Sacra parallela recensiones secundum alphabeti

PROLOGUE TO THE PARALLELS.

Virtue is a precious possession, uniting one to God and procuring the kingdom of heaven. The acquisition of it is the keeping of the divine commandments. For the Lord says in promises to the people in Egypt: If you hear me and keep my commandments, you shall be to me a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And he declared that those who obey his ordinances become sons of God. How great this good is, speech cannot interpret. For the grace is beyond our nature; the dignity of adoption is beyond hope. It is fitting, therefore, that for such goods we eagerly carry out what has been commanded. And we shall have an easy choice of what is beneficial, having set side by side the virtues and the opposing and hostile vices, and all that has been said about them in the divine Scripture and by our holy and God-bearing Fathers. For from this we shall know both the bright distributions of the righteous and the punishments threatened against those who transgress. It should be known that sayings were also gathered from the treatises of Philo and Josephus for the glory of the truth among us. Both were Hebrews and learned men; therefore it is fitting to attend with all accuracy to their narratives and apophthegms, as they not only do not at all miss the aim of the most faithful and blessed men among us, but also display great consistency and similarity in words and manners, confirming rather than diminishing the oracles that will be spoken by the Father concerning them. OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS JOHN OF DAMASCUS ON THE SACRED PARALLELS.

The practice of the God-inspired Scripture surpasses wealth, glory, and rule, and all things that the mortal race embraces, granting us provisions for salvation. And this present compilation endeavors to make the labors that come from it easier for us to bear. For among the things greatly admired, one may find in it things still better by far in excess, and there is no surfeit of hearing for those who apply themselves. For the selection of the beauty of the contents draws those who encounter it to itself, not allowing those who long to hear what follows to grow weary, and as it is sung in the versified sayings: "Those who eat me will still hunger, and those who drink me will still thirst." For truly lovely is the sweetness of the spiritual teachings, sanctifying, increasing, and nourishing the souls. And it has encompassed all that has been said in an ethical, or gnomic, or hortatory manner, with respect to every cause and subject, in both the Old and the New Scripture of the sacred oracles, and by our holy and God-bearing Fathers, whose great fame has been proclaimed and hymned throughout the whole inhabited world; and their sayings, which lie scattered about concerning these matters, have been anthologized and arranged under their own headings. And the whole work has been recorded in three books; and of these the first is composed of those things from which it would be most fitting for Christians always to make their beginning—from God, the triadic Monad, enlightening us from the very prefaces. And the second speaks concerning the constitution and condition of human affairs; and the third specifically encompasses the matters concerning virtue and vice.

But for the sake of easy comprehension and the ready discovery of what is sought, the table of chapters—that is, the titles—has been arranged according to the alphabet; and each chapter sought will be found placed under the letter with which it begins.

For example, that which begins with alpha is under the letter alpha; and that which begins with beta is under beta; and likewise all the remaining letters. And at the end of each letter there are cross-reference titles, concerning which I shall speak briefly a little later when I come to those places, clearly setting forth the usefulness derived from them. And just as wine mixed with water is pleasant and produces a delightful grace, so also the composition of the whole work, being a mixture drawn from the divine Scripture and from holy and God-bearing men, provides much delight for those who wish to read, ease of committing to memory for those who labor diligently, and benefit for all who encounter it. And if it has been composed well and fittingly, this is due to the influence from above. But if it has been done in a crude and not very successful manner, this is due to my own weakness. The name of the whole compilation is the Sacred. And it should be known that sayings were also gathered from the works of Philo and Josephus, for the glory of the truth that is among us, which is praised even by those hostile to it. The explanation of the cross-references. From here come the cross-references of the titles that begin with the same letter and are found placed elsewhere as well. It shall be stated what a cross-reference is, and for what reason it was devised. A cross-reference is a word that guides and draws us to where each of the things sought is found. And it contributes great usefulness to the compilation.

For it not only grants a concise comprehension, but also cuts short the length of the discourse, not permitting repetition, nor that by saying the same things many times they trouble the hearers. And it has been devised especially on account of things of like kind—that is, things said in many ways concerning one matter. For there are various titles in each book, having their inscriptions from four names, and perhaps even from more; for example, Concerning the proud, and the haughty, and the boastful, and the vainglorious. For these, even if they have their beginning from a different letter, are the same in subject. Therefore they have also commonly received the citation of the passages from the divine Scripture and the holy Fathers. And again, Concerning the rash, and the shameless, and the passionate, and the irascible, and the quick-tempered. For all these too exist in the same category. And so that, in distributing the same readings to things that are distinguished in words and not in realities, we may not stretch out our discourses to great length, the cross-reference has of necessity been devised, through which there comes to us the arrangement of the titles, that is, of the chapters, according to letter. It is fitting, then, that those who consult the table of letters also examine the cross-references subjoined to it. For the chapter sought will be found in one of these.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.

Letter alpha. 1. On the eternal Godhead of the holy and consubstantial Trinity; and that there is one and only God in all things. 2. On God being unavoidable; and that he oversees all things, and nothing has escaped his notice. 3. On God being incomprehensible, and his works; and that we ought not to seek out or pry into his hidden things; for the discovery of these is unattainable and incomprehensible. 4. On the love and fear of God; and that they surpass every good. 5. On contradicting God; and that one ought not to contradict or justify oneself against God. 6. On angels; that angels too, having sinned, are punished. 7. On angels; that God has set guardian angels over us. 8. On the formation and constitution of man. 9. On free will; that free will has been given to us by God, and it lies within us to be saved and to perish. 10. On the unstable and uncertain condition of human affairs; and what man and his life are like; and that present things are vain, and weaker than a shadow. 11. On doing good; and that one must do good to all; and that one must bear the burdens of one's neighbor, and not bear grudges, but come to their aid, and reprove, not

To repay evil for evil. 12. On the impious, and sinners, and the unjust, and the lawless. 13. On sinlessness: that no one is sinless except one, God. 14. On those who have renounced the world, and who from a turning back do those things. 15. On the resurrection, and judgment, and eternal punishment. 16. On the curse that came from the Lord, and from the prophets, and from the apostles. 17. On those who are wronged: that one must help them. 18. On love, and peace, and peacemakers, and gentle men. 19. On truth, and faithful testimony. 20. On subjects: that they are made like the characters of those who rule, whether they happen to be good or wicked. 21. On subjects: that they must be subject to rulers and yield, and give way, and honor, and not contradict. 22. On anarchy, that is, a people having no shepherd and ruler. 23. On freedom from care and despondency. 24. On the foolish, and senseless, and uneducated, and stupid. 25. On the simple and guileless in manner. 26. On possessing nothing, and self-sufficiency, and little need. 27. On deception that occurs by economy. 28. On one who announces and mediates a reply; and that he who despises those sent despises the one who sent him. 29. On the ungrateful and unthankful. 30. On impossible things. 31. On holy and blessed men. 32. On first-fruits and those who tithe; and that one must offer to God. 33. On good tidings. 34. On evil tidings. 35. On greeting: that moderation procures goodwill. 36. On encounters, and those who fall from evils into evils. 37.

Concerning freedom from affairs and stillness. 38. Concerning the decree and exactness of God; and that one must not avenge the wrath of God more than show kindness contrary to His commandments. 39. Concerning compulsory service. 40. Concerning good shame. 41. Concerning evil shame. 42. Concerning unjust requests; and that one must not bring unjust requests to fulfillment, even if it be a mother. 43. Concerning insatiability; and that we are insatiably disposed toward the desire for more. 44. Concerning brothers. 45. Concerning one who asks, that is, a beggar. 46. Concerning foul speech; and that one must not offer a rotten word. 47. Concerning a curse brought justly or unjustly; and that one must bless and not curse. 48. Concerning the forgiveness of sins; and that we can obtain pardon in various ways. 49. Concerning despair; that we must not despair of our salvation. 50. Concerning anathema and excommunication. 51. Concerning things unmixed, and those that are in no communion with one another. Here are the cross-references of the titles that begin with the same letter and are placed and found elsewhere. Concerning ascetic practice: it is placed here under the letter gamma of the sixth, whose beginning is, concerning training. Concerning virtue: it is placed here under the letter delta of the fourteenth, whose beginning is, concerning righteousness. Concerning involuntary sins: it is placed here under the letter epsilon of the twenty-first, whose beginning is, concerning voluntary and involuntary sins. Concerning those who please men: it is placed here under the letter kappa of the fourth, whose beginning is, concerning flatterers. Concerning the sick: it is placed here under the letter nu of the second, whose beginning is, concerning the ill. Concerning sodomy:

It is placed here under the letter pi, in the eleventh section, whose beginning is "Concerning fornication." Concerning inexperience: it is placed here under the letter pi, in the twelfth section, whose beginning is "Concerning experience." Concerning the shameless: it is placed here under the letter pi, in the fifteenth section, whose beginning is "Concerning rashness." Concerning the disobedient and insubordinate: it is placed here under the letter pi, in the eighteenth section, and the beginning is shown to be "Concerning a manner of life to be avoided." Concerning purchasing: it is placed here under the letter pi, in the thirty-second section, whose beginning is "Concerning selling." Concerning following: it is placed here under the letter tau, in the fourth section, whose beginning is "Concerning order." Concerning boasters: it is placed here under the letter upsilon, in the eleventh section, whose beginning is "Concerning the proud." Concerning the goodness of God: it is placed here under the letter phi, in the tenth section, whose beginning is "Concerning the love of God for mankind." Concerning impious deeds: it is placed here under the letter chi, in the [tenth] section, whose beginning is "Concerning grievous things." Concerning those who dispute about the faith: it is placed here under the letter lambda, in the first section, whose beginning is "Concerning word-fighters."

Concerning those who withhold wages: it is placed here under the letter mu, in the tenth section, whose beginning is "Concerning the hired laborer." Letter B. 1. Concerning the kingdom of heaven. 2. Concerning the counsel of God; and that it is immutable and unattainable by men. 3. Concerning the help of God; and that, when God is well pleased, every plot of men is weak, and a few prevail over many. 4. Concerning baptism, and the prophecy of the divine redemption. 5. Concerning abominations, and the so-called gods. 6. Concerning this life and this world; and that both we and our life are in distraction and toil. 7. Concerning the violent and the non-violent. 8. Concerning the blasphemer and the great boaster. 9.

Concerning a good king and one who hates evil. 10. Concerning a king not greatly admired. 11. Concerning a king: that one must pray for him. 12. Concerning counsel: that one must do all things with examination and counsel. 13. Concerning foods, and the things necessary for living. From here are the cross-references of the titles that begin with the letter and are placed and found elsewhere. Concerning those who blaspheme God out of folly: it is placed here under the letter epsilon of the seventh section, whose beginning is "Concerning the vengeance of God." Concerning rain: it is placed here under the letter upsilon of the seventh section, "Concerning rain." Letter G. 1. Concerning gnostic and spiritual men, and all the good things that follow them. 2. Concerning "Know yourself," that is, "Attend to yourself," and that each person must examine his own affairs and not busy himself with the evil affairs of others. 3. Concerning murmuring. 4. Concerning elders and old men, and that they must be honored. 5. Concerning farming and farmers, and that it is good to work. 6. Concerning exercise, and study, and training. 7. Concerning those who fight against knowledge. 8. Concerning women: that they must be subject to their own husbands, and do nothing without their judgment and counsel. 9. Concerning women who are pregnant: and that if she bears a male, for forty days she shall not enter into the house of the Lord; but if a female, for eighty. 10. Concerning women: that she must not pray without a head covering, nor even speak or teach in the church of God. 11. Concerning a manly and prudent woman. 12. Concerning wicked women, and adulteresses, and fornicators, and those filled with every evil. 13.

Concerning gluttony and satiety; and that it brings about death. 14. Concerning those who guard their own tongue. 15. Concerning those who do not guard their own tongue. From here, the cross-references of the titles. Concerning laughter and jesters; it is placed here in the letter pi of the 10th, whose beginning is "Concerning virginity." Letter Delta. 1. Concerning the power of God. 2. Concerning the creation of God, and that nothing has come to be from him in vain, but all things exceedingly good. 3. Concerning the glorification of God; and that one must glorify and sanctify God; and that he glorifies those who glorify him. 4. Concerning justification, and who were justified before God. 5. Concerning those who serve God; and that one must honor and reverence them, and apportion to them what is needed for their use. 6. Concerning the discernment of good and evil; and that one must judge from works, and not from words. 7. Concerning the prayer of righteous men made by them; and that he guards them from temptations. 8. Concerning righteous men: that they are despised and mocked. 9. Concerning the one who lends and the one who borrows, and concerning evils. 10. Concerning masters and heads of households; and that they must not be burdensome, but gentle to the sick. 11. Concerning teachers. 12. Concerning slander: that one must not accept slander against any man without judgment. 13. Concerning narrative made by prudent men; and that we must be earnest about such hearings, but shun the narratives and conversations of faithless men. 14. Concerning righteousness and virtue. 15. Concerning the difference and dissimilar condition of men. 16. Concerning righteous, noble, and good men. 17. Concerning the double-tongued.

18. Concerning judges who are impartial, and who have clean hands, and who execute judgment and justice. 19. Concerning judges who are corrupt, and who take bribes, and who condemn lawlessly. 20. Concerning good servants. 21. Concerning wicked servants. 22. Concerning the discontented. 23. Concerning the double-minded, and the fickle, and those who have an unstable purpose, and the changeable. 24. Concerning glory and honor; and that one ought not to give one's own glory to another. 25. Concerning the devil, that is, Satan, and demons. 26. Concerning distrust; and that one who has distrusted God for a reasonable cause is forgiven. 27. Concerning a dinner and a banquet. 28. Concerning the righteous; that the Lord guards them. 29. Concerning the righteous; that their death is precious before God. 30. Concerning the difference between God and men, and between sinning against God and sinning against men; and that there is a great distance between God and men. From here, the cross-references of the titles. Concerning dissension: it is placed here under the letter M of the seventh [book], whose beginning is "Concerning hatred." Concerning presumption: it is placed here under the letter O of the [eighth book], whose beginning is "Concerning conceit." Concerning the people of a city: it is placed here under the letter P of the twenty-sixth [book], whose beginning is "Concerning a multitude." Concerning the gifts of God: it is placed here under the letter Ch of the first [book], whose beginning is "Concerning charisms." Concerning adversity: it is placed here under the letter E of the eleventh [book], whose beginning is "Concerning prosperity." Concerning the righteousness of God: it is placed here under the letter K of the first [book], whose beginning is "Concerning judgment." Letter E. 1. Concerning the commandments of God and those who keep them. 2. Concerning the commandments of God, and those who do not keep them. 3.

Concerning happiness and blessedness; and that one must not call anyone happy or blessed before death. 4. Concerning dreams. 5. Concerning hope: that one must hope in God, and not in the protections of men. 6. Concerning the church and the house of God, and the altar, and the priestly sacrifice; and that one must not eat in church. 7. Concerning prayer, and what good things are accomplished for us through prayer. 8. Concerning almsgiving, and doing good to the poor. 9. Concerning those who do not give alms, but take advantage, and concerning the stingy, and those who love wealth, and those who love silver. 10. Concerning works and deeds; and that whatever a person does, these things he also suffers; and that according to works the reward also is made like to us by God. 11. Concerning prosperity; and that one must not be elated in prosperities. 12. Concerning abundance and wealth; and that in wealth sins are wont to occur. 13. Concerning plotting, and those who plot against their neighbors; and that plots against companions are turned back upon those who devised them. 14. Concerning enemies, and their fall; and that one must not rejoice at the misfortune of enemies. 15. Concerning benefaction or offering made from unjust means. 16. Concerning contractors, and agents, and those who thrust themselves into others' lawsuits. 17. Concerning good bishops, and those who keep the commandments of God. 18. Concerning wicked bishops, and those who do not keep the commandments of God. 19. Concerning surety. 20. Concerning desire; and that we must not follow evil desires. 21. Concerning voluntary and involuntary sins. 22.

Concerning those who give thanks and are grateful; and that one must proclaim one's benefactors. 23. Concerning vengeance; and that it is forbidden to exact penalties twice for the same matter. 24. Concerning things held in common; and that one must avoid common lodgings, because they produce quarrels and divisions. 25. Concerning good repute; that success is worthy of prayer. 26. Concerning merchants. 27. Concerning eunuchs, and that they are wicked. 28. Concerning the praises of those who rejoice in them; and that one must not praise anyone before testing. 29. Concerning vengeance from God for those who are wronged; and that one must entrust matters of vengeance to God. 30. Concerning those who are called to account and exact penalties; and that in no way is one person to be held accountable in place of another. 31. Concerning merciful and compassionate men. 32. Concerning reproofs. From here are the cross-references of the titles. Concerning enmity: it is placed here under the letter m of the 7th, whose beginning is, concerning hatred. Concerning those who perjure themselves: it is placed here under the letter o of the 12th, whose beginning is, concerning those who set aside oaths. Concerning piety toward God: it is placed here under the letter p of the 1st, whose beginning is, concerning faith. Concerning those who rebuked kings with boldness: it is placed here under the letter p of the 8th, whose beginning is, concerning

Of the prophets. Concerning piety; it is found here under the letter pi of the 10th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning gentleness." Concerning authority, and whence it arises; it is found here under the letter pi of the 10th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning boldness of speech." Concerning compassion; it is found here under the letter sigma of the 1st [book], whose beginning is "Concerning sympathy." Concerning those who receive reproofs; it is found here under the letter sigma of the 22nd [book], whose beginning is "Concerning evil counsel." Concerning arrogance; it is found here under the letter alpha of the 7th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning boasting." Concerning the comeliness of the body; it is found here under the letter kappa of the 7th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning beauty." Concerning counterfeit piety; it is found here under the letter upsilon of the 4th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning hypocrisy." Letter Zeta. 1. Concerning seeking God, and following him, and accompanying him; and that we must do all things in his name. 2. Concerning irrational animals that are adorned with natural wisdom. 3. Concerning just balances and weights. 4. Concerning unjust balances, and weights, and measures. 5. Concerning good and evil zeal. Letter Eta. 1. Concerning a good day. 2. Concerning an evil day. 3. Concerning day and night. From here are the cross-references of the titles. Concerning irony; it is found here under the letter upsilon of the 4th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning hypocrisy." Concerning stillness; it is found here under the letter alpha of the 37th [book], whose beginning is "Concerning freedom from affairs." Letter Theta. 1. Concerning the divine initiation. 2. Concerning sacrifices; and that God does not accept counterfeit sacrifices. 3. Concerning divine oracles; and that one must listen to them and have them in study. 4. Concerning the divine mysteries. 5.

Concerning afflicted and anxious people, and concerning grief. 9. Concerning death, and the state in Hades. 7. Concerning the dead, and concerning mourners; and that one ought not to mourn and beat oneself for those who have departed before. 8. Concerning death, and the fear that arises from it. 9. Concerning the sea. 10. Concerning daughters. 11. Concerning not trusting anyone as it happens. 12. Concerning harvest and vintage. 13. Concerning hunters. From here the cross-references of the titles. Concerning altars and priestly sacrifice; it is found here under the letter epsilon of the 10th, whose beginning is "Concerning the church, and the house of God." Concerning the irascible; it is found here under the letter pi of the 5th, whose beginning is "Concerning the reckless." Letter I. 1. Concerning healings done by the Lord, and by the prophets. 2. Concerning priestly things; and that it is not permitted for a private person to touch a priestly vessel. 3. Concerning suppliants; and that one must accept the supplications of those in need. 4. Concerning equality; and that one must assign to each according to worth, and not err in the judgment of such a matter. 5. Concerning physicians, and the healing of body and soul. 6. Concerning garments, that one ought not to use costly clothing, or for a man to wear women's clothing. 7. Concerning equality, and that there is an equal order with God for the rich and the poor. Letter K. 1. Concerning the judgments of God; and that one ought not to be vexed at those things in which the holy fare badly but the unjust fare well. 2. Concerning slander; and that slander is a bare false word spoken against someone. 3. Concerning time; that one must redeem the time, and that everything has its time both to be said and to happen. 4.

Concerning flatterers and parasites, and buffoons; and that one ought to flee them. 5. Concerning thieves. 6. Concerning livestock, and providence over them. 7. Concerning boasting and arrogance; and that one ought not to boast or be puffed up over anything in life. 8. Concerning beauty, and comeliness of body. 9. Concerning boasters, and those who give themselves airs. 10. Concerning betters; that one ought not to strive in rivalry against betters. 11. Concerning the judgment and righteousness of God; and that God distributes to each according to worth, and does not show partiality to a man's person. 12. Concerning a pure heart, and those who have a pure conscience. 13. Concerning an evil conscience, and those who have an unjust and wicked reasoning. Hence the cross-references of the titles. Concerning satiety: it is placed here under the third letter of the 13th, whose beginning is, concerning gluttony. Concerning those who despise: it is placed here under the twelfth letter of the 6th, whose beginning is, concerning misers. Letter L. 1. Concerning those who wrangle about words, and dispute about the faith. 2. Concerning abuse. 3. Concerning famine, and those who do not sell grain in time of necessity. 4. Concerning

Of the Lupicians. Hence the cross-references of the titles. Concerning grief: it is placed here under the letter theta of the fifth book, whose beginning is "Concerning the afflicted." Letter M. 1. Concerning mysteries, and those who bring forth mysteries. 2. Concerning hatred of evil, and those who displease God. 3. Concerning repentance, and confession. 4. Concerning those who do not repent nor turn back. 5. Concerning the drunken. 6. Concerning the slothful, and the lazy, and the careless, and the contemptuous. 7. Concerning hatred, and enmity, and dissension, and those who join battles and are contentious. 8. Concerning the repentance of God; and in what matters the Creator repented. 9. Concerning hatred of one's brother. 10. Concerning monks, and their ascetic practice. 11. Concerning disciples: that they must come to their studies diligently and earnestly, and not run away from the toil of teaching, but ask questions and learn from those who know. 12. Concerning those who move and pass from place to place. 13. Concerning the hired laborer, and those who withhold wages. 14. Concerning those who labor in vain. Hence the cross-references of the titles. Concerning not bearing grudges: it is placed here under the letter alpha of the eleventh book, whose beginning is "Concerning beneficence." Concerning wicked men: it is placed here under the letter alpha of the twelfth book, whose beginning is "Concerning the impious." Concerning faithful testimony: it is placed here under the letter alpha of the nineteenth book, whose beginning is "Concerning truth." Concerning myrrh: it is placed here under the letter alpha of the twenty-fourth book, whose beginning is "Concerning the saints." Concerning the loud-mouthed: it is placed here under the letter beta of the eighth book, whose beginning is "Concerning blasphemers." Concerning meditation: it is placed here under the letter gamma of the [...]

Its beginning is "Concerning exercises." Concerning the changeable: it is placed here under the letter delta of book 20, whose beginning is "Concerning the double-minded." Concerning the fact that one must not call anyone blessed before death: it is placed here under the letter epsilon of book 23, whose beginning is "Concerning happiness." Concerning unjust measures: it is placed here under the letter zeta of book 4, whose beginning is "Concerning scales." Concerning anxiety: it is placed here under the letter pi of book 5, whose beginning is "Concerning attachment." Concerning adultery: it is placed here under the letter pi of book 11, whose beginning is "Concerning fornication." Concerning matricides: it is placed here under the letter pi of book 23, whose beginning is "Concerning patricides." Concerning longsuffering: it is placed here under the letter upsilon of book 12, whose beginning is "Concerning endurance." Concerning the longsuffering of God: it is placed here under the letter phi of book 2, whose beginning is "Concerning the love of God for mankind." Concerning the wicked: it is placed here under the letter phi of book 8, whose beginning is "Concerning table friends." Concerning those who give generously: it is placed here under the letter phi of book 9, whose beginning is "Concerning those who seek honor." Letter N. 1. Concerning youth, and the new age, and all that follows them. 2. Concerning the sick, and that one ought to visit them. 3. Concerning being sober and taking thought for our own salvation. 4. Concerning the newly married. 5. Concerning fasting and those who fast. Letter Xi. 1. Concerning strange matters, and those rarely found in certain places. 2. Concerning strange punishments from God, and of men justly reproved. 3. Concerning sojourning abroad, and that the stranger is entirely without freedom of speech. Letter O. 1. Concerning oaths, and that one must not abide by oaths given for an evil and absurd purpose. 2.

Concerning orphans and widows, and that one must have compassion on them. 3. Concerning boundaries: that one must not move or shake them. 4. Concerning the good way and the evil way: and that one must avoid crooked things and crooked ways, and walk in the straight, good, and righteous way. 5. Concerning a good name and a bad one. 6. Concerning presumption and seeming: and that being is better than seeming; for this is an obstacle to virtue. 7. Concerning wine and its use. 8. Concerning the eye. 9. Concerning reproach: and that one must not reproach another for misfortune. 10. Concerning the short-lived and the brief-lived. 11. Concerning those who cling to oaths: and that one must not swear. 12. Concerning those who annul oaths and perjure themselves. From here are the cross-references of the titles. Concerning frugality: it is placed here under the letter alpha of book 20, whose beginning is "Concerning the possession of nothing." Concerning augury: it is placed here under the letter pi of book 27, whose beginning is "Concerning the observance of omens." Concerning the irascible and the quick-tempered.

It is placed here under the letter pi of the fifteenth [section], whose beginning is "Concerning the rash man." Concerning the fainthearted: it is placed here under the letter upsilon of the thirteenth [section], whose beginning is "Concerning those who do not endure." Letter Pi. 1. Concerning faith and piety toward God. 2. Concerning spiritual progress. 3. Concerning things temporary and eternal; and that those who prefer the present to the things to come commit the greatest offenses. 4. Concerning the providence of God; and that God cares for us and provides for us. 5. Concerning attachment and anxiety; and that one must be disposed without attachment toward things. 6. Concerning the prophets who killed men and were well-pleasing to God. Concerning the foreknowledge of God; and that the hidden and obscure matters of things must be left to God. 8. Concerning prophets who rebuked kings with boldness. 9. Concerning choice and disposition; and that God examines the choice both toward good and toward evil. 10. Concerning virginity, chastity, and honorable marriage. 11. Concerning fornication, adultery, and sodomy. 12. Concerning experience and inexperience. 13. Concerning meekness and reverence. 14. Concerning those who stumble and blaspheme God out of folly. 15. Concerning the rash, the shameless, the irascible, the hot-tempered, and the quick to anger. 16. Concerning boldness and authority; and whence the possession of these comes to us. 17. Concerning a dignified manner of life, and conduct, and good character, and obedience; and that when we live honorably God is glorified and served. 18. Concerning a blameworthy manner of life, and of the disobedient, the insubordinate, the crafty, and those who have a reprobate character. 19.

Concerning perseverance and those who persevere: that they must preserve faith and goodwill toward those who came before. 20. Concerning those who preside: that they must preside with diligence. 21. Concerning the poor and the needy: and that one must not turn away from, despise, or reject the poor. 22. Concerning children: that they must fear and honor their parents, and in no way speak evil of them. 23. Concerning father-slayers and mother-slayers: and all the evils that follow upon those who dishonor and disobey their own parents. 24. Concerning parents educating their own children and disciplining them: for if they do not do this, since the sin becomes theirs, they too will share in it. 25. Concerning the testing that is done toward God: and that one must not test God. 26. Concerning the multitude and the people of a city. 27. Concerning observation and augury: and that we must not observe times or persons. 28. Concerning a deposit: and that this guardianship must be carried out faithfully, and in no way must one contrive deceit or deprivation of what was deposited. 29. Concerning presbyters. 30. Concerning asylum and those who flee for refuge in sacred places: and that one must help the innocent, but send away and drive out those who are guilty. 31. Concerning a city filled with impiety and wickedness. 32. Concerning selling and buying. 33. Concerning the discipline of God, and those who bear nobly and with patience the things that come upon them. 34. Concerning the discipline of God, and those who do not accept it: and that those who are not disciplined here are consigned to eternal punishment. 35. Concerning the discipline of God, which comes about by way of probation and testing. 36. Concerning perseverance.

And that perseverance accomplishes a work. 37. Concerning a faithful man: that it is rare to find a faithful man. 38. Concerning those who trust in empty and vain things, and in the protections of men, and do not have their hope and confidence in God; and that one must devote oneself wholly to him through all the soul and heart. Here are the cross-references of the titles. Concerning the lawless and the transgressors: it is placed here under the letter alpha of the 12th, whose beginning is, concerning the impious. Concerning attending to oneself, and not meddling in the evils of others: it is placed here under the letter gamma of the 2nd, whose beginning is, concerning Know thyself. Concerning old men: it is placed here under the letter gamma of the 4th, whose beginning is, concerning elders. Concerning those who take advantage: it is placed here under the letter epsilon of the 9th, whose beginning is, concerning those who do not give alms. Concerning an offering made from injustices: it is placed here under the letter epsilon of the 15th, whose beginning is, concerning beneficence. Concerning

instruction: it is placed here under the letter sigma of the 18th, whose beginning is, concerning wisdom. Concerning those who are distracted: it is placed here under the letter sigma of the 19th, whose beginning is, concerning the constraint of affairs. Concerning the poor in spirit: it is placed here under the letter tau of the 5th, whose beginning is, concerning the humble-minded. Concerning counterfeit piety: it is placed here under the letter upsilon of the 4th, whose beginning is, concerning hypocrisy. Concerning those who mourn: it is placed here under the letter theta of the 7th, whose beginning is, concerning the dead. Concerning parasites: it is placed here under the letter kappa of the 4th, whose beginning is, concerning flatterers. Letter rho. 1. Concerning those who wander in mind and with the eyes. From here are the cross-references of the titles.

Concerning the slothful: it is placed here under the letter M of the first [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning those who hate work." Letter S. 1. Concerning compassion, and tender-heartedness, and almsgiving. 2. Concerning a well-ordered condition, and that one should grieve no one. 3. Concerning wise and prudent men; and that they ought always to be ready for usefulness. 4. Concerning habit. 5. Concerning those who receive counsel. 6. Concerning those who have no counsel, and hate reproofs. 7. Concerning chastisement; and that we ought to be chastened by the evils of others. 8. Concerning zeal: that every zeal is foolish when God does not will it. 9. Concerning worldly wisdom. 10. Concerning stumbling-blocks; and that one ought to flee stumbling-blocks. 11. Concerning fleshly men. 12. Concerning the scarcity and unfruitfulness of good men. 13. Concerning an assembly: that one ought not to converse in an assembly when a hearing is taking place. 14. Concerning things that happen and fall out contrary to reason. 15. Concerning soldiers. 16. Concerning the gathering of good men; and that one ought to cleave to the best of men, and not to the wicked; for a man is made like those with whom he spends his time. Evil communications corrupt good manners. 17. Concerning living together with evil men; and that one ought to flee the companionships of the depraved as destructive. 18. Concerning wisdom, and instruction, and understanding, and prudence. 19. Concerning the pressing together of affairs, and distraction. 20. Concerning those who frequent the houses of others. 21. Concerning good counsel and suggestion. 22. Concerning evil counsel and suggestion. 23. Concerning bearing oneself along with others. 24. Concerning the holy cross. From here are the references of the titles.

Concerning just weights: it is placed here under the letter Z of the third [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning just balances." Concerning unjust weights: it is placed here under the letter Z of the fourth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning unjust balances." Concerning chastity: it is placed here under the letter P of the tenth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning virginity." Concerning covenants: it is placed here under the letter Y of the tenth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning promises." Concerning the grave: it is placed here under the letter Y of the eleventh [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning the proud." Concerning the diligent: it is placed here under the letter Ph of the fifth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning lovers of work." Concerning false accusation: it is placed here under the letter Ps of the first [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning falsehood." Letter T. 1. Concerning honor: that we ought to honor one another. 2. Concerning tax collectors. 3. Concerning troublemakers, and those who create scandals. 4. Concerning order, and constitution, and sequence; and that these ought to be preserved everywhere. 5. Concerning the humble-minded, and the poor in spirit. 6. Concerning crafts, and who invented crafts. From here the cross-references of the titles. Concerning interest: it is placed here under the letter D of the ninth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning the lender." Concerning honor: it is placed here under the letter D of the seventeenth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning a dignified manner of life." Concerning goodly manners: it is placed here under the letter P of the seventeenth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning a dignified manner of life." Concerning vintage: it is placed here under the letter Th of the twelfth [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning harvest." Letter Y. 1. Concerning the insolent man. 2. Concerning those who drink water. 3. Concerning sleep, and sleeplessness. 4. Concerning hypocrisy, and irony, and feigned piety, and those afflicted with these. 5. Concerning a wise son. 6.

Concerning a foolish, wicked, and uneducated son. 7. Concerning rain and showers; and that the waters are drawn up from the earth to heaven. 8. Concerning health; and that it surpasses all things. 9. Concerning suspicion; that one must flee the occasions that give birth to evil suspicions. 10. Concerning promises and agreements; and that one must fulfill them as is right, with truth. 11. Concerning the arrogant, the haughty, the boastful, and the vainglorious. 12. Concerning endurance and long-suffering. 13. Concerning those who do not endure, but are fainthearted. From here the cross-references of the titles. Concerning obedience: it is placed here under the letter P of the 17th [series], whose beginning is, "Concerning a dignified manner of life." Letter Ph. 1. Concerning hospitality, philanthropy, and almsgiving. 2. Concerning the philanthropy of God, and His goodness, and long-suffering; and that it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. 3. Concerning natural things. 4. Concerning rumor; that one must not believe everyone. 5. Concerning lovers of work and the diligent; and that one must labor; for it also provides benefit. 6. Concerning love of rule; that one must not rashly leap into offices, and lust after honor and glory. 7. Concerning good friends. 8. Concerning friends of the table, and worthless ones. 9. Concerning the ambitious and the generous; and that ambition procures salvation. 10. Concerning the stingy and the ungenerous; and that those who are sick with stinginess fall into dangers. 11. Concerning the fond of blame and the fond of accusation. 12. Concerning envy and jealousy. 13. Concerning self-love; and that one must not justify or praise oneself. From here the cross-references of the titles. Concerning the contentious: it is placed here under the letter M of the 7th [series],

Its beginning: concerning hatred. Concerning prudence; it is placed here under the letter sigma of the eighteenth book; its beginning: concerning wisdom. Concerning those who boast; it is placed here under the letter kappa of the ninth book; its beginning: concerning boasters. Concerning those who are anxious; it is placed here under the letter theta of the fifth book; its beginning: concerning the afflicted. Letter Chi. 1. Concerning the gifts and gratuities of God; and that they are repaid by the Holy Spirit to a life of dignity; and that those who think to acquire the grace of God by gifts and money sin unforgivably. 2. Concerning rejoicing at another's misfortune, and those who welcome wicked deeds and dishonor the righteous. 3. Concerning harsh and unholy deeds. 4. Concerning Christianity, and the calling from among the Gentiles. 5. Concerning that one ought to fear God rather than men. From here are the cross-references of the titles. Concerning widows; it is placed here under the letter omicron of the second book; its beginning: concerning orphans. Letter Psi. 1. Concerning falsehood and slander. 2. Concerning whisperers. Letter Omega. Concerning the hour and day of death, and our departure; and that we ought to be prepared for it, and in what manner to receive our translation. Up to this point is the codex of the contents arranged in this book; let us now proceed to the sections and arrangements of each of these in turn, expanding and clarifying them, as far as possible, from what is contained through the Holy Spirit in the sacred tablets of the prophets, apostles, evangelists, and teachers, the theology concerning the one tri-hypostatic, unconfused, and consubstantial Godhead leading and shining forth before all things.

Because from it faith and confession, divine and saving and life-giving, have been granted to us; but the establishment of its nature and form will be known by itself alone to the holy and worshipful Trinity, according to what has been said: No one knows "who the Son is, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son." And, "No one has known the things of God, except the Spirit of God, who searches the depths of God." To whom is due all glory, honor, and worship, with the Father who is without beginning, and the only-begotten and co-eternal Son, now and unto the endless and boundless ages of ages. Amen.

OF JOHN OF DAMASCUS, THE SACRED PARALLELS.

LETTER A.

First title. — Concerning the eternal Godhead of the holy and consubstantial Trinity; and that there is one and only God over all.

"God said: Let us make man according to our image and likeness." "God said: Behold, Adam has become as one of us." "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue, so that each may not hear the voice of his neighbor." "Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one." "See that I am, and there is no God besides me." "Who is God besides our Lord, or who is God besides our God?" "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power." "But God is our king before the ages." "There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, and there is none according to your works." "O Lord, you have become a refuge for us, in generation and generation." "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all the ages," and the rest.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory. And the Seraphim stood round about him; each had six wings, and each had six wings; and with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. I am God, the first, and I am he that is to come. Know, and believe me, and understand, that I am; before me there was no other God made, and after me there shall be none. I am God, and there is no savior beside me. Thus says the Lord, the God and King of Israel, and he that delivered him, the Lord of Hosts: I am the first, and I am after these things, and besides me there is no God. Who is like me? Let him stand, and call, and declare, and prepare for me, since I made man for ever, and let him announce to me the things that are coming before they come. I am the Lord God; I will not give my glory to another, nor my praises to graven images. The Lord is true, the God of the living, and the King of the ages. This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his authority is unto generation and generation. And when the Lord was baptized, he went up straightway from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming upon him. And behold, a voice from heaven saying:

This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased. And Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. No God except one. For indeed there are those called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, but for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him; and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things, and we from him. Having run through all things, and having raised your thoughts above the whole creation, and lifted your mind beyond, consider the divine nature, standing immutable, unchangeable, impassible, simple, incomposite, indivisible, light inaccessible, power ineffable, magnitude boundless, glory surpassing brightness, goodness desirable, beauty beyond contrivance, which intensely lays hold of the wounded soul, but is impossible to declare worthily in speech. There is the Father, there is the Son, there is the Holy Spirit, the uncreated nature, the sovereign dignity, the natural goodness; the Father, the principle of all things, the cause of being for beings, the root of the living. From thence proceeded the fountain of life, the wisdom, the power, the exact image of the invisible God, the Son begotten of the Father, the living Word, who is God, and was with God; not added afterward, but existing before the ages; not acquired later; Son, not a possession; maker, not a thing made; creator, not a creature; being all that the Father is; I said Son, and Father.

Guard these properties for me. Therefore, remaining in the fact that he is the Son, he is all that the Father is, according to the voice of the Lord himself, who said: "All that the Father has is mine."

For truly all that belongs to the archetypal form belongs to the image. I will utter one same voice, and in agreement. Truly the Trinity is the Trinity, brothers; and the Trinity is not a numbering of unequal things, but a gathering of equal and equally honored things, the designation containing the things united by nature, and not allowing things that are not dissolved to be scattered by a number that is dissolved. For us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things; and one Son, through whom are all things; and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things. God is the highest and unapproachable and ineffable light, neither graspable by mind nor expressible by word, illuminating every rational nature; this in intelligible things is what the sun is in sensible things. To whatever extent we are purified, he is imagined; and to whatever extent we imagine him, he is loved; and to whatever extent we love him, he is again understood; he is contemplative and apprehensive of himself; poured out a little to those outside. What the sun is to sensible things, God is to intelligible things. For the one illuminates the visible world, the other the invisible. And the one makes bodily eyes sunlike, the other makes intellectual natures godlike. And just as the sun, giving to those who see and to the things seen—to the former the power of seeing, to the latter the power of being seen—is himself the most beautiful of things seen; so also God, creating for those who understand and for the things understood—for the former understanding, for the latter being understood—is himself the highest of things understood, at whom every impulse comes to rest.

For this reason the Trinity is also received at baptism. For the Father can accomplish all things, and the Son and the Holy Spirit; but since no one doubts concerning the Father, while there was doubt concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit, it has been included in the mystery of initiation, so that in the communion of those secret good things we may also thoroughly learn the communion of their worth: Holy, holy, holy; and they do not say "holy ones, holy ones," so that they may declare the many-named One to be singular, nor hide the number of the three, but they give the sanctification three times; yet they utter the word in a single form and singularly, so that they may not name a multiplicity of gods. For there is one God, the Father in the Son; the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit. And for this reason, holy resting in holy ones, the true Father subsisting in his own person, and the true Son subsisting in his own person, and the true Spirit subsisting in his own person, three beings, one Godhead, one essence, one doxology, one God. Having named God, you have in your thought comprehended the Trinity. You have received the Holy Spirit, you have been counted worthy of the power of the Father and of the Son of God; you have glorified the Father, you have signified the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but not by a fusion of names. For the Father is Father; the Son is Son; the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. But the Trinity is not alienated from unity and identity. O holy Trinity, numbered! Trinity numbered in one name! For it is not said "monad and dyad," nor "monad and monad," but Trinity in the monad, and monad in the Trinity, in a single form, with a single name, one God: the Father in the Son; the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit. One glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For my glory,” he says, “I will not give to another.” For the Son is not a second God, but the Word of the one and only God, being theologized in the Father, just as the Father is theologized in the Son. As Isaiah also says, theologizing the Son together with the Father: “They will worship you, and in you they will pray; for in you is the God of Israel, the Savior.” All who oppose him will be ashamed and put to shame, those who do not confess him, and his Spirit, to be of the same essence as the Son, and that there is no God besides him. It is not so; may it never be; the Trinity is not generated, but eternal, and there is one Godhead in the Trinity, and one glory of the Holy Trinity. And do you dare to split it into different natures? To say “mine” befits God alone. For truly all things are his possession alone. Title 2. — Concerning God being inescapable; and that he oversees all things, and nothing has escaped him.

“There is no one who will deliver out of my hands.” “He is a seer of the works of human hands; and nothing of what they do has escaped him.” “The Lord oversees all things, comprehending things unsearchable, glorious and wondrous, of which there is no number.” “Who is this who hides counsel from me, and holds words in his heart, and thinks to hide from me?” “God searches hearts and reins.” “The Lord is high, and he oversees the lowly, and knows the high things from afar.” “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face where shall I flee?” “Hades and destruction are manifest before the Lord; how much more the hearts of men?” “In every place the eyes of the Lord watch over the evil and the good.” “I am a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God far off?

If anything is hidden in secret places, shall I not see it? Do I not fill heaven and earth,” says the Lord? “The Lord reveals deep and hidden things, knowing what is in darkness, and light is with him.” “He who holds all things together has knowledge of every voice; therefore no one who speaks unjust things shall escape notice, nor shall accusing justice pass him by.” “He is a witness of his reins, and a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.” “It is impossible to escape your hand.” “The eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, watching all the ways of men.” “The Lord Most High has known every conscience, and he has looked upon the sign of the age, declaring things past and things to come, and revealing the traces of hidden things. No thought has passed him by; not one word has been hidden from him. He has adorned his great works of worldly wisdom, who is before the age and unto the age. He was neither added to nor diminished.” “The works of all flesh are before him, and nothing can be hidden from his eyes.” “As clay of the potter in his hand, according to his good pleasure, so is man in the hand of the one who made him, to render to him according to judgment.” “Great is his wisdom; he is mighty in power, seeing all things, and he himself will know every work of man.” “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and judging the thoughts of the heart. And no creature is invisible before him;

But all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, to whom our account is directed. Nothing is unforeseen, nothing neglected with God. The unsleeping eye observes all things; it is present to all, providing salvation for each. If God did not leave even a hedgehog outside his oversight, will he not oversee what is yours? Nothing has escaped him, nor will it, but all things are present, and the things expected by us from afar are beheld by the divine eye as though already present. He who is everywhere is not grasped in any particular part exclusively, containing the whole equally. God does all things by measure and order, and nothing with him is without measure, since nothing is without number. It belongs to the Godhead alone to see the thoughts. God has filled all things and passed through all things, and he has left nothing empty or deserted by him. For what place will anyone occupy in which God is not? For God is before every created thing, and is found everywhere. Wholly lawless and unnatural is the one who thinks that the eye of God overlooks anything.

Title 3. Concerning the fact that God and his works are incomprehensible, and that we ought not to seek out hidden things or busy ourselves with them. "God said to Moses: You will not be able to see my face, for no man shall see my face and live." "Your knowledge has been made wonderful by me; it has been strengthened, and I am not able to attain to it." "He who adds knowledge adds grief." "To whom have you likened the Lord, or with what likeness have you likened him? Has a carpenter made an image, or a goldsmith who has melted gold and overlaid it with gold, or fashioned a likeness for him?" "Every man has become foolish from knowledge." "The thoughts of mortals are timid, and our devices are precarious; for scarcely do we guess at things on earth, and we find things at hand with toil; but who has traced out the things in the heavens?" "Do not seek things harder than yourself, and do not busy yourself with things higher than yourself; think upon the things that have been commanded you. For you have no need of hidden things. Do not busy yourself with the excess of your works. For more than human understanding has been shown to you; for their own presumption has destroyed many, and an evil suspicion has made their mind slip; and he who loves danger will perish in it." "Do not busy yourself about a matter of which you have no need." "The works of the Lord are wonderful, and his works are hidden from men." "Who will trace out the great things of God? Who will number the power of his greatness? And who will add to recount his mercies? There is no diminishing, nor adding; and there is no tracing out the wonders of the Lord; when a man has finished, then he begins.

And when it ceases, then it will be at a loss. "No one has ever seen God." "The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see." If you wish to say or hear anything about God, abandon your body; abandon bodily senses; leave the earth; leave the sea; make the air beneath you; pass by hours, the orderings of seasons, the arrangements concerning the earth. Be above the ether; pass through the stars, the wonders concerning them, their good order, their magnitudes, their uses, their brightness, their position, their creation. Do not seek the unsearchable things, for you will not find them. For why do you seek? From whom do you have it to learn? From the earth? It did not yet exist. From the sea? The wet substance was not. From heaven? It had not been raised up. From the sun and moon? They had not yet been created. But from the ages? The Only-begotten is before the ages. Do not examine the things that are not always, above the One who always is. But if you do not wish it, but contend, I laugh at your ignorance, or rather I weep at your audacity. Believe the things written; do not seek the things not written. We ought to know what must be spoken and what must be kept silent. Do not put all words on your tongue, lest you suffer as the eye does, which gazing at the whole sun will destroy even the light it has. How great is God, and what is the measure of God, and of what sort is he in essence? Such things are dangerous for the one asking, but a difficulty for the one asked; and silence is the remedy for such things.

The one who does not humble his own mind, nor say in imitation of the Apostle, "Brothers, I consider myself to have apprehended something," but instead ponders the comprehension of God's essence and measures the unattainable by his own reasoning, and thinks God to be such as he himself has encompassed by his own reasoning, and altogether makes his own mind the measure of things that exist, and does not consider that it is easier to measure the whole sea with a small cup than for the human mind to grasp the ineffable majesty of God—such a one, vainly puffed up and exalted by the futility of his mind, cannot say, "I believed, therefore I spoke." We have been taught by divine Scripture to allow our mind to imagine nothing beyond what is permitted. To remember God continually is pious and has no satiety for the soul that loves God; but to expound the things concerning God in words is rash—the mind falling far short by a great measure of the worth of the things, and again the word presenting faintly the things conceived. If, then, our mind falls far short of the magnitude of the things, and the word is less even than the mind itself, how is silence not necessary, lest in the cheapness of words the wonder of theology seem to be endangered? I tremble in tongue and mind whenever I speak concerning God, and I pray the same for you—the praiseworthy and blessed passion. Humble-minded is mine—not he who speaks little of himself, and that to few and rarely, nor he who addresses humbly the more dishonorable,

But whoever speaks about God with measure—and knows how to state some things, to hold back others, and to confess ignorance of others—is granted the word, and accepts that another is more spiritual and has advanced further in contemplation. By nature every word is unsound and easily moved, and because of the opposing word it has no freedom. But the word about God is so much more so, inasmuch as the subject is greater, the zeal more abundant, and the danger more severe. And what have we feared, what shall we be bold about? Mind, or word, or hearing? In these three, danger tosses us. For to conceive is difficult, to interpret is impossible, and to obtain a purified hearing is more laborious still. What envy is there of a praiseworthy ascent? And what fall is like being pierced by pride, and not knowing the lowliness of human ascent, and how far he who is higher than all still falls short of the true height? Better to labor in one's thoughts with the guidance of the Spirit than to rush into impiety, pursuing ease. Neither has anyone ever breathed the whole air, nor has mind contained the essence of God entirely, nor has voice encompassed it. One theology suits those whose mind has been completely purified—the one that is especially true; another suits the many—the one able to call their mind to piety and right action in their fellowship with one another, releasing them from a beastly life. What then is that light, by which this murky cave of human nature is not illuminated in the present life? Or perhaps desire looks toward something unattainable and incomprehensible?

For what word among us is of such a kind as to trace out the nature of that which is sought? Who could discover such a meaning of names and words as to produce in us a conception worthy of the light that lies above? How shall I name the immortal? How shall I set forth the immaterial? How shall I show the formless? How shall I distinguish the magnitude-less, the quantity-less, the quality-less, the shapeless, that which is found neither in place nor in time, that which is beyond every attempt and every definitive imagination? Whose work is life, and the subsistence of all things that are conceived according to the good? But lest the word labor in vain, stretching itself toward things that cannot be contained—for it is impossible for this to come under comprehension—let us cease from our busy inquiry, having gained from the things sought only this much: to imprint through them some ineffable conception of greatness. And by as much as we believe the good to be higher in nature than our knowledge, by so much the more do we intensify grief for ourselves, because of this—which surpasses every power of comprehension—we humans once were in participation. The divine nature is unmasterable and heaven-running, unattainable to those who pursue, drawing near to those who believe. Human words cannot interpret the essence of God. There are times when they even attempt to theologize, where both the truth is unattainable and conjecture is dangerous. If you seek God, O mind, going out from yourself, seek him.

Title D. — Concerning love and fear of God; and that they surpass every good thing. "The angel of the Lord called Abraham from heaven and said to him: Abraham. And he said: Behold, I am here. And he said: Do not lay your hand on the child, nor do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, and you did not spare your beloved son for my sake." "And now, Israel, what does the Lord God require of you, except to fear him and to walk in all his ways?" "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength." "The Lord is the strength of those who fear him." "Let all the earth fear the Lord. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him." "The angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him, and he will deliver them. Fear the Lord, all you his saints." "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord." "Nail my flesh with your fear." "Blessed are all those who fear the Lord." "He does not delight in the strength of a horse, nor does he take pleasure in the legs of a man," and the rest. "The Lord will give wisdom, and he will guard the path of those who revere him." "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, and it makes one turn aside from the snare of death." "The fear of the Lord hates evil." "The fear of the Lord adds days. The fear of the Lord is a stronghold of the holy." "By the fear of the Lord everyone turns aside from evils." "The Lord shields those who revere him." "Fear God, and turn aside from every evil; then there will be healing for your body, and care for your bones." "In the fear of the Lord is the hope of strength." "The end of the matter, hear the whole:

Fear God, and keep his commandments. "For those who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, and in his wings there is healing." "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be in awe before him." "The fear of the Lord is glory and boasting. The fear of the Lord will delight the heart, and will give gladness and joy and length of days. For the one who fears the Lord, it will be well in the last days. The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord; the crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord, and its branches are length of days. Wisdom and instruction are the fear of the Lord. Do not disobey the fear of the Lord, and do not draw near to him with a double heart." "The spirit of those who fear the Lord will live, for their hope is in the one who saves them. The eyes of the Lord are upon those who love him; the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him." "You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy, and do not turn aside, lest you fall. Those who fear the Lord will not disobey his words; and those who love him will fulfill his ways." "No evil will befall the one who fears the Lord, but in trial and struggle he will be delivered. Wealth and strength lift up the heart, but above both is the fear of the Lord." "The one who fears the Lord guides his friends aright." "Let your boasting be in the fear of the Lord." "What honorable seed is there? Those who fear the Lord. Rich and glorious and poor, their boasting is the fear of the Lord." "You who fear the Lord, believe in him, and your reward will certainly not fall.

You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, and for eternal gladness and mercy. "The Mighty One and Judge, and the Sovereign shall be glorified, and there is none among them greater than the one who fears the Lord." "All wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Nothing is better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing is sweeter than to attend to the commandments of the Lord." "The one who fears the Lord will be afraid of nothing. Blessed is the soul of the one who fears the Lord." "The one who fears the Lord will await instruction." "Those who fear the Lord will find judgment and righteous decrees, and they will shine forth as a light." "There is no diminution in the fear of the Lord; the fear of the Lord is like a paradise of blessing." "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; rather fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." "As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love." "Peter opened his mouth and said: In truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation the one who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him." "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God." "If anyone loves God, this one is known by him." The fear of the Lord is a purification of the soul, according to the prayer of the Prophet who says:

Nail down my flesh with your fear," since wherever fear dwells, every evil and unholy deed flees away, and the members of the body are unable to be moved toward improper activities because they have been nailed fast by fear. For just as a man who has bodily nails driven into him is inactive, held fast by pains, so the one seized by the fear of God cannot use his eye for what he should not, nor move his hands toward forbidden deeds, nor at all

accomplish anything small or great beyond what is fitting—as though inflamed by a certain pain through the expectation of threatened punishments. We are required to render love toward God as a necessary debt, which, when the soul falls short, is of all evils the most unbearable. For alienation and turning away from God is more unbearable and heavier for the one who suffers it than the punishments expected in Gehenna, as for the eye the deprivation of light is, even if no pain be present. The fear of the Lord prevails over the soul for all manner of right actions. This is love toward God: to stretch the soul out always beyond its power. For just as for the ox and the donkey, from the beneficence of the one who feeds them, love toward him arises of itself, so too for us, if we receive benefactions with sensitivity and gratitude. How shall we not love God, the benefactor of such great and so great things, by nature—so to speak—this disposition arising untaught in the healthy soul? The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, as it were a first swaddling-cloth; and wisdom, having surpassed fear and raised us up to love, makes us friends and sons of God instead of slaves.

It is also good to withdraw a little, as that Moses did long ago, and Jeremiah later, and to run readily to the one who calls, as Aaron and Isaiah did—both only in a pious manner: the one because of his own weakness, the other because of the power of the one who calls. Reason will not be able to accomplish as much as fear accomplishes. What is harsher than Gehenna? But nothing is more useful than the fear of it. For the fear of Gehenna brings us the crown of the kingdom. Just as in the house of a soldier who is continually armed, no robber, no burglar, no other of those who perpetrate such evils will dare to appear nearby; so, when fear holds our souls, none of the slavish passions easily enters us, but they flee and are put to flight, driven out from every side by the tyranny of fear. And this is not the only fruit we reap from fear, but also another far greater. For it not only drives out our evil passions, but also introduces all virtue with great ease. For nothing so devours sins and makes virtue grow and flourish as the nature of continual fear. Therefore it is impossible for one who does not live with fear to succeed, just as it is impossible for one who lives in fear to fail. Fear is nothing other than a wall, and safety, and an invincible tower. The fear of the impassible God is impassible; for one fears, not God, but falling away from God. And he who dreads this—falling into evils—fears and dreads evils; and he who dreads the fall wishes himself to be incorruptible and impassible.

It is impossible for one who truly fears God to have cowardice, since it has been said: "Only him you shall not fear, another." One who fears God does everything according to God. God is said to be fearsome; but not in the sense of having the fear of a deadly beast or a savage man. For God is light, and the rest. How then shall we fear light, or life, or truth, or resurrection? It is as if someone were living on a high mountain, and it is said that he fears it—he does not fear the mountain, but lest he fall from it. Therefore we too fear God, fearing to fall from the light, and the life, and the truth, and the knowledge.

Title 5. — On contending against God; and that one must not contend, or plead one's cause, against God.

"It shall be reckoned to us as lawlessness, when we speak many words before the Lord." "You are not a man like me, with whom I might enter into judgment, that we might come together in judgment." "Why am I still judged, being admonished and reproved by the Lord, hearing such things when I am nothing? And what answer shall I give? I will put my hand over my mouth; I have spoken once, and I will not add a second time." "May it not be for me to act impiously before the Lord, or to disturb justice before the Almighty." "Do not be hasty with your mouth, and the

Let your heart not be hasty to bring forth a word before the face of God. "Shall the thing formed say to the one who formed it, You did not form me? Or the work to the one who made it, You did not make me skillfully?" "Shall the clay say to the potter, What are you making? What are you working, and you have no hands? And shall the thing formed not answer back to the one who formed it? Or the one who says to the father, What did you beget? and to the mother, Why do you labor in childbirth?" "The one who has not thought evil against the Lord will be given the chosen grace of faith." "Do not justify yourself before the Lord." "O man, indeed, who are you that answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to the one who formed it, Why did you make me thus? Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" "Let us not tempt the Lord, as some of them tempted, and were destroyed by the serpents." Those who dare to contradict God say: Why in our constitution do we not possess sinlessness, so that sinning is not even in our power when we wish it? Because you too do not consider your servants well-disposed when you hold them in chains, but when you see them willingly fulfilling their duties to you. And what is dear to God is not what is compelled, but what is accomplished from virtue. And virtue comes from free choice, and not from necessity. Therefore the one who blames the Maker, as though he had not by nature constructed us sinless, does nothing other than prefer the irrational nature to the rational, and the motionless and impulse-less to the free-choosing and active. Let no one, I beg, correct the Lord, nor let it be said that it is beneficial for us that this should happen, and not that altogether.

For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor?" For he judges in thick darkness, according to Job, and his hiding-place is a cloud, and he will not be seen. He has seen the remedies that urge us from vice to virtue, and from ignorance to the knowledge of God. Check, O man, your impulse; put a lever and a door upon your tongue; leap away from such cold and idle tale-telling. Leave to God in all things both the knowing and the doing of whatever is fitting for him.

Title 6. — Concerning angels: that even angels who sinned are punished. "By his command he put to death the apostate dragon." "God did not spare those who sinned, but having cast them down to Tartarus with chains of darkness, he delivered them to be kept in judgment, being punished." "Angels who did not keep their own principality, but left their own dwelling-place, he has kept in eternal chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day." All angels, as they share the same name, so also surely share the same nature. Though the substance of the angels is most radiant, or rather heavenly, there is not found in them one distinct species or one form; for they are not hard and resistant natures of bodies. "Their legs were straight, and their feet were winged," the great Ezekiel said concerning the angels; which signifies the unwavering quality of their purpose, and the swift motion of that nature toward its thoughts. We honor angels, not because of their nature, but because of their virtue; and we dishonor demons because of the wickedness that dwells in them. The essences of the angels are spiritual; but they are often likened to the forms of men, being transformed according to the needs that present themselves.

TITLE 7. – Concerning angels: that God has set guardian angels over us. "Behold, I send my angel before your face, to guard you in the way, that he may bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Take heed to yourself, and listen to him, and do not disobey him; for he will not withdraw from you. For my name is in him." "He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God." "See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I say to you that their angels in heaven behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." As though

the Apostle, knowing the angels to be appointed over men as tutors or guardians of children, called them to witness. Holy angels guard the saints as guides to the light, but dark ones guard the wicked. Wealth of knowledge and wisdom adds many angels to us; but the unclean man is separated even from the angel given to him from childhood. For spiritual friendship is virtue and knowledge of God, through which we are joined in friendship with the holy powers, since indeed repentant men become a cause of joy to the angels.

TITLE 8. – Concerning the formation and making of man. "God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them." "God formed man, taking dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. God brought a trance upon Adam; and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh in its place, and built it into a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her man; for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall be one flesh." "Your hands made me and formed me; you clothed me with skin and flesh, and wove me together with bones and sinews. Remember that you formed me as clay, and you turn me back again to earth." "But all things are vanity, every man living;

Surely a man walks in an image, yet he is troubled in vain. You will take away their spirit, and they will fail, and they will return to their dust. All things came from the dust, and all things will return to the earth. God created man for incorruptibility, and made him in the image of his own eternity. You who made all things by your word and prepared man by your wisdom, so that he might rule over the creatures that came to be by you, and govern the world in holiness and righteousness, and judge judgment in uprightness. I too am a mortal man, equal to all and a descendant of the earth-born first-formed man, and in my mother's womb I was molded as flesh, hardened in blood over a period of ten months, from the seed of a man, and from pleasure that came together in sleep. And I too, when I was born, drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth that suffers the same things, and I wept with my first cry, the same as all alike; I was reared in swaddling clothes and in cares. For no king had any other beginning of birth; but there is one entrance into the world for all, and an equal exit. The Lord created man from the earth; he gave him a number of days and a time, and he gave him authority over it. He made him in his own image, and he set his fear upon all flesh, to have dominion over beasts and reptiles.

He filled him with counsel and understanding, and with eyes and the knowledge of prudence, and he showed him good and evil. "All things that are from the earth shall return to the earth." "We are his workmanship, created in good works in Christ Jesus, which God prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them." "Willing it, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." He himself, the Creator and Master of all things, rejoices in his works. For by his exceedingly great might he established the heavens, and by his incomprehensible understanding he set them in order; and he separated the earth from the water that surrounds it, and he founded it upon the secure foundation of his own will. In addition to these things, he fashioned the most excellent and mighty man with his own blameless hands, the impress of his own image. For thus says God: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness. And God made man; male and female he made

These things then, having completed all, he made them, and blessed them, and said: "Increase and multiply." Who has fastened the bones with an unmelting substance? And who has bound the limbs to be stretched by sinews and to be relaxed, being bent at the joints? Who is it who has leavened the humors, moistening them with blood, and made for us soft flesh from dust? He alone, the master craftsman, who fashioned the most rational image and living man, us, for himself, and molded us like wax from moist and very small seeds in the womb. For who is it who provides that the embryo not be suffocated by the moisture, and be shut in by the confinement of the vessels within? Or who is it who, after birth and coming into the light, transforms it into size and beauty and strength from weak and small, if not this very master craftsman, as I said, God, reshaping by his creative power and repainting the forms? God is immortality and life and incorruption; and man is the work of God; and everything wrought by immortality is immortal. Therefore he himself made man directly; but the remaining kinds of animals he commanded the air and the earth and the water to bring forth: "Let the waters," he says, "bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying over the earth, according to the firmament of heaven." And, "Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to kind: four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to kind." But concerning man it is no longer, "Let it bring forth," but, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." And, "God took dust from the earth, and formed him." God created the body, not disease; and God made the soul, but not sin.

But the soul was made evil by being turned aside from what is according to nature. Adam was once above—not in place, but in his choice. Why were his garments not prepared for him immediately as well? Because it was fitting that these be neither natural nor from craft. For natural things are proper to irrational animals—such as feathers and hair, and thickness of hides, which are able to keep out winters and endure heat—but for man it was fitting that, in proportion to his love toward God, the repayments of good things be different. Consider what power is given from the soul to the flesh, and what sympathy returns from the flesh to the soul; how the body receives life from the soul, and the soul receives pains from the body; what storehouses of learning it has; why the addition of things learned later does not obscure the knowledge of things previously grasped, but the memories are kept both confused and distinct, as if engraved on some bronze pillar in the ruling part of the soul; how, slipping toward the passions of the flesh, it loses its own beauty; and how again, being cleansed by virtue from the shame of vice, it runs back toward the likeness of the Creator. Attend, if you please, after the contemplation of the soul also to the construction of the body; and marvel how the master craftsman made in it a dwelling fitting for the rational soul. He formed man alone of the animals upright, so that from the shape you might see that your life is from kinship above.

For all four-footed animals bend down toward the belly, but for man the upward look toward heaven is ready at hand, so that he should not devote himself to the belly, nor to the passions beneath the belly, but should have his whole impulse to journey upward. Then, placing the head at the highest point, he established in it the senses of greatest worth. There are sight, and hearing, and taste, and smell, all dwelling near one another, and thus crowded into a small space, yet none of them hinders the activity of its neighbor. We were brought into being though we were not, and we were made in the image of the Creator, having mind and reason that complete our nature, through which we came to know God. This world itself is mortal, and a place of those who die. For since the constitution of things seen is composite, and everything composite is by nature dissolved, we who live in the world, being parts of the world, necessarily partake of the nature of the whole. Things that began from time must in every way also be brought to an end in time.

If it has a temporal beginning, do not doubt about the end. Who is he who by wisdom fashioned man, and brought the things that were separated into one, and mixed the dust with the spirit, and composed a living being visible and invisible, temporary and immortal, earthly and heavenly, touching God and not grasping him, drawing near and drawing far away? How I was yoked together, I do not know, and how I am an image of God, and yet am mingled with the clay. That which even when in good condition wages war, and when warred against causes distress; which I love as a fellow slave, and turn away from as an enemy; which I flee as a bond, and am ashamed of as a co-heir. I am eager to melt it away, and I do not have with what helper I shall use it for the best ends, as one who knows what I have been made for, and that I must stretch upward toward God through my actions. I spare it as a fellow worker, and I do not have how to escape the uprising, or how not to fall from God, weighed down by the fetters that drag me down or hold me to the ground. It is a kindly enemy, and a plotting friend. O the yoking together and the estrangement. What I fear, I cherish; what I love, I dread; before waging war, I am reconciled; and before making peace, I stand apart. What is this wisdom concerning me? And what is the great mystery concerning me?

Or what does it mean that we, being a portion of God and having flowed down from above, should not—exalted and lifted up by our worth and despising the Creator—in the struggle and battle against the body always look to him, and that the weakness yoked together with us is a discipline of our dignity, so that we who are both the greatest and the lowliest, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, may know ourselves as heirs of light or of fire, or of darkness, whichever way we incline? Such is our mixture, and for these reasons—as at least it appears to me—so that when we are lifted up because of the image, we may be brought low because of the dust. Order established man as a living being from a compound of rational and irrational, and mystically and ineffably bound the dust to the mind, the mind to the spirit; and in order to work some greater wonder in his own creature, it both preserved the same and dissolved it. For it brought one thing in and led another out, as it were in a stream, and procured immortality for the mortal through dissolution. What is our mixture? What is our motion? How was the immortal blended with the mortal? How do I flow downward and am carried upward? How is the soul borne about, and gives life, and partakes of passion? How is the mind circumscribed and unbounded, remaining in us and traversing all things with the swiftness of its motion and flux? How is it partaken of by reason and imparted, and passes through the air, and enters with things from the senses? We were not born to eat and drink and clothe ourselves, but to flee vice and choose virtue, laying hold of the divine philosophy.

For we were not born so that we might eat and drink, but for other things far greater and better; hear God stating the reason for which he made man. For when he was fashioning him, he speaks somehow thus: "Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness." And we become like God, not by eating and drinking and clothing ourselves—for God neither eats nor drinks nor clothes himself—but by practicing righteousness and showing love for mankind, being kind and gentle, showing mercy to our neighbors, pursuing every virtue; since eating and drinking is common to us with the nature of irrational beasts, and in this respect we are not even better than they. What did the wise men of the Greeks profit, who devised arguments but did not recognize the giver of reason? What did Plato profit, who widened his mouth but did not benefit his soul? Did not those who discoursed much about the soul grow cold in themselves, unwilling to recognize the one who breathed the soul into them? For if they had known the maker of all things, they would have been persuaded by Moses the servant, who says: "And God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Do you see how man is the work of God, the living treasure of God, the root of the rational creature, the one in the side

Bearing the woman? Do you see how man was fashioned? How Adam came to be paradoxically? He was fashioned paradoxically, and beyond nature he begot—by nature he begot Cain and Abel, as the divine Scripture says: "Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore." But the thing beyond nature is what is sought: how he begot Eve, his wife and daughter. Even though God created her, nevertheless he borrowed the rib from Adam. Therefore, when he was fashioning her, he cast sleep and ecstasy upon Adam, and took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh in its place. But nevertheless he also put Adam to sleep in ecstasy, and what God did in secret did not escape him; for Adam alone saw Eve; he touched his own rib, and found what was missing, having given it with the addition of flesh, and received a rational living being. Therefore, when God brought the woman to Adam to see what he would call her, Adam answered God and said, "Why have you brought this one to me as a stranger, Master? I am not struck with amazement at the sight. For I recognized my own flesh. You have granted me a rational living being; even if it differs in form, it is united in nature. Let her be called woman; for she was taken from man, and was fashioned from the rib. Let her therefore be under the hand. For she was not taken from the head, but from the rib." In the first seven-year period there is the growth of teeth; in the second, the time to emit fertile seed; the third, the increase of beards; the fourth, advancement toward strength; the fifth, the season of marriages; the sixth, the beginning of understanding; and the seventh, the improvement of both, and the joint increase of mind and reason.

The eighth, the perfection in each. And according to the ninth, the equanimity and gentleness of the passions, when they have been tamed further. And according to the tenth, the desirable end of life, while the instrumental members are still held together. For long old age is wont to trip up and take away each one. The physician Hippocrates says that there are seven ages: of the infant, the child, the youth, the young man, the man, the elder, the old man. And these are measured by sevens, but not by the ones in succession. And he says thus: "In the nature of man there are seven seasons, which they call ages: infant, child, youth, young man, man, elder, old man. And an infant is until seven years, that is, of the casting forth of the teeth. And a child until the growth of seed, to twice seven. A youth until the downing of the beard, to thrice seven; and a young man until the growth of the whole body, to four times seven. And a man until one short of fifty; and an elder, until fifty, to seven times eight. And from there on, an old man." It is possible for a man himself to become a grandfather in his thirtieth year. For he comes to puberty around the fourteenth year, in which he sows, and what is sown, having come to be within a year, in turn in the fifteenth year begets one like himself. Everything that has a beginning also admits an end. And what admits an end is capable of corruption. TITLE 9. — Concerning free will: that it is given to us by God, and it is in us to be saved and to perish.

I testify to you today by heaven and earth: I have set life and death before your face, and the blessing, and the curse." "I said to my soul: Your salvation is I." "The Lord from the beginning made man, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He set before you fire and water; whichever you wish, stretch out your hand. Before man are life and death, and whichever he approves." "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you." "Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey?" They wish to do well for you; God is ready to provide. He has set, it says, before your face life and death, the good and the evil, two opposing natures. Weigh them against each other at your own tribunal; weigh them accurately, which is more profitable for you: to choose the temporary pleasure, and through it to receive eternal death, or to choose hardship in the practice of virtue, and use this as the means to eternal delight. The evils in Hades have not God as their cause, but ourselves. For the beginning and root of all sin is what is in our power, and free will. The soul shows forth the royal and exalted from the very outset, separated far from common lowliness, by the fact that it is without a master and free, governed autocratically by its own wills. For whose is this, if not a king's? Let us love the blessing, and flee the curse. For it is in our power to choose each according to our authority, toward whatever we incline in our eagerness. God does not converse with us in everything in a straight line.

For he wishes them to be good willingly, not because of any inability of his own—far be it!—but because of our weakness. For it is enough for him to nod, or rather to do whatever he wishes. But we, once we have become masters of ourselves, do not endure to obey him in all things. But if he drags them unwilling, he will take away what he gave, the freedom of authority. Knowing that both the willing and the running are in us, and through the willing and the running let us draw God to our aid; and having drawn him, we shall come to the end of matters. Let us rouse ourselves, then, brothers, and show all zeal in the salvation of our soul, so that having labored here a little time, in the ageless and immortal age we may enjoy the good things of the immortals. God, having formed man in the beginning, suspended the things of nature upon his will, making one commandment the means of testing; for if he kept it, he made him to be of the immortal lot; but if he transgressed it, of the opposite. Choice belongs to man as free; the giving belongs to God as Lord; and he gives to those who wish and are exceedingly eager and ask, so that in this way salvation may become his own. For God does not compel; for force is hateful to God; but he provides for those who seek, and grants to those who ask, and opens to those who knock. God breathes together with souls that wish it. But if they fall away from their eagerness, the spirit given by God is also withdrawn.

God made man free and self-determining, so that what man did not do for himself through negligence and disobedience, God might grant him through love for humanity and mercy, when man obeys him. For just as man, by disobeying, drew death upon himself, so by obeying the will of God he can procure for himself eternal life. For God has given us holy commandments, which everyone who keeps them can be saved, and having obtained the resurrection will inherit incorruption. It was in your power both to enjoy the light and to live with the darkness. Before the first-formed man transgressed and broke faith, he had all the wild beasts tame, doing him no harm at all. "I am the door," said the Lord. The treasures, then, of wisdom and knowledge are hidden inside the door. Some say concerning man whatever good and evil things he must do. Many, then, falling into evils through the evil one, say: "Woe to his star"; and again, that men die according to what is given, either in a river, or on a cliff, or in whatever manner. And in babbling these vain things they sin. For God gave man self-determining free choice, and showed him the way of light and of darkness. He speaks of gain and loss through the prophet Isaiah: "If you are willing, and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the earth; but if you are not willing, nor listen to me, I do not compel you." For what comes about by necessity has no gain. I have not set boundaries; I have not appointed for you either good or evil.

Since if he had commanded me to commit murder or obviously fornication, I would have had to do them; for it is impossible to contradict his command. Or who will judge me for keeping his commandments? God is never the willer of evil for men. For the temptations that come upon men are from the evil one, as the Apostle says: "Let no one being tempted say, 'I am tempted by God.' For God is untemptable by evils, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted by his own desire." And if you do good, ascribe it to God's love for humanity; but if evil, ascribe it to the devil's wickedness. TITLE 10. — On the unstable and uncertain condition of human affairs; and what man resembles, and his life; and that present things are vain, and weaker than a shadow.

"You are strangers and sojourners before me." "We are sojourners before you, and dwellers, as all our fathers were. Our days are like a shadow upon the earth." "Naked I came out from my mother's womb, and naked I shall go there. My life is lighter than a word." "Our life is a shadow upon the earth." "Man, born of woman, is short-lived and full of wrath. Or like a flower that bloomed he fell away; he fled like a shadow, and shall not stand." "Man is rottenness, and the son of man a worm." "I have considered myself earth and ashes." "I am a worm, and not a man." "Behold, you have made my days a handbreadth.

I am a sojourner with you and a stranger. Remember that we are dust. He remembered that they are flesh, a spirit that passes away and does not return. Our years pondered like a spider. My days have failed like smoke. Man's days are like grass. Man, likened to vanity, my days pass like a shadow. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. For I praised the dead, those already dead, more than the living, and better than both of these is he who has not yet been born, who does not know all the work that is done under the sun. All the labor of man is for his mouth. What advantage has man over the beast? None, for all is vanity. All his days are sorrows and a distraction of wrath. Even at night his heart does not sleep. For this too is vanity. As he came out naked from his mother's womb, he will return to go as he came, and he will take nothing from his labor to carry in his hand; indeed this is a grievous infirmity; for as he came, so he will depart. Your fathers and the prophets, where are they? Will they live forever? All flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass has dried up, and its flower has fallen. Behold, all of you will grow old like a garment, and the moth will devour you. Do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be defeated by their contempt; for like a garment they will grow old, and they will be eaten by a moth. Our breath is smoke in our nostrils; and our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud.

For our life is a passing of a shadow. What did our pride profit us, and what has wealth with boasting brought us? All those things passed by like a shadow, and like a report that runs past, like a ship passing through the swelling water; when it has gone by, there is no trace to be found, nor a path of its journey in the waves; or like a bird flying through the air, no evidence of its journey is found. All flesh grows old like a garment, like a leaf flourishing on a thick tree—some it casts down, others it brings forth. So is the generation of flesh and blood. All men are earth and ashes. We are strangers and sojourners on the earth. The number of a man's days is many years, a hundred; like a drop of water from the sea, and a grain of sand, so few are the years in the days of eternity. We brought nothing into the world; it is clear that we can carry nothing out. What is our life? For it is a vapor that appears for a little while, and then is also vanishing away. Life is called a road because of the haste of each of those born toward the end. For just as those who sleep in ships, carried of themselves by the wind to harbors

They are drawn along, even if they themselves do not perceive it, but her course hastens toward the end; so too we, as the time of our life flows past, are each driven toward his own end by the hidden course of our life, as it were by some continuous and ceaseless motion. Are you sleeping? Time runs past you. Have you woken, and is your mind occupied? Yet all the same life is being spent, even if it escapes your perception. Therefore we all run with a course, each hastening toward his own end. For this reason we are all on a road; and thus you may grasp the meaning of the road: you stand as a traveler in this life, all things pass by, all things come to be behind you. Did you see on the road a plant, or grass, or whatever else of things worth seeing? You were pleased a little, then you ran past. Again you encountered stones, and ravines, and cliffs, and crags, or perhaps also wild beasts, and reptiles, and thorns, or some other of the troublesome things? You were vexed a little, then you left them behind. Such is life, possessing neither its delights as lasting nor its sorrows as enduring. The road is not yours, nor are the present things yours; in the case of those who travel, the first has no sooner moved his footprint than immediately the one after him has brought his step, and after him the one following. Consider whether the things of life are not similar. Today you have farmed the earth, and tomorrow another, and after him another. Do you see these fields, and the costly houses? How many kinds of names has each of these exchanged? It was said to belong to so-and-so. Then it was renamed for another; it passed to so-and-so; then now it is said to belong to another.

Is not life, then, a road, taking up now one thing and now another, and holding all people following one after another? “Blessed, then, is the one who has not stood in the way of sinners.” When you see the grass of the field and the flower of the grass, come to a thought of human nature, remembering the image of the wise Isaiah, who said, “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.” For the brevity of life and the brief exultation and cheerfulness of human prosperity have obtained a most timely image in the prophet. The one who today is flourishing in body, made fat with luxury, having a blooming complexion, vigorous with the prime of his age, intense and irresistible in impulse—tomorrow this same man is pitiable, either withered by time or dissolved by disease. So-and-so is conspicuous for abundance of wealth, and a crowd of flatterers around him, a bodyguard of pretended friends tending his favor, a multitude of kin—and that kin too shaped to appearance—a countless swarm of followers, both those who provision him and those who attend him for other needs; and those whom, going out and coming back again, he drags along with him, he is envied by those who meet him. Add to wealth also some political power, and honors from kings, or the administration of nations, or command of armies; the herald crying aloud before him, the rod-bearers on either side casting the heaviest consternation into those who are ruled, the blows, the confiscations, the arrests, the prisons, from which an unspeakable fear is gathered up among those subject to him. And what after this?

A single night and a fever, or pleurisy, or pneumonia, snatching a man away from among men, carries him off, suddenly stripping bare his whole tent, and that glory of his was proved to be like a dream. So the prophet has been assigned the comparison of human nature to the more feeble flower. Nothing human is stable; but some things come forth from non-being into perfection, while others, having reached their own prime and been increased to their utmost measure, again waste away and are dissolved by gradual removals, and being diminished are brought down—so that from the sight of the moon we are taught about our own affairs, and, taking thought of the swift revolution of human things, we should not be proud in the prosperities of life, nor exult in powers, nor be lifted up by the uncertainty of wealth; to despise the flesh, in which is the alteration, but to care for the soul, whose good is immovable. But if the moon grieves you, making its light vanish by gradual removals, let a soul grieve you more, one that has not acquired virtue and through carelessness causes the beautiful to vanish, and never remains in the same disposition, but is often turned and changed because of the instability of its purpose. This life we find in many places called waters and sea by the divine Scripture; as in the psalm, “He sent from on high, and took me; he drew me out of many waters.” For it is evident that he calls the turmoil of life waters.

For neither do the things on the right hand and much sought after by the many possess stability and permanence, nor are the adverse and gloomy circumstances of affairs firmly established; but all things are subject to a certain tossing and surge and unexpected changes. Just as it is impossible for the same sea to endure for long—for the one now very calm you will see a little later violently roughened by winds, and again the one raging and boiling with the surge, a deep calm quickly laid it to rest—so also the affairs of life readily receive reversals to either side. Nothing of human things is firm, nor is it by nature disposed to remain wholly with those who have acquired it. These human things are weaker than a shadow, and more deceptive than dreams; for either youth flows away more swiftly than spring flowers, and the bloom of the body withers, either by time or by disease. And wealth is untrustworthy, and glory easily overturned, and the labors spent upon the arts are brought to completion in this time, but even the thing much sought after by all—few have the grace of it even as far as hearing. Are you proud of wealth? And do you think greatly of your ancestors, and exult in your fatherland, and in the beauty of your body, and in the honors from all? Attend to yourself, that you are mortal, and shall depart to the earth. Look around at those before you who were examined in similar splendors. Where are those who were clothed in political powers? Where are the rhetoricians most difficult to fight against? Where are those who arranged the festivals? The splendid horsemen? The generals? The satraps? The tyrants? Is not everything dust, is not everything a myth? Are not their memorials of life in a few bones?

Stoop down into the tombs, if you can distinguish who is the servant and who is the master; who is the poor man and who is the rich. Distinguish, if you have any power, the prisoner from the king, the strong from the weak, the comely from the ill-favored. Remembering therefore your nature, you will never be lifted up. Human beings are like clouds, borne now to one part of the air and now to another by the changes of the winds. By nature nothing human is stable, nor even, nor self-sufficient, nor standing upon the same things; but a kind of cycle runs round our affairs, bringing different things at different times, often within a single day, and sometimes even changes within an hour, so that one may sooner trust in breezes that do not stand still, and in the tracks of a ship that sails the sea, and in the deceptive dreams of night, whose grace lasts but a little while, and in children who mold figures in the sand as they play, than in the prosperity of human beings. For these things are fluid and temporary, and, as in a game of pebbles, are tossed now to one and now to another; and nothing is so much the possession of the one who holds it as not to be ended by time or transferred by envy. Nothing is unmoved, as I said, nor even, nor self-sufficient, nor alike to the end; neither is wealth, nor poverty, nor power, nor weakness, nor lowliness, nor dominion, nor things present, nor things to come, nor things that are ours, nor what belongs to another, nor small nor greater, nor whatever one may name, a cause for good cheer. And this is equal even if equality holds it: the change concerning all things. For all things go round easily, and pass over, and are replaced; so that one may sooner trust in breezes, and in writing upon water, than in the prosperity of human beings.

I have died to this wretched life, which is borne up and down like the Euripus, bringing nothing firm, not even for a day. Such is our life, brothers; such is the plaything upon the earth: that those who were not should come to be, and having come to be should be dissolved. We are a dream that does not stand, a phantom that is not held, the flight of a passing bird, a ship upon the sea leaving no trace: dust, vapor, morning dew, a flower that blooms in its season and in its season is loosed. "Man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so shall he blossom." Well did the divine David philosophize about our weakness, also in those words: "Declare to me the fewness of my days"; and he defines human days by the measure of a span. Many are the paths of this much-suffering life, and one is mingled with different harms. Wealth is faithless; rule and prosperity are the contempt of dreams; and to rule is toil, and poverty is a bond; beauty that shines and flashes forth is a little grace; youth is the heat of time; old age is the sorrowful end of life; glory is as air; strength is as the grass of the chaff in the field. Excess is disorder; marriage is bonds; the good fortune of children is a compelling care; the misfortune of children is sickness and pain; and the marketplaces are cares of wickedness; and solitude is weakness. Strange food is narrow and shameful; and to plow the earth is toil; for seafarers, for the most part, it is in Hades; and one's homeland is a private pit; and sojourning abroad is a reproach. All things here are toil for men, all things are mockery, winnowed chaff, a shadow, and a fantasy.

Dew, wind, a feather, a vapor, a spark, a dream, a rush of stream, a ship's track, ashes, a wheel ever turning—all things are like cylinders, standing still and running, loosened and congealed, in hours, days, nights, toils, deaths, griefs, pleasures, sicknesses, falls, misfortunes. And of human things nothing is more feeble; one thing alone is firm and good for men: to depart from here bearing the cross, with tears and groans and a mind set on divine cares and hopes, and made radiant by the Trinity, the heavenly, which is mingled with the pure. Woe to me for the harms of this life, which is too long! How long shall I sit by the dung? What is life? What is living? Leaping from a tomb, journeying again to a tomb; and from the tomb again I am buried in fire abruptly. And this very thing, as much as I breathe, is the flow of a river running, ever departing and coming from behind, having or bringing nothing firm again; as much dust as sprinkles the eyes, that I may fall far from God. Man is a plaything. I and time run past one another like a bird or like ships in the sea, having nothing firm. But what I have sinned does not run past, but remains with life. The region around the earth is of things turning and changing. Always, and especially now, it is timely to say: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Where is the bright robe of the consulate? Where are the cheerful torches? Where are the clappings, and the dances, and the blooming festivities, and the festivals? Where are the crowns, and the curtains?

Where is the clamor of the city, and the acclamations at the horse races, and the flatteries of the theaters? All those things are gone; and a wind blew suddenly, and it cast down the leaves, and showed us the tree naked, and henceforth shaken from its very root. For such is the assault of the wind, as to threaten to tear it up root and all, and to shake the very sinews of the tree. Where now are the friends who went astray? Where are the masks of the flatterers? Where are the banquets and the dinners, and the swarm of parasites, and the unmixed wine poured out through the whole day, and the varied arts of the cooks, and the servants of power? Those who do and say everything to please? All those things were night and a dream, and when day came they vanished. They were spring flowers, and when spring passed they all withered; they were a shadow, and it passed by; they were smoke, and it was dissolved; they were bubbles, and they burst; it was a spider's web, and it was torn apart. Therefore let us again apply this spiritual incantation, saying continually: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." This saying, both on walls, and on garments, and in marketplaces, and in houses, and in streets, and at doors, and at entrances,

And it ought to have been continually inscribed both in the streets and, before all things, in each person's conscience, and to be meditated on at all times. Since the deceit of things is great, and the masks and the hypocrisy seem to most people to be some kind of truth, each person ought to have said these things every day, both at dinner and at lunch and in gatherings, to his neighbor, and to hear them from his neighbor: "Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity." Did I not say continually that wealth is a runaway slave? But you did not endure us. Did I not say that it is an ungrateful servant? But you were unwilling to be persuaded. Behold, the experience of things has taught you that it is not only a runaway slave, nor an ungrateful servant, but also a murderer; for this is what has made you tremble now and be afraid. Did I not say continually, when you rebuked me as I told you the truth, that I love you more than those who flatter you? Did I not say that I, the one who reproves, care more than those who gratify? Did I not add to these words that the wounds of friends are more trustworthy than the willing kisses of enemies? If you had listened to my wounds, those kisses of theirs would not have given birth to this death for you. For my wounds work health, but their kisses produced an incurable disease. Where now are the cupbearers? Where are those who fawn in the marketplace and weave countless praises for all? They have run away; they have denied friendship, procuring safety for themselves through your ignorance. They do not dare to come near; and the Church that was warred against by you has spread out her bosom and received you.

But the theaters that were attended to, about which I often conversed with you, betrayed and destroyed him, yet we did not cease always saying: Why do you do these things? You are making the city frantic and carrying it down precipices. And you ran past all of it. And the horse races, which wickedly squandered your wealth, sharpened the sword, and the Church, having enjoyed irrational and untimely anger, runs everywhere, eager to snatch you from these nets. And I say these things not trampling on the fallen, not reopening the wounds of the wounded man, not sinking the one tossed by the waves, but I instruct those sailing with a fair wind not to become submerged. For nothing of human affairs is more rotten. Therefore, whatever name of their worthlessness one might utter, he will speak less than the truth, whether he names smoke, or shadow, or grass, or a dream, or spring flowers, or anything else at all, and more nothing than things that are nothing, along with their nothingness it has much that is precipitous. For who has become higher than this man? Did he not surpass the whole inhabited world in wealth? Did he not ascend to the very summits of dignities? Was he not fearsome even to those wearing diadems themselves? Did not all tremble and fear him? But behold, he has become more wretched than prisoners, and more pitiable than household slaves, and poorer than the beggars themselves wasting away with hunger, seeing sharpened swords every hour, and a pit, and executioners, and the leading away to death; and he does not even know if he ever was in that pleasure; he does not even perceive its ray, but at high noon, as in the thickest night, surrounded—

Thus his eyes have been blinded. But rather, however much we may strive, we shall not be able to set forth in speech the suffering that he is likely to endure, perhaps expecting to be cut off at any hour. For the former time, when they came against him from the imperial courts wanting to drag him to his house, he ran to the sacred vessels; his face was boxwood, and in no better condition than that of one already dead. And there was a chattering of teeth, and a clattering, and a trembling of the whole body, and a broken voice, and a loosened tongue, and an appearance such as could melt even a soul of stone. And I say these things not reproaching, nor exulting over his misfortune, but wishing to soften your mind and draw you to pity. Why are you indignant? Because, he says, the man who warred against it continually has fled to the Church. For this very reason one must especially glorify God, that he allowed him to be brought into such great necessity as to learn both the power of the Church and her love for humanity. She did not remember the wrongs of former things, but spread open the bosoms of her affection. This is brighter than every trophy; this puts the Greeks to shame; this shames the Jews, that having taken the enemy captive she spares him; and like a loving mother she hid him beneath her curtains, and stood against the king's anger, and against the people's fury and unbearable hatred. This is the adornment of the altar. What adornment, he says, that the polluted man, the covetous man, the plunderer of the columns, should touch the altar? Do not say these things;

Since even the harlot who was utterly accursed and unclean touched the feet of Jesus, and it was no charge against Jesus. For the unclean woman did not harm the pure one, but the pure one made the accursed harlot blameless through the touch; do not bear malice against that man, O human. We are servants of the Master who was crucified, who says: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." But he walled off the refuge here with letters and various laws; but behold, through his deeds he learned what he did, and he himself first dissolved the law through what he suffered, and he became a spectacle to the whole inhabited world. And though silent from then on, he sends forth a voice advising all, and saying: Do not do such things, so that you may not suffer such things. And he was shown to be a teacher while silent through his misfortune. And the altar sends forth a great radiance. Now it is most fearful, because it holds the lion bound. And to a royal image a great adornment might come; not when he sits upon the throne clothed in purple, and a diadem only, but also if under the royal feet barbarians bound behind, lying down, nod with their heads. And you all have gathered here, so that you may see human nature convicted. For seeing this man brought down from so great a height, who shook nearly the whole inhabited world, now contracted, and become more cowardly than a hare and a frog, and without bonds nailed to this pillar, and if anything bound fast by fear as by a chain, and fearing and trembling—check the inflammation, and put down the swelling, having philosophized, that "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.

The grass has dried up, and the flower has fallen, because "They will quickly dry up like grass, and quickly fall away like the green plants of the garden"; because "Man has been likened to vanity, and his days are like smoke." Man is troubled, and his end is destroyed. He is troubled, and as though he had never been, he vanishes. He is troubled, and before he is established he is sunk beneath the waves; he is kindled like fire, and reduced to ashes like stubble; he is lifted up like a tempest, and disappears like dust, is fanned into flame like a blaze, is dissolved like smoke, is beautified like a flower, and dries up like grass; he is spread out like a cloud, and diminished like a drop; he is swollen like a bubble, and extinguished like a spark. He is troubled, and of his wealth he carries away only the mire. He is troubled, to gain the stench. He is troubled, and taking nothing from his trouble he departs. His are the troubles, and others' the luxuries; his the labors, and others' the treasures; his the anxieties, and others' the gladness; his the afflictions, and others' the enjoyments; his the robberies, and others' the pleasures; his the curses, and others' the honors; against him the groanings, and with others the abundances; against him the tears, and with others the riches. He is punished in Hades, and others often, reveling in his luxuries, sing; yet in vain is every living man troubled.

Man, the temporary loan of life, the unpostponable debt of death, the untamable living creature of free choice, the self-taught wickedness, the self-moving plotting, the skillful one for villainy, the resourceful one for injustice, the ready one for greed, the insatiable one for gluttony, the arrogant spirit, the boastful boldness, the easily appeased swaggering, the easily caught audacity; the stubborn clay, the proud-minded dust, the puffed-up ash, the easily extinguished spark, the quickly withering flame, the easily fanned wick, the easily destroyed leaf, the quickly drying grass, the easily deadened verdure, the ever-consumed nature. The one threatening today and dying tomorrow; the one today in wealth and tomorrow in the grave; the one today in a diadem and tomorrow in a tomb; the one today among flatterers and tomorrow among worms; the one today among treasures and tomorrow among coffins; the one today being and tomorrow not being; the one just now swaggering and shortly after lamented; the one unbearable in prosperity and inconsolable in adversity; the one ignorant of himself and meddling in things beyond himself; the one not knowing the present and imagining things to come; the one by nature mortal and by presumption, as he thinks, eternal. The easily traversed dwelling-place of every passion; the indifferent plaything of fevers; the daily training-ground of misfortunes; the readily accepting inn of every grief. O how great is the tragedy of our worthlessness! how great the triumph of human weakness! O how much I have said! I have found nothing more fitting than the prophetic voice that says, "But every living man is troubled.

The splendid things of this present life are more useless than a corpse. All present things are feebler than a spider's web and more deceptive than dreams; for both good things and evil things have an end. Knowing, beloved, that present things are like a dream, and that we dwell as in an inn, as those departing at every moment, let us take thought for the journey, and let us bring along the provisions for eternal life. Let us put on garments that depart with us; for just as it is impossible to grasp one's own shadow, so too with human affairs. For some are dissolved by death, and others pass away more swiftly than any winter torrent; but the things to come know no change. They do not know old age, they have no alteration, but they bloom continually and remain in manifold prosperity. Do not marvel at wealth that does not remain with those who possess it, but exchanges owners, and leaps from this one to another, and again from that one to another; all these things must be spat upon. For it is enough merely to hear the one who says: "The things seen are temporary; but the things not seen are eternal." Human things wither faster than a shadow. We are in want of nothing so much as time. And indeed the craft is long, but our life is short. The end of life is near; be watchful, O man. You sleep, and time runs past you; you are awake, and you drag your own heart around vain things; yet nonetheless your life is diminished, even if you yourself do not perceive it or understand. Leaves and bubbles, and smoke, and chaff, and shadow, and the dust of the threshing floor cast out by the wind—I have named all the splendid things of this present age. For all earthly things find the earth as their end.

You will understand the present age to be a hippodrome. For in it all people, both base and good, run like a horse, each hastening toward his own finish line. "Do you not know," he says, "that those who run in the stadium all run, but one receives the prize? I therefore run, not as one beating the air." With good reason, then, we call the present life a hippodrome. A hair grown white cries out and testifies to the soul's departure from here. Hence, according to what is written, "Prepare your works for your departure." For one must look at the region of the head and of the beard, that it is white for the harvest, and a certain noetic sickle is about to cut your soul off from the body through death, and to carry it away to certain strange places wholly unknown, by the ordinance of the Lord. Let not the conspicuous and splendid things shown in this world deceive us. For all things pass away, and nothing at all among things that appear is stable. Knowing, then, that none of the present things remains with its possessors, and that one must by all means depart as from an inn, let us take thought for the road that leads there, and let us carry away for ourselves the provisions of eternal life, through prayers, through almsgivings, through gentleness, through knowledge of the

of the God-inspired Scriptures, through kindness and support toward servants, and through the other things which true reasoning dictates. Properly speaking, one cannot rejoice either in an abundance of money or possessions, nor in the splendor of glory, nor generally in any of the external things, which are both cold and unstable and receive their destruction from themselves. Nor indeed in strength and vigor and the other advantages of the body, which are common even to the most worthless, and have often brought inevitable destruction to those who have them, because of their instability and uncertainty. Man, if one must speak the truth, has firm control over nothing, holding fast to nothing—not any of other things, but not even any of the things concerning himself securely: not health, not keenness of perception, not the soundness of the other parts of the body, not voice, not quickness of mind. For who does not know that matters of wealth, or glory, or friends, or offices, or whatever other things depend on fortune, are unstable? So that one must confess that the authority over all things rests in one alone—the one who is truly Lord. TITLE 11. —On doing good; and that one must do good to all; and that one must bear the burdens of one's neighbor, and not bear grudges, but come to his aid, and reprove the evils likely being done by him, and not repay evil for evil.

«If you see your brother's calf or sheep straying on the road, you shall not overlook them; you shall surely turn them back to your brother. But if your brother is not near you, nor you know him, you shall gather them with yourself until your brother seeks them, and you shall restore them.» «If you meet your enemy's ox or his beast of burden straying, you shall turn them back and restore them to him. But if you see your enemy's beast of burden fallen under its load, you shall not pass it by, but you shall gather it up with him.» «You shall love your neighbor, and you shall take no sin on his account.» «If your brother becomes poor, and his hands are weak among you, you shall support him as a stranger and a sojourner; and your brother shall live with you. You shall not take interest from him, nor increase.» «David went out from the cave, and cried out after Saul, saying: My lord the king. And Saul looked back after him, and David bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance to him. And David said: Why do you listen to the words of the people saying: Behold, David seeks your life? Behold, on this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you into my hands in the cave, and I did not wish to kill you, and I spared you and said: I will not put my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. And behold, the edge of your cloak is in my hand, and I have not killed you. And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept, and said to David:

You are righteous, not I, for you have repaid me with good, but I have repaid you with evil. He who stretches out for good things seeks a good favor. Do not be wide with your lips; do not say, "As he treated me, so I will treat him, for the wrongs he did to me." Do not say, "I will repay my enemy," but wait for the Lord, that he may help you. If your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him drink. For by doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord will repay you with good. The ways of those who remember wrongs lead to death. He who remembers wrongs is lawless. He who hides hatred sets deceit in order. Do not remember the wickedness of your brother in your hearts. Judge a righteous judgment, and each of you show mercy and compassion to your brother. Seek the good, and not the evil, and the Lord will be with you. Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word. Say, my brothers, to those who hate you and abhor you, that the name of the Lord may be glorified, and may appear to you in your gladness, and they shall be put to shame. For every wrong, do not be enraged against your neighbor. Forgive your neighbor's wrong,

And then, when you make supplication, your sins will be loosed. Remember your last end, and cease from enmity. Lend to your neighbor according to your ability. Reprove your neighbor, lest perhaps he has not done it; and if he has done it, lest perhaps he add to it. Reprove your friend, lest perhaps he has not spoken; and if he has spoken, that he may not repeat it. Understand your neighbor's affairs from yourself. A man cherishes wrath against a man, and seeks healing from the Lord. He has no mercy on a man like himself, and makes supplication concerning his own sins. He, being flesh, keeps anger; and who will wash away his sins? Remember your last end, and you will cease from enmity. Remember the commandments, and do not be angry with your neighbor. If you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar, and go first, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Then Peter came and said, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times? Jesus says to him, I do not say to you, until seven times, but until seventy times seven. The kingdom of heaven was likened to a man, a king, who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle, one debtor was brought to him of ten thousand talents.

But since he had nothing to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and his children, and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the servant fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord, be patient with me, and I will repay you everything. But the lord of that servant, moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and was choking him, saying, Repay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell at his feet and kept pleading with him, saying, Be patient with me, and I will repay you. But he was unwilling, but went and threw him into prison until he should repay all that was owed. But when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were greatly grieved, and they came and made clear to their lord all that had happened. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, Wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me; should you not also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I also had mercy on you? And his lord, being angry, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay him all that was owed to him. So also your heavenly Father will do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your hearts their trespasses. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and seven times a day turns back, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Let each of you please his neighbor for good, unto edification. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell upon me. Do not repay evil for evil, providing good things in the sight of the Lord and of men. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. If you bite and devour one another, take heed lest you be consumed by one another. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. As we have opportunity, let us work what is good toward all, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith. Having put away falsehood, let each speak truth with his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin. Let not the sun go down on your provocation, nor give place to the devil. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as Christ also forgave us. Therefore become imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Rebuke those who sin before all, so that the rest also may have fear. Who is the one who will harm you, if you become zealous for what is good? But even if you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. Not repaying evil for evil, nor reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, because for this you were called, so that you might inherit a blessing. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God.

But the one who does evil has not seen God. Just as shining follows light automatically, and fragrance follows myrrh, so too benefit necessarily follows good deeds. Those who do good have their acceptance in the deed itself. Let no one plead ignorance concerning the good; the natural law, showing us our affinity with the noble and our estrangement from harmful things, has been implanted in us. He who has shed a warm tear over the sin of his neighbor has healed himself through the very grief he felt for his brother. Do you know what good you should do for your neighbor? As you wish another to do to you yourself. He who keeps quiet and does not reprove his brother's sin is without compassion, like one who lets the poison remain in the one bitten by the venomous creature. Do not laugh at the fall of your neighbor, but pass by safely, as far as you are able; but also give a hand to the one lying on the ground. Let us forgive, that we may be forgiven. Let us release, that we may ask for release. You who have been forgiven, forgive; you who have been shown mercy, show mercy. Cultivate love for humanity while there is time. Let us forgive a little, that we may receive something greater—concord. Let us be defeated, that we may conquer. See the laws of the contest, and the struggles of wrestlers, who often by lying low defeat those who are above them. It is good to conquer boldness by kindness, and to make those who do wrong better by enduring patiently in suffering. If you owe God no punishment, do not be sympathetic even to those who do owe it; but if you know that you owe it, then also lend your gentleness in advance. For mercy is weighed against mercy, even by God. Because I give more to the former love than to the present disdain, and for this reason I become more long-suffering, so that I may reproach more fervently.

Sufficient for me as punishment against those who do wrong is the power to retaliate. Let no vain reasoning deceive you into thinking that to prosecute the just man is free of guilt, and to hand over the wrongdoer to the laws. Let us consider that a great task of philanthropy lies before us, and let us forgive the offenses against us, so that we ourselves may obtain forgiveness. What doctrine of kindness is more concise? Be such to your friends and to your neighbors as you wish them to be to yourself. We watch over one another's sins, not so that we may mourn, but so that we may strike at them, and have the wounds of our neighbors as a defense for our own evils. The stronger you are, the more just you should be in bearing with the weaker. For the one who is strong must be strong not for himself only, but also for others. But if, while claiming to be strong, you overlook that man's weakness, you will pay a double penalty: because you did not spare, and because we have great power to spare. For each of us is accountable for the salvation of his neighbor. For this reason we were commanded to look not to our own interests, but to those of our neighbors. For we were bought at a price; and the one who bought us commanded this for the common benefit of all. One must not apply reproof simply according to the measure of the transgressions, but must also consider the disposition of those who sin, lest, wishing to sew up what is torn, you make the tear worse. Let us consider one thing only, brothers: not how we may suffer no evil from our enemies, but how we may do no evil to them.

When you have your enemy in your hands, do not consider how you may defend yourself against him and send him away after countless washings of abuse, but how you may lead him back to equanimity; and do not desist until you prevail by gentleness over his cruelty. Then greater recompenses will be laid up for you from life, when, having done countless good things to our enemies, we receive the opposite in return. When we consider what we have suffered at the hands of our fellow servants, let us reckon what we have done to the Master, and by the fear of our own sins we shall be able quickly to drive away our anger at the trespasses of others. For if we must remember sins, we must remember only our own; and if we remember our own, we shall never reckon the sins of others. If you have anything against your enemy, remove the grief, heal the anger, dissolve the enmity, so that you may receive healing from the table. You approach a fearful and holy sacrifice; reverence the very purpose of the offering. Christ lies slain before you; and for whose sake was he slain? and for what? That he might make peace between the things in heaven and the things on earth; that he might make you a friend even to angels. Let no one, then, be a Judas, let no one be full of wickedness, let no one have venom in his mind, lest he receive it unto condemnation. For then, after receiving the offering, the devil fell upon Judas—not despising the Master's body, but leaping upon Judas because of his shamelessness, so that we might learn that it is upon those who partake of the divine mysteries unworthily that the devil especially leaps and presses continually, as upon Judas then. For honors benefit the worthy.

But those who have received things contrary to their desert, they cast into greater punishment. And I say these things, not that I may frighten you, but that I may secure you. Do you remain at enmity with your fellow servant, and how will you be able to walk to the table of peace? For Christ did not even refuse to die for you, but you do not endure to release your anger against your fellow servant for your own sake. For he has injured you, he says, and has gained the greatest advantage. And what of this? The loss is in money; he has not yet crucified you, as the Jews crucified Christ; but nevertheless even the very blood which he shed, he gave for the salvation of those who shed it. What equal to this do you have to say? If you do not forgive your enemy, you have not wronged him more than yourself. For him you have overlooked for the present life, but you have made yourself inexcusable for the defense on the coming day. For God hates nothing so much as a man who remembers wrongs, as a heart that swells, as a soul that is inflamed. Hear, then, what he says: "When you offer your gift at the altar, and there above the altar you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar, and going away be reconciled to your brother." What do you say, shall I leave it? Yes, he says; for for the sake of peace toward your brother, this sacrifice also has been made. I consider it a greater good to be reproved than to reprove, inasmuch as it is greater to be rid of evil oneself than to rid another of it. Reproof must be tempered, saying the matter indeed, but pretending cowardice, like the wise physicians, who hide the dividing iron with the bronze. Every sin is dreadful;

But nothing is greater than resentment and greed. He did not say, it is fornication or idolatry, but greed. And resentment is the sister of greed. For this sin is terrible and lawless. The other sins are evil, but they happen to be short-lived, accomplished in a single hour. Did someone commit fornication? Having ceased the evil in a single hour, he can be at rest for the remaining hours. Did someone steal? Having done the evil in a single hour, he repents thereafter. Did someone commit murder? This too is evil; but having done the evil in a single hour, he can repent for the remaining hours. But the resentful man sins every hour, carrying the wickedness in his heart. Even if he enters the church, he cannot send up a pure prayer to God, having wickedness against his neighbor. Nor is a resentful soul pure from sin; and it never practices almsgiving. For he who does not have love neither shows mercy nor takes up the cause of others. The guileless man has no enemy; the resentful man is not delivered from the enemy, having his own conscience as an enemy.

TITLE 12. Concerning the impious, and sinners, and evil and wicked men, and the unjust, and the lawless. "You shall not consent with the impious man; you shall not listen to his voice, and your eye shall not spare him. You shall not desire him, nor shall you cover him. You shall surely report concerning him; and your hands shall be upon him to kill him first, and the hands of all your people shall be upon him at the last." "Because of the impiety of the heart of these nations the Lord will destroy them before your face; not because of your righteousness, nor because of the holiness of your heart do you enter to inherit their land, but because of the lawlessness of these nations the Lord destroys them before your face." "You abandoned God who begot you, and you forgot God who nourishes you." "Lest a sinner destroy the sinless man, God will not be willing to be propitious to him; but the anger of the Lord shall be kindled, and his zeal against that man." "Destroy these nations from before your face, and they shall not be for you as snares, and as stumbling blocks, and as nails in your heels, and as darts in your eyes; because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be, in the manner that the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you." "From lawless men transgression shall come forth." "The word of the Lord came to Bassas, saying:

Because I exalted you on the earth, and made you leader over my people, and you walked in the way of Jeroboam, and caused my people Israel to sin, provoking me with their vanities, behold, I will raise up evil after you, and after your house; and I will give your house as the house of Jeroboam. The dead of Baasha in the city the dogs shall devour; and the dead in the field, the birds of heaven. The exultation of the impious is a sudden fall; and the joy of the lawless is destruction. If their gifts ascend into heaven, and their sacrifice touches the clouds; even if they seem already to have been established, then they shall be utterly destroyed. And those who saw him shall say, Where is he? Wrath shall come upon sinners, and then they shall know where their matter is. Those who sow absurdities shall reap pains. And by the command of the Lord they shall perish, and by the spirit of his wrath they shall be made invisible. Before the face of the impious, who has fixed [it]? The light of the impious shall be quenched. The faces of the impious shall be filled with dishonor. The whole life of the impious is in anxiety; when he seems to be at peace, his destruction shall come. The hope of the impious shall perish; for his house shall be uninhabited. And his tent shall become a spider's web. The day of wrath shall come upon him. The lamp of the impious shall be quenched. And destruction shall come upon them, and they shall be like chaff from the wind. The eyes of the impious shall melt away.

For their hope is destruction. He who loves injustice hates his own soul. Sins diminish tribes. Transgressions ensnare a man, and each one is bound fast in the cords of his own sins. The one who does evil shall not dwell with you, nor shall they remain. Surely the wickedness of sinners shall be brought to an end, and you shall set them straight. Break the arm of the sinner and of the wicked. His remembrance perished with a sound. He will rain snares upon sinners, fire and brimstone. Many are the scourges of the sinner. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy them. The death of sinners is evil, and those who hate the righteous. The enemies of the Lord, as soon as they are glorified and exalted. I saw the ungodly highly exalted and lifted up. Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against a nation. Why do you boast in wickedness, O mighty one, of lawlessness all the day long? Their words were made smooth beyond oil, yet they are arrows. Sinners are estranged from the womb; they have gone astray. The righteous shall be glad when he sees vengeance; his hands, etc. Cover me from the conspiracy of those who do evil, from the multitude. As wax melts from the face

like fire, so shall they perish. The Lord will repay them according to their lawlessness; and according to, etc. Let sinners be removed from the earth, and the lawless. The desire of a sinner shall perish. Behold, those who distance themselves from you shall perish. Salvation is far from sinners, because the statutes, etc.

All the sinners he will utterly destroy." "Evils shall pursue those who sin." "The ways of the ungodly shall perish." "The ways of the ungodly are dark, and they do not know how they stumble." "An evil offspring, a sword has teeth, and its jaws have bridles, so as to consume the lowly of the earth." "The destruction of the ungodly is at hand and a cause for rejoicing." "Wherever an ungodly man enters, he is destroyed." "The Lord will overturn the fruits of the ungodly." "An ungodly man does unjust works." "Untimely mourning covers the mouth of the ungodly." "The crushing of the ungodly is poverty." "When the storm rages fiercely, the ungodly man is destroyed." "The persecutions of the ungodly lead to death." "The lamp of the ungodly is sin." "The works of the ungodly are far from knowledge." "An ungodly man does works of injustice." "The ungodly man is kept for an evil day." "The unjust shall perish swiftly." "To admire the face of an ungodly man is not good." "The ungodly man flees when no one pursues." "The tongue of the unjust shall be destroyed." "The ungodly man shall have no boldness." "The sacrifice of the ungodly is an abomination to the Lord." "The way of the evil man, and the foot of the lawless, shall perish in an evil day." "The ways of the ungodly are an abomination to the Lord." "Because they wronged infants, they shall be killed." "The soul of the ungodly shall not be shown mercy by any man." "As an unripe grape is harmful to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so is lawlessness to those who practice it." "The curse of the Lord is in the houses of the ungodly." "The houses of the ungodly shall be destroyed." "God is far from sinners." "Every lawless man is unclean before the Lord." "Woe to them, for they have revolted from me.

They are wretched, because they acted impiously against me. "Destruction shall come upon the impious." "The impious shall grow weak, and I will remove the lawless from the face of the earth, says the Lord." "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. They shall be like a terebinth that has cast off its leaves, and like a garden that has no water. And their strength shall be like the stubble of flax, and their work like sparks of fire. And the lawless shall be burned up, and the sinners together, and there shall be no one to quench it." "The city of the impious shall not be built forever." "I will command evils upon the inhabited world, and upon the impious their sins." "An evil seed shall not remain for an age of time." "Behold, the day of the Lord comes with fury and anger, to make the whole inhabited world desolate, and to destroy the sinners from it." "The land of the impious shall fall." "Trembling shall seize the impious." "Let the impious be taken away, that he may not see the glory of the Lord." "There is no rejoicing for the impious, says the Lord." "If you depart from me, you will have something more, said the Lord." "The lawless man who sacrifices a calf is as one who kills a dog; and he who offers fine flour is as the blood of swine." "Woe to the lawless man, evil shall be given to him according to the works of his hands." "The wealth of the impious shall be like dust from a wheel, and like chaff being carried." "And it shall be like a moment." "And the wealth of the nations shall be like one dreaming in sleep, and they shall be like those who hunger and eat in sleep, and when they arise their dream is vain.

And just as the thirsty man dreams as if he were hungry, and when he awakes he is still thirsty, and his soul has hoped in vain, so shall be the wealth of all the nations. "The Lord said to me: Do not pray for this people, for even if Moses and Samuel stood before my face, my soul would not be toward them." "Their worm shall not die, and the fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh." "Shall a bride forget her ornament, and a virgin her breastband? But my people have forgotten me, days without number." "Thus says the Lord: They shall build, but I will overthrow." "In like manner both the impious man and impiety are hateful; the deed together with the doer shall be destroyed." "The hope of the impious is as dust carried by the wind, and as smoke scattered by the wind." "The ends of an unjust generation are grievous." "Vain indeed are all men, in whom the knowledge of God was absent, and who from the good things that are seen could not know him who is, nor, attending to the works, did they recognize the craftsman. Wretched are they, and their hopes are among the dead." "Upon the impious, wrath without mercy has come to the end." "In the assembly of sinners fire shall be kindled." "The vengeance of the impious is fire and worm." "Fire, hail, and famine, and death, all these were created for the punishment of sinners." "Death, and strife, and sword, and scourge were created for the lawless." "Woe to you, impious men, who have forsaken the law of the Lord." "Mourning for the dead is seven days;

But of the fool and the impious, all the days of his life. "Like a double-edged sword, every sin." "The Most High takes no pleasure in the offerings of the impious." "Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent. For if you draw near, it will bite you; the teeth of a lion are its teeth, destroying souls." "Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name perform many mighty works? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." "Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin; but the slave does not remain in the house." "Wretched am I, for I did not even remember that God sees the mind, and watches over the voice of the soul. The enemy, working together toward sin, says to me: God is merciful, and he will bear with me. And though not struck immediately, I did not cease, but rather despised his forbearance, and I exhausted the longsuffering of God." "Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the consummation of this age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all the stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, and they will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." "Then the king will say also to those on the left: Go away from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." "The evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.