Carmina moralia

Section 2. Moral Poems.

1. Praise of Virginity.

We shall crown virginity with our garlands, singing pure hymns from a pure heart. For this is the noble gift of our life, more radiant than gold or electrum or ivory, with which the virgin's sting cast down earthly life low, raising the wing of the mind from here to the high-ruling God. As the hymn begins, may the pure consent together; for the hymn is a common honor for all the pure. Let the envious block their ears at the doors; but if anyone should open them, let him purify his mind by the word. Hail, great virginity, God-given, giver of good things, mother of innocence, lot of Christ, yoked with the unyoked beauties of heaven; for the unyoked are first God, then the chorus of God who always is. Or rather, one is the source of lights, a light neither nameable nor choiceworthy, fleeing the speed of the mind as it approaches near, always outstripping the thoughts of all, as we are drawn by desires to ever new heights; and the others are secondary lights from the Triad holding royal glory. The first virgin is the pure Triad. From the Father without beginning, the Son without beginning, not set in motion from outside (for he himself is the way and root and beginning for all), nor born like mortal offspring, but as light comes from light. And from the Son, the beloved Son no longer draws a similar glory; as the one remains wholly the begetter, while the Son is alone and most solitary of the only one; going into one with the great Spirit, which comes from the Father as like, one God revealed in three lights. Such is the pure nature of the Triad.

From that source, radiant angels, eternal, who stand around the great throne, since they are light-minded spirits, fire and divine breaths swiftly coursing through the air, eagerly serve the great commands. For them there is neither marriage, nor grief, nor cares, nor the terrible, reckless turmoil of passions; they are not divided among limbs or houses; they are of one mind with each other, and each is the same as himself. One nature, one thought, one desire concerning the great Lord God. They take no delight in children or wives, attending to sweet toil; wealth is not desirable to them, nor all that the earth bears for mortals as cares of wickedness. They do not plow, nor do they sail the seas for the sake of the unyielding belly, the belly that is the origin of evil; one best food for all is to feast on the word of the great God, and to draw the vast light from the bright Trinity. They live solitary lives, pure servants of a pure God, simple, spiritual, transparent, neither beginning from flesh (for flesh, once formed, is again destroyed), nor going into flesh, but remaining what they were. For them virginity is godlike, a ready path to God, following the thoughts of the immortal Ruler who wisely steers the helm of the cosmos; and in it is the heavenly, the earthly, the high-minded, the mortal, the sacred race of wretched men, the boast of the Lord. But now I shall tell the revered mysteries of God, and how virginity shone in the last times. There was once a time when black night covered everything. There was no lovely light of dawn; nor did the fiery sun rush from the east on its path; nor did the crescent moon appear, the ornament of night.

All things were borne together with one another, vainly unspoken, subdued by the dark bonds of the first-born chaos. But you, blessed Christ, persuaded by the wisdom of the great Father, distinguished each thing well according to order. First, light came to be, so that all works might be graceful and full of light. Then you encircled the starry heaven, a great wonder, with the sun and moon shining. To them you said: to the one, to shine the dawn upon men with streams of infinite light, and to roll the seasons; to the other, to shine the darkness and to escort the second day. You placed my seat beneath the earth, and bound the sea in the arms of the earth, and the earth in the gulfs of Ocean, flowing around. Thus all was cosmos: earth, heaven, and sea; heaven rejoicing in its heavenly lights, the sea in its navigable waters, and the vast earth in its creatures. Then, having beheld and perceived all that was fitting, the king rejoiced in the harmonious works of his child. He sought also the wise overseer, mother of all, and the god-fearing king of the earthly, and said this: "Now the pure and ever-living servants, the holy minds, the noble angels, the hymn-singers, never ceasing to sing my glory, hold the broad heaven; but the earth still delights in senseless living things. It pleased me to establish a mixed race from both, a mindful light of mortals and immortals, midway, delighting in my works, a prudent initiate of heavenly things, a great power over earthly things, another angel from the earth, a singer of my might and mind." So he spoke, and taking a portion of the newly-formed earth, with his immortal hands he set up my form. And of his own life he granted a share to it.

For the Spirit entered, which is a fragment of the invisible divinity. And from dust and breath the mortal came to be, an image of the immortal; for the queenly nature of mind belongs to both. Therefore I cherish one life because of the earth, and I hold desire for the other in my breast because of the divine portion. But when the divine formation appeared on the earth, and in the valleys of the ever-blooming paradise, and there was no similar helper for this life, then the greatest wonder of the wise Word occurred: the mortal whom he had fashioned as the beholder of his own cosmos, my root and seed of manifold life, he divided in two with his great life-giving hand, took a single rib from the side, and from it fashioned woman, and mixing desire in their breasts, he set them to be borne toward one another—not wholly nor for all, but he placed a limit on desires, which they call marriage, a bridle on boundless matter, lest, raging and frenzied uncontrollably, as they went heedlessly in herds upon one another, they should break the sacred race of mortals from unyoked love, and stir up wars and hatreds for all, driven by a frenzy in unmarked follies. As long as the earth, mother of mortals, was lacking, and did not have the highest order as it was destined, but even the first man, by his own follies and the envy of the evil serpent, was cast from paradise because of the sinful taste of the man-slaying plant, and pressed his skin-clad tunic upon the earth; then the dyad was best among men, and marriage, the nature of the human race, a defense against destruction. So that, as men perish and come after, the mutable race of mortals may be drawn like a stream, unstable from death, and made to stand through children.

Then when the bosom and broad limits of the earth, the east and west, the side of the south and the north, were filled with ephemeral beings, the slime boiled over in insolence. And the creature, subdued by many previous teachings—by divided tongues, by waters, by showers of fire, and by the instructions of written law and the prophets—would not shake off the bonds of its first wickedness, but always clung to the firm fetters of the flesh, maddened by lusts, drunkenness, and idols. Finally, such a race obtained the honor of a dear reward by the decrees of the immortal Father and the works of the Son. Christ, seeing how much of the heavenly portion he had laid down in a mortal body, and how the soul-devouring serpent of wickedness was devouring and ruling crookedly over mortals, as if to raise up his own lot, no longer sent a small remedy to others for the great sufferings (for a small cure is not sufficient for great passions), but emptying his own glory—heavenly and unchangeable, an image of the heavenly—by both human and non-human laws, in the holy womb of a virgin woman, incarnate (O wonder, unbelievable to the weakest), came as both God and mortal, gathering two natures into one, the one hidden, the other manifest to mortals, of which the one was God, the other became for us at last, when God was mingled with human flesh.

One God from both sides; for, blended with divinity, a mortal from divinity became lord and Christ came into being. A new mixture came to be, for I spurned the former. First I received a share of divine breath, and last Christ received my soul and all my limbs—that former Adam, free, who was naked of sin, before seeing the serpent or tasting the fruit and death, and who nourished his spirit with simple heavenly thoughts, a mystic of God and bright with divine things. Remolding him, God came into mortal nature, as if contending and conquering the murderer death, tasting gall, and unlawful hands with nails, and the plant on the cross, and earth with height, to lead Adam back to life and glory. Spreading his sacred body to the limits, he gathered the mortal he himself had made from the ends and bound them into one light, and placed them in the embrace of great divinity, cleansing all defilements with the blood of the Lamb, and rising from there as a guide of the heavenly path for mortals. O Lord, who could discover your mind and depth—who knows the number of all raindrops and all grains of sea sand, and the paths of the wind? Who could know the tracks of your blessed counsel, how you, high-ruler, oversee all and steer all, all that the boundless age conceals? Stretching toward you, the mind of mortals sees a small gleam, like a lightning bolt swiftly fleeing from the air. But this at least is true: that by your sufferings you raised the mortal from here and placed him in another life, free instead of evil. Before, life was in travail and the world seethed, and a great people surrounded the king of the earth, whom they snatched away from the great King by cunning.

Now Christ, having snatched me from the hand of evil, leads me up to the great Lord and a better world. That was a marriage for mortals; this is a godlike celibacy. One world is of earth, the other of heavenly dance. As a man engraving images on tablets, first with small and faint outlines he sketches the form, trying it out; then with all sorts of colors he sets down the whole shape—so the portion of virginity of Christ, who always is, first appeared among few and was shadowy, until the time when law also reigned, with faint colors it shone forth, and a hidden light gleamed for a few. But when Christ, passing through a pure, virgin, unyoked, godlike, undefiled mother (since it was necessary to be apart from marriage and father), purified womankind, shook off bitter Eve, and sent away the laws of the flesh, and with great words the letter yielded to the Spirit, and grace came into the midst—then virginity shone bright for mortals, dissolving the world and dissolving the weak world, surpassing the bonds of marriage and life by as much as soul is superior to flesh, and as wide heaven is to earth, as the blessed life standing still is to flowing life, as God is better than man. And a blameless, light-bearing chorus stands around the Lord, heavenly, hastening from earth to be God, Christ-bearing, servant of the cross, despiser of the world, dead to earthly things, caring for heavenly things, lamps of the world, transparent mirrors of light, who see God and whom God sees, and who are of God.

Come now, all you who are of one mind with my ribs, and you brides of marriage, high-headed and bearing sharp eyes, and you who mix gold with noble gems, and soft robes with delicate limbs—gather all the gains that marriage and the bond bring to mortals, and afterwards we will call the unyoked portion. Some will speak boastfully in rapid words: "Hear, O dear children of marriage, of the earthly king—we, to whom marriage and the bonds of life are a care, of the male race and of our blood, whose ordinance the Child of the immortal Father established from the time when he first bound Adam's rib, that fruit from man should become mortal, and from seed, though mortal, should continue to sprout in children—honoring this law and the lovely yoking together, we have agreed with one another, since we were born of dust, tending to the law of dust and the most ancient law of God. For indeed, all natures that have obtained the broad heaven are unyoked, superior to passions and grievous cares; but for mortals, marriage and the bond are a boon—both a root of dear shoots and lovely fruits, and a noble support of honey-sweet life. First is God, the begetter of all. (And be gracious, O Christ, to your pure laws, more than before or earlier.) Next comes the bond of love, since earth and air and sea have flourished with offspring, gifts of marriage. And if truly for the high-crested date-palms the law of desire is that, when mingled, female and male in the spring season, they burst forth with grape-like fruit by the hands of gardeners; and if from a pair of gems, a single stone is born, as men skilled in stones say—then even for the soulless there is marriage and a bond of love.

But what is the love of strangers and of tales and desires to me? Behold what marriage, the prudent one, has provided for mortals. Who taught dear wisdom, and discovered the depths—all that the earth, all that the sea, all that the heaven encloses within? Who established laws for cities? And before these, who raised up cities and devised arts with counsels? Who filled marketplaces and houses, and who filled contests? Who raised an army in wars, and tables at feasts? Who established a hymn-singing chorus in a fragrant temple? Who ended the life of wild beasts, and taught tilling the earth, and agriculture, and launched a black ship upon the seas, sped by the winds? Who bound together earth and sea with a wet path, apart from marriage, and brought together things far distant into one? And these things are here, such as they are. But those things above are far better. We are hands and ears and feet to one another in union. Marriage has made the double and the weak strong, a great joy to the well-disposed, and a grief to the ill-disposed. Shared cares lighten sorrows; shared joys are sweeter for both. Wealth is more pleasant when it belongs to those of one mind; but harmony is more pleasant than wealth for those who lack it. Marriage is a key to both temperance and desire, and a seal of necessary love. One colt of friendship, warming the spirit with its leaps. One draught from a household spring, untasted by strangers, neither flowing outwards nor gathering anything from outside. Grown together in flesh, of one mind, sharpening in each other a like spur of piety through desire. For not even marriage sets one apart from God, but rather one clings more, since it also urges more.

As a small breeze sends a small ship rushing swiftly through the swell with spread sails, or as hands send a ship hastening under oars, but a great and not small breeze carries a heavy ship coming over the sea, a stronger wind urging it on, so also the unmarried live lightly, needing the lighter help of the great God. But he who is surrounded by a dear wife and possessions and children cuts a great and wide expanse of life, and with greater need, he embraces God more. Such is marriage; but life without love is crippled, pitiless, unseen, homeless, mountain-roaming. It is no remedy for sufferings, no cure for failing old age; parents growing young in their own children. There is no foundation of a sweet life. They take no pleasure in assemblies, nor in feasts, but are joyless, outside the world, who are born of life and do not love the roots of life, nor have a spirit in harmony with mortals. But if one desiring virtue dishonors love, virtue is not far from love, not only because marriage is first in all things for the pious, but also because they are the origin of gentle love and witnesses and interpreters of Christ's sufferings: patriarchs, priests, athletes, kings, all distinguished by every virtue. For the earth did not bring forth the good, as they say, the monstrous tribes of giants, but all are the offspring and glory of marriage. Who revealed the great God ruling over men, even to those far off, and filled the mind with a more divine love, and led from there to another life? Who purified souls with bright means for all mortals? Faith translated Enoch. And the great Noah saved the whole world from the waters with few souls and floating seeds.

Abraham was father of cities and nations, and he bound his son as a sacrificial offering on the altar to Christ. Moses led the people from heavy Egypt with great wonders, and received the law on stone tablets, and saw God face to face. Aaron was a faithful priest among the earlier ones. Joshua stopped the course of the moon and sun, and wrought longer slaughter and sorrow among enemies. And you, blessed Samuel, bearing the horn to the anointed, pure one. David was renowned among all kings, and Solomon was the first glory of wisdom. Nor shall I forget the prophets. A chariot snatched Elijah to heaven. Who has not marveled at John, the clear-voiced forerunner of the Light, between law and spirit? Who at the glorious twelve disciples afterward? Who at the great-hearted, heaven-traveling might of Paul, and others who have been and now are the best, the support of the word, the glory of the world, and the foundations of the people? Marriage and Christ gave all these to mortals. Nor did women who prided themselves on piety, whose great number is in the God-inspired books, abstain from marriage and flesh and attain glory. Let me speak a greater tale, honoring my own love. Even Christ mingled with pure men in his bowels, but slipped away from a betrothed woman, mixing half of a mortal union with divinity. And one thing above all is my greatest power, if the unmarried prevail, for they too are my kind, as are all. For the married come not from the unmarried, but the unmarried from marriage. To my children I say: hold the contest. If you are not fathers, you have at least come from fathers. Such is marriage.

Afterwards, with downcast cheek, in ragged garments and manly bonds, barefoot, withered, with eyes fixed upon the ground, maidenly, parting her lips but little with modesty, reddening her cheek with holy blood, and drawing from her head a veil, she hid in silence. Then I persuaded her with these words: "O child of Heaven, and glorious within, O one who stands beside the great choirs of the Ruler with hymn-singers, even if form and earth constrain you, come here and speak your word. I will stand before you. For to me you came as a god-sent queen; you came, but may you be even more propitious and gracious. Who leads me, even unwilling, to this seat? Who summons me, who am eager to honor my God with works and stillness, with daily toils and nightly songs, with streams of tears and holy purifications, to empty strife and contests of words? For my power is not among men, nor is it easily turned by words, nor do I mingle in assemblies, nor do I delight in the favorable votes of judges, who care little for justice, and few in number, and often turn the balance of judgment this way and that. Others have the honors of life. But for me there is one law, one thought: to blend love toward the high-ruling, light-bearing God and to journey hence. As for other goods, desire for them seizes my mind so much as empty-minded men, puffing up in vain, think of things that come quickly and perish most swiftly, like smoke and vapor, like a flowing breeze, and like sand shaken by winds and swept in all directions, or like the path of a ship over the sea.

I would rather be without honor among men, having but a small fame among the ever-existing heavenly ones, than to rule over all and fall away from God. Yet still I tremble and fear, lest someone, lifted up, guiding the newly-fledged wing of virginity through the air, should slip with these words to the earth most quickly. Therefore I have come into the midst as a helper of my children, bringing a tale that aids God, with his hand. To my mother first I will speak, as is fitting. That indeed you spoke truly, and recounted, O graceful union, and I praised (for I myself will begin where your speech left off), that for the unmarried, marriage is a root. For indeed it is both root and beginning. Who would deny parents, being prudent? Yet you did not speak all things truly. But receive, even being a mother, a wise and prudent tale, and a mystery of great wisdom concerning birth, which the chambers of great God revealed to me. Not the whole man has a mortal father, as they say, but only that part of flesh and blood, both of which perish. But the soul is a breath of the ruling God, falling from without into the molded clay. The one who mixed knows how he first breathed and mingled the image with earth. Witness of my words.

And your desire. For incomplete, you love not the souls of your children, but only their bodies, and you rejoice when they bite and suffer, and when they flourish. For a father and a tender mother are more distressed by the mutilations of their children, which crush their heart, than by great evils of the soul and worse injuries. For the former have parents, the latter have none. But if I call you mother, and in a worse fate, how do you begrudge the youths a better father? As if yielding to a great parent of mortals, you honor virginity, tending to God the Father. To the mother, then, such things, and this speech is sufficient here. But I, dear children of God, the king of all, honoring this law, have mingled only lovely concord with God, and have left behind the love of clay, which the child of the immortal Father established from above, born without bonds, and imperishable, not decaying, from the time when Adam first placed in paradise without a mate, and later gave a law and purified the people, and cleansed births by law, and honored the temple with the purest bodies of alternating priests. The great father of John is a witness, who not before having sown a dear son, received him within the temple, the herald of the great Christ to mortals, before completing mysteries to God with pure blood. And the end of the law is Christ, mingled with mortals from a virgin womb, so that marriage might bow to earth. And one yielded, and the better world arose, and the fate of the first-born dissolution, traveling through flesh, encountering virginity in those born and those perishing by birth, and perished, as when a great wave against a rocky shore, and a flame fed by water.

Who delights in cities and feeble laws? Who rejoices in marketplaces, and in swellings, and in contests which stories have patched together for short-lived youths? Who has praised an army in wars, and tables at feasts? Who has praised empty-boasting wisdom, which lies either in hands or in spider-web words and weavings, born of itself and dissolved in air? Who then rejoices in those things, in the labors of planting vines, and in the swift-running course of a ship under swift winds? These things are not teachings of marriage, but a small part of the ancient penalty of Adam, under which the bitter serpent creeps, thinking to strike my heel. But if it is of marriage, let it be cast out. For they are not fellow-travelers with me to another life, as I hasten from here; all those prosperous things will perish today, or with the unstable stream of the cosmos. For the flowing passes through the flowing of life, touching briefly as the runner runs past the runner. But if you rejoice in the wise because they were born of you, accept also the wickedness of the sinful, whose root you have become. Root of Cain, of Sodom, and of those whom Christ scattered on the tower for their recklessness, and of those whose insolence the rain from heaven quenched, cleansing the whole earth at once with its breath. Who nurtured the evil-minded Pharaoh, the boldness of Ahab, the most bitter kings of the Assyrians? Who nurtured the righteous blood given to drink and to lewd movements of his daughter, the destructive Herod, the child-killer, and the murderers of Christ the universal king, all those who became persecutors before and after, and in the last times, of whom the last and first is the evil pit of Belial, the terrible power of Julian, destroyer of souls, who was struck from God when he raised war against Christ; his dust, still hot and seething, is a great terror to sinners.

And the others whom marriage has given to life, and will yet give—liars, murderers, crooked men, perjurers, plunderers of others' goods, defilers of another's bed—who could number them? For this is manifest to all: that there is more dust than gold, and the wicked are more numerous than the good; and indeed they travel unequal paths. For the wicked have a low and easy road, while the good cut a steep one. Therefore the good are far fewer, as much as they are superior to the wicked in number. If indeed you cease rejoicing in your children and call a maimed life the companion of divinity, we will end the story here. You would have contested glory. For I do not begrudge even you an earthly parent. But if, having obtained the second things from God, you have seen the first, I will speak a true but grievous story. Who of all mortals contrived to sow this best child? And what device to plant a hostile son? One painted an image from an image no worse, and a sculptor shaped likenesses to forms, and gold, where mind directed, was driven by art, and a farmer reaped a good ear from good seed, and desire did not fail of the end it hoped for. But a mortal does not clearly know the nature of offspring, where it will end—neither bad nor good; and the good man prays for better. If someone like Paul begets a Christ-killing son, or Annas or Caiaphas a reckless one, or some Judas; nor if someone born in wickedness like Judas is called by the name of the divine Paul, or of Peter, or of the unbreakable rock, the parent who received the key. For not even if a father begets a dear son or daughter does he know. Insolence alone the dust of the bed quenched.

From a single first-born came Cain and Abel, the jealous one and the reverent, good servant of sacrifice. The sons of Isaac: Esau the wicked and Jacob the excellent. And more: from one twin offspring, nothing alike. And Solomon, wise at first, then utterly base, when he followed after sinful women. Conversely, the great strength of Paul from both sides, who at first dishonored Christ, then revealed him to all, turning his fiery zeal to good. To the pairing of these, what shall we assign? Nothing, I say. For no fitting image attends those who are yoked. But as one delighted in mind by turning dice, who cast the dice, and the even or odd came not from hands but from the self-turning whirls of stones; so marriage, the sower of children, produced neither the wise nor the wicked, but human nature or learning taught them. If you truly wish to know the account: the best are best from the Spirit and the word that shapes them. For a spark of piety is hidden in men, as the might of fire in some stones. And as iron strikes light from stones, so from mortals the word brings forth piety lying hidden. The worst are more from union; for here it begets more, and the nail of the flowing world rivets, binding the flesh, and the leaden weight weighing down the soul, and the lot remaining here like the parents. Yet still let us contend for parents: do not you revile the good, nor I cast off the reckless. For the others, as far as a pure life is better, you would know the love of God and of thick flesh, having considered the nature of the world and its two ends.

If you should clear away a little rheum or filth from the eye, or a mist from the light, and spread the pupil toward the rays of our sun, and see everything with a pure mind, you would find virginity wholly a dedication to God, brighter than gold, electrum, and ivory, well-aimed, serene, well-winged, high-headed, light, all-shining, above the earth, ungrounded in the hollows of the land, but in the broad-founded city of heaven, dwelling far from flesh, with one hand holding ageless life, with the other wealth and unceasing glory—not as a house-carrier dragging a wretched, moist body under a shell-like burden with sluggish steps, not divided between Christ and the fleshly king, nor, as is the way of amphibians, holding both dry land and dwelling in soft waters by night and day, but sending the whole mind from God, and from God flourishing with better offspring than children, by hope and pure thoughts from a pure source. And the union flees entirely from Christ, with the destructive swellings of dust and all kinds of worldly cares, or barely touches God. For as when looking at two heads or faces, or at letters written on two pages, the eager eye does not seize the whole form exactly, but catches one and the other escapes the thin, scattered vision, like a weak sting on both, for the one who is steadfast stretches toward one. For either one has Christ entirely and disregards the wife, or honors the love of dust and forgets Christ. Already I have seen a stone-carver or a worker in wooden works, wise and clever men.

If they should measure with straight rules, as of lights they bound one beneath the eyelids, and sent the whole light to the other, gathering into one, they attained accuracy, but the iron missed the mark. As desire going into one draws nearer to Christ, who desires the desirer, and looks upon the beholder, looks upon the beholder, and meets the one approaching. As much as one desires, and sees, as much as one has seen, so much also one desires: a good circle revolves. I, desiring him, left life, and could not cast my eye elsewhere; a sweet bond holds me, yearning for beauty, which thrilled my mind as I beheld, and upon me shook a radiant torch, making the whole fair and gleaming. For desire alone gathers the portion of longings and beauty from the beloved for the desirer; blessed is he who receives. But you also nurture another desire in your breast, and think, as you approach heavenly things more, because, you say, of children, possessions, and parents, as light things, and for the wise, desire is profitless—a small ship, a short passage, and light gain from things that do not stand. But for you this voyage is boundless, and crossing the strait, pray to sail, having billowed the sails through the swell of the Ionian Sea. A breeze carries these things, and it is better if one is more excellent; but if you also meet it, it is a small fate to die here. But the voyage of the soul is great and of a good spirit. Trembling around it, I have grasped Christ more; not only that, but I desire, even while fair-weather sailing, my Christ, the pure desire, who is steadfast for those who desire. And as one who, lacking, looks toward the hand of God, not seeming to lack, has quickly left the desire of the moment.

If Christ from above should shoot your mind with a double arrow, and strike the middle with a life-giving dart, then, as the two desires watch from either side, you would know how much sweeter the king's center is. What more? Parents delight in their children who tend them in old age, a husband in his wife, and a wife in her husband. Joys are shared, and griefs and cares are lighter, and for one who limps, a steadfast companion is a great support. But for me, parents are those who taught me well, and children are those I taught. As a spouse I received only Christ, who embraces the unyoked above all others, even though he was fixed for all and raised the cross over all. Whether I laugh or am struck by displeasure, I rejoice, and it makes me lighter and freer from pain, like gold cleansed of filth in a crucible. As for the chastity which marriage and its bond restrain for you, I set not flesh but the Word as my ally, and desire which, ruling, placed the alien outside, like a lion standing over lighter beasts. For flesh is of one mind in its passions; therefore they know how to bear gratitude to one another. Your table is laden, but a small morsel nourishes me, as great Christ once fed thousands in the desert. Your drink is from vines, but my rich intoxication is always from springs, rivers, and deep-flowing wells. Your faces are sleek and your garments splendid; my adornment is filthy hair and shabby clothes. I wear Christ, shaken in golden tassels, the hidden beautiful ornament of my soul. Your bed is soft, but my blankets are sackcloth, and my bed is a pallet on the ground, and the earth wet with tears. Gold is precious to you, but to me dust is lovely.

You are more arrogant than a calf, yet you have bowed your head in dejection. You laugh with a cackle, but you have never loosened your cheek. You yearn for glory, but my fame is not upon the earth. But when you have examined these things and seen them, look also at the steep slopes of marriage for slaves of the flesh. A husband is for sale to a wife, and often worse than that, not even good, and a bed is for sale to a bedmate, often even hateful; it is a manufactured evil, not to be sent away. For if they are noble and of one mind, going together, the voyage of life is lighter and the breeze is mixed. But if they are evil, there is labor at home, unceasing enmity. We will posit neither evil nor of one mind; but often a heavy fate has come even to a newlywed upon the yoke. A bridegroom, then a corpse; a bridal chamber, a tomb; griefs mixed with pleasures; a brief song, the good more fleeting than the painful. One has lit the marriage torch, another has extinguished it. One has been called a child's father, another childless suddenly, like a shoot shaken by the wind. Just now a maiden, then a wife, then a widow.

All these things in one night, and often in a single day. Dragging her hair, casting away her bridal adornment from afar, tearing her cheeks with slender hands, leaving behind the shame of her virginity in bitter sufferings, calling her husband ill-fated, and bewailing her empty home, her widowed bed, and untimely grief. I will be silent about the arrows of childbirth and the dead burdens of a mother in her womb, the bitter and motherless fruit, not of children, but tombs of children before the mothers who bore them, deaths older than birth, and a childbed without a child. I am silent about miscarriages, and the senseless, and the misshapen, the ruin of the male race, and the playthings of the flesh.

Let one weigh these things, observing where the beam of the balance inclines, and let my life draw up its great height toward the high-ruling God, conspicuous to all the best. We shall be silent about each other's shameful deeds; for it seems fitting that the holy mouth of virginity avoid slander. But if you reproach my divinely formed virginity with faults, if anywhere someone has defiled my path even a little, and has mixed the spotless tunic of Christ with shame, having first undergone your own good things in transgressions—a late-marrier, a fugitive from the great life of purity—then I too shall recall the utterly shameful bed of theft, which sinners steal, trampling the threat of God. For this among mortals is the most destructive of all evils, more than devouring fire it consumes the entrails, when someone crafty in evil approaches another's bed, and has a disputed offspring and a bond of love. But adulterers and avengers do not at all keep you from marriage; even he who has driven a sword into the side of an enemy, a slayer of adulterers, still dripping with human gore, marries, and he who has escaped the blade. But who will set the desire for Christ far from the foolish? And will a small pebble block a broad stream? It is not lawful, nor is it fitting, since it is far better, when more are raised up, that some fall (if it is lawful to speak this word contrary to tongues), than that the fearful remain low, lest a wing flow down to the ground. For some are noble, the glory of Christ, others the worst, as if sending a stone to heaven in their folly, they receive evil and shame upon their heads, where the angel was formerly the Dawn-bringer. But when he fell, his glory remained among the heavenly ones, just as to the disciples Judas is no reproach, since he fell, but he was quickly removed from the number of the chosen, while the eleven remained the best.

And the sea has destroyed some, while another, spreading white sails, sails, looking at the tomb of a shipwrecked man, or having loosed the moorings from a tomb, has fastened the stern cables elsewhere. My mother, you urge me to leave this life that is rising up, or shall we set up an argument, since the power of a daughter is my power, but what power of parents? But if, mother, you rejoice in virginity, what glory is there for me? Do you not hear that all whom you have listed as best are from parents, and are more just and better than their parents? And Christ is from Mary, but he is far superior, not only to Mary and those who have flesh, but also to all the minds that the broad heaven encompasses. And the ear of grain sprouted from a small seed, but the ear sprouted; from sand great gold has arisen. And the crown of the argument: for both lives, celibacy and marriage, what image might the story devise? Here you might see the end of my story. Winter snowflakes, and the flowers of springtime, and the gray hair of a wrinkled man, and the strength of a youth. But now flowers in winter, and winter snowflakes have been seen in spring days. And a young man has grown gray hair, and I have seen a light old age much stronger than a newly bearded man. So indeed marriage is of the earth, but celibacy is the consort of Christ the all-king. But nevertheless, heavy virginity has bowed down to the earth, and marriage has rushed to the heaven, whence unexpectedly both are false, one of marriage, the other of maidenhood.

But, dear parents and still unwed youths, how long will you resemble lowly tortoises, or even sideways-walking eight-footed crabs, or the twisted coils of long serpents' bellies, weighed down by the hateful burden of flesh? Come now, hearing the revelation of Christ, cast away beauty, glory, wealth, lineage, prosperity—all things, the pleasant offspring of harsh wickedness. Awakening from here, let us embark on a light life, most pure, sharing the mind of the pure heavenly ones, as followers of the great God, joyfully singing a festal hymn to the Lord. And having ended in marriage, from the splendor of paradise, let us go back from a life without foundation to glory, and to the noble tree of the grove from which we fell in folly. Such is the godlike state of celibacy. But those who long for marriage, the judges, will nevertheless crown the head of virginity. Christ, granting a reward to both, will place one near his right hand, the other at his left—glory and the greatest honor. B. Admonitions to virgins. Victory indeed is yours, and whoever is a companion of the flesh would judge thus here. But to my words, O glorious, bright-minded, prudent virgin, lend your ears and take my story to heart. The counsel of an old man is best. Let not your mind be wounded by the impulses of the cloud-dwelling one. For often a fall from the ground has raised one high, and height has brought one low. These ordinances lie with God: to be gracious to the sorrowful and to humble the arrogant. Nor, measuring your path by small measures, if you have run past something off-course or very base, think that this is the limit of virtue.

It is not best to surpass the few. Your measure is the command, and God, whom you have thrust away, even if you are more swift than others. Consider how many are above you, how many below you, standing, you boast to be the most preeminent of all. The broad heaven is above, and you are raised among the lowly. I have heard how in the waters the moon, the sun, and the stars are mirrored for those who dwell in the deep. But those who gaze at these mute images of truth delight in the faintest patterns of the luminaries. For never, having emerged from the back of the gray sea, have they truly beheld the lamps before them; or they would have discerned light and the play of light. As some: for they have not seen the true height of the king; leaping up a little, they think they possess all height. But you have grasped this, hope for that, and step onto this with more steps, always looking to what is before. And standing still is the worst thing; hasten as if to overtake, until Christ leads you to the final step. And let not blame from behind strike you, nor the worst tongue sending viperous venom upon your good deeds. For there are two roads for mortals, and a double reproach: one is evil and leads to an equal end, the other is good and has a dear end, as is fitting. But blame attends both; for what would be mightier than the tongue, if it attacked only the most wicked? But now it rages alike against all, both good and bad. Be wise and watchful for both, and shun the one that follows the wicked, so that you may flee evil, and the tongue that harries.

Of the other I have this much fear, which the evil Enemy arms against the good, bitter as a stormy shore against a rock and a breaking wave. Never do anything shameful that pleases the many, nor cease from the good which the most wicked hate. Do deeds worthy of good repute. If it is absent, let not a lying word distress you, but go forward willingly on the path. Let them bark in vain; they will not harm the more divine love. Let envy waste its eyes. Do not, having fled from Sodom and escaped the ash of this life and the grievous threat of divine fire, look back at Sodom, lest you be instantly turned to stone, a pillar of both vice and grievous death. Do not steal your feet from Sodom only to linger in the plains near neighbors more swiftly than fire, but hasten to the mountain to be saved, lest a rain of fire overtake you. Do not tremble too much at the nature of the flesh, as if it were untamable. For fear that enslaves a man is not from God. Do not yield too much to soft flesh, lest satiety cast you down a cliff when you least expect it. Go forward willingly on the rough path. If you set foot on it, take care that no slip occurs, so that you may reach the end without falling, and pass through the narrow gate, where there is light and glory and respite from all evils. If you tremble because a small spark kindles straw, take courage: a rain from above will quench a great flame, and prayers,

groans and tearful nights, wakeful cares, and a love wholly centered on the Lord. Such are the fair remedies of chastity, with which you, O best one, will never set images of baser desire in your mind, but will keep your thought pure and holy, as a great temple of God and a radiance of the Spirit. Virgin, be a virgin in your ears, in your eyes, and in your tongue; for in all these sin is prone to slip in. Let your ears be winged only for noble words, and let doors be shut against shameful and foolish ones. Let your eyes be restrained within your eyelids in modesty, and let them not rouse a sting with wanton movements. Let your lips, like flower-buds, lie bound, and let speech be restrained. Feet that go arrogantly are false to virginity, and have something of a harlot's step. Be ashamed of a tattered garment and of a head not adorned with luxury, not of fine silken threads. Let another be adorned with pearl and with gold flashing on her limbs—these are painted faces, creations of earthly hands, alien to the heavenly image, shameful images, monuments of wantonness and voiceless reproaches, moving pictures, mysteries of the nightly bride, glittering shames, tombs concealing misery. From these go far away, O glorious attendant, with hidden beauty, bride of Christ the Lord. Mingle eye with eye, word with word, chaste with chaste. Never mingle laugh with laugh, nor boldness with boldness. For from such things comes a grievous fall for mortals. Shun all males, especially the one who is brought in (bitter water for the youth, and believe me, O pure virgin), even if he be purer than gold or harder than adamant. For there is double fear.

If you trust your flesh, what trust is there in limbs that share a roof? Let your eye be pure and spotless, and your mind, but if another heart hides some filth, and spirit pursues it? You have passed from flesh to spirit, from there you were lifted; how then, praising a life mingled again with flesh, do you shame a bridegroom who yearns and is jealous of your form, lest he deprive you of noble love, as one double, limping on both feet? You have Christ as beloved; spit out all men. Why do you need a helper who himself lacks a helper? Foals are friends to foals, deer to deer, and jackdaws to jackdaws; to the pure, the pure is honorable. Yet still beware of the evil-minded, lest he deceive you, even if he is prudent; and be even more hostile to the wise. Often from good, evil contrives, and from the noble. Now light, then darkness; within, fate; above, food. And it fawns with sweet things, and destroys with hidden things. Often it gathered like-minded ones to each other in spirit, and light came, and a name, indeed a holy one, which they call love, crept in. But then, drawing desire from the heart to the flesh that is near, it gives either fire or wretched signs of fire. If not even a sign of fire, then quickly you will strike those who look on. And all are more ready for evil. A stream flows downhill. But house, and clothing, and table, and the weakness of grievous old age—this brought shame as an ally. You exchange gold for bronze, if for a shining life you received a small and unseemly pleasure.

Not if you gave me talents of gold and electrum, and green fields and broad flocks, and a gleaming house, and Alcinous's table, not if you gave me another ageless life in place of the present one, not even then would I choose a shameful life smeared with gold. Let my bread be coarse, let my drink be water; let a fig leaf cover me, as once it covered Adam and Eve; let me have caves of rocks for a home, or some hollow oak, a makeshift life, like the beasts; or let me be cast down before some gate, a burden on the earth, a poor man, another Lazarus, dragging out a wretched life and a sickly body. Now these things, then a chasm, and all pleasures are reversed. For you, satiety; for me, pain; a little while, and all is forgotten. All are one after the tomb: dust; the space is equal for slaves and kings. And what more is there than Hades? Therefore, do not be warmed by present goods, nor distress your mind too much with the hardships of this life. For together with pleasures you will leave all pains behind, not after death. Why prolong?

of ephemeral life. Be a guest, a sojourner creeping on another's land; from here God will raise you to your own fatherland, after you have struggled a little, but the prize of your labors is greater. And you, to your dear children, O Jonadab, preeminent in wisdom, urging the highest wealth among mortals, spoke this law and tale: "My children, come, receive from your father the wealth he did not provide for me, nor ever for any other child has a loving father provided, steadfast always. Do not inhabit a house bounded by limbs, do not plow the earth. What benefit is the vine to you? Dwell in tents; never pour wine or sweet drink down your throat, my children, but live for God, and have God alone as your wealth, ever-living, constant, unshaken." So he spoke; and the children fulfilled their father's command. I know also a people yearning for a land of promise, whom a pillar of fire led before, and an unmarked cloud drew through the desert; the sea gave way for them, the sky gave food, a rock sprouted water, a wide-flowing river drew back, the sun stopped its chariot, and a man set up a trophy with outstretched hands, shading a cross, and faith bound the spear-points. Elijah was fed by ravens, and he fed an old Sidonian woman with tiny drops of his livelihood, the flour never failing in the poor bin, and the jar always brimming with as much liquid oil as the hospitable woman's hands drew forth. And the Hebrew children, longing for their own food, lest they be defiled at the king's table, joyfully walked over the Assyrian flame, cooling themselves from there, until they reached their own homes.

And Daniel, cast to ravening lions as food, did not feed the beasts, for he spread out his hands, and received in his hands an airy meal from the prophet. And from the midst of its entrails the sea beast belched forth the divine Jonah, whom it had swallowed for three days. O great wonder! For faith was confined even within the prophet's entrails. John's food was locusts and wild honey, and his clothing was the hair of high-humped camels, and his home was the broad sky, and his bed was the desert floor. Who saved Thecla from the fire, or who bound the fierce might of raw-flesh-devouring beasts? O great wonder! Virginity tamed even beasts, and they dared not defile the pure body of the virgin with their jaws. Nor shall I forget the chaste one (for it is not fitting), Susanna, even though a man led her under the yoke, she who had such a desire for chastity that, fleeing the most lawless hands and the unjust votes of judges, as she was being dragged to her doom, the spirit of a young man, with the mind of an elder and shrewd counsels, saved her from death, binding the most sinful and lawless elders of Babylon under his own words by righteous judgment. You yourself have heard of Paul, what a prize of evil, of how many toils and grievous cares among friends, enemies, on the sea and on land, he endured, and to reach the region of the third heaven, and to set the whole world in sweet nets. That man rejoices even in wretched things as much as no one does in favorable ones. Virtue lies in the middle of evils, like a rose among hateful and sharp thorns. Remembering these things, keep your life pure for the Lord, wholly in better hopes, lest need deceive you, which quickly subdues even the prudent man.

Therefore the crafty one, when he subjected the God-man, seeing Christ the king, to trial, commanded that stones be turned into food for the hungry one, that he might catch him in his own nets. But he missed the God, while he fawns upon you, the mortal, as a mortal. But may you belong to God, and far off pursue the enemy, remaining wholly God's, and above the flesh. Nor, as in a woven circle of a resounding dance, hold one with your right hand and another with your left, touching and dividing divinity equally, being half of Christ and half of flesh. Or, as a swift and well-fitted ship cutting the sea, with the wind standing still and the swell calm, either to hold a swift voyage with mooring cables, or to be dragged from the land and travel a sluggish path through the swell, like both seafaring and land-traveling. Nor cast upon your life the fish-stunning flesh, which, even when eager, nevertheless shackled the ship. But as a stream passing through a narrow channel, rushing, filling the hollows of a surrounding leaden channel as much as it holds, and leaping swiftly upward against the slope, constrained from behind, so I bid the love of you, compressed in your own wits, to be borne high before Christ, or to flood some fair fertile field. But if you pour it out here and there on deep sands, or over rocks, or a meadow, or a ravine, your noble stream perishes unconnected, of no benefit.

If your father is alive, dear friend, who brought you to the light, or your sweet mother, blameless in her love, if you lean on kindly brothers, or on helpful grandparents, or on those in need of aid—to share a common life with these is not envy, nor will bitter and hostile blame here cast its eye, often muttering about sandals. There is also this benefit for me: the one who casts an evil eye. He will cast it, but my heart will remain steadfast. As for the others, I must avoid friendship to such an extent—or rather, not friendship, but grievous cohabitation, or treacherous boldness, untrustworthy even in flourishing times—as much as it is possible to grasp hold of Christ, firmly rooted in everlasting desires. Do not, while having a desire for lovely virginity, open your mind completely to other passions, adorning yourself with temperance; for this is a worse evil, that evil is born from good through the wiles of the envious one. For not so much is marriage, or the works of marriage, avoidable for me—by which God ever increases the race of mortals—as I have found in virginity a cure and a defense for my passions. If I had a heart free from these, there is also for me some grace in celibacy. But if I were to open the gates to wild beasts, having enclosed a dear orchard with fences, and I were to build one part of the fence tightly, but open paths in the other for passing travelers, what more? For the enemy would still ravage the orchard, rushing in from all sides. For he watches everything of yours—what he can cast from without and what he can seize from within, openly and by ambush. Who could easily escape evil, without always having Christ as a ready helper? Never consider even the small thing as small in wickedness. If you oppose small things, you will never encounter worse ones.

All that you hear that is best, speak; and all that you say, see beforehand with good will. Let sight drive on to action. Let all be together: end, word, sight, hearing. Flee evil seed, so that you may gather a noble ear. Do not steal the adulterous love of life; for he steals who receives an evil and light root. For from a root, many-branched shoots are poured forth on this side and that from a bloody moisture. And a small drop of rennet bound together a great stream of milk, and a pebble darting through still water suddenly confounded the whole beautiful spring, driven in many circles from its center, always rippling and dissolving outward. The whole body was bent around in pains, drawn by a wound; the taste was slight, and I am dead. For here the sins have sinned together, as when another army, against a noble spearman, takes the wall. The blow of a shield is not great, but it gives at once to a sleepy fate, and a pleasant destruction breathes out. Therefore, do not let me have a foul mind, not even in small things. A belly that bears bolts may quickly escape evil. But I tremble at the unbolted one, lest some outrage of dust come upon a body that is being subdued; together with it, shameless frenzy is subdued. Wine for maidens is more a reproach than anger, and anger is more than madness. And the path is all of fate. Maiden, do not be delicate for me in foul garments; there is also an evil of cheapness, to delight those who see. Do not rouse an enemy by the leaps of your cheeks. Let them laugh in shame, those whose roof is unbarred, leaping in joy. For you, let your cheek be propitious, let it be relaxed, and let the blush rise up, quickly stealing cheerfulness. Shame is a blush for those who see.

Speak little concerning God, as is fitting for women, only so much as to know the reverent nature of the Trinity—three in divinity, one grace (for it is not better to be silent than piety and words)—but hear more, and with trembling minds, both piously and reverently, and bear above all the shelter of modesty. Let those who fight with opposing myths, the wise, scatter the faithless. Let not God be snatched from you by hateful cares, which have swiftly cast even the high-flying down to earth. Let not your mind wander, carried here and there beyond the limit, like a prize-winning and untamed colt running far, but let it be the great glory of Christ. If bitter Belial should steal you away, a wandering mind, then as quickly as possible, turning back, go straight to the goal on a direct course. Let the shuttle, the wool, and the cares of divine scriptures, wisdom, and sacred hymns be your concern—the thoughtful sound of a delicate voice, not for display, of which more should be in the mind, and little on the lips. Often the enemy has entered even through the ears of the deaf. Do not, O wholly prudent one, fleeing marriage and the burdens of women for more divine desires, pursue others' chambers and the works of marriage, and be called a wedded woman instead of a virgin. Do not sit at strangers' tables or in their houses. Do not be turned about in the midst of the uproar of servants and household. Do not bear a flattering word instead of a maiden. Welcome the measures of hospitality: if someone is noble, open your small house willingly; if someone is of the crowd, be gracious from afar. For you, a secure house is glory. Better is inhospitality than a much-hospitable house for virgins. For modesty is lost among many, and bright virginity would be insulted in vain. Therefore, do not gather faith from the ends of the earth.

Respect my grey hair, and my good character. For a grey-haired person of sound mind is worth more than youth. Do not, even in piety, run about here and there, often unseemly, whirling your sacred foot with lighter men, hastening to holy places, even if they are far off. Christ is the hearth-god for all, the king of seas, and for him who loves in his heart. Sit first before God, then before the priest, the earthly Christ, the guide of your life. To him you should fly on wings, and to him yield in silence; to him rejoice when you rise, and to him yield when you flow; as if trembling, you are borne back aloft. Be dead to all others, since this is better for maidens than to have a life naked and uncovered. I praise those women who do not even know men, but live apart from life, and are revealed only to God in secret. Be very pious, and very much not boastful. If you yearn for glory, you might quickly lose good repute, which is conspicuous among men; perish the pride of a woman. Let the best be emulated, and the worst be abhorred. To envy the good is equal to loving the worst. Do not, seeing the wicked prospering, hold back from the path, nor, seeing the good bent low, consume your heart. These are the counters of life; look to the final outcome of all. Rejoice when fair weather prevails; but you do not know clearly what stands, lest some man-destroying wind should blow. Therefore either tremble, or tremble beforehand, at life. When evil falls, plant your foot all the more; and if it runs well, even more so. For even the best fall; to have a life without slipping is not at all light. All life is coals under your feet, not at all light; and you always walk above hidden snares.

I fear that the foundation of my life, laid on sand, may be scattered by rain, rivers, and winds, or like seed sown on dry and barren ground, I might sprout quickly but wither at once, struck by the sun's rays and by small misfortunes. Let no evil sower of tares and no envious enemy mix a bad seed into me while I sleep. When the sacred ten of virgins, burning with sleepless lights, keep watch with wakeful eyes, expecting the longed-for Bridegroom, God the Lord, that they may meet him shining brightly as he comes, do not place me among the empty-minded and foolish, already laboring as Christ approaches, nor, as I gaze with weak eyes at the light of torches, may I long late for the moist oil of life's light. And may the doors of marriage not thrust me away when I am called, where the Word, under great bonds of desire, mingles with pure hearts, bringing light and glory. There is a marriage which a good father, rejoicing, celebrates for his excellent son. May I meet with that one. May I meet with that one, and whoever is a friend to me. Let him stay outside, whoever before the marriage sets

a field, or a new yoke of oxen, or a wife. Let me not have a wedding garment among the banqueters, wearing filthy clothes, with my hands and feet bound, and fall far from the bridal chamber, from friends, and from marriage. But when my lord returns from marriage, if he should come, suddenly seeming and not seeming to be present, may he find me among those who seem, and praise me for fear, as a good servant and gentle to those beginning, and a giver of grain, of firm speech, just. For virginity, such a father, gentle-minded, I enjoin out of loving passion. But, daughters, and sons, and children, listen to a loving father, if there is any grace of God for me too, as I hope. And do not dishonor your father's command like the sons of Elis, do not, children, do not choose a fate like theirs. For others this is a tale. But I will speak plainly, holding equal speech and balance for both, for celibacy and for marriage. Let God be witness. As much as virginity is superior to marriage, so much is chaste marriage superior to a double life. Therefore, best one, either embrace pure virginity entirely, if you have strength and passion aroused, or love a marriage that is similar, as they say, a second voyage good after the first. And flee from both the face of a celibate life and of a married life, mixing honey with gall and mud with wine, and Samaria, the most lawless, with the holy Solymians.

Nor is it like stretching a rope along a road, where to go back is a vain labor, nor any terror, nor like shooting an arrow a little ahead of the feet, to cast it, nor to reach the end and the furthest mark. Not as one who has offered virginity to Christ the King, and a rational sacrifice, a bloodless offering, then goes back to marriage—a mere rush, but a most great fall, near to death, and to unending shame, like one who, on a sheer mountain peak, having ascended with the greatest toils to dig gold, or pursuing the sweet labor of the hunt, suddenly slips with his feet to the ground. Who, hearing of reckless Sapphira and Ananias, who exchanged their own evil fate for gain, does not tremble and shrink from diminishing even a little of a promise? And a golden tongue, when one secretly misappropriated from men of former times, defrauding the leader, a garment, a small possession, ruined the whole people. Such is the backward course of virginity, or worse, as much as a living lot surpasses. May that union perish which no marriage law has joined, but which ever drags back souls going forward, to rule over the more numerous lowly, having first wound down from heavenly glory to earth, dragging a yoke of dishonor by its arrogance, while here it was always guarded to be the center. Now I will speak best to parents, whose life is in their hands, and the shame and noble glory of virgins, to prudent kinsmen and caretakers. It is not right nor fitting to force the great creation of God.

All are of one race—whoever rules, whoever is counted among the ruled, whoever is wretched, whoever is wealthy, high-throned, or bowing to the earth, whoever trusts in gray hair, and whoever rejoices in youth. All are of one; all share one breath; we all incline toward one. And as God was made equal to every mortal, He died, and He raised up, and He gave the wide heaven. Therefore let no one, bearing favor to foolish flesh, lead a virgin who shuns marriage to bed and bridal chamber, one who grasps after Christ, living the best desire, like a polyp from its rocky den holding a rock with its suckers, or like a songbird from its well-built nest. But if you have a Christ-loving heart, or if God has bound you with more divine bonds and raised you from the world, you will gladly set before Christ a beautiful bride or a youth, as formerly the child-loving Anna set Samuel, the holy offspring of your pure loins, a living temple, more sacred than all firstborn, than the ears of grain and the clusters of grapes which the good husbandman cuts as firstfruits. But if you walk midway between Christ and the world, you draw a yoke equal for marriage and celibacy, and having gathered what is good and what is adverse from both, and having marked out two boundaries well and knowingly, you incline to whichever side warm desire leads and assists—to one side servitude, to the other heavenly things.

one desire. Whoever is ripe for marriage, and with prudent counsel (the bond for the wife is the husband, for the daughter her parents, for both the fear of Christ, and for the unmarried the bond of love). Neither keep a girl who longs for a husband away from him, nor hasten a girl who is approaching God into a husband's house; up to a point, and in truth, I do not begrudge making trial. But if you give your whole mind and hand to the marriage, and establish chambers, dances, and feasts, laughing loudly, and the desire would scrape away old age, while the maiden from you flees to Christ, then as Justice before, when the ox of the plowman was slain, I fear that God may be angry with unequal judgments. All the nature of dust is subdued, as wax is consumed by fire. The fear of God also fetters the flesh. There is a servant here like the heavenly ones; there is also among mortals a mind approaching divinity. He erred who mixed the fleshless nature with flesh, and who let loose mighty Giants from angelic desires, and who cleansed the earth with the sins of the heavenly ones. These things belong to the children of the Greeks, since they, as a defense against passions, devised to set up sinful gods—thieves, effeminates, adulterers, plunderers of men, murderers, destroyers of children and of parents. Not only that, but they also performed sacred rites of the passions themselves. Behold first how much was done by lust: bull, swan, serpent, gold, husband, bird—everything that swift love and a weak boy drove. They would dishonor lovely virginity, the fetter of the flesh. To them the gleam of dust is most untrustworthy, who measure all by their own follies. It is not with a pure eye to look upon the gloomy stars; and the earth is steadfast, while the faithless reel.

It is not lawful for us to pour reproach upon Virginity. Why is the love of Christ the King incredible for calming mortal desires and fleshly urges, just as the bloody flow of a hemorrhaging woman was stopped when she touched the hem of the Lord? For God willingly stole away, and the fountain of her streams dried up then, when it withered. Or like fire, swords, water, and grievous beasts, devouring limbs with bitter horns. The spirit of Christians is superior, when the time of persecution presses, stirring up battle for God. Is their life not sleepless and their age homeless? Are not prayers and unyielding groans? Do they not melt with tears? Do they not rise up from nightly and daily hymns, leaving behind life and flesh? Is not their breath restrained by few sparks of food? Do they not have caves for homes, and rocks for beds, or soft grass and dry branches? Do they not dwell with raw-eating beasts as housemates, so as to escape the baseness of dust and bonds? Just as the phoenix bird, they say, dying is renewed, being born in fire after many years' cycles, a strange offspring self-begotten from aged dust, so these, dying, become ever-living, kindled by the fiery desire of Christ the King. In weakness lies the strength of the pious. Who, seeing these things, does not make a covenant with the youths, joyful in their flesh, when the sting of virtue has boiled? O all-mother nature, I will tell your wonders, not mine, as many as you have placed on dry land and in the seas. I learn that the winged turtledove, bereaved of its beloved mate, longing for its chaste bedfellow, does not receive another husband above its nest. Wise bird! And for the bee-eaters, a chaste life, how excellent!

Nor is the dark-skinned, chattering bird, but even the crow herself, severed from her mate’s desire, lives, hating every husband when she has lost her dear bedfellow. Among sea-fish there is a law, for some lawless in respect to marriage, but for many they care for chastity and for beds and wives. Justice rules even there. Others labor for no more than one offspring, others delight only in springtime love, and more so. Nature has set a measure on desires. Season, moreover, of gentle love exists for all—for creatures of the air, of the sea, and all that travel upon the earth. They do not pour forth desire beyond the limit, but they grow frantic in season, when spring rouses them. And some rush into mixed marriages, while others care for dear wives and the law of love. For others, solitary intercourse suffices, as some have devised the generations of animals and all things. But if even the foolish care somewhat for chastity, you, a creature of God, will you not bind the whole law of the flesh, if you wish? Mortal is pliable to reason, as bronze to fire. But if the nature of reason is not mistress of the flesh, as it deified me—an image—what more have we than beasts in motion? If indeed the nature of the many is ungovernable, yet we know this: often the command of common nature prevails. For I too have a body like others, but the Cross, taking me, bound me, to which I fastened the heavy flesh I bear. For I desire to die with Christ, so that I may rise with him, bearing all of Christ: word, body, nail, resurrection. For others, the spontaneous bond of the flesh, not from a more divine love, they do not call chastity. Indeed, you are a God-given prize, to live outside insolence, to have a mind serene and unshaken.

Another man loathed sweet wine, another abhorred food that others love, another a scent. Others, having a disposition hateful to mortals, dwell in borderlands, far from men, willingly. You have a mind untrustworthy to the unwed. I do not deem it untrustworthy. But you flee in fear, and then forgot the evils of marriage. Does not the tiny salamander, leaping with lowly feet, run through blazing fire as through earth? There is a fish that is fiery and is not subdued by untrustworthy fire, fiery; though burning, it shines through the midst of brine. Does not the Magnesian stone draw up an iron mass? Is not adamant untamable? Yet it does not emit a spark to iron when struck, but another sparkles with a little water. With water it emitted a spark, but was kindled by oil. And as for all the wonders even more recent than these, who could number them? Since it is too much to tell. For lofty reason plays in all manner of forms, mixing as it wills, the whole world here and there. I will tell a few from among many, some of which I myself have seen, some books, and some ears have given credence to. Is there not one downward flow for all rivers? Is there not one law for seas to be bound to shores? Is there not one upward course of blazing fire with dense leaps? Yet a river swims through the bitter brine, and though it is a river, water does not mix with water. Sailors draw sweet drink from the sea, bringing their ship near the land with a swift current. I have seen the bold strait of Euboea, not a blocked passage, the key of the sea, raging with ebb and flow. The sea flows, and the stream rises.

Ocean is not drawn from the land, then goes onto the dry land, rushing with swift surges? And plain and sea on the Cimmerian shores. Another stream of fire goes, if indeed it is true, the untrustworthy flow of Aetnaean crags belches forth, a river of fire. The unmixed are mixed, by Christ's will. I know how to sing similar wonders even in small things. There is a certain thing among fruits that strikes horns, as they say, which alone, of all that the life-giving earth produces, having a dried and unmoistened body, is not dissolved in the earth, nor fattened by rains, but remains fixed, dried, harder than horns always. Its horn has struck the horn of an ox, when the plowman's right hand pours its own into the fruit of the earth, whence it got both name and nature from horns, if wise men know some other account; I do not. These things are nature. But you, hear also what art has forced. Starlings speak like men, emulous of another's voice, which a phantom of a polished image, shining in a mirror, taught, a starling, secretly sending forth a cunning eye. And ravens likewise steal sounds. And the lovely-colored parrot, with curved beak, inside a woven cage, spoke a man's voice and deceived a man's hearing. Horses have hanging ropes, on which they walk above. And the hateful bear travels through the air, and in the seats of justice, like some wise judge, sitting, it dispenses the straight scales of justice, as it seems, with its paws, but the beast also deceived the mind. And a mortal taught what nature does not.

Just as I saw a lion-tamer seated on the back of a mighty lion, and the beast's strength was subdued by his hand, and one guided while the other, a roaring beast, was led, casting off its destructive breath and fawning upon its master. And just as an Indian boy leads a heavy, great-toothed beast, a mighty elephant, from above with a small goad, steering its strong frame like a ship. Bold was the one who first devised taming a beast, and placed a yoke upon its neck, and led a monstrous chariot. But you assign more to beasts than to mortals, if the force of beasts bent their nature, while they are untaught in what is good, and have a helpful tale near at hand. Savage one, how do you so greatly insult the great creation of God? Who so hated his own kind? But such is not my mind, which thinks purely. Rather, I know heavenly thoughts and pure men of female form, and more womanly men. For the greater part lies in the limbs. Virtues are common to both, and the path to a steep life is common. The greater part belongs to the one who strives. I command these things to my in-laws who walk the heavens. Virginity, care for me, as if you were a fortress secure from all sides, firmly established, and suitable for God: a pearl among stones, the morning star among lights, a dove among birds, a shoot of olive among groves, a lily in the plains, and calm on the seas. Virgin, having set aside the whole world and all the pleasures of life, stand near the radiant Christ, and taking his hand in yours, lead him within your bridal chamber, pleasant, sweet-breathed, and fragrant.

As if you were mixing your myrrh with heavenly myrrh, where ineffable longings are poured forth with longings, and beauty with beauty, hidden with hidden, and radiant with luminous, you might have Christ as a noble lover of your glorious form, Christ the giver of gifts. Christ opened the veil, and marveled, seeing a noble, beautiful bride, excellent, pearly, well-throned, high-headed, and since you were already fair, he made you even more graceful. Christ, rejoicing, will lead you to his own halls, and will set for you a wedding feast in great undefiled choirs and heavenly songs, and will crown your head with ever-blooming graces, and will set up a bowl of sweetly fragrant drink, and will show the mysteries of wisdom, of which in a mirror we see images here, true lights of a more naked mind. For thick flesh will yield to spirit, and airy things will receive an ageless life. But, friends, let us sing, all who have a pure desire for the Lord: youths and maidens, the marriage of God the heavenly one, having kindled torches, imitations of divine light, unquenchable, intellectual, ever more fanned by pure deeds and great words, until the heavenly. And may you come to us propitious, propitious, propitious to us, holy Trinity, going into one from one, shining with bright eyes today, and more brightly at last, to whom you have shone: one God from the Father through the Son to the great Spirit, of the standing divinity in perfect ones complete. III. Exhortation to virgins. In this discourse he imitates the Syracusan; for he alone of poets used rhythms and cola, despising poetic proportion. Virgin bride of Christ, glorify your bridegroom always.

Purify yourself in word and wisdom, so that you may live all your life radiant with the radiant. For this is far superior to the perishable union. In the body you imitated the noetic powers; on earth you pursued an angelic polity. Here there is bond and release, and bodies from bodies; but above each monad is never dissolved. The first ones bear a ray of the pure Trinity, spirits and fire, ministers of God’s commands. Matter devised mixture, a nature ever flowing, for which God ordained a measure, legislating marriage. But you, having fled the work of matter, were joined to the things above, as mind is attuned to mind in divine harmony, and, warring against the flesh, you aid the image. For you were born a breath of God, bound to the inferior, so that from struggle and victory you may receive the crown, having placed the dust above also, well subjected. Let marriage be praised by you, but before marriage, incorruption. Marriage is a pardon for passion, but chastity is radiance. Marriage is a father of saints, but chastity is worship. This I honored also at the appropriate times: Adam in paradise, Moses on Mount Sinai, Zacharias the minister, the father of the Forerunner. Marriage and

The root of virginity is dear to God, but there is still slavery to flesh and to food. When the law, shadows, and temporary rites held sway, then marriage was also primary, as in infancy; but when the letter was superseded and the spirit was introduced, and Christ suffered in the flesh, having come forth from a Virgin, then chastity shone forth, cutting short the world, which one must pass through to ascend with the risen Christ. You journey well, virgin, to the mountain, preserving yourself above. Do not look back at Sodom, lest you be turned into a pillar of salt. Do not let the nature of your flesh frighten you too much, nor be so bold as to ever go astray. A spark ignites stubble; water quenches a flame. You have many remedies for holy virginity: let fear of God bind you, fasting empty you, wakefulness, prayers, tears, sleeping on the ground, a whole love for God genuinely stretched out, putting to sleep every desire alien to the things above. Let the fallen one rise; let the shipwrecked one be pitied. But you, sail well, spreading the sail of hope. Falling from below is not the same as being borne upward; few lose their wings, but most run a good course. The Morning Star fell, but heaven is for angels. Judas was a traitor, but the eleven are lamps. Only keep yourself wholly pure, virgin. Do not somehow stain the spotless garment of Christ. Let your eye be chaste, your tongue virginal; let not your mind fornicate, nor your laughter, nor your foot step disorderly. Your shabby garment and your unkempt hair I respect more than pearls and the finery of silks. A beautiful flower is modesty, and a great ornament is pallor, and a fine crown is to be wreathed with all virtues. Let another adulterate the image of God with colors, a living picture, a silent accuser of what is within.

But as for you, let the greater part of your beauty be dead to you; shine instead with the beauty of a soul adorned by God. Flee the sight of men, even if they are chaste, lest you strike or be struck by the blemish of Belial. Do not enslave eyes to eyes, nor draw speech to speech; let cheek not give license to cheek. Have nothing to do with the taste of the condemned tree, lest the serpent cast you out from the tree of life. And be persuaded of this, virgin: do not live with a guardian; having Christ as your bridegroom, who is jealous of your purity, why, having fled from flesh, do you return to flesh? Not all men can comprehend your simplicity. Like a rose among thorns, so you turn among many, and you walk above the evil snares. One sets up bridal chambers, another carries out a bridegroom; one becomes a father, another suddenly childless. How great an evil are birth-pangs, often fruitless? And how great the jealousy of a spouse, if love is stolen somewhere? To raise and educate, then to be dishonored, and to reap bitter returns for your labors? For you, there is one care: always to look toward God. Let your need be little: a small loaf and a modest shelter, from which the tempter brought trial even to Christ, asking for stones to turn into bread for the hungry. For the sake of these things, never endure anything shameful. You are no worse than the birds, which are fed without plan. Oil from the flask will not fail you if you trust. A raven will feed you, as it did Elijah in the desert. You see Thecla escaping from fire and beasts, and the great Paul hungry and shivering willingly, so that you, virgin, may learn to look only to God, who knows how to feed even myriads in the desert.

Beauty fades, glory passes by, wealth is an untrustworthy stream, and power is for the few. But you, having escaped the turnings of this deceptive world, enter laughing into the holy of holies, and you will dance with the angels the unceasing dance, having obtained a better place than sons and daughters. But, O virgins, remain watchful for Christ, and receive the bridegroom with bright torches, so that, coming together, you may see the beauty of the bridegroom and be mingled with the mysteries above.

4. To a virgin. Be chaste in all things, O virgin, and especially in your eyes; do not admit any man as a helper, not even the wisest. For you are chaste, but I greatly fear envy, lest it sting you with slander and dissolve the chaste zeal for the life you cherish. May every one perish who, while revering chastity, chooses a virgin as a housemate, the attendant of the fleshless angels. What need of fire? Are you stronger than fire? How would you escape the smoke, blackening yourself with empty gossip? You were taken from here, O virgin, and you live above. Is a narrow loaf and a covering a burden? May you never suffer anything shameful because of them. And do not accept any partner of shame and life, even if he is chaste, lest Christ cast you out as a double one.

5. To those in a cenobitic monastery. If indeed men and women were to praise a common life under the bonds of concord, having a joyful, harmonious, equal-wayed, same-roofed prayer around a king who presides over the choral dance, it would be better. For not every good thing wishes to be seen. Nor is that which does not proceed from the good the best. And narrow friendship and small grace are like much-mixed filth.

I urge that here too a very great chasm be set, so that men and women, reverent, may stand apart, and have equal glory. For envy is not only among the solitary, but even more among the many, and the strife of evil is greater. But if you wish to dwell alone, consorting with Christ alone, that too is dear; yet for all there is fear, as for me, of the hostile struggle and of ruinous fall. To temperance. It is good to be bound in marriage, only temperately, allotting more to God than to cohabitation. Better to be free of bonds, allotting all to God and to the things above. God is unyoked, and the angels are without flesh; matter is yoked and full of corruption. Marriage is care for a spouse and loved ones; for virginity, Christ. If a wife brings something equal to God, then marriage is equal to the solitary life; if nothing is equal, then the lives are not equal. Therefore, O parents, do not insult me, leaping about in marriage but not in chastity. I give to marriage, I receive chastity. But there are those who have fallen—may they perish—not choosing the best, but the weak. For some bring shame to themselves, others glory to us. Is the earth not plowed because of hail? Is the vineyard not planted? Does the sea not give back all the harbors it receives? Why look far off? When the Morning Star fell, were the choirs of angels not carried down with him? What, was not Judas the murderer of the Master, but the disciples glory? Do you not consider this: the terrors of your own marriage, and the thefts of adulterers, from which love is corrupted and lineage bastardized? Walk high, leave envy below. Be chaste to all, virgin. Bride only of Christ, keep your beauty sealed. He is good, but also full of jealousy.

Nothing ugly or disorderly does she bring forth. Adornment of the world is the disorder of attire; shun delicacy and humble your folds. Do not hunt for being seen by seeing. Walk modestly, even if you turn alone. Let a key lie on your ears, and let laughter not be wanton. The cheeks and the expression of laughter are the greatest. Wrath, drunkenness, and the demon are equal for virgins. Worst of all is the fullness of the belly for the sake of pleasure. Let beauty yield to prayers and vigils. Choose a housemate, but not a brother, lightly. The kindling of the disease—why must you see it? This is nothing shameful, except that memory alone is dust. Your father alone, and God, are faithful, young woman. Let others flee, as once the beasts fled from Sinai when the law was impressed on the tablets. Let the offering and the virgin be untouched—the one by the profane, the other by the eyes of all. Let need enslave you to the flesh not at all. If you lack something, a small jar will spring forth for you, and water-drawing will give you farming from the depths. Five thousand people are nourished by loaves. How much more will you, the attendant of God, be? Do not, then, having this pure bridegroom of fleshless beauty, be yoked to the second. For he becomes an adulterer, not a husband, reaping the love of a living husband. Will you, who have even added a basket to God, deprive him? And having fled the fire of Sodom,

Will you run back? Do not become a stone of salt. You are more than a widow, but even a widow's marriage is culpable, the boundary of chastity having been falsified. What is cheaper than a golden tongue, a plain one, of two drachmas, or something of the highest? But it destroyed the army when stolen. Seeing these things, then, virgin, obey God.

7. On Chastity. Every virtue advances the righteous by one step. The one who is a stranger to another's bed is equal to angels. The one who practices continence, let him be ranked with virgins. The one who preserves marriage, let him be equal to the continent. Only practice temperance so that you may attain greater things.

8. Comparison of Lives. Worldly: Would you judge for us, O stranger? Judge: What judgment? Worldly: Lives are contending. Judge: And which ones, and what is the judgment? Worldly: The worldly life and that of the spirit, which is better and livable for the wise? Judge: Though it is hard to judge, nevertheless it must be heard. Worldly: Born of the world, I know and love these things; piety is to honor ancestral law. Spiritual: Born of God, I know and revere God; piety is to know perfect reverence. If the worse is more honorable to you, how is the better not more just to me? Worldly: Flesh is my mother, and I was mixed with dust; I desire the fulfillment of the broken flesh. Spiritual: God is my father, and I was yoked to God; I desire the imitation of the form from which I was separated. Worldly: How would the race of mortals be constituted, tell me, if the union of flesh did not come together, governed by divine law and nature? Spiritual: This is law, but now I must be released, hastening to another life better than the present, free from bonds and corruption. Worldly: How then did the virgin life come as a newcomer? Spiritual: It was shadowy and long ago.

Now it shines, from the time she was revealed Mother of God and virgin. For the old law yielded to the new; the letter departed, the power of the Spirit remained. Worldling: But what if someone is without a yoke, without a partner in life, or what is just? Spirit: How very clever you are, persuading that the running together of flesh is for the sake of beauty, calling it good. Time has nurtured either good or bad, but the sower has poured forth insolence of the flesh. Nothing else. To be wise in passion is a mockery, as if laboring together with the will of God. Worldling: What then have you given to life, and what did you seek? Spirit: Branches. Worldling: So that they might be cooled, or a storm might take them? Give me my root; then have the branches. Spirit: It is enough to have become. Let another labor for corruption, nurturing, teaching, then suddenly mourning the one who no longer exists, seeing on walls a painted, breathless beauty, a son who does not move. Worldling: I am some nobleman. Spirit: From what lineage? And what is the molder? Do you not know that the clay is one? One nobility, imitation of God. You hold to tombs and new decrees, from which you were written noble, not nurtured. Worldling: For me, wealth strikes down enemies, melts the wicked with envy, makes friends, gives thrones in the city to puff up greatly. Spirit: For me, poverty grants having no enemies, pity is safer than envy. Thrones are easily abandoned, and friends are more than the occasion. If they remain, it is better to be inferior to God than to have first place among all visible things, or to be above all visible things. Let the intelligible city have me as its light. Worldling: What security does the poor man have in life—walls, gates, engines, swordsmen? Spirit: They labor so that the body may not be stolen away; this alone is spread out, a small rag. Let the thief, the tyranny of others, go to ruin. The thief is of those who have possessions.

One wealth alone is mine: God, whom no one will ever take from me who possesses him. As for other things, let those who love them have them; let every hand snatch my property. Nothing is safer than a poor man. The rich man sacrifices with a net; he greets his own right hand as a friend, and does not hymn God as the giver of good things, until what he possesses falls into another's hands—one he does not wish, perhaps an enemy's—and from there to another, like the rolling of wheels. But for me, when I die, my whole life goes with me; nothing will be left to envy and vicissitudes.

Worldling: How great a thing it is not to look at the hands of one's neighbors, while others look at ours, perhaps more piously.

Spirit: How great a thing it is to look only at the hand of God, who both gives and asks in a fatherly way, and to do nothing shameful for the sake of receiving a favor, not imitating the blood-sucking leech, which holds some things, presses on the mind with others, looks at some things with unseemly eyes, and molds others with the hopes of dreams, always poorer in what it desires.

Worldling: But how will one bear the burden of a difficult time, having no support for his distress?

Spirit: You ask me how one will escape a well-aimed arrow? A hair is not easily split, nor from close range. Become narrow for me, and you will escape the burden of evils. A reed bears the winds, but oaks do not; for the one yields, but the weight overthrows the others.

Worldling: It is permitted for me to live luxuriously.

Spirit: But for me, luxury is not to live luxuriously, swelling with satiety and guts, and sick with a rich disease, stinking of pleasant filth beyond the gullet, narrowing the mind with the thickness of the mire.

Worldling: My cakes!

Spirit: Bread is my seasoning; my drinks are all sweet from salt. I spit on the saltiness of those who live luxuriously.

Worldling:

The scent of perfumes is a delight to me, songs, clapping of hands and feet, rhythmic movements, the harmony of instruments sounding together. Spirit: You praise these things, but these are the things by which evil wealth is to me a teacher of evils. Better for us is the psalmody of instruments, attuning the soul to the things understood; and Christ is more fragrant than any perfume, having been emptied for us, that he might dissolve the foul odors with which the deadness of sin filled me. I clap my hands when my murderer falls, introducing some evil word or deed. The dance of feet is a godly turning. World: Perhaps you would say this, that poverty suffices even for diseases, bearing more than cures for bodies. Spirit: I would not say this, for the word is not true; but what is true, this also will be spoken: a poor man is much stronger than those who have possessions. God gave, raising up grace in return, strength to the poor, remedies to the wealthy. The poor man toils, sweats, empties his materials, hungers, shivers, is burned by the midday sun, travels, is burdened, is rained upon, groans; he receives simple and uncomplicated food of the season, knows nothing of the tricks which cooks and servants of luxury procure from the depths of earth and sea, setting out a womanish table for men—bloating, catarrhs, spleens, dislocations, fluxes, pallors, faintings of the wealthy; these are the offspring of surfeit. They neither have pleasure in what they have, and they seek those to whom they may leave their bulk, often envying those who are healthier though weaker; they are bereft of everything, wretched happy ones. Gold, stones, variegations of clothing, dyes of the painter and of purple imitating color, of walls, ceilings, and mosaic pavement underfoot.

Silver: one kind hidden in the bosom of the earth, imprisoned whence it came, worthy of tombs; the other in addition, flashing at banquets. Horses, carpets, chariots, charioteers, dogs, hunters, trackers of beasts. And these pleasant things, of an evil mistress, the belly, and the all-receiving passage of the throat, a delight. Bed-makers, doorkeepers, summoners, sleep-makers, flower-bearers, sprinklers, wipers of circles, tasters, shadow-makers, observers of nods, bathers, mixers with finger-lifts, shorn women, seasonings of the eyes. All things of a wealthy tomb, of painted dust. The needy man stands, and if he falls, worn by disease, scarcely ever or after a long time, he will provide nothing for his friends. He will die like a lion dead in its roars, more flourishing than the very wealthy. What then? Insolence, wrath, ecstasy, boldness, drunkenness, unrestrained laughter, shameful words, contempt for God, for blood, for friends. These belong no more to the poor than to the rich. For wealth brings insolence, and insolence brings ruin. He is squeezed out like the many, not raised up; if fear of God runs together with him, he especially may meet with fortune. A strong pedagogue of all good things. Observe each in place of each briefly, remaining a just judge of both lives, if this does not seem to you to bear insolence. Just as the poor stand and near, or breathe the same air, or are called by one name, to seem of the same roof and fellow voyager.

You envy the best, and I am pitied among the bad. For nothing is more wretched than the bad, even if they run smoothly toward a perilous end. You spit upon the poor, as if of another God; I know one creation, all will come to one judgment. But the second formation, a way, raises the good; I am disciplined by fear. I am bent by the afflicted; I am lightened by hopes. For nothing remains, but flows with long time. Night ended day, and day night; joy ended grief, and pleasant things disaster; therefore, one must not trust them as fixed. Nothing is terrible to you, not even the extreme evils; for somehow your thinking sets itself against luxury. But to me, grief, and even small things seem great. For sin is alienation from God; how could I bear being deprived of God? To you, sweet sleep and the positions of two sides; pleasant dreams, images of the day. You drink, gamble, take, play, laugh. To me, the greater part of life is sleepless; for pains sting me even when sleeping. If I snatch a little sleep, I weep; even wild night's phantoms frighten me: judgment, an unbending judge, a trembling assembly. A bubbling spring of unquenchable fire on one side, a worm eating eternally on the other; in the middle, conscience, an unwritten accuser. God is God to you, if he brings favorable things; to me, he is revered, even if he brings the opposite. For my labor is a medicine of salvation. The more I am pressed, the closer I come to God; for my suffering binds me to God. For even an army in pursuit drives one to walls. Children, wife, and friends are comforters to you, things which, when removed, are the greatest disaster. To me, support and solace is God, when I am hungry, shivering, and constrained. Insult, strike, call me base, call me poor, trample, oppress; you will insult for a short time.

I bear all things to God, toward whom I also look. I send my thought to the life hereafter; there I take my stand. I know nothing of things below. Thus I easily dissolve what grieves me. What of the rest? But for you, not to receive the vote today is unbearable, as it seems to me; for what rules does not always endure being ruled. To receive and not to receive are equal to me. God suffices for me, even if another carries off everything; this is the greatest glory and victory for me. Cosmian: What then if some of the highest fall? Pneumatician: What then if some of the second rank also fall? For it is possible for both to succeed and to fall. Equal to equal, but I consider those who fall in the first life far worse; so opposed am I to the wicked. For those whose rule is more honorable, their fall when they fall is more wretched. But I ask that one not be judged by life if he is most wicked; for he is hostile to life. One should examine oneself and test one's character, both of good and of evil by contrast, and not let the lesser tip the scale, for it is not just that the greater should prevail. Thus you would know how great the difference is between the two lives. Do not compare the extreme of donkeys with horses in evil, nor the best man of the worldly life with the worst of mine; for they would appear better, I will not deny it. But if you set extreme against extreme, and evil against evil opposite, you would learn how much I prevail. Consider also this: how often in all time you stumble, and among us the rule prevails. They say one swallow does not bring the beautiful spring, nor one gray hair old age. What say you? Do you give the vote? Or shall I bid farewell? Judge: I give it; how could I not? Only then will I think it right to prefer the lower life to yours, when I am mad enough to equal some mortal to God.

If I am not to go mad, I will not suffer this either. But go away; it would be better if you both live peaceably toward each other and toward the great God, you assigning the first things to the first life, you taking him as a second brother. If the first does not have it, what prevents having the second? This is not dishonor either. Thus our life would be secure. 9. On virtue. I long for virtue, but this has not taught me what it is, and whence it will come to me, especially since I long for it. Unfulfilled longing is pain. If the stream is pure, unmixed with wintry waters and torrential winter streams, I seek who has met with it on earth. For either it has raised mud from the heart, or it has received it, dragging heavy flesh, and being clouded from without by the dark enemy of our life, and by the muddy pit. For it was not fitting, since I am a frozen stream, and I flow through a flowing life, to remain unfrozen. If the stream is not entirely silver, but virtue is mixed with worse things, and the mixture is disorderly, how does virtue exist? Consider this. For I myself turn my swift mind this way and that in my breast. The nature of snow is cold and silver, the nature of fire is yellow and hot, and these are not mixed. They were dissolved by force before they were mixed. How then does shame come upon virtue, dishonoring the image, the image of the great God, through evil-delighting sin, if I am truly God, and I pray to be your portion? I hear of the beautiful stream of Alpheus, how it goes through the bitter sea, a great wonder, a sweet stream, and the harm is not mixed. Harm is the mist of the air, and disease of the limbs; of virtue, it is our night.

Often I raised my wing toward the ether, and heavy, consuming care cast me down. Often, too, I beheld the pure light of divinity, but some cloud came between, and the great radiance was hidden, and it tore me apart, as it fled when I was near. What is this envy? Either the law of a mortal always yearns for me to yearn, or this is better for me: to gain by toil and to keep by toil, for that is enduring which the mind has labored over. Often, too, an enemy deprived me of the distinction between good and evil, like some crafty beast placing tracks upon tracks, so as to deceive the good hunter by tricks. One thing the flesh commanded me, another thing desire, another God, another envy, another time, another eternity. I do what I hate, and I rejoice in evils. And I laugh a dread doom in my own entrails, a sardonic, malignant laughter, since even destruction is pleasant. Now I am low, now again high; today scorning insolence, tomorrow insolent; different in different times, like a polyp changing color with the rocks. I pour hot tears, but sin does not flow together. And I have emptied some things, but I gather others within again with other transgressions, and I cast away the remedies. I am a virgin in flesh, and in mind, I do not clearly know. Shame covered my eye, but my mind nodded shamelessly, keen-sighted for strange evils, but dark for my own. I am heavenly in words, earthly in thoughts, calm and fair-weather; but if even a small wind blows, I rise up with swelling waves, and the roar does not cease until calm comes. Then to fall into anger is no great wonder.

Often, when I was running well with the best hopes, already stretching beyond the midpoint of virtue, suddenly a backward rush placed me beneath my own feet, as a destructive enemy carrying his foot over sand, when the ground is stolen from before his unsteady steps. Again I go up, and again I come back. More wretched than before, always journeying, always holding great fear, I advanced with difficulty and quickly slipped. My life is long, and I do not desire release from life, longing for a cure, but the cure is far from me, gathering more evil with more days. Therefore let this decree be fixed for our generation: first, the pure nature of the Trinity; then, the angelic; third, I, a mortal, balanced in the balance, standing between life and grievous death, having a contested end, but a toilsome one, even if I have opened the doors of evil life only a little. For here God has set the contest to remain in my mind. That one is best who, among many evils, bears few images of evil, and hastens uphill with the hand of great God, carrying a warm love of virtue, and pursuing the back of evil. As the flow of a river, forced by another rough, turbid, and wild stream, if they mingle, hiding the muddy stream with a purer flow, so virtue is woven, and the greater part belongs to the heavenly. If someone here has seen God, or has run to the Lord, lifting heavy flesh to heaven from here, this is a gift of God. Let a measure be set for mortals. If I should also place this word in my mind, how you might reach the goal of great virtue, which alone is a pure sacrifice for the pure, I do not think it is here.

Much smoke lies upon the eyes here; but I am content, if afterwards I leave behind tearful evils. Not only was it then a gift of the great God, an image of the living one, since you also desired it, nor only of your mind, since it was of a stronger might, just as the sight alone did not gaze upon the visible things for me, even when looking intently, far from the great Sun. But he himself shone with his eyes, and he himself appeared to the eyes. There are two portions of the great God toward the stronger one, the first and the last, and also one from me. That one established the receiver of the beautiful, and accompanies strength. But I myself, in the middle, a runner in the stadium, not very swift, come, not without honor, stretching my limbs in leaps, having Christ as my breath, Christ as my strength, my glorious wealth, who makes me both keen-sighted and swift-running. Without him, all mortals are vain playthings, and living corpses, stinking from their sins. For you would not see a bird flying without air, nor would a dolphin, a sea-runner, dart without water. So too, without Christ, a mortal does not lift a step. Therefore, do not boast too much, nor rely on the strength of your wits, even if you are very wise. Nor, when you see someone lowly, be lifted up high, as if you rule over all and drive near the goal. He who does not see the goal of the journey remains within the goal. Do not tremble too much, nor be too arrogant. He placed height on the earth, hope raised it to heaven, and God is angry at great arrogance. Grasp one thing with your hands, hope for another, yield to another; and know the measures of this life, which is of prudence. It is an equal evil to set good things from hope and to have great boldness, as if it were easy to remain best.

In both ways you would set a bad condition in your mind. Let the arrow always lie watchful in your hand. Send nothing beyond the command of the great Christ, nor bring anything within; a useless target from both sides. Often even the excess is useless, when, desiring new glory, we shoot with overstrained bow. If you are high-minded, I will remind you whence you came into life, what you were before, what you concealed in your bowels, what you will be afterwards—dust and food for the moth, bearing nothing more than the most insignificant among the dead. If you are lowly-minded, you have been fashioned as a creature of Christ, and breath, and a venerable portion; from there you were built up—heavenly, earthly, a fashioned God, an unforgettable work, journeying through the sufferings of Christ to imperishable glory. Therefore do not gratify the flesh, do not love the superfluities of this life, but rather make the temple better. For the mortal is a temple of the great God, which he fashioned, moving from earth, always journeying to heaven. This I urge you to keep pure in all deeds and words, always having God within, always being best, true, not seeming. Do not bring a red-cheeked ship, fair-colored, or one flashing with painted beauties, upon the back of the sea; but a good one with bolts, well-sailing, well-fitted by the hands of a shipwright, carrying swiftly through the swell. Let each go before, and all hold to God—the wise, the strong, the rich, the needy—as an unerring anchor. From there let the stern-cables be fastened for all, and especially for me, who sit on the high seat, leading the people with sacrifices to heaven, bearing such a burden as one who dishonors Christ with darkened mind, as much glory as I gain when I approach the divinity.

For the measures of God follow the measures of life, and the measures of life follow the measures of God. If you were wise, you would drive a steadfast life here, and here and hereafter with God's better escort, when the shadowy life is dissolved on the day of this life. 10. On virtue. I hear many things, and I would not speak in vain, but the right thing is the work of the word. So either some of the friends of God, to whom it is fitting to watch over all the affairs of the young, gave each other the marvel with pleasure, giving good tokens of life (for the saying goes that a lion is revealed by its claws), or Providence, which devises all things well and wishes the right things for you, gives the word as a path to deeds, so that, anticipated by being considered good, you may have a reputation as a sort of pledge of piety, being called by God. Let whoever wishes conjecture this, but I will say what I hear: that the soul looks to a great height, and having pierced and briefly risen above the mist which covers all our life here below, and having surpassed the mire and fetters of the composite, having cast off the tyrants of the divine image, you would be eager to give yourself to God, which alone you must consider education, the first and greatest good for men. For what is so great among the things that wander below, among the various playthings of which different people boast, granted by circumstance and chance, as they say? Even if all the good things of all people came together into one, as they are or are thought to be in this wretched life, would the gain be so great, even if you seem to run to the limits? Even if you had the possessions of Gyges of the great wealth, and turned everything with the turn of his ring, a silent ruler.

Even if you think like Croesus, and the Persian Cyrus flows with gold, sit below, boasting of the power of thrones; even if you take Troy with your famous fleets, and the peoples and cities have you as bronze; even if you lead the assemblies with your nods, and you celebrate worthily with crowns, and you breathe Demosthenes' passion in lawsuits, and Lycurgus or Solon yields to you in laws; even if you have Homer's muse in your breast, even if you have Plato's tongue, which is honey-dripping and is so considered among the human race; even if you press all with inescapable and evil foot-traps of eristic arguments; even if you turn everything upside down, weaving labyrinths with hard-to-exit arguments of Aristotle or some Pyrrhonians; even if Pegasus lifts you winged, or the arrow of the Scythian Abaris, whoever he was, the mythical ones—what profit is so great from these things I speak of, from a splendid marriage and a Sybaritic table, and all other things by which minds are exalted, as much as to do all these things below, but to look upon the dignity of the soul, and whence it has come, to what and where it must be turned, and what is this soul's rational motion? For since it is, as I conjecture and hear from the wise, a certain divine emanation coming to us from above, whether whole, or whether its ruler and helmsman is the mind, its one natural and only work is to be borne upward and to be joined to God, always and everywhere to look toward the kindred, least enslaved by the passion of the body, which flows to earth and drags downward, sending the sweet deception of visible things within, and the darkness of the senses, by which, not ruled by Reason, the soul, flowing little by little, falls below.

If it be restrained and frequently reined in, as by a bridle, by the Word, then perhaps at some time, as the Word raises it little by little, it might reach the holy city above, until it seizes the long-desired things. This is to pass by every veil and the present shadows and the riddles here, and as much as beauty is reflected in mirrors, to look upon the good itself laid bare, with the mind itself laid bare, and at last to cease from wandering, sated with the light which it deemed worthy to obtain, possessing from there the ultimate of beautiful things. For the one who made all things by wise word, and who fitted together the ineffable harmony of the whole by the mixture of opposites, and ordered this cosmos from disorder, showed a greater wonder in the nature of the living being. I will philosophize a little for you on a higher discourse. God is either mind or some other substance superior, graspable only by the rays of mind, perfectly known to those above, perhaps, but dimly to us, whom a cloud of thick flesh, a hostile screen, obstructs. For now it is so; the greater part is for later. Since God has the firstfruits of discourses, let us now consider what is from God. How does it hold? There are two extremes and opposite natures. One is near to God and honorable; they call it rational and full of mind, and they name it paronymously from word, as I know it to be the attendant of God, the order of the second of the extremes, of angels, higher than perceptions and bodies, and the first bright one of the ruling Trinity. The other is farthest from God and from word; they call it irrational, as alien to word, both as much as is in sound and as much as is spoken.

Thus having separated these things, God the Word, as a skilled craftsman and wisely weaving creation, fashions me, a composite living being from both, harmonizing reason and unreason, an invisible soul, by which I bear the image of the greatest God, and a body without understanding. This is the mixture of the precious formation, which I consider another great world in the small. So that, overflowing with light and beauty, he might also give me some share of beauty, and my work, or by his will, having first shown and distinguished by reason the extremes of both lives, and having added law as a helper to the formation, he set me as a self-chosen worker of beauty, to bear crowns from battle and struggle; for it is better than living free of boundaries. This is the account of my composition for you. But it is always tossed here in many revolutions, whirled up and down, midway between evil and good deeds, through which it is fired and tested, wretched, like gold in purifying coals. But later the fruits of what we have sown will be reaped, at the just judgment of God, and the winepresses are ready to receive the harvest of the books. With these things so disposed, he who keeps the law, revering the portion of God which he has, and in every deed, word, and turn of thought, is as undefiled as possible among the deceived. And not wallowing in the flowing matter, but drawing the dust back toward heaven, (O great and wise mystery!) he will have as a reward for his labors to become God, a God by adoption, indeed, but full of the highest light, whose firstfruits he moderately gathered here.

Whoever, inclining toward the bond with the worse and entanglement, appears as a comrade to the lower things, a slave of the flesh and fond of flowing things, insults divine nobility by his life, even if he runs most swiftly among the unstable, priding himself on light dreams and shadows, wealthy, luxurious, and exalted on thrones—alas for the penalty of the scourges from that place! Ah, the first of evils is to fall from God. So then, hearing these things and being persuaded, you, walk the right path, leave the base one, if you are at all persuaded by me as a genuine advisor. I know it is better to be persuaded, and you will receive the word. For there are three things, as the ancients say, with which a good counselor must be armed: experience, goodwill, and frankness. Of these you will find none lacking in us. As for experience, I have advanced to such a point as is likely for those who have labored long and conversed much with the books of the wise, with the words of divinely inspired doctrines, from a sweet spring and a temperate draught, from which we have drawn even a little depth. As for the second of which I spoke, I mean goodwill, the trust is greatest; for I wish for you what I formerly advised myself, dearest one, when reasonings ran together with dangers of a bitter sea, by which I was brought to God; for fear is often the beginning of salvation. As for frankness, may you never experience it, neither mine nor that of these strangers to you; but you will not experience it either, if persuaded by my words; for you will be worthy of praise, not blame. Since these things are so, come now, give yourself to me, give, and let us give to God, whom you will receive when given. For this is the nature of the giver. And if you look thus, you might hit upon the truth. There are also some wise among the Greeks, but not wise indeed.

How could we call wise those who have been ignorant of the most excellent nature, God, the first cause of all goods? For his nature is accessible to those who think, and the order of both visible and intelligible things. But those who have either completely expelled the Divine from reason, or denied providence, or set limits—may God not grow weary of saving them. Among them, some, using sight as their teacher, gave power to the stars, their fellow slaves, by which they lead everything, being themselves led very badly. Others worshipped the ugliness of beasts, falling even lower. Still others worshipped shadows of demons and invented myths as advocates of their passions, and set up monuments worthy of their folly, shrines of matter and works of human hands. Who then is so unwise as to set these down as wise? Yet let them be, if you wish, wise. You would find these people, in other doctrines, both inconsistent and at variance with one another in their accounts of intelligibles and visibles, of divine providence, of ideas and fate, of infinite matter and the composition of bodies, of soul, mind, and the deception of the senses. From these come the Stoics and the brows of their personae, the Academies and the twists of the Pyrrhonians, their speculations, suspensions of judgment, and the prattlings of the technicians. In these matters they are inconsistent, but all equally are praisers of the good and like-minded.

They set nothing above virtue, even if it is attained through countless labors, many toils, and a long time. I will recall, by way of example, certain cases, so that you may learn from them too what virtue is, gathering roses from thorns, as they say, learning the better from the unbelieving. Who has not heard of the Sinopean dog? He—why need I mention the rest?—was so frugal and moderate in his worldly affairs, and legislating these for himself, not from God, guarding no law, nor with any hopes, that he had one possession, his staff, and a house open to the sky in the middle of the city, a twisted jar fleeing the force of the winds, which was better for him than gilded halls; and his food was improvised, not labored over. Crates likewise, setting himself above wealth, abandoned his property to be grazed by sheep, as a servant of vice and of the body, and, raised upon an altar, with a great proclamation in the midst of Olympia, he declared himself, that marvelous and famous thing: "Crates the Theban frees Crates," knowing that being ruled by wealth is slavery. They say that the same man (or some say another of the philosophers of equal resolve), while sailing, when the storm grew wild and the ship was burdened by its cargo, eagerly threw his wealth into the deep, and then uttered a saying worthy of remembrance: "Well done, Fortune, my teacher of good things, how easily I am reduced to a cloak!" Another left his property to his relatives. Another, surpassing these as human things, gathered all he had into a single golden lump, then, putting out to sea, gave to the deep his vainglorious error, saying that one should not procure evil for another. And this I praise.

One of the ancient Cynics approached a king and asked to receive sustenance, whether because he was in need or else making a test. The king, whether out of honor or some trial, promptly ordered a talent of gold to be given. The man did not refuse to take it; but taking it, in the very sight of the giver, he bought a loaf of bread with the talent and said, "This is what I needed to receive, not the inedible arrogance." Now these things are nearly in accord with my own principles, which wing me toward a life and nature of birds, with ephemeral and unsown food, and I judge by the beauty of well-clad things, while artless weavings guarantee me shelter, if I look only to the great God. But if I must also scrape away at the ways of life, so that I might not seem to recount these things in vain: some, honoring the lack of possessions and a life free and above bonds, first did not pursue the good rightly; for there was more display than desire for the good. Or what need was there of altars and proclamations? Then they gave themselves to the pleasures of the belly, as if fleeing not the surfeit of wealth but the cares and toils of acquisition, making poverty a pretext for luxury. Barley loaves made with sesame seeds, slipping away, and tragic verses—of which this one is aptly spoken: "O stranger, stand away from the feet of tyrants"—and endive fleeing from the midst of seasonings, the relish of the poor, the bountiful grace of the earth, reveal this. For us, if anything of the beautiful is without display, our first principle is not even to know clearly the left from the right. Self-restraint bears witness to the divine. The well of Cleanthes is noble, and Socrates' living in poverty; the rest are shameful!

The Charmidases and the shelter of threadbare cloaks, beneath which the noble man consorted with the young on divine matters. For only the beautiful are intelligent. Let no one hunt beauty through desire for bodies. May such schemes perish! The boundaries of the Mysians and Lydians are separate things. But who would ever praise this of Alcmaeon, who, first among the Athenians, a man renowned in birth and breathing great power, was seen to be so overcome by money, when it was fitting for him to appear superior? For Croesus welcomed him with more gifts than one, offering all his treasuries of gold, as a potentate thinking great of his fortune, and bade him take as much gold-dust as he could. And filling his lap, his jaws, and his hair, making it gold-sprinkled (such was his lack of measure!), he went forth rich among the Lydians, a laughingstock. But what of Plato to you, even though he was the wisest of men? What of Aristippus, the most pleasant one I speak of? What of the graceful Speusippus, as I think? One lived the life of an unfortunate huckster, draining labors for maritime profits; oil was his cargo. Perhaps you will not call this insatiable, and you attribute it to poverty. But that Plato should bow before tyrannical tables—alas for his words and his solemn labors! I forbear to speak of sale and not-sale, unless some Libyan appeared better than Plato of Greece, and for a small price buys both the reputation and the words of Plato. As for the one from Cyrene, his frankness is great; yet he mixed luxury with freedom, harming the good with his salty doctrine. For he smelled of perfumes and breathed of symposia; the gracefulness of his manner and his glibness were the guide to his gains.

Thus once, when Archelaos the wise was offering a woman’s garment—how and for what reason I know not—Plato did not accept it, but spoke a timely iambic line from Euripides: “I could not put on a woman’s robe.” The other, however, when the gift came into his hands, brought by a man and eagerly received it, and countered the elegance of the iamb with an iamb, saying this: “Even in the revels of Bacchus, she who is chaste will not be corrupted.” The same Archelaos, they say, once, when Sophocles wished to receive something, gave it to the wisest Euripides, adding these words: “You seem to me worthy to ask, but Euripides to receive,” showing what an excellent noble character is. And when Lysimachus’ son once set the revenues for the Greeks and appeared foremost in other respects in demagoguery and generalship, he proved so superior to money that (I will willingly pass over that he had his name from his deed, being just and still called so) the city, giving his daughters in marriage, honored their noble poverty with money, and buried him when he had no means for burial. Nor would I pass over the noble deeds of the Romans, so as not to rely only on ancient examples. When Fabricius, a general of the most renowned, had conquered Pyrrhus in battle, he conquered him more by these means: for when Pyrrhus, reduced to narrow hopes, attempted to bribe the general with talents of gold, he did not accept, but nevertheless made a truce. And when Pyrrhus, they say, jesting peaceably with him, showed him one of the armed beasts, an elephant, huge and great, not yet known to him by sight, and the trunk suddenly appeared, he was not terrified, but said cheerfully:

Neither gold nor a wild beast took me." Enough of these, and these beyond the measure of verse, as one might say despising wealth. Do not accept those things that are not good from the old books, good sir, in which you were reared. Let me be called bad while gaining profit. For it is better to dwell poor, having sold one's reputation, than to revere the laws of the gods. Do not prate to me of lineage; my lineage is barley-cake. Wealth is the most honored thing among men. Nothing is more wretched than a poor man. Without bronze, Phoebus does not prophesy. There is no man who is fortunate in all things: either he is noble by nature and lacks livelihood, or he is low-born and plows a rich field. How can you call unfortunate the man who is poor but has a character far richer? Truly unfortunate is thinking so badly. Flee all these things and those who spoke them, or anything else in words similar to these. And praise these wise sayings: When you take profit from a base deed, consider that you have a pledge of misfortune. Do not profit from every source, disgracing yourself. Unjust good fortune brings fear. Do not say "Wealth," I do not admire a god whom even the worst man easily acquired. He is poor, but rich in character. Prefer a wise poor man to an evil Midas. Theognis babbles to me like broad nonsense, preferring cliffs and depths to poverty, and legislating badly to Kyrnos about money. And you, Homer, how do you assign so much to such an unstable thing, that you say somewhere in your verses that virtue is inferior to wealth? He says: I said this myself, not being so disposed, but laughing at those who are so miserably disposed.

For does it not seem to you that Odysseus, who escaped the sea, he of many labors, appearing naked as a wanderer to the royal maiden, and shaming her with his speech, and seeming to the Phaeacians themselves worthy of the highest regard, is manifestly a praise of virtue? I praise the Phrygian fable, which is well: for Midas, having asked that everything become full of gold, the god gives him the penalty for his lack of measure, just as he had thought to obtain: the gold was inedible; and he who had it was a corpse. What are foreign fables and teachings to me? Look now at my own laws. My lineage is the first good, from which I came, and toward which I wing my life, trying to free myself from bonds. But that which arises from limbs and decay, from corpses both splendid and long-rotted, which those below call nobility, is no more noble than flowing dung. As for fatherland, that of bodies is not free, but a slave to taxes, and badly divided, bounded by gulfs of the sea and glens, exchanging many wretched inhabitants, itself both mother and tomb of its offspring, cutting those who cut it. O justice, justice of the first-formed man's taste and error! But the other, sought by the wise in place of this, toward which we look and are not whirled about here, like some plant borne upon waters, a boundless plain of noble dwellings, held by its inhabitants forever, mother of the living and stranger to sorcerers, a ceaseless chorus hymning great Christ, a festival of firstborn written in the books of the heavens and the eternal ones. And I praise the glory that lies above for me, a just balance, the most beautiful and unerring. But that here is a breeze and an empty grace of empty things; the just one adds nothing.

But this wealth is not true, but turns to harm. For seeming has subtracted much from being. One wealth is flowing and full of drunkenness, blind in appearance and wandering about, puffing up many and vainly drawing upon fortune, a certain bulk of the belly filled with dropsy. Let it approach others as a remedy laden with disease, a plaything of envy and circumstance, honored. But my wealth is abundant and enduring, stable, inviolable, the highest of possessions: to possess nothing except God and the things above. For one could not, even if he wished, acquire everything, nor has anyone ever acquired it up to now; but it is possible to despise all things at once, and this is the better way. Let others draw up phalanxes of hoplites, and suffer more than the evils they do, casting, lamenting, with unstable shifts, struggling in close combat, purchasing with blood some bulk of wealth or the power of tyranny. Let others measure the wild gulfs of earth and sea, wretched merchants. Let others weave reciprocal laws and suits with zeal for the sake of small gains. But for me, Christ is the purchase, and I richly bear the cross, the poor one, having cast away the moth-eaten and the turning of dice. His law is first, the first luxury, Eden and a flourishing paradise with plants, and a spring divided into four sources. Not gold, not electrum, not silver, not the charm of fair-colored and shining stones, which the earth gives to those bent downward; but with fruits alone it abundantly nourished the worker of God and of divine luxury. And here a boundary is measured by pleasure: for the tree of knowledge of opposites kept one away. This boundary, not being guarded, deprived me of everything, and gave me over to the toils of the earth, my mother.

One of these is to have more than necessary, to know no measure in acquisition, making the worse remedy of evil their practice, thirsting and burning with the very drink. From this, see what happens, as is paradoxical: they are always poor, acquiring what is lacking, and cannot enjoy what is acquired, because of what is not present; for it consumes the mind. This first is a law of a frugal life, but there is that second one. Abraham, the patriarch, the great seer of God, was drawn from his house, his family, and his fatherland by the steward of the greatest mysteries, and was easily moved to a foreign land, a stranger, a sojourner, homeless, wandering. For faith drew him with greater hopes; and Jacob asked only for bread and shelter, once rushing into the midst of rivers, as the story goes, even if he later returned with many flocks, finding a just reward for his labors. And this too is well said in addition to what I have mentioned: when Moses alone with God alone conversed within the darkness and received the double law on tablets, with which he led a great people, then, dividing the land he held from God, he measured out other land to others, but to the sons of Levi he did not assign a portion alone. For their portion, the strongest, was God. And Jonadab, once introducing to his children a life of non-possession and the lofty life (for he knew, he knew how to philosophize, even though poverty was not yet held in wonder at that time), spoke this word, very much like that of a good father: "O children, what a great and abundant inheritance I provide for you, such as no father has ever given to his children, not even the most prosperous. Flee from every inheritance; have a life that is easily loosed, bound by no bond. Dwell in tents, movable houses; let another till the land.

A vine, then, might be planted for him whom wine will cheer; but for you, let your life be wineless and self-controlled. If you lived thus, you would live safely for me. Such, then, is this man. But shall we place Elijah somewhere, whom great Carmel nurtured, with the winter torrent of the ravens, from a thirsty land? He, being poor and the poorest of the poor, stood against tyrants, rains, depths of streams; he drew fire from heaven against enemies and sacrifices. For widows he caused drops of scanty food to flow, nourishing the nourishers richly, though he was needy. He raised the dead, as reward for pious shelter, and was borne up in a chariot of fire to heaven. And the lot of Elisha, who from Elijah received grace and the famous fleece from on high. Here is a man sacred before the belly. O the wonder! You surely hear of the great Samuel, whom his mother's prayer brought to God—unless it is too bold to say this: she did not even have him; from infancy he was given to God. Who was the one between the old and new covenants of God, as between shadow and body, confining the former and opening the entrances of the latter? Who was the great lamp running before the extreme light? Who was first among the born, with God as witness? He dwelt in the desert and had strange food; his garment was of camel's hair, fastened by twisting the skin. The Word wrote of John, who did not allow even a double rag to be possessed. And what might one say of Paul, who procured his food by his trade? Or of Peter, who feasted on lupines alone—the great apostles who placed the whole world within God's nets, whose hands poured out much wealth to the poor, richly giving? Others left fishing-nets to their relatives, being called by God to a better fishing.

They were led by the best words of Christ, who impoverished himself and the thickness of flesh, being the greatest Mind and the first nature of mind; and he appointed the poor as heralds of the word, giving only faith as a companion, to those without shoes, without bronze, not carrying a wallet, without sandals and without resources, entrusting to them the mystery of the whole new world, and not even allowing them to have a staff in their hands, so that the strength of the word might be faith. See the greater point: not even for the young man needing to learn how one might attain perfection does he define the extreme by another, but by himself alone, that one must scatter everything to the poor, always carry the great cross on one's shoulders, and follow him, being dead to things below, if one truly desires to be raised up together with God. Thus he perfects even tax collectors who eagerly give everything to God; and let Zacchaeus persuade you, who, being wickedly rich, through pity for the poor and the wronged, becomes rich in poverty and is cleansed of filth. So much for matters of money. As for self-control, the examples of the ancient wise men among both Greeks and barbarians are small; for even among barbarians there was some regard for virtue. But what need is there to write from our own side, what and how much? For all things are manifest and well known. I heard this from the wise tragedy: "I try to hold every rein over the belly." For of all things that have been suffered, it alone has no gratitude. In satiety is Cypris, but not in hunger. A fat belly does not produce a thin mind. Whether you fill the nose with honeycombs or barley meal, it will make no difference in the depths of the belly. What pleasure is there in pouring into a leaking jar? And the insatiable belly has even discovered the courses of ships; it has armed others, one after another, in madness.

All precious things sink into the abyss, the food of gluttonous men, no longer even food for the most frugal, from a single pot, rightly says the dearest Cercidas, the end of the luxurious, he himself eating salt, spitting out even the saltiness of luxury itself. Who does not praise the one who said to the luxurious youth, "Stop adding to your fetters, and wilding the beast that tears you apart." And what of this from the dearest Stoics? As one speaks to another's flesh: "What do I owe you, wretched hide? To eat? The greatest thing, bread given sparingly. To drink? We will give you water, and sour wine. You do not ask me for these, but for the things of luxury and satiety, and the delicacy of crystal cups. We will give them readily enough, but with a noose." Are these not better than the old softness of Sardanapalus, son of Ninus, who once, brilliant with wealth and corrupted by luxury, wished for himself a throat longer than a crane's, for the sake of long pleasure? O divine David, you, thirsting for a well in a foreign land, with drink withheld, since some served your desire through blood and battle, you took water in your hands and poured it out; for you did not fulfill your own desire from the evils of others. But if there is bread of angels, the food of the Word (for the incorporeal nature is not nourished by body), how many among us live the life of angels, held by small sparks of life! And this they endure for the sake of divine doctrine; for one must be bound until God releases. I leave off speaking of books and of ancient things.

All those who, purified in body and made divine, went without food for a day and more, as though free from bodies, endured the threat of fire and the jaws of lions, so as not to take profane food in a foreign land at the command of barbarians. But when the enemy, having wrestled with Christ, departed, defeated by noble flesh, after forty days and nights of fasting, so that he might be more shamed by his failed attempt, a law came forth of beloved mortification in the contests—O wise wrestling!—and of bloodless and inspired sacrifices, which the whole world offers well to the Master, sacrificing not calves under the ancient law, nor lambs, nor any external offering of imperfect things (for every irrational thing is deficient), but themselves, melting themselves with measured food, indulging in not indulging—O strange indulgence!—trying to purify temples for God, with vigils and all-night hymnodies, and departures of the mind toward the great Mind, living as much in shadows and phantoms as to grasp the hidden through the seen. From this, some, placing the thickness of the flesh in bondage with iron, quenched their satiety; others, confined in darkness and narrow dwellings or clefts of wild rocks, checked the harm of wandering senses. Others gave themselves to deserts and lairs of beasts, fleeing the beastly sin, living an unnatural life, knowing only this world they see. Another drew pity by sackcloth, and ashes, and tears, and the toil of sleeping on the ground, and standing through nights and more days, and months—greater than this; and if I should say years, I think it incredible, yet to me very credible, as many as are eyewitnesses of the beloved wonder.

Faith set up a pillar, and fear of God, snatching the mind prematurely from the bodies. You will hear of a strange relish and drink and food, ash and tear mixed together, breadless, as waterless is the life of others. They seem to me to conquer even the laws of nature, as zeal leads to paths out of the way. Why these things? But you marvel at the daughters of Leo, gladly devoured by those of Athens, and at Menoeceus' eager contribution, dying for Thebes to save the city, and at Cleombrotus the wise, his honorable leap from a height, to depart from the body, persuaded by Plato's discourse on the soul, seized by a desire for release. You speak of Epictetus' broken leg, before uttering any word servile to violence; for the body is slave, the character free, as we hear; and of the pounding in a mortar of Anaxarchus' hands, as if he were not present, and commanding fiercely to pound his own bag, for he himself remains unpounded, whoever he is, not seen; and of Socrates' hemlock, a strange loving-cup so sweetly drunk. Do you praise these things? And I do too, to some extent, except that among the

They were brave in inescapable evils; for I see no salvation for those who are willing. From there come to the godly wrestling of my athletes, and let fear whirl you, as you hear and remember them. By what and how many dangers we increased the revered and new mystery of Christ, we who were deemed worthy to be called from there. For many times, when envy boiled over, we had enemies and persecutors of the word, breathing fury, wild beasts, and we never yielded to the shifts of circumstance. But if any laxity belonged to peace, if anyone was evil and happened to be otherwise, here we were all sharpened for God. And, compacted by fiery zeal, we received the boldness of enemies, being gloriously defeated. For no one obtains salvation so gladly as we do noble dangers. Who received fire, swords, pits, hunger, strangulation, murderous beasts as if they were luxury? Tortures, dislocations, extinguishing of eyes, boiling, rendings, and lacerations of limbs, frosts, depths, darkness, and precipices, and the long-drawn varied tragedy of time? I will speak of what is worst of evils, even for those who know: the peak of evil is the release from fear. But to always expect something is always to suffer, and to die many bitter deaths instead of one. I leave aside exiles and alienations of property, and that these things happen in the sight of men, women, those of the same age, children, friends—things that bend even the most valiant. And for what? For perhaps one syllable. Why do I say a syllable? For a single nod, which wickedly saves through denial. For God is the matter contained in a brief word; if you betray him, there is no other to take. Why do I need more words?

Lift your gaze in a circle, behold the whole inhabited world, as much as the saving word now holds, binding together God and suffering in a mixture, a strange mixture and far from the laws of God. This world they flash upon like stars, almost all of it, with clear radiances, with high-roofed thrones and teachings, with gatherings and universal journeys, with hymns worthy of their labors, the glorious victors of the slaughtered one. So great is the reverence for this contest that even a little dust, or some remnant of old bones, or a small part of hair, or even rags, or some token of sprinklings, suffices once for the honor of the whole. And I have known a name, for some an ointment, given to places in place of the whole martyr, receiving equal power—O the wonder! For I think even merely remembering suffices to save. What if I should also mention the purification of diseases and demons, incredible, even at the tombs, which were once deemed worthy of precious bodies, resisting the assaults of hostile spirits? Such are the wonders of my athletes. You boast to me of Pisa and the Delphic dust, of Nemea and the Isthmian pine, through which unfortunate youths gained fame, setting small prizes for small contests, of boxing, wrestling, running, and jumping, which are neither great to win nor great to lose. For the prize is not God, nor salvation, as it is for my laws and my wrestling matches, to attain glory above and crowns.

Since you have seen courage in these things (which it is best and most salutary to imitate in daily struggles against the persecutor of the depth and stealth, who cunningly steals through deceptive senses), come now, consider with me also the things of that praised temperance, which we especially honor. It is somehow thus. There are, indeed, there are even among the Greeks some lovers of this virtue, both long ago and still now. For I will not disbelieve the celebrated tales; there is no envy in allowing even foreigners to be temperate. They say that Xenocrates, when a prostitute was thrown in beside him by some who were testing him (for he was sleeping at night), when he perceived it, was neither startled by the strangeness of the outrage, nor did he rise up or consent to flee; for both were beneath Xenocrates. So unmoved and unwounded was he that, when she gladly fled, he cried out: "Why have you deceived me by bedding me with a corpse?" Epicurus contended that pleasure is the prize of my labors, into which all human goods terminate. But so that he might not seem to praise this pleasure as some kind of pleasure, he lived decorously and temperately, helping from

of character to doctrine. Nor will I pass over Polemon in silence; for the wonder of him is among the most celebrated. He was formerly not among the temperate, and was a very shameful servant of pleasures. But when he was seized by love of the beautiful, having found a counselor—I cannot say whether it was some wise man or himself—he suddenly appeared so far above his passions that I will set down one of his wonders. A licentious young man summoned a courtesan; she, it is said, came near the gate, and there was Polemon peering out in a portrait. Seeing this, for it was venerable, she immediately departed, defeated by the sight, as if ashamed before the living man in the painting. And I know this is told by many: Dion breathed, they say, not very pleasantly (I mean Dion, of whom there is much talk), and one of the townsmen mocked him for it. When he saw his own wife, he said, "What is this? You did not tell me of the disease." And she with an oath said, "I thought this was a common affliction of all men, not yours alone." So great is the distance from men and friends; for the word is a sign of a character's dignity. Who does not praise this of Alexander? He took the daughters of Darius, the defeated king, into his hands; learning that they were beautiful, he did not receive them into his sight, for it is evil, having conquered men, to be inferior to maidens. These things are nothing near my own, yet I praise them; and why? To see a white form among Ethiopians—what a grace! Or a sweet stream in the midst of the sea! Just as among wicked and evil teachings, to have something temperate is a very great wonder. For those whose objects of reverence are most passionate, to suffer is evidently even honorable.

And indeed, some god, whose passion is set forth, is championed, using evil as an ally against evil. Tell me, what loves, and of males, for your gods must have something more. What Phrygian youths and drinking companions, most sweetly pouring nectar in a dissolute manner? For I am ashamed at the mysteries of Zeus. What, thefts of marriages and outrages of bonds? A shameful spectacle and laughter called forth. How do women make Zeus everything—bull, thunderbolt, swan, man, beast, gold, serpent—the ecstasies of love, the highest and the contriver of the worst? Who considers the goddess of pleasures as a deity, raising altars and temples to passions? Whose nights, truly worthy of night, are honored with symbols of things shamefully dishonored? Ithyphalli and phalli, a laugh in the middle, mixing a new god in their creations. Things which, even when spoken, it would be proper to cover one's face: Hermaphrodites, Pans, offspring of shame. Gods with goat legs and goats in manner, in whose company are dancers and maidens of marriage (for one must suffer something of marriage, even if not marriage). In whose company the beautiful ones give in marriage the not beautiful, contributing a dowry, a means of prostitution. The shamefulness is an honor of some demon, so that even philanthropy does not remain seemly. From this, shameful things have gained boldness, a harlot's rented rooms, legalized outrage. The wise shape Aphrodite according to their own courtesans, as if to deify them by the sophism. And Pheidias' beloved on the finger of the virgin, inscribed: "Pantarkes is beautiful." From this, as if manliness and generalships are splendid in paintings, applause, and writings, as is common beauty.

Behold for me so many prostitutes honored in temples and among gods: Euphro, Phryne, Leaina in her beastly name (for even the name was solemn in the midst of temples), the mistress of Hellas, of whom there is much talk, Lais, shamefully corrupted from Hykkara, and many others—for I do not deem them worthy of mention. Of these, then, best of men, like a skilled money-changer, accept whatever is noble, but reject what does not make you better. And run to all your own teachings, to the patterns of chaste men and women, of whom God is the hope and teacher, who write better laws than the hand writes. For we are the ones who, while others set adultery as evil and punish it by law, ourselves introduce something greater than this: not to look shamefully and passionately, placing the cause in the same category as the end, just as with murder, anger, from which murder comes, and readiness of oath with perjury. For those things without which no evil will occur, by forbidding these we also flee the terrible things. Thus for me chastity is secure, from which I have a great chorus of virgins, imitating the fleshless life of angels, and of God who dwells with it and alone. Whence what happens? Into the second life everything flows together, and longs for a release from bonds and marriage laws, from which Christ, the offspring of a virgin mother, having appeared, makes a virgin by new laws. For since I came into life as a captive, compelled to know the flowing things and the corruption of corruption, so that I might learn the better things from the seen and the wandering, rejoicing in leading the image back to God, to a free and unbound life, having left no trace of my skin, another wineskin inflated in life.

The whole man moved by the whole God, with many other genuine fellow travelers who look only to the life we hope for, have offered not hair nor property to God, from whom all things come, but they have as their first possession purity and incorporeality. The companies of young Nazirites, teeming and shining with inner beauties, which virgins honor even to the point of blood. Why should I tell you of Thecla? Or of her, or of those, who, wishing to keep their beauty sealed for God, have rushed into dangers? And then the most well-known to all: you see the sleepless psalm-singing of virgins, of men, of women, forgetful of their nature; of what kind and how many, and how much they are deified! A concordant, antiphonal double station of angels, arranged above and below, a hymnody worthy of divine nature and dignity? Thus then purity is to be honored by you, with so many words and patterns, looking to which, purify yourself, so that you may receive the laws of God. But all things of reason belong to prudence. For what of the things praised is without prudence? First and greatest is to know God, honored genuinely in deed and word; for this is the source and salvation for all. God is conceived by some, even if moderately; but is expressed by no one, nor heard, as much as he is, even if someone thinks excessively. For something of mine and of the visible always intrudes, like a mist, into the thought; which, having transcended, I may commune with God, so as both to grasp and be persuaded that I have what I was eager to obtain, no longer toiling. Not to revere God is most destructive, and not to know any first cause of all things, from which all things both came forth and remain, preserved by ineffable order and reason.

But the one who thinks he knows is a harm to his mind, unless someone, looking at the sun's shadow on the waters, should suppose he is looking at the sun; or, struck by the beauty of a gateway, should think he sees the master of the house within. One man is wiser than another, and to a degree, having drawn in more light, seeing more; yet all are below the worth of God, whom light conceals, before whom darkness stands. Even if one cuts through the darkness, the extremity of the light flashes back at a second barrier. To surpass a double covering is not at all easy—He who fills all and remains above all, who makes the mind wise and escapes the mind's shafts, always drawing me upward as he slips away. To think of God and to revere him is most important, showing one's love in the fervor of the commandments. But to seek what he is—not entirely, not always, nor readily to lay bare the word to all. Let the one thing be spoken of God, and with fear; let the other lie within, and be honored by the mind alone, hidden, venerated in silence. Let the ear be opened only if a word teaches, for the ear bears less danger than the tongue. The latter we may pray to learn clearly when the veil is lifted for us; now, as best you can, purify yourself and renew yourself with a bright life; for thus you will receive even God as he is thought. Every word runs to God as to a temple; for the pure is the dwelling of the pure. Reasonings contribute little to the knowledge of God; for every word is opposed by word. But my word does not have a twisted faith; to hold fast to what is spoken is great. For he who has loved will be loved; and he who is loved receives the indwelling. Where he is, it is impossible not to be light; and the first thing is to know the light itself.

Thus desire is the mediator of knowledge as well. And this path is better for truth than the one honored in word and in turns. What is attainable, then, we shall also make clear. Beginningless, Beginning, Spirit, honored Trinity, Causeless, begotten, processional: Father is the one; the other is Son, himself also Word; and the one that is not Son is Spirit of one essence. One God from three, and common reverence; by whom I am released from the mortal entanglement. If you reverence these and hold to them, casting all the turmoil of the lower life into a holy life, with true word and hatred of fictions, and order yourself upward, and become more than me, so that you might obtain greater freedom of speech. 11. Dialogue with the world. Question: I take you to court, world. Who are you, whence do you come? First teach me, and where do you end? And how do you whirl me around in a circle like an ant? Answer: I do not know whence I came, but from God. I end in something better. I do not whirl you, but you, being disordered, insult me. Q: How then are you fixed, while I am unstable? A: I am outside, and what is the grace? But you are a willing being; if you wish, you have more. Q: Well, who bears the external things? A: What evil is there? These are matter for the salvation of the good. Q: Is it better to blame oneself? A: That is how it is. 12. On the frailty of human nature. Dear world, not entirely dear, why do you carry me, going opposite, like a wheel whirling, like an ant, small, distressed by the bitter course? Yet you carry me, being so great, so much. I know that you are from God, glory of God. But I myself was fixed by the hand of Christ, woven from both, from heavenly and earthly. The body was formed from here.

Soul, indeed, is the breath of great mind. But I am driven here and there by many sufferings from myself, sufferings from the enemy. Like a dolphin on dry land, a sea-runner, I die in the air. O world, I have passed through; you lead a people unwounded.

13. On the same subject. We pass each other, I and time, like birds or ships at sea, having nothing stable; but what I have erred will not run past, but remains; this is the most grievous thing of life. Nor have I anything to pray for, to live longer, or to be released; fear on both sides; but consider this for me. My life is full of toil in sins. If I should die, alas, alas, there is no cure for former sufferings. If life is this for you, which is such a burden, not even release has a release from labors, a precipice on both sides. What shall we do? Or is this best, to look only to you and your gentleness.

14. On human nature. Yesterday, worn out by my griefs, alone apart from others, I was in a shady grove, eating my heart. For somehow I love this remedy in sufferings, to converse with my own heart, healing. Breezes whispered along with singing birds, granting sweet sleep from the branches, and especially to a heart that had panted. And from the trees, the melodious, clear-voiced, friends of the sun, the cicadas chattering filled the whole grove with sound. And nearby, cold water splashed my feet, flowing gently through the dewy grove. But I myself held fast to my pain, as I held fast. I did not care for those things, since the mind, when it is covered by griefs, does not wish to meet with pleasure. But I myself, with the whirlings of my revolving mind, having such a contest of opposing words: Who was I, who am I, and what will I be? I do not clearly know.

No one is more wise than I. But I myself, hidden in a cloud, am driven here and there, having nothing, not even in a dream, of what I desire. For all are lowly and wandering, to whom a dark cloud of thick flesh hangs over. That one is wiser than I, who has deceived the heart of others more with a ready lie. I am. Say what this is? That has run past me. Now I become something else, and I will be something else, if indeed I will be. Nothing is steadfast. I myself am the stream of a muddy river, ever coming on, having nothing fixed. Why do you ask me these things? What more am I to you? Teach me. And now, staying here, see that I do not flee from you. You will not cross the stream of a river twice back again, nor will you see the mortal who was before. Before, I was in the form of a father, then a mother received me, common to both. Thence, flesh, undiscriminated, not eaten, shapeless shame, partaking neither of reason nor of mind, having a tomb for a mother. Twice buried, living for destruction. For the life I travel, this I see as the expenditure of years, which has poured out ruinous old age upon me. But if there, a non-wasting age will receive me, as the saying goes, consider that life may have death, and death may be life for you, contrary to what you think. I am nothing. Why am I overcome by evils, as if something fixed? For this alone of mortals is unchangeable, innate, unshaken, ageless. From the moment I slipped from the womb of my mother and first shed a tear, with how many and what sufferings I was about to meet, weeping before I touched life! We hear of a land without beasts, as once Crete, and of a place free from chilling snows. But no mortal has ever boasted that he departed from the hateful toils of this life unconquered.

Adrasteia, poverty, usury, fate, enmity, the wicked, beasts of the sea and land, pains—all of life. I have perceived many things that are wholly unpleasant, but of good things, none is entirely without a share of grief, from the moment when bitter penalty was wiped upon me by destructive taste and the envy of an adversary. To you, O flesh, so hard to heal, who are a well-wishing enemy and a war never dissolved, a bitter beast that fawns, a fire that cools—the wonder! It is a great wonder if you ever become well-disposed to me at the last. To you, O soul, then, what is fitting will be said. Who are you, whence, or what are you? Who placed you, corpse-bearer, and bound you in hateful fetters of life, weighed down from all sides to the earth? How were you mixed—spirit with thickness, mind with flesh, lightness with burden? For these things war against each other in opposition. If indeed you came into life as a consort of the flesh, alas for the union that is destructive from afar! I am an image of God, and I was made a son of shame. I am ashamed of a mother of wantonness for honor. Flux gave me birth, and it has perished; now I am mortal; again, not mortal, but dust—the last hopes. But if you are heavenly, who are you, whence? Teach me, who yearns. If you are a breath of God and a portion, as you think, cast off your folly, and I am persuaded. For it is not fitting that the pure be impure, not even a little. For neither is the portion of the sun darkness, nor has a luminous offspring of an evil spirit appeared. How, then, are you so driven by the shakings of destructive Belial, even though you are mingled with a heavenly Spirit? For if, having such a helper, you incline to the earth, alas, alas for your unmixed, destructive wickedness! But if you are not from God for me, what is your nature? Great is my fear, lest I be puffed up with vain glory.

God's creation, paradise, Eden, glory, hope, command, the world-destroying rain, the fire-bearing rain. Then came law, a written remedy; then Christ, mingling his form with ours, so that God, suffering with my sufferings, might bring aid, and make me god in mortal form. Yet I have untamable might, and for iron we rush with self-slaying madness, like swine. What good is life? The light of God? But even that envious and hateful darkness keeps from me. Nothing more for me. What is not more for evils? Would that they had equal share, even if I labored greatly! I lie weakened; divine terror has bent me. I am worn by day-long and night-long cares. This one, who was heavy-necked, has pushed me backward and set foot on me. Tell me all the terrors: misty Tartarus, the fire-blazing ones, the scourges, the demons who are exactors of our souls. All is a myth for the wicked; only what is at hand is best. Wickedness takes no heed of punishment. It would be better for sinners to go unpunished hereafter, than for me now to be distressed by the pains of wickedness. But why should I sing of so many griefs of mortals? Grief attends all of our race. The earth is not unshaken for me; winds stir up the sea. The seasons

They yielded to one another, rushing in. Night ended day, and winter darkened the air. The sun yielded to the stars, and a cloud to the sun. Beauty obscured beauty, and the moon, ever-living, did the same. And you, O starry sky, half-visible, and you, O Morning Star, once in the angelic choirs, envious one, now you have fallen in shame from the heavens. Be gracious to me, O revered Queen, O Trinity; not even you wholly escaped the tongue of foolish mortals. First the Father, then the great Son, and then the Spirit of the great God were assailed by slanders. Where will you set me down, O ill-speaking thought that carries me? Stop. All things are second to God. Yield to reason. God did not create me in vain. I stand again at the beginning of my song; this is from our folly. Now darkness, then reason, and you will understand all, either beholding God or consumed by fire. As my dear mind sang these things to me, grief fell upon me. Late I went home from the shadowy grove, sometimes laughing at the foolish, sometimes consuming my heart with grief, my mind struggling. 15. On the Worthlessness of the Outer Man. What was I? What am I? What shall I be after not long? Where, O Immortal One, will you set this great creation, if it is great? As I think, we are nothing, yet we vainly stretch our brow for a day. If we were only what appears to the many, and life perishes, I would have nothing more. The calf broke from the hiding-place of its mother and leaps, shaking the sweet udder. And the three-year-old lifted the yoke and drew the wagon's load, joining its great neck to the strength of the yoke.

A dappled fawn, when it slips through the belly, at once places its foot beside its mother's foot, and flees from raw-flesh-eating dogs and the swift horse, and hides in the hollows of a thicket. Bears, and the race of destructive boars, and lions, and the wind-swift tiger, and the might of leopards, at once bristle their mane when they see iron, bristle, and leap upon strong beast-hunters. And the wingless bird, soon winged, whirls in the air far above the house. The tawny bee left the cave, built a house opposite, and filled the house with sweet offspring. All is the work of one, and spontaneous food for all, a feast of the bountiful earth. They do not cut the harsh sea, they do not plow, they have no stewards, no cup-bearers. And the swift wing fed the bird, and the glens the beast, with little effort, a care of the day. The great lion, as I have heard, having killed a beast and lapped it up, abhors the remnants of its own feast. At one time it feasts every other day, at another it laps drink, bearing measure to its belly with strength. So much less toilsome is their life: rock and branch, always a makeshift home, hardy, strong, very beautiful. But when disease subdues them, they leave their strong breath without grief. Not one from another stand around the mournful limbs weeping, nor do friends cut off their locks. I tell a greater tale: fearless they perish here, no beast trembles at evil when it dies. Behold also the wretched race of men, so that you might say, "Truly nothing is more feeble than men." I am the offspring of a pomegranate, and my mother bore me with toil. I was nurtured with many and hateful labors. My mother held me in her arms, a sweet toil.

Then I complained to Earth, worn down by pains. From there I went on four legs upon the ground. From there I was lifted by trembling steps, stolen by hands. From there I shone with mind in the tracks of voiceless speech. From there I wept at words under leaders. At twenty I gathered my strength, and after many sufferings I met with them before, like a prize-winner. Some things are mine; others have gone, and for these you will labor. Well, my soul, know this, passing through life, the most untrustworthy path, a wild stream, a swell of the sea, tossed here and there by frequent winds. I am shaken much by follies; other things the opposing spirit of our life has brought. For if you were to balance all the pleasant and all the grievous things of life, drawing the middle scales, the scale laden with evils would come down heavily to the ground, while the scale of goods would run upward in the opposite direction.

Strife, sea, land, toil, plundering men, property, tax-collectors, bailiffs, loud-voiced orators, books, judges, a wicked ruler—all these are the playthings of a wretched life. Behold also the pleasant things: satiety, burden, song, laughter, a tomb always full of rotting corpses, a dowry, marriage, another marriage when the first perishes, adulterers, adulteresses, children a suspicious grief, beauty an untrustworthy charm, shameless evil, cares of good child-rearing, pains of bad child-rearing, wealth and poverty a double evil, insolence, distress, a ball tossed back and forth by the hands of youths. Seeing these things, I devour my heart, if anyone thinks something best, for whom the evil is greater than the good. Do you not weep, hearing how many pains there are even for those before? I do not know whether you will weep or laugh when you hear.