Letters 2.142–2.150

To Paul. [On doctrines: on the Holy Trinity.] One must least of all narrow the nature of the Godhead, in Jewish fashion, to the one God and Father alone; one must rather widen it, as it were, into the holy and consubstantial Trinity. For while we distinguish by the quality of the persons and the property of the hypostases, we draw them together again into one God because of the identity of the substance. [Letter 2.143] To the same. [On the same.] I admire the truth, which has brought the souls of intelligent men even to fight against the prejudice of their own beliefs. So clear and bright was the notion of the Holy Trinity that it offered to those who wished to look into it. For one who says that God is one did not run to the number of the monad but to the mystery of the Trinity, the teaching of which is sown also in the Old Testament; so much so that even Philo, though a Jew and a zealot, fought in the writings he left against his own religion. For when he examined what was said by God, "He made man in the image of God," he was compelled and forced by the truth to speak of the Word of God as God. Why do I say this? Even if he calls "second" the one who is coeternal with the Father and above number and time, not reaching exactness, still he had a notion of another person. And not only here did this happen to him, but also when he tried to interpret "God" and "Lord": the truth of the most royal Trinity, more unitary than things wholly divided and more abundant than things truly single, so mastered his soul that he was compelled both to say it plainly and to leave it in his writings. For he said that the truly existing powers are two, of which the creative "and beneficent," he says, "is called God, and the royal and punitive" is called Lord. In this he did not go far from the one who said, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God": a power not without hypostasis but hypostatic, almighty, the creator of hypostases, and equal in strength to the one whose power it is. And again Philo, describing the sight that Moses saw, says: "He sees a most astonishing sight." Then a little later: "In the middle of the flame there was a form most beautiful, like nothing visible, a most godlike image, flashing out a light brighter than fire, which one might suppose to be the image of the One Who Is." If anyone wishes to learn exactly about the image, let him hear Paul speaking of Christ: "who is the image of the invisible God." So that man too touches on orthodox theology. Do not seek exactness from one who was able at all, by a pure understanding, both to look into the truth and to fight against his own religion. But consider this: he did not shut theology up in one person, as the uneducated teachers of the Jews, held fast by some prejudice, teach. And it was not only from these most astonishing passages, I think, that he was led to such a notion, but also from "Let us make man in our image and likeness"; from "The Lord rained from the Lord"; from "The Lord called on the name of the Lord"; from "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand"; and from "God is in you, and you are God." Those who dare to misinterpret "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts" as saying that God is ten thousand times holy are brilliantly refuted by "I have sought your face; your face, Lord, I will seek; do not turn your face away from me." For if the one who said this were not proclaiming the Holy Trinity, he would deserve to be called to account for verbosity. And not only in this passage (for I think one should hasten to clearer sayings), but also in this: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of affliction, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me." For if the Trinity were not clearly proclaimed here, it should have said: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to him; and call upon him in the day of your affliction, and he will deliver you, and you will glorify him." But it was not said so; it was said as it was said. Clearly, through these passages and many others (which, so as not to make my letter long, I now leave aside for those who are able to hear), the Old Testament proclaims that it proclaims the lordship not of one person but of three hypostases and one substance: so as both to pillory the unsound notion of the Jews, as of one person, which Sabellius also followed, perhaps emboldened by the great equality of the Son with the Father to teach one hypostasis; and to banish the polytheism of the Greeks, whose disciples Arius and Eunomius were caught being, when they irrationally dragged the difference of the hypostases into the substance. And if someone should say, "Why, then, was this not proclaimed wisely and plainly from the beginning?", I would answer that, above all, to those who listen intelligently this is a clear proof and teaching, as it seemed also to the wise Philo. And if it was said in shadow, one must reckon that, giving laws to Jews inclined to polytheism, he did not see fit to introduce a difference of persons, lest, teaching that there is a different nature in the hypostases, they should roll down into idolatry; but that, having learned from the beginning the lesson of monarchy, they might little by little be taught the doctrine of the hypostases, which runs back again into unity of nature. So the things said in the singular present the identity of the nature, while those that go beyond the singular number present the property of the hypostases, drawn together into one substance. To suppose different natures is Greek; to suppose one person, that is, one hypostasis, is Jewish; but to widen the hypostases into the Holy Trinity and draw them together into one substance is the most correct and truest doctrine.

To Eutonius the deacon. [On what is written, "Some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty."] "Some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty" can signify virginity, continence and honourable marriage. It can also indicate the teaching of the soul, the service of the body and the giving of money. For saving a soul is more than fulfilling service through the body, as service is more than the supply of money: the one is done with sweat and toil, the other is fulfilled from external possessions.

To Palladius the deacon. Do not, in trying by denial to seem not to have erred, fall into another offence. For no one heals evil with evil; even among outsiders this has been judged the height of absurdity. Rather, heal your stumble by repentance and set yourself to sin no more.

To Casius the scholasticus. [On love of money, and on very many of the ancients who practised poverty.] You yourself seem to love money, and, because you are being hunted down for such a failing, to have armed Demosthenes against us, who said, "Money is needed, and without it nothing that ought to be done can be done," as though we would not dare to contradict the invincible orator. But since most people rightly take little account of you, but much of the orator, who surpasses everyone in the biting, the forceful, the emotional and the combative, and in much that is uncommon in thought and diction, I would gladly ask you whether you have set him up as a fortress against us as a clever orator, able by his art to force the truth, or as a trustworthy witness. If as a clever orator, able to adorn the shamefulness of your passion, we would not yield to him; though we respect the man, we would prefer the truth to him, and to a defence of one overcome by an incurable disease. If as a trustworthy witness, we ourselves will say nothing harsh (others perhaps would set him aside as one who tries to obscure the truth by the art of words, and so is not even fit to be brought forward as a witness); but, setting against him those who both said and did the opposite, let us entrust the verdict to the judgment of those who read, so far are we persuaded that we are from self-will. Since, then, you are a Greek and champion the ways of the Greeks, you must be subdued with your own weapons. Against the invincible orator we must set the truest and wisest advice of Isocrates, which says: "Wealth is the servant of vice rather than of goodness, providing licence for idleness and inviting the young to pleasures." In my judgment he is more glorious than the other, not in cleverness (in that the other prevails), but in examining the truth; and the truth is everywhere to be preferred to cleverness by the sensible. And if they should seem to some to be evenly matched, we must not quarrel, but show that all famous men agree with Isocrates. First, the ancient custom must be brought forward. It was an ancient custom, after dining together, to take the lyre and sing: "May you perish, O wealth, and appear neither on land nor on sea." If another witness is needed, Aristides the Just will testify, who, though able to make money, embraced poverty, so that the city of the Athenians buried him when he died and gave his daughters in marriage with dowries. If a third, the Theban Epaminondas will cast his vote, the most famous of all the generals there, who, when called to the assembly, declined to go out that day because his cloak happened to be in the wash and he had no other to put on. If a fourth, Crates too will vote, who gave all his property to the council of his city and said, "Crates sets free Crates the Theban." If a fifth, Phocion too will add his vote. When Alexander of Macedon sent him a hundred talents of gold, he asked those who brought it why, when there were many Athenians, Alexander had sent it to him alone. When they said, "He considers you good and noble," he answered, "Then let him allow me both to be and to seem such." Having said this to the bearers, he sent back the money and wrote to Alexander that, if he wished to do him a favour, he should release the prisoners in Sardis; and Alexander did so. You see that it is possible for what ought to be done to be done without money. If a sixth, Plato too will vote (for I now add the finishing stroke), whom you cannot even set aside, so great and wonderful do you think him, forbidding the possession of gold and silver. And Lycurgus too, the lawgiver of the Spartans (for we shall not lack a seventh vote), made a law that whoever brought coined money into Sparta should be repaid with death. But if we must set the votes aside and examine the nature of the thing itself, nothing terrible will be found in life that does not come about through love of money. Through it come enmities, battles and wars; through it murders and robberies [and slanders]; through it not only cities but deserts too, the inhabited world and the uninhabited, breathe blood and murder. Not even the sea has been spared this evil; it has revelled its way there too with great madness, pirates besieging it and devising newer ways of robbery. Through it the laws of kinship have been overturned, the ordinances of nature disturbed, and the rights of being itself corrupted. For this wicked and defiled love [arms] the [hands] of grave-robbers not only against the living but also against the dead. … For who has become so unremitting and insatiable an enemy as wealth? While we live it destroys the soul, and when we die it outrages the body, not even allowing it to be hidden in the earth, which is common even to the condemned. For the lawgivers, having exacted the penalty of death from the condemned, take no further trouble; but wealth exacts from those who possess it a most bitter penalty even after death, setting them out naked and unburied, a terrible and pitiable sight. These suffer worse than those who suffer this by sentence and the anger of a judge: those, after remaining unburied for a first and second day, are given to the earth; but these, when love of money has armed the hands … which do not let even one who has been released from this life be released from their plotting. Whatever evils one might find, whether in council chambers, in law courts, in houses or in cities, one will see sprouting from this root. But why do I labour? Not all people gathered together could describe the whole evil of this disease. And if you think that the man who possesses wealth is hard to capture, and that wealth is fought over for that reason, I will try to show the opposite. Whom does the man of much gold not fear? Not robbers? Not slanderers? Not the powerful? And why do I say the powerful, when he suspects even his own servants? And why do I say that he seems to live? One who is mastered by such a disease does not live. But not even when he is dead can he be freed from the villainy of robbers; … nor can death keep him in safety: those accustomed to such crimes plunder him even when he is dead and buried. So precarious a thing is wealth. Not only are houses dug through, but tombs and graves are broken open. What could be more wretched and pitiable than this, when not even death gives him safety, and that wretched body, though deprived of life, cannot be freed from the misfortunes of life, since those accustomed to such crimes hasten to make war on dust and earth, and far more grievously than when he was alive? For then, if they had happened to get into his storeroom, they would have emptied the chests and kept their hands off the body, and would not have taken so much as the defiled hands of the grave-robbers now take, even the body itself; they move it about continually, turn it over and outrage it with great cruelty. For after it has been given to the earth, they strip it naked of both coverings, the earth and the clothes, and so leave it thrown out. Who, then, is so truceless an enemy as wealth? Of the living it destroys the soul, of the dead it outrages even the body, not even allowing it to be hidden in the earth, which is common even to the condemned and to those caught in the most shameful crimes. For the lawgivers, having exacted from these the penalty of death, meddle no further; but wealth exacts from those who possess it a most grievous penalty even after death, setting them out naked and unburied, a pitiable and terrible sight. So the argument that tries to show that wealth is hard to capture is superfluous, since not even after death do those who have acquired it find safety. And yet who does not make peace with the dead, be he barbarian, beast or wandering demon? For the sight is terrible, and bends even the most implacable. For this reason, when anyone sees a corpse, even if the dead man was one with whom there was no truce, an enemy beyond all herald's terms, he weeps with the relatives. So do all respect our common nature and the laws it has introduced. But gold, not even obtaining this, does not release from punishment those who gained it; it makes even those who have suffered no wrong enemies of the dead man. For if stripping a dead body belongs to the bitterest of enemies and foes, and nature then reconciles even enemies to him, wealth wages war even on those who have nothing to accuse him of, and outrages the body with great insolence. Yet there are many things there able to draw one to pity. What are they? The very fact that it is dead, that it is motionless, that it is going to earth and ash, that no one is present to help. But nothing bends those defiled and accursed men, because of the tyranny of this wicked desire. For the terrible and insatiable love of money stands over them like a harsh and avenging tyrant, urging on those cruel and implacable commands; and having made them beasts, it leads them so to the tomb. If, then (for the argument must be brought back to its subject), many and famous are those who renounced wealth and made no truce with it, as with an enemy and foe of virtue; if the disease of love of money has been shown to be the cause of all evils; and if those who have acquired wealth have been shown to be not hard to subdue or capture, but easy prey to all, not only while living but also when dead, stop being overpowered by this grievous disease and setting up an orator against us as a fortress. If the verdict were simply your own opinion, we would not have had much to say; we would very quickly have set it aside as incurably sick. But since you armed the orator against us (how could I put it fittingly?), you have compelled us, though we respect the man, to arm many against him who plainly overturn that opinion. So much for that. And since the abundance of the truth is great, come, let us show the orator himself priding and glorying in being above shameful gains. What did he say? "And no one could show any gain attached to my political actions and speeches." So he too adorns himself with this greatness of soul. And if you say, "Why, then, did the orator see fit to declare an opinion so easily refuted?", I would answer, above all, that it is not I but you who are answerable, since you put him forward in your own defence. But if one must defend him (and one must, I think, so that we may not seem to some to be contending against an absent opponent, or rather to have won by default, especially since I love the truth and respect the man), I will do so as best I can. I say, then, that all the others, having learned the very nature of the thing, rightly outlawed wealth as an enemy of virtue; but the orator said this not considering the thing in itself but looking to the needs of war. For otherwise it was not possible to forge arms, build triremes, give rations to soldiers and provide the other things that war rejoices and glories in, without money. And that this is true he shows elsewhere, saying: "The city needs nothing so much as money for the present affairs." Do not, then, if he advised the Athenians when they were at war (whether well or not, I leave aside), put it forward as a general and common opinion; do not approve or emulate those who make money; do not provide a defence for the indefensible; and do not (I would not wish to praise you for it) disparage the orator as foolish and easily caught. For if someone should wish to attack this clever orator (this too will be said, after the defence on his behalf; for, as I said, I love the truth intensely), he will say: "Best of orators, I wonder how you, who often turn arguments round to the opposite and value nothing more than persuading your hearers, and who have become the spring, the beginning and the standard of all eloquence for those after you, did not perceive what I am about to say. You should have safeguarded your opinion and said: 'Money is needed, and without it nothing that ought to be done in war can be done.'" But perhaps he would have answered, if he were alive, that the subject of the speech and its whole context show this. "But, wise sir," one would say to him again, "you speak well. For the one who took up this contest said this before your defence; so he spoke with no view to contention. And I am persuaded that both you and he speak the truth. But since some uneducated people, like this man who set up this contest, neither learning the subjects nor reporting the context, wish to tear sayings by themselves out of the sequence of what precedes or follows, and so deceive themselves and others, you should have safeguarded your statement. For said in this way it trains the careless and ignorant in love of money and fills them with countless evils, while it rouses the educated and wise to contradiction even against their will. For what can they say? 'What do you mean, Demosthenes? Nothing that ought to be done can be done without money? Not to show self-control, courage, justice, prudence, philosophy, goodness? For these, properly speaking, are what is fitting and what ought to be done.' 'Yes,' he says. 'What, then, did you mean?' 'I said: of the things that ought to be done in war.'" "Why, then," you might say to him, "did you not put this clearly in your speech? Or do you not know the carelessness of the many, that they ratify what they want? Or rather, you taught us this yourself; yours is that famous and true saying: 'What each man wishes, that he also believes; but things are often not so by nature.' What harm would this small addition have done? What good would it not have done, if it freed you from accusation and everyone else from confusion and disturbance?" If they had said this to him, I think he would have been grateful for the correction (for he was a wise man) and would have corrected his statement. Then no fool would afterwards have dared to strengthen his own lack of education from the education of Demosthenes.

To Eutonius the deacon. Even here, excellent friend, the best and most royal (for so it is right to call those who flourish in virtues) live more truly than the most slavish (for so it is just to name those who are slaves to outrageous pleasures). For the lovers of virtue are higher than all, standing above not only despondency but also fears, dangers and every change: not by suffering nothing, but, what is far greater and shows such a life to be divine, by despising these things even when they come. But those who wallow in sins seem to me not even to live, because of the despondency that comes from them, the fears, the dangers and the countless swarm of passions. If death is expected, they die before death from fear; if sickness, insult, poverty or anything else unexpected, they perish before the experience. If, then, this is so (and it is so, even if we do not wish it), let us emulate those who live gloriously both here and there. [Letter 2.148] The word of those who live well, admirable friend, more trustworthy than an oath, is crowned by the votes of all who hear it. And the wish to be greatly loved is born from loving greatly. If, then, we wish to be believed, let us live well; if we wish to be loved, let us love.

To Casius the scholasticus. By greatly extolling the letter I wrote you earlier about virtue and about not loving money, you have given a token that you are persuaded the praise was deserved; for one cannot fail to say that one is persuaded of what one thinks good. As we avoid what we blame, if we are sensible, so we choose what we admire. Practise these things, then; for they bring forth immortal glory.

To Epimachus. [What is meant by "They enlarge their phylacteries"?] Since you wrote wishing to learn what "They enlarge their phylacteries" means, know that they were small tablets bearing the law, which the teachers of the Jews wore, as now [women wear] small Gospels. For the lawgiver, setting them to the work and banishing forgetfulness, decreed, "You shall bind the ordinances on your hand," that is, you shall attach them, hang them on; but they took no account of the work and took great pains over the straps of their little books, and so they were judged worthy of blame. [Letter 2.151] [Epitaph for one who lived outstandingly in virtue.] The blessed Timothy, your brother, has departed from among men, leaving in the earth all that he had that was mortal, but walking in heaven with his soul and, as I believe, dancing with the divine and supramundane powers. So we too, though our grief was very great and almost overpowered us as we held out as far as we could, have set it aside, considering that the end of his life here has become for him the beginning of the greatest goods there. For the man did not contend through life here in an ordinary way, but manfully and nobly, proclaimed by all for his excellences, above every praise and yet crowned with praises as far as they could reach. He was truly a palace of chastity, a hearth of prudence, a citadel of courage, a mother city of justice, a storehouse of humanity, a sanctuary of gentleness, and, in short, a treasury of all the virtues. For he acquired each as another man would count it a great thing to acquire one. Having become a lover of what is above the world, he leapt up to the ether in his thought, busied himself with heavenly things and neglected earthly ones. Rightly taking chastity to be the truest pleasure, and the one befitting Christians, he ruled like a tyrant over the belly and the passions that follow the belly, legislating self-sufficiency for the one and not allowing the others even to flutter their wings. So fame proclaimed his glory on every side; he was in everyone's mouth, and all [hoped] that, if he took up a church office, he would send out the rays of his virtue still more brightly. But like a good athlete, while the spectators still longed for him, he flew off to the heavenly courts to be crowned, leaving here, like a funeral offering, glory and memory and the praise of all. Who, then, wishing to praise such a man, could touch even a little of what he deserved? Who, wishing to commend him, would not fall behind his subject and blame himself for attempting an impossible task? Who, attempting to sketch in words his gentleness and mildness, and his reverence toward all, but especially toward the lovers of virtue, would not blame himself, finding nothing to say equal to the truth? For he so won his companions that in the law of friendship the first place was given to him. He was lofty in virtue but lowly in mind; gentle in meeting people but sharp in thought; abundant in benefactions and quick in consolation. What does not let me stop, though I wish to, must be said: loving almsgiving exceedingly, he sought to escape notice in his kindness, knowing well that this above all is almsgiving. For those who do it with display seem to me not to be kind, but to make a tragic show of the misfortunes of those they help, and to ruin the divine work with a most grievous disease; longing to be called kind and benefactors, they do not refuse to parade the misfortunes of others. But that celebrated man (for it is not lawful to keep silent, and those who speak must be convicted of not preserving his worth) refreshed as with dew those who were in the furnace of poverty, not only by giving but by doing it unseen. But why do I labour, trying to hymn an ocean of goods with a cheap speech? So I will stop my speech here; and you, ceasing your grief over him, honour that excellent man by honouring virtue. [Letter 2.152] [To those who preside.] Let the treatment of the wounds of souls proceed with all exactness. For festering wounds mostly tend to open again. [Letter 2.153] To Martinian, Zosimus, Maron, Eu…