Letters 3.104–3.130

To Antiochus. Just as, where one ought to be defeated, winning is shameful, so where one ought to win, being defeated is more shameful. For victory is not good in everything: the victory whose cause is good and noble is the best, and that whose cause is shameful and base is the worst. For example (to make my proof from what the Greeks celebrate), war against foreigners is thought both lawful and necessary, but war against fellow countrymen is lawless, and the one who routs them does not even enjoy praise. For he is the more ashamed than others, the more he accomplishes than others. For nothing is more grievous than civil war. If, then, where death of the body is concerned, the difference is so great, though the nature is one, would those who bow down to demons and arm themselves against their brothers seem to do anything bearable? I do not think so. And yet here it is not death of the body that follows (that would be a lesser evil), but destruction of the soul, which sends those who are made to stumble not into non-existence, but makes them live a life harder than any death; and the rights of our kinship are greater and more divine. That is why we have been commanded to live a life befitting heaven. But if we are caught doing the opposite of those who serve as soldiers on earth, who take up arms for their countries and march against the barbarians, what hope of salvation shall we have? Or who could be persuaded that those will be saved who do the things that plainly lead to destruction? [Letter 3.105] I learn that, having obtained mercy, you have shown your disposition to be implacable: not showing moderation because you were treated well, but hating your benefactor because he had the power to do it. If this is true, you proclaim to all that you are unworthy of mercy. For if you turn kindness not to gratitude but to resentment, who will bear to do good to one who surpasses even the savagery of wild beasts? For among them there are some that perceive kindness, remember it, and are eager to repay it as they can. [Letter 3.106] To Isidore the deacon. Hearing this, perhaps, you will disbelieve; but understanding it, I know well that you will not only wonder but also applaud. What, then, is it that will seem incredible at first, but afterwards will appear not only wonderful but worthy of applause? I will say it briefly, signifying in short syllables thoughts as vast as oceans. To the men of old God did not converse through writings but through himself, finding their mind pure and worthy of teaching without a mediator. This is plain from those with whom he conversed without writings: Noah, Abraham, and his esteemed descendants, among whom was also the very chief, who crushed all the power of the devil, used up his arrows and emptied his quiver, the renowned Job, I mean. But when the wretched people of the Jews had been brought down to the very bottom of vice, then at last writings were thought necessary, and the reminder they give. And if you think that this happened only in the Old Covenant and was not confirmed in the New, I would say that it is shown in it above all. For not even to the divine apostles was anything written given; instead of writings the grace of the Holy Spirit was promised. "For he," it says, "will remind you of all things." And if you think written laws more authoritative than unwritten ones, hear what the King himself says: "I will make a new covenant with them, putting my laws into their mind, and I will write them upon their hearts"; and "They shall all be taught by God." That is why Paul too, insisting that he had been entrusted with more than Moses, said that he had received a law not written on tablets of stone but imprinted on fleshly tablets of the heart; whoever despises it is not stoned according to the old law but is handed over to most bitter punishment. But since, as time rode on and ran like a very swift horse, some ran aground over doctrines and others over their way of life, correction through writings was again necessarily needed. For when the unwritten things had been transgressed, the one who wishes in every way to lead his subjects to virtue rightly turned to written ones. We must consider, then, how great an accusation it is that we, who ought to live so purely as not even to need writings, but to offer our souls to the divine Spirit instead of books, having lost this honour and come to need writings, do not even use the second remedy properly. For if it is a charge against us that we need writings and do not draw to ourselves the teaching of the Holy Spirit through a pure life, we ought to consider how great an evil it is not to be willing to profit even after so great a help ("For he gave the law," it says, "as a help"), but to overlook the writings lying idle and in vain, and to call down a greater punishment. [Letter 3.107] [On the parable of the sowing, and how the word is sown.] Since you have written asking how, after saying at first that the word is sown, he said, "This is the one sown along the path," from whom the evil one snatches what was sown, and in the parable of the weeds said that the good seed is the sons of the kingdom, I say that each parable must above all be painted to fit its purpose, and not everything taken in every respect. But so as not to seem to some to devise excuses, I will state the more hidden meaning: that both the word is seed and so is the one who has received the word, because of his blending with it and, as it were, his re-elementing. For through it Christ is formed in us and we are formed according to Christ. For the seed is cast for this reason, to make the man like itself. [Letter 3.108] [Why the law settled those who had killed involuntarily among the Levites.] Since you said that you had neither learned from another nor been able to find yourself the reason why the lawgiver settled the unconsecrated among the consecrated, those who had committed involuntary killing among the Levites, I would say: first, so that they might be helped by their company and wipe off the apparent defilement. Next, because the Levites armed their right hands against the blood of their kin (when they had ascribed divine worship to the calf), becoming avengers, as it were, of the Godhead that had been outraged (which is why they obtained the priesthood); while the others became in a way servants of justice, against those who certainly deserved to pay the penalty, even though they killed unwillingly. And the lawgiver himself guarantees this, saying, "But he did not do it willingly; God delivered him into his hands." If, then, God delivered him, the one who killed involuntarily ought not to pay the penalty, since he was seen to be the servant of justice. For even if he seems to have a polluted hand, he has a pure mind. Why then, he asks, did he condemn him to exile? Not because of what happened (otherwise he would have banished him altogether outside the land of promise), but so that he might not be killed without trial by the kinsmen of the one killed, when anger overcame reason and wrath set aside exactness. Yet even so he did not abandon him for ever; for he set him the high priest's life as the limit of his exile, and after his death grants him return and restores him to his homeland.

To the same. [Why the high priest's life is the limit of exile for one who killed involuntarily.] I think the lawgiver ordained the high priest's life to be the limit of exile for one who killed involuntarily for this reason: to show by a clear sign that, if the involuntary death of the high priest restores those who killed involuntarily to their homeland and grants them return, the voluntary death of the great High Priest, which was quenched by the resurrection, will also wipe out involuntary offences and restore all who believe in him to the Jerusalem above. "For the Jerusalem above," says the divine Paul, "is free, and she is our mother."

To Isidore the deacon. [What is meant by "on the second-first Sabbath," and what by "Sabbaths of Sabbaths."] Since you have asked that the words "on the second-first Sabbath," spoken in the Gospels, be explained to you as unclear, listen. It is called second-first because it was the second day of the Passover and the first of Unleavened Bread. For they sacrificed the Passover in the evening and on the next day celebrated the feast of Unleavened Bread, which they also called second-first, because, as I said, it was the second of the Passover and the first of Unleavened Bread. And that this is true is plain from the apostles' being accused of plucking ears of grain and eating them. For only at that season are the ears heavy-headed and bowed by their fruit and the ripeness for harvest, as if calling the sickle to themselves. On the third day of Unleavened Bread, indeed, the sheaf was offered. So from both the season and the event the answer is plain. And if it is called a Sabbath, do not be surprised; for they call every feast a Sabbath. That is also why "Sabbaths of Sabbaths" is said: since sometimes either the beginning or the end of the festival fell on the Sabbath of the week, as also often happens with us. For just as, when Theophany or the Saviour's birth according to the flesh falls on a Sunday, it makes the festival double, a feast within a feast, so too among them, if the festival fell on the Sabbath, it was called "Sabbaths of Sabbaths."

To Cassius the presbyter. Many who have taken charge of the care of the poor end in their own money-making. These one must not emulate, but either correct them or, with all the more reason, flee them as destroyers. For they wear down the poverty of those whom they ought to have relieved.

To Alypius. [On the holy Trinity.] What is said in the singular in the holy Scriptures characterizes the divine nature; for the holy and most royal Trinity is of one essence. What is expressed beyond the singular number belongs to the distinction of the hypostases. For the Godhead is expanded into three properties and contracted again into one essence, so that neither polytheism may have room through a difference of natures, nor the Jewish notion through the oneness of person. For the identity of the nature is divided by hypostases, and the property of the hypostases is joined into one essence. And so as not to lengthen the letter by bringing everything forward, let us handle one or two examples and open a road of interpretation for the rest. God says: "I am first, and I am hereafter; before me no other god came to be, and after me there will be none." What then would the heterodox say? Who is it that said this, the Father or the Son? If the Father, how does he say that there is none after him? For according to you, the Son is after him. If the Son is the one who spoke, how does he say, "Before me no other god came to be"? For you will surely not dare to do away with the hypostasis of either. For you taught a first and a second, and you would not bear even to think, I suppose, that the other does not exist. We, taking this and the like of the consubstantial Trinity, are pious; but you who divide, how will you interpret what is said? Let this be said about these things. Let us come now to what exceeds the singular number. "Let us make," he says, "man. And God made man; according to the image of God he made him." "And the Lord rained from the Lord fire and sulphur." "And the Lord your God is one Lord." What, then, would the Jews say here? For nothing opposes us, who define three hypostases as one essence; but it completely stops their mouths. It is plain from this, then, that the church's crown is beyond dispute.

To Zosimus the presbyter. If you are in danger, as some say, from having utterly despised both salvation and reputation, having a mouth unbridled, unrestrained and without a door, and rushing against those against whom it is not right, perhaps we too are labouring in vain advising an implacable beast.

To Lampetius. You are blessed and admirable, being what you are called. For though you can do whatever you wish, you continue doing only what pleases the holy Scriptures and the divine ordinances.

To Eudaemon. [Why Joseph passed over the other brothers and ordered Simeon alone to be bound.] Since you have written asking for what reason Joseph passed over the other brothers and ordered Simeon alone to be bound, to be a hostage for the brothers' return, I say: because he was the ringleader of those who staged that tragedy against him. For if he had joined the eldest, who proposed an excellent counsel, perhaps he would have overturned the plot. For he was younger than him, being second in age, but older than the others. And it was likely that the others, either fearing or abashed at the judgment of the eldest, would have quenched the plot, especially since the fourth was also indignant at what was happening, and the matter itself had a strong leaning toward not being done. Since, then, he did not dare even to utter a word for justice, he ordered him to be bound as a hostage for his brothers, not so much punishing him (for shortly afterwards he did him good) as teaching him not to attempt the same things again. For by placing him in such a contest and bringing him to consider what had been done wrongly, he later sent him back unharmed to his father.

To Maron the presbyter. You who are most useless for glorious deeds and most effective for the most shameful ones, one must not consider all dangers run for anything whatever to be noble, but must count worthy of praise those run for piety and virtue and for those who have embraced friendship because of virtue; but those that harm all these and soil deeds formerly well done one must consider shameful and flee headlong, as causes of disgrace. For people are accustomed to examine not the dangers so much as the causes, not what has grown but the seeds, not the branches but the roots of things. Many robbers and murderers, indeed, have died fighting for those of like character, and no one would praise them; for they fought for vice. Many have given themselves up for country, parents and children, and no one would blame them, but would rather praise them; for they died for the rights of nature. So people revile the former and think the latter worthy of proclamations and monuments.

To Ischyrion. [On "If you then, being evil."] Great is the goodness of God, and great the cruelty of human beings. For the man who asked for delay and received release, when asked for delay, not only did not grant it but even shut his fellow servant in prison, and that though he did not owe as much as he himself had owed. For he owed ten thousand talents, the other fifty denarii. Rightly, then, the Gospel oracle, comparing human goodness with the divine kindness, called it evil, saying, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," not condemning the whole of nature as evil (far from it! for it is written, "Do good, O Lord, to the good," and "The good man brings out good things from his treasure"), but comparing human goodness with the divine, it called it evil. "How much more," he says, "will your Father give good things to those who ask him?"

To Isidore the deacon. Speech is a divine thing; virtue more divine; piety most divine. The one adorned with speech, deed and faith is unsurpassable, renowned and worthy of the highest blessedness; but the one who falls short in any of these is lessened as much as the proportion of what is lacking requires.

To Paul. [On "All who came before me were thieves and robbers."] "All who came before me are thieves and robbers" was not said of the prophets and the law, as those who reject the Old Testament would have it (for by it we who believed were led by the hand to faith, hearing Christ holding out the Scriptures up and down as bearing witness to him), but of the false prophets, of whom he himself said, "I did not send them, yet they ran." For he did not say, "All who were sent," but "All who came." For the prophets were sent: Moses heard, "Come, I will send you to Egypt"; Isaiah heard God saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?", and he said, "Here am I, send me." But the false prophets, and those who rushed up to be rulers and leaders (such as the followers of Theudas, of Judas the Galilean, and of the Egyptian who led the Sicarii), not being sent, but eager for show, self-appointed and greedy for office, deserted of their own accord. And that this was said of these very people what follows shows: "For the thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy." For all who were persuaded by them were slaughtered and perished, having tried to cheat the truth, and were extinguished altogether quicker than words.

To Isidore the deacon. To do and to teach is unsurpassable; to do but not teach is less, for it is lame on one side. That is why man is also rational. For if doing were teaching, it would not have been said, "Whoever does and teaches, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." For what force has an excellent life when a contest about doctrines is set before us, and the advocate of spurious doctrines rushes in great force against the orthodox ones? But not doing yet teaching, even if it seems to have leaves, is bereft of fruit, and has its share of laughter, ridicule and condemnation. [Letter 3.121] Just as it is easy to sing very high or very low, but to hit the middle belongs to a musical habit, so one must reckon about frankness of speech. For some exist only to insult, not to help; others to flatter and weave praises that do not fit. But those who use the best measure neither insult nor fawn, but, mixing modesty with frankness and gentleness with rebuke, so come to heal those who do not know themselves. You too, then, using this method, come to the healing of Isaiah, who through excessive arrogance has lost even the thought that he is a man.

To Paul. [On what is written, "No one snatches them out of his hand."] Since you have written, "If it is written, 'No one snatches them out of my Father's hand,' how do many perish?", I say that no one can snatch from that invincible and unconquerable right hand those who by right faith and an excellent life have made themselves its own; but one will be able to deceive them. That is, no one will be able to tear them away by force and tyranny, but one will be able to lead them astray by false reasonings and deceits. But this does not happen because of the invincible right hand, but because of the carelessness of human beings who have free will. For destruction comes not from the weakness of the guardian but from the levity of those guarded. [Letter 3.123] To Peter. Better than the man who has lived shamefully but can speak superlatively is the one who is not gifted in speaking but is brilliant in his life and excels in justice and self-control. And if someone shines both in speech and in life, he is beyond compare …

To Paul. If you neither practise shameful pursuits nor associate with those who practise them, it will bring you a brilliant good name from everyone. For practising them is servile; and not practising them but associating with those who do damages one's reputation. For one must neither be suspected of doing what is shameful to do nor have as intimates those who do it. For one must fear slanders even if they are not true, since many, not knowing the exact truth, look to reputation, and judge each person to be such as they see his companions, taking their verdict not from the facts alone but also from those he spends his time with. "For if you practise virtue," they say, "what is the meaning of your company with the worst people?" [Letter 3.125] [On what is written, "Your wine-sellers mix the wine with water."] I have often wondered at those who misinterpret the divine Scriptures and try to present their own intention rather than what lies in them. For mixing the undiluted, pure intention of the Scriptures, which can gladden the soul, with the base and faded water of their own doctrines, they dare to peddle divine things. And this is "Your wine-sellers mix the wine with water." For even if some think it was said of those who sell wine in the obvious sense (and that too is not absurd), yet when truth is judge, it seems to me to have been said rather of those who peddle the divine oracles. For it was not said, "Your wine-sellers mix water into wine" (which wine-sellers usually do), but "the wine with water." For mixing the unmixed and pure meanings of holy Scripture with their own faded doctrines, they adulterate the teaching. [Letter 3.126] [On the saying, "To the one who strikes you on the right cheek, offer the other also."] The King of things above the world and on earth came from heaven bringing us the tokens of a heavenly way of life, and he set up a contest opposite to the Olympic one. There the one who strikes and prevails is crowned; here the one who is struck and bears it is thought worthy of proclamation. There the one who strikes back; here the one who also offers the other cheek is proclaimed in the theatre of the angels. For victory is judged not in retaliating but in practising philosophy. For this law of crowns is new, since the manner of wrestling is new. [Letter 3.127] That the priesthood is far better than kingship and has greater labours (for when one labour ends a new labour springs up, and the danger concerns more necessary things, since the one is entrusted with divine things, the other with mortal ones), I think no one is unaware. That many, thinking without consideration that ruling either souls or bodies belongs to any man, have flung themselves into it, filled themselves and their subjects with countless evils, and later came down ingloriously into the pit of destruction, I think no one is unaware of this either. This being so, I greatly wonder how some, who have not even managed their own affairs well but are full of many troubles and ought not even to be ranked among those under authority (one of whom is Zosimus the presbyter, scandalized by whose life, as you say, you have written), have dared to leap upon the priesthood, which is so much loftier than kingship, and to buy with money a thing which, being such men, they ought not to accept even with much money. But perhaps, not knowing themselves, and not following what was well said by those outside, "Know yourself," and not knowing the dignity of the priesthood either, that it has danger in proportion to its height, but thinking it a rule free from scrutiny, not a ministry that must give account, they took in hand a thing that ought to have been inaccessible to them.

To Isidore the deacon. [On the captivity of the Jews.] Even if the Jews did not pay here a penalty worthy of what they did to the Master Christ, still they paid one. For what they did in order to escape, saying, "If we let him go, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation," this, having done it, they did not escape. For when their city was taken by the Romans and the temple destroyed, they themselves, like whipped slaves and runaways, were scattered everywhere, without honour and wandering. And they will pay the worthy penalty there too. For not having recognized his love for humankind, they will know his power, of which they have had a short taste even here.

To the same. [On "It refused to be comforted."] Nothing can so gladden a soul overwhelmed by grief as the remembrance of God. And this, then, is what you wished to learn: "My soul refused to be comforted; I remembered God and was gladdened." For just as the haemorrhaging woman's illness, which could not be stanched and was hard for physicians to handle, was driven away in an instant (she touched, he allowed it, and it fled), so too grief that thrusts away human comfort, being hard to handle by any consolation, departs easily by the remembrance of God alone and passes into non-existence. [Another letter] If the Lord is said in David to be "fair in beauty beyond the sons of men," how does Isaiah say again, "We saw him, and he had no beauty nor form"? Divine Scripture, holy head, does not teach things contrary to itself in teaching about the Saviour, but assigns to each matter what is proper and fitting. Some things look to the Godhead, some to the becoming man, and some to the voluntary sufferings. It called him "true light," "radiance of the glory," and "imprint" of the Father's "hypostasis": the first because of the brightness of the essence; the second because he is eternal, or rather co-eternal; the third because he subsists in himself and is distinguished by genuine characteristics. For lest the radiance be thought to have no subsistence, the imprint guarantees the hypostasis. It called him "fair beyond the sons of men" and "fair in his robe" because of the divine and unstumbling virtue of his life as man; and "having no form nor beauty" for two reasons: first, because, hiding the form of the Master, he displayed that of the servant; second, because in the suffering, which he underwent willingly, every outrage was set in motion. For he hung on the scaffold at midday, in the capital, at the greatest feast, at which it was likely that no one stayed away; and some mocked, others jeered; some reproached, others offered vinegar; some insulted, others pierced his side with a spear. And to the robbers crucified with him they did nothing of the kind, but against him they committed outrages that it is not right to commit even against the guilty. [Another letter] [How what is written in Ecclesiastes is to be understood: "Do not be very righteous."] Just as the standard of bodily beauty is the proportion of the limbs, so the ultimate standard of the soul's beauty is the proportion of the virtues. For if the extremes fall into vice, as some of the wise have declared (one who wants to be economical falls into stinginess, and one who wants to be magnanimous into prodigality; which is why they defined the virtues as means: for piety is the mean between irreligion and impiety), it is fitting that the wise man advised, "Do not be very righteous." And he also advises this: do not be a harsh and exact judge of the offences your neighbours commit against you, but go beyond justice by goodness, granting pardon to those who sin against you in ways too great for pardon,

To the same. Since my mind cannot take in the subject of the praises of the most excellent Hermogenes the bishop, nor can my judgment contain the abundance of his achievements, do not refuse to grant me pardon. For when it is not easy to be equal even to a part, how is it possible to go through them all?