not one, nor is there one way of virtue, but more; and if the much-repeated saying on everyone’s tongue, that there are many dwelling places with God, has no other cause than that there are many roads leading there, some more dangerous and more brilliant, others humbler and safer: why do we leave the safer roads and turn to this one alone, so precarious and slippery, which leads I know not where? Is the same food not suitable for all, but different food for different people according to their differences of age and condition, while the same life or the same discourse benefits all? I would not say so, nor agree with those who say it. If, then, you will be persuaded by me, young and old, rulers of peoples and ruled, monks and those living in the world, bid farewell to superfluous and useless ambitions; and drawing near to God through your life, your conduct, and safer words, you will attain the truth and contemplation there, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Where are those who reproach us with our poverty and boast of their wealth? Who define the Church by numbers and spurn the little flock? Who measure the Godhead and weigh out the people? Who honour the sand and insult the luminaries? Who treasure pebbles and despise pearls? For they do not know that sand is not so much more plentiful than stars, nor pebbles than transparent stones, as the latter are purer and more precious than the former. Are you angry again? Arming yourselves again? Insulting again, you new faith? Hold back your threat a little, so that I may speak. We will not insult, but refute; not threaten, but reproach; not strike, but heal. Do you think this too an insult? What arrogance! Here too do you make a slave of one who is your equal? If not, accept my frankness. Even a brother rebukes a brother when he is wronged.

Do you want me to speak to you the words of God to Israel, stiff-necked and hardened? “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I wronged you, or how have I troubled you?” Or rather, my word is to you, the insolent one. It is a bad thing that we watch for opportunities against one another, and, having dissolved our concord through difference of opinion, [have become worse] almost than even the barbarians who are now warring against us, whom the Triad, divided by us, has banded together …

we have become more inhuman and rasher toward one another; except that it is not strangers striking strangers, nor people of foreign speech striking those of another tongue (which would be some small consolation in our misfortune), but we carry off and plunder one another, like members of the same household; or, if you like, we consume and are consumed, members of the same body. And this is not the dreadful thing, great as it is, but that we think the loss a gain. Since this is our state, and we believe according to the times, let us set the times against each other: you your emperor, and I mine; you Ahab, and I Josiah. Tell me of your moderation, and I will tell you of my rashness. Or rather, yours is told by many books and tongues, which future time too will take up, I think, an immortal monument of your deeds; but I will tell my own. [3] What mob did I bring against you, carried away by rashness? What soldiers did I draw up? What general, boiling with anger and bolder than those who gave him his orders, and he not even a Christian, but offering to his own demons his impiety against us as a private act of worship? Whom did I besiege while they were praying and lifting up their hands to God? Whose psalmody did I stop with trumpets? Whose mystic blood did I mix with the blood of murder? Whose wailing did I silence with lamentations, spiritual lament with deadly, and tears of compunction with tears of tragedy? What house of prayer did I make a common grave? What liturgical vessels, untouchable to the many, did I hand over to the hands of the lawless, a Nebuzaradan, the chief cook, or a Belshazzar, who wickedly revelled in the holy things and paid the penalty his madness deserved? “Beloved altars,” as the divine Scripture says, but now outraged: what lewd youth danced upon yours because of us, twisting and bending shamefully? Or rather, through whom did I mock so great and divine a mystery? Venerable throne, seat and resting place of venerable men, which has had a succession of many pious priests who initiated the people from above into divine things: what pagan demagogue mounted you, what wicked tongue denouncing the things of Christians? Modesty and dignity of virgins, which cannot bear the gaze even of chaste men: which of us shamed and outraged you, even to what should not be seen, and set before the eyes of the impious a pitiable spectacle, worthy of the fire of Sodom? I pass over deaths, which are more bearable than shame. … to be defiled by communion, which we flee as poison, not because it harms the body but because it blackens the depths of the soul? For whom has burying the dead become a crime, the dead whom even beasts respected? And how great a crime? One worthy of another theatre and other beasts. Whose aged flesh, the flesh of bishops, did I tear with claws, while their initiates stood by unable to help except by weeping: flesh hung up with Christ, conquering by suffering, sprinkling the people with its precious blood, and at last hastening to death, to be crucified with Christ, buried with him, and glorified with him, with Christ, who conquered the world through such victims and sacrifices? What presbyters did opposite elements, water and fire, divide between them, raising a strange beacon over the sea, burned up in the ship on which they had put out? Who (to cover the greater part of our sufferings) were accused of inhumanity even by those rulers who granted them such favours? For even if the rulers served their desires, they hated the cruelty of their choice; the one belonged to the times, the other to reason; the one to the emperor’s lawlessness, the other to their own awareness of the laws by which they were bound to judge.

Or, to speak of older things (for these too are of the same family), whose hands, of dead or of living saints, did I cut off and falsely allege, to war against the faith by slander? Whose exiles did I count as benefits, not even respecting the sacred communities of holy philosophers, from which I demanded the suppliants who had fled there? On the contrary, I counted them martyrs too, since they ran risks for the good. Against whom, men almost fleshless and bloodless, did I bring harlots, I who am accused of licentiousness in my words? Whom of the pious did I hand over, beyond their homeland, to the hands of savage men, so that, shut up like beasts in lightless houses and separated from one another (this the heaviest part of the tragedy), they might suffer hunger and thirst, their food measured out to them, and that through narrow openings, not even allowed to see those who shared their grief? And who were they? Those of whom the world was not worthy. Is this how you honour faith? Is this how you welcome strangers? You do not know most of these things, and very naturally, because of the multitude of such sights and your delight in doing them; but the one who suffers remembers better. Why should I speak of distant things? Some have been more violent even than the times, like swine pushing against fences. I ask you for yesterday’s victim of yours, the old man, an Abrahamic father, whom, when he was brought back from exile, you welcomed with stones at midday in the middle of the city. But we even begged off the murderers when they were in danger, if it is not tiresome to say so. “For which of these shall I be merciful to you?” God says somewhere in Scripture. Which of these shall I praise? Or rather, with which shall I crown you? … a teeming city, and a surging people, and an assembly of noble men that is praised.

And why do you not also mention the convenience of its site, and land and sea as if competing which of them the city belongs to more, and welcoming the imperial city with their own goods? Is this our wrong, that you are great and very splendid, and we small and coming from small places? Many others wrong you in the same way, or rather all whom you surpass; and must we die because we did not build a city, nor surround ourselves with walls, nor pride ourselves on horse races, stadia, and hunts, and the madness about these, nor on the charm and splendour of baths and costly marbles, and paintings and mosaics, gold-gleaming and many-coloured, almost imitating nature? We have not yet broken back the sea around ourselves, nor blended the seasons (as you have done, you new creator), so that we might live as pleasantly and as safely as possible. Add other charges too, if you like, you who say, “Mine is the silver, and mine is the gold,” the words of God. We neither pride ourselves on wealth (not to set one’s heart on it when it flows in is part of our law), nor count yearly and daily revenues, nor vie with one another in the bulk of our tables and the arts of cookery for the senseless belly. For we praise nothing of what, once past the throat, is all of equal honour, or rather equally without honour and to be cast away; but we live simply and from day to day, differing little from the beasts, whose life is without equipment or contrivance.

Or will you also find fault with the shabbiness of my clothing and the ungainly set of my face? For I see some very lowly people priding themselves on these things. Will you leave my head alone and not mock it, as the children did Elisha? What followed I will pass over in silence. Will you not charge me with lack of education, or say that I seem to you to speak roughly and rustically? And where will you put the fact that I am not glib, nor a jester who pleases company, nor much about the market, nor given to chattering and gossiping with anyone and anyhow, so as to make even talk tiresome; that I do not visit the new Jerusalem, the Zeuxippus, nor go from house to house, flattering and gorging; but stay at home for the most part, downcast and sombre, communing quietly with myself, the genuine examiner of my actions, and perhaps deserving to be locked up for my uselessness? How is it that you pardon us for these things and do not accuse us? How sweet and kind you are! [9] But I am so old-fashioned and philosophic as to suppose that there is one heaven, the same and common to all; common the circuit of sun and moon, common the order and position of the stars, common the equal share and use of day and night, and also the changes of the seasons, the rains, the fruits, and the life-giving power of the air; that the rivers flow as a common and abundant wealth to all alike; and that the earth too is one, mother and tomb, from which we were taken and to which we shall return, none having more than another; and, still before these, that reason is common, and the law, the prophets, and the very sufferings of Christ, by which we were refashioned, not one of us and not another, but all who shared in the same Adam, were deceived by the serpent and put to death by sin, and were saved by the heavenly Adam and brought back to the tree of life, from which we had fallen, by the tree of shame. [10] Samuel’s Ramathaim too deceived me, the small homeland of the great man, which did not dishonour the prophet, but was honoured more through him than through itself; nothing prevented him, coming from it, from being given to God before his birth, from prophesying and seeing what lay ahead, and not only that, but from anointing kings and priests and judging men from splendid cities. And of Saul I heard that, seeking his father’s asses, he found a kingdom. David himself is taken from the flocks of sheep and shepherds Israel. And what of Amos? Was he not, though a goatherd and a scraper of sycamore figs, entrusted with prophecy? And how could I pass over Joseph, … and father of many myriads, which had been foretold to Abraham? And Abraham, to say the greater thing, was he not an emigrant? And Moses, was he not first exposed, and then lawgiver and general of those hastening to the land of promise, whose story is great and wonderful? The Carmel of Elijah too deceived me, which received the chariot of fire, and the sheepskin of Elisha, which had more power than silken threads and gold forced into garments. The desert of John too deceived me, which held the greatest among those born of women, with that food, that girdle, and that clothing. I dared something beyond these too: I found God himself the advocate of my rusticity. I will be ranked with Bethlehem; I will share the dishonour of the manger; since you dishonour God because of it, what wonder if for the same reason you also despise his herald? I will bring before you also the fishermen, and the poor who have the gospel preached to them, preferred before many rich. Will you ever stop priding yourself on your cities? Will you ever respect the desert that you spurn and dishonour? I do not yet speak of gold born in the sands, and transparent stones, products and gifts of the rocks; and if I set against these all that is dishonourable in cities, perhaps I would not use my frankness to good purpose. [11] “But the herald is a stranger to us and from outside,” one of the very narrow and flesh-loving might say. And the apostles, were they not strangers to the many nations and cities among which they were distributed, so that the gospel might run everywhere, that nothing might be without the light of the threefold Light and unilluminated by the truth, and that for those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death the night of ignorance might be dissolved? “That we should go to the Gentiles,” he says, “and they to the circumcision”: you have heard Paul say it. Let Judea be Peter’s; but what had Paul in common with the Gentiles, Luke with Achaia, Andrew with Epirus, John with Ephesus, Thomas with India, Mark with Italy, and, not to speak of each one, all the others with those among whom they sojourned? Either rebuke them too, or pardon me too, or show that you, pleading for the true word, are being wronged by nonsense. But since I have talked with you about these things in a petty way, come, let me speak as a philosopher more magnificently. [12] There is one homeland for all lofty souls, my friend, the Jerusalem above, in which we deposit our citizenship. There is one race for all: if you wish to look at what is below, the dust; if at what is higher, the inbreathing, which we have received, which we were commanded to keep, and with which I must stand to give account of my nobility from above and of the image. Everyone, then, is noble who has kept this by virtue and by inclining toward the archetype; and everyone is ignoble who has confounded it by vice and put on another form, that of the serpent. These homelands below and these races are playthings of our passing life and of our stage. For a homeland is whatever each has first occupied, by tyranny or by misfortune, a land in which all are equally strangers and sojourners, however long we play with the names. And a noble race is one that was rich long ago or is puffed up now; an ignoble one, that of poor fathers, whether through misfortune or through decency. For how is that noble from above which begins now in some and ends in others, and is not given to some but is written down for others? This is what I think of these things. And therefore I leave you to pride yourself on tombs and myths; but I try, as far as I can, to cleanse myself of deceit, so that I may either keep my nobility or recover it.

So, then, and for these reasons, I came to you, small as I am and from a poor homeland, and that not willingly nor self-invited, like many of those who now leap at positions of leadership, but called and compelled, following fear and the Spirit. Otherwise may I be warred against here still longer in vain, and free no one from error, and may those who pray that my soul be childless have their wish, if what I say is false. And since I came, perhaps not with mean authority (if I may boast a little, in the manner of folly), which of the insatiable did I imitate? In what did I emulate the times, though I had such examples, without which it is among the difficult and rare things not to be bad? Which churches did we dispute with you? What money, though you are rich in both beyond need, and we are needy in both? What imperial decree spurned did we resent? Which rulers did we court against you? Whose rashness did we denounce? And as for what was done to me, what was it?

“Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge,” I said then (for I remembered Stephen’s words in time), and I pray it now. “Reviled, we bless; persecuted, we endure; blasphemed, we entreat.” If I do you wrong in bearing tyranny, forgive me this wrong; I have borne tyranny from others too; and thanks be that I was charged with gentleness as if it were folly. For I reason thus, using reasonings far loftier than yours: what small part are these of the spittings and blows of Christ, for whom and because of whom these dangers come? I value them all less than the one crown of thorns, which uncrowned our conqueror, and through which I learn to be crowned with the roughness of life; than the one reed, through which a rotten power was ended; than the one gall, the one vinegar, through which we were healed of the bitter taste; than the one long-suffering in his passion. If he is betrayed with a kiss, he rebukes but does not strike. If he is suddenly seized, he reproaches but follows; and if you cut off Malchus’s ear with a sword out of zeal, he will be indignant and restore it; and if someone flees in a linen cloth, he protects him; and if you ask for the fire of Sodom on those who lead him away, he will not rain it down; and if he takes a robber hanging for his wickedness, he brings him into paradise for his goodness. Let everything of the lover of mankind be loving, as are Christ’s sufferings; to which what greater thing could we offer, if, when God was even put to death for us, we would not pardon even small things to our equals?

Besides this, I have reasoned, and still reason, in this way (consider whether not very rightly), as I have often taught you. They have the houses, we the one who dwells in them; they the temples, we God; and besides, we have become temples of the living God, and living ones, living victims, rational burnt offerings, perfect sacrifices, gods through the Triad that is worshipped. They have the crowds, we the angels; they rashness, we faith; they threatening, we praying; they striking, we bearing; they gold and silver, we a purified word. “You have made yourself houses of two and three storeys” (recognize the words of Scripture), “a house panelled, with windows set apart”? But these are not yet loftier than my faith and the heavens to which I am borne. Is my flock small? But it is not carried over cliffs. Is my fold narrow? But it is inaccessible to wolves, it does not admit a robber, nor is it climbed over by thieves and strangers. I shall see it wider, I know well. Many of the present wolves I must number among the sheep, perhaps even among the shepherds. This the good Shepherd announces to me, for whose sake I lay down my life for the sheep. I do not fear for the small flock, for it is easily surveyed; I know my own, and I am known by my own. Such are those who know God and are known by God. “My sheep hear my voice,” the voice that I heard from the divine oracles, that I was taught by the holy Fathers, that I have taught alike at every time, not conforming to the times, and that I will not cease to teach; the voice with which I was born and with which I depart. [16] … and the new Judaism that confines the Godhead to the unbegotten alone; nor the Christ of Photinus, a Christ from below, beginning from Mary. But they worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one Godhead: God the Father, God the Son, God, if you will not be angry, the Holy Spirit; one nature in three properties, intelligent, perfect, subsisting by themselves, divided in number, and not divided in Godhead.

Let everyone who threatens me today leave me these words; let those who wish lay claim to the rest. The Father does not tolerate the Son’s loss, nor the Son the Holy Spirit’s; and they would suffer loss if they were ever creatures, for what is created is not God. Nor do I bear the loss of my own perfection. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” If this were made void for me, from whom shall I have a second? What do you say, you who baptize to ruin or rebaptize? Can one be spiritual without the Spirit? Does one share in the Spirit who does not honour the Spirit? And does one honour him who is baptized into a creature and a fellow servant? It is not, it is not so, however much you say. I will not lie to you, unoriginate Father; I will not lie to you, only-begotten Word; I will not lie to you, Holy Spirit. I know to whom I made my confession, whom I renounced, and to whom I enlisted myself. I do not accept being taught the words of the faithful, and learning to confess the truth as unbelievers do, and becoming one with the lie; going down to be perfected and coming up less perfect; being baptized to live and being killed in the water, like embryos that die in the birth pangs and receive death together with birth. Why do you make me blessed and wretched at once, newly enlightened and unenlightened, divine and godless, so that I make shipwreck even of the hope of refashioning? The word is short: remember your confession. Into what were you baptized? Into the Father? Good, but that is still Jewish. Into the Son? Good; no longer Jewish, but not yet perfect. Into the Holy Spirit? Excellent; this is perfect. Then simply into these, or also into some common name of them? Yes, a common one. What is it? Clearly, that of God. Believe in this common name, however much you divide; prosper and reign, and pass from here to the blessedness there, which is, as it seems to me, the more distinct apprehension of these very things; to which may we too attain, in Christ himself our God, to whom be glory and might, with the unoriginate Father and the life-giving Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever.

I will address those from Egypt, for it is right, since they have come together eagerly, overcoming envy by zeal: from this Egypt which a river enriches, raining up from the earth and becoming a sea in its season (that I too may imitate a little those who are clever in such matters); but my Christ enriches it too, once a fugitive into Egypt, but now supplied from Egypt; then because of Herod’s murder of children, now because of the fathers’ love for their children: Christ, the new food of those who hunger rightly, a greater distribution of grain than any recorded and believed; the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, a life imperishable and indestructible; about whom I seem to hear even now the Father saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

For from you the word has sounded forth to all men, soundly believed and preached; and you are the best bearers of fruit of all, especially of those who now believe rightly, as far as I know, who am not only a lover of such food but also its supplier, and not only at home but now abroad as well. For you feed peoples and cities bodily, as far as your kindness extends; and you feed spiritually not this or that people, nor this or that city bounded by small limits, however splendid they think themselves, but almost the whole world. And you cure not hunger for bread nor thirst for water, which it is no great thing to suffer and easy not to suffer, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord, which is most pitiable to suffer and now most laborious to cure, since lawlessness has multiplied, and I find few genuine healers of it. [3] Such was your Joseph, the measurer of grain, which is to say ours too, who knew how to foresee famine by surpassing wisdom and to cure it by words of good management, healing the ugly and lean cows with the fair and fat ones. And take whichever Joseph you like: either the lover, maker, and namesake of immortality, or his successor in throne, in word, and in grey hairs, our new Peter, no less in virtue than in name; by whom the middle position was cut off and crushed, even if it still writhes a little, feebly, like the tail of a snake cut in two. Of these, the one, having ended his life in a good old age after many contests and struggles, now looks down on our affairs from above, I know well, and stretches out a hand to those who labour for the good, all the more as he is free from bonds; the other is hastening to the same end, or departure, after the same contests, and is already near the things above, but is still in the flesh just enough to help the word with his last efforts, and to set out on his journey with more abundant provisions. [4] Of these you are the nurslings and the offspring, of these great teachers, contenders, and victors for the truth; whom no time, no potentate, no argument, no envy, no fear, no accuser, no slanderer, no open enemy, no secret plotter, no one who seemed to be ours, no stranger, no gold, the invisible tyrant by which most things are now tossed about and played like dice, no flattery, no threats, no long and repeated exiles (for they could not even be caught by confiscation, because of their great wealth, their lack of possessions), nor anything else at all, present or expected, lifted up or persuaded to become worse, to betray anything of the Triad, or to cause the Godhead loss. On the contrary, they were strengthened by dangers and became more zealous for piety. For such is suffering for Christ: it adds to love, and becomes for the great-minded a sort of pledge of further contests … wonders.

But you, Egypt, used to praise to me the goats of Mendes, and the Apis of Memphis, a fattened and fleshy calf, and the rites of Isis, and the tearing apart of Osiris, and your solemn Serapis, a block of wood worshipped with myth and age and the folly of his worshippers, as some unknown and heavenly matter, but matter nonetheless, even if falsehood comes to its aid; and things still more shameful than these, the many-shaped images of crocodiles and reptiles. All these Christ has surpassed, and the heralds of Christ, who shone forth each in his own time, and especially the Fathers just mentioned; through whom you are better known today, wonderful Egypt, than through all your stories, old and new, put together.

For these reasons I embrace and greet you, best of peoples, most Christ-loving and most fervent in piety, and worthy of your leaders (for I can say nothing greater than this, nor anything with which I could better entertain you as guests); and I welcome you, a little with my tongue, but much more with the movements of my mind. My people! For I call mine those who are of one mind and one faith with me, worshippers of the same Triad taught by the same Fathers. My people! Mine, even if it does not seem so to the envious; and, so that those who feel so may be struck all the more, see, I give you the right hand of fellowship before so many witnesses, visible and invisible, and I drive away an old slander by new kindness. My people! Mine, even if I, the least, claim the greatest as my own; for such is the grace of the Spirit: it makes those of one mind equal in honour. My people! Mine, even if from afar, because we are joined divinely, and in another way than those who are near. For bodies are joined by place, but souls are fitted together by the Spirit. My people, who formerly practised the philosophy of suffering for Christ, and now that of not doing harm, if you will listen to me, but count the power to do it a sufficient gain, and think that you offer worship to Christ, as then by endurance, so now by gentleness. A people over whom the Lord stands ready to do good, as he stands ready to do harm to their opponents. A people whom the Lord has chosen for himself out of all whom he called.

… inscribed on the hands of the Lord; to whom it is said, “For you are my will, says the Lord,” and, “Your gates are carved work,” and all that is said to those who are saved hereafter.

… and do not wonder at my insatiability if I often turn back to you; for I revel in calling you again and again, like those who fill themselves insatiably with spectacles or music.

But, people of God, and ours too, fine also was your festival the other day, which you held on the sea, and delightful, if anything was, to the eyes …

… when I saw the sea turned into a forest and covered with a cloud made by hands, and the beauty and speed of the ships, as if arrayed for a procession, and a moderate wind standing at the stern as if escorting them on purpose and conveying the sea-borne city once more; but finer and more magnificent is what is seen now. For you did not mingle yourselves with the many, nor measure piety by numbers, nor consent to become a mob rather than a people of God purified by the word; but having brought, as is fitting, to Caesar the things of Caesar, you rendered to God the things of God, to the one tax, to the other fear; and having fed the people with your goods, you have come to be fed by us yourselves. For we too distribute grain, and grain perhaps not inferior to yours. “Come, eat my bread and drink the wine that I have mixed for you”; with Wisdom I call you to my table. For I praise your good sense and run to meet your eagerness, that you have put in with us as at your own harbour, hastening to those who are like you; that you have honoured the kinship of faith, and have thought it absurd that those who insult the things above should agree and be fitted together with one another, and should think to mend the rottenness of each by the common bond, like strands strengthened by being twisted together, while you yourselves did not come together and bind yourselves to those of the same mind, as is far more fitting; for we also bring the Godhead together. And that you may know that you did not hasten to us in vain, nor as to strangers and foreigners, but have put in among your own and been well guided by the Spirit, we will speak to you briefly about God. And recognize your own, like those who recognize their own side by the insignia on their arms.

I recognize two highest distinctions among beings, lordship and servitude: not those which among us tyranny has cut or poverty has divided, but those which nature has distinguished, if one likes to call it so; for the First is beyond nature. Of these, the one is creative, originating, and unmoved; the other made, subject, and changing. Or, to put it still more briefly, the one is above time, the other under time. The first is called God, and subsists in three greatest ones, the Cause, the Creator, and the Perfecter: I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; who are neither so detached from one another as to be divided in nature, nor so contracted as to be circumscribed in one person; the former belongs to the Arian madness, the latter to the Sabellian godlessness; but the Godhead is more unitary than things wholly divided, and more abundant than things completely singular. The other is with us and is called creation, even if some created things surpass others according to the measure of their nearness to God. [9] This being so, whoever has his heart toward the Lord, let him come with us, and let us worship the one Godhead in the three, attributing no name of lowliness to the unapproachable glory, but always carrying in our throats the exaltations of the one God in three. For of him whose very greatness of nature one cannot properly speak of, because of his infinity and boundlessness, how shall we assert lowliness? But whoever is estranged from God, and therefore cuts the one essence that is above all beings into an inequality of natures, it would be a wonder if he were not cut in two by the sword, and his portion appointed with the unbelievers, reaping the evil fruit of an evil opinion, now and hereafter.

About the Father, what need is there to speak, since what all concede spares him, as people are preoccupied by natural notions? Though even he bore the first dishonour, being the first to be cut into a Good God and a Creator by the ancient innovation. About the Son and the Holy Spirit, see how simply and briefly we shall discourse. If anyone can say that either of these is changeable or alterable, or measured by time, or place, or power, or operation, or not naturally good, or not self-moved, or not free, or a minister, or a singer of hymns, or one who fears, or one who is set free, or not to be numbered with the Father, let him show it, and we shall be content, glorified by the dignity of our fellow servants, even if we lose God. But if … except causation, and all that belongs to the Son belongs also to the Spirit, except sonship and the things said of the Son bodily because of my humanity and my salvation, so that, taking what is mine, he might give what is his by the new mingling: then stop talking nonsense, at least now, late as it is, you sophists of empty words, which fall of themselves. “And why will you die, house of Israel?”, that I may lament over you in the words of Scripture.

For my part, I revere the titles of the Word, so many, so lofty and great, which even demons respected; I revere the equal honour of the Spirit; and I fear the threat laid down for those who blaspheme against him. And blasphemy is not to confess him as God, but to estrange him from the Godhead. And one must observe here that what was blasphemed was the Lord, but what avenged it was the Holy Spirit, clearly as Lord. … to be unenlightened after the enlightenment, falsifying any of the three into whom I have been baptized, and to be truly buried in the water, perfected not for regeneration but for death.

I dare to say something, O Triad, and pardon my rashness, for the danger concerns my soul. I too am an image of God, of the glory above, even if I am set below. I am not persuaded that I am saved by one of equal rank with me. If the Holy Spirit is not God, let him first be made god, and so make me god, his equal. But as it is, what a deception of grace, or rather of those who give grace, to believe into God and come up godless; to confess one thing and be taught another! What thefts and deceptions of words, leading through one question and confession to something else! Alas for my brightness, if after the washing I have been blackened, if I see those not yet cleansed brighter than myself, if I am gambled away by the baptizer’s false belief, if I seek a better Spirit and do not find him! Give me a second washing, and think badly of the first. Why do you begrudge me perfect regeneration? Why do you make me, who am a temple of the Spirit as of God, the dwelling place of a creature? Why do you honour one of my objects of worship and dishonour the other, judging wrongly about the Godhead, so as to cut the gift off from me, or rather me off from the gift? Either honour the whole, you new theologian, or dishonour the whole, so that, even if you are impious, you may at least be consistent with yourself, and not judge unequally a nature equal in honour.

The sum of my discourse: glorify him with the cherubim, who join the three holinesses into one lordship, and show as much of the first essence as their wings uncover to the diligent. Be illumined with David, who says to the Light, “In your light we shall see light,” that is, the Son in the Spirit; and what could be more radiant than this? Thunder with John, the son of thunder, sounding nothing low or earthly about God, but what is lofty and sublime: knowing him who was in the beginning, and was with God, and is God the Word, as God, and true God from the true Father, and not a good fellow servant honoured only with the title of Son; and knowing the other Paraclete, clearly other than the one who speaks, who is God the Word; and when you read “I and the Father are one,” having your ear filled with the oneness of essence; and when “we will come to him and make our dwelling with him,” reckoning the distinction of the hypostases; and when the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the three properties. [14] Be inspired with Luke, conversing with the Acts of the Apostles. Why do you range yourself with Ananias and Sapphira, those strange embezzlers (if indeed theft of one’s own property is strange), and that embezzling not silver, nor anything else cheap and small, like a golden tongue or a bare double drachma, as a greedy soldier once did, but stealing the Godhead itself, and lying not to man but to God, as you have heard? What? Do you not even respect the authority of the Spirit, who breathes on whom he wills, and when, and as much as he wills? He comes upon Cornelius and those with him before baptism, upon others after baptism through the apostles; so that from both sides, from his coming as master and not as servant, and from his being sought for perfection, the deity of the Spirit is attested.

Speak of God with Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven; who sometimes numbers the three hypostases together, and that in varying order, not keeping their order fixed, putting the same one now first, now in the middle, now last. To what end? To show the equality of honour of the nature. Sometimes he mentions two of the three, sometimes one, since the one remaining certainly follows; sometimes he ascribes the operation of God to the Spirit, as being no different; sometimes he puts Christ in place of the Spirit; and when he distinguishes the hypostases, he says, “One God, from whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him”; but when he gathers together the one Godhead, “For from him and through him and to him are all things,” that is, clearly, through the Holy Spirit, as is shown in many places of Scripture; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

What can be said that is as great as what the eyes see? What word equals the good things that are present to our sight? Behold, the spectacle we could hardly believe lies before our eyes, which we often prayed to see; but what we longed for has proved better than our prayers. Here again are honours to the martyrs, long neglected before this; again assemblies of the priests of God; again choirs and spiritual festivals. The assembly is crowded, eager to keep festival, not to fight. O the marvel! The weapons have been thrown from their hands, the battle line is broken up, the war is forgotten. No longer are the voices of those raising war cries heard; instead, feasts, gladness, and peaceful joys dance around the whole city, which of old was the mother of martyrs, but for a long time in between had no share in the honour of her children. But now she has received everything and abounds, as the Apostle says. Well done, martyrs! This prize too is yours: you have won the long war, I know well, and these achievements come from your sweat. You raised the trophy for peace. You drew the priests of God to yourselves. You set the choir-leaders of the Holy Spirit over this assembly. How great a loss have those suffered whose life did not last until this spectacle, so that, after having their fill of gloom, they might enjoy the blessings of peace!

Gone and vanished is the deceit of heresy, like a mist scattered by the Holy Spirit; the clear sky of peace has shone out, and in it the stars of the city appear, sparkling in the bright light of truth, not allotted to night and darkness, but all visible by day, shining with the true light of righteousness. And since, as the Apostle says, the night is far spent, or rather has vanished altogether, and everything is brightened by the light of day, the beasts that roam by night flee and are driven together into the thickets and caves; the heretical bats flee, squeaking and dim-sighted before the light of truth, and slip into the holes of the rocks, clinging to one another’s heads. From this day the bands of revellers and drunkards have ceased. Clothes-thieves, housebreakers, thieves, and every other work of the night have hidden themselves, since the light of peace has risen again. But while that night darkened everything with the gloom of deceit, what deeds were done? Deeds worthy of oblivion and deep silence, lest the present grace be defiled by the memory of unpleasant things. For how could anyone tell the evils of that night? And how could anyone keep silent about them? What tragedy has such suffering? What myth invents such disasters? What playwright cried out such suffering on the stage? The disaster is beyond words, the sufferings beyond the power of those who tell them. [3] The base of the devil was … a chorus. Here he pitched his camp and stationed his own shield-bearers. Here was the army of falsehood, the champions of deceit, the expedition of the demons, the legions of unclean spirits; or, to use outside names, from here the wicked army of demonic Furies rioted against the Church. For so I am led to name the women who, beyond their nature, played the man for evil. There was one Jezebel in the days of Elijah, murderous against the prophets of the Lord, and the God-inspired history pillories her, so that, I think, all later life might be taught by the memory of that licentious woman. So many like that Jezebel sprang up suddenly from the land, like hemlock, surpassing the one I have mentioned in the excess of their bitterness. If you disbelieve what I say, examine the history. She gave Naboth’s vineyard to the slack Ahab, so that he might turn the vineyard into a garden, an ornament of luxury, a woman’s indulgence; these women tried by force to bring the living vineyard of God, I mean the Church, to utter destruction, carrying out the evil themselves. What example shall I find for my discourse? What image shall I devise for this wickedness? I saw a picture of this kind on a plastered wall; and hold up my heart, swelling at the memory of these evils; or rather, share my pain, for I am telling sufferings that are ours, not others’. What, then, is the picture to which I compare these events? It was a shameless chorus of women, each twisting herself into some dancing posture. The myths call such women Maenads. Their hair was tossed by the breezes, their look was madness, torches were carried in their hands, and the flames from them whirled with the turning of their bodies; a breeze in the folds of their robes spoiled their seemliness; their feet tiptoed and leapt; modesty and decorum touched nothing of what was done.

In the middle of this chorus was an image of a man of this sort: half-female, ambiguous in nature, effeminate in appearance, lying on the border between the sexes, loose in his posture, as if carried away by stupor and drunkenness. Sprawling on a carriage, he was drawn by beasts through the chorus of Maenads. Much unmixed wine from a mixing bowl was around him, and some chattering creatures of strange nature surrounded the image, hairy-faced, leaping around it on goats’ legs. Such were the stories of that night. Women known for the dishonour of their sex, a common reproach to their nature, danced away the decorum customary among women and led a procession through the middle of the city, making a show of their nature disgracing itself; arming their hands with stones instead of shields, looking murder with the shameless glance of their eyes, they got inside the divine precincts and set their Corybant on the sacred throne. Then came drunkenness and unmixed wine, the Pans from the hermitages, night, promiscuous living, and all the things the Apostle forbids us to speak of, saying, “The things done by them in secret it is shameful even to speak of.” For who could go through precisely in words the fire, the stones, the slaughters, the wounds? Whom of the servants of the holy houses did they strive to overturn from their foundations? Which zealot for the truth did they beat to death with clubs in the middle of the city, so that the suspected murder prevented the real one? But I do not know how my discourse slipped away from the pleasure that is fitting, lingering over earthly stories. Let us return, then, to where we left off, so as to wash away that briny hearing with sweet and drinkable words. For “on a day of gladness,” it says, “there is forgetfulness of evils.” I return, then, to the same point: that night and gloom have vanished, and the rays of peace shine all around through the clear sky with the light of truth. Therefore everything foul and profane has been cast out of the divine precincts, and in their place the houses of the pious have been brought in, full of every gladness, and nothing is lacking for joy: the guests, the hosts, the table full of good foods …

I wonder what it is that you feel toward my words, and why you are so captivated by my voice, a foreign voice, perhaps a small one, and with nothing lovable about it, that you seem to me to feel toward us what iron feels toward the magnet. For you hang upon me, and upon one another, held by the one, and all upon God, from whom are all things and to whom are all things. O the wonderful chain, which the Holy Spirit weaves, fitted together with unbreakable bonds! As for the cause, I know nothing wiser than others, as far as I am aware; unless someone thinks this my wisdom, to know that I am not wise, nor near the true and first wisdom; which the wise men of today are far from supposing of themselves, since it is very easy to deceive oneself and think oneself something when one is nothing, puffed up by vainglory. Nor was I the first to preach to you the doctrine of orthodoxy, to which you cling most of all, but I followed in the footsteps of others, and those yours (for the truth shall be told), since you are disciples of the great Alexander, the great champion and herald of the Triad, who banished impiety by word and deed. For you remember that apostolic prayer, which destroyed the leader of impiety in a place worthy of the sins of his tongue, so that outrage might repay outrage, and the unjust death of souls be pilloried by a just death. Nor am I one to steal goodwill by flattery, as I see many of those who now profess the priesthood do, who have made our simple and artless piety artful, a new kind of statecraft transferred from the market place to holy things, and from the theatres to the mystery that the many do not see; so that there are two stages, if one may dare to say so, differing from one another as much as the one is open to all and the other to few, the one laughed at and the other honoured, the one called theatrical and the other spiritual. “You are witnesses, and God,” says the divine Apostle, that we are not of this portion, but such as would sooner accept a charge of clumsiness and rusticity than of flattery and servility; we who sometimes appear harsh even to those who are most attached to us, if they seem to act unreasonably. And the recent innovation concerning us showed this, when you, the people, boiling with zeal and anger, set us, shouting and lamenting, on this throne, which I do not know whether to call tyrannical or high-priestly; you set us there, at any rate, breaking the law out of longing. On that occasion we were so displeased with some of the more fervent that they broke away from us, turning their affection into enmity. For we look not to what will please more than to what will benefit.

What, then, is the cause of so great a longing for us and for our words? Do you wish to show it and set it out yourselves, and make your own feeling known, or to publish it through us, as you eagerly use us as interpreters of other things too? You leave the word to us, I know, as far as I can judge from your silence. Hear, then, and see whether I am a poor guesser of such things. You seem to me, first of all, since you called us yourselves, to be supporting your own judgment, and so to cherish your own catch. It is natural to be well disposed toward everything that is one’s own, whether possession, offspring, or word, and to be won over by a voluntary goodwill toward one’s own productions. Second, nothing is so respected as our not being forward: not violent, nor theatrical and showy, but retiring and moderate, as it were apart in the common life, solitary, and, to put it more briefly, philosophic; not, again, contrived by art and statecraft, but honoured simply and spiritually. For we do not hide in order to be sought, nor to be thought worthy of greater honour, like those who show their beauty a little and then withdraw it; but to show by our quietness that we flee presidencies and do not lay claim to such honours. Third, seeing what we suffer both from those who war against us from outside and from those who plot against us from within (since, as in Daniel, “lawlessness came forth from Babylon, from elders who seemed to judge Israel”), you are indignant and distressed, and, having no way to help one who is tyrannized, you offer pity in place of everything else. And pity mingled with respect has become affection. This is the mystery of the honour paid to me.

And since what is warred against is my words, and this superfluous and envied tongue, which, trained in outside learning, we have ennobled with divine words, sweetening the bitter and undrinkable Marah with the tree of life, you have felt a thoroughly generous feeling: you love the very thing for which we are warred against. For why did we not embrace a mute education? Why not one that is dry and keeps to the ground? Why, seeing that the many delight in such, did we teach strange and unfamiliar things and stand against the contradicting tongues, when we should have fled from reasonings with rashness and called unreason faith? I too would have loved this, you know well, if I had been a fisherman, since this is ready to hand for most people in defence of their ignorance, if I had possessed the power of signs in place of words. Would that envy might perish from among men, the consumption of those who have it, the poison of those who suffer it, the one passion that is at once most unjust and most just: unjust because it troubles everything good, just because it wastes away those who have it. I will not curse those who first praised us, for they did not know where praise would end; otherwise they might perhaps have added some reviling, to check envy. … made a fratricide, since he could not bear a holier sacrifice. Envy covered with water a world that had become disordered, and flooded the Sodomites with fire. Envy buried Dathan and Abiram, who raged against Moses, and made Miriam leprous for merely murmuring against her brother. Envy defiled the earth with the blood of prophets and overthrew Solomon, the wisest, with women. Envy made Judas a traitor, bought for a little silver, worthy of the noose; and fashioned Herod the child-killer and Pilate the Christ-killer. Envy winnowed and scattered Israel, from which sin they have not yet recovered even now. Envy raised up against us the apostate tyrant, whose coals still trouble us, even if we have escaped the flame. Envy cut apart the fair body of the Church, dividing it into different and opposing parties. Envy raised up Jeroboam against us, the slave of sin, and puts a bond on the tongue; for it cannot bear the Triad made brilliant and shining with the whole Godhead, and making its genuine heralds precious to you. Do we seem to you to talk nonsense in surmising so? Or has the painter, my discourse, depicted the causes of your longing quite rightly? This, at any rate, is what I think of these things.

And since I see some of you annoyed at the insults against us, and making our dishonour your own misfortune, come, let us speak a little about this too as philosophers. For if, intending something human and petty, or aiming at this throne, I either came to you in the first place with these grey hairs and these limbs shrivelled by time and disease, or now endure these insults, I would be ashamed before heaven and earth, which the ancients were accustomed to call to witness; I would be ashamed before this throne, this sacred assembly, and this holy and newly formed people, against which so great an array of evil powers was drawn up, that it might be broken up before it was constituted and killed before it was born, though it was already being formed according to Christ. I would be ashamed before my labours and toils, this ragged clothing, the solitude and retirement in which we lived, the unequipped life, and the frugal table, falling little short of the birds’. Let some speak the truth about us, then, that we coveted another man’s wife, we who did not wish to have even one of our own. Let the Gibeonites have more of us, whom, I know, the Holy Spirit does not accept even as woodcutters and water-carriers, as long as they approach the holy things with such brands on their life and doctrine. But if we came to defend the word, and to contribute what we could to a widowed Church, without a husband until now, like guardians and protectors, to lead her as a bride to another, whoever might appear worthy of her beauty and bring more bridal gifts of virtue to the queen, are we to be praised for our eagerness or blamed on suspicion, because we are judged by the passions of others? As if you, my good man, when we stretch out a hand to a ship in a storm, or a besieged city, or a house being consumed by fire, helping with boats, or troops, or fire-fighting tools, would by all means call us lovers of the ship, the city, or the house, and not protectors and guardians.

“But it does not seem so to the many,” he says. And what difference does it make to me, whose concern is more with being, or rather wholly with being? For it is this that condemns or justifies, that makes one wretched or blessed. Seeming is nothing to us, any more than another man’s dream. “You do not seem so to the many, man,” he says. And does the earth seem to stand still to those who are dizzy? Do the sober seem sober to the drunk, and not to be walking on their heads or turning round? Is honey not bitter, when and to whom it seems so, to the sick and those in a bad state? But things are not, for that reason, as they seem to those who are so affected. Show, then, that those who think so are healthy, and then advise us to change; or else condemn me if I am not persuaded but stand by the same judgment. I do not seem so to the many, but I seem so to God; and I do not merely seem, I am manifest to him who knows all things before they come into being, who alone fashions our hearts, who understands all our works, the movements and the thoughts with which deeds are done; from whom nothing that exists is hidden or can be, who sees our affairs differently from the way men see them. For man looks on the face, but God on the heart. Hear the Scripture that says so, and believe; for those who have sense must care for him more than for all others together. Or, if you consulted two men about the same matter, one more intelligent and the other more ignorant, would you be thought sensible if you passed over the more intelligent and followed the more ignorant? Nor did Rehoboam do well when he despised the counsel of the elders and adopted that of the younger men. And when God and men are compared, would anyone prefer the things of men? Not you, if you will listen to me and think better. [8] “But we are ashamed,” he says, “at the insults against you.” And I am ashamed for you, that you are ashamed. For if we suffer these things justly, it is we, rather than you on our behalf, who ought to be ashamed, not because we are dishonoured but because we deserve dishonour; but if unjustly, the charge belongs to those who insult us, and one ought to be indignant for them rather than for us; for it is they who are suffering harm. If, when I was bad, you thought me excellent, what should I have done? Become worse, so as to please you more? I would not have advised myself so. So too, if you think that I err when I do right, I will not change from doing right because of you. For I live not for you rather than for myself; and I have as my counsellor in everything reason and the ordinances of God, by which I am often convicted when no one accuses me, and acquitted when many condemn me. And this alone cannot be escaped, the tribunal within us and in us; looking to it alone, one must go the straight way. As for seeming, if it is ours, we will accept it, to speak in a human way; but if it goes against us, we will let it go, and lose nothing of being through seeming.

For so it is: whoever pursues the good for the sake of something else is not firm in virtue; for as soon as that thing has passed, he will stop doing good, like one who sails for gain, who will stop sailing if gain is not at hand. But whoever honours and cherishes the good for its own sake, since he loves what stands firm, has a standing eagerness for it, experiencing something divine, and is able to say the word of God, “I am the same, and I have not changed.” So he will not be remade, nor moved, nor change along with times and affairs, becoming now one thing and now another and taking on many colours, as octopuses take on those of the rocks they cling to; but he will always remain himself, fixed among things that are not fixed, and unturning among things that turn; a rock, I think, against the onsets of winds and waves, unshaken, and breaking upon itself whatever strikes it. So much for these things; for I have no leisure to fight with tongues, and this has perhaps been more than necessary.

But this is my word to you, my flock:

Become for me …

… my joy and crown of boasting; you are my defence to those who examine me; so that, just as it is enough for carpenters or painters, when asked to account for themselves, to show the building or the painting to be rid of trouble (for deed, it is said, is stronger than word), so I, by showing you yourselves, may rise above the reproaches. And how shall I rise above them? First, if you keep the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unswerving and firm, adding nothing, taking nothing away, diminishing nothing of the one Godhead (for to lessen any part is to lessen the whole); and if you send away those who think or say anything else, or who dissolve the one by measures of natures, or wall it off, as a plague of the Church and a poison of the truth, not hating them but pitying their fall. Second, if you show a way of life consistent with right doctrine, so that you may be skilled with both hands in virtue and not fall short in either. Emperors, respect your purple; for the word will lay down the law even for lawgivers. Know how great is what has been entrusted to you, and how great a mystery surrounds you. The whole world is under your hand, held by a small diadem and a short cloak. The things above are God’s alone; the things below are yours too. Be gods to those under you, if I may say something bolder. “The heart of the king is in the hand of God,” it is said and believed. Let your power lie there, not in gold and armies. You who are about the palaces and the thrones, do not be too elated by your authority, nor think immortal thoughts about things that are not immortal. Remain faithful to the emperors, but first to God, and for his sake also to those to whom you have been entrusted and handed over. You who boast of your birth, ennoble your character; or I will say something unpleasant, but noble: your nobility would be truly the noblest if registers did not also enrol low-born men among you.

You wise men and philosophers, solemn in beard and cloak, you sophists and grammarians and hunters of public applause: I do not know how you could be called wise, when you do not have the first Word. You who are about wealth, hear him who says, “If wealth flows in, do not set your heart on it”; know that you are trusting in an unstable thing. Lighten the ship a little, so that you may sail lighter. Perhaps you will take something away from an enemy, to whom your goods will pass. You who are about luxury, take something from the belly and give it to the spirit. The poor man is near: help him in his sickness; belch out to him something of your excess. Why do you suffer from indigestion and he from hunger? You from drunkenness and he from dropsy? You weighing down surfeit with surfeit, and he overthrown by disease? Do not overlook your Lazarus here, lest he make you the rich man there. You, the great city, first immediately after the first, or not even yielding this: show yourself first to me, not in vice but in virtue, not in dissoluteness but in good order. How shameful it is to rule cities and be ruled by pleasures; or to be sober in other things, but so mad about horse races, theatres, stadia, and hunts as to make these your life, so that the first among cities becomes a city of players, when it would more fittingly be a model of every good thing for the others. If you spit on these things, may you be a city of God, may you be inscribed on the hands of the Lord, and may you stand with us before the great Founder of the city, bright and brightly, hereafter. This good news I announce to you in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be glory, honour, and might for ever. Amen.

Jesus, who chose the fishermen, himself also casts the net like them, and moves from place to place. For what reason? Not only that he may gain more of those who love God by his visit, but also, it seems to me, that he may sanctify more places. He becomes to the Jews as a Jew, that he may gain Jews; to those under the law as under the law, that he may redeem those under the law; to the weak as weak, that he may save the weak. He becomes all things to all, that he may gain all. But why do I say “all things to all”? What not even Paul ventured to say of himself, this I find the Saviour undergoing. For he not only becomes a Jew, and takes upon himself all the strange and vile names, but also what is stranger than all of them: he is called sin itself and curse itself. He is not these, but he is called so. For how is he sin, who frees us from sin? How is he a curse, who redeems us from the curse of the law? But he does it that he may display his humility even to this extent, shaping us towards humility, which brings exaltation. As I said, then, he becomes a fisherman, he comes down to all, he casts the net, he bears all things, that he may draw up from the deep the fish, man, who swims in the unstable and bitter waves of life, …

For this reason too, now, “when he had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee and came to the borders of Judaea beyond the Jordan.” He rightly sojourns in Galilee, that “the people who sat in darkness may see a great light.” He moves into Judaea, that he may make them rise up from the letter and follow the Spirit. Now he teaches on a mountain, now he discourses on the plains, now he crosses into a boat, now he rebukes storms. Perhaps he also accepts sleep, that he may bless sleep too; perhaps he grows weary, that he may sanctify weariness too; perhaps he weeps, that he may make tears praiseworthy. He passes from place to place who is contained by no place, the timeless, the bodiless, the uncircumscribed, the same who both was and comes to be; he was above time and comes under time, he was invisible and is seen. “In the beginning he was, and he was with God, and he was God.” The “was” is made firm by being said three times. What he was he emptied; what he was not he assumed; not becoming two, but enduring to become one out of the two. For both are God, that which assumed and that which was assumed: two natures meeting in one, not two sons. Let the blending not be falsely represented. He who is so great, so vast… but what has happened to me? I have again fallen into human words. For how is the simple so vast? How is what has no quantity so great? But pardon my speech: I speak of the greatest things with a small instrument. And this too the great and long-suffering nature, without form and without body, will bear: words about it as about a body, and words weaker than the truth. For if it accepted flesh, it also bears such speech.

“And great crowds followed him, and he healed them there,” where the wilderness was greater. If he had stayed on his own height, if he had not come down to weakness, if he had remained what he was, keeping himself unapproachable and incomprehensible, perhaps few would have followed him; I do not know whether even few, perhaps only Moses, and he only so far as barely to see the back parts of God. For he passed through the cloud, having got outside the weight of the body or withdrawn from the senses; but the subtlety of God, or his incorporeality, or however one might name it, how could he have beheld it, being a body and looking with bodily eyes? But since he empties himself for us, since he comes down (by emptying I mean the lowering, as it were, and lessening of his glory), for this reason he becomes able to be contained, …

But pardon me in passing if I again suffer a human feeling. I am filled with anger and grief for my Christ (and may you share my feeling) when I see my Christ dishonoured on account of the very thing for which he most deserved to be honoured. Is he without honour, tell me, because for your sake he is humble? Is he a creature because he cares for the creature? Is he under time because he visits those under time? He bears all things, he accepts all things. And what is wonderful in that? He bore blows, he endured spitting, he tasted gall because of my tasting. Even now he bears being stoned, not only by those who insult him but also by us ourselves who seem to be devout. For to use bodily names in speaking about the incorporeal is perhaps the part of those who insult and stone; but, I say again, pardon our weakness. For we stone not willingly, but because we have no other way of speaking, using what we have. You are called Word, and you are above word; you are above light, and you are named light; you are called fire, not as perceptible, but because you purge away the light and worthless matter; sword, because you cut the worse from the better; winnowing fan, because you cleanse the threshing floor, sending off all that is light and windblown and laying up all that is heavy and full in the barns above; axe, because you cut down the fruitless fig tree after long patience, because you cut out the roots of wickedness; door, because of the leading in; way, because we travel straight; sheep, because you are the victim; high priest, because you offer the body; Son, because you are from the Father. Again I set tongues moving; again some rage against Christ, or rather against me, who was thought worthy to be the herald of the Word. As “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” I become John, in a wilderness once also waterless, but now all too thickly peopled.

But, to run back to my subject as I was saying, for this reason great crowds followed him, because he comes down to our weaknesses. What next? “And the Pharisees came to him,” it says, “testing him and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” Again Pharisees test him; again those who read the law do not know the law; again those who are the interpreters of the law need other teachers. It was not enough that Sadducees tested him about the resurrection, and lawyers asked about perfection, and Herodians about the tribute, and others about authority; someone must again ask about marriage him who cannot be tested, the Creator of wedlock, who from the first cause established this whole race of men. “And he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?” He knows how to solve some questions and to silence others. When he is asked, “By what authority do you do these things?” because of the great ignorance of the questioners, he himself asks in return, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?” And he entangles the questioners on both sides. So we too, imitating Christ, may sometimes silence those who dispute with us officiously, and undo the absurdity of their questions with more absurd counter-questions; for we too are sometimes wise in vanities, if I may boast of folly. But when he sees a question that needs reasoning, then he does not refuse the questioners a sensible answer. The question you have asked seems to me to honour chastity and to call for a humane answer: chastity, about which I see most people badly disposed, and their law unequal and inconsistent. For why did they punish the woman but give licence to the man? A woman who plots evil against her husband's bed commits adultery, and the penalties of the laws for this are bitter; but a man who commits sexual immorality against his wife goes unpunished? I do not accept this legislation; I do not approve the custom. The lawgivers were men; that is why the legislation is against women, since they also placed children under the authority of their fathers and left the weaker sex uncared for. But God does not do so; rather: “Honour your father and your mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise, “that it may be well with you.”

“He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death.” Likewise it honoured the good and punished the evil. And, “The blessing of a father establishes the houses of children, but the curse of a mother uproots foundations.” See the equality of the legislation. One Maker of man and woman, one dust both, one image, one law, one death, one resurrection. We are born alike of man and woman; one debt is owed by children to parents. … [7] “The two,” it says, “into one flesh”; so let the one flesh have equal honour. And Paul legislates chastity also by the example. How, and in what way? “This mystery is great, but I speak with reference to Christ and the church.” It is good for the wife to reverence Christ through her husband; good also for the husband not to dishonour the church through his wife. “Let the wife,” it says, “see that she fears her husband,” for so she fears Christ; but also let the husband cherish his wife, for so Christ cherishes the church. But let us labour still further over the saying.

“Milk the milk, and there will be butter.” Examine it, and perhaps you will find something more nourishing in it. For the passage seems to me here to reject second marriage. For if there were two Christs, there would be two husbands and two wives; but if there is one Christ, one head of the church, there is also one flesh, and let a second be refused. But if it forbids the second, what is to be said of the third? The first is law, the second concession, the third transgression of the law. And he who goes beyond this is swinish, as one who does not even have many examples of the vice. The law gives the bill of divorce for every cause; but Christ not for every cause: he permits separation only from the unchaste woman, and commands that all else be borne with philosophy. He makes the unchaste woman the exception because she corrupts the offspring; in all else let us endure and be philosophers, or rather, endure and be philosophers, all you who have taken up the yoke of marriage. If you see painted lines on her face or under her eyes, take that adornment away; if a forward tongue, make it sober; if a harlot's laugh, make it grave; if extravagance or excessive drinking, curb it; if untimely outings, fetter them; if a roving eye, correct it. But do not cut rashly; do not separate. It is unclear which is endangered, the one who cuts or the one who is cut. “Let the fountain of water,” it says, “be your own, and let no stranger share it with you”; and, “Let the colt of your favours and the fawn of your love keep company with you.” Do not then become a stranger's river, nor be eager to please others more than your own wife. But if you are carried elsewhere, you lay down licentiousness as a law for your own member too. So the Saviour.

What of the Pharisees? To them the saying seems harsh. For other things too that are right displease both the Pharisees of that time and the Pharisees of today. For it is not only descent but also way of life that makes a Pharisee; so too I know an Assyrian and an Egyptian, the man who by his choice ranks himself with them. What then do the Pharisees say? “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” Do you only now learn this, Pharisee, that “it is not expedient to marry”? Did you not know it before, when you saw the widowhoods and the orphanhoods, the untimely deaths, the mourning that follows close on the applause, the tombs beside the bridal chambers, the childlessness and the bad children, the births unfinished and the infants left motherless, and all the … that goes with these? Is it expedient to marry? I too accept it: “for marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled”; but it is expedient for the moderate, not for the insatiable and those who wish to give the flesh more honour than is due. When marriage is only this, marriage and union and the desire for a succession of children, marriage is good, for it brings in more people who are pleasing to God. But when it kindles matter and surrounds itself with thorns and becomes, as it were, a road of vice, then I too say: “It is not expedient to marry.”

Marriage is good, but I cannot say that it is higher than virginity. For virginity would be nothing great if it were not better than something good. Do not be angry, you women who are under the yoke: “we must obey God rather than men.” But be bound to one another, virgins and wives, and be one in the Lord, and each other's ornament. There would be no unmarried person if there were no marriage; for where did a virgin come from into this life? Marriage would not be revered if it did not bear virgins as fruit both for God and for life. You too, then, honour your mother, from whom you were born; and you too honour her who is from a mother, though not a mother herself. A mother she is not, but she is a bride of Christ. Visible beauty is not hidden; the invisible is seen by God. “All the glory of the king's daughter is within, clothed in golden fringes, embroidered,” whether with deeds or with contemplations. She who is under the yoke is in part Christ's; the virgin is wholly Christ's. Let the one not be wholly bound to the world; let the other not belong to the world at all. For what is a part for her who is under the yoke is the whole for the virgin. Have you chosen the angels' way of life? You have been ranked with the unwedded; do not be brought down into the flesh, do not be brought down into matter, do not be wedded to matter, even though otherwise you remain unmarried. An eye that commits fornication does not keep virginity; a tongue that commits fornication has union with the evil one; feet that walk disorderly accuse of disease or danger. Let the mind too be virgin; let it not roam, not wander, not carry within it images of evil deeds, for the image too is a part of fornication; let the soul not form idols of what is hateful.

But he said to them, “Not all receive this saying, but those to whom it is given.” Do you see the loftiness of the thing? It is found almost beyond receiving. For how is it not higher than flesh, that one born of flesh should not beget for the flesh? How is it not angelic, that one bound to flesh should not live according to the flesh, but be higher than nature? The flesh bound her to the world, but reason led her up to God; the flesh weighed her down, but reason gave her wings; the flesh fettered, but longing set free. Be wholly stretched out towards God in your soul, virgin (and this very thing I lay down as law for men and women alike), and let nothing else appear beautiful to you of the things the many find beautiful: not family, not wealth, not throne, not power, not the beauty that makes a show in a fine complexion and the composition of the limbs, the plaything of time and disease. If you have emptied the whole power of love towards God, if you do not have two objects of desire, the transient and the invisible, then you have been so wounded by the chosen arrow and have so learned the beauty of the Bridegroom that you can say with the bridal drama and song: “You are sweetness, and altogether desire.”

Look at the streams enclosed in lead pipes: because they are so tightly confined and driven towards one point, they often go so far beyond the nature of water as even to move upward, always pushed from behind. So, if you compress your longing and are joined wholly to God, you will move upward; you will not fall down, you will not be scattered; you will remain wholly Christ's, until you see Christ, your Bridegroom. Keep yourself unapproachable in word, in deed, in life, in thought and in movement. On every side the evil one busies himself about you; he spies out everything, where he may strike, where he may wound, in case he finds something uncovered and ready for a blow. The purer he sees you, the more eager he is to stain you; for on a bright garment stains are more conspicuous. Let not eye draw eye, nor laughter laughter, nor familiarity night, nor night ruin. For what is drawn away and stolen little by little does harm unnoticed for the present, but it ends in the sum of vice.

“Not all,” it says, “receive this saying, but those to whom it is given.” When you hear “to whom it is given”, do not fall into a heretical notion; do not bring in the natures, the earthly, the spiritual and the intermediate. For some are so badly disposed as to think that some people are of a nature wholly perishing, others of a nature being saved, and others so constituted that their choice leads them to worse or better. That one person has more aptitude than another, or less, I too accept; but aptitude alone is not enough for perfection: reason is what calls it out, so that nature may come into act, as a flint struck with iron, and so fire is produced. When you hear “to whom it is given”, add: it is given to those who are called and who incline in this direction. For when you hear, “not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy”, I advise you to understand the same. For since there are some so proud of their achievements as to ascribe all to themselves and nothing to him who made them and gave them wisdom and supplies good things, the word teaches them that even to will well needs help from God; or rather, that even to choose what is right is something divine and a gift of God's love for man. For there must be both: that it is in our power, and that salvation is from God. That is why it says “not of him who wills”, that is, not of him who wills alone, nor of him who runs alone, but also of God who shows mercy. Then, since willing too is from God, it rightly ascribed the whole to God. However much you run, however much you contend, you need him who gives the crown. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, they watch in vain who guard it.” “I know,” it says, “that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” nor victory to those who fight, nor harbours to those who sail well; it belongs to God both to bring about victory and to bring the ship safe into harbour.

This is also said and understood elsewhere, and perhaps it is necessary to add to what has been said what has occurred to me, that I may share my wealth with you too. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, moved by a mother's love, made a request without knowing the measure of what she asked, but pardonably, through the excess of her affection and the goodwill owed to children. For nothing is more tender-hearted than a mother; and I say this that I may lay down a law that mothers be honoured. Their mother, then, asked Jesus that one might sit at his right hand and one at his left. But what of the Saviour? He first asks whether they can drink the cup that he himself was about to drink. And when this was professed and the Saviour accepted it (for he knew that they too were being perfected by the same, or rather that they would be perfected), what does he say? “The cup you will drink; but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but it is for those to whom it has been given.” Is the ruling mind, then, nothing? Nothing the labour? Nothing the reasoning? Nothing the philosophy? Nothing the fasting? Nothing the keeping of vigil, the sleeping on the ground, the shedding of fountains of tears? Is it for none of these, but by some kind of lot, that a Jeremiah is sanctified and others are estranged from the womb?

I fear that some absurd reasoning may also creep in, as though the soul had lived elsewhere and had then been bound to this body, and as though it is because of that former life that some received prophecy while others, those who had lived badly, are condemned. But since to suppose this is quite absurd and not according to the church's teaching (let others play with such doctrines; for us it is not safe to play with such things), there too add to “and to whom it is given” the words “to those who are worthy”: those who have not only received from the Father to be such, but have also given it to themselves.

“For there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs from their mother's womb,” and so on. I should very much like to have something manly to say about the eunuchs. Do not be proud, you who are eunuchs by nature. For your chastity is perhaps involuntary: it has not come to the test, nor has your self-control been proved by experience. For good that comes from nature is unproved; good that comes from choice is praiseworthy. What thanks does fire get for burning? It has burning by nature. What thanks does water get for flowing downward? It has this from its Maker. What thanks does snow get for its coldness, or the sun for shining? It shines even if it does not wish to. Give me the willing of what is better. You give it if, being flesh, you become spiritual; if, dragged down by the lead of the flesh, you are given wings by reason; if, having been made lowly, you are found heavenly; if, bound to flesh, you show yourself above flesh.

Since, then, to set the mind on bodily things is not praiseworthy, I ask something else of the eunuchs: do not commit fornication against the Godhead. Joined to Christ, do not dishonour Christ. Being perfected by the Spirit, do not make the Spirit of equal honour with yourselves. “If I were still pleasing men,” Paul says, “I should not be a servant of Christ.” If I worshipped a creature, I should not be named a Christian. For why is the name Christian precious? Is it not because Christ is God? Unless I feel this way merely as a man, bound to him by friendship. And yet I honour Peter too, but I do not hear “Petrian”; and Paul, but I have not heard “Paulian”. I do not accept being named after men, since I was born of God. So if you are called a Christian because you have taken him to be God, may you be so called and may you remain in the name and in the reality. But if you are called after him because you are fond of Christ, you give him no more than the other names that are taken from some pursuit or affair. [18] Look at these people who are devoted to the horse races: they are named after the colours and the factions they belong to; you know the names even if I do not say them. If you hear “Christian” in this sense, the title is very small, even if you pride yourself on it; but if it is because you have taken him to be God, show by your works that you have. If the Son is a creature, even now you worship the creature instead of the Creator. If the Holy Spirit is a creature, you were baptized in vain; you are sound in two parts, or rather not even in those, and in the one you are in complete danger. Suppose the Trinity to be one pearl, alike on every side and shining equally: whatever happens to a part of the pearl, the whole beauty of the stone is destroyed. So when you dishonour the Son in order to honour the Father, he does not accept your honour; the Father is not glorified by the dishonour of the Son. If “a wise son gladdens a father”, how much more is the honour of the Son the honour of the Father! And if you accept this too, “My child, do not glorify yourself in your father's dishonour”, so neither is the Father glorified in the dishonour of the Son. If you dishonour the Holy Spirit, the Son does not accept your honour. For even if he is not from the Father as the Son is, yet he is from the same Father. Either honour the whole or dishonour the whole, so that you may be consistent with yourself. I do not accept your half-piety. I want you to be wholly pious, but as I wish. Forgive my feeling: I grieve even for those who hate me. You were my member, even if you are now cut off; and perhaps you will become so again; that is why I speak kindly. This I say for the eunuchs, that they may be chaste regarding the Godhead.

For it is not only sin concerning the body that is called fornication and adultery, but any sin whatever, and above all transgression against the divine. Where can we show this? Perhaps you demand it. “They committed fornication,” it says, “in their practices.” Do you see a shameless act of fornication too?

“They committed adultery,” it says, “with the wood.” Do you see an adulterous kind of worship too? Do not, then, commit adultery in the soul while being chaste in body; do not show that your chastity of the flesh is involuntary by being unchaste where you are able to commit fornication. Why have you made impiety your own? Why are you all carried towards the worse, so that it is now the same thing to be called a eunuch or impious? Be with the men; think something manly at last; flee the women's quarters; let the shame of what you proclaim not be added to the shame of the name. Do you want us to persevere in the discourse a little longer? Or have you had enough of what has been said? But let the eunuchs also be honoured by what follows, for the passage is laudatory.

“For there are eunuchs,” it says, “who were born so from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.” The passage seems to me to leave bodies behind and to figure higher things through bodies. For to stop the passage at bodily eunuchs would perhaps be petty, very weak, and unworthy of the word; we must conceive something worthy of the Spirit. Some, then, seem to incline to the good by nature. When I say nature, I do not dishonour choice, but I posit both: the aptitude for the good, and that which brings the natural aptitude into act. Others there are whom the word purifies by cutting away the passions. These I take to be the ones made eunuchs by men, when the teaching word, separating the better from the worse, sending away the one and enjoining the other (as in “Turn away from evil and do good”), produces spiritual chastity. I praise this eunuchry too, and I greatly praise teachers and taught alike, because the former cut well and the latter were cut still better.

“And there are those who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Others did not meet with teachers, but became praiseworthy teachers of themselves. No mother taught you what is right, no father, no presbyter, no bishop, nor anyone else entrusted with teaching; but, stirring up the reason within you, kindling the spark of the good by your choice, you made yourself a eunuch: you cut out the root, you banished the instruments of vice, you acquired such a habit of virtue that a movement towards the worse became almost impossible for you. Therefore I praise this eunuchry too, and perhaps more than the others. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it. Choose whichever portion you wish: either follow the teacher or become your own teacher. One thing alone is shameful: that the passions not be cut off. As for how they are cut off, make no distinction. The one who teaches is God's creature, and you too came from there; whether the teacher carries off the credit or the good becomes your own, it is equally good.

Only let us cut ourselves off from the passions, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble us. Only let us follow the image, only let us reverence the archetype. Cut off the passions of the body; cut off those of the soul too. For as the soul is more precious than the body, so it is more precious to purify the soul than the body. If the purifying of the body is praiseworthy, consider how much greater and loftier is that of the soul. Cut off the Arian impiety; cut off the false doctrine of Sabellius. Neither join more than is right nor divide wrongly; neither contract the three into one person nor make three natures alien to one another. Both the one is praiseworthy, rightly understood, and the three, rightly distinguished, when the division is of persons and not of Godhead. [23] These things I lay down as law for laypeople, these I enjoin on presbyters, these on those entrusted with rule. Help the word, all you who have from God the power to help. It is a great thing to restrain murder, to punish adultery, to correct theft; much greater to establish piety by law and to bestow sound doctrine. My word, fighting for the Holy Trinity, will not have as much power as your decree, if you silence those who are ill-disposed, if you help the persecuted, if you restrain the murderers, if you prevent killing; I mean not only of the body but also of the soul. For every sin is death of the soul. Let the word stop here.

For the rest, let there be a prayer for those who have come together. Men and women together, ruled and rulers, old men and young men with virgins, every age: bear every loss, of money and of body; only one thing do not accept, the loss of the Godhead. I worship the Father, I worship the Son, I worship the Holy Spirit; or rather, we worship, I first before all, who say this, and I after all and with all, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be the glory and the might for ever. Amen.

Christ is born: give glory. Christ from heaven: go to meet him. Christ on earth: be lifted up. “Sing to the Lord, all the earth”; and, to say both in one, “Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad”, because of him who is heavenly, then earthly. Christ in the flesh: rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of sin, with joy because of hope. Christ from a virgin: women, live as virgins, that you may become mothers of Christ. Who does not worship him who is from the beginning? Who does not glorify him who is the last? [2] Again darkness is dispersed, again light is established; again Egypt is punished with darkness, again Israel is lit by a pillar. Let the people who sat in the darkness of ignorance see the great light of knowledge. “The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” The letter withdraws, the Spirit gains the advantage; the shadows run past, the truth comes in. Melchizedek is completed: he who was without mother becomes without father; without mother the first time, without father the second. The laws of nature are dissolved; the world above must be filled. Christ commands; let us not resist. “All you nations, clap your hands, for a child is born to us and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder” (for it is lifted up with the cross), “and his name is called Angel of great counsel”, that of the Father. Let John cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” I too will cry out the power of the day: the fleshless is made flesh, the Word becomes thick, the invisible is seen, the intangible is touched, the timeless begins, the Son of God becomes Son of man, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for ever”. Let Jews be offended, let Greeks mock, let heretics wag their tongues. They will believe when they see him ascending into heaven; and if not then, when they see him coming from heaven and sitting as judge.

These things later. The present feast is the Theophany, or Birthday; for it is called both, two names being given to one thing. For God appeared to men through birth: on the one hand being, and ever being, from him who ever is, beyond cause and reason (for there was no reason higher than the Word); on the other hand, coming to be later for our sake, that he who gave being might also bestow well-being; or rather, that when we had flowed away from well-being through vice, he might bring us back to it again through his incarnation. The name Theophany comes from his appearing, Birthday from his being born. [4] This is our festival, this we celebrate today: the coming of God to men, that we may go to dwell with God, or rather return (for so it is more proper to say); that, putting off the old man, we may put on the new; and as we died in Adam, so we may live in Christ, being born with Christ, crucified with him, buried with him and rising with him. For I must undergo the beautiful reversal: as painful things came from the better, so from the painful the better must return. “For where sin abounded, grace superabounded”; and if the tasting condemned, how much more did Christ's suffering justify! Therefore let us keep the feast, not as a public festival but divinely; not in a worldly way but above the world; not our own things, but the things of him who is ours, or rather of the Master; not the things of weakness, but those of healing; not those of the creation, but those of the re-creation.

How will this be? Let us not wreathe the doorways, nor organize dances, nor adorn the streets; let us not feast the eye, nor enchant the ear with pipes, nor make the sense of smell effeminate, nor prostitute the taste, nor gratify the touch, those ready roads to vice and entrances of sin. Let us not grow soft in clothing that is delicate and flowing, whose finest feature is its uselessness; nor with the sparkle of gems, nor the gleam of gold, nor the artifices of colours that falsify natural beauty and were invented against the image; nor with revelling and drunkenness, to which I know that debauchery and licentiousness are yoked, since the lessons of evil teachers are evil, or rather the crops of evil seeds are evil. Let us not set up high couches, making tents of luxury for the belly. Let us not prize the bouquet of wines, the tricks of cooks, the costliness of perfumes. Let not land and sea bring us as gifts the precious dung, for that is how I know to value luxury. Let us not strive to outdo one another in intemperance. For to me intemperance is everything superfluous and beyond need, and this while others are hungry and in want, who are of the same clay and the same composition.

But let us leave these things to the Greeks, and to Greek pomp and festivals; they give the name of gods to beings who delight in the savour of sacrifices, and consistently worship the divine with the belly, being evil makers, initiators and initiates of evil demons. But we, for whom the Word is the object of worship, if we must have some luxury, let it be in word …

… since not even for composite things is mere being …

The infinite is considered in two ways, with respect to beginning and to end (for what is beyond these and not within them is infinite). When the mind looks into the depth above, having nowhere to stand and rest in its imaginings about God, it calls the infinite and unapproachable there “without beginning”; when it looks into what is below and what follows, “immortal” and “imperishable”; and when it gathers the whole together, “eternal”. For eternity is neither time nor any part of time, since it is not measurable; but what time is for us, measured by the course of the sun, that eternity is for everlasting beings: something extended together with the things that are, like a kind of temporal motion and interval. Let this be enough of my philosophy about God for now. There is no occasion for more, since our subject is not theology but the economy. When I say God, I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the Godhead neither spreading beyond these, lest we bring in a mob of gods, nor confined within less than these, lest we be condemned for a poverty of Godhead, either Judaizing because of the monarchy or Hellenizing because of the abundance. For the evil is alike in both, though found in opposites. Such, then, is the Holy of Holies, which is veiled even by the seraphim and glorified with three “holies”, meeting in one lordship and Godhead; this has been expounded most beautifully and loftily by another before us.

But since it was not enough for goodness to be moved only in the contemplation of itself, but the good had to be poured out and go forth, so that the objects of its benefaction might be more (for this belonged to the highest goodness), he first conceives the angelic and heavenly powers; and the conception was a deed, fulfilled by the Word and perfected by the Spirit. And so second splendours came to be, ministers of the first splendour: whether we should think of them as intelligent spirits, or as a kind of immaterial and bodiless fire, or as some other nature as near as possible to those named. I would like to say that they are immovable towards evil and have only the movement of the good, being around God and the first to be illumined from God (for things here have a second illumination); but I am persuaded to suppose and say that they are not immovable but hard to move, because of him who for his splendour was called Lucifer, but who through his pride both became and is called darkness, and the apostate powers under him, makers of evil by their flight from the good, and its promoters for us.

So, then, the intelligible world came to be for him, and for these reasons, so far as I at least can philosophize about these things, weighing great things with a small word. And since his first works were good, he conceives a second world, material and visible: this is the system and compound of heaven and earth and what lies between, praiseworthy for the fine nature of each part, still more praiseworthy for the harmony and concord of the whole, each part fitting well with another and all with all, to complete one world; that he might show that he was able to give being not only to a nature akin to himself but also to one wholly alien. For the intelligent natures, grasped by mind alone, are akin to the Godhead; wholly alien are those that fall under sense, and, still further removed among these, those that are wholly soulless and motionless. “But what is this to us?” perhaps one of the very festive and more eager might say. “Spur the colt to the turning post; philosophize to us about the feast and the things for which we have taken our seats today.” That I will do, even if I began a little far back, compelled by love and by the subject.

Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from one another, stood within their own bounds and bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator Word, silent praisers and loud heralds of his mighty work. But there was not yet a mixture of both, nor any blending of opposites, a token of greater wisdom and of lavishness about the natures; nor was the whole wealth of his goodness yet known. Wishing to display this, the Word, the artist, creates man, one living being out of both, I mean the invisible and the visible nature. Taking the body from the matter that already existed, and placing in it breath from himself, which the word knows as the intelligent soul and the image of God, he sets him on the earth as a kind of second world, great in little, another angel, a worshipper of mixed nature, fully initiated into the visible creation, partly initiated into the intelligible, king of all on earth but ruled from above, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and intelligible, midway between greatness and lowliness; the same being spirit and flesh: spirit because of grace, flesh because of the elevation; the one that he may remain and glorify his Benefactor, the other that he may suffer, and by suffering be reminded and disciplined when he is ambitious about his greatness; a living being cared for here and transferred elsewhere, and, as the end of the mystery, deified by his inclination towards God. For to this, I think, the moderate light of truth here leads me: to see and to experience the splendour of God, worthy of him who both bound us together and will loose us, and will bind us again in a loftier way.

He placed him in paradise, whatever this paradise was, honouring him with free will, so that the good might belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who provided its seeds: a cultivator of immortal plants, perhaps of divine thoughts, both the simpler and the more perfect; naked in his simplicity and artless life, without any covering or screen; for such it was fitting that he should be who was from the beginning. And he gives him a law, as material for his free will. The law was a commandment, which plants he might partake of and which he might not touch. This was the tree of knowledge, neither planted evilly from the beginning nor forbidden out of envy (let the enemies of God not wag their tongues in that direction, nor imitate the serpent), but good when partaken of at the right time; for the tree was, in my view, contemplation, which it is safe to undertake only for those of more perfect habit, but not good for those still simple and greedy in their desire, just as solid food is not profitable for those still tender and in need of milk. But when, through the envy of the devil and the injury done by the woman, which she suffered as the more tender and brought upon him as the more persuasive (alas for my weakness! for my forefather's weakness is mine), he forgot the commandment that had been given and was overcome by the bitter tasting, he became at once, through his wickedness, an exile from the tree of life, from paradise and from God; and he puts on the coats of skin, perhaps the coarser flesh, mortal and resistant; and now for the first time he knows his own shame and hides from God. Yet he gains something even here: death, and the cutting short of sin, so that evil might not be immortal; and the punishment becomes an act of love for man. For this, I am persuaded, is how God punishes.

He was first disciplined in many ways, because of the many sins which the root of evil put forth for various causes and at various times: by word, by law, by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by floods, by fires, by wars, by victories, by defeats, by signs from heaven, signs from the air, from the earth, from the sea, by unexpected changes in men, cities and nations, by which the aim was to wipe out evil. At last he needs a stronger remedy for more terrible diseases: mutual slaughter, adulteries, perjuries, lust for males, and that last and first of all evils, idolatry, and the transfer of worship from the Maker to the creatures. Since these needed a greater help, they also obtain a greater. This was the very Word of God, the pre-eternal, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the bodiless, the beginning from the beginning, the light from light, the source of life and immortality, the impress of the archetypal beauty, the unmoved seal, the unchanging image, the Father's definition and word: he comes to his own image, and bears flesh for the sake of flesh, and is mingled with an intelligent soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing like by like; and he becomes man in all things except sin. He was conceived of the Virgin, who had first been cleansed in soul and flesh by the Spirit (for birth had to be honoured, and virginity honoured more), and he came forth God with what he had assumed, one out of two opposites, flesh and Spirit, of which the one deified and the other was deified. O new mingling! O strange blending! He who is comes to be, and the uncreated is created, and the uncontained is contained, through the mediation of an intelligent soul standing between the Godhead and the coarseness of flesh. And he who makes rich becomes poor: for he becomes poor in my flesh, that I may become rich in his Godhead. And he who is full is emptied: for he is emptied of his own glory for a little while, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery concerning me? I received the image and did not keep it; he receives my flesh, to save the image and to make the flesh immortal. He enters into a second communion, far stranger than the first, inasmuch as then he gave a share in the better, while now he takes a share in the worse. This is more godlike than the first; this is loftier for those who have understanding.

To this what do the slanderers say to us, the bitter reckoners of the Godhead, the accusers of what is praiseworthy, those dark about the light, uninstructed about wisdom, for whom Christ died in vain, ungrateful creatures, the evil one's handiwork? Do you charge God with this, his benefaction? Is he small because he humbled himself for you? Because the good shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came to the straying one, upon the mountains and hills where you used to sacrifice, and found the straying one; and having found it, took it on his shoulders, on which he also bore the wood; and having taken it, brought it back to the life above; and having brought it back, numbered it with those who had stayed? Because he lit a lamp, his own flesh, and swept the house, cleansing the world of sin, and sought the coin, the royal image buried under the passions, and calls together his friends, the powers, at the finding of the coin, and makes them sharers of his joy, whom he had also made initiates of the economy? Because the surpassingly bright light follows the forerunning lamp, and the Word the voice, and the bridegroom the bridegroom's friend, who prepared for the Lord a people of his own and cleansed them beforehand by water for the Spirit? Do you charge God with these things? Do you think him lesser for this, because he girds himself with a towel and washes his disciples' feet and shows that the best way to exaltation is humility? Because he humbles himself for the sake of the soul bent down to the ground, that he may lift up with himself what is bowed down by sin? And how is it you do not accuse him of this too, that he eats with tax collectors and at tax collectors' tables, and makes tax collectors his disciples, that he too may gain something? Gain what? The salvation of sinners. Unless one should blame a physician for stooping over sores and putting up with bad smells to give health to the sick; or one who out of compassion leans over a pit to save, as the law commands, the beast that has fallen into it.

He was sent, but as man, for he was twofold; since he also grew weary, and hungered and thirsted and was in agony and wept, by the law of the body. But if he was sent as God too, what of it? Consider the sending to be the good pleasure of the Father, to whom he refers his own actions, both honouring the timeless principle and so as not to seem to be opposed to God. For he is said to have been given up, but it is also written that he gave himself up; and that he was raised by the Father and taken up, but also that he raised himself and ascended again: the former belong to the good pleasure, the latter to the authority. But you speak of what lessens him and pass over what exalts him; you take account of his suffering but do not add that it was willing. What the Word suffers even now! By some he is honoured as God and confused; by others he is dishonoured as flesh and severed. With which will he be more angry? Or rather, which will he forgive: those who wrongly confuse, or those who cut apart? For the former should have divided, and the latter united: the former in number, the latter in Godhead. Do you stumble at the flesh? So did the Jews. Or do you call him a Samaritan too, and the rest, which I will pass over in silence? Do you disbelieve his Godhead? Not even the demons did this, O you more unbelieving than demons and more senseless than Jews! The Jews took the title “Son” as an expression of equal honour; the demons knew that he who drove them out was God, for they were convinced by what they suffered. But you neither accept the equality nor confess the Godhead. It would have been better for you to be circumcised and possessed by a demon, if I may say something even laughable, than to be uncircumcised and healthy but in a wicked and godless state. … [17] … Honour little Bethlehem, which has led you back to paradise; worship the manger, through which you, who were without reason, were fed by the Word. “Know, like the ox, your owner,” Isaiah bids you, “and, like the ass, the manger of your Lord”; whether you are one of the clean, under the law, chewing the cud of the word and fit for sacrifice, or one of those until now unclean, not to be eaten or sacrificed, of the gentile portion. Run with the star, and bring gifts with the Magi, gold and frankincense and myrrh, as to a king, as to God, and as to one who died for you. Glorify with the shepherds, sing with the angels, dance with the archangels. Let it be a common festival of the heavenly and earthly powers. For I am persuaded that they too rejoice and keep festival with us today, since they love man and love God, like those whom David brings in going up with Christ after the passion, coming to meet him and bidding one another lift up the gates.

One thing among the events of Christ's birth you must hate: Herod's slaughter of the children. Or rather, revere this too, the sacrifice of those of Christ's own age, offered before the new victim. If he flees into Egypt, gladly share his flight: it is a fine thing to flee with Christ when he is persecuted. If he lingers in Egypt, call him out of Egypt, where he is worshipped well. Pass blamelessly through all the ages and powers of Christ, as Christ's disciple. Be purified, be circumcised, strip off the veil that has been on you from your birth. After this, teach in the temple, drive out those who traffic in divine things; be stoned, if you must suffer this: you will escape those who throw, I know well, and pass through the midst of them, as God; for the Word is not stoned. If you are brought before Herod, do not answer for the most part: he will respect your silence more than the long speeches of others. If you are scourged, ask for what they leave out. Taste gall for the sake of the tasting; be given vinegar to drink; seek spitting, accept blows and buffets; be crowned with thorns, the harshness of the life according to God; put on the scarlet robe, accept the reed, be worshipped by those who mock the truth; finally, be crucified with him, die with him, be buried with him gladly, that you may also rise with him and be glorified with him and reign with him, seeing God as far as he is, and being seen by him, who is worshipped and glorified in the Trinity, whom we pray may even now be made clear to us, as far as is attainable by those bound by the flesh, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen.

Again my Jesus, and again a mystery: a mystery not deceitful nor disorderly, not of the Bacchic error and drunkenness (for so I call their solemnities, and so, I think, does every sensible person), but a mystery lofty and divine, which brings us the splendour above. For the holy day of the Lights, to which we have come and which we have been thought worthy to celebrate today, takes its beginning from the baptism of my Christ, the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world; and it effects my purification and helps the light which we received from him from above at the beginning, and darkened and confused through sin.

Listen, therefore, to a divine voice, which resounds very strongly in me, the initiate and initiator of such things, and may it resound in you too: “I am the light of the world.” And therefore, “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed,” being marked with the true light. It is a time of new birth: let us be born from above. It is a time of re-creation: let us take back the first Adam. Let us not remain what we are, but become what we were. “The light shines in the darkness,” in this life and in the flesh, and is pursued by the darkness but not overtaken: I mean the opposing power, which shamelessly assaults the visible Adam but meets God and is defeated; so that we, putting off the darkness, may draw near to the light, and then become perfect light, the offspring of perfect light. Do you see the grace of the day? Do you see the power of the mystery? Have you not been lifted from the earth? Have you not plainly been set on high, exalted by our voice and our guidance upward? And you will be set higher still when the Word prospers my word.

Is this some purification of the law, a shadowy one, profiting by temporary sprinklings and sprinkling the defiled with the ashes of a heifer? Do the Greeks initiate into anything of the kind? To me all their rites and mysteries are nonsense, a dark invention of demons and a fiction of an ill-starred mind, helped along by time and concealed by myth. For what they worship as true they cover up as mythical; whereas, if it is true, it ought not to be called myth but shown not to be shameful; and if it is false, it ought not to be admired, nor ought they so boldly to hold the most contrary opinions about the same thing, as if they were playing with boys in the marketplace, or with men truly ill-starred, and not conversing with men of sense and worshippers of the Word, who spurn this artful and filthy plausibility.

These are not the births and thefts of Zeus, the tyrant of the Cretans, even if the Greeks are displeased; nor the din and clapping and armed dances of the Curetes, drowning the cry of a weeping god, that he might escape his child-hating father; for it would have been dreadful for one who had been swallowed as a stone to wail like a baby. Nor are they the castrations of the Phrygians, and pipes, and Corybantes, and all the madness of men about Rhea, initiating and being initiated for the mother of the gods in rites that befit such a mother. Nor is some maiden carried off, and Demeter wanders and brings in Celeuses and Triptolemuses and serpents, and does some things and suffers others: for I am ashamed to bring the night's rite into the day and to make indecency a mystery. Eleusis knows these things, and the beholders of what is kept silent and is truly worthy of silence. Nor is it Dionysus, and the thigh in labour with an unfinished embryo, as earlier a head with another; and a hermaphrodite god, and a chorus of drunkards, and a dissolute army, and the folly of the Thebans who honour him, and the thunderbolt of Semele worshipped. Nor the harlot mysteries of Aphrodite, who, as they themselves say, was both born and is honoured shamefully. Nor certain phalluses and ithyphalli, shameful in their shapes and in their deeds; nor the slaughter of strangers among the Taurians, and the blood of Laconian youths on the altar, torn by the whips and showing their courage wrongly in this alone, they who honour a goddess, and she a virgin. For the same people both honoured effeminacy and revered boldness.

Where will you put the butchery of Pelops, feasting hungry gods, a bitter and inhuman hospitality? Where the fearful and dark apparitions of Hecate, and the underground tricks and oracles of Trophonius, or the babbling of the oak of Dodona, or the sophistries of the Delphic tripod, or the prophetic draught of Castalia? This alone they did not prophesy: their own silence. Nor is it the sacrificial art of the Magi and their divination from entrails, and the astronomy and casting of nativities of the Chaldeans, who bind our affairs to the movement of the heavenly bodies, which cannot know even what they themselves are or will be; nor the orgies of the Thracians, from whom, as the story goes, comes even the word “worship”; nor the rites and mysteries of Orpheus, whom the Greeks so admired for wisdom that they gave him a lyre that drew all things with its strains; nor the tortures of Mithras, justly inflicted on those who submit to initiation into such things; nor the dismemberments of Osiris, another misfortune honoured among the Egyptians; nor the misfortunes of Isis, and goats more venerable than the Mendesians, and the stall of Apis, a calf that lives in luxury on the simplicity of the people of Memphis; nor all the honours with which they insult the Nile, the giver of fruit, as they sing, and of fine ears of corn, who measures their happiness by cubits.

I pass over the honours paid to reptiles and vermin, and the zeal for indecency: for each of them there is a special rite and festival, and common to all is the wretchedness. So that, if they had to be impious at all and fall from the glory of God, sinking down to idols and works of art and things fashioned by hand, men of sense could not pray for anything else against them than that they should worship such things and honour them in this way, so that they might receive in the things they worship “the recompense which was due for their error”, as Paul says, being dishonoured by them rather than honouring them: abominable for their error, more abominable for the cheapness of what they worship and revere, so that they are even more senseless than the objects of their honour, surpassing them in folly as far as the objects of their worship surpass in cheapness …

Let the children of the Greeks, then, play with these things, and their demons, from whom their folly comes, who draw the honour of God to themselves and divide men among various shameful opinions and fancies; who, having cast us out from the tree of life by the tree of knowledge, which was not taken at the right time nor fittingly, overran us as now weaker, seizing the ruling mind and opening a door to the passions. For, being envious and hating man by nature, or rather having become so through their own wickedness, they could not bear that those below should attain to things above, when they themselves had fallen from above to earth, nor that so great a change of glory and of the first natures should take place. This is the persecution of the creature; for this the image of God was outraged; and as we did not see fit to keep the commandment, we were handed over to the self-rule of error; and as we went astray, we were dishonoured in the things we worshipped. For not only is this dreadful, that those made for good works, for the glory and praise of their Maker and for the imitation of God as far as possible, should become a base for all kinds of passions, which feed wickedly on the inner man and consume him; but also that they should set up gods as advocates for the passions, so that sinning might be not only beyond account but even thought divine, taking refuge in such a defence, the objects of their worship. [8] … whence Solomon laid down the law for us: “The beginning of wisdom,” he says, “acquire wisdom.” What does he call the beginning of wisdom? Fear. For we must not begin from contemplation and end in fear (unbridled contemplation might perhaps push us over cliffs), but, being grounded, purified and, so to speak, made light, be lifted to the heights. For where there is fear, there is keeping of the commandments; where there is keeping of the commandments, there is cleansing of the flesh, of the cloud that blocks the soul and does not let it see the divine ray purely; where there is cleansing, there is illumination; and illumination is the fulfilment of desire for those who long for the greatest things, or the greatest thing, or what is beyond the greatest. [9] Therefore we must first purify ourselves, then converse with the pure; unless we are to suffer what Israel suffered, who could not bear the glory of Moses' face and so needed a veil; or to suffer and say what Manoah said: “We are lost, wife, we have seen God”; … send Jesus away from the boat, as unworthy of such a visit. And when I say Peter, whom do I mean? The one who walked upon the waves. Or, like Paul, be struck in the eyes before being cleansed of his persecutions, having conversed with the one he persecuted, or rather with a brief flash of the great light. Or, like the centurion, seek the healing, yet, through a praiseworthy fear, not receive the healer into the house. Let each of us too say, while he is not yet cleansed but is still a centurion, commanding many in wickedness and serving in the army of Caesar, the world-ruler of those who are dragged down: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” But when he has seen Jesus, though he is small in spiritual stature, like that Zacchaeus, and has been lifted up on the sycamore, having put to death his members that are on earth and having risen above the body of humiliation, then let him receive the Word and hear, “Today salvation has come to this house”; and let him take hold of salvation and bear more perfect fruit, scattering and distributing well … [10] For the same Word is both fearful, by his nature, to those who are unworthy, and through his love for man accessible to those who are thus prepared: those who, having driven the unclean and material spirit out of their souls and having swept and adorned their souls with knowledge, have not left them idle and unoccupied, to be seized again with greater force by the seven spirits of wickedness, as many as are counted of virtue (for what is harder to overcome is the more eagerly sought), but who, besides fleeing vice, also practise virtue, making the whole Christ, or as much as possible, dwell in themselves, so that the evil power, finding nothing empty, cannot fill it again with itself and make the last state worse than the first, because of the more violent assault and the stronger, harder-to-capture garrison. But when we have kept our soul with all watchfulness, and set ascents in our heart, and broken up fallow ground for ourselves and sown for righteousness, as Solomon and David and Jeremiah advise, let us light for ourselves the light of knowledge; then let us speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery and shine upon others. Meanwhile let us be purified and initiated beforehand by the Word, that we may do ourselves the greatest good, making ourselves godlike and receiving the Word when he comes; and not only that, but holding him fast and showing him forth to others.

Since we have cleansed the theatre by our discourse, come, let us now philosophize a little about the feast and keep festival with the souls that love feasts and love God. And since the chief point of a feast is the remembrance of God, let us remember God. For the sound of those who keep festival there, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, I think is nothing other than this: God hymned and glorified by those counted worthy of the citizenship there. If what I now say contains something said before, let no one wonder. For I will not only utter the same things, but about the same things, trembling in tongue and mind and thought whenever I speak of God; and I pray that you too may share this praiseworthy and blessed feeling. When I say God, be illumined by one light and by three: three according to the properties, or hypostases, if one likes to call them so, or persons (for we will not quarrel about names, so long as the syllables convey the same meaning); one according to the principle of essence, that is, of Godhead. For it is divided indivisibly, if I may so speak, and joined dividedly. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one: those in whom the Godhead is, or, to speak more exactly, who are the Godhead. Let us leave aside excesses and defects, neither making the union a confusion nor the division an alienation. For far be it …

… Sabellius' contraction and Arius' division, evils diametrically opposed and equal in impiety. For why must God either be wrongly confused or cut up into inequalities?

But for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things: the “from whom” and “through whom” and “in whom” not dividing natures (for then the prepositions or the order of the names would never be interchanged), but characterizing the properties of one unconfused nature. And this is clear from the fact that they are brought together into one again, if one reads with care that saying in the same apostle: “From him and through him and to him are all things; to him be the glory for ever. Amen.” The Father is Father and without beginning, for he is not from anyone. The Son is Son and not without beginning, for he is from the Father. But if you take beginning in the sense of time, he too is without beginning, for he is the maker of times, not under time. The Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, proceeding from the Father, not as a son, for not by generation, but by procession, if one must coin a term for the sake of clarity. Neither does the Father depart from being unbegotten because he has begotten, nor the Son from being begotten because he is from the unbegotten (for how could he?), nor does the Spirit change into the Father or into the Son because he has proceeded and because he is God, even though the godless do not think so. For the property is immovable.

For how could a property remain if it moved and changed? Those who make unbegottenness and begottenness the natures of gods who merely share a name might perhaps also make Adam and Seth alien to one another in nature, because the one was not from flesh (for he was formed) and the other was from Adam and Eve. There is, then, one God in three, and the three are one, as we said. [13] Since this is so, or rather since it is so, and worship was not to be confined to those above, but there were to be some worshippers below as well, that all things might be filled with the glory of God, since they are God's too, man is created for this purpose, honoured by God's hand and by the image. And it was not like God to overlook him when he was pitiably separated from God his Maker by the envy of the devil and the bitter taste of sin. What happens? And what is the great mystery concerning us? Natures are made new, and God becomes man; and he who rides upon the heaven of heavens towards the east of his own glory and splendour is glorified in the west of our lowliness and humility; and the Son of God accepts both to become and to be called son of man, not changing what he was (for he is unchangeable), but assuming what he was not (for he loves man), so that the uncontainable might be contained, conversing with us through the medium of the flesh as through a veil, since it was not for a nature subject to birth and corruption to bear his Godhead unveiled. Therefore what cannot be mixed is mixed: not only God with birth, mind with flesh, the timeless with time, the uncircumscribed with measure; but also birth with virginity, dishonour with him who is higher than all honour, the impassible with suffering, and the immortal with the corruptible. For since the deceiver thought himself unconquerable in wickedness, having beguiled us with the hope of Godhead, he is himself beguiled by the screen of the flesh, so that, attacking as though Adam, he might encounter God; and thus the new Adam might save the old, and the condemnation of the flesh be loosed, death being put to death by flesh. [14] … by the habit of good. For even if the gift brings the remission of past sins (for it is a gift), it is then all the more worthy of reverence, lest we return to the same vomit. This is for those who are lifted up against the stewards of the mystery, if they excel in some rank. The third point is for those who are confident in their youth and think every time suitable for teaching or presiding. Jesus is purified, and do you despise purification? By John: and do you rise up against your herald? Being thirty years old: and do you, before your beard has grown, teach the elders, or trust yourself to teach, perhaps having neither age nor character to command respect? Then Daniel is brought up here, and so-and-so, young judges, and the examples are on the tongue; for every wrongdoer is ready with a defence. But what is rare is not the law of the church, since one swallow does not make spring, nor one line a geometer, nor one voyage a sailor.

But John is baptizing, and Jesus comes to him, perhaps to sanctify the baptizer too, but certainly to bury the whole old Adam in the water; and before these and for their sake, to sanctify the Jordan; for as he was spirit and flesh, so he perfects by Spirit and water. The Baptist does not accept; Jesus contends. “I need to be baptized by you,” says the lamp to the Sun, the voice to the Word, the friend to the Bridegroom, he who is above all among those born of women to the Firstborn of all creation, he who leapt in the womb to him who was worshipped in the womb, he who was and will be forerunner to him who has appeared and will appear. “I need to be baptized by you”: add, “for your sake”. For he knew that he would be baptized by martyrdom, or, like Peter, that he would be cleansed not only in his feet. “And do you come to me?” This too was prophetic. For he knew that after Herod, Pilate would rage, and that, as he had gone before Christ, so Christ would follow him. And what does Jesus say? “Let it be so now”; for this is the economy. For he knew that shortly he himself would baptize the Baptist. What is the winnowing fan? The cleansing. What is the fire? The consuming of what is light and chaff, and the fervour of the Spirit. What is the axe? The cutting down of the soul that bears no fruit, even after the manure. What is the sword? The cutting of the Word, which divides the worse from the better, which separates the believer from the unbeliever, and stirs up the son and the daughter and the bride against the father and the mother and the mother-in-law, the new and fresh against the old and shadowy. What is the thong of the sandal which you do not loose, you who baptize Jesus, you of the desert who did not eat, the new Elijah, more than a prophet, inasmuch as you saw him who was foretold, the mediator between the Old and the New? What is it? Perhaps the account of his coming and of his flesh, of which not even the least point is easy to undo, not only for those who are still fleshly and infants in Christ, but not even for those who are like John in the Spirit.

But Jesus also goes up out of the water; for he carries up the world with him; and he sees the heavens torn open, which Adam had shut for himself and for those after him, just as he had shut paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to his Godhead, for he runs to his like; and so does the voice from heaven, for from there is he to whom witness is borne. And in the form of a dove, for he honours the body, since this too is God by deification, by being seen in bodily form; and besides, the dove has long been accustomed to announce the end of the flood. But if you judge Godhead by bulk and weight, and so the Spirit seems small to you because he came in the form of a dove, O you who are petty about the greatest things, it is time for you to despise the kingdom of heaven too, because it is likened to a grain of mustard seed, and to rank the adversary above the greatness of Jesus, because the one is called a great mountain and Leviathan and king of those in the waters, while the other is called a lamb and a pearl and a drop and such names. … [17] … of martyrdom and blood, with which Christ himself was baptized; and this is far more venerable than the others, inasmuch as it is not defiled by later stains. I know a fifth too, that of tears; but it is more laborious, like his who washes his bed and his couch every night with his tears; whose bruises stink because of his wickedness; who goes mourning and with a sad face; who imitates the conversion of Manasseh and the humility of the Ninevites, which found mercy; who utters the words of the tax collector in the temple and is justified rather than the boastful Pharisee; who stoops like the Canaanite woman and asks for mercy and crumbs, the food of a very hungry dog.

For my part (for I confess that I am a man, a changeable creature of unstable nature), I both accept this gladly and worship him who gave it, and I share it with others, and I offer mercy in advance in return for mercy. For I know that I too am beset with weakness, and that with the measure I measure it will be measured to me. But you, what do you say, what law do you lay down, O new Pharisee, pure in name but not in purpose, puffing at us the views of Novatus with the same weakness? Do you not accept repentance? Do you give no place to lamentation? Do you shed no tear? May you not meet with such a judge! Do you not respect the love for man of Jesus, who took our weaknesses and bore our diseases, who came not for the righteous but to call sinners to repentance, who desires mercy rather than sacrifice, who forgives sins seventy times seven? How blessed your loftiness would be, if it were purity and not conceit, laying down laws beyond man and destroying correction by despair! For licence without correction and condemnation without pardon are equally evil: the one lets go the whole rein, the other strangles by its violence. Show me your purity, and I will accept your boldness. But as it is, I fear that, teeming with sores yourself, you introduce what cannot be healed. Do you not accept even David in his repentance, whose prophetic gift repentance preserved? Nor the great Peter, who suffered something human at the time of the saving passion? But Jesus accepted him, and by the threefold question and confession healed the threefold denial. Or do you not accept him even when he was perfected by blood? For this too belongs to your folly. Nor the man in Corinth who transgressed? But Paul confirmed love to him when he saw his amendment, and gave the reason: “lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow”, weighed down by the immoderate rebuke. Nor do you let young widows marry, because their age is easily overcome? But Paul ventured this, whose teacher you evidently are, as one who has reached a fourth heaven and another paradise, and heard more unspeakable words, and taken in a wider circle with the gospel.

“But these things were not after baptism.” What is the proof? Either prove it, or do not condemn. And if it is doubtful, let love for man prevail. “But Novatus,” he says, “did not receive those who fell in the persecution.” What of it? If they did not repent, rightly; I too do not receive those who either do not bend or do not do so worthily, and who do not make amends equal to the evil; and when I do receive them, I assign them their proper place. But if he did not receive those who were wasted away with tears, I will not imitate him. And why should the inhumanity of Novatus be law for me, who did not punish covetousness, the second idolatry, but condemned fornication so harshly, as though he himself were without flesh and body? What do you say? Do we persuade you by these words? Come, stand with us men. Let us magnify the Lord together. Let none of you dare to say, even if he is very confident in himself, “Do not touch me, for I am pure; and who is like me?” Give us too a share of your splendour. But if we do not persuade you, we will weep for you. These, then, if they will, let them walk our way, which is Christ's; if not, their own. Perhaps there they will be baptized with fire, the last baptism, more painful and longer, which eats up matter like grass and consumes the lightness of all wickedness. [20] … (for in nothing does God rejoice so much as in the correction and salvation of man, for whom is every word and every mystery), that you may become as lights in the world, a life-giving power to other men; that you may stand as perfect lights beside the great light and be initiated into the illumination there, illumined by the Trinity more purely and clearly, whose single ray from the one Godhead you have now received in measure, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might for ever and ever. Amen.

Yesterday we kept festival on the bright day of the Lights; for it was fitting for us to hold a feast of joy for our salvation, much more than men hold wedding feasts, birthdays, name-days, feasts of first haircutting, house-warmings, and whatever else they celebrate for friends of the flesh. Today we shall speak briefly about baptism and the benefit that comes to us from it, even though yesterday our discourse ran quickly past it, because the hour pressed and the discourse wished to avoid satiety. For satiety of speech is an enemy to the ears, as excessive food is to bodies. It is worth attending to what is said, and receiving the discourse about such great things not carelessly but eagerly; for this too is illumination, to know the power of the mystery.

The Word recognizes three births for us: that from bodies, that from baptism, and that from the resurrection. Of these, the first is of the night, servile and subject to passion; the second is of the day, free, a release from passions, cutting away the whole veil of our birth and leading us up to the life above; the third is more fearful and shorter, gathering all the creature in a moment to stand before its Creator and give account of its service and conduct here, whether it followed the flesh alone or rose up with the Spirit and revered the grace of the re-creation. All these births my Christ is seen to have honoured in himself: the first by the first and life-giving inbreathing; the second by his incarnation and by the baptism with which he himself was baptized; the third by the resurrection, of which he himself was the firstfruits; as he became the firstborn among many brothers, so he also deigned to become the firstborn from the dead.

To philosophize about two of these births, I mean the first and the last, is not for the present occasion; but let us philosophize about the middle one, which is now necessary for us, and from which the day of the Lights takes its name. Illumination is the splendour of souls, the change of life, the pledge of the conscience towards God; illumination is help for our weakness; illumination is the putting off of the flesh, the following of the Spirit, communion with the Word, the setting right of the creature, the deluge of sin, participation in light, the dissolution of darkness; illumination is a carriage to God, a journeying abroad with Christ, a prop of faith, perfection of the mind, the key of the kingdom of heaven, the exchange of life, the removal of slavery, the loosing of bonds, the remodelling of our composite being; illumination (why need I list more?) is the most beautiful and magnificent of God's gifts. As certain things are called the holy of holies and the Song of Songs, as being more comprehensive and more excellent, so this is holier than every other illumination among us.

And as Christ, its giver, is called by many and various names, so too is the gift: either because of our great joy in it (for those who are passionately fond of something gladly dwell even on its names), or because the manifold nature of the benefit has produced many titles for us. We call it gift, grace, baptism, anointing, illumination, garment of incorruption, bath of regeneration, seal, everything precious. Gift, because it is given to those who brought nothing beforehand; grace, because it is given even to debtors; baptism, because sin is buried with it in the water; anointing, as priestly and royal, for these were the ones anointed; illumination, as splendour; garment, as covering of shame; bath, as washing; seal, as preservation and the mark of ownership. In it the heavens rejoice; angels glorify it because of the kinship of its splendour; it is an image of the blessedness above; we wish to hymn it, but cannot do so as it deserves …

… is light, the highest, unapproachable and ineffable, neither grasped by the mind nor uttered in speech, … of every rational nature. It is in the world of thought what the sun is in the world of sense: presenting itself to our minds as far as we are purified, loved as far as it is pictured, and known again as far as we love; contemplating and comprehending itself, and pouring out a little of itself to what is outside. I mean the light contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whose wealth is their unity of nature and the one outleaping of their splendour. The second light is the angel, a kind of outflow of the first light or participation in it, having its illumination by inclining towards it and serving it; I do not know whether it receives its illumination according to the order of its station, or its order according to the measure of its illumination. The third light is man, as is clear even to those outside; for they call man phōs, because of the power of the word in us; and more especially those of us who are more godlike and draw nearer to God. I know also another light, by which the primeval darkness was driven away or cut through, the first thing to exist of the visible creation: the circling course of the stars, and the beacon above that lights up the whole world.

Light also was the firstborn commandment given to the first-formed man, since “the commandment of the law is a lamp and a light”, and “your ordinances are a light upon the earth”, even though the envious darkness slipped in and produced wickedness. A light, typical and proportioned to those who received it, was the written law, sketching in shadow the truth and the mystery of the great light; since the face of Moses too is glorified by it. And that we may give more lights by our discourse …

… and, having fallen into the depth, as the saying goes, despise him; but that, like those who travel a long road and rest from their labours at an inn, we may finish the rest of the journey fresh and eager. This, then, is the grace and power of baptism: not a deluge of the world, as of old, but a cleansing of the sin of each one, and a complete washing away of the mud and stains that have come in through wickedness. [8] And since we are twofold, I mean of soul and body, the one visible and the other invisible nature, the cleansing too is twofold, I mean by water and Spirit: the one received visibly and bodily, the other concurring invisibly and incorporeally; the one typical, the other true and cleansing the depths. This, coming to the aid of our first birth, makes us new instead of old and godlike instead of what we now are, recasting us without fire and re-creating us without breaking. For, to put it briefly, the power of baptism is to be understood as a covenant with God for a second life and a purer conduct. Therefore we must above all fear, and each must guard his own soul with all watchfulness, lest we be found liars to this confession. For if God, called in as mediator, confirms the agreements made with men, how great is the danger of being found transgressors of the covenants we have made with God himself, and of being answerable to the truth not only for our other sins but for the lie itself! And this when there is no second regeneration, no re-creation, no restoration to the former state, even though we seek it with ever so many groans and tears, through which a scarring over comes, though with difficulty, at least by my rule and measure (for it does come, and we believe it; and if we could also wipe out the scars, I would be glad, since I too need mercy). Yet it is better not to need a second cleansing but to stand by the first, which I know is common to all and of equal honour for slaves and masters, poor and rich, lowly and exalted, nobler and less noble, debtors and those who owe nothing, like the breathing of the air, the pouring out of light, the changes of the seasons, the sight of creation, the great delight common to all of us, and the equal share in faith.

For it is a terrible thing, instead of an easier remedy, to bring about a more painful one, and having thrown away the grace of pity to become liable to punishment, and to have to measure out amendment against sin. For how many tears shall we shed to equal the fountain of baptism? And who is the guarantor that the end will wait for the healing, and that the judgment will not receive us while we still owe, and need the fire there? You, perhaps, the good and kind gardener, will beg the Master still to spare the fig tree and not yet to cut it down when it is accused of being fruitless, but to let you put manure around it: tears, groans, prayers, sleeping on the ground, vigils, wasting of soul and body, and amendment by confession and a humbler way of life. But it is uncertain whether the Master will spare it, since it uselessly occupies the ground while another needs mercy and grows worse through his patience with this one. Let us then be buried with Christ through baptism, that we may also rise with him; let us go down with him, that we may also be exalted with him; let us go up with him, that we may also be glorified with him. [10] … “It is written,” he says, “that he will give his angels charge concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up.” O sophist of wickedness, why did you suppress what follows? For I know it well, even if you keep silent: “I will tread on the asp and the basilisk, and trample on serpents and scorpions,” walled about by the Trinity. If he tries to throw you down through greed, showing you all the kingdoms in one moment of time and sight as though they belonged to him, and demanding worship, despise him as a beggar. Say, trusting in the seal: “I too am an image of God; I have not yet been cast down from the glory above through pride, as you have; I have put on Christ; I have been transformed into Christ by baptism: you worship me.” He will depart, I know well, defeated and put to shame by these words; as from Christ the first light, so from those who have been illumined by him. Such gifts the bath bestows on those who understand it; such a banquet it sets before those who are rightly hungry.

Let us then be baptized, that we may conquer; let us share in the cleansing waters, more purging than hyssop, purer than the blood of the law, holier than the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the defiled, which gives a temporary cleansing of the body, not a complete removal of sin. For why should those once cleansed need cleansing? Let us be baptized today, that we may not be compelled tomorrow. Let us not put off the benefit as though it were an injury, nor wait to become more wicked so that more may be forgiven us; let us not become Christ-hucksters and Christ-traders, nor load ourselves beyond what we can bear, lest we go down with ship and crew and make shipwreck of the gift, losing everything when we hoped for more. While you are still master of your thoughts, run to the gift; while you are not yet sick in body and mind, nor seem so to those present, even if you are of sound mind; while your good does not lie in the hands of others but you yourself are its master; while your tongue is not faltering, nor chilled, nor, to say no more, failing in the words of initiation; while you can become a believer, not by conjecture but by confession, not pitied but called blessed; while the gift is clear to you and not doubtful, and the grace touches the depths and it is not a body washed for burial; while there are not tears around you announcing your departure, and those perhaps held back for your sake, and wife and children delaying your going and seeking your last words; while there is not an unskilled doctor at your side, granting you hours of which he is not master, weighing your salvation with a nod, philosophizing about the disease after your death, or raising his fees by withdrawing, or hinting at despair; while there is not a struggle between the baptizer and the man of business, the one striving to give you provisions for the journey, the other that he may be written in as heir, and time permitting neither.

Why do you wait for a fever to be your benefactor, and not God? Why for the hour, and not for reason? Why for a treacherous friend, and not for saving desire? Why not free choice, but force? Why not freedom, but constraint? Why must you learn of your departure from another, and not think of it as already at hand? Why seek medicines that will do no good? Why the critical sweat, when perhaps the departure is at hand? Heal yourself before necessity; have pity on yourself, the true healer of your weakness; apply to yourself the truly saving medicine. While you sail with a fair wind, fear shipwreck; and you will be less likely to be wrecked if you have fear as your helper. Let the gift be celebrated with festivity, not mourned with lamentation; let the talent be traded with, not buried. Let there be some interval between the grace and the departure, that not only may the evil writing be blotted out, but better be written in its place; that you may have not only the gift but also the reward; that you may not only escape the fire but also inherit the glory which working with the gift bestows. For to the small-souled it is a great thing to escape torment; to the great-souled, to gain a reward as well. [13] For I know three ranks among the saved: slavery, hired service, sonship. If you are a slave, fear the blows; if a hireling, look only to receiving your wage; if you are above these, a son, revere God as a father. Do good because it is good to obey your father, even if nothing is to come of it for you; this itself is the reward, to please the father. Let us not be seen to despise these things. How absurd it is to snatch at money beforehand but put off health; to cleanse bodies beforehand but store up the cleansing of the soul; to seek freedom from slavery here below but not to desire freedom above; to make every effort to be magnificently housed or clothed, but to take no thought how you yourself may be of the greatest worth; to be eager to do good to others, but not to wish to do it to yourself! If the good were for sale, you would spare no money; but when kindness is set before you, you despise it because it is ready to hand. Every time is your time for washing, since every time is a time for departure. With Paul I cry to you with that great voice: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation”: not one time, but every time, the “now” defining it. And again: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light,” dispelling the night of sin. For “in the night hope is evil”, according to Isaiah, and it is more profitable to be taken in the morning.

Sow when it is the time, and gather, and open your barns when it is time for that; plant in season, and let the ripe grape be cut for you; put to sea boldly in spring, and draw your ship up again when winter begins and the sea grows wild. And let there be for you a time for war and for peace, for marrying and for refraining from marriage, for friendship and for separation, if need be, and in short for every matter, if we are to trust Solomon; and we must trust him, for the advice is useful. But work at your salvation always, and let every time be the season for your baptism. If you always pass over today and watch for tomorrow, you will be robbed unawares by the evil one through little postponements, for that is his way: “Give me the present, God the future; me youth, God old age; me the pleasures, him the uselessness.” How great is the danger that surrounds you! How many are the unexpected accidents! War has consumed, or an earthquake buried, or the sea swallowed, or a beast snatched away, or a disease destroyed, or a crumb going down the wrong way, the most trivial thing (for what is easier than for a man to die, however proud you are of the image?); or excessive drinking, or a wind hurling down, or a horse running away, or a poison deliberately plotted, or perhaps a deadly drug given instead of a saving one, or an inhuman judge, or an inexorable executioner, or any of the things that make the passing away most swift and stronger than any help …

But if you were to forestall all this with the seal, and secure the future with the best and strongest of aids, being signed in soul and body with the anointing and the Spirit, as Israel of old was with the blood by night that guarded the firstborn, what will happen to you, and what will have been secured for you? Hear the Proverbs: “If you sit down,” it says, “you will be without fear; and if you sleep, you will sleep sweetly.” And receive the good news from David: “You will not be afraid of the terror by night, of mischance, and of the noonday demon.” This is the greatest safeguard for you while you live; for a sheep that is sealed is not easily plotted against, while the unmarked one is easily caught by thieves. And when you depart, it is a fine shroud, more splendid than clothing, more precious than gold, more magnificent than a tomb, more pious than fruitless libations, more timely than seasonal firstfruits, which the dead offer to the dead, making custom into law. Let everything go from you, let everything be plundered, money, possessions, thrones, splendours, all that belongs to the revolving world here below; but you end your life in safety, having lost none of the aids God has given you for salvation. [16] … And he becomes a counsellor as if he were good, though he is evil, so that by some means or other he may prevail, and we may nowhere escape his plotting. This he plainly contrives here too. For since he cannot persuade you openly to despise baptism, he harms you through a false security, so that through your fear you may unwittingly suffer the very thing you fear, and, being afraid of spoiling the gift, may through that very fear fall from the gift. Such is he, and he will never cease from his duplicity while he sees us hastening towards heaven, from which he himself has fallen. But you, man of God, recognize the plot of the adversary; for the battle is against one who is strong, and about the greatest things. Do not take the enemy as your counsellor; do not disdain to be called and to become one of the faithful. As long as you are a catechumen, you are in the porch of religion: you must come inside, cross the court, look upon the holy things, gaze into the Holy of Holies, be with the Trinity. Great are the things you are fighting for; you need great security too. Hold up the shield of faith. He fears you when you fight with that weapon; and that is why he strips you of the gift, that he may more easily overcome you when you are unarmed and unguarded. He lays hold of every age and every form of life: let him be repelled by all.

Are you young? Stand against the passions with this alliance; be enrolled in God's army; win glory against Goliath; take your thousands or your ten thousands. So enjoy your youth; but do not allow your youth to wither, deadened by the imperfection of your faith. Are you old, and near the necessary end? Revere your grey hairs; help your few days with the wisdom that age requires of you instead of your present senselessness; entrust your cleansing to old age. Why do you fear youthful things in deep old age and with your last breaths? Or are you waiting to be washed as a corpse, not so much pitied as hated? Or do you long for the remnants of pleasures, being yourself a remnant of life? It is shameful that your age has passed its prime but not your licentiousness; yet either you are in this state, or seem to be, if you delay your cleansing. Have you an infant? Let not wickedness get an opportunity: let him be sanctified from infancy, consecrated to the Spirit from the cradle. Do you fear the seal because of the weakness of nature? What a small-souled and faithless mother! Hannah promised Samuel to God even before he was born, and when he was born she made him holy at once and brought him up in the priestly robe, not fearing anything human but trusting God. Nor do you need amulets and incantations, with which the evil one creeps in, stealing to himself the reverence due to God among the more light-minded. Give the child the Trinity, that great and fine safeguard.

What then? Are you practising virginity? Be sealed with this cleansing; make it the companion and partner of your life; let it regulate for you your life and speech, every limb, every movement, every sense. Honour it, that it may adorn you, that it may give to your head a crown of graces and shield you with a crown of delight. Are you bound by marriage? Be bound also by the seal; make it dwell with you as the guardian of chastity, safer, do you not think, than many eunuchs and doorkeepers? Not yet joined to the flesh? Do not fear the perfecting: you are pure even after marriage. The risk is mine; I will join you together, I will lead the bride. For it is not because virginity is more honourable that marriage is among the dishonoured. I will imitate Christ, the pure leader of the bride and the Bridegroom, who both works a wonder at a wedding and honours wedlock with his presence. Only let marriage be pure and unmixed with filthy desires. This alone I ask: receive safety from the gift, and give the gift chastity in its season, when the appointed time for prayer comes, which is more honourable than business, and this by mutual agreement and consent. For we do not legislate but advise; and we wish to take something of yours for your own sake and for the common safety of you both. In short, there is no life, no occupation, to which this is not more profitable. You who are in authority, receive the bridle; you who are in slavery, equality of honour; you who are downcast, consolation; you who are cheerful, discipline; you who are poor, the riches that cannot be robbed; you who are wealthy, the good stewardship of what you have. Do not use sophistry, do not contrive anything against your own salvation. For even if we deceive others, we cannot deceive ourselves; to play against oneself is very dangerous and senseless. [19] “But you move in the midst of things, and are defiled by public affairs; and it would be terrible for the mercy to be spent in vain on you.” The answer is simple. If possible, flee even the marketplace with good company, putting on the wings of an eagle, or, to speak more properly, of a dove (for what have you to do with Caesar or the things of Caesar?), until you come to rest where there is no sin, no blackness, no serpent biting on the road and hindering your steps towards God. Snatch your soul from the world; flee Sodom, flee the burning; travel without turning back, lest you be fixed as a pillar of salt; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them. But if you are already held fast and bound by necessary bonds, say this to yourself, or rather I will say it to you: it is better both to obtain the good and to keep the cleansing; but if both are not possible, it is better to be stained a little by your public affairs than to fall from grace altogether; just as, I think, it is better to be rebuked a little by father or master than to be cast out, and to shine a little than to be wholly darkened. It is the part of the prudent, as among goods to choose the greater and more perfect, so among evils to choose the lesser and lighter. Therefore do not fear the cleansing too much. For what is achieved is always judged together with one's circumstances by the just and loving Judge of our affairs. And often one who lives in the midst of affairs and has achieved a little has gained more than one who lives in freedom and has not achieved everything; just as, I think, it is more wonderful to advance a little in fetters than to run with no burden, and to be spattered a little going through mud than to be clean travelling a clean road. A proof of what I say: Rahab the harlot was justified by one thing alone, her hospitality, though she is not praised for the rest; and the tax collector was exalted by his humility, with nothing else to his credit; so that you may learn not to despair of yourself lightly. [20] “But what advantage is it to me,” someone says, “to be forestalled by baptism and to cut myself off by haste from the pleasure of life, when I could give myself to pleasures and then obtain the grace? For those who toiled earlier in the vineyard had no advantage, the same wage being given to the last as well.” You have relieved us of trouble, whoever you are who say this, by having at last spoken out the secret of your delay; and though I do not praise your knavery, I praise your confession. But come, hear the parable explained, that you may not be harmed by Scripture through inexperience. First, the passage here is not about baptism but about those who believe at different times and enter the good vineyard, the church. For from the day and hour that each believed, from then his work is required of him. Next, even if those who entered first contributed more by the measure of their labour, they did not by the measure of their choice; and perhaps more was even owed to the last on this account, though the saying is paradoxical. For the cause of their entering later was that they were called later to work the vineyard; but let us consider how great the difference was in other respects. The first did not believe or enter before their wage had been agreed; the others came to the work without an agreement, which is a sign of greater faith. And the first were found to be of an envious and grumbling nature; the others are charged with nothing of the kind. To the first what was given was a wage, wicked though they were; to the others, grace; so that the first, being charged with folly, were justly deprived of more. What would have happened to them if they had come late? Let us learn: clearly, an equal wage. How then do they blame the employer as unequal because of his equality? All this takes away from the first the merit of their sweat, even though they toiled earlier; from which it follows that the equal distribution is just, the choice being weighed against the labour. [21] … the labourers who receive the wage are those who have entered the vineyard, not those who have missed it, which is what you are in danger of suffering. If it were certain that you would obtain the gift while thinking thus and knavishly shirking some of the work, you would be pardonable for taking refuge in such reasonings and wishing to profit a little from the Master's kindness; not to say that, to one who is not wholly mercenary in mind, labouring more is itself a greater reward. But if you are in danger of falling from the vineyard altogether through your trading, and of losing the capital while gathering small gains, come, be persuaded by my words: give up such misinterpretations and objections and come to the gift without calculating, lest you be snatched away before your hopes are fulfilled and find you have been reasoning cleverly against yourself.

“What then? Is not the Divine loving?” someone says. “For, knowing our thoughts, it approves the desire, and instead of baptism it counts the eagerness for baptism.” You are saying something like a riddle: that one who is not illumined is illumined before God because of his love for man, or that one who strives to obtain the kingdom of heaven is within it without doing the things of the kingdom. For my part I will speak boldly about these things as I think; and I think that others with sense will side with me. Of those who obtain the gift, some were wholly estranged from God and from salvation, having gone through every form of vice and striving to be wicked; others were half-wicked in a way, in a middle state between virtue and vice, who did evil but did not consent to what they did, as feverish people do not consent to their illness; others were praiseworthy even before their perfecting, some by nature, others purifying themselves beforehand for baptism by effort; and after their perfecting they have shown themselves better and more secure, the first in order to obtain the good, the second in order to keep it. Among these, better than the wholly wicked are those who give up something of their vice; and better than those who give up a little are the more zealous who purify themselves beforehand for baptism, for they have something more: the work. For the bath does not destroy good deeds as it erases sins. And better than these are those who also cultivate the gift and polish themselves into beauty as far as they can.

So also of those who fail to receive it, some are altogether brutish or bestial, according to their folly or wickedness; to them, along with their other evils, even the gift is, I think, not greatly venerable, but merely a gift: welcome if it is given, disregarded if it is not. Others know and honour the gift but put it off, some through carelessness, others through greed. Others are not even in a position to receive it, perhaps because of infancy, or some wholly involuntary circumstance, through which they cannot obtain the gift even if they wish. As we found a great difference among the former, so also among these. Those who utterly despise it are worse than the greedier or more careless; and these are worse than those who miss the gift through ignorance or compulsion; for compulsion is nothing other than an involuntary failure. And I think that the first will be punished, for their contempt of the bath as for their other wickedness; that the second will be punished too, but less, because they brought about their failure not so much by wickedness as by folly; and that the third will be neither glorified nor punished by the just Judge, as unsealed but not wicked, having suffered the loss rather than caused it. For not everyone who is not worthy of punishment is thereby worthy of honour, just as not everyone who is not worthy of honour is thereby worthy of punishment. And I consider this too: if you judge the would-be murderer guilty of murder from his will alone, without the murder, then reckon as baptized one who wished for baptism without baptism. But if not the former, I cannot see how the latter. Or, if you prefer, put it thus: if desire suffices you for the power of baptism, and on that ground you judge about glory, let the desire for glory suffice you for glory too. And what harm is it to you not to obtain it, if you have the longing?

Therefore, since you have heard these words, “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed” by missing the grace, receive the illumination while there is time, that darkness may not pursue you and overtake you, cutting you off from the illumination. “The night comes when no one can work,” after our departure from here. That is the voice of David; this is the voice of the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world. And think that Solomon too reproaches you sharply, you who are lazier or more sluggish: “How long will you lie, sluggard? When will you rise from sleep?” You allege this and that, and make excuses in sins: “I am waiting for the Lights; Easter is more precious to me; I will wait for Pentecost; it is better to be illumined with Christ, to rise with Christ on the day of the resurrection, to honour the manifestation of the Spirit.” And then what? The end will come suddenly, on a day you do not expect and in an hour you do not know; and then the poverty of grace will come upon you like a bad traveller, and you will starve amid so great a wealth of goodness, when you should reap the opposite by the opposite, the harvest by diligence and refreshment from the spring, like the very thirsty hart that runs eagerly to the springs and quenches the toil of its race with water; and not suffer what Israel suffered, to be parched by drought, or what the myth tells, to be punished by thirst in the middle of a spring. It is a terrible thing to let the fair go by and then look for trade; terrible to pass by the manna and then long for food; terrible is wisdom after the event, and to perceive the loss only when there is no remedy for it, after the departure from here, the bitter shutting up of each one's life, the punishment of sinners, and the splendour of the purified. Therefore do not delay in coming to the grace, but hasten, lest a robber get there before you, an adulterer outrun you, a greedy man take it first, a parricide snatch the good before you, or a tax collector, a fornicator, or one of the violent who seize the kingdom. For it suffers violence willingly, and submits to force through its goodness.

… [25] … between wealth and poverty; but here the more eager is the richer.

Let nothing hold you back from going forward; let nothing drag back your eagerness. While desire is strong, take hold of what you desire; while the iron is hot, let it be tempered in cold water, lest something intervene and cut off the desire. I am Philip; become Candace's eunuch. Say yourself too: “See, here is water; what prevents me from being baptized?” Seize the opportunity; rejoice greatly in the good; and having spoken, be baptized, and having been baptized, be saved; even if you are an Ethiopian in body, be made white in soul. Obtain the salvation than which nothing is higher, nor more precious to those who have sense. Do not say: “Let a bishop baptize me, and he a metropolitan or a bishop of Jerusalem (for grace is not of places but of the Spirit), and one of good family; for it would be terrible if my noble birth were insulted by the baptizer.” Or: “A presbyter, yes, but one of the unmarried, of the continent and angelic in their way of life; for it would be terrible to be defiled at the moment of cleansing.” Do not look for the trustworthiness of the preacher or of the baptizer. Another is their judge, the examiner of what is hidden; since man looks on the face, but God on the heart. For you, everyone is trustworthy for your cleansing; only let him be one of those approved, and not of those openly condemned, nor a stranger to the church. Do not judge your judges, you who need healing; do not be fastidious about the rank of those who cleanse you, nor discriminate between those who beget you. One is better or lower than another, but every one is higher than you. Consider it thus: let one ring be gold and the other iron, but let both be engraved with the same royal image, and let them both press it into wax. How will this seal differ from that? Not at all. Find out the material in the wax, if you are very clever; say which impression is from the iron and which from the gold, and how they are one. For the difference is in the material, not in the stamp. So let every baptizer be for you. Even if one excels in his way of life, the power of baptism is equal; and every one who is formed in the same faith is equally able to perfect you …

Do not disdain to be baptized with a poor man, if you are rich; the well-born with the low-born; the master with one who until now has been his slave. You will not yet humble yourself as much as Christ, into whom you are baptized today, who for your sake took even the form of a slave. From the day you are transformed, all the old marks have given way: Christ has been put upon all in one form. Do not disdain to confess your sin, knowing how John baptized, that by the shame here you may escape the shame there (since this too is part of the punishment there), and that you may show that you truly hate sin by making an example of it and triumphing over it as deserving contempt. Do not spurn the healing of exorcism, nor give up because of its length: this too is a test of your sincerity towards the gift. What labour will you have like that of the queen of the Ethiopians, who rose up and came from the ends of the earth to see the wisdom of Solomon? And behold, a greater than Solomon is here, in the judgment of those who reckon rightly. Do not shrink from length of road, nor distance by sea, nor fire, if this too lies before you, nor any other hindrance, small or great, so that you may obtain the gift. But if you can obtain what you desire without labour or trouble, how foolish it is to put off the gift! “You who thirst,” it says, “go to the water” (Isaiah urges you), “and you who have no money, go and buy, and drink wine without price of money.” O the swiftness of his love for man! O the ease of the bargain! This good is for sale to you for the mere willing; he accepts the very impulse in place of a great price. He thirsts to be thirsted for; he gives drink to those who want to drink; he counts it a kindness to be asked for a kindness; he is ready and generous; he gives more gladly than others receive. Only let us not be condemned for meanness by asking for small things, unworthy of the giver. Blessed is he of whom Christ asks a drink, as he asked that Samaritan woman, and gives him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Blessed is he who sows beside all waters, and upon every soul, to be ploughed and watered tomorrow, which ox and ass tread today while it is barren and waterless and oppressed by unreason. Blessed is he who, though he be a torrent of rushes, is watered from the house of the Lord, and becomes corn-bearing instead of rush-bearing, and produces food for man, not what is rough and useless. For this reason every effort must be made not to miss the common grace. [28] “Let this be so,” someone says, “for those who seek baptism; but what would you say about those who are still infants, and perceive neither the loss nor the grace? Shall we baptize them too?” Certainly, if any danger presses. For it is better to be sanctified without perceiving it than to depart unsealed and uninitiated.

A proof of this for us is the circumcision on the eighth day, which was a kind of typical seal and was applied to those still without reason; so too the anointing of the doorposts, which guarded the firstborn through things without sense. As for the others, I give my opinion: wait until the third year, or a little before or after it, when they can hear something of the mystery and answer, even if they do not understand it fully, yet are being formed by it; and then sanctify them, souls and bodies, with the great mystery of perfection. For this is how it is: they begin to be answerable for their life when their reason has matured and they have learned the mystery (for of sins of ignorance their age keeps them unaccountable); but to be fortified with the bath is in every way more profitable, because of the sudden assaults of danger that fall upon us, stronger than any help.

“But Christ,” someone says, “was baptized at thirty, and that though he was God; and do you bid us hasten baptism?” By saying “God” you have solved the question. For he was purity itself and did not need cleansing; but he is cleansed for you, as he also bears flesh for you, though he is without flesh. Nor was there any danger for him …

… in putting off baptism; for he was himself the steward of his suffering, as of his birth too.

But for you the danger concerns no small matter, if you should depart born only to corruption and not clothed with incorruption. And I consider this too: for him this was the necessary time for baptism, but for you the reason is not the same. For he was manifested when he had reached his thirtieth year, not before, both so as not to seem to be making a display (for that is the weakness of the vulgar), and because this age contains the perfection of virtue and the time for teaching. And since he was to suffer the saving passion of the world, all that belonged to the passion had to come together towards the passion: the manifestation, the baptism, the witness from above, the preaching, the concourse of the multitude, the miracles, as one body, not torn apart or broken up by intervals. From the baptism and the preaching came the commotion of those who flocked together (for so Scripture names that time); from the multitude, the display of signs and the miracles that led people to the gospel; from these, envy; from this, hatred; from hatred, the plotting and the betrayal; and from this, the cross, and all by which we have been saved. Such, then, are the things of Christ, and so they stand, as far as we can reach; perhaps another reason, more secret than these, might be found. [30] But what need is there for you, following examples that are above you, to take bad counsel? For many other things recorded of that time are seen to be otherwise than as they are now, and do not agree with the times …

He fasted a little before the temptation, we before Easter; the fasting is the same, but the interval between the two times is not small. For he puts up his fasts as a defence against temptations; for us this signifies dying with Christ, and it is a cleansing before the feast. And he fasts forty days, for he was God; we have measured this to our strength, even if zeal persuades some to leap beyond their strength. Again, he initiates his disciples into the Passover in an upper room, after supper and one day before his passion; we in houses of prayer, before supper and after the resurrection. He rises on the third day, we after a long time. And our observances are neither broken off from his nor joined to them in time; but, in so far as they were handed down as a pattern for ours, they have avoided being in every way the same. What wonder, then, if baptism too was received for our sake, but differs in its time? … that which you seem to me to put forward against your own salvation as something great and wonderful … [31] … prayers, tears, compassion for those in need, sharing. Let this be for you both a thank-offering for what you have received and a safeguard. You have the benefit as a reminder of many commandments: do not pass it by. Has a poor man come to you? Remember how poor you were, and how rich you have become. Is someone in need of bread or drink, some other Lazarus perhaps, cast down at your gates? Revere the mystical table to which you came, the bread of which you partook, the cup in which you shared, being initiated into the sufferings of Christ. Has a stranger fallen at your feet, homeless, a sojourner? Receive through him the one who became a stranger for your sake, and that among his own, and who made his dwelling in you through grace and drew you to the dwelling above. Be Zacchaeus, yesterday a tax collector and today great-souled: bear all your fruit at Christ's entrance, that you may appear great, even if you are small in bodily stature, having beheld Christ well. Does a sick and wounded man lie before you? Respect your own health and the wounds from which Christ set you free. If you see a naked man, clothe him, honouring your own garment of incorruption, which is Christ: for as many of us as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. If you find a debtor falling at your feet, tear up every bond, unjust or just. Remember the ten thousand talents which Christ forgave you; do not be a harsh exactor of a smaller debt. And from whom? From your fellow servants, you who were forgiven more by the Master; lest you pay the penalty for his love for man, which you did not imitate though you received it as an example.

Let the bath be for you a bath not of the body only but of the image; not only a washing away of sins but also a correction of character; let it not only wash away the mud that came before, but also cleanse the source; let it not only shape you to acquire honestly, but also to part honestly with what you have, or at the least to give up what you acquired dishonestly. For what good is it that your sin is forgiven you, if the loss you inflicted on the one you wronged is not undone? There are two evils: to have acquired unjustly, and to keep what was acquired. Of the one you received remission; the other you commit today. For today the property of another is in your hands; and the sin has not been taken away, but only divided by time: the one was dared before baptism, the other remains after baptism. For the bath grants pardon for sins that have been committed, not for sins that are being committed. The cleansing must not be counterfeited but stamped upon you; you must be made bright wholly, not coloured over; the gift must bring not a covering of sins but a release from them. “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven”: this belongs to complete cleansing; “and whose sins are covered”: this to those not yet cleansed in the depths. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin”: this is a third class of sinners, whose action is not praiseworthy, but whose intention is blameless. [33] … with those who dwell in tombs; do not bind yourself tight with the chains of your own sins; since it is uncertain whether he will raise you from the tombs again before the last and common resurrection, which will bring every work into judgment, not to be healed but to be judged, and to give account of what it has stored up, well or ill.

If until now you teemed with leprosy, that shapeless wickedness, but have been scraped clean of the evil matter and have received back the image whole, show me, your priest, your cleansing, that I may know how much more precious it is than the legal one. Do not be one of the nine ungrateful, but imitate the tenth; for though he was a Samaritan, he was more grateful than the rest. Take care that you do not break out in evil again, and find the disorder of the body hard to heal. Formerly meanness and stinginess withered your hand; today let generosity and kindness stretch it out. A fine cure for a sick hand is to scatter, to give to the poor, to draw lavishly on what we have until we touch the bottom (perhaps this too will spring up with food for you, as for the widow of Zarephath, especially if you happen to be feeding an Elijah), to know the fine abundance of being in want for Christ, who became poor for us. If you were deaf and dumb, let the Word sound in your ears; or rather, hold fast to him who sounded. Do not shut your ears to the instruction and admonition of the Lord, like an asp against charms. If you were blind and unenlightened, lighten your eyes, lest you ever sleep in death. In the light of the Lord see light; in the Spirit of God be illumined by the Son, the threefold and undivided light. If you receive the whole Word, you will gather into your own soul all the healings of Christ, which each received in part. Only do not be ignorant of the measure of grace; only let not the enemy sow tares while you sleep and take no care; only, having become an object of envy to the evil one through your purity, do not make yourself pitiable again through sin; only do not, rejoicing in the good and lifted up beyond measure, fall through your exaltation; only labour always at your cleansing, setting ascents in your heart; and the remission you obtained as a free gift, keep with care, so that the forgiveness may be from God, and the keeping from you as well.

How will this be? Always remember that parable, and you will help yourself best and most perfectly. The unclean and material spirit has gone out of you, driven out by baptism. It does not bear being driven out; it does not accept being homeless and without a hearth. It goes through waterless places, dry of the divine stream; there it wishes to make its haunt. It wanders seeking rest and does not find it. It meets baptized souls, whose wickedness the bath has washed out; it fears the water; it is choked by the cleansing, as Legion was in the sea. Again it returns to the house from which it went out. It is shameless, it is contentious; it attacks again, it tries again. If it finds Christ dwelling there and filling the place it had left empty, it is repulsed again and goes away without success, and becomes pitiable in its wandering. But if it sees the place in you swept and adorned, empty and idle, equally ready to receive this one or that, whichever comes first, it leaps in and settles there with greater force, and the last state becomes worse than the first; for then there was hope of correction and safety, but now the wickedness is manifest, drawing evil to itself by flight from the good, and for this reason the occupation is more secure for the one who dwells there.

Again I will remind you of the illuminations, gathering them often from the divine oracles. For I myself shall be the happier for remembering them (what is sweeter than light to those who have tasted light?), and I shall shine around you with my words. “Light has dawned for the righteous,” and its partner, gladness. “Light for the righteous always.” “You give light wonderfully from the everlasting mountains,” is said to God; of the angelic powers, I think, who work with us towards better things. “The Lord is my light and my saviour; whom shall I fear?” You have heard David saying this, and sometimes asking that the light and the truth be sent out to him, sometimes giving thanks that he had shared in it, in that the light of God was signed upon him, that is, the signs of the illumination given were impressed and made known. One light alone let us flee, the offspring of the bitter fire. Let us not walk in the light of our fire and in the flame which we have kindled. For I know a cleansing fire, which Christ came to cast upon the earth, he himself being called fire in the language of figurative interpretation. This consumes matter and evil habit, and he wishes it to be kindled as quickly as possible; for he longs for speed in doing good, since he also gives us coals of fire for our help. I know also a fire that is not cleansing but punishing: whether that of Sodom, which he rains upon all sinners mixed with brimstone and tempest; or that prepared for the devil and his angels; or that which goes before the face of the Lord and burns up his enemies round about; and, more fearful still than these, that which is ranked with the sleepless worm, not quenched but lasting for ever for the wicked. For all these belong to the destroying power; unless someone prefers to understand this too more humanely, and in a way worthy of him who punishes.

As I know a twofold fire, so also a twofold light: the one is the lamp of our ruling faculty, directing our steps according to God; the other is deceptive and meddlesome, opposed to the true light and pretending to be it, so as to steal in by its appearance. This is darkness and seems to be noonday, the height of light. So I hear of those who always flee in darkness at noon. This is night, and is thought to be illumination by those corrupted by luxury. For what does David say? “Night was about me, wretch that I was, and I did not know”, for I took luxury to be illumination. But they are such, and so it is with them; let us, however, light for ourselves the light of knowledge. This will come from sowing for righteousness and reaping the fruit of life (for action is the procurer of contemplation), so that, among other things, we may learn this too, what is the true light and what the false, and may not unawares fall into the worse as though it were good. Let us become light, as the disciples heard from the great Light, who said, “You are the light of the world.” Let us become lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that is, a life-giving power to others. Let us lay hold of the Godhead, lay hold of the first and purest Light. Let us walk towards its radiance before our feet stumble on the dark and hostile mountains. While it is day, let us walk decently as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, which are the thefts of the night. [38] Let us be cleansed in every member, brothers, let us purify every sense; let nothing in us be imperfect or of the first birth; let us leave nothing unilluminated. Let us be illumined in the eye, that we may see rightly and carry in ourselves no harlot's image from curious and busy gazing; for even if we have not worshipped the passion, yet we have defiled the soul. If there is any beam in us, or any splinter, let us clean it out, that we may be able to see those of others as well. Let us be illumined in hearing, illumined in tongue, that we may hear what the Lord God will speak, and that his mercy in the morning may be made audible to us, and that we may be made to hear joy and gladness resounding in godly ears; that we may not be a sharp sword nor a whetted razor, nor roll trouble and toil under the tongue, but speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, revering the tongues of fire. Let us be healed in smell, that we may not become effeminate, nor be covered with dust instead of a sweet odour; but let us smell, perceiving spiritually the ointment that was poured out for us, and being so formed and transformed by it that a sweet fragrance is smelt even from ourselves. Let us be cleansed in touch, in taste, in throat, not touching softly and delighting in smoothness, but handling, as is fitting, the Word made flesh for us, imitating Thomas in this; not tickled by juices and dainties, the brothers of more bitter ticklings, but tasting and knowing that the Lord is good, the better and lasting taste; not refreshing for a short time that bitter and ungrateful passage which sends on and does not keep what is given, but delighting it with words sweeter than honey. [39] … It is good for the hands too to be perfected, and the feet: the hands, that they may be lifted up holy in every place, and lay hold of the instruction of Christ, lest the Lord be angry, and that the word may be entrusted to them through action, like the word given into the hand of a certain prophet; the feet, that they may not be swift to shed blood nor run to wickedness, but be ready for the gospel and for the prize of the upward calling, and to receive Christ washing and cleansing them. If there is also a cleansing of the belly, which receives and digests the food of the Word, it is good not to make it a god through luxury and food that perishes, but to cleanse it as much as possible and make it finer, so as to receive the word of the Lord within it, and to feel pain rightly for Israel when it stumbles. I find the heart and the inward parts also counted worthy of honour. David persuades me of this, asking that a pure heart be created in him and a right spirit renewed within him, meaning by this, I think, the thinking faculty and its movements, or thoughts.

What of the loins? What of the kidneys? Let us not pass over these either: let the cleansing touch them too. Let our loins be girded and restrained by self-control, as Israel's were of old when, according to the law, they partook of the Passover. For no one comes out of Egypt cleanly or escapes the destroyer without having disciplined these. Let the kidneys undergo the good change, transferring the whole desiring faculty to God, so as to be able to say, “Lord, all my desire is before you,” and, “I have not desired the day of man.” For one must become a man of desires, the desires of the Spirit. So also the dragon, who carries the greatest part of his strength in the navel and the loins, might be destroyed for us, his dominion over these being put to death. Do not wonder if I give more abundant honour to our less presentable parts, mortifying and chastening them by reason and standing against matter. Let us give to God all our members on the earth, let us consecrate them all; not the lobe of the liver, nor the kidneys with the fat, nor this part of the body or that; for why should we dishonour the rest? Let us offer ourselves wholly; let us become rational whole burnt offerings, perfect sacrifices; let us not make only the shoulder or only the breast a priestly portion (that is small), but, giving ourselves wholly, let us receive ourselves wholly back; for this is to receive purely: to be given to God and to offer our own salvation as a sacred act.

Above all, and before all, keep for me the good deposit, by which I live and conduct my life, which I would take with me as the companion of my departure, with which I bear all that is painful and despise every pleasure: the confession of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This I entrust to you today; with this I will baptize you and raise you up. This I give you as the partner and protector of your whole life: the one Godhead and power, found singly in the three and comprising the three distinctly; not unequal in essences or natures, not increased or diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; equal on every side, the same on every side, as the beauty and greatness of heaven is one; the infinite coalescence of three infinites; each God when considered by himself, as the Father, so the Son, so the Holy Spirit, each keeping his property; the three one God when considered together: the former because of the sameness of essence, the latter because of the monarchy. No sooner do I conceive the one than I am illumined by the three; no sooner do I distinguish the three than I am carried back to the one. When I picture one of the three, I think it the whole, and my sight is filled, and the greater part escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one, so as to attribute more to the rest. When I gather the three together in contemplation, I see one torch, unable to divide or measure the united light …

Do you fear the word “begetting”, lest God, who cannot suffer, should suffer something? I fear the word “creation”, lest I lose God through insult and unjust division, either cutting the Son off from the Father, or the essence of the Spirit from the Son. For the strange thing is that not only is creation brought into God by those who weigh the Godhead wrongly in the balance …

… but the creation itself is again cut up against itself. As the Son is put below the Father among the lowly and those beneath, so again the dignity of the Spirit is put below the Son, so that both God and the creation are insulted by this new theology. Nothing in the Trinity, my friends, is servile, nothing created, nothing brought in from outside: so I heard one of the wise say. “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ,” says the divine apostle. If I still worshipped a creature, or were baptized into a creature, I would not be deified, nor would my first birth be transformed. What shall I say to those who worship Astarte, or Chemosh the abomination of the Sidonians, or the figure of the star, a god a little above these to idolaters, but still himself a creature and a work, I who either do not worship the two into whom I have been baptized, or worship fellow servants? For they are fellow servants, even if a little more honourable; since among fellow servants too there is some difference and precedence. [43] I would like to call the Father greater, from whom the equals have both their equality and their being (for this will be granted by all); but I fear the word “principle”, lest I make him a principle of inferiors and insult him by the precedence; for the lowering of those who are from him is no glory to him from whom they are. Besides, I suspect your greed, lest, taking hold of “greater”, you cut the nature in two, using “greater” in every respect. For “greater” refers not to the nature but to the cause; for among things of the same essence nothing is greater or less in essence. I would like to honour the Son above the Spirit, as the Son; but baptism does not allow it, perfecting me through the Spirit. But are you afraid of being reproached with tritheism? Keep the good thing, the union in the three, and leave the battle to me. Let me be the shipbuilder, and you use the ship. And if someone else is the shipbuilder, take me as the architect of the house, and live in it safely, even if you have not toiled at all. You will sail no less well, nor live in the house any less, because I built them, even if you have taken no pains over them. Do you see how great the goodwill is? Do you see the kindness of the Spirit? Mine be the war, yours the victory. Let me be pelted; you be at peace, praying with the one who fights for you; lend a hand by your faith. I have three stones with which I will sling at the Philistine. I have three breathings upon the son of the widow of Zarephath, with which I will give life to the dead. I have three pourings upon the wood, with which I will consecrate the sacrifice, kindling fire with water, most wonderful of all; and I will overthrow the prophets of shame, using the power of the mystery.

What need have I of longer words? It is the time for teaching, not for controversy. I testify before God and the elect angels: with this faith you will be baptized. If you have been written otherwise than my word requires, come and be written anew. I am no unskilled calligrapher of these things, writing what I myself have been written, and teaching what I have learned and kept from the beginning to these grey hairs. Mine is the danger, mine also the reward, as the steward of your soul who perfects you through baptism. But if you are so, and have been stamped well with the letters, keep for me what is written, remaining unchanged in changing times about an unchangeable matter. Imitate Pilate for the better, you who are well written, as he wrote badly: say to those who would persuade you otherwise, “What I have written, I have written.” For I would be ashamed if, while evil stays unbending, good should be bent most easily; whereas we ought to be easily moved from worse to better, and immovable from better to worse. If you are baptized thus, and according to this teaching, behold, I will not restrain my lips; behold, I lend my hands to the Spirit. Let us hasten our salvation; let us rise up for baptism. The Spirit is eager, the perfecter is ready, the gift is prepared. But if you still limp and do not accept the perfection of the Godhead, look for someone else to baptize you, or rather to drown you; I have no leisure to cut up the Godhead and make you dead at the time of your regeneration, so that you have neither the gift nor the hope of grace, having made shipwreck of salvation in a short time. For whatever you take away from the Godhead of the three, know that you have overthrown the whole, and your own perfection with it.

But is there not yet any imprint on your soul, neither of worse writing nor of better, and must you be written today, and stamped by us for perfection? Let us go inside the cloud: give me the tablets of your heart. I become Moses for you, though it is bold to say; I write with the finger of God a new decalogue; I write a concise salvation. If there is any heretical and irrational beast, let it stay below, or it will be in danger of being stoned by the word of truth. I will baptize you, making you a disciple, into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and the common name of the three is one, the Godhead. You will know, both by the gestures and by the words, that as you renounce all godlessness, so you are enrolled with the whole Godhead. Believe that the whole world, all that is visible and all that is invisible, was made by God out of nothing, is governed by the providence of its Maker, and will receive a change for the better. Believe that evil has no essence and no kingdom, neither without beginning, nor self-existent, nor made by God; but that it is our work and the evil one's, coming in upon us through our carelessness, and not from the Creator. Believe that the Son of God, the pre-eternal Word, begotten of the Father timelessly and incorporeally, in the last days became for your sake also Son of man, coming forth from the Virgin Mary ineffably and without defilement (for nothing is defiled where God is, and through which salvation comes); whole man and the same also God, for the sake of the whole of man who suffered, that he might bestow salvation on the whole of you, having destroyed the whole condemnation of sin; impassible in his Godhead, passible in what he assumed; as much man for your sake as you become God for his. Believe that he was led to death for our iniquities, crucified and buried, so far as to taste death; that he rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, to bring you up with him who lay below; and that he will come again with his glorious appearing, to judge the living and the dead; no longer flesh, yet not bodiless, but, by reasons known to himself, with a more godlike body, that he may be seen by those who pierced him and yet remain God, free from grossness. Accept besides these the resurrection, the judgment, the recompense by the just scales of God. And believe that this recompense is light for those purified in mind, that is, God seen and known in proportion to their purity, which we also call the kingdom of heaven; and darkness for those blinded in their ruling faculty, that is, estrangement from God in proportion to their dimness of sight here. Tenth, work what is good upon this foundation of doctrines; since faith without works is dead, as are works without faith. You have the parts of the mystery that may be spoken, and that are not secret from the ears of the many. The rest you will learn within, the Trinity granting it; and these you will keep hidden in yourself, guarded by the seal.

But this good news I announce to you. The standing in which you will stand immediately after baptism before the great sanctuary is a foreshadowing of the glory there. The psalmody with which you will be received is a prelude of the hymnody there. The lamps that you will light are a mystery of the procession of lights there, with which we shall go out to meet the Bridegroom, bright and virgin souls with the bright lamps of faith, neither sleeping through carelessness, lest he who is expected should come unexpectedly without our noticing, nor without food and oil and lacking good works, lest we be shut out of the bridal chamber. For I see how pitiable the plight is. He will be there, the cry demanding that we go out to meet him; and those who are wise will meet him with bright light and a more abundant supply for it; but the others will be in confusion, seeking oil out of season from those who have it. And he will enter swiftly, and the wise will enter with him; but the others will be shut out, having spent the time for entering in getting ready; and they will weep much afterwards, learning too late the loss caused by carelessness, when the bridal chamber is no longer open to them, though they beg earnestly, having wrongly shut themselves out of it. In another way they will be like those who stayed away from the wedding which the good Father gives for the good Bridegroom, because of a newly married wife, or a newly bought field, or a yoke of oxen, which they acquired to their harm, losing the greater for the sake of the small. For none of the arrogant and careless is there, nor any of those dressed in filthy and not wedding clothes, even if here he thought himself worthy of the splendid clothing there and slipped in unawares, deceived by empty hopes. Then what? When we have come there, the Bridegroom knows what he will teach, and how he will be with the souls that have entered with him. He will be with them, I think, teaching more perfect and purer things; of which may we too partake, both we who teach these things and you who learn them, in Christ himself our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might for ever. Amen.

Let us philosophize briefly about the feast, that we may keep it spiritually. For different people keep festival in different ways, … and of discourses, the one most suited to the occasion. And nothing so delights any lover of the beautiful as for a lover of feasts to keep festival spiritually. Let us consider it thus. The Jew too keeps festival, but according to the letter; for, pursuing the bodily law, he has not attained to the spiritual law. The Greek too keeps festival, but according to the body, and in honour of his own gods and demons, some of whom are makers of passions by their own account, while others were honoured for their passions; therefore their keeping of feasts is also full of passion, so that sinning is honour to the god, to whom passion flees as a dignified excuse. We too keep festival, but as it seems good to the Spirit. And it seems good to him when we either say or do something fitting. And this is our keeping of festival: to store up in the soul something of what stands and is held fast, not of what passes away and is dissolved, which flatters the senses a little, but for the most part ruins and harms, at least in my view. For the body's own wickedness is sufficient for it. Why does the flame need more fuel, or the beast more abundant food, so that it becomes harder to hold and more violent than reason? … [2] … of days, the Sabbath, which is continually honoured among them, as the removal of leaven is of the same number; and of years, the seventh year, the year of release. And not only in sevens, but also in sevens of sevens, both of days and of years. The sevens of days produce Pentecost, a day called holy among them; the sevens of years produce what they call the Jubilee, which likewise has release of the land, freedom of slaves, and the return of purchased possessions. For this people consecrates to God firstfruits not only of produce and of firstborn, but also of days and years. So the honoured number seven brought with it the honour of Pentecost. For seven multiplied by itself produces fifty, less one day, which we have taken over from the age to come, being both the eighth and the first, or rather the one day that does not end. For the sabbath rest of souls here must end there, so that a portion may be given to seven and even to eight, as some before us have interpreted the saying of Solomon.

Of the honour of seven the testimonies are many, but a few out of many will suffice us. Seven honoured Spirits are named; for Isaiah likes, I think, to call the activities of the Spirit spirits. The words of the Lord are purified sevenfold, according to David. The righteous man is delivered from six troubles, and in the seventh is not even struck. The sinner is forgiven not seven times only, but seventy times seven. And again from the opposite side (for the punishment of wickedness is praiseworthy too): Cain is avenged sevenfold, that is, pays the penalty for killing his brother; and Lamech seventy times seven, because he was a murderer after the law and the condemnation. The wicked neighbours receive sevenfold into their bosom; the house of Wisdom is supported on seven pillars; the stone of Zerubbabel is adorned with as many eyes. God is praised seven times a day. And the barren woman bears seven, the perfect number, in contrast with her who is imperfect in children.

If we must also look at the ancient histories, I think of Enoch, the seventh among the forefathers, honoured by being taken up; I think of Abraham, the twenty-first, glorified with the patriarchate, by the addition of a greater mystery, for the seven tripled makes this number. And one of the very bold might even venture to come to the new Adam, my God and Lord Jesus Christ, numbered seventy-seventh from the old Adam who was under sin, according to Luke's genealogy reckoned backwards. I think too of the seven trumpets of Joshua the son of Nun, and as many circuits and days and priests, by which the walls of Jericho were shaken; and so too the seven circuits of the city; as also, as mystical, the threefold breathing of Elijah the prophet, which breathed life into the son of the widow of Zarephath, and his pouring of water of the same number upon the wood, when he consumed the sacrifice with fire sent by God and condemned the prophets of shame, who could not do the same in answer to his challenge; so too the seventh looking out for the cloud, commanded to the servant, and Elisha's equal number of bendings over the son of the Shunammite woman, which rekindled his breath. Of the same doctrine, I think (not to mention the lampstand of the temple with seven branches and seven lamps), the priest is consecrated in seven days, the leper is cleansed in seven, and the temple is dedicated in as many. In the seventieth year the people is brought back from captivity, that what exists in units may come to be in tens, and the mystery of the seven be honoured by a more perfect number. Why speak of distant things? Jesus himself, the pure perfection, knows how to feed five thousand in the desert with five loaves, and again four thousand with seven; and the remnants of the abundance were there twelve baskets, here seven hampers; neither, I think, without reason, nor unworthily of the Spirit. And you too, gathering them for yourself, might observe many numbers that have something deeper than appears. But what is most useful for the present occasion is this: it is perhaps for these reasons, or reasons very near to them, or for some more divine ones, that the Hebrews honour the day of Pentecost; and we honour it too, as there are other Hebrew observances which they performed in figure and which are restored to us in mystery. Having said this much beforehand about the day, let us go on to what follows in our discourse.

We keep the feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, the appointed time of the promise, and the fulfilment of hope. And how great, how great and venerable, is the mystery! The bodily things of Christ have come to an end, or rather the things of his bodily sojourn (for I hesitate to say “of the body”, until some argument persuades me that it is better for him to have laid aside the body); and the things of the Spirit begin. What were the things of Christ? The virgin, the birth, the manger, the swaddling, the angels glorifying, the shepherds running, the course of the star, the worship and gifts of the Magi, Herod's slaughter of the children, Jesus fleeing into Egypt and returning from Egypt, being circumcised, baptized, witnessed to from above, tempted, stoned for our sake, to whom a pattern of suffering for the word had to be given, betrayed, nailed, buried, rising, ascending; and even now he suffers much of this: from the haters of Christ, dishonour, and he bears it, for he is long-suffering; from the lovers of Christ, honour. And he puts off, as his wrath for them, so his goodness for us; perhaps giving them time for repentance, and testing our desire, whether we lose heart in afflictions and in the struggles for piety; as is the age-old principle of the divine economy and of his inscrutable judgments, by which he wisely directs our affairs. Such are the things of Christ; and what follows we shall see more glorious, and may we be seen. As for the things of the Spirit, may the Spirit be present with me and give me speech, as much as I wish; or if not so much, at least as much as fits the occasion. He will certainly be present as Master, not as servant, nor waiting for a command, as some think. For he blows where he wills, upon whom he wills, and when, and as much as he wills. So we are inspired both to think and to speak about the Spirit.

Those who bring the Holy Spirit down to the rank of a creature are insolent, wicked servants, and the worst of the wicked. For it is the part of wicked servants to reject lordship, to rise up against dominion, and to make him who is free their fellow servant. Those who think him God are inspired and illumined in mind. Those who also call him so are lofty if they speak to the well-disposed, but, if to the lowly, not prudent stewards: they entrust a pearl to clay, the sound of thunder to weak hearing, the sun to weaker eyes, and solid food to those still drinking milk; whereas they ought to lead them forward little by little and bring them up to higher things, bestowing light upon light and procuring truth for truth. Therefore we too, leaving aside for now the more perfect discourse (for it is not yet the time), will speak to them as follows. [7] … Confess the nature in other words, which you respect more; and we will heal you as sick people, slipping in also some things that please. For it is shameful, shameful and quite unreasonable, for those who are strong in soul to be petty about the sound and to hide the treasure, as though begrudging it to others, or afraid of sanctifying your tongue too; but it is more shameful for us to suffer what we accuse others of, and, while condemning pettiness, to be petty ourselves about letters.

Confess the Trinity, my friends, to be of one Godhead; or, if you prefer, of one nature; and we will ask the Spirit for the word “God” for you. For he who gave the first will give the second too, I know well, especially if what resists is a spiritual timidity and not a devilish obstinacy. Let me say it still more plainly and briefly: neither call us to account for the loftier word (for there is no envy of ascent), nor will we accuse you for the one attainable for now, so long as you are carried by another road to the same lodging. For we do not seek to conquer, but to win brothers, by whose separation we are torn apart. This we say to you, in whom we find something living, who are sound regarding the Son, whose life we admire, though we do not wholly praise your doctrine: you who have the things of the Spirit, receive the Spirit too, that you may not only strive but strive lawfully, from which comes the crown. May this be given you as the reward of your way of life: to confess the Spirit perfectly, and to proclaim him with us and even before us as he deserves. I dare to say something greater on your behalf, the Apostle's word: so much do I cling to you, and so much do I revere this orderly dress of yours, the colour of continence, these holy communities, the venerable virginity and purity, the all-night psalmody, the love of the poor, of brothers and of strangers, that I would accept even to be accursed from Christ, and to suffer something as one condemned, if only you would stand with us and glorify the Trinity together.

… As for the others, what need is there even to speak, since they are plainly dead (only Christ, who gives life to the dead by his own power, can raise them), who are wrongly separated by place while bound together in doctrine, and quarrel with one another as much as squinting eyes, which see one thing and differ not in sight but in position, if indeed we should charge them with squinting and not with blindness. And since I have set out in measure what concerns you, …

… let us return again to the Spirit; and I think that you too will now follow.

The Holy Spirit always was, and is, and will be, neither beginning nor ending, but always ranked and numbered with the Father and the Son. For it was not fitting that the Son should ever be lacking to the Father, or the Spirit to the Son. For then the Godhead would have been most inglorious, coming as if by a change of mind to the completion of its perfection. He was always, then, participated, not participating; perfecting, not perfected; filling, not filled; sanctifying, not sanctified; deifying, not deified; always the same as himself and as those with whom he is ranked; invisible, timeless, uncontained, unchangeable, without quality, without quantity, without form, intangible, self-moved, ever-moving, self-determining, self-powerful, all-powerful (although, as all that belongs to the Only-begotten, so all that belongs to the Spirit is referred back to the first cause); life and life-giving; light and giver of light; goodness itself and source of goodness; the right Spirit, the princely Spirit, the Lord; sending, setting apart, building himself a temple, guiding, working as he wills, distributing gifts; Spirit of adoption, of truth, of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of piety, of counsel, of might, of fear, those that are enumerated; through whom the Father is known and the Son glorified, and by whom alone he is known; one rank, one worship, adoration, power, perfection, sanctification. Why should I speak at length? All that the Father has belongs to the Son, except being unbegotten; all that the Son has belongs to the Spirit, except being begotten. These do not mark off essences, in my view, but are distinctions about the essence. [10] … Today let us teach doctrine, tomorrow we may argue technicalities; today let us keep the feast,

tomorrow we may behave unseemly. These things belong to the mysteries, those to the theatre; these to the churches, those to the marketplaces; these to the sober, those to the drunken; these to those who are in earnest, those to those who make sport of the Spirit. And since we have cleared away what is foreign, come, let us set in order what is ours.

He was at work first in the angelic and heavenly powers, all that are first after God and around God. For from no other source than the Holy Spirit comes their perfection and illumination, and their being hard to move or immovable towards evil. Then in the patriarchs and the prophets, of whom some pictured God or knew him, and others also foreknew the future, their ruling faculty being moulded by the Spirit, and being with things to come as though present; for such is the power of the Spirit. Then in the disciples of Christ (I pass over Christ, with whom he was present, not as working, but as accompanying his equal); and in them in three ways, as far as they could receive him, and at three times: before Christ was glorified by the passion, after he was glorified by the resurrection, and after his ascension into heaven, or restoration, or whatever one should call it. The first is shown by the cleansing of diseases and spirits, which clearly did not happen without the Spirit; the second by the breathing after the economy, plainly a more divine inspiration; the third by the present distribution of the tongues of fire, which we are celebrating. The first was indistinct, the second more expressive, the present more perfect: no longer present by his activity, as before, but present essentially, as one might say, being with us and dwelling with us. For it was fitting that, as the Son had conversed with us bodily, the Spirit too should appear bodily; and that, when Christ had returned to himself, the Spirit should come down to us: coming as Lord, sent as not opposed to God. For such expressions show agreement no less than they distinguish persons. [12] Therefore after Christ, that a Paraclete might not be lacking to us; and “another”, that you may consider his equal honour. For “another” stands for “another such as I”. This is a name of joint lordship, not of dishonour; for “another”, I know, is said not of things alien but of things of the same essence. In tongues, because of his kinship with the Word. Of fire: I ask whether because of the cleansing (for our discourse knows also a cleansing fire, as those who wish may learn from many places) or because of the essence. For our God is fire, and a fire consuming wickedness, even if you are again annoyed at being hemmed in by the “same essence”. Divided, because of the diversity of gifts; sitting, because of his royal dignity and his rest in the saints, since the cherubim too are the throne of God. In an upper room (if I do not seem to anyone more curious than I should), because of the ascent of those who were to receive him and their elevation from the ground; since certain upper rooms too are roofed with divine waters, by which God is hymned. And Jesus himself, in an upper room, gives communion in the mystery to those who were being initiated into higher things, that this might be shown: that God must in some way come down to us, as I know happened before with Moses, and we must go up, and so there comes to be communion of God with men, the dignity being blended. As long as each remains in its own place, the one in its height, the other in its lowliness, the goodness remains unmingled and the love for man incommunicable, and there is a great and impassable gulf between, separating not only the rich man from Lazarus and the longed-for bosom of Abraham, but the created and flowing nature from the uncreated and stable. [13] … (that is, upon all who believe), and upon your sons …

… and upon your daughters, and so on. … and later by Jesus, when he was glorified and glorifying in return, as he glorified the Father and was glorified by him. And how abundant the promise: to abide for ever and to remain, whether now with those who are worthy at each time, or hereafter with those counted worthy of the things there, if we keep him whole by our way of life and do not cast him off in proportion to our sins. [14] This Spirit creates together with the Son both the creation and the resurrection. Let this convince you: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power”; and, “The divine Spirit made me, and the breath of the Almighty teaches me”; and again, “You will send forth your Spirit and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” And he creates the spiritual regeneration. Let this convince you: that no one can see or receive the kingdom who has not been born again from above by the Spirit and cleansed from the former birth, which is a mystery of the night, by a formation of the day and of light, by which each is formed individually. This Spirit, being most wise and most loving, if he takes a shepherd, makes him a psalmist, charming away evil spirits, and declares him king of Israel; if a goatherd scraping sycamore fruit, he makes him a prophet: remember David and Amos. If he takes a gifted youth, he makes him a judge of elders even beyond his years: Daniel bears witness, who conquered the lions in the den. If he finds fishermen, he nets them for Christ, catching the whole world in the meshes of the word: take Peter and Andrew, and the sons of thunder, thundering spiritual things. If tax collectors, he wins them for discipleship and makes them merchants of souls: witness Matthew, yesterday a tax collector, today an evangelist. If ardent persecutors, he changes the direction of their zeal and makes Pauls instead of Sauls, as devoted to piety as … [he found them to wickedness]; and he is the Spirit of meekness, and yet he is provoked by those who sin. Let us therefore experience him as gentle and not wrathful, confessing his dignity and fleeing blasphemy, … he it is who has made me bold to you today; if, then, I am to suffer nothing, thanks be to God; and if I do suffer, thanks even so: in the one case, that he spares those who hate us; in the other, that he sanctifies us, who receive this reward for the priestly service of the gospel, to be perfected through blood.

They spoke, then, in foreign tongues and not in their native ones; and great was the wonder, a language spoken by those who had not learned it. And the sign is for unbelievers, not for believers, that it might be an accusation against the unbelievers, as it is written: “With other tongues and with other lips I will speak to this people, and not even so will they listen to me, says the Lord.” “And they heard”: stop here a moment and consider how you will divide the sentence; for the expression has an ambiguity, which is settled by the punctuation. Did each hear in his own dialect, so that, for example, one sound was uttered but many were heard, the air being struck in this way, and, to put it more clearly, one voice becoming many voices? Or should one pause after “they heard”, and attach “speaking in their own voices” to what follows, so that it means “speaking in voices that were the hearers' own”, that is, foreign to the speakers? This I prefer. For in the former way the wonder would belong rather to the hearers than to the speakers; but in this way it belongs to the speakers, who are even accused of drunkenness, plainly because they themselves were working wonders with their voices by the Spirit.

How do you find my affairs, my friends, shepherds and fellow shepherds, whose feet are beautiful as they bring the good news of peace and good things, with which you have come; beautiful also in your dealings with us, to whom you have come in season, not to turn back a straying sheep, but to visit a shepherd who is abroad? How do you find my sojourn abroad? And what is its fruit, or rather the fruit of the Spirit in us, by whom we are always moved and now have been moved, desiring nothing of our own, and perhaps having nothing? Do you understand by yourselves and observe, and are you kinder reckoners of our affairs? Or must we, like those called to account for generalship, or public works, or the management of money, ourselves give you a public account of what we have administered? For we are not ashamed to be judged, since we too judge in our turn, and both with the same love. The law is an ancient one: Paul too communicated his gospel to the apostles, not to gain honour (for the Spirit is far from all ambition), but that what was done well might be confirmed, or what fell short be corrected, if there was anything of the kind in what he said or did, as he himself indicates in writing about himself; since the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets, according to the good order of the Spirit, who administers and distributes all things well. If he did it privately and to a few, but I give account publicly and to all, do not wonder. For I need, more than he did, to be helped by the freedom of reproof, if I appear to fall short of what is right, lest I should be running or should have run in vain. And there is no other way to make a defence than by speaking among those who know.

What, then, is the defence? If it is false, refute it …

… but if it is true, bear witness, you for whom and among whom I speak. For you are my defence, and … [3] … to conduct ourselves worthily of your commandments, but we walked after our evil mind. For why else were we delivered to the most unjust and most wicked men, beyond all who dwell on the earth? The first Nebuchadnezzar afflicted us, he who after Christ raged against Christ, and hated Christ for this very reason, that he had been saved through him, and who took up godless sacrifices in exchange for the sacred books. He devoured me, he divided me, he covered me with thin darkness; for I would not depart from Scripture even in my lament.

… had not the Lord helped me, and justly delivered him into the hands of the lawless, removing him to the Persians (how wonderful are God's judgments!), and for unholy blood righteous blood was shed (here alone justice did not wait in long-suffering), my soul would almost have dwelt in Hades. The second was no kinder than he, except that he was even more oppressive, inasmuch as, bearing the name of Christ, he was a false Christ, at once a burden and a reproach to Christians; for them it was godless to act, and inglorious to suffer, since they did not even seem to be wronged, nor did the splendid name of martyrdom attach to their suffering; but even here the truth was stolen, as those who suffered as Christians were punished as impious. Alas, that we grew rich in evils, that fire devoured the beauties of the world! What the caterpillar left, the locust ate; what the locust left, the mildew ate; then the cankerworm; then I know not what besides, one evil springing up after another. Why should one recount in tragic style all the evils of that time, whether trial or refining by fire? Except that we went through fire and water and came out into refreshment, by the good pleasure of God who saves. [4] But what my discourse wished to tell from the beginning is this: this husbandry was once small and poor, and not worthy, I do not say of God, who has cultivated and cultivates the whole world with the fair seeds and doctrines of piety, but not even, as it seemed, of one poor man among the needy and modest; not even a farm at all, nor worthy of barns, nor perhaps of a threshing floor, nor of a sickle; neither sheaves nor handfuls, or only small and unripe handfuls, like the grass on the housetops, neither filling the hand of the reaper nor calling for the blessing of passers-by. Such was our husbandry, such the harvest: great indeed, full in the ear and rich to him who beholds hidden things, and fitting for such a husbandman, multiplied by valleys of souls well cultivated by the word; but not known to the many, nor gathered into one, but collected little by little, like straw in the harvest and like a gleaning in the vintage, when there is no cluster. I think I will add this too, and very timely: as I found Israel like a fig in the desert, and like one or two ripe grapes in an unripe cluster, a blessing of the Lord preserved and firstfruits consecrated, but still small and rare, and not filling the mouth of one who eats; and like a beacon on a hill and a mast on a mountain, or anything else that stands alone and is seen by few. These were the circumstances of our former poverty and dejection.

But since God, who makes poor and makes rich, who kills and gives life, who makes all things and transforms them by his will alone, who makes day out of night, spring out of winter, calm out of storm, rain out of drought, and that often through the prayer of one righteous man long persecuted, who lifts up the meek on high and humbles sinners to the ground, said that word to himself: “I have surely seen the affliction of Israel,” and, “they shall no longer toil at the clay and the brickmaking”; and, having said it, visited them, and having visited them, saved them, and brought his people out with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm, by the hand of Moses and Aaron his chosen ones: what happens, and what wonders are wrought? Those that books and records report. Besides the wonders on the way and that great proclamation, to put it most briefly: Joseph went into Egypt one man, and a short time after sixty myriads came out of Egypt. What is more wonderful than this, or a greater proof of God's magnanimity, when he wishes to give a way through to affairs out of impasses? And the land of promise is allotted through one who was hated, and he who was sold removes nations and is made a great nation; and that small offshoot becomes a flourishing vine, so great that it spreads over rivers, stretches to the sea, widened from border to border, and covers mountains with the height of its glory, and rises above the cedars, even those of God, whatever we are to understand by these mountains and these cedars.

Such was this flock once, and such it is now, so healthy and widening; and if not yet perfectly, yet advancing to this by additions little by little; and I prophesy that it will advance. This the Holy Spirit foretells to me, if I am at all a prophet and see what lies ahead; and I can be confident from what has gone before, and know by reasoning, as one nurtured on reason. For it was far more wonderful that from that state it should become so great, than that what now is should come to the height of splendour. For since it began to be gathered by him who gives life to the dead, bone to bone and joint to joint, and the Spirit of life and regeneration was given to the dry bones, the resurrection, I know well, must be completed for all; so that let not those who provoke be exalted in themselves, nor think they hold anything, holding a shadow, or the dream of those who awake, or breezes blowing past, or the track of a ship upon the water. Let the pine howl, for the cedar has fallen. Let them be instructed by the misfortunes of others, and learn that the poor man will not be forgotten for ever, nor will the Godhead, which is cut up and wrongly divided into ruler and ruled, endure without cutting off in amazement the heads of the mighty, as Habakkuk says; so that the Godhead would especially be insulted by being brought down, and the creation burdened by an equal honour with the Godhead.

I seem to hear also that voice from him who gathers the broken and receives the oppressed: “Enlarge the place of your tent; spread out to the right and to the left; fix your stakes; do not spare your curtains. I delivered you up, and I will help you. In a little wrath I struck you, and with everlasting mercy I will glorify you.” The measure of his love for man is greater than the measure of his discipline. Those things were for wickedness; these are for the Trinity that is worshipped. Those were for cleansing; these for my glory, for “I glorify those who glorify me”, and provoke to jealousy those who provoke me. Behold, these things are sealed up with me, and this is the unbreakable law of requital. But you clung to walls and porches and … of the elaborate mosaic, and long colonnades and circuits, and you glittered and gleamed with gold, scattering the one like water and storing up the other like sand, not knowing that faith in the open air is better than costly impiety, and that three gathered in the name of the Lord are worth more to God than many myriads denying the Godhead. Or will you prefer all the Canaanites to Abraham alone? Or the Sodomites to Lot alone? Or the Midianites to Moses, the sojourner and stranger? What of the three hundred with Gideon, who shone so manfully, compared with the thousands who turned back? What of Abraham's household servants, a little more than these in number, compared with the many kings and the myriads of their army, whom, though few, they pursued and routed? And how do you understand this: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved”? And this: “I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal”? It is not so, it is not. God did not take pleasure in the many.

You count the myriads, but God those who are saved; you the immeasurable dust, but I the vessels of election. For nothing is so magnificent to God as pure doctrine and a soul perfect in the doctrines of truth. For nothing is worthy to give and offer to God, who made all things, from whom are all things and to whom are all things; not the work of one hand or one fortune, nor even if one gathered into one all the wealth or the handiwork among men and wished to honour him with it. “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord”; and, “What house will you build for me? Or what is the place of my rest?” But since we must needs fall short of what is worthy, I ask for the second best: I ask from you piety, the wealth common to me and equal in honour, in which perhaps the very poor man will surpass the very splendid, if he is great-souled; for such generosity belongs to the will, not to wealth. “These too I will receive from your hands, know it well. You shall no longer tread my court; but the feet of the meek shall tread it, those who have known me and my only-begotten Word and the Holy Spirit soundly and genuinely. How long will you inherit my holy mountain? How long will the ark be among the foreigners? Now revel a little longer in what belongs to others, and enjoy your will. As you planned to thrust me away, so I too will thrust you away, says the Lord Almighty.”

These things I seemed to hear him say and to see him doing; and besides, crying to the people, which from few has now become many, and is well united after being scattered, and has perhaps passed from being pitied to being envied: “Go through my gates and be enlarged. Must you always toil dwelling in tents, and those who afflict you exult over you?” And to the angels set over us (for I am persuaded that different angels preside over different churches, as John teaches me through the Apocalypse): “Make a way for my people and throw the stones out of the way, that there may be no stumbling block or hindrance to the people on the divine way and entrance,” now to the temples made with hands, but shortly to the Jerusalem above and the Holy of Holies there, which I know to be the end of the labour and strain here for those who travel well. Among them are you too, called saints, a special people, a royal priesthood, the best portion of the Lord, a whole river from a drop, a heavenly torch from a spark, a tree from a mustard seed, a resting place for the birds.

Lift up your eyes round about and see, every examiner of my words. See the crown of glory woven in place of the hirelings of Ephraim and the crown of pride. See the council of presbyters, honoured by grey hairs and understanding; the good order of the deacons, not far from the same Spirit; the decorum of the readers; the love of learning among the people, both men and women, equal in virtue; and of the men, philosophers and simpler folk alike, all wise in divine things; rulers and ruled, all here well ruled; soldiers, nobles, those in letters and those who study letters, all soldiers of God, gentle in other things but warlike for the Spirit, all honouring the senate above (into which it is not the written roll that brings the commoner, but the life-giving Spirit), all truly learned and servants of the true Word; and of the women, those under the yoke, bound to God rather than to the flesh, and those unyoked and free, wholly consecrated to God; young and old, of whom the old travel well towards old age, and the young strive to remain immortal, renewed by the better hopes.

To this crown (what I say I do not say according to the Lord, but I will say it nevertheless) I too contributed something with those who wove it. Some of these are the work of my words, not of words we threw away but of words we loved; not harlot's words, as someone said, disparaging both our speech and our manner as harlots', but very chaste ones. Some of these are also the offspring and fruit of my spirit, as the spirit knows how to beget those who withdraw from the body. The fair-minded among you will bear witness, I know well, or rather all of you, since we cultivated all; and our only reward is your acknowledgement. For we seek nothing else, nor have we sought it. For virtue is unpaid, that it may remain virtue, looking to the good alone.

Do you want us to add something bolder? Do you see the hostile tongues tamed, and those who fight against us over the Godhead quiet? This too is the work of the Spirit, and of our husbandry. For we do not instruct uninstructedly, nor pelt with insults, as most do, fighting with those who speak not by argument, and sometimes covering the weakness of their reasonings with insults, as cuttlefish are said to spew out their ink before them, that they may escape their hunters or hunt by being hidden. But we show that we fight for Christ by fighting as Christ did, the peaceable and gentle, who bore our weaknesses. Nor do we make peace against the word of truth, yielding something for a reputation for moderation, for we do not hunt the good by evil means; and we keep peace while fighting lawfully, within our own bounds and the rules of the Spirit. On these matters this is my judgment, and I lay it down as a law for all stewards of souls and dispensers of the word: neither to exasperate by harshness, nor to make people conceited by submissiveness, but to be reasonable in teaching the word, exceeding the measure in neither direction.

… both in names and in realities (you know it, who have been initiated): a renunciation of godlessness and a confession of the Godhead; and so we are perfected, knowing the one in the essence and in the undivided worship, and the three in the hypostases, or persons, as some prefer. Let not those who quarrel about these words behave unseemly, as though our piety lay in names and not in realities. For what do you mean, you who bring in three hypostases? Do you say this supposing three essences? I know that you will cry out loudly against those who think so, for you teach that the essence of the three is one and the same. And what of you who say persons? Do you imagine one thing, a kind of composite, three-faced, or entirely in human form? Away with it, you too will cry back; may he not see the face of God, whatever that is, who thinks so. What then do the hypostases mean to us, or the persons to you? I will ask you. That the three are distinguished not by natures but by properties. Excellent! How could people agree more, and say the same thing, being so minded, even if they differ in syllables? You see what a reconciler I am for you, leading you from the letter to the sense, as one does with the Old and the New …

But I must return again to the same subject. Let “unbegotten”, “begotten” and “proceeding” be said and thought, if anyone likes to coin names; for we shall not fear that incorporeal things may be thought of in a bodily way, as the slanderers of the Godhead suppose. “Creature”, however, let it be said of what belongs to God (for this too is great for us); but “God”, never. Or I will accept that a creature is God when I too become properly God. For so it is: if he is God, he is not a creature, for the creature is ranked with us, who are not gods; and if he is a creature, he is not God, for he began in time; and what began, there was when it was not; and that to which not-being is prior is not properly being; and how is what is not properly being God? So none of the three is a creature, nor, what is worse than this, made for my sake …, so that it would be not only a creature but even less honourable than we are. For if I exist for the glory of God, and it exists for my sake (as the tongs exist for the wagon, or the saw for the door), I surpass it in respect of purpose. For as much as God … of creatures …

Against these things, let neither Moabites nor Ammonites enter the church of God: the dialectical and mischievous arguments of those who busy themselves about God's generation and his ineffable procession, and rise up boldly against the Godhead; as though what is above reason must either be attainable by them alone, or not exist at all because they have not grasped it. But we, following the divine Scriptures and removing the stumbling blocks lying in the way of the blind, will hold fast to salvation, daring anything rather than to be insolent towards God. The testimonies we will leave to others, since they have been discussed often by many already, and by us not carelessly; and besides, it would be very shameful, for me at least, to collect now the proofs of what has long been believed. For it is not the best order to teach first and then to learn, not only in things divine and so great, but in any of the small and worthless things. And to resolve and set right the stumbling blocks in Scripture is not for the present occasion, but for a more thorough and greater effort than the present impulse of the subject allows. Our doctrine, then, to sum it up, is this. And I have gone through these things, not to contend with opponents (for we have often contended already, if in measure), but to show you the character of my teaching, whether I am your fellow combatant, and against the same adversaries. [19] This, gentlemen, is the defence of my sojourn among you: if it is praiseworthy, thanks be to God and to you who called me; if it falls short of what was hoped, thanks even so. For it is not wholly blameworthy, I know well, and you will not disbelieve me when I say so. Have we taken advantage of the people in anything? Have we managed anything for our own benefit, as I see most people do? Have we grieved the church in anything? Others perhaps we have, those who think they have won against us by default, since we opposed them with our doctrine; but you in nothing, so far as I am conscious. “I have not taken an ox of yours,” says the great Samuel to Israel when disputing about the king, “nor a ransom for your souls; the Lord is witness among you”; not mentioning this and that besides, so that I may not myself enumerate each thing. But I have kept the priesthood pure and unadulterated. If I have loved power, or the height of thrones, or treading the courts of kings, may I have no other glory, or may I throw away what I have.

What then am I saying? I am not an unpaid labourer in virtue, nor have I reached such a height of virtue. Give me the wage of my labours. What is it? Not what some of those who think everything easy might suppose, but what is safe for me. Give us rest from our long labours; respect these grey hairs; honour my sojourn as a stranger; bring in another in my place, one who will be persecuted for you, pure of hands, not unskilled in speech, able to please you in all things and to share the burden of the church's cares; for now especially is the time for such men. As for me, you see how this body is, worn out by time, disease and labour. What need have you of a timid old man, frail and dying, so to speak, every day, not only in body but also in cares, who can scarcely say even these words to you? Do not disbelieve the voice of your teacher; for you have never disbelieved it. I am weary of being accused for my moderation. I am weary of fighting both with words and with envy, with enemies and with our own. The former strike at the breast and succeed less, for what is openly hostile is easily guarded against; the latter watch for the back and are more painful, for what is unsuspected is more deadly. If I were a pilot, and one of the very skilled, and the sea around us were great and boiling about the ship, and the strife among those on board were great, some quarrelling about one thing and others about another, and dashing against one another and against the waves, how long could I have held out sitting at the helm, so as to fight both the sea and those on board, and bring the ship safely through the double storm? For where salvation would be hard even with all working together, how could one not sink when they work against one another?

[21] … as there is also a barbarian one: how shall I join and bring into one these who sit on rival thrones and shepherd against one another, and the people torn apart with them and set against each other, as in the clefts of earthquakes what is neighbouring and close, or as in pestilential diseases the attendants and the household, the sickness passing easily from some to others? And not only so, but even the regions of the world have shared the sufferings of the factions, so that East and West have now been divided into opposing parts, and are in danger of becoming divided no less in opinion than in boundaries. For how long “mine” and “yours”, the old and the new, the more learned and the more spiritual, the nobler and the lowlier, the richer in followers and the poorer? I am ashamed for my old age, being called, after being saved by Christ, by the names of others. [22] I cannot bear your horse races and your theatres, and this evenly balanced madness in expenditure and zeal. We change teams, we yoke against each other, we neigh at each other, we almost beat the air like them and throw dust towards heaven, like men beside themselves, and under other persons we satisfy our own rivalries, becoming bad umpires of ambition and unfair judges of affairs. Today sharing the same thrones and the same opinions, if those who lead us carry us that way; tomorrow on rival thrones and with rival opinions, if the wind blows the other way. With enmity and friendship the names change too; and, most terrible of all, we are not ashamed to use the same words before hearers of opposite views; nor do we stand on the same ground, our love of contention making us now one thing, now another, like the changes of the Euripus or the ebb tides. As, then, if boys were playing in the middle of the marketplace, it would be very shameful and unworthy of us to leave our own pursuits and join in with them (for children's toys do not become old age), so neither, while the others are carried hither and thither, would I, who know something better than the many, choose to be one of them rather than to be, as I am, free in obscurity. For besides other things I feel this too: I do not for the most part go along with the many, nor walk the same road … I feel it nevertheless: the pleasures of others grieve me, and I take pleasure in what grieves others. So I would not wonder even at this, if I were put in bonds as a nuisance and thought foolish by the many, as one of the Greek philosophers is said to have suffered, being charged with madness for his good sense, because he laughed at everything, seeing that what the many take seriously is worthy of laughter; or I might be thought full of new wine, as Christ's disciples later were, when they spoke in tongues, people not knowing that it was the power of the Spirit, not a derangement of mind. [23] Consider the charges against us too. “So long a time,” someone says, “since you have led the church, with the turn of the times and the zeal of the ruler in your favour, so great an advantage: what sign of the change have you given us? How many have insulted us in the past? What terrible thing have we not suffered? Not insults? Not threats? Not exiles? Not plunder of money? Not confiscations? Not presbyters burnt at sea? Not temples defiled with the blood of saints and turned into charnel houses instead of temples? Not the public slaughter of aged bishops, or, more properly, patriarchs? Not every place made inaccessible to the pious alone? Not everything terrible one could name? And which of these have we returned to those who did them, though the power to act was turned round, and the insulters ought to have been disciplined? I pass over the rest; but as for ourselves, not to speak of you, have we not been persecuted? Not insulted? Not driven out of churches, houses, even the deserts themselves, which is most terrible of all? Did we not bear a raging populace? Insulting prefects? Emperors insulted, edicts and all? And then what? We have become stronger, and the persecutors have escaped.” For me the power to retaliate is sufficient punishment of wrongdoers; but they do not think so, for they are very exact and just about requital, and so they demand what the times allow. “What prefect,” it says, “has been fined? What people chastised? What instigators of the people? What fear have we secured for ourselves for the future?” [24] … and the dignity of dress, the processions, the haughtiness towards those who meet us. For I did not know that our rivalry was to be with consuls and prefects and the most illustrious generals, who do not know where to throw away their wealth; and that we must make our bellies groan, revelling on the goods of the poor, using necessities for superfluities, and belching over the altars; ride on fine horses, be lifted up splendidly in carriages, be escorted and applauded, with everyone making way for us as for wild beasts and parting on either side, or that we must be seen from afar as we come. If these have been terrible omissions, they are past: forgive me this injustice. Set over yourselves another who will please the many; but give me solitude and the countryside and God, whom alone I shall please even by my plainness. It is a terrible thing to be deprived of speeches and assemblies and festivals and these applauses that give us wings, and of relatives and friends and honours, and of the beauty and greatness of the city, and of the brilliance that flashes on every side on those who gaze at such things and do not look within; but not so terrible as to be troubled and defiled by the disturbances and tossings in the midst, and by bending to the many. For they do not seek priests but orators; not stewards of souls but guardians of money; not pure sacrificers but powerful patrons. I will make one defence for them: we ourselves have trained them so, becoming all things to all, I do not know whether to save all or to destroy them.

What do you say? Shall we persuade you by these words, and have we won? Or do we need stronger words to persuade you? Yes, by the Trinity itself, which we honour and you honour, by our common hope and the unity of this people: grant me this favour; send me away with your prayers; let this be the proclamation of my contest; give me the letter of discharge, as emperors give it to soldiers; and, if you will, with a testimony in my favour, that I may have that honour; but if not, as you wish. I will make no difficulty about this, until God sees how my affairs stand. Whom, then, shall we bring in instead? The Lord will provide for himself a shepherd for leadership, as he provided a sheep for a whole burnt offering. This one thing alone I ask: let him be one of the envied, not one of the pitied; not one who pleases everybody in everything, but one who knows how to give offence too for the sake of what is better; for the one is sweetest here, the other most profitable there. You, then, prepare your speeches of send-off for me, and I will give you my farewell. [26] Farewell, my Anastasia, named for piety; for you raised up our doctrine when it was still despised; the place of our common victory, the new Shiloh, where we first pitched the tabernacle that had been carried about and wandering for forty years in the wilderness. Farewell, you too, this great and renowned temple, our new inheritance, which has now received its greatness from the Word; you were Jebus before, and we made you Jerusalem. And you others next to it in beauty, each occupying a different part of the city, like ligaments binding the neighbouring parts together, which, in spite of my weakness, not we but grace with us filled when they had been despaired of. Farewell, Apostles, fine settlers here, my teachers in the contest, even if I have not often kept festival with you, carrying about in my body, perhaps for my good, the Satan of your Paul, because of which I am now removed from you. Farewell, my throne, this envied and dangerous height; council of high priests, honoured by the dignity and age of the priests; and all the rest who minister to God around the holy table and draw near to God who draws near. Farewell, choirs of Nazirites, harmonies of psalmody, all-night vigils, modesty of virgins, decorum of women, companies of widows and orphans, eyes of the poor turned towards God and towards us. Farewell, hospitable and Christ-loving houses, helpers of my weakness. Farewell, lovers of my discourses, and the running and the crowding, and the pens visible and hidden, and this railing pressed by those who thrust forward to hear the word. Farewell, emperors and palace, and all the court and household of the emperor: whether faithful to the emperor I do not know, but for the most part unfaithful to God. Clap your hands, shout aloud, lift your orator on high: the wicked and talkative tongue has fallen silent for you. Yet it will not be wholly silent, for it will fight with hand and ink; but for the present it is silent. [27] Farewell, great and Christ-loving city (for I will bear witness to the truth, even though your zeal is not according to knowledge; our separation makes us kinder). Draw near to the truth; be changed, if only late; honour God more than custom. Change has nothing shameful in it; but holding on to evil brings destruction. Farewell, East and West, for whom and by whom we are fought against; he is witness who will make peace among you, if a few imitate my withdrawal. For those who withdraw from thrones do not lose God as well, but will have the seat above, which is much higher and safer than these. Last of all and before all I will cry: Farewell, angels, guardians of this church, and of my presence and my departure, if indeed our affairs are in the hand of God. Farewell, O Trinity, my meditation and my glory; may you be kept by these, and may you keep them, my people (for they are mine, even if I am otherwise disposed of); and may I always hear that you are exalted and increased, both in doctrine and in life. My little children, keep for me the deposit; remember my stonings. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

So it was to be: the great Basil, who always offered me many subjects for discourses (for he took pride in my discourses as no one ever did in his own), was now to set himself before me as the greatest subject of contest for those devoted to oratory. For I think that, if someone were testing his power in oratory and then wished to judge it by a standard, setting up one subject out of all, as painters set up their model pictures, he would set aside this one alone as beyond speech and choose the first of the others. So great a task is the praise of this man, not only for us, who long ago gave up all ambition, but even for those whose life is oratory and who have devoted themselves to this one thing alone, to win fame in such subjects. This is my view of the matter, and very rightly, as I persuade myself. But I do not know for what else I would use eloquence, if not now; or how I could better gratify myself, or the praisers of virtue, or eloquence itself, than by admiring this man. For me this will be a debt sufficiently discharged; and a debt, if anything is, owed to good men, in other things and especially in eloquence, is eloquence. For them the discourse would be at once a pleasure and an exhortation to virtue; for where I know the praises, I clearly know the progress also … And for eloquence itself the matter would turn out well either way: if it came near his worth, it would have shown its own power; if it fell far short (which all who praise him must needs suffer), it would have shown by the deed its defeat, and that the one praised is beyond the power of speech. [2] These, then, are the reasons that have moved me to speak, and for which I have entered this contest. If I have come so late for the occasion, and after so many who have extolled him in private and in public, let no one wonder. But let that divine soul forgive me, venerable to me in all things, now as before. For as, when he was with us, he corrected much of mine by the rule of friendship and a higher law (for I am not ashamed to say this, since he was a law of virtue to all), so too, now that he is above us, he will be indulgent to what is ours. And let those of you also forgive who are more ardent praisers of the man, if anyone is more ardent than another and not all equal in this one thing, his praise. For it was not from negligence that we fell short of what was fitting (may we never so neglect either virtue or the duty of friendship), nor from thinking that his praise belonged to others more than to us. But first, I shrank from the discourse (for the truth shall be told), like those who approach holy things before being purified in voice and mind. Next, I will remind you, though you know it, how in the meantime we were occupied with the true doctrine, which was in danger, rightly compelled, and perhaps by God's will away from home, and not against the mind of that noble champion of the truth, who breathed nothing but pious doctrine, saving for the whole world. For of the things of the body perhaps one should not even dare to speak to a man noble and above the body, before he departed from here, who thought none of the goods of the soul harmed by its bond …

Let the defence, then, rest here. For I do not think we shall need a longer one, speaking as we do to him and to those who know our affairs clearly. Now we must turn to the praise itself, setting his God before our discourse, that we may not insult the man by our praises, nor come far behind the others; even if we all fall equally short of him, as those who look at the heaven and the sun's ray fall short of them.

If I saw him priding himself on his family and on what comes from family, or on any of the small things valued by those who look at the ground, another catalogue of heroes would appear. How many things of those before him in time could we contribute to his honour! And we would not concede to the histories any advantage over us, having this advantage at least, that we take pride not in fictions or myths but in facts themselves, of which there are many witnesses. For Pontus offers us many stories from his father's side, no less than any of the ancient wonders about that country, with which all history and poetry is full; and so does this land of mine, the noble Cappadocians, no less a nurse of youths than of good horses; so that we can match his mother's family against his father's. Generalships and governorships, and power in imperial courts; and besides, wealth, lofty thrones, public honours, splendour of eloquence: if we wished to speak of them, more and greater than any, the Pelopidae and Cecropidae and Alcmaeonidae and Aeacidae …

… and Heraclidae, and those than whom nothing is higher, would be nothing to us; who, having nothing they can speak of openly from their own, take refuge in the obscure, ascribing demons and gods and myths to their ancestors, of which the most venerable part is unbelievable and what is believed is an insult. [4] But since our discourse concerns a man who held that nobility should be judged man by man, and that, while shapes and colours, and the noblest or meanest of horses, are tested by themselves, we should not be painted by external things, I will mention one or two of the things that belonged to him from the beginning, and these proper to his life, which he would most delight to hear told, and then turn to himself. One man has one distinction and story of his family or of himself, small or great, which, like a paternal inheritance, beginning from far or near, passes down to those who come after; but for him piety was the distinction of both his families, as my discourse will now show.

There was a persecution, of persecutions the most terrible and severe (I speak to those who know): that of Maximin, who, coming upon those shortly before him, made them all seem humane, flowing with great boldness and eager to bind on himself the crown of impiety. Many of our champions overcame him, contending even to death, or to a little short of death, left behind only so far as to survive the victory and not depart with their struggles, but to remain for others as trainers in virtue, living martyrs, breathing monuments, silent proclamations. Among the many who are counted were also his father's parents, on whom, having practised every way of piety, that time set a fine crowning. For they were so prepared and minded as to bear easily all those things for which Christ crowns those who imitate his contest for us.

And since their contest too had to be lawful (and the law of martyrdom is neither to go to the contest of one's own accord, out of consideration for the persecutors and for the weaker, nor to shrink back when one is present; for the one is rashness and the other cowardice; and in this too they honoured the lawgiver), what do they contrive? Or rather, whither are they carried by the providence that guided all their affairs? They flee to a thicket on the mountains of Pontus (there are many such there, deep and extending very far), with very few companions of their flight and servants for their food. Let others admire the length of time (for their flight was prolonged, they say, very long, to about the seventh year and a little more), and the narrow and unaccustomed way of life, as one would expect, for well-born bodies, and the hardship of frost and heat and rain in the open air, and the solitude in the wilderness, without fellowship or company, for those who had been escorted and honoured by many. I am coming to tell what is greater and more wonderful than these; and no one will disbelieve it except someone who thinks persecutions and dangers for Christ nothing great, judging wrongly and very dangerously.

The noble ones longed for something pleasant, wearied by the length of time and sated with bare necessities. They did not utter the words of Israel (for they were not grumblers like those who suffered in the wilderness after the flight from Egypt, as though Egypt were better for them than the wilderness, supplying abundance of pots and meat and the other things they had left there; for the brickmaking and the clay counted for nothing with them then in their folly), but other words, more pious and faithful. “What is unbelievable,” they said, “if the God of wonders, who fed a strange and fugitive people richly in the desert, so as to rain bread and pour out birds, feeding them not only with necessities but also with luxuries; who divided the sea and stopped the sun and cut off a river”—and they added the other things he had done (for in such matters the soul loves to recount history and to hymn God with many wonders)—“this God,” they said, “should feed us too today, the champions of piety, with delicacies? Many beasts that have escaped the tables of the rich, such as we once had, lurk in these mountains; many edible birds fly over us who long for them: which of them could not be caught, if only you will?” So they spoke, and the game was there, a meal that came of itself, a feast without effort: deer appearing all at once from somewhere over the hills. How large! How fat! How ready for slaughter! One could almost guess that they were annoyed at not having been called sooner. Some drew others by signs; others followed. Who chased them or forced them? No one. What horsemen? What dogs? What barking or shouting, or young men seizing the outlets according to the laws of hunting? They were bound by prayer and a just request. Who has known such a catch, of those now or of any time?

O the wonder! They themselves were the stewards of the catch: as much as was enough was taken at will; what was over was sent back to the thickets for another meal. The cooks were improvised, the dinner fitting, the guests grateful, having already in the present wonder a prelude of what they hoped for. And from this they became more eager for the contest for which these things were granted them. Such are my stories. But you, my persecutor, who admire myths, tell me of your huntress goddess and your Orions and Actaeons, those ill-fated hunters, and the deer substituted for the maiden, if you have anything so great to boast of, even granting that the story is not a myth. For what follows in the tale is very shameful. What good was the substitution, if it saves a maiden only that she may be taught to kill strangers, learning inhumanity as the return for humanity? This, then, is one story out of many and in place of many, as I see it. And I have told it, not to add anything to his glory (for neither does the sea need the rivers that flow into it, however many and great, nor does the one now praised need anything contributed to his praise), but to show what he had from the beginning, and how far he outstripped the example he looked to. For if it is a great thing for others to receive some distinction from their forebears, it is greater for him to add something of his own to those before him, like a stream flowing back upward.

Of his parents' union, joined no less by equality in virtue than by their bodies, there are many other marks: care of the poor, hospitality to strangers, purity of soul through self-control, a portion of their property consecrated to God (a thing not yet much practised then, as it is now, grown and honoured since those first examples), and the other things which, shared between Pontus and Cappadocia, were enough to fill many ears. But to me the greatest and most conspicuous seems their good fortune in children. That the same people should have many and fine children is perhaps to be found in myths; but experience has shown us these, who were themselves such that, even if they had not been parents of such children, they would have sufficed for their own glory; and who were shown to be parents of such children that, even if they had not been so outstanding in virtue themselves, they would surpass all by their children. For that one or two children should be praised one might credit to nature; but excellence in all is a clear tribute to those who brought them up. This is shown by the blessed number of priests and virgins, and of those in marriage who did not allow their wedlock to hinder them from equal renown in virtue, but made the difference one of manner of life rather than of conduct. [10] … they praise him with … voice. For he himself is both a splendid subject for those who praise him, and alone worthy of the subject by the power of his eloquence. Beauty, strength and stature, in which I see most people delight, I will concede to those who wish; not that he fell short of anyone in these, among the petty who wallow in the body, while he was still young and had not yet subdued the flesh by philosophy; but so that I may not suffer the same as inexperienced athletes, who spend their strength in random and incidental bouts and are found weaker in the decisive contests from which victory comes and crowns are proclaimed. What no one, I think, would consider superfluous to mention, or wide of the mark, that I will praise.

I think it is agreed by all men of sense that education is the first of our goods; not only this nobler education, which is ours, and which, disdaining all the elegance and ambition of eloquence, holds only to salvation and the beauty of what is contemplated, but also that from outside, which many Christians spurn as treacherous and dangerous and leading far from God; wrongly. For as we must not despise heaven and earth and air and all that is in them because some have wrongly understood them, worshipping the things of God instead of God, but, reaping from them what is useful for life and enjoyment, we avoid what is dangerous, not setting the creation against the Creator, as the foolish do, but apprehending the Maker from his works, and, as the divine Apostle says, taking every thought captive to Christ; and as we know that of fire, food, iron and the rest, nothing by itself is most useful or most harmful, but as it seems good to those who use it; and as we have mixed even things from reptiles into saving medicines: so also from these studies we have received what serves inquiry and contemplation, but have spat out all that leads to demons and error and the depth of destruction. Indeed, we have been helped by them towards piety, learning the better from the worse and making their weakness the strength of our doctrine. Education, then, is not to be dishonoured because some think so; rather, those so disposed must be considered boorish and uneducated, who would like everyone to be as they are, so that their own condition may be hidden in the general one and they may escape exposure for their lack of education. Since we have posited and agreed on this, come, let us look at his life.

The first years of his life were swaddled and shaped under his great father, whom Pontus then put forward as a common teacher of virtue; … the best and purest formation, which the divine David well calls “of the day”, the opposite of that of the night. Under him, then, the wonderful man was educated, his life and his speech growing and advancing together; not boasting of some Thessalian mountain cave as a workshop of virtue, nor of some boastful Centaur as teacher of the heroes of his time, nor being taught by him to shoot hares, or run down fawns, or hunt deer, or to be best at war, or to break colts, using the same creature as colt and teacher, or being nourished on the mythical marrow of deer and lions; but being trained in the general education and practising piety, and, in short, being led by his first lessons towards the perfection to come. For those who have succeeded in life only or in speech only, and fall short in the other, seem to me no different from the one-eyed, whose loss is great, but whose shame is greater, both when they look and when they are looked at. But those who excel in both and are skilled with either hand have perfection and live with the blessedness of the world to come. This was his lot, who had at home a good example of virtue, looking to which he was at once excellent. As we see colts and calves skipping beside their mothers from their birth, so he too ran close beside his father with a colt's frisking, not far behind the highest movements of his virtue; or, if you like, sketching in outline the future beauty of his virtue, and tracing the features of exactness before the time for exactness. [13] When he had had enough of the education here, since he was to miss none of the good things nor be outdone by the industry of the bee, which gathers the most useful from every flower, he hastened to the city of Caesarea to share in its schools; I mean this illustrious city of ours (for it was the guide and teacher of my own eloquence too), no less a metropolis of letters than of the cities which it surpasses and over which it rules; and if one deprived it of its power in letters, one would have taken away its finest and most distinctive glory. For other cities pride themselves on other ornaments, old or new, according to the stories or sights they have; but its mark is letters, as devices are on arms or in plays. Let those tell what follows who educated the man among them and enjoyed his learning: how great he was to his teachers and how great to his companions, keeping pace with the former and surpassing the latter in every kind of learning; what fame he won in a short time with all, with the common people and with the first of the city; displaying a learning beyond his age, and a firmness of character beyond his learning; an orator among orators even before the sophist's chair; a philosopher among philosophers even before the doctrines of philosophy; and, the greatest thing, a priest to the Christians even before the priesthood: so much did everyone concede to him in all things. Letters were for him a side-work, from which he gathered only so much as to have them as helpers for our philosophy; since power in these too is needed to express what is thought, for a thought that cannot be uttered is the movement of the paralysed. But philosophy was his pursuit: to break away from the world and to be with God, gaining the things above by means of those below, and acquiring what stands and abides by means of what is unstable and flowing.

From there he went to Byzantium, the city that presides over the East (for it was renowned for its most accomplished sophists and philosophers, from whom in a short time he gathered the best by the quickness and greatness of his nature); from there he was sent by God and by his fine greed for learning to Athens, the home of letters: Athens, truly golden to me, and the procurer of good things, if it was to anyone. For it made me know this man more fully, who was not unknown to me before; and seeking letters, I gained happiness; and in another way I had the same experience as Saul, who, looking for his father's asses, found a kingdom, gaining more by the side-work than by the work. Up to this point our discourse has run easily, carried along a smooth and easy road, truly a royal road of the man's praises; but from here I do not know how to use my speech or where to turn, for the discourse meets something steep. For having come to this point and taken hold of this occasion, I long to add to what has been said something of my own, and to linger a little over the story of whence and how and from what beginning our friendship arose, or rather our harmony and union of nature, if I must speak more properly. For neither does the eye easily withdraw from pleasant sights, but even if one drags it away by force it turns back to them, nor does speech from the sweetest stories. But I fear the vulgarity of the attempt. I will try, then, to do it as moderately as I can; and if I am at all overcome by longing, forgive the feeling, the most just of all feelings, and not to feel which is a loss to those who have sense.

Athens received us like the stream of a river, divided from one source, our homeland, into different foreign lands by the love of learning, and coming together again into one, as if by agreement, God so moving us. It received me a little before, and him immediately after me, welcomed with great and splendid hopes. For he was on many tongues before he arrived, and it was a great thing for each to secure first the one so much sought after. There is nothing like adding a little story as a relish to the discourse, a reminder to those who know and instruction to those who do not. Most of the young men at Athens, and the more foolish of them, are mad about sophists; not only the low-born and nameless, but even the well-born and conspicuous, being a mixed crowd, young and hard to restrain in their impulses. What one can see happen with those who are passionate about horses and the races: they leap, they shout, they send dust up to heaven, they drive while sitting down, they beat the air, they whip the horses with their fingers as with whips …

… they change teams, though they are masters of nothing; they easily exchange charioteers, horses, stables, generals with one another; and often the poor, who have not the means for even one day's food … This is what these men suffer, quite simply, about their own teachers and the rival teachers, eager that they themselves may be more numerous and make their teachers richer. The thing is quite absurd and demonic. Cities, roads, harbours, mountain tops, plains, frontiers are seized beforehand; there is nothing that is not a part of Attica or of the rest of Greece, and most of the inhabitants themselves, for they have these too divided among their factions. [16] Whenever a newcomer arrives and falls into the hands of those who seize him (and this happens by force or willingly), they have this Attic custom, mixing play with earnest. First he is entertained by one of those who got him first, friends or relatives or fellow countrymen, or those who are outstanding in sophistry and bring in fees, and who are therefore especially honoured by the masters; for this too is a reward for them, to win pupils. Then he is teased by anyone who wishes; and this, I think, they wish, to humble the pride of newcomers and bring them under their hand from the start. He is teased, by some more boldly, by others more wittily, according to their rusticity or urbanity. To those who do not know it the thing seems very frightening and savage, but to those who know it beforehand very pleasant and humane; for there is more show than deed in the threats. Then he is led in procession through the marketplace to the bath. The procession is this: arranging themselves in pairs at intervals, those who are performing the rite for the young man escort him to the bath. When they draw near, with loud shouts and leaps, as if frenzied (and the shouting bids them stop and not advance, as though the bath would not admit them), and with the doors being battered at the same time, they frighten the young man with the din, then allow him to enter, and so give him his freedom, receiving him from the bath as an equal and as one of themselves; and this is the most pleasant part of the rite for them, the quickest release and end of the vexations. At that time, then, I not only myself treated my great Basil with respect, seeing the steadiness of his character and the maturity of his speech, but also persuaded the others to do the same, those of the young men who did not know the man; for to most he was at once venerable, his reputation having gone before him. What came of it? He was almost the only one of the newcomers to escape the common law, being thought worthy of greater honour than befits a newcomer.

This was the prelude to our friendship; from this came the spark of our union; thus we were wounded with love for each other. Then something else happened; for it is not right to pass this over either. I find the Armenians not a simple race, but very secretive and underhand. At that time some of his longer-standing acquaintances and friends, from his father's time and from their earlier companionship (for they belonged to that school), came to him with a pretence of friendship (it was envy, not goodwill, that brought them), and questioned him, more contentiously than reasonably, and tried to make him yield to them at the first attempt, knowing the man's natural talent of old and not bearing the honour he then had. For it was terrible …

… if they, who had put on the philosopher's cloak before him and practised their throat-gargling eloquence, should not have the advantage over a stranger and newcomer. And I, the lover of Athens and foolish as I was (for I did not perceive the envy, trusting the pretence), when they were already giving way and turning their backs (for I was jealous that the fame of Athens should be undone in them and be very quickly despised), supported the young men, renewing the argument and giving them my own weight (and in such matters even a small addition can do everything), and made the argument even, “with heads equal in the fight”. But when I learned the secret of the discussion, which could no longer be held in but was now plainly exposed, I suddenly changed and backed water, taking my stand with him, and made the victory one-sided. He was at once delighted at what had happened (for he was quick-witted, if anyone was), and, filled with eagerness, that I may describe him fully in Homer's words, he pressed on, routing those noble fellows with his argument and striking them with syllogisms, and did not let up until he had completely turned them and bound on the victory cleanly. This was the second torch of our friendship, no longer a spark, kindled conspicuous and on high. [18] They then went away unsuccessful, much blaming themselves for their rashness and much annoyed with me for my stratagem, so that they avowed open enmity and charged me with treachery, not only to them but to Athens itself, as having been refuted at the first trial and put to shame by one man, and he one who had not even had time to gain confidence. And he (for it is a human feeling, that when we have hoped for great things and suddenly meet what we hoped for, what we see appears less than its fame), he too felt this: he was downcast, impatient, could not congratulate himself on his coming. He sought what he had hoped for; he called Athens an empty blessedness. So he; but I removed most of his grief, conversing with him reasonably and charming him with arguments, and saying what was true: that neither is a man's character quickly caught, except by long time and closer acquaintance, nor is learning known to those who test it from a few things and in a short time. In this way I brought him back to good cheer, and, giving and receiving proof, bound him more closely to myself.

When, as time went on, we confessed our longing to each other, and that philosophy was what we pursued, then we were all things to each other: sharing a roof, sharing a table, joined in nature, looking to one goal, always increasing our longing for each other more warmly and more firmly. For bodily loves, being for things that flow, flow away like spring flowers. For neither does a flame remain when its fuel is consumed, but departs with what kindles it; nor does desire persist when its tinder has withered. But loves that are according to God and chaste, since they are for something that stands, are for that reason more lasting; and the more their beauty appears to them, the more it binds to itself and to one another those who love the same beauty. This is the law of the love that is above us. I feel that I am being carried beyond the occasion and the measure, and I do not know how I fall into these words; but I cannot restrain myself from the story. For always what has been passed over seems necessary and better than what was chosen first. And if anyone drags me forward tyrannically, I shall suffer what octopuses suffer, which, when dragged out of their holes, cling to the rocks with their suckers and are not let go until they have taken something from them by force. If, then, anyone allows me, I have what I seek; if not, I will take it from myself. … [20] … to receive vice than to impart virtue, since it is easier to pass on disease than to bestow health. Of studies we delighted not in the most pleasant but in the finest, since from these too there is formation towards virtue …

Two roads were known to us: the first and more precious, the second not of equal worth; the one leading to our sacred houses and the teachers there, the other to the teachers outside. The others we left to those who wished: feasts, theatres, assemblies, banquets. For nothing, I think, is precious that does not lead to virtue and make better those who pursue it. Others have other names, from their fathers or their families, or from their own pursuits or deeds; but for us the great thing and the great name was to be and to be called Christians. On this we prided ourselves more than Gyges on the turning of his ring (if that was not a myth), by which he became tyrant of the Lydians; or Midas on his gold, by which he perished when his prayer was granted and he turned everything into gold, another Phrygian myth. For why should I speak of the arrow of Abaris the Hyperborean, or the Argive Pegasus, for whom it was not so great to be carried through the air as it was for us to be raised up to God through one another and with one another? To say it briefly: Athens is harmful to others in what concerns the soul (and this is not lightly supposed by the more pious), for it is rich in the evil wealth, idols, more than the rest of Greece, and it is hard not to be carried away by their praisers and advocates; but to us there was no harm from them, our minds being closed and fortified. On the contrary, if I may say something paradoxical, we were confirmed in the faith there, learning their deceit and falseness, and there we despised demons where demons are admired. And if there is, as is believed, a river that flows sweet through the brine, or a creature that leaps about in the fire by which all things are consumed, that is what we were …

And the finest thing was that there was around us a not ignoble company, educated and led under his guidance and rejoicing in the same things, even if we ran on foot beside a Lydian chariot, his course and manner of life. Through this we came to be conspicuous among our teachers and fellow students, conspicuous throughout all Greece, and especially among its most distinguished men. We had already become known even beyond its borders, as became clear from many who reported it. For our teachers were known wherever Athens was known, and we wherever our teachers were known, heard of and spoken of together, a pair not without a name, both among those with us and among those who heard of us. The Oresteses and Pyladeses were nothing like this to them, nor the Molionidae, the wonder of Homer's page, whom shared misfortunes and good chariot-driving made famous, dividing between them the same reins and whips. But I have been led unawares into my own praises, I who never accepted this from others. And it is no wonder if even here I have reaped some fruit of his friendship, profiting from him in death for praise, as in life for virtue. But let our discourse return again to the turning post.

Who was so grey in understanding, even before grey hairs? For by this Solomon too defines old age. Who was so venerable to old and young, not only of those in our own time, but even of those who lived long before us? Who needed learning less, because of his character? Who had more learning, together with his character? What kind of learning did he not go through? Or rather, which did he not go through to excess, as though it were the only one? He went through all as no one goes through one, and each to its height as though there were no other. For diligence concurred with natural talent, the two from which sciences and arts get their strength. He hardly needed quickness of nature, because of his application, and hardly needed application, because of his quickness; but he so combined both and brought them into one that it was unclear in which of the two he was more wonderful. Who was so great in rhetoric, which breathes the might of fire, even if his character was not that of the rhetoricians? Who in grammar, which makes the tongue pure Greek, collects history, presides over metres and lays down laws for poems? Who in philosophy, the truly lofty and upward-moving, both practical and contemplative, and that part of it concerned with logical demonstrations, antitheses and contests, which they call dialectic, so that it was easier to find a way out of labyrinths than to escape the nets of his arguments, if he had need of them? Of astronomy, geometry and the proportions of numbers he took so much as not to be confounded by the clever in these matters; the excess he spat out as useless to those who wish to be pious; so that one might admire what he chose more than what he passed over, or what he passed over more than what he chose. Medicine, the fruit of philosophy and industry, was made necessary for him by the weakness of his body and his care of the sick; starting from these he came to a mastery of the art, and of this not the part concerned with what is visible and lowly, but the part that is systematic and philosophical. But what are these, great as they are, compared with the education of the man's character? Minos and Rhadamanthys are nonsense to those who knew the man, those whom the Greeks thought worthy of the meadows of asphodel and the Elysian fields, having formed the picture of our paradise from the books of Moses, I think, which are ours, even if they differed somewhat in the naming and indicated it by other names. [24] So it was, then, and the cargo was full of learning, as far as is attainable by human nature (for beyond Gades there is no passage) …

… and there remained the return home and the more perfect life, and the taking hold of what we had hoped and agreed upon. The day of departure came, and all that goes with departure: farewell speeches, escorts, entreaties to stay, lamentations, embraces, tears. For nothing is so painful to anyone as for those who have been companions at Athens to be cut off from Athens and from each other. Then a pitiable sight took place, worthy of record. The company of our comrades and age-mates, and some of our teachers too, surrounded us and declared that they would never let us go, whatever happened; begging, forcing, persuading; what did they not say, what did they not do of the things that grieving people do? Here I will accuse myself, and I will accuse that divine and blameless soul too, bold though it is. For he, stating the reasons for his eagerness to return, proved stronger than those holding him back, and, though by force, was still allowed to depart. I was left behind at Athens, partly through my own softness (for the truth shall be told), partly betrayed by him, who was persuaded to leave one who would not leave him and to yield to those who were dragging me. It was a thing unbelievable before it happened; for it was like the cutting of one body into two and the death of both; or like the parting of calves reared and yoked together, a piteous thing, as they low for one another and cannot bear the separation. Yet my loss did not last long; for I could not bear any longer to be seen as pitiable, and to give account to everyone of our separation. After staying at Athens for no long time, longing made me the Homeric horse: breaking the bonds of those who held me, I galloped over the plains and was carried to my companion. [25] … drew me away from him: not well, perhaps, nor justly; but it drew me away. I consider whether from this there did not come upon me all the unevenness and difficulty of my life, and a way to philosophy not prosperous nor worthy of my desire and purpose. But let my affairs be led as God pleases; and may they be led better by his intercession. Him, the manifold love of God for man and his providence for our race, having made him known through many intervening stages and shown him ever more brilliant, sets forth as a lamp of the church, conspicuous and renowned, enrolling him meanwhile on the sacred thrones of the presbyterate, and through the one city of Caesarea making him a beacon to the whole world. And in what way? Not improvising his rank, nor making him wise and promoting him at the same moment, as is the case with many who now aspire to leadership, but granting him the honour by the order and law of spiritual ascent. [26] For I do not praise the disorder and lack of discipline among us, sometimes even among those who preside at the sanctuary; for I will not dare to accuse all, nor would it be just. I praise the law of sailors, which first puts the oar into the hand of the future pilot, then brings him to the prow and entrusts him with the lookout, and only so seats him at the helm, after he has beaten through much sea and studied the winds. So too in war: soldier, captain, general. This order is the best and most profitable for those who are ruled. Ours would be worth much if it were so. But as it is, the most holy order of all is in danger of being the most ridiculous of all among us. For presidency comes rather from villainy than from virtue, and the thrones belong not to the more worthy but to the more powerful. Samuel, the seer of what is to come, was among the prophets;

and so was Saul, the rejected. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, was among the kings; but so was Jeroboam, the slave and apostate. And no one is a physician or a painter who has not first studied the natures of diseases, or mixed many colours and drawn figures; but the president is found easily, without toil, fresh in his dignity, sown and springing up at once, as the myth makes the giants. We fashion saints in a day, and bid those be wise who have learned nothing and brought nothing to their rank beforehand except the wish for it. And the one loves the lower place and stands humbly, though worthy of the high,

having long practised the divine words and long disciplined the flesh into subjection to the spirit; while the other sits haughtily in front, raises his brow against his betters, does not tremble at his throne nor shudder at the sight, seeing the self-controlled man below him; but, together with power, he supposes himself wiser too, knowing badly, and deprived of good sense by his authority.

But not so the great Basil; but as in all else, so also in the order of these things he became a pattern for the many. For first reading the sacred books to the people, he, their interpreter, not disdaining this rank at the sanctuary, so praised the Lord in the seat of the presbyters, and so in that of the bishops; not stealing authority nor seizing it, nor pursuing honour, but pursued by honour, and receiving a favour not human but divine and from God. Let the account of his presidency wait, then; let us spend a little more time on his subordinate position. For this almost escaped me, though it lies in the middle of what has been said.

A disagreement arose between him and the man who presided over the church before him (whence and how, it is better to keep silent; but it arose), a man not ignoble in other respects and admirable for his piety, as the persecution of that time and his resistance to it showed, yet who suffered something human towards him. For censure touches not only the many but even the best, so that only God is wholly without stumbling and unconquered by passions. So all that was select and wiser in the church was stirred up against him; if indeed those are wiser than the many who have separated themselves from the world and consecrated their life to God. I mean our Nazirites, who are especially zealous about such things; and they, thinking it terrible to overlook their champion insulted and rejected, venture on a most dangerous thing. They plan a secession and a rending of the great and unbroken body of the church, cutting off no small part of the people, both of the lower ranks and of those in office. And this was very easy for three very powerful reasons. For the man was venerable as I think no other of our philosophers was, and able to give courage to the group if he wished; the city held under suspicion the one who had grieved him, because of the disturbance at his installation, as having received the leadership not lawfully or canonically but rather by force; and some of the bishops from the West were present, drawing to themselves all that was orthodox in the church.

What then did that noble man do, the disciple of the Peacemaker? He could neither resist those who insulted him nor those who were zealous for him, nor was it his way to fight or to tear apart the body of the church, already at war otherwise and in a dangerous state under the power of the heretics at that time. Using us as counsellors in this matter and as genuine advisers, he withdrew from here as a fugitive with us to Pontus, and presided over the monasteries there; he himself founded something worthy of memory, and embraced the desert with Elijah and John, those great philosophers, thinking this more profitable for him than to entertain any thought about the present situation unworthy of his philosophy, and to wreck in a storm the steering of his thoughts in calm. But though his withdrawal was so philosophical and admirable, we shall find his return better and more admirable. It happened thus.

While we were thus engaged, suddenly a cloud full of hail came upon us, roaring destructively, crushing every church on which it burst and which it caught: an emperor most fond of gold and most hostile to Christ, sick with the two greatest diseases, greed and blasphemy; a persecutor after the persecutor, and after the apostate not an apostate, but no better to Christians, or rather to the most pious and purest part of the Christians, the worshippers of the Trinity, which alone I call piety and saving doctrine. For we do not weigh the Godhead in the balance, nor estrange the one unapproachable nature from itself by foreign alienations, nor cure evil with evil, undoing the godless contraction of Sabellius by a more impious division and cutting up, the disease of Arius, who is named for madness, by which he shook and corrupted most of the church; nor do we accept unequal ranks in the Godhead. But we know one glory of the Father, the equal honour of the Only-begotten; and one glory of the Son, that of the Spirit. And whichever of the three we place lower, we consider that we destroy the whole; worshipping and knowing three in properties, one in Godhead. Understanding none of this, and unable to look up, but humbled by those who led him, he dared to humble with himself the nature of the Godhead too; and he becomes a wicked creature, bringing lordship down to servitude and ranking the uncreated and timeless nature with the creation. [31] … to contend for them with the power of the Word and the Spirit. What then did that noble and great-minded and truly Christ-loving soul do? He did not need many words to come and fight with us; but as soon as he saw us interceding (for the contest was common to both of us, set forth for the sake of the doctrine), he yielded to our intercession; and distinguishing very well within himself, and most wisely, by the reasonings of the Spirit, that there is one time for small-mindedness (if such a man had to feel anything of the kind), when there is security, and another for long-suffering, when there is necessity, he at once left Pontus with us, was zealous for the truth in danger, became a volunteer ally, and gave himself to his mother the church. [32] Was he, then, so eager, but did he fight less than his eagerness? Or did he fight well, but unwisely? Or wisely, but not without danger? Or did he do all these perfectly, but keep within himself some remnant of small-mindedness about his grievance? By no means. At once he reconciles all, counsels, arrays for battle; he removes the obstacles and stumbling blocks in between, and the things trusting in which they had campaigned against us; one he takes up, another he holds fast, another he repels. To some he becomes a strong wall and rampart; to others an axe cutting rock, or fire among thorns, as the divine Scripture says, consuming the brushwood-like blasphemers of the Godhead. And if Barnabas, who says and writes these things, also fought somewhat alongside Paul, thanks be to him who chose him and made him his fellow worker in the contest.

They, then, went away unsuccessful, shamed and badly defeated then for the first time, and having learned not to despise Cappadocians lightly, least of all men; for nothing is so characteristic of them as their unbroken faith and their faithfulness and genuineness towards the Trinity, from which comes their unity and strength; they help those by whom they are helped, or rather they give much more and stronger help. His second task and effort was to care for the bishop, to dissolve suspicion, and to persuade everyone that what had grieved him was a temptation of the evil one, and the wrestling of those who envy agreement in the good, while he himself knew the laws of obedience and spiritual order. Therefore he was at hand, he advised, he obeyed, he admonished; he was everything to him: a good counsellor, a skilful assistant, an interpreter of divine things, a guide in what was to be done, a staff for his old age, a prop of the faith, the most faithful of those within, the most practical of those outside; in a word, as much for goodwill as he had previously been thought to be for enmity. From this the power in the church came to him, though he held the second seat. For in return for the goodwill he brought, he received authority; and there was a wonderful harmony …

… and combination of power. The one led the people, the other the leader; and he was like a lion-tamer, taming the ruler by art. For the bishop needed it, having lately been placed on the throne, still breathing something of the world, and not yet trained in the things of the Spirit, while a great storm boiled around him and the enemies of the church pressed upon him: he needed someone to guide him by the hand and support him. Therefore he loved the alliance, and when Basil prevailed, he thought that he prevailed himself.

Of his care and leadership of the church there are many other marks: boldness towards the authorities, both others and the most powerful in the city; settlements of disputes, not distrusted, but sealed by his word, his character serving as law; protection of the needy, mostly spiritual, but not a little bodily too (for this too often leads to the soul, winning it by goodwill); feeding of the poor, hospitality to strangers, care of virgins; written and unwritten rules for monks; ordering of prayers; good order of the sanctuary; and the other things by which a true man of God, ranked with God, would benefit a people. But one thing above all, the greatest and best known. There was a famine, the most severe ever remembered. The city was suffering, and there was no help from anywhere, nor any remedy for the distress. For coastal places bear such shortages without difficulty, giving what they have and receiving what comes by sea; but for us inland people even a surplus is useless and a need cannot be relieved, since we have no way either to dispose of what we have or to bring in what we lack. And the most grievous thing in such times is the insensibility and greed of those who have. For they watch for their opportunities, trade on the scarcity, and reap a harvest from misfortunes, not heeding that he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, nor that he who holds back grain is cursed by the people, nor any other of the promises to the humane or the threats to the inhuman. But they are greedier than they ought to be, and they think badly, shutting their hearts to the poor, and God's heart to themselves, though they need his more than others need theirs. So the grain buyers and grain dealers, neither respecting kinship nor grateful to the Divine, from whom they have what they have, while others were oppressed.

He could not rain bread from heaven by prayer and feed a fugitive people in the desert, nor make food spring unfailing from the bottoms of jars, filled by being emptied (which is wonderful), to feed the woman who fed him, in return for her hospitality; nor feast thousands with five loaves, whose very remnants were another supply for many tables. For these belonged to Moses and Elijah and my God, from whom they too had the power for them; and perhaps also to those times and that state of affairs, since signs are for unbelievers, not for believers. But what follows from these and leads to the same end, these he both devised and accomplished with the same faith. For by his word and exhortations opening the storehouses of those who had, he did what Scripture says: “He breaks bread for the hungry,” “and satisfies the poor with bread,” “and nourishes them in famine,” “and fills hungry souls with good things.” And in what way? For this too is no small addition. Gathering into one place those wounded by the famine, some of them barely breathing, men and women, infants, old men, every pitiable age, and collecting every kind of food that helps against famine, he set out cauldrons full of pea soup and of our salted meat, the food of the poor. Then, imitating the ministry of Christ, who girded himself with a towel and did not disdain to wash his disciples' feet, and using his own servants, or rather fellow servants, as helpers in this, he cared for the bodies of the needy, and cared for their souls, combining honour with provision and so bringing them relief on both sides.

Such was our new giver of grain, a second Joseph; except that we can say something more. For Joseph made a business of the famine and bought up Egypt with his kindness, setting aside the time of plenty for the time of famine, and directed to this by the dreams of others; but this man was good freely, a helper in the scarcity without trading, looking to one thing only: to win love for love, and to obtain the good things there through his distribution of grain here. He did these things together with the nourishment of the word and that more perfect benefaction and distribution, truly heavenly and lofty; if indeed the word is the bread of angels, by which souls are fed and given drink when they hunger for God and seek a food that neither flows away nor departs but always remains. Of this he was the giver, and very rich, though the poorest and most destitute of men we know; relieving not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a longing for the word, truly life-giving and nourishing, which leads to growth in spiritual stature the one who is well fed.

From these and similar deeds (for why spend time telling everything?), when the one named for piety had just been taken away and had gladly breathed his last in his arms, he was raised to the high throne of the episcopate; not without toil, nor without envy and struggle from the presiding bishops of the region and the most wicked men of the city who were ranged with them. But the Holy Spirit had to conquer; and indeed it conquers with great abundance. For it moves from abroad those who were to anoint him, men known and zealous for piety, and with them the new Abraham and our patriarch, I mean my father, concerning whom something wonderful happened. For, not only failing through the number of his years but also worn out by disease, and at his last breath, he ventured on the journey to help with his vote, trusting in the Spirit. And, to say it briefly, placed as a corpse in his litter as in a tomb, he came back young and strong, looking upward, strengthened by the laying on of hands and the anointing, and it is not too much to say, by the head of the anointed one. Let this be added to the ancient stories: that toil gives health, eagerness raises the dead, and old age leaps when anointed by the Spirit.

Having thus been counted worthy of the presidency, as was fitting for one who had become such a man, received such grace and been so regarded, he did not put to shame in anything that followed either his own philosophy or the hopes of those who had trusted in him; but he always surpassed himself as much as before he had been seen to surpass others, thinking most nobly and philosophically about these matters. For he held that it is the virtue of a private person not to be bad, or to be good in some measure; but that it is the vice of a ruler and leader, especially in such a rule, not to be far above the many, not always to appear better, and not to make his virtue match his rank and his throne. For one at the top can hardly attain the mean, and draw the many to moderation by the surplus of his virtue. Or rather, to philosophize better about these things: what I observe in the Saviour (and I think every wiser person does), when he was with us, formed in what is above us and in what is ours, I reckon happened here too. For he advanced, it says, in wisdom and favour as in stature; not by receiving growth in these (for what could be more perfect than what was perfect from the beginning?), but by revealing and displaying them little by little. So too the man's virtue received then, I think, not an addition but a greater field of action, having more material in his authority.

First, he made it plain to all that what had been given him was not the work of human favour but the gift of God. Our own case will show it. How he showed his philosophy towards me when I was showing mine at that time! For when everyone else thought that I would run to the event and rejoice exceedingly (as another perhaps would have done), and that I would share the rule rather than act as a power behind it, inferring this from our friendship, I, fleeing vulgarity in everything, if anyone ever did, and at the same time the envy of the moment, especially as those around him were still in travail and in turmoil, stayed at home, curbing my longing by force. He blamed me, yet forgave. And afterwards, when I came but did not accept the honour of the seat, for the same reason, nor precedence among the presbyters, he did not blame me but praised me, and rightly, choosing to be accused of pride by a few who did not understand this arrangement rather than do anything contrary to reason and his own counsels. And yet how could a man show more clearly that he had a soul above all fawning and flattery, looking to one thing only, the law of the good, than by thinking thus about us, whom he counted among the first of his friends and intimates?

Next, he softened the party that had opposed him, and healed them with words of magnanimous healing. He did this not obsequiously or servilely, but very boldly and nobly, as one who looked not only to the present but also arranged for their future obedience. Seeing that the soft is slack and weak, while the austere is harsh and self-willed, he helped both by means of each other, tempering the obstinate with gentleness and the soft with firmness; needing few words, but achieving most by deeds for their healing; not enslaving them by craft but winning them by goodwill; not using his power, but drawing them by being able to act and yet sparing. The greatest thing was that all were overcome by his intelligence and knew his virtue to be unapproachable; and they thought there was one salvation for them, to be ranked with him and under him, and one danger, to offend him, and they considered separation from him to be estrangement from God. So they willingly gave way and were overcome, and bowed as at the echo of thunder, each anticipating the other in apology, and turning the measure of their enmity into a measure of goodwill and of progress in virtue, which they found the only and strongest apology; unless one, through incurable wickedness, was left alone and cast aside, that he might be crushed and consumed in himself, as rust is consumed together with the iron.

… he conceives in his mind something greater and loftier. For while all others saw only what lay at their feet, and reckoned how their own affairs might be secure, if that is security, and went no further, unable to conceive or accomplish anything great and bold, he, though moderate in other things, was not moderate in these; but raising his head on high and turning the eye of his soul around, he took in the whole world over which the saving word has run. Seeing God's great inheritance, acquired by his words and laws and sufferings, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, in a bad state and torn apart into countless opinions and errors; and the vine brought out of Egypt and transplanted, which from godless and dark ignorance had grown to a boundless beauty and size, so as to cover the whole earth and spread beyond mountains and cedars, ravaged by an evil wild boar, the devil; he did not think it enough to lament the calamity quietly and to lift his hands to God alone and ask him for release from the evils that held us, while he himself slept; but he thought he must also help and contribute something of his own. [42] For what, he thought, is more grievous than this misfortune? And he who looks above must be all the more zealous for the common good. For when one person fares well or badly, this indicates nothing for the common good; but when the common good is in this or that state, each individual must necessarily be in a like state.

Thinking and considering this, he, the guardian and champion of the common good (since “a feeling heart is a moth in the bones”, as Solomon and the truth hold; and insensibility is cheerful, but sympathy is painful, and constant thought is a wasting of the heart), was therefore in agony, grieved, wounded; he suffered what Jonah and David suffered; he despaired of his life, gave no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids; he spent what remained of his flesh on his cares, until he should find a remedy for the evil; he sought divine help or human, which would stop the common conflagration and the darkness that held us.

One thing, then, he devised, and very salutary. Collecting himself as far as possible and joining himself to the Spirit, and setting in motion all human reasonings, and unrolling the whole depth of the Scriptures, he wrote in defence of piety, and by opposing struggles and battles he repelled most of the boldness of the heretics: those who came to close quarters, with the hand-to-hand weapons of the tongue; those at a distance, by striking with arrows of ink, no less honoured than the writings on the tablets; legislating not for one nation, the Jews, and that a small one, about foods and drinks and temporary sacrifices and purifications of the flesh, but for every race and part of the world, about the word of truth, from which comes salvation. Second (for action without word and word without action are equally imperfect), he added to the word the help of action: visiting some, sending envoys to others, summoning others, admonishing, refuting, rebuking, threatening, reproaching, fighting in defence of peoples, cities and individuals, devising every form of salvation, healing on every side; another Bezalel, master builder of the divine tabernacle, using every material and art for the work, and weaving all together into the abundance and harmony of one beauty. [44] Why should I tell the rest? Behold, the emperor who fought against Christ came upon us, the tyrant of the faith, with more impiety and a hotter battle array, as against a stronger opponent, after the manner of that unclean and evil spirit which, having been released from the man and wandered about, returns to the same man with more spirits to dwell there, as we have heard in the Gospels. He became its imitator, both to repair his former defeat and to add something to his earlier struggles. For it was terrible and wretched, he thought, that one who ruled many nations and had been counted worthy of great glory, who had subdued all around him by the power of … and conquered everything he met, should be seen to be defeated by one man and one city, and incur laughter not only from those who led him, the champions of impiety, but, as he supposed, from all men. [45] They say that the king of the Persians, when once he marched against Greece, driving every race of men against them, was not only lifted up in every kind of anger and pride and boundless in his threats, but, to terrify them more, made himself fearsome by innovations against the elements. A strange land was heard of, and a sea of the new creator, an army sailing on land and walking on sea, islands seized, the sea whipped, and all the things that clearly belonged to a mad army and generalship: a terror to the more cowardly, a laughing-stock to the more manly and firm of mind. He, however, needed nothing of this kind in campaigning against us; but what was worse and more harmful than those things, this he was heard to do and say: “He set his mouth against heaven, speaking blasphemy on high, and his tongue went through the earth.” For the divine David rightly branded him before us, as one who bent heaven down to earth and numbered with the creation the nature above the world, which the creation cannot even contain, even if it became something with us by reason of its love for man, to draw us to itself who lay on the ground.

Splendid were his first bold deeds, more splendid his last struggles against us. What do I call the first? Exiles, banishments, confiscations, plots open and hidden; persuasion when there was time for it, force when persuasion was impossible. Those of the right doctrine, and of our side, were driven out of the churches; those were brought in who belonged to the emperor's ruinous party, who demanded signatures of impiety and wrote things still worse than these. Presbyters were burnt at sea; impious generals, not conquering Persians, nor subduing Scythians, nor clearing out any other barbarian nation, but campaigning against churches, dancing on altars, defiling the bloodless sacrifices with the blood of men and victims, and outraging the modesty of virgins. To what end? That Jacob the patriarch might be driven out, and Esau, hated even before his birth, brought in instead. These are the stories of his first bold deeds, which even now move many to tears as they are remembered and heard.

But when, having gone through all, he rushed against this unshaken and unassailed mother of the churches to enslave her, and against the only living spark of the truth that remained, then for the first time he perceived that he had planned badly. For like a dart striking something stronger he was repelled, and like a rope that snaps he gave way. Such was the champion of the church whom he met; against so great a bulwark he dashed himself and was broken. The rest one can hear from those who experienced it at the time as they tell and recount it; and there is no one who does not recount it. All who know the struggles of that time marvel: the attacks, the promises, the threats, those sent from the judicial ranks to persuade him, those from the military, those from the women's quarters, men among women and women among men, manly only in their impiety, who, unable to be licentious by nature, do the only thing they can and commit fornication with their tongues; the chief cook Nebuzaradan, threatening with the knives of his trade, and sent back to his own fire. But what seems to me most wonderful of his deeds, and which I could not pass over even if I wished, I will give to my discourse as briefly as possible. [48] Who does not know the prefect of that time, who used his own great boldness against us especially (since he had been initiated, or rather finished off, by them in baptism), serving his master beyond what was required, and keeping his power secure and longer lasting by gratifying him in everything? When he was raging against the church, putting on the look of a lion and roaring like a lion, unapproachable to most, that noble man was brought in; or rather he entered, as though called to a feast, not to a trial. How could I worthily recount either the prefect's insolence or the man's wise resistance to him? “What do you mean, you,” he said, calling him by name, for he did not yet deign to call him bishop, “by daring to defy such power, and alone of all to be insolent?” “In what respect,” said the noble man, “and what is the madness? For I do not yet know.” “That you do not worship the emperor's religion,” he said, “when all others have bowed down and been defeated.” “Because,” he said, “my Emperor does not wish this; nor do I endure to worship any creature, being myself a creature of God and bidden to be god.” “And what do we seem to you?” “Nothing,” he said, “when you command such things.” “What then? Is it not a great thing for you to be ranked with us and to have us as partners?” “You are prefects,” he said, “and among the distinguished, I will not deny it; but not more honourable than God. And to have you as partners is great (how could it not be? you too are God's handiwork), but as much as any others of those under us; for Christianity is distinguished not by persons but by faith.”

Then the prefect, moved by this, boiled up still more in anger, rose from his seat, and spoke to him more harshly. “What?” he said. “Do you not fear my authority?” “Fear what? Suffer what?” “What? One of the many things in my power.” “Which? Let us know.” “Confiscation, exile, torture, death.” “If you have anything else,” he said, “threaten it; for none of these touches us.” And when the prefect asked, “How, and in what way?”, he said: “Because confiscation does not apply to one who has nothing, unless you want these worn-out rags of mine and a few books, in which my whole life consists. Exile I do not know, being confined by no place, and holding as my own neither this land where I now live nor any into which I may be thrown; or rather, all of it is God's, whose sojourner and stranger I am. Tortures: what would they take hold of, when there is no body to speak of? Unless you mean the first blow; for of this alone you are master. And death is a benefactor; for it will send me sooner to God, for whom I live and conduct my life, and for whom I am for the most part dead already, and to whom I have long been hastening.”

Astonished at this, the prefect said: “No one until now has spoken like this to Modestus, and with such boldness,” adding his own name. “Perhaps,” he said, “you have never met a bishop; or he would surely have spoken to you in the same way, contending for such things. For in other things we are gentle, prefect, and humbler than anyone else, as the commandment bids, and we do not raise our brows, I do not say against such great power, but not even against ordinary people; but where God is at stake and set before us, we despise everything else and look to him alone. Fire and sword and wild beasts and the hooks that tear the flesh are a delight to us rather than a terror. In view of this, insult us, threaten us, do whatever you like, enjoy your authority. Let the emperor too hear this: you will not conquer us nor persuade us to join in the impiety, even if you threaten worse.”

When the prefect had said and heard these things, and had seen the man's resistance so undaunted and unconquerable, he sent him out and dismissed him, no longer with the same threats but with a certain respect and yielding. And going to the emperor as quickly as he could, he said: “We have been defeated, emperor, by the champion of this church. The man is stronger than threats, firmer than arguments, more powerful than persuasion. We must try someone of meaner spirit; this man we must either force openly or not expect to yield to threats.” At this the emperor, condemning himself and overcome by the praises of the man (for even an enemy admires a man's virtue), did not order force to be used; he had the same experience as iron, which is softened by fire but still remains iron; and turning his threats into admiration, he did not accept communion with him, being ashamed to change, but sought an excuse, the most seemly one; and my discourse will show this too.

For he entered the church with all his bodyguard (it was the feast of the Epiphany, and the assembly was crowded), and, taking his place among the people, so made a formal show of unity. And it is worth not passing this over. When he was inside and was struck by the psalmody that fell upon his ears, and saw the sea of people and all the good order, both about the sanctuary and near it, more angelic than human; and him who presided over the people standing upright, as Scripture describes Samuel, unbending in body and eyes and mind, as though nothing new had happened,

fixed, if I may so speak, on God and the sanctuary, and those standing around him in fear and reverence; when he saw these things, and could find no example to compare with what he saw, he suffered something human: his eyes and his soul were filled with darkness and dizziness from amazement. And this was still unnoticed by most. But when he had to bring to the divine table the gifts which he himself had prepared, and no one took them, as was the custom, it being uncertain whether they would be accepted, then his feeling became known. For he staggered, and had not one of those at the sanctuary put out a hand and stopped his staggering, he would have fallen, a fall worthy of tears. So be it. [53] As for what Basil discoursed with the emperor himself, and with what philosophy (when the emperor again in a way joined in our assembly, and came within the curtain to see and speak with him, as he had long desired), what need is there to tell it, except that they were words of God, heard by those around the emperor and by us who had entered with them? This became the beginning and first foundation of the emperor's kindness towards us; this gain dispersed most of the injury that then oppressed us, like a stream.

Another thing, not less than those already told. The wicked prevailed, and exile was decreed against the man; and nothing was lacking of what leads to this. Night came, the carriage was ready, our enemies were applauding, the pious were in despair, we were around the eager traveller, and everything belonging to that noble dishonour was complete. What then? God undoes it. For he who struck the firstborn of Egypt, when it was harsh towards Israel, also struck down the emperor's son with disease. And how swiftly! There the writ of exile, here the decree of sickness; and the hand of the wicked writer is held back, the saint is saved, and the godly man becomes the gift of a fever, which chastened a bold emperor. What could be more just than this, or swifter? What followed was this. The emperor's child was sick and grievously afflicted in body; the father suffered with him (for what else is a father?), seeking help for the child on every side, choosing the best of physicians, devoting himself to prayers as never before, and throwing himself on the ground. For suffering makes even emperors humble; and no wonder, since David too is recorded as having suffered the same over his child. When he found no remedy for the evil anywhere, he took refuge in the faith of the man; and he did not summon him himself, ashamed of his recent insult, but entrusted the embassy to others of his closest and dearest friends. And Basil came, not shrinking back nor taking advantage of the occasion, as another would have done; and as soon as he was present the disease grew lighter, and the father had better hopes; and had he not mixed brine with fresh water, summoning Basil and at the same time trusting the heterodox, the child would have recovered and been saved into his father's hands. This was believed by those who were present at the time and shared the suffering. [55] They say that the same thing happened to the prefect a little later. An illness bent him too and threw him into the hands of the saint. And truly a blow becomes instruction to those who have sense, and misfortune is often better than prosperity. He was sick, he wept, he was distressed, he sent to him, he implored him: “You have your vindication,” he cried; “give me health.” And indeed he obtained it, as he himself confessed, and persuaded many who did not know; for he did not cease admiring and telling of what Basil had done. Such, then, were his dealings with these men, and so they ended. Were his dealings with others otherwise? Did he fight over small things, or fight little, or show only moderate philosophy, or such as deserves silence, or not much to be praised? By no means. But he who once stirred up Hadad, the wicked, against Israel stirred up against Basil too the governor of the region of Pontus, on the pretext of indignation over some woman, but in truth championing impiety and standing against piety. I pass over the other outrages he committed against the man, or, what is the same, against God, against whom and for whom the war was fought; but what most shamed the insulter and exalted the champion, if philosophy is something great and lofty, and to appear superior to the many in it, this I will give to my discourse. [56] The assessor of the judge was trying to force into a marriage she did not want a woman of distinguished family whose husband had not long departed this life. Having no means of escaping the tyranny, she devised a plan not so much bold as prudent: she fled to the holy table and made God her protector against the abuse. What ought one to have done, by the Trinity itself (if I may say something rhetorical in the midst of praises)? I do not say the great Basil, the lawgiver for all such matters, but anyone far below him, yet still a priest: should he not have claimed her, held her, cared for her, stretched out a hand to God's love for man and to the law that honours altars? Should he not have chosen to do and suffer anything rather than plan something inhuman against her, insulting both the holy table and the faith with which she supplicated? “No,” said the new judge, “but all must yield to my power, and Christians must betray their own laws.” He demanded the suppliant; the other held her fast. He raged, and at last sent some of his officers to search the saint's bedchamber, not from need but to insult him. What do you say? The chamber of that passionless man, whom angels attend, at whom women shrink even to look? And not only this; he ordered him to be present and defend himself, and that not gently or humanely, but as one of the condemned. And Basil came and stood, like my Jesus before Pilate, while the judge presided, full of anger and pride. And the thunders were held back; and God's sword still glittered and was delayed; and the bow was bent but restrained, giving time for repentance. [57] See another bout between champion and persecutor. He ordered his cloak to be torn off. “I will strip off my tunic for you too, if you wish,” he said. He threatened to beat one who had no flesh; Basil offered himself. To tear him with hooks; “By such tearing,” he said, “you will cure my liver, for you see how it wastes me away.” So they were engaged. But the city, when it learned of the evil and the danger common to all (for each considered this outrage a danger to himself), was all inflamed and set alight; and as a swarm stirred by smoke, they were roused one after another and rose up, every race and every age, especially those of the arms factory and the imperial weaving works; for they are hotter in such matters, and have boldness from their freedom of speech. Every man's weapon was what he had at hand from his trade, or anything else improvised for the moment. Torches in their hands, stones ready, clubs prepared; all running one way, one shout, one common eagerness; anger, a terrible hoplite and general! Not even the women were unarmed then, the occasion sharpening them: their shuttles were their spears, and they were no longer women, strengthened by zeal and changed to men's courage. In short, they thought they would share in piety if they tore him apart, and that he would be the more pious who first laid hands on the man who dared such things. What, then, of that haughty and bold judge? He was a suppliant, pitiable, wretched, lower than anyone, until there appeared the martyr without blood and the crowned victor without wounds, who, restraining by force the people, held back by their respect for him, saved the man who was his suppliant and his insulter. These things the God of the saints does, who makes all things and transforms them for the better, who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. What would not he do, who divided the sea, cut off the river, mastered the elements and set up trophies by lifted hands to save a fugitive people, to rescue this man too from dangers?

Here, then, the worldly war ended, and had a favourable outcome from God, worthy of his faith. But from this point began the war of the bishops and their allies, which brought not much discredit but greater harm to those under their rule. For who would persuade others to be moderate, when their leaders are so disposed? For they had long been ill-disposed towards him, for three reasons. They did not agree with him on the doctrine of faith, except when forced to by the people out of necessity; they had not wholly given up their small-mindedness about his election; and, the heaviest of all to them, though the most shameful to confess, they were far surpassed in reputation. Another difference also arose, which renewed these. When our country was divided into two provinces and metropoleis, and many parts of the former were attached to the new one, their affairs too fell into faction from this. For the one held that our ecclesiastical boundaries should be divided along with the civil ones, and so claimed the newly attached places as belonging to him and already separated from the other; while the other held to the old custom and the division handed down from our fathers. From this many terrible things followed, some already, others were in travail. Synods were drawn away by the new metropolitan, revenues seized; of the presbyters of the churches some were persuaded, others replaced. From this the affairs of the churches fared worse, being divided and cut. For men somehow delight in innovations and gladly turn affairs to their own advantage, and it is easier to overthrow something established than to restore what has been overthrown. What enraged him more were the revenues and the travellers' dues from the Taurus, which he could see but which came to the other; and he thought it a great thing to reap the fruits of Saint Orestes; so that once he even seized the man's mules on the road, blocking his way with a band of brigands. And the pretext was seemly: spiritual children, souls, the doctrine of faith, these cloaks of greed, easily found, and that one must not pay tribute to those of wrong opinions; for whoever annoys them is of wrong opinions.

But the saint of God, the true metropolitan of the Jerusalem above, was neither carried away with those who erred, nor would he put up with overlooking these things, nor did he devise a small remedy for the evil. But let us see how great and admirable it was, or rather how worthy of his soul. He turned the faction into an increase of the church, and disposed of the misfortune most finely by filling the country more densely with bishops. What came of this? Three most excellent results: greater care for souls, each city having its own bishop, and the war being ended in this way. … I fear that I too became an accessory of this device. I do not know what fitting thing to say. For, admiring the man in all things, I cannot praise him in this one thing (for I will confess my feeling, which is not unknown to most people in any case): his innovation and faithlessness towards us, the pain of which not even time has dissolved. For from this came upon me all the unevenness and confusion of my life, and my being unable to practise philosophy or to be thought to do so, even if this is a small matter … unless one accepts this defence of the man which we offer: that, thinking thoughts greater than human, and having departed from things here before he died,

he made everything the Spirit's; and, knowing how to revere friendship, he dishonoured it here alone, where God had to be preferred to it, and the things hoped for had to count for more than the things that pass away. [60] … sets the Theban free. For his aim was to be, not to seem, the best. Nor did he live in a tub in the middle of the marketplace, so as to revel in publicity and make his want a new kind of wealth; but he was poor and unkempt without ostentation, and, content to have thrown away all that he once had, he sailed lightly over the sea of life. [61] Admirable are self-control and frugality, not being mastered by pleasures nor led by the belly as by a harsh and servile mistress. Who was so much without food, or, it is not much to say, so nearly without flesh? Fullness and satiety he threw away to the more irrational, and to those whose life is servile and bent down to the ground. He thought nothing great of the things that become of equal value once past the throat, but lived on necessities only as long as he could, and knew only one luxury, not to appear to indulge in luxury, nor to need more on its account; but to look to the lilies and the birds, whose beauty is without art and whose food is improvised, according to the great exhortation of my Christ, who became poor in the flesh for us, that we might become rich in his Godhead. Hence his one tunic and his worn cloak, his sleeping on the ground, his vigils, his not bathing, these were his boasts; and his sweetest dinner and relish was bread and salt, a new delicacy, and a sober and abundant drink, which springs supply to those who do no labour. From these, or with these, came the care of the sick and the healings, our common philosophy; for I had to share equally in the hardships … [62] Great are virginity and celibacy, and being ranked with the angels and with the single nature; for I hesitate to say with Christ, who, wishing to be born for us who are born, is born of a virgin, legislating virginity, as leading away from here, cutting the world short, or rather sending the present on to the future. Who, then, honoured virginity more than he, or gave law to the flesh, not only by his own example but also by his efforts? Whose are the convents and the written rules, by which he chastened every sense, ordered every limb, and persuaded men truly to live as virgins, turning their beauty inward, from the visible to the unseen, withering the outward and withdrawing the fuel from the flame, and showing the hidden beauty to God, who alone is the Bridegroom of pure souls, and who brings in with him the wakeful souls, if they meet him with bright lamps and an abundant supply of oil? Since the solitary life and the communal life were often at war and at odds with each other, and neither had good or bad wholly unmixed, the one more quiet and settled and joined to God, but not free from pride, because its virtue was untested and without comparison, the other more practical and useful, but not escaping turbulence, he reconciled and blended these most excellently, building hermitages and monasteries not far from the communal and mixed life, nor dividing them by a wall between, but joining them closely while keeping them distinct, so that neither the contemplative might be unsociable nor the active without philosophy; but that, like land and sea exchanging their goods, they might concur in the one glory of God. [63] What more? Love for man is a fine thing, and feeding the poor, and helping human weakness. Go out a little from the city, and behold the new city, the storehouse of piety, the common treasury of the rich, in which the superfluities of wealth, and even necessities, are laid up at his exhortation, shaking off the moths, giving no joy to thieves, and escaping the wrestling of envy and the decay of time; where disease is borne with philosophy, misfortune is called blessed, and compassion is put to the test. What to me, compared with this work, are seven-gated Thebes and Egyptian Thebes, the walls of Babylon, the Carian tomb of Mausolus, the pyramids, the immeasurable bronze of the Colossus, the size and beauty of temples that no longer exist, and all the other things that men admire and record in their histories, none of which profited their builders except for a little glory? To me the most wonderful is the short road to salvation, the easiest ascent to heaven. There is no longer before our eyes that terrible and pitiable sight of men dead before death, dead in most of the members of their body, driven from cities, houses, marketplaces, water, and their very dearest, known by their names rather than their bodies; no longer are they set out before assemblies and gatherings in pairs and companies, no longer pitied for their disease but hated, composers of pitiable songs, if any have a voice left. Why should I tell in tragic style all our sufferings, when speech is not equal to the misery? But he above all persuaded those who are men not to despise men, nor dishonour Christ, the one head of all, by inhumanity towards them; but in the misfortunes of others to set their own affairs well, and to lend mercy to God, since they themselves need mercy. Therefore he did not disdain to honour the disease even with his lips, though noble, of noble birth and of most brilliant reputation, but greeted them as brothers, not, as one might suppose, from vainglory (who was further from that feeling?), but by his philosophy setting the example of approaching their bodies to care for them, an exhortation both speaking and silent. And it was not so in the city and otherwise in the country and beyond, but he set before all who preside over the people a common contest: love and generosity towards them. Others have their cooks, their rich tables, the tricks and refinements of chefs, their elegant carriages, their soft and flowing clothing; but Basil's are the sick, and the dressings of wounds …

… and the imitation of Christ, who cleansed leprosy not by word but in deed. [64] Against this, what will they say to us, those who accuse him of pride and haughtiness, those bitter judges of such men, who apply to the rule people who are not rules? Is it possible to embrace lepers and humble oneself so far, and yet be haughty towards the healthy? To waste the flesh … [66] … the old works, all that some laboured over in the divine oracles, are silent; the new are on everyone's lips, and he is the best among us in letters who best knows his works, carries them on his tongue and makes them understood to his hearers; for he alone sufficed instead of all for the education of the more earnest. [67] I will say only this of him. When I take up his Hexaemeron and carry it on my tongue, I am with the Creator, I know the principles of creation, and I admire the Creator more than before, using sight alone as my teacher. When I meet his writings of refutation, I see the fire of Sodom, by which wicked and lawless tongues are reduced to ashes, or the tower of Chalane, wickedly built and rightly destroyed. When I read his works on the Spirit, I find the God whom I have, and I speak the truth boldly, mounting on his theology and contemplation. When I read his other expositions, which he unfolds for those of little sight, written threefold on the solid tablets of his heart, I am persuaded not to stop at the letter nor to look only at the things above, but to pass further and go on into depth from depth, calling deep to deep and finding light by light, until I reach the summit. When I occupy myself with his praises of the champions, I despise the body, I am with those who are praised, and I am roused to the contest. When I read his moral and practical discourses, I am cleansed in soul and body, and I become a temple fit to receive God, an instrument struck by the Spirit, a singer of the divine glory and power; by this I am retuned and set in order, and become another man instead of what I was, changed by the divine change. [68] Since I have mentioned theology, and the man's great voice in it especially, I will add this too to what has been said; for it is most useful to the many, so that they may not be harmed by holding a worse opinion of him. My words are directed against the malicious, who help their own evils by the very things with which they insult others. For he, for the sake of right doctrine and of the union and joint Godhead of the Holy Trinity, or whatever more proper and clearer word one should use, would have endured not only to be cast from thrones, which he did not even … [69] That he knew the Spirit to be God more than anyone is clear from the fact that he often proclaimed it publicly when there was occasion, and confessed it eagerly in private to those who asked; but he made it clearer in his words to me, with whom nothing was kept secret when he conversed about these matters. He did not simply declare it, but, what he had seldom done before, he invoked upon himself the most terrible of curses, to fall away from the Spirit himself, if he did not worship the Spirit with the Father and the Son as of the same essence and of equal honour. And if anyone will accept me as his partner in such things, I will disclose something not known to most until now: that when the times pressed hard on us, he took upon himself the reserve, and left to us the freedom of speech, since no one would bring us to trial or expel us from the country, protected as we were by our obscurity; so that from both our gospel might be made strong. And I have recounted these things, not to defend his reputation (for the man is above his accusers, if there are any), but so that people may not take the expressions found in his writings alone as the limit of piety and so have a weaker faith, using his theology, which the times shaped together with the Spirit, as proof of their own malice; but that, examining the sense of what was written and the purpose for which it was written, they may rather be brought to the truth and silence the impious. May his theology be mine, and that of all who are my friends! And so confident am I of the man's purity in this matter that I make this too common to all: may what is mine be reckoned his, and what is his mine, before God and before the fairer-minded among men. For we would not say that the evangelists contradict one another because some were occupied more with Christ's flesh, while others approached his theology, and some began from what is ours, others from what is above us; so they divided the preaching, I think, for the benefit of those who receive it, being so formed by the Spirit within them. [70] … even to the shedding of blood; let us set our own beside them, and from this let us know the man. Adam was counted worthy of God's hand, of the delight of paradise, and of the first legislation; but, if I may say it without blasphemy, out of respect for our forefather, he did not keep the commandment; whereas he both received it and kept it, was not harmed by the tree of knowledge, and, passing the flaming sword, has, I know well, attained paradise. Enos first hoped to call on the Lord; but he both called on him and proclaimed him to others, which is far more honourable than calling on him. Enoch was translated, finding translation as the prize of a small piety (for faith was still in shadows), and escaped the danger of the rest of his life; but his whole life was a translation, tested perfectly in a perfect life. Noah was entrusted with the ark, and with the seeds of a second world committed to a little wood and saved upon the waters; but he escaped a flood of impiety, and made his own city an ark of salvation, sailing lightly over the heretics, from which he called back the whole world. [71] Great was Abraham, patriarch and offerer of a new sacrifice, bringing to the giver the son of the promise, a victim ready and hastening to the slaughter; but neither was his offering small: he offered himself to God, and nothing was given in exchange as of equal value (for what could there be?), so that the fair sacrifice was completed. Isaac was promised even before his birth; but he promised himself, and took Rebecca, I mean the church, not from far but from near, not through a servant's embassy but given and entrusted by God; nor was he outwitted in the preference of his children, but gave each without deception his due, with the judgment of the Spirit. I praise Jacob's ladder, and the pillar he anointed to God, and his wrestling with him, whatever it was (I think a measuring of human littleness against the divine height, and an opposition between them, from which he bears the tokens of defeated nature). I praise too the man's skill and prosperity with his flocks, and the twelve patriarchs born of him, and the distribution of the blessings with a noble prophecy of the future; but I praise also this man's ladder, not only seen but climbed by gradual ascents in virtue; and the pillar which he did not anoint but raised up to God, setting up the deeds of the impious as a public disgrace; and the wrestling in which he wrestled not against God but for God, overthrowing the doctrines of the heretics; and his shepherding, by which he became rich, acquiring more marked sheep than unmarked; and his fine fruitfulness in children born according to God, and the blessing by which he strengthened many. [72] Joseph was a giver of grain, but to Egypt only, and not often, and bodily; but he gave to all, always, and spiritually, which to me is more venerable than that distribution of grain. With Job of Ausitis he was tried and conquered and was proclaimed brilliantly at the end of his contests, shaken by none of the many who shook him, but overthrowing the tempter by a great margin and silencing the folly of his friends, who did not know the mystery of the suffering. “Moses and Aaron among his priests.” Great was Moses, who plagued Egypt, saved a people with many signs and wonders, went within the cloud, and gave the twofold law, the outward law of the letter and the inward law of the Spirit; and Aaron, Moses' brother in body and in spirit, who offered sacrifice and prayer for the people, initiate of the holy and great tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. He was a zealous imitator of both, plaguing, not with bodily but with spiritual and rational scourges, the heretical and Egyptian nation; leading a people of his own, zealous for good works, to the land of promise; writing laws on tablets that were not broken but kept, no longer shadowy but wholly spiritual; entering the Holy of Holies, not once a year but often, almost every day, from which he reveals to us the Holy Trinity; and cleansing the people not with temporary sprinklings but with eternal purifications. What is finest in Joshua? His generalship, his distribution of lots, his taking possession of the holy land. And was not he a leader? Not a general of those saved by faith? Not a distributor of the various lots and dwellings with God, which he divides to those he leads? So that he too can say, “The lines have fallen for me in the best places,” and, “My lots are in your hands,” lots far more precious than those of earth and of measurement. [73] And, to pass over the judges, or the most renowned of the judges, Samuel, among those who call upon his name, was given to God before his birth, consecrated immediately after his birth, and anointed kings and priests from the horn. But was not he consecrated to God from infancy, from his mother, and given to the sanctuary with his cloak, seeing heavenly things, both the Lord's anointed and the anointer of those perfected by the Spirit? David is celebrated among kings, whose many victories and trophies over his enemies are recorded, but whose gentleness is his most distinguished mark, and, before his reign, the power of his lyre, charming away the evil spirit. Solomon asked breadth of heart from God and obtained it, advancing so far in wisdom and contemplation as to become the most renowned of all in his time. But he, in my view, fell not even a little short of the one in gentleness and of the other in wisdom; so that he softened even the boldness of kings possessed by demons; and not only the queen of the south or some other came from the ends of the earth at the fame of his wisdom, but his wisdom became known to all the ends of the earth. The rest of Solomon I will pass over; it is plain to all, even if we keep silent. [74] You praise Elijah's boldness towards tyrants and his rapture through fire, and Elisha's fine inheritance, the sheepskin, which the spirit of Elijah accompanied. Praise also his life in fire, I mean the multitude of his temptations, and his salvation through fire, which burned but did not consume, the wonder of the bush; and the fine fleece from on high, his fleshlessness. I pass over the rest: the youths bedewed in the fire, the fugitive prophet who prayed in the belly and came out of the beast as from a bridal chamber, the righteous man in the den who bound the boldness of lions, or the contest of the seven Maccabees, perfected in blood with their priest and their mother by every kind of torment. Imitating their endurance, he also won their glory. [75] I pass to the New Testament, and, comparing his deeds with those of the renowned there, I will honour the disciple by his teachers. The forerunner John, as voice of the Word and lamp of the Light, before whom he leapt in the womb and whom he preceded into Hades, sent there by Herod's madness, that he might proclaim there too the one who was coming. And if my words seem bold to anyone, let him first consider this: that I make this comparison not putting the man before, nor making him equal to, him who is above all among those born of women, but showing him to be a zealous imitator of John, bearing in himself something of his character. For to imitate the greatest even in small things is no small thing for the earnest. Is not he a clear image of John's philosophy? He too lived in the desert; he too had a rough garment at night, unknown, not displayed; he too loved the same food, cleansing himself for God by self-control; he too was counted worthy to be a herald of Christ, if not his forerunner; and there went out to him not only all the surrounding country but even those beyond its borders; he too stood between the two Testaments, abolishing the letter of the one and publishing the spirit of the other, and making the abolition of the visible law the fulfilment of the hidden one … [77] … were devised for glory: such as his pallor, his beard, his manner of walking, his slowness of speech, his thoughtfulness, mostly turned inward; which in the many, not being well imitated or understood, became gloominess; and besides, the kind of his clothing, the shape of his bed, his way of eating, none of which he cultivated deliberately, but they were simple and as they happened to fall. And you would see many Basils as far as outward appearance goes, statues in the shadows; for it is much even to have the last sound of the echo; for the echo gives only the end of the voice, yet imitates it more clearly, while these are as far from the man as they desire to come near him. But this was no small thing, but rightly the greatest ground for pride: to have once been near him, or to have served him, or to carry away a memento of something said or done by him in jest or in earnest; as I know I have often prided myself, since even the side-works of the man are far more precious and conspicuous than the labours of others. [78] When he had finished his course and kept the faith, he longed for his departure; and the time of the crowns had come. He did not hear, “Go up into the mountain and die there,” but, “Die and come up to us.” Here too he works a wonder no less than those already told. Being already almost dead and breathless, and having lost most of his life, he became stronger in his last words, so as to go out with words of piety; and by ordaining the most genuine of his servants he gives them his hand and the Spirit, so that the sanctuary might not be deprived of his disciples and fellow workers in the priesthood. What follows my discourse shrinks from approaching, yet it will approach, even if the account would befit others rather than us. For I cannot be a philosopher in my grief, however much I wish to be, remembering the common loss and the suffering that has seized the whole world.

He lay drawing his last breath, sought by the choir above, towards which he had long been gazing; and the city poured around him, unable to bear the loss, crying out against his departure as against tyranny, and laying hold of his soul as though it could be held fast and forced to stay by hands or prayers. For grief made them almost mad, and each would gladly have added something of his own life to his, if that had been possible. But when they were defeated (for he had to be shown to be a man), and having said at the last, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” he gladly breathed his last into the hands of the angels who took him up, having first given instruction in the mysteries to those present and made them better by his last charges. Then took place a wonder, the most famous of all that have ever been. [80] The saint was carried out, lifted up by the hands of saints; and each was eager, one to take hold of the fringe, another of the shadow, another of the bier on which he was carried, only to touch it (for what was holier or purer than that body?), another to come near those who carried it, another to enjoy only the sight of him, as though that too brought some benefit. Marketplaces, porticoes, houses of two and three storeys were filled with people escorting him, going before, following, beside him, treading on one another, myriads of every race and every age, never known before. Psalmody was overcome by lamentations, and philosophy dissolved by grief. Our people contended with those outside, Greeks, Jews, strangers, and they with us, as to who should weep more and so share more in the benefit. To end the story: the grief ended even in danger, not a few souls departing with him from the violence of the crush and the jostling, who were even called blessed for their end, as his fellow travellers and, as one of the more ardent might say, sacrifices at his funeral. With difficulty the body escaped those who would seize it and outstripped those who escorted it, and so it was given to the tomb of his fathers; and the high priest was added to the priests, the great voice, still sounding in my ears, to the heralds, the martyr to the martyrs. And now he is in heaven, and there, I think, he offers sacrifices for us and prays for the people; for though he has left us, he has not left us altogether. But I, Gregory, half dead and cut in two, torn from our great union, leading a painful and not easy life, as is to be expected of one separated from him, do not know where I shall end, deprived of his guidance; by which even now I am admonished and corrected through visions of the night, whenever I stray from duty. And now I mingle laments with praises, and write the account of the man's life, and set it forth for all time as a common picture of virtue and a saving programme for all the churches and all souls, looking to which we may direct our life as by a living law. To you who have been initiated into his teaching I would give no other counsel than always to look to him, and, as though he saw you and you were seen by him, to be perfected by the Spirit.

Come, then, stand round me, all his choir, those of the sanctuary and those below, ours and those from outside, and join with me in the praise, each telling of one or another of his virtues and seeking him: those who sit on thrones, their lawgiver; those in public life, their statesman; the people, their good order; men of letters, their teacher; virgins, their bride-leader; the married, their teacher of self-control; hermits, the one who gave them wings; those in the communities, their judge; the simple, their guide; the contemplatives, their theologian; the cheerful, their bridle; those in misfortune, their consolation; grey hairs, their staff; youth, its discipline; poverty, its provider; wealth, its steward. Widows too, I think, will praise their protector; orphans, their father; the poor, their lover of the poor; strangers, their host; brothers, their brother-lover; the sick, their physician, whatever the disease and the cure; the healthy, the guardian of their health; and all, the one who became all things to all, that he might gain all, or most. [82] These things, Basil, are offered to you from us, from a tongue once most dear to you, equal in honour and in age. If they come near your worth, the grace is yours; for it was in reliance on you that I undertook this discourse about you. If they fall far short of hope, what else could one expect from one worn out by age and disease and longing for you? Yet what is offered according to one's strength is dear to God. May you look upon us from above, O divine and sacred head, and either stop by your intercessions the thorn in the flesh given us by God for our discipline, or persuade us to bear it bravely; and may you direct our whole life to what is most profitable. And if we depart, may you receive us there too into your tabernacles, so that, living together and contemplating together more purely and perfectly the holy and blessed Trinity, of which we have now received glimpses in measure, we may there reach the end of our desire, and receive this as the reward of the wars we have waged and suffered. Such, then, is this discourse from us to you; but who will praise us, when we leave this life after you, if we provide anything worthy of praise, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen.

To honour dedications is an ancient law, and a good one; or rather, to honour new things by dedications; and this not once but often, each revolution of the year bringing round the same day, so that good things may not fade with time, nor be swept away and carried off into the depths of forgetfulness. Islands are renewed to God, as we read in Isaiah, whatever these islands are to be understood to be; I think they are the churches from among the gentiles, newly established, rising out of the salt water of unbelief and gaining firmness, so as to be ground on which God may walk. A bronze wall is dedicated, in another prophet; I think it is a firm soul … in piety. We are bidden to sing to the Lord a new song, whether we who were dragged off by sin into Babylon and its evil confusion and then brought back safe to Jerusalem (there we could not sing the divine song, as in a foreign land, but here we establish a new song and a new way of life), or we who have remained in the good and are advancing, having achieved part already and achieving part now, through the holy and renewing Spirit.

The tabernacle of witness is dedicated, and very sumptuously, which God showed, Bezalel completed and Moses set up. The kingdom of David is renewed, and not once but twice: when he was first anointed and when he was proclaimed the second time. “It was the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter,” the winter of unbelief; and Jesus was present, God and temple: God eternal, temple new, destroyed in a day and raised on the third, and remaining for ever, that I may be saved and called back from the ancient fall and become a new creation, refashioned by such great love for man. The divine David seeks a pure heart to be created within him, and a right spirit to be renewed in his inward parts; not as though he did not have them (for who had them, if not so great a man as David?), but knowing that what is ever being added is new. And what need have I of more dedications, when I can point to those now present, which we are celebrating today, having drawn near to life after death? A dedication, a dedication is our festival, brothers: let it be said often, for joy. And what is it? You who know, teach; you who do not know, renew your hearing.

God was light, unapproachable and without succession, neither beginning nor ending nor measured, ever-shining, thrice-shining, contemplated as he is by few, or rather, I think, not even by few. And there are second lights, reflections of the first Light: the powers around him and the ministering spirits. But this light of ours not only began later, but is cut by night and cuts the night in equal shares; it is entrusted to sight, poured into the air, and receives what it gives. For it grants the eye the power to see, and is first seen by the eye, and, flowing around visible things, makes them manifest. For when God willed to establish this world, composed of things visible and invisible, the great and wonderful herald of his majesty, for the eternal beings he himself is light and nothing else (for what need of a second light had those who have the greatest?); but for those below and around us he first makes the power of this light shine forth. For it was fitting that the great light of creation should begin from light, by which he dissolves the darkness and the formlessness and disorder that held until then.

And he first showed this light not bound to a body, nor as the sun, as our account has it, but bodiless and without a sun; and afterwards it was also given to the sun, to illumine the whole world. For while in other things he first established the matter and afterwards gave it form, setting order, shape and size for each, here, to work a greater wonder, he established the form before the matter (for light is the form of the sun), and afterwards brings in the matter, creating this sun as the eye of the day. So the first, second and third are numbered in days, and the rest, up to the seventh, the day of rest from works; and by these days the things made are divided, ordered by ineffable principles, and not brought forth all at once by the all-powerful Word, for whom merely to think or to speak is a deed accomplished. And if man was shown forth last, and that honoured by the hand and the image of God, it is no wonder; for the palace had to be prepared first, as for a king, and then the king brought in, escorted already by all things. If, then, we had remained what we were and kept the commandment, we would have become what we were not,

approaching the tree of life after the tree of knowledge. And what would we have become? Made immortal, and drawn near to God. But since through the envy of the evil one death entered the world and overthrew man by deceit, for this reason God suffers our suffering, becoming man, and becomes poor by being fixed in the flesh, that we might become rich through his poverty. Hence death, burial and resurrection; hence the new creation, and the feast after the feast; and I am a celebrant again, renewing my own salvation. [5] “What then?” someone says. “Was not the first Sunday the dedication, the one after the holy night and the lighting of torches? But you give this title to today, you lover of feasts, devising many splendours.” That was the day of salvation; this is the birthday of salvation. That one is the boundary between burial and resurrection; this one belongs purely to the second birth; so that, as the first creation takes its beginning from a Sunday (this is clear, for from it the Sabbath becomes the seventh day, being rest from works), so the second creation also begins again from the same day, being the first of those after it and the eighth from those before it, loftier than the lofty and more wonderful than the wonderful. For it leads to the state above; which the divine Solomon seems to me to hint at, when he lays down that one should give a portion to seven, this life, and to eight, the life to come, from good action here and the restoration there. And the great David seems to sing to this day the psalms “for the eighth”, as to the present day of dedication another psalm, naming a dedication of a house; and that house is we ourselves, who have been counted worthy to be, to be called, and to become the temple of God.

You have the account of the dedications. But be renewed yourselves: casting off the old man, conduct yourselves in newness of life, putting a bridle on all the things from which death comes, disciplining every member, hating or vomiting up all the evil eating from the tree, and remembering the old things only so as to flee them. “It was beautiful to look at and good to eat,” the fruit that killed me. Let us flee a fine complexion; let us look at ourselves. Let not the desire for beauty conquer you, nor be caught by your eyelids, if possible not even so far as a glance, remembering Eve, the sweet bait, the honoured poison. For how will a strange woman easily save you, when your own destroyed you? Let not your throat become sweet to you, down which everything given is swept away; it is honoured before it is taken, and dishonoured after. Has smell made you effeminate? Flee perfumes. Have you grown soft through touch? Renounce smoothness and softness. Has hearing seduced you? Put a door on deceitful and flattering words. Open your mouth to the word of God, that you may draw in the Spirit, and not draw in death. Whenever something forbidden tempts you, remember who you were and whence you have perished. If you turn aside a little from reason, bring yourself back before you fall out altogether and are carried down to death; and become new instead of old, and keep the dedication of your soul.

Let your anger be against the serpent alone, through whom you fell. Let your desire be wholly stretched out towards God, not towards anything else that is treacherous and dangerous. Let reason preside over all, and let not the better be dragged down by the worse. Do not hate your brother, and that without cause, for whom Christ died and became your brother, though he is God and Master. Do not envy one who succeeds, you who were envied, and persuaded through envy, and cast down for that reason. Do not dishonour a tear, you who suffered things worthy of many tears and then found mercy. Do not turn away a poor man, you who have become rich in Godhead; or, if you must, at least do not grow rich at the poor man's expense; for this too is common among the insatiable. Do not dishonour a stranger, for whom Christ became a stranger, among whom we are all strangers and sojourners, lest you be estranged from paradise as before. Share with one who needs shelter, covering and food, you who luxuriate in these beyond your need. Do not love wealth, unless it helps the poor. Forgive, you who have been forgiven; have mercy, you who have received mercy; win love by love while there is time. Let your whole life be renewed, every way of your conduct.

You who are under the yoke, give something to God too, for you too have been taken up by him. You virgins, give everything to God, for you are free. Do not become stealers of a servile pleasure after fleeing freedom, by living with men who are not husbands, but men nonetheless. I do not accept that you should be constantly troubled by reminders of pleasure; I hate even the familiarity of the eyes. You who are powerful, fear the more powerful; you who sit on high thrones, the one who is higher. Admire nothing that does not remain; do not overlook what remains; do not clutch anything that slips away when held; do not envy things that are not envied but hated; do not be greatly lifted up, lest you be cast down further; do not pride yourself on appearing better than the wicked, but grieve at being surpassed by the good; do not laugh at your neighbour's fall, but walk safely, as far as you can, and also give a hand to one lying on the ground. Neither despair of prosperity when you are downcast, nor of humility when you are faring well. One year brings four seasons, and one turn of the times many changes of fortune. Let care overshadow your pleasure, and the better hope your grief. So man is renewed; so the day of the dedication is honoured, with such luxury and such food. “You shall not appear empty before me,” it says, but bringing something good with you. Now appear new in another way, wholly changed. “The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Bring this as your fruit to the feast: be changed with the good change; and do not be proud even so, but say the words of David: “This is the change of the right hand of the Most High,” from whom men have every success. The word does not want you ever to remain the same, but to be ever moving, easily moved, always newly created: turning back if you sin, pressing on if you do well.

Yesterday you had the faith of the demons; today learn that of God. How long will you limp on both your knees? How long will you temporize? Be eager at last to build up. Yesterday you honoured seeming; today prefer being. How long the shadows? Let truth too be pursued by you at last. Yesterday you were a man of the theatre; today show yourself a man of contemplation. Yesterday abusive and bold, today well-spoken and gentle; yesterday a reveller, today a corrector of others. Today a wine-drinker, tomorrow a water-drinker. Today luxuriating on ivory couches and anointed with the finest perfumes, tomorrow lying on the ground and keeping vigil instead of reclining softly; thoughtful instead of adorned; poorly clothed instead of a peacock and a boaster; plain in appearance instead of gold-roofed; humble and bowing down instead of proud-necked. If you think thus and act thus, you will have a new heaven and a new earth, grasping both these things and their meaning.

But let us go now and keep the feast fittingly with the season. For all things join in the festival for good and rejoice with it: see what we behold. The queen of the seasons escorts the queen of days and brings as gifts all that is most beautiful and pleasant. Now the sky is clearer; now the sun is higher and more golden; now the moon's circle is brighter and the choir of stars purer. Now the waves make peace with the shores, the clouds with the sun, the winds with the air, the earth with the plants, the plants with the eyes. Now springs flow more clearly, and rivers more abundantly, released from their winter bonds. The meadow is fragrant, the plant teems, the grass is cut, and lambs skip over the green fields. Now the ship is launched from the harbour with a shout, mostly a God-loving one, and is winged by its sail; and the dolphin leaps around, blowing most sweetly and rising up, and escorts the sailors cheerfully. Now the farmer fixes his plough, looking up and calling on the giver of fruits, puts the ploughing ox under the yoke, cuts the sweet furrow and rejoices in his hopes. Now shepherds and cowherds tune their pipes and breathe out a pastoral song, and spend the spring among plants and rocks. Now the gardener tends his plant … looks up at the branches … and the fisherman looks into the depths, cleans his net and sits on the rocks.

Now the industrious bee, having left the hives, displays its own wisdom, flies over the meadows and plunders the flowers; one forms the combs, joining the hexagonal cells opposite one another and alternating their angles, a work of beauty and security together; another stores the honey in the storehouses for the one who cultivates it, a sweet and ageless fruit. Would that we too, the swarm of Christ, might take such an example of wisdom and industry! Now the bird builds its nest; one returns, another settles in, another flies around, filling the grove with song and chattering around man. All things hymn God and glorify him with unspoken voices; for God is thanked through me for all of them, and so their hymn becomes ours, since from them I take the occasion to hymn. Now we feast every sense on every living thing; now the horse, proud and haughty, impatient of the stable, having broken his bond, gallops over the plain and exults.

Why speak of the rest? Now the martyrs are honoured with processions, and with their bright shrines they fill a Christ-loving people and make their contests public. Among them is also my own Mamas (for he is mine, even if not from my city; let no one envy me for saying so), the renowned Mamas, shepherd and martyr; who formerly milked the does that came to him of their own accord, so that the just man might be nourished on strange milk; and who now shepherds the people of a metropolis, and renews the spring today with the many crowds that come from everywhere, adorned with various beauties, and worthy of shepherds and of festivals. To say it more briefly: a worldly spring, a spiritual spring; a spring for souls, a spring for bodies; a visible spring, an invisible spring; of which may we partake there too, having been well changed here, and may we be sent on, made new, to the new life, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be all glory, honour and might, with the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

“I will stand upon my watch,” says the wonderful Habakkuk; and I with him today, with the authority and vision given me by the Spirit, will look out and learn what will be seen and what will be spoken to me. And I stood and looked out; and behold, a man riding upon the clouds, very lofty, and his appearance as the appearance of an angel, and his garment like the brightness of passing lightning; and he lifted his hand towards the east and cried with a loud voice, his voice like the voice of a trumpet, and round about him as it were a multitude of the heavenly host; and he said: “Today salvation has come to the world, both visible and invisible. Christ is risen from the dead: rise with him. Christ has returned to himself: return. Christ is freed from the tomb: be freed from the bonds of sin. The gates of Hades are opened, death is destroyed, the old Adam is put off, the new is made complete. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: be renewed.” So he spoke; and the others sang, as they did before, when Christ appeared to us through his birth below, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” With them I too utter these words among you; and would that I might have a voice worthy of the angels, sounding through all the ends of the earth.

The Pascha of the Lord, the Pascha, and again I will say the Pascha, in honour of the Trinity. This is for us the feast of feasts and the festival of festivals, surpassing all others, not only human and earthly ones but even those of Christ himself and celebrated in his honour, as far as the sun surpasses the stars. Fine too was yesterday's splendid array and procession of lights, which we held both privately and publicly, almost every race of men and every rank, lighting up the night with abundant fire, an image of the great light: both of that with which the heaven above lights its beacons, illumining the whole world with its own beauties, and of that above the heavens, among the angels, the first luminous nature after the first, since it springs from it, and of that in the Trinity, from which all light comes, divided from the undivided light and honoured. But today's is finer and more illustrious. For yesterday's light was the forerunner of the great Light rising, a kind of joy before the feast; but today we celebrate the resurrection itself, no longer hoped for but already accomplished, and gathering the whole world to itself. Let each, then, bring some fruit to the season and offer a festal gift, small or great, of the spiritual things that are dear to God, according to his ability. For the gift that is worthy even the angels could hardly attain, the first, intelligent and pure beings, beholders and witnesses of the glory above, if even to them the whole of the hymn is attainable. We will bring a discourse, the finest and most precious thing we have, especially as we hymn the Word for his benefaction to rational nature. I will begin from here. For I cannot bear that words about the great sacrifice and the greatest of days should not run up to God and make their beginning from there. Purify for me your mind and hearing and thought, all you who delight in such things (since the discourse is about God, and divine), that you may go away having truly enjoyed what does not pass away. And it will be at once very full and very concise, so as neither to grieve you by its deficiency nor to be unpleasant through satiety.

God always was, and is, and will be; or rather, always is. For “was” and “will be” are segments of our time and of a nature that flows; but he is ever “He who is”, and this is the name he gives himself when giving his oracle to Moses on the mountain. For, gathering all being into himself, he possesses it, neither beginning nor ending, like a sea of essence, infinite and unbounded, surpassing every conception of time and nature; sketched in outline by the mind alone, and that very dimly and in measure, not from what he is in himself but from what is around him, one image being gathered from another into one likeness of the truth, which flees before it is held and escapes before it is conceived, shining upon our ruling faculty, even when it is purified, as swiftly as the flash of lightning that does not stay before the eyes; in order, I think, that by what can be grasped it may draw us to itself (for what is wholly beyond grasp is beyond hope and beyond attempt), and by what cannot be grasped it may be admired, and being admired may be longed for the more, and being longed for may purify, and purifying may make us godlike; and that, when we have become such, he may converse with us as with his own (my words dare something bold), God united with gods and known by them, perhaps as much as he already knows those who are known by him. The divine, then, is infinite and hard to contemplate, and this alone of him is wholly comprehensible: his infinity; even if someone should think that because he is of a simple nature he must be either wholly incomprehensible or perfectly comprehensible. For let us inquire what “of a simple nature” means. For simplicity is certainly not his nature, just as composition alone is not the nature of composite things.

The infinite is considered in two ways, with respect to beginning and to end (for what is beyond these and not within them is infinite). When the mind looks into the depth above, having nowhere to stand and rest in its imaginings about God, it calls the infinite and unapproachable there “without beginning”; when it looks into what is below and what follows, “immortal” and “imperishable”; and when it gathers the whole together, “eternal”. For eternity is neither time nor any part of time, since it is not measurable; but what time is for us, measured by the course of the sun, that eternity is for everlasting beings: something extended together with the things that are, like a kind of temporal motion and interval. Let this be enough of my philosophy about God for now. There is no occasion for more, since our subject is not theology but the economy. When I say God, I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the Godhead neither spreading beyond these, lest we bring in a mob of gods, nor confined within less than these, lest we be condemned for a poverty of Godhead, either Judaizing because of the monarchy or Hellenizing because of the abundance. For the evil is alike in both, though found in opposites. Such, then, is the Holy of Holies, which is veiled even by the seraphim and glorified with three “holies”, meeting in one lordship and Godhead; this has been expounded most beautifully and loftily by another before us.

But since it was not enough for goodness to be moved only in the contemplation of itself, but the good had to be poured out and go forth, so that the objects of its benefaction might be more (for this belonged to the highest goodness), he first conceives the angelic and heavenly powers; and the conception was a deed, fulfilled by the Word and perfected by the Spirit. And so second splendours came to be, ministers of the first splendour: whether we should think of them as intelligent spirits, or as a kind of immaterial and bodiless fire, or as some other nature as near as possible to those named. I would like to say that they are immovable towards evil and have only the movement of the good, being around God and the first to be illumined from God (for things here have a second illumination); but I am persuaded to suppose and say that they are not immovable but hard to move, because of him who for his splendour was called Lucifer, but who through his pride both became and is called darkness, and the apostate powers under him, makers of evil by their flight from the good, and its promoters for us.

So, then, the intelligible world came to be for him, and for these reasons, so far as I at least can philosophize about these things, weighing great things with a small word. And since his first works were good, he conceives a second world, material and visible: this is the system and compound of heaven and earth and what lies between, praiseworthy for the fine nature of each part, still more praiseworthy for the harmony and concord of the whole, each part fitting well with another and all with all, to complete one world; that he might show that he was able to give being not only to a nature akin to himself but also to one wholly alien. For the intelligent natures, grasped by mind alone, are akin to the Godhead; wholly alien are those that fall under sense, and, still further removed among these, those that are wholly soulless and motionless.

Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from one another, stood within their own bounds and bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator Word, silent praisers and loud heralds of his mighty work. But there was not yet a mixture of both, nor any blending of opposites, a token of greater wisdom and of lavishness about the natures; nor was the whole wealth of his goodness yet known. Wishing to display this, the Word, the artist, creates man, one living being out of both, I mean the invisible and the visible nature. Taking the body from the matter that already existed, and placing in it breath from himself, which the word knows as the intelligent soul and the image of God, he sets him on the earth as a kind of second world, great in little, another angel, a worshipper of mixed nature, fully initiated into the visible creation, partly initiated into the intelligible, king of all on earth but ruled from above, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and intelligible, midway between greatness and lowliness; the same being spirit and flesh: spirit because of grace, flesh because of the elevation; the one that he may remain and glorify his Benefactor, the other that he may suffer, and by suffering be reminded and disciplined when he is ambitious about his greatness; a living being cared for here and transferred elsewhere, and, as the end of the mystery, deified by his inclination towards God. For to this, I think, the moderate light of truth here leads me: to see and to experience the splendour of God, worthy of him who both bound us together and will loose us, and will bind us again in a loftier way.

He placed him in paradise, whatever this paradise was, honouring him with free will, so that the good might belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who provided its seeds: a cultivator of immortal plants, perhaps of divine thoughts, both the simpler and the more perfect; naked in his simplicity and artless life, without any covering or screen; for such it was fitting that he should be who was from the beginning. And he gives him a law, as material for his free will. The law was a commandment, which plants he might partake of and which he might not touch. This was the tree of knowledge, neither planted evilly from the beginning nor forbidden out of envy (let the enemies of God not wag their tongues in that direction, nor imitate the serpent), but good when partaken of at the right time; for the tree was, in my view, contemplation, which it is safe to undertake only for those of more perfect habit, but not good for those still simple and greedy in their desire, just as solid food is not profitable for those still tender and in need of milk. But when, through the envy of the devil and the injury done by the woman, which she suffered as the more tender and brought upon him as the more persuasive (alas for my weakness! for my forefather's weakness is mine), he forgot the commandment that had been given and was overcome by the little tasting, he became at once, through his wickedness, an exile from the tree of life, from paradise and from God; and he puts on the coats of skin, perhaps the coarser flesh, mortal and resistant; and now for the first time he knows his own shame and hides from God. Yet he gains something even here: death, and the cutting short of sin, so that evil might not be immortal; and the punishment becomes an act of love for man. For this, I am persuaded, is how God punishes.

He was first disciplined in many ways, because of the many sins which the root of evil put forth for various causes and at various times: by word, by law, by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by floods, by fires, by wars, by victories, by defeats, by signs from heaven, signs from the air, from the earth, from the sea, by unexpected changes in men, cities and nations, by which the aim was to wipe out evil. At last he needs a stronger remedy for more terrible diseases: mutual slaughter, adulteries, perjuries, lust for males, and that last and first of all evils, idolatry, and the transfer of worship from the Maker to the creatures. Since these needed a greater help, they also obtain a greater. This was the very Word of God, the pre-eternal, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the bodiless, the beginning from the beginning, the light from light, the source of life and immortality, the impress of the archetypal beauty, the unmoved seal, the unchanging image, the Father's definition and word: he comes to his own image, and bears flesh for the sake of flesh, and is mingled with an intelligent soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing like by like; and he becomes man in all things except sin. He was conceived of the Virgin, who had first been cleansed in soul and flesh by the Spirit (for birth had to be honoured, and virginity honoured more), …

…and he came forth God with what he had assumed, one out of two opposites, flesh and Spirit, of which the one deified and the other was deified. O new mingling! O strange blending! He who is comes to be, … through the mediation of an intelligent soul standing between the Godhead and the coarseness of flesh. And he who makes rich becomes poor: for he becomes poor in my flesh, that I may become rich in his Godhead. And he who is full is emptied: for he is emptied of his own glory for a little while, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery concerning me? I received the image and did not keep it; he receives…

…my flesh, to save the image and to make the flesh immortal. He enters into a second communion, far stranger than the first, inasmuch as then he gave a share in the better, while now he takes a share in the worse. This is more godlike than the first; this is loftier for those who have understanding.

“But what has all this to do with us?” someone perhaps may say, one of the over-eager and too hot: “spur the colt round the turning-post; discourse to us on the things of the festival and on why we are gathered today.” This I will do, even though I began a little far back, forced by the argument and by longing. And it will perhaps not be amiss, for lovers of learning and of beauty, to treat briefly of the name of the Pascha itself; for this would be no unpleasant digression for the ears. This Pascha, great and venerable, is called Phaska by the Hebrews in their own language; and the word means “passing over”: historically, because of the flight and migration from Egypt to the land of Canaan; spiritually, because of the progress and ascent from things below to things above and to the land of promise. And what we have observed happening in many places of Scripture, that some names are changed from obscure to clearer, or from more rustic to more refined, we have observed here too. For some, thinking this to be the name of the saving passion, and turning the word into Greek by changing phi to pi and kappa to chi, called the day Pascha. And custom, taking up the word, made it stronger, the ears of the many running to it as to a more reverent word.

Now the divine apostle declared before us that the whole law is a shadow of things to come and of things perceived by the mind. And God, who before him gave oracles to Moses, said, when legislating about these things: “See, you shall make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain”, showing the visible things as a sketch and outline beforehand of the invisible. And I am persuaded that none of these things was ordained in vain, nor irrationally, nor in a grovelling way, nor unworthily of God's legislation and of Moses' ministry, even if it is hard, going down into detail, to find for each of the shadows its own contemplation: all that has been legislated about the tabernacle itself, its measures and materials, and the Levites and ministers who carried them, and all about sacrifices and purifications and offerings; and that these can be contemplated only by those who are like Moses in virtue, or nearest to his training. For on the mountain itself God appears to human beings, partly coming down himself from his own lofty watch, partly leading us up from our lowliness below, that the uncontained may be contained, at least in measure, by mortal nature, as far as is safe. For otherwise it is impossible for the coarseness of a material body and a bound mind to come to the conception of God without help. Then, therefore, not all were judged worthy of the same rank and station, but one of this, another of that, each, I think, according to the measure of his own purification; and some were driven away altogether and permitted only to hear the voice from above, those who were bestial in character and unworthy of divine mysteries. [12] … us, who from the beginning were stolen away by sin and through pleasure as far as idolatry and unlawful bloodshed, … to be called back again and led back to our ancient state, through the tender mercies of our Father, who could not bear to lose so great a work of his own hand, man. How, then, were we to be called back, and what was to be done? The violent kind of cure was rejected, as not persuasive and even able to make the wound worse, because of our long-standing conceit; the gentle and kindly kind (was chosen) for correction. For a crooked sapling would not bear sudden force or the violence of a bending hand (it would sooner break than be straightened), nor would a spirited horse, past its youth, bear the tyranny of the bit without some coaxing and clicking of the tongue. For this reason the law is given us as a help, like a wall of separation between God and idols, leading us away from these and leading us back to him. And it concedes something small at the beginning, that it may gain the greater. It concedes sacrifices for a time, that it may establish God (among us); then, when the time comes, it abolishes the sacrifices too, wisely changing us by gradual withdrawals, and bringing us over to the Gospel already trained to obedience.

So, then, and for these reasons, the written law came in, gathering us to Christ; and this is the reason for the sacrifices, as I reckon it. But that you may not be ignorant of the depth of wisdom and the riches of his unsearchable judgments, he did not leave even the sacrifices themselves wholly unconsecrated, nor imperfect, nor going no further than the mere blood; but the great and, so to speak, in its first nature unsacrificeable victim was mingled with the sacrifices of the law, a purification not for a small part of the world nor for a short time, but for the whole world and for ever. For this reason a lamb is taken, because of its innocence, and as the clothing of the ancient nakedness. For such is the victim offered for us, a garment of incorruption, both in fact and in name. Perfect, not only because of the Godhead, than which nothing is more perfect, but also because of what was assumed, anointed with the Godhead and become what anointed it, and, I dare to say, God together with it. Male, as offered for Adam, or rather as the strong for the strong, for the first, who fell under sin; and above all as having in himself nothing feminine, nothing unmanly, but bursting the bonds of the virginal and maternal womb with great power, and born a male of the prophetess, as Isaiah announces. A year old, as the sun of righteousness, either setting out from there, or circumscribed in what is seen, and returning to itself, and blessed as the crown of goodness, everywhere equal to and like itself; and not only this, but also as giving life to the circle of the virtues, gently mingled and blended with one another by the law of love and order. Without blemish and without guile, as healing blemishes and the defects and stains that come from wickedness. For even if he took up our sins and bore our diseases, he himself suffered nothing of what needs healing. For he was tempted in all things in our likeness, yet without sin. For he who persecuted the light that shines in darkness did not overtake it. … and to use as fellow-workers in this those of like mind and like character. For this, I think, is what is meant by sharing with those nearest to the victim …

From this comes the sacred night, the adversary of this present confused life, in which the primeval darkness is dissolved, and all things come into light and order and form, and the former disorder receives order. From this we flee Egypt, the gloomy and persecuting sin, and Pharaoh the invisible tyrant, and his bitter taskmasters, being transferred to the world above; and we are set free from the clay and the brickmaking, from this … composition of the flesh, which in most people is scarcely restrained even by chaff-like reasonings. From this the lamb is slain, and action and word, that is, habit and activity, are sealed with the precious blood: these are the posts of our doors, I mean of the movements and opinions of the mind, rightly opened and shut by contemplation, since there is a limit even to thoughts. From this comes the last and heaviest plague on the persecutors, truly worthy of night; and Egypt mourns the first-born of her own reasonings and actions (which Scripture also calls the seed of the Chaldeans removed, and infants dashed against the rock and destroyed), and everything is full of shouting and crying; and then the destroyer withdraws from us, out of reverence and fear of the anointing. Then comes the removal of leaven for seven days (for this number is most mystical and corresponds to this world), the leaven of the old and sour wickedness, not of the nourishing and life-giving kind, so that nothing of Egyptian dough, no remnant of Pharisaic and godless teaching, may go with us. … that our word may have nothing watery or easily dissolved, but may be wholly firm and solid, and tested by the purifying fire, and free of everything material and superfluous; and let us be helped by the good coals that kindle and cleanse our understanding, from him who came to cast fire on the earth, the fire that consumes evil habits, and who hastens its kindling. Whatever, then, is fleshly and nourishing in the word will be eaten and consumed with the inward parts and hidden things of the mind, and given over to spiritual digestion, head and feet: the first contemplations about the Godhead and the last thoughts about the incarnation. We shall carry nothing outside, nor leave anything until morning; because most of our mysteries are not to be carried out to those outside, nor is there any purification after this night, and delay is not commendable for those who partake of the Word. For as it is good and dear to God not to let anger last through the day but to put it away before sunset, both literally and in the higher sense (for it is not safe for the sun of righteousness to go down on us in anger), so we must not keep such food overnight nor put it off to the next day. Whatever is bony and inedible and hard for us to understand will not be broken, by being badly divided and understood (I leave aside that, according to the history, not a bone of Jesus was broken, although death was hastened for the crucified because of the Sabbath); nor will it be thrown away and dragged about, that holy things may not be given to the dogs, the wicked tearers of the Word, as neither is the bright pearl of the Word given to the swine; but it will be consumed by fire, the fire by which the burnt offerings too are consumed, refined and preserved by the Spirit who searches and knows all things, not destroyed in water nor scattered, as was the head of the calf by Moses, the calf hastily made by Israel, to the reproach of their hardness. It is worth not passing over the manner of eating either, since the law does not, but carries contemplation even this far in the letter. We shall eat the lamb in haste, eating unleavened bread with bitter herbs, with our loins girded and our sandals on, and leaning on staffs like old men. In haste, that we may not suffer what Lot was forbidden by command, not to look round nor to stay in all the surrounding country but to escape to the mountain, that we may not be overtaken by the Sodomite and strange fire, nor be fixed as a pillar of salt for turning back to the worse, which is what delay brings about. With bitter herbs, because of the steep and uphill life according to God, especially for beginners, and higher than pleasures. For even if the new yoke is easy and the burden light, as you hear, this is because of the hope and the reward, far more abundant than the hardship; otherwise, who would not say that the Gospel is much harder and more laborious than the ordinances of the law? For while the law forbids the completion of sins, we are blamed for their causes, almost as for the deeds. “You shall not commit adultery”, says the law; but you, do not even desire, kindling the passion by curious and laborious looking. “You shall not murder”; but you, do not even strike back, but even offer yourself to the one who strikes. How much more philosophical is this! “You shall not swear falsely”; but you, do not swear at all, neither more nor less, since the oath begets perjury. “You shall not join house to house, nor field to field, oppressing the poor”; but you, even sell what was rightly acquired, and that eagerly, and be stripped for the poor, that you may lightly take up the cross and pass over to the things that are not seen. Let the loins of the irrational beasts be loose and ungirded, for they do not have the reason that masters pleasures (I need not say that even they know a limit of natural movement); but for you let there be restraint by the girdle around the desiring and neighing part (as the Scripture calls it, exposing the shamefulness of the thing), that you may eat the Pascha purely, having put to death your members that are on the earth, and imitating the girdle of John, the hermit and forerunner and great herald of the truth. I know also another girdle, the soldierly and manly one, from which some Syrians are called “well-girded” and some “single-girded”; of which God too speaks when he gives oracles to Job: “Gird your loins like a man, and give answer”; with which divine David also boasts of being girded with power from God, and he brings in God himself as clothed with power and girded, plainly against the ungodly; unless one prefers that the superabundance of his power, as it were held in check, is indicated in this way, just as he also puts on light as a garment. For who will withstand the unbounded greatness of his power and light? I ask, what have the loins in common with truth? What does holy Paul mean by saying, “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth”? Perhaps that contemplation binds the desiring part tightly and does not allow it to be carried elsewhere. For what is disposed lovingly towards one thing does not have the same strength for other pleasures.

As for the sandals, let him who is about to touch the holy ground, trodden by God, take them off, as Moses did on the mountain, that he may bring nothing dead, nothing between God and men. So too if a disciple is sent to preach the Gospel, let him go philosophically and without superfluity; besides being without bronze and staff and having one tunic, he must also go barefoot, that the feet of those who bring good news of peace and every other good may appear beautiful. But let him who is fleeing Egypt and the things of Egypt be shod, for safety in general and especially against the scorpions and snakes that Egypt breeds in great numbers, so as not to be harmed by those that watch the heel, which we have been commanded to tread on. About the staff and its riddle, this is what I think. I know one staff for leaning on, and another that is pastoral and for teaching, which turns back the rational sheep. But the law now orders you to take the one that supports, so that you may not falter in your reasoning when you hear of the blood of God, and his passion and death; so that you may not be carried away into godlessness while acting as God's advocate; but without shame and without doubt eat the body, drink the blood, if you desire life, neither disbelieving the words about the flesh nor offended by those about the passion. Stand supported, firm, set fast, shaken in nothing by the adversaries, nor carried away by persuasive words. Stand on your own height; set your feet in the courts of Jerusalem; lean on the rock, that your steps according to God may not be moved.

What do you say? Thus it has seemed good, that you should leave Egypt, the iron furnace, and leave behind the idolatry there, and be led by Moses and by his legislation and generalship. I propose something that is not mine, or rather very much mine, if you contemplate it spiritually. Borrow from the Egyptians vessels of gold and silver; travel with these; provision yourself from what belongs to others, or rather from what is yours. The wage of your slavery and your brickmaking is owed to you; be clever yourself in demanding it back; rob honestly. You have suffered hardship there, fighting with the clay, this troublesome and filthy body, and building cities for others, cities without security, whose memory will perish with a noise. What then? Will you go out for nothing and without wages? Why will you leave to the Egyptians and the hostile powers what they acquired wickedly and will spend still worse? It is not theirs: they plundered it, they snatched it from him who said, “Mine is the silver and mine is the gold, and I will give it to whom I will.” Yesterday it was theirs, for it was permitted; today the Master brings it and gives it to you, to use well and for salvation. Let us make friends for ourselves from the mammon of unrighteousness, that when we fail they may receive us in the time of judgment. [21] If you are a Rachel or a Leah, a patriarchal and great soul, steal the idols of your father too, whatever you find, not to keep them but to destroy them; if you are a wise Israelite, carry them over to the land of promise; and let the persecutor grieve over them, and learn, outwitted, that he tyrannized in vain and enslaved those better than himself. If you do this, and so go out of Egypt, I know well that you will be guided by the pillar of fire and cloud by night and by day; the desert will be tamed, the sea will be cut for you, Pharaoh will be drowned, bread will rain down, rocks will gush with water, Amalek will be defeated not by arms only but also by the hands of the righteous, forming at once a prayer and the unconquerable trophy of the cross; the river will be cut off, the sun will stand still, the moon will be held back, walls will be thrown down even without siege engines, hornets will run ahead, making a way for Israel and keeping off the foreigners; and all the other things that are recorded after these and with these will be given you by God, so that I need not stretch out a long discourse. Such is the feast you are keeping today; such is the birthday you celebrate of him who was born for you, and the burial of him who suffered; such for you is the mystery of the Pascha. These things the law sketched; these things Christ fulfilled, the abolisher of the letter, the perfecter of the Spirit, who by what he suffered teaches suffering, and by what he was glorified grants us to be glorified with him.

We must, then, examine a matter and a doctrine overlooked by most, but by me very much inquired into. To whom was the blood shed for us offered, and for what was it shed, the great and famous blood of God, who is both high priest and victim? For we were held by the evil one, sold under sin, having received pleasure in exchange for wickedness. And if the ransom belongs to none other than the one who holds us, I ask to whom this was paid, and for what cause. If to the evil one, alas for the outrage! if the robber receives a ransom not only from God but God himself as the ransom, and so extravagant a payment for his tyranny, for whose sake it would have been just for him to spare us. If to the Father, first, how? For it was not by him that we were held. Second, by what reasoning does the blood of the Only-begotten delight the Father, who did not even accept Isaac when he was offered by his father, but exchanged the sacrifice, giving a ram instead of the rational victim? Or is it clear that the Father receives it, not because he asked for it or needed it, but because of the economy, and because man had to be sanctified by the humanity of God, so that he himself might deliver us, overpowering the tyrant by force, and lead us back to himself through the mediation of the Son, who also arranged this for the honour of the Father, to whom he is seen to yield in all things? So much for Christ; let the greater part be honoured with silence. The bronze serpent is hung up against the biting serpents, not as a type of him who suffered for us, but as a counter-type; and it saves those who look at it, not because it is believed to live, but because it has been put to death, and puts to death with it the powers that are under it, destroyed as it deserved. And what epitaph from us befits it? “Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory?” You have been struck down by the cross; you have been put to death by the life-giver; breathless, dead, motionless, inactive, even if you keep the form of a serpent, set up on high on a pole. [23] We shall partake of the Pascha, now still in type, though more openly than in the old (for the Pascha of the law, I dare to say, was a dimmer type of a type); but a little later more perfectly and purely, when the Word drinks it new with us in the kingdom of the Father, revealing and teaching what he has now shown in measure. For what is now being made known is always new. What that drink and that enjoyment are, it is ours to learn, and his to teach and to share the word with his disciples. For teaching is food, even for the one who feeds. But come, let us too partake of the law in a Gospel way, not literally; perfectly, not imperfectly; eternally, not temporarily. Let us make our head not the Jerusalem below but the mother city above; not the one now trodden down by armies, but the one glorified by angels. Let us sacrifice not young calves, nor lambs that put forth horns and hoofs, in which there is much that is dead and without feeling; but let us offer to God a sacrifice of praise on the altar above, with the choir above. Let us draw aside the first veil, approach the second, and look into the Holy of Holies. Shall I say the greater thing? Let us sacrifice ourselves to God; or rather, let us sacrifice every day and in every movement. Let us accept everything for the sake of the Word; let us imitate the passion by sufferings, honour the blood by blood, go up eagerly onto the cross. Sweet are the nails, even if very painful. For to suffer with Christ and for Christ is better than ease with others. [24] … “Do not touch me”: stand far off; reverence the Word, but do not be grieved, for he knows to whom he will appear first. Inaugurate the resurrection; help Eve, who first fell, who first greeted Christ and made him known to the disciples. Become Peter or John; hurry to the tomb, running against and running with, competing in the noble contest. Even if you are outstripped in speed, win by zeal, not stooping to look into the tomb but going inside. And if, like Thomas, you are left out when the disciples are gathered, to whom Christ appears, do not disbelieve when you see; and if you disbelieve, believe those who tell you; and if not even them, be convinced by the marks of the nails. If he goes down to Hades, go down with him. Learn the mysteries of Christ there too, what is the economy of the twofold descent, what its reason: does he simply save all by appearing, or there too only those who believe?

And if he goes up to heaven, go up with him; be with the angels who escort him, or with those who receive him. Bid the gates be lifted up, be made higher, that they may receive him, made higher by his suffering. Answer those who are perplexed because of the body and the tokens of the passion, which he did not have when he came down and with which he now goes up, and who therefore ask, “Who is this King of glory?”: that it is the Lord, strong and mighty, both in all that he has always done and does, and in the present war and victory on behalf of humanity; and give to the double question a double answer. And if they wonder, saying, as in Isaiah's dramatic scene, “Who is this who comes from Edom”, and from earthly things? or “How are the garments red of him who is bloodless and bodiless, as of one who treads the wine-press and has trodden a full press?”, put forward the beauty of the robe of the body that suffered, adorned by the passion and made bright by the Godhead, than which nothing is more lovely or more beautiful.

To this what do they say to us, the slanderers, the bitter calculators of the Godhead, the accusers of things worthy of praise, those who are dark about the light and uneducated about wisdom, for whom Christ died in vain, the ungrateful creatures, the formations of the evil one? Do you charge God with this benefaction? Is he small for this, because for your sake he is humble? Because the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came to the one that wandered, upon the mountains and hills on which …

… or rather, which will he forgive: those who wrongly contract him, or those who cut him apart? For the former ought to have divided, and the latter to have joined; the one in number, the other in Godhead. Do you stumble at his flesh? So did the Jews. Or do you call him a Samaritan (and the rest I will pass over in silence)? Do you disbelieve his Godhead? Not even the demons did this, O you more unbelieving than demons and more senseless than Jews! The Jews took the title “Son” as an expression of equal honour; the demons knew that he who drove them out was God, for they were convinced by what they suffered. But you neither accept the equality nor confess the Godhead. It would have been better for you to be circumcised and possessed by a demon, if I may say something even laughable, than to be uncircumcised and healthy but in a wicked and godless state. But as for the war against them, let it either be ended, if they would at last come to their senses, or be put off, if they do not wish it but stay as they are. In any case we shall fear nothing, contending for the Trinity with the Trinity.

Now we must sum up the discourse in this way. We came into being that we might be well treated; we were well treated once we had come into being. We were entrusted with paradise that we might live in delight. We received a commandment that we might win approval by keeping it, God not being ignorant of what would happen, but laying down the law of free will. We were deceived because we were envied; we fell because we transgressed; we fasted because we did not fast, overpowered by the tree of knowledge. For the commandment was ancient, of the same age as we, a kind of schooling of the soul and a restraint on luxury, to which we were rightly subjected, that what we lost by not keeping it we might recover by keeping it. We needed God made flesh and put to death, that we might live; we were put to death with him, that we might be cleansed; we rose with him, because we were put to death with him; we were glorified with him, because we rose with him. [29] … the signs at the tomb and after the tomb, which who could worthily celebrate in song? But nothing is like the wonder of my salvation: a few drops of blood re-forming the whole world, and becoming to all people what rennet is to milk, binding us and drawing us together into one.

But O Pascha, great and holy, purification of the whole world! For I will speak to you as to one alive. O Word of God, and light, and life, and wisdom, and power! For I rejoice in all your names. O offspring and outflow and seal of the great Mind! O Word conceived and Man beheld, who bear all things, binding them by the word of your power! May you now have this discourse, not as firstfruits but perhaps as the completion of our offering, a thanksgiving and at the same time a supplication, that we may suffer no ill beyond the necessary and sacred things among which we have lived. And may you stay the tyranny of the body over us (you see, Lord, how great it is and how it bends us down), or your own sentence, if we are to be brought down by you. And if we depart worthily of our longing and are received into the heavenly tents, perhaps there too we shall offer you acceptable sacrifices on your holy altar, O Father, and Word, and Holy Spirit; for to you belongs all glory, honour, and might, to the ages of ages. Amen.