Commonitorium

The Commonitorium of Orientius. Book One. Whoever you are, hastening for the rewards of eternal life, desiring things that are to be perpetuated rather than things that will perish, who wish the heavens to open, to put death to flight, to shun harsh things, to run on a happy path—learn the way. For we, overcome both by the vices of the flesh and by time, tread the earthly path without ceasing from sorrow: and these are now the only joys mingled with our prayers, if, what we do not do, at least others do, so that, because we now spend this age, which immediately flees, captive in faithless allurements, wanton, wretched, deceitful, brief, fickle, vain— alas, the evil origin of harms hurls us headlong— with all these things, which are snatched away and will die, left behind, you may hold fast with a faith that will not die. Therefore, come, lend attentive ears and a vacant mind: the life to be taught is mine to teach, the life to be sought is yours to seek. But, so that the teaching of our little book may be better, and the order of the poem may hold to straight paths: it pleases me to pray to you, almighty God, with heart and voice, and without you, Christ, it is not fitting to loose the tongue, you who remove darkness by recalling light to the blind, and implant hearing into deaf ears.

of body and mind, you who piously are wont to loose the bonds of the mute: it is your charge over our duty both of heart and of mouth: grant me to feel, grant me to be able to speak, so that your gifts may quicken our tongue, and through you a speech pleasing to you may be made about you, when, by your command, the ass that spoke with our nature, surpassing every command, and terrified Balaam, the four-footed beast, with a wondrous address, while he, the trembling king, with frequent and dire entreaties, preparing harsh words against the holy people, could not properly subdue his own tongue, moved for himself, saying one thing with his mouth, desiring another in his heart. For, about to speak evil, he began to bless excessively, having words ready for others while threatening others. Therefore, unless you supply eloquence, unless you supply sense, O Christ, and unless you guide the efforts of the soul, O Christ, all men, both mute and brute, will hold their mouths, and what they can even do, they will not be able to do. In the beginning you must recognize a twofold life, granted to man by the Lord along with reason, so that, since the body is brute with earthly weight, but the soul is quickened by the breath of God, the soul would suffer no end of loss, while life in this fragile body is brief. One life the principle of birth brings first to all; this life is followed by care and one's own merits.

It is not ours to be born, nor is it ours to live long: the life which follows, life can prepare. And although by the master’s will we take up both, and neither comes to pass unless God commands it, yet the first is swiftly borne through steep revolutions, while the second is granted for all time. Into the first we come ignorant, with no merit; the second comes, won by the highest toil. We are born that we may seek the lord of heaven, earth, and sea with watchful zeal throughout. We seek, that we may know by true judgment who he is, how great, or what he does. We know, that we may worship him, once found, with worthy praise: we worship, that he may grant eternal life. And we worship not with offered incense, not with shed blood, not with wine-drenched mouths, not with feasts weighed down. Gold, clothing, perfume, cattle, libations, gems, and whatever men consider rare or precious, lie before God as vile as earthly weight, as filth, as dirt, dishonored. All things are his, whose we confess ourselves to be. Nothing is our own: he holds it, he gave it. For behold, the holy mouth of the prophet proclaims: “I want not your goats, I want not your calves. Both the beauty of the field and the glory of heaven are with me: for the world is mine, and what is in the world is mine.” Let the vows due to me be paid with a holy heart.

Let the pure voice of praise be my offering. Therefore, reader, you can pretend nothing of yours is difficult in these admonitions. It is not placed far off, it is not to be sought elsewhere, it requires no property, no expense, no price. It suffices that you believe with a pious heart, and ask with a believing mouth, that the lord of the world and parent of all things, in whose power both good and evil lie, surpassing the words of the speaker with a greater understanding, is one, incorporeal, perpetually sacred, embracing all things or always one in all things. But why do I use such bare words, as if there were no divine warnings on this matter? For first remember what was provided under the old law, which was once written on solid tablets, and which now the grace given through the Lord Christ renews, and the venerable voice of the Gospel proclaims: that what rocks once held, now our hearts should hold, and the faith repeated twice would be more abundant. Love the Lord with your whole heart and all your being, and love your God with your whole heart. And rightly: for what could you ever do more justly, bound as you are by such great gifts? He who, when you lay as mud in earthly filth, removed from you the filth of perpetual time: he who gave you that you consist of limbs, that you are moved by mind, that you speak with tongue, that you are wise with reason, that you touch with hands, walk with foot, perceive with sight, hear with ear, smell with nostrils, taste with mouth,

Let the pure voice of praise be my offering. Therefore, reader, you can pretend nothing of yours is difficult in these admonitions. It is not placed far off, it is not to be sought elsewhere, it requires no property, no prior merit—by its own kindness it provides, as father and master of body and soul alike. And not content with this single gift, by which it equipped you with limbs and cultivated you with senses—it that gave life also bestows the comforts of life, so that everything may be furnished for you with delights. Behold: the sky hangs for you, the earth recedes for you, the airs are balanced, the ocean surges; nights and days succeed one another, months and years; the sun shines, the stars gleam, the moon glows red. Spring pours forth charming flowers under various shoots; summer, already heavy, ripens the fields with fruits; autumn is wet with must, the olive is very rich; winter, with fires brought near, knows no cold. To keep off rains you strengthen hanging roofs; you are unaware of winds because of walls set against them; and, combing the shaggy backs of the wool-bearing sheep, you cover your cold limbs with soft wrappings; nor are light veils of snowy linen lacking; there are also cloaks of Eastern fleeces: the one the fertile earth will give back to you from cast seed, the other the Seres will gather on high trees. Finally, throughout the whole year that rolls around, whatever you have, the whole of it is given to you by the care of God.

The field grows green with grain, the hill is clothed with the vine, you harvest ripe fruits from various trees, and, applying care to a fruitful garden, you take the vegetable that pleases you at the right time. You light whatever pine you wish into a bright flame, a waxen flame glitters on noble tables. Nor is the earth bidden to serve only with its surface, subjected to man through various uses: even that which is borne near the clouds, that which rolls in the deep sea, now with deceptive bait, now with linen woven into nets, you seek from here or there with countless arts. And now a fish is dragged for you from the deepest whirlpool, now birds are deceived in the highest air. Dense ranks of wild beasts fall before the hunter, struck by javelins from afar or ensnared in nets. You pursue the prone with iron, you stop the fleeing with dogs, you crush the mouths of the fierce horse with bridles. You force oxen to the curved yoke, goats to the milking pail: sweet honey drips from the wicker hives. You produce gems from rocks, gold from sands, and you smelt pliable metals from the earth with fire: you distinguish herbs that cure sad diseases, you diligently drive away deadly evil with skill. Moreover, so that you may take merchandise from a foreign shore, and give your own to others and seek what belongs to others, you will cross rivers with oars, seas with sail: you will travel long roads without labor.

If you fear the sea, you will move carriages, and the earth will spread itself flat to be marked by your wheels. Then, if your weary body seeks restful ease, the baths will receive your dusty frame; and, stripped of all clothing in the hollow pool, you will refresh your languid limbs in the tamed waters. With so many and such great goods granted to you by your master’s gift, what, in the end, do you render worthy in pious love? Or with what wealth, with what gifts, or with what service can you repay them? Yet the master, to whom all things belong, does not seek these: it is enough that the beloved slave love his master. This also follows as the form of the second commandment: that your neighbor be to you as you are to yourself. I recognize the life-giving law with its enduring reward, which provides for all with a single duty. For when another’s care is entrusted to me, it is necessary that my care also be entrusted to another. Behold, the beast leads its young to rich pastures; the joyful heifer lows to its own herd. They respond with murmurs, they speak with whatever voice they can, and in turn the docile tongue is accustomed to lick. Nor does that which the sea hides beneath its waves lack affection; and bird is dear to bird, and wild beast gentle to wild beast. Then, if ever a predator comes from any band, the stronger, pressing the weak with claw or mouth—whether it be a matter of birds or of wild beasts—help is gathered from all sides.

a captive companion by running, by flocking, by voice, by flight, even if they cannot, they wish to have snatched away. And since they preserve themselves by nature's gift alone, they who are strong neither in counsel nor in reason, what wonder if, following the reverend commands of the master, mutual care will bind man to man, and a man skilled in use, talent, things, reason will act as a brother so that your goods, as his own, become common? Hence comes that pleasing and deserved saying, binding the human race by an equal condition: do not do to others whatever you do not wish to be done to you, and do to others what you wish to be done to you. What race of men, what rite, sex, and age would deny this is right, would deny this is easy? What command does this narrow rule not broadly embrace? What can be handed down more fully with such brevity? For I wish that evil things not be done to me in this way, so that I may again desire that good things be done. There is no need of a judge, no teacher is sought: we know from ourselves what is good and what is evil. You will certainly rejoice if someone, you traveling by night, kindly leads you into a neighboring lodging: you also, solicitous, receive in prepared roofs him who will be a traveler late at night. You wish the naked to be covered with clothing, the thirsty to be called to drink, the hungry to be filled with food: let your own care for your own labor also move you, divide cloaks, cups, foods with the wretched.

Behold, you demand a hand when slipping, comfort when sad, aid when trembling, counsel when doubtful: offer these to the sad, the doubtful, the trembling, the slipping. In a like case, act so that you are loved while loving. Certainly you do not wish to be accused of a false crime: fear accusing others of a false crime. You hate a thief: flee theft; you do not wish to lose by force what is yours: do nothing violently. You do not wish agreements to waver for you by doubtful preparation: keep faith promised from a certain heart. You would wish to cut off the tongue of one who slandered you: take care that no bitter words mark anyone. When you demand a loan, you wish to receive the money at once: let a ready hand help the one seeking a loan. You condemn the proud swollen with arrogance: put aside your own swelling; let what you flee in the lofty be unknown to the inferior. Certainly if a sister or a dear mother or a wife, whose life a grave rumor might stain, is concerned, you act with cautious piety of perpetual modesty as a son or brother or husband: if an adulterer tempts these venerable names for you, you think iron is not enough for vengeance. Are you not guilty of the same punishment if you also secretly approach chaste marriage beds to solicit them? Hence it was that the master commanded under the first law that crimes be weighed by equal punishments: loss for loss, wound for wound, tooth for tooth taken, eyes for eyes.

No less would the bold one, who had desired to snatch away another’s life, demand to give back his own under the judge; nor could the accused call the judgment unjust, for a harsh penalty is decreed for harsh crimes. And although grace of Christ has changed these things for the better—which teaches gentleness rather than violence—still, whatever this or that law commands is right, whether you restore promptly or act patiently. Yet that one is better who rejoices in Christ as avenger, if he keeps for the Lord what He gave to himself. Therefore, accomplish with pious vows and holy deeds what this present life and the future life approve, so that honesty, which fleeting commends you, may receive you in everlasting glory after death. For, certain of our warnings, remember that all things are lasting which the foolish now think will perish: and believe that souls, with the same limbs returning, will receive again the very covering of the body. The face, color, blood, veins, skin, bones, hair—as they now slip away, so they will come again, not only what well-buried stones preserve in tombs, or what solidifying dust and perfume of the Arabs covers; but, swifter than speech, a portion from tombs, a portion from rivers will return to be formed into limbs. What wind has diminished with its breath, what beast with its bite, what flame has burned up, and what ruin crushes—all will be present, all will come together from diverse parts: a part to bird or fish, a part mangled by wild beasts.

and what old age now gradually dissolves, the master’s trumpet will hastily restore. So that, according to the merits of deeds, in the same body in which they performed either good or evil—that is, with the flesh returned to the movements of the soul—punishment may receive the guilty, glory the just. But why should you doubt, when the preceding examples show that the faith in what is to come is manifest to you? Look at the forests, stripped bare by the winter cold, now luxuriating in foliage that had been despaired of. The vine, which stood grieving with its tendril shaken off, is clothed with leaves, is clad with fruit. The stalk of the dense reed grows yellow with ears of grain; the seed that was recently rotting in the ground now flourishes. And the fields, which were squalid with sad neglect, now smile with fresh shoots, blush with flowers. Even the year itself, confined within its varying months, has the appearance of death when the season changes, as spring yields to autumn, cold is driven out by heat, and, as is the way of human affairs, this comes, that departs. Yet this happens by eternal custom, until God gives the nod, and it revolves in alternating service: and while the moving wheel of the long year follows itself, it is born and dies, it falls and returns. For our end does not receive an end, and the death by which we first die dies perpetually. With motion and sensation always victorious and remaining, every man will live for eternal time.

Man will live: tears follow these words of mine; for I think the lot of man would have been better if, with the sense of life, he could lay aside the sense of punishment and become like that which is born among the inborn, than now, when sins dominate the whole age, to be extinguished from life, to live in torments. For I ask you not to believe that, for the sake of a swift penalty, the innocent are hastily devoured by the due flame. Behold the hills immersed in eternal fires, continually burned, yet not diminished: and see the icy springs and the blue rivers always pour forth waters, yet always have them. Thus the avenging fire will always ravage the wretched, so that it may always keep for itself rich fuel. If you think these things false, you will rightly prove them true after death: but you will escape falsehoods, if only you fear the truth. Therefore, if after death a perpetual life follows, gladdening the just and torturing the guilty, strive with all your strength and all your prayers to continue the paths that lead to righteousness. Crush the trampled world together with the prince of death, and flee from trusting in wanton pleasures. Above all, always despise famous faces, and snatch judgment away from your own eyes. No one will carry fires that glow on untouched garments,

No one among the trumpets will not draw sound to the ear. No one among the flowers of flattering scents will not pluck the ever-present rose with the nail. No one long thirsty and scorched by the much sun will lean over and not take possession of the cold waters. No one traveling the roads on foot in the wintertime will be sprinkled with rain and not be drenched. No one, even within the midst of walls, in time of war lives either well secure or well safe. An encounter offers a sight; soon the eyes conceive flames from the sight and give birth to wickedness. As if with a hook cast by the deceits of a fisherman, first the mind is caught, then it also dies. - The first stain of evil, alas woman! The deceit of the serpent, and through you repelled man from the Lord. You are the cause of the good that was snatched away, you the gate of death, you quickly deceived, you quickly deceiving. Therefore come, you who strive to be with a heart stained by no blemish and with a pure mind to be pure, so that you may flee the snares of fire, swords, and sharp poisons - thus you will flee a praised face. I will not now recount how many peoples female faces have destroyed over so many centuries. I pass over the Spartan disasters, the Trojan wars, and how near, Rome, your destruction was from a rape, when peoples, under no law of a master nor tamed to life by any counsels of the saints, were driven where madness had driven, a wanton author led, and this was permitted which had been desired.

From the sacred books, I say, from the sacred books learn how much base love has been a disgrace. The beauty of Dinah destroyed you, Shechem, as you rushed headlong with excessive love, along with your father and your fatherland. For the pious care of her brothers promises the ill-used sister a marriage bed, but avenges her with the sword. This David, praised in the song of the Psalms, was brought down from his high throne by a pleasing form, when he covered his wanton body, discovered in crime, with sackcloth and ground it with ashes. The beauty of Tamar drove two brothers at the same time to the crime of incest and the sword. One defiles her; the other avenges the defiled woman: a vengeance which is just ceases to be pious. Even Solomon himself, whose wisdom was noble in ancient times and throughout the whole world, is led into crime, ensnared by forbidden love, submitting his foul neck to a woman's yoke, and, forgetful of the Lord, the praises that adorned him as a young man deservedly abandoned him as an old man. A pleasing form handed you over to death, Haman; your beauty, Duke Holofernes, carried off your head. That Samson, famous for his marvelous strength, was handed over to the savage Philistines by a comely form. This holy man, and a soldier victorious through so many battles, alas, is wickedly subjected to women's wiles, so that, now polluted—because crimes beget punishment—he gives kisses to virgins and his back to swords.

You too, Levite, so beloved but not a wife, subjected to a mad youth’s bed by night, in zeal for vengeance you gave whole tribes over to war, content either to destroy or to perish, so that the torn limbs scattered at the funeral of Gibeah might make a pyre burned by dreadful fires. Not if I had a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths could I set forth how much pleasing beauty harms. The blessed apostle cries out to a wanton world, giving even to lawful beds severe laws; a husband possessed by a wife, a free man who scorns a wife, do not have a similar case of religion. The care of a wife detains a husband entangled; the celibate wishes to have merited God alone. But since the eyes sometimes succumb and everything upright slips at a twofold crossroads, if the impious enemy prepares to stain a pure mind, always seeking to tempt a chaste faith, take up the weapons by which you may keep the pious walls of the heart: let the cross be your shield, let the cross be your sword. With suppliant tears, groaning, prayer, and a beaten breast, seek the life-giving God night and day. And lest hope gradually caress easy love, hasten to draw back a foot from the precipice of a fall. For I, not ignorant, try to help the wretched, having suffered all the things I say to be shunned. Do you look at beauty? But look at savage punishments, look at what you praise, look at what you fear.

Look with inner eyes and true light, and see from earth to heaven, from man to the Lord. Here, pleasure is brief, to be enclosed by a narrow end; there, a devouring flame with eternal sulphur. Hear the prophet crying out with a lofty voice, whether you read the ancient commands or the new: "What praise is there in the face? Believe all flesh to be hay, for just as the flower of hay, so will the glory of flesh be." For just as strokes mow down flowers, heat withers them, rains confuse them, a stronger wind snatches them away, so time can consume any face that pleases, and swelling and envy can strip it bare. And to say nothing of death itself, which wears away everything, how much is permitted to diseases, fevers, ulcers? Those who now have hair whitening with foul gray once did not fear pitched battles. The hanging faces that mourn with ugly wrinkles once preferred vain beauty to be seen. He who now trembles and wobbles with loose skin on his foot once barely left faint marks on the ground. The neck, the throat, the hands, and what now horrifies everyone, alas, were once the cause of madness for the wretched. The eyes, which moist humor has made shapeless and flowing, once glittered like the bright stars. Consider what blooms for few years and does not last, and yet guilt remains for eternal tears. Therefore, girlish faces and comely forms...

Either with head averted or bowed you will look down. And so that you may be as pure in heart as in body, so that you make no one guilty by suspicion, take care and, always provident, desire that no woman be too closely joined to you. The wind will lose its strength if there are no obstacles; if fuel is lacking, the fire will be powerless. And lest only one part be thought summoned to the straight paths of life by these commands, whatever men learn, let a woman believe it is said to her: this sex too has both merit and punishments. Let her hate to boldly gaze at unknown faces, and yet hide herself from known eyes. For eyes playing with a laugh, mingled with evil, often speak flatteringly while the mouth is silent. And love, like tears which injury forces to be shed, rises from the eyes and seeks the depths of the heart. Therefore, by the same law of precept by which young men are warned, let a chaste woman flee all men. Now if you trample bodily allurements with a chaste body, shake off the remaining burden of the heart. For black poison from the gall of envy usually arises, envy, the mother of manifold crime. Unhappy envy prepared a death that would itself die:

An angel fell from the high citadel of the sky, and while it hastened to drive man from the heavenly kingdom, it itself first deserved to be thrust into darkness. Hence the avenging sentence of the Lord came upon all; this alone is guilty of all other deaths: this is the madness of war, this is the discord of peace, more harmful to itself than to the one it cruelly wishes to harm. This was the cause for Joseph, under the excessive accusation of his brothers, first of servitude, soon of empire. This stained the just brother's blood with Cain's hand; this was nearly the cause of death for David, when, with the strength of the war already finished, the father-in-law did not wish the son-in-law to be exalted by praise. Driven by this, the worker of the first hour, groaning, strives to outdo the digger of the eleventh hour. This last gave Christ up to the mockery of the cross, while envy performs the work of credulity, and the headlong people see the signs and miracles of things with their eyes, but do not receive them in their heart. To such an extent had wicked envy turned all, by its furious zeal, from truth into crime, that they did not not know, but were unwilling to believe, that then man was to be glorified through the Lord. And remember thereafter to avoid with no light concern the countless crime of avarice alone.

On all lands that the sun sees, that the seas enclose, that days approach, that darkness covers, whatever is spread throughout the unknown world to us, in all kingdoms, among all peoples, this is the root, cause, head, source, and origin of evil in the minds of many infected with disease. Whatever the Lord had formed for innocent uses, this has ruined by perverting their functions. Why do you complain of dreadful harbors and raging winds, of seas saddened by notorious shipwrecks? If a oak felled from the woods with aged timber is not useful for beams, add it to the hearth. And, content with your own, if anything is born removed throughout the world, patiently believe it denied to you. You will safely watch from the secure shore the movements of the sea and the blowing of savage storms. You, greedy ones, have made a vice of nature's use; good things born are evil through perverse uses. Iron born from the earth for earthly gifts—curved for sickles, rigid for plowshares—we arm for slaughter and dreadful deaths, crimes of wars, with poles, javelins, swords. We received fire to drive away violent cold, to drive away darkness and to cook meals: we have begun, maddened, to set flames to roofs and to apply them to bodies to be burned, as if it were a small crime in the crime of plundering, unless the plunderer carried off wealth spattered with blood, and the final force compels the wretched with various punishments.

When they lose what they have, they speak of what lies hidden. Hatred among brothers for brothers, and parents’ lives made hateful to their children, avarice has wrought. From truth it teaches how to fashion falsehood, from falsehood to feign truth, through countless cruel snares. By its doing, guilty while he subtracts a part of the gold, Ananias passed wholly into death, nor alone; for a partner in the foul crime of falsehood, a punishment equal to the wretched man joined his wife as well. This has made wretched men, at the time of death, not trust well in final judgments. Tablets are forged, witnesses are sought from all sides, bearing falsehood on their lips, suppressing truth in their hearts. Gems are engraved as likenesses, a wicked hand learns—alas!—to counterfeit hands ill-falsified, so that one man may be believed to be another’s father, and the son cannot be his own father’s heir. With this as guide, the adulterer, secure among guards, reaches chaste chambers through bribes. Every wickedness is undertaken with minds and hands prepared, if you set gold as the price of crime. Tell me, I ask, what madness so loosens the reins for you, wretch, that what is already enough for you is not enough? You hasten to join immense lands to lands, though you are to be enclosed in a small marble sarcophagus? Do you seek to become richer by another’s loss? What you snatch from others will soon be another’s. And with swift course, you will soon grieve over what you have lost,

They grieved as did those who held before. Why do you build vast citadels as if they will never fall, when you yourself will soon die in haste? You prepare a polished chamber of varied marbles, a slippery room, for sleep, as if the joined timbers of a roof do not reach a safe rest in a well-secured heart. Certainly, the drink that wets a thirsty mouth is no different whether a palm leaf offers it or a hollow gem; and the food that a ravenous stomach receives is the same whether crystal dishes or a plate provide it. Does not the shaggy fleece of a sheep keep away the icy cold of winter better for you than a garment weighed down with metal, which, stiffened through slippery threads, breaks your alternating steps? What use to you is a translucent garment, which, with its thin covering, offers your limbs, which should be covered, to unknown eyes? Silver and masses of gold and glittering gems come from the world and are of the world: from here they come, here they remain. You came into life naked, and naked you will return: you brought nothing with you, you will be able to carry nothing away. Yet you will be able to carry away the gifts of the world despised here: send ahead, as one who will follow, wealth that will be doubled. For what is too carefully preserved will soon not be your good.

If you do not keep for yourself, then it will be as if they are yours. Gifts which a dying man gives are not gifts: for he gives what already ceases to be his own. He who, being healthy and fearing nothing, with a quiet mind, while he lives, has taken away from himself, that man has given. And what he has taken from himself will be better restored to him: he will soon receive what is whole, who will give what is perishable. For what is stored in heaven, no thief, no enemy, no moth or rain or devouring flame will carry off: but you will store in heaven whatever you give to the poor, looking to Christ, for the sake of Christ's name. He who, after receiving the mysteries of the flesh, says: I am clothed in the naked, I am lifted up in the wretched, I am visited in the imprisoned, I am cared for, comforted in the sick, I am helped in the little ones, I am protected in the widows, and whatever you do or do not do for a wretched man, believe me, it is done or not done to me. And lest you, a poor man, might plead poverty as an excuse, so that an unjust color might be given to avarice, if you do not have the means which the needy man seeks, not food or warm water with which he may be warmed, when he, thirsting, asks, a cold cup offered in the name of Christ will be able to bring rewards. With this, whatever each of you can, comfort the wretched man who asks, and if gifts are lacking, you will give your prayers. For indeed, before God, the will itself will not perish.

If he cannot do well, at least he will desire well. Hence it was that the Lord, with blessed teachings, wished all men to be joined together by love of peace, and what he had previously praised through the holy prophets, he himself entrusted to his disciples with his own mouth, so that nothing unjust, nothing harsh, nothing violent, nothing trivial, nothing greedy, nothing burdensome, nothing fickle could be either done in deeds or spoken in words by one in whose chaste breast the love of peace was preserved. Hence the harmony of peace restrains the whole world, which is also granted to brutes together with reason. And although fiery things contend with cold, soft with hard, moist with dry, slow with swift, through unknown causes and a silent governance, a single covenant of peace unites all their work. Thus, if you wish to compare great things with small, the love of peace restrains the bodily people, so that, united under an earthly prince, they learn to pay vows together to the king of the heavens. Therefore, a sinner like me—indeed, lesser than me, for I surpass all in my crimes—love peace when appeased, love peace also when injured: let peace be in your heart, let peace be on your lips. Drive out hatred, despise threats, lay aside pride, let no time hold your offense.

So that the sun, as it departs, may find you preserving the gentle bonds of peace, and as it returns, may find you still keeping them. BOOK TWO. If you walk according to my advice, most faithful reader, you will safely tread upon the serpent's blue neck. And when Christ the judge is present, you will soon go to meet him, borne through the gentle air on familiar wings. Only let no part of your care pass by these commandments at any time. But if the windy glory of the tongue moves you, which vain Cicero's eloquence urges—if you must shun jest, feasts, talk, pleasure, and even separate yourself from your contemporaries—with what zeal will you keep the words of my little book, so as to be joined to God by the merits of your life? The chief labor is to despise flattering praise, which drags ambitious men headlong, and always hastens with silent motion to the inmost parts, and sits as a bitter plague in the very vitals. While we wish everything we do to be approved, and while no one fails to favor his own vices, the miser, with a softened title, calls himself frugal, cruelty is veiled by the name of severity, and with all our zeal and all our art we strive that whatever we say or do may please. But if you wish to be approved only by Christ, seek no glory for yourself from man. For when you are cast down, you will soon be exalted, and you will be small before the Lord, great in the Lord's sight. Let whatever injury vex the contented man; if you have borne it ill, do not return evil for evil.

Behold: Christ prays for those who tear him apart; Stephen and James also pray, suppliant, though they suffered the utmost torments with a gentle and great spirit, unwilling to become a cause of harm to anyone. Let no harsh sentence make anyone a guilty party; do not hasten to punish anyone with a severe judgment. You see a thin straw in your brother’s eye, but you do not know that a beam lies within your own eyes. The one who cannot be the guardian of his own life will unjustly desire to describe another’s life. But we persist in vices we condemn, and what we ourselves persecute, we soon also commit. Believe that deceit is a sin! The sentence endures, saying: the mouth that lies kills the soul with death. And remember always to have spoken what is true, and let your speech not echo what is not. Moreover, impose reins on your sweet palate, lest taste rage with its ancient allurements. Ambitious gluttony made those mortals who gained the gifts and kingdoms of the heavens. We rush more into what is forbidden and desire what is denied, and we want rather what is difficult. Above all, reject drenching your veins with abundant wine, lest wine quickly become poison. Just as often, when the dry earth thirsts with excessive heat, the skillful farmer, preparing it for fruit, if he uproots the weeds before the sun kills them, and dense clouds moisten the wet days, then the field will bear thorns and grasses harmful to the harvest, alas, too luxuriantly, with the seeds overcome: so bodies that are given over to much wine perish in their plans and luxuriate in vices. And what will ever be more sordid, what more deformed, than if drunkenness steals you from yourself?

When the head sways this way and that, the steps falter, the mind denies sense, the tongue holds back sound, the eyes droop heavy with sleep, what you do you do not know, even as you do it. Why should I speak of heat brought to the steaming face, and words loosened from ill-arranged measures, cups slipping from the hands, and on the tables themselves food often returning mixed with wine, and you, when the mind is wounded, through countless motions either rejoicing too much or weeping too much, and now whirling the swaying limbs in dance, now giving the arms to lascivious movements in choruses? One wants to cry out: buried in wine and feasts, perhaps even forgetful of your own name, when does the pious care of God come upon you, who are so generously given such things by Him? How many needy could you feed at such great expense, and how many joyful days would this one day give? But now, while you are full, a poor hungry man wanders by: you vomit wine, the other scarcely has water. And if by chance a needy voice asks for food, you will deny to those who have nothing what is left over to you. I have long sensed you, reader, silently saying: true indeed, but what you set forth is hard. We are commanded hard things; to climb from earth to heaven is not something you should think can be done with little effort. For the labor is great; but the reward for the labor is great. He who hopes for the prize, let him flee idleness. No one will bear the palm unless he has first contended. The fair crown is given only to the victor. Or do you think that if the fragile honors of the world are sought, you have earned a man by the gift with which you hope?

Whatever it is that afflicts bodies with various harsh conditions—while we run our swift life in the stadium—you will be able to endure with a contented mind: despised rains, cold, fasts, quarrels; to run through the whole city for entire days, to return home scarcely at midnight, weary, and immediately rise again at first light, so that you may be the first to approach the closed doors. And when light sleep on hard seats has forced you, exhausted, to lay down your head, the one who came later perhaps will go in before you, and your foolish complaint will knock at familiar ears. Or if a louder voice reaches the lictor, pray that you may go away well removed and not badly beaten. But suppose what is rare happens: that the doorkeeper, conquered by gold and prayers, finally says, "You may enter." You go in, smooth of tongue, modest of face, submissive in body—yet none of this helps. All honor is a matter of price: you will go for the weight of the coin, whether you seek it on leaves or on tablets. For if the rich hand fails, the matter is worthless, and if you give words, you will receive words in return. Behold, honor has smiled, which it is customary to take up late in the order, indeed, but to lay aside quickly. For what you gave, another and another will soon confer: what many desire, no one has held for long. Yet suppose that long-lasting honor puffs you up, drives you on—will it have no end? Imagine, then, that enduring records inscribe your names, and a happy year goes by under your title: what, in the end, does power profit, when it ceases to be? In which is felt what was and is gone?

And what age, gradually advancing, will not know, and if it does know, what reward will there be for you? But you who depend so much on earthly honor, who now cultivate men with such ambition, in order to please the Lord, to whom all things belong, and also to merit the kingdom of God before Christ, will you prefer the true to the false, the vast to the small, the worthless to the magnificent, the lost to the eternal? What injury will finally overcome a devoted heart? What will be lofty? What is difficult for you? For nothing is hard when hope follows, and every labor, conquered by honor, comes to fruit, and fruit that lasts for all time, which the ambitious, prodigal, impatient man does not take away. You hear the Lord promising new rewards to the just, who always gives better than his promises, not seen by eyes, not insinuated into ears, not even premeditated by the senses before. Now myrrh drips for you from precious bark, the earth swells with the fragrant turf of frankincense. Add thyme, violets, cassia, melilot, and crocus, join white lilies to purple roses. When in these lands you, a sinner, receive so many gifts, what good things will you, a saint, receive in heaven? Imagine, then, what is bright, what is beautiful, what is precious, and whatever you think is great in the whole world, this is to be given to the blessed merits: golden roofs, gem-studded doorposts, purple ground, and fields always fragrant with blooming flowers, rivers full of milk and honey flowing together. Because these things ascend into minds and are seen in thought, believe that future goods are inferior to them.

Do not fear, however, that you might be found, after a long time, unequal to the Lord's commands. This life has nothing long, though driven by a long rotation, in the time we now enjoy; life is short. All things, weary, look back to a declining end, and already the final hour of the day is turning. See how swiftly death has pressed the whole world, how many peoples the force of war has struck down. Not dense groves, not the rough peaks of a high mountain, not rivers strong with swift whirlpools, not fortresses in their positions, not cities safe behind their walls, not the sea's impassable reaches, not the desolate wilderness, not hollow caves, not even caves beneath grim rocks, have prevailed against barbarian hands. For many, feigned loyalty; for many, perjuries; for many, civic betrayal was the cause of death. Treachery has done much, public force has done much. What were not overcome by strength were overcome by famine. The unhappy mother fell together with her child and husband; the master, together with his slaves, underwent servitude. These lay as food for dogs; for many, the burning roofs, which snatched away their life, gave them a pyre. Through streets and villas, through fields and crossroads and all through the districts, on every road here and there, death, grief, destruction, fires, mourning. All Gaul smoked on a single pyre. Yet why should I enumerate the funerals of a perishing world, which are always carried out on their accustomed path? Why should I recount how many die throughout the whole world, when you yourself see your own day hastening? I pass over how much is permitted to swords, how much to ruins, to fire, to hailstorms, to rivers; how many wars, famines, raging diseases destroy, and the many ways through which single death rushes in.

, how many also in times of middle peace, so that peace might exist, the due punishment tortures the guilty. Every hour gradually brings us to death: even in this time in which we speak, we are dying beforehand. And through deceptive, silent effort, the final life urges on the ultimate days. While food and sleep, while words and cups delight, whether you sit at home or seek foreign lands, and while you do whatever you do or do not do, death moves its alternate foot, never delayed. As a wax candle placed in the time of blind night, to compensate for the day by its service of light, while we do not notice, is consumed by slow fire, and the voracious flame always hastens to its end: so is the state of men: whatever is done perishes, and what life draws to itself advances and dies. But grant that these spans of a vigorous old age are so long that you may look upon the world as free from funerals, though it comes late, yet it must come—that end which cannot be wholly absent. For things that are born, grow, then grow old, and for those weary with age, nothing but death remains. Whether one who has lived three hundred years perishes, and that one who has just lived a thousand, after the final end will hold both alike; certainly at the ultimate time of death, it is the same. What does it help to have drawn out life, if you cease to live? What reward for good things, if you are held by evil, since, unless while you enjoy, you touch the fruit of enjoyment, and this life lives in the duty of life? For what already was is nothing, if it ceases to be; and what you do not feel does not help whether it was.

What, then, does it profit you if fasts torment you, when yesterday you loaded your limbs with abundant food, and when today parched thirst constricts your dry throat, though before the day you were drenched with excessive food? When the swift rotation of the middle hours, once run through, snatches away the sense of the day that will not return? But we, once the early flower of youth has been run through, now uncertain in step, sight, voice, hand—since whatever we were, it is pain to remember—and faith is snatched from all of us by the nearest things passing away, bent, complaining, with body consumed, never does this life, which is burdensome, fully satisfy us. Hence it is that, as if wholly removed from the world, we watch everything that perishes in the world. This reminds us, wretched as we are, as if dwelling under another sun, of our own death through the death of another. Before our eyes and far away at the same time, we are cheated of friends, and from there pain comes to our eyes, from here to our ears. Sweet parents perish as age declines, and a spouse is snatched even from the very lap. Death carries off a brother from a brother's embraces, and perhaps that brother was the younger. Nor is the older age of life withdrawn in order, when a father sees the cruel funeral of his son. Yet no one, though cautious, believes what he sees, and because he does not wish it, he sees that he himself can also suffer. This, however, comes from the fact that, because of always unjust deeds, we consider death to be an everlasting evil, and we believe it is gain to receive later the punishments that the holy law threatens for crimes. Happy is he who considers a lawful end to be the limit of labors, because, so that he may not fear afterwards, he has taken care by fearing beforehand.

Blessed is the one who, with a great and searching mind, can await a noble judgment upon cities and peoples with constant hope and a serene countenance, secure in the probity of his life, whom a well-aware conscience can make intrepid in holding up his head under so great a burden. There, once powerful in command and kingdom, there, conspicuous with their fasces and trabeae, those who load their couches with gold, their feasts with crystal and Falernian wine, and their beds spread with purple: men famed for strength, praised for the gift of beauty, and ill-trusting in bodily resources; whose belly was master, lust their vow, hope in the present, glory in riches; who, wretched, neglected even at the point of death to seek the Lord with closing eyes—they will await punishment, confined. Do not ask to be taught what punishment: a fitting penalty awaits their deeds. These will remain in perpetual darkness, under blind night; for them, then, a stern flame will give light. Those, burning with sulphurous fire, will be forced to climb furnaces with torn bodies. Those, a hard frost of ice, infused with violent cold and wintry blasts, will bind. And although the discordant nature of Gehenna fights, the force of a single name is yet varied. Nor can you discern which punishment is more grievous, whether by fire or by cold. Not that here, for those slain by earthly death, many crimes will meet a single death, since however cruel a judge may be, in proportion to the weight of the case, he can do nothing other than snatch away the soul; and, as a kind of profit from crimes, if many remain, the first vengeance denies vengeance to the rest.

But there all will pay for their offenses in order, a fitting punishment following upon their deeds. And one body will lie open through each of its limbs, with as many torments as it could have vices. One law will punish the cruel, another the avaricious: deeds will be atoned for in one way, premeditated acts in another. There is a punishment proper to perjurers, and one proper to the proud, and there will be another cause for the shedding of blood. The envious, the impatient, the soft, the falsifier, the adulterer, and the one wholly given to wine, wholly to enticement, the one whose right hand is guilty of slaughter, the one who prompts his tongue to abuse, the boaster, the impious, the unteachable—all will pay penalties before the day of judgment, so that no small space of punishment is granted by the delay of judgment. Some will be encircled by serpents with winding coils, others will be worn down by a chain glowing with fire. There all is full of tears, terror, and grief, and there is no voice except that which groaning gives. Why should I run further through individual crimes, which will torment the wretched with dreadful tortures? When even now, if you speak something incautiously with your mouth, the account of your speech must be examined by you. Among these, whoever has denied the lord of all things, bowing his head to rocks and stakes, that one is truly wretched, nor will he be pitied by anyone. He alone will receive whatever harms everywhere. Countless worms will live in his dying body, nor will there be an end to the smoke which the fire will give. But on the other side, the words of the pious, if they did not return evil when harassed, gave aid to the wretched, gave food to the one asking, gave affection to their kin, gave service to their fathers—these will shine like the blazing lights of the sun, their shining limbs veiled in snowy togas.

And especially those who, prepared in the law of Christ, nights receive and days find, each one who made a vow to keep the snowy garment of baptism never stained by womanly beds, chaste not only in body but in their whole heart, and such as I would wish my reader to be, or those already blessed, whose first glory is to have conquered the allurements of light and the faithless body, seeking the true life, they did not fear to pour out their devoted souls for the name of Christ. And the priests, this holy band will have them, and the monks hidden from the tumults of men, who now, scorning the pleasing allurements of fame, hope for the rewards of the coming judgment. Living soft leisures free from care, they now live well according to their merits, and later better. For they themselves will throng in a dense column around the king, when the Lord as judge has set foot upon the earth, and wherever the Lamb turns, all will go, bathed in true light, in the light of God. And so great a beauty of the flourishing will take hold of them that the faces of the beholders will not be seen by the eyes. Therefore, when the hollow trumpet has given its terrible sound, finally witnessing the coming of God; soon the earth, torn by long fissures, will lie open, and here and there flames, lightning, hail will rush down, while the whole world is deeply shaken from its lowest foundations, and all roads seethe from one side or the other. Here sad groans, there the pious joys of life: one voice will be in the different columns. And every father will go in haste with quickened steps, leading his offspring and lineage. And the whole line will be drawn in a continuous course, when the progenitor is in the midst of his children.

Nor shall I speak to you of famous cities, remote peoples, and kingdoms, both those that now exist and those that once were—peoples neither sluggish from cold nor scorched by the sun, whom the rising and the setting day has held. But from the time the world was first begotten until the day that will be the world’s final end, a single first command will gather from all lands souls, both just and guilty, into one place. Yet not one among so many thousands will proceed from there who has not been counted by its own Lord. Soon, ascending the radiant tribunal with the same flesh which it had borne to heaven, glorifying the man, it will accomplish all that in the remaining ages slips away in order, all that then and thereafter, with the law enduring, comes to pass—sacred of mouth, lofty on the throne, terrible to behold, conspicuous yet scarcely to be looked upon. And amid the sweep of flames, the blare of trumpets, angelic choirs and sacred hosts, amid the pallor, tears, joys, vows, and fears of infants, mothers, youths, and old men, the final sentence will be given to the suspended crowd, which will sound from the mouth of the sacrosanct judge: “Proceed into rest and praise, throng of the just, never to be separated from my kingdom—gifts which I, knowing your merit and future life, now give, but which the Father long ago prepared. But you, impious crowd, always contrary to my commands, I shall shut away in Tartarean places. There you will give your teeth to gnashing and your eyes to weeping, to be tormented by unmeasured fires.

And yet, so that whatever is commanded may truly endure, this will be the formula of the eternal judgment: the glory that holds the just man, removed from death, will keep him, and the guilty one, subject to punishment, will not be destined to die. I ought to have conveyed these things to you, reader, by deeds, so that a life proven by conduct might give weight to words. But because we wretches neglect whatever we are admonished, and it is easier to learn than to do, if you commend to your mind all that has been let in through the ear—everything that has been enumerated in my writings—I will say confidently that, once received into the station of heaven, you will shake off the harsh bonds of cruel death. And you, who were once a son of Gehenna, will begin to be a son of the highest God. To these things this remains, without which all things are of no avail: that you believe Christ to be from the Father and with the Father; and the Holy Spirit, joined without distinction, so that the three names complete one God. And you, whoever you are who read my little book, whether it be good or bad, be mindful of me. And as often as you pray to Christ the Lord after finishing the poem, may I always be on your lips. Lest you think I am imposing this on your first lips, or that you can safely dissemble this, may no day prick you with bitter cares, may everything you do please Christ entirely, may you take up the holy crown with the Lord bestowing it, and may the care for my name depart from you—so that I, Orientius, surpassing all sinners, may earn pardon through the prayers of the saints.