To Demetrian

Considering these things, I often held my peace, and overcame the impatient man with patience, since I could neither teach the unteachable, nor restrain the impious with religion, nor check the raging man with gentleness. But since you say that very many complain that wars arise more frequently, that plague and famine rage, that long fair weather withholds rains and showers from us, and that this is laid to our charge, it is no longer fitting to be silent; lest what we keep silent should begin to seem not modesty but want of confidence, and while we disdain to refute false accusations, we should appear to acknowledge the charge.

I answer therefore both to you, Demetrianus, and likewise to the others whom you have perhaps stirred up, and by sowing hatred against us with your slanderous words you have made yourself many companions sprung from the same root and origin as yourself; yet I believe these too will admit the reasoning of our discourse: for he who has been moved to evil by a deceiving lie will be moved all the more to good by a compelling truth.

You have said that it is through us, and that all these things by which the world is now shaken and oppressed are to be imputed to us, because your gods are not worshipped by us. On this point, since you are ignorant of divine knowledge and a stranger to truth, you ought first of all to know that the world has already grown old, that it does not stand by those same forces by which it formerly stood, nor prevails with the same vigor and strength by which it formerly prevailed. This too, even if we were silent and brought forth no proofs from the holy Scriptures and divine proclamations, the world itself now declares, and testifies to its own decline by the evidence of things that are failing.

In winter there is not so great an abundance of rains for nourishing the seeds, in summer there is not so great a blazing of the sun for scorching the crops, nor are the sowings so joyful in the mildness of spring, nor are the autumns so fruitful with the produce of trees. Fewer slabs of marble are hewn from quarried and exhausted mountains, the already drained mines yield less wealth of silver and gold, and the impoverished veins diminish and decrease day by day; the farmer fails in the fields, the sailor on the sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the forum, justice in the court, concord in friendships, skill in the arts, discipline in morals. Do you think that so great a substance of a thing that is growing old can exist as it was formerly able to flourish when still fresh and vigorous in its youth? Whatever is already nearing its end and declining toward the west and its last days must of necessity diminish.

So the sun at its setting casts its rays with less clear and fiery splendor; so the moon, its course now declining, wanes with worn-out horns; and the tree which had formerly been green and fruitful becomes afterward, with withering branches, unsightly in barren old age; and the spring which had formerly flowed abundantly with overflowing veins, failing in old age, barely trickles with a slight seeping. This is the sentence given to the world, this is the law of God, that all things that have risen shall fall, and all things that have grown shall age, and the strong shall be weakened, and the great shall be diminished; and when they have been weakened and diminished, they shall come to an end.

You impute to Christians that individual things diminish as the world grows old. What if old men too should impute to Christians that they have less strength in old age, that they do not thrive as before in hearing of ears, in running of feet, in sharpness of eyes, in strength of limbs, in the sap of the vitals, in the mass of the members; and whereas once the long life of men extended beyond eight hundred and nine hundred years, it can now scarcely reach the hundredth year? We see grey hairs in boys, hair fails before it grows; nor does age end in old age, but begins from old age. So even in its very birth does birth hasten toward its end; so whatever is now born degenerates through the very old age of the world itself: so that no one should wonder that individual things in the world have begun to fail, when the whole world itself is already in decline and at its end.

But as for the fact that wars continue more frequently, that sterility and famine heap up anxiety, that, with diseases raging, health is broken, that the human race is laid waste by the devastation of a plague, know also that this has been foretold, that in the last times evils would be multiplied and adversities varied, and that as the day of judgment now draws near, the censure of an indignant God would be kindled more and more into plagues upon the human race. For these things do not happen, as your false complaint and ignorance of truth boasts and cries out, because your gods are not worshipped by us, but because God is not worshipped by you.

For since he himself is the lord and ruler of the world, and all things are governed by his will and nod, and nothing can come to pass except what he himself has done or has himself permitted to be done, certainly when those things happen which show the wrath of an indignant God, they do not happen on account of us, by whom God is worshipped, but are inflicted by reason of your sins and deserts, by whom God is not at all sought or feared, nor, with vain superstitions abandoned, is true religion known, so that he who is the one God of all might be worshipped and besought as one by all.

Hear him therefore speaking, hear him instructing and admonishing us alike with divine voice: You shall worship the Lord your God, he says, and him only shall you serve. And again: You shall have no other gods before me. And again: Walk not after other gods to serve them, and worship them not; and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands, to your own destruction. A prophet likewise, full of the Holy Spirit, bears witness and announces the wrath of God saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Because my house is desolate, but you run every man to his own house, therefore the heaven shall withhold the dew, and the earth shall withhold her increase, and I will bring a sword upon the land and upon the grain and upon the wine and upon the oil, and upon men and upon cattle, and upon all the labors of their hands. Another prophet likewise repeats and says: And I will rain upon one city, and upon another city I will not rain.

One part shall be rained upon, and the part upon which I shall not rain shall wither. And two and three cities shall gather together unto one city to drink water, and they shall not be satisfied; and you have not returned to me, says the Lord.

Behold, the Lord is indignant and angry, and threatens because you do not turn to him; and do you wonder or complain, in this obstinacy and contempt of yours, if rare rain descends from above, if the earth lies foul with a coating of dust, if the barren clod barely brings forth thin and pallid blades, if falling hail weakens the vine, if an overturning storm strips the olive, if drought dries up the spring, if a pestilent air corrupts the atmosphere, if a sickly condition wastes man—since all these things come when sins provoke them, and God is the more exasperated when such great and many things profit nothing? For that these things happen either for the discipline of the stubborn or for the punishment of the wicked, God himself declares in the holy Scriptures, saying: In vain have I struck your children; they have not received correction.

And a prophet devoted and dedicated to God answers to these same things and says: You have struck them, and they have not grieved; you have scourged them, and they have refused to receive correction. Behold, plagues are inflicted by God, and there is no fear of God; behold, stripes and scourges from above are not lacking, and there is no trembling, no dread. What if not even this censure were to intervene in human affairs—how much greater still would be the audacity in men, made secure by the impunity of their crimes?

You complain that springs less abundant, and wholesome breezes, and frequent rain, and fertile earth do not now render you their service, that the elements do not minister to your advantages and pleasures as before. For you serve God, through whom all things serve you; you are subject to him by whose nod all things are subject to you. You yourself exact service from your slave, and as a man you compel a man to obey and submit to you.

And since the lot of being born is the same for you both, the condition of dying is one, the material of bodies is alike, the reason of souls is common, and by equal right and equal law one either comes into this world or afterward departs from the world, yet unless you are served according to your own pleasure, unless obedience is rendered to the will of your desire, you, an imperious and excessive exactor of servitude, flog, beat, and afflict and torment with hunger, thirst, nakedness, and often even with the sword and prison; and do you not recognize, wretch, your Lord God, when you yourself exercise such dominion?

Rightly therefore, when plagues assail, the scourges and stripes of God are not lacking: and since these avail nothing there, nor turn individuals to God by so great a terror of calamities, there remains afterward eternal prison and unceasing flame and perpetual punishment. Nor will the groaning of those who pray be heard there, because the terror of an indignant God was not heard here, who cries out through the Prophet and says: Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no mercy, nor truth, nor knowledge of God in the land, but cursing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and adultery have spread abroad, and blood touches blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, with all that dwell therein, with the beasts of the field, with the serpents of the earth, with the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea shall fail, so that no man judges, no man reproves.

God says he is indignant and angry because there is no knowledge of God in the lands, and God is not known or feared. God rebukes and charges the sins of lies, lusts, frauds, cruelty, impiety, and fury, and no one turns to innocence. Behold, the things are coming to pass which were foretold beforehand in the words of God, and no one is warned by faith in present things to take thought for the future.

Amid the very adversities by which the soul, scarcely pressed and hemmed in, can barely breathe, there is leisure to be wicked and, amid such great dangers, to judge not oneself but another. You are indignant that God is indignant, as though you deserved anything good by living wickedly, as though all these things that befall you were not still less and lighter than your sins.

You who judge others, be at some point also your own judge; look into the hidden places of your conscience—nay, since there is now no fear or shame of sinning, and sin is committed as though one were the more pleasing for the very sins themselves—you who are seen transparent and naked by all, look also at yourself. For either you are puffed up with pride, or rapacious with avarice, or savage with anger, or wasteful at dice, or drunk with wine, or envious with spite, or unchaste with lust, or violent with cruelty: and do you marvel that the wrath of God grows in punishment of the human race, when that which deserves punishment grows daily? You complain that an enemy rises up, as though, even if the enemy were absent, peace could exist among the very togas.

You complain that an enemy rises up, as though, even if arms and dangers from barbarians abroad were suppressed, the weapons of domestic assault from the calumnies and injuries of powerful citizens did not rage more fiercely and more grievously within. You complain of barrenness and famine, as though drought rather than rapacity causes famine, as though a more burning fire of want does not grow from the cornering of grain supplies and the heaping up of prices. You complain that the sky is closed to rain, when granaries are thus closed on earth. You complain that less is now produced, as though what is produced were given to those in need. You charge plague and pestilence, when by that very plague and pestilence the sins of individuals have been either exposed or increased, since neither is mercy shown to the sick, and avarice and plunder gape over the dead.

The same men are timid in the duty of piety, reckless for impious gain, fleeing the funerals of the dying and grasping at the spoils of the dead, so that it appears that the wretched have perhaps been abandoned in their sickness for this purpose—that they might not, while being cared for, escape: for he who seizes the estate of one who is perishing has willed that the sick man should perish.

So great a terror of calamities cannot instil the discipline of innocence, and amid a people dying in frequent slaughter no one considers that he himself is mortal. Men run about everywhere, snatch, seize. No pretence of not plundering, no hesitation. As though it were lawful, as though it were fitting, as though he who does not plunder suffers his own loss and damage, so does each man hasten to plunder. Among robbers there is at least some shame for their crimes; they love remote gorges and deserted solitudes, and sin is committed there in such a way that the deed of the sinners is nonetheless veiled in darkness and night. Avarice rages openly and, secure in its own audacity, displays in the light of the forum the weapons of unbridled cupidity. Hence forgers, hence poisoners, hence assassins in the midst of the city, as headlong in sinning as they are in sinning with impunity. A crime is committed by the guilty, and no innocent man is found to avenge it. No fear of accuser or judge.

The wicked obtain impunity while the modest are silent, the guilty are afraid, and those who are to judge are for sale. And therefore through the Prophet, by divine Spirit and impulse, the truth of the matter is brought forth, and it is shown by sure and manifest reasoning that God is able to prevent adversities, but that the deserts of sinners prevent him from coming to their aid: Surely, he says, the hand of the Lord is not too short to save, nor has he made his ear heavy so as not to hear? But your sins have separated between you and God, and because of your transgressions he has turned his face away from you, that he might not have mercy. Let sins and transgressions therefore be reckoned up, let the wounds of conscience be considered; and each man will cease to complain against God or against us, if he understands that he deserves what he suffers.

Behold, of what sort is that very matter about which we have most especially discourse with you—that you harass us who are innocent, that you assail and oppress the servants of God in contempt of God. It is not enough that your life is stained by the raging variety of vices, by the iniquity of deadly crimes, by the sum of bloody plunderings, that true religion is subverted by false superstitions, that God is not sought at all nor feared; beyond this you also weary the servants of God and those dedicated to his majesty and name with unjust persecutions. It is not enough that you yourself do not worship God; beyond this you persecute with sacrilegious harassment those who do worship. You neither worship God yourself, nor do you permit him to be worshipped at all; and while others who venerate not only those foolish idols and images made by the hand of man, but even certain portents and monsters, are pleasing to you, the worshipper of God alone displeases you.

Everywhere in your temples the pyres and fires of sacrificial victims smoke, and the altars of God either do not exist or are hidden. Crocodiles and dog-headed apes and stones and serpents are worshipped by you, and God alone on earth is either not worshipped, or it is not without penalty that he is worshipped: the innocent, the just, the beloved of God you deprive of home, despoil of patrimony, press with chains, shut up in prison, punish with sword, beasts, and fire. Nor are you even content with the brief compass of our sufferings and the simple and swift shortness of punishments; you apply prolonged torments to bodies to be torn, you multiply manifold tortures for entrails to be lacerated; nor can your ferocity and savagery be satisfied with customary torments: ingenious cruelty devises new penalties.

What is this insatiable rage of butchery? What this insatiable lust of cruelty? Nay rather, choose one of two things for yourself: either to be a Christian is a crime, or it is not; if it is a crime, why do you not put to death one who confesses it? If it is not a crime, why do you persecute one who is innocent? For I ought to have been tortured if I denied it. If, fearing your punishment, I had concealed by deceitful lying what I previously was and that I had not worshipped your gods, then I should have had to be tortured, then driven by the force of pain to confession of the crime; just as in other examinations the accused who deny that they are held by the crime of which they are accused are tortured, so that the truth of the deed, which is not brought forth by the witness of the voice, may be wrung out by the pain of the body.

But now, since I confess of my own will and cry out and testify again and again with repeated words that I am a Christian, why do you apply torments to one who confesses, and to one who destroys your gods—not in hidden and secret places, but openly, but publicly, but in the forum itself, with magistrates and governors listening—so that, even if it had been too little that you previously charged against me, what you ought both to hate and to punish has grown, because, while I declare myself a Christian in a crowded place with the people standing around, I confound both you and your gods by clear and public proclamation?

Why do you turn to the weakness of the body? Why do you contend with the frailty of earthly flesh? Engage with the vigour of the soul, break the strength of the mind, destroy faith, overcome by disputation if you can, overcome by reason: or if your gods have any divine power and authority, let them rise up themselves to avenge themselves, let them defend themselves by their own majesty; or what can they bestow upon those who worship them, who cannot avenge themselves upon those who do not worship them? For if he who avenges is of greater worth than he who is avenged, you are greater than your gods. But if you are greater than those whom you worship, it is not you who ought to worship them, but rather they ought to worship and fear you as their lord. Thus your vengeance defends them when wronged, just as your protection guards them when shut up lest they perish.

Be ashamed to worship those whom you yourself defend; be ashamed to hope for protection from those whom you yourself protect.

O if you were willing to hear and see them when they are adjured by us and tormented with spiritual scourges, and are cast out by the torments of words from the bodies they have possessed, when wailing and groaning with human voice, and feeling under divine power the lashes and blows, they confess the coming judgment! Come and learn that what we say is true: And since you say that you thus worship the gods, believe even those whom you worship; or if you shall wish to believe yourself also, he who has now taken possession of your breast, he who has now blinded your mind with the night of ignorance, will speak about you, while you listen. You will see us entreated by those whom you entreat, feared by those whom you fear, whom you adore; you will see standing bound under our hand and trembling as captives those whom you look up to and venerate as lords.

Surely at least in this way you will be able to be confounded in your errors when you shall behold and hear your gods immediately betraying by our questioning what they are, and, though you be present, being unable to conceal their deceptions and frauds.

What therefore is the sloth of mind—nay, what the blind and foolish madness of the senseless—not to wish to come from darkness to light, and, bound in the snares of eternal death, not to wish to receive the hope of immortality; not to fear God threatening and saying: He that sacrificeth unto gods shall be destroyed, save unto the Lord alone. And again: They worshipped those things which the fingers of men made, and man is bowed down and man is humbled, and I will not forgive them. Why do you humble and bow yourself before false gods? Why do you bend your captive body before foolish images and earthly fabrications? God made you upright; and while all other animals are prone and bent downward with their posture inclined toward the earth, for you there is an upright stance and a countenance raised upward toward heaven and toward God. Look thither, lift your eyes thither, seek God in the heights.

That you may be able to be free from the lower regions, raise up your heart suspended toward the high and heavenly things. Why do you lay yourself down in the fall of death, together with the serpent whom you worship? Why do you fall into the ruin of the devil, through him and with him? Preserve the loftiness with which you were born; persevere such as you were made by God.

Set your mind in accord with the bearing of your mouth and body. That you may be able to know God, first know yourself. Forsake the idols which human error invented. Turn to God; if you implore him, he comes to your aid. Believe in Christ, whom the Father sent to give us life and restore us. Cease to harm the servants of God and of Christ by your persecutions—servants whom divine vengeance defends when harmed.

Hence it is that none of us, when he is seized, resists, nor takes vengeance against your unjust violence, though our people be ever so numerous and plentiful. Security concerning the vengeance to come makes us patient. The innocent yield to the guilty; the guiltless acquiesce in punishments and tortures, certain and confident that whatever we suffer will not remain unavenged; and the greater the injustice of the persecution, the more just and the more heavy shall the vengeance for the persecution be made; nor is wickedness ever stirred up by the impious against our name without divine vengeance immediately accompanying it. To say nothing of ancient records, and without rehearsing with any proclamation of voice the acts of vengeance often repeated on behalf of the worshippers of God, the evidence of a recent event is sufficient—that so swiftly, and in such swiftness so greatly, a defence lately followed, in the ruin of affairs, the loss of wealth, the expenditure of soldiers, the diminution of camps.

Nor let anyone think this happened by chance or consider it to have been fortuitous, since divine Scripture long ago set down and said: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord; and again the Holy Spirit forewarns and says: Say not, I will avenge myself of my enemy; but wait upon the Lord, that he may be thy help. Whence it is clear and manifest that all these things which descend from the indignation of God happen not through us, but for us.

Nor should anyone therefore think that Christians are not avenged by those things which happen, because they themselves also appear to be touched by the onset of things that happen: he feels punishment from the adversities of the world for whom all joy and glory is in the world; he grieves and laments if it goes ill with him in this age, for whom it cannot go well after this age, whose entire fruit of living is gathered here, whose every consolation ends here, whose fleeting and brief life reckons here some sweetness and pleasure, when he has departed hence, pain alone remains for his grief. But for those who have confidence in future good things, there is no pain from the onset of present evils. Finally, neither are we dismayed by adversities, nor broken, nor do we grieve, nor do we murmur at any destruction of things or sickness of bodies. Living more by the spirit than by the flesh, we overcome the weakness of the body by the firmness of the mind.

Through the very things which torment and weary us, we know and trust that we are being proved and strengthened.

Do you think that we suffer adversities equally with you, when you see that the same adversities are not borne equally by us and by you? Among you, impatience is always clamorous and full of complaint; among us, patience is strong and devout, always quiet and always grateful toward God, and claims nothing there as joyful or prosperous for itself, but mild and gentle and steadfast against all the storms of the fluctuating world, it awaits the time of the divine promise. For as long as this body endures, it must needs share a common lot with the rest, and the condition of the flesh is common to all; nor is it granted to the human race to be separated from one another, unless one departs hence from the world. Within one house the good and the evil are for the time being confined together. Whatever happens within the house we endure with equal lot, until, when the end of temporal life is completed, we are divided into the dwellings of either eternal death or immortality.

We are not therefore comparable and equal to you because, being still placed in this world and in this flesh, we incur along with you the inconveniences of the world and the flesh: for since all that punishes consists in the feeling of pain, it is manifest that he is not a partaker of your punishment whom you see does not equally suffer pain with you.

Among us the strength of hope is vigorous and the firmness of faith is strong; amid the very ruins of the failing world the mind is upright and virtue unmoved, and patience ever joyful, and the soul always secure in its God, as the Holy Spirit speaks and exhorts through the Prophet, strengthening the firmness of our hope and faith with a heavenly voice: The fig tree, he says, shall not bring forth fruit, and there shall be no growth in the vines. The labour of the olive shall lie, and the fields shall yield no food. The sheep shall fail from the pasture, and there shall be no oxen in the stalls. But I will exult in the Lord, and rejoice in God my Saviour. He declares that the man of God and the worshipper of God, supported by the truth of hope and grounded in the stability of faith, is not moved by the assaults of this world and this age.

Though the vineyard deceive and the olive disappoint, and the parched field wither with its herbs dying of drought, what is this to Christians? What to the servants of God, whom paradise invites, whom all the grace and abundance of the heavenly kingdom awaits? They exult always in the Lord, and are glad and rejoice in their God, and bravely endure the evils and adversities of the world, while they look forward to the good things and prosperity to come. For we who, having put off our earthly birth, have been renewed and reborn in spirit, and now live not for the world but for God, shall not receive the gifts and promises of God until we come to God. And yet, to drive away enemies and to obtain rains, and to remove or moderate adversities, we always pray and pour forth supplications, and propitiating and appeasing God on your behalf for your peace and safety, we pray continually and earnestly day and night.

Let no one therefore flatter himself that we and the profane worshippers of God and those who are opposed to God have for the time being, through the equality of flesh and body, a common condition of worldly hardships, so as to think from this that all these things which happen are not inflicted upon you, since it has been foretold beforehand by the very proclamation of God and by prophetic testimony that the wrath of God would come upon the unjust, and that persecutions which would harm us in a human way would not be wanting, but that also the vengeances which would divinely defend the harmed would follow.

And how great are the things which flow here for us in the meantime? Something is given as an example, that the anger of God the avenger may be known. But the day of judgment is still to come, which Holy Scripture announces, saying: Howl, for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction from God shall be at hand. For behold the day of the Lord comes, of incurable indignation and wrath, to make the world a desert, and to destroy sinners out of it. And again: Behold the day of the Lord comes burning like a furnace, and all the aliens and all the wicked shall be stubble; and the coming day shall set them on fire, says the Lord. The Lord foretells that the aliens are to be set on fire and burned, that is, those who are alien to the divine race and profane, not spiritually reborn nor made children of God.

For that those alone can escape who have been reborn and sealed with the sign of Christ, God speaks in another place, when, sending his angels for the devastation of the world and the destruction of the human race, he threatens more gravely at the last, saying: Go and smite, and spare not your eyes. Have no pity on elder or youth, and slay virgins and little ones and women, that they may be destroyed. But every one upon whom the written sign is, touch not. Now what this sign is, and in what part of the body it is placed, God makes plain in another place, saying: Pass through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark a sign upon the foreheads of the men who groan and mourn for the iniquities that are done in the midst of them.

And that this sign pertains to the passion and blood of Christ, and that whoever is found in this sign is kept safe and unharmed, is likewise confirmed by the testimony of God, who says: And the blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses in which you shall be; and I will see the blood, and will protect you, and there shall be no plague of destruction upon you when I smite the land of Egypt. What goes before in figure with the slaying of the lamb, is fulfilled in Christ, the truth having followed afterward. As there, when Egypt was smitten, the Jewish people could escape only by the blood and sign of the lamb, so also when the world shall begin to be laid waste and smitten, whoever shall be found in the blood and sign of Christ alone shall escape.

Look therefore, while there is time, to true and eternal salvation; and because the end of the world is now near, turn your minds to God with the fear of God. And let not that powerless and vain dominion among the just and the meek in the world delight you, since even in the field among the cultivated and fertile crops the tare and the oat hold dominion. And do not say that evils happen because your gods are not worshipped by us, but know that this is the judgment of God's wrath, that he who is not understood through benefits may be understood through plagues. Seek God, though late, because God long since warning through the Prophet exhorts and says: Seek God, and your soul shall live. Know God, though late, because Christ coming admonishes and teaches this, saying: And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

Believe him who deceives not at all; believe him who foretold all these things to come; believe him who will give to believers the reward of eternal life; believe him who will inflict upon unbelievers eternal punishments in the fires of Gehenna.

What then will be the glory of faith, what the punishment of faithlessness, when the day of judgment shall come? What the joy of believers, what the grief of the faithless, that they were unwilling to believe here before, and that they can no longer return so as to believe? The ever-burning Gehenna will consume the condemned, and the devouring punishment with living flames; nor will there be any source from which their torments can ever have either rest or end. Their souls together with their bodies will be preserved for pain in endless tortures. He who here watched us for a time will there be watched by us forever, and the brief fruit of cruel eyes in the persecutions that were carried out will be repaid by an everlasting sight, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, which says: Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.

And again: Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those who afflicted them and who took away their labours. Seeing this, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall marvel at the suddenness of unexpected salvation, saying among themselves, repenting and groaning in anguish of spirit: These are they whom we once held in derision and as a byword of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness and their end without honour. How are they numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints! Therefore we erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice did not shine upon us, and the sun did not rise upon us. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, we walked through difficult wildernesses, but the way of the Lord we knew not. What did pride profit us, or what did the boasting of riches bring us? All those things have passed away like a shadow.

Then there will be the pain of punishment without the fruit of repentance, vain weeping and ineffectual supplication. Those who were unwilling to believe unto eternal life will believe unto eternal punishment when it is too late.

Provide therefore for your security and life while it is permitted. We offer you the saving gift of our mind and counsel. And because it is not lawful for us to hate, and we please God the more when we render no recompense for injury, we exhort you, while the opportunity is present, while something of the world still remains, to make satisfaction to God and to emerge from the deep of dark superstition into the bright light of true religion. We do not envy your welfare, nor do we conceal the divine benefits. We return goodwill for your hatred, and in exchange for the torments and punishments that are inflicted upon us we point out the paths of salvation.

Believe and live; and you who persecute us for a time, rejoice with us forever. When one has departed hence, there is no longer any place for repentance, no effect of satisfaction. Here life is either lost or held; here provision is made for eternal salvation by the worship of God and the fruit of faith. And let no one be deterred from coming to obtain salvation either by sins or by years: for one who still remains in this world no repentance is too late; the approach to God's indulgence lies open, and easy access is granted to those who seek and understand the truth. You, even at the very point of departure and the setting of temporal life, may pray for your sins and implore God, who alone is true, with the confession and faith of acknowledging him; pardon is given to one who confesses, and saving indulgence is granted from the divine mercy to one who believes, and under death itself there is a passage to immortality.

This grace Christ bestows, this gift of his mercy he grants, by subduing death with the trophy of the cross, by redeeming the believer with the price of his blood, by reconciling man to God the Father, by quickening the mortal with heavenly regeneration. Let us all follow him, if it can be done; let us be reckoned by his sacrament and sign. He opens to us the way of life, he restores us to paradise, he leads us to the kingdoms of heaven. We shall live with him always, made sons of God through him; we shall always exult with him, restored by his blood. We shall be Christians, glorious together with Christ, blessed of God the Father, rejoicing always in perpetual delight in the sight of God, and giving thanks to God always. For he cannot but be always joyful and grateful who, having been subject to death, has been made secure in immortality.