Synonyma De Lamentatione Animae Peccatricis

THE SYNONYMS OF SAINT ISIDORE, BISHOP OF SEVILLE, ON THE LAMENTATION OF THE SINFUL SOUL.

First prologue.

In this book that follows, which is called Synonyma, that is, many words converging upon a single meaning, Isidore of holy memory, archbishop of Seville, introduces the person of a man lamenting amid the hardships of this present world and bewailing himself almost to the point of sinking into despair; Reason meets him in a wondrous encounter, consoles him with gentle moderation, and recalls him from the fall of despair to the hope of pardon, and wondrously teaches him how he may avoid the fall of the shifting world and lay hold of the pattern of the spiritual life.

Then, leading him onward with the greatest care all the way to the ascent of contemplation, he brings him at last to the citadel of perfection. Finally, having been brought to perfect manhood, he renders to that same Reason the thanks due to her. In this work, indeed, whoever strives to press on as an attentive reader will without doubt find how he may be on guard in life, how he may bewail sins committed, and in what manner, restored through the lamentations of penitence, he may come to the fruit of holy action, so that he may not perish with the lusts of the world, but, rewarded with eternal prizes, may live with Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns as God for ever and ever. Amen.

Another prologue.

Isidore to the reader, greeting.

There recently came into my hands a certain little sheet, which they call Synonyma; its form persuaded my mind to compose a certain lamentation for myself, or for the wretched. In truth I imitated not the eloquence of that work, but my own will.

Whoever therefore that person is, let him gladly read it through, and while he is touched by the adversities of the world, let him examine himself with censorious judgment, and he will immediately recognize that whatever afflictions you suffer in this world are brought upon you by a most just retribution. But here the persons of two are introduced: of the man lamenting, and of reason admonishing.

BOOK ONE.

My soul is in distress, my spirit seethes, my heart tosses, anguish of soul possesses me. Anguish of soul afflicts me, I am surrounded by all evils, hemmed in by hardships, enclosed by strangers, beset by miseries, covered by misfortune, oppressed by distresses; I find nowhere a refuge for such great evil, I do not discover a proof of such great sorrow, I do not comprehend the judgments for escaping calamity, I do not gather the arguments for lessening pain, I do not find the traces of fleeing death; everywhere my wretchedness pursues me, at home and abroad my calamity does not desert me.

Wherever I flee, my evils pursue me; wherever I turn, the shadow of my evils accompanies me; as the shadow of the body, so I cannot escape my evils. I, that man of unknown name, a man of obscure reputation, a man of the lowest birth, known only through myself, known only to myself; I never did harm to anyone, I never slandered anyone, I never stood against anyone; I never brought trouble to anyone, I was never restless toward anyone, I lived without any complaint among men; yet all strive to injure my life, all gnash their teeth and rage against me, with joined hands they bring dangers upon me, they drag me toward destruction, they lead me into peril, they summon my safety to a crisis.

No one offers me protection, no one applies defense, no one grants support, no one comes to the aid of my evils; I am deserted by all men. Whoever look upon me either flee, or perhaps persecute me; they regard me as wretched, and I know not what they speak to me in their gifts with peaceful words; they adorn hidden malice with flattering speeches, and they bring forth one thing with the mouth, and roll another in the heart. By deed they destroy what they promise by mouth; under the guise of piety they walk with a poisoned mind. They veil malice with the cosmetic of goodness, they conceal cunning with simplicity, they feign friendship in gifts, they show in the face what they do not carry in the heart. Whom would you believe? In whom would you have trust? Whom would you feel to be a neighbor? Where now is faith? Faith has perished, faith has been taken away, nowhere is faith safe.

If nothing is lawful, if there is no truth of judgment, if equity is cast aside, if right is not believed, if justice is denied to all, the laws perish while avarice sits in judgment.

Avarice has grown, the law has perished through the love of greed; rights have no force; bribes and gifts have taken the strength from the laws. Everywhere money prevails, everywhere judgment is for sale; there is no fear of the laws, no dread of judgment. The license of living wickedly remains unpunished; no one contradicts the sinner, nor does anyone avenge the crime. Every crime remains unavenged, the wicked are kept safe, the innocent perish, the good are in want, the wicked abound, the criminal are powerful.

The just are in need, the unjust are honored; the just are despised, the unjust rejoice; the just are in mourning and grief. The impious prevails against the just, the evil condemn the good, the unjust is honored in place of the just, the just is condemned in place of the impious, the innocent perish in place of the guilty, with nothing standing in the way.

On no cause, no accusation, no malice do they bring a charge against me, hurl a charge at me, weave knots of accusation against me. They turn the place of accusation and suspicion against me. They lead me into accusation and danger, they throw at me a charge of which I have no knowledge in my conscience. Nothing has been examined, nothing laid open, nothing investigated, nothing found out, and yet they do not cease to fabricate evils against me, they do not cease to prepare false testimonies, they do not stop throwing accusers at me, they do not allow the judges to write.

By the false and cruel sentence of witnesses and judges I am judged. By the false sentence of witnesses I, an innocent, am led to death. From the same council come the witnesses, from the same body the judges, from the same gathering the accusers. They set wicked judges against me, they throw false witnesses at me, in whose testimony there is confidence. No one disagrees with them, no one dissents, no one rejects their counsel. To whom shall I speak? Whom shall I believe? To whom shall I talk? Whom shall I approach? From whom shall I seek counsel? In whom shall I place my soul? Whom above all shall I seek?

I am hateful to all, I am deserted by the love of all; all cast me away from themselves, all abominate me with abomination, all shudder at me, all reject me, all intend my renunciation. I wish to flee to them, but they threaten; I desire to entreat their footsteps, but they flee, they oppose and hate me; by supplicating I wish to have them favorable, but they are all the more troublesome; sometimes they join themselves to me with feigned love, not for consolation but for temptation; they speak deceitfully, and if they are silent, it is not a simple silence; they seek what they may accuse, they seek what they may hear, they seek what they may betray, they spy out whence they may deceive.

But I, with head bowed, countenance humbled, face cast down, am silent, I keep quiet, I persist in what I have begun. By silence I have set a guard on my mouth, I have given a seal to my mouth, I have restrained my voice from speech, I have drawn back my tongue from speaking; even when asked about good, I am silent, for I preferred to be silent before the wicked rather than to answer. But they do not rest, they rage the more; they persecute the one already struck all the more, more and more they rush upon me, they clamor against me with shouts, they insolently hurl abuse upon me with voice, bearing, and uproar.

They leap upon me, with open voice they hurl insults and reproaches upon me, and, provoked by one another, all are stirred up against me, all turn their weapons against me: all rage against me, all intend my destruction, all prepare their hands for my death. In such great fear, then, in such great dread, in such great terror I have collapsed in my misery, I have grown pale in my misery, I have been made bloodless, my heart has withered, I burn with dread, I waste away with the fear of terror, fear and trembling have shaken my soul.

Thus I have been thrust into exile, thus I have been condemned to exile, thus I mourn the punishment of exile, thus I groan over the condemnation of exile, bound to the chain of servitude, weighed down by the burden of my condition, handed over to servile work, placed in the cold, in the snow, in the frost, in foul storms, in every labor, in every danger. After the losses of goods, after the loss of all things, I have been made destitute and poor, I am in need, I beg as a wretch, I publicly ask for alms, no one stretches out a hand to the needy one, no one comes to the aid of the destitute one, I am worthy of compassion before no one, I am forsaken of all mercy, and there is no one to have mercy.

All scorn the beggar, and they do not refresh the hungry man even with their crumbs; no one distills a drop of cool relief into the mouth of the thirsty one, no one offers me even the least dew of water, for I have become abominable to all. Whoever look upon me all despise me as a festering sore, they spit me out as stinking, they shudder to touch me as a leper. My flesh lies bound with iron, lies pressed by chains, lies tied with bonds, lies fastened in fetters; torments are not lacking, tortures are not lacking, punishments are not lacking for me; daily savagery grows fierce against me.

The executioners of my body tear me with new tortures, with an unheard-of kind of punishment they mangle my entrails and my limbs; whatever cruel thing they can, they devise against me. I am not killed by a bare death, racked by a thousand pains, subdued by a thousand torments, torn by a thousand punishments. My flesh, cut by wounds, has rotted; my half-burnt sides pour out gore, my lacerated limbs dissolve in putrefaction; blood flows with weeping, gore drips with tears; and it is not the weeping of tears alone, but of wounds.

Wretched, I am consumed by grief; in grief both mind and body fail. The mind is now conquered, the soul is shut up in grief. Many intolerable things I have felt, many bitter things I have endured, many grievous things I have borne. Never have I received so grave and cruel a wound; I was overwhelmed by an unforeseen wound, I was struck by a sudden destruction; an unlooked-for calamity of life cast me into so great an evil. While I was unaware, a sudden calamity oppressed me; sudden deaths and misfortunes crushed me.

Why was I born unhappy? Why was I cast into this wretched life? To what end did I, wretched, see this light? To what end did the dawn of this life meet me, wretched? Would that I had departed from the world more swiftly than I entered it, that by whatever means I might now withdraw! But alas! For the wretched, the long-awaited death comes late. Let it now be permitted me, who long to die, to fall. For I am weary of living, I desire to die; death alone pleases me. O death, how sweet you are to the wretched! O death, how pleasant you are to those who love bitterly! How delightful you are, O death, to the sad and the mourning!

Let the great solace of death therefore draw near to the great evil of life; let the end of life be the termination of so many evils; let the rest of the grave put an end to misery; and if not life, then at least death begin to have pity. Death imposes an end on all evils; death provides a limit to calamity; death takes away every calamity.

At any rate, death at least comes to the aid of the wretched; it is better to die well than to live badly; it is better not to exist than to exist unhappily; compared with my miseries, the dead are happier than the living. Spare my grief, I beg you; forgive my sorrow, I beg you; grant pardon to my distress, indulge my pains, do not be moved against me in such great pain; for I bewail my own blow, I lament my own calamity, the familiar disaster of my misery—Idgeo—for grief supplies more; I, wretched, am unable to be consoled, for my grief is impatient, my sorrow is infinite. In no way is my wound soothed, there is no measure to my tears, there is no end to my pains, now there is no confidence of mind, now the mind can no longer bear it, now the mind, conquered by miseries, has fallen.

O man, why do you despair so in your soul? Why are you so weakened in mind? Why do you lose all hope and confidence? Why are you so poured out in spirit? Why are you cast down by such great faint-heartedness? Why are you so broken in adversity? Put away sorrow, cease to be sad, drive sorrow from you, do not succumb to grief, do not give yourself over much to grief, drive pain from your heart, shut out pain from your soul, check the onslaught of pain, do not persist in pain, conquer the pain of the soul, overcome the pain of the mind.

How? In what way? By what means? After what manner? By what reason? By what skill? By what counsel? By what wit?

By every effort, every force, every wit, every virtue, every skill, every reason, every counsel, every insistence, take up the struggle against bodily troubles; be firm in all cases, patiently bear all things, bear all adversities with an even mind. Do not attend to your own particular condition; your bitterness is not to be weighed by you alone, your calamity is not to be considered by you alone; look to the like cases of others, consider the miseries of those to whom something bitter has happened; while you recall to yourself the perils of others, you bear your own more gently; for the examples of others relieve pain, and a man is more easily consoled by the evils of others.

Why do you accuse your own most bitter decrees? Why do you so continually plead the causes of your peril? Your punishments are not new; you have examples of calamity. How many such falls, how many such dangers have others endured? What happens to many ought to be borne patiently by one, since it is tolerable. The punishment of this life is brief, and both he who afflicts and he who is afflicted are mortal. The tribulation of this time has an end.

All things of this world pass away and do not remain; everything that comes cannot stand. Nothing lasts so long, nothing is so long, that it is not ended in a short time; all things under heaven have their end. It is impossible that you be a man and not taste distress; pain and sorrow are common to all; in this world we endure all things with a similar outcome. No one is forever free of evil, no one is there who does not grieve in this world, there is no one placed in this life who does not sigh: this life is full of tears, this life begins with weeping; he who is born begins to live from weeping, we are cast weeping into this wretched life, and the very beginning of our coming forth is a groaning of sorrows to follow.

Therefore set reason before yourself, be a partaker of reason, let reason prevail in you, temper your mind with reason; reason strengthens the soul, let reason restrain the force of such great sorrow. When the mind is strengthened, you will fear no danger. We must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations (Acts 14:21). The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us (Rom 8:18); what is present is momentary, and the tribulations are light in us; what is eternal is beyond measure, an exceeding weight of glory. Tribulation is useful, the pressures of this life are useful.

The wickedness of evil men does not kill you but instructs you; the hostility of the wicked does not cast you down but lifts you up; human temptation accuses you, it does not kill you. For as much as we are broken in this world, so much are we made solid in the eternal world; as much as we are afflicted in the present, so much will we rejoice in the future. If we are worn down here by scourges, we will be found purged in judgment. God always wounds here those whom he prepares for eternal salvation. Gold is tested in the furnace; you, so that you may be free from filth, are purged in the furnace of tribulation; so that you may appear more pure, you are refined in the fire of persecution; so that you may be cleansed from the filth of all sins, all these things that you endure serve for your testing.

Do not therefore murmur, do not blaspheme, do not say: Why do I endure evils? Why am I afflicted? For what cause do I suffer evils? But rather say: I have sinned; I receive what I deserved. I do not feel a punishment equal to my sin; I acknowledge that I am struck less than I merited; according to the measure of the crime the repayment of vengeance is less; according to the merit of sins the cause of punishments is unequal; the torments are not as great as the sins were. For he who murmurs under the scourge irritates God more against himself, provokes the fury of God more greatly, and heaps up for himself more the anger of an indignant God.

But he who endures adversities patiently placates God more quickly. For if you wish to be purified, accuse yourself in the punishment and praise the justice of God; it contributes to your purification if you refer the things you suffer to the justice of God, if for the injury inflicted you humbly glorify God. For God corrects you with the scourge of pious chastisement, exercises discipline upon you, and he who by sparing was recalling you to himself cries out by striking, that you may return. Consider, O man, whatever cruciations of the world, turn your mind to whatever punishments of the age, whatever pains of torments, whatever bitterness of sorrows; compare all this to Gehenna, and everything you suffer is light; if you fear, dread those punishments; these are temporal, those eternal; these have an end, those are perpetual; in these, torments depart by dying, in those, eternal sorrow succeeds by dying.

For if you have turned back, what you suffer is correction; for when a man has turned, scourges absolve him from his sins, and the blows that press upon the converted advance him toward purification. For he who is chastised here and corrected is set free there; but those who are not corrected even under the scourge are condemned both by temporal punishment and by eternal damnation, and they are judged first in this world, and there again in the world to come. For them there is a double damnation, for them a twofold striking, because here they have the beginning of torments, and there the perfection of punishments. See that the hand of God has delivered them over to punishment.

Know then, O man, that no one could have opposed you unless God had given him power; nor would the adversary have had power over you unless God had permitted it. All things that happen to you do not come without the will of God; the power of the wicked over you is given by God's permission. All who oppose you act by God's counsel; the hand of God has delivered you over to punishment; the indignation of God has commanded that you be afflicted. In His anger He Himself commanded you to experience all evils. For that you are sick, that you are afflicted with diseases of the flesh, that you are broken by weaknesses of the body, that you are tormented by the stings of sicknesses, that you are shaken by passions of the mind, that you are tortured by anguish of spirit, that you are driven about by the raging spirit of assault—this very thing divine justice inflicts upon you for your sin, and this very thing the sentence of divine judgment brings upon you for your guilt.

For all adversity of circumstances is stirred up by the merits of your pleasures; your own arms fight against you, you are pierced by your own arrows, you are wounded by your own weapons; for by the very things through which you sinned, through these also you are tormented (Wis. 11:17). You have followed the flesh, you are scourged in the flesh; in that very flesh in which you sinned, in that same flesh you are tortured in which you transgressed; that very thing is the sentence of your punishment which was the cause of your sin; from the source whence you fell into vices, from there you mourn torments.

O man, examine your conscience, apply your mind, examine yourself, let your heart speak to you, consider your desert; you are justly accused, justly scourged, judged by a just judgment, a just storm crushes you, the penalty of justice presses upon you; for you do nothing good, nothing right, nothing fair, nothing just, nothing holy; there is in you nothing of holiness, nothing of modesty, no remembrance of dignity, nothing worthy of God.

Daily you sin, daily you slip, daily you go headlong into worse things: your haughtiness does not depart, your pride is not laid aside, your swelling and boasting are not restrained; fury also seizes you, anger inflames you, clamor rouses you, indignation stirs you; always ready for anger, you are angry beyond measure, you are moved by the fury of your mind beyond bounds; accustomed to envy the good, accustomed to begrudge those better than you, always envious of others' virtues, always emulous of others' felicities.

Whom have you not torn apart? From whom have you ever withheld your detraction? Whose life have you not overwhelmed? Against whom have you not spread infamy? Deceitful, inconstant, faithless, greedy, grasping, barren, inhuman, unfruitful; there is no mercy in you. You have fallen into the desires of the world, and you have flowed away in the lusts of the world; you burn with earthly love; you heap up things that will perish; the thirst of your greed knows not how to be satisfied; every day you entangle yourself in new sins, you increase old ones with new crimes, you do not wash away your wickedness but postpone it, nor do you ever satisfy the flame of lustful desire.

O unhappy one, are you not ashamed to be defiled by many lusts? Corrupt and libidinous one, luxurious adulterer, do you persist so in lusts? Do you persevere so in shameful deeds? Do you remain so in luxury? Do you persist so in carnal love? Alas! How long, until when will you wander? To what end will unbridled luxury drag you? Now at last cease to sin, now at last cease from wickedness, at some time change your evil ways for the better.

Why do you remain in the filth of sin? Why do you persist in the will to sin? Do not wander long, wretched one; change now from evil to better things. Put an end to sin, put a law to wickedness; let fault have a limit, let iniquity have a boundary. Consider the greatness of your offenses; at least when scourged, acknowledge your faults.

Woe is me! Woe to me, unhappy one! Woe to me, wretched one! I did not know that I am struck for my iniquity; I was ignorant that I am judged for my desert; that this judgment is from my injustice, you have made manifest to me, you have shown to me, you have made known to me; through you I have learned it. What I did not know, I now know for certain, I now hold as certain; it no longer lies hidden from me, it is manifest enough to me, it is sufficiently known to me, it is sufficiently weighed by me, it is now explored by me, it is no longer concealed from me, it is no longer doubtful to me, it is no longer hidden from me.

Hence, O man, hence is all this calamity, hence this bitterness, hence this cross, hence this punishment, hence this misery. The causes are known to you; it is not from any chance, not from any event, not from anything fortuitous. This sickness is of one's own fault, this illness is of one's own iniquity. Or does it seem otherwise to you? Or do you think otherwise? Or do you judge otherwise? Or do you feel otherwise? Or do you consider otherwise? Or do you judge otherwise? Or do you reckon otherwise?

I have nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, nothing through and through, nothing in any way, nothing to contradict: I yield to the truth, I cannot deny it, I confess that it is true; who doubts this? who questions this? who denies this?

If it is so, if you think so, if you hold it as certain, if it has been weighed, if it has been examined, then take away vice from yourself now, draw yourself back from vice and sin; flee now the stain of life, flee the cultivation of vice, remove crime from yourself; restrain yourself from the evil that animates you; flee the foulness of life, hold to purity of life; wash away the old stains.

You speak well, you teach well, you instruct well, you admonish well, you persuade well, you train well; and I was wishing to be released from the entanglement of sin, I was desiring to be drawn back from evil habit, I was longing to withdraw from vice and sin, I was seeking to overcome the most wicked practice. But alas! it is difficult to conquer a depraved habit, depraved practice is scarcely abolished, persistent habit is turned into nature, by persistent practice the vileness is changed into nature, the mind bound fast by crimes can scarcely be torn away from them; so deeply rooted in me are the vices that they can scarcely be uprooted, I scarcely believe that my sins will die out in any span of time.

Of my own accord I first corrupted myself in my misery; of my own free will I long ago defiled myself; by my own judgment I first lost myself; by my own will I stained myself. I was good, and of my own accord I slipped into sin; I was free, and of my own accord I became a debtor of death. Wretched man that I am, I myself first of all prepared sin for myself of my own accord; I first embraced the occasion of sinning; now, bound by the practice of sin, I am held fast; evil habit has gravely entangled me in itself; the practice of sinning has bound me with the chains of necessity. I wish to depart from my transgression, and I am not able.

I seek to rise again from my fall, and I am not able to resist the habit. I am drawn by the love of good, I am dragged back by the law of evil habit. Long habit has made for itself a right and a law in me; the long practice of sinning has overcome and possessed me. My sins have grown hard through habit. I wish to do good, but my accustomed desires do not permit it. By the habit of sinning, when I do not know it, I so transgress; by the practice of sin, when I do not choose it, I run into it; with carnal habit resisting, I am not able to fulfill good things; I strive to oppose evil practice, but I am weighed down by the desire of the flesh; love raises me up to righteousness, but habit constrains me to sin.

Struggle against evil custom; fight back against the custom of sinning with all your strength; conquer carnal habit even with pain; conquer pernicious custom, and resist evil habit though with difficulty, though with pain. Set before yourself, against the present ardors of the flesh, the fire of future punishment; let the remembrance of eternal burning prevail over the heat of lust; let the memory of the heat of Gehenna exclude the heat of wantonness.

Let fear of a graver punishment conquer the penalty of fornication; let the stronger pain overcome the lesser pain. You will bear lighter things patiently if you have recalled heavier ones. Let the image of the future judgment be turned before your eyes; foresee what you will afterward suffer. Think on the future sentence of God; dread the future judgments of God upon you; let fear of Gehenna terrify you, let the sentence of the future judgment terrify you, let the terror of punishments recall you from guilt.

Look daily upon the end of your life; keep death before your eyes at every hour; let the approach of darkness always be turned before your eyes. Think on your death daily, always consider the end of your life, always recall the uncertain day of death; be anxious lest you be suddenly snatched away: daily the last day draws near, daily the day takes away our life, daily we tend toward the end, daily we pass along the way of life, daily we hasten toward death, daily we tend toward the limit of life, and as the moments run on we are brought down to the end.

We do not know what may befall us today, nor do we know when the final time of life may come. We are ignorant whether on this night the condition of death may demand our soul. Our end is hidden from us, and the outcome of what is to come is uncertain to us through ignorance. The encounter with death is unforeseen; the outcome and end of all things is uncertain. While we do not know, death comes suddenly; while we do not expect it, we are carried off unawares; while we are ignorant, we are suddenly snatched away. Let us fear lest that day seize us like a thief (1 Thess. 5:2), lest the whirlwind of divine judgment snatch us away while we are ignorant, lest sudden destruction carry us off, lest calamity overtake us unawares in our ignorance.

The spirit that inflames us to sin often suddenly seizes the sinner; it inflames the living and suddenly devours the dying; it bends us toward vices and drags us suddenly to torments. How many has unforeseen calamity laid low unto the punishment of death? How many has an unforeseen end carried off? How many, suddenly snatched away, perish? How many, while they do not think they are dying, are taken away? How many are suddenly hurried to death? How many are suddenly led down to eternal punishments? Look, therefore, at another's torment and see what you should fear. Look upon another's destruction and see what you should dread; avoid the pit into which you see another fall before your eyes; fear another's dangers for yourself. Make others' falls your own dangers; let the voice of warning be your correction; let the perdition of others be your safeguard.

Let the destruction of the impious draw you back from sin. Let the end of the perishing deter you from guilt; let the fate of the transgressors correct you; let the destruction of the reprobate lead you to penitence. Let the punishment of the wicked profit your salvation; what you have done evilly, amend while you can; while you can, recall yourself from vice and sin; while there is time, cry out; while space is given, mourn; while there is license, hasten to repent; while you can, lament; while the soul is still held in the body, while you still live, acquire for yourself a remedy for what is to come, before the day of death overtakes you, before the deep swallows you, before hell snatches you away, where already there is no place of indulgence, where no freedom of penitence lies open, where no license of correction is given, where there is no recourse to confession, no return to pardon.

You speak the truth, you say what is true, you tell me what is fitting; you instruct me in what is more expedient for me: nothing is better, nothing more welcome, nothing more acceptable, nothing more delightful; nothing delights me more, nothing pleases me more. This alone I seek—behold, I know it, I have learned it. That too I seek, that I wish to know, that I desire above all to understand: whether there is hope in confession, whether there is confidence, whether there is remission, whether there is pardon, whether there is indulgence, whether there is a place to return to righteousness through penitence.

It is plainly so, it is assuredly so, it is absolutely so, it is beyond doubt so, it is truly so. Confession heals, confession justifies, the confession of sin grants pardon; all hope rests in confession, in confession there is a place for mercy. Therefore believe most certainly, do not hesitate in any way, do not doubt in any way, do not despair of God's mercy in any way. Have hope in confession, have confidence. Do not despair of the remedy of health; do not despair of salvation, if you turn to better things. For whoever despairs of pardon for sin condemns himself more for his despair than for the crime he has committed.

Despair increases sin; despair is worse than every sin. Correct yourself, therefore, and have hope of indulgence. Put aside injustice, and hope for life; put aside iniquity, and hope for salvation. No fault is so grave that it does not have pardon; for though you are a sinner, though you are criminal, though you are wicked, though you are oppressed by countless unspeakable crimes, the place of penitence is not denied to you: divine clemency readily comes to the aid of the penitent, through penitence indulgence is given, through penitence all offenses are wiped away.

Alas, wretched me! I had lost hope, I had lost confidence, I had despaired in my soul, my soul had been broken, my soul had almost fallen into despair. Now I have returned to hope, now I have recovered confidence, now I have hope of indulgence, I hope in the goodness of God, I do not doubt the kindness of God; I shall live in hope, his goodness has raised me up to hope, he has given me hope of life in penitence. If God, then, has looked upon me, if he has come to my aid, if he has helped me to accomplish what I desire, I have resolved to do this, I have determined this, this is fixed in my soul, this cannot be torn from my soul.

May God grant you what you wish, may God favor your vows, may God make you obtain your vows, may God bring your will to perfection in good, may God confirm your vows, may God support your vows, may God grant you what you desire, may God cause you to attain your vows; may you do all things with God's favor; therefore act while it is permitted, while death delays. If, then, it is in your heart, if it is in your will, if it is your vow, if it is in your soul, if it is your desire, pray, ask, entreat, do not be silent, burst forth into speech, cry out boldly, lament your iniquities, bewail the evils of your crimes, wash away with weeping what you have done perversely; wash away with tears what you have committed unlawfully. Crimes are usually washed away by weeping; recall by weeping the evils you have done. Bewail the pain of your guilt, acknowledge your punishment by weeping, let the laments of penitence cleanse you, let the wave of your sorrow water you, let the river of tears compel you to lament.

Alas, wretched soul that I am! Amid such great sins, such great crimes, such many iniquities, what shall I bewail first? What shall I lament first? What shall I mourn first? What tears shall I take up? Memory does not suffice to recount the deeds of such great crimes. My sins too have taken from me the sense of sorrow; my tears have been congealed by the dullness of my heart, my spirit has grown stiff, it is pricked by no grief.

My soul has been turned into stupor, my soul has become senseless. Tears, where have you withdrawn? Where are you, fountains of tears? Where are you, wave of grief? Where are you, lamentations? Return, I beseech you, tears; be stirred, fountains of tears; sprinkle me with weepings, flow over my face, moisten my cheeks, water my jaws; give me bitter lamentation, for among all I have fallen more grievously, among all I have fallen more wretchedly. By my wickedness I have surpassed the punishments of all the impious; the torments of Tartarus scarcely suffice for my evils.

There is no sin beyond my sin, no iniquity beyond my iniquity; I reckon myself worse than all sinners. Compared with me, no one is wicked; justly do I pay the penalties of my due wretchedness, justly am I crushed by such great torments; from my own sin all evils have come upon me. God justly afflicts me; by just judgment a fitting recompense is repaid to my deeds. Yet less is repaid to me than I myself have transgressed; a lesser recompense is paid back for my sins; my guilt is found harder than my wound; the punishment of my damnation is lighter than my sin. What I have committed is heavier, what I endure is lighter. My guilt is graver than what I have done, the vengeance is less than what I suffer. I weigh the evil that I have done; what I suffer is not so great.

My wound is lighter than the weight of my sins. One thing is altogether different—another thing, which afflicts me more, which grieves me more, which disturbs me more, which terrifies me more, to which no evil is comparable, to which every punishment is incomparable, which is preferred before all torments, which precedes all tortures, which surpasses all evils.

Alas, soul! What is it that you fear so greatly? What is it that rebukes you more? What is it that drives you more to sorrow? What do you dread further? What do you shudder at further? What do you fear further?

I fear the day of judgment, I fear the day of darkness, the cloudy day, the bitter day, the hard day. I weigh indeed the evil that I endure, but I dread more what remains; I grieve for what I already suffer in this life, but after this life I am afraid lest I suffer more grievous things. Though I already endure the sentence in punishment, yet I fear the torments of Gehenna because of guilt. Present punishment already tears me, but the future disturbs me more. Heavy are the things I sustain, heavier are the things I dread forever; for present punishments I grieve, but for future ones I groan more.

Help me, my God, before I die, before death comes upon me, before Tartarus snatches me away, before flame burns me, before darkness envelops me. Succor me before I hasten to torments, before I am devoured by the fires of Gehenna, before I am tortured without end; for, guilty, I am terrified by fear of your judgment, in dread of sin I fear your wrath, and by the savagery of my crime I, trembling in conscience, fear your examination.

For if the just man is scarcely saved, where shall I, the wicked, be? What shall I do when the terror of the dreadful judgment comes? When the examination of the judgment comes, what shall I answer? What shall I say when I have been brought before the tribunal of Christ? Woe to that day when I sinned! Woe to that day when I transgressed! Woe to that day when I experienced evil! Would that it had never dawned upon me! Would that it had never risen over me! Would that it had never appeared over me! Detestable day! O abominable day! O day utterly not to be spoken of! which brought me forth into this world, which opened for me the bars of birth, which unbarred the gates of my rising. Let that day be changed from light into darkness, let deep gloom confound it, let eternal blindness overwhelm it, let it lose the order of time, let it be extinguished from all memory, let it be remembered by no ages, worthy of none.

Better for me had it been never to have risen, better never to have been begotten, better never to have been brought forth into this world, than to endure eternal torments. Weep for me, heaven and earth; mourn for me, all creatures; lament for me, all elements; groan over me, the whole human race, and with whatever feeling of life you can, pour out lamentation over me; for I have sinned cruelly, I have fallen violently, I have fallen heavily, I have collapsed miserably; no sin is found whose filth I have not been stained with. There is no disease of vices from which I have not contracted contagion; no dregs of filth have existed that have not flowed together into me, wretched man.

Infamous, wicked, overwhelmed by every shameful deed, I have countless times practiced the impurity of filth. I freely promised that I would live well, but what I promised I never kept. I always returned to my sin, I always repeated my offenses, I always joined worse things to my former crimes; I never changed my ways for the better, I never withdrew from evil deeds; I even defiled very many while destroying myself, I turned very many to iniquity by my depraved ways, many souls perished through my crime, many were overturned by the examples of my life, I have been the cause of evil to many, through me the purpose of many was defiled, through me the name of holiness was torn apart.

Pray for me to the Lord, all you holy men; entreat for me, all you people of the saints, implore for me, every choir of the just; if perhaps God may have mercy on me, if perhaps he may receive me, if perhaps he may blot out my sin, if perhaps he may take away my iniquity, if he may show mercy to me; for he is angry with me, he has fulfilled his fury in me, he has poured out the wrath of his indignation upon me because of the multitude of my iniquity, because my aversions have grown, because my transgressions have been multiplied. Woe to me! because I am consumed; woe to me! because my soul has failed, afflicted with grief, crushed with mourning, worn away with groaning.

Who will have mercy on you, O soul? Who will console you? Who will lament for you? Great is your contrition, like the sea (Lam. 2:13); your affliction rages like a savage sea, your grief swells like a wave. What storm has not rushed upon you? What gales have not fallen upon you? All the onsets of troubles, all the most turbulent tempests have thundered over your head. You are full of anguish and miseries, full of waves, full of tempests, O soul.

Where are you, guardian of men? Where are you, Redeemer of souls? Where are you, shepherd? Why have you spurned me? Why have you turned your face away from me? Why have you become far from me, consoler of my soul? Return now, my God; do not forget me forever; do not abandon me in perpetuity; do not leave me in the power of demons to be destroyed. Though the offense is grave, you are merciful, you are kind, you are of great compassion; you abandon no one, you spurn no one, you detest no one, you refuse no one your mercy, but of your own accord you offer clemency. You wait for sinners to return.

For how many wicked men, how many given over to luxuries, how many fattened on the desires of the world, have come to forgiveness through your goodness? To many who did not deserve it you have freely forgiven sins; show your mercy also in me, let pardon lie open to me, let indulgence lie open to me; do not deny to one what you have lavished on many. I do not defend my crimes, I do not excuse my sins; what I have done displeases me, that I have sinned displeases me. I confess the offense, I acknowledge the error, I recognize the fault, I open the voice of confession. Receive, I pray, the cry of one confessing; hear, Lord, the voice of one entreating. Hear the voice of the sinner crying out.

I have sinned, O God, have mercy on me; I have sinned, O God, be favorable to me. Spare my evils, forgive my sins, be indulgent to my crimes, let your grace blot out my faults. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you (Ps. 40:5). For if you remember iniquities, who will endure it (Ps. 129:3)? At your examination not even the righteousness of the just is secure. For who is just who would dare to say he is without sin? Who would presume anything of righteousness before you? No man is without sin, no one is clean from offense; behold, among the saints no one is immaculate. Behold, those who served God were not steadfast, and in the angels perversity was found (Job 4:18).

The stars are unclean before you, the heavens are not pure in your sight (Job 15:15); how much more am I, abominable and rottenness, even the son of man, a worm, who have heaped up sin like a flood and iniquity like waters for myself, who dwell in the dust (Job 7:21), who live in a house of clay, who have an earthly foundation.

Remember, Lord, what my substance is (Psalm 88:48); remember that I am earth; remember that I am dust and ashes (Genesis 18:27); stretch out your right hand to the work of your hands (Job 14:15). Take thought for weak matter, come to the aid of carnal frailty, of my weak condition. Let the way back to salvation lie open; let my wounds lie open before you. My sickness is before you; you see how greatly I am wounded and languishing. Grant the medicine by which I may be healed, bestow the remedy by which I may be cured; restore what has been corrupted by vices, reform what has been ruined by sins. Extinguish in me the flame of concupiscence. Let the fiery darts of the devil no longer pierce me, let it no longer burn within me.

For you know the temptations that I endure in part. You know the waves that I suffer. You know the storms that I bear, where I have fallen, where I have slipped down, where I, wretched, have been sunk—you know. I ran, careless, into ruin. I fell, heedless, into the pit of shame; I have fallen into the mire of sins; I have descended, miserable, into the depth of evils. Snatch my captive soul from the underworld, rescue me from the vastest abyss. Let not the deep shut me in, let it not deny me a way out.

Behold, the day to be feared now draws near, the last day is already at hand, the boundary of life now presses on; nothing remains for me but the tomb, nothing remains but the grave (Job 17:1). Spare me before I go; cleanse me from my iniquity before I depart from this life. Loose, before I die, the chains of my sins.

Moved by your tears, I am pierced by your weeping; your lamentation melts me, your lamentation draws tears from me; by lamenting you have forced me to tears, by lamenting you have stirred me to weeping; at your lamentation I poured out tears, at your wailing I was dissolved into tears. May God grant you pardon, may God forgive your faults by sparing you. May God suspend your sins from you, may God remit your sins by loosening them, may he wash away the stains of your crimes, may he wipe you clean from every blot of evil, may he free you from sin that threatens.

Act now, then, as is fitting, act as is proper, act as is worthy, act as is right, act as is just. Resolve that you will sin no more; determine that you will offend no further. Beware of repeating your faults, beware of returning to evils, do not call back the vice from which you have cut yourself off, do not repeat what you have done wrong, do not return to past evils. After a fall, do not sin again; do not defile yourself after lamentation; after the mourning of penitence, do not return to sin; do not again commit the offenses you have bewailed.

Do not do again what you will mourn again; do not presume to repeat the fault for which you ask forgiveness: vain is the penitence that a subsequent fault defiles; a wound reopened heals more slowly; one who sins frequently and grieves scarcely deserves forgiveness. Tears profit nothing if sins are repeated. It avails nothing to seek forgiveness from evils and then to repeat the evils. Persist, therefore, in confession; be strongly confirmed in penitence,

Do not cease to hold fast the good life you have begun. Keep your good purpose continually. You will be blessed if you remain; blessed if you persevere; then your work will be perfect if you endure to the end. Salvation is promised to those who persevere, the reward is given to those who persevere: Blessed are they that keep judgment, and do righteousness at all times (Ps. 105:3). Not the one who does good is blessed, but the one who does it without ceasing. For he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved (Matt. 10:22).

BOOK TWO.

1. I ask you, soul, I beseech you, I entreat you, I implore you, that you do nothing further frivolously, that you conduct nothing rashly, that you do nothing recklessly, that the evil not be repeated, that sin not be reborn, that iniquity not return, that malice not come back, that wickedness not arise anew, that injustice not recover its strength.

Know yourself, man; know who you are, know why you came to be, why you were born, for what purpose you were begotten, why you were made, in what condition you were brought forth, or why you were produced into this world; remember your condition, keep the order of your nature. Be what you were made, such as God made you, such as your maker fashioned you, such as your creator established you.

Keep the right faith, hold the sincere faith, guard the undefiled faith; let right faith remain in you. Let there be in you the incorrupt faith of confession; let no foolish doctrine deceive you, no perverse religion corrupt you, no depravity turn you away from the solidity of faith. Speak nothing rashly about Christ, think nothing wrong about God, nothing impious; by thinking perversely, offend nothing in his love. Be just in faith, hold right faith and a holy conduct; what you invoke by faith, do not deny by deed. Abstain from all things that the law forbids, beware of all things that Scripture prohibits.

Do not sin in deed, you who are perfect in faith. Do not pollute faith by living shamefully, do not corrupt the integrity of faith by depraved morals, do nothing against the commandment of God; live in good with no evil attached, let no evil conduct defile good morals, let no crooked deeds stain right works; do not mix vice with virtues, do not join evil to good things; evil mixed with good things contaminates many good things. One evil destroys many good things. Know that whoever has sinned in one point is subject to all vices (Jas 2:10).

For through one sin many righteousnesses perish. Through one evil many goods can be overturned. Do not incline your soul toward that in which the body delights; do not give consent to carnal pleasure. Do not give your soul into the power of the flesh; restrain your mind from its appetite. Examine your heart daily, examine your heart daily; by private examination search out the hiding places of your secrets. Guard your soul from harmful thought; let no base thought steal into your mind. Distinguish your thoughts: what you should avoid, what you should do. Cleanse your conscience from sin.

Let your soul be purged from every pollution; let your mind be pure, let no filth reside there. Scrape away vice from yourself, so that nothing of it remains in your soul. Know that you will be judged for your thoughts. God judges consciences. God examines not only the flesh but also the mind. God as judge judges the soul even for its thoughts. When a depraved thought titillates, do not consent to it. When it suggests something unlawful, do not hold your mind there; despise the first suggestion of sin, do not allow it to remain in your heart. At whatever hour it comes, drive it out; as soon as the scorpion appears, crush it. Tread on the head of the serpent, tread on the beginning of a depraved suggestion.

Correct the fault there where it is born; resist the thought at its very beginning, and you will escape the rest. Struggle against the beginning of the thought, and you will conquer; shut out the head of the thought, and the rest are overcome. If you drive the thought out of your heart, you will not break forth into the deed. If you have not consented to the thought, you will quickly resist the deed; whom delight does not carry away, consent does not subject to itself. For the body cannot be corrupted unless the mind has first been corrupted. While the soul slips, the flesh is at once ready to sin. For the soul goes before the flesh in the crime, and the flesh can do nothing except what the mind has willed; therefore cleanse the mind from thought, and the flesh does not sin; for if you are willing, it will not be able to overcome you at all.

Hear, O soul, what I say; listen to what I speak; attend to what I warn: be no longer defiled by any impurity, be not stained by any lust; withdraw yourself from every corruption of the flesh, draw yourself back from every corruption of the flesh. Let luxury no longer prevail in you. Let lust no longer conquer you. Guard your body from fornication. Be never polluted by any carnal thought; consider being contaminated by fornication worse than every sin; fornication is greater than all sins.

Fornication is a grave sin. Fornication precedes all evils. Fornication is more grievous than death; it is better to die than to fornicate, better to die than to be defiled by lust, better to pour out the soul than to lose it through incontinence. Continence makes a man near to God, continence makes a man close to God; where continence dwells, there God also remains.

Chastity joins a man to heaven, chastity draws a man to heaven. To chastity the kingdom of heaven is promised. Chastity causes the inheritance of heaven to be supplied. But lust plunges a man into hell, lust sends a man to Tartarus, lust leads a man to the punishments of Tartarus.

But if you still feel the troubles of the flesh, if you are still touched by the goads of the flesh, if you are still struck by the suggestion of lust, if the memory of fornication still titillates your mind, if the flesh still fights against you, if luxury still tempts you, if lust still invites you, set before yourself the memory of death, place before yourself the day of your departure, set the end of your life before your eyes; set before yourself the future judgment, set before yourself the future torments, set before yourself the future punishments, set before yourself the perpetual fires of hell, set before yourself the horrible punishments of Gehenna.

Pray with tears without ceasing, pray continually, beseech God day and night; let prayer be without intermission, let prayer be frequent, let the weapons of prayer be unremitting; let prayer not fail, persist in prayer frequently, devote yourself to prayer assiduously, groan always and lament, rise in the night for prayer, keep vigil and pray, spend the night in prayer and supplication, devote yourself to night watches. With your eyes closed for a little while, pray again; frequent prayer drives off the devil's darts.

Continuous prayer overcomes the devil's weapons. This is the first virtue against the onsets of temptations. This is the first weapon against the enticements of enemies. The frequency of prayers expels unclean spirits; the insistence of prayer conquers unclean spirits. Demons are vanquished by prayer, demons are overcome by prayer; prayer prevails over all evils.

Take away from yourself also the fullness of bread, chastise your body with sparingness, give yourself to fasts and abstinence, wear a pale face, bear about a withered body. Hunger and thirst, abstain and grow dry; you cannot overcome temptations unless you are instructed by fasts. For lust grows from foods, fullness of food stirs up the luxury of the flesh, the temptation of the flesh grows from the vice of gluttony, lust is always joined to fullness; but on the contrary, by fasting lust is restrained, by fasting luxury is overcome; when fullness is set aside, luxury does not rule.

For abstinence overcomes the flesh, abstinence bridles luxury, abstinence breaks the impulse of lust, abstinence dissolves the strength of lust; thirst and hunger put an end to the flesh's luxury, hunger and thirst overcome the flesh's wantonness. Also, the mind is weighed down by much wine. Wine is poison in the soul. By wine luxury is stirred up. By wine the fuel of lust is nourished. When the veins are filled with wine, luxury sprouts in the members; for drinking vessels are instruments of luxury. For when fuel is added to fire, the blaze grows greater; when material is added to fire, the flame is increased the more.

The eyes too are the first weapons of lust; sight is the first desire of a woman, for the mind is captured through the eyes. For a glance sends the darts of love; a glance nourishes the lust of desire; it entices the mind, titillates the soul, wounds the heart. Withdraw therefore the sight, restrain the eyes from wantonness, and do not fix them on the beauty of the flesh. Look upon no woman to desire her; gaze upon no woman with this intent, that you may lust after her; remove the occasion of sinning, take away the material of transgression.

If you wish to be safe from fornication, be discreet in body and in sight; for by being separated in body, you depart from the intention of sin. But you will not be long unharmed around a serpent; standing before a fire, even if you be iron, you will at some time be dissolved; near to danger you will not long be safe; through constant association a man quickly sins.

Often familiarity has entangled many. Often the occasion of sinning creates the will. Often those whom the will could not overcome, constant association has overcome. Luxury quickly steals upon one given over to idleness. Luxury quickly seizes the vacant man. Lust burns more grievously the one it finds idle. But lust yields to business, yields to work, yields to industry and toil; for toil often conquers the lust of the flesh, for the body, wearied by toil, is less delighted by shameful acts.

Wherefore beware of leisure beforehand, do not love leisure, do not lead your life in leisure; weary the body with toils, exercise the study of any work whatsoever, seek out for yourself a useful work in which the intention of the mind may be fixed; with work, devote yourself to reading, devote yourself to the law of God, devote yourself to the meditation of the Scriptures; have frequent recourse to the divine books; let constant reading be yours, let reading be frequent for you, let the meditation of the law be daily for you. Reading takes away error, reading withdraws from the vanity of the world; by reading, sense and understanding are increased; reading teaches what you should beware of, reading shows where you should strive. You profit for many when you read, if only you do what you read.

Even if other good things please you, if other things are agreeable, if they are in your will, if they are in your desire, if your mind is intent on all good things, if your mind is ready for all good things.

Be humble, be founded in humility, be the last and lowest of all; by humility make yourself the least, set yourself before no one, reckon yourself superior to no one, consider that all are above you, esteem yourself the least of all, count yourself lower than all. Though you be the highest, hold fast to humility; if you hold fast to humility, you will have glory; for to the extent that you are humble, to that extent the height of glory will follow you.

But beware of boasting, beware of the desire for display. Beware of the pursuit of empty glory; do not claim things for yourself, do not boast, do not insolently exalt yourself. Do not spread the wings of pride, do not raise the feathers of elation, presume nothing of yourself, attribute no good to yourself; do not be proud with any elation over the virtue of righteousness, do not be puffed up over good deeds, do not glory in a good work; descend, that you may ascend; humble yourself, that you may be exalted, lest, having been exalted, you be humbled; for whoever is lifted up is humbled, whoever is exalted is cast down, whoever is raised on high is laid low, whoever is inflated is dashed to pieces; from the heights the fall is heavier, from the height the ruin is greater, for the beginning of sin is pride.

Pride cast down the angel; swelling pride dissolved kingdoms; elation threw down the exalted; arrogance humbled the lofty. But humility knows no fall, humility has not known a lapse, humility never incurs ruin, humility has never suffered a fall. Recognize, O man, that God came humble, and that he humbled himself in the form of a servant, becoming obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8); walk as he walked, follow his example, imitate his footsteps, be lowly, be abject, be despised, be displeasing to yourself, be despised in your own eyes.

For he who is lowly to himself is great before God; he who is displeasing to himself pleases God; be therefore small in your own eyes, that you may be great in the eyes of God. For you will be so much more precious before God, as you are more despicable in your own eyes. Bear also shame on your countenance from the remembrance of your offense, bear modesty on your face from the memory of sin committed. For shame of sin, blush to lift up your eyes. Walk with face cast down, with sorrowful mouth, with abject countenance, with stricken heart, in mournful garb, wrapped in sackcloth, your body covered with haircloth: let haircloth and ashes wrap your wasting limbs, let sackcloth cover your squalid and wasting members, let mournful attire cover your scorched body.

Let the earth be your bed without ceasing, the ground your couch: you are dust, sit in the dust; you are ashes, sit always in the ashes, always mourning, always grieving, always groaning, always sending forth sighs of the heart; let there be compunction in the heart, let there be frequent groans in the breast; let tears often be poured out from the eyes, be ready for tears; love tears, let tears be sweet to you, let weeping and wailing always delight you. Make weeping and compunction for yourself always: never forsake weeping and tears. Be as ready for lamentation as you were prone to sin; as your intention was toward sinning, so let your devotion be toward repenting; return just as you had withdrawn into the depths: medicine must be dispensed according to the disease, remedies of healing must be applied according to the wound. Grave sins desire great lamentations.

Let no thing make you secure concerning sin, let no deception of security flatter you, let no security, having deceived you, hold you back from the intention of repentance. Let hope and fear stand without ceasing in your heart. Let fear and confidence be in you together, hope and dread together; so hope for mercy that you may fear justice; so let the hope of pardon raise you up that the fear of hell may always afflict you.

For fear always corrects, fear drives out sin, fear restrains vice, fear makes a person cautious and solicitous; but where there is no fear, there is dissolution of life; where there is no fear, there is destruction of death; where there is no fear, there is an abundance of crimes. Do not be grieved in your infirmities; in your sicknesses I give thanks to God. Desire to be strong in spirit rather than in body, strong in mind rather than in flesh; the adversities of the body are remedies for the soul. Sickness wounds the flesh, it cures the mind; for sickness refines vices, sickness breaks the strength of lust.

If prosperity smiles upon you, do not be puffed up; if adversity befalls you, do not be cast down; if happiness shines forth, do not be boastful; if calamity comes, do not be fainthearted. Have temperance in prosperity, have patience in adversity. Know that you are being tested in pain, lest you be broken. Know that you are being tested in prosperity, lest you be exalted: be equal in all things. Do not change your mind for either joy or sorrow; endure all things with an equal measure, be changed by no insolence.

Let no chance find you unprepared; let there be no chance that your meditation does not forestall. Set before yourself that there is nothing that cannot happen; premeditate against all fortuitous events, always ponder future miseries. In prosperity, meditate on how you would bear adversity; lest anything adverse happen, always keep it in mind. It is the part of the wise to foresee the loss of danger. All things that have been meditated on befall more lightly; evils that are expected are borne more tolerably. Adversity yields to counsel; a thing foreseen is not marveled at when it has happened. Meditation breaks the onset of incoming assaults. Forethought weakens future troubles, foresight softens the arrival of evils; but an unforeseen evil strikes hard.

Bitter are the things that were not thought upon; they are grievous when we run into them unawares. Unforeseen evils strike heavily; sudden evil quickly breaks what has not been provided for, and afflicts violently. A sudden tempest of the sea stirs up terror. An unforeseen enemy disturbs badly, an unexpected enemy easily overwhelms. All sudden things are more grievous. Things that happen suddenly come upon us more heavily. Therefore prepare your heart both for good things and for evils, and bear both good and evil as they come to you, and endure both adversity and prosperity however they occur; whatever happens, sustain it with a free mind.

If anger has come first, restrain it; if it has taken hold beforehand, soften it. Temper fury, temper indignation, check the movement of the mind, curb the onslaught of wrath. If you cannot avoid anger, at least temper it; if you cannot guard against fury, at least check it: be more ready to bear trouble than to inflict it. Learn to endure evils rather than to do them; learn to bear evils rather than to return them. Take care that you are not the avenger of your own injuries.

Be patient, be gentle, be mild, be modest. Keep patience, keep modesty, keep gentleness. Strive for patience and gentleness; despise the reproaches of insult offered to you. Overcome mockery by despising it, and the error of those who slander by disregarding it. Trample upon the insults of the slanderous; overcome the insults of the slanderous by patience. Break the arrows of insult with the shield of patience. Prepare the shield of tolerance against a harsh word; offer the buckler of patience against the sword of the tongue.

However much anyone provokes, incites, exasperates, insults, assails, hurls abuse, accuses, calls you to a dispute, calls you to a quarrel, speaks insult, does injury, or assails you with contumely, do you keep silent, be quiet, dissemble, despise it, do not speak, practice silence. When injured, do not answer back; do not return abuse; do not repeat contumely. Hold fast the patience of silence; by keeping silent you will conquer more swiftly.

Learn modesty from Christ, learn forbearance, look to Christ, and do not grieve over injuries. For he suffered for us and left us an example (1 Pet. 2:21); struck with palms, scourged with whips, covered with spittle, pierced with nails, crowned with thorns, condemned to the cross, he was always silent. Great is the virtue, if you do not harm the one by whom you have been harmed; great is the fortitude, if you even forgive one who has injured you; great is the glory, if you spare one whom you could have harmed. For when you are reviled, it has happened to you because of your sins; when you are injured, your own evils do that. Whatever adversity has befallen you, reckon that it comes about because of your sin; therefore temper your grief by the consideration of justice.

You will bear it more lightly if you consider those on whose behalf it is brought. Therefore, when you are disparaged, you pray; when you are cursed, you bless the one who curses you; oppose blessing, soothe the angry one with patience, dissolve the fury of the raging one with gentleness. Conquer wickedness with mildness, conquer malice with goodness, appease enemies of peace with all modesty, overcome the evils of others by your own good, bear insults brought upon you with a tranquil mind; open your pain with a tranquil heart; the wound of injury, however grave it is, evaporates when opened, but a wound kept closed greatly consumes the mind; for the more you cover it, the more you increase it. Open it therefore with a burdened mind, and do not torment yourself.

If you have saddened your brother in anything, make satisfaction to him. If you have sinned against him, do penance before him. If you have offended anyone, propitiate him with prayer. Go swiftly to the reconciliation of your offense, quickly ask for pardon; do not sleep unless you return to peace; do not rest unless you have been reconciled to your brother. Recall him with the swiftest affection of love. Recall him to grace with humility; prostrate yourself before him with a humble affection, beg for pardon with a suppliant spirit. Also, to one asking pardon of you, gladly grant it; to one seeking indulgence, placably forgive; immediately embrace the one returning. Receive the one coming back at once with kindly charity.

Forgive, that you may be forgiven. Pardon, that you may be pardoned; do not repay one who sins against you according to his fault, knowing that judgment will also come upon you. For you will not have indulgence unless you give it; and if he does not entreat, if he does not ask that it be forgiven him, if he does not submit to the humility of pleading, if with an evil conscience he does not acknowledge his sin, do you release from the heart, do you forgive from the mind, do you indulge freely, do you grant pardon by your own will. Do not keep pain in your heart, do not retain pain in your mind, take away from your heart a brother's offense, do not keep pain over another's wickedness. For hatred separates a man from the kingdom of God, withdraws him from heaven, casts him out of paradise; hatred is not taken away by suffering, nor expiated by martyrdom, nor erased by shed blood.

Why should I speak of the fire of zeal? Envy burns up all the seeds of the virtues, envy devours all good things with its pestilential ardor. This first harms itself, first bites itself, first gnaws at its own author. Envy is the moth of the soul, it eats the understanding, burns the breast, afflicts the mind, and, like a kind of plague, devours the heart of man. Therefore let goodness meet zeal, let charity be prepared against envy; do not grieve over another's good, do not waste away over another's successes, do not be cast down by the prosperity of a face, do not be tormented by anyone's happiness, do not be agitated by the torches of anyone's envy.

Love peace, cherish peace, preserve peace with all, embrace all in gentleness and charity; prove that you love more than you are loved; do not be faithless in peace, do not be fickle in friendship. Always keep the bond of constancy, invite those who hate to peace, recall the discordant to concord, reconcile the hearts of the dissenting by peace, hold placability of mind, hold benignity of spirit, be prompt in affection, affable in speech, address all with a grateful spirit; let no word of quarrels arise that divides concord.

Flee laughter, avoid disputes, beware of contentions, remove the occasion of strife. Spurn strife, live always in peace, contend in no cause, strive to do battle in no action. Contention demands contradiction, contention brings forth disputes, contention begets brawls, contention kindles the torches of hatred. Contention extinguishes the peace of the heart, contention breaks concord. If your enemy has fallen, do not rejoice, do not exalt yourself in the ruin of your adversary; do not gloat over the destruction of an enemy, lest similar things come upon you, lest perhaps God turn His wrath from him upon you.

For whoever rejoices at the fall of an enemy will quickly fall into it himself. Rather, let there be a humane affection toward the humbled, let there be a gaze of compassion toward the cast down; let it delight you to grieve over one who is afflicted. Suffer with others in their calamities, satisfy yourself with weeping over others' sorrows; do not be hard, do not be iron, let not your heart be hard. Thus mourn another's misery as your own; in another's tribulation be you also sad. Weep with those who weep, cry with those who cry, wail with those who wail, join yourself to them in affection.

In all your acts, in all your work, in all your conduct, imitate the good, emulate the saints, keep the examples of the saints before your eyes, consider the examples of the just by imitating them, set before yourself the examples of the saints, let the examples of the fathers be incentives to discipline for you. Attend to the virtues of the saints for doing good, attend to the teachings of the just for living well; let no infamy scandalize your life, let no adverse opinion sadden you; learn to be fragrant with the praise of the box-tree, hold a good testimony, keep your good reputation, let it not be darkened by any stench, let it not be torn by any opinions. For the tearing of a good opinion causes the loss of good.

But beware of popular glory, the admiration of the crowd; cease to boast yourself in the eyes of flatterers; be not blown about by the wind of favor. Despise favors, despise the praise of popular favor; strive to be good rather than to seem so; do not seek out whether anyone extols you or whether anyone despises you; let neither favor seduce you nor censure break you; he who does not seek praise does not feel insult either; if you despise praise, you will easily reject censure as well. Do not think yourself good for the reason that you are proclaimed good; in another's tongue interrogate your own conscience; judge yourself by your own judgment, not another's; and measure yourself not by another's speech but by your own mind; no one will be able to know better who you are than you, who are conscious of yourself; for what does it profit you, while you are evil, if you are proclaimed good? Or what of good does praise bring to you, if you are one thing and are feigned to be another?

Therefore, in your life, do not simulate sanctity by a darker garment; do not feign it, do not counterfeit it. Be such as you wish to be esteemed; show your profession both in dress and in bearing. Let there be simplicity in your entrance, purity in your movement, gravity in your gesture, modesty in your walk. Let nothing shameful, nothing wanton, nothing petulant, nothing insolent, nothing frivolous appear in your walk; for the mind appears in the bearing of the body, the gesture of the body is the sign of the mind, by the gesture of the body the mind is betrayed, by the gesture of the body the disposition of the mind is revealed. Therefore let your walk not bear the image of levity, let your walk not offend the eyes of others; do not offer yourself as a spectacle to others, do not give others occasion to disparage you, nor join yourself to frivolous persons, nor mingle with the vain. Avoid the wicked, beware of the unjust, flee the shameless, drive the slothful away from you; flee the crowds of men, especially those of that age who are prone to base things.

Join yourself to the good, desire the company of the good, seek the fellowship of the good. Cleave inseparably to the saints. If you are a partner in their conversation, you will be a partner in their virtue as well; he who walks with the wise will be wise, he who walks with fools will be a fool, for like are accustomed to be joined to like. It is dangerous to lead one's life with the wicked, it is ruinous to be associated with those of depraved will. You nourish infamy for yourself if you ally yourself with the unworthy. It is better to have the hatred of the wicked than their company; just as the common life of the saints has many good things, so the society of the wicked brings very many evils; for he who touches the unclean shall be defiled by it; close your ears as well, lest you hear evil.

Reject shameless speech, flee dishonorable words, let no indecency of talk creep into your ears; vain speech quickly pollutes the mind, and what is willingly heard is easily done. Let nothing proceed from your mouth that can hinder; let no sound of your voice burst forth that is not expedient; let that proceed from your lips which does not pollute the ears of the hearer. Obscenity of words is to be avoided, foulness of speech is to be shunned. Vain speech is the index of a vain conscience; the tongue discloses a man's character, and as the speech is shown to be, so the mind is proved to be; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34).

Restrain your tongue from idle speech, curb your tongue from an idle word. Beware of the most foolish tales; do not speak old wives' fables. Do not chatter shameful and empty words; keep silent about a word that does not edify its hearers. An idle word will not be without judgment. Each one will have to give an account of his words; his words will stand before the face of each one. He who does not restrain idle words quickly passes over to harmful ones; he who despises the least things easily falls into the greatest; for the lesser fault gives birth to the greater; vices grow little by little, and while we do not avoid small things, we slip into great ones. Therefore, avoid the smallest things, and you will not arrive at greater ones; despise small things, and you will not fall into worse.

Let the things you say be worthy of gravity and teaching; let your speech be irreproachable, let it be useful to the expectation of your hearers. Strive to say not what you please, but what is fitting. Discern what you should speak and what you should keep silent about, and be skilled both in speaking and in keeping silent. Deliberate much beforehand what you say, lest you be unable to call it back. Flee the falls of the tongue; do not let your tongue destroy you.

Remove the occasion from the one lying in wait; let your mouth not lie open to the enemy's darts; do not speak what the adversary may catch up. Always hold silence as a friend; set a guard on your mouth; give a seal to your lips; oppose the bars of silence to your tongue; enclose your tongue with the fortification of a guard. Attend to the opportunity of speaking; seek the time for bringing forth words; know at what time you should speak; consider when you should say it; speak at the fitting time, be silent at the fitting time.

Be silent until you are asked; do not speak unless asked; do not say anything before you hear; let a question open your mouth; let your words be few. Take away the wordiness of superfluous speech; do not exceed the measure of speaking, lest by the immoderation of the tongue you run into danger. Much speaking does not escape blame; much speaking does not avoid sin. A river overflowing quickly gathers safe ground; a wind beyond measure in the sea gives birth to danger; an excess of rains stirs up danger. A wordy man is unskilled; the wise man uses few words; knowledge makes speech brief; to speak much is folly, for the voice of the fool is in the multiplication of speech. Let there be, therefore, a measure in your word, let there be a balance in your speech; always moderate your words; do not pass beyond the mode of speaking.

Cut the vice of detraction from your tongue as well. Do not tear another's life to pieces; do not stain your mouth with another's evil. Do not detract from the sinner, but grieve with him; what you detract in another, fear rather in yourself. Detraction is a grave vice, detraction is a grave sin, detraction is a grave crime, detraction is a grave condemnation. All reprehend this, all censure this; nothing is fouler than this, this is of the utmost baseness.

It is the custom of dogs to bark, of dogs to snarl with their tongues, of dogs to bite with pestilent tooth; dogs alone know how to disparage. When you detract from others, examine yourself; when you bite another, rebuke your own sins; if you wish to detract, turn back upon your own sins; behold not another's faults, but your own; attend to your own vices, not another's. You will never detract if you have looked well into yourself; therefore be solicitous for your own correction; be attentive to your own salvation and amendment; do not listen to those who detract. Do not lend your ear to whisperers.

Those who detract and those who listen are held by an equal charge, and a like peril is brought upon both. The one who hears a detractor and the one who detracts are judged alike. Do not seek what does not pertain to you; never desire to know what people say among themselves. Do not seek what anyone says or does; shun curiosity, set aside cares about another's life, set aside care that does not pertain to your own cause. Let no curiosity seize your mind, let no desire for detestable curiosity steal upon you, and do not, forgetful of your own conduct, inquire into the conduct of others; correct your own vices with as much care as you observe those of others with zeal.

Flee also every kind of lie with the utmost effort; speak falsehood neither by chance nor by design; do not be eager to lie in order to be of service; do not defend anyone's life by any deceit whatsoever. Beware of lying in all things, for by a lie faith is taken away, error is brought in, truth is abolished; there is no just lie, every lie is a sin. Everything that disagrees with the truth is iniquity.

The laws of the world condemn forgers, punish liars, and destroy deceivers. If lies are condemned by human law, if deceit is punished by human judgment, if falsehood is written down as a capital offense, how much more so before God, the witness of words? Before him each person will also give an account for an idle word, and before him each person will pay the penalty even for idle speech, for the mouth that lies kills the soul; and: You will destroy those who speak a lie (Ps. 5:7); and: A false witness will not go unpunished (Prov. 19:5, 9).

Flee therefore deceit, turn away from lying; beware of what is false, speak purely, never lie, be truthful, deceive no one by lying, lead no one into error by lying, ensnare no one with words, deceive no one by cheating, seduce no one by lying with arguments of words. Do not say one thing and do another; do not speak one thing and hold another in your heart; show affection without pretense, display goodness without disguise.

Forbid also the oath of the lips, remove the use of swearing; cut off swearing from yourself; for it is dangerous to swear, and the habit of swearing is the custom of perjury, nor does it make... The use of swearing leads to perjury; let it be in your mouth, "it is"; let it be in your mouth, "it is not" (Matt. 5:37); truth has no need of an oath; a faithful word holds the place of a sacrament, firm even if the faith of your sacrament [is firm].

Do the good that you have promised. Do not be easy in words and difficult in deed. Before God, do not promise anything easily; without consideration of your strength, vow nothing; what you cannot do, do not promise. You will be greatly guilty before God if you do not render what you have vowed; those who do not fulfill their vows displease God.

They are counted among the unfaithful who have not fulfilled what they vowed; for it is better not to promise than not to discharge the faith of a promise; for it is better not to vow than after a vow not to render what was promised (Eccles. 5:4). In evil promises, break faith; in a shameful vow, change your decree; what you have vowed rashly, do not do; impious is the promise that is fulfilled by a crime.

Nothing is hidden before God, and you should not say an iniquitous word in your heart; do not think that an evil word is concealed by silence. Every hidden word will not be kept hidden, for what is laid down in secret is disclosed in the open; whatever you do or say within, consider it placed in public. For the stones, with whose knowledge we speak, do not conceal it, and the very walls will not keep silent what they have heard. If men are silent, the beasts will speak. Therefore avoid sins as one who cannot hide them. Sin there, where you do not know God to be; nothing is hidden before God, who sees hidden things, who made things hidden.

For you will be guilty under divine judgments, even though you are hidden from human eyes. God is present everywhere, his spirit fills all things; his majesty penetrates all the elements, his presence reaches all things by his power, and outside him there is no place at all. Nothing is hidden from his knowledge; the power of his virtue bursts into all secrets, he suffers no hidden thing to lie concealed from him, and he is hindered by no barriers from penetrating. He himself knows thoughts, he himself inspects the heart; what is done or lies hidden within, he sees; what is arranged within, he comprehends; even what a man does not know in himself, he knows.

No one can even escape himself, and if public reputation does not condemn you, your own conscience condemns you: no punishment is heavier than conscience. Do you wish never to be sad? Live well. A secure mind bears sorrow lightly; a good life always has joy. But the conscience of a guilty person is always in punishment. A guilty mind is never secure, for an evil mind is driven by the goads of its own conscience. For if you remain in good, sorrow will be far from you; if you persevere in justice, sorrow will not meet you; neither sickness nor death will terrify you, if you have lived well and piously.

But always turn your counsel and your work to the Lord. In every work of yours, ask for God's help. Ascribe all things to divine grace, to the divine gift; attribute nothing to your own merits, presume nothing in your own strength, place nothing in boldness. But do you wish your virtues to be increased? Do not display them. Hide your virtues for fear of pride, conceal your good deeds for fear of arrogance, flee from being seen to be what you have deserved to be; what you can lose by revealing it, keep by silence. But reveal the vices of your heart; make your depraved thoughts manifest at once. For a sin that is disclosed is quickly cured, but a crime is increased by silence, and guilt grows in silence: if a vice is exposed, it becomes small from great; if it lies hidden, it becomes great from the smallest; if it is covered, it is believed to be a greater evil. But one ought to guard against evil rather than to amend it; it is better that you avoid vice than that you amend it, lest perhaps, when you have fallen into it, you cannot call it back.

For habit is hard to overcome. The chains of custom are scarcely loosened; things long ingrained are corrected too slowly. Deliberate long over a doubtful decision; think long before the deed, premeditate long before the work. Mature your counsel, so that you can carry it through; what you wish to do, examine long, test long, and so act: when you have thought long, then do what you have approved. Let nothing be done from rashness; the delay of counsel is better. But in certain matters, let slowness in doing good be removed from you; cast off delays, put nothing off to tomorrow: in good things delay harms, and in those things which it profits to defer, it hinders. Far be sluggishness, slack in good things; far be torpid negligence. Let the vice of slothful laziness be far from you; the inert quickly seize upon vices. For through torpor strength and natural ability drain away. Negligence and torpor dissolve the mind, sloth corrupts nature, sloth chills the intellect.

For torpor overcomes the senses, dullness extinguishes the light of knowledge; but diligence makes the sense better, negligence makes it worse, sloth blunts the sense, industry sharpens the sluggish, nature becomes more excellent by instruction, the intellect becomes more ardent when study is joined to it. For slower wits are sharpened by studies, industry rouses the torpor of nature. Assiduity sharpens the slowness of the sense. By exercise the sense profits, by experience more is known. Often nature is changed by habits, often nature is overcome by custom, for assiduity makes habits. Continual use is turned into nature.

All things yield to use, all things obey use; the matter works out according to how you use it. What you begin with difficulty, through use you will complete with pleasure.

Nothing is better than wisdom, nothing sweeter than prudence, nothing more pleasant than knowledge of it, nothing worse than folly, nothing more wretched than foolishness, nothing more shameful than ignorance; ignorance is the mother of errors, ignorance is the nurse of vices. Sin prevails more through ignorance; for ignorance does not perceive what is worthy of blame, ignorance does not recognize when it does wrong. For through inexperience many sin, the fool sins continually. For the unlearned is easily deceived. The fool quickly slips into base things. But the prudent man quickly detects snares, the prudent man more swiftly recognizes errors; we do not avoid harmful things except through wisdom.

For knowledge abstains from evils, the wise man prudently examines all things. Between good and evil the wise man judges by understanding. The highest good is to know what you should beware of, the greatest misery is not to know where you are heading. Therefore love wisdom, and it will be revealed to you; draw near to it, and it will draw near to you; be constant with it, and it will instruct you.

Learn what you do not know, lest you be found a useless teacher; first be a hearer, afterwards a teacher: through discipline receive the name of master; say the good you have heard, teach the good you have learned; do not despise the study of learning and teaching. The knowledge you conceive with the ear, pour out with the mouth. When you share wisdom with others, you increase it more for yourself; doctrine, the more abundantly it is given, the more it abounds. Wisdom becomes greater by giving, is diminished by keeping; by bestowing, knowledge overflows the more, and the more it is conferred, the more it abounds.

Let works precede the word; what you promise with the mouth, fulfill in deed; what you teach in words, show by examples; be not only a teacher, but also an imitator of virtue. If you teach and do, then you are held glorious. For it is not enough to praise what you say, unless you join deeds to your words. In teaching itself, restrain yourself from human praise. So instruct others that you guard yourself. So teach that you do not lose the grace of humility. Take care lest, while by teaching others you raise them up, you yourself be sunk by the appetite for praise. But when you teach, do not use obscurity of words; so speak that you may be understood, and neither displease the simple by your speaking nor offend the wise.

The speech of the teacher must be according to the understanding of the hearer; doctrine must be imparted according to their ways. Remedies must be applied according to the wound; varied wills desire varied instruction; each one must be taught according to his own profession. The variety of persons must be considered; consider how you may instruct each one; speak common things to all, secret things to the more perfect; declare open things to everyone, hidden things to few; for some things are to be discussed with many, some with few.

At all times be ready for instruction; let no time be empty in which you do not build up, let no hour pass in which you do not contribute to the study of doctrine; preach good words openly and steadfastly, and do not be ashamed to speak what you know how to defend; what you feel is lacking to you in knowledge, seek from others; for by comparison hidden things become clear, and by comparing difficult things are opened up.

But let there be in you no curiosity to know hidden things. Beware of investigating what is far removed from human senses. Pass over, as a secret, what you have not learned by the authority of Scripture. Seek nothing beyond what is written, inquire nothing more than what the divine letters proclaim. Do not desire to know what it is not permitted to know: curiosity is dangerous presumption, curiosity is damnable perversity; it provokes to heresy, it casts the mind headlong into sacrilegious fables, it makes men bold in obscure causes, it makes them precipitate in unknown matters.

In disposition, remove contentiousness, remove the stubborn defense of winning; yield quickly to the truth, do not contradict justice, do not strive against equity. Care for what is right. Strive by right, not by deceit; do not judge yourself more skilled than others, nor prepare yourself for contrary disputes, nor attempt to win against the truth. In every dispute keep to reason; study to discuss, not to overcome; love to hear more than to speak, to listen more than to talk.

In the beginning, listen; speak last. The end has more honor; in every matter the boundaries are attended to, the final things are sought. Better is the end than the beginning, better the last word than the first. Venerate all who are better in knowledge and in life; venerate each one according to his merit of holiness. Give fitting reverence to the higher rank. Render honor to each according to his dignity.

Do not show yourself equal to a superior. Give obedience to elders, serve their commands, yield to their authority, comply with their will. Offer just obedience to greater men, obey all in good precepts. But so obey man that you do not offend the will of God.

When ordered to do evil, do not comply; when ordered to do evil, do not consent. Do not consent to any power in an evil matter, even if punishment compels you, if torments threaten, if tortures come upon you; it is better to suffer death than to carry out pernicious commands, better to be slain by man than to be condemned by eternal judgment. Not only those who commit sin but also those who are complicit in it are held guilty, for he is not free from the crime who obeyed so that it might be done. He who complies in evil is like him who does evil; equal punishment binds both the doer and the one who obeys.

Strive to be revered by your subjects rather than feared; let your subjects revere you with piety rather than fear you; let them cling to you more out of the duty of love than out of the necessity of their station. Make yourself such toward your subjects that you are loved rather than feared. For from reverence love proceeds, while fear brings hatred; fear takes away faith, affection restores it; fear does not preserve lasting faith. Where there is fear, boldness follows; where there is dread, despair comes upon one.

Therefore temper the severity of your rule, govern your subjects with the highest goodness, do not be terrifying to those under you. So rule over them that they delight to serve you; and in discipline and in restraint keep to the mean; indulge neither too much nor too little, forgive neither too little nor enough. Keep to the mean in every work, in every matter keep moderation, do nothing too intemperately, nothing either less or too much, neither beyond what is fitting nor below it; even in good things it is not fitting to be immoderate.

All moderate things are useful, all things are perfect in their own measure; things done with temperance are wholesome. But good things are made harmful by immoderate use. For all excess is reckoned as a vice; but everything that is done with moderation is done wholesomely, things done with temperance are wholesome. Temper all things prudently, lest good be made evil; consider also what is suited to the time, what you ought to do, where, when, how, and for how long.

Examine the causes of things and the rules of times; recognize the distinction of individual works. Diligently distinguish all that you do; know how you begin a good work and how you carry it through. In every action keep discretion; in nothing let yourself appear indiscreet. Serve each virtue fittingly in its own time; when you have well distinguished your work, you will be most perfectly just. Whatever good you do with discretion is virtue; whatever you do without discretion is vice.

For virtue without discretion is reckoned as vice; virtue without discretion takes the place of vice. Many things are corrupted by custom, many presumed upon by depraved usage, many unlawfully usurped against chaste morals. Take away custom, keep the law; let usage yield to authority; let law and reason conquer depraved usage.

What you wish to be done to you, do to another; what you wish another to do to you, do you also to him. Be such to others as you desire others to be toward you. By your testimony harm no one; bring not the voice of testimony to anyone's peril. Let your speech harm neither the soul of anyone nor his affairs. What you do not wish to suffer, do not do; what you do not wish to be done to you, never do to another. Inflict not evils on another, lest you suffer the like. In yourself keep modesty, in others keep justice; hold to the equity of law, follow the truth of judgments.

Do not defend anything against the truth; when you judge, do not be turned aside from the truth by affection for any person. Whether he is poor or rich, examine the cause, not the person. Preserve the truth in all things; be moved by no ambition or bribe. Spurn even a gift, lest justice be corrupted by it; gifts always make truth swerve. For justice is quickly violated by gold, quickly corrupted by a gift; for a just judgment you must not desire temporal profits, and for the sake of justice you must seek no reward of this world. Distribute justice for the sake of eternal recompense alone.

For whoever covets present gifts does not hope for future glory; whoever receives good things here has nothing further to expect as a reward. When you judge, then, judge for the sake of a future reward; do not seek to be repaid now what is owed to you in the future. Shake your hands free from every gift, if you wish to dwell on high. But never sit in judgment without mercy. Keep the discernment of justice; do not be more just than is just (Eccles. 7:17). For everything that is excessive is a vice. It is an impious justice not to pardon human frailty. Therefore do not love to condemn, but rather to amend and correct.

Hold fast, then, to rigor in examining justice, and to mercy in pronouncing sentence; let piety accompany the scrutiny of judgment, and let indulgence temper the censure of severity. Be so lenient toward the offenses of others as toward your own, and judge no one more strictly than yourself; do not weigh yourself one way and others another. Judge others as you yourself wish to be judged. For when you indulge another's sin, you have mercy on yourself. By whatever right you have ruled against another, by that same right you will be bound. By whatever law and condition of punishment you have judged anyone, by that same law you yourself will be judged. Your own law binds you.

The judgment that you impose on others, you yourself will bear; for in that you judge, you yourself are to be condemned, and with what measure you have measured, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). But inquire into all things first, and then decide with justice. Condemn no one before judgment, judge no one by the verdict of suspicion; prove first, and so judge; for it is not the one who is accused, but the one who is convicted, who is guilty. It is dangerous to judge anyone on suspicion.

In ambiguous matters, keep to the judgment of God; commit what you know to your own judgment, and what you do not know to the divine judgment. He cannot be condemned by human examination whom God has reserved for his own judgment. Let us not judge uncertain things until the Lord comes, who brings hidden things into the light, who will illuminate the hidden things of darkness, who will make manifest the counsels of hearts (1 Cor. 4:2). Even if they are true, they are not to be believed unless they are proved by certain indications, unless they are convicted by manifest examination, unless they are made public by judicial order.

O man, if you are in the highest honor, let the highest humility be yours; though you are in the highest honor, hold fast to humility. If you hold fast to humility, you will have glory; for the more humble you are, the more closely will the game of glory follow you. Though the height of sublime power be in you, restrain it by humility; let honor not exalt you; press down the summit of sublimity by humility. The greater the humility by which you are conspicuous, the greater the dignity in which you are set before others.

Humbly undertake as well the cares laid upon you. Fulfill the entrusted ministry with a submissive mind, obedient to the divine dispensation, and do not dare to oppose His will. Exercise with moderation the rights of the power you have obtained. Administer the rights of the power you have received with an ordered spirit. Arrange all things not with a troubled but with a tranquil heart. Beware of honors which you cannot hold without fault. The loftiness of honors is the magnitude of crimes; in a higher rank there is without doubt a greater punishment.

He who is lesser is nearer to pardon. But the powerful shall suffer torments powerfully (Wisdom 6:7). For a most severe judgment shall be made upon those who preside (Luke 12:48). To whom much is given, much shall be required of him; to whom more is entrusted, more shall be exacted from him. Honors carry dangers with them; power is quickly endangered, quickly suffers ruin. The greater the honor, the greater the dangers. A tall tree is shaken more strongly by the winds, and its branches are sooner broken in the fall; lofty towers fall with a heavier crash. The highest mountains are struck by frequent lightning.

Envy quickly falls upon the powerful; the glorious man is quickly exposed to plots. For glory gives birth to envy, and envy to dangers. Though someone shine in the glory of the world, though he gleam with purple and gold, though he stand out adorned in costly dress, though he be fortified by a multitude, though protected by the arms of watchmen, though crowded by countless bands of attendants, though safe amid columns of troops, yet he is always in punishment, always in distress, always in grief, always in peril; he lies on silken couches, but troubled; he rests on down, but pale; on golden beds, but disturbed.

Brief is the happiness of this world, slight is the glory of this age, fleeting and fragile is temporal power. Say, where are the kings? where the princes? where the emperors? where those rich in possessions? where the powerful of the world? where the wealthy of the earth? They have passed away like a shadow, they have vanished like a dream. They are sought, and they are not; riches lead even to danger, riches drag even to destruction; many have been endangered because of wealth. Many have come into peril because of riches; riches have been ruinous to many, wealth has begotten death for many.

He who subjects himself to earthly cares never has rest of mind; for the anxieties of things disturb the mind, the cares of things agitate the mind. For power is never free from the straits of anxiety. If therefore you wish to be at rest, desire nothing of the world: you will always have rest of mind if you cast off from yourself the cares of the world; you will always enjoy inward quiet if you withdraw yourself from the din of earthly activities.

If you despise present things, you will without doubt find eternal things; if you trample upon secular and human affairs, you will easily and lightly receive heavenly grace, and you will reign with him who rules over the living and the dead. Riches are never acquired without sin, riches are never administered without sin. No one administers earthly things without sin. It is rare that those who possess riches strive toward rest; those who entangle themselves in earthly cares separate themselves from the fear of God. He who is fixed in the love of things is in no way delighted in God.

For cares for things turn one away from attention to God. No one can embrace the glory of God and the world at the same time; no one can embrace Christ and the world at the same time. It is difficult to serve heavenly and earthly cares equally, difficult to love God and the world at the same time. Both cannot be loved equally at once. It is difficult, indeed impossible, for someone to enjoy present and future goods, to fill the belly here and the mind there, to pass from delights to delights, to be first in both worlds, to appear glorious on earth and in heaven. Therefore, for God's sake renounce all things, for God's sake suspend yourself from the cares of the world, strive to serve God without the world's hindrance.

Let no love of the world separate you from the love of God, let no care withdraw you from the love of God, let no anxiety about things suspend you from attention to God. Cast away from yourself whatever can hinder a good purpose. With your whole mind hate and condemn what the world loves; be dead to the world, and the world to you; as one dead, do not look upon the world's glory; as one dead, separate yourself from affection for this life. As one buried, have no care for the world. As one deceased, deprive yourself of every earthly business. While living, despise what you cannot have after death.

What you have, keep for mercy; let your virtue come to the aid of the poor's need. If you know someone placed in necessity, someone reduced to want, someone emptied by another's plundering, someone oppressed, someone humbled—despise no one, spurn no one, look down on no one, send no one away empty, let no one depart sad from you, let no one leave you confounded. Share with all, give to all, provide for all; do not choose whom to pity, lest perhaps you pass by the one who deserves to receive. You are uncertain for whom you may please God more; you do not know for whom a greater fruit of righteousness is being prepared for you.

Whatever you give, distribute with affection; whatever you bestow, bestow with cheerfulness. Offer mercy without murmuring; offer alms without weariness. Let the benevolence be greater than what is given, the grace greater than what is bestowed. Your work will be such as your intention has been; for what is dispensed with a willing heart, the heart receives; but he who gives with weariness loses the reward; he who extends his hand with sadness loses the fruit of recompense; he who bestows with sadness does not receive the fruit of retribution. For there is no mercy where there is no benevolence.

From your just labors minister to the poor; do not take from one person to give to another, nor show yourself merciful from another's spoil. It profits nothing if you restore one person from that by which you empty another. That mercy condemns, it does not propitiate. Such mercy does not purge sins, but amplifies them. Do the good that you do for the sake of mercy, not for boasting; strive for nothing on account of praise, nothing on account of temporal opinion, nothing on account of fame, but on account of eternal life; whatever you do, do it for future reward; let the expectation of eternal recompense hold you more strongly. And seek not what profits for this world, but what profits for the glory of eternal life.

For if praise is sought here, the reward is lost there. For the just receive their reward, not here, but in the future. A future reward, not a present one, is promised to the just. In heaven, not on earth, a reward is promised to the saints; what is owed elsewhere is not to be expected here.

Behold, you have received warnings; a rule of living has been given to you; no ignorance excuses you from sin any longer; you are no longer ignorant of life, no longer imprudent or uninformed. I have set out the law you ought to follow, and I have described what kind of people you should be. You have knowledge of the commandments. Now you know what it is to live rightly. See that you do not offend further; see that you do not thereafter despise the good that you know; see that what you regard in reading you do not condemn in living. Keep the gift of knowledge you have received; fulfill in deed what you have learned by preaching.

I give thanks, I return thanks, I repay acts of thanksgiving, I pay out thanksgivings. I give and hold abundant thanks to you; as much as I am able, I celebrate thanks; as much as I can according to my strength, I give thanks. Many things have been granted to me by you, many conferred, many bestowed by special compassion. All things please me, all things are welcome, all things have settled in my soul, all things flatter me, all things delight me. What satisfaction, then, shall I pay? What recompense shall I return? What can I compensate for your gifts, except that I use your precepts, always obey you, submit to you, and obey you when you command?

For you are the guide of life, you the teacher of virtue. You lead me straight, like a rule. You are she who never departs from what is right. You are she who is never turned away from the truth. You are the discoverer of good things, you the teacher of morals, the tracker of virtues, without whom the life of man can be nothing. Through you the rule of living is given to all. Through you men are led from the depravity of life to a better life.

By your precepts minds are formed. If anything is distorted, you correct it; if anything needs correcting, you amend it. Nothing is dearer to me than you, nothing sweeter to me than you. Nothing is more pleasant to me than you, nothing more delightful to me than you, nothing more soothing to me than you, nothing lighter to me than you, nothing holier to me than you; you please me more than my own life.