On Reproof

On Reproof Memra Forty-Six On Reproof A prison of mortality, in which man is confined, And he does not think to depart from it, not even at his death. Within a dwelling of harshness, the weak one is cast, And he does not know how to escape from its severity. With hard bonds of passions he is bound and cast down, And he does not know how to rise from the fall of his passions. The love of the lust of passions dwells within him, And it is easy for him, like a fire in the logs of the forest. By the fire of desires, all his limbs burn, And there is no limb that is not kindled by one of the passions. Within his members is hidden the fire of his passions, And it cannot be extinguished until his mortality is extinguished. Like a chain cast upon his soul, the love of silver, And it is not loosened until death looses his body. By the thorn of vainglory, the movements of his freedom are pricked, And unless it breaks him on the day of judgment, he is not freed. A hard goad of the lust of the flesh is placed in his members, And it subdues him like a beast without reason. Mortality is a hard yoke, and to him it is not hard, And it is a prison of harshness, and to him it is not considered. Death is hidden in the love of silver, and to him it is like life, And hard bonds of vainglory, and to him it is pleasure.

knows how to depart from it. He is like a dream, considering the separation that is set in the scriptures as nothing. As if he were not mortal, he runs on the path of his speech, and like a silent one, he burns the order of his separation. In a bestial manner, he resembles in his limbs and his changes, and he is little less than nothing from the animals. He resembles a beast, not because he is like one, but because he wills it; for if he wills, there is none who can hinder him, like a deaf-mute. Not like the deaf-mute who is bound by the confusion of the earths, nor like one who, without perception, errs in the errors of the ranks. But he is rational, and his rationality is not to be grasped; he is aware that he is cunning, and he is not to be outwitted in the face of his sufferings. Cunning to deceive, and simple to release the soul from deceptions; narrow to falsify, and empty to interpret truths. Rational to speak those things that help his weakness, and silent and deaf to the blemishes of his evil. A separator, bold to separate what is good for him, and a wailer and a mourner to announce the blemishes of his hirelings. Prudent in his knowledge, and he judges the deaf-mute who do not know, and he himself never judges until his standing in those things that he judges. He is judged by all and does not perceive that he is judged by anything at all. He knows the iniquity that is outside him clearly, and the good things that are within him he does not seek.

O judge who knows how to stand in the place of his thought. Look at your cities like the revelations of your thoughts. He condemns his companions when he is convicted of the guilt of sins. Condemn yourself in the conviction of the guilt of your sins. He arranges the deaf who are silent before him with eloquence. Arrange your life so that it resembles the eloquent. He restrains natures that do not separate in his separateness. Restrain your nature so that it separates well the good things. He accustoms his habits to one who does not know the word "man." Accustom yourself to those things by which the nature of your freedom is restrained. He places commands in the mouth of the silent who are to pursue what is good. Command your limbs to be submissive to the course of your path. He tills the earth and carves mountains with his diligence. Cultivate your thought so that it bears fruits of the fear of truth. He subdues waves and confines winds with his patience. Subdue your passion so that it is not stirred up by the storm of iniquity. He hunts wild beasts and sets traps for beasts of the hour. Hunt down the evil habits of your soul as if for the deaf. He uproots thorns from the silent fields. Uproot your evils like thistles from within the field. He pacifies the world with the word of peace that dwells within him. Pacify your inclination with the discipline of your peace. The cause of peace is you, O man of honored name. Honor your name so that peace is not disgraced by your name.

In the hour of your name, you are watchful and you shake the world of time. Guard your freedom so that you are not sold into bondage without freedom. You have a hidden war with everyone and with your entire people. Do not be healed lest you be condemned and you condemn everyone. Constrain your war so that you may speak a word of words with your people, and do not let your strength be a hindrance so that your head may be bowed like a weak one. Come, hear the sound of your guilt from my guilt, and judge justly whether you justly condemn yourself. Examine the test of your discernment, look at my utterances, and see clearly the revelation of the shame of your shamefulness. Like a knower, stand as both speaker and hearer, and do not trouble yourself to announce the iniquity of one who is guilty. Hear then and speak a word concerning yourself: O human, why do you disturb your dwelling and why is your course idle? Why does the conduct of your life resemble that of beasts, and why do you change the order for a violent order of eloquence? Why is creation bound in the bitterness of your harshness, and there is no activity that sweetens its taste in the mouths of its doers? Why does the change of times change from all times, and there is no likeness that resembles the times that were before them? Why is the equal course of their changes not equal, and on what do they pass or are they passed beyond the order? Why does summer resemble summer and winter resemble winter, and why is there excess and deficiency in dryness and heat?

Why is the course of months and days one, and our life is not filled as before? Why are earthly things lacking in the dwelling of man, and a good reward is not given for despised labors? Why does the dwelling of time hasten with that which is eternal, and in our generation there is no possession of earth or water? Why are the righteous of body and mind many, and there is none among us strong bodily and spiritually? Why is the simple one not known among all the orders, and there is no wise one who heals the righteous of commonness? Healings of body and soul have ceased from us, and there is none who is diligent for our health, even in word. Those who know the pains of suffering have departed from us, and our race is near to being scourged by pains and griefs. The world has grown dark with the darkness of ignorance, and our sick ones are covered with a black veil, as it is written. The understanding of the fear of truth has passed from our mind, and nothing remains that does not hinder us from nothing. O how hard is the hardness of our heart beyond all that is hard, that it is not broken by the hard things that scourge it! O how blind is the eye of our soul from duty, that it is not bent to see the blemishes that continually afflict it! O how heavy is the hearing of our mind, light of hearing, that it hears and is silent, and does not make us hear what is fitting!

Oh, how much does the freedom of the body cry out from its freedom, without making known to us the righteousnesses that are fitting for the free ones! Oh, how much does this our nature labor for itself without measure, without bringing to us a little profit from our evils! It devours our body and is not weary over its own sustenance, and it turns to the earth and does not consider what the cause is. We do not run to see what the cause of the afflictions of our body is, and we do not seek with a request the pains that oppress us. Like a stone that strikes, our heart is before the demonstrations, and without feeling, it causes itself to feel grievous pains. Grievous pains and oppressive sufferings and hastening death, and it does not cease as if it had heard one of these. Famine presses, captivity carries off, and the sword is drawn, and we are as if on the bed of luxury. War rages, the horn abounds with what is plundered, and to our minds everything is considered as nothing. Righteousnesses in the church, disturbances in the streets, and confusion in every place, and if a man seeks to investigate our ranks, they do not perceive our sin. There is no remembrance of the afflictions of our body within our minds, and if not, there is not truly a snare set for man. Not truly is the remembrance of the verities set, while the words of the mouth are not completed for the outer appearance. There is one who repeats the remembrance of words in words alone, and from his mind, the remembrance of the beautiful things is hidden.

There is one who is swift to seek out the good deeds for the sake of being praised, and in his thoughts he is dull concerning the knots of falsehood. There is one who is eager to pursue a violent and wicked course, and the evil of his own soul he cannot even designate by a word. There is one who purifies pride and arrogance, and brings them into himself, and they are not uprooted from his freedom. There is one who has put on the guise of asceticism and humility, yet there is none so contemptible as his intention. There is one who shows a face of love toward his companion, while his nature conceals a sword for his blood. There is one who bends over the truth as if he does not bend, and resembles a wolf that has put on the form of a lamb in everything. There is one who knows how to reproach falsehoods, yet the falsehoods that are within him do not recognize him. There is one who reads the books of the Spirit with fluency, but his mind is too agitated to accomplish words through deeds. There is one who also interprets the meaning of the mysteries, yet is not changed by the hidden things that are in his thoughts. There is one who reminds of the judgments of the future judgment, but he himself is not steadfast, nor is the Lord of the judgment that is his. There is one who warns not to act unjustly in his own case, yet he multiplies and sets many snares for the feet of his companions. There is one who cuts off mercy for money with manly strength, and is rooted in it like a stake in the depth of the earth.

There is one who makes haste for the love of praise deceitfully, and is slow in him like one who is dull in the hollows of falsehood. There is one who plunges into violent courses like a victor, and sinks into them as into a pit that cannot be crossed. There is one who flees from hardships and afflictions, and is slack in him the fire of wrath against his companions. There is one who mocks with a proud and haughty spirit, and the height of his spirit is not to be measured, how high it raises him. There is one who is enraged by insults and provocations, and when he is provoked, it is not a man but a demon. There is one who accuses the faults of others to their neighbors, and he himself does not let pass the fault of wrath from his own thoughts. There is one whose eye is sharp to see the blemishes of others, and the hidden faults of his own vices he does not seek out. There is one who is sorrowful and mournful and distressed over the affairs of others, and the remembrance of his own iniquity never enters his mind. There is one who is indignant at the evils of others justly, and at his own evils he does not grieve, and he is angry from the day it happened. And there is one who distributes even alms from thefts, and if an orphan meets him in the street, he raises his staff against him. There is one who interprets spiritual things before hearers, and is bound and confined by carnal things without satiety. There is one who prays with the oaths of his companions, and swallows the guilty debts of his own heart.

There is one who thinks that in him are perfected good things, and is far from them as the mountain is far from the plain. There is one who is reproached falsely by liars, and if there were a mouth for stones, they would cry out from him. How many have grown old and ascended the step of headship, and were not worthy that their servants be servants to servants. How many have lived in health and soundness of body, and it was not necessary that a deacon should cry out over their lives. How many have erred in the ways of the schema of the schema, and the day is ready that the filth of their schema will be revealed. How many have been in the house of oaths to the children of the heart, and on the day of judgment become a laughingstock to their beholders. How many changes that are not to be counted among the sons of men, and there is no man who knows the evil that is among the sons of men. The sorrowful sick of evil, the sick of men, and they are not concerned for the wounds of their thoughts. In their thoughts the pain of their thoughts is hidden, and it is not possible that they should place for it a medicine that will heal. Ignorance has entered between them and the truth, and they are angry with each other when they are destroyed by their companions. Come, silent ones, see the speakers, how they have been silenced, who died in sin and did not know and did not perceive their own end.

He who dies a death that resembles the death of the dead of the generation, which casts down everyone, and no man knows how many deaths. In which generation has he lived in evils like the evils, which, when they are many, are not satisfied with their hairs? Without satiety, evil loves evil thoughts, and behold, wonder: how much evil and how much beloved! The evil of her evil has counseled me to seek after her evil, that in her revelation a man might see his standings. The help of her evil has made men helpers of vision, and her form in words of the beholder sees in her how much help. For her drunkenness my word has become a herald, and my mouth proclaims, that everyone may know the proclaimers of evils. The proclaimers of evils I have seen proclaiming to the sons of man, and I have thought much about the gathering of the multitude of kinds. The great kind, the Creator called him to the great kind. In that he raised him to the name of the greatness of his sign, by this name the head of the beginning of our lives named him, when it was necessary to go and reign in the place of height. A man, not one whose kind is the great kind, went to a place very far to reign there. In the place of height, a giant reigned by the hand of the son of a giant, and the giant led him astray to the confession of words that are against the giant. He raised up an emir and seated him with him above in heaven, and there is no remembrance of that ascent within our thoughts.

He who seeks after them, the herald writes of his proclamation. And if a man seeks, no man knows where it is written. There is no memory of the writings in the thought of a man. And if there is, there is no half of a man that is immersed in the letters. In half of a man, a man meditates with the words of the spirit. In that man, the body is immersed, and his meditation is small. The body is immersed in the meditation of heavy things, and the soul is good, which is at rest and quiet from labor. Woe to the body, to what depth and fall its honor has descended, that it has left the heights and immersed itself in earthly things. Woe to the people, where the good portion of its blessedness has gone astray from the covenant of the future things in the spectacles. They loved the spectacles, the lovers of the abyss, and they considered the excesses of the true things as nothing. O perverters, who perverted the order of the beautiful things and overturned the blessed things and loved the webs without end. O rebels, who troubled the peace with their diggings and began to make a hidden war against their brothers. To teach her the way of peace through one man, and easily led him astray from the thought of showing them. Not by their will did they show them from their error, and by their will they rejected the commands that he commanded them. Guilt and peace taught them to guard his hunt, and as if by nature he cast them upon their senses.

In these matters he said that the world knows that the disciples are established in love and peace, which the proclamation of one shows to his companion. He seeks something if there is in these matters in the difficult generation, and he sees what stands, the foundation of love and peace. In the Church he seeks for this request of love and peace, where the teacher of beautiful things gives it. From the houses he learned the foundation of the master of the house, that he might be knowing to strike beautifully for beautiful things. Reveal to us, Church, the mysteries of your teaching from your betrothed, that he learned and became for those who are fitting for you in the request of your passage. The betrothal of the king who betroths her, the king by the sacrifice of his body, open your gates, the twins that were in your betrothal. You erred, bride, the covenant that you established with your betrothed, and you lied and became for the pleasures of the spirit that he gave you in his love. By glorious pleasures and powers of the mighty, honor you, king, where he became and shows something that he established against you. Where is the stole that he gave you from the baptisteries? It was defiled by the filthy request of your drunkennesses. Where is the seal of the spirit of revelation that he placed for you in your hands? It fell and was lost from its rank, not from him but from you. Where is the crown and the authority of the height that would roll for you? It is not against you in the absence, for you are firm in love against him.

The abundance of your wealth, the divine wealth, has been exhausted. Pains and demons, evil ones, oh what has happened to you! Pains and demons have plundered the treasury of the sons of the Church. And now they are turning about like a circle to ask for alms. Like debtors they have entered, their pains upon their companions, and they have saved themselves and not rejoiced, and they have perceived their own salvations. In the garment of iniquity they have dipped their movements along with their senses, and they have lost from themselves love, hope, and faith. Three signs were fixed in the land of their dwelling-place, and they destroyed themselves without knowledge of their own actions. There is no one who believes, there is no one who hopes, nor even one who loves. And if these are not, the hope of the people is lost from them. Through faith, hope, and love, the life of your death lives, and how can you live when your life is far from you? They saw no equality of your life-givers and fled from you. And they remained, mankind, like a man in whom there is no soul. Without the life of faith, man lives, and without hope and love, he is guided in his actions. The completeness of their heart has sealed the depth of faith, and they have stood like Adam, naked, without adornment. Naked stand the children of the Church without humility, and demons laugh as they laughed at Adam afterward.

A great camp was the encampment of the body of Adam, and that camp after the life of the dead in sin. Sin and death were clothed for you like a skin, and one of them arose and found his body and freed your body. In the time of the sacrifice he finds his body, not all of it. Three days he remains in death and lives and revives. Three days he ceased to be in the skin, and he went and took the skin of his entire body. With the warmth of his body he warms the bodies of the pure ones, and he makes them share in the goodness of the immortal life. The life of lives mingled with your dead ones, full of death, and the immortal lives cast down your mortality. In these lives your humanity lives in the son of humanity, and your dead ones turned in human affairs as before. Death, the great one, the dead died in this time, one pure and one sinful, woe, the great one. In body and soul the dead of our days die, and there is none who abolishes the warmth of the daughters of the soul. The benefit of the soul warms the bodies and the limbs, and the soul is silent and not wearied by its actions. Woe to you, soul, and especially woe to you, soul of priests, that you are not roused to mercy upon the sons of your body. Priests have put an end to the great festival of these dead ones, for if they had remained in faith, everyone would have lived.

They stripped off the garment of faith, the wretched and foolish one, and when the demons saw, they ran after every one who had stripped it off. They blocked the way of love, the equal one without its equality, and they cut off the path of the just one through their wickedness. From then, the deadness of death was sought among the living, for they said, "He who gives life died on the cross." To that living one who gave life to the one who raised us, priests blaspheme with their blasphemies without law. Behold, the blasphemy that struck the earth and its inhabitants, and behold, every one is crucified on the one who said, "The living one did not die." Death, the bound one, kills his own members; he kills God, if he does not confess according to the confession of his transformation. O foolish one, where did you see a being that dies, and who taught you to kill your companion who does not kill you? He is killed by his sins; why do you kill the one who does not die? You are drunk with pride; why are you intoxicated to destroy your companions? The sword of fools, the persecutors of the just one, has power in the land, and behold, the world is laid waste by the sword of deadness. The sword of pains has gone astray, the thinker on his tongue, and it destroys the orders that do not submit to him in harshness. A new war of harshness has been stirred within me now, and behold, it urges me to pour out my words in his preparations. Words, O foolish one, I desire to pour out in the ranks of his preparations, that they might be scattered from the union of harshness.

Their stubbornness does not allow me to be silent about them, and their rebelliousness does not permit me to mix their name among all the lineages. In the lineage of the passions of your suffering, the power of my word was strengthened. I heard the passion and mixed its lineage with the lineage of your passions. In the passions I thought and composed words full of passions, and the lineage of the passion greater than the passions assailed me. The great passion that overcomes the doer seized me with evils, and I left my own passions to be healed and marvelled at it. Wonder seized me concerning this passion of divinity, and the thought of the passions belittled it in its own measure. Now, the entry of this passion is pursued after that mighty battle that is waged at all times. Now, the cry of suffering that is hidden in being, it hastens the hunger and captivity upon the souls. Now, the blasphemy of injustice of the body from which diseases are stirred and pains are brought forth upon the members. Now, the mixture that mixes natures one with another, it makes the change of times that is not ordered. Now, the mockeries that fools mock at the knowers of truth, they are the ones that measure you in all forms. The pure blood that the unjust shed arrogantly, it hastens death that comes quickly. The foolish error that led the simple astray with their foolishness, it stirs up wrath and brings forth anger and causes bitterness.

Behold, their lives are given over to the tempest of wrath, and behold, the world is troubled by likenesses through the afflictions. Harsh pains strike the ship of our death, and there is no pilot who knows the courses to which the tempest goes. In the house of afflictions, without knowledge, the race stands, and there is in that race no helmsman to calm the wrath. There is none to quell the wrath of the pains that are against man, and none to soften the severe grief of fierce anger. With fierce anger, man has embittered the lives of men, and that one is praised who knows the courses to complete his wrath. With clamor, the revilers also are praised, and the one who is small is greatly honored among liars. Deceit succeeds better than truth in an evil time, and falsehood is loved more than honesty. There is no honesty, nor any order at all, so that even the truthful are not truthful according to what they believe. Custom leads all orders, good and evil, and even that good is mixed with evil along with its goodness. There is no truth that is pure of stains, since there is no man who is not a son of man, and his pains are with him. By pains, the whole Adamite race is stained, and where is the Adam who is not earth, ruling his body? There is one Adam who was not stained by his earthliness, that one who disturbs the foolish by the tale of his incarnation.

One is he who shaves the harsh keel of the sensation of pain, he who in his pain brings forth likenesses to the one without sensation. One is he who is pure and whose mouth testifies to the purity of his being. It is evident that there is no pure one except one. There is no pure one, and especially in this time, when everyone contends for truth by taking it on the face. By taking it on the face, everyone stands before the face of his companion, and like passing shadows, words without substance pass by. Words multiply: a friend to his friend, a companion to his companion, "Peace to me, peace to you," and there is no substance in which peace exists. By mouth alone, mouth delivers to mouth its writing, and the one who receives is unaware when mouth delivered to mouth. Thus is love in our generation, a consuming and consuming one, and it begins and prevails in all our actions. With this sign of the disease of my word, I aim at our conduct, and it is not sufficient to depict a likeness to the likeness. There is no painter who suffices to depict the likeness of our iniquity, with the many kinds of his evils from his poisons. Not to be counted are the kinds of our deceptions, for there is no scribe who can grasp their number within his fingers. With a small hand, he grasps the bow of our evil generation, and the mouth is too weak to utter the words of his falsehood. Falsehood fills words without substance, and that which does not lie, its falsehood is not to be confessed.

Destruction and ruin have seized the likeness of all men, and there is no action that is not in him, and he hunts them. The curse is strong and looses itself upon their actions, and according to their will they desire to stand the world and fill it. With ruin, the proud mind performs whatever it does, and fullness of destruction is set against all. Two lions, savage, have loosed themselves with man, and no man knows that the ruin is fair in their deeds. Great harm they have done in creation and will do again in it, and there is none who is confounded, sees, and feels their harm. Savagely they mock all in their harm, and they tremble and leap among men like beasts. The voice of the lions has no power over beasts, as destruction and ruin are feared over humanity. The beast of one does not bend to the beast of another, as the bendings that man has bent to the wicked. The flight is not again confounded from flight, as the victory that friends have won over their beloved. The silence of the speechless is better than that of the eloquent, and love is more excellent in their weeping than in their hunting. A vain word, full, that I have spoken, if it is true, that in the silent love stands, and in them it is not. And again, be confounded by the word concerning them, and turn now, and bring pains upon the actions of our feeling.

In pain, he announces the pains of the soul and the blemishes of the body, and he is healed from the sins of the body and the soul. In sorrow, he says that sorrow is with his thoughts, that he might flee from that sorrow which has no end. The sorrow of the soul is written, which abolishes the sorrow of the future. Whatever your heart fashions in the house of sorrow of error and vanity, come, O man, king who holds two houses of sorrows. Loosen your deeds and free your soul from the oppressor. In the house of sorrow of error, you condemn yourself according to your will, that you might not be condemned in the house of sorrow in which there is no will of your soul.