Carmina moralia

Both of these he fitted to the wise men of old: for one there was lamentation even here, for the other laughter, as when Trojans and Achaeans leapt upon each other, they destroyed each other for the sake of a little whore. And the Curetes fought and the Aetolians, steadfast in battle, over a boar's head and bristly swine-hairs. The great song of the Aeacidae—they died, one by a maddened hand against his foes, the other by lewdness. The great glory of the son of Amphitryon—but that universal destroyer was subdued by a flesh-eating garment. Neither Cyruses nor Croesuses escaped an evil fate, nor did our own lords of yesterday, however many. And you, serpent-born, with irresistible might, wine destroyed you, Alexander, when you overran the whole earth. What more among the dead? Dust alone, bones alone: the hero Atreides, Irus the beggar-eater. Constantine the lord, my servant: whoever is wretched, whoever is wealthy—one thing more is the tomb. And such are the things here; the things elsewhere—who could tell them? All that the last day brings to the unjust: roaring fire, dread darkness, far from the light for those who are, a worm, the perpetual memory of our wickedness. It would be better, wretch, if you had not passed through the gates of life; but if you did pass through, you are equal to beasts, you are dissolved, or while you have so many pains here, and afterward a punishment worse than all you have here. Where is the great glory of the firstborn? It perished by food. Where is wise Solomon? He was tamed by women. Where is the one who was numbered among the twelve, when Judas, for the sake of a little gain, was enveloped in darkness? Christ the Lord, I beseech you, may you at once bring a remedy for evils, raising me from here for your servant, O blessed one. One thing alone is good and steadfast for men: heavenly hopes, by which I breathe a little. Of the other goods there is great satiety.

All that is upon the earth I long to leave behind for ephemeral beings: fatherland, foreign land, thrones, and the boast that comes from a throne, those near, those far, the pious, the wicked, those in the open, those lying in ambush, those bearing an unenvious eye, those consumed within by self-inflicted evil. Others find joy in life; I, willingly, will escape. Alas for this life, too long in its sufferings! How long shall I be led about by dung? All the good of our life is a two-edged grace, to receive and to cast away, as day is measured by day. The throat has little room; all else is a channel. Winter again, summer again, spring and autumn in turn, days and nights, the twin phantoms of life. Heaven, earth, sea—nothing newer for me, neither what is fixed nor what revolves; of these there is satiety. Another life and world, I pray, you would bestow upon me; in my toil, I willingly bear all sufferings. Would that I had died when you bound me in my mother’s womb; straightway for me, beginning with darkness and a tear! What is life? Leaping from a tomb, I journey to a tomb; from the grave, I will be buried by fire without heed. This very breath of mine is like the swift flow of a river, ever departing, ever coming from behind, having nothing stable; all is dust, casting my eyes, as if I might fall far from the light of God, groping at walls and wandering here and there. May I keep my foot outside this great life. I will dare a true myth: that mortal is a plaything of God, one of those things of cities. Another face above, which a hand made; but if it is lifted, I sit, and suddenly I appear another. Such is the whole life of wretched mortals, to whom a dreamlike hope is a care. Hold these things for a little while.

But I, clinging to Christ, will never cease, being freed from the bonds of this earthly life. For I am twofold: the body was fashioned from here; therefore it inclines toward its own earth. The soul is a breath of God, and ever yearns exceedingly for the better portion of the supernal realms. As a stream from a spring is swift-flowing, and as burning fire knows but one path, leaping upward. How great is mortal man, and an angel; if he should dart away, like a serpent from mottled old age, from here he would go. O priests, leap up; I have died. O sinful neighbors, you will no longer shudder at me as before. For yourselves, barricade the great house of the ever-living King; but I, leaving all, have one thing, the cross, the bright pillar of my life. If I am lifted from here and touch the heavenly sacrifices, which envy does not approach—a wrought evil, if it is right to say—then even among the envious I shall pray without envy.

I. On the Paths of Life. Who am I, whence did I come into life? Since the earth will hold me, who again from the dust shall I be, rising up? Where will the great God bear and set me? Or will he save me, raising me from here into a fair harbor? Many are the paths of much-enduring life, and each is borne along with different sufferings. Nothing among men is good unmixed with evil. Would that the grievous things did not have the greater portion! Wealth is untrustworthy, and the throne is the pride of dreams; to be ruled is toil, and poverty is a fetter. Beauty is of lightning, a brief grace; youth is a swelling of time, gray hair is a wretched dissolution of life. Words are winged; fame is air; ancient blood is nobility; strength is that of a wild boar. Insolence is satiety; marriage is a bond; good children are a necessary care; bad children are a disease.

But marketplaces are practices of vice; stillness is Adrasteia; crafts belong to those who walk the earth. Another's bread is narrow. To plow the earth is toil. For seafarers, the greater part is in Hades. One's homeland is a pit; sojourn is a reproach. All things here are toil for mortals; all things are laughter, dust, shadow, phantom, dew, breath, feather, vapor, dream, swell, stream, ship's wake on the wind, ash, a ceaselessly revolving cycle, rolling all things alike—standing, running, dissolving, fixed—by seasons, days, nights, labors, deaths, griefs, pleasures, diseases, falls, prosperities. And this, O Father, is the wisdom of your Word, that all things are unstable, as if we had no desire for what is stable. I have traversed all things on the wings of the mind, both ancient and new; nothing is more frail than mortals. One thing alone is good and steadfast for men: to set out from here, bearing the cross aloft; tears, groans, a mind devoted to divine things, hope, and the radiance of the heavenly Trinity mingled with the pure, the dissolution of foolish clay, the incorruption of the image we received from God; to live a life alien to life, and in exchange for the world to take up another world, bearing all burdens.

17. Beatitudes of Different Lives.

Blessed is he who has a solitary life, not mingled with those who walk the earth, but has deified his mind. Blessed is he who, though mingled with many, is not turned about by many, but has sent his whole heart to God. Blessed is he who has purchased Christ with all his possessions, and has only the cross as his possession, which he bears high. Blessed is he who, ruling over his own pure possessions, extends the hand of God to those in need. Blessed is the life of the blessed celibates, who are near the pure Godhead, having shaken off the flesh.

Blessed is he who yields a little to the laws of marriage, and leads a greater portion of love to Christ. Blessed is he who, bearing the power of the people, leads Christ to the earthly with holy and great sacrifices. Blessed is he who, being a child of the flock, leads the heavenly realm of Christ, the most perfect nursling. Blessed is he who, with the great impulses of a pure mind, beholds the splendor of the heavenly lights. Blessed is he who, with much-toiling hands, honors the Lord, and is a law of life for many. All these are the fullness of the heavenly winepresses, which are receivers of the fruit of our souls, each leading to a different place of virtue. For there are many abodes of lives for many. Blessed is he whom the great Spirit has shown to be a beggar of passions; he who has a mournful life here; he who is ever insatiate of heavenly food; he who is an heir of great things through gentleness; he who draws great pity of God to his own bowels, a friend of peace, and pure in heart; he who has endured many pains for the sake of the great Christ, and will meet with great glory. Of these, cut a path, whichever you wish. If all, better; if a few, second; if only one, especially the one you love. The standards are worthy for all, for the more perfect and for the lesser. And Rahab did not have a seemly life, but yet her hospitality placed her at the very top. And from humility alone the publican had more than the Pharisee, who was greatly exalted. Celibacy is better, yes better; but mixed with the world and the earthly, it is worse than a temperate marriage. The steep life of the mountain-wandering poor is harsh; but pride has often cast even them down. For they do not measure their own virtue by others who are best, but sometimes have an unjudged height in their heart.

Often, even with a living mind, like spirited colts, they carry their foot far from the goad. Therefore, either lift yourself entirely on light wings, or, remaining below, run safely, lest the weight of your wing incline to the earth, and you fall, raised up, in a most pitiful fall. A small ship, fitted with close-set bolts, carries a cargo greater than its unbound capacity. The path of the divine gate is narrow, but many paths lead into one. Some go the first way, those whom nature inclines here; others take a different way, touching only the narrow one. Not one food is pleasing to all alike, nor is one life suitable for Christians. Tears are best for all, and sleeplessness, and labors, and to restrain the madness of grievous passions, to aim at satiety, to lie under the strong hand of Christ, and to tremble at the coming day. But if you go the extreme path completely, you are no longer mortal, but one of the heavenly ones. Laws of Gregory. 18. On Human Life. The dust, the clay, the shifting ash. For earth is again joined to earth, and swaddled in an earthen swaddling, and dust again proceeds like the ash which the violent whirl of winds, raising to a height, compresses below. For thus the stormy winds of evil spirits raise our many-turning life to a height and to a false glory; but again the dust descends and remains below, until the word of the creator arranges the necessary dissolution of the bound things. But now, having emerged as from some depth, the dust, inspired by the divine image, cries out the earthly tragedies, and weeps over the life that seems to laugh.

19. On the Same. There is a wheel unsteadily fixed, this small and manifold life. It moves upward and is drawn downward; for it does not stand still, even if it seems to be fixed. Fleeing, it is held fast; and remaining, it runs away. It leaps much and has no escape. It draws and drags down the stability by its motion. As if describing life as nothing, or smoke, or a dream, or a flower of grass.

20. On Desire. Every desire is terrible. If it is also for a beloved, the terror is double. If it is also for a young girl, the sting is triple. If it is also full of beauty, the evil is greater. If it leads to marriage, fire within devours the heart itself.

21. On the Death of Loved Ones. Every tomb is bitter; if it is also the tomb of a child, the evil is double. If it is again of a noble one, the calamity is fire. If it is of a young bridegroom, let the heart of the parents break.

22. On Friends Who Are Not Good. Suffering is terrible. If it is also at the hands of friends, how much worse. If it is also with secret bites, this is unbearable. If it is also at the hands of trusted ones, hold back. If it is also at the hands of God's attendants, where may one turn? How may one escape the burden of evils?

23. On the Same. What causes pain is terrible. If a friend also causes pain, it is slavish. If it also bites secretly, it is beastly. If it is also a talkative woman, she is a household demon. If it is also a judge, there is need of thunderbolts. If it is also a priest, hear, O Christ, and judge the case.

24. Dialogue with Those Who Swear Oaths Often. A. What is worse than an oath? Nothing, according to my argument. B. How do you prove this? Tell me. A. By very obvious and clear arguments. B. Which ones? Teach me. A. These. Answer me, then, and let us consider. B. Speak, if you have something to say, dearest friend. A. Do you know anything greater than all the things you know? B. What things are you asking about? A. All things, both visible and intelligible. B. I know nothing greater than God. A. You speak correctly, but I did not ask correctly. B. How should you have asked, then? A. There is nothing greater; for it is not even comparable. Is this not clear to you? B. Very much so. A. What, then, should one perhaps ask about the greatest? B. I think so. A. And this would be said by way of comparison. B. I do not think so. How do you mean? A. Nothing is greatest that is not among things of the same kind. And what is of the same kind as God? B. Nothing. A. Let God, therefore, be spoken of otherwise. B. However you might speak, I would choose. A. What among all things is not even comparable? B. God. Let us speak thus, as it seems. A. What is not reverent, and alone, for every nature? B. Only reverent, you speak well. A. Or is it both reverent and something to be insulted? B. How shall we mix unmixable things? A. For let us consider whether an oath brings honor, but not insult. Unless there were a danger of perjury, it would thus also have reverence, like a sure mediator called in. For it is a mediator. Now consider the matter and where it leads. B. I almost know, but speak. A. I seek a very clear image for the argument. B. What could it be? A. Have you seen a stone moved from a hill? B. Many times, indeed. How not? A. Whirled downward with great force? B. With great fear, too. A. Have you also seen it easily stopped? B. If not someone else, not I.

The rock itself pushes it, stronger than the hand. A. You speak truly. I suffer the same thing, even if I run down. A rushing noise carries me by force. To stay from the beginning is easiest for me and for a stone. B. Easiest? What does it not have? A. This is an evil, and everything like it, but especially an oath, I think. How so? Listen. Much pleasure attends the matter. Then, if someone falls into sympathy, what happens? He is not restrained, until he comes to a precipitous depth. B. What depth do you mean? A. The greatest of precipices is perjury. B. How so? I would gladly learn. For many do not even know how it is an evil. How is it then? A. Has not someone often sworn by his own safety? B. Indeed. A. What then? He fears that, having done some evil, he may also be harmed. He has placed his safety in the middle, his own safety, that is, so that he may be destroyed if he happens to speak falsely. B. So it seems to me. A. Consider this, then, even if you ever swear by God. B. What sort? So that I may know. A. You have placed God as the middle of the pledge. B. The middle; what else? A. It is preserved for the one who swears truly, but is dissolved if not, as far as we are concerned. B. You speak well. A. Not preserving it, tell me, what does that seem to you? B. Denial, I think. A. Denial, then, is what perjury is by nature. B. It cannot be otherwise. A. Can you name anything worse than denial? B. None can be found. A. Perjury, then, is worse than everything, as has been shown at length. B. How, then, may we escape? A. Let us acquire a trustworthy character. B. That is a great thing you have said. A. For there is less need of an oath for the well-disposed. B. Less? I think not at all. A. But character serves instead of a witness. B. That is so. A. What more is there for those who swear many oaths? Tell me. B.

Laughter. What else do you add? A. Not even if they say something trustworthy, it seems. B. That pleases me too. A. Come then, be persuaded by me. B. Yes, most of all. A. With the remedies of reason, restrain the whole disease. Many indeed, whom we know, have mastered even greater things than I wish. B. What greater things do you mean? A. Anger, envy, gluttony, and the things of gluttony. B. How are these greater? A. Greater desire. Where desire is intense, restraint is greater. B. All reason. If you do not yet have the disease under control, what must happen? A. At any rate, always, and more, and concerning everything, multiplying oaths—flee from that. B. When then, and to whom, and for what do you give grace? A. When there is necessity. B. Let it be so. But of what, add? A. To free some from dangers. B. That is good. A. Or to free yourself from a shameful charge. But let an oath not bring you profit from money. For that seems very shameful. B. Very. A. To accuse perjury readily—what is more than this? For more are bad in matters of money. B. More; who will not agree? A. And this was taught by the sophists. B. What then is great for us? A. Nothing to imitate, but if we appear worse, this is shameful indeed. B. Which oaths then must be especially avoided? A. It is clear. B. But it is safe to hear from you. A. I mean those that are more dreadful. B. Are you afraid to say? A. Those that simply mention God. B. What then of writings, and suffering, and offering? A. These too are similarly mystical. B. For us especially among the locals. A. And I weep. For what is customary becomes law. But all things are conquerable by reason. B. What oath then have you left? A.

Would that no one—and may there be no other. B. Except wife, children, salvation, life, a grief-free existence. A. These are curses, yet they seem an oath. B. And let them seem so; we who have been struck have not perished; for there is no danger yet to the soul; if it were to be utterly destroyed, that would be total ruin. A. You are right. B. And you in everything, with the heat of your heart: God, table, dearest ones, Cross, wife, the divine blood, your blood, earth and sea—that which first brought forth evil eagerness, stirred by your destroyer, who also makes the disease seem sweet. Oh, the folly! As if one were to pour out gold from loquacity. B. It is indeed as you say. A. But one wave after another is stirred up, with anger blowing, perhaps, or perhaps desire for wealth; for the sources are many. He does not consider the terrible oath he has sworn. B. He does not consider it. A. And the one who abides by it, alas! is choked. B. You are like a painter of the passion. A. He thinks he persuades more by being disobeyed, if he is not understood. What need of more words to you, if one prevails? B. Needless toil, clearly. A. And what need of more oaths, if one prevails? B. I think not. A. So the multitude is a sign of lack of faith. B. It cannot be otherwise; you speak well. A. So either swear not at all, or if at all, then some. B. That would be best. A. If one is turned, the whole will be turned. B. A fine sophism! A. Who would say that the multitude is trusted? B. It is thought so. A. Or do you, by combining dust, make gold? B. Who else, or what nature? A. And from many untrustworthy things, what account is there of trust arising? B. None, it seems to me. A. Will you ever cease from the worst wealth?

Not everything is done by oath, nor always—eating, dicing, sailing, traveling, faring ill, faring well, selling, acquiring something, rejoicing, groaning, among friends, among drinking companions—I swear my oath, like those filled with food and drink. B. This matter is a great misfortune. A. But I am not caught by everything, as if I were capturable, whenever you are seized by deed, word, shadow, and tyranny. B. So at least it appears in many cases. A. You insult everything, both God and matters. B. How so everything? A. By combining everything into one, though they are not equal. This is a Spartan rein. What? Will you not say that God too is sometimes found swearing among us, as the Scriptures at least do? Or what is stronger than God? B. Nothing stronger is found. A. If nothing is stronger, then He would never swear. B. How then do they speak? A. He says something; this is God's oath. B. How then is it spoken against Himself? A. How? Would He not exist at all if He lies? B. You say something dreadful. A. For it is God's nature to be truthful. There is no one who will gainsay this. B. What of the Old Testament? A. It does not forbid the oath; it seeks a true one. For at that time it was lawful to kill, but now not even to strike. B. Why? A. Then the outcome of evils was judged; now even the motive. B. So it seems to me. For it has gone further. A. So a prudent man will not swear. B. What then? Have you given to some, as to infants, the first food, so that they may also take the later food? A. Rightly and most wisely. B. And Paul swore, they say. A. Who told you this? What a piece of nonsense! B. "God is my witness," and "God records this"—were these not an oath? A. And of what sort? It is an unbreakable assurance for such great matters. B. Will you give it to me? A.

And may you become Paul to me in strength. That is a just measure. B: Will anger take something? A: Well said, then, when something happens. Is a simple evil worse, or a double one? Such as this: falling into an oath all at once without being provoked. What do you think? B: Yes, envy. A: What then, if provoked, you did something worse? B: That itself, I suppose. But if from ignorance? A: Less. But you are responsible, since the impulse came from me. B: But if not willingly, yet freeing from dangers? A: Let someone else give that. B: But if someone writes it down, not having sworn an oath? A: What then does the writing intend? A hand-written bond binds more than bonds. B: But if from necessity? A: Why has he not died? He ought to have died first. B: But if not with the Scriptures present? A: Is the page sacred, or does God grant it? B: This is clear. A: You fear the skin, but I fear God more. B: The disease is familiar to many. A: This is so for many; as if someone, striking a master, dishonoring him, would either let the slave go or wish to honor him. B: What great dishonor! A: Or if someone preserved an image of the king, while destroying him. B: It is so. Add this still, if anything is lacking in the argument. A: The tongue has sworn, but the mind is unsworn, many say. Everything comes before an oath, or is contrived. Let no one be deceived at all. An oath is one thing, but how much evil the duplicity brings with it! B: I consider. What then is an oath? A: The meaning of what is agreed. B: I shudder hearing what you say. A: You speak. But I do not yet know until I learn by experience. For trust is a matter of deed. Indeed, pigs also shudder at once, when a pig is bellowing. B: So it is. A: But it is nothing great. But if the word touched the heart, I praise it. B: What then?

Is the bath not a cleansing for me? A. It is. But consider. B. What am I to consider? A. Not of the character at all, but of the things that have been stumbled over. B. But of the character, how? A. Only in this way, if it also washes away something beforehand. B. I understand. A. For fear is of what is before; but the forgiveness of many things is not to be honored. B. How would you say this? A. Is there not a need for a second cleansing? B. What is this? Make it known. A. It is of long tears and melting. B. May it not happen to me. A. It is a terrible thing to let go of a gift more easily. B. These are the tablets of God. A. They are of God; but on the inscribed tablets of the heart, of your own tablet. Do you wish to learn how this is a wrestling match of envy, envying your good deeds? B. By speaking you will benefit me; for I wrestle much. A. Listen. B. Speak. A. I heard you saying not without tears. B. What is this? I will not deny it. A. That if ever I happen to utter some word, but do not add an oath, I am ashamed that the words are not complete. B. This is that clearly. A. You yourself supply the missing part to the word. This is an oath, an evil filling of the terrible flame. And Plato also makes this, that one should not swear by any god, preserving reverence. B. I know well what you will say. A. There was a plane tree, by which alone he swore, but not even at this did he aim well. But he knows whom, but it was not yet present. What is this? Some shadow of an oath, a nameless appearance. B. An oath without an oath. How strange! A. By the divinity of the wise. B. This is already a complete swearing. A. Let this be the end of the speech. B. You threaten to leave me thirsty quickly. A. If indeed an oath seems to you a small thing, I do not praise this. But if it is, as it is, one of the very fearful things, I also dare something of the good.

I give you the oath itself; avoid oaths. B. You have the victory. A. If I have this, my Christ, I glorify you, the wonder-worker, as is fitting. And let us all, speaking with one voice, say this: Amen, so be it. 25. Against Wrath. I am enraged at the wrath, the cohabiting demon; this alone is just of my angers, if indeed I must also suffer the customary things. For since we were held by an oath in word, bearing the fruit of silence worthy of speech, knowing the root of an oath to be entirely wrath, along with many other things from which the terrible grows, the most savage and blackest; and this, with God's giving, we will remove, cutting, as far as possible, with the cut of reason. I ask first of all not to be enraged at the word. For such is the disease of the unbridled, that they often grow wild even at shadows, and at their own genuine advisors themselves. But it is necessary, it seems, to say nothing soft, with such an evil set before the word; but as when a wild flame of fire roars, leaping, blazing with many shakings, flowing upward with animate force, always appropriating what is before it like a torrent, we send water and dust to quench it by force; or when a beast appears from a shady thicket, bristling, fire-eyed, foaming, loving battle, and slaughter, and corpses, we subdue it with spears, hunters, and slings. Perhaps in this way we might become stronger than the passion, with God's giving, or we might have some moderate success. Nor is this a small thing to me, that even a small remission of a very great evil is like what happens to those distressed by a severe illness. Let us examine the disease from above, what it is, whence it comes, and how it is to be guarded against, considering the collections of ancient men, as many as have examined the natures of things.

Some say it is a boiling of the blood, the ecstasy of the heart near the neighbor; those who assign the disease to the body, as many of the passions are assigned to other things. Others have called it an appetite for striking back (giving the harm to the soul, not the body), and anger the impulse; but if it remains lurking within, this is called resentment. Those to whom the disease of the composite seemed to be, said it is a boiling of the blood, and the cause is appetite, combining also reason. Whether these things are so, is not now to be examined. That, however, is very well known, that mind is the leader of all; which the Master has given us as an ally against the passions. Therefore, as roofs are coverings against hail, bushes are supports of cliffs, and foundations of depths, and walls for those fleeing from some battle, so is reason in the presence of wrath. When the inflammation smokes your mind, before it kindles fire and the flame is fanned, when you perceive the spirit being moved, immediately prostrate yourself before God, and thinking of him as standing before you, as a witness of what you do, restrain the onset of the matter with shame and fear, until the disease is alleviated. Immediately cry out the words of the disciples: "Master, a terrible wave surrounds me." Shake off sleep, and you will drive out your wrath, while you are master of reason and mind, whose first flood is the disease. While the bridle, like a hard-to-rein horse, not yet biting with its teeth, comes running well, breathing of course and ravines and depths, having darkened with passion the guidance of the eyes. For it is easier to check with reason what is beginning, than to restrain by force what has first seized. For it, burning itself up, does not stop until it has thrown down the rider, reason.

Then consider for me the magnitude of the shame, what it inflicts upon the one who is badly stricken. For the diseases of others are also hidden: love, envy, grief, and hatred are an evil; some of them do not appear at all, or only a little, but the diseases are held within. For they might fester in the depth of the mind before they become manifest to those who see. A hidden misfortune is a gain. But anger is an evil wholly naked and manifest, an image projecting from the body against its will. If you have seen anyone seized by this passion, you know clearly what I mean, and the account will describe it. A mirror ought to stand before those who are angry, so that, seeing, they might relax their own insolence a little, bending their mind from the sight of the passion, yielding to a silent accuser. Or even this stands—your own abuser—in which you would see yourself, if you had leisure. For those who share one passion, their symptoms are also common: a bloodshot eye, distorted postures, bristling hair, a drenched jaw, a pale cheek, an appearance of death; in others, red, and in some, leaden—however, I think, the mad and most evil painter might have colored them; a swollen neck, curved veins, breath

Then consider for me the magnitude of the shame, what it inflicts upon the one who is badly stricken. For the diseases of others are also hidden: love, envy, grief, and hatred are an evil; some of them do not appear at a word cut short and condensed, a rabid asthma, and a snorting that is unseemly, a broad nostril breathing forth entire insolence. And clapping of hands, and leaps of feet, stoopings, twistings, laughter, sweats, toils—of whom the toiler? Of no one, but of a demon. Noddings up and down, without reason, cheeks puffed up and made to sound, as if someone were threshing; and the hand, struck with fingers, threatens, and is a prelude to blows. And what speech will set forth what follows? Insolence, smashing, obscenity, perjuries, abundant sprinklings of a boiling tongue, like the sea foaming against rocks. It says one thing is evil, has an impulse toward this, is constricted by that, and immediately forgets. And it is vexed with those present who are calm; it seeks that everything be shaken together with its own commotion. It asks for thunderbolts, becomes a lightning-bearer, and is disgusted even with the pole where it remains. It does one evil deed, while it feasts its mind on another. For it thinks it has done what it wishes. It kills, pursues, burns. And what of these things? So blind and vain is the boiling! It is speechless, weak, a cowherd, an orator, a Milo, a tyrant to us all at once. The low-born and poor man calls the well-born, the wealthy man, most low-born, poor, slave-formed—the ruin of mortals—the flower of youth; the ill-reputed calls the famous, he who cannot say who he is or whence. I know not whether weeping or laughter is the proper response. Everything is a weapon for wrath, even what is not present. It is a monkey, and becomes Typhoeus. It turns away the hand, crooks the fingers, seeks some hill or the Aetnaean crag, as if about to sling and, with the force of the hand, both missile and tomb for the enemy at once. What fire will restrain the insolence, what hail?

When he empties the slings of his words, immediately the hands, the close-combat assaults, violence and force prevail over the enemy. The more unfortunate one is the one who is overpowered. For I know that to prevail in worse things is a defeat. Are these not from a demon? And beyond that, except for a fall. And I have seen falls of some who are shaken, when they are carried away by the rush of the spirit. Are these not clearly an alienation from God? How could they not be? For gentleness and mildness belong to God, whose image it is not good to insult, by introducing an unknown form. Nothing is so much to us as madness, not even the diseases of the body are so great. These are not the passions of willing persons, but of the unfortunate, even if they are evil, and I am stung by what is present (for the present is somehow greater for those who are afflicted), it is more worthy of pity than of curse. And the clear among evils is safer; but what falls upon one without seeming to, corrupts. Drunkenness is an evil—how could it not be? Who would deny it? And this is of willing persons; for those who are its cause are not ignorant, but nevertheless are overcome, they are clearly the begetters of the evil. But then in that case the unpleasantness of the evil is laughter, which one sleep immediately ended. But when anger overflows, if it is worse, tell me, what of all things do you know, or what remedy? For others, a god falls into their minds; but anger first blocks the doors to God, once it has burst forth; and the reminder of God makes it worse; it even joins God to the insults. I once saw stones, O dreadful passion! thrown at him, and dust and bitter words. To whom, by whom, and how was he captured? Laws are thrust aside, no distinction is made between friend, enemy, father, wife, or relatives; all are one in a single rush, like one winter torrent.

If someone should stand firm, he diverted the anger to himself, like a beast with noises, and the ally himself needs allies. So then, be most swayed by these words; for you will not need more, if you are wise. But if you have need of a greater incantation as well, consider for me the lives of those of old and of the new, all who ever gained frankness from their character, which ones were most beloved to God, what first or greatest thing they practiced: that Moses, Aaron, the dearest ones, David, Samuel, then later Peter. For they had Egypt, scourged with so many plagues, kept untaught in prudence; but nevertheless they approached with sparingness the boldness of Pharaoh, until they were overwhelmed by his insolence, those whom the long-suffering reverence did not endure, so that all might learn to respect this. For it is better to despise a bold man than a gentle one. I praise Samuel, who once, distressed by insolence, when Saul tore his cloak for him, then deemed worthy, as if to have forgiveness, immediately let go of the charge with a word. What could be gentler than this? Remember David, and the harpings, by which he once freed Saul from an evil spirit; then, meeting with an ungrateful man, fleeing, distraught in the race for his life, when Saul was given to him, he spared him (and know this too), and was barely saved. The cloak, a sign of authority, cut off, and the stolen crest of the helmet. Why need I tell how the son endured the parricide and unseemly tyrant? Where indeed he even weeps for him dead, and calls him back with many laments and wailings, and punishes the messenger of the calamity, as if receiving an enemy, not a bearer of good news? For nature stood before the accusations, taking character as its advocate.

And when he was set over the army as a harsh commander, he became alien to a small portion of power. What then? Did he not endure the insolent Shimei, who was slandering the glory of his entry? And have I not marveled at the wise Peter, how patiently and very vigorously he bore Paul’s noble frankness (and this in so great a city and among so many admirers and disciples of the word), because he was not rightly a table-companion to the Gentiles, even if he thought this would benefit the word? For the only motive was fear of God, or the illumination of the word from the proclamation. Nor would I pass over the noble deed of Stephen, whom I know as the firstfruits of martyrs and victims. He was being buried in stones; but nevertheless—O wonder!—in the midst of the stoning, a voice was heard, as he himself granted forgiveness to the stoners as to benefactors, and prayed to God. Are these not clearly from the divine pattern, and from his sufferings and teachings—He who, being God and lord of thunderbolts, was led like a lamb to the slaughter in silence? And how many spittings and slaps did He endure! Up to the ear that was struck, the good Malchus knows. He did not cry out anything indicative or full of frankness, nor did he restrain anyone. He kept unbroken the one broken by wickedness. He says he will quench the light flame of the mind, but as a good man he spares, so that the kindred element may prevail by gentleness. Such and so many are the deeds of your Master. With these, if you suffer anything, you will counterbalance your own, and even if you endure everything, the greater part will be left behind—if indeed suffering is judged according to worth. These noble teachings suffice for us, the laws of the tablets and the ways of those from the mountain, if anything spurious must be added to them; and nothing is worse.

How we may reap something even from the worse, from those who are better and friends. For to rule over them even violently is not altogether praiseworthy, but to be ruled by them even excessively—how great an evil! 832 I will also recall some examples, and briefly. The Stagirite was about to strike someone, having taken him on shameful and evil charges; but when he perceived that anger had entered him, he stopped, wrestling with the passion as with an enemy. After a short pause, he said (O wise saying!): "You have suffered something strange. You had anger as your patron; for if not for anger, you would have been let off with a beating. But now it would be shameful for me to strike evil with evil, and to be overcome while ruling a slave of passion." So that man. And concerning Alexander, the story goes that when Parmenion once said to him, as he was taking some Greek city and was often deliberating what must be done, that if he (Parmenion) had been there, he would not have spared it, Alexander replied: "But neither would I, if I were you. For cruelty is yours, but gentleness is mine, and the city fled the dangers." And that other example—how worthy of praise! Someone was reviling the great Pericles, driving him with many and evil reproaches (one of no account), until evening. But he bore the insolence quietly, as if it were an honor, and finally, when the man was tired and going home, he escorted him with a lamp, and quenched his anger. Another man, an insolent fellow, added a threat to his wealthy insults: "May I perish utterly if, being strong, I do not kill you evilly." To these he replied with humane words: "And may I perish if I do not make you a friend." And Constantius (for it is worth mentioning, lest the preceding be the only ones spoken, and you despise those of which you yourselves are witnesses), they say once said

A story worth remembering. Who was it? One of those in office once provoked us, not bearing that others were honored with such great honors (for he was the most pious, if ever any of the emperors we know was). And after many things he added some such word: "What is tamer than the bee? But not even that spares those who plunder it." He heard: "How do you not know, O best of men, that not even for it is the sting safe? It strikes, but itself perishes immediately." So many are the remedies you have for this passion, but the greatest of all I have mentioned is the commandment, which does not even allow you to insult the one who strikes you. "You shall not kill" was ordained for the ancients; for you it is ordained not even to be angry, let alone to strike or dare to commit murder. By preventing the first, it does not allow the second; by destroying the seed, it has prevented the ear. Not even to look at the worst is a cut against adultery. Not even to swear is a remedy for perjury. Not even to be angry is a safeguard against murder. For consider it thus: anger sends forth a word, the word a blow, the blow wounds; from wounds we know murder. Anger has shown itself the father of bitter murder. Who ever brought a prize for not killing? Not even to be angry is among the things praised. For the one, the reward is escape from danger; for this, the recompense is a portion of the precious land. Listen to Christ, what he wills for the meek in the beatitudes which he enumerated, defining the measures of the hopes from there. For this reason he writes such laws for you. Does he strike the cheek? How do you leave the other one untouched? If it is not voluntary, it is not yet a great thing he has suffered; greater, if you wish, what is left? Add the willing one, so that you may be rewarded. Does he strip your tunic?

Add a second, and if you wish a third, let him strip them. You have the profit from these if you advance toward God. If we are reviled, let us bless the wicked. If we are spat upon, let us consider that we have honor from God. Let us hasten. Are we driven out? What of it, and from God? This alone of all things is not taken away. If someone curses, pray for him. Does he threaten to act? Counter-threaten with endurance. Does he proceed to deeds? Your action is good action. For thus you will gain the two best things: you yourself will be the best guardian of the law, and you will have him, through your gentleness, gentle—an enemy made a disciple, conquered by the means by which he prevails. Do you see? Above all, it wishes you not to be angry; for this is also the safest course. If not, then at evening dissolve the ecstasy; do not let the sun set on your anger—whether it is the one that sends its rays from outside, or the one that shines within for the wise. For this sun sets for those whose minds are stricken, just as it shines forth for the best and the good, giving more light to those who see. What? Does not nature, one might say, give anger? Yes, and also the mastery of anger. But who gave reason? Who gave sight, or hands, or the ability to walk? God gives all things, and nature, except for good. I do not praise you for using it badly. So it is with the other passions of the soul. They are gifts from God, set in motion by the guidance and leadership of reason. Zeal is the weapon of spirit, breathing in due measure. Without desire, God is not to be captured. I know reason as the teacher of good things. But if these incline toward the worse—one pouring forth insolence and wickedness, another driven by the worst pleasures, another not restraining these and weaving plots—thus the good things become the destroyer's.

A gift of God is not to be mingled with evil. When you hear in the Scriptures that God is angered—like a leopard, or a she-bear raging with desire, or a bear boiling from drunkenness and debauchery, or a sword gleaming against the wicked—do not make this a comfort for your passion, to which you cling; for you seek not a release from evil. Listen well, not ill, to the matter. For God suffers none of what I suffer. Let no one say this; for He never departs from Himself. These things belong to the composite, and to those who have begun to struggle from a greater source. But He is, it is clear, an immutable nature. How then are these things typified? By the laws of change. How? To terrify the minds of the simpler, as is often the case with things expressed in speech. For understand the reversal, and you have the whole. Since we ourselves strike when angered, we have written that the striker of the wicked is angered, as we have devised eyes, ears, hands, which we ourselves use, giving them to God, whenever He seems to do something of this sort. Then you hear that the wicked, not the good, suffer something by the anger of God and the laws of justice. But your wrath is not defined by measures. It sets all as equal. Do not then say that your passion is from God and of God. Or do you think you are imitating God? Emulate, but give your sickness to the breezes. If you have read anywhere of the anger of pious men, you have found them all just. I think they were not angers, but blows justly moved against the wicked. For the blow was not yet an evil for them; blows were most advantageous for them, needing much purification of life, calling forth the sharp iron of the thorn, and before the law, and before the law had prevailed, not yet fully rooted among them at that time.

Thus you will quench the disease, softening yourself with these words, like those who charm the race of asps. How will you bear it? This is your second point. Not, I suppose, by kindling fire with fire, wrath with wrath; for it is the same to begin an evil oneself as to share in it badly when another is stirred. First, at once running to God, asking him to wipe out the hail of evil, and to spare us who have done no wrong; and signing yourself immediately with the cross, which everything shudders at and trembles before, which I have always known as my protector against all. Next, preparing yourself for the struggle against the one who stirs up your anger, who is not himself angered, so that you may overcome the passion, being armed. For what is not ready does not resist; but what is prepared has the strength to conquer. And what is it to conquer? To bear what is conquered. Third, not deeming yourself worthy of the greatest things, knowing how you began or how you will end, so that breathing beyond your worth may not disturb you. For the humble also endures when conquered; what is excessively swollen does not bend. And I know that those who are friends of God call themselves ash, and earth, and shadow, so that they may contract some of their pride. But you, as the best, do you deem insults unworthy? Then you may also incur a penalty for your pride. How could you endure in deed any of the unpleasant things, you who do not even easily bear words? Fourth, knowing that life is nothing, and that not all judges are infallible in matters of what is good or not good, but that most of us, my good friend, are tossed about and wander in most things. For some things that are shameful to us are not so to reason; and some things that are not so to me are perhaps so to reason.

One thing alone is shameful: wickedness. This little reputation, and wealth, and noble birth—these are children's playthings. So those whom I find burdensome, I should perhaps indulge; those at whom I am haughty, I should humble myself more, or at least not puff myself up as I now do, ill-advisedly. Fifth, let us employ a greater reasoning. For if nothing of what the man says, who seethes with anger and is blinded, is true, then it is nothing to us. But if he speaks the truth, then I have wronged myself, and why should I blame the one who has blurted out what was previously hidden? Anger does not know how to keep faith; for he who often does not even keep the truth, how could anger keep a secret for me? Then you will be prudent, considering this: if the seething is no evil, it is not just to accuse; but if it is an evil, as it is and as it seems to you, is it not shameful to suffer what you accuse the sufferer of, and not to take the enemy as your adviser? Then, if this man, who now seethes and breathes boldness, was not previously praised, he will now clearly be blamed instead of you. But if he was once a good man, you will not seem prudent. For the inclination of the majority is toward the better. But has he fared well? He will be blamed all the more. But has he wronged you? You will not do him evil. But will he be restrained? He will rage all the more. But did he begin? Let him be quickly broken, turned aside by your word and your manner, like a wave that quickly dissolves on dry land, or a storm that meets no resistance. Is this insolence? It is insolence if you join in. Or shall we counter-slander those who are sick? Do you not bear the assault of the possessed? I mean those who bark violently. And what of the senseless and dreadfully mad? If you are sane, then—

...and those who are still drunk, whose reason has been drowned by wine. What if a dog runs at you, full of rabies? What if a camel, naturally swollen with arrogance, roaring with its throat and stretching out its neck to you, stands wrestling? Is it not prudent to flee? What if a prostitute pelts you with her own shameful acts? This is customary for prostitutes, for whom it is terrible to know shame, having a skill to be utterly shameless. The man from Sinope, approaching those on the rooftops, insulted them, as the story goes—why? To bear insults easily by means of insults. Considering these things, you will dishonor insults. Shall I say something also technical, though not worthy for those who value gentleness? Yet I will speak. It is a remedy for annoyance. Have you ever seen boxers? How first the stance is their contest, to take a high position? For it contributes no small thing to victory. So wish yourself to take the better stance. This is to strike the raving one with playthings. Laughter is the greatest weapon in the battle of anger. As those who send an empty hand against athletes, with a violent and frenzied charge, tire more than the laboring bodies (and the breaking of strength is not a skillful hold), so he who insults someone not angered, but laughing at the battle, suffers more. And what resists brings some pleasure. For more fuel is given to anger, a very sweet and insatiable thing. Let that be the end of your plan. What is the gentlest of all things? God. What is the bilious nature? The murderer. Know anger also as it is called, among the names by which wickedness is called. Choose whichever portion of these you wish; for both are not possible. And consider this:

Some are laughed at, some are praised; for even this is no small matter to those under scrutiny. For the rest, I adjure you, friend of evils, hostile advocate and patron, swelling and giving at the gates of Hades, yield to God and to the Word today—wrath, boiling, fullness of the man-slayer, manifest shame of the face, storm of the mind, drunkenness of the gadfly, precipices, bearer of Tartarus. O legion of spirits, composite evil, breaking bonds and fetters with their fastenings, Christ wills you, whom this whole world does not bear, but He Himself bears the whole with unerring rudder, guiding the life of mortals and of angels, who also brings release from evil spirits and passions to those who call upon Him earnestly. He wills you to flee from here as quickly as possible; fill the depths of your swine, entering; receive readily one falling into the abyss. But keep away from us who are cared for by God. And these things in silence; but you who have loosed the word, if indeed you utter a word worthy of these things, utter it also to me; but if of silence, not to me. And I will bind my ears to words, as to a word. K. On a nobleman of bad character. Someone from good blood, wholly evil, to a man whose lineage was not of the well-born, but whose other qualities were admirable, kept bringing up his ancestors. And he, laughing very sweetly, spoke a word worthy of remembrance: "The lineage is a reproach to me, and you to the lineage." Guard this, so that you do not place anything else before virtue. If someone mocked you for ugliness or foul odor, would you say, "My father was handsome or fragrant?" If someone mocked you as cowardly and unmanly, "My ancestors won many Olympiads?" So, if someone convicts you of being evil and foolish, do not tell me of your fathers, nor of the dead.

One man, having a gold-strung lyre, played most wretchedly. Another from a simple pipe produced a noble melody. Which of these, good sir, is the better lyre-player to you? The one who preserves harmony with skilled strokes. But you were born of golden fathers, as they say, yet you yourself are not good. And then you are proud? Is this your splendid lineage—the ancient dead, and fictions of myths, and old wives' tales? You jest. But I look only to you, whether you are just or wicked. The beginning is the same clay for all. We all have the same skin; we are puffed up, we who are lofty, by wealth and glory and great fatherlands. So what are the superfluities to me—father, lineage? Neither myths delight me, nor tombs. But, good man, I look at you. All are one dust, the race of one potter. Tyranny has divided the mortal race into two, not nature. Every base man is a slave to me; free is he who is best. But if you have pride, what is that to lineage? What is a father to mules? The ass is a reproach. Nothing. And what glory do asses have from mules? But eagles give birth, and the chicks they cast out. So why do you speak to me of fathers, leaving yourself aside? It is better to be good with a bad lineage than to be most base with a noble birth. And a rose sprouted from a rough plant—a rose nonetheless. But if from the soft earth you came as a tender thorn, you are worthy of the fire. How, being most base, do you boast so much of your ancestors, O mill-ass, having the haughtiness of a horse?

27. On the same subject. If I were to dress up an ape as a lion and present it to you with zeal, would you be ashamed when you saw it? And how? What if a swan were to compete, the raven, the ugliest of all birds, having been painted white? Would it not be more ridiculous? So it seems to me. If the base-born man struts about in nobility of manner, shall I be ashamed? For I do not value the painted image more than the living man, even if it shines. Let others be painted; character is my lineage. Why these things, and what do you suffer, O mortal race? No horse is not a horse by nature, nor any bird that is not lifted by its wing. If someone saw an ox, would he say, "This is a dolphin?" Each thing is what it is, and is recognized. These two things are the comedy of life: a creature lying on the ground is made into a constellation, and a letter makes the worst man noble. Would you buy a horse that is good and swift, or one that is bad but from a known lineage? The good one, I know. And dogs, not the swift ones? So it is. What, then, not everything in the same way? All things alike. But you, being most base, call yourself noble? You babble in vain. Let the broom stand upright, and I am persuaded. You call me base-born, even if I am free. I laugh at your sickness, if, being most base, you think to conceal your ill-nature with your lineage. Wealth has judged the noble, not character, perhaps those from whom you descend. Set character also; what is this to you, the most base noble? The noble man, but base in character, I consider a corpse stinking of good things. There is one nobility: to bear a good character.

Alas, alas, how many evils the wicked are full of! But these thrice-wretched ones do not even know this: that if they were to take something for their salvation—some word, or counsel, or remembrance of God—all these are remedies for those who are stricken. But they are strong, as they think. O pitiful affliction! Like those who are deranged and mad, they consider their disease and their mental disorder to be strength. They fly, they plow, wingless, without oxen. They run to the rescue, but the phalanx is not near; they sail without sailing, they contend alone, they are rich, they reign, they win lawsuits. All these are symptoms of the disease. And can anyone persuade them? You will receive some evil sooner than you will persuade them by speaking, that they need remedies for their illness. For who, thinking they are not sick but healthy, would take medicine or seek salvation? That is the mark of one who is sick, but moderately so. But whoever thinks the just man is sick, when would he ever accept a comforter for his affliction? You are rich; you force no one to be your neighbor. You seek to have a field; but the one nearby is not yours; the matter is a calamity. Your sight alone must exist. It is terrible if your body were cut. Your neighbor's property is a nail in your eyes. Would that it were so! For then you would perhaps always stand reaping the greater share, like a flame, or a winter torrent, or a plague, with nothing holding the middle. You seem to me to have no benefit at all from your own possessions, unless something of what you desire is added. Then comes sycophancy, the handmaid of your hand. An insult? I have you as a debtor; immediately an agent, tortures, bonds. The poor man spares his body; he gives everything, wanting to be saved. He is brave, not willingly, in what he has. "What then? Are you not responsible for the city and for the command of a ship?

But are you not a friend of the thief? He speaks of the one who is not, as if by frightening he might gain. "How did the ox insult my property? This insult, tell me? Did it bellow louder, being a poor man, and that too as if loving a fight, or even conquer? And the shadow of the trees, overhanging, damages my property. Your slave approached my field. Hold back, or he threatens to do this." Thus went the ox, the slave, the little garden. These are tyranny. And if some clever man happens to be wicked, his fabrication is more persuasive. He restrains others (taking the guise of a patron), to do some evil, and he protects while being enslaved. Then he feasts, like a lion that has chased some beast, not showing philanthropy, but having easy prey for himself. Why do you labor? It is simple: be content with what you have. But of unmeasured possession there is great toil: fights, lawsuits, sophistries, false oaths, if nothing else, anxieties like darkness? To these they always add something alien. Not even if you had equal honor at table, were insatiable and burdensome to your fellow diners, gorging yourself immoderately with your hands on everything, would I praise you? What then of possession? For the insatiable is everywhere abhorrent, but it does not seem so to you, whose mind is buried. One thing you have, another you desire, another you hoped for; and for this there are matchmakers and pimps, as there are others for the disease of bodies. You worship gold. But clothes, the food of moths, are buried. Your granaries are always full. You traffic in times of scarcity. Some groan, others have hopes. For hope is light, a daydream. You seal some, you open others accurately; however, I think, as the circumstances flow.

Alas, alas, you gather the misfortunes of the poor, reaping profit from another’s ruin, making the narrow field another’s! Who are you, and from whom? And whence your boldness? The present night perhaps will have you dead, snatching you from the midst of your desires. How terrible it is, and how abundantly others give everything—bodies, possessions—to God, from whom all things come, while you ought to have what you seek. What will you take? Dreadful treasures, the bulk of a table, and the grace of a narrow throat, into which all cares run, a swelling of the belly, the sickness of surfeit (for these are the offspring of fullness), superfluous houses, empty for the most part, with gold ceilings and gleaming slabs, children adorned with the forms of women, awnings, coolers, intoxicants, choruses and harmonious applause, by which the beauty of the image is destroyed, to be puffed up as brilliant and greatest in the city, priding oneself on high necks and boasting of the power of thrones—thrones, the wrestling ground of envy and tyranny. For one does not allow another to think great, surpassing and more boastful, like the flowing scales of a serpent. So be it. What then do you have of value? The finery of women in stones and gold, with interwoven and alien plaits? Bonds of hands and feet, a pleasant burden, from which beauty is not rightly pursued, practiced to please many men? What else? To leave behind wealthy children, perhaps, and overseers of paternal insolence? This would be something, if hopes met. But now no one knows even the dust into which he will be dissolved, nor where the harm of possession will proceed.

You toil long and keep vigil perhaps, joining nights to days in cares, so that the narrowness of pleasure may be greater. You practice usury and nourish interest with interest, always carrying the interests on your fingers. These things are preserved neither for you nor for those you hoped for; but they belong to whomever they belong, and fall to strangers perhaps. It would have been welcome; but now perhaps even to enemies, who accuse you and your fine deeds, whom you never deemed worthy even of a crumb. One of these who have suffered ill may chance, who watered you with a salty draught, and your house, with laments and tears; this one will be nurtured on others' toils, a fat rooster looking upward, not praising many of the things now established; who will not even break bread, if he chances, for your heir of empty phantoms. To these things, if you have any further thought, add. Twist, force, leave no evil undone; let the depths of earth and sea be searched. Scrape, as they say, even dead men's hair, sacrifice with a net, worship the right hand that gathered so much gold for you. Do everything to make things lower for gain: enemies, friends, relatives.

benefactors. These things will differ nothing from the ebb-tide, or from Charybdis that swallows fleets. A little wealth will be vomited forth, like a cargo of satiety flowing upward. I will wait a little, and justice approaches—better now, if possible; if not, then later. It is better to be poor well than to be rich badly, better to be lowly than to be puffed up, seeming to be in good condition while being in sickness. Or else you should have all turned to gold, as Midas once, they say, and suffer what Midas suffered, having a just famine from an evil prayer. There is a kind of thirst among the viperous races, such as the desert of Egypt bears. Its bite is what its name says: the beast is named after the suffering. Drinking, the one who has drawn the venom perishes; finding a stream, he falls into it greedily, until he vomits out the inward burden by drinking. Life and thirst cease together. Do you not know this, dearest, nor have you heard how once heaven rained bread on the people, crossing the barren desert, a generous gift, as from God, and ungrudging? But even then, justice lay in store for the immoderate. The excess immediately stank; for the measure of the gift was need. Therefore it is just that each of the unjust should always suffer this, desiring to make a noise or to stink together with those who are in a bad state. Only thus would they be restrained. Why do you not give your body to those who wish? Why do you not embrace the life of a bandit-chief, breaking into walls and prying open tombs? If wealth alone is your pursuit, and how and whence you get it is of no account at all? There is a measure for beauty, for sight, for running, for strength, for limbs, for leaps, for words, for labors—but for acquisition there is no measure.

but to have as a stranger the possessions of one who has labored and acquired well, or even a paternal inheritance well received; and this is for some a brief breath of life, the one who does not even have knowledge of what he possesses, perhaps. Will the whole world be given to you alone? Even if we grant these things, will they not also be left behind? What then will you do? Will you strive to have these things as well? You will always toil, for you are poor in what is lacking. But will you be satisfied? Let this be thought even now. You have enjoyment of your own; but if you are immoderate, know that you are adding poison to what you now have, and a flame to thorns, which approaches badly, and whatever it approaches, it destroys along with itself. Just as a drink from salt water does not quench thirst, nor does the sight of the beloved, persisting, quench desire, but rather kindles it doubly, so what is taken by the insatiable is a drug that always becomes an appetite for more. I would have given advice to the more inactive, or to the poor, that something benefits the wicked, as food for beasts, or libations to demons, which the superstitious offer, if, when they had this, we were going to be at rest. Here there would be something for the poor to have, always trembling at the evils and even their shadows. But now I know a remedy for everything except the wicked: a diet for hunger, deficiency for satiety, evacuation for dropsy, darkness for the eye, reason or a friend for grief, time for sorrow; for those in distress at sea, a beacon or a harbor appearing, for toils, an ointment; for the wicked, nothing at all, except God and justice and wounds; but not even this do the impious perceive. For satiety despises even justice. Darkness covers the mind of the accomplice, it hardens the back, as if clearly unyielding, an anvil to iron, it becomes by its own harshness. It immediately runs back to the examples.

What is this, O Christ? How have you given to the wicked the offenses of the best, as if they find some escape from their way? No one considers anything good, and even more, but something evil, even a small thing, becomes a tablet for the more foolish and the more wicked. To the good, iron; to the worse, wax; they are easily molded by the worse. "I am not sane; what then? Is no other such found?" Alas! And he will say something of the wise. "I kill; what then? Will not someone of the ancients or moderns be found here too? I am wickedly rich; but another acquired nations and cities. And does someone not know how much worse the denial of an oath is?" Then a denial was fabricated by someone, to cover up lesser wounds. In response to these things, I also wish to tell you a story, if it is necessary to jest in the midst of misfortunes, a fable fitting for these sophistries. Someone mocked the owl; she escaped each of the jests with a well-aimed word: "How large the head! – But how great is Zeus's! – The grayness! – That of the Gray-eyed one. – You sound harsh. – But the jay even more. – How about the slender foot? – And what does the sparrow seem to you?" But when she had easily evaded everything, she is caught by one thing, though she is wise: "But, O wise one, consider that of these things one belongs to one, but to you all, and excessively: gray, harsh-sounding, slender-footed, heavy-headed." At these things the dear one went away ashamed. But you do not even have this, but even in the fable there is a bird wiser than your mind. One has everything; this is your difficulty. For one thing snatched away, and then a second, to stumble in something, even a small thing, has forgiveness. I will grant a small thing also to the darkness of the body.

The completely unerring belongs to God alone. But to err from forethought, knowingly in evil, and often in the greater evils, shamelessly and laughed at, and not even wanting to be disciplined by blows, by which even all wretched things are trained, but to go with bare head into dangers—this is the terrible and evil disease. Consider your own affairs and what has been commanded: what you must do and what you must not do. And consider those things according to time and circumstance. Faith began; just as for infants there was need of guidance and delicate food; that was when there was room for pardon for errors. For you it is no longer so, the word being full, and Christ having suffered much from your evils. But punishment awaits you for your errors. Errors, do I say? For your present deeds. And justice has many holds even here (I do not yet speak to you of hopes from the other side): house, wife, children, anything most dear, if you will remain—but if you are favorable to these, this possession, the freedom to live luxuriously, the body last of all. So I have this much burden of life; sail safely. What? Are there not also for you diseases and misfortunes? Your life is poor and homeless. Do you again weave yourself into others' evils? What is this to you—my misfortunes, as you yourself would call them? Or you, even when suffering, would feel less pain if your neighbor shared the labor. Then hear that suffering is not equal: some of these things I have done, not suffered. For I desire to be poor and to wander voluntarily, to be free from bonds, and not to have my dwelling here. These things are dearest to you, but the opposite to me. Cease bringing the measures of a fox to a lion. So do you consider these things misfortunes?

O the misfortunes! I am distressed by them (and indeed I will not deny it, I too have something of the dust and the wood, and of the pleasure from that source, being human); but still I bear and endure this suffering. My suffering is better than your strength. Then let us consider this together. We are both ill-treated; but for you, justice is to suffer because of your character; your character is the accuser, the bitter and clear judgment within. For me, however, the wretchedness is a kind of purification, even of the common soot; I do not yet say that the hardship is a kind of trial and struggle, so that if I prevail I might obtain the crown. Why these things? What benefit are these words to you? No one in his right mind tricks a physician; otherwise he will be destroyed by the disease. There are two sicknesses: either to despise God, or, being choked by evils, to have no hope of the good. But accept my word. May you suffer neither of these; contempt and despair of hope are equal evils. God is a judge, but also a father; you fear him as judging, but as good, take courage; tell the disease, ask for salvation, and give tears to your wounds. Give also to the poor, your noble advocates, who richly bestow what we need: compassion from God and hopes. Give, if you give, something of your own; do not cover the table or the beggar with others' goods. For the one is a formation of God's hand, so not dishonorable; the other is also venerable. Do not for me subvert the divine as a wretched judge, lest it anger you more. Do you teach the thief-catcher to steal? If I persuade you, it is better; if not yet, at least stop your tyranny sometime (satiety of all things, both good and bad).

And this I will praise among your ways: for evils, the greatest thing is even a halt in wickedness. If you accept this—good; if not, I will remind you of the tomb, which is the end of all evils, and which you will have equally with all, even if you pass beyond the Pillars of Heracles and the Caspian Gates, acquiring the possessions of your housemates and neighbors. Another, I think, will destroy your character, having a crooked way from your path, a worse disciple of a wise teacher. And of that day which is abhorred by the wicked, on which there are darknesses and flames and Tartaruses, being the exactors of the evils here, seeking the image buried in the snares of the serpent and the crafty one, who tastes us with the worst pleasure. But I seek how I might escape depravity—by what wings and what depths of earth or sea, or by what wiles, to what end of the inhabited world I might come, what darkness or cloud I might take as a screen, with what prayers I might propitiate the Divine. Since these three are everywhere—time, place, and the easy fortune of evil sin—I will establish the divine law. What is this? "Change cities from cities; for by flight some will be left," he said to the apostles, "when the God who rules all is driven out." I will change all until the final fire, fleeing the unmanageable onslaughts of the wicked. There justice will have even its darts. They will not disturb the upper dwellings, nor will they cast out the poor, as now, even from there—if perhaps they will even need a small drop of pity for the cooling of flame. Let the rich man and Lazarus persuade you: the one paying the penalty only for his luxury, the other for his labor and wounds in food and injuries (for that one too, like you, pushed Lazarus).

But he, as one who bears all things, and is honored. End of discourse. Receive the word with trembling. Of the many evils that exist and are named, only this one is called idolater (which is the greatest of evils in life), he who knows nothing, nor can reason, further; as if he had quickly suffered this from the disease, if the time should come bearing fruit for the passion, or if he reveres wealth as the abomination of Ham. Let us therefore cast off, cast off the forms of idols, revering only God, whom we know. 29. Against women who adorn themselves. Do not tower your heads with false tresses, women, softening your tender necks from the rocks, nor smear the forms of God with shameful colors, so as to bear a mask, and not faces. For it is not lawful for a man to show a woman's head uncovered, either with hair bound tight with gold, or with unbound hair leaping down the shoulders here and there from soft breezes like a maenad. Nor to bear a crest above like helmets, a far-seen beacon shining to men, or a hidden, yet visible, mane of soft linen, this forehead-band, flashing blonde, as much as escaped the headdress, as if the work of a hand had labored; when you, taking a lifeless image of form from him who does not see, the teacher, you paint beauty from there. But if nature gave beauty, do not hide it with ointment, but preserve it pure only for your own husbands, and do not bring greedy eyes to another; for the heart follows unholy eyes. But if it did not attend you at birth, flee a second shame, drawing beauty from your hands; beauty which the earth bears, and is for sale to common women, sold for a few obols; beauty which, when washed away, flows down to the ground.

Nor does it stand for laughter, when the joy dissolves the whole cheek, and it is convicted by streams of tears, and by a moist fear, and is undone by a slight drop. The cheek that once shone, and the graceful cheek, suddenly appeared two-colored, a great joy: dark, shimmering, black-skinned, red-cheeked. How can you contain beauty that is being convicted? These things are not for moving statues; for you, the form is unbearable, and dissolved by many passions. This is the body of God, this of the hand; this is old, this is new. A meadow bearing double flowers, both pleasant and hateful alternately, or some garment of two colors drawn by many belts. Therefore, either flee the painted body, or guard it, and have no defense against the outrage of the form. The web of Penelope, which night unraveled, day wove; within Hecabe, without Helen. If indeed there is some device to deceive the husband, it is not tolerable to hide a more divine form in a mortal one, lest God, angered, repay you with such things. Who, whence the sculptor? Speak to me, stranger. I did not paint you, dog, but I fashioned an image of myself. How do I have an idol of a form instead of a friend? But still, we will yield something to the disease. If, however, it is clear that the panel of painters has form upon form, know that you are raising a conspicuous monument of shame to mortals, a form which you paint as animate with the strength of mind. This is a garden of Adonis, your grace that destroys fruit, the color of an octopus, letters on sand. How, then, having a form like a jackdaw (if the story has the jackdaw, well-winged with others' flowers, then again made naked and ridiculous), do you not care about the ultimate shame, the beauty that perishes? Do you hope to have an unshaken luster? After a short time you will see how much grief there is in another's beauty.

I learn that the formation has something most excellent, when old age once wrinkles the form, the once flower-bearing. Then the shaping of the limbs is without grace, like a fire-scorched remnant of flesh left from the dust. To lament late the deceit of the limbs, when it has driven the remaining monkey into dense wrinkles. Such is the grace of false limbs. But, most excellent one, now set the imprint of your form as it was before. I do not think it true; but long before, you would pray that no one, not even among men, had eyes, those who formerly praised you, and had eyes ready for you moving with haughty steps here and there. And laughter, desiring to escape the notice of the race of men, you drew in men as initiates of your form. For men rubbed the drugs in which you delight, plunderers of chambers, craftsmen of that madness. These are not the sophistries of temperance, but of lewdness. For everything that is contrived for men is lewdness. They say the proud peacock, when it raises its circular neck, arching it, golden, starry, cries out to more feminine ones for love. But if you do not paint your form with vigorous eyes, I am amazed. For if you have desire for your husband, as he for you, from the time when, loving you, he led you to the bridal chamber as a blooming bride, you have grace; but if you please the eyes of others, this your husband hates. It is better to conceal the grace of your weapons within the house, than to display it falsely and impiously. For in the former case, your husband is sufficient; the latter stands for many, like a thread in a flock of flying birds. You delight in the one who delights, and you exchange face for glance, but then laughter and contrary speech, at first stolen, then having boldness. Speak no more to me of these things, talkative tongue.

But this I will speak truly, with no sting lacking, of all that is played among women concerning young men. For all things follow one another together, like iron which the magnet draws, leading one thing by another. Would that men, instead of women, were to shine with white lead and seaweed, and be sleek, foolish men, who, having such shame dwelling in their eyes, delight in evil, putting on a mist. They cast bright insults at others, but themselves are swine in their own shame. Or rather, they would soon fall into dark sties, penned up by Circe's beast-birthing potions, who neither hate, nor, like fire consuming dry wood, cast in what it is better to draw out than to bear. For one man surpasses another in women's adornments, wishing to have more in his folly. Often, lacking possessions, as if to rouse the insolence of their wives, they have more toil. Never did you offer your sword to an enemy, nor did you grant a safe passage to your own crops in a ravine. They speak of Pandora, as a penalty for stolen blazing fire, a recompense come to mortals, another fire in place of fire, an evil for a good, as if to burn even more, to fashion demons with elaborate beauties, one thing leading another to a single deceitful end, to bring a compounded deception to men, a dinner-hunting, deceitful, shameless, honey-tongued, deadly delight, a perpetually burning brand. I am not persuaded by myths; but if you command, do not become an elaborate Pandora. The race of Pandora is shameless; but you are an image of Christ, shine with prudence and wisdom.

Another story—no longer a myth—listen to my words, which I will utter from the most divine oracles. Do you not hear how earlier your father was deceived by the fair bloom of a man-slaying plant? Its lovely beauty beguiled him, and from the flourishing garden it cast him out at once, through the guile of an enemy and the pretext of a wife. This is your ancestral law from that time onward, daughter: never put trust in comeliness. All beauty is to me a brief grace; spring brought it, and chilling winter suddenly destroyed it. Either an untimely sickness bent it, or dread time wore it away, bringing the cycles of wasting years. And this is even more laughable: a woman with an unseemly form knows it, yet tramples on Danaë, glorying in her shame. And the more shameful thing (as those skilled in this wicked craft say, not I) is that they share a common affliction and wish to conceal it from one another. What is worse than this affliction? A builder knows a builder's work, a skilled singer knows a singer's skill, a thief knows a thief. But these women do not wish to be known for what they know. Truly, evil bears blind eyes. And as men honor faces they laugh at, delighting in the hues of moving pictures—I do not so much trust in pictures as in the spirit of men, of which colors are a testimony. I hear that someone, desiring a hollow, formless, belated Echo, wandered over cliffs; and another once loved his own form and leaped into a spring after a phantom of perishing beauty. Yet another went mad for the fair streams of a river; she raged and did not leave her beloved banks; she lapped the water, drew it with her hands, grasped at the foam. But not even thus did the fiery passion cease with the waters. So blind and hostile is love.

It is no great wonder if you should cast some young man far from his senses with your fair complexion, delicate robe, rosy fingers, and haughty head—not one, but as many as you paint. I am persuaded, as once a wise man deceived a bull by his craft, fashioning a wooden heifer with colors (a strange love! breath enters breathless forms), when you also devised such an outrage for young men. Orpheus persuaded beasts, but you persuade men, whose mind is like that of beasts and whose life is woman-mad. If you do not gratify the flesh, but instead of the flesh the eyes, even that is an airy sickness, a love. But the whole is unwounded; yes, I am persuaded, yet this is not good for me—to have the reputation of an empty vice. As if you should prescribe a law of disorder for many women, though you yourself are prudent. Vice runs swiftly. Others conceal their foul life with devices, but you wear modesty and some black garment. For if those who bloom are chaste, you would never persuade other women to have a chaste heart. A myth of our law: do not even cast your eyes upon another's wife with adulterous desires. For the beginning of shameless love is a shameless glance; if a man flees that, he would flee wickedness as well. How then do you, woman, who bring such a girdle of love upon men, remain far from the vice that dissolves marriage? But if you do, I will tell you a myth fitting your shame. Old age is talkative. The race of mortals was once undiscriminated, who was best, who was worse, as ancient report says. Many seemed hostile, though they were best; many, on the other hand, were good, but foolish. Glory attended the most dishonorable, and dishonor the best, with no justice in these exchanges.

But the evil that rules did not escape the notice of the lord God. Late in wrath, he spoke such a word: "It is not right for the good and the bad to have equal renown; thus evil would be more abundant. Therefore I will give a noble sign to the good, so that you may know well who is bad and who is good." So saying, he reddened the cheeks of the good, pouring blood under the skin as shame arose; and especially in women, since they are delicate in form and tender in heart, he spread it more. For the bad he fixed it and made it unchangeable within; therefore they are not at all affected by shame. You, being one of them, are many-colored; for I do not blush, even if you carry so much above me. For this is the blush of shamelessness, the offspring of unblushing shamelessness, which the rain that once washed Sodom cleanses. Do not paint your face, reckless one, nor falsify your complexion. The only beauty for me is that which nature gave. For ancestral wealth is better to me than that which my hand unholyly gathers, even if it be small, it is worth much more. And I love a wedded wife, not an adulteress; and children I have begotten are far better than painted ones, even if they are worse, they are better. You, when you are wooed, keep your body as it was made, and do not seem to wish to be one thing instead of another. The Celts judge by the streams of the Rhine, and coals of pure gold are a test. But I measure your chaste spirit by the unadorned beauty of your form. Let Belias not paint you with soot; for either they made the whole thing ash, or they poured out smoke, having so disfigured pleasure for such a price. Gold interwoven with gems, casting eyes with airy rays, is not precious to the well-born.

A fetter around the breast, a revolving circle, dishonoring the ear with a pearl weight, shaking it about. Not as much as around the head, the highest, nor the much-golden garment, the delicate, cunning works of threads, purple, golden, gleaming, shining. Nor the whitening drugs for the cheeks, adornment for women. Nor purple lips, nor to bear above the painted eyelids a dark-blue brow, and to roll moist pupils within. Nor to lead a favorable ear with a broken glance, nor to have hands and feet bound with a dear and sweet bond of gold, a slavish boast. Nor to anoint your body or head with soft perfumes (vultures attend the dead). Nor in your mouth to soften uneaten food, moving the jaw back and forth, as if despising the modest. And from your teeth to send forth foam from moist lips. Nor delight in the flashes of chariots, nor to show your form from the split, cunning double doors, looking at those who look. Do not be lifted up by a multitude of servants, nor by maidservants, images of your heart. Swallows are messengers of spring, the flower of autumn, maidservants of a mistress. And consider this for me. For even if each of these is a slight disorder, all together are a fixed fate. There is one flower desirable for women, a noble blush, modesty. This our painter paints. We will give, if you desire, a second: you would draw paleness to your beauty, melting in the labors of Christ, with prayers and groans and sleepless nights. These are remedies for the unmarried and for those yoked. Colors we will leave to walls, and to women for whom the madness of young men is mud. Let them leap shamelessly and laugh, but for us it is not even lawful to look at wanton women.

The manner for women is honor, to remain at home more, and to converse with divine oracles, with the loom and the distaff; for the privilege of women is to assign tasks to female servants, to keep male servants away, to bear bonds on the lips, and on the eyes and cheeks, and not to have the foot often outside the threshold; to delight in more feminine, chaste women, and in a husband alone, for whom you loosed the maidenly headband from God. And to bear measures, you, of courage, as if you were escorting faith, because you remain far from the lights of strangers. Who first colored the formation of God? May the first who mixed shamelessness with colors perish. As when shameless divers, unmanly men, set up an image of a form hidden within from without, and what follows, as many as are fitting—leaps and the shameful release of shrill limbs, pleasing to senseless men, as indeed those women, having put on an alien form from without, a comic, not a holy, covering of modesty, from which then they move in ways worthy of the elaborate form. Doors, keys, mirrors, drugs, sorceresses, nothing is unshaken, not even the roof, for them. These things are of empty boasting of image-making; but of sleeplessness, nothing is more toilsome than chaste splendor. But if you boast so much in artificial beauty, you would never have a chaste temper in unfeigned form. Esther created a lovely appearance; but what was the work of her distinction? The whole nation remained. The fierce-tempered Jezebel once painted the eyes of a harlot; she washed harlots with the blood of a harlot. But for you, there is neither the work of a king to take away wrath, nor do you have a share in fate; therefore spare me your chastity. Do you not tremble, bowing your head before priests, at a tent shining with alternating forms?

Do not your hands bristle when you reach for a mystic feast, with which you paint a mournful splendor? And how do you bring to the prize-winners, for whom the people in a throng set up a dance, honoring the precious blood, a form that charms many, like a marketplace drawing a crowd in the midst of cities, or like the exhibitors of beasts who bring forth creeping things from dark, fearful lairs? But, woman, be persuaded by our words, lest your mind wound you as you bring your hands to the form. Do not be, do not be a fellow voyager with those women, O child, do not be a co-plotter, nor a housemate. Let others have the excess; you keep away from the lips of men and from being named. This is glory for women. If your life has become wholly free from bonds, live for Christ alone, having shaken off everything, a radiant virgin, prudent, of splendid mind, having the pure Word as the bridegroom of your heart. But if desire for the rib from which you were taken has seized you, tend only that single rib in friendship, having a good love, free instead of evil; and for the other passions, not even in a dream should you encounter them. And you, attendant of the great God, you too are not hidden, if ever you mingle something female with the lowly. There is sometimes unseemly wantonness even in filthy garments, and dignity in soft ones. There are not a few witnesses. Know that a wrinkle is more to you than the greatest wounds of worldlings. Keep away from testimony. For not even in filthy garments is a drop so great as appears in clean garments of the same color. If we persuade you of these things, we will benefit; but if you set your face, you would shine twice as much, if you desire, with gold, electrum, silver, and ivory—such gifts I give to the newly elegant calligraphers. The pillar is ready, and I will inscribe the epigram.

Come now, all who delight in beauty.

30. The acrostic of all the letters, each iamb having an exhortation at its end. Make God the beginning and end of all things. The profit of life is to live out each day. Know all the noble deeds. It is terrible to be poor, but worse to be rich in evil ways. Think of benefiting others as imitating God. Seek God's goodness for yourself, being good yourself. Let the flesh be restrained and tamed well. Bridle your anger, lest you fall out of your senses. Let the eye be steady, and the tongue have a measure. Let a key be placed on the ears, and let laughter not be wanton. Let reason be the lamp of your whole life. Let not your being be undermined by seeming. Understand all things, but do what is right to do. Know yourself to be a stranger, and honor strangers. When you have fair winds, especially remember the storm. All things from God must be received gratefully. The rod of a just man is more than the honor of a wicked one. Wear out the doors of the wise, but not of the rich. The small is not small when it brings forth something great. Bridle insolence, and you will be greatly wise. Guard yourself, and do not laugh at another's fall. Grace is to be envied, but to envy is a great shame. Let the soul be sacrificed to God rather than all else. Oh, who will keep these things and be saved?

31. Distich maxims. Naked, you would cut through the whole sea of life, and let no heavy ship go upon the sea, soon to sink. Remember always that cold death stands near, and you will meet a death less than that. Always raise a temple to God in your mind, as to a king, a temple without matter, that you may have within your heart. Know yourself, best one, whence and what you were made, that you may chance here upon the beauty of the archetype. Day by day leads you; the one who is light rolls on; but the judgment of the steadfast has a day that is not dissolved. He who trusts in what departs and what comes, trusts in a stream that never stands still. Life and a wicked story are equally evil to me; whichever you have, you will meet with the other. It is impious to stand by sacrifices while being unclean; it is more terrible to reverence all the remains of the dead. Never stand still on the path of good things; to creep into the abyss of evil is a standstill for you, who have gone forth from your own wickedness. He is a blind seer who does not see the destruction of his own wickedness; he tracks the tracks of a beast, the extremities of light. If you need a healer for your passions, but hide your evils, you will never escape grievous decay. Your word is my deed. He who has done no good deed, let him have eloquence as a two-sided ally. Insolence is satiety. I wish you, best one,

Work of having, a fixing of the ever-turning soul; but to be rich in the only divinity, and to hold the whole cosmos always equal to spiders' webs. All things of humans are alien to this life; but human virtue, this alone is life. Come, the imperishable-minded Word of God cries to all, Hasten to the knowledge of the heavenly Trinity. Set your mind, for those whom holy marriage has bound to life, to bring more fruit to the heavenly winepresses. And all you who embrace the great Word of God, virgin brides, bring everything to God. A radiant, solitary light, but from the world to have your spirit, standing far from the flesh. Insolence is to have faith in colors, not in hearts; easily they would be washed away. Depth is dear to me. Have neither an unbending justice nor a crooked prudence. Measure is best in all. Wield also boldness, since rashness will not be strength; there is also a calmness of temperance. Always to open the mind in the words of God is best; you would be a knower of heavenly laws here. Hasten to be best; be displeasing to those for whom the best is displeasing; and to delight in evil is a shameful glory. It is shameful, being best, to be an advocate for sinners equally, and to have your foot within evil. Gold is tamed by crucibles, the noble man by pains; pain is often lighter than painlessness. Easily one would deny the great God who is father; but know the begetter as father of piety. Moths eat everything; leave your possessions not even to tombs; the honor of departure is to have a good name. Spare your own kin who are strangers, and especially those who left all these things, the powerless dead. Come, leave the whole cosmos and its burdens here, and spread your sail for the heavenly life.

All things always best, god-revering works, let them be accomplished; but the Trinity, above all, let it be your concern. 32. Gnomic couplets. Of a good beginning, the finest thing is also the end; rightly do the definitions of matters seem. A beginning begetting a good end for mortals, a purification of life practiced in a godly manner. Having been winged by words, do not fly outside your wings; for not even a winged creature flies without wings. Knowledge is the greatest glory for mortals in life; but it is an evil to those who use it evilly. Let empty glory not snatch you away at all; for this is a treacherous thing to the more simple. Doing good, guard yourself to remain in this; for the course toward the worse is swift. Let laughter be restrained, and let anger take an end; and let idle speech be altogether barred. Fear God first of all, and honor your parents, praise priests, hold elders in reverence. A son should by no means speak justly against his father; law ordains this, and before laws, nature. Such things as you yourself do not wish to suffer from another, such things do you also wish not to do to another. Is not wrath terrible to those who have wrought terrible things? For justice judges those who are alike. Wise lips drip sweetest words; but a bitter throat belches forth fights. A glib tongue gushes streams of sweetness; but a worthless mouth generates undiscerning speeches. Friends love even what is dear to friends; but enemies basely disparage friends. The doors of the rich hide poor friends; but splendid courts are always friendly to the rich. Water, the best drink, tempers the mind; but drunkenness, once taken, muddies the mind. Wine does not know how to chasten nature, but rather stirs up pleasures, provoking them. Bulk of the belly drives out a subtle mind; for opposites are at war with opposites.

Better moderate fare that is well provided than a sumptuous dinner that someone has fashioned in a dream. Fools are richer in their dreams than those who possess an abyss of wealth. Better childless than to bear foolish offspring; for the one is childless, but the many are also bad. For every mortal who dies, every land is a tomb; for everything from earth is earth and returns to earth again. A shepherd milks, if he wishes, even goats; but instead of milk, he will pour forth streams of blood. The sow, watching the preparation of a meal, knows not to confuse the boundaries of the table. Compel also the disorderly not to dissolve seemly order fitted to laws. Guarding the laws, you would cast fears outside; for every guardian of the laws is outside fears. A skilled helmsman will flee the triple wave, and every terrible thing, a mind bearing wise thoughts. Do not think the opposite of the best life; for punishment is manifest to the worst. The greatest anvil does not fear the blows, and a prudent mind, every compelling force. Noises frighten hares from leaves, but cowardly men, the shadows of things. I hate a poor man giving gifts to a rich man, as I hate one who speaks of feeding but has forgotten. A wicked orator corrupts the laws; a pure orator is a well-tempered harmony. The wealthy laugh at the reproaches of orphans; they laugh at the very punishment of God. He who does not bear the guardians of the law lawfully will be run around by the laws to destruction. It is natural for the poor not to think greatly; for the wealthy have no care even for life. Educate fools, as far as nature permits; for they will have some sense, even beyond hope. Striking iron ignites even stones; a harsh whip disciplines the heart.

children. Enemies frighten more than others with the cross and the communion of baptism. It is worst to give and receive oaths, for perhaps you have offended justice in both. Treasure the age that is without end, for this one has failed even before its end. Do not love wealth, which time dissolves; for what time builds, time will also destroy. It is shameful for women to bear a masculine character, for modesty is the common order for modest women. Pleasure is steep for those who use it, and as it comes, it departs like a stone. No wealth of health is greater to those in pain; wisely does nature desire this for mortals. The sounds of the sea are like the words of a foolish man; they burden the shores but do not enrich the grass. Gifts persuade even the wise to overlook, and gold is a snare for mortals as a trap for birds. Old age produces griefs even before its time; for what character has overthrown, time will not restore. Wealth is the swiftest servant of evils, for power is readily available for wrongdoing. There is no possession better than a friend; do not acquire a wicked man as a friend. Let order be honored and precede power, for order is the guardian of power and always of power. A mind full of care is a moth devouring bones, but the body flourishes when it escapes worries. No one is naturally capable of being moderate in satiety, for fire is accustomed to run after fuel. Wine is an arousal of passion that has subsided, for inflowing material strengthens the flame. Those who fear justice flee from anger, for lawsuits often kindle wrath. It is terrible to add labors to one who is weary from labors, but yet labor has often ended labors. Some, fearing the labors of others, are seen risking their own labors. Always care for eternal glory, for the present glory deceives daily.

No one plans safely in anger, for things done in anger have no counsel. Terrible are dragons, and wicked are asps; the double cunning of woman is among beasts. They persuade the onlookers with bare bones, that nothing here is natural to us. If the offspring of crabs do not walk sideways, they learn the experience of their mother's gait. You will clearly give, forcing nature, fine pupils from bad teachers. Adorn yourself with good proofs, and do not despise a poor orphan. When God gives, envy has no power; when he does not give, toil has no power. You give birth, viper; do not fear the birth-pangs; you have, having received, experience of a mother's childbirth. No one is a champion from obvious cowardice; for victories exact the praises. A sleepy man is a discoverer of dreams; for sleep is a mystic of apparitions, not of realities. Violence is accustomed to persuade the unwilling, for it often chokes even giants. When the populace errs, every charlatan begins; the populace is altogether a disorder of good things. I call a side-work no work at all; for the side-work is to be despised. The order of dogs gathered together toward the limbs of corpses lying on the ground is honored. When gold speaks, let every word be idle, for it knows how to persuade, even if it is not by nature able to speak. Even now, those maddened by the flowing things of life will have what leads to peace.

33. A four-line gnomology. An epigram of the verses. I am the work of Gregory, and I preserve the four-line structure, a memorial of wisdom through spiritual maxims. Would you prefer action or contemplation? The vision of the perfect is the work of the few, but the latter is for the many. Both are right and dear; but you, extend yourself more toward that to which you are naturally inclined. Someone asked me a problem from the Spirit: "If you are hidden," I said. "But I am temperate. If you are hidden. Now there is need of purifications." A rotten vessel is not entrusted with perfume. Neither oppose everyone, nor follow every argument, but only those you know, and to the extent, and at the time. And hold more to God than to a commander. Every word wrestles with a word, but with life, who? Either do not teach, or teach by your manner. Do not draw with one hand and push away with the other. You will have less need to speak if you do what you should. A painter teaches more by his models. I say especially to you who are of the tribunal, be an eye not filled with darkness, lest we appear as leaders of evil. For if the light is such, how great is the darkness? A silent deed is better than an inactive word. No one has ever been exalted without a life; but many have been exalted by a word that sounds well. For grace is not of those who speak, but of those who live well. The best gift to God is one's manner. Even if you bring everything, you will bring nothing worthy. Offer what even a poor man gives. The wage of a harlot is not shared with a chaste man. Never pray for anything, not even small things, to God. For it is God's, before receiving. What then do I say? You steal what is your own by not giving. A novel debt! Let Ananias and Sapphira persuade you. Consider this life a festival. If you trade, it is profit. For it is an exchange of small things for greater, and of fleeting for eternal. But if it passes by, you have no other opportunity.

The course before you is long, but the reward is greater. Do not look at the whole at once, lest you abandon the whole. You do not sail the whole at once; and this is often the experience of the enemy. Do not be overconfident, nor despair too much. For the one relaxes you, the other overturns you. The one you accomplish, the other you endure; of this there is no envy. Not as in a journey does the remaining part render the labor useless. Do not kindle a fire, but abide by what you decide; it is better to advance than to cut off any part of the good. For we call men bad, not those who are low, but those who, when raised up, fall greatly. A spark kindles a great flame, and the seed of a viper has often destroyed. Seeing this, avoid even a small harm; it is small, but it leads to a greater. Examine yourself more than the affairs of your neighbors; for you will gain yourself, the other your neighbors. Reason is better than actions or wealth; for the latter are of corruption, the former stands. Let your mind always labor, being shaped by divine thoughts and the principles of life. Spare your tongue; for it is easier to harm; the gain is less when it is well moved. Sight seized me, but I was restrained; I did not set up an image of sin. Did I set up an image? We have escaped the deed. These are steps of the enemy's struggle. Seal your ears with wax against base words, and the unseemly modulations of pleasant songs; but always give way to the good and noble. To speak, to hear, and to act, there is a small middle. Do not be too relaxed by the allurements of scents, the smoothness of touch, nor by tastes. What would you accomplish as a man, being overcome by these, without the seasonings of women and men? Give, said the belly. If, having received, you are temperate, I will give willingly.

If you give to those below, you would receive dung, but not rich dung. But if you hold back, we will give you rich dung. Laughter at laughter is worthy of the wise, especially all, but more so the licentious. Disorderly laughter brings forth tears. A downcast character is better than a dissolute one. Consider beauty to be the good order of the mind, not what hands paint or time dissolves, which is recognized by the mark of a prudent mind; and shame likewise the disorder of the mind. Sorrows have come, pleasures, boldness, fears, wealth, poverty, fame, ill-repute, thrones. Let them flow as they wish. Nothing touches a man well-established among things that do not endure. Raise yourself more by life than by pride; the one deifies you, by the other you fall greatly. You will achieve this by not measuring yourself by small things. Even if you are raised very high, you are still below the commandment. Pursue glory, but neither all nor excessively; for it is better to be than to seem. If you are immoderate, do not hunt for empty glory, nor for new glory. For what profit is it to an ape if it seems a lion? Praise another, but do not be proud when praised; for there is fear that you will fall short of the praises. Do not judge another quickly, before you learn by experience, lest if he turns out bad, you incur shame. It is better to be spoken ill of than to speak ill. When someone sets out to mock another to amuse you, consider yourself to be the target. Here you should be most disgusted by the speech. Say nothing great while sailing well before the mooring. For many a ship has sunk while sailing well toward the harbor; many have been moored after a storm. The only safety is not to reproach fortunes. It is better to live well and labor, and to speak freely to the Master, than to flourish in evil and be called to account; even if all things proceed according to reason.

Prefer all things, and acquire God alone. For you are a distributor of others' wealth. If you do not want all, give the greater part. If not even this, be pious with your superfluities. It is a good thing to snatch something from the moths and from envy, to have Christ as your debtor rather than to possess everything, who grants a kingdom for a crumb. You shelter and feed Christ when you feed the poor. A poor man came, then went away without receiving. I fear, Christ, that I too, needing your hand, might go away destitute, by my own laws. For what one has not given, let him not hope for. Nothing is more secure than a poor man. He inclines toward God and looks only to him. But you embrace him; for the eagle, as the saying goes, much attends to a small bird in its nest. Better poverty than unjust possession; for it is like disease compared to bad health. No one has easily been destroyed by hunger; but by the worst evils, wretchedness is fate. What is master or slave or base division? One creator for all, one law, one judgment. See the fellow servant in the one who serves you. When you are released, you will appear more honorable. And what are servants, especially those of God? Let them not fail to be well-disposed toward their masters. Character marks free and slave. Christ appeared as a slave, but he freed. If you hear yourself called bad, be ashamed, not low-born. For lineage is those who have long since rotted. It is better to be an origin of a family than to dissolve one, as it is better to be good than to be born of good people. To have insatiably of God alone and divine things, who grants even more to those who receive, thirsting to be thirsted for, flowing ungrudgingly always; but in other things, even being worsted. Do not strive to conquer all, nor always; it is better to be well-ruled than to conquer badly.

For the wrestler is not the one lying down; he is often overcome, but often superior. And he loses something; this is often gain, just as pruning a plant leads to good fruit. But if you add something badly to what you now have, you bring fire to fuel, or disease to the body. If you owe no penalty to God, do not yourself be sympathetic to those who do owe. But if you know you owe, then first practice gentleness. For pity is weighed with pity, and with God. Whenever insolence inflames your mind, remember Christ and his wounds, and how great a portion these are of the Lord's. Thus you would quench what grieves you, as with water. Love, drunkenness, jealousy, and a demon are equal; whichever approaches, it overwhelms reason. Melting, prayer, a tear—these are the remedies. This is the healing of my diseases. Flee every oath. How then shall we persuade? By word, and by character that confirms the word. Perjury is a denial of God. What need have you of God? Set character in the middle. What is shorter than the precept of goodness? Be such to your friends and neighbors as you wish them to be to you; and something shorter still: the sufferings of Christ. Consider nothing equal to a faithful friend, whom not the wine cup revealed, but the storm of circumstance; who does not grant favors only for advantage. Know the limits of enmity, but not of friendship. The eye sees other things, but does not see itself; nor does it see other things if it happens to be too bleary. For this reason, have a counselor for everything; for hand needs hand, and foot needs foot. If you follow the good when admonished, you will not be put to shame by the laughter of the wicked. Whenever you conceive something shameful, consider that many are present, and be ashamed of yourself. Always prefer the good.

Of things not good. Associating with the evil, you will be wholly evil. Never receive anything good from a bad man. For he seeks pardon for how he has lived. I myself choose some gain even from an enemy. For I advise that those who flee the holds are safer, and I fear the bitter drug, yet I also blame the sweet. Repay the good, disregard the evil; and let thanks be placed with these for suffering nothing, so that in time you may make even these good. Kindness is a fine gift to the patient. Be kind to all, if you have the strength, but more so to those nearest. Why do I say this? Who would trust you to be good to strangers, if you are not just to those to whom it is owed? Why do we blame the whole wretched enemy, granting authority to live? Blame yourself, either wholly or mostly. The fire is from us, but the flame is from the Spirit. Do not follow dreams' games excessively; nor have a mind easily startled at everything; nor be swayed by right-wing phantasms. These are often an ambush of the enemy. Let hope be set before every favorable outcome; for if someone is an accomplice of the worse, how is it not just for the good to be also more? For I do not bear being conquered by evil. Consider prudence more secure than fortune; for the one is a light drift of affairs, the other a steering. Do not think anything stronger than education, which alone belongs to those who possess it. Show your effectiveness not by doing evil, but by doing good, if you wish to be godlike. This is the mark of a man who knows kinship. A turtledove and a scorpion kill most easily. It is shameful for a young man to be weaker than an old man, and for an old man to be more foolish than a young man. Nevertheless, let the one be all-wise in due season; but let the other be most excellent and prudent before his time.

Always work for your salvation; but especially now, at the dissolution of life. Old age has come; the herald cries the departure. Prepare yourself entirely; for judgment is near. The end of the matter: a twofold denial of God, in deed and in word. Do not be stolen away; keep watch (for he always pursues with secret wrestlings), lest you need last purifications. 34. Rough definitions. God is substance, the first good. The cosmos is a binding of flowing and intelligible things. The being of each thing as such or such is nature. Nature without matter is an angel, the first creation. Those who turned away from the good—what are they? Demons; their first is he who was once the Dawn-bringer, inventor and patron of ill-favored darkness. Matter is the seat of forms, the second creation. The beauty of matter is form being shaped. The boundary of flowing and intelligible things is the pole. The nature of stars is fire revolving in a circle. Light is radiance from fire; for the soul, reason. Darkness is twofold, the dissolution of twofold radiance. Eternity is a measure flowing always without time; time is a measure of the sun's motion. Earth is a fixing of matter encircled by the pole. Fire is a burning and upward-flowing nature. Water is a flowing and downward-tending nature. Air is a filling of void and a breath-like flow. I am a human, a formation and image of God. The body is matter and extended thickness. An element is the first part of a body. Soul is a life-bearing nature, and it carries; reason and mind were mingled with my own. Life is a binding of body and soul, so that death is their separation. Mind is inner vision, not circumscribed. The work of mind is intellection and impression. Reason is an investigation of the impressions of mind, which you will utter with vocal organs. Sensation is a reception from without.

Memory is the retention of the mind's impressions. Forgetfulness, however, is the expulsion of memory. And of forgetfulness, there is again a kind of memory, which I call recollection. I know will, the inclination and convergence of the mind toward all that is within our power; the rest is not to be willed. The movement in the direction I desire is freedom. The intense and eager form I call zeal; the involuntary is a tyranny of the will. I know reason as the division of matters. Desire is an appetite for either good or not good things. Love is a hot and ungovernable desire. Spirit is a sudden boiling of the mind; anger is spirit that persists. The one who remembers evil and lies in wait is guilty of rancor. I know endurance of grief as patience; the calmness in the face of insolence is dispassion, which the ancients used to call gentleness. The habit of good things, consider virtue for me; that of the worst things, the opposite disease. The one is a gift of God, the other an invention. Beauty in everything is good proportion; ugliness is an outrage against beauty, as my argument holds. Courage is steadfastness in the face of terrors; audacity is boldness toward things not to be dared. Cowardice is a shrinking from things that should be dared. Temperance is mastery over pleasures; defeat by them I call licentiousness. Justice is not seeking to have more; deviation from equality is injustice. Prudence is experience of affairs. Let wisdom be considered the contemplation of beings. Simplicity is a certain disposition inactive toward evil; duplicity is the malice of character. Pleasure is a certain smoothness of the soul; pain is a sting and confusion of the heart. Anxiety is a twisting, and worry is more than that. Deliberation is the opposition of reasonings concerning what is to be done. Decision is the fixation of the mind's deliberations; their rejection I know as listlessness. Envy is a wasting away at the prosperity of neighbors.

Malice and harm come from envy. Blame of the worst things is a praiseworthy passion. Shame is a kind of contraction from fear of disgrace. Disregard of shame is impudence. Diligence is a kind of concentration on what lies before one; its dissolution I know to be laziness. Hesitation is a difficulty in moving toward something. Zeal is partly imitation, partly a kind of distress. A stolen affection for a longed-for stranger, the ancients call jealousy. Boastfulness I know to be a swelling of the heart; vanity, an inflation which lightness raises. The proud man, to me, is also a show-off. Self-will I call self-complacency. Humility is not thinking oneself worthy. The pretense of this is irony. Liberality is a simple giving of money. The gorging of these I know to be prodigality. Illiberality I call stinginess. Magnificence is splendor of works; pettiness, thinking great things about small matters. The magnanimous man bears everything easily; bearing not even small things is of small-mindedness. Love of honor is a moderate desire for honor; vanity is beyond the moderate. Know that desire for empty things is vainglory; opinion is what seems to us such or such. Another opinion is apparitions of things. Insult is an unfriendly act or word of an enemy. A slanderer brings shame. Blame is a friend's reproach without punishment. Accusation is a charge against those to be punished; the one not true becomes false accusation; the secret one is to be called calumny. Blasphemy is a kind of blameless reproach. An evil-speaker is one who arms his mouth against all. Urbanity is cheerfulness in company; wittiness is cheerfulness apart from reason. Foolishness of speech is its uselessness. Laughter is a swelling of the cheek, a palpitation of the heart.

Excessive use of wine call drunkenness; the acts of violence from drunkenness, intoxication. The hangover is stale violence from drunkenness. Murder is one of bodies, another of an image; both are a dissolution of the beloved harmony. Fornication and adultery, the one is a theft of bodies foreign to one, the other is also a theft of demons, when the love of God falls upon enemies. An idolater is one who worships even gold. If there is benefit, it is gain to take into the soul; harm, to damage it, occurs. Pity is sympathy for misfortune. Compassion is also to do something good for the sufferer. A certain disposition toward things is character; habit is a formation that accuses character. Teaching is a molding by deed and word. The best word is a healer of evils; the one not best is also a destroyer of goods. Understand contemplation as the examination of intelligible things. Action is a certain energy directed toward things to be done. A state is a certain persistent quality. The offspring of this, I call energy. Art is a system from experience; a state that is indissoluble, which I call knowledge. That which is not for the sake of something else, but all else for its sake, is the end. A goal is that for the sake of which the end is pursued. Consider a request as the asking of those in need; know that prayer is of those who are better; a vow is a promise of propitiation; propitiation is a gift offered in honor. Praise is to speak well of one's own things. Acclaim is praise reverent toward God. A hymn is melodious acclaim, as I think. A psalm with song becomes psalmody. To affirm things as they are is truthfulness; as they are not, falsehood. And the conflict of reason is a difficult argument—what is worse for life? An oath is a confirmation.

In the middle is God. The keeping of this is good oath. I know religion and the worship of demons. Piety is the adoration of the Trinity. Denial is to cast down one of the three, not to reverence the consubstantiality of God. Faith is twofold: one from the violence of reason, which is also just; the other is ready concurrence. For reason is the president of reason. Hope is the presence of an absent thing. Its dissolution I call despair. I define love as unanimity, and toward God, also a path of deification. Hate is a kind of aversion, a worker of enmity. Hypocrisy is hidden bitterness. Honor of the Creator is to love man; of him who made himself poor, the care for the poor. The hospitable one is he who knows he himself is a stranger. The calm of life is dear peace; of the soul especially, the relief from passions. Enmity for me is ill-will and separation; enmity and war are the inventor of evils. Purification is communion with God. Consider sin profane and an abomination. Cleansing is a washing away of defilements. I know defilement and the imprinting of evils. Marriage is a lawful binding of flesh; virginity is an exit from the body. This one is a monk who lives for God alone. A monastery for me is a company for salvation. Sin is a deviation from the good, which neither nature nor law grants. Law is a just definition of actions. The commandment for me is a master's injunction. Lawlessness is wickedness within the law; I know anomia as freedom from laws. Judaism is the first law; the second is the mystery of the passion. The one is shadowy, a destroyer of demons; the other is clear and a loosener of riddles.

Christ's incarnation, another creation of mine, of God suffering in the flesh for my passion, who gave back everything to me in all things. He came from a woman, for Eve's sake; but from a Virgin, for he came from the Father alone first, the unyoked of the unyoked. The census again had the type of the divine registration. The swaddling clothes, instead of the nakedness. The slaughter of children, the removal of the types of infants. The running star, the adoration of creation. The Magi running to him, the entry of the nations. The bath was the cleansing of my waters. The Spirit, attested kinship. The anointing, the fast for the struggle against the enemy. The temptation was an investigation of God's weaving. The crown of thorns, and the putting on of purple, the plundering of the enemy's power from the wrestling. The trophy of the cross, the wood of the tree. The nails, the fixing of my sin. The stretching out of both hands inward. The taste, the taste of gall as an antidote. Of the thieves, one was saved, having believed, Adam; the other was wicked, even though crucified. The mourning of the sufferer, the darkness of the sixth day; the breaking of rocks, the defender of the rocks; the raising of the dead, and the entry into the city, the translation of the dead upward. The flowing of blood and water together from the side, the double baptism, of bath and passion, when the persecutor brings the time of danger. The deadness, the removal of my death. The rising from the dead, the release from Hades. The journey upward carries me upward. And as for what follows, come, let us consider. A people is a formation for the worship of God. A temple is the revered sanctuary of the people. A gift to God, purifying sacrifices. The pure receptacle of gifts, the God-receiving table. Priesthood is the purification of the mind, bringing man to God, and God to man.

A mystery is an ineffable reverence. A grace I know is the divine gift of the Spirit. A proclamation of unseen things, I mean prophecy. A Gospel is of the new salvation. An apostolate is an alliance of proclamation. Knowledge of the Word is catechesis for the young. Repentance is a turning toward better things. Exorcism is the removal of demons. The bath is the seal of a second life. The offerings are of God's incarnation and communion in the sufferings of God. A sign is a miracle not customary. Tongues of fire are the dwelling of the Spirit. The psychic man is not yet good; the carnal man is excessively fond of passion; the spiritual man is not far from the Spirit. Who is the Antichrist? A beast full of venom, a man of power. What is the apostasy? The utterly wicked apostate of recent times, or the current division of God, after which Christ again in the glory of the Father, enough to appear as a body to the god-killers. After which is resurrection, the binding of the composite; after which is the conclusion, the dissolution of beings; and there is a change toward the better. After which is judgment and fear. What is judgment? The internal weight or lightness of one's own conscience, and the measure of law against life. Blessedness for me is good living. What is the kingdom? The contemplation of God, and with angels glory and hymnody. Darkness for the most wicked is to fall from God; worm, fire, and melting of material passion. If there is something better than this, it is not outside God. Chance, providence, and fate: the former is what happens spontaneously, without reason; the latter is the steering by which God bears all; fate is, I think, the chain of things formed by God. These are our definitions precisely.

On philosophical poverty. You delight, you live luxuriously, in your sickness, and then you are well off? You have an evil, but a remedy for the sickness. Another is poor, but self-controlled; thrice-blessed is he who has neither the terrible thing nor the remedy. I prefer the rich man who is inferior to his passions to the poor and wise man, when I compare the one who is strong in his madness to the one who is not sick but weaker.

36. On the same subject. Let there be one who is grievously sick and procures many remedies for his sufferings; another is most healthy, having no remedy. Which of these do you call blessed? The one who is in good health (I know that everyone does). Thus the one who needs few things, even if he is very poor, is to be preferred to the one who is rich in money and in passions.

37. On endurance. When you find someone faring well among evils, know that he is being preserved for the end. When you find someone good among evils, know that affliction is a purification; for if he drags along even a little mud, this must be washed away by toils, so that none of the evils may come to the fire; or it is a trial and a wrestling match with the enemy, God granting it so that you may be raised up great. Let Job the victor persuade you of these things.

38. On the same subject. If you are a hateful child of wickedness where you have flourished, know that you are being kept for the final torments. If you are most excellent and have met with a harsh life, know that you are being purified like gold in a crucible; or, struggling in body in the wrestling match of an envious one, you are another Job, so that, having contended, you may bear the crown of victory. Let your heart not be delighted by flourishing things, nor be bent by toils, bearing all things with a Christ-bearing heart.

39. On fortune and prudence. Someone among the lovers of gold said this: "I want a drop of fortune rather than a jar of prudence." To him one of the lovers of prudence replied:

A drop of sense is more to me than a depth of fortune.

40. On the vanity of human affairs. Those who imitate the threads of spiders, And take delight in the frail things of life, Let them know that all the pleasant things of a spider's life are easily caught and carried away by breezes. Those who have adorned thrones, And are puffed up with flowing distinctions, Consider the inescapable final judgment, How nothing at all can escape it.