Opuscula

Since you have often wished to know how the law is spiritual, as the divine apostle says, and what is the knowledge and the practice of those who wish to keep it, for this reason we have spoken of it as far as we are able.

First, that we know God to be the cause of every good, and its beginning, middle, and end; and the good cannot be practised or believed except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Every good thing has been given by the Lord, and whoever believes this will not lose it. Firm faith is a strong tower, and Christ becomes all things to the one who believes.

Let him who is the beginning of every good be the beginning of every purpose of yours, so that what you set out to do may be done according to God.

The humble person who is engaged in spiritual work, when reading the divine Scriptures, will apply everything to himself and not to someone else.

Call upon the Lord to open the eyes of your heart, so that you may see the benefit of prayer and reading. [6] Whoever has some gift and suffers with those who do not have it keeps the gift through that fellow-feeling; but the boastful person will lose it, battered by the temptations that boasting brings.

The mouth of the humble will speak truth; but whoever contradicts it is like that servant who struck the Lord on the cheek.

Do not become a disciple of someone who exalts himself, lest instead of humility you learn pride.

Do not be lifted up in your heart over your understanding of the Scriptures, lest you fall into the spirit of blasphemy.

Do not try to resolve a tangled matter by contention, but by the means the spiritual law commands: by patience, by prayer, and by hope that keeps to a single thought.

Whoever prays bodily and has not yet any spiritual knowledge is the blind man who cries out, saying, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” The man once blind, when he had received his sight and saw the Lord, worshipped him, confessing him no longer as son of David but as Son of God.

Do not be lifted up when you shed tears in your prayer. For it is Christ who touched the eyes of your heart, and you received your sight in the mind.

Whoever, in imitation of the blind man, throws off his cloak and draws near to the Lord follows him and becomes a herald of the more perfect teachings.

Wickedness pondered in thoughts makes the heart bold; destroyed by self-control and hope, it breaks the heart.

There is a breaking of the heart that is gentle and beneficial, leading it to compunction; and there is another, violent and harmful, leading it to injury.

Vigil, prayer, and patient endurance of what comes upon us are a breaking of the heart that does no damage and does it good, provided we do not cut short their blending through some greed. For whoever perseveres in these will be helped in the rest also; but whoever is careless and dissipated will suffer unbearable pain at his departure.

A pleasure-loving heart is a prison and a chain for the soul at the time of its departure; but a heart that loves toil is an open door.

A hard heart is an iron gate leading to the city. But for one who suffers hardship and is afflicted it will open of its own accord, as it did for blessed Peter.

There are many ways of prayer, one differing from another. Yet no way of prayer is harmful, unless it is not prayer at all but a work of Satan.

A man who wanted to do evil first prayed, as was his custom; and being hindered by providence, he afterward gave thanks.

David, when he wished to kill Nabal the Carmelite, was reminded of God's retribution, was stopped from his purpose, and gave great thanks.

But we know also what he did when he forgot God; and he did not stop until Nathan brought him back to remembrance.

At the time when you remember God, multiply your supplication, so that when you forget, the Lord may remind you.

You who read the divine Scriptures, understand what is hidden in them. For “whatever was written beforehand,” it says, “was written beforehand for our instruction.”

Scripture calls faith “the substance of things hoped for,” and it has called those who do not recognize the indwelling of Christ “unapproved.”

Just as the intention is made manifest through deeds and words, so the coming reward is made manifest through the workings of the heart.

Clearly a compassionate heart will be shown compassion, and in the same way a merciful heart will receive mercy; and the logical consequence states the contrary for the contrary. [28] The law of liberty teaches all truth. Many read it according to knowledge, but few understand it in proportion to their practice of the commandments.

Do not seek its perfection in human virtues, for no one is found perfect in them. Its perfection is hidden in the cross of Christ.

The law of liberty is read through true knowledge, understood through the practice of the commandments, and fulfilled through the compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we force ourselves, through conscience, to fulfil all the commandments of God, then we shall understand that the law of the Lord is blameless: it is practised in our good deeds, but without God's compassion it cannot be brought to perfection in human beings.

Those who have not reckoned themselves debtors to every commandment of Christ read the law of God bodily, understanding neither what they say nor what they affirm; and so they suppose they fulfil it by works.

There is an action done openly as good, while the aim of the one doing it is evil; and there is another done as evil, while the aim of the one doing it is good.

Some not only do deeds but also speak words in the way we have described. Some misrepresent things through inexperience or ignorance; others misrepresent them with evil intent; still others with a godly aim.

Whoever hides slander under a show of praise is hard for simpler people to detect; and like him is the one who seeks vainglory under a humble appearance.

Those who for a long time have cunningly concealed the truth in falsehood are later abandoned and exposed by the facts.

There is one who does something openly as good while taking revenge on his neighbour; and there is one who, by not doing it, has profited in his mind.

There is a rebuke that comes from malice and for revenge; and there is another that comes from the fear of God and from truth.

Do not rebuke any longer one who has stopped and repents. And if you say that you rebuke according to God, first make your own evils known.

God is the beginning of every virtue, as the sun is of the light of day.

When you have done a virtuous act, remember him who said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Good things have been prepared for human beings through affliction; likewise evil things through vainglory and pleasure.

Whoever is wronged by others escapes from sin, and finds help equal to his affliction.

Whoever believes Christ about the reward endures every injustice in proportion to his faith.

Whoever prays for those who wrong him dashes down the demons; but whoever opposes the first is wounded by the second. [46] Better an offence from human beings than from demons; but whoever pleases the Lord has conquered both.

Every good comes from God by his providence; but it secretly escapes the unthankful, the ungrateful, and the idle.

All wickedness ends in forbidden pleasure, and all virtue in spiritual consolation. When the first prevails, it stirs up what is its own; and the second likewise stirs up what is akin to it.

Reproach from people brings grief to the heart, but it becomes a cause of purity for the one who endures it.

Ignorance prepares a person to argue against what is beneficial; and when it grows bold, it increases the vices.

Accept painful things as though you lost nothing of what you already have; and, as one who will give account, cast away greed.

When you have sinned secretly, do not try to stay hidden. “For all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Show yourself to the Master in your mind; for “a man looks on the face, but God looks on the heart.”

Think or do nothing without a goal. For whoever travels without a goal will labour in vain.

For one who sins without compulsion, repentance becomes hard, because the justice of God cannot be escaped. [56] A painful occurrence brings the remembrance of God to the wise, and afflicts in proportion the one who forgets the Lord.

Let every involuntary suffering become for you a teacher of the remembrance of God, and you will not lack an occasion for repentance.

Forgetfulness has no power of itself; it grows strong in proportion to our negligence.

Do not say, “What shall I do? I do not want it, and it comes.” For when you remembered, you neglected what you owed.

Do what you remember, and what you do not remember will be revealed to you; and do not hand your thought over to forgetfulness without discernment.

Scripture says, “Hades and destruction are manifest before the Lord.” It says this about ignorance and forgetfulness of heart.

Hades is ignorance, and destruction is forgetfulness; both are unseen, because they have perished from among the things that exist.

Busy yourself with your own evils, not with your neighbour's, and your workshop of the mind will not be plundered.

Of all good things within our power, negligence is hard to make good; but almsgiving and prayer recall the negligent.

Every affliction borne for God's sake is a real work of godliness; for true love is tested by adversities.

Do not say that you have acquired virtue without affliction; for it is untested, because of ease.

Consider the outcome of every voluntary affliction, and you will find in it the destruction of sin.

Many are the counsels of one's neighbour toward what is helpful; but for each person nothing is more fitting than his own judgment.

When you seek healing, take care of your conscience; do whatever it tells you, and you will find the benefit.

God knows the hidden things of each person, and so does the conscience; and through these each should receive correction.

Whoever toils unwillingly is poor in every way; but whoever runs with hope is doubly rich.

A human being pursues whatever he can according to his will; but God brings about the outcomes according to what is just.

If you wish to receive praise from people without being condemned, first love rebuke for your sins.

Whatever shame anyone accepts for the truth of Christ, he will be glorified a hundredfold by a multitude.

But it is better to do every good for the sake of the things to come.

When one person helps another in words or deeds, let both understand that the grace is God's. Whoever does not understand this will be ruled by one who does.

Whoever praises his neighbour hypocritically will in time reproach him, and will himself be put to shame.

Whoever does not know the enemies' ambush is easily slaughtered; and whoever does not know the causes of the passions easily falls.

From love of pleasure comes negligence, and from negligence forgetfulness. For God has given to all the knowledge of what is beneficial.

A person advises his neighbour according to what he knows; but God works in the hearer according to what he has believed.

I have seen unlettered people who were humble in practice, and they became wiser than the wise. Another unlettered man, hearing them praised, did not imitate their humility, but took vainglory in his lack of learning and acquired pride.

Whoever despises understanding and boasts of lack of learning is unlettered not only in speech but also in knowledge.

Just as wisdom of speech is one thing and prudence another, so plainness of speech is one thing and folly another.

Ignorance of words will not harm the most devout, just as wisdom of words will not harm the humble.

Do not say, “I do not know what I ought to do, and so I am not to blame for not doing it.” For if you did all the good you know, the rest would be revealed to you in turn, each thing understood through another in its proper way.

It does not benefit you to know the second things before practising the first. For “knowledge puffs up” through idleness, “but love builds up,” through enduring all things.

Read the words of Scripture through deeds, and do not speak at length, puffed up in vain over bare ideas.

Whoever abandons practice and leans on bare knowledge holds a staff of reed instead of a two-edged sword; in time of war, as Scripture says, it will pierce his hand and go into it, injecting the poison of nature before the enemy does.

Every thought has its measure and weight with God. For one can think the same thing either with passion or in a moderate way. [90] Whoever has fulfilled a commandment should expect the temptation that comes on account of it; for love for Christ is tested by adversities. [91] Never be careless about your thoughts in negligence; for nothing escapes God's notice in any thought.

When you see a thought suggesting human glory to you, know clearly that it is preparing shame for you.

The enemy knows the justice of the spiritual law, and seeks only the mind's consent. For in this way he will either make the one in his power liable to repentance, or, if he does not repent, will torment him with involuntary afflictions.

Sometimes he will also prepare him to fight against the afflictions, so as to multiply his pains here too, and at his departure to show him an unbeliever through his lack of remembrance.

Many have resisted what comes upon them in many ways; but without prayer and repentance no one has escaped what is terrible. [96] Evils gain strength one through another; likewise good things grow through one another, and urge the one who shares in them on to greater things ahead.

The devil belittles small sins; otherwise he cannot lead a person to greater evil. [98] Human praise is the root of shameful desire, just as rebuke of wickedness is the root of self-restraint, not when we hear it but when we accept it. [99] Whoever has renounced the world and lives in luxury has gained nothing; for what he used to do by means of his money he does even when he has nothing.

Again, the self-controlled man, if he acquires money, is in mind a brother of the former: of the same mother because of pleasure in the mind, but of a different father because of the change of passion.

There is one who cuts off a passion for the sake of a greater self-indulgence, and he is glorified by those who do not know his aim. Perhaps he does not even know himself, toiling to no profit.

The cause of all wickedness is vainglory and pleasure; whoever has not hated them will not remove a passion.

Love of money has been called “the root of all evils”; but it too clearly depends on those two. The mind is blinded by these three passions, I mean love of money, vainglory, and pleasure.

These, I say, are the three daughters of the leech, which according to the divine Scripture are “loved with love” by their mother, folly.

Knowledge and faith, the companions of our nature, have been dulled for no other reason than these.

Wrath and anger, war and murders, and all the rest of the catalogue of evils have grown very strong among human beings because of them.

So we must hate love of money, vainglory, and pleasure as the mothers of evils and the stepmothers of virtues.

For this reason we have been commanded not to love the world or the things in the world; and this was said not so that we should hate God's creatures without discernment, but so that we should cut off the occasions of those three passions.

“No one serving as a soldier for God,” it says, “entangles himself in the affairs of this life.” For whoever wishes to conquer the passions while entangled is like someone putting out a fire with straw.

Whoever is angry with his neighbour because of money, glory, or pleasure has not yet come to know that God administers affairs in justice.

When you hear the Lord saying, “If anyone does not renounce all that he has, he is not worthy of me,” understand the saying not only of money but of all the works of wickedness.

Whoever does not know the truth cannot truly believe either; for knowledge naturally precedes faith.

Just as God has assigned to each visible thing what suits it, so also to human thoughts, whether we wish it or not.

If someone who sins openly and does not repent has suffered nothing up to his departure, consider that his judgment there will be without mercy.

Whoever prays with understanding endures what comes upon him; but whoever bears a grudge has not yet prayed purely. [116] When you suffer loss, or are reproached, or are persecuted by someone, do not consider the present but wait for what is to come; you will find that he has brought you many good things, not only in the present but also in the age to come.

As bitter wormwood helps those with poor appetite, so suffering evils benefits those of bad character. For the medicines restore the first to health and bring the second to repentance.

If you do not wish to suffer evil, do not wish to do evil either; for the one follows the other inevitably. “For whatever each one sows, that he will also reap.”

Sowing wicked things willingly and reaping them unwillingly, we ought to marvel at the justice of God. But because a certain time has been set between sowing and harvest, we disbelieve in the recompense.

When you have sinned, do not blame the act but the thought. For if the mind had not run ahead, the body would not have followed.

The secret evildoer is worse than those who do wrong openly; therefore he is also punished more severely.

Whoever weaves deceits and does evil in secret is, according to Scripture, the serpent that sits by the road and bites the horse's heel.

Whoever at the same time praises his neighbour to one person and blames him to another is ruled by vainglory and envy. By the praise he tries to hide his envy, and by the blame he presents himself as more esteemed than the other.

Just as one cannot pasture sheep and wolves together, so it is impossible for one who deals deceitfully with his neighbour to obtain mercy.

Whoever secretly mixes his own will with the command is an adulterer, as is shown in the Wisdom, and through lack of sense he bears pains and dishonour. [126] As the meeting of water and fire is a meeting of opposites, so self-justification and humility are opposed to each other.

Whoever seeks forgiveness of sins should love humility; but whoever condemns another seals his own evils.

Do not leave a sin unerased, even if it is very small, lest it later drag you into greater evil.

If you wish to be saved, love a true word, and never turn away from rebuke without discernment.

A true word changed the offspring of vipers and showed them how to flee from the wrath to come.

Whoever receives words of truth will receive God the Word; for the Lord says, “Whoever receives you receives me.”

The paralytic let down through the roof is a sinner rebuked for God's sake by the faithful, who receives forgiveness through their faith.

It is better to pray devoutly for your neighbour than to rebuke him over every matter.

Whoever repents rightly is mocked by fools; but this is a sign to him that he is pleasing God.

Whoever competes exercises self-control in all things, and will not stop until the Lord destroys the seed out of Babylon. [136] Reckon for me that the passions of sin are eleven: if you love one of them by your will, that one will fill the place of the eleven.

Sin is a burning fire. As much fuel as you cut away, so much will it die down; and as much as you add, so much will it flare up.

If you are lifted up by praise, expect dishonour. For it says, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled.”

When we have cast all voluntary wickedness out of the mind, then we can fight against the passions that come from prepossession.

Prepossession is the involuntary remembrance of former evils. In the one who is still struggling, it is prevented from going on into passion; in the one who has conquered, it is overthrown as early as the provocation.

Provocation is an imageless movement of the heart, held back by the experienced like a mountain pass.

Where there are images of thoughts, consent has already taken place; for a provocation without blame is an imageless movement. There is one who escapes from these like a brand from the fire; and there is one who does not turn back until he has kindled a flame.

Do not say, “I do not want it, and it comes.” For even if you do not love the thing itself, you certainly love its causes.

Whoever seeks praise is gripped by passion; and whoever laments when affliction comes loves ease.

The thought of the self-indulgent wavers as on a scale: at one time it weeps and laments over sins, at another it fights and contradicts the neighbour, defending its pleasures. [146] Whoever tests all things and holds fast what is good will consequently keep away from every evil.

A patient man is great in understanding; so too is the one who inclines his ear to words of wisdom.

Without remembrance of God there can be no true knowledge; for without the first, the second is spurious.

A word of subtler knowledge does not benefit the hard-hearted; for without fear he does not accept the labours of repentance.

Words of faith benefit the meek person, because he does not try God's patience and is not struck down for frequent transgression.

Do not rebuke a powerful man for vainglory, but point out the coming dishonour that will befall him; in this way the sensible man accepts rebuke gladly.

Whoever hates rebuke is gripped by passion deliberately; but whoever loves it is clearly carried away by prepossession.

Do not wish to hear about other people's wickednesses; for by such a wish the impressions of those wickednesses are nourished in us as well.

When evil words have rung in your ears, be angry with yourself and not with the speaker; for of a wicked hearing the one who carries the reply is wicked too.

If anyone meets people who speak idly, let him consider himself responsible for such words, if not from a recent debt, then from an old one. [156] If you see someone praising you hypocritically, expect blame from him in due time.

Exchange present afflictions for the good things to come, and negligence will never slacken your struggle.

When you praise a man as good apart from God because of some bodily gift, later the same man will appear wicked to you.

Every good comes from the Lord by his providence; and those who bring it are servants of the good.

Accept the alternation of good and evil things with an even mind; and so God overturns the unevenness of circumstances.

Unevenness of thoughts brings unsettled changes in one's circumstances; for God has fittingly assigned involuntary things to voluntary ones.

Sensible things are the offspring of things of the mind, bringing what is due by God's decree.

When the heart indulges in pleasure, pestilent thoughts spring up; and from the smoke we recognize the fuel lying within.

Remain within your mind, and you will not be wearied in temptations; but if you withdraw from it, endure what comes upon you.

Pray that temptation may not come upon you; but when it comes, accept it as your own and not as another's.

Take your thought away from all greed, and then you will be able to see the schemes of the devil.

Whoever says he knows all the schemes of the devil does not know that he is presenting himself as perfect.

When the mind comes out of bodily cares, it sees the cunning of the enemies in proportion.

Whoever is carried away by thoughts is blinded by them; he sees the workings of sin but cannot see their causes.

There is one who openly keeps a commandment while serving a passion, and through evil thoughts makes the good deed vanish.

When you are being drawn into the beginning of evil, do not say, “It will not conquer me.” For to the degree that you are drawn in, you have already been conquered.

Everything that comes to be begins from something small, and grows as it is nourished little by little.

The method of wickedness is an intricate net: whoever is partly entangled in it, if he is careless, is drawn tight all over.

Do not wish to hear of the misfortunes of people who are your enemies. For those who gladly hear such words gather the fruit of their own purpose.

Do not think that every affliction comes upon people because of sin; for there are some who are pleasing to God and are tested. For it is written, “The ungodly and lawless will be driven out”; and likewise, “Those who wish to live godly in Christ will be persecuted.”

In the time of affliction, watch for the provocation that comes in the affliction; for since that provocation consoles the affliction, it is readily welcomed.

Some call prudent those who can discern sensible things. But the prudent are those who master their own wills.

Before the destruction of the evils, do not obey your heart. For whatever deposits it holds, it seeks additions of the same kind.

Just as there are snakes that meet you in glens, and others that lurk in houses, so there are passions that take shape in thought and others that lie within through action, even if they have been transformed from one image into another.

When you see the things that lie within moving substantially and calling the mind to passion while it is at rest, know that the mind once went before them too, brought them into action, and deposited them in the heart.

No cloud forms without a breeze and wind, and no passion is born without a thought.

If we no longer do the wishes of the flesh, as Scripture says, the things that lay within before will easily subside in the Lord.

The substantial images of the mind are more wicked and more powerful; but those in thought are their causes and forerunners.

There is wickedness that holds the heart because of long-standing prepossession; and there is wickedness that wars in thought through everyday affairs.

God reckons actions according to intentions; for it says, “May the Lord give to you according to your heart.”

Whoever does not persevere in the contemplation of conscience will not accept bodily labours for the sake of godliness either.

Conscience is a book of nature. Whoever reads it in practice gains experience of divine help.

Whoever does not willingly choose labours for the truth is disciplined more harshly by involuntary ones.

Whoever knows the will of God and does it as far as he can will escape great labours through small ones. [190] Whoever wishes to conquer temptations without prayer and patience will not drive them off but will become more entangled. [191] The Lord is hidden in his own commandments, and is found by those who seek him in proportion. [192] Do not say, “I have kept the commandments and have not found the Lord.” For you have often found knowledge with righteousness; and those who seek him rightly will find peace.

Peace is deliverance from the passions; and this, as the holy apostle says, is not found without the working of the Holy Spirit. [194] Practice of a commandment is one thing and virtue another, even though all things take the occasions of good from one another.

It is called practice of a commandment when one does what has been commanded; but virtue, when what has been done pleases the truth. [196] Just as sensible wealth is one, though manifold in its possession, so virtue is one, though it has many kinds of working. [197] Whoever talks wisely and speaks words without work is rich from injustice; and his labours, according to Scripture, go into the houses of strangers.

“All things will obey gold,” it says; and by the grace of God the things of the mind will be governed. [199] A good conscience is found through prayer, and pure prayer through conscience; for each by nature needs the other.

Jacob made Joseph a many-coloured coat, and the Lord gives the meek the knowledge of truth, as it is written: “He will teach the meek his ways.”

Always do good as far as you can, and when the time for the greater comes, do not turn to the lesser. For “whoever has turned back,” it says, “is not fit for the kingdom of heaven.”

The false belief of outsiders is refuted in what is written below by those who are firm in faith and have come to know the truth.

The Lord, wishing to show that every commandment is owed, but that adoption has been given to human beings by his own blood, says: “When you have done all that is commanded you, then say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do.’” Therefore the kingdom of heaven is not a wage for works but a grace of the Master, prepared for faithful servants.

A slave does not demand freedom as a wage; rather he seeks to please as a debtor, and awaits it as a grace.

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and he gives freedom to those who serve him well. For he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your Lord.”

He is not yet a faithful servant who leans on bare knowledge, but he who believes in Christ, who gave the commandment, through obedience.

Whoever honours his master does what is commanded. And if he slips or disobeys, he endures what comes upon him as his own.

If you love learning, love labour too; for bare knowledge puffs a person up.

The temptations that befall us unexpectedly teach us by providence to love labour, and drag us to repentance even against our will.

The afflictions that come upon people are the offspring of their own evils; but if we endure them with prayer, we shall find good things coming upon us in turn.

Some, praised for virtue, were delighted, and thought the pleasure of their vainglory was consolation. Others, rebuked for sins, were pained, and reckoned that beneficial pain to be the working of evil.

Those who are puffed up over those whose struggles are slacker think they are justified by bodily works. And those who lean on bare knowledge and despise the ignorant are far more foolish than they.

Without the works of virtue knowledge is not yet secure, even if it is true; for in every matter the work is the confirmation.

Often knowledge too is darkened through negligence in practice. For when the doing of things has been wholly neglected, the memory of them also will gradually depart. This is why Scripture urges us to know God with knowledge, so that we may one day serve him rightly through works.

When we keep the commandments outwardly, we receive from the Lord what is proper to them in proportion; but we are benefited according to the aim of our intention.

Whoever wishes to do something and cannot is, before God who knows the heart, as one who has done it. This is to be understood both of good things and of evil.

The mind without the body accomplishes many good and evil things; but the body without the mind can accomplish none of them. For the law of liberty is read before the action.

Some who do not keep the commandments think they believe rightly. Others who keep them await the kingdom as a wage owed to them. Both have missed the kingdom.

A master owes no wage to his slaves; nor again do they obtain freedom unless they have served rightly.

If Christ died for us according to the Scriptures, and we no longer live for ourselves but for him who died and rose for us, clearly we owe it to serve him until death. How then shall we reckon adoption as something owed to us?

Christ is Master by nature, and Master by the economy: because he made us when we did not exist, and when we were dead through sin he redeemed us by his own blood, and gave grace to those who believe so.

When you hear Scripture saying that he will repay each according to his works, it does not mean works that deserve hell or the kingdom, but works of one's own unbelief or faith, which Christ repays to each, not as a trader in goods but as God, our Creator and Redeemer.

All of us who have been counted worthy of the washing of regeneration offer good works not for recompense but to keep the purity given to us.

Every good work that we do through our own nature makes us abstain from the opposite evil; but without grace it cannot add holiness.

The self-controlled abstains from gluttony; the one without possessions, from greed; the quiet, from much talking; the pure, from love of pleasure; the chaste, from sexual immorality; the content, from love of money; the meek, from agitation; the humble, from vainglory; the obedient, from contentiousness; the one who rebukes himself, from hypocrisy. Likewise the one who prays abstains from despair; the poor, from love of wealth; the confessor, from denial; the martyr, from idolatry. Do you see how all virtue practised until death is nothing other than abstaining from sin? And abstaining from sin is a work of nature, not a price paid for the kingdom. A human being barely keeps what belongs to his own nature; but Christ gives adoption through the cross.

There is a partial commandment, and there is another that is comprehensive. In one place it commands, partially, to share with the one who has nothing; in another it commands to renounce all one's possessions.

There is a working of grace unknown to the spiritually immature, and there is another working, of evil, that resembles the truth. It is good not to gaze at such things, because of deception, nor to anathematize them, because of the truth, but to offer everything to God with hope; for he knows the use of both. [27] Whoever wishes to cross the spiritual sea is patient, humble, watchful in vigil, self-controlled. If he forces his way in without these four, he troubles his heart but cannot cross.

Stillness is beneficial when it is idle of evils. And if it takes the four virtues as a help in prayer, nothing leads more quickly to dispassion.

The mind cannot be still without the body, nor can the dividing wall between them be broken down without stillness and prayer.

“The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” But those who walk by the spirit will not fulfil the desire of the flesh.

There is no perfect prayer without invocation in the mind; and the Lord hears the thought that cries out without distraction.

A mind praying without distraction afflicts the heart; and “a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.”

Prayer is called a virtue, though it is the mother of the virtues; for it gives birth to them through union with Christ.

Whatever we do without prayer and good hope turns out afterward to be harmful and incomplete.

When you hear, “The last will be first, and the first last,” understand it of those who share in the virtues and those who share in love. For love is the last of the virtues in order of birth, but it is found first of all in worth, showing those born before it to be last.

If you fall into listlessness, afflicted in many ways by evil, remember your departure and the grievous punishments.

For it is better to cleave to God through prayer and hope than to have outward memories, even if they are beneficial.

No virtue alone by itself opens the door of our nature, unless all depend on one another in sequence.

The one who feeds on thoughts is not self-controlled; for even if they are useful, they are not more useful than hope.

Every unrepented sin is a sin unto death; concerning it, even if a saint prays for another, he is not heard.

Whoever repents rightly does not reckon his labour against his old sins, but always propitiates God through himself.

If we owe it to do every day all the good things our nature has, what more shall we give back to God for our past evils?

Whatever excess of virtue we achieve today is a reproof of past negligence, not a recompense.

Whoever is afflicted in mind and rests in the flesh is like one who is afflicted in the flesh and dissipated in mind. Voluntary affliction from both works together for the other: that of the mind for that of the flesh, and that of the flesh for the mind; for when they are not joined they become worse. [45] It is a great virtue to endure what comes and to love those who hate us, according to the word of the Lord. And the sign of unfeigned love is the forgiveness of wrongs.

One cannot forgive another's trespasses from the heart without true knowledge; for this shows each person that what comes upon him is his own.

You will lose nothing that you give up for the Lord; for in its own time it will come back many times over.

When the mind forgets the aim of godliness, the visible work of virtue becomes profitless.

If ill counsel is harmful to every person, how much more to those who have taken up strictness of life.

Philosophize in deed about human will and God's recompense; for no word is wiser than the doing.

Help follows labours undertaken for godliness. This is to be known through the divine law and conscience.

One man received an opinion and held it without examination; another received it and compared it with the truth. We must ask which of them laboured more piously.

A sign of true knowledge is patience in painful things and not blaming people for one's own misfortunes.

Whoever does good and seeks a recompense does not serve God but his own will. One who has sinned cannot escape the recompense except through repentance fitting the fault.

Some say, “We cannot do good unless we clearly receive the grace of the Spirit.” But those who by choice are given over to pleasures always excuse themselves, as though helpless, from doing what is within their power. [56] Grace has been given mystically to those baptized into Christ, and it works in proportion to the practice of the commandments. Grace never ceases to help us secretly; but it is in our power to do or not to do the good as far as we can. First, in a manner worthy of God, it awakens the conscience; that is how evildoers too repented and pleased God. Again, it is hidden in the teaching of a neighbour. Sometimes also it accompanies the mind in reading, and through the natural sequence teaches the mind its own truth. If, then, we do not hide the talent of this partial sequence, we shall clearly enter into the joy of the Lord.

Whoever seeks the workings of the Spirit before practising the commandments is like a slave bought with money who, as soon as he is bought, asks for his deed of freedom together with the bill of sale.

Whoever has found that outward afflictions come by the justice of God has, in seeking the Lord, found knowledge with righteousness.

If you understand, according to Scripture, that “his judgments are in all the earth,” every occurrence will become for you a teacher of the knowledge of God.

What is due meets each person according to his thought; but only God knows the variety of the fitting consequence.

When you suffer some dishonour from people, at once think of the glory that will come from God; and you will be untroubled and unshaken by the dishonour, and when the glory comes you will be found faithful and uncondemned.

When you are praised by a multitude by God's good pleasure, mix nothing of display with the Lord's dispensation, lest you fall again by a change into the opposite.

Seed will not grow without earth and water; and a person will not be benefited without voluntary labours and divine help.

Rain cannot pour down without a cloud, nor can one please God without a good conscience.

Do not refuse to learn, even if you are very wise; for God's providence is more beneficial than our wisdom.

When the heart is moved by some pleasure from its place of diligent labour, it becomes hard to restrain, like a very heavy stone that has slipped on a slope.

As an inexperienced calf, running after grass, comes to a place with cliffs on both sides, so the soul is found led astray little by little by thoughts.

When the mind, acting manfully in the Lord, drags the soul away from long-standing prepossession, then the heart is tormented as if by executioners, as the mind and the passion stretch it this way and that.

As those who sail the sea gladly endure the sun's heat, so those who hate evil love rebuke. For the one is opposed to the winds, the other to the passions.

As flight in winter or on the Sabbath is pain for the flesh and defilement for the soul, so is an uprising of passions for an aged body and a consecrated soul.

No one is as good and compassionate as God; but even he does not forgive the one who does not repent.

Many of us grieve over our sins, yet gladly accept their causes.

The mole, crawling underground and blind, cannot see the stars; and whoever does not believe God about temporal things cannot believe about eternal things either.

True knowledge has been given by God to human beings as a grace before grace, teaching those who share in it, before all else, to believe the Giver.

When a sinful soul does not accept the afflictions that come upon it, the angels say of it, “We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed.” [76] A mind that has forgotten true knowledge fights with people for things opposed to it as though they were beneficial.

As fire cannot last long in water, so a shameful thought cannot last in a God-loving heart; for every lover of God loves labour, and voluntary labour is by nature an enemy of pleasure.

A passion that has gained pasture in action through the will later rises up violently against the one who shares in it, even when he does not wish it.

We love the causes of involuntary thoughts; that is why they come. And clearly the same holds for the things of voluntary thoughts.

Conceit and boastfulness are causes of blasphemy; love of money and vainglory, of mercilessness and hypocrisy.

When the devil sees that the mind has prayed from the heart, he brings great and cunning thoughts. For he does not allow great attacks to be destroyed by small virtues.

A thought that lingers shows a person's attachment; but one that is quickly destroyed signifies war and opposition.

There are three spiritual places into which the mind enters by change: according to nature, contrary to nature, and above nature. When it enters the one according to nature, it finds itself the cause of its evil thoughts, and confesses its sins to God, recognizing the causes of the passions. When it comes into the one contrary to nature, it forgets God's justice and fights with people as though they wronged it. When it is brought into the one above nature, it finds the fruits of the Holy Spirit of which the apostle spoke, love, joy, peace, and the rest. And it knows that if it prefers bodily cares it cannot remain there; and withdrawing from that place it falls into sin and into the grievous occurrences that follow it, if not at once, then in their own time, as the justice of God knows.

Each person's knowledge is true to the extent that meekness, humility, and love confirm it.

Everyone baptized in the orthodox way has received all grace mystically; but he is then given full assurance of it according to the practice of the commandments.

A commandment of Christ kept according to conscience gives consolation in proportion to the heart's pains. But each of these comes in its own time.

Keep up constant supplication in every matter, as one who can accomplish nothing without help.

Nothing is more powerful than prayer for working together with God, and nothing more beneficial for winning God's good pleasure.

All practice of the commandments is enclosed in it. For nothing higher has been spoken of than love for God. [90] Undistracted prayer is a sign of love for God in the one who persists in it; but its neglect and distraction are proof of love of pleasure.

Whoever keeps vigil, is patient, and prays without affliction clearly shares in the Holy Spirit; and whoever is afflicted in these things and endures willingly also quickly obtains help. [92] One commandment has been shown to be more excellent than another; so too one faith is found firmer than another. There is faith “from hearing,” according to the apostle, and there is faith that is “the substance of things hoped for.”

It is good to help inquirers by words; but it is better to work together with them through virtue and prayer. For whoever offers himself to God through these helps his neighbour also through the help he himself receives.

If you wish to help one who loves learning in a short word, show him prayer, right faith, and patience in what comes; for all the rest of the good is found through these.

About whatever someone has hoped in God for, he no longer fights with his neighbour. [96] If everything involuntary has its cause in what is voluntary, according to Scripture, no one is such an enemy to a person as he is to himself. By voluntary he means the thought; by involuntary, the occurrence. [97] Ignorance goes before all evils, and second after it is unbelief. [98] Flee temptation by patience and supplication; if you resist without these, it comes upon you all the more. [99] The one who is meek for God's sake is wiser than the wise, and the one humble in heart is stronger than the strong, because they bear the yoke of Christ with knowledge.

Whatever we say or do without prayer turns out afterward to be either mistaken or harmful, and exposes us through events as lacking knowledge.

From works, words, and thought comes justification; but from faith, grace, and repentance come many treasures of salvation.

As pride is foreign to one who repents, so humility is impossible for one who sins voluntarily.

Humility is not a condemnation by conscience, but a recognition of God's grace and compassion.

What a visible house is to the common air, a rational mind is to divine grace.

As much material as you throw out, so much will come in of its own accord; and as much as you bring in, so much will withdraw. [106] The material of a house is furniture and food; the material of the mind is vainglory and pleasure.

The heart's spaciousness is hope in God; its narrowness is bodily care.

The grace of the Spirit is one and unchanging, but it works in each as it wills.

As rain poured on the earth gives the plants a quality suited to each, sweet to the sweet and astringent to the astringent, so grace, falling unchangeably upon the hearts of the faithful, bestows workings fitted to the virtues. To one who hungers for Christ's sake it becomes food, and to one who thirsts, the sweetest drink; to one who is cold, clothing, and to one who toils, rest; to one who prays, hope of heart, and to one who mourns, consolation.

So when you hear the holy Scripture say of the Holy Spirit that it sat upon each of the apostles, or that it leapt upon the prophet, or that it works, or is grieved, or is quenched, or is provoked; and again, that some have the firstfruits and others are full of the Holy Spirit, do not think of any division or change in the Spirit. Rather believe, in the way we said before, that it is unchanging and unalterable and all-powerful; for which reason in its workings it both remains what it is and preserves for each, as befits God, what is due. For it has been poured out completely, like the sun, upon the baptized. But each of us is enlightened in proportion as he hates and removes the passions that darken him, and darkened in the same way in proportion as he loves them and dwells on them.

Whoever hates the passions removes their causes; but whoever is given over to the causes is warred upon by the passions even against his will.

When we are worked upon by evil thoughts, let us blame ourselves and not ancestral sin.

The roots of thoughts are the open vices, which each of us defends with hands, feet, and mouth.

One cannot converse with a passion in the mind without loving its causes. For who that despises disgrace converses with vainglory? Or who that loves being set at nought is troubled at dishonour? Who that has a broken and humbled heart welcomes pleasure of the flesh? Or who that believes perfectly in Christ is anxious about temporal things, or fights over them?

Whoever is rejected by someone and does not contend with the one rejecting him, either in word or in thought, has acquired true knowledge and shows firm faith toward the Master. [116] “The sons of men are false in the balances, to do wrong,” while God preserves for each what is just.

If there is no surplus for the one who does wrong and no lack for the one wronged, “a man walks about as a shadow, yet he is troubled in vain.”

When you see someone pained by many dishonours, know that, having been filled with thoughts of vainglory, he is reaping, unpleasantly, the sheaves of the seeds in his heart.

Whoever has enjoyed bodily pleasures beyond what is needed will pay for the excess with hundredfold labours.

A superior owes it to a subordinate to tell him what he ought to do; and if disobeyed, to foretell the evils that will follow.

Whoever is wronged by someone and does not seek redress from the wrongdoer believes in Christ in that respect, and receives a hundredfold in this age and inherits eternal life.

Remembrance of God is pain of heart endured for godliness. Everyone who forgets God becomes self-indulgent and insensitive.

Do not say that the dispassionate cannot be afflicted; even if not for himself, he owes it to be afflicted for his neighbour.

When the enemy holds many bonds of sins committed in forgetfulness, he then forces the debtor to commit them also in remembrance, reasonably using the law of sin.

If you wish to remember God continually, do not push away what comes upon you as unjust, but endure it as coming justly. For patience stirs up remembrance through each occurrence, while refusal diminishes the bright toil of the heart and through ease produces forgetfulness. [126] If you wish your sins to be covered by the Lord, do not make your virtues known to people. For whatever we do with these, God also does with those.

When you have hidden a virtue, do not be lifted up as though accomplishing righteousness; for righteousness is not only hiding good deeds but also not thinking anything forbidden.

Do not rejoice when you do good to someone, but when you endure without resentment the opposition that follows. For as nights follow days, so vices follow virtues.

Vainglory, love of money, and pleasure do not allow good deeds to remain spotless unless they first fall before the fear of God.

In involuntary pains the mercy of God is wonderfully hidden, drawing the one who endures to repentance and delivering him from eternal punishment.

Some, doing the commandments, expect them to outweigh their sins on a scale; others seek God's favour through him who died for our sins. We must ask which of them thinks rightly.

Fear of hell and longing for paradise give patience in painful things; and this not from ourselves, but from him who knows our thoughts.

Whoever believes about the things to come abstains from pleasures here without being told; but whoever disbelieves becomes pleasure-loving and insensitive.

Do not say, “How will the poor man indulge himself, when he does not have the means?” For one can indulge oneself even more wretchedly through thoughts alone.

Knowledge of things is one thing, and recognition of the truth another. As much as the sun surpasses the moon, so much more beneficial is the second than the first. Knowledge of things comes in proportion to the practice of the commandments; recognition of the truth, in the measure of one's hope in Christ. If then you wish to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, try always to rise above sensible things and to cleave to God through hope alone. For in this way, though turned aside against your will, you will find principalities and powers fighting you through provocations; but conquering them through prayer, and remaining full of hope, you will find the grace of God rescuing you from the wrath to come.

Whoever understands what the holy Paul said mystically, when he said that our wrestling is against the spiritual forces of wickedness, will also understand the Lord's parable about the need to pray always and not lose heart.

The law commands, figuratively, to work six days and rest on the seventh. For the soul's work is doing good with money; its rest and repose is to sell everything and give to the poor, according to the Lord's word, and, having come to rest through having no possessions, to keep sabbath in spiritual hope. Our Paul too earnestly urges us toward this rest, saying, “Let us strive to enter that rest.” We have said this not to exclude the things to come, nor to define that the whole recompense is here, but because we must first have the grace of the Holy Spirit working in the heart, and so, in proportion, enter the kingdom of heaven. The Lord made this plain when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” The apostle said the same: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for”; and again, “So run that you may obtain”; and again, “Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith. Do you not recognize that Christ Jesus dwells in you? Unless indeed you are unapproved.”

Whoever has known the truth does not resist painful afflictions; for he knows that they lead a person to the fear of God.

Old sins remembered in detail harm the hopeful person: if recalled with grief, they draw him away from hope; if pictured without grief, they deposit the old defilement anew.

When the mind, through self-denial, holds fast to hope fixed on a single thought, then the enemy, on the pretext of confession, pictures the evils done before, in order to rekindle the passions forgotten by God's grace and to harm the person secretly. For then, even if he is bright and hates the passions, he will necessarily be darkened, caught up in what he has done. And if he is still clouded and pleasure-loving, he will certainly linger and converse with the provocations with passion, so that such remembrance turns out to be prepossession, not confession. If you wish to offer God confession without condemnation, do not remember your lapses in detail, for you greatly defile the mind; but endure bravely what they bring upon you.

Painful things come because of sins already committed, bringing what is fitting for every offence. [142] The person of knowledge who knows the truth confesses to God not by remembering what he has done but by enduring what comes upon him.

When you have rejected labour and dishonour, do not promise to repent through other virtues; for vainglory and insensitivity naturally serve sin even through right-hand things.

As labours and dishonours usually give birth to the virtues, so pleasures and glories give birth to the vices.

Every bodily pleasure comes from preceding ease, and unbelief gives birth to ease. [146] One who is under sin cannot by himself overcome the will of the flesh, because he has the incitement unceasing and lodged in the passions.

Those who are subject to passions must pray and be obedient; for even with help it is hard to fight against prepossessions.

Whoever boxes with his own will by obedience and prayer is a skilful athlete, openly showing the spiritual wrestling through abstinence from sensible things.

Whoever does not exchange his own will for God's is tripped up in his own pursuits and falls into the hands of his adversaries.

When you see two wicked men who love each other, know that each helps the other toward his will.

The proud man and the vainglorious man gladly deal with each other: the one praises the vainglorious man who submits to him slavishly, and the other magnifies the proud man who praises him constantly.

A hearer who loves the truth draws truth from both sides: commended for good things, he becomes more eager; rebuked for evil things, he is compelled to repent.

Our way of life must match our progress, and we ought to offer our prayers to God according to our way of life.

It is good to hold the more comprehensive commandment, and to be anxious about nothing in particular and to pray for nothing in particular, but only to seek the kingdom, according to the word of the Lord. But if we take thought for each need, we ought to pray about each. For whoever does or plans anything without prayer does not prosper at the end of the matter. And this is what the Lord said: “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

More outrageous disobediences succeed the one who disregards the commandment about prayer, each handing him on to the next like a prisoner. [156] Whoever accepts present afflictions in expectation of later goods has found knowledge of the truth, and will quickly be freed from anger and grief.

Whoever chooses ill-treatment and dishonour for the truth walks the apostolic road, having taken up the cross and put on the chain. But whoever tries to attend to his heart without these two goes astray in mind and falls into temptations and snares of the devil.

One can never win by fighting evil thoughts apart from their causes, or the causes apart from the thoughts. For when we reject one alone, we are soon drawn into both through the other.

Whoever fights with people for fear of ill-treatment and reproach either suffers more ill here through what befalls him, or is punished without mercy in the age to come.

Whoever wishes to shut out every evil affliction ought to entrust his affairs to God through prayer, to hold his hope in him in the mind, and to disregard the care of sensible things as far as he can.

When the devil finds a person occupied with bodily things without necessity, he first seizes the spoils of his knowledge, and then cuts off his hope in God as one cuts off a head.

If ever you gain the stronghold of pure prayer, do not accept at that time the knowledge of things offered by the enemy, lest you lose the greater. For it is better to shoot him down with the arrows of prayer while he is shut in his place than to converse with him as he offers spoils and draws us away from our supplication against him.

The realm of things benefits a person in time of temptation and listlessness; but in time of pure prayer it usually does harm.

If it is your lot to teach in the Lord and you are disobeyed, be grieved in mind, but do not be openly troubled. For if you grieve you will not be condemned with the disobedient; if you are troubled, you will be tempted in the same matter.

When explaining, do not hide what is fitting for those present, telling the seemly things more clearly and the harsh things in riddles.

Do not bring a fault to the face of someone who is not under your authority; for this belongs to authority rather than to counsel.

What is done in common benefits all; but to each person his own concerns are revealed according to conscience.

Whoever speaks rightly ought himself to give thanks, as one who receives the words from God. For the truth is not the speaker's, but God's who works in him.

With those from whom you have no profession of obedience, do not contend by opposing the truth, lest you stir up hatred, according to the divine Scripture.

Whoever gives way to a subordinate who contradicts him where he should not leads him astray in that matter, and prepares him to break the covenant of obedience.

Whoever lays down the law for, or disciplines, a sinner in the fear of God acquires for himself the virtue opposed to the fault; but whoever bears a grudge and reproaches him with ill will falls into the same passion, according to the spiritual law.

Whoever has learned the law well fears the lawgiver; and hoping in him, he turns away from every evil.

Do not be double-tongued, disposed one way in word and another in conscience; for Scripture places such a person under a curse.

There is one who speaks the truth and is hated by fools, according to the apostle; and there is one who plays the hypocrite and is loved for it. Yet neither of these returns lasts long, because the Lord in his own time repays each what is due.

Whoever wishes to remove future hardships ought to bear present ones gladly. For by exchanging in mind one thing for another, he will escape great pains through small ones.

Guard your speech from boasting and your thought from conceit, lest you be abandoned and do the opposite. For the good is accomplished not by a human being alone, but by God who sees all.

God who sees all, as he has assigned worthy consequences to our works, so also to our thoughts and voluntary intentions.

Involuntary thoughts spring up from sin committed before; voluntary ones from free will. Hence the second are found to be causes of the first.

Grief accompanies evil thoughts that are against our purpose, which is why they quickly vanish; but joy accompanies those according to our purpose, which is why they are hard to get rid of.

The lover of pleasure is grieved by blame and hardship; but the lover of God, by praise and gain.

Whoever does not know the judgments of God walks in mind along a road with cliffs on both sides, and is easily overturned by every wind: praised, he is elated; blamed, he is provoked; feasting, he is licentious; suffering, he laments; understanding, he shows off; not understanding, he pretends; rich, he boasts; poor, he plays the hypocrite; full, he grows bold; fasting, he is vainglorious; he quarrels with those who rebuke him, and insults as fools those who forgive him. If then he does not ask, by the grace of Christ, for knowledge of the truth and the fear of God, he is grievously wounded not only by the passions but also by what happens to him. [182] When you wish to untangle a complicated matter, seek what pleases God about it, and you will find its solution beneficial.

In whatever matters God is well pleased, all creation also serves; and in whatever he turns away from, creation likewise resists.

Whoever resists gloomy afflictions fights, without knowing it, against God's command; but whoever accepts them with true knowledge waits for the Lord, according to Scripture.

When temptation comes, do not ask why or through whom it has come, but how you may endure it with thanksgiving and without resentment.

Another's evil does not add sin to us, unless we receive it with evil thoughts.

If it is not easy to find anyone who has pleased God without temptation, we must give thanks to God for every occurrence.

If Peter had not failed in the night's fishing, he would not have succeeded in the day's; if Paul had not been blinded bodily, he would not have received spiritual sight; and if Stephen had not been falsely accused as a blasphemer, he would not have seen the Lord when the heavens were opened to him.

Just as work done for God's sake is called virtue, so unexpected affliction is called temptation. [190] God tempted Abraham, that is, afflicted him for his good, not to learn what kind of man he was (for he who knows all things before they come to be knew him), but to give him occasions for perfect faith. [191] Every affliction exposes the inclination of the will, whether it leans to the right or to the left. That is why the affliction that befalls us is called a temptation, since it gives the one who undergoes it a trial of his hidden wishes. [192] The fear of God compels us to fight against evil; and as we fight, the Lord destroys it.

Wisdom is not only knowing the truth through the natural sequence of things, but also enduring as one's own the punishment inflicted by those who do wrong. Those who stopped at the first were lifted up to pride; those who reached the second acquired humility. [194] If you wish not to be worked upon by evil thoughts, accept humiliation of soul and affliction of flesh, and that not partially but in every place, time, and matter. [195] Whoever is trained voluntarily by painful things is not held by involuntary thoughts; but whoever does not accept the first is taken captive by the second even against his will. [196] When, as you are wronged, your inward parts and heart are hardened, do not grieve that what lay within has been stirred by providence; but rejoicing, overturn the thoughts that raise their heads, knowing that when they are destroyed at the provocation, those inner things too naturally die away after the stirring; but if the thoughts persist, the inner things usually increase.

Without breaking of the heart it is wholly impossible to be freed from evil. The heart is broken by threefold self-control: of sleep, I mean, of food, and of bodily ease. Excess in these produces self-indulgence, and self-indulgence welcomes evil thoughts. It also opposes prayer and fitting service.

If it is your lot to command brothers, keep your rank, and do not keep silent about what is needed because of those who contradict. In what they obey, you will have a reward for their virtue; in what they disobey, you will forgive them entirely, and receive the like from him who said, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” [199] Every occurrence is like a fair: whoever knows how to trade gains much, but whoever does not suffers losses.

Do not press with contention one who does not obey at a single word, but secure for yourself the gain he has thrown away. For your forbearance will benefit you more than his correction.

When the harm done by one spreads to many, then one must not be patient or seek one's own advantage, but that of the many, so that they may be saved. For a virtue that benefits many is more useful than one that benefits only one.

If anyone falls into any sin whatever and is not grieved in proportion to the fault, he will easily fall into the same net.

As a lioness does not approach a heifer in friendship, so shamelessness does not kindly accept godly grief.

As a sheep does not mate with a wolf to bear young, so neither does pain of heart unite with satiety to conceive virtues.

No one can have godly pain and grief unless he first loves their causes too. [206] Fear of God and rebuke receive grief; self-control and vigil keep company with pain.

Whoever is not trained by the commandments and admonitions of Scripture will be driven by the horse's whip and the donkey's goad; and if he resists these too, his jaws will be led with muzzle and bridle.

Whoever is easily conquered by small things is necessarily enslaved to great ones; but whoever despises the small ones also resists the great ones in the Lord.

Do not try to help by rebukes someone who boasts in his virtues; for the same person cannot both love display and love the truth.

Every word of Christ shows God's mercy, justice, and wisdom, and through hearing implants their power in those who listen gladly. That is why the merciless and unjust, hearing God's wisdom without pleasure, could not know it, but even crucified him as he spoke. Let us then see whether we listen to him gladly. For he said, “Whoever loves me will keep my commandments, and he will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Do you see how he hid his own manifestation in the commandments?

The most comprehensive of all the commandments is love for God and neighbour, which is built up from abstinence from material things and stillness of thoughts. Knowing this, the Lord commands us, saying, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.” And rightly; for whoever has not been freed from material things and the care of them, how will he be freed from evil thoughts? And whoever is surrounded by thoughts, how could he see the sin that is covered by them and has real existence, which is the darkness and fog of the soul, fallen upon it from evil thoughts, words, and deeds? The devil tempts by forcible provocation and shows the beginning; and the person gladly converses with it through love of pleasure and vainglory. For even if by discernment he did not wish it, in act he was able and accepted it. Whoever has not seen this comprehensive sin, when would he pray to be cleansed of it? And whoever has not been cleansed, how would he find the place of pure nature? And whoever has not found this, how would he see the inner house of Christ, since we are the house of God according to the prophetic, evangelic, and apostolic word? We must, then, seek this house through the sequence of what has been said, and knock, persevering in prayer, so that either here or at our departure the master of the house may open to us, and not say to us, if we have been negligent, “I do not know where you come from.” And we ought not only to ask and receive, but also to keep what has been given; for there are some who lost it even after receiving. Therefore bare knowledge of the things we have described, or even experience of them by chance, late learners and the young may perhaps possess; but the constant practice of them with patience is possessed with difficulty by the devout and experienced among the elders, who have often lost it through inattention, and sought it again through voluntary labours, and found it. Let us too not cease doing this until, like them, we acquire it so that it cannot be taken away. These few out of many ordinances of the spiritual law we have come to know, which the great psalmist also continually sets forth, so that those who sing with understanding in the Lord may learn them and do them. To him be glory for ever. Amen.

… into the power of the working, which the faithful received, even before their practice, through the grace of baptism.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, providing for the salvation of all in a way worthy of God, as he himself knows, laid down the law of liberty in various teachings, yet set one goal fitting for all, saying, “Repent.” From this we can recognize that all the variety of the commandments comes down to the one definition of repentance, just as he commanded the apostles in summary, saying, “Say to them, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” He did not at all mean a nearness of the kingdom in time, as though it were about to fall upon the world immediately (for the Truth would not define things in a way that did not fit the facts: see, both those living then and those after them have fallen asleep without sharing in the consummation of all things). Rather, the Lord, knowing that his own word has the power both of the kingdom and of repentance, says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” For if this is not granted, how is “the kingdom of heaven like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened”? Is it not because the mind that has received the word of God has hidden it in the threefold substance, I mean body, spirit, and soul, according to the apostle, and has gathered into the one leaven of faith all the subtlety of these in the thoughts, scattered in many parts like flour, waiting to be made wholly like the Word that works in it? In this way he likened the word of truth to a grain of mustard seed, sown small in the hearers' heart, but growing through fitting practice, and like a great tree in a high place, so becoming a house of refuge for the minds that come near. This will truly be so when, as he said, even the apostles were clean through the word which they had heard, having used the power that comes with the word for practice, and having become clean through it; for “the word of God is living and active.” That is why he condemned as unbelievers those who did not use such a contribution, saying, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

We have said this not as disbelieving in the future kingdom, which will certainly come at its own undetermined times, but because the word of the Lord holds the very power of the kingdom, becoming for the faithful the substance of things hoped for, the pledge of the future inheritance, the firstfruits of eternal goods, but for the unbelieving and profane a real refutation of their godlessness. That is why he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” If, then, the word shows its hearers to be debtors of work merely by bringing into the heart the power of what is said, what shall we do, who have set aside not only words but many great benefits that came to us together with that power, and have hidden in the earth not only the one talent but also the five and the two, using the Lord's benefits in a bodily way? Through such benefits it is natural that even irrational animals, when treated well, obey the one who leads them, as far as their nature allows, so that even a wild beast turns from its fierceness to obedience to its benefactor. To that degree we, who were honoured with free will above all living things, have shown ourselves wilder than the beasts and more irrational than the irrational animals. For they are glad to be near one another, so that as they graze each is content with what comes to it and leaves what lies by to the other without envy; but we, appointed to govern and rule the irrational animals, have preferred the wickedness of nature, so that, with no compelling cause forcing us, we behave mercilessly and enviously toward our own kind. Such people, I think, John called serpents, offspring of vipers, who had found repentance as a way to flee from the wrath to come; he urges them to bear fruits worthy of it, commanding that whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and likewise with food. And if he compared to serpents, out of compassion, those who before faith did not know what was required, it would be an evil beyond comparison to sin without fear after faith, knowledge, and the gifts we have received.

I will pass over the hidden things, which each person can carry out in thought as he pleases; let me speak rather of what we practise when we are ill-disposed toward one another, especially toward those who seem to have wronged us, meeting neither small nor great according to God. Over those who are more obscure or poorer we openly exalt ourselves, wishing to lord it over them as over hired men or slaves, no longer defending nobility in Christ but in the flesh and in wealth. When we see one of the more important people sinning, we cannot rebuke him, but say to those present, “It is written, ‘Do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes.’” But when we find some small cause in the humbler, we immediately fall upon them, showing off and saying, “It is written, ‘Rebuke the one who sins before all.’” And so we perversely cover our own hypocrisy, that is, our wickedness, with testimonies from Scripture, and regard ourselves as rebuking them according to God. So much for those below us. Our equals we turn away from at once on small occasions, devising every means of revenge; and we are not reconciled to them until we have got our way with them. Seizing on that same pretext, rejoicing as if over something good, we display our wickedness; and after taking revenge, we then converse with them in a more friendly way, laying down our earlier victory of evil as the foundation of a second friendship. But the building must necessarily match the foundation, and seek strife again, so that a friendship never remains free of fighting for one who wishes to win, but hatred always follows the victory, as the divine Scripture says, “Hatred stirs up strife.” This disease befalls those who pursue first place in glory and money, like dysentery, the first of diseases; which the blessed Paul now heals, saying, “In humility outdo one another in honour, counting others better than yourselves.” So we are disposed toward the humbler, or toward our equals. As for our wickedness toward the more powerful, it is hidden and many-sided, and not easy to tell or even to understand. For we do not behave toward our superiors as keeping a commandment, but fawn on those we cannot harm; we look on their good fortune bitterly with an envious eye, and do not gladly hear their happiness even when it is proclaimed; in appearance and words we flatter them peaceably, but in our thoughts we are disposed against them, so that the saying is fulfilled in us: “who speak peace with their neighbours, but evil is in their hearts.”

We have said this about those who are carried about against their will, wishing to show that those who sin voluntarily are further off and incline to repentance with difficulty. For how is it not voluntary, if we do not wish to do what Daniel said and find forgiveness: “Redeem your sins by almsgiving, and your iniquities by compassion on the poor”? But perhaps you will say, “I have no money; how shall I show compassion to the poor?” You have no money, but you have wills: renounce them, and do good in them. You cannot do good with a bodily hand? Do good with a right purpose. When your brother sins against you, forgive him, according to the Lord's word, and it will be alms for you. If we seek forgiveness of sins from God, we ought to do this for every offence toward everyone, so that the saying may be fulfilled, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” It is a great thing for one who has money to share it with the poor; but to have mercy on one's neighbours in their sins is greater for forgiveness, as much as the soul is by nature more precious than the body. Those of us who have asked forgiveness from God and have often received it, so that we suffer nothing evil on that account, but do not consent to share the same with our neighbours, are like that wicked servant who, having received from his master forgiveness of ten thousand talents, did not forgive his fellow servant a hundred denarii. Speaking lawfully about him the Lord said, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me; should not you also have had mercy on your fellow servant (forgiving him what he owed), as I had mercy on you?” And being angry, he says, “Hand him over to the torturers until he pays all that is owed.” And he adds, saying, “So also my Father in heaven will do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother his trespasses from your hearts.” That is why elsewhere he pronounces wretched those who have been enriched by him with various benefits but have a merciless and unsympathetic way of life, saying, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” For truly our wealth is the abundance of the various gifts given us; but woe to us, because, having begged and often received mercy, we have shown mercy to no one when begged, but have received our consolation.

For in speaking of the rich, he does not blame all the wealthy. For among them are some who truly know how to manage wealth according to the will of God who gave it, and who receive a hundredfold in this age, as it is written; as blessed Abraham and righteous Job, being merciful, grew richer both here and in the age to come. But, as we said before, he blames those who have a grasping way of life and who, whether in money or in various kinds of compassion, appropriate God's gifts and will not show mercy to their neighbour. For it is not the Lord's creation that wrongs its possessor, but the greed that arises from injustice and its mother, mercilessness. Fleeing these utterly, those firm in faith renounced present things altogether, not hating God's creation without discernment, but believing Christ who commanded them to do this, and awaiting from him their daily sufficiency. So one can be rich even without money, holding back greedily a word, or knowledge, or any kind of compassion, the things granted to all in common. For he receives in order to share with one who does not have. Those who are disposed mercilessly toward their neighbour take on themselves the woe, because they have received their consolation. In a similar way the holy apostle James also says to those who are rich in this way, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.” In allowing them to weep and howl, he urges us to repentance. And knowing that the passion is neglected, he says, “Your wealth has rotted”; as if to say it is useless if it is not shared with others: the wealth which many of us possess even without money, having buried our greed like gold in the treasuries of the mind. Of this the prophet also speaks most clearly: “My wounds have grown foul and festered,” calling his ungenerous and grasping way of life wounds; and by “have grown foul and festered” reckoning negligence until departure to be stench and rot. For some of us prefer to hide our wealth under the earth rather than share it with one who has nothing. Then indeed, when departure comes, such a wound stinks to the soul, as a cause of rot and folly; and becoming an eternal wound to it, it does not allow it to enter the heavenly kingdom of the firstborn, as the law declares about those who have a blemish. [6] Perhaps it is time to uncover the more grievous wounds too, and to show them to the physician of souls. For when holy Paul said, “Your abundance for their lack,” we do the opposite, snatching away the lack of the poor and adding it to our abundance. And this we do even without money. When we offend against a brother in some matter, we not only leave it unhealed, but the apology that we owed we tyrannically exact from him, doing nothing else than, as was said, adding their lack to our abundance, opposing Scripture, so to speak. But we must not despair on this account. Far from it! For we are not judged for the multitude of our evils, but for not wishing to repent and to know the wonders of Christ, as the Truth himself testifies: “Do you think,” he says, “that those Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled were greater sinners than all people on the earth? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were greater sinners than all people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Do you see that we are condemned for giving up repentance? And repentance, I think, is not limited by times or circumstances, but is practised in proportion through Christ's commandments. Some commandments are more comprehensive, containing many particular ones within themselves and cutting off many parts of evil at once. For instance, it is written, “Give to everyone who asks you,” and “From him who takes what is yours do not hold it back,” and “Do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow from you.” These are particular; but comprehensive beyond them is “Sell your possessions and give to the poor,” and “Take up your cross and come, follow me,” meaning by the cross the patient endurance of afflictions that come. So whoever has given everything to the poor and taken up his cross has kept all the commandments mentioned at once. And again: “I wish,” it says, “that men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands”; and beyond these: “Go into your room and pray to your Father in secret”; and again, by praying without ceasing he has included prayer in every place. And again it says, “You shall not commit sexual immorality, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder,” and all such things; and beyond these, “Casting down reasonings and every high thing raised up against the glory of God.” Whoever casts down reasonings has shut out all the vices mentioned. Therefore the lovers of God who are firm in faith press on to the comprehensive commandments, and yet do not pass over the particular ones as they meet them in circumstances.

Hence I reckon that the work of repentance is woven of these three commandments: casting down thoughts, praying without ceasing, and bearing the afflictions that come. These must have not only an outward but also an inner practice, so as to make those who persevere in them dispassionate. Since, then, the work of repentance can be perfected by the three virtues mentioned, as the argument has shown, I think repentance always befits everyone, sinners and righteous alike, who wish to obtain salvation; for there is no limit of perfection at which one ceases to persevere in the practice of these virtues. For through them beginners are introduced to godliness, those in the middle make progress, and the perfect are confirmed, the virtues being cut short neither by times nor by achievements; except for the one who, from ignorance and false belief, easily inclines to pleasures, indulges in pleasure on the pretext of despair, takes up the opinion of the Novatianists, and casts out repentance, relying on the apostle when he addresses the Hebrews who sinned voluntarily and were baptized every day, saying, “Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the teaching of baptisms.” He said this not casting out repentance, far from it, as they say, but teaching that in every work of repentance the one foundation is baptism in Christ, so that those from the circumcision who had believed should not be baptized every day. And he adds, “For it is impossible to renew again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away,” so that you may know that the renewal and foundation laid down for every repentance is holy baptism. And shortly after he adds, “For if we sin voluntarily after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”

Since, then, the matters exist where the fitting words apply, clearly they are said not only to the Jews but to all who sin voluntarily; first among them are those who say there is no repentance after baptism, and who therefore, carried away by their own choice, work lawlessness. Holy Paul put first the words that come later, doing this by design, I think, so that the meaning might become clear to the more devout through searching the Scriptures, but hard to find for the careless and contemptuous, lest on the pretext of future repentance they sin without fear. Since, then, some deliberately persist in evil on the pretext of repentance, while others, not believing that there is repentance, have become callous and handed themselves over to the devil, and the passion is wicked and hard to heal in both, the Truth offers a help fitted to all, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”; so that not even the spiritual and those making progress neglect this command, feeling secure, as it were, about small and few things; for it says, “Whoever despises little things will fall little by little.” And do not say, “How can the spiritual man fall?” While he remains such, he does not fall; but when he accepts something contrary and remains unrepentant in it, that very small thing, lingering and growing, no longer endures to dwell with him alone, but drags him toward its own kindred, pulling him violently like a rope of long friendship. If he fights through prayer and cuts it off, he remains, though he has fallen short of his proper dispassion by as much as he stood apart from the passion of that evil. But if he is carried away to the end by the strength of what prevails, refusing the labour of fighting and prayer, he is necessarily ensnared by the other passions too; and so, led away by each in succession little by little by habit, he is cut off from God's help in the measure of his straying, and is carried off to greater evils, perhaps even against his will, by the violence of what has mastered him.

But you will certainly say to me, “At the beginning of the evil, could he not have entreated God not to fall to the uttermost?” And I say to you that he could; but out of carelessness he accepted the small thing into his will as nothing, and no longer prays about it, not knowing that this small thing becomes the entrance and cause of the greater; so with good, and so with evil. And when the passion has grown and has gained pasture through the will, it then rises violently against him even against his will. Then he understands and entreats God, fighting the enemy whom he unknowingly used to defend, fighting people on its behalf. And sometimes, when he is heard by the Lord, he does not accept the help, because it did not come as the person thought but as the Lord arranged for his good. For knowing our unseemliness and contempt, he gives people most of his help through affliction, so that we may not, being rescued without affliction, practise the same sins again. Hence we say it is necessary to endure what comes, and very fitting for repentance.

But you will certainly say to me, “Those who have truly pleased God and have reached perfection, what further repentance do they need?” That there have been and are such people, I agree; but listen with understanding, and you will know how even such people need it. God has said that falsehood is from the devil, and, wishing us to renounce everything, he adds: further, he reckoned looking at a woman to desire her as adultery, likened anger toward a neighbour to murder, and made known that we shall give account for an idle word. Who then is untried by falsehood, uninitiated in every desire that comes by looking, has never been angry and quarrelled with his neighbour, and has never been found the servant of an idle word, so as not to need repentance? Even if he is not such now, he once was, and owes repentance until death. But suppose some have been found free of these things and strangers to all evil from birth (which is impossible, since holy Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace”); yet even if they were such, they are from Adam, and all have come under the sin of the transgression, and for this reason were condemned to the death of the sentence, being unable to be saved apart from Christ. When Christ was crucified and redeemed all by his own blood, then they too are ransomed. Then the Redeemer himself sets for all one definition comprehending all things, and says to the apostles, “Say to them, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Having at the same time laid down the commandments that accomplish repentance, he fixed their fulfilment until death, saying, “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will keep it for eternal life”; and again, “and even his own life.” And he seals it, saying, “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” If, then, he fixed repentance until death, as has been shown, whoever says he has completed it before death breaks the commandment by removing death.

Hence for small and great alike repentance remains incomplete until death. Even if we cannot reach that far in practice, we ought to pursue it in aim, lest by deliberately breaking the commandment we come under the judgment and be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Look for those who have passed through this life from the beginning, and you will find the mystery of godliness accomplished through repentance in those who pleased God. No one was condemned except one who despised it, and no one was justified except one who cared for it. Samson, Saul, and Eli with his sons, who already had partly shared in holiness, first lost it by neglecting repentance; and when the appointed time had passed, they finally fell into a death under judgment. The devil does not cease to war against us, and repentance ought never to be idle. The saints are compelled to offer it for their neighbours, since they cannot be perfected without active love. Learn how nature teaches us not to give it up until death. The mind cannot be idle in its rational activity; even if it is perfect and in good condition, it works on the right hand; but if on the pretext of perfection it ceases from the practice of good things, it certainly leans to the left; and refraining from the left, it is naturally drawn again to the right. The work of the right hand, for beginners, for those in the middle, and for the perfect, is prayer, casting down thoughts, and endurance of what comes; without these the other virtues cannot be achieved, and through them repentance becomes acceptable. If repentance is a request for mercy, … the one who has [it] needs to take care. For “everyone who asks receives.” If then “the merciful will receive mercy,” through this, I think, the whole world holds together, one helped by another by God's ordering. Through this God saved the Ninevites, and burned up the Sodomites who neglected it.

Even if we struggle in repentance until death, not even so have we fulfilled what is owed; for nothing is worth the kingdom of heaven. As we eat and drink, speak and hear, so we naturally owe it to repent. Once for all the one deserving it was put to death under the law; but he lives for the sake of repentance, and not for licence. Because of the sin of the transgression we were cleansed when baptized; once cleansed, we received commandments. Whoever does not keep the second has defiled the first, forgetting the cleansing of his old sins; and no one is found without failing daily, never omitting any of the things commanded. Therefore repentance would be necessary for all. It makes what was once voluntary now involuntary, through hating the passions and abstaining from the deed. Whoever limits it turns back and renews his old transgressions. Whoever has true knowledge knows that he also needs repentance; for each of them is set right by the other. Christ stood surety for us on condition of repentance; whoever gives it up sets aside his surety. Without repentance we can do nothing worthy in practice; but we are greatly shown mercy because of our purpose. Whoever forces himself until his departure and holds fast to it, even if he offends in something, will be saved through his forcing; for this the Lord promised in the Gospels. Whoever says he no longer needs it judges himself righteous, and is called an evil offspring by Scripture. Whoever is disposed with conceit of righteousness as though he had completed it is, without knowing it, coupled in turn with the pleasures, since conceit and boastfulness are pleasures. Whoever has conceit cannot be saved; for it is written, “The conceited and scornful man, the boaster, will accomplish nothing.” If humility harms the perfect not at all, let him not give up its cause either, repentance. Faithful Abraham and righteous Job called themselves earth and ashes; and these words are proof of humility. But whoever has had his fill of repentance cannot be humble. The three youths, truly great-souled and great martyrs, made confession from the midst of the burning flame, and saying that they had sinned and transgressed, they repented of their former evils, though they were already perfect; and almost the whole of their hymn has the force of repentance.

If, then, those who greatly pleased God and were shown perfect by their deeds used this help until death, who is left who is confident in himself on the pretext of righteousness and despises repentance? For my part I think that even if someone were holy like Paul or Peter, not even so would he choose to abandon the cause of humility. That is why Peter, hiding what was God's in this matter and making known what was his own, said to Cornelius, “Stand up; I myself also am a man”; and he confessed, “We have been taught by God to call nothing common or unclean.” And Paul, reckoning that he would nowhere fall short of the grace given him by Christ until death, said thus: “But I press on, if I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ,” meaning by laying hold perseverance until his departure; just as he writes to faithful Timothy, making plain to him the nearness of his departure, saying, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”; not measuring out for himself a halt and a limit in time, as though he had ended the race through perfection and no longer needed the struggles for the body of Christ, which is the church, struggles that never cease on earth; but he called his departure the end of the race and of the struggles. For he says, “I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure has come.” Do you see that he did not say, “I am at rest,” but, “I am already being poured out,” showing to all by such words and deeds that the limit of repentance is owed until dissolution and death to Christ the heavenly King? To him be glory for ever. Amen.

Since some say that holy baptism is perfect, relying on the Scripture that says, “Rise, be baptized, and wash away your sins,” and, “Wash yourselves and become clean,” and again, “But you were washed, but you were sanctified,” and bringing forward many such testimonies; while others say that the old sin is destroyed by struggles, they too bringing the testimony of Scripture that says, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit,” and at the same time finding in themselves the very working of sin after baptism: what shall we say to this, or whom shall we believe? Answer. We must believe the apostolic preaching and abide by our own confessions, and not test the power of God by human suspicions, nor again submit willingly to a yoke of slavery, but hold fast to freedom through the practice of the commandments, through which all truth is found in proportion; and we must know clearly that it is through the lack of these that we are worked upon by sin in proportion. But since we have reckoned the preaching vain, trusting curiosity rather than the word of God, our faith too is vain, and for this reason we are still in our sins. Question. We do not say the preaching is vain, but we seek to learn the truth. Answer. If then we hold the preaching to be true, let us fulfil all the commandments, and then we shall see whether we are worked upon by sin. For holy baptism is perfect, but it does not perfect the one who does not keep the commandments. Let us not, then, trust human suspicions, but rather the divine Scripture: that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”; and that “we were buried with him through baptism”; and, “whoever has died has been justified from sin”; and that “sin will not have dominion over us,” if we do his commandments; but if we do not, we are unbelievers and are held by sin. For faith is not only being baptized into Christ, but also doing his commandments. That, buried with him mystically through baptism, he also raised us with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, according to Scripture, is clear; yet he gave commandments, so that by doing them we might find the perfection given us; and if we do not, we show ourselves voluntarily worked upon by sin. If we say that sin is destroyed by works, then “Christ died for nothing,” and all that has been said is false; and if baptism is not perfect, but they say they have perfection from struggles, the law of liberty is vain in their eyes, and the whole legislation of the New Covenant is abolished. They also make Christ unjust, as commanding works of freedom to the baptized who, as they say, are still enslaved to sin against their will; and the grace of God is no longer grace but a repayment of our struggles. “For if by works, it is no longer by grace; but if by grace,” the work is not a work but a commandment of the one who set us free, and a work of freedom and of faith. Such things holy Paul wrote beforehand, by design, to the Galatians, admonishing them, who also disbelieved in similar ways. We, however, do not so disbelieve the grace of God, far from it! Nor do we deny faith in the preaching; but if after baptism we are held by sin, it is not because baptism is imperfect, but because we neglect the commandment and are given over by choice to pleasures, as the divine Scripture reproves us, saying, “As a dog returning to its own vomit,” so is a person returning to his own sin by free choice. For neither God nor Satan forces the will, or baptism. Have they not heard, then, that the commandments of Christ given after baptism are a law of liberty, as Scripture says: “So act and so speak as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty”? And again holy Peter: “Supply virtue in your faith,” and, after saying what follows, he adds, “For whoever lacks these things is blind and short-sighted, having forgotten the cleansing of his old sins.” Understand through what has been said that the cleansing through baptism takes place mystically but is found actively through the commandments. If, when baptized, we were not freed from ancestral sin, clearly we cannot do the works of freedom either; but if we can do them, it is plain that we were mystically freed from slavery to sin, as it is written: “The law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and of death.” But through neglect of the commandments of him who cleansed us, we are worked upon by sin. Either, then, show me that the baptized are unable to practise the commandments of liberty, and that for this reason baptism is not perfect; or, when we show that they have received such power, let them confess that they are freed by the grace of Christ, but have handed themselves over to slavery to evils by not fulfilling all the commandments, and for this reason have again become subject. Let them take the refutation from their own testimonies: “Let us cleanse ourselves, brothers, from every defilement of flesh and spirit.” How, then, can the slave of sin cleanse himself from every defilement of flesh and spirit, if he does not have such freedom and power but is held by sin? And if you have the mastery over the passions, know that you are not held by force but by a cause in your will. Whatever the divine Scripture says about cleansing, it says to free people; it exhorts them as free people not to remain in such thoughts but to love freedom, since we have the power to incline to whichever we wish, whether good or evil. Question. If we were set free in baptism, why do we not know the air of freedom as those who struggle see it? Answer. The pleasures we choose and our neglect of the commandments darken us, which they have corrected. For we have said already that a person is set free according to the gift of Christ; but according to his own will he remains wherever he loves, even if he has been baptized, because of his free will. So when it says, “The violent take the kingdom of heaven by force,” it speaks of one's own will, so that each of us may force himself, in keeping with baptism, not to turn to evil but to remain in good. For if a person were subject to force from the powers, God could certainly have freed us and made us unchangeable by force. But now it is not so; rather, he himself led us out of forced slavery through baptism, having abolished sin through the cross, and laid down commandments of freedom; but to remain or not to remain in the commandments he left to our free will. So the commandments, in so far as they are cared for, signify love for the one who set us free; in so far as they are neglected or lacking, they show indulgence in pleasures. But some fall into their own reasonings, saying, “We want to do the commandments and cannot, being held by sin by force; so we must first struggle and wipe out sin, so that we may be able to fulfil the commandments of liberty,” not understanding what they say or what they affirm. For if you have no freedom at all and cannot fulfil the commandments, by what struggles do you say you wipe out sin? The struggles of the faithful are commandments. You say, “I cannot do the commandments unless I am first cleansed through struggles.” Show me the struggles you speak of apart from the commandments, and I will be persuaded by your opinion. For if you speak of prayer, it is a commandment; if of fasting, if of vigil, it is a commandment; if of sharing, if of denial of one's soul, it is a commandment; if of casting down thoughts, it is a commandment; if you speak of death, the cross, or any work of virtue whatever, all are commandments. That is why he commands those who have received the power of the commandments, as faithful people, to struggle further so as not to turn back; not as though wiping out sin through these, but so as no longer to turn back. And the commandments themselves do not cut out sin (for this has been done through the cross alone), but guard the bounds of the freedom given us. For tell me, if you cut out Adam's sin by works, how did “Christ die for our sins according to the Scriptures”? But to this they have nothing to say in reply; they only ask inconsistent questions, inclining everything toward their own suspicions and not obeying the truth of Scripture. For they say, “If sin is destroyed in baptism, why does it work again in the heart?” We have often said the cause: it does not work after baptism as something left behind (for baptism gives complete release); but to bind ourselves again through attachment to what has been loosed through the practice of the commandments belongs to the choice of free will. For a thought that lingers over some pleasure or anger is proof not of sin left behind but of freely chosen attachment. For we have the power to cast down reasonings and every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God, according to Scripture. So an evil thought in those who cast it down within them is a sign of love for God, not of sin. For it is not the provocation of the thought that is a sign of sin, but the mind's friendly converse with it. If we do not love it, why do we linger with it? For it is impossible for what is hated from the heart to keep company with the heart continually, without our own wrongdoing. And if even a hated thought holds the mind by force (for it happens, and I do not deny it), this is still not a remnant of Adam's sin, but of godlessness after baptism. For when after holy baptism, though able to do all the commandments, we do not do them, then even against our will we are held by sin, until through repentance we entreat God, setting ourselves right in all the commandments, and he wipes out our sin of godlessness. For there are two causes of the working of evil, and both are from us: one works in proportion to our lack of the commandments; the other holds us inexorably because of our wrongdoing after baptism, which God alone removes when entreated through almsgiving, prayer, and patience in what comes; and these too the perfect grace given us through baptism secretly supplies. Question. Then did Paul sin after baptism, since he was worked upon voluntarily? For he says, “I see another law warring against the law of my mind.” Answer. In this way those who understand badly twist the other Scriptures too, and go astray. Take up this chapter from the beginning, and you will find that holy Paul does not speak of himself after baptism, but takes the role of the unbelieving Jews, persuading them that without the grace of Christ given through baptism it is impossible to overcome sin. Having said, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” he adds, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and of death.” That is why he says, “The law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.” Hence all the things of the law, of the temple, and of the sacrifices are fulfilled in us, who have received the grace of the Spirit mystically from baptism. For he has said that we are a temple of the Spirit, and urges us to offer spiritual sacrifices, speaking of Jews inwardly and not outwardly, and of circumcision of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; and Christ, the heavenly lawgiver, has written the spiritual law itself on the faithful through the Spirit, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. As he has said these things are inward, so understand also each of the things said figuratively. But since we have not believed Christ so firmly, we have not reckoned ourselves debtors to all his commandments, nor denied ourselves according to his word. For this reason, though we have received the mysteries mentioned from baptism, we do not know them. But when we condemn our little faith and believe him sincerely through all his commandments, then, gaining experience of these things in ourselves, we shall confess truly that holy baptism is perfect, and that the grace of Christ is invisibly hidden, waiting for our obedience and our practice of the commandments, whose power we have already received through it. Therefore, those of us who have not yet practised the commandments of liberty have not yet reached the free Jerusalem (“for the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother,” regenerating us through the washing of regeneration); but we are still on the way of Cain, and wander, travelling by trackless paths. For to quarrel in ignorance and to contradict the truth are deviations from the road, not straight cutting. That is why blessed Paul, seeing us slow toward the perfect ascent, says, “So run that you may obtain.” If we have not yet reached the city, when shall we see the temple, and, entering within, obtain access to the altar? And why do I speak of faith, the temple, and the altar, when we have not even got past the beasts of the reed? The prophet prayed that God would rebuke them, so that the firstborn of the victims, which the Jew who is one inwardly is commanded to offer, might not become the prey of beasts. If, according to you, there is a Jew inwardly, according to Paul's word, but the temple has not yet been built by the son of David, nor the mercy seat made by him (for this is what is loudly proclaimed by the one who says that Adam's sin is destroyed by struggles, and not through the grace of God, which is in us hiddenly through baptism; but it will be seen when, having well completed the road of the commandments, we offer the thoughts of our nature to Christ the high priest like a sacrifice, sound and not mauled by beasts). For most become the prey of beasts, all who turn aside from the commandments, I mean from patience in painful things; and leaping off the straight way, they walk by trackless paths, blaming others rather than themselves for the causes. Scarcely a few of them travel by the straight way, and that guarded by prayer, bound by hopes, beaten by temptations; and so they reach the city and the temple, and bring their offering. The city is bright and lawful discernment in Christ, which, when it administers affairs piously, is at peace and prospers, but when it goes wrong is handed over to the enemies for its destruction. The temple is the God-built precinct of soul and body; the altar is the foundation of hope in this temple, on which the first-born thought of every occurrence, offered by the mind like a first-born animal, is sacrificed for the propitiation of the one who offers it, if indeed he offers it to him without blemish. This temple also has the place within the veil, where Jesus entered as forerunner on our behalf and dwells in us, unless indeed you are unapproved: this is the innermost, hidden, and pure chamber of the heart, which unless it is opened by God and by rational and spiritual hope, one cannot surely recognize the one who dwells there, nor know whether our rational sacrifices have been accepted or not. For as at first in Israel fire consumed the remains, so it happens here too: when the faithful heart is opened through the hope mentioned, the heavenly high priest receives the first-born thoughts of the mind and consumes them with the divine fire, of which he said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?” He called first-born thoughts those not produced by second thoughts of the heart, but offered at once to Christ from the first provocation and arising; for those offered to him after much thinking Scripture called lame, blind, and monstrous, and for this reason not tithes for the heavenly high priest, the Master Christ. That even after baptism we are the cause of every evil thought has now been shown through the testimonies of Scripture. And if this must also be made plain through the natural sequence of things, it will be said again: O man, you who say that after baptism you are worked upon without cause by Adam's sin, and promise to cut it out through struggles, know exactly that you have contradicted yourself and fallen into your own words. For if you say evil thoughts are Adam's sin, learn from holy Paul that, having put on Christ through baptism, you have power and weapons to cast them down. “For the weapons of our warfare,” he says, “are not fleshly but powerful for God for the destruction of strongholds, casting down reasonings and every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God.” But if, having the power against them, you do not cast them down at the provocation, clearly you love pleasure out of unbelief and couple with them; and you are the author of such working, not Adam. Question. How can one who has shut himself in a cell, fasting daily, self-controlled, poor, living as a stranger, praying, and enduring many such afflictions, love pleasure out of unbelief or couple with thoughts? Answer. You have spoken well, that in doing such things he endures many afflictions. For if we performed the visible virtues mentioned without affliction, with joy and love of labour, we would not be pleasure-lovers in mind. For it is impossible for one pained by bodily labours not to converse proportionately with the provocations and console himself for the unpleasantness of the labours. If such a person did not want this, he would not be afflicted by the labours. We suffer this because we endure hardship not from longing for the good things to come but from fear of the temptations now coming upon us. Hence we consider the evil deed our own sin, but call the thought before it another's working. And it is impossible for those who consider this working not their own but another's to turn away from it. There is indeed a thought, without coupling, that is unpleasant and hated, which like a robber falls upon us unexpectedly and holds the mind by force to itself. Yet learn exactly that this too has its occasions from us. For either after baptism we gave ourselves over to some evil thought as far as action, and for this reason have become liable even against our will; or we deliberately keep some seeds of evil, and for this reason the evil one is entrenched. The one who holds us through seeds does not withdraw until we cast them out; the one who remains through the evil action is put to flight when we offer God fitting labours. For this reason I do not call this Adam's sin either, but rather the sin of the one who did the evil and keeps the seeds. And if thoughts (for thoughts preceded these two) and some robber are the cause of them, I too say to you that the cause is the one who had the power to cleanse himself of it at the provocation and did not, but conversed with it as far as action. And if before the action he could not overthrow it at all because of the mind's weakness, how does he promise to cut it out after the action? Understand that even before the action, if you had wished, God would have helped you. And when you see help coming to you through your heart, understand exactly that grace did not come from outside by passing over to you; rather the grace given you secretly through baptism has now worked to the extent that you hated the thought and turned away. And for this reason Christ, having loosed us from all force, has stopped the provocation of thoughts from compelling the heart, so that those hated from the heart vanish at once, while those loved remain as long as they are loved; so that both the grace of God and the will of the person may be shown, what it loves: labours for the sake of grace, or thoughts for the sake of pleasure. And let us not be surprised that we are worked upon forcibly not only by what we love; for as their kinship is something evil, so the provocations work together with one another on our desires, and each hands over its own worker, once he has lingered, to the next, so that he is carried off by the second, perhaps against his judgment, dragged forcibly by his habit with the first. For who, filled with vainglory, can escape pride? Or who, having enjoyed luxury, will not be overcome by a thought of sexual immorality? Or who that has given himself to greed is not gripped by mercilessness? And how will those deprived of all these against their will not be angered and terribly driven? Therefore we must understand that by our own cause we are worked upon by sin, but by the Spirit we are freed from forced slavery. “For the law of the Spirit of life,” he says, “has set me free from the law of sin and of death.” And it remains in our power, who have heard and learned the commands of the Spirit, either “to walk according to the flesh, or according to the Spirit.” It is impossible for those who have loved human praise or bodily ease to walk according to the Spirit; and it is impossible for those who heartily prefer the things to come to the present to live according to the flesh. Therefore we, who have strayed much, must henceforth hate human praise and bodily ease, through which evil thoughts spring up even against our will; and say to the Lord from the heart the prophet's words: “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and pine away over your enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred; they became my enemies.” And truly evil thoughts are enemies of God, preventing his will from being done; since he wills all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, while they lead us astray through attachment and keep us from salvation. Of these the Lord said that they come out not from Adam but from the heart, and for this reason defile the person; and clearly not from faith, but from vainglory. “For how can you believe,” he says, “when you receive glory from people and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” When, then, we hate vainglory and believe him in everything, dashing every thought to the ground before him with the hope of the heart that keeps to a single thought, then, just as at the beginning of faith through baptism the body of Christ became the food of the faithful, so in spiritual hope and denial of thoughts the firmly believing and pure mind becomes the food of Jesus, who said, “My food is to do the will of my Father”: that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, according to Paul's word. He speaks of truth found in spiritual faith according to hope, as we said before, which is no longer believed from hearing but from the working of the all-holy Spirit, which is “the substance of things hoped for,” according to Scripture; for there is faith from hearing, and there is faith that is the substance of things hoped for. The unbaptized or the vainglorious cannot come to the knowledge of this truth. For first one will be baptized in the catholic church, and through baptism grace is given mystically and dwells hiddenly. Then, in proportion to the practice of the commandments and spiritual hope, it is revealed to those who so believe the Lord, who said, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” This he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. Therefore we believe that we have received freedom and cleansing mystically through baptism, according to him who says, “But now you were washed, now you were justified, now you were cleansed.” And he writes such things to the Corinthians, who had not yet been cleansed in spiritual hope through the denial of thoughts, nor sanctified through the working of the Spirit in the heart, but were still evil, doing wrong and defrauding, and that their brothers; to show that the baptized have received cleansing mystically according to the gift of Christ, but that according to his own little faith each is worked upon, drawn away and enticed by his own desire, as it is written: “Then desire, having conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” So sin in thought comes from one's own desire, and from it the outcome of the action that follows it, which Scripture called death. That the grace of the Spirit is in us from baptism, teaching us all truth according to the Lord's word, learn again from Scripture and from the facts. See what blessed Peter says to the crowd in the Acts: “Repent,” he says, “and let each of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But to the extent that someone disbelieves, he is at once held by sin. See also how the apostle reproaches the twelve men in Ephesus who had been baptized without faith, and says, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They said to him, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” He said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” Hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; and when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them. Are you persuaded, even now, that the Holy Spirit is given at once from baptism to those firm in faith, but is not given to the unbelieving, to those of false belief, and to the unbaptized? And that it is we who grieve him and quench him in ourselves, learn from the apostle who says, “Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophecies”; and again, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” We bring forward these testimonies not as saying that every baptized person who has received grace is henceforth unchangeable and no longer needs repentance, but that from baptism, according to the gift of Christ, the grace of God has been given us perfect for the fulfilment of all the commandments. But thereafter each who has received it mystically and does not fulfil the commandments is worked upon by sin in proportion to his lack; and that sin is not Adam's but the negligent person's, since having received the power for the work, he does not carry out the work. The lack comes from unbelief; and unbelief is not another's sin but that of the one who disbelieved, and it then becomes the mother and entrance of every sin. Whether, then, we wish to be perfected quickly or slowly, we are debtors to believe Christ perfectly and to practise all his commandments, having received from him the power for such practice; and then not as owing it to work one commandment alone, partially, but to grasp the particular ones comprehensively, and so to fulfil them all in short. For there are more principal commandments, containing within them a great number of the others. This is the only struggle we owe: to fight down our own unbelief and not to neglect the comprehensive commandments, through which the grace given us is clearly revealed. This holy Paul prays may happen to us, saying, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the Lord may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,” with all full assurance and perception. It would be time, as we said before, to confirm this testimony also through the facts. For see: to the extent that, believing, we practise the commandments, the Holy Spirit works his own fruits in us. And the fruits of the Spirit, according to holy Paul, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Who, then, after baptism is wholly uninitiated in these workings, so as to deny it, saying he did not receive the grace of the Spirit from baptism? And who, again, is worked upon daily and without ceasing by these fruits, before he has fulfilled the commandments, so as to say, “I am perfect and unchangeable”? Hence it is plain that just as grace is perfect, but we are not perfect because of our lack in the commandments, so too holy baptism is perfect toward us, but we are imperfect toward it. You, then, O man baptized in Christ, only give the work for which you have received the power, and prepare yourself for the manifestation of the one who dwells in you; and so the Lord will manifest himself to you spiritually according to his promise, as he himself knows. “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And then you will understand the saying, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And this too must necessarily be known: that particular commandments are parts of other commandments and are fulfilled by them, and these are also called single. Those who practise the commandments partially enter the kingdom in proportion; but those who wish to reach perfection must practise all the commandments comprehensively. The comprehensive commandment of all is the denial of one's soul, which is death. And just as while living in the flesh one falls short of this completion, so until one's departure one cannot be free of provocation, because of this lack. If, then, any of the faithful who has lived well through the commandments finds some spiritual working in proportion, let him believe that he had already received its power, since he received through baptism the grace of the Spirit, the cause of all good things; I mean the source not only of hidden and spiritual virtues but also of visible ones. And let none of the virtuous suppose he has done any good thing by his own power alone. “For the good man,” says the Word, not from himself, but “out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good,” calling treasure the Holy Spirit hidden in the heart of the faithful. For “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and went and sold everything and bought that field.” This fits very well with what has been said. For whoever has understood exactly that from baptism he has Christ hidden within himself, according to the apostle, throws away all the affairs of this world and remains in his own heart, keeping it with all watchfulness and seeking the outcome of life, according to the Proverb. Therefore one must not suppose that Adam's sin is cut out through struggles, nor even one's own sins committed after baptism, except through Christ. “For it is he who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” By adding “for his good pleasure,” he shows that being well pleased in the virtues is in our power. And the sayings “Apart from me you can do nothing” and “You did not choose me, but I chose you” tend to the same meaning. Perhaps we should also understand in this way “All things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being that has come into being,” since our own things too are among all things; and “No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is why the prophet did not say, “From Jerusalem to your temple kings will bring you gifts,” but the opposite: “From your temple to Jerusalem kings will bring you gifts,” because each person's most kingly mind first receives fair and good themes from the hidden temple of the heart, from Christ who dwells there, and leads them to the virtuous way of life, which he called Jerusalem; and again offers them through good thought to Christ who gave them in advance. We have said this not excluding the things to come, but confessing that we have received the power of the commandments and have been loosed from the bonds of death. We are, then, debtors of the work; and if we do not practise the commandments of God, the grace given us is not revealed. For how could we, who were dead in sin, do good of ourselves, unless the Lord himself had made us alive through the washing of regeneration and given us the grace of the Spirit? Hence we shall understand that the grace of the Spirit has been given us perfect for the fulfilment of all the commandments, giving increase of growth in Christ, empowering its workers until death, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” according to the order of the fathers, which we described before. Question. Whom, then, does the baptized person receive mystically: Christ, or the Holy Spirit? For sometimes you have said that Christ dwells within, sometimes the Holy Spirit. Answer. We receive the Holy Spirit through baptism. But since he is called both Spirit of God and Spirit of Christ, for this reason through the Spirit we receive the Father and the Son. Question. Is the Spirit, then, the Trinity? Answer. We do not say the Trinity is single in person in this way; but since he is not separated from the Father and the Son, for this reason we confess the Trinity in him according to his Godhead. For as the Son and the Spirit are in the Father, and again the Father and the Spirit in the Son, so the Father and the Son are in the Spirit, not by confusion of the three hypostases, but by the union of the same one will and Godhead. So we too, whether we name the Father alone, or the Son, or the Spirit, name the Trinity in the one name, according to the account we have now given.

Question. How does Scripture say that Jerusalem is heavenly, while you have said that it is in the heart? Answer. Not only Jerusalem, but also the other good things that the righteous will receive in the resurrection, we know are above. But their pledges and firstfruits are at work spiritually from now on in the hearts of those firm in faith, so that, being fully assured about the things to come, we may despise all present things and love God until death. That is why he did not say, “You are to come,” but, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” For we have become capable of receiving these things from baptism; but only those firm in faith are counted worthy to obtain them, who for the love of Christ die daily, that is, rise above every thought of the life here and think of nothing else but when they will reach perfect love of Christ, which is the inner opening of the heart, where Jesus entered as forerunner. Seeking this at the beginning holy Paul said, “But I press on, if I may lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of” (that is, that I may love, as I was also loved) “by Christ.” After laying hold of this love, he no longer consented to think of anything else, neither the hardships of this body nor the wonders of creation, but declined almost every thought, not consenting to be deprived even for an hour of the working of the Spirit. He made plain what he declined for the sake of spiritual love, and says, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” and the rest; and again, “I am persuaded,” he says, “that neither death nor life,” and the rest; and again, “nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” since he could not bear to think of any of these, but only to remain there. Question. How did you say a little while ago that the Spirit dwells in us perfectly? Answer. I spoke of firstfruits, not introducing some part of the whole, nor any division of the Spirit, but indicating our capacity, which cannot contain the whole working of the Spirit except through the perfect commandment, that is, through death; since death for the truth of Christ too is a commandment of God. Just as the sun, being perfect, casts its favour perfect, simple, and equal upon all, while each receives light in proportion as he has his eye cleansed, so also the Holy Spirit has made those who believe in him capable of all workings and gifts from baptism. But thereafter he works his gifts not equally in all, but in each according to worth, in proportion to the practice of the commandments, so as to bear witness to good works and make plain the measure of faith in Christ. That is why, it says, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’”; and, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” That no one cuts out Adam's sin for himself, but Christ alone, in proportion to faith in him, hear the apostle saying, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”; and again, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”; and, “We were buried with him through baptism, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life,” and the rest; and, “Whoever has died has been justified from sin”; and, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and not from works, so that no one may boast”; and again, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light”; and again, “We are not children of the slave woman but of the free. Stand fast, then, in the freedom with which Christ has set us free”; and again, “As free, and not having your freedom as a cover for wickedness.” Do you see how the things through which you say struggle cuts out sin, Scripture calls works of newness, of freedom, and of light? And it also makes plain the turnings of free will, which you say are Adam's sin. For “having freedom as a cover for wickedness,” and “grieving the Holy Spirit,” and “doing the will of the flesh and of the thoughts,” and “having begun in the Spirit, now being made perfect by the flesh,” and “we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh”: Scripture, knowing these and such things, that it is in our power to do them or not, for this reason blames not Satan nor Adam's sin, but us. And if you wish to hear with understanding, let me tell you the most principal point of all. You say that thoughts that change their shape are Adam's sin; and see, blessed Paul clearly and plainly reproaches us about this evil mind as being ourselves the cause, saying, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” If these things are not of our will but of Satan's tyranny and a remnant of Adam's sin, why are we reproached by Scripture, we who are worked upon unwillingly by sin and tyrannized by Satan? Are we then to be punished without cause? Or perhaps God is unjust, commanding what is above nature and requiring of us, against nature, what is beyond our power? But it is not so; far from it! For let me ask you, and give me an answer. Do we owe it to offer God daily as much power of godliness as our nature has, or not? You will certainly tell me, “Yes, since God gave this by nature and laid down the commandments according to our power.” Then if the good we offer him today is today's debt, show me now the repayment for the old sin, whether yours or Adam's. But I tell you that not only can you not show this, but you cannot even repay the daily debt without fail. And how is this clear? From our not always being found in the same virtues. For as much as you add to virtue today, so much are you proved a debtor for the past, having made plain the power of nature. For it has been shown through today's addition that the lack is not of nature but of will, and for this reason we are destroyed by sin. Question. Let it be granted that this is so; yet one thing I know: if Adam had not transgressed, I would not have experienced the provocation of evil. Answer. Neither have you said this rightly. For to be without experience of the provocation of evil belongs to an unchangeable nature, not to human nature; and we and Adam are of one nature. He had to be as we are, and we as he. Let that first man himself persuade you that he was neither unchangeable nor wholly prone to evil, and that he transgressed the commandment not by necessity of nature but by the consent of his will. Just as he was capable of obeying Satan's provocation, but had the power, so are we.

Question. Perhaps I now bear with you, since you do not do away with the provocation of Satan. Answer. Neither in what was said before did I ever do away with it. For I know that Job was tempted by the devil, and that Scripture says, “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places”; and again, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”; and elsewhere, “Your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” But since we consider evil thoughts to be not ours but someone else's, saying sometimes that they are Adam's sin, sometimes Satan himself, sometimes Satan's provocation, for this reason we say that Adam's sin is one thing, Satan another, Satan's provocation another, and our evil thoughts yet another, even if they take their occasions from provocation. Satan is the very person of the devil, who also dared to tempt the Lord; the sin of the first Adam is the first man's transgression of the commandment; and Satan's provocation is the appearance, in a single thought, of an evil thing, which finds a way to approach our mind through little faith. For we received a commandment to be anxious about nothing, but to keep one's heart with all watchfulness and seek the kingdom of heaven which is within us; when the mind withdraws from the heart and from this seeking, it at once gives place to the devil's provocation and becomes receptive to the evil suggestion. But not even then does the devil have power to move our thoughts by force; otherwise he would not have spared us, bringing every evil thought by compulsion and allowing us to think nothing good. He has power only to show evil suggestions in a single thought at the first thought, to test our inner disposition, whether it inclines to his suggestion or to God's commandment, since these are opposed to each other. Hence, toward the things we love, we at once stir up our thoughts toward the example, and converse passionately in the mind with the thing put forward; but with the things we hate we cannot linger, but hate the provocation itself. A hated provocation does remain, yet not from a recent disposition; it is entrenched from an old prepossession. That is why it stands in its place without advancing and as a single thought, prevented by the heart's distaste from going on to much thinking and to passion. For a hated single appearance has no power by nature to drag the mind by force from the one who attends to himself into the passion of much thinking, except through the heart's self-indulgence alone. So if we wholly withdraw from self-indulgence, not even the single appearance of prepossessions can harm us any more, or condemn our conscience, for the security of the future. For when the mind recognizes the idle presence of the prepossession and confesses the old cause to God, this temptation too is at once destroyed. And again the mind has power to attend to the heart and keep it with all watchfulness, trying to enter its inner, undisturbed chambers, where there are no winds of evil thoughts driving soul and body violently onto the cliffs of self-indulgence and casting them into pits of asphalt; nor any broad and spacious road, trodden with the words and forms of worldly wisdom, enticing those who follow it, however prudent they may be. The pure inner chambers of the soul and the house of Christ receive no one who brings anything of this age, reasonable or unreasonable, except these three, which the apostle named: faith, hope, love. One who loves the truth and is willing to labour in heart can, then, not be driven out even by prepossessions, according to the sequence we have described, but attend to the heart, advance inward, and draw near to God alone, so as not to grow weary of the labours of attention and perseverance. For one who attends to the wanderings of thought and the pleasures of the flesh cannot help labouring in heart, daily circumscribing himself not only outwardly but also inwardly, in which both thought and deed have often been overturned. Hence we know the single-thought provocation to be compulsory, since it remains even when hated; but converse with the thoughts that follow, to be chosen. Those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression showed this: they could not prevent the provocation, but wholly refused converse and attachment to it. Question. Did we not receive Adam's transgression by necessity, which is our sin in thought? Answer. It is not Adam's transgression but the exposure of each person's self-indulgence. Nor did we inherit the transgression. For by inheritance all would necessarily have had to be transgressors, and not be accused by God, transgressing by necessity of natural succession. But now it is not so; for neither do we all transgress the commandment, nor do we all keep it. Hence it is clear that transgression is not by necessity but is self-indulgence. And if you say the Lord came because of it, why did he not destroy it in baptism, but still now each has the power to transgress or not to transgress? So no one inherited by necessity the transgression, since it is voluntary, as has been shown; but we inherited the death that came from it, which is compulsory, and which is estrangement from God. For when the first man died, that is, was estranged from God, neither could we live in God. That is why the Lord came, to make us alive through the washing of regeneration and reconcile us to God, which he has done. So we did not inherit the transgression, since necessity ruled him too, which “reigned even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression.” Question. Let it be granted that Adam had the transgression by will, and that for this reason we too, being of the same nature, fall by will; did he not also have the provocation by will? Answer. Yes, he had the provocation by necessity. But provocation is neither sin nor righteousness, but a test of our free will. That is why it was permitted to provoke us, to show those who incline to the commandment crowned as faithful, and those condemned for inclining to pleasure as unbelieving. And we must know this too: we are not judged approved or unapproved at once at each of our turnings; but when we have been tested through provocations through our whole life in the flesh, conquering, conquered, falling, rising, straying, prospering, then on the day of our departure, when all has been reckoned together, we are judged in proportion. So provocation is not sin. Far from it! For even if by necessity it shows things in a single thought, we have received in the Lord power for spiritual work, and it is in our power from the first thought to test what is harmful and what is beneficial, and to cast off or accept the thoughts that multiply not by necessity but by disposition. But suppose, as you say, that these too spring up by necessity and inheritance: why does the divine Scripture condemn us for evil thoughts? Or how can we shut out those that trouble us by necessity and inheritance? And if you tell me, “We can, by the grace we have received from baptism, according to the Scriptures,” know that even so we are the cause, having power from God to shut them out from the first thought and arising. And whoever makes someone else the cause of his own evils not only sins without fear but also blasphemes against God, as permitting people to be warred against without cause. Question. Why then, though baptized, do I entreat God, call upon his grace, and wish with my whole will to be rescued and freed from evil thoughts, and cannot? Is it not clear that Adam's transgression left us this inescapable inheritance? Answer. Being rational, we ought to know what we hear. But since the soul, darkened by love of pleasure and vainglory, has fallen into the depth of ignorance, it no longer listens to the commandment of Scripture, nor to the natural sequence of things, nor to the guidance of the experienced, but only follows its thoughts. For who that believes the divine Scripture and does the Lord's commandments does not find the thoughts diminishing in proportion, and is not assured that they rule not by force but by our little faith and lack of the commandments? That is why we are not all equal in condition, nor driven by the same thoughts, since the causes of thoughts are matters of choice. For if they were compulsory from Adam, we would all be worked upon alike and held inescapably; and we would not need the admonition of Scripture, since nature by inheritance, and not a pleasure-loving will, would be ruling. But it is not so. Far from it! For see, we observe that we are not all worked upon alike, nor at the same times, nor in the same matters; but each, to the extent that he has believed the Lord about the good things to come and has despised human glory and self-indulgence, has shut out the thoughts and is quieter than the self-indulgent. For this reason we differ from one another both in thought and in life. Since, then, we even sophisticate against the truth in this, and seek to quench the thoughts not by faith in Jesus, that is, not by the practice of his commandments, nor by labouring in heart through lowliness and humility, but with hidden self-indulgence, I mean vainglory and the wish to please people, conceit, imagined victory and elation, and other such things, whose failures multiply the thoughts of desire: for this reason we cannot. Why then, holding on to the causes, do we try unjustly to cast off their fitting workings? And if this account is false, and we are worked upon by thoughts without our own cause, let us examine closely, as confessing to God. Who does not know that by deed, word, and thought we draw the passions mentioned to ourselves daily, and love those who help us as benefactors, and turn away from those who hinder us as enemies? And if we so love these passions as even to defend them openly, how shall we hate their single-thought provocation? And when the first thought has been accepted, how shall the thoughts attached to it not follow?

Question. Even if we grant that this is so, still in the Gospels the Lord promised to avenge those who cry to him night and day. Answer. The Lord does not speak the parable to those who are given over to self-indulgence by their will, but to those who are warred upon by prepossessions alone. That is why he promised to avenge those wronged by enemies, but reproaches the others as having laid aside the commandment that helps them, saying, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” He also likens them to a foolish man who builds his house on the sand of his own wishes. Do not, then, with an unsteady mind and irrational counsel, lean on all your own suspicions as though they were true, saying at one time, “I have been baptized, and I entreat God, and draw down his grace, wishing with my whole will to be rescued from evil thoughts, and I cannot,” as though held by thoughts without cause; and at another time waiting for the Lord's vengeance, which we announced he would carry out in the Gospels, setting yourself up everywhere as blameless, which is great blasphemy. Yet let me too ask you a thought of conceit, and give me an answer. I know that, pressed by the truth, you will either speak words of greater elation or confess your own responsibility.

Question. Why does the Lord, who said, “He will carry out the vengeance speedily,” not do it speedily, but delays, and leaves you among evil thoughts, though you pray, as you said, with your whole heart and without hesitation? Answer. I reckon he delays for no other reason than for my patience; for as much as someone endures when warred upon, so much will he be glorified. I thought I was answering only the conceit that holds you; but you have added blasphemy too. For in order to write yourself up with a falsely named patience, you have made God a liar in his own word; and you make evil thoughts no longer, as divine Scripture says, the producers of wickedness, self-indulgence, and every sin, coming out of the heart, according to the Lord's word, and defiling the person, but causes of patience. I have never found those held by evil thoughts praised by divine Scripture, either in the Old or the New Testament, but rather condemned as responsible. For God, as he hates evil thoughts, so too hates the heart that gives birth to them. Therefore we who have them ought to mourn as lovers of sin, and not be puffed up as fighting against evils not our own. Know, then, O man, that the Lord looks upon the hearts of all; those who hate the first thought of evil designs he avenges at once, as he promised, and does not let the swarm of much thinking rise up and defile their mind and conscience; but those who do not overthrow the first arisings by faith and hope, but indulge in them on the pretext of examining and testing them, he leaves, as unbelievers who help themselves, to be battered also by the thoughts that follow. He does not destroy these, because he sees that the provocation toward them is loved by us and not hated from its first, still invisible, appearance. And if anyone, after so plain a statement, disbelieves what has been said, let him try to learn the truth in practice. And if he neither believes Scripture nor wishes to assure himself by practice, he clearly loves the pleasure of conceit. For what is more self-indulgent than this conceit, which supposes the sin in thought to be someone else's and makes people exult and be elated as blameless, rather than confess and mourn over evil designs? Question. You said before that we did not inherit Adam's transgression, but that we did inherit his death. Then since death rules, evil thoughts also rule. Answer. O the unbelief! Why then did the Lord come in the flesh, if not that one might die for all, according to the Scriptures, and destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil? But if you still think that the death from Adam rules apart from our false belief, clearly you set aside the coming of Christ too, and hold baptism to be ineffective, since the baptized are still ruled by ancestral death without cause of their own. Therefore, O man, how have you become a new Adam by the grace of Christ, and bring nothing of the old by necessity, unless it be from your own false belief and transgression? The Lord came for us, died for us, loosed us from ancestral death, cleanses and renews us through baptism, places us in the paradise of the church, and allows us to eat of every tree in the paradise: that is, to love every baptized person in the church and bear with them in their failings, and not to search out each person's lapses; and not to love them in what seems good and hate them in what is thought evil, which is the tree of knowing good and evil. When the mind tastes of it, it at once falls into the same failings, and through its evil searching through its neighbour finds its own nakedness, which at first it did not know, since it was covered by compassion. That is why those placed in the paradise of the church are commanded, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And concisely beyond these he says, “Whatever you wish people to do to you, do likewise to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” “As you have done, so it will be to you.” How often, then, have we profaned these commandments! How often have we condemned our neighbour without compassion! How often have we hated, or even wronged those who did no wrong! If this is so, why do we still blame Adam and accuse others of evils? For even if we have fallen into a like death, we have also likewise transgressed the commandment by will, as he did. Three things happened to Adam, then, and not as you think: provocation by God's ordering, transgression by his own unbelief, and death by God's just judgment, following not so much the providential provocation as the transgression that came from unbelief. We, then, inherited only Adam's death, because we could not become living from the dead until the Lord came and made all alive. The first thought we have by God's ordering, as he did; and to disobey or not to disobey we have by will, as he did. And those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression, as the apostle said, persuade us that transgression through thoughts is a matter of choice. For if they, being from Adam, were able not to sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression, clearly we can too. Why then do we make excuses in sins, and speak injustice against God, as though he unjustly allowed us to be warred upon by evils not our own? We ought, then, to know exactly that since every cause from Adam has been removed by the Lord, each person, if he suffers any evil, has set aside through his own unbelief, that is, from love of pleasure, the perfection he received mystically in baptism. For even if the person has not yet known what he received, being imperfect in faith and deficient in practice, God gave what is perfect. For it says, “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” This perfect gift one does not find simply or by chance, even if he brings in all worldly understanding, but only through the practice of God's commandments, and that in proportion; for according to the difference of the practice, the gift too is revealed to us differently. Let no one, then, commend himself by words and appearances, not having that understanding. For it says, “Not the one who commends himself is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.” And even the one who receives commendation from the Lord ought to have a right mind and know exactly that however much one has struggled against his own unbelief, advanced in faith, and laid hold of some good, not by bare knowledge only but in act, he has found nothing more, nor will be able to find, than what he had received beforehand mystically through baptism, which is Christ. “For as many of you,” it says, “as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” And Christ, being perfect God, has given the baptized the grace of the Spirit perfect; it receives no addition from us, but is revealed and manifests itself to us in proportion to the practice of the commandments, and gives us increase of faith, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Whatever, then, we offer him after being reborn was already hidden in us from him, as it is written: “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, that it should be repaid to him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Since formerly you were very concerned for your salvation and had much care about the life according to God, you conferred with us, telling us your own situation: with what labours and burning zeal you meant to cleave to the Lord through a strict way of life and self-control and every other hardship, struggling with much vigil and intense prayer; and you lamented that the wars and torments of the fleshly passions, fanned into flame in the bodily nature and rising up against the soul from the law of sin that wars against the law of our mind, troubled you excessively, especially the passions of anger and desire. And you asked for a method and words of counsel, by what labours and struggles you might be able to rise above these destructive passions. At that time we counselled your love face to face as far as we could, suggesting thoughts and attitudes beneficial to the soul, and showing by what labours and ascetic efforts, with understanding and enlightened knowledge, a soul living rationally according to the Gospel, helped by grace through faith, can overcome the evils that teem within the heart, especially the passions mentioned. For against the passions toward which the soul has been more inclined through prepossession and habit, by which it is troubled more and carried away more swiftly, it ought to take up a more earnest and unceasing struggle, until it subjects the fleshly and irrational workings of evil, to which it was formerly subject and by which it was carried away, and by the constant pretence and evil rehearsal of thoughts, through inner consent to them, was led away captive. Since, then, we are separated from you in body, not in heart, having come into the desert to the true workers and athletes of Christ, so that we too, struggling however little and contending together with the brothers who contend against the opposing powers and nobly resist the passions, may put away sloth, cast negligence from us, and take up all zeal and care, hastening to please God: for this reason I was eager to write to your sincerity a little counsel and admonition beneficial to the soul, so that by reading carefully, in a few words in this modest letter of counsel, what I told you face to face, you may reap spiritual benefit as though we were present.

The beginning of your benefit according to God, my child, you should make from this. Without forgetting and with constant remembrance, in unceasing meditation, you must reckon up all the dispensations and benefits of the God who loves humankind that have come to you for the salvation of your soul, and not, covered by the forgetfulness of evil because of sloth, in failure to remember his many great benefits, pass the rest of your time without profit or gratitude. For such unceasing remembrances, pricking the heart like a goad, always move it to confession, to humility, to thanksgiving with a contrite soul, to every good zeal, and to repayment by good ways and character and every virtue according to God, ever meditating with a good conscience on the prophetic saying, “What shall we repay to the Lord for all that he has repaid us?” For when a soul reckons up the benefits of the God who loves humankind from its birth, or from how many dangers it was often rescued, or how, having fallen into many evils and often into offences, it was not handed over when it slipped, by just judgment, to the deceiving spirits for destruction and death; but the Master who loves humankind patiently overlooked its offences and preserved it, waiting for its return; and though it had voluntarily served the enemies and evil spirits through the passions, he himself nourished it, sheltering and providing in every way, and at last led it by his good Spirit to salvation; and put love of the ascetic life in its heart, and strengthened it to leave with joy the world and all its deceit of fleshly pleasures, and adorned it with the angelic habit of the angelic order, and arranged for it to be readily received by the holy fathers into the company of a brotherhood: who, having a good conscience and reckoning these things, will not always remain in a contrite heart, having so many pledges of benefits received beforehand, without having first done any good himself? Will he not always take firm hope, reckoning this: if, when I had done no good but had sinned much before him, caught in impurity of the flesh and many other vices, he did not deal with me according to my sins nor repay me according to my iniquities, but arranged so many gifts and graces for my salvation, then if we give ourselves wholly to serve him from now on in all pure conduct and the achievement of all virtues, he will count us worthy of good and spiritual gifts, prospering and strengthening us for every good work? Therefore whoever always keeps such a thought and does not forget such benefits shames himself, sets himself right, and urges himself to every good exercise of virtue and every work of righteousness, always eagerly and always ready to do the will of God.

Therefore, beloved child, having by God's grace natural understanding, always keep this good converse and meditation in yourself, not covered by destructive forgetfulness, nor hindered by sloth, which makes the mind vain and turns it from life; not darkened in your thought by ignorance, the cause of all evils, nor enticed by all-evil negligence, nor carried away by the pleasure of the flesh, nor having your mind taken captive by desire and producing defilement in it by consent to thoughts of sexual immorality; nor overcome by anger, which gives birth to hatred of one's brother, grieving and being grieved for some pitiful and wretched pretext, and storing up memories of evil thoughts against your neighbour, shut out from pure prayer to God, your mind enslaved, eyeing your like-minded brother with a beastly thought, bound in conscience by the irrational manner of the fleshly mind, and handed over for a time for discipline to the evil spirits to which you submitted; until the mind, at a loss on every side, swallowed up by grief and sloth, and having lost its progress according to God for the reasons mentioned, begins again with much humility to take hold of the beginning of the road of salvation; and after labouring much in prayers and all-night vigils, having loosed the causes through humility and confession to God, so begins again to become sober; and, illumined by divine grace through the enlightenment of evangelical knowledge, knows that whoever does not give himself wholly to the cross in a humble mind, casting himself down to be trampled and despised by all, wronged, laughed at and mocked, enduring all this with joy for the Lord's sake, and not defending at all human things, glory or honour or praise, or the pleasure of food or drink or clothing, cannot become a true Christian.

Since such struggles, contests, and crowns are not yet before us, we serve the Lord until now under an assumed form of piety, thought to be one thing by people and known and shown to be another in secret. Thought holy by many, we are truly still savage in character, having a form of godliness but not having its power before God; thought virgins and pure by many, before him who observes hidden things we are defiled within by the impurities of consent to thoughts of sexual immorality, wallowing in the mire of the workings of the passions; and because of our assumed asceticism we are also puffed up by people's praises and blinded in mind. How long, then, shall we walk in the vanity of the mind, not laying hold of the evangelical mind, and not recognizing the way of life according to conscience, so that we may pursue it earnestly and find the boldness that comes from conscience; but still rely on the supposed righteousness of the outward man, and through lack of true knowledge deceive ourselves by outward practices only, wishing to please people and hunting glory, honours, and praises from them? He will surely come who reveals the hidden things of darkness and makes manifest the counsels of hearts, the judge who cannot be deceived, who neither respects the rich nor pities the poor, who strips off the outward form and makes manifest the truth hidden within; who crowns those who lived according to conscience, true contestants and athletes, in the presence of angels before his own Father; and who will put to grievous shame, triumphing over them before the high calling of the saints and all the heavenly host, those who assumed a form and clothed themselves with a form of godliness, displaying to people only an apparent way of life, relying on it in vain and deceiving themselves; and he condemns them to the outer darkness like the foolish virgins. They kept the outward virginity of the body (for they were not accused of anything about that), and even had some oil in their vessels, that is, they shared in some virtues and achievements; that is why their lamps burned for a while. But through negligence, ignorance, and sloth they took no thought for inner purity; and the swarm of passions hidden within, worked by evil thoughts and spirits, they did not recognize accurately, but their thoughts were corrupted by the opposing powers, as they moved themselves in consent to the thoughts, secretly enticed and overcome by the worst envy, by jealousy that hates the good, by strife, hatred, contentiousness, anger, bitterness, hypocrisy, wrath, pride, vainglory, the wish to please people, love of money, fleshly desire that works indulgence in thoughts, unbelief, fearlessness, cowardice, listlessness, grief, contradiction, slackness, sleep, conceit, self-righteousness, elation, boastfulness, insatiability, prodigality, greed, despair, the most grievous of all, and the other most subtle workings of evil. They too were thought by people to do good works and a dignified way of life, reaping their praises; and even if they shared in some gifts, they bartered the divine gifts to the spirits of vainglory and people-pleasing, and sharing in the other passions they mixed good practices with evil and fleshly attitudes; so they made them unacceptable and unclean, like Cain's sacrifice. That is why they met such an end: deprived of the joy of the bridegroom and shut out of the heavenly bridal chamber.

Reckoning and discerning these things, then, let us know and understand who we are, so that, while we still have time for repentance and return, we may correct ourselves, so that our good works, being done purely, may be true and good, not mixed with a fleshly mind, lest they be rejected like a blemished sacrifice through lack of fear, negligence, and lack of true knowledge; lest we endure the labour of virginity and self-control, fasting, vigil, and hardship, and spend our days, and yet, because of the causes of the passions mentioned, the things that seem to us righteous deeds are found to be a blemished sacrifice and become unacceptable to the heavenly high priest Christ. Knowledge and understanding must therefore come first, child, for one who wishes to take up the cross and follow Christ, through unceasing searching within oneself in thought, much care for salvation, much striving toward God, understanding, and questioning of like-minded and kindred servants of God who are fighting the same fight, so that he may not walk in darkness in ignorance and travel without light and lamp. For whoever goes his own way without evangelical knowledge and guidance stumbles often, falls into many pits and snares of the devil, falls often, wanders much, meets many dangers, and does not know what end he will reach. For many have passed through many labours and much asceticism, and endured hardships and many toils as though for God; and their self-will, lack of discernment, and failure to seek the benefit of their neighbour made all those labours, pains, and toils fruitless.

You, then, beloved child, according to the beginning of this counsel, do not forget the benefits of the God who loves humankind that have come to you, carried away by forgetfulness and sloth; but setting before your eyes his benefits from the beginning of your birth until now, whether bodily or spiritual, meditate on them and ponder them, according to the saying, “And do not forget all his benefits,” so that they may easily and readily lead you to the love of God. The heart is moved to repay as far as it can: a strict life, a virtuous way of living, a reverent conscience, fitting speech, and to dedicate oneself wholly to God, shamed by the remembrance of so many good things that you have received from the good Master who loves humankind; so that, as of its own accord, through such remembrance of benefits, or rather with help from above working with you, your heart may be wounded with love and longing, because the wonders he did not do for others, with much judgment, in his own unspeakable love for humankind he did for you. Be zealous, then, to keep in unceasing remembrance all the good things that have come to you from God; and above all remember unceasingly that wonderful grace and benefit which he granted you when you were sailing with your mother from the holy places to Constantinople, as you told us, when that fearful and irresistible storm and great surge rose in the night, and all in the ship, with the sailors and your mother herself, perished in the deep; and by an unexpected and divine power you alone, with two others, were cast ashore and saved; and how it was arranged that you came to Ancyra and were taken in with fatherly affection by a free man, and joined in affection to the most devout child Epiphanius, so that you both might be guided by a holy man onto the road of salvation and be received by holy servants of God as true children.

For all these good things that have come to you from God, then, what worthy return have you to repay him who called your soul to eternal life? By right you ought no longer to live for yourself, but for him who died and rose for you, in all virtue of righteousness and every achievement of the commandments, always seeking what is the will of God, good, pleasing, and perfect, and pursuing it with all your strength. But subject your youth, child, to the word of God in the way the word itself requires: “Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your rational worship”; and cool and dry up all the moisture of fleshly desire through little food and little drink and all-night vigils, so that you too may say from the heart, “I have become like a wineskin in the frost; I have not forgotten your statutes”; and, recognizing that you are Christ's, crucify your own flesh with its passions and desires, according to the apostolic word, and put to death your members that are on the earth, not only the practice of sexual immorality but also the impurity worked in the flesh by the evil spirits. And the one who awaits the crown of true, undefiled, and complete virginity does not stop the struggle there; but following the apostolic teaching, he struggles to put to death even the alliance and movement of the passion itself. Nor even so is he satisfied, though he awaits with fervent love to make the evangelical word and spotless virginity dwell in his own body; but he prays that even the bare notion of desire in the soul's thought alone, arising without movement or working of bodily passion, in the mind being stirred up, may vanish. This can be achieved only through help from above and the power and supply of the Holy Spirit. If there are any counted worthy of this grace, this man who awaits the crown of pure and spotless virginity puts to death the members on the earth, wearing away the outward man by the intensity and perseverance of self-control, thinning him and filing him down and reducing him to a skeleton, so that through faith and struggles and the working of grace the inner man may be renewed, advancing day by day toward what is better, increasing in love, magnified in hope, adorned with meekness, ruled by the peace of Christ, led by kindness, gladdened by joy of spirit, guarded by goodness, encompassed by the fear of God, enlightened by understanding and knowledge, made radiant by wisdom, guided by humility. Renewed by these and similar virtues, the mind recognizes in itself the stamp of the God-like image, understands the spiritual and unspeakable beauty of the likeness to the Master, and lays hold of the wealth of self-taught and self-learned wisdom and of the inner law. Thin, then, child, your youthful flesh, and fatten your immortal soul with the things mentioned, and renew your mind with the virtues mentioned by the help of the Holy Spirit. For they say that youthful flesh fattened with various foods and drinks of wine is like a pig ready for slaughter. So the soul is slaughtered by the burning of the body's pleasures, and the mind is taken captive by the heat of evil desire, unable to resist the pleasures of the flesh; for an influx of blood produces an outflow of spirit. Above all, let youth not even smell the taking of wine, lest, kindled by a double fire, I mean the natural heat and that poured in from outside by wine-drinking, it drive away from itself the spiritual pleasure that comes with the pain of compunction, and produce confusion and burning in the heart. Rather, for the sake of spiritual desire, let youth not take its fill even of water; for a shortage of water contributes greatly to chastity. Test this in practice, and you will gain full assurance by experience itself. We do not lay this down or define it wishing to put a yoke of necessity on you, but we counsel and advise it lovingly as a good device and method that helps true virginity and strict chastity, leaving it to your free will as you wish.

Come now, let us also discuss briefly the irrational passion of anger, which lays waste every soul, confounds and darkens it, and makes a person like the beasts at the time of its movement and working, especially one who slips easily and quickly into this passion. It is above all supported and strengthened by pride, and becomes indestructible, as long as the devilish tree, I mean of bitterness, anger, and wrath, is watered from below by the foul water of pride; and blossoming and flourishing it bears much fruit of lawlessness; and so the building of the Evil One in the soul becomes indestructible, having the support and strength of this foundation of pride. If, then, you wish the tree of lawlessness, I mean the passion of bitterness, anger, and wrath, to be dried up in you and become fruitless, so that the axe of the Spirit may come and cut it down and throw it into the fire, according to the word of the Gospel, and root it out with all wickedness; and if you wish the house of lawlessness, which the Evil One cunningly builds in the soul each time, gathering various pretexts, reasonable or unreasonable, like stones, through the material of deeds or words in the thoughts, building a structure of evil in the soul and laying down the thoughts of pride as its support and strength: if, then, you wish their house to be pulled down and razed, keep the humility of the Lord unforgotten in your heart: who he is and what he became for us; from what height of the light of a Godhead revealed, as far as they can bear it, to the beings above, and glorified in heaven by every rational nature, angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, cherubim and seraphim, and the unnamed spiritual powers whose names have not reached us, according to the apostle's riddle; to what depth of human humility he came down through his unspeakable goodness, made like us in all things, us who sat in darkness and the shadow of death and were ruled by the enemy through the working of the passions.

When we were in such captivity, then, and ruled by the invisible and evil death, the Master of all creation visible and invisible was not ashamed, but humbled himself and took up the human being condemned under the passions of dishonour and the Master's sentence, and became like us in all things without sin, that is, without the passions of dishonour. For the penalties brought upon man by the Master's voice because of the sin of the transgression, death, toil, hunger, thirst, and all such things, he took up, becoming what we are so that we might become what he is. The Word became flesh, so that flesh might become Word. Being rich, he became poor for our sake, so that we by his poverty might become rich. He was made like us through his love for humankind, so that through every virtue we might be made like him. For from the time Christ came among us, the new man, according to the image and likeness, is truly renewed through the grace and power of the Spirit, reaching the measure of perfect love which casts out fear, which can no longer fall. For “love never falls.” “For love,” says John, “is God; and whoever abides in love abides in God.” The apostles were counted worthy of this measure, and those who practised virtue as they did, presented themselves perfect to the Lord, and followed the Saviour with perfect longing all their life. If you always reckon without forgetting the great humility which Christ took up through his love for us and his unspeakable love for humankind, that is, the dwelling of God the Word in the womb, the assumption of man, birth from a woman, growth step by step in bodily age, the dishonours, the insults, the reproaches, the abuse, the scourges, the spitting, the blows on the cheek, the mockery, the derision, the scarlet cloak, the crown of thorns, the sentence of the rulers against him, the outcry against him of the lawless Jews, who were of his own race, “Away, away, crucify him,” the cross, the nails, the spear, the reed, the drink of vinegar and gall, the triumph of his enemies, the mockery of those who passed by, saying, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe you,” and the rest of the sufferings he endured for us, the crucifixion, the death, the three-day burial in the tomb, the descent into Hades; and then the fruits of the sufferings, what and how great they are, that is, the resurrection from the dead, the despoiling of Hades and of death, of the souls who came up with the Lord, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand of the Father, the honour and glory above every principality and power and every name that is named, the worship of the firstborn from the dead by all the angels, because of his sufferings, according to the apostle's word which says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” See to what glory and height the causes mentioned, according to God's just judgment, raised the Lord's humanity.

What then? If with longing and an unforgetting disposition you keep these remembrances in your heart, the passion of anger, bitterness, and wrath will not master you; for when the foundations of the passion of pride have been overcome through the humility of Christ, which you reckon up, the whole building of lawlessness, of wrath and anger, is easily and of itself pulled down. For what hard and stony heart, if it keeps continually in mind the great humbling of the Godhead of the Only-begotten for us and the remembrance of the sufferings listed, is not broken? Does it not willingly become earth and ashes and something trampled by all? And when the soul is so humbled and broken, looking to the humility of the Lord, what wrath will be able to overpower it? What anger, what bitterness, to prevail? But, it seems, forgetfulness of these beneficial and life-giving thoughts, its sister sloth, and ignorance, their fellow worker and of the same character, cover and darken the soul with terrible curiosity, they being the deeper and more inward passions of the soul, hard to find and hard to correct; and they prepare the other passions of evil to work and lurk in it, producing fearlessness and neglect of evils and giving each passion a road and a working fearlessly and easily. For when the soul is covered by all-evil forgetfulness, destructive sloth, and ignorance, the mother and nurse of all evils, the wretched and blinded mind easily binds itself to each thing seen, thought, or heard. For example, if it sees a woman's beauty, it is at once wounded by fleshly desire; and so the memories of things beheld with passion and pleasure, taking over, repaint the images within through the imprinting of thoughts and evil rehearsal; and so they defile the mind, still passionate and wretched, through the working of the evil spirits.

Then the flesh too, if it is fat and youthful or rather moist, is readily stirred by such memories, and works out in passion what is in them, being moved to desire, or sometimes producing impurities in sleep or while awake. For even if he has had no outward relations with a woman, and is reckoned by people chaste, virgin, and pure, or even has the reputation of a saint, before him who sees hidden things he is judged profane, an adulterer, and dissolute; and he is justly condemned on that day, unless he laments and mourns, wasting his flesh with fasts, vigils, and prayers without ceasing, and healing and correcting his mind with holy remembrances and meditations on the word of God, and offers worthy repentance to God, before whom he thought or did these evils. For the living voice is not false, which said, “But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That is why it helps the young especially not to meet women at all, if possible, even if they are thought holy. And if it is possible also to live away from people, the war is lighter and he recognizes it more clearly, especially if he attends to himself closely, struggling to spend his life in prayer with little food, little water to drink, and much vigil, and especially eager to live with, be with, and be guided by spiritual fathers who have experience. For it is dangerous to live alone, by one's own rule, without witnesses, or with people inexperienced in the spiritual war; for such are caught by other ways of warfare, since the devices of evil and hidden ambushes are many, and various snares of the enemy have been fixed on every side. That is why one must be eager and strive to be with, or constantly meet, men of knowledge; so that even if he does not himself have the lamp of true knowledge, because he is still immature and a child in spiritual age, travelling with one who has it he does not walk in darkness, is not in danger of nooses and snares, and does not fall among the spiritual beasts that roam in the darkness and seize and destroy those who walk in it without the spiritual lamp of the divine word.

If, then, child, you wish to acquire within your own lamp of the spiritual light of spiritual knowledge, so that you may be able to walk without stumbling in the deepest night of this age, and your steps may be directed by the Lord, so that you may greatly delight in the way of the Gospel, according to the prophetic saying, that is, cling with ardent faith to the more perfect commands of the Gospel and become a sharer in the Lord's sufferings by desire and prayer, I show you a wonderful and lasting method, of a spiritual kind, needing not bodily labour or struggle but requiring longing of soul and an attentive mind, wrought together with the fear and love of God; by this device you will be able easily to rout the battle line of the enemies, like blessed David, who killed the one giant of the foreigners by faith and trust in God, and so with his own people easily routed the tens of thousands of the enemy. According to the subject of our discourse, he sees three mighty and strong giants of the foreigners, on whom the whole power of the spiritual, destructive adversary rests; when they are overthrown, the whole power of the evil spirits will easily weaken to destruction. The mighty giants of the Evil One, as they are called, are ignorance, mentioned already, the mother of all evils; forgetfulness, its sister, fellow worker, and helper; and sloth, which weaves in the soul the dark garment and veil of the black cloud, which supports and strengthens both and gives them consistency, working lasting evil in the most negligent soul. For by sloth, forgetfulness, and ignorance the supports of the other passions are strengthened and magnified. Being helpers of one another and unable to stand without one another, they prove to be strong powers of the adversary and the mighty rulers of the Evil One, through whom the whole army of the spirits of wickedness is sustained and supported and is able to carry out its designs; without them the things mentioned cannot stand.

If, then, you wish to win the victory over the passions mentioned and easily rout the battle line of the spiritual foreigners, entering into yourself through prayer and God's help, and going down into the depths of the heart, track down these three mighty giants of the devil, I mean forgetfulness, sloth, and ignorance, the support of the spiritual foreigners, from which the other passions of evil, sustained, work, live, and are strong in the souls of the pleasure-loving and vainglorious. And having found, through much attention and watchfulness of mind with help from above, the evils unknown to most, which are more destructive than the rest, put on, through the weapons of righteousness that are their opposites, I mean good remembrance, the cause of all good things; enlightened knowledge, through which the soul, awakening, drives the darkness of ignorance from itself; and the best eagerness, which prepares and leads the soul to salvation: put on the weapons of virtue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and through all prayer and supplication you will nobly and manfully overcome the three giants of the spiritual foreigners. Through the best good remembrance according to God, reckoning “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise,” you drive away all-evil forgetfulness from yourself; through enlightened and heavenly knowledge you make the destructive ignorance of darkness vanish; through the all-virtuous and most beautiful eagerness you drive out sloth, which is godless and works evils in the soul. Acquire these virtues not by bare choice alone, but by the power of God and the help of the Holy Spirit, in much attention and earnest prayer. So you will be able to be rescued from the strong giants of the Evil One. For by the harmony of true knowledge, remembrance of the word of God, and good eagerness, established in the soul through active grace, earnestly sought and carefully guarded, every trace of forgetfulness, ignorance, and sloth vanishes from it and passes into non-existence, while grace reigns in it, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might for ever. Amen. Reply from Nicolas to Mark the Ascetic. Grace, thanks be to God, thanks for his unsurpassable and indescribable gift, that he has shown his love for humankind to a soul held in terrible passions and still wholly estranged, and has visited it through the compassionate choice wholly dedicated to God, I mean your holy soul, virtuous and joined to God, through which a flashing spark full of divine light was sent to me, and a hook with spiritual bait; and from the lampstand of words born by labour and longing from a thought united to God it drew my wretched soul out of the gloomiest darkness and storm, and the excellent Master made my mind look up through the three giants made known to me. For truly they are great and savage giants, never ceasing to war against the human race. Whom on earth do they hold so savagely and terribly as me, who am still wretchedly mastered by them by my own will? But he who never takes pleasure in the destruction of the living has had mercy and shown the patience and compassion of his love for humankind, and stirred that godly thought, and woke my choice that lay in deepest sleep, and showed and revealed to me the giants mentioned. I mean first forgetfulness, which cast Adam out of paradise. For if he had not forgotten the Master's command, he would not have fallen from such glory; and sloth, through which, being slothful, he listened to his wife; and ignorance, through which he did not know who he was and what he had. These three spirits the Lord Jesus has made plain to me through the Holy Spirit who dwells in you. For he truly sent a two-edged sword, which is the word of God, and divided my mind in great calm. And not only this, but he also put into my choice a certain spiritual sweetness, as of your words. With how many mouths and how many tongues could I worthily thank the true God and Master for the benefits recalled to me by you? Or again for the good method and compassion of the letter's words, which rouse one to seek the truth and keep God's commandments, and give much benefit to one who wishes to walk the way of the Lord that leads to eternal life? Not only to me did such benefit come through your discourse, but all who heard it had their minds greatly brightened and reaped much benefit from the words so clearly spoken. Indeed the words were confirmed as deeds, and the discourse was not heard as words but as a work set plainly before our eyes. For at once the discourse put much watchfulness into our choices. And since the discourse was active, it did not remain idle, but at once sprouted ears and showed ripe fruit; and not only this, but it became insatiable, as God knows: however often I read it, my wretched soul is not sated. By the intercession of your holiness, then, may this gift be lasting, so that the heavenly spark may remain in me, and I may wholly destroy the giants mentioned to the end, lest I ever forget and, by betrayal of my free choice, throw myself into the evils mentioned and become food for the enemies. But I believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells in you, that through your holiness and those who struggle like you he will not overlook me, nor hand me over to the mouths of the giants mentioned, but will always, through his holy servants, remind me of his way and make it known to me, wretched as I am, by your holy prayers. I beg, then, and beseech your compassionate and holy soul, do not condemn me for this, that I made bold to write a letter in reply to your holiness; but since I saw your fatherly heart opened, even by a poor letter I beg and pray to be remembered at every hour, so that through your holiness I too may be rescued from my evils and find a good outcome by the grace of Christ our God, with whom be honour and might to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

One who is only a believer according to the Gospel moves the mountain of his own wickedness by faith, thrusting away from himself, by its unstable revolving, his former disposition toward it in sense. One who is able to be a disciple, receiving from the Word in his hands the fragments of the loaves of knowledge, feeds thousands, showing in practice the power of the Word multiplied. And one who has become strong enough to be an apostle heals every disease and every sickness, casting out demons, that is, putting to flight the working of the passions; healing the sick, bringing back through hope to a habit of godliness those deprived of it, and bracing with the word of faith those made weak by sloth. For, commanded to tread on serpents and scorpions, he makes the beginning and the end of sin vanish.

The sabbath of sabbaths is the spiritual rest of the rational soul, which has withdrawn the mind even from all the more divine principles in beings, has clothed itself wholly with God alone in loving ecstasy, and has made itself altogether unmoved from God through mystical theology.

The harvest of harvests is the understanding of God, wholly inaccessible, formed unknowably in the mind according to the mystical contemplation of spiritual things; it is fittingly offered by one who worthily honours the Creator from creatures visible and invisible.

Whoever keeps the sixth day in the way of the Gospel, having first killed the first movements of sin, reaches through the virtues the state of dispassion empty of all evil, keeping sabbath in mind even from the bare imagination of the passions. And whoever has crossed the Jordan is transferred into the land of knowledge, in which the mind, built up mystically by peace, becomes a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Whoever has completed the sixth day for himself in a godly way with fitting works and thoughts, and has himself, with God, finished his own works well, has passed in understanding through all existence subject to nature and time, and has been transferred to the mystical contemplation of the ages and eternal things, keeping sabbath unknowably in mind, by leaving and transcending all beings entirely. And if he is also counted worthy of the eighth day, he has risen from the dead (I mean from all things after God, sensible and intelligible, and from words) and from thoughts, and has lived the blessed life of God (who alone in truth is properly both called and is life), as one who has himself become God by deification.

All visible things need a cross, the habit that checks the attachment of those who act upon them by sense; all intelligible things need a burial, the complete stillness of those who act upon them by the mind. For when, together with the attachment, all natural activity and movement toward all things is taken away, the Word, existing alone by himself as though risen from the dead, appears beyond all things that have their bound from him, nothing at all having kinship with him by natural relation; for the salvation of those who are saved is by grace and not by nature.

Until we have passed purely in thought beyond the habit of our own being and that of all things after God, we have not yet received unchangeableness in virtue. But when this dignity is achieved by us through love, then we shall know the power of the divine promise. For we must believe that the worthy are established immovably there where the mind has first rooted its own power through love. For whoever has not gone out of himself and of all that can in any way be thought, and come to rest in the silence beyond thought, cannot be free of all change.

Every act of thought certainly shows a plurality, or at least a duality. For it is a relation between certain extremes, joining them to each other: what thinks and what is thought. Neither of them can by nature keep simplicity throughout. For what thinks is a subject, having with it the power of thinking; or it is related to the substance of which it is the power. For none of the beings at all, by itself, is a simple substance or thought, so as to be an indivisible unity. But God, whether we call him substance, does not have by nature the power of thinking conceived together with him, lest he be composite; or whether thought, he does not have by nature a substance underlying and receptive of thought. But God himself is in substance thought, and wholly thought, and only thought, and wholly beyond substance, and wholly beyond thought; because he is an indivisible, partless, and simple unity. So whoever has thought in any way has not yet left duality; but whoever has wholly abandoned it has come in some measure into the unity, having laid aside, in a surpassing way, the power of thinking.

In the many there is otherness, unlikeness, and difference; but in God, who is properly one and alone, one must also be outside these, and outside the many, to approach the contemplations of God. Moses shows this, pitching the tent of his thought outside the camp, and then conversing with God. For to try to speak of the unspeakable with spoken word is dangerous, because spoken word is a duality and more; but to contemplate Being with the soul alone, without voice, is stronger, because it stands in the indivisible unity and not among the many. For the high priest, commanded to enter the holy of holies within the veil scarcely once a year, teaches that only he who has passed through the court and the holy place and come within the holy of holies, that is, has passed beyond the whole nature of sensible and intelligible things and become pure of every property of becoming, may approach the appearances of God with a mind unclothed and naked.

The great Moses, pitching his own tent outside the camp, that is, setting his will and thought outside visible things, begins to worship God; and entering the darkness, the formless and immaterial place of knowledge, he remains there, being initiated into the most sacred rites.

Whoever fulfils the law through his life and conduct rests only from the outcomes of evil, sacrificing to God the irrational working of the passions; and he is content with this way for salvation, because of his spiritual childhood.

Whoever genuinely embraces the evangelical life has cut off from himself both the beginning and the end of evil, and pursues every virtue in deed and word, offering a sacrifice of praise and confession, freed from all the trouble of the passions' workings, free of the mind's battle against it, and having only the insatiable pleasure that nourishes the soul in hope of the good things to come.

The fear of hell prepares beginners to flee evil; longing for the reward of good things gives those advancing eagerness to do good; but the mystery of love lifts the mind above all created things, making it blind to all things after God. For the Lord makes wise only those who have become blind to all things after God, showing them more divine things.

Whoever desires knowledge should fix the foundations of his soul immovably beside the Lord, as God says to Moses, “But you, stand here with me.” We must know that among those who stand beside the Lord there is also a difference, if that saying is read with care by lovers of learning: “There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” For the Lord does not always appear in glory to all who stand beside him; to beginners he comes in the form of a servant, but to those able to follow him as he goes up the high mountain of his transfiguration he appears in the form of God, in which he existed before the world was. So it is possible for the same Lord to appear at the same time to all who are near him, but to some in one way and to others in another, according to the measure of faith in each, clearly varying the vision.

“The sun rises, and the sun sets,” says Scripture. So also the Word is thought sometimes above and sometimes below, clearly according to the worth, and the very principle or manner, of those who pursue virtue and are moved toward divine knowledge. Blessed is he who, like Joshua son of Nun, keeps within himself the Sun of righteousness unsetting through the whole measure of the day of this present life, not bounded by the evening of evil and ignorance, so that he may lawfully rout the evil demons who rise against him. [16] Whoever pursues the philosophy of godliness and is drawn up against the invisible powers should pray that his natural discernment may remain with him, having proportionate light, and the enlightening grace of the Spirit. For the first trains the flesh toward virtue through practice; the second enlightens the mind to prefer above all things living with wisdom, by which it pulls down the strongholds of evil and every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God. Joshua son of Nun shows this when he asks in prayer that the sun stand still over Gibeon, that is, that the light of the knowledge of God be kept unsetting over the mountain of contemplation in the mind; and the moon over the valley, that is, that natural discernment, set over the weakness of the flesh, may remain unchanged from virtue.

Those who, for fear of the Jews, sat in Galilee in the upper room with the doors shut, that is, those who, for fear of the spirits of wickedness, have set themselves securely in the land of revelations, on the height of divine contemplations, closing their senses like doors, receive the Word of God coming to them unknowably, appearing to them without the working of the senses, giving dispassion through peace and distributions of the Holy Spirit through his breathing on them, granting authority against evil spirits, and showing the symbols of his mysteries.

The land of the Chaldeans is the life of passion, in which the idols of sins are made and worshipped; the land between the rivers is the life that wavers between opposite ways; the land of promise is the state filled with every good. Everyone, then, who falls from this habit, like Israel of old, is dragged down again to slavery to the passions, deprived of the freedom given him.

Note that none of the saints is seen to have gone down into Babylonia of his own accord; for it is not right, nor of rational understanding, for those who love God to choose the worse instead of the good. And if some of them were carried off there by force with the people, we understand by them those who, not by preference but by circumstance of salvation, for the sake of those needing guidance, left the higher word of knowledge and took up teaching about the passions. In this sense the great apostle too judged it more profitable to remain in the flesh, that is, in moral teaching, for his disciples' sake, while having his whole longing to depart from moral teaching and be with Christ through simple contemplation in the mind beyond the world.

He is away from the flesh who has passed from the practical to the contemplative habit, caught up like the clouds by higher thoughts into the transparent air of mystical contemplation, so that he can be with the Lord. He is always away from the Lord who cannot yet behold thoughts with a pure mind, as far as is possible, without the workings of sense, and who does not grasp the simple word about the Lord without riddles.

How, while we see the Word of God variously embodied through riddles in holy Scripture, have we not yet spiritually beheld the bodiless, simple, unitary, and only Father, as in the bodiless, unitary, and only Son, according to the saying, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; I am in the Father and the Father in me”? Many therefore need knowledge, so that, first passing through the veils of words around the Word, they may behold him standing naked to the pure mind, who shows the Father to people. Therefore one who seeks God piously must not be held by any letter, lest he unknowingly take the things about God instead of God, that is, loving the words of Scripture dangerously instead of the Word, while the Word escapes the mind that thinks it holds the bodiless Word by his garments; like the Egyptian woman who laid hold not of Joseph but of his clothes; and like the people of old, who, remaining in the mere beauty of visible things, unknowingly worshipped the creation instead of the Creator.

When the mind thrusts away the many opinions about the principles of truth that lie upon it, then the principle of truth appears clear to it, giving it the counsels of true knowledge and thrusting away its former prepossessions like scales from the powers of sight, as with the divine and great apostle Paul. For truly scales lie upon the soul's power of insight and prevent its passage to the pure principle of truth: assumptions about the letter of Scripture alone and passionate sense-perceptions of visible things.

Whoever has nobly wrestled down the passions of the body, fought sufficiently against the unclean spirits, and driven their thoughts out of the land of his soul, should pray that a clean heart may be given him and a right spirit renewed within him; that is, that he may be completely emptied of base thoughts and filled with divine thoughts through grace, so that he may become a spiritual world of God, bright and great, made up of moral, natural, and theological contemplations.

A clean heart is one that has presented its memory to God wholly without form or shape, ready to be stamped only by his impressions, through which he is by nature made manifest.

Some lovers of learning ask in what way the difference of the eternal dwellings and promises will be: whether by local situation, or by conception of the spiritual quality and quantity proper to each dwelling. Some think the first, others the second. But whoever knows what “the kingdom of God is within us” means, and what “there are many dwellings with the Father” means, will side with the second.

Whoever has conquered by divine longing the soul's attachment to the body has become unbounded, even though he is in the body. For God, who draws the desire of the one who longs, is incomparably higher than all, not allowing the one who longs to fix his desire on anything after God. Let us then long for God with all the strength of our desire, make our choice unmastered by all bodily things, become in disposition above all things sensible and intelligible, and we shall suffer no loss at all from natural life in our resolve to be with God, who is by nature unbounded. Question. Does a person always enter into those states? Answer. Grace is unceasingly present, rooted and leavened in him from youth, and has become as something natural and fixed, dwelling with the person, grace being one. But it governs in many ways, as it wills, for the person's good: sometimes the fire burns more and is kindled, sometimes more gently and softly. The light itself at times is kindled more and shines; at times it draws back and grows dim. Yet the lamp is always burning and shining; when it is made bright, it is found more in participation in the love of God, giving light; yet when the light is present it is dimmer. Moreover, the sign of the cross appeared to some through light and was fixed in the inner man. At another time, in prayer, a man was as if in ecstasy, and found himself standing at the altar in a church, and three loaves were offered to him, as though leavened with oil; and the more he ate, the more they grew and increased. At another time it was like a garment of light, such as is not on earth in this age, nor can be made by human hands. As when the Lord went up the mountain with John and Peter and was transfigured, and his garments flashed like lightning, so was that garment; and the man clothed in it was amazed. At another time, shining unceasingly in the heart, it opened the inner, deeper, and hidden light: the new world of light with the Lord, praising and glorifying, so that the whole man, swallowed up in that sweetness and contemplation, no longer had himself, but was as a fool and a barbarian to this world, because of the surpassing love and its character and the hidden mysteries; so that at that time the man, set free, reached the perfect measures and was pure from sin. But afterward grace drew back, and the veil of the opposing power came. It appears in part, and he stood at one step below perfection. As if, to put it so, one must pass twelve steps to reach perfection; and at some time he succeeded in reaching that measure and entered perfection. Again grace gives way, and he comes down one step and stands at the eleventh. But if someone is rich in grace, he always, night and day, stands in the perfect measures, free and pure, always captivated and raised up. And now, as was shown, if those wonders that the man experienced were always present to him, he could not take up the ministry of the word or its burden, nor bear to hear anything or to take the least thought for himself or for tomorrow, but only lie in a corner, raised up and intoxicated. So the perfect measure was not given, so that he might be free for the care of the brothers in the ministry of the word. Again the dividing wall of the fence has been broken down. Things are like this: a dark power lies upon him; it covers like a light, thin air, although the lamp is always burning and shining; as if a veil lay over that light. Hence such a person confesses that he is not perfect, nor wholly free from sin; so that one may say he is both free and not free; the dividing wall of the fence has been broken and shattered, and again in something it has not been wholly broken. Nor was prayer always equal. There is a time when it kindles more, consoles, and gives rest; there is a time when it draws back and grows dim, as grace itself arranges for the person's good. Yet he has entered the perfect measure, tasting it at times and having experience of that age. But I have not yet seen any Christian perfect or free. Rather, one rests in grace and enters into mysteries and revelations and into much sweetness of grace, and sin is still present within. These, because of the surpassing grace and the light in them, think they are free and perfect, mistaken through inexperience, because they have the working of grace. But I have not yet seen anyone free, since I too have at times entered partly into that measure, and know how to learn what the perfect man is like. Question. Tell us, in what measures are you? Answer.

Since the sign of the cross, grace now works in this way: it brings peace to all the members, so that from much joy the soul seems like an innocent, simple child, and the person no longer condemns Greek or Jew or sinner, but the inner man sees all with a pure eye as one, rejoices alike over the whole world, and wishes to honour all, Greeks and Jews. At another hour, as a king's son, he is as confident toward the Son of God as toward a father; doors are opened to him, and he enters within into many dwellings; and the more he enters, again doors are opened to him in proportion, from a hundred dwellings into another hundred dwellings, and he grows rich. Again, other newer and more wonderful things are shown to him, and as to a son and heir things are entrusted to him that cannot be spoken by human nature, or by this mouth and tongue. At another hour, as an ambassador of God, from his great love toward him, he begins to pray for the world, that the whole world, the whole of Adam, may be saved; burning with love and wishing all to be saved, he teaches the word of life and the things of the kingdom, acting as ambassador for Christ and explaining, as far as can be heard, heavenly and divine mysteries of the infinite and incomprehensible age. At another hour the whole man is armed, clothed with the whole armour of God, takes up a heavenly campaign, and begins to cut down the camps of the enemies and make great slaughter there. At another hour it works in the soul, and the soul and the Lord rejoice with each other, and the person is in much light and joy, toward both the Lord and the brothers. Yet the lamp and the light burn night and day, and the whole is not changed, by God's ordering; the person is wholly pure, and yet almost not as he should be; yet the dividing wall has been broken through and death has been conquered. Sometimes the lamp burns more and is made brighter, so that the person cannot bear that brilliance and radiance, but is as one undone. Again, while the light is still kindled, it grows dim, as it were, and a thin, dark air lies upon it, as on the skin of the opposing power. That is why such a person says, “I am not wholly free.” To the Lord be glory for ever. Amen.

Fasting, vigil, and living as a stranger are good, but these are still part of a good way of life. The order of Christians is more inward than these, and one should not put one's confidence in them. It happens that some share in grace while evil is still within; it schemes and withdraws willingly, and does not work, but makes the person think that his mind has been cleansed; and then it brings him to the conceit that he is a perfect Christian. And afterward, when the person thinks, “I am free,” and is careless, then evil comes upon him like a robber, laying an ambush, tempts him, and brings him down to the lowest parts of the earth. For if men twenty years old, robbers or soldiers, know how to use stratagems against enemies, lie in wait, set ambushes, take the enemy from behind, surround them suddenly and kill them, how much more will evil, which is so many thousands of years old and has this as its work, know how to destroy souls? It knows how to lay an ambush in the heart, not working for a time, so as to bring the soul to the conceit of perfection. This is the foundation of the Christian: however many righteous deeds a person does, not to rest in them and think himself great, but to be poor in spirit; and if he becomes a sharer in grace, not to think he has attained anything, or suppose himself to be someone, and begin to teach. Rather, though he lives well, fasting much, living as a stranger, praying, sharing in grace, let him not consider his soul precious. Then above all is truly the beginning of grace: that he have the labour, the hunger and the thirst, that he not be sated, that he not consider himself righteous or rich in grace; but that he mourn and weep, as a mother who has an only son, brings him up, and when he becomes a man, he happens to die; and then… (The rest is missing.)

One of those skilled in legal speech asked an old ascetic, saying, “Please, persuade me, for I wish to know: with what thought do you monks say that one must not take wrongdoers to court? Or what do you have in hand that you abstain from visible works? We blame you greatly for these, as practising refusal to go to law against the laws, and idleness against nature. But if you show that you do this for the sake of philosophy, I too will necessarily give up my blame and emulate your virtue.” The ascetic, having first prayed in his mind, said: “You ought, most learned sir, to have asked these things and learned them from those who know well; for we are still among those being taught. But since you, the wise man, have come over to the unlettered, to be assured about what you said, listen. The monks have not chosen a way of thinking foreign to the church, but strive to hold the mind of Christ, according to the apostle who says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’ Know, then, that this is God-given, and the source of the great virtue, I mean humility. And the Lord commanded the church to do this work, saying, ‘Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life.’” The lawyer said, “Let us too know, please, what kind of work this is.” The ascetic said: “To seek through prayer the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which he said is within us; and to those who seek it he promised all bodily things. Having heard this from the Lord and believed it, we work as far as we can. How do you say we act outside nature? And if it seems to you against nature, know whom you blame: for it is God who gave the command. Likewise, not taking wrongdoers to court is a commandment of God. How do those who do this break the law, when God has said through the prophet, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’; and in the Gospels, ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged’; and the apostle, ‘Do not judge anything before the time’; and again, ‘Not avenging yourselves’; and again, ‘Who are you to judge another's servant?’ Who, then, has laid down laws more just than these, wishing to judge wrongdoers before the time as though sinless himself, accusing of lawlessness those who try to keep God's law, and calling forbearance wickedness?” [2] Hearing this, the scholar said, “Do rulers sin, then, when they punish wrongdoers and preserve justice for the wronged?” The old man answered: “The judges do not sin, but those who hand others over and do not leave them to God. First, everything that comes upon them is the consequence of their own evils, drawing them to repentance and not to revenge. Second, even if they suffered unjustly, they ought to have forgiven the wrongdoer whatever offence it was, having heard the Lord say, ‘Forgive, and you will be forgiven,’ and not make their own evils unforgivable through human repayment. Rulers, according to the apostle, are not a terror to good works but to evil. For they do not compel the faithful and devout to accuse wrongdoers, nor do they accuse the forbearing because they do not use the courts when wronged; but they give vengeance to those who want it. Those who are patient for God's sake they honour and accept as wiser. So, just as they do not drag in those who do not wish to appeal, so they do not sin in avenging those who accuse. Therefore, most wise sir, after the outward words and laws, you must now take up the spiritual law as well, accept the labours for godliness, and endure as your own the painful things that come; without these no one can truly become wise.” [3] When the scholar sought to learn what the labours for godliness are, the old man said they are the commandments of Christ, the first and greatest of which is love, since it does not reckon evil, but bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things, according to Scripture. “Doing these things, it cannot take to court the one who seems to wrong it. In this we differ from one another, but we all fall short of its worth. Awaiting from the grace of Christ the filling up of our deficiencies, let us not neglect working as far as we can. For God knows how much we cannot do through weakness and how much of the work of love we do not do through negligence. And since love is strengthened not only by chosen labours but also by afflictions that befall us, we need much patience and meekness from God. That is why the apostle says, ‘Whoever wishes to become wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.’ Such a person does not condemn those above him in the wishes of perfect love, but rather stretches himself toward their excellence; and when he reaches them, he again seeks others greater than himself, and finding them, competes with them too, and never ceases from the race until he finds some leading him in love. But if someone does not compare himself with those higher, but condemns them as imperfect, he condemns himself without knowing it. For it says, ‘Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.’ Hence those wise in words think that only the wrongdoers sin; but the spiritual, even when wronged, blame themselves when they do not bear the injustices with joy and of their own will; and not only for this, but because their afflictions spring from some old cause of their own, even if one sin is lighter than another. For whoever avenges himself seems to condemn God's lack of judgment; but whoever bears as his own the affliction that comes upon him confesses his own prepossession, for which he endures terrible things.” [4] The worldly man, indignant at the reproofs, said, “If your spiritual law commands these things, as you say, by God's decree, why do some of the monks fall, who hold this law?” The old man said: “Those who hold it do not fall, but those who abandon it and neglect its vital parts, I mean prayer and humility, stolen away by worldly care and vainglory. Hence the devil does not turn us away from thinking only of worldly things, but in order to lead us astray from prayer and humility; for he knows that what is done without these two, even if it is good, will sooner or later be taken from him. By prayer we mean not only what is shown through the flesh, but what is offered to God through undistracted thought. For if one of these is distracted untimely, the other does not stand alone before God either, but is carried along by one's own will.” The scholar asked, “Does the flesh have a will apart from the mind?” The ascetic answered: “It has, according to the apostle who says, ‘For we too were once disobedient, doing the wishes of the flesh’; and again, ‘The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.’ See, then, that it has both desire and will, which we do not know because of our inattention and consent to thoughts. Hence not only those who neglect prayer but also those who do not attend to their thought are harmed. We have said this not condemning others, but confessing our own deficiencies. For the first is a mark of pride, the second of humility. And ‘the Lord opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’; through it he leads us not only to the knowledge but also to the habit of the sacred virtue, I mean undistracted prayer, which blessed Paul, not wishing us to neglect it at all, speaks of: ‘Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.’ And at the same time he shows the mind's freedom from distraction, saying, ‘Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may prove what is the will of God, good, pleasing, and perfect.’ For since God laid down various commandments for our little faith and weakness, so that each according to his zeal might escape punishment and obtain salvation, for this reason the apostle guides us to God's perfect will, not wishing us to be judged at all. And knowing that prayer helps toward achieving all the commandments, he does not cease commanding about it in many parts and many ways, saying, ‘Praying at all times in the Spirit, and keeping alert to this with all perseverance and supplication.’” [5] “Hence we know that one prayer is more excellent than another. It is one thing to entreat God with an unwandering thought and an untroubled mind, and another to present the body while wandering in thought. Again, it is one thing to wait for an opportunity and pray when free after bodily occupations, and another to prefer prayer as far as possible and snatch it before worldly cares, according to the apostle who says, ‘The Lord is near. Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God.’ As blessed Peter also said, ‘Be sober, then, and watchful in prayers, casting all your care on God.’ But first the Lord himself, knowing that all things are fortified through prayer, says, ‘Do not be anxious what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear; but seek only the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.’ Perhaps by this the Lord also calls us to greater faith. For who, having cast off care for temporal things and become free of need, will not then believe him about eternal goods also? Hence he made this plain himself, saying, ‘Whoever is faithless in little is faithless also in much.’ Yet even in this he showed his love for humankind; for knowing that daily care of the flesh is unavoidable, he did not cut off daily concern, but allowing us today, he commands us not to be anxious about tomorrow, in a manner most worthy of God and most loving. For it is not possible for those who bear flesh and are human to disregard the things of bodily life altogether. Many things can be reduced to few through prayer and self-control, but they cannot be wholly overlooked.” [6] “Therefore one who wishes to attain to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, according to Scripture, ought not to prefer all ministries, or draw them to himself without necessity at random, nor push away and reject on the pretext of prayer those that meet him by some necessity and by God's ordering, but to recognize the difference and serve God's ordering without fixed rules. For whoever does not think so neither believes, according to Scripture, that one commandment is more excellent and comprehensive than another, nor wishes, according to the prophet, that all the commandments that meet him by God's ordering be set right. Since necessary things that meet us by God's ordering cannot be refused, we must refuse untimely occupations, preferring prayer, especially those that drag us down to extravagance and greed for money. For as much as one reduces these in the Lord and cuts off their superfluous material, so much does he also reduce his thought from wandering; and as much as he reduces his thought, so much does he give place to pure prayer and show sincere faith in Christ. And if someone cannot do this through little faith or some other weakness, let him at least recognize the truth and stretch forward as far as he can, blaming his own childishness. For it is better to give account for a lack than for error and conceit. Let the Lord's parable persuade you, which brings in one Pharisee and another tax collector. Therefore let us too try to beat off every worldly care through prayer and hope. And if we cannot achieve this without failing, let us offer God the confession of our deficiencies, but not give up our zeal for these things; for it is better to be accused of a partial lack than of complete concealment. Above all we owe it concerning prayer, since each one, busy with the need he loves, thinks he is carrying out the service he owes, not knowing that matters ought to be judged by God's good pleasure rather than his own. What is hard to discern in these things is that the same ministries are not always to be preferred, but one before another in its own time, since not every ministry is for all always, but is carried out in its own time. But the service of prayer has been laid down for us without ceasing; for this reason we ought to prefer it to the occupations of necessity. All the apostles taught this difference when the multitude wished to draw them away into service, saying, ‘It is not right that we should leave the word of God to serve tables. Choose out from among you seven men of good report, whom we may appoint over this need; but we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.’ And the saying pleased the whole multitude. If we learn from this that for those who cannot persevere in prayer it is good to be occupied with service, so that we may not fall from both, for those who can it is better not to neglect the better.” [7] Hearing this, the lawyer said, “How do the wise of the world, who neglect prayer, not fall, but guard themselves through philosophy?” The ascetic groaned and said: “You have said well that they do not fall. For having once fallen the extraordinary and double fall, I mean of conceit and negligence, they can neither rise without prayer nor have anywhere from which to fall. For what further care has the devil to wrestle with those who always lie down and never stand? Others there are who sometimes conquer and sometimes are conquered, fall and rise, afflict and are afflicted, wage war and are warred upon; and others who have remained in the first fall through great ignorance, not knowing that they have fallen, to whom the prophet speaks pitifully: ‘Does not he who falls rise again? Or does not he who turns away return?’ And again, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ But to those who do not wish to accept the labour of rising, to persevere in prayer, and to be afflicted for godliness for the sake of the kingdom to come, he says, ‘In your destruction, Israel, who will help you?’ It is not a wound, nor a bruise, nor an inflamed sore, nor any of the evils that happen against our will. This is the sin unto death, which is not healed even by the prayers of others. ‘For we would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed,’ because the disease is self-chosen, and there is no longer any salve to apply, nor oil, nor bandages, the helps from others. The divine Scripture utters these and such things to those who belittle prayer and limit it to hours and times out of necessity and weakness, while the Lord laid it down to be offered to the almighty God always, night and day, and the apostle, without ceasing.” [8] “See also how the Old Testament checks the one who trusts in himself and is elated by his own wisdom, saying, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not be lifted up by your own wisdom.’ These are not bare words, as some have thought, who for this reason acquired books, and knowing the force of what is written but doing none of it, are puffed up by bare ideas; and commending themselves through words and questions they win great praise from those inexperienced in wisdom; not touching diligent labour nor remembering the work, they bring on themselves much condemnation from God and from diligent and devout men. For having used the introductory knowledge of the Scriptures not for work but for display, they have been deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit's working. These are the ones who boast in appearance and not in heart. Hence those inexperienced in the work ought to take it up; for the things said by Scripture were said not that we might only understand them, but that we might also do them. Let us, then, begin the work; so, advancing in order, we shall find that not only hope in God, but also firm faith, unfeigned love, freedom from resentment, brotherly love, self-control, patience, inner knowledge, deliverance from temptations, gifts of graces, heartfelt confession, and constant tears come to the faithful through prayer. And not only these, but also patience in painful things that come, sincere forgiveness of one's neighbour, knowledge of the spiritual law, finding of God's righteousness, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the giving of spiritual treasures, and all that God promised to give to faithful people, both here and in the age to come. In a word, it is impossible for the soul to appear in the image of God except through the grace of God and the faith of a person who perseveres in his heart with much humility and undistracted prayer. How, then, do those deprived of so many such goods through ignorance and neglect of prayer say, ‘We have not fallen’? And they ascribe wisdom to themselves who do not even know their own downfall, pitiable for their fall, pitiable for their inexperience, gaining only this, that they make us believe Scripture the more, which says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; but the wisdom from God comes down from above from the Father of lights, and its proof is humility. Those, then, who wish to please people have received human wisdom instead of divine, and puffed up and boasting in it, they have deceived many of the simpler, persuading them to philosophize not in labours of godliness and prayer but in persuasive human wisdom and words; which the apostle constantly blames and calls an emptying of the cross. For he says in the Letter to the Corinthians, ‘Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be emptied’; and again, ‘God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and the low things of the world and the despised God chose, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh might boast before God.’ If, then, God is well pleased not with the words of Greek wisdom but with the labours of prayer and humility, as has been shown, why are they vain in mind, abandoning the first way of godliness as hard to achieve, not wishing to be saved by the second or even the third, and deceiving the simpler?” [9] When the scholar wished to learn what the ways of godliness are, the ascetic answered: “The first is not to sin; the second, for one who has sinned, to endure the painful things that come; the third, for one who does not endure, to mourn over his failures in patience; since, if they are not corrected here through fitting occurrences, they necessarily bring upon us the judgment there, unless God, seeing us mourning and humbled, wipes out our sins as he knows, by his almighty goodness and divine grace. But if, after neglecting these things, we abandon mourning and humility and still take pleasure in ourselves and in words of worldly wisdom, so as to exalt ourselves even in these over the more devout, how shall we obtain mercy, doing the opposite of mercy? O how persuasive and hard to detect is the passion of people-pleasing, since it masters even the prudent! The workings of the other passions are plain to those who share in them, so that they make those mastered by them humble; but people-pleasing hides itself under words and appearances of godliness, so that it is not easy even for those enticed by it to recognize its deviations.” [10] The worldly man asked, “What are the deviations that come from people-pleasing? Or rather, before these I wish to learn what people-pleasing is; for I see that you do not say what follows from nature in keeping with the terms used, but conjecture that ignorance is the cause of everything, and blame useful things with disconnected testimonies. So tell me first the proper meaning of this name, and then we will believe you that you have grasped its most general harm.” The ascetic said, “People-pleasing, I think, is pleasing people. This I know to be the proper meaning of the term.” The lawyer, as though greatly admiring the word, said: “You have spoken very fittingly. Why then, most devout sir, do you blame unjustly what is just? Or does it not seem to you just that each should not give himself the testing of his own works, but entrust the judgment of good to others rather than himself? I say that what does not please people should not be called virtue at all, nor have praise from one's neighbour; which I have heard Scripture also say: ‘Let your neighbour praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips’; and again, ‘Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, for building up’; and again, ‘Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.’ Who can be without offence without pleasing people? Why then have you gone so deep in blaming people-pleasing? And if, according to you, we must approve those who do not please, it is time for you to praise robbers, murderers, plunderers, and plotters, since they please no one. And if we have kept silent until now about what you said, do not be surprised; not as not knowing the Scriptures, nor as ignorant of what is just, but wishing first to listen to your words. We know also how to forgive those who err in speech, when they do this not from wills that cause lack of education, nor write wickedness over good names; which you too have suffered against your intention, most devout sir; for you wished, I think, to make plain self-pleasing. Since, then, this came to you not from negligence but from lack of learning, it would be just, now that the name has been made plain, for the charges also to be passed over in silence as false, which you thought so base and hard to find as to master even the prudent.” [11] The ascetic, recognizing that he was plainly indignant at the reproofs and was rejecting what would be said, kept silent a little, so that all the hearers guessed that, struck by the syllogisms, he had abandoned his positions. Opening his mouth he said: “Since we have come to these discussions intending not to win but to be helped, and you yourself kept silent until now, not, as you said, as ignorant of what is more just, but wishing first to hear our account; for this reason we beg your excellency to fulfil your promise and to teach how the divine Scripture blames people-pleasing not by its own name but by another (you know all of it well, yet have not kept silent well until now). For in this way, when you speak the words of Scripture, we shall not only be persuaded about what was said before, but shall also bear with you in many accounts when you speak more justly, even if, from lack of learning, as you said, we exchanged the names and prepared a virtue in place of a passion.” The man of the world, hearing this, answered: “I did not say I know all Scripture, but in part. So do not call me to speak, but begin; if you lack proofs, be silent, and you will have pardon from us. But if you can show people-pleasing condemned by name, speak; and we will necessarily confess the truth even against our will.” The ascetic said, “Let it be so; but where shall we put your unjust blames?” The lawyer said, “Into the law of patience, which you taught us before.” The old man said to him: “I praise you for your wisdom, not to say your cunning, since you brought in sympathy for ignorance, looking to receive through the promise of giving. But leaving these things, let us come to the matter in hand.” [12] “Hear, then, Scripture bringing forward its blame of people-pleasing; first the prophet, saying, ‘For God has scattered the bones of people-pleasers; they were put to shame, because God despised them’; and the apostle, ‘Not with eye-service, as people-pleasers’; and again, ‘Do I seek to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ’; and you will find many others by gathering them in the divine Scripture.” The worldly man said, “What then? Since what I said is also written, is Scripture inconsistent with itself?” The ascetic said: “It is not inconsistent with itself, but we are dim-sighted toward the demonstration of the truth. Since not all people are ungodly, nor are we all godly, for this reason we ought not to please all, except the good; likewise we ought not to displease all, except the wicked. That is why the Lord, making this plain in the Gospels, says, ‘Woe when all people speak well of you.’ And not only in these, but even in things that seem good he forbids us to please people, when we show good things to people not for reproof and imitation but for praise and some return. And rightly; for whoever wishes to please people for the sake of a bodily return receives no spiritual gift from God, nor obtains the rewards there, having received his wage, as the Lord made plain in the Gospels not once but many times; and in commanding about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, he ordered that they be hidden from people.” [13] While the words were still being spoken, the scholar said with a loud voice, “That is enough; I am fully convinced about this. It remains for you to say not in a riddle nor by conjecture but plainly what the deviations of this wickedness are, so that we may know exactly whether they are, as you said, darker and hard to find, so that when they come they master even the prudent.” The ascetic said: “Listen with understanding, and I will tell you by name; and see for yourself whether you do not find all of them belonging to this passion in all those people. First and mother of the deviations is unbelief. Following her as children come envy, hatred, jealousy, deceit, strife, hypocrisy, partiality, eye-service, slander, falsehood, a show of reverence and not of truth, and all such obscure and dark passions. What is worse than all is that some by wisdom of speech commend them as good and cover up the harm in it. If you wish, I will also make their cunning plain in part. The cunning people-pleaser, counselling one, plots against another; praising one, blames another; admonishing his neighbour, he commends himself; he pleads in a lawsuit not to judge what is just but to take revenge on his enemy; he rebukes with flattery, until by reproaching he gets his enemy accepted; he slanders anonymously to hide his own slander; he adjures those without possessions to confess their needs, as though wishing to supply them, and when they speak, he spreads it about that they are beggars; among the inexperienced he boasts, and among the experienced he speaks humbly, hunting praise from both. When the virtuous are praised he is displeased, and throwing in another story he diverts the praise; he belittles superiors when absent and glorifies them to their faces when present; he sneers at the humble and finds fault with teachers; he reproaches lack of learning to show himself wise; he disregards everyone's virtues, but keeps their vices in memory. In short, he hunts opportunities and serves persons, so as to satisfy the most many-sided passion of people-pleasing, and tries to hide his own evils by inquiring into those of others. But true monks are not so, but the opposite: they overlook the faults of others with compassion and make their own known to God. That is why they are despised by people who do not know; for they are eager to please not so much mortals as God, on the one hand pleasing him, on the other condemning themselves, awaiting from the Lord the reward for both, since he said, ‘Whoever exalts himself will be humbled.’” [14] The scholar, pained by the reproofs, said: “Along with your thoughts, ascetic, I have admired your cunning too, which you accuse in others and hold yourself in a shadowy way. For lacking general education, you have taken refuge in foolishness according to God, saying it is the greatest wisdom and pleasing to God, and with it you have taken up prayer and labours for godliness, so as to cover your obvious lack of education with an unseen devotion. Whether you are indeed a doer of what you describe, we shall find out when we come again tomorrow.” And having said this, he rose and left. The old man, having seen him off, turned and groaned. The brothers begged him to tell the cause of his groaning, and he said: “I see some of you troubled. For I have received a sign that you received the lawyer's words not for benefit but for harm, and reckoned yourselves not helped but insulted by what was said. This is the cause of my dejection: that we speak the spiritual law to others, but do not keep it ourselves. But if I have not rightly followed the meaning of your gloomy faces, and they hold God's law and have believed that all painful things come not unjustly, according to Scripture, forgive me as an old man for my small-mindedness; only let us believe that we are responsible for the painful things that befall us, even if not recently or through the very matters, then from an old debt.” Then one of the brothers, confident in his self-control and therefore ignorant of the truth, who tried to endure all painful things but thought he suffered unjustly like a martyr, answered boldly, saying, “Where has Scripture said that misfortunes come upon people because of each one's cause and by God's just judgment?” The old man, greatly cheered by what he had said, said: “You will find it if you seek in many chapters, beloved, both in the Old and in the New Testament; and if you wish, we too will show a few. But when you have learned, cast away haughtiness and acquire the humility of Christ, who says, ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’” [15] The disciple, running ahead of the argument, said, “If each of us imitates the humility of Christ in this, by considering what comes upon him his own debt, as you said, then clearly Christ too, in suffering, paid his own debt; hence I think the one who says this blasphemes.” Hearing this, the abbot said: “I was trying to resolve your earlier question first; but since you have thrown another on top of it, you have hidden the answers, as it were, by the confusion of countless questions. We will satisfy you on this too in the Lord, by asking fitting questions in return. Tell me: those who borrow are they alone debtors for their own debt, or also those who stand surety for them?” The disciple answered, “Clearly also those who stand surety for them.” The old man said to him: “Know, then, exactly that Christ too, taking us upon himself, made himself a debtor, according to the divine Scriptures: ‘The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’; ‘He who became a curse for us.’ He who took upon himself the death of all and died for all, did he not take you alone upon himself? Confess this clearly, and we are defeated.” The brother fell down and said: “Even if I erred as a child through ignorance, I do not deny the Redeemer of our souls and our surety. For I know that no other hope of salvation remains for people, since the apostle says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace.’” [16] When all had been helped by the brother's recognition and repentance, the old man said: “It remains for us to show from Scripture that none of the painful things that befall each person comes unjustly, but all by God's just judgment, some suffering for their own evils, others for their neighbours. ‘With the Lord all things are just’; and again, ‘All the works of God are with righteousness’; and, ‘Whatever each one sows, that he will also reap’; and, ‘If our unrighteousness shows God's righteousness, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak in a human way. Far from it.’ See, the three youths too, cast into the furnace, teach us this way of thinking, saying that they were cast in for their own cause and God's discipline, even though they took upon themselves the role of another. And holy David, afflicted by Shimei, confesses that he is afflicted by God's command and for his own faults. And Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and the other prophets foretold to the people and to the nations that coming afflictions would come upon them according to each one's sin, showing beforehand both the causes and the occasions; for it says, ‘Because they said this and did this, let this come upon them.’ And in the psalm blessed David made this plain, saying, ‘I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteousness, and in your truth you humbled me’; and again, ‘You made me a reproach to the fool; I was mute and did not open my mouth, because you did it.’ And he gives thanks that he sent this to him because of the evil thoughts hidden in us, so that, looking carefully at our thoughts, we may correct ourselves, and not doubt whether we are ignorant of most of our wickedness. For it belongs to a perfect man not to be forgetful of his own failings. And if visible failings are hard to perceive, how much more our inward designs. Let us know, then, as rational beings, that the Lord brings trials for our benefit and works many goods in us through them. First, the discovery of the thoughts that hold us hiddenly; after their discovery he adds true and unfeigned humility, and then the disclosure that bids us be freed from vain conceit, as it is written, ‘All the workers of lawlessness peeped out, that they might be destroyed for ever and ever.’ Know this exactly, then, brothers: unless we endure afflictions with faith and thanksgiving, we cannot find the hidden wickedness. And if it is not clearly found, we can neither cast away the present base thoughts, nor seek propitiation for past evils, nor receive security for the future.”

Question [17]. If the lawyer's words are reproofs of our own affairs, why do we not find ourselves guilty of what was said? Answer. Afflictions and reproofs do not outwardly resemble their causes; but in the spiritual sense they preserve all justice. We can know this also through the holy Scripture. Did those who died under the tower of Siloam put up a tower over others, and did those carried off to Babylon as captives for seventy years for repentance take others captive for repentance? Disciplinary occurrences are not like that; but as soldiers, when caught having done wrong, are punished, yet do not suffer the same evil things they did, so we are all disciplined by what comes upon us, at the right time, fittingly, and toward repentance, yet not in the same way, nor at the same time, nor through the same things. And this is what leads many to disbelieve the justice of God: the delay of the time and the unlikeness of what is brought upon us. Since many painful things come upon us, on the one hand through people who envy, flatter, slander, accuse, inform, deceive, are absent, break in, steal, defraud, give offence, persecute, despise, hate, strike, insult, and all that comes to people from people; and from one's own body, swelling, warring, wanting rest; besides these, the bites of dogs, venomous creatures, or flesh-eating beasts; and in addition plagues, earthquakes, frosts, heat waves, old age, poverty, loneliness, and all such things; and on the other hand through the spirits of wickedness, against which the apostle made plain our wrestling is, who watch our words and actions and through them guess that our thoughts are of the same kind: and rightly. For unless our free mind converses with the testing provocations out of unbelief and, abandoning universal hope, stirs up thoughts, neither are words spoken nor actions done. Question [18]. You have said that all misfortunes come reasonably to each according to a cause and draw us to the knowledge of God's justice. Show us, then, the causes, so that we may believe that we are liable for the afflictions and ought to endure the painful things that come, lest at the judgment, not only as sinners but as having refused the healing, we receive heavier punishment. Answer. The cause of every occurrence is each person's thoughts. I could have said words and actions too; but since these do not come forth before thought, for this reason I ascribe everything to thoughts. Thought going first, then words and actions give us communion with one another. There are two ways of communion: one from love, and one from wickedness. Through communion we take upon ourselves one another, even those we do not know. And afflictions necessarily follow such suretyship, as Scripture says: “Whoever stands surety for his friend gives his own hand to an enemy.” So each one endures not only what comes upon him for himself, but also on behalf of his neighbour, for whom he stood surety. Question [19]. We ask to learn the one way of suretyship, that which arises from wickedness. Answer. Suretyship from wickedness is involuntary. It happens thus: the one who defrauds takes on himself, as it were, the temptations of the one defrauded; the greedy man, those of the one he takes advantage of; likewise the informer, those of the one informed against; the oppressor, those of the oppressed; the slanderer, those of the slandered; the despiser, those of the despised; the accuser, those of the accused; and not to speak one by one, everyone who does wrong takes on himself in proportion the temptations of the one wronged. The divine Scripture bears witness to this, saying, “The righteous escapes from the hunt, and the ungodly is handed over in his place”; and again, “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever rolls a stone rolls it upon himself”; and again, “All things come into the bosom of the unjust, but from the Lord all things are just.” If, then, our unrighteousness shows God's righteousness among one another, according to the apostle, what shall we say? Is God unjust who brings wrath on those disciplined through afflictions, who even rage at them without consideration?

Question [20]. We believe these things are so, having listened to the sequence of the argument. Now tell us also about suretyship from love, so that we may not be ignorant of this either. Answer. Suretyship from love is what the Lord Jesus has given us in every way: first healing the weaknesses of our soul, then curing every disease and every sickness; he who takes away the sin of the world, restoring the pure nature to those who firmly believe in him, giving redemption from death, handing down the worship of God, teaching godliness, showing how to suffer hardship for love until death; granting us patience in these things through participation in the Spirit; and the good things to come, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered the heart of man. That is why he also takes upon himself the temptations on our behalf, being mocked, reproached, bound, handed over, beaten, given vinegar and gall to drink, falsely accused, persecuted, struck. He, having shared with us through flesh and spirit and taken upon himself the sufferings on our behalf, in turn handed this law to his own apostles, to prophets, fathers, patriarchs: teaching some beforehand through the all-holy Spirit, and showing it to others through his spotless body. Showing this suretyship he said, “Do not fear; I have overcome the world”; and again, “For them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth”; and again, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Hence holy Paul too, imitating the Lord, said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you Gentiles, and fill up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for the sake of his body, which is the church,” he too hinting at suretyship from love. Do you want it more clearly, how all the apostles shared with us through thought, word, and deed, and through this communion took upon themselves the temptations on your behalf? Through thought: opening the Scriptures to us, setting forth the prophecies, persuading us to believe in Christ as Redeemer, assuring us that we should worship him as Son of God by nature, praying for us, weeping, and whatever belongs to the faithful through thought. Through words: exhorting, admonishing, rebuking, mocking our unbelief, interpreting the Scriptures, making plain the time, confessing Christ, proclaiming that he is the one crucified, the Word made man, speaking of one and not two, even if he is understood from two united indivisibly and without confusion; checking false belief at every time, place, and matter, not agreeing with falsehood, not conversing with one who boasts according to the flesh, not spending time with the vainglorious, not looking at all to the boaster, setting at nought the evildoer, putting forward the humble, making the devout their own, and teaching us to do the same. Through deed: being persecuted, imprisoned, ill-treated, mocked, in want, afflicted, and killed, and suffering all such things for us. So through communion they took our temptations upon themselves; for, it says, “whether we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, or whether we are comforted, it is for your salvation and consolation,” having received the law from Christ who says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” And they in turn handed it on to us, saying, “If the Lord laid down his life for us, we too ought to lay down our lives for the brothers”; and again, “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” If, then, we know the two ways of communion with one another, the suretyship that necessarily follows, and the temptations that occur in proportion, do not busy yourselves about how, or when, or through whom they come. For what fits each one, their urgency that admits no delay, and the cooperation of all creation in this, God alone can know. We ought only to believe in God's justice, and know that everything that has come upon us involuntarily has come either through love or through wickedness; and for this reason we must endure it and not push it away, lest we add sin to our sins. [21] Above all I beg you, brothers, to attend carefully to what has been said, so that we may not endure without profit the temptations that come for these words, and you through sloth hand over what has been said to forgetfulness. For forgetfulness is the daughter of sloth, and both are offspring of unbelief.” To this the brothers answered, “Be more eager in your account, Father; for we know what we have heard, being assured that the divine Scripture says that nothing involuntary happens to people apart from God's justice, even if, being human, we do not grasp the mystical concurrence and harmonious urgency of events, as you yourself said before.” Then one, having become foolish from what was said, said, “Tell us now what the will of the flesh is, and how it exists apart from the mind. For the scholar only asked whether it exists, but did not ask how or what it is.” To this the ascetic said: “The will of the flesh is the natural movement of the body with the burning that follows without thought; which gains strength through sleep and the ease of the members. Of these the apostle Peter says, ‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the burning among you that comes upon you for a trial, as though something strange were happening to you.’ And blessed Paul said of them, ‘The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.’ That is why he commands, saying, ‘Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfil the desire of the flesh.’ They said these things wishing us not to couple with such movements.”

Listen, rational soul, partner of my counsels: I wish to tell you something hidden and shared, by which, I have grasped, you will not be cleansed of the passions, but by the grace of Christ you will be relieved a little. I have known clearly, O soul, that you and I, being worked upon against nature, go astray through ignorance, and for this reason blame others for our own sins, saying that wickedness is outside us; and we blame sometimes Adam, sometimes Satan, sometimes people. And in this, thinking we fight others, we fight ourselves; and supposing we defend each other, you and I campaign against each other; and thinking we do ourselves good, we torment ourselves, justly undergoing profitless labours and reproaches, loving the commandments in appearance but hating their causes through our error. Hence I have known exactly that we are not dragged unjustly by any power either to good or to evil; but from baptism, in the beginnings of things, whichever we serve with our will, God or the devil, he justly urges us on thereafter to his own side.

The beginnings of things are two provocations not yet reasoned on: human praise and bodily ease. Coming upon us voluntarily before our will, they are neither vices nor virtues, but tests of where our inclination leans. For since the Lord wishes us to endure reproaches and hardship, and the devil wishes the opposite, when we are pleased at those provocations, it is plain that we have given our inclination to the pleasure-loving spirit, disobeying the Lord; but when we are afflicted at them, it is clear that we have given our inclination to God, having loved the narrow way. For this reason these two provocations have been allowed to assail people, so that those who love the commandment may give Christ the inclination of their will; and he, finding an entrance, will lead the mind to the truth. Understand the opposite in the same way. For those who love human glory and bodily ease have given an entrance to the devil; and he too, finding his own entrance, then suggests his own evils; and as they think of them with pleasure, they do not cease adding to them until we hate the provocations mentioned from the heart. But we love them so much that we not only betray virtue for them, but also exchange one for the other in turn: sometimes we bear dishonour for the sake of love of pleasure. And when we agree to these without grief, we then seek the materials that increase them. The material of both vainglory and pleasure is love of money, the root of all evils, according to the divine Scripture.

But you will certainly tell me, dear soul, that we neither store up gold nor have possessions. And I tell you that neither gold nor possessions bring harm, but, as I said before, their passionate misuse. For see, some who were rich without passion pleased God, like holy Abraham, Job, and David. But some of us, even without wealth, have turned the passion of love of money to the cheapest materials; hence we are more wretched than those who have much, because, having abandoned general hardship, we cunningly indulge ourselves as though escaping God's notice. Escaping love of money, we do not flee love of pleasure; we do not store up gold, but gather petty materials; we do not take offices and governorships, but hunt their glories and praises in every way; we leave possessions, but do not refuse their enjoyments; and when we seem to refuse them, it is not as fleeing greed but as loathing God's creatures: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” When you hear, dear soul, of the transgression of Adam and Eve, believe that in the beginning it happened to them particularly; but now you will find it happening spiritually in me and in you. For these things happened to them as types, and were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come. For see, reborn through baptism, we have transgressed the commandment of him who gave us rebirth. The Lord commanded us to love all who share the faith and to eat with patience the fruit that comes from all, according to the saying, “From every tree in the garden you may eat as food”; but we, using the serpent's thoughts, loved some as good and hated others as evil; which is the tree of knowing good and evil. Tasting of it, we are put to death in mind; not because God made death, but because a person hated his neighbour. For “God did not make death, nor does he take pleasure in the destruction of the living,” nor is he moved by the passion of anger, nor devises anything for revenge, nor is altered according to each one's deserts; but he made all things in wisdom, having predetermined that they be judged under a spiritual law. That is why he does not say to Adam, “On the day you eat, I will put you to death,” but, securing him, he foretells the law of justice and says, “On the day you eat, you shall surely die.” And in general he assigned to each thing, good and bad, that what is due should follow naturally, and not by contrivance, as some think who do not know the spiritual law. But we who know it in part ought to know that if we hate any who share our faith as evil, we too, being evil, will be hated by God; and if we cast someone out of repentance as a sinner, we too, being sinners, will be cast out; and if we do not forgive our neighbour his sins, neither will they be forgiven us. Christ the lawgiver, making this law plain, said, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Paul, seeing this law and making it plain, said, “In judging another, you condemn yourself.” And the prophet, not ignorant of this, cried to God, “For you will repay each according to their works”; and another prophet says in God's person, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

And why do I speak point by point, when all Scripture, Old and New, and especially the great psalmist, shows us this law more clearly, so that, finding it spiritual and fearing it as mystically predetermined at our every turning, we may strive to love the brothers not only openly but also in secret? For it is not the Mosaic law, which judges visible things, but the spiritual law, which exposes hidden things. The same God laid down the former, fitting for its own time; and this law fulfilled it through the grace of our Lord, who said, “I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.” Therefore (since it will speak once about every matter) we ought henceforth to forgive the one who seems to have wronged us, whether the wrong is reasonable or unreasonable, knowing that forgiveness is greater than every virtue. And since we cannot do this because of the sin that holds us beforehand, we ought to entreat God with vigil and every hardship until we find propitiation and receive such power. To this end, O soul, we ought to have one aim at every time, place, and matter: to rejoice and not grieve when we are wronged in various ways by people; and to rejoice not simply nor aimlessly, but because we have found an occasion to forgive the one who sinned and to receive forgiveness of our own sins. For this is the true knowledge of God, most comprehensive of all knowledge, through which we can entreat God and be heard; this is the fruit of prayer; through it we can take up the cross and follow the Lord; it is the mother of the first and great commandments. For through it we can love God with all our heart and our neighbour as ourselves. For its sake we ought to fast, keep vigil, and suffer hardship, so that the heart and the inward parts may be opened and receive these things and not cast them out. For then we shall find the grace of holy baptism, given us hiddenly, working no longer obscurely but with all full assurance and perception, because we forgive our neighbour his sins.

Two vices hinder this virtue: vainglory and pleasure, which must first be refused in the mind, and so the virtue grasped. Therefore, O soul, having betrayed yourself to these two wishes, blame no one, neither Adam nor Satan nor people, but fight your own will, and do not despise it; for the war is civil war. It is not outside, so that we may fight with the brothers who are with us; it is within; and no one among people will fight alongside us. We have one ally, Christ, hidden in us mystically through baptism, unconquerable and missing nothing. He will fight with us if we do his commandments as far as we can. The things that war against us, as we said before, are pleasure mixed with the body, and vainglory, which hold both me and you. These two led Eve astray and deceived Adam. Pleasure showed the tree as good for food and beautiful to look at; vainglory said, “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” Just as the first-formed Adam and Eve were ashamed before each other, so we too, having cast wickedness off from our spiritual eyes and seeing ourselves naked, are ashamed before one another in conscience; see, we sew fig leaves together for ourselves, clothing ourselves with outward words, appearances, and self-justifications. But the Lord makes us the garment of skins, and says, “In your patience gain your souls.” And he exhorts what follows, saying, “Whoever finds his soul,” that is, in resentment, “will lose it; and whoever loses it” (in this) “will find it for eternal life.” To him be glory for ever. Amen.

It befits those who practise asceticism, both beginners and those finishing, young and old, who have a healthy body and fear neither fatigue nor hardship, to put forward with all eagerness, without omission, the more useful and safer fast: to eat bread by weight and drink water by measure, from time to time; and so much that they leave the meal still hungry and thirsty, and the necessary service to God is not hindered by the pleasure of foods. For if we wish to be filled when we eat, we shall soon grow weary and turn to another desire; and if we take our fill of this, we shall likewise reject it in turn like the first and abandon it. And when we devise a desire or a fast for ourselves, we cannot persevere toward consolation while being filled. What among foods was more costly than the manna? And when Israel had eaten and been filled with it, since it had nothing better to desire, it desired the lesser, garlic and onions, so that desire for something else is innate in fullness. If, then, when filled with bread we desire something else, let us not be filled when we eat it, so that, desiring it, we may always desire to be filled; so that we may both escape the harm that comes from desire and carry off the righteousness that comes from self-control.

But perhaps one of those more sluggish about fasting will say, “Is it a sin for a person to take food?” We do not counsel this as though it were sin, but because sin follows from it. Israel did not sin by desiring, but acted impiously by speaking against God through its desire; for it said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” And after it had been prepared for them, then the wrath of God was kindled against them and hindered their chosen ones, so that they might not live and again desire other food and speak words against the Most High, and the rest of them be destroyed. It is a labour to master the shameless belly; it is the god of those defeated by it, and whoever puts up with it cannot be acquitted. And not only is there danger from fullness, but also from abstaining from food. For when many days pass without our taking anything, listlessness gains ground and will rise up and war against us, changing our night vigil into sleep and our day's prayer into fleshly thoughts, so that we gain nothing from the sleep and are harmed most greatly by the fleshly thoughts. For we begin to think great things of ourselves as practising asceticism beyond others, and to despise the lesser, which is more grievous than any offence. For just as a foolish farmer who has worked his land at great expense and leaves it unsown has toiled to his loss, so we too, if we bring our flesh into subjection with great effort but do not sow the word of prayer, have rather striven against ourselves.

But perhaps someone will say, “If righteousness is in prayer, what need is there of fasting?” Much, in every way. For just as a poor farmer who sows on dry ground without ploughing the earth will reap thorns instead of wheat, so we too, if we sow the word of prayer without first subduing our flesh by fasting, shall reap sin instead of righteousness. For this flesh is from that earth; and unless it receives as much care as that earth, it will never sprout the fruit of righteousness. We say this not to hinder those who wish to be helped by fasting, but to urge on those who wish to practise the dispassion of their own body with discernment and the fear of God. For as fasting helps those who approach it with reason, so it harms those who approach it without reason. Those, then, who care for its benefit must also guard against its harm; and the bread that we eat after completing the fast we have set ourselves, let us divide it among the days of abstinence, so that, taking a small portion each day, we may muzzle the mind of our flesh and keep our heart fixed on the more beneficial prayer; so that by the power of God, guarded from elation, we may live in humility all the days of our life, without which no one has pleased God.

For if we cared for humility, we would not need discipline; for all the evils and terrible things that befall us befall us because of our elation. For if an angel of Satan was given to the apostle so that he might not be elated, how much more will Satan himself be given to us who are elated, to trample us until we are humbled? Our forefathers were masters of houses, had wealth, provided for wives and children, and conversed with God because of their unfeigned humility; but we have withdrawn from the world, despised wealth, left our houses, and are mocked by demons because of our elation. The elated person does not know himself; for if he knew himself and the folly with which he lives, he would not be elated. And how can one who does not know himself know God? For if he could not understand his own folly, how will he be able to understand the wisdom of God, from which he is far away and a stranger? For whoever knows God sees his greatness as in a mirror and thinks little of himself, like blessed Job, who says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear before, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I have despised myself and melted away, and I count myself earth and ashes.” Those, then, who imitate Job see God; and those who see him know him. If, then, we wish to see God, let us think little of ourselves and be humble; so that we may not only see him before us, but, having him dwelling and resting in us, may delight in him. For so our folly will be made wise in his wisdom, and our weakness made strong in his power, which strengthens us toward him who counted us worthy of this gift, that he may be the more glorified in us, and that our enemy the devil may be put to shame exceedingly through us, in our Lord Jesus Christ himself; for to him belong glory, greatness, and majesty for ever. Amen.

The Lord, likening the world to a field and the preaching of the truth to seed, says that wheat was sown first and tares afterward; from this we can recognize that the opinions devised after the apostolic tradition are a superfluous and demonic sowing. For since his holy disciples left out nothing of the truth, and holy Paul fell in no way short of the super-apostles, but sowed the world with the word as with wheat, some of another mind, springing up like tares beyond the wheat, try to stretch beyond, undertaking to teach things more mystical than the apostles, as they suppose. For the apostles did not proclaim Melchizedek to be God by nature, as these say; and moreover they bring in such ideas as to belittle the Lord's dispensations made for us. For if they deify a man called fatherless and motherless because Scripture is silent about it, they belittle Christ, who has a Father in heaven and had a mother on earth for our sake; and if they have thought him great because he is without genealogy, they would think Christ, whose genealogy is given, inferior. The development of such a notion seems to drag the more foolish of them even into denial, which brings greater condemnation on the one who led the way in such a notion. They suffer this, I think, because they run past the constitutive chapters of the divine Scripture and seek out certain passages at will for their own purpose. That is why they assign to the man who bore the title, as to God, the title that is interpreted of Christ, and say that the man likened to the Lord in the order of priesthood is by nature Son of God. For they say, “If he was not Son of God, how was he called king of peace and king of righteousness?” Let them learn, if they will. The apostle does not call him king of peace by nature, but by interpretation. For he says, “First, being interpreted, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, that is, king of peace.” This word “interpreted” they run past, and for this reason they make the interpretation of the name the glorious nature of the one who bore it.

Again the same people say, “If he was not God, how is he fatherless, motherless?” In this, it seems, they no longer call Melchizedek Son, but perhaps Father. And they say, “We do not call him Father, but the Son according to God the Word, before he became flesh or was born of Mary.” And how is God the Word fatherless, you vain-minded? Learn exactly that blessed Paul says all those things were said of the incarnate one. For he says, “He of whom these things are said belonged to another tribe; for it is evident that our Lord sprang from Judah.” “But tell us,” they say, “how is Christ, who sprang from Judah, fatherless and motherless after the order of Melchizedek?” not knowing what they say. For Paul did not set down the order with reference to being fatherless, but only to the priesthood. That is why he does not say, “You are fatherless, motherless after the order of Melchizedek,” but, “You are a priest after the order of Melchizedek.” What is “after the order”? That is, after the likeness, and not according to law only. For the tribe of Levi was appointed to be priests according to law; but Melchizedek, not according to law but according to the order of prophecy, showing the things of Christ. That is why he says, “You are a priest for ever,” not after the order of Levi, nor after the order of Aaron, who were of the same tribe, but after the order of Melchizedek, who was a priest without the law.

But again they say to us, “If Melchizedek is a man, how does he remain a priest perpetually?” This too they ask from an extract, running past most of the chapter. For it says, “Made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.” Likeness and substance are not the same: the one is a type, the other the truth. Just as the prophet Jonah was made like Christ and remains a prophet in the three-day burial, and as Moses was made like him in leading the people and remains a leader perpetually, so Melchizedek too was made like him in the priesthood of the nations, and remains a priest for ever. That is why it says, “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” “But let it be granted,” they say, “that Melchizedek was a man made like Christ; show how he is fatherless and motherless, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God; show the likeness in these, so that we may know that Melchizedek is a man and not Christ himself.” By asking in return in this way, they range themselves not against us but against the divine Scripture. It was enough for them to believe the apostle, who said he was made like the Son of God. So when they say, “Show us the likeness in the names, so that we may believe,” they seem to disbelieve what Paul says; as though, if we lacked such a demonstration, they would stand away from the faith, or will stand away, as indeed they have. Since, then, many names can be found in the true Scripture whose explanation is hard for most to find, will the church on this account stand away from the faith handed down and be led by their suspicions? Far from it! Yet we will not keep silent without discernment on this account, but will show, as far as we can, the likeness in the things mentioned.

Paul calls Melchizedek fatherless and motherless according to the following word, “without genealogy.” Since it is not stated in the genealogy of what father or what mother he was, or when he was born or when he died, for this reason he has neither beginning of days nor end. For he could not have a genealogy, being descended from the nations that were left over, as Scripture makes plain from his dwelling place. In this he was made like the Son of God, since the Lord Jesus Christ had no father on earth and had no mother in heaven. And since we have said that by design it is not stated in the divine Scripture when Melchizedek was born or when he died, and for this reason it says he had neither beginning of days nor end of life, they seek the likeness in this word too, saying, “If this is said of Melchizedek, tell us also of Christ how he has neither beginning of days nor end of life, so that we may know the likeness in this too. For we know that the one born of Mary both had a beginning and died and rose according to the Scriptures.” We say to this: “Do you believe the Gospel, that the Word became flesh, not changed into a man but taking man into himself?” They say, “Yes, we believe this.” “If, then, you believe, know that Christ neither is nor is understood to be a mere man, since he never existed on one side alone and was united afterward. It is clear that God the Word first worked in a manner worthy of God, as it is written, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one born of you will be called Son of God.’ Hence we understand that Christ has neither beginning of days nor end of life. For if the Word without beginning became the beginning of the incarnation, it is clear that Christ is without beginning because of the union from the womb. So Melchizedek too is likened to him in this, his birth and his death being passed over by design, to foreshow the mysteries of Christ.” [5] And again they say, “Did the Lord take our body or not?” “Yes, ours; but he did not take it as something divided. For he did not cause it to exist beforehand and then unite himself with it, but made the union indivisible from the womb, as we said before.” At once they say, “Why then do you count his years?” “Years are counted not from a nature taken on one side, but from the birth of the man who came to be. For Scripture did not say that a mere man was born, as you say, God the Word, but Christ, who is God and man together, the undivided and indivisible Son of God. So he had a beginning of the birth of the dispensation, but has no beginning of nature, because of the union from the womb. For to what, tell me, will you assign a beginning? To a mere body? But the Lord's body never existed as mere body, according to the word of the Gospel that says to Joseph, ‘Do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.’ Or will you assign a beginning to the Christ who was born? See, he is the Word himself made flesh, as has been shown in the Gospels. So you can assign to Christ neither division nor beginning, as has been shown.” “Let it be granted,” they say, “that Christ has no beginning because of the union; does the union have no beginning?” “It both has and has not, because the one without beginning became the beginning of the union; and for this reason I said it both has and has not. But it is more reverent to say that it has not. For whatever is united hypostatically, even if it is understood from two, yet what is united to the nature of the stronger is both understood and named as that. Just as a river formed from rain and mingled with the sea is no longer called a river but sea, having taken its beginning from there and ending there. If the bodily power, as superior, had worked upon the Word and so the union came about, let it be understood to have a beginning according to the nature of the body. But if God the Word worked in a manner worthy of God according to the Gospel, it is clear that the holy body has been ennobled toward that nature; for in him it pleased the whole fullness of the Godhead to dwell bodily. And if the whole fullness, clearly nothing of the Godhead is left that the holy body of Christ does not have; whether you speak of being without beginning, or Godhead, or immortality, or almighty power, or authority, or might, or immortal wisdom, it has all; for it pleased the whole fullness of the Godhead to dwell in him bodily. That is why Paul says, ‘From now on we know no one according to the flesh; even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.’ For we have known that in him it pleased the whole fullness of the Godhead to dwell bodily, and we have been filled in him. He did not say ‘in them’ but ‘in him’; for he is the fullness of him who fills all in all. So, then, Christ is understood as having neither beginning of days nor end of life.”

Again they say, “If Melchizedek is a man, how does he remain a priest perpetually?” This is to be understood in two ways, not only of him but of all the saints. First, that it is stated in Scripture, “perpetually,” and that they remain with God perpetually: Isaiah the prophet remains a prophet perpetually, both in Scripture and with God. Likewise the apostles remain perpetually; otherwise, with what hope did they die daily for Christ? And all who served as priests to Christ remain perpetually. So holy Melchizedek too, having served as priest to God, remains perpetually, according to the word of the Lord, who says that all live to him. They take Melchizedek into theology according to this word, thinking it befits him as God: “See how great this man is, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils.” And what has this to do with the dignity of Godhead? Do you wish to see a greater lowliness of Abraham? When he took the cave for Sarah's burial, he bowed down to the sellers. Shall we then deify them too, because the patriarch bowed down to them? Far from it! See how great their folly is, that they define God by size, and by such smallness! For he did not say, “See how great is he who made heaven and earth and the sea, who knows the mind of human beings in their voluntary movements, who assigned what is due to all, appointing it to appear fittingly not at once but in its own time.” Nor did he say, “He who weighed out in measure the falls of rain and snow, the frosts of winter and the blasts of summer heat, so as not to destroy the world.” Nor did he say, “He who preserves justice in compassion and can have mercy on the sinner without pretence, who is everywhere undivided and remains in the Father without confusion; the creator of good things and the discerning knower of all, who bound the strong man in weakness and plundered the goods of the cunning serpent in foolishness, who brought life out of death and made plain what was hidden.” The apostle said nothing like this about Melchizedek, but, “See,” he says, “how great this man is, to whom Abraham gave a tenth!” If he were God, would Paul have confined the incomprehensible power within a measure of size, and that in nothing wonderful, but in the tithes of Abraham, which the priests under the law also receive? When, then, reading, you find something written about Melchizedek, remember the apostle: “He of whom these things are said belonged to another tribe,” and you will never go astray. And when you hear from the Melchizedekians that he is called God, remember the apostolic word, that he is of another race, that is, of the Canaanites. For it is evident that our Lord Jesus Christ sprang from Judah. Follow the faith of Paul, and do not assign what was declared prophetically to the one through whom it was declared, nor again attribute to the types themselves what happened in types. Of what tribe was Melchizedek, that you think the things said belong to him? Erring in this way, you would surely think the lamb slain as a type was God, saying, “If it was not God, how did its blood drive away the destroying angel?” Perhaps you will deify the bronze serpent too, supposing these things and saying, “If it was not God, how did it heal those bitten by serpents?” But we will say the apostle's word: “He of whom these things are said belonged to another tribe.” For each of these worked the power not through itself but through the Christ interpreted in them; so too Melchizedek, even if he was called king of righteousness and king of peace, was not so by nature, but by interpretation, according to Scripture. For he of whom these things are said belonged to another tribe.

For I too would have liked to ask these deceivers: why did the prophets or the apostles not proclaim him to be God? If they were moved by envy or fear, would they not have made known the one born of Mary to all without envy or fear? And if they did not know, then they were children compared with you, and you more perfect than they, since what escaped them has been revealed to you. But what do these clever people say? “Do not be surprised that the apostles did not know this mystery, since even to Paul it appeared hard to explain, when he said, ‘About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain.’” O the boastfulness! Thinking themselves wiser than the apostles, they understand neither what they say nor what they affirm. For if they believe at all that the word about Melchizedek is long and hard to explain, let them say in what respect it is hard to explain: in ours, or in theirs? We say that Melchizedek is interpreted as referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, and the word is long for us and hard to explain, just as the apostle says; but they say he is God by nature. And if he is God by nature, how is he hard to explain? God is universally believed to be beyond interpretation, but types are interpreted. Therefore let us see for whom holy Paul bears witness when he says, “About whom we have much to say, and it is hard to explain.” If for them, as having spoken of Melchizedek as God, let them interpret their God, as having understood him to be God by nature; but if not, we in the Lord will interpret, as far as we can, the things of Melchizedek as types, according to the purpose of holy Paul, and let them stop blaspheming. First, Jerusalem was called Jebus; hence we know that Melchizedek was from the seven nations that were destroyed, for he was a Jebusite. Later, after the nations were driven out and the people settled, God allotted it to the priests, for the sacrifices to be brought there from every place of the Jews; hence too, after he gave rest from the enemies, he renamed the city Salem, which is peace. And Jerusalem is interpreted “vision of peace.” For this reason Melchizedek is interpreted in Paul and in Scripture as king of peace; for he reigned in it before, as if one were to say, king of Selge; and Selge is interpreted purity. Is not the ruler of Selge, then, fittingly interpreted ruler of purity, according to the name of the city? Yet he is not ruler of purity by nature, but by interpretation of the name. But Christ is by nature ruler of purity. Do they understand, then, that Melchizedek too is called king of peace by interpretation of a name? If this is the heavenly Jerusalem where he reigned, let its ruler also be king of peace by nature; but if it was a type of the Jerusalem above, it is plain that he too was named king of peace typically, because of the city's name. And “king of righteousness” is the interpretation of his own name, that is, Melchizedek, in the Canaanite tongue, as we have learned from those who know it, as if one were to say Ambrosius, that is, immortal. What then? Since many people are called Ambrosius, are they therefore immortal by nature, according to the name? Not at all. How many are called Eugenius, though they are slaves! How many are called Athanasius, though they are mortal! How many Polychronius, and they become short-lived! How many Democrates, and they ruled no one! And the titles are found not to fit the facts.

Since we have interpreted the names as far as we can, come, as far as possible, let us interpret the events too. Just as Abraham, arming himself with his own three hundred and eighteen household servants, routed the foreigners in the time of Melchizedek, so in the time of Christ his true household, the three hundred and eighteen patriarchs, armed in apostolic fashion in the city of Nicaea, routed the heresies. See a fitting interpretation. Then Melchizedek brought out bread and wine for the refreshment of those returning from the war. So too Christ, the great high priest, gives to those returning to him from the spiritual war bread and wine sanctified, saying, “Take, eat of it, all of you.” And again Abraham gives tithes from the spoils to the priest of God; and those who emulate his faith offer Christ the firstfruits. For the five senses, dedicated to him in a twofold way, I mean spiritually and particularly, are a kind of tithes of the parts of our nature, which was once taken captive by the foreigners according to the story mentioned. Have you understood from what has been said how the word is long and hard to explain, as holy Paul the apostle said before? Do not, then, call the types the truth, nor, on hearing “fatherless and motherless” because he is without genealogy, reckon him for this reason Son of God by nature. Or have you not read all that the divine Scripture tells in his story about the types: about Lot, Abraham's nephew, about these kings, the names both of the men and of the places, plainly showing both Melchizedek and the city of Salem? None of these is interpreted of itself as referring to the Lord's incarnation. For if the names are nature, they are no longer interpretation; and if interpretation, no longer nature. How then is the word long and hard to explain? But know what is written, that these things happened to them as types, and were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

And it is necessary to ask them this too: how did God the Word, having no flesh then, act as priest? And for whom did he act as priest? If you say for the world, where is the victim? For you have heard that without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And who are the heralds and witnesses of the priesthood? If they say that he is the Word himself, but became a type of things to come, then is the fleshless one found to be a type of the one who would become flesh, or rather was he a type of himself? Where he himself is present, it is not called a type but the truth. And if it was the truth then, what shall we say of the incarnation? And how does Scripture say that this mystery was not made known to other generations as it has now been revealed to the holy apostles and prophets? For then neither prophets nor apostles cried out about this. But what do they say again? “If he was not God, how was he a priest before the law?” We say to them: priesthood is so called because a man in the flesh offers sacrifices to God; without flesh no one is called a priest. Just as Abel sacrificed to God before the law and for this reason has been shown a priest, and as Jacob sacrificed to him and has been shown a priest, as all these sacrificed before the law, so Melchizedek too was a priest before the law. But they say, “The divine Scripture did not call these priests.” The divine Scripture does not speak superfluously, as you demand. And if you seek the difference of the matter at all, Melchizedek did not sacrifice but was only named a priest. These, then, who sacrificed, are more firmly priests than he who was named, since to sacrifice belongs to priesthood more than to bear the title. We have set out such a difference against their untimely talk; but we in the Lord hold both him and them alike as priests of God.

I am amazed that they have not heard blessed Peter crying out plainly about them and saying, “There will be false teachers, who will bring in secretly destructive heresies.” He fittingly said “bring in secretly”; for they truly watch for opportunities, and as they find those they meet, so they make their answers: sometimes they openly call him God, sometimes they cunningly confess, “We name him priest of God, as the divine Scripture does.” If they believe the divine Scripture at all, let them say everything according to Scripture. First, Scripture does not call him God; neither let them say it. And let them confess this too, that he is made like the Son of God, not Son by nature; that he is by interpretation king of righteousness, not by nature; and that he of whom these things are said belonged to another tribe; and let them not pick out an ambiguous extract, so as to persuade the many by hypocrisy and ensnare the more childish. We, having received such a commandment in order from the Lord, are compelled to persuade those who go astray through ignorance; but they, when they see those trampled by them wishing to repent, overpower them with more persuasive arguments, always saying, “Even if Melchizedek is not God by nature, we have not sinned by deifying a man; for it is written, ‘I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High,’” not knowing that such double-mindedness plainly makes faith in Christ unstable, if they thus consider the Lord equal to all human beings, and no longer, as he is, Saviour, God, and Master; and it leads them to worship the creation instead of the Creator. Since, then, twisting about like a serpent, they squeeze those who wish to escape them, we too, having the command, “Be wise as serpents,” must imitate their mischief and undo such coils of theirs with versatile thoughts, saying, “Even if Melchizedek is God, we would not sin in this by holding and naming him a man; for it is written that there is no other name under heaven in which we must all be saved but the Lord Jesus Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Let them hear the apostle commanding not to accept second preachers of the Gospel. “For if one comes,” he says, “and preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or you receive another Spirit which you did not receive, or another gospel which you did not accept, you bear with it well.” If, then, he seals the things of the Gospel, what will happen to those who bring in heresies, or those who believe them? But what do they say to us? “Why does not everyone teach in the churches as you do here today?” Let them know that all who teach confirm the things of the apostles as firm, and no one yet innovates as though they had not yet been preached; and if anyone ever is caught having gone astray unwillingly, he certainly either turns back when rebuked, or, choosing falsehood, will be reckoned with those outside, which is likely to happen to these too. And in this one can test their folly, that they are more wicked than every heresy. For having been excommunicated and anathematized by the holy bishops, where they are unknown they communicate secretly and assemble, that is, as we said before, they dishonour the mystery and dispensation of Christ. And not only this, but if ever through their feigned devotion they manage to be received by bishops or visitors, they at once secretly slander the truly faithful and orthodox as evil-minded, and cause them to be hated or persecuted. But he who knows the thoughts of human beings overturns their cunning, and having exposed them, lets them fall into the pit they dug, as it is written.

But leaving aside their secret contributions of evil, let us return to the matter in hand, having fully refuted their false belief. For that name the prophets did not proclaim beforehand, the apostles did not teach, the martyrs did not confess, none of the patriarchs made him known as God, none of the holy fathers wrote it. Therefore come to your senses, O man, and know that the devil has made you think beyond measure, so that, sick by your will with his pride, you might also fall together with him in his fall. For how is it not by will? Having so great a cloud of witnesses to confirm the true faith, you have chosen and confessed what none of them confessed. If all of them were saved without that knowledge and that confession, be saved you too in imitation of them, and say with holy Paul, “I decided to know nothing else except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” But if you reckon that without such a confession you cannot be saved, clearly you hold all the saints as not saved, even if you do not say so with your mouth, playing the hypocrite with people; yet the sequence of the matter cries louder than your voice. Do you see into how many blasphemies and how many evils you have fallen through such false belief of yours, or rather complete unbelief? Learn how: Melchizedek did no signs, laid down no commandments, fixed no threats, did not die for us, did not give participation in the Holy Spirit. I do not know, then, what pledge of assurance you have for faith in him. And if you say, “He gave us all these when he became flesh,” you prove yourself even more guilty of false belief. For in the things in which the Lord made himself known to us through words and deeds, in these he also commanded us to believe. For Scripture said that he appeared to Abraham in a voice, giving him commandments, foretelling what would be, and promising benefits in the land of the Chaldeans, and at the oak of Mamre, and in very many other words and deeds, in no way obscurely; but Scripture has made nothing known either as Melchizedek or through Melchizedek. For this reason your faith has no substance, your opinion is obscure, and such knowledge of God is vain. Therefore, since the orthodox faith has been made plain through many witnesses, those who look elsewhere and, with or without reason, name Melchizedek Son of God by nature are plainly acting like Jews; because Jesus Christ, born of Mary, is himself the Son of the living God, and nothing is lacking to him, that we should seek the fullness elsewhere; for in him it pleased the whole fullness of the Godhead to dwell bodily, and we are all filled in him, who believe his words as the Son of God, by the good pleasure, power, and grace of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To him be glory, might, and kingdom, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.