Letters 2.180–2.215

To Palladius. That we have never been defeated whenever we had to speak about the divine worship, nor seemed shameless, but master all and surpass all in argument, is plain to everyone. But one must also know that all people attend not to what we say but to what we do, and bring their verdict from that; and even if not openly, they pronounce it in their minds with authority. We must therefore have our life running together with our word, and our conduct agreeing with our doctrine, lest, conquering in words, we be defeated in deeds. [Letter 2.181] To Didymus the presbyter. You seem to have forgotten my instructions; but I have not forgotten my affection for you. I will forget it, though, if I learn for certain that you have behaved outrageously toward your friends from forethought and eagerness, and not from deception and circumstance.

[Letter 2.182] To the same. If what has been reported is true, I think no just defence is left to you; you will perhaps look for one, but you will not find it. If it is false, inform us, so that we may put those who informed against you under the necessity of defending themselves, and accept them if they do so, but banish them from our company if they do not.

To Athanasius the presbyter. Philosophizing in words is easy; in deeds it is hard. That is why the one does not reach the hearers, while the other takes hold of them. The one moves laughter, the other checks carelessness; the one ends in reproach, the other in praise; the one annoys the hearers, the other puts them to shame. What must be done, therefore, must not only be said but also done, if we are not to incur reproaches and give account.

To Theon the bishop. Virtue has not only a reward, as you say, but also a crown and celebrated fame. But you ought not to inquire about each form of it, whether it has a reward. For the reward will be greater for the one who does not act for the sake of reward. If you were truly a lover of virtue, you would know that even without recompense virtue itself is a reward, a crown and an ornament, having its recompense in itself. But since, like a true hireling, you are exacting about wages, you give your hearers the suspicion that if, for the sake of argument, there were no reward, you would not have practised virtue. However you may judge, practise it, for it makes its lovers brilliant here and more brilliant there.

To Zosimus the presbyter. You seem to be joking rather than in earnest. Still, however you may judge (the truth will be told by me and not hidden), since you keep asking, "What, then, must one do?", I will ask you: "What, then, must one say?" If you will neither refrain from carelessness and luxury, nor keep your hands off the common funds, nor stop making money, farming the misfortunes of others and appropriating the goods of the poor, I have nothing to say. But if you are truly asking because you wish to learn, do not do what you are doing now, and you will strip off vice more easily and more quickly.

To Isidore the deacon. [On the incomprehensible.] God, though most radiant and far brighter than the sun, is impossible to see, for he cannot be contained by mortal eyes; yet not impossible to conceive, for he sends his rays through his providence, especially to a pure mind; but most difficult to comprehend, for he is greater and higher than everything that is conceived; yet easy to have as gracious, for he embraces and loves virtue. If, then, we wish to contain what all cannot contain, and to be counted worthy of a thing that surpasses all worth, let us adorn ourselves with chastity, justice, prudence, courage and the other virtues. For he appoints no place more his own and more fitting than a pure soul; that is why he said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them."

To Palladius the deacon. Even if the wound is grievous and brings forth death for what is immortal, if you call on the divine alliance, which overcomes passions and all vice, not a trace of the wound will remain.

To Isidore the deacon. From what I am about to say, sanctuary of prudence, you will learn exactly the difference between divine and human laws. The sacred oracles, legislating what is needful and fitting, set teachers of virtue over people at the beginning and in their earliest youth, preventing wickedness from revelling its way in. This is the best way of teaching: not to allow vice to prevail first and contrive afterwards to drive it out, but at the outset to do and contrive everything so that human nature may be inaccessible to it. The outside lawgivers regulate human nature only when it has already been perverted. They ought not to threaten punishments to those who have become men, but to regulate and reshape them while they are boys, and perhaps there would have been no need of the later threats. As it is, it is as if someone neither helped a man about to be killed by robbers nor told him how to escape them, but punished him when he was half dead; or as if a physician neither offered a preventive remedy to a healthy man nor told the sick man at the beginning of his illness, nor did, what would free him from the disease, but, when he was ruined and incurable, laid down countless rules for him. If many fear the human lawgivers more than the divine, it is no wonder. The former frighten the duller sort by inflicting punishment at once; the latter are despised because they punish seldom here, though certainly there. For the future is easily seen only by a few who have a more discerning mind and see the nature of things exactly. Most people, even if they confess it in words, deny it in deeds; by what they do they proclaim what they think. They not only care altogether for the body and neglect the soul, but are ashamed to offend while men are watching, yet while God not only watches but encompasses all things, they not only do not blush but sin without fear. And not only this shows the madness of the many, but also what I am about to say: many who swear by God commit perjury, but do not dare even to swear by the head of their children. What punishment in this life could be devised that would match such people? None at all. That is why judgment has rightly been threatened and held over them for the world to come.

To Ammonius. [On "Do not let the sun go down on your anger."] Since, when anger breaks the reins of reason, the charioteer, it often carries a man's mind beyond the bounds of nature, Paul devised for so great a failing a cure that is not only the best but also the quickest, and said, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger"; that is, before the sun goes to its setting, recognize your nature, quench your anger, humble your pride, embrace the kinship that prevails even among beasts, lest the night, intervening, make the passion incurable. For then the devil, finding a suitable occasion, inflames what has happened still more, provokes to revenge, stirs up enmity, rouses to accusations, contrives the bearing of grudges, and from this gives birth to countless evils. That the divine Paul ordered reconciliation to happen as quickly as possible to cut these things off, he showed by adding, "And give no place to the devil," who secretly makes small passions great and turns what is easily cured into what is hard to cure or even incurable.

To Isaiah the soldier. Do not let the prosperity granted you by the divine long-suffering, excellent friend, lead you beyond what is fitting, nor shoot you out beyond the bounds of nature; rather let it bring you to consider those bounds and shut you within them, lest, offending beyond the bounds, you be required to pay penalties beyond the bounds too.

To the same. Do not think great things of yourself or imagine extraordinary things, lest your fall become a grander tragedy, falling even from what is moderate. [Letter 2.192] To Lampetius the bishop. [On the saying, "Great is the mystery of piety."] Great indeed is the mystery of piety, as Paul the initiator wrote, not as being wholly unknown, but as attainable by no one; for it lies beyond all word and thought. For if a child is the fruit of marriage, how did the virgin show the fruit of marriage? How was the corruptible united to the incorruptible? How is the uncircumscribed conceived in the circumscribed, the divine and pure nature not being diminished, and the mortal receiving the honour by some unspeakable principle beyond interpretation? How did the one who suffered save, the one who died raise, the one who was insulted honour with the highest honour, and the one who was crucified … or rather crucify sin and death?

To Theodore. [That for the virtuous even to be suspected of something base is very hard to bear.] To be suspected of what does not befit them is the greatest misfortune for those who have reached the summit of virtue; to be tried is so for the more dignified; to be convicted, even for those who are insensible. [Letter 2.194] To Alexander. [On ingratitude.] Those who bring accusations over the very things for which they ought to be grateful go beyond all the bounds of ingratitude. They ought, even if they cannot repay in deeds, to repay with grateful words; instead they stitch together charges. [Letter 2.195] Those who try to transfer the whole Old Testament to Christ are not beyond blame, since they give both the Greeks and the heretics who do not accept it strength in their battle against us. For by forcing what was not said of him, they make even what was said of him without forcing suspect. By the same means by which their opponents overturn them as falsifiers, the opponents are thought to win even where things were said plainly about him. But I say that both had to happen: that not everything was said about him, and that what concerns him was not entirely passed over in silence. This was profitable: that it should not be spoken throughout about Christ to people who were in doubt even about God the Father and said, "Make us gods"; nor be passed over in complete silence, for the refutation of the Jews who would disbelieve and for the firm hope of those who would believe. [Letter 2.196] Divine Scripture calls the compact, that is, the promise, a "testament" because of its firmness and inviolability. For compacts are often overturned, but lawful testaments never. [Letter 2.197] [On despondency.] Since we think that what we wish to belong to us is true, and readily push away the memory of what is hard, giving more weight to our not wishing it to happen, for this reason, hoping to enjoy what seems good, we think we shall escape what is hard; especially when prosperity soothes the threat of gloomy things. For carelessness, [strengthened] by ease, makes one somehow forget even nature and shoots one beyond its bounds. But if someone quenches carelessness, he will see right reasonings sprouting at once, which confirm both justice and judgment. [Letter 2.198] To Apollonius the bishop. [On the saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed."] The most divine Word of the Father, wise friend, calls his own divine preaching a kingdom too, as bringing forth the kingdom of heaven. "For the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it becomes greater than the vegetables." What he says is this: from a small beginning (for its words are plain) it will grow so much as to hide all the wisdom of the Greeks. And this is what happened. For error, speaking in Attic and syllogizing cleverly, gave way to the truth speaking like a rustic.

To Hermogenes the bishop. You are rightly indignant, sanctuary of hatred of wickedness, since the man who, as you say, called himself Eusebius as a contradiction of his impiety (for he did not have this name from the beginning), thinking the priesthood a base and trodden thing, dares to give it to those who do the same as he does, banishing those worthy of all honour and leading up to the august altar those who are not fit to be counted even in the rank of laymen. So he outrages it doubly, as far as in him lies: by excluding the worthy and admitting the unworthy. But know that the all-seeing eye will not bear this to the end; now, out of goodness, it is long-suffering, but later it will exact these penalties from him severely.

To the same. The one crowned with the priesthood is a steward of things on earth with greater authority than the one who wears the purple. For the one governs souls, the other bodies. But if, ignorant of his dignity, or rather of his ministry, he takes no account of souls but cares for walls and columns, gives himself to luxury and lays claim to money, he insults himself, not the priesthood. But many foolish people, who ought to revere the priesthood and blame him, turn the whole charge against the priesthood.

To Ophelius the scholasticus. [On the choice of the apostles.] We must call wise neither word-hunters, nor orators, nor dialecticians, nor those who pride themselves on cleverness of speech, but those who shine in practical philosophy. If logic adorns them too, they are to be named wiser; and if contemplative philosophy too (I mean piety, which alone we define as wisdom in the proper sense), they are to be called wisest. The first is like the foundation and the building, the second like the ornament, the third like the crowning cornice. As, without a foundation and a building, neither the ornaments nor the crowning have any place, so without virtue logic and contemplation will have none.

To Eulogius. Do not think it something to pray for to obtain pardon, when you ought to shine through virtue. The one befits the worst, the other the most reasonable; the one comes from pity, the other is born from reward. The one is pitied for smallness of soul, the other crowned for greatness of soul.

To Isaiah the soldier. [That the soul is immortal.] You neither have pardon nor will have it if you persist in the same things. But if you change and stop your madness and frenzy, you will enjoy it; for the divine goodness will overcome strictness. If you think there is no judgment, hear Plato saying: "If death were a release from everything, it would be a windfall for the wicked when they die to be rid at once of the body and of their own wickedness together with the soul. But now, since it appears to be immortal, there would be no other escape from evils and no salvation for it except becoming as good and as wise as possible."

To Dionysius. You seem not to know what even mere infants know. You said you wonder how those who speak what delights draw their hearers more easily than those who advise what is profitable; you do not know that, because the former gratify desires and the latter fight them, the former are admired and the latter hated. For the profitable is defeated by pleasure.

To Zosimus the presbyter. Not only a priest, but even a man of good repute (and the difference between a priest and a man of good repute ought to be as great as that between heaven and earth), should do nothing licentious or childish, but show a chaste and disciplined way of life everywhere. But you, as they say, were not moderate in lusts when young, despite your poverty, nor when old, despite your age. If this is so, keep yourself away from the august altar.

To Lampetius the bishop. Those who look to what is profitable, even when they think silence fitting, do not plead the greatness of the achievements as a reason for saying nothing; rather they attempt to praise the truth, against which even the cleverest speakers shrink from stripping for the contest. For by praising good things adequately, if not worthily, they leave to those who come after a proof of their own mind's inclination toward what is worth telling.

To Paul. He, as I think, is the most just judge of disputes who is not overawed by the greatest ranks, but supplies to the weaker what they lack by good order, and who, while giving each his due in honours, keeps equality for all in his verdicts, everywhere by the measure of justice.

To Hermogenes the bishop. [On what was commanded to the destroying angels: "And begin from my holy ones."] If those crowned with the sanctity of the priesthood could read us an oracle saying that they need not toil and practise the virtues, but should teach by word alone, let them think as they think. But if the oracles everywhere denounce those who try to teach by word alone, why do they pass over what the divine ordinances declare and pride themselves on the priesthood alone, as on a tyranny? The divine decrees command those who have received the priesthood to be in toils and ascetic exercises above all others, so that those under them, whom they may command, seeing them toil, may be spurred by shame to good deeds. For it is not so much the word as the way of life of teachers that sharpens others. But these, as though they had been entrusted only with speaking, keep away from doing. Pillorying such men, the divine Apostle said, "You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?" And the divine sentence in Ezekiel, which you sought to learn about, commanded the angels who were about to bring punishment on Jerusalem, "Begin from my holy ones." The chief of the apostles paraphrased this when he said, "It is time for judgment to begin from the house of God; and if it begins first with us, what will be the end of those who disobey the Gospel of God?" For it is just that those who excel in honour and rank, if they sin, should also have more than others in punishment.

To the same. [To priests.] When a bastard, unworthy of the priesthood, forces his way into office, then the good order of the office turns into disorder. For those who are ruled naturally become like their ruler. This is what has happened, as you wrote, under Eusebius. Such a love of vice has been kindled in the priests under him and in his people that those who come from elsewhere find in the sight of such evils a cause of ever-flowing tears.

To the same. You are insatiable, it seems, in loving those in whom the brightness of virtue flashes. Insatiably, as I hear, you sing that song of the Psalmist: "But to me your friends, O God, are greatly honoured." Your longing for them is so great that you crown even those in whom there is no trace of virtue (for we are not like them, though perhaps we seem to be) with many and varied praises. For you, then, even if we are not such, the reward will be laid up. But we, if we do not become better even while enjoying such praises, will undergo a greater penalty. [Misplaced lines: "Those who are ruled naturally become like their ruler. For the multitude of the ruled mostly looks to the ways of the rulers as to an archetypal image and makes itself like them."] So that we may not undergo this, stop praising us beyond measure.

To Lampetius the bishop. Be on your guard, best of men, against the uninitiated and those unworthy of the divine words, who often laugh at what is beyond all praise; speak to those to whom it is lawful. For holy things are to be given not to dogs or to swine in human form, but to those who live the angelic life, according to the divine oracle.

To Theognostus the presbyter. [On the three days and nights of the Lord's burial.] I greatly wonder at, and am astonished by, the folly of those who ask why Christ rose before the three days were out. If they say that he did not rise at all, why are they so exact about time? But if they say that he rose, though sooner than he promised, let them consider that by his rising it has also been proved that he certainly spoke the truth. For having accomplished what both is and seems impossible (I mean as far as human weakness is concerned), he would not have been too weak for what is possible; especially since rising slowly is a sign of weakness, rising quickly a sign of the greatest power. They ought, from his having abolished the countless catalogues of the Greek gods, overturned all the idol temples, quenched the unholy altars reddened with human blood, unnerved the devil, put the demons to flight, tamed savage tribes, brought the greatest calamities on the Jews, and raised those who believed in him above heaven, to worship his divine and invincible power, and not to quarrel about hours. For the greatest things, beyond all words, would not be overturned by small ones. Still, since the abundance of the truth is great, I will try to come to the matter itself. By way of a first skirmish, then, let this be said to them: if we saw a debtor who had promised his creditor to pay the debt after three days paying it before the term, would we judge him a liar, or admire him as more than truthful? I think the latter, and so, surely, do they. What is strange, then, if Christ said that he would rise on the third day but rose sooner, so as to show his own power, to deaden the guards and to muzzle the Jews? For rising sooner incurred no charge; rising later would have been full of suspicion. The resurrection had to happen while they were sitting by and keeping guard; if it had happened after the days had passed and the guards had withdrawn, the matter would have been suspect. And if he did not rise, how did the apostles perform such signs in his name? How would they not be credible witnesses, who confirmed the truth of the resurrection through countless dangers and deaths, and sealed their testimony not with ink but with their own blood? But if we must come to exactness itself, I would say this: he said that he would rise on the third day. You have the Preparation, you have the Sabbath up to sunset, and after the Sabbath he rose, touching each of the outer days and filling the middle one. For he said that he would rise in three days, not after three days: "Destroy this temple," he says, "and in three days I will raise it up." And the prophet, foretelling it, said: "Then death will mourn, bound by a stronger death. He will heal us after two days; on the third day we shall rise and [live] in him." And if anyone puts forward "three days and three nights," I would say that by touching them he has fulfilled the promise. For one day is the name given to the space of twenty-four hours; and whether one is born or dies in the first or the last of these, that day is counted to him. For instance, if someone is born when the sun is about to set, and that day is the first of the month, it is counted to him; and if another is born after it has set, the second. How, then, when only one hour, perhaps not even one, has passed between them, is the one said to have been born on the first day and the other on the second? Because it is plain and clear to all that by merely touching it the one fulfilled the day-and-night that had passed, the other the one that was beginning, which is completed in twenty-four hours. If, then, the exact consideration of times cries this out, why do those beat themselves in vain who insist that the Truth did not speak the truth? [Letter 2.213] [How the saying "Claiming to be wise, they became fools" is meant.] "Claiming to be wise, they became fools" was said, wise friend, also because among them there was great pomp empty of truth, while in the Scriptures there was truth free of boasting. Then, indeed, much courage and understanding were needed to strip bare all the elaborate plausibility that cleverly presented falsehood as truth. But now their error has become easy to detect even for rustics.

To Apollonius. [On almsgiving.] Almsgiving must be clean of insult and reproach. Those who mix these with it mix stinking mud with fragrant ointment and wound the souls of those who receive. What is given with reproach, even if very great, is not pleasant to the recipients, even if out of necessity they put up with the insults in silence. And when the gifts are very small and given with insult, they produce an unbearable storm in the souls of the poor. As for those who not only do not give but also revile, one should not even mention them; they have surpassed all the savagery of beasts. For those who put in to them as to a harbour they sink, not only failing to meet their necessary need but adding insults. One must therefore answer the needy gently and give according to one's ability, and hide one's almsgiving like a free, noble and chaste virgin, and not parade it before all. And if someone has nothing with which to comfort the suppliant, let him answer him peaceably and with gentleness. "For behold, a word is better than a good gift, and both are found with a gracious man."

To Evoptius the bishop. … what is about to be said; but, since it is true, it will be said. You, perhaps following the opinion of the many, said that the man who violates a virgin is worse than the man who seduces her. But I, attending to the nature of the thing itself, think, even if it will seem paradoxical, that the seducer is more accursed than the violator. Here persuasion is more grievous than force, because the one meets with punishment and the other with pardon. The man who outraged the body kept the woman's mind pure; the man who first corrupted her soul then went on to the outrage of the body. The one made her not liable to justice, the other liable. For in the one case the outrage stopped at the body; in the other it ran up into the soul as well. The woman who was violated has a defence; the woman who was seduced has a penalty that cannot be escaped. The one can exact justice from the man who outraged her; the other, being without defence because she was corrupted in mind, is ruined with him in the punishment too. The one stands outside blame, the other within it. The one is pitied, the other rightly hated. In the one case the outrage touched the body but did not touch the mind; in the other both body and soul have been defiled. If you think these are human reasonings, we will read this law from heaven. What does it say? "If someone violates a virgin in the wilderness, kill him, but spare her; for the girl cried out, and there was no one to help her." But for the woman who suffered this in the city and did not cry out, the punishment is inexorable. And very reasonably. In the wilderness there was no one to help, and so the woman who was outraged has been judged worthy of pardon. But the one who suffered this in the city, consented by her silence and did not cry out or call those who could have checked the violence, has rightly been condemned to death. One must therefore with all one's strength keep the mind pure and undefiled, stained by no impulse and no consent of this kind, so that, if (may it not happen) such a thing should happen, women may have an unblemished defence before the impartial Judge, who enters even into hearts and needs no witnesses.