Poems 27.167–27.607

A life of modesty and a mind white with clear truth make Niceta, flowers and spices of Christ. What can I, poor and foolish and little, bring forth worthy of so great a gift, from heart or mouth? Now I need Felix himself, and in this I ask him the favour that he take from Christ riches to impart to me himself, so that I may thank him worthily. And now I would wish that living rivers of everlasting water might flow from my belly, so that I could tell, not with my own mouth but by Christ's gift, my joy, which by Christ's gift floods my calm breast more richly than usual and doubles Felix's birthday for me with manifold love. I see Niceta smiling at me face to face with present eyes, and, seeing my parent, whose love reigns in me above all others, I myself become Niceta, bearing in mind the likeness of the blessed name, my mind which now triumphs in a victorious vow. Seeing him come, after a long time and from far away, to your birthday, most illustrious Felix, shall I not confess that he has come with your hand leading him? For who could fail to see by so clear a sign that this has come about for me by your prayer: that what I could scarcely grasp in my vows, or even imagine in my very sleep, I should hold Niceta again face to face on the very birthday of Felix, with sight and embrace together, and sing again under his eyes my due, Felix, with you as listener? But what shall I do, I ask? Poor, I sit at a rich man's table and, wretched, dare to put my hand in great dishes; nor do I consider that it befits me to prepare in turn such things as I take, and to give a word worthy of such a judge.

So grant to your poor man, holy one, that I may dare to speak things worthy of you as patron and likewise worthy of your friend. I call on your kinsmen, Felix, with you, to your festival. What I call your festival is mine, and these are more truly my vows; for your lofty honour refuses earthly joys. But since our joys belong to your palm, and you deign to count the vows of your own as yours, therefore I implore your kinsmen too, Felix; be present here too, and ask that, called, they be present for me now. You who dwell in the glad gardens of paradise in heaven, and you who rest beneath the lofty altar of the Lord, the beautiful choir of the apostolic band, and the patriarchs, the earlier race, both choirs of chiefs, whom in a double column God marked as fathers by twelve names for calling the nations and peoples to the heavenly kingdom; you too, holy prophets, I beg as a suppliant, who foretold that God would be in our flesh; you also, martyrs, who with bodies slain and blood poured out bore witness to the Lamb slain and living; all, one offspring from divine fountains, whom godly Abraham, holy Isaac, gentle Jacob begot for God through an innumerable seed, divided by heavenly and by perishable merits, equalling with the former the stars of heaven, with the latter the sand of the earth. I believe indeed that you have gathered from everywhere for this day by the duty of piety, out of love for Felix, to celebrate the honour of your fellow confessor.

But I am not so presumptuous about so great an honour as to pray that all the saints should at once breathe on my senses, as though I were worthy of so great a gift, so that the voice of the turtledove might resound from my mouth, the voice which the glad earth heard through the whole world; but because a divine voice befits the honour of Felix, and because Niceta, the Lord's servant and priest, sent to me now from a distant land, has come for this day, behold, a man as good with teaching mouth as he is holy with conquering mind and conquered body. O if only a Cherub would take a coal with flaming tongs and bring it from afar from the very altar of the Lord, and burn the badly fattened lips of a sinner, so that, my mouth purged of its clotted dirt, I might bring out more worthily with my mouth, not as from my mouth, but as from the mouth of my hearer, what I have drunk from his, lest the harsh and sick speech of a stupid sinner both violate chaste ears and lash learned ones! But since my teacher himself sits at my side, close by, opposite, I shall often look at him with reverent eyes; perhaps from the mouth of the wise, as once the exhausted ewes of the shepherd Jacob, I may conceive fruitful thoughts in my barren breast. For Niceta too, blessed by the Lord like that gentle Jacob, like Israel, shepherd of sheep and goats, sits before the pool of living water; here too he chooses for himself with equal heart three rods from three trees, by which, placed in the water, he calls the flock, and makes those coming together pregnant, and colours what they conceive with the three rods, so that the offspring of the holy flock may be proved marked by the rods variegated by peeling the bark. But the mark on the flock is not Laban's, but the mark of life;

for not to be marked for Christ will be the mark of death. So grace renews barren souls in the threefold name, and the Spirit, as husband, fills them by union with the Word, and the church, fruitful with virgin womb and mother of salvation, marks within the offspring conceived for God, while, intent on the three rods, she drinks the moist seeds of the Word and is sealed with the light of the eternal face. Hence the barren has borne seven and the abundant has failed, God enlarging the slender and making the proud slender. So I, seeing Niceta, as if a fountain were found, ran like a thirsty sheep to the living streams, dry, and felt my udders at once grow full, and, long attentive to the mouth of the master as he fed us, I looked at the varied rods in his learned breast, and drank the colour seen through my fixed eyes, and his dewy mind sprinkled me with divine drops. But yet in these three rods, since mention has come, let us, if you please, look further into the mysteries of the kingdom. The patriarch chose three rods for himself from three trees: fragrant from the storax, smooth from the plane, firm from the nut. In the plane is the Spirit, in the storax the virgin, in the nut Christ. For the plane spreads its broad branches into shade; the Holy Spirit formed Christ in the overshadowed virgin; and the rod of storax, I think, is the virgin from the tree of David, who, a virgin mother, brought forth the fragrant flower. The rod of the nut is Christ, because in nuts the food is within, the shell outside, and over it, on the green skin, a bitter rind. See Christ, God veiled in our body, who is fragile in flesh, food in the Word, and bitter in the cross; the hard surface is the word of the cross, and the food of the cross, enclosing the heavenly marrow of Christ in the flesh.

But likewise sweet by the cross, because our life, God, brought forth life from a tree; my life hung on the wood, so that my life might stand for God. What, O life, shall I repay to you for my life, Christ? Unless perhaps I take the cup of salvation, which your right hand may offer to me, so that I may be washed in the sacred draught of a precious death. But what shall I do? Not even if I give my own body to the fire and grow cheap to myself, nor with my blood poured out, shall I pay you the just debts I owe, because I should give myself back to you for myself, and whatever I do in like turn, I shall always be unequal, Christ, to you, because you, Christ, paid for me my debts, not yours, suffering for wicked servants. What love could weigh against you? Lord, you took my form, that I, a servant, might bear your form; and is it thought a great thing to purchase one's own salvation with a perishing thing? To exchange the perishing for the everlasting and to sell the earth to buy heaven? Behold, how much more dearly God bought me by the death of the cross! He suffered, cast down in the image of a servant, to buy cheap servants with precious blood. But what am I doing? Rash, I am carried up on the unsafe deep, having dared to trust myself to the height on a fragile wing; singing, as is my custom, the birthday of the excellent martyr with lighter material, I have suddenly shot up to the heights, flying above the stars, and have stretched my bold mind to the fountain of things with my speech sent forth. Whence do I have this courage? What breeze lifts me, proud? I do not recognize my swelling breast; a greater mind drives me. I feel Niceta, while he sits nearest and touches me and breathes close at my side, joined to me. The keen spirit of the one breathing beside me enters, and, powerful, rouses an unaccustomed fire in me as I meditate, animating my cold fibres with kindling brought near.

But I shall restrain swelling blasts, nor shall I, small, presume to speak great things above me, and I shall be brought back small to the ground I left and go with the level foot of a modest song. Though I cannot speak the lofty merit of Felix without the praise of God, you, holy Niceta, receive me in your fatherly bosom, and while I am supported by your learned breast, laying my head on your kindly heart, let your salt season my insipidity, and your rich vein water my thirsting senses with an everlasting stream. I shall say again rejoicing, and, still scarcely believing this gift, I shall repeat, asking: tell me, I pray, have you returned, and do I hold you yourself, Niceta, on whom until now, sick, I have hung nights and days with wasting soul? Have you come at last, restored to me in the fourth year? But thanks to Christ, because he has brought you back, though late. How I feared that the enemy in the regions between would hold you shut off by the opposing cloud of wars! But with overcoming desires you broke the bonds that stood in our way, nor did sea nor any labour nor Gothic fears nor the hard cold of long roads hold you back; truly in such great perils, Niceta, you were conquered by affection and a conqueror with kindly heart, strong and weak alike, but both powerfully. Conquered by friendship, conquered by love of Felix, you conquered hard labours by tender piety. Now come, holy parent, give me your ear and your hand; let us knot our allied palms in mutual bonds, and, our right hands joined in alternate covenant, let us sow varied conversation as we walk at leisure.

It pleases me to tell and at the same time show my anxious parent what we have done through the whole time he was away. For to whom should I more rightly unfold my deeds and go over what was worked for us by Felix's hand, than to one to whom we are a care? He, by the twofold right of teacher and father, may approve well-done things and condemn wrong ones, correct errors and calmly arrange what is to be done, help the unfinished by prayers and, as priest, dedicate the finished, and so may move to and fro in the buildings of Felix as if he bore Felix himself in his whole heart and gloried in his father's hall. Come, then, father, and join me with companion step, while I lead you around through each of the works. See, this portico, where the first gate receives us, was formerly buried under a dark roof; now it has grown new with paint and roof. But where the forecourt, enclosed around with a square covering, opens to the sky in a middle space, there was formerly a little garden with ill-tilled turf; the cheap ground gave scant vegetables for no use. Meanwhile the love came upon us to build this work in this place; for the thing itself seemed to require this adornment, so that a gladder honour might light up the venerable hall of the martyr from afar, from the opposite front, with its doors opened, and the bright front, open through arches with double doors, might flood the inner parts with abundant light, turned to face the conspicuous tomb where the martyr is covered, asleep, his body laid down, Felix, who from the threshold of his shining throne looks in triumph on his courts, their double doors opened to the light, and rejoices that his walls are overcome by godly gatherings and that his ample halls are widened for rejoicing peoples, and the dense crowds let through by many doors.

And the hall itself, where the tomb of the consecrated martyr stands, purged of old age, has taken on a new appearance. A threefold hand has adorned it with various beauties: craftsmen of coffered ceiling and of marble, two kinds, and a painter with images bearing divine faces. See how great a splendour, as if the building were reborn, smiles in the carved coffering of the curving vault. In the wood, ivory is counterfeited, and from the roof above hanging lamps are held by bronze coils, and in the middle space lights wander and nod on loose ropes; a light breeze tires the waving flames. And what stood before on pillars is now supported by columns, and, its material changed, has scorned cheap rubble. But let us return again to the courts. Look upward at the cells set above the long porticoes with doubled roof, dwellings to be worthily marked out for the good, whom zeal for prayer, not care for drinking, has brought here to the just honour of holy Felix. For the upper rooms, as it were joined to the sacred roofs, look down from upper windows on the safe altars, beneath which the bodies of saints have their seat within. For apostolic ashes too, laid beneath the heavenly table, give back, amid the holy offerings, the fragrance of sacred dust that pleases Christ. Here is father Andrew, he who, sent as a fisherman to the Argives, taught vain-speaking tongues to be silent; who, after he had freed peoples from the broken nets of wicked error and drawn them to Christ's nets, condemned Thessalian Patras with his poured-out blood. Here also the forerunner of the Lord and baptizer, John, likewise the sacred gate of the gospel and the goal of the law, himself also coming as a guest to the halls of my Felix, honours his brother's grave with part of his ash.

Here lies Thomas, the doubter, with the double surname Didymus; Christ permitted him to doubt, by the hesitation of a fearful mind, for the sake of our faith, so that we too, strengthened with him as guide, may in awe confess Jesus, Lord and God, to live after death in a true body, showing the living wounds of his flesh, so that, when the day comes on which God will come manifest in open light, the rebels who pierced him may in fear recognize him shining in his tortured flesh. Here is Luke, a physician first by art, then by speech, Luke twice a physician; as once he cured those sick in body by earthly help, so now for sick minds he has composed medicines of life in a twofold book. With these, companions in piety, faith, virtue and crown, are the martyrs Agricola, and Vitalis joined to Proculus, and Euphemia, the martyr who on the Chalcedonian shores marks the shore consecrated with virgin blood. Bologna buries Vitalis, Agricola and Proculus, whom sworn faith called to the arms of piety and an equal victory covered with saving palms, famous, their bodies pierced with beam-nails. Here also is the martyr Nazarius, whom by the faithful gift of noble Ambrose I received with humbled mind; he too deigns to be a fellow guest under Felix's roofs and adds his brother's houses to his own seats. Although all the saints together, throughout the whole world, are wherever they are through the one God, through whom they are everywhere presented to God as members of his body, yet places have been assigned to the bodies of the saints, nor does the grace of those laid to rest live only where the whole body lies;

but wherever there is part of a godly body, there his hand appears, God bearing witness, as proof of blessed merit, and great power in the slight dust of the saints cries out the force of the apostolic body, the word bearing witness. So whoever lives chaste in the upper rooms will be neighbour to these, and the stranger from afar who, moved by right affection, has hastened to the holy buildings; when he wishes to go apart to pray to Christ, whether by day or by night he wishes to bring out his prayers, let the guest come forth, unwearied, from the adjoining threshold. Wonder at this also: that the martyr's house, by the lofty law of a sacrament, opens through three thresholds (for it confesses one kingdom under a threefold name); and that the buildings, woven together with masses joined to one another, signify by godly right that, though there are many roofs in the structured houses, yet there is one house of holy peace, and harmony makes one body of many members, whose joining stands firm with Christ as head. Perhaps amid these sights you may eagerly ask whence this rich court is to be filled with so many fountains, since the city is far off and almost no channel of water from the city sends a slight drop here by a slender course. I shall answer that we trust nothing to our own right hand, rely on nothing of earthly help, have laid all things on the mighty God and count on fountains from heaven. In short, we have built cisterns against the roofs on every side, to catch rivers from the clouds as God pours them, whence the hollow marbles may flow together with full lips. But if at times there should be a failure of waters, the court, set off in various shapes in arranged order, with shell-shaped basins and florid with painted pillars, will perhaps be worth seeing even with dry basins.

For you know too how great an ornament in Solomon's great temple was the dry sea, which the wise king made of solid bronze and set upon bronze bulls. Look now at the other side: how there is one portico, and the wall, with a space opening two ways between columns, joins halls separated in roof with an entrance between them. It is time to pass with roving eyes into this building, which, opened along its long side, gains space for its roof with the light of the sky, opening into the joined courts, uniting what is disjoined through inserted arches, and offers the peoples the spectacle of a watered field, which yet walls built round in an enclosure shut in, so that the sacred roofs may not lie open to profane eyes, and the covered parts may protect the open forecourt from the weather. Nor wonder that the sacred folds increase in space; the mighty glory of eternal Christ grows everywhere, the honour of the saints is heaped up, one God is known by all, because the Holy Spirit lights up the world, and the Son, the heir, reigns with the coeternal Father; hence godly grace, with the light of truth spread abroad, multiplies the seeds of eternal life for the peoples. And because the good shepherd increases his sheep, lofty Christ favours that the folds grow ample with the redeemed flocks. Enter these, bishop, singing psalms and hymns, and carry my vows to the Lord, and join your joys to my vows, celebrating the feast of our common patron. At a fitting time you will pray for the sinner to the Lord, who rejoices in the honour of his confessor. With this guide your prayers will be carried along a downward path; Felix will go before you to the divine ears, and as you offer devoted services with the sacred rites and psalms together, Christ will descend with calm divinity, to veil people and temple with sacred mist, pouring a snowy cloud through the covered sanctuaries.

Now I want you to see the paintings on the colourful porticoes in a long row, and to tire your neck a little, bent back, while you read everything through with face tilted up. He who sees these, recognizing truths in empty figures, feeds his trusting mind on an image not empty. For the painting holds in faithful order all that old Moses wrote in five volumes, and what Jesus did, marked with the Lord's name, under whose leadership the Jordan, its flood suspended, stood back, its waves fixed, before the face of the divine ark. A new force divided the river; part, the stream poured back, stood still, and part of the river, slipping into the sea, ran off and left the ford bare; and where the strong rush burst from its source it had heaped the waters high, held fast, and a threatening mountain of water hung in a trembling mass, looking down on feet crossing the dried deep, and on the dusty footprints of men carried with dry feet in the middle of the river over hard mud. Now run over with intent eyes Ruth, who in a small book marks off the times, the times ended with the Judges and begun with the Kings; this seems a brief history, but it signifies the mysteries of a great war, in that twin sisters split in different directions. Ruth follows her holy mother-in-law, whom Orpah deserts; one daughter-in-law shows faithlessness, the other faith: one prefers God to her homeland, the other her homeland to life. Does not, I pray, this discord remain in the whole world, one part following God and the other rushing to ruin through the world? And would that the shares of death and salvation were equal! But the broad way takes many, and irrevocable error snatches those slipping downhill in easy ruin.

Perhaps it may be asked by what reasoning this decision settled on us, to paint holy houses, a rare custom, with likenesses of living beings. Hear, and I shall try to set out the causes in a few words. What gatherings the glory of holy Felix drives here is obscure to no one; but the more frequent crowd here is country folk, not empty of faith but not skilled in reading. This crowd, long accustomed to serve profane rites with its belly as god, is at last converted, newcomers, to Christ, while they marvel at the works of the saints plainly shown in Christ. See how many come together from all the fields, and how, deceived in their simple minds, they err devoutly. They have left distant homes, scorned the frosts, not cold, with glowing faith; and now, see, in crowds they stretch their joys wakefully through the whole night, keeping off sleep with gladness and darkness with torches. But would that they carried on these joys with sound vows and did not mingle their cups at the holy thresholds. Although the fasting company resounds with better service, singing holy hymns with chaste voices and soberly offering praise sung to the Lord, yet I think such joys as the simple draw out in feasts are to be pardoned, because error has crept into their uncultivated minds; nor does simplicity, not conscious of so great a fault, fall away from piety, wrongly believing that the saints rejoice when their tombs are drenched with fragrant wine. So do the departed masters approve what they condemned? Does Peter's table receive what Peter's teaching rejects? One is the cup of the Lord everywhere, one the food and one the table and house of God. Let wines go away to the taverns;

the church is the holy house of prayer; yield from the sacred thresholds, serpent. Not sport, wrongly, but punishment is owed you in this hall; you mix mockeries with your own punishments, enemy. Discordant, you both howl in torments and sing amid cups. You fear Felix and foolishly spurn Felix; drunk, you insult, as one accused you pray; and, wretch, you revel before him as judge, by whose vengeance you are punished, burning. Therefore it seemed to us a useful work to adorn all the houses of Felix with playful holy painting, in case the shade painted in colours might capture through these spectacles the astonished minds of the rustics, the shade which is explained above by inscriptions, so that the letter shows what the hand has unfolded; and while they all in turn show and read over the paintings to one another, they may be mindful of food more slowly, while welcome fasts feed their eyes, and so a better practice may insert itself in them, astonished, while the painting cheats their hunger; and as one reads the holy histories, the honour of chaste works steals upon him, led in by godly examples; sobriety is drunk in by the gaping one, and forgetfulness of too much wine comes on. And while they spend the day looking over a larger space, the cups grow fewer, because, the time drawn out by marvels, few hours now remain for the feasters. From what remains of these things which we see done and painted, I suggest to you matter for praying for me, asking that, as you are doing Felix's business, you pray diligently for me. And it is fitting that you, who accompany him with godly mind, should reproduce him in the face of the mind and follow him in spirit, equal in love of me; for I, wretch, do not doubt that I am loved by the martyr, deemed worthy even of the love due to a little puppy, since my life, house, property, grace, glory, bread is Felix by God's gift. With him as protector, ask that my foundations be laid on the holy mountains and the tower begun be completed with unbroken effort.

From Genesis, I pray, gather this meaning for your prayer: that I may not remain earthly Adam, but be born from virgin earth and, the old put off, be formed as a new image. May I be led out of my land and be unlike my race, and hasten to the honey-flowing rivers of the promised land, saved from the fire of the Chaldean furnace. May I be generous with my house, like Lot, its doors always open, so that I may be freed from Sodom; and may I not turn my eyes back, lest, lacking the salt of the heart, I be turned into a pillar of salt. May I be offered to God as a living victim like the boy Isaac, and, carrying my wood, follow my kindly Father beneath the cross. May I find wells, but, I pray, may envious Amalek, the blinder of living water, not fill them up. May I be a fugitive from the world, as blessed Jacob was a fugitive from his brother Edom, and may I place a stone to be consecrated under my weary head and rest in Christ. May mine be a chaste love, and a horror of wicked love, so that, like inviolate Joseph, I may flee the enticements of the flesh, my body stripped of its chains, free of crime, and leave fleshly spoil to the world. For it is time to be far from embraces; the last day is at hand, the Lord is already near, it is time now to rise from sleep and, ready, to keep watch for the Lord's knock. May I have a good exodus from Egypt, so that with the law as guide, passing through the divided surges of my stormy breast, I may escape the red waves and sing the Lord's triumph with Pharaoh drowned; to him with suppliant vow, exulting with trembling and rejoicing with fear, I commend my labours, his own godly gifts. Support, Niceta, by prayer what I pray, and at the same time all of you who have gathered here together for holy religion, devoted to the Lord and giving thanks, say with me: These things, Christ God, we do for you on our behalf with slender and fragile provision; for things made by hand do not contain you, highest Creator, you whom the world with its whole body does not contain, to whom heaven is narrow and earth a point. But bringing devoted services to your saints without end, we venerate the great with slight honour, hoping, with them as intercessors, that you may set in us the perfect summits of your works and be present as dweller in minds built up.