Interpretatio Orationum Gregorii Nazianzeni

The barrenness of the earth is grievous, the devastation of the crops is grievous—who denies it?—especially when their joy was in hope and the grain was already near the granaries themselves. It is grievous that the harvest has been cut off unripe and the weeping farmers look down upon their prostrated crops and sit beside them as if beside the corpses of their own dead, crops which a gentle rain increased, but a violent and harsh one cut down. From these, neither the reaper filled his hand nor the binder of sheaves his bosom, nor did passersby say to the reapers: "The blessing of the Lord is upon you." A pitiful spectacle occurred: the earth itself lies defiled, its locks, with which it rejoiced, torn and rent, and from its very adornment made ugly. The blessed Joel mourns this, who bewails the calamity of famine with great tragedies. But another prophet, comparing the final devastation to former fertility and discoursing on the wrath of God laying waste the land, says: "What is before Him is a paradise of delights, and what is after Him is a field of destruction." These things, I say, are grievous and very grievous, as long as we think only of those present and have not yet conceived fear of worse things, since indeed in bodily pains, what presses at the moment always seems more grievous than anything that does not cause present torment. Far more vehement and grievous are those things which the treasuries of God's wrath hold in store, which may we be spared from experiencing.

and we shall not experience, if we fly to the mercy of God and incline him, who desires mercy more than death, to ourselves with tears, so that we may avert what remains of God’s wrath through our conversion, since this is still the gentleness and clemency of God and a mild correction and certain beginnings of chastisements, as if inflicted on children still at the breast. This is still a kind of smoke of wrath and the first signs of punishments, not yet the consuming fire, not yet the devouring flame nor the kindled coals. This is a threat and a warning, and when a little has arisen, the greater and stronger things are held back, so that the striker may correct, but the threatener may amend more, making way for his wrath, and on account of his immense goodness he begins with lesser things, lest we need greater and more grievous ones. He will certainly also apply greater things, if we provoke them, while we despise these lesser ones. 7. I know the quivering spear and the drunken sword in the sky, slaying and despising and bereaving, which is ordered not to spare even the flesh and marrow. I know him who is impassible rushing like a swift bear, and like a leopard on the road of the Assyrians, not only for those who then existed, but also for every wickedness that is now Assyrian. I know that no one can escape the strength and swiftness of his wrath, when it has awakened over our impieties, and when zeal pursues his enemies, which consumes adversaries.

I know the shaking, the trembling, the fever of the heart, the consternation of the mind, the dissolution of the knees, and very many other punishments of this kind for the impious. For I omit to speak of those judgments by which, with much forgiveness granted here, it passes us over and hands us over, so that it is better for us to be rebuked and purified than to be handed over to those punishments where there is time for penalties rather than for purifications. For just as he who here remembers God is not in death, as the blessed David declares, so those who are in hell do not have the correction of confession, since indeed in the present life the ability to do what we wish is permitted to us, but there we must render an account of our deeds. 8. What then shall we do on that day, concerning which a certain prophet terrifies us most vehemently, when he says that God will judge with us in the mountains and hills, and will sit in judgment against us and dispute, and set our sins before our face, those most bitter accusers, and also bring forward all his benefits which he has conferred upon us, and compare them with our crimes, and compare thoughts with thoughts and deeds with deeds, when, seeking from us the dignity of the pure image, he will find it obliterated and obscured, when finally each one, marked by his own sentence, will be condemned?

Who then will be the advocate there? What intervention? What fabrications? What arts? What forensic cunning against the truth will be brought forth? By what bribes will the judgment be corrupted? Everything will hang in the balance of justice—our deeds, words, and thoughts, both evil and good, will be weighed against each other on different scales, so that the side which preponderates will prevail, and the sentence will fall where the work inclines. Nor will there be any further will or another judgment or excuse sought through subsequent works, nor will there be time to borrow oil from wise virgins or to buy it from sellers when the lamps are extinguished. Nor is there a place for the repentance of a rich man burning in the flame and seeking correction from his relatives. Therefore, there will no longer be time for any delay, but only the sole, final, and terrible judgment—or rather, a just one, and for that reason more terrible, because it is just. For then the seats will be set, and the Ancient of Days will sit, and the books will be opened, and a river of fire will flow, and light will precede, and darkness will be prepared. And those who have done good will depart into the resurrection of life, which is now hidden in Christ and will later be manifested with him; but those who have done evil will depart into the resurrection of judgment, in which those who did not believe have already been condemned by the judging word of God. Therefore, that ineffable and immense light will receive others—that is, the splendor, recognition, and clearer illumination of the holy and blessed Trinity.

with pure and immaculate minds, pure and immaculate is mingled, which I alone and chiefly consider to be the kingdom of heaven; for those, however, who are unworthy, along with the rest of the others, there will also be this greatest of all punishments, that they are cast out from God, and the very shame and confusion of conscience, whose end and remedy is nowhere. But concerning these matters, later. 10. Now what shall we do, brothers, crushed and humiliated and inebriated not with wine nor with strong drink, from which men are somewhat stirred up and disturbed, but inebriated by the strength of the blow which the Lord inflicted, saying: 'And you be stirred and disturbed,' who gave the despisers to drink of the spirit of sadness and compunction, to whom it is also said: 'See, despisers, and look and marvel at the wonders and be undone'? How shall we stitch together his reproaches, or what answer shall we give, when to the multitude of his benefits, which we have received ungratefully, he has now begun also to count up his chastisements against us and to enumerate the remedies and healings, which, though applied, we have nevertheless not been cured? And he calls us sons, but polluted, or sons, but alien and limping from his paths, while they walk on other and rough roads. He says therefore: 'What ought I to have done for you and did not do? Where ought I to have corrected you and did not correct? I used milder remedies. I omitted the scourges of the Egyptians, blood drunk from rivers and springs and all waters turned into gore. I left aside that first plague of theirs.

I have also omitted the frogs and the gnats and the dog-fly and the other scourges. I began with the oxen and the beasts of burden and the flocks, I turned the fifth plague against the dumb animals, sparing the men. That affliction has not yet touched you, but you have become to me even more brutish than the dumb animals. For, as I see, this correction accomplishes nothing for your improvement. I withheld the rains from you: one part received the shower and the part, over which I did not rain, withered. And you said: we will endure and we will act manfully. Therefore I brought hail upon you and I mowed down your vineyards and your orchards and your crops, yet I could not cut away your wickedness, and now I have recognized that you are hard and your neck is of iron sinew. 11. I think that the Lord says this to us, if we are not corrected by his scourges, because indeed the contemptuous man persists in contempt and the unjust man endures in iniquity. And the correction brought from heaven does nothing in us, the scourges accomplish nothing. The iron tube in the furnace has already failed, the lead has failed, the silversmith works in vain: your vices are not consumed. I had already long ago reckoned this to you through Jeremiah; now therefore do you provoke me?' says the Lord. 'But does my hand not prevail to apply also other plagues and other torments? I still have in store also the boils of the ulcer, which, after the ash and embers were removed, were generated into the air through Moses, who at that time had served as the minister of the divine wrath for the chastisement of Egypt.

There is still the locust, and there are the palpable darknesses, and there is still the final plague, the destruction of the firstborn, which no one escaped nor could anyone evade the hand of the destroyer except that one alone who smeared his doorposts with the blood of the lamb, that is, who sealed his faith and his works with the blood of Christ and the institutions of the New Testament, who was crucified with Christ, who was buried with him and rose with him, so that he might be glorified together with him both now and at his final coming. 12. But far be it from us that, among the other reproaches, the good and pious God should also charge us with this, saying: "Because you walked with me perversely, and I went with you in perverse fury," or again: "I struck you with jaundice and with rust and with blight, and I accomplished nothing. The sword made you childless from without, and not even thus did you turn to me," says the Lord. But let it not happen that it be said of us, that we became a vineyard for the beloved, and were planted, and were set up with reeds, and were surrounded by a wall, and were waited for, that we might produce grapes, but we produced a thorn, and not justice but clamor, so that it was necessary to destroy the wall and for us to be trampled, and the tower to be overthrown and for us to be plundered, so that we are no longer thought of nor dug, and moreover—which is the most unfortunate of all—that the clouds be commanded not to rain rain upon us.

I, brothers, am driven by such adverse thoughts and console myself with these self-reproaches; thus I have learned to think about the Lord's chastisements, and when I turn over such counsels within myself, I again turn to prayer and supplication of the Lord and add to what we have said above and say together with you: if you follow me and join your minds and thoughts with mine, let us say together: we have sinned, we have acted wickedly, we have committed impiety, because we have forgotten your commandments and have walked after the thoughts of our most evil heart, nor have we worthily entered into the calling by which you called us through the gospel of your Christ, nor have we fittingly received his holy passions, nor have we accepted his humiliation according to its merit, but we have become a reproach to your beloved one. Priest and people, we have fallen from our minds, we have all declined together, we have become useless at once; there is no one who does judgment and justice, not even one. We have excluded your mercies and your clemency from ourselves and have turned away the bowels of your compassions because of our malice and the wickedness of our most evil contrivance. You, Lord, have done goodness and mercy with us, but we have done iniquity. You are patient and of great mercy, but we are hard and worthy of many stripes. We acknowledge your goodness, although we are unbelieving. According to what we have sinned, we have as yet been too little chastised. You are terrible, and who will resist you?

Tremor will seize the mountains from you, and who will resist the greatness of your arm? And if you unloose the floodgates of heaven, who will close them? It is easy in your eyes to make a man poor or rich, to give life and to consign to death, to strike and to heal, since this very thing which you will is a perfect work. You, it is said, were angry, and we sinned, as some of the ancients said when supplicating you. But for us, on the contrary, it is time to say: we sinned, and you were angry. And for that reason we have become a reproach to our neighbors. You have turned your face away from us, and our face is filled with shame. But spare us, Lord! Spare us, Lord! Be propitious, Lord! Do not deliver us up to the end because of our iniquities, nor make us an example for the correction of others. Rather, Lord, correct and amend us by the punishments of others—we mean those nations which have not known your name and are not subject to your power; but we are your people, the staff of your inheritance, and the sheep of your pasture. Therefore correct us, Lord, but yet in mercy and not in anger, so that you do not make us, Lord, insignificant before all who dwell on the earth.

With these words and these prayers I invoke and invite the mercy of the Lord. But if I could also offer myself as a sacrifice, a holocaust, to mitigate the Lord’s anger, I would not spare myself, I would not delay. And you too, O devout people, even you imitate your fearful and timid priest. I beseech you, my children, I implore you, join your lamentation with mine and mingle your tears with my weeping; and let us provoke the Lord’s clemency through an abundance of tears, and let us extinguish with weeping the fire kindled by divine indignation; let us mitigate the Lord’s anger by our conversion. Let us sanctify the fast, let us proclaim the cure. For the holy prophets suggest these remedies to us. Let us gather the presbyters, let us tear suckling infants from their mothers’ breasts and cast them before the Lord—an age worthy of all pity, and one which alone can obtain the Lord’s mercy by its wailing. We too, the priests and ministers of the Lord, are admonished no less by the prophetic words to enter in ash and sackcloth and to lament night and day in the midst of the altar-step, with a pitiful appearance and a tearful voice, crying out and calling upon the Lord both for ourselves and for the people, omitting nothing at all of labor or speech by which God is believed capable of being appeased.

We cry out, therefore, both with you and for you: Spare, O Lord, your people, and do not give your inheritance over to disgrace, for we have as much more tribulation as we have honor. From us, then, little children, learn the Lord’s compunction, because we are afflicted for you, and offer your correction together with us, so that we too may deserve to obtain pardon for the impending plague. 14. Come, then, all of you, let us adore and prostrate ourselves before Him and weep in the presence of the Lord who made us. Let us arrange a common lament; let every age and sex, each in its own order, raise a voice of wailing, and in place of those voices of injustice which we previously raised, let us now send forth a voice of weeping and lamentation into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. Let us forestall His wrath by confession. Who knows if perhaps the Lord may turn and repent and leave mercies behind Him? Yet I know that He will do so; I promise by the Lord’s mercy that as soon as we have turned, He too will cease to be angry—which He does, indeed, against His nature—and will turn to mercies—which He does, indeed, according to His nature: for He is compelled to the former by us, while the latter is inherent in Him. Let us only take pity on ourselves and open the way for His just mercies. Let us sow in tears so that we may reap in joy. Let us become Ninevites and not Sodomites. Let us quickly heal our evils, lest we be consumed in evils.

Let us hear the preaching of Jonah, lest we be boiled down by fire and brimstone; or if we must even flee from Sodom, let us ascend the mountain or take refuge in Segor and enter as the sun rises. Let us not stand in any region nor look behind us, lest we become a pillar of salt, an immortal memorial of sin. 15. Let us know that never to sin is indeed beyond man and belongs to God alone; concerning the angels I say nothing, lest we open a path to vices and unbar the way to malicious contradictions. Therefore, not to sin is of God, but incurable sin is of the devil and of all who serve under him. However, to sin and to be converted from sin is of men who believe in God and whose portion is among those who are saved. For even this earth envelops with itself no small amount of malice, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that thinks many things and looks upward—indeed, created for this, that it might seek what is above—but the image of God purges the stain of the bodily flood and lifts up the flesh joined to it on the wings of the Word of God. And although it would have been better not even to need such a purging, but to have remained in that first dignity, to which we hasten back after our present correction, and it would have been better not to have fallen from the tree of life by the most bitter taste of sin, yet in the second place it is expedient to be amended and corrected after the fall than to persist in wickedness. For whom the Lord loves, he chastises; and he scourges every son whom he receives.

And again he says: "A soul that is not corrected is incurable." Therefore, it is grievous to be struck by a blow, but much more grievous not to be reformed after being chastised, as a certain one of the prophets says of Israel: "Lord, you scourged them and they did not grieve; you rebuked them and they refused to accept discipline." And again: "And the people did not turn back until they were struck," and: "What of the fact that my people turned away with the worst turning away?" From which they will be crushed and destroyed to the very last. 16. But it is also terrible to fall into the hands of the living God, and what was said: "But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth." For nothing escapes the hearing of God, since indeed he even heard the voice of Abel's blood. For where can one hide from God, when God fills all things and is everywhere? Where will one flee from the face of God? If someone is borne on wings to heaven, he will be there; if to the underworld, he will not be absent anywhere; if to the east, if he descends into the depths of the sea, he will never evade that great eye. The prophet Nahum also dreads him, when he brought forth the weight of God's word against Nineveh and described God as zealous, avenging with fury against adversaries and using such severity that not even a place for a second vengeance against the wicked was left. But also when I hear Isaiah accusing the people of Sodom and the princes of Gomorrah and saying: "Why will you still be struck, adding iniquity?" I shudder all over and am flooded with tears.

He says: "There is no longer anything that can be added to your sins, nor can any further punishment be sought. Thus everything has been inflicted upon you, since always some new kind of vengeance was devised against you, so that you might exhaust every form of blow. Therefore, there is now no wound, no scar, no swelling sore: the whole body is covered with wounds, and health is nowhere. For there is, he says, no poultice to apply, no oil, no bandages." But I pass over the threat that follows, lest I become more grievous to you than the very discomfort of the present blow. 17. Nevertheless, we ought to recognize the causes of the evils: why the fields have dried up, why the streams are confused, why the pastures have failed, why the grain has failed, why their beauty has been taken from the lands, and why the plains have not been filled with abundance, but grief and sorrow are everywhere. Nowhere are the valleys filled with grain, nor have the mountains dripped sweetness as they do for the righteous, but on the contrary, devastation is everywhere and overthrow everywhere, and the mountains of Gelboe, accursed, receive everything. We have become as in the beginning, before the earth produced any green grass. And you have indeed visited your land, O Lord, and made it drunk, but with a most evil visitation and with drunkenness from the wine of compunction. A cruel and horrible spectacle! The whole year's hope has remained for us only in the stubble, and scarcely anyone can find ears of grain to gather, so as to offer firstfruits to the Lord. Perhaps mice store our harvests in the granaries; for no one will bind a sheaf.

These are the riches of the impious, such is the harvest of those who sow through injustice. Thus the prophets of old designate curses when they say: he will thresh much and bring in little; he will sow and not reap; he will plant a vineyard and not press the wine, and where ten yoke of oxen work, he will produce one amphora. Whence this cause of evils, whence this occasion of devastation? Let us not wait to be accused by others; let us accuse ourselves, let us reproach ourselves. The remedy for evil is the confession of error. I first, as I previously announced to my people, both fulfilled the work of a watchman and did not hide nor keep silent about the impending sword, so that I might save both my own soul and the souls of those who wished to hear me. So now also I declare and bring forth the contempt and negligence of my people, making their wounds my own. If perhaps in this way we may obtain some divine mercy and clemency. 18. Therefore, one of us oppressed the poor and unjustly seized a part of a small estate or transgressed boundaries, whether secretly or violently, and joined house to house and field to field, so as to take something from a neighbor, and strove with utmost zeal to have no neighbor, as if he alone were to dwell upon the earth. Another, however, defiled the land with usury and the multiplication of interest, gathering where he did not scatter and reaping where he did not sow, cultivating not the land but greed.

Another, having gathered the most abundant crops and a most plentiful vintage, offered no first-fruits to God, who granted the abundance of the harvest, neither from the threshing-floors nor from the wine-presses, and proved both ungrateful and senseless—that is, he neither returned thanks for what he had obtained, nor was found dutiful in anticipation of what he hoped for. Another did not pity the widow and the orphan, nor did he break his bread for the hungry; rather, he did not refresh the hungry Christ, who is nourished in each and every one of the least, and he, beyond all hope, stored so much in his granaries—indeed, he who has no place to store it, and tears down some granaries while building others to prepare for future harvests, not knowing that perhaps they will demand his soul from him beforehand, and there he will render an account of what he has received abundantly and stored up sparingly, having become a bad steward of a good God. Another shut out the path of the humble and unjustly turned away the just; another hated the one who reproved at the gates and cursed the holy word; another sacrificed to his own net, which had enclosed much, and kept the plunder of the poor in his houses, having become forgetful of God, or at least remembering Him ill, when he said: "Blessed is the Lord, because we have grown rich," and suspected iniquity, that he had from God what he had unjustly seized. Because of these things, therefore, the wrath of God has come upon us, sons of perdition. Because of these things, heaven is closed, and it will be closed much more still, if we do not turn back even after the scourges and draw near to Him who draws near to us.

19. What do we say to this, we who store up grain and traffic in the hunger of others, who watch for bad times so that we may fare well, who look upon another’s grief as our joy, who say: “When will the month pass, so that we may heap up prices? When will the Sabbath pass, so that we may open our treasuries?” You who set out double measures and deceitful weights, and heap up for yourselves measures of punishments and torments—what do you say to this, you who acknowledge no limit to possession, who worship gold and silver as if they were a god, nay, who adore them like Baal, who pursue every precious jewel and flowing, delicate garment, and amass treasures for moths and thieves, puffed up with a multitude of serfs and with the number of horses and other animals, spread out over whole expanses of fields and mountain ridges? You possess some things, you seize others, and you hope for the rest, like that leech of Solomon which can in no way be filled, like the underworld, water, and fire, you who seek another orb of the earth for possession, as if blaming the narrow spaces of possessions created for you by God. And what of those who sit on the high seats of tribunals and, holding the power of judging, puffed up with proud arrogance, reflect not at all that they too are to be judged by God, who is the true judge of all, so that they might temper their power toward their fellow servants, knowing that they themselves also stand in need of God’s mercy?

What then of those who recline on ivory couches? Of them the holy Amos makes worthy mention, saying that they are anointed with the finest ointments and clap their hands to the sound of organs, and have deemed these fleeting things as though they were permanent, and have felt nothing at the breaking of Joseph—that is, they have not pitied the fall of their neighbors. For they ought to have been kind and merciful toward those who had been struck down before them, and by mercy to have provoked mercy. The pine ought to have wept because the cedar had fallen, and to have been corrected by the correction of its neighbor, and to have amended its own evils from the evils of others, seeing that they had obtained this benefit, that while others were scourged they themselves might achieve salvation, when it could certainly have happened that while they themselves were scourged, others might be corrected. 20. Discuss these things with the peoples together with us, O venerable and most gentle head, for the experience of many years gives you much wisdom. Instruct the peoples and teach them to break their bread for the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into their own homes, to clothe the naked, not to despise their poor kinsmen, and now especially, that our good may come not always from abundance, but also from scarcity. For God rejoices more in such an offering than in those which are offered from abundance.

Let a Moses or a Phinehas arise for us today; stand before God on our behalf and appease him, so that the devastation may at last cease—whether through a spiritual sacrifice or through prayers and supplications—only that you may meet the Lord’s anger and, standing in the middle, cause the remainder of the plague to stop. God gladly embraces the gray hair of a father poured out in the intercession of his sons. Plead for past evils, intercede for future ones; offer to God a people already purified by plagues and fear, already corrected by the scourges of devastation; obtain for them bodily food, but before that, the angelic food descending from heaven; reconcile men to God, join the earthly to the heavenly; call down timely and late rains upon the earth: the Lord will give his blessing, and our earth will give its fruit—that which is below, daily, and our earth, perpetual—which it first made fruitful in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. Here ends the new little book of Gregory translated by Rufinus (spurious) on the faith and on the Nicene faith, and in the tenth place on the book against the Arians. Here ends the book of Saint Gregory on the devastation of the hailstones, which the father bishop kept silent about. (The book against the Arians is not extant in this codex, since only eight of Gregory’s orations are contained.) Against the Arians, in a later hand. Here ends Book VIII. Here begins his Book IX on these matters.

Concerning Those Who Dispute Improperly about the Law. On the Arians, that it is not permitted always and publicly to contend about God. IX. ON THE ARIANS, THAT IT IS NOT PERMITTED ALWAYS AND PUBLICLY TO CONTEND ABOUT GOD. Our discourse is directed at those who are clever in speech, and I shall begin from the Scriptures. "Behold, I am speaking to you," it says, "insolent one." For there are some with itching ears and tongue, and now, as I see, even with hand, who with profane novelties of words and with questions and objections of false knowledge stir up verbal battles to no benefit. For thus does Paul name everything that is superfluous and curious in words, because he himself is the preacher and advocate of brevity of speech. Therefore these, concerning whom we speak, and especially the Arians—would that, just as they have a fluent and vehement tongue, they might also use correct and commendable words and devote some time even to the works of the commandments of God! Then perhaps they would be less sophistical in words and would not stir up controversies from the simplicity of the Scriptures.

2. For all of them, abandoning every other path of piety, look only to this one thing and watch for it—whether they can somehow entangle something in questions or dissolve what has been said simply and faithfully, as sometimes happens in athletic contests, where the wrestling match aims not so much at the palm of victory as at displaying skill and art to capture the favor of the onlookers. So too these men, seeking the applause of their hearers, resound with disputes in the squares and in public, and fill every banquet and every festival—and even funerals, if they enter them—with questions and contests, so that the festivity loses its joy and solemnity, and the mourning lacks consolation. And when they enter gatherings of women, for whom simplicity ought to be native and innate, they strip them of all modesty and the bloom of shame with the importunate and rapid motions of their words. Since, therefore, these things are so, and this evil is advancing intolerably, and the great mystery of our religion is being reduced to a kind of cunning and an art of words, we at least ask that whoever it is who has given himself over to such workshops of contention should acquiesce in this: that they accept without disdain the paternal affection we bear toward them, while we give an account of each of these matters, and that they restrain their tongue for a little while—if, that is, they can—and grant us only a hearing. For what loss, I ask you, will you suffer from this?

For either we have spoken into the ear of the hearers, and our word has found fruit—your salvation—since indeed he who sows the word sows it into every heart, but it bears fruit only from that soil which is rich and a good clod; or if our word has brought forth nothing worthy to move you, you will depart despising us, taking from this even greater material for contradicting us and contemning what we affirm. I do not wish you, therefore, to be surprised if I seem to bring forth some discourse that is strange to you, which is against both your custom and your law—you who promise, with a magnificent and lofty promise, not to say intemperate and shameless, to know or to teach everything, lest perhaps you be grieved. 3. It is not for everyone, O most prudent men, to dispute about God; it is not for everyone to discuss the divine nature. The word of sacred Scripture is not so cheap that it lies open to the untaught vulgar and to little men still crawling upon the earth. I add this as well: that neither always, nor everything, nor to all, nor by all, are such things to be uttered, but there is a time, and persons, and a measure. It is not, therefore, for everyone to raise such matters, but for those who have consumed their talent and industry in the disciplines of theory and knowledge, and for those who know how to contemplate incorporeal and spiritual things with bodies and matter set aside; and above all, it is for those who are already purified in both soul and body, or at the very least, who are certainly being purified. But he who is less pure, how does he dare to touch the pure?

For indeed not even weak eyes can gaze upon the rays of the sun with impunity. Therefore we can only perceive something about such matters if we cultivate leisure and quiet, and restrain ourselves from all external disturbances that come from the allurements of bodily matter, if our mind stands firm without any sedition of desires and thoughts. But how can we mix holy and pure things with impure and sordid motions? It is as if someone were to mix sweet perfumes with the stench of filth and pour nectar into dung. Therefore it is necessary first of all to be free and to acknowledge God, and when we have taken the time to judge what is just, then we will also judge what it is just to think about God. But to whom should these things be presented or insinuated? First, to those who have turned the whole of their life to this pursuit, and from whom discourse about God is not required, as one of the other things, after the circus, after the theaters, after those songs in which they have delighted, after the care of the belly and of what is beneath the belly. From whom also this is taken as a source of delight, if a dispute about divine matters is stirred up, so that they may take pleasure in the contest of controversies. But about whom should we dispute, and to what extent?

about those things which it is possible to grasp, and to the extent that the hearer's strength and capacity can receive, lest, just as excessive loudness harms the hearing and an abundance of food corrupts the distended stomach, so also the mind, receiving the food of speech beyond its measure, either falls stunned or is tormented by being too distended. Finally, observe, if you will, those who strive to lift burdens beyond their strength, or when the earth is oppressed by excessive and immense rains, how anything beyond measure is harmful. So it must be considered that a person weighed down by the very excess of speech can also undergo danger to his common and natural understanding itself. 4. And I do not say this because one ought not always to remember God, lest perhaps from another side those who are swift to twist things said simply into a perverse understanding rise up against us. One ought always to remember God, more often even than to breathe. And if it is possible to say or do this, nothing else should be done but this, since I also commend meditating on the law of the Lord day and night, as the Scriptures teach, and telling of and praising the Lord at evening and night and midday at every time, and, as Moses says, lying in bed and rising up and walking on the way. And whatever else a person does, it is expedient always to keep God and the memory of God fixed in the heart.

I do not, therefore, forbid always having a memory of God, but I do not advise always and inopportunely disputing about God. Indeed, even in this matter I forbid not what is pious but what is inopportune; I do not prohibit teaching, but I cut back immoderation. Or does not even a surfeit of honey provoke vomiting, and excess as well? And what is sweeter than honey? But there is a time for everything, as it seems to Solomon and to me. For a good thing becomes not good, if it is not done well. Or is it not inopportune to seek flowers in winter, and quite incongruous for a woman to wear masculine ornaments, or for a man to be fitted with a woman's necklace? It is absurd to thrust geometry upon a mourner and to defile a banquet with weeping. All these things, therefore, require a time suitable for themselves: and are we alone who do not recognize the opportune moment for times, we among whom especially the opportune moment for all things ought to be guarded? 5. By no means, I beg you, O friends and brothers—for I still call you brothers, although you wish to preserve nothing brotherly towards us—let us not consult thus about the greatest matters, nor, as fiery and restless horses are accustomed to do, having wantonly and petulantly shaken off our charioteer, that is, the fear of God, let us wander far from the established limits of the turning-posts; but rather let us philosophize within the lines defined for us, and let us neither turn back again into Egypt nor be led away to the Assyrians, nor let us sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land, that is, into every foreign ear and one hostile to our religion.

Those who, having carefully heard and retained what is ours, immediately strive to kindle from our sparks vast conflagrations, which are carried up to heaven by hidden and pressing winds, and produce for us those lofty and all-licking flames that surround everything around, like the fires of Babylon. For since they have no confidence in their own doctrines, they seek out in ours anything weak or fragile, not so much by their own nature as by the negligence of the one asserting it, and then, like flies on wounds, they settle upon our every error or fragile word. But let us not be ignorant of ourselves, nor refuse to inquire what is fitting in such matters. Even if it is impossible for us to think alike once contention is set aside, let us at least be permitted to establish a common pact: that we not profane the holy mysteries in public, that we not treat holy things unholy, and that we not cast what we have received through an ineffable sacrament into profane ears and polluted consciences, nor make more honorable those who worship images and venerate idols, who, serving shameful mysteries and fables, more readily shed their blood for what they think are mysteries than they would betray a word to those not initiated into such things.

But let us see whether, just as a man's garment, the laughter of his teeth, and the gait of his feet reveal certain indications of his very moderation and temperance and of his own integrity, so too the utterance of speech and the restraint of silence may give some indication of us concerning both religion and learning, since among the other names and virtues which it is lawful for men to apply to God, we also call him Word. Now then, if the purpose is to contend, let even that contention itself be legitimate for us. 6. The birth of God, and creation, and God from non-existent things, and the division and severance and dissolution of substance—why does a profane hearer hear these things? Why do we summon as judges of our words our accusers and our enemies? Why do we hand our swords over to our foes? How do you think they hear such a word, with what mind, with what understanding—those who praise adulteries and consecrate the defilement of boys and every kind of vice, who can feel and understand nothing at all beyond the body, who a little while ago themselves established as gods those whom they had come to know through shame and disgrace? Will not such people understand everything carnally, everything shamefully and ignorantly? Will they not judge our matters as they are accustomed to judge their own, and with what feeling, with what understanding they receive the generations and procreations of their own gods, with that same understanding and feeling will they not also weigh our matters? Do we not, when they utter such words, both mock them and attack them?

and how shall we persuade them to accept what is ours, if they see the same struggles stirred up again among us? This is what this contention among us brings us, this is what the struggle for a word uttered otherwise than the word itself pleases brings us. We suffer in some way what madmen suffer, who burn down their own houses with their own hands, or cut the throats of their own sons, or drive away their parents, thinking them strangers. 7. Since, therefore, we have destroyed those things that are alien to the religion of the word of God and have cast back into the herd of swine the multiform legion, which has also been hurled into the deep, let us now see what pertains to ourselves. This, then, is what I think should first be considered: what is this great contention over mere words? What is this itch of the tongue, what is this so great impatience? What is it that, with hands drawn back and bound, we bring forth only the works and arms of the tongue? The pursuit of charity ceases; the pursuit of chastity, of virginity, of mercy either is absent, or, if it exists in some, is either rare or less vigorous.

There is not so great a zeal for psalmody, for vigils, for prayers, for weeping in supplications, for humbling the body with fasts, for ascending to God through intent prayer — we do not join what is worse to what is better, I mean clay to spirit, we have no meditation on death in life, we are not inflamed to master the vices, mindful of our heavenly kinship —, not to conquer fury or to restrain wrath, not to cast down arrogance or to drive away irrational sadness, not to rein in lust, not to cut back intemperance of laughter, not the wantonness of the eyes, not intemperance of hearing, not immoderation of speech, not to blunt the vanity of thoughts, whether those which the enemy suggests to us or those which he himself seizes from us, from which, in any case, as scripture says, through the bodily senses as through windows he introduces death. But on the contrary, to all these vices we grant freedom to roam where they will and how they will, and we seem to ourselves to keep caution only in disputations and questions.

And indeed, O talkative dialectician, I will ask you a little something, and you answer me, as that one who spoke through the whirlwind and the cloud to Job said. Are there not many mansions with God? I think you will not deny what is written. What then? Must all these be filled, or some filled, but others not, so that they remain empty and seem to have been prepared in vain? I know you will grant that all are to be filled; for you will admit that nothing is made in vain by God. But this very thing we call a mansion—what do you think should be understood by it? Is it not the rest and glory that is stored up for the blessed? You will give no other meaning, I think. If, therefore, this is certain, it follows that we should inquire whether there is something that procures these very mansions for each of us. There must undoubtedly be such a thing. What, then, will that be which summons each one to different mansions? Is it not the diversity of deeds and purpose, according to the measure of each one's faith passed in this life, which it is also the custom of divine Scripture to call ways? What then? Must we travel by all these ways, or by some of them? If it were possible, it would be blessed to enter by all; if not, by as many as possible, certainly at least by some; if not even that, by one alone, provided it is walked rightly and blamelessly. If, therefore, you hear that there is one way and that this very way is narrow, what do you think is indicated? Is not one way to be understood for the unity of the virtues?

For virtue is one, even if it seems to be divided into many. But it is called narrow because of the labors and because it is not readily available to many. What then, dearest? If the division of many ways and again the constriction and gathering into one is of such a kind as we have described above, by what ignorance or intemperance, pray, do we force ourselves into these straits, so that, as if placed in extreme need, abandoning all the ways which the word of God teaches us, we press only this one and constrict ourselves in this one alone, which consists in disputation and mere verbal argument, and which, as it seems to me, is sought not so much by the pursuits of wisdom and knowledge as by the vice of talkativeness? Does not the blessed apostle Paul rebuke you for these things, who, after enumerating spiritual gifts, repeats and says: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? and so forth.

Be you some lofty one, superior even to the lofty, and ascend above the clouds, if you wish, and behold invisible things and embrace in speech things that cannot be uttered, assume more than Elijah and see God face to face, if you can, more than Moses, and also rise above Paul to the heights of the third heaven: why do you wish to shape other saints under the sun? why do you make theologians in a moment of time, who discourse on the divine nature, when they are still utterly ignorant of their own life, so that you think they have received a doctrine inspired by you rather than worked out by study, and you gather together as many assemblies as possible with the words of the unskilled? Why do you bind the weak with cobwebs and draw them together as if you were about to bestow some wisdom upon them? Why do you stir up a swarm of wasps against the faith? Why does dialectic believe it adorns religion, when rather religion is disfigured by dialectic? That fabulous Gigantomachy is now in some way renewed for us, while war is waged against God on earth; and while every speech is uttered with a question, the tongue becomes a warrior, words are javelins, speech is a sword, all day long without any end war is waged, and sometimes each is laid low by mutual wounds. But if the love of this war is so great, if the concern for battle is so great, if it pleases to seize the triumphs of dialectical combat, let us desist, I pray, from civil wars: let us undertake external and hostile wars.

Let us contend against Pythagorean silences and destroy Orphic beans. Let us refute that presumptuous opinion of the Pythagoreans concerning their master: “He himself said it.” Let us argue against Plato’s Ideas and the opinion, which they call, of the soul being transferred through different species of bodies, and certain circuits through diverse lives of our souls, and recollections, and other things similar to these. Let us attack Epicurus, who does not perceive God and denies providence; let us speak against his atoms and his lust, which he declares, contrary to the dignity of philosophy, to be the highest good, and let us vanquish him. Let us refute Aristotle’s narrow opinion concerning providence and his unfaithful art of words and the reasons he put forward about the soul, and his dogmas that are human rather than divine. Let us humble the raised eyebrow of the Stoics, and the vile and gluttonous rite of the Cynics from the crossroads. Let us vanquish the vanity, full of ridiculous fables, of those who assert multitudes of gods, who offer sacrifices to images, who pour libations to evil and good demons. Let us be stirred against those who marvel at divinations, auspices, auguries, invocations of demons, and other similar portents. Let us sweat against those who weigh their lives by the motions or courses of the stars, who attribute their own negligence and idleness to fate and the stars, and who ascribe the incomprehensible dispensation of divine providence to the blind, as they say, and playful chances of fortune.

But if these things seem unworthy and trivial to you, against which you might hurl the weapons of your disputations as often refuted and frequently shattered, and it pleases you more to exercise yourself in our own and proper matters, I will prepare for you even in these open fields of contest. Dispute concerning the world or worlds, concerning matter, dispute concerning the soul, concerning rational natures, concerning the glory of resurrection, concerning judgment, concerning retribution, concerning the passions of Christ. For concerning these, it will not be useless to grasp what is true, and to err in some part has no danger from God. And in this we will receive grace, now indeed small according to our powers, but later even more perfect in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.