Sacra parallela recensiones secundum alphabeti

STOICHEION K.

TITLE 1. — On the judgments of God; and that one ought not to be vexed at the things in which the righteous fare ill and the unrighteous fare well.

"The Lord said to Job: Do you not set aside my judgment? Do you think that I have dealt with you in any other way than that you might appear righteous?" "Why do the ungodly live, and are they grown old and in wealth? Their seed is according to the desire of their soul, and their children are before their eyes; their houses prosper, and fear is nowhere; and the scourge from the Lord is not upon them. They remain like eternal sheep, and their children play, taking up the psaltery and the lyre. They have completed their life in good things." "Your righteousness is as the mountains of God, your judgments are a great deep."

"Do not be envious of one who prospers in his way, of a man who does lawlessness. I saw the ungodly exalted exceedingly, and lifted up as the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not." "My steps had well nigh slipped, because I was envious," and the rest. — "Behold, these are the sinners, and those who prosper forever." "God is a judge: he humbles this one, and exalts this one." "Let not your heart envy sinners, but be in the fear of the Lord all the day long." "The wealth of the ungodly is laid up as treasure for the righteous." "The wealth of the ungodly shall be as dust from a wheel, and as chaff carried along; and it shall be as a moment, and the wealth of the nations shall be as one dreaming in sleep; and in sleep they shall be drinking and eating, and when they have risen up, their dream is vain.

And just as the thirsty man dreams as though he were drinking, and when he rises he is still thirsty, and his soul has hoped in vain, so shall be the wealth of all the nations. "You are righteous, O Lord, that I should plead my case; yet I will speak judgments with you. Why is it that the way of the ungodly prospers? All those who commit transgression have prospered. You planted them, and they took root; they bore children, and they produced fruit. You are near to their mouth, and far from their reins." "Do not be envious of the glory of sinners." "By the very things through which their enemies were punished, they themselves, being in want, were benefited." "And Rebecca, having conceived from one bed by Isaac our father, before the children were yet born, or had done anything good or evil, it was said to her, The greater shall serve the lesser, as it is written: I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? By no means. For to Moses he says: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, that For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show in you my power. So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who are you that answers back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?" "O the depth of the riches, and of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Even if the words of those who are governed by God escape us, yet certainly what has been ordered by the One who is wise and loves us is acceptable, even if it be painful. The righteousness brought down upon us from heaven by the righteous Judge, being corrective and retributive, has much that is hard to contemplate, because of the height of the doctrines stored up in it. For this, I think, is what the psalmist says: Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. We are ignorant, so as to scrutinize the unutterable judgments of God. Some of God's friends sail with a fair voyage, others with a rough one, though they are no worse. Who knows the reasons for these things, except you, O Word? Who knows whether the one is punished because of vice, while the other is taken up as one who is praised—and not the opposite: that the one is exalted because of wickedness, and the other is tested because of virtue? The one, being lifted up the more so that he may also fall the more grievously, is first allowed to burst forth with all his wickedness like some disease, so that he may also be punished more justly; while the other, even contrary to expectation, is pressed hard so that, tested like gold in a furnace, he may melt away whatever small trace of wickedness he had. There is a kind of cycle, brothers, in human affairs, and God trains us through opposites. Just as he established all things wisely and bound them together, so he wisely directs and governs all things by his unattainable and unsearchable judgments. Only one thing must be believed: that all things are ordered for our benefit by God; but the manner of it we must no longer inquire into, nor, being ignorant of it, be vexed or disheartened.

For it is neither possible to know these things nor profitable—the one because we are mortal, the other because we are quickly carried away into folly. Some say: Why do the righteous fall sick and live in poverty, while the unrighteous are strong and rich? Why is this, if not that the one may be crowned and the other punished forever? You have asked why God has judged this man, though he is good, to be discouraged and afflicted, and another, though he is utterly worthless, to be glad and very rich; and why one prospers in all things and another fails in all things; why this man is healthy and that man is sick, and another, a good man, is crushed by the demon, while the wicked man lives. Do not pry into what is beyond you, but only know that all these things come about by the will and decree of the Superior; do not, however, seek out the exact reason. Paul, great as he was, declared that the judgments of God are unsearchable. It is not possible, then, to grasp the footsteps of the Lord and of his counsels. For his judgments are a great deep, as the Prophet says. If someone goes and wishes to cross a river, and sees it boiling and terribly sweeping things away, and no one else attempts to pass through it, but he takes bad counsel and enters, wishing to show himself brave and strong, and dies in the river, his soul is judged with the transgressors, since, seeing his own death, he disobeyed the Scripture which says: Do not force the current of a river.

But if he sees the river flowing quietly, and not threatening deadly roaring, but gentle and easy, and many passing through, and he enters to cross through it, and Satan, by God's permission, brings a wave upon him, or even dashes his foot, and falling into its water he dies, his death shall be reckoned as a martyr's. Yet the hour of his death was also present to him, but not in his dying in this way. For the devil, seeing the hour of death, goes before and prepares the fall, so that death may be inscribed upon the snare. Likewise also those who die by wild beasts. If someone of his own choice goes out to slay the beast, displaying his own strength, and rouses the beast, and dies by it, his soul is judged with the transgressors. But if the beast comes upon him suddenly and tears the man apart, such a one has died a martyr's death; likewise also in the sea, and on the land. TITLE 2. — On slander; and that slander is a false word spoken against someone.

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom Moses had taken, for he had taken an Ethiopian woman as wife. And they said, "Has the Lord spoken only to Moses? Has he not also spoken to us?" And the Lord said to them, "Hear my words, both of you. If there is a prophet among you for the Lord, I will be known to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. I will speak to him mouth to mouth, in form, and not through riddles, and he has seen the glory of the Lord. And why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" And the Lord was angry with wrath; and behold, Miriam was leprous like snow. "Let the deceitful lips become dumb," and the rest. "You sat and spoke against your brother," and the rest. "They spoke against God, and said," and the rest. "Him who speaks secretly against his neighbor," and the rest. "He who speaks unjust things did not set them straight before," and the rest. "Do not love to speak against others, lest you be taken away," and the rest. "Guard against useless murmuring, and refrain your tongue from speaking against others; for a secret utterance does not go forth empty." "Do not speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are no longer a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy." "The eye that speaks against a father, and dishonors the old age of a mother, let the ravens from the valleys pluck it out, and let the young of eagles devour it." Speaking against others

it is characteristic of speaking against an absent brother with the aim of slandering him, even if what is said is true. If anyone has spoken ill of you, if he speaks the truth, correct yourself; but if falsely, laugh it to scorn. If you are conscious of what was said, be sober-minded; but if you are not conscious of it, despise it. We ought to despise those who speak ill of us only when we ourselves give them no occasion. Or rather, not even then, but when we are able to stop their mouths. But when everything comes from us, all the fire turns upon our own head. Not only those who speak ill, but also those who provide occasions rashly, are liable to the punishment laid up for accusation. He who wishes to dispose another badly first disposes himself so. It is better for you to drink wine and eat meat than to devour the flesh of brothers in slander. TITLE 3. On time: that one must redeem the time, and that every time has its season for being spoken and coming to pass.

There is a season for every matter under the sun. A season to beget, and a season to die. A season to plant, and a season to pluck up what has been planted. A season to pull down, and a season to build. A season to weep, and a season to laugh. A season to seek, and a season to destroy. A season to keep, and a season to cast out. A season to tear, and a season to sew. A season to speak, and a season to be silent. A season to love, and a season to hate.

There is a time of war, and a time of peace. Why have you kept silent about ungodliness, and harvested its injustices? The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, to know when one ought to speak a word. Preserve the time, and guard yourself from the evil one. Do not be wise out of season. Do not hinder a word in a time of salvation. A wise man will keep silent until the right time. From the mouth of a fool a parable will be rejected, for he will not speak it in its own time. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. See how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not become foolish, but understand what the will of God is. Walk in wisdom toward those outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, to know how you ought to answer each one. Is the desire intense? Take hold of what is desired. While the iron is hot, let it be sharpened by the cold, lest something fall in between and cut off the desire. To speak boldly in a simple manner is often within the reach of just anyone; but to use the matter as needed, at the fitting time, and with the appropriate measure and understanding, requires a very great and wonderful soul. It is better to throw a stone at random than a word. Speak what is needed, and when it is needed, and you will not hear what is not needed. It is good to spare time.

TITLE 4. — Concerning flatterers, and parasites, and buffoons; and that one ought to flee from them.

"God has scattered the bones of those who please men." "In laughter a fool does evil." "The words of monkeys are soft, but these strike into the chambers of the entrails." "They call the wise and understanding worthless; but those who are sweet in speech shall be heard the more." "Many court the faces of kings." "A good temper is better than laughter, for in the wickedness of the face the heart shall be made glad." — "As the voice of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools." "Those who bless you, lead you astray, and trouble the path of your feet." "Those who bless this people shall be leading astray and being led astray, so that they may swallow them up. The Lord shall take away from Jerusalem head and tail, great and small in one day, and those who admire faces." "Woe to those who sew cushions under every elbow of the hand, and make coverings upon every head of age, to pervert souls, when you speak to a people that hears vain utterances." "They have deceived you, and peaceful men have prevailed against you; they have strengthened themselves against you in the slipping of your foot." "He who is wise in words is hateful; he has lacked all need. For grace was not given to him from the Lord." "If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ." "Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall weep." "These are murmurers, complainers, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaks arrogant things;

and admiring persons for the sake of gain. Let us flee from flattery and fawning, and from the gainful and crafty fox of Archilochus. For nothing is harder for the right-minded than to live for reputation, and to look around at what seems right to the many, and not to make right reason the guide of life. To be possessed by unrestrained and ungovernable laughter is a sign of intemperance. For up to a cheerful smile, to reveal the diffusion of the soul is not unseemly, only so far as to show what is written: When the heart is glad, the face flourishes. But to guffaw with the voice, and for the body to boil up, is not the mark of one whose soul is composed, nor of the approved, nor of one who has firm command of himself. For the most wise Solomon confirms the saying, that The fool in laughter will lift up his voice; but a wise man will scarcely smile quietly. — A man-pleaser is one who does something toward the will of some man, or for his pleasing, even if what is done is worthy of dishonor. Let us not be sweetened by the words of witty and jesting men, which are especially apt to loosen the tension of the soul. — These servile attentions naturally grow, as it were, alongside great powers. Those who, through lacking a good of their own by which they might be known, establish themselves from the evils of others; and almost as rust is the corruption of grain, arising in the grain itself, so also flattery, creeping under friendship, is a bane of friendship. Laughter, for the right-minded, is worthy of laughter—every kind, but especially the wanton. Disorderly laughter also gathers tears. Better a downcast character than one dissolved in mirth.

The one who pleases men would reasonably have the praises they give him as a form of recompense. Yet he will receive nothing at all of the things that come from God. A glib mouth and a fluent style provide delight and praise toward empty glory for wretched men whose mind is corrupted. But imitators of ridiculous men—or rather of laughable passions—must be driven out of our commonwealth; the buffoons must be expelled from our own commonwealth. —No one could have a flatterer as a companion. For flattery is a disease of friendship. Most people are accustomed to court the successes of rulers rather than the rulers themselves. Do not accept those who charm you with praises and deceive your mind. For the wise enjoin us to hate flatterers as those who do great harm. I saw those who lack understanding, and I was consumed, said the blessed David. You ought, then, rather to be sullen and downcast at the thoughts of folly, which are offspring of vipers belonging to a neglected soul. And while you ought to melt away with tears the outer eyes, and the inner ones too, you now do the opposite, laughing and seething, and, so to speak, rejoicing at every hour in the leaps of unreason and want of instruction; and being confident, and trusting, and resting easy because of your brief abstention from foods, and because you seem to abstain from a woman. But not even this alone. For in this the demons have something more than you, never eating at all, nor sleeping. TITLE 5. —On thieves.

If anyone steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it, he shall pay five oxen for it. But if he is caught, he shall pay double." "If a man is caught stealing a person from among his brothers, that thief shall die." "If the thief is found in the act of breaking in, and is struck and dies, there is no bloodguilt for him." "Thieves rose up against me, whose houses were caves of rock." "Whoever shares with a thief hates his own soul." "The Lord said to me: What do you see? And I said: I see a sickle twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. And he said to me: It shall come into the house of the thief, and it shall lodge in the midst of his house, and it shall consume it. And every thief from this time forth shall be punished unto death." "Who will trust a well-girded robber who flits from city to city?" "Let the one who steals steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his own hands what is good, so that he may have something to give to the one who has need." Grievous are the nights of those who keep watch for injustices. For both the fear of being detected and the licentiousness of the sting drive away all their rest. TITLE 6. — Concerning cattle and providence over them. "The soul of all flesh is its blood." "The righteous man has compassion on the souls of his cattle." "Do you have cattle? Look after them, and if they are useful to you, let them remain with you." TITLE 7. — Concerning boasting and arrogance; and that one must not boast or be arrogant about anything in life.

Do not boast, and do not speak lofty things in your superiority; nor let great swelling words come out of your mouth. Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Do not say, I am clean in my works, and blameless before him. Do not be lifted up because of wisdom. Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth. Do not boast in the wrapping of garments, and in the day of glory do not be lifted up. Do not say, By the multitude of my gifts he will look upon me, and when I offer to God Most High, I shall be accepted. Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich man in his humiliation. I think great things in God, but I measure myself, lest I be destroyed in boasting. And once the enemy, having prepared Adam the forefather to imagine equality with God, brought him out of paradise and led him down to the very depths of Hades.

TITLE 8. — On beauty of body, and comeliness. David was ruddy with beauty of eyes, and good in appearance to the Lord. There was no man in all Israel as handsome as Absalom, from the sole of his foot to his head. Like an earring in a pig's snout, so is beauty to a foolish woman. Do not praise a man for his beauty. A lamp shining on a holy lampstand, so is beauty of face in the prime of life. A woman's beauty cheers her face. He who today is flourishing in body, made fat with food, having a complexion blooming from the peak of his age, vigorous and taut, tomorrow this very man is pitiable, either withered by time or wasting away by disease.

If you are ugly in appearance, be beautiful within in what is hidden, like a rose in bloom within its bud. TITLE 9. — On those who boast and brag. "Better is a man in dishonor serving, than one who puts honor upon himself and is in need of bread." "There are those who enrich themselves, having nothing." "Do not become a poor man who scrapes together tokens from loans, and there is nothing for you in your purse. For you will be a plotter against your own life." To boast in wealth, or to pride oneself on birth, through which human honors are fulfilled—all these things become the destruction of human life and honor, and a reproach. What credit is it if you have an ape, a man-shaped outrage, with golden cords wrapped around its neck? For its adornment has not changed its laughable and foolish shape. And what credit is it to a donkey to carry talents of gold? The donkey, even being very rich, knows only how to bray; nor is there credit in hiding swords made of lead in silver cases, which are of no use in wars. Such is a man, when he is puffed up and made light by outward things. TITLE 10. — On betters; and that one must not strive against betters. "The impious man, who is not ashamed before a honorable face, knows nothing of how to assign honor to these." "Do not fight with a powerful man, lest you fall into his hands." "Do not lift a burden beyond yourself, and do not share with one stronger and richer than you. What fellowship will a pot have with a cauldron?

This one will strike, and this one will be crushed. "Bow your head to a great man." — "Do not make yourself equal in the midst of great men." — "He who throws a stone throws it at his own head." "It is hard for you to kick against the goads." It is always good that the worse be led by the better. To be subject to those who are better is most beneficial. — No one has ever been so mad as, being a slave, to oppose his master. Do not judge the judges, you who need healing. One man is better or lowlier than another; but everyone is higher than you.

TITLE 11. — On the judgment and righteousness of God, and that he distributes to each according to worth, and does not take up the person of a man. "The Lord your God, he is God of gods, and Lord of lords; the God who is great, and mighty, and fearful; who does not marvel at a person, nor shall he take a gift." "God, his works are true, and all his ways are judgment. God is faithful, and there is no injustice in him; my hand shall hold fast to judgment, and I will avenge, and I will repay justice to my enemies, and to those who hate." "The Lord has gone up into the heavens, and he has thundered. He judges the ends of the earth, being righteous." "Will not the Lord do injustice when he judges? Or will he who made all things disturb justice?" "He who takes hold of the wise in their prudence, and has driven out the counsel of the crafty." "You sat upon a throne, you who judge righteousness." "The Lord is righteous, and he has loved righteousnesses.

His face saw uprightness. The judgments of the Lord are true, justified together. The Lord loves mercy and judgment. Your right hand is full of righteousness. Righteousness and judgment are the preparation of your throne. You executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob. The Lord is righteous; he has cut off the necks of sinners. All the works of the Lord are with righteousness. The turning of the scale, righteousness is from the Lord, and his works are just weights. Many court the faces of rulers, but the just comes from the Lord. He who formed every breath, he himself knows all things, and will repay each one according to his works. The Master of all will not show partiality, nor will he be ashamed before greatness. All things just are from the Lord. Be strong, do not fear; behold, our God repays judgment. The Lord Sabaoth will be exalted in judgment, and the holy God will be glorified in righteousness. I have given my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations. He will not cry out, nor lift up his voice, nor will his voice be heard outside. He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not quench a smoldering flax, but he will bring forth judgment in truth. He will shine forth, and he will not be broken, until he sets judgment on the earth, and in his name the nations will hope. I will judge your judgment, and I will deliver your sons.

And those who afflict you will eat their own flesh, and they will drink their own blood as new wine. I am the Lord, who speaks righteousness and announces truth. All your judgments are truth, and you have executed judgments of truth. You, ruling over strength, judge with equity, and with great forbearance you govern us. Being just, you administer all things justly. Great are your judgments, and hard to recount. For those you admonished as a father and exhorted; but those you sought out as a stern king condemning. The Lord is judge, and with him there is no glory of man. He will not accept a person. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God does not accept the person of men. There is no partiality with him. It is God who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Neither is the mercy of God without judgment, nor is the judgment without mercy; but both in showing mercy he measures out his compassions to the worthy with judgment, and in judging, having taken account of our weakness, he brings the judgment. The just judgment of God is made like our dispositions, and whatever sort our own deeds are, such things he supplies to us from like things. For one must by all means reap whatever one has sown, and it is not otherwise. And the sowing is the human choice; and the harvest is the recompense for the choice. Just as for all bodies that have come to be by God there coexists also the having of a shadow, so also for God, being just, for those who have chosen the good things and for those who have preferred the evil things, it follows to assign to each according to worth. Nothing at all of good things, even if it be small, will be overlooked by the judge.

For if our sins are examined with such great precision that we pay the penalty even for words and thoughts, much more will our good deeds be taken into account, whether they be great or small. There is one judge of the dead and the living, weighing out justice to each. When God pronounces judgment, no excuse is left to those who contradict. For that vote is impartial, since God judges neither by favor nor by enmity, but votes according to the bare virtue of the soul. To distribute equally to those who are unequal is the greatest injustice. For men often discredit good things even through envy; but the theater above judges matters impartially, and the truth of what is done arbitrates the vote.

TITLE 12. — On a pure heart and conscience. "With all watchfulness keep your heart, for from it come forth the issues of life." — "A pure man is a precious possession." — "Good counsel will keep you, and a holy thought will preserve you, that it may rescue you from an evil way, and from a man who speaks nothing trustworthy." — "Let a man's heart think just things, that his steps may be set right by God." — "As silver and gold are tested in a furnace, so are chosen hearts before God." — "The ways of life are the thoughts of a prudent man." — "A prudent man will be filled from his own thoughts." — "The Lord loves holy hearts, and all the blameless are acceptable to him." — "Walk blamelessly in the ways of your heart, and know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

And put away anger from your heart, and remove wickedness from your flesh. Blessed is he whose own soul does not condemn him. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: that we conducted ourselves in the world in holiness and sincerity of God, and not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God. If our heart does not condemn us, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments. The first blessedness is that which is pure in our mind, since the root of the deeds done through the body is the counsel in the heart. The most beautiful gift to God is one's manner of life. Even if you bring everything, you will bring nothing worthy. Offer this, which even a poor man gives. A chaste man does not share a harlot's fee. Those who are bright in conscience are called sons of light and of day. Nothing is so accustomed to gladden us as a good conscience and good hopes. A conscience exulting adorns the face along with itself, and the vigor of the soul waters the cheeks. For it was not said idly by the Wise One: When the heart is glad, the face flourishes. It is not abstinence from actions that justifies the faithful.

but the purity and sincerity of thoughts. Salvation belongs to dispassionate and pure souls. A mind undefiled, and a word pure, and a life unstained, is a true throne and temple of God. A temperate heart is a harbor of contemplations. Reasoning is not an uprooter of the passions, but an antagonist. TITLE 13. — On an evil conscience.

You have brought to nothing all those who depart from your statutes, for their thought is unjust. A perverse heart devises evils. — The hard-hearted shall not meet with good things. — The heart of the lawless seeks out evils. — The hard of heart shall fall into evils. Their hearts were heated like ovens. — I will meet them as a bear that is at a loss, and I will break the bond of their heart. How long shall reasonings be before you? Your impiety is upon us, and you shall receive the sins of your thoughts. Crooked reasonings separate from God. — The impious, according as they have reasoned, shall have punishment. — Evil is a cowardly form, it testifies when condemned, and always it has taken to itself hardships, being held together by conscience. For there is no fear, except betrayal of the aids that come from reasoning. — They shall come in the reckoning of their sins cowardly, and their thoughts shall convict them face to face. In the shaking of a sieve the dung remains, so also the refuse of a man in his reasoning. — A hard heart shall be weighed down with pains. Everything that enters goes into the belly, and is cast out into the drain. But the things that proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and those defile the man.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are what defile a person. The soul, when it turns away from the good, reasons altogether on the opposite things. For it cannot cease from motion entirely, being by nature easily moved. He who was unable from the outset to discern the ambush of evil-working thoughts, and by comparing their ends with one another to expose their absurdity, tied tail to tail, placing his refutation as a torch between them.

Letter L.

TITLE 1. — On those who strive about words, and dispute concerning the faith. If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and does not come to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching according to godliness, he is puffed up, from which come envy, strife, blasphemy, evil suspicions, constant friction among men corrupted in mind, and deprived of the truth, supposing godliness to be a means of gain. Avoid foolish and unlearned questionings, knowing that they breed quarrels. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all. The one who contradicts seems somehow to become like the one who talks nonsense. Therefore such people speak artfully, not theologically. — Idle talk and oppositions of words are not pleasant to the faithful. For even one opponent is enough. — The first wisdom is to despise the wisdom that lies in words and in turns of phrase, and in counterfeit and superfluous oppositions.

Let us not busy ourselves with the Gospel word in dry, hair-splitting phrases, sowing endless questionings and word-battles, and roughening the smooth and most straight word of faith; but rather let us busy ourselves with the work of faith. Let us love peace; let us show concord. Let us guard our youth [or: unity]; let us cultivate love, through which God is well pleased. It is not for us to know how the Son of God became man; for this mystery is great, as it is written, that who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. But we must believe that the Son of God truly became man in the flesh according to the Scriptures, and dwelt among men in likeness without sin; and that he died for us and rose again, as it is written; and that he ascended into the heavens and sat at the right hand of the Father, from where he will come to judge the living and the dead, as it is written. Lest, while we battle in words against one another, some blaspheme the word of faith, and that saying come to pass, Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations. Therefore to inquire about God, if it tends not to strife but to discovery, is salutary. Why do we fight against one another in vain? Why do we war against one another, who are commanded to love even those who hate us? Why, having abandoned believing, do we rationalize the faith? He was born, but was not born. He suffered, but did not suffer. He rose, but did not rise. Why do we bring a charge against the Redeemer? Why do we call the Benefactor to account? Once he willed it, and as he willed it he came to be.

and he died, and rose again, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. It is better and more profitable to be unlettered and of little learning, and through love to draw near to God, than, while seeming to be learned and experienced, to be found blaspheming against one's own Master.

TITLE 2. On Slander.

Those who utter slanders are the most foolish of all. It is a man's glory to turn away from slanders; but every fool is entangled in them. Better to dwell on a corner of a housetop, than with a slanderous woman in a shared house. As smoke is before fire in a furnace, so are slanders before bloodshed. When a little child slanders you, you make the slanders an occasion for laughter; and when one deranged by frenzy in his mind utters words of dishonor, consider it pitiable rather than worthy of hatred. And if anyone wishes to accuse, let us not grieve at being spoken of badly, but at being spoken of badly justly. For if we live in wickedness, even if there is no one to accuse, we are more wretched than all. But if we take care for virtue, even if the whole world speaks ill of us, then all the more shall we be enviable. If those who receive a vain report would not obtain forgiveness, what defense will those who slander and revile have? If you obey the divine Apostle when he cries out plainly that slanderers shall in no way attain the kingdom of heaven, flee from idle talk, and from mocking simply and at random those who do no wrong. Do you say that you do it in play, not indeed intending to hate, but making merry and being lighthearted, you slander blameless men at the drinking party?

Therefore, jesting and making merry, endure the eternal punishment, and, lifted up, go your way into that ineffable fire. Do not grieve, nor be pierced with pain, when you are justly reviled for your transgressions and reproached; rather, hear your own mockeries gladly.

TITLE 3. — Concerning famine, and against those who in time of need do not sell grain; and that many unlawful things come of famine.

There was a famine in Samaria, so that an ass's head was worth fifty shekels of silver, and a fourth part of a cab of doves' dung five shekels. And the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall. And a woman cried out to him, saying: Save, my lord king. And the king said to her: If the Lord does not save you, from where shall I save you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress? And the king said to her: What is it with you? And she said: This woman said to me, Give me your son, and let us eat him today, and my son we shall eat tomorrow. And I boiled my son, and we ate him; and I said to her, Give your son on the second day, and let us eat him; and

He hid him. And the king heard the word of the woman, and tore his garments. "He who sells grain at a high price is cursed by the people. He who withholds grain, let it be left to him for the nations." "Mourn, priests, you who minister at the altar, because the fields have been laid waste. Let the earth mourn, because the grain has been laid waste. The wine has dried up; the oil has been diminished; the farmers have been put to shame. Lament for your possessions, for wheat and barley; the vintage from the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig trees have been diminished, pomegranates, and palm, and apple, and all the trees of the field have dried up; because the sons of men have put joy to shame." "My eyes have failed with tears, my belly has been troubled; my glory has been poured out onto the earth, at the crushing of the daughter of my people, when infants and nursing babes swoon in the streets of the city. To their mothers they said: Where is grain and wine? when their souls were poured out into the bosom of their mothers. See, Lord, and look, to whom have you done thus? shall women eat the fruit of their womb? A cook has made a gleaning. Shall nursing infants be slain at the breasts?" "The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; and they became food for them." "Because there was no rain upon the earth. The farmers have been put to shame, and have covered their heads. And even the deer in the field have given birth, and have abandoned their young, because there was no herbage. Wild asses have stood in the groves; they have drawn in wind like a dragon. Their eyes have failed, because there was no grass." Do not wait, O man, for a famine of grain, in order to open your granary. For he who sells grain at a high price is cursed by the people.

Do not wait for famine because of gold; do not bring about common want for the sake of your own prosperity. Do not become a peddler of human misfortunes. Do not make the wrath of God an occasion for an abundance of money; do not inflame the wounds of those afflicted by scourges. But do you look at the gold and not look at your brother? And you recognize the stamp of the coin, and you distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine; but do you completely fail to recognize your friend when he is in need? What then does the needy man do? He now turns his eye upon his children, so that by taking them to the marketplace he may find from there a consolation for death. Consider here the battle between the necessity of famine and a father's affection. The one threatens the most pitiable death, while nature pulls back, persuading him to die together with his children. And often he rushed forward, and often he was checked, and at last he was overcome, forced by inescapable need. And what does the father plan! In what manner shall I sell him? Whom will the grain-seller see with pleasure? Shall I go to the eldest? But I am ashamed before his seniority. But to the younger? But I pity his age, which is insensible of misfortunes. This one preserves clearly the features of his parents; that one is well suited to learning. Alas for the perplexity! What shall I become? Which of these shall I offend? What beast's soul shall I take on? How shall I forget nature? If I hold fast to all, I shall see all consumed by the suffering; if I give up one, with what eyes shall I look upon the rest, having now become suspect to them for faithlessness? How shall I inhabit the house, having prepared childlessness for myself?

How am I to come to the table, when it has its plenty from such a pretext? And while he comes with countless tears to sell off the dearest of his children, does his suffering not bend you? Do you take no thought for nature? But famine constrains the wretched man, while you postpone and mock, making his calamity longer. Famine is the sum of human misfortunes, a death more miserable than all deaths. For in other dangers, either the edge of the sword swiftly sends forth the end, or the rush of fire quickly extinguishes life. But famine has its evil idle, its pain drawn out, its disease seated and lurking within, a death always present and always delayed. For the suffering of famine has often compelled many even to move the boundaries of nature, and to lay hands on men of their own kind, and a mother, the child she brought forth from her womb, to receive back again evilly into her womb. And this drama Jewish history has tragically told. What will the grain-dealers and grain-hucksters say, who watch for the harshness of the seasons, so that we may traffic and revel in others' misfortunes and acquire—not as Joseph did the goods of the Egyptians in a greater stewardship; for he knew both how to gather and how to give out grain well—but as lawless men the goods of their own kind? Those who say, When will the month pass, and we will sell, and the Sabbaths, and we will open our treasuries? Those who corrupt justice with double measures and weights, and tilt the leaden measure of lawlessness upon themselves. The most grievous thing in famines is the insensibility and insatiability of those who have.

For they watch for the seasons, and they traffic in scarcity, and they cultivate disasters, not listening to the one who says that he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, nor that he who withholds grain is cursed by the people, nor any other thing either promised to the humane or threatened to the inhuman; but they are more insatiable than is fitting, and they think wickedly, closing their own storehouses to those others, but the compassion of God to themselves—which they need more than others do, and do not know it. These are the grain-dealers and grain-mongers, who neither respect kinship nor are grateful toward the Divine, from whom they have their possessions while others are oppressed. Necessity led everything under its teeth, and gathering even things not suitable for the filthiest of animals, they endured to eat them. At any rate, in the end they did not abstain from belts and sandals, and stripping the hides from their shields, they chewed them. A certain woman, as the famine was creeping through her entrails and marrow, went against nature, and snatching her child (she had an infant at the breast), she said, Wretched infant, in war, and famine, and sedition, for whom do I still keep you? Become food for me, and a fury for the seditious, and a tale for life, the only thing lacking to the calamities of the Jews. And saying these things at once, she kills her son; then, having roasted him, she eats half, and covering the rest, she kept it. And immediately the seditious were present, and catching the scent of the unlawful roasting, they threatened to slaughter her quickly if she did not show what had been prepared. And she, saying that she had kept a good portion for them too, uncovered the remains of the child.

But straightway shuddering and derangement of mind seized them, and they were frozen at the sight. And she said, This is my own true child, and the deed is mine; eat, for I too have eaten. Do not become softer than a woman, nor more compassionate than a mother. But if you are pious and turn away from my sacrifice, I have eaten half, and let the rest remain for me. And of those being destroyed by the famine throughout the city, the multitude fell beyond number, and the sufferings that occurred were indescribable. For in each house, if ever a shadow of food appeared, there was war, and the dearest of friends came to blows with one another, snatching away the wretched provisions of life. And there was no trust even for the dying in their destitution, but the robbers searched even those still breathing, lest anyone having food hidden in his bosom should feign death for himself. And those gaping from want, like rabid dogs, leaped upon them, and thrust themselves in at the doors, shaking like drunken men, and from helplessness came to the same houses twice or three times in a single hour. TITLE 4. — Concerning lupines (sic). "Give to the pious, and do not take hold of the sinner. Do good to the humble, and do not give to the impious. Hinder his bread, and do not give to him. For you will find double evils in all the good things that you do for him, because the Most High also hated sinners, and to the impious he will render judgment there." Make your care greater and more earnest for those who have become poor through virtue and piety, or who are in want, otherwise for those in want from diseases or misfortunes, than for those who have become poor from misfortune or prodigality.

Do you dare at all to innovate, and to skip about, and to give heed to games, being a Christian? Do you dare at all to dance, and to leap, moving feet and hands to what pleases the devil? How do you herd and gather together with those who are truly Christians? Inside, the priest offers the supplication to God for the salvation of the world, and outside games are being performed. For thus also the Israelites played, and destruction came upon them. For Moses on the mountain offered the supplication to God on their behalf, and the people, after eating and drinking, rose up to play; and wrath came upon them, and twenty-four thousand fell in one day.

LETTER M.

TITLE 1. — On mysteries, and those who divulge mysteries. "He who reveals a mystery walks in deceit." "You have heard a word; let it die with you." "Merciless is he who does not keep words, and he will not spare concerning maltreatment and bonds." "Do not do a secret thing before a stranger; for you do not know what it will bring forth. Do not reveal your heart to every man." He who holds a word in great security will live with great pleasure. You have heard a word, he says; let it die with you. Quench it, bury it. Do not allow it to go out, nor to be moved at all. Kill what was said; deliver it to forgetfulness, so that you may become like those who did not hear. The talkative, bursting forth things that ought to be kept silent, pour out in a certain manner, from garrulity, things into ears of hearing that are not worthy. TITLE 2. — On hatred of evil, and things displeasing to God. "The Lord does not wish to see unlawful things; the Lord will not enter in before him." "Are you not God, who does not will lawlessness?

The one who does evil shall not dwell with you, nor shall they remain. You hated all those who keep vanities in vain. You loved righteousness, and you hated lawlessness. God scattered the bones of those who please men; they were put to shame, because God set them at nought. You set at nought all those who turn away from your statutes, for their thought is unjust. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; an unjust thought is an abomination to the Lord. Whoever judges the unjust as just, and the just as unjust, is unclean and abominable before the Lord. The Lord opposes the proud. Twisted ways are an abomination to the Lord. Everyone who is high-hearted is unclean before the Lord. I am the Lord, who loves righteousness and hates robberies from injustice. You have become a burden to me; I will no longer forgive your sins. When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes away from you. And if you multiply your supplication, I will not hear you. For your hands are full of blood. Pride is hateful before the Lord and before men. What is exalted among men is an abomination before the Lord. TITLE 3. — On repentance and confession. Judah said: Tamar has been justified, for which reason I did not give her Shelah my son. And he did not continue to know her any more. Nathan said to David: Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am raising up evils against you, and I will take your wives before your eyes, and I will give them to your neighbor; because you did it secretly. And David said to Nathan: I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said:

And the Lord has passed over your sin. As Ahab was pricked to the heart before the face of the Lord, and went weeping, and tore his garments, and girded sackcloth upon his body, and fasted. On the day when he struck Naboth, the Lord said to Elijah: I will not bring the evil in the days of Ahab, because he was pricked to the heart before my face, but in the days of his son I will bring the evil. You, Lord, according to the abundance of your goodness, promised repentance and forgiveness to sinners for salvation. If there be a thousand death-bringing angels, not one of them shall wound him, if he understands in his heart to turn to the Lord. Strip off your filth, and you shall not be afraid, and forget your toil; like a wave that has passed by, and you shall not be terrified; and your prayer shall be like the morning star. If you turn and humble yourself before the Lord, and put injustice far from your manner of life, the Almighty shall be your helper from enemies; and he shall restore you clean like silver refined by fire, and on your ways there shall be light for you, because you have humbled yourself. If they turn from injustice, and listen, and serve, they shall complete their days in good things. A well-known man reveals his own sins in the council. Come, and let us return to the Lord our God, for he has struck and he will heal us.

He who strikes, and will bind us up, will heal us after two days, and on the third day we shall rise, and we shall live before him, and we shall know, and we shall pursue to know him. Turn to me with your whole heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in lamentation. And tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and abundant in mercy, and repents of evil. Turn to me, and I will turn to you, says the Lord Almighty. Wash yourselves, and become clean; remove your wickednesses from your souls from before my eyes. Cease from your wickednesses. Learn to do good, seek judgment, rescue the wronged, judge the orphan, and justify the widow; and come, and let us reason together, says the Lord. And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow. And if they be as crimson, I will make them white as wool. And 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, a sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. They shall turn to the Lord, and he will listen to them, and he will heal them. When you turn, you shall groan, then you shall be saved. I am he who blots out your sins, and they shall not be remembered. But you, remember. Say your sins first, that you may be justified. I am God, and there is no other besides me. There is no righteous one and savior besides me.

Turn to me, and you shall be saved, you who are from the end of the earth. Hear me, you who have lost heart, who are far from my righteousness. Draw near to my righteousness, and the truth, and the salvation that is from me I do not delay. Seek God, and when you find him, call upon him; and whenever he draws near to you, let the ungodly man forsake his ways, and the lawless man his counsels, and turn to the Lord, and you shall be shown mercy, for he will forgive your sins abundantly. If you set things right, and make Jerusalem a boast upon the earth, the Lord has sworn by his glory, and by the strength of his arm, that I will no longer give your bread and your foods to your enemies, and that foreign sons shall no longer drink your wine, for which you labored. Turn to me, O dwelling of Israel, says the Lord, and I will not be angry with you forever. Only know your iniquity, that you have acted impiously against the Lord your God. I will speak an end against a nation, or against a kingdom, to uproot them and to destroy them. And if that nation turns from the evils which I purposed to do to them. Do not withhold a word; perhaps they will hear, and each will turn from his evil way, and I will cease concerning the evils which I command to do to them. Turn to me, O dwelling of Israel, says the Lord, and I will not set my face against you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not be angry with you forever.

Make your ways and your works better, and hear the voice of the Lord, and the Lord will cease from the evils which he spoke against you. If the lawless man turns back from all his lawless deeds which he has done, and keeps all my commandments, and does righteousness and mercy and judgment, he himself has kept his soul. And he saw and turned away from all his impieties which he did; he shall surely live, and shall not die. All his transgressions shall not be remembered, but in his righteousness he shall live. Do I desire the death of the sinner, says the Lord, rather than that he turn from his evil way and live? You have made your sons of good hope, because you give repentance for sins. Do not be ashamed to confess your sins. Concerning atonement do not be without fear, adding sins to sins. And do not say, His compassion is great; the multitude of my sins will be atoned for. Do not wait to turn to the Lord, and do not put off day after day. For suddenly the wrath of the Lord will come, and in the time of vengeance you will be destroyed. Child, have you sinned? Add no more, and pray concerning your former sins. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, that I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is good, and my burden is light. Peter remembered the word of Jesus, who had said to him, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times"; and going out, he wept bitterly. Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. What woman having ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does she not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and search carefully? A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father: Father, give me the portion of the substance that falls to me. And he divided his livelihood between them. And after not many days the younger son gathered everything together and journeyed to a far country, and there he squandered his substance, living prodigally. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose throughout that country, and he began to be in want. And going, he attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs, and he longed to fill his belly from the carob pods which the pigs were eating, and no one was giving to him. But coming to himself, he said: How many hired servants of my father abound in bread, and I am perishing! Rising, I will go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants. And rising, he came to his father.

But while he was still far away from the house, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and running, he fell on his neck and kissed him. And his son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But his father said to his servants, "Bring out the first robe and clothe him, and give a ring for his right hand and sandals for his feet, and bring the fatted calf, slaughter it, and let us eat and be merry, because this my son was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." "Godly sorrow produces a repentance unto salvation that brings no regret." "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." "If we confess our sins, he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "Little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ." We have been made wretched through sin; let us be healed through repentance. But repentance without fasting is idle. Take heed to yourself, so that in proportion to the offense, you may also accept the help that comes from the cure. Is the sin great and grievous? Great is your

The need for confession, for many tears, for intense vigilance, for unceasing fasting. Is the sin light and easy to bear? Let the repentance be equal to it. It is a thing to be prayed for, not to touch evil at all. The second voyage is straight after the attempt, to flee as from the bite of a venomous creature. If through the enemy's snatching you have received in your soul a will of impiety, do not stand in the sin. But if you have suffered even this, do not settle in the evil. It is impossible to touch the good without first wholly departing and turning away from evil. If the multitude of God's mercies can be numbered, and the greatness of his compassion measured, then, in comparison with the multitude and greatness of sins, let the one who has committed the sin fall into despair. But if these things, as is likely, are subject to measure and happen to be countable, while God's mercy cannot be measured nor his compassions numbered, then it is not the time for despair, but for recognizing mercy and for condemning sins, whose forgiveness is set forth in the blood of the Lord. If any hope of salvation remains to you, brother; if any brief remembrance of God; if any longing for the good things to come; if any fear of the punishments stored up for the unrepentant, recover yourself quickly; lift up your eyes to heaven; come to your senses. Cease from your wickedness; shake off the drunkenness poured over you. Rise up against the one who cast you down. Remember the compassion of God, that he heals with oil and wine. Do not despair of salvation. Take up the remembrance of what is written: Does not the one who falls rise again, and the one who turns away return?

The one who has been struck is healed, the one caught by the beast escapes, the one who confesses is not cast out; for God does not will the death of the sinner, but that he turn back and be saved. Do not, as though you had fallen into a depth of evils, despair. It is a time of forbearance, a time of long-suffering, a time of healing, a time of correction. Have you slipped? Wake up. Have you sinned? Be still. Do not stand in the way of sinners, but leap away. For when you turn away and groan, then you will be saved. For there is health from labors, and salvation from sweats; there is salvation, there is correction. Take courage, do not despair. There is no law judging and condemning to death without mercies, but grace governing, deferring punishment, awaiting correction. The doors have not yet been closed; the bridegroom hears; sin does not rule. The tower of strength has not fallen, brother; the medicines of repentance have not been disgraced; the city of refuge has not been shut. Do not remain in the depth of evils. Do not give yourself over to the murderer of man; for the Lord knows how to raise up the broken down. Let no one living in wickedness despair of himself, knowing that the cultivation of plants changes their qualities, and the care of the soul according to virtue is able to prevail over sicknesses of every kind. It is not the change of evil that has the shame, but its preservation brings destruction. Do not refuse to confess your sin, so that you may escape the shame there by the shame here; since this too is a part of the suffering there; and you will show that you have truly hated the sin, having made an example of it and triumphed over it as worthy of insult.

God is served by nothing else as by suffering, and by tears his love for humanity is repaid. God rejoices in nothing so much as in the correction and salvation of a person. Let us sow in tears, that we may reap in exultation. Let us become Ninevites, not Sodomites. Let us heal our wickedness, lest we be consumed by wickedness. Let us hear Jonah preaching, lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone. If the wrath of God were a passion, one might well despair, as no longer able to quench the flame which he has kindled through so many evils. But since the Godhead is impassible, whether it punishes or avenges, it does this not with wrath, but with love for humanity and great care; we must be very confident and trust in the power of repentance. Even if one does not show the whole of repentance, nor even the brief and short-lived one—it is not passed over, but God sets a great reward even for this. Repentance is judged not by quantity of time, but by the disposition of the soul. The one who has repented of the dreadful things he has done, even if he does not show a repentance worthy of his sins, will nevertheless receive the recompense even of this. When you sin, do not despair of yourself, but at once run to the resurrection. Do not say to yourself: Alas, I am lost! I have fornicated, I have committed adultery, I have murdered. You have a harbor of salvation that repels sin. For when I see such a one receiving wounds and being torn apart, I immediately run to repentance, and I speak boldly, pouring out fountains of tears. Many often, both men and women, have fallen into a grievous and incurable disease. Tears were poured out, medicines were spent, the medical art was at a loss;

Beauty has withered away, the body has given out. So the woman goes about: Where shall I go? What shall I do? I have spent my money, I have called in physicians, the medicines have been used up, the disease remains, the sore does not yield. It has often happened that one of those who visited said, I too fell into such a suffering, and such-and-such a man or woman applied a remedy to me and freed me from the disease. Then she begs: Show me the woman. Go to the narrow street, ask this man and that woman; there is no need of toil, no need of labor, nor is it necessary for you to cross the threshold, but standing here to receive the remedy. So too David, while young, obtained the ripe fruit of virtue. So Samuel came to Jesse, who was clothed in the good fortune of his bodies, holding the horn in which was the holy oil. And what does he say? God has sent me to make one of your sons king. Jesse, hearing king, thinking that office suitable for the elder, brings his first son. What then does the prophet say? Bring him here; God has not been well pleased in him. He brings the second; neither in this one. The third, by no means; the fourth, the fifth; the chorus of the children was used up, and the one sought was not found. He says to him: Do you have another? The father was ashamed. I have one, he says, a little, cheap shepherd. Man despises, but God crowns. For man looks at the face, but God at the heart. For do we not seek fatness of soul? We long for nobility. God did not say to him, Go, anoint David for me, so that David should not suffer what Joseph suffered.

For just as those men learned of the king they were seeking, they plotted, they made war, they sold him; so there was a fear that these men too might do this. So ignorance became the mother of safety. The prophet stood at a loss: Give me one of your sons. I have none, he says, except a little child tending the sheep. Man does not see as God sees. Where are those who adorn themselves for the beauty of their face? Do not speak to me of beauty of body, but look at the beauty of the mind. For what is a beautiful woman but a whitewashed tomb? If she is not chaste but has beauty, she is a pit dug for others, a poison prepared. This is both withered by disease and cut off by death; but the beauty of the soul remains immortal and undefiled. And then it displays its own comeliness, when the passions cease and the mind comes into calm. So if you see a beautiful man or woman, do not marvel, since even the oaks are raised to a height, having no fruit; but the vine, dragged along the ground, has the ripe fruit of its clusters. What then do you want? To have a vine or an oak? Clearly a vine. For the oak, standing on high, has the fruit of wild, unreasoning beasts for food. What is more lowly than a bee? What is better? A bee, or a peacock? Take away a peacock, and you have harmed nothing; take away a bee, and many things are crippled. So David came, the oil is found, and he is anointed by the vote of God, but by the ministry of man. He placed the horn upon him, and instead of a purple robe and a diadem it became his.

And he went out holding the kingdom, not clothed in a breastplate, nor a shield, nor spears, but in the decree of God, which is mightier than all. But this man, when war was calling and affairs were in turmoil and the barbarians were advancing against the Jews, went out to see the battle line and the war, and he sees the barbarian challenging to single combat, and no one dared to leap forward or go out. But David, seeing the enemy flashing like lightning, the war being unbearable, and the many already terrified, says: Who is this uncircumcised man, who has reproached the battle line of the living God? And they say to him: From where is this madness of yours? But he says: I have acquired not madness, but faith; not arrogance, but piety. I do not consider his size, but the desolation of his soul; I do not see that the ship is great, but that it has no pilot. I do not fear him, for he is an enemy of God. With what weapons do you trust, David? Not fleshly ones, he says, but spiritual; for our weapons are not fleshly, but spiritual. Some therefore hear, and they brought him in to the king, who was sitting, terrified, trembling. And he says to him: Why has the face of my lord fallen, and in prosperity he confesses servitude? Who is this? Shall I not go and take away his head? What then does the king say? And how are you able? You are a little boy, but he is a warrior from his youth. Do not look, he says, at things seen, but at things understood. What then? The king disbelieves; he is compelled thereafter to recount his achievements.

I was a little child,” he says, “shepherding my father’s sheep, and when the lion or the bear came and took a sheep from the flock, I would go out after them and snatch it from their mouth, and I would strike the lion and the bear; and this one shall be as one of those beasts.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.” But the king gave him his armor; but he could not bear it, because God did not permit this, so that he might conquer naked, so that the armor might not share in the victory of his achievements, so that the king might not say, “The armor won.” He throws off the armor, puts on faith, goes out naked, armored with faith; he goes out a shepherd, and not a soldier. He lets fly the stone, the foreigner fell; not by the nature of the body, but by the power of faith carrying off the victory. He took his sword, cut off his head, and what was written was fulfilled: “In the works of his hands the sinner was caught.” This man, then, such and so great, about whom God says: “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart.” O high commendation! O proof of virtue! This man, then, who overcame the beasts, who killed Goliath, who strangled the lion, who seized the bear, who in youth was hoary-headed, small in body and lofty in heart, who in royal robe displayed the exactness of monks; (for he shone, not from pearls, but from tears;

For he says, “Every night I wash my bed; with my tears I drench my couch.” This man, then, such and so great a man, who drew to himself spiritual grace, who touched the vault of the heavens, who enjoyed the impulse from above, who put an end to wars—this man who displayed great and countless achievements against the devil, after chastity, after gentleness, after dignity, when he held the kingdom, when he won countless wars, when he subdued nations, at high noon, after lunch, rising from his couch he was walking, and he saw a woman bathing, beautiful and fair of form—a woman bathing in an upper room, the lovely wife of a soldier. He saw, and his eye was given wings; he received the arrow. Let them hear, those who curiously scrutinize what belongs to others; let them hear, those who are mad after the theaters; those who say, “We watch, and we are not harmed at all.” David was harmed, and are you not harmed? He was harmed, and shall I be confident for you? He who had so great a grace of the Spirit received the arrow, and do you say you are not caught? And yet he did not see a harlot, but a chaste and modest woman; and not in a theater, but in a house. But you watch in a theater, where even the manner of it punishes the soul; and you not only watch, but you also hear words of wickedness, and

You see a harlot’s dress and devilish songs on every side; the mind is struck by the sight of what you have seen, by the hearing of what you hear, by the smell of what you smell. So many pits, so many corruptions—and can I dare assure you that you will not become a beast’s prey? Are you a stone? Are you iron? You are a man, clothed with the common weakness of nature. Do you hold fire and not get burned? How does that make sense? Put a lamp into hay, and can you tell me the hay is not burned? Such is our nature too. He saw her bathing; he was captured by her beauty, received the arrow, took the wound. The king sent for her; she came to him; he committed the transgression, fulfilled his desire. He orders her to go away to her own house. I say these things and bring the wounded man into the midst, so that those standing around may see how he is healed. For even a physician performing surgery has bystanders, so that they may see how by his skill he conquers the disease. Much more, when a prophet is being operated on, all must see, so that we may learn how we ought to be delivered from the putrefaction and the worms. The sin was grievous; the desire was fulfilled; the sin was completed. There was no one to heal. The woman conceived. For a while the king thought he was escaping his husband’s notice. For even if he was a prophet, nevertheless his desire darkened his mind. The woman conceived, and came running to the king and says: “O king, I am undone.” And he: “What is the matter with you?” “I am pregnant,” she says; “the fruit of sin has sprouted; I carry the accusation in my womb; the proof of sin has grown; I have the evidence from my own house. If my husband comes and sees, what have I to say?

Consider how great an evil sin is. The king fears the soldier. For there is no other slave except the one who commits sin. Was he clothed in a diadem, and did he dread disgrace? Are you not a king? Do you not have authority over the sword? But I have committed a grievous sin. O mother of misfortune! O reproof of dishonor! What then does the king do? He adds sin upon sin. So Uriah her husband came from the war and went in to the king, and he says to him: What is it, Uriah? How goes the war? He says, Well; we have conquered. The king heard that the soldier had conquered, and that he himself had been defeated; the soldier subdued the war, but he was defeated by pleasure. And being at a loss, the king did not perceive the victory because of the shame of the defeat by which he himself was defeated. So he says to the soldier: Go to your house, and bathe, and enjoy your table and your wife. Why these things? In order that he might cover the wound, in order that the child might be thought to be born from him. But the unsleeping eye did not permit it, sparing the wounded man. What then does the soldier do? And how, he says, can I do this thing? Israel is in war, the commander-in-chief in battle array, the ark of the covenant of the Lord is in the camp, and shall I go off to my house and be about to live in luxury? But since he could no longer cover what had happened, he writes a letter to the general, having this content: Take Uriah and station him in the heavy part of the battle, so that he may be killed. And he hands him the letter, and the wronged man carried the sword against himself, and bore a letter full of blood.

Then he stood in the battle, was slain, and fell. Behold a second sin: murder became the fruit of adultery. I say these things for the sake of sinners, and those who are conscious of many evils in themselves, so that hearing them they may not despair of their own salvation; for it is written: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery. But these two first commandments he transgressed. He committed adultery, and then he murdered the man who had been wronged. The wound is grievous, the injury great. Since therefore Uriah went out into the battle and was slain, and immediately the sin, having been kept in shadow, leaped forth. Then at last Nathan went to him; the prophet goes to a prophet, although David was a prophet. How then does he not heal himself? For just as physicians, when they are sick, need other physicians; for sickness damages the art; so indeed here, that one was a prophet, this one is a prophet. But that one was not lying on a bed, but was occupied in wickedness.

They say to him: Nathan the prophet is outside. He says, Let him enter. So the prophet entered, seeing him seated with great splendor, and with royal pride. And what does he say? I have a case; hear me. O the wisdom of the physician! He entered carrying a knife, so that he might cut the wound, but he does not show it to the sick man, lest he be deprived of the cure, and he hides it within, not under his cloak, but the drama of the narrative. For immediately upon entering he did not say: O lawless one! O profane one! O adulterer! O murderer! Not having the reproof naked, nor boldness without a mask, but the knife hidden. And he says: I have a case, O king. And he: Tell the case.

There was a certain rich man, and he had many flocks and herds; and there was a certain poor man, who had nothing except one ewe lamb, which ate from his table and drank from his cup and slept in his bosom. Do you see poverty having affection as its foundation? For among the rich there is great pride, but among the poor the wife becomes a servant and a minister, and she bears a child, and becomes for him both mother and nurse. But among the rich it is not so; rather she bears a child and gives it out, and pride cuts affection in two. The mother bears, and does not become a nurse. She who has become a mother is ashamed to become a nurse; but the Lord is not so. For he both begot us, and himself became our nurse. Therefore also, instead of food, he fed us with his own flesh, and instead of drink, he gave us his own blood to drink. So then the stranger came to that neighbor. Who is the stranger? Unbridled desire, that beastly thing. It came, and did not take from his flocks and his herds, but sent and snatched that ewe lamb, which slept in the poor man's bosom and ate from his table. What then? The king was angered. For he thought he was judging another's case, and he made the just judgment clear with great splendor. For it was not affection, so as not to speak the truth; but he was angered unwillingly, and he speaks the just judgment. He shall die, he says, by the sword, and he shall repay the ewe lamb fourfold. And he does not command according to the law; for the law does not command the thief to repay fourfold.

For he too transgressed the law. He therefore cast his vote, and the judgment was complete. He throws off the mask, and the prophet says: You are the king. What then does he himself say? I have sinned against the Lord. Do you see, even in the sickness, the nobility of the soul? For he did not say to him: Wretched and miserable man, from where did you come, and in whom did you trust, that you entered with such boldness, and weighed down with folly and arrogance, wished thus openly to rebuke a king? But what does the king say? I have sinned against the Lord. What then does he say? And the Lord has taken away your sin. Swift was the repentance, swifter the forgiveness. You, be the first to speak your sins, that you may be justified. By deeds you provoked, by words repent. I say these things so that sinners and those who have fallen into sins may hear. I have sinned against the Lord, and he has forgiven your sin. You indeed said, The sword shall fall upon him, but you shall not die. Were you enamored of a harlot, and did you commit fornication? Do you wish to repent? Do not add sin to sin. For this reason God chose the firstfruits of sin, so that no one after these things might despair of his own salvation. Are you impious? Consider the magi. Are you a robber? Consider the tax collector. Are you unclean? Consider the harlot. Are you a murderer? Reckon the thief. Are you lawless? Consider Paul the blasphemer, and afterward the evangelist; first a weed, and afterward wheat; first a wolf, and afterward a shepherd; first lead, and afterward gold; first a pirate and a wrecker, and afterward a helmsman; first one ravaging the Church, and afterward one entrusted with the Church.

first cutting down the vines, and afterward becoming a vine-dresser; first tearing down the temple, and afterward building it up. You saw exceeding wickedness, you saw virtue conquering; you saw the recklessness of a servant, you saw the love of humanity of the Master. Do not say to me, I am a blasphemer, I am a persecutor, I am unclean. You have examples of all these things. Flee to whatever harbor you wish. Do you wish in the New? Do you wish in the Old? In the New, Paul; and in the Old, David. Do not make excuses, do not hesitate. Have you sinned? Repent. Have you sinned ten thousand times? Repent ten thousand times. I continually apply these medicines, so that I may calm the inflammation. For I know how great is the despair of the conscience. The devil stands by, sharpening swords and saying these words: You have disgraced your whole youth; you have squandered your whole life; first with a prostitute, afterward you stole, you defrauded, you lied, you broke oaths, you blasphemed. What hope of salvation? You are lost; for the rest, enjoy even this present life. These are the devil's words; but mine are the opposite. Are you lost? But you can be saved. Have you committed adultery? But you can be set free. Have you fallen? But you can rise again. Is your repentance small? But great is the love of humanity of the Master. Have you murdered? But repent, but change your mind. Have you committed adultery? [But confess. Have you fallen?] But rise up. Have you been wounded? But be healed. And as long as you breathe, if you sin on the last day, on that very bed on which you lie gasping out your soul, about to depart from this theater, then repent in time. Distress does not afflict the love of humanity of God.

Do not say to me, "How, and in what manner, being full of sores and filled with wounds, can I confess on the last day?" You can, and you most certainly can. Pray, perform almsgiving, leave something in your will to the poor. You depart there, and your work remains here. Do not say to me, "How am I saved?" When God is at work, do not demand an accounting. When he heals, do not despair. The physician stands by, cuts, cauterizes, applies countless remedies, and you do not say, "How do you heal?" but you yield to the skill of your fellow servant; and will you not yield to the love of God for mankind? Do not say, "How?" but marvel. I ask you then: How was the robber saved, who spent his whole life in murders and in blood? He broke through walls, seized property, did not repent, did not change his mind while he was on earth. He was condemned by men, and was crowned by God. He was not master of life, and he became master of a kingdom. He lost the things here, and received the things there. How, tell me? By one word. For what did he say? "Remember me, Lord, in your kingdom." And the word prevailed. Not the word alone prevailed, but also the love of God for mankind, mingled with repentance, made the robber a citizen of paradise. How? I do not know; do not demand the manner of the healing. You beg the physician only to rid you of your sickness; do you dare to say, "How?" It is God who is at work. How is it that adulterers, catamites, and sodomites, when caught, occupy prisons, yet by the nod of the king alone are released? The king is my fellow servant. For what of it? Even if he is clothed in purple, he has nothing more than my own substance. He is of the same race as I; and he nods, and they are released.

And small letters, and the condemned man was released. No ruler opposes, no jailer resists, no authority of laws stands in the way, but the dignity of the king becomes the release of the one held. And God, the master of angels and archangels, if he only nods, cannot save? And a king, if he pardons, pardons punishment, not sins; but God forgives sins. He says, "I do not wish the adulterer to be an adulterer," and his word became deed. "Let the fornicator not be a fornicator," and his word changed that man's mind and blunted the sin. And so that you may learn, he said: "I wish," let heaven come to be, and heaven came to be. "I wish earth to come to be," and he brought into being what was not. "I wish angels to come to be," and the choir of angels ran together. The word produces intelligent essences and bodies that did not exist, and cannot loose sins? What is sin compared to the Master's love for humanity? A spider—the wind blew, and the spider is torn apart; God wills it, and sin is not destroyed? I say these things, not to make you more slack, but to lead you to faith

of greater expectation and a better hope. Never despair of a man, except of one who despairs of himself. Consider, then, the prophet, who was with the grace of the Spirit, after his boldness toward God, after the multitude of his successes, after such trophies, proclaiming and saying: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy. I have cast myself upon the sea of the Master's love for humanity. And what do you want, tell me? You have heard the prophet saying: The Lord has taken away my sin. I do not seek this only; I seek my beauty, I seek my boldness. According to the multitude of your compassions blot out my transgression. I seek yet more, a greater radiance, a greater purity: Wash me more thoroughly from my transgression, and cleanse me from my sin. Attend to the word with precision, and strain yourself; the mercy of God is ineffable, unable to be comprehended, surpassing the mind, conquering reasoning, but it has need also of what is from us. Attend to what I say: God shows mercy, but he does not show mercy simply, but he says: Give something also yourself. What I mean is: you are full of countless sins, you have burdens of offenses, I wish to lighten them. Give also your hand. Not because I have need of you, but because I wish that you too contribute something to salvation. How, then, was the robber saved, and did he loose so many sins? But not by mercy alone, but also by his own faith. Remember me when you come in your kingdom. What did God bring to his salvation? The loosing of sins. What did the robber bring to his own salvation? Faith. Of what sort? Great, lofty, touching heaven.

How do I say this? The Jews saw the dead being raised, demons being driven out, the sea being bridled, the earth gushing forth springs, a fish carrying a stater, a star leading the magi, the creation above and the creation below standing guard, and after these things they crucified him. The robber, knowing none of these things, but seeing him spat upon and insulted, was not scandalized, but confessed him as king. See that he was not merely shown mercy, but he himself also contributed. For the one who is shown mercy must himself also contribute to his own salvation. Again, the tax collector, being a rapacious and greedy man, how was he saved? Christ was present and said to him: Come, follow me; and he rose and followed him. Just as the robber contributed the word, so the tax collector offered him his following. For just as in the case of the sick who are incurably held by their diseases and need costly medicines, if the physician comes in and says to the invalid, Many kinds are needed for the preparation of the medicine, and he says to him, I am poor, I have nothing, and then the physician says, Give me this and that kind, and the rest I supply from myself—so also the Lord says: Give me confession, and a tear, and repentance, and the rest I grant you from my love for mankind. See what happens: if you remember your sin, God does not remember it. But if you forget it, God remembers it. For he says: I am he who blots out your sins, and I will not remember them; but you, remember them. Such were the saints: they forgot their achievements, but remembered their sins.

Not as people do now: they forget their sins, but if they have done something good, they bring it into the open, puffed up and boasting, hunting for praise from men. Have you done good? Forget it, so that your Master may speak of it. Have you done evil? Remember it, so that your Master may forget it. Leave it to your Master; for do you not speak of your successes in the same way as your Master speaks of them? If you speak of them, you diminish them; if your Master speaks of them, he magnifies them. Speak of your sins, so that you may wipe them out. But are you ashamed to say that you have sinned? Say them daily in your prayer. For I do not tell you, "Tell your fellow servant who reproaches you"; tell God, who heals them. For if you do not say them, does God not know them? Does he wish to learn them from you? When you were doing them, he was present; when you were working, he knew. You were working, and you were not ashamed to work. You were not ashamed of the deeds, and are you ashamed of the words that

justify you? Speak here, so that you may not speak there; speak, and weep. Your sins are written in a book. Your tears are a sponge; weep, and it is blotted out; weep, and the book is found clean there. Did the harlot not shed blood? But she wiped out her sins. And why do I speak of a harlot, an unclean woman? The pillar of the Church, the foundation of the faith, the head of the choir of the apostles, the blessed Peter—did he not deny Christ, once, and a second time, and a third time? Did he not shed blood? He poured out fountains of tears, and washed, and wiped away the sin. Do you not have a book in your house, and do you write the daily word?

But keep a book in your conscience, and write down your daily sins. What I mean is this: when you lie down on your bed, and no one disturbs you, before sleep comes upon you, bring the book into the middle, and reckon up your sins, saying to yourself: Did I perhaps sin today? In word? In deed? The prophet counsels this: What you say in your hearts, be pricked with compunction upon your beds. In the day you have no leisure, but there is the fear of rulers, and conversations with others, and concern for business, and provision for the rearing of children, and care for a wife, and anxiety about the table, and countless matters drag you about. But when you come to your bed, to the harbor free from waves, and no one disturbs you, say to your heart and to your soul: We have spent this day, O soul. What good have we done, or what evil have we committed? And remember Gehenna, so that you may add to the good and remove the evil. If you are in bed and remember your sins, weep, and you can blot them out in bed. Entreat God, and so send your soul on with sleep. This is the pretext of sinners: I am a sinner, he says, and I cannot meet it. Because you said you are a sinner, meet it, so that you may become righteous. Are you righteous? Meet it, so that you may not fall away from righteousness. But who among men is without sin, tell me? But for this there is sacrifice and the Church; for this there is prayer and fasting. Since there are many wounds of the soul, remedies for them have also been found, and for each wound of the soul a suitable remedy has been prepared.

You have a church, a sacrifice being accomplished, the prayers of the Fathers, the provision of the Holy Spirit, the remembrance of the martyrs, the gathering of the saints, and many other such things able to call you back from sin to righteousness. Did you not attend the prayer of the martyrs? And what forgiveness would you have, tell me? Did a worldly concern take hold of you? The charge is greater. Did you not lend a little hour to God, so that you might receive a whole day? "I am a sinner," he says, "and I cannot." And because you are a sinner, for this reason enter. Do you not know that even those who attend at the altar are themselves fastened to sins? For they are clothed in flesh, and entangled with blood, and bound together with bones, and we ourselves who sit upon the throne and teach are entangled in sins. But we do not despair of the philanthropy of God, nor do we attach any inhumanity to him. For we are all men, woven together from the same elements. We do not refuse the teaching, looking to the philanthropy of God. And you, having sinned, have not so great a charge; for you are under a teacher. But we, by as much as we surpass in dignity, by so much the more are we subject to the charge. For it is one thing for the one being taught to sin, and another for the one teaching. And this has come about according to the divine governance, that the priests themselves also fall under sin; since if they did not sin, nor were subject to the passions of life, they would be inhuman toward others, and unforgiving.

But for this reason he also arranged for the priests themselves and the rulers to be enslaved to passions, so that from the very things they themselves suffer they might grant forgiveness to those who sin; and those to whom he was going to entrust the Church and the people, to these he permitted to fall into sin, so that from their own failings they might become humane toward others. For if they themselves had not sinned, nor been subject to sin, they would have had no forgiveness to give to those who sin, but carried away by inhumanity they would have reaped everyone from the Church. And that these things are so, and that I do not speak by conjecture, come, let us persuade from the history itself: Peter was going to be entrusted with the keys of the kingdom, or rather he was entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and he was going to be entrusted with the multitude of the peoples. For what does the Master say to him? Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Peter, then, was harsh and severe. But if he had also possessed sinlessness, what forgiveness would those taught by him have had? But for this reason divine grace contrives that he be separated from it for a little while, so that Peter might fall into sin, in order that from what he himself suffered he might become more humane toward others. And see whom he allows to fall into sin: that Peter, the chief of the apostles, the unshaken foundation, the unbroken rock, the wall of the Church, the harbor free from storms, the unshaken tower; that Peter who says to Christ, If it is necessary for me to die with you, I will never leave you.

Peter, who confessed the truth by divine revelation, "You are the Son of the living God"—this man, having come on that night on which Christ was handed over, and standing at the charcoal fire, was warming himself; and the girl came up and says to him, "And you also were yesterday with the man." But Peter said, "I do not know this man." O Peter, is this the whole of what you promised? Were you not just now saying, "If I must die with you, I will certainly not deny you"? And now you deny and say, "I do not know this man." Not yet having known tortures, not yet whips, but simply having heard the words of a little girl, you proceeded to denial. Deny, Peter—not yet instruments of torture, not yet blows, not yet whips, not yet wrath, not yet sharpened swords, not yet rulers threatening, not yet death expected or threatened, not yet prisons, and cliffs, and sea, and already you deny? And again the girl: "Truly you also were with him." But he said to her, "I do not know this man." Who is it that says to you that you deny? None of those who are close to you, but a woman—or rather, not even a woman: she herself a doorkeeper, cast out, a captive, worthy of no account. O wretched affairs! A girl conquered Peter; a girl coming up disturbed Peter's faith. Peter the pillar did not bear a girl's threat, but she merely spoke, and he himself was shaken. Whom did you see, O Peter, and deny? A cheap girl, easily despised, a doorkeeper—her you saw and denied? But nevertheless again the third time: "And you also were with him." He denied in the same way. And so Christ, looking at him, brought him to remembrance of what had been said.

But he, understanding, began to weep and to repent of his sin; nevertheless the lover of humanity forgave him his sin. For he saw, as God, that he had undergone something human. He fell into sin so that, considering his own sin and the Master's forgiveness, he might forgive others also for the sake of loving humanity. For he himself was permitted to fall into sin—he who was to be trusted with the Church, the pillar of the Churches, the harbor of the faith. Peter, the teacher of the world, was permitted to sin, so that his forgiveness might become a ground of loving humanity for others. And why have I said these things? Because we also, the priests, even those seated on the throne, are bound by sins. For this reason it was not an angel who was entrusted with the priesthood, nor an archangel—for they are without sin—lest they strike the people who sin with thunderbolts all at once; but a man from among men was entrusted with this throne, himself bound by sin and pleasure, so that when he receives someone who has sinned, he may become more compassionate toward that one from his own transgressions. For if a priest were an angel and received someone who had committed fornication, he himself would put him to death, because he himself is not subject to this passion.

If an angel had received the authority, he would not have taught, but would have destroyed at once. For his not being such a one brought him to anger against such a person. But through this, man, knowing his offenses and having it from experience, is able to forgive those who come to him, and the Church is not emptied through anger. If there is a soul blackened by sin, let it not fear; only let it repent. Even if it happens to be at the last breath, and is, as it were, at the evening hour, let it not fear. Only let it repent with weeping. Imitate King Hezekiah, who, having fallen into illness, lay upon his bed; but when he heard Isaiah saying to him, "Set your house in order, for you are about to die, and you shall not live," he turned to the wall and moistened his bed with tears of repentance, and at once received fifteen years of life. Let no one despair of his own salvation. Are you a tax collector? You can become an evangelist. Are you a robber? You can plunder paradise. Are you a magician? You can worship the Master. There is no evil whatsoever that is not loosed by repentance. For this reason God chose the firstfruits of wickedness, so that you might not have escape to the end. Do not say to me, "I am lost; and what remains?" You have a physician greater than the illness. You have a physician who sets things right by will alone, and who wishes to. He brought you into being when you were not; much more can he correct you when you are and are perverting yourself. Did he not take dust from the earth and form man? How did he make earth into flesh? How sinews? How bones? How veins? How eyes? How eyelids? How eyebrows? How a tongue? How a chest? How hands?

How feet? How all the other parts? Was not the underlying substance earth? Was it not one substance? And skill came in, and made the creation varied. Are you unable to say the manner in which he cleanses sins? For just as fire falling upon thorns consumes the thorns, much more does the will of God devour our transgressions, and root them out, and make the sinner like the one who has not sinned. Do not seek the manner; do not busy yourself with what is happening, but believe the miracle. Have you sinned many and great sins? And who is without sin? This suffices for you as a sacrifice: Say your sins first, that you may be justified. Recognize that you have sinned, and it is the beginning of correction; be grieved, be downcast, pour out tears; for did the harlot pour out anything else? They were tears, and she received the release of her sins. Weep before the time, that you may not weep there. Repent now while it is permitted. Do not repent of your sins then, when there is no time for repentance. Let us work the good, while we are still able. If we lose money, we are able to recover it again; but if we lose the time, we are not able to find another. A mad lover does not so love his beloved as God loves the repentant soul. For such is the love of humanity of the Master, turning away from none of those who run to him, but extending a hand. There is no need of time for the one who wishes to be saved; indeed the robber was not saved in time, but having only believed, he gained the inexhaustible treasure of the kingdom.

Do not despair, and do not abandon prayer, but come forward even though you are a sinner, so that you may glorify the Master, so that you may give him the opportunity to display his own love for humanity in the forgiveness of your sins. If you are afraid to come forward, you have hindered his goodness and blocked the abundance of his kindness, as far as it lies with you. He receives, and very gladly, the lamentation of those who repent, profitable for the attainment of good repute and orderliness; and it is better, before standing at the judgment seat of Christ, to be released from every accusation, and to render due honors to those who are about to bring charges, and to wash away the filth of every cause, before we fall into the punishments concerning these things and are made to pay the penalties by the righteous judge. Repentance must be swift, lest, as he delays and is slow, time produce in itself a base habit of impiety, and lest a man himself, having become reprobate in his mind, reckon things above as below. By whatever things I find you, by those things I will judge you; and the end of all things cries this out in every detail. So that even for the one who has done the greatest good in his life, but at the end has slipped away toward wickedness, all his former labors are unprofitable, since at the catastrophe of the drama he has become prize-less; while for the one who lived worse and more carelessly before, but repented afterward, it requires much diligence for the time after repentance to overcome a long-lived wicked way of life, just as bodies worn down by a long illness need a regimen and greater attention.

It is perhaps possible to cut off ingrained passions all at once, but this is accomplished with God's power, human supplication, the help of brothers, sincere repentance, and constant meditation. Not to have sinned is good, but to repent having sinned is also good, just as always to be healthy is best, but to recover after illness is also good. True repentance is to be found no longer guilty of the same sins, but to root out utterly from the soul those sins for which one has condemned oneself to death. To turn truly from sins is to cease and no longer look back. Repentance of sins makes the mind of the penitent pure. God, accepting the present virtue, does not remember former sins. For someone who has fallen not to rise, but to fall upon sin again, is the mark of a despiser and a very foolish person. For those who have repented of impiety, the impiety, being out of place, is not found; for it was not from the beginning, nor shall it be forever and ever. The beginning of salvation is self-condemnation. God does not immediately punish those who sin, but gives time for repentance and for the healing and correction of the fault. No one ever perished who used the effective medicine of repentance. It is a great thing never to admit defeat; but if through the enemy's snatching away a fault should ever occur, one must flee to the more kindly hope. For the inclinations of men are toward opposites. Spiritual teaching is accustomed to drive out the smoke deposited in souls by evil. The demons desire that we perish.

But when we repent, they miss their mark, and the Scripture is fulfilled which says, "The desire of sinners shall perish." Wherever the spirit of repentance enters, it is clear that there is a destruction of every sin and a dissolution of the avenging demons. Good remorse is greatly powerful for salvation; let us cultivate it continually, that we may be saved and not perish. It is no small thing, even for the least, to ascend one step of the ladder of virtues, and for that time to be above, having departed from evil. Take courage and come with weeping to Jesus, the heavenly chief physician, and having laid bare all the wounds of your soul, make your supplication. For there is no wound or passion which Christ our God, who loves mankind, is not able to heal. Hasten to destroy the worms of the mind through prayer, fasting, and strenuous vigil. Christ the King and God in no way turns away those who gape after him and groan from the depth of the heart, even if they happen to be burdened with many sins; but he even receives them, and cleanses them, and grants them the gift of adoption as sons, and shows them to be workers of virtues as time goes on. He said, "Have mercy on me." Where there is mercy, there is no examination. Where there is mercy, no tribunal sits. Where there is mercy, no accounts are demanded. Where there is mercy, salvation without examination. Where there is mercy, a defense already pardoned. I seek only to be shown mercy; for what reason do you demand accounts of me? Once for all I seek mercy, salvation that asks no curious inquiry: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy." You said "great"; say also how great. I do not know; that it is great, I know; but to comprehend it I am not able.

I do not know the measure of its greatness. Reason cannot interpret it; understanding cannot grasp it. I see the fruit of mercy is great. For if it were not very great, few would have been saved. I do not desire the death of the sinner, as the

turning back of him so that he may live. Since some make excuses—some marriage, some military service, others a craft, others slavery, others poverty, and others various other things—claiming these are obstacles to salvation, I wish today to show to all of you that neither wealth nor poverty, nor military service, nor trade, nor marriage, nor children, nor crafts, nor anything of the sort is an obstacle to salvation. Jesus was invited to a wedding, and he went; but he even brought gifts. For he turned the water into wine. The Master came and glorified the marriage, and do you insult it and say that marriage is an obstacle to salvation? Therefore nothing is an obstacle to piety. Moses had a wife and children; Elijah was a virgin. And Moses brought manna down from heaven, and Elijah brought fire from heaven. Moses brought quail, and Elijah by a word shut up heaven. Moses conversed with God, and Elijah likewise was deemed worthy of converse with God. Moses split the sea and led the people through; Elijah was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire. Did virginity then harm this one? Did a wife hinder this one? You have seen Elijah, the charioteer of the air; you have seen Moses, the wayfarer of the sea; look also at Peter, the pillar of the Church, for he too had a wife. And how is it clear that he had a wife? We will demonstrate this from the testimony of the Gospel. For it says:

The Lord went in to Peter's mother-in-law, and she was sick, and he touched her, and the fever fled; and she arose and served him. Do you see that Peter also had a wife? Let no one therefore make an excuse, neither wife, nor children, nor military service, nor trade, nor craft, nor slavery, nor wealth, nor poverty. For these are an excuse and a pretense; these are the plots of the devil. Do you plead military service as an excuse, and say, "I am a soldier, and I cannot be saved"? Was the centurion not a soldier? And he says to Jesus, "I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but say the word, and my servant will be healed." And Jesus marveled and said, "Amen I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." Did military service hinder him? But you may say, "I am a craftsman." Paul also was such, but also a plunderer of the Churches; and afterward he became a herald and apostle. But what? Rich? Abraham also was rich, and he believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. But what do you have to say? A slave? Have you not read Paul writing to Philemon? Onesimus, once useless to you, but now useful both to me and to you in the Lord. But a king? David also became a king, but when he sinned, and Nathan the prophet came in to him and rebuked him concerning the sin which he had committed, he confessed the transgression and said, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan, seeing the swift repentance, says to him, "And the Lord has forgiven your sin." For since the repentance was sharp, the forgiveness was sharper still. But you will say, "I am younger.

See Daniel, who stopped the mouths of lions, and broke the dragon, and cast down Bel, and condemned the elders, and saved Susanna. But what does he say? Incontinent and hot in body. See Joseph, how he displayed great philosophy and embraced chastity, tearing his garment but not rending his faith; he conquered the shamelessness of the Egyptian woman and did not fulfill her desire. But what? A widow? See the Sidonian woman, who received Elijah and treated him with bread and water. But you will say, "I am also a prostitute." See Rahab the prostitute, who hid the spies with herself and preserved her household. But are you poor? See Lazarus, that in so great poverty as he was, how great a philosophy and endurance he displayed. Are you a lover of children? But so was Job. And Jesus was also called to a wedding; and when he had come, his mother says to him, "They have no wine." He says to her, "What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come." And having said this, he says, "Fill the water jars

of water. And they did as he commanded, and stretching out his hand, he made the water wine. But why did he say, Fill the jars with water? Was it that he who by his word made the heaven and founded the earth, and all things in them, whose glance dries up the abysses, whom all creation in heaven and on earth trembles and shudders before, was unable to fill the jars by his word? But he says, Draw water. If, he says, they deny it, their hands that drew it, and their shoulders that carried it, will convict them. And in the case of Lazarus he did the same. When the sisters of Lazarus came saying that Lazarus had died, Jesus says to them, Where have you laid him? They say to him, Come and see. O strange and wondrous things! You said, Lazarus has died, and now you say, Where have you laid him? You foretold death to your disciples, and you do not know the place? But I speak for the sake of the Jews, since they are unreasonable. For when he came near the tomb, he says to the Jews, Take away the stone from the tomb. And they took it away. And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. He came out bound with grave-cloths. Was he, then, who moves mountains into the hearts of the seas, unable to roll away the stone by his word? He who crushed the stings of death, who shattered the gates of Hades, was he unable also to burst the bonds of the garments? But he says to them, Loose him. Why? So that if they deny it, their hands and their eyes may convict them.

When a man has set his life aright in virtue through ascetic practice and good conduct, and is henceforth recognized by all as pious and God-fearing, and—which may it not happen—falls into sin, this is a transgression. For he has ascended to the height of heaven, and has fallen to the bottom of Hades. Nevertheless, even after falling, so that he may not despair of himself and fall utterly into the abyss of perdition, but turning back covers the transgression of his sin through repentance, and is not dominated by his evil thoughts, he is restored again to his measure. For he who has fallen, if he does not remain in the transgression, but rises and takes up repentance, is restored again to the same measure; just as another prophet also says: If, turning back, you groan, then you shall be saved. And again another: Turn back to me. Even if you have fallen and been dashed down into pleasure, do not despair of yourself, but rising, groan over what has been done to you, and turn back to me through repentance, and I will correct your fault. For I am he who sets upright those who have been dashed down. We have heard the Lord saying: Come, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. I lighten your burden. For I know that you cannot bear the burden of the law, and for this reason I have come down, that I may bring in grace for you, that I may lighten the burden of your sins. Let no one decline to come to repentance, whether magician, or tax collector, or blasphemer; let no one be afraid. I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. These things the Lord says, and he exhorts us; therefore let us not be negligent.

Judas came near and kissed Jesus, saying, “Hail, Rabbi.” And the Lord said to him, “For what have you come? For what I have come to do?” he says. “Be busy, so that I may give you a kiss.” O treacherous kiss, full of lawlessness and destruction, and the procurer of Gehenna. The harlot who kissed the feet of Jesus recalled her soul and tore up the handwriting of her sins; but this man, having kissed, was cut out of the book of life. O the philosophy of a woman! O the ignorance of a disciple! While she kissed the feet of the Lord, the angels rejoiced and prepared the crown; but when this man kissed, the demons rejoiced and wove the rope of his hanging. O kiss full of vinegar and gall! “Hail, Rabbi.” He rejoices, but you, Judas, mourn, because you have been cast out of joy. Jesus said to Mary, “Do not weep, but go and tell my brothers, and Peter, that he has risen from the dead; and behold, he goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him.” Do you see the compassion of the Master? No one

He has named another, if not Peter. Why? Because the rest did not say, “If we must die with you, we will surely not deny you.” But this one, having said it, denied me; and going out, he wept bitterly. He is therefore about to be afraid to come into my presence, thinking that the sin has not been loosed; for this reason I have spoken also to Peter, so that he may see me without hesitation together with the rest of the disciples. Say to Peter, “Do not be afraid at all. For I have not made you less than the place of glory; I have not set you second to the rest; I have not removed you from the place of glory at my right hand; I have not given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to another. Do not be afraid; for you have not bound on earth, it shall be bound in the heavens. Do not fear, Peter. I have not removed you from my throne; I have not made you less than my grace. For what I promised, I will fulfill. On your rock-like faith I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. You will shepherd my sheep, you will feed my lambs; you stand at my right hand as a commander. Do not fear, because you denied me. I have seen your tears, and I have forgiven you the sin. It would have been good also for Judas who handed me over, if he had repented and had not hanged himself. For I am the God of those who repent. For this reason I came down to the earth, that I might grant repentance to the world. To tax collectors and prostitutes I have forgiven so great a multitude of sins, and to you I do not concede the one sin? I love those who repent. Remember that I wept over Judas, and I did not wish him to perish. It would have been good for him, when he threw the silver pieces into the temple, if he had repented and had not hanged himself.

But because he remained unrepentant, for this reason he is punished eternally. I saw your tears, and I forgave you your sin. To David, who committed two evils, adultery and murder, I granted pardon, and I restored him to the ancient order of prophecy; and to you, who left behind house, and wife, and boat, shall I not forgive the one sin? Do not be afraid, Peter; I am the one who said: There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. I am the one who said: Come, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. It would have been well for Judas too, if he had turned back to me, and had not been entangled in the rope of hanging and destroyed himself. For I did not even curse him; rather, like the others, I also washed his feet, and I handed him the bread, and I brought no charge against him, in the hope that he might come to repentance, but he was unwilling. For this reason he is punished eternally. But you, having repented, do not be afraid to be seen by me along with all. For this reason I left the ninety-nine sheep and ran after the one. I did not diminish you, Peter, of the grace, since even your shadow has power to heal the sick, and through you handkerchiefs and aprons drive out demons, and the touch of your hand will bring the man lame from birth running forward.

TITLE 4. — On Those Who Do Not Repent.

"He who covers his own impiety shall not prosper." "Thus says the Lord: Does not the one who falls rise again, or the one who turns away return? Why has this people turned away with a shameless turning, and they have been held fast in their own choice, and they did not wish to return?" "They made their faces harder than rock, and they did not wish to turn back." "Do not say, 'I have sinned, and what has happened to me?' For the Lord is long-suffering." "Do not wait until death to be justified." "Be well disposed toward your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way; lest the adversary hand you over to the judge, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out from there until you pay the last quadrans." If sin is a good thing, O man, guard it to the end. But if it is harmful to the one who does it, why do you persist in things that are destructive? No one who seeks to vomit out bile from a wicked and dissolute way of life gathers this up for himself many times over. It is fitting to purge what grieves the body, not to contrive the

A disease greater than one's strength. The ship is seen to bear the weight of its cargo up to a point; but beyond that it is sunk. See to it that you never make your sins greater than your forgiveness, and suffer shipwreck before the harbors you hoped for. See to it that you never, in hope of redemption, gather a multitude of evils for yourself, heaping up sin, and so fail of pardon. Vice kept silent is a festering disease in the soul. Just as we would not call a benefactor the one who shuts deadly things up in the body, but rather the one who draws them out into the open by pain and incision, so that through the manifestation of the affliction the manner of cure may become clearly known—so it is evident that to conceal sin is to cooperate with the sick person's death. For, he says, the sting of death is sin. See, O man, that you never repent of evil counsels when the repentance is of no profit. Since we sinned in the body, when we presented our members as slaves to sin unto lawlessness, let us confess with the mouth, using the same instrument for the dissolution of sin. Did you revile? Bless. Did you defraud? Repay. Did you get drunk? Fast. Were you arrogant? Be humbled. Did you envy? Console. Did you murder? Bear witness, or do what is equivalent to witness-bearing: afflict the body through confession, and then after confession you are worthy to sing to God on a ten-stringed psaltery. It is not the falling that is hard, but for the fallen to lie there and not rise, willfully doing evil and being slack, and by thoughts of despair to conceal the weakness of the will.

Many of those who sin say, "I am full of shame; how can I approach God? How can I entreat him?"—suffering from a diabolical scrupulosity. Are you without boldness? For this very reason draw near, so that you may acquire great boldness. For is it a man who is about to be reconciled to you? It is God, who desires more than you do to set you free from your sins. You do not desire your own security as much as he longs for your salvation. A soul that has once tasted sin and become insensitive to it gives great increase to the disease. For just as a spark, if it once takes hold of something, thereafter consumes everything, so the nature of sin, once it has taken hold of the soul's reasonings and there is no one to quench it, thereafter becomes more grievous and harder to subdue, being lifted by the addition of second sins to greater contempt. Thus indeed many, often not quenching the flame at the beginning, have come to a great shipwreck. For sin, having no one to prevent it from advancing, is like a horse that has broken its bridle and thrown its rider headlong. The soul is hard to lead back up to the good things from which it has slipped; hard to lead out of the evils to which it has become accustomed. If you had ever wished to blame yourself for your lawless deeds and to heal yourself with the medicine of repentance, perhaps we might have nourished good hopes for you. But since you have utterly despised the fear of God and spat upon faith in Christ itself, it would have been better for you if you had not been born from the womb.

To fall under and give way to the passions is the utmost slavery, just as, to be sure, mastering them is the only freedom. I fear death, because it is bitter to me. I fear Gehenna, because it is eternal; I fear the fire, because it is unquenchable; I fear Tartarus, because it has no share of warmth; I fear the darkness, because it has no share of light; I fear the worm, because it is unending; I fear the angels, because they are merciless. Woe to me, because I did not listen to you when you cried out and said: O soul, cease from these defilements and from all the abominations in my sight! Woe to me, because I have corrupted your temple and grieved your Holy Spirit. Lord, your judgments are true; for the sake of the brief enjoyment of sin I am tormented eternally; for the pleasure of the flesh I am handed over to the fire. The judgment of God is just. I was taught, and I did not attend. They testified to me, but I laughed them to scorn. You will say these things and the like, if you are snatched away before your repentance toward God. O man, either fear Gehenna, or lay claim to the kingdom. Brethren, what fear and trembling and constraint we have to see when the soul is separated from the body. For there comes upon us an army and power of the opposing forces, the rulers of darkness, the world-rulers of wickedness, the principalities and authorities, and in some manner of judgment they hold the soul, bringing forward all its sins committed in knowledge and in ignorance, from youth up to the age at which it was overtaken. So then the accusers stand ready. What trembling do you think the soul has in that hour, until its judgment receives its sentence from the righteous judge?

If she is found to have lived in negligence, she will hear that most terrible voice: Let the impious be taken away, that she may not see the glory of the Lord. Then the day of wrath overtakes her, a day of affliction and distress, a day of darkness and gloom, as she is handed over to the outer fire and eternal fire, in which, having been condemned, she will be punished for endless ages. TITLE 5. – Concerning those who are drunk.

“Ben-hadad, drinking and becoming drunk, he and thirty-two kings as his allies with him. And the servants of the districts went out, and Syria fled.” “Do not be a wine-drinker. For every drunkard and frequenter of prostitutes will become poor.” “He who is pleasant in the pursuits of wines will leave dishonor in his own strongholds.” “To whom is woe? To whom is tumult? To whom are judgments? To whom are unpleasantnesses and gossip? To whom are pointless crushings? To whom are livid eyes? Is it not to those who linger long over wines? Is it not to those who track down where drinking-bouts take place? Do not get drunk with wine, but converse with righteous men. For if you give your eyes to bowls and cups, later you will walk more naked than the open air.” “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of drinking.” “Sober up, you who are drunk with wine, and weep, all you who drink wine to drunkenness, because gladness and joy have been lifted from your mouth.” “Woe to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink, who stay until late. For wine will burn them up together. For with lyre and psaltery, and tambourines, and flutes they drink wine, but they do not look upon the works of God.” “A drunken worker will not become rich.” “Much wine is bitterness of soul.

Drunkenness increases the rage of the foolish man to his stumbling, diminishing his strength and causing injury. "A great wrath, a drunken woman." "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly. For as a snare it shall come upon all those who dwell on the face of the earth." "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness." Let us flee drunkenness, the public prostitute, the mother of shamelessness, the laughter-loving one, the maenad, the one easy toward every form of indecency. For none of the good things comes to be in the soul darkened by drunkenness. Drunkenness is a self-chosen demon, engendered in souls from pleasure. Drunkenness is the mother of vice, the opposition of virtue. It makes the brave man cowardly, the temperate man wanton. It does not know justice, it destroys prudence; and just as water is hostile to fire, so the immoderation of wine extinguishes reason. Therefore I was hesitant to say anything against drunkenness, not as though it were some small evil or worthy to be overlooked, but as though the word offered no benefit. For if the drunken man is deranged and darkened, the one who rebukes him chants in vain to one who does not hear. To whom, then, shall we speak, if indeed the one who needs the exhortation does not hear what is said, while the temperate and sober man has no need of the help that comes from the word, being pure from the passion? What then shall I do with the present circumstances, if both the word is useless and silence is a dead end? Shall we overlook the care? But negligence is dangerous. But shall I speak against those who are drunk? But we are sounding into dead ears.

In what way do you differ from the irrational animals, O man? Is it not by the gift of reason, which you received from your Creator and thereby became ruler and lord of all creation? Therefore he who strips himself of his own understanding through drunkenness has been compared to the senseless beasts and has become like them. Indeed, I would say that those in drunkenness are more irrational even than the grazing beasts, since all four-footed animals and wild beasts have their impulses toward mating ordered; but those possessed in soul by drunkenness, and who fill the body with unnatural heat, are driven to unclean and shameful unions at every season and every hour. And this does not only produce irrationality in them, but by the distortion of their senses it makes the drunkard worse than any beast. For what grazing animal looks aside so, and hears so amiss, as the drunkard? Do they not fail to recognize their own household, and often run to strangers as though to familiar folk? Do they not often leap over shadows as though they were ditches and ravines? And their ears are filled with echoes and noises, as it were of a surging sea; and the earth seems to rise up steeply, and the mountains to run around in a circle. These men sometimes laugh without ceasing, and sometimes grieve and weep inconsolably. And now they are bold and undaunted, now fearful and cowardly. Their sleeps are heavy, hard to shake off, and dreadful, and truly neighbors to death, while their wakings are more senseless than their sleeps. Their life is a dream.

Those who do not even have a cloak, nor know what they will eat for tomorrow, play the king, and command armies in their drunkenness, and build cities, and distribute money. Filled with such fantasies and so great a deception, wine fills their hearts. Others are driven into the opposite passions. They are despondent, downcast, full of pain, tearful, fearful, and easily frightened. The demon-possessed man is pitiable, but the drunkard, suffering the same things, is not even worthy of pity, since he wrestles with a demon of his own choosing. To whom is woe? To whom is tumult? To whom are nausea and idle talk? To whom are pointless bruises? Whose eye is livid? Is it not those who linger long over wine, and those who spy out where drinking parties are held? The "woe" is a mournful exclamation; and drunkards are worthy of mourning, because drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. "Tumult" refers to the disturbance that arises in their thoughts through wine, and "nausea" to the bitter discharges from the pleasure of drinking. For by these their feet are bound, and their hands are bound by the streams sent upon them from drunkenness; and before these passions, at the very time of drinking, the passions of the delirious fall upon them. For when the membranes are filled with the vapor that wine gives off when it evaporates, the head is struck with unbearable pains; and unable to remain upright on the shoulders, it falls now this way and now that, slipping upon the vertebrae. But who would say these things to the wine-stricken? For they are heavy-headed from the debauch, they doze, they yawn, they see a mist, they are nauseous.

For this reason they do not listen to the teachers who cry out to them from every side: Do not get drunk with wine, in which is debauchery. From this come tremors and weaknesses, when the spirit within them is battered by the excess of wine and the sinews are loosened, and a shaking comes upon the whole bulk of the body. Why do you draw the curse of Cain upon yourself, trembling and wandering throughout your whole life? Until when, wine? Until when, drunkenness? You are in danger, from now on, of being mire instead of a man; so wholly have you been mixed with wine and rotted together with it from your daily hangover, reeking of wine, and of that, corrupted. A servant runs away from a master who strikes him, but you remain with wine that strikes your head every day. The best measure for the use of wine is the body's need. But if you go beyond the bounds, you will come tomorrow heavy-headed, yawning, dizzy, reeking of rotten wine. Everything will seem to you to be spinning, everything shaking.

Woe to those who use the good badly. Do not blame the wine, but those who drink beyond measure. Deep is the sea; but the diver descends only as far as he can also come back up. But if he descends beyond measure, unable to swim through, he quickly suffers shipwreck. The sea is not the cause, but the diver's insatiable intent; so too with wine, the wine is not the cause, but the one who uses it beyond measure. A pitiable sight in the eyes of Christians: a man in the prime of his age, vigorous in body, distinguished in the military rolls, being carried home on a litter, unable to stand upright, nor to set foot on his own feet.

A man who ought to be fearsome to his enemies is a cause of laughter to the little children in the marketplace; without iron he has been cast down, without enemies he has been slain. A man-at-arms in the very flower of his age has become a waste of wine, and ready to suffer at the hands of his enemies whatever they wish. Drunkenness is the destruction of reasonings, the ruin of strength, untimely old age, a short-lived death. For what else are the drunken than the idols of the nations? They have eyes, and they do not see; they have ears, and they do not hear; their hands are paralyzed, their feet have been deadened. Who is the one who plotted these things? Who is the cause of these evils? Who is the one who mixed for you the drug of this madness? O man, you have made your banquet a battle-line. You cast out the young men, led by the hand like a wounded man from war. You have deadened the prime of youth with wine. And you call him to the dinner as a friend, but you cast him out a corpse, having quenched his life with wine. When they are thought to be sated with wine, then they begin to drink, and they drink in the manner of beasts. For as the drinking already proceeds, a certain young man comes in upon them, holding a large bowl of chilled wine, and standing in the middle, through crooked tubes he distributes the wine equally to the banqueters, so that by equal share they may commit lewdness against one another, and that no one may surpass the other in drinking. Bend down to your wretched belly, and learn the size of the vessel that receives it, that it has the capacity of a single cotyle. Do not look to the wine-jug, when you may empty it, but to your own belly, that it has long been filled.

Therefore woe to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink; who stay late and spend the day in drunkenness. For wine will burn them up together, because the heat that comes from wine in the flesh becomes a kindling for the fiery arrows of the enemy. For wine sinks the reasoning and the mind, but stirs up the passions and pleasures like a swarm of bees. For what chariot of colts is borne so disorderly, having thrown off its charioteer? And what ship, unsteered, carried by the waves as chance may have it, is not safer than the drunken man? From such evils, men and women having formed common choruses and handed over their souls to a demon of wine, wounded one another with the barbs of the passions. Laughter from both, shameful songs, wanton postures provoking to licentiousness. You laugh, tell me, when you ought to weep and groan over what has gone before; you utter the songs of a harlot, having cast out the psalms and hymns that you were taught. You move your feet and leap madly and dance dances that are no dances, when you ought to bend your knees for worship. For whom do I lament? The maidens not yet experienced in marriage, or those held in the yoke of marriage? For the former have returned not having their virginity; and the latter have not brought chastity back to their husbands. For if perhaps some also escaped sin in the body, yet surely in their souls they received corruption. Let these things be said by me also concerning the males. He looked badly, he was seen badly. The one who looked at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If chance encounters have so much danger for those who pry into them, and deliberate meetings even more—so as to see women behaving indecently from drunkenness, posing in ways that provoke looseness, and singing corrupted songs that, even merely heard, can implant every gadfly of pleasure in the licentious—what will they say, or how will they defend themselves? Was it not for this that they looked, in order to arouse their desires? Therefore they are liable under the Lord's inexorable sentence to the judgment of adultery. How will Pentecost receive us, when the Pascha has been so insulted? Pentecost had the clear and universally known visitation of the Holy Spirit, but you, by anticipating it, have made yourself a dwelling of the opposing spirit, and have become a temple of idols instead of becoming a temple of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You have drawn upon yourself the curse of the prophet who said in the person of God, "I will turn their feasts into mourning." How will you rule over your servants, you who serve foolish and harmful desires like slaves? How will you admonish your children, living an unadmonished and disorderly life? What then? Shall I leave you in these things? But I am afraid. Let fasting heal drunkenness, a psalm the shameful melody; let a tear become the cure of laughter; instead of dancing, let the knee be bent; instead of the clapping of hands, let the breast be struck; instead of the adornment of clothing, humility. Above all, let almsgiving ransom you from sin. For a man's own wealth is his ransom. Drunkenness does not receive the Lord; it drives away the Holy Spirit.

For smoke drives away bees, and drunkenness drives away spiritual gifts. Drunkenness is the beginning of godlessness, being a darkening of the ruling faculty, through which God is especially known by nature. The Lord receives the one who fasts within the sacred precincts; the one who is drunk he does not admit as profane and unholy. For if you come tomorrow reeking of wine, and of wine that has soured, how shall I count your drunkenness as fasting? For do not think it is because I have not poured out fresh unmixed wine, but because you are not clean of wine. Where shall I place you? Among the drunkards, or among those who fast? You are disputed over by your drunkenness, like a slave. Straightway the first of the fasts will be senseless for you, because the remnants of drunkenness lie within you. If you come to the fast while drunk, what is the benefit to you? For if drunkenness shuts you out of the kingdom, where then is fasting useful to you? For those who live in drunkenness and licentiousness, the day is turned by night into darkness, not because the sun is extinguished, but because their mind is darkened by drunkenness. Do you not know that the one who rages against the servants of God sins against Christ himself, and makes himself liable to eternal punishment? The one who attempts to admonish a drunkard, what then will he profit? If you obey the divine Apostle crying out plainly, that Drunkards shall by no means obtain the kingdom of heaven, flee accursed drunkenness.

TITLE 6. — On those who hate work, and the lazy, and the slothful, and the contemptuous.

"Go to the ant, O sluggard, and be zealous, having seen its ways, and become wiser than it; for though it has no farm, nor anyone compelling it, nor being under a master, it prepares its food in summer, and makes great provision in the harvest. Go to the bee, and learn how it is a worker; and how it makes its work honorable, whose labors kings and commoners apply for health. And it is desirable to all and renowned, though it is weak in strength. How long, O sluggard, will you lie down? And when will you arise from sleep? You sleep a little, and you sit a little; you doze a little, and you embrace your breast with your hands a little. Then poverty comes upon you like a good runner, and want like a bad traveler." "The soul of the idle man will hunger." "The slothful become destitute of wealth." "The sluggard when reproached is not ashamed, and likewise the one who borrows grain in the harvest." "The sluggard makes excuses and says: A lion is in the roads, and murderers in the streets." "Everyone who is sleepy is clothed in torn and ragged garments." "As

A door turns on its hinge, so does the sluggard on his bed. The sluggard hides his hand in his bosom, and is unable to bring it to his mouth. The ways of one who shows contempt are in destruction. In slothfulness, pretension will be brought low, and through idleness of hands a house groans. Do not be quick in your tongue, and sluggish and slack in your works. Idleness has taught much wickedness. He who had received the one talent came forward and said: Lord, I knew you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter; and being afraid, I went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours. But his lord answered and said to him: Wicked and slothful servant, if you saw that I am a hard man, reaping where I did not sow, and gathering where I did not scatter, then you ought to have put my money with the bankers, and coming I would have received my own with interest. Take the talent from him, and give it to the one who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, it will be given, and he will have abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. When I was with you, I commanded you this: that if anyone does not wish to work, neither let him eat. For we hear that some among you are walking disorderly, not working at all, but being busybodies. To such we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that working with quietness, they eat their own bread. Idleness is the cause of wickedness.

This is a peculiar sickness of a lazy and slothful soul: to see dreams while the body is awake. Who, in the time of sowing, sitting or sleeping at home, when the harvest came, filled his bosom with sheaves? Who gathered grapes from a vineyard not planted? The fruits belong to those whose labors they are. The honors and the crowns belong to those who have labored. Who crowns the man who has not even stripped to face the opponent? Since it is necessary not only to win, but also to compete lawfully, according to the Apostle. Who is so undiscerning a judge of contests that he will deem the victor worthy of equal crowns with the man who has not contended at all? What general ever called to an equal share of the spoils with the victors those who did not even appear at the battle? The good is not good when it is not done well.

TITLE 7. – On hatred, and enmity, and dissension, and those who join battles.

Scatter the nations that desire wars. Men of blood and deceit shall not halve their days. Woe to those who have forsaken straight ways, to walk in paths of darkness. Those who rejoice in evils, and delight in evil perversity. Where insolence enters, there too is dishonor. An evil man does evil when he mingles with a righteous ordinance. A wrathful man prepares battles. A crooked man sends forth evils, and separates friends. Every evil man stirs up disputes; but the Lord will send out a merciless angel against him.

The lover of sin rejoices in conflicts. Do not rejoice, and do not rush into battle, lest you repent in the end. Iron sharpens iron, and a man sharpens the face of another. Whoever kindles evil will be destroyed by it. Those who transgress in evil will be utterly destroyed, and those who cause people to sin by word. They are foolish sons, and not understanding; wise to do evil, but to do good they have not known. A sinful man will trouble his friends, and will cast slander among those who are at peace. Before fire, the vapor of a furnace; so before bloodshed, revilings. Keep away from battle, and you will lessen sin. Strife hastening on kindles blood. Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. Because lawlessness has multiplied, the love of many will grow cold. The one who troubles you will bear the judgment, whoever he may be. Where there is zeal and strife, there is instability, and every base thing. Love has failed, the root of the commandments. –In evil contests the victor is more wretched, because he departs having the greater share of sin. Better to be defeated nobly than to conquer precariously and lawlessly. –Know the limits of enmity, but not of goodwill. TITLE 8. –Concerning the repentance of God; and in what matters the Creator repented. The Lord saw that the wickednesses of men were multiplied on the earth, and every one devises in his heart earnestly upon evil all the days, and God considered that he had made man on the earth. And God said:

I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, because I have considered it, that I made man. The word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying: I have repented that I anointed Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not kept my words. And Samuel was grieved, and he cried out to the Lord all night. Samuel did not again see Saul until the day of his death, and the Lord repented that Saul had reigned over Israel. The Lord saw when they were afflicted. The men and the beasts were clothed in sackcloth, and they cried out to God earnestly; and each turned from his evil way and from the injustice in their hands, saying: Who knows if God will repent and turn from the anger of his wrath, and we shall not perish? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil which he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it. I will speak a decree against a nation or against a kingdom, to uproot them and to destroy them; and if that nation turns from all its evils, I will also repent concerning the evils which I had planned to do to them. And I will speak a decree against a nation and a kingdom to rebuild and to plant; and if they do evil before me, I will also repent concerning the good things which I spoke to do to them.

TITLE 9. – On Hatred of Brothers.

«His brothers, seeing that their father loved him more than all his sons, hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. And each said to his brother: Behold, that dreamer comes. Come, let us kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and say that an evil beast devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.» «Abimelech hired vain and cowardly men, and they went after him, and he entered into his father's house at Ephratha, and killed his brothers, the sons of Jerobaal, seventy men upon one stone; and Jotham the younger son of Jerobaal was left, and he hid himself.» «Jephthah the Gileadite, exalted in strength, and he was the son of a harlot woman, whom Gilead begot Jephthah; and the wife of Gilead bore him sons, and the sons of the wife grew up, and they cast out Jephthah, and said to him: You shall not inherit in the house of our father, because you are the son of another woman. And Jephthah fled from the face of his brothers, and dwelt in the land of Tob; and worthless men gathered to Jephthah, and went out with him.» «Did not one God create you? Is not one father of us all? Why then does each of you abandon his brother?» «Everyone who hates a poor brother is far from friendship.» «His elder son was in the field; and as he came and heard

of harmony and a choir, he called one of the servants and asked what these things might be. And they said to him, "Your brother has come, and your father has slaughtered the fatted calf, because he has received him back in good health." But he was angry and did not want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. But he answered and said to his father, "Behold, for so many years I have served you, and I never transgressed your commandment; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours, who devoured his living with prostitutes, came, you slaughtered for him the fatted calf." But he said to him, "Child, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was fitting to make merry and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; and was lost and has been found." "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.

TITLE 10. — Concerning Monks and Their Asceticism. "The Lord treasures up salvation for those who walk uprightly; those who are quiet in the land shall rejoice." "Child, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation; set your heart aright, and endure." "Do not look about in the streets of the city." "In the midst of brothers, their leader is honored." "Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom." "No one who has put his hand to the plow and turned back is fit for the kingdom." "Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first count the cost, whether he has what is needed to complete it? Lest, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to meet another king in battle, does not first sit down and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one coming against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while he is still far off, he sends an embassy and asks for terms of peace. So then, every one of you who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple." "No servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." "Truly I say to you:

There is no one who has left house, or parents, or brothers, or wife, or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much in this time, and in the age to come eternal life. "Those who run in the stadium all run, but one receives the prize; run in this way, that you may attain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things; they do so to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one." "Beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, always knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." "Brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil; for our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having accomplished all things, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist in truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the readiness of the Gospel of peace. In all things taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows

to quench the fiery darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. "No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the affairs of this life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him. And if anyone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules." "Watch yourselves, so that you do not lose what you have worked for, but receive a full reward." The good contestant, having once stripped for the stadium of piety, must bear courageously the blows of his opponents, in hope of the glory of the crowns. For indeed in the athletic contests, those who have accustomed themselves to toils in the wrestling schools do not shrink back at the pain of the blow, but nevertheless yield to their opponents, despising present toils in their desire for recovery. I would say that the practice of piety resembles a ladder, that ladder which the blessed Jacob once saw, whose lower steps were earthly and close to the ground, while the higher were already stretched up toward heaven itself. So it is necessary for those being introduced to the life of virtue to set their foot on the first steps, and from there always to mount the next in order, until by progress according to reason they ascend to the height attainable by human nature. Just as, then, the first ascent of the ladder is the departure from the earth, so in the citizenship according to God the beginning of progress is the separation from evil. One who is truly going to follow God must be released from the bonds of attachment to this life.

This is accomplished through complete withdrawal and forgetfulness of old customs, so that unless we estrange ourselves from fleshly kinship and from fellowship of life, and, as it were, pass over to another world through ascetic practice, according to the one who said, "For our citizenship is in heaven," it is impossible for us to attain the goal of pleasing God, since the Lord said definitively, "Everyone of you who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple." A soul that looks to the multitude of the lawless first does not take the time to perceive its own sins and to crush itself through repentance for its offenses; but in comparison with those who are worse, it acquires a certain fantasy of good conduct as well. Then, drawn away by tumults and the occupations that common life naturally produces, from the more worthy remembrance of God, it is not only deprived of rejoicing and delighting in God, but also becomes accustomed to contempt and complete forgetfulness of his judgments. There could be no greater evil than this, nor a more destructive passion. Renunciation is, as the argument has shown, a release from the bonds of this material and temporary life, and a transfer to the citizenship in heaven. We call continence, not altogether the complete abstention from foods—for that is a kind of violent dissolution of life—but that which is for the destruction of the passions.

Self-control is the destruction of sin, the alienation of the passions, the mortification of the body even to its natural affections and desires, the beginning of spiritual life, the procurer of eternal goods, annihilating within itself the sting of pleasure. One must not regard the goal of piety as a pretext for idleness, nor as an escape from toil, but as a ground for struggle, and for more toils, and for endurance in afflictions. Thus we become a temple of God, when the continuity of memory is not cut off by earthly cares, nor the mind disturbed by unexpected passions, but the lover of God, fleeing all things, withdraws to God; and driving out the things that summon us to evil, he dwells in pursuits that lead to virtue. Health comes from toils, and salvation from sweats. Nothing in excess, but casting off every weight of a vain life and of labors here below, prepare yourself as quickly as possible for heaven, having made your precious soul like rock by the word. Let the flesh be mastered and tamed well. Do you see these men without livelihood, and homeless, and for a little while fleshless, and bloodless, drawing near to God in this respect? Those

Unwashed of foot and sleeping on the ground; those below and above the things below; those among men and above the things of men; bound and free; those mastered and unrestrained; those of whom there is nothing in the world, and all things above the world; whose life is double, the one despised, the other earnestly pursued; those immortal through mortification, those joined to God through dissolution; those outside desire, and with the divine and passionless love; whose source is the light, and for whom these things are already radiances; whose are the angelic psalm-songs, and the all-night standing, and the indwelling of the mind in God, snatched up beforehand; whose is purification, and whose is being purified, knowing no measure of ascent? One must cultivate and practice a blameless life, and have nothing undisciplined of the things pleasing to God. Good is asceticism with due measure and true knowledge. It befits the self-controlled man also to flee the crowds, that he may keep his mind undistracted and his heart untroubled; for great is the turmoil in the crowds. The kingdom of God is not for those who sleep and are slothful, but the violent seize it. For this alone is good violence, to do violence to God and to snatch life from God. And he who knew the violent, or rather those who hold fast securely, conceded and yielded. For God rejoices in being defeated in such things. For do not the athletes compete clothed? The athletic law leads them naked into the stadium, whether there be heat or cold. But if any of them declines the nakedness, he has declined the contest also. The naked man will flee on that day. Therefore the writer of Proverbs said to the anointers: Take away his garment. For he has passed by;