Letters 1.50–1.84

To Strategius the reader. [What the rod of nut-wood signifies.] Jeremiah, the prophet of many dangers, saw a rod of nut-wood, a figure of the priesthood, whose visible and surface parts, the beginnings so to speak, are astringent and rough and share in bitterness, while its hidden and inner parts are firm and sure and able to give support. One must therefore bear the toils of the priesthood nobly and await its prizes eagerly.

To Theopompus the tribune. [On the cursed fig tree.] Do not think the Lord cursed the fig tree for no reason, you who cannot get enough of divine things; he did it to show the unfeeling Jews that he also has power enough to punish. For since in all his miracles they had seen him cause no one any pain, they supposed he could only do good, and had no authority to harm the wicked. So by means of a lifeless thing he convinces the ungrateful people that he can also take vengeance, and that, being good, he has not chosen to. A tree withered, then, so as to frighten men. At the same time a hidden meaning is woven in, which has come down to us from wise elders: that this was the tree of the transgression, whose leaves the transgressors used for a covering; and it was cursed by Christ in his love for mankind, so that it would bear no more fruit that causes sin. For the second coming of God is not for becoming man, but for repaying each for what he has done.

To Lampetius the monk. [Against the Manichees.] There are many reasons for abstaining from foods: custom, nature, and purposes carried out for the sake of self-control. One is often handed down by law as a custom; another comes about through hatred and aversion; yet another is for training in greater achievements. If yours is the last kind, your fasting is beyond reproach. But if you belong to the abominable party of Mani and Marcion, none of us will admit you to our fold, as one who corrupts the law of Christ and looks on good things as evil.

To Theodulus. [From the twelve prophets. On what Amos said, "The naked man will flee in that day."] "The naked man will flee in that day," says the prophet. On the surface he foresees what happened at the Lord's passion, and points to the naked man who fled, who had a linen cloth thrown over his naked body, escaped the attempt of the Lord's killers, and left the linen cloth to them. But its hidden and veiled meaning signifies the man who is lean and has nothing superfluous, who has no share in the burdens of the flesh and no hindrance to the ascent from here, but departs light and easily freed from the mortal mire, and goes winged to meet the incorruptible life.

To Theologius the scholasticus. [Against the Nestorians.] What is there, you asked, extravagant or foreign to our religion in what the much-erring, many-godded Greeks believe, when they write of a mother of gods, since we too believe in a Mother of God? Hear, then, in brief what I want you to learn truly. The Greeks acknowledged that the mother of their very gods and highest powers both conceived and gave birth out of licentiousness and unspeakable passions, and that she was ignorant of no form of lust and left none untried, as befits the mother of such beings. But the one whom we confess to have become the Mother of our God made flesh, who received a conception unique and of a single kind, all the generations of mankind have recognized in truth: no seed was sown, no corruption intervened. If you do not believe what is said, you will learn the truth better from the power of the one who was born. For he gave eyes to the blind, cleansed lepers of their disfigurement and disease, and put the harmony of hearing and speech into the deaf, the dumb and those who speak with difficulty. He walked on the back of the sea, calmed the swelling of the waves and the disorderly blasts of the winds, drove out troops and phalanxes of demons by a word alone, and called many dead back to life by a word. These divine signs were handed down to us by those who saw them with their own eyes, who kept their testimony so free of flattery and favor that they also wrote the shameful things that befell him: persecutions, insults, stonings, spitting, blows, beatings, the cross, nails, and death, which was quickly followed by resurrection, which both signified that the one who suffered was God made flesh and proclaimed her who bore him the Mother of God made flesh. If the realities are alike, the names too must be accepted as alike.

To Hierax, of senatorial rank. [On the wonders worked by the relics of martyrs.] If you are scandalized at the dust of the martyrs' bodies, which we honor because of their love and steadfastness toward God, ask those who receive healings from them, and learn how many ailments they grant cures for. Then you will not only not mock what is done; you will surely emulate what is achieved. But if you yourself, as you wrote, refuse to touch the bones of the dead, loathe the remains of the wicked men notorious for vice whom the Greeks buried in the temple of Ephesian Artemis, making the most shameful things solemn, and deifying the tombs and pestilential dust of worthless men.

To Nilus. [On Judas the traitor.] It was not because the Lord foretold Judas's choice, admirable man, that he slid into the betrayal; but because the scoundrel was in labor with the plot, the Lord, who saw the hidden movements of his heart, foretold the future as though present.

To Cyrus. [On the saying "Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins."] Those rotted with oldness, who rejected the new grace, the Lord called old wineskins, since they burst and pour out the new word of the kingdom. Such was Caiaphas shown to be: when he heard from the Lord "I am the Son of God", he tore his clothes. But Peter, who had received the law of the Spirit of life, not only did not refuse when taught, but confessed when merely asked, showing that knowledge of the truth was implanted in him.

To Patrimus, living as a monk. [To those who sent gifts.] You have greeted us with vegetables, wisely showing the simplicity of your diet, pouring out the Lord's springs, and showing by the gifts themselves that you are a gardener of paradise.

To Gorgonius. [How the saying should be understood, "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him."] You have raised a question of great weight and much discussed, examined by many but grasped only by the divinely inspired: "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." And why, you asked, since the essence of the divine Trinity is one, is blasphemy against the Son not punished, but only blasphemy against the Spirit? Hear, then. Whoever speaks a blasphemous word against the Son of Man is not judged, the Lord said, because to those whose mind's eye is bleared, God, ineffably united to the lowliness of the flesh that appeared, is hard to grasp and hard to see, since the hidden Godhead is not recognized. But in those pure of mind, to whom the Godhead made flesh was revealed, there was no unbelief at all, and no retribution of judgment is threatened. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable for this reason, that the works themselves, being visible, convict the blasphemers of being unfeeling and ungrateful. For when passions were cut away and demons driven out by the power of the Godhead, the grumbling Jews slandered these divine signs as done by Beelzebul. This blasphemy, then, which is plainly against the divine essence, the Lord declared unforgivable.

To the same. [On the same.] That the blasphemy you mentioned is against the Holy Spirit is clear from the Lord's own words: "Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him." And that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is punished is plain. But that the Holy Spirit is of the divine essence, this you asked to have made clear from Scripture. If you think shrewdly and go on a little, you can find the answer in the Lord's words that are at hand. "If I," he says, "cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? But if I cast them out by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." In the other Gospel the evangelist says it more plainly: "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God," calling the Holy Spirit the finger of God. And the finger, by an example taken from us, belongs to the substance of the body. So by the name "finger" he made plain that the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is inseparable from the divine essence and of one kind with it.

To Zosimus. [A useful word to Zosimus, who carries about certain letters of Saint Basil.] I would gladly ask you, in the words of Scripture, as Philip asked the Ethiopian: "Do you understand what you are reading?" For, as some say, you remember certain sayings of our divinely inspired father Basil, whose deeds you in no way remember. If you are a true lover of the man, show his words in deeds, the words by which he ordered characters by the rule of philosophy. For if you take up the man's book against drunkards, you will find yourself in it, enduring the countless swarm of disgraces.

To Theopompus the monk. A word spoken for the benefit of the hearers is a word with power, rightly called a word, and imitating God. But one that ends in [mere] delight and applause is a noise on bronze, ringing in the ears with loud clatter. Either order your speech with dignity, preferring the moderate to the boastful, or know that you are a cymbal, fit for the theatre stage.

To Thalelaeus the monk. [That reading Greek writings is wholly foreign to a hermit.] Who will not mock you? Who will not pity you, sitting in the calm of the philosophy of the Lord's disciples and drawing upon yourself the din and turmoil of Greek prose-writers and poets? Tell me, what among them is more precious than ours? What is there of what they are zealous for that is not full of falsehood and laughter? Are not their deities born of passions? Are not their deeds of courage for the sake of passions? Are not their contests for the sake of passions? Flee, then, even the reading of shamefulness. For it is terribly able to reopen the scars of wounds that have healed over; may the spirit of wickedness never return more violently and make your defeat worse than your former ignorance or carelessness.

To Eulampius. [On what John said to the crowds, "Even now the axe is laid to the root."] John, seeing the fruitless choice of the Jews, compared them to fruitless trees, declaring that the axe was laid to their root, the sharp and swift division of the Gospel, by which every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down, not dug up. For the growth of the roots, that is, the law, is left, and onto it the new people is grafted.

To the same. [What is "His winnowing fork is in his hand"?] You indicated that you wanted to learn what the action of the winnowing fork is, which the Lord uses to clean his own threshing floor. This, then, I think, is the meaning. He calls the threshing floor the universal church of the world, in which he gathers the whole harvest of humanity. The winnowing fork he calls the just judgment, which assigns to each his fitting place: those who are chaffy and empty, blown about by every wind of sin, it hands over to burning; but those who have flourished in purity of works and in the fruits of repentance, the just judge says are gathered into the granary, the one fitting [for his faithful and worthy workers and farmers], which he also calls a saving dwelling. For there is truly the dwelling. The present life is a cheap tent, whose dismantling runs together with its pitching.

To Caesarius the count. [On what the Lord said, "Let it be so now."] The just judge, assigning to each time what fits it, said "Let it be so now" to John when he declined to baptize him. For since John, giving reverence as to the Master, did not dare to touch the divine head, he heard: "Let it be so now." Now, he says, is the time of poverty, the ordinance of condescension, for whose sake I have taken up man; I receive baptism [so that] I may cleanse him of the transgression. There is no need now of the Master's authority, but of a servant's lowliness. Let compassion be fulfilled now, so that the salvation of men may not be hindered. "For so it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." For it is righteousness that I, who have taken on the sufferings of men, should, without suffering, also receive baptism for them, as a ransom for their sin and a token of their incorruption in me.

To Timothy the reader. [On the baptism of the Lord.] You seem to me [very] eager to obey the Lord and to search the Scriptures; so I must answer your questions. "This is my beloved Son," God the Father cried out from heaven over the Son as he was being baptized, both to show that he is the true and natural Son, about whom there was doubt among the sons who bear the name by adoption and honor, and to reveal the divine and adorable Trinity of the Godhead, known in its own hypostases, and to shut out the ill-minded impiety of Montanus and Sabellius. For when the Son was baptized the Father bore witness, and the Holy Spirit, flying down, showed that the one being baptized was of one essence with himself and with the Father.

To the same. [What is meant by what is said about John, "The least in the kingdom of heaven," and the rest.] Not an easy problem, but one that needs very careful testing, have you put before us, best of the studious: "The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John." The one perfect in the law, as John was, was in every way less than the one baptized into the death of Christ. For this is the kingdom of heaven: to be buried with Christ, who went down to despoil death, and to rise with him, who grants power over death. Since, then, John was greater than all born of women, but was beheaded before the kingdom of heaven was given, he had become blameless according to the righteousness in the law, but fell short of those perfected by the Spirit of the life in Christ, having departed before them, as we have written. Everyone, [then,] who is least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in the new birth in Christ, is greater, as was said, than the one justified by the law, since the law made nothing perfect.

To Maron. [On gluttony, and that it is the mother of irrational passions; and that the body must be chastened by fasting and sleeping on the ground.] I try to track down many ways of admonition by which I not only wish but pray to bring you back from drunkenness. Tell me, then, tell me, my friend, by the very truth of God: did not gluttony drive the first humans out of luxury? Did not surfeit strip Esau of his birthright and his freedom? Did not excessive eating of oxen and sheep banish Saul from his kingdom and his life? Did not the craving for meat and fleshpots destroy Israel in the desert with a countless swarm and crowd of torments and trials? Did not the raging belly of Hophni and Phinehas, their seizing of meat and their debauchery, and their madness for women, cut them off from priesthood and ark and rule of the tribes and glory and honor, and make them the work of enemies and swords? Did not meat-eating show the priests of shame in Elijah's time worthy of the knife? Did not the appetite of the belly and the craving for food deliver the worshipers of Bel to destruction, exposed by the ashes? And again: did not fasting and renouncing intercourse save Noah and his family from the flood of that strange sea, eating seeds but not having fleshly union with their wives? Hear Scripture commanding Noah: "Go into the ark, you and your sons, and your wife and the wives of your sons." Be separated, it says, the men by themselves and the women by themselves. Sexual immorality and licentiousness are being chastened by the waters that are brought on; you, then, do not touch even the undefiled bed. That this was so is shown when they come out of the ark again, for it says: "Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and the wives of your sons." The sinful race has been removed; you be by yourselves again, and let the godly race increase again. Did not fasting give life to the Ninevites, who had received a swift sentence of death? Did not fasting make the admirable Daniel and those of one mind with him stronger than a tyrant and a roaring fire? Did not fasting and dignity of life make John the baptizer of God made flesh, having acquired a purity worthy of so great a sacred rite? Did not fasting, nakedness, sleeping on the ground and wasting of the body make Paul a hearer of the unspeakable things in paradise? Why then do you leave off imitating these, and wickedly love the worse? If, then, you have not gone wholly out of yourself and forgotten God, return to the nature that has in itself everything that serves God; know the one who created you and redeemed you at the price of his own blood; and do not become a slave of the flesh and make the Savior and benefactor your judge and adversary.

To the same. If you have not been overcome by the belly, as you said, since old age prevents it, why do you rave in the younger excesses that follow the belly? For to master the belly altogether is to master the passions.

To Plion the monk. [Interpretation of "Seven days."] What is said in the law is not simple, but has a double sense, veiled from the dull but laid bare to the subtle. "The seventh day," it says, "shall be called holy for you. You shall do no work of service on it, except what will be done for every soul." Here it calls service slavery ("of service"). Do not do on the Sabbath, it says, anything slavish, anything that, as it were, enslaves you away from leisure for God, which loads you with the weight of sins; for the day is one of rest and release, and its dignity must not be outraged by the bonds of evil. And by "what will be done for every soul" he laid down that we must work at, and fulfil, whatever brings gain to the soul: vow, prayer, stillness, admonition, doing good, chastity, self-control, truth, purity, and whatever is listed under these, which, passing into the inner man, free him from outward stumbling blocks and troubles, as the better prevails.

To the same. [How on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath.] "The priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless." Since all handwork is forbidden on the Sabbath, they cut wood, light fire and carve the sacrifices: things which, as common work, they are not allowed to do on the Sabbath, but which as sacrifices they are not prevented from performing, and are even commanded to by the law itself. So it happens that the Sabbath is profaned by the work, while the priests are guiltless because of the different kind of work.

To Calliopius the presbyter. [Why at a time of threat God does not spare his own sanctuaries.] You said you wonder how God does not spare his own sanctuaries when he sends fear upon the earth. But you have the exact explanation of these things in the divine tablets; so do not be distraught at what you have now seen happen. For if he did not spare the holy ark, but gave it up to foreigners together with the priests themselves who had transgressed, and handed over to the nations to be trampled and defiled the city of the sanctuary, the cherubim of glory, the robe, prophecy, anointing and the oracle, neither does he spare the spotless mysteries of today; so that, by not sparing his own courts, he may bend sinners to fear, as they await a harsher punishment for what they do. "Let the pine wail, for the cedar has fallen." When the strong fall, let the weaker be taught.

To Craton the monk. [On those who wear soft clothing.] That softness, fineness and bright color of clothing do not keep the rule of discipline according to God, ask John the Theologian, who describes the Lord's tunic, and he will tell you: "His tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout." Who does not know the cheapness of that garment, which the poor of Galilee use, among whom above all such a garment is commonly made by a certain craft, woven close like breast-bands? Learn it also from the divine Matthew, who tells of John the Baptist, and he will say to you: "John himself had his garment of camel's hair." See also the great-minded and God-bearing Luke, who records Herod's vanity and censures the robe he put on, and says that those who wear soft clothing spend their time in kings' houses. But such garments are not worthy of the shining spiritual bridal chamber. If, then, you desire that, imitate the cheap garment of Jesus our God. For luxury belongs to softness here, not to the radiance above.

To John the hermit. [On the temptation of the Lord.] If Christ was led up into the desert to be tempted, God who for our sake became man, why are you surprised if you yourself, living in solitude, wrestle with temptations, as you say? Look only to Christ's victory, won according to the rules: vainglory was mastered, pride was quenched, love of money was destroyed, and the adversary was put to shame, unable to pierce with any of his arrows. And rightly, if you play the man and rise above the swords that wound the soul, having acquired freedom from passion as your shield, angels will minister to you after the struggle, not serving as slaves, since that was owed to God alone, but crowning you as victor. For this reward is held by the one who acts manfully in the present contest. [Letter 1.76] To the same. [Why the Lord did not make the stones bread.] The stones were not made bread by Christ, excellent man, not because the hour of miracles had not [yet] come, as the mischievous rhetoricians argue, but because the request was idle and fitted the one who made it. For God grants everything by weight and measure and need; where what is asked is superfluous, working miracles is in no way timely. [Letter 1.77] [That it is impossible to achieve virtue in the midst of commotion.] So useful for salvation is withdrawal from the commotions of the city that the Son of God left the cities and pronounced blessed, on the tops of the mountains, those who live purely; showing by what he did and taught that one who has not torn himself away from earthly things and climbed up to the height of virtue cannot be called blessed by God or attain the good things to come. For one who sets his mind on the things above dwells where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

To Isaiah the soldier. [To a disorderly soldier.] If you think spear-points, helmet and breastplate a safeguard for living well, while you rob travelers and make the highways deserted, know that many who were fenced in more impregnably than you met a most pitiful death. Recorded among us are Oreb and Zeeb and Zalmunna, Abimelech and Goliath, Absalom, and all like them; among outsiders, men like Hector and Ajax, and the Spartans themselves, who were proudest of all of their strength; for they did not have justice running alongside their power. If, then, you do not wish to be a worthless man-at-arms, transfer quickly to the spiritual war, and rather make war on your own disorder.

To Timothy. [On the saying "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes", and that this does not contradict "Woe to you, scribes."] We, my good friend, are liable to the same judgment as the scribes and Pharisees. For as they thought that studying the law was doing the law, supposing carelessly that reciting the letter was enough for them for the doing of the thing, so we imagine that we draw near to God by the mere touching of God's altars. But the Lord, cutting away this conceit of ours, says: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." He means this, as befits God: unless you turn the appearance into deed, you who think outward show enough for the service of God, the kingdom of God will not be opened to you. For since the kingdom is true, it is opened to those who truly seek it. The excess over the righteousness of the law is the loftiness of the Gospel: the one punishes the deed, the other displays a judge's exactness even to the bare intention, down to the depths of the thoughts.

To Nilus the monk. [On "Be well-disposed to your adversary."] Since we walk with our fall and pass through the midst of snares, the Lord, making us clear-sighted, declared that we should beware of the leaven and of stumbling blocks, and make friends quickly with our adversary while we are on the way with him. As befits God, he defined the adversary as the body's appetite against the spirit; calling the way the life that our race travels unsteadily; and calling good will toward the body the awareness of its rebellion, which we ought to watch for sharply, lest by bowing to its commands and doing things unworthy of the upward call we be handed over by them to the Judge, when he comes to gather our works and words and to repay each according to his own work.

To Ampelius the presbyter. [On "Let not the throne of lawlessness, which frames trouble against the commandment, be joined to you."] "Let not the throne of lawlessness, which frames trouble against the commandment, be joined to you." This is the prayer of the holy souls who struggled for the confession of the faith there, crying to him in supplication: Let not the throne of the lawless be exalted before you, Lord, bringing troubles upon us against your commandment; such as the Babylonian tyrant was to [your] holy [youths], or the avenging spirits and champions of idols to the holy martyrs.

To Arabianus the bishop. [From Judges. That those who, by God's will, drew up for battle against the men of Gibeah because of their sexual immorality were not unjustly defeated and destroyed.] Those who went up to Gibeah to punish the sexual immorality of Benjamin, undertaking the war by God's will, did not, as you think, fail of victory unjustly. Rather, since for a just judge there can be no battle line drawn up by the unjust, he punished their daring in justice. For men whose deeds were worse, and much greater than what had then been done, went up with one accord to slaughter their brothers as though they were innocent. But they learned by experience: "Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." So the adulterers, since they preached "Do not commit adultery" while their works convicted them, paid a fitting penalty in the war; but those who had no part in the charges of sexual immorality, having no such idol within themselves, won a brilliant victory.

To Leontius the bishop. [How "If your eye or your hand causes you to stumble" should be understood.] By "eye" and "right hand" the all-good Christ named those who are close to us, our friends and our own, calling those well disposed to us for genuine cooperation by the names of the members through which we do what pleases us. When, then, one of them becomes a cause of stumbling and wallows in some sin that brings reproach on us and dishonor on himself, such a one must be cut off, so that he may not, like a plague, eat away the soundness of the body, spreading his own disease into the healthy through such passions.

To the same. [On "Do not let your left hand know."] The Lord's law commanding "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" does not lie hidden in a corner and in secret, dear friend, but is clear and very plain, and evident to the attentive. For since vainglory and display follow on doing good, let nothing good, he says, be done by you out of passion, and let no boastful thought follow your good deed; but if you do good, do it without display and without boasting, not hunting for applause here but awaiting the crowns to come.